The Myanmar State's Security Forces have flared up VIOLENCE in Northern Maungdaw this morning (June 26) turning the situation chaotic and creating panic among the local Rohingya population, according to reliable reports. Several people are feared to have been killed and many people have been injured since the joint Security Forces composed of 'Border Guard Police and Military along with hundreds of Rakhine extremists armed with machetes, swords and iron rods' have begun conducting raids on the village of 'Kyun Pauk Pyu Zuu' under 'Taung Pyo' sub-township in northern Maungdaw this morning. In fear of attacks and arbitrary arrests by the Security Forces and Rakhine extremists, the village men numbering around 1,000 fled to the nearby mountains, only to fall into the trap of the Securities Forces waiting standby there. Of them, approximately 500 people have managed to escape and several hundreds of people have been still besieged by the Security Forces. "Hundreds of Rakhine extremists armed with swords and machetes have been heading to the village of Kiam Mong (Kyun Pauk Pyu Zuu) to attack the villagers. The Military and the BGP are fully supporting them instead of trying to maintain security and stability in the region during Islamic Eid Festival. People are panicking and trembling. The situation is a volatile. People are running for their lives", said a local Rohingya man in Northern Maungdaw on the condition of anonymity. Many women were also rounded up and harassed by the Security Forces in the morning and were released later. At least a dozen of homes were vandalized or looted. The reported attack on four Rakhine men allegedly by some Rohingyas armed with swords on June 24 morning is apparently the reason behind the current volatile situation. The Myanmar State's Security Forces clearly seem trying to incite the local Rakhines against the Rohingyas and fan the violence even more into the form of 'Collective Punishment' on the Rohingya people. [Read the earlier report: VIOLENCE Looms over Northern Maungdaw ahead of Eid Festival] The assailants behind the attacks on the four Rakhine men are still unidentified. The apparently retaliatory attacks on the Rohingya people at 'Kyun Pauk Pyu Zuu' are merely based on the assumptions that the assailants could be Rohingyas as the attacks took place nearby the village. REVEALED: The four Rakhine men indulged in a fighting with some unidentified #Rohingya men, where two of them (i.e. the four Rakhine men) died, in Northern Maungdaw on June 24 morning - which has now led to ongoing violence on Rohingya at Kyun Pauk Pyu Zuu village - were NOT Rakhine civilians but Myanmar military personnel in civil dress. This is a pre-planned plot by Myanmar Government to give a Communal Portrayal to the violence now going on against Rohingya", a reliable source has confirmed. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 RB News

What we know from previous reporting about cholera in Sudan and the country’s collapsing medical system: “The collapse of the health services in the country requires intervention by international organisations to help eradicating the epidemic, and that can only be done if the government officially declares the cholera outbreak,” Sarah Abdeljaleel, Media Secretary of the Sudanese Doctors’ Union in the United Kingdom and Ireland told Radio Dabanga last week. (Radio Dabanga, June 25, 2017) Disgracefully, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan (OCHA) has yielded to the Khartoum regime and refuses to use the word “cholera,” even as laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae; the disease has also been confirmed by independent health officials (see below): The same is true of the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO): As these are the first reports of cholera infections in Shangil Tobaya, the World Health Organization (WHO) has not yet issued an update… The WHO and the Sudanese Ministry of Health do not refer to the disease as cholera, but the less severe “acute watery diarrhoea (AWD).” WHO has not replied to Radio Dabanga’s latest request to comment on the spread of cholera. (Radio Dabanga, June, 23, 2017) The UN is content to ignore what was reported by Radio Dabanga in January of this year: Medics: “Cholera spreading in Sudan” | Radio Dabanga | January 22, 2017 | KHARTOUM | https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/medics-cholera-spreading-in-sudan According to laboratory results, the diarrhoea cases spreading over various parts of Sudan since September last year are caused by cholera. The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors reported 53 such cases in Red Sea and El Gezira states on Friday. Dr Mohamed Naji El Asam, Member of the Doctors’ Executive Committee, told Radio Dabanga in an interview broadcast on Friday that the results of laboratory tests on acute diarrhoea samples conducted in the Ahmed Gasim Hospital in Khartoum proved that it was cholera. The doctor criticised the federal Ministry of Health for keeping silent about the disease in spite of the confirmation by laboratories. Cholera bacteria under a microscope Sudan Tribune also reported in January 2017 that the epidemic in Sudan was cholera: Eight dead in suspected Sudan cholera outbreak: report | Sudan Tribune | January 16, 2017 (KHARTOUM) | http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?iframe&page=imprimable&id_article=61409 Eight people have died and 342 infected at several Sudanese states in a second wave of a suspected cholera outbreak within five months, said a report by the independent Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors. The report, which was seen by Sudan Tribune on Monday, said the preliminary tests of diarrhea samples proved they were cholera cases, pointing such cases are usually confirmed by a reference laboratory and announced by the Department of Epidemiology at the Health Ministry. It pointed that a number of cases have been reported in Khartoum, Gazeera and Red Sea states, saying “such cases must be handled with utmost seriousness to ensure the safety of patients and curtail the spread of the epidemic.” The report demanded the authorities to apply the scientific universal measures in dealing with such cases and announce the results with full transparency, saying the disease is highly contagious. Indeed, the warnings had come early and often, and yet no action was taken by Sudan or the UN’s humanitarian agencies. The Khartoum regime still refuses to call the rapidly spreading epidemic cholera, and UN agencies defer to Khartoum. The results of this policy of denial and acquiescence are now terrifyingly clear: “Three die of cholera in South Darfur’s Kalma camp” | Radio Dabanga, June 25, 2017 | KALMA / SHANGIL TOBAYA / EL TADAMON / BLUE NILE / KHARTOUM https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/three-die-of-cholera-in-south-darfur-s-kalma-camp On Friday, three residents of Kalma camp for the displaced near Nyala, capital of South Darfur died of cholera. With the spread of cholera to South Darfur, 14 Sudanese states are now affected. Hussein Abusharati told Radio Dabanga that three other Kalma camp residents are infected as well. “The South Darfur health authorities and staff of health organisations working in the state rushed to the camp, and allocated two emergency sites in the camp to receive the patients,” he said. “The organisations directed us to immediately report any suspected cases.” Kalma, hosting more than 120,000 displaced, is one of the largest camps in Darfur. In the Naivasha camp for the displaced near Shangil Tobaya in North Darfur’s Tawila locality, a girl died on Friday. “This brings the number of cholera deaths to 12 in a week,” a Naivasha camp elder reported to this station. “With eight new cases last week, 96 camp residents are being treated for the disease.” The elder complained about the poor health care in the makeshift isolation centre, the overcrowded ward, and the lack of medical staff in the camp clinic. He said they have called on the North Darfur health authorities to urgently provide adequate treatment and medical staff, and to organise awareness campaigns about the importance of hygiene and sanitation. “Watery diarrhoea” The health unit in the area of Um El Kheirat area in South Kordofan’s El Tadamon locality received two new cases of cholera on Friday. The head of the unit reported that two older cases are still being treated. The Blue Nile state Minister of Health, Abdelrahman Bilal, reported last week that at least 40 people in the state are suffering from “acute watery diarrhoea.” The first cases were recorded in Blue Nile state in August last year. The federal Health Ministry initially neglected the reports. A few months later, after the disease spread to neighbouring states, medical doctors began to mention cholera. Sudan’s security authorities, however, refused to call the disease by its real name and instead continue to refer to it as “watery diarrhoea.” On 1 June, the Sudanese Minister of Health reported to the federal parliament that between August 2016 and May 2017, 14,659 people were infected with “watery diarrhoea.” 292 patients died. The UN Office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Sudan reported it its bulletin of 5-18 June that according to the federal Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization, about 16,600 suspected cases of “Acute Watery Diarrhoea” were reported in the country, including 317 deaths. Health management “The collapse of the health services in the country requires intervention by international organisations to help eradicating the epidemic, and that can only be done if the government officially declares the cholera outbreak,” Sarah Abdeljaleel, Media Secretary of the Sudanese Doctors’ Union in the United Kingdom and Ireland told Radio Dabanga last week. This week, Sudanese university professors have appealed to the federal cabinet and parliament to restore “the former health management mechanism” in Sudan. In a press statement, they pointed to the nation’s “successful experience in managing the health system before the federal system came into being.” They further urged the revision of the Constitution and laws governing the health system in the country. Cholera victim (Zimbabwe) “Cholera cases in North Darfur, Khartoum, eastern Sudan,” Radio Dabanga, June 23, 2017 | SHANGIL TOBAYA / KHARTOUM / KOSTI / DELLING | https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/cholera-cases-in-north-darfur-khartoum-eastern-sudan The spread of cholera to North Darfur claimed the lives of two displaced women in a camp in Shangil Tobaya on Thursday, while the isolation centre has recorded approximately 100 cases of infection. Abdallah Rashid reported the death of the two displaced women while the centre recorded eighteen new infection cases. Speaking to Radio Dabanga, Rasheed, former director of Nahar Medical and Health Organisation that is active in the area, said that the isolation centre is overcrowded. “This led the management of the centre to put the beds of patients in the courtyard and the corridors of the centre. “A number of patients are sleeping on the land because of the lack of adequate beds.” Rasheed added that there is a one toilet in the centre, used by patients, attendants and doctors. “Residents of the district near the isolation centre are concerned about the spread of cholera, saying there are no adequate prevention measures at the centre.” This week, the Sudanese Ministry of Health sent a team to establish a camp isolation centre and prevented the displaced people from leaving and entering Naivasha camp. As these are the first reports of cholera infections in Shangil Tobaya, the World Health Organization (WHO) has not yet issued an update about its response to the disease in the Sudanese humanitarian news bulletin by UN OCHA. The WHO and the Sudanese Ministry of Health do not refer to the disease as cholera, but the less severe “acute watery diarrhoea (AWD).” WHO has not replied to Radio Dabanga’s latest request to comment on the spread of cholera. Stagnant water in Khartoum In Khartoum’s Imtidad El Daraja El Talta district, the hospital recorded one death of a cholera patient, and four new infections on Wednesday. Activist Nader El Sayed attributed the cholera outbreak to the accumulation of garbage and the stagnant water in the area. “This might increase if no protection and prevention measures are taken.” At El Noua Hospital in Omdurman, a medical source reported to this station that during the past week four people have died and nine others have been infected with cholera.This in addition to the eleven cases of cholera that were reported at Omdurman Hospital. One person died while four new people suffering from cholera were recorded at the isolation centre of the Eye Hospital in Kosti in White Nile state on Wednesday and Thursday. While the number of hospitalised cases is 23 people, medical sources confirmed the lack of the recording of new infections in the isolation centre at El Marabee in El Gezira Aba: only two cases have been registered in the centre. South Kordofan allows food trade In South Kordofan, one person died and some 20 others were infected with cholera at El Farshaya area, north of Delling, this week. The hospitalised cases ran-up to 19 people. The authorities in Delling have put a halt on the precautionary measures that were taken three weeks ago in order to prevent the spread of cholera. They allowed the re-opening of the butcheries and the entry of vegetables into the city from Thursday morning onwards. In River Nile state, State Minister of Health El Amin Mahmoud El Nus said that the total number of infected cases amounted to 264 cases, including four deaths. He said that 26 isolation centres have been established in the state. Cholera victims in Haiti—a foreshadowing of Darfur’s fate during the present rainy season Other Recent Reporting on Cholera: “Cholera kills eight in two days across Sudan” |Radio Dabanga, June 22, 2017 | KHARTOUM / WHITE NILE / KORDOFAN | https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/cholera-kills-eight-in-two-days-across-sudan Eight people have reportedly died and 231 others infected with cholera in Sudan’s Khartoum, White Nile, South Kordofan, and North Kordofan states on Monday and Tuesday. Dr Ali Bashir, the spokesman for the National Epidemiology Corporation told Radio Dabanga that in Khartoum three people died at Bashayer hospital while three more died at El Sheikh El Bashir village in Jebel Awliya in southern Khartoum state. “Cholera continues to spread along the Nile” | Radio Dabanga, June 21, 2017 | SUDAN | https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/cholera-continues-to-spread-along-the-nile Sudan’s cholera outbreak has expanded to include new areas in Kassala and El Gedaref states. Four people have died and more than 80 have been infected with cholera in New Halfa locality in Kassala state this week. On Monday, a health source told Radio Dabanga that the infections have spread to the districts of El Sawra, Kambo, Village 33 Abunajma, and Village 18 Arab. The source explained the continuous increase in the incidence of cholera and spread in various villages and districts of New Halfa. Four people died in El Gedaref state on Monday, while dozens were infected in El Fashaga and Galaa Elnaha. Sources said that Umsagta area in Galaa Elnahal locality recorded two cases and Umgargoura in El Fashaga locality recorded two deaths. “Cholera now endemic in Sudan’s El Gedaref”: former Minister | Radio Dabanga, June 15, 2017 | EL GEDAREF / WHITE NILE / KHARTOUM | https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/cholera-now-endemic-in-sudan-s-el-gedaref-former-minister The former Minister of Health of El Gedaref, Mustafa El Sayed, told Radio Dabanga that cholera has become one of the endemic diseases in El Gedaref. Cases of cholera infection in five of El Gedaref state’s localities are estimated at 395, while 10 cholerasufferers have died in Um Gargoura. Yesterday a medical source told Radio Dabanga that 250 cases were registered in the town of El Gedaref. The medic said that the cholera epidemic has spread to El Saraf El Ahmar in the localities of El Gallabat East, El Rahd, and El Butana. The doctor appealed for a medical emergency to be declared in El Gedaref state. Early Reporting on the cholera epidemic: “Calls for schools to close as ‘cholera’ fears grip eastern Sudan” | Radio Dabanga, January 25, 2017 | EASTERN SUDAN | More die of diarrhoea in eastern Sudan | December 30, 2016 | PORT SUDAN / WAD MADANI Death toll from diarrhoea in Sudan’s El Gezira ‘16 and rising’ | Radio Dabanga, December 29, 2016 | WAD MADANI Ten people die of acute diarrhoea in Sudan’s El Gezira | Radio Dabanga, December 27, 2016 | WAD MADANI More students stricken with diarrhoea in Sudan | Radio Dabanga, December 22, 2016 | WAD MADANI Diarrhoea kills two Sudanese students | Radio Dabanga, December 15, 2016 | WAD MEDANI ‘Over 2,600 cases of watery diarrhoea in Sudan’: Health Ministry | Radio Dabanga, September 25, 2016 | KHARTOUM Number of diarrhoeal disease cases growing in Sudan | Radio Dabanga | September 19 – 2016 ED DAMAZIN, EL GEZIRA, SENNAR Analysis: “What the cholera epidemic tells about the absurdity of lifting sanctions on Sudan,” Sudan Tribune, January 27, 2017 | http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?iframe&page=imprimable&id_article=61489 By Eric Reeves Former Obama administration UN Ambassador Samantha Power’s claim that there has been a “sea change” of improvement in humanitarian access in Sudan was not only false, but destructively so. As a justification for Obama’s Executive Order lifting U.S sanctions on the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime, her failure to tell the truth was a moral disgrace and gives the regime reason to believe that even token moves to improve humanitarian access will be credited as sufficient, especially under the new Trump administration. Such an attitude on the part of the regime could easily translate into the loss of tens of thousands of Sudanese lives. One example looms large at present. There can be little doubt now that the steady stream of reports concerning cases of acute watery diarrhea signal a widespread outbreak of cholera—an extremely dangerous but easily treated disease that is the product of contaminated water sources. Today’s report from Sudan Tribune confirms not only that there have been two waves of cholera in various northern states, including Blue Nile, extending back to at least September 2016), but that regime officials have tried to deny that the disease causing so many deaths and hospitalizations is cholera. The Sudan Tribune dispatch is based on a report by the independent Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD), which found that “twelve people have died and 500 infected with watery diarrhea in the states of Khartoum, Red Sea and Gedaref during last week”; the CCSD “accuses health authorities in the states of concealing and covering-up the lab results of samples taken from the patients, describing this behavior as ‘irresponsible and reckless.’” _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy

Police in the Turkish city of Istanbul have thwarted attempts by organisers to hold a banned Gay Pride march. The organisers of the annual event had vowed to press ahead despite the ban by the authorities, who had cited threats from far-right groups. But police briefly fired rubber bullets to disperse the marchers and detained a number of them. Homosexuality is not illegal in Turkey - unlike in many Muslim nations - but homophobia remains widespread. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose ruling AK Party is rooted in conservative Islam, has denied wanting to impose traditional religious values, saying he is committed to secularism. But he supports Turks' right to express their religion more openly. He has been accused of growing authoritarianism in recent years. 'Get used to it' This is the third year in a row that Turkey's largest city has banned the Gay Pride rally. The BBC's Mark Lowen, in Istanbul, says the heavy police presence stopped people from entering Istiklal street, where the rally was scheduled to start. He says that anybody trying to unfurl a rainbow flag or pass police blockades was prevented from doing so. Faced with armed police and water-cannon trucks, the marchers had no chance, our correspondent says. The Hurriyet newspaper said that at least 10 people had been detained. The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf tweeted that a Dutch cameraman, Bram Janssen, was among those arrested. Earlier on Sunday, the Gay Pride organising committee had issued a statement saying: "We are not scared, we are here, we will not change. "You are scared, you will change and you will get used to it. We are here again to show that we will fight in a determined fashion for our pride." Falling on deaf ears: BBC's Mark Lowen in Istanbul For more than a decade the event passed off peacefully - tens of thousands used to throng Istiklal street here. But now, for the third year running, it's been banned, officially because of threats from ultra-nationalist groups, but critics believe that's a convenient scapegoat for a conservative government that doesn't approve of the parade. Representatives of some European governments were here to support the cause, stressing that Turkey, still a candidate for EU membership, must respect minority rights. But the criticism is likely to fall on deaf ears among an increasingly conservative government. For long, Turkey was a haven of gay rights in the Middle East. But the Islamist-leaning President Erdogan is accused by critics of moulding Turkey in his image and ostracising the secular, liberal side of the country. Lara Ozlen, from the organising committee, told AFP news agency on Saturday: "It is obvious that a peaceful march is part of our constitutional right. "It's been known for years. Instead of protecting us, to say 'do not march' just because some will be disturbed is undemocratic." On Sunday, the Dutch consulate in Istanbul unfurled a large rainbow flag in support of the Pride event. In addition to citing the threats of far-right groups, city officials said they had not received a formal request to hold the march - a claim denied by the organisers. This year's event also coincides with the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the start of the Eid al-Fitr festival. Last year, riot police fired tear gas and plastic bullets after transgender rights activists gathered in Istanbul - in defiance of a ban on marching. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 BBC News

DARFUR NEEDS YOU NOW MORE THAN EVER SPEAK UP SILENCE KILLS MORE PEOPLE EVERY DAY!!!! Fourteen years into Darfur's catastrophe and civilian casualties increase each day while the world remains SILENT!!! Violence, rape, arrests, and torture have devastated the lives of the innocent civilians in Darfur. Countless men, women, and children have lost their lives while the living endure unimaginable suffering with nowhere to turn. Despite the alarming rate at which the violence continues, world leaders have faced the situation in Darfur with silence. Those who have spoken outhave not moved beyond words of condemnation. At the beginning of 2017, the Sudanese army attacked innocent civilians in the cities of Nertiti and Elgenaina, West Darfur. These were not the only attacks the Sudanese army has carried out. Subsequent reports out of Darfur highlight the systematic rape of women and girls. While this happens, while the people of Darfur continue to suffer, the international community is moving toward rewarding Sudan. As you may have seen, 2016 was a challenging year for our people in Darfur, and we were hopeful that 2017 might be different. Unfortunately, the attacks continue at an alarming rate, and the international community is continuing to fail Darfur. Amidst the atrocities taking place in Darfur, the Sudanese government is working hard to change its narrative. President al-Bashir and his accomplices are doing so by confusing the facts on the ground and reporting that Darfur is peaceful, thus perpetrating his lies. Millions of people are displaced. There are refugees under attack with nowhere to go. The Arab Janjaweed Rapid Support Forces have been fully integrated into the Sudan Armed Forces and have been granted the permission to kill burn and oppress the people of Darfur. The Sudanese Government has falsely declared a ceasefire, only to prepare for the largest offensive in years. The Situation Remains Urgent: Throughout 2016, violent attacks, killings, rapes, arrests, and torture have devastated the lives of the long-suffering innocent civilians of Darfur. Many men, women, and children have lost their lives, and those who have been forced to flee have nowhere to turn due to the restriction of humanitarian aid. Starting in January 2016, there were unprecedented attacks in Central Darfur's Jebel Marra. Amnesty International estimated that well over 250 chemical bombs were dropped on villages solely inhabited by civilians, killing mostly women and children. There have been an estimated 30 attacks from January 2016 to September 2016 The United Nations has failed to report the use of chemical weapons in Darfur, to provide an accurate account of what is happening, nor to provide an estimate of how many innocent lives have been lost. By failing to do this, the UN has helped pave a path for al-Bashir to get away with genocide. Consequently, a new surge of violence continued throughout 2016 in Central Darfur. The Sudanese government intensified ground attacks as well as aerial bombings in Jebel Marra. The targeted areas are mostly inhabited by civilians, a majority of whom are affected women and children. According to sources on the ground, about over 400 villages around Jebel Marra have been destroyed and over 400,000 people have been forced to flee, some to the caves at the top of the Marra Mountains. The remainder has been driven to camps and nearby cities seeking protection, still struggling to survive as they have been left to sadly face the harsh winter, the flood in the rainy season and the harsh tropical sunshine without shelter or food. Reports also confirmed that the Janjaweed and the Government forces had raped many women and girls and some were even taken hostage; their fates remain unknown. Many more of those who have not been able to flee are trapped on mountain tops living in caves without humanitarian assistance The Ongoing Tragedy: What you may not know is that there are about 400,000 people who have repeatedly been displaced in 2016, adding to those who were already displaced. Over 3 million people remain in camps and have been there for last 13 years as violence escalates and the government of Sudan severely restricts humanitarian efforts. Rape and all forms of sexual abuse continue at an alarming rate in the displacement camps where women are the majority inhabitants. For 13 years, millions of Darfuris have remained displaced and continue to live in fear without the possibility of returning home, while the number of newly displaced people continues to grow exponentially. Many of the targets also include college students who are being abducted, imprisoned, and killed. The genocide continues unabated. Darfur Still Faces Challenges: President al-Bashir, the mastermind behind the genocide in Darfur and a man indicted and wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), is still actively pursuing his genocidal campaign in Darfur and other regions of Sudan. Despite the alarming situation in Darfur, the international community has chosen to ignore it. Similarly, the mainstream media has failed to cover the current situation, and the ongoing genocide is no longer making headlines. Sources, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, that used to report on Darfur, no longer report on the ongoing atrocities. The government of Sudan has made every effort to isolate Darfur from the outside world. For example, President Obama's special envoy to Sudan and South Sudan never even visited Darfur. The Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones has also failed to visit Darfur in recent years despite the weaponization of rape which prevalence remains unhindered. UNAMID, the forces that have been put in place to protect civilians, have failed to carry out their mandate and remain under severe restrictions. Impartiality and incompetence have characterized the mission. UNAMID spokesperson, Aicha Elbasri reported that UNAMID had not reported deaths and sexual violence committed by the regime forces. In many instances, UNAMID leaders attempt to please the Sudanese government by helping them falsify information related to Darfur, while innocents suffer due to their neglect. Al-Bashir, the indicted genocidal criminal, has successfully blocked access to information from Darfur to continue his crimes and get away with murder. Bashir is Changing the Narrative: In 2017, the Sudanese government began to form a new narrative which has sadly been reinforced and accepted by leaders within the African Union, European Union, and the United States. The narrative is a propaganda lie about the situation in Darfur. The new version of Darfur that al-Bashir paints states that there is little to no violence in Darfur. This narrative ignores the millions of the genocide victims who are still under attack, rape, and oppression with total impunity. On the contrary, the Janjaweed Arab militias (Rapid Support Forces) have grown more powerful, still committing crimes and controlling everywhere in Darfur including the cities. Despite the alarming situation in Darfur, the international community has chosen to ignore al-Bashir's leading role in the massacre as its leaders look the other way. Similarly, the mainstream media has failed to cover the current situation and the ongoing genocide. Darfur is no longer making headlines in the New York Times, Washington Post, Aljazeera network or the BBC - as it had in the past. Likewise, many advocates have moved away from the Darfur issue or have passively accepted the narrative imposed by the Sudanese government, which replaces the word "genocide" with "mass atrocities or conflict." It may seem like a simple grammatical tweak, but there are severe consequences to this change. Avoiding the word "genocide" waters down the urgency of the situation in Darfur and allows the world to move away from this issue and focus on other international crises around the world The Lifting of Sanctions and the Failure of the European Union: While the genocidal campaign continued uninterrupted, in his last week in office, President Obama shamefully lifted the sanctions against Sudan using the same fictional justification that was propagated by the Sudanese government. The two previous administrations initially had imposed these sanctions as the result of Sudan harboring terrorist grounds and committing genocide in Darfur. Lifting sanctions are the equivalent of giving the government of Sudan a free pass to international trade, investment and more financial transaction and cash in hand, which will further enable them to slaughter and rape the innocent people of Darfur. To date, no credible information shows that Sudan has ceased its support to terrorist groups nor ended its attacks in Darfur. Reports indicate that attacks in Darfur have actually escalated and now include the use of chemical weapons. The conditions for permanently lifting sanctions are that Sudan must cut ties with terrorist groups. Secondly, and more importantly, Sudan must end its attacks in Darfur, allow unhindered humanitarian access, disarm the Janjaweed militias and bring lasting peace to Darfur and Sudan. Regrettably, the Sudanese government has worked to falsify reports, rather than being genuine and lasting peace to Darfur. The European Union has already established collaboration with Sudan in an attempt to curb the flow of African refugees to Europe by giving Sudan €100,000. The EU made the deal while knowing that the ICC still wants to arrest Bashir. The hypocritical nature of the deal is not something to take lightly. Many of the countries in the EU abide by the Rome Statute, and to make a deal with Sudan while arrest warrants for al-Bashir are still in place is a direct violation of the moral codes many of the countries have held. With the money from EU, Sudan has empowered the Rapid Support Forces, militias that have committed and will continue to commit unimaginable crimes against the people of Darfur under the pretext of "protecting" them. The reality is that the Janjaweed, in addition to committing violence against the people of Darfur, are trafficking refugees fleeing prosecution from Sudan's neighboring countries. The EU is enabling this with their ignorance. While the deal may have been set up with good intent, the reality proves that it has further prolonged the suffering of many Darfuris and others. Many advocates have moved away from Darfur or have accepted the change of narrative that the Sudanese government and its allies are promoting. They accept the changes in language, the replacing of the word "genocide" with "atrocities" to water down the urgency of the situation. This has let the international community treat Darfur with less urgency and has allowed the world to move away from focusing on Darfur. We can still change this if we speak up. We know it's difficult but not impossible. This month is critical in shaping Sudan's relationships with the rest of the world. At the end of June 2017, the new administration will review the possibility of permanently lifting sanctions against Sudan. The collaboration between the EU and Sudan is also advancing. That is why we need you and your support. Together we must speak up and demand that our leaders not reward a genocidal regime or promote impunity for genocide! Trends of Recent Escalation: The fact is that in the last four years Darfur has witnessed the increase of destruction and horrific disregard for the lives of innocent men, women, and children. Some of you may think the crisis in Darfur has ended because it is not being reported in the news, but the truth is that over 460,000 Darfuris were displaced in 2013 and in 2014, another 500,000 were displaced. And in the span of twenty-four hours on October 14, 2014, 221 women and girls were raped in Tabit village. Those who committed such a vile act have suffered no consequences! What happened to those 221 women and girls is not an isolated incident but a systematic tactic and deliberate policy of the regime. Then in the first three months of 2015, 233,000 people were displaced, and 2016 saw another 400,000 people displaced. While declaring a false cease-fire, the Sudanese Armed Forces massacred 13 people and over 50 were injured in Nertiti, West Darfur. Similar attacks took place in Elgeneina, the capital of West Darfur, as recently as June 2017. The government has indiscriminately attacked over 20 villages in North Darfur where thousands have fled their homes and are still in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. Refugees Continue to Face Challenges: On December 18th and 19th, 2015, 700 Darfuri refugees, who had escaped the genocide, were suddenly and forcibly deported from Jordan back to Sudan, to face the very genocidal regime from which they had fled. In a recent statement, the Sudanese Vice President reported that the government of Sudan had declared a plan to end displacement by 2017. While the plan may sound like an attempt to stop the genocidal campaign in Darfur, in reality, it means wiping out the helpless citizens who are internally displaced and living in camps. Darfur 2017 has witnessed constant attacks, especially in Nertiti, Jebel Marra and West Darfur, including constant attacks on women. Sexual violence is escalating every day. In most cases, women are stabbed when they fight back or refuse to be raped. In 2016, while attacks continued, the Sudanese government held a referendum in and on Darfur. Of course, the people of Darfur did not have the ability to vote, due to the constant attacks being carried out by their government. Most of the land from which refugees have fled have been redistributed to Arab tribes and new settlers, who were brought by the Sudanese government to inhabit the Darfur region. This is a dangerous move which represents the final stage of the Darfur genocide if it is allowed to continue. What is going on in Darfur today is very systematic; it is directed towards the same group whom the government has singled out for extermination since 2003. In a sense, it is Sudan's "Final Solution." This is why we need you, your voice, and your support! With the all persisting challenges, the Darfur Women Action Group and its supporters have remained vigilant and have refused to stand idly by. We say NO to the silent conspiracy in Darfur and have decided that we must speak up, continue to empower the survivors, and continue to educate and mobilize citizens like you. To set the record straight, DWAG has created a "Facts versus Fiction Campaign" to provide our supporters with accurate information about the genocidal campaign in Darfur. We call upon our supporters and our volunteers to stand with us. We are currently mobilizing and organizing the Darfuri diaspora within the United States and across the globe to use their voices to bring more attention to this terrible situation and demand that our leaders act now before it's too late. We can't do this without your support, and that is why we are calling upon you. We know you care and you will not be a bystander in the face of these horrific crimes. DWAG believes that in the face of genocide, we must not let our leaders turn a blind eye. In the face of genocide, every human being has a moral and ethical obligation to do whatever they can to stop it. We need you to add your voice and speak with us and mobilize the masses. If we can reach out to more people, we will compel our leaders to act promptly. DWAG needs resources and manpower to change this. We at the Darfur Women Action Group are determined to continue to fight against these horrific crimes. We will continue to expose al-Bashir's offences to the world and will continue to fight for justice for the victims and accountability for the perpetrators of the world's worst crimes. Our voice has been loud, and we have given hope to the affected community and ensured that their plight will not be forgotten. We need you all. Together, we must continue the fight to make sure that al-Bashir and his cronies do not get away with murder. In the coming days, we will continue to share updates and provide you with opportunities to take action. Please help us spread the word and get more people involved. Do what you can from where you are to empower us to continue to fight for justice in Darfur and across Sudan. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The time is always right to do the right things." There are many ways you can get involved and help us change the reality for the people of Darfur; Write a letter to your representatives asking that they prioritize Darfur and ending genocide in their policy. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper ask them to bring attention to Darfur. Donate to help DWAG secure more resources to fight against these unprecedented challenges. Volunteer to become a DWAG ambassador who can spread the word and ensure that others know about Darfur. Use social media or send us a recorded message asking others to join. With our collective effort, we can make a difference. We are grateful to have you all by our side. With gratitude, Niemat Ahmadi President, Darfur Women Action Group www.darfurwomenaction.org __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 DWAG

