A Sudanese militia leader has been found guilty of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity more than 20 years ago in the Darfur region.
Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, led the Janjaweed, a government-backed group that terrorised Darfur, killing hundreds of thousands of people.
Kushayb is the first person to be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the atrocities in Darfur. He had argued it was a case of mistaken identity.
The conflict lasted from 2003 to 2020 and was one of the world’s gravest humanitarian disasters.
Five years after the end of that crisis, Darfur is a key battleground in another civil war, this time between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), whose origins lie in the Janjaweed.
During Kushayb’s trial, survivors described how their villages were burned down, men and boys slaughtered and women forced into sex slavery.
The militia leader was found guilty on 27 counts, centring on attacks committed between 2003 and 2004.
Judges at the ICC found the Janjaweed’s brutal tactics – including mass executions, sexual violence and torture – were often inflicted by Kushayb and his men.
Ahead of the verdict, a small group of Darfuris waited patiently to enter the court, in the Dutch city of The Hague.
They were in no doubt about the pivotal role Kushayb played in their suffering, with one man saying: “He was the one who gave the orders. He was the one who got the weapons.
“So if you ask me if he was important in Darfur, I will you tell you he was one of the most important ones.”
The Darfur war began after the Arab-dominated government at the time armed the Janjaweed, in an attempt to suppress an uprising by rebels from black African ethnic groups.
The Janjaweed systematically attacked non-Arab villagers accused of supporting the rebels, leading to accusations of genocide.
That same systematic violence is still happening in Darfur as part of the Sudan’s civil war.
Many of the Janjaweed fighters have morphed into the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group that is currently battling Sudan’s army.
The UK, US and rights groups have accused the RSF of carrying out ethnic cleansing against non-Arab communities in Darfur since the conflict began in 2023.
Kushayb will be sentenced at a later date.
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Riek Machar has been under house arrest since March [AFP via Getty Images]
A special court in South Sudan has ruled that it does have the jurisdiction to prosecute suspended Vice-President Riek Machar and seven co-accused, who are charged with murder, treason and crimes against humanity.
The court dismissed all objections by Machar’s legal team regarding its authority, the constitutionality of the proceedings, and the claim that he was immune from prosecution. The case will continue on Wednesday.
The charges stem from an attack in March by a militia allegedly linked to Machar, which killed 250 soldiers and a general.
Since then, he has been under house arrest.
Machar’s defence team had argued that the alleged crimes should not be tried by a national court but by a hybrid court under the African Union, in accordance with the 2018 Peace Agreement that ended the five-year civil war between his forces and those loyal to President Salva Kiir.
The court however argued that it had the authority to try national offences, as a hybrid court had not yet been established.
“The special court enjoys jurisdiction to try this case according to the Transitional Constitution 2011 as amended,” Presiding Judge James Alala ruled.
It also dismissed the argument by Machar’s team that he had immunity from prosecution, adding that the provision only applied to the president.
“The First Vice-President does not have constitutional immunity, according to the transitional constitution,” the judge ruled.
The court also expelled two of Machar’s lawyers after the prosecution argued that they did not have valid licences.
The presiding judge ruled that the two can only participate once they have renewed their licences.
The charges have sparked fears of renewed conflict in the country, with the UN, African Union and neighbouring countries all calling for calm in the world’s newest country, which only gained independence from Sudan in 2011 following decades of war.
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South Sudan’s First Vice-President Riek Machar has been charged with murder, treason and crimes against humanity in a move that some fear could reignite the country’s civil war.
Justice Minister Joseph Geng Akech said the charges against Machar relate to an attack in March by a militia allegedly linked to the vice-president.
The roads leading to his house in the capital, Juba, have been blocked by tanks and soldiers.
Forces loyal to Machar fought a five-year civil war against those backing President Salva Kiir until a 2018 peace deal ending the fighting in the world’s newest country.
Machar has been under house arrest since March, with the UN, African Union and neighbouring countries all calling for calm.
The 2018 peace deal ended the conflict that had killed nearly 400,000 people, however the relationship between Machar and Kiir has become increasingly strained amid ethnic tensions and sporadic violence.
The March attack was carried out by the White Ant militia, largely made up of fighters from the Nuer ethnic group, the same as Machar.
They overran an army base in the north-eastern town of Nasir, reportedly killing 250 soldiers and a general. A UN helicopter also came under fire, leading to the death of its pilot.
South Sudan gained its independence from Sudan in 2011 following decades of conflict.
But within two years, civil war broke out.
Additional reporting by the BBC’s Nichola Mandil in Juba
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Sumaya Abu Ajwa had woken up for the Fajr prayer with her two foster daughters, 16-year-old Nuseiba and 14-year-old Retaj, and their mother.
She and the girls’ mother were off to one side when the missiles struck, one of them passing between the two girls, Abu Ajwa told Al Jazeera.
“Suddenly, dust and fire spread everywhere, like it was Judgement Day. I started looking frantically for the girls,” she says tearfully, sitting on a bed because she has difficulty walking.
“I found the younger girl [Retaj] and held her in my arms. Her blood was pouring onto my clothes, but I could sense that she was still breathing,” Abu Ajwa said, adding that she screamed for help, for anyone to come and save Retaj, but the scene was so chaotic nobody was able to help.
Soon after, Retaj succumbed to her wounds.
The search for Retaj’s big sister Nuseiba took longer.
“I went back into the flaming prayer room over and over, looking for her, I couldn’t see her anywhere. Then someone told me that she was under the rubble so I went to look where they said.
“When I reached her,” Abu Ajwa breaks down, “I found her and her body had been torn in two.”
Weeping bitterly, she said she and the girls’ mother had done everything they could, through several displacements, to keep the four of them together.
Retaj, left, and Nuseiba, were killed in Israel’s attack on al-Tabin School, which was sheltering displaced people in Gaza [Sanad/Al Jazeera]
Abu Ajwa had discussed leaving al-Tabin with the girls, but Nuseiba had been reluctant to leave, she said, because she was attending Quran classes there and was proud of her progress in memorising the holy book.
“She told us that if we wanted to leave that was fine, she would stay behind in the school. I told her that I had stayed with them throughout the war and wouldn’t leave them now, we’d either make it together or die together, but now they’ve gone on ahead and left us. They died before us.”
The girls only had one wish, she added – for the war to end because they “have been scared so many times, displaced so many times, they were so exhausted and had gone hungry so many times”.
The girls have a 14-year-old brother, Abu Ajwa said, who had been taken from them when the Israeli army raided al-Shifa Hospital where they were sheltering at the time.
“The Israelis sent him north on his own. We were very sad then but, who knows, this may have saved him, he’s the only hope we have left.
“Who will call me Mama Sumaya now? I crave those words so much,” Abu Ajwa sobs.
Article II of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
1932-1933 – Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union inflict a famine upon Ukraine after people rebel against the imposed system of land management known as “collectivization,” which seizes privately owned farmlands and puts people to work in collectives. An estimated 25,000-33,000 people die every day. There are an estimated six million to 10 million deaths.
