The Human Rights Implications of Afghan Deportations by Pakistan and Iran By Juliana Girotto Afghans pictured on 1 November at the Chaman camp on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, on their enforced journey back to their homeland. Photograph: Habibullah Achakzai/AP The mass deportation of Afghan refugees from Iran and Pakistan in 2025 has created a significant human rights crisis, raising concerns about violations of international protection standards and the safety of people returning to Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Afghanistan now faces one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with the majority of the population dependent on aid and millions experiencing food insecurity. Taliban governance has been characterized by widespread repression, including arbitrary detention, censorship, and systemic discrimination against vulnerable groups. These conditions have forced many to emigrate from the country since the shift to Taliban governance in 2021. Since 2023, more than five million Afghan refugees have been deported to Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan. In 2025 alone, the number of returnees were 2.6 million. On top of already high levels of poverty and overstretched humanitarian aid throughout Afghanistan, the mass returns are likely to exacerbate country’s fragile socio-political stability, placing returnees at heightened risk of violence and perpetuating ongoing cycles of displacement. In 2023, the Pakistani government issued the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan (IFRP), which aimed to regulate foreign nationals in Pakistan and ensure that those staying in the country illegally are deported to their country of origin. The enforcement of this plan escalated in 2025, initiating a campaign to demonize Afghan nationals as “criminals” and “terrorists”. In March 2025, the Pakistani government set the end of the month as a deadline for all Afghan nationals to leave the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, allowing some to relocate to other cities within Pakistan and deporting others to Afghanistan. In July 2025, the Pakistani government reaffirmed its commitment to continuing the deportation of Afghan refugees under the IFRP framework. Even Afghan refugees holding Proof of Registration cards and individuals who had resided in Pakistan for decades are not exempt from the mass deportation campaign. On March 20, 2025, the Iranian government announced that registration documents known as “headcount slips” would automatically expire. In lieu of a formal asylum system, this form of documentation had provided Afghan refugees in Iran with temporary protection against deportation and access to some social services, such as education, healthcare, and work authorization. The automatic expiration of this registration system effectively stripped refugees of all legal protections, making over two million Afghan refugees vulnerable to potential arrest and deportation and restricting their access to socioeconomic services. As reported, in the period following the expiration of the headcount slip system, one million Afghan refugees were unlawfully expelled from Iran. Under Taliban rule, individuals returning to Afghanistan after having fled as refugees are not only forced into an unstable environment but also face a heightened risk of human rights abuses. These abuses include threats, torture, mistreatment, arbitrary arrest, and detention. Many returnees have also been forced into hiding due to due to threats from Taliban authorities upon their return. Further, violence and repercussions against returned refugees have been particularly targeted at certain groups, including women, media and civil society workers, and individuals affiliated with the government that fell in 2021. After returning to Afghanistan, these groups are particularly vulnerable and yet fail to receive special protection from deportation from Pakistan and Iran. The deportation of Afghans from Pakistan and Iran back to Afghanistan is a direct violation of international law, particularly the principle of non-refoulement. This principle constitutes an essential protection under international human rights, refugee, humanitarian, and customary law. It guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, inhumane or degrading treatment, and other forms of irreparable harm. The large-scale return of Afghans increases socioeconomic and humanitarian strain within the country and places certain groups at heightened risk of human rights violations. The United Nations and many civil society organizations have demanded that authorities in Pakistan and Iran ensure that any returns to Afghanistan are voluntary, safe, and dignified. As the issue persists, these efforts have yet to have much impact. Genocide Watch recommends: The governments of Pakistan and Iran must immediately halt forced deportations and ensure all returns comply with the principle of non-refoulement. The international community must increase humanitarian assistance and protection pathways for Afghan refugees, while holding Pakistan and Iran accountable for violations of international human rights law. The governments of Pakistan and Iran must restore legal protections for Afghan refugees and guarantee access to basic services, while prioritizing safeguards for high-risk groups such as women and people working in high-risk professions, including people working as security forces, medical professionals, civil society activists, and human rights defenders, among others.

Antisemitism in Romania today is visible in far-right demonstrations, extremist political movements, and hostile rhetoric in parts of the media. May 21, 2026 Diana Iovanovici-Sosoaca, European Parliament member and far-right Romanian politician, holds religious icons as she speaks to the media, before a vote to choose the next European Commission president, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, July 2024. (photo credit: JOHANNA GERON/REUTERS) Bucharest – On April 28, the European Parliament lifted the immunity of one of its 33 Romanian members, Diana Sosoaca, the controversial leader of the far-right, ultra-nationalist, and antisemitic SOS Romania party, at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office in Bucharest. Sosoaca, a lawyer who last August received the honorary Order of the State of Palestine [the highest civilian order of merit awarded by the State of Palestine] for her support of the Palestinian cause, may now stand trial in Romania for, among other offenses, promoting antisemitism, Holocaust denial, publicly glorifying individuals involved in genocide and war crimes, and promoting fascist, legionary, racist, and xenophobic ideologies. Sosoaca makes no secret of her visceral hatred of Jews. She regularly spreads antisemitic rhetoric in parliamentary debates and across social media. In 2020, she was elected to the Senate, the upper house of the Parliament of Romania, as a member of the far-right nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), now the second-largest party in the lower house of Parliament and currently leading in the polls. However, she was eventually expelled from AUR because even the party considered her positions too extreme. She later joined the far-right political party S.O.S. Romania and was elected to the European Parliament in June 2024. A few weeks earlier, on May 14, during an event at the Romanian Parliament marking friendship between Romania and Israel, Sosoaca caused a scene when she accused her colleagues of betraying their people and their country’s interests by organizing the event. Silviu Vexler, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania (FCER): ‘Our current political situation resembles the final days of the Weimar Republic.’ (credit: Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania) She falsely claimed that “Judeo-Bolsheviks” and “Khazars” exterminated 800,000 Romanians under communist rule after World War II, while Romanians had “saved” 400,000 Jews during the Holocaust. “Have we become slaves in our own country?” she shouted. Sosoaca ran twice in the Romanian presidential elections of autumn 2024 and spring 2025, but when the Romanian Constitutional Court barred her from running, she accused Jews, the United States, and the European Union of conspiring to influence the election results. In November 2024, during the first presidential election campaign, she participated in a memorial ceremony for Corneliu Codreanu, founder and first leader of the fascist and antisemitic Iron Guard, also known as the Legionary Movement. Iron Guard members slaughtered thousands of Jews during the Iasi and Bucharest pogroms in 1941, carried out in collaboration with forces loyal to Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu and Nazi Germany. During the commemoration, some participants raised their arms in the Hitler salute. If Sosoaca is ultimately brought to trial, the case could mark a breakthrough in the fight against rising antisemitism in a European country that today possesses some of the continent’s most advanced legislation against antisemitism and Holocaust denial but has done very little to enforce it. However, Romania’s unstable political climate, the collapse of yet another government, and the growing possibility of the far right taking control of state institutions may still allow Sosoaca to escape justice and avoid paying any real price for her actions. The Jewish targets of Sosoaca's antisemitic campaigns One of the primary targets of Sosoaca’s campaigns of antisemitic incitement is Silviu Vexler, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania (FCER) and representative of Romania’s small Jewish community – which numbers around 2,500 members, not including Israelis who reside in the country – in the Chamber of Deputies (Parliament’s lower house). In one of her tirades, she came close to accusing him directly of treason because of legislation he proposed, banning the glorification of those involved in the Holocaust in Romania, in which between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews were murdered, mainly in camps in Transnistria. “You have a duty to serve us, even if you are also an Israeli citizen,” Sosoaca declared while falsifying facts and history. “I announce to you that as a deputy in the Romanian Parliament, you are a servant of the Romanian people, not their leader. I also announce once again that the Legionary Movement is a historical movement of which we are proud. Corneliu Codreanu was the man who defended you. Marshal Antonescu saved your Jewish asses. You should kiss our hands and feet, we Romanians, that you are still alive. You should kiss the soles of our feet too, not make laws against the Romanian people.” Despite these vicious attacks, Vexler does not see Sosoaca’s case as the defining test for Romania’s legal system. “It’s an important case,” he says, “and one has to give a lot of credit to former prosecutor general Alex Florenta for initiating the proceedings in the European Parliament. But what happens next will be very interesting, at least from a legal perspective. This case is special because everything Sosoaca has done is public. She is obsessed with filming herself, so all of her statements exist online. She is a self-publishing and self-promoting antisemite. I would focus more on how the authorities deal in the coming years with less famous but everyday cases of antisemitism and Holocaust denial.” Thirty-seven-year-old Vexler now finds himself at the center of a hate campaign called Stop Vexler, run by the new far-right party Conservative Action, founded by former AUR members. They have organized petitions, demonstrations, graffiti campaigns, and mass rallies against the “traitor Vexler,” accusing him of trying to erase Romanian national and cultural identity through what opponents call the “Vexler Law.” “Toward the end of 2024, an official review was ordered by the former prosecutor general and his office into all antisemitic and Holocaust-related cases in Romania over the past three decades,” Vexler explains. “The objective was to analyze why there had been no successful prosecutions. The legislation was failing in dealing with antisemitism and Holocaust denial.” He points to a notorious example: “A man was put on trial for publishing a book titled The Holocaust: The Diabolical Money-Making Machine of the Jews. Romania has had a law against Holocaust denial for 20 years. During the trial, however, he used a very clever trick. He said he was not denying the Holocaust itself, only denying that it took place in Romania, and he walked free.” Another loophole meant that promoting Adolf Hitler was technically legal in Romania because the original legislation only prohibited glorifying convicted war criminals. Hitler himself was never convicted, nor were several of the principal perpetrators of the Holocaust in Romania, who died before the end of the war. “There were many gaps in the legislation,” Vexler says. “So, in 2025, I pushed through a law, in coordination with the prosecutor general and other institutions, to close all those loopholes, make the legislation bulletproof, and ensure that it could be enforced without interpretation.” The legislation coincided with Romania’s chaotic presidential elections of 2024, which were annulled by the Constitutional Court after independent nationalist and pro-Russian candidate Calin Georgescu unexpectedly emerged as the front-runner in the first round. The court based its decision on intelligence reports indicating Russian interference in the election. PROF. Felecia Waldman, coordinator of the Center for Hebrew Studies at the University of Bucharest and deputy head of Romania’s delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA): ‘The antisemitic wave in Romania started with the presidential elections of October 2024.’ (credit: ELDAD BECK) PROF. Felicia Waldman, coordinator of the Center for Hebrew Studies at the University of Bucharest and deputy head of Romania’s delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), believes that the election campaign unleashed the antisemitic tsunami now sweeping Romania. “Strangely enough, the antisemitic wave in Romania did not begin with October 7 and the international developments that followed,” Waldman says. “It started with the presidential elections of October 2024. One far-right candidate was using rhetoric and historical figures from the Second World War. That created momentum, and suddenly everyone started using this rhetoric, especially those who had always been antisemites but previously exercised some restraint because of the existing laws. “The first law against antisemitism was adopted back in 1996 and has been updated several times since,” she continues. “As a result, people were afraid to express their views openly and mainly did so anonymously online. But once these ideas became part of mainstream political discourse during the presidential elections, people started speaking freely and openly. It became normalized. People are now openly antisemitic.” Waldman stresses that the increase in rhetoric is even greater than the increase in the number of antisemites themselves. “We don’t lack antisemites, but antisemites are not a majority,” she says. “However, because they are such a vocal minority, there is a risk that more people will join because they now think it is acceptable. For 30 years, the authorities did nothing to enforce the laws. Only in October 2024 did they begin to realize how serious the situation had become. “You still hear blood libels and classic prejudices, that Jews rule the world, or that all Jews are rich and should be expropriated,” Waldman says. “Interestingly enough, this antisemitism has not even been updated. In the West, you have new expressions of old antisemitic ideas. Here, it is still the old version.” She notes that anti-Israel rhetoric remains less dominant among ordinary Romanians and is more common among intellectuals. “The anti-Israel discourse is more prevalent among intellectual circles. Others still cling to the old antisemitic tropes. But anti-Israel positions imported from the West are becoming fashionable,” says Waldman. She further points to protests surrounding an exhibition in Bucharest featuring artwork created by female victims of the October 7 attacks. “After the exhibition opened, several hundred artists, many of whom nobody had ever heard of, signed a public letter asking why the museum was not also showing the suffering of Palestinian women,” she says. “Some genuinely believed what they signed. But others simply wanted to become fashionable and accepted within what they perceived as the Western artistic world. “That is even more dangerous,” she warns. “Antisemites express convictions. These people have no convictions at all. They just follow trends. They want to belong to a group they see as important. We often speak about this phenomenon when discussing the Holocaust. Not everyone involved in the persecution and extermination of Jews was ideologically antisemitic. Many merely wanted to do their jobs and fit in. The most dangerous people are those who have no agenda and go with the trend. If tomorrow the West says, ‘Kill the Jews,’ they will kill the Jews, even though they may personally have nothing against Jews.” MARCO MAXIMILIAN KATZ, founding director of the Center for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism in Romania (MCA), says pro-Palestinian demonstrations are a relatively new phenomenon in Romania that emerged after October 7, particularly among left-wing activists and younger people eager to emulate trends in Western Europe. “They want to be Europeans, so they behave accordingly,” Katz says. “The number of demonstrations and participants continues to grow. These are almost entirely Romanians who know very little about Israel or Palestine but who use the demonstrations as a legitimate outlet for expressing antisemitism.” Katz says authorities have prohibited slogans such as “From the river to the sea,” but many people now see such restrictions as censorship and an attack on free speech, much like the laws against antisemitism and Holocaust denial themselves. “There is also support for Iran, which derives from anti-Israelism that is deeply connected to antisemitism and the old prejudice that Jews control everything worldwide. “In recent years, we have seen a tsunami of antisemitism that keeps growing,” Katz says. “The authorities admit there is a problem, but they pretend to control it. Romania presents itself internationally as a leader in Holocaust remembrance. But keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive is not the same as combating antisemitism.” He recalls being summoned to a police station after filing a complaint against the author of one of the most antisemitic books he had seen in decades. “The policeman asked me what personal damage the book caused me,” Katz recalls. “Did I lose money? Did I lose my job? I had to explain that the book harmed my existence, my family, the memory of my parents, and the memory of the Holocaust itself. He still could not understand. The case was eventually closed without action.” The seeming return of far-right antisemitism and the lack of implementation of existing hate laws are of rising and great concern. “Romania is witnessing the dangerous return of old-fashioned antisemitism in some of its ugliest historic forms,” says Dr. Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, the representative organization of European Jewish communities. “The language of conspiracy, blood libels, glorification of fascist movements, and the rehabilitation of figures associated with the Holocaust are no longer confined to the political fringes. They are increasingly entering mainstream public discourse in Romania. “Europe knows from its own history where this path can lead. When antisemitism once again becomes socially fashionable, tolerated, or politically useful, it threatens not only Jewish communities but the very foundations of democratic society. Romania today stands at a critical crossroads, and the consistent enforcement of its laws against antisemitism and Holocaust denial will be an important test of whether it has truly learned the lessons of its past.” Surprisingly, one of the strongest opponents of Vexler’s reforms of antisemitic laws was Romania’s current president, Nicusor Dan, who had been elected largely to block the far right from taking power. “The president refused to sign the law and challenged it,” Vexler says. “The Constitutional Court rejected every claim unanimously and ruled that the law was not only clear but necessary and enforceable. I still do not understand why the president chose to oppose it, but his actions had a very negative impact.” Waldman believes Dan’s political calculations may explain his position. “He comes from a region with a strong legionary and antisemitic tradition,” she says. “It clearly influenced his cultural background. At the same time, because he is politically vulnerable and only became president because voters feared the far right more, he may feel he cannot afford to alienate extremist voters who could later move against him.” Vexler warns that what happened recently in Romania has damaged more than 30 years of efforts by governments and Jewish communities to preserve and strengthen Jewish life here. “One must also give credit to the security agencies, which have done exceptional work in preventing physical attacks against Jewish communities. Jewish life in Romania still continues. “Our current political situation resembles the final days of the Weimar Republic,” he adds. “If Romania is eventually governed by AUR, it will be disastrous for the entire society, and naturally for the Jewish community as well.” At the Choral Temple, Bucharest’s main synagogue, which was devastated by fascist legionaries and later rebuilt, 53-year-old choir member Gilbert Saim says his family’s roots in Romania go back as far as the synagogue’s old benches. His grandparents were sent to forced labor camps, and his father was born during deportation, “the common reality of Romanian Jews, not any exception,” he says. Saim argues that both the fascist and communist eras erased much of Romania’s Jewish history, leaving many Romanians unaware of the country’s past or unwilling to confront it. While antisemitism is illegal, he says it often manifests in passive-aggressive ways, from online abuse and graffiti to cemetery desecration. “People may dislike us or hate us, but they won’t always say it openly,” he explains. Antisemitism in Romania today, says Saim, is visible in far-right demonstrations, extremist political movements, and hostile rhetoric in parts of the media. He also sees anti-Israel sentiment as inseparable from antisemitism. “For me it’s the same thing,” he states, arguing that many Romanians do not associate secular Israelis with their traditional image of Jews. Although he notes that Israelis and visibly religious Jews often walk openly in Romania without fear of physical violence, he says that outsiders who conclude there is “no antisemitism” are missing the deeper and more complicated reality. Copyright ©2026 Jpost Inc.

Volunteers look for victims from an overturned train coach on a railway track as survivors wait for transport at the site of bomb explosion, in Quatta, Pakistan. File Photo: Arshad Butt, AP News. A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near a railway track as a passenger train passed through the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Sunday, killing at least 19 people and wounding over 70 others, officials said. The force of the explosion caused two of the train cars to overturn and catch fire, sending thick black smoke into the air, according to footage shared online. The attack happened in an area where security forces are usually stationed, badly damaging several nearby buildings and smashing more than a dozen vehicles parked along the road, according to witnesses and images circulating on social media. Doctors at local hospitals said they had received the wounded, with 20 in critical condition. Three security officials told The Associated Press the bodies were transported to hospitals following the attack. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to be able to speak to the media. The outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA, which demands independence from Pakistan’s central government, has claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent to reporters. The militant group said it targeted a train carrying security personnel. Quetta is the capital of insurgency-hit Balochistan province. The oil- and mineral-rich region has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency. The insurgents have frequently targeted security forces, government installations and civilians in the province and elsewhere in the country.

