Human rights groups say latest series of arrests and searches are part of ‘a total purge on civil society’ By: Andrew Roth Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski was among those arrested last week. Photograph: Dmitry Brushko/AP The government of Belarus has launched a broad crackdown on civil society, launching raids and arrests on dozens of organisations in what has been described as a “black week” for the country’s NGOs. The raids, which began last week, have touched all corners of civil society, from groups that campaign for political prisoners’ rights to those that crowdfund medical care and have helped medics in the fight against coronavirus. The pressure follow mass arrests of opposition politicians and the closure and harassment of much of the country’s independent media, as longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko seeks to stamp out even apolitical efforts by Belarusians to self-organise. “It’s a total purge of civil society,” said Marina Vorobei, the founder of Freeunion.online, an online platform for public unions and initiatives that helps with self-organisation and provides tools for secure networking and remote work. “NGOs have always been under pressure in Belarus … but these raids, this wave of arrests and seizures have never been seen by the non-profit sector.” On Thursday Lukashenko vowed that the raids on NGOs would continue, calling them “bandits and foreign agents”. “A mopping-up operation is going on,” Lukashenko said. “Do you think it’s easy? There are thousands of our people working for them, and their brains are distorted and brainwashed with foreign money.” Many expected the crackdown. In an interview last month, Valentin Stefanovich of the Viasna human rights centre, which provides financial and legal assistance to political prisoners, said they had been hit with raids and criminal cases and were expecting further pressure from the government. “[Everyone] can be arrested in our country today,” Stefanovich said when asked if he was worried about being detained. “Part of our organisation has gone abroad. So they’ll never be able to shut down our activities completely. But as for me personally, it could happen at any moment, and I may not manage to get away. It’s just the way it is.” Last Wednesday, police raided the offices and homes of at least 14 rights groups, media organisations, NGOs and charity groups, including 10 members of Viasna. Stefanovich was arrested, along with chairman Ales Bialiatski, Uladzimir Labkovich and his partner Nina Labkovich. The raids and arrests have continued, with more than 60 searches having taken place over the last 10 days. “These raids and arbitrary arrests are just another instance of the crackdown against human rights defenders, civil society organisations and independent media that has been going on since the widely disputed presidential election in August 2020, when thousands of Belarusians took to the streets in mostly peaceful protests,” Viasna wrote in a statement. The blow against NGOs has also extended to groups that focus exclusively on charity work, crowdfunding and organising medical aid for vulnerable communities that now face being cut off entirely. Last week, police also raided the office and homes of senior members of the Imena NGO, an online platform that crowdfunds aid to help solve societal problems in Belarus. Its projects help fund homes for children with cancer and other terminally ill children, shelters for women and children who have been the victims of domestic violence, aid for the homeless, search parties, and support for medics battling Covid-19. Katerina Sinyuk, the organisation’s founder, said that she could not discuss the investigation against the group because she had been required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. In the meantime, the organisation’s bank accounts have been frozen, effectively paralysing their operations. “We help people in difficult situations regardless of their political beliefs. We don’t ask what their views or orientations are. That’s the point of charity work,” said Sinyuk in an interview, adding that their projects have helped more than 50,000 people. “Why have we fallen in this situation and what should we tell the people that we help now?” she continued. “We don’t know. We don’t want to abandon them because these are very vulnerable people.” “For many we’re the only source of funding,” she said. “And of course all these projects are just in shock.” One example was a mobile children’s hospice that provides care and medicine to dozens of children around the country. “We need to help look after these children because besides us, there really is nobody permanently raising funding for these kinds of projects,” she said. “This situation could lead to thousands of people being left without care.” © 2021 Guardian News

Move by international body set up to implement post-war peace deal follows attempts to downplay 1995 Srebrenica massacre. Bosnian Muslim women, family members of victims of Srebrenica 1995 massacre, gather prior to the burial of their relatives at the memorial cemetery in village of Potocari, near Eastern-Bosnian town of Srebrenica. Photograph: Elvis Barukcic/AFP/Getty Images The top international official in Bosnia has outlawed denial of genocide in the Balkan country to counter attempts by Bosnia’s Serbs to deny the scope of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Europe’s only post-second world war genocide. Valentin Inzko, the outgoing head of Bosnia’s Office of the High Representative, or OHR, introduced the changes to the country’s criminal code on Friday, bringing in prison sentences of up to five years for genocide denial and for the glorification of war criminals, including naming of streets or public institutions after them. The OHR is the top international body overseeing implementation of the peace agreement that ended Bosnia’s 1992-95 war. It has the authority to impose decisions or dismiss officials who undermine the post-war ethnic balance and reconciliation efforts among the Bosniaks, who are mostly Muslim, Bosnia’s Serbs and Croats. The international court of justice and the international criminal court for Former Yugoslavia declared the Bosnian Serb killings of more than 8,000 Bosniaks that took place in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war as genocide. However, Bosnian Serb officials and neighbouring Serbia have refused to accept the designation. Inzko, an Austrian diplomat, said in a statement: “Hate speech, the glorification of war criminals and revisionism or outright denial of genocide and war crimes prevent societies from dealing with their collective past, constitute renewed humiliation of the victims and their loved ones, while also perpetuating injustice and undermining interethnic relationships. “All of this causes frustrations, makes the society chronically ill, and prevents the emergence of desperately needed reconciliation.” Inzko said he decided to use his powers after waiting for years for Bosnia’s politicians to act. He cited a refusal by the Bosnian Serb