The UN has released a long-delayed report into conditions for Uighurs in China's northwestern Xinjiang region. 

The report details serious rights abuse against Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and states that such treatment by China may amount to “crimes against humanity”.

The 45-page report released by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) late on Wednesday found that serious violations have been committed in Xinjiang under China’s application of measures to counter “terrorism” and “extremism”.

China has described the UN report as a “farce”.

Defending its policies towards the Uighurs, China’s Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva attached a 131-page response document. 

Human rights groups have been sounding the alarm over what is happening in the north-western province for years, alleging that more than one million Uyghurs had been detained against their will in a large network of what the state calls "re-education camps".

The BBC's recent investigation has uncovered documentation - including police files detailing those in detention - which appear to support the claims, as well as allegations of rape, torture and forced sterilisation.

UN's report concluded that "the extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups ... may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity".

It also found:

"Allegations of patterns of torture or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention, are credible, as are allegations of individual incidents of sexual and gender-based violence"

"Credible indications of violations of reproductive rights through the coercive enforcement of family planning policies since 2017"

"Similarly, there are indications that labour and employment schemes for purported purposes of poverty alleviation and prevention of 'extremism'... may involve elements of coercion and discrimination on religious and ethnic grounds"

The World Uyghur Congress welcomed the report and urged a swift international response.

"Despite the Chinese government's strenuous denials, the UN has now officially recognised that horrific crimes are occurring," Uyghur Human Rights Project Executive Director Omer Kanat said.

The US and lawmakers in several other countries have previously denounced China's actions in Xinjiang as a genocide, but the UN stopped short of making the accusation.

The report has long been the subject of intense international attention, with UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet admitting last week she had been under "tremendous pressure to publish or not to publish".

Some Western human rights groups alleged Beijing was urging her to bury damaging findings in the report, especially after publication was delayed several times.

Ms Bachelet defended the delay, arguing that seeking dialogue with Beijing over the report did not mean she was "turning a blind eye" to its contents. But Amnesty International called it "inexcusable".

In the end, the report was made public just 13 minutes before the end of her four-year tenure.

Read more at BBC and Al Jazeera

UN Photo/Evan Schneider

Pakistan's top climate scientists warned on Sunday that one-third of the country could plunge under water before the deadly floods that have thus far killed over 1,000 people begin to recede. 

An estimated 33 million people - one in seven - have been affected by the flash floods, since monsoon season began in June.

Almost 300,000 homes alongside critical infrastructure such as roads, crops, and bridges have been destroyed. Nearly 10 million people have been displaced as far-reaching electricity outages affect millions and countless roads have been obstructed. 

Pakistan's climate change minister Sherry Rehman referred to the crisis as a "climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions".

"We are at the moment at the ground zero of the front line of extreme weather events, in an unrelenting cascade of heatwaves, forest fires, flash floods, multiple glacial lake outbursts, flood events, and now the monster monsoon of the decade is wreaking non-stop havoc throughout the country," she said.

The economic impact of the flooding amounts to at least $10bn (£8.5bn)  according to Pakistan's Planning minister. As Pakistan was already suffering from a dire economic crisis prior to the flash floods, food shortages have been exacerbated.  

Damage to the rich agricultural land in the country has damaged food supplies and caused prices to soar. 

Pakistan produces less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions but ranks consistently in the top 10 countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Although a range of factors contribute to flooding, the chance of extreme rainfall is made all the more likely as a result of a warming atmosphere caused by climate change. 

Since the beginning of the industrial era, the world has warmed by about 1.2C. In 2018, a landmark report by the UN climate panel underscored how an increase above 1.5C could produce far more severe and irreparable damage. 

In August 2021, the UN appointed Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its report which higlighted that the world would exceed a global temperature increase of 1.5°C, the stated target of the Paris climate agreement, during this century. The report further warns that unless steps were taken to reduce emissions to zero, global temperatures would likely surpass 2°C.

At this stage, “compound” events, such as deadly heatwaves and killer droughts occurring at the same time in the same location, are more likely.

Read more. 

