By Lisa Schlein Tesfay sits with his wife and grandchildren, who have been displaced, as they receive food assistance for the first time in 8 months from the World Food Program (WFP), in Mehameday, in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, May 28, 2022. GENEVA — A senior UNICEF official says humanitarian aid is flowing into previously inaccessible areas in northern Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region. He says lifesaving aid is reaching hundreds of thousands of people in need thanks to the government’s humanitarian truce with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Researchers at Ghent University in Belgium estimate as many as half a million people have died from war, starvation, and other indirect causes in Tigray. This, since Ethiopian military forces invaded the region November 4, 2020, in response to attacks by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. In an interview with VOA from his office in Addis Ababa, UNICEF’s representative in Ethiopia, Gianfranco Rotigliano, says there has been a change since the government truce was declared in March. He says 170 trucks rolled into previously blockaded areas in April and expects that number to increase to more than 1,000 trucks a month. Rotigliano describes the needs as immense. He says more than five million people in Tigray require international aid, as well as an additional seven million people in the conflict-affected Amhara and Afar regions. “We have great needs in terms of repairing infrastructures that were looted, that were destroyed… and the, you know the lack of supplies in certain areas makes it also very difficult for children to get health services, to get immunization. Many schools are closed so children cannot go to school and there are more risks for exploitation and sexual abuse in the region,” he said. UNICEF estimates nearly 400,000 children in northern Ethiopia are malnourished. It says 80,000 severely malnourished children have been treated for this life-threatening condition this year, compared to 36,500 during the same period last year, indicating a seriously deteriorating situation. Rotigliano tells VOA priority needs include food, seed, and fertilizers, as well as cash to pay civil servants, doctors, nurses, and other essential workers who receive no salary. He says another critical issue is fuel, which is in short supply. “This is a big problem because fuel is not an issue of Ethiopia. It is a global issue. As you know, with the war in Ukraine, the price of fuel has gone up and the actual supply of fuel has decreased. So, this is a big issue that we have, that we are facing now,” he said. Rotigliano warns the distribution of lifesaving aid to millions of people in Tigray will be severely affected if fuel supplies run out. U.N. agencies estimate 100 trucks carrying food, medicine, non-food items and fuel must arrive in Tigray every day to meet the region’s humanitarian needs.

Exclusive UK accused of trying to head off condemnation of Gulf ally over alleged aid to forces accused of genocide in Darfur. By Mark Townsend The aftermath of an attack on Abu Shouk camp near El Fasher last month, when more than 100 people died. Photograph: Darfur Network for Human Rights UK government officials attempted to suppress criticism of the United Arab Emirates and its alleged role in supplying arms to a notorious militia waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Sudan, sources have told the Guardian. Claims that Foreign Office officials put pressure on African diplomats to avoid criticising the UAE over its alleged military support for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) will intensify scrutiny of the UK’s relationship with the Gulf state. The RSF, a paramilitary group accused of carrying out crimes against humanity by rights groups, is besieging the city of El Fasher in Darfur, a sprawling region in western Sudan. Fighters have encircled the city, amid evidence they are targeting and murdering civilians based on their ethnicity. The siege has prompting warnings that if El Fasher falls it will precipitate a large-scale massacre and possible genocide. Yonah Diamond , an international human rights lawyer, said that during informal talks earlier this month in Ethiopia – to explore the possibility of legal action against the UAE over its alleged role in the fighting – he was told by sources that the UK was actively dissuading some states from condemning the emirates. Diamond, a senior legal counsel at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights , said: “They told me that the UK was discouraging states from criticising the UAE.” It prompted accusations among diplomats that the UK had prioritised its relationship with the UAE over the fate of civilians trapped in El Fasher, home to 1.8 million people. Diamond’s talks in Addis Ababa involved officials from the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development , an eight-country east African trade bloc, along with other diplomats. He said: “We were looking to build support for a civilian protection mechanism [in Darfur] and moves to hold the UAE accountable in the international court of justice or elsewhere in the region.” Diamond, who co-chaired an independent inquiry that found “clear and convincing evidence” the RSF was committing genocide in Darfur, said: “We were following on from the implications of those findings, breaches of the [UN] genocide convention and the need for states to comply with their obligations.” The UAE’s ambassador to the UN, Mohamed Abushahab, at a security council meeting this week, when Sudan accused the UAE of supplying the RSF militia. Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters However, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) strongly denied the claims. A spokesperson said: “These accusations are categorically untrue. The UK is using its diplomatic influence to support efforts for a durable peace.” The role of the UAE in Sudan’s brutal 14-month civil war between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces is hotly contested. The UAE has repeatedly denied involvement in sending military support to any of Sudan’s warring parties. On Tuesday, Sudan’s army-aligned government and the UAE clashed at the UN security council with the latter dismissing claims it was supplying the RSF as “ludicrous”. However, UN sanctions monitors have described accusations that the UAE provided military support to the RSF as “credible”. Last week the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at Yale University revealed images of a cargo plane flying over RSF territory near El Fasher, matching an aircraft type seen at locations in neighbouring Chad where lethal aid has allegedly been transferred to the RSF. The findings have raised questions over potential arms resupplies to the RSF by the Gulf state, though it is not known who operated the Ilyushin IL-76 plane. Nathaniel Raymond, HRL executive director, said: “It needs to be investigated by the UN security council, who can ask the UAE whether they are involved.” The UK is the UN security council’s current “penholder” on Sudan, meaning it leads the council’s activities on Africa’s third-largest country. In response to the claims, FCDO officials also pointed to a UK-led UN security council resolution last Thursday calling on the RSF in Sudan to “halt their siege” on El Fasher, the last city in western Darfur not controlled by the RSF. The resolution “calls on all member states to refrain from external interference which seeks to foment conflict and instability” and to comply with the Darfur arms embargo. Critics, though, say the text should have made explicit reference to the UAE as well as Iran, which is accused of supplying the opposing Sudanese Armed Forces, which has also faced allegations of war crimes. Sudanese protesters in London step on pictures of the RSF leader, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and Abu Dhabi’s ruler, Mohammed bin Zayed. Photograph: Courtesy of Darfur Union UK Some say such an intervention arrived too late, accusing the west of dragging its feet as the RSF offensive on El Fasher unfolded. Questions over UAE support for the RSF arose during a meeting in London on 13 June between the FCDO and members of the UK’s Darfur diaspora, which was prompted by the Guardian’s revelation of secret talks between Britain and the RSF . Abdallah Idriss Abugarda, leader of the Darfur Diaspora Association, accused the FCDO of putting its relationship with the UAE above that of civilians’ lives. The claim was denied by officials. Abugarda said: “We are very concerned about the British interests. It’s not beneficial that the UAE appears to have leverage over the UK. The UK doesn’t care about its moral obligation.” His association represents 30,000 people in the UK and is thought to be the biggest such organisation in the world, unusually representing Darfur’s nine African ethnic groups. Kholood Khair, Sudanese political analyst, said geopolitical dynamics explained any attempt to protect the UAE. “The UAE has made itself indispensable to the west, in particular the US, as a guarantor of its strategic objectives in the region,” she said. Khair added: “The UAE has been helping the US stave off Chinese dominance in Africa by outspending Beijing and in return gets US security guarantees.” Human rights groups point to economic ties and close links with the emirates of key British figures , such as the foreign secretary, David Cameron. In 2013, as prime minister, Lord Cameron set up a secretive Whitehall unit specifically to court the oil-rich sheikhs of the UAE, with the aim of persuading them to invest billions in the UK. In January the defence secretary, Grant Shapps, said he expected the UK to raise tens of billions of pounds of investment from the UAE. © 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies.

