Imagery verified by CNN shows the aftermath of an attack on the western edge of Maungdaw township’s Myo Ma ward. GENOCIDE EMERGENCY:  MAUNGDAW, RAKHINE STATE, MYANMAR DECEMBER 2024 The Arakan Army (AA) has launched an aggressive campaign  to seize control of Maungdaw, Myanmar, displacing tens of thousands of Rohingya under the pretext of civilian protection. Forced evacuations have caused shortages of food , clean water and healthcare . Hundreds of Rohingya have been killed.   Rohingya men have been forcibly conscripted into both the Arakan and Myanmar Armies. Many Rohingya have crossed into Bangladesh , where they face extortion, detention, and insecurity in vast refugee camps. The crisis escalated in June 2024  when the Arakan Army (AA) advanced into a densely populated Rohingya town near Maungdaw, forcing thousands to flee. On June 16, the AA ordered the evacuation of the town. This evacuation order coincided with the Eid ul-Adha festival, caused panic among Rohingya Muslim residents. AA forces launched drone  and artillery attacks on residential areas , targeting neighborhoods such as Myoma Kanyintan , where the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) was conscripting Rohingya men. AA bombs destroyed homes and injured residents sheltering in mosques and concrete buildings. On August 5  AA drone and artillery fire targeted civilians  gathered on the Naf River shore, to cross into Bangladesh. Eyewitnesses reported attacks from AA-controlled positions in Shwezar, Maung Ni, and Pan Taw Pyin , which killed hundreds of Rohingya civilians. Refugees described scores of bodies strewn along the shore. The AA attacks were likely triggered by the gathering of armed RSO troops at a nearby dock. Following the August 5 massacre, AA forces began systematically evacuating the remaining Rohingya population from Maungdaw town. Civilians were forcibly relocated  to AA-controlled areas, including the derelict Hla Poe Kaung transit camp and to depopulated villages such as Pan Taw Pyin. Evacuees faced severe lack of shelter, food, and medical care. Many were subjected to forced conscription , prompting further displacement. Refugees described perilous escapes across the Naf River to Bangladesh. They often fell victim to extortion by armed groups, including the RSO and AA, who stole valuables and abused women . The AA’s actions mirror the Myanmar military’s clearance operations of 2017 , which were joined by Rakhine militias. The 2017 massacres displaced over 800,000 Rohingya. By forcibly evacuating the remaining Rohingya enclaves in Maungdaw, the AA has continued the systematic erasure of the Rohingya presence in Rakhine State. Refugee testimonies highlight the diminished influence of armed Rohingya resistance groups, contrary to AA claims of their pervasive threat. The RSO and SAC have largely replaced the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in Maungdaw. The Rohingya community in Maungdaw stands at the brink of annihilation. Without immediate and decisive intervention, attacks by the Myanmar Army and the Arakan Army will lead to the destruction of the remaining Rohingyas in Myanmar. Genocide Watch considers Myanmar to be at Stage 3: Discrimination, Stage 5: Organization, Stage 8: Persecution, Stage 9: Extermination, and Stage 10: Denial Genocide Watch recommends that :   States directly impacted by the Rohingya Genocide and the resulting refugee crisis, particularly including Bangladesh and Malaysia, should intervene in The Gambia v. Myanmar case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under Article 62 of the Statute of the ICJ. The deadline for such interventions is 30 December 2024.   Other States Parties to the Genocide Convention should also intervene in The Gambia v. Myanmar  case before the ICJ under Article 63 of the Statute of the ICJ. The deadline for such interventions is 30 December 2024.   States Parties to the Genocide Convention should provide financial support to The Gambia to sustain its claim against Myanmar before the ICJ. They should also provide humanitarian aid to the Rohingya community in Bangladesh.   As the incoming Chair of ASEAN for 2025, Malaysia must lead decisive, effective measures to ensure safe passage and protection for Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide.

UN report finds at least 782 civilians killed since May ‘amid regular and intensive shelling’ of the North Darfur city. New UN report comes as WFP says three of its staff were killed in aerial bombardment [File: Abubakar Garelnabei/WFP via Reuters] More than 700 people have been killed in el-Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur state since May, the United Nations human rights chief has said, imploring the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to halt a siege of the city. The siege and “the relentless fighting are devastating lives every day on a massive scale”, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement on Friday. “This alarming situation cannot continue. The Rapid Support Forces must end this horrible siege.” The UN rights office said it had documented the deaths of at least 782 civilians and more than 1,143 injured since May, citing evidence based partly on interviews of those who had fled the area. It said the casualties came amid regular and intensive shelling by the RSF of densely populated residential areas as well as recurrent air attacks by the Sudanese Armed Forces. Such attacks on civilians may amount to war crimes, the UN human rights office said. Both sides have repeatedly denied deliberately attacking civilians and have accused each other of doing so in el-Fasher and its surroundings. The Sudanese army under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, have been locked in conflict for more than 18 months. The war has triggered a profound humanitarian crisis in which more than 12 million people have been driven from their homes and UN agencies have struggled to deliver relief. El-Fasher is one of the most active front lines between the RSF and the Sudanese army and its allies, which are fighting to maintain a last foothold in the Darfur region. Observers fear that an RSF victory there could bring ethnic retribution, as happened in West Darfur last year. WFP staff killed The city has faced intense attacks over the past week. Last Friday, paramilitary shelling on the city’s main hospital killed nine people and wounded 20, the head of the World Health Organization said. On Wednesday, more RSF attacks on the hospital and other parts of the city left 10 civilians dead and 20 wounded, according to pro-democracy activists. A paramilitary drone attack also killed at least 38 people in the city centre on Sunday. Nearby Zamzam Camp, where experts say a famine is occurring among a population of more than half a million people, has also come under RSF artillery fire over the last two weeks, forcing thousands to leave the camp. Turk warned that any large-scale attack on Zamzam or el-Fasher would “catapult civilian suffering to catastrophic levels”. “All efforts must be taken, including by the international community, to prevent such an attack and to halt the siege,” he added. Fighting has also continued to rage in other parts of the country. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday condemned the killing of three World Food Programme (WFP) staff members in an attack a day earlier. Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for Guterres, said the agency’s field office in Yabus, in Blue Nile State, was hit by aerial bombardment. “The Secretary-General condemns all attacks on UN and aid personnel and facilities. He calls for a thorough investigation,” Dujarric said in a statement. The comments came shortly after WFP announced the killings in a statement on X, expressing “outrage”. The incident, Dujarric said, “underscores the devastating toll that Sudan’s brutal conflict is having on millions of people in need and the humanitarians trying to reach them with life-saving assistance”. He said 2024 is the “deadliest year on record” for aid workers in Sudan, and reiterated calls for an immediate ceasefire. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

The AU has a responsibility to intervene to protect civilians. By Tafi Mhaka 26 December 2024 Families displaced by RSF advances in Sudan's El Gezira and Sennar states shelter at the Omar ibn al-Khattab displacement site, Kassala state, Sudan, July 10, 2024 [Faiz Abubakr/Reuters] In Sudan, 20 months of armed conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army (SAF) have killed at least 20,000 people and left some 25 million – half of the country’s population – suffering from severe hunger and in urgent need of humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, 14 million Sudanese have been displaced, with about 3.1 million seeking refuge outside the country, mainly in Chad, South Sudan, Uganda, and Egypt. As is often the case, children are bearing the brunt of this brutal war. According to medical organisation Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, approximately one in six of those treated at the Bashair Teaching Hospital in South Khartoum for war-related injuries, such as gunshot, shrapnel and blast wounds, between January and September 2024 were aged 15 or below. The medical team revealed that they recently treated an 18-month-old baby, Riyad, who was hit by a stray bullet while napping in his family’s home. They said they managed to stabilise him but were unable to remove the bullet from his chest. Amid ongoing conflict and limited access to medical care, the future of Riyad, like thousands of other war-wounded, traumatised and orphaned children across the country, remains uncertain. Sexual violence is also rife in Sudan’s conflict. Forces commanded by both the RSF and the SAF have committed rape and other acts of sexual and gender-based violence, revealed the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan in its report published in October. The report accused both sides of using rape as a weapon of war but said the RSF was behind the “large majority” of documented cases and was responsible for “sexual violence on a large scale”, including “gang rapes and abducting and detaining victims in conditions that amount to sexual slavery”. Amid ongoing conflict, survivors of rape and other sexual violence struggle to access medical treatment, essential medication, and psychological support services. Many are left wounded, traumatised, and homeless. With war crimes and other atrocities committed against men, women and even children on a daily basis with impunity, Sudan’s conflict has come to represent the worst of humanity. As the people of Sudan prepare to begin another year hungry, wounded and scared, the international community, and especially the African organisations allegedly committed to ensuring peace and stability in the region, have a responsibility to take meaningful action – including direct intervention. So far, efforts to put an end to the suffering of the Sudanese by mediating between the warring parties have all been fruitless. Peace initiatives led by the African Union (AU), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the United States, Egypt and Switzerland have all failed to secure a sustainable ceasefire, a comprehensive peace agreement or meaningful protections for the civilian population. In May 2023, just one month into the conflict, the two warring sides appeared to have reached a pivotal agreement in Saudi Arabia. They signed the Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan, agreeing to “distinguish at all times between civilians and combatants and between civilian objects and military targets”. As part of the agreement they also pledged to “refrain from any attack that may be expected to cause incidental civilian harm” and to “protect all public and private facilities, such as hospitals and water and electricity installations”. The agreement was supposed to result in at least a weeklong ceasefire, but in the end could not stop atrocities against civilians, let alone the relentless fighting between SAF and RSF, even for 48 hours. Since this US- and Saudi Arabia-led initiative failed some 19 months ago, no peace initiative has come anywhere near putting an end to the carnage in Sudan. In August, talks convened by the US in Switzerland to end the war achieved some progress on aid access, but once again failed to secure a ceasefire. Efforts to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table and appeals to their humanity to demand an end to the attacks on civilians are clearly not working. More needs to be done. In its harrowing report, based on testimonies from the ground, the UN fact-finding mission made clear what the country needs: An international peacekeeping force to be deployed to protect civilians. “Given the failure of the warring parties to spare civilians, it is imperative that an independent and impartial force with a mandate to safeguard civilians be deployed without delay,” the UN mission’s lead, Chande Othman, said in September. Regrettably, the Sudanese government rejected the call, just as it rejected IGAD’s similar call for the deployment of a regional peacekeeping force back in July 2023. The military government in Khartoum – which has been in office since seizing power from a civilian-led transitional authority in an October 2021 coup – frames any potential external intervention, including peacekeeping missions solely focused on the protection of the civilian population, as a violation of the country’s sovereignty. If the Sudanese government was able to provide protection to civilians, its rejection of outside intervention would be understandable. But it is obvious – after 20 months of devastating war fought with no regard for international humanitarian law – that no party in this war is capable of, or sufficiently concerned about, providing safety, security and dignity to Sudan’s beleaguered civilian population. Without the deployment of a regional peacekeeping mission backed by the international community – a mission committed to and clearly tasked with putting an immediate end to the relentless attacks on civilians – the suffering of the Sudanese civilians will not come to an end in the foreseeable future. Today, the global community, and especially the AU, faces a simple choice: Remain passive while the death toll in Sudan continues to rise, or take meaningful and decisive measures – even if it upsets the Sudanese government – to address the crisis. The regional body would lose any legitimacy if it chooses to watch idly as innocent lives are lost to senseless violence in a war without end. As such, it is time for the AU to intervene in Sudan’s war in order to protect civilians. This would not infringe the sovereignty of the Sudanese state – or constitute an overreach on the part of the Union. According to Act 4(h) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which Sudan assented to in July 2000, the AU has the right to “intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely: war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity”. Given the overwhelming number of breaches of international humanitarian law and human rights law documented in detail by the UN mission and others, the state of affairs in Sudan is undoubtedly “grave”. There is no doubt that the citizens of Sudan would derive significant benefits from the physical protection provided by international peacekeeping forces. Although the extensive territory of Sudan and the widespread nature of warfare would present significant challenges in ensuring the safety of millions of civilians, this task is not beyond reach. By implementing effective planning and mobilising an adequate number of troops, the AU has the potential to have a substantial effect. Sudan stands as a clear test of the AU’s capability to implement and uphold its wide-ranging mandate. If it is to realise its vision of “an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena”, it cannot afford to continue to fail the Sudanese people. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

More children than ever have been forcibly displaced from their homes due to conflict, according to the UN agency. The grandchildren of Reda Abu Zarada sit by a fire at a camp by the sea in Khan Younis, the Gaza Strip [File: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP] 28 December 2024 About 473 million, or more than one in six children, are estimated to live in conflict areas worldwide, according to the United Nations children’s agency. UNICEF’s statement came on Saturday as conflicts continue to rage around the world, including in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, among other places. In Israel’s devastating war on Gaza in particular, at least 17,492 children have reportedly been killed in nearly 15 months of conflict that has reduced much of the enclave to rubble. “By almost every measure, 2024 has been one of the worst years on record for children in conflict in UNICEF ’s history – both in terms of the number of children affected and the level of impact on their lives,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. According to Russell, a child growing up in a conflict zone is far more likely to be out of school, malnourished, or forced from their home compared with a child living in places with no conflict. “This must not be the new normal. We cannot allow a generation of children to become collateral damage to the world’s unchecked wars,” the director said. The proportion of children living in areas of conflict has doubled – from about 10 percent in the 1990s to almost 19 percent today, UNICEF said. According to the report, 47.2 million children were displaced due to conflict and violence by the end of 2023. The trends for 2024 indicate a further increase in displacement because various conflicts have intensified, including in Haiti, Lebanon, Myanmar, the Palestinian territories and Sudan. Additionally, in the latest available data, from 2023, the UN verified a record 32,990 grave violations against 22,557 children – the highest number since UN Security Council-mandated monitoring began, UNICEF said. There is an overall upward trend in the number of grave violations, with this year likely to see another increase, as “thousands of children have been killed and injured in Gaza, and in Ukraine ”, the agency said. Sexual violence against children has surged, their education has been affected, children’s malnutrition rates have risen and armed conflicts have taken a larger toll on children’s mental health, UNICEF also reported. “The world is failing these children. As we look towards 2025, we must do more to turn the tide and save and improve the lives of children,” Russell said. Gaza’s children ‘cold, sick, traumatised’ In Gaza – where the Israeli military has killed more women and children in the past year than in any recent conflict over a single year, Oxfam reported in September – the ongoing war is a “nightmare” for children, UNICEF Communication Specialist Rosalia Bollen said last week at a media briefing. “Children in Gaza are cold, sick and traumatised,” Bollen said last Friday. About 96 percent of women and children in Gaza cannot meet their basic nutritional needs, she said, lamenting the lack of aid able to reach children in the Strip. “Gaza must be one of the most heartbreaking places on Earth for humanitarians. Every small effort to save a child’s life is undone by fierce devastation,” said Bollen. “For over 14 months, children have been at the sharp edge of this nightmare.” Bollen said that many children in the besieged enclave don’t have winter clothes, have to resort to searching through rubbish for provisions and are plagued with diseases. She urged the use of political capital and diplomatic leverage to push for the evacuation of injured children and their parents to leave Gaza and seek medical care in East Jerusalem or elsewhere. “This war should haunt every one of us. Gaza’s children cannot wait,” she pressed. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

IPC report outlines famine in five areas, including in Sudan’s largest displacement camp, Zamzam, in North Darfur province. A woman and baby at the Zamzam displacement camp near el-Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan [File: Handout/MSF via Reuters] 24 December 2024 Famine is spreading in Sudan due to a war between the army and paramilitary group, a United Nations-backed global hunger-monitoring group says. The Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) published a report on Tuesday outlining famine in five areas, including in Sudan’s largest displacement camp, Zamzam, in North Darfur province. Famine conditions were confirmed in Abu Shouk and al-Salam, two camps for internally displaced people in el-Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur in western Sudan, as well as in residential and displaced communities in the Nuba Mountains in southern Sudan, according to the report. The five-member committee also found that famine, first identified in August, will likely spread to another five areas – Um Kadadah, Melit, el-Fasher, Tawisha and al-Lait – by May. It also identified another 17 areas across Sudan at risk of famine. According to the IPC report, 24.6 million Sudanese – half of the population – face acute food shortages. “[The war] has triggered unprecedented mass displacement, a collapsing economy, the breakdown of essential social services, severe societal disruptions, and poor humanitarian access,” the report said. The IPC, an independent body funded by Western nations, comprises more than a dozen UN agencies, aid groups and governments that use its monitoring as a global reference for analysis of food and nutrition crises. The report was published despite the Sudanese government’s continued disruption of the IPC’s process for analysing food shortages. On Monday, the government announced it was suspending its participation in the global hunger-monitoring system, saying the IPC issues “unreliable reports that undermine Sudan’s sovereignty and dignity”. Sudan has been roiled by a 20-month war that has killed more than 24,000 people and driven over 14 million people – about 30 percent of the population – from their homes, according to the UN. An estimated 3.2 million Sudanese have crossed into neighbouring countries, including Chad, Egypt and South Sudan. The war began in April 2023 when long-simmering tensions between the military and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, before spreading to other urban areas and the western region of Darfur. The conflict has been marked by atrocities, including ethnically motivated killings and rapes, according to the UN and human rights groups. The International Criminal Court is investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. In its report, the IPC added that in conflict areas, hostilities can severely disrupt farming, resulting in workers abandoning their crops. Farms have also suffered from looting and killing of livestock. “Displaced households, especially those living in settlements and public buildings, are unlikely to benefit significantly from the harvest,” it said. Dervla Cleary, a senior emergency and rehabilitation officer at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, said the situation in Sudan is “just awful”. “It is unacceptable in a world like today,” Cleary told The Associated Press news agency. “We need the violence to stop so people can access food, water, health, nutrition and agriculture.” Sudan is the third country where famine has been declared in the past 15 years. The other two are South Sudan and Somalia. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

A Day of Love’: How Trump Inverted the Violent History of Jan. 6 The New York Times Jan. 5, 2025 The president-elect and his allies have spent four years reinventing the Capitol attack — spreading conspiracy theories and weaving a tale of martyrdom to their ultimate political gain. Rioters on the steps of the Capitol, where President-elect Donald J. Trump will take his oath of office.Credit ...Kenny Holston/The New York Times   By  Dan Barry  and  Alan Feuer In two weeks, Donald J. Trump is to emerge from an arched portal of the United States Capitol to once again take the presidential oath of office. As the Inauguration Day ritual conveying the peaceful transfer of power unfolds, he will stand where the worst of the mayhem of Jan. 6, 2021, took place, largely in his name. Directly behind Mr. Trump will be the metal-and-glass doors where protesters, inflamed by his lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, stormed the Capitol with clubs, chemical irritants and other weapons. To his left, the spot where roaring rioters and outnumbered police officers fought hand to hand. To his right, where the prostrate body of a dying woman was jostled in the bloody fray. And before him, a dozen marble steps descending to a lectern adorned with the presidential seal. The same steps where, four years earlier, Trump flags were waved above the frenzied crowd and wielded like spears; where an officer was dragged facedown to be beaten with an American flag on a pole and another was pulled into the scrum to be kicked and stomped.   Trump supporters fought with police officers as they tried to stop the certification of President Biden’s election.Credit ...Christopher Lee   In the wake of the attack on the Capitol, Mr. Trump’s volatile political career seemed over, his incendiary words before the riot rattling the leaders of his own Republican Party. Myriad factors explain his stunning resurrection, but not least of them is how effectively he and his loyalists have laundered the history of Jan. 6, turning a political nightmare into a political asset. What began as a strained attempt to absolve Mr. Trump of responsibility for Jan. 6 gradually took hold, as his allies in Congress and the media played down the attack and redirected blame to left-wing plants, Democrats and even the government. Violent rioters — prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned — somehow became patriotic martyrs. This inverted interpretation defied what the country had watched unfold, but it neatly fit the persecution narrative that binds Mr. Trump to many of his faithful. Once he committed to running again for president, he doubled down on flipping the script about the riot and its blowback, including a congressional inquiry and two criminal indictments against him, as part of an orchestrated victimization. That day was an American calamity. Lawmakers huddled for safety. Vice President Mike Pence eluded a mob shouting that he should be hanged. Several people died during and after the riot, including one protester by gunshot and four police officers by suicide, and more than 140 officers were injured in a protracted melee that nearly upended what should have been the routine certification of the electoral victory of Mr. Trump’s opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr. But with his return to office, Mr. Trump now has the platform to further rinse and spin the Capitol attack into what he has called “a day of love.” He has vowed to pardon rioters in the first hour of his new administration, while his congressional supporters are pushing for criminal charges against those who investigated his actions on that chaotic day. When asked about the reframing of the Capitol riot, and whether Mr. Trump accepts any responsibility for what unfolded on Jan. 6, his spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, instead referred in a statement to the “political losers” who tried to derail his career and asserted that “the mainstream media still refuses to report the truth about what happened that day.” She added, “The American people did not fall for the Left’s fear mongering over January 6th.” The Jan. 6 tale that Mr. Trump tells is its own kind of replacement theory, one that covers over the marble-hard facts the way a blue carpet will cover those tainted Capitol steps on Inauguration Day. The Seeds of Suspicion What happened and why seemed beyond debate. Hundreds of thousands of tips. Tens of thousands of hours of video footage. Thousands of seized cellphones. The attack on the Capitol was, after all, the largest digital crime scene in history, the total estimated cost of its aftermath exceeding $2.7 billion. The Justice Department has experienced some setbacks in its criminal prosecutions — including a Supreme Court ruling that it overreached in using a controversial obstruction statute — but its success rate has been overwhelming. More than half of the nearly 1,600 defendants have pleaded guilty, while 200 more have been convicted after trial, resulting in sentences ranging from a few days in jail for misdemeanor trespassing to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy. The story told by many of the indictments begins with a mixed-message speech delivered before the riot by Mr. Trump in a park near the White House. After falsely claiming that the 2020 election had been stolen, he encouraged people to march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol, but reminded them that “we fight like hell.” Mr. Trump retired to the White House, where he watched the televised violence and ignored advice to tell the mob to leave. Then, after sending two tweets calling for peaceful protest, he posted a video repeating his rigged-election falsehood and saying: “We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special.” A follow-up tweet ended: “Remember this day forever!”   Rioters tried to breach the House floor as lawmakers and their staff members took shelter.Credit ...Andrew Harnik/Associated Press Condemnation came swiftly. As shaken Republican leaders denounced him and Democrats moved to impeach him for “incitement of insurrection,” a seemingly chastened Mr. Trump called the riot “a heinous attack on the United States Capitol.” In those early days, he referred to Jan. 6 as “the calamity at the Capitol” and warned that lawbreakers “will  pay .” The outgoing president called for national unity but declined to attend his successor’s inauguration. The Republican-controlled Senate acquitted him of incitement, but its leader, Mitch McConnell, declared him “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day” — a sentiment apparently shared by most Americans, with  nearly 60 percent saying in polls  that he should never hold office again. But sand was already being thrown in the eyes of history. Before the Capitol had even been secured, Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, was asserting on  Twitter  that the events had “all the hallmarks of Antifa provocation.” Hours later, the Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham was  telling  viewers that “there are some reports that antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd.” And by morning, Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, was claiming on the House floor that some rioters “were masquerading as Trump supporters and in fact were members of the violent terrorist group antifa.” (The now discredited Mr. Gaetz would become President-elect Trump’s first choice for attorney general before being derailed by scandal.) According to  M.I.T. Technology Review , this fabrication was repeated online more than 400,000 times in the 24 hours after the Capitol attack, amplified by a cast of MAGA influencers, Republican officials and members of Mr. Trump’s family. The former president remained mostly silent in the weeks that followed. But in a late March interview with Washington Post reporters that was not made public until months later, he provided an early  hint  of how he would frame the Jan. 6 attack. The day he had previously called calamitous was now largely peaceful. The mob that stormed the Capitol had been “ushered in” by the police. And those who had rallied with him beforehand were a “loving crowd.” A Deep-State Conspiracy Theory Through the spring and summer of 2021, Mr. Trump’s Republican allies sought to sow doubt and blame others. It was as if Mr. McConnell, among other leading Republicans, had never publicly declared Mr. Trump responsible. As if the world had not seen what it had seen. In early May, on the same day House Republicans stripped Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming of her leadership role for labeling Mr. Trump a threat to democracy, they used an Oversight Committee hearing to minimize the riot. Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina questioned whether all those rioters wearing Trump gear and shouting pro-Trump chants were truly Trump supporters, while Representative Andrew Clyde of Georgia likened much of the trespassing to a “normal tourist visit.” This benign interpretation of Jan. 6 gave way to a much more startling theory, posed in mid-June by the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who before his firing two years later was among the most-watched commentators in cable news — that the riot had been a false-flag operation orchestrated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Gaetz and another Republican loyalist, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, quickly seconded the deep-state conspiracy theory, while Mr. Gosar entered the article on which it was based — written by Darren Beattie, a former Trump speechwriter who had been fired for speaking at a conference beside white supremacists — into the Congressional Record. Soon after, Mr. Trump broke his monthslong silence about Jan. 6. At an early July rally in Sarasota, Fla., he invoked the name of Ashli Babbitt, a pro-Trump rioter who had been fatally shot by a Capitol police officer while trying to breach the House floor, where lawmakers and staff members had sought safety. She was fast becoming a martyr to the cause. “Shot, boom,” Mr. Trump said. “There was no reason for it. Who shot Ashli Babbitt?” The mother of Ashli Babbitt, center, a protester who was fatally shot inside the Capitol. Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times   The former president also referred to the jailed rioters. Floating the specter of a justice system prejudiced against conservatives, he questioned why “so many people are still in jail over Jan. 6” when antifa and Black Lives Matter hadn’t paid a price for the violent protests that followed the murder of a Black man, George Floyd, by a white Minneapolis police officer in 2020. The fog machine of conspiracy was turned up a few notches that fall, when the Fox Nation streaming service released “Patriot Purge,” a three-part series in which Mr. Carlson expanded on his specious contention that the Capitol attack was a government plot to discredit Mr. Trump and persecute conservatives. The widely denounced claim was deemed so outrageous that two Fox News contributors, Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes, resigned in protest. In a scathing blog  post , they wrote that the program was a hodgepodge of “factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery and damning omissions.” Mr. Carlson’s documentary, they wrote, “creates an alternative history of January 6, contradicted not just by common sense, not just by the testimony and on-the-record statements of many participants, but by the reporting of the news division of Fox News itself.” Martyrs and Vigils Amid the conspiratorial swirl of antifa agitators and deep-state plots, a related narrative was gaining traction: the glorification of those who had attacked the Capitol. Instead of marauders, vandals and aggressors, they were now political prisoners, hostages, martyrs. Patriots. This movement’s energy radiated from a troubled detention center in Washington where a few dozen men charged with attacking police officers and committing other violent offenses were held. A defiant esprit de corps developed among them in the so-called Patriot Wing, where inmates in prison-issue orange gathered every night to sing the national anthem. Outside the razor-wire walls, their supporters kept vigil in a spot dubbed the “Freedom Corner.” Led by Ms. Babbitt’s mother, among others, they set out snacks, flew American flags and live-streamed phone conversations with inmates. Sympathy that might have been reserved for the injured police officers was directed instead to those who had assaulted them. And Mr. Trump — whose Jan. 6 actions were now being investigated by the Justice Department and a bipartisan House select committee — emerged in 2022 as their No. 1 sympathizer. At a mid-January rally in Florence, Ariz., he described the Jan. 6 defendants as persecuted political prisoners. Later that month, in Conroe, Texas, he promised that if he was re-elected, and if pardons were required, “we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.” Mr. Trump’s counteroffensive began taking shape. The House select committee, whose members included Ms. Cheney, became in his words the “unselect committee” and the prevailing narrative of Jan. 6 as an insurrection “a lot of  crap .”   Representative Liz Cheney, center, and other lawmakers investigating the Capitol riot, came under attack by Mr. Trump.Credit ...Al Drago One of his most repeated contentions was that the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, had rejected his recommendation to have 10,000 soldiers present on Jan. 6. But subsequent investigations demonstrated that it was his own military advisers, and not Ms. Pelosi, who blocked the idea, concerned with both the optics of armed soldiers at a political protest and the possibility that Mr. Trump might invoke the Insurrection Act to place the troops under his direct command. “There is absolutely no way I was putting U.S. military forces at the Capitol,” the acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, later told investigators. Doing so, he said, could have created “the greatest constitutional crisis probably since the Civil War.” As the select committee began holding hearings in early June 2022, Mr. Trump used speeches and his social media platform, Truth Social, to clap back at the damaging evidence and testimony. One post read: “The so-called ‘Rush on the Capitol’ was not caused by me, it was caused by a Rigged and Stolen Election!” In a speech in Nashville that month, he dismissed the riot as a “simple protest” that “got out of hand,” again floated the possibility of pardons and furthered the false-flag theory by mentioning Ray Epps, a protester falsely portrayed by Mr. Carlson on Fox News and Republicans in Congress as a government plant who had stage-managed the riot. His efforts seemed to be working. By mid-2022,  an NBC News poll  found that fewer than half of Americans still considered Mr. Trump “solely” or “mainly” responsible for Jan. 6. For some supporters, though, Mr. Trump was not doing enough. In the late summer, he agreed to meet two advocates for the Jan. 6 defendants at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.: Julie Kelly, a conservative journalist who had written skeptically about the Capitol attack, and Cynthia Hughes, a founder of the Patriot Freedom Project, which supported the inmates’ families. Ms. Hughes was also an aunt of Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a professed Hitler fanboy who had spent time in the Patriot Wing. They told Mr. Trump that the defendants and their families felt abandoned by him, Ms. Kelly later recalled, and that some of the federal judges in Washington he had appointed were among the worst in their handling of Jan. 6 cases. These jurists had earned the ire of people like Ms. Kelly by repeatedly rejecting arguments that the defendants could not get fair trials in liberal Washington or had been unduly prosecuted for their pro-Trump politics. The judges also knocked down the contention that nonviolent rioters should not have been charged at all, ruling that everyone in the mob, “no matter how modestly behaved,” contributed to the chaos at the Capitol. After his meeting with the women, Mr. Trump donated $10,000 to Ms. Hughes’s organization and  told  a conservative radio host that if he was elected, there would be full pardons  and  “an apology to many.” Days later, Ms. Hughes was given a speaking role at a Trump rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Cynthia Hughes is a founder of the Patriot Freedom Project, which has supported the families of those imprisoned for crimes on Jan. 6.Credit ...via CSPAN Ms. Hughes’s Patriot Freedom Project closed out 2022 with a fund-raising holiday  party  at the Capitol Hill Hilton, in sight of the riot scene. Children received gifts, inmates spoke to the crowd from jail and tearful family members shared their hardships. There was also a surprise video message of encouragement from Mr. Trump, who had recently announced his candidacy. Then, just before Christmas, the House select committee released its final report, based largely on testimony from those inside Mr. Trump’s orbit. It accused him of repeatedly lying about a stolen election and summoning the angry mob that thwarted a peaceful transition between administrations. In the report’s foreword, Ms. Cheney recalled how her great-great-grandfather answered Abraham Lincoln’s call to defend the union by joining the 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He fought for four years, she wrote, for the same essential principle the committee was empaneled to protect: the peaceful transfer of power. The Candidate and the Prison Choir Perhaps the moment when Mr. Trump and his allies fully embraced their alternate version of history came on March 3, 2023, when a new song appeared on major streaming platforms. The  song , “Justice for All,” featured Mr. Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance while the men of the Patriot Wing, now billing themselves as the J6 Prison Choir, sang the national anthem. In other words, it was a collaboration between a man seeking the Republican presidential nomination and about 20 men charged with attacking the nerve center of the republic.   Mr. Trump  recorded  his contribution at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, while the choir was recorded with a phone in the Washington jail. The song — a fund-raising effort that the Trump loyalist Kash Patel, now the president-elect’s nominee to head the F.B.I., helped produce — concludes with a defiant echo of the “U.S.A.!” chants that resounded during the Jan. 6 attack. The first Trump campaign rally for the 2024 election took place three weeks later, in Waco, Texas, where a deadly standoff between federal agents and a religious cult in 1993 became a far-right touchstone. Before launching into complaints about persecution and promises of retribution, the candidate placed his hand over his  heart  for the playing of what an announcer called “the No. 1 song” on iTunes and Amazon, featuring Mr. Trump “and the J6 Choir.” Mr. Trump’s version of the attack on the Capitol had firmly taken hold, at least within his party. A  YouGov poll  at the time found that most Republicans believed the events of Jan. 6 reflected “legitimate political discourse.” In August 2023, Mr. Trump was indicted twice on charges of interfering with the 2020 election results: at the state level, for illegally seeking to overturn the results of the election in Georgia, which he had narrowly lost; and at the federal level, for conspiring to impede the Jan. 6 certification of Mr. Biden’s election. A subsequent court  filing  by Jack Smith, the special counsel leading the federal investigation, cited Mr. Trump’s steadfast endorsement of the rioters and of the prison choir, “many of whose criminal history and/or crimes on January 6 were so violent that their pretrial release would pose a danger to the public.” The former president, it continued, “has financially supported and celebrated these offenders — many of whom assaulted law enforcement on January 6 — by promoting and playing their recording of the national anthem at political rallies and calling them ‘hostages.’”   All true. Still, Mr. Trump continued to play “Justice for All” at rallies and at Mar-a-Lago, spread his rigged-election lie, drop intimations of false-flag conspiracies, refer to those who stormed the Capitol as patriots — and, now, transformed the indictments into further fuel for his persecution narrative. Mr. Trump stood while “Justice for All,” a recording that features his own voice and a choir of jailed rioters, played at a campaign rally in Waco, Texas.Credit ...Evan Vucci/Associated Press In so many ways, Jan. 6 had become part of his brand — a brand in which an attack on the symbol of American democracy became a defense of that same democracy: a blow against political thugs and closet communists, deep-state plots and an unjust justice system. A part of the brand that, in November, helped Mr. Trump win election as the 47th president of the United States. Promising Pardons — and Payback Once he takes office, Mr. Trump will be positioned to finish refashioning Jan. 6 as a modern Lost Cause of the Confederacy. With the help of Republican loyalists, the Senate acquitted him of incitement at his impeachment trial. The Supreme Court he had helped mold rejected an attempt to keep him off the ballot under a constitutional ban against insurrectionists from holding office. And his legal maneuvering — to delay, delay, delay — succeeded: In the days after the election, Mr. Smith, the special counsel, dropped his election-subversion case, adhering to a Justice Department policy not to prosecute a sitting president. An emboldened Mr. Trump has already indicated that his presidential agenda will include payback for those who declared him responsible for the Capitol attack. He has said that Mr. Smith “should be thrown out of the country,” and that Ms. Cheney and other leaders of the House select committee — “one of the greatest political scams in history,” his spokeswoman, Ms. Leavitt, said — should “go to jail,” without providing evidence to warrant such extreme measures. At the same time, Mr. Trump’s repeated vows to pardon those implicated in the Capitol riot, an act of erasure that would validate their claims of political persecution, have electrified the Jan. 6 community of families, defendants and felons. On election night, those keeping vigil outside the Washington jail celebrated with champagne. Even though Mr. Trump has not specified whom he would pardon, many Jan. 6 participants are anticipating a general amnesty for everyone involved. One defendant, charged with attacking police officers with a baseball bat, even promoted  an A.I. video  of inmates in orange jumpsuits parading triumphantly out of jailhouse doors. Many defendants have requested delays in their court proceedings because, they say, the imminent pardons will render their cases moot. Among those employing this argument was Philip Sean Grillo, convicted of several misdemeanors after entering the Capitol through a broken window and later boasting in a recording that “we stormed the Capitol. We shut it down! We did it!”   But to Mr. Grillo’s misfortune, the federal judge handling his case was Royce C. Lamberth, 81, a no-nonsense former prosecutor who had been appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. Judge Lamberth not only rejected Mr. Grillo’s request for a delay, he filed a court document to “clear the air” and “remind ourselves what really happened.”   Hundreds of rioters have pleaded guilty to the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol.Credit ...Joseph Rushmore With clinical precision, the judge recalled how an angry mob invaded and occupied the Capitol with intentions to “thwart the peaceful transfer of power that is the centerpiece of our Constitution and the cornerstone of our republican legacy”; how they ignored directives to turn back and desist; how some engaged in “pitched battle” with the police, “stampeding through and over the officers.” “They told the world that the election was stolen, a claim for which no evidence has ever emerged,” the judge wrote. “They told the world that they were there to put a stop to the transfer of power, even if that meant ransacking, emptying, and desecrating our country’s most hallowed sites. Most disturbingly, they told the world that particular elected officials who were present at the Capitol that day had to be removed, hurt, or even killed.” The country came “perilously close” to letting the orderly transfer of power slip away, Judge Lamberth wrote. He knew this, he said, because he and his colleagues had presided over hundreds of trials, read hundreds of guilty pleas, heard from hundreds of law enforcement witnesses — “and viewed thousands of hours of video footage attesting to the bedlam.” With that, Judge Lamberth ordered Mr. Grillo to be taken immediately into custody to begin a sentence of one year in prison. As he was being handcuffed, the Jan. 6 rioter  taunted  the veteran judge by saying it didn’t matter: He would be pardoned anyway — by a man who will soon benefit from the peaceful transfer of power while standing on a blue carpet covering an old crime scene. Dylan Freedman contributed reporting. ​​ Dan Barry  is a longtime reporter and columnist, having written both the “ This Land ” and “About New York” columns. The author of several books, he writes on myriad topics, including New York City, sports, culture and the nation.  More about Dan Barry Alan Feuer  covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.   More about Alan Feuer A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 5, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: How Trump Flipped Script And Made Jan. 6 an A   Copyright 2025 The New York Times Company

Saudi Hospital damaged following shelling between the SAF and the RSF in El Fasher December 25, 2024 (EL FASHER) – The only remaining operational hospital in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, has been rendered unusable after repeated shelling by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), doctors said on Wednesday. The Saudi Hospital, which had been providing critical care and surgical services to the war-torn city, has been hit at least 16 times by RSF artillery and drone fire, culminating in a devastating attack on Wednesday that destroyed the facility. “The hospital is out of service and will not be able to receive any more patients due to the repeated targeting by RSF artillery and drones,” doctors told Sudan Tribune. Most patients, including those wounded in previous shelling, have been forced to flee to other areas, including the Zamzam camp for displaced people and the locality of Tawila, in search of safety and medical care. Sudan’s Ministry of Health condemned the “continuous targeting of civilians, health institutions, and personnel” by the RSF. In a statement, the ministry accused the RSF of deliberately attempting to disrupt healthcare services in El Fasher, calling it a violation of international law and humanitarian norms. The attacks have damaged critical sections of the hospital, including the maternity ward, operating rooms, pharmacy, and the children’s malnutrition ward. The Ministry of Health vowed to continue providing healthcare services to the people of El Fasher and praised the medical staff for their resilience and dedication in the face of these attacks. Most hospitals in El Fasher have been rendered inoperable due to direct targeting by RSF artillery or their proximity to the fighting, exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation in the city. Copyright © 2024 | Sudan Tribune. All rights reserved.

A contest to create a mural of former Yugoslav Army general Nebojsa Pavkovic, convicted of war crimes in Kosovo, has been condemned as part of a "state policy" of denying atrocities and glorifying the perpetrators. Milica Stojanovic, December 20, 2024 Nebojsa Pavkovic at a press conference in Belgrade, June 2002. Photo: EPA/SASA STANKOVIC. A competition to create a mural of Nebojsa Pavkovic, a former Yugoslav Army general serving a 22-year prison sentence for war crimes, is a “continuation” of the Serbian state’s policy of denying war crimes, Jovana Kolaric, from the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre, which monitors war crimes trials, said on Friday. “We don’t have the space to look at things like this as an individual incident anymore and we have nothing to be surprised about. It is a long-standing state policy of denying war crimes and glorifying those responsible for those crimes,” Kolaric told BIRN. The Cultural Institute of Cuprija, a local public body in the town in central Serbia, announced the “competition for the creation of a mural of General Nebojsa Pavkovic” on December 10. Pavkovic was born in the village of Senjski Rudnik, some 20 kilometres from Cuprija. He was the commander of the Yugoslav Army Third Battalion from December 1998 until early 2000, during the Kosovo War. The Appeal Chambers of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, in 2014 upheld the guilty verdict convicting Pavkovic and three more high-profile Yugoslav military and civilian officials of war crimes in Kosovo. Besides Pavkovic, former Yugoslav deputy prime minister Nikola Sainovic, former Yugoslav Army general Vladimir Lazarevic and former Serbian police general Sreten Lukic were also sentenced. According to the 2009 first-instance verdict , “there was a broad campaign of violence directed against the Kosovo Albanian civilian population conducted by forces under the control of the [Yugoslav] and Serbian authorities, during which there were incidents of killing, sexual assault, and the intentional destruction of mosques”. The Cultural Institute of Cuprija did not respond to BIRN’s questions sent via email. The competition text says that “murals, various forms of street art, and other artistic interpretations in the public space are today considered an integral part of a city’s contemporary cultural image”. The institute said it will pay 330,000 dinars [some 2.821 euros] for the work. The competition conditions say mural proposals “should correspond to the national significance, works and importance of General Pavkovic for contemporary national history”. The call also says that “the future mural will be located in the immediate vicinity of the Square of Remembrance for the Victims of NATO Aggression” in the town – commemorating people killed in the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. The Western military alliance launched the campaign of air strikes in an attempt to halt war crimes in Kosovo. The text is “shameful”, Kolaric said, adding that “it turns out that the image of a city, Cuprija specifically, should represent the image of a war criminal. “Nebojsa Pavkovic was sentenced on the basis of individual criminal responsibility for deportation, forced transfer, murder and persecution as crimes against humanity and for violating the laws and customs of war to 22 years in prison and should be remembered as such,” she said. Copyright BIRN 2015

Zana Cimili and Ismet Hadjari, December 20, 2024 A blast damaged the canal near Zubin Potok in November (Armend NIMANI) (Armend NIMANI/AFP/AFP) Weeks after an explosion ripped through a strategic canal in Kosovo, the volatile state's authorities are under mounting pressure from Serb opponents who accuse them of politicising it ahead of February elections. The blast in late November ripped a hole through a canal providing water to hundreds of thousands of people and the cooling systems at two coal-fired power plants that generate most of Kosovo's power. Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti blamed arch-rival Serbia for what he termed a "terrorist attack" but many in his administration have since fallen largely silent about the affair. The Serbian government denied any links to it and announced plans to carry out its own investigation. Following the initial outburst of accusations, Kosovo officials have offered little evidence, with many toning down their rhetoric in recent days. "What have we learned from the investigation into the attack on the Ibar-Lepenac canal? Unfortunately, so far we have learned nothing," said Aleksandar Arsenijevic from the Serb Democracy Party, based in Kosovo's restive north. "Everything is being kept under a veil of secrecy, and the investigation is clearly being dragged out in order to be used for political purposes. There is a serious danger that the Ibar-Lepenac case will end up in the shadow of other events." Serbia and Kosovo have been at odds since the end of a war in the late 1990s between Belgrade's forces and ethnic Albanian separatists in what was then a province of Serbia. Serbia has never recognised Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence. The blast at the canal occurred near the border with Serbia -- an area home to many of Kosovo's remaining ethnic Serbs and long a hotbed of unrest. -Russian 'playbook' claim- Kurti accused Serbia of taking a page out of Russia's "playbook" in Ukraine by trying to knock out power and heating in Kosovo during the cold winter months. But having arrested 10 suspects days after the blast, Kosovo police released all but two of them due to lack of evidence, according to one of their attorneys. Nebojsa Vlajic -- who is representing one of the remaining suspects still in custody --  said police recovered a hunting rifle and some ammunition during a raid on his client's home. Authorities, however, found "no explosives or explosive devices like dynamite, detonators, primers, fuses", he told AFP. "What they found cannot explode. Your television or water heater is more likely to explode than anything found in his possession." -pre-election tension- The blast struck just months ahead of parliamentary elections in Kosovo, with some seeing the contest as a referendum on Kurti's hardline policies targeting Serbia and their ethnic Serb allies in Kosovo. On Tuesday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic accused Kurti of using the explosion to justify an imminent crackdown on Kosovo's Serbs and their parties ahead of the polls. "Our people are engaged in a difficult fight for survival and political legitimacy," Vucic told a legislative session. "Kurti's regime will accuse Serbs without any material evidence for the sabotage on the Ibar-Lepenac canal, with a clear political motive." -'fragile' kosovo security situation- Since entering office in 2021, Kurti has spent years dismantling a parallel system, backed by Belgrade, to provide social and political services to Kosovo's Serbs. He has banned Serbia's currency and car licence plates, and closed its post offices and banks in Kosovo. The policies have caused an uproar in Serbia, while also angering Kosovo's closest diplomatic partners in the United States and Europe, who have accused Kurti of undercutting fragile ethnic relations in the region. The Kosovo government did not respond to AFP's questions about the ongoing investigation into the blast. Analysts have said that the failure to provide more evidence or catch the perpetrators of the attack would likely add another layer of uncertainty before the elections scheduled in Kosovo for February 9. "Its influence is undeniable," said political commentator Shpetim Gashi. "It will shape the political debate." Former Kosovo intelligence officer Burim Ramadani told AFP that any new information about the incident would likely "remain in the shadows", due to fears that it could spark more unrest. "The security situation in that part of Kosovo is fragile," he said. © 2024 Yahoo.

