Iraqi officials say one person was killed in Baghdad as police fired on anti-government protesters Saturday, the first day of demonstrations since a two-day curfew was lifted.

Demonstrators began taking to the streets last Tuesday to protest unemployment, poor public services and corruption.
 
Saturday’s protests came one day after former Shi’ite militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who leads the largest opposition bloc in parliament, called on the government to resign and said “early elections should be held under U.N. supervision.”
 
Iraqi forces have been opening fire on the protesters, and medical and security sources say at least 65 people have been killed this week.
 
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a statement Friday saying “the deaths of civilians and the growing number of wounded at the ongoing protests across the country is particularly worrying, as is the use of firearms for restoring public order.”

The ICRC has called on both sides to show restraint as it monitors developments on the ground.

‘Difficult choices’

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said Friday that the security measures, including the temporary curfew imposed were “difficult choices” but they were needed like “bitter medicine” that had to be swallowed.

In addition to those killed, hundreds of people have been wounded since the demonstrations began. The demonstrations have spread in Baghdad and in areas south of the capital.

The protests are the first major challenge to Abdul-Mahdi, who formed his government a year ago.

The government blamed the violence on “groups of riot inciters” and said security forces worked to protect the safety of peaceful protesters.

Iraq’s parliament has ordered a probe into the violence.

Many Iraqi citizens blame politicians and government officials for the corruption that has prevented the country from rebounding from years of sectarian violence and the battle to defeat Islamic State militants, who at one point controlled large areas in the northern and western part of the country.

At his weekly Cabinet meeting earlier this week, the prime minister released a statement promising jobs for graduates. He also ordered the oil ministry and other government agencies to apply a 50% quota for local workers in future contracts with foreign countries.

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Thousands of residents of Pakistan-held Kashmir rallied Saturday on board vehicles and motorbikes to press for their demand that India lift a two-month old controversial clampdown in its controlled portion of the disputed region.

The protest came on a day when U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen arrived in Pakistan after visiting India, where he was refused permission to personally visit Kashmir to assess the situation.

While speaking in the eastern Pakistan city of Multan, Van Hollen urged New Delhi to ensure protection of human rights, restore communications and release political prisoners in the disputed territory.

The protesters in Pakistani-administered Kashmir were calling for the region’s independence from both the countries and they were headed to the Line of Control (LoC), which divides the Himalayan territory, vowing to force their way into the Indian side.

“We want freedom on this [Pakistani] side and that [Indian] side,” chanted the slowly moving and charged up crowd that is expected to reach the boundary line on Sunday.

Local police have placed roadblocks just a few kilometers from the LoC, however, to prevent the rally from reaching the de facto border.

“I am going with this march to express solidarity with our Kashmiri brothers, who have been under curfew for two months now,” Ejaz Ahmed, a 64-year-old medical doctor by profession, told VOA.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government on August 5 unilaterally scrapped a decades old constitutional semi-autonomous status for the country’s only Muslim-majority state.

New Delhi has since deployed tens of thousands of additional troops, cut phone and internet services, and arrested nearly 4,000 people, including the region’s top political leadership, journalists and lawyers, amid serious allegations of torture and abuses.

The unprecedented lockdown to deter dissent and violent reactions by the local population has effectively isolated millions of Kashmiris from the rest of the world. India also has not permitted diplomats or foreign journalists to visit Kashmir. 

“We think it’s important that journalists and others be permitted to see exactly what’s going on with their own eyes. That’s why I had wanted to go there so that we can get the truth and get all the facts,” Hollen said. He is accompanied by U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan on the visit.

Modi has defended his actions in Kashmir, saying they are meant to bring development and prosperity to the violence-plagued region. Critics, including those in India, have rejected these assertions, though, calling for an immediate easing of the lockdown.

Saturday’s protest demonstration was being led by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) group, which operates on both sides and has been seeking total independence from India and Pakistan. The leader of the Indian chapter of JKLF is also among those Indian authorities have detained on the other side of the border.

