Tag Archives: Death

Most Islamic State commanders in Mosul already killed, Iraqi general says

Iraqi soldiers in Mosul

By Isabel Coles

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Most Islamic State (IS) commanders in Mosul have been killed in battles with Iraqi government forces that raged over the past three months in the eastern side of the city, an Iraqi general said on Thursday.

The fight to take the western side of Mosul, which remains under the jihadists’ control, should not be more difficult than the one on the eastern side, Lieutenant-General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi told Reuters before embarking on a tour of areas newly retaken.

Assadi’s Counter-Terrorism Service announced on Wednesday that almost all of the city’s eastern half had been brought under government control.

“God willing, there will be a meeting in the next few days attended by all the commanders concerned with liberation operations,” he said, replying to a question on when he expects a thrust into the western side of Mosul to begin.

“It will not be harder than what we have seen. The majority of (IS) commanders have been killed in the eastern side.” He did not give further details.

Since late 2015, government forces backed by U.S.-led coalition air power have wrested back large amounts of northern and western territory overrun by IS in a shock 2014 offensive.

On Thursday, regular Iraqi army troops captured the Nineveh Oberoy hotel, the so-called “palaces” area on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and Tel Kef, a small town just to the north according to military statements in Baghdad.

The army is still battling militants in al-Arabi, the last district which remains under their control east of the river, said one of the statements.

Over 50 watercraft and barges used by Islamic State to supply their units east of the river were destroyed in air strikes, the U.S. envoy to the coalition, Brett McGurty, tweeted.

Mogul’s five bridges across the Tigris had already been partially damaged by U.S.-led air strikes to slow the militants’ movement, before Islamic State blew up two of them.

“God willing, there will be an announcement in the next few days that all the eastern bank is under control,” Assai said.

A Reuters correspondent saw army troops deploying in an area by the river as mortar and gun fire rang out further north.

On one of the streets newly recaptured from Islamic State, men were reassembling breeze blocks into a wall that was blown up by a suicide car bomb several days ago.

Prime Minister Hailer al-Badri said late on Tuesday that Islamic State had been severely weakened in the Mosul campaign, and the military had begun moving against it in the western half. He did not elaborate.

If the U.S.-backed campaign is successful it will likely spell the end of the Iraqi part of the self-styled caliphate declared by the ultra-hardline Islamic State in 2014, which extends well into neighboring Syria.

Several thousand civilians have been killed or wounded in the Mosul fighting since October.

(Additional reporting by Saif Hameed; editing by Mark Heinrich and Robin Pomeroy)

Deaths from Nigerian refugee camp air strike rises to 90, could reach 170: MSF

people walk at the site of a bombing attack

GENEVA (Reuters) – The death toll from an accidental Nigerian air strike on a refugee camp in the town of Rann has risen to around 90 people, and could be as high as 170, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said in a statement on Friday.

Tuesday’s strike on the northeastern town in Borno state, which had Boko Haram militants as its target, has led to an investigation by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF). The inquiry’s report is due to be submitted no later than Feb. 2.

The aid group, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said the higher figure of 170 comes from reports from residents and community leaders.

“This figure needs to be confirmed,” said Bruno Jochum, MSF General Director, in the statement.

“The victims of this horrifying event deserve a transparent account of what happened and the circumstances in which this attack took place.”

Borno is the epicenter of Boko Haram’s seven-year-long attempt to create an Islamic caliphate in the northeast. The insurgency has killed more than 15,000 people since 2009 and forced some two million to flee their homes, many of whom have moved to camps for internally displaced people.

“A Nigerian airforce plane circled twice and dropped two bombs in the middle of the town of Rann, which hosts thousands of internally displaced people,” MSF said.

“At the time of the attack, an aid distribution was taking place.”

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch said the strike had destroyed 35 structures, and hit 100 meters from what appears to be a Nigerian military compound, raising questions about why precautions were not taken to avoid harming civilians.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Paul Carsten; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Arab Israeli and policeman killed in suspected car ramming attack in southern Israel

Arab Israelis clash with Israeli police

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Police in Israel said an Arab Israeli on Wednesday rammed his car into a group of policemen in the southern Negev region, killing one before being shot dead, though a rights activist who was present disputed it was an attack.

Police said the violence sparked a riot in the village of Umm al-Hiran, where an operation was underway to demolish Bedouin dwellings deemed by a court as having been built illegally on state-owned land.

