#genocide-remembrance

#genocide-remembrance

No child chooses to be enlisted, and France is displaying the worst kind of indignity in this matter, while also violating the conventions to which it is a signatory.

"I have never chosen to adopt the title of 'refugee,' yet it keeps haunting me. It is scribbled on my Palestinian national identification card and follows my name in human rights conferences."

"The global human rights system is in peril," wrote HRW executive director Philippe Bolopion. "Under relentless pressure from US President Donald Trump, and persistently undermined by China and Russia, the rules-based international order is being crushed."

Survivors of Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp, laid flowers and candles at the memorial site on Tuesday, as commemorations marking its liberation 81 years ago took place around Europe and beyond. Marking International Holocaust Memorial Day, Jewish leaders across the continent warned against forgetting the extermination of millions, while some of the few remaining survivors urged ordinary people to stand up against populism and extremism.

"My mother and sisters were killed on that day. For 26 years, I have not known where their bodies are buried. Every time I see a pit, I think they might be lying there," Gashi says. For more than two decades, he has been haunted by the feeling that the truth could lie right beneath his feet, but remains out of reach.

Two men reportedly fired shots at an elite police unit during a car chase in southern Germany Tuesday evening, causing a road accident in which five people were lightly injured. Officers from the Spezialeinsatzkommando (special deployment unit, or SEK) had attempted to arrest three men, aged 23, 24 and 30, in the small town of Absberg near the city of Nuremberg on suspicion of illegal possession of weapons.

Two men reportedly fired shots at an elite police unit during a car chase in southern Germany Tuesday evening, causing a road accident in which five people were lightly injured. Officers from the Spezialeinsatzkommando (special deployment unit, or SEK) had attempted to arrest three men, aged 23, 24 and 30, in the small town of Absberg near the city of Nuremberg on suspicion of illegal possession of weapons.

The Gambia's landmark case, accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority, began in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) this week. The Gambia's attorney general and justice minister, Dawda A Jallow, told ICJ judges on Monday that the Rohingya were targeted for destruction by Myanmar's government, as the case's final hearing opened nearly a decade after the country's military launched an offensive that forced some 750,000 Rohingya from their homes, mostly into neighbouring Bangladesh.

Some 182,000 Kurds living in Iraqi Kurdistan were killed in 1988 by chemical weapons launched by Saddam Hussein's regime in a series of attacks known as the Anfal campaign. That campaign included chemical attacks on Halabja, a village on the Iraq-Iran border, and other communities. Five thousand people are estimated to have died in Halabja. They were the victims of sarin and VX nerve agents, and mustard gas.

The extermination of the Palestinian people must end, the chairman of the African Union Commission, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, has said, as dozens of heads of state gather for the regional body's 39th summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. In the Middle East, Palestine and the suffering of its people also challenge our consciences. The extermination of this people must stop, said Youssouf, who was elected to head the institution a year ago, declared on Saturday.

In 2025, the administration of US President Donald Trump ordered the US Agency for International Development to be closed; this year, it withdrew the country from 66 international organizations. Other Western nations that are plagued with high levels of debt and pressure to prioritize domestic challenges have slashed their foreign aid, too. According to projections, official development assistance dropped by 9-17% in 2025, amounting to some US$55 billion.