As Kyiv continues its offensive inside Russia and the Russian army nears a key hub in Ukraine’s Donbas region, leaders of more than 50 nations, known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, met in Germany on Friday to help get Kyiv the support it seeks. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports.
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Month: September 2024
US ‘alarmed’ by reports Iranian missile transfer to Russia is imminent or completed
Violence in Central Sahel has not improved, experts say, as some Russian mercenaries depart
Russian mercenaries hired to provide security in Burkina Faso began leaving the country in late August — they say to resist Ukraine’s recent incursion into Russia. Data show the mercenaries have had little impact in the Sahel’s war against Islamic terrorist groups. As Henry Wilkins reports, Burkina Faso saw one of the deadliest militant attacks in recent years the same week the Russians left.
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Dormitory fire in Kenya kills 18 students, 27 injured, dozens missing
NAIROBI, Kenya — A fire in a school dormitory in Kenya has killed 18 students and 27 others have been hospitalized, with 70 children unaccounted for, the country’s deputy president said Friday.
President William Ruto declared three days of mourning during which flags will be flown at half-staff in honor of the children who died.
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said only 86 out of more than 150 children had been accounted for, and urged community members who may have sheltered some of them to help account for them.
Gachagua said that one more student had died at the hospital and that 37 pupils had been reunited with their parents so far.
The cause of the fire Thursday night at Hillside Endarasha Primary school in Nyeri County was being investigated, police spokesperson Resila Onyango said. The school serves children up to the age of 14.
Nyeri County Commissioner Pius Murugu and the education ministry reported that the dormitory that caught fire housed more than 150 boys between ages 10 and 14. Since most of the buildings are made from wooden planks, the fire spread quickly.
The mixed, day and boarding private school, which has 824 students, is located 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the capital, Nairobi, in the country’s central highlands, where wooden structures are common.
Nyeri County Gov. Mutahi Kahiga told journalists that rescue efforts were hampered by muddy roads caused by rain in the area.
Anxious parents who had been unable to find their children among the survivors waited at the school, engulfed with grief.
The parents were overcome by emotions after they were allowed to view the scene of the fire.
John Rukwaro told journalists that his 11-year-old grandson was missing, and he had checked with area hospitals without success.
The education ministry’s permanent secretary, Belio Kipsang, said that the government was working with the school administration to account for all the children in the boarding section.
“We are asking the parents who picked up their children and the community to support us as we consolidate the numbers to ensure that we account for every child who was boarding in this school,” he said.
Ruto called the news “devastating.”
“I instruct relevant authorities to thoroughly investigate this horrific incident. Those responsible will be held to account,” he said in an X post, formerly known as Twitter.
His deputy, Rigathi Gachagua, urged school administrators to ensure that safety guidelines recommended by the education ministry for boarding schools are being followed.
School fires are common in Kenyan boarding schools, often caused by arson fueled by drug abuse and overcrowding, according to a recent education ministry report. Many students board because parents believe it gives them more time to study without long commutes.
Some fires have been started by students during protests over the workload or living conditions. In 2017, 10 high school students died in a school fire in Nairobi started by a student.
Kenya’s deadliest school fire in recent history was in 2001 when 67 students died in a dormitory fire in Machakos county.
The education ministry’s guidelines recommend that dormitories should be spacious enough and have two doors on each end, an emergency door in the middle and that windows aren’t fitted with grills to allow for escape in case of a fire. Fully serviced fire extinguishers and fire alarms are required at easily accessible spots.
It wasn’t immediately clear if these guidelines were followed at Hillside school and the area near the dormitory has remained cordoned off.
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Lviv starts to rebuild in wake of Russia’s missile attack
A Russian missile strike on the historic Ukrainian town of Lviv on September 4 killed at least seven people and damaged parts of the city’s historic downtown. On Thursday, rebuilding began, even as the city mourned the dead. Omelyan Oshchudlyak reports. Camera: Yuriy Dankevych.
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Pakistani man charged in alleged New York City plot linked to Islamic State
WASHINGTON — A Pakistani citizen living in Canada was arrested Wednesday and charged with planning an attack in New York City in support of the Islamic State group, the Department of Justice said Friday.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, is accused of plotting a mass shooting at a Jewish center in Brooklyn around October 7, 2024, nearly one year after Hamas’ attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Khan, who is also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, aimed to kill “as many Jewish people as possible.”
