والله الواحد بقى لا بعرف يتكلم لا بعرف يكتب… I can’t string a coherent sentence together to save my life
— Munchkin (@BSonblast) December 30, 2023
Drowning in the sadness today. Couldn’t shake it off at all, couldn’t repress it, couldn’t just live with it.
— Munchkin (@BSonblast) December 30, 2023
It swallowed me whole.
World’s Children Day
20 November 2023
GENEVA (20 November 2023) – With one out of every five children worldwide living within armed conflict zones, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child marks World Children’s Day in a sombre mood and calls for ceasefires and a return to basics of humanitarian law to safeguard all children. The Committee today issued the following statement:
“World Children’s Day has generally been regarded as a day to celebrate the gains made since the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989. Thirty-four years later today, it, however, has become a day for mourning for the many children who have recently died in armed conflict.
More than 4,600 children have been killed in Gaza in only five weeks. This war has claimed the lives of more children in a shorter time and with a level of brutality that we have not witnessed in recent decades.
The Committee has previously urged for a ceasefire. Unfortunately, the UN Security Council has not put its weight behind that call. While the 15 November 2023 resolution of the Security Council calling for humanitarian pauses and corridors is a positive step by the international community, it does not end the war that is waging on children – it simply makes it possible for children to be saved from being killed on some days, but not on other days.
There are 468 million children worldwide living in armed conflict zones, according to Save the Children’s research, accounting for about 20% of the world’s 2.4 billion children population, based on UNICEF’s statistics.
On World Children's Day, the Committee also wants to underscore that while the armed conflict in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is at the forefront of our minds, we remain acutely concerned that thousands of children are dying in armed conflict in many parts of the world, including in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Myanmar, Haiti, Sudan, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia. Verified figures show that in 2022, the global figure of children killed or maimed was 8,630. Of deep concern is the fact that up to 4,000 children were denied humanitarian access last year.
Given the current situation in Gaza, the number of child victims of these grave human rights violations is rising exponentially.
The plight of girls affected by armed conflict is also at a crisis point. In Sudan and Haiti, there are verified reports of abduction and rape of girls, and concerns have been raised by the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children about the deterioration in access to humanitarian services is driving girls towards being recruited by armed groups.
Children of so-called ‘foreign fighters’ are a further area of concern. The Committee has recommended in three complaints under its communications procedure that children in the camps in Northeast Syria should be repatriated.
While some States have acted to return children and their mothers, an estimated 31,000 children are still living in abysmal conditions in the camps. The Committee also remains very concerned about boys who are being separated from their mothers when they reach early adolescence, as well as several hundred boys who are in prison.
The Committee recognises World Children’s Day in a sombre mood. In the face of wars affecting children around the globe, we call again for ceasefires, for a return to the basics of humanitarian law, and for thorough investigations by competent authorities of all grave violations against children in the context of armed conflict.”
View original: https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO2311/S00140/end-to-killing-of-children-in-armed-conflict-un-committee-urges.htm
[Ends]
Dated Wednesday, 11 October 2023 - here is a full copy:
Love, forgiveness liberate, break cycles of violence, pope says
Pope Francis greets a child as he rides in the popemobile around St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican before his weekly general audience Oct. 11. (CNS/Lola Gomez)
The life of St. Josephine Bakhita, a former slave from Sudan who became a nun, demonstrates how love liberates people from oppression and frees them to forgive their oppressors and break cycles of hatred and violence, Pope Francis said.
"Often a wounded person wounds in turn; the oppressed easily becomes an oppressor," the pope said Oct. 11 at his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square.
In contrast, he said, St. Bakhita teaches people that "forgiveness takes away nothing but adds dignity to the person; it makes us lift our gaze from ourselves toward others, to see them as fragile as we are, yet always brothers and sisters in the Lord."
Continuing a series of audience talks highlighting saints who demonstrate zeal or passion for evangelization, Francis said St. Bakhita's life story shows how "forgiveness is the wellspring of a zeal that becomes mercy and calls us to a humble and joyful holiness."
The pope also used the occasion to pray for peace in Sudan, where a power struggle unleashed violence in April and fighting continues although, as he noted, very little is said about it in the news.
St. Bakhita, who lived 1869-1947, was abducted and enslaved at the age of 7. "She suffered cruelty and violence: on her body she bore more than a hundred scars," the pope said.
And yet, she wrote, "I never despaired, because I felt a mysterious force supporting me."
