Tag Archives: Children

Revenge for Sinjar: Syrian Kurds free Islamic State slaves

Noura Khodr Khalaf, 24, a Yazidi woman who was recently freed from Islamic State, stands with her children in a centre belonging to the Kurdish-led administration in Qamishli, Syria June 10, 2017. Picture taken June 10, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

By Rodi Said and Ellen Francis

QAMISHLI, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State militants enslaved Noura Khalaf for three years, dragging her from her small Iraqi village across their territory in Syria. They bought and sold her five times before she was finally freed with her children last week.

Khalaf is one of many Yazidi women that Kurdish fighters in northern Syria have set out to free from Islamic State in covert operations, a female Kurdish militia commander told Reuters.

They have dubbed the operation “revenge for the women of Sinjar”, the homeland of Iraq’s ancient Yazidi minority which Islamic State overran in the summer of 2014.

The militants slaughtered, enslaved and raped thousands of people when they rampaged through northern Iraq, purging its Yazidi community. They abducted Yazidi women as sex slaves and gunned down male relatives, witnesses and Iraqi officials say. Nearly 3,000 women are believed to be still in captivity.

Nisreen Abdallah, a commander in the YPJ militia, said around 200 women and children from northern Iraq have been freed in various parts of Syria so far.

The Kurdish YPG militia and its all-female YPJ brigade rescued them in what she described as covert operations into IS territory that began last year. Abdallah declined to divulge more details for security reasons.

The Syrian militias launched this mission as part of their U.S.-backed offensive on Raqqa, Islamic State’s base of operations in Syria, she said.

With the YPG at its forefront, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias began pushing into Raqqa last week, after advancing on the city since November.

“Since then, we have been working to liberate the Yazidi women held captive by Daesh,” Abdallah said. In the case of Khalaf, she said Kurdish fighters made contact with her and drew up “an appropriate plan” to free her unharmed.

CODE WORD

Noura Khalaf said she had been living with her children as the slave of an Islamic State militant in Syria’s Hama province for a year, when an unidentified man smuggled them out in the YPG-coordinated operation.

The plan took shape thanks to IS rules forbidding fighters from taking mobile phones to the frontlines, she said. The jihadist holding Khalaf left his at home, allowing her to call her brother who in turn asked the YPG for help.

“Abu Amir used to leave his phone at home when he went to the frontline,” said 24-year-old Khalaf. “I had memorized my brother’s number.”

Khalaf was eventually told to await contact from a man who would come to rescue her. He uttered a pre-agreed code word, so she would know it was safe to leave with him.

“I’m happy to be staying here,” she said, speaking to Reuters in the Syrian city of Qamishli in the Kurdish-controlled northeast. She will soon return to the Sinjar mountain region. “After I rest here, I will go meet my brother,” she said.

After Islamic State kidnapped Khalaf with her four children in 2014, they bussed her around northern Iraq, including Mosul, along with dozens of women from her hometown of Kojo in Sinjar. “I still don’t know what happened to my husband,” she said.

At one point in her captivity, militants kept her in an underground jail in Raqqa, she said, and at another, they held her in a prison in Palmyra.

“They took us to an underground market for selling women, where they displayed us for Islamic State members and each one picks the girl he likes,” she said. Fighters forced her to serve and cook for them, some beating and raping her repeatedly.

Now, Khalaf and her children are staying at a shelter run by the women’s council of the Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria.

Abdallah, the YPJ commander, said they deliver the women to their relatives in northern Iraq by coordinating with a Yazidi committee around Sinjar.

Two months earlier, Kurdish fighters also rescued Khalaf’s seven-year-old daughter, who had been sold off near Raqqa, and sent her to relatives in Sinjar, she said.

“We will also send Noura, through the women’s council. So she will see her daughter again,” Abdallah said.

“Those who are freed have been away from their relatives, living among Daesh for years…in alienation and degradation,” Abdallah said. “They have psychological complexes and they need care.”