Exclusive: Discovery of Emirati passports in wreckage suggest covert boots on the ground, despite Gulf state’s denials By Mark Townsend It is claimed the passports were found in the wreckage of Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images Passports recovered from battlefields in Sudan suggest the United Arab Emirates is covertly putting boots on the ground in the country’s devastating civil war, according to leaked documents. A 41-page document, sent to the UN Security Council and seen by the Guardian, contains images of Emirati passports allegedly found in Sudan and linked to soldiers of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the African nation’s notorious paramilitary. The UAE has previously denied all accusations of supplying arms to the RSF, which is holding the city of El Fasher under siege in a wider campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur. However, the suggestion that the Emirates has deployed personnel to assist the fighting in Sudan would be an escalation, further inflaming the geopolitical complexities of the 15-month long civil war between the RSF and Sudanese military. The passports are claimed to have been recovered from Omdurman, the city across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, in an area that was held by the RSF but recently reclaimed by the Sudanese army. Analysts described the discovery as a “smoking gun” that challenged UAE denials and raised questions over what the US and UK know about the level of the Gulf state’s involvement in Sudan and whether the west has done enough to rein in backing of a militia accused of genocide . Some experts believe that, without the UAE’s alleged involvement, the conflict driving the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis would already be over. The document, sent last month to the UN Security Council, also indicates that the Emirates has supplied the RSF with drones modified to drop controversial thermobaric bombs. These are more devastating than conventional explosives of similar size, and there have been calls to ban them. The papers include photographs of pages of four passports apparently belonging to UAE male nationals, two born in Dubai, one in the city of Al Ain and another Ajman, the fifth-largest city in the UAE. All are aged between 29 and 49. A source familiar with the discovery said the passports were recovered from the wreckage of a vehicle found in Omdurman in February. “The assessment is that they belong to UAE intelligence officers,” they added, speaking on condition of anonymity. Two passports belonging to Yemeni nationals were found in the same location, with one, a 38-year-old, born in Dubai, and a 31-year-old from Dhale, south-west Yemen. The RSF has previously sent thousands of its fighters to Yemen to fight against the Houthis, and the apparent recovery of Yemeni passports in Sudan suggest such help may have been reciprocated. However the UAE dismissed the claims saying that the four Emerati individuals featured on the images of passports had, in fact, travelled to Sudan “well before the conflict” on a humanitarian trip that had taken place 11 months before war broke out in April 2023. A statement from the UAE ambassador to the UN said that five of the six passports belonged to a May 2022 delegation from a UAE-based humanitarian group called International Charity Organization that visited Sudan. “No photographs of the other parts of the six passports are provided to substantiate the allegations that these passports were seized from an armored vehicle in a road accident… and are in the possession of the SAF [Sudanese Armed Forces], added the statement. The UAE has repeatedly disputed allegations it is has sent military support to any of Sudan’s warring parties. Last month, the Emirati mission to the UN said claims suggesting otherwise were “lies, disinformation and propaganda disseminated by some Sudanese representatives”. However, UN sanction monitors have described claims that the UAE provided military support to the RSF as “credible”. Kholood Khair, a Sudanese political analyst and the founding director of Confluence Advisory, said the passports reframed the debate. “This makes a mockery of the UAE’s insistence it has nothing to do with militarily supporting the RSF. “It’s a smoking gun when corroborated with other evidence. The Emirates are giving a lot of hands-on immediate support to the RSF, something they have been denying because there hasn’t been this direct on-the-ground link,” she said. The document contains details of military hardware recovered from battlegrounds in Africa’s third-largest country. Experts said that a quadcopter drone with tubes to drop modified 120mm mortar bombs was likely to have been supplied by the UAE. Images of boxes containing armaments are marked as being sent by a Serbian arms company to the “UAE Armed Forces, joint logistics command based in Abu Dhabi”. The boxes indicate that the bombs they contain have a thermobaric filling, which produces a high-temperature blast in an enhancement to conventional explosives. According to the document, the bombs were recovered from Sudan’s state broadcast headquarters in Omdurman after the country’s military – also accused of numerous war crimes – forced the RSF from the building. A spokesperson for Fenix Insight , which analyses arms for government and non-governmental organisations, said: “We know those modified mortar bombs come with that UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone] kit. It’s all one package, produced by one company, and if it’s gone to the UAE armed forces, then it’s as directly attributable as you can get.” Nic Jenzen-Jones, the director of Armament Research Services , which has tracked UAE weapons to Libya and Yemen, agreed that the document indicated 120mm mortar shells supplied to Emirati forces appear to have been “captured” in Sudan. The document also contains images of surface-to-surface missiles, anti-aircraft guns and wire-guided anti-tank systems, but experts said there was sufficient information to link them to the UAE. The UAE ambassador’s statement added that the images in the document were photocopies as opposed to actual passports that had been found. They added that the men were angry at being wrongly implicated. The statement said: “These individuals regard this allegation of involvement in the conflict as defamatory and in stark contrast to the welcome they previously received from Sudanese authorities for their charitable endeavours and attempts to build business links between two brotherly nations, and they reserve their right to take legal action. “Indeed, these individuals have their respective passports in their possession, and it is not possible for them to have been found ‘on the battlefield’ as alleged.” © 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Pour le chercheur Jeff Hawkins, « le dernier exercice électoral en dit long sur la fragilité du pays », malgré le soutien continu de la communauté internationale. By Jeff Hawkins Publié par Le Monde le 11 janvier 2021 Un soldat de l’armée centrafricaine à Boali, le 10 janvier 2021. (FLORENT VERGNES/AFP) Tribune. Lundi 4 janvier, l’Autorité nationale des élections (ANE) a annoncé les résultats préliminaires des élections présidentielle et législatives en Centrafrique . Selon l’ANE, Faustin-Archange Touadéra aurait obtenu près de 54 % des voix, écartant la nécessité d’un second tour de scrutin. Le gouvernement centrafricain et la communauté internationale se sont donné beaucoup de mal pour organiser ces élections comme prévu et on peut considérer comme un succès leur déroulement dans un contexte difficile. Mais à bien des égards, la Centrafrique ne semble pas plus proche de la résolution de son interminable crise qu’avant le scrutin ; et le dernier exercice électoral en dit long sur la fragilité du pays. Lorsque M. Touadéra a commencé son premier mandat, il y a cinq ans, on aurait pu espérer un avenir meilleur pour la Centrafrique. Le pays s’était lentement, douloureusement éloigné d’une catastrophe humanitaire en 2013 et, deux ans après, semblait plus ou moins prêt pour des élections démocratiques. Les forces de maintien de la paix de l’ONU, en collaboration avec l’armée française, avaient apporté une certaine sécurité ; le gouvernement de transition avait accepté d’organiser le scrutin et de rendre le pouvoir au vainqueur ; la communauté internationale s’était chargée de la logistique électorale dans un pays déchiré par la guerre et en grande partie sans infrastructures. Des groupes armés tantôt rivaux, tantôt alliés Miraculeusement, les élections de 2015-2016 qui ont porté M. Touadéra au pouvoir ont été largement pacifiques et les observateurs internationaux se sont accordés pour dire qu’elles respectaient globalement la volonté de l’électorat. Quelques mois après le scrutin, lors d’une conférence internationale des donateurs à Bruxelles, la communauté internationale a levé 2 milliards d’euros pour aider à la reconstruction du pays. Quelques années plus tard, en 2019, le gouvernement et une douzaine de groupes armés ont signé à Khartoum un accord de paix sous les auspices de l’Union africaine (UA) et de la Communauté économique des Etats de l’Afrique centrale (CEEAC). Malgré les progrès apparents, cependant, la Centrafrique n’est jamais vraiment passée de la crise à la reconstruction et à la réconciliation. Le gouvernement a toujours peiné à étendre son fief au-delà de Bangui, sans jamais toucher de façon significative les populations en dehors de la capitale. Les projets de développement, souvent