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Children as young as 11 beheaded by ISIS in Mozambique
Children as young as 11 have been targeted by violence and beheaded in northeast Mozambique during an ISIS insurgency in the region, the charity Save the Children said on Tuesday.
The UK-based aid organization said it was “outraged and deeply saddened” by reports that children had been targeted in the conflict in the gas-rich Cabo Delgado province.
The violence has claimed the lives of 2,600 people in the east African nation – half of them civilians – and displaced 670,000, according to Save the Children.
One mother, whose name was withheld to protect her identity, told the charity her 12-year-old son was beheaded as she hid with her three other children.
“That night our village was attacked and houses were burned,” she said.
“We tried to escape to the woods, but they took my eldest son and beheaded him. We couldn’t do anything because we would be killed too,” the mother added.
A second mother said she had been unable to bury her son who was killed by armed men after she had to leave her home for her own safety.
“After my 11-year-old son was killed, we understood that it was no longer safe to stay in my village. We fled to my father’s house in another village, but a few days later the attacks started there too,” she said.
The charity said the situation had seriously deteriorated in the past 12 months with an escalation of attacks.
The humanitarian crisis in the region has been exacerbated by a series of floods in 2020 and Cyclone Kenneth which struck northern Mozambique a year earlier.
“Reports of attacks on children sicken us to our core,” Chance Briggs, Save the Children’s country director in Mozambique, said.
“A major concern for us is that the needs of displaced children and their families in Cabo Delgado far outweigh the resources available to support them.
“Nearly a million people are facing severe hunger as a direct result of this conflict, including displaced people and host communities.”
Insurgents, known locally as Al-Shabaab, have staged a series of attacks in Cabo Delgado since 2017 and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State organization in 2019.
They have been accused of beheadings and desecration of corpses.
Government forces, which have been bolstered by private military companies, have also been accused by rights groups of atrocities that amount to war crimes.
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Afghanistan and Iran swap prisoners at Milak border crossing
At the same time, two Iranians serving sentences in Afghan prisons were repatriated to Iran.
Afghanistan and Iran exchanged prisoners at the Milak border crossing in south-eastern Iran on Sunday, officials confirmed.
According to IRNA, almost 200 Afghan prisoners held in Iranian prisons in Tehran, Sistan and Baluchestan and Isfahan were handed over to Afghan authorities at the Milak border in Sistan and Baluchestan.
At the same time, two Iranians serving sentences in Afghan prisons were repatriated to Iran.
Iran’s Deputy Justice Minister for Human Rights and International Affairs, Askar Jalalian, said recently that more than 4,500 foreign nationals detained in Iran had been sent to their home countries.
Roza Otunbayeva, Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), recently visited the city of Maimana in northern Afghanistan, where she met with local officials, entrepreneurs, and UN staff.
UNAMA wrote on its Facebook page on Sunday, that during the visit, entrepreneurs — including women — met with Otunbayeva, and requested support to facilitate access to new markets, particularly in Uzbekistan.
UNAMA further stated that among these entrepreneurs was a group of women who, with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), had established a tailoring workshop.
They expressed their appreciation for the support received and spoke about the significant growth and development of their business.
UNAMA added that the organization remains committed to promoting economic opportunities and empowering Afghan communities, especially women.
Anand Prakash, head of the Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan Division of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, met with Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Kabul for talks on various issues.
According to a press release issued Sunday by the Afghan Foreign Ministry, bilateral political relations, trade, transit and recent political developments in the region were discussed in the meeting.
Muttaqi stressed the need for the expansion of diplomatic and economic relations between the two countries and explained that Afghanistan currently offers favorable opportunities for investment. He said Indian investors should take advantage of these opportunities.
He also said that facilities should be created for the movement of people between Afghanistan and India and the issuance of visas for medical purposes, students and businessmen should return to normal.
Meanwhile, Prakash said that relations with Afghanistan are important for India and he hopes that these relations will expand further in various fields.
He stressed that India will continue its cooperation with Afghanistan and wants to invest in some infrastructure projects and restart projects that were paused for some time.
The two sides also emphasized the expansion of relations, the exchange of delegations, visa facilitation and bilateral cooperation.
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