Army leader Abdel-Fatteh al-Burhan has asked the UN to replace its envoy to the country
Sudan’s army has asked the United Nations to change its envoy to the country, as it calls on reservists and retired soldiers to re-enlist amid the ongoing conflict with a rival paramilitary force.
Friday’s call to former soldiers to present themselves at their nearest military base comes days into a shaky truce between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Continue reading...NGOs dismayed at reduction in Britain’s contribution as crisis-hit region faces challenges from drought, rising prices and conflict
The UK has been accused of taking the “insulting and shortsighted” decision to cut humanitarian aid to east Africa at a time of chronic drought, conflict and rising food prices.
At a United Nations pledging conference in New York on Wednesday, which the UK is co-chairing, Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s international development minister, announced a humanitarian aid package to the region of £143m.
Continue reading...Report implicates Wagner group fighters in Moura atrocity, including the torture and rape of civilians
First came a single helicopter, flying low over the marshes around the river outside the village, then the rattle of automatic fire scattered the crowds gathered for the weekly market.
Next came more helicopters, dropping troops off around the homes and cattle pens. The soldiers moved swiftly, ordering men into the centre of the village, gunning down those trying to escape. When some armed militants fired back, the shooting intensified. Soon at least 20 civilians and a dozen alleged members of an al-Qaida affiliated Islamist group, were dead.
Continue reading...Limits on numbers at Paris summit mean some of those ‘most needing to be heard’ will not be in attendance
Scientists and NGOs have accused the UN’s environment programme (Unep) of locking out those “most needing to be heard” from upcoming negotiations in Paris aimed at halting plastic waste.
Last-minute restrictions to the numbers of NGOs attending what the head of Unep described as the “most important multilateral environmental deal” in a decade will exclude people from communities in developing countries harmed by dumping and burning of plastic waste as well as marginalised waste pickers, who are crucial to recycling, from fully participating, they said.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Qatari minister expected to take presidency of ILO event despite bribery investigation
The UN’s labour rights watchdog, the International Labour Organization (ILO), is facing a backlash over the nomination of Qatar to chair its flagship annual conference despite a police investigation into alleged bribery of EU lawmakers by the Gulf state.
The Guardian has learned that Qatar’s minister of labour, Ali bin Saeed bin Samikh Al Marri, is expected to take the presidency of the ILO’s international labour conference in Geneva in June, an annual event intended to advance global standards on workers’ rights.
Continue reading...Francesca Albanese says Israel is maintaining occupation to get as much land as possible for Jewish people
Israel treats the Palestinian territories as its colonies, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories has said on her first visit to London since her appointment last year.
Francesca Albanese, an Italian lawyer and human rights academic, has faced calls to resign by Israeli government ministers, such as Amichai Chikli, who accused her of “spewing hatred and antisemitism”, and Zionist groups have described her as biased.
Continue reading...Exclusive: For 21 years, the detainee has been in US custody without charge, tortured and sexually humiliated, with no prospect for release
• Warning: the images and descriptions of torture in this article are extremely graphic
A detainee held in the US prison camp at Guantánamo Bay who was used as a human guinea pig in the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program has produced the most comprehensive and detailed account yet seen of the brutal techniques to which he was subjected.
Abu Zubaydah has created a series of 40 drawings that chronicle the torture he endured in a number of CIA dark sites between 2002 and 2006 and at Guantánamo Bay. In the absence of a full official accounting of the torture program, which the CIA and the FBI have labored for years to keep secret, the images give a unique and searing insight into a grisly period in US history.
Continue reading...Historic two-week tour of US ends with call for nationwide commitment to address racial discrimination in dealings with law
The US must move beyond piecemeal reform and slogan-making and tackle the ongoing scourge of police brutality and law enforcement’s discrimination against Black people, a United Nations mission has concluded at the end of a historic two-week tour of the country.
UN experts completed their first official visit to the US as part of a system of global inquiries set up by the human rights council after the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020. As they ended their tour on Friday in Washington DC, the experts called for a nationwide commitment to address discrimination suffered by Black Americans in their daily dealings with the law.
A call for an end to racial profiling in policing.
A dramatic reduction in the use of solitary confinement in US jails and prisons, and the total abolition of isolated incarceration for children under 18.
Passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act which tackles racial bias and excessive use of force but which has stalled in Congress.
An end to stereotyping of Black women and girls as angry and “aged up”.
Rooting out of white supremacist law enforcement officers to ensure that they no longer wear the badge.
Continue reading...UN children’s agency welcomes drop in number of underage brides, but warns 12 million girls still getting married each year
The number of child marriages is declining worldwide, but at too slow a pace for any hope of eliminating the practice this century, Unicef, the UN children’s agency, has said.
In a new report, Unicef tentatively welcomed the reduction but warned that it was nowhere close to meeting its sustainable development goal of ridding the world of the practice by 2030.
