Ekurhuleni Mayor Mzwandile Masina on Monday warned white people and the civil organisation Save SA that things might get "very very rough". Last Friday marches against President Jacob Zuma's recent Cabinet reshuffle, including one organised by Save SA in Pretoria, were held throughout the country. "So please, we just want to request [Save SA] nicely: don't divide our nation because if you continue to do so those that sided with you in 1994, they won't be here in five years," Masina said. "It might be very rough and we are many, this is not a threat, we are many [and] it might be very very rough." "It is very important that we send a very very strong warning that... we will crush any individual who stands [in the way of] the project of nation building and social cohesion in South Africa." Masina was the opening speaker at the Chris Hani memorial lecture at the Boksburg Civic Centre on Monday evening. Newly appointed Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba delivered the lecture. Masina said the ANC would force white people to understand that they need to live in harmony with other South Africans. 'We are not monkeys, we are people' "Now this thing of being shown the middle finger everywhere by white people because they've gained a new confidence must come to an end," he said to applause from the audience. "I want to say to our white counterparts in South Africa, they must be very very careful. "[They need to] understand that the issue of nation building and social cohesion requires all of us, not these insults that you get from social media and you get called everything else...that time has come to an end. "...our children and your children, they don't see what you are seeing in us, we are not monkeys, we are people," he said. Gigaba said South Africans should not forget the immense struggle by many to free South Africa. "We should take care never to use their names to divide but to unite, never to destroy but to build," he said. SA economy 'unsustainable' Gigaba expressed concern over divisions within the ANC. "We should call for a halt to divisions within the ANC. We are not properly managing disagreements in the ANC," he said. Gigaba also said country's economy, from which the majority of South Africans are excluded, is unsustainable. "We must agree on inclusion. South Africa's economy excludes black people, women and the youth. It's not sustainable," he said. SACP leader Hani was killed at his home in Dawn Park, Boksburg, on April 10, 1993. A Polish far-right anti-communist immigrant, Janusz Walus, was later arrested for the murder. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 News24

DESCENT INTO DARKNESS: The Miraculous Testimonies of Six-Year-Old Twins Who Survived Dr. Mengele’s “Experiments” Featuring Irene Hizme and René Slotkin When: Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 2:00 pm Where: Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center Welwyn Preserve, 100 Crescent Beach Road Glen Cove, NY 11542 USA Info/RSVP: Beth Lilach, 516-571-8040 x105 │bethlilach@hmtcli.org

It’s well known that for years, the Islamist barbarians of ISIS have been tossing gay men off the roofs of buildings, then pelting them with heavy rocks on the ground if they were unfortunate enough to survive the plunge. They proudly post videos and photos of their despicable deeds on social media. But there are no recordings of the torture and murder of gay men now taking place in the Russian republic of Chechnya, because Chechen officials insist there are no homosexuals in that region whatsoever. And if there were, a government spokesman told the state news agency, “… law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return.” Despite the preposterous denial, word has reached human rights activists in recent weeks that authorities in Chechnya, a Muslim stronghold, are arresting, torturing, and killing gay men. Witnesses have been contacting an LGBT group with horror stories of gays being beaten with hoses and tortured by electricity. Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s only independent newspaper, reported it had confirmed that more than 100 men presumed to be gay had been rounded up. The paper named three men - two television reporters and a waiter - who it said had been killed, but suspected that many others had also been murdered. This latest wave of brutal repression in Chechnya was sparked by the filing of applications to hold four gay pride parades in predominantly Muslim areas by Nikolai Alexeyev, a one-time gay rights leader now seen as a thoroughly discredited, deeply anti-Semitic crackpot. Alexeyev is aware, as are all Russians, that one cannot be openly gay in that region. But in his egotistical desire for publicity, he made the move, knowing full well what the consequences might be. And it happened: outraged Chechen authorities used the request for permits as an excuse to begin a new campaign of intimidation and persecution. Chechen police are snaring gay men by posing as gays looking for dates on social media sites, then arresting the victims and using the contact lists on their phones to discover more closeted gays. Once in jail, forced into dark cells so small they can’t even lie down, the men are mercilessly beaten in various ways, including having to run through a gauntlet of twenty men wielding bats aimed at the victims from the waist down. Some who survive are released to their families, a move that is usually a death sentence. Chechnya is a hotbed of Islamic honor killings, usually of young women, but of gay men as well. When gay Chechens who’ve somehow remained alive get out of jail, they are often taken by their male relatives to remote places to be killed and buried. No one even searches for them. What makes the situation in Chechnya even more egregious is that there is not the slightest accountability on the part of those perpetrating the horrors. When the government of Egypt arrested at least 150 gay men in 2014, many were put on public trial, and due to international outrage and pressure, 26 were actually acquitted the following year. There is nothing even remotely similar in Chechnya, where gays are thrown in special jails, no charges are brought, no trials are conducted, and extrajudicial killings are the norm. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov is a puppet of the Kremlin, and Russian President Vladimir Putin allows leaders such as Kadyrov to mistreat their citizens in any way they deem fit. Last year, Kadyrov decided to hold his own version of mixed martial arts, or “fights without rules”, the exceptionally violent “sport” which is popular throughout Russia. His competition featured children, including his own - kids aged eight to ten beating each other to a pulp for the amusement of adults. Shortly after Russian MMA champion Fyodor Yemelyanenko, speaking in Moscow, criticized the Chechen tournament and called it “unacceptable”, his 16-year-old daughter was beaten up while walking down a Moscow street. The Chechens have long tentacles. Gay Chechens have tried to escape to more tolerant cities in Russia, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg. But the adoption of a federal anti-gay law in 2013 means there really is no safe haven. If caught by police, and they don’t have enough money to pay their captors off, they’re sent back to Chechnya to certain death. Is there any hope to end these atrocities? No, but it’s possible to save some of those who are in immediate danger. Many gay Chechens contacted the Russian LGBT Network after the publication of the Novaya Gazeta article. The organization promotes human rights throughout Russia, and is trying to document the current crimes in Chechnya on its website, www.lgbtnet.org. The website is in both Russian and English, and there is a link to make donations. The money donated helps get LGBT people out of Chechnya and into safe houses, until they are given asylum by Western countries. The LGBT Network also provides them with much-needed psychological and physical care. We cannot make a sadistic society such as Chechnya more humane and tolerant. But we can respond to the abominations taking place there by donating our money, and helping to save as many lives as possible. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Huffington Post

