"British Columbia is filing a lawsuit against OpenAI in California for its failure to notify law enforcement of threats made on its platform prior to the mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School."

"This case highlights the urgent need for strong national safeguards for artificial intelligence technologies and online platforms. Our government has consistently advocated for measures to protect people, especially children and youth from online harms."

"I have written to federal ministers [Minister of Justice Sean] Fraser, [Minister of Artificial Intelligence Evan] Solomon and [Minister of Canadian Identity Marc] Miller with clear policy ideas to amend the Criminal Code of Canada to ensure a pathway to human accountability for AI's actions."

British Columbia Attorney General Niki Sharma 

B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma is calling for changes to the Criminal Code in the wake of reporting on the alleged conversations between the Tumbler Ridge mass shooter and ChatGPT. (Ben Nelms/CBC, Kiichiro Sato/The Associated Press)

 

"In response, Chat GPT explained why such violent content would be flagged -- and then offered tips on how to evade its own safeguards."

"It advised Van Rootselaar to always frame ... content as fictional or hypothetical in order to 'never get flagged again by OpenAI's moderation systems."

"[Over the next eight months, Van Rootselaar] discussed building and using firearms and homemade explosives, fantasized about becoming a notorious mass killer and asked about the timing of previous real-world school shootings."

"To have a chatbot engage in this way was, I think, quite astonishing. It's very troubling, because this is a person who has been already talking, for quite a while, about some very dark and disturbing things." 

Mark Follman, journalist, Mother Jones 

An RCMP vehicle is parked outside Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in February 2026.

 

Transgender-identity, biological male Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, set out on February 10 of this year to commit a mass atrocity. Before leaving his home he shot his mother to death, along with his half-brother. That out of the way he made his way to the high school he had attended, to wreak mayhem and havoc there, carrying the lethal weapons that would enable him to pursue his deadly goal. He took the life of a teacher, and five students of the school. And finished his work by shooting himself dead. Those he managed to injure during his psychotic predation will carry the memory of the atrocity for the rest of their lives.

 

The RCMP detachment in the remote Northern British Columbia town at the foothills of the Rockies had had previous interactions with the young man that everyone referred to as 'she' and 'her', respecting his/her gender-choice identity. There were extensive files on Van Rootselaar dating back to the years when he/she was only ten years of age. At a time close to the event that represented one of the largest mass murders to ever have taken place in the country, the Van Rootselaar home's collection of firearms were taken into custody.

 

Van Rootselaar's mother evidently had a fascination for guns, and knew how to use them, ensuring that her son did as well, arranging for him to gain experience at a shooting range. Van Rootselaar's behaviour sparked attention by police to whom he was no stranger. Given the complicating fact that his was an unstable character, who engaged in troubling anti-social behaviour, it is more than a trifle puzzling that the weapons were returned to the Van Rootselaar home by the RCMP. 

 

Van Rootselaar had an initial ChatGPT account that he used extensively to probe for answers to questions about previous mass school killings and advice on how one might proceed to produce one's own. His troubling activity had been flagged by gatekeepers at ChatGPT which led to his account being suspended. He then proceeded to open a replacement account, and his interaction with ChatGPT continued unabated. Again it was flagged and the gatekeepers were all for notifying police, but a supervisor decided to nix it.

 

Some of the Tumbler Ridge shooting victims. Top row from left: Kylie Smith, Abel Mwansa, Zoey Benoit, Ticaria Lampert. Bottom row from left: Ezekiel Schofield, Emmett Jacobs, Jennifer Jacobs.

 

Van Rootselaar, fascinated with guns and with violence, and with mass shootings, appears to have self-radicalized with the benevolent assistance of ChatGPT which it seems felt obliged to to support that emerging psychopathy toward full-fledged maturity. His mental equilibrium was obviously fragile. Gender dysphoria, mental instability, social hostility, fetish for mass shootings all came together, alongside a resentment of his mother and step-brother and a linkage to the school he had left prematurely in his decision to disrupt his academic exposure.

