United News of Bangladesh

Namibia marked the mass killings of Indigenous people in the early 20th century by former colonial ruler Germany with its first genocide remembrance day on Wednesday. The day was declared a national holiday last year by the government and was commemorated for the first time with a ceremony in the gardens of the national Parliament in the capital, Windhoek. Between 1904 and 1908, tens of thousands of Herero and Nama people were massacred or forced into concentration camps and starved by German colonial forces under the command of Gen. Lothar von Trotha, in what was then German South West Africa.  Namibia votes potentially electing its first female president Germany formally recognized the atrocities as a genocide in 2021 and agreed to pay Namibia 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) over the course of 30 years to fund various projects. Namibia has rejected that and is pushing for more money and formal reparations for the massacres. “Many people from the two communities were forced into concentration camps where they were starved to death and their skulls were taken to Germany for so-called scientific research," Namibian President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said at Wednesday's ceremony. “These horrendous acts are now part of our collective history of resistance and resilience.” The killings of Herero and Nama men, women and children have been recognized as the first genocide of the 20th century. Historians say von Trotha, who was sent to German South West Africa to put down an uprising by the Herero people, instructed his troops to wipe out the entire tribe. They say that the majority of the Herero people, about 65,000, were killed as were at least 10,000 Nama. Symbolic candles were lit at Wednesday's remembrance ceremony, which was also attended by leaders and descendants of the Herero and Nama people. Namibia chose May 28 as the day to mark the genocide because it was the date Germany finally gave the order to close down the concentration camps. Germany was the colonial ruler of Namibia from 1884 until 1915, when it gave up the territory to South Africa. Namibia finally gained independence from South Africa in 1990. There have been calls by the affected communities in Namibia for years for the government to declare a remembrance day in honour of those who died.  Horse Therapy Program in Namibia brings joy to children with learning challenges Talks between Germany and Namibia over finding a suitable settlement for Germany's role in the genocide have been going on for a decade. In 2018, Germany also returned more than a dozen skulls and other human remains that were taken from Namibia for pseudo-scientific racial experiments. They had been stored in German hospitals, museums and universities for decades.

The International Crimes Tribunal on Thursday sent former additional superintendent of police Shahidul Islam of Dhaka district to jail in connection with a case filed over mass killing during the student-led movement. The three-member bench of the tribunal led by its chairman Justice Md Golam Mortuza Mozumder passed the order when chief prosecutor Tajul Islam submitted a petition seeking to send Shahidul to jail. International Crimes Tribunal: Hasina to be brought back to stand trial, vows new chief prosecutor Shahidul, who was arrested from Cox’s Bazar, was produced before the court around 10 am. Earlier on Wednesday, the ICT sent former deputy commissioner of DMP (mirpur Division) Jashim Uddin to jail. On October 27, the tribunal issued warrants for the arrest of 17 former police officers including former DMP commissioner Habibur Rahman for mass killing from July to August 5. On October 17, the tribunal issued warrants for the arrest of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and 45 others.

The accounts are horrific. Women killed while carrying babies on their backs, the wounded hunted down and villagers watching the execution of their neighbors, fearing they'd be next. These are some of the atrocities allegedly perpetrated by Burkina Faso's security forces in the north of the country, according to a statement Tuesday by locals from the village of Karma where the violence took place. It was early morning last Thursday, when people in the village in Yatenga province, awoke to a large group of armed men in military fatigues, driving motorcycles and armored pickup trucks. “Some villagers, happy to see ‘our soldiers', came out of their houses to welcome them. Unfortunately, this joy was cut short when the first shots rang out, also causing the first casualties," said the statement from the villagers. At least 150 civilians may have been killed and many others injured in the violence, said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, in a statement Tuesday. The U.N. is calling for a prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigation into what it called the “horrific killing of civilians”. Also Read: At least 44 people killed by extremists in Burkina Faso's north Earlier this week, Burkina Faso's prosecutor said it had already opened an investigation into the killings, but put the death toll at 60, less than half the number estimated by the U.N. and local residents. Jihadi fighters linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have waged a violent insurgency in Burkina Faso for seven years. The violence has killed thousands of people and divided the country, leading to two coups last year. Since Capt. Ibrahim Traore seized power in September 2022 during the second coup, extrajudicial killings of civilians have increased, according to rights groups and residents. This incident — one of the deadliest against civilians by security forces — comes amid mounting allegations against the military for committing abuses against those it believes to be supporting the jihadis. Also Read: More than 70 soldiers killed in Burkina Faso, extremists say Earlier this month, Burkina Faso’s government announced it was opening other investigations into allegations of human rights abuses by its security forces after a video surfaced that appeared to show the extrajudicial killing of seven children in the country’s north. The Associated Press this month published its own findings about the video. AP’s investigation determined that Burkina Faso’s security forces killed the children in a military base outside the town of Ouahigouya. Days before last week's attack, some 40 security sources were killed near Ouahigouya. Survivors said the soldiers accused them of being jihadi accomplices, by letting them pass through their town, according to the statement from the villagers. One survivor of the attack, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, told The Associated Press that when the soldiers started shooting people indiscriminately, he grabbed the hand of his 11-year-old son and fled into this house with the rest of his family. However, the soldiers forced their way in, shooting open the door, he said. Also Read: Burkina Faso says 66 women, children freed from extremists “It was like a dream. If someone told us we wouldn’t die, I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said. They made them sit with a group of people in the middle of the village threatening to kill them multiple times. Instead, they killed another group of people and went door to door searching for two of the injured who had fled, he said. Since the violence, people in the community haven't been able to bury their relatives as an army roadblock prevented them reaching the village, said the statement. The abuses will create a backlash against Burkina Faso's junta and drive people into the hands of the jihadis, say conflict analysts. “The reported human rights abuses advance the playbook of militants, it gives them talking points against the security forces and helps their recruitment efforts in the north. This is an awful recipe of consequences,” said Laith Alkhouri, CEO of Intelonyx Intelligence Advisory, which provides intelligence analysis.