assembly to withdraw decorations awarded to three convicted war criminals. “The situation has gotten worse and is now getting out of hand,” he said, warning that lack of acknowledgment was “sowing the seeds” for new conflicts. “Therefore, I believe that it is now necessary to regulate this matter with legal solutions.” The genocide in Srebrenica happened after Bosnian Serbs took control over the eastern enclave in July 1995. They executed Bosniak men and boys and dumped their remains into mass graves which were later dug out and reburied to cover the crime. The victims’ remains are still being unearthed and identified. Bosniak politicians and the relatives of the victims hailed Inzko’s decision, which was swiftly rejected by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, who is a member of Bosnia multi-ethnic presidency and the top politician in the Serb entity called Republika Srpska. Dodik threatened to launch a process of “dissolution” of Bosnia, the Klix news portal reported. “Republika Srpska rejects this, genocide did not happen, Serbs must never accept this,” he said. Dodik has repeatedly criticised the OHR and the west as biased against Serbs in Bosnia. The UN security council on Thursday rejected a resolution put forward by Serb allies Russia and China that would have immediately stripped the powers of the OHR in Bosnia. Both Bosnian Serbs and Serbia, which backed the Bosnian Serbs during the war, have called the massacre a crime, refusing to acknowledge it was genocide. Bosnian Serbs also have honoured their wartime leader Radovan Karadžić and military commander Ratko Mladić as heroes, although both have been convicted of genocide and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Hague-based tribunal. Murals featuring Mladić and Karadžić can be seen in many towns in Republika Srpska, which is the name for the Serb entity in Bosnia. Inzko said his decision was not aimed at nations but individuals. Recognising the guilt of individuals allows people to unburden themselves from the weight of the past, and move on towards a more promising future, he said. In Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, the prosecutor’s office said it would monitor any statements by individuals or groups and act in accordance with the legal changes. Kada Hotic, from the Mothers of Srebrenica group for relatives of the victims, said such a law should have been brought earlier. “I welcome the decision anyway,” she said. “Without acceptance, there is no forgiveness, and I will not forgive until someone pleads for forgiveness.” The US embassy in Bosnia called Inzko’s move “a starting point for more concrete debate and steps by local actors when it comes to practical implementation”. “We must underscore that the genocide at Srebrenica is not a matter of debate, but of historical fact,” the embassy said in a statement. “It is time to truly turn to a future based on peace and mutual trust.” The human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatovic, also welcomed the high representative’s action. “We must protect the truth, promote reconciliation and educate future generations,” Mijatovic tweeted. Inzko is leaving his post on 1 August, following his resignation in May after 12 years in office. He will be succeeded by Christian Schmidt of Germany. “My conscience dictates that I have no right to end my term while the convicted war criminals are being glorified,” Inzko said. © 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited

By Dawit Endeshaw and Giulia Paravicini ADDIS ABABA, July 27 (Reuters) - The local government in Ethiopia's Somali region said on Tuesday militia from the neighbouring region of Afar had attacked and looted a town, the latest flare-up in a local boundary dispute that adds to broader tensions in the Horn of Africa nation. An internally displaced Ethiopian girl walks back to her village Sariir in Somali Region, Ethiopia January 13, 2020. REUTERS/Giulia Paravicin. Ali Bedel, spokesperson for the Somali region government, said Afar militia "massacred hundreds of civilians" on Saturday in Gedamaytu, also known as Gabraiisa, a town at the centre of long-running regional boundary dispute in northeast Ethiopia. Afar's government did not immediately respond to requests for comment. However, an internal U.N. report seen by Reuters said there was fighting in Gedamaytu with an unknown number of injured on both sides. Ethiopia has been trying to contain a surge in violence as regions and ethnic groups vie for power and resources. The worst violence, unrelated to the latest flare-up, has been around Tigray in the north, where a conflict erupted in late 2020. Ali Bedel, spokesperson for government of the Somali region, which stretches north to south along Ethiopia's eastern border, said of the Gedamaytu incident: "Many have been displaced and the town is almost completely looted." Two senior Somali government officials gave similar accounts, with one saying there were hundreds of injured. The internal U.N. security bulletin said on Monday there was "ongoing fighting" between Afaris and Somalis in Gedamaytu with an "unknown number of injuries" on both sides. The Somali spokesperson said that after the attack "angry youths" had blocked a main road in the Afar area on Sunday and Monday that connects Addis Ababa, the capital of landlocked Ethiopia, and the sea port in next door Djibouti. He did not say where the youths were from. "The government are trying to calm down the situation," he said, without giving further details. NEW RECRUITS In Addis Ababa on Tuesday, thousands of new recruits to Ethiopia's federal army paraded before leaving for training camps, after Tigrayan forces advanced over the weekend into Amhara, a northwestern region that lies between Tigray and the capital further south. In a fresh sign of the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ethiopia as violence spirals, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday it was concerned about 24,000 Eritrean refugees in two camps in the Tigray region, saying they were cut off from aid and could run out of food and drinking water. read more In addition, about 3,000 Ethiopians from Amhara crossed into Ethiopia's neighbour Sudan on Monday, Sudan's state-run SUNA news agency reported, saying it was the highest since fighting erupted in November between Tigray's ruling party and Ethiopia's government. SUNA said those who crossed were from the Kimant, a minority group in the Amhara region. Kefale Mamo, a representative of the Kimant Committee, which campaigns for Kimant self-determination in the nation made up multiple ethnic groups, told Reuters he had received reports of fighting between Ethiopian forces and Kimant farmers. He said many homes were destroyed and cars stolen but said he could not give any casualty figures or details because communications in the area of fighting were down. A spokesperson for the Amhara region referred queries to the federal government. Ethiopian government officials and the country's military did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. © 2021 Reuters.

