Section:GDN 1N PaGe:20 Edition Date:190731 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 30/7/2019 19:50 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Wednesday 31 July 2019
(^20) World
Protesters halt
talks with Sudan
military after
children killed
Jason Burke
Zeinab Mohammed Khartoum
Sudanese protest leaders cancelled
talks with ruling generals as they
visited a town where at least fi ve
children were shot dead on Monday.
The head of Sudan’s ruling military
council had earlier said there had to
be immediate accountability over
the shootings , the state news agency
Suna reported. The United Nations has
called for an investigation into what
protesters called a massacre.
The children died when security
forces opened fi re on a protest in El-
Ob eid in central Sudan. The oldest was
16, the youngest 14, people said.
Witnesses described how mem-
bers of the Rapid Support Forces
Insurgents
kill fewer
civilians
than Kabul
and allies,
UN reports
Emma Graham-Harrison
Afghan forces and their international
allies killed more civilians in the fi rst
half of this year than the Taliban and
other militant groups, UN figures
show, extending a trend that began
in the fi rst quarter of the year.
This year is the fi rst since civilian
casualty records started over a dec-
ade ago that pro-government forces
have caused more deaths than insur-
gents, raising serious questions about
the western mission there.
For years, despite civilian deaths
and injuries caused by both sides, the
government in Kabul and its allies
had been able to point to UN statis-
tics showing that insurgents were the
biggest killer of Afghan civilians.
That is no longer the case. Overall
the report found 403 civilians were
killed by Afghan troops and 314 by
their international allies in the fi rst six
months of 2019. The Taliban, Islamic
State and other militant s killed 531.
Afghanistan is facing a critical few
weeks as peace talks with the Tali-
ban enter what many hope will be
their fi nal stages before a presidential
election set for the end of September.
There have been concerns that both
sides ramped up violence as the peace
process got under way to strengthen
negotiating position s. “Gaining
civilians. Two -fi fths of the deaths and
injuries from airstrikes were attributed
to international forces, the UN said –
in eff ect US airstrikes. Although the US
offi cially ended its combat mission in
Afghanistan in 2014, it still has special
forces on the ground and provides air
support to Afghan troops.
The government says the high toll
from air attacks is a result of mili-
tants hiding among civilians, but
international humanitarian law bars
the use of disproportionate force.
“The claim the Taliban use civilians
as shields is not an excuse for dispro-
portionate attacks,” Gossman said.
Militants have also attacked civil-
ians in violation of international law.
Those killed in violence targeting civil-
ians have included tribal elders , aid
workers, government offi cials and reli-
gious scholars.
leverage in peace talks should not
come at the cost of such carnage on
either side,” said Patti Gossman , an
associate Asia director at Human
Rights Watch.
Casualties were down by nearly
a quarter from record levels a year
earlier, but civilians were still being
killed and maimed at a “shocking and
unacceptable” rate, the U N said in its
regular report on the protection of
Ruth Maclean and agencies
Tanzanian police have arrested a
prominent investigative journalist and
say they are investigating his citizen-
ship, amid growing fears for the safety
of reporters in the east African country.
Erick Kabendera, who has written
for the Guardian and the East Afri-
can among other publications, was
detained on Monday at his house on
the outskirts of the commercial capi-
tal, Dar es Salaam, by a group of men
who claimed to be plainclothes police-
men, according to witnesses.
The men burst in and cut the
phone lines, Kabendera’s wife, Loyce,
told the Tanzanian newspaper the
Citizen , which called the incident an
“abduction”.
Police confi rmed yesterday that the
journalist was in custody but denied
he had been kidnapped. They said his
Dan Sabbagh
Defence and security editor
The UK has asked military represent-
atives of the US, France and other
European countries to a meeting in
Bahrain today in an attempt to create
an international mission to safeguard
shipping through the strait of Hormuz.
Britain is hoping that it can act as a
bridge between the US – which has the
largest military presence of a western
nation in the region – and countries
such as Germany, which are reluctant
to get involved in any mission led by
Washington.
