COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh: A total of 87,000 mostly Rohingya refugees have arrived in Bangladesh since violence erupted in neighboring Myanmar on August 25, the United Nations said Monday, amid growing international criticism of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Thousands of the stateless Muslim minority have fled the mainly Buddhist nation and poured over the border since the latest round of fighting broke out, piling pressure on the already overcrowded camps in Bangladesh.
Around 20,000 more were massed on the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine and waiting to enter, the UN said in a report.
Dhaka had stepped up border controls after the latest round of violence began 10 days ago, but the UN said recent arrivals reported there had been no attempt to stop them from crossing.
One Bangladeshi border guard told AFP the sheer numbers of people desperate to enter the country had made it impossible to stop the influx.
“It is bigger than the last time,” said the guard, who asked not to be named, referring to the influx of refugees that followed an outbreak of violence last October.
“If it continues then we will face serious problems. But it’s impossible to stop the flow, these people are everywhere,” he added.
The UN said most of the new arrivals were in the squalid camps already housing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees around the coastal town of Cox’s Bazar.
But many lacked shelter from the heavy monsoon rains and an AFP reporter on the ground said hundreds of new makeshift shelters had sprung up on the outskirts of the sprawling camps in recent days.
“It has been raining frequently since last week. We have to keep our children safe from being sick,” said Amena Begum, a newly arrived mother of five.
Refugees in Cox’s Bazar have alleged their families were massacred and villages torched by security forces and Buddhist mobs.
The latest clashes broke out when Rohingya militants attacked security installations
Myanmar accuses the militants — which it describes as “Bengali terrorists” — of setting fire to Rohingya houses and those of other communities.
De facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a former political prisoner of Myanmar’s junta, has come under increasing fire over her perceived unwillingness to speak out against the treatment of the Rohingya or chastise the military.
She has made no public comment since the latest fighting broke out.
“Over the last several years I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment,” Pakistani activist and fellow Nobel peace prize laureate Malala Yousafzai said in a statement about the Rohingya crisis on Twitter.
“I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the same.”
The crisis threatens Myanmar’s diplomatic relations, particularly with Muslim-majority countries in Southeast Asia where there is profound public anger over the treatment of the Rohingya.
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi met Myanmar’s army chief General Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw on Monday to try to pressure the government to do more to alleviate the crisis.
Rakhine has been a crucible of religious violence since 2012, when riots erupted. Scores of Rohingya were killed and tens of thousands of people — the majority from the Muslim minority — were forced into displacement camps.
But the current round of fighting is the worst yet.
Myanmar’s army has said nearly 400 people have died in the past 10 days, including 370 Rohingya militants.
Ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and other tribal groups are also among the dead and displaced after allegedly being targeted by Rohingya militants.
Scores of people have drowned while attempting to flee the violence by crossing the Naf border river into Bangladesh.
Bangladeshi coast guards have said many migrants are traveling on rickety fishing boats unsuitable for the rough waters.
On Monday police in Bangladesh said the body of a Rohingya woman had washed ashore, bringing the total number of drowned to 54.
Most of those entering Bangladesh are women, children or elderly men, and the refugees say that many young men have stayed behind to fight.
Bangladesh was already home to an estimated 400,000 Rohingya before the latest influx and has made clear it doesn not want more coming in.
It has pushed a number of them back, in what rights groups say is a contravention of its international obligations.
UN says 87,000 refugees arrive in Bangladesh from Myanmar
UN says 87,000 refugees arrive in Bangladesh from Myanmar
UK’s Met Police refers itself to watchdog over Al-Fayed probes
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
- “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
- 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
- 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
- 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.
