Archive for ‘Middle East’

14/04/2025

“They would kill us if we stayed”

Human Wrongs Watch

By the Norwegian Refugee Council*

11 April 2025 — On the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a group of Israeli settlers carrying metal sticks and tools descended a rocky hill and attacked Khadija Kaabneh’s family.

Khadija Kaabneh looks towards her family’s third displacement site. Photo: Farah Bayadsi/NRC

The settlers stormed and destroyed the family’s tents, ransacked their belongings, and beat Khadija’s husband and sons. Fearing for her and her daughters’ safety, she fled to a nearby hill, helpless as she watched settlers attack her eldest son, Bashar.

A couple of hours after the 1 March attack, they issued a threat. “They said they would kill us if we stayed,” recounts Khadija.

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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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13/04/2025

Palestine: Between Siege and Survival: The Unheard Struggles of Mothers in the West Bank

Human Wrongs Watch

By the United Nations Population Fund*

THE WEST BANK, Occupied Palestinian Territory, 11 April 2025 – “I suffered from postpartum fever, but reaching the hospital was nearly impossible because of the siege on medical services,” said 26-year-old Sara*, from the Nur Shams refugee camp near the Palestinian city of Tulkarm. 

A woman dressed in black stands in the rubble of her home.
A woman stands amid the rubble of her home following a raid by the Israel forces in Jenin, in Palestine’s West Bank. ©UNFPA Palestine/Media Clinic

She gave birth a little over two months ago, just as the Israeli forces began renewed and intense incursions into multiple areas of the West Bank, where pregnant women and new mothers grapple daily with displacement and the denial of healthcare. 

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12/04/2025

Bombardment, Deprivation and Displacement Continue to Take a Devastating Toll on the Population in Gaza

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — Hostilities across the Gaza Strip continue to take a devastating toll on the population, with daily reports of Israeli strikes killing and injuring many civilians, UN aid coordination office OCHA said on Thursday . 

Families in Gaza continue to be displaced. (fle)
© UNRWA | Families in Gaza continue to be displaced. (fle)
 
OCHA said dozens of people, including at least eight children, were killed in Gaza City on Wednesday 9 April 2025 after an Israeli strike hit a residential building.

Many others are still missing under the rubble.

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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

Yemen: ‘US Abrupt and Irresponsible Aid Cuts Compound Humanitarian Crisis and Put Millions at Risk’   

 

Human Wrongs Watch

The United States government’s abrupt and irresponsible termination of foreign assistance is putting the health and human rights of millions of people in Yemen who depend on humanitarian aid at risk, Amnesty International on said.  

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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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