 

An inquest by the B.C. Coroners Service remains as yet incomplete: "The B.C. Coroners Service has not confirmed the dates for the Tumbler Ridge inquest at this time. Once all related investigations are concluded, we will send out a news release with more details", wrote its media relations staff in response to an inquiry. Clearly this confused individual who harboured feelings of disengagement from society was in need of psychiatric intervention. In B.C. as in other parts of Canada provincial psychiatric services for youth in need are inadequate.

 

The government of British Columbia, the RCMP and the medical community must view the decision to sue OpenAI for the part its artificial intelligence agent played in the unfolding of this horrible tragedy as a convenient shield against probes into their own failings in being badly remiss in the potential prevention of a tragedy of this magnitude. That OpenAI is liable is without question. That the government of British Columbia should be asking its own questions of itself and its agencies is also without question.

 

Victims of the Tumbler Ridge shooting were memorialized in the days after the tragedy. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

 

"This action today is consistent with the province's long-standing commitment to hold powerful corporations accountable when their products or practices cause harm to people and communities."

"From tobacco  and opioid manufacturers to vaping companies, the Government of British Columbia has used the courts to pursue accountability and ensure that people in British Columbia are not left bearing the costs of corporate wrong-doing." 

B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma 

 

"Police have attended that residence in the past, approximately a couple of years ago, where firearms were seized."

"I can say that at a later point in time the lawful owner of those firearms petitions for those firearms to be returned and they were."

"I can say with confidence that from the moment the suspect encountered police, there were no further injuries to any other students in the school."  

"In speaking with investigators, there was no specific targeting of any individuals [at the school],"

"This suspect was, for lack of a better term, hunting. They were prepared and engaging anybody and everybody they could come in contact with."

"We're trying to determine how our suspect got that firearm, and that investigation is continuing." 

RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald 

 

"Identifying individuals who are no longer eligible for a firearms licence as quickly as possible and ensuring they can no longer access firearms is an important public safety objective."

Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee 

A vigil in Tumbler Ridge. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

 

Canada remains in mourning yet incredulous that a young man of 18 living in a remote British Columbia town of some 2,300 residents where everyone is reputed to know everyone else, chose to enter the Tumbler Ridge Secondary school with two lethal weapons to begin firing at random, killing six students from ages 12 to 13, and a 39-year-old teacher before his rampage came to an end with the intervention of two members of the local RCMP detachment. 

 

That stunning attack with its consequent victims occurred just a short time after 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar had killed his 36-year-old mother and 11-year-old stepbrother at the family home, located a short distance from the school.

 

The Tuesday killing represented one of Canada's worst mass murder events in recent history. A biological male who six years ago transitioned to female, the attacker had long brown hair and wore a dress as he rampaged through the school killing three 12-year-old girls, a 12 and a 13 year-old boy, and the teacher. Most of the deaths occurred in the school library. One of the boys was found dead in a stairwell. 

 

It took a mere two minutes for two RCMP officers to respond and arrive at the scene when they were alerted at 1:00 p.m. Tuesday. They drew fire from the killer; failing to respond, they bought time by distracting the killer from hunting down any more victims; instead he turned his weapon on himself, committing suicide. A short while later, a young neighbour who had gone to the family home of the killer, discovered the mother and brother dead and she contacted the RCMP.

 

Getty Images

 

The mother, as it happened, was a gun aficionado. Who presumably taught her son to appreciate weapons for target practice and hunting...and, as the mother noted on a social media posting for 'self-reliance'. She had a gun licence and owned a number of long guns herself and took pride in using them. Her son had mental issues, well known to the RCMP who had responded on a number of occasions at the family home to issues related to the boy's mental health.

 

In Canadian gun law firearms are to be removed from any home that houses an individual with mental illness. Police, according to RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald had gone to the home a number of times. There was more than one time when the killer, under the terms of the Mental Health Act was taken into custody. Jennifer Strang, the killer's mother (now deceased) in an August 2024 Facebook post, showed an image of a safe with six long guns, with the caption: "think it's time to take them out for some target practice".

 

An earlier post in 2021 had Jennifer Strang promoting a YouTube channel by her son, stating it was where "He posts about hunting, self-reliance, guns and stuff he likes to do". Canadian law enforcement can legally seize legal firearms without a warrant should an officer believe that to do so is in the "interests of the safety of the person or any other person". The Possession and Acquisition Licence of legal gun owners can also be unilaterally suspended.