The beliefs of the Yazidi community, which Islamic State regards as devil-worship, combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions. Mass Yazidi graves have been found since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces seized Sinjar in 2015.

(Reporting by Rodi Said in Syria, Ellen Francis in Beirut; Editing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff)

Food poisoning kills woman and child, hits hundreds at Iraqi camp

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – A woman and a child died and hundreds fell ill in a mass outbreak of food poisoning at a camp for displaced people east of the Iraqi city of Mosul, officials said.

More than 300 people were hospitalized after breaking their Ramadan fast with an iftar meal on Monday night, aid groups told Reuters.

Many started vomiting and some fainted after eating rice, chicken, yogurt and soup, said Iraqi lawmaker Zahed Khatoun, a member of the Iraqi parliament’s committee for displaced people.

“It is tragic that this happened to people who have gone through so much,” said Andrej Mahecic, from the U.N.’s refugee agency UNHCR, which runs the camp and 12 others in the war-torn area with Iraqi authorities.

Many of the camp residents had fled fighting around Mosul as Iraqi government forces and their allies press an offensive to push Islamic State militants out of the northern city.

The International Organization for Migration said a Qatari aid group had paid a local restaurant to provide the food for the meal, though that was not confirmed by other agencies.

“I don’t know the name of the restaurant, but that’s what our person on the site is reporting today,” IOM spokesman Joel Millman said in Geneva.

“We are told 312 were hospitalized … one child and one adult woman we’re told died,” he added.

The camp in al-Khazer, on the road linking Mosul and Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region, houses 6,300 people, the UNHCR said.

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of Mosul, have already fled the city, seeking refuge with friends and relatives or in camps.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Erbil and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Missouri sued for over-exposing foster children to psychotropic drugs

The Missouri State House is pictured in Jefferson City, Missouri, U.S

By Chris Kenning

(Reuters) – Two youth legal advocacy groups sued Missouri on Monday on behalf of 13,000 foster children, arguing that poor oversight left many of them over-exposed to psychotropic drugs carrying risks of side effects, from diabetes to seizures.

The lawsuit seeks to force Missouri, and as a result to pressure other states, to enact stricter measures to guard against the over-medication of children in state custody.

Filed by Children’s Rights and the National Center for Youth Law in U.S. District Court in Jefferson City, it is the first statewide federal suit to take sole aim at the issue, attorneys said. They are seeking class-action status for the suit.

“Giving a pill to sedate the child or older person is a quicker and easier response than training caregivers and staff (to provide) non-pharmacological, safer and in many instances more effective treatment,” said Bill Grimm, an attorney with the National Center for Youth Law.

Jennifer Tidball, acting director of the Missouri Department of Social Services, and Tim Decker, director of the department’s Children’s Division, the two agencies named in the suit, declined to comment through a spokeswoman.

The lawsuit, also filed by the St. Louis University Legal Clinic, said the children’s constitutional right to be free from harm while in state custody was violated. It seeks a court to order authorities to ensure drugs are safely administered, that medical records are maintained and prescriptions reviewed, and that the children’s informed consent is obtained and documented.

While such drugs can be a helpful part of therapy, poor oversight means some children with behavioral issues rooted in abuse or neglect are given the drugs as “chemical straight-jackets” to control behavior, the lawsuit said.

Some 30 percent of children in state care in Missouri are prescribed psychotropic medications, including anti-psychotics such as Abilify and Risperdal, as well as anti-depressants and mood stabilizers, the lawsuit said. That is almost twice the national rate, it said. Side effects of such drugs can include sleepiness, nervous tics and suicidal thoughts.

Poor coordination means medical records often do not immediately accompany foster children when they move from one placement to another, the lawsuit said.

“These children are being prescribed too many powerful and potentially dangerous drugs, at unacceptable dosages and at too young an age,” said Sara Bartosz, a Children’s Rights attorney.

