Tag Archives: killings

U.N. seeks rapid increase in Rohingya aid; Myanmar finds more bodies

People wait to receive aid in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, September 25, 2017.

By Rahul Bhatia

DHAKA (Reuters) – Muslim refugees seeking shelter in Bangladesh from “unimaginable horrors” in Myanmar face enormous hardship and risk a dramatic deterioration in circumstances unless aid is stepped up, the head of the U.N. refugee agency said on Monday.

The warning came as Myanmar government forces found the bodies of 17 more Hindu villagers, taking to 45 the number found since Sunday, who authorities suspect were killed by Muslim insurgents last month, at the beginning of a wave of violence that has sent 436,000 Muslim Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh.

The violence in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State and the refugee exodus is the biggest crisis the government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has faced since it came to power last year in a transition from nearly 50 years of military rule.

It has also threatened to drive a wedge in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), with Muslim-majority Malaysia disavowing a statement on the Myanmar situation from the bloc’s chairman, the Philippines, as misrepresenting “the reality”.

A Rohingya refugee girl reacts as people scuffle while waiting to receive aid in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, September 25, 2017.

A Rohingya refugee girl reacts as people scuffle while waiting to receive aid in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton

U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees Filippo Grandi told a news conference in Bangladesh that “solutions to this crisis lie with Myanmar”.

But until then, the world had to help the “deeply traumatized” refugees facing enormous hardship, whom he had met on a weekend visit to camps in southeast Bangladesh.

“They had seen villages burned down, families shot or hacked to death, women and girls brutalized,” Grandi said.

He called for aid to be “rapidly stepped up” and thanked Bangladesh for keeping its border open.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar regards the Rohingya Muslims as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Fighting between Muslim insurgents and government forces has flared periodically for decades.

The latest violence began on Aug. 25 when militants from a little-known group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), attacked about 30 police posts and an army camp.

The United Nations has described a sweeping military response as ethnic cleansing, with refugees and rights groups accusing Myanmar forces and Buddhist vigilantes of violence and arson aimed at driving Rohingya out.

The United States has said the Myanmar action was disproportionate and has called for an end to the violence.

Myanmar rejects accusations of ethnic cleansing, saying it is fighting terrorists. It has said more than 400 people have been killed, most of them insurgents.

 

HINDUS KILLED

Members of Myanmar’s small Hindu minority appear to have been caught in the middle.

Some have fled to Bangladesh, complaining of violence against them by soldiers or Buddhist vigilantes. Others have complained of being attacked by the insurgents on suspicion of being government spies.

Authorities have found the bodies of 45 Hindus buried outside a village in the north of Rakhine State, a government spokesman said, and they were looking for more.

Rohingya refugees walk through a camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton

Rohingya refugees walk through a camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, September 25, 2017. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton

A search was mounted after a refugee in Bangladesh contacted a Hindu community leader in Myanmar to say about 300 ARSA militants had marched about 100 people out of the village on Aug. 25 and killed them, the government said.

Access to the area by journalists as well as human rights workers and aid workers is largely restricted and Reuters could not independently verify the report.

An ARSA spokesman dismissed the accusation that the group had killed the Hindus, saying Buddhist nationalists were trying to divide Hindus and Muslims.

“ARSA has internationally pledged not to target civilians and that remains unchanged, no matter what,” the spokesman, who is based in a neighboring country and identified himself only as Abdullah, told Reuters through a messaging service.

The government spokesman, Zaw Htay, said Myanmar had asked Bangladesh to send Hindu refugees home. Suu Kyi has said any refugee verified as coming from Myanmar can return under a 1993 pact with Bangladesh.

A Reuters reporter in Bangladesh said Rohingya refugees were still arriving there, with about 50 seen on Monday.

In a public display of discord within ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member, Malaysia disassociated itself from a statement issued by group chair the Philippines as it misrepresented the situation and did not identify the Rohingya as one of the affected communities.

Myanmar objects to the term Rohingya, saying the Muslims of Rakhine State are not a distinct ethnic group.

This month, Malaysia summoned Myanmar’s ambassador to express displeasure over the violence, as well as grave concern over atrocities.

 

(Additional reporting by Wa Lone, Shoon Naing in YANGON, Andrew Marshall in BANGKOK, Joseph Sipalan in KUALA LUMPUR, Tommy Wilkes in COX’S BAZAR; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

 

U.N. team to collect evidence of Islamic State crimes in Iraq

The United Nations Security Council meets to discuss adopting a resolution to help preserve evidence of Islamic State crimes in Iraq, during the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. Headquarters in New York, U.S., September 21, 2017.

