(UN News)* —In his message on Saturday [9 December 2023] marking the international day for victims of genocide, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that a new global push is needed to ensure that “never again” should anybody have to live through the horror.
UNICEF/UNI55086/Press | A 14-year-old Rwandan boy from the town of Nyamata, photographed in June 1994, survived the genocidal massacre by hiding under corpses for two days.
“Sadly, we are in danger of forgetting the dark lessons of the past. In today’s world of deep division, mistrust and conflict, we remain confronted by the enduring menace of this atrocious crime”, he said.
He said it was essential that the Genocide Convention, which codified the crime for the first time this day, 75 years ago, when the General Assembly adopted it, “must remain a living force in our world, calling us to uphold its solemn promise.”
He said keeping the promise made by the 153 parties to the convention, which became effective in 1951, requires all governments ratifying and fully implementing the Convention and ensuring that perpetrators are held to account.
(UN News)* — UN humanitarians in war-ravaged Gaza are “hanging on by our fingertips” with civil society on the brink of full-blown collapse, they warned on Saturday [].
Women and children are bearing the brunt in terms of deaths and injuries as Israeli troops battle Palestinian militants across the enclave, with nowhere safe to go, and aid distribution stymied by war, insufficient access and insufficient supplies crossing into the Strip.
Gaza Humanitarian Disaster Heralds ‘Breakdown’ of Society
(UN News)* — As intense Israeli bombardment of Gaza and fighting with Palestinian armed groups continued to impede aid operations, reports on the ground of children begging for water and people cutting down telephone poles for firewood indicated that “society is about to break down”, UN humanitarians said on Friday [].
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 