UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last year was marked by harrowing accounts of rape, sexual slavery and forced marriage being used by extremists, including the Islamic State group and Boko Haram.
In a report released on Monday, the UN chief expressed “grave concern” over sexual violence perpetrated by armed groups, including those promoting extremist ideologies in Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Nigeria, Mali, Libya and Yemen.
“The confluence of crises wrought by violent extremism has revealed a shocking trend of sexual violence employed as a tactic of terror by radical groups,” Ban said.
The secretary-general said efforts “to degrade or destroy” the Islamic State group, formerly known as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, Ansar Dine and al-Qaeda affiliates “are an essential part of the fight against conflict-related sexual violence.”
The report focuses on 19 nations engulfed in conflict or trying to recover from fighting where sexual violence, including rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution and forced pregnancy occurs, mainly against women and girls, but also against boys and men.
It lists 45 groups in the Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan and Syria, as well as Boko Haram in Nigeria, that are “credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape” during conflict — 13 of them for the first time.
The report said “one of the most alarming episodes of 2014” was the April 14 abduction of 276 secondary students by Boko Haram from a school in the northern Nigerian town of Chibok.
Issued a day before the first anniversary of the girls’ abduction, the report said Boko Haram often forces women and girls it seizes into marriages that entail repeated rapes.
“Forced marriage, enslavement and the ‘sale’ of kidnapped women and girls are central to Boko Haram’s modus operandi and ideology,” it said. “Abducted girls who refuse marriage or sexual contact within marriage have faced violence and death threats.”
Since the middle of last year, the report said, “there has been a significant increase in the number of reported cases of sexual violence perpetrated by terrorist groups,” especially the Islamic State group, which “uses sexual violence to spread terror, persecute ethnic and religious minorities, and suppress communities that oppose its ideology.”
The report singled out that group’s abduction of hundreds of Yazidi women and girls in Iraq, some of whom were taken into Syria and “sold” in markets to be used as sex slaves.
It said “three cases of forced abortion perpetrated because of the ethnicity of the victim were documented by the government” of Iraq.
In Colombia, the report said, “women working with displaced communities and calling for land restitution have been targeted by armed groups and subjected to repeated sexual assault.”
In the Central African Republic, the report said, 2,527 cases of conflict-related sexual violence were documented last year, adding that “all parties have used sexual violence to subjugate and humiliate opponents.”
In Sudan’s western Darfur region, it said the number of displaced civilians has increased over the past year and so have reports of sexual violence, while in South Sudan it said sexual violence remains prevalent — including gang rape, castration, forced nudity and forced abortion — which is “exacerbated by impunity and a militarized society in which gender inequality is pronounced.”
On a positive note, the report said the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s government took “unprecedented steps,” including prosecuting high-ranking officers for sexual violence and paying reparations to survivors, but at the same time it said last year saw a resurgence of violence by armed groups, including an increase in rape.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the