 

The federal government mere weeks ago kicked off its Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program, a 'buy back' program for firearms covered by the 2020 ban under the government bans through a 'freeze' on the sale or transfer of legal handguns. The SKS, a Russian-produced semi-automatic rifle had been overlooked in the banned list even though it has the same function as banned rifles like the Ruger Mini-14.

 

As it happened, an SKS was among one of the long guns in the possession of the Tumbler Ridge killer's mother. It was shown among those demonstrated in her Facebook post of 2014. This was the same rifle that appeared with an avatar of the YouTube channel her son started. In the annals of preventable homicides, all details pulled together, this horrible event rates a number one. 

 

Tumbler Ridge, B.C., victims identified by police

 

"Australia ... warns against any 'phobic' association of Islam with extremism. Indeed, in recent months, as the killers of Bondi were reportedly in the Philippines learning how to murder Jews, Aussie officials were poring over a new report titled 'A National Response to Islamophobia'."

"It proposes, among other things, challenging 'narratives that depict Islam as being 'intrinsically associated with ... extremism'."

"You couldn't ask for better proof of the moral corrosion and wilful blindness of the West than this vision of Australia's ruling class fretting over Islamophobia, as two men were plotting an apocalyptic act of Islamist violence."

"The fear of offending Muslims has had deadly consequences."

"Radical Islam directly benefits from this snivelling culture of cowardice. As we gag ourselves, it takes root and spreads. Our self-censorship creates the dark corners in which it can fester -- uncommented on,  uncriticized, even unnamed."

Brendan O'Neill, chief political writer, Spiked 

Candlelight vigil at Bondi Pavilion, December 16, Sydney, Australia,. Audrey Richardson, Getty Images

 

Naveed Akram made a brief video court appearance from the Sydney hospital while being treated for an abdominal injury. He has since been transferred to an unnamed prison. Australian police on Monday released documents outlining the two men, father and son, had recorded footage justifying the planned Bondi Beach attack that killed 15 people and wounded 40 others. Akram himself had been wounded on December 14 when the duo committed their mass atrocity while Australian Jews were celebrating the first day of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, at the popular beach.

 

The attack by the 24-year-old and his father began when they threw four improvised explosive devices at the crowd of families, children and friends bathed in a communal euphoria of remembrance that light dispels the darkness surrounding us. For the children it was the epitome of a joyous holiday, where sweets were in abundance, playgrounds beckoned, face-painting and animalia balloons were available and a general aura of peace and tranquility prevailed. The IED devices failed to explode. But the staccato of gunfire took their place, shocking the celebrants and killing some immediately.

 

The Bondi Beach shooting suspects seen leaving a rental in Campsie

New South Wales Police

 

The Islamist jihdists had rented a room in Campsie, a suburb of Sydney, for three weeks, refining their plans of attack. On the day of the attack they left for the short journey that would take them to the destination they had carefully chosen as their attack venue. CCTV revealed their arrival, bearing two shotguns, a rifle, five IEDs and two Islamic State flags wrapped in blankets. The IEDs were comprised of three aluminum pipe bobs and a tennis ball bomb filled with an explosive, gunpowder and steel ball bearings, described as 'viable' by police.

 

Images of the two killers shooting from a footbridge -- overlooking the beach below, which also provided them a raised vantage point, along with the protection of waist-high concrete walls -- were released by police. Akram was charged with 59 offences ranging from 15 counts of murder to 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder and one count of committing a terrorist act.

 

Still from video

 

Draft laws were introduced by the New South Wales government to Parliament, promising to be the toughest in Australia, according to Premier Chris Minns. Among them new restrictions included a condition of qualifying for a firearms licence requiring Australian citizenship beforehand. Sajid Akram was an Indian citizen living in Australia on a permanent resident visa. He had purchased the six long guns in his possession legally. No word, however, of the Australian government's permissiveness of the years-long 'pro-Palestinian' marches to 'globalize the intifada'. 

