Far-right riots in the United Kingdom threaten Muslims and asylum seekers By Franca Haug | Published August 14, 2024 Anti-racism activists take part in a rally ahead of a rumoured anti-immigrant protest on Wednesday in Brentford, a surburban town in west London. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images) Genocide Watch is declaring a Genocide Watch for the United Kingdom (UK) in response to the far-right riots  in August 2024 targeting Muslims, asylum seekers, and mosques, asylum homes, and charities associated with these groups. The riots were sparked by the murder of three girls  in Southport on August 29, 2024, coupled with disinformation on right-wing social media that falsely claimed that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker. UK-wide rioting has spread fear among Muslim and immigrant communities, destroyed property , and injured police officers. Rioters have chanted racist slogans, thrown rocks and bottles, and set fire to vehicles and buildings. Immigration from the West Indies and the Indian subcontinent began after 1948 due to a UK labor shortage caused by WWII, the independence of many former British colonies, and the UK’s historic colonial connections. Today, the UK is ethnically diverse with 81 % white, 9.3% Asian, and 4% Black population ( Census 2021 ). Islam is the second-largest religion with over 6% of the population identifying as Muslim. Many UK citizens appreciate this diversity as a legacy of the global British Empire. However, exclusionary nationalism is still widespread in the UK. The 2016 Brexit Referendum  resulted in UK withdrawal from the European Union. It showed that many UK citizens want to return to a traditional British identity. They want to limit immigration, and they support nationalistic, nativist ideals . Far-right organizations have grown. One of these racist groups was the English Defense League (EDL),  which opposed the ‘Islamification’ of the UK. Though now disbanded, many of the EDL’s supporters remain active security threats. In 2019, the UK police announced that the fastest-growing terrorist threat in the UK comes from the far-right. A 2021 survey by Muslim Census  found that almost half of British mosques had “experienced religiously motivated attacks in the last three years.” There has been an explosion of hate speech in online social media  to spread conspiracy theories, incite violence, and organize hate groups. Social media platforms allow for the fast-paced spreading of fake news, covert communication among hate groups, and radicalization of their members. This August’s rioting was the violent culmination of growing resentments  and a long process of racial radicalization. Stressed by the cost-of-living crisis and illegal immigration, some UK citizens feel that they are losing out economically to migrants. UK nationalists consider Islam a threat to British ethnic identity. They emphasize the vulnerability of British women and children, a traditional appeal to racism. UK nationalists falsely claim that the police are more lenient towards ethnic minority offenders than they are towards white people ( two-tier policing ). Racist resentments are spread by far-right agitators. Stage 1   Classification separates ‘us’ (white, British nationals) versus ‘them’ (brown, immigrants, Muslims, asylum seekers). Stage 2   Symbolization  is evident in the colors and ethnicities of “white vs. “brown” people, and choice of mosques, immigration offices, and immigrant welfare organizations as targets. Stage 4 Dehumanization  is manifest in racist slogans during riots. Stage 5   Organization of far-right groups has increased. Stage 6   Polarization  of majority and minority groups is widened on social media platforms. Stage 7 Preparation  plans for riots utilize social media. A list of thirty targets  (mosques, immigration lawyers’ offices, etc.), the times of attacks, and instructions to “mask up,” was shared on Telegram. Genocide Watch recommends: UK Citizens should: Donate and volunteer in local and national asylum and anti-racism organizations ( Stand Up To Racism UK ). Peacefully attend local and national counter-protests to denounce rioters and racism. Engage in community-building across ethnic and religious boundaries. The UK government and police should: Gather intelligence on and monitor far-right leaders. Apply the Online Safety Act 2023  which allows for prosecution of people who knowingly spread misinformation “to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience.” Receive more training in dealing with online misinformation and hate speech. Social media companies should use AI to answer hate speech and misinformation on social media.

Tom Perriello condemns tactics of Rapid Support Forces and Sudanese military before peace talks in Geneva. A child at a displacement camp in Sudan’s Kassala state. More than 25 million people across the African country are now classified as facing acute hunger. Photograph: Faiz Abubakr/Reuters. The US special envoy for Sudan has accused the two factions in the country’s civil war of “cowardice” before crucial peace talks that are due to start on Wednesday. Tom Perriello told the Guardian that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese military “lacked courage and honour” because of their continued use of starvation as a weapon. Such tactics have helped create the world’s largest hunger crisis, in a country once regarded as a global breadbasket. The willingness of both sides to weaponise supplies of food has led to an official declaration of famine at a displacement camp in Darfur, and more than 25 million people across Sudan are now classified as facing acute hunger. US-mediated talks aimed at ending Sudan’s 15-month war will commence on Wednesday in Geneva, Switzerland. Although the RSF has agreed to participate, the Sudanese army has so far indicated it will not attend this latest diplomatic attempt to halt the fighting. The delicate nature of proceedings were not enough to prevent Perriello from venting his frustration, particularly over the continuing efforts by both sides to disrupt the planting and harvesting of crops in Sudan, and the blocking of humanitarian aid. He said: “It is not only a clear violation of international humanitarian law by both sides, it’s just cowardice. “It is shocking to see the lack of courage and honour, particularly where there are people who don’t seem to want to fight militarily, but would rather use starving women and children as their arsenal.” People waiting at an MSF clinic in Zamzam camp, 15km from El Fasher, North Darfur. Photograph: Mohamed Zakaria/MSF. He urged the Sudanese military to allow UN aid to cross the border from Chad and into the Darfur region. Up to 800,000 civilians in the beseiged city of El Fasher, the capital of Darfur, are suffering from a severe lack of food and water. Claire Nicolet of Médecins Sans Frontières, one of the few remaining aid agencies still in El Fasher, said getting anything into the city was “very close to impossible”. Near the capital, famine was recently declared in Zamzam camp. No food aid is reaching the 500,000 people who live there. A recent statement from UN experts rebuked both sides for adopting starvation as part of their military strategy. “The extent of hunger and displacement we see in Sudan today is unprecedented and never witnessed before,” the statement said. “The SAF [Sudanese armed forces] and RSF must stop blocking, looting and exploiting humanitarian assistance.” Perriello said the two factions risked destroying any remaining credibility they may have in a postwar Sudan if they continued to exploit hunger to inflict harm. “Whatever claims of legitimacy either side wants to make are clearly undermined in the eyes of the Sudanese people and the world when they’re taking these actions,” he said. US Special Envoy Tom Perriello. Photograph: Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA. Perriello insisted the Geneva talks would go ahead regardless of the Sudanese army’s absence. The RSF has been pushing further into the east of Sudan, reducing the area controlled by the Sudanese military despite its claims of full sovereignty of Africa’s third largest state. Some agencies want the UN security council to authorise cross-border aid deliveries to millions of people in desperate need, a model based on the arrangement agreed for Syria that allowed supplies to reach rebel-held areas during its civil war. Emmanuel Rinck, the Sudan representative for Solidarités International , another charity in El Fasher, said: “It gives the right to cross borders by default, without the need to ask for consent. Right now it just doesn’t exist.” The talks in Geneva follow widespread concern over the failure of the international community to break the siege of El Fasher, and accusations that the west has done too little to curtail the conflict. Kholood Khair, a Sudanese political analyst and the founding director of Confluence Advisory, a thinktank in Khartoum, said the international response left the impression that Sudan had been diplomatically “deprioritised”. “The RSF wants western engagement, but for the SAF it’s the complete opposite. For them it’s a badge of honour to be hated by the west; that means you have to incentivise them differently.” Khair also lamented that too many countries appeared to be sitting on the fence as the war played out to avoid “alienating” the side that eventually prevailed. The head of the Sudanese military, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, explaining why it had reservations with the Switzerland process, said the RSF’s occupation of civilian areas went against agreements made last year. The military also criticised the participation of the UAE, which it alleges is supporting the RSF with weapons, a claim denied by the emirates. © 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