Lina Yoon | Human Rights Watch July, 22, 2021, 4:21PM EDT At Least 1,170 North Koreans Face Torture, Sexual Abuse if Sent Back Photos of the North Korean refugees helped by the North Korea Refugees Human Rights Association of Korea are displayed in Seoul, South Korea on June 11, 2019.© 2019 Josh Smith/Reuters For months, North Koreans living in South Korea who have relatives detained in China have been imploring government officials, foreign diplomats, United Nations agencies, and others for help. They hope international pressure can dissuade Chinese authorities from forcibly returning their relatives and other refugees to North Korea. Concerns among relatives spiked last week when Chinese authorities forcibly returned nearly 50 North Korean refugees who now face torture, imprisonment, sexual violence, and forced labor. The North Korean government reopened its borders on July 14 after closing them in early 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, increasing the risk of forced repatriation. The families’ fears have grown as North Korean authorities are reportedly inflicting more severe punishments on anybody trying to escape the country. The nearly 50 returned refugees are the latest victims of Beijing’s efforts to deter North Koreans from fleeing to China to escape horrific human rights conditions at home. Based on information from sources with local contacts, Human Rights Watch believes that the Chinese government is currently holding at least 1,170 North Koreans in detention. These include 450 North Korean men in a prison in Changchun, Jilin province serving sentences for alleged criminal activities, who will be deported after completing their sentences. There are also 325 North Korean refugees in Tumen city, 47 in Changbai county, 104 in Linjiang city in Jilin province, 180 in Dandong, and 64 in Shenyang in Liaoning province. The Chinese government routinely labels North Koreans as illegal “economic migrants” and forcibly repatriates them under a 1986 bilateral border protocol. But as a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, and the UN Convention against Torture, China is obligated not to force back anyone who would be at risk of persecution or torture upon return. North Korean authorities consider departures from the country without permission a serious crime. Since anyone who returns to North Korea after fleeing will likely be tortured or otherwise mistreated, all have a claim for refugee status in whichever country they reach. The Chinese government should provide asylum to North Koreans in China or give them safe passage to South Korea or another safe third country. It should allow the UN Refugee Agency to exercise its mandate and let them have access to the detained North Korean refugees. © 2021 Human Rights Watch

Amazônia Real Indigenous people in Palimiu Village (Photo: Condisi-Y) The expansion of prospectors to the Parafuri region diverts attention from the attacks that the indigenous people of Palimiu, a village some 200 kilometers away, have been suffering since May. In another document obtained exclusively by Amazônia Real , leaders tell HAY about the explosion of illegal mining and a new level of violence, marked by death threats with the actions of hooded militias armed with rifles, machine guns and bombs. “The approach of miners, which was sporadic, became more frequent and accompanied by threats. The Yanomami note that now all the miners are heavily armed, some with rifles and weapons similar to those of the army and the police”, indicates an excerpt from the report on the Parafuri region. On May 10, Palimiu village was attacked with gunfire, and the next day, six federal police officers went to the village, but they were also received with bullets by the criminals. Suspicions fall on miners linked to the PCC (First Command of the Capital), which has been approaching illegal mining in the state since at least 2018 . It was during these attacks that the Yanomami learned that the hooded men were guards hired to protect a mining area and that this is a particularly dangerous group, which is even feared by other miners, whom they began to refer to as “oka pë” – “enemies/aggressors”. According to the document sent to HAY, the recent threats occur in the daily lives of the Yanomami, in trivial situations of displacement in the outskirts of the communities, in which they find miners and threaten: “We are going to kill the Yanomami!” or “let's do away with the Yanomami!”. According to reports, the miners claim that the gold is running out in the beds upstream, and claim that they have already mapped the presence of the ore near the villages in the new areas. “The miners are going up the river, the planes, the helicopters, the boats continue. Mainly on the Mucajaí, Catrimani and Apiaú rivers, mining is growing. The invaders know that there will be no heavy operation and they are not afraid because they know that authorities are involved,” said Dário. Miners hide machinery According to Dário Kopenawa, the operations carried out in the region are not sufficient for the total disintrusion of the mine in the Yanomami IT. “Garimpeiros are smarter than the Federal Police. They bury the machinery, sink the boats, sink the rafts and hide the equipment in the bushes. They flee to the city while there is an operation and when it ends they return immediately because there is no control, there is no barrier, there is no territorial monitoring”, he explains. Reports of the most recent attacks involve armed miners against indigenous women, youth and children. On July 8, in the morning, a group of women was attacked. They were looking for the body of a young man who had disappeared into the river, when they were approached by a boat of armed prospectors who fired four shots and returned to the camp. In the early hours of July 13, a second attack took place in Palimiu. It was two in the morning when the community was approached by two boats “crowded” with miners, who fired ten shots at the Yanomami. There were no injuries. There are already 13 letters sent to the authorities by HAY reporting the violence against the indigenous people. The size of the destruction of illegal gold mining has already reached 2,430 hectares in TI Yanomami, according to the HAY report released in May. In 2020 alone, degradation had advanced 500 hectares. “Our territory is not protected, it is not safe and the miners will continue to enter. We are at risk, violence is serious and we are threatened every day. The authorities need to eliminate illegal mining”, says Dário. Operation Omama The drama experienced by the Yanomami, both in Palimiu and now in Parafuri, should have already ended. At least that was the promise of the federal government operation called Omama. On June 29, the PF, the Army, the Brazilian Air Force, the Brazilian Institute for the Environment (Ibama), Funai and the National Security Force announced the operation to combat illegal mining in the Yanomami IT. The objective was the disintrusion of miners and the protection of indigenous peoples. The name of the operation is a reference to the creator of the Yanomami. However, indigenous communities, according to the reports raised by the report, remain hostages to the constant threat of invaders. “There are a lot of weapons, really heavy weapons, and the invaders keep saying they're not afraid of anyone, not even the Federal Police,” says a Yanomami from the Parafuri region. According to the Junior Hekurari leadership, president of the Yanomami and Ye´kuana Indigenous Health Council (Considi-Y), the operations carried out in the Yanomami territory need to be more effective, because as soon as they are closed, the activity returns and all the machinery is recovered . It is not for nothing that the PF has been carrying out operations in the Yanomami IT for years, but even so the gold mining activity continues freely. “Garimpeiros recover everything quickly,” says Junior Hekurari, referring to the PF's operations. According to him, the situation in Parafuri is chaotic, with daily traffic of small aircraft and the constant arrival of invaders. “There are five aircraft a day landing in the region”, he describes. The agency approached the PF and the Ministries of Defense and Justice and Public Security to obtain a balance of Operation Omama. The Ministry of Defense indicated that Amazônia Real should contact the Ministry of Justice and it indicated that it should seek information from the Defense. The PF responded to the report, but did not send the information until this publication. The MPF of Roraima informed, via the Press Office, that it received the letter and is currently analyzing the information to define the most appropriate actions for the case. Funai did not return the report's email.

