Myanmar death toll surges as 38,000 Rohingya flee to Bangladesh

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A group of Rohingya refugee people cross a canal after passing through the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Friday, September 1, 2017. (REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain)
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A group of Rohingya refugee people walk toward Bangladesh after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Friday, September 1, 2017. (REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain)
Updated 01 September 2017
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Myanmar death toll surges as 38,000 Rohingya flee to Bangladesh

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh: Around 400 people — most of them Rohingya Muslims and some Hindus — have died in violence searing through Myanmar’s Rakhine state, the army chief’s office said Friday, with tens of thousands forced to flee across the border into Bangladesh.
A further 20,000 Rohingya have massed along the Bangladeshi frontier, barred from entering the South Asian country, while scores of desperate people have drowned attempting to cross the Naf, a border river, in makeshift boats.
Reports of massacres and the systematic torching of villages by security forces — as well as by militants — have further amplified tensions, raising fears that communal violence in Rakhine is spinning out of control.
The office of Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing on Friday gave an updated death toll, sketching out the details of an insurgency that has escalated sharply.
“Until August 30, a large number of terrorists carried out 52 waves of attacks on security forces .... in those attacks, 370 bodies of terrorists were found and nine others captured alive,” a statement posted on Facebook said.
Fifteen security forces and 14 civilians have also died in eight days of fighting, it added.
It was unclear if the deaths of 78 militants killed last Friday in pre-dawn raids on police posts that sparked the current round of violence were included in the toll.

Bloodiest chapter
Either way, it is the bloodiest chapter yet in a bitter five-year crisis that has torn apart the northern state of Rakhine along ethnic and religious lines, displaced the Rohingya in huge numbers and heaped international condemnation on Myanmar’s army and the government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Most of Myanmar’s estimated 1 million Rohingya Muslims live in Rakhine. They face severe persecution in the Buddhist-majority country, which refuses to recognize them as a legitimate native ethnic minority, leaving them without citizenship and basic rights.
Longstanding tension between the Rohingya Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists erupted in bloody rioting in 2012. That set off a surge of anti-Muslim feeling throughout the country.
Some Buddhists and Hindus have also fled the violence.
More than 400 Hindu residents of Rakhine crossed into Bangladesh after being attacked by armed men, officials and survivors said.
Main Uddin, a government official in Ukhiya in Cox’s Bazar, said the survivors reported that about 86 Hindus had been killed by armed groups in three villages since last Friday.
Survivors said Myanmar soldiers were everywhere and “armed people” were also burning houses and killing people.
Nirajan Rudro, a Hindu who fled to Bangladesh, told The Associated Press that masked men armed with guns, sticks and knives had attacked them and set fire to their houses.
Uddin said 412 Hindus are staying in a Hindu neighborhood near Rohingya camps in Ukhiya.
“They have been sheltered in an abandoned poultry farm there. Bangladeshi Hindus are helping them,” he said
The UN says 38,000 Rohingya have reached Bangladesh, some using overland routes and others crossing the Naf River.
Rights groups believe the true death toll is likely much higher.
They allege massacres of Rohingya in remote villages led by Myanmar security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist mobs.
Fortify Rights, an NGO with a focus on Myanmar, said eyewitnesses alleged mobs shot and hacked down Rohingya villagers — including children — in a five-hour “killing spree” in the village of Chut Pyin in Rathedaung township on Sunday afternoon.
The allegations could not be independently verified by AFP as the area is off-limits to reporters.
Myanmar’s Information Committee appeared earlier this week to confirm a major security operation took place around the village on Sunday afternoon as a patrol clashed with scores of Rohingya militants.
But in a complex situation, further muddied by the swirl of claims and denials by both sides, more accounts emerged accusing Myanmar forces of killings and widespread abuse.
A 23-year-old Rohingya woman from Kyet Yoe Pyin said she had witnessed soldiers and Buddhist mobs rape and kill Muslims in her village over the weekend.
“They mercilessly slaughtered men, women and children,” she told AFP by telephone from Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh where she has fled. The claims could not be verified by AFP.