When the boys of Baga think back to home on the shores of Lake Chad in northeastern Nigeria, they remember a life that was not hard on any human. At dusk, fishermen cast their nets in the lake’s blue-green waters, careful to avoid the spots where townspeople swam and washed. The next morning, men and boys — so many it would be impossible to count them all — would head back after prayer to retrieve them. Some ran “fast-fast” into the cold waters; others tread cautiously, readying their bodies for the chill and checking for objects hidden under the surface. Each fisherman knew his net, marked with plastic ribbons and wood, by sight. The only mix-ups were intentional, when someone wanted to steal someone else’s fish. The boys knew the punishment for this: charms that could destroy your life, make a man lose his customers and shame him from showing his face in the town market. By 10 a.m., the boys walked through the encroaching Saharan sands to the mud-and-cement homes of Baga to see what their parents needed of them. Few went to school, and so by afternoon they mostly gravitated back to what they called “the riverside,” where they liked to go even if they had nothing to do at all. Kolomi’s group gathered on the mud-and-grass banks beneath a shady tree. They called themselves Ajegunle, the name of a neighborhood in Lagos, though they didn’t know it at the time. They just liked the sound of the word. A-jeh-GOON-leh.They were jokers and pranksters and rode their bikes backward into trees and trained two brown dogs to hunt hares. They named the female Ramat, for Kolomi’s school, and the male Cena, after the American wrestler John Cena, whose colorful clothes flashed across the town’s TV screens. Fannami, a small and bony 13-year-old with knotted muscles and big eyes rimmed with thick lashes, admired Ajegunle’s dogs from his house. How had they trained them so well? How did they sprint so fast when Kolomi called, only to stop short on their hind legs, as if ready to dance? Since his father had died, Fannami supported his family and was often home with his mother. He greeted Kolomi every time he passed; Kolomi, a short and handsome 12-year-old with a clever smile, waved back. Neither boy spoke to Mustapha, though they knew the lanky teenager with narrow-set eyes, whose voice seldom rose above a whisper. His group built a shed to mark its territory and had a reputation — they smoked cigarettes and Indian hemp. Fannami and Kolomi knew that if Mustapha became angry, he would not forgive easily. Mustapha’s mother died when he was young, and he heard his father’s two other wives say cruel things to her before she passed. Years ago, his father was charmed, though Mustapha didn’t know why. He knew only that his father lost his provisions shop selling things like macaroni and soap and that he could no longer frequent the market. Eventually, he fell ill. Mustapha, 15, didn’t want that kind of trouble in his life. He avoided most people, except his best friend, Abba, who was a few years older. They told each other everything. When he was alone, he liked to walk to where the town elders gathered and sit close enough to eavesdrop. When he heard an inside joke, gossip or wisdom meant for their ears alone, it was as if he’d caught a secret. Strangers rarely appeared at the riverside, but the boys remember when that started to change. Since they were small, they had heard about Boko Haram, which translates roughly as “Western education is sinful.” The group started out in the early 2000s as a peaceful protest movement 120 miles away in the state capital, Maiduguri. Its charismatic leader, Mohammed Yusuf, preached about ending endemic corruption through Shariah law and more equitably sharing the great oil wealth of Nigeria. He promised to end the poverty that plagued towns like Baga across Borno State, leaving villages without roads, electricity and water. When Fannami’s mother heard the reports, she appealed to her sister. “Look at this man, saying ‘boko haram’!” she said. “Does that mean we should not enroll our children in school?” She was a kind and devout woman. She taught Fannami the Quran at home, and told him never to beg, never to gossip and always to try to forgive. She decided that she agreed with Yusuf. All along the riverside, people were talking: “Look, some genuine people have come-o to do the work of God.” But in 2009, after years of rising tensions and occasional violence, Nigerian troops shot hundreds of Yusuf’s followers, captured him and turned him over to the police, who killed him in custody. Boko Haram went underground. Commanded by Abubakar Shekau, Yusuf’s former lieutenant, the group grew increasingly militant and began to attack security services and politicians in revenge for the killings. As the insurgency unfurled across the state, it did not miss Baga. One day, armed men on motorcycles killed a politician in the central market. Mustapha watched as nobody said a thing. This was a matter between the government and Boko Haram. It was then that the unknown men began to arrive at the riverside, guns slung over their shoulders, heads wrapped in turbans leaving only their eyes visible. They paid for the things they wanted and left. Sometimes Mustapha felt fearful of them, but he wanted to sell his fish, and the insurgents were customers — what was it his business? Fannami was a 13-year-old fisherman when he was captured by Boko Haram. Boko Haram grew bolder, and their words more threatening. They began abducting and killing innocent people in other towns — Muslim clerics, traditional rulers, Christians and teachers, anyone who opposed their ideology. The chatter on the riverside changed as well. Whatever hope the villagers had in the organization was washed away. Ah, there’s no sincerity in this thing, the people said. Then one April day in 2013, the insurgents killed a Nigerian soldier in Baga. The Army retaliated by setting fire to the village. This had become a common military strategy — collective retribution and scorched earth — but no one had ever seen it on a scale like this. For two days, the earth shook and the land burned; many boys and their families hid along the riverside. When they came back, they learned some 200 people had been killed and 2,400 structures were destroyed — homes and market stalls turned to soot and ash. Villagers swore they saw soldiers throwing children into the flames. The people of Baga had no choice but to rebuild, but they no longer trusted the military, and they didn’t trust the insurgents. The boys learned to live in the between. Kolomi was at Ajegunle’s tree with his friends. It was midday and the dogs were resting at their feet when the gunfire erupted. Ramat and Cena startled and began barking. Kolomi looked around — turbaned men stood blocking the paths from the shore to town. Boko Haram shot in the air. Some boys ran into the lake, but others didn’t react fast enough. The men aimed at movement. Many fell; many were brushed by bullets; Ramat was killed. “Nobody move!” the men shouted. “All of you lie down and face down!” The boys obeyed. No matter how old or how brave, Kolomi, Fannami, Mustapha and a tall 13-year-old named Zanna, whose group usually gathered nearby, lay with their faces on the earth, flat. The men tied their hands with rope. Anyone who protested was slaughtered with knives. From the ground, the boys could hear the sounds. The insurgents ordered them into waiting trucks. It was crowded inside. There was too much heat and not enough air. After the trucks started moving, there was no stopping and no water. The sun moved across the sky. Some boys died, lying atop other boys, a tangle of sinewy adolescent limbs that moaned, shuddered and then grew still. The boys who survived stopped feeling. Maybe the sun set, maybe another kind of darkness descended, maybe twilight settled in, but they had stopped noticing. The trucks moved north along dusty roads. They bumped past clusters of thin-leafed neem trees, spindly acacia trees and the charred remains of other villages that Boko Haram or the military had destroyed. Over the course of a four-day siege in January 2015, Boko Haram carted away the boys of Baga. No one knows exactly how many were taken, but by the end, it seemed as if almost every family was missing a boy or a girl. Virtually an entire town’s worth of children vanished. Across Borno State in that year, Boko Haram battered villages like Baga, ransacking, burning, looting, establishing control over territory or abducting people and taking them to their bases. From the parched northern border with Niger to the Sambisa Forest in the south, the insurgency seemed to know no bounds — Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria were not safe. Boko Haram was expanding its army. The trucks eventually stopped in front of a traditional ruler’s palace, its high archways opening into grand rooms and sandy courtyards. When Fannami got out of the truck, it was dark — all he could see were more people, all of them marching into a great hall, where they sat. They tried to be quiet, but there were whispers. “This room is hot-o.” “We are hungry.” “They want to kill us and you’re talking of such things?” A young man next to Mustapha whispered to him: “Don’t you think these people want to kill us?” “If they wanted to kill us,” Mustapha whispered back, “they would have killed us over there. Why would they suffer to bring us here?” The remains of a primary school in Maiduguri bombed by Boko Haram in 2014. GLENNA GORDON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Flashlight beams illuminated drawings, dark shapes on the walls. Geometric decorations aren’t uncommon on the walls of traditional palaces, but here Mustapha saw guns. Guns on the walls, guns on the insurgents. The boys remember different greetings to their new life: Zanna saw a big man with a turban who addressed them in Arabic. One abductee said they didn’t understand the language, and the big man cocked his gun, but instead of shooting, he laughed loudly. “You people will know your mistakes,” he said. “You have come to where you will enjoy your life.” “It is God that chose you to be part of us to do the work of Allah,” Fannami heard. “So if you cooperate, we work together. If you don’t cooperate, whatever happens is left to you. We will train and equip you to go and kill pagans.” The people around him shouted, “Allahu akbar!” But Fannami didn’t join in. He was thinking of his mother, who would have been at home when the violence started — was she still alive? “I am warning you people,” Mustapha was told, “anybody who disobeys any law here, we will slaughter him like a ram.” Mustapha watched an older man rise to his feet. “What you people did was wrong!” he said. The big man was silent. A younger insurgent strode over to him. “You’re the one who wants to drag with the authority?” he asked and brought out his knife. He pierced the old man’s stomach and sliced his throat. The elder’s body fell heavily on those seated around him. The insurgent ordered two others to remove the head. The boys sat in the hall all night. The insurgents passed out handfuls of dates and some water. Maybe the food and drink were charmed, for no one could sleep. Mallams back in Baga charmed water by writing a bit of the Quran on a wooden board and washing the ink into a bowl for people to drink. The next morning, the insurgents crammed the boys into the palace rooms, 30 to 50 in each. It was hot inside, and they were not allowed to open the windows. All they had were a few straw mats scattered on the floor. Boko Haram fed them a plate of rice once a day. They were told nothing, left alone with their fear and their whispers. A week later, the insurgents opened the doors and told the boys they should get moving. Weapons training was starting. They were taken in trucks through Malam Fatori — a commercial town on the border with Niger ringed by smaller villages, some 50 miles from Baga. They noticed that houses here were separated by farmland and trees, not packed together like back home. When the boys looked out, they could make out villages even half a mile away. At a primary school, the insurgents divided them into three groups and distributed turbans and guns. When he first got to Malam Fatori, Zanna saw an abductee shout the name of someone he recognized. The insurgents shot the man he called to. “Anybody that identifies anybody, we’re going to kill that one who is identified,” they told them. So the boys became deaf and mute. They learned to communicate with their eyes. The instructors taught them how to shoot an AK-47, load ammunition and aim at targets. They learned that if they wanted to kill the enemy instantly, they should shoot the head, chest or stomach, but if they wanted to bring him to the camp and dismember him, they should shoot the hands or the legs. They were better fed during training. Three times a day female captives prepared food for them like biski, a local dish of ground cornmeal, with meat or vegetable soup. They were also given dates and water. The water was murky. So the boys continued to wonder if it was charmed. Otherwise, why would they start feeling so strange after they drank it? They became seriously interested in learning how to be like those people. Kolomi was 12 when he and his friends were herded by Boko Haram into trucks and forced to become soldiers. GLENNA GORDON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Zanna felt so strong he imagined he could lift the big man and throw him. Mustapha wasn’t sure he felt anything at all. At first, those in Mustapha’s group shot bags of sand, but later, the insurgents marched out eight or nine people they had sentenced to death. They told Mustapha’s group to form a U around them. The group raised their guns. Mustapha took aim at one of the men; he was light in complexion, tall and slim. When the instructors said, “Shoot!” Mustapha fired. He moved his gun to a second man and shot him too, then he trained his gun on the third. He was sure he was the one who killed the first man, but he didn’t know if he killed the second. Today, when Mustapha thinks of all the men he has killed, he cannot remember. He can only recall the ones he started with. The eight-year conflict between Boko Haram and the Nigerian state has killed more than 20,000 and displaced millions. The people have slipped out of Boko Haram’s control quietly by night or trudged en masse from a large-scale attack to the Borno state capital, Maiduguri. It was not until parents started pouring into the city that aid workers realized a new dimension of the problem. They saw the crowds of women and girls coming in and wondered: Where are the boys? No one knows exactly how many boys have been taken, though estimates number up to 10,000 — a stolen generation. “If we want to go back and try to maybe compute the demographics before Boko Haram, I am sure that we can arrive at some reasonable estimate,” Geoffrey Ijumba, Unicef’s chief field officer in Maiduguri, told me. “But that will only be an assumption — this is not factual. The only thing that is factual is that the boys are missing.” Like many armed groups, Boko Haram uses a variety of methods aimed at changing an abducted child’s identity and breaking their bonds to home, making any return to their old life extraordinarily difficult. This is an intellectual and emotional separation that surpasses the physical one. As the group steadily escalates a child’s participation in violence, they are resocializing them. Training breaks a child’s will, and the first kill is a kind of baptism. Ritual becomes important. Charms and magic reduce guilt. Killing becomes normalized. The more gratuitous the violence — gang rape, ceremonial sacrifice, mutilating and murdering neighbors or family members — the harder it becomes to contemplate returning home. “Over time, this strains the children’s ability to cope and to stay true to their civilian identity,” says Michael Wessells, a professor in the Program on Forced Migration and Health at Columbia University. “Many children engage in this strategy of splitting — technically the term would be ‘disassociation.’ ” Disassociation is akin to being torn in half — children see or feel the atrocities they commit like surreal dreams. This allows them to exist in a state somewhere between their previous selves and the reality of their new life. “There is not much choice,” Helle Harnisch, a Ph.D. fellow at Dignity, the Danish Institute Against Torture, told me. “They have to change their ways, or they will get killed.” Harnisch has spent five years researching the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda — one of the more infamous groups to use child soldiers. “It is simple: Either I do this, or I die.” Over three weeks this winter, I spoke with 25 children across Borno State. And while it’s true that the world of a child combatant is a powerless one, the children all made small calculations in how to go about surviving. They stole moments of agency. I met one 16-year-old girl who was forcibly married three times. When her second “husband” told her he was going to Bama, the town she was from, she made a snap decision to pretend she was in love with him. She smiled at him for the first time and asked him to pass a message to her mother. He did so twice until he was killed. Some boys lived in two dozen tarpaulin tents in the bush, others in entire occupied towns, like Malam Fatori. Some were kept inside houses for the whole of their abduction and lectured on Boko Haram’s ideology. Others were given jobs, from logistical to tactical. One boy was given a bicycle to deliver tea around the camp all day. Some looted, loading trucks with pilfered village goods, searching dead bodies for jewelry and cash. A boy who had finished the fifth grade was called by the top emir of his camp to be his personal satellite-phone assistant. The emir was illiterate, so the boy was responsible for saving numbers and reading the caller ID aloud. Another drove a motorcycle to and from wells, bringing water back to the camp. Abuar, who told me he was 16 though he looked no older than 13, was given the job of feeding an antiaircraft gun mounted on the back of a Toyota HiLux pickup truck. At times, Abuar had to trail behind fighters with a bag of spare magazines, throwing them cartridges once they expended their ammunition. Another boy I spoke to carried petrol drums for militants to raze villages. Abuar told me about a strategy that his commander employed: When facing the military, small boys in his unit, called “new catch,” were ordered to lead the advance, shooting wildly. Behind them marched captured herdsmen, driving their cows and rams. Senior insurgents, moving on foot or in vehicles, brought up the rear. The insurgents noted the number of dead animals as they passed. “The number of animals dying determined the strength of the military’s shooting and whether the insurgents would continue to come with us or they would run back,” Abuar explained. I asked why they counted the dead animals and not the dead children. “They don’t count our corpses,” he explained, “because the belief is human beings may dodge or may hide to avoid bullets, but animals are just moving. They’re easier killed.” At the end of the operation, he told me, the insurgents “would gather the dead animals along with the corpses of the new catch, set them ablaze and go away.” A pile of dead cattle and small boys on fire. Custom House, a camp on the outskirts of Maiduguri, Nigeria, for people displaced by the conflict with Boko Haram, has more than 9,000 residents. GLENNA GORDON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES After the training ended, the boys were taken back to the palace in Malam Fatori. The largest building was used as the private quarters of the leader, or babban emir, but there were other structures, too — a labyrinth of spaces for purposes the boys did not know. Gathered in the sandy courtyard, the babban emir stood before them with his two subordinates, whom the boys called the second emir and the third emir. Tall and mature, the babban emir wore a traditional white jalabiya and cap. Mustapha wasn’t sure how old he was, no more than 30. The babban emir divided the assembled boys. Kolomi was sorted into the third emir’s unit and told to get up and follow his new leader. Mustapha and Zanna, bigger and stronger, were assigned to guard the babban emir’s palace. Zanna took a post at the back side of the palace with 20 others. He tried not to talk to anyone — it wasn’t safe. Every day, from the time of his abduction through his training, he prayed in his heart for a chance to escape. Mustapha, too, was afraid, but more, he was confused. This was a problem with no solution. No help was coming. What to do? The rhythm of camp life enveloped the new abductees. Activity was concentrated around the palace, everyone