Genocide Watch is issuing an updated Genocide Emergency for Nigeria. Since 2009, Boko Haram and its ideological splinter group the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have terrorized civilians in Northeast Nigeria. Islamist-inspired violence has also taken root in other parts of the country, such as the Northwest and Middle Belt, where Fulani jihadists are perpetrating a genocidal campaign against Christians. A view of an empty classroom at the school in Dapchi in the northeastern state of Yobe, Nigeria, where dozens of schoolgirls went missing after an attack on the village by Boko Haram on February 23, 2018 [File: Afolabi Sotunde/AFP] Since 2011, Boko Haram (and later ISWAP) have killed more than 40,000 Nigerians, making Boko Haram the deadliest terror group in the world. Recent reporting from the UNDP puts the direct and indirect death toll from the twelve-year conflict at more than 350,000 people, including an estimated 300,000 children. Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, died in May 2021 by detonating an explosive vest to avoid capture by ISWAP. However, it is unlikely that Boko Haram massacres and kidnappings will diminish. Boko Haram and ISWAP have recently expanded outside of their Borno state stronghold.[ER1] In 2014, Boko Haram rose to international infamy following the abduction of more than 270 girls from the Chibok school. Today, the kidnapping of school children has become a regular occurrence. Since December of 2020 a school is targeted for kidnappings every three weeks. Attackers have successfully stormed schools in the north of Nigeria three times in the past five months, resulting in the kidnapping of at least 667 children. This includes the Boko Haram kidnapping of 344 students from the Katsina all-boys school on December 11, 2020. Although the Katsina students were later released, fear elicited from these attacks, combined with COVID-19 restrictions, has increased the number of children unable to attend school from 7 million in 2020 to 10 million in 2021. School closures reflect broader insecurity in the region, yet also are consistent with the genocidal mission of Boko Haram and ISWAP against secular education. The genocidal violence perpetrated by Fulani jihadists in Nigeria’s Northwest and Middle Belt has received far less attention than Boko Haram massacres and kidnapping in the Northeast. While Fulani jihadists may lack the central organization of Boko Haram or ISWAP, they have demonstrated a clear pattern of genocidal behaviour through the systematic targeting of Christian farmers. Since 2015, Fulani militants have killed more than 11,500 Christians, according to the International Committee on Nigeria. This violence has been framed as an inter-ethnic conflict driven by climate change that has reduced viable pastures for Fulani herders. This narrative is the official view of the Nigerian, US, and other governments. It is a narrative used for denial of the religious and jihadist nature of the massacres. Resource scarcity is only an exacerbating factor – not a root cause – for the pattern of genocidal violence perpetrated by the Fulani against Christians. The Nigerian government’s response to these ongoing genocides has been entirely inadequate. Army counter-terrorism campaigns against Boko Haram and ISWAP often kill civilians, strengthening local support for the groups. President Muhammadu Buhari, a Fulani, has done very little to stop the violence perpetrated by Fulani Jihadists. Due to the continued systematic violence against civilians, which directly targets Christians and moderate Muslims, Genocide Watch considers Nigeria to be at Stage 9: Extermination and Stage 10: Denial. The Nigerian government has not acknowledged these genocides and therefore is in denial, as are the US and other governments. Genocide Watch Recommends: • The UN and Nigerian government should establish a commission of inquiry to investigate attacks on civilians and report to the Nigerian government and UN Human Rights Council. • The Nigerian Army and police should establish a Strike Force, trained by international counter-terrorism experts, to investigate and arrest leaders of Boko Haram, ISWAP, and Fulani jihadists. • Nigerian religious leaders should establish a network of monitors to provide early warnings of attacks. • The US should pressure the Nigerian Government to protect civilians targeted by Islamist extremists. • The Nigerian government should implement land use management plans to reduce competition for resources between farmers and Fulani herders.

Khamisa Juma Ishag Abaker's home used to stand here, before her settlement was attacked. Two years after the Sudanese revolution, hundreds of thousands of people have been internally displaced as violence in Darfur continues. Many hoped a hard-earned peace agreement would put an end to the decades-old conflict, but the region's bloody legacy continues. Thirty-five-year-old Khamisa Juma Ishag Abaker is perched on a pile of rubble that was once her home. Dressed in a floral print fabric that covers her from head to toe, she sifts through the dust to uncover an old bottle of perfume and dinnerware gifted to her but now broken - remnants of her old life. "My house had a garden and a door. I could lie down in the shade. I could cook for my children." It's her first time returning to Krinding - a settlement for displaced people - after clashes in January left tens of thousands of people homeless and hundreds dead. "They burnt all the houses. We tried to flee into the street, but they shot my brother. He fell and when he tried to stand up, they shot him again - they killed him in front of me. I've cried so much… my eyes can barely see now." Now living in cramped conditions in a school classroom in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, she is struggling to take care of her ailing parents and her children. "We don't have money. We don't even have beds, pillows, or blankets… I don't have anything. I just stare and do nothing." Ms. Abaker and her family have ended up here, in El Geneina. Ms. Abaker says the Rapid Support Forces [RSF], a paramilitary group tasked by the government with keeping civilians safe, is behind the attacks. She is too afraid to go back. "If the international forces came, we could return, but they won't." The absence of joint UN-African Union (Unamid) peacekeepers is being felt by many in West Darfur. After 13 years on the ground, experts say their gradual withdrawal since December has been met with a surge of violence. Some 20,000 Sudanese troops were promised to take their place, but they are yet to arrive. Darfur: How did we get here? The war in Darfur began in 2003 after ethnic African rebels revolted against former President Omar al-Bashir's Arab-dominated government. Bashir responded by arming local Arab militias - infamously known as the Janjaweed - who targeted non-Arab tribes accused of supporting the rebels. Hundreds of thousands of people died and many villages were burnt and pillaged. Then in 2019, he was ousted from government by some of his own generals following mass street protests calling for his removal. Now in prison in Sudan serving a sentence for corruption, Bashir is due to be transferred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face genocide and war crimes charges, which he denies. A year after the revolution the new military-civilian transitional government signed a peace agreement with local rebel groups. Residents believed it was the beginning of a new era of calm, but unrelenting violence, which began in December 2019, has continued to grip the region. As a result, more than 150,000 people have been displaced, according to data from the International Organization for Migration. El Geneina is overflowing with people left twice displaced. Some 80 government sites host at least 50,000 civilians - all now experts in building makeshift homes assembled together from plastic sheets and sticks. As people shift from the peripheries of town into temporary urban camps, so too has the conflict. In April, fighting between