Tag Archives: Children

New life amid the ruins of Mosul’s maternity hospital

New life amid the ruins of Mosul's maternity hospital

By Raya Jalabi

MOSUL (Reuters) – As yet unnamed twin babies lie in an incubator in a run-down room in Mosul’s main maternity hospital. Less than two weeks old, they are two of seven newborns crammed into a makeshift premature baby ward.

Born just three weeks after Iraqi forces declared that they had finally recaptured the last part of the city from Islamic State, the twins won’t know what it’s like to grow up under the jihadists’ draconian rule. But they are lucky in more ways than one – had they been born months earlier, their chances of survival would have been slim as the hospital’s neo-natal wings had been burned down by the militants.

Al-Khansa Hospital in East Mosul may be a shell of its former self but it is still the city’s main government-run maternity facility. Last month alone, despite severe shortages of medicines and equipment, it delivered nearly 1,400 babies.

When Islamic State took over Mosul in 2014, the hospital stayed open – but residents were only allowed to use a quarter of it.

“We had all these fighters and their wives coming in and giving birth here,” said hospital administrator Dr Aziz, adding that he had lost count of the number of militants’ babies delivered in his facility. “Mosul’s local residents always came second.”

As Iraqi Forces began their campaign to liberate the city from Islamic State control last year, the militants took over al-Khansa, kicking out patients and sometimes shooting at staff to make them leave.

“We kept it open as long as we could,” Aziz said.

Islamic State turned the hospital into a warehouse to store medical supplies – mainly glucose injections and cough syrup. As their defeat looked imminent, they started fires and detonated explosives throughout the hospital.

“They knew exactly what to blow up and how to do the most damage,” Aziz said, walking through the charred remains of the operating theaters.

SHORTAGES OF EVERYTHING

Al-Khansa reopened just weeks after East Mosul was cleared of militants in January. But its needs are still dire.

“We have shortages of everything,” said the hospital’s director, Dr Jamal Younis. “Beds, equipment, medicines.”

At present, the hospital can only handle births and deaths, Younis said. For anything in between, patients have to travel to facilities miles away – an impossible expense for most.

In a hot and crowded room, Um Mohammad sat with her grandson, only a few months old and barely able to move. She said she had been waiting there for 15 days, trying to find $25 to pay for blood tests.

She has been living in a camp since an air strike flattened her house in West Mosul, killing her daughter and five of her grandchildren.

“I can’t take him back to the camp without treatment or a diagnosis,” she said, “but I don’t have the money.”

Al-Khansa has yet to receive funds for reconstruction from the Health Ministry. Instead it had been relying on NGOs and donations from residents and staff – most of whom have not been paid for more than two years, since Baghdad cut salaries to choke off funding to Islamic State.

“When the city was under Isis control, we were forced to come into work every day or they would punish us – seize our houses, beat us, threaten our families,” said Aziz.

“But now, even though we’re still unpaid and the walls have fallen down, we’re happy to come in every day to help our community.”

(Reporting by Raya Jalabi; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Charlie Gard, ‘beautiful little boy’ at heart of dispute, dies

Charlie Gard's parents Connie Yates and Chris Gard read a statement at the High Court after a hearing on their baby's future, in London. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

By William James and Fanny Potkin

LONDON (Reuters) – Charlie Gard, a British baby who became the subject of a bitter dispute between his parents and doctors over whether he should be taken to the United States for experimental treatment, has died, local media said on Friday.

The 11-month-old baby suffered from an extremely rare genetic condition causing progressive brain damage and muscle weakness, and his parents’ long struggle to save him drew an international outpouring of sympathy, including from U.S. President Donald Trump and Pope Francis.

“Our beautiful little boy has gone, we are so proud of you Charlie,” Connie Yates, the baby’s mother, was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.

Local media said a family spokesman had confirmed the death.

“Everyone at Great Ormond Street Hospital sends their heartfelt condolences to Charlie’s parents and loved-ones at this very sad time,” said a spokeswoman for the hospital, where Charlie had been receiving treatment

After a harrowing legal battle that prompted a global debate over who has the moral right to decide the fate of a sick child, a judge on Thursday ordered that Charlie be moved to a hospice where the ventilator that keeps him alive would be turned off.