By Reuters August 13, 202412:19 PM CDT A woman with two children carries their belongings as residents of the Lower Delmas flee their homes due to gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti May 2, 2024. REUTERS/Ralph Tedy Erol/FIle Photo Purchase Licensing Rights PORT-AU-PRINCE, Aug 13 (Reuters) - At least five Haitian children have been killed or injured a week so far in 2024, charity Save the Children said on Tuesday, urging the United Nations and security forces to do more to protect kids from crossfire and gang violence. Haiti in 2022 called for a security mission to help its under-resourced police fight violent gangs that have taken over most of the capital, bringing indiscriminate killings, gang rape, extortion and recruiting minors into their ranks. But progress has been slow and so far just 400 Kenyan police mandated to lead a U.N-ratified mission have deployed in Haiti, while countries have lagged in delivering on promises of funds, personnel and armored trucks. Citing U.N. data, Save the Children said at least 131 children were killed or injured in the first six months of 2024, often due to stray bullets or reprisals for supporting rival gangs or police, and said the true numbers were likely much higher. "Behind these horrifying numbers are real children who have been severely harmed or killed," the charity's Haiti director Chantal Sylvie Imbeault said. "Entire neighborhoods have been burned, kidnappings and sexual assaults are rampant, and children are being directly targeted or caught in the crossfire." In late July, local media reported that a Kenyan mission to Ganthier, a community by the border with the Dominican Republic, had rapidly ended with police having to help them escape gang gunfire due to lack of preparedness and resources. Violence in Ganthier had by Aug. 1 displaced nearly 6,000 residents, U.N. data showed. Save the Children called on the U.N. Security Council to "end impunity" for those committing abuses against children and recruiting them into gangs, and called on "all parties in Haiti to allow immediate, sustained and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief." Schools are set to reopen on Oct. 1, but many in the capital have been turned into makeshift refugee camps as the number of people internally displaced by the conflict nears 600,000 . Reporting by Harold Isaac and Sarah Morland Editing by Alistair Bell © 2024 Reuters. All rights reserved

August 5 2024- ALGIERS: A court in Algiers said Monday that three rejected presidential candidates were placed under “judicial supervision” while another 68 people, including elected officials, were temporarily detained as part of an investigation into electoral fraud. They are suspected of being involved in “signature sales” for the upcoming presidential election set for September 7. Candidates are required to gather large numbers of them to be eligible to stand. “Sixty-eight defendants were placed in temporary detention, three were placed under judicial supervision, and six were released after hearings,” the court said in a statement. Last week, Lotfi Boudjemaa, attorney general at the Court of Algiers, told state news agency APS that “more than 50 elected officials” admitted to having unlawfully received money to endorse presidential candidates. On Monday, the three candidates placed under judicial supervision were named as Saida Neghza, former minister Belkacem Sahli, and a relatively unknown hopeful named Abdelhakim Hamadi. While they are not under arrest, they will be required to regularly check in with the authorities until after the investigation is concluded. Boudjemaa said last week those involved in the fraud “will be arrested.” In a press conference before officially submitting her candidacy last month, Neghza complained of “hardships” in the process of registering and getting the signatures. She said she hoped that “the electoral process takes place in a climate of transparency and integrity, without any favoritism.” To qualify to appear on the ballot candidates are required to present a list of at least 50,000 individual signatures from registered voters or from 600 members from at least 29 of Algeria’s provincial assemblies. Only three hopefuls, including incumbent Abdelmadjid Tebboune, had their candidacies approved for the September 7 election. Abdelaali Hassani of the moderate Islamist party the Movement of Society for Peace and Youssef Aouchiche of the center-left Socialist Forces Front are the two candidates who will stand against Tebboune. The other 13 hopefuls all had their candidacies rejected after failing to muster the required number of signatures of support. © 2024 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved and Subject to Terms of Use Agreement.

By Alex Willemyns and RFA Uyghur August 8, 2024 The homepage of Rare Earth Magnesium Technology Group Holdings, Aug. 8, 2024. The United States has banned imports from five more Chinese companies accused of profiting from the slave labor of Uyghurs trapped in what Beijing calls “poverty alleviation” programs. Americans are now explicitly banned from doing business with 73 companies on the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act’s Entity List , although a broader prohibition on importing any goods produced even in part by the slave labor of Uyghurs is also in place. All 73 blacklisted companies are accused of either working directly with local authorities in China’s Xinjiang region – where the majority of the mostly Muslim minority live – to forcibly employ imprisoned Uyghurs, or else of sourcing inputs from other companies that do so. The latest five firms to be blacklisted include fertilizer manufacturer Rare Earth Magnesium Technology Group Holdings and its parent, Century Sunshine Group Holdings, both of which are based in Hong Kong but stand accused of sourcing tainted inputs from Xinjiang. Additionally, Kashgar Construction Engineering (Group) Co., Ltd., Xinjiang Habahe Ashele Copper Co., Ltd. and Xinjiang Tengxiang Magnesium Products Co., Ltd. are accused of directly employing the slave labor of Uyghurs, says a federal filing to be published Friday. ‘Profitable’ slavery The filing notes the five companies “may request a meeting” with U.S. Homeland Security officials to dispute the listing, or else to prove they have ended their ties to slave labor and deserve to be delisted. The U.S. government has since 2021 accused Beijing of carrying out a campaign of “genocide” against Uyghurs and other Muslims in far-west Xinjiang, including by sterilizing women, banning the exercise of culture and imprisoning many Uyghurs in high-security internment camps. Escaped Uyghurs report being forced to work for Chinese companies for little or no money in order to leave the camps. But Beijing denies that any slavery is taking place and has defended what it says are “poverty alleviation” programs providing training in vocational skills. Rushan Abbas, the executive director of the Washington, D.C.,-based Campaign for Uyghurs, told Radio Free Asia that the slow drip of firms being blacklisted for exploiting slave labor in Xinjiang is progressively making it less and less attractive for other companies to do the same. “A sad, but true reality of the Uyghur genocide is that it has become profitable for big businesses,” Abbas said, applauding Washington for leading efforts to end the “barbarity” of Uyghur slavery. The listing was “a testament to how seriously the U.S. government is taking it to make this human rights nightmare unprofitable,” she added, calling for other countries to follow suit and introduce similar bans. © 2024 Radio Free Asia

By Samy Magdy Libyan officials say clashes between two heavily armed militia groups in Tripoli, the country’s capital, terrorized residents and killed about a dozen people, the latest bout of violence in the largely lawless North African nation CAIRO - Clashes between two heavily armed militia groups in Libya's capital terrorized residents and killed about a dozen people, the latest bout of violence in the largely lawless North African nation , officials said Saturday. The hours-long clashes, which involved heavy weapons, happened Friday in Tripoli’s eastern neighborhood of Tajoura between the Rahba al-Duruae militia, which is led by warlord Bashir Khalfallah — known as al-Baqrah — and another militia al-Shahida Sabriya, the officials added. The Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency Services said at least nine people were killed and 16 others were wounded in the hours-long clashes. The clashes stemmed from an attempted assassination of al-Baqrah on Friday, which his militia blamed on al-Shahida Sabriya, according to local media reports. Khaled al-Meshry, the newly elected head of the west-based High Council of State, condemned the assassination attempt and called for an investigation to hold those responsible accountable. The warring parties are allied with Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah’s government. Its spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment. The U.N. mission in Libya on Saturday deplored the clashes, the use of heavy weapons in densely populated areas and the military build-up in and around the