On April 9, which was Palm Sunday and the start of the Holy Week, two Egyptian Coptic churches became a target for terrorists. At least 27 people were killed in the explosion at St. George’s Coptic church in Tanta and 17 people lost their lives in St Mark’s Coptic church in Alexandria. Over a hundred people were injured in both attacks. A few hours after the attacks, Daesh claimed responsibility for the unleashed terror. The attacks in Egypt add to the legacy of international terror that is at an increase in the recent months. It also adds to the legacy of the terrorist attacks specifically targeting Christian communities. Such acts and persecution of Christians, in general, is not a news story. Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world. Research published in August 2011 by Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life revealed that Christians were harassed in 130 countries (between mid-2006 and mid-2009). In 104 countries, the harassment was conducted by governments and organisations, and in 100 countries, by social groups and individuals. The harassment of Christians was the highest in the Middle East and North Africa (90 percent of countries). However, Christians were also harassed in more than two-thirds of European countries (69 percent), 37 percent of American countries, 71 percent of Asian countries and 68 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa. The situation has not improved over the recent years. To the contrary, over the years, a number of other research centres and international institutions have confirmed this conclusion. Men mourn over the coffin of one of the victims of the blast at the Coptic Christian Saint Mark's church in Alexandria. (Photo credit: MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP/Getty Images) Attacks on Christians during their religious celebrations are also not a novelty. Christmas and Easter, the two most important Christian celebrations that attract large numbers of Christians to churches and other places of worship, become the primary targets. Churches and places of Christian worship become the primary target during those celebrations as it is clear that an attack during these celebrations will result in a large number of causalities. Some of the recent attacks utilising this tactic include the Lahore Easter attack and the Mindanao Christmas attack. During Easter Sunday on March 27, 2016, at least 75 people were killed in Lahore, Pakistan when a suicide bomber blew himself in a park during the Christian celebration. At least 16 people were wounded in a grenade explosion outside of a Catholic church in Mindanao, Philippines. The list goes on. And the list goes on because the persecution of Christians is not being taken seriously or seriously enough. This is because Christianity is perceived as the majority religion and hence it is difficult to see Christians as victims. Christianity is indeed a majority religion in Western countries. However, Christians constitute a minority group in many countries in North Africa and the Middle East, places where Christianity is on a verge of disappearance. The response to the persecution of Christians (including terror attacks) is predominately reactive and not preventive. The steps undertaken respond to the single attack, rather than learning from the reoccurring incidents of violence to prevent further attacks. This is also the approach taken in Egypt. In response to the Palm Sunday attacks, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi introduced a state of emergency for the next three months and deployed the military to secure the infrastructure. The government announced three days of mourning. The government will also establish a new body to counter extremism and terrorism. The response of the Egyptian government is a positive one. However, it may be too little too late. Mourners carry a large cross and the coffin of one of the victims of the blast at the Coptic Christian Saint Mark's church in Alexandria. (Photo credit: MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP/Getty Images) The Palm Sunday attacks were not the first time that Christians, especially Coptic Christians, were targeted in Egypt. This persecution of Christians and attacks on Christians were extremely high in 2013 when the Muslim Brotherhood led a campaign to annihilate Christianity from Egypt. The ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood was meant to help Christian minorities in Egypt. However, the change of the government was not enough to help the Christian minorities. The 2017 report of Open Doors, ‘World Watch List 2017’ indicates that the level of persecution of Christians in Egypt is ‘very high’ and has been high for many years. The main source of the persecution, as indicated in the World Watch List, is Islamic extremism. Before the Palm Sunday attack, the most recent attack of comparable force occurred on December 11, 2016. An explosion outside of St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral of Abbassi reportedly killed at least 25 people and over 50 people were injured. In February 2017, Daesh called upon its supporters to target Coptic churches in Egypt. While Daesh claimed responsibility for the Palm Sunday attacks, the connection between the perpetrators and Daesh is yet to be confirmed. Mourners pray next to coffins of victims of the blast at the Coptic Christian Saint Mark's church in Alexandria. (Photo credit: MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP/Getty Images) The Palm Sunday attacks are one of the biggest attacks of such force in the last decade and will lead to more civil unrests in Egypt. The response of the Egyptian government is a positive response to the attacks themselves. However, it is not an adequate response to the ongoing persecution of Christians in Egypt. The response to the Palm Sunday attack must be one that recognises a recurrence of similar attacks specifically targeting Christians in Egypt. The response must include tackling the problem of Daesh establishing its more and more prominent presence in Egypt and in the region generally. This is crucial because towards the end of 2016, Daesh had been losing its territories in Syria and Iraq, whereas reports of Daesh taking over new regions in North Africa and West Asia continue to circulate. As Daesh is making its way through North Africa and West Asia, Christian communities in the region continue to face grave risks. The needed response must also address other forms of discrimination and persecution of Christians in Egypt. Daesh is not the only group targeting Christians in Egypt. This issue must be addressed as a matter of urgency. During this Holy Week and beyond. Ewelina U. Ochab is a human rights advocate and author of the book “Never Again: Legal Responses to a Broken Promise in the Middle East.” __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Forbes Media

Mohammad Siddique, 25, doesn't believe the Myanmar ID card being issued to Rohingya Muslims will restore the group's rights. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times) It is just an ID card, sky blue and gently creased, but it is Mohammad Siddique’s greatest source of shame. The indignity arises not from its routine details — his name, date of birth, photo, thumbprint — but from what it omits. Unlike documents held by citizens of Myanmar, there is no mention of Siddique’s race or religion. To him it is an identity card that erases his identity. Siddique, 25, is a Rohingya Muslim, a stateless minority of more than 1 million people who live in apartheid-like conditions in the overwhelmingly Buddhist nation of 53 million previously known as Burma. Stripped of their citizenship by the country’s former military rulers, many are effectively trapped in villages and internment camps without the right to travel, work or marry freely within the country where they were born. After a half-century of military rule, human rights activists and Myanmar’s international allies hoped that Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi would loosen the restrictions when her civilian government took office a year ago. But she has refused to restore citizenship to the Rohingya or recognize them as an ethnic group — a sign of the army’s enduring influence as well as the deep antipathy that many Myanmar Buddhists, including leaders of Suu Kyi’s own party, feel toward Muslims. In a limited step, Suu Kyi has adopted a plan to issue the Rohingya ID cards that acknowledge they are residents and start a process to consider their citizenship claims, with no assurances. They just want to kick us out of this country.