Yates and the baby’s father Chris Gard had wanted Charlie to undergo a treatment that has never been tried on anyone with his condition before, against the advice of doctors at his London hospital who said it would not benefit him and would prolong his suffering.

Charlie required a ventilator to breathe and was unable to see, hear or swallow.

The case drew comment from Trump, who tweeted on July 3 that “we would be delighted” to help Charlie, and from Pope Francis, who called for the parents to be allowed to do everything possible to treat their child.

Britain’s courts, after hearing a wealth of medical evidence, ruled that it would go against Charlie’s best interests to have the experimental nucleoside therapy advocated by a U.S. professor of neurology, Michio Hirano.

The case prompted heated debate on social media and in the press on medical ethics, and staff at the Great Ormond Street Hospital which treated him received abuse and death threats.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence tweeted that he was saddened to hear of Charlie’s death. He has previously referred to the case in the context of the U.S. healthcare debate, saying it offered a warning of the risks of state-funded healthcare.

(Additional reporting by Estelle Shirbon and David Milliken; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Dengue outbreak kills 300 in Sri Lanka, hospitals at limit

A mosquito landing on a person. Courtesy of Pixabay

COLOMBO (Reuters) – An outbreak of dengue virus has killed around 300 people so far this year in Sri Lanka and hospitals are stretched to capacity, health officials said on Monday.

They blamed recent monsoon rains and floods that have left pools of stagnant water and rotting rain-soaked trash — ideal breeding sites for mosquitoes that carry the virus.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is scaling up emergency assistance to Sri Lanka with the Sri Lanka Red Cross to help contain the outbreak.

“Dengue patients are streaming into overcrowded hospitals that are stretched beyond capacity and struggling to cope, particularly in the country’s hardest hit western province,” Red Cross/Red Crescent said in a statement.

According to the World Health Organization, dengue is one of the world’s fastest growing diseases, endemic in 100 countries, with as many as 390 million infections annually. Early detection and treatment save lives when infections are severe, particularly for young children.

The Sri Lankan government is struggling to control the virus, which causes flu-like symptoms and can develop into the deadly hemorrhagic dengue fever.

The ministry of health said the number of dengue infections has climbed above 100,000 since the start of 2017, with 296 deaths.

“Ongoing downpours and worsening sanitation conditions raise concerns the disease will continue to spread,” Red Cross/Red Crescent said.

Its assistance comes a week after Australia announced programs to help control dengue fever in Sri Lanka.

“Dengue is endemic here, but one reason for the dramatic rise in cases is that the virus currently spreading has evolved and people lack the immunity to fight off the new strain,” Novil Wijesekara, head of health at the Sri Lanka Red Cross said in a statement.

(Reporting by Ranga Sirilal and Shihar Aneez Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)

More hospital closings in rural America add risk for pregnant women

Dr. Nicole Arthur (R), visits Tariyana Wiggins, a high school teacher, shortly after the birth of Troy O’Brien Williams in the hospital room at the North Baldwin Infirmary, a 70-bed hospital in rural Bay Minette, Alabama, U.S. on June 22, 2017. REUTERS/Jilian Mincer

By Jilian Mincer

Bay Minette, Alabama (Reuters) – Dr. Nicole Arthur, a family practice physician, was trained to avoid Cesarean deliveries in child-birth, unless medically necessary, because surgery increases risks and recovery time.

But she has adjusted her approach since arriving last year at the 70-bed North Baldwin Infirmary in rural, southern Alabama.

Low patient admissions and high costs mean the hospital does not have doctors on site around-the-clock to administer anesthesia in the case of an unexpected emergency Cesarean.

As a result, Dr. Arthur performs the surgery if there are any signs of complication, rather than waiting and running the risk that comes with the 20 to 30 minutes it takes for an anesthesiologist to arrive in the middle of the night.

“It’s better for me to do a C-section when I suspect that something may happen,” she said of her new strategy. “Getting the baby out healthy and happy outweighs some of the risk.”

Physicians in rural communities across America are facing the same tough choices as Dr. Arthur. Hospitals are scaling back services, shutting their maternity wards or closing altogether, according to data from hospitals, state health departments, the federal government and rural health organizations.