entravés par des problèmes de sécurité, n’ont pas fourni suffisamment d’emplois aux jeunes. Il est impossible pour la force de maintien de la paix de l’ONU, la Minusca, d’imposer pleinement l’ordre à un pays divisé entre des groupes armés tantôt rivaux, tantôt alliés. Et pendant tout ce temps, ces mêmes groupes armés ont continué de contrôler les mines de diamants et les routes de transhumance, dont les ressources finançaient les conflits plutôt que les services gouvernementaux. Deux facteurs additionnels expliquent la violence qu’on voit aujourd’hui en Centrafrique. Premièrement, l’accord de Khartoum, qui devait mettre fin aux combats entre groupes armés, était un exercice creux. En 2019, le gouvernement et la communauté internationale avaient clairement démontré qu’ils n’avaient ni les moyens militaires et policiers de rétablir l’ordre dans le pays ni grand-chose à offrir aux groupes armés en échange de l’abandon du contrôle des ressources nationales lucratives. S’attendre à ce que ces groupes – essentiellement des organisations criminelles sans idéologie ni aspiration régionale – baissent les armes en échange de quelques sièges dans les comités de désarmement à Bangui était irréaliste. Il va sans dire qu’il y a eu peu de désarmement réel dans les mois qui ont suivi et que les conflits violents, après une accalmie, se sont poursuivis. François Bozizé, un facteur de déstabilisation Deuxièmement, M. Touadéra et la Minusca ont décidé de permettre le retour au pays de l’ancien président François Bozizé. Ce choix désastreux reste inexplicable. M. Bozizé, ancien chef des forces armées centrafricaines, avait pris le pouvoir en 2003 par une rébellion de groupes armés très proches de ceux qui créent tant de problèmes aujourd’hui. Depuis qu’il avait quitté ses fonctions, il vivait en exil, sous sanction internationale. Après son départ du pouvoir, ses relations problématiques avec les milices anti-balaka étaient perçues comme l’une des raisons de l’instabilité. Sa réapparition à Bangui fin 2019 aurait dû conduire à son arrestation immédiate ou à un nouvel exil. Au lieu de cela, M. Touadéra – qui avait été premier ministre sous Bozizé et a besoin du soutien électoral des populations favorables à l’ancien président – a décidé de traiter son ancien patron avec le respect dû à un ex-chef d’Etat. M. Bozizé ne lui a pas rendu la politesse, soutenant l’organisation des principaux groupes armés en un seul mouvement avec l’intention manifeste de perturber les élections par la violence. Le second mandat de M. Touadéra devrait donc commencer sur une note moins optimiste que le premier. Les violences se poursuivent en Centrafrique, dont certaines près de la capitale, et notamment dans la ville d’origine du président, Damara. L’accord de Khartoum est clairement mort. M. Bozizé reste un important facteur de déstabilisation. Beaucoup de personnalités politiques qui s’étaient présentées contre M. Touadéra aux élections contestent maintenant les résultats. Et même si le vote a eu lieu à Bangui et dans certaines parties du pays, il y a apparemment eu des perturbations importantes dans d’autres régions. Si elle peut se consoler du soutien continu de la communauté internationale, la Centrafrique ne semble guère mieux lotie qu’il y a cinq ans. Jeff Hawkins est chercheur associé à l’Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS). Il a été ambassadeur des Etats-Unis en Centrafrique et consul général à Lagos, au Nigeria. © Le Monde. Tous droits réservés.

By Kate Connoly Judge in German court says 94-year-old former SS guard Oskar Gröning helped ensure smooth running of the Nazi killing machine A former SS guard known as the ‘accountant of Auschwitz’ has been sentenced to four years in prison for being complicit in the murder of 300,000 Hungarian Jews in what is likely to be one of the last Nazi trials. Oskar Gröning, 94, looked on impassively as judge Frank Kompisch delivered the verdict, calling it “justice, not revenge” and telling him while he had not been directly involved in the killings he had been an integral cog in the machine of the Auschwitz extermination apparatus. He said Gröning had taken a “safe whitecollar job at a desk which gave you certain protection … in a machinery designed entirely for the killing of humans” that was “inhumane and all but unbearable for the human psyche”. While the SS had been reliant on some to carry out sadistic acts, Gröning, in his capacity as a bookkeeper – who was responsible for collecting money found in prisoners’ clothing and luggage before recording it in a ledger – had been important “precisely because of your education. Rather than being sent to the front, it was important for the war effort that you had this duty in Auschwitz,” Kompisch said. Gröning’s occasional duties on the arrival ramp during the two years he spent working at Auschwitz saw him responsible for taking the luggage of new prisoners. This role meant he had witnessed first-hand the suffering of those deported to Auschwitz, Kompisch told him: “Mr Gröning, don’t tell me you did not see the suffering, of course you saw it. You didn’t just look after the luggage to see that it wasn’t stolen …. [you] knew they were never going to see their luggage again.” He emphasised how Gröning’s role had helped ensure the smooth running of an extremely efficient machine of death and deception, including making sure that new arrivals were not given the impression they were about to be sent to the gas chambers. This, he said, referring to evidence given during the trial by historians, would have caused panic and a potential breakdown of the system. Gröning, he said, was typical of many who had contributed to the success of the Nazi’s final solution operation, which had been “perfectly planned so that it had many different parts with the aim of making sure that no single person can be considered responsible for everything”. Leon Schwarzbaum, 94, who lost 30 members of his family in the Holocaust, was the only Auschwitz survivor present in court to hear the verdict. The judge made a last-minute decision on Tuesday to deliver the ruling a week ahead of schedule, which meant many of the co-plaintiffs were unable to make the journey. Speaking of his relief, Schwarzbaum said: “I feel satisfied that justice has finally been served. Whether he goes to prison or not is not really relevant. I’m the same age as him, and seeing him in court just reminded me of being in Auschwitz as a 22-year-old and being amazed to see Nazis the same age as me shooting Jews.” But 81-year-old Eva Mozes Kors, one of the co-plaintiffs who gave harrowing testimony in court earlier in the trial, criticised the sentence. “His value is not sitting in jail at the age of 94,” she said via email. “His value to society would be in speaking to students in person … so that every time he lectures he relives those experiences. As it is, in jail he doesn’t have to talk about it – he can just rot away.” The verdict makes Gröning the 6,657th person to be convicted of Nazi war crimes in Germany, out of a total of 172, 294 people who were investigated between 1945 and 2005. He is only the 50th Auschwitz guard to have been convicted, out of 6,500 who have stood trial. Only a handful have served prison terms. Kompisch used his verdict to say: “A lot more could have been done.” The verdict was welcomed by lawyers representing the more than 60 co-plaintiffs– either survivors of Auschwitz or relatives of those murdered there – most of whom travelled from their homes in the US, Canada and the UK. Thomas Walther, who is responsible for 51 co-plaintiffs and who spent years working to bring the case, said his clients would be “damned happy that the court case has reached a conclusion”. He had yet to reach any of them on the phone when he spoke, but said when he did he would tell them that the judge’s detailed verdict, delivered over 90 minutes, “proved that the court listened closely to their testimony. There’s never been anything like this in a German court,” he added. “What was important was that he stressed how integral all the contributors to the Nazi war effort had been and not just the leaders. He made it clear that Hitler, Heydrich and Himmler would have been very lonely had they not had other people helping them.” He said it had also been important for his clients to see how Gröning himself had been emotionally affected by the three-and-a-half month long proceedings. However, Gröning may never serve any of the sentence, which is subject to a decision by prosecutors and doctors that may take months to reach. Following the trial he was driven to his nearby home. His lawyers have a week to appeal the verdict. Heinrich-Peter Rothmann, a lawyer for another of the co-plaintiffs, said he doubted whether Gröning would end up behind bars. “I’m sure they won’t send him,” he said. “But that is not important to my client so much as the fact that this trial has taken place at all, and that he has been handed a sentence.” In a joint statement, the co-plaintiffs said: “SS members such as Gröning who took part in the murder of our families have created lifelong and unbearable suffering for us. “Neither the criminal proceedings nor the words of the accused can alleviate this suffering. But it gives us satisfaction that now the perpetrators cannot evade prosecution as long as they live.” Dr Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, welcomed the verdict, saying: “Although more than 70 years have passed since the liberation of the Nazi death camps, this trial reminds us that there is no statute of limitations