Police spokeswoman Merav Lapidot said the suspect was a local teacher who “surged towards the forces intending to kill” and that riots erupted after he was shot.

But human rights activist Michal Haramati, who had come to Umm al-Hiran to observe the demolitions, said she witnessed the event and that the driver was not heading towards police when he was shot.

“Suddenly the car started to go down the hill, without control, absolutely,” she told Reuters in English. “The driver was obviously dead by the time that he lost control this way. That’s when he hit the cops.”

Most of Israel’s Bedouin, who predominate in the desert area that accounts for two-thirds of Israel’s territory, are nomadic tribes which have wandered across the Middle East from Biblical times. Arab citizens make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population of eight million, and 200,000 of them are Bedouin.

Bedouin leaders in Negev say Israel has long discriminated against their communities, denying them public funds and services. Half of Israeli Bedouin population live in towns and villages recognized as formal communities by the government. Others live rough, in tents and shacks on patches of desert.

Israeli forces have been particularly wary of car ramming attacks since a wave of Palestinian street assaults began in October 2015.

On Jan. 8, four Israeli soldiers were killed in Jerusalem by a Palestinian who drove his truck into them.

In all, 37 Israelis and two visiting Americans have been killed in the past 15 months, while at least 232 Palestinians have been killed in violence in Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the same period. Israel says that at least 158 of them were assailants while others died during clashes and protests.

(Reporting by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Raissa Kasolowsky)

At least 76 killed in air strike on Nigerian refugee camp: ICRC

Aftermath of bombing of refugee camp in Nigeria

GENEVA (Reuters) – At least 76 people were killed in Tuesday’s accidental Nigerian Air Force strike on a refugee camp and more than 100 were wounded, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (ICRC) said on Wednesday.

The air force has said an unknown number of civilians were killed and wounded in the mistaken strike in Rann, Borno state. The state has been the epicentre of Boko Haram’s seven-year-long attempt to create an Islamic caliphate in the northeast.

The air force has said civilians were accidentally killed and wounded in the attack, which was aimed at the jihadist group, but neither it nor the government has provided an official figure for the number of casualties. Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said 52 were killed and 120 were wounded.

ICRC said six Nigeria Red Cross members were killed and 13 wounded. “In addition to aid staff, it is estimated that 70 people have been killed and more than a hundred wounded,” it said in a statement.

Lai Mohammed, the information minister, said “the accidental bombing is not a true reflection of the level of professionalism” he had witnessed in the air force.

The strike followed a military offensive against Boko Haram in the last few weeks.

The group’s insurgency has killed more than 15,000 people since 2009 and forced some two million to flee their homes, many of whom have moved to camps for internally displaced people.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; additional reporting by Felix Onuah; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Homeless in wintry northern India shiver in buses, portable cabins

A family gather under blankets to shelter from the cold beneath a flyover in Delhi, India

By Rina Chandran

MUMBAI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Buses and portable cabins are doubling up as shelters for the homeless in northern India amidst a cold snap that has killed at least a dozen people, highlighting a critical lack of affordable housing, campaigners said on Tuesday.

There are nearly 1 million urban homeless in India, according to official data, although charities estimate the actual number to be three times higher.

The urban homeless population rose by a fifth in the decade to 2011, as thousands migrated from villages in search of better prospects. Every year, hundreds die from exposure to the cold or heat on city pavements or station platforms.

“Shelters are important, and we must ensure there are enough of them, but they are only a temporary solution,” said Shivani Chaudhry, head of advocacy group Housing and Land Rights Network in Delhi.

“We need to address the structural issues for a long-term solution: affordable housing for everyone,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The Supreme Court in 2010 ordered one homeless shelter for every 100,000 people in 62 major cities, with facilities including drinking water, subsidized meals, bedding and lockers.

But few states have complied.

In Delhi, there are 263 shelters for more than 200,000 homeless people. Temperatures fell to as low as 2.6 degrees Celsius (37°F) last week, and residents complained about a lack of hot water, inadequate toilets and rats in shelters.

A Delhi civic official said facilities were being improved, and that free healthcare and skills training was being provided. The city has also launched a mobile app that enables people to alert officials to people on the street at night.

“We have enough shelters as per the guidelines, but we are aware there are still people sleeping on the streets,” said Bipin Rai at the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board.

“We also recognize that shelters are only a temporary arrangement and what is really needed are hostels and cheap rental housing,” he said.

