Tag Archives: United Nations

Islamic State mines kill dozens of civilians returning to Ramadi

Military Vehicle Iraq

By Stephen Kalin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Explosives planted by Islamic State have killed dozens of Iraqi civilians who returned to Ramadi despite warnings that much of the western city remains unsafe nearly four months after its recapture from the militants.

Tens of thousands of displaced residents have returned to the Anbar provincial capital in the past two months, mostly from camps east of the city where they took refuge prior to the army’s advance late last year.

A shortage of experts trained in dismantling the explosives has slowed efforts to restore security, but that has not stopped people from responding to calls from local religious and government leaders to go back home.

The Anbar governor’s office, which is overseeing much of the effort to restore Ramadi, declined requests for comment.

But the United Nations said it had learned from the authorities that 49 people have been killed and 79 others wounded in Ramadi since the beginning of February. Those figures are “almost certainly an underestimation,” it said.

“The U.N. is deeply worried about the safety of returning families and the widespread infestation of many neighborhoods with unexploded devices and booby traps,” Lise Grande, U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, told Reuters.

“The responsible thing is to clear these areas as quickly as possible using the most up-to-date, modern and professional methods. Anything else just risks too much.”

De-mining is seen as a critical first step in returning civilians to Ramadi, which a U.N. team said last month suffers from destruction worse than anywhere else in Iraq after months of fighting that saw Islamic State bomb attacks and devastating U.S.-led coalition air strikes.

A U.S. de-mining company was contracted last month to remove explosives and train Iraqis to dismantle the devices planted by Islamic State in Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad.

Sources in Ramadi said another Western company was expected to help with de-mining efforts and Iraqi companies are also now competing for potentially lucrative government contracts.

Still there is just not enough expertise to keep pace with the return of civilians, said Mohamed Ali, a tribal fighter who helps dismantle explosives.

In addition to littering Ramadi’s streets with bombs, Islamic State has also planted them in residences, hiding them under rugs and other fixtures or connecting them to the power grid so they detonate when residents attempt to restore electricity.

“One house in al-Bakr neighborhood exploded (on Monday), killing its owner,” said Ali. “The man returned after explosives had been removed from his house and he started clearing the rubble. While he was moving the cooking gas canister, a bomb stashed under it exploded.”

A security officer stationed in northern Ramadi said he had forbidden civilians from walking around their neighborhoods after several people were killed as they inspected nearby destruction.

The influx of refugees is unlikely to slow, driven by the desperation of displaced people and political rivalries within the Sunni community.

Two local government sources said political and religious figures had ignored warnings against rushing civilians’ return, accusing them of seeking financial gain by launching reconstruction projects before others.

More than 3.4 million Iraqis across the country have been displaced by violence according to U.N. statistics, most of them from the minority Sunni Arab community.

(Additional reporting by Saif Hameed, Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Syrian peace talks limp on to next week without opposition

Syrian Peace Talks

By John Davison and Stephanie Nebehay

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – The U.N. special envoy for Syria has vowed to take fragile peace talks into next week despite a walkout by the main armed opposition, a breakdown in a truce and signs that both sides are gearing up to escalate the five-year-old civil war.

Staffan de Mistura, who dismissed the opposition’s departure as “diplomatic posturing”, expected the delegation to return to the negotiating table. The opposition declared a “pause” this week because of a surge in fighting and too little movement from the government side on freeing detainees or allowing in aid.

Asked whether talks would carry on, de Mistura said on Thursday night: “We cannot let this drop. We have to renew the ceasefire, we have to accelerate humanitarian aid and we are going to ask the countries which are the co-sponsors to meet.”

The talks at U.N. headquarters in Geneva aim to halt a conflict that has allowed for the rise of the Islamic State group, sucked in regional and major powers and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.

In an interview with French-language Radio Television Suisse (RTS), de Mistura said 400,000 people had been killed in the war, far higher than the previous U.N. toll which has varied from 250,000 to 300,000.

The war was tilted in Assad’s favor late last year by Russia’s intervention, supported on the ground by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who have been bolstered recently by the arrival of members of Iran’s regular army.

WASHINGTON CONCERNED BY RUSSIAN MOVES

The White House has expressed concern that Russia has repositioned artillery near the disputed city of Aleppo.

The Russian military moves have sharpened divisions in Washington over whether President Vladimir Putin genuinely backs the U.N.-led initiative to end the war or is using the talks to mask renewed military support for Assad.

