An MSF staffer and two other aid workers were also killed in the violence over the weekend in the Jonglei state. At least 287 people, including a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) staff member and two other aid workers, have been killed in the most recent spat of inter-communal violence in the eastern state of Jonglei in South Sudan, government authorities have told Al Jazeera. At least 300 people were wounded in the violence, which broke out between the Murle and Lou Nuer ethnic communities on Saturday, according to the government. Many suffered gunshot wounds and other trauma, according to health workers. Meanwhile, a patrol from the UN Mission to South Sudan has been sent to the town of Pieri to interview survivors, the organisation said in a statement on Wednesday. "The team is investigating reports that many people were killed, injured and lost their homes," the statement said, adding that "many" huts were burned to the ground. The UN mission said it had not independently verified the death toll, saying, "it is difficult to verify the number of casualties given conflicting reports and claims". Government officials told Al Jazeera the figure was expected to rise. MSF confirmed that one member of its staff had been killed in the fighting. The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan said two other aid workers for other groups were also killed. "We have a primary healthcare centre in the town of Pieri that was active at the time the fighting broke out," Steve MacKay, the deputy head of the MSF mission in South Sudan said. "One of our colleagues who lives in that area was killed during that incident over the weekend." The organisation has resumed its work in the region after briefly pausing following the attack, he said. 'Power Vacuum' The Uror county commissioner, John Dak Gatluak, told the DPA news agency that heavily armed men from the Murle ethnic group had attacked six villages in Saturday's violence. Local authorities believe the attack was carried out in revenge for a similar incident in February, when men from the Lou Nuer ethnic group had raided cattle and abducted children from the Murle. South Sudan is emerging from a brutal six-year civil war that left 380,000 dead and millions displaced. President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar, the former rebel leader, reached a deal to form a unity government in February but remain at odds over issues including who will govern the country's 10 internal states. While political violence has calmed in the country since that agreement, the lack of state governors has created a "vacuum of power" that fosters the inter-communal violence, David Shearer, the UN Special Representative to South Sudan told Al Jazeera. "The governor is a very, very important person in the state because they bring together many of the tribes. They also have the authority to reconcile and take action where there's non-compliance," Shearer said. The tensions have also been inflamed by flooding in August that killed thousands of cattle. "These societies are very much focused in and around cattle and their survival is dependent on cattle," he said. "The fact that so many cattle have died has put real economic pressure on the societies." Source: Al Jazeera and News Agencies

Discovery was made at al-Eifalon military camp where conscripts used to get trained under former ruler Omar al-Bashir. Sudanese officials have announced the discovery of a mass grave southeast of the capital, Khartoum, suspected to contain the remains of conscripts who in 1998 tried escaping military service from a training camp. A committee tasked with investigating the killings at al-Eifalon military camp "found the mass grave in the past four days after hearing witness accounts", Tagelsir al-Hebr, public prosecutor, said on Monday without giving details on the number of bodies found. "The grave was exhumed and now the committee will continue to work with forensic authorities and examine the evidence," said Wael Ali Saeed, a member of the investigation committee. A source in the investigators' team told Reuters News Agency dozens of bodies had been found. The al-Eifalon military camp was used for training new conscripts under the rule of former President Omar al-Bashir, who was removed by the army last year in the wake of months-long, pro-democracy protests. The poorly trained and equipped conscripts were sent into the bush fighting against the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). In 1998, a group of them were killed as they attempted to escape the base for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday. The students were also angry that they had been denied the time to spend with their families during the holiday, according to the prosecutor. The Sudanese government said at the time that 55 young conscripts who fled the military base drowned when their overloaded boat capsized in the Blue Nile River. However, opposition groups accused the government of carrying out the killings and reported a higher death toll of more than 100. Many Sudanese families reported that their sons went missing and their remains were never found. The Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the political wing of the South Sudan army, won independence for the south in 2011 following a peace deal with al-Bashir's government in 2005. Al-Bashir, who had seized power in a 1989 coup, was arrested in April 2019 when he was deposed by the army. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), facing charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed by pro-government forces in Darfur. Sudan's new governing authorities have yet to hand him over to the ICC for prosecution. SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Three journalists working for The Caravan magazine attacked in northeast Delhi, site of religious violence in February. Three Indian journalists were attacked by a Hindu mob while reporting on a story in the capital, New Delhi, on Tuesday, the journalists have told Al Jazeera. Journalist Shahid Tantray and two colleagues were filming for The Caravan magazine in northeast Delhi, which was hit by religious violence in February. At least 53 people were killed in that violence, most of them Muslims. Tantray, who is from Indian-administered Kashmir, said they were shooting video when a small group of Hindus, including a man who identified himself as a member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), asked him why he was taking visuals there. "I stood like a wall between Shahid (Tantray) and the Hindu crowd. It was actually a do or die situation for me to save him," says journalist Prabhjit Singh. "They grew suspicious after seeing my name on my press card," Tantray, 28, told Al Jazeera. "The BJP man shouted that he (Tantray) is a Muslim and started calling more people to the scene," he said. "The mob beat me, punched on my neck and back, and tried to strangle me with the camera strap. I have pain in my neck as well as lower back since then." 'Their enemy was Tantray - a Muslim' He added that the mob kept them as "hostages" for nearly 90 minutes. His colleague, Prabhjit Singh, tried to shield him from the furious mob until two policemen stationed nearby arrived. An additional team of police was called to save the journalists from the mob. They were later taken to the nearest police station. Singh, a contributory writer at The Caravan, dubbed as India's New Yorker, said Tantray and a female reporter were capturing a scene of a local street decked out with religious flags associated with Hindu far-right groups, when three to four men came out and started shouting at them for taking pictures. As a man kept asking for Tantray's name, Singh began calling Tantray by a Hindu name, "Sagar". "Chalo Sagar yahan se' (Let's go from here, Sagar)," Singh, who is a Sikh, told Tantray as he wanted to save him from the mob. "I could clearly see the hatred in their eyes, the communally frenzied eyes. I wore a turban as a Sikh and they were conscious of my religious identity, too. But their enemy was Shahid (Tantray), a Muslim," Singh told Al Jazeera. "I stood like a wall between Shahid (Tantray) and the Hindu crowd. It was actually a do or die situation for me to save him." More people later gathered and the mob grew to about 100 people, he said. "While the female colleague managed to get out of the street, the mob locked up the gate of the colony and confined Shahid (Tantray) and me there on the street," Singh, 50, told Al Jazeera. The New Delhi-based magazine also claimed that the female reporter was sexually harassed. "The mob ... tried to strangle me with the camera strap. I felt closely the dangers that are prevalent for Indian Muslims. But I will not halt my work," says journalist Shahid Tantray. Police statement A police statement on Wednesday said the complaints were being investigated and appropriate legal action would be taken. "Taking pictures without consent may provoke those present and create Law and Order problems including communal problems," the statement said. The videos that Tantray had captured were finally deleted in the presence of police, who have yet to lodge a FIR (First Information Report or formal police complaint) regarding the incident. "If this is happening to a journalist, we can only imagine what would be happening to people without such avenues that are available to journalists," Tantray told Al Jazeera. "I am definitely scared, and I felt closely the dangers that are prevalent for Indian Muslims. But I will not halt my work. As a journalist I feel it is my responsibility to bring out the truth." 'Islamophobic attack' The attack has been condemned by rights groups and journalists. Vinod Jose, the executive editor of The Caravan, described it as "an attack on journalism and free and fair reporting". Hartosh Singh Bal, the magazine's political editor, said the attack was "the culmination of basically increase in Islamophobia and distrust of the media". "There was Islamophobia involved in the attack. It was clear from language that was used, from what was done and how they reacted to the very presence of a Muslim as a reporter," Bal told Al Jazeera. In a statement on Wednesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) demanded a thorough police investigation into the attack. Steven Butler, CPJ's Asia Program coordinator, said attacks on journalists in India have become "all too common". "But it's truly outrageous that the police take such a relaxed attitude to this sort of incident," he told Al Jazeera. "Police should vigorously enforce the rights of journalists to work without harassment. Unless that happens, these sort of incidents could easily continue." Amnesty International India raised concerns against attacks on journalists. "Yet another dangerous day for journalists in the country. Journalists from The Caravan magazine, India Today, The News Minute and Suvarna News were attacked yesterday in Delhi and Bengaluru," Amnesty International India wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. "Journalism is not a crime and the Delhi and Bengaluru police must show its commitment towards protecting journalists by filing an FIR and ensuring those responsible are held accountable," the statement said. © 2020 Al Jazeera Media Network

Zara Alvarez is 13th member of her group to be killed since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power in 2016. A human rights leader has been killed in the central Philippines in what observers and rights defenders have said is a continuing escalation of the "war against dissent" under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte. Zara Alvarez, former education director of the human rights alliance Karapatan, died on the spot after being shot six times on Monday evening as she was heading home after buying food for dinner. She was the 13th member of the organisation killed since mid-2016, when Duterte came to power, the group said. Police said Alvarez was killed by an unidentified assailant in the central city of Bacolod. Witnesses reportedly chased the attacker, who got away with the help of an accomplice on a motorcycle. On Wednesday, government investigators promised to investigate the case, adding that they are looking into the victim's affiliation with alleged "leftist groups" as a possible lead for the attack. Alvarez's death comes just weeks after Duterte signed into law controversial anti-terror legislation, which allows for warrantless arrests and longer detentions without charge - provisions that legal experts warned could be directed at anyone criticising the president. Karapatan's national leader, Cristina Palabay, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that given the circumstances of Alvarez's murder, she is blaming the government. "Considering the prior threats that they received from state forces, it is not really far from our mind that those who killed them are from the state forces," she said, adding that Alvarez was among those listed by Duterte's justice department as suspected "terrorists". Palabay pointed out that with the coronavirus pandemic, cities have imposed curfews and set up checkpoints in their respective areas. "Everything is on lockdown, isn't it? The streets are very much guarded by state forces with all the checkpoints. And yet, the killers were able to get through these cordons of state forces." Failed Peace Talks Communist rebels have been fighting a rebellion for more than 50 years in a conflict that has so far killed more than 30,000 people. In recent years, the number of rebel fighters has dropped significantly, and there have been several attempts by both the government and communist leaders to reach a peace agreement. During his 2016 campaign for the presidency, Duterte promised to negotiate with the rebels and found some allies among activist groups, proclaiming himself as the country's "first leftist president". As mayor of the city of Davao, Duterte had also established cordial ties with the communists. But while he quickly initiated talks with the rebels once taking office, negotiations collapsed in mid-2017. Since then, the president has stepped up his rhetoric against the rebels, declaring them "terrorists" and pledging to wipe them out after a series of recent ambushes against government troops. As the prospects of a peace deal with communists dimmed, Duterte even goaded the military in early 2018 to shoot female rebels in their genitals to render them "useless". Later that year, Duterte ordered more military troops and police to Negros Occidental - where Bacolod is the capital - and two other central Philippine regions, "to suppress lawless violence and acts of terror". He also created a national task force "to end local communist armed conflict". Duterte also directed his ire against other activists, farmers organisations, land rights campaigners, as well as those who have openly criticised his deadly war on drugs and other alleged rights abuses. Around the same time, the military and other officials in the Duterte administration started accusing several activist groups of acting as "fronts" of the rebels, raising fears that they could be killed after the president tagged the communists as "terrorist". The government has denied carrying out targeted killings, and said that those who have been killed had resisted arrest. Advocate for farmers Alvarez, the 39-year-old rights leader killed on Monday, had been advocating for years for farmers' rights in Negros, a resource-rich island, where a few politically connected families own vast tracts of sugarcane plantations. In 2019, she led a group of farmers in documenting and denouncing alleged rights abuses by government troops following the killing of farmworkers, accused of being members of the communist rebels. Alvarez herself was accused of being a rebel sympathiser, or an outright rebel member. In an interview with Al Jazeera's 101 East in 2019, Alvarez said that with regards to the recent killings in Negros, "it is very clear that it is the police who killed those victims." Authorities denied those allegations and have pledged to investigate the dozens of killings, although no suspects have been apprehended or prosecuted. Now, Alvarez herself has been killed. Palabay said her group, Karapatan, and other activist groups are in anguish with the series of killings of their colleagues, including Alvarez. In a statement obtained by Al Jazeera, San Carlos Catholic Bishop Gerardo Alminaza decried the death of Alvarez saying that her work on behalf of the poor residents of Negros "is worthy of emulation". The Philippines' National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL) also condemned the killing, saying Alvarez was "a constant force in the struggle for justice" for farmers in her hometown. In a separate social media post, NUPL President Edre Olalia said that "the obvious intent" of the Alvarez's killing was "to sow terror". Earlier on Monday, activists buried Randall Echanis, one of the land rights activists who negotiated for a peace deal with the Duterte administration. Echanis, head of the urban poor organisation, Anakpawis, was killed on August 10 following an alleged encounter with police in Metro Manila. His relatives, however, said the 72-year old activist was undergoing medical treatment and unarmed when he was killed. © 2020 Al Jazeera Media Network

