Category World News

The United Nations has appealed to the international community to bolster its support for Haiti after a report revealed that gang violence has claimed 4,864 lives from October to June.

More than 20 percent of those deaths unfolded in the departments of Centre and Artibonite, indicating that intense violence is spilling into the areas surrounding the capital, Port-au-Prince.

In a report released on Friday, the UN explained that the growing presence of gangs like Gran Grif in those areas appears to be part of a broader strategy to control key routes connecting the capital to Haiti’s north and its border with the Dominican Republic.

“This expansion of gang territorial control poses a major risk of spreading violence and increasing transnational trafficking in arms and people,” the report said.

Among its recommendations was for the international community to better police the sale of firearms to Haiti and to continue to offer support for a Kenya-led security mission aimed at strengthening Haiti’s local law enforcement.

In a statement, Ulrika Richardson, the UN’s resident coordinator in Haiti, explained that propping up the country’s beleaguered police force is key to restoring security.

“Human rights abuses outside Port-au-Prince are intensifying in areas of the country where the presence of the State is extremely limited,” she said.

“The international community must strengthen its support to the authorities, who bear the primary responsibility for protecting the Haitian population.”

The report indicates that the violence in the regions surrounding Port-au-Prince took a turn for the worse in October, when a massacre was carried out in the town of Pont Sonde in the Artibonite department.

The Gran Grif gang had set up a checkpoint at a crossroads there, but local vigilante groups were encouraging residents to bypass it, according to the UN.

In an apparent act of retaliation, the gang launched an attack on Pont Sonde. The UN describes gang members as firing “indiscriminately at houses” along the road to the checkpoint, killing at least 100 people and wounding 16. They also set 45 houses and 34 vehicles on fire.

The chaos forced more than 6,270 people to flee Pont Sonde for their safety, contributing to an already dire crisis of internal displacement.

The UN notes that, as of June, more than 92,300 people were displaced from the Artibonite department, and 147,000 from Centre — a 118-percent increase over that department’s statistics from December.

Overall, nearly 1.3 million people have been displaced throughout the country.

The massacre at Pont Sondé prompted a backlash, with security forces briefly surging to the area. But that presence was not sustained, and Gran Grif has begun to reassert its control in recent months.

Meanwhile, the report documents a wave of reprisal killings, as vigilante groups answered the gang’s actions with violence of their own.

Around December 11, for instance, the UN noted that the gangs killed more than 70 people near the town of Petite-Riviere de l’Artibonite, and vigilante groups killed 67 people, many of them assumed to be relatives or romantic partners of local gang members.

Police units are also accused of committing 17 extrajudicial killings in that wave of violence, as they targeted suspected gang collaborators. The UN reports that new massacres have unfolded in the months since.

In the Centre department, a border region where gangs operate trafficking networks, similar acts of retaliation have been reported as the gangs and vigilante groups clash for control of the roads.

One instance the UN chronicles from March involved the police interception of a minibus driving from the city of Gonaives to Port-au-Prince. Officers allegedly found three firearms and 10,488 cartridges inside the bus, a fact which sparked concern and uproar among residents nearby.

“Enraged, members of the local population who witnessed the scene lynched to death, using stones, sticks, and machetes, two individuals: the driver and another man present in the vehicle,” the report said.

Haiti has been grappling with an intense period of gang violence since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021. Criminal networks have used the resulting power vacuum to expand their presence and power, seizing control of as much as 90 percent of the capital.

A transitional government council, meanwhile, has struggled to re-establish order amid controversies, tensions and leadership turnover. The council, however, has said it plans to hold its first presidential election in nearly a decade in 2026.

Meanwhile, Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, warned that civilians will continue to suffer as the cycle of violence continues.

Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina – In a grassy valley dotted with white gravestones, thousands of people gathered to mark 30 years since the Srebrenica massacre on Friday.

Seven victims of the 1995 genocide, some of whose remains were only discovered and exhumed in the past year from mass graves uncovered in Liplje, Baljkovica, Suljici and Kamenicko Brdo, were buried during the sombre anniversary on Friday.

Limited remains of one of the victims, Hasib Omerovic, who was 34 when he was killed, were found and exhumed from a mass grave in 1998, but his family delayed his burial until now, hoping to recover more.

Zejad Avdic, 46, is the brother of another of the victims being buried. Senajid Avdic was just 19 when he was killed on July 11, 1995. His remains were discovered in October 2010 at a site in Suljici, one of the villages attacked that day by Bosnian Serb forces.

“When the news came, at first, I couldn’t – I didn’t – dare tell my mother, my father. It was too hard,” Avdic told Al Jazeera, referring to the moment he learned that some of his brother’s remains had been found.

“What was found wasn’t complete, just a few bones from the skull.”

Families like Avdic’s have waited decades for even a fragment of bone to confirm their loved one’s death. Many have buried their loved ones with only partial remains.