“The regime is so reliant on external support that it is inconceivable that its allies don’t have the leverage to change its approach,” Britain’s envoy to the Syria peace talks, Gareth Bayley, said on Friday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that the decision by the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) to quit Geneva was not a loss for anyone except the HNC itself.

“If they want to ensure their participation (in the peace talks) only by putting ultimatums, with which others must agree, it’s their problem,” Lavrov said, adding:

“For God’s sake, we shouldn’t be running after them, we must work with those who think not about their career, not about how to please their sponsors abroad, but with those who are ready to think about the destiny of their country.”

The head of the Syrian delegation, Bashar Ja’afari, confirmed he met de Mistura to discuss humanitarian issues on Friday and would be meeting with him again on Monday.

Moscow and Washington sponsored the fragile cessation of hostilities that went into effect on Feb. 27 to allow talks to take place but has been left in tatters by increased fighting in the past week.

In Aleppo, government air strikes in different parts of the city killed at least 10 people and wounded dozens more on Friday, with the death toll expected to rise due to serious injuries, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Further southwest in Hama province, warplanes targeted rebel-held areas in the strategic Ghab plain that borders Latakia province, Assad’s coastal heartland.

Insurgents announced a new battle in Latakia earlier this week which they said was in response to ceasefire violations by the government side, launching fierce assaults there. Fighting raged in the area on Friday, said the British-based Observatory, which monitors the conflict with a network of sources on the ground.

ASSAD MAIN ISSUE

Endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, the Geneva peace talks marked the most serious effort yet to resolve the war, but failed to make progress on political issues, with no sign of compromise over the question of Assad’s future.

Government negotiators say Assad’s presidency is non-negotiable. Underlining confidence in Damascus, a top Assad aide reiterated its view that local truce agreements and “destroying terrorism” were the way toward a political solution.

The opposition wants a political transition without Assad, and says the government has failed to make goodwill measures such as releasing detainees and allowing enough aid into opposition-held areas besieged by the military.

The HNC, which is backed by Western nations and key Arab states, had this week urged more military support for rebels after declaring the truce was over and said talks would not re-start until the government stopped committing “massacres”.

All the main HNC members had left Geneva by Friday, leaving a handful of experts and a point of contact behind.

With violence escalating, peace talks might not resume for at least a year if they are abandoned, one senior Western diplomat said.

Syria is now a patchwork of areas controlled by the government, an array of rebel groups, Islamic State, and the well-organized Kurdish YPG militia.

On Friday, rare clashes between YPG fighters and government-allied forces and militiamen took place for nearly a third day, the Observatory said, in fighting which a Syrian Kurdish official said had killed 26 combatants. Kurdish and government forces have mostly avoided confrontation in the past.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Geneva; writing by Peter Millership; editing by Peter Graff)

Humanitarian Aid sets off to besieged Syria after blocked for months

A bird flies near a torn Syrian national flag in the city of Qamishli

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Dozens of trucks carrying humanitarian aid set off on Thursday for the town of Rastan in Syria’s Homs province for a delivery to a besieged area where supplies have not been able to enter for months, the Red Crescent said.

Rastan was one of the first areas to be bombed by Russian warplanes when Moscow intervened in the five-year Syrian war in September. New government air strikes have targeted the area in recent days as a partial truce in western Syria has unraveled.

A spokesman for the Red Cross, which was to deliver the aid alongside the Red Crescent, said Thursday’s convoy included 65 trucks carrying food and medical aid. He said it was one of the largest joint humanitarian aid deliveries in Syria.

United Nations and Red Cross aid deliveries have reached a number of besieged areas in Syria this year, including during a U.S.-Russian-brokered cessation of hostilities agreement that took effect in February.

The truce is now in tatters after fighting intensified, and peace talks in Geneva appeared to collapse this week.

Fresh fighting has displaced tens of thousands more people in recent days near the northern city of Aleppo, the United Nations says. Many locations besieged by government forces and their allies, Islamic State fighters and other insurgents remain hard to reach, aid agencies say.

(Reporting by John Davison, editing by Larry King)

Most House members sign letter backing Israel at U.N.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 90 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives has signed a letter urging President Barack Obama to use U.S. veto power to block any United Nations resolutions seen as biased against Israel, one of the letter’s lead sponsors said on Friday.

U.S. Representative Nita Lowey said 394 members of the 435-member House signed the letter that was sent to Obama on Thursday.