A gunman killed seven people at two agricultural businesses in Northern California, plunging the state into mourning again in the wake of its third mass killing in eight days. Officers arrested a suspect in Monday’s shootings, 67-year-old Chunli Zhao, after they found him in his car in the parking lot of a sheriff’s substation, San Mateo County Sheriff Christina Corpus said. Seven people were found dead and an eighth injured at a farm and another location several miles away, the Sheriff’s Office said. Officials believe Zhao worked at one of the facilities and that the victims were workers as well, Corpus said. Officials haven’t determined a motive for the shooting. California is still reeling from an attack on a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park that killed 11 and cast a shadow over an important holiday for many Asian-American communities. Authorities are still seeking a motive for the Saturday shooting. The new year has brought a shocking string of mass killings in the U.S. — six in less than three weeks, accounting for 39 deaths. Three have occurred in California since Jan. 16, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. The database tracks every mass killing — defined as four dead not including the offender — committed in the U.S. since 2006. The killings occurred on the outskirts of Half Moon Bay, a city about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of San Francisco. Read more: LA mass shooting suspect kills 10 near Lunar New Year fest Half Moon Bay Vice Mayor Joaquin Jimenez said the victims included Chinese and Latino farmworkers. Some workers lived at one of the facilities and children may have witnessed the shooting, she said. Corpus said it wasn’t immediately clear how the two locations were connected. The Sheriff’s Office first received reports of a shooting in the afternoon and found four people dead and a fifth wounded at the first scene. Officers then found three more people fatally shot nearby, Capt. Eamonn Allen said in a news release. About two hours later, a sheriff’s deputy spotted Zhao’s car parked outside a sheriff’s substation in a strip mall and arrested him. A video of the arrest showed three officers approaching a parked car with drawn weapons. Zhao got out of the car, and the officers pulled him to the ground, put him in handcuffs, and led him away. A weapon was found in his vehicle, officials said. The video was captured by Kati McHugh, a Half Moon Bay resident who witnessed the arrest. The sheriff’s department believes Zhao acted alone. “We’re still trying to understand exactly what happened and why, but it’s just incredibly, incredibly tragic,” said state Sen. Josh Becker, who represents the area and called it “a very close-knit” agricultural community. Aerial television images showed police officers collecting evidence from a farm with dozens of greenhouses. Half Moon Bay is a small coastal city with agricultural roots, home to about 12,000 people. The city and surrounding San Mateo County area is known for producing flowers as well as vegetables like brussels sprouts. The county allows cannabis farming in some areas. Read more: 9 killed in Walmart shooting in Virginia It’s a majority white community and about 5% of the population is Asian, according to Census data “We are sickened by today’s tragedy in Half Moon Bay," Pine said. “We have not even had time to grieve for those lost in the terrible shooting in Monterey Park. Gun violence must stop.” California Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted that he was "at the hospital meeting with victims of a mass shooting when I get pulled away to be briefed about another shooting. This time in Half Moon Bay. Tragedy upon tragedy." On Jan. 16, a teenage mother and her baby were among six people killed in a shooting at a home in California's Central Valley.