UN rights chief seeks $500m in 2025, warning lives are at risk/node/2588418/middle-east
UN rights chief seeks $500m in 2025, warning lives are at risk
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk appealed on Thursday for $500m in funding for 2025 to support its work investigating human rights abuses around the world, from Syria to Sudan, warning that lives hang in the balance. (AFP/File)
UN rights chief seeks $500m in 2025, warning lives are at risk
The annual appeal is for donations beyond the allocated UN funds from member states’ fees
“In 2025, we expect no let-up in major challenges to human rights,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk told member states in a speech at the UN in Geneva
Updated 30 January 2025
Reuters
GENEVA: The UN human rights chief appealed on Thursday for $500 million in funding for 2025 to support its work investigating human rights abuses around the world, from Syria to Sudan, warning that lives hang in the balance.
The UN human rights office (OHCHR) has been grappling with chronic funding shortages that many expect will be exacerbated by cuts to US foreign aid by President Donald Trump.
US funding for OHCHR has gone to monitoring human rights violations in northern Ethiopia after the 2020-2022 civil war and peace-building programs in Colombia, the US Agency for International Development website showed.
The annual appeal is for donations beyond the allocated UN funds from member states’ fees, which make up just a fraction of the office’s needs.
“In 2025, we expect no let-up in major challenges to human rights,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk told member states in a speech at the UN in Geneva.
“I am very concerned that if we do not reach our funding targets in 2025, we will leave people ... to struggle and possibly fail, without adequate support,” he said.
He said any shortfall would mean more people remain in illegal detention; governments could continue with discriminatory policies; violations may go undocumented; and human rights defenders could lose protection.
“In short, lives are at stake,” he said, adding that his office last year helped release over 3,000 people in arbitrary detention and supported more than 10,000 survivors of modern slavery and over 49,000 survivors of torture and their families.
A number of countries including the European Union voiced support for OHCHR’s work in the meeting, with China saying it was willing to continue voluntary funding, which in previous years has amounted to about $4 million.
The human rights office gets about 5 percent of the regular UN budget, but the majority of its funding comes voluntarily in response to its annual appeal.
Western states typically give the most, with the United States donating $35 million last year, or about 15 percent of the total received in 2024, followed by the European Commission, UN data from end-November showed. Still, the office received only about half of the $500 million it sought last year.
US deputy Mideast envoy says Hezbollah must not be part of Lebanon government
Updated 11 sec ago
AFP
Beirut: The US deputy special envoy for the Middle East Friday said that Hezbollah’s presence in Lebanon’s new government was a red line, welcoming the end of the Iran-backed group’s “reign of terror.” “We have set clear red lines in the United States that they (Hezbollah) won’t be able to terrorize the Lebanese people, and that includes by being a part of the government,” Morgan Ortagus said after meeting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Beirut, adding: “the end of Hezbollah’s reign of terror in Lebanon and around the world has started and it’s over.”
Al-Qaeda in Yemen says senior official killed in blast
Abu Yusuf Al-Muhammadi Al-Hadrami died when a motorcycle packed with explosives detonated near where he worked in Marib
Updated 59 min 33 sec ago
AFP
Dubai: A senior member of Al-Qaeda in Yemen has been killed in a bomb blast, according to a statement from the extremist group behind a string of high-profile attacks.
Abu Yusuf Al-Muhammadi Al-Hadrami died when a motorcycle packed with explosives detonated near where he worked in Marib, east of the rebel-held capital Sanaa.
Washington regards the group, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as most dangerous branch of group
Born in 2009, AQAP grew and developed in the chaos of Yemen’s war.
It has been responsible for multiple attacks, including the deadly 2000 bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Aden, which killed 17 US military personnel.
In 2015, AQAP claimed that two French gunmen who massacred 12 people in an attack on the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine were acting on its behalf.
US aid freeze worsening Syria camp conditions: HRW
On January 24, four days after US President Donald Trump returned to power, NGOs linked to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) received a letter asking them to cease all activities
Updated 07 February 2025
AFP
Beirut: Human Rights Watch warned Friday that US aid suspensions could worsen “life-threatening conditions” in camps holding relatives of suspected Daesh terrorists in northeast Syria, urging Washington to maintain support.
Kurdish-run camps and prisons in the region still hold around 56,000 people with alleged or perceived links to the Daesh group, years after the jihadists’ territorial defeat.
They include jihadist suspects locked up in prisons, as well as the wives and children of IS fighters held in the Al-Hol and Roj internment camps.
“The US government’s suspension of foreign aid to non-governmental organizations operating in these camps is exacerbating life-threatening conditions, risking further destabilization of a precarious security situation,” HRW said in a statement.
The rights group said the aid freeze could “limit provision of essential services for camp residents,” citing international humanitarian workers.
On January 24, four days after US President Donald Trump returned to power, NGOs linked to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) received a first letter asking them to cease all activities funded by the agency.
A week later, another letter, seen by AFP, authorized them to resume certain missions intended for “life-saving humanitarian assistance.”
The orders have left aid groups in the northeast “unsure how to proceed with deliveries of essential goods, like kerosene and water, further exacerbating pre-existing shortages,” the statement said.
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio should continue US assistance to organizations providing essential lifesaving assistance in northeast Syria,” the group said.
Following the January 24 order, HRW said Blumont, an organization responsible for camp management in Al Hol and Roj, suspended activities and withdrew all staff, including guards.
A few days later, the group received a two-week exemption allowing it to work.
Al-Hol is northeast Syria’s largest internment camp, with more than 40,000 detainees from 47 countries.
The vast majority of Al-Hol and Roj residents are women and children living in dire conditions.
HRW also said that “any political settlement in the region should include ending the arbitrary detention of those with alleged Daesh ties and their families.”
“Thousands of lives, many of them children, are hanging in the balance, and the indefensible status quo of the last six years should not be allowed to continue,” said Hiba Zayadin of Human Rights Watch.
The call comes amid talks between Syria’s new authorities and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) over the group’s future and as clashes rage in the north between the Kurdish-led group and Turkish-backed factions.
Doubling down on his proposal, Trump says Israel would hand over Gaza to the US after fighting is over
Trump has said he aims to take over and develop the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East”
Proposal comes just as Israel and Hamas expected to begin talks on second stage of ceasefire deal
Updated 07 February 2025
Reuters
JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Thursday Israel would hand over Gaza to the United States after fighting was over and the enclave’s population was already resettled elsewhere, which he said meant no US troops would be needed on the ground.
A day after worldwide condemnation of Trump’s announcement that he aimed to take over and develop the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” Israel ordered its army to prepare to allow the “voluntary departure” of Gaza Palestinians.
Trump, who had previously declined to rule out deploying US troops to the small coastal territory, clarified his idea in comments on his Truth Social web platform.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” he said. Palestinians “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.” He added: “No soldiers by the US would be needed!“
Earlier, amid a tide of support in Israel for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Trump’s “remarkable” proposal, Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had ordered the army to prepare a plan to allow Gaza residents who wished to leave to exit the enclave voluntarily.
“I welcome President Trump’s bold plan. Gaza residents should be allowed the freedom to leave and emigrate, as is the norm around the world,” Katz said on X.
He said his plan would include exit options via land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air.
Trump, a real-estate-developer-turned-politician, sparked anger around the Middle East with his unexpected announcement on Tuesday, just as Israel and Hamas were expected to begin talks in Doha on the second stage of a ceasefire deal for Gaza, intended to open the way for a full withdrawal of Israeli forces, a further release of hostages and an end to a nearly 16-month-old war.
Regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia rebuffed the proposal outright and Jordan’s King Abdullah, who will meet Trump at the White House next week, said on Wednesday he rejected any attempts to annex land and displace Palestinians.
Egypt also weighed in, saying it would not be part of any proposal to displace Palestinians from neighboring Gaza, where residents reacted with fury to the suggestion.
“We will not sell our land for you, real estate developer. We are hungry, homeless, and desperate but we are not collaborators,” said Abdel Ghani, a father of four living with his family in the ruins of their Gaza City home. “If (Trump) wants to help, let him come and rebuild for us here.”
It was unclear whether Trump would go ahead with his proposal or, in keeping with his self-image as a shrewd dealmaker, has simply laid out an extreme position as a bargaining tactic. His first term in 2017-21 was replete with what critics said were over-the-top foreign policy pronouncements, many of which were never implemented.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Thursday that people would have to live elsewhere while Gaza was rebuilt. He did not say whether they would be able to return under Trump’s plan to develop the enclave, home to more than 2 million Palestinians.
Axios reported Rubio planned to visit the Middle East in mid-February with an itinerary that includes Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Displacement
What effect Trump’s shock proposal may have on the ceasefire talks remains unclear. Only 13 of a group of 33 Israeli hostages due for release in the first phase have so far been returned, with three more due to come out on Saturday. Five Thai hostages have also been released.
Hamas official Basem Naim accused Israel’s defense minister of trying to cover up “for a state that has failed to achieve any of its objectives in the war on Gaza,” and said Palestinians are too attached to their land to ever leave.
Displacement of Palestinians has been one of the most sensitive issues in the Middle East for decades. Forced or coerced displacement of a population under military occupation is a war crime, banned under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
Details of how any such plan might work have been vague. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said different thinking was needed on Gaza’s future but that any departures would have to be voluntary and states would have to be willing to take them.
“We don’t have details yet, but we can talk about principles,” Saar told a press conference with his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani. “Everything must be based on the free will of (the) individual and, on the other hand, of a will of a state that is ready to absorb,” he said.
A number of far-right Israeli politicians have openly called for Palestinians to be moved from Gaza and there was strong support for Trump’s push among both security hawks and the Jewish settler movement, which wants to reclaim land in Gaza used for Jewish settlements until 2005.
Giora Eiland, an Israeli former general who attracted wide attention in an earlier stage of the war with his “Generals’ Plan” for a forced displacement of people from northern Gaza, said Trump’s plan was logical and aid should not be allowed to reach displaced people returning to northern Gaza.
Israel’s military campaign has killed tens of thousands of people since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, cross-border attack on Israel touched off the war, and has forced Palestinians to repeatedly move around within Gaza in search of safety.
But many say they will never leave the enclave because they fear permanent displacement, like the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands were dispossessed from homes in the war at the birth of the state of Israel in 1948.
Katz said countries that have opposed Israel’s military operations in Gaza should take in the Palestinians.
“Countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have levelled accusations and false claims against Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow any Gaza resident to enter their territories,” he said.
Bodies of migrants recovered in two locations in Libya, security and Red Crescent say
19 bodies — believed to be related to smuggling activites — were discovered in a mass grave in a farm some 441 km from Benghazi, say police
Libya's Red Crescent said the bodies of 10 other migrants were recovered after their boat sank off Dila port in the city of Zawiya, near Tripoli
Updated 07 February 2025
Reuters
BENGHAZI, Libya: At least 29 bodies of migrants have been recovered in two locations in the southeast and west of Libya, a security directorate and the Libyan Red Crescent said on Thursday.
The Alwahat district Security Directorate said in a statement that 19 bodies were discovered in a mass grave in a farm in Jikharra area, some 441 km from Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, and said the deaths were related to smuggling activites.
The directorate posted on Facebook pictures showing police officers and Jalu Red Crescent volunteers placing the bodies in black plastic bags.
Separately, the Libyan Red Crescent said on Facebook late Thursday evening that its volunteers recovered the bodies of 10 migrants earlier in the day after their boat sank off Dila port in the city of Zawiya, some 40 km from Tripoli, the capital.
The Red Crescent posted pictures showing volunteers on the dockside placing bodies in white plastic bags, while one volunteer put numbers on one of the bags.
"In the presence of the Public Prosecution Office in Jalu, the directorate was able to recover 19 bodies resulting from smuggling and illegal migration activities in Jikharra area, belonging to a known smuggling network," the directorate said.
It said the bodies were found in a total of three graves on the farm, with one grave holding one body, a second grave holding four bodies, and the remaining 14 bodies found in the third grave.
"The bodies were all referred to a forensic doctor to conduct the necessary tests," the directorate said.
Libya has turned into a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe across the Mediterranean.
At the end of January, Alwahat Criminal Investigation Department said it had freed 263 migrants from different Sub-Saharan nationalities, saying they were "being held by a smuggling gang in extremely poor human and health conditions."