Nationally, 119 rural hospitals that have shut since 2005, with 80 of those closures having occurred since 2010, according to the most recent data from the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program.

To save on insurance and staffing costs, maternity departments are often among the first to get shuttered inside financially stressed rural hospitals, according medical professionals and healthcare experts.

“It’s been a slow and steady decline,” said Michael Topchik, the National Leader for the Chartis Center for Rural Health, about maternity ward closings. “It’s very expensive care to offer, especially when it’s lower volume.”

More than 200 maternity wards closed between 2004 and 2014 because of higher costs, fewer births and staffing shortages, leaving 54 percent of rural counties across the United States without hospital-based obstetrics, data from the University of Minnesota’s Rural Health Research Center show.

The trend has escalated recently even though the national healthcare law, known as Obamacare, was designed in part to help rural hospitals thrive. But unpaid patient debt has risen among rural hospitals by 50 percent since the Affordable Care Act was passed, according to the National Rural Health Association, especially in states that decided not to expand Medicaid – the state and federal insurance program for the poor.

The outlook for these hospitals was not poised to improve had Congress approved legislation to replace Obamacare. Senate Republicans’ proposed cuts to Medicaid would have pushed about 150 more rural hospitals into the red, according to the Chartis Center for Rural Health, mainly in states that voted Republican in the last election.

But late on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Republican effort to repeal and immediately replace Obamacare will not be successful, after two of McConnell’s Senate conservatives announced that they would not support the bill.

PAIN FELT BEYOND THE BELTWAY

The consequences go beyond politics.

When local doctors and midwives leave town, rural women lose access to essential services. Many skip or delay prenatal care that could prevent complications, premature birth or even death. The U.S. infant mortality rate is among the highest in developing countries at 5.8 deaths per 1,000 births.

Pregnant woman in rural areas are more likely to have their deliveries induced or by Cesarean section that, while potentially life-saving, are more expensive and risky than a normal vaginal birth, according to patients, medical professionals and researchers.

Almost a year after her second son’s birth, Courtney Cross is still repaying money she borrowed because of the smaller paychecks and larger gas bills she had from driving 60 minutes each way to a specialist in Mobile, Alabama.

“There were some days I had to reschedule because of the money factor,” said Cross, a medical technician and mother of two, who some months made the trip multiple times. “I had to make money.”

Cross is not alone. The most common reasons for the hospital closures are people and money. More and more people are moving to urban areas in pursuit of work and a better paycheck. And in most states, lower revenue from insurance and U.S. government payments are pushing these hospitals into financial stress, particularly in states that did not build out their Medicaid programs as Obamacare allowed.

“The majority of births in rural America are paid for by Medicaid, and Medicaid is not the most generous payer,” said Diane Calmus, government affairs and policy manager for the National Rural Health Association. “For most hospitals it is a money losing proposition.”

This is the main reason why Connie Trujillo shuttered her midwife practice this spring in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The local hospital had closed its maternity ward, and the closest hospital to deliver babies was at least 60 miles away. She sees more elective inductions because the patients live far away and can’t afford to go back and forth.

“Some of them just don’t have the resources,” she said. A year after shuttering, the hospital is trying to hire additional staff to reopen the ward.

MORE SCHEDULED DELIVERIES

The number of induced U.S. deliveries nationally has doubled since 1990 to about 23.3 percent, but rates are significantly higher in rural areas, where it is routinely offered to women traveling long distances, especially if the weather is bad.

Induced labor and surgery come at a high cost. Commercial insurance and Medicaid paid about 50 percent more for Cesarean than vaginal births, according to a 2013 Truven Health Analytics report. The report said Medicaid payments for maternal and newborn care for a vaginal birth was $9,131 versus $13,590 for a C-section.

In largely rural West Virginia – where the Summersville Regional Medical Center became the latest hospital to stop delivering newborns earlier this year – elected inductions for first time mothers rose to 28.7 percent in 2015 from 24.1 percent in 2011, according to data provided to Reuters by the West Virginia Perinatal Partnership, a statewide effort to improve care.

