Category Archives: War crimes

Mass rape, forced pregnancy and sexual torture in Tigray amount to crimes against humanity – report

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Warning: this article contains graphic and distressing testimony and images

Research documents ‘horrific and extreme’ attacks by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces and warns that impunity has meant such atrocities are expanding to new regions

Hundreds of health workers across Tigray have documented mass rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy and sexual torture of women and children by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers, in systematic attacks that amount to crimes against humanity, a new report has found.

The research, compiled by Physicians for Human Rights and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH), represents the most comprehensive documentation yet of weaponised sexual violence in Tigray. It reviewed medical records of more than 500 patients, surveys of 600 health workers, and in-depth interviews with doctors, nurses, psychiatrists and community leaders.

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Israel trying to deflect blame for widespread starvation in Gaza

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Officials and ministers either deny that Palestinians are being affected by hunger or say it is not Israel’s fault

Israel is pursuing an extensive PR effort to remove itself from blame for the starvation and killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is responsible.

As dozens of governments, UN organisations and other international figures have detailed Israel’s culpability, officials and ministers in Israel have attempted to suggest that there is no hunger in Gaza, that if hunger exists it is not Israel’s fault, or to blame Hamas or the UN and aid organisations for problems with distribution of aid.

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‘Humanitarian city’ would be concentration camp for Palestinians, says former Israeli PM

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Ehud Olmert says forcing people into camp would be ethnic cleansing, and anger at Israel over Gaza war is not all down to antisemitism

The “humanitarian city” Israel’s defence minister has proposed building on the ruins of Rafah would be a concentration camp, and forcing Palestinians inside would be ethnic cleansing, Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert has told the Guardian.

Israel was already committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, Olmert said, and construction of the camp would mark an escalation.

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IDF opens inquiry into possible war crimes after deaths near Gaza aid sites

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Israel Defense Forces to examine growing evidence of shootings of Palestinians trying to obtain food

The Israeli military has launched an investigation into possible war crimes following growing evidence that troops have deliberately fired at Palestinian civilians gathering to receive aid in Gaza.

Hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks after being subjected to air attacks, shootings and bombardments by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while waiting for food to be distributed or while making their way to distribution sites.

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Women and girls ‘not safe anywhere’ as Darfur suffers surge in sexual violence

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Médecins Sans Frontières report sparks calls for Sudan’s warring parties to be held to account for rapes and attacks

As Sudan’s Darfur region has been overrun by militias, women are facing the constant threat of sexual violence, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has reported.

The medical charity said in the South Darfur region alone its workers treated 659 sexual violence survivors between January and March this year, more than two-thirds of whom had been raped.

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Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert says his country is committing war crimes

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Leader from 2006 to 2009 says Palestinian victims are at ‘monstrous proportions’ and Netanyahu heads a ‘criminal gang’

The former prime minister of Israel Ehud Olmert has said Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza, and that “thousands of innocent Palestinians are being killed, as well as many Israeli soldiers”.

Olmert, who was the 12th prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, wrote in an opinion piece for the Israeli newspaper and website Haaretz that “the government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning and with no chances of success”.

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General accused of locking away SAS war crimes evidence is made navy chief

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Royal Navy leader also accused of overseeing denial of resettlement claims made by Afghans who aided UK forces

A general accused of failing to report evidence of war crimes committed by the SAS in Afghanistan has been appointed as the new head of the Royal Navy.

Gen Sir Gwyn Jenkins – the first Royal Marine to become First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff – replaces Adm Sir Ben Key, who was removed from it last week while under investigation over allegations of misconduct.

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Sudan in ‘world’s largest humanitarian crisis’ after two years of civil war

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NGOs and UN say country is ‘worse off than ever before’ with wide-scale displacement, hunger and attacks on refugee camps

Sudan is suffering from the largest humanitarian crisis globally and its civilians are continuing to pay the price for inaction by the international community, NGOs and the UN have said, as the country’s civil war enters its third year.

The UK is hosting ministers from 20 countries in London on Tuesday in an attempt to restart stalled peace talks. However, diplomatic efforts have often been sidelined by other crises, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

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Sudan’s news blackout stokes fear and confusion after refugee camp attacks

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Families of those displaced wait for news from Darfur amid reports of hundreds killed by paramilitary RSF

Sudan’s information blackout has left relatives of those in Sudan’s Zamzam refugee camp struggling for news of their safety after it was overrun by militiamen at the weekend.

As leaders across the globe prepared to meet for peace talks in London to pressure the backers of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army to agree a ceasefire, the RSF launched a deadly assault, seizing Zamzam after weeks of tightening its siege.

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IDF unit involved in Gaza paramedics’ killing was under command of brigade led by notorious Israeli general

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Golani troops were under command of reservist Armoured 14th Brigade, part of division led by Brig Gen Yehuda Vach

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit involved in the killings of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers in the Gaza Strip last month was under the command of a brigade led by a notorious Israeli general previously accused by some of his own troops of having “contempt for human life”.

The IDF has confirmed that troops from Golani, one of the army’s five infantry brigades, opened fire on two convoys of ambulances in Rafah on 23 March and dug a mass grave to cover the bodies of those killed until the corpses could be retrieved by a UN team six days later. It has disputed allegations from two witnesses who exhumed the bodies and newly released postmortem results that found several of those killed had close-range gunshot wounds to the head and chest and were discovered with their hands or legs tied.

