A senior UN official said on Sunday she had "credible information" that Sudanese forces and government-backed militias had carried out summary executions of civilians in west Sudan.
Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur on executions, also said after visiting conflict-stricken Darfur that members of the militia, which locals accuse of looting and killing villagers, were being integrated into the armed forces.
Independent rights groups have already accused the government and militia, known as "janjaweed," of carrying out mass executions in the region where rebels launched an armed uprising in February 2003.
Fighting in the remote area has affected two million people and driven 158,000 people across the border into Chad, creating what the UN has called one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
"I received numerous accounts of the extrajudicial and summary executions carried out by government-backed militias and by the security forces themselves," Jahangir told reporters.
"According to credible information, members of the armed forces, the Popular Defense Forces and various groups of government-sponsored militias attacked villagers and summarily executed civilians," she said in Khartoum.
Rights groups have accused the government of arming the Arab militia to drive African villagers from their homes in what UN officials have called a campaign of ethnic cleansing. The government calls the militia members outlaws and denies any link.
"According to the information I collected, many of the militias are being integrated into the regular armed or the Popular Defense Forces. There is no ambiguity that there is a link between some of the militias and government forces," Jahangir said.
Jahangir also travelled around other areas of Sudan, including Malakal in the south. The Sudanese government is close to reaching a final peace deal with southern rebels to end a separate 21-year-old conflict in that region.
"In my report, I will forcefully stress the question of accountability as a fundamental principle in addressing violations of human rights... The government of the Sudan must make every effort to end the culture of impunity," she said.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS