17 August 2021 | By Anna Coren, Sandi Sidhu, Abdul Basir Bina and Hilary Whiteman, CNN Displaced Afghan women and children from Kunduz shelter at a mosque in Kabul on August 13. Najia was at home with her three young sons and daughter in a small village in northern Afghanistan when Taliban fighters knocked on their door. Najia's daughter Manizha, 25, knew they were coming -- her mother had told her they'd done the same thing the previous three days, demanding that she cook food for up to 15 fighters. "My mother told them, 'I am poor, how can I cook for you?'" said Manizha. "(The Taliban) started beating her. My mother collapsed and they hit her with their guns -- AK47s." Manizha said she yelled at the fighters to stop. They paused for a moment before throwing a grenade into the next room and fleeing as the flames spread, she said. The mother-of-four died from the beating. The deadly July 12 attack on Najia's home in Faryab province was a chilling preview of the threat now facing women across Afghanistan after the Taliban's takeover of the capital Kabul. CNN is using aliases for Najia and Manizha to protect their identity for safety reasons. In 10 days, Taliban militants captured dozens of provincial capitals left vulnerable by the withdrawal of US and allied troops. The speed of the militants' advance caught locals off guard. Some women said they had no time to buy a burqa to comply with Taliban rules that women should be covered up and accompanied by a male relative when they leave the house. To Afghanistan's women, the flowing cloth represents the sudden and devastating loss of rights gained over 20 years -- the right to work, study, move and even live in peace -- that they fear will never be regained. Workers at a beauty salon strip large photos of women off the wall in Kabul on August 15, 2021. Deep mistrust When the Taliban last ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, they closed girls' schools and banned women from working. After the US invaded in 2001, restrictions on women eased, and even as the war raged, a local commitment to improving women's rights, supported by international groups and donors, led to the creation of new legal protections. In 2009, the Elimination of Violence Against Women law criminalized rape, battery and forced marriage and made it illegal to stop women or girls from working or studying. This time, the Taliban is promising to form an "Afghan inclusive Islamic government," although it's not clear what form that will take and if the new leadership will include women. Farzana Kochai, who was serving as a member of the Afghan parliament, says she doesn't know what comes next. "There has been no clear announcement about the form of the government in the future -- do we have a parliament in the future government or not?" she said. She's also concerned about her future freedoms as a woman. "This is something that concerns me more," she said. "Every woman is thinking about this. We are just trying to have a clue ... would women be allowed to work and to occupy a job or not?" Women huddle outside the UN offices in Kabul seeking help in January, 1999. Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said Monday that under the Taliban girls would be allowed to study. "Schools will be open and the girls and the women, they will be going to schools, as teachers, as students," he said. But stories from locals on the ground paint a different picture -- and there's a deep mistrust of militants who caused such misery under their last rule. In July, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said in areas controlled by the Taliban, women had been ordered not to attend health services without a male guardian. TV was banned, and teachers and students were instructed to wear turbans and grow beards. Religious scholars, government officials, journalists, human rights defenders and women had become victims of targeted killings, the commission said. One of them was Mina Khairi, a 23-year-old killed in a car bombing in June. Her father, Mohammad Harif Khairi, who also lost his wife and another daughter in the blast, said the young broadcaster had been receiving deaths threats for months. When the Taliban last controlled Afghanistan, women who disobeyed orders were beaten. The Taliban denied killing Najia, the mother in Faryab province, but their words are contradicted by witnesses and local officials who confirmed the death of a 45-year-old women whose home was set alight. A neighbor who yelled at the men to stop said many women in Najia's village are the widows of Afghan soldiers. They earn a living selling milk, but the Taliban "won't allow that," she said. "We don't have men in our house, what shall we do? We want schools, clinics and freedom like other women, men -- other people." Najia's daughter said Taliban fighters threw a grenade inside their house. Burqa prices surge The Taliban's takeover of the country was so quick that some women found themselves without the requisite female uniform for Taliban rule. One woman, who is not being named for security reasons, said her household had just one to two burqas to share between her, her sister and their mother. "If the worse comes to worse and we don't have burqa, we have to get a bedsheet or something to make it a bigger scarf," she said. Burqas hang in a market in Kabul on July 31. The price has surged as women rush to cover themselves to avoid attracting the militants' attention. Burqa prices surged as much as tenfold in Kabul as women raced to beat the militants ahead of their advance, according to another woman in the city, who is also not being named for security reasons. Some didn't make it to the markets before they closed on Sunday, as store owners rushed to get home. She said she'd spent hours at a bank on Sunday trying to withdraw as much money as possible to see the family through the coming days of uncertainty. "It was so unexpected, no one expected this to happen this soon. Even people would be like, 'Oh, Kabul can defend itself for a year or so,' but morale is lost. The army is just handing it over to the Taliban," she said. She fears for her life, but also the collapse of a government people fought so hard to build and the end of freedoms for Afghan women. "As a woman, they just keep us inside. We fought for years to get out, do we need to fight again for the same things? To get the permission to work, to get the permission to go to hospital alone?" she said. 'All for nothing' Over the last 10 days, a succession of Taliban victories over dozens of provincial capitals took Afghan women closer to a past they desperately wanted to leave behind. Pashtana Durrani, the founder and executive director of Learn, a nonprofit focused on education and women's rights, said she had run out of tears for her country. "I have cried so much there are no more tears left in my eyes to mourn. We have been in mourning the fall of Afghanistan for now quite some time. So I'm not feeling very well. On the contrary, I'm feeling very hopeless," she said. Durrani said she'd received text messages from boys as well as girls, who despaired that years of study were "all for nothing." She said the Taliban kept talking about girls' education, but they hadn't defined what that meant. Islamic studies are assumed, but "what about gender education? What about professional education?" she asked. "If you think about it, it makes you hopeless because there's no answer for it." In a tweet, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an end to all abuses. "International humanitarian law and human rights, especially the hard-won gains of women and girls, must be preserved," he said. In chaotic scenes at Kabul airport Monday, desperate Afghans scaled an air bridge in attempt to board planes out of the country. But for many millions of people, there is no escape. The woman in Kabul who spent hours at the bank Sunday said even if she could find a flight, without a visa she has nowhere to go. The only other option was to stay inside and hope to avoid attracting attention. "Going out or doing anything else can risk our life," she said. As the US and allies evacuated staff members, Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch, urged international donors not to abandon Afghanistan. "Many, many cannot get out and will be in great need both for urgent humanitarian assistance and for other essential services like education," she said. "It's the wrong time now for donors to be saying, 'Oh, we're done now in Afghanistan.'" Women across the country live in fear of the same knock at the door Najia heard last month. Her daughter, Manizha, said she hasn't returned to the house since her mother's death. She doesn't go outside much at all. "Taliban don't let any women out without a male relative. Men are the only ones allowed out. They can go to work," she said. "If I need something, how I am I supposed to get it? It's a punishment. It's not Islam. They call themselves Muslim. It's not right for them to punish women." © 2021 Cable News Network. A Warner Media Company. All Rights Reserved.CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.

As a child, Theary Seng escaped Cambodia’s killing fields. After returning there as a human rights advocate, she angered the country’s strongman leader. But she refuses to be driven away again. Credit ...Andy Ball NYTimes The New York Times Aug. 6, 2021 The Saturday Profile By Seth Mydans BANGKOK — Only a small child when the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975 and soon made her an orphan, Theary Seng has two enduring memories from that time in Cambodia’s tortured history. In one, she had fallen asleep in the arms of her mother only to wake up to find her gone. “It was my first spiritual experience,” she said, “when I knew without anyone telling me that my mother was not on this earth.” The other is a sensory memory. “I remember the stink of human flesh, very, very clearly,” she said. “That’s a personal memory, the stench of death. I was 7 years old. My job was to pick up cow manure for fertilizer. I would wander the fields, and the fields were just covered with graves.” Four decades later, Ms. Theary Seng, a human rights lawyer who now holds an American passport, is back in Cambodia and confronting a new ordeal: She has been charged with treason. She returned to Cambodia in 2004 to help build democracy in her wounded country, becoming an irritant to the strongman, Prime Minister Hun Sen, who considers human rights advocates like her as adversaries. Last November, she found herself on a list of some 130 government opponents and critics who were facing a mass political trial, part of a drive by the prime minister to crush resistance and secure his one-man rule. The charges against her, “conspiracy to commit treason” and “incitement to create social disorder,” which carry up to 12 years in prison, are “absurd,” she said. “Blatantly, on their face, they are baseless and not based in law or fact.” In a show of determination and defiance, one of the first things Ms. Theary Seng did when she learned of the charges against her was to lop off her hair. Ms. Theary Seng in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, in January. There is “no democratic or civic space left” in the country, she said.Credit...Tang Chhin Sothy/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images She used a large pair of green-handled scissors and livestreamed her gesture in a video broadcast on Radio Free Asia. “I know that they will detain me, so I am cutting my hair short because I’m afraid of the lice in prison,” she declared. For the nine months since then, Ms. Theary Seng, 50, has lived at home on the outskirts of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, in a torment of uncertainty, without word on when her case will be heard even as the trial proceeds with some of the other defendants. A flare-up of Covid in Cambodian jails has added another layer of fear about what detention could mean. Her haircut was a flamboyant gesture, but also a serious assertion that she had no intention of using her American passport to flee, as the government might have hoped she would. “I’m not going to be driven away from my homeland in the way I was driven away as a refugee,” she said. As she describes herself in the title of her autobiography, Ms. Theary Seng is a “daughter of the killing fields” who survived the four-year genocide at the hands of the communist Khmer Rouge that took the lives of perhaps one-fourth of the country’s population in the late 1970s, including her parents. In 1979, at the age of 7, she made a dangerous journey with several relatives across the border into Thailand. After a year in a refugee camp, her family was taken in by a Christian congregation in Grand Rapids, Mich. She would later graduate from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and go on to earn a law degree from the University of Michigan. And then, 17 years ago, like a small number of other idealistic refugees, she went back to Cambodia to take part in a revival of its civic life, becoming a leading social justice advocate. She took a position as executive director of a human rights organization, the Center for Social Development, and then founded the Cambodian Center for Justice and Reconciliation as well as the Center for Cambodian Civic Education. Her goal, she said, was “to stem Cambodia’s complete plunge into autocracy” by publicizing and agitating against abuses of political and human rights. In addition, she assisted potential witnesses at a trial of Khmer Rouge leaders, where she also testified as a victim. “There was such high hope when I entered civil society,” she said. But nearly two decades later, as Mr. Hun Sen’s repression has intensified, “there’s no democratic or civic space left,” she said. Staying to fight what she called a political struggle rather than a legal process was a matter of principle — and something she has long been preparing for. Ms. Theary Seng at her home in the Phnom Penh area.Credit...Andy Ball for The New York Times “I don’t have a family, don’t have a husband or children that they could threaten, and I don’t have private property,” she said. “I’ve made a deliberate choice that if I continue to work in human rights and defend human rights, I’m going to stay unencumbered and free.” The U.S. State Department has criticized the trial, saying, “We urge Cambodia to drop these baseless charges against human rights defenders.” Both the United States Embassy and the American Bar Association have said they would send observers if Ms. Theary Seng is called into a courtroom. “Theary has been a courageous champion for democracy and social justice in Cambodia for many years,” said John D. Ciorciari, an associate professor of international policy at the University of Michigan and an expert on Cambodia. “As government crackdowns have squeezed out space for democratic political dissent, she has stood bravely against authoritarianism.” In justifying the arrests and its broader crackdown on the opposition, the Cambodian government appears to be claiming that its critics are part of a coordinated effort to overthrow the government. The Asia Pacific director for Amnesty International, Yamini Mishra, said in a January statement that the government’s “onslaught of cases is the culmination of a relentless campaign of persecution against Cambodia’s political opposition and other dissenting voices.” The challenges Ms. Theary Seng now faces after that initially hopeful journey home have brought her full circle from the ordeals of her childhood. Too young to understand or remember a great deal of what she lived through, she said much of her autobiographical account was drawn from many hours of interviews with family members. She said the two horrific memories that have stuck with her were mostly suppressed until her teenage years. “Living through genocide was catching up with me, and I was chronically suicidal in high school,” she said. “What saved me was calligraphy. I calligraphied the whole Book of Psalms. I had this pile of parchment.” The psalms were more than poetry to her. At Millbrook Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, she became a committed Christian. “I’m culturally Buddhist,” she said. “I have no problem respecting and attending Buddhist ceremonies. But my belief system is Judeo-Christian.” As she awaits the government’s next move, it’s not calligraphy but punctuation that is helping her deal with the stress of the unknown. She is correcting a translation of the Bible in Khmer, a language that is written without punctuation or spaces between words. She is improving what she says are mistranslations, and much of her project involves simply inserting commas. In her own writing, she concluded her autobiography with what she describes as “one of the most surreal events of a lifetime,” an encounter with the Khmer Rouge leader she holds responsible for the deaths of her parents. In the remote town of Pailin in 2002, before she returned to Cambodia to stay, she visited Khieu Samphan, who was later convicted of genocide in a U.N.-backed tribunal. The former Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan, as seen on a live feed from a press room during a 2018 hearing in Phnom Penh.Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times “I stood face to face with evil incarnate, my parents’ murderer,” she wrote. “Instead of revulsion, a perverse sense of awe initially captured my emotions — for evil was not mad, but charming, gracious and grandfatherly.” They had what she calls “a polite hour-and-10-minute conversation,” in which Mr. Khieu Samphan trotted out his rote defense that he had no idea what was going on under his leadership. “I can honestly say I felt no anger towards him, and I was surprised at how calm I was,” she wrote. But later she found herself “amazed, time and time again, at Khieu Samphan’s ability to live with himself.” Mr. Khieu Samphan is now the last living leader of the Khmer Rouge, and his pro forma appeal of his conviction and life sentence is the last major order of business of the long-running tribunal. “We live in a sea of abuses, so the tribunal is not even on our radar,” Ms. Theary Seng said, as Cambodia struggles through an entirely new set of political traumas nearly half a century after the genocide she managed to escape. This time, she is determined to stay. “I’ve been a rights advocate all my adult life,” she said. “I wouldn’t just step away from it now. All my years of human rights training would be null and void if I didn’t stay and fight.” Seth Mydans reported as a foreign and national correspondent for The New York Times and its sister publication, The International Herald Tribune, from 1983 to 2012. He continues to contribute to The Times. A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 7, 2021, Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Despite Threat of Prison, a Survivor of Cambodia’s Genocide Stands Firm Copyright 2021 The New York Times Company

By Rachel Sullivan, Brianna Ferebee In the aftermath of a disputed election and targeted disinformation campaigns, divisive rhetoric presents the greatest risk to a fragile peace. A billboard celebrates the collaboration between the Russian military and the Central African military, in Bangui, Central African Republic, April 28, 2019. (Ashley Gilbertson/The New York Times) After a recent contested election, the Central African Republic finds itself in a precarious situation. Violence around the election combined with the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 and destructive flooding have caused the humanitarian emergency to reach its worst state in five years. Meanwhile, the CAR government has been accused of engaging in Russian-backed disinformation campaigns targeting domestic civil society, French diplomats and the United Nations peacekeeping mission (MINUSCA), threatening key relationships. Even as the long-simmering issue of hate speech continues to draw fault lines through the country, efforts to combat these campaigns have focused primarily on challenging fake news rather than addressing the underlying fear and prejudice that spoilers use to stoke conflict. Hate Speech in CAR Hate speech is any type of speech that is offensive and can lead to discrimination or incitement to violence that targets a group, such as an ethnic or religious identity group — and it is both a symptom and cause of CAR’s ongoing conflict. Hate speech can be used for a variety of reasons, including strategically to mobilize support for an individual, group, issue or platform. Resulting polarization can deepen divisions and exacerbate grievances between groups, increasing the risk of violence. The most notable example in CAR of the negative effects of hate speech occurred in 2014, a year after a successful coup by an alliance of armed groups from the predominantly Muslim North, the Séléka, who targeted civilians in their campaign. In response, a coalition of community-based self-defense groups, known as the Anti-Balaka, began to mobilize with former presidential guards to oppose the Séléka. They began attacking the Séléka as well as unaffiliated Muslim citizens amid a cycle of retaliatory violence, accusing them of being “foreigners” and rallying around a call to forcibly remove them from the country. This call for violence led to the removal of approximately 80 percent of Muslims from the country and displaced many others. In December 2014, a United Nations International Commission of Inquiry determined that although genocidal intent could not be established, the Anti-Balaka campaign amounted to ethnic cleansing of the minority Muslim population. This example demonstrates how existing divisions in CAR may be inflamed by hate speech with disastrous outcomes. While there have been many attempts to restore peace since the Anti-Balaka campaign, the results have been mixed. Despite CAR’s eventual transition back to a constitutional democracy and the 2016 election of Faustin-Archange Touadéra, violence continues to be directed at civilians on the basis of religious and ethnic identity as armed groups often select civilian targets for retaliation against their rivals based on the perception that they belong to the same identity group. The international community remains concerned that CAR has several preconditions consistent with genocide and that violence against historically marginalized populations could worsen, leading to efforts to fight hate speech and disinformation within the country. Mechanisms to Address Hate Speech The CAR government and international partners have taken some initial step to establish mechanisms to combat hate speech and disinformation that, while helpful, are still insufficient to respond to the scope of the problem. In response to another wave of targeted attacks on Muslims in Bangassou in 2017, MINUSCA began tracking hate speech and added it and incitement to violence as sanctions criteria. However, in recent months MINUSCA itself has been the target of a disinformation or fake news campaign by individuals tied to President Touadéra’s political party. The campaigns have threatened MINUSCA personnel and spread accusations of electoral manipulation and collusion with armed groups, calling into question the mission’s legitimacy and impartiality. For its part, the U.N. Security Council has condemned these allegations and continued to reaffirm the mission’s impartiality. CAR’s High Council on Communication (HCC), the official body tasked with developing and promoting a free press, has also sought to address the issue of hate speech. Re-established in 2014, the HCC is responsible for regulating the media and has the authority to provide regulation to counter misinformation and disinformation. While the Council developed the National Plan for the Prevention of Incitement to Hate and Violence to monitor hate speech, it lacks the operational capacity, finances and professional credibility to be fully operational or effective. Other initiatives have focused on countering disinformation and hate speech by training journalists and bloggers on how to identify fake news and verify sources. This has been important particularly in the context of election violence and irregularities in late 2020 through early 2021, but has been difficult to achieve given the lack of a fully independent media and limited internet access. Further complicating these efforts are accusations that several disinformation campaigns may be coming from key international partners, Russia and France. While these efforts show initial promise in helping to identify and combat rumors and fake news, they fail to confront the deeper, more complex issue of hate speech. The emphasis on fake news is likely a result of an international focus on Russia’s growing role in spreading disinformation in CAR and other parts of the world. “Peace in CAR depends also on the nature and the quality of the discourse between the women and men of the Central African Republic,” said Rhosyns Ngatondang Zalang, president of the Association for Youth on the Move for Development in CAR (AJEMADEC). To that end, USIP has been focused on developing not only an understanding of hate speech and its effects, but on offering an alternative discourse. A Lexicon of Hate Speech Terms In partnership with the PeaceTech Lab and AJEMADEC, USIP conducted research on the nature of hate speech in the Central African Republic from October 2020 to March 2021. This coincided with the election, which saw profound upheaval as both process and results were contested and prompted a significant realignment of armed groups. The resulting increase in violence and worsening of the humanitarian crisis coincided with the fake news and propaganda thought to originate from Russia and France. All of these factors contributed to a tense security environment and are reflected in the hate speech data that we collected. The findings from the research present a snapshot in time of the issue of hate speech and represent an initial step toward mapping its full extent. The lexicon of hate speech terms includes an overview of the problem of hate speech within CAR, along with a list of the 17 top terms with definitions, examples and explanations of why they are harmful. The annex also includes insights about how survey respondents encounter hate speech in their own lives. Several key themes emerge that can help authorities and community members prevent and respond to hate speech. First, many of the terms identified in this study have their origins in old stereotypes and prejudices. Among the terms are derogatory references to nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, place of origin and armed-group membership. Many of the terms cast these identities as being different in a negative way, for example by claiming that they do not belong to this society or by dehumanizing them through comparisons to animals. One particularly concerning theme that emerged was the use of hate speech to insinuate that someone was a terrorist or member of an armed group based on their religious or ethnic background, such as by referring to Muslims as jihadists. Second, while much focus has previously been on hate speech in social media and news outlets, the most common places that our survey respondents reported encountering hate speech were in public spaces or at events such as on public transportation (18.4%), at political rallies (16.7%) or at the market (14.6%). A smaller percentage did report encountering hate speech in the workplace and social media and news platforms. This suggests that the mechanisms in place to address hate speech that focus on online, print media or radio are unlikely to be sufficient on their own. Recommendations for Policymakers and Practitioners There are clearly significant gaps in the current efforts to address hate speech in CAR, including the focus on disinformation and online or news media platforms. “The Lexicon of Hate Speech is a ground-breaking resource on hate speech in CAR. What is important now is that USIP and others work to ensure that this resource is used by policymakers and community leaders to prevent and counter hate speech in a way that responds to the nature of the problem,” said Elizabeth Murray, a senior program officer working on CAR at the Institute. USIP and AJEMADEC have used the lexicon to train community leaders on countering hate speech and provided them with funding to conduct small projects in their own communities, but more work is needed. As a first step, the CAR government, civil society and international partners need to prioritize hate speech in its own right alongside disinformation and misinformation. While there may be overlap in these issue areas, countering hate speech needs to go beyond recognizing false claims or fake news to address the ways in which offensive and inflammatory speech can lead to discrimination and violence against targeted groups. Addressing this appropriately includes further research into the sources of hate speech, including in-person and offline sources. In addition to developing a better understanding, the CAR government and international partners should address issues of hate speech and division as a part of plans to reinvigorate the peace process and hold a national dialogue. The outcomes of both processes should be connected to the national reconciliation plan, and ideally would draw on the existing local peacebuilding committees to tailor an approach for the community level. Finally, another key recommendation for political, religious and social leaders of CAR as well as prominent international partners is to commit to combat hate speech at both an institutional and an individual level. This means that these figures should become educated about hate speech terms, refrain from using them and speak up when they encounter them. This effort will be particularly important because hate speech is often used by leaders to mobilize support, so accountability among these actors will likely be necessary to create the change needed for peace and reconciliation. Brianna Ferebee is a research assistant for the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Africa Center. © Relief Web 2021 all rights reserved / © 2021 The United States Institute of Peace

By Abdi Latif Dahir A government drive to enlist civilians in the war effort threatens to widen the conflict, forcing ethnic groups to take sides and potentially spilling into the broader region. Ethiopian National Defense Forces soldiers being held in June as prisoners of war after being captured by Tigrayan rebels near the city of Mekelle in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. Credit: Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times NAIROBI, Kenya — He swept to power preaching unity and hope, struck a landmark peace deal with the longtime foe Eritrea, released thousands of political prisoners, lifted restrictions on the press and promised to overturn decades of repressive authoritarian rule. For those accomplishments, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. But now, mired in a grinding civil war, Mr. Abiy has embarked on a radically different track, stoking war fever and urging all able-bodied men and women to join a widening military campaign, either as combatants or in support roles. The Ministry of Defense has not said how many new recruits it has signed up, but the spokesman for Sintayehu Abate, deputy mayor of Addis Ababa, the capital, has said that 3,000 residents of the city have enlisted since the campaign started and that thousands more have reportedly signed up around the country. Critics have denounced Mr. Abiy’s latest campaign, saying the injection of fresh recruits into the fighting will only lead to more bloodshed in the deeply polarized and ethnically divided nation, potentially destabilizing the wider Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is a patchwork of at least 80 ethnic groups and 10 regional governments. Analysts worry that a protracted conflict could push groups within Ethiopia to take sides and potentially draw in countries from across the region. The town of Debark, in the northern Amhara region, from which Ethiopia’s military posted photos recently of armed young men rallying in support of the war. Credit: Eduardo Soteras/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images “This is a declaration to turn civilians into combatants that will further plunge the country into a genocidal war and create bad blood between peoples for generations to come and an economic free-fall,” said Mehari Taddele Maru, a professor of governance and geopolitics at the European University Institute. Over the past nine months of conflict, thousands of people have been killed and some two million have been displaced, while hundreds of thousands of others face famine conditions amid reports of massacres, sexual assault and ethnic cleansing. The roots of the conflict can be traced to last November, when Mr. Abiy ordered a military offensive against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, onetime rebels who led Ethiopia with an iron fist from 1991 until Mr. Abiy’s ascent in 2018. He accused the group of attacking a federal military base and trying to steal weapons. The war quickly escalated, with militia fighters from the Amhara region to the south and Eritrean troops from the north joining the Ethiopian military against the Tigrayan forces. But the swift victory Mr. Abiy promised never materialized. Instead, the hostilities settled into a grinding war in different pockets of Tigray. In June, Mr. Abiy declared a unilateral cease-fire after the rebels shockingly routed the government forces and captured Mekelle, the regional capital of Tigray, altering the course of the war. Celebrating the departure of Ethiopian government forces and the arrival of Tigrayan rebels in June in Mekelle. Credit: Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times Emboldened by their wins, the Tigrayans issued a set of demands that called, among other things, for a “transitional arrangement” that would essentially see Mr. Abiy removed from power. Mr. Abiy rejected those demands and recently urged Ethiopians at home and abroad to defend the “motherland” and be “the eyes and ears of the country in order to track down and expose spies and agents” of the Tigrayan forces. Since then, the Ethiopian authorities have ramped up mass recruitment drives, calling on popular musicians and artists to galvanize the war effort. This past week, the military posted photos from the town of Debark in the northern Amhara region where young men — wielding machetes, guns and sticks studded with nails — rallied in support of the war and enlisted in droves. In the eastern city of Jigjiga, hundreds of men, women and some children attended a rally to support government forces. In Addis Ababa, dozens of army veterans waving the country’s multihued flag lined up to re-enlist. Amhara militia recruits training last month in Debark. Amhara militias and Eritrean troops have joined the effort against the Tigrayan forces. Credit: Eduardo Soteras/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Among them was Alem Bilatte, 54, a retired army officer, who called the Tigray forces Ethiopia’s “enemy” and promised to train new recruits or go to the battlefront himself. “My blood is boiling,” he said as he registered in the capital. Bekelech Ayalew, 47, a former infantry nurse draped with an Ethiopian flag, said she was ready to treat soldiers on the front lines. “Sacrificing my blood and dying for Ethiopia is a privilege,” she said. As the recruitment drive has gotten underway, rebel forces have continued to advance in western Tigray, an area that ethnic Amharas historically claim as their own and took over in the early stages of the conflict. Heavy fighting, including artillery fire, has been reported in the Amhara, Oromia and Afar regions, according to an internal United Nations security document seen by The New York Times. The dynamics of the war are also shifting as the fighting escalates. This month the Oromo Liberation Army, designated a terrorist organization by the Ethiopian government, declared an alliance with the Tigrayan forces, raising the prospect of other splinter groups or regional governments becoming involved in the fighting. Mustafa Omer, the president of the eastern Somali region, which has sent hundreds of soldiers to join the war on the government side, said he would never negotiate with the T.P.L.F., which he said had tortured and killed his brother and made other family members disappear in its authoritarian, nearly three-decade time in power. “They caused a lot of harm, and they are looking to bring back the same political designs if they win,” Mr. Omer said in a phone interview. “They are a danger to the country.” Over 200 people, including more than 100 children, who were sheltering at a school and health facility in the Afar region were reportedly killed this month, UNICEF’s executive director, Henrietta Fore, said in a statement. The government and Tigrayan forces have both blamed each other. The United Nations has said physical access to Tigray remains limited because of lack of infrastructure, floods and security concerns. Underscoring the grim conditions, Samantha Power, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said that aid workers could run out of food to distribute as soon as this week. Azemeru Abraha, 13, and her ailing mother, Ametkiros Abraha, were among about two million people displaced by Ethiopia’s war in the past nine months. They were staying in June at a school housing several thousand people in Mekelle. Credit: Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times UNICEF said that almost half of all pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers screened in Tigray were acutely malnourished, while the number of malnourished children was expected to jump tenfold in the next year. A recent flare-up in ethnic violence — particularly between ethnic Afar and Somalis — has added to the country’s growing security woes. Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday that ethnic Tigrayans were being arbitrarily detained and disappeared in the capital — adding to discriminatory practices that many Tigrayans reported from the onset of the war. Until recently the most stable of the countries in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia and its mounting domestic crisis pose a significant risk to the region’s overall stability and economic growth, said Sanya Suri, the East and Southern Africa analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit. A protracted conflict, she said, “sends worrying signs to investors over the government’s efficacy” and would derail Ethiopia’s agenda for overhauling the economy, which included liberalizations and privatization of key sectors like telecommunications. “Ethiopia’s long-run growth prospects also remain grim,” Ms. Suri said. Last week, the U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, was back in the region in a bid to halt the fighting. In addition, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey offered to back a peaceful mediation to the war. But with Mr. Abiy rebuffing a meeting in early August with Ms. Power, Tigrayan forces advancing and fresh government recruits heading to face them, there is little prospect so far for a substantial de-escalation, experts say. For many Ethiopians, that means bracing for more bloody days ahead. “The prime minister is calling Ethiopians to fight against their own people,” Weyni Asgedom, 28, a former bookstore owner in Mekelle whose husband is fighting alongside the Tigrayans, said in an interview. “The only choice is to fight back.” Tiksa Negeri contributed reporting from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Simon Marks from Manchester, England. © 2021 The New York Times Company

We don't want your pity -- we want justice. Opinion by Nadia Murad Updated 1452 GMT (2252 HKT) August 16, 2021 Nadia Murad is a Yazidi human rights activist and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate who advocates for survivors of sexual violence and genocide. She is a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime goodwill ambassador and founder of Nadia's Initiative. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion at CNN. (CNN)Thoughts and prayers. Promises of "never again." They are not enough. Seven years after ISIS committed genocide against the Yazidi community, my ethno-religious minority, in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of people remain internally displaced and more than 2,800 women and children remain missing. Shelter, clean water, health care and education are luxuries, if available at all. Those of us who were there -- who ran for our lives to the protection of Mount Sinjar, who heard the gunshots as men and older women were shot and dumped into mass graves, and who, like me, were sold into sexual slavery -- cannot forget what happened or how the world ignored our cries for help. After escaping from my ISIS captors, I lived in a camp alongside hundreds of Yazidis. I felt the raw humiliation of residing in makeshift tents without privacy, work, or education. I saw these conditions erode our traditions, our way of life, and our communal ties. During that time, I imagined my life swallowed up by a statistic -- becoming one of the millions of displaced people who live, on average, 10-20 years in a camp. Today, much of my family still lives in that same cramped caravan. My niece has never known life outside the camp. When I visit family, the space between us is emptied by an overwhelming silence. We do not need to utter a single sound to communicate our shared sorrow. I can see the pain clearly in their eyes. The questions that nag at me day in and day out are: Why will the world not act? What do the Iraqi government and international community hope to gain from ignoring our homeland's redevelopment, deprioritizing accountability and relegating Yazidis to life in displacement? Seven years later, the Yazidi community's struggle for survival is still largely ignored. There have been no multilateral search and rescue efforts for the missing women and children. Around 80 mass graves lie unexhumed around Sinjar, the Yazidi homeland where ISIS carried out its genocide. Neither Iraqi national nor international courts have established proceedings to try ISIS criminals for genocide and sexual violence. Regardless of the rationale, the results are clear. ISIS has come one step closer to accomplishing its goal of preventing Yazidis from living in our homeland with dignity. Seeing this, other terrorist groups and oppressive regimes can only be encouraged to commit genocide and sexual violence, knowing that they will not be held accountable. Governments and international institutions take the easy way out time and time again. They formulate promises and claim to resolve territorial disputes. For instance, under the Sinjar Agreement, concluded in October, Iraq's federal government and Kurdish regional authorities agreed to stabilize local governance and security. But they don't follow through with steps as easy as appointing a local mayor. The United Nations collects evidence of the atrocities through its Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da'esh/ISIS (UNITAD), formed in 2018. But the UN stops short of referring the case to the International Criminal Court or establishing a court by treaty for prosecuting ISIS' crimes against humanity. It funds short-term aid to displacement camps instead of investing in sustainably rebuilding Sinjar. Yazidis are one of many communities that live in limbo. Yet, in our situation resolution is within reach. We need not wait on the luck of being resettled in another country. The majority of Yazidis are internally displaced within Iraq, mere hours away from their homes but without the resources to rebuild them. The Sinjar Agreement and UNITAD's evidence collection would make significant differences in the daily lives of Yazidis if they were acted upon -- if those in power cared enough to extend a helping hand. With every shortcut taken by national and international authorities, the road to recovery for my community becomes longer and more dangerous. Is seven years not long enough? There are no shortcuts available to Yazidis -- no way to truncate our trauma. But still, we have not given up. We do not want your pity. We want the international community to take responsibility for protecting the basic rights of Yazidis by investing in Sinjar's redevelopment and holding ISIS accountable. Next year, let me not have to once again condemn the response to the Yazidi genocide. Let this coming year be one of action. © 2021 Cable News Network