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Ten Britons accused of committing war crimes while fighting for Israel in Gaza

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Exclusive: Met to be handed dossier of evidence alleging crimes including killings of civilians and aid workers

A war crimes complaint against 10 Britons who served with the Israeli military in Gaza is to be submitted to the Met police by one of the UK’s leading human rights lawyers.

Michael Mansfield KC is one of a group of lawyers who will on Monday hand in a 240-page dossier to Scotland Yard’s war crimes unit alleging targeted killing of civilians and aid workers, including by sniper fire, and indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, including hospitals.

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New images reveal extent of looting at Sudan’s national museum as rooms stripped of treasures

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Only a few statues remain, with thousands of priceless artefacts from Nubian and Kushite kingdoms missing

Videos of Sudan’s national museum showing empty rooms, piles of rubble and broken artefacts posted on social media after the Sudanese army recaptured the area from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in recent days show the extent of looting of the country’s antiquities.

Fears of looting in the museum were first raised in June 2023 and a year later satellite images emerged of trucks loaded with artefacts leaving the building, according to museum officials. But last week, as the RSF were driven out of Khartoum after two years of war, the full extent of the theft became apparent.

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Evidence of torture found as detention centre and mass grave discovered outside Khartoum

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Exclusive: What appears to be a vast burial site found at former Rapid Support Forces base in Sudan, while rescued detainees speak of torture, starvation and deaths of fellow inmates

More than 500 people may have been tortured or starved to death and then buried in a secret mass grave north of Khartoum, according to evidence seen by the Guardian.

A visit to a base belonging to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) shortly after it was retaken by the Sudanese military found a previously unknown detention centre, with manacles hanging from doors, apparent punishment chambers and bloodstains on the floor. Accounts from people held at the detention centre describe being repeatedly tortured by their captors.

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Syrian authorities arrest three men with suspected links to Tadamon massacre

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Men are accused of involvement in the execution of nearly 300 civilians by government forces in Damascus in 2013, which the perpetrators filmed

Authorities in Damascus have arrested three men they claim were involved in a notorious massacre of civilians by Syrian security forces revealed by the Guardian three years ago.

Footage posted online purported to show one of the men, Monzer al-Jazairi, with his hands bound and being led through the heavily damaged streets of Tadamon, the Damascus suburb where nearly 300 people were killed in an atrocity filmed by the perpetrators themselves and then leaked by a whistleblower to activists in Europe.

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Ex-supreme court judge says ‘arguable case’ Israel’s conduct in Gaza is genocidal

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Lord Sumption says Israel’s actions ‘grossly disproportionate’ and in new book points to suppression of free speech over Palestinian cause

A former UK supreme court judge has described Israel’s assault on Gaza as “grossly disproportionate” and said there was “at least an arguable case” that it was genocidal.

Lord Sumption, who served on the UK’s highest court from 2012 to 2018, was one of the highest profile signatories of a letter last year warning that the UK government was breaching international law by arming Israel.

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Britain’s system for controlling arms exports is broken, former diplomat claims

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Ex-Foreign Office official says he saw conduct that ‘crossed the threshold into complicity with war crimes’

Britain’s system for controlling arms exports is broken, subject to political manipulation and has seen conduct that crossed the threshold into complicity with war crimes, a former UK diplomat has claimed.

Writing for the Guardian, Mark Smith, who resigned from the Foreign Office in August, said officials were instructed to manipulate findings on the misuse of UK arms by allies, and if they did not do so, their reports were edited by senior colleagues to give the impression that the UK was in compliance with the law.

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Trump’s Gaza plan could amount to war crime, say experts

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Academics fear US president’s lack of reference to international law could lead to global breakdown of peace and security

Donald Trump’s proposal to permanently move millions of Palestinians out of Gaza to allow its reconstruction under US “ownership” could amount to a war crime or crime against humanity, experts in international law have said.

The experts said the US president’s framing of his plan without any reference to international law set a dangerous precedent that would encourage other world leaders to do similarly and contribute to a global breakdown of peace and security.

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ICC braces for swift Trump sanctions over Israeli arrest warrants

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Leadership at international criminal court fears new US administration will move quickly to shut it down

The international criminal court is bracing itself for Donald Trump to launch aggressive economic sanctions against it this week, amid fears such a move could paralyse its work and pose an existential threat.

ICC officials are preparing for Trump’s new US administration to act quickly once in office to impose draconian financial and travel restrictions against the court and senior staff, including its chief prosecutor and judges.

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Revealed: Israel used US weapons in strike that killed journalists

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Killing of journalists in Israeli strike could be war crime, legal experts say after Guardian investigation

A Guardian investigation has found that Israel used a US munition to target and kill three journalists and wound three more in a 25 October attack in south Lebanon which legal experts have called a potential war crime.

On 25 October at 3.19am, an Israeli jet shot two bombs at a chalet hosting three journalists – cameraman Ghassan Najjar and technician Mohammad Reda from pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, as well as cameraman Wissam Qassem from the Hezbollah-affiliated outlet al-Manar.

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Extremist Timbuktu Islamic police chief sentenced to 10 years in jail by ICC

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Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud had been convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity

The international criminal court has sentenced an al-Qaida-linked extremist leader to 10 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out when he headed the Islamic police in Timbuktu in Mali, west Africa.

Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud was convicted in June of torture, religious persecution and other inhumane acts. Judges found he was a “key figure” in a reign of terror after Islamic extremist rebels overran the ancient desert city in 2012.

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