working to fortify the heart of the base against the Nigerian military, which periodically probed their defenses, trying to retake Malam Fatori. Boko Haram had declared itself a caliphate and pledged its alliance to ISIS. A tug of war for the arid earth had ensued. Every morning, the deputy emirs, whose units lived in the surrounding villages to protect the center, would come to greet the babban emir, entering his building for a private audience. Directives from Shekau may have been conveyed by satellite phone. There was coordination with the other babban emirs as well, but the boys of Malam Fatori never interacted with neighboring fiefs. Though Boko Haram was hierarchal, it was also fragmented, each division preoccupied with ensuring its own survival. In the morning, groups set out on patrol in their trucks, checking the areas around Malam Fatori for traces of movement overnight — new tire prints, footsteps or animal tracks. Mustapha would quietly accompany the insurgents on patrol. He wanted to see how everything worked. Throughout the day, women who had been captured from nearby towns cooked food, which the insurgents ate from communal troughs. At night, the boys could sleep in any room in the palace compound, so long as it wasn’t in a room where women were kept. They barely prayed, and no one knew what day it was — only Fridays stood out, because on that day, they were fed rice with meat stew. Mustapha again drew close to those who whispered. This was not a place to isolate yourself. He noticed the senior insurgents didn’t like people who didn’t have action. Those without action are lazy. When they talk, they cannot command, so they cannot send fear into someone. Men of action, however, were free to go where they wanted: to the market, to the tarred road outside the camp, even to other Boko Haram-controlled villages, where they could stay overnight. One night after dinner, Mustapha was sitting in a room with the guards, reflecting on his problem. Boys chatted lazily by torchlight. There was no solution. No help was coming. What to do? If you do not put in effort, they will not draw you close. You will just be among those that they could do without. He turned it over again. What to do? Look, Mustapha told himself, if I want to get out of this place, let me obey whatever they say. Let me do as they want. Is it not by cooperating with them that I can get my freedom? If I want to survive here, let me just be doing what they like. When they notice that, they will trust me. No, more, let me do what will earn me commendation. Mustapha started looking for his chance. After weapons training, Fannami was taken to a village on the outskirts of Malam Fatori to join his unit. Their leader, the second emir, was fat and well kept, his house cooled by an air-conditioner powered by a generator. He told his new recruits that they were the Special Forces, a strike force for dangerous missions. Fannami learned his group did not accept anyone older than 15. They didn’t want people who would be thinking about their family. “We want people who when they are determined to do something, they will just go ahead and do it,” their emir told them. A second round of training began. The boys in his unit were taught how to climb trees and lay ambush on soldiers, how to counter military attacks, how to use a rocket launcher. They now learned to work different types of bombs — heavy ones that could be exploded by remote control, others they threw by hand and some they buried in the ground for vehicles. Training took place every day in an open field. As they practiced, instructors circled them in a kiriku, a small armored tank not much bigger than a car. The kiriku dropped bombs on the ground, unleashing heavy booms. The explosions initially scared Fannami, but he grew used to the sound. They learned to drive the kiriku, as well as cars and motorcycles. They were taught how to arrange themselves in the trucks for operations: The front seat was for those people who killed without a second mind; the rest piled into the back. Ali was kept alive by Boko Haram for his farming skills but severely beaten and burned when he refused to go to a training camp. After he escaped, he was held in the Army’s infamous Giwa Barracks for months. GLENNA GORDON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES At the end of the training, the insurgents returned them to the emir’s palace, where Fannami found some uniformed persons — military or police — tied to a stake. “Shoot and kill,” the instructors commanded. If a boy was not able to kill, the men would take the boy away and beat him seriously, then bring him back another day to shoot and kill. So it was then that Fannami learned to kill human beings. Fannami knew the insurgents were always watching. He learned that if they were to go out on operation, they would identify those who performed excellently and reward them. They could promote them to the front seat of a truck, or let them go and friend a girl from the two rooms where abducted women were kept. The boys would be killed if the magic dates or charmed water failed and a person returned to his senses, making unguarded statements about wanting to go home or that what they were doing there was wrong — saying so many things. At night, the boys would sleep in the village’s deserted houses in shifts. Some rooms held up to 10 boys. They didn’t have mattresses, they didn’t even have mats. There were so many mosquitoes. When the wind blew, it got cold. Fannami would squeeze himself into his clothes — all he had was what he was abducted in, a red T-shirt and black trousers, and his new turban. Sometimes, the cold entered his body while he slept, and he would wake up and remember Baga. There, if it was cold, he would wake to find himself covered in a cloth. In the morning, he would ask his mother, and she would say she was the one who covered him. If there were many mosquitoes, his mother would come and use a cloth to drive them away and light a mosquito coil in his room. All those things — anytime Fannami woke up, he would realize he was missing them. It was after Mustapha’s first raid on a village — after they’d killed many people and returned to find their men rejoicing and were fed a great celebratory feast of jollof rice with fish. It was after he was ordered to shoot an elderly man for an offense — he didn’t know what. It was after he was asked to go with five insurgents to a village for “a small thing,” which turned out to be a beheading, and where Mustapha, being the newest of the group, was told to do it. It was after he killed a man on a motorcycle just to commandeer the shiny bike. (When Mustapha thinks of it now, this is the one he mourns. “The first two, I killed them on instruction,” he explains. “The last one, nobody asked me to kill him.”) It was after all these attempts to gain Boko Haram’s trust that one day, some weeks after training ended, he volunteered to go and find two fellow insurgents who had been arrested and detained by the authorities. Mustapha tracked them to a nearby police station. When he arrived, playing the part of a local villager, the police stopped him and inquired what he was doing. He asked if there was anything he could help them with but was sent away. Back in Malam Fatori, he collected a few others and led them to the station, where they opened fire. The group killed six policemen. They abducted two girls and freed the insurgents. When the babban emir heard of this, he gathered the men of the camp and addressed Mustapha. “You went,” he said. “You rescued these two without any injury. You killed those policemen. You took their vehicle and brought it to us. You are definitely going to be very useful to us. I’m proud of you.” “I thank you so much,” Mustapha responded and presented the babban emir with the girls they abducted. “I dash you these ones.” “You are now the second emir of the camp,” the babban emir told Mustapha, and gave him a new name. The other emirs were demoted to third and fourth in the camp. Everyone cheered “Allahu akbar!” and shot their guns into the air. The babban emir divided those assembled before him again and led Mustapha to his new base — an abandoned village on the side of town. They inspected the terrain together. The babban emir told the second emir which house should be his. Mustapha’s new home had a master bedroom with a bed and a mattresses and, what Mustapha liked most, a sitting room with a big rug, two wooden chairs and enough windows to allow a gentle cross breeze. He now had three trucks at his disposal, though he did not know how to drive. The second emir’s men — 60 of them, of all ages — carried things from the babban emir’s stores: food, women and ammunition. Mustapha told them where everything should go. He let his people select the best houses in the village. That night, all those earlier confusions vanished. Mustapha had found his solution. I will go all out to execute the babban emir’s instructions, he decided, rightly or wrongly. The night the third emir announced the operation, Fannami had trouble sleeping. Before morning prayer, he readied himself, tucking his shirt into his trousers, tying on his turban and putting on the big green military helmet snatched from a dead soldier. Fannami never found a uniform to fit his scrawny frame. The boys stuffed handfuls of dates into their pockets and climbed into the backs of the trucks, eating as the convoy moved. The trucks stopped in an open field. Hopping down, they saw that the senior insurgents were standing near thick bundles of grass that concealed holes in the earth: entrances to tunnels. The insurgents had honeycombed the area around their base. The most experienced knew which tunnel would take them beneath the soldiers and which one could turn you into a target. “Go into that one!” they commanded. “Go around. Go to that side!” Fannami bent down and walked through one for a long time. When he emerged, he found himself directly behind a large group of uniformed soldiers. The insurgents were still organizing when the fighting began. They had not expected such a large enemy force. These soldiers were not like usual Nigerian military units, who spent more time shooting into the air and running back and forth, uselessly. They were organized and immovable. (Later, Fannami learned they were from the Multinational Joint Task Force — special forces from Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Chad and Cameroon.) Fannami knew he was supposed to be at the front, leading the attack: The insurgents had told him the soldiers didn’t like killing young ones. But he hated it there; he always tried to go to the middle or even to the back. He scanned for somewhere to take cover. As he looked ahead, he realized how many in the front had been killed. His mind cut, and his heart thrummed. His legs were too weak to carry him. Others must have felt the same, because many were turning back, so Fannami tried to run, but he tripped and fell. Something metal pierced his flip-flop. Fannami watched as a boy running past him stopped. He threw his gun to the ground and heaved Fannami onto his back. There was so much blood. As the boy ran, Fannami’s blood trickled down the boy’s pants. When the boy tired, he put Fannami down. “Thank you,” Fannami said. “I was afraid, but I couldn’t leave you there,” the boy replied. “I had to carry you.” His name was Sale. It was then that Fannami decided this boy would be his friend. Fannami and Sale began finding each other at meals. They liked to take the individual plates they were served and mix them into one big pile to share. Sale told Fannami his mother died when he was born. Fannami told Sale his father died when he was small, but he still remembered him. He talked about his kind mother. They wished over and over again that they could go home. “Don’t worry,” Sale told him, “by the special grace of God, sooner or later, we shall leave here. God will not leave us in this place.” “That is true,” Fannami replied. “We shall surely leave, by the will of God.” They repeated these words to each other cautiously, aware that if insurgents realized you were fond of spending time with someone, they would also suspect you might be planning an escape. So Fannami and Sale mixed their food only once every three days. When they did, they made sure not to sit together for more than an hour. If they really wanted to stay in each other’s company, they would go into the bush and pretend to hunt. One night Fannami dreamed that the insurgents told them that the war was over, that they had conquered Nigeria. “Everybody go back home!” they said. When Fannami returned, his mother saw him and was crying: “Where have you gone? You have spoiled yourself. You have carried a lot of sins.” She put him in a room, bathed him and changed his clothes. In his dream, he was happy. Fannami’s mother had taught him not to fight, even when people insulted him. It was a sin to do so. But in the bush, Fannami saw everyone’s bad habits were magnified. Those who were bad now had the opportunity to be worse, and they were. Now that I have found myself where I should not be, Fannami told himself, I should not make my situation worse by fighting people. The best thing is, let me be showing gratitude to God by exhibiting good habits. Thatched huts on the edge of the makeshift refugee camp in Monguno, to which many Baga residents displaced by Boko Haram fled. GLENNA GORDON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES But there were times when he, too, would get carried away. During an operation, he would be shooting — the heavy gun shaking his body and making a sweet, satisfying noise. People would be running away from him, hiding behind a building, and Fannami would be running toward them. Then he would start to wonder: What has this person ever done to me? What is happening to me? He would drop the idea. So many things like that happened. Fannami’s unit once went to raid a village, unaware that the military was stationed there. The soldiers killed many of their people, but in the end, the insurgents drove them away. The boys were told to go back and remove the corpses of their fallen heroes. When Fannami arrived, he saw so many bodies. Children even younger than himself. He didn’t know their names, but he’d seen some of their faces. Fannami helped carry them to a shallow grave. I could also be killed, Fannami thought, and this is how they are going to pick up my corpse and bury it. After they finished, he found a tree and climbed it. He didn’t know what else to do. Alone in the branches, he cried. After the small bodies were buried, the insurgents gave the village a long time to forget that Boko Haram had ever visited them. Then they went back and killed every young man there. They abducted the women and children and even the old men. The village’s offense was housing the soldiers. To Fannami it felt like justice. Mustapha now had no restrictions except the customary morning visit to the palace, where he greeted the babban emir and took his instructions. If there were none, Mustapha could tell him he wanted to go on patrol, and the babban emir would nod. Back at the base, Mustapha was in charge. Minor infractions, punishable by flogging, rarely came to him, but any decision for execution rested with him. He dealt with these about once a month, but they did not weigh on him — everyone knew the rules. The guilty were never shot; they were slaughtered with knives. Among those in his camp were men whose job it was to collect the blood from executions, put it in a black plastic bucket and keep it for when the insurgents returned from war so they could wash their hands in it. Mustapha did not know why they did this, just that the insurgents had been washing their hands with blood when he arrived, and so after returning from battle he, too, washed his hands with blood, sinking them deep in the bucket, lifting them out and rubbing his palms together. Mustapha found he enjoyed his new life so much he did not even want to remember having been a fisherman. Each morning, he woke early and took his breakfast. Boys brought him water in which to bathe, and his bathroom was always stocked with soap and cream. The women working in his house asked what he wanted for dinner and washed his clothes. He found himself eating often with a young man in his early 20s named Mubarak. Mubarak gave Mustapha good advice and was thoughtful. Mustapha never told Mubarak something and heard it later from someone else. He reminded him of his friend Abba back in Baga. He had the same quiet laugh and the same walk, a slow drag of his legs as if they were too heavy to lift off the earth. Mustapha now had a dozen outfits to chose from, including a camouflage vest reserved for emirs. By 7 a.m., he would go to his base and dispatch his people for patrol, then spend the day sitting with his men, listening to their chatter. Mustapha was young, so he adopted a strategy: He didn’t harass those under him needlessly. He never ordered people to go bring him things. He did everything himself. He rarely spoke. That way, when he did command his men, in his soft, low voice, they would know he was serious. Mustapha knew it was important to remain light. He had noticed the great changes in himself. Back in Baga, if he saw a dead body being conveyed to the cemetery, that day was a problem for him. He would leave his room and spend the night among his half brothers out of fear. But since he got to Malam Fatori, Mustapha sometimes caught himself wondering: Am I the same person? Myself, who doesn’t want to see corpses, I can now just cross over them and go back to a sound sleep?There were drugs in camp, sold by people who brought them from outside villages. Mustapha got his free. He took a pill called Desert 200, which he had also taken back in Baga to help him forget anything that disturbed him. Now he moved about with it in his pocket all the time; he hardly did anything serious without taking it. When Mustapha felt inclined, he could go into the special rooms at the emir’s palace or at his own base and pick a girl to friend. On entering, he would always spot the one he liked, no matter how many were there. When he called them, most girls would oblige. Some of the girls he pointed to would be shedding tears, but they did not make any effort to stop him. He was sure they knew what was about to happen. Perhaps they were only feigning reluctance modestly. They would make it look as if they didn’t want to, but when he took one home, she would cooperate. “Oh, I don’t like it,” some said, even when it was just the two of them. But as she was saying “Oh, I don’t like it,” she would be undressing. When he first brought Bintu home, she was not free with him. She was very angry and so worried. “Look, better relax your mind,” Mustapha told her. “There’s nothing you can do. Relax your mind. It will be better for you.” Afterward, Mustapha did not order her to return to the rooms. A short time later, when he got malaria, Bintu was the one who cooked for him and took care of his feverish sweats. He did not send her away after he recovered. She slept in his bed, and Mustapha didn’t friend anyone else. Often when he looked at Bintu, he felt like laughing, and she would ask him, “Why are you looking at me and laughing?” And Mustapha would say, “O.K., if you don’t want me to, lower your face.” So Bintu would look down, and then she, too, would laugh. Sometimes Bintu would start: “When I look at you ... ” and Mustapha would finish “I feel like laughing.” They would laugh together. Whenever a woman at Mustapha’s base delivered a son, he reported the birth to the babban emir. The other emirs did the same. One month after the birth, a man from the palace would come to collect the baby, and everyone would know. In the palace courtyard, the baby would be put on a special table with a hole in the middle. Anybody could watch as they lay the baby flat, neck over the hole. The emir from the unit would be given a special knife — sharp, double-edged with a black handle. He would use it to slaughter the baby. The blood would drain through the hole and into a bucket. That was how the insurgents slaughtered their sons. Mustapha couldn’t ask questions. He slaughtered four babies