JKLF activists made a similar attempt to cross the disputed border in 1992, but a police crackdown prevented them from doing so and the ensuing clashes killed at least 12 people.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan asked the protesters to desist from crossing the Kashmir LoC, saying it would give India “an excuse to increase violent oppression of Kashmiris” on the other side. He warned that India also could use it to launch a cross-border attack on Pakistani-held part of the region, known as Azad (free) Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

“I understand the anguish of Kashmiris in AJK seeing their fellow Kashmiris in IOJK [Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir] under an inhuman curfew for over 2 months,” Khan tweeted just before the rally began its march from the main city of Muzaffarabad.

Last week, while Khan was addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he emphatically urged member nations to intervene to persuade India to lift its siege of Kashmir before it results in another direct military conflict between the two nuclear-armed nations.

Khan asserted that Kashmiris would not accept the Indian moves and “what is going to happen when the curfew is lifted will be a bloodbath” for which Pakistan will be blamed, potentially drawing the two neighbors into war that could escalate into a nuclear exchange.

A new study released earlier this week warned that should a nuclear war ever occur between India and Pakistan, it would immediately kill up to 125 million people in both the countries, followed by mass starvation and ecosystem catastrophe far outside of the war zone itself. The research was jointly conducted by University of Colorado Boulder and Rutgers University.

The United States also has called on India to ease restrictions in Kashmir. Since the scrapping of the region’s special status by New Delhi, dozens of U.S. lawmakers have expressed concerns over what they have described as the “humanitarian crisis” in Kashmir.

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Rev. Franklin Graham did not utter the word “impeachment” as he spoke to thousands of Christians here this week, the latest stop on a long-running tour he has dubbed Decision America — a title with political and religious undertones.

But evangelicals who turned out to see Graham didn’t necessarily need his warning that “our country is in trouble” in order to tap into their deep-rooted support for President Donald Trump during an intensifying political crisis hundreds of miles north in Washington.

“I do feel like we are, as Christians, the first line of defense for the president,” Christina Jones, 44, said before Graham took the stage. Trump is “supporting our Christian principles and trying to do his best,” she added, even as “everybody’s against him.”

The impeachment furor is the latest test of Trump’s seemingly unbreakable bond with conservative evangelical Christians. Trump suggested this week that the peril of impeachment would only cement his ties to that voting bloc, which helped propel him into office, and supporters who have stood by him through accusations of sexual assault and infidelity see no reason to back away from a president they view as unfairly beleaguered.

Frances Lassiter, 65, dismissed Democrats’ pursuit of a case against Trump as “all a bunch of crap” designed to push him from office.

Asked about comments Trump circulated from an ally and Southern Baptist pastor who warned of a “civil warlike fracture” if the investigation succeeds, Lassiter and others in the crowd at Graham’s tour shared concerns about political polarization putting further strain on the country.

“Could have a war … you just don’t know,” Lassiter said. “It’s scary.”

Graham sounded a similar note in an interview with The Associated Press aboard his tour bus. The 67-year-old evangelist and son of the late Rev. Billy Graham said the inquiry into Trump’s solicitation of help from Ukrainian leaders in investigating former Vice President Joe Biden was “a lot over nothing.”

“It’s going to destroy this country if we let this continue,” Graham said of the impeachment investigation, urging Americans “to come together as a nation and focus on the problems” that beset both parties, such as immigration and international trade.

Separate from politics, not Trump

Graham sought to keep his tour, which he opened in 2016 and took to a half-dozen northeastern states earlier this year, separate from politics. But he also openly echoed arguments Trump has made in pressing unfounded Ukraine-related corruption allegations against Biden.

Trump has tried to sully Biden in scandal, questioning his Democratic rival’s role steering the Obama administration’s relationship with Kyiv while son Hunter Biden sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company. Although some anti-corruption watchdogs raised eyebrows, no evidence of improper actions by the Democratic presidential hopeful or his son has materialized.

Graham, for his part, encouraged Trump and others to keep looking, citing the vice president’s son’s acknowledged drug addiction as a reason Hunter Biden is “suspect.”

“So it’s probably worth looking into to see what Vice President Biden (did) at the time, what kind of promises he made to help his son with the Ukrainians.”

