Plans to relocate Rohingya people in Myanmar’s Rakhine state promise to dash their dreams of returning to traditional life
For the past seven years, Mohammad has been able to see the beach on the outskirts of Sittwe, and the Indian Ocean beyond, only through a barbed wire fence.
“The only difference between a prison and the Rakhine camps is that in prison at least they know how long their sentence is,” says the 23-year-old, shaking his head.
Continue reading...Deaths follow wave of rumours and a hoax video intended to derail final push to eradicate the disease
A federal government campaign to vaccinate more than 40 million children under five against polio in Pakistan has been suspended following a series of attacks on workers and police over the past week.
On 23 April a police officer responsible for protecting polio workers was gunned down in Bannu. The same day, a polio worker was injured with a knife in Lahore by a man refusing to allow his child to be vaccinated, citing a recent hoax video that claimed children were becoming ill after the immunisations.
Continue reading...From violence and harassment to the pursuit of simple pleasures like playing football or riding a bicycle, women in Bangladesh encounter innumerable obstacles. Here, those on the frontline of that struggle discuss the challenges they have faced and the hurdles that remain
Girls in Bangladesh talk their way out of forced marriage
All photographs by Muhammad Murtada/British Council
Continue reading...Ban on face coverings in public introduced as 10,000 soldiers deployed to hunt for more suspects
Sri Lankan police have raided the headquarters of a hardline Islamist group founded by the suspected ringleader behind the Easter suicide bombings of churches and hotels. It comes as a ban on face coverings is due to come into force on Monday.
Armed police in the town of Kattankudy searched the headquarters of the National Thawheed Jammath (NTJ) and detained one man at the premises, a Reuters reporter at the scene said. Police did not comment.
Continue reading...A project in Bangladesh’s Narsingdi district is one of several making inroads on women’s rights, despite a wider conservative backlash that has proved deadly
When Modina Begum heard that a 13-year-old girl in her village in central Bangladesh was about to be married off, she went straight to the girl’s parents and persuaded them to cancel the wedding, rescuing the teenager from a fate Begum herself had escaped.
“I convinced my parents to call off my own marriage, let me finish my studies and become self-reliant before getting married,” says Begum, now 19, as she leads a group of girls in English and digital skills at the Edge club in Narsingdi district, 50 kilometres north-east of the capital, Dhaka. “Now my parents have faith in me and I have the confidence to speak out for others.”
Continue reading...As a security precaution, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith delivers televised sermon one week after Easter Sunday bombings
Sri Lanka’s Catholics awoke to celebrate Sunday mass in their homes by a televised broadcast as churches across the island nation shut over fears of militant attacks.
A week after Easter suicide bombings at three churches and three hotels killed at least 253 people, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, delivered a homily before members of the clergy and the country’s leaders in a small chapel at his Colombo residence – an extraordinary measure underlining the fear still gripping this nation of 21 million people.
Continue reading...Children and suicide bombers among the dead, say authorities, following fierce gun battle in east coast town
Fifteen people including six children have died during a raid on their home by Sri Lankan security forces in which three cornered suicide bombers detonated their explosives and others traded gunfire with police.
Police and soldiers fought a gun battle with occupants of the house for more than an hour on Friday night, a military spokesman said, during which three explosions rocked the property near the eastern town of Kalmunai, about 230 miles (370km) from the capital, Colombo.
Continue reading...Faith leaders say local youths were radicalised by extremist preacher Mohammed Zahran Hashim
It was crude stuff: young men armed with hammers, arriving on motorbikes in the middle of the night. At four sites in Mawanella, a central Sri Lankan town, they hacked at Buddhist statues, lopping off parts of their faces and hands.
In the aftermath of the desecration on 26 December 2018, police and local politicians were more concerned with defusing the anger of the Buddhist community and preventing religious riots of the kind that had rocked the nearby city of Digana eight months before.
Continue reading...Official cites difficulty of identifying victims as reason for revision
Sri Lankan authorities have revised the death toll from Easter Sunday’s string of bombings down to 253 people from the previous estimate of 359.
The country’s director general for health services issued the correction on Thursday, citing the difficulty of identifying victims due to the nature of the bombings, some of which took place in closely confined spaces and left some bodies in pieces.
Continue reading...CCTV video shows two suspected attackers in Sri Lanka's Easter Sunday bombings carrying backpacks into the Shangri-La hotel in the capital, Colombo, before the blast.
The bombings, which killed 359 people and injured 500, shattered the relative calm that has existed in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka over the past decade and raised fears of a return to sectarian violence.
