violence – Page 9 – FoRB in Full

A member of the Anti-Balaka armed militia poses as he displays his weapon in the town of Bocaranga Central African Republic.

La Justicia por fin llego a la República Centroafricana, pero el trabajo del gobierno aún no ha terminado

Posted on 01/12/2022 by cswpress in Central African Republic ES, español, Sub-Saharan Africa ES

A finales de octubre, el Tribunal Penal Especial de la República Centroafricana (RCA), con respaldo internacional, emitió un veredicto en el primer juicio completo de la sala. El caso fue presentado contra tres líderes del grupo armado Retour, Réclamation et Réhabilitation (3R), que fueron declarados culpables de crímenes de guerra y crímenes de lesa humanidad.

Issa Sallet Adoum (alias Bozizé) fue condenado a cadena perpetua, y sus coacusados, Mahamat Tahir y Yaouba Ousman, recibieron 20 años de prisión cada uno.

Los tres fueron acusados de orquestar ataques contra las aldeas noroccidentales de Koundjili y Lomouna el 21 de mayo de 2019, en los quemurieron al menos 46 civiles desarmados y decenas más resultaron heridos. Se dice que los hombres atacaron a la población civil que no apoyaba a el 3R, atando y disparando a civiles antes de proceder a someter a las mujeres y niñas de las aldeas a violaciones masivas y violencia sexual.

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Justice at last in the Central African Republic, but the government’s work is not finished yet

Posted on 29/11/2022 by cswpress in Central African Republic, Sub-Saharan Africa

In late October the internationally-backed Special Criminal Court in the Central African Republic (CAR) released a verdict in the chamber’s first full trial. The case was brought against three leaders of the armed group Retour, Réclamation et Réhabilitation (3R), who were found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Issa Sallet Adoum (alias Bozizé) was sentenced to life imprisonment, and his co-defendants, Mahamat Tahir and Yaouba Ousman, each received 20-year prison sentences.

All three were accused of orchestrating attacks on the northwestern villages of Koundjili and Lomouna on 21 May 2019 in which at least 46 unarmed civilians were killed and dozens more were injured. The men are said to have targeted civilian populations that did not support 3R, tying up and shooting civilians before proceeding to subject women and girls in the villages to mass rape and sexual violence.

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A Dalit manual scavenger in Nasik, Maharashtra, India.

Intolerance towards Christians in many tribal communities in India does not end even in death

Posted on 21/11/2022 by cswpress in Asia, India

Janki Sori’s family were not given much time to grieve. Having laid her to rest in their own land on 1 November, only two days passed before her body was exhumed against her family’s wishes by members of a tribal group known as the Sarv Adivasi Samaj – all because of her conversion to Christianity.

Ms Sori, who was 35 years old when she died, lived in the village of Antagarh in India’s Chhattisgarh state, where the majority of the community are animists who worship nature and spirits, while also drawing some influence from Hinduism.

Those who exhumed her body claimed that their village belongs only to those who follow their religion, and, after burying Ms Sori in a different village on 4 November, the group claimed that they would continue to target converts to Christianity in the same manner until they ‘re-convert’ to the religion or their ancestry and culture.

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“We do not sleep with our eyes closed” – how long will the international community fail the people of southern Kaduna?

Posted on 16/11/202218/11/2022 by cswpress in Nigeria, Sub-Saharan Africa

“We do not sleep with our eyes closed; we take a nap, then wake up and keep watch… we are just depending on the grace of God.”

These are the words of a villager from the Maro Ward of Kajuru Local Government Area (LGA) in the southern part of Nigeria’s Kaduna state. In the absence of effective security or government assistance, this is what targeted communities across the state have been forced into: spending their days and nights on alert patrolling, living in fear of terrorists who destroy their crops, take their lives, and abduct hundreds, if not thousands, for ransom.

Kaduna has been an epicentre of violence and banditry for several years now, with attacks on non-Muslim farming communities in the south increasing exponentially with the advent of the current administration amid a general deterioration in security.

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Children running on sand in Nuristan, Afghanistan.

Another terrorist attack reminds us of the Taliban’s failure to protect Afghan citizens

Posted on 24/10/2022 by cswpress in Afghanistan, Asia

This piece was originally published on 14 October 2022 in Sight Magazine.

This time last year saw two shocking attacks on Afghanistan’s Shia Muslim community. First, on 8 October 2021, a suicide bomber affiliated with the Islamic State – Khorasan Province targeted a mosque in the northern city of Kunduz with an attack timed to coincide with Friday prayers which claimed at least 50 lives and injured 100 others. Some estimates placed the death toll as high as 100.

Then, exactly one week later, terrorists bombed another Shia mosque, again timed to coincide with Friday prayers, in the southern city of Kandahar. Estimates of those killed range between 47 and 65, while at least 80 others were said to have been injured.

CSW wrote at the time that the attacks “raised questions about the Taliban’s ability to offer security to citizens of Afghanistan, which they had presented as a key benefit of their rule.” And then, last month, with the anniversaries of both attacks on the horizon, the Shia community was targeted once again.

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