 

The memorial that had quickly been mounted near the Bondi Pavilion as an expression of grief and mourning following the massacre, with thousands of mourners bringing flowers and cards as an expression of sorrow and solidarity, was no longer to be seen on Monday, removed as the beachfront returned to normal activities. The jarring vision of a memorial to murdered Jews no longer visible to shock the gaze of beachgoers. Part of the memorial is set to be installed at the Sydney Jewish Museum as a permanent exhibit. 

 

Birds fly over police cordons at the scene of the mass shooting at Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025 in Sydney, Australia.   George Chan/Getty Images

 

"[A video on Naveed Akram's phone shows him and his father expressing] their political and religious views and appears to summarize their justification for the Bondi terrorist attack."

"[The men are seen in the video] condemning the acts of Zionists [while they also] adhere to a religiously motivated ideology linked to Islamic State."

"[October video shows them] firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner [on grassland surrounded by trees]."

"There is evidence that the Accused and his father meticulously planned this terrorist attack for many months."

New South Wales Police 

Bringing Them All Home

"It's urgent and every day that goes on is just more and more suffering and more and more possible death and psychological devastation."

"[He and others with whom he was initially held - including women and children - had been forced to adjust to life in the tunnels]. We were gasping for our breath."

"[There was constant abuse]: "I witnessed a young woman who was being tortured by the terrorist. I mean literal torture, not just in the figurative sense."

US-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel  

"I'm here because of Trump. I'm here only because of him. I think he's the only one who can stop this war again. He has to convince Netanyahu, he has to convince Hamas, I think he can do it."

"They [his two children, Ariel and Kfir,] were murdered in cold blood, bare hands."

"They [his Hamas captors] used to tell me: 'Ah, it doesn't matter, you'll get a new wife, you'll get new kids, better wife, better kids'."

"You don't know when it's going to happen and when it happens, you're afraid for your life. The whole earth would move like an earthquake, but underground."

Former hostage Yarden Bibas

The 24 hostages presumed to be alive who are still held by Hamas: Top row, from left: Elkana Bohbot, Matan Angrest, Edan Alexander, Avinatan Or, Yosef-Haim Ohana, Alon Ohel. Second row, from left: Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, Bipin Joshi, Rom Braslavski, Ziv Berman, Gali Berman. Third row, from left: Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Segev Kalfon, Nimrod Cohen, Maxim Herkin, Eitan Horn. Bottom row, from left: Matan Zangauker, Bar Kupershtein, David Cunio, Ariel Cunio, Tamir Nimrodi, Pinta Nattapong. (Hostages Families Forum)

"Out of 59, you had 24 that were living, and now I understand that it's not even that number."

"Edan Alexander's parents are here today. He is the last known living American hostage."

"We don't know how he's doing, really. We think we know, and hopefully positive." 

U.S. President Donald Trump

 

"To date, we have returned 196 of our hostages, 147 alive."

"There are [currently] 24 alive. Up to 24 living, 59 in total. We want to bring back the living and the deceased as well. It's a very important goal."

"In the war, there is the ultimate goal, and that ultimate goal is the victory over our enemies, and that we will achieve." 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israelis attend a rally calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv on March 1, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

President Trump stated during a National Day of Prayer event held at the White House on Thursday that he had just recently become aware that fewer than 24 Israeli hostages remain alive in captivity in Gaza, held by Hamas. Parents of U.S.-Israeli Eden Alexander still captive by Hamas had attended the event. The president was referring to the figure released by Israeli authorities and widely shared in recent months. 

These are men of all ages who had been taken hostage on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel on a barbaric rampage of murder, killing over 1,200 men, women and children.

Of the over 200 children, women and men taken hostage on that fateful day, a relative handful remain alive, living in the most inhumane conditions imaginable. Tortured, shackled, starving, in fading health and psychological distress, reaching a state of disequilibrium they may never, if and when released, recover from. 

Their 'home' for the past year and a half has been deep in airless, dank tunnels dug deep throughout Gaza. If their minds are still in working order, they pass the endless hours of torment, dreaming of returning home.