one of Darfur's biggest communities, the Masalit, and the Arabs spread to the centre, leaving people terrified of a future attack. Khamis Mohamed Ishag Osman - a victim of the April clashes - was shot while fleeing for safety from El Geneina's El Jebel settlement. Ms. Abaker's settlement suffered massive damage, and she is too scared to go back. With a look of anguish across his face, he points to the bullet wound protruding from his left shoulder. "The attack was massive. My mother and I held the kids and ran. They shot me whilst I was holding my kid in my arms and running." He took shelter in a temporary camp in town, but found living there unbearable. "I needed basic things for my kids… If you needed the bathroom you would have to walk for two or three hours with over a thousand people queuing. "The children wanted to wash themselves and use the bathroom, but they didn't feel comfortable." After the attack, the Sudanese government installed checkpoints in some areas to ensure security and to encourage people to return to settlements. Khamis Mohamed Ishag Osman has returned to his home, and is rebuilding. It's been a month since Mr. Osman returned to El Jebel - now a dusty, desolate settlement devastated by conflict. He and his family spend the mornings rebuilding his destroyed home - using natural resources to salvage what's left of it. The tree that once shielded his family from the oppressive Sudanese sun has now been chopped down for the foundations of his house. Many more people who spoke to the BBC also don't feel safe. They say the government, including the RSF, which grew out of the Janjaweed, are untrustworthy. In early July, 20 people were killed in inter-ethnic violence 60km (37 miles) east of El Geneina. One of the prerequisites to peace was a full integration of the RSF into the military. However, its commander, Mohamed Hamdan "Hemeti" Dagolo - who is also the country's vice-president, has since publicly refused to unify with the Sudanese armed forces. Experts believe this is slowing down the peace process, affecting Darfuris tormented by the violence of the past and present. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced in the last two years. Humanitarian organisations working on the ground have also emphasised the government's need to work harder to ensure security. Elliot Vhurumuku, from the UN's World Food Programme - which is providing life-saving nutrition to more than a million people in the region - says every attack heightens food insecurity. "All our operations are affected [during clashes] and normally for two weeks or even more, we cannot move any commodities from our warehouses to the population in El Geneina and the population outside it." With no end in sight for the violence that has engulfed West Darfur, the peace process is beginning to show signs of cracks. That's why Ms Abaker is not optimistic about the future. "The conflict will not end soon," she says. "It will erupt again and again." © 2021 BBC

By Kate Hairsine More regional militias have pledged to march into Tigray. Some fear that this could send Ethiopia into a spiral of ethnic violence. Others see the move as a sign of Ethiopian unity. Amhara militia groups, seen here in November 2020, are being joined in Tigray by other regional militias. © 2021 Deutsche Welle Special forces and militias from a number of Ethiopia's regions are mobilizing to back the federal government's military operations in Tigray, signaling a widening of the conflict. Regular forces from Amhara — a large region abutting the south of Tigray — have been fighting alongside federal troops ever since Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched the military offensive in Tigray last November. But now regular and irregular combatants from six regions not previously involved in the conflict are joining, including from Oromia, Ethiopia's most populous region, as well as Sidama, Somalia and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP). Ethiopia has a federal system, with 10 regional states (and two city administrations), which are largely ethnic based. Each have their own special forces, plus local militia groups often made up of farmers similar to a home guard unit. "We have sent over 2,000 militias to the front," the administrator of Western Gojam Zone in Amhara, Simenhe Ayalew, said last week, according to the Bloomberg news agency. Militias have little combat experience The question is how much of a military asset these regional fighters will be. "The regional militia has been given a Kalashnikov and maybe some very rudimentary training. But they are being called in because the war has decimated the federal forces," said Kjetil Tronvoll, a professor of peace and conflict studies at Norway's Bjorknes University College. "The tragedy is that these militia may basically be perceived as cannon fodder and we can expect very high casualty rates if they don’t defect or surrender in large numbers," Tronvoll told DW. Abiy called for regional military back up after Tigray's former ruling party, the Tigray's People Liberation Front (TPLF), took back control of the regional capital, Mekele, and ousted the Ethiopian National Defense Force in June. Tigray rebels launch new offensives The mobilizations come amid reports that Tigray rebels are making incursions into Amhara-occupied areas of Tigray, as well as into the Afar region, which borders Tigray to its east. Tigrayan fighters crossed into Afar on Saturday and Afar forces and allied militias were still battling them on Monday, Afar spokesman Ahmed Koloyta told Reuters news agency. US-based Ethiopia analyst Yohannes Woldemariam told DW that Afar was "very strategic because the road and the railway [linking the capital, Addis Ababa] to Djibouti run through there. "So if the TPLF manage to cut off the railway, then the central government would not have access to the seaport," Woldemariam said. Different groups fighting together Melisew Dejene, an academic at Ethiopia's Hawassa University, told DW that he wasn't surprised "to see different forces from different regions come together in order to defend the national interest." "The TPLF was labeled a terrorist group in a recent Cabinet decree, and now it has become a threat for the nation," he said in a telephone interview from the Sidama region. Dejene sees the support by the various regions for Abiy's troops as a "positive sign" that "people are coming together under one flag to defend their nation, Ethiopia." The Horn of Africa nation, with a population of some 110 million, has more than 80 distinct ethnic groups. Professor Tronvoll said some regions had had heated internal discussions about whether they should heed Abiy's call to march into Tigray. "The local argument is: 'We don't want to be pulled into this war. It is not our war,'" Tronvoll said. He said the conflict was mostly seen within Ethiopia as a war between Amhara and Tigray. Early in the conflict, Amhara seized territory in the south and west of Tigray, which it says was annexed by the TPLF decades ago. Over the past eight months, ethnic Amharas have been returning to western Tigray and occupying abandoned homes and farmland. Eritrea's future role unclear Adding to the mix are troops from Eritrea, Ethiopia's neighbor to the north, which entered the conflict in support of Abiy's government. Eritrea's leader, Isaias Afwerki, is a sworn enemy of the TPLF, which ruled Ethiopia when the countries fought a border war. Despite the TPLF's recent battle successes, Eritrean forces still remain in Tigray, although it seems that they have withdrawn to the north, closer to the common border. The UN Human Rights Council last week called for a swift withdrawal of Eritrea's troops. It also called for an immediate halt to all human rights violations in Tigray. In the first eight months of the conflict, rights organizations collected numerous witness accounts of widespread atrocities, including gang rape, massacres and looting. Humanitarian organizations are also warning that the ongoing fighting, combined with the difficulty of getting