Here at Enough, we often swap emails with interesting articles and feature stories that we come across in our favorite publications and on our favorite websites. We wanted to share some of these stories with you as part of our effort to keep you up to date on what you need to know in the world of anti-genocide and crimes against humanity work.
Next week, the International Criminal Court will open a hearing to assess the charges against Bahar Idriss Abu Garda, a rebel leader from Darfur accused of being involved in a 2007 attack that left 12 African Union peacekeepers dead. The hearing is the first step in what would be the ICC’s first trial related to crimes in Darfur, so to prepare for this momentous occasion, Human Rights Watch prepared this useful Q&A to give some background about the case and about how the ICC process will work.
Scroll through this moving slideshow of snapshots taken by Somali teenagers of their everyday life. The pictures, compiled by the Danish Refugee Council and published by the BBC, come from various regions of the country and thus represent the variety of precarious situations Somali civilians find themselves in today. I especially like this photo taken by Zahra, 19, of her family in their makeshift home on the Afgooye corridor, where many Somalis from Mogadishu have fled:
Yesterday, in honor of Blog Action Day (which we should have taken part in… calendar marked for next year), Michelle at Change.org’s Stop Genocide blog wrote about the impact of climate change (this year’s action day theme) on dwindling resources that often spark and/or exacerbate violent conflict.
Actress Sienna Miller traveled to eastern Congo last spring to draw attention to the unprecedented violence against women in the midst of the conflict there. A video released this week by Take Part documents Miller’s visits with survivors and discussions with the well-known Dr. Mukwege of Panzi Hospital in South Kivu. It’s a very thoughtful account that plays out over eight minutes, the rate at which another women in Congo is raped.
The World Is Witness blog continued its coverage of the experiences of ex-combatants in Burundi with this profile of Joseph. The 26-year-old, who has ambitions to become a businessman, told blogger Michael Graham about what motivated his on-and-off allegiance to the rebel group for 16 years.