IGIHE

Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

  • ‘Air strikes kill 11 civilians’ in Hama province

    {Bombing of livestock market in ISIL-held Oqayrabat village possibly carried out by Russian fighter jets, monitor says.}

    Air strikes have killed at least 11 civilians and wounded dozens in ISIL-held central Syrian village in Hama province, according to a monitor.

    Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said “the raids targeted a livestock market in the village of Oqayrabat” that is held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

    “They are probably Russian air strikes,” he said.

    Al Jazeera could not independently confirm the Britain-based SOHR’s report.

    The SOHR, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information, says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions used.

    Abdel Rahman said the raids on the village were part of “new military operations by the Syrian regime and its Russian ally targeting jihadist positions in Hama province”.

    Syrian and Russian jets on Saturday were heavily bombing ISIL fighters north and east of Palmyra, which has changed hands several times in Syria’s nearly six-year war.

    Oqayrabat lies northwest of Palmyra, the ancient desert city that was recaptured by Russian-backed government forces from ISIL on Wednesday.

    The road between the two had been often used by ISIL to travel between the provinces of Hama and Homs, where Palmyra lies.

    Also on Saturday, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported that the government recaptured eight villages from ISIL in northeast parts of Aleppo province supported by the Russian air strikes.

    According SOHR, the aim of the operation was ISIL-held Khafsah, the main station pumping water into Aleppo.

    Residents of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, have been without mains water for 47 days after ISIL cut the supply.

    The fighting over the past week has sparked an exodus of “more than 30,000 civilians, most of them women and children”, SOHR said on Saturday.

    Most of the displaced went to areas around Manbij city of Aleppo province, held by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters who are also fighting ISIL.

    An AFP correspondent in Manbij saw dozens of families speeding towards the relative safety of the city on motorcycles and in small buses and cars.

    Many looked exhausted as they lined up at a checkpoint manned by the Manbij Military Council, the SDF unit that controls the town, to be searched and get permission to enter.

    Ibrahim al-Quftan, co-chair of Manbij’s civil administration, told AFP that as many as 40,000 displaced had arrived in recent days.

    “The numbers of displaced people here are still rising because of the clashes between the Syrian regime and Daesh (ISIL),” Quftan said.

    “These people are suffering very difficult circumstances.”

    Manbij already hosts “tens of thousands of displaced people that fled previous clashes in the area and are living in difficult circumstances”, said SOHR’s Abdel Rahman.

    “This will make it difficult [for local authorities] to welcome a new wave of displaced people, given their inability to tend to their pressing needs.”

    Also on Saturday, Turkey said a MiG-23 fighter jet, probably belonging to the Syrian air force, had crashed on the Syrian side of the border. There was no pilot in the wreckage.

    “The MiG-23, believed to have been owned by the Syrian regime, crashed on the Syrian side of the border,” Binali Yildirim, Turkey’s prime minister, said.

    “The pilot may have bailed out and come down on either side … . A search and rescue operation is under way.

    “It’s not clear why the plane crashed. It may be due to weather conditions.”

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • Malaysia expels North Korea Ambassador Kang Chol

    {Kang Chol declared persona non grata following the alleged murder of North Korean leader’s half-brother in Kuala Lumpur.}

    Malaysia has declared North Korea’s ambassador persona non grata over the alleged murder of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother, and ordered the diplomat to leave the country within the next 48 hours.

    Kang Chol’s expulsion came on Saturday, just weeks after Kim Jong-nam was allegedly poisoned at Kuala Lumpur airport on February 13.

    “The expulsion of the DPRK [North Korea] ambassador is… an indication of the government’s concern that Malaysia may have been used for illegal activities,” Malaysia’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

    The decision was made after he failed to appear at Malaysia’s foreign ministry at 6pm local time on Saturday despite being summoned, said Al Jazeera’s Florence Looi, reporting from Kuala Lumpur.

    “[Authorities] were also expecting North Korea to issue an apology because of the accusations they were making against Malaysia. But that also didn’t happen, so they took this drastic measure they said.”

