GENEVA, Switzerland: Iraq must do more to ensure that thousands of women and girls who survived sexual violence by Daesh group jihadists receive care, protection and justice, the UN said Tuesday.
In a fresh report, the UN Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) and the UN rights office also warned that the children born as a result of the sexual violence risked facing a lifetime of discrimination and abuse.
“The physical, mental and emotional injuries inflicted by (Daesh) are almost beyond comprehension,” UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said in a statement.
“If victims are to rebuild their lives, and indeed those of their children, they need justice and they need redress,” he insisted.
Tuesday’s report pointed to the horrific abuse suffered by women and girls, especially from the Yazidi minority, in Daesh-controlled areas, including rape, abduction, slavery and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.
In 2014, Daesh jihadists massacred Yazidis in Sinjar, forcing tens of thousands of them to flee, and capturing thousands of girls and women as spoils of war to be used as sex slaves.
The women were sold and traded across the jihadists’ self-proclaimed “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq. Around 3,000 are believed to remain in captivity.
The UN report stressed that Baghdad was responsible under domestic and international law to prosecute the perpetrators and help ensure reparations for the victims.
It decried “gaps” in Iraq’s criminal justice system, “which largely fails to ensure the appropriate respect and protection of women and children who have been subjected to sexual and other forms of violence.”
It also warned that women who were married to Daesh fighters, with or without their consent, risked “discrimination and forms of collective punishment” based on the suspicion they cooperated with the group.
The report raised particular concerns over the situation of hundreds of children born to women in Daesh-controlled areas without birth certificates or with Daesh-issued documents not accepted by Baghdad.
“The government must ensure (these children) are protected from marginalization and abuse,” Zeid insisted.
He urged Baghdad to ensure that these children are “neither exposed to discrimination through references on their birth certificate that they were born out of wedlock or have a father linked to (Daesh), nor left unregistered and at risk of statelessness, exploitation and trafficking,” he said.
Iraq must do more for Daesh sex abuse victims: UN
Iraq must do more for Daesh sex abuse victims: UN
Head of UAE national media officer meets with Saudi, GCC ministers
- Discussed ways to strengthen media cooperation between GCC countries
DOHA: The head of the UAE’s national media office met with informational ministers from Gulf Cooperation Council countries in Doha on Friday, Emirates News Agency reported.
Sheikh Abdulla bin Mohammed Al-Hamed, who is also chairman of the UAE Media Council, met with Saudi Arabia’s media minister Salman bin Yousef Al-Dosari and Abdulrahman Bdah Al-Mutairi, the Minister of Information and Culture of Kuwait.
Sheikh Abdulla also held talks with Ramzan bin Abdullah Al-Noaimi of Bahrain and Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al-Thani, chairman of Qatar Media Corporation.
They discussed ways to strengthen media cooperation between the GCC countries and developing joint initiatives to advance the media industry in the region.
Yemen’s Houthis say they launch attacks on 3 ships including one in Mediterranean
- Attacks are latest in months-long campaign of Houthi strikes against regional shipping
CAIRO: Yemen’s Houthis have launched attacks on three ships in the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Arabian Sea, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesman Yahya Sarea said on Friday.
The attacks are the latest in a months-long campaign of Houthi strikes against regional shipping in what the group says is solidarity with Palestinians fighting Israel in the Gaza war.
Sarea said in a televised speech that Houthi forces had targeted the Yannis ship in the Red Sea, the Essex in the Mediterranean Sea and MSC Alexandra in the Arabian Sea.
Houthis “fired several missiles at the ship Essex in the Mediterranean Sea while it was violating the decision ban that prevents entry into occupied Palestinian ports,” Sarea added.
He did not clarify when the attacks took place.
Earlier this month, the leader of Yemen’s Houthis, Abdul Malik Al-Houthi had said that all ships heading to Israeli ports would be attacked by the Iran-backed group, not just those in the Red Sea region which it has sought to strike before.
The Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched repeated drone and missile strikes on ships in the crucial shipping channels of the Red Sea, the Bab Al-Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden since November to show their support for the Palestinians in the Gaza war.
This has forced shippers to re-route cargo to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa and has stoked fears that the Israel-Hamas war could spread and destabilize the Middle East.
Food bound for Gaza rots in the sun as Egypt’s Rafah crossing stays shut
- Trucks halted since Israel stepped up offensive in Rafah
- Some supplies stuck for more than two months
- Health warning issued for some food inside Gaza
AL-ARISH, Egypt: Some of the food supplies waiting to enter the Gaza Strip from Egypt have begun to rot as the Rafah border crossing remains shut to aid deliveries for a third week and people inside the Palestinian enclave face worsening hunger.
Rafah was a main entry point for humanitarian relief as well as some commercial supplies before Israel stepped up its military offensive on the Gazan side of the border on May 6 and took control of the crossing from the Palestinian side.
Egyptian officials and sources say humanitarian operations are at risk from military activity and that Israel needs to hand the crossing back to Palestinians before it starts operating again.
