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	In Kasai, 'even the birds had stopped singing' by Dr Joanne Liu President, Medicines Sans Frontieres/Doctors without Borders Democratic Republic of Congo   August 2017   MSF international president Joanne Liu has recently returned from a visit to Kananga city, in Kasai Central province, Democratic Republic of Congo. She shares her impressions of the ongoing crisis there.   During my recent visit to Kasai I went with our teams to a rural part of the region that has been particularly affected by violence. Villages and fields have been burned, and several mass graves have been discovered. A man approached us and said very simply, 'The violence here was so terrible that we didn't hear the birds sing for days'.   Yet when I first arrived, I got the impression that nothing had happened there. Kananga is a fairly typical, bustling Congolese town of around 750,000 people. The markets were full and loud music played from the small shops. This was not the same situation that my colleagues discovered in March. Back then, silence filled the town. Not a single school or shop was open. Fear was everywhere. In the end, I realised that the normality I was witnessing in the town was similar to the experience someone has visiting a loved one's grave a year after their burial, when the grass has started to regrow over the tomb. Life has taken hold again.   I remember seeing a teenage girl laughing and running after other children along the hospital corridors. It was as if nothing had happened to her. But several weeks before, her sister had been decapitated in front of her eyes. The armed men took her away and kept her tied up on the floor for ten days. They raped her so many times it's impossible to count. 'If you speak, we'll cut your head off like we did to your sister' they told her. What is clear is that the people of Kasai have lived through so much, it's barely imaginable.   The crisis in Kasai started a year ago, but it's taken a lot of time for us to comprehend its magnitude. During the worst months, no humanitarian aid arrived there and it's still extremely limited. Why didn't communities ask for help earlier? A village elder replied: 'When you are lying on the ground and people are shooting at you, you can't get up and run'. MSF only started to work in Kananga in March - very late, too late - and today we are still conscious that we are only just scratching the surface of the problem.   The wounds of the patients that we treat tell us about the extreme levels of violence that the people of Kasai are facing. Out of fear, some seriously injured people have waited days, or even weeks before trying to see a doctor. One of the patients our surgical team treated had his hand cut off. He hid in the bush for several weeks, afraid of being found and killed, and treating his stump with traditional medicines. By the time he arrived at our hospital, an abscess had formed and a serious infection had developed in the bones of his forearm. His chances of avoiding further amputation are slim.   If our mental health teams ask what has happened, our patients never tell us who has inflicted this violence, the fear is always there. But they tell us their stories, which are invariably awful: your husband decapitated in front of your eyes; your wife raped in front of you and your children while you are tied up, forced to watch. But they only tell us their story once. Afterwards, they always ask the same questions: how can I earn a living, feed my family, rebuild a home. What is my future?   The crisis in Kasai is like a forest fire during the driest summer months; one spark in August 2016 has ignited the whole region. Millions of people have been caught in the crossfire of militia attacks, army repression, and even localised conflicts which have nothing to do with the initial spark, but have exploded due to the chaos that has reigned. And if today Kananga is returning to normal, very worrying sounds are still coming from other places in this region which is the size of Italy. The lack of access due to security issues makes it difficult to tell the difference between rumour and reality. What is for certain is that, even if from the outskirts it seems as if nothing has happened, a human tragedy has unfolded and is still unfolding.   (July 2017: Within less than a year, the Greater Kasai region in the centre of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was transformed from a peaceful area in a troubled country to one of the most serious humanitarian crises in the world today. Unrest in this area the size of Italy began in August 2016, when the Congolese armed forces killed a local chief. Within ten months: 52 mass graves have been discovered (There is no reliable number of the number of dead and wounded during this conflict) 1.3 million people have fled their homes (which places the DRC as the country with the largest number of refugees and displaced this year, ahead of Syria)   Up to 400,000 children are at risk of acute malnutrition according to UNICEF. Because people are not safe enough to work in fields to grow food the harvest, and therefore people's main source of food and income is threatened. The ongoing violence and instability have drastically reduced the availability of medical services and treatment, as well as access to medical facilities.   Since April 2017, MSF has run its own facility in part of the Ministry of Health's Kananga General Hospital. The team has rehabilitated the operating theatre and manages a surgery ward with a capacity for 49 inpatients. Outside Kananga, insecurity and violence are worsening. Local health centres are deserted or lack medicines and staff. An MSF team is operating mobile clinics to reach the population in the conflict-affected zones and provide medical assistance. Many displaced people lost access to their income sources due to the insecurity in the area and suffer from nutritional deficiencies).   http://www.msf.org/latest-portal http://www.unhcr.org/en-au/news/latest/2017/7/596765c84/violence-engulfs-congos-once-peaceful-kasai-region.html http://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/850000-children-displaced-waves-violent-conflict-greater-kasai http://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/drc-malnutrition-threat-grows-aid-groups-leave http://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/food-insecurity-soars-conflict-ridden-democratic-republic-congo http://unocha.exposure.co/kasai-in-crisis Visit the related web page
	The prohibition of torture is absolute and can never be justified under any circumstances by Nils Melzer UN Special Rapporteur on Torture   June 2017   At a time when the absolute prohibition of torture is often challenged in the name of national security across the globe, a group of UN human rights experts strongly reaffirms that the practice of torture is a severe violation of human rights and call on States to eradicate the conditions and circumstances conducive to its practice.   To mark the International Day for the Victims of Torture on 26 June, the UN experts highlight that prohibition of torture is absolute and can never be justified under any circumstances.   'The absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment may well constitute the most fundamental achievement in the history of mankind', said the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer.   'Any tolerance or acquiescence concerning such practices, however exceptional and well argued, will inevitably lead down a slippery slope towards complete arbitrariness and brute force, in disgrace for all of humanity'.   The experts highlighted that the right to be free from torture cannot be lifted by States under any circumstances, and noted that its use destroys the fundamental human dignity not only of the victims, but also of the perpetrators.   'Torture destroys lives and is one of the most brutal human rights violations', said Jens Modvig, who chairs the UN Committee against Torture. 'States should be reminded that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever may be invoked to justify acts of torture. The absolute character of the prohibition against torture applies in any case, including in the context of fighting terrorism'.   The experts said each State had a responsibility to act, using international conventions and protocols which were already in place.   'Upholding the absolute prohibition of torture must be a priority for all States. However, not all States condemn it as adamantly as they should. States must adopt effective measures to prevent acts of torture. The system created by the Convention against Torture and its Optional Protocol provides powerful means for doing so; therefore we encourage all States to ratify these instruments', said Sir Malcolm Evans, Chairperson of the Subcommittee on prevention of torture.   In addition to the requirement to prohibit torture, the experts also reminded States of the devastating consequences of torture and of their obligations to provide redress and rehabilitation to the victims.   The Chair of the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture, Gaby Aguilar, highlighted: 'States are obliged to ensure that the absolute prohibition of torture is fully enforced. It is equally important that States observe their obligation to provide effective and prompt redress and rehabilitation to victims of torture and their families by making available the urgently needed resources to respond to the plight of thousands of torture victims around the world'.   Ending torture requires a renewed commitment from every UN Member State to eradicate the conditions and circumstances conducive to its practice, the experts stressed. Every country must incorporate legal safeguards into domestic laws to prevent these conditions from arising, and to put the rights of the victims to redress and rehabilitation at the centre of these efforts.   * This joint statement was issued by the UN Committee against Torture, the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and the Board of Trustees of the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/torture/srtorture/pages/srtortureindex.aspx Visit the related web page
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