It was written as the Palestinian Authority renewed its drive to persuade the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israeli settlements in Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The United States vetoed a similar resolution in the Security Council five years ago.

With U.S. efforts to broker a two-state solution in tatters since 2014, France has been lobbying countries to commit to a conference that would get Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations to end their conflict.

The congressional letter backed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but insisted that negotiations between the two sides are the only path to peace, not United Nations action or an international conference.

“The only way you can get there is if the two parties can be brought together and really go over all the issues,” Lowey said in a telephone interview.

Lowey is the top Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid. Republican Representative Kay Granger, who chairs the subcommittee, also sponsored the letter.

Lowey said she had not yet had a response to the letter, but she hoped administration officials were carefully reading it.

Support for Israel is one of the few issues that has the support of Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Fiona Ortiz)

As Islamic State is pushed back in Iraq, worries about what’s next

Streets of Ramadi

By Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As U.S.-led offensives drive back Islamic State in Iraq, concern is growing among U.S. and U.N. officials that efforts to stabilize liberated areas are lagging, creating conditions that could help the militants endure as an underground network.

One major worry: not enough money is being committed to rebuild the devastated provincial capital of Ramadi and other towns, let alone Islamic State-held Mosul, the ultimate target in Iraq of the U.S.-led campaign.

Lise Grande, the No. 2 U.N. official in Iraq, told Reuters that the United Nations is urgently seeking $400 million from Washington and its allies for a new fund to bolster reconstruction in cities like Ramadi, which suffered vast damage when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces recaptured it in December.

“We worry that if we don’t move in this direction, and move quickly, the progress being made against ISIL may be undermined or lost,” Grande said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Adding to the difficulty of stabilizing freed areas are Iraq’s unrelenting political infighting, corruption, a growing fiscal crisis and the Shiite Muslim-led government’s fitful efforts to reconcile with aggrieved minority Sunnis, the bedrock of Islamic State support.

Some senior U.S. military officers share the concern that post-conflict reconstruction plans are lagging behind their battlefield efforts, officials said.

“We’re not going to bomb our way out of this problem,” one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

(Graphic showing Islamic State’s territorial control: http://tmsnrt.rs/23aQU31)

Islamic State is far from defeated. The group still controls much of its border-spanning “caliphate,” inspires eight global affiliates and is able to orchestrate deadly external attacks like those that killed 32 people in Brussels on March 22.

But at its core in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State appears to be in slow retreat. Defense analysis firm IHS Janes estimates the group lost 22 percent of its territory over the last 15 months.

Washington has spent vastly more on the war than on reconstruction. The military campaign cost $6.5 billion from 2014 through Feb. 29, according to the Pentagon.

The United States has contributed $15 million to stabilization efforts, donated $5 million to help clear explosives in Ramadi and provided “substantial direct budget support” to Iraq’s government, said Emily Horne, a National Security Council spokeswoman.

Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged the need for more reconstruction aid while in Baghdad last week.

“As more territory is liberated from Daesh, the international community has to step up its support for the safe and voluntary return of civilians to their homes,” Kerry said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Kerry, who announced $155 million in additional U.S. aid for displaced Iraqis, said U.S. President Barack Obama planned to raise the issue at a summit of Gulf Arab leaders on April 21.

“PILE OF RUBBLE”

Ramadi’s main hospital, train station, nearly 2,000 homes, 64 bridges and much of the electricity grid were destroyed in fighting, a preliminary U.N. survey found last month. Thousands of other buildings were damaged.

Some 3,000 families recently returned to parts of the city cleared of mines, according to the governor, Hameed Dulaymi, but conditions are tough. Power comes from generators. Water is pumped from the Euphrates River. A few shops are open, but only for a couple of hours a day.

Ahmed Saleh, a 56-year-old father of three children, said he returned to find his home a “pile of rubble,” which cannot be rebuilt until the government provides the money. With no indication of when that might happen, authorities have resettled his family in another house whose owner is believed unlikely to return before this summer.

Saleh earns less than $15 a day cleaning and repairing other people’s homes. There are no schools open for his children, and he lacks funds to return to a camp for internally displaced outside Baghdad where he says life was better.

Obama administration officials say they have been working to help stabilize Iraq politically and economically since the military campaign against Islamic State began in 2014.

“The success of the campaign against ISIL in Iraq does depend upon political and economic progress as well,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday. “Economically it’s important that the destruction that’s occurred be repaired and we’re looking to help the Iraqis with that.”

