Month: September 2023

Migrants Being Raped at Mexico Border as They Await Entry to US

When Carolina’s captors arrived at dawn to pull her out of the stash house in the Mexican border city of Reynosa in late May, she thought they were going to force her to call her family in Venezuela again to beg them to pay $2,000 ransom.

Instead, one of the men shoved her onto a broken-down bus parked outside and raped her, she told Reuters. “It’s the saddest, most horrible thing that can happen to a person,” Carolina said.

A migrant advocate who assisted Carolina after the kidnapping, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, confirmed all the details of her account.

The attack came amid an increase in sexual violence against migrants in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros, both major transit routes for immigrants seeking to enter the U.S., according to data from the Mexican government and humanitarian groups, as well as interviews with eight sexual assault survivors and more than a dozen local aid workers.

“The inhumane way smugglers abuse, extort, and perpetrate violence against migrants for profit is criminal and morally reprehensible,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Luis Miranda said in response to questions about the rise in reported rapes.

Criminal investigations into the rape of foreign nationals, excluding Americans, were the highest on record in the two cities this year, according to state data from 2014 to 2023 obtained by Reuters through freedom of information requests.

The U.S. State Department considers Tamaulipas, where the two cities are located, to be the most dangerous state along the U.S.-Mexico border.

‘Torture process’

Facing record illegal border crossings, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration in May moved to a new system that required migrants to secure an appointment — via an app known as CBP One — to present themselves at a legal border crossing to enter the United States.

Nine experts, including lawyers, medical professionals, and aid workers, told Reuters the new system has had unintended consequences in the two cities, contributing to a spike in violence.

The high risk of kidnapping and sexual assault in Reynosa and Matamoros is one of the factors pushing migrants to cross illegally, four advocates said. Crossings border-wide surged in September.

Biden officials say the new CBP policy is more humane because it reduces the need for migrants to pay smugglers and criminal groups to ferry them across the border illegally.

The experts said many asylum seekers are no longer paying smugglers to get them across the border – instead traveling towards the frontier on their own, hoping to make an appointment on the app.

But criminal groups are still demanding these migrants pay to enter their territory, the experts said.

“Rape is part of the torture process to get the money,” said Bertha Bermúdez Tapia, a sociologist at New Mexico State University researching the impacts of Biden’s policy on migrants in Tamaulipas.

The Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel are both active in the region and kidnap migrants for ransom, particularly those who arrive without smugglers’ protection, according to security analysts. Reuters was unable to contact the two groups.

Some migrants are also spending more time in the dangerous region, waiting to secure an appointment on the app. Tens of thousands of people a day are competing for 1,450 slots, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

A senior CBP official based in Washington said CBP was troubled by reports of migrants sexually assaulted in the two cities.

“It’s absolutely something that we’re concerned about,” said the official, who requested anonymity as a condition of the interview.

U.S. authorities temporarily suspended CBP One appointments in June in another Tamaulipas border city, Nuevo Laredo, due to “extortion and kidnapping concerns,” the official said.

However, Miranda, the DHS spokesperson, said the administration’s policies made it unnecessary to wait at the border since migrants could book an appointment from other parts of Central and Northern Mexico.

More than 250,000 migrants have scheduled appointments on the CBP One app, and over 200,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans have entered the United States by air under a separate Biden humanitarian program, according to CBP statistics.

‘Take her’

Carolina said she arrived in Reynosa the night of May 26 on a commercial bus with her 13-year-old son. Men began trailing them as soon as they arrived at the bus station, she said.

“They said we couldn’t be there without their permission,” she said, speaking from Chicago.

The U.S. State Department warns that criminal groups in Tamaulipas target buses “often taking passengers and demanding ransom payments.”

The men whisked Carolina away to a house where she said she and other migrants were raped.

She said she was freed after family members paid $3,100 in ransom. Reuters was unable to independently verify the payment. She did not report the attack to police, saying she saw no point.

An Ecuadoran woman said that while in captivity in Reynosa her kidnappers repeatedly allowed a drug dealer to rape her in exchange for his deliveries of a white powder, which she suspected was cocaine.