Relatives and supporters of those held hostage in the Gaza Strip during a rally calling on the government for a deal that would bring all the remaining captives back, outside the prime minister residence in Jerusalem on March 2, 2025. (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)

They are not forgotten. Their families, their friends and colleagues, all of Israel yearns for their return. Those who have died while in captivity will be forever remembered. They represent a national sacrifice too dear to fade into memory. Their names and the pain they endured will remain as a reminder to Israelis and Jews everywhere of the impossible sacrifice imposed on a civilian population whose state and whose military can never be disengaged from protecting their citizens from unceasing hatred and violence from neighbours whose dearest wish is to see them all dead.

Classified information relayed to Israeli cabinet ministers as reported by the Kan News public broadcaster in Israel casts into doubt the number of those still living. Loathe to surrender hope entirely, during the annual International Bible Contest in Jerusalem on Independence Day Thursday, Israel's prime minister reiterated his government's intention to have all its citizens, whether alive or dead, returned to their homes.

The ultimate goals for the war now continuing in the Gaza Strip is eradication of Hamas as a military threat and political adversarial body, and to ensure that all of the hostages return home. The Palestinian enclave must, above all, be prevented from re-emerging as a future and ongoing threat to the State of Israel and her people whose right to existence, to live in peace with their neighbours is a basic human right not denied any other nation, any other people whatever their origins.

People protest against the Israeli government and call for the immediate release of the Gaza hostages, Tel Aviv, March 22, 2025. (Gili Yaari /Flash90

Incubaters' Intifada

"We very much have seen an impact from the conflict between Israel and Palestine, with how these clients are being affected here in Canada."

"There are surrogates who feel that carrying for an Israeli would be supporting genocide ... [but] more frequently than that is the fear of [harm to the parents or baby or reprisals for them]."

Jacki Lebert, CEO, Platinum Surrogacy, Ontario 

 

"Lately, I don't have any [surrogates] that will consider it at all."

"They feel it's a genocide or they say it's too much religion. They don't like seeing innocent women and children being killed over there."

"They say things like, 'I don't want a child to grow up in a war zone -- missiles bombs, suicide attacks'."

Sally Rhoads-Heinrich, agency head, Surrogacy in Canada

 

"When it was first presented to me ... it was more about comments calling Israelis murderers and not wanting to bring the next generation of murderers into the world, and that's what I found devastating."

"It was making a decision about an entire group of people."

 "They're [Israeli clients] very upset about it. They feel judged, they feel discriminated against."

"[Clients] said this is a feeling they have about how Israelis are perceived around the world right now, how everyone hates them."

Sara Cohen, fertility lawyer

 

"I fully understand that it's not the general population of Israel's [sic] fault for this abhorrent war."

"But the idea of a child that I birthed growing up in an active war zone is just too anxiety-inducing."

Surrogate statement

Fertility lawyer Sara Cohen at her Toronto offices, Friday November 8, 2024.  Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post /Postmedia

 

 Third-party parenting is having its 'ceasefire' moment. Two surrogacy agencies in Canada reveal that the surrogate staff appear unanimous in declining to 'work' with any of their once-Israeli clients. The reasons, however they've stated, to skirt around the issues, are quoted as objecting to the Israeli 'invasion' of Gaza with the result that according to the Hamas Health Ministry, has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children. 

 

That the prelude to this 'invasion'-cum defence of Israeli citizens was a monstrously savage true invasion by thousands of Palestinian terrorists on a mission to pillage, maim and murder 1,200 Israelis and capture 250 more as hostages is confined to the realm of inconvenient details.

Some claim not to oppose matching with Israelis as individuals, but feel concern over sending he resulting baby back to a violence-wracked region. Others fear blowback should it become known they were involved in an Israeli baby's gestation. Platinum Surrogacy alone claims up to 100 Israeli clients in any year. For them now, Platinum Surrogacy has become BaseMetal Surrogacy.

When lawyer Cohen, who almost exclusively represents gay men, posted a lamenting message on Instagram about the situation, she received some expected responses: "Typical Zionists -- entitled to other people's land, so why wouldn't they be entitled to other people's wombs?" One surrogate said: "It's not a war, it's a genocide".