Editorial Board | Washington Post August 19, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. EDT Police at the offices of La Prensa in Managua, Nicaragua, on Aug. 13. (Jorge Torres/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock) In Central America, the Managua-based daily La Prensa bills itself simply as “the newspaper of the Nicaraguans.” Yet this modest claim hardly captures the role La Prensa has played since its first issue rolled off the presses in 1926. During those 95 years of turbulent history, the paper — under the ownership of one of Latin America’s most distinguished journalistic families, the Chamorros — has consistently stood for democracy and press freedom. Its critical stance toward the repressive Somoza dynasty probably led to the assassination of La Prensa’s then-editor, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, in 1978. After the Sandinistas took over in a 1979 revolution, La Prensa opposed the excesses of that government, facing censorship and harassment as a result. Today, however, La Prensa — like Nicaragua itself — faces some of the greatest challenges in its history. On Aug. 13, President Daniel Ortega sent his police into the paper’s offices, purportedly to investigate money laundering and other trumped-up charges, and arrested general manager Juan Hollman Chamorro. The raid took place a day after La Prensa had suspended its print edition, noting in an editorial that the government was denying it access to newsprint, which must be imported. Mr. Ortega had previously subjected the paper’s vice president, Cristiana Chamorro, to house arrest on similarly spurious charges, her real offense being to consider running against him in presidential elections set for Nov. 7. In a rambling speech before an audience of military officers last weekend, Mr. Ortega bizarrely maintained that his regime was merely prosecuting La Prensa’s “calumny against the state,” which, according to him, “is a crime in any part of the world,” the United States and Europe included. On Monday, Mr. Ortega revoked the licenses of two U.S. democracy-promotion organizations, the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, along with permits for Oxfam and organizations from Denmark, Spain and Sweden. La Prensa courageously continues to put out a Web edition, though for how much longer is highly uncertain. A kind of authoritarian zeal has gripped the minds of Mr. Ortega and his vice president, Rosario Murillo, 70. The latter is both his wife and de facto co-president — and widely believed to be pursuing dynastic power for her and her family after Mr. Ortega, 75, ultimately passes away. The key to that is to rig the Nov. 7 election. With the crippling of La Prensa, the Ortegas are close to completing the annihilation of all opposition they ignited in April 2018, when they met a wave of protests with repressive violence that ultimately cost at least 325 lives. It is probably no coincidence that the regime raided La Prensa as the Biden administration had its hands full coping with the collapse of Afghanistan. Like dictators around the world, Mr. Ortega and Ms. Murillo depend on the acquiescence or distraction of governments and peoples beyond their borders. As a deep night of political repression descends on what was once a promising democracy — home to 6.5 million people, hundreds of thousands of whom have family in the United States — perhaps the most important thing people in this country can do is pay attention. © 1996-2021 The Washington Post

Jeong Yon Park for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Radio Free Asia August 20, 2021 A woman who fled the North more than 10 years ago was dragged away from her Chinese husband and their child. Chinese paramilitary policemen guard the gate of the North Korean embassy in Beijing, China, March 8, 2017. Reuters. A spate of arrests of North Korean wives of Chinese men—raids seizing long-time residents in front of their families—has the put the refugee community in northeastern China on edge, sources in China told RFA. The latest in periodic crackdowns on North Koreans living illegally in China has seen arrests and threatened deportations in Liaoning and Jilin, the two provinces on China’s side of their 840-mile (1,350 km) shared border, the sources said. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans fled to China to escape a mid-1990s famine, with about 30,000 making their way to South Korea. As many as 60,000 North Koreans remain China, despite having no legal status, and some have married Chinese nationals. After a long period of time in which the North Korean spouses of Chinese nationals were treated leniently, despite Beijing’s commitment with Pyongyang to repatriate all illegal North Koreans found within its borders, police are now actively arresting them. “Police officers suddenly stormed the house of a North Korean woman in her late 30s, arrested her and took her to prison,” a Chinese citizen of Korean descent from Tonghua city in Jilin province told RFA’s Korean Service. “After she escaped from North Korea, she got married and has been living in Tonghua for 10 years. She has a small child. Everyone in the neighborhood knew she was a refugee, but she was never reported or arrested,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons. The source said police took the woman away in late July on human trafficking charges. “She was well known for providing food and clothing to North Koreans who had just crossed over the border. She helped provide them with shelter and jobs,” said the source. “She is a kind-hearted person who helps everyone in the neighborhood, not only refugees, so the neighbors are very saddened by the news of her arrest,” the source said. Trafficking of newly escaped North Korean women in China is a deep-rooted industry as traffickers capitalize on their desperation. A 2018 report by the Seoul-based Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice (KICJ) estimated that 80 percent of female North Korean refugees in China “are entrapped in a form of trafficking- commercial sex, forced labor, and forced marriages.” But China has often laid human trafficking charges on aid workers or others who help North Korean refugees, and people in the Tonghua community did not believe that the human trafficking charge should apply to the North Korean woman or her husband, the Jilin province source said. “She escaped a hard life in North Korea and she supported other North Korean refugees both physically and emotionally while they were in such a difficult situation,” the source said. “She has a nine-year-old child with her Chinese husband, and the child cries every day looking for mom. The neighbors are all petitioning the police to release her, saying that it is so sad to see the child crying,” the source said. The arrest was one of two in Tonghua last month involving married North Korean women who had escaped to China a long time ago, according to the source. “Neighbors are strongly criticizing the inhumane treatment of the public security agents, saying, ‘What will happen to the child if they arrest the mother and ruin a family that is living well?’” the source said. Another Chinese citizen of Korean descent from Shenyang, in Liaoning province, confirmed to RFA that the crackdown on North Korean refugees was in effect there as well. “It is making the North Koreans tremble with anxiety. Since early July, the public security agents have been raiding their residences, or going to their workplaces to arrest them,” said the second source, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “In mid-July, a close friend, an ethnic Korean like myself, called me urgently at night to ask for my help, saying he was unable to reach his girlfriend, a North Korean refugee, who works at a restaurant near Shenyang Station,” said the second source. “Four days later, I was told that the refugee had been receiving treatment at a hospital in the prison for the past three days. She had difficulty breathing and was going into shock while she was being arrested at the restaurant,” the second source said. While in prison, the woman was able to borrow a mobile phone to secretly call her boyfriend to avoid police detection, according to the second source. “She said that there were more than 10 North Korean women imprisoned in addition to herself. Just before hanging up, she told my friend it would be difficult to come back if they send her back to North Korea,” the second source said. “My friend has been living every day in tears for over a month,” added the source. News of the crackdown in Shenyang is spreading among the refugee community, and even long-timers and their families are afraid, according to the second source. “In the past, even if the police knew that there were North Korean refugees living in an area, they did not arrest them unless they started causing problems. Now they are actively searching for them and arresting them, so all the North Korean refugees are terrified.” RFA contacted the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. for comment but the embassy did not respond. Beijing claims it must return North Koreans found to be illegally within Chinese territory under two agreements it has signed with Pyongyang, the 1960 PRC-DPRK Escaped Criminals Reciprocal Extradition Treaty and the 1986 Mutual Cooperation Protocol for the Work of Maintaining National Security and Social Order and the Border Areas. Rights groups, however, say that forced repatriation is a violation of China’s responsibility to protect the escapees under the UN Refugee Convention. RFA reported last month that China forcibly repatriated 50 North Korean refugees, the first repatriations since the border was closed at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in Jan. 2020. The North Koreans were loaded onto buses in the Chinese border city of Dandong and taken across the Yalu River to the North Korean city of Sinuiju. According to the Department of State’s 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report, there are up to 30,000 unregistered children of North Korean women and Chinese men. The report noted that the children are stateless and vulnerable to exploitation. 2021 Radio Free Asia

DOUALA, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Clashes between herders and fishermen in northern Cameroon have killed at least 32 people this month, with 19 villages torched, the U.N. refugee agency said on Thursday. Some 11,000 people fled to Chad and a further 7,300 were displaced in Cameroon's Far North after fighting broke out on Aug. 10 between Choa Arab herders and Mousgoum fishermen and farmers, the UNHCR said. read more Officials described the fighting as Cameroon's worst ethnic violence in years. The herders were angry because their livestock were falling into holes dug by fishermen to capture fish in pools of receding floodwaters, according to a local official. read more The refugees in Chad were in urgent need of shelter, UNHCR said, with many sleeping under trees. "(UNHCR) calls on the governments concerned to do everything possible to reduce the intercommunal tensions that have caused this displacement and to ensure the safety of people forced to flee," said Millicent Mutuli, a regional director of UNHCR. The ethnic violence further complicates security in a region where Cameroon's army has been battling Boko Haram for years and, more recently, militants linked to Islamic State. Reporting by Hereward Holland; Editing by Nick Macfie © Reuters 2021

August 2021 Coptic Orthodox worshippers attend Christmas Eve mass at the Nativity of Christ Cathedral in the administrative capital, 45 kilometers (28 miles) east of Cairo, Egypt, Jan. 6, 2020. - -/AFP via Getty Images Egypt’s Arab Spring revolution in 2011 created significant upheaval as the country saw three different leaders in two years. After General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was elected President in 2014, and re-elected in 2018 with little opposition, Egypt has returned to its tradition of authoritarian military rule. In 2014, Egypt adopted a new constitution that officially allows for freedom of religion under Article 64. Nevertheless, Egypt maintains restrictions on non-Muslim religions, especially on Coptic Christians. Pursuant to a 2016 law, the government began limiting the number of churches built based on the proportion of Christians in an area. Governors are responsible for approving or denying church-building permits, with no appeals process. Islamist mobs have attacked Copts on Christian holidays. Coptic Christians face discrimination by the Egyptian government and violence from Islamist terrorists. On April 9, 2017, members of ISIS killed 45 people in attacks on two churches. Egypt declared a state of emergency under its Emergency Law, which extends police powers, suspends constitutional rights, legalizes censorship, abolishes habeas corpus, and limits political activity. The Muslim Brotherhood briefly held power after President Morsi won election in 2012, but it now faces persecution. It is the most significant opposition to the Egyptian government, which classified the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization in 2013. Thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood have been detained, tortured, sentenced to death in mass trials, or disappeared. Egypt’s highest court upheld 12 death sentences for members of the Muslim Brotherhood after a mass trial in 2018. Executions in Egypt rose from 32 in 2019 to 107 in 2020. Despite Constitution Article 65’s “Freedom of Thought” protections of freedom of speech, the Egyptian government has targeted dissenting journalists, scholars, and human rights advocates. Many are imprisoned without charge; others are charged with spreading misinformation. Torture is routine in Egyptian jails and prisons. In 2021, Egypt initiated a resettlement plan to encourage Egyptians to migrate to the Sinai Desert. This policy threatens one million Bedouins in the Sinai. In response to their loss of income from nomadic herding due to Covid-19 travel restrictions, many Bedouins have become sedentary farmers. Egypt considers Bedouins to be stateless persons due to their lack of official documentation. Because they cannot prove their citizenship and property rights, the Egyptian government can confiscate Bedouin land without compensation to build settlements. Because of violence and discrimination against Coptic Christians, arrests of human rights defenders and journalists, and denial of Bedouins’ citizenship and property rights, Genocide Watch considers Egypt to be at Stage 3: Discrimination, Stage 7: Polarization, and Stage 8: Persecution. Genocide Watch recommends: • The Egyptian government should protect Coptic Christians and churches by prosecuting perpetrators of violence against them. It should allow Christians to build new churches freely. • The Egyptian government should recognize the citizenship and property rights of Bedouins. • The Egyptian government should immediately release detained human rights advocates, journalists, and opposition leaders and stop arresting and torturing them. • The Egyptian government should abide by its own constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and speech. • The United Nations Human Rights Council should sponsor an independent fact-finding mission into human rights abuses against threatened communities.

