22 August 2017 – Senior United Nations humanitarian officials for Syria today expressed deep concern over many civilians reportedly killed in airstrikes and other attacks in the last few days in Raqqa city, where coalition forces are fighting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorists.

&#8220The UN condemns attacks directed against civilians and civilian infrastructure. The humanitarian community reminds all parties to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law to protect civilians and to spare no effort to prevent civilian casualties,&#8221 said a joint statement issued by Ali Al-Za’tari, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria, and Ramesh Rajasingham, the acting Regional Humanitarian Coordinator.

These unconfirmed accounts come on the heels of an increasing number of reported civilian casualties due to intensified military operations, including airstrikes. In recent months, regular airstrikes and shelling in the city have reportedly resulted in scores of civilian casualties, including women and children, the statement said.

An estimated 75,000 people have been displaced from Raqqa city, but 18,000 to 25,000 civilians who remain trapped risk being killed by ISIL snipers or mines if they try to flee, or being used as human shields or killed in indiscriminate airstrikes if they remain.

22 August 2017 – The United Nations children agency today expressed extreme concern at the appalling increase in the cruel and calculated use of children, especially girls, as &#8220human bombs&#8221 in north-east Nigeria.

&#8220Since the beginning of January 2017, 83 children had been used as so-called human bombs, 55 being girls, most of them often under 15 years old,&#8221 UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson Marixie Mercado told reporters at today’s regular press briefing in Geneva.

&#8220The 27 other children were boys and one was an infant strapped to a girl,&#8221 she continued.

She pointed out that since 2014, children have been repeatedly used in this way, calling the number of children used so far this year alone was &#8220already four times higher than what it was for all of 2016.&#8221

&#8220Children used as human bombs are, above all, victims, not perpetrators,&#8221 Ms. Mercado underscored.

She went on to say that the use of children in such attacks has a further impact of creating suspicion and fear of children released, rescued, or escaped from Boko Haram. &#8220They face rejection when they tried to reintegrate their communities which compounds their suffering,&#8221 she explained.

Ms. Mercado painted a dire picture, describing the situation as a massive displacement and malnutrition crisis &#8211 &#8220a deadly combination for children.&#8221

She said that per cent of the persons displaced by the insurgencies in north-east Nigeria are children, and the vast majority of them in Borno state, where most of those attacks are taking place.&#8221

North-east Nigeria is one of the four countries or regions facing the spectre of famine, with up to 450,000 children at risk of severe acute malnutrition this year, according to UNICEF.

UNICEF is providing psychosocial support for children who had been held by Boko Haram and the agency is also working with families and communities to foster the acceptance of returned children &#8211 including through social and economic reintegration support.

As of July, UNICEF has supported more than 3,000 children and 1,200 women. It also backed reconciliation activities in north-east Nigeria led by communities, religious leaders and influential women to help promote tolerance, acceptance, and reintegration.

Noting that a $1 billion dollar appeal to minimally help sustain people in Nigeria is only 60 per cent funded, Jens Laerke, Spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told reporters at the briefing that the situation for civilians in the area was extremely grave.

Humanitarian Coordinator Edward Kallon stressed that women and children in Borno state face grave human rights violations, including sexual and gender-based violence. He noted that, since the start of the conflict in 2009, more than 20,000 people had been killed with thousands of women and girls abducted and abused.

In total, 8.5 million people in the worst-affected states of Borno, namely Adamawa and Yobe, need of humanitarian assistance. In its eighth year, this crisis shows no sign of abating, said Mr. Laerke. Food insecurity affects 5.2 million people, some of whom are on the brink of famine.

22 August 2017 – Today, the top United Nations human rights official welcomed the repeal of laws in Lebanon, Tunisia and Jordan that allow rapists to avoid criminal prosecution by marrying their victims.

&#8220To punish a rape victim by making her marry the perpetrator of a horrible crime against her &#8211 there is no place in today’s world for such hideous laws,&#8221 said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein in press statement.

He warmly welcomed the stand that lawmakers in Lebanon, Tunisia and Jordan have taken towards eliminating violence against women and ensuring that perpetrators of such violence are held to account.

According to the High Commissioner’s Office (OHCHR), on 16 August, Lebanon voted to repeal article 522 of its penal code, a law that exempted from criminal prosecution a person accused of rape who agreed to marry the victim. Two weeks earlier, on 1 August, Jordanian lawmakers also voted to abolish a similar provision &#8211 article 308 of its penal code.

In Tunisia, on 26 July, the Parliament adopted a law on eliminating violence against women and eliminating impunity for perpetrators, recognizing that violence against women includes economic, sexual, political and psychological violence. The law will come into effect next year. Tunisia has also established two human rights institutions this year dealing with human trafficking and improving the enjoyment of individual liberties and equality.

&#8220These are hard-won victories, thanks to the tireless campaigns over the years by human rights defenders &#8211 in particular women human rights defenders &#8211 in Tunisia, Lebanon and Jordan,&#8221 underscored High Commissioner Zeid.

He noted however that in Lebanon, article 505 of the Penal Code continues to allow those accused of having sex with a minor to go free if they marry their victims, while article 508 allows for marital rape, and called for the article to be repealed and for marital rape to be criminalized.

&#8220I call on the Governments and people of these countries &#8211 and other countries in the region &#8211 to build on this positive momentum, and to work towards the swift repeal of other legislation that condones sexual violence against women and girls and perpetuates discrimination against them in clear violation of international human rights law,&#8221 concluded Mr. Zeid.

22 August 2017 – Warning of harassment, revenge attacks and abuse of civilians displaced from the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, United Nations refugee and migration agencies today called for people trying to flee the city ahead of military operations to have safe passage.

&#8220We fear that Iraqi civilians are likely to be held as human shields again and that attempts to flee could result in executions/shootings,&#8221 Andrej Mahecic, spokesperson at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told journalists in Geneva about the ongoing operations to retake the city.

He also noted reports of people being denied access to safety and stopped along the way.

&#8220We call on all parties to the conflict to allow civilians to leave the conflict area and to access to safety,&#8221 Mr. Mahecic said.

Thousands of civilians are believed to be in Tal Afar, which has been without aid since the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) terrorist group took control of the surrounding communities in 2014.

Since April this year, more than 30,000 people fled Tal Afar district, many living in camps sheltering other displaced families mainly from Mosul, some 65 kilometres south-west.

Conditions in the district are believed to be &#8220very difficult,&#8221 Mr. Mahecic said, noting a lack of food, water and electricity.

&#8220People are said to have been surviving on unclean water and bread for the past three to four months,&#8221 he told journalists.

Those who fled have often had to walk in temperatures up to 50 degrees Celsius for up to 20 hours at a time, amid shooting, and often leaving behind children, elderly and disabled who are too vulnerable for the trip.

&#8220Many talk of seeing dead bodies along the way, and there are reports that some were killed by extremist groups. Others appear to have died due to dehydration or illnesses,&#8221 said Mr. Mahecic.

In the past four day, some 1,500 people arrived at nearby emergency sites managed by the UN International Migration Agency (IOM)

In conjunction with partners, IOM and UNHCR have been treating arrivals with food and water, transporting them to hospitals, if needed, and helping them settle in camps.

IOM is preparing additional aid for hundreds more arrivals expected in the coming days.

22 August 2017 – The Iraqi Government must ensure that the thousands of women and girls who survived sexual violence by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh) terrorist fighters receive care, protection and justice, and that children born because of such violence do not face a life of discrimination and abuse, a United Nations report published today says.

&#8220The physical, mental, and emotional injuries inflicted by ISIL are almost beyond comprehension. If victims are to rebuild their lives, and indeed those of their children, they need justice and they need redress,&#8221 said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein in a press release.

Victims have been subjected to rape and sexual assault, forced displacement, abduction, deprivation of liberty, slavery, forced religious conversion, and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. Women from the Yezidi and other minority communities have been especially vulnerable to abuses of human rights and violation of international humanitarian law.

The report notes that the Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government have taken some positive steps to promote women and children’s rights and to address the needs of those who have suffered abuses at the hands of ISIL.

However, the report says, the criminal justice system largely fails to ensure the appropriate protection of victims, requiring significant legislative and institutional changes to facilitate access to justice and to ensure the care and protection of victims in such proceedings.

The situation of hundreds of children born to women in ISIL-controlled areas without birth certificates or whose ISIL-issued documents are not accepted by the Government of Iraq or the Kurdistan Regional Government is also deeply troubling, the report says.

Birth registration requires the parents to present proof of marital status and two witnesses must confirm the circumstances of the child’s birth &#8211 exceedingly difficult in the case of children whose parents may be dead or missing; where the father’s identity is not known; where a child has been abandoned due to stigma or for those who live in IDP camps where no civil status offices or courts operate.

&#8220Children who were born in ISIL-controlled areas have the same legal rights as any other Iraqi citizen and the Government must ensure they are protected from marginalisation and abuse, neither exposed to discrimination through references on their birth certificate that they were born out of wedlock or have a father linked to ISIL, nor left unregistered and at risk of statelessness, exploitation and trafficking,&#8221 the High Commissioner stressed.

The report makes several recommendations on access to justice; provision of support and care for victims; information and counselling services to reunite separated families, and the importance of birth registration.