capital. “These clashes serve as a reminder of the critical need to unify the military and security apparatus, establishing legitimate and accountable institutions,” it said in a statement. “They also underscore the urgent need to expedite an inclusive political process leading to credible elections.” The violence underscored the fragility of war-torn Libya following the 2011 uprising-turned-civil war, which toppled and later killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi . Amid the chaos, militias grew in wealth and power, particularly in Tripoli and the western part of the country. Libya has been divided for years between rival administrations in the east and west, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments. Currently, it is governed by Dbeibah’s government in Tripoli and by the administration of Prime Minister Ossama Hammad in the east. Western Libya is controlled by an array of lawless militias allied with Dbeibah’s government, while forces of powerful military commander Khalifa Hifter control the country’s east and south. Friday’s militia infighting was the latest in a series of clashes between militias competing for influence in the country’s west. In May, militia clashes rocked the coastal town of Zawiya , trapping families for houses inside their homes, killing at least one person and wounding 22 others. And in August last year, a 24-hour period of fighting between rival militias in Tripoli killed at least 45 people. The capital’s clashes came as Hifter’s forces said it deployed troops to the southwestern areas to secure Libya’s southern borders. The deployment prompted militias in western Libya to mobilize amid mounting concerns of a potential new war between east and west Libya. The United Nations' mission and Western embassies in Libya expressed their concerns that the military movement could explode into an all-out war between Hifter's forces and the West-based militias, four years after a cease-fire deal ended a 14-month war between the two sides. “Such movements risk escalation and violent confrontation and could put the 2020 ceasefire at risk,” said a joint statement by the embassies of France, Germany, Italy, the U.K. and the U.S. © 2024 ABC News

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado in hiding as more than 1,300 people are detained in post-election clampdown Tom Phillips , 11 AUG 2024 María Corina Machado at an opposition rally in Caracas last week. Photograph: Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images Venezuela’s main opposition leader, María Corina Machado, has accused the country’s strongman president, Nicolás Maduro , of unleashing a horrific “campaign of terror” in an attempt to cling on to power. Two weeks after Maduro’s widely questioned claim to have won the 28 July election, human rights activists say he has launched a ferocious clampdown designed to silence those convinced his rival Edmundo González was the actual winner. More than 1,300 people have been detained, including 116 teenagers, according to the rights group Foro Penal. At least 24 people have reportedly been killed. Speaking from an undisclosed location where she is in hiding, Machado – a charismatic conservative who is González’s key backer – urged governments around the world to oppose Maduro’s intensifying crackdown. “What is going on in Venezuela is horrific. Innocent people are being detained or disappeared as we speak,” said the 56-year-old former congresswoman, who endorsed González after authorities barred her from running. Maduro’s regime has nicknamed part of its clampdown Operación Tun Tun – “Operation Knock Knock” – a chilling reference to the often late-night visits to perceived government opponents by heavily armed, black-clad captors from the intelligence services or police. Tun Tun’s targets have included activists, journalists and prominent opposition politicians – but most detainees appear to be the residents of working-class areas who rose up en masse against Maduro for the first time in the two days after his disputed claim to victory. One Tun Tun propaganda video published on the Instagram account of the military counterintelligence service, DGCIM, last week showed one of Machado’s campaign organisers, María Oropeza, being detained to the sound of the nursery rhyme from the 1984 horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street, in which Freddy Krueger attacks children in their dreams. “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you! Three, four, better lock your door!” warn the song’s sinister lyrics. A second DGCIM video showing another arrest is soundtracked by a horror-film adaptation of Carol of the Bells, whose modified lyrics warn: “If you’ve done wrong, then he will come! … He’ll look for you! You’d better hide!” Asked if she feared she and González would soon receive a visit from Maduro’s security forces, Machado replied: “At this moment … in Venezuela, everybody is afraid that your door could be knocked [on] and your freedom could be taken away – even your life is threatened. Maduro has unleashed a campaign of terror against Venezuelans.” “Every single democratic government should raise their voices much more loudly,” said Machado, who believed the repression laid bare “the criminal nature” of a regime that knew it had lost by a landslide to González and was now seeking desperately to cling to power. “[Maduro’s government has] decided that their only option to stay in power is using violence, fear and terror against the population.” Campaigners for human rights and democracy say the speed and scale of the repression is virtually unprecedented in the region’s recent history. Maduro has claimed he is pursuing criminals and terrorists who are behind a fascist, foreign-backed conspiracy to topple him. “In Latin America, there hasn’t been a repressive crackdown of such magnitude as has happened in Venezuela since the days of [the Chilean dictator] Augusto Pinochet,” Marino Alvarado, an activist from the Venezuelan human rights group Provea, told El País last week. Carolina Jiménez Sandoval, the president of the Washington Office on Latin America advocacy group, told the New York Times: “I have been documenting human rights violations in Venezuela for many years and have seen patterns of repression before. I don’t think I have ever seen this ferocity.” Tamara Taraciuk Broner, the director of the rule of law programme at the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank, said the arbitrary arrests – and a social media crackdown that has temporarily blocked X and Signal – suggested Maduro wanted to take Venezuela in an even more despotic direction. “It looks as if they want to go towards [being] a full-fledged dictatorship,” she said. “You need to be very brave to take to the streets now in Venezuela … they are trying very hard to intimidate people so they don’t take to the streets.” The government’s attempt to create an atmosphere of fear was on show last Saturday as thousands of opposition supporters gathered in Caracas to hear Machado speak despite the risk of arrest. Unlike at other opposition marches in recent years, many protesters declined to give their names to journalists for fear of persecution, and some wore masks. After the march, at least one reporter was detained by security officials and accused of “stirring up hatred”. Machado came in disguise , wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up. Candles form the words ‘Freedom and peace’ during an opposition vigil in Caracas on 8 August calling for the release of political prisoners. Photograph: Hirsaid Gomez/AFP/Getty Images “Before I came out today, my daughter threw herself on top of me and made me promise that I would come home,” said one 28-year-old demonstrator, describing how her best friend was captured hours before. Tellingly, the next major anti-Maduro mobilisations are set to be held predominantly outside Venezuela, where about 8 million of its estimated 29 million citizens live after fleeing abroad to escape economic chaos and political repression. Machado has called on supporters to gather across the globe on Saturday 17 August, for “a great worldwide protest … for the truth”. Machado urged Maduro – who has governed since being elected after the death of his mentor Hugo Chávez in 2013 – to “accept his defeat and understand that we are offering reasonable terms for a negotiated transition”. Those terms included “guarantees, safe passage and incentives”. Maduro has publicly dismissed talk of a negotiation but some believe one option for him could be exile in an allied country such as Cuba, Turkey or Iran. Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, last week offered him temporary asylum en route to such a destination, although Maduro quickly rejected his offer. Machado pledged not to seek “revenge” or to persecute members of Maduro’s administration, although her campaign-trail promises to “forever bury” socialism and her past calls for foreign military intervention make many Chavistas profoundly suspicious of the right-wing politician. Machado recognised the role the leftwing leaders of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico – who have not recognised Maduro’s claim to victory – could have in convincing him to enter “a serious negotiation for a democratic transition”. “But we have to stop [the] repression and the cost of repression has to be increased. These are red lines that the Maduro regime is crossing as we speak,” Machado added. © 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies.