Later she was given a crucifix — the first thing she ever owned — and, the pope said, "looking at it, she experienced a profound inner liberation, because she felt understood and loved and therefore capable of understanding and loving in turn. This is how it begins. One feels understood, loved and is then able to understand and love others."
Having compassion, he said, "means suffering with the victims of the many forms of inhumanity present in the world as well as pitying those who commit errors and injustices -- not justifying them, but humanizing them."
"When we enter into the logic of conflict, division among us, bad feelings, one against another, we lose humanity," the pope said. But St. Bakhita teaches that the solution is "to humanize, humanize ourselves and humanize others," by forgiving them and giving them another chance.
"Forgiveness liberated her," the pope said. "Forgiveness first received through God's merciful love, and then the forgiveness given that made her a free, joyful woman, capable of loving."
View original: https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vatican-news/love-forgiveness-liberate-break-cycles-violence-pope-says
[Ends]
Briefing on Cooperation between the UN and the League of Arab States
Tomorrow morning (8 June) the Security Council will convene for a briefing on cooperation between the UN and the League of Arab States (LAS).
The meeting, which is one of the signature events of the June Council Presidency of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), will be chaired by Khalifa Shaheen Almarar, Minister of State at the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
The expected briefers are Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo; LAS Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit; and Dr. Omnia El Omrani, who was the Youth Envoy for the President of the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27), held in Sharm El-Sheikh in 2022.
It appears that Egypt (on behalf of the Arab Group at the UN) will participate under rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure.
Strengthening partnerships and cooperation with regional and sub-regional organisations—as envisioned in Chapter VIII of the UN Charter—has become an increasingly prominent theme for the Security Council.
The Council has held annual consultative meetings with the AU Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) since 2007 and has received regular briefings from the EU since 2010.
It has also held debates and briefings on cooperation with several other bodies, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
In the past decade, LAS representatives have addressed the Council on several occasions, not least due to the proliferation of conflicts in the Arab world.
In recent years, Arab Council members have featured meetings on the UN-LAS relationship as signature events of their presidencies, including Kuwait in June 2019, Tunisia in January 2021, and the UAE in March 2022. Presidential statements focusing on the relationship between the two organisations were the outcome of these three meetings.
The UAE has circulated a concept note in preparation for tomorrow’s meeting, indicating that the briefing is an opportunity to explore expanding joint efforts to address the interrelated peace, security, and humanitarian challenges facing the Arab region. It poses several questions to help guide the discussion, including:
At tomorrow’s meeting, Council members are expected to underscore the contributions of regional organisations to international peace and security. They may reflect on how the UN and the LAS can work together more effectively across the “peace continuum”, ranging from conflict prevention to post-conflict peacebuilding. Building on themes discussed in the concept note, members may also speak about cooperation between the UN and the LAS in promoting the rights of women and youth in the region.
In this regard, some may emphasise the importance of implementing the 2022 “Arab Declaration to Combat All Forms of Violence Against Women and Girls”, including through partnership with UN Women. They might also offer their views on the “Arab Strategy on Youth, Peace and Security”, which is expected to be launched later this year and has been developed with assistance from the UN Liaison Office to the LAS, which was established in 2019 in Cairo. Some members may talk about efforts to combat terrorism in the Arab world, including the Arab regional counter-terrorism strategy adopted in March 2022.
There could also be discussion of the adverse effects of climate change in the region and how to address them. It appears that this issue may be a focus of El Omrani’s briefing. The Council has also recognised the negative impact of climate change and other environmental factors in resolutions on one peace operation in the Middle East, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). In resolution 2682 of 30 May, which most recently renewed UNAMI’s mandate for one year, the Council called on the mission to advise, support, and assist the Iraqi government in facilitating regional dialogue and cooperation on several issues, including the “adverse impacts of climate change in particular those contributing to desertification and drought, resilience building, infrastructure, public health, and refugees”.
There is also likely to be discussion at tomorrow’s meeting of how the UN and the LAS can more effectively address security and humanitarian challenges in several country situations on the Security Council’s agenda. During the 32nd summit of the LAS in Jeddah on 19 May, the participants referred to several of these situations when they issued the “Jeddah Declaration”, which:
Council members have traditionally held contrasting views about how to approach many of the peace and security challenges in the Arab world. This is illustrated by the frequent vetoes cast over the years by the US and Russia on resolutions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Syria, respectively. In recent months, while some Council members—such as Russia and the UAE—have supported efforts to normalise relations with Syria, others, including the UK and the US, have remained sceptical.
[Ends]
