These clashes between both religious and ethnic groups, which are often one and the same, are almost inevitable in these countries where anarchy is commonplace. TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States on Thursday highlighted flagrant human rights abuses in 2009 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nigeria and Sudan, three conflict-ridden African countries.
In Congo, more than 1,000 civilians were killed in conflict in eastern mineral-rich areas, including in counterinsurgency operations by government security forces, according to the State Department’s annual rights report.
The government also failed to protect and help hundreds of thousands displaced in the conflict, said the report, which covered 194 countries.
The Congolese military and various armed groups unlawfully recruited thousands of children as soldiers and thousands of women, children and men were raped while many others were abducted for forced labor and sexual exploitation, both domestically and internationally, it said.
In Nigeria, national police, army, and other security forces “committed extrajudicial killings and used lethal and excessive force to apprehend criminals and suspects.
“Violence in the form of killings, kidnappings, and forced disappearances; mass rape; and displacement of civilians attributed to both government and nongovernment actors continued in the Niger Delta,” the report added.
Such abuses occurred despite the formation by the Nigerian government of a joint task force in 2003 aimed at restoring stability to the oil-rich delta region.
In Sudan, conflict and human rights abuses in the western Darfur region “continued despite the 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement between the government and a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army.”
“Government-sponsored forces bombed villages, killed civilians, and supported Chadian rebel groups. Women and children continued to experience gender-based violence,” it said.