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations Security Council on Thursday approved the creation of a U.N. investigative team to collect, preserve and store evidence in Iraq of acts by Islamic State that may be war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

The 15-member council unanimously adopted a British-drafted resolution, after months of negotiations with Iraq, that asks Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to establish a team “to support domestic efforts” to hold the militants accountable.

Use of the evidence collected by the team in other venues, such as international courts, would “be determined in agreement with the Government of Iraq on a case by case basis.”

U.N. experts said in June last year that Islamic State was committing genocide against the Yazidis in Syria and Iraq to destroy the minority religious community through killings, sexual slavery and other crimes.

International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and Nadia Murad, a young Yazidi woman who was enslaved and raped by Islamic State fighters in Mosul, have long pushed Iraq to allow U.N. investigators to help.

Activist Amal Clooney (R) attends a United Nations Security Council meeting set to adopt a resolution to help preserve evidence of Islamic State crimes in Iraq, during the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. Headquarters in New York, U.S., September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan

Activist Amal Clooney (R) attends a United Nations Security Council meeting set to adopt a resolution to help preserve evidence of Islamic State crimes in Iraq, during the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. Headquarters in New York, U.S., September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan Mcdermid

The Security Council met during the annual gathering of world leaders for the U.N. General Assembly.

Iraq’s foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari officially requested international help in a letter to the Security Council last month. The council could have established an inquiry without Iraq’s consent, but Britain wanted Iraq’s approval.

Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate effectively collapsed in July, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces completed the recapture of Mosul, the militants’ capital in northern Iraq, after a nine-month campaign.

 

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Grant McCool)

 

Exclusive: ‘We will kill you all’ – Rohingya villagers in Myanmar beg for safe passage

A Rohingya refugee girl collects rain water at a makeshift camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, September 17, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

By Wa Lone and Andrew R.C. Marshall

SITTWE, Myanmar (Reuters) – Thousands of Rohingya Muslims in violence-racked northwest Myanmar are pleading with authorities for safe passage from two remote villages that are cut off by hostile Buddhists and running short of food.

“We’re terrified,” Maung Maung, a Rohingya official at Ah Nauk Pyin village, told Reuters by telephone. “We’ll starve soon and they’re threatening to burn down our houses.”

Another Rohingya contacted by Reuters, who asked not to be named, said ethnic Rakhine Buddhists came to the same village and shouted, “Leave, or we will kill you all.”

Fragile relations between Ah Nauk Pyin and its Rakhine neighbors were shattered on Aug. 25, when deadly attacks by Rohingya militants in Rakhine State prompted a ferocious response from Myanmar’s security forces.

At least 430,000 Rohingya have since fled into neighboring Bangladesh to evade what the United Nations has called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

About a million Rohingya lived in Rakhine State until the recent violence. Most face draconian travel restrictions and are denied citizenship in a country where many Buddhists regard them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Tin Maung Swe, secretary of the Rakhine State government, told Reuters he was working closely with the Rathedaung authorities, and had received no information about the Rohingya villagers’ plea for safe passage.

“There is nothing to be concerned about,” he said when asked about local tensions. “Southern Rathedaung is completely safe.”

National police spokesman Myo Thu Soe said he also had no information about the Rohingya villages but that he would look into the matter.

Asked to comment, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department’s East Asia Bureau made no reference to the situation in the villages, but said the United States was calling “urgently” for Myanmar’s security forces “to act in accordance with the rule of law and to stop the violence and displacement suffered by individuals from all communities.”

“Tens of thousands of people reportedly lack adequate food, water, and shelter in northern Rakhine State,” spokeswoman Katina Adams said. “The government should act immediately to assist them.”

Adams said Patrick Murphy, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia, would reiterate grave U.S. concern about the situation in Rakhine when he meets senior officials in Myanmar this week.

Britain is to host a ministerial meeting on Monday on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York to discuss the situation in Rakhine.

 

NO BOATS

Ah Nauk Pyin sits on a mangrove-fringed peninsula in Rathedaung, one of three townships in northern Rakhine State. The villagers say they have no boats.

Until three weeks ago, there were 21 Muslim villages in Rathedaung, along with three camps for Muslims displaced by previous bouts of religious violence. Sixteen of those villages and all three camps have since been emptied and in many cases burnt, forcing an estimated 28,000 Rohingya to flee.

Rathedaung’s five surviving Rohingya villages and their 8,000 or so inhabitants are encircled by Rakhine Buddhists and acutely vulnerable, say human rights monitors.

The situation is particularly dire in Ah Nauk Pyin and nearby Naung Pin Gyi, where any escape route to Bangladesh is long, arduous, and sometimes blocked by hostile Rakhine neighbors.

