Mark Lowcock, in reported briefing to Security Council, calls for scaling up of assistance in next two months to prevent famine. The United Nations’ top humanitarian official has warned that urgent measures are needed to avoid famine in Ethiopia’s embattled region of Tigray, in a Security Council briefing seen by the AFP news agency. “There is a serious risk of famine if assistance is not scaled up in the next two months,” wrote Mark Lowcock, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, AFP reported on Wednesday. Now in its seventh month, the conflict in Tigray is estimated to have killed thousands of people and left some five million in need of aid. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a ground and air military operation in Tigray in early November 2020 after accusing the northern region’s then-ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), of orchestrating attacks on federal army camps. The TPLF, which dominated national politics for decades until Abiy came to power in 2018, said federal forces and its longtime foe Eritrea launched a “coordinated attack” against it. Abiy, the winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, declared victory in late November after the army entered the regional capital, Mekelle. Fighting and abuses, however, have continued, prompting fears of a protracted conflict with devastating effects on the civilian population. Meanwhile, aid groups have repeatedly called for full humanitarian access to the region of six million people where the spectre of famine has been hovering for several months. “Concrete measures are urgently needed to break the vicious cycle between armed conflict, violence and food insecurity,” Lowcock said in his two-and-a-half page note, according to AFP’s report. “I urge members of the Security Council and other Member States to take any steps possible to prevent a famine from occurring,” he said. “Today, at least 20 percent of the population in that area face emergency food insecurity,” he continued, adding that “destruction and violence against civilians continue even now across Tigray.” “In the six and a half months since the start of the conflict in Tigray in early November 2020 an estimated two million people have been displaced. Civilians are being killed and injured,” he said. “Rape and other forms of abhorrent sexual violence are widespread and systematic. Public and private infrastructure and objects indispensable to the survival of civilians have been destroyed, including hospitals and agricultural land,” Lowcock warned. The UN official estimated that “over 90 percent of the harvest was lost due to looting, burning, or other destruction, and that 80 percent of the livestock in the region were looted or slaughtered”. Lowcock also wrote that “despite improvements in March and the cooperation of authorities at the local level, humanitarian access, on the whole, has recently deteriorated”, He added: “Humanitarian operations are being attacked, obstructed or delayed in delivering life-saving assistance. Eight aid workers have been killed in Tigray in the last six months.” In a series of Twitter posts Tuesday night, the Ethiopian foreign ministry blamed the TPLF in part for aid disruptions. “Remnants” of the group have “killed humanitarian workers, truck drivers & looted food & non-food items that were about to be delivered to the people who need support,” it said. The ministry also said the government had covered the bulk of food assistance delivery “but it still is a subject of attack by some corners who have been reluctant to deliver concrete support.” In December, the Ethiopian government had promised “unfettered humanitarian access” but large parts of Tigray, particularly rural areas, are still largely cut off due to active hostilities, according to an update (PDF) earlier this month by the UN’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Parts of central, south and southeastern Tigray have been blocked by parties to the conflict since early March, OCHA said, warning that the scale of food insecurity in the region remained “large and dire”. In a report (PDF) published last month, the World Peace Foundation, a research organisation based at Tufts University, warned of the looming threat of mass starvation and famine in Tigray and accused Ethiopian and Eritrean troops of “systematically” dismantling the region’s economy and food system. Ethiopia’s embassy in London said in a statement it “rejects, in the strongest terms, the unsubstantiated accusations by the World Peace Foundation that the Government of Ethiopia is ‘starving the people of Tigray’ and using ‘starvation as a weapon of war’.” “The Government has, thus far, taken concrete steps to comprehensively respond to the humanitarian needs on the ground by delivering life-saving food supplies to more than 4.2 million citizens in Tigray, in coordination with local and international partners,” the embassy said. Eritrea has also rejected allegations of “the use of sexual violence and hunger as a weapon”, as well as of aid obstruction in a region where it says some 1.6 million people have depended since 2009 on humanitarian assistance. In a letter last month to the Security Council, Sophia Tesfamariam, Eritrea’s ambassador to the UN, also said: “The allegations of rape and other crimes lodged against Eritrean soldiers are not just outrageous, but also a vicious attack on the culture and history of our people.” © Al Jazeera, 2021

Almost five times as many people have been newly displaced in Sudan’s strife-torn region in the first months of this year compared with the whole of 2020. A July 30, 2020 shows residents displaced from violent attacks in squat on blankets and in hastily made tents in the village of Masteri in West Darfur, Sudan [File: Mustafa Younes/AP Photo] By Zeinab Mohammed Salih Khartoum, Sudan – For nearly two months now, Mariam Hussain has taken shelter at a university building in El Geneina, the capital of Sudan’s West Darfur state. The mother of eight, along with thousands of other already internally displaced people (IDP), fled there after armed militiamen on April 4 stormed Abu-Zar camp and burned it down amid a resurgence of violence between members of the region’s Masalit and Arab communities. “You only carry your children and the most important papers and run,” said the 56-year-old, who has already been displaced twice since the beginning of the war in Darfur nearly 20 years ago. Witnesses accused militias affiliated with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – a paramilitary unit established from the remnants of the former “Janjaweed” militia which is blamed for past atrocities – of attacking the site that hosted some 14,000 people. The flare-up grew out of a shooting that killed two people from the Masalit community, according to the United Nations humanitarian affairs agency, with both sides then mobilising armed men. “Because of a problem between some people, militiamen attacked so many neighbourhoods in Hai al-Jabal first, killing and burning, till they entered Abu-Zar camp,” Hussain told Al Jazeera on the phone. “They came on nine vehicles with their DShK [Russian anti-aircraft weapon] to burn our camp, so we ran away,” she said. “How can we stay in the fire and burning?” The latest bout of fighting killed at least 130 people and prompted Sudan’s government to declare a state of emergency in the region. It came on the back of waves of violence in and around El Geneina, as well as other parts of Darfur and South Kordofan causing hundreds of deaths. The escalation also forced the UN to suspend all humanitarian activities in El Geneina, an aid-delivery hub, in a decision affecting more than 700,000 people. Many of the city’s government buildings have now been turned to makeshift hosting sites for IDP fleeing militia attacks on their camps. According to the UN, in the first four months of this year, some 237,000 people have been newly displaced, almost five times as many people for the whole of 2020. This coincides with the withdrawal since the start of the year of joint UN-African Union peacekeeping forces (UNAMID), set up in 2007 to protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian aid. The pulling out followed the signing of an ambitious peace deal in October last year between some rebel groups and Sudan’s transitional government in Juba, the capital of neighbouring South Sudan. The groups that signed the landmark agreement, most of whom hail from the Zaghawa community in north Darfur, included the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army-Minni Minawi (SLA-MM). JEM’s Gebril Ibrahim has since become Sudan’s finance minister, while SLA-MM’s Mini Minawi has been appointed governor of Darfur. But an SLA faction led by Abdelwahid Mohamed al-Nour, which draws support from the Fur tribe, did not sign the deal. Meanwhile, there have been complaints over the implementation of the Juba deal, which sets out terms to integrate rebels into the security forces, be politically represented and have economic and land rights, by some of the signatories. © Copyright 2021 Al Jazeera

As police probe Siddique Kappan’s alleged link with controversial Muslim group, family and colleagues say arrest part of a larger media crackdown. A poster at Kappan's village Poocholamadu in Kerala's Malappuram district, demanding his release [Shaheen Abdulla/Al Jazeera] By Furquan Ameen 2 Mar 2021 New Delhi, India – This week, a Muslim journalist in India will complete 150 days in jail after he was arrested on his way to report on the death of a Dalit teenager days after she was gang-raped. Siddique Kappan, 41, was arrested in October while attempting to reach Hathras, a small town in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, about 200km (124 miles) from the capital New Delhi. On September 14, a 19-year-old Dalit young woman had been gang-raped in a field by four men belonging to the Thakur community, an influential caste among Hindus. The young woman suffered serious injuries to her spinal cord due to the assault and died two weeks later at a hospital in New Delhi, triggering nationwide outrage and protests. Dalits, the former “untouchables” who fall at the lowest rung of the complex Hindu caste hierarchy, have been subjected to systemic discrimination and violence for centuries. To make the matters worse, authorities in Hathras secretly cremated the young woman’s body at approximately 2:30am on September 30, without the consent of her family, who alleged they were locked up in their house by the police during the cremation. The forced, secret cremation of the victim intensified protests against the gang rape, with many reporters rushing to Hathras to cover the suspicious developments. Kappan, who was a regular contributor to the Malayalam language news website Azhimukham, was one of them. On October 5, he was picked by Uttar Pradesh police while he was travelling with three other men in a car to Hathras. Alleged PFI links Police first accused Kappan of intending to start a caste-based riot and creating communal disharmony. Later, sedition charges and provisions under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) were added. Four months later, India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED), which probes financial crimes, also added money laundering charges against him. Speaking to Al Jazeera, a senior Uttar Pradesh police officer, who initially was in charge of the case, denied knowing Kappan was a journalist when he was arrested. “It wasn’t clear initially. He didn’t say it and he had no identification card on him,” said Additional Superintendent of Police Shrish Chandra. “Otherwise, why would we stop [Kappan] when every other press reporter was going there?” Chandra said the police found the four people in the car “lying about a few things” and that they found some “PFI-related writings and documents” in the vehicle. PFI, which stands for the Popular Front of India, is a Muslim organisation often accused by the Indian authorities of links with “terrorist” outfits, kidnappings, murder and violence. The group has denied the allegations and says it works to fight against the “unequal treatment” of India’s Muslims. Police said two of the three men arrested with Kappan were members of the Campus Front of India, the PFI’s student body. During a hearing in India’s Supreme Court on a petition filed by the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) challenging Kappan’s arrest, police said he was an “office secretary” of the PFI and only used journalism as a facade. The KUWJ, which elected Kappan as the secretary of their New Delhi chapter in 2019, also rejected the police’s claim that he was not carrying a press card when he was arrested. ‘False and frivolous statements’ Kappan’s lawyer Wills Mathews told Al Jazeera the case against his client is littered with inconsistencies and that the police made “false and frivolous statements” in the court. Mathews said police had no evidence to back their claim that Kappan was a PFI “office secretary”. “Prima facie, there is nothing against him. It was subsequently developed into a larger issue after the arrest. Why were additional FIRs with serious offences added later?” he asked, referring to the First Information Report filed by the police following a complaint. According to the documents submitted in court, Kappan was initially charged with bailable offences, but more serious charges were added later to keep him in custody. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court allowed him a five-day interim bail to visit his ailing mother in Kerala state’s Malappuram district with a rider: that he would not talk to the media. Siddique Kappan’s wife Raihanath Kappan with their three children [Shaheen Abdulla/Al Jazeera] Kappan’s wife Raihanath Kappan told Al Jazeera her husband was targeted for his Muslim and Malayali identity. She also alleged he was tortured by the police during the interrogation. “He was asked if he consumed beef and how many times had he seen Dr Zakir Naik,” she said, referring to the controversial Muslim preacher who faces hate speech and money laundering charges and is currently living in Malaysia to avoid arrest in India. “He was also asked why Muslims showed sympathies with the Dalits,” Raihanath added. She said the police gave Kappan the option to name two Communist Party of India-Marxist parliamentarians to secure his release. She said he was also asked about “his links with Rahul Gandhi” – the opposition Congress party leader Raihanath had met for support. Officer Chandra, however, rejected the allegations of torture. “This is false because there was a medical [test] done immediately. There were no injuries. And when they (the four men) were detained, we didn’t even know he (Kappan) was from Kerala,” Chandra told Al Jazeera. Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, is governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Headed by Yogi Adityanath, a hardline saffron-clad Hindu monk, the state government has been accused by rights groups and activists of targeting the Muslim minority. After nationwide protests against India’s controversial citizenship law erupted in 2019, PFI was accused of organising and instigating demonstrations that led to a brutal police crackdown in many places, especially in Uttar Pradesh. Last year, the Uttar Pradesh government wrote to the federal home ministry, seeking a ban on the organisation. “UP police said PFI was the mastermind behind the protests. They even arrested members of our ad hoc committee and brought them before the media with masks and called them the mastermind. But they could not prove anything in court,” PFI General Secretary Anis Ahmed told Al Jazeera. Despite the allegations and continuing investigations, the organisation remains a legal entity in most Indian states. Siddique Kappan’s brother nursing their 90-year-old mother [Shaheen Abdulla/Al Jazeera] Kappan moved to New Delhi about nine years ago after he was transferred to the city bureau of a newspaper called Thejas, a Kerala-based Malayalam daily that is now an online news portal, also known as a PFI mouthpiece. Kappan lost his job when Thejas shut down its print operations in 2018 and started working with another Malayalam newspaper, Thalsamayam. He was elected New Delhi secretary of KUWJ a year later. But Thalsamayam soon shut down due to financial constraints and he lost his job in November 2019. In January last year, Kappan joined Azhimukham. The allegations of Kappan’s PFI link can be traced back to his association with Thejas. PK Manikandhan, a Malayalam journalist based in New Delhi and former KUWJ secretary, said many journalists work for “mouthpieces” of different parties but do not find themselves targeted. “He (Kappan) even did a story against PFI in Azhimukham, writing about how PFI is a threat to the Muslim community. It means he has no connection with that ideology,” he said. Manikandhan said he and his colleagues saw Kappan as an unbiased reporter whose writings did not reflect any political ideology. Besides KUWJ, the Press Club of India, Kappan’s former editors and managers from Azhimukham and Thalsamayam also submitted letters to the top court attesting to the credibility of his journalism career. Kappan’s lawyer Matthews said the journalist’s job at Thejas was “under no circumstances an illegal act and the organisation itself is a legally registered entity”. “Even if he is going with some Popular Front [of India] people, what is wrong in it? Even if it was a planned trip, what is wrong with it?” asked Matthews. “Even if it is a banned organisation, as a journalist, he has the right to travel with them or talk to them.” PFI’s Anis Ahmed also denied claims that Kappan was a member of the Muslim group. “What they wanted was to divert the public attention [from the Hathras gang-rape case] and, in those four people, they got a scapegoat,” Ahmed said. India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has witnessed a decline in press freedom as legal cases and police intimidation against journalists are on a rise. The country ranked 142nd in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index – down from 136th in 2015 and 133rd in 2016. In January, sedition cases were filed against several journalists and publishers in five states, all ruled by the BJP, for their allegedly “misleading” social media posts on the months-long farmer protests. Among them was Mandeep Punia, who was arrested in New Delhi for his report exposing the alleged links between the BJP and rioters targeting the protesting farmers. “The most difficult thing is to report from ground zero and power has made it a challenging task in India today,” Punia told reporters after his release last month. “Just like me, Siddique Kappan should also be released who is also a journalist and all those who are facing state repression.” Shaheen Abdulla contributed to this report from the Malappuram district in Kerala, India. See article here. © 2021 Al Jazeera

