U.S. proposes recognizing Crimea as Russian ahead of new round of talks   The Washington Post   April 22, 2025   Ukraine and its European allies will be meeting with top U.S. officials in London on Wednesday to discuss the proposals, which may not sit well with Kyiv.   By  Siobhán O'Grady , John Hudson  and  Steve Hendrix   People walk in front of a poster reading “For Russia! For the President! For Sevastopol!” in Simferopol, Crimea, on March 5, 2024. (AFP/Getty Images)   KYIV — Ukrainian and European officials meeting in London on Wednesday will be faced with a fast-moving U.S. proposal to recognize Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and freeze the war’s front lines as part of a peace agreement, according to several people familiar with internal deliberations.   Ukraine’s allies are hoping to win security guarantees and reconstruction programs for the embattled country in exchange for any such territorial concessions.   The U.S. proposals, presented to Ukraine in Paris last week, include having Washington formally recognize annexed Crimea as Russian territory and eventually lifting sanctions against Russia under a future accord, according to three people familiar with the matter. In exchange, Moscow would end hostilities in Ukraine at a time when Russia’s military enjoys battlefield momentum and sizable advantages in troop strength and weaponry.   Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky  told reporters Tuesday  that Ukraine would not recognize Crimea as Russian, noting that it would violate the country’s constitution to do so. Discussing Crimea and other Ukrainian territory aids Russia, he said, by allowing Moscow to continue the war, because “it will not be possible to agree on everything quickly.”   An adviser to Zelensky said the American proposals included some ideas that Kyiv agrees with and others it does not. A Western official said the terms of the proposed deal and concessions expected of Ukraine were “astounding.” Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic conversations.   A State Department official downplayed the idea that Washington was presenting a fait accompli to Kyiv, but the Trump administration’s increasingly public frustration with the pace of the talks has left Kyiv fearful of another downturn in relations with Washington. “The only thing they seem to be allowed is to keep their army,” the official said of Ukraine.   As negotiations pick up pace, with U.S. officials threatening to walk away within days, pressure is mounting on Kyiv. French, British and German negotiators, who have taken a more active hand in peace talks, are expected to press Ukraine’s case in London by urging that any deal include security guarantees and postwar reconstruction programs, possibly paid for in part with frozen Russian assets.   European, and even Ukrainian, officials acknowledge privately that Kyiv is unlikely to regain control of the Russian-controlled territories any time soon. At best, they are hoping to slow the rush to any agreement that allows Moscow to hang on to conquered lands and come out from under sanctions, without first winning significant benefits for Ukraine.   “There is concern that Trump is trying to push the Ukrainians and hasn’t been tough enough on Russia,” said Mujtaba Rahman, a managing director at the Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm. “The ultimate question now is, what does Ukraine get in exchange for giving up part of its territory?”   The United States presented the outline of its proposals to Ukraine in talks in Paris last week, with Ukrainians interpreting it as Washington’s final offer before it considers giving up on the peace process, according to two people familiar with the matter.   From left, Gunter Sautter of Germany, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrive at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris before a meeting on April 17. (Julien De Rosa/Pool/Reuters) Officials from the United States and Europe meet in Paris on April 17. (Ludovic Marin/AP)   Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced at the time that if progress was not made soon, President Donald Trump was  likely to “move on.”  In a potential sign of the administration’s frustrations with the talks, Rubio decided against flying to London for the talks on Tuesday mere hours before his expected departure.   “Secretary Rubio is a busy man,” said State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce. “While the meetings in London are still occurring, he will not be attending, but that is not a statement regarding the meetings. It’s a statement about logistical issues in his schedule.”   Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is also not attending   but will travel to Russia later this week to continue working on a peace plan. The top official representing the U.S. will be presidential envoy Keith Kellogg. Ukraine plans to send much higher-level officials, including its foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, and the head of the presidential office, Andriy Yermak.   Trump told reporters Monday that he would be releasing details of the U.S. proposals “over the next three days.” The U.S. pitch in Paris, including the offer to recognize Crimea, came after Witkoff visited Moscow for an hours-long meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin this month. The envoy is expected to visit Moscow again later this week.   One of the people briefed on the proposal described it as “Witkoff’s idea” for the U.S. to call Crimea Russian “without forcing Ukraine to recognize it.”   The State Department declined to comment on the specifics of proposals put before negotiators. “The only document shared in Paris was a list of potential options for discussion and feedback,” an official said. U.S. officials have stressed that both sides in the conflict need to close the wide gaps in the negotiations.   “If it’s not possible — if we’re so far apart that this is not going to happen — then I think the president’s probably at a point where he’s going to say, well, we’re done,” Rubio told reporters last week.   The contentious proposal will be difficult for Ukraine to swallow. Russia’s seizure and subsequent annexation of Crimea in 2014 paved the way for its other acts of aggression against Ukraine, including its fomenting of the war in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions and then its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.   Earlier in the war, Ukrainian soldiers rallied around cries that their children would soon swim on the beaches of Crimea, and many see Crimea’s return to Ukraine as a nonnegotiable — especially families who have been separated for more than a decade.   “If what the media is reporting is true, then it is both sad and dangerous,” Ukrainian parliamentarian Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze told Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday. “It means that the U.S. is not actually seeking a just and lasting peace, but rather wants to report some kind of temporary truce at the expense of concessions to the aggressor — and present this as a great achievement of the United States.”   The recognition of Crimea as Russian would deal a significant blow to Ukrainian morale, but Russia’s grip on the peninsula has long been acknowledged by military analysts and political leaders.   Since early 2023, the Pentagon’s top military analysts have downplayed the possibility of Ukraine retaking Crimea by military force in  classified briefings  with lawmakers.   Zelensky has never given up the goal of Ukraine someday reasserting control over Crimea, but has spoken frankly about Kyiv’s military limitations.   “We do not have enough forces to return Crimea,” Zelensky told reporters last year. “Our army does not have enough forces. We must seek diplomatic means.”   European leaders have succeeded in elbowing into the peace talks in recent weeks, an improvement over the Trump team’s first discussions with the Russians in Saudi Arabia that excluded even the Ukrainians. Now, in London and beyond, they will look for ways to use their influence in favor of Ukraine.   Europe does have some leverage to apply, including billions in seized or frozen Russian assets that could be returned or used to fund postwar reconstruction programs. The European Union, meanwhile, offers member states a coordinated way to magnify its sanctions program.   “The Europeans have real cards to play,” Rahman, the analyst, said. “If you don’t get sanctions relief from the E.U. side and just from the U.S., the economic benefits to Russia would be marginal.”   One E.U. diplomat, familiar with the discussions around the U.S. proposals, said expectations remained low for progress in the next round of negotiations.   “It is up to the Ukrainians to decide whether those terms are something they would like to talk about,” the diplomat said. Leaving Crimea, home to the key Black Sea port of Sevastopol, in Moscow’s hands would have serious implications across the continent, experts said.   “Crimea, in particular, is so strategically important for European security that there can be absolutely no interest in Europe in Crimea coming under any form of permanent Russian control or being recognized under international law,” said Stefan Meister of the German Council on Foreign Relations.   Hudson reported from Washington and Hendrix from London. Adam Taylor in Washington, Kate Brady in Berlin, Serhiy Morgunov in Potsdam, Germany, and Beatriz Ríos in Brussels   contributed to this report.   Copyright 2025 The Washington Post

Members of the Bajrang Dal and VHP stormed a Christian gathering in Gujarat, chanting slogans and wielding sticks Representative: Volunteers offer sweets to a Catholic priest and others at the end of a procession celebrating Easter Sunday commemorating the day in Kolkata, India (AP) By Namita Singh An Easter prayer service in the Indian city of Ahmedabad was disrupted on Sunday by members of two far-right Hindu groups who accused attendees of engaging in religious conversions. Eyewitness footage shared on social media showed activists from the Bajrang Dal and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) entering a private prayer meeting in the Odhav area of the city, wielding sticks and shouting slogans such as “Jai Shree Ram” (Glory to Lord Ram) and “Har Har Mahadev” (Hail Lord Shiva). The groups are known for their links to Hindutva, a hardline nationalist ideology that promotes Hindu supremacy. They are also loosely affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of prime minister Narendra Modi ’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and have long campaigned against Christian and Muslim religious conversions. While there were no reports of injuries, the incident has added to growing concerns over the increasing frequency of religiously motivated intimidation and violence in India . Inspector Pratik Zinzuvadia of the Odhav police confirmed that the incident occurred during a Christian congregation at a residential hall in Vimalpark Society, attended by around 100 people marking Easter Sunday. According to police, the intruders confronted attendees – many of whom were women – and demanded to know their religion, accusing organisers of conducting illegal conversions of Hindus to Christianity. The situation was brought under control after police were called to the scene. Both parties were taken to the local police station, where they submitted written complaints. Darshan Joshi, a local representative of Bajrang Dal, filed a statement requesting an investigation into “religious conversion”, reported the Indian Express . However, Inspector Zinzuvadia confirmed that officers found no indication of conversion activity during their preliminary assessment. Emanuel Amaydas, a member of the Christian community present at the gathering, filed a counter-complaint accusing 10 to 15 unidentified individuals of storming the venue and causing disruption. Police said they were examining the complaints and that no formal charges had been filed as of Sunday evening. "We have taken complaints from both sides and begun an inquiry into the case," Inspector Zinzuvadia said. Jvalit Mehta, a regional coordinator of Bajrang Dal, later told the Times of India the activists had entered Christian gatherings in both Odhav and Nikol neighbourhoods based on what he described as “information that conversion activities were going on”. Under Indian law, forced religious conversion is illegal in several states, though laws are often vaguely defined and critics say they are frequently misused to target minority communities. In 2024, attacks on Christians rose to 834 incidents, up from 734 the previous year, according to data from the United Christian Forum. Copyright 2025 The Independent

Among the Narendra Modi regime’s gravest moral and political transgressions is its support of Israel’s genocidal war and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in Gaza Palestinian women mourn over the bodies of their family after Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. The International Court of Justice has said that Israel has “intentionally created conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza in whole or in part.” IMAGO/Middle East Images ON 4 FEBRUARY, just two weeks after he took over the office of the president of the United States for the second time, Donald Trump shocked the world with his plan for Gaza. Overtaken, as it seemed, by a sudden epiphany, aiming to resolve one of the world’s most tangled conflicts, Trump announced the plan during a press conference with Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was, from his point of view, breathtakingly simple. “I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza,” he said. “Why would they want to return? The place has been hell.”  The United States had helped Israel reduce a centuries-old home of the Palestinian people to rubble, and was now telling them that it was not in their interest to ever return. Instead, according to Trump, Gaza “would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” after Palestinians had “already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.”  Gaza was to be redeveloped into a “Riviera of the Middle East” owned by the United States. People from around the world who could afford it would be welcome to buy property and enjoy its spectacular sea views and invigorating sea breezes. Everyone would be welcome, that is, except the original residents of this land.  Trump did not explain by which international law this was to be done, how a government could just “turn over” the occupied land of a sovereign people to a third power, or who would finance this rebuilding.  Trump’s plan was so unhinged and merciless, transparently amounting to ethnic cleansing, that even many of the closest allies of the United States publicly rejected and condemned it. However, amid global outrage and revulsion, there was one significant voice that was thunderously silent. The Indian government did not express one word of concern or condemnation of Trump’s pitiless, disdainful and casually lawless plan to expel all Palestinians from Gaza and build a real-estate paradise there instead. When the history of India’s profoundly troubled current times is written, there will doubtless be a great deal that the Narendra Modi-led government will be held to account for – the choking of democracy; the state-fuelled hate targeting India’s Muslim, Christian and other minority citizens; the surge of oligarchic capitalism; the enfeeblement of a developmental state; levels of economic inequality even higher than in colonial times. Also very high on the list of the Modi regime’s gravest moral and political transgressions will surely be its barely tacit support for the genocidal war and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in Gaza – crimes against humanity unleashed with unmitigated savagery by the Israeli government, armed and financed zealously by Western powers. FROM THE DAY he was sworn in for a second term in the most powerful office in the world, Trump has let loose a battery of shocking policy statements and decisions. These carry the potential to upturn our world, to make it much more unsafe and much less hopeful for billions of impoverished and persecuted communities, including immigrants. Yet even by his abysmal standards, Trump’s chillingly cavalier and mind-numbingly cruel plan for “solving” the Gaza problem stirred consternation and disbelief in most of the world.  Netanyahu, on a new high after Trump’s announcement on Gaza, said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14 that Palestinians should establish a state in Saudi Arabia rather than in their homeland – which, historically, would take in present-day Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. He described Palestinian statehood as a “security threat to Israel”. He invoked 7 October 2023, when the Palestinian organisation Hamas launched a devastating raid out of Gaza on Israeli territory, setting off the Gaza war. “There was a Palestinian state, it was called Gaza,” Netanyahu said “Gaza, led by Hamas, was a Palestinian state, and look at what we got!” As to what the United States would do with what was Palestinian territory – land that the majority of countries in the United Nations General Assembly hoped would be part of an independent Palestinian state in a “two-state solution” to the Isreal–Palestine conflict – Trump was entirely unencumbered by the most elementary human compassion or considerations of international law. He thought as the real-estate tycoon that he is.  Asked later in an interview with Fox News whether Palestinians in Gaza would have a right to return to the territory under his plan, Trump replied, “No, they wouldn’t because they’re going to have much better housing.” Instead, the newly developed Gaza would have hotels, office buildings and homes, “and we’ll make it exciting.” He added, “I can tell you about real estate. They’re going to be in love with it.” It turned out that this plan was perhaps not a spontaneous outpouring from Trump’s unbounded imagination. The UK-based channel Middle East Eye pointed out that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had been advocating for a plan closely mirroring Trump’s for at least a year. It noted Kushner’s observation back in February 2024 that “Gaza’s waterfront property … could be very valuable.” Kushner had added, “It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.” Kushner was Trump’s West Asia adviser during his first tenure as president.  “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people,” Trump said to reporters this January. “We just clean out that whole thing and say: ‘You know, it’s over.’” The most poignant and compelling opposition to Trump’s plan for ethnic cleansing came from the Palestinian people themselves. “We came very close to dying, but we survived with the grace of God,” a Gaza resident, Moeen Mohsen, said to reporters of CBS News. “Unfortunately, there came a decision to displace us. We reject it in its entirety. We are still holding on to our right to live.”  France issued a public statement reiterating its opposition to any forced displacement of the Palestinian population of Gaza. This would constitute “a serious violation of international law,” it said, and “an attack on the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians.” In an interview with CNN, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, declared, “You cannot say to two million people, ‘Okay, now guess what? You will move.’” He added, “The right answer is not a real-estate operation, this is a political operation.”  Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, was also categorical in his statement to Britain’s House of Commons. Palestinians in Gaza “must be allowed home,” he said. “They must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild on the way to a two-state solution.” But India remained silent. What a disgraceful fall for this once-proud democracy, once a ringing voice for oppressed peoples around the world – including Palestinians. What a descent for the land of Gandhi and Nehru, of Tagore and Ambedkar, of Maulana Azad and Bhagat Singh.     IT IS NOT just by its culpable silences that India has abetted the devastation of the Palestinian people by the Israeli military. It is also done so by allowing and facilitating the flow of deadly firearms to Israel , many of them used in the destruction of Gaza.  In September last year, I joined 11 concerned citizens in filing a petition before the Supreme Court of India, seeking an immediate suspension of Indian aid to Israel – in particular its military assistance, including military equipment. Other petitioners included the former diplomats Ashok Kumar Sharma and Deb Mukharji, the peace activist Achin Vanaik, the development economist Jean Drèze, the musician T M Krishna, the retired civil servant Meena Gupta and the rights activist Nikhil Dey. Our senior counsel was Prashant Bhushan. Our petition drew attention to an International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgment of 26 January 2024 that ordered an immediate halt to all killings and destruction being perpetrated by Israel on the Palestinian people. India is bound by various international laws and treaties – such as the 1948 Geneva Convention, to which it is a signatory – that oblige it not to supply military weapons to states guilty of war crimes, as any such weapons export could be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law. United Nations experts have also released a statement warning against the transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel, which “may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk state complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide.” Our petition also referred to a 19 July 2024 judgment from the ICJ, which held that Israel’s sustained abuse of its position as an occupying power, through the use of disproportionate violence against the Palestinian people, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the occupied territory unlawful. We pointed out that “India therefore cannot export any military equipment or weapons to Israel when there is a serious risk these weapons might be used to commit war crimes.” We also referred to credible reports and public records indicating that Indian authorities had granted licenses to various companies including, a public-sector company, for the export of munitions to Israel after the Gaza war began – and even after the ICJ ruling on possible genocide by Israel. We pointed out that, between 2019 and 2023, the Hyderabad-based Adani-Elbit Advanced Systems India manufactured and exported to Israel the aero-structures and subsystems for more than twenty Hermes 900 military drones. The company is a joint venture between Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, Elbit Systems, and the Indian conglomerate Adani Group, with Adani holding a controlling stake. Gautam Adani, the head of the Adani Group, is known for his close ties to Modi. Hermes drones similar to those Adani-Elbit has helped build have been used extensively by the Israeli military in Gaza. The Supreme Court rejected our petition. The bench, presided over by D Y Chandrachud – the chief justice at the time – maintained that the authority and jurisdiction over the country’s foreign affairs are vested exclusively with the Indian government. It observed that for it to grant the reliefs sought by the petitioners, it would have to enter into findings on the allegations raised against Israel, an independent sovereign nation that is not subject to the jurisdiction of Indian courts. It also held that the grant of the reliefs would amount to a judicial injunction for breach of contracts that Indian companies may have entered into with international entities, and that whether to prohibit foreign trade with any country is a matter to be decided solely by the government as per the applicable law. Al Jazeera has pointed to the duplicity of Israel’s Western allies in also evading their responsibilities under international law to halt arms exports to the country. Macron affirmed that France did not send weapons to Israel between 2019 and 2023, and that the last time it sent weapons to the country was in 1998. He underlined the need to stop delivering weapons to Israel, adding “France is not delivering any.” But France does supply Israel with components used to build weapons.  Germany contributed 30 percent of Israel’s weapon imports between 2019 and 2023, with items including frigates and torpedoes. Its contribution was ten times higher in 2023 compared with 2022. An official spokesperson of the German government declared, “There is no German arms export boycott against Israel.”  The UK government assured its parliament that “no lethal or other military equipment has been provided to Israel by the UK Government since 4 December 2023.” But official data reveals that it did approve 108 licenses for military and non-military goods to be sent to Israel between 7 October 2023 and 31 May 2024.  In November, the Senate of the United States rejected a proposal led by the independent Senator Bernie Sanders to block a USD 20-billion weapons deal with Israel that had been approved by the administration of the previous US president, Joe Biden. Canada announced that it was halting arms supplies to Israel, but activists allege that Canadian arms exports to the country continue via the United States. INDIA HAS TRAVELLED a very long way from its fabled friendship with and unwavering support for the Palestinian people during the years of its own freedom struggle and the decades that followed. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s showed great moral clarity in opposing the partition of Palestine – a key step in the creation of Israel in the wake of the German genocide of European Jews during the Second World War. Palestinians, he declared, should not be called upon to pay for the crimes of Europeans.  A fascinating story is told of Albert Einstein writing a four-page letter  to Jawaharlal Nehru in June 1947, just two months before India became free. (Incidentally, the towering physicist had turned down an offer to become Israel’s second president.) Nehru, of course, was tipped to be the first Indian prime minister. Einstein lauded India’s constituent assembly, which had just abolished untouchability. He wrote, “The attention of the world was [now] fixed on the problem of another group of human beings who, like the untouchables, have been the victims of persecution and discrimination for centuries” – the Jews. Einstein urged Nehru as a “consistent champion of the forces of political and economic enlightenment” to rule in favour of “the rights of an ancient people whose roots are in the East” and extend Indian support for establishing a Jewish state.  In his reply, Nehru expressed India’s “deepest sympathy for the Jews and for all they have undergone during these past years.” But, he went on to say, “With all our sympathy for the Jews we must and do feel that the rights and future of the Arabs are involved in this question.” He courteously turned down Einstein’s request to endorse the idea of a Jewish state since it would be through “violence and conflict” on the land of others.  Nehru spoke often against the injustice suffered by the Palestinian people, and did so in international forums including the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement. India became the first non-Arab country to recognise the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as the legitimate representative of Palestine and allowed it to open an office in Delhi. It was also among the first wave of countries to recognise Palestinian statehood in 1988. The PLO leader Yasser Arafat famously described the Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi as his sister and wept inconsolably at her funeral. These bonds continued also with her son and immediate successor, Rajiv Gandhi, and Arafat again was present at his funeral.  Nehru, Indira Gandhi and her son were all stalwarts of the Indian National Congress. But in the 1990s, the winds began to shift under another Congress prime minister, P V Narasimha Rao, who began bending towards Israel. Into the early 2000s, under Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the Bharatiya Janata Party – the same party that Modi calls home – the diplomatic turnaround was complete.  At a time when Arafat was virtually incarcerated in his office in Ramallah, in the West Bank, Vajpayee thought it fit to invite the hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for a state visit to India. For good measure, before setting out for India, Sharon repeated his earlier call for the physical elimination of Arafat.  New Delhi’s closeness to Tel Aviv persisted even after the Congress retook power under the Manmohan Singh-led government from 2004 to 2014. The journalist John Cherian, in a piece for Frontline , writes that the perception “on the Arab street [was] that New Delhi has become a de facto ally of Israel, using terrorism as the rationale.”  An important straw in the wind was also a visit to Israel by Modi in 2006, when he was the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. This was a time when, shadowed by charges of abetting the mass killings of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 , Modi was being denied visas to most Western states. Israel chose to extend him a grand welcome, and found resonance with Modi’s muscular Islamophobia. It also chose to ignore the fulsome admiration for Adolf Hitler among the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of Modi’s BJP and the organisation where he began his political career.  When Modi returned to Israel triumphantly in 2017 as India’s prime minister, Netanyahu and the entire Israeli cabinet turned out to receive him, extending him honours usually reserved for the country’s most special guests, like the US president and the Pope.   IF I WAS speaking only about the complicity of the Indian state in abetting the genocidal crimes of the Israeli state against the Palestinian people, there would be grief enough. But I am also speaking about many Indian people who, spellbound by the ideology of Hindutva, have not just supported Israel’s war in Gaza but also gleefully added to the hate and fake propaganda against the devastated Palestinian people.  The Israeli war was accompanied by a tsunami of fake news online against Palestinians. Many investigators confirmed that a great deal of this content – maybe even the largest quantum of it – was created by Indians. BOOM, a credible Indian fact-checker, found that the original sources of the online hate were very often verified Indian users on X (formerly Twitter), with profiles based in India or containing the Indian flag in their descriptions. These had been “mostly targeting Palestine negatively, or being supportive of Israel,” BOOM reported, and the fake videos that these users purveyed were basically designed to “showcase Palestinians as fundamentally brutal.” One video, for instance, with over six million views, “showed” a Palestinian fighter with dozens of sex slaves; this was actually a video of a school trip from Jerusalem. Another fake video suggested the kidnapping of a child by Hamas. Such videos often were accompanied by violent messages. One Indian account, claiming to belong to a retired Indian soldier, stated, “Israel must finish off Palestine from the planet.” Mohammed Zubair, who works with the outlet Alt News and is perhaps India’s bravest and most respected fact-checker, made the same observations. Even though he was hardened by years of dedicated fact-checking of hateful content and fake news in India, the deluge of disinformation on Indian social media after 8 October 2023 left him stunned. “The scale of misinformation this time was horrific and unimaginable,” Zubair told The Atlantic. “A grim video of a beheading by a Mexican drug cartel was shared as an attack on Israeli citizens. A nine-year-old photograph of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his son, taken before the latter departed for his military service, was portrayed as the leader sending his offspring to war. Footage of a funeral staged in Jordan to evade a pandemic lockdown was misrepresented as Palestinians faking deaths in Gaza.” And so I come to what is personally my hardest task in this essay: to hold up a mirror to the Indians who have feverishly celebrated Israel’s war on the Palestinian people, and to show them what this war actually is.   Leading human rights and humanitarian organisations have described Israel’s military offensive in the wake of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks as being genocidal and constituting crimes against humanity. Amnesty International, for instance, has described how Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity. Israel has “persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza,” in brazen defiance of “countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza.”  Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, has testified that “Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them.” She added, “Taking into account the pre-existing context of dispossession, apartheid and unlawful military occupation in which these acts have been committed, we could find only one reasonable conclusion: Israel’s intent is the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, whether in parallel with, or as a means to achieve, its military goal of destroying Hamas.” Citing the ICJ order, which said that Israeli authorities “intentionally created conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza in whole or in part,” Human Rights Watch has concluded that Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination, that this crime is still ongoing, and that Israel’s intentions were unambiguous from the start. Human Rights Watch has cited the example of an order on 9 October 2023 by Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister at the time, calling for a “complete siege” of Gaza. Gallant stated, “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.”  Oxfam International has reported that more women and children were killed in Gaza by the Israeli military in the first 12 months of the assault than in the equivalent period of any other conflict in the world over the past two decades. It conservatively estimates these deaths to number more than 6000 women and 11,000 children. Before this, from 2004 to 2021, the highest number of women killed in any conflict in a single year was in Iraq during the Second Gulf War, with over 2600 perishing in 2016. Oxfam’s estimated death toll in Gaza excludes the nearly 20,000 dead who remain unidentified, missing or lost beneath rubble.  At the end of September 2024, The Lancet , one of the world’s leading medical journals, estimated the true number of deaths in Gaza was over 186,000. This was after also taking into account indirect deaths, such as those from starvation and lack of health care. It estimated that more than 25,000 children had either lost a parent or become orphans, leaving them in deep emotional distress. Most children were “grappling with anxiety and severe physical injuries, with many having lost limbs.” Oxfam International has also pointed out that the Israeli military had relentlessly targeted infrastructure indispensable to survival. “Civilians have been forcibly displaced dozens of times to so-called ‘safe zones’ that fail to meet humanitarian obligations and have also been regularly bombed or attacked,” it reports. In early October 2024, a year after Israel’s bombardment of Gaza began, Oxfam found that civilian infrastructure had “either been completely destroyed or severely damaged, including around 68 per cent of cropland and roads. Only 17 of 36 hospitals remain partially functional, and all suffer from a lack of fuel, medical supplies, and clean water.” The humanitarian organisation Médecins sans frontières (MSF) said in December 2024 that Israeli forces had prevented essential items such as food, water and medical supplies from entering Gaza on numerous occasions, and had also blocked, denied and delayed humanitarian assistance. “People in Gaza are struggling to survive apocalyptic conditions, but nowhere is safe, no one is spared, and there is no exit from this shattered enclave,” Christopher Lockyear, the secretary general of MSF, said after visiting Gaza. The United Nations pointed to a pattern of destruction of Gaza’s hospitals by Israeli forces that had pushed its healthcare system to the “point of almost complete collapse.” In a report covering the period from 7 October 2023 to 30 June 2024, it found that “22 out of 38 hospitals across Gaza had been rendered non-functional.” The pattern of attacks included “missile strikes on hospital buildings, the destruction of hospital facilities, shooting of civilians, sieges, as well as temporarily taking over the hospital buildings.”  The Middle East Eye reported that during attacks on the al-Shifa and Kamal Adwan hospitals in Gaza, Israeli forces first bombarded the area outside the hospitals, then cut off supplies, rendered generators inactive, and sparked fires within hospital departments. Israeli troops then stormed the hospitals and forced many of the remaining staff and patients to strip almost naked before detaining them. The director of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, was jailed for seven months for trying to save lives. The hospital’s head of orthopaedic medicine, Dr Adnan al-Bursh, was allegedly tortured to death in Israeli custody.  “It will take generations to recover from the devastating impacts of this war,” Oxfam International concluded.  Even now, at the time I write this, the Palestinians’ torment is far from over. During the always fragile two-month ceasefire in Gaza from mid-January 2025, the Israeli military continued its hostilities in the West Bank, the other occupied Palestinian territory, demolishing houses, arresting people and even killing civilians on the pretext of anti-militant operations. On 18 March, in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan, Israel unilaterally resumed hostilities, carrying out airstrikes on Gaza that reportedly killed hundreds of Palestinians. The grim toll of attacks and casualties continues to rise.  With this rising toll, we continue to get stories of Palestinian courage. On 24 March, an Israeli airstrike killed the 23-year-old Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat. Hours after he was killed, his team shared a note that he had written anticipating his death. In the note, he describes the overwhelming difficulties of documenting the war on Gaza and its people, and ends with an appeal: “Do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories – until Palestine is free.”   LET ME END this melancholic essay with the agonised words of conscience of Lee Mordechai, an associate professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who has written a brave monograph titled “Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War”.  “We need to disconnect the way we think of genocide as Israelis – gas chambers, death camps and World War II”, he warns his people. A state commits genocide, he clarified, when it acts in concerted ways to ensure “the deliberate destruction of a group.” Mordechai documents several instances of Israeli soldiers deliberately and cruelly killing civilians with no regard for rules of engagement. For instance, troops of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) “entered a family home and killed the two parents in sight of their children (aged 11, 9 and 5; the youngest, with cerebral palsy, lost his eye to a grenade the soldiers threw).” Israeli soldiers also sent “a handcuffed prisoner to deliver a message to evacuate a hospital in Khan Younis, then shot him as he tried to walk outside the gate. The IDF subsequently bombed the hospital.”  Mordechai details an instance when Israeli soldiers zip-tied the hands of a Palestinian man and then ran over him with a tank while he was still alive. “An image of his mutilated corpse was shared on an Israeli telegram channel with a post stating that ‘You are going to love this!!!’” He writes about a 94-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s being left to die in a burning building and her charred corpse being found later, and about a woman with a child being shot while waving a white flag.  He documents how the IDF has looted the areas it took over and how that looting has been normalised. “One case was featured approvingly in a popular Friday evening news segment, while a prominent Israeli journalist’s Telegram channel shared an image of a table full of money with the caption ‘The [IDF] paratroopers hit the jackpot in Khan Younis.’ Soldiers shared an image of themselves with tens of thousands of shekels (thousands of dollars) … An IDF soldier attempted to sell online a Gazan passport and other items he had looted while serving in Gaza. Another filmed himself sifting what appears to be flour originally delivered to Gaza by humanitarian aid organizations, and cynically thanking them as well as the UN and UNRWA.”  Mordechai’s excruciating record reveals in throbbing, horrific detail the wantonly cruel slaughter of Palestinians, including older and disabled people and children; the prevalence of sexual assault and dehumanisation; the use of starvation as a tool of butchery; triumphal looting, and more.  Mordechai is a young Israeli historian who I have never met. But in his anguish, I find echoes of my own soul. What sustained hate does to a people is frightening and, I fear, enduring coarsening of the spirit. I watch this with dismay among my own compatriots in India – especially those of my own social class – and with trepidation for the kind of world we are leaving for our children and our grandchildren.  I feel the same dismay and trepidation as Mordechai does for the people of Israel. Just generations ago, Jews were subjected to cruel extinction on a scale and with a brutality that is still hard to imagine. How can a state formed in response to that such savagery now allow, encourage and even valorise actions that lead it down the same genocidal path against another hapless people? Just decades after many of their ancestors survived genocide themselves, how can the Israeli people unleash genocide on another people?  Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian poet and academic who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza in December 2023, appealed to Israeli soldiers’ sense of history and humanity in his poem ‘I am you’.  I am just you. I am your past haunting Your present and your future. I strive like you did. I fight like you did. I resist like you resisted In a later section, he continues, All you have to do Is close your eyes (Seeing these days Blinds our hearts.) Close your eyes, tightly So that you can see In your mind’s eye. Then look into the mirror. One. Two. I am you. I am your past. And killing me, You kill you. Every Indian who supports Israel’s Gaza war needs to heed the same reminder by Alareer: I am you. I am just you. In the decades that lie ahead, it is not just the ravaged people of Palestine, tortured with more cruelty than any other people in this century, who will struggle to recover, heal and rebuild. It will be equally hard for the Israeli people to heal and reclaim their humanity after supporting this war, aided and abetted by Western powers and India. They will have to find once again their souls, their capacity for simply being human to other people, their capacity to feel the pain of another.  In this time of the unending apocalypse in Gaza, may each of us – both those who bear silent witness and those who are active cheerleaders of the brutal war – search in our souls for our submerged capacities for humanism. As the Palestinian-American professor and political activist Edward Said reminded us: “Humanism is the only – I would go so far as saying the final – resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history.” Copyright 2024 Himal Southasian

State Dept to close offices on human rights, democracy, war crimes, & conflict prevention Washington Post April 22, 2025 The Trump administration’s proposed shake-up targets human rights programs and others focused on war crimes and democracy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a White House meeting earlier this month. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)   By Adam Taylor , John Hudson , Dan Diamond  and Hannah Natanson Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled a plan Tuesday to significantly reorganize the State Department, saying the redesign would reverse “decades of bloat and bureaucracy.” The proposed shake-up of America’s primary foreign policy institution coincides with the Trump administration’s efforts to reorient the United States on the world stage to align with the president’s “America First” agenda while cutting costs and downsizing staff. The effort targets some human rights programs and others focused on war crimes and democracy, according to internal documents shared with The Washington Post. As part of the plan, senior officials would submit a path to reducing U.S.-based staff by 15 percent, according to the documents, potentially affecting hundreds of jobs. A new Bureau of Emerging Threats would be created to focus on cybersecurity and the proliferation of artificial intelligence, among other areas, the document stated. The proposed bureau would represent a rare focus on expanding the department’s capacity. On Tuesday morning, the State Department also sent its reorganization plans to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which provide oversight of the department. Lawmakers in both parties have raised concerns about major changes to congressionally mandated programs and agencies that the Trump administration has signaled it wants to revamp or outright delete. This plan includes the elimination of 132 offices and 700 positions, said a congressional aide who reviewed the documents. Many others would be transferred or “reorganized,” though such changes were not clearly explained and left unanswered questions about how the proposed shake-up would functionally alter things, the aide said. This person, like some others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the proposal. In an email to staff, Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau said implementation would be led by an internal working group that would come up with “thoughtful plans” on adopting the changes by July 1. In a post on social media , Rubio said, “Region-specific functions will be consolidated to increase functionality, redundant offices will be removed, and non-statutory programs that are misaligned with America’s core national interests will cease to exist.” He did not specify which ones. Within the State Department, conjecture has swirled for weeks about the likelihood of significant staff reductions and drastic shifts in institutional priorities. In group chats and private messages, current and former officials have circulated screenshots of documents and other speculation, hoping to understand what would happen next and how many jobs could be implicated. Some diplomats and officials who are worried about the scale of reforms were heartened to learn this month that Pete Marocco , a senior official who had led the dismantling of the  U.S. Agency for International Development  (USAID) in conjunction with tech billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE Commandos, had left the department after reported clashes with Rubio. Even so, it has long been clear that the Trump administration plans major changes — and significant reductions — to the State Department. The question was not whether cuts would happen, but how big they would be. One document purporting to be a draft executive order, widely circulated among current and former officials over the weekend, outlined a more radical plan that involved numerous major changes, including shutting down the Bureau of African Affairs and eliminating numerous outposts across the continent. Rubio distanced himself from that document , calling it a “hoax” and “fake news.” The plan announced Tuesday did not cut the Bureau of African Affairs, a relief to many diplomats. But it did announce the demise of many others. For instance, the position of undersecretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights would be eliminated , with some of the corresponding offices incorporated into a “reimagined” office for foreign and humanitarian affairs, the documents show. The offices of global criminal justice, a body that seeks to investigate war crimes, and conflict and stabilization operations, which seeks to prevent wars, would be closed , according to the documents. Copyright 2025 The Washington Post

Residential buildings among structures targeted in paramilitary attack on city of el-Fasher, activists say. Attacks on el-Fasher have intensified, forcing up to 400,000 people to flee Sudan's largest camp, which has become inaccessible to aid groups [Reuters] The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have again attacked el-Fasher city in the western Darfur region of Sudan, killing more than 30 people, an activist group has said. The attack by the RSF and allied militias is the latest deadly offensive on the area, the last stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the war-torn region. The Resistance Committees in el-Fasher said dozens of other people were wounded in the Sunday attack, which involved “heavy artillery shelling”. The RSF renewed the assault on Monday, shelling residential buildings and open markets, according to the activist group, which tracks the war. No new casualties were immediately reported. The RSF did not immediately respond to the claims. For over a year, the RSF has sought to wrest control of el-Fasher, located more than 800km (500 miles) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, from the SAF, launching regular attacks on the city and two major famine-hit camps for displaced people on its outskirts. People displaced following RSF attacks on Zamzam displacement camp shelter in the town of Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan [Reuters] However, observers say attacks have intensified in recent months as the RSF suffered battlefield setbacks in Khartoum and other urban areas in the county’s east and centre. El-Fasher is estimated to be home to more than one million people, including hundreds of thousands of those displaced by the fighting. Aid ‘dangerously restricted’ The latest violence comes less than a week after a two-day attack by the RSF and its allied militias on e-Fasher, as well as the nearby Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps for internally displaced people, killed more than 400 people, according to the United Nations. The attack forced up to 400,000 people to flee the Zamzam camp, Sudan’s largest, which has become inaccessible to aid workers, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. On Monday, the UN’s humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher described the situation in the region as “horrifying”. He said he had spoken by phone with both SAF general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF second in command general Abdelrahim Dagalo, who committed to giving “full access to get aid in”. International aid agencies have long warned that a full-scale RSF assault on el-Fasher could lead to devastating urban warfare and a new wave of mass displacement. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has described the situation as “hell on earth” for at least 825,000 children trapped in and around el-Fasher. The UN also warned of a catastrophic humanitarian situation. “The humanitarian community in Sudan is facing critical and intensifying operational challenges in North Darfur,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said on Sunday. She added that “despite repeated appeals, humanitarian access to el-Fasher and surrounding areas remains dangerously restricted”, warning that the lack of access was increasing “the vulnerability of hundreds of thousands of people”. Nkweta-Salami called for UN and NGO actors to be granted “immediate and sustained access to these areas to ensure life-saving support can be delivered safely and at scale”. Meanwhile, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has called for aid airdrops into the city in the face of access restrictions. Sudan’s brutal civil war began on April 15, 2023, after a tenuous power-sharing agreement between SAF General al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, fell apart. To date, more than 24,000 people have been killed in the fighting, according to the UN, although activists say the number is likely far higher. Millions more have been displaced.f SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

The humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip is now likely at its worst point since October 2023,’ UNRWA says A medical team treats a wounded child at Nasser Medical Complex following an Israeli airstrike targeting a residential home in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza on April 19, 2025 [Hani Alshaer/Anadolu Agency] Nearly 600 children have been killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip since last month, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Monday. Citing figures released by the UN children’s agency (UNICEF), UNRWA said that over 1,600 other children have also been injured since Israel resumed its assaults on March 18. “The humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip is now likely at its worst point since October 2023,” it added. The Israeli army resumed its deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip on March 18 and has since killed 1,864 people and injured nearly 4,900 others despite a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January. More than 51,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children. Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave. Anadolu Ajansı © 2021

London Sudan Conference, 15 April 2025: Co-Chairs' Statement Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, United Kingdom [With Genocide Watch comments] Sudan is entering its third year of conflict. [This statement is false. The genocidal wars in Sudan date from 1983 when the Arab Gathering took control of the government in Khartoum and began its genocides against black Africans in South Sudan, Nuba Mountains, South Kordofan, Blue Nile, Abyei, and Darfur.] The Sudanese people continue to be subject to terrible violence and suffering. Today, the United Kingdom, the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), France and Germany brought together Foreign Ministers and high-level [Not a single Sudanese person except war lords of the genocidal Rapid Support Forces was invited.] Representatives from Canada, Chad [RSF arms conduit and base] , Egypt [SAF arms supplier] , Ethiopia, Kenya, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia [arms supplier] , Norway, Qatar, South Sudan, Switzerland, Türkiye [arms supplier] , United Arab Emirates [most important arms supplier of RSF and Darfur gold mine owner] , Uganda and United States of America, alongside high-level [Note the British emphasis on hierarchy] Representatives of the League of Arab States (LAS) and the United Nations (UN) for the London Sudan Conference, building on the objectives, principles and modalities enshrined in the outcomes of the International Humanitarian Conference for Sudan and Neighbouring countries held in Paris on the 15 April 2024. Together, the conference participants focused on making progress on our shared goals of ending this conflict and alleviating the suffering of the Sudanese people. [And giving speeches full of platitudes.] We reiterated our strong commitment to the sovereignty, unity, [???] independence and territorial integrity [???] of Sudan. We committed, again, to support their aspiration for a peaceful, united, democratic and just future. [ Is there any hope for such a democratic outcome if either the SAF under General Burhan or the RSF under General Hemedti win this war?] We committed to increase the international attention on the human cost of this conflict, including internal displacement, and its impact on neighbouring countries, which are hosting and supporting significant Sudanese refugee populations. We recognised the urgency of the humanitarian situation and discussed how we can best align and strengthen efforts to get assistance to those who need it most. We agreed on the urgency of decisive efforts [but nothing that would authorize a UN/AU force to intervene to stop the genocide] to resolve the conflict and emphasised that for these efforts to be effective, they need to be coherent as well as coordinated and based on comparative advantage and complementarity. We also agreed on the need to recognise the importance of Sudanese civilians, especially women and youth, as well as civil society [Not a single Sudanese civil society organization was invited to the conference.] , in any efforts to resolve the conflict and shape the future of Sudan. The participants agreed that international initiatives and engagements should focus on emphasising the responsibility of parties to the conflict to protect civilians and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law. They should build on Security Council Resolution 2736 (2024), [a UK sponsored toothless resolution that set no deadlines for a ceasefire, authorized no military force to enforce it, ignored the UAE’s blatant violation of the arms embargo on Darfur, called for no arrests of anyone charged with crimes against humanity and genocide by the ICC] and the Jeddah Declaration, as well as in the six core pillars articulated in the May 2023 AU Roadmap for the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of Sudan, and be guided by the following principles: The priority must be to reach an immediate and permanent ceasefire [The conference recommended no measures to achieve a ceasefire.] and end the conflict. [The conference recommended no measures to end the conflict.] The participants will proactively support efforts to find a peaceful solution and reject all activities, including external interference [The conference not only invited the UAE but avoided condemnation of the UAE’s arming of the RSF in blatant violation of the UN arms embargo on Darfur.] , that heighten tensions or that prolong or enable fighting. The international community [does this mythical beast even exist?] stressed the necessity of preventing any partition of Sudan. [The RSF declared on the conference’s first day that it was establishing a rival government in Darfur.] The participants underscored that the non-interference by outside actors [Are these “actors” or states at the conference?] remains paramount and rejected any plans, including any announcement of parallel governments, that risk the unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Sudan, and may jeopardise the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people. The participants support the transition to a civilian-led government. It must be Sudanese people – in the widest and most representative sense – who articulate and decide the political future of their country. [There was no British condemnation of the military coup d’état that overthrew partial civilian government in 2023.] This cannot be imposed from outside. We commend the outcomes of the preparatory meetings of the Inter-Sudanese Political Dialogue facilitated by the AU / IGAD, the Cairo Conference for Civilian and Political Sudanese Forces, held in July 2024, and the Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan. We encourage Sudanese civilian and political forces to engage in a constructive dialogue [i.e. more meaningless talk; no forceful action.] good faith in the second meeting of the Cairo Conference. Neighbouring states are directly affected by the conflict in Sudan and those present supported efforts to find a solution, including through the AU, IGAD, LAS and UN, and recognised wider support provided by the EU and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. We called on relevant parties to allow and facilitate rapid, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to all areas of need through all necessary routes in accordance with the commitments made in the Jeddah Declaration [i.e. more meaningless talk; no forceful action.] , and in adherence with their obligations under international humanitarian law. We, as international partners, will fully support all efforts to provide principled, needs-based humanitarian assistance [Less than ten percent of the aid needed in Sudan has been pledged. The RSF and SAF loot any aid that is sent in.] across Sudan. We applauded the courage of Emergency Response Room volunteers, noting that they continue to deliver essential humanitarian aid and provide first responder support to Sudanese in dire need. We agreed that, in forthcoming engagements with the parties, we will urge them to refrain from inflammatory rhetoric and to fully implement UNSC Resolutions 2724 (2024) and 2736 (2024), where relevant, and the AU Peace and Security Council Communiqués 1185 (2023) and 1218 (2024) on the situation in Sudan, the League of Arab States’ Summit decisions on Sudan, as well as the commitments made in the Jeddah Declaration. These include concrete obligations to ensure the protection of civilians. We welcomed the positive and constructive role of AU HLP-Sudan, the IGAD Special Envoy for Sudan, the LAS, and the UNSG Personal Envoy for Sudan. Recognising the urgency and the scale of the humanitarian crisis, including the impact of the 3.8m Sudanese refugees and returnees on neighbouring states, participants reiterated their call upon the warring parties to take concrete and immediate action to respect international humanitarian law and alleviate the suffering [i.e. more meaningless talk; no forceful action.] of the Sudanese people. We further expressed alarm over continued and heightened violence against international and national humanitarian workers, including mutual aid groups and emergency response room volunteers working within their communities, condemning such attacks in the strongest terms. Participants stressed the importance of accountability. We urged parties to lift all impediments, and guarantee safe, rapid, and unimpeded access throughout Sudan for humanitarian supplies and personnel. [i.e. more meaningless talk; no forceful action.] We specifically called on the parties to the conflict to respect the lifesaving and neutral character of humanitarian assistance, and to engage constructively with humanitarian agencies that deliver life-saving aid throughout Sudan in an impartial, safe and transparent manner. Participants expressed condolences to organisations and families of humanitarian workers who have lost their lives helping those in need. [Scores of humanitarian workers have been killed by the RSF and by SAF bombing.] We also called on parties to enable and facilitate the operations of humanitarian organisations, including the UN. We reaffirmed our commitment to the importance of preventative diplomacy [For over 25 years, diplomacy has not prevented genocide and crimes against humanity in Sudan.] by international partners, regional, continental and global multilateral bodies engaging in proactive measures to prevent further escalation of the conflict and foster stability in the region. Participants agreed a series of specific next steps, based on the principles of strategic coordination [What does this mean?] and comparative advantage [Ricardo’s free trade theories?] and through revived existing groupings attended by the participants of today’s event, including the AU Expanded Mechanism and the Consultative Meetings on Enhancing Coordination of Peace Initiatives and Efforts in Sudan. [i.e. Let diplomatic bureaucrats hold ineffective conferences in 5-star hotels.] Participants recognised the importance of integrated efforts on mediation processes on Sudan. Agreed by the co-chairs of the London Sudan Conference: the African Union, the European Union, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Who wrote this totally useless communiqué?