At its August 2024 meeting, The American Bar Association adopted a resolution in its House of Delegates condemning the genocide of the Hazara Shia minority in Afghanistan. The text of the resolution is contained in the document attached below.

Depuis trente ans, la Côte d’Ivoire vit une guerre entre les trois héritiers du père de l’indépendance, qui n’ont jamais cherché à rompre avec son idée d’une autorité incarnée par un chef suprême intouchable. Publié par Le Monde le 18 novembre 2020. By Cyril Bensimon Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara is seeking re-election. (Sia Kambou/AFP) Sur le « VGE » d’Abidjan, le boulevard Valéry-Giscard-d’Estaing que le rastaman Alpha Blondy surnomma dans l’une de ses chansons le « boulevard de la mort », plus personne ne le remarque. Et pourtant, le bar-dancing L’Etoile du sudporte en ses murs des pages de l’histoire de la Côte d’Ivoire qui éclairent son présent. Comme un symbole, l’établissementa été coupé en deux par un vilain mur de parpaings. Et l’impossibilité de régler la succession l’a plongé dans une profonde léthargie. La décoration rouge et blanc de ce lieu où se sont produites la plupart des vedettes de la musique ivoirienne est épuisée. hristophe Kassi est l’un des multiples héritiers de ce monument oublié. Il est ce que la Côte d’Ivoire peut produire de meilleur : peau et cœur métis, jouisseur de chaque instant, optimiste même quand rien n’incite à l’être, intarissable sur tous les styles musicaux qu’il souhaiterait remettre au goût du jour. Sur les quelques chaises en plastique posées au bord de l’artère de 8 km où, d’une accélération, on peut alterner entre odeur de gaz d’échappement et senteurs saturées de cacao prêt à être embarqué pour l’export, les joutes électorales du moments’oublient le temps d’une bière glacée ou d’une bouteille de rouge tiède achetée à l’épicerie du coin. Cela peut paraître difficile à croire au premier coup d’œil, mais c’est à L’Etoile du sud que se sont formellement écrites les premières lignes de l’histoire politique de la Côte d’Ivoire. « L’endroit a été créé avec l’assentiment de tout le monde par mon grand-père Georges en 1930, ici à Treichville, la commune des vieilles familles d’Abidjan, face à celle du Plateau, la commune des colons » , raconte Christophe Kassi. Dédié à l’amusement de l’élite locale, le bar-dancing devient en 1944 le théâtre d’un premier événement historique, avec la création du Syndicat agricole africain. La structure, premier porte-voix des populations locales contre l’exploitation coloniale, installe à sa tête un jeune médecin, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, amené à devenir en 1960 le père de l’indépendance, un président monarque à l’héritage insoldé et la figure à laquelle se réfère hypocritement toute la classe politique qui lui a succédé. « Le chef fait la loi, mais il se met au-dessus » Deux ans plus tard, en 1946, c’est encore à L’Etoile du sud que naît le Parti démocratique de Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), le futur parti unique qui, de 1960 au coup d’Etat du 24 décembre 1999, régnera sur le pays. Parmi les 34 fondateurs et les 18 membres du premier bureau du parti, tous ne sont pas Ivoiriens, mais deux noms sonnent plus exotiques que les autres : Casanova et Franceschi. « Ces deux Corses, envoyés par les Groupes d’études communistes, étaient des staliniens notoires qui ont largement participé à la rédaction des statuts du PDCI » , relate le fils d’un membre historique du parti. Dans le contexte de la guerre froide, Houphouët-Boigny, député de l’Assemblée nationale française entre 1945 et 1959 et ministre de Charles de Gaulle, ne tarde pas à abandonner ses idéaux de gauche pour mieux s’entendre avec Paris. Il en sera un puissant relais en Afrique, tout en étant un habile manipulateur de la classe politique française pendant ses trente-trois années de pouvoir. Pour asseoir son autorité, le meilleur représentant de la Françafrique saura, semble-t-il, garder quelques enseignements venus de Moscou. S’il n’a jamais versé dans la folie criminelle du « petit père des peuples », le parti, selon la conception de Félix Houphouët-Boigny, est une structure pyramidale dont le chef, au sommet, est une icône qui ne peut être contestée ; la nomenklatura construite avec l’indépendance et qui ne rencontre bien souvent le peuple qu’aux carrefours des grandes rues se doit d’être soumise, au risque de perdre ses privilèges ; les têtes qui dépassent et ceux qui affirment trop fort leurs ambitions sont aussitôt purgés. Ces tendances peuvent être retrouvées dans nombre de régimes dictatoriaux, mais « cette vision du communisme entrait en parfaite résonance avec le mode de gouvernance local, où tout va au chef, qui est chargé ensuite de redistribuer à la communauté » , décrypte un fin connaisseur de la vie politique ivoirienne : « C’est lui qui fait la loi, mais il se met au dessus. Ainsi, quand on jette l’oracle et que ses prédictions ne lui conviennent pas, il a le droit de le relancer. » Le « Vieux », ainsi que le surnomment affectueusement les Ivoiriens, avait su parfaitement tirer profit de son environnement extérieur et des habitudes locales, mais sa mort en 1993 n’engendre aucun réel changement dans l’idée que ses héritiers se font du pouvoir. Le PDCI demeure la matrice des nouvelles formations politiques qui voient le jour et l’autorité se doit toujours d’être incarnée par un chef suprême intouchable. Le pouvoir présidentiel