Dozens are giving their accounts to a people’s tribunal in London, which China has dismissed as a ‘clumsy public opinion show’. A London-based people’s tribunal is investigating whether China’s alleged persecution of its Uighur minority amounts to genocide, with witness testimony detailing mass torture, rape and a range of other abuses. The “Uyghur Tribunal” has no state backing and any judgement would not be binding on any government, but it has drawn a furious response from Beijing, which dismissed the hearings as a “machine producing lies”. The first hearings take place over four days, from Friday to Monday, and are expected to draw dozens of witnesses. A second session is expected in September. The nine United Kingdom-based jurors of the tribunal, including lawyers and human rights experts, intend to publish a report in December on whether China is guilty of genocide. The first witness to testify on Friday, Qelbinur Sidik – an ethnic Uzbek teacher from Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, said she was ordered by the Chinese Communist Party bosses to take Mandarin-language classes in two fetid and crowded “re-education” camps, one male and one female, for Uighurs. The so-called students were made to wear shackles during hours-long classes, she told the tribunal. “Guards in the camp did not treat the prisoners as human beings. They were treated less than dogs,” Sidik said through an interpreter. “They enjoyed watching them being humiliated and their suffering was for them their joy.” Female prisoners were allegedly abused when they were taken for interrogation. “They were not only tortured but also raped, sometimes gang-raped,” Sidik said. “The things that I have witnessed and experienced, I can’t forget.” Sidik said she was also subjected to forced sterilisation. Organisers hope the process of publicly laying out the evidence of alleged state-orchestrated repression against the Uighurs will compel international action against the country’s authorities. According to the United Nations, at least one million Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group, have been detained in the internment camps in China’s northwest Xinjiang province, which borders eight countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. ‘I want my son to be freed’ The tribunal is chaired by prominent human rights lawyer Geoffrey Nice, who led the prosecution of ex-Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and has worked on several cases brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was set up at the request of the World Uyghur Congress, an international organisation of exiled Uighurs. The tribunal’s organisers said Chinese authorities had ignored requests to participate in the hearings. But counsel for the tribunal said the United States and Australia had offered to provide relevant material, to add to thousands of pages of documentary evidence already compiled. Critics, including the UK and the US, say Uighurs have been subjected to human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, forced labour, torture, forced sterilisation and family separation. Before giving testimony to the tribunal via video link, three Uighurs who fled from China to Turkey described their experiences. One, named Rozi, said she was forced into an abortion when six and a half months pregnant. Her youngest son was detained in 2015, when he was just 13, and she hopes the tribunal’s work will help lead to his freedom. “I want my son to be freed as soon as possible,” she said. “I want to see him be set free.” Another, a former doctor, spoke of draconian birth control policies. And a third, a former detainee, alleged he was “tortured day and night” by Chinese soldiers while imprisoned in the remote border region. Beijing denounces hearings China denies the allegations of abuse and claims the camps are “re-education” centres. Officials insist that mass “education and training” is necessary in Xinjiang to fight what they call the “three evil forces of extremism, separatism and terrorism”, and boost economic development there. In March, the tribunal was among four UK entities and nine individuals sanctioned by Beijing for raising concerns about the treatment of the Uighurs. China has also publicly condemned the tribunal. “It is not even a real tribunal or special court, but only a special machine producing lies,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said last week. “It was founded by people with ulterior motives and carries no weight or authority. It is just a clumsy public opinion show under the guise of law.” © Al Jazeera and News Agencies, 2021

UNRWA representatives say Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood are refugees who have the right to their support. United Nations representatives have denounced the potential forced expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood as a “violation of international law”. Speaking from Sheikh Jarrah on Wednesday, UNRWA commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini said: “This eviction violates international law and Israel’s obligation as an occupying power. For UNRWA, these Palestinian refugees are experiencing a second displacement in living memory.” He said as head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees it is his job “to protect and assist Palestinian refugees”. “I have made it our priority to help prevent another cycle of trauma and loss,” Lazzarini added. Forced dispossession Sheikh Jarrah has been the site of continuing demonstrations as dozens of Palestinians living there face forced expulsion in a case filed against them by Jewish settler organisations. Mass protests against their forced dispossession in May quickly spread across historic Palestine and caught the attention of the international media. An Israeli crackdown on protesters spread to Al-Aqsa Mosque, where Israeli security forces stormed the compound numerous times during the holy month of Ramadan, wounding hundreds of Muslim worshippers. On May 9, under pressure, the Israeli high court delayed the ruling on the expulsion of four Palestinian families. A new court date will be announced in 30 days, it said. Situation ‘surreal’ “It is very difficult to explain how the lives of these eight families risk being turned upside down for the second time within nearly three generations of being Palestinian refugees,” said Lazzarini. “I saw one home which Israeli settlers have already taken over half of the house. The house is actually divided in two – a Palestinian family and a settler family. It is surreal.” He said the UNRWA continues to call on Israeli authorities to “end this displacement” and “protect the rights and dignity” of Palestinians in the occupied territories, including in Sheikh Jarrah. Mounting pressure Reporting from West Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett said “there has been massing international pressure on this issue”. “Israel’s foreign minister was at the beginning of May talking about this as a private land dispute. That is not the story as far as the international community and law and the Palestinians are concerned. This is occupied territory beholden to international law, and Israel has a responsibility towards the Palestinian families there. “Israel is coming under mounting pressure. There is now a political element as far as Israel is concerned,” said Fawcett, adding Israel’s attorney general has until June 8 to give his legal opinion on the matter. Palestinian refugees Also speaking from Sheikh Jarrah, Gwyn Lewis, director of UNRWA affairs in the occupied West Bank, said the Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah have the right to support from UNRWA. “The families never, ever lost their Palestine refugee status,” said Lewis. “They are recognised as Palestinian refugees, are registered with UNRWA as Palestine refugees, and have the right to receive support from UNRWA like other Palestine refugees.” A heavy presence of police and paramilitary forces has blocked access to Sheikh Jarrah since May 14, according to Palestinian activists. The closure has intensified with the entry of supporters of Palestinian residents banned because of “the so-called risk of clashes”, but these restrictions are not imposed on supporters of Jewish settlers living there, Israeli NGO Ir Amim told Al Jazeera last month. Meanwhile, Palestinian families are living inside “a cordoned-off military-like zone”. “They are subject to ongoing arbitrary harassment and aggressive police measures,” marked by forced entry into homes and the use of stun grenades, skunk water, and rubber-tipped bullets against neighbourhood residents, said the NGO. Access the full article and videos here. Al Jazeera Media Network © 2021

After suspending executions due to a botched lethal injection in 2014, Arizona now has 115 inmates awaiting execution. The state of Arizona has refurbished its gas chamber and purchased chemical supplies to kill inmates using hydrogen cyanide, the same gas used by Nazi Germany to kill millions during the Holocaust. Documents obtained by The Guardian show that Arizona’s Corrections Department hired contractors to replace windows and rubber gaskets in its gas chamber, last used 22 years ago. State records reported by The Guardian show the Arizona prison system tested the operation of the gas chamber and officials produced detailed procedures for its use, prompting an outcry from opponents of the death penalty. A petition circulated on May 31 by opponents of the death penalty called on Arizona Governor Doug Ducey to reject use of the gas chamber and to halt all executions. “You have to wonder what Arizona was thinking in believing that in 2021 it is acceptable to execute people in a gas chamber with cyanide gas,” Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told The Guardian. “Did they have anybody study the history of the Holocaust?” Dunham questioned. Arizona is one of 27 US states that continues to impose the death penalty for crimes such as murder. It currently has 115 prisoners awaiting execution death row after it had suspended executions due to the botched death by lethal injection of a prisoner in 2014. Executions in Arizona were carried out by hanging until 1934 when the state first began using the gas chamber. In a statement to The Washington Post, Arizona officials said the state corrections department was “prepared to perform its legal obligation and commence the execution process as part of the legally imposed sentence, regardless of method selected”. Arizona state law allows convicts sentenced to death to choose between the gas chamber or lethal injection. Arizona had spent $1.5m last year to obtain a supply of the drug pentobarbital for use in executions by lethal injection, according to The Guardian. Former President Donald Trump had revived federal executions after a 17-year hiatus and allowed states to consider firing squads and gas chambers in addition to lethal injection. There has been a limited supply of lethal drugs amid a re-evaluation by many states of the death penalty. In March, Virginia became the first US state in the South to abolish the death penalty. Critics say the use of lethal gas, and hydrogen cyanide in particular, has caused excessively painful deaths for prisoners. “It’s without question that lethal gas, or as least the lethal gas that Arizona is trying to bring back, is the most gruesome of all these methods we’ve had in this country,” Fordham University law professor Deborah Denno told The Washington Post. The Arizona documents were obtained by The Guardian through a public records request. © Al Jazeera and News Agencies, 2021

Published 5 June 2021 National police chief Guillermo Eleazar says more than 600 officers would be using body-worn cameras to combat rights abuses of suspects. The shooting of Lilibeth Valdez on Monday was recorded on a mobile phone and shared on social media sparking widespread condemnation [Eloisa Lopez/Reuters] Hundreds of police in the Philippines will start wearing body cameras during operations, its police chief has announced, heeding demands from human rights groups for accountability after thousands of killings and allegations of cover-ups. The announcement came after public outrage about another fatal shooting on Monday of a woman by an off-duty policeman, which led to condemnation from activists who say police brutality has become systematic under President Rodrigo Duterte and his bloody war on drugs. The killing of Lilibeth Valdez, 52, was recorded on a mobile phone and shared on social media sparking widespread condemnation. Policeman Hensie Zinampan was seen in the video pulling Valdez’s hair before he shot her in the neck. Administrative and criminal charges have been filed against him. The Commission on Human Rights said it was investigating the killing. “After a string of recent deaths and killings being attributed to police officers, we urge the PNP to translate commitments of internal cleansing into actual reduction of cases of human rights violations on the ground. One death is one too many,” the agency said following the killing. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the latest shooting “was disturbingly reminiscent” of a December 2020 killing of a mother and her son by a police officer in the province of Tarlac. “The case shows that police accountability may only be possible if the crime is caught on camera,” said Carlos Conde, HRW Asia Division senior researcher. “These incidents underscore the need for police to wear body cameras with appropriate protocols during operations. While cameras alone won’t stop police abuses, they bring a measure of transparency during police operations. Lilibeth Valdez, the 52-year old woman who was shot dead by an off-duty police officer was laid to rest in an apartment-style grave in Metro Manila on Friday [Eloisa Lopez/Reuters] ‘Staging crime scenes’ Valdez was laid to rest at a ceremony on Friday. Philippine police have been accused of executing suspects then staging crime scenes and fabricating reports, emboldened by what activists say is a culture of impunity under Duterte. Police and government reject those claims. Police chief Guillermo Eleazar said to combat police abuses and erase doubts about the legitimacy of operations, more than 600 officers would be using body-worn cameras on Friday. In a statement, Eleazar also said the cameras were a tribute “to the policemen whose ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty were tainted by claims of extra-judicial killings, planting of evidence and other unfair allegations”. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Officials say military forces were deployed to resolve the conflict between Fallata and Taisha tribes. Darfur was the site of a bitter 2003 conflict pitting African ethnic minority rebels and Arab nomads backed by the Khartoum government [File: Abd Raouf/AP] At least 36 people have been killed and dozens wounded after clashes between Arab and non-Arab tribes in South Darfur over the weekend. The fighting broke out on Saturday between the Arab Taisha and ethnic African Fallata tribes in the remote Um Dafuq area of South Darfur, witnesses said. Official news agency SUNA said calm was restored by Monday. “Military forces were deployed to the areas of clashes to resolve the conflict between Fallata and Taisha tribes which left 36 killed and 32 wounded,” SUNA reported late on Sunday quoting South Darfur officials. It was not immediately clear what triggered the clashes but similar fighting often erupts in the Darfur region over land and access to water. Um Dafuq resident Eissa Omar told AFP news agency “we heard the sound of heavy weapons throughout the fighting” which broke out Saturday and continued on Sunday. The vast Darfur region, located in western Sudan, has been the scene of similar bouts of violence in recent months. In April, at least 132 people were killed in West Darfur fighting between members of the Massalit tribe and Arab communities, forcing authorities to impose a state of emergency. In January, renewed clashes between Arab and non-Arab tribes in the West and South Darfur regions killed more than 250 people. The violence came as Sudan navigates a rocky transition following the toppling of longtime president Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, after mass protests against his rule. The transitional government installed after Bashir’s removal has been pushing to end long-running conflicts including in Darfur. It signed a landmark peace agreement with multiple key rebel groups in October, and it is currently in talks to forge peace with the remaining two holdout groups. The recent violence in Darfur appeared not to involve any signatories to the October peace deal. On December 31, a hybrid United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission ended its operations in Darfur. Darfur was the site of a bitter 2003 conflict pitting African ethnic minority rebels against Arab nomads backed by the Khartoum government under Bashir. The deadly conflict – which killed some 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million – subsided over the years but inter-ethnic clashes still occasionally erupt. © Copyright 2021 Al Jazeera

UN says people fleeing military’s ‘brutal, indiscriminate attacks’ in eastern Kayah are in dire need of food and water. UN says crisis in eastern Kayah State could push people across international borders seeking safety [AFP] A United Nations rights expert has warned of “mass deaths from starvation, disease and exposure” in eastern Myanmar after “brutal, indiscriminate attacks” by the military forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in Kayah State. In a statement on Wednesday, Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur for Myanmar, called for urgent international action, saying attacks by the military – which took power after a February coup – were “threatening the lives of many thousands of men, women and children” in Kayah or Karenni state. “Let me blunt,” Andrews said. “Mass deaths from starvation, disease, and exposure, on a scale we have not yet seen since the February 1 coup, could occur in Kayah State absent immediate action.” The plea came hours after the UN office in Myanmar said the violence in Kayah had displaced an estimated 100,000 people, who were now seeking safety in forests, host communities and southern parts of neighbouring Shan state. Those fleeing and those in locations affected by the bombing and artillery fire were in dire need of food, water, shelter, fuel and access to healthcare, the UN office said in a statement. “This crisis could push people across international borders seeking safety,” it warned, calling for all parties to “take the necessary measures and precautions to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure”. This picture taken on June 1, 2021 shows people taking refuge in a jungle area in Demoso, Kayah state, after they fled from fighting between the Myanmar military and members of the People’s Defence Forces (PDF) [Stringer/ AFP] This picture taken on June 3, 2021 shows people taking refuge in a jungle area in Demoso, Kayah state [Stringer/ AFP] Myanmar has been in chaos since the military takeover, with daily protests across the country and fighting in border areas between the military and armed ethnic minority groups. Human rights groups say security forces have killed at least 849 people since the coup and detained 5,800 others. People living in Kayah told Al Jazeera the military has launched indiscriminate air attacks and shelling in civilian areas after fighting broke out on May 21 between the security forces and a civilian resistance group calling itself the Karenni People’s Defense Force (KPDF). There have been several deaths, including that of a 14-year-old boy who was shot dead in Loikaw township and a young man who was shot in the head with his hands tied behind his back. The military has repeatedly attacked churches in the predominantly Christian area, in one instance killing four people who were among 300 villagers sheltering at a Catholic church in Loikaw. ‘Painfully slow progress’ on ASEAN plan Security forces have also attacked and threatened humanitarian workers, while Andrews said he had received reports that soldiers were “stopping aid from reaching these desperate people” by setting up military blockades and laying landmines on public roads. “Any pressure or leverage UN member states can put on the junta must now be exerted so that junta leader Min Aung Hlaing will immediately: (1): open access roads and allow lifesaving aid to reach those in need, and (2) stop terrorizing the population by ceasing the aerial bombardment, shelling, and shooting of civilians.” Andrews said the military’s attacks against civilians in Kayah was the “latest in a series throughout Myanmar causing massive displacement and humanitarian suffering, including in Mutraw in Karen State, Mindat in Chin