'I love my country but no one is safe': English-speaking minority refugees caught up in clashes between the military and separatists are stranded in neighbouring country Cameroonians Solange Ndonga Tibesa, 30, and Tessy Ekpang, 29, live in the Adagom settlement on land donated by the Nigerian government. Photograph: Eromo Egbejule/The Observer By Eromo Egbejule A mid the sound of children excitedly practising a drama for a forthcoming performance, a yam seller calls to passers by with discounts for their wares. Outside a closed graphic design shop overlooking them from a small hill, Solange Ndonga Tibesa tells the story of being uprooted from her homeland in north-west Cameroon . In June 2019 she and other travellers were abducted with her three-month-old baby by secessionists, who accused them of supporting the military. Their captors repeatedly hit them with butts of their guns, keeping them in a forest without food or water. “We stayed in a forest there for two days. My baby cried [so much]... and we just became used to the mosquitoes,” said the 30-year-old. “One of the boys was asking me to take off my clothes but I begged: ‘It’s better if you just kill me than rape me,’ before the other boys intervened.” Paul Biya is seeking his eighth term as Cameroon’s president, a position he has held since 1982.Photograph: Charles Platiau/Reuters In October, Cameroon goes to the polls, with 92-year-old Paul Biya, its president since 1982, running for an eighth term. An estimated 6.9 million people are registered to vote, but Tibesa, who fled into Cross River state in neighbouring Nigeria after her release, is one of thousands who cannot vote even if they wanted to. The vast majority of Nigeria’s eastern flank is with Cameroon. The entire corridor is swallowed by two overlapping axes of migration due to conflict: in the upper half are mostly Nigerians fleeing jihadists such as Boko Haram and the Islamic West Africa Province ; in the bottom half are Cameroonians fleeing a civil war in the English-speaking minority areas since 2017. About 107,000 refugees have come into Nigeria from Cameroon alone, according to figures from the UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency. Approximately half of that number live in and around Adagom, Cross River state, where 63 hectares (156 acres) of land donated by the Nigerian government hosts open settlements. The UNHCR pays households in these communities a monthly stipend and teaches skills acquisitions. Many Cameroonian refugees have integrated into life in neighbouring Nigeria, but long to return to their homeland and the life they left behind. Photograph: Eromo Egbejule/The Observer Many refugees have integrated with their Nigerian neighbours, some marrying each other, and passionately arguing about winning or losing bets on football matches. That similar dialects of pidgin English and Ejagham are spoken on both sides of the border has also helped. That has enabled many such as Tibesa to put trauma behind them to plough on. She is now working on being an all-rounder: she coaches a netball team, volunteers as a social worker and has taken classes in biofuel production and plastics recycling. Next to her, Tessy Ekpang, 29, who says soldiers killed two of her uncles, cannot wait to head to Kenya this month to begin studying pharmacy, courtesy of a fully funded scholarship. A five-minute drive away, an agricultural engineer named Edmund is fabricating solar power systems next to his fish pond with 3,000 fingerlings on a land sold to him by the Adagom community. The land that is now Cameroon was carved apart and patched together by European powers in the 19th and 20th century with little regard for its citizens or sense of national identity. A century ago, the entire country was the German colony of Kamerun. After the first world war, it was split between the British, which also administered neighbouring Nigeria, and the French. In a 1961 UN plebiscite, southern Cameroons voted to rejoin Cameroon, while northern Cameroons joined Nigeria. Now a predominantly Francophone nation, it has two anglophone regions in the west. For decades, anglophones complained of being treated as “second-class citizens”. When the military tried to quell peaceful protests about appointments of French-speaking judges and teachers in the English-speaking minority areas in 2016, armed groups known as “Amba Boys” clashed with them and declared the breakaway republic of Ambazonia . The impact on the civilian population has been massive: among other things, schools were closed as bridges were cut in two, disconnecting villages. More than 4,000 civilians have been killed and at least 712,000 displaced within and outside the country. “No single person is in my village again,” said Ekpang. Aid workers say half of the combined 4 million people in both regions are in need of humanitarian support, which could now be hampered by the reshaping of foreign aid . In 2024, the US funded approximately half of UNHCR’s budget in Nigeria. “We are deeply concerned by the growing gap between needs and resources, and the massive impact [funding cuts] will have on millions of people displaced by war and persecution,” said Alpha Seydi Ba, a Dakar-based UNHCR representative. Many say the conflict lingers because the government is unwilling to decentralise power or engage with the separatists, which it has described as terrorists. Many young men suspected of being separatists have been detained in prisons, according to Human Rights Watch. A national dialogue organised in 2019 by Biya’s government failed as key separatist movements were not included. Canada and Switzerland have also separately tried to mediate in the crisis but with little success. October’s election could, therefore, be crucial for any peace efforts. If Biya wins, as is widely expected, many expect business as usual. If his health keeps him from the ballot, it is rumoured that he and the party will appoint his 53-year-old son, Franck Biya, to run in his stead. Analysts say there must be a push for dialogue again regardless of the election’s outcome. “Cameroon’s international partners should press for inclusive dialogue to resume… [and] highlight the need to strengthen governance and expedite decentralisation so the anglophone regions benefit from the autonomy their ‘special status’ should have granted them,” said Hubert Kinkoh, a researcher with the Institute for Security Studies in Addis Ababa. For the refugees in Adagom, the clock is ticking and the losses rising. Tibesa would love to be able to return to Cameroon. “But when I see pictures of people that have been killed, I just burst out into tears because I really love my country,” she said. “But nobody is safe. If you run to the army, the Amba Boys will pursue you. If you run to the Amba Boys, the army will pursue you.” © 2025 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. (dcr)

Bangladesh demands genocide apology for 1971 atrocities as talks with Pakistan resume after 15 years. Foreign secretary says he raised historically ‘unsettled issues’ with Pakistan. Bangladesh’s foreign secretary Jashim Uddin (centre, right) and Pakistan’s foreign secretary Amna Baloch (centre, left) during a bilateral meeting in Dhaka this week (Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs) By Alisha Rahaman Sarkar Bangladesh has demanded a formal apology from Pakistan for the genocide committed against Bangladeshis, as both countries resumed talks after 15 years. Foreign ministry officials from Bangladesh ’s interim government and Pakistan met in Dhaka on Thursday, as the Muhammad Yunus administration pushes to ease strained relations between the two nations . The two nations have seen a drastic improvement in bilateral relations since the interim government, led by Nobel laureate Mr Yunus, took power in Bangladesh after protests toppled former prime minister Sheikh Hasina last August and sent her fleeing to India. Bangladesh was once a part of Pakistan but became independent after a nine-month war with Islamabad in 1971. Ms Hasina’s Awami League party regularly criticised Pakistan for atrocities during the nine-month-long war , which Dhaka won with India’s help. Bangladesh claims around three million people were killed and approximately 200,000 women were raped by Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan rejects these claims and has never officially apologised. Bangladesh’s foreign secretary, Jashim Uddin, said that during the talks, he raised historically “unsettled issues” with Pakistan, including a formal public apology for atrocities committed by Pakistani troops in 1971 during Bangladesh’s war of independence. Dhaka has also demanded $4.52bn from Pakistan as its share of pre-1971 assets, which include foreign aid, unpaid provident funds, savings instruments, and $200m given by international donors for the 1970 cyclone that killed between 300,000 and 500,000 people. “These issues need to be resolved for having a solid foundation of our relations,” Mr Uddin told reporters on Thursday. The two sides also discussed the expansion of trade and commerce and increasing cooperation in agriculture and other sectors, he added. Dr Yunus’s office said in a statement late Thursday that he held a separate meeting with the Pakistani foreign secretary and emphasised “strengthening ties with Pakistan to boost mutual cooperation and explore trade and business potentials”. “There are certain hurdles. We have to find ways to overcome those and move forward,” he told Pakistan’s foreign secretary, Amna Baloch. The last such consultation between the two countries was held in Islamabad in 2010, after Ms Hasina came to power in the 2008 election with a landslide victory. Earlier in February, both countries resumed direct trade after over 50 years. Dhaka has also simplified the visa process for Pakistanis to further strengthen economic relations, and the interim government has removed the requirement for clearance from Dhaka for Pakistani heads of missions to obtain visas. The strengthening of ties comes as Bangladesh’s relations with India have become increasingly tense. Bangladesh’s interim leader has criticised India for sheltering Ms Hasina in the country and has sought her extradition, with no positive response from India. Earlier this month, India cancelled a transhipment facility that allowed Bangladesh to export its primarily garment products to third countries using Indian airports and other Indian infrastructure. The move is expected to impact Bangladesh’s roughly $39bn annual ready-made garment exports by increasing trade costs with the European Union, Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar. Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest garment producer after China. New Delhi and Dhaka have accused each other of failing to protect minorities in their respective countries in an ever-escalating dispute. The Independent 2025

April 17, 2025 A team from Christian Solidarity International was on the ground in Nigeria as the killings unfolded Nenche Steven, 7, was attacked with a machete in the Palm Sunday massacre. Most of his family was killed. On April 13, Palm Sunday, Fulani militias massacred 56 people in a Christian village in Plateau State in Nigeria, CSI has learned from its staff on the ground. CSI’s Nigeria project manager arrived in Jos, the capital of Plateau State, on April 12. “Since I arrived, there has been an attack on Christian villages every night,” he reports. “On April 15, I visited some victims at Jos University Teaching Hospital; three people died in the hospital that day. The majority of the victims had been hacked on the back of their necks with machetes.” CSI’s partners in Plateau State have provided a partial list of Fulani militia attacks (see below) between March 27 and April 13, which killed a total of 126 Christians, including women and children. Some 7,000 more have been displaced. The attacks included a massacre of 12 mourners at a funeral in Ruwi village on March 27, and the gang-rape of a 19-year-old woman. The massacre on April 13, in Zike village of Bassa local government area, was the deadliest. Despite the presence of an “peacekeeping force” from the Nigerian military in Plateau State, CSI’s president, Dr. John Eibner, reports that “there has been no effective intervention from Nigeria’s extensive and well-funded security apparatus and no arrests.” In the hospital in Jos, CSI’s project manager met a seven-year-old boy named Nenche Steven. Fulani militiamen shot his father dead in the April 13 attack, and then used machetes to cut off his mother’s arms and kill his two siblings. Nenche was hacked on the neck with a machete and left for dead. Three days later in his hospital room, he was still screaming and vomiting from the pain. Our project manager also met a woman named Naomi Ezekiel Gama. On April 2, she was sitting under a tree in front of her house with her husband when she saw Fulani militiamen approaching on motorbikes. She managed to hide inside the house, but her husband, an Anglican pastor, was shot dead. Since 2018, militias from the Muslim Fulani ethnic group have been systematically attacking Christian villages in Nigeria’s fertile Middle Belt region, occupying their land and displacing millions. CSI issued a genocide warning for Christians in Nigeria in 2020. “This violence is driven by the longstanding determination of Nigeria’s Muslim Fulani-dominated ruling class to gain dominion over the predominantly Christian Middle Belt,” Eibner commented. “The Fulani militias are their instruments. They are waging jihad – in pursuit of the same goals as their spiritual and political forefather, Usman Dan Fodio, the founder of Nigeria’s 19th century Fulani-led caliphate.” CSI has been providing aid to victims of Islamist terrorist attacks in Nigeria since 2013, and will continue to do so. Our project manager reports, “Urgent needs are food, medical treatments, fertilizers for farming as the rainy season is about to start, and roofing materials for destroyed houses.” Eibner condemned the “indifference” to these massacres in the Western world. For Western leaders, he commented, “Christian victims like Nenche have no economic or political value that merits concern, especially if they are also black Africans.” “These heinous massacres are simply the latest episode in the ongoing, slow-motion genocide of Nigeria’s Middle Belt Christians,” CSI’s director for public advocacy, Joel Veldkamp, said. “The international community, especially the United States and other allies of Nigeria’s Fulani-dominated military establishment, must demand accountability from the Nigerian government.” Attacks on Christians in Nigeria’s Plateau State since March 24, 2025: March 24: Fulani militiamen abduct a 19-year-old woman and gang-rape her for four days in Tahoss, Riyom Local Government Area (LGA). March 27: Suspected Fulani militiamen attack and kill 12 mourners in Ruwi village of Bokkos LGA. April 2 : 15 villages in the Hurti community, Bokkos LGA, are simultaneously attacked by suspected Fulani militias, resulting in the death of 56 people including women and children. 28 are injured and over 5,000 people displaced. April 6: Emmanuel Daou of Dabwam in Riyom LGA is injured in an ambush laid by Fulani militiamen. On the same day, Mr. Bitrus Gyang Mwanja of Fwil Community, Vwang District of Jos South LGA is attacked and killed by Fulani militiamen. April 10: Gyang Danbwarang and Joshua Mwagwong of Tanjol, Riyom LGA, are injured in an ambush laid by Fulani militiamen. April 12: Daniel Mwanti of Wereng Community, Riyom LGA, is attacked and shot dead by Fulani militiamen. Fulani militiamen also destroy crops on farmlands belonging to Ishaya Danbwarang. April 13: Lliya Gyang of Byei has his crops destroyed by Fulani militiamen. April 13: Armed Fulani militants invade Zike village in Kimakpa Community, Kwall District of Bassa LGA, killing 56 people, 15 of whom are children. 9 are injured and over 2,000 people displaced. 103 houses are completely razed. Christian Solidarity International is an international human rights group campaigning for religious liberty and human dignity. Contact: Joel Veldkamp | joel.veldkamp@csi-int.org

February 2, 2025 What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. America exists because its people elect those who make and execute laws. The assumption of a democracy is that individuals have dignity and rights that they realize and protect by acting together. The people who now dominate the executive branch of the government deny all of this, and are acting, quite deliberately, to destroy the nation. For them, only a few people, the very wealthy with a certain worldview, have rights, and the first among these is to dominate. For them, there is no such thing as an America, or Americans, or democracy, or citizens, and they act accordingly. Now that the oligarchs and their clients are inside the federal government, they are moving, illegally and unconstitutionally, to take over its institutions. The parts of the government that work to implement laws have been maligned for decades. Americans have been told that the people who provide them with services are conspirators within a “deep state.” We have been instructed that the billionaires are the heroes. All of this work was preparatory to the coup that is going on now. The federal government has immense capacity and control over trillions of dollars. That power was a cocreation of the American people. It belongs to them. The oligarchs around Trump are working now to take it for themselves. Theirs is a logic of destruction. It is very hard to create a large, legitimate, functioning government. The oligarchs have no plan to govern. They will take what they can, and disable the rest. The destruction is the point. They don’t want to control the existing order. They want disorder in which their relative power will grow. Think of the federal government as a car. You might have thought that the election was like getting the car serviced. Instead, when you come into the shop, the mechanics, who somehow don’t look like mechanics, tell you that they have taken the parts of your car that work and sold them and kept the money. And that this was the most efficient thing to do. And that you should thank them. The gap between the oligarchs’ wealth and everyone else’s will grow. Knowing what they themselves will do and when, they will have bet against the stock market in advance of Trump’s deliberately destructive tariffs, and will be ready to tell everyone to buy the crypto they already own. But that is just tomorrow and the day after. In general, the economic collapse they plan is more like a reverse flood from the Book of Genesis, in which the righteous will all be submerged while the very worst ride Satan’s ark. The self-chosen few will ride out the forty days and forty night. When the waters subside, they will be alone to dominate. Trump’s tariffs (which are also likely illegal ) are there to make us poor. Trump’s attacks on America’s closest friends, countries such as Canada and Denmark, are there to make enemies of countries where constitutionalism works and people are prosperous. As their country is destroyed, Americans must be denied the idea that anything else is possible. Deportations are a spectacle to turn Americans against one another, to make us afraid, and to get us to see pain and camps as normal. They also create busy-work for law enforcement, locating the “criminals” in workplaces across the country, as the crime of the century takes place at the very center of power. The best people in American federal law enforcement, national security, and national intelligence are being fired. The reasons given for this are DEI and trumpwashing the past. Of course, if you fire everyone who was concerned in some way with the investigations of January 6th or of Russia, that will be much or even most of the FBI. Those are bad reasons, but the reality is worse: the aim is lawlessness: to get the police and the patriots out of the way. In the logic of destruction, there is no need to rebuild afterwards. In this chaos, the oligarchs will tell us that there is no choice but to have a strong man in charge. It can be a befuddled Trump signing ever larger pieces of paper for the cameras, or a conniving Vance who, unlike Trump, has always known the plot. Or someone else. After we are all poor and isolated, the logic goes, we will be consoled by the thought that there is at least a human being to whom we can appeal. We will settle for a kind of anthropological minimum, wishful contact with the strong man. As in Russia, pathetic video selfies sent to the Leader will be the extent of politics. For the men currently pillaging the federal government, the data from those video selfies is more important than the people who will make them. The new world they imagine is not just anti-American but anti-human. The people are just data, means to the end of accumulating wealth. They see themselves as the servants of the freedom of the chosen few, but in fact they are possessed, like millennia of tyrants before them, of fantastic dreams: they will live forever, they will go to Mars. None of that will happen; they will die here on Earth, with the rest of us, their only legacy, if we let it happen, one of ruins. They are god-level brainrotted. The attempt by the oligarchs to destroy our government is illegal, unconstitutional, and more than a little mad. The people in charge, though, are very intelligent politically, and have a plan. I describe it not because it must succeed but because it must be described so that we can make it fail. This will require clarity, and speed, and coalitions. I try to capture the mood in my little book On Tyranny . Here are a few ideas. If you voted Republican, and you care about your country, please act rather than rationalize. Unless you cast your ballot so that South African oligarchs could steal your data, your money, your country, and your future, make it known to your elected officials that you wanted something else. And get ready to protest with people with whom you otherwise disagree. Almost everything that has happened during this attempted takeover is illegal. Lawsuits can be filed and courts can order that executive orders be halted. This is crucial work . Much of what is happening, though, involves private individuals whose names are not even known, and who have no legal authority, wandering through government offices and issuing orders beyond even the questionable authority of executive orders. Their idea is that they will be immunized by their boldness. This must be proven wrong. Some of this will reach