December 17, 2024 New report sheds light on factors driving large-scale Rohingya displacement in Maungdaw A new report by Kaladan Press Network (KPN) gives insight into the factors driving the recent large-scale displacement of Rohingya in Maungdaw township of northern Rakhine State. Based on testimony of recent refugee arrivals to Bangladesh, the report provides a step-by-step timeline and mapping of the advances of the Arakan Army (AA) into Maungdaw during 2024 and the resulting displacement of Rohingya villagers. Refugees described the shifting patterns of Rohingya displacement in Maungdaw, with most villagers fleeing into the town until July, then a complete reversal of direction in August, when the AA forcibly evacuated everyone out of the town into areas under their control. Those evacuated testified to extreme hardship due to insufficient provision of shelter and food, which, together with fear of forced recruitment and arrest by the AA, led them to flee to Bangladesh by boat across the Naf River, a journey fraught with danger. The report gives unique insight into the movements of the various Rohingya armed groups in Maungdaw, whose influence appears to be dwindling, despite AA’s claims to the contrary. Refugees also revealed that hundreds of RSO soldiers had gathered at a port north of Maungdaw to leave by boat in the evening of August 5, and this was the likely reason for the AA’s fierce drone and artillery attack that killed hundreds of Rohingya civilians in the vicinity. It is hoped that the insights provided by the refugees will lead to a better understanding of the factors contributing to the current crisis and help shape appropriate responses – the most urgent of which is to provide humanitarian aid as soon as possible for the Rohingya remaining in northern Rakhine State. To read the full report; please click here © Newspaper

New report warns that Kosovo's progress in the early identification of groups and individuals at risk of radicalisation has been limited. Ardita Zeqiri, December 18, 2024 The launch of the BIRN Kosovo report on the challenges of terrorism prevention in Pristina. Photo: BIRN. Kosovo faces significant problems in implementing its national counter-terrorism strategy, which relies heavily on early prevention and coordination between stakeholders, concluded a new report by BIRN Kosovo. The report, “ Challenges of Terrorism Prevention Mechanisms in Kosovo ”, published on Tuesday, says Kosovo has made limited progress in the early identification of vulnerable groups and individuals at risk of radicalisation, as well as in the design and implementation of intervention measures to support these groups and individuals.  Xhelal Svecla, Kosovo’s Minister of Interior, stated that terrorism and right-wing extremism are challenges not only for Kosovo but also for other countries. “Kosovo has taken responsibility for repatriating individuals from Syria and for rehabilitating and reintegrating them into society. One of the main pillars of our five-year 2023-2028 strategy is the inclusion of local mechanisms and civil society,” Svecla said. “We have repeatedly experienced various attacks on institutions, officials, international personnel and the media in the four northern municipalities of Kosovo,” Svecla added, referring to last year’s armed attack by Serb gunmen in Banjska and this November’s attack on a water canal near Zubin Potok, which authorities called a terrorist attack. The report highlights that key actors responsible for implementing the National Strategy on Preventing and Combatting Terrorism 2023- 2028 still lack a clear understanding of vulnerable groups at risk of radicalisation or a concrete understanding of the factors driving radicalisation. According to the report, which is a product of surveys, fieldwork and documentation gathered over six months. there is also a lack of coordination and strategic messaging from central to local level regarding their obligations under the strategy. Khalid Koser, founder and director of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, GCERF, highlighted the difficulties in early intervention. “To find people at risk of radicalisation and recruitment early in the cycle and to intervene and provide better alternatives is an immensely difficult thing to do,” he said. “We all agree that early prevention is something difficult to achieve,” he added. Report findings show that an institutional focus on religious extremism has left significant gaps in building the capacity to deal with right-wing extremism. In recent years, Kosovo suffered several attacks carried out both by right-wing extremist groups and by Islamist extremist groups. Kreshnik Gashi, author of the report and editor-in-chief at BIRN Kosovo outlet Kallxo.com , said Kosovo’s approach to civil society involvement in the strategy is unique. “Kosovo is the first country in the region to allow civil society to monitor the counterterrorism strategy and actively participate in prevention and rehabilitation programmes for returning fighters,” Gashi said. The report urges the National Coordinator to communicate strategic messages to the local level as soon as possible. Copyright BIRN 2007

August 12, 2024 Killings of Civilians, Mass Arson, Unlawful Recruitment in Rakhine State A family who fled from Buthidaung, Myanmar, at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, June 25, 2024. © 2024 Mohammad Ponir (Bangkok) –  Myanmar junta forces and the opposition Arakan Army have committed extrajudicial killings and widespread arson against Rohingya, Rakhine, and other civilians in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State in recent months, Human Rights Watch said today. The military’s unlawful recruitment of Rohingya men and boys has stoked communal tensions between the Rohingya Muslim and Rakhine Buddhist communities. In April and May 2024, the junta military and allied Rohingya armed groups as well as the advancing Arakan Army all committed atrocities against civilians. On May 17, as the Arakan Army gained control of the remaining junta military bases in Buthidaung township, its forces shelled, looted, and burned Rohingya neighborhoods in Buthidaung town and nearby villages, causing thousands of  Rohingya to flee. The clashes have since moved west to Maungdaw, where fighting has surged over the past week, with reports of killings and other abuses against the Rohingya population, including children, women, and older people. All parties to the conflict should halt unlawful attacks, cease the use of hate speech, and allow unimpeded humanitarian access to those in need. “Ethnic Rohingya and Rakhine civilians are bearing the brunt of the atrocities that the Myanmar military and opposition Arakan Army are committing,” said  Elaine Pearson , Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Both sides are using hate speech, attacks on civilians, and massive arson to drive people from their homes and villages, raising the specter of ethnic cleansing.” Human Rights Watch interviewed 33 ethnic Rohingya and Rakhine victims and witnesses to abuses and analyzed satellite imagery, open-source material, private videos and photos, and medical records. The Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine armed group, has engaged in periods of heavy fighting with the Myanmar military for control of Rakhine State since late 2018. Hostilities between junta forces and the Arakan Army have surged since mid-November 2023, ending a year-long unofficial ceasefire. As the Arakan Army has rapidly expanded its control across Rakhine State, the military has responded with  indiscriminate attacks using helicopter gunships, artillery, and ground assaults. From November to July, junta forces carried out over 1,100 airstrikes nationwide, more than one-fifth of them in Rakhine State, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). By April, fighting had intensified in the predominantly Muslim townships of Buthidaung and Maungdaw, where an estimated 240,000 Rohingya lived. Junta forces and allied Rohingya armed groups carried out arson attacks on ethnic Rakhine villages on the outskirts of Buthidaung town and Rakhine areas within the town in mid-April, according to satellite imagery analysis, witness accounts, and local media reports.  In late April, the Arakan Army began burning Rohingya villages east of Buthidaung town. Satellite imagery and thermal anomaly data analyzed by Human Rights Watch reveal that more than 40 villages and hamlets in Buthidaung township were partially or completely destroyed by fire from April 24 to May 21. Burning destroyed thousands of structures across the township, including predominantly Rohingya areas downtown. Human Rights Watch concluded that the pattern of destruction caused by fire throughout Buthidaung suggests that all these attacks were deliberate. Fire damaged villages and hamlets in Buthidaung township documented by Human Rights Watch during the arson attacks in April and May 2024. Analysis based on satellite imagery and thermal anomalies. Analysis and graphics © 2024 Human Rights Watch. Village data © Myanmar Information Management UNIT (MIMU). Military data © Open StreetMap contributors and ASPI. Residents said Arakan Army fighters began setting fire to Buthidaung town on the evening of May 17, despite having told them to evacuate by 10 a.m. the following day. Thousands of Rohingya displaced from nearby villages were sheltering in schools, homes, and the hospital in downtown Buthidaung. Witnesses said the burning, shelling, and gunfire were not in response to any evident fighting between the forces.  “Without any conflict, the Arakan Army besieged the town,” said a man who fled Buthidaung’s Ward 2. “They started launching heavy weapons and at the same time began setting the houses on fire. People ran, fleeing for their lives, while older people and children were left behind in burning houses. It was a real scene of Qayamat [apocalypse].” The capture of Buthidaung  displaced an estimated 70,000 people , mostly Rohingya, who fled to the west and south amid further attacks. The Arakan Army announced that it had captured all Myanmar junta bases in Buthidaung on May 18. Satellite imagery indicates that the arson attacks continued in the area through May 21, following the paths of people fleeing. Human Rights Watch also verified videos and photographs posted on social media and shared privately that showed destroyed houses in Buthidaung in April and May and large groups of people fleeing. Main areas damaged by fire across wards in Buthidaung town and its outskirts. Analysis based on satellite imagery and thermal anomalies.  Analysis and graphics © Human Rights Watch. Ward data © Myanmar Information Management UNIT (MIMU). Rohingya described being caught between junta and Arakan Army forces, both trying to coerce them to take sides in the conflict. The junta military has unlawfully recruited thousands of Rohingya men and boys from Rakhine State and the refugee camps in  Bangladesh , with support from Rohingya armed groups, and has forced Rohingya to participate in sham protests against the Arakan Army. Such efforts have inflamed relations between the Rohingya and Rakhine, triggering the spread of hate speech and misinformation online and offline. The Arakan Army has denied attacking Rohingya civilians, asserting it issued sufficient warning and that the May 17-18 fires resulted from junta airstrikes and arson committed by Rohingya militia. In an  August 5 letter to Human Rights Watch, the Arakan Army stated, “We do not condone or engage in unlawful attacks or arson attacks against civilians.” The laws of war prohibit deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and on civilian objects, such as homes, schools, and hospitals. Summary killings, mutilation of bodies, recruitment of children, looting, and arson are all prohibited as war crimes . Warring parties must take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians, must cancel attacks if it becomes evident the target is not a military objective, and must provide effective advance warnings of attacks unless circumstances do not permit. The Myanmar junta and Arakan Army should urgently allow access to Rakhine State to an independent international inquiry and to humanitarian agencies, Human Rights Watch said.  “The military junta and Arakan Army need to take immediate steps to protect civilians and civilian property during the hostilities,” Pearson said. “Governments with influence over the warring parties should weigh in forcefully or once again face a situation of ethnic cleansing.” Names have been withheld or replaced with pseudonyms to protect the identities of victims and witnesses. Crisis in Rakhine State In 2017, more than 750,000 Rohingya fled the Myanmar military’s  crimes against humanity  and acts of genocide in the same areas beset by armed conflict today, seven years on. About 630,000 Rohingya remain in Rakhine State  under a system of apartheid that leaves them exceptionally vulnerable to renewed fighting. Since the February 2021 coup, the Myanmar military has committed crimes against humanity and war crimes across the country. Security forces have continued to persecute the Rohingya, arresting thousands for “unauthorized travel” and imposing  new movement restrictions and aid blockages on Rohingya camps and villages. The conflict  has displaced an estimated 310,000 people in Rakhine State and southern Chin State since it resumed in November 2023. Yet the junta has ramped up its deadly blockages of humanitarian aid to civilians across Rakhine, a form of collective punishment that violates international humanitarian law. Security forces have shut down major roads and waterways, banned the transport of medical supplies, and attacked healthcare facilities. Internet and telecommunication outage data and reports from civil society groups demonstrate a total lack of internet services in Rakhine State between January 10 and May 31, 2024. These restrictions sustain the military’s longstanding “four cuts” strategy, designed to exert control over an area by isolating and terrorizing civilians. Unlawful Forced Recruitment; Rising Hostilities The military has been stoking communal tensions between the Rohingya and Rakhine communities through forced recruitment and other exploitative tactics, similar to its efforts during the  2012 ethnic cleansing campaign , Human Rights Watch said.  In late March, the military coerced Rohingya to participate in anti-Arakan Army protests in Buthidaung and Sittwe townships, threatening to burn down their homes, launch artillery attacks, or detain them if they refused. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights  reported that the military organized the protests “most likely in order to destabilize Rakhine State to its own advantage by inflaming communal tensions.”  The military activated the 2010 People’s Military Service Law in February, enabling conscription of Myanmar citizens. Despite having long been denied citizenship and regarded as foreigners, the Rohingya became the first targets of the conscription campaign. Security forces have abducted and forcibly recruited thousands of Rohingya men and boys through nighttime raids, coercion, false promises of citizenship, and threats of arrest, abduction, and beatings. The military has been sending forced recruits to  abusive two-week military training , then deploying them to the front lines, where some have been killed or injured. Local media reported in late April that the military had conscripted 5,000 Rohingya into military training. Yusuf, who lived in the village of Htin Shar Pyin, said that junta soldiers forcibly recruited him with about three dozen other Rohingya in a 3 a.m. raid in late March. “The military now wants us to join them in their fight against the Arakan Army almost seven years after they brutalized our mothers and sisters in 2017,” he said. “None of us joined them willingly.” Yusuf said he saw over 1,000 Rohingya conscripts at the cantonment. For two months, he was deployed to the front lines in Buthidaung. In Bangladesh, where one million Rohingya refugees live in camps,  Rohingya armed groups forcibly recruited and smuggled at least 1,800 refugees into Rakhine State on behalf of Myanmar junta forces between mid-March and early June. A camp majhi (community leader) said that the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO) armed group had tried to force the majhis to provide lists of 25 young men per camp block.  A Rohingya refugee said that on May 4, RSO members took his 15-year-old son, 17-year-old nephew, and about 20 other young men and boys to Myanmar. “We have stopped eating and drinking due to grief,” he said. “I want to get my son back. He is too young to understand anything about war.” Rohingya said that the forced recruitment inflamed hostilities with Rakhine communities and made them a target of the Arakan Army. “Five young men were forcibly taken from our village by the military for conscription,” said a resident of Nan Yar Kone, a village attacked in early May. “I think this was why the Arakan Army launched the attack on our village in retaliation.” In March and April, official Arakan Army social media accounts, including leader Twan Mrat Naing’s, referred to the Muslim Rohingya as “Bengali,” a pejorative term long used by the military to label them as foreigners. Both Rakhine and Rohingya accounts have spread misinformation and hate speech online. “Before the recent clashes in Buthidaung, our relationship [with the Arakan Army] wasn’t so bad,” said Sadek, 19, from Htin Shar Pyin. “After these clashes, they started looting our houses and took all of our belongings on trucks.” Another villager from Htin Shar Pyin said that during attacks on his village on May 14, Arakan Army fighters told them: “‘You sent your sons to the military for training to kill us. The military is your father. Is the military coming to protect you now? You don’t have the right to live in this area anymore.’ Afterward, they started burning the houses.” April-May Violence Between April 11 and 20, the junta military and Rohingya armed groups looted and set on fire ethnic Rakhine areas in Buthidaung town and villages to the south, according to satellite imagery reviewed by Human Rights Watch, witness accounts, and local media reports. Within the town, property in predominantly Rakhine, Hindu, and Khami areas in Wards 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 were set on fire in arson attacks between April 11 and 17, with Ward 4 most affected. The damage visible in the satellite imagery resulted from numerous fires originating in different parts of the town over several days, suggesting they were deliberately ignited. A Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) office and pharmacy  were burned down on April 15. Satellite imagery from April 27, 2024, showing the main burned areas in wards 4 and 5 of Buthidaung town during the arson attacks from April 11-17. © Planet Labs PBC. Analysis and graphics © Human Rights Watch. A 26-year-old Rakhine villager from Buthidaung town said: [Rohingya] Muslims collaborated with the SAC [State Administration Council junta] to destroy Rakhine villages and loot everything from the houses. The Muslims came in groups. The SAC forces were few, maybe around 10 or 20, but there were over 100 or around 200 Muslims. They destroyed our Buddhist religious buildings. They broke into the houses, took everything they wanted, loaded them onto their trucks, and then finally burned the houses. They also shot at us as we fled. A 13-minute video made up of five clips was posted on Facebook by the account “Democratic Voice of Arakan” on May 26. The video, recorded from a moving vehicle, starts in Ward 3 and shows destroyed or partially destroyed buildings on both sides of the road in Wards 3 and 6 for the first five minutes. Satellite imagery captured on April 27 shows that most of the buildings filmed in this video were destroyed during the April attacks.  A photograph posted in a series on Facebook by Western News on April 24 shows dark smoke clouds filling the sky. Initially geolocated by  Bellingcat and verified by Human Rights Watch, the photograph was taken south of Buthidaung Road in Ward 4 on April 14, according to the image timestamp.  While defeating junta units in Buthidaung, Arakan Army forces also began launching arson attacks on the surrounding Rohingya areas. Predominantly Rohingya villages and hamlets on the eastern bank of the Mayu River show destruction by fire in late April and early May, while smoke plumes and fires were detected on a dozen villages.  Ibrahim, 28, was severely injured in an attack on his village, Da Pyu Chaung: Many people were killed in our village when the Arakan Army carried out random shootings and drone attacks. I was lying on the porch at our house. Suddenly a bomb fell on my neighbor’s house. Fragments severely damaged my face. The whole family of six next door was killed – two parents and four children – along with five others who were sheltering there. Days after the attack on our village, the Arakan Army captured MOC [Military Operations Command] 15. The Arakan Army also burned our village down. The Arakan Army announced it captured the junta’s Military Operations Command 15 headquarters on May 2, about six kilometers east of Buthidaung town, after two weeks of fighting. A few days later, junta forces blew up the main bridge entrance to Buthidaung town from the east.  Da Pyu Chaung village is located less than 500 meters from the MOC headquarters. Satellite imagery captured in early May shows the village reduced to ashes along with other settlements nearby. April 25, 2024: © 2024 Planet Labs PBC. May 6, 2024: © 2024 Planet Labs PBC. Infrared satellite image comparison between April 25 and May 6, 2024, showing all the structures in Da Pyu Chaung village in the Buthidaung township reduced to ashes. On infrared images, the vegetation appears in red and the burned areas in darker colors. A Rakhine villager who witnessed Arakan Army fighters burning houses in U Hla Pay and Ywet Nyo Taung said the Arakan Army framed the attacks as “clearance operations” against the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).  Rohingya fleeing attacks in late April and early May sought shelter across the river in Buthidaung town. Much of the ethnic Rakhine community had already fled the town, escaping earlier attacks and hostilities or having been evacuated by the Arakan Army. May 17-18 Rohingya said that Arakan Army fighters warned them to leave Buthidaung town by the morning of May 18 but began setting fire to houses the night before. “Arakan Army fighters gave us an ultimatum to vacate the town by 10 a.m. tomorrow,” a 28-year-old Rohingya man said during a phone interview the night of May 17. “But now they suddenly came and forced us to leave instantly and started setting every house on fire. Now everywhere is in flames.” An 85-year-old man from Ward 2 said his son had attended a meeting with Arakan Army fighters who told Rohingya to leave their houses by 10 a.m. on May 18. “But they came at around 10 p.m. on May 17 and started firing and setting fire to the houses while villagers were busy preparing food and packing their belongings to leave the next day,” he said. Rohingya told Human Rights Watch that Arakan Army fighters set fire to buildings across Buthidaung town; fired artillery shells; shot at villagers who were fleeing or not willing or able to leave; and looted houses. “They didn’t hesitate to torch our houses, even with people inside,” said Kabir, who lived in Ward 1. “They started setting fire to our homes around 9 p.m. We were inside when they began. They launched mortar shells at our houses and burned our village mosque.” Satellite imagery reveals fire damage in all seven wards, with Wards 1, 2, 3, and 6 most affected. Satellite imagery from July 15, 2024, showing the main burned areas in wards 1 and 2 of Buthidaung town during the arson attacks from May 17–18.  © Planet Labs PBC. Analysis and graphics © Human Rights Watch. Witnesses reported mortar and drone attacks on Buthidaung General Hospital, a mosque in Ward 1, a guest house in Ward 2, government buildings, schools including the high school, and other buildings where thousands of displaced Rohingya were sheltering. New tents and shelters are visible in the courtyard of Basic Education High School in Ward 1 in satellite imagery captured since late April. Thermal anomalies were detected by an environmental satellite on May 17 in all seven wards. Satellite imagery from May 18 confirmed that the thermal anomalies were caused by fire, and that the destroyed areas were Rohingya neighborhoods that had not been affected during the April attacks. Residential buildings and other infrastructure surrounding the Basic Education High School in Ward 1 and Buthidaung General Hospital in Ward 2 were destroyed, along with Buthidaung market in Ward 6.  