- Canada to further cut international student, foreign worker permits
- YouTube launches new TV-focused tools for creators
- White Sox heading for worst season in MLB history
- China the top challenge in US history: senior diplomat
- Hong Kong democracy tycoon's son warns time running out
- New migraine drugs no better than cheap painkillers: big study
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs again denied bail in sex trafficking case
- Brewers clinch division title as MLB playoff race heats up
- Man City blunted by 'giant' Inter in Champions League stalemate
- US stocks dip despite larger Fed interest rate cut
- Man City held by Inter as PSG pinch win in Champions League
- All Blacks recall Beauden Barrett for Australia Test
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 20, wound 450
- Spurs late show saves Postecoglou blushes at Coventry
- PSG snatch late goal to beat Champions League debutants Girona
- Gittens' late double gives Dortmund Champions League win at Brugge
- Man City blunted by Inter in Champions League stalemate
- Hidden talent: French Olympic star Marchand opts for disguise
- MrBeast named in California lawsuit over 'Beast Games' show
- Gauff splits with Gilbert as coach after 14-month run
- Hundreds of thousands at risk in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN
- Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge
- Venezuelan opposition candidate says letter conceding election was coerced
- Ukraine official claims Russian advance in Kursk has been 'stopped'
- X update allows app to bypass Brazil ban: internet providers
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 14, wound 450
- US Fed makes aggressive rate cut, weeks before election
- Arsenal's Odegaard faces lengthy injury absence
- India coal expansion risks massive methane growth: report
- China the top challenge in US history, top diplomat says
- US Fed makes larger half-point cut in first reduction since 2020
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr appoint former AC Milan boss Pioli
- Ainslie 'relieved' as British book place in Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Struggling Roma replace sacked icon De Rossi with Ivan Juric
- Women's NBA will add 15th team in Portland in 2026
- Brazil fires need harsher punishment: environmental police boss
- Boeing to start large temporary furloughs amid Seattle strike
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill nine, wound 300
- 'Emergency' declared over falling UK butterfly numbers
- McIlroy outlines threats to golf peace deal
- Stock markets, dollar slip before US rate decision
- Russian advance in Kursk 'stopped': Ukraine official to AFP
- UN members demand end to 'unlawful' Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories
- Snapchat pushes 'safer' platform image, but not everyone agrees
- Three dead, 100 wounded in new wave of Lebanon device explosions
- So where does the oceans' plastic waste come from?
- Allied war heroes buried in Netherlands... 80 years on
- Marsh coy over Australia's choice to open alongside Head
- New London sculpture pays tribute to trans community
- Lebanon doctors tell of horror after pager blasts
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
GSK | -0.31% | 42.43 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.02% | 25.055 | $ | |
VOD | 0.49% | 10.23 | $ | |
NGG | -0.46% | 70.05 | $ | |
SCS | 0.71% | 14.11 | $ | |
BTI | -0.34% | 37.88 | $ | |
AZN | 0.06% | 78.58 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.37% | 6.55 | $ | |
RIO | -0.02% | 62.91 | $ | |
RELX | -0.82% | 47.37 | $ | |
BCC | 1.33% | 137.06 | $ | |
BCE | 3.09% | 35.61 | $ | |
JRI | 0.45% | 13.44 | $ | |
BP | -0.37% | 32.43 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.12% | 24.98 | $ |
DR Congo Pygmies attacked in wildlife park: rights group
Troops and rangers in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park in eastern DR Congo have carried out attacks on indigenous Pygmies living in the famed wildlife haven, a rights watchdog said on Wednesday
Violence broke out in 2018 between park rangers and members of the Batwa community, who are accused of illegally settling in the reserve, cutting down trees to make charcoal and opening fire on rangers, killing and wounding a number of them.
The British watchdog Minority Rights Group (MRG), in a report on Wednesday, alleged that soldiers and Kahuzi-Biega guards carried out attacks against the Pygmies living in the park.
"The attacks were well-planned, targeted civilian populations," the group said.
"The research team obtained direct evidence of the deaths of at least 20 individual Batwa community members in connection with this three-year campaign of forced expulsion," it added.
"The research team obtained direct evidence that 15 Batwa women were forcibly group-raped by park guards and soldiers during the July and November-December 2021 operations," the watchdog said.
The 6,000-square-kilometre (2,300-square-mile mile) reserve lies close to the Rwandan border near Bukavu, in one of the most troubled areas of the vast country.
- Legal limbo -
Dominated by the extinct volcanoes of Kahuzi and Biega, the park's tropical forests are a redoubt for one of the last populations of eastern lowland gorillas, made up of about 250 primates, according to its website.
Since the 1990s, the haven has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site in danger because of the presence of armed groups and settlers, poaching and deforestation.
A number of Pygmies charge that their land was confiscated when the national park was expanded and want to recover what they say is theirs.
The MRG report, based on on-site investigation and dozens of witnesses, said the park rangers received financial and technical support at the time from the governments of Germany and the United States, as well as international conservation organizations such as the Wildlife Conservation Society.
An investigation has recently been launched by the park's overseers, the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN), to probe alleged violations.
The panel has been in Bukavu since April 4 and will travel to the scene of the alleged crimes, Georges Muzibaziba, who heads the ICCN's human rights section.
There is a lack of legal clarity between DR Congo's laws that protect the national park and those guaranteeing the rights of the Pygmy populations.
On April 7, 2021, a bill to protect and promote the rights of indigenous people was adopted by the DR Congo parliament.
It guarantees among other things recognition of the rights to land and natural resources of the indigenous Pygmy people to possess, occupy and use traditionally.
The Senate has been reviewing the bill for the last year.
C.Meier--BTB