Merdan Ghappar was used to posing for the camera. As a model for the massive Chinese online retailer Taobao, the 31-year-old was well paid to flaunt his good looks in slick promotional videos for clothing brands. But one video of Mr Ghappar is different. Instead of a glitzy studio or fashionable city street, the backdrop is a bare room with grubby walls and steel mesh on the window. And in place of the posing, Mr Ghappar sits silently with an anxious expression on his face. Holding the camera with his right hand, he reveals his dirty clothes, his swollen ankles, and a set of handcuffs fixing his left wrist to the metal frame of the bed - the only piece of furniture in the room. The video of Mr Ghappar, along with a number of accompanying text messages also passed to the BBC, together provide a chilling and extremely rare first-hand account of China's highly secure and secretive detention system - sent directly from the inside. The material adds to the body of evidence documenting the impact of China's fight against what it calls the "three evil forces" of separatism, terrorism, and extremism in the country's far western region of Xinjiang. Over the past few years, credible estimates suggest, more than one million Uighurs and other minorities have been forced into a network of highly secure camps in Xinjiang that China has insisted are voluntary schools for anti-extremism training. Thousands of children have been separated from their parents and, recent research shows, women have been forcibly subjected to methods of birth control. In addition to the clear allegations of torture and abuse, Mr Ghappar's account appears to provide evidence that, despite China's insistence that most re-education camps have been closed, Uighurs are still being detained in significant numbers and held without charge. It also contains new details about the huge psychological pressure placed on Uighur communities, including a document he photographed which calls on children as young as 13 to "repent and surrender". And with Xinjiang currently experiencing a spike in the number of coronavirus infections, the dirty and crowded conditions he describes highlight the serious risk of contagion posed by this kind of mass detention during a global pandemic. The BBC sent detailed requests for comment to the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Xinjiang authorities but neither responded. Mr Ghappar's family, who have not heard from him since the messages stopped five months ago, are aware that the release of the four minute, thirty-eight second video of him in his cell might increase the pressure and punishment he faces. But they say it is their last hope, both to highlight his case and the plight of the Uighurs in general. His uncle, Abdulhakim Ghappar, who now lives in the Netherlands, believes the video could galvanise public opinion in the same way that footage of the police treatment of George Floyd became a powerful symbol of racial discrimination in the US. "They have both faced brutality for their race," he says. "But while in America people are raising their voices, in our case there is silence." In 2009, Merdan Ghappar - like many Uighurs at that time - left Xinjiang to seek opportunity in China's wealthier cities in the east. Having studied dance at Xinjiang Arts University, he found work first as a dancer and then, a few years later, as a model in the southern Chinese city of Foshan. Friends say Mr Ghappar could earn up to 10,000 Rmb (£1,000) per day. His story reads like an advert for the country's dynamic, booming economy and President Xi Jinping's "China Dream". But the Uighurs, with their Turkic language, Islamic faith and ethnic ties to the peoples and cultures of central Asia, have long been viewed as an object of suspicion by Chinese rulers and faced discrimination in wider society. Mr Ghappar's relatives say that Mr Ghappar was told it would be best for his modelling career to downplay his Uighur identity and refer to his facial features as "half-European". And although he had earned enough money to buy a sizeable apartment, they say he was unable to register it in his own name, instead having to use the name of a Han Chinese friend. But those injustices now seem mild by comparison with what was to come. Ever since two brutal attacks targeting pedestrians and commuters in Beijing in 2013 and the city of Kunming in 2014 - blamed by China on Uighur separatists - the state has begun to view Uighur culture as not only suspicious but seditious. By 2018, when the state had come up with its answer - the sprawling system of camps and jails built rapidly and extensively across Xinjiang - Mr Ghappar was still living in Foshan, where his life was about to take an abrupt turn for the worse. In August that year, he was arrested and sentenced to 16 months in prison for selling cannabis, a charge his friends insist was trumped up. Whether truly guilty or not, there was little chance of an acquittal, with statistics showing that more than 99% of defendants brought before Chinese criminal courts are convicted. But, upon his release in November 2019, any relief he felt at having served his time was short lived. Little more than a month later, police knocked on his door, telling him he needed to return to Xinjiang to complete a routine registration procedure. The BBC has seen evidence that appears to show he was not suspected of any further offence, with authorities simply stating that "he may need to do a few days of education at his local community" - a euphemism for the camps. On 15 January this year, his friends and family were allowed to bring warm clothes and his phone to the airport, before he was put on a flight from Foshan and escorted by two officers back to his home city of Kucha in Xinjiang. There is evidence of other Uighurs being forced to return home, either from elsewhere in China or from abroad, and Mr Ghappar's family were convinced that he had disappeared into the re-education camps. But more than a month later they received some extraordinary news. Somehow, he had managed to get access to his phone and was using it to communicate with the outside world. Merdan Ghappar's text messages, said to have been sent from the same room as his self-shot video, paint an even more terrifying picture of his experience after arriving in Xinjiang. Written via the Chinese social media app WeChat, he explains that he was first kept in a police jail in Kucha. "I saw 50 to 60 people detained in a small room no bigger than 50 square metres, men on the right, women on the left," he writes. "Everyone was wearing a so-called 'four-piece-suit', a black head sack, handcuffs, leg shackles and an iron chain connecting the cuffs to the shackles." China's use of these combined hand and leg cuffs has been criticised in the past by human rights groups. Mr Ghappar was made to wear the device and, joining his fellow inmates in a caged-off area covering around two-thirds of the cell, he found there was no room to lie down and sleep. "I lifted the sack on my head and told the police officer that the handcuffs were so tight they hurt my wrists," he writes in one of the text messages. "He shouted fiercely at me, saying 'If you remove your hood again, I will beat you to death'. And after that I dared not to talk," he adds. "Dying here is the last thing I want." He writes about the constant sound of screaming, coming from elsewhere in the jail. "Interrogation rooms," he suggested. And he describes squalid and unsanitary conditions - inmates suffering from lice while sharing just a handful of plastic bowls and spoons between them all. "Before eating, the police would ask people with infectious diseases to put their hands up and they'd be the last to eat," he writes. "But if you want to eat earlier, you can remain silent. It's a moral issue, do you understand?" Then, on 22 January, with China at the height of its coronavirus crisis, news of a massive, nationwide attempt to control the epidemic reached the prisoners. Mr Ghappar's account suggests the enforcement of quarantine rules were much stricter in Xinjiang than elsewhere. At one point, four young men, aged between 16 and 20, were brought into the cell. "During the epidemic period they were found outside playing a kind of game like baseball," he writes. "They were brought to the police station and beaten until they screamed like babies, the skin on their buttocks split open and they couldn't sit down." The