LONDON (AP) – A drive-by shooting in central London wounded two children and four women, police said Sunday. The Metropolitan Police said officers were called Saturday afternoon to a church in the Euston area where a private memorial service was taking place. Police believe gunmen fired shotgun pellets from a moving car outside the church. “People came here to attend a funeral, to be with friends and loved ones and mourn together. Instead, they were the victims of a senseless act of violence,” police superintendent Jack Rowlands said. A 7-year-old girl remained hospitalized Sunday with life-threatening injuries, and a 12-year-old girl sustained a leg injury, the police department said. The Rev. Jeremy Trood told the BBC he heard a bang and people “sheltered in the church until the police said they can leave.” Mayor Sadiq Khan described Saturday’s daytime attack as a “deeply distressing incident.” Police said an investigation was underway.

 

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NEW DELHI (Dispatches) – A Muslim man in India has been brutally assaulted and beaten by a Hindu-radical mob on board a train after he refused to say a proclamation used by Hindus. The video of the incident, which was shared on social media by Shaukat Ali, State President of All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), showed Asim Hussain, the victim, being stripped to the waist along with being brutally flogged in the walk-way area of the train compartment by unidentified people. According to Hussain, 46, the incident took place at the Hapur station in Uttar Pradesh, as he was returning from Delhi to Moradabad. “When the train stopped at the Hapur station, 8–10 people started pushing and shoving, and it was crowded there. At the same time, someone shouted ‘This Muslim is a thief’, and they took off my shirt and beat me with a belt, pulled my beard and asked me to chant JSR,” Hussain explained while speaking to reporters. “They forced me to chant ‘JSR’ but I denied.” When Hussain did not cater to his assaulters’ demands, he was made to lie down, and then mercilessly beaten with a belt. “They beat me so much that I almost lost consciousness. Then someone from the same crowd took mercy on me and threw me out when the train reached Moradabad station. After that, someone from the station offered me clothes,” said Hussain. Since coming to power in 2014, India’s right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi – a lifelong member of the hardline RSS Hindu nationalist group – has emboldened extremist groups that view India as a Hindu nation and consider its 200-million-strong Muslim minority as a foreign threat.

 

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LIMA (AFP) – The Peruvian government has declared a state of emergency in the capital Lima and three other regions due to anti-government protests that have claimed the lives of at least 42 people in recent weeks. The state of emergency, announced late Saturday, will initially be in force for 30 days, authorizing the army to take necessary measures such as restricting movements to maintain law and order across the cities. The move came after Peru’s President Dina Boluarte made clear that she will not step down despite the protesters demanding her resignation. “Some voices coming from the violent and radical groups demand my resignation, bringing people to chaos, disorder, and destruction. I say to them responsibly that I will not step down,” Boluarte said. Boluarte blamed the recent deaths on bad influences that had pushed citizens into “confrontations” and that she requested authorities to investigate.  Peru has been hit by back-to-back protests ever since former president Pedro Castillo was ousted and detained in early December amid his attempt to dissolve Congress and rule by decree. The protesters now want Boluarte, who replaced Castillo, to resign and make way for the former head of state to resume power. They are also calling for the dissolution of Congress, early elections, and reforms in constitutional law.

 

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BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) — The worst cholera outbreak to affect Malawi in two decades has now claimed 750 lives, a government minister said, while the World Health Organization chief described the southeast African country as among the hardest-hit amid ongoing global epidemics that are “more widespread and deadly than normal.” Malawi’s Health Minister Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda has ordered the closure of many businesses that lack safe water, toilets and hygienic refuse disposal facilities, and announced restrictions on the sale of pre-cooked food. “We continue to record rising number of cases across the country, despite signs of reduced transmission and deaths in a few areas,” Chiponda said in a statement, and urged adherence to sanitation and hygiene measures. Figures show that about 15 people have been dying daily in recent days, with 155 deaths recorded in the past 10 days. Nearly 1,000 people were hospitalized as of Wednesday. This week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 31 countries have reported cholera outbreaks since December, a 50% increase over previous years.

 

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KINSHASA (Al Jazeera) – At least five people have been killed and 15 others wounded in a bomb attack during a service at a church in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). An army spokesman said the attack during the Sunday service in the city of Kasindi, on the border with Uganda, was likely carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan armed group that has pledged allegiance to Daesh. “Despite the security measures put in place, the first indications show that it is the ADF which is behind this bomb attack,” Anthony Mualushay told Reuters news agency. “I just came back from the scene, where I saw the bodies of children on the ground,” Alain Kitsa, a Kasindi resident, said, describing the atmosphere in the town as tense. The ADF, which began as an uprising in Uganda but has been based in the DRC since the late 1990s, has not claimed responsibility for the bombing. Kasindi is in a province where Congolese and Ugandan forces have launched a campaign against the ADF.

 

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OUAGADOUGOU (AFP) – Suspected militants have abducted roughly 50 women in a part of northern Burkina Faso that is regularly hit by violence, local officials and residents told AFP. Roughly 40 were seized about a dozen kilometers southeast of Arbinda on Thursday and about 20 others were abducted to the north of the town, with some escaping in the meantime, the sources said on condition of anonymity.