Discriminatory Arrests, Detentions, Business Closures in Addis Ababa. (Nairobi) – Ethiopian authorities since late June 2021 have arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared, and committed other abuses against ethnic Tigrayans in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. The authorities should immediately account for Tigrayans’ forcibly disappeared, release those being held without credible evidence of a crime, and end all discriminatory treatment. FILE - In this Tuesday, May 11, 2021 file photo, Ethiopian government soldiers ride in the back of a truck on a road leading to Abi Adi, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. The United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said Thursday, Aug. 19, 2021 that humanitarian conditions in Ethiopia are "hellish" as the nine-month Tigray conflict spreads in Africa's second most populous country. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File) On June 28, following eight months of fighting in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, Tigrayan forces recaptured the regional capital, Mekelle, while government forces withdrew. Tigrayan forces then moved quickly into the neighboring Afar and Amhara regions, triggering large-scale displacement. Since then, serious human rights violations by government security forces against ethnic Tigrayans in Addis Ababa have escalated. “Ethiopian security forces in recent weeks have carried out rampant arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances of Tigrayans in Addis Ababa,” said Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should immediately stop its ethnic profiling, which has cast unjustified suspicion on Tigrayans, produce information on everyone being held, and provide redress to victims.” In July and August, Human Rights Watch interviewed by phone eight current and former Tigrayan detainees, four Tigrayan business owners, and 25 relatives of detainees, witnesses to abuses, and lawyers. Human Rights Watch also reviewed court and police documents and relevant photos. An August 11 email to Attorney General Gedion Timothewos summarizing the Human Rights Watch findings and requesting further information has not received a response. This research supplements interviews in November and December 2020 with nine people subjected to profiling, searches, and arbitrary arrests of Tigrayans in Addis Ababa after the conflict in Tigray began in November. In mid-July the Addis Ababa police commissioner, Getu Argaw, told the media that over 300 Tigrayans had been arrested, saying they were under investigation for their alleged support for Tigray’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which Ethiopia’s parliament designated as a terrorist group in May. Although the attorney general told the media that ordinary citizens would not be affected, in the arrests that Human Rights Watch researched, most if not all appeared to have been targeted on the basis of ethnicity. Witnesses said that security forces stopped and arrested Tigrayans on the streets and in cafés and other public places, and in their homes and workplaces, often during warrantless searches. In many cases, security forces checked people’s identification cards to confirm their identity before taking them to a police station or other detention facility. A Tigrayan political activist and a Tigrayan aid worker, both based in Addis Ababa, were among those arrested in July, as were at least a dozen journalists and media workers who have reported on abuses against Tigrayans. While family members often knew where their relatives were being held during the first few days of detention, many were then secretly transferred to unidentified locations. Lawyers and families discovered, often weeks later and sometimes only informally, that some detainees were being held in the Afar region, over 200 kilometers from Addis Ababa. The whereabouts of others, including 23 cases Human Rights Watch documented, remain unknown. On July 2 the authorities arrested a 34-year-old Tigrayan man along with a friend and two other Tigrayans in a café in the Haya Hulet neighborhood, popular with Tigrayans. He said that 12 police officers entered the café, checked their IDs, and took them to the Karamara police station, where all detainees were separated by ethnicity. While the man was released the following day, his friend was among approximately 90 Tigrayans who were not. Two days later, the man received a call from his friend using a borrowed phone, who told him: “We are being transported by 16 buses. There are police, intelligence, and also military.” The man called the number the next day and a police officer said that the detainees had been taken to Afar. The media and witnesses have reported that since June 28, authorities have closed dozens of businesses in Addis Ababa belonging to Tigrayans, particularly in Haya Hulet and several neighborhoods in Bole district. For instance, on June 29, police and intelligence agents arrested a hotel owner and shut the hotel, but released his colleague, who is ethnic Amhara. The Tigrayan owner’s brother said that within two days, security forces moved the hotel owner to an undisclosed location, and his whereabouts remain unknown. Security forces have also intimidated and threatened people, including detainees and their relatives. “Many of the police officers who were in the compound [of the detention center] were insulting me,” said a woman detained in July. “They were using abusive words that are directly attached with identity. They said I was a ‘venomous snake.’” Ethiopian government abuses against Tigrayans in Addis Ababa started after the Tigray conflict began in November. In November and December, the authorities arbitrarily arrested and dismissed from work Tigrayans working in the government security and civil services, profiled Tigrayans during systematic ID checks, and searched homes without warrants, in many cases repeatedly. These actions have restricted Tigrayans’ freedom of movement throughout the duration of the conflict. Many of the unlawful tactics currently being used by the security forces, such as secretly transferring suspects among various police authorities to evade legal requirements and prolong detention periods, were used in 2020 against arbitrarily detained opposition figures and journalists. Enforced disappearances are defined under international human rights law as the arrest or detention of a person by state officials or their agents, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the arrest or to reveal the person’s fate or whereabouts. Forcibly disappeared people are outside the protection of the law, making them more vulnerable to torture, extrajudicial execution, and other abuses. Forcibly disappearing people denies them access to lawyers, undermining their right to a fair trial, and may inflict severe mental suffering on their families. In Ethiopia their situation is exacerbated because detainees rely on their relatives to provide them with adequate food, clothes, and other essentials that the government does not provide. Ethiopian authorities should comply with international legal prohibitions against arbitrary deprivation of liberty and enforced disappearances, Human Rights Watch said. As an urgent matter, they should provide families with information about their loved ones, release those wrongfully detained, and transfer civilians held in military custody to civilian control. “The Ethiopian government’s ethnic profiling, arrest, detention, and enforced disappearances of Tigrayans is unlawful and unjust,” Bader said. “Donor countries should raise their concerns with the government to immediately end and investigate these discriminatory practices that threaten to worsen ethnic tensions in the country.” For further accounts of enforced disappearances and other security forces abuses, please see below. Enforced Disappearances Human Rights Watch interviewed relatives, friends, and lawyers of 23 Tigrayan people whom the authorities arrested between June 28 and July 19 and whose whereabouts have not been revealed. A lawyer also shared a list of an additional 110 people whose relatives said they did not know their whereabouts as of August 2. The people interviewed are identified by pseudonyms because of security concerns. The documented arrests were carried out by the Addis Ababa city or federal uniformed police, often accompanied by suspected intelligence officers in civilian clothes. For a few days after arrests, relatives could sometimes locate and bring their loved ones food, but after that short period, the authorities told relatives that the person had been moved to an undisclosed location or released, even though the detainees did not return home. Both federal and city police authorities initially detained people in police stations and prisons, including at Gotera, Gulele, Akaki Kaliti, Addisu Gebeya, the Addis Ababa Police Commission (commonly known as “Sostegna”), and the Federal Police Commission. The sister of a 39-year-old man whose whereabouts remain unknown described her brother’s enforced disappearance on July 2 and his last communication with his family: On Wednesday [June 30], he was stopped in Piazza [north central Addis Ababa], and they said to him: “We know that you were just in Tigray.” He said no, he had been in Addis the whole time. They kicked him in the chin. He gave them his ID and insisted on calling a police officer, who ordered the officials to let him go. He stayed at home for the next two days. Then on Friday [July 2], he left the house and was arrested at around midday, around Teklehaimanot [north central Addis Ababa]. He called our other sister and said: “They put us in a car with a lot of other Tigrayans. I’m not sure where they are taking us,” and then the call was cut. Habtom, a 22-year-old tailor, was most likely arrested on June 28, along with 30 other Tigrayans. Habtom’s sister Tsega visited him during his first week in detention, first at the Gulele subcity police station and then at a temporary detention facility near Kaliti subcity. She saw him again during a court appearance in Addisu Gebeya, where prosecutors told the court that Habtom and what Tsega estimated to be dozens of other Tigrayans were accused of “being a terrorist.” Habtom “disappeared,” three days before his next scheduled court appearance. “On Tuesday morning, when I brought him some food, they told me that he had been released,” she said. “But my brother hasn’t come home.” Tesfay and 10 friends, all of whom were originally from a small village in Tigray but had been living in Addis Ababa for several years, were detained on July 3. Tesfay’s brother said: I asked a friend. He said he would check to see where my brother was. After two days, I was very worried. He finally told me that my brother had been arrested and brought to Shola [police station]. They were held there for one night. Then, in the early morning, they were taken away in 26 buses - all with Tigrayan men. He said that as of August 16, he had not been able to find out where his brother was. Several family members and lawyers said that they had heard informally that their detained relatives had been moved to Awash Arba and Awash Sebat Kilo, towns in the Afar region more than 200 kilometers from Addis Ababa. A former detainee arrested in Addis Ababa and then transferred by the federal police to Afar said that he was held in Awash Sebat Kilo Police Training Center and that most of the detainees in his cell were Tigrayans from Addis Ababa. Several people said that they have since seen their missing relatives or friends initially arrested in Addis Ababa as detainees on government media and affiliated broadcasts. Two recognized their friends in a July 15 program on a government-affiliated television station, Walta TV, that claimed to show captured Tigrayan fighters eating in a detention facility. Tesfay’s brother saw one of his brother’s 10 arrested friends in photos posted on state-owned Fana Broadcasting Corporation. Relatives of a man who had been arrested at his restaurant in Addis Ababa in early July along with his brother-in-law, were seen being marched along in an August 11 Ethiopian TV program. None of these programs provided information on the detainees’ whereabouts or their legal status. Incommunicado Detention of Journalists, Political Activist, Aid Worker Federal police held incommunicado for nearly a month 10 Ethiopian