this way. It was just something that needed doing. Sometimes reinforcements from the babban emir’s guard would come to assist Kolomi’s unit. When they heard the boys complaining about the fourth emir, they would say: “Ah-ha, your emir is better. His own problem is just women. If you meet the second emir, that’s when you know that you have seen a wicked person.” Kolomi didn’t often think about Baga. But one day he was in the kitchen collecting his food when he saw the pot. It was the same kind they used at the riverside to cook pepper soup from the fish they caught. From then on, Kolomi didn’t like going to the kitchen. Each time, he would see the pot and say to himself: Oh, this life, it is not reliable. Look at me, here I am doing what I did not bargain for. Fannami had also heard the rumors about Mustapha: The second emir was the most wicked emir, who easily ordered executions. Zanna heard no such thing. He knew Mustapha was fearless, but he did not think him wicked. In Baga, he had seen Mustapha fight only when someone touched something that belonged to him. Whenever the deputy emirs were going on an operation, they could come to the palace and choose reinforcements. Zanna’s body shook when he saw an emir walking the perimeter. He would sweat, even when the weather was not hot. He would pray again and again in his heart that they not pick him. But when the second emir came, Zanna felt more at ease. Zanna was sure Mustapha recognized him, even if their eyes never met. Mustapha didn’t pick him to go on an operation. He came to the palace three times and never chose Zanna. This is how Zanna knew Mustapha was protecting him. God has joined my blood and his blood, Zanna told himself. The fourth time, the babban emir escorted Mustapha and pointed at Zanna’s post. “You go and join him,” the babban emir said. Zanna got up and followed Mustapha. The babban emir turned back to look at Mustapha. “You look angry,” he said. “Is there a problem?” “No, nothing,” Mustapha responded. Zanna could tell that Mustapha was angry. Mustapha doesn’t want me to go to war, Zanna thought. Before battle, Mustapha shook hands with all of his reinforcements and told them to be careful during the operation. They prayed for success and set off. Mustapha assigned Zanna to the group in the back and went ahead. When the battle started, Zanna dropped his gun and escaped. This is how Zanna is sure the second emir saved his life and wasn’t wicked at all. Mustapha was sitting on the floor of his bedroom one evening when the question came to mind. He could hear people talking outside. Leaning against the wall, he rested his gun between his legs. We are always using blood to wash our hands. Blood of children or adults who are going to school. And that system may never stop. He turned it over and over in his mind. It may never stop. He thought about it for a long time, then drifted off to sleep. The next morning, something in him had changed. He lost interest in that place. He tried to keep up appearances. He went out on patrol and sat with his men, but he stayed away from the babban emir. After four days, the babban emir sent a message for Mustapha to come to the palace. A men’s bedroom in Teacher’s Village, a camp for displaced Nigerians in Maiduguri. Few residents in the camp have mattresses; most sleep on the floors, packed tightly alongside their former neighbors. GLENNA GORDON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES “I hope all is well,” he said. “I have not seen you for some time.” “I am not feeling very fine,” Mustapha told him. “Why didn’t you tell anybody? And you’re still going out on patrol?” “Yes,” Mustapha said. “Stay behind. Don’t be going out until you recover fully,” the babban emir advised. “Thank you,” Mustapha said, and was dismissed. So Mustapha stuck to his daily routine. He continued raiding and warring. Afterward, like everyone else, he would wash his hands in blood. But now he didn’t dip his hands all the way, just his fingertips. A few weeks later, Mustapha was in one of his trucks, on his way to the big tarred road about an hour’s drive from camp to attack vehicles passing with goods. His friend Mubarak was at the wheel. Mustapha sat quietly in the passenger seat, smoking his Benson & Hedges. There were two boys in the back seat, and five standing in the back. “Look, this type of thing we are doing,” Mustapha told Mubarak suddenly. “I’m sure there are some of us that do not want to do it. They are just doing it because they have no alternative. I’m sure if some of them get the opportunity to escape, they wouldn’t mind escaping.” Mubarak laughed his soft way and said nothing. “Look, I’m serious,” Mustapha said. “I’m not joking.” “Ah, I thought you just wanted to hear what people would say,” Mubarak ventured cautiously. “I didn’t know you were serious. No problem, then: By the will of God, God will create a situation for us where we can escape.” Mustapha was silent. Mubarak kept driving. They pulled up under a large acacia tree where the insurgents usually waited until the afternoon traffic reached its peak. Mustapha’s boys got out of the car and stood under the shade, waiting. Mustapha opened his door, but stayed in the car, facing them. He turned to Mubarak again. “Mubarak, it’s just like what I told you. This job, a lot of people are tired of it. If they see the chance, they don’t mind escaping.” He had everyone’s attention. “Look, gentlemen, see what I said in the vehicle, how do you people see it?” A sign at a refugee camp in northern Nigeria showing people wanted on suspicion of being Boko Haram members. GLENNA GORDON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES “You are our leader: Anything you decide, we are ready for it,” someone said, as others in the circle nodded. Another, older than Mustapha, took care to look anywhere but at his emir. “No,” he said, “we are doing the work of God. We cannot say we should stop and go. How can you be talking like that? The best thing is we should endure. The work of God is always hard.” A debate began, some saying what they would do if they had their chance. One said he didn’t know where he would run, because he had no relatives. Others seemed buoyed by the prospect of going home. Mustapha smoked silently in the car. In the end, there were three who said they did not want to go. “Shoot them,” Mustapha said. The others fired. Mustapha finished his cigarette and got out of the car and looked at his remaining boys. “O.K.,” he said. “Let’s go.” They decided to head to a junction they had heard about with easy roads leading to Niger and Maiduguri. Along the way, Mustapha’s mind refused to settle. Could some of our people go out on patrol and discover those corpses? Could they scout our vehicle and try to block us? Will soldiers find us? It was early evening when they arrived at the junction and found a nearby ditch to push their truck into. They stashed their guns, knives and turbans in the truck and covered it in grass. Mustapha turned to his men to issue his final command: “We should all move individually, because moving in a group, even if it is a group of two, can raise suspicion. All of you should be careful. Don’t show as if you are from the bush. When you see water, wash your body, look clean.” Everyone raised their arms, fists clenched, a farewell salute. Then each one turned and started walking in his own direction. Mustapha walked for a few miles in his military boots before tossing one behind and one ahead. He knew people feared unknown faces, so he always pretended as if he came from a neighboring town. At night, he would look for the lights of a village, a lantern or a fire. He would sleep in the local market, after people had left their stalls. Early in the morning he would leave. It took Mustapha five days to reach Maiduguri. The city rose from the sands, crammed with people, cars, market stalls and auto-rickshaws. While Mustapha had been in the bush, Boko Haram continued to fight for territory. Refugee camps mushroomed — 12 at last count. Fewer than a quarter of the new arrivals settled in the camps; the rest squatted or lived with relatives. Mustapha went immediately to seek news of Baga. He had been gone for more than a year and a half. Fannami was captured by soldiers. They tied his hands and put him in the back of a truck. He was more scared at that moment then he had been during the initial abduction. He was no longer innocent. When the truck broke down, Fannami ran into the darkness and dropped down, crawling until he reached a bush where he spent the night. Kolomi was also captured by soldiers. When his truck stopped, he asked if he could relieve himself and slipped away, too. Given the chance, they scattered like children of birds. When Fannami got to Maiduguri, he asked for an area where he remembered his relatives had lived. When he arrived there, he asked for their house. He found his mother. She stood up, came to him and held him. They sat down together and started crying. Fannami was unkempt, he was hungry and in his heart he knew he had sinned. Fannami’s mother told him to go and take a bath. She brought him new clothes to wear, and she fed him chicken. It was just as he’d dreamed. Fannami’s mother told him that many villagers from Baga had escaped and made their way to Maiduguri. But she cautioned him not to tell anyone what had happened to him. All the boys had to be wary of the military and the Civilian Joint Task Force, a vigilante group the government authorized in 2013 to fight Boko Haram. Any involvement with insurgents was treated as abetting. Adults and children with any association with Boko Haram are taken to the notorious Giwa Barracks, where they are detained indefinitely in squalid conditions. Boys whom I interviewed told me they had been crammed in cells with between 50 and 100 other children, forbidden to speak to one another and unable to contact their families until the military decided, seemingly at random, to release them. Human rights groups speak of extrajudicial killings by the Civilian J.T.F. as an open secret. Once children were released from Giwa, the Nigerian government considered them “cleared.” If they moved into an official camp, there were free schools and sporadic psychosocial support programs, but the need far outpaced the response. For former abductees who moved into the community, there were even fewer options. Children were essentially left to fend for themselves. Aid agencies descended to assist with famine, acute malnutrition, education and peer-to-peer counseling, but none of these efforts had reached the boys I spoke to. When I asked, they said they didn’t even want the help. They thought they’d be turned over to the military and to Giwa Barracks. They had reason to fear. The Nigerian government has been keeping the Chibok girls who were rescued from captivity in custody for the past eight months. For those who avoided Giwa, life became uncertain. Fannami didn’t know what to do with himself when he returned. “In the morning, I would quickly come out of the house as if I’m going to do something important. But what really used to bring me out was to watch children going to school. Then I would look at the road. I would see people of different ages, including young men, driving cars. I would say, Have I lost out? Can I ever be like these people? Is the opportunity still there? Why did I make this mistake? If I had left the whole of this area when insurgency started, before I was abducted, wouldn’t it have been better?” Fannami, more than anything, wanted to go to school. During Eid al-Adha, the feast of the sacrifice, Fannami ate chicken for the second time and went to the zoo. He was entranced by the lion. He is seeing us like meat, but he has no right to come out of his cage and catch us, he thought. On his way out, he passed Kolomi. The boy with the dogs! He went back and introduced himself. When they pieced together that they had both been in Malam Fatori at the same time, Kolomi felt relieved that someone else had passed through this trouble. Fannami was angry. If he’d been around people from home, perhaps he could have escaped sooner. Kolomi was living with his older sister and going to school. He had forgotten many details about his time in Malam Fatori and didn’t know why. It was as if someone had scrawled an eraser through his memory at random. Fannami later saw Zanna at the barber shop where he worked sweeping the floor. “I know you from Baga!” Fannami said. “Yes, it’s true,” Zanna said. Fannami also saw Mustapha on the street, but he never spoke to him. Mustapha looked the same in and out of the bush — his eyes hadn’t changed. Fannami did not want anything to do with him. When Mustapha arrived in Maiduguri, he waited a week before going to find his grandmother. It took two more days for him to see his older sister. He told them that Boko Haram detained him in a house for a month, until soldiers had liberated them. “I know how society is,” he explained. “I know how they are treating the parents of children that joined Boko Haram. Why should I put my relations in that situation?” He moved out of his grandmother’s house as soon as he could — he did not feel free there — and started washing cars and three-wheeled auto-rickshaws, called keke Napep. The owners left their keys so the washers could park the vehicles when they were done, and so Mustapha finally learned to drive. Mustapha decided to hang around the drivers, pulling shifts, and soon he got a vehicle from someone with a fleet and started driving full time. Sometimes, without warning, he remembers, and he is back in Malam Fatori. If he’s carrying passengers, they will notice and ask: “What is wrong? You look so worried, you have changed.” He will tell them, “It’s nothing.” But when they are gone, he will park on the side of the road and pretend to be repairing something until he comes back fully to his senses. I met these boys in hotel rooms that felt in turn like safe houses and prisons. None of the boys know their exact age. Fannami and Zanna estimate they are now 15, Kolomi says he is 14 and Mustapha thinks he is around 18, but looks younger. They all chose the names that were used in this article. Day after day, they returned to tell me about things they had all tried to forget. They came before or after work, between jobs, after school, on the weekends. I began to wonder why. Unlike the abduction of the Chibok girls, which briefly turned into a global sympathy saga, no one seemed to care about the boys from Baga. These children walked out of hell into a world that didn’t seem to want them. The stories they told me about rituals like infant slaughter and bathing your hands in blood have not been previously reported as part of life under Boko Haram. But their stories were consistent, and rumors of such acts have circulated around northeast Nigeria. While the rest of the boys would come to the hotel and drape themselves over the furniture, their teenage frames straining with muscles and hormones (they closed their eyes midinterview, crinkled plastic soda bottles, cracked their knuckles, burped and laughed), Mustapha always sat straight and still. He was always on time. Unlike the other boys, he asked me nothing about myself. He made wry rhetorical jokes, like when I asked him if during his abduction, from the back of the truck, he could see the stars. “How could I pay attention to the sky?” he told me, laughing. “It didn’t come to my mind. I didn’t know there was something like sky existing.” I asked him to draw me the layout of the emir’s palace. When I handed him my pen, he looked at it bemused, asking the translator what he was supposed to do with it. “I have never handled a pen,” he remarked. When he was done, he told the translator he thought his drawing was terrible. “Do you see how the lines I drew bent?” he asked us. I told him things bend in real life. A few months before I spoke to him, Mustapha leased his own vehicle. In a few more months, he will own it. I asked Mustapha if he ever contrasted any of the luxuries of life as the second emir to his new life as a driver. Sitting on the carpet floor, he leaned back on an armchair with his legs stretched out and spoke slowly. “If you look at what I told you, I started as someone washing other people’s vehicles. I came to be driving as a second driver to the main driver. Then I became a driver. Now I’m driving my own. So there is improvement,” he said. “I never in my life contemplate that the other life was better. That life was life as an abductee, life as a slave. This one is life in freedom.” He has a girlfriend now who had been a passenger; he thinks he may marry her one day. “If I’m angry, I go to her, and she knows how to talk to me. We end up laughing, and I will forget I was angry.” He will never tell her his story. If she asks, he says, he will tell her, “There was a time they drove us away, and we ran.” _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 New York Times

An ancient religious divide is helping fuel a resurgence of conflicts in the Middle East and Muslim countries. Struggles between Sunni and Shia forces have fed a Syrian civil war that threatens to transform the map of the Middle East, spurred violence that is fracturing Iraq, and widened fissures in a number of tense Gulf countries. Growing sectarian clashes have also sparked a revival of transnational jihadi networks that poses a threat beyond the region. Islam’s schism, simmering for fourteen centuries, doesn’t explain all the political, economic, and geostrategic factors involved in these conflicts, but it has become one prism through which to understand the underlying tensions. Two countries that compete for the leadership of Islam, Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, have used the sectarian divide to further their ambitions. How their rivalry is settled will likely shape the political balance between Sunnis and Shias and the future of the region, especially in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Yemen. Alongside the proxy battle is the renewed fervor of armed militants, motivated by the goals of cleansing the faith or preparing the way for the return of the messiah. Today there are tens of thousands of organized sectarian militants throughout the region capable of triggering a broader conflict. And despite the efforts of many Sunni and Shia clerics to reduce tensions through dialogue and counterviolence measures, many experts express concern that Islam’s divide will lead to escalating violence and a growing threat to international peace and security. Sunni and Shia Muslims have lived peacefully together for centuries. In many countries it has become common for members of the two sects to intermarry and pray at the same mosques. They share faith in the Quran and the Prophet Mohammed’s sayings and perform similar prayers, although they differ in rituals and interpretation of Islamic law. Shia identity is rooted in victimhood over the killing of Husayn, the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, in the seventh century, and a long history of marginalization by the Sunni majority. Islam’s dominant sect, which roughly 85 percent of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims follow, viewed Shia Islam with suspicion, and extremist Sunnis have portrayed Shias as heretics and apostates. Origins of the Schism Mohammed unveiled a new faith to the people of Mecca in 610. Known as Islam, or submission to God, the monotheistic religion incorporated some Jewish and Christian traditions and expanded with a set of laws that governed most aspects of life, including political authority. By the time of his death in 632, Mohammed had consolidated power in Arabia. His followers subsequently built an empire that would stretch from Central Asia to Spain less than a century after his death. But a debate over succession split the community, with some arguing that leadership should be awarded to qualified individuals and others insisting that the only legitimate ruler must come through Mohammed’s bloodline. A group of prominent early followers of Islam elected Abu Bakr, a companion of Mohammed, to be the first caliph, or leader of the Islamic community, over the objections of those who favored Ali ibn Abi Talib, Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law. The opposing camps in the succession debate eventually evolved into Islam’s two main sects. Shias, a term that stems from shi’atu Ali, Arabic for “partisans of Ali,” believe that Ali and his descendants are part of a divine order. Sunnis, meaning followers of the sunna, or “way” in Arabic, of Mohammed, are opposed to political succession based on Mohammed’s bloodline. Ali became caliph in 656 and ruled only five years before he was assassinated. The caliphate, which was based in the Arabian Peninsula, passed to the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus and later the Abbasids in Baghdad. Shias rejected the authority of these rulers. In 680, soldiers of the second Umayyad caliph killed Ali’s son, Husayn, and many of his companions in Karbala, located in modern-day Iraq. Karbala became a defining moral story for Shias, and Sunni caliphs worried that the Shia Imams—the descendants of Husayn who were seen as the legitimate leaders of Muslims (Sunnis use the term “imam” for the men who lead prayers in mosques)—would use this massacre to capture public imagination and topple monarchs. This fear resulted in the further persecution and marginalization of Shias. Even as Sunnis triumphed politically in the Muslim world, Shias continued to look to the Imams—the blood descendants of Ali and Husayn—as their legitimate political and religious leaders. Even within the Shia community, however, there arose differences over the proper line of succession. Mainstream Shias believe there were twelve Imams. Zaydi Shias, found mostly in Yemen, broke off from the majority Shia community at the fifth Imam, and sustained imamate rule in parts of Yemen up to the 1960s. Ismaili Shias, centered in South Asia but with important diaspora communities throughout the world, broke off at the seventh Imam. Most Ismailis revere the Aga Khan as the living representative of their Imam. The majority of Shias, particularly those in Iran and the eastern Arab world, believe that the twelfth Imam entered a state of occultation, or hiddenness, in 939 and that he will return at the end of time. Since then, “Twelvers,” or Ithna Ashari Shias, have vested religious authority in their senior clerical leaders, called ayatollahs (Arabic for “sign of God”). Many Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian converts to Islam chose to become Shia rather than Sunni in the early centuries of the religion as a protest against the ethnic Arab empires that treated non-Arabs as second-class citizens. Their religions influenced the evolution of Shia Islam as distinct from Sunni Islam in rituals and beliefs. Sunnis dominated the first nine centuries of Islamic rule (excluding the Shia Fatimid dynasty) until the Safavid dynasty was established in Persia in 1501. The Safavids made Shia Islam the state religion, and over the following two centuries they fought with the Ottomans, the seat of the Sunni caliphate. As these empires faded, their battles roughly settled the political borders of modern Iran and Turkey by the seventeenth century, and their legacies resulted in the current demographic distribution of Islam’s sects. Shias comprise a majority in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain, and a plurality in Lebanon, while Sunnis make up the majority of more than forty countries from Morocco to Indonesia. Modern Tensions Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 gave Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini the opportunity to implement his vision for an Islamic government ruled by the “guardianship of the jurist” (velayat-e faqih), a controversial concept among Shia scholars that is opposed by Sunnis, who have historically differentiated between political leadership and religious scholarship. Shia ayatollahs have always been the guardians of the faith. Khomeini argued that clerics had to rule to properly perform their function: implementing Islam as God intended, through the mandate of the Shia Imams. Under Khomeini, Iran began an experiment in Islamic rule. Khomeini tried to inspire further Islamic revival, preaching Muslim unity, but supported groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, and Pakistan that had specific Shia agendas. Sunni Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, admired Khomeini’s success, but did not accept his leadership, underscoring the depth of sectarian suspicions. Saudi Arabia has a sizable Shia minority of roughly 10 percent, and millions of adherents of a puritanical brand of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism (an offshoot of the Sunni Hanbali school) that is antagonistic to Shia Islam. The transformation of Iran into an overtly Shia power after the Islamic revolution induced Saudi Arabia to accelerate the propagation of Wahhabism, as both countries revived a centuries-old sectarian rivalry over the true interpretation of Islam. Many of the groups responsible for sectarian violence that has occurred in the region and across the Muslim world since 1979 can be traced to Saudi and Iranian sources. Saudi Arabia backed Iraq in the 1980–1988 war with Iran and sponsored militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan who were primarily fighting against the Soviet Union, which had invaded Afghanistan in 1979, but were also suppressing Shia movements inspired or backed by Iran. The transformation of Iran into an agitator for Shia movements in Muslim countries seemed to confirm centuries of Sunni suspicions that Shia Arabs answer to Persia. Many experts, however, point out that Shias aren’t monolithic—for many of them, identities and interests are based on more than their confession. Iraqi Shias, for example, made up the bulk of the Iraqi army that fought Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, and Shia militant groups Amal and Hezbollah clashed at times during the Lebanese civil war. The Houthis, a Zaydi Shia militant group in Yemen, battled the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, a Zaydi, several times between 2004 and 2010. Then, in 2014, the Houthis captured the capital Sana'a with ousted president Saleh's support. For their part, both mainstream and hard-line Sunnis aren’t singularly focused on oppressing Shias. They have fought against coreligionists throughout history, most recently in the successive crackdowns on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia’s battles against al-Qaeda and related Sunni militant groups. Sharing a common Sunni identity didn’t eliminate power struggles among Sunni Muslims under secular or religious governments. But confessional identity has resurfaced wherever sectarian violence has taken root, as in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion removed Saddam Hussein, a dictator from the Sunni minority who ruled over a Shia-majority country. The bombing of a Shia shrine in Samara in 2006 kicked off a cycle of sectarian violence that forced Iraqis to pick sides, stirring tensions that continue today. In the Arab world, Shia groups supported by Iran have recently won important political victories. The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which has ruled since 1970, relies on Alawis, a heterodox Shia sect that makes up about 13 percent of Syria’s population, as a pillar of its power. Alawis dominate the upper reaches of the country's military and security services and are the backbone of the forces fighting to support the Assad regime in Syria’s civil war. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq unseated Saddam Hussein and instituted competitive elections, the Shia majority has dominated the parliament and produced its prime ministers. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militia and political movement, is the strongest party in Lebanon. The Houthis, Shia militants in Yemen tenuously linked to Iran, have toppled the country's internationally recognized government. Iran, a majority Shia country, has seen its regional influence swell as its allies in these countries have accumulated power. Sunni governments, especially Saudi Arabia, have increasingly worried about their own grips on power, a concern that was exacerbated during the protest movement that began in Tunisia in late 2010. The Arab Awakening, as the uprisings are known, spread to Bahrain and Syria, countries at the fault lines of Islam’s sectarian divide. In each, political power is held by a sectarian minority—Alawis in Syria and a Sunni ruling family in Bahrain—where Shias are the majority. In Yemen, Houthi rebels have expanded their territorial control, which Saudi Arabia perceives as a potential beachhead for Iran on the Arabian peninsula, along vital shipping routes in the Red Sea and in territory abutting Saudi Arabia's own marginalized Shia minority. Practicing the Faith Sunnis and Shias agree on the basic tenets of Islam: declaring faith in a monotheistic God and Mohammed as his messenger, conducting daily prayers, giving money to the poor, fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca. There are divisions even over the precepts of Islam, but the main difference relates to authority, which sparked the political split in the seventh century and evolved into divergent interpretations of sharia, or Islamic law, and distinct sectarian identities. Shias believe that God always provides a guide, first the Imams and then ayatollahs, or experienced Shia scholars who have wide interpretative authority and are sought as a source of emulation. The term “ayatollah” is associated with the clerical rulers in Tehran, but it’s primarily a title for a distinguished religious leader known as a marja, or source of emulation. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was appointed by an elected body of Iranian clerics, while maraji (plural of marja) are elevated through the religious schools in Qom, Najaf, and Karbala. Shias can choose from dozens of maraji, most of whom are based in holy cities in Iraq and Iran. Many Shias emulate a marja for religious affairs and defer to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Iran for political guidance. For Sunnis, authority is based on the Quran and the traditions of Mohammed. Sunni religious scholars, who are constrained by legal precedents, exert far less authority over their followers than their Shia counterparts. Both sects have subdivisions. The divisions among Shias were discussed above. Four schools comprise Sunni jurisprudence: Hanafi, Shafii, Maliki, and Hanbali, the latter spawning the Wahhabi and Salafi movements in Saudi Arabia. Sunnism, a broad umbrella term for non-Shia Islam, is united on the importance of the Quran and practice of Mohammed but allows for differences in legal opinion. Sectarian Militants Violence between Islam’s sects has been rare historically, with most of the deadly sectarian attacks directed by clerics or political leaders rather than erupting spontaneously. Extremist groups, many of which are fostered by states, are the chief actors in sectarian killings today. Two of the most prominent terrorist groups, Sunni al-Qaeda and Shia Hezbollah, have not defined their movements in sectarian terms, and have favored using anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist, and anti-American frameworks to define their jihad, or struggle. They share few similarities beyond the use of violence. Hezbollah has developed a political wing that competes in elections and is part of the Lebanese government, a path not chosen by al-Qaeda, which operates a diffuse network largely in the shadows. Both groups have deployed suicide bombers, and their attacks shifted from a focus on the West and Israel to other Muslims, such as al-Qaeda’s killing of Shia civilians in Iraq and Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian civil war. Conflict and chaos have played a role in the reversion to basic sectarian identity. In Iraq, for instance, remnants of Hussein's Ba’athist regime, as well as militants whose organization would eventually become the self-proclaimed Islamic State, employed Sunni rhetoric to mount a resistance to the rise of Shia power. Sunni fundamentalists, many inspired by al-Qaeda’s call to fight Americans, flocked to Iraq from Muslim-majority countries, attacking coalition forces and many Shia civilians. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who founded al-Qaeda’s franchise in Iraq, evoked ancient anti-Shia fatwas, or religious rulings, to spark a civil war in hopes that the Shia majority would eventually capitulate in the face of Sunni extremist violence. Iraq's foremost Shia religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has been a voice for sectarian restraint in Iraq, and the country's Shia community absorbed thousands of deaths before fighting back with their own militias. But, during the U.S. occupation of Iraq and, more recently, offensives against the Islamic State, Shia paramilitaries have been accused of possible war crimes. Syria’s civil war, in which a quarter million people have been killed and eleven million—more than half the country's prewar population—displaced, has amplified sectarian tensions to unprecedented levels. The war began with peaceful protests in 2011 calling for an end to the Assad regime. Decades of the Assad family's repression of Syria's majority Sunni population and elevation of minority Alawis in government and the private sector has sown sectarian strife. The 2011 protests and brutal government crackdown uncovered sectarian tensions, which have rippled across the region. Tens of thousands of Syrian Sunnis joined rebel groups such as Ahrar al-Sham, the Islamic Front, and al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, which all employ anti-Shia rhetoric; similar numbers of Syrian Shias and Alawis enlisted with an Iran-backed militia known as the National Defense Force to fight for the Assad regime. Sunni fighters from Arab and Western countries initially joined the Syrian rebels before turning their guns on them in an effort to establish their envisaged caliphate. Meanwhile Hezbollah and some Shia militias from Iraq, such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kata'ib Hezbollah, backed the Syrian government. Syria’s civil war has attracted more militants from more countries than were involved in the conflicts in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Bosnia combined. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had been decimated by Sunni Iraqis who joined the fight against extremists, the U.S.-led military surge, and the death of Zarqawi, its leader, in a 2006 U.S. airstrike, but found new purpose exploiting the vacuum left by the receding Syrian state. It established its own transnational movement known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The group expanded its grip on Sunni provinces in Iraq and eastern regions in Syria, seizing Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, in June 2014. It defied orders from al-Qaeda’s top commanders to curtail its transnational ambitions and wanton violence against civilians, which led to the militant group’s expulsion from al-Qaeda in February 2014. ISIS rebranded as the Islamic State in July 2014 and declared its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as caliph. The group's highly publicized killing of Western hostages triggered a campaign of air strikes by the United States and its regional allies Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Extremist groups have come to rely on satellite television and high-speed Internet over the past two decades to spread propaganda and attract recruits. Fundamentalist Sunni clerics, many sponsored by wealthy Sunnis from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, have popularized anti-Shia slurs. Shia religious scholars have also taken to the airwaves, mocking and cursing the first three caliphs and Aisha, one of Mohammed’s wives. Sectarian rhetoric dehumanizing the “other” is centuries old. But the volume is increasing. Dismissing Arab Shias as Safawis, a term that paints them as Iranian agents (from the Safavid empire) and hence traitors to the Arab cause, is increasingly common in Sunni rhetoric. Hard-line Sunni Islamists have used harsher historic terms, such as rafidha, rejecters of the faith, and majus, Zoroastrian or crypto Persian, to describe Shias as heretical. Iranian officials, Iraqi politicians, and Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, routinely describe their Sunni opponents as takfiris (referring to the doctrine embraced by al-Qaeda of declaring fellow Muslims apostate) and Wahhabis (referring to the puritanical Saudi sect). This cycle of demonization has been amplified throughout the Muslim world. For Sunni extremists, social media has revolutionized recruitment opportunities. Fundamentalists no longer have to infiltrate mainstream mosques to attract recruits surreptitiously, but can now disseminate their call to jihad and wait for potential recruits to contact them. Shia groups can count on state support from the Iranian, Iraqi, and Syrian governments to recruit militants for sectarian jihad. Flash Points Sunni-Shia tensions contribute to multiple flash points in Muslim countries that are viewed as growing threats to international peace and security. The following arouse the most concern among regional specialists: Rising Militancy Sectarian violence intensified in 2013 and has grown since. Extremists were “fueled by sectarian motivations” in Syria, Lebanon, and Pakistan, according to the U.S. State Department. After years of steady losses for al-Qaeda–linked groups, Sunni extremist recruitment is rising, aided by private funding networks in the Gulf, particularly in Kuwait, with much of the violence directed at other Muslims rather than Western targets. Shia militant groups are also gaining strength, in part to confront the threat of Sunni extremism. In 2015, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for, among other attacks, bombing Shia worshippers in Kuwait; attacking Sunni and Shia mosques in Saudi Arabia; downing a Russian passenger plane in Egypt, killing over two hundred people; and a pair of suicide bombings in a Shia-majority district of south Beirut that killed more than forty people. U.S. authorities have warned that the war in Syria, which has attracted thousands of fighters from Europe and the United States, poses a long-term threat to Western security. Islamic State attacks and foiled plots in Europe have put the continent on edge, and the backlash against Muslims and immigrants threatens to end the EU's open-border policy. Saudi-Iranian Rivalry Saudi Arabia and Iran have deployed considerable resources to proxy battles, especially in Syria, where the stakes are highest. Riyadh closely monitors potential restlessness in its oil-rich eastern provinces, home to its Shia minority, and deployed its forces, along with other Gulf countries, to suppress a largely Shia uprising in Bahrain. It also assembled a coalition of ten Sunni-majority countries, backed by the United States, to fight Houthi rebels in Yemen. The war, fought mostly from the air, has exacted a high civilian toll. Saudi Arabia provides hundreds of millions of dollars in financial support to the predominantly Sunni rebels in Syria, while simultaneously banning cash flows to al-Qaeda and extremist jihadi groups fighting the Assad regime. Iran has allocated billions of dollars in aid and loansto prop up Syria’s Alawi-led government and has trained and equipped Shia militants from Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Iraq to fight in Syria. Iran and Saudi Arabia, which have repeatedly postponed efforts to establish a dialogue for settling disputes diplomatically, discussed the conflict in Syria in October 2015 at U.S. urging. This was a notable development though cast into doubt by a rupture in diplomatic relations in early 2016. Both countries have confronted the Islamic State, with Iran fighting it in parts of Iraq, while Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-majority countries back a U.S.-led air campaign against the extremist group in Syria and Iraq. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 20117 COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS.

A UN report in February described the situation of the Rohingya community in Rakhine State a possible “genocide” and described a set of “crimes against humanity” in Myanmar, noting the Rohingyas are in effect stateless, and facing a “campaign of terror.” Cardinal Charles Bo now says there is no “ethnic cleansing” taking place however. Rohingyas in Myanmar face “problems and conflicts,” but the situation is clearly not one of genocide, according to the country’s first cardinal. Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, told Crux there are many issues the minority Muslim group are facing, including their citizenship troubles, but “ethnic cleansing” is not taking place. Rohingyas live mostly in Rakhine State, and claim to be native to the area. There was also immigration from the neighboring areas of India, and what is now Bangladesh, during the precolonial and colonial era, but most families have been in the area for generations. Rohingyas have faced persecution for decades, and were denied citizenship under a nationality law passed by the government’s military regime in 1982, in which the Rohingyas are officially considered “Bengali interlopers.” Since then, they have suffered occasional pogroms, including in 2012, when thousands were burnt out of their homes. Since the country held its first free national elections in decades in 2015 - won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy - the situation has not gotten better. A major crackdown on the community - instigated by extremist Buddhist monks - began in 2016. Tens of thousands of Rohingya, perhaps as many as 100,000, are believed to have fled the country after these events, most crossing by land into Bangladesh but others taking boats in an effort to reach Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Often, they have faced a harsh welcome, with receiving countries ill-prepared to handle an influx of refugees. Cardinal Patrick D’Rozario of Bangladesh, where Pope Francis is expected to visit later this year and where Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar have to date received a decidedly uneven reception, said on World Refugee Day that these new arrivals are “human beings who have a right to dwell in their own traditional way. “They have a right to live where they have been living, but now they are refugees,” said D’Rozario. A UN report in February described the situation in Rakhine State a possible “genocide” and described a set of “crimes against humanity” in Myanmar, noting the Rohingyas are in effect stateless, and facing a “campaign of terror.” Bo has been a strong advocate for better treatment of the Rohingyas, and in February called on the Myanmar government “to allow unhindered access to all parts of Rakhine State,” as well as to allow “international humanitarian aid agencies, media and human rights monitors…to work with the international community to investigate the crimes reported by the United Nations, in a truly independent way that results in justice and accountability.” So for the cardinal to now say “clearly there is no ‘genocide’ and no ‘ethnic cleansing’” of the Rohingyas is significant. Bo told Crux all religious minorities, including Christians, face problems in the Buddhist-majority country. He said there are over 150,000 refugees in camps across the border with Thailand, and the bishops’ conferences of both countries are working together to help prepare the way to repatriation. RELATED: Pope’s meeting with Suu Kyi likely not all sweetness and light Pope Francis has often spoken about the plight of the Rohingyas, first mentioning them in August 2015, during a session with youth in Rome. “Let’s think of those brothers of ours of the Rohingya,” he said. “They were chased from one country and from another and from another. When they arrived at a port or a beach, they gave them a bit of water or a bit to eat and were then chased out to the sea. “This is a conflict that has not resolved, and this is war, this is called violence, this is called killing!” Francis said. One month later, he brought the Rohingya up again in an interview with Portuguese radio. “Further away from Europe there is another phenomenon which hurt me deeply: the Rohingya, who are expelled from their country, get into boats and leave,” he said. “They reach a port or a beach, and they are fed and given water and then sent out to sea again, and not taken in. There is a lack of capacity for welcoming humanity.” Francis came at the subject again in February, saying on the Church’s International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking that “they have been suffering, they are being tortured and killed, simply because they uphold their Muslim faith. “I would like to pray today with you in a special way for our brothers and sisters Rohingya,” the pontiff said. “They are driven out of Myanmar, going from one place to another because they’re not wanted. They’re good people, peaceful! They aren’t Christians, they’re good [people]. They’re brothers and sisters of ours,” he said. The remarks were spontaneous, suggesting the issue is close to Francis’s heart. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Crux

Dr. Maung Zarni, an exiled dissident from Myanmar, is a scholar and activist based in the United Kingdom. He is co-author (with Alice Cowley) of The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya and a grassroots activist who coordinated the international consumer boycott of Myanmar in support of the National League for Democracy from 1995-2004, was the founder of the Free Burma Coalition and has been with the London School of Economics as well as Harvard University. Zarni, himself a Buddhist, has been a vocal voice on human rights globally and was interviewed by ADIL ZAMAN for The Citizen. Excerpts: Q.What is your response to Aung San Suu Kyi government’s denial of a UN probe into the widespread allegations of killings, rapes and torture by security forces against Rohingya Muslims? As a Burmese activist, who had supported Aung San Suu Kyi as the hope of Burma for 15 years, I am deeply troubled by her government – and the Nobel laureate herself – dismissing and denying all the credible allegations of ethnic cleansing and even a genocide. My own 3-year-study (Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal, 2014) conducted with my wife and colleague Alice, was the first comprehensive academic publication on the persecution of the Rohingya. We were persuaded by our findings that my country has long triggered the process of a slow genocide, with periodic waves of large scale violence against this peaceful, vulnerable Muslim community, with a historical claim over their own region of Northern Rakhine. Other studies and reports from Yale Law Clinic, Queen Mary U. of London Law School, etc. have arrived at the same conclusion, further reinforcing our findings. So, I find it unconscionable that Aung San Suu Kyi herself and virtually all her advisers, officials and spokespersons have been dismissing these numerous reports and studies as “fake rape” “exaggeration” “Muslim-on-Muslim violence” or primarily “centuries-old sectarian conflict” “poverty-induced conflict” between Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities in the region, an unfortunate by-product or side effect of multi-ethnic country opening up. The evidence – that the persecution is state-orchestrated and predates Burma’s opening by nearly 30 years – since 1978) – is irrefutable. Q. More than 75,000 Myanmar Rohingyas have fled to the Bangladesh Border since October, 2016, who is responsible , who will help them ? Unlike the 2012 waves of violence in June and October where local Rakhines led the mass killings and mass destruction of Rohingyas – with a blanket impunity, the October 2016 violence, displacement, and destruction was carried out by the Burmese security forces including the Burmese police forces. Although the security forces are not under Suu Kyi-government’s control, the police are under NLD-government, as Aung San Suu Kyi herself admitted in her Channel News Asia interview in early December last year. The Burmese military leadership ordered these ‘security clearance’ operation as a response to the killing of 9 Burmese police men manning two border posts. Based on my own research -including interviews with Rohingyas, the Burmese military invented its own pretext to launch a large scale “security clearance operations” by setting this up “honey-trap” where the young, angry, militant Rohingyas men were lured into attacking the border posts, in a region that is dotted with Burmese military and police intelligence units and check-points. The military leaders are directly responsible for the exodus of 75,000 Rohingyas and Aung San Suu Kyi government whitewashes, covers up, denies and dismisses the military’s international human rights crimes against Rohingyas. You know denial is always a part of a genocidal process, from the Nazi genocide to Rwanda – and now to Myanmar genocide of Rohingyas. When a sovereign government, whatever its form or nature, fails to discharge its responsibility to look after humans inhabiting on its soul then it is the responsibility of the international community to intervene, in any possible and conceivable way, to protect and help the victim community. The region’s giant neighbours such as India and China, as well as the regional bloc such as South Asian and South East Asia regional blocs are primarily responsible for taking care of the region. Q. Has the international community proved ineffective in dealing with Rohingya Crisis? Yes, absolutely ineffectual. UN High Commission on Refugees based in Geneva has been involved in addressing the needs of period waves of Rohingya refugees since spring of 1978 – (the first wave saw 278,000 Rohingyas fleeing Burma’s terror campaign disguised as “immigration checks”, that was followed by 1991/92 wave with similar number of refugees. Rohingya issue hit the world’s headlines only after the country opened up in 2011. Since the two bouts of violence in 2012 and now the latest one in 2016, another quarter million Rohingyas have fled the country, according to the UN reports). One reason the international community has been ineffective in addressing the Rohingya Crisis is because it fails to confront the root cause of massive human sufferings of Rohingya as a collective ethnic community, naming the state-led genocidal process. You know ending genocide may be a moral imperative for communities and circles of ordinary humans like you and me, but it does not advance strategic interests of external, powerful players in international politics. The ugly truth is this: the world revolves around national and corporate interests and nasty struggles over these interests. Rohingya crisis is yet another inconvenient case of international crimes against the faceless, vulnerable, commercially useless human community. The failure of the international community, so-called, to end Rohingya genocide, and other atrocities in places like Sudan or Burundi, is an affront to all the decent humans around the world. Q. Former UN secretary General Kofi Anan few months ago said “ He would not describe Violence being committed against Myanmar's Rohingya minority as "genocide". Your Comments? It is utterly pathetic and arrogant that Kofi Annan would weigh in on the Rohingya issue, without having studied the persecution in any appreciable ways, against the backdrop of studies that call Burma’s persecution of Rohingya by its legal name. Professionally speaking, Annan spent less than a total of 7 days in his whirlwind trips to Rakhine region, speaks no local language, has never been involved in Myanmar political issues, in any appreciable ways. How could someone with zero expertise on local or national issues. Look. When it comes to dealing with cases involving genocide and ethnic cleansing, Kofi Annan is the last person whose words I would take at face value. As the head of UN Peacekeeping Force based in New York headquarters, this careerist bureaucrat sat on his hands when the head of the Peacekeepers in Rwanda was sending unequivocal messages of an imminent genocidal killings in 1994, simply because the most powerful post-Cold War Masters of the UN – the Americans – didn’t want to hear the “G” word. Annan simply let 800,000 Rwandan Tutsi be slaughtered in a span of a few months. When he was made head of UN, he did nothing, as Sec-Gen., significant to protest the illegal and immoral invasion against Saddam’s Iraq, the legacy of which the Middle East – and the world – are still reeling from. Q. What is the 969 group ? What makes them neo-Nazis and why are they targeting Muslims? 969 is just a name, a reference to a mixed group of Bama nationalists, both laymen (and -women) and nuns and monks. The group’s name has changed from 969 to Ma Ba Tha and others. But the core players – funders, lay supporters, protectors within the military, propagandists in the Burmese language media, etc. – remain the same. What makes them Nazi-sh is their core belief that Muslims – all Muslims – and Islam – are a major threat to the world in general and to Burma as the predominantly Buddhist country. It’s like Hitler and Nazi ideology that scapegoated the Jewish peoples as the source of all evils – the Russian Revolution, the international banking system, etc. It is this extreme-racist ideology that compels the Burmese anti-Muslim racists organized themselves as 969, Ma Ba Tha, Patriotic Monks Association, Wunthanu Philanthropy - that’s the latest banner of 969, after its name is declared “illegal” by the national governing body of monks a month ago – to target all Muslim communities. The crucial point I want to emphasise here is the role of the military-controlled government and governmental institutions in propping up these racist groups. The most powerful generals including the Commander in Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and still influentially networked ex-Chief of Intelligence and ex-General Khin Nyunt are known patrons of individual leaders of these neo-Nazi groups such as Sitagu monk and Wirathu monk. Q.What are the threats to ethnic minorities in this region or according to you in the Buddhist Triangle( Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand) – How did it originate ? Of the three Theravada Buddhist countries, Sri Lanka and Myanmar are former British colonies. The threat they have posed to ethnic and religious minorities – in the case of Sri Lanka, the autonomy-seeking Eelam Tamils and Muslims and Christians – stems from the fact that the countries’ post-colonial governments, their respective ideologies, and constitutive institutions have enshrined “Buddhist racism” – an oxymoron – towards non-believers. Over the last 50 years at least, these two states have crystalized unitary state structures that rest on this majoritarian Buddhist racism. In a warped way, although the Buddhists in these two countries are the majorities, they seem themselves in global terms – Buddhists are minorities in the sea of 1.7 billion Muslims in 57 Muslim countries. They look at the history of the spread Islam in places like the Malay World, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, etc. - through the Sword, in the historical understanding or misunderstanding in these predominantly Buddhist societies. They look at the violence that has engulfed the Middle East and terrorist attacks in USA and Europe and conclude that Islam is “a virus of violence” and Muslims are “carriers”. The popular Burmese discourses in the social media – and in face to face conversations – are informed by this fear and perception of Muslims as an existential threat to Buddhists and other non-Muslims. In the case of Thailand, the Thai kingdom has never been colonized by a Christian European power. So, the Thai state has been the patron of Buddhism and Buddhist clergy. Q. Your forthcoming book on Burma is going to be published this year. Any details you could share? My book is a commissioned work by Yale University Press. It is a history and analysis of my own society, where I deviate from the typical court- or state-centred narrative. In other words, I am writing a mini-version of a “people’s history” of Burma, marginalizing the century-old elite voices. I am in fact struggling with it in terms of time. I am an activist through and through. I can’t sit down and simply focus on writing this long form of analysis and story-telling. I feel I need to respond to the deeply disturbing developments “at home” – like the rise of violence, the lies of Aung San Suu Kyi and the generals, the popularization of Islamophobia. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Citizen

United Nations peacekeeping force vehicles drive by houses destroyed by violence in September, in the abandoned village of Yade, Central African Republic, April 27, 2017. Escalating violence between rival armed factions in Central African Republic is cutting off humanitarian access to civilians most needing help, while emboldened fighters are now infiltrating camps for the displaced, agencies said on Thursday. As many as 100 people may have been killed on Tuesday in the diamond-mining town of Bria, 580 km (360 miles) northeast of the capital Bangui, one day after militias signed a peace deal aimed at ending years of bloodshed. Thousands have died and about a fifth of the former French colony's 5 million people have fled their homes in a conflict that broke out after mainly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in 2013, provoking a backlash from Christian anti-balaka militias. Recent fighting in Bria and the towns of Bangassou and Alindao has uprooted more than 100,000 people, in the worst displacement since the nation plunged into chaos four years ago. Central African Republic Militias emboldened Armed with heavy weaponry and destroying bridges and roads, the militias are becoming emboldened and unpredictable, spreading fear among civilians and making it harder to support the displaced and those most in need, aid agencies say. “Access is the main humanitarian issue ... it not possible to reach many of those people who are suffering the most,” Donaig Le Du, spokeswoman for the U.N. children's agency (UNICEF), told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. The U.N. agency this month had to deliver aid by plane to Bangassou — a more costly and complicated option than using trucks — as it could not find any drivers willing to travel by road due to fear of attack, Le Du added. Tuesday's clashes in Bria broke out near a camp for people who had been forced to flee previous violence, while aid agencies' offices were looted during the fighting, said the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). A dangerous country “Armed groups are targeting and even infiltrating IDP (internally displaced persons) camps ... it is becoming a very serious concern,” said Joseph Inganji, OCHA's country director. “We are worried that many of the country's IDP camps (more than 90) are losing their civilian character,” he added. Central African Republic is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for aid agencies, with at least 33 attacks on aid workers in the first quarter of 2017, OCHA says. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 VOA News

An ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by the South Sudanese government has triggered one of the biggest refugee crises in Africa. The United Nations has accused the government’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army, known as the SPLA, of committing atrocities including mass rape and torture, as well as burning down entire villages. A U.N. report published in May says the abuses may amount to war crimes. We speak with journalist Nick Turse, a reporter with The Investigative Fund. He spent six weeks in South Sudan and refugee camps in neighboring countries. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Democracy Now

Sources within the UN have released the list of UNAMID bases to be closed or stripped of a military (as opposed to a police) presence. The list makes painfully clear just how dangerously consequential are the Mission’s broad reductions: military presence in Darfur will be reduced by 44 percent and the police presence by 33 percent. There will also be a significant drawdown of non-armed UNAMID personnel, with inevitably hindering consequences for the operations of the remaining armed elements of UNAMID. I will gloss the specific implications of the list below, but some are simply unconscionable and will put an end to humanitarian access. It should be noted that the UN’s Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) will not fly to locations that are without a military presence. This alone represents an extreme threat to humanitarian access in Darfur. This list many not be fully comprehensive, and may be subject to slight modification. But given the end-of-June deadline for a UN Security Council resolution re-authorizing UNAMID in re-configured form, the list is almost certainly accurate to a very high degree: CAMPS IN WHICH BOTH A UNAMID MILITARY AND POLICE PRESENCE WILL BE TERMINATED (those names in orange designate closings particularly dangerous to civilians): Abu Shouk (North Darfur) Zamzam (North Darfur Al Malihah (North Darfur) Um Kaddadah (North Darfur) Tine (North Darfur) Mellit (North Darfur) Habila (West Darfur) Foro Burunga (West Darfur) Edd al Fursan (South Darfur) Tulus (South Darfur) Muhajiriyah (East Darfur [formerly South Darfur]) CAMPS IN WHICH A UNAMID MILITARY PRESENCE WILL BE TERMINATED (those names in red designate closings particularly dangerous to civilians): Kalma Camp (South Darfur) Sereif (South Darfur) Shearia (South Darfur) Saraf Omra (near border between North Darfur/Central Darfur) Korma (North Darfur) Umm Barru/Buru (North Darfur) Masteri (West Darfur) General commentary on these sites: Even if not highlighted in orange, all these sites have been the locations for extreme violence over the fourteen years of the continuing Darfur genocide. While notorious Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal’s directive has in one sense largely been implemented—“Change the demography of Darfur…empty it of African tribes”—violence continues in many locations and has constantly shifted in location over these many years. UNAMID bases are all near the many camps for the 2.7 million internally displaced people, and indeed have been the impetus for camp creation (most strikingly, for example, the Sortony IDP camp in North Darfur following Khartoum’s brutal Jebel Marra campaign of 2016). A 44 percent reduction in military forces ensures that many locations will be beyond humanitarian reach; as noted above the UN’s Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) will not fly to locations that are without military protection. The (11) UNAMID bases included in this category are near some of the most troubled and violent regions in all of Darfur. The (7) UNAMID bases that will henceforth operate with only a police presence may be able to control local disputes, but will be completely unable to deter larger-scale attacks on civilians. The camps near these reconfigured UNAMID bases will be even more acutely vulnerable to attacks by militia or SAF forces, and completely impotent in the face of Khartoum’s announced plans to dismantle IDP camps in Darfur. While Khartoum may show restraint as UNAMID elements are deploying out of Darfur, when substantial deployment out has been achieved—with so many fewer non-Sudanese eyes on the ground and a humanitarian effort much more constrained in its movement—Khartoum will move onto the final phase of genocidal destruction. It is an open question as to which of the International Nongovernmental Humanitarian Organizations (INGOs) now operating in Darfur will feel insecurity to be too great to continue their life-saving work. Khartoum has long wished to see the exit of international relief efforts, and has expelled more than two dozen organizations since 2009; others have already left because of intolerable insecurity. The drastic reduction in UNAMID’s footprint, however poorly the Mission has performed in its tasks of civilian and humanitarian protection, may precipitate more decisions to leave. Finally, to the extent that UNAMID military personnel have been able to provide armed escort services for convoys of UN agencies (such as the World Food Program) and relief organizations, this service will be severely truncated, further reducing humanitarian access to areas that require convoy protection. In defense of these reductions, the UN and UNAMID officials argue that the Mission will be re-configured with greater rapid response capabilities. Judging by all we have seen of UNAMID’s responses to critical moments of violence and acute threats to civilians, this defense seems utterly preposterous. Nor is there any credible indication of where the rapid response transport resources will come from: they don’t exist now, and no contributors of the necessary equipment have been identified. UNAMID has distinguished itself on too many occasions by failing to respond even to nearby attacks on civilians; the idea that it will be converted into a “rapid response force” is absurdly unrealistic. Some specific commentary on the UNAMID base locations to be closed or converted to “police only” status: Abu Shouk (North Darfur): this very large camp near El Fasher has depended for security on UNAMID’s observer role; without a UNAMID presence it is entirely unclear who will provide security and order within the camp. Khartoum will be in full control of one of the largest and most volatile camps in North Darfur. Zamzam (North Darfur): notably, this camp is one of the few that has grown every year recently, something we must take as a sign that UNAMID’s presence creates a sense of security. This immense and highly volatile camp is almost certain to see a major increase in insecurity. Most of the people there have no alternative location to which they might flee if violence becomes extreme. Mellit (North Darfur): although recently relatively calm, this is an area that has seen extreme violence during the East Jebel Marra offensive in North Darfur (2012 – 2015). With UNAMID’s withdrawal from Mellit, ethnically-targeted violence will resume. UNAMID’s apparent plan to re-deploy back to the area if this occurs is deeply misguided: the military force should remain in place there. [Overview of violence in North Darfur during the East Jebel Marra offensive, 2012 – 2015 Scale for mapping events: number of events, reflecting scale of violence: Smaller red or yellow dots: 1 – 5 events as scaled by number of events and extent of violence; Large red dots: 6 – 10 events as scaled by number of events and extent of violence; Large black dots: represent a total of 50 events as scaled by number of events and extent of violence (this is used only in mapping North Darfur, where violence has been concentrated and would be impossible to use an other means of representation that would retain discreteness of location). Black dots are used for the areas in and around: Eastern Jebel Marra villages; Kabkabiya; Tawila; Fanga (Eastern Jebel Marra); Tabit; El Fasher. The balance of the mapping of events uses red or yellow dots of both sizes. from “Changing the Demography”: Violent Expropriation and Destruction of Farmlands in Darfur, November 2014 – November 2015″ | Eric Reeves, author | Maya Baca, research and editing | December 1, 2015 | http://wp.me/p45rOG-1P4 ] In general, the area around the Jebel Amir gold mines is likely to be a flashpoint for conflict between the SAF and its RSF militia forces on the one hand, and Musa Hilal’s militia forces on the other—both seeking control of one of the most lucrative locations in all of Sudan. It has already produced a great deal of spill-over violence and UNAMID’s various withdrawals from North Darfur ensure the situation will only become more dangerous for civilians. Habila (West Darfur): like all too many areas in Darfur, an apparent stability is highly deceptive; the non-Arab/African population of this area feels constantly threated by Khartoum’s proxy Arab militia forces, even if not directly under the command of the SAF. Withdrawal by UNAMID creates a situation of intolerable insecurity for the civilians currently threatened. Foro Burunga (West Darfur): the situation here is a reprise of what we see in Habila. Muhajiriyah (East Darfur [formerly South Darfur]): at various times in the genocide, Muhajiriyah has been ground zero for extremely intense fighting between rebel groups and Khartoum’s forces. It clearly remains a flash-point and civilians are well aware of how threatened they are by militia forces. UNAMID BASES THAT WILL REMAIN OPEN BUT WITHOUT A MILITARY PRESENCE (again, those names in orange designate sites of particular danger to civilians): Kalma Camp (South Darfur): the largest and most volatile, indeed explosive of all the Darfur IDP camps. A mere UNAMID police presence can do nothing if there is large-scale violence over parts of this vast, sprawling “home” to some 150,000 displaced persons. Without a military backup, UNAMID police will be much less likely to intervene should Khartoum decide to loose an attack. As I wrote in September 2008, nine months into UNAMID’s official deployment in Darfur: At 6am on the morning of August 25, 2008, Kalma camp, home to 90,000 displaced Darfuris, was surrounded by Sudanese government forces. By 7am, 60 heavily armed military vehicles had entered the camp, shooting and setting straw huts ablaze. Terrified civilians—who had previously fled their burning villages when they were attacked by this same government and its proxy killers the Janjaweed—hastily armed themselves with sticks, spears and knives. Of course, these were no match for machine guns and automatic weapons. By 9am, the worst of the brutal assault was over. The vehicles rolled out leaving scores dead and over 100 wounded. Most were women and children. (“Now Sudan Is Attacking Refugee Camps,” The Wall Street Journal, 6 September 2008, Eric Reeves and Mia Farrow | http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122065894281205691.html?mod=googlenews_wsj ) The risk of similar such attacks—at Kalma and many other locations—is intolerably high. Saraf Omra (near border between North Darfur/Central Darfur): this was one of the central locations for violence during the Jebel Marra offensive of 2016; the situation remains extremely volatile and potentially violent. Umm Barru/Buru (North Darfur): not only relatively close to the Jebel Amir site, it was an epicenter of violence during the East Jebel Marra offensive (2012 – 2015) and could easily slide into the same sort of ethnically-targeted violence and violent expropriation of African farmland. Korma (North Darfur): another center of ethnically-targeted violence during the East Jebel Marra offensive (see map above). Sereif (South Darfur) and Shearia (South Darfur): violence in South Darfur has been on the increase over the past two years, although overshadowed by the violence associated with Khartoum’s military offensives in East Jebel Marra and the Jebel Marra massif itself. These areas are extremely volatile and require continued UNAMID presence to enjoy any degree of security and humanitarian access. What to Make of the UN Security Council Decision Yielding to pressure from China, Russia, and Khartoum itself, members of the Security Council have allowed three brutally cruel, undemocratic regimes to decide that fate of millions of people in Darfur. If we need an image of just how broken an instrument for maintaining “international peace and security” the UN Security Council has become, we could hardly do better than Darfur. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy

Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his intention to seek a disputed third term more than two years ago, spawning a period of unrest marked by extrajudicial killings, a failed coup, and ethnic division. Given repeated assurances from government officials and the dearth of media coverage, you would be forgiven for thinking that period ended some time ago. It did not. The country’s population continues to face armed violence, civil and human rights abuses, while food insecurity and economic hardship persist. People are still fleeing to neighbouring countries: The UN predicts the number of Burundian refugees will top 500,000 by the end of the year. On 14 June, the Commission of Enquiry on Burundi set up by the UN Human Rights Council reported that violations such as the excessive use of force, disappearances, and arbitrary detention by security services – which all surged amid street protests in the weeks after Nkurunziza’s April 2015 announcement – have been continuing. According to government figures, some 720 people have lost their lives since the start of the crisis – many during the heavy-handed crackdown around a failed coup attempt in May 2015. Human rights workers put the number at more like 1,200. The level of violence has subsided but there continue to be sporadic killings from gunshots and grenades, which the police often attribute to criminal activity. Fatsah Ouguergouz, who chairs the commission of enquiry, told the Human Rights Council that testimonies collected in refugee camps “show that since late 2016, human rights violations are often committed in a more clandestine, but equally brutal, manner” than in 2015. “For example, a victim told us that in 2016, a police commander threatened him in the following terms: ‘I can kill you. I can bury you and no one will know,’” Ouguergouz said, explaining that his team had not been given permission to carry out investigations inside Burundi itself. “There are continuing reports of disappearances. Dead bodies are also still regularly discovered,” he added. “According to several testimonies, it is often difficult to identify the bodies. The modus operandi seems to be the same: the victims have their arms tied behind their backs and sometimes their bodies are weighed down with stones to make them sink once they are thrown into a river.” The disappeared In Bujumbura, residents gave IRIN first-hand accounts of loved ones going missing. “My husband received a phone call from people he doubtless knew. He left in our car with a friend and never came back. Even the car was never found,” said the wife of a man close to the government who asked not to be named. “I contacted his old friends ­– the police, the army, the intelligence services – but to no avail. I’m losing hope, and what [bothers] me the most is that some of his old friends in the police and army don’t answer my calls.” Another woman in the capital told IRIN about her brother, who had been a policeman for a long time. “He was arrested as he came home from work, after meeting some relatives,” she said. “Up to now, I have no information about where he went. I don’t know what to do. We haven’t even been allowed to conduct customary mourning rituals. We are crying in secret.” The commission said refugees had told its investigators of torture sessions carried out by the National Intelligence Service and the police, sometimes assisted by the Imbonerakure – the ruling party’s youth wing. The testimony was graphic: “clubs, rifle butts, bayonets, iron bars, metal chains and electric cables [used] with the result that some victims' bones were broken and other victims lost consciousness; long needles stuck into victims' bodies or unidentified products injected into them; nails ripped out with pliers; burns; and many abuses inflicted on male detainees' genital organs.” The commission also noted that those in exile included many journalists as well as the leaders of most opposition parties, one of which, the Movement for Solidarity and Democracy, was slapped with a six-month suspension in April. Humanitarian crisis Dwindling food supplies have left more than a quarter of Burundi’s population, 2.56 million people, in a state of severe food insecurity. Some three million Burundians require humanitarian assistance. In April, four people died of starvation in Muyange II, an area close to the capital, according to local leader Augustin Ntirandekura. Asked to explain the lack of doors and windows on some of the houses in Muyange II, one resident said they had been sold to pay for food. Yields from the first of the country’s two annual agricultural seasons were down an average of 25 percent, but experts at the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system say this only partly explains the widespread food insecurity. “The current socio-economic crisis characterised by inflation, shortage of jobs, the depreciation of the Burundian franc and a shortage of foreign currency, aggravated by a malaria epidemic and the displacement of populations are factors which influence the level of food insecurity and create a need for a coordinated multi-sectoral approach,” the latest IPC bulletin says. Market prices of basic foods are between 30 and 50 percent higher than the same period last year, according to the IPC, which did, however, project much better yields from 2017’s (just beginning) second harvest. More supply can’t come a moment too soon. At foodstalls in the capital, IRIN found maize selling for 1,200 francs ($0.70) per kilogramme, against 400 francs less than two years ago, while green beans were up from 700 to 1,200 francs over the same period. Depressed economy “When the current crisis started, the expatriate family I had been working for since 2010 left the country and my husband lost his job because his boss said he didn’t have enough money to pay him,” said Nicelate Ngayabosha, who lives in the northern Bujumbura district of Kamenge. She said she struggles to feed her family now and that her children only eat one meal a day, which makes it hard for them to concentrate at school. Adrienne Niyubuntu, a mother of three who said her husband had travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo because he could not bear to see his children go hungry, explained how she now has to rely on charity. “These days, it’s my relatives who try to give me food, because I have no income,” she said. Budgetary aid suspensions imposed by the European Union and some of its member states in 2016 are also having a serious impact on Burundi’s economy, according to analyst and anti-corruption activist Faustin Ndikumana. “The sanctions have deprived the government of a major source of foreign currency,” he told IRIN. The EU suspension affects a 43-million-euro package of direct support destined mainly for projects in energy, rural development, public finances, health, and justice reform. The European Union had been funding about half of Burundi’s annual budget. Knock-on effects Ndikumana said the lack of foreign currency had led to shortages of fuel, medicines, and other essential goods. “The national agricultural investment programme has not received its planned funds and the agricultural sector is unable to pay dividends,” he said. “We are in a situation where people are impoverished yet certain dignitaries continue to believe that things are normal because they are receiving their salaries or allowances.” The International Monetary Fund has projected zero growth in Burundi in 2017 and 12.4 percent inflation. Fuel shortages and electricity cuts have eased now but in April and May they were severe. “We had to queue outside petrol stations. Sometimes, we even waited all day without getting any,” said taxi driver Thomas Ndayiragije. The fuel shortages also exacerbated food inflation. According to the national statistics institute, food prices went up more than 10 percent in less than a month in April. All this has grave implications for jobs and livelihoods. “I’m having trouble making ends meet every month because so I have so few customers,” said shopkeeper Josue. “I think I will have to try to find another source of revenue because commerce is not working well.” Innocent, who works at a market stall, said her boss had had asked her to look for customers to buy his potatoes. “He has already told me that if things go on like this I will lose my job,” she said. “We used to sell around 200 kilogrammes or more of potatoes a day. Now I sell less than 20.” A cement trader in downtown Bujumbura said his sales had also fallen by a similar 90 percent. “I think fewer people are building houses,” he explained. No way forward For exiled anti-corruption activist Gabriel Rufyiri, there is only one way forward. “Only inclusive negotiations will provide a favourable solution to these problems of food shortages. Because once the political issues are sorted out, donors will be quick to lift sanctions against the government,” he said, speaking to IRIN from Belgium. A government-led “inter-Burundian dialogue” involving 26,000 citizens and 600 hours of meetings produced a final report in May, asserting that the population backed various constitutional changes and putting an end to presidential term limits. But opposition parties, which were not involved, have dismissed the process and the subsequent establishment of a constitutional review commission as a sham. Meanwhile, mediation efforts led by the East African Community are at a standstill, both because some in the opposition regard the facilitator, Tanzanian former president Benjamin Mkapa, as biased and because Nkurunziza sees the process as a violation of Burundi’s sovereignty. This week, UN Assistant Secretary-General Tayé-Brook Zerihoun told the Security Council that implementing the report’s recommendations would likely lead to an escalation of the crisis. Government denial, meanwhile, showed no sign of abating. Albert Shingiro, Burundi’s ambassador to the UN, told the council: “the entire country is calm,” that 150,000 refugees had returned home, and that there was no longer a political crisis at all. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 IRIN News