Category World News

This is how things stand on Monday, June 16:

Fighting

• Russia’s Ministry of Defence confirmed on Sunday that it launched a strike targeting the Kremenchuk oil refinery, a key fuel source for Ukrainian troops in Ukraine’s Donbas region.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slammed the attack as a “vile strike” on energy infrastructure, accusing Moscow of ignoring international appeals to de-escalate. Zelenskyy said the United States has asked Kyiv to refrain from targeting Russian energy sites.
• Russia claimed to have seized control of the village of Malynivka in Donetsk, referring to it by its Soviet-era name, Ulyanovka.
• Moscow reported making significant gains in Ukraine’s Sumy region, stating that its forces had pushed through enemy defences and caused major losses.
• In a rare long-range operation, Ukraine said it struck a drone production site in Yelabuga, Tatarstan, about 1,000km (621 miles) inside Russia. The military said the facility had been used to launch attacks on Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure.
• Tatarstan’s regional leader, Rustam Minnikhanov, said that a drone strike had hit a car factory near Yelabuga, killing one person and wounding 13. Ukraine claims the site is used to manufacture drones for Russian military use.
• UK intelligence believes that more than 6,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed or injured while fighting alongside Moscow’s forces in Russia’s Kursk region. The United Kingdom said the figure represents more than half of the 11,000 North Korean troops originally deployed, highlighting Pyongyang’s growing role in supporting Moscow’s war effort.

Diplomacy

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for increased pressure on Russia to achieve a ceasefire, urging the Group of Seven (G7) nations to strengthen sanctions against Moscow when they meet in Canada on Monday. Zelenskyy will attend the meeting.
• French President Emmanuel Macron said he plans to ask United States President Donald Trump if Washington is prepared to back stronger sanctions if Russia continues to refuse to agree to a ceasefire.
• The White House confirmed that Trump would meet Zelenskyy for bilateral talks.
• Russia has returned the bodies of 1,200 Ukrainians killed in the war, bringing the total number of bodies repatriated to Ukraine in a series of exchanges this week to more than 4,800.
• Russia said it had not received a single Russian corpse in return, accusing Ukraine of not upholding the agreement reached in Istanbul, which would see both sides hand over as many as 6,000 bodies and to exchange sick and heavily wounded prisoners of war as well as those aged under 25.

Chemmani, Sri Lanka — Less than 100 metres (328 ft) from a busy road, policemen stand on watch behind a pair of rust coloured gates that lead to a cemetery in the outskirts of Jaffna, the capital of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province.

The officers are guarding Sri Lanka’s most recently unearthed mass grave, which has so far led to the discovery of 19 bodies, including those of three babies.

The discovery of the mass grave has reopened old wounds for Sri Lanka’s Tamil community, which suffered the worst violence of the island’s 26-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group that was seeking a separate homeland for Tamils.

Many Tamils were forcibly disappeared by the state, with a 2017 report by Amnesty International estimating that between 60,000 and 100,000 people have disappeared in Sri Lanka since the late 1980s. In the final stages of the war, which ended in 2009, the Tamil community alleges that nearly 170,000 people were killed, while United Nations estimates put the figure at 40,000.

Chemmani, in particular, has gripped the public imagination for more than 25 years, since the case of Krishanthi Kumaraswamy, a schoolgirl who was gang-raped by members of the Sri Lankan Army in 1996 before being killed. Her mother, brother and family friend were also murdered and the four bodies were discovered in Chemmani in 1996.

Former Army Corporal Somaratne Rajapakse, who was found guilty of Krishanthi’s rape and murder, alleged during his trial in 1998 that between 300 and 400 people had been buried in mass graves in Chemmani. Fifteen bodies were discovered the following year based on information he provided, two of which were identified as men who had disappeared in 1996 after being arrested by the army.

The discovery of the new mass grave has also revived an old question that has continued to haunt the Sri Lankan Tamil community in its quest for justice. Past excavations have not fully yielded answers to the questions about forced disappearances and killings during the war, in part because the government has not followed through on the findings, say archaeologists. Can mass graves like the one found in Chemmani really bring closure?

Babies younger than 10 months among the dead

In February, skeletal remains were discovered while a building was being constructed in Chemmani. A 10-day excavation began in mid-May.

Raj Somadeva, the archaeologist leading the excavation, told Al Jazeera that the 19 bodies discovered so far include three “neonatal” skeletons, or babies younger than 10 months old.

He said the bodies would eventually be analysed by doctors to try and determine their cause of death, and that he would use artefacts, such as cellophane wrappers bearing dates or clothes, to try and date the burials. If artefactual material is unavailable, then radioactive dating could be employed as an alternative, he said.