One night, she clutched her figurine of the Christ child, tiptoed past her sleeping captors, and escaped through the window. “I still have nightmares,” she said, speaking from New Jersey in August.

Reuters is withholding the full names of the survivors at their request. To corroborate their accounts, Reuters reviewed medical and psychological reports; criminal complaints and legal declarations; financial records, photos and videos supplied by the survivors, attorneys and advocates.

The state attorney general’s office has opened seven rape investigations of foreign women in the first half of 2023. Four were opened in June alone.

Only one of the eight survivors Reuters interviewed reported the attack to authorities: a Honduran woman who said she was raped inside a migrant camp in Matamoros in late May. No one has been arrested, authorities said.

Olivia Lemus, head of Tamaulipas’ human rights commission, said official data represents a fraction of the cases. “Migrants are afraid to file reports,” Lemus said. “The fact that there aren’t more reports doesn’t mean that this crime isn’t occurring.”

Mexico’s national migration agency, Tamaulipas’ security agency, and Mexico’s foreign ministry did not answer questions about sexual violence against migrants.

Juan Rodriguez, head of the Tamaulipas migrant services agency, said the agency was “attentive” to the issue.

“Unfortunately, sometimes things happen. We can’t deny it.”

A Venezuelan migrant said he was kidnapped in May in Reynosa by a cartel while traveling to the border for his confirmed CBP One appointment. He couldn’t raise the full $800 ransom, so he was forced to work for two months to pay off the remaining $200, he said.

Two other migrants who said they were held at the house during the same time period confirmed the man was forced to work against his will, and that they heard female migrants being raped.

On the nights the Venezuelan man was tasked with standing guard over the other migrants, he said he watched the cartel members ask the man in charge of the house for permission to rape the women of their choosing.

He said the answer was always the same: “Take her.”

Last Living Suspect in 1996 Killing of Tupac Shakur Charged with Murder

A man who prosecutors say ordered the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur was arrested and charged with murder Friday in a long-awaited breakthrough in one of hip-hop’s most enduring mysteries.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis has long been known to investigators as one of four suspects identified early in the investigation. He isn’t the accused gunman but was described as the group’s ringleader by authorities Friday at a news conference and in court.

“Duane Davis was the shot caller for this group of individuals that committed this crime,” said police homicide Lt. Jason Johansson, “and he orchestrated the plan that was carried out.”

Davis himself has admitted in interviews and in his 2019 tell-all memoir, Compton Street Legend, that he provided the gun used in the drive-by shooting.

Authorities said Friday that Davis’ own public comments revived the investigation.

Davis, now 60, was arrested early Friday while on a walk near his home on the outskirts of Las Vegas, hours before prosecutors announced in court that a Nevada grand jury had indicted the self-described gangster on one count of murder with a deadly weapon. He is due in court next week.

The grand jury also voted to add a sentencing enhancement to the murder charge for gang activity that could add up to 20 additional years if he’s convicted.

The first-ever arrest in the case came after Las Vegas police raided Davis’ home in mid-July in the nearby city of Henderson for items they described at the time as “concerning the murder of Tupac Shakur.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if Davis has an attorney who can comment on his behalf. Prosecutors said they did not know if he had a lawyer and several local attorneys said they did not know who from Las Vegas would represent him. Phone and text messages to Davis and his wife on Friday and in the months since the July 17 search weren’t returned.

“For 27 years, the family of Tupac Shakur has been waiting for justice,” Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference Friday. “While I know there’s been many people who did not believe that the murder of Tupac Shakur was important to this police department, I’m here to tell you that is simply not the case.”

Prosecutors said they have been in contact with the rapper’s family, who are “pleased with this news.”

On the night of Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was in a BMW driven by Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight. They were waiting at a red light near the Las Vegas Strip when a white Cadillac pulled up next to them and gunfire erupted.

Shakur was shot multiple times and died a week later at the age of 25.

Davis, in his memoir, said he was in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac and had slipped a gun into the back seat, from where he said the shots were fired.

He implicated his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, saying he was one of two people in the backseat. Anderson, a known rival of Shakur, had been involved in a casino brawl with the rapper shortly before the shooting.