Asif Pervaiz, 37, who has been in custody since 2013, given death penalty for sending 'blasphemous' text messages. In July, a man accused of blasphemy was shot dead in a courtroom in the northwestern city of Peshawar [Muhammad Sajjad/AP Photo] Islamabad, Pakistan - A court in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore has sentenced a Christian man to death for having committed "blasphemy", his lawyer says, in the latest case of Pakistan's strict religious laws being applied against minorities. Asif Pervaiz, 37, has been in custody since 2013 when he was accused of having sent "blasphemous" text messages to a former supervisor at work, lawyer Saif-ul-Malook told Al Jazeera. The court rejected his testimony wherein he denied the charges and sentenced him to death on Tuesday. "The complainant was a supervisor in a hosiery factory where Asif was working under him," said Malook. "He denied the allegations and said that this man was trying to get him to convert to Islam." Speaking in his own defence in court earlier in the trial, Pervaiz claimed the supervisor confronted him after he quit work at the factory, and when he refused to convert he was accused of having sent blasphemous text messages to the man. Blasphemy laws Muhammad Saeed Khokher, the complainant in the case, denies wanting to convert Parvaiz, according to his lawyer, Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry. "He has taken this defence after the fact, because he had no other clear defence," Chaudhry told Al Jazeera. "That's why he accused him of trying to convert him." Chaudhry said there were other Christian employees at the factory, but none have accused Khokher of proselytising. Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws prescribe a mandatory death penalty for the crime of insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad, and strict penalties for other infractions such as insulting Islam, the holy Quran or certain holy people. There are currently at least 80 people in prison in Pakistan for the crime of "blasphemy", with at least half of them facing life sentences or the death penalty, according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Those accused under the laws are mainly Muslim, in a country where 98 percent of the population follows Islam, but the laws disproportionately target members of minorities such as Christians and Hindus. Aasia Bibi case In one of the most high-profile blasphemy cases in the country's history, the Supreme Court ruled in October 2018 that a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, had been framed in her case and that the laws had inadequate oversight for false accusations. Those accusations can have deadly consequences. Since 1990, at least 77 people have been killed in connection with blasphemy allegations, according to an Al Jazeera tally. Those killed have included people accused of blasphemy, their family members, lawyers and judges who have acquitted those accused of the crime. Bibi fled Pakistan in 2019 due to threats against her life. The latest such murder took place in July when a man accused of blasphemy was shot six times in a courtroom during a hearing in his case. His murderer was apprehended and was garlanded with roses by far-right supporters during subsequent court appearances. This month has seen a sharp spike in blasphemy cases being registered in Pakistan, particularly in the most populous province of Punjab. Many of these cases have targeted the country's sizeable Shia Muslim minority, which forms roughly 15 percent of the population. Since a series of large-scale sit-in protests on the issue of blasphemy in 2017, political parties have increasingly been including messaging on blasphemy in their platforms. The Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) political party, formed by firebrand scholar Khadim Hussain Rizvi ahead of the 2018 polls, campaigned on a platform based on defence of the blasphemy laws. While it won few seats, it garnered the fourth-highest share of the countrywide popular vote by a single party. Asad Hashim is Al Jazeera’s digital correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim Published by Al Jazeera September 8 2020 © 2020 Al Jazeera Media Network

Iran denounces 'hypocrisy' of US air strikes as experts urge Tehran to press Syria to stop future chemical attacks. US President Donald Trump announced on Friday the operation against Syria, framing his decision as a fight against "evil" while saying days earlier that preventing chemical attacks is "about humanity". He lashed out at Iran and Russia for supporting the Assad regime, saying "What kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women and children?" At least 85 people, including many women and children, were killed in Douma in early April, in a chemical attack the US blamed on the Syrian military. There have been several recorded chemical attacks in Syria since 2013. Trump's action against Syria, however, rings hollow to those who lived through the dangers of Iraq's chemical attacks in Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. To some Iranian analysts, the air strikes reflected the "hypocrisy" and "duplicity" of American foreign policy. When Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons to kill thousands of Iranians during the war from 1980 to 1988, not only did the US look the other way, but also "aided and abetted" Iraq in committing "war crimes", Reza Nasri, an Iran-born international law expert at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (GIIDS) in Geneva, told Al Jazeera. "The claim that the recent US attack on Syria was motivated by humanitarian considerations is not consistent with Iran's own experience as a victim of chemical attacks," he said. Arms control experts argue that what happened in Iran in the 1980s should not be an excuse to block moves to hold Syria accountable for its use of chemical weapons. Daryl Kimball, executive director, of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, told Al Jazeera that Iran should use its leverage with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to prevent similar attacks in the future. Others, however, contend that it is not a question of taking action in Syria, but of Trump launching air strikes in defiance of United Nations guidelines, and in the absence of UN-backed inspections. Use of chemical warfare had been banned under the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which Syria signed, expands on the prohibition to include the ban on production, stockpiling and use of certain toxic weapons such as sarin and mustard gas. Throughout the Iran-Iraq war, an estimated 7,500 Iranian military and civilians were killed by Iraqi troops using nerve gas and mustard agents, according to a report by Shahriar Khateri, a senior official of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague. The report said about a million Iranians were "exposed" to chemical agents during the war. Today, about 75,000 victims still receive treatment for "chronic chemical weapons injuries". Bodies of Iranian fighters seen near the town of Halabja, Iraq in March 1988 [File: AP] In one of the "first extensive chemical attacks" by Iraq in March 1984, "tonnes of sulfur mustard and nerve gas agents" were used against Iranian troops in Majnoon Islands along the southern border with Iraq. The report also recorded at least 30 chemical attacks against civilians. Documents from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) also showed that the US government knew about Iraq's repeated use of nerve agents in Iran, but did nothing to stop it. Iraq was then allied with the US against Iran. A declassified "top secret" CIA document dated March 23, 1984, showed that the US was aware of Iraq's use of nerve gas agents against Iranian troops in Basrah, and the plan "to employ it in militarily significant quantities" by late fall of that year. Another document dated January 28, 1986, showed it was aware of a report that a West German firm helped Iraq establish a factory that produced the lethal chemical agent, Tabun. 