World

HAMBURG — There is no prospect of a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine, according to Irina Scherbakova, one of the co-founders of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Russian rights organisation Memorial.

"I am absolutely convinced that there is not a diplomatic solution with Putin's regime, so long as it is still there," Scherbakova said Sunday in Hamburg, Germany.

Her comments came as she was presented with another award for her years of work cataloguing Stalinist-era crimes and campaigning on rights issues in her home country.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz handed over the Marion Doenhoff Prize to Scherbakova, praising her as an ally in the fight for a "peaceful, free and democratic future for Europe".

Scherbakova's accolades come after Russia's invasion of Ukraine means those aims seem further away than ever.

Her lack of hope for a diplomatic solution was a "tragic message", Scherbakova said.

"The solution [to the conflict] that there will now be is a military one," she said.

Diplomacy would ultimately play a role in resolving the conflict, she speculated.

"But these decisions, this diplomacy will only happen when Ukraine believes it has won this war and can set its terms," she said.

Hasty calls for peace were "childish", she said, adding that things would not return to the way they were before the outbreak of the conflict.

"This war has turned so many things upside down, it will never be like that again," she said.

'Better future' 

Now based in Germany, Scherbakova said there was "a lot of work to do at the moment under very difficult circumstances to document crimes" committed in the course of the current war.

While some of her colleagues from Memorial have also fled abroad, many have continued to work under "much pressure" in the country, she said.

"The task now is to show people that there is another Russia, that it is not silent," she said.

Scherbakova's organisation, Memorial, will be presented with the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Saturday December 10.

The group was awarded the prize along with fellow campaigners the Centre for Civil Liberties in Ukraine and the Belarussian activist, Ales Bialiatski.

One of the foremost Russian civil liberties organisations, Memorial has worked for decades to shed light on terrors from the era of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, while also compiling information on ongoing political oppression in Russia.

The group, founded in 1989, was forcibly shut down by Russian courts at the end of 2021 and Scherbakova left Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine.

Scherbakova's efforts showed the way of a "better future for Russia", Scholz said, even if the prospect "still seems unlikely".

The war will not end with "a victory for Greater Russian expansionism", said Scholz, who has faced repeated criticism for not doing more to support the Ukrainian war effort.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has "already dramatically failed" in his war aims, Scholz said.

Russia will, however, "still be there" after the end of the conflict, Scholz stressed.

"That is why it is so important that in this period we support those Russians standing up for a different, better, brighter Russia," he said.

DAKAR — Mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) killed nine Mali soldiers during November in central and southern areas in thrall to a decade-long terror insurgency, the military said on Sunday.

The armed forces “were in November 2022 the object of three IED attacks leaving nine FAMa [armed forces] troops dead in combat, eight injured and three vehicles damaged”, said a statement distributed to social media platforms.

The bulk of the violence across the month was in the north but also hit the southern region of Sikasso, previously largely spared unrest sparked by terror groups such as the Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), led by an Al Qaeda-linked Tuareg, Iyad Ag Ghali.

Since 2012, thousands have died in Mali and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes in an insurgency which has spread to neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

Despair at the toll prompted Malian army officers to mount a coup in 2020.

The following year saw Malian forces launch a large-scale operation against the militants amid widespread reports the ruling junta had brought in Russian paramilitaries — a move Bamako denies but which prompted France to pull out its troop support.

Mines and IEDs are among the extremists’ weapons of choice. They can explode on impact or be detonated remotely.

The armed forces’ latest statement indicated troops had “neutralised” more than 70 “terrorists” during November and uncovered material to make IEDs as well as livestock and grain stocks which local populations are being obliged to hand over to the militants as a form of Islamic tax.

The statement is difficult to verify given the lack of access on the ground as well as independent and reliable sources to back up the army account.

BRUSSELS — Many hundreds of those who survived the 2016 terror attacks on Brussels' metro and airport were left maimed, traumatised or bereaved.

As the trial begins for defendants accused of plotting Belgium's worst peacetime massacre — which left 32 dead — some will take the chance to have their accounts heard.

Here are some of their stories, as told to AFP:

The airport worker 

Philippe Vandenberghe was working in the staff area of Brussels' Zaventem airport on March 22, 2016, when two suicide bombers detonated their devices in the terminal.

The 51-year-old computer technician has a first aid certificate and immediately set out to help.

"A chance to save lives is the most important thing that can happen," he said. "I intervened on 18 different people, I'm sure I saved one, probably two or three."

The ceiling had collapsed, debris littered the floor and the smoke was still dense.

He moved cautiously. Some victims had limbs torn off. Two children lay next to a lifeless body — "probably their mother".

He tried and failed to give her CPR.