Another surrogate asking her name not be published stated "I would just prefer to spend my time with a couple where I'm not seeing expressly negative things in the media. You see videos of children parentless, or parents crying over injured children ... That really creates a bias I wish I didn't have, but it's there".

Surrogacy in Canada online

 

Yes, it is; one thing can be said about Palestinians; they've mastered the arcane art of public relations manipulation. Another thing that can be said with conviction, given the state of affairs on Canada's streets with never-ending displays of Palestinian pro-Hamas championing; the viral antisemitism that has pervaded Canada and other Western countries with corrupted messaging that produces a one-sided version of events certainly ignores the existential threat that Israel is facing surrounded by hostile Muslim attitudes toward usurping Jewish self-entitlement to their ancestral lands that Islam consecrated to itself.

Additionally, the unquestioning eagerness with which Canadians swallow whole the version of events that eclipse reality by a wide margin is testament to the underlying antisemitism that is part of any society and always has been, regrettably. In a war, people die. Wars erupt generally speaking when one belligerent threatens another and no option is open but defence.

In Israel's case, its entire existence has been one of defence against violent offensive measures by combined regional military powers, or by an Islamist terror-supporting theocracy pulling the strings of their puppet militias to attack and to aspire to mass murder of Israelis. In the case of Hamas, following the October 7, 2023 atrocities, spokespeople announced the Hamas intention to conduct as many October 7s as it would take to destroy Israel. What country wouldn't respond to that by taking the initiative to destroy those that would destroy them?

 

Bedroom in southern Israel where a toddler was murdered by Hamas terrorists

 

Atrocity Alert: Sudan's Darfur Attacks Redux

"All under the false pretext of targeting rebels [government forces and Janjaweed militias began attacking non-Arab villages, burning entire villages, engaging in systematic killings, extensive rape and sexual violence]."

"These attacks were also designed to destroy these groups' [Ethnic Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa communities] means of survival and essential infrastructure."

"[The 153 states that have signed the Geneva Convention must] take immediate action to end any complicity in the form of support for the RSF [Rapid Support Forces] and use all means reasonable available to prevent and halt the genocide."

Report, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights

Families escaping Ardamata in West Darfur cross into Adre, Chad, after a wave of ethnic violence, November 7, 2023. Survivors recounted executions and looting in Ardamata, which they said were carried out by RSF and allied Arab militias. 2023 REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig

In Darfur, Sudan, 80 different tribes and ethnic groups live traditional lives as farmers and pastoralists. In the last number of decades, tensions have strained the non-Arab farming communities' relations between Arab herders. Land is at a premium, leaving the farmers and the herders at odds between grazing cattle and farming the land. Government bodies appointed by the Sudanese government in the mid-1980s favoured the rights of the Arab communities, leading to mass violence, when Arab herders attacked non-Arab, Black farming communities.

Primary groups targeted by the current situation, with the rebirth of mass killings, displacement, rape and land grabs are the Masalit, Fur, Zaghawa, Bargo, Tunjor and other non-Arab tribes in the West, South, North East, and Central Darfur States. Eventually non-Arab groups -- Masalit, Fur and Zaghawa -- responded by forming their own militias, the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement, both labelled rebels by the government of Sudan. 

In the late 1980s and beyond fighting between the Arab and non-Arab communities intensified. Chaos reigned when President Omar al-Bashi aligned the country's military with the Janjaweed militia (Arab horsemen) who persecuted and conducted murderous raids on Darfur's farming communities. Between 2003 and 2005, 300,000 people were murdered and countless others were made homeless."Counter-insurgency" campaigns resulted between 2015 and 2016. By 2019 President Omar al-Bashir was overthrown after having been indicted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.

The feared and hated Janjaweed since transformed into the Rapid Support Forces, now in conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces in a power struggle. The conflict, seemingly ignored by a world bored with constant African Continent strife has caused 17.7 million people to face food insecurity, while another 25 million are left in need of humanitarian assistance. In a city in West Darfur, El Geneina, the RSF rounded up Masalit men for execution, where they were held in detention without food or water.