the Supreme Court quickly. I am under no illusion that the majority of justices care about the rule of law. They know, however, that our belief in it makes their office something other than the undignified handmaiden of oligarchy. If they legalize the coup, they are irrelevant forever. Individual Democrats in the Senate and House have legal and institutional tools to slow down the attempted oligarchical takeover. There should also be legislation. It might take a moment, but even Republican leaders might recognize that the Senate and House will no longer matter in a post-American oligarchy without citizens. Trump should obviously be impeached. Either he has lost control, or he is using his power to do obviously illegal things. If Republicans have a sense of where this is going, there could be the votes for an impeachment and prosecution. Those considering impeachment should also include Vance. He is closer to the relevant oligarchs than Trump, and more likely to be aware of the logic of destruction than he. The oligarchs have likely factored in, or perhaps even want, the impeachment and prosecution of Trump. Unlike Vance, Trump has charisma and followers, and could theoretically resist them. He won’t; but he poses a hypothetical risk to the oligarchs that Vance does not. Democrats who serve in state office as governors have a chance to profile themselves, or more importantly to profile an America that still works. Attorneys general in states have a chance to enforce state laws, which will no doubt have been broken. The Democratic Party has a talented new chair. Democrats will need instruments of active opposition, such as a People’s Cabinet , in which prominent Democrats take responsibility for following government departments. It would be really helpful to have someone who can report to the press and the people what is happening inside Justice, Defense, Transportation, and the Treasury, and all the others, starting this week. Federal workers should stay in office, if they can, for as long as they can. This is not political, but existential, for them and for all of us. They will have a better chance of getting jobs afterwards if they are fired. And the logic of their firing is to make the whole government fail. The more this can be slowed down, the longer the rest of us have to get traction. And companies? As every CEO knows, the workings of markets depend upon the government creating a fair playing field. The ongoing takeover will make life impossible for all but a few companies. Can American companies responsibly pay taxes to a US Treasury controlled by their private competitors? Tesla paid no federal tax at all in 2024. Should other companies pay taxes that, for all they know, will just enrich Tesla’s owner? Commentators should please stop using words such as “digital” and “progress” and “efficiency” and “vision” when describing this coup attempt. The plotting oligarchs have legacy money from an earlier era of software, which they are now seeking to leverage, using destructive political techniques, to destroy human institutions. That’s it. They are offering no future beyond acting out their midlife crises on the rest of us. It is demeaning to pretend that they represent something besides a logic of destruction. As for the rest of us: Make sure you are talking to people and doing something. The logic of “move fast and break things,” like the logic of all coups, is to gain quick dramatic successes that deter and demoralize and create the impression of inevitability. Nothing is inevitable. Do not be alone and do not be dismayed. Find someone who is doing something you admire and join them. What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. Sometimes self-government just means elections. And sometimes it means recognizing the deeper dignity and meaning of what it means to be a people. That means speaking up, standing out, and protesting. We can only be free together. © 2025 Timothy Snyder

Alexey Strelnikov  | Oleksandr Kunyzkyj 04/19/2025 Forcibly conscripting soldiers to fight for an occupying power is a war crime. DW spoke with human rights activists and Ukrainians about how residents are being pressured into military service by their invaders. Russian army conscription is at its highest in over a decade. Image: /Russian Defence Ministry/TASS/dpa/picture alliance This spring marks the highest rate of military conscription that Russia has seen in 14 years. In late March, Russian President Vladimir Putin  issued a decree ordering 160,000 men aged 18 to 30 to be called up. Their year of service began on April 10. Russia's Defense Ministry claims that the latest round of conscription, which takes place biannually in spring and autumn, has nothing to do with the war against Ukraine . But men in the Russian-occupied regions of Donetsk , Luhansk , Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are also being drafted. According to Ukraine's Eastern Human Rights Group (EHRG), at least 300 people from the occupied territories were conscripted into the Russian army in fall 2024, including around 200 from the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and 100 from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Few options in occupied territories "If I'm forcibly mobilized, I'll shoot myself," says Oleksii (name changed). The 21-year-old lives in the Russian-occupied part of Zaporizhzhia, where he wants to stay with his family. "I would have to start my life all over again," he says. Although Oleksii now has a Russian passport, he has so far been spared conscription. But since last fall, the Russian occupation authorities have been requiring men to enlist in the military, he says. A billboard for Russian passports in the Russia-controlled region of Luhansk in 2022. Image: dpa/AP/picture alliance Without Russian ID, it is almost impossible to get a job or study at a university, Oleksii explains. While he is not aware of any cases of forced conscription for military service, he says that pro-Russian men have volunteered to sign contracts with the Russian army. Another man, a 28-year-old resident of an occupied village in the Luhansk region, describes a similar situation. He has not yet accepted a Russian passport and the occupation authorities are making life difficult for people like him, he says. SIM cards cannot be purchased without a Russian ID, for example, as telecommunications are under Russian control, as  human rights  activists have confirmed. Pressure to fulfill Russia's mobilization plan Those who join the Russian military are first sent to Russia for training, usually in the southern Rostov and Krasnodar regions, but also near St. Petersburg  or Moscow . Some are sent to the illegally annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. According to Pavlo Lysianskyi, a Ukrainian human rights activist and head of the Institute for Strategic Research and Security, the Russian army has not set up its own barracks in the occupied territories for security reasons. Russian soldiers ahead of deployment to the front in Ukraine in November 2022. Image: Donat Sorokin/dpa/TASS/picture alliance "After their training, many conscripts are sent to the front upon signing a contract with the Russian army," Lysianskyi says. This decision is sometimes voluntary, but often made under duress due to a lack of alternatives, he adds. Only a few conscripts from the occupied territories avoid being sent to the front, often by getting stationed near St. Petersburg or Moscow through connections and bribery. According to Lysianskyi, only 15 men managed this last year. The reason is that the Russian military is under pressure to fulfil its mobilization plan. "They are trying to compensate for the lack of regular soldiers with men who have already completed their military service," he says. Sketchy circumstances Such a case was described in a Telegram channel that focuses on mobilization in the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic." According to the account, a man from the occupied part of the Donetsk was sent to the Krasnodar region for military service and told that he would be deployed to the front at the end of his training. "The commanders said that everything had already been signed for him," the channel's author Mikhail (name changed) told DW. The man turned to the Russian military prosecutor's office for help but his fate is unknown, Mikhail says. A recruiting office in Donetsk, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2022. mage: Stringer/AA/picture alliance. Those who have accepted a Russian passport and are over 18 are not the only ones subject to compulsory military service. Anyone who completed their military service in the so-called "Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics" prior to February 2022 (before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine) is also required to serve. According to Mikhail, this also includes members of the separatist "people's militias" in the occupied regions that existed from 2014 to 2022, who have been sent to Russia for military service. In addition, men of conscription age in those areas are being summoned to the conscription office to register for their military service. "But I can't say what the extent of this is," he says. Punishment for conscientious objectors It is practically impossible to refuse service in the Russian army, says Olha Skrypnyk, head of Ukraine's Crimean Human Rights Group. Russia began illegally conscripting men in 2015 — first in annexed Crimea , then in other occupied areas of Ukraine, she says. "Before the full-scale Russian invasion, around 6,000 people were conscripted in Crimea every year. We currently have no figures, but they have probably increased," Skrypnyk adds. A conscript in the Russian-occupied Crimean city of Simferopol receives his uniform before departing for his military service. Image: Sergei Malgavko/Tass/picture alliance Refusing to serve in Russia can result in a prison sentence of up to two years. According to human rights organizations, at least 583 criminal proceedings have been opened in Crimea alone. However, according to the Russian-language online news magazine Verstka , which is critical of the Kremlin , none of those affected received a prison sentence in the first half of 2024: Three were sentenced to probation and the others received fines. Forced conscription is a war crime However, these punishments would not exempt anyone from serving in the Russian army, says Skrypnyk, emphasizing that conscription into the military in the occupied territories violates international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime. Russia has been forcibly conscripting Ukrainians living in the occupied territories into the army since 2022 and often abuses them as "human shields," she says. "We know of cases where drafted, unarmed men were put in front of the regular army, making them the first to be attacked. This was practiced en masse in 2022." According to the Crimean Human Rights Group, Russia deployed numerous recruits from annexed Crimea during its invasion of Ukraine. Skrypnyk says that at least 1,873 members of Russian units in Crimea have fallen since 2022, while 116 Crimean residents have been taken prisoner by the Ukrainian armed forces. This article was originally written in German. © 2025 Deutsche Welle.