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	Yet another record year of civilian suffering in Afghanistan by ICRC, UN News, agencies   February 2017   Afghanistan: Six Red Cross workers delivering aid killed in ambush.   Six Afghan Red Cross aid workers have been killed in an ambush in the country’s north while travelling to a remote area to deliver humanitarian aid.   Three vehicles carrying eight International Committee of the Red Cross employees were travelling through Dasht-e Leili, a desert in Jowzjan province, when they came under fire, according to the provincial governor, Lotfullah Azizi. Three drivers and three other personnel were killed, and two are missing.   ICRC in Afghanistan confirmed the killings and said it was putting its activities across the country on hold while it assessed what had happened.   Its director-general, Yves Daccord, described the incident as “the worst attack against us since 20 years. We are all outraged and so sad.”   The ICRC vehicles were clearly marked when they were ambushed outside Turkman Qudoq village by militants. He said a local delegation of elders was investigating the incident.   The attack underscores the danger facing NGOs in Afghanistan. More humanitarian workers are attacked here than in any other country in the world. Proportionally, in terms of attack per aid worker, only South Sudan is more violent.   Fifteen aid workers were killed in Afghanistan last year, in more than 200 incidents of violence, kidnappings and killings directed against humanitarian organisations, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).   Northern Afghanistan in particular has become increasingly dangerous for aid workers. In 2013, militants shot and killed six employees of the French charity ACTED. In 2015, nine Afghan staff members with the Czech organisation People in Need were shot in a guesthouse in Balkh.   In a statement, the Taliban said they were not involved, calling the attack “the work of kidnappers”.   ICRC, which enjoys special protection under the Geneva Conventions, has traditionally not come under attack in Afghanistan. Its reputation of impartiality has allowed the group to work in areas inaccessible to others.   In 2012, the Afghan Taliban even issued a statement in support of ICRC after one of its aid workers was killed in Pakistan, commending ICRC for “truly serving the people”.   More recently, however, as aid workers have increasingly become targets in Afghanistan, ICRC has also suffered.   Feb 2017   Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict Annual Report 2016 from UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.   The United Nations called on all warring parties in Afghanistan to take urgent steps to halt the killing and maiming of civilians, as a new UN report issued today recorded the highest ever number of civilian casualties in a single year, including record figures for children killed and injured in 2016.   The report documents 11,418 conflict-related civilian casualties, including 3,498 killed and 7,920 injured. Of these, 3,512 were children - 923 dead and 2,589 injured, up 24 per cent on the previous highest recorded figure. The figures, recorded by UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), are the highest since the UN began systematically documenting civilian casualty figures in 2009.   “The killing and maiming of thousands of Afghan civilians is deeply harrowing and largely preventable,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan. “All parties to the conflict must take immediate concrete measures to protect the ordinary Afghan men, women and children whose lives are being shattered.”   Yamamoto, who is also head of UNAMA, condemned the unrelenting and devastating impact of ground engagements on civilians, as well as of the increasing number of large-scale suicide attacks that intentionally targeted civilians.   “Yet another record year of civilian suffering in Afghanistan,” he said. “Unless all parties to the conflict make serious efforts to review and address the consequences of their operations, the levels of civilian casualties, displacement and other types of human suffering are likely to remain at appallingly high levels.”   UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, said the casualty figures painted a picture of the most vulnerable sectors of society paying the highest price. “Children have been killed, blinded, crippled while playing with unexploded ordnance that is negligently left behind by parties to the conflict. Women continue to be brutally punished in parallel so-called ‘justice’ processes while religious minorities are targeted as they pray in their mosques,” Zeid said.   “And the consequences of each act of violence ripple through families and entire communities that are left broken, unable to sustain themselves and largely failing to obtain any semblance of justice or reparation. After nearly 40 years of constantly evolving armed conflict in Afghanistan, a Daesh franchise has now surfaced as an additional, deadly component. It is about time the various parties to the conflict ceased the relentless commission of war crimes and thought about the harm they are doing to their mothers, fathers, children and future generations by continuing to fuel this senseless, never-ending conflict,” said Zeid.   Yamamoto and Zeid called on all parties to minimize the use of explosive weapons in areas populated by civilians and to ensure explosive remnants of war are removed. They also stressed the need for accountability and justice for violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law.   “The continuation of attacks targeting civilians and indiscriminate attacks by Anti-Government Elements – in particular, IED and suicide attacks in civilian-populated areas is illegal, reprehensible and, in most cases, may amount to a war crime. It is imperative that the perpetrators, whoever they are, be held accountable for such acts,” the report states. http://bit.ly/2k1xdZY http://bit.ly/2k4QDgz   http://www.hrw.org/news/2018/05/08/no-one-should-see-such-day   17 March 2017   Yemen: ICRC strongly condemns civilian ship attack, calls for immediate investigation.   The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is shocked by last night''s attack on a civilian ship carrying around 150 passengers, including women and children, near the port of Hodeida.   The attack left 33 dead and 29 wounded, while other passengers are either still missing or in the care of local authorities. ICRC staff arrived at the port this morning to help survivors and give support to local hospitals.   "It was a heartbreaking scene. I saw many men, women and children either killed or horribly wounded," said the ICRC''s Eric Christopher Wyss at the scene. "Survivors told us that many of the passengers were refugees from Somalia or Yemen, fleeing conflict."   The circumstances surrounding the attack are still not clear. But according to international humanitarian law, civilians must not be attacked and warring parties must do everything feasible to verify that targets are military objectives. They must also take all possible measures to search for, collect and evacuate the wounded, sick and shipwrecked.   "We strongly condemn this attack and deplore such a tragic loss of life," said the ICRC''s director of operations, Dominik Stillhart. "These people were themselves fleeing conflict, in search of safety and a better life. We call on the warring parties to conduct an immediate investigation into what happened."   The wounded were transferred to hospitals in Hodeida. The ICRC recently provided medical supplies and medicine to local health facilities following a recent increase in fighting. Visit the related web page
	Girls burned to death under lock and key in Guatemala youth shelter by Reuters, New Yorker, Global Voices Guatemala   Mar 10, 2017   Girls burned to death under lock and key in Guatemala youth shelter. (Reuters)   A blaze that killed at least 37 young girls and maimed others at an overcrowded Guatemalan shelter for abused teens broke out in a tiny room they were locked in to control them after a protest at the center, witnesses said.   The inferno in the 16 square meter classroom packed with 52 teenage girls left survivors of the blaze with such severe injuries that burn specialists were flown in from the United States and medics said they needed hundreds of blood donors.   Hospital officials on Friday said two more girls had died overnight and that more than a dozen remain hospitalized in critical condition.   The government has sacked the director of the Virgen de la Asuncion home, temporarily closed the center, declared three days of mourning.   "The staff left the girls in an extremely reduced space, a four-meter by four-meter room, for 52 teenage girls," said Claudia Lopez, Guatemala''s deputy ombudsman for human rights on Thursday. "It was a terribly thought out decision."   The Virgen de la Asuncion home houses youths up to 18 years old on the outskirts of the municipality of San Jose Pinula, some 25 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of the capital Guatemala City.   Years of problems at the home boiled over on Tuesday when a group of teenagers complaining about the conditions inside the home protested and tried to escape, one eyewitness said.   Police captured most of those who had fled and they were separated from the hundreds of other young residents in the complex, according to an account written by the government''s human rights department and seen by Reuters.   During five hours of negotiations that evening, the leaders of the rebellion alleged abuse by the staff including the use of pepper spray as punishment for bad behavior, according to the document.   At around 1 am, the 52 girls were locked into a classroom and given thin mattresses to sleep on, local police chief Wilson Maldonado told a congressional commission. Boys involved in the trouble were kept in a separate area, an employee at the home said.   At about 9 am, police stationed outside the room noticed smoke seeping out, Maldonado said. However, one witness said the fire started 30 minutes earlier and police initially ignored the cries for help, thinking the girls were protesting.   "I heard shouting and loud noises all night," said a teenage girl who witnessed the protest in the lunch hall.. The fire was at about 8.30 am, the boys came running down to say that a girl had died," she said. "The police grabbed the boys and a carer began hitting them and telling them off for having left the room they were left in."   The Virgen de la Asuncion center has a history of abuse accusations documented by Guatemalan media. Over the last three years more than 250 of its residents have fled, newspaper reports said.   Guatemala has Latin America''s worst rates of child malnutrition. Street gangs like the Mara prey on minors. And, the Central American nation''s public institutions are chronically underfunded, impacted by corruption and widespread overcrowding.   "What happened in the secure home yesterday is just the tip of the iceberg of an entire system of not protecting children and teens in Guatemala," said Enrique Maldonaldo, a specialist in child studies at the Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Fiscales. "Guatemala has not been capable of guaranteeing a minimum level of social protection," he said.   http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-story-behind-the-fire-that-killed-forty-teen-age-girls-in-a-guatemalan-childrens-home http://www.unicef.org/media/media_95071.html http://globalvoices.org/2017/03/16/guatemala-mourns-dozens-of-girls-at-a-childrens-shelter-left-to-die-in-a-fire/
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