policemen began making all the prisoners wear masks, although they still had to remain hooded in the stuffy, over-crowded cell. "A hood and a mask - there was even less air," he writes. When the officers later came around with thermometers, several inmates including Mr Ghappar, registered higher than the normal body temperature of 37C (98.6F). Still wearing his "four-piece suit", he was moved upstairs to another room where the guards kept the windows open at night, making the air so cold that he could not sleep. There, he said, the sounds of torture were much clearer. "One time I heard a man screaming from morning until evening," he says. A few days later, the prisoners were loaded onto minibuses and sent away to an unknown location. Mr Ghappar, who was suffering from a cold and with his nose running, was separated from the rest and taken to the facility seen in the video he sent - a place he described as an "epidemic control centre". Once there, he was handcuffed to the bed. "My whole body is covered in lice. Every day I catch them and pick them off from my body - it's so itchy," he writes. "Of course, the environment here is better than the police station with all those people. Here I live alone, but there are two people guarding me." It was the slightly more relaxed regime that gave him, he says, the opportunity he needed to get word out. His phone appears to have remained unnoticed by the authorities among his personal belongings, some of which he was given access to in his new place of imprisonment. After 18 days inside the police jail, he was suddenly and secretly in touch with the outside world. For a few days he described his experiences. Then, suddenly, the messages stopped. Nothing has been heard from Mr Ghappar since. The authorities have provided no formal notification of his whereabouts, nor any reason for his continued detention. It is impossible to independently verify the authenticity of the text messages. But experts say that the video footage appears to be genuine, in particular because of the propaganda messages that can be heard in the background. "Xinjiang has never been an 'East Turkistan'", says an announcement in both Uighur and Chinese from a loudspeaker outside his window. "Separatist forces at home and abroad have politicised this geographical term and called for those who speak Turkic languages and believe in Islam to unite," the announcement says. James Millward, a professor of history at Georgetown University and an expert on China's policies in Xinjiang, translated and analysed Mr Ghappar's text messages for the BBC. He says they are consistent with other well documented cases, from his transportation back to Xinjiang and the initial processing in crowded, unsanitary conditions. "This firsthand description of the police holding cell is very, very vivid," Professor Millward says. "He writes in very good Chinese and gives, frankly, a lot of horrific detail about the way these people are treated. So, it's quite a rare source." Dr Adrian Zenz, a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, and another leading Xinjiang scholar, suggests that the video's real value is what it says about the Chinese government claim that the camp system is being wound down. "It is extremely significant," Dr Zenz says. "This testimony shows that the whole system of detaining people, sorting them and then feeding them into extra judicial internment… that this is very much ongoing." Another layer of credibility is provided by a photograph of a document that sources say Mr Ghappar sent after finding it on the floor of one of the epidemic control centre toilets. The document refers to a speech made by the Communist Party Secretary of Aksu Prefecture, and the date and location suggest it could well have still been circulating in official circles in the city of Kucha around the time of Mr Ghappar's detention. The document's call for children as young as 13 to be encouraged to "repent for their mistakes and voluntarily surrender" appears to be new evidence of the extent of China's monitoring and control of the thoughts and behaviours of the Uighurs and other minorities. "I think this is the first time I've seen an official notice of minors being held responsible for their religious activity," says Dr Darren Byler, an anthropologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder who has researched and written extensively about the Uighurs. Despite the risk that the publication of Merdan Ghappar's video and text messages will put him at risk of longer or harsher punishment, those close to him say they no longer have any choice. "Staying silent will not help him either," says his uncle, Abdulhakim Ghappar, from his home in Amsterdam. Abdulhakim says he kept in regular touch with his nephew before he was taken into detention, and he believes - as has been well documented in other cases - that this overseas connection is one of the reasons Mr Ghappar was detained. "Yes, I am 100% sure about it," he said. "He was detained just because I am abroad and I take part in protests against Chinese human rights abuses." Abdulhakim's activism, which began in 2009 in Xinjiang when he helped hand out flyers ahead of a large-scale protest in the city of Urumqi, was the reason he fled to the Netherlands in the first place. The protest in Urumqi later spilled into a series of violent riots which, Chinese authorities say, claimed nearly 200 lives and are seen as another one of the major turning points towards its tightening control over the region. Told that the Chinese authorities were seeking his arrest, Abdulhakim got himself a passport and left. He has never been back. He insists that all of his political activities, both inside China and abroad, have been peaceful, and his nephew, he says, has never shown any interest in politics at all. The list of questions sent by the BBC to the Chinese authorities asked them to confirm whether Merdan Ghappar or his uncle are suspected of any crime in China. It also asked why Mr Ghappar was shackled to a bed, and for a response from the authorities to his other allegations of mistreatment and torture. None of the questions was answered. Wherever Merdan Ghappar is now, one thing is clear. Whether his earlier conviction for a drugs offence was just or not, his current detention is proof that even well-educated and relatively successful Uighurs can become a target of the internment system. "This young man, as a fashion model, has a successful career already," said Professor Millward. "He speaks wonderful Chinese, writes very well and uses fancy phrases, so clearly this is not someone who needs education for a vocational purpose." Dr Adrian Zenz argues that this is the point of the system. "It doesn't actually matter so much what the background of the person is," he says. "What matters is that their loyalty has been tested by the system. At some point almost everybody is going to experience some form of internment or re-education, everybody is going to be subjected to this system." The Chinese government denies that it is persecuting the Uighur population. After heavy criticism over the issue recently from the US, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry, Hua Chunying, invoked the death of George Floyd, saying that Uighurs in Xinjiang were free in comparison to African Americans in the US. But for Merdan Ghappar's family, haunted by the image of him chained to a bed in an unknown location, there is a connection between the two cases. "When I saw the George Floyd video it reminded me of my nephew's own video," says Merdan's uncle Abdulhakim. "The entire Uighur people are just like George Floyd now," he says. "We can't breathe." Copyright © 2020 BBC