Anderson died two years later. He denied any involvement in Shakur’s death.

Emails seeking comment from two lawyers who have previously represented Knight were not immediately returned. Knight was grazed by a bullet fragment in the shooting but had only minor injuries. He is serving a 28-year prison sentence in California for an unrelated voluntary manslaughter charge. 

India’s Monsoon Rains at 5-Year Low Due to El Nino

India’s monsoon rainfall this year was its lowest since 2018 as the El Nino weather pattern made August the driest in more than a century, the state-run weather department said Saturday. 

The monsoon, which is vital for India’s $3 trillion economy, brings nearly 70% of the rain the country needs to water crops and replenish reservoirs and aquifers.  

Nearly half of the farmland in the world’s most populous nation lacks irrigation, making the monsoon rains even more vital for agricultural production. 

The summer rainfall deficit could make staples such as sugar, pulses, rice and vegetables more expensive and lift overall food inflation. 

Lower production could also prompt India, the world’s second-biggest producer of rice, wheat, and sugar, to impose more curbs on exports of these commodities. 

Rainfall over the country during June to September was 94% of its long period average, the lowest since 2018, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in a statement. 

The IMD had anticipated a rainfall deficit of 4% for the season, assuming limited impact from El Nino. 

El Nino is a warming of Pacific waters that is typically accompanied by drier conditions over the Indian subcontinent. 

The monsoon was uneven, with June rains 9% below average because of the delay in the arrival of rains, but July rains rebounding to 13% above average.  

August was the driest month on record with a 36% deficit, but again in September rainfall revived and the country received 13% more rainfall than normal, the IMD said.  

The erratic distribution of monsoon rains has led India, the world’s largest rice exporter, to limit rice shipments, impose a 40% duty on onion exports, permit duty-free imports of pulses, and could potentially result in New Delhi banning sugar exports. 

The country is expected to receive normal rainfall from October to December, the weather department said, adding that temperatures were likely to remain above normal in most of the country during October. 

Kosovo Demands Serbia Withdraw Troops From Border

Kosovo demanded Saturday that Serbia withdraw its troops from their common border, saying it was ready to protect its territorial integrity.  

Tensions between the two countries have been high since last Sunday when Kosovo police fought around 30 heavily armed Serbs who stormed the Kosovo village of Banjska and barricaded themselves in a Serbian Orthodox monastery. Three attackers and one police officer were killed. 

The gunbattle prompted new international concern over stability in Kosovo, which has an ethnic Albanian majority and declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after a guerrilla uprising and a 1999 NATO intervention. 

“We call on President [Aleksandar] Vucic and the institutions of Serbia to immediately withdraw all troops from the border with Kosovo,” the Kosovo government said in a statement. 

“The deployment of Serbian troops along the border with Kosovo is the next step by Serbia to threaten the territorial integrity of our country.” 

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told the Financial Times he did not intend to order his forces to cross the border into Kosovo because an escalation of the conflict would harm Belgrade’s aspirations to the join the European Union. 

On Friday, the United States said it was monitoring a troubling Serbian military deployment along the Kosovo border that is destabilizing the area. 

“Kosovo, in coordination with international partners, is more determined than ever to protect its territorial integrity,” the Pristina government said. “This deployment also includes the deployment of anti-aircraft systems and heavy artillery.” 

The government of the Republic of Kosovo said it “has been in constant contact with the U.S. and the EU countries regarding this serious threat from Serbia.” 

NATO, which still has 4,500 troops in Kosovo, said Friday it had “authorized additional forces to address the current situation.” 

More Than 100,000 Refugees Arrive in Armenia as Exodus Swells

More than 100,000 refugees have arrived in Armenia since Azerbaijan’s military operation to retake control of Nagorno-Karabakh, the United Nations said, while thousands more endured long hours of delay in a huge traffic jam at the border.

“Many are hungry, exhausted and need immediate assistance,” Filippo Grandi, head of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, said on social media late Friday. “International help is very urgently required.”

Italy said Armenia had asked the European Union for temporary shelters and medical supplies to help it deal with the refugees.