© Anadolu via Getty Images 13 May 2026 Amnesty International and Human Rights First today published a joint letter to Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, urging an end to the Polish government’s cooperation with the US administration’s unlawful mass deportations of immigrant communities. According to information gathered by Amnesty International and Human Rights First, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) passed through Polish airports and travelled through Polish territory during at least two operations to remove more than 50 people to Ukraine – an active war zone – in November 2025 and March 2026. Since the letter was sent, a further ICE flight with an unknown number of people on board has landed at Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport in Poland on 30 April 2026, marking another transfer of Ukrainians via Poland. The organizations call on the Polish Government to stop cooperating with the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant practices and violations of international law, and for reparations to be made to the individuals forcibly removed. “Poland has stood by Ukraine’s side since Russia began its war of aggression, providing temporary protection to nearly 1 million Ukrainian refugees. Poland should play no role in these unlawful operations that rip families apart, divide communities and put people’s lives at risk,” said Anna Błaszczak-Banasiak, Director of Amnesty International Poland. “Poland has stood by Ukraine’s side since Russia began its war of aggression, providing temporary protection to nearly 1 million Ukrainian refugees. Poland should play no role in these unlawful operations that rip families apart, divide communities and put people’s lives at risk.” Anna Błaszczak-Banasiak, Director of Amnesty International Poland. “Forcibly transferring Ukrainians into an active war zone, where missiles strike nationwide, shocks the conscience and violates international law. Human Rights First staff who have travelled to Ukraine’s frontlines dozens of times since February 2022 can attest that no area is safe. Poland, which has offered generous safe haven to so many Ukrainian refugees, should refuse to facilitate the Trump administration’s cruel forced transfers that send Ukrainians back to life-threatening circumstances,” said Uzra Zeya, CEO and President of Human Rights First. In the letter, which was sent to the Polish authorities on 17 April 2026, Amnesty International and Human Rights First detail their concerns about two operations from Phoenix, Arizona to Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport. As the Polish authorities have not responded to the letter, the organizations have decided to publish it. On 17 March 2026, according to data gathered by Human Rights First’s ICE Flight Monitor, two ICE flights landed at the Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport carrying a number of Ukrainian nationals whose whereabouts are currently unknown. On 18 November 2025, another ICE flight landed in Poland. The 50 people on board were then taken to the Shehyni-Medyka border checkpoint and into Ukraine. According to media reports, US officials flew the group to Poland and transported them to the Ukrainian border, while Polish officials escorted them across the border. Further reports state that some of those on board went to the United States under the Uniting for Ukraine humanitarian programme – established in 2022 under the Biden Administration to provide a pathway for Ukrainian citizens to stay in the United States– and had pending applications to renew their stay. As a result of their removal, they were separated from family members who remain in the United States. In a separate incident on 18 August 2025, ICE announced the removal of an undisclosed number of Ukrainian nationals back to Ukraine, posting two photos on X. This post has now been deleted. Under international law, Poland has an obligation not to expel or return people to places where their lives or freedom could be at risk. Amnesty International and Human Rights First have repeatedly warned that conditions in Ukraine are not currently safe for returns, though large numbers of Ukrainians will hopefully be able to return safely to their country in the future once the situation on the ground changes. Due to the ongoing armed conflict, the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, also calls on states not to forcibly return people to Ukraine. Amnesty International and Human Rights First are calling on the Polish government to stand for human rights, justice, and the dignity of all people. The government must deny the Trump administration’s cruel and inhumane mass removal campaign any form of facilitation, cooperation or tolerance. “The Polish authorities must investigate these incidents, ascertain the whereabouts of individuals involved and ensure they are protected from refoulement, treated with dignity, and provided with an effective remedy,” said Anna Błaszczak-Banasiak. Background Since 20 January 2025, the Trump administration has launched a wide-scale attack on migrants’ rights and ability to remain in the United States by ending humanitarian parole programmes and Temporary Protected Status for many nationalities, putting more than 1.5 million people at risk of deportation. The Trump Administration has also targeted the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) humanitarian parole programme – which granted 280,000 Ukrainians entry to the United States and is currently indefinitely suspended for new applications. Ukrainians have faced processing issues and delays on U4U-related applications. Ukrainians are increasingly in legal limbo without options for status amid rising uncertainty. Amnesty International and Human Rights First also recently raised concerns about the use of Shannon Airport in Ireland as a refuelling stopover for unlawful removal flights by ICE. Note to editors ICE Flight Monitor is a data-driven initiative that systematically tracks and documents U.S. immigration enforcement flights based at Human Rights First – see ICE Flight Monitor – Human Rights First. Human Rights First is a U.S.-based, non-partisan non-profit, organization that advocates for human rights globally and for U.S. compliance with its domestic and international human rights commitments. © 2025 Amnesty International

18 May 2026, UN News © Adobe Stock/Michel Angelo Oprandi A barrier separates Israel from the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has reduced the scale of violence in the Gaza Strip but killings and destruction continue, while forced displacement in the occupied West Bank has reached a rate “unseen in decades”, a senior official with the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Monday in Geneva. Ajith Sunghay, Head of UN Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), launched its latest report which covers the period between 7 October 2023 and 31 May 2025 following Hamas-led attacks on Israel and Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza. It documents large-scale violations of international law, including atrocity crimes, and points to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity committed by Israeli and Palestinian parties. Lasting consequences “One year later, despite the ceasefire concluded in October 2025, the lasting consequences of the patterns we documented are apparent,” said Mr. Sunghay. “The ceasefire diminished the immense scale of violence up that point and opened some modest humanitarian space. But killings and the destruction of infrastructure have continued on an almost daily basis, and the overall humanitarian situation remains dire. All while Hamas continues its own violations, including against the people of Gaza.” The reporting period saw unprecedented levels of killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces, the tightening and escalation of Israeli control over Palestinians and their land, and “concerning conduct” by Palestinian authorities and armed groups such as indiscriminate rocket fire against Israel and the taking of hostages. Deadly attacks, devastating violence Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity when they attacked civilians in Israel on and after 7 October 2023, killed at least 1,124 people, seized hostages and fired thousands of unguided missiles into Israeli territory for over a year. “Released hostages have provided credible accounts of torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence,” said Mr. Sunghay. Meanwhile, “Israel unleashed devastating violence and dispossession in Gaza and the West Bank, committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity,” he said. He noted that the report found that the totality of Israeli conduct in Gaza raises serious concern about the country’s compliance with its obligation to prevent acts within the scope of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Blockade, starvation and displacement “The fact remains that Palestinians have no means to ensure their survival or to protect their loved ones, with hundreds killed since the announcement of a ceasefire,” Mr. Sunghay said. “The Israeli military has killed 72,769 Palestinians since 7 October 2023 in Gaza: in their homes, in IDP shelters, in hospitals, in schools, in places of worship, on the streets, while queuing for aid, while trying to fish in the sea.” Moreover, “the Israeli blockade on Gaza resulted in starvation and famine that was foretold and later confirmed,” and hundreds died. He stressed that “any use of starvation as a method of war against civilians is a war crime, and it may amount to a crime against humanity and even genocide in certain conditions.” Mr. Sunghay also addressed displacement in Gaza which has raised concerns about ethnic cleansing and forcible transfer. People have fled neighbourhoods which are now gone “as Israeli forces continue to unlawfully demolish buildings across Gaza – homes still laden with thousands of unretrieved Palestinian bodies.” ‘Unprecedented’ settlement expansion Regarding the West Bank, he said that the rate of forcible displacement “is unseen in decades”, describing Israeli settlement expansion there as “unprecedented”. “Israeli military and police forces and settlers are killing more and more Palestinians with impunity, often together,” he added. Since the 7 October attacks, they have killed 1,096 Palestinians, with children making up around 20 per cent, or one in five. “Settler attacks are routinely carried out with the support, acquiescence, or participation of Israeli security forces,” he said. “The Israeli Government has intensified the militarisation of the settler movement, shielded them from accountability, and now actively benefits from settler violence as a catalyst for its stated annexation agenda.” Mr. Sunghay said the dispossession in the West Bank is “matched in intensity with the record rate of settlement expansion” which has increased by 80 per cent since the Government took office, with 102 new settlements added to the 127 that existed previously. Unable to return home Furthermore, 33,000 Palestinians displaced from three refugee camps last year – Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams – are still unable to return to their homes. “Israeli authorities are forcing Palestinians out of their homes around the Old City in East Jerusalem at alarming levels, turning their properties over to settlers, or making room for settlement projects including a park and a cable car project,” he said. The report also documented other patterns that have persisted, including the torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody, which includes sexual violence and even rape, denial of sufficient food and medical care. “Discriminatory practices have further reinforced Israel’s violation of the prohibition of apartheid and racial segregation,” he said. ‘Impunity fuels recurrence’ He noted that overall, not enough is being done to stop these violations. “The ceasefire has not led to any forms of meaningful accountability for the violations committed in the preceding years. Nor has it led to any fundamental reckoning with the underlying driver – the protracted occupation,” he said. “Impunity fuels recurrence. Most of the horrors documented here, and those documented for decades before, have gone unpunished, with no prospect of justice for the victims.” Mr. Sunghay stressed that in addition to expressing condemnation, countries must urgently take every measure in line with international law to end the Israeli occupation, ensure the dismantlement of existing settlements, protect civilians, achieve accountability for serious violations by all parties, and ensure Palestinians are able to exercise their human rights. “In a context like this, lack of action is not passivity. It is a license,” he said. © 2026, United Nations