Some states, including Florida, Texas, California, New York and Illinois, have taken steps such as requiring court authorization for psychotropic prescriptions.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning; Editing by Dan Grebler and Paul Simao)

U.N. warns of increasing civilian deaths in battle for Iraqi city of Mosul

Residents who fled their homes due to fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants return to their village cleared by the Iraqi forces in western Mosul in Iraq June 7, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – Children trying to flee western Mosul have been shot dead by Islamic State militants, the U.N. human rights office said on Thursday, saying it had reports of a “significant escalation” in civilians deaths in the battle for the Iraqi city.

It also said it was investigating reports that 50-80 people had died in an air strike on the Zanjili district of Mosul on May 31. It did not say who carried out the strike.

The killing of fleeing civilians by Islamic State militants occurred in the al-Shifa neighborhood on May 26, June 1 and June 3, it said.

“Credible reports indicate that more than 231 civilians attempting to flee western Mosul have been killed since 26 May, including at least 204 over three days last week alone,” the U.N. human rights office said in a statement.

“Shooting children as they try to run to safety with their families – there are no words of condemnation strong enough for such despicable acts,” the statement quoted U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein as saying.

Iraqi government forces retook eastern Mosul in January and began a push on May 27 to capture the remaining Islamic State-held enclave in the western side of the city, where about 200,000 people are trapped in harrowing conditions.

Last week Iraqi police said at least seven civilians had been killed by Islamic State mortar shells in the Zanjili area of western Mosul.

But a young man told Reuters he had been wounded when an air strike hit a group of 200-250 civilians collecting water because an Islamic State fighter was hiding among them.

The U.N. statement said the deaths in Zanjili were reportedly caused by one of several recent air strikes that had inflicted civilian casualties and it was seeking further information about those attacks, without elaborating.

“The murder of civilians, as well as the intentional directing of an attack against civilians who are not directly taking part in hostilities, are war crimes,” it said.

Islamic State’s self-declared “caliphate” is in retreat across Iraq and Syria. U.S.-backed Syrian forces this week launched an operation to capture Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

As Yemen faces famine, U.N. works to avert attack on food port

A woman and her children, displaced by the war in northwestern Yemen, are pictured next to their makeshift hut on the pavement of a street in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Yemen May 15, 2017. REUTERS/Abduljabbar Zeyad

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A quarter of Yemen’s people are on the brink of famine, parents are marrying off young daughters so someone else can care for them and cholera cases are escalating, U.N. officials warned on Tuesday as they work to avert a Saudi-led attack on a key port.

The United Nations has warned the Arab alliance fighting Iran-aligned Houthis against any attempt to extend the war to Hodeidah, a vital Red Sea aid delivery point where some 80 percent of Yemen’s food imports arrive.

“An attack on Hodeidah is not in the interest of any party, as it will directly and irrevocably drive the Yemeni population further into starvation and famine,” U.N. aid chief Stephen O’Brien told the U.N. Security Council, urging all U.N. member states to help keep the port open and operating.

“Yemen now has the ignominy of being the world’s largest food security crisis with more than 17 million people who are food insecure, 6.8 million of whom are one step away from famine. Crisis is not coming, it is not even looming, it is here today,” he said.

The Saudi-led coalition has said it was determined to help Yemen’s government retake all areas held by Houthi militia, including Hodeidah port, but would ensure alternative entry routes for badly needed food and medicine.

U.N. Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told the Security Council on Tuesday he had made clear to the parties to the conflict that they must reach a compromise to avoid the “horrific scenario” of military action moving to the port.

However, he noted the Houthis and the allied General People’s Congress, the party of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, did not meet with him in the capital Sanaa to discuss a possible agreement that he had proposed.

O’Brien said a $2.1 billion humanitarian strategy and plan for Yemen was only a quarter funded.