According to the UN Security Council Panel of Experts on the Sudan, between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in that attack. The Darfur Bar Association described the situation in El Geneina as a "full-scale genocide". The Raoul Wallenberg Centre report cited genocidal and dehumanizing language: Arab militiamen killing boys as young as six months, claiming "the boys will grow up and they will kill us. ... so we must destroy them now".

 

Bodies are strewn near houses in the West Darfur capital El Geneina, June 16, 2023. Up to 15,000 people were killed in the city last year in ethnic violence, according to a United Nations report seen by Reuters

The Situation in Sudan

"[Sudan is in the grips of a] catastrophic situation, [on the brink of a man-made famine.]"

"There are reports of mass graves, gang rapes, attacks in densely populated areas and many more horrors."

"We are failing the people of Sudan."

Edem Wosornu, UN relief advocate

"We haven't done anything -- just expressing concern, which doesn't solve any problems."

"There's not enough pushing from the international community, including Canada, to stop this war."

Imad Satti, director, Sudanese Canadian Communities Association

 

"We are looking to welcome Sudanese people fleeing war at the end of this year or the beginning of next year."

"It's very important to talk about what has become a forgotten war for a lot of us."

Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller

 

"Fighting broke out in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, on 15 April 2023 as an escalating power struggle between the two main factions of the military regime finally turned deadly."

"On one side are the Sudanese armed forces who remain broadly loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler. Against him are the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF formerly known as Janjaweed), a collection of militia who follow the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.'

"The RSF was founded by the former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir as an Arab counterinsurgency militia. Bashir wanted to crush a rebellion in the region of Darfur that began more than 20 years ago due to the political and economic marginalization of the local population."

Background

Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, at a rally in Abraq village, outside of Khartoum, 22 June 2019. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

 

Desperate Sudanese trying to escape Sudan with its raging conflict re-ignited by a reconstituted Islamist group known for the horrors they inflicted on Black Darfurian farmers seek haven elsewhere than in a country that has distinguished itself for its lethal confrontation between traditional herders and pastoralists, forcing farmers off their land through uninhibited human rights violations of mass murder, rape, and situations where the then-government sent helicopter gunships to mow down people fleeing for their lives.

An estimated 8.5 million people have been forced out of their indigenous lands -- described by the United Nations as the largest internal displacement crisis in the world. Sudanese who had previously immigrated to, or been absorbed as refugees in Canada, escaping political and social oppression, call upon Canada to exert its immigration bureaucracy to enable threatened Sudanese to be reunited with their families in Canada.

The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau is skilled in expressing support for the war-torn unfortunates of the world by 'expressing concern' as it did last spring, in addressing the security situation in Sudan, airlifting its Canadian citizens to safety. However, the Canadian government has refrained from sanctioning the warlords, much less expressly naming and blaming countries that have been involved in fueling the war.

A family reunification program had been announced late in 2023, one designed to permit those fleeing Sudan to join their relatives in Canada with the proviso they have the means to provide financial support. According to the families involved, the program's demands for paperwork make the process impossible in an active war zone. Potential sponsors have been advised they must have $18,100 in cash, along with a minimum annual income of $51,128 to proceed with sponsorship of a family of four.

According to Mr. Satti, speaking through his organization as representing Sudanese groups across Canada, there are those with the required cash, set back by futile efforts aiding relatives in Sudan with the required paperwork, while others send money to help their relatives in a desperate situation, an effort that serves to deplete savings, while accomplishing little to actually enable their relatives to travel outside Sudan, much less look to the onerous requirements before immigration is countenanced.

Applications were being accepted from February 27, to the point where 680 applications had been received by a month later, representing the hopes of some 1,500 people who qualified for processing. To this point, however, no applications have yet been approved by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. The program was scheduled to accept as many as 3,250 applications, yet the minister of Immigration, Marc Miller has no expectation that anyone will arrive any time soon in Canada.

Former Ottawa ambassador to Sudan, Nicholas Coghlan, has spoken out for months urging Canada to follow the United States and Europe in sanctioning economic networks which warlords in Sudan are reliant upon. He also criticized Canada for lagging on appointing a senior diplomat for the region, to among other issues, gather intelligence to guide Ottawa on how best it could project humanitarian and diplomatic moves to aid the situation in Sudan. 

