Displaced People etc.

Rebel forces advancing on a major city. Accusations of continuing attacks. The cease-fire in South Sudan appears to not be holding.

Negotiators for the two warring sides appeared to put a plug in some of the vicious violence by signing a cease-fire on Jan. 23. But the fighting has continued since then, and may even be ramping up.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday said he is deeply concerned about "ongoing fighting and skirmishes" in two states inside South Sudan.

An internal security report from an aid group forum in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, said new fighting has been reported outside of Malakal, the capital of Upper Nile, an oil-producing state. Aid groups are being advised to exercise extreme caution in the city because of nearby rebel forces.

"The exact numbers and positions of this force remains unknown, but it is thought that the city is partially surrounded from the south, west and east. Furthermore, it has been suggested that were an attack to occur, the objective would not be looting but revenge for alleged abuses by government forces in Malakal's recent battles," the report said.

The same report said an attack by rebels north of Bor, a contested city in Jonglei state, is alleged to have killed more than 60 people, including many civilians. Authorities were not able to provide any more details from a region where reliable information is difficult to come by.

The U.N.'s leader for humanitarian affairs, Valerie Amos, upgraded the South Sudan crisis to a Level 3 emergency on Wednesday. On Tuesday the top U.N. aid official in the country warned of the potential of famine in the country if continuing violence prevents residents from planting and harvesting crops.

Peace talks were supposed to re-start in Ethiopia this week but have gotten off to a slow start because rebels say not all elements of the cease-fire deal are being implemented. On Wednesday negotiators were moving from the capital, Addis Ababa, to the resort city of Debre Zeit, while Kenya's president said seven South Sudanese political detainees being hosted in Kenya were to fly to Ethiopia on Wednesday for the talks, a key rebel demand.

Nhial Deng Nhaial, head of the government negotiating team in Ethiopia, said the government of South Sudan has honoured the cease-fire commitment.

"However, we are deeply disappointed and dismayed by the flagrant and repeated violations of the agreement by the other party," he said in an interview Wednesday. He added there needs to be the urgent formation of a monitoring and verification team that would monitor the cease-fire deal.

A day earlier, Gen. Taban Deng Gai, the chief negotiator for the rebels, said he was profoundly disappointed in South Sudan President Salva Kiir for violating the cease-fire. The rebels want Ugandan forces providing air support to South Sudan to leave the country. There is no indication that will happen anytime soon.

The U.N. secretary-general also condemned the use of cluster bombs, remnants of which he said were found last week by U.N. anti-mine staff. Such bombs are unreliable and indiscriminate and have the potential to cause long-term danger to civilians and vehicles, Ban's spokesman said in a statement.

South Sudan descended into chaos in mid-December as fighting broke out between troops loyal to the government and rebels who support the former vice-president. Thousands have been killed in violent rampages that often have taken on ethnic dimensions.

South Sudan peacefully broke away from Sudan in 2011 after more than 20 years of civil war but had lingering internal grievances that were never addressed.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders on Tuesday said the deteriorating security situation around Leer in Unity state is having "devastating consequences" for thousands of people hiding in the countryside.

"The situation on the ground is chaotic and hostile and it is very difficult to know where the civilians have fled to from Leer," says Raphael Gorgeu, the group's South Sudan head of mission.

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the number of people displaced by the raging civil war in Syria is expected to nearly double to 6.5 million by the end of 2014, according to a top UN official.

Nearly 2.5 million others have already sought refuge in neighbouring countries, including Lebanon and Turkey, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) Regional Coordinator for Syria Amin Awad told reporters here yesterday.

Awad said the number of people displaced is expected to nearly double to 6.5 million by the end of the year fr ..

Borei Keila occupiers violently removed
Fri, 14 February 2014
Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Bennett Murray
AT LEAST six people, including a pregnant woman, were injured this morning when security forces armed with batons and shields descended on the capital’s Borei Keila community, forcibly removing families who had occupied an unfinished building since Wednesday.

After blocking off the road into Borei Keila at about 7am, helmeted military police and district security guards stormed the site, where many of those violently evicted in 2012 live in tents among piles of garbage.

Authorities kicked a woman sleeping next to the building where evictees had taken up residence, aggravating a crowd of mostly woman.

The two groups clashed, with authorities striking residents with batons, before both groups threw rocks at each other.


Hasok Chinda, 35, a woman who is seven months’ pregnant, said she was beaten in the clash.

“I’m so angry, because I have a [land title], but I stay in the [tents]. Why? The way the municipality and City Hall talk about all the people at Borei Keila, it’s wrong.”

Choa Sophea, told the Post that she had been feeding her newborn baby when she was struck in the face and then beaten unconscious.

Rights group Licadho issued a statement saying six people had been injured.

Naly Pilorge, director of Licadho, told the Post that her organisation had treated some of the injured and sent three beaten women to a clinic for further treatment.

Chinda – due to give birth in just a couple of months – was expected to fully recovery, Pilorge added.

Dozens of families had occupied the unfinished Building 9 without permission since Wednesday, claiming the authorities were marking out smaller parcels of land than what they had promised to them.

Representatives of the families, violently evicted from their homes more than two years ago, said yesterday they had expected the authorities to forcibly remove them.

Phnom Penh governor Pa Socheatvong had earlier said that authorities could not be held responsible if “any problem occurred” at Borei Keila, because they were occupying the building without permission, according to villagers and City Hall.

After the clash, a fence was soon being constructed in front of Building 9, owned by developer Phan Imex, the company that failed to honour a contract signed in 2003 to house the villagers.

Opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua was present at the crackdown and helped rush a man, who was bleeding profusely, to safety.

“I was trying to help this young guy . . . to get out of there,” she said. “He said he had just been standing by.”

Sochua condemned the violence, describing it as “the same old thing – forcing people to leave their homes and cracking down on them”.

“Is it necessary, legal and proportionate? We have people paid to injure, maim and kill,” she said, referring more widely to other state-inflicted violence this year. “It’s not the solution.”

City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche defended the incident, saying security forces had been responding to a complaint lodged by Phan Imex that families were occupying one of its buildings.

In such circumstances, he said, violence was “inevitable”.

“When it comes to administrative actions likes these, managing not to have violence is difficult,” he said, adding that it came from both sides. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHANE WORRELL