Category Archives: Europe

‘We will haunt you’: survivors mark 25th anniversary of Srebrenica massacre – video report

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Bosnia is marking the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, in which more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were executed in July 1995.

The recently identified remains of nine victims were reburied in a memorial cemetery outside the town in eastern Bosnia; almost 7,000 of those killed have been buried here but further victims are still being found and identified.

The Srebrenica massacre is the only declared genocide in Europe since the second world war, but is being subjected to a growing chorus of denial

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Turkey’s ‘last Armenian village’ displays heritage that survived genocide

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More than century on, descendants of survivors who returned home open a museum to celebrate and preserve their culture

Vakifli, a village in Hatay, the small wedge of Turkey sandwiched between the Mediterranean and the border with Syria, has the melancholy honour of being known as the country’s “last Armenian village”.

These days, it is home to just 100 people, but Vakifli’s orange groves and traditional stone houses are rich with history. Every summer, thousands of visitors in search of a connection to their Armenian past descend on the tiny village to visit its church, buy locally made jams and soap, and listen to the West Armenian dialect.

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Serbian police arrest 71 in coronavirus protests

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Riots continue in Belgrade in protest against government handling of pandemic

Serbian police have detained 71 people after clashes during a fourth night of anti-government protests that were initially sparked by the announcement of a new coronavirus lockdown, a senior police official has said.

Fourteen police officers were injured when hundreds of demonstrators tried to storm the parliament building in downtown Belgrade on Friday evening, the police director, Vladimir Rebić, said. Several reporters were also hurt.

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Thousands march for French bus driver who died after attack by passengers over face masks – video

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Thousands of people took part in a silent march in Bayonne for Philippe Monguillot, 59, who was declared brain dead after an attack by passengers who refused to wear face masks. He later died in hospital.

The driver’s family organised the march from the bus stop where the assault took place. Monguillot's colleagues used their right to refuse to work in the aftermath of the attack but will resume work on Monday under reinforced security, the local operator said

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Survivors mark 25th anniversary of Srebrenica massacre

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Far fewer people than usual attend commemoration events in Bosnia, due to coronavirus

Bosnia has marked the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, the only declared genocide in Europe since the second world war, with a small number of survivors in attendance, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The execution in July 1995 of more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys is being commemorated in a series of events. There will also be a reburial of the recently identified remains of nine victims in a memorial cemetery outside the town in eastern Bosnia.

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Vast Brexit customs clearance centre to be built in Kent

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Exclusive: council given only hours’ notice of emergency purchase of 1.2m sq ft ‘Mojo’ site

The government has secretly purchased 11 hectares (27 acres) of land 20 miles from Dover to site a vast new Brexit customs clearance centre for the 10,000 lorries that come through the Kent port from Calais every day.

It will be the first customs post erected in the UK to deal with goods coming from the EU for 27 years.

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Government launches new ‘Get Ready for Brexit’ campaign

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Businesses will discover details of customs regime after Brexit on Monday

The government is set to launch a multi-million pound “Get Ready for Brexit” campaign on Monday, aimed at informing businesses of the complex customs regime they will face.

Details of the campaign, which will be partly aimed at Britons living in the EU, will be confirmed by Michael Gove in TV interviews scheduled for Sunday. The controversial Brexit border plans – which were criticised this week by the international trade secretary, Liz Truss – will be published on Monday along with fresh detail on post-Brexit immigration.

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Venice’s much-delayed flood defence system fully tested for first time

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Designed in 1984 and expected to be in service a decade ago, the project is still incomplete

Italy has successfully conducted the first full test of Venice’s flood defence system, a much-delayed project designed in 1984 but still incomplete a decade after it was due to come into service.

Amid much fanfare, the Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, activated the 78 mobile barriers of the Mose dam on Friday. “We’re here for a test, not a parade,” Conte, who was greeted in Venice by activists who have long protested against the project, told reporters. “The government wants to check the progress of the work.”

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Genocide denial gains ground 25 years after Srebrenica massacre

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Even as remains continue to be identified, denialism is moving from far-right fringe into mainstream

At the genocide memorial centre outside Srebrenica, thousands of simple white gravestones stretch across the gently inclined hillside for as far as the eye can see.

Nearby, over a number of days in July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces systematically murdered around 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys. It was the worst crime of the Bosnian war, and remains the only massacre on European soil since the second world war to be ruled a genocide.

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UK’s Magnitsky law does little to stem flow of dirty money from Russia

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Sanctions target mid- or low-level officials and will have little impact on the wealthiest

He is known as Vladimir Putin’s enforcer. Almost every criminal case in Russia – from Pussy Riot to anti-government street protests – passes his desk. But as of last week Moscow’s top law officer, Alexander Bastrykin, is no longer welcome in Britain. He is banned from owning property, opening a bank account or popping over from Moscow for a weekend jaunt.

Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s powerful investigative committee, was one of 25 Russians sanctioned by the UK. All were allegedly involved in human rights abuses – specifically in the mistreatment of Sergei Magnitsky, who was beaten to death in 2009 in a Moscow jail. Bastrykin covered up the case, No 10 says. Others named and shamed include judges, interior ministry officials and prison staff.