By Sondos Asem May 18, 2026 Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich takes part in the annual Jerusalem Day march in the Old City of Jerusalem, 14 May 2026 (Reuters/Ammar Awad) The office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court last month filed a secret arrest warrant application for Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, sources briefed on the matter told Middle East Eye. Israeli media reports over the weekend claiming the prosecutor’s office had filed five applications for Israeli officials are inaccurate, MEE understands. An evidence review took place on Wednesday last week to examine the possibility of two more warrant applications, including one for national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, but they have yet to be filed. MEE understands that the charges against Smotrich include forced displacement as a crime against humanity and war crime, the transfer of Israel’s own population as a war crime, and persecution and apartheid as crimes against humanity. If approved by the ICC’s pre-trial chamber the warrant for Smotrich would be the first ever issued by an international court for the crime of apartheid. The application was filed on 2 April. Palestinian diplomats and civil society had for years been urging the prosecutor’s office to act against Smotrich and Ben Gvir. In a letter to the ICC's deputy prosecutors in March, seen by MEE, Palestine’s mission to the Hague outlined further evidence of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by settlers and Israeli occupation forces. The letter also noted that Israel has failed to prosecute the alleged crimes. “The urgency to take action now cannot be overstated in any way, with the erasure and the destruction of the Palestinian people, as manifested by an illegal occupant, materializing by the day,” the letter read. When asked by MEE for comment, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office (OTP) did not deny that an application for Smotrich had been filed. The spokesperson cited the court’s regulations, amended in November, stipulating that applications for arrest warrants are to be classified as secret or under seal, unless otherwise authorised by ICC judges. “For this reason, the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC is unable to comment on questions related to any alleged application for a warrant of arrest,” the spokesperson said. ICC spokesperson Oriane Maillet told Reuters on Sunday the court "denies the issuance of new arrest warrants in the situation in the state of Palestine". By addressing whether a warrant has been issued, the denial appears to contradict the ICC’s amended regulations. MEE understands that the OTP’s latest communication strategy is to neither deny nor confirm reports related to arrest warrants. If judges issue his arrest warrant, Smotrich will become the third Israeli official wanted by the court, after arrest warrants were issued in November 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then defence minister Yoav Gallant. Sanctions on ICC The Netanyahu and Gallant warrants have unleashed a ferocious campaign of threats and sanctions against the court by Israel and the US, primarily aimed at pressuring it to drop the war crimes investigation. Since February 2025, Trump's administration has imposed financial and visa sanctions on the court's chief prosecutor, Khan, his two deputy prosecutors, eight judges, the UN’s special rapporteur on Palestine, and three Palestinian NGOs in connection with the war crimes probe. All three pre-trial judges who signed off the Netanyahu and Gallant warrants have been sanctioned by the US. They are Reine Alapini-Gansou (Benin), Beti Hohler (Slovenia) and Nicolas Guillou (France). They have continued to carry out their work, including examining the Smotrich application, despite the impact of the sanctions on their daily lives. The US has also threatened sanctions against the court itself, which ICC officials consider a "doomsday scenario". ICC judges are currently examining an Israeli challenge to its jurisdiction over the Palestine situation, and a separate Israeli complaint, filed on 17 November, which seeks to disqualify the prosecutor over an alleged lack of impartiality. It is uncertain how long judges will take to rule on the Smotrich application. ICC pre-trial judges typically take several months to rule on warrant applications, though timelines have ranged from roughly one month in the cases of Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to six months for the Netanyahu and Gallant warrants. So far, the arrest warrant application for Smotrich has not been ratified by the judges and a decision could still be months away. At the ICC, seeking and issuing arrest warrants are two distinct stages handled by two separate bodies. The OTP, currently led by two deputy prosecutors, conducts the investigation, including by gathering evidence and building the case. When it believes the threshold has been met, it files an application asking for a warrant, setting out the alleged crimes and the evidence linking the suspect to them. The application is then handed to the pre-trial chamber, a panel of three judges, which reviews the prosecution's material and decides whether there are "reasonable grounds to believe" the person has committed a crime within the court's jurisdiction. The pre-trial chamber can issue a warrant on some or all of the charges, or reject the application. Last year, MEE reported that the ICC's chief prosecutor Karim Khan had prepared warrant applications against Ben Gvir and Smotrich before he went on leave in May. The warrant applications have been delayed by the deputy prosecutors, who are in charge of Khan's office in his absence, partly due to the threat of US sanctions. Days after MEE’s report, the Trump administration sanctioned the two deputy prosecutors. Sanctions on Smotrich and Ben Gvir Since June last year, Smotrich and Ben Gvir have been the target of a coordinated international sanctions campaign over their policies and statements advocating the extermination and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Both ministers live in West Bank settlements considered illegal under international law, and both have championed annexation of the territory and the return of Israeli settlers to Gaza. In June 2025, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway jointly imposed sanctions on the pair, freezing any assets they held in those countries and barring them from entering. David Lammy, then the UK’s foreign secretary, said the ministers had "incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights”. Under the UK measures, it is now a criminal offence to make funds available to either man, and both are barred from directing or promoting a British company. Other western states have since followed suit. In July 2025, Slovenia became the first EU member to declare both ministers persona non grata, and the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain have imposed their own travel restrictions, with the Dutch ban extending across the 29-country Schengen Area. A proposal to sanction Ben Gvir and Smotrich at EU level has been on the table for nearly two years however. Then-foreign policy chief Josep Borrell first floated it in August 2024, calling the ministers' statements an "incitement to war crimes", but the proposal was rejected by member states for lack of the required unanimity. His successor Kaja Kallas revived the idea, and in September 2025 the European Commission formally proposed a package combining a partial suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement with targeted sanctions on Hamas leaders, violent settlers and the two "extremist ministers”. On 11 May, the EU’s foreign affairs council agreed to sanction settler organisations and Hamas figures, but not the two cabinet ministers driving the settler policies. Ben Gvir and Smotrich were stripped from the list after Germany, Italy, Austria, The Czech Republic and Hungary made clear they would not support their inclusion. The US has opposed the sanctions throughout, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging allies to reverse them and the administration imposing its own sanctions on ICC officials in an effort to halt the court's Israel-related investigations. © Middle East Eye I 2026

Ethiopian Orthodox pilgrims rest at a campsite in Lalibela in the Amhara region, two months after the Ethiopian military regained control of the town from Fano militia, January 7, 2024. ©2024 Michele Spatari / AFP via Getty Images Why the Human Rights Crisis in Ethiopia Matters Public Conference, Kennedy Caucus Room, Russell US Senate Office Building, Capitol Hill. May 15, 2026, 9:00 AM Eastern Time. Washington, D.C. – This conference in English is open to anyone interested in peace, stability and democracy in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. The forum will bring together community leaders, human rights advocates, and policy experts to discuss the deteriorating political and humanitarian situation in Ethiopia. The conference will highlight ongoing atrocities, systematic human rights violations, and the escalating persecution of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians and the continued suppression of fundamental freedoms. This diverse group of participants intend to call for the immediate release of all political prisoners and detainees, like Tadios Tantu, Christian Tadele and hundreds of others. Holding this conference at the United States Congress underscores the urgent need for greater international awareness and action to promote peace, justice, stability, religious freedom, and respect for international human rights laws and protocols in Ethiopia. This conference seeks to amplify the voices of oppressed and marginalized Ethiopians by bringing urgent international attention to widespread human rights violations occurring throughout Ethiopia. Special focus will be given to current systematic attacks and abuses targeting the Amhara community, the persecution of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, the genocide against Tigrayans, and the increasing suppression of political dissent and freedom of expression. The conference will serve as a platform to discuss the urgent need for constitutional reform, national reconciliation and peace, democratic governance, and long-term peace and stability in Ethiopia. Holding this conference at the United States Congress is both intentional and strategic. Congress has historically played an important role in addressing international human rights crises and shaping U.S. foreign policy toward Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. We encourage all Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia to attend and stand in solidarity with the victims of violence, persecution, and injustice. Mesfin Mekonen, an Ethiopian American, Author of Washington Update, and a champion of human rights and constitutional democracy in Ethiopia and Aklog Birara, Ethiopian American, Vice Chairman of Global Alliance for the Rights of Ethiopians, commentator on political economy, author and former Senior Advisor with the World Bank express our sincere gratitude to Senator Chris Van Hollen and his dedicated staff for their generous assistance in helping secure a meeting space at the historic Kennedy Caucus Room in the Russell Senate Office Building. Speech by Aklog Birara The Urgency of Now: Ethiopia’s Human Rights Crisis Requires an International Response Kennedy Caucus Room, Capitol Hill – May 15, 2026 Good Morning My name is Aklog Birara. Allow me to begin by expressing my heartfelt appreciation to Senator Van Hollen’s team for making this historic room available. I am grateful to my compatriot Mesfin Mekonnen for securing it, to Youm Fesseha of the American Ethiopian Public Affairs Committee for his cooperation, and to the Global Alliance for the Rights of Ethiopians (GARE), where I serve as a founding board member and Vice Chair, for spearheading this conference. This room carries special personal meaning for me. Peace Corps volunteers educated me—part of a program initiated by President Kennedy. I would not be standing here today without that remarkable American investment in human potential. Ethiopia’s human rights crisis refers to the degradation of human dignity and potential regardless of ethnicity of faith. I thank Dr. Gregory Stanton, distinguished scholar, champion of human rights, an expert on justice and constitutional democracy, and founder and President of Genocide Watch, for taking time from his busy schedule to honor us as the keynote speaker. I value his insight and guidance. His well documented presentation today offers Western policymakers, decision-makers, and global audiences the opportunity to fully appreciate the gravity of the human rights crisis in Ethiopia—and to act. He concludes “The Constitution of 1995 will continue to produce wars and ethnic genocides. Those who want a strong Ethiopian federal nation in which Ethiopians are citizens of Ethiopia first and members of their ethnic group second must revise the 1995 constitution. Ethiopia must decide whether it will be a nation with central autocracy (the current state, my take), or a true federation. ----If one ethnic group imposes its interests on the country (the Abiy Ahmed PP model, mine), the next constitution will fail just as the 1995 Constitution has. In a few decades we will find ourselves back where we are today, asking what went wrong. If Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed’s government writes a new constitution, Abiy’s reputation as a violent tyrant among Amhara and Tigrayans will mean the new constitution will be regarded as illegitimate as the 1995 Constitution” imposed by the TPLF and its allies. I agree with Dr. Stanton. I commend photojournalist Jemal Countess, whose breakthrough field work has documented atrocities affecting Afar and Amhara populations that corporate and popular media have too often overlooked. His eyewitness reporting speaks truth to power and sheds light on the horrendous nature of the Ethiopian tragedy. His on the ground observation concerning media coverage and lack of it of atrocities in the Afar, Amhara, Tigray and Wellega and the skewed distribution of humanitarian aid drew attention. He informed his audience about the personal danger he faced in reporting. Please join me in applauding Dr. Gregory Stanton and journalist Jemal Countess for their thoughtful presentations. Thank you. Why the urgency? What makes Ethiopia’s atrocities—where an estimated one million two-hundred thousand innocent lives have thus far perished—so chilling is this: these acts are state-sponsored. Tigrean, Annuak and Amhara peoples as well as others endure this violence. Atrocities do not have boundaries. To put it mildly, Ethiopia faces an unprecedented crisis—political, social, economic, spiritual, psychological, environmental, and geopolitical. This convergence of crises poses an existential threat to this ancient country that hosts the African Union and multilateral organizations. I would like to ask a question: What is the role of a government? I had always believed that the primary role of any government is to defend human and national security and to promote the common good. Tragically, this is not the case in Ethiopia. The current government manages everything through an ethnic lens, corrupting institutions and distorting every aspect of life for citizenry. This undermines the multiethnic composition of Ethiopian society. So, you may ask, “Why should the world care?” Ethiopia’s collapse is not solely within its borders--- its consequences are already spreading. First, this crisis matters because of the scale of human suffering. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians killed in recent years, with estimates reaching into the hundreds of thousands to over one million when including indirect deaths from war, famine, and lack of healthcare. In addition, well over 100,000 more lives lost in subsequent conflicts following the Tigray war. Behind these numbers are human beings: Families are torn apart; Children orphaned; Communities erased. Entire populations made hopeless, living under fear, displacement, and loss. The deliberate or indiscriminate killing of civilians, the destruction of livelihoods, and the erosion of basic human dignity demand international attention—not only as a matter of policy, but as a matter of moral responsibility. At the same time, the implications extend far beyond Ethiopia. The United Nations and international policy institutions warn that instability in Ethiopia risks: 1. Mass Migration and Humanitarian Pressure Conflict and collapse are driving large-scale migration flows toward neighboring countries, North Africa, and Europe, placing strain on international systems and Ethiopia’s allies including America. 2. Regional Destabilization Ethiopia sits at the center of a fragile region bordering Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea. Continued instability risks wider conflict. This is a hotbed of constant conflict, war, and rivalry. 3. Security Risks and Extremism Prolonged instability creates vacuums that extremist groups can exploit. 4. Erosion of International Norms When large-scale violence against civilians occurs without consequence, like accountability, it weakens public confidence in global human rights standards and accountability frameworks. 5. Strategic Consequences Ethiopia’s instability affects trade routes, diplomatic alignments, and geopolitical balance in one of the world’s most sensitive regions: the Red Sea Corridor. The Ethiopian crises are both a human tragedy of immense scale and a growing international crisis. Ethiopia is a Nation Under Strain. Today, it faces overlapping crises. Recent independent findings reinforce this crisis is ongoing: 1. Human Rights Watch (2026): confirms continued conflict and atrocities in Amhara. 2. The Lemkin Institute to Prevent Genocide issued Red Alerts concerning state-led genocide of Amhara. 3. Amnesty International (2026): proves no meaningful accountability for crimes. 4. United States Department of State: documents unlawful killings and abuses 5. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: warns of ongoing violations. 6. The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect: strengthens evidence that hundreds of thousands killed and over four million displaced. Granted, when it comes to Ethiopia facts remain elusive. Estimates vary, but analyses suggest the 2021–2022 war involving the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the federal government of Ethiopia and Eritrea resulted in hundreds of thousands to potentially one million deaths when we include indirect causes. In addition, to date well over 100,000 lives— estimates approaching 200,000—have been lost in subsequent conflicts across Amhara, Oromia, and other regions following the Tigray war. To this day, no comprehensive accountability process implemented. What Are the Root Causes of the Crisis? My research findings are these: Ethnic Governance, Stratification, and Targeted Repression Ethiopia’s system has evolved into one where government authorities distribute power, resources including land and protection along ethnic lines. Under the leadership of Abiy Ahmed and his ruling political party, state institutions and security forces used in ways that have resulted in widespread violence, repression, and exclusion affecting specific communities. Amhara and other communities widely reported by these sources targeted through: Mass arrests and detention Extrajudicial killings enforced disappearances and abductions. Displacements Extrajudicial killings Hate propaganda! Systematic erosion of national institutions These are persistent, recurring patterns conducted by state actors. The result is that institutional and structural changes that favor one ethnic elite group over the rest are stronger today than they have been in Ethiopian history. This system eviscerates democratic governance. One of the adverse consequences is the following: Cycles of Violence and Impunity The absence of accountability has enabled continued violence. Abiy Ahmed government's State of Emergency declared on August 4, 2023, strengthening and justifying the war against Amhara by federal government forces reflects the trend. The effects are terrifying. The Collapse of Health and Education in Amhara shows intent. Healthcare System Breakdown a) Seventy-six percent of more than thirty-three million people affected adversely. b) Sixty percent of facilities are non-functional. c) Services reduced by 80 percent. Human Rights Watch documents these. Education System Devastation a) 4.5 million children are out of school. b) 4,600 schools destroyed. c) Only 21% of children are in attendance. The effects will be multigenerational. The Centre for International Policy Studies (2025) concluded: “The targeting of schools and educators… shows a pattern of targeted human atrocity” associated with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Dr. Gregory Stanton, founder and president of Genocide Watch concludes. “The Abiy government has committed genocides against Tigrayans, Amhara and others.” How does the government of Ethiopia do these and more harmful acts? 362 drone strikes, 77 in February alone. These state strikes caused 39,728 casualties, including 14,445 killed. These state actions compound: Killings Disappearances Mass detention of Amhara. Breakdown of Democratic Legitimacy In addition to Ethnic Governance, Stratification, and Targeted Repression, Systematic erosion of national institutions. Ethiopia's democratic governance is eroded. a) A central dimension of Ethiopia’s crisis is the erosion of credible democratic governance and electoral legitimacy. b) While elections held in recent years, the conditions under which they occur raise serious concerns. c) Elections conducted during active armed conflict across multiple regions do not generate confidence. Substantial portions of the population are unable to vote due to displacement, insecurity, or lack of access. Opposition leaders and political actors are detained, restricted, or unable to campaign freely. Media and civil society are today operating under significant pressure and limitations. As documented by the United States Department of State and human rights organizations, these conditions fundamentally undermine the credibility of electoral outcomes. In practice, this means: Elections do not reflect the will of the full population. Political competition constrained or absent in key areas. Governance lacks broad-based consent and legitimacy. In my estimation, a government cannot claim democratic legitimacy while large segments of its population excluded from participation, silenced, jailed, or living under conditions of conflict. The result is a system in which resolution of grievances through democratic processes remains elusive—fueling further instability, resistance, and violence. Recommendations The international community must move beyond statements and take concrete, coordinated action: I suggest the following for consideration: 1. Accountability and Justice a) Establish an UN-mandated independent investigative mechanism with authority to collect evidence for future prosecutions. b) Support international or hybrid tribunals if domestic accountability fails, c) Expand use of Global Magnitsky sanctions targeting senior officials, military commanders, and financiers, a topic my compatriot Youm Fesseha will address. d) Require public reporting on human rights benchmarks tied to international engagement. 2. Immediate Civilian Protection a) Demand an immediate cessation of air strikes and use of explosive weapons in populated areas. b) Establish independent monitoring of civilian harm, including satellite and field verification. c) Condition all security cooperation on compliance with international humanitarian law. d) Guarantee unfettered humanitarian access and recovery across all regions. e) Fund emergency restoration of healthcare systems, schools, and education infrastructure. f) Support international NGOs operating in conflict zones without political interference. 3. Political and Structural Reform Ethiopian society needs to heal. It needs to adapt to a rapidly changing global community. I urge the international community to: a) Press for an inclusive national dialogue on national reconciliation, peace, restorative justice involving all stakeholders. b) Support reforms, strengthening rule of law, protection of minority rights, restoration of independent and national institutions. c) Encourage constitutional and governance reforms addressing structural drivers of conflict. This will not happen unless the international community is involved; and involvement coordinated. 4. International Coordination I urge alignment of policy among these major influencers: United States European Union African Union UN & GCC One aspect is a willingness to prevent geopolitical competition from undermining human rights accountability. Conclusion. When the state becomes the source of conflict, injustice, lawlessness, graft, bribery, and corruption, the only option Ethiopian citizens have is to appeal to the international community or mobilize, organize, and overthrow the entire system and replace it with a democratic one. It is on their behalf that we are making this appeal today. This is not only Ethiopia’s crisis. It is a test of whether the international community will act in the face of sustained and escalating human suffering.

By Ernesto Londoño, Mitch Smith, Haley Willis, and Robin Stein April 6, 2026 Prosecutors did not watch video of the nonfatal shooting until weeks after charging the wounded man, an official said. Credit: New York Times Almost immediately after an immigration agent shot and wounded a Venezuelan immigrant in Minneapolis this winter, the federal government cast the injured man as an attempted murderer and the agent as the victim of a brutal beating. That version of events began unraveling when prosecutors dropped felony charges against the injured man, Julio C. Sosa-Celis, and one of his housemates, Alfredo A. Aljorna, who had fled from immigration agents. Yet video footage of the shooting, newly obtained by The New York Times, raises questions about why it took weeks for the government’s case to fall apart. The video contradicts the agent’s claim that three assailants had beaten him with a shovel and broom for roughly three minutes before he opened fire. Instead, the confrontation depicted in the video lasts about 12 seconds and shows two men struggling with the agent. It shows no sustained attack with a shovel. The federal government had access to that video within hours of the shooting on Jan. 14, the Minneapolis police chief said. Yet prosecutors did not watch the footage, an official said, until nearly three weeks after they filed charges against the two men. “Bare due diligence would have shown that the agents were lying,” Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said in a recent interview, shortly after he watched the video for the first time. The shooting was a rare instance in which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration ultimately acknowledged a serious lapse. The agency’s acting director, Todd Lyons, said after the charges were dropped that two agents had appeared to have lied under oath about the events, adding that they had been placed on leave and could end up facing criminal charges. The Department of Homeland Security did not answer written questions about the video, including whether it reviewed the footage before describing the incident publicly. The video, which The Times obtained after filing an open records request, was recorded on a city-owned camera at a nearby intersection. The shooting of Mr. Sosa-Celis came during the height of the Trump administration’s deployment of thousands of immigration agents to Minnesota. From December to February, those agents made thousands of arrests, clashed with residents, shot three people and engaged in conduct that alarmed federal judges. The administration said the crackdown was necessary in part because of policies that limit state and local cooperation with immigration enforcement. In the hours after Mr. Sosa-Celis was shot, protesters responded with fury. Some ransacked the vehicles of federal agents and threw fireworks at officers. The scene became so tense that investigators left before they had finished collecting evidence. Still, Mr. Sosa-Celis’s case received far less attention than the two other shootings, which left American citizens dead at the hands of federal agents. In those killings, of Renee Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, video footage also undermined the federal government’s version of events. ‘They Are Coming’ From left, Indriany Mendoza-Camacho, Julio C. Sosa-Celis, Valentina Tiapa and Alfredo A. Aljorna in their kitchen in Minneapolis. Credit- Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times Valentina Tiapa told a 911 dispatcher that her partner, Mr. Aljorna, was being chased on Interstate 94 by ICE. He had called and said he was trying to make it home. “They are coming,” Ms. Tiapa told a dispatcher through an interpreter, as she pleaded for the Minneapolis police to intervene. “They are just five minutes away.” For weeks, as ICE agents swarmed Minnesota, two Venezuelan couples had hunkered down inside a duplex with faded white paint on the North Side of Minneapolis. They kept the blinds drawn, rarely venturing outside in daylight. The couples, Mr. Aljorna and Ms. Tiapa, and Mr. Sosa-Celis and Indriany Mendoza-Camacho, did not have legal status in the United States. “I kept thinking, ‘What if they catch us?’” Mr. Sosa-Celis said. But the $950 rent payment for their shared two-bedroom unit was still due each month, and there was no end in sight to the ICE deployment. So Mr. Aljorna, 26, and Mr. Sosa-Celis, 25, kept going out in the evenings, when it seemed safer, to work as food delivery drivers. The two men had grown up in the same small town in Venezuela, where they were acquaintances. They came to the United States separately during the Biden administration and made their way to Minnesota. In Minneapolis, the two men reconnected and started dating their partners. Ms. Tiapa and Ms. Mendoza-Camacho, both 19, were also from Venezuela and said they had crossed the border as minors during the Biden years. Ms. Mendoza-Camacho came to the United States with an infant from a prior relationship. Ms. Tiapa gave birth to a boy in the United States in the summer of 2024. It was a modest existence, bouncing between jobs and struggling to pay debts. Yet it was an improvement, they said, over what they had fled. When Mr. Aljorna and Mr. Sosa-Celis were granted temporary protected status in 2024, they found a measure of stability with the ability to work legally. But Mr. Trump’s administration revoked that status for Venezuelans last year, and the couples’ future in the United States felt more tenuous once again. “Trump had said he was going to launch the biggest deportation crackdown in history, and we were left thinking we needed to hide,” Mr. Sosa-Celis said. Around dinnertime on Jan. 14, two ICE agents were checking license plate numbers when they ran the tag on the Ford Focus that Mr. Aljorna was driving. The agents found that it was registered to another man, who they believed was in the country illegally. The agents described being led on a chase for 15 to 20 minutes, saying that Mr. Aljorna “recklessly zigzagged through traffic.” Inside the Ford, Mr. Aljorna had called Ms. Tiapa, telling her that the agents appeared to be trying to provoke a collision. Minutes later, Mr. Aljorna steered the Ford into a snowbank at the end of the block and took off running toward the duplex, the video obtained by The Times shows. Mr. Sosa-Celis, who had been standing outside the home holding a snow shovel, tossed the shovel aside, the video shows. An ICE agent is seen chasing Mr. Aljorna on foot. The video was taken from about half a block away from Mr. Aljorna’s duplex, and it shows a view of the street. That video footage, filmed by a city security camera mounted on a traffic signal pole, was recorded shortly before 7 p.m. Some of what it shows is hard to make out. Mr. Aljorna was a few feet from his front door, the video shows, when he slipped and fell, giving the agent time to catch up with him. After Mr. Aljorna landed on the ground, a struggle took place near his front porch. The silhouettes of all three men can be seen in the scrum, though it is difficult to discern exactly what each of them did. The struggle lasted for about 12 seconds, the footage shows. The second agent who had been involved in the car chase pulled up to the duplex moments after the physical confrontation ended. Key points remain unclear from the video. After Mr. Sosa-Celis and Mr. Aljorna are no longer visible in the video, a long, thin shape can be seen at one point, swinging from the direction of the porch; it is not clear from the video what the object is or whether it hit the agent. At another point, the agent is seen standing with his arms extended toward the duplex and his feet squared in an apparent firing posture. But the video has no audio, and it is uncertain exactly when the agent fired a single shot, striking Mr. Sosa-Celis in the leg. The footage conflicts in several ways with the encounter initially described by federal officials, who said the ICE agent fired his weapon after three residents attacked him with a shovel and broom for several minutes. A shovel was tossed aside before the struggle began, and only Mr. Aljorna and Mr. Sosa-Celis could be seen in the video, along with the agent. In a court filing, a lawyer for Mr. Aljorna said that his client had thrown a broom in the direction of the ICE agent, but that the broom did not strike the agent. Lawyers for the two men said that the agent had beaten Mr. Aljorna, and that Mr. Sosa-Celis was shot through the closed front door just after he went inside. A bullet hole seen inside the home after the shooting. Credit- Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times The bullet that hit Mr. Sosa-Celis’s upper leg ended up lodged inside the house, near a playpen used by a child in the downstairs unit, according to court records and photos shared with The Times. The bullet also left a hole in the front door. Mr. Sosa-Celis was not seriously hurt. Just after the shooting that night, ICE officials used tear gas to force the couples to leave the house. The adults were taken into custody. The two children went to stay with family members. A Troubled Investigation A video undermines initial accounts from federal authorities. Credit- Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times Mr. Aljorna and Mr. Sosa-Celis were described in a federal news release as “violent criminal illegal aliens.” They were accused by Kristi Noem, the former secretary of homeland security, of committing “an attempted murder of federal law enforcement.” And, just two days after the shooting, Mr. Aljorna and Mr. Sosa-Celis were charged in a criminal complaint with assaulting or impeding an officer, a felony punishable by up to eight years in prison. Minneapolis was a tinderbox in those days, and federal prosecutors felt urgency to file charges and provide a speedy public account of the shooting, according to a Justice Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations. But prosecutors did not watch the video before they filed those charges, the official said, instead relying on the ICE agent’s statement and an F.B.I. agent’s affidavit describing the footage. Almost three weeks would pass before a prosecutor would watch the video of the encounter, the Justice Department official said. The U.S. attorney’s office moved to dismiss the case days before a deadline to secure a grand jury indictment. When the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota asked to dismiss the case, he alluded to the footage and called it “newly discovered evidence.” As the federal prosecution of Mr. Aljorna and Mr. Sosa-Celis was coming together, state investigators were also examining whether the ICE agent acted lawfully when he opened fire. But the Minnesota investigators were stymied by limited federal cooperation, including an unwillingness to provide information as basic as the agent’s name. Law enforcement officers are allowed to use deadly force if they reasonably perceive an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to themselves or someone else. Officials with the F.B.I.’s Minneapolis office declined to speak in detail about the shooting, but said in a statement that agents are trained to provide truthful information to judges and to “immediately provide exculpatory information to prosecutors once identified.” Chief Brian O’Hara of the Minneapolis police said the footage cast significant doubt on the federal government’s accounts. “There is a snow shovel there, but it doesn’t appear it ever gets used as a weapon,” he said. “There is no bludgeoning or anything.” After reviewing the video and other evidence, Chief O’Hara said that “it sounds like an unarmed person got shot running away.” ‘Trading One Hell for Another’ Protesters and federal agents clashed near the scene of the shooting. Credit- Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times For weeks after the shooting, Mr. Aljorna and Mr. Sosa-Celis remained in jail in Minnesota. Their partners were sent to an immigration detention center outside El Paso, where they described crying through sleepless nights in a tent as rainwater seeped through. While she was detained, Ms. Tiapa learned that her son, who was being cared for by relatives, had suffered second- and third-degree burns from scalding soup in an accident back in Minnesota. He needed surgery. All four adults sought their release from detention and were eventually ordered by judges to be returned home to Minneapolis while they fight the government’s efforts to deport them. In a recent interview at the duplex, Mr. Aljorna expressed complicated views about swapping what he left in Venezuela — “there’s no food, no earnings, the power gets cut, water gets cut” — for what he experienced in the United States. “It was like trading one hell for another,” he said. Still, he and the others hope to remain. They still think they can build more prosperous lives in the United States. In 2000, Congress created a visa category for victims of crime who are in the country unlawfully if they assist law enforcement officials. The aim was to lower crime by encouraging victims to cooperate with the authorities without fearing deportation. The lawyers representing Mr. Aljorna, who has been ordered deported by an immigration judge, and Mr. Sosa-Celis say they hope their clients and their partners will be eligible based on their cooperation now with state and federal investigations into the conduct of the ICE agents. So far, no charges have been filed against the agents. Because the names of the agents have not been released, it was not possible to seek comment from them. “It would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Mr. Aljorna said of the possibility of a visa. If he gets legal status, Mr. Sosa-Celis said, he imagines one day running a painting business. Mr. Aljorna, who has a knack for fixing cars, would like to own a body shop. The women said they could see themselves opening a salon. © 2026 The New York Times Company

Muslima Ibrahim Mohamed, 38, holding her 2-day-old son, Noor Mohamed. For nine days, they trudged across the parched soil of southern Somalia, taking turns carrying their 3-year-old daughter on their shoulders. Abdullahi Abdi Abdirahman, his wife and their seven children sought escape from a landscape drained of life. Another drought had killed their goats and sheep, turning their life savings to dust. So they pressed on for 140 miles toward Dollow, a dusty outpost on the Ethiopian border. They were drawn by the same things that had already attracted more than 100,000 other people: International relief organizations were clustered there, offering food, water and health care. Yet when they arrived in late January at a camp on the fringes of town, they were horrified to learn that aid groups had abandoned the area. President Trump had dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., eliminating Somalia’s primary source of assistance. From London to Berlin, governments had reduced funding for humanitarian aid. Relief organizations had been forced to choose where to focus their remaining money. Dollow had not made the cut. Inside the camps, thousands of tents remained, but aid was disappearing. Families were losing cash grants for food. Health clinics were bereft of medicines and staff. The following month, another shock unfolded, as the United States and Israel unleashed war on Iran. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz halted the shipment of oil, fertilizer and other critical commodities from the Persian Gulf. The cost of moving cargo soared. In Somalia, which depends on imports for 70 percent of its food, staple goods like rice and wheat flour doubled in price. A camp at Dollow for people displaced by violence and drought who are seeking humanitarian aid. “Milk and meat are just a dream for us,” said Mr. Abdirahman, 47. His family was subsisting on a daily meal of sorghum porridge and wild grasses plucked from nearby riverbanks. “The children are hungry,” he said. “It hurts.” As the war in the Middle East grinds into its third month, catastrophe is unfolding across the world’s poorest, least stable countries. If hostilities continue beyond June, those confronting acute hunger will swell beyond 363 million people worldwide, an increase of 45 million compared with before the war, the World Food Program warned. The danger is mounting absent the usual degree of international mobilization. Four years ago, when Russia began its war on Ukraine, the global supply of fertilizers and grains was disrupted, prompting fears of hunger from sub-Saharan Africa to South Asia. But the pain was limited by $43 billion in humanitarian assistance marshaled by governments and multilateral institutions, according to data compiled by the United Nations. That campaign, which included emergency food aid, water and medical care, was led by $17 billion from the United States. Last year, overall humanitarian funding dropped to $28 billion, and the United States contributed only $4 billion. Cuts are continuing. “The system has been eviscerated,” said Kate Phillips-Barrasso, who heads global advocacy at Mercy Corps, an American aid group that runs relief and development programs around the world. The organization led journalists from The New York Times on a reporting trip in Somalia. “This is the era of indifference,” she said. Abdullahi Abdi Abdirahman with his children beneath their tent in Dollow. They traveled there seeking aid from international relief organizations.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times Somalia is rife with calamity. In recent decades, the country has suffered civil war, famine and the unpredictable attacks of Al Shabab, a militant Islamist group affiliated with Al Qaeda. Drought ravaged the most recent harvest. Some 6.5 million people — roughly one-third of the population — were suffering hunger at levels deemed an emergency, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned in February. That included more than 1.8 million children under 5 facing acute malnutrition. Those numbers have almost certainly increased given the war. Yet the World Food Program, the largest source of aid in Somalia, has only enough funding to support 300,000 people a month through July, a fraction of the nearly two million people a month it was reaching in early 2025. Humanitarian relief organizations now contemplate a surreal hierarchy of suffering. “There are different categories of starvation,” said Hameed Nuru, the World Food Program’s Somalia director. “We are only able to reach those who are really on the verge of, if you don’t give them something now, they will not be there tomorrow.” In some areas, children are still getting food, but not pregnant mothers. “Literally, it’s who dies first,” he said, “and who dies next.” A Feedback Loop of Trouble Somalia depends on imports for 70 percent of its food. Staple goods like rice and wheat flour have doubled in price. In scores of countries, overlapping crises are now reinforcing one another. Higher prices for food and fuel are limiting the benefit of what aid remains. Marine traffic diverted from the strait has overwhelmed the port of Salalah in Oman, a hub for cargo that is transferred onto smaller vessels bound for West Africa. Because of traffic jams in Oman, a World Food Program shipment that included split peas from Kenya and cereals from Belgium recently arrived 40 days late at the port of Berbera in the north of Somalia. That held up enough supplies to feed 500,000 women and children for a month. In Sudan, scene of the world’s most dire humanitarian disaster, some areas are suffering famine, and 41 percent of the population is acutely short of food, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Yet in late April, the U.N. Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, had to scrap plans to ship five trucks loaded with emergency supplies to two cities in the south of the country. In addition to the hurdles of moving goods in a country besieged by civil war, trucking companies were refusing to make the journey from Port Sudan. They were afraid of getting stuck in the hinterland, unable to refuel given shortages of oil. People collecting water from a communal tap at the aid camp in Dollow. “Kids are dying,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF’s representative to Sudan. Four years ago, as Somalia confronted its most severe drought in years, it received $2.4 billion in humanitarian aid, more than half from the United States. But when Mr. Trump returned to office last year, he brought animus toward Somalia, deriding immigrants from the country as “garbage.” Last year, the United States slashed humanitarian assistance to Somalia to $70 million from $467 million in 2024. Over the first four months of this year, less than $3 million came from American government donors — only 2 percent of all relief for Somalia. Britain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Canada and Qatar each contribute considerably more. Still, many European governments have also retreated, spurred by Mr. Trump’s insistence that they spend more on defense rather than relying on American protection. Relief organizations now reckon with a process they describe as “hyper-prioritization.” What aid remains has been concentrated on the neediest 21 of Somalia’s 90 districts. This was the situation before the United States and Israel started a war on Iran. Food, Fertilizer and Fuel The war in the Middle East has increased prices for critical elements like fuel. Somalia is dependent on imports for oil, most of it from the United Arab Emirates. As Iran launched retaliatory strikes on production facilities in the Persian Gulf, and as transport through the strait effectively ceased, the price of gasoline and diesel more than doubled. Some people in the camps sell fruits and vegetables that they buy in markets in town. The fares for transporting their wares by motorized rickshaw have more than doubled. They were passing on the extra costs to their customers. Trucking companies doubled and tripled prices for bringing sacks of corn over the border from Ethiopia. The cost of hauling rice shipped into Somalia’s ports rose by similar margins. Faced with higher prices at the fish market, customers have been buying smaller quantities of fish. At a fish market in Mogadishu, the city of more than three million that is Somalia’s capital, Fatumo Abdi Noor, 45, tended to her stall as men used machetes to hack tuna and kingfish into steaks. She had nearly doubled her prices. Owners of fishing boats could no longer afford to venture out to the deeper waters of the Indian Ocean. They were settling for smaller fish closer to shore, reducing the catch. Faced with higher prices for fish at the market, customers were buying smaller quantities. Ms. Noor’s sales were down by half. At a trade school in Dollow, a half-dozen women trained to be seamstresses, operating manual sewing machines. Materials used to maintain the machines had nearly tripled in price. Thread and fabric from Mogadishu had become difficult to secure. Fatumo Abdi Noor, left, has almost doubled the prices for her fish. That has reduced her sales by almost half. At some public wells, the price of water had tripled, given that many pumps are fueled by diesel. Faced with the loss of funding from U.S.A.I.D., Mercy Corps, the American development organization, had halted programs installing solar cells to power public wells. Aid organizations like UNICEF were paying more to truck water to drought-afflicted areas. Somalia also depends on the Persian Gulf for about one-third of its fertilizers. With stocks marooned on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz, farmers were contending with higher costs. A farmer preparing to plant onions on a 10-acre cooperative farm in Dollow. The cost of diesel to power the tractor has more than doubled. At a 10-acre cooperative farm in Dollow, a tractor tilled the ground in preparation for the planting of onions. The diesel that powered the machine had more than doubled in price. A 30-kilogram bag of nitrogen fertilizer had jumped to $35 from $20. The cooperative planned to recoup its costs by demanding more for its harvest. As he sat beneath the shade of a mango tree, its branches sloping toward the river dividing Somalia from Ethiopia, Adan Bare Ali, deputy mayor of Dollow, said his community was suffering from troubles that had been concocted far away. The drought was worsened by climate change — primarily the result of industrial polluters in larger, more powerful nations. The war was the handiwork of foreign actors. “The situation has become unbearable,” he said. “The American regime is led by a person who really doesn’t care about anything happening outside his gates. The Americans are not honoring their commitment to the world.” An Emergency Unchecked Inside a nutrition center in Mogadishu, a child was measured to assess the extent of malnutrition. Throughout Somalia, unaffordable food combined with fewer medical clinics meant that children were more likely to suffer malnutrition and at greater risk of developing dangerous complications. On a sweltering morning, more than 100 women sat on wooden benches with infants and toddlers in their arms at a nutrition center in Mogadishu. They were waiting their turn to lay their children on an examination table. Attendants applied cuffs to tiny arms, measuring their circumference to assess the extent of malnutrition. Babies shrieked as their mothers deposited them into a plastic bucket attached to a scale. Those deemed moderately malnourished were given special foods. Those recorded as severe cases were administered therapeutic milk formula and antibiotics to ward off infection. And those in greatest peril were sent to a so-called stabilization unit run by UNICEF inside a local hospital. There, babies and toddlers lay on cots, many with feeding tubes curling into their nostrils, and some attached to oxygen. Mohamed Abdi Abdullahi, 18 months old and suffering from malnutrition, with his mother, Fartum Abokor Omar, at Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu. Eighteen-month-old Mohamed Abdi Abdullahi leaned against his mother, Fartum Abokor Omar, his ribs protruding from his chest. Folds of skin slumped from his arms. The family had arrived a week earlier from its village north of Mogadishu. The river had dried up, decimating crops. When her son began vomiting, unable to hold down their single daily meal, Ms. Omar traveled to the nearest town to seek help. There, a nurse at a clinic urged her to continue on to Mogadishu to seek care at Banadir Hospital. The bus fare was normally $12, a relative fortune. Now, it was double that. She wandered the town, begging for the needed money. Since January, the hospital had admitted 768 infants and toddlers with medical issues caused by severe malnutrition -- double the pace of the previous year. Inside the hospital, doctors had stabilized her baby. He was likely to be discharged within a few days. Which made this a positive ending in Somalia: a child spared from hunger. Yet his story ran counter to the trend. Throughout the country, UNICEF had closed 205 of its 800 local health clinics. These were the facilities best positioned to arrest the severity of malnutrition. When people were assessed and treated earlier, they had better odds of recovery. Since January, the hospital had admitted 768 infants and toddlers with medical issues caused by severe malnutrition — double the pace of the previous year. Doctors estimated that one-third of those children could have avoided hospitalization had they been seen earlier. Greater Need, Less Relief Students carrying lunchtime meals to share at a school previously supported by UNICEF at a camp in Dollow. Mr. Abdirahman and his family knew little of this context as they proceeded toward Dollow. What they knew was hunger, fear and exhaustion. They walked dirt roads, traversing a largely treeless plain. They slept wherever they happened to be when the sun went down, resuming their journey as the first light seeped from the horizon. On a sweltering morning in January, they reached the camp where international aid workers had previously provided help. “There was nothing here,” Mr. Abdirahman said, still nursing a palpable sense of disbelief. “There are no services.” They set up a tent alongside a fence of thorn bushes, taking shelter under leftover plastic sheeting held aloft by sticks. Since their arrival, Mr. Abdirahman has been working as a farmhand, earning $1 a day. His wife, Sadia Abdirahman, walks across a bridge into Ethiopia, where she washes clothes for better-off families. But as the cost of food rises, fewer households can afford to employ her. “Sometimes, we go out begging,” she said. In the center of the camp, a health clinic formerly financed by UNICEF sat empty, save for a volunteer midwife. The organization used to fund prenatal services, dispensing iron pills and medicines. It paid for ambulances to take women to local hospitals when they suffered complications during labor. Not anymore. In late April, a woman in a neighboring tent, Muslima Ibrahim Mohamed, 38, went into labor. Her sisters helped her to the clinic. It was the middle of the day, but the building was locked. They borrowed money for a motorized rickshaw ride to a hospital in town. She lay on the bench for the half-hour journey, suffering the bumps of the rutted dirt road. “I was in real pain,” she said. “I was terrified.” At 38, she had lost four children to disease and hunger. Now, she cradled her newborn son, Noor Mohamed, against her chest. He had entered the world in a moment of extraordinary vulnerability. A school inside the camp had also lost funding from UNICEF. The head teacher, Abdulnasir Mohamed Farah, 30, was still there, working without pay, because his fingerprint unlocked a digital payment card stocked with cash from the World Food Program. He used the money to buy rice and beans, typically the only meal of the day for his students. “I can’t abandon the children,” he said. The head teacher at a school in the camp, Abdulnasir Mohamed Farah, said he felt compelled to stay because his fingerprint unlocked a digital payment card for food. “I can’t abandon the children.” The World Food Program has traditionally relied on American government support for nearly half of its budget. Given the cuts, it had reduced its allocation to the school by 60 percent. And that money was buying less at local markets. The school enrollment had swelled beyond 800 from fewer than 600 as the drought sent more families toward the camp. At the World Food Program’s local headquarters, high walls were encircled in barbed wire. The head of the operation, Josephine Muli, surveyed her warehouse space — 13 A-frame tents used to store medicines and nutritional supplements. Twelve of the tents were empty. A single tent held cardboard cartons loaded with a peanut-based paste for malnourished children and pregnant and breastfeeding women. The cartons were emblazoned with the American flag, the U.S.A.I.D. logo and a message: “From the American people.” “This will last for two months,” Ms Muli said. “The pipeline is dry. Beyond July, the pipeline will be zero.” © 2026 The New York Times Company

The UAE must be held responsible for its part in Sudan’s crisis Letter to the Editor The Guardian 17 May 2026 Dr Lutz Oette and Anna Snowdon respond to an article by Nesrine Malik in which she calls out the primary sponsors of the calamity Nesrine Malik’s article is timely, highlighting how evidence of the United Arab Emirates’ complicity in Sudan’s war has begun to prompt calls for action to be taken (The UAE tries hard to keep its reputation spotless. But with the war in Sudan, how can it?, 13 May). What is now needed is a concerted international response. The UN and African fact-finding bodies have to date largely focused on the responsibility of Sudan’s warring parties for international law violations committed. It is time to complement this focus, by documenting and investigating the UAE’s involvement in the war with a view to establishing possible state and individual responsibility. This ranges from a failure to prevent both genocide in Darfur and international humanitarian law violations across the country to liability for the commission of international crimes. Such an inquiry ought not to be confined to the UAE. Multiple reports have pointed to the involvement of several states in the region and beyond in support of both sides, which has fuelled the war, particularly drone warfare. Foreign businesses and other actors have also reportedly been pivotal in sustaining and benefiting from Sudan’s war economy. Having an official report documenting violations by external actors might spur states and others into adopting overdue measures in response. It might also influence the political calculus of influential states such as the UAE which have not faced any accountability to date. If that were to happen, diminished support for and pressure on the warring parties might well raise the prospects for an end to the fighting in Sudan. In turn, this would bring into focus who should provide reparations to the victims of the war and pay for the reconstruction of the country. Sudan’s people have a right to freedom, peace and justice. This entails an end to the interference with their rights, be it from within or outside their country. Dr Lutz Oette Professor of international human rights law, Soas University of London Nesrine Malik rightly draws attention to the fact that “successive British governments have studiously looked away from one of the primary sponsors of the Sudan calamity”, that is to say the United Arab Emirates, which, despite its repeated denials, has long supported the Rapid Support Forces with money, weapons and mercenaries. It is now nearly two years since the Guardian reported on claims that the Foreign Office was actively trying to suppress criticism of the UAE, even as the RSF was besieging the city of El Fasher in Darfur (UK ‘tried to suppress criticism’ of alleged UAE role in arming Sudan’s RSF militia, 24 June). This too was denied. The UK is the designated UN security council “penholder” for Sudan, and also for the UN’s women, peace and security file, and must do more if this devastating war is to be brought to an end. I am a trustee of a UK charity, Women’s Education Partnership, which enables disadvantaged women and girls in Sudan and South Sudan to access education. Since the war started, we have not had local staff on the ground, and the students are now displaced, trying to follow their degree courses online. Some are too traumatised to study; others have disappeared from contact lists. Most, however, are persevering despite three years of war. Sudanese women played a major role in the inspiring revolution of 2018-19. Let us hope that they will be able to flourish when peace eventually returns. Anna Snowdon Cambridge