“Inductions allow the physicians to manage their case loads and timing of deliveries,” said Amy Tolliver, director of the Perinatal Partnership. “We know that inductions are happening in small hospitals that have difficulty with staffing.”

To address staffing issues at Dr Arthur’s hospital in Alabama, the facility paid temporary doctors for a year to keep the department open when one of its two maternity doctors stopped doing deliveries.

“It’s important to have access (to obstetrics),” said hospital president Benjamin Hansert, who also organized a group of doctors from Mobile about 40 minutes away to cover some of the shifts so that staff doctors would not always be on call. “Where the mother goes for care, the rest of the family will follow.”

For the full graphic on hospital closures, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2us7qDM

(Editing by Caroline Humer and Edward Tobin)

Child, 5, named as youngest victim of London tower block fire

Five-year-old Isaac Paulous, who died in the Grenfell Tower fire, is seen in this undated photograph received via the Metropolitan Police, in London, Britain June 27, 2017. Metropolitan Police/Handout/Via REUTERS

LONDON (Reuters) – A five-year-old boy was identified by police on Tuesday as the youngest victim so far of the fire which engulfed a London tower block two weeks ago, killing at least 79 people.

Isaac Paulous was named as one of those who died after fire tore through the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block, trapping many inside their apartments.

“Isaac, our beloved son, was taken from us when he was only 5 years old,” his family said in a statement.

“We will all miss our kind, energetic, generous little boy. He was such a good boy who was loved by his friends and family. We will miss him forever, but we know God is looking after him now and that he is safe in heaven.”

Police have so far identified about 20 of the 79 who are dead or missing and presumed dead, and have warned they might never know how many people died in the inferno.

The British government has faced mounting criticism for its response to the disaster, while police say they would consider criminal charges, including manslaughter, over the fire.

The officer in charge of the investigation has said exterior cladding on the building had failed all fire safety tests and on Monday the government said 75 high-rise tower blocks in England with similar cladding had also failed tests.

U.S. firm Arconic Inc said it was stopping global sales of its Reynobond PE cladding, which was used in Grenfell Tower, for use in high-rise buildings following the fire.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

A daily conundrum in convulsed Venezuela: will my kids make it to school?

FILE PHOTO: School children protect themselves from tear gas during a rally against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela April 26, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins/File Photo

By Brian Ellsworth and Andreina Aponte

CARACAS (Reuters) – With anti-government protesters blocking avenues and highways across Venezuela several times a week, many parents spend their evenings asking the same question – will my kids make it to school tomorrow?

While parents worry they will be unable to pick up their children after classes because of the tumult, teachers are often forced to skip work due to the clashes between protesters and troops.

Yet the Education Ministry has refused to cancel classes at state schools even when spillover from demonstrations poses a risk to children – primarily from the tear gas fired to disperse protesters.

It also has forbidden private schools, which serve about a quarter of the country’s primary and secondary school students, from suspending lessons.

The result is that one of the most routine parenting responsibilities – getting children to school – now requires constantly juggling of contingency plans and calculating the odds of getting through protests that have left 75 people dead.

“We check Twitter until about 9:30, 10:00 at night and that’s when we decide if we’re going to take our son to school the next day,” said Ignacio, 33, a telecom engineer who asked that his last name not be used for fear of reprisals.

“Sometimes my wife will leave to pick him up and she’ll come across barricades or lanes closed on the highway, so we have to figure out if I have to rush from work to get him.”

Outraged by triple-digit inflation and chronic shortages of food and medicine, demonstrators gather on main avenues for protests that range from peaceful sit-ins to rock-throwing melees with troops firing rubber bullets and tear gas.

That creates traffic chaos that can disrupt public transportation just as school is letting out.

Protesters are demanding that the Socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro address a crippling economic crisis and scrap plans to rewrite the constitution of the South American oil producer.

Parents try to delicately explain to their kids why they are not in class while still sheltering them from the country’s virulent political discourse, which is increasingly drifting into the lexicon of even elementary school children.

Teachers constantly reschedule lessons and tests to compensate for missed days of the academic year, which normally runs from October to July. Parents worry that their kids risk falling behind in their studies if the unrest continues.