Continue reading...Six trucks of humanitarian supplies looted while airstrikes in Khartoum undermine ceasefire
Aid agencies are pleading with battling factions in Sudan to allow humanitarian assistance to reach the needy, after six trucks of humanitarian supplies were looted and airstrikes in Khartoum undermined a new ceasefire.
Martin Griffiths, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, said on Wednesday he was seeking assurances that would allow for movement of staff and supplies.
Continue reading...Three members of Huwaitat tribe face execution, reportedly for opposition to Neom project
UN rights experts have denounced the pending execution of three members of a Saudi tribe, reportedly in connection with their opposition to a planned Red Sea megacity.
Three members of the Huwaitat tribe, which inhabits the desert area in north-western Saudi Arabia where the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s $500bn (£400bn) futuristic megacity is under construction, face the “imminent risk of execution”, more than a dozen independent experts warned.
Continue reading...Critical shortages of basic goods including water, and bodies piling in streets creating ‘environmental catastrophe’
Sudanese medics have described seeing piles of bodies in the streets of the capital, Khartoum, people drinking polluted water, and doctors working under bombardments as the battle between the country’s two warring generals continues despite a threadbare ceasefire.
Intense explosions and shelling were audible in Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city across the Nile, on Monday and there were reports of further explosions and clashes in the Bahri and Kafouri districts of Khartoum North. In the south of Khartoum, residents reported that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fired anti-aircraft missiles in response to bombardments by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
Continue reading...New UN envoy to the region warns that humanitarian situation is ‘reaching breaking point’
Sudan’s rival military forces have accused each other of violating a fresh ceasefire as the deadly conflict rumbles on for a third week despite warnings of a slide towards civil war.
Both sides said a formal ceasefire agreement that was due to expire at midnight would be extended for a further 72 hours. The army said it hoped what it called the “rebels” would abide by the deal but it believed they had intended to keep up attacks. The parties have kept fighting through a series of ceasefires over the past week.
Continue reading...UN’s arbitrary detention group calls for immediate release of Palestinian Abu Zubaydah, saying detention has no basis in law
A UN body has declared that the detention of a long-term Guantánamo inmate, Abu Zubaydah, has no lawful basis and called for his immediate release, warning that the systemic deprivation of liberty at the camp may “constitute crimes against humanity”.
The UN working group on arbitrary detention (UNWGAD), also declared the UK, among other countries, was “jointly responsible for the torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of Mr Zubaydah” over his more than 20 years in detention.
Continue reading...Advocates say it will cast welcome attention on a system mired in scandals of prisoner mistreatment and racial injustice
A United Nations human rights group is touring Los Angeles county jails on Friday, bringing international scrutiny to a detention system criticized for overcrowding, mistreatment and abuse of people with mental illnesses, and conditions described by civil rights groups as “barbaric”.
A panel of experts appointed by the UN human rights council and formed after the murder of George Floyd is visiting LA as part of a two-week trip to cities across the US examining racial justice and police violence. In California, the investigators will meet with families of people killed by police and formerly incarcerated people. They will also enter the LA county jail system, the largest in the country, which is run by the LA sheriff’s department (LASD).
Continue reading...Panel established in response to George Floyd killing will visit Washington DC, Atlanta, LA, Chicago, Minneapolis and New York
A team of United Nations experts has arrived in the US on a tour that will focus on racial justice, law enforcement and policing.
On Monday, the Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in the Context of Law Enforcement, an independent panel appointed by the UN human rights council, began its two-week visit to the US.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Filippo Grandi praises Australia’s refugee reset but is ‘very upset’ by UK moves to mimic its offshore detention policy
“Myopic” policies of deterrence, and slogans like “stop the boats” are ineffective in addressing the movement of asylum seekers across the world, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi has said, in a major speech urging greater cooperation between nations.
Speaking at the University of Melbourne’s Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Grandi said: “Far too often, rich countries have a myopic approach to global forced displacement and population movements, focusing overwhelmingly on border controls.”
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Continue reading...UN population officials say it is not possible to pinpoint a date because of uncertainty about data
India is expected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country with almost 3 million more people by the middle of this year, according to UN figures.
The State of World Population 2023 report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates India’s population will be 1.4286 billion by the end of June, compared with China’s 1.4257 billion.
Continue reading...Officials say it will leave in May if Taliban cannot be persuaded to let local women work for organisation
The UN is ready to take the “heartbreaking” decision to pull out of Afghanistan in May if it cannot persuade the Taliban to let local women work for the organisation, officials have said.
The warning comes after UN officials spent months negotiating with the group’s leaders in the hope of persuading them to make exceptions to a hardline edict this month barring local women from working for it, according to the head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Achim Steiner.
Continue reading...Nearly 28,000 people arrived via sea route in first quarter, Frontex says, as UN decries deadliest period since 2017
Three times as many people sought to reach the EU across the Mediterranean in the first three months of 2023 compared with a year before, the bloc’s border agency has said, as the UN’s migration arm decried the deadliest first quarter since 2017.
Overall, the EU agency, Frontex, reported 54,000 irregular crossings into the bloc via all routes in the first quarter of the year, up a fifth from 2022.
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