— Mohammad Siddique, a Rohingya Muslim in Myanmar But many Rohingya oppose the cards, saying the omission of ethnicity is part of a continuing effort to eradicate any record of their existence here. “This government doesn’t want to accept us as citizens of Myanmar,” Siddique said at his home in U Yin Thar, a Rohingya village of tidy wooden shacks outside the coastal town of Sittwe. As a downpour lashed the tin roofs, children scurried barefoot through muddy lanes and Siddique’s voice grew faint. “They just want to kick us out of this country,” he said. The ID push comes as the United Nations’ Human Rights Council prepares to investigate reports that the Myanmar army indiscriminately killed, raped and abused Rohingya civilians during a crackdown that began last October in northern Rakhine state, 60 miles from Sittwe. “Trust has been eroded for decades” between the Rohingya and the government, said Matthew Smith, co-founder of Fortify Rights, an advocacy group in Southeast Asia. “It’s lunacy to think that soldiers could commit atrocity crimes with impunity on Monday and have civilians happily cooperate with the [ID] scheme on Tuesday.” “There is no meaningful difference between the previous and current regimes on this issue,” he said. Myanmar has long viewed the Rohingya — who share physical, cultural and linguistic similarities with South Asian ethnic groups — as foreigners from neighboring Bangladesh, even though many families have lived here for generations. In 1982, the army enacted a law that dialed back full citizenship to include only members of 135 “national races” that purportedly existed in Burma before British colonialists invaded in 1824. The Rohingya were not included. Under the law, the best they could hope for was naturalization and a limited set of rights granted through a verification process that has proved slow and opaque. “You’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere on the planet that privileges particular ethnicities the way Myanmar does,” said Ronan Lee, a researcher at Australia’s Deakin University who has studied the Rohingya. In 2014, when the former government introduced the ID cards, it ordered the Rohingya to identify themselves as “Bengali,” a label they oppose. Last year, Suu Kyi relaunched the effort, but tried to skirt the issue of ethnicity by eliminating race and religion from the document. By early February, officials said they had issued 6,202 cards in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, home to most of the Rohingya population. Rohingya leaders say many of those were the result of coercion. This is all that remains of Abdul Shafi's Myanmar citizenship card, which was nullified by a 1982 law that stripped the rights of Rohingya Muslims. (Shashank Bengali / Los Angeles Times) Siddique said he was tricked into accepting the card as a condition of his release last month from jail. He had served 17 months for violating travel restrictions that have been strictly enforced since clashes erupted between Buddhists and Muslims in 2012 and the government confined more than 120,000 Rohingya to swampy displacement camps at the edge of Sittwe. Unable to work or study freely, thousands have attempted to escape on overcrowded fishing boats bound for Thailand and Malaysia. In October 2015, Siddique took his chances by slipping into the back of a car headed south toward the city of Yangon, but was quickly intercepted by police and arrested. The day before he was freed, he was brought to a room where a prison guard took his picture and told him to sign and leave a thumbprint on one side of what Siddique thought was a prisoner release form. When he folded the card over, his heart fell. “Identity Card for National Verification” was printed in bold letters. At home, he reluctantly showed his family the document, holding it by the edges, as if it were soiled. Although officials said the card would give him freedom of movement, police at the checkpoint that seals off his village wouldn’t let him leave. “Why did you take it?” his mother asked. He told her he had no choice, that guards had kicked him with their boots and called him kalar, a slur for dark-skinned. “I worry that the card will be used to persecute him,” said his aunt, Zurah Khatu. Siddique was born in the same village as his father, who once worked for the army. No one in the family has held a job since 2015, when authorities bowed to the demands of Buddhist nationalists and revoked the temporary IDs that had allowed the Rohingya one of their last basic rights: to vote. Unlike other controversial provisions enacted under military rule — such as blocking Suu Kyi from the presidency because she had a foreign spouse, or reserving one-quarter of parliamentary seats for the military — there is little support in Myanmar for changing the citizenship law. With Buddhist nationalists and extremist monks fanning anti-Muslim sentiment, Suu Kyi has remained largely silent on the Rohingya question. U Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s party, said the government supported expanding citizenship criteria — to a point. “We want to see citizens, not ethnic groups,” he said. “But there is no such ethnic group as the Rohingya in our history.” Even Suu Kyi’s modest step has triggered protests in Rakhine state among hard-line Buddhists who complain that making Rohingya eligible for citizenship risks “Islamizing” the country — even though it’s more than 90% Buddhist. “The government should be conscious of the security of the country,” said U Aung Htay, leader of a Buddhist civil society group in Sittwe. He pointed to the deaths of nine police officers in northern Rakhine last October at the hands of alleged Rohingya militants, a series of attacks that prompted the army crackdown. “If that kind of attack happens again, people will suffer,” he said. “And you can assume the Bengali people are responsible.” Rohingya say that even if they accepted the new ID, many would have little chance of meeting the law’s onerous requirements for regaining citizenship, including “conclusive evidence” of lineage in Myanmar. In the Maw Thi Nya displacement camp outside Sittwe, 63-year-old Abdul Shafi held out his battered old citizenship card — nullified by the 1982 law — that he rescued from the 2012 clashes. Shafi said officials had visited the camp multiple times in recent months to promote the new card, and he worried the government would use their refusal as a pretext to expel Rohingya from the country. As a group of men around him nodded vigorously, he remained defiant. “We will not take this card,” he said. “Even if they kill us, we will not accept it.” (C) 2017 The LA Times

The signs of home are everywhere. A small boy playing football dressed in a faded Arsenal shirt. The Union flag fluttering on the shop awning fashioned from old tarpaulins. But this isn’t the UK. It’s South Sudan. And it’s a country in crisis. Famine is the biggest single crisis facing our planet right now. Across East Africa, 16 million people face starvation. Men, women and children are dying, every day. It’s bigger than any food shortage we’ve ever seen before. It’s so vast a problem that it’s almost hard to know how to tackle it. South Sudan’s famine has conflict at its very heart. A bitter civil war that’s raged since 2013 sends deadly ripples across the country. I walked around a village, once a thriving community with homes, a school, a soul. But it had been attacked, the people were chased away, and their crops withered and died. That’s where the hunger comes from. If you can’t stay in one place, you can’t grow food to feed your family. Any kind of sustainable life is impossible. Wherever you go, there’s fear. As a mum showed me the small, sticky dish of sorghum porridge her family would eat that day, five cows loomed over us in the gloom of her dark hut. Cattle are precious in these tough times, and even if there’s barely room to move, they’re kept inside so they can’t be looted. Well-stripped husks of maize hang from the wall, and a few mangoes bought from a child who’s shinned up a tree to search the branches. They’re small and hard, cut down long before they turn ripe and tasty in order to feed a constant hunger. The fighting has driven thousands of people into protection camps run by the United Nations. Surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed peacekeeping soldiers, they’re so big they’ve turned into tented cities. At Bentiu in the north, more than a hundred thousand shelter. That makes it the