Continue reading...Well-educated and wealthy, new details emerge about the nine suicide bombers
According to Sri Lanka’s defence minister, Ruwan Wijewardene, there were nine suicide bombers in total – mostly well-educated and from wealthy families. Eight have been identified and one of them was a woman, he said, though Sri Lankan authorities have refused to officially name any of the attackers yet.
One of the attackers is said to be Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, who studied aerospace engineering at Kingston University in London from 2006 to 2007.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Foreign agencies warned officials of terrorist threat four months ago
Sri Lankan authorities were told by foreign security agencies more than four months ago that a network of violent Islamic extremists was active in the country and likely to commit terrorist attacks, regional and western officials have said.
The revelation that officials may have known last year about the threat posed by those responsible for the Easter Sunday bombings that killed more than 350 people will fuel outrage at what now appears to be multiple and systematic intelligence failings.
Continue reading...Country’s president announces major security overhaul after authorities confirm they were warned about attacks
One of the attackers who carried out the devastating suicide bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday had studied in the UK and Australia, the country’s defence minister has said.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the bombings, believed to be the most lethal ever conducted by the group.
Continue reading...Most who died were locals, but victims – including young children – came from across the world
Sri Lankan authorities have confirmed that 359 people were killed in a wave of suicide bombings on the island on Easter Sunday. Since then, the names and stories of those who died have begun to emerge. This list does not include all the victims, the vast majority of whom were Sri Lankans.
Continue reading...Negombo struggles with scale of its loss as victims of Easter attack are buried in mass graves
A father with his arms around the shoulders of his two daughters. Parents and children posing for a family portrait. Dozens of black-and-white photographs of individuals. On posters and leaflets plastered across Negombo, the faces of the dead were everywhere on Tuesday, as mass funerals were held for those killed in Sunday’s terrorist attack.
Outside St Sebastian’s church, where at least 100 people were killed, a makeshift chapel was built under a tent in the courtyard. Throughout the morning, more than 20 coffins were carried in, one-by-one, before a mass funeral service. “There are so many bodies that we can’t accommodate them all at once,” said Anthony Jayakody, Colombo’s auxiliary bishop.
Continue reading...Bombings that killed more than 320 people have hallmarks of Isis, say security experts
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka that killed more than 320 people, the group’s Amaq news agency has said, with experts saying the attacks bear the hallmarks of the group.
It is the deadliest overseas operation claimed by Isis since it proclaimed its “caliphate” almost five years ago, and would suggest it retains the ability to launch devastating strikes around the world despite multiple defeats in the Middle East.
Continue reading...Local group National Towheed Jamaat would have needed help to mount such a complex operation
Three days after the bombings of churches and luxury hotels that killed over 300 people in Sri Lanka, Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the atrocity.
The claim was not unexpected. The bombings – multiple suicide attacks designed to cause mass casualties among Christian worshippers on Easter Sunday and among tourists too – had all the hallmarks of an Isis attack. The group needs to prove its capability and relevance after suffering defeat in its core heartland in Syria and Iraq. It still commands support among a network of sympathisers across the Islamic world. It had the motives and the means.
Continue reading...New footage has emerged appearing to show a suspected suicide bomber entering St Sebastian's church in Negombo. The subsequent explosion was the deadliest of the series of coordinated bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, killing more than 50 people. The footage was broadcast widely on Sri Lankan news channels
After reports of transgender people being refused treatment, a new centre offers specialised services – and respite from discrimination
Vivek Sharma has travelled 20km from his home to the congested eastern suburb of Mumbai for his HIV treatment. But the journey is no hardship for the 23-year-old student.
“My file was shifted to this clinic. I am so happy that this has finally happened.”
Continue reading...At least 290 people have now been confirmed killed and 500 injured by a series of eight explosions
The Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has sent his condolences to the victims of Sunday’s suicide bombings. One Japanese citizen died in the attacks.
I would like to offer my prayers for the victims of the attacks, as well as my heartfelt condolences to the families of the deceased and my sympathies to the wounded.
Japan expresses sincere solidarity with Sri Lankan people to overcome this difficult time.
An update from our south Asia correspondent, who was near the controlled explosion outside a church in Colombo.
There was chaos outside St Anthony’s Church on Monday afternoon after a suspicious package was discovered inside the dense neighbourhood that surrounds the house of worship that was gutted by a bomb on Easter Sunday.
Police have now clarified it was a controlled explosion of a suspicious package found in a van https://t.co/wWfvpYHmeQ
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