Letter to Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok STAND FOR JUSTICE IN DARFUR AND ACROSS SUDAN Dear Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, In commemoration of this month’s International Justice Day, Darfur Women Action Group (DWAG) and the undersigned write to express our grave concern regarding the continued impunity enjoyed by the former president of the Republic of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, and two other Sudanese officials indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Ahmad Muhammad Harun (Ahmed Harun) and Abdel Raheem Muhammed Hussein (Hussein). July 2020 marks ten years since the second arrest warrant for Bashir and his allies was issued for the crimes of genocide. As we celebrate the 22nd anniversary of the 1998 Rome Statute that established the ICC and other institutions designed by the international community to secure justice for victims and accountability for perpetrators of the most serious crimes, we are sobered by Bashir’s decade-long evasion of justice and continued impunity. The longstanding injustices in Sudan have created historical grievances and devastated the lives of millions of citizens. These grievances must be addressed for Sudan to move forward as a nation. There has never been a better time to pursue justice for the victims. The interim period has provided a unique opportunity that your government must seize to establish a foundation for equal rights and a respect for the human dignity of all in Sudan. Al-Bashir stands accused of the world’s most serious crimes – genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity perpetrated. His genocide against indigenous Africans in Darfur has caused communities to suffer trauma for 18 years, as well as face endless plagues of torture, plunder, pillaging, and systematic rape as a weapon of war. This violence has displaced over 4 million Darfuris. Survivors’ calls for peace, security, and justice have fallen on deaf years for nearly two decades, up until this very day. DWAG wishes to remind you and the members of the Sovereign Council that years of continued impunity for the perpetrators constitutes an affront to justice and international law, an erasure of the atrocities that victims have suffered, and an undermining of the magnitude of gross rights violations that survivors still face. Your government’s refusal to surrender Bashir and his allies to face trial in the Hague not only demonstrates a clear lack of commitment to protect the countless victims of his thirty years of bloody rule but also shows other perpetrators that they can continue to commit crimes and escape without consequences in the future. Such refusal would signal to the world that the interim government is protecting a criminal while denying its own citizens their right to justice. Sustained Violence in Recent Weeks DWAG and the undersigned aim to emphasize the urgent need for your government to address the recent attacks in Darfur and its camps with effective action, not just words. Sudanese civilian, refugee and internally displaced communities continue to live in fear as they fall pretty to the Rapid Support Forces, the affiliated Janjaweed militia, and other agents of unrest. From July 5th onwards, peaceful demonstrations demanding justice for civilians killed in last year’s uprising have only been met with more violence and murder sanctioned by forces tied to the transitional government, its military, and its police forces. Of most recent concern, however, was the deadly massacre in Misterei, West Darfur that took place on July 25th. At least 68 innocent civilians were killed and 84 others were severely wounded in this attack – the second incident to have occurred in Misterei within a week’s time. Other frightening attacks include one on June 30th in Kabkabiya, North Darfur. Police opened fire to disperse protestors, wounding 8 people, including two children aged 12, and killing two who were shot in the head by stray bullets. On July 13th, nine protestors were killed and dozens more wounded as armed militiamen attacked a peaceful sit-in at Fata Borno camp in North Darfur. On July 19th, a shooting occurred in El Geneina, West Darfur, resulting in three people killed and multiple wounded. July 23rd featured two separate attacks – one in Nierteti, Central Darfur and another in Gereida, South Darfur, leaving 16 civilians dead in total. DWAG is severely concerned about how this worrying series of recent attacks mirrors a pattern of systematic atrocities committed at the peak of the Darfur Genocide. Progress toward civilian protection has yet to be seen in Darfur and other conflict-affected areas of Sudan. These atrocities, extending even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, are testimonies to the effects of ongoing impunity in Sudan. The lack of enforcement of the ICC warrants for Bashir and his allies and their resulting freedom from international scrutiny has set a grave precedent. Normalizing the lack of consequences for criminal actions has encouraged certain actors within the current transitional government. It has incentivized them to replicate the same tactics of violence as previously used by Bashir to consolidate power in Sudan. You have reassured protestors that their demands for justice and improved security are legitimate and that measures will be taken in response. Your words have only resulted in the deployment of the Sudanese Armed Forces to Darfur, garnering even less trust among local residents than before. Likewise, after months of the transitional government insisting that Bashir will be tried domestically rather than being delivered to The Hague, you reaffirmed your commitment to cooperating with the ICC in mid-February of this year. This statement has also failed to produce any corresponding action despite the fact that the Sudanese legal system, in its current capacity, cannot guarantee witness protection and deliver fair justice. Cooperating with the ICC is the most viable option in prosecuting the crimes committed in Darfur. For those who have suffered the most, empty promises by the Interim Government of Sudan will only continue to cost more lives. Impunity Must End July 12th marks the 10th anniversary of the second arrest warrant for al-Bashir and July 17th marks International Justice Day, which commemorates the establishment of the ICC. DWAG would therefore like to take this opportunity to demand the following from you and your government: Fulfill your duty as a leader to uphold the rule of law and protect human rights by unconditionally transferring Omar al-Bahir, Ahmed Haroun, and Abdulrahim Hussein to the Hague to face trial Open unhindered access to the ICC to continue its investigation and provide support for the Sudanese legal system to live up to an equivalent international standard that will grant adequate justice for all Sudanese without prejudice in the future. Issue a public decision denouncing the continued attacks in Darfur and other areas and hold perpetrators of these attacks responsible for their actions. Incorporate all international human rights, international justice and humanitarian laws within Sudanese domestic laws to bring Sudanese institutions up to a legal standard that can protect and restore the dignity of all Sudanese people. DWAG stresses the importance of ending impunity for Omar al-Bashir, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, and Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein. During this time of transition, it is incredibly important that a precedent is set for the protection of human rights and respect for the global rule of law. In order for long-lasting peace and justice to take hold, the interim government must actively listen to the demands from all members of the affected communities, in different regions of the country, with a particular emphasis on the needs of the victims of al-Bashir and his cronies. Reigning impunity continues to embolden local militias, allowing violence to continue. Securing justice for past crimes committed must remain on the forefront of the priorities for this administration as it moves forward in establishing peace and security in the country. On this International Justice Day, it is more important now than ever to demonstrate a commitment to upholding the rule of law and finding those responsible for the genocide accountable. Ten years of impunity is too long. We demand that the interim government deliver justice in the name of the countless victims of Bashir and his henchmen. Sudanese citizens in Darfur and across the Sudan have paid the highest price for change in Sudan and we have patiently waited for justice. It is extremely disappointing to see their plights being ignored and their right to justice being denied. We passionately believe that without justice Sudan will not be at peace, and without peace there will be neither transformation nor democracy. It is imperative that the interim government make justice a priority and lead a transition that will meet the aspirations of all Sudanese. Sincerely, The Undersigned Niemat Ahmadi, Founder and President, Darfur Women Action Group, Washington, D.C.