    Kim Jong-nam died after falling suddenly ill at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, where he was allegedly attacked by two women who, according to Malaysian police, smeared his face with VX, a chemical classified by the UN as a weapon of mass destruction.

    He was at the airport to fly to Macau, where he had a home.

    In late February, Kang Chol accused Malaysia of colluding with “hostile forces” to harm North Korea, after rival South Korea said North Korea had orchestrated the attack that killed Kim Jong-nam.

    Following the incident, Malaysia summoned Chol as well as cancelled a rare visa-free travel deal with North Korea and recalled its ambassador to Pyongyang.

    South Korea’s spy agency believes North Korea was behind the alleged murder, but has produced no evidence.

    {{‘A conspiracy plot’}}

    In another development on Saturday related to the case, one of the suspects said he was a victim of a conspiracy by Malaysia aimed at damaging North Korea’s “honour”.

    Speaking to reporters outside the North Korean embassy in Beijing, Ri Jong-chol said: “I realised that this is a conspiracy plot to try to damage the status and honour of the republic.”

    He said he was presented with false evidence while in Malaysia.

    Ri, who was deported to China on Friday after being released by Malaysian police a day earlier, denied accusations that his car was used in the case.

    Insisting that he was not at the airport on the day of Kim Jong-nam’s death, he said: “I had no reason to go. I was just doing my work.”

    Ri said he worked in the soap-manufacturing industry.

    Kim Jong-nam and Kim Jong-un are sons of former leader Kim Jong-il, who died in late 2011, but they had different mothers.

    Analysts in Seoul say Kim Jong-un probably had his brother killed because he could be a potential challenger to his rule in a country.

    North Korea has a history of ordering killings of people it views as threats to its government.

    While Kim Jong-nam was not thought to be seeking influence, his position as eldest son of the family that has ruled North Korea since its founding could have made him appear to be a danger.

    Kang Chol says Malaysia colluded with "hostile forces"

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • Somalia drought: More than 100 die from hunger in one region

    {Somalia’s Prime Minister, Hassan Ali Haire, says 110 people have died from hunger in a single region in the past 48 hours amid a severe drought.}

    The figure for the south-western Bay region is the first official death toll announced during the crisis. The full impact of the drought on the country is still unknown.
    Humanitarian groups fear a full-blown famine will follow.

    Currently, almost three million people in Somalia face food insecurity.

    Local news outlet Alldhacdo reported dozens of deaths due to cholera in the town of Awdinle, also in the Bay region. The disease is often spread due to lack of clean drinking water.

    Somalia’s President, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, declared the drought a national disaster on Tuesday.

    The drought in Somalia has been partly caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon which has affected east and southern Africa.

    As well as the lack of food caused by the drought, there are many cases of dehydration.

    Domestic animals are also dying in large numbers, and carcasses litter the landscape.

    Nearly 260,000 people died during the famine that hit Somalia from 2010 to 2012.
    Some 220,000 people died during another famine in 1992.

    The nation is one of four identified by the United Nations as currently at risk of extreme hunger and famine – along with Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.

    A formal famine has already been declared in the Unity state in South Sudan – the first official famine declared since Somalia in 2011.

    {{The United Nations uses famine as a technical term, which only applies in very specific circumstances:}}

    When 20% of households cannot cope with food shortages

    Acute malnutrition exceeds 30%

    The death toll exceeds two people per day per 10,000 population

    The Disasters Emergency Committee, which makes appeals on behalf of 13 leading UK aid charities, reported on Somalia’s food crisis last month.

    As water becomes scarce, animal carcasses - like this cow- are a common sight

    Source:BBC

  • Rival east Libya factions battle for crucial oil ports

    {Rival armed factions are fighting for control over crucial oil terminals in the east of Libya.
    The forces of military strongman Khalifa Haftar, who have controlled the “oil crescent” since September, lost ground, their spokesman says.}

    He said they had carried out air strikes against a faction known as the Benghazi Defence Brigade (BDB), after it launched an attack on Friday.