Pakistan's Police have charged the country's former Prime Minister, Imran Khan under anti-terror laws. 

A judgment was not immediately available, but officials from the former prime minister’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said he had been granted “interim bail” until September 1.

Police announced the charges after the cricketer-turned-politician accused authorities of torturing his close aide, who is himself being detained under sedition charges.

His court appearance is the latest twist in months of political wrangling that began when he was ousted from power in April by a confidence vote in the national assembly. The former cricket star retains widespread support, however, staging mass rallies railing against the government led by the new prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and scoring successes in recent provincial assembly by-elections.

Despite his ousting, Imran Khan continues to count on the support of many Pakistani voters. Since then, the former leader has toured the country to deliver a series of fiery speeches calling for fresh elections and fiercely criticising both the government and the army.

Last month, his PTI party stunned rivals by taking control of a crucial provincial assembly in Punjab, defeating the PML-N party in what was expected to be an easy win for them.

Read more at the Guardian 

Prosecutors in Germany have indicted a Wehrmacht soldier who manned watchtowers in a prisoner of war camp in the Second World War in what could be the start of a new series of prosecutions for Nazi war crimes after the focus has previously been on concentration camps.

The Berlin state prosecutor’s office has charged the 98-year-old Berlin man with alleged complicity in the murder of 809 Soviet prisoners at the “Stalag 365” POW camp in the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyy in what is now western Ukraine.

The POWs were among the 3 million Soviets who died by execution, forced labour, starvation, thirst and exposure while in captivity during WWII.

The Berlin court is awaiting further information on the man's supposed involvement in the deaths before it proceeds with trial.

A spokeswoman for the Berlin criminal courts told The Times: 'He is accused of being aware of the deprivation and the starvation of prisoners of war and having thereby made himself culpable.' 

Read more at the Times 

A British Sikh is facing a possible death sentence after the UK intelligence services passed information about him to Indian authorities. 

Lawyers for Jagtar Singh Johal from Dumbarton, Scotland, say he was tortured, including being given electric shocks, after his unlawful arrest in Punjab in 2017 where he was travelling for his wedding. 

Successive British prime ministers have raised his case but India's government denies he was tortured or mistreated.

Mr Johal is currently being held in a Delhi prison. He has alleged that, following his arrest, he was held incommunicado, was brutally interrogated for hours on end, and was initially denied access to lawyers or British consular officials.

He says he was made to sign blank sheets of paper that were later used against him as a false confession.

Mr Johal was an active blogger and campaigner for Sikh human rights, which are said to have brought him to the attention of the Indian authorities.

The campaign group Reprieve, which is representing him, says it has uncovered documents suggesting MI5 and Mi6 tipped off the Indian authorities about Johal.

On 12 August, Mr Johal lodged a claim in the High Court against the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the attorney general, alleging that UK intelligence agencies unlawfully shared information with the Indian authorities when there was a risk he could be tortured.

Reprieve says this case suggests the government has failed to fix longstanding shortcomings in its policy on torture and the death penalty and has learned little from past failings such as the MI6 tip-off that led to the rendition and torture of Libyan dissident Abdulhakim Belhaj.

This year the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined that Mr Johal’s detention “lacks legal basis”, was based on “discriminatory grounds” owing to his Sikh faith and his “status as a human rights defender”.

Read more at the BBC

Indonesian authorities should drop politically motivated treason charges and release Papuans detained for the peaceful exercise of their rights, Human Rights Watch said. 

Human Rights Watch, reported that in 2019 "racist security forces" and members of militant groups attacked students at a West Papuan University, firing tear gas into dormitories across the campus. They then arrested 43 indigenous Papuan students for allegedly failing to raise the Indonesian flag outside the dorm to celebrate Indonesian Independence day. 

Widespread protest ensured in at least 30 cities following the police attack, Indonesian authorities responded to the protests by arresting hundreds of peaceful protestors on treason charges, with many still remaining in police detention.

Successive Indonesian governments, including current President Joko Widodo’s administration, have sought to quash the Papuan independence movement by increasing Indonesian troops and police in the region. The authorities regularly violate Papuans’ rights to freedom of expression and association, including by making it a criminal offense to raise the Papuan “Morning Star” flag, which violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Indonesia is a party.