People warm themselves by a fire to escape the cold in Delhi, India

People warm themselves by a fire to escape the cold in Delhi, India January 16, 2017. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton

BLANKETS, MATTRESSES

India has unveiled a plan to provide housing for all by 2022, creating 20 million new units and rehabilitating existing slums. But the slow pace of implementation is leaving thousands homeless as pavement dwellers are evicted.

In the high-tech hub of Gurgaon, about an hour’s drive from Delhi, civic officials are using portable shelters and have fitted out six buses with mattresses and blankets to take in about 400 homeless people at night.

In Mumbai, which has some of the most expensive real estate in the world, the homeless are particularly vulnerable during the monsoon rains, which can last up to four months.

For its more than 57,000 homeless people, the city has nine shelters, less than a tenth of the mandated number.

“We have funds to run shelters, but where is the space in the city?” said Pallavi Darade, a civic official.

“We are looking to have 20-25 shelters, and our focus is ensuring street children have a safe place to sleep in.”

Charities and start-ups are stepping in with innovations including weatherproof tents that can be set up on pavements.

But what’s also needed is the political will to find solutions, including social rental housing, said Chaudhry.

“We pay greater attention to homelessness in the winter, but more people die in the summer. They deserve our attention every day,” she said.

(Reporting by Rina Chandran @rinachandran, Editing by Ros Russell. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories.)

Turkish cargo jet crash kills 37 in Kyrgyzstan

Plane debris of Turkish cargo jet crash

BISHKEK (Reuters) – A Turkish cargo jet crashed near Kyrgyzstan’s Manas airport on Monday, killing at least 37 people, most of them residents of a village struck by the Boeing 747 as it tried to land in dense fog, Kyrgyz officials said.

According to the airport administration, the plane was supposed to make a stopover at Manas, near the capital city Bishkek, on its way from Hong Kong to Istanbul. It crashed when trying to land in poor visibility at 7:31 a.m. (8:31 p.m. ET on Sunday).

The doomed plane plowed on for a few hundred meters (yards) through the Dachi Suu village, home to hundreds of families, shattering into pieces and damaging dozens of buildings.

Plumes of smoke rose above the crash site, with some mudbrick buildings razed to the ground and others pierced by parts of the plane.

The torn-off tail assembly, rotated upside down, towered above a one-storey house. A football pitch-sized area nearby was completely leveled and covered with twisted pieces of metal.

Locals said they had initially thought the area was struck by an earthquake.

“Around seven o’clock in the morning I heard a strong swat (noise) and after that all the nearest houses were shaken,” said local resident Andrei Andreyev.

“Of course, everyone got frightened and started to run out of the houses to the street. Nobody understood what was going on because there was a fog, the weather was not good.”

Initial estimates put the death toll from the crash at 37, said Kyrgyzstan’s emergencies ministry. Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev announced Tuesday would be a national day of mourning.

Turkish Airlines <THYAO.IS> said in a statement that the cargo flight was operated by ACT Airlines and neither the Boeing 747-400 aircraft nor the crew belonged to Turkish Airlines.

Turkish cargo operator ACT Airlines also said the jet was theirs.

“Our TC-MCL signed plane, flying on Jan. 16 from Hong Kong to Bishkek, crashed on landing at Bishkek at the end of the runway for an unknown reason,” ACT Airlines said in an emailed statement.

“More information will be disclosed concerning our four-person team when we get clear information.”

(Reporting by Olga Dzyubenko; Additional reporting by Marlis Myrzakul Uulu in Bishkek, Daren Butler in Istanbul and Venus Wu in Hong Kong; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Toby Chopra)

Dozens reported dead as Syrian army fights Islamic State

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Fighting between Islamic State and the Syrian army has killed dozens since Saturday in Deir al-Zor, where the militant group has launched an assault to capture a government enclave in the city, a monitoring group reported.

At least 82 people have been killed in the fighting, which is the heaviest in the city for a year, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday.

The dead comprised 28 from the army and allied militia, at least 40 Islamic State fighters, and 14 civilians, the British-based monitoring group said.

Syrian state news agency SANA said the army had killed dozens of Islamic State fighters in attacks on the group’s positions around Deir al-Zor.

Islamic State has held most of Deir al-Zor and the surrounding area since 2015, but the government has retained control of the airport and neighboring districts in the city, located in eastern Syria on the Euphrates river.

