“It’s a suffering I wouldn’t wish upon any woman” — Nada Abdelasalem, a Gaza war survivor. 

It’s been over 11 months since Israel invaded Gaza, and the situation continues to go from bad to worse.

The war has not only impacted lives but has deeply shaken humanity, especially when women and children are specifically targeted.

UN Women estimates that 70% of the total casualties in the Gaza war are women and children, with 10,000 women among the dead, including 6,000 mothers who have left behind 19,000 orphaned children. 

Unfortunately, for the women who are surviving, their existence feels no different from being trapped in a living coffin. They might wish they had been killed in the invasion instead.

Since the Onset of Israel – Gaza War…

The women in the war-affected region are helpless. They are crushed under mountains of sorrow. 

First, there is the unbearable pain of losing their children. Then, for some, it’s the grief of losing a brother; for others, their parents, and for many, their husbands. 

On top of all this, they have no roof over their heads, and they are forced to live in refugee camps without access to clean water, food, or basic hygiene. 

The weight of these tragedies is overwhelming, leaving them with little hope and unimaginable suffering.

The lack of necessities for survival has impacted their overall well-being and dignity. 

“We lived in a cozy three-bedroom apartment with a kitchen, built by my husband after years of hard work in construction. But when the war erupted, we lost everything, including my five-month pregnancy. 

We are forced to live in a single tent, with toilets that aren’t even enclosed by four walls. I can’t shower regularly to maintain proper hygiene. I feel like my privacy is constantly being violated.” — Reham conflict survivor. 

The situation for women in Gaza is so dire that they don’t even have extra clothes to change into. Many were forced to flee their homes wearing only the clothes on their backs.

“I wear a prayer robe for everything – to sleep in, to go out,” — Nada, a war-torn victim. 

The situation is even worse, as nearly 1 million women and children now have almost no food, clean water, restrooms, and sanitary pads. It has created a poor environment, as diseases spread rapidly in these unbearable living conditions.

The Doors of Aid Are Almost Closed

What could be worse than all of this? Sadly, for the women of Gaza, their suffering goes even deeper as they endure conditions even more horrific than what has already been described.

According to the World Health Organization and UN agencies, there have been 117 attacks on Gaza’s health infrastructure since the war began. 

These attacks have led to the closure of 64% of primary healthcare centers, and half of the hospitals are now non-operational.

The most heartbreaking aspect of this situation is that every day, 150 women in Gaza give birth to a child. With fuel, medicine, water, and health supplies rapidly diminishing, women are forced to give birth without anesthesia. 

“The war turned our lives upside down,” Etemad Assaf says, rubbing the clothes with her hand.

“Every night, I feel like I’m going to give birth now because I’m so tired.”

“You see? Is this a suitable life for a pregnant woman? A tent, cold, open air, and the lack of the necessities of life?”

Additionally, it is estimated that 15% of these pregnant women experience birth complications, requiring basic or comprehensive obstetric care. Sadly, several women have reported dying during or before giving birth to a child. 

Furthermore, according to a survey, around 50,000 women are currently pregnant, and more than 690,000 menstruating women and girls have limited access to menstrual hygiene products.

Help for diseases is a distant thought; right now, the condition of women in Gaza is so dire that they don’t even have access to basic medical facilities.

Being Women in Gaza 

For women in Gaza, it feels like they are forced to endure the constant fear of death every day—whether from bombings, the lack of healthcare resources, or the unbearable grief of losing their loved ones.

Survival is becoming increasingly difficult with each passing day, especially for women who are pregnant or have recently given birth. 

Many areas are grappling with severe hunger and food shortages, which makes it even more challenging for women to care for their children and newborns. Many have lost their breadwinners and are now relying solely on humanitarian aid to survive.

Finding milk for their children has become nearly impossible, and providing basic nutrition is a constant struggle. 

As the situation worsens, these women are forced to make heartbreaking choices, trying to sustain their families with whatever little they can find. 

The lack of food, medical care, and safety is pushing them to the brink, with no end in sight to their suffering.

Their only hope for improvement lies in the end of the war and the continuous flow of humanitarian aid and essential resources. Without peace and consistent support, their struggle for survival will only grow more desperate.

Despite the lack of sustainability and safe access, the UN has dispatched life-saving and humanitarian aid to Gaza. 

Unfortunately, this aid is insufficient, and more support is urgently needed for the women of Gaza, particularly for pregnant women and newborn babies.

It is crucial to note that no fuel has entered Gaza since October 7, leaving food, electricity, and other necessities out of reach for its residents. 

The only thing sustaining them is hope—the hope that the conflict will end soon and that essential supplies like medicines, healthcare resources, and food will once again become accessible.

Yemen has been experiencing an armed conflict and humanitarian crisis since 2015, with seven brutal years of pain, fear, bloodshed and death. This article provides an update on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen as of February 2023.

Background to Yemen’s Humanitarian Catastrophe

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when Houthi insurgents—Shiite rebels with links to Iran and a history of rising against the Sunni government—took control of Yemen’s capital and largest city, Sana’a, demanding lower fuel prices and a new government.

Two-thirds of the Yemini Population is in Need of Humanitarian Assistance

As of February 2023, two-thirds of the Yemeni population requires humanitarian assistance. The “Houthis” forces backed by Iran, the Saudi/UAE-led coalition, the internationally recognized Yemeni government, and UAE-backed forces, including the Southern Transitional Council (STC), have failed to spare Yemeni civilians grave human rights violations.

There has been a flagrant disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law protections. Thus, the war has resulted in continuous incidents of abuse that have killed and injured thousands of civilians.

Nearly six million Yemenis are displaced from their homes since the beginning of the war, including 4.3 million internally displaced inside Yemen.

So far, there are no signs of the war stopping soon.

Parties to the War Responsible For Grave Human Rights Violations

Parties to the conflict in Yemen continue to commit grave human rights violations. According to a recent report by Human Rights Watch, the clashes between forces have led to continuous unlawful and indiscriminate airstrikes against civilians.

Houthi forces have used banned antipersonnel landmines and fired artillery indiscriminately into populated areas. Moreover, Houthi forces have launched indiscriminate ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia.

Read more: Children’s Rights in Yemen Are Teetering on the Edge of A Catastrophe.

Failed Truce in April 2022

An UN-mediated truce entered force on April 2nd 2022. The truce lasted six months, ending on October 2nd 2022. However, human rights violations continued, and the truce failed as parties broke the agreement with continued fighting and hostilities.

All parties to the conflict failed to protect innocent civilians’ lives. The truce in Yemen ended as both sides rejected a proposal presented by UN Special Envoy for Yemen to extend and expand the agreement.

However, on a brighter note, the truce brought noticeable tangible benefits to the Yemeni population. For example, access to humanitarian aid improved, and widespread economic opportunities became more readily available. Furthermore, there was a considerable decrease in violence and casualties across Yemen. A report by ACLED revealed the lowest number of reported political violence-related deaths in Yemen since January 2015. 

These noticeable and valuable improvements should not ignore that political violence continued in Yemen despite the truce. Worringly, 200 people died every month during the truce due to political violence.

20 Million Yeminis’ Face Food Insecurity

The humanitarian crisis hit a dangerously dire point in 2022 due to constant obstruction of aid from reaching civilians. Houthi forces and the Yemeni government continue unnecessarily imposing restrictions and regulations on humanitarian organizations and aid projects.

Moreover, enforced disappearances are a massive problem in Yemen, with little accountability or investigations. In addition, the economy’s collapse, the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have led to Yemen being one of the world’s most unsettling humanitarian disasters.

More than 20 million Yemenis are facing food insecurity and have little to no access to health care services. The war has resulted in deliberate unlawful attacks against civilian homes, hospitals, schools, and bridges. For years, these war crimes have continued with impunity.

Read more: Yemen: War crimes hidden behind rampant violations.

FSO Safer Threatened a Humanitarian and Environmental Catastrophe

The FSO Safer is a “ticking time bomb”, holding an estimated 1.14 million barrels of light crude oil. Since 2015, the Safer has been stranded off the coast of Yemen.

Yemen’s national oil company owns the FSO. Due to the Yemen war, all production and export operations related to FSO are suspended. However, millions of barrels of crude oil remain onboard.

The ongoing crisis in Yemen has made the Safer too dangerous to move. According to the UN, the Safer could explode or rupture anytime, threatening an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe. This dire situation could quickly become one of the worst oil spills in history, devastating Yemen and the environment. Luckily, a two-stage UN-coordinated plan to prevent the Safer from exploding or breaking apart was initiated in March 2022.

In September 2022, the UN stated it had raised sufficient funds to initiate a four-month-long operation to transfer oil from the Safer to a secure vessel. Following this first step, a second stage will involve installing a replacement vessel within 18 months. The rescue mission is estimated to cost up to $115 million for both stages.

However, despite these initiated plans,  recent efforts to rescue the Safer have been unsuccessful due to the region’s ongoing conflict.

Yemini Women’s and Girl’s Rights Under Threat

The Houthi rebels continue discriminating against girls and women and restricting their freedom and rights. There have been significant systematic violations of women’s and girls’ rights. The de facto law in Houthi-controlled areas requires women to travel with a mahram (a close male relative or their husband). In addition, evidence of written permission from their male guardian will also suffice.

Women’s access to healthcare services, particularly reproductive healthcare, have severely limited since the war began. Furthermore, women’s dress code, access to education and freedom of expression is severely controlled and limited by men.

Concluding Thoughts

The eight-year war in Yemen has caused immense suffering, and a recent UNDP report estimated that the number of those killed due to Yemen’s war could reach 1.3 million by 2030. Furthermore, the death toll from Yemen’s war is estimated to reach 377,000 by the end of 2021. To put matters into perspective, an estimated 70% of those killed will be children under the age of five years.

The evidence discussed in this article reveals alarming discoveries which must be addressed immediately. Mainly associated with girls’ and women’s rights, environmental threats, food insecurities and an increased number of civilians needing humanitarian assistance. Furthermore, an increasingly worsening economy, decimated public infrastructure, and a year-on-year decline in humanitarian funding have put Yemenis’ lives under direct threat.

The situation in Yemen is a complex protection crisis at its very core. Many Yemenis struggle to live in safety and dignity and enjoy basic fundamental rights or access to essential services. 

This worrying reality must be addressed and changed in 2023 with more focused attention on protecting and upholding human rights for everyone.

ISIS Detainees Denied Basic Human Rights

For the past four years, thousands of prisoners, primarily women and children, from the Islamic State (ISIS), have been arbitrarily detained in camps in northeast Syria. Approximatley, 42,200 people are currently detained in the camps despite the recently increased repatriation of women and children. Recent Turkish air and artillery strikes have exacerbated the dangerous circumstances in the camps. These Turkish strikes cut off electricity and stopped the water supply. They severely impacted fuel and food deliveries and detainees’ access to medical services in the Al-Hol and Roj camps.

In 2022, many children in the camps drowned in sewage pits, died in tent fires, and several were run over by water trucks. Furthermore, hundreds died from preventable illnesses due to very limited access to healthcare. Prisoners have no legal basis or the possibility of reviewing the legality of their arbitrary detention. This severely undermines international human rights protections. The prisoner’s humanitarian situation is continuously deteriorating. They are subject to inhumane and degrading conditions with limited access to basic necessities and fundamental rights.

Background to ISIS Camps

Al-Hol and Roj are two camps in northeast Syria primarily holding the wives and children of male ISIS suspects. Among the prisoners, approximately 18,000 are from Syria, 28,000 are from neighbouring Iraq, and more than 10,000 are from 60 other countries. Shockingly, the prisoners consist of 60% children. Of these children, nearly 80% are under age 12, and 30% are age five or younger.

Read also: Syria: A Growing Humanitarian Crisis Amid the Russia-Ukraine Conflict.

The conditions in the camps have created a children’s rights catastrophe. The camp conditions are deplorable, as continued violence resulted in the death of nearly 100 people in 2021.

The Political and Legal Hot Potato of Repatriation

The repatriation of women and children from camps in northeast Syria has been a very controversial and complex legal issue for countries for many years. The Committee on the Rights of the Child and numerous UN Special Rapporteurs have continuously demanded that states repatriate their nationals trapped in these camps.

Unfortunately, many countries contest these demands and make inconsistent responses to the ongoing human rights violations. However, several European countries recently began to increase the repatriation of women and children from the camps. For example, Germany and Denmark repatriated 37 children and 11 women. The Netherlands repatriated five women and 11 children. Belgium repatriated 16 children and six women. Sweden repatriated 20 children and ten women. More recently, France repatriated 35 children and 16 women.

Moreover, the table below illustrates the number of children, women and men that were repatriated by country.

Landmark Jurisprudence: HF and others v France

On September 14th 2022, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued a consequential judgment in HF and others v France. In this case, two grandparents initiated proceedings at the ECtHR. The case was filed against France for their unwillingness to repatriate their grandchildren and daughter from ISIS camps in Syria.

On the one hand, the judgement laid down substantial implications and guidelines for France and other countries in similar situations. European states must now follow concrete and defined obligations flowing from this decision. Consequently, the judgement can speed up repatriation processes and force a potential political reckoning.

On the other hand, the judgement is rather disappointing. It does not order the repatriation of these individuals back to France. Moreover, it does not imply that France has the jurisdiction to protect the rights of its nationals under these circumstances.

From an international legal perspective, the ECtHR does recognize some positive obligations in the extraterritorial context in this judgment. These positive obligations stem from issues concerning the age, health, and safety of the children.

ECtHR and CRC Committee Deliver Differing Approaches in HF and others v France

Notably, the ECtHR ruling diverted from the approach used by the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC Committee). The CRC Committee went much further in recognizing the states’ jurisdiction in this case. The Committee found in 2020 that France exercised jurisdiction over the children detained in Syria camps.

“the state of the children’s nationality has the capability and the power to protect the rights of the children in question by taking action to repatriate them or provide other consular responses.”

cOMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD, HF and others v France (2020).

Furthermore, on a positive note, the ECtHR’s judgement addresses misconceptions about the barriers to repatriation due to national security implications. The decisions clarified that EU states have access to the Syrian camps and have previously successfully repatriated nationals without serious consequences.

The court’s decision strongly indicates that states do not have a convincing legal argument for denying repatriation requests. This explicitly applies to vulnerable children who have had their fundamental rights violated for over four years.

Repatriated Children Integrating Well in New Countries

According to a November 2022 report released by Human Rights Watch, many of the children repatriated are successfully integrating. The report illustrates the experiences of approximately 100 repatriated children between 2019 and 2022. These countries included France, Germany, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, and Uzbekistan.

These children have been subjected to many years of life-threatening conditions. They had limited access to basic necessities such as food and water. They have witnessed and experienced unimaginable violence, abuse and neglect. Despite this, many of the repatriated children are doing well in school, making new friends and integrating smoothly.

Moving Forward & Recommendations

States can dramatically improve reintegration by quickly providing repatriated prisoners with birth certificates, identity cards, and other documents. The Autonomous Administration controls the Syrian ISIS camps and repeatedly urges states to repatriate their nationals. Additionally, they have requested an increase in aid to improve the prisoner’s disgraceful living conditions.

Although it is highly controversial, states must fulfil international human rights obligations. As highlighted in HF and others v France, states are responsible for protecting their citizens when they face serious harm. Children’s inhumane conditions in these camps call for governments to help end their nationals’ unlawful detention urgently.

In conclusion, the arbitrary detention of these prisoners amounts to collective punishment, which is considered a war crime under international law. According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children should only be detained as an “exceptional measure of last resort”. States must take responsibility by bringing detainees home, prioritizing the most vulnerable and providing rehabilitation and reintegration services.

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