However, Somadeva told Al Jazeera that “less than 40 percent” of the burial site had been excavated so far and that he had already identified a second probable burial site within the cemetery using satellite images and drones to take high-altitude photographs.

“I have submitted an interim report to the court, saying it can be identified as a mass grave and further investigation is needed,” Somadeva said.

Ranitha Gnanarajah, a lawyer representing families of the disappeared, told Al Jazeera she was working with more than 600 people from the Jaffna area who were looking for their missing loved ones, the majority of whom went missing between 1995 and 2008. Many Tamils were displaced in 1995 from Jaffna, the capital of the Northern Province, the country’s Tamil heartland.

She said the families were “fully participating” in the excavation process and wanted the identification efforts to be carried out properly, given that previous excavation efforts had not led to a final conclusion. Family members of missing people are also helping the police in ensuring the security of the site.

A history of failed investigations

However, the willingness on the part of the Tamil community to help excavators in unearthing clues from the Chemmani mass grave is tempered by past experiences.

Recent excavations of other mass graves in Sri Lanka have failed to lead to meaningful answers, setting off allegations of coverups.

Yogarasa Kanagaranjani, the president of the Association of Relatives of Enforced Disappearances (ARED), said she was fearful that Chemmani would follow the pattern of previous excavations in Mannar, Kokkuthoduvai and Thiruketheeswaram, all in the Northern Province.

“This could also be covered up like the other graves, with no justice or answers given,” said Kanagaranjani, whose son Amalan was part of the LTTE and disappeared in 2009 after she said he surrendered to the army. “If you ask the killers to give you justice, will they?”

The largest excavation of a mass grave was carried out in the northwestern region of Mannar. Starting in 2018, the digging was also led by Somadeva. In all, 346 skeletons were unearthed. The excavation was overseen by the Ministry of Justice and the Office of Missing Persons (OMP), established by the government in 2017.

However, Somadeva criticised the state’s handling of the Mannar excavation, saying he had received the artefacts unearthed only a week ago, three years after his initial request, and that he had still not been allocated a budget to analyse them.

He also told Al Jazeera that he had still not been paid “a single cent” for 14 months of work on the Mannar excavation, and had been forced to use his own money to cover his travel expenses.

“We can’t work under this type of circumstances. Nobody takes responsibility,” Somadeva said, describing the OMP as a “white elephant”.

An OMP representative told Al Jazeera it was participating in the Chemmani excavation solely as an observer but that it had facilitated the Mannar excavation alongside the Ministry of Justice. The representative said he believed there were no outstanding payments but was not certain, and declined to comment further in the absence of a formal complaint.

Demands for international oversight

A 2024 report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said it “remains concerned that there are insufficient financial, human and technical resources to conduct exhumations in line with international standards and encourages the Government to seek international support in this regard”.

The Jaffna-based Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research said that “the same defects that plagued the previous exhumations persist” in Chemmani, which it said was also “being undertaken without international observation or expertise”.

“If the government wants the Tamil community in general and families of the disappeared in particular to believe in the transparency and genuineness of the exhumation process, it must first adopt without undue delay a clear and comprehensive exhumation policy with adequate funding allocation, allow international participation, actively seek international expertise, and permit the families of the disappeared to participate and have a legal representation in the exhumation process,” Adayaalam said in a written statement to Al Jazeera.

The election of leftist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in September had sparked hopes among Sri Lankan Tamils that he might support their search for justice. But Kanagaranjani, the ARED president, said that, so far, Dissanayake had failed to deliver.

“It’s now been more than eight months since the president has been in power, but he hasn’t taken the slightest notice of our problems,” she said. “Rulers change, but reality stays the same.”

Kanagaranjani told Al Jazeera that answers were vital for the families of the disappeared as would lead to “clarity”. Like the Adayaalam centre, she too said that the excavation needed “international oversight” and that “investigations [needed] to be carried out in accordance with international standards”.

Thyagi Ruwanpathirana, a South Asia researcher at Amnesty International, said calls for international oversight were “entirely legitimate” given that “there’s not been a single instance where exhumations have been seen through to the end – where remains found in mass graves have been identified and returned to family members for a dignified burial.”

New Delhi, India — India has distanced itself from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) condemnation of Israel’s ongoing attacks on Iran, signalling a potential rift in the influential Eurasian political bloc over the conflict.

World leaders have repeatedly called for de-escalation amid Israel’s unprecedented attacks on its regional rival, Iran, which threaten to destabilise the region. Last Friday, the latest round of fighting began after Israel launched attacks on Iran’s military and nuclear sites.

This follows two rounds of direct military conflict between Iran and Israel in 2024, which were triggered by Israeli strikes on Iranian targets and subsequent Iranian retaliation.