Siranush Sargsyan, a freelance journalist who has been reporting on the flight of the ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, told Reuters that thousands of people — their belongings crammed into cars, trucks and tractors — were stuck on the mountain highway leading to Armenia.

Many required urgent medical attention, Sargsyan said.

“As you can see, we are still stuck on the road,” said Sargsyan.”This exodus is already unbearable physically because we have already spent 16 hours on this road … It seems in the next 24 hours we still won’t be able to reach the border.”

Following a lightning Azerbaijani offensive that returned the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani control, many of Karabakh’s 120,000 Armenians began what became a mass exodus toward Armenia, saying they feared persecution and ethnic cleansing despite Azerbaijan’s promises of safety.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but is populated mainly by Armenian Christians who set up the self-styled Republic of Artsakh three decades ago after a bloody ethnic conflict as the Soviet Union collapsed.

One refugee vowed to return home eventually.

“The world should not believe that we are willingly leaving Artsakh, ever,” she said. “We fought till the very end, with our blood, with our lives to protect our country.”

Azerbaijan said that one of its servicemen was killed by sniper fire from Armenian forces in the border district of Kalbajar, but the alleged incident was denied by Armenia.

Human Rights Activists Count More Detainees from ‘Bloody Friday’ Anniversary

Human rights sources say the number of Baluch citizens detained during violent demonstrations Friday has risen to at least 51 in the cities of Zahedan, Khash, and Mirjaveh, as three more people were identified Saturday.

The Hal-Vash website that covers news in Sistan and Baluchistan provinces reports Saturday that, following Friday prayers, government forces detained several citizens in the cities of Zahedan, Khash, Mehrestan and Mirjaveh. The website’s reporting suggests more than half of detainees are 16 to 30 years old.

Human Rights Activists News Agency also covered the events of Friday in Sistan and Baluchistan. It noted that on the one-year anniversary of “Bloody Friday in Zahedan,” Zahedan residents on Friday organized protests that turned violent when law enforcement officers intervened.

Images and reports indicate that some citizens were injured by inhaling tear gas. Hal-Vash also reported at least 29 people, including eight children, were hurt in clashes between security forces and protesters.

NetBlocks, a watchdog organization that monitors cybersecurity and internet governance, reported disruptions in internet connectivity in Zahedan, describing it as a “systematic effort to suppress public protests.”

Demand for punishment

Molavi Abdul Hamid, the Friday prayer Imam of the Sunnis in Zahedan, referred to the events of September 30, 2022, as a “grave tragedy” during his Friday sermon. He declared, “The general public demands the punishment of those responsible for the Bloody Friday massacre.”

A year ago, demonstrations broke out across Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who died in custody following her arrest in Tehran for allegedly flouting the country’s strict hijab rules.

The incidents Friday, along with images on social media, occurred amid a backdrop where the prosecutor of Sistan and Baluchistan province has categorically denied the existence of any gatherings or confrontations. The prosecutor asserted that “in opposition to the calls circulating for days to organize gatherings in the province, people have managed the situation adeptly, refraining from participating in such calls, and nothing particular happened.”

Residents take to streets

Shirahmad Shirani Naroui, the editor-in-chief of Hal-Vash, emphasized in an exclusive interview with Voice of America, “On Friday, September 29, residents took to the streets in numerous cities within the Sistan and Baluchistan province, challenging government forces. Remarkably, even as night fell, protesters persisted on the streets of Zahedan.”

Naroui underscored heightened security measures in Zahedan on Friday, pointing out that “following the departure of people from Makki Mosque and the commencement of peaceful protests, government forces confronted the demonstrators using stones, slingshots, and even live ammunition, including semi-automatic firearms. Currently, no information is available regarding the potential number of casualties resulting from this incident.”

Mehdi Nakhl-Ahmadi, a journalist, also discussed with Voice of America factors contributing to the yearlong endurance of protests in Sistan and Baluchistan and the enthusiastic participation of the people in the commemoration of “Bloody Friday in Zahedan.” He remarked, “The ongoing protests are a consequence of unfulfilled and unaddressed demands and the wisdom of Molavi Abdul Hamid, which led to the persistence of these protests.”