State, and Bago City, among other areas”. “Now more than ever, the international community must cut off access to the resources the junta relies on to continue these brutal attacks against the people of Myanmar,” he added. Myanmar’s military has so far ignored international criticism of its violent crackdown and showed little sign of heeding a “Five-Point Consensus” agreed between Min Aung Hlaing and Southeast Asian leaders in April. The agreement – reached at a special summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – called for an end to violence, political talks and the naming of a regional special envoy. On Monday, ASEAN foreign ministers met a Myanmar military envoy in China’s Chongqing and expressed concern over the army’s “painfully slow” progress on implementing the consensus. Wunna Maung Lwin, the military’s foreign minister, however, told the meeting: “The only way to ensure the democratic system that is disciplined and genuine” was through a military drafted five-point programme announced in the wake of February’s coup. That plan has little similarities with the ASEAN consensus, and includes the establishment of a new elections commission – the military has claimed without evidence that the November 2020 election was fraudulent – measures against the COVID-19 pandemic as well as efforts for economic recovery. China, meanwhile, has backed the ASEAN plan. In a statement, the Chinese foreign ministry said Wang met Wunna Maung Lwin and called for the implementation of the “Five-Point Consensus” and an end to “all kinds of violence” in Myanmar. “We encourage all parties in Myanmar to engage in political dialogue within the constitutional and legal framework and restart the process of democratic transformation,” Wang said in the statement. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Fatou Bensouda says preliminary examination found there is a basis to believe ‘the crime against humanity of murder’ was committed in the government’s drug crackdown. Bensouda said the suspected crimes happened 'in the context of the government of Philippines 'war on drugs' campaign' [File: Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters] The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has said she sought authorisation to open a full investigation into drug war killings in the Philippines. According to Philippines government data, from the time President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016 until the end of April this year, security forces killed 6,117 drug dealers in sting operations. Rights groups say authorities have summarily executed drug suspects, but police say drug dealers fought back violently. “I announce that the preliminary examination into the situation in the Republic of the Philippines has concluded and that I have requested judicial authorisation to proceed with an investigation,” prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement on Monday. Bensouda said that a preliminary probe she opened in February 2018 “determined that there is a reasonable basis to believe that the crime against humanity of murder has been committed” in the Philippines between July 1, 2016 and March 16, 2019, the date the Philippines withdrew from the court. The suspected crimes happened “in the context of the government of Philippines ‘war on drugs’ campaign,” she said in a statement. In the request for authorisation for a full investigation, Bensouda said the killings were committed by government security forces and vigilantes, some of whom were actually police officers or private citizens recruited and paid by police. The Philippines government did not immediately comment on the ICC announcement. In an address recorded this week before the news of Bensouda’s request broke, Duterte called on human rights organisations to take a closer look into his war on drugs. “You would notice that there are really persons who die almost daily because they fought back,” he said, warning drug dealers: “Do not destroy the country. I will kill you.” Bensouda, in concluding her preliminary inquiry in December last year, said there was a “reasonable basis to believe that the crimes against humanity of murder, torture (…) and other inhumane acts were committed” between 2016 and 2019. Many people killed in Duterte’s crackdown had been on a drug watch list compiled by authorities or had previously surrendered to police, while a significant number of minors were victims, Bensouda’s office said in a report six months ago. In March 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte announced that the Philippines was withdrawing its ratification of the treaty that created the ICC. The decision came into force a year later. But Bensouda stressed that the court still has jurisdiction over crimes that allegedly happened while the country was still a member of the court. Bensouda, whose nine-year term as the court’s chief prosecutor ends this week, said that information gathered in the preliminary probe “indicates that members of the Philippine National Police, and others acting in concert with them, have unlawfully killed between several thousand and tens of thousands of civilians during that time”. She said prosecutors also reviewed allegations of “torture and other inhumane acts, and related events” dating back to November 1, 2011, “all of which we believe require investigation”. When he announced he was going to withdraw from the court, Duterte defended his drug crackdown, saying in a 15-page statement that it is “lawfully directed against drug lords and pushers who have for many years destroyed the present generation, especially the youth”. Judges at the global court have 120 days to issue a decision on the prosecutor’s request. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Polio workers targeted in three locations in Jalalabad city – the latest in a series of attacks against health workers. A child receives a polio vaccination during an anti-polio campaign on the outskirts of Jalalabad [File: Reuters] Four polio vaccination workers have been killed and three others injured in separate attacks in Afghanistan’s eastern city of Jalalabad, a provincial health department official said, in the latest in a series of attacks against health workers. A wave of assassinations has hit urban centres since peace talks began between the Taliban and the Afghan government last year in Doha, many of them targeting government employees, health workers, media and civil society members. Dr Jan Mohammad, the head of polio immunisation drive in Nangarhar, of which Jalalabad is the main city, on Tuesday said gunmen targeted polio workers in three locations in the city that killed four men and wounded three other people. The polio vaccination campaign in the province was suspended later on Tuesday, said Najibullah Kamawal, operational chief for the eastern provinces. It wasn’t clear when or if it would resume. Gunmen killed three female polio vaccination workers in Jalalabad in March this year, which forced the health workers to suspend their operations and assess security. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only countries in the world where polio remains endemic. Men pray in front of the coffin of one of three female polio vaccination workers who were killed by unknown gunmen at two separate locations in Jalalabad in March this year [File: Reuters] No group claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attacks. The Taliban, which is fighting to overthrow the foreign-backed Afghan government, has denied involvement in previous attacks. The ISIL (ISIS) group has also taken responsibility for several targeted killings that have taken aim at the country’s nascent civil society, as well as journalists and legal professionals. Zia ul Haq Amarkhil, the governor of Nangarhar, said police were investigating the attacks. Many in Afghanistan’s conservative society oppose vaccinations, with fighters frequently attacking health workers claiming they are being used by the West as a cover for spying. The recent increase in violence comes as the US and NATO are completing their military withdrawal from Afghanistan. The estimated 2,500-3,500 US soldiers and 7,000 NATO-allied troops are to be gone by September 11 at the latest, though there are projections they may be gone by mid-July. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

More than 60,000 refugees are stranded across Greece [File: Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters] CHICOS, Greece— A Syrian refugee is in critical condition after what appeared to be a self-immolation attempt on the Greek island of Chios, according to medical sources. The incident happened around 2pm local time (11:00 GMT) on Thursday inside the Vial detention centre. Videos posted on social media showed the 29-year-old man - who was holding what looked like a fuel container and a lighter - being engulfed by flames, just moments after a tussle with a police officer who had grabbed him from behind in an apparent bid to stop him from setting himself on fire. The refugee, who reportedly arrived on Chios last week, sustained burns to 85 percent of his body. He was initially admitted to the island's Skilitseion Hospital and was expected to be air lifted to the capital, Athens, for further treatment. "His condition is particularly serious, and that is why all procedures have been followed to transfer him to Athens with the first available means," Eleni Voutierou, the hospital's acting manager, told Al Jazeera. The police officer was also injured in the incident, suffering burns on seven percent of his hands and three percent of his face. He was also expected to be transported to an Athens hospital. Delays and despair The incident comes three days after the apparent suicide of another Syrian refugee in the Greek port of Piraeus, near Athens. The Greek coastguard on Thursday confirmed to Al Jazeera that the man who had been found hanged on Monday close to a passenger ferry terminal at Greece's biggest port had been identified as a 25-year-old Syrian. An estimated 62,000 refugees and migrants are currently stranded in mainland Greece and its islands following a wave of European border closures and a controversial deal between the European Union and Turkey in March last year. Under the agreement, migrants and refugees arriving in Greece after March 20, 2016, were to be held in centres on five islands, including Chios, and deported to Turkey if their asylum applications are rejected. Since then, tensions across Greece have often boiled over as the relocation process moves slowly, is applied inconsistently, and is fraught with particular difficulties, including refugees having to navigate a complex legal asylum system in foreign languages. Amid the difficult living conditions, the delays and the despair, some attempt to kill themselves and many self-harm, according to rights groups. "Many asylum seekers and migrants stranded in Greece, and trapped on the islands, have seen their mental health deteriorate due to the conditions in which they live in, and the climate of insecurity about what will happen to them in the future," Eva Cosse, Greece specialist at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera. Rights groups are also warning that despite large amounts of funds being made available, refugees are still lacking access to much-needed mental healthcare and psychosocial support. "The authorities should transfer people as fast as possible to decent accommodation on the mainland, and improve provisions for much-needed mental health services and psychosocial support. The European Commission should also ensure that the allocated aid benefits all refugees without discrimination, including people with psychosocial disabilities," Cosse said. Aid agencies and humanitarian workers have long warned of a worrying level of mental health issues, including self harm and depression, among uprooted asylum seekers, particularly in unaccompanied ones, who have risked everything to find a better future. "Many refugees come from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and have survived human rights abuses, torture or witnessed war crimes which can be traumatising," Roland Schoenbauer, spokesman for the United Nations' refugee agency in Greece, told Al Jazeera. "Many, including some of the economic migrants, arrived in Greece with a dream which has been disrupted in the meantime. Long waiting periods for clarity, for reunion with painfully missed relatives in other European countries, or for relocation have made many people desperate, particularly in those government-run camps that could not be brought up to standard." His comments were also echoed by Kuriakos Katsadoros, a psychiatrist with Klimaka, a suicide prevention non-governmental organisation that runs a helpline in Greece. "Under these conditions, tense situations could lead to such unfortunate incidents [including attempted suicides]," said Katsadoros, the scientific director of Klimaka's Greek Suicide Prevention Centre. "And amid such large numbers, there are people who are vulnerable and in need of help - which they often can't find, unfortunately, in Greece," he told Al Jazeera. "They need support, not only from the strained Greek authorities but also from Europe." _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Al Jazeera