Khan attempted to travel from Canada to the United States, where he intended to use automatic and semiautomatic weapons to carry out the attack, according to the indictment.
He was arrested in Canada, just 19 kilometers from the U.S. border.
Khan told two undercover law enforcement officers of his plans to create “a real offline cell” of Islamic State supporters to carry out an attack, the indictment alleged.
He instructed them to obtain AR-style assault rifles, ammunition and other materials to carry out the attacks, and he identified specific locations where the attacks would take place.
Khan targeted New York City because it has “the largest Jewish population in America,” prosecutors said.
“We are deeply grateful to our Canadian partners for their critical law enforcement actions in this matter. Jewish communities — like all communities in this country — should not have to fear that they will be targeted by a hate-fueled terrorist attack,” Garland said in a statement.
Khan faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
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US adversaries step up efforts to influence results of next election
washington — Russia, Iran and China are ramping up efforts to impact the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and down-ballot races, targeting American voters with an expanding array of sophisticated influence operations.
The latest assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies, shared Friday, warns that Russia remains the preeminent threat, with Russian influence campaigns seeking to boost the chances of Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump over Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.
Russian actors, led by networks created by the Kremlin-backed media outlet RT, “are supporting Moscow’s efforts to influence voter preferences in favor of the former president and diminish the prospects of the vice president,” a senior intelligence official told reporters, briefing on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
“RT has built and used networks of U.S. and other Western personalities to create and disseminate Russia-friendly narratives while trying to mask the content in authentic Americans’ free speech,” the official said.
And RT, the official added, is just part of a growing Kremlin-directed campaign that is looking to impact not just the race for the White House, but smaller elections across the United States, with an added emphasis on swing states.
“Russia’s influence apparatus is very large and it’s worth highlighting that they have other entities that are active,” the official said. “Russia is working up and down ballot races, as well as spreading divisive issues.”
Tracking the Russian influence efforts has become more difficult, with U.S. officials saying that there is a greater degree of sophistication and an increased emphasis on amplifying American voices with pro-Russian views rather than seeding social media with narratives crafted in the Kremlin.
“It’s not just about Russian bots and trolls and fake social media persona, although that’s part of it,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told VOA Friday.
“We’re not taking anything for granted,” he added. “There’s no question that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has every intent to try to sow discord here in the United States, to try to pump disinformation and Russian propaganda through to the American people, through what he believes were our credible sources, be they online or on television and we have to take that seriously.”
The intelligence officials declined to share additional specifics about Russia’s network of influence operations. But indictments Wednesday from the U.S. Justice Department have shed some light on the scope of the Kremlin’s recent operations.
In one case, the U.S. charged two employees of RT with using fake personas and shell companies to funnel almost $10 million to Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based company producing videos and podcasts for a stable of conservative political influencers.
The aim, prosecutors said, was to produce and disseminate content promoting what Moscow viewed as pro-Russian policies.
In a separate action, the U.S. seized 32 internet domains linked to an operation directed by a key aide to Putin. The aim, U.S. officials said, was to mimic legitimate U.S. news sites to spread Russian-created propaganda.
RT publicly ridiculed the allegations while some of the influencers working with Tenet posted statements on the X social media platform saying they were unaware of the company’s links to Moscow.
As for the latest U.S. intelligence allegations, the Russian Embassy in Washington has yet to respond to VOA’s request for comments, though it has described previous accusations as “Russophobic.”
Requests for comment to the Trump and Harris campaigns have also, so far, gone unanswered.
But earlier U.S. intelligence assertions of Russian support for Trump have raised the ire of the Trump campaign, which has pointed to public statements by Russia’s Putin supporting Trump’s opponents.
“When President Trump was in the Oval Office, Russia and all of America’s adversaries were deterred, because they feared how the United States would respond,” national press secretary for the Trump campaign, Karoline Leavitt, told VOA in an email this past July.
U.S. intelligence officials, however, said it would be a mistake to put any faith in Putin’s words, including public comments Thursday expressing support for Harris.