December 1937-January 1938 – The Japanese Imperial Army marches into Nanking, China, and kills an estimated 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers. Tens of thousands are raped before they are murdered.
1938-1945 – Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, deems the Jewish population racially inferior and a threat, and kills six million Jewish people in Germany, Poland, the Soviet Union and other areas around Europe during World War II.
1944 – The term “genocide” is coined by lawyer Raphael Lemkin.
December 9, 1948 – The United Nations adopts the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
January 12, 1951 – The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide enters into force. It is eventually ratified by 142 nations.
1975-1979 – Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s attempt to turn Cambodia into a Communist peasant farming society leads to the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, forced labor and executions.
1988 – The Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein attacks civilians who have remained in “prohibited” areas. The attacks include the use of mustard gas and nerve agents and result in the death of an estimated 100,000 Iraqi Kurds.
1992-1995 – Yugoslavia, led by President Slobodan Milosevic, attacks Bosnia after it declares its independence. Approximately 100,000 people – the majority of whom are Muslims, or Bosniaks, – are killed in the conflict. There are mass executions of “battle-age” men and mass rape of women.
1998 – The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) establishes the precedent that rape during warfare is a crime of genocide. In Rwanda, HIV-infected men participated in the mass rape of Tutsi women.
1998 – The first genocide conviction occurs at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Jean Paul Akayesu, the Hutu mayor of the town, Taba, is convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity.
July 1, 2002 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) opens at The Hague, Netherlands, as the first permanent war crimes tribunal, with jurisdiction to try perpetrators of genocide. Previously, the UN Security Council created ad hoc tribunals to try those responsible for genocide in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.
2008 – Fugitive Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb leader, is arrested. He is charged with genocide in connection with the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. On March 24, 2016, Karadzic is found guilty of 10 of the 11 charges against him, including one count of genocide. He is sentenced to 40 years in prison. Three years later, the sentence is changed to life in prison by appeal judges at a UN court in the Hague, Netherlands.
March 4, 2009 – The ICC issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
June 4, 2013 – The ICTR unseals a 2012 updated indictment against Ladislas Ntaganzwa. The former mayor of a town in south Rwanda is indicted on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and other violations of international humanitarian law during the 1994 killings in Rwanda.
August 2014 – ISIS fighters attack the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, home of a religious minority group called the Yazidis. A Yazidi lawmaker says that 500 men have been killed, 70 children have died of thirst and women are being sold into slavery.
December 9, 2015 – The arrest of Ntaganzwa is announced. On May 28, 2020,Ntaganzwa is convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law by the High Court Chamber for International Crimes in Rwanda. He is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Annual amnesty marking Independence Day takes place during crisis in the north that poses threat to military rulers.
Myanmar’s military government has pardoned more than 9,000 prisoners, including 114 foreign nationals, to mark the country’s Independence Day.
Friends and families of prisoners gathered outside the high-security Insein Prison in the commercial capital Yangon as the releases were set to start on Thursday and expected to take place over several days.
The identities of those slated for release were not yet known, and there was no indication that any political prisoners would be freed.
Thursday’s announced amnesty, part of an annual release, comes as the government faces a crisis in the country’s north, where ethnic armed groups have captured military and border posts, threatening to block trade with China.
Against this roiling backdrop, the Independence Day celebrations were devoid of the usual pomp and circumstance, and military chief Min Aung Hlaing was notably absent from the proceedings. In a statement, his administration said 9,652 prisoners would be freed.
The military came to power in a coup in February 2001 after ousting civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, brutally suppressing protests and cracking down on all forms of dissent.
Suu Kyi, 78, is currently in prison, sentenced to 33 years on an array of politically motivated charges from corruption to flouting COVID-19 restrictions. Her party was dissolved last year after failing to comply with tough new party registration laws.
Since the power grab, military leaders have been accused of murdering dozens of prisoners and covering up their deaths as escape attempts. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) monitoring group, more than 25,730 people were arrested for opposing the coup, and almost 20,000 are still in detention.
The AAPP reports that at least 4,277 civilians, including pro-democracy activists, have been killed by security forces. In 2022, the generals drew international condemnation after executing four pro-democracy leaders and activists in the country’s first use of the death penalty in decades.
Israel’s campaign of relentless bombardment against the Gaza Strip had been raging for three weeks when the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked to address the heavy civilian death toll in the Palestinian enclave.
Netanyahu, who had earlier evoked the 9/11 attacks on New York’s Twin Towers and the Pentagon in 2001 to describe the deadly Hamas assault on southern Israel on October 7, looked to the second world war for validation, on this occasion.
The hawkish Israeli premier referred to the time in 1945 – he mistakenly mentioned 1944 – when a British air raid, which had been targeting a Gestapo site, erroneously hit a school in Copenhagen killing 86 children. “That is not a war crime,” he told reporters. “That is not something you blame Britain for doing. That was a legitimate act of war with tragic consequences that accompany such legitimate actions.”
Since then, the Allied campaign against Nazi Germany and Japan during World War II has become something of an historical precedent for an Israeli state seeking to justify the large-scale killings of the people of Gaza as it ostensibly pursues Hamas fighters. Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Tzipi Hotovely, has compared Israel’s campaign with the devastating Allied bombing of Dresden, which, conducted over three nights in 1945, was intended to force the Nazis into surrender, and led to the deaths of some 25,000-35,000 Germans. Non-state affiliated advocates of Israel have also drawn similar comparisons.
Yet, these attempts erase the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict in the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their land during the creation of Israel in 1948, the destruction of 500 towns and villages at the time, and the subsequent illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. They also ignore how World War II led to a new international law regime, and serve to dehumanise Palestinians while justifying Israel’s decades-long violence and discrimination — described by many international rights groups as akin to apartheid — against Palestinians, say historians and analysts.
Israeli historian and socialist activist Ilan Pappé told Al Jazeera that these efforts by Israel are aimed “as a justification for its brutal policies towards” Palestinians and that they represent an old playbook used by the country.
He cited the instance when former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin compared the then-leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, to Hitler, and war-torn Beirut to Berlin, following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
“I feel as a prime minister empowered to instruct a valiant army facing ‘Berlin’ where, amongst innocent civilians, Hitler and his henchmen hide in a bunker deep beneath the surface,” Begin said in a telegram to then-United States President Ronald Reagan in early August 1982.
But Begin’s words prompted criticism from many in his own country, with Israeli novelist Amos Oz writing that “the urge to revive Hitler, only to kill him again and again, is the result of pain that poets can permit themselves to use, but not statesmen”.
Reaching into the past to legitimise modern-day conflicts can also be ahistorical. Scott Lucas, a specialist in US and British foreign policy at the University of Birmingham, said the relentless use of World War II by Israel and its supporters to mitigate criticism of its bloody war on Gaza suggests that Israel wants to “wish away the post-1945 pledge – by lawyers, NGOs, activists and politicians – to say we need a better system so civilians do not suffer needlessly in war zones”.
He added that Israel’s decision to opt out of membership of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its attempts to “actively … undermine [the authority] of the United Nations”, founded after the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust, make its claims to be part of an Allied-like struggle disingenuous.