for those responsible for Nazi horrors and of the real and present danger of intolerance and demonstrates the constant need to guard against antisemitism, racism and hate.” On Tuesday, Gröning had made a final appeal to the court to recognise his contrition. He said he agreed with the prosecution’s argument that “no one should have taken part in Auschwitz”. “I agree with that,” Gröning said. “I sincerely regret that I did not recognise that earlier. I’m truly sorry.” Earlier in the case, while admitting his moral culpability, he had said “only God” could grant him forgiveness. Kompisch, who said the case had made a deep impact on him as a judge, affecting his “view of the world”, welcomed the fact that Gröning had stood up to his responsibilities by actively participating in the case – in stark contrast to John Demjanjuk, who during his 2012 trial in Munich for aiding and abetting the deaths of thousands of Jews in Sobibor, was wheeled into court on a gurney every day, and remained silent throughout. Kompisch said Gröning’s cooperation had helped mitigate his sentence. “We also have to take into account your venerable age and that you probably won’t outlive your sentence,” he said, acknowledging that the trial had taken its toll on his health. At the end of the court session a tired-looking but expressionless Gröning, dressed in a burgundy sleeveless pullover, pressed his fists into the table to push himself up from his chair before rolling his walking frame to the door and exiting the room without saying a word. The trial was the second attempt over an almost 40-year period to bring Gröning to justice. But after judges in Munich ruled that Demjanjuk had aided and abetted mass murder simply by working at Sobibor, a change of attitude took place among the judiciary, allowing an individual’s mere presence at a concentration camp to be considered evidence enough to secure a conviction. The way for Demjanjuk’s case was paved by the 2006 trial of Mounir el Motassadeq, who was jailed for aiding and abetting the 9/11 murders by continuing to pay the rent of the attacks’ ringleader Muhammad Atta, long after he had left for the US, to make it appear that he was still living in Hamburg. The last Nazis: more cases could follow Gröning’s conviction has sent an encouraging signal to lawyers attempting to bring other remaining Nazis to trial. A court in Dortmund is due to decide any day now whether Reinhold Hanning, a 93-year-old former SS guard at Auschwitz and a member of the SS Totenkopf division , is fit enough to stand trial. Co-plaintiffs who were at Auschwitz at the same time as him and who are prepared to give testimony in court have already been gathered. The case of Christel Maass, who was a guard at Auschwitz around the same time as Gröning and is now in her 90s, could come to court later this year. Co-plaintiffs have been tracked down by lawyers and are prepared to testify against her. A 94-year-old farmer from the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, identified only as Hubert Z, who worked as a hospital orderly in the emergency medical services squadron of the SS, stands accused of aiding and abetting the murders of tens of thousands of Jews. A decision by a court in Schwerin, the state capital, is due to be made as to whether he can stand trial. In February, state prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into 93-year-old Hilde Michnia, who served as a guard in the Bergen-Belsen and Gross-Rosen concentration camps and is suspected of forcing prisoners on an evacuation march in 1945 during which approximately 1,400 women died. Copyright The Guardian 2015

Islanders, who blame nuclear tests before 1958 for health damage, accuse the nations of breaching legal duty to disarm. By Laurence Lee The tiny Republic of the Marshall Islands in Micronesia is taking on the world's nuclear powers with an unprecedented legal case that is being heard at The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ). The islanders say their lives were ruined by dozens of nuclear tests in the 12 years to 1958 along their territory. Generations past and present have suffered the after-effects. "I can just go down the list of my wife's family. You don't even have to go that far and almost every Marshall islander out here can do this. My wife's mother died of cancer of the uterus; my wife's uncle died of thyroid cancer," Jack Niedenthal, trust liaison for the People of Bikini Atoll, said. To begin with, the Marshall Islands has brought a case against the three nuclear powers which recognise the ICJ - the UK, India and Pakistan - on the argument that they have breached a legal duty to disarm. Similar logic is being used against six other nations including the US, Russia and China. Source: Al Jazeera

By Kevin Sieff MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — For months, they were kept in tiny thatched huts in the middle of the forest, waiting with dread each evening for their rapists to return. During the almost intolerable violence, the young women’s minds drifted to escape or death. The victims were as young as 8. At the heart of Boko Haram’s self-proclaimed caliphate in northeastern Nigeria was a savage campaign of rape and sexual slavery that has only recently been uncovered. Thousands of girls and women were held against their will, subject to forced marriages and relentless indoctrination. Those who resisted were often shot. Now, many of the women are suddenly free — rescued in a series of Nigerian military operations over the past year that dislodged the extremist Islamist group from most of the territory it controlled. But there have been few joyous family reunions for the victims. Map: The brutal toll of Boko Haram’s attacks on civilians Most of the surviving women no longer have homes. Their cities were burned to the ground. The military has quietly deposited them in displacement camps or abandoned buildings, where they are monitored by armed men suspicious of their loyalties. They are still labeled “Boko Haram wives.” Few could have imagined such an outcome two years ago, when 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram and the world responded with the Bring Back Our Girls campaign. While most of those schoolgirls from Chibok are still missing, many people assumed the other kidnapped women would be warmly welcomed back. Instead, they are shunned. For seven months, Hamsatu, now 25, and Halima, 15, were among Boko Haram’s sex slaves, raped almost every day by the same unit of fighters in the remote Sambisa Forest. Now, they live in a narrow, white tent in a displacement camp, with empty cement bags sewn together to create a curtain. The women spoke on the condition that their full names were not used in order to freely describe their experiences. When Halima leaves the tent to get food for the two of them, the other people living in the camp scowl at her or cautiously move away. “You’re the one who was married to Boko Haram,” one older woman spat at her recently. “We can’t trust any of them,” said one guard. Nigerian women describe horrors of Boko Haram abductions Women who escaped from forced marriage and sexual slavery at the hands of Boko Haram talk about their abductions, and the hard transition back to life in Nigeria after they found freedom. (Human Rights Watch) Authorities say there are good reasons for their wariness. Last year, 39 of 89 Boko Haram suicide bombings were carried out by women, according to UNICEF. Twenty-one of those female attackers were under the age of 18, many of them girls apparently abducted from villages and cities and converted into assassins. Since January, female attackers have killed hundreds of people across northeastern Nigeria, in mosques, markets and even displacement camps. No one knows exactly why some women who were captured and abused became killers. Maybe it was the indoctrination. Maybe it was the militants’ threats. Either way, the job of reintegrating the displaced has become vastly more complicated for Ni­ger­ian authorities. And for survivors trying to move on from a horrific chapter of their lives, there is now a new agony. “There is no trust here,” said Hamsatu, crouching in her tent and wearing the same pink, flowery dress she had on when she was kidnapped 18 months ago. In her arms, she held the baby of her captor. ‘I don’t know if he’s alive’ It was September 2014 when Boko Haram fighters took over Hamsatu’s and Halima’s home city of Bama, near the Cameroonian border. Many of the 350,000 residents managed to flee. But the fighters immediately started killing the male civilians who couldn’t escape. Some were shot in their homes. Others were beheaded and thrown in mass graves. With a group of about 25 other women, Hamsatu and Halima say, they were moved by the militants from home to home and then forced to travel on foot and on the backs of motorcycles to the Sambisa Forest, where Boko Haram had set up camps for its sex slaves. The women were each assigned to a sliver of a hut, barely big enough to lie down. Hamsatu said that days later, one fighter, whose name she never learned, entered the hut and said a prayer in what sounded to her like Arabic. Now they were married, he told her. She thought of her real husband, who had been missing since the day Boko Haram stormed Bama. “I don’t know if he’s alive,” she said. From then on, the days were uniformly violent. Different men would come into her hut each evening, in addition to the one who called himself her “husband,” Hamsatu said. Sometimes they screamed at her for not praying enough. “Even the Chibok girls are better Muslims than you,” a man yelled at her once. Sometimes the men said nothing at all, tearing off her headscarf and raping her on the floor of the hut, she recalled. After about two months, she became pregnant. Publicly, Boko Haram members decry the tyranny of Nigeria’s federal government, which is mostly Christian in a nation where Muslims, nearly half of the population, have long complained about being marginalized. The militants rail against secular education and demand strict Islamic observance. The group has declared allegiance to the Islamic State. But to their prisoners, the fighters’ campaign didn’t seem driven by ideology so much as a wild appetite for sex and violence. It would take the rest of the world some time to learn about Boko Haram’s institutionalized sexual abuse. Rape wasn’t just a byproduct of the chaos of war in Nigeria, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would say in 2015. It was a calculated “tactic of terror.” “These people have a certain spiritual conviction that any child they father will grow to inherit their ideology,” Kashim Shettima, the governor of Borno state — where Bama is located — told reporters last year. At night, Hamsatu heard helicopters and gunshots. Several times, she attempted to escape, but she was caught and returned by guards. After a while, the pregnancy slowed her and she stopped trying. When the Nigerian military came, it hardly felt to the women like a rescue operation. Soldiers burned the huts while women were still inside and shot wildly at everyone, they said. Several women were killed or disappeared during the operation, according to accounts from several former captives. Halima is now raising a 3-year-old orphan whose mother vanished during the rescue operation. The women were loaded in pickup trucks and dumped on a desert road about 50 miles away, they said. Military interrogators arrived. The women were searched for weapons. After months of being held by one of the world’s deadliest terror groups, the women realized: They were now suspects. Fearing the ‘liberated’ “Sambisa woman” — that’s what they called Hamsatu and Halima when the women arrived at the Dalori displacement camp on the outskirts of the city of Maiduguri in April of last year. It was the name of the forest where they had been enslaved. Hamsatu and Halima were taken to a tent they shared with two other women and the 3-year-old orphan — all of whom had been “liberated” from Boko Haram, as the military said. The women who had been forcibly married to fighters were kept apart from other people displaced by the war. Unlike most of the world’s refugee or displacement camps, which are run by the United Nations and international aid groups, the camps where Boko Haram’s victims live are administered by the Nigerian military. Outside Dalori, an army captain stands by the front gate. Visitors are patted down. A poster of high-level Boko Haram suspects hangs on the perimeter wall of the camp. Aid workers need military permission to enter the camps. Some women who lived under Boko Haram are occasionally hauled off to a military base for questioning, and then returned. “The fear is that they’ve been converted to Boko Haram’s ideology,” said Mohammed Ali Guja, the chairman of the city of Bama. “They are now a different person.” The country’s displaced population has ballooned. As of March, there were 2.6 million internally displaced people, or IDPs, in northeastern Nigeria, according to the International Organization for Migration. Even local relief workers worry that the women they have been sent to help might be concealing loyalties to their Boko Haram abductors. “The simple truth is they pose a serious threat to the general public,” said Ann Darman, of the Gender Equality, Peace and Development Center, a Nigerian aid group that often works with the United Nations. Last year, just as the liberated women were pouring into displacement camps and local communities, there was a surge in female suicide bombers. In June,one killed 20 people at a bus station in Maiduguri. A day later, two bombers killed 30 at a market in the city. In July, two more killed 13 people near a military checkpoint. In October, four girls and a boy targeted a mosque, killing 15. Witnesses said some of the attackers appeared to be no older than 9. “We think they have more or less brainwashed these children,” said Maj. Gen. Lucky Irabor, the top Ni­ger­ian military official in the northeast. “They have become useful tools” for Boko Haram. Amid the attacks, Hamsatu gave birth last June to the child of her rapist in the camp’s rundown clinic. Her daughter made her an even greater target of scorn. In many Nigerian communities, people believe that the father’s blood courses through the veins of his child, “so that at some point in the future they will be likely to turn against their own community,” said Rachel Harvey, UNICEF’s head of child protection in Nigeria. A subtle shunning One morning in mid-March, the women in the narrow white tent woke up on thin mats, each with one pair of clothes to wear. At 10, Halima walked across the scorching-hot sand to get breakfast: rice and beans donated by Nigeria’s government aid agency. At the food-collection point, sometimes people inch away from her, she said, as if it would be dangerous to get too close. It didn’t seem to matter that she had been vetted by the Nigerian military. Or that she actually never wanted children and was now struggling to raise a 3-year-old and blamed Boko Haram each time the girl cried or soiled herself or asked where her real mom was. Just a few weeks before, three female suicide bombers had blown themselves up in the nearby village of Dalori, part of an attack that killed 86 people, including children. The suspicion of Boko Haram’s victims only grew. In late March, a Nigerian girl was apprehended with explosives strapped to her bodyin Cameroon, near the Ni­ger­ian border. She set off a brief scandal when she said she was one of the Chibok girls, but Nigerian officials denied her claim. Some worry that in a part of Nigeria that was once torn apart by a homegrown insurgency, another cleavage is forming, this one in the wake of war. “Subjecting [the victims] to further discrimination and ill treatment due to their status as victims of Boko Haram violence is certain to undermine the entire response to the situation in the northeast,” said Martin Ejidike, a prominent human rights adviser to the United Nations in Nigeria. There are few signs the situation will improve. Many international aid organizations won’t work in the north because of the continued insecurity. The government had opened a deradicalization center to help re-integrate the former victims, but it closed late last year, after admitting only 311 people. Officials at the national security adviser’s office did not return phone calls seeking an explanation for the closure. In the camps, some of the women victimized by Boko Haram down bottles of homemade cough syrup to get deliriously high alone. Once a week, Halima and Hamsatu attend group therapy sessions in a tent that says “Safe Place for Women and Girls.” There they are known as “the sisters” because of how close they’ve become. They gather in a circle on the floor with about a dozen other women. The counselor repeats a few lines during each meeting. Hamsatu and Halima wait quietly for them, wishing they were true. © 1996-2016 The Washington Post

Unprecedented number of children maimed, killed and recruited for combat roles in 2016, says Unicef report on violations suffered by children By Kate Hodal Syrian children play during a sandstorm in the Karm al-Jabal area of of Aleppo in March 2017. Photograph: Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images The number of children maimed, killed or recruited to fight in the Syria conflict has increased dramatically over the past year, with children as young as seven forced to act as frontline fighters, prison guards, suicide bombers and executioners. Grave violations against Syrian children are at the highest level since the war began in 2011, according to a Unicef report, with at least 652 children killed in 2016 – a 20% increase on the year before – and 850 children recruited to fight in the conflict, nearly three times the 331 enlisted in 2015. Since Unicef has only included verified reports of injury, death and recruitment, the actual figures are likely to be far higher. “The situation for Syrian children has hit rock bottom,” said Juliette Touma, Unicef’s regional spokesperson. “The past year has been the worst since the crisis began, with children pushed right to the brink – being recruited at an ever younger age, being used to man checkpoints, being trained to use weapons, serving as prison guards. We also have reports of sexual abuse of girls by underage children, so it’s very grim.” Coping mechanisms for Syrian children and their families are also deteriorating rapidly, warned the report, whether they are in Syria or beyond its borders. Families are increasingly taking extreme measures just to survive, often pushing children into early marriage and child labor in order to attain financial security. Children in more than two-thirds of households are working to support their families, some in extremely harsh conditions unfit even for adults, said Unicef. “I don’t know how to read or write – I only know how to draw the sky, the sea and the sun,” said four-year-old Fares, a Syrian refugee living in Lebanon, who is quoted in the report. “I’ve waited tables, I’ve served