The U.S. intelligence community “does not take Putin’s public statements as representative of Russia’s covert intentions,” the senior official said. “There are many examples over the past several years where Putin’s public statements do not align with Russian actions. For example, his comments that he would not invade Ukraine.”
Experts say Iran, China trying to influence results
U.S. intelligence agencies Friday emphasized Russia is not alone in its effort to shape the outcome of the U.S. elections in November, warning both Tehran and Beijing are sharpening their influence campaigns with just about 60 days until America voters go to the polls.
“Iran is making a greater effort than in the past to influence this year’s elections, even as its tactics and approaches are similar to prior cycles,” the intelligence official said, describing a “multi-pronged approach to stoke internal divisions and undermine voter confidence in the U.S. democratic system.
U.S. intelligence agencies previously assessed that Iran has focused part of its efforts on denigrating the Trump campaign, seeing his election as likely to worsen tensions between Tehran and Washington.
U.S. officials last month also blamed Iran for a hack-and-leak operation targeting the Trump campaign, though they said that Iran-linked actors have also sought to infiltrate the Harris campaign.
As for China, U.S. intelligence officials said it appears Beijing is still content to stay out of the U.S. presidential race, seeing little difference between Trump and Harris.
But there are indications China is accelerating its efforts to impact other political races.
U.S. intelligence “is aware of PRC [People’s Republic of China] attempts to influence U.S. down-ballot races by focusing on candidates it views as particularly threatening to core PRC security interests,” the official said.
“PRC online influence actors have also continued small scale efforts on social media to engage U.S. audiences on divisive political issues, including protests about the Israel-Gaza conflict and promote negative stories about both political parties,” the official added.
‘Malicious speculations against China’
The Chinese Embassy in Washington, Friday, rejected the U.S. intelligence assessment.
“China has no intention and will not interfere in the U.S. election, and we hope that the U.S. side will not make an issue of China in the election,” spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email.
Liu added that accusations Beijing is using social media to sway U.S. public opinion “are full of malicious speculations against China, which China firmly opposes.”
While U.S. intelligence officials have identified Russia, Iran and China, as the most prominent purveyors of disinformation, they are not alone.
Officials have said countries like Cuba are also engaging in influence operations, though at a much smaller scale.
And other countries are edging closer to crossing that line.
“We are seeing a number of countries considering activities that, at a minimum, test the boundaries of election influence,” according to the U.S. assessment. “Such activities include lobbying political figures to try to curry favor with them in the event they are elected to office.”
Misha Komadovsky contributed to this report.
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Chinese military planes displayed at Egypt airshow, but demand is in question
tel aviv, israel — As the first Egypt International Air Show wrapped up Thursday, industry analysts debated the significance of China’s presence, which included the most complete demonstration of its advanced Y-20 transport aircraft and the first showcase of its J-10 fighter jets in Africa.
Analysts say the high-profile presence of the Chinese air force at the event held at Egypt’s El Alamein International Airport underscores China’s growing technological prowess, military ambitions, and expanding influence in the Middle East and North Africa.
But analysts also question how much demand the region will have for the Chinese military planes.
“China is expanding and targeting the [Middle East] regional market,” Kostas Tigkos, manager of mission systems and intelligence at global military intelligence company Janes, told VOA. “This marks another milestone in China’s military diversification and opens doors to more collaboration in security domains, encourages investment opportunities and opens new channels to developing trade beyond traditional ties.”
Tigkos said the Middle East’s ranking as the region with China’s highest bilateral trade growth rate, and source of half of its imported oil, gives it a strategic interest in fostering economic, security, supply route and energy source development.
Interest in Chinese equipment
Countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are increasingly turning to China for military equipment, such as drones, missiles and anti-drone systems. Egypt has expressed interest in acquiring the J-10 fighter jet to diversify its military suppliers and enhance its capabilities.
In July, Egypt’s air force commander, Lieutenant General Mahmoud Foaad Abdel Jawad, traveled to Beijing at China’s behest for a meeting with China’s air force commander, Star General Chang Dingqiu.
According to an Egyptian military statement, the visit was characterized by Egypt’s “keenness to enhance areas of military cooperation with brotherly and friendly countries.” The statement added that the talks “opened new prospects between the air forces of both countries.”