“Yemen is not facing a drought. If there was no conflict … a famine would certainly be avoidable and averted,” he said. “Families are increasingly marrying off their young daughters to have someone else to care for them, and often use the dowry to pay for basic necessities.”

O’Brien also said there had been some 55,000 suspected cases of cholera since April and estimated another 150,000 cases were expected over the next six months.

“Had the parties to the conflict cared, the outbreak was avoidable,” O’Brien said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by James Dalgleish)

MI5 to review its handling of intelligence on Manchester bomber

Armed police officers stand next to a police cordon outside the Manchester Arena, where U.S. singer Ariana Grande had been performing, in Manchester, northern England, Britain, May 23, 2017. REUTERS/Andrew

By Costas Pitas

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s MI5 has begun an internal review of how it handled intelligence on Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi, who was known to the authorities but not under active investigation, a source told Reuters on Monday.

Interior minister Amber Rudd said the review was the “right first step” for the intelligence agency to take in the wake of the May 22 bombing that killed 22 people at a pop concert by U.S. singer Ariana Grande.

MI5 is subject to scrutiny by a committee of parliament, and it is highly unusual for British authorities to make public that the security service is conducting its own internal investigation into possible lapses.

“The review will look at what was known about Abedi, what decisions were made about the intelligence and what, if anything, could have been done differently,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“This is a review that would seek to answer whether there are lessons to be learned from how the Security Service handled the intelligence on Abedi.”

The source told Reuters that Abedi was not among the 3,000 people currently under active investigation by MI5, although he was one of around 20,000 people known to the agency, whose focus is on countering terrorism and espionage.

The BBC said MI5 was alerted at least three times to the  ‘extremist views’ of Abedi, a 22-year-old who grew up in Manchester in a family of immigrants from Libya. It was not possible to confirm that report.

“This is an ongoing investigation so I’m not going to be drawn into comments on the actual man who committed this crime,” Rudd told BBC television, declining to say what was known about Abedi and when.

Last week’s attack, the deadliest in Britain since 2005, was claimed by Islamic State. It drew particular revulsion because of the targeting of children – the youngest victim was just eight years old, and nine of the others were teenagers.

Balloons and floral tributes for the victims of the attack on the Manchester Arena are seen in St Ann's square in Manchester, Britain, May 24, 2017.

FILE PHOTO: Balloons and floral tributes for the victims of the attack on the Manchester Arena are seen in St Ann’s square in Manchester, Britain, May 24, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo

Earlier on Monday, police made a 16th arrest as part of the case.

Britons head to the polls in 10 days’ time to elect a new government, with security and police cuts having risen to the top of the political agenda since the bombing last Monday.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives have seen their poll lead cut in the wake of the attack and after a U-turn over their social care plans for the elderly.

Surveys suggest May – who as a former interior minister oversaw the police and domestic intelligence agency – might not win the landslide predicted just a month ago.

It was not clear whether the authorities became aware of Abedi during May’s tenure as interior minister between 2010 and 2016.

British security services have thwarted 18 militant plots in the UK since 2013, including five since an attack in central London in March, when a man mowed down pedestrians in a car and then stabbed a policeman at the entrance to parliament, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters last week.

(Additional reporting by Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Trevelyan)

Manchester bomber had ‘proven’ links to Islamic State: French minister

A community support officer places flowers near Manchester Arena in Manchester, Britain May 24, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

By Michael Holden and Andy Bruce

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – The Manchester suicide bomber who killed 22 people at a concert venue packed with children had recently returned from Libya, a British minister said, and her French counterpart said he had links with Islamic State and had probably visited Syria too.

Interior minister Amber Rudd said Salman Abedi had likely not acted alone, and troops were being deployed to key sites across Britain to help prevent further attacks after the official threat level was raised to “critical”.

Police made three new arrests in South Manchester on Wednesday in connection with the concert bombing. They provided no details on the individuals held.