supplante tous les autres. Le judiciaire comme le législatif ne sont envisagés que comme deux bras soumis à la tête. L’introduction du multipartisme et l’avènement de la Commission électorale indépendante et du Conseil constitutionnel, les deux instances chargées de prononcer les résultats des scrutins, ajouteront même un autre précepte prêté à Staline : « Ce ne sont pas les votes qui comptent, mais ceux qui comptent les votes. » « L’ivoirité », un venin qui infuse la vie politique Le premier des successeurs d’Houphouët-Boigny, Henri Konan Bédié (1993-1999), s’est toujours comporté comme un roi soucieux de ses privilèges, un conservateur de l’œuvre de son mentor, mais sans son génie politique qui consistait à partager finement le pouvoir et les richesses entre toutes les communautés du pays. Pour éliminer Alassane Ouattara, son premier rival, il se fait le promoteur de « l’ivoirité », une sorte de préférence nationale ramenée au contexte particulier de la Côte d’Ivoire, où les étrangers et leurs enfants ont grandement contribué à la construction du pays et représentent une large partie de la population actuelle. Son venin infuse depuis un quart de siècle la vie politique ivoirienne. Après l’intermède du « Père Noël en treillis » – Robert Gueï, qui prit le pouvoir après une mutinerie devenue coup d’Etat le jour du réveillon 1999, puis le perdit dans la rue après avoir tenté de voler l’élection de 2000 –, Laurent Gbagbo, l’« antisystème » nourri aux idéaux socialistes, ne cherche jamais à rompre avec l’idée d’une autorité centralisatrice léguée par celui qu’il osa affronter dans les urnes dès 1990. S’il a su créer une symbiose, un univers partagé avec un peuple qui se retrouve en lui, son ambition de briser l’aristocratie fédérée autour du PDCI est vite abandonnée par les siens au profit d’une « refondation » noyée dans le champagne, les achats de Toyota RAV4 pour les maîtresses et un nationalisme imprégné de messianisme religieux et justifiant toutes les formes de violence pour combattre une rébellion qui coupe le pays en deux entre 2002 et 2011 et trouve ses principaux appuis au Burkina Faso voisin. Son tombeur en 2011, Alassane Ouattara, appuyé diplomatiquement et militairement par les Nations unies et la France, jouera à plein l’idée d’une « restauration » de l’houphouëtisme, un retour vers le passé pour projeter la Côte d’Ivoire vers « l’émergence » économique. Depuis son accession au pouvoir, le pays s’est couvert de bitume, le réseau électrique s’est densifié, Abidjan est en perpétuel chantier mais « les autoroutes humaines font défaut », constate avec dépit l’un de ses proches. Au sein de la population gronde la frustration de ne voir la croissance économique profiter qu’à une caste dirigeante originaire du nord du pays, dont Alassane Ouattara est perçu comme le meilleur protecteur. « Ce n’est pas à Louis XV qu’on a coupé la tête » Lors de l’élection du 31 octobre, une part de l’opposition, qui conteste avec de sérieux arguments la légalité constitutionnelle du troisième mandat du président sortant, a également joué sur les ressorts toujours mobilisateurs de la lutte des « vrais Ivoiriens » contre « le candidat de l’étranger », toujours accusé d’être d’origine burkinabée, et du chef d’une communauté qui « mange seule ». Depuis des années, l’entourage du chef de l’Etat assure entendre cette dernière critique, mais jusqu’ici les réelles mesures qui laisseraient croire à un meilleur partage du pouvoir et de la rente qu’il génère se font encore attendre. Instrumentalisés par chaque camp, qui n’a jamais su chercher ou trouver de meilleurs chevaux de bataille que l’utilisation de la fibre ethnique, les jeunes de chaque communauté, tous en attente d’un avenir meilleur, se font aujourd’hui face, sourds aux griefs et aux peurs de leur voisin dès que les enjeux de pouvoir débordent dans la rue. Le risque du pire n’est jamais écarté et l’élection du 31 octobre a montré tout le danger que pouvaient représenter les réseaux sociaux dans un contexte où chacun se perçoit comme assiégé. Les héritiers de Félix Houphouët-Boigny, 239 ans à eux trois, ont depuis la mort du père de l’indépendance montré leur capacité à s’entre-déchirer puis à se réconcilier sans grande sincérité. Alassane Ouattara avec Laurent Gbagbo contre Henri Konan Bédié, Alassane Ouattara avec Henri Konan Bédié contre Laurent Gbagbo, Henri Konan Bédié avec Laurent Gbagbo contre Alassane Ouattara… Toutes les combinaisons ont été éprouvées et ceux qui ont tenté de s’affirmer sans l’aval de leur mentor ont été écartés, traités comme des traîtres, ou se sont marginalisés d’eux-mêmes. En vieux monarque reprenant à son compte les échanges entre Louis XV et Madame de Pompadour, Félix Houphouët-Boigny pouvait lancer à sa table « Après nous le déluge ! » , avant de conclure d’un sourire malin : « Ce n’est pas à Louis XV que l’on a coupé la tête, mais à son successeur. » REPÈRES 1930 : Création de l’Etoile du sud 1946 : Création du PDCI 1960 : Indépendance, Félix Houphouët-Boigny devient président de la République 1990 : Première élection multipartite 1993 : Mort de Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Henri Konan Bédié lui succède 1999 : Premier coup d’Etat, suivi un an plus tard de l’élection Laurent Gbagbo 2010 : Election d’Alassane Ouattara, suivie d’une crise post-électorale et de l’arrestation de Laurent Gbagbo 2020 : Alassane Ouattara est réélu pour un troisième mandat contesté © Le Monde. Tous droits réservés.