The authorities regularly violate Papuans’ rights to freedom of expression and association, including by making it a criminal offense to raise the Papuan “Morning Star” flag, which violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Indonesia is a party.

The Indonesian government has sought to further divide the region by splitting Papua province into four separate provinces. Activists raised concerns that this plan will lead to the increased militarization of Papua while enabling the Indonesian government to gain greater control over the resource-rich region.

Read more at Human Rights Watch 

China has sanctioned senior Taiwanese officials and staged a new round of military drills following a brief visit to the island by a delegation of US lawmakers. 

The bipartisan delegation visited after US House speaker Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit to the island. On Monday, Chnese state media announced seven individuals had been sanctioned for allegedly supporting Taiwan independence. This includes Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the US, Hsiao Bi-khim, the head of Taiwan’s national security council, Wellington Koo, and Lin Fe-fan, the deputy secretary general of the governing Democratic Progressive party.

The seven – who are barred from traveling to China, Hong Kong or Macao, and from making profit in China – join Taiwan’s premier, foreign minister, and speaker, who were sanctioned in November 2021.

The island’s foreign ministry said Taiwan was a democracy that “could not be interfered with by China”. Lin said while the sanctions were “a blow to the current state of cross-strait relations”, he viewed those imposed on him as a “great honour”.

Wu Qian, a spokesperson for China’s defence ministry, said: “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues to train and prepare for war, resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and resolutely crush any form of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatism and foreign interference attempts.”, The Guardian reports

“We warn the US and the DPP authorities: using Taiwan to contain China is doomed to failure,” he added, referring to Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive party.

The bipartisan US delegation, led by Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, arrived in Taipei on Sunday evening. The unannounced brief visit came after Beijing sent warships, missiles and jets into the waters and skies around Taiwan, prompting fears of military calculation between the world’s two largest militaries.

Read more at the Guardian

Police in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown lifted a curfew imposed last Wednesday after anti-government protests left 16 civilians dead.

The government imposed a nationwide curfew after protests erupted against the rising cost of living in the country. At least 16 civilians were killed and many more injured in the capital Freetown and the city of Makeni in central Sierra Leone. At least six police officers were killed, according to a statement released by Police inspector general. William Fayia Sellu. 

Demonstrators demanded the departure of President Julius Maada Bio, who was elected in 2018 and still has 10 months left in his term. They chanted “Bio must go” as they made their way through the capital, Freetown.

Long-standing frustration with the government in some quarters has been exacerbated by rising prices for basic goods in the West African country, where more than half of its population of around eight million live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.

Inflation in Sierra Leone reached 28% in June, up from 25% in May. Last month, the central bank removed three zeros from bank notes, hoping to restore confidence in the currency. Protests erupted Wednesday after weeks of frustration over rising food and fertilizer prices and a recent crackdown on dissent.

in a televised address on Friday, President Julius Maada Bio blamed the opposition for instigating the violence. 

“This was not a protest against the high cost of living occasioned by the ongoing global economic crisis,” Maada Bio said. “The chant of the insurrectionists was for a violent overthrow of the democratically-elected government.”

Read more at Bloomberg and Al Jazeera. 

Paraguay Vice President Hugo Velázquez Moreno who was included on a U.S. corruption list for his alleged involvement in offering bribes to a public official has said he will resign next week. 

U.S. Ambassador Marc Ostfield, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken “received credible information” that showed how “at the request of Vice President Velázquez, Duarte, his close personal and professional partner, offered a bribe of more than $1 million to a public official.”

This offering of a bribe was “consistent with an apparent pattern of corrupt activity” and in this case it was carried out to “obstruct an investigation that threatened the vice president and his financial interests,” Ostfield said.

As a result, Velázquez, Duarte and their immediate family members will no longer be allowed to enter the United States.

Velazquez has said he is “completely and totally” in the dark about the allegations detailed by Ostfield, and has said he will resign in order to “go out like a common citizen to defend what I think is an injustice”.

