(HRW) – “How old are you?” the interviewer asks. “Thirteen,” replies the boy, in uniform. “Thirteen years – thirteen years old!” the interviewer repeats, proudly, as the camera pans upward to the grinning, bearded faces of uniformed men, apparently Iranian soldiers, who pat their young recruit on the back. On November 25, a video with the logo of […]
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(MSF) – “When we started working here, it was chaos. It was really shocking to see inside the hospital. It was utterly destroyed. Everything was very dirty and burnt objects could be seen in the corridors and in the patients’ rooms. Mosul has gone through an excruciating and painful process to reach the point where […]
(NBC) – More than 15,200 children arrived alone in Europe this year after completing dangerous migrant journeys, according to the United Nations. A total of almost 150,000 people entered Europe seeking new lives during the first nine months of 2017, the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said in a quarterly update titled “Desperate Journeys.” That’s under half […]
(NPR) – Ammar is standing near a crowded bridge in Mosul, shivering in the sunlight. He’s a thin 16-year-old with haunted eyes. But he’s not worried about himself. He says he has come to try to find help for his sister. She’s nine, and the ISIS attack that killed their parents as they tried to flee […]
(AFP) – Iraqi officials said they found another mass grave in the northern Sinjar region on Wednesday containing the bodies of dozens of members of the Yazidi minority killed by the Islamic State group. “The mass grave contains the bodies of 73 people, men, women and children executed by the Islamic State group when they controlled […]
(The Washington Post) – The State Department on Tuesday defended Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s removal of three countries from a list of those using child soldiers, after officials upset about his decision wrote a critical dissent memo saying the action violates U.S. law. The dispute centers on the recruitment and use of child soldiers in […]
(HRW) – When US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson excluded Iraq, Burma, and Afghanistan from the State Department’s list of countries using child soldiers earlier this year, my colleagues and I at Human Rights Watch were angry. It turns out we weren’t the only ones. Today, Reuters reported a rare “dissent memo” from State Department officials, […]
(UNICEF) – Despite global progress, 1 in 12 children worldwide live in countries where their prospects today are worse than those of their parents, according to a UNICEF analysis conducted for World Children’s Day. According to the analysis, 180 million children live in 37 countries where they are more likely to live in extreme poverty, be […]
(Middle East Eye) – US lawmakers have overwhelmingly passed a bill that denounces the killing of civilians in Yemen’s war, though language in an earlier version about cutting military support to the Saudi-led coalition was scrapped. The latest version of the bill, which was adopted in a 366-to-30 vote late on Monday, laid out the […]
(Middle East Eye) – Teacher Khasem Abdali stands in front of a group of Iraqis, leading a self-improvement class in downtown Fallujah. “Why did Daesh kill barbers, musicians and singers?” he asks, refering to Islamic State. “Because Daesh’s version of Islam means killing, hatred and scorn for others, but our true Islam calls for peace, […]