Rudd said up to 3,800 soldiers could be deployed on Britain’s streets, taking on guard duties at places like Buckingham Palace and Downing Street to free up police to focus on patrols and investigation. An initial deployment of 984 had been ordered, initially in London, then elsewhere.

The Changing of the Guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace, a draw for tourists, was canceled because it requires support from police officers, which authorities decided was not a good use of police resources given the threat level.

Rudd also scolded U.S. officials for leaking details about the investigation into the Manchester attack before British authorities were prepared to go public.

British-born Abedi, 22, blew himself up on Monday night at the Manchester Arena indoor venue at the end of a concert by U.S. pop singer Ariana Grande, attended by thousands of children and teenagers.

His 22 victims included an eight-year-old girl, several teenage girls, a 28-year-old man and a Polish couple who had come to collect their daughters.

Greater Manchester Police said they were now confident they knew the identity of all the people who lost their lives and had made contact with all the families. They said they would formally name the victims after forensic post-mortems, which would take four or five days.

The bombing also left 64 people wounded, of whom 20 were receiving critical care for highly traumatic injuries to major organs and to limbs, a health official said.

UNLIKELY ABEDI ACTED ALONE

“It seems likely, possible, that he (Abedi) wasn’t doing this on his own,” Rudd said on BBC radio. She said Abedi had been known to security services before the bombing.

The BBC reported that the security services thought Abedi may have been a “mule” for a bomb made by someone else, because they thought the device was too sophisticated for him to have put together by himself.

Asked about reports that Abedi had recently returned from Libya, Rudd said she believed that had now been confirmed.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said British investigators had told French authorities Abedi had probably traveled to Syria as well.

“Today we only know what British investigators have told us — someone of British nationality, of Libyan origin, who suddenly after a trip to Libya, then probably to Syria, becomes radicalized and decides to carry out this attack,” Collomb told BFMTV.

Asked if he believed Abedi had the support of a network, Collomb said: “That is not known yet, but perhaps. In any case, (he had) links with Daesh (Islamic State) that are proven.”

Islamic State, now being driven from territories in Syria and Iraq by Western-backed armed forces, claimed responsibility for the Manchester attack, but there were contradictions in its accounts of the action and a telling lack of detail.

Prime Minister Theresa May announced late on Tuesday that the official threat level had been raised to its highest level for the first time in a decade, meaning an attack could be imminent.

The UK Independence Party was the first party to announce it would resume campaigning. It plans to unveil its policy pledges on Thursday.

WASHINGTON REBUKED OVER LEAKS

Abedi was born in Manchester in 1994 to parents of Libyan origin, according to U.S. sources citing British contacts.

As Collomb was speaking in France, Rudd was asked by the BBC about the fact that information about Abedi, including his name, had come out from the United States and whether she would look again at how information was shared with other countries.

“Yes, quite frankly. I mean the British police have been very clear that they want to control the flow of information in order to protect operational integrity, the element of surprise, so it is irritating if it gets released from other sources and I have been very clear with our friends that should not happen again.”

Asked whether the U.S. leaks had compromised the investigation, she said: “I wouldn’t go that far but I can say that they are perfectly clear about the situation and that it shouldn’t happen again.”

France, which has repeatedly been hit by devastating militant attacks since 2015, extended emergency powers after the Manchester bombing.

It was the deadliest attack in Britain since July 2005, when four British Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in coordinated attacks on London’s transport network.

Attacks in cities including Paris, Nice, Brussels, St Petersburg, Berlin and London have shocked Europeans already anxious over security challenges from mass immigration and pockets of domestic Islamic radicalism.

(Additional reporting by Costas Pitas, Kate Holton and Kylie MacLellan in London; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Ralph Boulton)

Suicide bomber kills at least 22, including children, at Ariana Grande concert in Britain

People walk out of a support centre at Manchester City's Etihad Stadium, Manchester, Britain, May 23, 2017. REUTERS/Jon Super

By Michael Holden and Andrew Yates

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed at least 22 people and wounded 59 at a packed concert hall in the English city of Manchester in what Prime Minister Theresa May called a sickening act targeting children and young people.

