Blogs

"Earlier this month, reports came from the Syrian city of Qusayr of an ominous warning to the town’s Christians: Either join the Sunni-led opposition against Bashar al-Assad or leave. Soon after, thousands of Christians fled the town."

Read the Article

"Several international surveys have rated Congo as the world’s worst place to be a woman. Often, these studies focus on gender violence. According to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health last year, 48 Congolese women are raped every hour. For years, various militia and rebel groups have used rape as a weapon to destroy communities."

Read the Article

"Stumbling over the border into South Sudan, the refugees told of a scorched-earth offensive by the Khartoum government in Blue Nile state, a remote rebel-held area in Sudan. The refugees described months of terror in the war zone, culminating in a government offensive in May in which the Sudanese army stormed into their villages, torched homes, destroyed fields, poisoned their wells and killed whoever did not escape. Resting under a tree, Hassan Musa sat tall and taut as he described the attack on his hometown, Kukur."

Usamah Mohammed Ali, a prominent cyber-activist, was taken from a protest on Friday and has yet to be released, according to his brother. The blogger Maha el-Sanosi has been detained twice. Mohamed Hassan Alim, known as 'Boushi', , a youth opposition leader, was reportedly seized from his house, and a Bloomberg news correspondent, Salma el-Wardany, was deported after she was arrested near Khartoum University.

Read the Article

"They neglect to address the other main sources of violence: distinctively local conflicts over land, grassroots power, status and resources, like cattle, charcoal, timber, drugs and fees levied at checkpoints. Most of the violence in Congo is not coordinated on a large scale. It is the product of conflicts among fragmented local militias, each trying to advance its own agenda at the village or district level. Those then percolate and expand."

Read the Article

"Refugees say Sudan's armed forces are attacking villages in the Blue Nile border state with warplanes, helicopters and troops, killing civilians and torching settlements, in a counter-insurgency campaign that rights activists say could include war crimes.  Sudanese army and civilian officials, who strongly deny the allegations, in turn accuse the rebels of using civilians as human shields and as pawns to win international sympathy."

Read the Article

"With daily reports of civilian deaths and the conflict apparently taking on an increasingly sectarian hue, Britain is willing to discuss giving clemency to Assad if it would allow a transitional conference to be launched. He could even be offered safe passage to attend the conference."

Read the article

"The US and other Security Council members should do everything they can," Human Rights Watch said, "to expose violations of UN sanctions, including by Rwanda, and not attempt to cover them up."

Read the article

Annette LaRocco with the Enough Project calls for the United States to re-evaluate foreign policy with Rwanda:

"In light of mounting evidence of the Rwandan government’s support of Bosco Ntaganda and the rebellious M23 movement, the U.S. government must critically re-evaluate its military and development aid and foreign policy strategy vis-à-vis Kigali and urge further high-level investigations into the alleged incidents of Rwandan interference."

"As the world remembers the UN World Refugee Day on the 20th of June, we take you to a camp in South Sudan were thousands of refugees fleeing conflict in Sudan's Blue Nile region have found refugee. This year's theme is "Dilemmas" depicting some of the tough choice these refugees have had to make."

"A group of 70 Holocaust scholars has sent a letter urging the Obama administration to support a congressional amendment that would halt U.S. foreign assistance to countries that host visits for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir."

Read more

Congolese youth remain divided on the issue. "We anxiously await the results of ongoing investigations," says Zigabe. "But I think a war in the DRC is not in the Rwandan government's interest because the Rutshuru region is close to the Rwandan border. A conflict in the DRC could easily spill over to Rwanda."

Read more

"There is nothing new in these dispatches from various sources: Did anyone really expect that Khartoum would grant the UN expert on human rights in Sudan access to Darfur?  Or that a UNAMID assessment team would be given freedom of movement in Darfur to determine the security needs of the region?"

Read more

"An escalation in the number of refugees fleeing to South Sudan points to a deterioration in the humanitarian situation in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. In the last two weeks of May, 35,000 more refugees arrived in South South, bringing to total number of refugees in South Sudan and Ethiopia to 182,000. Over 8,000 of the 12,000 South Sudanese returnees stranded in Kosti were flown to South Sudan in May on a humanitarian airlift organized by IOM."

A court in Burma has sentenced two men to death for the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman whose killing last month helped set off communal violence in which more than 50 people died, state media reported Tuesday....The attacks helped set off almost a week of violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingyas, who are denied citizenship and ethnic recognition in Burma and instead are viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Read more