Women mountain climbers from Pakistan, Iran reach K2 summit
ISLAMABAD
A woman from Pakistan and another from Iran appeared to be the first from their countries to scale K2 on Friday, the world’s second-highest mountain and one of the most dangerous summits, a mountaineering official said. A second Pakistani woman scaled the summit minutes later.
Samina Baig, a 32-yearold from a remote northern village in Pakistan, was the first to hoist her country’s green and white flag atop the peak of the
28,250 foot-high K2.
Iran’s Afsaneh Hesamifard followed shortly after and was hailed for her achievement in Farsilanguage posts on social media. According to Iranian media, she became only the third woman to scale Mount Everest in May.
The two were among several women to successfully reach K2’s peak on Friday, according to Karrar Haidri, chief officer of the Pakistan Alpine Club, which helps coordinate the climbs from the government
COLOMBO, SRI LANKA
International human rights groups on Saturday urged Sri Lanka’s new president to immediately order security forces to cease use of force against protesters after troops and police cleared their main camp following months of demonstrations over the country’s economic meltdown.
A day after President Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn, hundreds of armed troops raided a protest camp outside the president’s office in the early hours of Friday, attacking demonstrators with batons. Human Rights Watch said the action “sends a dangerous message to the Sri Lankan people that the new government intends to act through brute force rather than the rule of law.”
Two journalists and two lawyers were also attacked by soldiers in the crackdown. Security forces arrested 11 people, including protesters and lawyers.
“Urgently needed measures to address the economic needs of Sri Lankans demand a government that respects fundamental rights,” Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Sri Lanka’s international partners should send the message loud and clear that they can’t support an administration that tramples on the rights of its people.” side and responds in the event of an emergency.
Haidri said a second Pakistani female climber, Naila Kiyani, was among the team of women to reach the top of K2 but it appears that Baig had scaled the summit a few minutes earlier.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif congratulated both Pakistani women, saying they proved that women were not behind men in the sports of mountain climbing. The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan congratulated the Pakistani women on Twitter while the Iranian diplomatic mission in Pakistan tweeted congratulations to Hesamifard.
K2, on the ChinesePakistani border in the Karakorum Range, has one of the deadliest records, with most climbers dying on the descent, where the slightest mistake can trigger an avalanche and become fatal. Only a few hundred have successfully reached its summit. In contrast, Mount Everest has been summited more than 9,000 times.
Also condemning the attack, Amnesty International said “it is shameful that the new government resorted to such violent tactics within hours of coming to power.”
“The protesters have a right to demonstrate peacefully. Excessive use of force, intimidation and unlawful arrests seem to be an endlessly repetitive pattern in which the Sri Lankan authorities respond to dissent and peaceful assembly,” said Kyle
Ward, the group’s deputy secretary general.
Wickremesinghe, who previously served as prime minister six times, was sworn in as president a week after his predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fled the country. Rajapaksa later resigned while exiled in Singapore.
Sri Lankans have taken to the streets for months to demand their top leaders step down to take responsibility for the economic chaos that has left the nation’s 22 million people struggling with shortages of essentials, including medicine, fuel and food. While the protesters have focused on the Rajapaksa’s family, Wickremesinghe also has drawn their ire as a perceived Rajapaksa surrogate.
Armed troops and police arrived in trucks and buses on Friday to clear the main protest camp the capital, Colombo, even though protesters had announced
Separately, Haidri said Afghan climber, Ali Akbar Sakki, died on Thursday due to a heart attack while attempting to scale K2. He was part of the team of climbers who reached its summit Friday.
Considered extremely difficult to climb, K2 is not only the second-highest mountain after Mount Everest, its ascent and descent are considered much more challenging that the world’s highest.
K2 is also the coldest and windiest of climbs. At places along the route, climbers must navigate nearly sheer rock faces rising 80 degrees, while avoiding frequent and unpredictable avalanches.
The latest record comes a day after Nepalese climber Sanu Sherpa set a new mountaineering record for twice reaching the peak of each of the world’s 14 highest mountains.
Earlier this month, Pakistan’s military airlifted two Pakistani climbers, including the man who became the youngest to scale K2 to safety after the pair went missing during an expedition scaling Nanga Parbat, known as “Killer Mountain” because of its dangerous conditions. they would vacate the site voluntarily.
Sri Lanka’s opposition, the United Nations, and the U.S. have denounced the government’s heavyhanded tactics.
Despite heightened security outside the president’s office, protesters have vowed to continue until Wickremesinghe resigns.
On Friday, he appointed as prime minister a Rajapaksa ally, Dinesh Gunawardena.
Wickremesinghe on Monday declared a state of emergency as acting president in a bid to quell the protests. Just hours after he was sworn in, he issued a notice calling on the armed forces to maintain law and order – clearing the way for the move against the protest camp.
The protesters accuse Rajapaksa and his powerful family of siphoning money from government coffers and of hastening the country’s collapse by mismanaging the economy. The family has denied the corruption allegations, but the former president acknowledged that some of his policies contributed to Sri Lanka’s crisis.
The political turmoil has threatened efforts to seek rescue from the International Monetary Fund. Still, earlier this week, Wickremesinghe said bailout talks were nearing a conclusion.
The head of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, told the Japanese financial magazine Nikkei Asia that the IMF hopes for a deal “as quickly as possible.”