Governments in the Americas and Europe should impose targeted sanctions against top Nicaraguan authorities implicated in egregious abuses and explore avenues to press for accountability, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The Guinean government has razed thousands of homes in the country’s capital, Conakry, leaving families struggling to find adequate housing, Human Rights Watch said today. The government has provided no alternative accommodation or compensation to those displaced, in contravention of international human rights law.

Pensioners who live in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine under the control of Russia-backed armed groups must register as displaced people and travel to government controlled areas to receive their pensions. When they travel through the crossing point in the Luhansk region, they face risks to their health, safety and property, among other obstacles.

Children with albinism face insecurity and significant obstacles to accessing quality education in the Tete province of Mozambique.

For 30 years, the Human Rights Watch Film Festival has recognized the rising importance of cinema as a force for raising awareness and galvanizing action.

Government soldiers carried out extensive abuses against civilians during counter-insurgency operations in South Sudanbetween December 2018 and March 2019 in Yei River state, Human Rights Watch said today. The soldiers shot at civilians, looted extensively, burned homes and crops, and chased thousands of residents from their villages. Human Rights Watch also documented accounts of rape and sexual violence by soldiers. 

 Human Rights Watch’s two-year investigation documented crimes including mass arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings, and possibly unlawful air and ground attacks against civilians.

Girls suffered sexual violence and other abuses when armed groups attacked hundreds of schools during the 2016-2017 Kasai conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) in a report released today. The violence affected all children, but girls were particularly harmed, used as “magical” forces that would ward off bullets despite being unarmed, and raped and forcibly “married” to troops.  

Every 25 seconds in the US, someone is arrested for possession of small amounts of drugs, a disproportionate number of them are black.

Human Rights Watch’s staff around the EU have a message: The representatives we all elect to the European Parliament will have an impact on the future of our rights and our communities. When you think elections, think human rights!