Maung Maung, the Rohingya official, said the villagers were resigned to leaving but the authorities had not responded to their requests for security. At night, he said, villagers had heard distant gunfire.

“It’s better they go somewhere else,” said Thein Aung, a Rathedaung official, who dismissed Rohingya allegations that Rakhines were threatening them.

Only two of the Aug. 25 attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) took place in Rathedaung. But the township was already a tinderbox of religious tension, with ARSA citing the mistreatment of Rohingya there as one justification for its offensive.

In late July, Rakhine residents of a large, mixed village in northern Rathedaung corraled hundreds of Rohingya inside their neighborhood, blocking access to food and water.

A similar pattern is repeating itself in southern Rathedaung, with local Rakhine citing possible ARSA infiltration as a reason for ejecting the last remaining Rohingya.

 

‘ANOTHER PLACE’

Maung Maung said he had called the police at least 30 times to report threats against his village.

On Sept. 13, he said, he got a call from a Rakhine villager he knew. “Leave tomorrow or we’ll come and burn down all your houses,” said the man, according to a recording Maung Maung gave to Reuters.

When Maung Maung protested that they had no means to escape, the man replied: “That’s not our problem.”

On Aug. 31, the police convened a roadside meeting between two villages, attended by seven Rohingya from Ah Nauk Pyin and 14 Rakhine officials from the surrounding villages.

Instead of addressing the Rohingya complaints, said Maung Maung and two other Rohingya who attended the meeting, the Rakhine officials delivered an ultimatum.

“They said they didn’t want any Muslims in the region and we should leave immediately,” said the Rohingya resident of Ah Nauk Pyin who requested anonymity.

The Rohingya agreed, said Maung Maung, but only if the authorities provided security.

He showed Reuters a letter that the village elders had sent to the Rathedaung authorities on Sept. 7, asking to be moved to “another place”. They had yet to receive a response, he said.

People reach out during the distribution of bananas in a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, September 17, 2017.

People reach out during the distribution of bananas in a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, September 17, 2017. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton

VIOLENT HISTORY

Relations between the two communities deteriorated in 2012, when religious unrest in Rakhine State killed nearly 200 people and made 140,000 homeless, most of them Rohingya. Scores of houses in Ah Nauk Pyin were torched.

Since then, said villagers, Rohingya have been too scared to leave the village or till their land, surviving mainly on monthly deliveries from the World Food Programme (WFP). The recent violence halted those deliveries.

The WFP pulled out most staff and suspended operations in the region after Aug. 25.

Residents in the area’s two Rohingya villages said they could no longer venture out to fish or buy food from Rakhine traders, and were running low on food and medicines.

Maung Maung said the local police told the Rohingya to stay in their villages and not to worry because “nothing would happen,” he said.

But the nearest police station had only half a dozen or so officers, he said, and could not do much if Ah Nauk Pyin was attacked.

A few minutes’ walk away, at the Rakhine village of Shwe Long Tin, residents were also on edge, said its leader, Khin Tun Aye.

They had also heard gunfire at night, he said, and were guarding the village around the clock with machetes and slingshots in case the Rohingya attacked with ARSA’s help.

“We’re also terrified,” he said.

He said he told his fellow Rakhine to stay calm, but the situation remained so tense that he feared for the safety of his Rohingya neighbors.

“If there is violence, all of them will be killed,” he said.

 

(Reporting by Wa Lone and Andrew R.C. Marshall; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Ian Geoghegan and Peter Cooney)

 

Deadly protests mar Venezuela ballot as voters snub Maduro assembly

Flames erupt as clashes break out near security forces members (R) while the Constituent Assembly election is being carried out in Caracas, Venezuela,

By Alexandra Ulmer and Anggy Polanco

CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela, (Reuters) – Deadly protests rocked Venezuela on Sunday as voters broadly boycotted an election for a constitutional super-body that unpopular leftist President Nicolas Maduro vowed would begin a “new era of combat” in the crisis-stricken nation.

Anti-Maduro activists wearing hoods or masks erected barricades on roads, and scuffles broke out with security forces who moved in quickly to disperse demonstrators who denounced the election as a naked power grab by the president.

Authorities said 10 people were killed in the confrontations, which made Sunday one of the deadliest days since massive protests started in early April.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro show his ballot as casts his vote at a polling station during the Constituent Assembly election in Caracas, Venezuela July 30, 2017.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro show his ballot as casts his vote at a polling station during the Constituent Assembly election in Caracas, Venezuela July 30, 2017. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS

Maduro, widely disliked for overseeing an unraveling of Venezuela’s economy, has promised the assembly will bring peace by way of a new constitution after four months of opposition protests in which more than 120 people have been killed.