Duarte, Velazquez’s associate, is also legal counsel for the entity that operates the Yacyreta Dam, jointly owned by Paraguay and neighbouring Argentina.

“Duarte’s act of corruption abused and exploited his powerful and privileged public position within the Yacyreta Bi-National Entity, risking public confidence in one of Paraguay’s most vital economic assets,” the US Department of State said.

The designation comes mere weeks after a former president of Paraguay, Horacio Manuel Cartes, was also included on a U.S. corruption list for his “involvement in significant corruption.” Cartes served as president of Paraguay between August 2013 and August 2018.

Read more here

Colombia President, Gustavo Petro has named commanders for the military and police, saying he chose the officials as they have not been accused of human rights violations or corruption. 

Petro, a critic of Colombia's military establishment has promised to change the security forces and instil officials who respect human rights.

The criteria for selecting the new commanders was "zero corruption, zero violation of fundamental rights," Petro said during a news conference.

"The concept of human security means that success lies not in the number of dead, but in substantially reducing deaths, massacres and increasing substantially peoples' liberties and rights," Petro added.

General Helder Fernan Giraldo was named commander of the armed forces, General Luis Mauricio Ospina is to direct the army and Vice Admiral Francisco Hernando Cubides will head the navy. General Luis Carlos Cordoba will direct the air force and General Henry Armando Sanabria the national police.

Petro pledged during his campaign that soldiers accused of human rights violations will stand trial in regular courts, rather than military ones.

He has also promised to remove the police from the defence ministry and dismantle its ESMAD riot squad, a notorious police division which has played a role in the deaths of protestors.

Armed conflict has plagued Colombia for almost 60 years, causing about 450,000 deaths between 1985 and 2018 alone.

Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group also took steps on Friday to restart peace talks. Petro has said he wants to start peace talks with the nation’s remaining armed groups to reduce violence in rural areas and bring lasting peace to the nation of 50 million people.

Read more at Aljazeera

India’s opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, has accused the government of forcing people entitled to free food at government ration shops to buy flags in return for provisions in the run-up to Independence Day celebrations on 15 August.

India will celebrate 75 years of independence from the Raj on Tuesday, and the streets of cities across the country are full of flags for sale.

But Gandhi claimed that in some cases patriotic fervour was being forced on people, referring to a widely circulated video showing a shopkeeper in Haryana state scolding a customer who came in for free grain and did not want to buy a flag.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party rules at national as well as at state level in Haryana.

This year, however, Modi has launched a campaign called Har Ghar Tiranga (“a flag in each home”) which has become the centrepiece of the celebrations.

The government target is for at least 200m flags to be on display by Monday, and the home affairs minister, Amit Shah, has urged people to change their social media profile pictures to the flag.

In the town of Surat, in Gujarat, Modi’s home state, textile traders went on a procession carrying a flag 5km long.

Read more at the Guardian 

Guastavo Petro, Colombia's new president and former M-19 guerrilla has announced his government's 10-point plan to tackle inequality.  

Petro also noted that the decades-long war on drugs had failed and called for developed nations to change their drug policies which often filed violent conflicts across Colombia and Latin America. 

"It is time for a new international convention that accepts that the war on drugs has failed—and failed resoundingly.  That it has led to the murder of a million Latin Americans—the majority of them Colombian — over the past 40 years, and that it causes 70,000 Americans to die of drug overdoses every year; that the war on drugs has strengthened the mafias and weakened our governments.

The war on drugs has led states to commit crimes—our State has committed crimes—and it has blurred the horizon of democracy. Are we going to wait for another million Latin Americans to be murdered and 200,000 overdose deaths in the United States each year? Are we going to wait for another 40 years and for another million Latin Americans to die of homicide and 2,800,000 North Americans to die of an overdose? Or rather, do we exchange failure for success that will allow Colombia and Latin America to live in peace?

The time has come to change the anti-drug policy in the world, so that it guarantees life and does not generate death. They keep telling us that they want to support us in peace—they tell us again and again in all their speeches. So they must change the anti-drug policy that is in their hands—in world powers, in the United Nations. They have the power to do it."