Police and soldiers order people trying to enter the capital, Harare, to go home ahead of planned anti-gov't protests. Security forces have vigorously enforced a lockdown in Harare, blocking people from entering the capital a day ahead of planned anti-government protests, while activists warned of mounting human rights abuses. Police and soldiers manned checkpoints and ordered hundreds of people trying to enter the city to return home. In the city centre, security agents ordered people to leave and businesses to close. A police statement said no demonstrations would be allowed. "All security arms of government are on full alert and will deal decisively with any individuals or groups fomenting violence and sending threats or provocative messages through the social media or any other means," it said. Activists organising the protests on social media said they would press on and people would demonstrate in their neighbourhoods. "The protest is fluid. It will take whatever form that will disable the regime, and would be the beginning of many more in future," Promise Mkwananzi said by Twitter from a secret location where he was hiding from police. "The regime has already been shaken to the core. We have disrupted their comfort zones." 'Wider Actions' Similar actions were being witnessed in other smaller towns across the country, according to the Zimbabwe Peace Project, an NGO that says it has monitors scattered across the country. Organisers say demonstrators originally planned to protest against alleged government corruption but are now targeting the country's ruling political party, ZANU-PF, using the hashtag #ZANUPFmustgo. Tensions are rising in the southern African country as the economy implodes. Inflation is more than 700 percent, the second-highest rate in the world. The World Food Programme on Thursday projected that the number of Zimbabweans facing food insecurity could reach 8.6 million people by the end of the year. That would be "a staggering 60 percent of the population – owing to the combined effects of drought, economic recession and the pandemic," said the WFP, appealing for more money to intervene. Addressing senior ruling party officials on Wednesday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa described the planned protests as "an insurrection to overthrow our democratically elected government". He warned that security agents "will be vigilant and on high alert". The opposition and human rights NGOs have said they are witnessing abuses such as arrests, detentions, beatings and stalking of activists and ordinary people accused of violating lockdown rules. Police and government spokespeople have dismissed the allegations, even as a prominent journalist and a politician behind the protests have spent close to two weeks in detention. A High Court judge on Thursday postponed the bail hearings of Hopewell Chin'ono, the journalist, and Jacob Ngarivhume, the politician. They are accused of planning the protests. Mnangagwa's administration accuses the US government of funding the two men and other activists involved in mobilising the protest, with a ruling party spokesman this week describing the US ambassador as "a thug". SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

JOHANNESBURG - While global attention remains centered on the coronavirus, a U.S. special envoy is sounding the alarm about crises in Africa’s Sahel region, especially the political unrest in Mali, and the growing number of alleged human rights violations and abuses in the troubled region. Amid the world focus on the coronavirus pandemic, another force is bringing death and destruction to the vast, arid region of Africa known as the Sahel. J. Peter Pham, the U.S. top envoy to the region, says recent developments there are of great concern. “In the last quarter, by our count — that's the quarter ended June 30th — there were 270 attacks by extremists in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. That number represents an almost 40 percent increase from a year earlier. So that's significant. That's worrisome as a trend,” he said. U.N. peacekeepers and U.S. forces have worked for several years on a multibillion-dollar peacekeeping mission in the region, though the Trump administration has publicly questioned the value of the costly mission and pushed to cut budgets and troops numbers in Africa. Pham says this is fundamentally a governance problem, not a military one. “Let’s face it: if we really examine the crisis in the Sahel, at the end of the day, it's a crisis in state legitimacy, in governance, in providing basic goods and services and inclusion to various populations. As a result of this, I'm particularly concerned about recent human rights abuses which have been reported, especially the ones reported out of Burkina Faso by Human Rights Watch. These abuses have to stop, because not only are they morally and ethically wrong, but they're also counterproductive in the fight against extremism by delegitimizing governments, alienating people from them.” It is, military officials acknowledge, a tough battle for them to shoulder. U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Marcus Hicks, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, told VOA in 2018 “we are not winning” in the fight to stamp out violent extremism, led by several al-Qaida-linked groups, in the region. Pham noted weak institutions, like Mali's challenged government, have also sparked public protests that may lead to further instability. VOA asked Pham: are we winning in the Sahel? “It depends on what time horizon you use and what definition you use for winning," he said. "If it's scoring specific successes, I think what our French partners manage to do with U.S. cooperation and support, with the elimination of the emir of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, Abdelmalek Droukdel, a month or so ago, that certainly was a success. On the other hand, the expansion of insecurity in places like Burkina Faso, in the middle belt of Mali, certainly cannot be counted a success. So I think there are specific successes in this long fight. At the same time, there are ongoing challenges and and difficulties. So I think it's a matter of accounting and how one looks at that.” There’s no straight answer, he said, because this is not a straightforward military problem with conventional forces on the battlefield. This is, he said, a situation that requires attention, patience and diplomacy. © Voice of America (VOA) 2020

Fighters from the Boko Haram armed group have killed at least 16 people in an attack on a camp for displaced people in northern Cameroon, an official has said. "The toll is currently 16 dead; it is clear that it was Boko Haram that was responsible," local mayor Mahamat Chetima Abba told the AFP news agency on Sunday following the overnight attack on the Nguetchewe camp. At least six have been wounded in the attack, according to reports citing local sources. The assailants in the early hours of Sunday threw a grenade into a group of sleeping people inside the camp, home to 800 people, in the village of Nguetchewe, Medjeweh Boukar, district mayor, told Reuters news agency. The village is located in the Mozogo district, close to the Nigerian border in the Far North region. Another local politician, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the area where the attack took place as one in which people would "hide" from Boko Haram attacks. The armed group, formed in northeastern Nigeria in 2009, has regularly launched attacks there since 2014, staging small-scale raids aimed at stealing livestock and food. The area is known as the Far North, an impoverished tongue of land that lies between Chad to the east and Nigeria to the west. "There had been a relative calm for a few weeks, but they took advantage of their knowledge of the terrain to bypass surveillance points and the positions of the security forces. They surprised us," Abba said. "I counted 15 bodies, some of which were dismembered, at the scene and in the morgue at the hospital, where the wounded were evacuated," a witness to the attack, who also asked to remain anonymous told AFP. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Boko Haram launched an armed campaign in northeastern Nigeria in 2009, and the violence - which has cost the lives of tens of thousands of people and displaced millions more - has frequently spilled over into neighbouring Cameroon, Niger and Chad. A security official told Reuters that the wounded were taken to a nearby hospital. "The attackers arrived with a woman who carried the grenade into the camp," Boukar said, adding that women and children were among the dead. Over the past month, there have been 20 incursions and attacks, Boukar said. In Chad on Friday Boko Haram killed at least 10 civilians and kidnapped seven others in an attack on a village in the Lake Chad region. A week before Sunday's attack the Cameroon army announced they had killed five Boko Haram fighters. In June last year, some 300 suspected Boko Haram fighters swarmed onto an island on Lake Chad in Cameroon's Far North and killed 24 people, including 16 Cameroonian soldiers stationed at military outposts. © Al Jazeera 2020

Washington, DC – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) today applauded the U.S. Department of Treasury’s designation of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) under the Global Magnitsky Act for committing egregious religious freedom violations against Uyghur and other Muslims. “For years, we have advocated for sanctioning the XPCC. This announcement is a significant step even beyond the sanctions announced earlier this month against senior Communist Party officials,” USCIRF Commissioner Nury Turkel stated. “The XPCC is essentially a parallel government in Xinjiang and has been directly involved in implementing the surveillance, mass detention, and forced labor of Uyghurs.” The XPCC, also known as the Bingtuan, runs schools, hospitals, and even prisons in Xinjiang. The entity controls cotton fields that use forced labor. The latest Global Magnitsky designations also cover two senior XPCC officials, Jiarui Peng and Jinlong Sun. On July 9, the Treasury Department added four senior Chinese officials to the Global Magnitsky Designations List, including Chen Quanguo, Communist Party Secretary for Xinjiang. These measures follow the enactment of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, which directs the administration to impose financial sanctions and visa bans against Chinese government officials responsible for the persecution of Uyghur and other Muslims. “This latest round of sanctions show that the U.S. government is increasingly able to identify and target those Chinese entities most responsible for religious freedom abuses against Uyghur and other Muslims,” noted USCIRF Commissioner Gary Bauer. “Communist China can no longer hide its religious freedom abuses from the world.” In its 2020 Annual Report, USCIRF called for targeted sanctions against senior Chinese officials, included Chen Quanguo. Since 2017, the Chinese government has detained more than a million Uyghur, Kazakh, and other Muslims, often targeting individuals engaged in religious practices, such as growing beards or wearing veils. --- The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the U.S. Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on threats to religious freedom abroad. USCIRF makes foreign policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress intended to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief. To interview a Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at media@uscirf.gov or Danielle Ashbahian at dashbahian@uscirf.gov.