A U.S.-backed coalition of Kurdish and Arab militias and rival Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups have pushed Islamic State from much of its territory in northern Syria, but it remains embedded in the country’s eastern desert and Euphrates basin.

Last month it recaptured the city of Palmyra, 185km (115 miles) southwest of Deir al-Zor, from the government in an unexpected advance that demonstrated its continuing military threat.

(Reporting By Angus McDowall; editing by Giles Elgood)

Clashes in Nigeria’s divided heartland pile pressure on president

Displaced Nigeria families, fleeing from Boko Haram

By Alexis Akwagyiram

KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) – Hundreds of people have died in a surge of ethnically-charged violence in Nigeria’s divided heartlands, officials said, piling pressure on a government already facing Islamist militants in its northeast and rebels in its oil-rich south.

Locals in remote villages in Kaduna state told Reuters Muslim herders had clashed with largely Christian farmers repeatedly in recent weeks, in the worst outbreak of killings in the region since riots killed 800 after elections in 2011.

The fighting triggered by competition over scarce resources has come at a particularly sensitive time for Kaduna city, which is about to become the main air hub in central and northern Nigeria, after the capital Abuja’s airport closes temporarily for runway repairs in March.

Farmer Ibrahim Sabo said cattle herders armed with assault rifles raided his village Kalangai in southern Kaduna in November, forcing him and his family to hide in surrounding fields.

“We left everything we harvested and they took our cattle. We have been running ever since,” said the 75-year-old in Kakura village where he took refuge.

The violence has focused attention on President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler who vowed to restore order in Africa’s most populous nation when he came to power in May 2015.

He held a five-hour session with senior security and army officials in Abuja on Thursday on how to tackle the unrest.

Security agencies are already deploying extra forces to secure Kaduna’s airport and its highway to Abuja, a route often targeted by kidnappers.

That all comes on top of an insurgency by Boko Haram Islamists in the northeast, beaten back last year by a military coalition of neighboring nations, but showing signs of a resurgence with a recent step-up in bombings.

Militants in the southern Niger Delta oil hub have said they are ready to resume pipeline attacks, and there have also been clashes between Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims in Kaduna state.

FESTERING DISPUTES

Locals say the Kaduna violence grew out of festering disputes over territory in October and November, then escalated sharply, exacerbated by north-south, Muslim-Christian tensions in a patchwork nation.

Details of attacks and precise figures are hard to come by in the remote territory.

The national disaster agency NEMA said on Friday it had recorded a total of 204 deaths since October in Kafanchan and Chikun, two of the four municipal districts worst hit by the violence, with no details from the others.

Christian leaders released a statement late December saying 808 people had died – an estimate dismissed by Kaduna state police commissioner Agyole Abeh who did not give his own figure.

The authorities had already sent in reinforcements – 10 units, each with 63 police officers, using 20 armored cars, he added.

Community group, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, said herdsmen had been “unjustifiably accused and maligned” in the area and had also come under attack, prompting a cycle of revenge.

There were few signs of the promised police or army reinforcements outside the center of Kaduna city.

Tarmac roads gave way to red soil dirt tracks leading to Kakura, on the edge of the territory that has seen the worst fighting.

Another farmer, Yusuf Dogo, said dozens of armed herdsmen burned houses in his village of Pasakori in three quick raids, forcing 700 people to flee in October.

“They ran through our village and started shooting randomly,” he said. “Later, they brought their cattle and they ate everything.”

(Additional reporting by Garba Muhammad in Kaduna and Felix Onuah in Abuja; Editing by Ulf Laessing and Andrew Heavens)

U.N. alarmed at migrants dying of cold, ‘dire’ situation in Greece

refugee boy rides bike through snow

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Refugees and migrants are dying in Europe’s cold snap and governments must do more to help them rather than pushing them back from borders and subjecting them to violence, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday.

“Children are particularly prone to respiratory illnesses at a time like this. It’s about saving lives, not about red tape and keeping to bureaucratic arrangements,” Sarah Crowe, a spokeswoman for the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF told a U.N. briefing in Geneva. “The dire situation right now is Greece.”

UNHCR spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly cited five deaths so far from cold and said about 1,000 people including children were in unheated tents and dormitories on the Greek island of Samos, calling for them to be transferred to shelter on the mainland.