Opposition parties sat out the election, saying it was rigged to increase Maduro’s powers, a view shared by countries including Spain, Canada, Colombia and the United States.

The Trump administration is considering imposing U.S. sanctions on Venezuela’s vital oil sector in response to Sunday’s election, U.S. officials said.

Potential U.S. sanctions on sales of light crude to Venezuela’s oil company PDVSA would hamper its already weak refining network.

Caracas was largely shut down, streets were deserted and polling stations were mostly empty, dealing a blow to the legitimacy of the vote. A bomb exploded in the capital and wounded seven police officers in what could be the spread of more aggressive tactics.

Critics say the assembly will allow Maduro to dissolve the opposition-run Congress, delay future elections and rewrite electoral rules to prevent the socialists from being voted out of power. The opposition vowed to hold protests again on Monday and to keep pressuring Maduro’s cash-strapped government until he’s forced from office.

“Even if they win today, this won’t last long,” said opposition supporter Berta Hernandez, a 60-year-old doctor in a wealthier Caracas district. “I’ll continue on the streets because, not long from now, this will come to an end.”

Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader narrowly elected in 2013, dismisses criticism of the assembly as right-wing propaganda aimed at sabotaging the brand of socialism created by his mentor and predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez.

“The ’emperor’ Donald Trump wanted to halt the Venezuelan people’s right to vote,” said Maduro as he rapidly voted at 6 a.m. in a low-income area of Caracas that has turned on the government.

“A new era of combat will begin. We’re going all out with this constituent assembly,” he said.

But with polls showing some 70 percent of Venezuelans oppose the vote, the country’s 2.8 million state employees are under huge pressure to participate – with some two dozen sources telling Reuters they were being threatened with dismissal. Workers were being blasted with text messages and phone calls asking them to vote and report back after doing so.

The opposition estimated participation was at around a paltry 12 percent, but warned the government was gearing up to announce some 8.5 million people had voted.

 

‘SLAP MADURO’

Fueling anger against Maduro is an unprecedented economic meltdown in the country of some 30 million people, which was once a magnet for European migrants thanks to an oil boom that was the envy of Latin America.

However, nearly two decades of heavy currency and price controls have asphyxiated business. Venezuelans have seen their purchasing power shredded by the world’s highest inflation rate.

Millions of Venezuelans now struggle to eat three times a day due to shortages of products as basic as rice and flour.

“Sometimes I take bread from my mouth and give it to my two kids,” said pharmacy employee Trina Sanchez, 28, as she waited for a bus to work. “This is a farce. I want to slap Maduro.”

To show the massive scale of public anger, the opposition organized an unofficial referendum over Maduro’s plan earlier this month.

More than 7 million voters overwhelmingly rejected the constituent assembly and voted in favor of early elections.

The opposition’s bid last year to hold a recall referendum against Maduro was rejected, regional elections have been postponed and the president has repeatedly ignored Congress.

 

BOMB BLAST

In Sunday’s gravest incident, a bomb went off as a group of police officers on motorbikes sped past Caracas’ Altamira Plaza, an opposition stronghold. The state prosecutor’s office said seven officers were wounded and four motorbikes incinerated.

Clashes were also reported in the volatile Andean state of Tachira, whose capital is San Cristobal, where witnesses told Reuters an unidentified group of men had showed up at two separate street protests and shot at demonstrators.

Fatalities over the weekend included two teenagers and a candidate to the assembly killed during a robbery in the jungle state of Bolivar. The state’s Socialist Party governor, Francisco Rangel, said the death was a “political hit job” and blamed it on the opposition.

Supporters of “Chavismo,” the movement founded by Chavez, Maduro’s more charismatic predecessor who enjoyed high oil prices for much of his mandate, said they wanted to halt the unrest.

“The (opposition) wants deaths and roadblocks and the government wants peace,” said Olga Blanco, 50, voting for candidates to the assembly at a school in Caracas.

The assembly is due to sit within 72 hours of results being certified, with government loyalists such as powerful Socialist Party No. 2 Diosdado Cabello and Maduro’s wife and son expected to win seats.

 

(Additional reporting by Andreina Aponte, Girish Gupta, Corina Pons, Jaczo Gomez, Hugh Bronstein and Carlos Garcia in Caracas, Maria Ramirez in Puerto Ordaz, Mircely Guanipa in Punto Fijo, Francisco Aguilar in Barinas, Matt Spetalnick and Marianna Parraga in Houston; Writing by Brian Ellsworth, Girish Gupta and Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Sandra Maler and Paul Tait)

 

U.S. says Syrians built crematorium at prison to dispose of bodies

A satellite view of Sednaya prison complex near Damascus,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has evidence Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has built a crematorium at a large military prison outside the capital Damascus, a State Department official said on Monday.