Asked about the upcoming $400 million U.N. request, Horne said the United States welcomed the new fund’s establishment and “will continue to lead international efforts to fund stabilization operations.” The United States hasn’t yet announced what it will contribute.

U.S. officials said Washington is also pushing for an International Monetary Fund arrangement that the head of the fund’s Iraq mission has said could unlock up to $15 billion in international financing. Baghdad has a $20 billion budget deficit caused by depressed oil prices.

Washington has helped train 15,000 Sunni fighters who are now part of the Iraqi government’s security forces.

But there has been little movement on political reforms to reconcile minority Sunnis, whose repression under former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government led thousands to join Islamic State.

Unless that happens, and Sunnis see that Baghdad is trying to help them return home to rebuild, support for the militants will persist, experts said.

“If you don’t get reconciliation, the Sunnis will turn back to ISIS,” said former CIA and White House official Kenneth Pollack, who is now at the Brookings Institution think tank and conducted a fact-finding mission in Iraq last month.

“It’s just inevitable.”

The United States has prevailed militarily in Iraq before, only to see the fruits of the effort evaporate.

President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, deposed dictator Saddam Hussein and disbanded his army without a comprehensive plan for post-war stability. Civil war ensued.

REBUILDING GETS HARDER

International funding to rebuild towns and cities ravaged by Islamic State has always been tight, said Grande, deputy special representative of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq.

“This meant we had to come up with a model that could be implemented quickly and at extremely low cost,” she said.

International donors contributed $100 million to an initial fund to jump-start local economies, restoring power and water and reopening shops and schools.

The model worked in Tikrit, the first major city reclaimed from Islamic State in March 2015, Grande said. After initial delays, most residents returned, utilities are on and the university is open. Total spending was $8.3 million.

But Ramadi, a city of some 500,000 people before the recent fighting, poses a much greater challenge.

“Much of the destruction that’s happening in areas that are being liberated … far outstrips our original assumptions,” Grande said.

Restoring normality to Mosul, home to about 2 million people before it fell to Islamic State, could prove even more difficult.

It remains to be seen whether Islamic State digs in, forcing a ruinous battle, or faces an internal uprising that forces the militants to flee, sparing the city massive devastation.

If Islamic State is defeated militarily, it likely will revert to the guerrilla tactics of its predecessor, al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), current and former officials said.

AQI and its leaders, including Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, “survived inside Iraq underground for years and there’s no reason they couldn’t do it again,” a U.S. defense official said.

(Additional reporting by David Rohde, Lou Charbonneau and John Walcott. Editing by Stuart Grudgings.)

Iran Says Missiles Are Key To Future

Iran missile is launched in desert location

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s top leader on Wednesday said missiles were key to the Islamic Republic’s future, offering support to the hardline Revolutionary Guards that have drawn criticism from the West for testing ballistic missiles.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei supported last year’s nuclear deal with world powers but has since called for Iran to avoid further rapprochement with the United States and its allies, and maintain its economic and military strength.

“Those who say the future is in negotiations, not in missiles, are either ignorant or traitors,” Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state, was quoted as saying by his website.

“If the Islamic Republic seeks negotiations but has no defensive power, it would have to back down against threats from any weak country.”

His comments may have been directed at former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the de facto leader of a more moderate political alliance, who last week tweeted “the future is in dialogue, not missiles”.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards conducted ballistic missile tests earlier this month, in what they said was a demonstration of Iran’s non-nuclear deterrent power.

AMBIGUOUS RESOLUTION

The United States and several European powers said the tests defied a U.N. Security Council Resolution that calls on Iran not to test nuclear-capable missiles, in a joint letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

However, Washington has said that a fresh missile test would not violate a July 2015 accord under which Iran has restricted its disputed nuclear program and won relief from U.N. and Western financial sanctions in return. That agreement between Iran and six world powers was endorsed in Resolution 2231.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that Iran’s ballistic missile had caused “alarm” and it would be up to the major powers in Security Council to decide whether fresh sanctions should be applied.

But Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, said the tests did not violate Resolution 2231.

“You may like it or not that Iran launches ballistic missiles – but that is a different story. The truth is that in the 2231 resolution there are no such bans,” Interfax cited Mikhail Ulyanov, head of the ministry’s department for non-proliferation and arms control, as saying.