second-biggest population centre in the whole country. Conditions are tough there, but at least there’s a constant source of food handouts. In the bush, anything from bad weather to armed troops blocking the road can stop vital deliveries from reaching the people who so badly need them. At the camp hospital, mothers queue to have their babies weighed. A tape is placed around their thin, fragile arms - if it’s red - the child is severely malnourished, and treatment starts straight away. Packets of peanut paste, mixed with oil and milk, are squeezed straight into their mouths. It’s simple, but it saves lives. The children make the best of what they can find. It’s hard not to smile at grinning girls dancing and twirling in tasseled skirts they’ve made themselves from old food aid bags, or boys stamping out a tune with home-made tin can instruments tied to their legs. They revel in their lessons, loudly chanting the alphabet in schools specially set up by organisations like UNICEF. Every small detail gives them hope of a life outside the wire. Now it’s up to their government -and to us - to deliver them a future to look forward to. Anna Foster co presents BBC Radio 5 live’s Drive, from 4 - 7pm daily, and since last week has broadcast live from South Sudan about the famine crisis the country faces. Additional images can be viewed below _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Huffington Post

President Barack Obama provisionally lifted U.S. economic sanctions on the Khartoum regime by Executive Order on January 13, 2017; Obama cited “positive actions” and his UN Ambassador Samantha Power went so far as to declare that there had been a “sea change” of improvement in humanitarian access in Sudan. These sanctions were first imposed on the regime in 1997 and strengthened during the administration of President George W. Bush. The Obama Executive Order stipulated the conditions for a permanent lifting of economic sanctions, which are essentially twofold: [1] Improve humanitarian access in Darfur as well as South Kordofan and Blue Nile (the “Two Areas”) and, [2] End organized violence in the regions, including a halt to the indiscriminate aerial bombardment that has defined Khartoum’s genocidal counter-insurgency in Darfur for fourteen years and for over almost six years in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. How well has Khartoum done in fulfilling its commitments on these two critical issues? I will be issuing periodic “report cards” assessing the regime’s performance; this present “report card” focuses on humanitarian access in Darfur. Ambassador Power’s claim of a “sea change” in improved humanitarian access is denied by every source with whom I have spoken within the broader humanitarian community. It is not credited by the U.S. State Department, although no correction has been offered—nor has the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) made clear how fundamentally false and dangerously misleading Power’s claim was. This seems perverse, given the use Khartoum will make of this falsehood come July 2017 when the decision to lift sanctions is supposed to be reviewed. Human Rights Watch rightly called the Obama decision to lift sanctions simply “inexplicable.” There was much support for this view in the April 4, 2017 hearing by the Tom Lantos Congressional Human Rights Commission. I will discuss in greater detail, when my focus is more particularly continuing violence in Darfur, the remarkably authoritative report from the Enough Project by the distinguished student of Sudan, Suliman Baldo: “Border Control from Hell: How the EU's migration partnership legitimizes Sudan's ‘militia state,’" Suliman Baldo | The Enough Project | April 2017 | http://www.enoughproject.org/files/BorderControl_April2017_Enough_Finals.pdf | see particularly: The Political Economy of Violence in Sudan’s “Militia State” (page 12 ff.) He makes a number of important observations about recent military history in Sudan, particularly concerning the creation of what he calls the “militia state,” which in many ways obviates the need for “military offensives” (by the Sudan Armed Forces, SAF) of the sort the Obama Executive Order stipulates. Even so it is worth noting a report yesterday (from Radio Dabanga) on aerial bombardment near Deribat in the Jebel Marra region of Central Darfur. Let’s be very clear here: given the terms of the supposed agreement between Khartoum and the Obama administration on such attacks—and the threat such attacks pose to the permanent lifting of sanctions—no junior or local officer could have made the decision to launch the attack: the order could have come only from the most senior military (and hence political) leadership: Bombing reported in Darfur's Jebel Marra | April 7, 2017 | DERIBAT On Thursday afternoon, a Sudanese Air Force plane dropped three explosive barrels west of Deribat in Jebel Marra, without causing any human casualties. The three barrel bombs hit the area of Logi and killed a number of livestock of residents. The attack caused panic in the area. Witnesses reported to Radio Dabanga that the plane had flown over Logi for a period of time before bombing the area. There have been no reports of aerial bombardments in Darfur's Jebel Marra in recent months: the latest bombing occurred in October and reportedly killed one man and scores of livestock in Deribat. In preceding weeks, renewed fighting had broken out between the Sudanese army and rebel SLM-AW combatants. The former president of the United States' administration announced that Sudan has reduced military aerial bombardment in the Darfur region, one of the reasons why Barack Obama ordered the easing of financial sanctions against Sudan in the beginning of this year. Displaced The Jebel Marra mountains are a site of regular clashes between rebel forces and government troops and militias. Ongoing aerial bombardments have displaced hundreds of thousands of people, with reports reaching Radio Dabanga of ‘empty villages’ being bombed. Some of the residents have fled to camps for the displaced while others find refuge in caves in the mountains. Moreover, assaults on camps of displaced persons, almost completely defenseless, continue as they have for well over a decade. The attacks are increasing brazen, involve sanctioning violence against the camps by Arab militias, including the brutal Rapid Support Forces (RSF) highlighted in the recent Enough Project report as the beneficiaries of European Union support—and the regular military and security forces of the regime. [Again, see “Border Control from Hell: How the EU's migration partnership legitimizes Sudan's ‘militia state,’" Suliman Baldo | The Enough Project | April 2017 | http://www.enoughproject.org/files/BorderControl_April2017_Enough_Finals.pdf ] The Obama administration’s failure to include halting such attacks in the demands made of Khartoum was pure expediency in service of the ultimate goal: lifting sanctions so that Khartoum would become, putatively, more helpful in providing counter-terrorism intelligence. Of course one reason the regime is in a position to provide, at least potentially provide, such intelligence is reflected in the fact that it is one of only three countries in the world remaining on the U.S. State Department’s most current list of “state sponsors of terrorism,” a designation the regime has done a great deal to earn, and much of this recently (see | http://wp.me/p45rOG-1wk/. That even attacks on camps by Khartoum’s regular military and security forces are apparently permitted under the terms for a permanent lifting of sanctions is nothing short of ghastly hypocrisy, something that defined the Obama administration’s Darfur policy from the beginning of the president’s first term (January 2009): Security force ‘storms’ South Darfur camp | March 10, 2017 | NYALA A joint force of police and security has stormed Kalma camp for displaced people in South Darfur, causing unrest in the camp and a number of residents to flee this week. Three vehicles with Dushka machineguns mounted on top entered Kalma, east of Nyala, at 3.30pm on Thursday, the spokesman for a Darfuri refugee association reported to Radio Dabanga. Hussein Abu Sharati of the Association for the Displaced People and Refugees in Darfur said that another group of security agents had stormed the camp at 11am, using a tinted Land Cruiser. “Their arrival caused panic among the residents. “They did not notify UNAMID prior to their arrival,” he