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HART Weekly Round Up 13 October 2017

13 October 2017

An evening with Vardan

This Wednesday, HART hosted an evening with the inspirational director of the Lady Cox Rehabilitation Centre, Vardan Tadevosyan. He gave our supporters an update on the wonderful work that his centre does for the disabled in Nagorno-Karabakh. One supporter who was helping to rebuild the bombed out building in Stepanakert in 1995, accidentally returned to England with the only front door key. He kept it all this time and 22 years later returned it to Vardan on Wednesday night!

Baroness Cox and our partner Vardan having his front door key returned after 22 years!

Questions in the House of Lords

Baroness Caroline Cox speaking in parliament.

On 12 October this week Baroness Cox spoke in the House of Lords on Sri Lanka in response to a question asked about what assessment the UK government have made of the progress made by the coalition government of Sri Lanka in meeting the requirements on reconciliation established by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

 

Baroness Cox also mentioned the situation in Sudan:

 

“In urging Her Majesty’s Government to offer a hand of friendship to Sri Lanka now, I will go off-piste for a moment but in a way which I think is not irrelevant. The United States is currently lifting sanctions against the Government of Sudan—an initiative supported by the United Kingdom—while the Government in Khartoum continue to oppress their own citizens in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, as well as perpetrate a catalogue of violations of the fundamental freedoms and human rights of their people elsewhere throughout the nation, with a President indicted by the International Criminal Court. I am not asking the Minister to comment on Sudan in this debate but I wish to put on record my concern that President al-Bashir has made no commitments similar to those made by the President of Sri Lanka.”

 

To read Baroness Cox’s response in full or to read the entire debate, click here.

 

In upcoming business, Baroness Cox is scheduled to speak again in the House of Lords on 1 November 2017 to ask an Oral Question about ‘Establishing an International Legal Task Force to gather evidence on sexual violence as a tactic of terrorism’. Click here for more information about Baroness Cox’s parliamentary work.

 

News Round up

 

Burma

Min Aung Hlaing describe the Rohingya as being not native to Burma, and said the number of refugees is exaggerated (Reuters)

Nagorno-Karabakh

Soldiers along the Karabakh front line (PAN)

Nigeria

  • The majority of the 1.8 million internally displaced persons in Borno State said they are still scared of going back to their communities months after the military liberated them from Boko Haram control. The main fears are about the overall security situation in Nigeria and even if this were to improve, many people interviewed said their houses had been destroyed.
IDP camp in Nigeria. (The Guardian Nigeria)

South Sudan

  • In South Sudan, famine still looms. While South Sudan is no longer technically experiencing famine, the reality on the ground remains dire. An estimated 6 million people — more than half the population — are at risk, and 1.7 million people require immediate assistance. On Monday 16 October we will be raising awareness for World Food Day with a new blog about South Sudan’s famine and food crisis.
A mother and her severely malnourished child in South Sudan. (UNICEF)

Sudan

Abdel Aziz al-Hilu at the SPLM-N conference in October (Sudan Tribune)

Uganda

Children in Karamoja eating food supplied by Unicef. (The Observer)

 

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