journalists and media workers, including four women from Awlo Media, along with another journalist, and two journalists from Ethio Forum. Awlo Media and Ethio Forum have both reported extensively on abuses against Tigrayans since the Tigray conflict began in November. The police also held a Tigrayan political activist and an aid worker incommunicado. Police arrested 10 Awlo Media journalists and media workers on June 30 at their offices, along with another journalist who was there. Their lawyer said that relatives were able to visit them at the Federal Police Commission for two days but were told on July 2 that they had been released. Federal police in Addis Ababa arrested and detained Ethio Forum staff members Abebe Bayu on July 1 and Yayesew Shimelis on July 2. Yayesew was detained on his way to a monthly court hearing on charges related to the spread of fake news that he has been facing since May 2020. Relatives were able to bring them food and clothes at the Federal Police Commission, near Mexico Square, until July 2. The authorities then told the relatives that Abebe and Yayesew had been released, but they never returned home. On July 27 after the journalists’ lawyer filed a habeas corpus petition, the Federal Police Commission told a civil court in Addis Ababa that all 13 detained journalists and media workers had been transferred to federal police custody in Awash Sebat Kilo in Afar. The commission alleged that the journalists had sought to incite violence to overthrow the government in violation of the new media law. The 13 appeared before the Awash Fentale District court on August 2, the media reported. The authorities have said that two other detainees – a political activist and an aid worker, both Tigrayans – had also appeared before the Awash Fentale District court. Tsegaze’ab Kidane, a local aid coordinator for Finote Yared Philanthropic, according to his acquaintances, appeared before the court on August 2 alongside the journalists. His lawyer had not known his whereabouts since July 4. Kibrom Berhe, an activist with the Baytona political party in the Tigray region, was detained on July 16. Initially, security forces took Kibrom to the Federal Police Commission in Addis Ababa. On July 17, federal police told his relatives that he had been released, and on July 27, said that he had appeared before a court in Awash Sebat Kilo, accused of spreading false information. Earlier, on July 6, suspected plainclothes intelligence officials accompanied by federal police had assaulted Kibrom in a café in Addis Ababa and detained a friend who was with him. Nine of the Awlo Media journalists and staff and the other journalist arrested at their offices were released on August 9. The court ordered the release on bail of the remaining journalists, as well as Tsegaze’ab and Kibrom, on August 16, but they remained in detention at time of writing. Arbitrary Arrests, Unlawful Searches of Homes, Businesses Many Tigrayans in Addis Ababa have been detained for several days or weeks, on many cases being released after paying bail of between 3,500 and 50,000 birr (US$80 to US$1,130) either to the police or the courts. Eight Tigrayans described security force searches without warrants of their homes and businesses in Addis Ababa since November. Most said that the security forces claimed they were looking for weapons. Three of these families said their homes and businesses were searched repeatedly. The daughter of Selam, a 60-year-old widow, said that on July 9, three armed police officers and a plainclothes officer searched her mother’s house without a warrant while her grandchildren watched. The officials claimed they had received a tip that she had weapons and a stash of cash. They then detained Selam outside a police station and refused at first to allow her relatives to bring her food. The following day they released her after her family signed a document stating that “she was detained for having a war weapon.” Tsega, who was detained in July, said that security forces searched her house before arresting her for allegedly helping the Tigrayan Defense Forces (TDF), a self-proclaimed armed resistance group that has emerged in Tigray: [The neighborhood police chief] and a dozen Addis Ababa police officials came to my house and told me they wanted to search it. I asked them for a search warrant, but they told me they were working on it. Since my neighbors were all out, and the number of the police [officers] were too many, I allowed them to search without a warrant. They said they were looking for a weapon and told me I better hand it over before they started the search. I told them that I don’t have one. People released from detention said they encountered many Tigrayans while in custody. One estimated seeing about 200 Tigrayans at the Addis Ababa Police Commission in late July: There were 80-year-old priests, monks, church administrators, government officers… I think most of them were arrested from the day after Mekelle was controlled by the TDF. Around five older people. The owner of Axum hotel [in Addis Ababa] was there; he is probably around 70 years old. The monks were arrested from monasteries around Addis Ababa. The monks and priests- they were questioned [and] accused of giving training to soldiers who are going to fight in Tigray. Some of them don’t even have bank accounts, but they were also accused of transferring money to the TPLF. During her week in detention, a Tigrayan woman said she met a range of people who, like her, were accused of supporting the TDF: older people, former police, lawyers, and youth. Security forces have intimidated and threatened people during searches, detention, and prison visits, often referencing their Tigrayan identity. A 37-year-old man, whose home was searched twice by dozens of police during a single week in November, said: “I asked if they had a warrant. They said: ‘You can take your court order from Mekelle.’ They were smiling.” “To breathe right now is very difficult,” said a man who assisted people detained in recent months. “We just don’t know what’s going on.” Government Closures of Tigrayan-Owned Businesses Seven Tigrayan owners of small restaurants, bars, or hotels said that Addis Ababa police, often accompanied by officials from the Addis Ababa City Administration Trade and Industry Bureau, shut down their premises without any notice. The authorities gave various reasons for the closures, including failing to follow Covid-19 measures. These closures cause financial strain with payments due for salaries, rent, and taxes. A restaurant owner, Goitum, said that a group of federal police officers and plainclothes officers closed his small restaurant in Bole district in early July, purportedly for violating Covid-19 regulations: The reason they gave me was that I didn’t respect the Covid rules, that I was supposed to only have three clients in the space I had. But this is just an excuse. In the butcher’s nearby, there are lots of people and they didn’t say anything to them. At other times, the police did not explain the reasons for the closure. The 35-year-old owner of a small restaurant in Haya Hulet neighborhood said that armed police and officials from the Trade and Industry Bureau shut it down on July 1 with no explanation. The officials left a sign in Amharic on the door of the closed restaurant that reads “closed because of security problems.” The police have also targeted bars and venues featuring music in Tigrinya, the language spoken by Tigrayans. A woman who worked as a bar singer lost her job in early July after the Addis Ababa police threatened to close the bar. She said: While we were performing, the police came in and said, “We heard singing in Tigrinya. You have to stop singing in Tigrinya.” They spoke to the owner of the club. They were speaking between Oromo and Amharic - we understood some of the Amharic - and they were saying, “You know that we are shutting down all the Tigrayan clubs, why are you still allowing them to sing?” Our owner came to us [the Tigrayan performers] and said, “You are good workers, and I am sorry to let you go, but if I keep you, they will shut us down completely.” Another Tigrinya singer said that the authorities shut down his place of work, a bar in Haya Hulet where Tigrinya songs were performed. Two business owners said that they had visited several government offices to appeal closures and to learn when they could reopen their business, but their inquiries proved unsuccessful. © 2021 Human Rights Watch

Over 420 Civilians Killed During Attacks, Massacres in 2021 (Bamako) – Islamist armed groups have killed over 420 civilians and driven tens of thousands from their homes during attacks in western Niger since January 2021, Human Rights Watch said today. The armed Islamist groups should cease all abuses against civilians, and local authorities should step up efforts to protect vulnerable villages. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that armed Islamist fighters entered their villages on motorcycles, killing men and boys, and burning houses and granaries. The attackers summarily executed civilians in their homes, after forcing them off public transport, at wells, and funerals; and while they farmed or watered their animals. Among those killed were village chiefs, imams, people with disabilities, and numerous children, some executed after being ripped from their parents’ arms. “Armed Islamist groups appear to be waging war on the civilian population in western Niger,” said Corinne Dufka, Sahel director at Human Rights Watch. “They have killed, pillaged, and burned; leaving death, broken lives, and destruction in their wake.” From June 23 to July 4 Human Rights Watch visited Niger and interviewed 44 witnesses to abuses and 16 other people, including ethnic Peuhl, Tuareg, and Zarma community leaders; local government and security officials; members of Nigerien human rights organizations; and foreign diplomats. Human Rights Watch interviewed five other witnesses in July by telephone. The nine attacks that Human Rights Watch documented took place between January and July in towns, villages, and hamlets in western Tillabéri and Tahoua regions, located near the Mali and Burkina Faso borders. Since 2019, this area has experienced a dramatic spike in attacks against military targets and, increasingly, civilians by armed Islamist groups allied to the Islamic State and, to a lesser extent, Al-Qaeda. These groups have also destroyed schools and churches, and imposed restrictions based on their interpretation of Islam. On March 21, armed Islamist fighters killed at least 170 ethnic Tuaregs in the Tahoua region, the deadliest attack on civilians in Niger’s recent history. “A mother threw her arms around her 17-year-old son, but the jihadists beat her mercilessly until she could hold on no longer, then executed the boy in front of her,” a witness said. A villager described the January 2, twin attacks on Tchomabangou and Zaroumdareye in which 102 civilians, nearly all ethnic Zarma, were killed: “As the jihadists patrolled through town, I saw them killing people at close range, sometimes shooting them twice, three times, to make sure they were dead.” All parties to Niger’s armed conflict are bound by Common Article 3 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and other treaty and customary laws of war. The laws of war prohibit attacks on civilians and civilian property and the mistreatment of anyone in custody. People who commit serious violations of the laws of war, including summary executions and torture, may be prosecuted for war crimes. The Niger government has an obligation to investigate and appropriately prosecute alleged war crimes committed within its territory. Human Rights Watch has previously reported on abuses by Niger’s security forces, including over 150 alleged killings and enforced disappearances of people during counterterrorism operations in 2019 and 2020. An investigation by Niger’s National Human Rights Commission documented the enforced disappearance of 102 people and located 71 of their bodies in common graves. Niger’s authorities should take urgent steps to stop the upsurge in killings of civilians, Human Rights Watch said. They should establish early warning networks, reduce the army’s response times to threatened villages, and create committees composed of civilians, security forces, and civil society groups to identify and respond to urgent protection