'Morbid silence' In a UN Security Council report dated March 1986, inspectors who visited Iran described as "distressing" the number of "chemical casualties" and the extent of their injuries. The report said that despite previous UN findings of Iraqi chemical weapons use in 1984 and 1985, attacks continue "on a more intense scale than used previously". "Every Iranian - whether ordinary citizen or high-ranking politician - still remembers how world powers and neighbouring countries, remained morbidly silent in face of these atrocities or outright assisted Saddam Hussein in his war crimes, one way or the other," Nasri, of GIIDS in Geneva, told Al Jazeera. Sina Azodi, a doctorate student of political science at the University of South Florida, grew up in Tehran during the war. He said he and his family were living in constant fear of a chemical attack in the Iranian capital. "My father, who was recalled by the military to serve as a reserve captain in the Iranian air force went through so much trouble to obtain gas masks for his family," Azodi told Al Jazeera. It was notable not only that "there was no outrage" from the US and its allies when the chemical attacks took place in Iran, but the US also "used its influence" in the UN Security Council to block any condemnation of Iraq, despite evidence presented by inspectors, Azodi said. In 1988, Iraq used chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds, killing 5,000, many of them civilians [File: AP] According to Foreign Policy, the US also "conveyed" to Iraq information from satellite images, which showed Iran "was about to gain a major strategic advantage" against Iraq in 1988. The US did so "fully aware" that Saddam "would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin". In March 1988, Iraq also used chemical weapons in Halabja, home to Iraqi Kurds, who had joined with Iran in fighting Saddam. According to reports, 5,000 mainly women and children were killed of mustard gas and sarin poisoning, and up to 12,000 have died since because of chemical exposure. 'Duplicity' Namo Abdulla, an Iraqi-Kurdish correspondent for the television network Rudaw, said the response to the Iraqi chemical weapons attacks in the 1980s and the recent chemical attacks in Syria showed "the unfortunate duplicity of the world we live in". "I believe none should get away with using chemical weapons attack," he told Al Jazeera. "If there is ample evidence that Assad has used chemical weapons, he should be punished for it, far more strongly than what we saw," Abdulla added. Arms control expert Kimball said that, whatever happened during the Iran-Iraq War, the Assad regime should be held accountable. "I would say what matters is protecting civilians in the conflict in Syria," he told Al Jazeera. He warned that despite the air strikes, Syria would continue to use chlorine in future attacks. "Chlorine is a common industrial chemical, and the strikes conducted by the US, UK and France have not degraded the ability to build improvised chemical weapons using chlorine," Kimball said. He urged Iran to "provide more leadership" in urging Syria to cooperate with UN-backed inspectors. "I think it is a stain on Iran's record of support for chemical weapons victims that it has not used its leverage with Assad to prevent further chemical weapons use." Kimball also said that "in an ideal world", inspectors should have collected evidence first, before the air attacks by the US, UK and France. Demonstrators gather in Nicosia, Cyprus to denounce US-led air strikes in Syria [File: AP] According to reports on Wednesday, the fact-finding team from the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has not been able to enter Douma. With the delay in inspections, there are fears that the Syrians will clean up the site of the attack and "undermine the investigation", Kimball said. Vietnam War Jason von Meding, a senior lecturer at Australia's University of Newcastle, who has studied the use of chemicals during warfare, including the Vietnam War, said the US-led air attacks only delayed the arrival of inspectors in Douma and the gathering of evidence, which is critical for any prosecution. Von Meding pointed out that the US also used Agent Orange in Vietnam, resulting in birth defects and disabilities among Vietnamese civilians. "I don't think there was a dispute that it was a chemical weapon," he said. "The US tries to say that they have a moral standing in terms of criticising other governments for using chemical weapons, so of course the use of chemical weapons in Vietnam stands against that proposition," he told Al Jazeera. Abas Aslani, an Iran-based journalist and visiting scholar at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran, said it is Iran's policy to "condemn any chemical attacks, regardless of who has carried it out". He said Iran understands the importance of accountability in war because it was also a victim of chemical weapons. "The issue is, before doing any air strikes, there needs to be an investigation on where they were used and who used them," he said, noting the importance of a UN mandate to give legitimacy to any response. In Iran's experience, the US and other Western powers looked the other way, while continuing to support Saddam, Aslani said. Azodi, the political analyst studying at the University of South Florida, added that military strikes alone cannot bring a political solution in Syria. "Iran and Russia are big players and their roles cannot be ignored or denied." (c) 2018 Al Jazeera https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/chemical-attacks-iran-180415122524733.html

The Syrian Bedouin community has been displaced and has lost much of its livelihood due to the conflict. Syrian Bedouins roast coffee beans in a camp during a gathering near the town of Hamouria, in the eastern Ghouta region, near the capital Damascus on February 8, 2017 [File: AFP/Amer Almohibany] For centuries, Bedouin tribes moved around the vast semi-arid steppe land in Syria, searching for water and pasture for their herds of camels, sheep, and goats. This ecologically sustainable mobility and way of life indelibly contributed to the rich cultural heritage of the country. About 100 years ago, first under the French mandate and later the new nation-state, a series of policies were implemented to pressure the Bedouin to give up their nomadic lifestyle and settle in villages, towns and on the outskirts of cities. As a result, Syria's nomadic pastoral population declined, from 13 percent of the total population in 1930 to 7 percent in 1953 and less than 2-3 percent by the turn of the millennium. The few remaining Bedouin communities managed to resist the forces pushing them to settle and continued to make a comfortable living moving around the desert, raising mainly sheep. The Syrian civil war, however, has brought a new set of challenges for these communities, further threatening their traditional livelihoods and culture. The semi-arid steppe in Syria, called al-Badia in Arabic, makes up about 80 percent of the country's landmass - 10 million hectares (nearly 25 million acres) of the central and northeastern part of the country, spreading across the provinces of Aleppo, Deir Az Zor, Hamah, al-Hassekeh, Homs, al-Raqqa, and