May said police believed they knew the identity of the bomber and police then said a 23-year-old man had been arrested in connection with the attack carried out late on Monday evening as people began leaving a concert given by Ariana Grande, a U.S. singer who attracts a large number of young and teenage fans.

“All acts of terrorism are cowardly…but this attack stands out for its appalling sickening cowardice, deliberately targeting innocent, defenseless children and young people who should have been enjoying one of the most memorable nights of their lives,” May said outside her Downing Street office in London.

“The attempt to divide us met countless acts of kindness that brought people closer together.”

The northern English city remained on high alert. A Reuters witnesses said they heard a “big bang” at Manchester’s Arndale shopping mall and saw people running from the building. Police said they were dealing with an incident inside. The shopping center reopened soon afterward, a Reuters witness said.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said more police had been ordered onto the streets of the British capital.

Monday’s attack was the deadliest in Britain since four British Muslims killed 52 people in suicide bombings on London’s transport system in 2005. But it will have reverberations far beyond British shores.

Attacks in cities including Paris, Nice, Brussels, St Petersburg, Berlin and London have shocked Europeans already anxious over security challenges from mass immigration and pockets of domestic Islamist radicalism. The Islamic State militant group has called for attacks as retaliation for Western involvement in the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

Witnesses related the horror of the Manchester blast, which unleashed a stampede just as the concert ended at what is Europe’s largest indoor arena, full to a capacity of 21,000.

“We ran and people were screaming around us and pushing on the stairs to go outside and people were falling down, girls were crying, and we saw these women being treated by paramedics having open wounds on their legs … it was just chaos,” said Sebastian Diaz, 19. “It was literally just a minute after it ended, the lights came on and the bomb went off.”

U.S. President Donald Trump described the attack as the work of “evil losers”. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it “will only strengthen our resolve to…work with our British friends against those who plan and carry out such inhumane deeds.”

A source with knowledge of the situation said the bomber’s explosives were packed with metal and bolts. At least 19 of those wounded were in a critical condition, the source said.

A video posted on Twitter showed fans, many of them young, screaming and running from the venue. Dozens of parents frantically searched for their children, posting photos and pleading for information on social media.

“We were making our way out and when we were right by the door there was a massive explosion and everybody was screaming,” concert-goer Catherine Macfarlane told Reuters.

“It was a huge explosion – you could feel it in your chest.”

Singer Ariana Grande, 23, said on Twitter: “broken. from the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry. i don’t have words.” May, who faces an election in two-and-a-half weeks, said her thoughts were with the victims and their families. She and Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, agreed to suspend campaigning ahead of the June 8 vote.

SUICIDE BOMBER?

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but U.S. officials drew parallels to the coordinated attacks in November 2015 by Islamist militants on the Bataclan concert hall and other sites in Paris that killed 130 people.

“It clearly bears the hallmark of Daesh (Islamic State),” said former French intelligence agent Claude Moniquet, now a Brussels-based security consultant, “because Ariana Grande is a young singer who attracts a very young audience, teenagers.

“So very clearly the aim was to do as much harm as possible, to shock British society as much as possible.”

Islamic State supporters took to social media to celebrate the blast and some encouraged similar attacks elsewhere.

Britain is on its second-highest alert level of “severe”, meaning an attack by militants is considered highly likely.

British counter-terrorism police have said they are making on average an arrest every day in connection with suspected terrorism.

In March, a British-born convert to Islam plowed a car into pedestrians on London’s Westminster Bridge, killing four people before stabbing to death a police officer who was on the grounds of parliament. The man was shot dead at the scene.

In 2015, Pakistani student Abid Naseer was convicted in a U.S. court of conspiring with al Qaeda to blow up the Arndale shopping center in the center of Manchester in April 2009.