Stuart Jones, acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, said U.S. officials believe the crematorium could be used to dispose of bodies at a prison where they believe Assad’s government authorized the mass hangings of thousands of inmates during Syria’s six-year-old civil war.

“Credible sources have believed that many of the bodies have been disposed in mass graves,” Jones told reporters. During the briefing, he showed aerial images of what he said was a crematorium.

“We now believe that the Syrian regime has installed a crematorium in the Sednaya prison complex which could dispose of detainees’ remains with little evidence.”

Amnesty International reported in February that an average of 20 to 50 people were hanged each week at the Sednaya military prison north of Damascus. Between 5,000 and 13,000 people were executed at Sednaya in the four years since a popular uprising descended into war, it said.

Jones also said he was not optimistic about a Russia-brokered deal to set up “de-escalation zones” inside Syria. The deal was reached with support from Iran and Turkey during ceasefire talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana earlier this month. Jones attended the talks.

“In light of the failures of the past ceasefire agreements, we have reason to be skeptical,” Jones said.

Jones said Assad’s government had carried out air strikes, chemical attacks, extrajudicial killings, starvation, and other measures to target civilians and its opponents. He criticized Russia and Iran for maintaining their support for Assad despite those tactics.

“These atrocities have been carried out seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran,” Jones said. “The (Assad) regime must stop all attacks on civilian and opposition forces. And Russia must bear responsibility to ensure regime compliance.”

He did not say what measures the United States might take if Russia does not change its stance.

Tensions between the United States and Russia heightened after President Donald Trump ordered a cruise missile strike in April against a Syrian air base that the United States said had been used to launch a poison gas attack on civilians.

Jones said he had not yet presented the evidence to Russian officials. He said he hoped Russia would help pressure the Assad government.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Bernadette Baum and David Gregorio)

Manila residents speak out about Duterte’s war on drugs

By Ezra Acayan

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte completes six months in charge on Friday, with the rising death toll from his war on drugs showing no sign of easing.

More than 6,000 people have been killed in the anti-narcotics drive since he took power, about a third in police operations with the rest still being investigated. Many are believed to be vigilante murders, which Duterte has refused to condemn.

The former crime-busting mayor of the southern city of Davao had said that the war on drugs would be over within six months but has since pushed back the deadline. Last month he said that he will continue “until the last pusher drops dead”.

His hardline measures have been criticized by many, including the United States and the United Nations, but Duterte retains a “very good” opinion poll rating at home, the Philippine Social Weather Stations survey group said this month.

On the streets of Manila, residents from a variety of professions gave their thoughts.

Felicidad Magdayao, 59, owner of a fast-food restaurant.

“Our business has really suffered. People are afraid to go out. At dawn we only have few customers. At least, there are fewer drug addicts and drug pushers.”

Ronaldo David, 49, police officer.

“My load in filing cases in the office has been reduced. I am now more focused on educating people and in prevention.”

Cristine Angelie Garcia, 24, call centre agent.

“Maybe there is another way where people do not need to die,” she said, adding she felt safer walking the streets at night.

“I’m on Duterte’s side. Maybe he’s just misunderstood because he grew up on the streets.”

Rosalina Perez, 41, from Tondo district. Perez is the sister of Benjamin Visda, who was killed by police during a drug investigation.

“At first, we liked what he (Duterte) was doing. But as it went on I started to question what he was doing. Everyone who wants to change are just killed. They are not even given a chance to explain themselves to the authorities.”

Weng Ruda, 36, mother of three. Lives in a slum at the foot of Payatas dumpsite in Quezon city.

“I like that he is very tough. There are no children loitering around now. They also avoid picking up bad habits.”

Zainab Omar, 41, teacher, from Taguig city.

“The children are safer now. Parents used to accompany their children to school before Duterte sat as president. Now they let their children go to school by themselves.”

Graciano De Leon, 19, parking attendant, from Paranaque city.

“What he is doing is good. He gave jobs to many people and many are happy with him. I just don’t know about the families (of those killed) if that is good for them.”

Marianito Navarra, 54, village watchman in Pasay city.

“I pity the families of those who are killed, especially those who really had nothing to do with crime. There have been a lot of people who were killed that weren’t really involved with drugs. They should just arrest them.”

Bobby Dela Cruz, 54, Catholic priest and former drug addict.

“These people (drug addicts) are fighting for their lives. They need our help. We must help these people.”

Jose Cecilia Jr., 51, owns a trucking company, from Santa Rosa town in Laguna province.

“I give one hundred percent for Duterte. He’s the only president who is fighting the drug lords and other syndicates in our country.”

Kimee Enciso, 21, student, from Quezon city.