said, pointing out the camp administration has therefore submitted a memorandum to the peacekeeping force to condemn the incidents. The memo mentioned incidents in 2008, which claimed the lives of 37 people in Kalma. [See my article on this attack | https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122065894281205691 —ER] Camp attacks Camp El Salam in Nyala has witnessed a series of attacks by militants against the displaced people this week. Abu Sharati reported that at least eight people were attacked on the streets or inside their homes during robberies. Several mobile phones and money have been stolen from Abaker Yagoub, Mohamed Yassin, Hamad Ahmed and Suleiman Abakar, among others. The refugee association appealed to UNAMID to resume its patrols in and around El Salam and report abuses in the camps for displaced people to the Sudanese authorities. The association considers the sudden arrival of joint security and police forces in the camps as a “masterminded” incident. Last month the South Darfur authorities gave the inhabitants of Centre 4 in Kalma camp a couple of weeks to vacate the area and move to a new location allocated by the state. The number of displaced people who would be affected range between 520 families, according to the camp coordinator, and 14,000 people according to Abu Sharati. Additional recent relevant reports: Insecurity grows at hands of militias: Kutum residents, North Darfur | March 12, 2017 | KUTUM / KASSAB Camp for displaced persons Market raided after militiamen clash in Central Darfur capital | March 7, 2017 | ZALINGEI But what of humanitarian access in Darfur? To what extent does Khartoum continue to impede, obstruct, harass, and subvert humanitarian access? Is there any evidence supporting Power’s claim about a “sea change” of improvement? The UN refuses to speak honestly about access issues, as has long been the case. International Nongovernmental Humanitarian Organizations (INGOs) have long been limited in what they can say by UN cowardice, diffidence, and dishonesty: if they say more than the UN does about obstacles to humanitarian access, they will be expelled—as more than two dozen distinguished organizations have to date. This UN intimidation will be especially consequential during the “trial period” that runs to the final decision on U.S. economic sanctions in July 2017. Reports over the last month from Radio Dabanga, as well as reports from confidential sources, strongly suggest that much of Darfur remains inaccessible for reasons that can be directly traced to the Khartoum regime. To be sure, a diminished humanitarian capacity in the region explains some of what follows: “donor fatigue” has doomed Darfur to the status of humanitarian “side show,” despite the fact that according to the UN some 3.3 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, or roughly half the population of Darfur. The need is greatest by far among the displaced populations, overwhelmingly from Darfur’s non-Arab/African populations. Some 2.7 million people are internally displaced (see | http://sudanreeves.org/2017/03/19/internally-displaced-persons-in-darfur-the-invisible-catastrophe/) and the UN High Commission for Refugees has estimated the population of Darfuri refugees in eastern Chad at 300,000. Again, these populations are overwhelmingly non-Arab/African; their fate is the embodiment of Khartoum’s genocidal success in Darfur, first articulated by notorious Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal in August 2004 from his Misseriya (North Darfur) headquarters: “Change the demography of Darfur; empty it of African tribes” (see | http://sudanreeves.org/2015/11/05/musa-hilal-and-the-changing-of-darfurs-demography/). Denial of humanitarian access has long been a key feature of Khartoum’s genocidal counter-insurgency against the Darfur rebel groups, a fact first recognized by UN Ambassador Tom Eric Vraalsen, the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs for Sudan, in December 2003—almost fourteen years ago: Delivery of humanitarian assistance to populations in need is hampered mostly by systematically denied access [latter phrase emphasized in text—ER]. While [Khartoum's] authorities claim unimpeded access, they greatly restrict access to the areas under their control, while imposing blanket denial to all rebel-held areas. (Tom Vraalsen, Note to the Emergency Relief Coordinator; "Sudan: Humanitarian Crisis in Darfur," December 8, 2003) "Systematically denied"...on the basis of ethnicity. What is the face of humanitarian access denial today? Despite the promises by the Khartoum regime’s infamous “Humanitarian Aid Commission” to improved access in a variety of ways, including expediting of visas and travel permits, nothing has changed, at least according to one person closely involved in and highly knowledgeable of humanitarian activities in Darfur. This person estimates that some 30 percent of Darfur remains inaccessible for one reason or another that can be traced back to regime policies: continuing bureaucratic obstructionism; outright denial of access; the sanctioning of militia violence that makes humanitarian interventions too dangerous—and many others. Much of what is described below as humanitarian “needs” might be addressed by relief capacity available in Darfur (actually, or potentially in the absence of obstructionism by Khartoum Any honest assessment of the Khartoum regime should issue in a report card of “F”—failing. [Note: Given the presence in Darfur of INGOs capable of providing clean water and sanitation (WATSAN), it is intensely dismaying to see water shortages of the sort that repeatedly appear in recent dispatches from Radio Dabanga—ER] • Displaced short of food, water in Darfur's Nierteti and Kassab | March 17, 2017 | NIERTETI / KUTUM People in camps for the displaced in Nierteti, Central Darfur, have run short of food and medicines, local leaders reported. Kassab camp in North Darfur suffers from a drinking water shortage. Thousands of displaced people who have fled the fighting between the Sudanese army, militias and rebel movements in Jebel Marra in 2016, to Nierteti are facing “an acute shortage of food, shelter and medicines.” A tribal Sheikh told Radio Dabanga that 21,000 people fled to Nierteti camps in the beginning of 2016. “They have received food aid only once in 2017,” he claimed. The Humanitarian Aid Commission has made an inventory of their number. “But these newly displaced people are lacking health services, medicines and food.” North Darfur In Kassab camp in Kutum locality, a number of water pumps are out of operation, resulting in difficult access to drinking water for the residents of the camp. Reportedly 21 out of 27 pumps are not working, and the main tank has been unable to provide water for two weeks in a row, according to a Sheikh in Kassab. The dry weather of summer approaches, the Sheikh stressed. “The people, totaling 38,000, are in a very difficult situation in accessing drinking water.” He hoped that humanitarian organisations can intervene to resolve the technical issue. This week residents of Kassab reported that local health services and medicine supply has deteriorated. A camp coordinator said that the displaced people and residents of neighbouring villages have to rely on the only health centre and few medical workers in Kassab. • '23 dead' in South Darfur camps lacking medicine | April 7, 2017 | NYALA More than twenty people died of unknown disease in Otash and Kalma camps near Nyala in the past two weeks. Most of the victims are children and elderly people. A sheikh in Otash camp for displaced people said that sixteen people had died, while another sheikh in Kalma camp reported that seven people died in two weeks' time. They pointed out to Radio Dabanga that the symptoms of the disease are fever and severe headache among children, and diarrhoea among elderly people. Doctors believe these are symptoms of typhoid and giardiasis. “Dozens of patients have been transferred to Nyala Teaching Hospital because of a lack of medicines and treatment at the camps’ health centres,” one of the sheikhs said. They appealed to the authorities and aid organisations to provide medicines. Meanwhile the director of medical supplies in South Darfur state, Abu Bakr Yousif, has acknowledged the lack of vaccines, and especially vaccines against rabies. His announcement followed the complaints of residents of Nyala city about the shortage of drugs, that has caused