Archive for ‘Africa’

14/04/2025

Sudan War Has Created Suffering of ‘Industrial Proportions’

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — Two years since Sudan’s brutal conflict began, UN agencies warned that famine is spreading and civilians of all ages continue to suffer shocking abuse, including rape and gang rape. 

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A woman prepares food in a camp for displaced people in Kassala state in Sudan.
© UNICEF/Proscovia Nakibuuka | A woman prepares food in a camp for displaced people in Kassala state in Sudan.

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13/04/2025

US/El Salvador: Venezuelan Deportees Forcibly Disappeared

Human Wrongs Watch

By Human Rights Watch*

Disclose Fate of all Detainees; End Incommunicado Detention

Relatives of Venezuelan migrants deported from the US to a maximum security prison in El Salvador attend a vigil in front of the El Salvadoran embassy in Caracas on April 2, 2025.
Relatives of Venezuelan migrants deported from the US to a maximum security prison in El Salvador attend a vigil in front of the El Salvadoran embassy in Caracas on April 2, 2025. © JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images

(Washington, DC) – The governments of the United States and El Salvador have subjected more than 200 Venezuelan nationals to enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention, Human Rights Watch said today [11 April 2025].

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12/04/2025

DR Congo: Children Subjected to Deliberate, Systemic Sexual Violence

Human Wrongs Watch

By Vibhu Mishra

(UN News)* — Sexual violence against children in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has reached staggering proportions, with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reporting thousands of new cases in just two months – evidence that it’s being used as a systemic weapon of war and deliberate terror tactic.

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Children could account for up to 45 per cent of nearly 10,000 reported cases of rape and sexual violence in eastern DR Congo in early 2025. (file photo)
© UNICEF/Roger LeMoyn | Children could account for up to 45 per cent of nearly 10,000 reported cases of rape and sexual violence in eastern DR Congo in early 2025. (file photo)

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11/04/2025

US Tariffs Threaten to Undermine World Trade Organization

Human Wrongs Watch

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 11 2025 (IPS)* As the Trump administration’s hostility towards the United Nations and other international organizations keeps growing, a New York Times columnist last week proposed what he frivolously described as “something a little incendiary”.
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Credit: John Birch Society

Maybe Trump could follow up on his non-appointment of Elise Stefanik as US Ambassador to the United Nations—who has been virulently anti-UN—by withdrawing the US from the United Nations entirely.

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11/04/2025

Spare Developing Countries from New US Tariffs: UN Trade Chief

Human Wrongs Watch

By Conor Lennon

()* — As governments and global markets struggle to deal with the deep concerns and disruptions caused by volatility over trade tariffs, Rebeca Grynspan, the head of the UN trade and development agency (UNCTAD), told UN News on Thursday that the poorest countries – whose activities have a negligible effect on trade deficits – should be exempt.

Workers sew fabric at a factory in West Africa (file)
© IMF/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | Workers sew fabric at a factory in West Africa (file)

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11/04/2025

Women at the Crossroads: Fleeing War in Sudan for an Uncertain Future in South Sudan

Human Wrongs Watch

By the United Nations Population Fund*

UPPER NILE STATE, South Sudan, 9 April 2025 – Mary Kak is threading beads onto a string, making jewellery she hopes to later sell at a marketplace in Renk, a border town in South Sudan’s Upper Nile State.

Six women wearing long robes are seen walking away towards an open space with a large tree
As South Sudan teeters on the edge of civil war, tens of thousands of returnees and refugees must contend with a lack of resources, chronic unemployment and terrifying threats of sexual violence. © UNFPA South Sudan/Levi Lubari

“The beads we make here are sold and we earn money from it, but the most important thing is information and knowledge sharing on violence and other dangers,” she explained at a safe space for women and girls run by UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency.

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11/04/2025

‘With Science, We Can Feed the World of 9.7 Billion by 2050′

Human Wrongs Watch

NAIROBI, Apr 10 2025 (IPS)* Animal scientist Lindiwe Majele Sibanda became what her grandmother earnestly prayed for she was growing up on a farm in southern Zimbabwe.
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Professor Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CGIAR partnerships chair. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Professor Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CGIAR partnerships chair. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Majele Sibanda, an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria, is a practicing livestock farmer and a successful one at that. She is raising pedigree and indigenous cattle as well as hardy Matabele goats.

“Livestock is livelihood,” Majele Sibanda says, speaking to IPS at CGIAR Science Week, responding to the growing concerns about livestock farming as an environmental threat.

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10/04/2025

South Sudan: Incendiary Bombs Kill, Burn Civilians

Human Wrongs Watch

By Human Rights Watch*

Remnants of a burnt tukul (homes) in Mathiang
Remnants of a burnt tukul (home) in Mathiang, South Sudan, following an attack with an incendiary weapon on March 16, 2025. Many tukuls and other civilian objects were burnt in the fires from incendiary weapons use. © 2025 Private

(Nairobi) – South Sudan’s use of improvised air-dropped incendiary weapons has killed and horrifically burned dozens of people, including children, and destroyed civilian infrastructure in Upper Nile state, Human Rights Watch on 9 April 2025 said.

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10/04/2025

South Sudan: Conflict and Hunger Push Millions to the Brink

Human Wrongs Watch

By Vibhu Mishr

(UN News)* — Hunger in South Sudan’s northeast has reached a critical tipping point, with nearly 7.7 million people facing severe food insecurity as conflict escalates, the UN’s emergency food relief agency warned on Wednesday .

A girl walks to a water collection point in Renk town in South Sudan's strife-ridden Upper Nile state. (file)
© UNICEF/Mark Naftali | A girl walks to a water collection point in Renk town in South Sudan’s strife-ridden Upper Nile state. (file)

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08/04/2025

German Proposal to Strip Citizenship Endangers Human Rights

Human Wrongs Watch

By Almaz Teffera, Researcher, Racism in Europe Human Rights Watch*

A leaked paper reveals that Germany’s conservative political parties, the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), want to add a clause to Germany’s Nationality Law to allow the country to revoke German nationality from dual nationals if they are deemed “supporters of terrorism, antisemites and extremists.”

A citizen shows their German and Turkish passports in support of legal recognition for dual citizenship, Berlin, Germany, June 27, 2024.
A citizen shows their German and Azerbaijani passports in support of legal recognition for dual citizenship, Berlin, Germany, June 27, 2024. © 2024 Jens Kalaene/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo

The proposal does not define who would be considered an “antisemite,” a “terrorist supporter,” or an “extremist.”

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