CABO DELGADO, MOZAMBIQUE/WASHINGTON - At least nine civilians were killed in new attacks carried out by Islamist insurgents in the restive province of Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique, local sources said. The attacks on the districts of Mocimboa da Praia and Macomia of Cabo Delgado on Wednesday forced the local population to flee their homes, seeking safety in nearby woods, residents told VOA. A group of armed men “hooded with Islamic handkerchiefs” invaded the village of Tandacua in Macomia, searching for food, according to a local resident. The insurgents “arrived around 6 in the evening [local time], so many residents fled the village,” the resident, who declined to give his name, told VOA. “When we returned the next day, we found eight dead people who were beheaded,” the resident said, adding that “the security situation is getting more complicated.” On Tuesday, Islamist militants entered the district of Mocimboa da Praia, killing one civilian at a flour mill before seizing food and livestock. The insurgents “entered Mocimboa da Praia twice this week,” said Zunaid, a Mocimboa da Praia resident who gave only his first name. “After they killed a man on Tuesday and left, they went in again [on Wednesday] to steal more food,” he told VOA. “All residents are in the woods out of fear,” Zunaid said, noting that “there are more military personnel than the local population, but al-Shabab [militants] still come in and attack us.” IS links Since 2017, militant attacks on civilians and government security forces in Cabo Delgado have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced over 210,000 others, according to the United Nations. Locally known as al-Shabab, Ahlu Sunna wa Jama is the main militant group responsible for these attacks in northern Mozambique. It is considered to be the Mozambique affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) terror group. However, Eric Morier-Genoud, a Mozambique expert at Queen’s University Belfast, says there is little “evidence that the Islamic State is behind this group, which radicalized its positions in the face of many existing inequalities” in the Muslim-majority province. “The group has approached the Islamic State, but it has little influence yet,” he told VOA, adding that the extent of the connection between the local militant group and IS “basically has been an exchange of information up to now.” In April 2019, IS declared its so-called Central African Province, known as ISCAP. Attacks attributed to its Central African Province affiliate have been limited to Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Increased attacks In recent months, militants have stepped up their attacks in Cabo Delgado, leading experts to predict that the conflict will likely continue for a long time. Murade Murargy, former executive secretary of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), says he doesn’t “believe a solution to the conflict in Cabo Delgado will be reached in the short term, but in the medium or long term.” The Mozambican diplomat told reporters this week that the insurgency in the northern Mozambican province “is beyond the religious question, but it has an economic aspect as well.” Cabo Delgado is a gas-rich region where major international oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil and Total, have several investment projects. Transnational insurgency Observers say that some of the militants fighting in northern Mozambique are allegedly Tanzanian nationals. Tanzania, which borders Cabo Delgado to the north, recently deployed troops to the border area to prevent a spillover of the unfolding violence in the Mozambican province. Mozambican officials, however, believe they need to tighten their borders to stop the flow of foreign fighters into the country. “Those who attack us, burn our houses and destroy the infrastructure are based outside the country,” said Bernardino Rafael, commander-in-chief of the Mozambican Police, without naming any countries. They “enter through our borders, which we have to close so that the terrorists do not enter and those who enter do not leave,” Rafael said during a recent speech in the capital, Maputo. Murargy also asserted that militants have been penetrating Cabo Delgado by sea and across the border with Tanzania. South Africa is reportedly preparing to deploy troops to Mozambique to help combat the insurgency in Cabo Delgado, the online newspaper Carta de Mocambique reported Thursday. South African and Mozambican officials, however, have not made official comments on the matter. In May, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi called on regional governments to support his country in driving out the jihadists. VOA’s Alvaro Andrade from Washington and Ramos Miguel from Maputo contributed to this report. © VOA 2020

KABUL (Reuters) - At least 18 people, including Afghan security forces personnel, were killed in a suspected car-bombing in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, hours before a three-day ceasefire was to begin in the country for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, officials said. The ceasefire, announced by the Taliban, comes at a time violence has risen across the war-torn country as U.S.-brokered peace talks between the militant group and an Afghan government-mandated committee await the completion of a prisoner exchange between the two sides. The Taliban denied responsibility for the bombing in a statement from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. The explosion targeted Afghan security forces in Pul-e-Alan, the capital of the eastern province of Logar and civilian casualties are also feared, according to Shahpoor Ahmadzai, the spokesman for the provincial police. He added it was unclear whether it was a car or suicide bombing, but that security forces had gathered for duty in the city to prepare for security measures for Eid al-Fitr, which will be celebrated in Afghanistan on Friday. The head of the province’s council, Hasib Stanekkzai, told Reuters it was a car-bombing and put the toll at 18 dead and 22 injured. Since the U.S.-Taliban agreement in February, 3,560 Afghan security forces personnel have been killed in attacks by militants, according to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a report this week that more than 1,280 Afghan civilians had been killed in the first six months of the year, mainly as a result of fighting between Afghan government forces and the Taliban. U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad was in Kabul on Wednesday to discuss the need to keep violence down by all sides after the ceasefire and the completion of the prisoner exchange, according to a statement by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi in Kabul and Ahmad Sultan in Nangarhar; Writing by Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Mark Potter © Reuters 2020

The ouster of Sudan’s longtime ruler last year stoked hopes for peace in brutalized Darfur. But violence has surged amid fresh accusations against Sudan’s security forces. CAIRO — On camels, horses and motorbikes, dozens of Arab militiamen stormed into the remote village in Darfur, in western Sudan, firing wildly, witnesses said. Houses were pillaged, animals stolen and water tanks smashed. Villagers ran for their lives. United Nations peacekeepers scrambled to the scene but said they found the road blocked by obstacles placed in their way, and continued on foot. When they arrived after two and a half hours, it was too late. At least nine people lay dead, including a 15-year-old boy, and another 20 were seriously wounded, according to the United Nations. The attack in Fata Bornu, a remote hamlet of 4,000 people, echoes the grimmest days of the Darfur conflict in the 2000s. But it happened just this month — over a year since euphoric protests toppled Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the detested dictator whose alleged atrocities in Darfur earned him an indictment on genocide charges in an international court. Now Mr. al-Bashir languishes in jail and Sudan is run by a joint civilian-military government that has promised to usher in a new era of democracy, and finally — after 17 years of suffering — bring peace to Darfur. But while the revolution brought some change to Sudan’s cities, that is not the case in Darfur, where the notorious janjaweed — nomadic Arab militias — still ride free. Heavily armed gangs continue to massacre, plunder and rape in scorched-earth tactics that recall the worst days of Mr. al-Bashir’s rule. And the Sudanese military has faced accusations of negligence, as in Fata Bornu, or even being complicit. “They stand silent in front of the janjaweed attacks,” said Adam Mohamed, a senior leader of Darfur’s displaced community, in a telephone interview. “They do nothing.” The tempo of violence quickened in recent days with another 60 civilians massacred on Saturday in an assault by about 500 Arab militiamen, according to the United Nations — the deadliest attack in months. Two days earlier, 15 people were killed in a different part of Darfur, local news media reported. After Saturday’s massacre, in Masteri village in West