« Il est temps que les responsables des crimes les plus graves perpétrés en RDC répondent de leurs actes » Dix ans après la sortie du « Rapport Mapping » de l’ONU, inventaire des violations des droits humains commises entre 1993 et 2003, les victimes attendent toujours que justice soit faite. Publié par Le Monde le 29 septembre 2020. By Clément Boursin Le 2 septembre 1998, à Kalemie, dans l’est de la République démocratique du Congo (RDC). [ABDELHAK SENNA/AFP] Le « Rapport Mapping » décrit de manière chronologique et thématique les horreurs de dix années de violences et de conflits en République démocratique du Congo (RDC). Il analyse 617 incidents violents commis entre 1993 et 2003 en RDC. Durant cette décennie, l’ensemble des parties aux conflits – groupes rebelles congolais et étrangers, forces armées nationales congolaises, ougandaises, burundaises, angolaises, rwandaises, tchadiennes et zimbabwéennes – se sont rendus coupables de graves et massives violations des droits humains. Pour ce travail, réalisé par le Haut-Commissariat aux droits de l’homme des Nations unies (HCDH), la majorité des 617 violences documentées peut être qualifiée de crimes contre l’humanité et de crimes de guerre. Concernant les massacres visant les populations Hutu entre 1996 et 1997, le rapport indique que les attaques commises par l’Armée patriotique rwandaise (APR) et l’Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo (AFDL) «  révèlent plusieurs éléments accablants qui, s’ils sont prouvés devant un tribunal compétent, pourraient être qualifiés de crimes de génocide  ». Cette analyse a été vivement critiquée par le Rwanda lorsqu’il a reçu, pour commentaires, la première version du rapport en juin 2009. Jusqu’à aujourd’hui, cette partie du rapport continue à cristalliser les tensions entre anti-Front patriotique rwandais (FPR) et pro-FPR et tend à occulter le reste du contenu du rapport. L’identité des auteurs présumés des exactions documentées – environ 200 personnes, dont plusieurs dizaines de responsables militaires et politiques de premier plan – n’apparaît pas dans le rapport public, mais figure dans une base de données confidentielle à la disposition du HCDH. Alors que le « Rapport Mapping » aurait dû devenir un document fondateur de la lutte contre l’impunité en RDC, ses recommandations n’ont pas été suivies d’effet. L’idée de mettre en place une juridiction spécialisée pour faire la lumière sur les exactions commises entre 1993 et 2003 n’a jamais vu le jour. Si le régime congolais de l’ancien président Joseph Kabila a proposé en 2013 la création de chambres spécialisées mixtes composées de juges congolais et étrangers et intégrées au sein du système judiciaire congolais, la loi créant un tel organe n’a jamais été adoptée. De leur côté, les systèmes judiciaires des pays voisins ont systématiquement ignoré les exactions commises par leurs armées régulières sur le territoire congolais. Action nationale d'envergure Alors qu’une mobilisation du Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies aurait pu être salvatrice sur la question de la lutte contre l’impunité, ce dernier, faute de volonté politique des Etats membres, n’a apporté aucune réponse au manque de détermination de la RDC et des pays voisins de faire juger les responsables des crimes les plus graves commis entre 1993 et 2003. Lorsque, en mars 2016, le docteur Denis Mukwege, prix Nobel de la paix 2018, dépose une lettre signée par près de 200 organisations non gouvernementales (ONG) au HCDH, réclamant la publication de la base de données qui identifie les principaux responsables des crimes décrits dans le « Rapport Mapping », le Haut-Commissariat lui répond que «  la divulgation publique de ces informations pourrait mettre en danger les victimes et les témoins desdites violations  ». On peut toutefois se demander si la présence des responsables présumés de ces crimes dans les plus hautes instances dirigeantes de la RDC et des pays voisins ne met pas davantage en danger la population dans le pays. Avec la fin du long règne de près de vingt-cinq ans de la famille Kabila, durant lequel l’impunité est demeurée la règle en RDC, l’espoir d’engager le pays dans une nouvelle voie plus respectueuse des droits humains renaît au sein de l’opinion publique congolaise, avec l’arrivée tourmentée de Félix Tshisekedi à la présidence congolaise en janvier 2019. Il est aujourd’hui temps pour le président Tshisekedi, un homme politique qui n’est pas issu du monde des armes, d’un groupe armé et qui n’a aucun lien avec l’un d’eux, d’engager une action nationale d’envergure, en concertation avec la société civile, pour rompre avec l’impunité passée et engager le pays dans une paix durable basée sur la justice et le respect des droits humains. Cela ne pourra pas se faire sans le « Rapport Mapping » dont les recommandations doivent être mises en œuvre, particulièrement en ce qui concerne la mise en place de mécanismes de justice transitionnelle. Il est temps que les responsables politiques et militaires des crimes les plus graves commis en RDC entre 1993 et 2003 répondent de leurs actes devant la justice et que les victimes obtiennent enfin réparation. L’avènement d’une justice réparatrice est essentiel pour construire la paix dans le pays. Divulguer publiquement leurs noms, inscrits dans la base de données du HCDH, pourrait contribuer à les écarter du pouvoir, à les amener devant la justice et à libérer la parole des victimes et des témoins qui ne seraient plus contraints de vivre dans la peur des représailles de leurs bourreaux. Le « Rapport Mapping » ne doit plus être un sujet tabou. Clément Boursin est responsable Afrique de l’ONG ACAT France (Action des chrétiens pour l’abolition de la torture). © Le Monde. Tous droits réservés.

The Times went to South Sudan to document the extent of hunger as food grew scarce. This year is expected to be the worst yet, as millions potentially face acute malnutrition. By Megan Specia and Kassie Bracken Nyantioop Mach outside her home in a camp for displaced people in Juba, South Sudan. “This year is the worst we have seen,” she said of the country’s food crisis. Credit Kassie Bracken/The New York Times 5/30/2018 - JUBA, South Sudan — The hunger season came early this year. By February, once seen as a time of plenty, Nyabolli Chok had run out of food for her three children in their village here in South Sudan. She knew they had to leave. “We were eating leaves off of trees,” she said, describing how she boiled them into a watery soup. “Ron reath,” she said — her words for the hunger season. South Sudan’s dozens of ethnic groups use different names for the months when food becomes scarce until the next harvest. But the fears are the same: malnutrition, disease, even death. And this year is expected to be the worst yet. More than four years of civil war — most of this young country’s existence — have chased millions from their homes, leaving countless farms abandoned. The economy has been obliterated. Fighting has overcome some of the nation’s most productive land. Food prices are ruinously high. Even during harvest time in January, when food was most abundant, more than five million people — almost half the population — did not have enough to eat. Now, as food runs out over the next few months, international officials expect that number to grow considerably, with millions potentially facing acute malnutrition. This year’s harvest was the smallest on record since South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, with the country producing only a fraction of its needs, according to the World Food Program. On top of that, peace talks have stalled and cease-fires have largely been ignored, which means the fighting has cut off some areas from emergency help. Aid workers have been targeted by government and rebel fighters alike, making food distribution increasingly difficult. Even here in the capital, which had been largely immune to the food crisis, many families are finding it impossible to pay the steep prices demanded in the city’s markets, their options vanishing as the currency crashes. Families from across the country pile into a clinic for malnourished children, setting aside the political and ethnic divides that have torn this new nation to shreds. Some mothers come from areas backing the government. Others have husbands, brothers and sons who fight for the rebels. Dozens of the women lie outside on the floor, their children wrapped in blankets. The signs of malnutrition are clear: Swollen bellies and emaciated limbs. Skin hanging in folds from tiny bones. Bodies covered in open sores, the painful result of edema breaking the skin. Cecilia Kideen struggled to feed her 9-month-old daughter, Sarah. Her breast milk is not enough, as she barely eats one meal a day. “The mothers,” she said, “are really suffering.” South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, was born from an enormous international push to end decades of conflict between the north and south of what was then Sudan. But just two years later, the new country was at war. In December 2013, a feud between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar quickly descended into a conflict that has fractured the country, killed tens of thousands of people and decimated what was already one of the world’s least developed nations. “There are very few populations that are escaping the impacts of hunger,” said Elizabeth White, Oxfam’s South Sudan policy adviser. “But all roads lead back to conflict and insecurity.” Talks