The protests have disrupted daily life well beyond schools. They at times prevent deliveries of raw materials to factories, force state agencies to remain closed, and lead shops to preventively shut their doors on rumors that demonstrations are devolving into looting.

The Information Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the situation.

Caribay Valenzuela (R), walks with her daughters (L-R) Carlota, Eloisa and Carmen, after picking them up on the school on a day of protests in Caracas, Venezuela June 19, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Caribay Valenzuela (R), walks with her daughters (L-R) Carlota, Eloisa and Carmen, after picking them up on the school on a day of protests in Caracas, Venezuela June 19, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

TEAR GAS IN CLASSROOMS

Ruling Socialist Party officials say the protests are part of a violent effort to overthrow Maduro. They say the constant disruptions of public order limit access to education and thus undermine late socialist leader Hugo Chavez’s efforts to invest in  schools

Maduro says private schools have in some cases canceled class as a way of supporting the opposition.

“I have ordered an investigation against those owners of private schools that have promoted hatred, racism, violence,” Maduro said in a televised broadcast in May.

The Education Ministry last month said it had fined 15 private schools for “permitting, provoking and inciting violent actions in educational facilities and their surrounding areas.”

As a result, schools remain open even under extreme circumstances.

National Guard troops in late May fired a tear gas canister into the main patio of a school called the Montessori Institute in the city of Barquisimeto, according to a local media report, in an apparent effort to disperse a nearby protest.

When a group of students left the building to escape the fumes, three of them were detained by the National Guard, according to the report.

A school official said the report was accurate but declined further comment.

Two Caracas Catholic schools in separate incidents in April had to evacuate children after they were flooded by clouds of tear gas, according to Reuters witnesses. The schools declined to comment.

Chief Prosecutor Luisa Ortega, who has become a high-profile critic of the government’s handling of protests, recently called on security forces not to fire tear gas near clinics and schools.

Under the circumstances, many parents opt to leave kids at home. But this can lead to heightened government scrutiny of schools.

Education Ministry officials threatened to shutter one private school in the central state of Lara, where classrooms went empty for days on end due to parents’ safety concerns, according to two parents of children that study there.

They backed off the threat after an inspection determined that teachers were working normal hours, sitting in silent classrooms and maintaining lesson plans, they said.

A third parent, who is involved in the parent-teacher association, confirmed the incident but asked that the school not be named to avoid reprisals. Reuters was unable to obtain comment from the school.

Caribay Valenzuela, whose two daughters study near the Altamira neighborhood that has been a focal point of protests, sends them to school with goggles and a handkerchief in case the protests spill over.

The 39-year-old routinely picks up her kids early and takes them to her mother’s house because her own home is at times hit by tear gas.

“They ask me to pick up the kids at 10 a.m. when there are marches to make sure that staff can get home,” Valenzuela said.

“Maintaining the routine has been really difficult because they ask me ‘Is there school tomorrow? Is it a full day? What are we going to do tomorrow?'”

(Editing by Bill Trott)

Chinese kindergarten blast attacker had neurological disorder: officials

A person wearing protection on his shoes and head, sweeps near the scene of an explosion at a kindergarten in Fengxian County in Jiangsu Province, China June 16, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song

XUZHOU, China (Reuters) – The man who set off a self-made explosive device outside a Chinese kindergarten killing eight people and injuring 65 others on Thursday had a neurological disorder and had scrawled words for death on the walls of his home, officials said on Friday.

The 22-year-old man, surnamed Xu, was among those killed in the blast near the entrance to the kindergarten in Xuzhou, a city in the coastal province of Jiangsu, police said in a briefing shown on state television.

The official Xinhua news agency said police were considering the act a “criminal offense”.

Xu had dropped out of an unnamed school due to his neurological condition and rented an apartment near the kindergarten, China Central Television said.

“Self-made explosive device materials were found in his apartment, and on the walls in many places were handwritten words such as kill, death, destroy and terminate,” it said.

Two people died at the scene of the blast and six more died from their injuries in hospital. Xinhua reported on Thursday night that eight people were in a critical condition.

Pictures circulating on Chinese social media showed about a dozen women and children lying on the ground in what appeared to be the immediate aftermath of the blast.