The Srebrenica massacre was the crescendo of Bosnia’s three-year war from 1992 to 1995, which flared up in the aftermath of Yugoslava’s dissolution, pitting Bosnian Serbs against the country’s two other main ethnic populations – Croats and Muslim Bosniaks.

On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces stormed the enclave of Srebrenica, ​​a designated United Nations-protected safe zone, overrunning the Dutch UN battalion stationed there. They separated at least 8,000 Bosniak men and boys from their wives, mothers and sisters, slaughtering them en masse.

Thousands of men and boys attempted to escape through the surrounding woods, but Serb forces chased them through the mountainous terrain, killing and capturing as many as they could. Women and children were expelled from the city and neighbouring villages by bus.

Thousands of people attended the commemoration for victims of the massacre on Friday, which began with a congregational Islamic prayer – men, women and children prostrating in unison among the rows of gravestones.

After the prayer, the remains of the victims, who have been identified using extensive DNA analysis, were carried in green coffins draped with the Bosnian flag.

The coffins were lowered into newly prepared graves. At each site, groups of men stepped forward to take turns covering the caskets with soil, shovelling from nearby mounds in a solemn conclusion to the proceedings.

After the remains had been buried, the victims’ families crowded around the sites, wiping away their tears as an imam recited verses over the caskets.

‘I will keep coming as long as I’m alive’

Fikrera Tuhljakovic, 66, attends the memorial here each year, but this year her cousin was among the victims being buried.

She said she is determined to ensure he is remembered and that all of the victims are never forgotten.

“I will keep coming as long as I’m alive,” Tuhljakovic told Al Jazeera.

Forensic scientists and the International Commission on Missing Persons have, in the decades since the mass killings, worked to locate the remains of those killed.

More than 6,000 victims have been buried at the memorial site in Potocari, but more than 1,000 remain missing.

In 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared the events in Srebrenica and the surrounding area a genocide. Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic were both convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison.

In total, the tribunal and courts in the Balkans have sentenced almost 50 Bosnian Serb wartime officials to more than 700 years in prison for the genocide.

But many accused remain unpunished. Denial of the genocide also continues – especially among political leaders in Serbia and the Serb-majority entity of Republika Srpska, which was established in the northeast of the country at the start of the war in 1992 with the stated aim of protecting the interests of the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to Emir Cica, Islamic Relief’s Bosnia country director, international institutions have not done enough to prevent events like Srebrenica from happening again, with similar atrocities happening in Gaza at the moment.

“When we see what has happened, for example, in Gaza, it is very painful for us because we understand this [experience],” Cica told Al Jazeera.

For Avdic, Gaza is indeed a painful reminder of history repeating itself.

“Today we are burying our victims of genocide, and today in Gaza, genocide is happening, too,” he said solemnly.

“I don’t know what kind of message to send; there’s no effect on those in power who could actually do something.”

Washington, DC – The United States government has acknowledged its use of Canary Mission — a shadowy pro-Israel website — to identify pro-Palestine students for deportation, sparking anger and concern by rights advocates.

Activists have long suspected that the administration of US President Donald Trump is gathering information from the Canary Mission website to target students and professors.

But on Wednesday, that suspicion was confirmed when a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official testified in a court case challenging Trump’s efforts to deport pro-Palestinian student protesters.

Peter Hatch, an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said the department had assembled a specialised group — dubbed a “tiger team” — to work on removing pro-Palestine college students from the country.

He indicated to the court that some tips about students were communicated verbally, before explaining that the team had also combed through the nearly 5,000 profiles Canary Mission had compiled of Israel’s critics.

“You mean someone said, ‘Here is a list that the Canary Mission has put together?’” Judge William Young asked Hatch, according to court transcripts.

The official answered with a simple “yes”.

Heba Gowayed, a sociology professor at the City University of New York (CUNY), said the government’s reliance on an online blacklist that posts personal information to harm and intimidate activists is “absurd and fascist”.

“Canary Mission is a doxxing website that specifically targets people for language that they deem to be pro-Palestinian and therefore, they’ve decided, is anti-Semitic. Its sole purpose is to target and harass people,” Gowayed told Al Jazeera.

“How do you use a hate group … to identify people for whether or not they have the right to be present in the country?”

The crackdown

As demonstrations opposing the Israeli atrocities in Gaza swept college campuses last year, Israel’s advocates portrayed the protest movement as anti-Semitic and a threat to the safety of Jewish students.

While activists pushed back against the accusations, saying that the protests were aimed at combatting human rights abuses against Palestinians, conservative leaders called to crush the demonstrations and penalise the participants.

Shortly after returning to the White House in January, Trump himself signed a series of executive orders that laid the groundwork for targeting non-citizens who took part in the student protests for deportation.

“It shall be the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism vigorously,” one of the orders read.

It called on government officials to create systems to “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff”.

In March, Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil — a permanent resident married to a US citizen — became the first prominent victim of Trump’s campaign.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a seldom-used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act to order Khalil’s removal, on the basis that the Columbia student’s presence has “adverse” effects on American foreign policy.

After Khalil, many other students were detained by immigration authorities. Some left the country voluntarily to avoid imprisonment. Others, like Khalil, continue to fight their deportation.

Free speech advocates decried the campaign as a blatant violation of constitutionally protected freedoms.

But the Trump administration asserted that the issue is an immigration matter that falls under its mandate.

Before last year’s presidential elections, the Heritage Foundation, a prominent right-wing think tank, released a policy document titled Project Esther designed to dismantle the Palestine solidarity movement in the US.

Project Esther called for identifying students and professors critical of Israel who are in violation of their visas, and it cited Canary Mission extensively.

A ‘witch hunt’ against students

For years, Palestinian rights advocates have condemned Canary Mission for publishing identifying information about activists — their names, photos and employment histories — while keeping its own staff anonymous.

In its ongoing deportation campaign against student activists, the Trump administration has said that it is targeting students who engaged in violent conduct, promoted anti-Semitism and had ties to “terrorist” groups.

But none of the prominent students detained by ICE have been charged with a crime, and some only engaged in mild criticism of Israel.

For example, the only accusation against Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish scholar at Tufts University, is that she co-authored an op-ed asking her school to honour a student resolution calling for divestment from Israeli companies.

That column, published in the university’s student newspaper, landed Ozturk on the Canary Mission’s blacklist, which appears to have led to the Trump administration’s push to deport her.

Andrew Ross, a New York University professor of social and cultural analysis, said the US administration’s use of Canary Mission’s data shows that the government’s push is “sloppy” and biased.

He added that while Canary Mission appears well funded, its content is curated to paint its targets in a certain light.

“They’re looking for material and content that they can manipulate and spin and present as if the person being profiled is anti-Semitic basically,” said Ross, who has his own Canary Mission profile for criticising Israel.

The professor accused the Trump administration of “fundamental dishonesty”, describing the deportation campaign as a “witch hunt”.

How does Canary Mission work?

While Canary Mission does not appear to fabricate data, it portrays criticism of Israel as bigoted and dangerous.

Some profiles denounce individuals for actions as innocuous as sharing materials from Amnesty International condemning Israeli abuses.

The profiles seem to be optimised for internet searches. So, even if the accusations lack merit, targeted individuals often report that their Canary Mission profiles sit at the top of online searches for their names.

Advocates say the tactic can have a detrimental impact on careers, mental health and safety.

“It has caused people to lose jobs. It has caused people all kinds of adverse effects,” Gowayed said.

For his part, Ross said he has received hate mail because of Canary Mission. He worries the website can be especially harmful for marginalised groups.

“Those, as we are seeing, who don’t have full citizenship status are particularly vulnerable at this point in time. But it could be anyone,” he said.

The website was founded in 2015, and it has been expanding since. Nevertheless, barring a few media leaks over the years, the operators and funders of Canary Mission remain anonymous.

In 2018, Haaretz reported that Israeli authorities have relied on the website to detain people and bar them from entering the country.

That same year, the outlet The Forward found that Canary Mission is linked to an Israel-based non-profit called Megamot Shalom. Since then, media reports have revealed the names of a few wealthy American donors who have made contributions to the website through a network of Jewish charities.

‘Silencing dissent’

On Thursday, Palestine Legal, an advocacy group, accused the Trump administration of racism for relying on the website.

“Under Trump, ICE has now publicly admitted they are abducting pro-Palestinian student activists based on an anonymously-run blacklist site,” Palestine Legal said in a social media post.

“Both the mass deportation machine, and these horrific blacklists, clearly run on racism.”

J Street, a group that describes itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace, also decried the government’s use of the website.

“Canary Mission is feeding the Trump Administration’s agenda, weaponizing antisemitism to surveil and attempt to deport student activists,” it said. “This isn’t about protecting Jews — it’s about silencing dissent.”

The State Department did not respond to Al Jazeera’s query on the government’s use of Canary Mission. Instead, a department spokesperson referred to a statement by Secretary of State Rubio from May.

“The bottom line is, if you’re coming here to stir up trouble on our campuses, we will deny you a visa. And if you have a visa, and we find you, we will revoke it,” it said.

DHS did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

But the Trump administration may also be using more extreme sources than Canary Mission to deport students.

At Wednesday’s court hearing, Hatch was asked about other sources the government is using. He replied that there was one other website he could not recall.

The court asked Hatch if it might be Betar, a far-right, Islamophobic group with links to the violent Kahanist movement in Israel.

According to transcripts, Hatch replied, “That sounds right.”

Gowayed, the City University of New York professor, called the government’s approach an “egregious overstep and distortion of any kind of notion of justice or legality”.

Thousands of Bosnian Serbs participated in the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995, killing more than 8,000 mostly Muslim men and boys in just three days. But only 54 people have ever been convicted. So why are so many killers walking free? Soraya Lennie has the details.