I know the media is focused on the Middle East.
Are there other places where killings are also taking place? If so, where and in what nbumbers?
The Maoist insurgency in Nepal is still taking lives.
On Saturday, March 30, the Nepali defence ministry reported that at least 17 people had been killed in Nepal since Thursday.
Reuters reports that "about 3,000 people have been killed in the conflict since it began in 1996. "
The civil war in Sri Lanka seems to be on hold. The Tamil Tiger rebels signed a cease-fire agreement with the government on February 22.
According to CNN, "more than 64,500 people have died since the rebels began fighting in 1983. "
There are various violent hot spots in Indonesia.
Today (April 3), a car bomb went off in Ambon in Maluku. It was “the first major violation of a cease-fire signed in February to end years of Muslim-Christian violence” according to AP. AP also reports that “up to 9,000 died and tens of thousands were forced to flee their homes in two years of fighting” in Maluku province.
Meanwhile, in Aceh province three members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) were killed by government troops on Monday, April 1. AFP reports that “an estimated 10,000 people have died since December 1976 when GAM began its fight for an independent Islamic state in the province”
People are still dying in Kashmir.
Yesterday (April 2), Reuters reported that “the Indian army said it had shot dead a commander of the banned Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba guerrilla group along with his bodyguard in north Kashmir.”
According to Reuters, “about a dozen rebel groups are fighting Indian rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir, where authorities say about 33,000 people have been killed in 12 years of rebellion.”
There has been violence in some Nothern African nations, notably Algeria and Sudan, for decades. In Sudan, it’s tensions between Christians and Muslims, in Algeria between pro-Westerners and Muslim fundamentalists.
At one time there were a number of separatist groups operating in northeastern India, but there seems to be little news of them recently. I hope that means peace is breaking out.
On Saturday (March 31), the government of Assam state announced it was assembling a team of mediators to talk with the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).
According to AP, “hundreds of people have been killed in the 23-year insurgency.”
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Well, that’s enough from me on overlooked Asian conflicts. I’ll leave it to others to discuss the fighting in places like Liberia, Congo, Colombia and elsewhere.
Some brief snapshots, courtesty of Human Rights Watch:
I don’t know if it helps or not to offer some perspective, but some of you may find this interesting. According to this release, there were 21,597 murders and 97,464 forcible rapes recorded in the United States in 1995, and that was a very light year. In other words, there are very few armed conflicts out there that compare with the day-to-day goings on of one of the larger, more developed, more stable nations out there. Just another way of looking at things, I guess.