Israel has repeatedly accused the UN’s agencies and its officials, including Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, of bias because they have called for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, Israeli bombs have killed more UN staff members in Gaza since October 7 than in any conflict in the history of the organisation.
“Civilians will be killed in wartime,” Lucas acknowledged, but added that Israel appeared to be breaching the international law requirement of proportionality. In essence, a military whose war leads to civilian deaths, including through attacks on hospitals, schools and shelters – targets Israel has repeatedly struck during this war – must be able to show proportionate military gains through those strikes. That’s a bar Israel hasn’t met, according to many experts.
“You are currently having an excessive number of civilians who are being killed because there are not adequate protections that are being applied by the power that is carrying out the attack,” Lucas said. “And that’s what the Israelis should be judged by. Bringing in World War II and other narratives is [just] peripheral.”
Israel’s supporters continue to argue that the parallel with World War II holds. Jake Wallis Simons, editor of the London-based Jewish Chronicle, said that there were “two points of similarity” between the conflicts.
“The first is a sense of existential threat both during World War II and in the attacks by Hamas upon Israel,” claimed Wallis Simons. “The other is the nature of the aggressor.” He described Hamas’s actions as “barbarism”.
But UN experts, international human rights groups and many nations around the world have warned that it is Israel’s actions since October 7 – more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and almost the entire population of 2.3 million people has been displaced – that could constitute modern-day genocide. Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of using food as a weapon of war. Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza since 2007, and since the start of the current war, has made it even more difficult for aid to enter the Strip. Right at the start of the current war, Israel also imposed a strict block on the entry of fuel and water – a restriction it has largely kept in place.
Against that backdrop, it’s useful for Israel to project World War II onto the conflict with Palestine, suggested German-Palestinian academic Anna Younes. It helps Israel dehumanise Palestinians and blunts sensitivity towards their suffering.
“By conflating Israel with Jewishness, it’s easy to project Nazism … onto Palestinians, but also onto all of their supporters,” Younes told Al Jazeera. “Nazism has thus become a globalised Eurocentric rhetorical vessel for everything … which doesn’t deserve empathy and context, and is free to be killed.”
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – In the smart offices of a law firm located among the skyscrapers of the Malaysian capital, 85-year-old Lim Kok’s thoughts turn back to a crime perpetrated by British forces three-quarters of a century ago.
The decades in between have not faded Lim’s memories of the period when then-Malaya was a colony in the waning days of the British Empire.
Attempting to slow the sun setting on its colony in Southeast Asia, London sent thousands of British and Commonwealth troops to suppress a local movement fighting for independence in the aftermath of World War II.
Lim was just nine years old when his father, a hardworking ethnic Chinese supervisor at a rubber plantation, was gunned down in a hail of bullets along with 23 other innocent workers in what is still known to this day as the Batang Kali massacre.
He lost more than his father that day, Lim said.
He lost a family.
With her husband and the family’s breadwinner dead, Lim’s mother was left alone to raise six children – an impossible task for a poor rural household in the late 1940s.
Lim’s mother was forced to give her youngest child, a newly-born baby girl, up for adoption. Lim was later sent to live with a granduncle in Kuala Lumpur.
Not only was Lim’s family torn apart, but the British troops who carried out the massacre tried to cover up the atrocity by accusing their victims of being involved with the Communists fighting for independence.
The truth would surface years later as journalists, researchers and court hearings attested to the innocence of those killed by British soldiers in Batang Kali.
To this day, however, there has been no redress or official apology from British authorities, who have resisted calls to open an enquiry into the massacre that took place 75 years ago this week.
An ethnic Chinese protester leaving a white flower at the main entrance of the British High Commission building in Kuala Lumpur during a commemoration in 2008 for those massacred by British soldiers in Batang Kali in 1948. Britain has refused requests to hold an inquiry into the massacre by 14 members of the Scots Guards [File: Saeed Khan/AFP]
“I knew my dad was a genuine rubber tapper,” Lim told Al Jazeera, when asked about the colonial state’s attempt to frame the victims of the massacre as rebels.
The false accusations never made him “feel bad” as he was growing up, he said.
“The only thing bad is that they were massacred by the British soldiers.”
Though he is in his mid-80s, Lim is spry and energetic and has not given up the fight to hold the British government to account for “the suffering which we and the other relatives of the murdered persons experienced”.
“Being the offspring, we suffered a lot. Even my brothers and sisters… They have to go out in search of work at a very early age just to earn a living,” he said in an interview earlier this year. “They suffered a lot.”
The most recent fight to hold British authorities to account began in 2008 when the father of Kuala Lumpur-based lawyer Quek Ngee Meng launched a campaign for justice after researching the incident in his retirement.
When his father passed away in 2010, Quek took up the torch for the victims of Batang Kali.
The campaign for an official inquiry has taken advocates from London’s High Court to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, and onto the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Quek said the massacre has had a multigenerational impact on the families of the slain men, who were consigned to economic hardship and poverty on top of suffering the trauma of the violent deaths of their loved ones.
Many families of the victims could not afford to educate their children well. Some gave up children for adoption. Others married young or agreed to arranged marriages just to keep their families afloat following the loss of their breadwinner.
“The families were actually broken down,” Quek told Al Jazeera, explaining that it took generations for the families of victims to improve their economic and social circumstances.
“It actually wasn’t just the 24 or whoever who were killed. Many, many people are victims of this,” he said.
Quek recalls that legal action was not their first choice. An apology and a settlement would have sufficed for relatives, but a letter sent to British authorities seeking to negotiate was ignored.
“There was no middle ground that we can reach…. No offer for any talks. We just have to go on this legal journey and, yes, we lost on technical grounds,” he said.
Quek Ngee Meng, centre, presents a memorandum condemning the massacre of 24 civilians at Batang Kali to British High Commissioner to Malaysia Boyd McCleary outside the British High Commission building in Kuala Lumpur on December 12, 2008 [File: Saeed Khan/AFP]
“I felt sorry for Lim Kok and all those I couldn’t get compensation for,” said Quek, who has worked for years on the campaign on a pro bono basis.
“But, what I can get is this: All judges all agree that an atrocity at that time was committed by the British soldiers. And, the fact, the true fact, is these villagers, they were not guilty of any crime.”
“They were not Communists. There is no proof that they were sympathisers,” he said.
The details of the Batang Kali massacre are chilling.
According to court documents, in the early evening of December 11, 1948, a patrol of Scots Guards numbering 14 soldiers entered the remote settlement in Batang Kali, located among heavily jungled hills some 60km (around 40 miles) north of Kuala Lumpur. The settlement was inhabited by around 50 adults and some children who worked on the surrounding rubber plantation, which was owned by a Scottish man.
The British soldiers separated the men from the women and children and confined them overnight in a wooden long hut where they were interrogated. The soldiers carried out mock executions to terrify the unarmed male villagers in the hope of obtaining information about rebels that might have been nearby.
Troops of ‘G’ Company, Second Battalion The Scots Guards, wade through a swamp during an operation in Pahang, Malaya, in 1950 [File: AP Photo]
That night, the first victim was shot.