people who are bitten by snakes, dogs or stung by scorpions to suffer more. Residents pointed to a lack of vaccines in the health centres and hospitals, concerned about the possible spread of rabies. Expired pills Three weeks ago, a vehicle of the Ministry of Health arrived and distributed pills to residents of Otash camp, to treat worms. People discovered that the medicine had expired two weeks earlier and informed the Humanitarian Aid Commission in the camp. • Families who fled Jebel Marra clashes face food shortage | March 5, 2017 | SINAR • Water sources out of operation in Kordofan and Darfur | March 28, 2017 | ABBASIYA / UM KEDDADA • North Darfur water pumps need repairs for summer | March 24, 2017 | EL FASHER • Wells dry as North Darfur groundwater drops | March 22 , 2017 | ABU ZIREGA [Large concentrations of IDPs—far in excess of the capacity of a number of camps—create unsustainable demands for clean water, which are key to the Khartoum regime’s plans to dismantle the camps. In other words, denial of INGO access to improve water supplies is part of an ongoing, sustained effort to make the camps uninhabitable—ER] • Education deteriorating in North Darfur camp | March 23, 2017 | KUTUM • Expired pills cause concern in South Darfur camp | March 15, 2017 | OTASH CAMP • Concern for homeless children in South Darfur capital | March 19, 2017 | NYALA Officials and civil sources have expressed concern at the growing phenomenon of homelessness in South Darfur, with growing marriages and pregnancies among homeless children. A Source told Radio Dabanga that the last census in 2014 revealed that there were nearly 5,000 homeless children, of whom 90% live in the state capital of Nyala, while 10% live at the locality headquarters. The official said the homelessness children can be classified into two types, namely completely homeless or partially homeless. He explained that completely homeless are the children who sleep in the markets, and the partially displaced live during day homeless in the market and return to family at night. [This dispatch highlights a problem almost never discussed in humanitarian reports on Darfur: the existence of huge numbers of orphans, not all of whom are adopted into families or camp communities already badly lacking in resources. The inevitable consequence is a population like the one described here—and it will only grow as the consequences of 14 years of genocidal conflict continue to play out in the grim “demography” Musa Hilal spoke of in August 2004—ER] • 25,000 need aid in East Jebel Marra: OCHA Sudan | March 21, 2017 | BELLE ELSEREIF There is an urgent need for water and sanitation in East Jebel Marra, South Darfur, humanitarian agencies report. An inter-agency mission to assess the humanitarian situation in the village of Belle Elsereif has found that about 25,000 people (14,000 displaced persons, 7,500 returnees and 3,500 nomads) need access to clean water and sanitation, health care and nutrition services, emergency household supplies, as well as education and protection support. The mission took place from 19 to 21 February, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports. Residents of Belle Elsereif and surrounding villages were affected by conflict between the government's military forces and the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement-Abdel Wahid El Nur (SLA-AW) between 2014 and 2015. There are three hand pumps in Belle Elsereif, the main village in the area, which serve both Belle Elsereif and ten surrounding villages. People often have to wait up to three hours to collect water. According to the mission, existing water sources are sufficient to serve 3,500 out of the 17,600 people in the area. People in the area depend on inadequate, contaminated water sources in the immediate vicinity. There are no sanitation facilities in this area of East Jebel Marra, but a couple of families were attempting to construct improvised latrines, the mission stated. Health facilities There is no health facility in Belle Elsereif, except one clinic made out of local materials 3km away in Dobo El Madrassa, run by a medical assistant and a nurse. OCHA recommended humanitarian partners to provide a wider range of health services, carry out vaccinations, and to stock existing facilities with essential medicines. Regarding education, one basic school in Belle Elsereif and seven other schools in surrounding villages accommodate 2,213 children in total, while lacking education materials and nearly all teachers are volunteers. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy

© Ashraf Shazly, AFP file picture | Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir gives a press conference in the presidential palace in Khartoum, on March 2, 2017 South Africa on Friday denied flouting international law in 2015 by failing to arrest visiting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted for trial by war crimes judges on charges of genocide in Darfur. At an unprecedented hearing at the International Criminal Court, Pretoria disputed accusations it had broken its obligations to the very tribunal it helped found. There "was no duty under international law on South Africa to arrest the serving head of a non-state party such as Mr Omar al-Bashir," Pretoria's legal advisor Dire Tladi argued. Despite two international arrest warrants issued in 2009 and 2010, Bashir remains at large and in office amid the raging conflict in the western Sudanese region of Darfur. He has denied the ICC's charges, including three accusations of genocide as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The deadly conflict broke out in 2003 when ethnic minority groups took up arms against Bashir's Arab-dominated government, which launched a brutal counter-insurgency. The UN Security Council asked the ICC in 2005 to investigate the crimes in Darfur, where at least 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced, according to UN figures. 'No immunity waiver' Pretoria, which had sought legal clarification from ICC judges before Bashir's 2015 visit, argues that the Sudanese leader has immunity as a head of state. There was "nothing at all" in the UN resolution that waived Bashir's immunity, Tladi said. Therefore Pretoria could not arrest him during his brief visit to South Africa in June 2015 for an African Union summit, despite its obligation to cooperate with the ICC as a signatory of the tribunal's founding Rome Statute. "The duty to arrest Mr Omar al-Bashir was not as clear as the office of the prosecutor would suggest," Tladi said. But prosecutor Julian Nicholls shot back that South Africa "had the ability to arrest and surrender him and it chose not to do so," allowing Bashir and his delegation to fly home unimpeded from a military air base. In the end the only reason Pretoria did not arrest him was "that South Africa disagreed with the court's jurisprudence, the law as set out... so it did not comply." Several victims of the conflict, who now live in The Netherlands, attended the daylong hearing at the tribunal in The Hague. "We know that Bashir will come to the ICC one day, if he's alive," Yousif Fasher, 30, told AFP. "It will take time, five years, 10 years, two years, six years. But one day he has to come and stand in front of the ICC. That's our message to South Africa." Presiding judge Cuno Tarfusser said the aim of the hearing was to decide "whether South Africa failed to comply with its obligations... by not arresting and surrendering Omar al-Bashir... while he was on South African territory." 'Most serious crimes' The prosecution argues that since the ICC does not have its own police force it relies on member states to help execute arrest warrants. Without such help, "the court's going to be unable to carry out its most basic function: putting on trial persons charged with the most serious crimes," Nicholls said. Tarfusser said at the end of the hearing that he hoped the judges would return their decision before the court's summer recess, and would do so in another public hearing. The judges may decide to agree with the prosecution's request to report Pretoria to the UN Security Council for non-compliance and eventual sanctions. But Pretoria's lawyers said such a move would be "unwarranted and unnecessary", aimed only at casting South Africa "in a bad light". Although this is the first public hearing of its type, last year the ICC referred Chad, Djibouti and Uganda to the UN for also failing to arrest Bashir. So far no action has been taken against them. The Sudanese leader was also a guest last month at an Arab League summit hosted by Jordan -- also a signatory to the Rome Statute. South Africa had moved to withdraw from the court, angered by the case against it. But it formally revoked its decision last month after its own High Court ruled it would be unconstitutional. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 France 24