    Four oil terminals in the area provide much of Libya’s export income.

    Libya remains regionally split with two centres of power that politically oppose each other, and a myriad of rival armed groups that the country’s two governments cannot control.

    Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar is allied to an administration based in the eastern city of Tobruk, which is challenging the authority of the UN-backed unity government based in Tripoli.

    His forces, known as the Libyan National Army (LNA), have been battling Islamist and other militias in the area since forcing them out of much of the country’s second city, Benghazi, in February 2016.

    Oil exports resumed after the LNA took over the four terminals of Zuitina, Brega, Ras Lanuf and Sidra six months ago, giving a strong boost to the country’s output after a blockade of nearly two years.

    Libya’s oil facilities, airports and other vital infrastructure have, in part, been at the centre of a battle of wills between rival armed factions for years now.

    Observers have been warning of the dangers of a looming war in the oil crescent for months, and the need for local and international players to prioritise defusing tensions there.

    This latest move by the so-called Benghazi Defence Brigade is ultimately motivated by a need for territorial gains to remain a relevant stakeholder in whatever shape Libya’s future takes. This is what all of Libya’s armed groups are fighting for.

    It will be difficult for the BDB to maintain its ground there, or to push further east.

    However, this latest shift is a dangerous one that raises the prospects of a wider war that the country cannot afford politically, or financially.

    The stakes are high in this particular battle because it affects everyone – oil is Libya’s lifeline.

    It remains unclear exactly how much control the BDB has gained.

    A diplomatic source, who asked not to be named, told the BBC that it had overrun much of the oil crescent including Sidra, Ras Lanuf and Naufliya, but this cannot be independently confirmed.

    The spokesman of the LNA, Col Ahmad al-Mismari, said on Friday that it had retreated to avoid civilian casualties.

    On Saturday, he said the group had lost control of Ras Lanuf’s main airfield, AFP news agency reports.

    Another LNA official, Col Moftah al-Megarief, told AFP late on Saturday that the groups’ forces were “gathering and preparing to take back Ras Lanuf”.

    “The ports are closed and most of the engineers returned to their homes,” a port official in Ras Lanuf told Reuters.

    “According to workers who left yesterday [the BDB] entered with their vehicles and stationed themselves in front of the ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider.”

    The BDB is composed of a mix of armed groups, including Islamists, tribal-affiliated militias from the east who oppose Field Marshal Hafter and an armed group that previously controlled the oil crescent.

    Libya’s National Oil Corporation held an urgent meeting on Saturday to review crude loading schedules and emergency measures to protect oil facilities in response to the fighting.

    Ras Lanuf is one of four key oil terminals in the 'oil crescent'

    Source:BBC

  • UPDF soldier shot dead in fight with M-23 rebels

    {One UPDF soldier was shot dead while another sustained minor injuries in a cross fire as the army and Uganda Wildlife Authority security officials repulsed M-23 rebels that attempted to cross into Uganda at Sabinyo in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in Kisoro District on Tuesday.}

    The head of the district security committee, also the Kisoro Resident District Commissioner, Mr Shafique Ssekandi, identified the deceased UPDF soldier as Lance Corporal David Ojuna and the injured as John Busoborwa.

    According to Mr Ssekandi, the incident happened at around 3pm on Tuesday. Three M-23 rebels were arrested and another one shot dead during the gun fight.

    He said on Thursday that the body of the deceased soldier was to be transported to his home for burial, while the deceased M23 rebel was buried in the Kisoro Municipality cemetery.

    He added that the captured M-23 rebels have been handed over to the UPDF Second Division headquarters in Mbarara Municipality.

    Source:Daily Monitor

  • Soldier who lost manhood flown to Somalia for trial

    {The Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) on Tuesday stealthily flew out to Somalia the soldier who lost his manhood after he was tortured by senior army officers. }

    His lawyers now fear that Cpl Majibu Ssebyara, whose horrid account of beastly torture by his superiors Daily Monitor exposed in December 2016, could be summarily tried and “unfairly convicted, sentenced and in the worst case scenario executed.”

