Eighty Afghans may have been victims of summary killings by three separate British SAS units operating in the country between 2010 and 2013, lawyers representing the bereaved families have told a public inquiry. One of the elite soldiers is believed to have “personally killed” 35 Afghans on a single six-month tour of duty as part of an alleged policy to terminate “all fighting-age males” in homes raided, “regardless of the threat they posed”. Between June 2011 and May 2013, 25 suspicious deaths were recorded by the lawyers, which included an allegation that in one SAS raid that “resulted in...
British MPs have been warned of the possibility of genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and urged to put pressure on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, which has been accused of murder and arson attacks on minority groups in the area. The Janjaweed were accused of carrying out a genocide against Darfuri ethnic groups on behalf of the Sudanese government, killing an estimated 300,000 people since 2003. While the scale of violence eased over the years, attacks on Darfuri ethnic groups by Arab militias linked to the RSF continued, especially after the withdrawal of peacekeeping...
Fighting has intensified in several areas of Khartoum after a ceasefire deal between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) expired on Saturday. Brokered by Saudi Arabia and the United States, the temporary truce calmed the fighting slightly and allowed limited humanitarian access, but like previous ceasefires was repeatedly violated. Talks to extend it broke down on Friday . Sudan’s deadly power struggle, which erupted on 15 April , has triggered a major humanitarian crisis in which more than 1.2 million people have been displaced within the country, with another 400,...
Former Rwandan military police officer who fled to France after the 1994 genocide and started a new life under a false identity is going on trial in Paris charged with crimes against humanity. Philippe Hategekimana, 66, fled to France five years after the genocide, under a fake name, Philippe Manier. He worked as a security guard at a university in the western city of Rennes and gained French citizenship in 2005. Hategekimana left France and headed to Cameroon in late 2017 after learning that the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda (CPCR), which is among the current plaintiffs, had filed a...
Protests are ongoing nationwide, and at least one person has been killed, following the arrest of Imran Khan. Mr Khan was arrested by security forces at the High Court in the capital, Islamabad. Dramatic footage showed dozens of officers arriving and detaining the 70-year-old, who was bundled into a vehicle and driven away. He was appearing in court on charges of corruption, which he says are politically motivated. Mobile data services in the country were suspended on the instructions of the interior ministry on Friday as protests grew, many of them taking place in front of army compounds...
Airstrikes carried out by Myanmar’s military on a civilian crowd have sparked widespread condemnation. The initial death toll stood at 53 from Tuesday’s attacks on a village ceremony in Sagaing region at which women and children were present, but later tallies reported by i ndependent media raised it to 170. Myanmar’s air force dropped multiple bombs while attack helicopters strafed the civilian gathering of several hundred people, said Duwa Lashi La, acting president of the National Unity Government (NUG), which was set up to oppose junta rule. Singapore's foreign minister Vivian...
The military, which seized power in a coup in February 2021 , has abolished 40 political parties, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). The military imposed the law and began compiling voter lists in preparation for promised elections. Analysts say any vote held under the regime would be widely considered invalid. The registration law imposed by the junta set various tough requirements for national parties. They included recruiting 100,000 members within 90 days of registration – far more than the previous requirement of 1,000 members. Parties must also open...
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Russian premier, Vladimir Putin, for war crimes committed during his illegal invasion of Ukraine. The court focused on the charge of unlawful deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, which amounts to a war crime. Whilst the Russian foreign ministry has dismissed the warrant as “legally and void”, it has acknowledged the transferring of 2,000 children. Ukrainian officials claim however that this figure stands at 16,000 cases. A warrant was issued for Russia’s commissioner for...
In a speech on 21 February, Tunisian President Kais Saied made racist remarks about Black African migrants inciting violent anti-Black mobs. In his speech at the National Security Council meeting, Saied stated "hordes of irregular migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa" had come to Tunisia "with all the violence, crime, and unacceptable practices that entails." He claimed that the Black immigrants would "turn Tunisia into just another African country that doesn't belong to the Arab and Islamic nations anymore." According to Amnesty International, after President Saied's xenophobic remarks, Tunisian...
60 people including 12 children have been killed after a wooden sailing boat carrying migrants to Europe crashed against rocks near the southern Italian coast according to authorities. The crash occured in the early hours of 25 February near Steccato di Cutro. The boat was sailing from Turkey and carried migrants from Afghanistan, Iran and several other countries. Speaking to Reuters, a provincial official stated that 81 people had survived the shipwreck. Twenty of those who survived were hospitalized with one person being in intensive care. According to Interior Minister, Matteo Piantedosi,...