Darfur state, Sudan’s civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, promised to send the police and army reinforcements “to protect citizens and the farming season.” But distrust of the security forces runs high in Darfur, where the military has an ignominious history of manipulating, and frequently directing, ethnic violence, according to human rights groups. “When you see attacks like this one, and it’s just another Tuesday in Darfur, you realize that not much has changed since the revolution,” said Cameron Hudson, a former State Department official and Sudan expert at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, a research group, speaking of the attack on Fata Bornu. While Sudan’s dictator has been vanquished, his legacy has proved harder to dismantle, and the transition to democracy has stalled perilously in key areas. A transitional legislature, announced last year, has yet to be formed. The youthful democracy campaigners who helped to oust Mr. al-Bashir have split into factions. A campaign to get the United States to lift its designation of Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, which perpetuates Sudan’s pariah status and blocks foreign investment, has run into sand. And the country’s transitional government, which is supposed to pave the way for a general election in 2022, is troubled by tensions between military and civilian leaders, Western diplomats say, as well as periodic rumors of a military coup. Young Darfuris were at the forefront of last year’s uprising, when some were arrested and tortured by Mr. al-Bashir’s security forces. Their high profile fueled their expectations that the revolution might bring radical change to Darfur. But the dynamic of the conflict remains the same. The war in Darfur erupted in 2003 when Darfuri rebels, angered by longstanding discrimination against the region’s non-Arab population, rose up against the government. Mr. al-Bashir hit back by arming the janjaweed, who killed thousands of civilians monthly at the height of the war, in attacks that the International Criminal Court has classified as genocide. The United Nations estimates that at least 300,000 people have died in a conflict that decreased in recent years, but never stopped. Since the ouster of Mr. al-Bashir in April of 2019, one of the most powerful figures in the new government, to the dismay of many Darfuris, has been Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, a commander whose Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries have been linked to atrocities in Darfur. Mr. Hamdan is now part of a government-led effort to negotiate peace with two Darfuri rebel groups. But many Darfuris see the talks as little more than window-dressing because the largest rebel group, led by a former lawyer, Abdul Wahid al Nur, has spurned them. The escalating crisis comes just as the international community is shifting attention away from Sudan. The United Nations peacekeeping mission to Darfur, formed in 2007, is expected to shut down by the end of the year. And Western governments have slashed their aid budgets for Sudan, even as the pandemic plunges the country deeper into poverty. Some 9.6 million people urgently need food aid, the most ever for Sudan, according to the United Nations. Foreign officials, eager to prop up Sudan’s shaky transition to democracy, appear to be reluctant to point blame at its fledgling government when trouble erupts in Darfur. After the attack on Fata Bornu on July 13, the United Nations peacekeeping mission, which is run jointly with the African Union, framed the violence as a seasonal dispute between herders and pastoralists. “The farming seasons in Darfur have witnessed such occurrences in the past,” it said in a statement. The top U.S. State Department official for Africa, Tibor Nagy, reinforced that narrative a day later with praise on Twitter for cooperation between Sudanese security forces and United Nations peacekeepers in Darfur. But internal United Nations reports reviewed by The New York Times, as well as interviews with Darfuri tribal leaders and United Nations officials, paint a different picture. The villagers, mostly people displaced by earlier fighting, had been protesting for two weeks before the attack. They demanded the resignation of the local governor, Maj. Gen. Malik Al-Tayeb Khojaly, accusing him of siding with the local Arab community. On July 12, General Khojaly responded to the villagers’ demands by withdrawing security from the area, villagers told United Nations officials. The Arab militiamen, who were at least 100 strong, attacked the next morning. The United Nations peacekeepers, mostly from Senegal, heard gunfire and saw plumes of smoke as they approached the camp. When a contingent of at least 130 peacekeepers finally arrived, they found terrified villagers huddled outside a school or hiding in the bushes. It was unclear if Sudanese troops had stood aside to allow the attack to take place, but an internal United Nations report pointedly noted their absence. “None of the GoS security forces were on the ground to defend the IDPs,” it said, using shorthand for the Sudanese government and internally displaced people. A spokesman for the Khartoum government did not respond to requests for comment. An official delegation visited Fata Bornu and promised to investigate the attack. Ashraf Eissa, a spokesman for the United Nations peacekeepers, said the mission was “doing its best” to protect civilians in the parts of Darfur where it still deployed. Since 2018, the mission has closed bases across Darfur and reduced its strength to 6,500 peacekeepers, down from 19,500. “This is a mission in exit mode,” he said. Beyond Darfur, last year’s revolution has brought some significant changes to Sudan. Mr. al-Bashir’s once-powerful Islamist party has been dissolved and Mr. Hamdok, a mild-mannered technocrat, has introduced a raft of modernizing legal reforms. Female genital cutting has been outlawed. Women can no longer be arrested for wearing clothing deemed insufficiently modest, and flogging has been abolished for all lawbreakers. The apostasy laws have been scrapped, Christians are allowed to consume alcohol, and any citizen can leave Sudan without an exit visa. Gay sex is no longer punishable by the death penalty, though it is still subject to a seven-year jail sentence. And Mr. al-Bashir, 76, is behind bars. Sentenced to two years imprisonment for corruption in December, the deposed autocrat reappeared in court last week to face separate charges over the 1989 military coup that catapulted him to power. If convicted, he faces the death penalty. On June 30, frustration with the slow pace of change prompted giant street protests across Sudan, the first since last year. “Freedom, peace and justice,” chanted the crowds, echoing a slogan of the anti-Bashir movement. One of the protests took place in Fata Bornu. But many other Darfuris, abandoning their dreams of change, have fled to Libya to try the perilous sea crossing to Europe, or have ended up in refugee camps in neighboring Chad. “The Khartoum government is telling them to be patient,” said Jérôme Tubiana, co-author of a recent report on the exodus for the Small Arms Survey, a research institute in Switzerland. “But they don’t trust them. For many, the enemy is no longer Bashir — it’s the center of Sudan.” Civil society leaders in Darfur say it is crucial that some form of peacekeeping mission step in when the United Nations mission leaves Darfur. “We need to protect the lives of the people,” said El Sadig Hassan, secretary-general of the Darfur Bar Association. “Otherwise, the crisis will continue.” SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES

Jubilee Campaign has recently submitted reports on Mauritania, Myanmar, Nepal, and Rwanda for the upcoming 37th session of the Universal Periodic Review. What is the UPR? Every four years, the United Nations Human Rights Council reviews nations' compliance with international human rights obligations as well as the nations' recent improvements and setbacks in the area of human rights. NGOs and UN bodies submit reports on country conditions to complement the states under review's own official reports. Recommendations to the country under review are made by multiple nations, and these recommendations are then either noted (not accepted) or supported by the state under review. This year was slightly different... The unanticipated outbreak and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic however, has forced submission dates for the reports to be postponed. The prevalence and perseverance of the pandemic has further exacerbated existing human rights violations in the countries which is why we submitted two separate reports on Nepal, one of which is in collaboration with other human rights NGOs. Read these reports and more on the Jubilee Campaign website

(Nairobi) – Cameroonian armed forces have attacked a health facility in the North-West region and arbitrarily arrested seven health workers in the South-West, while armed separatists have killed at least six civilians, including a humanitarian worker and a teacher, since May 2020. The violence took place despite peace talks between the government and jailed leaders of the Ambazonia Interim Government (IG), a separatist group, on June 16. Other separatist groups, such as the ‘Ambazonia Governing Council’ and a splinter faction of the IG did not participate. “The talks between the government and separatist leaders should include ensuring respect for human rights and accountability for abuses,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “All parties to the talks should publicly commit to immediately end abuses against civilians and ensure that victims of abuses have access to effective remedies.” Human Rights Watch has previously called for individual sanctions on members of the military and separatist groups responsible for grave abuses in the Anglophone regions. Based on information reported by the media and nongovernmental organizations, Human Rights Watch estimates that at least 285 civilians have been killed in about 190 incidents since January 2020 in the North-West and South-West regions, where violence has been acute since late 2016, as separatists seek independence for the country’s minority Anglophone regions. Human Rights Watch has not been able to independently verify each case since January 2020. Violence has also displaced tens of thousands of people in the past two months, adding to the hundreds of thousands who have fled their homes since the conflict began in late 2016. Human Rights Watch interviewed, by telephone, 20 victims and witnesses of human rights abuses by armed separatists and government forces between mid-May and early June 2020, as well as 15 family members of victims, residents of the Anglophone regions, doctors, and members of civil society. Human Rights Watch also reviewed photographs and video footage, which corroborated witnesses’ accounts. Security forces and armed separatists have both attacked hospitals and medical staff on multiple occasions. On July 6, separatists killed a Doctors Without Borders community health worker working for in the South-West region, after accusing him of collaborating with the military. Security forces damaged a health facility in the North-West region on June 30 and arbitrarily arrested seven health workers in the South-West region on July 6. On June 10, at 2 p.m., following clashes between separatists and soldiers, including some from the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), a grenade was fired into the courtyard of the district hospital in Bali, North-West region, leading to the death of one cardiac patient, injuring at least four others, and destroying four vehicles. Human Rights Watch spoke to two medical staff and three Bali residents and reviewed a letter sent by the hospital director to the health minister, the Bali military commander and the separatists’ commander describing the attack. The Bali military commander paid 50,000 XAF (US$86) to the hospital for damages. This is not the first time that this particular hospital has been targeted in fighting between separatist fighters and Cameroon armed forces. In 2018, separatists looted hospital supplies. In July 2019, a grenade, allegedly fired by the military, injured a patient and destroyed the roof. In January 2020, soldiers forcibly entered the hospital looking for wounded separatists causing panic among patients. Separatists killed at least six civilians since mid-May, including a 58-year-old teacher working at the University of Bameda in the North-West region on May 17. A family member of the teacher told Human Rights Watch that separatists had repeatedly threatened him to make him stop teaching, considering him a traitor for not complying with their demands to boycott schools. The teacher told the separatists that he needed to work to make a living, so they instead demanded money, which he could not pay. A witness to the killing said that he saw two separatist fighters approach the teacher as he was leaving his home and shot him three times. “I was standing nearby,” the witness said, “The Amba [armed separatists] came on a motorbike and said to him, ‘You are stubborn. Your end has come.’ Then, they shot him once in the head and twice in the chest. He fell on the ground in a pool of blood.” Since 2017, armed separatist groups have waged a violent campaign against education, enforcing a boycott of schools in the two Anglophone regions to protest against what they consider educational injustices against English-speakers. They have regularly targeted school buildings, burning and damaging scores of schools. They have killed, kidnapped, and maimed students and education officials for not complying with their demands to keep schools shut. They have used schools as bases, deploying fighters and weapons in and near them and torturing hostages in classrooms. Separatists have disrupted normal life in the areas they control by enforcing prolonged lockdowns, calling strikes, and building roadblocks that are affecting the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that separatists’ roadblocks are hindering the transport of medical supplies to the Banso Baptist Hospital in Kumbo, a key facility for tens of thousands of people in one of the areas most affected by violence in the North-West region. In July, Human Rights Watch contacted representatives of three separatist groups, the IG, led by Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, its splinter faction, led by Samuel Ikome Sako, and the ‘Ambazonia Governing Council.’ All denied that their fighters had committed any of these abuses. “Cameroon’s international partners and the UN Security Council should help civilians in the Anglophone regions who are facing violence on a daily basis, and demand government forces and separatists stop attacks on civilian targets,” Mudge said. “They should impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, on separatist leaders responsible for abuses and consider the same for government forces involved in abuses.” Background Violent attacks against civilians in Cameroon by separatist groups have been rife since the crisis started in late 2016 in the North-West and South-West regions of the country. Human Rights Watch has documented widespread kidnapping, torture, and killings of civilians as well as destruction of property, by separatist fighters since 2018. Armed separatists have also killed hundreds of members of security forces amid growing calls for secession of the Anglophone regions. Government forces have also committed serious human rights violations including unlawful killings, destruction of property, sexual violence and torture. In March 2020, the Southern Cameroons Defence Forces (SOCADEF), a separatist group, called for a ceasefire as the Covid-19 pandemic was declared – a move welcomed by the UN secretary-general’s spokesperson. On June 16, government officials held peace talks in the capital, Yaoundé with the leaders of the IG, a major separatist group, led by Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, currently jailed in a high security prison in Yaoundé. Neither the call for a ceasefire nor the peace talks have led to an end to violence against civilians. Separatist Killings of Civilians On May 16, armed separatists killed a 48-year-old businessman in front of his shop in the Azire neighborhood of Bamenda, accusing him of collaborating with government security forces. Human Rights Watch spoke to two witnesses and two family members of the victim. “Two young separatists arrived on a motorbike,” one witness said. “They stopped in front of his shop and called him. As he walked out, one of them shot him in the stomach three times.” The victim’s wife said that the separatists had warned her husband several times not to provide information to the security forces, including hours before his death. On May 30, separatists kidnapped and tortured a humanitarian worker in Bali, North-West region, also accusing him of collaborating with the security forces. They released him the following day, and he spent several days in a Bameda hospital being treated for his injuries during the episode: They blindfolded me and took me to their camp on a motorbike. They asked me questions about my work and threatened to kill me. Late in the evening, they took me to another place, in the bush. They tied me on a tree with a rope and started to beat me savagely. They slapped me several times, kicked me and poured water on me. It was dark, I was scared. I was in pain. I feared for my life. On June 18, separatists killed a 44-year-old man at Ntarinkon market in Bamenda, North-West region, after he refused their demands for money. Human Rights Watch spoke to three family members and three witnesses to the killing. One witness, a 36-year-old man, said: I was drinking at a bar, about 15 meters from where he was shot. Everything occurred in front of my eyes. The Amba [separatists] came on a motorbike. The one sitting in the back shot him two times in the head. Then, they escaped. People at the market ran away in fear and panic. The market was later closed down. Family members said the separatists had repeatedly threatened the victim and asked him for money. The victim’s family filed a complaint with the police days after the killing but there has been no progress on the case. On June 12, separatist fighters attacked gendarmes and policemen at a checkpoint in Bamenda, North-West region, killing two civilian men. Human Rights Watch spoke to two witnesses to the attack and three of the victims’ family members. A 26-year-old witness said that about 10 armed separatists attacked the security forces on foot as they were checking identity cards at a checkpoint in Alakuma junction between 10 and 11 a.m. “I was standing about 50 meters away from the scene,” she said. “They caught the gendarmes and policemen by surprise, started firing and killed two men whose documents were being checked by the security forces. The gendarmes and policemen shot back, and people ran away.” Attack on St. Elizabeth Catholic General Hospital On June 30, soldiers forcibly entered the premises of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Hospital in Shisong, Kumbo, North-West region, looking for wounded separatists. They fired three gunshots and broke down doors to the hospital’s wards, causing panic among patients, nurses, and other workers who fled. A nurse who was there said: They forced themselves into the hospital and scared patients with their guns. They also entered the operation theater where doctors were operating a patient. They questioned the patient and asked him why he had been wounded in the shoulder. The medical staff managed to push them back, but this is shocking and unacceptable. Medical facilities cannot be targeted like this. This is the second time the military has forcibly entered the hospital in search of wounded separatists. On February 17, 2019, soldiers broke into the hospital, fired several shots into the air, and threatened to kill a man in front of hospital staff. Arbitrary Arrests of Health Workers in Mamfe On July 6, security forces, including gendarmes, policemen, and military, carried out a security operation in Mamfe, South-West region. They searched homes and other premises and detained over 60 people. Five residents told Human Rights Watch the operation was conducted after pamphlets were seen in town claiming to represent the ‘Red Dragons,’ an armed separatist group, asking people to contribute 15,000 XAF ($26) to buy weapons and ammunition. Security forces held the people at the police station in Mamfe, releasing all but 10 that evening. Among those not released were seven staff members from the Baptist Health Center. They were charged with “failure to report separatist activities” before the High Court in Mamfe on July 8. They pleaded not guilty and were granted bail, with another hearing scheduled for July 29. Human Rights Watch spoke to a senior representative of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS), a nonprofit healthcare organization that has over 80 health facilities across Cameroon, including the one in Mamfe, and to the legal representative of the seven arrested staff. “Some of our staff were arrested while wearing their medical uniform,” the Baptist senior representative said. “It is unacceptable that health workers are being treated this way. They have nothing to do with the Amba boys [separatists] and are on the ground to assist the most vulnerable, especially in these challenging times where the Covid-19 pandemic poses a serious threat to our country.” The lawyer representing the seven staff members said that, while at the police station, they were forced to sign statements they were not allowed to read. “Some signed out of fear of the police, others were actively intimidated into signing,” he said. “The police did not even read the statement to them.” © Human Rights Watch 2020

Second Country Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict in Nigeria Boys and girls in northeast Nigeria continued to endure gruesome violations at the hands of Boko Haram and to be deeply affected by military operations against the group by Government Forces despite noteworthy efforts and commitments, highlighted the second country report of Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict in Nigeria released today. The report described 5,741 grave violations against children between January 2017 and December 2019 in Nigeria; incidents in neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger were also reflected in the context of the spillover of Boko Haram’s activities beyond Nigeria’s borders. “The children of Nigeria and neighboring countries continued to endure horrendous violations by Boko Haram and the expansion of the group’s activities across the Lake Chad Basin region is a serious concern for the Secretary-General,” said the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba. She also stressed the need to provide a regional African response to the situation. The recruitment and use of children accounted for the greatest number of verified violations, with a total of 3,601 boys and girls affected. Boko Haram was responsible for the recruitment and use of 1,385 children, mainly through abduction, used in direct hostilities and in a variety of support roles including as sexual slaves. One particular and especially despicable practice of Boko Haram was to use children, mainly girls, as carriers of personnel-borne improvised explosive devices, also known as “human bombs.” More than 2,000 violations were cases of recruitment and use of children by the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) before September 2017, when the group signed an Action Plan with the United Nations to end and prevent the violation. The UN was able to verify these cases as the CJTF granted them access to their military barracks in the framework of the Action Plan. The number of children detained for their or their parents’ actual or alleged association with Boko Haram remained a grave concern, but actual numbers were difficult to assess since the United Nations was not granted access to facilities and to the children. “Children formerly associated should not be further penalized through detention and I call on the Government of Nigeria to expedite the release of children from detention and prioritize their reintegration into society. I also urge the Government to review and adopt the protocol for the handover of children associated with armed groups to civilian child protection actors,” said Virginia Gamba. 1,433 child casualties were verified, the vast majority attributed to Boko Haram, and the leading cause of child casualties remained suicide attacks. 64 incidents of sexual violence affecting 204 children were verified and as for all other situations on the children and armed conflict agenda, the violation is considered to be vastly underreported for fear of stigma, retaliation, lack of accountability for perpetrators and lack of resources for survivors. With 55 verified incidents, denial of humanitarian access to children continued to result in the temporary suspension of humanitarian activities and affected the delivery of humanitarian aid to thousands of children. Some of the most atrocious incidents by Boko Haram involved the abduction and execution of humanitarian workers. Progress for the Protection of Boys and Girls The signature by the CJTF of an Action Plan with the United Nations in September 2017 marked a turning point in ending and preventing the recruitment and use of children by the group. “Progress has been consistent, and no new cases of recruitment and use have been verified since the signature of the Action Plan. I encourage the CJTF to fully implement its Action Plan and to facilitate the disassociation of any remaining children,” added Virginia Gamba. A total of 3,794 children formerly associated with armed groups benefited from reintegration support by UNICEF implementing partners, including medical services, psychosocial support as well as education or vocational training. “Providing adequate, sustainable and long-term reintegration programs is essential to ensuring that these girls and boys benefit from the necessary support to rebuild their lives and allow them to safely return to their families and reintegrate into their communities,” reminded Virginia Gamba who further urged donors to enhance their financial support to these programs. “I call on the authorities of Nigeria to strengthen their commitment to released children and to sign the Paris Principles,” she added. She commended the work of child protection and humanitarian partners on the ground, operating in often dire conditions, and called upon all parties to respect the civilian character of schools and hospitals and to allow safe and unimpeded access for humanitarian actors to affected populations. She reminded that the United Nations stands ready to continue to support the Government of Nigeria and international partners to address the challenges and ensure a better protection of Nigerian children from armed clashes. Key numbers from January 2017 to December 2019 (all verified numbers): Recruitment and use: 3,601 boys and girls affected Killing and maiming: 1,433 boys and girls affected Sexual violence: 204 children affected Attacks on schools and hospitals: 35 incidents Abductions: 413 children affected Denial of humanitarian access: 55 incidents © OSRSG 2020