Iranian authorities say Israeli attacks since Friday have targeted residential and military areas in Tehran as well as many cities across the country, killing at least 80 people, including civilians. Several Iranian nuclear scientists and university professors were killed along with several top-ranking commanders of the Iranian armed forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Israeli attacks on Saturday hit refineries, power stations and oil reserves across Iran. Tehran has retaliated by launching hundreds of missiles and drones at the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa, killing at least 13 people and injuring dozens. Meanwhile, Tehran has also paused nuclear negotiations with the United States.

So, why did India refuse to take part in the discussions or endorse the SCO’s position on Israel’s attacks? Is India backing Israel? And what is at stake for these countries?

What did the SCO say?

The SCO, a political and security bloc founded in 2001, includes China, Belarus, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran is the most recent entrant, having joined the SCO under India’s chairmanship in 2023.

On Saturday, the SCO, currently chaired by China, said its member states “express serious concern” over the escalating Iran-Israel tensions and “strongly condemn the military strikes carried out by Israel” on the territory of Iran.

The SCO statement further noted that Israel’s “aggressive actions against civilian targets, including energy and transport infrastructure, which have resulted in civilian casualties, are a gross violation of international law and the United Nations Charter”.

“[Israeli attacks] constitute an infringement on Iran’s sovereignty, cause damage to regional and international security, and pose serious risks to global peace and stability,” the statement added, extending condolences to Iran’s government and people.

“The SCO member states firmly advocate for the resolution of the situation surrounding Iran’s nuclear program exclusively through peaceful, political, and diplomatic means,” the statement noted.

India’s ‘delicate balancing act’

After Israel’s initial strikes on Tehran, Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held a phone conversation with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, in which he “conveyed the deep concern of the international community at the turn of events”.

Jaishankar “urged avoidance of any escalatory steps and an early return to diplomacy,” according to India’s Ministry of External Affairs. The ministry also underlined its concerns in a separate statement on Friday.

“We are closely monitoring the evolving situation, including reports related to attacks on nuclear sites,” the Indian Foreign Ministry said, urging both sides to use existing channels of dialogue and diplomacy to “work towards a de-escalation of the situation”.

“India enjoys close and friendly relations with both the countries and stands ready to extend all possible support,” the statement noted.

Shanthie D’Souza, a senior research fellow at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, told Al Jazeera, “Unlike other SCO nations, India is in a unique position given that it has to maintain defence ties with Israel and its economic ties with Iran.”

India is Israel’s largest weapons buyer, and in 2024, Indian weapons firms also sold Israel rockets and explosives amid the war in Gaza, an Al Jazeera investigation revealed. At the same time, India has been developing Iran’s Chabahar Port as a gateway for its exports to Central Asia and Afghanistan.

“India has maintained a delicate balancing act [in the latest round of fighting between Israel and Iran],” D’Souza said.

After the SCO statement condemning the Israeli strikes on Iran, New Delhi said it did not participate in discussions about the statement.

“The overall position of India as stated above was communicated to other SCO members,” the Foreign Ministry said, referring to its earlier statement for India’s official position.

Is India backing Israel?

Not explicitly. But by distancing itself from the bloc’s stance, New Delhi has weakened the force of the SCO’s condemnation of Israel’s attacks on Iran.

A day before distancing itself from the SCO statement, India abstained from voting in the United Nations General Assembly on a draft resolution that demanded an “immediate, unconditional and permanent” ceasefire in Gaza.

To Kabir Taneja, the deputy director of the strategic studies programme at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, India’s abstention at the UN was perplexing. He suggested that it may have been influenced by India’s desire to maintain good relations with the US, noting how India is close to a trade agreement with Washington – a deal it is trying to clinch before US President Donald Trump’s threatened 27 percent tariff on Indian goods is lifted in early July.

National interests aside, Taneja noted that New Delhi’s distancing from the SCO on the Israel-Iran tensions also “reflects on the construct of the SCO, where India is sort of an outlier inside”.

While China and Russia are close to Iran, Taneja said, given India’s relationships with the US and Israel, “it would have been very difficult [for India] to subscribe to SCO’s particular wording and statement”.

Is US pressure on Iran threatening India’s regional ambitions?

Before Trump imposed sanctions following the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2017, Iran was India’s third-largest oil supplier.

In February, after Trump returned for a second term in office, he doubled down on economic pressure tactics to corner Iran by suspending sanction waivers “that provide Iran any degree of economic or financial relief, including those related to Iran’s Chabahar port project”.

The port would allow India to bypass its rival, Pakistan, by trading with landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia via Iran. India had secured a sanctions waiver from the US during the first Trump administration for work related to Chabahar.

Now, Trump’s sanctions put New Delhi’s multimillion-dollar investment in the strategically located maritime facility at risk.