Sudanese refugees gather as Doctors Without Borders teams assist the war-wounded from West Darfur, Sudan, in Adre hospital. (Mohammad Ghannam/MSF/Handout via Reuters)

The Agony and Unknown Destiny of Baby Kfir Bibas's Family

Youngest Israeli hostage  1-yr-old Kfir Bibas

"It's my birthday and I am not with my family."

"It's my birthday and I don't get presents." 

"It's my birthday and I hope that you remember me."

"It's crazy to bake and bring a cake, put balloons and blessings on the wall for someone who's not even here."

"They were very modest and humble people who had come to Nir Oz to live their life quietly and peacefully."

"Shiri is an artist and a lovable kindergarten teacher with a great sense of humour."

"Kfir did not have a chance to live a normal life, he did not have enough time to experience things."

"Ariel [his brother], loved Batman. The family bought Batman pajamas for everybody."

Somehow I can feel them, I can feel that they are still alive. I cannot really explain it, because it's a feeling."

"There is no other option for me. I have to keep acting like they are alive and do everything to bring them back as soon as possible."

Yossi Schneider, Bibas family relative

When Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad stormed into southern Israel after breaching the separation barrier from Gaza, so they could begin a planned day of atrocities against Israelis living in small farming communities bordering Gaza on October 7, not only did they slaughter over 1,200 children, women, elderly and infirm, foreign farm workers and Israeli soldiers, while pillaging and mass-raping Israeli girls and women, mutilating and murdering them, they also abducted 240 people, from infants to the aged. 

 

Nine-month-old Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel, along with their mother Shiri Bibas and the children's father, Yarden Bibas were among those taken in captivity to Gaza, to be held both as human shields and as prospective 'trades' for Palestinians sentenced to prison in Israel for criminal activities. Yesterday, Israel acknowledged that the nine-month-old has been captive in Gaza for three months, and it's where he is now on his birthday. A year-old child. Not that his older brother, at four, would be any more adaptable to their current situation.

Those who gathered within the Kibbutz Nir Oz kindergarten have no idea whether the family has survived, and whether their ordeal is ongoing to the present. All told, 78 residents of the kibbutz were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. Some likely also by the PLFP who were also present, as were ordinary Palestinian civilians and the PIJ terror group. The kindergarten teacher Maya Goren was among the 39 kibbutz members murdered that day. This tragedy will become part of Israel's sorrowful  history.

Kibbutz Nir Oz is a beautiful -- WAS a beautiful oasis in the desert. Within it is Israel's most beautiful of botanical gardens. Now the kibbutz bears little resemblance to what it once was; ruins of deserted homes, blood stains indelibly dried everywhere, testament to the orgy of killing the terrorists indulged themselves in. There was a October 7 video with Shirl holding Ariel and Kfir in her arms while being taken hostage, that aired on social media.

 

The Bibas family, father Yarden, mother Shiri, baby Kfir and four-year-old Ariel, were taken captive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 from Kibbutz Nir Oz.

 

At a later time, there were pictures that showed a terrorist with a hammer in his hand, strangling Yarden Bibas, bleeding and surrounded by other terrorists. Most women and children hostages were released as part of a week-long truce between Israel and Hamas in late November. Absent from those being returned were Shiri, Ariel and Kfir. Soon afterward Hamas released a video with an emaciated Yarden begging the government of Israel to bargain for his family's release.

Hamas, at the same time, indicated the three had died in an Israeli airstrike. They also claimed that the three had been in others' hands, that they had lost track of where they were being held. When their captors informed Yarden Bibas that his wife and children were dead, another released hostage was with him and she described how Yarden in a weak psychological state had broken down entirely.

When the ceremony of remembrance and celebration of the baby's birthday ended at Kibbutz Nir Oz, guests  released balloons in a symbolic gesture of freedom. The balloons rose into the sky, wafting toward Gaza while the group wished Kfir a happy birthday.

Orange balloons fill the skies above Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square on Thursday as hundreds gathered to mark the grim milestone of the first birthday of Kfir Bibas, who is a hostage in Hamas captivity. Thursday, January 18, 2024. (Photo: Debbie Weis