Iran has consistently denied its missiles are designed to carry nuclear weapons.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, additional reporting by Lidia Kelly in Moscow and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Sam Wilkin; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Iran launches nuclear-capable missiles in defiance of United Nations Security Council

Iran Missiles

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – By launching nuclear-capable missiles Iran has defied a United Nations Security Council resolution that endorsed last year’s historic nuclear deal, the United States and its European allies said in a joint letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

Iran’s recent ballistic tests involved missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and were “inconsistent with” and “in defiance of” council resolution 2231, adopted last July, said the joint U.S., British, French, German letter to Spain’s U.N. Ambassador Roman Oyarzun Marchesi and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.

The letter said the missiles used in the recent launches were “inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons.” It also asked that the Security Council discuss “appropriate responses” to Tehran’s failure to comply with its obligations and urged Ban to report back on Iranian missile work inconsistent with 2231.

Spain has been assigned the task of coordinating council discussions on resolution 2231.

Council diplomats have said the case for new U.N. sanctions was weak, hinging on interpretation of ambiguous language in a resolution adopted as part of a July nuclear deal to drastically restrict Iran’s nuclear work.

Western officials say that although the launches went against 2231, they were not a violation of the core nuclear agreement between Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Russia, a permanent veto-wielding council member, has made clear it does not support new U.N. sanctions on Iran. Both Russia and China had lobbied against continuing restrictions on Iran’s missile program during last year’s negotiations on the nuclear deal.

The four powers’ carefully worded letter stopped short of calling the Iranian launches a “violation” of the resolution, which “calls upon” Iran to refrain for up to eight years from activity, including launches, related to ballistic missiles designed with the capability of delivering nuclear weapons.

Diplomats say key powers agree that request is not legally binding and cannot be enforced under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which deals with sanctions and authorization of military force. But Western nations, which view the language as a ban, say there is a political obligation on Iran to comply.

International sanctions on Tehran were lifted in January under the nuclear deal.

The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ missile battery said the missiles tested were designed to be able to hit U.S. ally Israel. The United States condemned the remarks and Russia said countries should not threaten each other.

The letter said the four Western powers “note with concern that Iranian military leaders have reportedly claimed these missiles are designed to be a direct threat to Israel.”

Several diplomats said the most Iran could expect would be a public rebuke by the Security Council. Under the nuclear deal, the reimposition of U.N. sanctions would only be triggered by violations of the agreed restrictions on Iran’s atomic work.

But a council rebuke could provide a legal springboard for European countries to consider new sanctions against Iran, Western diplomats said.

Last week the U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted two Iranian companies for supporting Iran’s ballistic missile program, and also sanctioned two British businessmen it said were helping an airline used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

France has also suggested there could be unilateral European Union sanctions against Iran over the launches.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Andrew Hay)

Syrian government forces enter Islamic State-held Palmyra

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces fought their way into Palmyra on Thursday as the army backed by Russian air cover sought to recapture the historic city from Islamic State (IS) insurgents, Syrian state TV and a monitoring group said.

The Syrian army earlier this month launched a concerted offensive to retake Palmyra, which the ultra-hardline Islamist militants seized in May 2015, to open a road to the mostly IS-held eastern province of Deir al-Zor.

Islamic State has blown up ancient temples and tombs since capturing Palmyra, something the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO has called a war crime. The city, located at a crossroads in central Syria, is surrounded mostly by desert.

The state-run news channel Ikhbariya broadcast images from just outside Palmyra on Thursday and said government fighters had taken over a hotel district in the west.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had advanced into the hotel district just to the southwest of the city and reached the start of a residential area, after a rapid advance the day before brought the army and its allies right up to its outskirts.

A soldier interviewed by Ikhbariya said the army and its allies would press forward beyond Palmyra.

“We say to those gunmen, we are advancing to Palmyra, and to what’s beyond Palmyra, and God willing to Raqqa, the center of the Daesh gangs,” he said, referring to Islamic State’s de facto capital in northern Syria.

The state news agency SANA showed warplanes flying overhead, helicopters firing missiles, and soldiers and armored vehicles approaching Palmyra.

Civilians began fleeing after Islamic State fighters told them via loudspeakers to leave the center as fighting drew closer, the Observatory said. The Observatory monitors the war using a network of sources on the ground.

The capture of Palmyra and advances further eastwards into Deir al-Zor would mark the most significant Syrian government gain against Islamic State since the start of Russia’s military intervention last September.

With Russia’s help, Damascus has already taken back some ground from IS, notably east of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city and commercial hub before the war.