Whitehall sources said the British
proposal to create a European-led mis-
sion to prevent future tanker seizures
by Iran was still alive despite the
dismissal of the former UK foreign sec-
retary Jeremy Hunt by the new prime
minister, Boris Johnson.
But they conceded its success
would be dependent on the involve-
ment of the US “whether at the head
of or in support of the mission”, whose
Fifth Fleet, responsible for the Gulf, is
based in Bahrain.
A British-fl agged oil tanker, the
Stena Impero, was seized by Iran ear-
lier this month. Iran said the tanker
had cut off its communications sys-
tem, but the UK says it was illegally
seized in Omani waters.
The seizure demonstrated the dif-
fi culties Britain has in protecting its
shipping in the strait of Hormuz, the
waterway bounded by Iran to the
north, through which around a fi fth
of the world’s oil passes.
Although a Royal Navy vessel,
HMS Montrose, was in the region try-
ing to protect British shipping, it was
an hour’s sail away when the seizure
occurred. A second British ship, HMS
Duncan, has been sent to the Gulf, but
the ships are trying to cover an area of
thousands of square miles.
The Iranian seizure came after
the UK seized an Iranian oil tanker
in Gibraltar that the British said was
bound for Syria in defi ance of EU
sanctions on supplying oil to the
regime of Bashar al-Assad.
British offi cials argue other Euro-
pean countries should get involved in
an international naval mission that has
latterly been an Anglo-Iranian dispute
because “they have skin in the game”
given the importance of the continu-
ity of the supply of oil.
The meeting is scheduled for this
afternoon and is not expected to lead
to an immediate outcome, British offi -
cials have indicated.
Separately, the US embassy in Ber-
lin confi rmed it had asked Germany,
as well as Britain and France, to join it
in a naval mission in the Gulf, which
could form part of the UK-led eff orts.
There is opposition among Ger-
many’s Social Democrats, the junior
partners in Angela Merkel’s ruling
coalition, to getting involved in a US-
led mission.
Arrest of top Tanzanian reporter
raises fears of media crackdown
UK promotes
international
eff ort to protect
shipping off
coast of Iran
▲ Erick Kabendera recently published
stories about the Tanzanian president
citizenship was being looked into. The
New York -based Committee to Pro-
tect Journalists said it was concerned
about Kabendera’s safety.
Since President John Magufuli won
Tanzania’s 2015 election repression
has increased and papers have been-
shut down. I n recent weeks Kabendera
has published stories about an alleged
plot within the ruling party to block
the president from running next year
for a second term.
At least 20
people died in
an attack on the
Kabul offi ce of a
vice-presidential
candidate on
Sunday
PHOTOGRAPH:
MOHAMMED ISMAIL/
REUTERS
717
531
Civilians killed
by Afghan
forces (403) and
international
allies (314) in the
six months to the
end of June 2019
The number of
non-combatants
killed by the
Taliban, Islamic
State and other
militant groups
in the same
period
(RSF) militia fi red on teenagers, many
of whom were in school uniform and
carrying school bags as they marched
peacefully in protest at shortages of
water, electricity and public transport
in El-Ob eid , the capital of North Kor-
dofan state. There were also reports of
at least one adult casualty.
Abdulwahab Abdo, a 17 -year -old
who was shot dead, had wounds to the
stomach and kidneys, said a relative.
The shootings were one of the
worst incidents in Sudan since the RSF
killed more than 120 people at a pro-
test site in Khartoum last month. The
government claims far fewer died in
that attack. The RSF are commanded
by Mohammed Dagalo , known as
Hemedti and seen as the most pow-
erful of the military rulers in charge
of Sudan since the ousting in April of
Omar al-Bashir.
The deaths on Monday prompted
further protests in El-Obeid, where
markets were shut , schools suspended
and a curfew imposed. Authorities
announced a state of emergency and
shut down internet access. The army
was deployed in the city. There were
also demonstrations in Khartoum,
Omdurman and Port Sudan.
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