The following morning, the women and children, and one traumatised man, were put on a truck and driven away from the plantation. The hut in which the 23 men had been detained was opened and, in the next few minutes, all were shot dead.
With bodies strewn all around, the soldiers torched the workers’ huts and the patrol moved on, returning to their base later.
The first newspaper report in the days following the massacre described the slain men as “bandits” who were shot while trying to escape and claimed that a quantity of ammunition had been uncovered.
Shortly after, Britain’s War Office officially declared the killings as a “very successful action”.
As the truth began to emerge of what actually took place, a rudimentary enquiry headed by British legal officials in the colony was conducted and concluded within a matter of days.
Based on statements from the soldiers, and not the villagers, the conclusion was that nothing had occurred in Batang Kali that “justified criminal proceeding”.
A protester representing a British soldier portrays the Batang Kali massacre scene during a protest in front of the British High Commission building in Kuala Lumpur in December 2008. British troops during the ‘Malayan Emergency’ said they severed the heads of suspected rebels for identification purposes [Saeed Khan/AFP]
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urges the military and rival paramilitary RSF to ‘stop this conflict now’.
The United States has determined that warring factions in Sudan have committed war crimes, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said, as Washington increases pressure on the army (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to end fighting that has caused a humanitarian crisis.
The US also found that the RSF and their allied militias committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, Blinken said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The expansion of the needless conflict between RSF and the SAF has caused grievous human suffering,” Blinken said.
He urged both sides to “stop this conflict now, comply with their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, and hold accountable those responsible for atrocities.”
The RSF has been accused of orchestrating an ethnic massacre in West Darfur, 20 years after the region was the site of a genocidal campaign.
A Chadian cart owner transports belongings of Sudanese people who fled the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region [File: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]
In the capital, Khartoum, residents have accused the paramilitary of rape, looting and imprisoning civilians.
Meanwhile, the army’s air and artillery attacks on residential neighbourhoods where the RSF has strongholds could be considered violations of international law, according to experts.
Residents, experts and aid groups have told Al Jazeera of growing fears that the next major battle in Sudan’s civil war could spiral into an all-out ethnic war.
While the US’s conclusion comes after a lengthy legal process and analysis, it does not carry any punitive measures. The US has imposed several rounds of sanctions since the war broke out in mid-April, however.
The war, which has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced another 6.5 million, broke out over disagreements about plans for a political transition and the integration of the RSF into the army, four years after former ruler Omar al-Bashir was deposed in an uprising.
Countless rounds of US-and-Saudi brokered peace talks have failed over the last few months.
As bombs rain down upon neighbourhoods and refugee camps in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian families are setting up temporary homes in an unlikely place: hospital common areas.
Tents are popping up in hospital corridors, parking lots and courtyards, as families seek safety in and around medical facilities — places that should be protected under international humanitarian law.
It is only the latest sign of the new reality as the Israel-Hamas war reaches its 29th day on Saturday, with growing fears of medical supply shortages and explosions disrupting the vital health services unfolding at hospitals and clinics.
With only cloth walls for privacy, families inside the tents are going about their daily routines, sleeping, eating and trying to reestablish a sense of normalcy.
These tents began to appear only days after the war broke out on October 7. Not only do they serve as temporary shelter for those escaping death and destruction in residential areas, but some also act as makeshift surgeries and emergency rooms as the Palestinian death toll soars past 9,000.
Injured Palestinians rest in a tent set up outside a hospital in the Deir el-Balah area of the central Gaza Strip on October 16 [Adel Hana/AP Photo]
Women and children comprise a mass majority of the hospital inhabitants. Privacy is a distant memory, and the challenges of living in a hospital are manifold. Food, clean water and toilet facilities are severely rationed and available only sporadically: once or twice a day.
A seven-member family sheltering in a tent spoke anonymously to Al Jazeera about their hardship. They mentioned that they lack protection from the nearby shelling and the debris it raises, as well as from the biting cold at night.
“Overnight, from having everything, we now have nothing,” one of the family members said.
Families like theirs also face the heightened possibilities of infection and contact with toxic chemicals, as medical treatment continues in other tents nearby.
At the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, displaced families take shelter on benches and tile floors to escape the bombing, on October 29 [Mohammed Salem/Reuters]
A lack of medical supplies
Health facilities across Gaza have reported shortages of medical supplies. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the scarcity has become a grave problem for both medical personnel and patients, causing the quality of healthcare to deteriorate rapidly.
The shortage of anaesthesia has become glaringly apparent at the Al-Shifa Hospital, the biggest health facility in Gaza, established in 1946. Doctors there are reportedly forced to perform surgery on patients without medicine to dull their pain, causing them indescribable agony.
Intensive care units or ICUs, meanwhile, have too few beds to accommodate the hundreds of patients with severe injuries. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, spaces for such cases have been exhausted since mid-October.
The Indonesian Hospital, serving over 150,000 residents in northern Gaza, is on the brink of ceasing its operations, raising alarm among health officials.
The Al-Shifa Hospital is also on the verge of a complete shutdown. The hospital, which provides critical health services to central Gaza, may soon be unable to admit more patients or treat injuries.
With only 546 beds, it is now treating over 1,000 injured people. The hospital has even resorted to conducting surgery in its yards, using the sun to light the medical procedures due to the lack of electricity and fuel.
“The hospital is expected to go completely dark within hours,” Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Health Ministry, warned on Wednesday.
An additional 50,000 to 60,000 people are taking shelter in the hospital’s yards.
Al-Qudra said that Gaza’s health sector faces catastrophe unless fuel and medical supplies reach the besieged enclave. He called on Egypt to facilitate the urgent delivery of medical aid to Gaza.
On October 21, 20 trucks with health supplies and other necessary goods crossed into Gaza from Egypt for the first time, beginning the flow of humanitarian assistance.
But aid has been slow to arrive, in part due to ongoing Israeli bombing in the border area.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health has said as well that the international aid allocated for Gaza’s health sector barely covers its essential operations and falls short of its most dire needs.
Palestinians gather at the site of a blast after a convoy of ambulances was struck outside the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on November 3 [Mohammed al-Masri/Reuters]
Health facilities facing bomb blasts
Attacks on or near medical facilities and workers have also dealt a severe blow to Gaza’s healthcare system since the war began.
Palestinian officials have blamed Israeli air strikes for explosions at several healthcare centres, including the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in the south and the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in central Gaza City, resulting in hundreds of deaths.
Israel’s military has also acknowledged striking ambulances, alleging that one of the vehicles in a medical convoy on Friday was “being used by a Hamas terrorist cell”. Al-Qudra said “a big number” of health workers were killed in the blast.
An estimated 25 ambulances have been hit, and 136 healthcare workers killed, since the start of the war.
The Health Ministry and Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) have called for medical facilities and first responders to be protected from the violence, in accordance with international law.
Article 18 of the Geneva Convention specifies that civilian hospitals should “in no circumstances be the object of attack”. Medical transport is likewise protected under humanitarian law.
Nevertheless, medical institutions in Gaza have continued to face fire. On October 29, PRCS said it received a notification from Israeli forces to evacuate the Al-Quds Hospital in the Tal al-Hawa area of Gaza City, ahead of a planned bombing there.
The hospital housed hundreds of patients and an estimated 12,000 displaced Palestinians.
The Government Media Office in Gaza and the Health Ministry have characterised such attacks as “war crimes”, calling for accountability.
Exhaustion among health workers
The continued violence has also increased concerns for the mental and physical wellbeing of healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses, administrative staff and rescue crews.
Working around the clock, some are facing extreme exhaustion. Others are suffering psychological fatigue from treating gruesome injuries or the frustration of lacking resources.
“Before the war, we would be responsible for alleviating the stress and trauma of the sick and injured, but now it is us who need an outlet for our exhausted bodies and spirits,” said nurse Huda Shokry from the Al-Daraj Medical Complex.
Still, Dr Ahmed Ghoul, an emergency room supervisor at Al-Daraj, told Al Jazeera that the professionals he works with are dedicated to caring for their patients.
“Despite the shortage of nearly everything necessary to effectively do our jobs, we do not leave our rooms, day or night, except for quick toilet breaks,” he said.
“We have lost track of the days of the week because we are more concerned with the thousands of injured individuals than over time.”
Doctors like Ghoul have no place to sleep even if they have the chance to. Their personal rooms have been converted into patient treatment areas, and their beds are used for surgery and emergency care.
Hospital kitchens, meanwhile, have largely stopped functioning. They lack the basic resources to prepare meals for staff or patients.
“We have grown weary of what we have been witnessing,” Shokry told Al Jazeera. “Being a doctor in the war in Gaza means losing one’s sense of fear and exhaustion.”
“It is impossible to maintain a normal psyche or even emotions.”
Gaza City – As another Israeli air raid thundered, eight-year-old Pretty Abu-Ghazzah stood shell-shocked, while her five-year-old twin brothers rushed to their mother Esraa’s arms. Pretty’s youngest sibling, aged two, cried loudly.
To escape the heavy bombardment in their neighbourhood of Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, Esraa brought her children to her in-laws’ house in a less-targeted area. But there is no escaping the mental health effects of the raid.
“I can’t bear to see my children trembling and their faces pale with terror. It’s too painful. Pretty vomited several times today due to panic and fear,” the 30-year-old mother said.
Making up nearly half of the 2.3 million people trapped in Gaza, children are suffering from the mental and emotional fallout of years of blockade and violence. According to a 2022 study by the non-profit Save the Children, four out of five children in the enclave grapple with depression, grief and fear.
Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, which it launched following the October 7 attacks by the armed wing of the Palestinian group Hamas, has killed at least 2,382 Palestinians and wounded 9,714 others so far. It has also left parents scrambling to keep their kids alive and mentally healthy through what they describe as the fiercest aggression they have faced in years.
After Israel cut off the electricity in Gaza last Monday, residents now live in the dark amid dwindling fuel supplies, which are needed to operate generators. Many parents use what limited internet access they have to seek advice for comforting their children on platforms like YouTube and WhatsApp support groups.
Esraa has been observing her children’s reactions to the air attacks with growing concern. In addition to vomiting, they have been suffering from involuntary urination, a symptom she said is recent and highlights heightened fear.
“None of my children had faced issues with involuntary urination before,” she said.
In the 2022 Save the Children report, 79 percent of caregivers in Gaza reported an increase in bedwetting among children, compared with 53 percent in 2018. The last Israel-Hamas war was in 2021. Symptoms like increased difficulties in speech, language and communication as well as an inability to complete tasks also increased in children since 2018.
“I found a lot of helpful YouTubevideos during the last war on how to talk to children. It was important to engage in a conversation with them and discuss what was happening in their surroundings,” Esraa said, adding that the impact of such strategies remains limited given the gruesome circumstances they are living through.
A Palestinian boy watches news on his phone at his house in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, May 10, 2023 [Bassam Masoud/Reuters]
Engaging their minds
From the online resources, Esraa learned about keeping children entertained and engaged during conflict. One way was easing restrictions on screen time. “I usually limit my children’s iPad usage but given these distressing circumstances, I allow them to watch cartoons to keep themselves entertained. I make sure to keep my iPad or cellphone charged while they watch [in case of an emergency],” she explained. Esraa also reads stories to her children.
Unlike in previous assaults on the territory, the Israeli Air Force has not been issuing warnings before shelling residential units, sending families racing for their lives.
In its Humanitarian Needs Overview 2022, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that 678,000 children across Palestine need mental health and psychosocial support services. More than half of the children in Gaza are in need of such support. However, available mental healthcare has not been sufficient to address the significant need, especially during recurring times of distress. This leaves parents – who are facing their own mental health and emotional issues – to find ways to soothe their frightened children.
Esraa recalled that her children’s playtime now often revolves around war and imitating their mother’s phone calls to loved ones. “My children look up to me and pretend to have phone conversations, asking each other: ‘What’s happening in your area?’ They mimic me when I call my family members who live in different parts of Gaza, just to make sure they are okay,” Esraa explained.
Palestinian children look at the building of the Zanon family, destroyed in Israeli air attacks in Rafah, Gaza Strip, October 14, 2023 [Hatem Ali/AP Photo]
Expressing themselves
Rawan, another mother in her 30s, said her three daughters are struggling with the reality of the violence they are confronting.
“This is the fifth war I’ve experienced as a mother and each time, I turn to YouTube and online articles to enhance my understanding of how to support my daughters during times of conflict,” Rawan said.
However, her eldest daughter is experiencing accentuated symptoms. “My daughters, Aysel, 9, Areen, 6, and Aleen, 4, are profoundly affected by the terrifying sounds of bombings, especially Aysel. She’s now old enough to understand the implications of war. She has stopped eating and drinking. I’ve also noticed an increase in her heart rate,” she said.
Aleen, too, has displayed signs of food aversion and frequent trembling due to fear, Rawan said.
To ease their anxiety, Rawan tries to engage her daughters in group games and activities.
For guidance, Rawan has been turning to YouTube and awareness messages sent by her daughters’ teachers to help mothers support their children’s mental well-being. Among such advice is to monitor children closely for signs of anxiety that they may have difficulty expressing verbally. In this situation, mothers are advised to encourage their children to express themselves creatively, through writing stories or drawing as an outlet to process their feelings.
Like many people in Gaza seeking a safe haven from the shelling, Rawan and her family spent the first three days of the aggression in their home in the al-Nasr neighbourhood of Gaza City. However, after the bombings intensified near their residence, they relocated to the Nuseirat refugee camp near Deir el-Balah in the heart of the Gaza Strip.
As with Esraa’s children, the relocation has not eased the mental unrest of Rawa’s children. “They stick close to me at all times, even when I’m preparing meals. I constantly embrace and comfort them,” she said in a helpless tone.
When her daughters ask about the ongoing war, Rawan tries to divert their attention by showing them photos and videos of happier times or engaging them with games, reading together and cuddling.