aid into the region, is pushing hundreds of thousands people into Tigray into mass starvation. Documenting rights abuses is problematic Ever since Ethiopian troops retreated from Tigray, the region is again under a total communications blackout, with telephone and internet cut — similar to what happened at the beginning of the conflict. The government has also imposed tough restrictions on journalists covering Tigray. The Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority (EBA) recently threatened international media houses of "measures" should they make reference to the self-pronounced "Tigray Defense Force (TDF)". The concern is that with new regional militias entering the conflict, both the catastrophic hunger and human rights violations might spiral out of control. DW requested a comment from the Office of the Prime Minister, but had not yet received a reply at the time of publication. "It's a very dangerous situation that's evolving when you have so many groups who are fighting and they have their own issues and their own agendas," Ethiopia analyst Woldemariam said. "This looks like a recipe for something really catastrophic. ... It may make Rwanda look very small. That's my fear," he said, referring to the genocide in Rwanda in which some 800,000 people died. Fueling these fears, in a speech on Sunday, Prime Minister Abiy used words such as "weeds," "cancer" and "disease" to refer to the TPLF in a tweet. Tronvoll sees this language as "very dangerous rhetoric, obviously bordering on genocidal rhetoric." © 2021 Deutsche Welle

By Erin McCormick, The Guardian A new reparations program will compensate survivors of prison system sterilizations and the 20th century eugenics campaign. It wasn’t until years after Kelli Dillon went into surgery while incarcerated in the California state prison system that she realized her reproductive capacity had been stripped away without her knowledge. In 2001, at the age of 24, she became one of the most recent victims in a history of forced sterilizations in California that stretches back to 1909 and served as an inspiration for Nazi Germany’s eugenics program. But now, under new provisions signed into California’s budget this week, the state will offer reparations for the thousands of people who were sterilized in California institutions, without adequate consent, often because they were deemed “criminal”, “feeble-minded” or “deviant”. The program will be the first in the nation to provide compensation to modern-day survivors of prison system sterilizations, like Dillon, whose attorney obtained medical records to show that, while she was an inmate in the Central California women’s facility in Chowchilla, surgeons had removed her ovaries during what was supposed to be an operation to take a biopsy and remove a cyst. The investigations sparked by her case, which is featured in the documentary Belly of the Beast, showed hundreds of inmates had been sterilized in prisons without proper consent as late as 2010, even though the practice was by then illegal. The new California reparations program will also seek to compensate hundreds of living survivors of the state’s earlier eugenics campaign, which was first codified into state law in 1909 and wasn’t repealed until 1979. That law allowed state authorities to sterilize people in state-run institutions, who were deemed to have “mental disease which may have been inherited” and was “likely to be transmitted to descendants”. The law was later greatly expanded to include “those suffering from perversion or marked departures from normal mentality”. Those targeted were often Black or Latina women, though some men were sterilized as well. “California established these egregious eugenics laws, that were actually even followed by Hitler himself, in an effort to curb the population of unwanted individuals or people with disabilities,” said the state assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo, who introduced the bill to create the compensation program. She said, in all, more than 20,000 people were sterilized in California, including the historic cases prior to 1979 and hundreds of additional cases in the prisons documented until 2010. Many of the historical survivors have since died, but the state believes about 400 are still living, about a quarter of whom are expected to apply for compensation. “No monetary compensation will ever rectify the injustice of this,” said Carrillo. “But there is a level of dignity that is bestowed on the survivors by the [state’s] acknowledgment that this happened. If we don’t do this now, when will we?” She hopes that each qualified applicant to the program will get about $25,000 starting in 2022. ‘Saturated with racism, sexism and prejudice’ The state follows North Carolina and Virginia in developing programs to provide compensation for sterilizations that took place in the state-sanctioned eugenics programs of the mid 1900s, but California is the first to recognize and attempt to atone for much more recent cases in the prisons. Three previous attempts to create a reparations program have failed to make it through the California legislature. From its outset at the turn of the 20th century, the state’s eugenics campaign was steeped in the kind of racist thinking that would eventually lead to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, said Alexandra Minna Stern, a University of Michigan historian who first uncovered file cabinets filled with medical records of early California victims in 2007 in the course of researching a book on American eugenics. “A lot of this came out as ideas of using science for the common good, human improvement, race improvement,” she said. “Of course, all that was saturated with the racism, sexism and disability prejudices of the era.” One well-documented victim was Andrea Garcia, a 19-year-old born in Mexico, who was sterilized in 1941 under the orders of an asylum near Los Angeles for those “afflicted with feeblemindedness”. Staff there decided she shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce because she was a “mentally deficient, sex delinquent girl” from an “unfit home”, according a dissertation by Natalie Lira, a University of Michigan researcher who reviewed historic medical documents of the sterilizations uncovered by Stern. Garcia’s mother went to court to challenge the sterilization policy, but lost her case. Both mother and daughter have since died. Lira also outlined the case of 14-year-old Antonio Duran, who was sterilized in 1939, after being charged with burglary and painted as a criminal for entering a house and taking several items. The sterilization requests described him as “high tempered, unreliable, an habitual truant and a bully” and said his parents were “of low-grade Mexican mentality”. Stern said this kind of egregious thinking wasn’t wiped out when California finally took the eugenics law off its books in 1979, around the time it also began closing the state institutions that for decades had warehoused people with mental illness and those deemed unfit for society. She said she believes it is no coincidence that this is the same time period when the state’s prison population began to explode in an unforgiving era of mass incarceration, which she said saw many of those same people, often poor people of color, being incarcerated in prisons for long periods. It isn’t a big stretch to see how prison officials could begin abusing their power in a renewed push to prevent their charges from reproducing, Stern said. “I see a lot of similar ingredients and sets of pre-conditions that allowed for [later] sterilization abuse in the prisons,” she said. After undergoing sterilization without her consent or knowledge, Kelli Dillon said she began experiencing menopause symptoms when she was only 24. “They weren’t telling me what they did and my body was going haywire,” said Dillon, who was released from prison in 2009 and now runs her own non-profit domestic violence counseling and violence prevention program and serves on a family services commission for the city of Los Angeles. At