News Round up 07/07/17

Hart News

• Come and join us on the evening of the 19th in London for our Thank You Evening for our supporters, volunteers and ambassadors! Baroness Cox will be giving an update on our partners and there will be plenty of opportunity to talk to Caroline and other HART staff and supporters. Click here for more information. RSVP to ziallo.gogui@hart-uk.org

Burma

• Burma will reportedly refuse entry to members of a United Nations probe focusing on allegations of killings, rape and torture by security forces against Rohingya Muslims, according to Kyaw Zeya, a permanent secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Whilst the Burmese government continues to refuse the creation of a UN led investigation of the situation in Rakhine state, 6 UN delegates have met with Aung San Suu Kyi this week after visiting villages that suffered arson during Myanmar Army security clearance operations
• The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, called for freedom of movement and access to services for displaced persons in Rakhine State at the end of his first visit to Myanmar that took place amid an uptick of violence in the region

• With a change in Thai law, thousands of Burmese migrant workers in Thailand are fleeing back over the border to Burma – the new labour regulations adopted by the military government sparked fear and panic among the migrant community
• Thailand’s junta delayed on Tuesday parts of a new labour law aimed at regulating the foreign workforce after the decree sparked panic and prompted more than 60,000 foreign workers to flee from the country
• Following his visit to Burma, his first overseas trip as International Development Minister, Alistair Burt has reaffirmed UK commitment to Burma

Nigeria

• Despite recent government forces’ victories, Boko Haram continues to attack civillians and villages across Nigeria –  last weekend, Boko Haram Islamic extremists killed at least nine people and have taken some 40 others hostage in an attack on a village in South East Nigeria

• Nigeria’s First Lady, Aisha Buhari, is due to visit her husband, the President of Nigeria, who is still receiving treatment for an unspecified medical condition in London. Buhari left for the UK for the second time this year on May 7 for a second round of medical treatment. No date was given for his return
• Speaking at the 2017 Nigerian Army Day celebration held at the Army Resource Centre, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai, said the military has done well in several military operations in different geo-political zones of the country, whilst sounding a very strong note of warning to advocates of the country’s breakup, saying it will continue to work hard in ensuring that the country is kept as one

South Sudan

• Men wearing South Sudanese military uniforms have launched two raids on a hamlet over the border in Uganda in recent weeks, residents said, stealing cattle and raising fears that the conflict in the youngest nation in the world is spreading across the border
• The UN has warned of an impending cholera crisis in South Sudan whilst draught and conflict continue
• A new Amnesty report highlights the atrocities being committed by the South Sudan government forces and their associated militias –  reports of men being locked in huts and burned to death, and of machete attacks being carried out in remote villages have been made

• A new report from the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has shown that a shortage of food and aid has forced displaced Western South Sudanese to survive on wild plants and fruit – In a recent visit to the area, HART witnessed a similar situation in the Nuba Mountains, just across the border in Sudan

Sudan

• Cholera, or as the Sudanese government names it, Watery Diarrhoea, continues to spread across Sudan, now hitting camps for displaced people in South Sudan
• Sudan’s Vice-President, Hassabo Mohamed Abdel-Rahman, Tuesday has asked South Sudan’s First Vice-President Taban Deng Gai to stop all forms of support to Sudanese rebel groups – Juba has been always accused by Sudan, various observer groups and armed oppositions of harbouring Sudanese rebels and in fact letting them fight alongside its own force. The government in Juba has always denied the accusations