One video showed an injured woman with scorched clothing staggering unsteadily, while others sat on a floor holding crying children in their arms.

Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the videos. None of those injured were children or teachers, Xinhua said.

“When I arrived, the scene was messy, both adults and children were lying on the ground. I felt very scared,” a local shopkeeper Wei Xunying, who rushed to the site, told Reuters on Friday.

China’s Ministry of Education issued a statement demanding that education officials strengthen security around schools to ensure the safety of students and teachers.

Local authorities said that contrary to early reports the blast did not occur while parents were picking up children after school, according to the People’s Daily.

Explosives are relatively easy to obtain in China, home to the world’s largest mining and fireworks industries.

Violent crime is rare in China compared with many other countries, but there have been a series of knife and axe attacks in recent years, many targeting children.

(Reporting by Philip Wen, Christian Shepherd, and Michael Martina in Beijing; Shanghai newsroom in Xuzhou; Editing by Michael Perry)

Mosul Old City residents spend hungry and fearful Ramadan under IS rule

Displaced Iraqi family from Mosul eat a simple meal for their Iftar, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at a refugee camp al-Khazir in the outskirts of Erbil, Iraq June 10, 2017. Picture taken June 10, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – For Salam, a resident in the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul, the holy fasting month of Ramadan this year is the worst he’s seen in a lifetime marked by wars and deprivations.

“We are slowly dying from hunger, boiling mouldy wheat as soup” to break the fast at sunset, the 47 year-old father of three said by phone from the district besieged by Iraqi forces, asking to withhold his name fearing the militants’ retribution.

The only wish he makes in his prayers is for his family to survive the final days of the self-proclaimed caliphate declared three years ago by IS’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from a nearby mosque.

The eight-month old U.S.-backed campaign to capture Mosul, IS’s de-facto capital in Iraq, reached its deadliest phase just as the holy Muslim month started at the end of May, when militants became squeezed in and around the densely populated Old City.

Up to 200,000 people are trapped behind their lines, half of them children, according to the United Nations.

Hundreds have been killed while trying to escape to government-held lines, caught in the cross-fire or gunned down by Islamic State snipers. The militants want civilians to remain in areas under their control to use them as human shields.

Many bodies of the dead remain in the street near the frontlines. Four of them are relatives of Khalil, a former civil servant who quit his job after IS took over Mosul.

“Daesh warned us not to bury them to make them an example for others who try to flee,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Those who decide not to run the risk of fleeing are living in fear of getting killed or wounded in their homes, with little food and water and limited access to healthcare.

“Seeing my kids hungry is real torture,” said Salam, who closed his home appliances shop shortly after the start of the offensive as sales came to a complete stop.”I wish the security forces would eliminate all Daesh fighters in a flash; I want my family to have normal life again.”

Where food can be found, the price has risen more than 20-fold. A kilo of rice is selling for more than $40. A kilo of flour or lentils is $20 or more.

The sellers are mainly households who stockpiled enough food and medicine to dare sell some, but only to trusted neighbors or relatives, or in return for items they need. If militants find food they take it.

Residents fill water from a few wells dug in the soil. The wait is long and dangerous as shelling is frequent.

“The well-water has a bitter taste and we can smell sewage sometimes, but we have to drink to stay alive,” said Umm Saad, a widow and mother of four, complaining that the militants are often seen with bottled water and canned food.

“We have been under compulsory fasting even before the start of Ramadan,” she said. “No real food to eat, just hardened old bread and mouldy grains.”

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war city’s population, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps. But in areas still held by the militants escape has become harder than ever.

“Fleeing is like committing suicide,” said Khalil, the ex-civil servant, who lives near the medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque, the offensive’s symbolic focus, where Baghdadi proclaimed himself caliph.

IS’s black flag has been flying over its landmark leaning minaret since June 2014, when the Iraqi army fled in the face of the militants, giving them their biggest prize, a city at least four times bigger than any other they came to control in both Iraq and neighboring Syria.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; editing by Peter Graff)

Fire engulfs London tower block, at least 12 dead, dozens injured

Flames and smoke billow as firefighters deal with a serious fire in a tower block at Latimer Road in West London, Britain June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville

By Kylie MacLellan and Toby Melville

LONDON (Reuters) – A blaze engulfed a 24-story housing block in central London on Wednesday, trapping residents as they slept and killing at least 12 people in an inferno that the fire brigade said was unprecedented in its scale and speed.

