With Little Hope In Sight, Afghanistan
"She [his baby girl] was born in such circumstances that I don't wish upon any human."
"I was lost [in despair over his children's safety and the decision to leave his property]. I didn't know whether to stay with my suffering wife, or to take these other children to a safer place."
"I have no prejudice against anyone -- not with the Taliban, not with the government. I would be happy if they made their peace, if they declared their ceasefire."
"All we want is our houses to be freed again so we could return."
Sayed Mohammed, Afghan farmer, father of five, Tirin Kot, Afghanistan
"People rightly feel so marginalized that they become angry -- that fuels conflict."
"Countries that have been involved in waging war must not turn their backs on the civilians who have borne the brunt of 40 years of violence."
Jan Egeland, secretary-general, Norwegian Refugee Council
"In the past, it would be clear where the fighting would happen. Now, the lines are not clear. It could happen anywhere."
"I don't even know how many times we have moved houses over the past five months that we got here."
Mohammed Salem, migrant from Helmand Province
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This year, 275,000 people have been displaced by water shortages.
Image: REUTERS/Ahmad Masood (AFGHANISTAN |
Continual government raids, bombings against the Taliban, and Taliban land mines continue to place civilian lives at risk in Afghanistan. According to the United Nations, roughly one and a half million Afghans have become internally displaced. Mostly as a result of the never-ending conflict between the Taliban and the government military and police. The recent drought has had a similar effect; forcing people to leave their parched environment hoping for better luck elsewhere. So families move again and again.
A fifth child born to Sayed Mohammed and his wife simply made the burden on two people that much more difficult. A raging battle had ensued and that's when little Halima was born; explosives shaking the family farmhouse located on the outskirts of the city of tirin Kot with blasts so intense four-year-old Saber bit his lips so compulsively blisters ensued as the terrified child tried to find comfort inside his father's shirt.
Not long afterward the couple saw no other option for them but to leave, and leave they did taking with them just what they could manage to carry. Now they rent a dark, cold room about a ten-minute walk from the family farm, unable to remain there, with their neighbourhood become a raging battlefield. On the farm they have 4,500 chickens. A loan had enabled him to stock the farm.
The gains of past years since the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Taliban from power and with them al-Qaeda, stand to be reversed should the Taliban return to government after the 17-year war. At the present time, the U.S. is negotiating with the Taliban to end the war. Even while the Taliban refuses to include the Afghan government in the negotiations. Women's right to an education, to work, to lead a normal life is threatened.
Half the country is exposed to the violence of the conflict between the two, Taliban and government, depriving rural Afghans of peace and security, of improvements that the peace negotiations are meant to settle. At the same time displacement by conflict is exacerbated by a drought leaving 13.5 million people surviving on one meal daily with 54 percent of the population living below the poverty line.
According to the Norwegian aid group, in 2012 some 50 percent of the displaced Afghans received aid; five years on that number dropped to 25 percent. Aid agencies in the country required $612 million to enable them to fulfill aid obligations for 2019, yet only $14.2 million has so far been donated.
Close to 140 of the country's 400 districts had not seen a single female graduate in the past 18 years while about 50 districts were unable to produce male graduates. Schools built in the early years after the Taliban rule was toppled have been shuttered or destroyed during the conflict.
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| Afghan returnee families are arriving at a UNHCR registration office in Kabul. Photo Credit: Rumi Consultancy/ World Bank |
Labels: Afghanistan, Casualties, Civilians, Conflict, Taliban
Liberating Mosul
"[The] coalition's goal is always for zero human casualties. We apply rigorous standards to our targeting process."
"Not since World War II has there been an urban assault on a city like Mosul. The only way to liberate the city was to go house by house, and street by street."
"[Iraqi soldiers rescued civilians hoping that security forces reached them] quickly enough before they starved to death or were killed by ISIS while trying to flee."
U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, spokesperson, U.S.-led coalition, Syria, Iraq
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Emanuele Satolli
It was my fourth day embedded with Iraqi
Army troops in the al-Zanjili district of western Mosul. In the morning,
the soldiers tried to advance without success as Islamic State
militants kept heavily resisting. At one point, maybe encouraged by the
presence of the soldiers, a few civilians decided to leave their houses
and began walking on a road amid the rubble.
Militants opened fire but the soldiers shot
back to protect the civilians. There, I saw this woman carrying an
exhausted child. She turned back toward where she came from, where the
bullets were coming from, and appeared frightened. When I saw the
picture again, I felt she was giving a last look at her house, her
familiar road, before becoming another of the displaced.