Petro, 62, has described US-led anti-narcotics policies as a failure but has also said he would like to work with Washington “as equals,” building schemes to combat climate change or bring infrastructure to rural areas where many farmers say coca leaves are the only viable crop.

Petro also formed alliances with environmentalists during his presidential campaign and has promised to turn Colombia into a “global powerhouse for life” by slowing deforestation and reducing the country’s reliance on fossil fuels. He has pledged that Colombia will stop granting new licenses for oil exploration and will ban fracking operations. 

During his inaugural address the former rebel detailed his 10-point plan to address inequalities within Colombia. His election becomes the first time a left-leaning president has held power in Colombia. 

1. I will work to achieve true and definitive peace: like no one else, like never before. We will comply with the Peace Agreement and follow the recommendations of the report of the Truth Commission. The "Government of Life" is the "Government of Peace". Peace is the meaning of my life, it is the hope of Colombia. We cannot fail Colombian society. The dead deserve it. The living need it. Life must be the basis of peace. A just and safe life. A life to live 'sabroso', to live happily, so that happiness and progress are our identity.
2. I will care for our grandfathers and grandmothers, for our children, for people with disabilities, for people whom history or society has marginalised. We will make a "policy of care" so that no one is left behind. We are a caring society that cares and cares for others. May your government do the same. We will make a policy sensitive to the suffering and pain of others, with tools and solutions to create equality.
3. I will govern with and for the women of Colombia. Today, here, we begin a government with gender parity with a Ministry of Equality. Finally! With our Vice President and Minister Francia Márquez, we are going to work so that gender does not determine how much you earn or how you live. We want real equality and security so that Colombian women can walk peacefully and not fear for their lives.
4. I will dialogue with everyone, without exceptions or exclusions. This will be an open-door government for anyone who wants to discuss Colombia's problems. Whatever their name is, wherever they come from. The important thing is not where we come from, but where we are going. We are united by our desire for the future, not by the weight of the past. We are going to build a Great National Accord to set the roadmap for Colombia in the coming years. Dialogue will be my method, agreements my goal.
5. I will listen to Colombians, as I have done for years. We do not govern from a distance, far from the people and disconnected from their realities. On the contrary, we govern by listening. We are going to design mechanisms and dynamics so that all Colombians feel heard in this Government. I will not be trapped in the curtains of bureaucracy. I will be close to the problems. I will walk alongside and together with Colombians from all corners of the country. Only those who are present can understand and put themselves in the place of the other.
6. I will defend Colombians from violence and I will work so that families feel safe and at ease. We will do so with a comprehensive security strategy. Colombia needs a strategy that goes from prevention programs to the prosecution of criminal structures and the modernization of the security forces. Lives saved will be our main indicator of success. Security is measured in lives, not in deaths. When security is measured in deaths, that leads the State to commit crime. And this state will not stand for heinous crime. This state is a social state of law. Crime is fought in many ways. All of them are essential. I want to defend Colombian families from daily and everyday insecurity—be it from machista violence or any other violence.
7. I will fight corruption with a firm hand and without hesitation. A government of "zero tolerance". We will recover what was stolen, we will be vigilant so that it does not happen again and we will transform the system to discourage this type of practice. Not family, not friends, not colleagues, not collaborators—no one is excluded from the weight of the law, from the commitment against corruption and from my determination to fight against it. From now on, the State intelligence corps will not persecute the political opposition, nor the free press, nor the judiciary, nor those who think differently. Today, the main objective of the State intelligence corps is to locate and fight corruption.
8. I will protect our soil and subsoil, our seas and rivers. Our air and sky. Our landscapes define us and fill us with pride. And, for that reason, I will not allow the greed of a few to put our biodiversity at risk. We will confront the uncontrolled deforestation of our forests and promote the development of renewable energies. Colombia will be a world power of life. Planet Earth is the common home of human beings. And Colombia, from its enormous natural wealth, will lead this fight for planetary life.
9. I will develop national industry, the popular economy and the Colombian countryside. We will prioritise the peasant woman, the woman of the popular economy, the micro, small and medium entrepreneurs of Colombia. But our invitation is to produce, to work, to be aware that we will only be a rich society if we work, and that work—more and more in the twenty-first century—is a property of the knowledge of the brain, of human intelligence. We will accompany and support all those who work hard for Colombia: the farmer who rises at dawn, the artisan who keeps our culture alive, the entrepreneur who creates jobs. We need everyone to grow and redistribute wealth. Science, culture and knowledge are the fuel of the 21st century. We are going to develop a society of knowledge and technology.
10. I will comply with our Constitution. As stated in Article I: "Colombia is a social State under the rule of law, organised as a unitary, decentralised Republic, with autonomy of its territorial entities, democratic, participatory and pluralistic, founded on respect for human dignity, on the work and solidarity of the people who make it up and on the prevalence of the general interest". We will also develop a new legal framework to make our development sustainable, fair and egalitarian.

