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	Human Rights Groups working in Middle East call on All Parties to Observe Laws of War by Human Rights Watch   Aug 2009   All parties in Iraq and elsewhere in conflicts in the Middle East should put an end to attacks that target or indiscriminately harm civilians, Human Rights Watch and a dozen other groups that work in the Middle East said today in a statement.   The groups issued the statement following coordinated truck bombings in Baghdad on August 19, 2009, that killed at least 95 civilians and wounded about 600 others, and two truck bombings in northern Iraq and a series of bomb attacks in Baghdad on August 10 that left at least 48 civilians dead and about 250 wounded.   "Civil society leaders and activists in each and every country and community should be speaking out against attacks targeting civilians," said Abderrahim Sabir, Civilian Protection Initiative leader in the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch.   On August 10, 2009, two truck bombings in Northern Iraq and a series of bomb attacks in Baghdad killed at least 48 civilians and wounded around 250 others. A few days earlier, on August 7, another series of attacks in Mosul and Baghdad left more than 43 people dead and hundreds wounded. These are only the latest in a series of deadly attacks against Iraqi civilians that began in June. The victims of these terrible attacks are ordinary women, children, and men.   We, human rights organizations and activists working in the Middle East and North Africa, join the mourning of their loved ones, and express our grave concern about these continuing attacks in Iraq, and from time to time elsewhere in the region, that target or indiscriminately harm civilians.   We call on all parties to take steps to put a decisive end to these murderous practices.   We oppose such attacks without regard to whether the perpetrators are states or non-state armed groups, without regard to the ethnic, religious, or national identity of the victims, and without regard to the political goals of the attackers. We call on civil society leaders and activists in each and every country and community to speak out forcefully against all attacks of this nature.   Over the past several years, hardly a single country in the region has been immune to attacks that deliberately targeted civilians – we have seen them in Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Gaza, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.   All parties should condemn such attacks against civilians without reservation. There can be no exceptions – whether the victim is Shi`a or Sunni, Christian or Jew, Palestinian or Israeli. In the same way, there can be no exceptions because of the cause for which the perpetrators fight and kill – combating insurgency or struggling for national liberation. It makes no difference either if the perpetrator is the "underdog." And there can be no attacks targeting civilians as reprisal for similar behavior by an adversary.   The requirement to distinguish between civilians and combatants during armed conflict is a moral imperative in every culture, no less in Arab and Islamic cultures.   The core international humanitarian law principle of distinction – the obligation of any party to an armed conflict to distinguish at all times between military objectives, which may be attacked, and civilians, which may never be attacked so long as they are not directly participating in hostilities – is codified in the Geneva Conventions and other treaties, is recognized in customary international humanitarian law and international judicial decisions, and is otherwise endorsed by many countries in their legislation and military manuals.   Ordering or carrying out attacks that target or indiscriminately harm civilians during armed conflict are war crimes. During peacetime and war, crimes that target a specific civilian population, when carried out in a widespread or systematic manner, are crimes against humanity.   We therefore call on all parties to conflicts, states and non-state armed groups, to declare an immediate and unconditional halt to all attacks that target or indiscriminately harm civilians, whether in reprisal or for any other purpose. And we urge leaders and activists in every country to insist that these attacks come to an end, and to hold accountable those responsible. Visit the related web page
	Let"s have more ambulances and less tanks by Nils Kastberg UNICEF representative in Sudan Sudan   Oct 2009   Nils Kastberg: I will start with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Four years ago, there was a lot of progress in terms of human development that is still needed to really make people feel that the CPA is generating tangible progress for people. There is some good news. We had millions of children across Sudan who were reached in terms of measles and polio. We have distributed millions of bed nets which will reduce malaria. We carried out nutrition education – we recently launched a global hand washing campaign. All of these things are saving the lives of children.   But still, I would say, that we have three tremendous life or death challenges.   One: we have 305,000 children under five years of age that die every year from preventable causes, which could be just a matter of arriving in time. Of those, 110,000 die in their first 28 days of life. We are arriving four weeks late to save their lives. It is not a question of what we do in five years; it is a question of what we do in those four weeks after the birth of a child.   The second point is that this is one of the more dangerous places to be a mother. About 26,000 women could die every year because of bringing a new Sudanese to life. As a comparison, in the entire Latin America and Caribbean region with 550 million people, less than 10,000 mothers die giving birth. Here in Sudan, we are talking about 26,000 women dying because of giving birth. Preventable … it is a question of reaching in time; it is a question of stopping the bleeding in time; it is a question of having the health staff where they should be; it is a question of the health staff washing their hands it is a question of her being close to a place where she can receive care that could save her life at the moment of giving birth.   I would like to use an image: if 26,000 Sudanese soldiers die of a strange disease every year, what would the Sudanese President do? What would all the cabinet members be asked to do? What would every state governor and all the ministers be asked to do to help reduce the death of 26,000 soldiers? What would the Government of South Sudan do if 26,000 SPLA soldiers die every year? It doesn"t happen to soldiers; it happens to women who are not armed but are just bringing into world a new Sudanese life. I think it is very important that we start getting our priorities right. I was recently in a town where there were 20 tanks but only one ambulance which could only operate six months of the year because in the other six months, it rains too much for the ambulance to move and there were no boats that could function as ambulances. So it is our priority to look after Sudanese lives … or what is it that we are looking after?   A third element is that there are almost six million kids who are in school but almost three million are out of school. I just came from the launching of a campaign that I hope would have a big impact which is trying to pay the debt for those that did not receive education in time and it will look at the question of education to those that missed out school and hope to reach one million over the whole country. But we are lagging behind because every year there are three million children that should be there that are not there.   I think that it is possible over the next three years – and that certainly is a commitment on my part – to see how we can reduce the below-five mortality rates by one thirds – from 305,000 to 200,000. I think it is feasible to do so. What are the reasons? Malaria for instance is a huge killer. If we can get the bed nets distributed and get them to be used – there are many that have the bed nets and are not using them. We could get better quality of water, and so on. I think that in three years we could significantly reduce mortality rates, I hope, from 305,000 to 200,000 – but it calls for collective efforts. Secondly, I would hope that we could make a strong effort to reduce maternal mortality rates from 26,000 to at least reduce it by a third.   Finally, could we reduce those out of school by a third? I think it is feasible. But none of this is possible if we continue with the present sense that we are moving towards inevitability of increased levels of conflict. Sudan, more than ever, needs peace; it needs every citizen to feel, "I am prepared to pay the price for peace," rather than continue paying the price for war. We have to remember that most of the violence around the world, most of the wars, most of the misuse of state budgets, is caused by men and not by women. I think we need a call to all Sudanese men to assume a greater responsibility of understanding how their actions cause harm to women and children and I hope that that can make a huge difference. Let"s have more ambulances and less tanks.
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