Residents of an "Indian school," Regina, Saskatchewan, 1908. Lots of people know about Spain's El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, says Steve Heinrichs, director of Indigenous Relations at Mennonite Church Canada. "But to do pilgrimages in these lands that some call Canada, that's a strange thing.” That is not to say that there are no pilgrimage sites in Canada; pilgrims may journey to the Oratory of Saint Joseph in Quebec or to Martyr's Shrine in Ontario, among others. But what Mr. Heinrichs has in mind is unique. From April 23 to May 14, over 40 pilgrims will take part in a “Pilgrimage for Indigenous Rights,” a 22-day walk from Kitchener, Ontario, to the nation’s capital, Ottawa. The walk, which is over 300 miles, is designed to bring the struggle and history of indigenous peoples in Canada to the attention of Christian communities. Organized by Mennonite Church Canada, Christian Peacemaker Teams and a network of indigenous and ecumenical groups, the idea for the pilgrimage emerged as an attempt to raise awareness about the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). “We have indigenous friends who really feel the [declaration] is very important for the Canadian government,” says Kathy Moorhead Thiessen, a member of the Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Team at Christian Peacemaker Teams. “We wanted to do some education of our church people on what UNDRIP is, and on some of the issues that indigenous people in our land face.” In the evenings, pilgrims will not only rest at a variety of churches along the way but will also lead teach-ins at their host churches. Indigenous partners have consistently emphasized the need for church communities to teach their own members about Canada’s history with its first nations, Ms. Moorhead Thiessen says. Leah Gazan, a University of Winnipeg instructor and a member of the Wood Mountain Lakota Nation, will walk for part of the pilgrimage. She finds the pilgrimage idea encouraging and hopes it will send a clear message to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the current Liberal government that “Canadians, indigenous and non-indigenous, are not okay with the willful violation of fundamental human rights.” Ms. Gazan herself has been an ardent supporter of the proposed Bill C-262, introduced in parliament last April, which would require the Canadian government to evaluate and revise its laws so that they would be in accordance with the U.N. declaration on indigenous rights. Advocating for justice for indigenous people until recently has been a lonely process, says Ms. Gazan. “I've been at this my whole life. Now we're at a time in history where we have an opportunity to reconcile, and there are Canadians who want to jump on board.” The pilgrimage is an attempt to respond to calls to action that resulted from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada, which concluded a seven-year process in 2015. The T.R.C. aimed to document the experiences of survivors of Indian Residential Schools, which operated from 1840 to as late as 1996. At these now infamous institutions, First Nations, Inuit and Métis children were forced to assimilate with Canadian life and abandon traditional practices. Recognizing that residential schools were predominantly run by the Catholic Church, as well as other faith communities, the T.R.C. calls for church communities “to develop ongoing education strategies to ensure that their respective congregations learn about their church’s role in colonization, the history and legacy of residential schools and why apologies to former residential school students, their families and communities were necessary.” Mr. Heinrichs says there needs to be a healthy balance between not relying too much on indigenous people to “hold our hands and tell us what to do,” on the one hand, and staying accountable to indigenous communities, on the other. A “discernment circle,” made up of indigenous and non-indigenous people, has helped guide the pilgrimage organizers. The need for broader education about indigenous struggles in Canada, especially with respect to the infamous residential schools, has become more evident in recent weeks. Senator Lynn Bayek of Ontario made headlines in March after complaining that the many negative stories about the residential schools overshadowed their positive accomplishments, a statement she stands by. But the commission found that residential schools were designed to alienate indigenous people from their local cultures. They are widely remembered as places of physical, sexual and spiritual abuse by the indigenous people who grew up in them. Ms. Bayek has subsequently been removed from the committee for aboriginal issues she sat on at the time of her comments. Because of their sponsorship of the schools, Christians have a unique role to play in healing the wounds of the past. “We wanted to make this as intentionally ecumenical as we could,” Mr. Heinrichs says. “I wanted to have a whole range [on the pilgrimage], everything from mainline churches to more conservative evangelical churches, just to nurture the dialogue.” But, he acknowledged, “we haven't been as successful at that as we hoped.” Mr. Heinrichs says a lot of the host congregations for the pilgrimage come from the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church. He says these denominations appear especially ready to have conversations about the treatment of indigenous people, but a variety of other Protestant denominations will host pilgrims, too. While the organizers reached out to several Catholic parishes, none were able to host pilgrims along the way, though Mr. Heinrichs emphasized that the scheduled teach-ins are open to all people in the areas where they will be held. Ms. Gazan says the pilgrimage efforts have already helped her own reconciliation with the Mennonite community, which is prominent in Manitoba, where she lives. Racism against indigenous people can be intense in Mennonite communities, Ms. Gazan says. She points to a history of wrongful settlement by Mennonites on indigenous land without the consent of indigenous people as an unresolved injustice. Yet, Ms. Gazan says, she sees that Mennonites are trying to come to terms with these issues. “I think that's really indicative of truth being first in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, being truthful about the situation in which we find ourselves.” People may go on pilgrimages to Jerusalem and the like, Mr. Heinrichs says, but the T.R.C. is inviting Canada’s faith communities to reimagine and rediscover who they are in relationship with each other and indigenous people. Ms. Moorhead Thiessen says one of the recommendations that emerged from the discernment circle is that it was important to make contact not only with faith communities, but with indigenous communities along the way of the pilgrimage. That poses a logistical problem since a lot of the indigenous communities are far away from the walking path. Still, she says, organizers are making an effort to connect. “I've seen more on-the-ground action from churches than from the current government,” Ms. Gazan says. “The government could look to churches as an example of how to move forward in a meaningful way.” She says apologies are only as good as the actions that follow, and she appreciates the attempt by faith communities, like the ecumenical advocacy group Kairos, to change policies and organizational structures to honor the T.R.C. Individuals, too, she says, need to look at how their daily lives assist or perpetuate infringements on indigenous rights and take action. Mr. Heinrichs says about half of the pilgrims have committed to the entire walk and half will join for sections of it. He hopes the effort will prove “a fragile gift to indigenous friends.” “We're having conversations with groups of people and we're walking,” he says. “I think you have to be people of faith to believe [in the power of] something like that.” ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 America Press Inc.