The UAE tries to keep its reputation. But with the war in Sudan, how can it? The Guardian 13 May 2026 Nesrine Malik Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist Outrage is mounting about the Gulf country’s complicity in Sudan’s catastrophic civil war – and it might be starting to hit them where it hurts. There are certain states whose reputations in the global community are tainted. For habitual violations of international law, they are shunned, boycotted or slammed with economic sanctions. Reading these words, perhaps you’re thinking of Russia, Israel, Iran or North Korea. But there is one country that is rarely considered an outlaw, even if its actions increasingly fit the bill. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is belatedly starting to draw some scrutiny over mounting evidence that it is backing the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that have been terrorising Sudan for years. Since the beginning of the civil war in 2023, which was triggered by a contest for power between the RSF militia and the Sudanese army, the RSF has been accused of ethnic cleansing and sexual violence. A United Nations fact-finding mission concluded that its assault on non-Arab populations in the west of the country carried “the hallmarks of genocide”. Over the course of the war, evidence has been found of the UAE providing arms to the RSF, smuggling weapons and drones to them via Chad, and backing Colombian mercenary forces that are providing critical support to the militia. The UAE continues to deny all these charges, saying it is a neutral party in the war. But this has become an almost comical performance of outraged innocence in the face of common knowledge. The act seemed to be working, though, as the UAE broadly managed to weather the allegations of its complicity without consequences. The skyscrapers of Dubai, the United Arab Emirates Sudan paramilitary leaders acquired £17.7m property portfolio in Dubai, investigation reveals Read more But something is beginning to turn. Last week, in quick succession, two blows landed. In the first, the human rights organisation FairSquare called on the UK’s Foreign Office to investigate Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the deputy prime minister of the UAE and owner of Manchester City, and sanction him over his alleged role in the UAE government’s backing of the RSF. The complaint, submitted to the UK government, stated that “there is an abundance of evidence from multiple credible sources, including the UN panel of experts on the Sudan, that the UAE has been providing weapons, ammunition and other supplies to the RSF since June 2023”. The complaint argues that Mansour’s alleged links to the RSF should be investigated. It points out that should the UK decide to sanction him, he would be disqualified from ownership of a football club under Premier League rules. (FairSquare say they offered Mansour an opportunity to respond to their complaint but did not receive a response. I have also reached out to his office but have had no reply). It’s a big swing for an investigation into the UAE to name an individual member of the Emirati government; it also frames inaction against the UAE not only as a matter of poor principle, but a potential violation of the integrity of the UK’s domestic institutions. Mansour is also not just a remote owner of a football club, but a royal whose private equity company owns swathes of Manchester itself, notably after a deal with the city council that saw land sold for a fraction of its value according to a 2022 report (the council disagreed with the report’s findings, saying that it got the best deal it could for each site). Sudanese families at the Al Afadh camp for displaced people, in Al Dabbah, north of Khartoum, November 2025. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images But an even bigger swing against the entire UAE government has come from the US. Two congressmen, the co-chairs of the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, sent letters two weeks ago to the Walt Disney Company, the National Basketball Association and the National Football League, urging them to “take a position of moral leadership” and end all associations with the UAE, which include sponsorships and joint ventures, in response to its role “in abetting genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing in Sudan by arming one faction in that country’s civil war”. Such calls – which detail not just the UAE’s complicity in the Sudan war, but the extent of the country’s involvement in the economies and entertainment and sporting industries of the west – inflict serious reputational damage. The UAE is clearly sensitive on the issue: in 2024, when a Sudanese representative accused the UAE of supporting the RSF at a UK-sponsored UN meeting, the UAE reacted by cancelling ministerial meetings with Britain to punish the country for not responding vociferously enough as the UAE was “defamed”. As the Americans say, a hit dog will holler. UAE’s reputation has been anchored in Dubai, a cosmopolitan safe haven of sunny holidays and luxurious lifestyles. Less attention is paid to the capital, Abu Dhabi, and its royals – the Al Nahyans, who hold the presidency of the UAE and govern it in federal constitutional partnership with Dubai’s royal family, the Al Maktoums. For years they have been a destabilising force in the region and Africa, backing separatist groups in Yemen against the Houthis, as well as Gen Khalifa Haftar in Libya against the internationally recognised government. In its regional operations, the UAE’s goal appears to be to anoint leaders it can do business with and prevent the rise to power of forces hostile to it. Sudan has precious port territory across the Red Sea and a trade route that the UAE covets in order to consolidate what has been described as its “archipelago of influence” in the region. Sudan is also rich in gold, most of which since the war began has ended up in Dubai, one of the world’s largest retail gold markets. But more broadly, beyond assets and geostrategic clout, the UAE has been on a campaign since the Arab spring 15 years ago to erect proxy powers, considering nascent Muslim Brotherhood forces as the enemy of established regimes and monarchies. Its ambitions for regional power have broken the UAE from its Gulf partners – most recently in leaving the oil cartel Opec, in what was seen as a rejection of Saudi Arabia’s dominance within the organisation. It has also pursued a normalisation policy with Israel. This week it was revealed that the UAE diverged from the non-retaliatory approach of Saudi and Qatar and had secretly launched a major attack on Iran before the April ceasefire. The UAE’s efforts to establish itself as a regional player have left war and devastation in its wake, most calamitously in Sudan. But it has been supported in that by the US and the UK, not only political allies but financial beneficiaries. At a parliamentary reception in the House of Lords last month, an Emirati official boasted about the UK and the UAE’s multibillion investment partnership, the product of “deep institutional trust”. And last year, days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, the UAE signed a $500m (£370m) investment in the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture. When so much money is involved, is it any wonder that both countries have gone to farcical lengths to express concern over the war in Sudan while avoiding any mention of the UAE? Both the US and UK have sanctioned the senior leadership of the RSF and several UAE-based companies linked to the leadership of the RSF, without naming the UAE as a sponsor. “The world must not look away [from Sudan],” said the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, in reference to sexual violence in the country, when the truth is that successive British governments have studiously looked away from one of the primary sponsors of the Sudan genocide. But now the calls are getting louder, demanding that governments say what they have yet to say: that the UAE has earned its place among the ranks of the world’s outlaws. For a response to this article see: The UAE must be held responsible for its part in Sudan’s crisis | Letters Read more Copyright 2026 The Guardian

Gunmen stormed a primary and junior secondary school in Mussa, while coordinated assaults on nearby Christian communities left eight people dead. By Luka Binniyat & Sulieman Ayuba Armed insurgents abducted 40 schoolchildren — including children under the age of five — during a Friday morning raid on Mussa town in Askira/Uba County, local officials told TruthNigeria. The attack came just hours after coordinated assaults on nearby Christian communities left eight people dead. The incident came barely hours after another terrorist attack was carried out on Christian communities neighbouring Chibok town, in Chibok Local Government Area (LGA) on Thursday night, leaving eight Christians dead, including a day-old baby. The President of the Middle Belt Forum (MBF), Dr. Pogu Bitrus, confirmed the incident to TruthNigeria from Chibok on Friday, May 15, 2026. Kidnapped Shortly After Military Patrol Team Left Vanguard reported on Friday that an unspecified number of students of Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in Askira-Uba LGA of Borno State were feared abducted by either Boko Haram terrorists or fighters of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) at about 9am local time on Friday, May 15, 2026. TruthNigeria confirmed 40 were taken, according to local sources. Mussa, described as a predominantly Christian community, lies on the southern fringe of the Sambisa Forest, notorious as a hideout for Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists. The newspaper reported that the Deputy Speaker of the Borno State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Abdullahi Askira, who also hails from Askira-Uba LGA, confirmed the invasion of the school by terrorists, although details remained sketchy at the time it went to press. According to the report, armed terrorists stormed the school premises on motorcycles barely 10 to 15 minutes after troops stationed in the area had left the community on patrol. Many students reportedly fled into nearby bushes to escape the attackers. The report also said that the Deputy Speaker further stated: “Yes, I can confirm to you that some suspected terrorists riding on motorcycles invaded primary and junior secondary schools in Mussa village this morning. “Information at my disposal was that many of the students fled into the bush, but I don’t have details of those abducted yet,” Vanguard quoted Askira as saying. “It is also disheartening that the incident took place barely some few minutes after troops on patrol left the community; this signifies that the insurgents or the attackers were spying on the movement of troops before they struck,” the Deputy Speaker said, as reported by Vanguard. Previous Deadly Attack On April 16, 2026, Punch reported that suspected Boko Haram fighters attacked Mussa community in Askira/Uba LGA, killing four Nigerian soldiers and one female civilian. According to the report, the attack occurred around midday, and troops of the 115 Task Force Battalion fought back to prevent the insurgents from fully overrunning the town. Boko Haram Kill 8, Lost 5 Fighters Too Meanwhile, Bambatsu, Sangula, and Ngadarma — a cluster of communities around Chibok town — came under simultaneous attacks by Boko Haram terrorists on Thursday night, May 14, 2026, leaving eight persons dead and about 23 others injured, Dr. Pogu Bitrus, a native of Chibok, told TruthNigeria on Friday. “They crept into three communities around Chibok and started attacking them at the same time around 3am,” he said. “Each village vigilante group, including local hunters tried their best and even killed some of the Boko Haram terrorists — about 5 of them,” he said. “Our people who were killed or injured were those running in different directions due to panic and confusion and became easy targets for the terrorists,” Dr. Bitrus told TruthNigeria. “In Bambatsu, we lost seven people, and in Ngadarma, we lost one person,” he said. Sadly, according to him, one Mrs. Sangula Happy, who gave birth to a baby girl in Ngadarma just 12 hours before the attack, lost the child in the pandemonium. “The mother is also under intensive care in a hospital in Chibok town due to grief and trauma,” he said “Twenty-three other villagers sustained various gunshot wounds, most of them being local guards,” he added. Centuries of Resistance Against Jihadists According to him, all communities around Chibok are Christians and Boko Haram and ISWAP have been waging attacks on them to either force them to Islamise or force them out of their ancestral lands since 2011. “We have resisted Islamisation dating back centuries of struggles against Jihadists,” he said. “If they could subdue our ancestors, they cannot defeat us now that we have Jesus as our guide and saviour,”he said. The Infamous Chibok School Girls Kidnap Saga School raids remind most of the night of April 14–15, 2014, when Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, while the girls were preparing for their final examinations. The mass kidnapping immediately drew international outrage and became one of the most infamous terrorist attacks in modern African history as captured by Wikipedia. The abduction generated the global “#BringBackOurGirls” campaign, which attracted support from world leaders, celebrities and human rights organisations. Former U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama and several international figures publicly demanded urgent action from the Nigerian government and the international community, Wikipedia recalls. According to Amnesty International over the years, some of the girls escaped from captivity, while others were released through negotiations and military operations. Many survivors later returned to school and received rehabilitation support, though they continued to struggle with trauma after years in captivity. However, several girls remain unaccounted for more than a decade later.ed