According to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, 13,800 people attended Graham’s Wednesday event in Greenville, seat of a county that Trump won in 2016. Greenville also hosted a July Trump rally where the audience broke into a derogatory chant against a freshman congresswoman who had drawn Trump’s ire. The strong turnout for Graham underscores the formidable reach of the evangelist’s message in his home and occasional swing state of North Carolina.

And the programming was as festive as it was introspective. Graham’s group counseled the faithful after a Christian singer performed live and the night ended with a fireworks display.

Evangelicals on the left

Graham’s preaching tour featured another touch, one more reminiscent of a political rally: counter-programming from evangelicals on the left. An hour outside of Greenville, a group of progressive Christians led by Rev. William Barber and his Poor People’s Campaign held a “Red Letter Revival” this week to offer an alternate vision of policymaking aligned with Biblical values.

That revival aims to redefine public understanding of issues of faith, encompassing an inclusive immigration agenda as well as more focus on helping the poor and the environment, explained Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, a liberal evangelical preacher helping to organize it.

Wilson-Hartgrove described Graham’s tour as a “coordinated effort to intertwine” religion and conservative politics. While he had little hope that supportive evangelicals would abandon the president for “personally offensive” actions — Trump used profanity to slam Democrats this week — Wilson-Hartgrove cast impeachment as “a moral question.”

“Does a president of any party have a sort of unquestioned right to, in this case, break (Federal Election Commission) rules and to break the law in order to win an election?” Wilson-Hartgrove asked in an interview. “It’s a question of right and wrong which people of faith should have concerns about.”

Rallies, polls track

In the crowd at Graham’s tour, which will stop in six more North Carolina cities in the next 10 days, believers had reserved their concern for Trump’s Democratic antagonists.

“They’re just digging things up and making things up just to try to take him down, and I don’t think that’s fair,” said Mike Fitzgerald, 64.

That sentiment tracks with polling, which shows an overwhelming majority of white evangelical Protestants consistently expressing approval of Trump’s handling of his job since his inauguration. Even among white evangelicals, those who attend church weekly have been just as or even more likely to approve of the president over the course of his term, according to Pew Research Center data.

In August, a Pew Research survey found 77% of white evangelical Protestants approving of Trump’s performance. Those who report attending church weekly were more likely to approve than those who attend less often, 81% versus 73%.

Anti-LGBTQ views

Graham has said that he invites all races, religions and sexual orientations to hear him, although he has aired anti-LGBTQ views. He reiterated them when asked about Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., a married gay man and devout Christian seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.

Graham’s father, a renowned preacher who died last year, aired regrets later in his life about having “sometimes crossed the line” in his involvement in politics.

Franklin Graham said he is cognizant of his late father’s perspective, averring that “you want to be careful, because politicians are going to want to use you.”

But he did not appear to count Trump in that judgment: “One thing I appreciate about President Trump, he’s not a politician. And that’s why he gets in trouble all the time,” Graham said.

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Yves Manuel in Port-au-Prince, Monica Lindor in Jacmel, Socrate Ameyes Jean Pierre in Miragoane, Charles Makenson in Jeremie, Innocente Desgranges in Petit Goave, Lucson Palmeus in Port-de-Paix and Junior Racine in St. Marc contributed to this report

WASHINGTON / PORT-AU-PRINCE – Thousands filled the streets of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, as well as cities to the north and south again Friday to demand President Jovenel Moise resign.

“Jojo Mele! (Jojo’s in trouble) Jojo Mele!” they chanted in unison to a raboday beat, waving their hands and clapping. Some held tree branches while others lifted posters up high for all to see that read: “Demisyon Jovenel” (Resign Jovenel.) They also had a message for the international community: stop propping up our corrupt government.

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Pòtoprens: Manifestasyon pou mande demisyon Prezidan Jovenel Moïse. ?Matiado Vilme, Renan Toussaint #Haiti #Ayiti

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Opposition leaders and anti-corruption militants called for nationwide protests, saying their goal was to march to the United Nations headquarters, this time to make sure their demands are heard.

“We give Mrs. La Lime (Helen Meagher La Lime of the United States, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Haiti) 24 hours to remove Jovenel from the country,” opposition Senator Evaliere Beauplan said. “If she doesn’t do it, we will be back here every day until she gives in. She must stop supporting corruption and the massacre of the people (at the hands of the police).”