Israel and the United States have called on Egypt, which is also worried about the risk of Palestinians being displaced from Gaza, to allow the border to reopen.
Meanwhile the backlog of aid on the road between the Egyptian side of the crossing and the town of Al-Arish, about 45 km (28 miles) west of Rafah and an arrival point for international aid donations, has been building up.
One truck driver, Mahmoud Hussein, said his goods had been loaded on his vehicle for a month, gradually spoiling in the sun. Some of the foodstuffs are being discarded, others sold of cheap.
“Apples, bananas, chicken and cheese, a lot of things have gone rotten, some stuff has been returned and is being sold for a quarter of its price,” he said, crouching under his truck for shade.
“I’m sorry to say that the onions we’re carrying will at best be eaten by animals because of the worms in them.”
Aid deliveries for Gaza through Rafah began in late October, two weeks after the start of the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The flow of relief has often been slowed by Israeli inspections and military activity inside Gaza and the amount reaching the enclave’s 2.3 million residents has been far below needs, aid officials say.
A global hunger monitor has warned of imminent famine in parts of Gaza.
Rotten eggs
Since May 5, no trucks have crossed through Rafah and very few through the nearby Israeli crossing of Kerem Shalom, according to UN data.
The amount of aid waiting in Egypt’s northern Sinai was now very large, and some had been stuck for more than two months, said Khaled Zayed, head of the Egyptian Red Crescent in the area.
“Some aid packages require a certain temperature ... We coordinate on this with specialists who are highly trained in the storage of food and medical supplies,” he said.
“We hope the border will reopen as soon as possible.”
KSrelief, a Saudi-funded charity, has more than 350 trucks carrying items including food and medical supplies waiting to pass through Rafah, but has had to offload flour because of the risk of it rotting, the group’s supervisor general Abdullah Al Rabeeah said.
“We pack and send but also we have to recheck. It is a big burden,” he told Reuters.
Some food has been sold at cut price on the local market in northern Sinai, leading to the confiscation of stocks of rotten eggs, said local officials from Egypt’s ministry of supply.
Inside Gaza, there have also been scares about the quality of delayed food deliveries that made it in before Rafah closed, or through other crossings.
Palestinian medical and police officials that used to check goods coming into Gaza had been unable to do so during Israel’s offensive, said Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office.
“There is a big problem as many of the goods that enter the Gaza Strip are unfit for human use and are unhealthy,” he said.
“Therefore, the health ministry issued the warning statement to raise public awareness that people should examine the goods before eating them or sharing them with their families.” (Reporting by Reuters Cairo bureau, Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Emma Farge Writing by Aidan Lewis Editing by Peter Graff)
Macron to host Arab foreign ministers for Gaza talks
Joined by his own top diplomat Stephane Sejourne, Macron will discuss the situation with Qatar’s Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, Egypt’s Sameh Shoukry, Ayman Safadi of Jordan and Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, the Elysee said.
Tens of thousands flee as paramilitaries attack Sudan’s Al-Fashir, activists say
- RSF troops attacked and looted the vast Abu Shouk camp, killing an unknown number of people and wounding at least 13
- The army and RSF have blamed each other for the violence
CAIRO: Tens of thousands of people fled their homes in a camp in the Sudanese city of Al-Fashir, activists said, after a raid by Rapid Support Forces paramilitary forces who are fighting to seize the last army stronghold in the western Darfur region.
RSF troops attacked and looted the vast Abu Shouk camp on Wednesday, killing an unknown number of people and wounding at least 13, locals said, more than a year into Sudan’s war.
Around 60 percent of the more than 100,000 inhabitant fled on Thursday, according to the Coordinating Committee for Refugees and Displaced People, which oversees camps in the region. Fighting continued in other parts of Al-Fashir on Friday, locals said.
The RSF and its allies swept through four other Darfur state capitals last year, and were blamed for a campaign of ethnically driven killings against non-Arab groups and other abuses in West Darfur — accusations they have dismissed.
There was no immediate comment from the RSF or the army on the latest clashes in Al-Fashir, a historic center of power. Both have blamed each other for the violence.
The UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide said this week there was a risk of genocide, and allegations that it was already taking place.
Civilians in Al-Fashir and other parts of Darfur were being targeted on the basis of their identity and skin color, Alice Wairimu Nderitu told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
Abu Shouk is home to survivors of the violence in Darfur two decades ago, where janjaweed militias, the precursors to the RSF, fought alongside the Sudanese army and were accused of genocide.
About half a million more people moved into Al-Fashir during the ongoing war that broke out between the army and the RSF in the capital Khartoum in April 2023, as long-simmering tensions over integrating the two forces came to a head.
At least 85 people have died at the only functioning hospital in the south of Al-Fashir since May 10, according to medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The total number of casualties is much larger as civilians hit by fighting in the north, east, and south of the city have not been able to reach medics, MSF and residents say.
The RSF has accused the army of using human shields as well as carrying out extensive air strikes, including destroying Al-Fashir’s power station.
