(Huffington Post) – Fatima Mohammed Ali and her two young sons were planting vegetables on her family’s farm in a remote region of northern Yemen last year when an airstrike suddenly hit the family’s home. The massive blast demolished the house, across from the fields where they were working, as well as a swing set nearby. […]
(HRW) – This week, a United Nations expert committee will review Nigeria’s record concerning women and girls. It will be an opportunity both to endorse Nigeria’s efforts to protect its schoolgirls from abduction and attack, and to urge more action. Boko Haram, a homegrown Islamist armed group, has for years carried out a campaign of deliberate attacks on girls, teachers, […]
(UNICEF) – “Although the battle for Mosul is coming to an end, children’s deep physical and mental scars will take time to heal. Some 650,000 boys and girls, who have lived through the nightmare of violence in Mosul, have paid a terrible price and endured many horrors over the past three years. Some children continue to […]
(African Arguments) – The ancient gilded room of a Catholic community group in Rome was perhaps an unlikely setting for a crucial meeting on the Central African Republic (CAR). But this June, representatives from the Central African government and 13 armed groups gathered in the headquarters of the Saint’ Egidio peace group where they signed a peace accord. CAR has […]
(The Guardian) – Canada’s compensation payment to a former child soldier could have worldwide implications, child rights defenders say. Omar Khadr, the only child soldier to have been prosecuted by a military tribunal for war crimes, has received an apology and $10.5m compensation from the Canadian government for failing to protect his rights. Link
(Al Jazeera) – Salem Khalaf, a 63-year-old tractor driver, vividly recalls the day in August 2014 when ISIL fighters attacked the Sinjar region. Upon hearing that the group was drawing near and that security forces had fled, Khalaf and other Yazidi men sent their families away, while they remained in place, taking up small arms to defend their homes. Link
(MSF) – The merciless killing of a baby in a hospital in Zemio, Central African Republic (CAR), where Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) runs a project, points to the extreme brutality against civilians in the escalating conflict, as the number of safe spaces dwindles. On Tuesday 11 July, two armed men arrived at Zemio hospital where around 7,000 internally […]
(HRW) – Syrian-Russian airstrikes and artillery attacks on June 14, 2017, in a town in the southern Daraa governorate killed 10 civilians in and near a school, Human Rights Watch said today. Residents said they were not aware of any military targets in the vicinity of the attacks. One of the airstrikes hit the courtyard of […]
(UNICEF Australia) – UNICEF Australia says allegations of the killing of at least two children in Afghanistan in 2012 and 2013 by Australian soldiers must be thoroughly investigated. The first case involves the alleged unlawful killing in 2012 of a 14 or 15-year-old Afghan boy in Kandahar province, by Australian special forces. Link
(HRW) – There was a marching band, a choir, dignitaries, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony. On Tuesday, some 300 Burundian soldiers serving in the African Union peace support force in Somalia (AMISOM), finally abandoned their military base on the Somalia National University campus in Dharkenley district, west of Mogadishu. The troops have been encamped at the university for 10 […]