PARENTS’ ANGUISH

Desperate parents and friends used social media to search for loved ones who attended Monday’s concert while the wounded were being treated at six hospitals across Manchester.

“Everyone pls share this, my little sister Emma was at the Ari concert tonight in #Manchester and she isn’t answering her phone, pls help me,” said one message posted alongside a picture of a blonde girl with flowers in her hair.

Paula Robinson, 48, from West Dalton about 40 miles east of Manchester, said she was at the train station next to the arena with her husband when she felt the explosion and saw dozens of teenage girls screaming and running away from arena.

“We ran out,” Robinson told Reuters. “It was literally seconds after the explosion. I got the teens to run with me.”

Robinson took dozens of teenage girls to the nearby Holiday Inn Express hotel and tweeted out her phone number to worried parents, telling them to meet her there. She said her phone had not stopped ringing since her tweet.

“Parents were frantic running about trying to get to their children,” she said. “There were lots of lots children at Holiday Inn.”

(Additional Reporting by Alistair Smout, Kate Holton, David Milliken, Elizabeth Piper, Paul Sandle and Costas Pitas in LONDON, Mark Hosenball in LOS ANGELES, John Walcott in WASHINGTON, D.C., Leela de Kretser in NEW YORK, Mostafa Hashem in CAIRO, and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Nick Tattersall; Editing by Ralph Boulton/Mark Heinrich)

Infant mortality and malaria soar in Venezuela, according to government data

Pregnant women lay on beds without sheets during their labour at a maternity hospital in Maracaibo, Venezuela June 19, 2015. REUTERS/Isaac Urrutia

By Alexandra Ulmer

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s infant mortality rose 30 percent last year, maternal mortality shot up 65 percent and cases of malaria jumped 76 percent, according to government data, sharp increases reflecting how the country’s deep economic crisis has hammered at citizens’ health.

The statistics, issued on the ministry’s website after nearly two years of data silence from President Nicolas Maduro’s leftist government, also showed a jump in illnesses such as diphtheria and Zika. It was not immediately clear when the ministry posted the data, although local media reported on the statistics on Tuesday.

Recession and currency controls in the oil-exporting South American nation have slashed both local production and imports of foreign goods, and Venezuelans are facing shortages of everything from rice to vaccines. The opposition has organized weeks of protests against Maduro, accusing him of dictatorial rule and calling for elections.

In the health sector, doctors have emigrated in droves and patients have to settle for second-rate treatment or none at all. A leading pharmaceutical association has said roughly 85 percent of medicines are running short. Venezuelans often barter medicine, post pleas on social media, travel to neighboring countries if they can afford it, or line up for hours at pharmacies.

The Health Ministry had stopped releasing figures after July 2015, amid a wider data blackout. It was not clear why it published this latest batch of data.

Its statistics for 2016 showed infant mortality, or death of children aged 0-1, climbed 30.12 percent to 11,466 cases last year. The report cited neonatal sepsis, pneumonia, respiratory distress syndrome, and prematurity as the main causes.

Hospitals often lack basic equipment like incubators, and pregnant women are struggling to eat well, including taking folic acid, factors that can affect a baby’s health.

(To read the story on Venezuelan women seeking sterilizations as crisis sours child-rearing, click http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-sterilizations-idUSKCN10E1NK)

Maternal mortality, or death while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of a pregnancy, was also up, rising 65.79 percent to 756 deaths, the report said.

The Health Ministry did not respond to a request for further information. Maduro’s government says a coup-mongering elite is hoarding medicines to stoke unrest.

‘TURMOIL’

While Venezuelans are acutely aware of the country’s health issues, the ministry’s statistics bulletin shocked some in the medical community.

“The striking part is turmoil in almost all the categories that this bulletin addresses, with particularly significant increases in the infant and maternal health categories,” said Dr. Julio Castro, an infectious disease specialist and an outspoken critic of the government’s health policies.