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‘We’re desperate to dance’: Britons in Mallorca express relief over quarantine easing

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Tourists slowly returning to Spain’s Balearic Islands after months-long coronavirus lockdown

Sunbathing on a deserted beach in Mallorca, Nicola Brett says she is having the “best holiday ever”.

The 31-year-old gym sales executive from York arrived on the Spanish island on a Ryanair flight on Sunday, hours after the government changed its advice against all but essential foreign travel. She was flying back at midnight on Thursday, just as the rules requiring those arriving in the UK to quarantine for 14 days were lifted.

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Médecins Sans Frontières is ‘institutionally racist’, say 1,000 insiders

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Medical charity accused of shoring up colonialism and white supremacy in its work

The medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières is institutionally racist and reinforces colonialism and white supremacy in its humanitarian work, according to an internal statement signed by 1,000 current and former members of staff.

The statement accused MSF of failing to acknowledge the extent of racism perpetuated by its policies, hiring practices, workplace culture and “dehumanising” programmes, run by a “privileged white minority” workforce.

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Sex traffickers left thousands of women to starve during Italy lockdown

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Revealed: Gangs abandoned trafficked Nigerian women without access to food or funds amid coronavirus pandemic

Thousands of Nigerian women forced into prostitution were left to starve by sex traffickers during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, the Guardian can reveal.

According to the UN’s International Office for Migration (IOM), more than 80% of the tens of thousands of Nigerian women who arrived in Italy from Libya in recent years were victims of highly organised sex trafficking gangs. The women are forced into prostitution to pay off debts of up to €40,000 (£36,000) and controlled through violence and fear of “juju” black magic rituals they are made to undergo before their journey to Europe.

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Bodies donated to science ‘left to be eaten by rats at Paris centre’

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Inquiry to examine claims remains were found strewn around and dismembered

Authorities in France will investigate claims that human corpses donated for science were left to rot and be eaten by rats at a university research facility, the Paris prosecutor’s office has said.

An investigation into “violations of the integrity of a corpse” was handed over to magistrates by prosecutors who handled the initial phase of the investigation after l’Express magazine reported the scandal last November.

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Future of ‘Third Republic’ defines run-off vote in Poland

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Two presidential candidates reflect nation’s 30 years of political division since fall of communism

It was an event – or rather two events – that marked the symbolic nadir of 30 years of rancorous political division in Poland since the fall of communism in 1989.

On Monday evening, Poland’s conservative president, Andrzej Duda, and his challenger in Sunday’s presidential election run-off, the liberal mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, each held their own separate “presidential debate” in different parts of the country, each boycotting the other’s event and each fielding questions alone next to an unmanned podium bearing the name of their rival.

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Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 50,000 more NHS nurses is in doubt

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Number of nurses coming from EU fell again and coronavirus prevented further arrivals

Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 50,000 more NHS nurses is in doubt after the number coming from the EU fell again and coronavirus prevented thousands of arrivals from the rest of the world.

The prime minister made the promise a cornerstone of his general election campaign last year and has since reiterated many times his determination to deliver the increase.

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I prosecuted Srebrenica war criminals, but I know others are still walking free | Serge Brammertz

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Until we bring all the genocide’s perpetrators to justice, we are again failing the boys and men massacred in Bosnia in July 1995

  • Serge Brammertz was the chief prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia from 2008 until its closure in 2017

This Saturday, like every 11 July on the anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, the remains of newly identified victims will be buried alongside the thousands already interred at the cemetery and memorial site in the Bosnian town. The bodies of Almir Halilović, Sakib Kiverić, Emin Mustafić and Fuad Ðozić, who died in the 1995 slaughter, will not, however, be among them.

Twenty-five years ago, senior Bosnian Serb leaders committed genocide against Srebrenica’s Bosnian Muslims. The town had been designated a UN safe area. But Bosnian Serb forces besieged and captured it and systematically executed more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, burying them in mass graves. They terrorised 35,000 more Bosnian Muslims – women, children and the elderly – before expelling them from the area.

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The Guardian view on Brexit and trade: an expensive geography lesson | Editorial

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Boris Johnson is learning the hard way that the UK’s position on the globe is a relevant factor in its negotiations with Brussels

It is possible that Boris Johnson meant it when he said last year that Brexit would not involve checks on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but only if he did not understand the deal he had signed. His position made sense as dishonesty or ignorance. It was never true.

As Brexit talks continue in London this week, it turns out the government has submitted to the EU its application to put border control posts at Irish Sea ports. That is a necessary act of compliance with the Northern Ireland protocol in the withdrawal agreement.

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Two charged over attack on French bus driver who refused entry to unmasked men

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Philippe Monguillot left brain dead after assault by men not wearing Covid-19 face masks

French prosecutors have charged two men with attempted murder after a bus driver was assaulted and left brain dead for refusing to let a group of people who were not wearing face masks board the bus.

Four men set upon 59-year-old Philippe Monguillot in the south-western town of Bayonne on Sunday after he asked three of them to wear masks and tried to check another man’s ticket.

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