(Nairobi) – The Burkina Faso military summarily executed at least 223 civilians, including at least 56 children, in two villages on February 25, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today [25 April 2024].
These mass killings, among the worst army abuse in Burkina Faso since 2015, appear to be part of a widespread military campaign against civilians accused of collaborating with Islamist armed groups, and may amount to crimes against humanity.
Unexpected blistering temperatures across Gaza have added to the daily misery faced by the enclave’s people and sparked new fears of disease outbreaks amid a lack of sufficient clean water and waste disposal, UN humanitarians said on Thursday [].
The warning from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, came as some 1.2 million people continued to shelter in tents pitched in and around the enclave’s southernmost city, Rafah, with nowhere else to go.
“It is like living in a greenhouse, no-one can tolerate living inside,” the UN agency said, quoting Mustafa Radwan, formerly from Gaza City, in a social media post on X.
Rome, 24 April 2024 (FAO)* – According to the latest Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), nearly 282 million people in 59 countries and territories experienced high levels of acute hunger in 2023 – a worldwide increase of 24 million from the previous year.
This rise was due to the report’s increased coverage of food crisis contexts as well as a sharp deterioration in food security, especially in the Gaza Strip and the Sudan.
The Right of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel)
The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore,Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.
(UN News)* —The Security Council rejected Palestine’s request for UN membership on Thursday [], with the United States casting a veto.
Play video
UN Photo/Manuel Elías | Ambassador Robert A. Wood of the United States votes against the draft resolution on Palestine in the Security Council.
In a vote of 12 in favour to one against, with two abstentions, the Council did not adopt a draft resolution that would have recommended the General Assembly to hold a vote with the broader UN membership to allow Palestine to join as a full UN Member State.
The draft resolution is among the shortest in the Council’s history: “The Security Council, having examined the application of the State of Palestine for admission to the United Nations (S/2011/592), recommends to the General Assembly that the State of Palestine be admitted to membership in the United Nations.”
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 2024 (IPS)* – The Biden administration, once again displayed its political hypocrisy by denying UN membership to Palestine, while continuing to advocate a “two-state’ solution” to the crisis in the Middle East.
Mahmoud Abbas (centre right), President of the State of Palestine, addresses an event to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Nakba, held by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on 15 May 2023.
But one lingering question remains: will the two-state solution include– or exclude– Palestine as a full-fledged UN member state?
Sudan, 12 April 2024 (UNFPA)* – “I can’t forget that moment. I can’t forget his smell. I can’t forget their faces. This moment will haunt me until I die.”
Fawzya*, 26, was travelling towards the border with Chad to escape the violence that had engulfed her hometown in Sudan, when fighting broke out just in front of her.
(UN News)* — The year-long ongoing war in Sudan is “a crisis of epic proportions”, and the world must rethink the way it supports the Sudanese people amid rampant atrocities against civilians and no end in sight, top UN and African Union officials warned the Security Council on Friday [].
The Sudanese people have endured “unbearable suffering” since the conflict started just over a year ago when an outbreak of fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) “brutally interrupted the political transition”, Rosemary DiCarlo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, said.
(UN News)* — Climate change shocks caused record levels of disruption and misery for millions in Europe in 2023 with widespread flooding and severe heatwaves – a new normal which countries must adapt to as a priority, the UN weather agency said on Monday [].
New data published jointly by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed fears that that 2023 was the joint warmest or second warmest year on record in Europe, depending on the dataset selected.
(UN News)* — UN-coordinated food convoys are three times more likely to be denied access to north Gaza than other aid convoys, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, reported on Tuesday [9 April 2024].
Israeli authorities have not given a clear reason why, said OCHA Spokesperson Jens Laerke, speaking during the regular briefing by UN humanitarian agencies in Geneva.
“They very often deny and that is it, and it ends there. We do not get an explanation,” he said.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 