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi attended the opening ceremony for this week’s air show and visited the Chinese pavilion.
Images of the Chinese-manufactured Y-20 transporter trailed by six J-10 jets flying over Egypt’s Giza pyramids in formation last week drew global attention, demonstrating distance and performance capabilities in the 10,000-kilometer flight from China to Egypt.
The Y-20 appearance at the airshow is significant, Wendell Minnick, editor of the “China in Arms” Substack newsletter, told VOA.
“This is their attempt to match the U.S. heavy lift, long-range transport or aerial-refueled aircraft,” Minnick said.
Capabilities
China says the Y-20 can lift up to 66 tons and carry several tanks over a distance of 7,800 kilometers. Nicknamed “Chubby Girl” by China’s aviation industry for its broad fuselage girth, the Y-20 has been in development for 17 years.
Dubbed “Vigorous Dragon,” China’s Chengdu J-10C is a combat aircraft armed with air-to-air and surface attack weapons. Primarily an air-to-air combat aircraft that can perform strike missions, the J-10C has been compared to and contrasted with the U.S. F-16 Fighting Falcon.
“China needs these to project force beyond the mainland for expeditionary warfare,” Minnick said, “like the U.S. with the C-5 Galaxy and the C-17 Globemaster.”
The C-5M Super Galaxy is the U.S. Air Force’s largest aircraft, strategically designed to transport cargo and personnel. With a cargo load of more than 127 tons, nearly double China’s Y-20, it can carry oversized cargo over oceans and take off and land on relatively short runways.
The C-17 Globemaster III is “the most flexible cargo aircraft to enter the airlift force,” according to a U.S. Air Force press release, with a maximum payload of 74 tons.
Nonetheless, China’s state media touted the Y-20’s performance debut and quoted the People’s Liberation Army Air Force saying it carried out six maneuvers on Tuesday, “including large angle ascension and dive, large slope turning and fast landing, showing the aircraft’s outstanding maneuverability.”
China’s Y-20 and J-10 appeared at last November’s Dubai Air Show, and the Y-20 took part in a joint drill in Russia in July and joint drills with Mozambique and Tanzania in August. But this was the first time the Y-20 had performed aerial maneuvers in a show outside China, and the first time the J-10 had performed in Africa.
“China wants to have an Africa footprint as part of their expansionist plans,” Minnick said.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in March reported, “China, which accounted for 19% of deliveries to sub-Saharan Africa, overtook Russia as the region’s main supplier of major arms.”
US suppliers
Despite China’s military sales in the region, Middle East buyers won’t be cutting ties with U.S. suppliers in favor of China in the near future, according to defense experts, who note that while the Y-20 is cheaper than the U.S. C-17 or C-5, it is less impressive and more vulnerable to missile attacks.
Minnick questions whether there will be any demand from customers in Africa and the Middle East for China’s military aircraft.
The Chinese transporter requires “tremendous training, technical support and additional off-the-shelf parts and components that most Mideast countries can’t handle” on both technical and financial fronts, he said.
“Iran is too poor,” Minnick said. “Saudi prefers Western aircraft, and Jordan is far more focused on internal security.”
Other defense experts like Tigkos say the Y-20 and J-10 present opportunities for long-term business and relationships with training programs, spare parts and maintenance – if they can find buyers.
“When a country is successful in the aviation realm, it marks a significant difference and ‘upgrade,’ if you will, toward helping foster relationships of trust and wider markets for China,” he said.
The first Egypt International Air Show was held Tuesday through Thursday with about 50 aircraft on display and with representatives from 100 countries and 300 companies in attendance, including U.S. industry giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
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Some Zimbabweans worry about nation’s continued reliance on coal
Zimbabwe’s heavy reliance on coal-based energy is hurting the health of people in mining regions who continue to be exposed to dirty air from coal burning. Columbus Mavhunga visited the Hwange thermal power station — about 700 kilometers from Harare — and the surrounding area, where residents have complained about the air pollution.
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Moscow accuses Washington of undue pressure on Russian media
Death of persecuted journalist brings attention to Turkmenistan’s media repression
Washington — The death of a former journalist who experienced beatings and inhumane treatment in prison shows the harassment that media workers and their families endure in Turkmenistan, analysts said.