Dangerous crossing
Desperate to reach Bangladesh, thousands of Rohingya have taken to boats — or clung to flotsam — in an effort to cross the Naf river which separates the two countries.
But others died trying. Three boats carrying ethnic Rohingya fleeing violence in Myanmar have capsized in Bangladesh and 26 bodies of women and children have been recovered, officials said Thursday.
Bangladesh border guard commander Lt. Col. S.M. Ariful Islam said at least three boats carrying an unknown number of Rohingya Muslims sank in the Naf River at Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar on Wednesday. He said the bodies of 15 children and 11 women were recovered, and it was unclear whether anyone was still missing.
The top government official in Cox’s Bazar, Mohammad Ali Hossain, said the bodies would be buried because no one had claimed them.


UK’s Met Police refers itself to watchdog over Al-Fayed probes

Updated 5 sec ago
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UK’s Met Police refers itself to watchdog over Al-Fayed probes

LONDON: The UK’s Metropolitan Police on Friday referred itself to the police watchdog following complaints from two women over its handling of investigations into alleged sexual abuse by late Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed.
The complaints, referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), involve investigations from 2008 and 2013.
They revolve around the quality of the police response and, in the case of the 2013 probe, how details came to be disclosed publicly.
“In recent weeks, two victims-survivors have come forward with concerns about how their allegations were handled when first reported, and it is only appropriate that the IOPC assess these complaints,” said Stephen Clayman, from the Met’s Specialist Crime team.
“Although we cannot change the past, we are resolute in our goal to offer every individual who contacts us the highest standard of service and support,” he added.
More than 400 women and witnesses have come forward in the past six weeks alleging sexual misconduct by Fayed, who died in August last year aged 94.
The allegations follow the airing of a BBC documentary in September that detailed multiple claims of rape and sexual assault by the former owner of the upmarket London department store.
The Justice for Harrods Survivors group said it had received 421 inquiries, mainly related to the store but also regarding Fulham football club, the Ritz Hotel in Paris and other Fayed entities.
The Met said Friday that it was “actively reviewing 21 allegations reported to the Metropolitan Police prior to Mohamed Al-Fayed’s passing... to determine if any additional investigative steps are available or there are things we could have done better.”

India’s Naga separatists threaten to resume violence after decades-long truce

Updated 46 min 2 sec ago
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India’s Naga separatists threaten to resume violence after decades-long truce

  • “The violent confrontation between India and Nagalim shall be purely on account of the deliberate betrayal and breach of commitment by India and its leadership to honor the letter and spirit of Framework Agreement of 2015,” he said

GUWAHATI, India: An armed separatist group in a remote northeast Indian state on Friday threatened to “resume violent armed resistance” after nearly three decades of ceasefire, accusing New Delhi of failing to honor promises in earlier agreements.
The Naga insurgency, India’s oldest, is aimed at creating a separate homeland of Nagalim that unites parts of India’s mountainous northeast with areas of neighboring Myanmar for ethnic Naga people. About 20,000 people have died in the conflict since it began in 1947.
A ceasefire between the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), a leading separatist group, and Indian security forces has held since it was enforced in 1997 and the group signed an agreement with New Delhi in 2015 toward striking a resolution on their demands.

BACKGROUND

A ceasefire between the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), a leading separatist group, and Indian security forces has held since it was enforced in 1997.

But talks have stagnated since and in a statement Friday, the group’s chief, Thuingaleng Muivah, accused India of “betrayal of the letter and spirit” of the 2015 agreement.
India’s Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Muivah’s remarks.
In a statement, Muivah urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s federal government to “respect and honor” the 2015 agreement, which he said “officially recognized and acknowledged” the right to a sovereign flag and constitution for the separatists.
Muivah proposed a “third party intervention” to resolve the impasse, threatening that it would resume violence if “such a political initiative was rejected.”
“The violent confrontation between India and Nagalim shall be purely on account of the deliberate betrayal and breach of commitment by India and its leadership to honor the letter and spirit of Framework Agreement of 2015,” he said.
“India and its leadership shall be held responsible for the catastrophic and adverse situation that will arise out of the violent armed conflict between India and Nagalim,” he said.

 


Comoros arrests suspected key smuggler

Comoros Police officers and Comoros soldiers patrol in Moroni on January 17, 2024. (AFP)
Updated 08 November 2024
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Comoros arrests suspected key smuggler

  • The International Organization for Migration said on Monday that at least 25 people died after the boat was “deliberately capsized by traffickers”

MORONI, Comoros: Police in the Comoros said on Friday they had arrested the alleged leader of a smuggling network involved in the capsizing of a migrant boat that claimed around two dozen lives.
The boat sank on a well-known smuggling route between the Comoros island of Anjouan and the French Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte on Nov. 1.
“The smuggling ringleader who owned the capsized boat was arrested on Thursday in Anjouan,” Col. Tachfine Ahmed said.
“He admitted that he owned the boat and bought all the material needed for the trip,” he added, saying the 37-year-old suspect was a resident of Mayotte.
The International Organization for Migration said on Monday that at least 25 people died after the boat was “deliberately capsized by traffickers.”
The Comoros police said they knew of 17 deaths.
Fishermen rescued five survivors who said the boat was carrying around 30 people, including women and young children, the IOM said.
A survivor said the smugglers sank the vessel before fleeing on a speedboat.
Police confirmed the survivor’s account, saying the two smugglers escaped.
“We are actively looking for the two smugglers who got on another boat,” the colonel added.
In addition to homicide charges, the arrested suspect faces up to 10 years imprisonment for belonging to an organized criminal group as well as three years for illegal transport of passengers.
Anjouan is one of three islands in the nation of Comoros, located around 70 km northwest of Mayotte, which became a department of France in 2011.
Despite being France’s poorest department, Mayotte has French infrastructure and welfare, which makes it attractive to migrants from Comoros seeking a better life.
Many pay smugglers to make the dangerous sea crossing in rickety fishing boats known as “kwassa-kwassa.”

 


UK court awards Manchester bomb victims £45,000 over hoax claims

Updated 08 November 2024
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UK court awards Manchester bomb victims £45,000 over hoax claims

  • Martin Hibbert and his daughter Eve sued Richard Hall over claims made in videos and a book that they were “crisis actors“
  • Judge Karen Steyn called Hall’s behavior “a negligent, indeed reckless, abuse of media freedom”

LONDON: Two survivors of the 2017 bomb attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, on Friday won £45,000 ($58,000) in damages from a former TV producer who claimed the attack was a hoax.
Martin Hibbert and his daughter Eve sued Richard Hall over claims made in videos and a book that they were “crisis actors” employed by the state as part of an elaborate deception.
Hibbert sustained a spinal cord injury in the attack, and his daughter suffered severe brain damage.
Hall argued that he was acting in the public interest by filming Hibbert’s daughter outside her home, but the High Court in London agreed with Hibbert’s claim for harassment.
Judge Karen Steyn called Hall’s behavior “a negligent, indeed reckless, abuse of media freedom” and on Friday ordered him to pay Hibbert and his daughter each £22,500 in damages.
Hall must also pay 90 percent of their legal costs, currently estimated at £260,000.
“The claimants are both vulnerable. The allegations are serious and distressing,” said the judge.
Jonathan Price, lawyer for the claimants, said that Hall “insisted that the terrorist attack in which the claimants were catastrophically injured did not happen and that the claimants were participants or ‘crisis actors’ in a state-orchestrated hoax, who had repeatedly, publicly and egregiously lied to the public for monetary gain.”
Hibbert welcomed the ruling, adding: “I want this case to open up the door for change, and for it to protect others from what we have been put through.
“It proves and has highlighted... that there is protection within the law, and it sends out a message to conspiracy theorists that you cannot ignore all acceptable evidence and harass innocent people.”
Islamic extremist Salman Abedi, aided by his brother, Hashem Abedi, killed 22 people and injured 1,017 during the suicide bombing at the end of the concert by the US singer.


US charges Iranian man in plot to kill Donald Trump

Updated 08 November 2024
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US charges Iranian man in plot to kill Donald Trump

  • Shakeri told the FBI he didn’t plan to propose a plan to murder Trump
  • The plot reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target US government officials

WASHINGTON: The Justice Department on Friday disclosed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump, charging a man who said he had been tasked by a government official before this week’s election with assassinating the Republican president-elect.
Investigators learned of the plot to kill Trump while interviewing Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan national identified by officials as an Iranian government asset who was deported from the US after being imprisoned on robbery charges.
He told investigators that a contact in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him this past September to put together a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.

Two other men who the authorities say were recruited to participate in other assassinations, including a prominent Iranian American journalist, were also arrested Friday. Shakeri remains in Iran.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.
The plot, with the charges unsealed just days after Trump’s defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris, reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target US government officials, including Trump, on US soil. Last summer, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran in a murder-for-hire plot.