JOHANNESBURG: Amnesty International says it has credible reports that the West African nation of Gambia has executed nine convicted criminals and that more death-row inmates are under imminent threat.
Eight men and one woman were removed from their prison cells Friday night and executed, according to Amnesty.
Gambia’s information minister was not immediately available to confirm the report.
Amnesty said the executions are the first in Gambia since 1987. Gambia reinstated the death penalty in 1995 but had not executed anyone.
Gambia’s President Yaya Jammeh vowed earlier this month to execute all the country’s inmates who had been sentenced to death as part of efforts to dissuade people from committing “heinous crimes” and to curb a rising crime rate.
Amnesty said there were 47 inmates on death row.
Gambia executes nine, more threatened: AI
Gambia executes nine, more threatened: AI
Proposed EU mission to blocked pipeline awaiting Ukraine approval
- European Union member Hungary has in turn blocked a vital $106-billion EU loan to Ukraine
- “We have proposed a mission to inspect the pipeline to Ukraine,” said Itkonen
BRUSSELS: The EU said Thursday it had proposed a mission to inspect a blocked oil pipeline at the center of a row between Ukraine and Hungary — and was waiting for Kyiv to respond.
Hungary and Slovakia accuse Kyiv of deliberately delaying reopening the Druzhba pipeline, which pumps Russian oil to the two landlocked states and Ukraine says was damaged by Russian strikes in January.
European Union member Hungary has in turn blocked a vital 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) EU loan to Ukraine as well as a fresh round of sanctions on Russia.
“We have proposed a mission to inspect the pipeline to Ukraine,” Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, a spokeswoman for the European Commission told journalists in Brussels. “We are awaiting their response.”
The suggestion of an EU fact-finding mission came on the back of two weeks of “intense discussions and contact with Ukraine on this issue,” she added.
On Wednesday, Budapest said it had sent its own mission to assess the pipeline and hold talks with Ukrainian authorities — only for Kyiv to deny there were any discussions planned.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week it could take four to six weeks to make the pipeline operational again.
The dispute comes as Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has ramped up political attacks on Ukraine ahead of a closely fought parliamentary election in Hungary on April 12.
Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the EU, has also urged the 27-nation bloc to suspend sanctions on Russian oil and gas to counter rising prices since the Middle East war erupted.
