violence – FoRB in Full

Small steps to justice: Why recent assessments of Sudan’s warring parties are significant, and how the international community must respond

Posted on 31/03/2026 by cswpress in Sub-Saharan Africa, Sudan

On 19 February the United Nations Independent Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on the Sudan published a report that found that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)’s siege and actions in the aftermath of the capture of the city of El Fasher in October 2025 bore the ‘hallmarks of genocide’.

Highlighting the militia’s systematic targeting of the non-Arab Darfuri Fur and Zaghawa communities the Chair of the FFM, Mohamed Chande Othman, said: ‘The scale, coordination, and public endorsement of the operation by senior RSF leadership demonstrate that the crimes committed in and around El-Fasher were not random excesses of war. They formed part of a planned and organised operation that bears the defining characteristics of genocide.’

Two weeks later the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended that the US State Department designate the RSF as an Entity of Particular Concern (EPC) in light of the ‘harmful effects to religious freedom and Sudan’s diverse religious and ethnic communities’ caused by the RSF’s campaign of mass atrocities and widespread human rights violations.

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A police attack on a place of worship is a worrying sign of the erosion of civil and political rights in Kenya

Posted on 11/02/2026 by cswpress in Kenya, Sub-Saharan Africa

On Sunday 25 January congregants at the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) Witima Parish, Nyeri County, heard shots outside of the building. Some church members went outside to investigate and saw what they believed to be the police and masked assailants surrounding the premises. In addition to the firing of live rounds, teargas was thrown into the church, with images shared on social media showing congregants covering their noses and mouths, and several individuals fainting.

Historically there has been a respect for religious institutions in Kenya, especially for Christian churches and their leadership. Political leaders have often courted the church for political advantage and sway over key voting blocks and communities. This attack contrasts starkly with this backdrop, even within the context of increasing political and security tensions that have seen an increase in police officers unlawfully invading places of worship around the country.

Responding to the 25 January attack in the press, Bishop Gerald Muriithi of the Mount Kenya West Diocese of the Anglican Church of Kenya stated: ‘As a church we feel that our right to worship was violated, little children were traumatised, aged parents were harassed, the clergy were terrified and intimidated and political leaders were harassed.’

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The Premier League must act on Man City owner’s involvement in the war in Sudan

Posted on 19/01/2026 by cswpress in Campaigns, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sudan

In February 2021 Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, then the Deputy Prime Minister and now also the Vice President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), received a controversial visitor.

At the time General Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo was serving as Deputy Chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council of Sudan. He was also still the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a group which is in reality the rebranded Janjaweed militia who were responsible for the 2003-05 Darfur genocide, and more recently, had presided over the June 2019 massacre of at least 120 pro-democracy protesters on the streets of Khartoum.

Hemedti was already a friend to the UAE. The Emirates had reportedly paid him to send RSF fighters to Yemen as part of a Saudi-led collation to crush Houthi insurgents, in 2018. During his 2021 visit, he and Sheikh Mansour toured an arms fair, browsing exhibits of rockets and drones alongside the leader of the Chechen Republic.

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The inevitable result of Myanmar’s sham elections must not confer any legitimacy on its military regime

Posted on 15/12/2025 by cswpress in Asia, Burma

On 28 December Myanmar will begin its first general elections since its military junta seized power in a coup in February 2021.

Of course, these elections will be neither free nor fair. They will take place against a backdrop of the continued detention of at least 22,000 political prisoners, including the country’s last freely elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the deregistration of numerous political parties by the military-controlled Union Election Commission (UEC), and the relentless killing of civilians.

The outcome is guaranteed, but this can by no means be permitted to grant the regime a veneer of legitimacy on the international stage, and specifically among its neighbours in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) where it seeks it most.

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Despite government promises, ‘Total Peace’ remains elusive in Colombia today

Posted on 11/11/202512/11/2025 by cswpress in Colombia, Latin America

On 4 April Maribel Silva, Isaíd Gómez and Isaíd’s uncle, Carlos Valero obeyed the summonses of an illegal armed group operating in the Calamar Municipality of Colombia’s Guaviare Department. The next day, James Caicedo, Jesús Valero, Maryuri Hernández, Nixon Peñalosa and Oscar García did the same.

After the individuals failed to return home to their families in the hamlet of Agua Bonita in Pueblo Seco their family members reached out to representatives of the illegal armed group who had issued the summonses, but the group denied that any summonses had been issued. Later, the family members were indirectly warned that they should stop looking for their loved ones and ‘consider the case to be closed.’ 

So their families were left waiting, in the horrific uncertainty of what might have happened to them, wondering whether to sit tight, holding onto hope that their family members still might return home, or to flee the region out of fear of reprisals and for the safety and protection of the lives of the children and parents of the disappeared individuals. All eight individuals had already relocated and settled in Guaviare after being displaced from Arauca Department due to violence and severe violations of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), including the closure of churches and the targeting of Protestant pastors by illegal armed and criminal groups over the past decade. 

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