Unlike Esraa, Rawan feels compelled to limit her kids’ use of mobile phones and iPads for entertainment, since these devices are essential for emergencies. She has also tried to restrict their exposure to news by turning off the television during war-related coverage.
Mental health support
Some mental health professionals have been providing free resources on social media. In a Facebook post, the Palestinian Counseling Center announced the formation of a national emergency team to provide “free psychosocial support via phone calls and WhatsApp” to those who need it. The post includes a list of names and contacts of professional mental health and social work specialists across Palestine who are available to jump on calls. The page has shared a number of tips on how to assist children under fire.
Palestinian children, who fled their houses due to Israeli attacks, play as they shelter in a United Nations-run school, in Gaza City, October 12, 2023 [Arafat Barbakh/Reuters]
“Children are unavoidably influenced by the consequences of Israeli aggression, the rising levels of violence, the widespread dissemination of images depicting casualties and devastation, and the continuous sounds of explosions,” Muayad Jouda, a Gaza-based psychiatrist explained.
He said that children might display symptoms such as intense anger, incessant crying and prolonged fits of screaming. They may continuously discuss the ongoing war and even engage in playing games with violent themes.
Ansam, a mother of two, said that she has seen these behaviours in her two daughters, aged two and four. “I hug them and comfort them because that’s a motherly instinct and because as a mother and a human, I’m terrified. But amidst the massacres we’re living through and witnessing, mental well-being is a luxury. All we want is for them to come out alive,” she said.
If you or someone you know is in Gaza and needs mental health support, the Palestinian Counseling Center may be able to help.
This article was produced in collaboration with Egab.
Breivik, 44, is serving 21 years in prison for killing 77 people in shootings and a bombing attack in Norway in 2011.
Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik is suing the state for allegedly violating his human rights due to being held in “extreme” isolation, and has filed another application for parole, his lawyer said.
A neo-Nazi, Breivik killed 77 people, most of them teenagers, in shootings and a bombing attack in Norway’s worst peacetime atrocity in July 2011.
“He’s suing the state because he has been in an extreme isolation for 11 years, and has no contacts with other people except his guards,” Breivik’s lawyer Oeystein Storrvik told the Reuters news agency on Friday.
“He [Breivik] was moved to a new prison last year, and we hoped that there would be better conditions and that he could meet other people,” Storrvik added.
Norwegian daily Aftenposten was the first to report about the case earlier on Friday.
In 2017, Breivik lost a human rights case when an appeals court overturned a lower court verdict that his near-isolation in a three-room cell was inhumane.
Last year, a Norwegian court also rejected his parole application, saying he still posed a risk of violence.
Storrvik said he expected the Oslo district court to hear the lawsuit next year.
International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan is wanted for arrest in Russia over war crimes charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Moscow has issued an arrest warrant for the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor who in March prepared a warrant for the arrest of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges, Russian media reported on Friday.
Karim Khan, the prosecutor at the Hague-based war crimes court, was added to the Interior Ministry’s wanted list, Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency reported on Friday, citing the ministry’s database.
A picture of the ICC prosecutor, who is a citizen of the United Kingdom, could be seen in the Russian interior ministry’s database on Friday, according to news reports.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles major crimes, said in March that Khan was being probed for the “criminal prosecution of a person known to be innocent” – in reference to the war crime charges against Putin.
The ICC prosecutor was also being investigated for allegedly preparing “an attack on a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection”, Russian investigators said at the time.
The wanted notice described Khan as a man born on March 30, 1970 in Edinburgh, Scotland but did not specify his offence.
Russia opened the criminal probe into Khan after the ICC announced an arrest warrant had been issued for Putin over accusations he had committed war crimes by unlawfully deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The international court also issued an arrest warrant against Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights.
Kyiv says more than 19,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the beginning of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, with more than 4,000 believed to be orphans. Many are allegedly placed in institutions and foster homes.
Announcing the arrest warrants in March, the ICC said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the abductions of Ukrainian children, and “for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others (and) for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts”.
The ICC was later forced to issue a statement of concern after former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to hit the war crimes court in The Hague with hypersonic missiles. Earlier this month, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the ICC “a puppet in the hands of the so-called collective West”, the Moscow Times reported.
Russia, which is not a member of the ICC, has said the warrant is “void”.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin at the time hailed the ICC decision to issue arrest warrants.
“The world received a signal that the Russian regime is criminal and its leadership and henchmen will be held accountable,” he said.
“This is a historic decision for Ukraine and the entire system of international law.”
Kremlin says International Criminal Court charges against Vladimir Putin are meaningless with respect to jurisdiction in Russia.
United States President Joe Biden said Vladimir Putin had clearly committed war crimes in Ukraine and the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) issue of an arrest warrant for the Russian president was justified.
Although the US, like Russia, is not a party to the international court, Biden said the ICC had made a strong case against Putin.
“He’s clearly committed war crimes,” Biden told reporters on Friday. “I think it’s justified,” he said, referring to the arrest warrant.
“It’s not recognised internationally by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point,” he added.
The ICC earlier on Friday called for Putin’s arrest on suspicion of his involvement in the unlawful deportation and transfer of children from Ukraine’s occupied areas to Russia after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The court also issued an arrested warrant to Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, on the same charges.
The ICC warrant now obligates the court’s 123 member states to arrest Putin and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he sets foot on their territory.
The Kremlin said the court’s charges against Putin were outrageous and meaningless with respect to jurisdiction in Russia.
A US-backed report by Yale University researchers last month found that Russia has held at least 6,000 Ukrainian children in at least 43 camps and other facilities as part of a “large-scale systematic network”.
Ukraine’s government recently said more than 14,700 children have been deported to Russia, with more than 1,000 of them from the port city of Mariupol, which was besieged for weeks and all but destroyed.
The US has separately concluded that Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine and supports accountability for perpetrators of war crimes, a State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
“There is no doubt that Russia is committing war crimes and atrocities (in) Ukraine, and we have been clear that those responsible must be held accountable,” the spokesperson added.
ICC President Piotr Hofmanski said in a video statement that while the court’s judges have issued the arrest warrants, it will be up to the international community to enforce them. The court has no police force of its own to do so.
The ICC can impose a maximum sentence of life imprisonment “when justified by the extreme gravity of the crime”, according to its founding treaty, the Rome Statute. This established the ICC as a permanent court of last resort to prosecute political leaders and other key perpetrators of the world’s worst atrocities – war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
A court in Seoul had ruled that Nguyen Thi Thanh be compensated for injuries sustained during a mass killing of Vietnamese civilians in 1968.
South Korea’s government has appealed against a court order to pay compensation to a Vietnamese woman who was the victim of atrocities perpetrated by South Korean troops during the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
The government appealed against a decision by a court in Seoul last month that had ordered the state to pay 30 million won ($22,730) to Nguyen Thi Thanh, 63, in compensation for injuries sustained when she survived a mass killing of civilians by South Korean troops in 1968.
