(Human Rights Watch) – Iraq’s security forces fired on and beat protesters in Basra governorate during a series of protests from July 8 to 17, 2018, Human Rights Watch said today. The largely Interior Ministry forces used apparent excessive and unnecessary lethal force against protests over water, jobs, and electrical power that at times turned violent. At […]

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(Reuters) –  U.S. photographer Brian McCarty wants you to see the horrors of war, but through the eyes of a child. There is no blood or mangled bodies. Instead there are pink dolls and blue tanks. A bird from a video game represents bombs falling from the sky. An elephant symbolizes a lost sibling. McCarty’s most recent […]

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(The Ferret) – More than 10,000 children were killed or maimed in conflicts during 2017, according to a new United Nations (UN) report, which has prompted critics of the arms trade to accuse the UK of complicity in human rights abuses. Citing “unspeakable” violence, the UN has verified more than 21,000 “grave violations” of children’s rights from January to December 2017, an […]

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(Human Rights Watch) – I held my breath yesterday, waiting for the US State Department to issue its latest annual list of governments implicated in the use of child soldiers. Last year’s list was a disaster: then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson overruled his own staff and left blatant violators – Afghanistan, Burma, and Iraq – off the list. […]

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(Human Rights Watch) – Iraq’s judiciary should change its approach to dealing with detained foreign women and children who are accused of affiliation with the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), Human Rights Watch said today. Since January, Iraq has proceeded with rushed trials against foreigners on charges of illegal entry and membership in or assistance to ISIS without […]

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(UNICEF) – As many as 750,000 children in Mosul and surrounding areas are struggling to access basic health services. While violence has subsided, less than 10 percent of health facilities in Ninewah governorate are functioning at full capacity. Those that are operational are stretched to breaking point. Three years of intense violence have devastated health facilities […]

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(UNICEF) – UNICEF appealed today for $3.6 billion to provide lifesaving humanitarian assistance to 48 million children living through conflict, natural disasters and other emergencies in 51 countries in 2018.  Around the world, violent conflict is driving humanitarian needs to critical levels, with children especially vulnerable. Conflicts that have endured for years – such as those […]

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(VOA) – Dozens of Yazidi children who have been rescued from the Islamic State terror group in Iraq and Syria are now receiving counseling to cope with and recover from the trauma they experienced during their years in captivity. At Qadiya refugee camp near the Iraqi Kurdistan Region’s northern city of Duhok, more than 100 Yazidi […]

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