Latest news with #United Nations Security Council
NHK
6 days ago
- Politics
- NHK
UN Security Council holds emergency meeting on plight of children in Gaza
The United Nations Security Council has held an emergency meeting on the deepening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Authorities in Gaza say 12 people, including eight children, were killed by an Israeli airstrike on a water distribution point on Sunday. The enclave is under heavy attack on a daily basis. UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told the Security Council on Wednesday, "An average of 28 children have been killed each day -- the equivalent of an entire classroom." She asked the members to consider, "A whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years." Participants in the meeting noted that lack of water, food, fuel and other supplies have been adding to the tragedy, and urged Israel not to hamper humanitarian aid. Denmark's Permanent Representative to the UN Christina Lassen said, "Humanitarian aid must never be politicized," and doing so "sets this dangerous precedent for the future of humanitarian work in war zones around the world." Israel's representative countered that on July 13, tons of baby formula supplies entered Gaza through a crossing facilitated by Israel. The representative accused the council of unfairly turning a blind eye to Hamas, accusing the Islamic group of actions including using children "as human shields," and "indoctrinating them with hate."
New York Times
11-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Evidence Supports War Crimes Allegations in Darfur, I.C.C. Prosecutor Says
The International Criminal Court said on Thursday it had 'reasonable grounds' to conclude that war crimes and crimes against humanity were unfolding in Sudan's western Darfur region, where the county's civil war has thrust the region into a deepening catastrophe. 'The humanitarian position has reached an intolerable state,' the court's deputy prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan, told the United Nations Security Council on Thursday. 'People are being deprived of water and food. Rape and sexual violence are being weaponized. Abductions for ransom or to bolster the ranks of armed groups have become common practice.' Among the court's worst findings was 'an inescapable pattern' of women and girls being raped or subjected to other sexual violence because of their gender and ethnicity, Ms. Khan said. While Ms. Khan did not specify who had committed the war crimes in the court's findings, both of the warring parties in the civil war have previously been accused of atrocities by officials from the United States, the United Nations and human rights groups. The determination that war crimes were being committed came after the prosecutor's office collected about 7,000 pieces of evidence, including the testimony of victims, Ms. Khan said. Investigators have made repeated trips to speak with victim groups and to interview witnesses in refugee camps in neighboring Chad, where many people from Darfur have fled. Sudan's civil war erupted in April 2023 and the brutal fighting has killed tens of thousands of people, driven millions more from their homes and caused widespread famine. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Al Jazeera
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
‘Crimes against humanity' in Sudan's Darfur: ICC deputy prosecutor
A senior International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has concluded that there are 'reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity' are being committed in war-ravaged Sudan's western Darfur region. ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan presented her assessment before the United Nations Security Council on Thursday of the devastating conflict, which has raged since 2023, killing more than 40,000 people and displacing 13 million others. Khan said the depth of suffering and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur 'has reached an intolerable state', with famine escalating and hospitals, humanitarian convoys and other civilian infrastructure being targeted. She said it was 'difficult to find appropriate words to describe the depth of suffering in Darfur'. 'On the basis of our independent investigations, the position of our office is clear. We have reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been and are continuing to be committed in Darfur,' she said. The prosecutor's office focused its probe on crimes committed in West Darfur, Khan said, interviewing victims who fled to neighbouring Chad. She detailed an 'intolerable' humanitarian situation, with apparent targeting of hospitals and humanitarian convoys, while warning that 'famine is escalating' as aid is unable to reach 'those in dire need'. 'People are being deprived of water and food. Rape and sexual violence are being weaponised,' Khan said, adding that abductions for ransom had become 'common practice'. In June, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan warned that both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had escalated the use of heavy weaponry in populated areas and weaponised humanitarian relief, amid the devastating consequences of the civil war. ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan had told the Security Council in January that there were grounds to believe both parties may be committing war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in the region, while the administration of then-US President Joe Biden determined that the RSF and its proxies were committing genocide. The Security Council had previously referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005, with some 300,000 people killed during conflict in the region in the 2000s. In 2023, the ICC opened a new probe into war crimes in Darfur after a new conflict erupted between the SAF and RSF. The RSF's predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide two decades ago in the vast western region. ICC judges are expected to deliver their first decision on crimes committed in Darfur two decades ago in the case of Ali Mohamed Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, known as Ali Kosheib, after the trial ended in 2024. 'I wish to be clear to those on the ground in Darfur now, to those who are inflicting unimaginable atrocities on its population – they may feel a sense of impunity at this moment, as Ali Kosheib may have felt in the past,' said Khan. 'But we are working intensively to ensure that the Ali Kosheib trial represents only the first of many in relation to this situation at the International Criminal Court,' added Khan.