An estimated 300,000 South Korean soldiers fought alongside US forces in Vietnam and the awarding of compensation to Thanh marked the first legal acknowledgement of South Korea’s liability for atrocities committed by its forces during the bloody conflict.
“We will fully cooperate with the trial proceedings under continued consultations with related agencies to receive an appellate ruling based on substantial truth,” the country’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement to the Reuters news agency.
Thanh was just eight years old when South Korean marines swept through her village of Phong Nhi in central Vietnam on February 12, 1968, killing more than 70 unarmed civilians, including five members of Thanh’s family.
She sustained a gunshot wound to her stomach during the rampage, in which her mother and two siblings died, requiring her to spend almost a year in hospital recovering.
South Korean troops of the White Horse Division with three Vietnamese prisoners during the war in Vietnam in 1966 [File: Hong/AP Photo]
The Seoul Central District Court said in its February 7 ruling on the case that the killing of Vietnamese villagers by the marines was “a clearly illegal act”.
“It is acknowledged that the plaintiff’s family members died at the site and she sustained serious wounds … from the shooting by marine troops,” the court said, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.
South Korea’s Defence Minister Lee Jong-Sup responded to the court ruling last month stating that his ministry was certain there were “absolutely no massacres committed by our troops” during the Vietnam War.
The court’s decision to compensate the victim had damaged the honour of South Korean soldiers, he said.
“We cannot agree with the ruling … We will hold discussions with related agencies to determine our next legal step,” he added at the time, foreshadowing the appeal announced on Thursday.
South Korean troops have been implicated in a number of mass killings during the conflict in Vietnam with one study estimating that thousands of innocent Vietnamese may have been killed by South Korea’s forces.
A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
CNN
—
A year into Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the US has seen enough.
“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: These are crimes against humanity,” Vice President Kamala Harris said at the Munich Security Conference this weekend.
“To all those who have perpetrated these crimes, and to their superiors who are complicit in those crimes, you will be held to account.”
The declaration marks the strongest accusation yet from the US as it seeks to punish Moscow for its war of aggression.
The US government declared last March that members of the Russian armed forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine. President Joe Biden has gone as far as saying that atrocities at the hands of Moscow’s troops qualify as “genocide.”
While the “crimes against humanity” determination is significant, it remains largely symbolic for now. It does not immediately trigger any specific consequences, nor does it give the US the ability to prosecute Russians involved with perpetrating crimes.
However, it could provide international bodies, such as the International Criminal Court, with evidence to effectively try to prosecute those crimes.
Here’s what you need to know about how these kinds of crimes are prosecuted on the international stage.
A crime against humanity is defined by the International Criminal Court as an act “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.”
This can include, among other things, murder, extermination, torture, enslavement, sexual violence, deportation or forcible transfer of population or other inhumane acts.
“We reserve crimes against humanity determinations for the most egregious crimes,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Saturday. “These acts are not random or spontaneous; they are part of the Kremlin’s widespread and systematic attack against Ukraine’s civilian population.”
Harris in her speech outlined specific instances that have peppered news clips and official reports.
“First, from the starting days of this unprovoked war, we have witnessed Russian forces engage in horrendous atrocities and war crimes,” Harris said.
“Russian forces have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population – gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape, and deportation. Execution-style killings, beating and electrocution,” she added.
“Russian authorities have forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of people from Ukraine to Russia, including children. They have cruelly separated children from their families.”
Harris’ speech cited evidence of indiscriminate Russian attacks that deliberately targeted civilians, including the bombing of a maternity hospital that killed a pregnant mother and of a theater in Mariupol, where hundreds were killed.
The vice president spoke of the horrific images out of Bucha that showed men and women shot and left to rot in the streets and reports by the United Nations of a 4-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted by a Russian soldier.
As it was when the US government declared that Russia committed war crimes last March, it remains to be seen whether there will be any accountability and whether Russian President Vladimir Putin himself will be forced to bear any responsibility.
“We will continue to support the judicial process in Ukraine and international investigations because justice must be served. Let us all agree, on behalf of all the victims, known and unknown: Justice must be served,” Harris said.
Located in The Hague, Netherlands, and created by a treaty called the Rome Statute first brought before the United Nations, the International Criminal Court operates independently.
Most countries on Earth – 123 of them – are parties to the treaty, but there are very large and notable exceptions. That’s key for this story, as neither Russia nor Ukraine — nor for that matter, the US — are part of the agreement.
The court tries people, not countries, and focuses on those who hold the most responsibility: leaders and officials. While Ukraine is not a member of the court, it has previously accepted its jurisdiction. Accused Russian officials could theoretically be indicted by the court. However, the ICC does not conduct trials in absentia, so they would either have to be handed over by Russia or arrested outside of Russia. This seems unlikely.
An ICC investigation could affect any diplomatic space for negotiations, with Putin and other accused perpetrators not wanting to risk arrest if they travel outside the country. It could also weaken Putin’s popularity at home, with Russians losing faith in his ability to lead.
If justice in general moves slowly, international justice barely moves at all. Investigations at the ICC take many years. Only a handful of convictions have ever been won.
A preliminary investigation into the hostilities in eastern Ukraine lasted more than six years – from April 2014 until December 2020. At the time, the prosecutor said there was evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Next steps were slowed by the Covid-19 pandemic and a lack of resources at the court, which is conducting multiple investigations.
Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, cast the crimes against humanity accusation as an attempt to “demonize” Russia, according to state news agency TASS.
“We consider such insinuations as an attempt, unprecedented in terms of its cynicism, to demonize Russia,” Antonov said this weekend.
Manila had argued it was conducting its own investigation into deaths under the controversial policy.
The International Criminal Court has said it will reopen its investigation into possible “crimes against humanity” in the Philippines over former president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, which led to the deaths of thousands of people.
The Hague-based court announced plans for an investigation in February 2018 but suspended its work in November 2021 at the request of the Philippines’ government after Manila said it was undertaking its own review.
The court has since been examining submissions from the Philippines, the prosecutor and victims. In a statement on Thursday, the ICC said it was “not satisfied that the Philippines is undertaking relevant investigations that would warrant a deferral of the Court’s investigations”.
The statement added: “The various domestic initiatives and proceedings, assessed collectively, do not amount to tangible, concrete and progressive investigative steps in a way that would sufficiently mirror the Court’s investigation.”
Duterte, a former mayor of the southern city of Davao who campaigned for office on a platform of fighting crime, launched his “war on drugs” as soon as he took office in June 2016, and repeatedly urged police to “kill” drug suspects.
A United Nations report in 2021 found that 8,663 people had been killed in anti-drug operations but the Human Rights Commission of the Philippines and local human rights groups say the toll could be as much as three times higher.
Human Rights Watch says it found evidence that police were falsifying evidence to justify unlawful killings, with Duterte continuing the “large-scale extrajudicial violence as a crime solution”, which he had established during his 22 years running Davao.
Duterte announced in March 2018 that he would withdraw the Philippines from the ICC – a decision that took effect a year later – and that his government would not cooperate with any investigation.
The court has jurisdiction to investigate crimes committed up until March 2019 when the Philippines’s withdrawal became official.