Vandenberghe worked for an hour, pressing blood-drenched baggage carts into service as gurneys to move the dead and dying to the first aid post.

Eventually, a colleague took him home "in a state of shock".

A doctor would prescribe him painkillers but his post-traumatic stress disorder was not diagnosed until after he had endured months of sleepless nights.

After being treated in a specialised clinic, he left his airport job in 2019.

"My life was completely destroyed, I lost my friends, my hobbies, my job," said Vandenberghe, who is now a Red Cross volunteer and hopes to become an ambulance driver.

Not the same mum 

Danielle Iwens was working at a check-in desk near the site of the blast. Today, the 58-year-old is one of many victims with permanent hearing damage.

"60 per cent less in the left ear", she told AFP.

Today, Iwens still struggles to concentrate and has poor memory. She avoids loud noises and crowds.

"I no longer go to concerts. Never to fireworks and in restaurants I always sit near an exit," she said. "I am no longer the same mother, nor the same friend".

The attacks worsened the symptoms of her Parkinson's disease.

Iwens lost a work colleague in the blast and left her job with an airport logistics contractor in 2022, retiring early at the urging of her doctors.

"The stress and anxiety was too much for my body," she said.

Like many others, she had a difficult battle with insurers to cover the cost of her care.

"We rebuilt the airport in six months, and people's lives have been waiting for six years," she said.

The haunted cop 

Christian De Coninck thought he had seen enough in a 40-year police career to armour him against more horror. The Brussels metro blast taught him otherwise.

He arrived at the scene in his role as a police spokesman, to brief journalists on the tragedy unfolding under Brussels' busy European quarter.

"It was a disaster... things that no one should see. And then that stench coming out of the station," he said.

De Coninck, now 62-years-old, and retired was confronted by "dozens of people lying on the sidewalk, leaning against the wall".

The dead and wounded had been pried from a mangled metro carriage or found on the smoke-filled platform.

After responding to reporters' questions at the scene, he went with the Brussels mayor to meet the wounded being treated at a makeshift aid station in the foyer of a hotel.

Even though some were saved, the images of the injured were imprinted on his mind.

"When I entered I saw a person sitting in an armchair, with a bandaged head, haggard eyes, really lifeless. His look still haunts me," he told AFP.

"There was also a young man, who could not be revived, dead at my feet".

De Coninck was diagnosed with PTSD a year later, but his colleagues had already seen his behaviour change, become more aggressive.

After consulting a psychiatrist, he left the force.

TOKYO — Issei Sagawa, a Japanese murderer known as the "Kobe Cannibal" who killed and ate a Dutch student but was never jailed, has died aged 73.

Sagawa died of pneumonia on November 24 and was given a funeral attended only by relatives, with no public ceremony planned, his younger brother and a friend said in a statement.

In 1981, Sagawa was studying in Paris when he invited Dutch student Renee Hartevelt to his home.

He shot her in the neck, raped her and then consumed parts of her body over the course of several days.

Sagawa then attempted to dispose of her remains in the Bois de Boulogne Park and was arrested several days later, confessing his crime to police.

But in 1983 he was deemed unfit for trial by French medical experts and was initially held in a psychiatric institution before being deported to Japan in 1984.

Hartevelt's family pledged at the time to push for Sagawa to be prosecuted in Japan so that "the murderer would never go free".

But on his arrival, he was ruled sane by Japanese authorities, who decided Sagawa's only problem was a "character anomaly" and that he did not require hospitalisation.

Japanese authorities were unable to get his case files from their French counterparts, who considered the case closed, leaving the murderer to walk free.

Sagawa made no secret of his crime and capitalised on his notoriety, including with a novel-like memoir titled "In the Fog" in which he reminisced about the murder in vivid detail.

The murder was also the subject of Japanese novelist Juro Kara's "Letter from Sagawa-kun", which won the country's most prestigious literary prize in 1982.

Despite the heinous details of the murder, and his lack of remorse, Sagawa gained a level of celebrity and regularly gave interviews to domestic and international media in the years after his return.

He was featured in a magazine for his paintings of naked women, appeared in a pornographic movie and produced a manga comic book that depicted his crime in graphic and unrelenting detail.

The sordid fascination with the murder even saw it referenced by the Rolling Stones and The Stranglers in songs.

Sagawa lived out his final years with his brother, reportedly in a wheelchair after a series of health problems including a stroke.

But he displayed no apparent sign of remorse or reform, telling Vice in a 2013 interview as he looked at posters of Japanese women: "I think they would taste delicious."

He also recounted details of the incident and his ongoing obsession with cannibalism in interviews and a 2017 documentary, "Caniba".