between the government and opposition leaders have been postponed. But even if peace can be reached, the hunger crisis still looms. Farming on the Front Lines The civil war in South Sudan has set off the largest refugee crisis in Africa since the Rwandan genocide, the United Nations says. More than two million people have fled the country, crippling food production. Nearly two million others have abandoned their homes and remain scattered around the country, leaving behind ghost towns and untended fields. At the nation’s southern border, dozens of refugees cross a narrow bridge into Uganda each day, bringing stories of hunger with them. Mary Yar, 20, arrived with her 1-year-old son at a small reception center on the Ugandan side. At the site, the first assessment that refugees go through is a malnutrition screening “There is no food there,” Mrs. Yar said of her home village, pointing back toward the bridge to South Sudan. Mary Yar, right, crossed the border from Nimule, South Sudan, into neighboring Uganda. She arrived in a United Nations reception center with her 1-year-old son, Abram. Credit Kassie Bracken/The New York Times During the height of the hunger season last year, South Sudanese arrived by the thousands, said Geoffrey Chandiga, a child assessment officer. He keeps a tally of new arrivals on a whiteboard, noting that officials are bracing for an uptick in the months ahead. Two years ago, South Sudan’s war expanded into southern parts of the country that had long been seen as the country’s breadbasket. People flooded across the Ugandan border. Most have yet to return. When United Nations peacekeepers visited the areas in early 2017, they saw entire villages burned to the ground. $321.70 for a Plate of Beans Under a sharp midmorning sun in the capital, Elizabeth Kenyi and her husband, Johnson Ali, plucked vegetables from their garden along the White Nile, a tributary of the Nile. For two decades, they have sold their okra, peppers and tomatoes in a nearby market. But even with a plentiful harvest this year, they are finding it harder than ever to feed their family of seven. “The money that I got from the garden is useless,” Mr. Ali said. Elizabeth Kenyi and her husband grow okra, peppers and tomatoes in their garden. But they say the high inflation rate has made the money they earn useless. Credit Kassie Bracken/The New York Times While their produce commands a higher price than it did last year, prices for the staple grains they buy, like maize and sorghum, are climbing fast. South Sudan's currency is in freefall and hyperinflation has squeezed virtually everyone. Before the war, one American dollar was worth about five South Sudanese pounds. By March, a dollar was worth about 220 pounds. The impact has been devastating. A 2017 World Food Program report determined that the relative price of a meal in South Sudan was among the highest in the world. It found that people here typically needed to spend 155 percent of their daily income for a single plate of bean stew. To put it another way, a meal that would cost a New Yorker just $1.20 would cost someone in Juba the equivalent of $321.70. Awaiting Aid That Can’t Be Delivered With agriculture in tatters, emergency aid is keeping a growing share of the country alive. By early 2018, half of South Sudan’s population relied on food aid, according to the United Nations, and the percentage will grow as the hunger season reaches its peak in the coming weeks. Women waited during a monthly distribution of food at a United Nations camp on the outskirts of Juba. Credit Kassie Bracken/The New York Times But delivering that aid is another matter entirely. The rainy season hits during these lean months, too, turning many roads into rivers of impassable mud. Beyond that, at least 100 humanitarian workers have been killed here since the start of the conflict, 30 in the last year alone, targeted by warring parties that think the efforts are helping their enemies. Even within the protected camps set up around the country by the United Nations, there is not enough food to go around. Mrs. Chok, the woman who boiled leaves for her children, had been at a protected area in Juba for a month. The camps sprang up in 2013 as ethnic minorities who feared violence from government forces and their supporters fled to the base of the United Nations peacekeeping mission. Many stayed, and the camps have sprawled into makeshift cities ringed by barbed-wire fences. The United Nations provides food to registered camp residents, but thousands inside have no official status, so they rely on their neighbors for food. The rations are simply not enough. Aid workers say that so much of the country is on the move — with vast numbers of people fleeing places where violence erupts — that most new arrivals to Mrs. Chok’s camp have not been registered in more than a year. That means she and countless others receive nothing. Staying in the camps is dangerous enough. Attacks and sexual abuse by camp officers have been widely reported. Other accounts have emerged of women trading sex for food. But leaving the camp brings an entirely new set of risks. Each day, Tafisa Nyattie collects firewood outside the camp, where she lives. Ms. Nyattie says she has survived a beating and attempted rape by soldiers while collecting wood. Credit Kassie Bracken/The New York Times Tafisa Nyattie, 30, who has lived in a camp here since 2013, has six children. Her food rations regularly run out, so she leaves the camp daily to gather firewood, hoping to earn enough money for milk and soap to wash her children’s clothes. She walks up to three hours in each direction, braving threats from government forces before returning with a large bundle of wood on her head. “They will rape you or beat you, and sometimes they kill you,” Mrs. Nyattie said, recounting the well-documented dangers women have faced in the conflict. “Some government soldiers tried to rape me.” On another day, she said, she was beaten and her leg was badly injured. But when she saw how hungry her children were, she decided she had no choice but to head back out again. “You just go, and you don’t know if you will come back to your children,” Mrs. Nyattie said. Hunger’s Youngest Victims The malnutrition clinic offers a chilling glimpse of what this hunger season may hold. The hospital ward, frequently dark because of intermittent electricity, is treating nearly a dozen more children each day than it did this time last year. They come from around the country to be weighed, measured and given antibiotics and a milk formula before moving on to Plumpy’Nut, a peanut-based nutritional paste — if their bodies can handle it. Many of the families here are not even victims of the horrors that have chased millions from their homes. Some have jobs, career plans and families to lean on — yet their children are still going hungry. Selwa Anania, a restaurant worker from Juba, brought her 2-year-old son, Taban Zacharia, to the clinic. Her small salary does not go far in the market. Most days, it is only enough for a single meal of porridge. Sylvia George, 27, fanned her son, Mandela Bisa, 2, who lay half-conscious on a bed, hooked up to an intravenous drip. The child’s father is a student at Juba University, and the three live with Ms. George’s mother, whom they rely on for food. There is never enough. For now, with the peak of the hunger season still weeks away, the clinic manages the steady flow of patients, said Josephin Ruben, the head nutritionist. Selwa Anania, right, and her son, Taban Zacharia, 20 months, sitting outside the hospital. After two weeks, Taban’s condition has improved. Credit Kassie Bracken/The New York Times But, she noted anxiously, there “will not be enough when we get to June and July.” (c) 2018 The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/world/africa/south-sudan-hunger-season.html

By Megan Specia and Kassie Bracken June 1, 2018—JUBA, South Sudan — The hunger season came early this year. By February, once seen as a time of plenty, Nyabolli Chok had run out of food for her three children in their village here in South Sudan. She knew they had to leave. “We were eating leaves off of trees,” she said, describing how she boiled them into a watery soup. “Ron reath,” she said — her words for the hunger season. South Sudan’s dozens of ethnic groups use different names for the months when food becomes scarce until the next harvest. But the fears are the same: malnutrition, disease, even death. And this year is expected to be the worst yet .More than four years of civil war — most of this young country’s existence — have chased millions from their homes, leaving countless farms abandoned. The economy has been obliterated. Fighting has overcome some of the nation’s most productive land. Food prices are ruinously high. Even during harvest time in January, when food was most abundant, more than five million people — almost half the population — did not have enough to eat. Now, as food runs out over the next few months, international officials expect that number to grow considerably, with millions potentially facing acute malnutrition. “This year is the worst we have seen,” she said of the country’s food crisis. This year’s harvest was the smallest on record since South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, with the country producing only a fraction of its needs, according to the World Food Program. On top of that, peace talks have stalled and cease-fires have largely been ignored, which