Presidents in the Philippines can serve only one six-year term and Duterte was replaced by Ferdinand Marcos Jr last year. Marcos Jr has said he will continue the “war on drugs” but with a focus on rehabilitation.
Protesters are calling for screenings of a new documentary by a Serbian-Canadian filmmaker to be cancelled across Europe, saying the “revisionist” film “whitewashes” war crimes committed during the Bosnian War.
Film director Boris Malagurski announced last month on Twitter the schedule of screenings of his film Republika Srpska: The Struggle for Freedom. Malagurski has worked as a correspondent and host for Russian state media channels RT and Sputnik Serbia.
Republika Srpska became a Serb-run entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the signing of the Dayton peace agreement in 1995, which ended the war in Bosnia.
From 1992 to 1995, Serb forces led a campaign of ethnic cleansing with a goal of creating a Greater Serbia.
The most notorious case of their war crimes was in Srebrenica, where in 1995, Serb forces under the command of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic, killed more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys over the course of a few days. International courts ruled the massacre constituted genocide.
The Canada-based Institute for the Research of Genocide launched an online petition to stop the promotion of the film, saying it “revises the painful history of Bosnia”. It has gathered nearly 30,000 signatures.
“The film promotes the denial of the genocide in Srebrenica,” the institute said in a statement on Saturday. “… It promotes the idea of Greater Serbia, which is constantly tearing Bosnia and Herzegovina apart.”
Campaign leader Georgio Konstandi told Al Jazeera that six days of screenings have so far been cancelled in 19 cities in Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium.
“[Malagurski’s] film trailer clearly frames the founding of a genocidal regime as a ‘struggle for freedom’ and a fight against ‘slavery’” Konstandi said. “We would not accept such gross whitewashing of any other genocidal regime.”
“Why should the Bosnian people, who were tortured, massacred and raped by the Republika Srpska authorities, be expected to put up with it?” he asked.
Malagurski told Al Jazeera that the documentary filmed scenes in Srebrenica and noted “the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [ICTY] in the Hague concluded, in its verdict, that ‘what happened in Srebrenica constituted genocide,’ in no way negating that fact”.
“It talks about the Serbs’ turbulent history under various empires of the past, but in no way avoids talking about the crimes Serb forces committed during the war in Bosnia in the 1990s,” he said.
“However, none of the mentioned organisations asked to watch the film before engaging in an aggressive campaign to ban the film, in the ‘cancel culture’ manner of the times we live in,” Malagurski added.
Last week the Sarajevo Mayor Benjamina Karic addressed the mayor of Salzburg, Austria, in a letter, alerting him of the film serving as “propaganda”. The screening was later cancelled.
Uputila sam pismo gradonačelniku Salzburga Harald Preuneru, povodom premijere filma “Republika Srpska: Borba za slobodu” koja je zakazana za 31.10.2022. u ovom gradu. pic.twitter.com/6FQuLHxSJM
The campaign has spurred lobbied people outside the Western Balkans to also comment. On Saturday, Alaskan standup comedian Chelsea Hart posted a TikTok video of the issue, writing “Fascism is making a comeback in Europe.”
Rulings by the ICTY, including the conclusion that the massacre in Srebrenica constituted a genocide, are regularly denied by Serb politicians in both Bosnia’s Republika Srpska and Serbia, including Banja Luka’s Mayor Drasko Stanivukovic, who welcomed the film’s premiere in Republika Srpska this month.
The city of Banja Luka reportedly financed $15,000 for the production of the documentary.
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has for the past 15 years been leading a campaign for the Republika Srpska entity to secede and join Serbia.
The UN Human Rights Council has voted not to debate the treatment of the Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang even after the UN’s human rights office concluded the scale of the alleged abuses there may amount to “crimes against humanity“.
The motion for a debate on the issue was defeated by 19 votes to 17, with 11 countries abstaining in a decision China welcomed and others condemned as “shameful”.
Many of those who voted “no” were Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia, Somalia, Pakistan, UAE and Qatar. Among the 11 countries that abstained were India, Malaysia and Ukraine.
“This is a victory for developing countries and a victory truth and justice,” Hua Chunying, China’s foreign affairs spokesperson tweeted. “Human rights must not be used as a pretext to make up lies and interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, or to contain, coerce & humiliate others.”
The UN first revealed the existence of a network of detention centres in Xinjiang in 2018, saying at least one million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities were being held in the system. China later admitted there were camps in the region, but said they were vocational skills training centres necessary to tackle “extremism”.
Amid leaks of official government documents, investigations by human rights groups and academics, and testimony from Uighurs themselves, China has lobbied hard to prevent any further probe into the situation in Xinjiang.
Former UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, who first called for “unfettered” access to the region in 2018, was only allowed to visit in May, in what appeared to be a tightly-choreographed visit.
Her report (PDF) on the situation was also pushed back and was only released on August 31, minutes before her term was due to end.
While it did not mention the word “genocide”, it found that “serious human rights violations” had been committed, and said “the extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups … may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”
The United States, which called for the debate, condemned the latest vote.
“The inaction shamefully suggests some countries are free from scrutiny and allowed to violate human rights with impunity,” Michele Taylor, the US representative to the Human Rights Council, said in a statement. “No country represented here today has a perfect human rights record. No country, no matter how powerful should be excluded from Council discussions — this includes my country, the United States, and it includes the People’s Republic of China.”
In the wake of the UN report, Uighur groups had urged the UN Human Rights Council to establish a commission of inquiry to independently examine the treatment of Uighurs and other minorities in China and called on the UN Office on Genocide Prevention to immediately conduct an assessment of the risks of atrocities, including genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.
They expressed disappointment at Thursday’s outcome, with the Campaign for Uyghurs noting that Beijing had been “actively trying to suppress” the report “at every level”.
“Some member states have adopted China’s genocide denial,” the group’s Executive Director Rushan Abbas said in a statement. “They should consider the consequences of allowing one powerful country to effectively have impunity for committing genocide.”
Alim Osman, president of the Uighur Association of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, told Al Jazeera he was disappointed and angry at the decision.
“That even a debate on the human rights situation is not allowed by few a countries which have economic ties with the Chinese regime clearly shows on the international stage that their moral obligation to defend human rights is for sale, therefore corrupting the UN itself,” he said. “The UN needs urgent reform.”
Beijing has been lobbying hard against the findings of a long-delayed UN report into the situation in Xinjiang, which warned of possible ‘crimes against humanity’ [File: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP]
Human rights groups also condemned the vote.
In a strongly-worded statement, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard said the decision protected the perpetrators rather than the victims of abuses.
“For Council member states to vote against even discussing a situation where the UN itself says crimes against humanity may have occurred makes a mockery of everything the Human Rights Council is supposed to stand for.” Callamard said in a statement.
“Member states’ silence — or worse, blocking of debate — in the face of the atrocities committed by the Chinese government further sullies the reputation of the Human Rights Council.
“The UN Human Rights Council has today failed the test to uphold its core mission, which is to protect the victims of human rights violations everywhere, including in places such as Xinjiang.”