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The unfortunate residents of Mosul, trapped in the Old City while ISIL fighters used them as handy shields in the thought that Iraqi forces would withhold the level of their assault knowing the plight of the civilian population, can be forgiven for believing that, given their miserable experience, not as much that could have been done to shelter them from ongoing bombing and the inevitable results was actually contemplated on their behalf, much less prosecuted.
But then, the actions of ISIL in identifying the local population a being of great good use in protecting themselves from the onslaught by appealing to the humanitarian nature of those attempting to dislodge the terrorists and retake the city, represents a tried-and-true tactic in the Middle East, obviously popular with Arab fighters. Take advantage of the close presence of innocent civilians; from within their midst lob off munitions, knowing that those targeted will hesitate to respond in the knowledge that unarmed civilians of all ages will be harmed.
This is precisely the most favourite tactic practised by Hamas in Gaza. When Hamas provocations became too bold and too frequent, and the Israel Defence Forces responded by invading Gaza to stop the constant bombardment of rockets into Israel and the abduction of IDF soldiers, it was from within the crowded civilian population of Gaza City and elsewhere that Hamas shot off their munitions. UN-operated schools, hospitals, apartment blocks, all these locations were used as ammunition depots and weapons-launching areas.
Moreover, Hamas urged Gaza's Palestinians to defy the Israeli strikes, to mount protests on the roofs of buildings, to invite the strikes of the IDF in defiance and to declare themselves willing to die. In response the IDF showered the population with printed warnings, urging them to vacate premises slated to be targeted, and even sent initial lesser bombs as warning before launching the heavier more destructive arms. Warnings of attacks were sent via cellphones to alert civilians to vacate target areas.
But every civilian who died represented another arrow in the quiver of Hamas's righteous indignation at the death of civilians by the IDF, and it was that public relations message that went viral internationally, inspiring protests worldwide against the inhumane attacks by Israeli forces against vulnerable Palestinian populations in Gaza. Now, thousands of civilian Iraqis have met their death as a result of U.S.-supported Iraqi troops fighting ISIL to retake Mosul.
Frightened families huddling in their cellars whom air strikes in support of the Iraqi ground forces killed outright. Workers are now going house to house to recover bodies, digging in rubble, to take away the corpses of entire families, victimized by ISIL, who kept them under guard in the houses the terrorists used to launch their strikes from. But Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi is celebrating victory, despite the "blood and sacrifices", so all is not lost.
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Cengiz Yar
Out of the desert they walked, trudging through the sand and dust kicked
up by Iraqi special forces Humvees. Some carried small bags of
clothing. Others held sticks with white cloth tied to the end. Mohamed
carried the tiny body of his two-month-old daughter wrapped in bloodied
linen. |
And nor is there an international outcry in condemnation of the direct bombing of houses and other buildings full of cowering, defenceless civilians -- leaving a death toll that cannot by any measure be defended. When Islamic State snipers installed themselves on rooftops to target Iraqi ground forces the result was that artillery fire or airstrikes fell onto those buildings, irrespective of the fact that it was known that their interiors were full of civilians. Survivors attested to this fact.
Civil defence workers have hundreds of prospective locations where bodies are known to be rotting, awaiting recovery and burial. But survivors and relatives of those killed have frequently gone out before the workers to themselves dig frantically in the rubble to attempt to recover the bodies of those they loved. Two refrigerated tractor trailers parked on a lawn close to the main Mosul morgue are full.
"Based on our figures, there are not enough refrigerators [to hold recovered corpses] in all of Iraq", commented an Iraqi official.
"They [the Iraqi forces] had no mercy. A sniper would fall with a bullet or a rocket. But to kill one sniper, seven houses were destroyed", said Mohammed Ali Mahmoud, at one of the Mosul morgues, there looking for seventeen members of his extended family who were hit by an airstrike in the Old City.
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Felipe Dana—AP
The two boys were cousins who had escaped after their house had been
hit. They kept screaming, almost hysterically, that their parents were
still under the rubble. Crying inconsolably, they were begging the
soldiers and the medics to go and retrieve their parents but it was too
dangerous to go there. I stayed with them for a while, taking pictures,
even as more injured civilians kept arriving. Soon after I had to leave
but I still wonder what happened to them and their families. |
Labels: Bombing, Civilians, Iraq, Islamic State, Mosul, Violence
IslamoFascism in Syria
"We are appalled by the atrocities that have been carried out by the Syrian regime."