The film's directors spent months with Sagawa and his brother, and described themselves as "conflicted" about the experience.

"We were disgusted, fascinated, we wanted to understand," said co-director Verena Paravel.

SEOUL — South Korea on Saturday arrested a former national security chief on suspicion of covering up events surrounding the 2020 murder of a fisheries official by Pyongyang.

President Yoon Suk-yeol is expanding an inquiry into the highly politicised case following accusations that his predecessor mishandled the probe to curry favour with North Korea.

Suh Hoon is the first top official from the presidential office of former leader Moon Jae-in to be arrested over the case.

He is accused of ordering that intelligence reports be destroyed to conceal the killing of fisheries official Lee Dae-jun, who died near the sea border separating North and South Korea.

The former top security official also faces allegations that he manipulated evidence to support the Moon government’s controversial claim that the late fisheries official had sought to defect to the North.

Judge Kim Jeong-min of the Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant for Suh on Saturday, citing “the seriousness of the crime, the status of the suspect, and a risk of destroying evidence”.

A spokesperson for President Yoon’s People Power Party confirmed the arrest in a statement.

“Suh Hoon, former chief of the Blue House’s National Security Office, was arrested early this morning,” Park Jung-ha said.

In October ex-defence minister Suh Wook and former coast guard chief Kim Hong-hee were also arrested over the same case.

President Yoon has been sharply critical of his predecessor’s dovish approach towards North Korea, accusing Moon of appeasing Pyongyang.

Yoon’s People Power Party on Saturday accused Suh of “failing to protect” and “neglecting” the late fisheries official while security chief.

But the country’s opposition has long claimed the investigation is “political revenge” against Moon’s administration.

On Saturday they said Suh’s arrest was “hard to understand” and they would “defend the truth and justice” against Yoon’s “political retaliation”.

Debts and gambling 

Fisheries official Lee was shot dead and set on fire by North Korean soldiers near the rivals’ sea border.

Moon’s government at the time said an initial probe by the coast guard suggested Lee had tried to defect to the North, citing family problems and debts from gambling.

But Lee’s brother has repeatedly slammed that idea, saying Lee would never have chosen a life in North Korea.

Yoon has also reopened inquiries into another explosive murder case in which two North Korean fishermen who confessed to killing 16 crewmates at sea were deported back to Pyongyang in 2019.

Rights groups have said the transfer of the suspects back to the North was a violation of international law because of the likelihood of the men being tortured or worse.

As president, Moon championed engagement with Pyongyang, meeting North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and then-US president Donald Trump for talks.

But his diplomacy ultimately failed, with the North now more belligerent than ever.

KABUL — At least 16 people were killed and 24 others wounded Wednesday by a blast at a madrassa in Afghanistan's northern city of Aybak, a doctor at a local hospital told AFP.

There have been dozens of blasts and attacks targeting civilians since the Taliban returned to power in August last year, most claimed by the local chapter of the Daesh group.

A doctor in Aybak, about 200 kilometres north of the capital Kabul, said the casualties were mostly youngsters.

"All of them are children and ordinary people," he told AFP, asking not to be named.

A provincial official confirmed the blast at Al Jihad madrassa, an Islamic religious school, but could not provide casualty figures.

The Taliban, which frequently plays down casualty figures, said 10 students had died and “many others” were injured.

“Our detective and security forces are working quickly to identify the perpetrators of this unforgivable crime and punish them for their actions,” tweeted Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafay Takor.

Images and video circulating on social media, which could not immediately be verified, showed Taliban fighters picking their way through bodies strewn across the floor of a building.

Prayer mats, shattered glass and other debris littered the scene.

Lull between blasts 

Aybak is a small but ancient provincial capital that came to prominence as a caravan stopping post for traders during the fourth and fifth centuries when it was also an important Buddhist centre.

There has been a lull of a few weeks between major blasts targeting civilians in Afghanistan, although several Taliban fighters have been killed in isolated attacks.

In September, at least 54 people, including 51 girls and young women, were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a device at a hall in Kabul packed with hundreds of students sitting a practice test for university admissions.

No group claimed responsibility for that bombing, but the Taliban later blamed the Daesh terror group and said it had killed several ringleaders.

In May last year, before the Taliban’s return to power, at least 85 people, mainly girls, were killed and about 300 were wounded when three bombs exploded near their school in the neighbourhood

No group claimed responsibility, but a year earlier Daesh claimed a suicide attack on an educational centre in the area that killed 24.

The Taliban’s return to power brought an end to their insurgency, but Daesh continues to stage attacks across the country.

The Taliban movement, made up primarily of ethnic Pashtuns,  has pledged to protect minorities and clamp down on security threats.