the time, she was serving a 15-year manslaughter term for killing her abusive husband, after, she said, he hit her with an iron and threatened her two young sons. Dillon said she had authorized the prison doctors to give her a hysterectomy only if cancer was found in the surgery, but no signs of cancer were ever reported. She said the sterilization shattered her dreams of one day restarting her family and left her struggling with anxiety and depression. “It was like my life wasn’t worth anything,” she said. “Somebody felt I had nothing to contribute to the point where they had to find this sneaky and diabolical way to take my ability to have children.” A quest for justice, but concerns remain While still incarcerated at Central California women’s facility, Dillon began to realize that many of her fellow inmates were getting hysterectomies and sterilization procedures as well. Sometimes it was after giving birth, while others had procedures that they were told were necessary to look for cancers or correcting gynecological issues. And so with her attorney, Cynthia Chandler, she began gathering the stories of other inmates. Eventually, this led to an investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) that identified 132 cases of women being given tubal ligation sterilizations in the prisons without proper state approvals and a 2014 state audit, which found nearly 800 hysterectomies and other sterilizations were performed there. One of the prison doctors told CIR that he viewed sterilization as a way to prevent prisoners from procreating and having “unwanted children” that could cost the state money. “He articulated that it was a cost-effective way of preventing people from needing welfare,” said attorney Chandler. “He actually thought he was doing the taxpayers a favor.” Chandler began working on the case in the early 2000s while with the prisoner rights advocacy group Justice Now, which she co-founded. She eventually helped to get a bill passed to make it clear that prison sterilizations are illegal and has been fighting to get compensation for survivors ever since. The procedures often left patients unclear what had happened to them. While an inmate at Valley state prison for women in 2003, Gabriela Solano underwent a surgery in which doctors said they were going to remove her swollen left ovary, but at the end they told her they had removed her right ovary instead, she told the Guardian. When she questioned her prison doctors about it later, she said he told her “what do you care? You’re a lifer anyway.” “I just remember him saying that to me,” she told the Guardian in a call from Mexico, where she now lives. “A lot of the girls I knew went through unnecessary hysterectomies.” But many advocates of the new compensation program worry that the same sentiments that allowed the eugenics abuses of the past to occur still permeate American culture. Prisoners, people with disabilities and people of color “are still considered to be at the margins of our society and not worth the bother of dignity or respect by many”, said Hafsah Al-Amin, the program coordinator for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, which has worked with many of the current and former inmates who may be eligible for the compensation. “When people hear the term eugenics they often think of something that happened a long time ago,” said Lorena García Zermeño, the policy and communications coordinator for the California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, a co-sponsor of the bill. “But the legacy of eugenics continues to this day.” She pointed to recent reports of women detained in US immigration centers being unnecessarily sterilized. But she also said health disparities, such as the huge numbers of Black people and Latinos who have died of Covid-19, are rooted in the same sense of disregard for the lives of people of color and poor people. “It’s extremely important for the state to confront the racist, sexist, ableist beliefs that perpetuate health disparities happening now.” Dillon said the idea that California is finally going to compensate eugenics survivors makes her feel like spinning in the streets like the 1970s television character Mary Tyler Moore, who played a TV journalist. What finally helped her come to terms with the fact that she couldn’t have children, she said, was getting to know her now-eight-year-old grandson. “I was given an opportunity, praise God, to have children before I went to prison,” she said. “And, through that, I now have the chance to be a mom or mother figure to my grandchildren.” © 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres [File photo/Agencies] Today marks the 23rd anniversary of the adoption of the Rome Statue, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, which aims to end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community. Accountability for these crimes is central to our global commitment to peace, security, human rights and fundamental freedoms. The United Nations has been committed to the International Criminal Court from the outset, based on our belief in the importance of international criminal justice, of which the Court is a pillar. The International Criminal Court has delivered important judgments, demonstrating that the perpetrators of grave crimes, including sexual and gender-based crimes, will face justice. Earlier this year, the Court convicted Dominic Ongwen and confirmed the conviction of Bosco Ntaganda of crimes against humanity and war crimes, committed in Northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo respectively. The International Criminal Court is just one element of the international justice system, which encompasses other courts, tribunals and non-judicial mechanisms. The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon have both accomplished important milestones in the past year. The United Nations is also deeply involved in assisting Member States to better address impunity at the national level. Today, as we reflect on the suffering of all victims and survivors of grave crimes, I encourage all States to ratify the Rome Statute, and call on the international community to drive forward efforts to achieve accountability and justice for all. Copyright © United Nations

BANGUI/NEW YORK, JULY 19, 2021—A surge in violence across the Central African Republic (CAR), including repeated attacks on patients, health staff, and medical facilities, has forced Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to suspend several medical activities, further reducing access to medical care for thousands of vulnerable people, the international medical humanitarian organization said today. An MSF staff member tends to a patient in need of surgery, January 2021. © Alexis Huguet MSF calls on the government of CAR and all parties to the conflict to respect the neutrality of health facilities and to allow people unhindered access to medical care and humanitarian assistance. “The resurgence of conflict in CAR since December has taken a heavy toll on the civilian population and on medical care,” said Rhian Gastineau, MSF head of mission in CAR. “We are very alarmed by the repeated attacks on patients, health workers, and medical facilities.” Over the past six months, MSF teams have witnessed dozens of health facilities ransacked, damaged, and occupied by armed men. Patients have also been attacked, abused, interrogated, and arrested during armed incursions of hospitals. Community health workers in rural areas have been threatened and assaulted, and motorbike drivers delivering lifesaving drugs and transporting sick and wounded patients to the hospital have been attacked, injured, and robbed at gunpoint. Health facilities ransacked In February of this year, an MSF-supported health center in Elevage camp for displaced people near Bambari was hit by a rocket amidst fighting between government forces and non-state armed groups. In June, the camp was set on fire and destroyed. The 8,500 people living there were forced to flee again—many sought shelter in the compound of a mosque in Bambari town. An MSF health post was also destroyed in the fire. This year, MSF mobile teams in the prefectures of Ouaka, Ouham-Pendé, and Ombella-Mpoko have witnessed multiple health facilities ransacked and partially destroyed—solar panels, medical supplies, and mattresses were stolen, and doors and windows were smashed. In Bangui and elsewhere, armed men have entered health facilities managed or supported by MSF to interrogate or arrest patients. In February, armed men attempted to kill a patient in the MSF-supported hospital in Bouar. Health care workers attacked In May, near the town of Kabo, two community health workers—trained by MSF to treat people in remote areas for common diseases such as diarrhea, malaria, and malnutrition—were shot in the legs and head during armed robberies, while two others were too fearful to continue working after receiving death threats. In June, a convoy transporting patients to MSF’s hospital in Batangafo was caught in an ambush by armed men—a patient’s caretaker was killed, and the motorbike driver and two patients were injured. Two other attacks occurred in the area later that month, while similar attacks occurred near Bossangoa and Bria. “Since December, moving around on the outskirts of major towns has been extremely difficult and dangerous due to checkpoints, robberies, and attacks,” said Gisa Kohler, MSF deputy program manager. Forced to suspend activities As a result of these incidents, on several occasions MSF has been forced to temporarily suspend its medical activities, including providing lifesaving care, supervising health center staff, supplying drugs, and transporting patients. “Being forced to suspend our activities only exacerbates people’s vulnerability and results in avoidable deaths, [including] young children and women with complications in pregnancy and childbirth,” says Kohler. In Paoua, Bria, and elsewhere, the growing insecurity has prevented MSF teams from making regular visits to the outlying health centers they support. This has a profound impact on the quality of care provided and disrupts the supply of essential medicines. Since April, MSF has had to reduce referrals of patients by motorbike from rural areas to Kabo due to the risks involved—halving the number of referrals each month. In June, MSF community health workers in some areas around Kabo were only able to carry out a quarter of their usual number of weekly consultations due to the insecurity. “The suspension and reduction of medical outreach activities across numerous areas where we work is very concerning, particularly with the ongoing rainy season, when cases of malaria and other life-threatening diseases peak,” said Kohler. Fear and panic disrupt health care Many people are too scared to leave their homes to visit a doctor, and many health staff have fled to seek safety. With nowhere else to go, thousands of people arrive at hospital compounds in search of safety, disrupting health services. Sometimes—as witnessed in Kabo in July—the rumor of an attack is enough to cause people to flee. “Unfortunately, it is not new for violence to impact medical care in CAR,” said Gastineau. “The [number] of armed groups and the active fighting have caused a very volatile situation, which also affects areas that were previously considered relatively stable. [This] further [restricts] access to health care for a population already struggling to [access] the basics. Now, more than ever, all parties to the conflict should reinforce respect for international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians and medical facilities, transport, and staff.” MSF has worked in Central African Republic since 1997 and currently runs 13 projects in Bangui, Bria, Bangassou, Bambari, Kabo, Batangafo, Paoua, Bossangoa, and Carnot, and one mobile emergency team. Since the conflict intensified in late-2020, MSF has worked to ensure continuity of care in all its projects and has launched emergency projects in the conflict-affected areas of Boguila, Bossembélé, Bouar, Grimari, Mbaiki, Damara, Boali, Dékoa, Liton, Kouango, and Ippy. 2021 © Médecins Sans Frontières

Opponents of the Taliban offensive prepare for battle at Ghorband district in Parwan province [Omar Sobhani/Reuters] Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Emergency Alert for Afghanistan. The U.S. has begun its withdrawal of military forces from Afghanistan, blindly adhering to the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement signed in September 2020. The Taliban have not abided by the agreement except for not targeting U.S. troops. They have actually increased attacks on Afghan civilians. That agreement and the resulting U.S. and NATO military drawdown have emboldened the Taliban and other Islamist extremists to increase their campaign of terror against Afghan officials, health workers, and girls' schools. Their goal is to create fear in Afghanistan and undermine support for the Afghan government, which is demonstrably unable to guarantee civilian security. It is an age-old tactic to bring surrender. It worked for the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. It will also work in Afghanistan. The official American narrative is that this is a civil war rather than genocide. This view ignores the fact that most genocides occur during civil wars. Civil war and genocide often occur together. Americans are tired of this twenty-year war, which has cost the lives of 2,400 U.S. military, 2,000 civilian contractors, and at least 47,245 Afghan civilians. The U.S. is cutting and running, as it did in Cambodia. The U.S. and NATO are abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban. The result will be another genocide. Taliban units are already carrying out genocidal massacres against ethnic and religious minorities. They especially target the Shi'ite Hazaras. They are also committing widespread and systematic crimes against humanity against women, health workers, journalists, and girls' schools. The rival Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) also commits crimes against humanity that target women and minority groups. On May 8, 2021, explosions outside a school in Kabul killed over 90 children. The majority of the victims were female students belonging to the persecuted Hazara community. Although neither the Taliban nor IS-K took responsibility for the attack, such specific targeting of the Hazara religious minority is a portent of an approaching genocide. Journalists have also come under increasing attacks. Local Taliban leaders circulate hit lists and threaten reporters and their families. In March 2021, IS-K killed three female journalists. Murders of journalists have forced many reporters to go into hiding or flee the country. If the Taliban re-establish their Islamist totalitarian state, they will exterminate ethnic and religious minorities, negate women’s fundamental human rights, and target journalists, health workers, and teachers. The Taliban committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide when they ruled Afghanistan in the past, and they will do so again. Due to relentless Taliban and Islamic State attacks on minorities, Genocide Watch considers the current situation in Afghanistan to be at Stage 9: Extermination. Genocide Watch recommends: · The U.S. should abrogate the September 2020 peace agreement that did not include the elected Afghan government, and that is routinely broken by the Taliban. · U.S. and NATO air strikes and contractor support for Afghan troops must continue. · Afghan forces should avoid counter-insurgency measures that kill civilians. · U.S. and E.U. aid for health care, women's and education organizations should be increased. · The U.S. should issue SIV visas to all Afghans who have worked for the U.S. government and its contractors, and to their immediate families, not only to those who helped the U.S. military. · The US and its allies must continue to provide military, financial, and diplomatic support to the Afghan government to prevent a military takeover by the Taliban. © Genocide Watch, 2021