GENEVA: The World Health Organization said on Tuesday it had been able to start its polio campaign in central Gaza and vaccinate tens of thousands of children despite Israeli strikes in the designated protected zone hours before.
As part of an agreement between the Israeli military and Palestinian militant group Hamas, humanitarian pauses in the year-long Gaza war had been due to begin early on Monday to reach hundreds of thousands of children.
However, hours before then, the UN humanitarian office said Israeli forces struck tents near al Aqsa hospital, inside in the zone, where it said four people were burned to death.
The UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said one of its schools in the central Gazan city of Nuseirat, intended as a vaccination site, was hit overnight between Sunday and Monday, killing up to 22 people.
WHO spokesperson Tarik Jašarević told a Geneva press briefing that over 92,000 children, or around half of the children targeted for polio vaccines in the central area, had been inoculated on Monday.
“What we have received from colleagues is that the vaccination went without a major issue yesterday, and we hope It will continue the same way,” he said.
Other humanitarian agencies have previously voiced concerns about the viability of the polio campaign in northern Gaza, where an Israeli offensive is under way.
Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month, after a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus in August, in the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
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Second phase of Gaza polio campaign starts well despite Israeli strikes: WHO
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Second phase of Gaza polio campaign starts well despite Israeli strikes: WHO
- Aid groups carried out a first round of vaccinations last month
Sudan’s RSF targeted civilians with disabilities in El-Fasher: HRW
KHARTOUM: Sudanese paramilitary forces killed, abused and targeted people with disabilities during and after their takeover of El-Fasher, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday, calling it the first time it had documented abuse of “this type and scale.”
The Rapid Support Forces, which have been fighting Sudan’s regular army since April 2023, captured the military’s last stronghold in western Darfur in October after an 18-month siege.
Reports later emerged of mass killings, abductions, rape and widespread looting.
Last week, the UN’s independent fact-finding mission on Sudan said the assault on El-Fasher bore “the hallmarks of genocide.”
“Human Rights Watch has documented abuses against people with disabilities in armed conflict around the world for over a decade,” said Emina Cerimovic, the group’s associate disability rights director.
“But this is the first time we have documented this type and scale of targeted abuse.”
HRW interviewed 22 survivors and witnesses from El-Fasher and found that RSF fighters singled out civilians with disabilities as they tried to flee.
“The Rapid Support Forces treated people with disabilities as suspects, burdens or expendable,” Cerimovic said.
She added that fighters accused amputees of being injured soldiers and “summarily executed them,” while others were mocked as “insane” or “not being a complete person.”
A 29-year-old nurse said fighters executed a young man with Down syndrome whose sister had carried him on her back.
“After killing her brother, they tied her hands, covered her face and took her away,” said the nurse.
The nurse also described fighters ordering a woman carrying a blind teenage boy on her back to put him down.
“She said ‘he cannot see’,” the nurse said. “They immediately shot him in the head.”
Another witness said he saw fighters kill “more than 10 people,” most with physical disabilities.
Others were beaten, detained for ransom or stripped of essential devices such as wheelchairs and hearing aids, leaving many unable to escape, HRW said.
Conditions in displacement camps also remain dire, with “bathrooms and other facilities... inaccessible” to people with disabilities, witnesses told HRW.
On Tuesday, the UN Security Council sanctioned four RSF commanders over atrocities in El-Fasher.
The wider conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 11 million and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The Rapid Support Forces, which have been fighting Sudan’s regular army since April 2023, captured the military’s last stronghold in western Darfur in October after an 18-month siege.
Reports later emerged of mass killings, abductions, rape and widespread looting.
Last week, the UN’s independent fact-finding mission on Sudan said the assault on El-Fasher bore “the hallmarks of genocide.”
“Human Rights Watch has documented abuses against people with disabilities in armed conflict around the world for over a decade,” said Emina Cerimovic, the group’s associate disability rights director.
“But this is the first time we have documented this type and scale of targeted abuse.”
HRW interviewed 22 survivors and witnesses from El-Fasher and found that RSF fighters singled out civilians with disabilities as they tried to flee.
“The Rapid Support Forces treated people with disabilities as suspects, burdens or expendable,” Cerimovic said.
She added that fighters accused amputees of being injured soldiers and “summarily executed them,” while others were mocked as “insane” or “not being a complete person.”
A 29-year-old nurse said fighters executed a young man with Down syndrome whose sister had carried him on her back.
“After killing her brother, they tied her hands, covered her face and took her away,” said the nurse.
The nurse also described fighters ordering a woman carrying a blind teenage boy on her back to put him down.
“She said ‘he cannot see’,” the nurse said. “They immediately shot him in the head.”
Another witness said he saw fighters kill “more than 10 people,” most with physical disabilities.
Others were beaten, detained for ransom or stripped of essential devices such as wheelchairs and hearing aids, leaving many unable to escape, HRW said.
Conditions in displacement camps also remain dire, with “bathrooms and other facilities... inaccessible” to people with disabilities, witnesses told HRW.
On Tuesday, the UN Security Council sanctioned four RSF commanders over atrocities in El-Fasher.
The wider conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 11 million and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
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