"[The Assad regime has] modified a building within the Sednaya [prison] complex to support what we believe is a crematorium [to enable it to dispose of bodies] with little evidence [of their crimes]."
“At this point, we are talking about this evidence and bringing it
forward to the international community, which we hope will put pressure
on the regime to change its behavior.”
"[One satellite photograph from 2015 taken in winter shows buildings snow-covered but for one] That
would be consistent with a crematorium [heat source]."
"Although the regime’s many atrocities are well documented, we believe
that the building of a crematorium is an effort to cover up the extent
of mass murders taking place in Sednaya prison."
"[...] We have an ongoing conversation with the Russians talking about the
problem that their failure to condemn Syrian atrocities and their
apparent tolerance of Syrian atrocities has created."
"These atrocities have been carried out seemingly with the unconditional support from Russia and Iran. The [Assad] regime must stop all attacks on civilian and opposition forces. And Russia must bear responsibility to ensure regime compliance."
Stuart Jones, acting U.S. assistant secretary of state, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, U.S. State Department
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A satellite view of part of the Sednaya
prison complex near Damascus, Syria. Department of State/via
REUTERS
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According to narratives from Syrians, they either witnessed bodies being burned or could smell odours that seemed as though bodies were being incinerated. A few of the Syrians who came forward to inform news outlets of their suspicions, an unpleasant odour like burning hair close to prison or military facilities alerted them to the possibility that the Syrian regime had been undertaking a studied approach to shielding their crimes in killing prisoners by disposing of their bodies, leaving no trace of their whereabouts and disposition.
Detainees formerly at the Mezze air base located on the outskirts of Damascus discussed having witnessed bodies being burned. And people who lived nearby the government facility had noticed an odour they linked to burning hair, leaving them uncertain whether it was from animals being slaughtered, like chicken feathers or sheep's wool, not necessarily linked to human bodies being disposed through incineration. People speaking to the news media did so anonymously, not wishing to give their family names, fearing government reprisals.
In quotes
| World leaders on Assad's regime in Syria
Theresa May: “The atrocious
violence that is being shown against civilians in Syria is at the hands
of the Assad regime, and no one should forget that ”
Barack Obama: “When a dictator slaughters tens of thousands of his own people, that is not just a matter of one nation’s internal affairs”
Donald Trump: "“Assad is bad. Maybe [the opposition] could be worse”
Vladimir Putin: “It is an enormous mistake to refuse
to cooperate with the Syrian government and its armed forces who are
valiantly fighting terrorism””
François Hollande: “You can’t put together victims
and the people who are killing them. Assad is at the origin of the
problem, he cannot be part of the solution”
But one man spoke of his displacement from a suburb of Damascus, while living in the Mezze district a few years earlier, when he often saw black smoke rising to the sky, smelling what he identified as burning tires, alongside other odours he was unable to identify. Now, the U.S. State Department has charged the Assad regime of yet another war crime, reminiscent of the Nazi regime during World War Two, when inmates of concentration camps, mostly Jews, were gassed to death, young and old, and their bodies incinerated in huge crematoria, whose chimneys forever belched black smoke and the odour of burning flesh covered the countryside.
People living in nearby towns in Poland and wherever else the extermination camps were located throughout Europe became accustomed to the constant smell of burning human flesh. It is a distinctive odour, and one that people most frequently instantly recognize. At the prison located some 45 minutes outside of the capital Damascus the regime appears to have built a crematorium it would seem, so that its extrajudicial killings of tens of thousands of detainees could be furtively disposed of.
Through the medium of mass hangings, with up to 50 detainees daily being killed at Sednaya prison alone, the mechanical work of disposing of bodies appears to have gone on apace over a period of years. The Satellite photographs were taken by non-governmental organizations, media and intelligence community assessments, all converging to speak of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's additional deadly actions committed against Syrian civilians.
Now, with allegations of gas cylinder attacks against civilian populations in Syria and additional information leading to accusations of mass killings and crematoria, Syria looks more than ever like a reprise of Nazi Germany.
Back in February, Amnesty International claimed the Syrian regime had executed some 13,000 prisoners in mass hangings, and used systematic torture at that same military institution. Amnesty claimed though the executions had taken place between 2011 and 2015, it was convinced they were still being carried out, as war crimes, calling for the United Nations to carry out a further investigation.
Unsurprisingly, those accusations of torture and extrajudicial killings have all been summarily set aside as propaganda by the Assad regime.
Labels: Civil War, Civilians, Controversy, Syria, United States, War Crimes