to a lesser extent, Deraa and al-Suwayda provinces to the south. These governorates became major battlefields in the Syrian civil war, gravely affecting Bedouin herders living there and making a living by selling pastoral products like milk, cheese and meat. Military operations hampered Bedouin efforts to access grazing land, water sources and post-harvest farmland stubble. After 10 years of conflict, many Syrian Bedouin herders can no longer maintain their livelihoods or find sufficient fodder for their herds. Many of them already lost significant portions of their herds and have been internally displaced or pushed across international borders. Khaled Abu Amer from al-Mawali tribe, for example, told us how the conflict between the regime and opposition forces drove him to leave the countryside of Hama and seek safety in Idlib province in 2018. As a result of his inability to find pasture for his herd there, he lost three-quarters of his sheep. Since the beginning of the conflict, seeking safety and sanctuary from armed groups, rather than looking after the livestock, became the main priority of Bedouin herders. In some cases, the nomadic herders were besieged by regime forces in opposition-controlled areas along with sedentary civilian populations. This was the case for Bedouin herders who got trapped in eastern Ghouta during the regime's siege of the area. To avoid starvation, they were forced to slaughter and eat their livestock. As a result, they lost their capital - their herds - and were forced to work as daily wage labourers to survive. Bedouin herders also faced targeted attacks by both the Syrian government forces and ISIL (ISIS). Traditionally, Bedouin herders have had the ability to move across borders between states when local conditions became difficult. Over the years, this mobility has made the ruling regimes suspicious of their loyalties. These suspicions rose to the surface during the course of the Syrian civil war. The different factions involved in the conflict became increasingly suspicious of the intentions of the herders who refrained from openly aligning themselves with any group, and therefore were targeted indiscriminately. For example, in 2018, the Syrian regime forces bombed the tents and the animals of Bedouin herders from al-Omour tribe near the city of Palmyra, claiming that they were members of ISIL. The attack killed four herders and destroyed most of their sheep. The same year, herders from the same tribe had to escape ISIL's repressive rule and attempts to tax them in the countryside of Palmyra by heading north to the countryside of recently-liberated Raqqa. After losing much of their mobility and access to natural grazing land, Bedouin herders have been forced to buy fodder, which they can ill afford, to feed their animals. Moreover, as the government's veterinary services ran out of animal vaccines and routine drugs, it has become harder for herders to keep their animals healthy and productive. Many have been forced to smuggle their herds across the borders to Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey to sell them at reasonable prices. Where this has not been possible, Bedouin have had to sell their sheep in Syria for whatever they can get in order to survive the war. The impact of Syria's armed conflict on Bedouin herders is rarely mentioned in the media. Yet among the many narratives of loss and suffering during the Syrian civil war, the Bedouin's stand out. Sheepherding makes up a significant part of Syria's GDP, but the rapid disappearance of Syria's nomadic herders is not merely an economic loss. Mobile sheep herding is the most efficient and ecologically sound approach to life in the semi-arid lands of Syria. No other occupant can take care of this vast land the way nomadic herders do. Today, a way of life that has withstood the vicissitudes of cyclical drought, of conflict between tribes, and settled societies for more than a thousand years is shrinking, perhaps irreversibly. As Bedouin herders are forced to settle in villages and towns, take up employment as labourers or seek refuge in neighbouring countries, not only an ancient, sustainable way of life but also a significant component of Syria's cultural heritage is being lost. The views expressed in this article are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance. © 2020 Al Jazeera Media Network

In recent years, a record number of cases have been filed under blasphemy law introduced during British colonial rule. Rallies supporting blasphemy laws and protesting related acquittals are common in Pakistan [File: Reuters] Islamabad, Pakistan - Bishop John Joseph, 65, one of Pakistan’s most prominent human rights activists, had been campaigning for decades to reform the country's strict blasphemy laws. On the morning of May 6, 1998, he led a procession to the steps of the court in the central Pakistani town of Sahiwal, where a young man, Ayub Masih, had been convicted and sentenced to death for blasphemy days earlier. Masih, an illiterate man, had been accused of quoting from Salman Rushdie's controversial book The Satanic Verses in an argument with a Muslim man. In a controversial trial, a judge found him guilty of having insulted Islam's prophet and sentenced him to the mandatory death penalty. Joseph led prayers for Masih and walked protesters to the doors of the court. He then pulled out a pistol and shot himself in the head. The bishop's suicide was a striking protest against Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, initially a holdover from British colonial rule that were strengthened in independent Pakistan due to pressure from the religious right wing. In recent years, record numbers of cases are being filed under the law, which can carry a death sentence, inside or outside the courtroom. Last month, several cases were filed against members of the country's Shia Muslim minority, who form roughly 20 percent of the country’s 207 million population. Currently, there are about 80 convicts on death row or serving life imprisonment terms in Pakistan for committing "blasphemy", according to (PDF) the US Commission for International Religious Freedom. In the last decade, the "offences" committed by those accused of blasphemy have been as absurd as throwing a business card into the rubbish (the man's name was Muhammad), a rural water dispute, spelling errors, the naming of a child, the design of a place of worship, burning a (non-religious) talisman or sharing a picture on Facebook. Increasingly, cases are being settled with violence outside the courtroom, with mob and targeted attacks against those accused. In many cases, families and lawyers of the accused, and even judges who have acquitted defendants, have been targeted. Since 1990, at least 77 people have been killed in connection with such accusations, the latest murder occurring in a courtroom last month. What makes this issue so emotive in Pakistan? 'Religious identity tied to the authority of the state' "There's no simple answer to this question," says Arsalan Khan, an anthropologist who studies Islamic revivalist movements. "In a sense, all religious traditions have deep connections to specific sacred objects and would be hurt by perceived defilement of their religious traditions, but this has certainly taken heightened political significance in Pakistan." Khan argues that the heightened significance of "blasphemy" in Pakistan, as opposed to other Muslim countries (including theocracies such as Saudi Arabia and Iran), is linked to the formation of the country in 1947 as a homeland for South Asia’s Muslims. "Religious identity has been centred as one of the core bases for national belonging in Pakistan," he says. "When] the state has defined Islam as the ultimate source of sovereignty, such battles have taken on deeper political significance." When religious identity and authenticity is tied to the authority of the state, "blasphemy" becomes a site for political contestation. "What is important in Pakistan is the jostling for position as the true, authentic and passionate representatives of Islam, that has given blasphemy accusations its real force in political life," explains