37 h. ago Israel has ‘de facto state policy’ of organised torture, says UN report

Committee highlights allegations including dog attacks and sexual violence, raising concern about impunity for war crimesIsrael has “a de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture”, according to a new UN report covering the past two years, which also raised concerns about the impunity of Israeli security forces for war crimes.The UN committee on torture expressed “deep concern over allegations of repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, waterboarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence”. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Israel may have committed war crimes in expelling West Bank refugees, human rights group alleges

A human rights group says Israel may have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity after forcibly expelling 32,000 Palestinians from three West Bank refugee camps earlier this year

Events

1 week ago Trump and his ilk imagine a world without international law – but they will not achieve it | Philippe Sands

History shows us that the creation of international rules and institutions is followed by their partial destruction, and a reconstruction that builds on what came beforeNineteen forty-five was a pivotal moment in international law, marking the founding of the United Nations and the International Military Tribunal to investigate war crimes committed during the second world war. Eighty years on, it is increasingly being said that we are living through a moment of great change, towards a world that is without such law.In September, the Financial Times published an editorial headlined A world without rules. That view was premised on two incidents: Israel’s launch of a missile strike on a building that hosted Hamas officials in Qatar; and the flight of 19 Russian drones into Polish airspace. This flouting of the previous “rules-based order”, the FT said, was now producing “a kind of anarchy and a proliferation of violence”.Philippe Sands is professor of law at University College LondonTh...

Politics

2 w. ago 'I still can't believe I'm alive': Sudanese civilians recount their flight from El Fasher – video

The Guardian has geolocated eyewitness accounts of the capture of the Sudanese city of El Fasher by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces group and the ethnically-targeted massacres that took place in the immediate aftermath. Journalists are unable to access the area and have limited access to information. Guardian reporter Kaamil Ahmed explains how - when combined with satellite imagery and videos posted by RSF fighters - the testimonies provide us with the clearest picture yet of the horrific events that unfolded Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Top adviser to Sudan's paramilitary leader says Rubio's comments hinder truce efforts

A senior adviser to the Sudanese paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces says U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments calling for a halt to the flow of military support coming to the RSF from abroad may jeopardize global efforts aimed at reaching a ceasefire

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2 w. ago UN warns aid ‘on the brink of collapse’ in Sudan after paramilitary forces seize major city

Relief groups say hunger and disease are worsening, while survivors describe horrific violence at the hands of the Rapid Support Forces

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2 w. ago Sudan medics accuse paramilitary forces of burning bodies in mass graves to ‘conceal genocide’

The Sudan Doctors Network said the RSF had attempted to conceal evidence of mass killings

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3 w. ago Sudan butchers storm another city as bloody offensive escalates with fighters slaughtering & starving civilians

ROGUE paramilitary forces in Sudan accused of mass slaughtering civilians in El Fasher are feared to be committing fresh atrocities. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the army since April 2023, has now escalated its brutal military assault in the Kordofan region as it appears to be preparing for an offensive to seize...

Events

3 w. ago Outside powers' reported backing for Sudan's warring sides helps fuel fighting as atrocities mount

For more than two years, Sudan’s military and a powerful paramilitary force have torn the country apart in a war for power, both digging in against peace efforts even as atrocities mount and starvation spreads

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3 w. ago Sudan’s paramilitary forces agree to US proposal for humanitarian ceasefire

The RSF has been accused of atrocities in el-Fasher since taking the city in October

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3 w. ago Sudanese militia group accused of war crimes agrees to a ceasefire

International mediators broker three-month halt to civil war as further evidence emerges of mass civilian killingsA Sudanese paramilitary group accused of killing thousands of unarmed civilians in an ethnically motivated massacre has agreed to a truce.The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is facing mounting criticism over apparent war crimes committed by its fighters in the city of El Fasher last month, said it had agreed to a “humanitarian ceasefire” put forward by the quad countries of the US, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago As criticism grows, is UAE ready to walk away from Sudan’s RSF militia?

After mass killings in El Fasher and four years on from a coup, UAE now admits its Sudan policy has gone wrongThe United Arab Emirates’ diplomatic machine is for the first time admitting to mistakes in its Sudan policy after suffering reputational damage over its support for the Rapid Support Forces, the Sudanese paramilitary group that has carried out mass killings in El Fasher since it captured the city late last month.Speaking in Bahrain on Sunday, Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s senior diplomatic envoy, said the UAE and others had been wrong not to impose sanctions on the instigators of the 2021 coup – jointly led by the RSF and the army – that overthrew Sudan’s transitional civilian government. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Sudan’s paramilitary investigated over ‘war crimes’ as tens of thousands flee

More than 70,000 people have fled el-Fashir so far after Sudan’s paramilitary force captured the city

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3 w. ago ICC prosecutor warns Sudan’s paramilitary forces may be committing war crimes in Darfur

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are preserving evidence from Sudan's Darfur region

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3 w. ago At least 36,000 Sudanese have fled since fall of El Fasher to RSF, says UN agency

International Organization for Migration says refugees are heading to Tawila, which is already sheltering 652,000 displaced peopleMore than 36,000 people have fled Sudan’s Kordofan region east of Darfur since Saturday, the UN’s migration agency has said, a week after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces took control of the city of El Fasher.The strategic central area between the country’s Darfur provinces and the Khartoum-Riverine region that includes the capital to the east, has in recent weeks become the latest battleground in the two-year civil war between the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the paramilitary group. Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago He told the world what was happening in El Fasher. Then they sought him out. How Sudan lost ‘a true hero of the war’

For months, Mohamed Khamis Douda shared accounts of what life was like under siege. He was killed when RSF fighters finally took the Darfur city, raising fears activists and civil society figures are being hunted downFor months, militiamen on the perimeters of El Fasher have asked those few who managed to escape the besieged Sudanese city whether Mohamed Khamis Douda was still inside. They shared videos threatening to kill him, which, as they hoped, made their way to the activist.Even as the hunger and fear of living under siege and bombardment made him desperate to leave, Douda remained inside El Fasher, constantly working to let the outside world know what was happening to the people there. Then, on Sunday 26 October, Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces overran the city and it was too late. His friends and family have confirmed to the Guardian that Douda has been killed.Monday 4 AugustI awake each morning tired from the efforts of the previous day. Our first struggle is the ...

Events

4 w. ago A Sudanese massacre foretold: the grim familiarity of the RSF’s rampage through El Fasher

Atrocities unfolding in El Fasher since it fell to paramilitary forces follow a bleak pattern seen in Rwanda, Liberia and Sudan itself, including lack of international actionHundreds of patients and staff massacred at a hospital; unarmed men of fighting age separated and shot at close range; civilians trying to flee stripped of their belongings and extorted for ransom; perpetrators filming much of the violence themselves.The reports of atrocities that have emerged from the Sudanese city of El Fasher since it fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces last weekend follow a familiar pattern. Continue reading...

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