Britain yesterday published the long-awaited findings of a probe into the killings of 13 people on Bloody Sunday, a key flashpoint in three decades of unrest in Northern Ireland.
Relatives of those who died when British troops opened fire at a civil rights march in Londonderry in 1972, were among the first to see the report, the result of the longest and most expensive probe in British legal history.
Hours before the report’s publication at 3:30pm, campaigners gathered to symbolically complete the march halted by the killings 38 years ago, while a public parade was also scheduled.
PHOTO: EPA
The report examines the events of Jan. 30, 1972 in Northern Ireland’s second city, when 13 men were shot dead by British soldiers at the march. Others were injured and a 14th man died later from his wounds.
It was a landmark incident in The Troubles — the three decades of violence in which more than 3,500 people died and which were largely ended by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
The 12-year-long inquiry was intended to paint a full, true picture of what happened on Bloody Sunday more than 38 years ago in Londonderry, known as Derry to Catholics.
The inquiry heard from more than 900 witnesses and received statements from around 2,500 people. The evidence ran to an estimated 20-30 million words.
Families are notably hoping that it will find that none of the dead or wounded people were gunmen or bombers.
Mickey McKinney, whose 27-year-old brother Willie was shot dead on the day, said the British army and government must be held to account.
“We want the truth — a declaration of innocence and a recommendation that those responsible are prosecuted,” he said. “If I know justice has been done, I’ll be able to move on and know I did my best.”
The 5,000-page report was given to the British government on Monday.
Senior British army officers who served in Northern Ireland have said that if soldiers stand trial, then prominent Irish Republican Army figures of the time should also face prosecution.
On the streets of Londonderry there was a sombre mood yesterday, ahead of the report’s publication.
Seventy-one-year-old Wilfred Brown, who was a steward on the march and has lived in the city for 42 years, said the report “brings back a lot of memories of people getting shot for nothing.”
“They shouldn’t have opened up,” he said, standing in front of the Bloody Sunday memorial on Londonderry’s Rossville Street, adding: “I hope there is no trouble.”
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS