Tag Archives: United Nations

U.N. broadens inquiry into North Korea ‘crimes against humanity’

Mun Jong Chol, counselor at the North Korea mission to the U.N. in Geneva, talks with journalists aside of a meeting of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland March 24, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The top United Nations human rights body agreed on Friday to widen its investigation into widespread violations in North Korea with a view to documenting alleged crimes against humanity for future prosecution.

North Korea said it “categorically and totally rejects” the resolution adopted by the U.N. Human Rights Council. The text had been framed by the United States and “other hostile forces” for political reasons “to strangle the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea),” its envoy said after boycotting the debate.

The 47-member state Geneva forum adopted a resolution, brought by Japan and the European Union and backed by the United States, on the final day of its four-week session without a vote.

The U.N. human rights office in Seoul will be strengthened for two years with international criminal justice experts to establish a central repository for testimony and evidence “with a view to developing possible strategies to be used in any future accountability process”, the text said.

The Seoul office deploys six staff who conduct in-depth interviews with dozens of North Korean defectors each week, recording their testimony, a U.N. official based there told Reuters. Some 1,400 North Koreans arrive each year in South Korea, most via China, he said.

DEFECTORS’ TESTIMONY

“This not only brings North Koreans one step closer to justice for human rights crimes they have suffered, but should also make North Korean government officials think twice before inflicting more abuse,” John Fisher of the group Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

A U.N. commission of inquiry, in a landmark 2014 report based on interviews and public hearings with defectors, cataloged massive violations in North Korea – including large prison camps, starvation and executions – that it said should be brought to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“The ‘resolution’ is nothing more than a document for interference in internal affairs of sovereign states and represents the culmination of politicization, selectivity and double standards of human rights,” Mun Jong Chol, a counselor at North Korea’s mission to the U.N. in Geneva, told reporters.

It was a fraudulent document full of “lies, fabrications and plots”, Mun said.

China said it “dissociated” itself from the council’s decision and called for dialogue.

The situation on the divided Korean peninsula is “complex and sensitive” and all sides should avoid provocation by an act or words that might lead to an escalation”, China’s delegation said.

“China hopes we can focus on the bigger picture,” it said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Ralph Boulton)

‘Worst is yet to come’ with 400,000 trapped in west Mosul: U.N.

A displaced Iraqi family flees from clashes during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq March 21, 2017. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal

By Stephanie Nebehay and Patrick Markey

GENEVA/MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – About 400,000 Iraqi civilians are trapped in the Islamic State-held Old City of western Mosul, short of food and basic needs as the battle between the militants and government forces rages around them, the United Nations refugee agency said on Thursday.

Many fear fleeing because of Islamic State snipers and landmines. But 157,000 have reached a reception and transit center outside Mosul since the government offensive on the city’s west side began a month ago, said Bruno Geddo, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Iraq.

“The worst is yet to come. Because 400,000 people trapped in the Old City in that situation of panic and penury may inevitably lead to the cork-popping somewhere, sometime, presenting us with a fresh outflow of large-scale proportions,” he said.

Fighting in the past week has focused on the Old City, with government forces reaching as close as 500 meters to the al-Nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria in July 2014.

The hardline militants are now on the back foot, with their stronghold in Syria also under attack. But they still hold an estimated 40 percent of western Mosul and the campaign to recapture it could yet take weeks.

The government halted offensive operations on Thursday morning due to cloudy weather, which makes it difficult to bring in air support. Later, Federal Police reinforcements moved toward the Old City and the troops were preparing to storm the area and retake the mosque, a police spokesman said.

“Dozens of Daesh (IS) snipers are still positioned on rooftops of the Old City high buildings, posing a threat to our soldiers,” he said.

“We are waiting for the weather to improve so air strikes can compromise Daesh snipers and pave the way for the imminent advance and minimize casualties among our troops.”

A police sergeant named Mohamed, sheltering in an empty villa about 300 meters from the line as sporadic mortar and sniper fire came for IS positions, said: “They are using everything against now”.

Waleed, a displaced man from a district on the edge of the Old City, joined other mud-splattered families being loaded on to trucks for transport to camps.

“Everyone is hungry, there is no food and people are starving. We left last night when the army opened a way for us,” he told Reuters.

COLD NIGHTS, LITTLE FOOD

The UNHCR’s Geddo, speaking at Hamman al-Alil 20km (15 miles) south of Mosul, said the number of civilians streaming out was increasing and an average 8,000-12,000 per day had reached the displaced persons facility.

“We also heard stories of people running away under the cover of early morning fog, running away at night, of trying to run away at prayer time when the vigilance at ISIS checkpoints is lower,” he said, in remarks made public from Geneva.

Food, fuel and electricity are scarce in the Old City.

“People have started to burn furniture, old clothes, plastic, anything they can burn to keep warm at night, because it is still raining heavily and the temperatures at night in particular drop significantly,” Geddo said, adding that more people could be expected to flee.

“The more you go without food, the more you become panicked and the more you want to run away. At the same time it (the outflow) is increasing because the security forces are advancing and therefore more people are in a position to run away where the risk is likely more mitigated.”

The battle for Mosul, Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq, is now in its sixth month with Iraq forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition, air strikes and advisers now controlling the east side and more than half of the west.

Baghdadi and other IS leaders are believed to have left the city, but IS fighters are resisting with snipers hiding among the population, and using car bombs and suicide trucks to smash into Iraqi positions. U.S. officials estimate around 2,000 fighters remain inside the city.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and; Patrick Markey in Mosul,; Additional reporting by Angus MacSwan in Erbil and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Editing by Ed Osmond)

U.N. agency worried about forced return of Nigerian refugees from Cameroon

ABUJA (Reuters) – The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday it is concerned about Cameroon forcing thousands of refugees to return to northeast Nigeria, an area struggling with insurgency and facing a potential famine.

UNHCR teams in Nigeria have heard and documented accounts of Cameroonian troops returning refugees against their will, despite an agreement between the two countries that any such returns should be voluntary.

Babar Baloch, UNHCR spokesman, told a press briefing the agency was “particularly concerned” that more than 2,600 refugees, many of whom had fled militant group Boko Haram, had been sent back to Nigerian border villages since the start of the year.

“UNHCR calls on the government of Cameroon to honor its obligations under international and regional refugee protection instruments, as well as Cameroonian law,” he said.

Issa Tchiroma Bakary, Cameroon government spokesman, told Reuters the allegations were not true. “I formally deny this rumor that Cameroon forced Nigerian refugees to return to Nigeria,” he said.

Jihadist group Boko Haram has displaced over 2 million people in Nigeria since 2009, conducting an insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic caliphate in the northeast of Africa’s most populous nation.

Partly due to the conflict, the U.N. warned last month that aid agencies must get food to nearly 3 million people by July to avert a famine in the Lake Chad region – shared between Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Chad – caused by drought, chronic poverty and Boko Haram.

Cameroon says it has stuck to the terms of an agreement signed on March 2 with Nigeria and the UNHCR for “the voluntary return of Nigerian refugees when conditions were conducive”.

“Cameroon is respecting its engagements,” Bakary said.

(Reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram in Abuja and Sylvain Andzongo in Yaounde; Edited by Vin Shahrestani)

Senior U.N. official quits after ‘apartheid’ Israel report pulled

U.N. Under-Secretary General and ESCWA Executive Secretary Rima Khalaf speaks during a news conference announcing her resignation from the United Nations in Beirut, Lebanon, March 17, 2017. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi

BEIRUT/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A senior U.N. official resigned on Friday over the withdrawal of a report accusing Israel of imposing an “apartheid regime” on Palestinians, saying “powerful member states” pressured the world body and its chief with “vicious attacks and threats.”

United Nations Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary for the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), Rima Khalaf, announced her resignation at a news conference in Beirut after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asked for the report to be taken off the ESCWA website.

ESCWA, which comprises 18 Arab states, published the report on Wednesday and said it was the first time a U.N. body had clearly charged that Israel “has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole.”

Israel fiercely rejects the allegation and likened the report to Der Sturmer – a Nazi propaganda publication that was strongly anti-Semitic. The United States, an ally of Israel, had said it was outraged and demanded the report be withdrawn.

“I do not find it surprising that such member states, who now have governments with little regard for international norms and values of human rights, will resort to intimidation when they find it hard to defend their unlawful policies and practices,” Khalaf, of Jordan, wrote to Guterres.

“It is only normal for criminals to pressure and attack those who advocate the cause of their victims,” Khalaf wrote in the resignation letter, seen by Reuters, adding that she stands by the ESCWA report.

Israel and the United States did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Khalaf’s letter.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said earlier on Friday that Khalaf’s resignation was appropriate and Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said it was “long overdue.

“Anti-Israel activists do not belong in the UN,” Danon said in a statement.”

“U.N. agencies must do a better job of eliminating false and biased work, and I applaud the Secretary-General’s decision to distance his good office from it,” Haley said in a statement.

The report was published without consultation with the U.N. secretariat, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric had said.

“This is not about content, this is about process,” Dujarric told reporters in New York on Friday.

“The secretary-general cannot accept that an under-secretary general or any other senior U.N. official that reports to him would authorize the publication under the U.N. name, under the U.N. logo, without consulting the competent departments and even himself,” he said.

One of the authors of the report was Richard Falk, a former U.N. human rights investigator for the Palestinian territories, whom the United States has accused of being biased against Israel.

The ESCWA report said it had established on the “basis of scholarly inquiry and overwhelming evidence, that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid.”

While the report was taken off the ECWAS website, Khalaf told reporters: “Let me be clear, the report was issued … and has impacts. The member states received copies of this report. And it is available.”

(Reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut and Michelle Nichols in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr and Diane Craft)

South Sudan government to blame for famine, still buying arms: U.N. report

Women and children wait to be registered prior to a food distribution carried out by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in Thonyor, Leer state, South Sudan, February 26, 2017. REUTERS/Siegfried Modola

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – South Sudan’s government is mainly to blame for famine in parts of the war-torn country, yet President Salva Kiir is still boosting his forces using millions of dollars from oil sales, according to a confidential United Nations report.

U.N. sanctions monitors said 97 percent of South Sudan’s known revenue comes from oil sales, a significant portion of which is now forward oil sales, and that at least half of the budget – “likely substantially more” – is devoted to security.

“Revenue from forward oil sales totaled approximately $243 million between late March and late October 2016,” the panel of U.N. monitors said in the report to the U.N. Security Council, seen by Reuters on Thursday.

“Despite the scale and scope of the political, humanitarian, and economic crises, the panel continues to uncover evidence of the ongoing procurement of weapons by the … Government for the SPLA (South Sudanese army), the National Security Service, and other associated forces and militias,” the report said.

The United Nations has declared a famine in some parts of the world’s youngest country, where nearly half its population – some 5.5 million people – face food shortages. A civil war erupted in 2013 when Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, fired his deputy Riek Machar, a Nuer, who has fled and is now in South Africa.

“The bulk of evidence suggests that the famine … has resulted from protracted conflict and, in particular, the cumulative toll of military operations undertaken by the SPLM/A in Government in southern Unity state; denial of humanitarian access, primarily by the SPLM/A in Government; and population displacement resulting from the war,” the report said.

The United Nations says at least one quarter of South Sudanese have been displaced since 2013.

‘NOT CORRECT’

South Sudan’s government rejected the report on Friday.

“We have not bought arms for the last of two to three years,” government spokesman Michael Makuei Lueth told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

“We have rights to buy arms for self-protection or self-defense … So this idea of the U.N. saying the government of South Sudan doesn’t care about its people and they are fan of buying arms all the time is not correct,” he said.

The annual report of the sanctions monitors to the 15-member Security Council comes ahead of a ministerial meeting of the body on South Sudan next Thursday, which is due to be chaired by British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

While the previous U.S. administration of President Barack Obama was heavily involved in the birth of South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, and led Security Council efforts to try to end the civil war, the policy of new U.S. President Donald Trump toward the African state is unclear.

In December, the Security Council failed to adopt a U.S.-drafted resolution to impose an arms embargo and further sanctions on South Sudan despite warnings by U.N. officials of a possible genocide. The U.N. monitors again recommended in their report that the council impose an arms embargo on South Sudan.

The Security Council set up a targeted sanctions regime for South Sudan in March 2015 and has blacklisted six generals – three from each side of the conflict – by subjecting them to an asset freeze and travel ban.

The U.N. monitors said all parties to the conflict continue to commit widespread human rights violations “with near complete impunity and a lack of any credible effort to prevent these violations or to punish the perpetrators.”

U.N. peacekeepers have been in South Sudan since 2011.

(Additional reporting by Denis Dumo in Juba; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

NATO head urges Turkey, Austria to resolve dispute

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg delivers his speech during the 53rd Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, February 18, 2017. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged Austria and Turkey on Friday to resolve a diplomatic dispute that has led to some cooperation programs being blocked.

Turkey, a NATO ally, has withdrawn from some alliance participation – mostly military training – saying the move is aimed only at Austria.

“It is a very unfortunate situation and it means some cooperation programs can’t be launched,” Stoltenberg told reporters during a visit to the Danish capital Copenhagen.

Austria, which is not a NATO member but cooperates with the alliance, led calls last year to halt Turkey’s European Union accession talks. Vienna has also spoken out against Turkish politicians holding rallies in European countries.

“It’s a bilateral situation between Turkey and Austria and we strongly urge them to solve it, so that it won’t have negative consequences for the cooperation,” he said.

The diplomatic tensions predate a current escalation with other European countries like Germany and Netherlands but as fellow NATO members Turkey cannot block cooperation with them.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has compared Germany and the Netherlands to fascists and Nazis for stopping Turkish politicians from rallying to promote a referendum granting him sweeping new powers.

Erdogan on Thursday said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte had lost the friendship of Ankara after the diplomatic row.

NATO officials told Reuters that the blocking also affected other countries that cooperate with the alliance but are not members.

Separately, Austrian tabloid newspaper Oesterreich said its website was brought down on Friday morning by a cyber attack “from Turkey”, the latest in a series of similar incidents that appear to be connected to Vienna’s spat with Ankara.

It did not present evidence to support the accusation.

“The Turkish cyber attack on our website was launched out of anger by Erdogan’s cadres because oe24 and Oesterreich report critically and independently on Erdogan and his policies,” the newspaper said in an article.

(Reporting by Teis Jensen in Copenhagen, additional reporting by François Murphy in Vienna writing by Nikolaj Skydsgaard and Stine Jacobsen; Editing by Gareth Jones and Julia Glover)

No famine in Yemen but over half on the brink: U.N.-backed report

A malnourished boy lies on a bed outside his family's hut in al-Tuhaita district of the Red Sea province of Hodaida, Yemen September 26, 2016. REUTERS/Abduljabbar Zeyad

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – A U.N.-backed report on Yemen has found no full-blown famine in the country but said 60 percent of Yemenis, or 17 million people, are in “crisis” or “emergency” food situations, 20 percent more than in June.

The World Food Programme said in a statement on Wednesday that the governorates of Taiz and Hodeidah along the Red Sea risked slipping into famine if they did not receive more aid. Both have long traditions as food-producing regions.

The crisis follows two years of civil war pitting the Iran-allied Houthi group against a Saudi-backed coalition, which has caused economic collapse and severely restricted the food and fuel imports on which Yemen depends.

“If humanitarian actors do not access all the people in need by the coming months, the situation may deteriorate dramatically,” the report said.

Taiz and Hodeidah governorates, home to important Yemeni ports, “have the highest rates of global acute malnutrition in the country, ranging from 17 percent in Taiz City to 25 percent in Hodeidah,” the WFP said.

“The emergency threshold set by the World Health Organization is 15 percent,” it added.

The report was written by an expert team using the globally recognized IPC methodology. The IPC, or Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, is a system of analyzing food security on a five-point scale, where five is “famine”.

The report, drawing on analysis from 69 experts from Yemen’s government and regions, the United Nations and non-governmental institutions, said 10.2 million people were at phase three, or “crisis”, and 6.8 million at phase four, or “emergency”.

The worst affected governorates – those in the emergency phase – were Lahej, Taiz, Abyan, Sa’ada, Hajjah, Hodeidah and Shabwah, it said. Taiz, where heavy fighting looks likely to continue, has seen its biggest spike in livestock and commodity prices since the war escalated in 2015.

Yemen is one of four current famine or near-famine situations, along with South Sudan, northeast Nigeria and Somalia, with more than 20 million people at risk of starvation in the next six months.

Last month the U.N. said more than $4 billion was needed by the end of March to stave off starvation in the four countries on the brink of starvation.

U.N. officials say that once a famine is officially declared, it is usually too late because large numbers of people have already died.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Exclusive: Russian private security firm says it had armed men in east Libya

FILE PHOTO: General Khalifa Haftar, commander in the Libyan National Army (LNA), leaves after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, November 29, 2016. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

By Maria Tsvetkova

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A force of several dozen armed private security contractors from Russia operated until last month in a part of Libya that is under the control of regional leader Khalifa Haftar, the head of the firm that hired the contractors told Reuters.

It is the clearest signal to date that Moscow is prepared to back up its public diplomatic support for Haftar — even at the risk of alarming Western governments already irked at Russia’s intervention in Syria to prop up President Bashar al-Assad.

Haftar is opposed to a U.N.-backed government which Western states see as the best chance of restoring stability in Libya. But some Russian policy-makers see the Libyan as a strongman who can end the six years of anarchy that followed the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.

The presence of the military contractors was, according to the head of the firm, a commercial arrangement. It is unlikely though to have been possible without Moscow’s approval, according to people who work in the industry in Russia.

Oleg Krinitsyn, owner of private Russian firm RSB-group, said he sent the contractors to eastern Libya last year and they were pulled out in February having completed their mission.

In an interview with Reuters, he said their task was to remove mines from an industrial facility near the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, in an area that Haftar’s forces had liberated from Islamist rebels.

He declined to say who hired his firm to provide the contractors, where they were operating or what the industrial facility was. He did not say if the operation had been approved by the U.N.-backed government, which most states view as the sovereign ruler of Libya.

Asked whether the mission had official blessing from Moscow, Krinitsyn said his firm did not work with the Russian defense ministry, but was “consulting” with the Russian foreign ministry.

The contractors did not take part in combat, Krinitsyn said, but they were armed with weapons they obtained in Libya. He declined to specify what type of weapons. A U.N. arms embargo prohibits the import of weapons to Libya unless it is under the control of the U.N.-backed government.

Krinitsyn said his contractors were ready to strike back in case of an attack.

“If we’re under assault we enter the battle, of course, to protect our lives and the lives of our clients,” Krinitsyn said. “According to military science, a counterattack must follow an attack. That means we would have to destroy the enemy.”

Military and government officials in eastern Libya said they were not aware of the presence of the contractors, while Haftar did not respond to a request for comment.

Officials in Western Libya, where the U.N.-backed government is based, were not immediately available to comment. The Russian foreign ministry said it was working on a response to Reuters questions bit had not commented by Friday.

MOSCOW’S PROXIES

Underscoring Libya’s volatility, Haftar’s forces have this week been fighting to regain control over the Mediterranean oil terminals of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, which a rival faction seized earlier this month.

Russia has a record of using private military contractors as an extension of its own military.

In Syria, military contractors have been widely used in combat roles in conjunction with Russian regular forces and their Syrian allies, according to multiple accounts given to Reuters by people involved in the operations. Moscow has not acknowledged using private contractors in Syria.

Russian security companies do not reveal the background of people they hire but the contractors usually are special forces veterans.

Krinitsyn, the owner of the company which hired the contractors for Libya, was an officer of the Russian border guard service based in Tajikistan, on the border with Afghanistan, where he said he gained battlefield experience.

Krinitsyn said some of the contractors he hired for Libya has previously worked in Syria, though not in combat roles.

He declined to say how many contractors were involved in the mission in Libya, citing commercial secrecy. However, he said that in general, a de-mining operation of this type would require around 50 mine clearance experts and around the same number for their security detail.

HAWKISH CAMP

Haftar has been seeking outside help to consolidate his control over parts of Libya. Russia has shown a willingness to engage with him that contrasts with the more cautious approach of Western governments.

Haftar visited Moscow in November last year and met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. In December, Haftar went on board a Russian aircraft carrier off the Libyan coast and spoke with the Russian defense minister via videolink. In recent weeks, Russia has taken in 100 of Haftar’s wounded fighters for medical treatment.

Moscow also received Haftar’s rival, Fayez Serraj, the head of the UN-backed government, for talks this month.

President Vladimir Putin, newly confident from the Russian military intervention in Syria, is anxious to restore stability in Libya. But foreign diplomats familiar with Russian thinking say there is so far no consensus on how to achieve that.

They say the foreign ministry wants Haftar to join forces with the U.N.-backed government. But the diplomats say there is a more hawkish camp, centered on the Russian defense ministry and some people in the Kremlin, which favors backing Haftar to establish control over the whole of Libya.

Krinitsyn, the contractors’ boss, said that while in Libya his employees had run into a group of local militants. He said the militants were initially hostile, but became friendly when they realized the outsiders were Russians.

“It was an uncomfortable situation but the image created by Putin in Syria played a positive role. We realized that Russia is welcomed in Libya more than other countries are,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli in Benghazi, Ahmed Elumami in Tripoli and Christian Lowe in Moscow; Editing by Giles Elgood)

U.N. urged to prepare North Korea case for alleged crimes against humanity

The North Korea flag flutters next to concertina wire at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Edgar Su

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – A veteran investigator urged the United Nations on Thursday to appoint an international legal expert to prepare judicial proceedings against North Korea’s leadership for documented crimes against humanity.

His call came amid an international furor over the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and critic of his rule, in Malaysia last month.

A U.N. commission of inquiry, in a 2014 report issued after it conducted interviews and public hearings with defectors, cataloged massive violations in North Korea – including large prison camps, starvation and executions – that it said should be brought to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Marzuki Darusman, a former Indonesian attorney-general who served on the U.N. commission of inquiry on North Korea, said the U.N. Human Rights Council must pursue North Korean accountability during its current session.

“There is a need for the Human Rights Council to appoint an independent special expert to oversee the judicial prosecutorial process which will lead up to an eventual mechanism of accountability,” Marzuki told a panel held on the sidelines of the Geneva forum.

The landmark 2014 report, rejected by Pyongyang, said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might be personally responsible for crimes against humanity.

Evidence recorded over the past decade or more by U.N. investigators should be given to a new U.N. mechanism for prosecution, he said, adding: “Let us prevail in the end-game.”

Experts hope an ad hoc tribunal on North Korea may be set up someday, as China would be expected to veto any move in the U.N. Security Council to refer its ally to the ICC.

The “assassination” of Kim Jong Nam ought to be a “wake-up call”, Lee Jung-Hoon, South Korean ambassador for North Korean human rights, told the event.

“That is why I think this assassination is such a game-changer because a general audience is seeing for the first time live what kind of regime we are really dealing with,” Lee said.

“If North Korea is able to do this to the older brother of Kim, to the uncle of Kim (Jang Song Thaek executed in 2013), and all the elite purging left and right, can you imagine what life might be like if you are a prisoner in a North Korean prison camp, with over 100,000 of them?” he said.

Australian Justice Michael Kirby, who chaired the 2014 inquiry, said witness statements would be used once a tribunal and prosecutor were appointed. “Accountability is the name of the game in human rights, otherwise it’s all rhetoric.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Mark Heinrich)

U.N. head: drought-stricken Somalia needs help to avoid famine

U.N. Secretary general Antonio Guterres addresses a news conference after his meeting with Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (L) in Somalia's capital Mogadishu March 7, 2017 REUTERS/Feisal Omar

By Katharine Houreld

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Rich countries must do more to stop drought-stricken Somalia from sinking into famine, the head of the United Nations said on Tuesday, warning terrorism would increase without aid.

“If you want to fight terrorism, we need to address the root causes of terrorism. We need to bring peace and stability to a country like Somalia … It’s the best way for rich countries to protect themselves,” U.N. chief Antonio Guterres told a news conference in Mogadishu.

The United Nations is asking for $825 million to provide aid to 6.2 million Somalis, about half the country’s population.

“I am not appealing for the generosity of the rich, I am appealing for the enlightened self-interest of the rich,” said Guterres.

His appeal comes a day after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a revised executive order suspending travel to the United States from six mainly Muslim nations, including Somalia. Trump, who has justified that measure on national security grounds, has also said he will slash budgets for U.S. aid and diplomacy.

Those policies will hit Somalia hard, after more than 25 years of civil war and an ongoing battle between its U.N.-backed government and an Islamist insurgency.

The current drought is threatening to turn into famine, with at least 360,000 Somali children severely malnourished, meaning they need extra food to survive.

“If we don’t have rain in the coming two months this could be a humanitarian crisis that could be the same as we had in 2011, when we lost 260,000 people,” said Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.

Families from rural areas are moving to cities to search for food as animals die and water sources evaporate, forcing many to drink water infected with deadly cholera bacteria.

Asha Mohamed, 18, brought her two young daughters to the capital after the family’s sheep and goats died.

“When we got food, first we fed the children. We would only eat afterwards if there was enough,” she said.

Her neighbor, Medina Mohamed, said she must divide her food to ensure her smallest children and disabled son are fed first.

“The others don’t understand,” she said. “Everyone wants to eat.”

Low rainfall in neighboring Kenya has also left 1.3 million people in need of food aid there, while severe drought prompted water restrictions in South Africa at the end of last year and North Africa faced its worst drought in decades.

(Reporting by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Julia Glover)