More than 200 firefighters, backed up by 40 fire engines, fought for hours to try to control the blaze, London’s deadliest for a generation. The Grenfell Tower apartment block was home to about 600 people.

A local residents’ group said it had predicted such a catastrophe on their low-rent housing estate that overlooks affluent parts of the Kensington area of the capital, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan said there were questions to answer.

Prime Minister Theresa May promised there would be a proper investigation into the disaster, which delayed her talks on trying to secure a parliamentary deal to stay in power and launch talks on Britain’s exit from the European Union.

Some residents screamed for help from behind upper-floor windows and others tried to throw children to safety as flames raced through the Grenfell block of about 120 apartments just before 1 a.m.

Firefighters said they had rescued 65 people – some in pyjamas – from the 43-year-old block.

“We could see a lot of children and parents screaming for ‘Help! Help! Help!’ and putting their hands on the window and asking to help them,” Amina Sharif told Reuters.

“We could do nothing and we could see the stuff on the side was falling off, collapsing. We were just standing screaming and they were screaming.”

TYING SHEETS TOGETHER

Another witness, Saimar Lleshi, saw people tying together sheets to try to escape.

“I saw three people putting sheets together to climb down, but no one climbed down. I don’t know what happened to them. Even when the lights went off, people were waving with white shirts to be seen,” Lleshi said.

The fire sent up plumes of smoke that could be seen from miles away. The ambulance service said 68 people were being treated in hospital, with 18 in critical condition.

More than 16 hours after the fire started, crews were still trying to douse flames as they sought to reach the top floors.

But London police commander Stuart Cundy told reporters he did not believe further survivors would be found in the building.

At a nearby community center used to house some of those rescued, tensions were rising as occupants waited for news.

“The fire, which was unprecedented in its scale and speed, will be subject to a full fire investigation,” said Steve Apter from the London Fire Brigade. “Any lessons learnt from this will be borne out not just across London, across the UK – and lessons learnt globally.”

The emergency services said it was too early to say what had caused the inferno, which left the block a charred, smoking shell. Some residents said no alarm had sounded. Others said they had warned repeatedly about fire safety in the block.

The building had recently undergone an 8.7 million pound ($11.08 million) exterior refurbishment, which included new external cladding and windows.

“We will cooperate with the relevant authorities and emergency services and fully support their enquiries into the causes of this fire at the appropriate time,” Rydon, the firm behind the refurbishment work, said in a statement.

CHILDREN THROWN TO SAFETY

Residents who escaped told how they woke up to the smell of burning and rushed to leave through smoke-filled corridors and stairwells.

There were reports that some leapt out of windows. Other witnesses spoke of children including a baby being thrown to safety from high windows.

Tamara, one witness, told the BBC: “There’s people, like, throwing their kids out, ‘Just save my children, just save my children!'”.

Opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn said sprinkler systems should be installed in such blocks and he called on the government to make a statement in parliament.

Fire Minister Nick Hurd said local authorities and fire services across the country would assess tower blocks undergoing similar renovation work to provide reassurance.

“In due course when the scene is secure, when it is possible to identify the cause of this fire, there will be proper investigation and if there are any lessons to be learned, they will be and action will be taken,” May said.

Khan, the London mayor, said there needed to be answers after some residents said they had been advised they should stay in their flats in the event of a fire.

“What we can’t have is a situation where people’s safety is put at risk because of bad advice being given or, if it is the case, as has been alleged, of tower blocks not being properly serviced or maintained,” Khan said.

Resident Michael Paramasivan told BBC radio he had spoken to a woman who lived on the 21st floor: “She has got six kids. She left with all six of them. When she got downstairs, there was only four of them with her. She is now breaking her heart.”