Khudayberdy Allashov was 35 years old when he died in August, after what watchdogs said was eight years of persecution and physical assault by Turkmen authorities. No cause of death was listed on his death certificate.
“The beatings and torture that Allashov was subjected to and the impossibility of providing him with rehabilitation and medical care led to the death of a brave and honest man,” Farid Tuhbatullin, the head of the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, told VOA via email.
Known as one of the most closed-off countries, Turkmenistan has little space for independent reporting. Nearly all media outlets are state-owned, and ministries monitor content, according to watchdogs. Journalists such as Allashov who try to report independently — and their families — are subject to arrest and harassment, according to Reporters Without Borders, or RSF.
Azatlyk, which is run by VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Turkmen Service, provides a rare source of news.
When Allashov was initially detained in 2016, he had been working for Azatlyk for about three months.
That reporting was critical of the government, focusing on social problems such as food shortages, salary delays and forced labor, according to an Amnesty International report published at the time of Allashov’s first arrest.
“All of this is forbidden to be mentioned in the local media,” Tuhbatullin told VOA in an email. “The very word ‘problem’ is taboo.” He, too, had been arrested and exiled from Turkmenistan.
Allashov, his mother and his wife were all arrested under charges of possessing chewing tobacco, a commonly used substance in Turkmenistan. There are no other known criminal charges of possessing chewing tobacco; the maximum punishment is typically a fine, Farruh Yusupov, director of Azatlyk, told VOA.
In captivity, Allashov was tortured with electric shock. The severity of the torture during Allashov’s 74-day arrest caused him to declare he would no longer work as a journalist.
But even after his release and quitting the profession, authorities continually detained and harassed him up until his death, journalists and experts who spoke with VOA said. He faced violent interrogations in 2019, 2020 and 2023.
“Authorities never left him or his family alone,” Yusupov told VOA. “They told him they would not relent until they chased him to his grave. They were true to their promise.”
The Turkmenistan Embassy in Washington did not respond to VOA’s email requesting comment.
Despite having ceased his reporting, Allashov was denied any medical treatment due to his status as a target of the authorities, according to RSF. He leaves a wife and two children.
RSF condemned the targeted harassment of independent journalists.
“Allashov should never have lived through this nightmare,” Jeanne Cavelier of RSF said in a statement. “Under the Turkmen dictatorship, the lives of journalists and former journalists — and the lives of their families — continue to be at risk because of their work.”
Turkmenistan ranks 175 out of 180 countries on the RSF World Press Freedom Index, where 1 shows the best media environment.
“This is a country where the authorities can do anything to any citizen who expresses any form of dissent,” Gulnoza Said, a program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, told VOA.
Yusupov told VOA that while there are no “concrete numbers” available for how many journalists have been attacked by authorities, there are many well-documented instances.
In 2006, reporter Ogulsapar Muradova died in prison after being denied legal representation. The United Nations recognized the Turkmen government as the responsible party in her death. In 2013, authorities detained journalist Rovshen Yazmuhamedov without cause, according to RSF.
Most recently, in 2023, journalist Soltan Achilova was beaten by police officers and banned from leaving the country. Only a small number of independent journalists still operate in the country, and those who do all work under pseudonyms, said Tuhbatullin of the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights.
Turkmen authorities also harass the families of journalists.
Allashov’s wife and mother were arrested with him in 2016, and his mother was detained for three months and beaten. She was taken in for questioning again in 2019, when she was beaten and passed away two days later from heart failure, according to Yusupov.
Authorities also harassed the mother of journalist Yazmuhamedov, banning her from leaving the country to see her other children.
“This is one of the tools authoritarian governments use to silence independent reporting,” Said told VOA.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has reached out to Turkmen authorities after every government attack on a journalist. The government has never responded, Said told VOA.
Yusupov told VOA that government repression “makes the work of journalists like Allashov even more important.”
“It’s important to tell the truth in the face of an oppressive regime and provide independent reporting to society,” he said.
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Activists call Ugandan runner’s burning death femicide
KAMPALA, UGANDA — United Nations agencies, the World Athletics Federation and others reacted with shock and anger at the death of Ugandan Olympic marathoner Rebecca Cheptegei, who died Thursday after being set on fire by her ex-boyfriend.
The case is shining a light on domestic violence in the region. Human rights groups are calling for stronger legal measures to protect women who suffer at the hands of their domestic partners.
Every hour, six women lose their lives to femicide worldwide, according to U.N. Women and the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric on Thursday told reporters in Geneva that Cheptegei’s brutal murder illustrates a much bigger, and too often ignored, problem.
Back in Uganda, relatives waited for Cheptegei’s body to be returned from Eldoret, Kenya, where she was being treated for severe burns after her ex-boyfriend set her on fire during a dispute Sunday.
Trans Nzoia County Police Commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom said Monday that Dickson Ndiema bought a can of gasoline, poured it on Cheptegei and set her ablaze during a disagreement. Ndiema was also burned and was being treated at the same hospital.
Beatrice Ayikoru, secretary general of the Uganda Athletics Federation, said Cheptegei’s death is a wake-up call that many elite athletes are targeted.
“This is an eye-opener for many of us in sports,” she said. “There is a silent violence against women, especially the female athletes. We need to fight for safe sports.”
Cheptegei’s death is a dark reminder of what’s been happening for years. In the East African country of Kenya, gender-based violence against women athletes came to public attention in 2021 when long-distance runner Agnes Tirop was stabbed and beaten to death. In 2022, Olympic runner Damaris Muthee Mutua was found strangled. Both women lost their lives at the hands of their male partners.
In a statement, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said that it was time to assess how safety policies might be enhanced to include abuse outside of the sport and protect female athletes from abuse of all kinds.
In 2021, after the death of Kenyan world-record holder Tirop, fellow marathoner Viola Cheptoo Lagat started a foundation called Tirop’s Angels and has since been speaking against domestic violence.
She said prize money can be at the root of these attacks.
“When they come from races, their boyfriends want their money, and then they go misuse the money,” she said. “And then another problem is the society. We have allowed it to happen that we don’t even condemn it anymore. We’ve made it a norm to see a woman being beaten — to see somebody snatching somebody’s property and us not screaming out loud about it until somebody is lost.”
Kipchumba Murkomen, Kenya’s cabinet secretary for youth affairs and sports, said Thursday that gender violence has again reared its head in the world of elite sports, insisting that government officials are obligated to seek justice.
Wangechi Wachira, executive director of the Center for Rights Education and Awareness, a feminist nongovernmental organization in Kenya, said it is time to stop calling these murders domestic violence, but rather acts of femicide.
“By the time a woman has the courage to go to a police station, it means that they’ve gotten another level of courage to say, finally, beyond the social structures, ‘I am moving to a police station, then I can be able to get help.’ We don’t see the wheels of justice moving as fast as they should,” Whachira said.
Cheptoo said there’s more work to be done.
“It has to be a whole community coming together and working towards ending GBV,”she said, referring to gender-based violence. “That way we don’t have to say, ‘Not again.’”
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press.
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Ukraine reacts to Zelenskyy’s government shakeup
Ukraine has a new foreign minister, one of the latest moves as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy embarks on the largest overhaul of his administration since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports on the appointment of nine new ministers in the Cabinet shakeup. Videographer: Daniil Batushchak
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UN says both Sudan sides committed rights abuses, possibly war crimes
GENEVA — United Nations investigators are accusing both of Sudan’s warring parties and their allied militias Friday of an appalling range of human rights violations that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The report, the first by the three-member Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan, presents a harrowing account of large-scale violations, including “indiscriminate and direct attacks carried out through airstrikes and shelling against civilians, schools, hospitals, communication networks and vital water and electricity supplies.”
Mona Rishwami, expert member of the fact-finding mission, told journalists in Geneva that both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) “conducted hostilities in densely populated areas,” damaging and destroying infrastructure and objects that were “indispensable for the survival of the civilian population.”
“We found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that both SAF and RSF and their respective allies have committed the war crimes of violence against life and persons, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture, and committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliation and degrading treatment,” she said.
The 19-page report, which will be submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council next week, is based on over 700 submissions from various entities, organizations, individuals and experts.
Sudanese authorities refused to grant investigators access to the country, so they gathered information and evidence of violations through in-depth interviews with 182 victims, their families and other eyewitnesses during visits to Chad, Kenya, and Uganda.
“Since mid-April 2023, the conflict in Sudan has spread to 14 of 18 states impacting the entire country and the region,” Mohamed Chande Othman, chairperson of the fact-finding mission, said.
Over the past 17 months, the conflict has uprooted millions of people from their homes. U.N. officials estimate 10.7 million people are displaced inside Sudan with some 2 million others having fled to neighboring countries as refugees, making Sudan the world’s largest displacement crisis.
“It is our view that the conflict is protracted and has engulfed the territory, affecting the whole of Sudan,” Othman said, adding that the true scale of the devastation caused by the conflict and the extent of suffering of the population is yet to be known, but the impact from the horrors inflicted upon the Sudanese “will last for decades to come.”
“We have found that the Sudanese warring parties … have committed an appalling range of violations,” he said. “We found reasonable grounds to believe that many of these violations amount to international crimes.”
The report accuses the warring parties of targeting civilians through rape and other forms of sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, as well as torture and ill-treatment.
Fact-finding mission expert Joy Ngozi Ezeilo observed that women and children are among the main victims.
“Conflict-related sexual violence in Sudan has a long and tragic history and often is used as a weapon of war to terrorize and control communities,” she said.
While both parties to the conflict are guilty of rape and sexual violence, Ezeilo said that members of the RSF in particular have perpetrated the crimes on a large scale in Darfur and the greater Khartoum area.
“Victims recounted being attacked in their homes, beaten, lashed and threatened with death or harm to their relatives or children before being raped by more than one perpetrator,” she said. “They were also subjected to sexual violence while seeking shelter from attack or fleeing.”
The report also found that the RSF and its allied militias “committed the additional war crimes of rape, sexual slavery, and pillage, as well as ordering the displacement of the civilian population and the recruitment of children below 15 in hostilities.”
Investigators condemned what they called the “horrific assaults” carried out by the RSF and its allies against non-Arab communities — specifically the Masalit in and around El Geneina, West Darfur — including “killings, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, destruction of property and pillage.”
The report describes in searing detail the abuse to which children are subjected. Beyond recruitment for battle, children have been “killed, injured, forcibly displaced, detained with adults, tortured, subjected to sexual violence and deprived of healthcare and education.”
“The rare brutality of this war will have a devastating and long-lasting psychological impact on children in Sudan,” Ezeilo said.
Mission chairperson Othman warned that “The gravity of our findings and failure of the warring parties to protect civilians underscores the need for urgent and immediate intervention.
“Our report therefore calls and recommends for the deployment of an independent, impartial force to protect civilians in the country,” adding that both sides to the conflict must comply with their obligations under international law and “immediately and unconditionally cease all attacks on the civilian population.
The people of Sudan, he added, “have suffered greatly and the violations against them must stop.”
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Poland orders arrests over Belarus dissident’s plane diversion
Warsaw — A Polish court on Friday ordered the arrest of three Belarusian officials accused of illegally diverting a Ryanair flight in 2021 in order to seize a dissident journalist on board.
Air traffic control officials forced the plane heading from Greece to Lithuania to land in Minsk after a false bomb alert and arrested journalist Roman Protasevich and his companion Sofia Sapega.
Following investigations, “the Warsaw regional court announced three arrest orders for three people” involved in the diverting of the Polish-registered plane, the tribunal’s spokeswoman, Anna Ptaszek.
Poland’s state prosecution service identified them as a former director of the Belarusian aviation agency, a team leader at Minsk air traffic control, and an official from Belarus’s KGB security service.
The three men are residents outside Poland, but Ptaszek said the court orders “allow prosecutors to seek procedures to pursue them internationally”, Ptaszek said.
The court said the three face possible sentences of 15 years for diverting an aircraft, on aggravated charges categorizing it as a “terrorist” action.
Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza cited audio recordings from the Minsk airport control tower on the day of the flight that were leaked by a controller who later fled to Poland.
In January 2022 a New York federal court charged four Belarusians with “conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy.”
The U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization called the diversion “unlawful.”
The bomb threat “was deliberately false” and was ordered by “senior government officials of Belarus,” it said in a statement in July 2022.
Protasevich was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2023 but was later pardoned after recording a “confession” video that his allies said was coerced.
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