(Reporting by John Davison, Dominic Evans and Lisa Barrington; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Yemen fighting to halt April 10, peace talks start April 18

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The warring parties in Yemen have agreed to a cessation of hostilities starting at midnight on April 10 and peace talks in Kuwait beginning a week later, United Nations special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said on Wednesday.

There have already been several failed attempts to defuse the conflict in Yemen, which has drawn in regional foes Saudi Arabia and Iran and triggered a humanitarian crisis in the Arab world’s poorest country.

“This is really our last chance,” Ould Cheikh Ahmed told reporters in New York. “The war in Yemen must be brought to an end.”

A Saudi-led coalition began a military campaign in Yemen a year ago with the aim of preventing Iran-allied Houthi rebels and forces loyal to Yemen’s ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh from taking control of the country.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed said Saudi Arabia is “fully committed to make sure that the next talks take place and particularly supports us with regard to the cessation of hostilities.”

The United Nations says more than 6,000 people, half of them civilians, have been killed since the start of the Saudi-led military intervention whose ultimate aim is to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power.

U.S.-based rights group Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday that the United States, Britain, France and others should suspend all weapons sales to Saudi Arabia over what the group deemed unlawful air strikes.

“The only way to limit the damage is for countries to stop providing weapons to Saudi Arabia,” said Philippe Bolopion, Human Rights Watch deputy global advocacy director.

The Saudi-led coalition has targeted civilians with air strikes and some of the attacks could be crimes against humanity, U.N. sanctions monitors told the Security Council in January.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed said prominent Yemeni figures would be enlisted to cooperate with a de-escalation and coordination committee on the cessation of hostilities and “to report on progress and security incidents.”

He said the peace talks would focus on five areas: a withdrawal of militia and armed groups; a handover of heavy weaponry to the state; interim security arrangements; restoration of state institutions; and resumption of inclusive political dialogue.

The warring parties have been asked to present a concept paper on each of these areas by April 3, the U.N. envoy said.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), an affiliate of the global Sunni Muslim militant organization, has also expanded its foothold in the country as the government focuses on its battle with the Houthi rebels.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Chris Reese and James Dalgleish)

Syrian refugees denied critical healthcare in Jordan, Amnesty says

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Syrian refugees in Jordan are finding it very difficult to get medical care because of Jordanian fees and bureaucracy, and shrinking humanitarian financial support, rights group Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

Many refugees cannot afford the fees for medical care imposed by the Jordanian government in 2014, and some, injured in the Syrian conflict, have died after being turned away at the border, Amnesty said in a report.

There are 630,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan registered with the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR), the vast majority of them living in poverty outside the refugee camps, Amnesty said.

“Lengthy bureaucratic procedures and additional health care fees pose huge obstacles to those of them requiring medical treatment,” Sherif Elsayed-Ali, head of refugee and migrants’ rights at Amnesty International, said in a statement.

“The user fees imposed by Jordan may not appear to be high but are unaffordable for most refugees who are struggling to feed their families, and leave many unable to access the critical care they need.”

Refugees who have left the camps unofficially or re-entered Jordan after going back to Syria are not eligible to receive documents required by the Jordanian authorities to obtain public services, including healthcare, it said.

Falling humanitarian support has contributed to the problem, as only 26 percent of Jordan’s funding requirements for health had been met at the end of 2015, Amnesty said.

Some refugees with critical injuries have been denied access, despite a provision allowing entry for those with war-related injuries, since Jordan imposed restrictions in 2012 on Syrians trying to cross the border, Amnesty said.

The main reasons for refusal of entry were lack of identity documents (ID) or the injuries not being life-threatening, it said.

In July, 14 injured people, among them five children with shrapnel wounds, were prevented from entering Jordan and four of them died while waiting at the border, Amnesty said.

“To not even allow entry to people who are fleeing a conflict zone with serious injuries because they don’t have ID papers shows a chilling lack of compassion and appalling disregard for their rights to health and life,” Elsayed-Ali said.

Some 58 percent of Syrians with chronic conditions lacked access to medicines or other health services, Amnesty said, citing UNHCR figures.

“Greater international support in the form of more resettlement places for refugees and financial assistance would make a world of difference by enabling the Jordanian authorities to strengthen the health system and remove barriers that are preventing Syrian refugees from accessing crucial health care,” Elsayed-Ali said.

The Jordanian government was not immediately available to comment.

(Reporting by Magdalena Mis, editing by Tim Pearce. Please credit Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)