Khan. Increasingly, this has seen far-right religious parties rise to prominence campaigning explicitly on the basis of protecting the "honour" and "sanctity" of Islam and its Prophet Muhammad. That rise can be traced to the murder of Salman Taseer, then-governor of Pakistan's most populous Punjab province, in January 2011. Taseer had been campaigning for months to reform the country’s blasphemy laws as he sought justice for a young Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for the crime. Asia Bibi (right), a Pakistani Christian woman, who was acquitted of blasphemy in Pakistan, meets French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France February 28, 2020 [File: Rafael Yaghobzadeh/Pool/Reuters] He was killed by his bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, for his campaign against the controversial law. Qadri was executed five years later for the shocking murder, but he was hailed as a hero, even a saint, by many in Pakistan for his act of killing a perceived blasphemer. Two months after Taseer’s murder, a federal minister was shot dead by the Pakistan Taliban for the same reason. The murders, and subsequent public mobilisation in support of violence in the name of the blasphemy law, gave religious parties that represented the country's majority Sunni Muslim Barelvi sect, long sidelined from political prominence, an opportunity to regain lost political ground, say analysts. "After Taseer's assassination and the lionisation of Mumtaz Qadri, it is clear that Barelvis begin to position themselves as the group that are the true 'ashiq-e-Rasool' [lovers of the Prophet] and assume the position as true representatives of Islam in the public arena through blasphemy," says Khan. Barelvis form roughly half of Pakistan's population, and their beliefs are a synthesis of conservative Islam and South Asian Sufi practices, including the veneration of saints and a particular devotion to the Prophet Muhammad. The Sunni Tehreek (ST) political party, then the largest Barelvi political party, saw its ranks swell. With hardline Barelvi clerics across the country taking up the issue of blasphemy to whip up public outrage, a new political party, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), was formed in the run-up to the 2018 general election. The TLP led large anti-government protests over perceived "blasphemy" in 2017. Though it could not win a seat in the national parliament in the 2018 polls, it did gain the fourth-highest share of the popular vote in that general election. "Electoral success is ultimately a secondary goal for these religious movements," says Khan. "The aim of blasphemy politics is ultimately about defining yourself as the authentic representative of Islam in the public sphere […] which in turn forces the Pakistani state, which defines its own sovereignty in relationship to Islam, to yield to this power." The laws, lawyers and analysts say, are treated by followers of the TLP and others who support them as "sacred", having been laid down by God. But are they? All religious traditions have deep connections to specific sacred objects and would be hurt by perceived defilement of their religious traditions, but this has certainly taken heightened political significance in Pakistan A law inherited from British colonial rulers Pakistan inherited its blasphemy laws from its former British colonial rulers, who in 1860 introduced a set of laws related to religion in order to quell Hindu-Muslim violence in the Indian subcontinent. The laws were strengthened in 1927 with the addition of a vague clause to criminalise "deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious believers", in response to a high-profile case that ultimately ended in the murder of a Hindu man who published a pamphlet deemed "blasphemous" by some Muslims. Between 1860 and 1947, when Pakistan gained independence from the British and broke away from India, there were just seven recorded cases of blasphemy, according to a report by the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS). Use of the law remained rare in the following decades, with just 10 judgments relating to offences against religion reported until 1977, according to a report by the International Commission of Jurists. In 1974, however, then-Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's government oversaw the introduction of a constitutional amendment that declared members of the Ahmadiyya sect "non-Muslim". Between 1980 and 1986, the military government of General Zia-ul-Haq further strengthened the laws, adding five new clauses, all specific to Islam and criminalising offences such as defiling the Holy Quran, insulting Islam’s Prophet or using "derogatory" language against certain religious figures. During Haq's rule, from 1977-1988, the number of cases skyrocketed, with more than 80 blasphemy cases filed in that period, according to the CRSS. That trend continued through the 1990s, in particular after a controversial higher Islamic court decision in 1991 that made the imposition of the death penalty mandatory for the crime of insulting Islam's prophet. Between 2011 and 2015, the latest period for which consolidated data is available, there were more than 1,296 blasphemy cases filed in Pakistan. The laws are now treated as sacred, but experts say there is no clear definition of "blasphemy" in Islamic jurisprudence, nor is there agreement on the punishment for it. Pakistan's blasphemy laws are some of the strictest in the world, harsher and more specific than comparable laws in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, Afghanistan and other countries [File: Arif Ali/AFP] "There are as many definitions and positions on blasphemy as there are Muslim countries and scholars," says Arafat Mazhar, a filmmaker and director of the Engage Pakistan research collective. "Many Muslim countries have laws that deal with religious or sacred figures, or religion as a whole, as opposed to the very specific laws enacted in Pakistan." Pakistan's laws are some of the strictest in the world, harsher and more specific than comparable laws in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, Afghanistan and other countries. Mazhar says other countries' laws appear to be informed by the variance in Islamic scholars' views on the issue. "Scholars consider a range of factors - such as whether the offender is Muslim or non-Muslim, the severity of the insult, whether or not the person is a habitual offender, the mental state of the offender, whether what they said is a part of their faith, intent to insult, whether or not they repent […] - to reach an incredibly wide range of conclusions," he told Al Jazeera. Pakistan's strict interpretation of the issue, he says, "is based on manufactured interpretations". "The legislative process for [a key clause] which made the death penalty mandatory, are full of misleading and edited references to books of Islamic jurisprudence," he says, citing several examples. Since 2011, with the rise of a new wave of Barelvi politicians and clerics campaigning on "blasphemy", experts say there has also been a change in the motive for blasphemy accusations. Previously, lawyers told Al Jazeera, most accusations could be traced to pre-existing disputes between the two parties. These were often personal disputes, arguments or ongoing battles over land ownership. In recent times, however, that has changed. "With the rise of TLP and, in particular, the weaponisation and politicisation of 'ishq-e-Rasool', there is a greater ideological interest in blasphemy cases regardless of personal altercations," says Mazhar. The shift in vested interest, argues Mazhar, has now moved from being personal, between the plaintiff and the accused, to being in the interest of political and religious groups. "The personal vested interest in blasphemy cases has shifted to another form of vested interest: one that is much more organised and has to do with political and social power." In that situation, when such groups repeatedly bring thousands onto the streets over any perceived sign that the laws may be reformed, will it ever be possible for the laws to change? "The assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer in 2011 turned a debate on the blasphemy law into a death sentence," says Cyril Almeida, a senior journalist. "Since then, even the semblance of momentum towards legislative debate has stalled and, more recently, been entirely reversed - far-right religious groups now campaign explicitly on protecting the blasphemy laws from any tampering." Given a vast structure designed to create public pressure on the issue of blasphemy, lower-court conviction rates for blasphemy cases remain high, even in cases where the evidence is flimsy. For Ayub Masih, over whose case Bishop John Joseph took his own life, the pendulum swung towards justice. He was acquitted by the country’s Supreme Court in 2002, after six years in prison. Joseph, who never lived to see that day, wrote a letter to the media on the day of his suicide, the words of which may still echo for those who continue to fight against injustice in the name of blasphemy. "Now we must act strongly and in unity, Christians and Muslims, in order, not only, to get [Masih's] death sentence suspended, but to get [the blasphemy laws] repealed without worrying about the sacrifice we will have to offer. "Dedicated persons do not count the cost." Asad Hashim is Al Jazeera’s digital correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim © 2020 Al Jazeera News

Killings allegedly presented as combat deaths to boost perception of military gains in conflict against FARC rebels. Colombia’s military carried out at least 6,400 extrajudicial killings and presented them as combat deaths between 2002 and 2008, a number that is at least three times higher than previously estimated, a special court has said. The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) court is investigating crimes and atrocities committed during half a century of armed conflict between government troops and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Marxist rebels who laid down their weapons following a historic 2016 peace accord. It has a 10-year mandate. On Thursday, the tribunal, which was set up under the peace deal, described the killings in question as “illegitimate deaths presented as combat fatalities”, also known as “false positives”. Until last year, the public prosecutor’s office had acknowledged only 2,249 executions of civilians between 1988 and 2014 – the majority of which were carried out between 2006 and 2008, during the presidency of Alvaro Uribe, the political mentor of current President Ivan Duque. While the military high command has denied there was a systematic policy of inflating the numbers of killed left-wing rebels with so-called “false positives”, soldiers and officials have told the court that they were put under pressure by superiors to do so to boost the appearance of success of the government’s military campaign. General Mario Montoya, who was the army commander at the time, is the highest-ranking military figure to have testified before the court. Witnesses have blamed him for the killings but Montoya has said he did not take part in ordering the execution of civilians. Montoya’s lawyer, Andres Garzon, denied to the AFP news agency in 2020 that there was a wider military policy to inflate the numbers with extrajudicial killings, arguing that only 2,140 military personnel were currently under investigation, less than one percent of the total number of troops operating at that time. “That shows there was never a directive to the army to commit such atrocious acts,” he said. ‘Complicity’ by authorities The JEP is looking into the worst rights abuses committed by both FARC rebels and state actors during the conflict. Those who confess to being responsible and compensate the victims can avoid prison time, but those who do not face up to 20 years in jail. The court, which was set up in 2018, has yet to convict anyone. The JEP said the IV Brigade of the army, which operated in the region, “could be responsible for 73 percent of the deaths identified in the department between 2000 and 2013”. The investigation found most of the killings took place in the northwestern Antioquia department where soldiers and right-wing paramilitaries fought with left-wing rebels. Some remains of victims have been found in a cemetery in Antioquia thanks to statements made by members of the security forces but the court said those “haven’t been investigated”. According to Tania Parra, a lawyer representing soldiers who have confessed, Thursday’s report shows there was “complicity” by authorities “to hide” the murders. But she told AFP that while many investigations are opened, “either there’s no result or … they’re cleared”. At least 20 of the 219 security forces personnel who have testified before the court are receiving protection after facing threats. FARC accepts charge Also on Thursday, former FARC commanders accepted a separate JEP charge that they had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the conflict. The January ruling had been the first time the JEP had attributed criminal responsibility for hostage-taking to former leaders. The former commanders were also accused of other war crimes connected with the treatment of kidnap victims, including murder and torture, among others. By accepting the accusations, the former commanders could face restrictions on their freedoms for five to eight years. If they had rejected them, the commanders would have faced up to 20 years in prison, per the terms of the peace deal. © Al Jazeera 2021

Former President Alberto Fujimori released from Peru prison after 16 years Divisive former president who ruled from 1990-2000 and is now 85, freed from jail on humanitarian grounds. Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori waves as he leaves prison with his son and daughter [Renato Pajuelo/AFP] 7 Dec 2023 Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, who was serving a 25-year prison term for human rights abuses during his decade-long rule in the 1990s, has been freed after the country’s highest court restored a contentious 2017 pardon. Fujimori, 85, was released from Lima’s Barbadillo prison on Wednesday, a day after the court ruled to restore the pardon on humanitarian grounds, despite criticisms from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Inter-American Court) and victims’ families. Fujimori had been in prison for 16 years after being extradited from Chile in 2007. Crowds of supporters gathered outside the jail, as Fujimori was greeted by his two children – Keiko, a three-time failed presidential hopeful, and Kenji, a businessman – before being driven away in a grey truck. “It was time for this injustice against Fujimori to end, thanks to him, our country is on its feet,” said Catalina Ponce, a Fujimori supporter waiting outside the prison, earlier in the day. Fujimori, who is of Japanese heritage and led the country from 1990 to 2000, has divided Peruvians like few other former leaders. Supporters believe he saved Peru from the Shining Path armed group and economic collapse. Critics, however, say he abused democracy and committed atrocities during his government’s battle against the Shining Path. The former president was convicted in 2009 of ordering the killing of 25 people in 1991 and 1992, but was given a pardon in December 2017 by former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. The pardon had been repeatedly annulled or suspended by lower courts after pressure from the Inter-American Court and victims’ families, until this week’s constitutional court ruling. Shortly after the order, the president of the Inter-American Court asked Peru to stop the pardon until it had “all the necessary elements” to analyse whether conditions were met. Fujimori was impeached in November 2000 on grounds of “moral incapacity” and also accused of corruption, a day after he had fled to Japan, where his parents were from, and resigned by fax. He later went to Chile, from where he was eventually extradited. These days, he suffers recurrent respiratory, neurological and hypertension problems and has had tongue cancer. Tuesday’s ruling to reinstate the pardon cannot be appealed, but Fujimori also faces other legal woes. He has pleaded guilty to bribing lawmakers and spying on rivals while in power, and was also investigated over the forced sterilisation of hundreds of thousands of poor, mostly Indigenous women during his final four years in power. An estimated 270,000 Peruvians, many of them Indigenous people who did not speak Spanish, underwent surgery to have their fallopian tubes tied as part of a family planning programme implemented under Fujimori. In 2021, a judge ruled that Fujimori could not, at the time, be prosecuted in the case for technical legal reasons. © 2023 Al Jazeera Media Network