Hundreds of others had been moved to better accommodation on the islands of Lesbos and Chios in the past few days.

In Serbia, about 80 percent of the 7,300 refugees, asylum seekers and migrants are staying in heated government shelters, but 1,200 men were sleeping rough in informal sites in Belgrade.

The bodies of two Iraqi men and a young Somali woman were found close to the Turkish border in Bulgaria and two Somali teenagers were hospitalized with frostbite after five days in a forest, Pouilly said. The body of a young Pakistani man was found along the same border in late December.

A 20-year-old Afghan man died after crossing the Evros River on the Greece-Turkey land border at night when temperatures were below -10 degrees Celsius. The body of a young Pakistani man was found on the Turkish side of the border with Bulgaria.

“Given the harsh winter conditions, we are particularly concerned by reports that authorities in all countries along the Western Balkans route continue to push back refugees and migrants from inside their territory to neighboring countries,” Pouilly said.

Some refugees and migrants said police subjected them to violence and many said their phones were confiscated or destroyed, preventing them from calling for help, she said.

“Some even reported items of clothing being confiscated thus further exposing them to the harsh winter conditions,” she said. “These practices are simply unacceptable and must be stopped.”

Joel Millman, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said migrant movements across the Mediterranean had “started out in a big way” in 2017, and the death toll for the year was already 27.

The World Meteorological Organization said a movement of cold Siberian air into southeastern Europe had driven temperatures in Greece, Italy, Turkey and Romania 5-10 degrees Celsius lower than normal. Such cold outbreaks happen about once in 35 years on average, the WMO said.

(additional reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Jury condemns Dylann Roof to death for South Carolina church massacre

family members of the victims of the Charleston massacre waiting outside courthouse

By Harriet McLeod

CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – White supremacist Dylann Roof deserves to die for the hate-fueled killings of nine black churchgoers at a Bible study meeting in a Charleston, South Carolina, a U.S. jury said on Tuesday after deliberating for less than three hours.

The same jury last month found Roof, 22, guilty of 33 federal charges, including hate crimes resulting in death, for the shocking mass shooting at the landmark Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015.

Roof, who represented himself and did not argue against the death penalty, showed no emotion as the verdict was read.

Prosecutors said he planned the shooting for months, intending to incite racial violence by targeting the oldest African-American congregation in the U.S. South.

“He decided the day, the hour and the moment that my sister was going to die, and now someone is going to do the same for him,” Melvin Graham, brother of shooting victim Cynthia Hurd, 54, said outside the federal courthouse in the heart of historic Charleston’s downtown district.

Roof will be formally sentenced on Wednesday. He also faces the death penalty if convicted of murder charges in a pending state trial.

Whether he was competent to serve as his own attorney will be a fundamental issue in the appeals process, Robert Dunham, executive director of the Washington-based nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, said in a telephone interview.

Roof did not present any evidence during the penalty phase that began last week or allow jurors to hear details about his mental health. Dunham said defense lawyers likely will use the trial to show appellate judges that mental illness prevented him from adequately representing himself.

“We are sorry that, despite our best efforts, the legal proceedings have shed so little light on the reasons for this tragedy,” Roof’s lawyers, who represented him for the guilt phase, said in a statement.

Roof was unrepentant during his short closing argument, telling jurors he still felt the massacre was something he had to do.

“Anyone who hates anything has good reason for it,” he said. “I have a right to ask you to give me a life sentence, but I’m not sure what good that will do anyone.”

On June 17, 2015, Roof sat for 40 minutes with parishioners gathered for a Bible study meeting before opening fire as they closed their eyes to pray, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Richardson said in his final statement to jurors.

Roof pulled the trigger 75 times as he methodically killed Hurd; Clementa Pinckney, 41, the church’s pastor and a state senator; DePayne Middleton Doctor, 49; Sharonda Coleman Singleton, 45; Susie Jackson, 87; Ethel Lance, 70; Myra Thompson, 59; Daniel Simmons Sr., 74; and Tywanza Sanders, 26.

Jurors heard four days of heartrending testimony from more than 20 of the victims’ loved ones, who described their legacies of faith and the devastation wrought by Roof’s brutality.

“What’s wrong here is the calculated racism, the choice to target a church, particularly the people in a church,” Richardson told jurors. “What’s wrong here is precisely why this is a case that justifies the death penalty.”

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein and Jon Herskovitz; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Alan Crosby and Jonathan Oatis)