The Israeli military and border police forces are killing Palestinian children with virtually no recourse for accountability.
Israeli forces should end the routine unlawful use of lethal force against Palestinians, including children. Israel’s allies should increase pressure to end the practice.
The UN Secretary-General should list Israel’s armed forces in his annual report on grave violations against children in armed conflict for 2023 as responsible for the violation of killing and maiming Palestinian children.
(UN News)* — Criminal gangs in southeast Asia are using torture and abuse to force hundreds of thousands of people into an online scam operation which generates billions of dollars per year, the UN rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday [].
OHCHR said that at least 120,000 people across Myanmar and another 100,000 in Cambodia may be held in situations where they are forced to execute lucrative online scams – from illegal gambling to crypto fraud.
Other States including Lao PDR, the Philippines and Thailand have also been identified as main countries of destination or transit.
Victims, not criminals
“People who are coerced into working in these scamming operations endure inhumane treatment while being forced to carry out crimes,” said UN rights chief Volker Türk. “They are victims. They are not criminals,” he insisted.
Bosaso, 28 August 2023 (IOM)* – In the early morning hours, more than 30 young women and girls, and at least a dozen men are gathered in a precarious settlement on the outskirts of Bosaso, in northern Somalia.
Habtham (right) and Abeba (left) sit in front of an informal settlement in Bosaso. They are amongst a group of migrants preparing to get on boats to Yemen in the coming days. Photo: IOM/Yonas Tadesse
Some lie directly on the floor, others on top of sleeping mats covered by a mix of sand and dust, making breathing difficult in the sweltering heat.
Situated at a strategic maritime point in the Horn of Africa, Bosaso serves as one of the last stops for those seeking to leave the region via the Eastern Route – a migratory path that continues through Yemen and leads to the Gulf States.
It is in our connectedness with other people – in our memories of laughter, smiles, sharing sorrow, being heard, being looked at with kindness, being heard with attention, being remembered by someone, being upset with someone, being comforted – that we become alive as relational beings.
Sumeet Grover
From one perspective, we can only experience the richness of life when we are in relation with other people, amongst other people, and in between other people.
Our relationship with people is not the only relationship that we have: we also have a relationship with what goes on within our minds and bodies.
We have a relationship with a complex internal world that drives us, often out of awareness, until that internal world begins to feel unsettling.
People often come to psychotherapy because there is an uncomfortable relationship with one’s own mind, body or the people around them.
On 26 Jul 2023, Niger’s presidential guard moved against the sitting president—Mohamed Bazoum—and conducted a coup d’état. A brief contest among the various armed forces in the country ended with all the branches agreeing to the removal of Bazoum and the creation of a military junta led by Presidential Guard Commander General Abdourahamane “Omar” Tchiani.
Niamey, the capital of Niger (file photo).
This is the fourth country in the Sahel region of Africa to have experienced a coup—the other three being Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali.
The new government announced that it would stop allowing France to leech Niger’s uranium (one in three lightbulbs in France is powered by the uranium from the field in Arlit, northern Niger).
Tog-wachale, 21 August 2023 (IOM)* – “The promise sounded too good to be true, travelling from Ethiopia to Saudi Arabia for work, but I just went with it. They said it will only be for seven days. Now, seven days later, I have three bullet wounds in my body and am nowhere near where I intended,” narrates Halima*, a student from Arsi, Oromia Region of Ethiopia.
Halima* survived a deadly ordeal after crossing from Ethiopia to Somalia, trying to reach the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in search of work. Photo: IOM 2023/Kaye Viray
Like many Ethiopians searching for better work opportunities, Halima was lured to embark on a deadly journey from Ethiopia to the Gulf countries through Somalia, across Yemen, to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries through what is often referred to as the Eastern Migration Route.
She had no idea about the insecurity and the conflict situations in the neighbouring countries making up this route.
ACCRA, Aug 22 2023 (IPS)*– The war in Tigray, northern Ethiopian, led to sexual and gender-based violence against women, but when Hilina Berhanu Degefa, researcher, gender policy expert and co-founder of the Yellow Movement AAU, appeared before the UN Security Council Open Debate on Sexual Violence in Conflict last year, and catalogued the problems that the victims of the war faced, it didn’t shock the world.
Hilina Berhanu Degefa, researcher, gender policy expert and co-founder of the Yellow Movement AAU, addresses the UN Security Council. CREDIT: UN Photo/Loey Felipe
The Israeli Supreme Court today [August 25, 2023] approved the punitive demolition of the family home of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who has spent the past six months in pre-trial detention on unfair charges.
In February 2023, Mohammed Zalabani stabbed an Israeli border police officer on a bus at a checkpoint in the Shu’afat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem. He was overpowered, but moments later a private Israeli security guard accidentally shot the officer dead.
Viola Fletcher was just seven years old when she was forcibly displaced from her hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, by an armed mob which destroyed the predominantly Black enclave of Greenwood, killing hundreds of residents.
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe | At age 109, Viola Ford Fletcher, the oldest living survivor of the Tulsa Massacre, visits the Ark of Return at UN Headquarters.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 