means the fighting has cut off some areas from emergency help. Aid workers have been targeted by government and rebel fighters alike, making food distribution increasingly difficult. Even here in the capital, which had been largely immune to the food crisis, many families are finding it impossible to pay the steep prices demanded in the city’s markets, their options vanishing as the currency crashes. Families from across the country pile into a clinic for malnourished children, setting aside the political and ethnic divides that have torn this new nation to shreds. Some mothers come from areas backing the government. Others have husbands, brothers and sons who fight for the rebels. Dozens of the women lie outside on the floor, their children wrapped in blankets. The signs of malnutrition are clear: Swollen bellies and emaciated limbs. Skin hanging in folds from tiny bones. Bodies covered in open sores, the painful result of edema breaking the skin. Cecilia Kideen struggled to feed her 9-month-old daughter, Sarah. Her breast milk is not enough, as she barely eats one meal a day. “The mothers,” she said, “are really suffering.” South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, was born from an enormous international push to end decades of conflict between the north and south of what was then Sudan. But just two years later, the new country was at war. In December 2013, a feud between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar quickly descended into a conflict that has fractured the country, killed tens of thousands of people and decimated what was already one of the world’s least developed nations. “There are very few populations that are escaping the impacts of hunger,” said Elizabeth White, Oxfam’s South Sudan policy adviser. “But all roads lead back to conflict and insecurity.” Talks between the government and opposition leaders have been postponed. But even if peace can be reached, the hunger crisis still looms. Farming on the Front Lines The civil war in South Sudan has set off the largest refugee crisis in Africa since the Rwandan genocide, the United Nations says. More than two million people have fled the country, crippling food production. Nearly two million others have abandoned their homes and remain scattered around the country, leaving behind ghost towns and untended fields. At the nation’s southern border, dozens of refugees cross a narrow bridge into Uganda each day, bringing stories of hunger with them. Mary Yar, 20, arrived with her 1-year-old son at a small reception center on the Ugandan side. At the site, the first assessment that refugees go through is a malnutrition screening. “There is no food there,” Mrs. Yar said of her home village, pointing back toward the bridge to South Sudan.Mary Yar, right, crossed the border from Nimule, South Sudan, into neighboring Uganda. She arrived in a United Nations reception center with her 1-year-old son, Abram. During the height of the hunger season last year, South Sudanese arrived by the thousands, said Geoffrey Chandiga, a child assessment officer. He keeps a tally of new arrivals on a whiteboard, noting that officials are bracing for an uptick in the months ahead. Two years ago, South Sudan’s war expanded into southern parts of the country that had long been seen as the country’s breadbasket. People flooded across the Ugandan border. Most have yet to return. When United Nations peacekeepers visited the areas in early 2017, they saw entire villages burned to the ground. $321.70 for a Plate of Beans Under a sharp midmorning sun in the capital, Elizabeth Kenyi and her husband, Johnson Ali, plucked vegetables from their garden along the White Nile, a tributary of the Nile. For two decades, they have sold their okra, peppers and tomatoes in a nearby market. But even with a plentiful harvest this year, they are finding it harder than ever to feed their family of seven. “The money that I got from the garden is useless,” Mr. Ali said.Elizabeth Kenyi and her husband grow okra, peppers and tomatoes in their garden. But they say the high inflation rate has made the money they earn useless. While their produce commands a higher price than it did last year, prices for the staple grains they buy, like maize and sorghum, are climbing fast. South Sudan's currency is in freefall and hyperinflation has squeezed virtually everyone. Before the war, one American dollar was worth about five South Sudanese pounds. By March, a dollar was worth about 220 pounds. The impact has been devastating. A 2017 World Food Program report determined that the relative price of a meal in South Sudan was among the highest in the world.It found that people here typically needed to spend 155 percent of their daily income for a single plate of bean stew. To put it another way, a meal that would cost a New Yorker just $1.20 would cost someone in Juba the equivalent of $321.70. Awaiting Aid That Can’t Be Delivered With agriculture in tatters, emergency aid is keeping a growing share of the country alive. By early 2018, half of South Sudan’s population relied on food aid, according to the United Nations, and the percentage will grow as the hunger season reaches its peak in the coming weeks.Women waited during a monthly distribution of food at a United Nations camp on the outskirts of Juba. But delivering that aid is another matter entirely. The rainy season hits during these lean months, too, turning many roads into rivers of impassable mud. Beyond that, at least 100 humanitarian workers have been killed here since the start of the conflict, 30 in the last year alone, targeted by warring parties that think the efforts are helping their enemies. Even within the protected camps set up around the country by the United Nations, there is not enough food to go around. Mrs. Chok, the woman who boiled leaves for her children, had been at a protected area in Juba for a month. The camps sprang up in 2013 as ethnic minorities who feared violence from government forces and their supporters fled to the base of the United Nations peacekeeping mission. Many stayed, and the camps have sprawled into makeshift cities ringed by barbed-wire fences. The United Nations provides food to registered camp residents, but thousands inside have no official status, so they rely on their neighbors for food. The rations are simply not enough. Aid workers say that so much of the country is on the move — with vast numbers of people fleeing places where violence erupts — that most new arrivals to Mrs. Chok’s camp have not been registered in more than a year. That means she and countless others receive nothing. Staying in the camps is dangerous enough. Attacks and sexual abuse by camp officers have been widely reported. Other accounts have emerged of women trading sex for food. But leaving the camp brings an entirely new set of risks.Each day, Tafisa Nyattie collects firewood outside the camp, where she lives. Ms. Nyattie says she has survived a beating and attempted rape by soldiers while collecting wood Tafisa Nyattie, 30, who has lived in a camp here since 2013, has six children. Her food rations regularly run out, so she leaves the camp daily to gather firewood, hoping to earn enough money for milk and soap to wash her children’s clothes. She walks up to three hours in each direction, braving threats from government forces before returning with a large bundle of wood on her head. “They will rape you or beat you, and sometimes they kill you,” Mrs. Nyattie said, recounting the well-documented dangers women have faced in the conflict. “Some government soldiers tried to rape me. ”On another day, she said, she was beaten and her leg was badly injured. But when she saw how hungry her children were, she decided she had no choice but to head back out again. “You just go, and you don’t know if you will come back to your children,” Mrs. Nyattie said. Hunger’s Youngest Victims The malnutrition clinic offers a chilling glimpse of what this hunger season may hold. The hospital ward, frequently dark because of intermittent electricity, is treating nearly a dozen more children each day than it did this time last year. They come from around the country to be weighed, measured and given antibiotics and a milk formula before moving on to Plumpy’Nut, a peanut-based nutritional paste — if their bodies can handle it.Sylvia George fanning her 2-year-old son at the Unicef-run nutrition clinic at Al Sabbah Hospital in Juba. Many of the families here are not even victims of the horrors that have chased millions from their homes. Some have jobs, career plans and families to lean on — yet their children are still going hungry. Selwa Anania, a restaurant worker from Juba, brought her 2-year-old son, Taban Zacharia, to the clinic. Her small salary does not go far in the market. Most days, it is only enough for a single meal of porridge .Sylvia George, 27, fanned her son, Mandela Bisa, 2, who lay half-conscious on a bed, hooked up to an intravenous drip. The child’s father is a student at Juba University, and the three live with Ms. George’s mother, whom they rely on for food. There is never enough. For now, with the peak of the hunger season still weeks away, the clinic manages the steady flow of patients, said Josephin Ruben, the head nutritionist.Selwa Anania, right, and her son, Taban Zacharia, 20 months, sitting outside the hospital. After two weeks, Taban’s condition has improved. But, she noted anxiously, there “will not be enough when we get to June and July.” © 2018 The New York Time