beans, corn, hummus, hookah pipe, potatoes and seeds. I’ve cleaned the shop and and served ice cream to children. I don’t know how to fill the cone but I help [the others] do it. I want to leave my house. It’s like a prison.” The conflict has taken a devastating toll on the mental health of Syria’s children. More than 70% of Syrian children interviewed by Save the Children showed symptoms of “toxic stress” or post-traumatic stress disorder, with symptoms including bedwetting, loss of speech, aggression and substance abuse. The same report said that 59% of adults knew children and adolescents who had been recruited into the conflict. Nearly half knew children working at checkpoints or barracks. Nearly 6 million Syrian children are now dependent on humanitarian assistance – a twelvefold increase on 2012, said the report – with the most vulnerable the 2.8 million children in hard-to-reach areas. Almost 300,000 children are living under siege and are largely cut off from humanitarian aid, according to Unicef. More than 2.3 million child refugees are in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. The children are very aware and all they wish is for the war to end so they can go back home and ​be children again. With their parents largely unable to work, Syrian children at home and abroad are forced to become the breadwinners, said the report. Children are working in more than 75% of Syrian households, nearly half of them as joint or sole breadwinners, serving as cleaners, garbage collectors, mechanics, carpenters, hairdressers and hotel bell boys. Meanwhile, refugee children in Lebanon can work up to 10-hour days selling gum and flowers, or simply begging, a report last year found . Nearly 2 million children in Syria are out of school, with roughly one-third of all schools unusable due to destruction, damage, or use for shelter or military purposes, according to Unicef. An additional half a million Syrian children are out of school in neighboring countries, said Touma. “These are the children most at risk, because they are prone to early marriage, child labour and all sorts of abuse, and that makes them especially vulnerable to becoming a lost generation.” Syrian children are nonetheless united in their thirst for education, according to Touma, who pointed to the hundreds who study Arabic, maths and English in an underground cave in Idlib province . “We know that more than 12,000 children crossed active conflict lines and checkpoints [last year] just to go and sit their exams,” Touma said. “And that’s exactly what we need to invest in – that determination, that persistence – by providing more cash assistance to families so they are able to send their children to school, to prevent their girls from being married early, to prevent the child labor.” Safaa El-Kogali, education practice manager for the Middle East and north Africa at the World Bank, said: “The impact of the Syrian civil war on the education sector cannot be understated. School infrastructure has been devastated, teacher-flight is widespread, and students are at risk of being targeted on their way to school. “These insecurities have resulted in a significant drop in enrolment. The short- and long-term effects of these lost years of education will play a significant role not only in constraining the future of the Syrian economy and society, but on the peace and stability of the region.” Darsy, 12, now a refugee in Turkey, told Unicef: “I want to be a surgeon to help the sick and injured people of Syria. I dream of a Syria without a war so we can go home. I dream of a world without any wars.” Unicef has called for a political solution to the conflict in Syria and an immediate end to all grave violations against children, with those committing such violations to be held accountable. “The children are very aware of this situation and all they wish is for the war to end so they can go back home and be children again,” said Touma. “That’s exactly what we need to invest in – providing assistance to Syrian children wherever they are, in Syria or in neighboring countries or Europe or wherever, so that they can eventually go back home and build their lives again.” (C) 2017 The Guardian

By Laura Villadiego When Soth Yun was a young woman, she spent years secretly in love, too frightened to reveal her feelings. It was the 1970s, and Cambodia was under the control of the Khmer Rouge, a Maoist movement that imposed forced labour on Cambodians and deprived them of food and basic necessities, such as medicine. Anyone deemed an enemy of the government was executed. People were also punished for having relationships that weren't sanctioned by the government, which considered reproduction to be the sole purpose of sex. Yun's love was particularly subversive as it did not serve the government's aim of increasing the population: she loved another woman. Between 1975 and 1979, the years that the Khmer Rouge was in power, at least 1.7 million people died due to starvation, overwork or arbitrary killings. An estimated 13 to 30 percent of Cambodia's population at the time perished under the Khmer Rouge. The government separated families and segregated the population according to age and gender. People were considered tools for building a classless agrarian society. It was these conditions that brought Yun and Houy Eang together. Gender-segregated society "We were working in the same group digging an irrigation canal. She was sick and I helped her. She was nice to me," says Yun, who is now 61, recalling how she and Eang met in 1973. They were in Takeo province, one of the first areas to fall under the control of the Angkar, the government's high command. Yun never said anything about how she felt. Then Eang was transferred to another work unit, and the two women were separated. "I was always waiting for her to come back," Yun says. When Eang returned five years later, just before the Khmer Rouge was overthrown, Yun confessed her love. Today, 44 years after they first met, they remain together. They live in Sdok Prey, a small village in Takeo province, two hours south of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. Their story is not uncommon. Other women found love in the gender-segregated society imposed upon them. But surviving the Khmer Rouge while in a secret relationship wasn't the only hurdle they had to face; many of the women who stayed together have been shunned by their families, friends and neighbours. "Things have improved but society still doesn't accept us," Yun says. "Families want women to marry a man." When asked how, despite the hardships, her relationship has endured, Yun reflects: "I think lesbian couples are more stable than other couples. And we have been through a lot of suffering. We stay together no matter what." Some of these older couples now support younger women and talk to their families about understanding their daughters' sexual orientation. "We know how tough it is and we want to help them to be accepted," Yun says. Secret love under the Khmer Rouge A 2011 report from the NGO the Documentation Center of Cambodia titled "Cambodia's Hidden Scars", explores the enduring trauma inflicted by the Khmer Rouge on survivors and ensuing generations. According to the report, the Khmer Rouge's objective to "dismantle the traditional Cambodian family unit" was a "major assault" on relationships. During this period, children were uprooted from their families and sent to communal homes to "foster allegiance to the state rather than the family" and encouraged to denounce their parents, relatives and friends. Unmarried men and women often lived in separate work groups, but mixed for specific tasks. The Angkar carefully controlled interactions between the opposite sexes and imposed forced marriages where partners were chosen arbitrarily in order to weakenfamily ties. "In a society where sex was understood as penetration, women having a close relationship could be seen as less suspicious," according to Theresa de Langis, an associate professor of Global Affairs at the American University of Phnom Penh. She leads the Cambodian Women's Oral History Project which collects survival stories from the Khmer Rouge period. "When I told a Khmer Rouge cadre that I was in love with a woman, he thought it was a joke," recalls Noy Sitha, another woman who met her lifelong partner, Hong Saroeun, during this time. "'If you can make children, I will give you a position in the Angkar', he said." He assumed their bond was comradeship - something encouraged by the Khmer Rouge. He even allowed her to request permission to live in the same house as Saroeun. "He agreed because he thought we were just friends," she says. The women met in their working group in 1975. "She was very funny and this is why I became interested in her," says Sitha, who remembers that even the arduous task of digging a large canal couldn't erase Saroeun's smile. Their relationship quickly progressed. "We were not living in the same house but I was sneaking in at night," Sitha says. Some of the cadres, as the low-level leaders often overseeing working groups were referred to, grew suspicious. The group leader who first discovered their relationship tried to have them executed, based on code number six of the combatants' 12 codes. This moral code prohibited the abuse of women, including rape, but many interpreted it as banning any kind of flirtation, sexual or love relationship outside a state-sanctioned marriage. But the superior the group leader complained to was sceptical that Sitha and Saroeun were in a relationship, and the couple were spared punishment. Gender-based violence Under the Khmer Rouge, women, who had traditionally remained at home or whose public activities were limited, were put to work alongside men. "It was actually equality of suffering," says de Langis, who explains that women suffered more as their identity was eroded by the disintegration of families. "They [the Khmer Rouge] took out many of their reproductive roles, not only having babies but also raising and caring about other members of the family," de Langis says. Rape, prohibited under code number six, was widespread and often linked to forced marriages. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), the tribunal judging the crimes committed by the most senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge, is currently investigating this, among many other crimes. The case is now in its final stage and in mid-June the tribunal will hear the closing statements of the prosecutors, the defence teams and the civil parties' lawyers before a sentence is handed down. Forced marriages were sometimes a punishment meted out when code number six was violated. "When they knew I was in love with Eang, they tried to force me to marry a man. I told them I would rather die," Yun says. At the time, she hadn't yet confessed her love to Eang but "they saw I was too nice to her". "I was lucky because at that moment the cadres changed," Yun adds. In some districts, women were allowed to refuse marriages, sometimes with the promise of working harder. But forced marriages were a common practice, and few could escape them once they were settled. "People were not allowed to make any objection to the decision of the Angkar and a marriage order was no exception. Refusal to marry could have resulted in torture, imprisonment or death," says a 2013 report on sexual violence during the Khmer Rouge period, written by Kasumi Nakagawa, an expert on gender issues at the Pannasastra University of Cambodia. Unwelcome in society In a photo taken a few years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Sitha poses confidently with short hair and a yellow button-down shirt; Saroeun wears her long hair untied. Today, Sitha dresses in shirts and slacks; Saroeun always wears a sampot, the traditional Khmer skirt. According to Srun Srorn, founder of Rainbow Community Kampuchea (RoCK), one of the first LGBT groups in the country, lesbians in Cambodia often adopt traditional Khmer gender roles. Sitha not only dresses as a man but is also the main economic pillar of the household, thanks to her work at a public radio station, while Saroeun usually stays at home and takes care of the housework. "Lesbians in Cambodia have their own identity, different from other countries," Srorn says. "Even if they dress as women" - which couples do at times to conceal their relationship - "their roles are husband and wife," he says. The couple has struggled to be accepted by society. Sitha still hides her relationship from their neighbours. "When we walk in the street, people talk about us and say: how can two women sleep together?" Sitha explains. When people ask her about their relationship, she tells them they are "just friends". "Lesbian relationships are particularly incomprehensible to Cambodian society, which can lead to situations where family members use dramatic means in an attempt to break-up same-sex relationships," according to a 2010 report from the NGO the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, which documents cases of women whose families lock them up at home to stop them from seeing their partners, or force them to marry a man. "Other LGBT groups also have problems with families, but it is increased in the case of lesbians, because they are women and, in Cambodia, women have more pressure than men," says Chhoeurng Rachana, an LGBT rights activist at the organisation CamASEAN, a local NGO which combats discrimination against minority groups. Women's identities in Cambodian society have been traditionally codified in the Chbab Srey poem, which has been passed down for generations. The verses form a code of conduct, with instructions for women, which include staying at home to serve their husbands and families, Chhoeurng says. Family opposition Yun and Eang survived the Khmer Rouge, but their relationship came close to falling apart at the hands of their relatives. First we were afraid of the Khmer Rouge. After that, of our families, Yun says. When their families found out about their relationship, Eang's locked her up, but she managed to escape and the two briefly eloped. But they returned a few weeks later when they ran out of money. It was only in 1984, when Eang's father died, that she was able to openly move with Yun into their own home. When they did so, their older relatives stopped talking to them and today most still haven't accepted their relationship. Wider social acceptance, they say, has steadily increased thanks to the work of organisations like RoCK and CamASEAN, who have been advocating for LGBT rights over the past decade, visiting the families and neighbours of same-sex couples to talk to them about different sexual orientations. "They have helped in making people in the village to accept us," Yun says. Both couples know that the strength of their relationships could help reassure the families of other younger lesbians. They visit these couples' communities, talk to their relatives and friends and organise exhibitions, debates and concerts about LGBT issues. "We don't have to fight with our families anymore but young lesbians still face discrimination from their relatives that don't accept them," Yun says. Sitha composes and performs songs at events to raise awareness about the discrimination that lesbian couples face in a society that loves singing and dancing. "How difficult is our lesbian life? It is very painful. Nobody supports us and tears drop every day. Why am I different from people around?" Sitha asks in one of her songs. Ironically, Sitha says, while their living conditions were harder during the rule of the Khmer Rouge, their love was for the most part easier. "Today, life goes by fast and we meet new people every day," she says. "And many don't like us." __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Al Jazeera

By Krishna N. Das and Sanjeev Miglani FILE PHOTO: People belonging to Rohingya Muslim community sit outside their makeshift houses on the outskirts of Jammu, May 5, 2017. All of an estimated 40,000 Rohingya Muslims living in India are illegal immigrants, even those registered with the U.N. refugee agency, and the government aims to deport them, a senior government official told Reuters. Junior interior minister Kiren Rijiju told parliament last week the central government had directed state authorities to identify and deport illegal immigrants including Rohingya, who face persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has issued identity cards to about 16,500 Rohingya in India that it says help them "prevent harassment, arbitrary arrests, detention and deportation". But Rijiju, a high-profile minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government, said in an interview on the weekend that the UNHCR registration was irrelevant. "They are doing it, we can't stop them from registering. But we are not signatory to the accord on refugees," he said. "As far as we are concerned they are all illegal immigrants They have no basis to live here. Anybody who is illegal migrant will be deported." The UNHCR's India office said on Monday the principle of non-refoulement – or not sending back refugees to a place where they face danger – was considered part of customary international law and binding on all states whether they have signed the Refugee Convention or not. The office said it had not received any official word about a plan to deport Rohingya refugees, and had not got any reports deportations were taking place. The treatment of the roughly one million Rohingya in Myanmar has emerged as its most contentious human rights issue as it makes a transition from decades of harsh military rule. The Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and classified as illegal immigrants, despite claiming roots there that go back centuries, with communities marginalized and occasionally subjected to communal violence. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled from Myanmar, with many taking refuge in Bangladesh, and some then crossing a porous border into Hindu-majority India. Many have also headed to Southeast Asia, often on rickety boats run by people-smuggling gangs. Rohingya are generally vilified in India and over the past few months, there has been a string of anti-Rohingya protests. Rijiju declined to comment on the deportation process, even as some human rights activists question the practicality of rounding up and expelling thousands of people scattered across the country. "There's a procedure, there is a rule of law," Rijiju said. "We can't throw them out just like that. We can't dump them in the Bay of Bengal." India said on Friday it was in talks with Bangladesh and Myanmar about the deportation plan. But deportation is likely to be difficult, given Myanmar's position that all Rohingya need to be scrutinized before they can be allowed back in as citizens. Myanmar officials were not immediately available for comment. A senior government official in Bangladesh, which has complained of being burdened by the heavy flow of refugees, has said India was helping it solve the crisis. More than 75,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since Oct. 9 after an insurgent group attacked Myanmar border police posts, prompting a security crackdown in which troops have been accused of murder and rape of Rohingya civilians. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Reuters

