(The Star) – Afghanistan has adopted new rules meant to better protect children from violence in the troubled country — including abuse by its own security forces. Tariq Shah Bahrami, the country’s minister of defence, signed the Child Protection Policy into force in early December, a move one child advocate hailed as “highly significant.” Link
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(The Washington Post) – Burma’s ethnic cleansing campaign against Rohingya Muslims has been rife with sexual violence, according to recent news accounts. Among the more than 600,000 people who have fled to neighboring Bangladesh, many are survivors of rape, gang rape and sexual slavery. Link
(The Guardian) – Hospitals in Gaza will face an almost total power blackout by the end of February unless funding is secured to keep emergency generators running, the World Health Organization has warned. An ongoing electricity crisis in Gaza has left hospitals reliant on emergency generators for up to 20 hours a day, while medical staff have been forced to […]
(CARE) – The people of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are facing an uncertain 2018. The humanitarian situation deteriorated dramatically in 2017, and the country is now facing a crisis of massive proportions, says CARE International. Across the country, more than 8.5 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, a figure that’s expected […]
(The Guardian) – A stark warning from the UN in mid-December that genocide may be taking place in Myanmar has been met by an awkward silence around the world, indicating a limited appetite for forceful humanitarian intervention, even in the most extreme cases. The persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority is beginning to resemble the plight […]
(AFP) – A brutal rebellion by the Lord’s Resistance Army brought years of suffering to northern Uganda. Tens of thousands of children were abducted, their childhoods lost and communities broken. Now that the fighting is over, a group of former child soldiers is helping some heal through music therapy. Link
(Independent) – Everyone now knows that 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi slapped an Israeli soldier. How many of us know about the events that led up to this? Telling half of a story can be more of an injustice than fabricating the entirety, and in this instance, it most certainly is. Link
(Vice Impact) – On Saturday, October 14, 2017, a large truck filled with 350 kg of homemade and military-grade explosives drove into the Hodan District of Mogadishu and detonated at a busy crossroad near the Safari Hotel. A fuel tanker parked nearby caused a massive fireball. 512 people lost their lives and 316 were injured. The organization […]
(The New York Times) – Jehora Begum was a fast runner, racing through rice paddies and splashing through canals. But how can a 12-year-old girl outrun a bullet? When Myanmar’s military and Buddhist vigilantes descended on Rohingya Muslim villages in late August, burning homes and spraying gunfire, 14 members of Jehora’s family — including her mother, her father […]
(All Africa) – 2018 will be make or break time for South Sudan as the international community intervenes perhaps for the last time. After four years of civil war, effort by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development to resuscitate the August 2015 peace agreement is headed for proper negotiations in February 2018. Link