    Human rights lawyer Ivan Mugabi, who has been representing the embattled soldier for two years, told Saturday Monitor: “I talked to him on phone on Tuesday and he inquired what he would do. I told him to plead to the army that he has had lawyers for two years so he can’t take part in proceedings without his lawyers. He was meant to be tried yesterday (Wednesday) but I have lost communication with him and the army is not giving his attorneys and family audience.”

    According to the lawyer, the soldier, alongside four unidentified others, was picked from Makindye Military Barracks detention cells in Kampala at 4am, driven at breakneck speed to Entebbe International Airport from where they were hauled into a waiting plane. It is at this point that the soldier sent his lawyer a text message, seen by this newspaper, which read: “I am being flown to Somalia. I don’t know what to expect. Pray for me and my family.”

    The five soldiers were flown out alongside officers of the General Court Martial who will try them in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, where a contingent of the UPDF is deployed as part of the African Union Peacekeeping Mission in Somalia (Amisom).

    “My reliable sources in the army say the plot is to have them convicted in Somalia because the lawyers in Kampala are a stumbling block. We condemn and shall resist this impunity and gross violation of his right to a fair trial to the best of our human ability. We shall resist attempts by a few rogue elements to take Uganda back to the dark days of Idi Amin and even worse,” lawyer Mugabi said.

    When contacted on Thursday, army spokesman Brig Richard Karemire said: “We don’t sneak people out of the country; least our own. If he was taken to Somalia that becomes a court matter and it will be handled by the court martial.”

    Cpl Ssebyara’s troubles date back to June 12, 2015, when tension heightened at the UPDF base in the lower Shabelle region in Somalia after a tin containing ammunition for a 12.7mm anti-aircraft gun vanished, leaving him as a suspect. He would later be tortured culminating in the loss of his manhood. Pictures seen by this newspaper that were adduced and admitted in court as credible evidence show the soldier screaming as he balances in space with his hands tied to a metal bar and a black sack suspended and dangling between his thighs, the navel area growing red and his male organs subjected to the pressure and weight of the sack.

    In an August 8, 2016 affidavit sworn in support of his application challenging the trial at the General Court Martial, Cpl Ssebyara recounted how he was, “undressed, insulted and tied by the hands on a steel bar, a bag of about 15 kilogrammes tied and hanged on the penis and testicles.” He was then handcuffed and dumped in a metallic container for 24 hours.

    Medical reports dated October 6 and November 2, 2015, from Nakasero Hospital in Kampala and Bombo Military Hospital respectively indicate his right testicle had become smaller than the contralateral (opposite) testis, was non-tender and he suffered from “chronic right testicular infarction and internal echogenicity with no flow.”

    The 15-kilogramme weight blocked blood flow to the testicles of the father of three, causing decay. Cpl Ssebyara can neither get an erection nor pass urine normally. Attempts by his lawyers to get him further treatment have fallen on deaf ears of the military authorities. Under Section II of the Prevention and Prohibition of Torture Act, 2012, the errant soldiers can be held liable in their individual capacity for the torture.
    On September 2, 2015, Cpl Ssebyara was arraigned before the General Court Martial in case file UPDF/GCM/15/2015 (Uganda versus RA/145680) and charged with failure to protect war material contrary to section 122(1)(2)(g) of the UPDF Act, 2005, an offence that attracts a death sentence. He pleaded innocent to the charge and challenged his trial before the army court in the High Court.

    In their affidavit dated August 25, 2016, and September 14, 2016, army witnesses Col Frank Kyambadde, Maj Tom Bbalibya, and Maj Raphael Mugisha claim Cpl Ssebyara admitted he handed the missing ammunition to a Somali citizen.

    In a November 22, 2016 judgment, High Court Judge Patricia Basaza Wasswa declared the trial “illegal, null and void” and issued an order staying the proceedings and ordered that the army court, which the Supreme Court in a landmark case of Attorney General Vs Joseph Tumushabe (constitutional appeal number 3 of 2005), ruled was subordinate to the High Court, to discharge the soldier and never use evidence obtained through torture to try him.

    She also rejected as unfounded the army’s claim that Cpl Ssebyara attempted to sell ammunition to the unnamed Somali at $1,000 (Shs3.8 million) and on failure to seal the deal, he buried the same in a hole in a compound of the potential buyer.

    Rather than obey the High Court judgment, the army instead charged Cpl Ssebyara afresh on December 12, 2016, with, “offences relating to security,” contrary to section 130(1)(a) of the UPDF Act. It is for this offence that Cpl Ssebyara has been sneaked out of the country for a trial his lawyers now allege is designed to secure a conviction and sentence outside the “inconvenience of lawyers in Kampala.”

    When this newspaper first broke the story, Gen Katumba Wamala, the former Chief of Defence Forces, promised the army would investigate the matter but no results have emerged from that promise.

    This newspaper understands the court martial has a session in Somalia but lawyer Mugabi says: “It is strange to take a soldier facing trial in Uganda for another court session there ordinarily is meant for soldiers serving in Somalia.”

    {{Trial annulled}}

    On September 2, 2015, Cpl Ssebyara was arraigned before the General Court Martial in case file UPDF/GCM/15/2015 (Uganda versus RA/145680) and charged with failure to protect war material contrary to section 122(1)(2)(g) of the UPDF Act, 2005, an offence that attracts a death sentence. He pleaded innocent to the charge and challenged his trial before the army court in the High Court. In their affidavit dated August 25, 2016, and September 14, 2016, army witnesses Col Frank Kyambadde, Maj Tom Bbalibya, and Maj Raphael Mugisha claim Cpl Ssebyara admitted he handed the missing ammunition to a Somali citizen. In a November 22, 2016 judgment, High Court Judge Patricia Basaza Wasswa declared the trial “illegal, null and void” and issued an order staying the proceedings and ordered that the army court, which the Supreme Court in a landmark case of Attorney General Vs Joseph Tumushabe, (Constitutional appeal number 3 of 2005), ruled was subordinate to the High Court, to discharge the soldier and never use evidence obtained through torture to try him.

    Tortured. Cpl Majibu Ssebyara. On the left (dotted) is the place where he met his ordeal.

    Source:Daily Monitor

  • Rwanda, Tanzania Police forces meet on cross-border security

    {Rwanda National Police (RNP) and Tanzania Police Forces held a bilateral meeting at Rusumo border post yesterday and discussed various policing issues pertaining cross-border security.}

    The meeting was co-chaired by the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Emmanuel K. Gasana and his Tanzanian counterpart, Ernest J. Mangu.

    It is the first of its kind since the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two police forces in September 2012, that highlights major areas of cooperation including exchange of information on criminals, expertise, and joint training, among others.

    IGP Gasana, in his opening remarks, said that the long standing existing ties between the two countries and the sister police institutions in particular is “thriving and promising” for the benefit of the people.

    “In our effort to achieve peace and prosperity of our people, we acknowledge that we face a key and ever changing policing environment, ” IGP Gasana said

    He observed that the world has shrunk to a small village due to technological advancement, making it possible for criminals to move freely.

    “Increasingly, the nature of communication and information technology have paved way for digital crimes like cybercrime, terrorism, trafficking in human beings, economic and financial crimes,” IGP Gasana said.

    He hastened to add that drug trafficking, motor-vehicle theft, environmental and other modern and local crimes, call for stronger police-police cooperation to reshape policing.

    “Let us rethink our strategy and refocus with renewed determination to keep our common borders secure, our people safer and reassured, and secure out central corridor that connects us to the world,” he added.

    The central corridor connects Rwanda and Tanzania through Rusumo.

    The IGP of Tanzania, on his part, said: “It’s good that we have decided to put the MoU into action. We have to fulfil our noble obligation of enhancing safety and security of our people.”

    “We share a common border and this requires our commitment to ensure the safety movement of our people and goods. If we don’t cooperate and use the available opportunities, criminal syndicates will,” IGP Mangu said.

    The two police institutions discussed various policing issues aligned under the agreement.

    Ultimately, they appointed a joint team composed of Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and traffic to conduct and assess the securing along the central corridor which connects Rwanda to the port of Dar es Salaam port through Rusumo border post.

    A report by the joint team, it was resolved, should be submitted to the respective Chiefs of Police for consideration and action before May this year.

    The two police institutions also committed to prevent illegal border crossing of illegal immigrants, smugglers and human trafficking by conducting joint border patrols, monitoring and sensitisation campaigns regularly.

    Special attention was also put on joint operations to destroy cannabis farms on the Tanzanian side, and real time information sharing on criminals.

    The two Police Chiefs and their delegations also toured Rusumo One Stop Border Post on both sides.

    Rwanda and Tanzania police delegations during the bilateral meeting.
    IGPs Emmanuel K. Gasana and his Tanzanian counterpart, Ernest J. Mangu arrive for the bilateral meeting at Rusumo border post.
    IGP Emmanuel K. Gasana and his counterpart of Tanzania, IGP Ernest J. Mangu, signing the resolutions of the meeting.

    Source:Police

  • Kicukiro: Eight schools join crime prevention efforts

    {Eight secondary schools in Kicukiro district have joined efforts with the Rwanda National Police by forming anti-crime clubs to raise awareness to combat crimes.}

    The schools are APEKA, Star School, SICO, CJFK, GS Remera Protestant, APAPE, GS Gatenga and King David Academy.

    The clubs were formed on Friday during an awareness campaign that brought together about 4,000 students from the eight schools.

    The forums will focus mainly on fighting abuse of drugs, gender based violence and child abuse.

    The District Police Commander of Kicukiro, Senior Supt. Gerard Habiyambere, while speaking to the students, noted that “your voice is valuable and counts.”

    He told them that youngsters are often misled into crimes such as drug abuse, an act them should desist and fight by reporting both dealers and abusers in their communities.

    “Be good ambassadors; your country and Rwanda National Police in particular counts on you to make change in security and development,” he said.

    The DPC also enlightened the students on tricks used by criminals in lure young people into human and drug trafficking.

    “Among tricks used by human traffickers is promising money, jobs and scholarships overseas. Don’t be duped…report any person that approaches you with such promises. Don’t fall prey of their tricks telling you not to inform anyone about the deal, which is one way they manipulate you and traffic you without anyone knowing, ” he told the students.

    The campaign is part of the RNP mass community policing exercise being conducted in schools across the country.

    Source:Police

  • Kim Jong-nam suspect accuses Malaysia of conspiracy

    {Suspect in the murder of North Korean leader’s brother points finger at Malaysian authorities as he denies involvement.}

    A suspect in the murder of the North Korean leader’s estranged half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, has said he was a victim of a conspiracy by Malaysia aimed at damaging North Korea’s honour.

    Speaking to reporters outside the North Korean embassy in Beijing, Ri Jong-chol, a North Korean, accused the Malaysian government on Saturday of using coercion to extract information from him in detention.

    “I realised that this is a conspiracy plot to try to damage the status and honour of the republic,” he said, adding that he was presented with false evidence while in Malaysia.

    Ri, who was deported to China on Friday after being released by Malaysian police a day earlier, denied knowing anything about an accusation that his car was used in the case and said he was not at the airport on the day of the killing.

    READ MORE: Who produced the VX poison?

    “I had no reason to go. I was just doing my work,” he said, adding that he worked in Malaysia trading ingredients needed for soap manufacturing.

    Kim was murdered on February 13 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, where he was allegedly attacked by two women who, according to Malaysian police, smeared his face with VX, a chemical classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.

    South Korean intelligence and US officials say the murder was an assassination organised by North Korean agents, though the only suspects charged in the case so far are an Indonesian woman and a Vietnamese woman.

    North Korea on Thursday denied accusations that it was involved, saying the victim died from heart failure.

    The incident has undermined North Korean-Malaysian relations, which had been friendly. Malaysia announced on Thursday that it was stopping visa-free travel for North Koreans.

    The suspects, Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, 28, were formally charged with murder in a Malaysian court on Wednesday. If convicted, they will face the mandatory death penalty.

    Although he had criticised his half-brother’s regime, Kim was not known to be seeking political power.

    Ri Jong-chol denied he was at the airport on the day of the killing

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • Sinn Fein surges in tight Northern Ireland elections

    {Unionist DUP now has just a one-seat advantage as nationalist parties achieve best result in history of province.}

    The pro-British Democratic Unionist Party narrowly remained Northern Ireland’s largest party after edging nationalists Sinn Fein by a single seat in a snap election called after the government collapsed.

    It was the closest nationalists, traditionally backed by Catholics, have ever come to becoming the biggest party in the Protestant-majority province. Unionist candidates, who tend to be favoured by Protestants, captured less than half of the seats for the first time.

    Voters turned out in their highest numbers for two decades in the first regional election in the UK since its vote to leave the European Union as nationalists who favour a united Ireland and unionists who want the province to remain British jostled for influence.

    READ MORE: Northern Ireland holds snap assembly election

    Final results from Thursday’s assembly elections showed the DUP had won 28 seats and Sinn Fein 27 in the province’s semi-autonomous 90-seat parliament after all ballots were counted on Saturday.

    “Let us now move forward with hope, hope that civility can return to our politics,” outgoing first minister Arlene Foster of the DUP told supporters after her re-election on Friday.

    “There is work to be done to quickly mend the relationship which has been frayed by the discord of this election.”

    Sinn Fein’s leader Michelle O’Neill told journalists it was an “amazing day” as her party benefited from a jump in turnout to 65 percent, the highest since the first elections held after the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.

    Al Jazeera’s Lawrance Lee, reporting from Belfast, said the nationalist party managed to recast itself successfully in the recent months.

    “Michelle O’Neill has no direct link to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and they have been campaigning as entirely non-sectarian, what they would call it as progressive issues like gay marriage and women’s rights,” he said.

    “They have very successfully managed to portray the DUP as a dinasaur party stuck in a sectarian past which no longer exists.”

    The DUP’s failure to win at least 30 seats also means it no longer has the power to veto legislation on its own, something the conservative party had used to block extending gay marriage to the province.

    Power-sharing

    The two largest parties now have three weeks to form a new power-sharing government to avoid devolved power returning to the British parliament at Westminster for the first time in a decade.

    But with relations at their lowest point in a decade, Sinn Fein insists among its demands for re-entering government that Foster must step aside while months of investigations begin into a botched green energy scheme that she established.

    READ MORE: May – Northern Ireland crisis mustn’t jeopardise peace

    The former political wing of the Irish Republican Army, who accused the DUP of not treating it as equals before collapsing the previous administration in January, will be further buoyed by their strong showing.

    Brexit factor

    No one predicts the impasse will bring a return to the violence that killed 3,600 people in the three decades before the peace agreement. But some are warning there could be a deterioration in community relations, coupled with government paralysis as Brexit talks determine the province’s political and economic future.

    Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU, but was overruled by a majority vote to leave in Britain as a whole.

    Britain has signalled its intention to leave the EU’s customs union after Brexit, raising fears of a new hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which is an EU member state.

    “Negotiation are due to begin Monday and they have three weeks to try to work out what they are going to do to keep the executive going, if they can’t do that then power returns to London and it will be disaster in the northern Irish politics, given that majority of politicans are against brexit,” Al Jazeera’s Lawrance Lee said.

    London, Dublin and Brussels have all insisted they want to keep free movement across the Irish border – a key component of the Good Friday agreement.

    But the possibility of a return to checkpoints has stirred memories of The Troubles when cross-border smuggling was rife and British outposts along the frontier became targets for IRA fighters.

    The two biggest parties have three weeks to form a government

    Source:Al Jazeera