By Kate Pound Dawson Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi smiles during a meeting with Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam at the Presidential Palace in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Sept. 15, 2017. Facing growing condemnation globally, Aung San Suu Kyi will not attend U.N. General Assembly meetings Sept. 19-25, For more than 20 years, Aung San Suu Kyi has stood as a human rights icon. Known as "The Lady," she was admired and respected around the world as she endured house arrest and the repression of Myanmar’s military government. Myanmar’s de facto leader has received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Sakharov Prize and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. She has been showered with honorary degrees and memberships. Now there’s a petition to revoke her Nobel (the Nobel committee says that’s not possible) and a growing chorus of criticism. Even fellow Nobel laureates, including the Dalai Lama, retired Bishop Desmond Tutu and Malala Yousafzai, have called on her to say something to condemn the violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority group. In the three weeks since a Rohingya militant group attacked police posts in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, the military and security forces have pressed a retaliatory offensive. Nearly 400,000 Rohingya have fled to overflowing refugee camps in Bangladesh, where aid workers struggle to feed them. Minimal response The United Nations has called the violence against the mostly Muslim Rohingya ethnic cleansing. Others call it genocide. Indian Muslims shout slogans during a protest against the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, in New Delhi, India, Sept. 13, 2017. The protesters criticized Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, asking whether she was given a Nobel Peace Prize for promoting peace or for persecuting Rohingya Muslims. But Aung San Suu Kyi has said little. Her first statements were to say that the world was being misled about the issue. Nearly two weeks after scores of Rohingya villages had been destroyed, she said her government would protect all the country’s residents and would implement a U.N.-backed plan for ending the discrimination and abuse the Rohingya endure. But nothing more. “Her silence in this case — that is increasingly recognized as crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing or, by the scholars, genocide — silence is complicity,” Maung Zarni, a Myanmar rights activist said via Skype from Britain. While other critics aren’t quite as harsh, the frustration at her silence is profound. “I suppose the disappointment comes from that someone who knows how abusive the military is has failed to call them out,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director for Human Rights Watch. It’s not just that Aung San Suu Kyi hasn’t condemned the violence, said John Packer, director of the Human Rights Research and Education Center at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Packer, who has spent years researching rights in Myanmar, noted that she has also used the language the military has used to justify its actions in Rakhine. That includes referring to the Rohingya, who have been denied citizenship since 1982, as Bengalis, which reinforces the government’s position that they are illegal migrants from Bangladesh. Almost all of them, Packer said, are from families that have been in Myanmar for generations, going back hundreds of years. Burmese residents living in Japan, who support Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi, stage a rally against ethnic Rohingya, in front of United Nations University in Tokyo, Sept. 13, 2017. New at governing There are those, however, who urge patience with Aung San Suu Kyi. They argue that her National League for Democracy has run Myanmar’s government for only a few years, and that the military, which ruled for more than 50 years, retains a great deal of power. The country, also known has Burma, has weak institutions and battles high levels of corruption. Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, has been critical of Aung San Suu Kyi’s stance on the Rohingya but says much of the international criticism is misplaced. “Constitutionally, she has no power to stop this. But she has moral authority,” he said. He thinks more pressure should be applied to Myanmar’s top general, Min Aung Hlaing. “He is literally calling the shots.” But aside from the military, powerful nationalist Buddhist monks and many in the ethnic Bamar majority group favor the crackdown on the Rohingya. Thus, pressuring Aung San Suu Kyi, some experts say, could undermine a fragile democracy. “She is fighting alone and under great restraints,” global policy analyst Tej Parikh wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine in May. Muslim women hold posters of Wirathu, the leader of Myanmar's nationalist Buddhist monks, Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, and President Htin Kyaw, with writings that read "The waste of humanity" during a rally against persecution of Rohingya Muslims outside Myanmar's Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, Sept. 7, 2017. Substantial control Maung Zarni doesn’t buy that argument. “You talked about how little power she has. Well, she controls five other ministries that are directly involved in the genocidal process. Because genocide isn’t just simply killing 100,000 people in two weeks,” he said. “She controls the religious affairs, she controls the immigration ministry, she is the de facto head of the government, and she is also foreign minister.” Ganguly at Human Rights Watch said, “This is someone who stood up to the very same abusive army” for so many years as a political dissident. “For her to not call them out is shocking for everyone.” Ultimately, Aung San Suu Kyi must speak, Packer at the Human Rights Research Center said. “She has to come out and say this is not where we are going … we protect people's lives, their homes.” _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 VOA

By Kristine Beckerle Saudi-led coalition aircraft struck three apartment buildings in Sanaa on August 25, 2017, killing at least 16 civilians, including seven children, and wounding another 17, including eight children. After an international outcry, the coalition admitted to carrying out the attack, but provided no details on the coalition members involved in the attack. © 2017 Mohammed al-Mekhlafi Bombing and shelling of civilians. Denial of access to food and medicine. Landmines and cluster bombs. Torture and abduction. Child soldiers. For more than two years, international, regional, and Yemeni human rights groups called on the United Nations to confront a mounting list of abuses. For more than two years, the response hewed closer to indifference – or at least learned silence in the face of bullying by Saudi Arabia and its allies – than to global concern. But finally, something different. On Friday, the UN Human Rights Council took a significant step toward ending war crimes in Yemen. This is a testament to activists across Yemen and around the world who demonstrated that, regardless of the powerful interests at play, the UN’s preeminent human rights institution could do more to protect civilian lives. A Core Group of countries – the Netherlands, Canada, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Ireland – took up the call and made it possible. The council found a way to bring an unprecedented level of scrutiny to the conduct of all parties to the Yemen war. It created a Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts to examine violations and abuses since September 2014 and to work “to identify those responsible.” The message to the Saudi-led coalition, Houthi-Saleh forces, and other warring parties was clear: the world – at long last – is watching. The Human Rights Council – silent too long – will ensure that at minimum the crimes of those who kill Yemeni civilians, destroy homes and hospitals, and abduct and torture activists and journalists will be investigated. Those responsible, it is hoped, will be held to account. However, the import of that message will be in direct proportion to what UN member countries do next. Establishing an inquiry is just a first step; governments need to press for that inquiry to have real effect. The immediate priority will be to identify strong, principled experts to impartially scrutinize all parties’ conduct. The experts themselves should reach out to Yemeni activists to ensure the investigations are comprehensive. And the UN, backed by its members, will need to make sure the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi-Saleh forces overcome past unwillingness to work with international bodies and cooperate with the group of experts. International human rights and humanitarian law abuses will not cease in Yemen until concerned governments make clear to the parties that the atrocities that have become Yemeni civilians’ daily reality will no longer be tolerated. What happened on Friday is a hopeful step in that direction, but the efforts will need to continue until abuses actually stop and justice is delivered. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Human Rights Watch