“When it comes to him being too tough, I think it is just right. He’s our leader and he’s only doing it for our sake.”

Orly Fernandez, 64, operational manager at Eusebio Funeral Services in Navotas city. Fernandez lives in the funeral parlor.

“Before maybe we pick up one body per day, now we get around two or three bodies a day.”

Sandro Gabriel Jr, 34, grave digger at Pasay Public Cemetery.

“A lot of people who have been shot have been buried here. More than 40 people have recently been buried here,” he said.

“…I am not saying Duterte should keep killing people. But for us, we will keep working as long as there is work.”

(Editing by Patrick Johnston and Nick Macfie)

Islamic State brutality comes to light after military advance

Clothes of prisoners who were detained by Islamic State militants are seen in Hammam al-Ali, south of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq

By Stephen Kalin

HAMMAM AL-ALIL, Iraq (Reuters) – From behind the curtains of his bedroom window, 29-year-old Riyad Ahmed would peer out at Islamic State fighters dragging civilians into a makeshift jail across the street and then sending them in the middle of the night to be executed.

The former English teacher from the town of Hammam al-Alil,  south of the jihadists’ Mosul stronghold, recalls hearing victims’ cries of agony as he hid with dozens of neighbors in the shadow of one of the group’s detention centers.

“The devil himself would be astounded by Daesh’s methods of torture. It is beyond the imagination,” said Ahmed, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Iraq’s army and federal police, participating in a U.S.-backed offensive launched last month to recapture the largest population center under the jihadists’ control, retook this area over the weekend.

As the forces advance, details of Islamic State’s brutality and growing desperation, which have trickled out of its self-proclaimed caliphate over the past two years, are being reinforced by first-hand accounts of residents.

Standing on the road between his house and the jail on Monday, Ahmed told Reuters that no part of Hammam al-Alil had been spared from the ultra-hardline Sunni Islamists’ violence.

In his street alone, he said six people he knew had been executed, including his father and a family of three that lived next door.

Aid organizations, local officials and Mosul residents have cited reports that Islamic State executed dozens of people in Hammam al-Alil and barracks nearby over the course of a week, on suspicion of planning rebellions in and around Mosul to aid the advancing troops.

Abdul Rahman al-Waggaa, a member of the Nineveh provincial council, told Reuters last month that most of the victims were former police and army members.

Islamic State had used the town’s agricultural college as “a killing field” for hundreds of people in the days before the Iraqi government advance, Ahmed said.

“They would torture them inside and then take them out of the neighborhood and either shoot them or slit their throats.”

Police backed up his accounts, but the road to the college was still lined with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on Monday, preventing Reuters from visiting.

The military says its forces at the complex have discovered the decapitated corpses of at least 100 civilians.

HIDING

The jail opposite Ahmed’s house was once the home of an army officer who fled Islamic State’s blitz across a third of Iraq’s territory in 2014. Its walls are covered in soot from a fire apparently set by fleeing fighters, but metal cages only slightly larger than an adult male are still intact.

Ahmed, who learned English when U.S. forces occupied Iraq for nine years after toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003, was delighted to speak to a foreign reporter after two years during which he feared he would be killed for using English.

“We have been living in hell, like zombies,” he said.

Residents still in Hammam al-Alil on Monday told how they packed into homes with nearly 100 other people each for days to avoid being forced to flee to Mosul as Islamic State retreated.

“They didn’t know we were here. We didn’t make a sound. No lights, no sound, no speaking at all,” said Ahmed.

His family had stored food to avoid going outside but everyone lost weight, he said. Using the bathroom was a challenge.

As the town’s remaining residents emerged from their homes on Monday, neighbors greeted each other for the first time in many days.

An army lieutenant, back in Hammam al-Alil after taking refuge on a mountain for more than a week following the escalation of executions of security personnel, said he witnessed Islamic State kill people in a nearby field.

Thousands of civilians, including many from villages further south who had been forced to serve as human shields for the jihadists, escaped to government camps over the weekend while others were forced deeper into Islamic State-held territory.

“If the forces had come just a few days later, we would be in Mosul now. Daesh wanted to take us,” said Ahmed.

Others were not so lucky.

Tariq, an engineering student, said he had barricaded himself inside his home with dozens of neighbors for four days before Islamic State fled, refusing fighters’ demands to leave with them.

At one point, he said, the fighters had donned army fatigues and managed to trick a few families into believing they were arriving Iraqi forces. When the civilians went out to greet them, Tariq said, they were executed.

“Even a one-year-old baby, they put a bullet in his head.”

(Editing by Dominic Evans and Angus MacSwan)

Ethiopian protesters attack factories in Africa’s rising economic star

Demonstrators chant slogans while flashing the Oromo protest gesture during Irreecha, the thanksgiving festival of the Oromo people, in Bishoftu town, Oromiya region, Ethiopia, i

By Aaron Maasho

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Protesters in Ethiopia damaged almost a dozen mostly foreign-owned factories and flower farms and destroyed scores of vehicles this week, adding economic casualties to a rising death toll in a wave of unrest over land grabs and rights.

The violence has cast a shadow over a nation where a state-led industrial drive has created one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, but where the government has also faced rising international criticism and popular opposition to its authoritarian approach to development.

The flare-up followed the death of at least 55 people in a stampede on Sunday when police fired tear gas and shot into the air to disperse demonstrators in the Oromiya region near the capital.

It raises to more than 450 the number of people rights groups and opponents say have been killed in unrest since 2015. A U.S. researcher was killed on Tuesday when her car was attacked by stone-throwers near Addis Ababa.

UC Davis post doctoral student Sharon Gray

UC Davis post doctoral student Sharon Gray is shown November 20, 2014. Photo courtesy of Plant Biology Dept/UC Davis/Handout via REUTERS

The government says the toll cited by critics is inflated.

Fana Broadcasting, which is seen as close to the state, reported on its website that 11 companies ranging from textile firms to a plastics maker to flower farms had been damaged or destroyed, while more than 60 vehicles had been torched.

Dutch firm FV SeleQt said its 300-hectare vegetable farm and warehouse had been plundered. Another Dutch firm, Africa Juice, said its factory had been partially destroyed.

The manager of one of the Turkish companies, textile firm Saygin Dima, told Reuters this week at least a third of his factory was burned down.

Fana’s website showed images of burned-out trucks on the road side, blaming the damage on “perpetrators of violence”, echoing the line taken by the government, which accuses local rebel groups and dissidents based abroad for stoking the unrest.

It said the firms damaged had created 40,000 jobs in a country of 99 million people that has long been blighted by famine but which has been rapidly transforming its fortunes, delivering growth rates that hit 10 percent in fiscal 2015/16.

Demonstrators chant slogans while flashing the Oromo protest gesture during Irreecha, the thanksgiving festival of the Oromo people, in Bishoftu town, Oromia region, Ethiopia,

Demonstrators chant slogans while flashing the Oromo protest gesture during Irreecha, the thanksgiving festival of the Oromo people, in Bishoftu town, Oromia region, Ethiopia, October 2, 2016. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri

STRUGGLING FOR WORK

People from Oromiya, a region at the heart of the state’s industrialization efforts, accuse the state of seizing their land and offering tiny compensation, before selling it on to companies, often foreign investors, at inflated prices.

They also say they struggle to find work, even when a new factory is sited on property they or their families once owned.

“I went to apply for a job at a steel factory that was built on my family’s land but I was turned away when they discovered I was the son of the previous land owner,” said Mulugeta, who asked for only his first name to be used to avoid any state reprisals.

“Most factories give priority to employees from other regions for fear local people would one day stage strikes,” he said, speaking by telephone from Oromiya where he now drives a truck for another company.

In Ethiopia, once ruled by Marxists whose draconian policies drove the nation into a devastating 1984 famine, all land still belongs to the state and owners are only deemed leaseholders, even if they have been living or farming there for generations.

For the state, it means a swift and legally uncomplicated route to ejecting leaseholders to make way for new factories and construction of highways and railways, including a 750-km electrified line opened this week that links the capital of landlocked Ethiopia with Djibouti’s busy sea port.

For the opposition and those turfed out of farm plots where they grow food for their families, it shows how the government that has ruled for quarter of a decade tramples on their rights.

“It is time for the government to change tack,” said Merera Gudina, chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress. “People are demanding change, but the problem is the only language the government knows is the use of excessive force.”

The government says police have clashed with what it calls “armed gangs” intent on destabilizing the nation. A regional Oromo official accused protesters of hindering efforts to reverse generations of poverty in Oromiya.

Pressure has been mounting from abroad too. U.S. President Barack Obama told his Ethiopian hosts in Addis Ababa last year that greater political openness would “strengthen rather than inhibit” the development agenda. The government said it differed over the pace of any reforms demanded by Washington.

“Economic development has outpaced political change,” said former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and academic David Shinn.

Noting “phenomenal” economic gains, he said: “It is less clear, however, whether the Ethiopian peasant farmer, who still constitutes about 80 percent of the population, has benefited significantly.”

FEELING THE HEAT

Foreign investors are feeling the heat from protesters, not because they are foreigners but because they are among the biggest purchasers of the new land leases from the state.

Ethiopia’s budding tourist industry is also taking a hit. The Bishangari Lodge, on Lake Langano about 200 km south of Addis Ababa, was looted and torched this week.

Resort owner Omar Bagersh said, even before the attack, he had had 90 percent cancellations in the past two or three months. “It is very difficult to convince a tourist to travel to a country that has this kind of situation,” he said.

Investors have been attracted by cheap electricity from Ethiopia’s huge new hydroelectric dams being built, cheap labor, improving transport and tax incentives offered by a financially stretched government hungry for foreign exchange.

New industries have been focused in Oromiya and the nearby Amhara regions, which surround Addis Ababa, a city that now boasts Sub-Saharan Africa’s only light rail metro system and a rapidly rising skyline.

Protests in Oromiya province initially erupted in 2014 over a development plan for the capital that would have expanded its boundaries, a move seen as threatening farmland.

Clashes with police flared in 2015 and this year, although the government has shelved the boundary plan.

Protesters have increasingly focused on broader political issues, accusing the government of stifling opposition. The government, which won a parliamentary election in 2015 in which the opposition failed to secure a single seat, denies this.

(Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Edmund Blair in Nairobi; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

U.N. raps Congo after at least 50 killed in protests

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein attends the 33rd session of the Human Rights Council at the U.N. European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland,

GENEVA (Reuters) – The U.N. human rights chief accused Congolese authorities on Thursday of taking an “extremely confrontational position” towards anti-government protesters and urged them to seek dialogue with the opposition.

Democratic Republic of Congo has for months suffered simmering anger over what opponents of President Joseph Kabila believe are his efforts to hold on to power beyond his constitutional term limit, either by delaying elections or revising the constitution, as other African leaders have done.

U.N. rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein said the death toll from clashes between protesters and security forces on Monday in the Congolese capital Kinshasa had risen to at least 50. The government has put the death toll at 32.

A woman cries for her husband in front of a UDPS office in Kinshasa

A Congolese woman cries for her husband, who according to witnesses was killed when security forces burned down the headquarters of the main opposition party Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), in front of a UDPS office in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, September 22, 2016. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

 

“The writing is on the wall and the authorities need to pull back from their extremely confrontational position and build bridges with the opposition,” Zeid said in a statement.

“Some civilians were killed by gunshots to the head or chest and I strongly condemn the clearly excessive use of force by defense and security forces against demonstrators in the capital,” he said.

Congo’s attorney general vowed on Wednesday to hunt down and punish those responsible for Monday’s riots.

The electoral commission has said that polls that were supposed to happen in November will now not go ahead until at least next year, increasing concerns that Kabila plans to hold on to power beyond his constitutional mandate.

Kabila’s office, in a statement on Wednesday, called for calm and invited “the entire population to go about their daily activities now that security is again fully ensured”.

World powers, especially the United States, have heaped pressure on Kabila to respect the constitution and hold elections on time. They are also growing increasingly concerned over what they say are efforts to stifle peaceful protest.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Emergency call log details horror of Orlando Nightclub shooting

Jose Louis Morales sits and prays under his brother Edward Sotomayor Jr.'s cross that is part of a makeshift memorial for the victims of the Pulse night club shootings in Orlando

By Colleen Jenkins

(Reuters) – After a gunman opened fire at a nightclub in Florida this month, police dispatchers fielded calls from people inside who screamed of being shot, begged for help and spoke in hushed voices of the bloody scene around them.

The 911 operators’ notes, made public on Tuesday, are part of an Orlando Police Department incident narrative that began at 2:02 a.m. on June 12 with two words: “Shots fired.”

Over the next three hours, operators recorded hearing people screaming and multiple shots fired as Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

There were also periods of eerie silence.

“My caller is no longer responding, just an open line with moaning,” an operator wrote at 2:09 a.m.

The calls came from Pulse nightclub’s bathrooms, attic, dressing room and office. People reported being shot in the arm, shoulder, leg, chest, stomach, according to the police log.

One victim shot in the leg and rib was said to be “losing a lot of blood.”

Another note described someone in a bathroom whispering, “Please help.”

Nearly an hour into the rampage, a caller to the police emergency number told a dispatcher that Mateen was saying he was a terrorist and claimed to have bombs strapped to his body, according to the notes.

The claim that he had bombs turned out to be false, but it convinced police to breach the rear wall of the bathrooms and confront the gunman.

At 5:15 a.m., the incident log included another two-word note: “Subject down.”

The city of Orlando has not released audio recordings of the 911 calls or any video recorded by police cameras at the shooting scene. Several media organizations filed a lawsuit last week to force the release of that information.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has released a partial transcript of a 911 call made by Mateen from the club, and brief summaries of three other calls made by the gunman.

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Additional reporting by Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Toni Reinhold)