needs. “After slaughtering my people, the jihadists moved slowly because of the livestock they’d stolen,” one villager said. “There was plenty of time for our army to pursue them, but they didn’t.” “Concerned governments should help Nigerien authorities better protect civilians from such horrendous and deadly attacks, and increase assistance for the growing number of displaced,” Dufka said. For detailed accounts of the attacks, please see below. For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Niger, please visit: https://www.hrw.org/africa/niger Niger’s Conflict Since 2015, armed Islamists have carried out attacks against Niger’s security forces and civilians. Until 2019, most of these attacks occurred in southeastern Niger by the Nigeria-based groups Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Beginning in 2019, armed Islamist groups ramped up their attacks in western Niger. Several – on soldiers, army bases, and civilians – were claimed by Islamic State affiliated groups, but groups allied to Al-Qaeda have also reportedly carried out attacks, including near the Burkinabé border. The armed conflict in western Niger is underscored by intercommunal tensions. Throughout the Sahel, Islamist armed groups have concentrated recruitment efforts on the nomadic Peuhl, which has inflamed pre-existing tensions between the Peuhl and various agrarian groups, including the Zarma, dominant in Tillabéri region, and certain Tuareg clans in Tahoua region. The tensions are largely over access to land and water, and accusations of banditry. With few exceptions, civilians killed during the armed Islamist attacks Human Rights Watch documented in June and July were ethnic Zarma and Tuareg. While some Zarma have joined the Islamist armed groups, the community is largely perceived as loyal to the Nigerien state. Peuhl leaders say that other ethnic groups and security forces blame and subject them to collective punishment for their perceived support of armed Islamists. Most of those killed by Nigerien security forces in 2019 and 2020 were Peuhl, and to a lesser extent Tuaregs. Community leaders and analysts fear the growing communal violence could lead to the formation of ethnic self defense groups, with even more deadly results. Dramatic Rise in Attacks on Civilians in 2021 Villagers from western Niger said armed Islamists had frequented the area for several years, largely without committing abuses against civilians, but beginning in 2019 these groups became more threatening and violent. Elders from the Banibangou and Tondikiwindi administrative areas in the Tillabéri region cited a spate of executions of village leaders in November 2019 as a turning point. Dozens of villagers said that since 2019, armed Islamists allied to the Islamic State and based in Mali increasingly imposed repressive policies on the population. They cited the groups’ declaration as haram (forbidden) smoking or selling cigarettes, consuming alcohol, listening to music, wearing certain clothing, and men mingling with women. Villagers said the armed Islamists closed schools, destroyed shops selling cigarettes, and beat people for refusing to adhere to their interpretation of Islam. They also pressured the population to provide recruits and to pay zakat, or Islamic tax, usually in the form of livestock, money, or grain. The groups threatened and attacked villagers who rejected the demands, gave them ultimatums to leave, and looted their livestock – at times entire herds – destroyed fields and granaries, and more recently, killed farmers in their fields. An elder from the hard-hit Banibangou administrative area said armed Islamist groups had destroyed 147 granaries in his area since the start of 2021. Villagers attributed the dramatic increase in attacks on civilians in 2021 to several factors. First, was the Zarma villagers’ alleged unlawful killing of Peuhl men or suspected armed Islamist fighters, and retaliatory attacks by the armed Islamists days or weeks later. A few of these killings were of men that the Zarma community accused of being “jihadist spies” or of pressing them to pay zakat, but others were reportedly ordinary villagers. They included three people on their way to the Tchomabangou clinic in December 2020 and the village chief of Bissaou village, killed in Banibangou with four others including members of his family, on May 5, 2021. Second, was the 2019 recruitment by the Nigerien security forces of several hundred men from the Tillabéri and Tahoua regions, and their deployment to their home areas in early 2021. Third, was local efforts by Zarma villagers to acquire military firearms and form village self defense groups. Fourth, was the refusal of some Zarma and Tuareg villagers to pay the increasingly punitive zakat demanded by the armed Islamists. Finally, they cited the refusal by some villages to provide armed Islamist groups with recruits or intelligence on Nigerien security force activity. Three security analysts noted another reason: that armed Islamist groups, under increasing military pressure in Mali, might be trying, as one said, to “clear areas of hostile civilians so as to eventually base themselves in western Niger.” Atrocities in Tahoua and Tillabéri Regions Human Rights Watch documented nine attacks by armed Islamist groups on or near Bakorat and Intazayene villages, in Tahoua region, and affecting Tchomabangou, Zaroumadareye, Chinedogar, Darey-Daye, Gaigorou, Danga Zawne, Fantio, Dorbel, Wiyé, and Deykoukou in Tillabéri Region. Witnesses, community leaders, and security analysts believed that the attackers were armed Islamists because of their consistent modus operandi; because villagers had for several years interacted with them and recognized individual fighters known to belong to these groups among the attackers; and because of what the attackers said. Most believed that those involved in these attacks were affiliated with the Islamic State. Survivors and witnesses said the attacks were over quickly–often under an hour–and that nearly all occurred in villages within 40 kilometers of the Mali or Burkina Faso borders. Security analysts believed that in all but a few cases, the attackers had crossed over to Niger from bases in Mali or Burkina Faso. Villagers said the attackers travelled on motorcycles, typically with two fighters on each, and were dressed in military attire, boubous (flowing robes), or jeans. Most had military ammunition vests or bandoliers, and many wore military boots referred to as “rangers.” Most wore turbans or balaclavas. The attackers were armed with Kalashnikov semi-automatic assault rifles, pistols, rocket-propelled grenade launchers (RPGs), and machine guns with tripods. Some were observed talking on what witnesses described as satellite phones and walkie-talkies, or “Motorolas.” Witnesses said they overheard the attackers speaking in Pulaar (spoken by the Peuhl), Tamashek (spoken by the Tuareg), and to a lesser extent, Zarma, Gourmanché, and Arabic. Human Rights Watch has on file the names of 10 men whom witnesses observed taking part in atrocities. Zarma and Tuareg leaders strongly complained about inadequate security for their villages. They criticized the Nigerien army for failing to detect concentrations of armed Islamist fighters prior to attacks, for failing to act on the intelligence that villagers provided, and for not pursuing the attackers as they escaped to Mali. Attack on Tuareg Villages in Tahoua Region, March 21 Witnesses said dozens of armed Islamist fighters on motorcycles attacked the Tuareg villages of Bakorat and Intazayene, and the nearby nomad camps of Warisanet and Tangaran, killing at least 170 people, nearly all from the Alfakaritine clan. Among the dead were the 70-year-old clan chief, Bouloua Barawakass; the imam, Al Makmoud Al Mustapha; and 22 children. "The motorcycles split up – 13 to Bakorat, 8 to Intazayene, others to the smaller camps,” said one survivor. “It started around 2 p.m. The killing was fast, but it took the assailants a few hours to round up and drive off our animals.” An elder said, “They attacked us because we refused to pay their punitive tax, but also as punishment for refusing to give our children [as recruits] to the Jihadists. Two days before the massacre, they told us to leave or be killed.” A woman from Bakorat, who lost 28 family members in the attack, said: “They swept into the village like a sandstorm, killing every man they saw. They shot one of my uncles in front of me. His 20-year-old son ran to save him, but he perished as well. We found them, slumped over each other.” A clan elder who helped organize the burials said: “We found several youth, burned, near a hut. Others [we found] near wells, mosques, and many along paths separating the different camps, scattered, separated by a few meters, hunted down as they fled. Honestly, most were shot in the head. Some we found only by following the vultures’ flight.” At least 39 people were killed near the Bakorat village well. “They calculated and struck at the very hour our men congregate to water their animals, share news, and chat,” one villager said. A survivor who counted up the dead, which included several pairs of brothers and fathers and sons, said: They attacked the well like it was a military objective, opening fire on the dozens of men there. As they killed, I heard the attackers saying, “This is your time … for working with the state,” and asking, “Are you a true Muslim?” before saying Allahu Akbar, then bam! … bam! bam! I collapsed, seeing the carnage … my father, my brothers, my cousins, my friends lying there, dead and dying. A 30-year-old woman who lived in a Tuareg camp near Intayazane described the killing of five family members: The men had just left the mosque. The attackers yelled, “Look, over there, block them!” Without asking a question, they jumped off their motorcycles, dragged the men for some meters, then executed them. Two of my cousins, each around 16, ran toward the women, who surrounded them, screaming, “No, not the children!” The attackers pushed the women away, grabbed the boys and shot them point-blank. Then they burned our tents, stole our jewelry, and rounded up our animals. It took 15 minutes to leave our lives in ruin. A villager from Bakorat said that, after killing the men, the attackers “chased out the women hiding in the houses; ransacked and stole everything of value; and burned the rest. As I fled, I saw smoke rising all over our area.” Another villager said, “They put clothing, fabric, mats, blankets, jewelry, and grain into a pickup they stole from Bakorat, then used their motorcycles to round up thousands of our animals.” One older woman wept as she described the impact of losing her husband and several sons: “They took all that gives us meaning – our husbands, our children, our clan chief, our imam, our animals. What am I without them? I begged them to kill me too.” Attack on Tchombangou and Zaroumdareye, Tillabéri Region, January 2 Eight villagers said that at about 9 a.m. on January 2, armed Islamist fighters attacked Zaroumdareye, killing 33 people, and shortly thereafter Tchombangou, seven kilometers away, killing 69. Village elders said nearly all of the 102 victims were Zarma men and boys, and most had been shot. The United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, said that 17 children were among the victims. A villager from Zaroumdareye said: As the cloud of motorcycles approached, I hid under my bed. I heard the crack of gunfire, cries of “Allahu Akbar,” people begging for mercy, and the sound of walkie-talkies. After they fled, I saw the bodies … in and outside houses, in the street, next to walls. Around seven people including a child had been executed in a ravine where they’d tried to hide. But most bodies were on the road, shot as they ran. I saw them for several kilometers as I fled with my family. Another villager said, “It seemed like the attackers split into groups – one to burn, another to round up animals, another to kill … Those ones walked around shooting at everything that moved. I saw them kill eight people at the well in a hail of bullets.” A 25-year-old farmer hiding in his house with numerous family members said: “There was an explosion – like a Molotov cocktail l– the house went up in flames. We debated: either we die in this fire, or we’ll be executed. But just then, they mounted their motorcycles and drove off … we waited a bit, then escaped through the