• Life and death for those surrounded by Russia’s forces; 
  • Russian use of banned anti-personnel mines confirmed; 
  • Don’t punish all Afghans for abuses of the Taliban; 
  • Iran blocking women from watching football; 
  • Germany to stop cooperation with abusive Libyan coast guard.
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The situation is dire for civilians trapped in cities and towns besieged by Russian forces in Ukraine. In the northern city of Chernihiv, with a pre-war population of 285,000, there is limited access to running water, electricity, and heat since early March 2022, when Russian forces escalated their assault on the city. The conditions in Chernihiv resemble those in the southeastern port city of Mariupol, where the situation dramatically deteriorated, and residents – those who remain of the city’s original 450,000 – shelter in basements with little to no access to running water, power, heat, medical care, and mobile phone service as Russian forces lay siege to the city.

Smaller population centers in Ukraine are also facing horrors amidst the onslaught. The story of Olena and her family tells a harrowing tale from Bucha, a city of 37,000 roughly 30 kilometers northwest of Kyiv and about 3 kilometers from the military airport in Hostomel. Advancing Russian forces had sought control of Bucha early in the renewed war, and the battle for Bucha devastated the city and its inhabitants. Relentless shelling trapped people in their homes and shelters. There was no electricity and no gas, which meant no heat in the frigid winter. Olena, a 43-year-old healthcare lawyer, watched it happen…

To add to the horrors, Russian forces are using banned anti-personnel mines. Human Rights Watch has confirmed their use in the eastern Kharkiv region. The mine in question is a newly developed type that is equipped with a seismic sensor to detect an approaching person and eject an explosive charge into the air. The subsequent detonation of the charge and metal fragments it projects can cause death and injury within a 16-meter radius. Because these weapons do not differentiate between combatants and civilians, their deployment would likely be against the “laws of war”.

The Taliban are once again abusing Afghanistan’s women and girls en masse, ignoring their fundamental rights to education and movement with extreme discriminatory measures to enforce their misogynist ideology. However, donor countries meeting today to discuss aid to the country should be careful not to deepen the suffering of Afghanistan’s women in any effort to punish the Taliban.

Iranian authorities prevented dozens of Iranian women from entering a football stadium in the city of Mashhad on Tuesday, possibly using excessive force. The women had hoped to watch the FIFA World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Lebanon. FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, should use its leverage with the Iranian authorities to demand that they urgently overturn Iran’s discriminatory stadium ban on women and ensure accountability for abuses.

Finally, some encouraging news: the German government has announced that its military will stop providing training to Libya’s coast guard, recognizing the serious abuses of migrants by Libyan authorities in detention centers. Between January and September alone last year, Libyan authorities intercepted more than 27,551 people at sea and forced them back to Libya, where they face inhumane detention conditions, sexual violence, torture, forced labor, extortion, and death. In cooperating with the authorities and sending migrants back to the country, the EU has been complicit in these gross human rights violations for years, so Germany’s move marks an important, better-late-than-never shift. Now, we need to see the EU and other member states take steps in the same direction.

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