Read more at Progressive International  and the Guardian 

The Head of Amnesty International in Ukraine resigned after the organisation issued a report that accused Ukraine's military of endangering civilians. 

Oksana Pokalchuk , who had led the organisation for almost 7 years in Ukraine stating that the conduct of the organisation in delivering and consulting on the report has led to this report becoming a "tool of Russian propaganda".  Amnesty International said on Sunday that  “We fully stand by our findings,”, but it stressed that “nothing we documented Ukrainian forces doing in any way justifies Russian violations”. Pokalchuk has said the report had become a point of conflict between staff in the Ukrainian office and the larger organisation. 

The report published last Thursday accused the Ukrainian military of endangering civilians by establishing bases in schools and hospitals and launching counterattacks from heavily populated areas. Amnesty’s report listed instances in which Ukrainian forces appeared to have exposed civilians to danger in 19 towns and villages in the Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv regions.

“Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law,” Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said in a statement accompanying the report. Callamard has previously said Russia was “breaching the sovereignty of Ukraine and challenging the global security architecture,” calling the invasion “the worst such catastrophe in recent European history.”

The report received backlash from Ukrainian officials.  President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Amnesty International was trying “to amnesty the terrorist state and shift the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky, in remarks Saturday evening, criticized the “very eloquent silence” from Amnesty International on alleged Russian attacks on a nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Zelensky said it “once again indicates the manipulative selectivity of this organisation.”

Amnesty International has said it “deeply regrets the distress and anger” caused after it alleged that Ukrainian forces were flouting international law by exposing civilians to Russian fire.

Read more at the Guardian and The Associated Press 

Three UN-appointed independent human rights experts returned from Ethiopia on Tuesday after working to negotiate access to areas important for investigations into violations of international humanitarian law. 

The three-member Commission – comprised of Kaari Betty Murungi (Chair), Steven Ratner and Radhika Coomaraswamy – concluded a five-day visit to the country where they met with the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Justice, and other senior government officials.

The body will investigate violations of international humanitarian law and international refugee law in Ethiopia committed by all parties to the conflict in the Tigray region.

The Commission presented its first update to the Council on 30 June 2022 after the UN-appointed investigators announced that they’d launched a probe into an alleged massacre of at least 200 people in Ethiopia’s Oromia region.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Human Rights Council in Geneva at that time, Ms. Murungi said that as it continued its work investigating rights abuses linked to the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region that flared in November 2020, the Commission had received reports of killings in Western Oromia,

Despite many other conflicts around the world, Ms. Murungi had stressed that the world must not ignore what was happening in Ethiopia.

“The ongoing spread of violence, fuelled by hate speech and incitement to ethnic-based and gender-based violence, are early-warning indicators of further atrocity crimes against innocent civilians, especially women and children who are more vulnerable”. She added. 

Ethiopia is experiencing widespread ethnic tensions in several regions. Thousands of people have been killed, and several million others have been displaced from their homes as a result of the fighting between forces loyal to Abiy and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and their allies.

Earlier this year, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) highlighted the ongoing crisis occurring in Tigray, stating that there is nowhere on earth where "people are more at risk".

Read more at the UN