Hundreds of people have been killed and some 25,000 have fled to Sudan since the start of the government’s military operation against Tigray’s rulers almost two weeks ago. Ethiopian fighter jets have bombed the capital of the restive Tigray state, several sources have said, as the federal government resisted international pressure for mediation in the conflict with forces loyal to the regional governing party. Ann Encontre, the representative of the United Nations refugee agency in Ethiopia, said colleagues in the city of Mekelle, on Monday, reported witnessing “an airstrike, not far from them”. “We don’t know the target and who was targeted,” she told Al Jazeera from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. “We have intermitted communication with colleagues when we do get access to the internet, but still we know that everybody was deadly afraid and civilians started moving right away.” The Ethiopian air force dropped bombs in and around Mekelle, according to four diplomatic and military sources cited by Reuters News Agency. There was no information on casualties or damage and there was no immediate comment from the Ethiopian government. Debretsion Gebremichael, leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), said at least two civilians had been killed and several wounded. He said in a text message to Reuters that while Mekelle had been bombed, the town of Alamata in southern Tigray had been hit by a drone attack. Ethiopia’s task force said earlier that federal troops had “liberated” Alamata, about 120km (75 miles) from Mekelle. There was no immediate comment from Tigray’s leaders about Alamata. With internet and telephone communications mainly down and media barred from reporting from the northern region, it is not possible to independently verify assertions made by all sides. “The conflict remains very active,” Encontre said, describing a “very dismal situation”. “People are moving constantly.” Some 25,000 refugees have fled to neighboring Sudan and hundreds of people have been reported dead since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered air raids and a ground offensive on November 4 against Tigray’s local rulers for defying his authority. Both sides have been accused of committing atrocities against civilians. Abiy, 44, has so far resisted pressure for talks to end a conflict that has threatened to destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region. “We are saying ‘Give us time’. It’s not going to take until eternity … it will be a short-lived operation,” Redwan Hussein, spokesman for the government’s Tigray crisis task force, told reporters on Monday. “We have never asked Uganda or any other country to mediate,” Redwan added after Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni met Demeke Mekonnen, Ethiopia’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, Ethiopia’s foreign minister and appealed for negotiations. Museveni, in a tweet that was later deleted, said about his meeting with Demeke, “There should be negotiations and the conflict stopped, lest it leads to unnecessary loss of lives and cripples the economy.” Demeke went on to Kenya afterward. Officials in Kenya and Djibouti urged a peaceful resolution and the opening of humanitarian corridors, while Nigeria’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo went to Ethiopia. European nations were also reportedly weighing in, with Norway planning to send a special envoy. “The terrain in Tigray favors the defenders who are very heavily armed and equipped; they have fought for decades in those mountains before and the longer this goes on, more grievances will be accumulated and the harder this conflict will be to resolve,” Matt Bryden, strategic adviser at the Sahan Research think-tank, told Al Jazeera. One diplomat said Ethiopia’s army was reporting it had retaken 60 percent of Tigray and was planning a multipronged offensive on Mekelle, aiming to reach it in three days. The Ethiopian National Defence Force has approximately 140,000 personnel and plenty of experience from fighting Somali fighters, rebels in border regions and Eritrea. But many senior officers were Tigrayan and much of its most powerful weaponry is in the region. The TPLF itself has a formidable history, spearheading the rebel march to Addis Ababa that deposed a Marxist dictatorship in 1991 and bearing the brunt of the 1998-2000 war with Eritrea that killed tens of thousands. The battle-hardened TPLF, which governs the region of five million people, said it had fired rockets into Eritrea at the weekend. Tigray leaders have accused Eritrea of sending tanks and soldiers across the border against them, an assertion denied by Ethiopia and Eritrea. Abiy and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerk agreed in 2018 to end decades of hostilities, a deal that resulted in the Ethiopian prime minister winning a Nobel Peace Prize last year. However, there is still a deep-seated animosity between Isaias government and the battle-hardened TPLF about the devastating 1998-2000 border conflict. Debretsion urged the United Nations and African Union to condemn Ethiopia’s federal troops, accusing them of using high-tech weaponry including drones in attacks he said destroyed a dam and a sugar factory. “Abiy Ahmed is waging this war on the people of Tigray and is responsible for the purposeful infliction of human suffering,” he said. The government has denied targeting the dam or civilian areas but has not commented on the sugar factory. Tigray leaders have accused Abiy, from the largest Oromo ethnic group, of persecuting them and purging them from government and security forces during the last two years. He said they rose up against him by attacking a military base and said the military operation is aimed at restoring order and “upholding the rule of law”. Amnesty International has denounced the killing of dozens and possibly hundreds of civilian laborers in a massacre that both sides have blamed on one another. Access the full article and videos here. Al Jazeera © 2020

Rescued women told police the owner hired men to impregnate them and then sell the newborns for profit. Police in Nigeria have rescued 10 people, including four children, four pregnant women, and two other women from an illegal maternity home, a spokesman said on Wednesday. The operation was carried out at the so-called “baby factory” in the Mowe area of the southwestern Ogun state on Tuesday. “Acting on a tip-off, our men stormed the illegal maternity home and rescued 10 people, including four kids and six women, four of whom are pregnant,” police spokesman Abimbola Oyeyemi told AFP news agency. He said the women told police that the owner hired men to impregnate them and then sell the newborns for profit. The “factories” are usually small illegal facilities parading as private medical clinics that house pregnant women and offer their babies for sale. In some cases, young women have been held against their will and raped before their babies are sold on the black market. Oyeyemi said two suspects, a physically-challenged man and the daughter of the owner of the clinic, were arrested. “The operator of the center is on the run but we are intensifying efforts to arrest her and bring her to justice,” he said. Oyeyemi said the operator had been previously arrested for the same offense. “She had been standing trial for human trafficking after her arrest early this year but she was on bail when she went back to her usual business.” Police raids on illegal maternity units are relatively common in Nigeria, especially in the south. See the full story here. Al Jazeera © 2020