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The U.N. humanitarian chief warned Thursday that the grave humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region is deteriorating, with no sign of Eritrean troops withdrawing and alarmingly widespread reports of systematic rape and other sexual violence mainly by men in uniform.
He replaces Debretsion Gebremichael, whose immunity from prosecution was removed Thursday.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International said Thursday that scores of civilians were killed in a \"massacre\" in the Tigray region, that witnesses blamed on forces backing the local ruling party.
The \"massacre\" is the first reported incident of large-scale civilian fatalities in a week-old conflict between the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize.
\"Amnesty International can today confirm... that scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death in Mai-Kadra (May Cadera) town in the southwest of Ethiopia's Tigray Region on the night of 9 November,\" the rights group said in a report.
Amnesty said it had \"digitally verified gruesome photographs and videos of bodies strewn across the town or being carried away on stretchers.\"
The dead \"had gaping wounds that appear to have been inflicted by sharp weapons such as knives and machetes,\" Amnesty said, citing witness accounts.
Witnesses said the attack was carried out by TPLF-aligned forces after a defeat at the hands of the Ethiopian military, though Amnesty said it \"has not been able to confirm who was responsible for the killings\".
It nonetheless called on TPLF commanders and officials to \"make clear to their forces and their supporters that deliberate attacks on civilians are absolutely prohibited and constitute war crimes\".
Abiy ordered military operations in Tigray on November 4, saying they were prompted by a TPLF attack on federal military camps -- a claim the party denies.
The region has been under a communications blackout ever since, making it difficult to verify competing claims on the ground.
Abiy said Thursday his army had made major gains in western Tigray.
Thousands of Ethiopians have fled across the border into neighboring Sudan, and the UN is sounding the alarm about a humanitarian crisis in Tigray.
Since 1999 international attention has been focused on evidence that slavery is widespread throughout Sudan. Arab raiders from the north of the country have enslaved thousands of southerners, who are black. The Dinka people have been the hardest-hit. Some sources point out that the raids intensified in the 1980s along with the civil war between north and south.
Ever since Lt. Gen. Omar Bashirs military coup in 1989, the de facto ruler of Sudan had been Hassan el-Turabi, a cleric and political leader who is a major figure in the pan-Arabic Islamic fundamentalist resurgence. In 1999, however, Bashir ousted Turabi and placed him under house arrest. (He was freed in Oct. 2003.) Since then Bashir has made overtures to the West, and in Sept. 2001, the UN lifted its six-year-old sanctions. The U.S., however, still officially considers Sudan a terrorist state.
A cease-fire was declared between the Sudanese government and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) in July 2002. During peace talks, which continued through 2003, the government agreed to a power-sharing government for six years, to be followed by a referendum on self-determination for the south. Fighting on both sides continued throughout the peace negotiations.
Thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced after a government-led military campaign against regional forces in November last year.
UNICEF said some 2.3 million minors are struggling to access treatment for malnourishment, critical vaccines, emergency medicines, water and sanitation.
That would allow organizations to focus solely on helping families rather than worrying about funding during the coronavirus pandemic, which has led to a domestic violence crisis.
“As domestic violence incidents increase due to the financial and emotional stress of the pandemic, we must ensure these vital organizations are able to leverage federal funding to help them provide prevention, resources and support to those who are in crisis,” Casey added.
Many domestic violence shelters were already at mass capacity before the pandemic hit, said Catherine Beane, vice president of public policy and advocacy at YWCA USA, one of the organizations that supported the POWER Act.
“This bill is so critical right now because the individuals who are experiencing domestic and sexual violence and other forms of family violence, they don’t have time to wait for a better time financially for YWCA or any other organization to have room in their shelter,” Beane told HuffPost.
Last month, a bipartisan group of senators wrote two letters urging leadership to include more funding relief in the next COVID-19 bailout bill and asked for more resources specifically for native and indigenous survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
Armed with research to prove how much better off our world would be with the rights of women and girls realised, we in the global advocacy community declared that it is well past time to start living in a gender equal reality.
I had declared in 2018, after the death of another innocent girl victim of sexual and gender based violence, Ochanya, that we were standing on a gender precipice from where good actions could flow, if together, we determinedly took the right actions to protect women and girls.
At the United Kingdom-France consultations on the Prevention of Sexual Violence Initiative last year, we said with such hope that we would uphold the United Nations Security Council's Resolution 1325 on women peace and security.
At the Commonwealth of Nations last year, we made a promise of No More Violence, yet, here we are, from our leaders, and right down to our grassroots, failing women and girls.
The gruesome deaths of Uwa and Tina are a visceral notice of our failure in Nigeria, and that's why I am joining the WACOL Tamar SARC and Social Intervention Advocacy Foundation to call for radical reform of our police, to end the impunity of sexual violence against women and girls.
KEMPTEN, Germany — A German court has sentenced an Afghan refugee to life imprisonment for murdering his wife on a public bus. Mohammad Salih M, 38, took the drastic step after his wife Razia M, [...]
