Observation was made by medics contributing a new pain management manual for treating children in conflict zones
Children being treated in Gaza’s hospitals are “underplaying” pain because it “seems trivial” in the context of the wider conflict, doctors have said.
International medics met in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday to discuss plans for a new trauma pain management manual to support professionals treating children in Gaza and other conflict zones.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch demands investigation into killings in two villages just weeks after Russian troops fly in, amid intensifying conflict
Burkina Faso’s military summarily executed 223 civilians, including at least 56 children, in a single day in late February, according to an investigation into one of the worst abuses by the country’s armed forces for years.
The mass killings have been linked to a widening military campaign to tackle jihadist violence and happened weeks after Russian troops landed in the west African country to help improve security.
Continue reading...Rights chief also warns Britain will be ‘judged harshly by history for its failure to help prevent civilian slaughter in Gaza’
The UK has been accused by Amnesty International of “deliberately destabilising” human rights on the global stage for its own political ends.
In its annual global report, released today, the organisation said Britain was weakening human rights protections nationally and globally, amid a near-breakdown of international law.
Continue reading...While conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine have captured global attention, the civil war in Sudan has been largely ignored. That can’t be allowed to continue, says the Guardian’s Nesrine Malik
With so much of the world’s attention on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, one of the worst humanitarian crises of recent times is playing out almost unnoticed. Sudan’s civil war erupted in April 2023 and has led to tens of thousands of civilian deaths and a mass displacement of up to half of the country’s population.
As Nesrine Malik tells Helen Pidd, the battle between the Sudanese Army and rebel militia the Rapid Support Forces is finely balanced, with the effect that neither side has enough strength to win the conflict decisively and so no end is in sight.
Continue reading...Satellite data indicates growing number of airstrikes on settlements, in a war that has already killed thousands
The number of villages in Sudan that have been destroyed or severely damaged by fire has risen sharply in recent weeks, suggesting the country’s conflict is intensifying as it enters its second year.
Satellite data revealed the number of Sudanese settlements set on fire in March increased to 30, the highest monthly total recorded since fighting broke out between the country’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last April.
Continue reading...The court will investigate crimes against humanity committed during the African country’s two civil wars between 1989 and 2003
Senators in Liberia have voted overwhelmingly to establish a war crimes court, two decades after civil conflict ended in the west African country.
The new court will investigate and try crimes against humanity and corruption committed during Liberia’s two civil wars between 1989 and 2003, which killed up to 250,000 people.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Rights groups denounce negotiations with Rapid Support Forces, accused of ethnic cleansing and war crimes
Foreign Office officials are holding secret talks with the paramilitary group that has been waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Sudan for the past year.
News that the British government and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are engaged in clandestine negotiations has prompted warnings that such talks risk legitimising the notorious militia – which continues to commit multiple war crimes – while undermining Britain’s moral credibility in the region.
Continue reading...Delivering a baby was already risky, but an unprecedented surge in gang violence has forced clinics and hospitals to close
The worst fears of midwives at Heartline Haiti were realised last week. As they prepared the maternity clinic for patients that evening, armed men laid siege to their neighbourhood in eastern Port-au-Prince, spraying bullets at police and rival gangs, setting cars on fire and ransacking houses.
“All of our staff were huddled in an interior hallway hearing the noises outside the gates and walls, afraid they may be next,” says Tara Livesay, the NGO’s executive director. “A gang member was shot dead outside, just two doors over.”
Continue reading...People in West Darfur’s capital still step over residue from the bodies of some of the 10,000 dead, and thousands have fled
Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state in Sudan, can feel like two cities in one. There are mass graves, abandoned armoured vehicles and homeless children, but also newly opened restaurants, bustling markets and factory-fresh Toyotas, nicknamed Kenjcanjia – meaning stolen in the local dialect – owing to their lack of registration plates.
Since war broke out between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April last year, the city has witnessed two major massacres. Decomposing bodies lay out on the streets for up to 10 days on both occasions, their flesh eaten by dogs and chickens. Residues from the bodies of the dead remain even now, stepped over by people as they go about their daily business.
Continue reading...The lack of medicine, food and water means thousands of people with asthma, kidney disease or diabetes are unable to treat or control their conditions
Four months of conflict in Gaza is jeopardising the health of thousands of people with chronic illnesses such as kidney disease, diabetes and asthma, doctors have warned.
The chronically ill are the hidden casualties of the war, as access to water, food and medicine is severely restricted, said Guillemette Thomas, the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical coordinator for Palestine.
Continue reading...Witnesses claim victims shot ‘execution style’ during house raids after clashes between government forces and Fano rebels
Ethiopian government troops went door-to-door killing dozens of civilians last month in a town in the country’s Amhara region, according to residents, who said the bloodshed took place after clashes with local militia.
The killings in Merawi appear to be one of the deadliest episodes in Amhara since a rebellion by Fano, an armed Amhara group, erupted last year over a disputed plan to disarm regional forces.
Continue reading...Ten months of armed conflict in the country has displaced nearly 11 million people and left half the population facing hunger
There is “epic suffering” in Sudan says the UN, where fighting between rival military factions since April has created the world’s biggest internal displacement crisis and raised fears of state failure.
On Wednesday, the UN appealed for $4.1bn (£3. 25bn) to meet humanitarian needs, amid warnings by the UN’s World Food Programme that people are starving to death in areas cut off by fighting.
Continue reading...World Food Programme warns it will stop helping to feed 1.4 million people including refugees from Darfur as global demand for assistance increases
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that food aid for 1.4 million people in Chad faces a “looming halt” because there is no money, even as the country is experiencing an influx of refugees from the fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Funding shortfalls and increasing humanitarian needs mean WFP will have to pause food for millions of displaced people and refugees in Nigeria, Central African Republic and Cameroon from December, the agency said.
Continue reading...Charity says that medication and materials at Bashair teaching hospital have run out and surgical team is being withdrawn
The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières has suspended life-saving surgery at a hospital in Khartoum after the Sudanese military blocked medical supplies from entering the city.
MSF said it had been refused permission to transport supplies from warehouses in Wad Madani, in Al Jazirah state, to hospitals in the south of the capital since 8 September. The charity said on Thursday that medication and materials at Bashair teaching hospital have now run out and the team could no longer perform trauma surgery or caesarean sections.
Continue reading...Ethiopian government is failing to protect its citizens from ‘grave’ human rights abuses, amid rising violence and hate speech – report
Human rights abuses are still being committed in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region more than 10 months after a ceasefire formally ended the bloody civil war, according to a group of UN experts.
The latest report by the UN’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia said the nation’s government was failing to protect its citizens from “grave and ongoing” human rights abuses being committed by militias and Eritrean troops, who fought alongside Ethiopia’s federal military and remain in border areas of Tigray.
Continue reading...Nearly 1 million children denied education, along with many more across eight countries in central and west Africa, new report warns
A quarter of schools are now closed in Burkina Faso after a sharp rise in fighting between militants and the government, according to a new report that warns of a looming education crisis in the region.
The number of schools closed in the country rose by almost a third over the past year to 6,149, affecting close to 1 million students.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Witnesses say federal forces have been looting villages and shooting farmers in their hunt for defiant Fano militiamen
Ethiopian soldiers killed more than 70 civilians and looted properties in a town in Amhara, multiple witnesses have claimed.
The killings took place in Majete, a rural town in north-eastern Ethiopia, after two weeks of heavy fighting between federal soldiers and the Fano, an Amhara militia.
Continue reading...Medical records from across the region show sexual violence continues to be used ‘to intimidate and terrorise communities’
Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers continue a widespread and systematic campaign of rape in Tigray despite the peace agreement signed in November last year, a new report reveals.
In the first report to document sexual violence – using hundreds of medical records from the start of the conflict in November 2020 through to June 2023 – healthcare professionals recount cases of gang-rape, sexual slavery and murder, including the killing of children.
Continue reading...Latest atrocities in Sudan war include the shelling of house of traditional healer, who died with her children and neighbours
People trapped in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and its twin city of Omdurman say civilians are being deliberately targeted in shelling by the warring parties.
A woman who had been helping wounded soldiers was killed along with her three children and six neighbours when her home was shelled by Sudanese army forces earlier this week.
Continue reading...Up to 17,000 more children a day lack food, Save the Children say, as global indifference to humanitarian crisis condemned as ‘racist’
The past four months of fighting in Sudan has pushed millions into food insecurity – with an additional 1.5 million children expected to fall into crisis levels of hunger by September – as aid agencies say they are struggling to reach people.
Up to 17,000 children a day have been falling into crisis levels of hunger, Save the Children warned on Tuesday. With 4 million people displaced so far, the charity said more people were facing hunger in Sudan than at any point since records there began in 2012.
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