Opposition politician Assad Volcy was surrounded by a crowd of protesters as he stood in front of the U.N. office.

“We came to tell Jovenel’s bosses, the people who are working with him, today the people of Haiti are terminating Jovenel’s term,” Volcy told VOA Creole. “If the white people, the international community love him so much, (then) take him. Let him go lead the United States. Let him go lead Brazil. Let him go lead the OAS.”

What sparked protests

Haiti has been plagued for months by an increase in violence, a fuel shortage, high inflation, double-digit unemployment and food insecurity.

Weekly protests have negatively impacted businesses, schools and tourism.

President Moise is blamed for being unable to turn the situation around. He has denied corruption allegations and insists he will not resign. Instead, he ordered his acting prime minister, Jean Michel Lapin, to make new Cabinet appointments, and called for a national dialogue to discuss possible solutions for the country’s problems.

The opposition refused and said Moise’s departure is non-negotiable.

Core Group

Whistleblower and opposition Senator Saurel Jacinthe, viewed by some as a hero for outing lawmaker colleagues for accepting bribes for votes in parliament, joined the protesters in the Carrefour Aeroport neighborhood of the capital.

“The U.N., the Core Group is only waiting for one thing,” he told VOA Creole. “They are consulting with different sectors to see if there is support for Jovenel. If all the sectors they consult with are against Jovenel, they will take the necessary measures.”

The Core Group is comprised of the U.N. secretary-general’s Special Representative for Haiti and the ambassadors of the United States, European Union, France, Canada, Brazil, Spain and the Special Representative of the OAS. Members have been meeting with Haitians from all sectors of society this week, in addition to President Moise, to hear grievances and opinions on how to help the country move forward.

Police presence

Unlike last Friday’s protest in Port-au-Prince, when protesters attacked and looted police stations around town with little to no resistance from law enforcement, the police and special forces teams were highly visible as they patrolled the streets, at times aggressively.

VOA Creole reporter Matiado Vilme said she was injured after a “CIMO” (Corps d’intervention et de maintien d’ordre) agent grabbed her wrist and twisted it as she said she attempted to record a video in front of the U.N. office. Local journalists came to her rescue, yelling at the agent and calling on colleagues to film the attack so everyone could see what happened, she said. Francois Frantz, a reporter for KAPZYNEWS, said he also was pushed around.

“We always say that the police is aware that the people have a constitutional right to protest,” Gary Desrosiers, spokesman for the National Police Force (PNH) told VOA Creole. “The police even has a duty to accompany and protect the protesters. Providing security for both the protesters and the citizens who are not protesting is a work in progress.”

When reporters pressed him about why the officers were being so aggressive toward them, he responded that he was not in charge of the strategy for the day, but that police are trained to see things that civilians don’t see.

To the north and south

Meanwhile, in the town of Jacmel, to the south, protesters put up roadblocks made from tree branches, rocks and tires during the early morning hours. Roads were only accessible on foot or by motorbike.

In Petit Goave, a rara band played as protesters marched through town to the beat of their music.

In Miragoane, protesters were joined by members of the Democratic Sector opposition group as they made their way around the city.

In Port-de-Paix, a large crowd filled the streets with anti-corruption banners in hand. One man held a poster that read, “We’ll keep fighting until the corn ripens to untangle ourselves from the killer Jovenel.” A drum beat accentuated by a horn filled the air.

In Jeremie, also in the south, protesters took to the streets as well.

Affiliate station reporter Charles Makenson said the protest was halted after an unidentified gunman opened fire on the crowd. At least three people were wounded, he said.

To the north in St. Marc, things turned violent as well. A group of protesters armed with rocks and bottles marched to the local jail and pelted it. They were unsuccessful in breaking in. Another group of protesters threw rocks at the national bank, shattering its windows. They also burned a pile of trash to block the main road.

Damages

PNH spokesman Desrosiers told VOA Creole he was not prepared to give an estimate on damages nor how many people were injured or killed during Friday’s protests.

Protesters plan to be back in the streets on Sunday.

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The former owner of a California wine business has been sentenced to five months in prison for his role in the college admissions scheme.

Fifty-three-year-old Agustin Huneeus, of San Francisco, was sentenced in Boston’s federal court Friday after pleading guilty to a single count of fraud and conspiracy.

Authorities say Huneeus paid $50,000 to rig his daughter’s SAT exam in 2018 and agreed to pay $250,000 to bribe her way into the University of Southern California as a fake athlete. He was arrested before completing the deal and his daughter was not admitted.

Prosecutors recommended 15 months in prison and a $95,000 fine. His lawyers said he deserved two months and a fine.

Huneeus previously said he was ashamed and saw that his actions represent “the worst sort of entitlement.”

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A group that opposes affirmative action is appealing a federal judge’s ruling that Harvard University does not discriminate against Asian American applicants.

Students for Fair Admissions filed a notice Friday with the 1st U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston. The group says it will appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

It is challenging a judge’s Tuesday ruling against all counts of the group’s 2014 lawsuit against Harvard.

The group says Harvard holds down the number of Asian Americans accepted to preserve a racial balance.

Officials from the group and Harvard did not immediately comment on the appeal.

The suit drew support from the Trump administration and reignited a national debate over the use of race in college admissions.
 

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Arthur Jean Pierre contributed to this report from Washington

WASHINGTON / MIAMI – In a landmark meeting with the Haitian community in Miami, Florida, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged to listen to Haitians and take their views into account in Congress’ outreach to the Caribbean nation.

“I love Haiti. I love the people of Haiti,” Pelosi said Thursday. “And no matter how brutal the circumstances, whether it’s a natural disaster or just injustice in the community, the love and shining eyes, the love of family the endless hope for a better future, it’s just remarkable and different from other countries.”

Pelosi added, “They [Haitians]  just never lose confidence in themselves. And we can’t let that spark be any less than brighter and brighter.”

The speaker traveled to Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood to discuss Haiti’s political crisis and hear the Haitian diaspora’s concerns. Pelosi was joined by Florida Democratic Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, whose district includes Little Haiti. Fourteen members of the Congressional Black Caucus also attended the meeting.

Pelosi, whom Wilson introduced as “the most powerful woman in the world,” received an enthusiastic welcome.

The roundtable discussion included a panel of prominent Haitian Americans active in the community and was centered on the protests and violence that have rocked Haiti for months.  

“We really appreciate your presence here today, as the third most powerful official in the United States,” an attendee said.

The latest protests stem from Haitian President Jovenel Moise’s decision more than a year ago to end fuel subsidies, a move that came at the request of the International Monetary Fund. Although Moise reversed the decision after violence erupted, frustration has mounted over his inability to improve the economy and end corruption in the poorest nation in the Americas.    

Pelosi told the audience she has traveled to Haiti numerous times, including shortly after the January 2010 earthquake that caused 230,000 deaths and left millions homeless.

Among criticisms attendees voiced was Washington’s lack of attention to developments and problems in Haiti. Congresswoman Wilson indicated she took the message to heart.

“Having Speaker Pelosi here at this time, for sure will shine a bright spotlight on what is happening in Haiti so that the world will know,” she said.

After hearing from the Haitian American community, Pelosi urged broad international involvement in solving Haiti’s crisis.

“I do think multilateralism is really important in this regard,” she said. ” I know what the possibilities are, but I want to make sure they are used in ways that will make a difference for the people of Haiti.”

Wilson told VOA Creole that the input lawmakers received on Haiti was invaluable.

“We got a lot of feedback from a very well-versed panel. They brought all kinds of recommendations and observations that they have received from Haiti and so it was a great, robust discussion about where to move forward and how we can help our neighbors,” she said, “because when Haiti bleeds, our community bleeds and we want to stop the bloodshed.”

After the meeting, members of the Haitian community told VOA Creole they were very happy to see powerful American officials paying attention to their native land.

“I’m thrilled about how the Haitian American community spoke and amplified the voices of the Haitian people to let them know exactly what the people want and how we feel,” Leonie Hermantin, a member of Concerned Leaders of Little Haiti, said, adding that Haitian views rarely seem to resonate in Washington.  

Michelet Nestor, a Haitian American entrepreneur who owns businesses in the U.S. and Haiti, said the diaspora wants to be a catalyst for change.

“That’s why this [meeting] is so important,” he told VOA Creole. “We want a new constitution, a new system of government [for Haiti] so that everyone has the same opportunities. That’s why we’re here and that’s what the Haitian people need.”

The U.S. State Department expressed concerns about Haiti during a meeting with the country’s foreign minister, Bocchit Edmond, in New York last week.

“(U.S.) Deputy Secretary (of State John) Sullivan and Foreign Minister Edmond agreed on the importance of political stability and an improved investment climate to spur private sector-led growth,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.

The United Nations has also expressed concerns about the consequences Haiti’s political and economic crisis are having on the population.

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A high-tech hotel in Japan is science fiction come to life, with virtual ninjas staffing the front desk, facial recognition software that detects customers’ moods, and dinosaur footprints leading to the elevator. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi takes us back to the future.
 

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A University of Georgia researcher reported that about 90 percent of all the plastic ever produced is still around, most of it is in the ocean or the world’s landfills. Its effects on the environment and our health are still being studied. To combat this rising tide of garbage, many cities, states and countries are banning single-use plastic bags. Islamabad recently became the first Pakistan city to take this small step toward reducing this mountain of waste. VOA’s Gaitty Ara Anis has more from Islamabad in this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.

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A full 8 hours of sleep just isn’t in the cards for some people. But what about a quick nap? New research suggests short naps can lower a person’s risk for cardiovascular events like heart attacks and strokes by as much as 48 percent. Karina Bafradzhian visited a new shop that believes in the value of a good nap. 
 

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said Thursday that it would benefit U.S. judges to study how other countries handle cases related to important global subjects such as terrorism, immigration, civil rights, health and the environment.

Breyer delivered a speech and answered questions from a moderator before about 500 people at Rhodes College in Memphis as part of the school’s program for Constitution Day, which took place Sept. 17. Breyer is the second sitting Supreme Court justice to speak at the private liberal arts university in recent years. Justice Antonin Scalia spoke at Rhodes in September 2015.

Globalization vs localism

Breyer touched on theories of globalization, versus localism or tribalism, stressing that the perception that those ideas are “at war” with each other is false. He cited cases related to international issues that have been heard in the U.S. because they were tied to the U.S., and U.S. laws or treaties that applied to them.

They include cases related to the internment of Japanese in U.S. camps during World War II, foreign terror suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and a foreign commerce case with ties to Ecuador and The Netherlands. He also discussed ways legal systems have handled immigration and terrorism cases in England and Israel.

Breyer said the Supreme Court is seeing an increasing number of cases in which international law comes into play.

“You have to know what’s going on beyond our shores in order to solve problems, statutes, constitutional interpretations, locally,” Breyer said. “We are a local court. You might all think, ‘Oh well.’ Yeah, we are.”

He said hundreds of bodies and organizations around the world have established laws, rules and standards that could lead to court challenges in the U.S.

“The more you read about this, the more you think it isn’t good versus evil. It isn’t somehow globalization over here, or localism or tribalism over there,” Breyer said. “It’s that we are in a world where there is both.”

Behind the scenes

Breyer also sought to dispel a perception that perhaps the Supreme Court’s liberal and conservative justices are “divided about everything.” Breyer said justices don’t raise their voices at each other while discussing cases. He also said they don’t make snide remarks at each other’s expense.

“We don’t fight all the time,” he said. “I can’t say zero. I can say it’s more just doing your work, and quite often agreeing much more than people think.”

Breyer is former federal appeals court judge who was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1994.

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A U.N. report says the deteriorated security situation across Afghanistan the past four years led to more than 14,000 “grave violations” against children, including nearly 3,500 killed and more than 9,000 injured.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned “the alarming level” of grave violations against children by all parties and said he is “deeply disturbed by the scale, severity and recurrence of grave violations endured by the children in Afghanistan.”

The U.N. chief said in the report circulated Thursday that he is “extremely concerned” especially about the significant increase in child casualties resulting from aerial operations conducted by government and pro-government forces.

According to the report, child casualties from aerial attacks have increased every year since 2015, reversing a downward trend. They totaled 1,049 for the four-year period through 2018.
 

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