Doctors say the health bulletins, meant to be released weekly, should be published in a timely fashion to alert medical practitioners to national trends and threats.

Venezuela, for instance, had controlled diphtheria, a bacterial infection that is fatal in 5 to 10 percent of cases, in the 1990s. Doctors last year sounded the alarm that it had returned, but the government initially said there were no proven cases and admonished those seeking to spread “panic.”

The data now shows diphtheria affected 324 people – up from no cases the previous year.

Diphtheria was once a major global cause of child death but is now increasingly rare thanks to immunizations, and its return showed how vulnerable the country is to health risks.

Reuters documented the case of a 9-year-old girl, Eliannys Vivas, who died of diphtheria earlier this year after being misdiagnosed with asthma, in part because there were no instruments to examine her throat, and shuttled around several run-down hospitals.

(For a story on “Venezuelan girl’s diphtheria death highlights country’s health crisis”, click http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-health-idUSKBN15P1DA)

There were also 240,613 cases of malaria last year, up 76.4 percent compared with 2015, with most cases of the mosquito-borne disease reported in the rough-and-tumble Bolivar state.

Cases of Zika rose to 59,348 from 71 in 2015, reflecting the spread of the mosquito-borne virus around Latin America last year. There was no data for likely Zika-linked microcephaly, where babies are born with small heads, although doctors say there have been at least several dozen cases.

(To read the story on “Amid government silence, Venezuela’s microcephaly babies struggle”, click http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-zika-venezuela-idUSKBN12H1NY)

(Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Girish Gupta and Frances Kerry)

War forces two million South Sudanese children to flee homes

FILE PHOTO: A child displaced due to fighting in South Sudan arrives in Lamwo after fleeing fighting in Pajok town across the border in northern Uganda

NAIROBI (Reuters) – War and famine have forced more than 2 million children in South Sudan to flee their homes, the United Nations said on Monday, as 21 people died in the latest attack on civilians by unknown gunmen.

The civil war in the oil-producing country began when President Salva Kiir fired his deputy in 2013, two years after the country won independence from neighboring Sudan.

The fighting that followed split the country along ethnic lines, spurred hyperinflation and plunged parts of the nation into famine, creating Africa’s biggest refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

“No refugee crisis today worries me more than South Sudan,” Valentin Tapsoba, the Africa chief for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, said in a statement.

In a country of 12 million people, nearly three in every four children do not go to school, UNHCR and the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said. More than 1 million children have fled outside South Sudan while another 1 million are internally displaced.

The agencies said more than a thousand children have been killed in the fighting. The true figure may be much higher since there are no accurate death tolls available for South Sudan, one of the world’s least developed nations.

A displaced boy from South Sudan stands next to family belongings in Lamwo after fleeing fighting in Pajok town across the border in northern Uganda

FILE PHOTO: A displaced boy from South Sudan stands next to family belongings in Lamwo after fleeing fighting in Pajok town across the border in northern Uganda April 5, 2017. REUTERS/James Akena/File Photo

Separately, an official told Reuters that two commercial vehicles carrying passengers were attacked at two checkpoints along the Juba-Bor road on Friday.

“One commercial vehicle coming from Juba was attacked at a checkpoint in Jamaza and the other at Sudan Safari,” said Jacob Akech Deng, the Jonglei province’s state minister of information.

“We have received, and saw 21 people killed and 25 injured at Bor Hospital,” he told Reuters, referring to areas along the highway.

Reports in South Sudan said the death toll could reach to 51. Deng said authorities were still collecting evidence.

Many South Sudanese refugees have fled into neighboring Uganda, Kenya, Sudan or Ethiopia, nations which are already struggling to provide enough food and resources for their own populations.

(Writing by Clement Uwiringiyimana and Aaron Maasho; Editing by Toby Chopra)