Fifty-seventh session of HRC in Geneva

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IOHRD – Fifty-seventh session of HRC in Geneva will be held in 9 September–۹ October 2024.

This session will have these agendas: 

  1. Organizational and procedural matters.
  2. Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General.
  3. Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development.
  4. Human rights situations that require the Council’s attention.
  5. Human rights bodies and mechanisms.
  6. Universal periodic review.
  7. Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.
  8. Follow-up to and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action.
  9. Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance: follow‑up to and implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.
  10. Technical assistance and capacity-building.

Sudan Fact-Finding Mission documents disturbing patterns of rights violations on mission in Chad

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IOHRD- The UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan called on the international community to urgently step up efforts to end the country’s war, saying it had documented disturbing patterns of grave human rights violations during its three-week mission to neighboring Chad.

The Fact-Finding Mission visited Chad from 30 June to 18 July. It met with victims and survivors of the conflict in Sudan as well as members of Sudanese civil society, the diplomatic community and the UN Country Team.

The Mission traveled to eastern Chad, including to Adre, Farchana and Abeche. While the Mission acknowledges the tremendous efforts made by Chadian authorities and UN entities as well as other humanitarian first-line responders, it is clear that needs exceed the available support.

“This crisis requires the support of the international community as a whole,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, Chair of the Fact-Finding Mission. “UN entities and humanitarian groups are in dire need of greater financial and other assistance to ensure Sudanese refugees and Chadian returnees have access to basic facilities, including nutrition, hygienic needs, health care, and education.”

The Mission also called on the international community to boost humanitarian support to the Chadian communities hosting refugees, citing the immense pressure they are under. The Chadian border town of Adre alone is hosting more than 200,000 Sudanese refugees, at least five times its original size.

The refugee community the Mission met described the violence they individually encountered that led them to flee Sudan. They detailed firsthand accounts of horrific acts of killings, sexual violence including gang-rape, arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, looting, the burning of houses, and the use of child soldiers. Many of the violations appear to be particularly targeted against professionals such as lawyers, human rights defenders, teachers, and doctors. Forced displacement was a common feature.

“I admire the courage of the many widows we have encountered in the camps,” said Expert Member Joy Ngozi Ezeilo. “No one deserves to go through such cruel life-changing experiences. In addition to losing their husbands and partners, these women are assuming alone the responsibility of feeding, educating, and caring for their multiple children, while losing their homes and means of livelihood. They need support at all levels.”

The Fact-Finding Mission also heard views on the steps that could and should be taken to break the recurring cycle of violence, and ensure accountability for those involved in atrocities, as well as justice and support for victims.

“It was disheartening to hear the testimonies of the victims of sexual violence,” said Expert Member Mona Rishmawi. “This violence appears to take place during captivity and while the women and girls are fleeing. Sometimes it is to punish a woman who is actively standing up for her community. Sometimes it is random and opportunistic. These brutal acts must stop and the perpetrators must be brought to justice. The victims also need strong physical and psychological support, which is unavailable to them now.”

Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has killed thousands of people since it began in mid-April last year. More than 26 million people urgently need aid and are food insecure. Over ten million civilians have been displaced internally, and more than two million refugees have fled the country, according to the UN. Over 600.000 of those ended up in Chad.

Ten years after the Yazidi genocide: UN Syria Commission of Inquiry calls for justice, including accountability and effective remedies, for ISIL crimes

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IOHRD – OHCHR Reported on 3  August 2024 that, Ten years after ISIL attacked the Yazidi people of Sinjar, killing, displacing and capturing men, women, boys and girls and destroying the 400,000-strong community, the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic calls for justice and accountability for ISIL crimes. In a position paper the Commission says that survivors and victims of the Yazidi genocide and ISIL crimes, as well as women and children held solely for their perceived affiliation to ISIL should be immediately released from unlawful detention in Northeast Syria and repatriated where possible and supported to rebuild their lives.

 

“The tragedy of the Yazidis, still ongoing, is also another urgent reminder that alleged members of ISIL from third country states in Northeast Syria detention should be repatriated and prosecuted for international crimes, including gender-based crimes, in national courts. We emphasize that survivors should be central to these efforts,” said Commission Chair Paulo Pinheiro.

 

On 3 August 2014, ISIL started its devastating assault on the Yazidi people of Sinjar in northwestern Iraq close to the border with Syria. The Commission documented how ISIL committed genocide as well as multiple crimes against humanity and war crimes through mass executions, forced religious conversions to Islam, enslavement and widespread sexual violence against women and girls. Following the attack on Sinjar, ISIL forcibly transferred thousands of captured Yazidis into Syria where girls as young as nine were subjected to sexual slavery and Yazidi boys as young as seven were forcibly trained for combat roles and suicide missions.

 

“The self-administration and the states making up the Global Coalition Against Da’esh (ISIL) must step up human rights-compliant efforts to identify and release Yazidi people held in the camps in the Noertheast” said Commissioner Hanny Megally, adding “Yazidis should be provided with meaningful choices regarding return to Iraq, reunification with family members or settlement in third countries with their children. Member states must facilitate these opportunities”

 

For those wishing to remain in Syria or return to Iraq, the international community should provide adequate funding of humanitarian responses including gender- and age-sensitive health, education, shelter, livelihoods, psychosocial, reintegration and rehabilitation programmes for the Yazidi community.

 

After the fall of Baghouz in March 2019 when ISIL lost its territorial hold in Syria, tens of thousands of people, mostly women and young boys and girls, assumed to be family members of ISIL fighters with many enslaved Yazidi women and girls among them, were detained in internment camps, including Al Hawl and Rawj in Northeast Syria. Today, some 44,000 women and children remain in these detention camps in Northeast Syria, including around 27,000 children. Two thirds are foreigners, from Iraq and more than 60 other countries. They are not able to leave and are detained indefinitely.

 

“Captured Yazidi women, girls, and boys, survivors and victims of the Yazidi genocide and other ISIL crimes, are still held alongside their persecutors in these dehumanising conditions in the Northeast Syria camps today. The international community should be supporting their recovery and well-being and pursuit of justice, not perpetuating the atrocities they have survived”, said Commissioner Lynn Welchman.