Fatema, 22, lived in Ward 4 with 10 family members, 6 of whom were killed on May 17. She fled her house with her husband and two children when it was set on fire at about 8 p.m., but five other family members, including her 70-year-old father-in-law, were trapped on the upper floor: “After we got out of the house, we waited a long time for them, but they never came out.” Arakan Army fighters started shooting at the masses of fleeing villagers, she said. “Without saying anything, they started shooting toward the crowd. My brother-in law was hit and killed by a bullet. We couldn’t pick up his dead body or gather other remains because we were all running to save our own lives.” Fatema said she saw 10-12 people shot and killed while fleeing, including a young boy. “His mother had to leave him by the road,” she said. “The Arakan Army didn’t let us retrieve the bodies,” Kabir said. Witnesses said they identified the Arakan Army fighters by their uniforms and insignia, and heard them speaking Rakhine.  Arson attacks were also carried out in villages south of Buthidaung town. Residents of Htin Shar Pyin said Arakan Army troops had first attacked the village a few days earlier, launching shells and burning houses. Sadek said that the attacks resumed the evening of May 17, reaching his home around 9:30 p.m. He had gone to a nearby shop while his parents were finishing dinner. “Suddenly, countless mortar shells were launched at our houses, and they were set on fire,” he said. “I saw from the shop that my house was burning. I saw it burn to ash.”  Sadek fled with other villagers. “I saw almost 15 dead bodies scattered around as I fled,” he said. “The bodies were covered with cloths so I couldn’t identify anyone. Arakan Army troops were guarding the bodies: no one was allowed to approach them. I don’t know if my family members are still alive.” Another villager from Htin Shar Pyin said his 16-year-old cousin had been killed. Satellite imagery from May 18 shows at least three impact craters with a diameter of about 2.5 meters located less than 100 meters from the southern part of Htin Shar Pyin village, people visible in the fields next to the village, and large vehicles along the road between Htin Shar Pyin and Done Chaung. On May 18, the Arakan Army announced it had seized Buthidaung town and overtaken all military bases. The UN  told Reuters that at least 45 Rohingya died during the attack and its immediate aftermath. Fleeing The Town Thousands of Rohingya fled Buthidaung town the evening of May 17. With the main bridge providing access from the east side destroyed, people were forced to flee west and south of the town.  Screenshot from one of the 13 videos Human Rights Watch received from a source, filmed along the Buthidaung-Maungdaw Road near Buthidaung jail between 10:37 p.m. on May 17 and 5:46 a.m. on May 18, according to the metadata. The videos show hundreds of people – men, women, and children, including a woman using a wheelchair – traveling in the dark along the road with their belongings in the opposite direction of the red, smoke-filled sky. © 2024 Private. Large numbers were trapped in Ward 5, which was only partially burned, or outside the Buthidaung jail. “The Arakan Army is allowing Rohingya to stay in Ward 5, but they aren’t allowing us to flee to Maungdaw,” said a man sheltering at a warehouse. “It’s like a confinement.” “Arakan Army fighters say those who violate their orders will be punished,” another man said. Those who escaped the town to the west converged with junta troops retreating from the remaining bases overtaken by the Arakan Army, including the military’s Buthidaung Tactical Operations Command (TOC), which was captured after intense fighting on May 17. Witnesses said that Arakan Army fighters began firing at civilians and setting fire to houses in their efforts to overrun the military troops, some of whom continued fighting along the route. Ahmad, 21, fled to Tat Min Chaung, near the Tactical Operations Command: The scene was chaotic, with the military fleeing ahead and us caught in the middle. Many fleeing villagers were killed or arrested by the Arakan Army. I was hit in the shoulder by a bullet. People were killed before our eyes as we ran for our lives in the paddy fields. Some were hit by bullets, others were killed by heavy artillery shells. After arriving in a forest, we looked back and saw the village and the TOC on fire. Sadek had fled to Tat Min Chaung from Htin Shar Pyin. “That night, a group of Arakan Army fighters were burning houses and launching heavy artillery,” he said. “The next day, they called us and started detaining villagers, accusing them of being recruited by the military or having ties with it.” Sadek was also shot during the attacks: “I was holding the wound with one hand as I ran to the crowd in the rice field.” Human Rights Watch reviewed his medical records from a hospital in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, including x-rays that show a bullet in his chest. His medical chart from May 24 states: “Gunshot 7 days ago over right side of chest. One entry wound; no exit wound."  Fatema said that when she arrived at the Tactical Operations Command around 2:30 a.m. with other fleeing Rohingya, they were questioned by Arakan Army fighters. “They asked us if any Myanmar military were in the crowd,” she said. “We said no, since there were none. But they selected some young people and accused them of having ties with the military or being military recruits. They kicked and punched them and took them inside the base. They didn’t let us proceed so we stayed there the whole night.” Two people said that while fleeing west, they saw bodies of people who had been beheaded, including at least two children. “When we arrived in Thar Mai Khali [Tat Min Chaung], we saw a mother and her child on her lap, both beheaded,” Yusuf said. “Then we saw another adolescent girl who had been beheaded. All were lying beside the road to the east of the mosque. We also saw thousands of villagers, including women and children, in the bushes. Children were screaming at the entrance of the village, and we saw four houses being burned down.” The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights  confirmed at least four beheadings. At 1:42 p.m. on May 18, satellite imagery captured a large crowd of people in a rice field, appearing to carry plastic sheltering, around 350 meters east of Tat Min Chaung.  Satellite image recorded early afternoon of May 18, 2024, showing crowds of people next to Tat Min Chaung village. Crowds of people carrying their belongings were also visible, reported to be taken a few hours before, next to Buthidaung jail on a video geolocated by open-source investigators, geoconfirmed with help from Asia Intel and Myanmar Witness, and corroborated by Human Rights Watch. © 2024 Private. Satellite image © 2024 Maxar Technologies. Source: EUSI. Analysis and graphics © Human Rights Watch. Tat Min Chaung and nearby villages in the area show traces of burning. The image also shows impact craters across the Buthidaung Tactical Operations Command. Satellite imagery shows that from May 17 to 21, about 17 additional villages south and northwest of Buthidaung town were burned, following patterns where people from downtown and surrounding villages had been trying to flee, including around Tat Min Chaung and Htin Shar Pyin areas. May 16, 2024: © 2024 Planet Labs PBC. May 22, 2024: © 2024 Planet Labs PBC. Infrared satellite image comparison between May 16 and May 22, 2024, showing more than 70 percent of the structures in Tat Min Chaung village in Buthidaung township destroyed by fire. On infrared images, the vegetation appears in red and the burned areas in darker colors.  Thousands who fled south ended up sheltering in schools and makeshift camps in Sein Hnyin Pyar under a curfew, movement restrictions, and limited aid. “I don’t know how my family is surviving without food,” Yusuf said. He fled to Bangladesh, but his wife, children, mother, and brothers remain in Buthidaung. “People are now very helpless and in extreme and dire situations. They are living under the open sky in rain and shine. I cried so much for my family; I have run out of tears.” Many attempted the arduous journey into Bangladesh; only some succeeded. Border Guard Bangladesh forces have ramped-up  pushbacks of asylum seekers along the Rakhine border since January. “On our way to Bangladesh, we suffered a lot: no food, no rest,” Fatema said. “We only survived on tender leaves of trees and water.” Ibrahim from Da Pyu Chaung floated on the Naf River for two days after the Border Guard Bangladesh pushed his boat back, before finding another area where he could enter. He arrived in Bangladesh a month after his face and jaw were severely injured in the attacks. “During these days, we starved many times,” his father said. Sadek arrived in Bangladesh after a week in the jungle. “On my way, I didn’t see any village untouched,” he said. “I was always in fear of being found.”  Ahmad traveled for six days through the mountains with his gunshot injury but was unable to cross the border. “I need to go to Bangladesh to get treatment for my bullet wound,” he said. “I’m currently struggling. There are no medical facilities in Maungdaw. The border is sealed, and more border security forces have been deployed. I still don’t know my parents’ whereabouts.” Blockages of Aid, Telecoms The junta’s increasing and deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid has endangered millions of people. In Rakhine State, an estimated 1.6 million people  have been cut off from hospital access since early 2024, according to the UN. MSF  said on June 27 that it had been forced to suspend all medical activities in northern Rakhine State due to the “extreme escalation of conflict, indiscriminate violence, and severe restrictions on humanitarian access,” leaving people “with zero access to healthcare in the face of huge needs” and contributing to the “total decimation of the healthcare system.” Both Buthidaung and Maungdaw hospitals  were shut down .  On June 22, a World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse in Maungdaw storing a month’s worth of lifesaving food and supplies for 64,000 people  was looted and burned .  The UN and humanitarian organizations have reported that lack of access to medical care has caused growing  malnutrition ,  waterborne illness , and  preventable deaths , including of children due to treatable diarrhea and of pregnant women. “All communities are without proper primary and secondary healthcare and our teams observed pregnant women and unborn babies losing their lives due to the lack of healthcare,” MSF  said . “We do not know what to do or how to survive,” said a Rakhine villager displaced in April. “No food. Our children are sick. We urgently need medicine. We are filled with fears of aerial attacks and artillery.” For months, the junta has severely restricted internet and phone services, with grave impacts on access to information, the humanitarian response, and the ability to document attacks. According to the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis (IODA) project, Rakhine State experienced a complete internet outage from January 10 until May 31. Human Rights Watch also documented through use of the tool GPSJam multiple instances of likely Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) jamming in and around the Buthidaung area, affecting telecommunication providers. The Rohingya population remains particularly vulnerable to the junta’s restrictions, which contravene the  December 2022 UN Security Council resolution and numerous other international calls. In January 2020, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) imposed provisional measures ordering Myanmar to prevent all genocidal acts against the Rohingya  while it adjudicates alleged violations of the Genocide Convention. In a June report, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded: “Actions taken by all parties that endanger the Rohingya appear inconsistent with the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice.” On July 10, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on the Rohingya and other minorities in Myanmar in which it “strongly condemns the attack in Buthidaung township on 17 May 2024 and the continuous targeting of Rohingya Muslims … and urges all parties to the conflict to fully comply with the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice.” “For Rohingya people – oppressed, scapegoated, exploited, and stuck between warring parties – the situation carries echoes of the lead-up to genocidal violence in 2016 and 2017,” the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar   told the Human Rights Council on July 3. © 2024 Human Rights Watch