On 13 February 2017, first grade students participate in a drill to practice their response to a shelling by taking cover in a part of the school building with strong walls because the school doesn't have a basement. Source: UNICEF/UN053119/Zmey KYIV/GENEVA, 7 April 2017 – More than 200,000 children – or 1 in 4 - in the two regions most severely affected by the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine require urgent and sustained psychosocial support to address the trauma of living through more than three years of violence. The 200,000 children in critical need of support live in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, within 15 kilometres of each side of the ‘contact-line’ that divides government and non-government-controlled areas and where fighting is most intense. “The world has forgotten about this invisible crisis in eastern Ukraine, but hundreds of thousands of children are paying a heavy price, one that could last a lifetime without adequate support. We urgently need funds to reach these traumatized children,” said UNICEF Ukraine Representative Giovanna Barberis. Children nearest the ‘contact-line’ have been living in chronic fear and uncertainty due to sporadic shelling, unpredictable fighting and dangers from landmines and other unexploited ordinance. Many risk their safety to get an education. Seven schools were damaged during the most recent escalation of violence in February and March 2017, and more than 740 schools – 1 in 5 in eastern Ukraine – have been damaged or destroyed since the conflict began in 2014. Parents, teachers, school directors and psychologists continue to report striking behaviour changes in children as young as three years old. Symptoms include severe anxiety, bed-wetting, nightmares, aggressive behaviour and withdrawing from families and communities. The majority of the 200,000 children in need of sustained psychosocial support in eastern Ukraine are not receiving adequate care. Services are stretched and underfunded. Dedicated social workers, psychologists and specially trained teachers are working around the clock. However, as the conflict drags on, additional investments are required to meet these children’s needs. UNICEF is appealing for US$31.2 million to support children and families affected by the conflict in eastern Ukraine. This includes US $5.5 million for child protection services and psychosocial support. So far UNICEF has received less than a third of its funding requirements and child protection is critically underfunded. “Children should not have to live with the emotional scars from a conflict they had no part in creating. Additional support is needed now so that young people in Donetsk and Luhansk can grow into healthy adults and rebuild their communities,” said Barberis. “Children and their families urgently need peace. We call on all sides of the conflict to recommit to the ceasefire signed in Minsk to end this senseless violence.” Last year, UNICEF reached approximately 200,000 children with psychosocial support through community protection centres, mobile teams, teachers and school-based psychologists, but the need for longer-term care is outpacing available resources. (c) 2017 UNICEF

Residents of Muhanga District – Kabgayi attending commemoration of the Genocide against Tutsi last year This Friday, April 7, Rwanda starts the 23rd annual commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi, remembering more than 1 million Tutsi who were killed. Flags will fly at half-mast during the national commemoration week (#Kwibuka23), which marks the beginning of the 100-day genocide memorial period. Government launched the Genocide on April 7, 1994, and stopped on July 4th by Rwanda Patriotic Army. President Paul Kagame will light a flame of hope on Friday at Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. The flame, which will stay lit throughout the commemoration period, symbolizes Rwanda’s hope of a better future. More than 400 guests including international leaders, dignitaries, survivors and their families and representatives of survivor organisations will attend the ceremony. It is followed by a walk to remember in the afternoon, then a night vigil at National stadium. “The Kigali Genocide Memorial is a place for remembrance and learning. As we mark the 23rd Commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi, we welcome and will support those who come to pay respects to their loved ones buried here. During #Kwibuka23, the memorial will inform and educate visitors about genocide prevention and Rwanda’s progress since 1994. We invite all Rwandans and international guests to visit the memorial for Kwibuka23,” said Honore Gatera, Manager of the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Meanwhile, commemoration takes place at village level; through the national commemoration week, Rwandans in their neighbourhoods attend sessions where testimonies about preparation, execution and players of the genocide are shared. While April 7 is a holiday, offices close in the afternoon when sessions take place throughout the national commemoration week. Several organizations are wrapping up preparations to provide services to genocide survivors and the general public during the whole period of commemoration. The Ministry of Health has trained a number of volunteers that will help in addressing #Kwibuka23 trauma cases for the next several months. “We will spend the rest of our lives fighting genocide ideology – with all the tools in our possession. Good governance, continued and sustainable growth and remembering our loved ones are our weapons of choice,” said Dr Jean Damascene Bizimana the Executive Secretary of the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide. More than 1000 volunteers last week finished a two-month training course on psychological assistance and mentorship. The 1300 community health workers, psychologists, and other experts will be stationed at 500 health centers around the country to help treat anyone that needs trauma counseling. Rwanda Biomedical Centre has put aside nearly 200 vehicles, including ambulances, pick-up trucks and buses, to help in trauma interventions. They will help in, among others, transport of patients to health centers, transport of counselors to the patients’ home whenever needed be. Anyone can dial 6200 to reach a free hotline for trauma counseling and counselors will come in to help. “We have decided to join forces, especially with health and local government representatives, to tackle trauma, which is particularly characteristic of the commemoration week,” said Dr Jean Damascene Iyamuremye, Director of Psychiatric care at Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC). According to Dr. Yvonne Kayiteshonga, the Mental Health Division Manager at RBC, more women than men tend to seek treatment for trauma during this period. Carnegie Mellon University prepares for the 23rd commemoration of Genocide against Tutsi #Kwibuka23 Last year, of the 2,267 people traumatized, 2,023 (89 percent) were women. Countries that suffered genocide have high rate of trauma. In Rwanda, Israel and Cambodia, trauma is rated at 26 percent compared to 2 percent in Denmark, according to a report by World Health Organization (WHO 2009). The media itself is prepared. According to a communiqué by Rwanda Media Commission, a self-regulatory organ of the media, “the media, especially internet based should be careful while verifying and publishing information that were published on several platform.” The warning makes sense; during the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi, hate media propagated Genocide ideology and helped interahamwe militia dislodge Tutsi from their hiding. Meanwhile, bookings are open for buses that will carry family members to mourn their loved ones on the dates they were killed. Several institutions have finished building a monument bearing some names of former employees that were perished during the Genocide. Many Rwandans and friends of Rwanda will flock to Genocide memorials to mourn the victims. Officials at Kigali Genocide Memorial told KT Press that a huge number of visitors are expected, such that they might need to reinforce the guiding team by other staff at the memorial. “Every year, the number increases because visitors tell their fellow countrymen what they have seen and encourage them to also visit,” Didier Rutagungira, who oversees communication at the memorial, told KT Press. Last year, the number of visitors at Kigali Genocide Memorial was the highest ever, with 92,000 visitors from 152 countries. Alongside those traveling to Rwanda, other foreigners will join Rwandans in the diaspora to remember. Previously, commemoration events took place in Rwanda’s embassies in Belgium, US, Senegal to mention but a few. Already, some institutions in other countries are commemorating the Genocide. Carnegie Mellon University, a US university based in Pennsylvania with a campus in Kigali has already a commemoration monument and painted it with Rwandan flag’s colors. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 KT Press

Americans' Responses to Jewish Refugees Wrestling with Fear and Moral Responsibility Xenophobia, antisemitism, economic insecurity, and restrictive immigration laws. These were the barriers Jewish refugees faced in the 1930s and 1940s when seeking safe haven in the United States. More than 70 years later, how can this history help us think about the world we live in today? Please join us for this important conversation on May 18 at 7 p.m.in Wynnewood. Thursday, May 18 -7 p.m. Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El 1001 Remington Road Wynnewood, Pennsylvania RSVP :https://www.ushmm.org/online/calendar/eventDetails.php?event=NYAMERHOLOPA0517 In preparation for a special exhibition on American responses to the Holocaust, opening in spring 2018, Museum scholars have been digging into documents from the 1930s and 1940s. We hope you join us to learn about what they have discovered. Speaker Rebecca Erbelding, Archivist, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum This event is free and open to the public, but reservations are requested at202.314.7877 or ccampbell@ushmm.org. Co-presented Photo: Two Jewish refugees arrive in New York City after the war. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Centre d'Études et de Documentation Guerre et Société Contemporaines _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum