‘I cannot go on’: Mother’s anguish after daughter raped – and husband and son die trying to save her
“I cannot carry on God, please help me,” a mother says as she struggles to understand what has happened to her family.
Her pain and trauma is unimaginable. Her 21-year-old daughter was gang raped, assaulted and paraded naked by a mob in northeast India.
Her husband and 19-year-old son were bludgeoned to death when they tried to save her.
They and others were caught up in the vortex of ethnic clashes between the majority Hindu Meitei community and minority Christian Kuki-Zomi tribe that have engulfed the remote state of Manipur, next to the border with Myanmar.
When their village was attacked and burnt, they tried to escape but were caught by a mob. Women were made to strip at gunpoint.
In a statement shared with Sky News, the young woman said the men shouted “if you don’t take your clothes off, we will burn you alive”.
A viral video of the incident that shows the horrific crime has caused outrage across the nation.
In an interview with Sky News, her mother wept, saying “my daughter is mentally not stable, she’s finding it difficult to cope, no words can express her condition”.
The bodies of her husband and son and that of 90 other victims are still in hospital mortuaries in the state capital, Imphal.
She continued: “I wish is that we no longer live together with those who raped and murdered us, I want to see the remains of my husband and son and give them a proper burial.”
There is no closure for Theim and Thang Piang, parents of 21-year-old university student Hanglalmuan Vaiphei.
He was picked up by the police for sharing a Facebook post criticising the chief minister and was whisked away to a jail in the capital.
Thiem lost her son in an attack
While returning from a court date under police custody he was snatched by a mob and beaten to death.
“He should have been alive today, even in this conflict,” Theim says, breaking down. “After all he was in the custody of the police and the government.
“I miss him so much, I am now broken emotionally, physically and mentally. Every time we are at the table I expect him to join me,” she says.
University student Hanglalmuan Vaiphei
She is not alone. At least 130 people have been killed in the ethnic clashes and there are no signs of it stopping.
In the Imphal valley, Meira Paibis or the “Women Torch bearers” comprising of Meitei mothers are gaining a notorious reputation of being vigilantes. They are revered for guarding the moral values of the community but are now on the forefront of this agitation.
They are everywhere, conducting stop and search on vehicles even including military trucks and soldiers.
Anima, a leader at one of the check posts in Bishnupur tells Sky News: “We are checking for weapons and bomb making materials that are being smuggled for the Kukis.”
On the video of the naked women being paraded, Anima says: “We absolutely condemn that incident. We burnt the house of the main perpetrator.
“But what about our girls that were raped and made homeless? We don’t have evidence or videos. Why is everyone so pre-occupied with that video only?”
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‘They burnt down our homes’
Violence spares no one. Hijam Singh, a Meitei from Imphal, is desperate for any news of his 17-year-old daughter.
Luwangbi Linthoingambi went missing more than three weeks ago after attending one of her classes. She and her friend were last seen on a motorbike going towards a tribal area.
“I feel she is very much alive, even when people say she would be dead. I feel she is alive,” he says.
Hijam Singh’s teenage daughter went missing
He says he is still hopeful as there have been no recoveries of her bag, clothes or a body. He has knocked on doors but for many like him there are more questions than answers in Manipur today.
Choking up, he says: “If my daughter is killed they may consider it a win. But if I can forgive that can also be a victory.”
World
25% of young children and pregnant women malnourished in Gaza, charity says, as PM vows to fly critical medical cases to UK
A charity has warned 25% of young children and pregnant women in Gaza are now malnourished, with Sir Keir Starmer vowing to evacuate children who need “critical medical assistance” to the UK.
MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said Israel’s “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon” has reached unprecedented levels – with patients and healthcare workers both fighting to survive.
It claimed that, at one of its clinics in Gaza City, rates of severe malnutrition in children under five have trebled over the past two weeks – and described the lack of food and water on the ground as “unconscionable”.
Pic: Reuters
The charity also criticised the high number of fatalities seen at aid distribution sites, with one British surgeon accusing IDF soldiers of shooting civilians “almost like a game of target practice”.
MSF’s deputy medical coordinator in Gaza, Dr Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, said: “Those who go to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s food distributions know that they have the same chance of receiving a sack of flour as they do of leaving with a bullet in their head.”
The UN also estimates that Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people seeking food – the majority near the militarised distribution sites of the US-backed aid distribution scheme run by the GHF.
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‘Many more deaths unless Israelis allow food in’
In a statement on Friday, the IDF had said it “categorically rejects the claims of intentional harm to civilians”, and reports of incidents at aid distribution sites were “under examination”.
The GHF has also previously disputed that these deaths were connected with its organisation’s operations, with director Johnnie Moore telling Sky News: “We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”
Israel says it has let enough food into Gaza and has accused the UN of failing to distribute it, in what the foreign ministry has labelled as “a deliberate ploy” to defame the country.
‘Humanitarian catastrophe must end’
In a video message posted on X late last night, Sir Keir Starmer condemned the scenes in Gaza as “appalling” and “unrelenting” – and said “the images of starvation and desperation are utterly horrifying”.
The prime minister added: “The denial of aid to children and babies is completely unjustifiable, just as the continued captivity of hostages is completely unjustifiable.
“Hundreds of civilians have been killed while seeking aid – children, killed, whilst collecting water. It is a humanitarian catastrophe, and it must end.”
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Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza
Sir Keir confirmed that the British government is now “accelerating efforts” to evacuate children from Gaza who need critical medical assistance, so they can be brought to the UK for specialist treatment.
Israel has now said that foreign countries will be able to airdrop aid into Gaza. While the PM says the UK will now “do everything we can” to get supplies in via this route, he said this decision has come “far too late”.
Read more:
WHO: Gaza faces ‘manmade’ starvation
UN: People in Gaza ‘walking corpses’
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Last year, the RAF dropped aid into Gaza, but humanitarian organisations warned it wasn’t enough and was potentially dangerous. In March 2024, five people were killed when an aid parachute failed and supplies fell on them.
For now, Sir Keir has rejected calls to follow French President Emmanuel Macron and recognise a Palestinian state – despite more than 220 MPs signing a cross-party letter to demand he takes this step.
The prime minister is instead demanding a ceasefire and “lasting peace” – and says he will only consider an independent state as part of a negotiated peace deal.
World
‘Almost like a game of target practice’: British surgeon says IDF shooting Gazans at aid points
A British surgeon who recently returned from Gaza has told Sky News that there is “profound malnutrition” among the population – and claims IDF soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “like a game of target practice”.
Dr Nick Maynard spent four weeks working inside Nasser Hospital, where a lack of food has left medics struggling to treat children and toddlers.
The conditions inside the hospital, in the south of the Strip, have been documented in a Sky News report.
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Malnourished girl: ‘The war changed me’
Dr Maynard told The World with Yalda Hakim: “I met several doctors who had cartons of formula feed in their luggage – and they were all confiscated by the Israeli border guards. Nothing else got confiscated, just the formula feed.
“There were four premature babies who died during the first two weeks when I was in Nasser Hospital – and there will be many, many more deaths until the Israelis allow proper food to get in there.”
Palestinians wait to receive food from a charity kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
In other developments:
• Israel and the US have recalled their teams from Gaza ceasefire talks
• US envoy Steve Witkoff has accused Hamas “of failing to act in good faith”
• France has announced that it will recognise the state of Palestine
• An influential group of MPs is calling on the UK to “immediately” do the same
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‘Starvation used as a weapon’
‘They were shells’
Dr Nick Maynard has been going to Gaza for the past 15 years – and this is his third visit to the territory since the war began.
The British surgeon added that virtually all of the kids in the paediatric unit of Nasser Hospital are being fed with sugar water.
“They’ve got a small amount of formula feed for very small babies, but not enough,” he warned.
Dr Maynard said the lack of aid has also had a huge impact on his colleagues.
“I saw people I’d known for years and I didn’t recognise some of them,” he added. “Two colleagues had lost 20kg and 30kg respectively. They were shells, they’re all hungry.
“They’re going to work every day, then going home to their tents where they have no food.”
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Ex-Gaza aid worker claims personnel shot at Palestinians
IDF ‘shooting Gazans at aid points’
Elsewhere in the interview, Dr Maynard claimed Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians at aid points “almost like a game of target practice”.
He has operated on boys as young as 11 who had been “shot at food distribution points” run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“They had gone to get food for their starving families and they were shot,” he said.
“I operated on one 12-year-old boy who died on the operating table because his injuries were so severe.”
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Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
Dr Maynard continued: “What was even more distressing was the pattern of injuries that we saw, the clustering of injuries to particular body parts on certain days.
“One day they’d be coming in predominately with gunshot wounds to the head or the neck, another day to the abdomen.
“Twelve days ago, four young teenage boys came in, all of whom had been shot in the testicles and deliberately so.
“The clustering was far too obvious to be accidental, and it seemed to us like this was almost like a game of target practice.
“I would never have believed this possible unless I’d witnessed this with my own eyes.”
Palestinians brought to Nasser Hospital after being shot by Israeli forces, according to hospital officials and eyewitnesses. Pic: AP
Sky News has contacted the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
An IDF spokesperson previously told Sky News it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.
“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.
Read more:
Medics at Nasser hospital struggle to feed children
Gaza food situation ‘worst its ever been’
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Israeli military show aid waiting inside Gaza
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been managing the supply of aid to Gaza since Israel lifted an 11-week blockade in May.
It has four aid distribution sites, all of which are located in Israeli military zones, with journalists prohibited from entering.
More than 1,000 people have been reported killed while trying to receive food aid since the GHF took over, according to the UN.
UNRWA, its relief agency for Gaza, has heavily criticised the scheme.
Commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said: “The so-called ‘GHF’ distribution scheme is a sadistic death trap. Snipers open fire randomly on crowds as if they are given a licence to kill.”
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Just a fraction of the aid trucks needed are making it into the enclave, the UN has said, while multiple aid groups and the World Health Organisation have warned Gazans are facing “mass starvation”.
Mr Lazzarini quoted a colleague on Thursday and said malnourished Palestinians in the Gaza “are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”.
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