window.” A mother said, “As I fled, I saw around five bodies burning – near the well. I shielded my children’s eyes as we passed by … no child should see such things.” After attacking Zaroumdareye, the attackers went to Tchombangou. A farmer, who had been wounded in the chest, said: Around 10 a.m., the terrorists burst into the village … gunfire erupted. We darted off in every direction. I was hit but dragged myself into a house. As the jihadists patrolled through town, I saw them executing so many people. I feared they’d catch me or that I’d bleed to death. Later, on my way to hospital, I saw my uncle, dead, near where we’d just been drinking tea, and further on, two children – Yacouba and Karim – dead in their field. A 37-year-old woman whose husband, brother, and four cousins died said: We were at the well … we dropped the water bottles, dashed home, grabbed the children, and ran. I collapsed on the road from thirst, and later learned my husband had perished. They stole hundreds of animals and the solar panels for the call to prayer. They burned the grain that we needed to feed our children. Before the attack, the jihadists taxed our animals, we complied. They asked for grain, we complied. What do they want?” Attack on Traders Near Banibangou, Tillabéri Region, March 15 At about 5 p.m. on March 15, in two coordinated, simultaneous attacks, armed Islamist groups attacked five vehicles of traders returning home from the Banibangou market. Three vehicles were returning to Chinegodar and two were returning to Darey-Daye. After forcing the vehicles to stop, the attackers ordered the passengers to line up on the road, separated them on the basis of ethnicity and gender, and executed 66 men and boys, all Zarma except for one driver. UNICEF said 6 of the victims were children, between ages 11 and 17. A Nigerien human rights investigator characterized the attacks as “a clear and terrible incident of targeting on the basis of ethnicity.” A Zarma community leader who participated in the burials said that “the only non-Zarma was a Hausa driver, apparently executed for driving a vehicle owned by a Zarma.” He said the dead were buried in mass graves near the attack sites and that 29 died in one attack, and 37 in the other. A trader who survived the attack said: We were about 30 kilometers from Darey-Daye when over 40 jihadists on motorcycles emerged from the bush. They fired in the air, yelling “Allahu Akbar,” forced the drivers to stop, then swarmed the two Toyotas. They yelled at us to line up on the road. They were armed with AKs; a few had rocket launchers. They ordered the Tuareg and Peuhl, identifiable by their dress, to one side; the women and small children to another; and the Zarma men to another. We thought it was a robbery, or a kidnapping, but when they ordered the Zarma to lie, face down, they knew what was coming and begged for their lives. The jihadists sprayed them with gunfire, and then searched the pants pockets of the dead and dying, taking out the money they’d made at market. Two traders observed one armed Islamist fighter making a call with a satellite phone just minutes after the killing. “I heard the commander say, ‘It’s done, we’ve killed them all,’” one said. “After hanging up, he ordered his men to burn the two Toyotas, like he’d just received an order to do so.” Attack on Gaigorou, Tillabéri Region, April 17 Armed Islamist fighters executed 19 Zarma villagers, 9 of whom were attending a funeral, during an attack on Gaigorou village. Witnesses said the attack lasted under an hour and that the attackers fled after the army, based several kilometers away, fired mortar shells in the direction of Gaigorou. “One group of jihadists attacked the cemetery, and others hunted down many of the people who’d run off as the attackers approached,” one witness said. An older man who was wounded in the cemetery said: After breaking the Ramadan fast, we, the men, gathered in the cemetery to bury our friend Sadou. Our prayers were broken by the buzzing of motorcycles. The jihadists. Seeing them – heavily armed with AKs, RPGs and bandoliers – we took off running, but 12 of us were stuck … Many of us were older and couldn’t run fast enough. They interrogated us about where the army was based. We said we didn’t know, which infuriated them. Without wasting time, they yelled, “Lie down, now!” and counted, in Pulaar, “one, two, three …” until reaching 12. Then they opened fire. One jihadist started walking around, checking to make sure we were dead. I was hit twice, but another man fell on top of me, dead. When our army fired a few mortar rounds, the jihadists panicked and sped off toward the Mali border. Attack on Danga Zawne, Tillabéri Region, June 24 Nineteen Zarma civilians were killed by an armed Islamist group during an attack on Danga Zawne village and a few nearby hamlets. Six witnesses said they believed the attackers, who were “speaking Pulaar with a local accent,” were based in and around their village. Among those killed was a 27-year-old man who was preparing to marry, and at least 12 farmers working their fields. Two of the dead were men displaced from Siwilli, a village near the Mali border, whom, a village elder said, the attackers had asked for by name. A man wounded in the attack said, “I was on my way to meet the groom, Habi, when the shooting started. Later, I saw the groom and his uncle – both shot in the head. They stole the special fabric, which was to be given to the bride, and broke into two shops.” Other witnesses said that farmers from nearby Talabkoraba and Koubikoura hamlets were gunned down in their fields, as was a 15-year-old, killed as he drove a donkey cart to fetch his grandfather at his farm. A village elder said 20 granaries and 12 thatched huts were burned during the attack. The witnesses said the attack deepened ethnic tensions between the Zarma and their Peuhl neighbors, most of whom, they said, had fled the area after the attack, fearing reprisals. Attacks in Téra Administrative Area, Tillabéri Region, May and June Nine civilians were killed in three separate attacks in the Téra administrative area, near Niger’s border with Burkina Faso. During the attacks, in May and June, an armed Islamist group killed a school director, a shop owner, and a man with a disability; and looted and destroyed a church and a school. At about 7 a.m. on May 12, the day of Eid al Fitr, the end of Ramadan, alleged armed Islamist fighters attacked Fantio village and killed five Zarma. A villager said: From a distance, I saw them emerge from a wooded area near the river, then approach town. They ordered the first group of men they encountered to recite a verse of the Quran – one was a Christian, but he knew the verse, which saved him. As they moved on, they saw a disabled man – I think they targeted him because he wore a cross … he was on crutches so he couldn’t run. They wasted no time in killing him. A friend of mine fled in his brother’s car, but the jihadists caught up with him and executed him as well. Another villager said, “One group attacked the church – I later saw the Bibles, instruments, and other church things burning – and then they attacked the school director’s house, where they burned books and notebooks. Then they shot open the lock of a shop and stole all the phone recharge cards.” During a second attack on Fantio, on June 22, alleged armed Islamist fighters killed a retired policeman and a teacher, and looted livestock. A villager who helped bury the dead said: “They rounded up every living animal in the village except the chickens and pheasants. They found the teacher hiding behind a dresser in his house and killed him in front of his family. After the second attack, hundreds of villagers fled to safer ground.” A witness to the June 13 attack on Dolbel village, which left two shopkeepers dead, said: “They had AKs, RPGs, and walkie-talkies. Their objective seemed more about resupplying than killing. They broke into shops, stole every animal they found. After 45 minutes, they regrouped near the market with their loot and sped west toward Burkina.” Attacks on Wiyé and Deykoukou, Tillabéri Region, July 25 and July 28 At least 33 Zarma civilians were killed in two attacks in the same area in July. The dead included farmers working in their fields and 17 people shot while retrieving the bodies of two herders killed minutes before. On July 25, 14 villagers were killed during an alleged armed Islamist attack near Wiyé. Nine were shot while working in their fields and five were found dead along two local roads. A witness from Wiyé who helped retrieve the bodies said, “Six were killed in the same field, 1.5 kilometers from Wiyé. Near the bodies I saw motorcycle tracks – they’d been shot at very close range.” One farmer said: “As we heard the motorcycles, we took off running, but they chased us down. As I hid, I saw them shoot a friend three times, but he survived … they took him for dead. We think the assailants are trying to drive us from our zone.” A villager from the July 28 attack on Deykoukou which killed 19 men said: Around 8:30 a.m., shots rang out near the village. We worried about two young men who’d just taken their animals to pasture. After it went quiet, we went, hoping to find them alive. We saw their bodies – about 300 meters from the village. As we were about to retrieve them, we were ambushed by the attackers, who were hiding behind bushes and granaries. They shot and shot, killing all the men within range. © Human Rights Watch 2021

August 2021 Genocide Watch is issuing an Emergency Warning for Belarus due to continuing political violence by President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. Lukashenko became President in 1994. He changed the constitution to remove term limits. He has been Belarus’ President ever since. Although exit polls showed he lost, Lukashenko claimed victory in the elections of 2020. This led to mass protests and international condemnation of the election. Since then, over 35,000 people have been jailed or tortured. Thousands have become refugees in neighboring states. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Lukashenko’s 2020 opponent, fled to Poland to and is in exile. She warns that Lukashenko is becoming “more cruel and harsh” since the election. His regime is supported by Vladamir Putin’s government in Russia. While crackdowns on Lukashenko’s opponents are not new, this past year's violent detentions and torture are the worst ever. Roman Protasevich, a prominent Belarusian journalist and activist, fled to Lithuania in 2019 to continue his opposition efforts. While aboard a Ryanair flight traveling from Athens to Vilnius, Belarusian air traffic controllers forced his plane to land in Minsk, inventing a bomb threat. Upon landing, Protasevich and Sofia Sapega, were arrested by police. International leaders condemned this “state-sponsored hijacking”. Protasevich and Sapega are currently held under house arrest in Minsk while awaiting trial. They could face 15 years in prison. Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya sought refuge in Poland when her coaches tried to force her to leave the Tokyo Olympics and return to Belarus. Tsimanouskaya had publicly complained that her coaches had entered her in an event without her knowledge or approval. Lukashenko’s son, Viktor, is the president of the Belarus Olympic Committee. Tsimanouskaya feared for her safety and refused to board the plane to Belarus. Poland offered her a humanitarian visa on August 2nd, and Tsimanouskaya announced her defection on August 5th. Vasily Shishov, head of the Belarusian House in Ukraine, was found by police hanged in a park near his house in Kyiv on August 3rd. He was a prominent Belarusians who was assisting refugees from Belarus. Many experts believe that Lukashenko ordered the assassination. Genocide Watch considers Belarus to be at Stage 8: Persecution. Genocide Watch recommends that the U.S., Canada, U.K. and E.U. should: · Impose the Global Magnitsky Act sanctions against all Belarusian officials responsible for torture and violence against protesters. · Demand release of all opposition leaders and protestors who are in jail or prison. · Demand Lukashenko’s resignation, followed by fair elections. · Neighboring countries like Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania should continue to give refuge and support to Belarusian émigrés in their activism against Lukashenko’s regime.