(Additional reporting by Lina Saigol, David Milliken, Costas Pitas, Kate Holton, Neil Hall, Elisabeth O’Leary, Alistair Smout, Megan Revell and Oli Rahman; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Revenge for Sinjar: Syrian Kurds free Islamic State slaves

Noura Khodr Khalaf, 24, a Yazidi woman who was recently freed from Islamic State, stands with her children in a centre belonging to the Kurdish-led administration in Qamishli, Syria June 10, 2017. Picture taken June 10, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Rodi Said and Ellen Francis

QAMISHLI, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State militants enslaved Noura Khalaf for three years, dragging her from her small Iraqi village across their territory in Syria. They bought and sold her five times before she was finally freed with her children last week.

Khalaf is one of many Yazidi women that Kurdish fighters in northern Syria have set out to free from Islamic State in covert operations, a female Kurdish militia commander told Reuters.

They have dubbed the operation “revenge for the women of Sinjar”, the homeland of Iraq’s ancient Yazidi minority which Islamic State overran in the summer of 2014.

The militants slaughtered, enslaved and raped thousands of people when they rampaged through northern Iraq, purging its Yazidi community. They abducted Yazidi women as sex slaves and gunned down male relatives, witnesses and Iraqi officials say. Nearly 3,000 women are believed to be still in captivity.

Nisreen Abdallah, a commander in the YPJ militia, said around 200 women and children from northern Iraq have been freed in various parts of Syria so far.

The Kurdish YPG militia and its all-female YPJ brigade rescued them in what she described as covert operations into IS territory that began last year. Abdallah declined to divulge more details for security reasons.

The Syrian militias launched this mission as part of their U.S.-backed offensive on Raqqa, Islamic State’s base of operations in Syria, she said.

With the YPG at its forefront, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias began pushing into Raqqa last week, after advancing on the city since November.

“Since then, we have been working to liberate the Yazidi women held captive by Daesh,” Abdallah said. In the case of Khalaf, she said Kurdish fighters made contact with her and drew up “an appropriate plan” to free her unharmed.

CODE WORD

Noura Khalaf said she had been living with her children as the slave of an Islamic State militant in Syria’s Hama province for a year, when an unidentified man smuggled them out in the YPG-coordinated operation.

The plan took shape thanks to IS rules forbidding fighters from taking mobile phones to the frontlines, she said. The jihadist holding Khalaf left his at home, allowing her to call her brother who in turn asked the YPG for help.

“Abu Amir used to leave his phone at home when he went to the frontline,” said 24-year-old Khalaf. “I had memorized my brother’s number.”

Khalaf was eventually told to await contact from a man who would come to rescue her. He uttered a pre-agreed code word, so she would know it was safe to leave with him.

“I’m happy to be staying here,” she said, speaking to Reuters in the Syrian city of Qamishli in the Kurdish-controlled northeast. She will soon return to the Sinjar mountain region. “After I rest here, I will go meet my brother,” she said.

After Islamic State kidnapped Khalaf with her four children in 2014, they bussed her around northern Iraq, including Mosul, along with dozens of women from her hometown of Kojo in Sinjar. “I still don’t know what happened to my husband,” she said.

At one point in her captivity, militants kept her in an underground jail in Raqqa, she said, and at another, they held her in a prison in Palmyra.

“They took us to an underground market for selling women, where they displayed us for Islamic State members and each one picks the girl he likes,” she said. Fighters forced her to serve and cook for them, some beating and raping her repeatedly.

Now, Khalaf and her children are staying at a shelter run by the women’s council of the Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria.

Abdallah, the YPJ commander, said they deliver the women to their relatives in northern Iraq by coordinating with a Yazidi committee around Sinjar.

Two months earlier, Kurdish fighters also rescued Khalaf’s seven-year-old daughter, who had been sold off near Raqqa, and sent her to relatives in Sinjar, she said.

“We will also send Noura, through the women’s council. So she will see her daughter again,” Abdallah said.

“Those who are freed have been away from their relatives, living among Daesh for years…in alienation and degradation,” Abdallah said. “They have psychological complexes and they need care.”

The beliefs of the Yazidi community, which Islamic State regards as devil-worship, combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions. Mass Yazidi graves have been found since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces seized Sinjar in 2015.

(Reporting by Rodi Said in Syria, Ellen Francis in Beirut; Editing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff)