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Mali: Russia’s ‘Africa Corps’ Airstrikes Kill Civilians
(Nairobi, July 31, 2026) – The Russian government-controlled Africa Corps carried out airstrikes in central Mali on June 15, 2026, that killed eight civilians, including three children, in an apparently unlawful attack, Human Rights Watch said today.
That morning, an aircraft identified by two Malian military sources as a Sukhoi Su-24, dropped at least two munitions on Kyrnia village, Mopti region. The first struck outside the village chief’s residence, killing two of his children, his wife, and another child, and injuring a woman. The second struck a small cattle market about twenty meters away, killing four men and injuring two others. No Islamist armed group fighters were known to be casualties.
“Russian government-controlled Africa Corps aircraft have killed civilians in a Malian village in seeming disregard for the laws of war,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “By handing the Russian authorities a blank check, the Malian government should be aware that it too is accountable for allied forces’ atrocities.”
Human Rights Watch remotely interviewed 19 people between June 24 and July 14, including 6 witnesses, civil society members, community leaders, Malian military sources, and local journalists. Human Rights Watch also analyzed satellite imagery of the locations of the strikes, a video of the strikes that the Africa Corps placed online, and photographs that an Islamist armed group posted on social media. On July 22, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the Russian defense minister, summarizing its findings and posing several questions, but received no response.
On June 23, the Africa Corps reported on its Facebook and X accounts that on June 15 it had carried out a successful airstrike on a “gathering place of terrorist groups” in the Mopti region, killing several “field commanders,” and published a video of the strikes and aftermath. Human Rights Watch geolocated the two strikes from the video to Kyrnia.
The Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM) has controlled Kyrnia for the past six years. Witnesses said at least 100 JNIM fighters, including a senior commander, were in the village at the time of the strikes but had gathered mainly at the village mosque and outside a shop near a small cattle market. While neither the mosque nor shop was struck, one munition hit the cattle market. JNIM has occasionally stored weapons, ammunition, fuel, and other material at the store, which is owned by the village chief, a wealthy trader. A pickup truck, similar to vehicles the JNIM commonly uses, was parked outside the chief’s home.
Since 2012, successive governments in Mali have battled Islamist armed groups. After military coups in 2020 and 2021, the junta leader, Gen. Assimi Goïta, expelled French and United Nations forces and strengthened ties with Russia. Since 2021, the junta has relied on the Russia-linked Wagner Group for security assistance. The mercenary group was rebranded as the Africa Corps after the Wagner Group founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in 2023, and came under Moscow’s direct control.
The Russian foreign ministry acknowledged in June that Russian military personnel were working with the Malian armed forces to ensure full control over Malian territory after JNIM attacks across the country on April 25. The Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces used Su-24s to strike militants.
Based on media reports and satellite imagery, the Africa Corps has deployed Su-24 aircraft in Mali since at least April 2025 in support of the Malian military. There is no public record of transfer of Su-24s to Malian authorities. These aircraft can carry an array of large, air-delivered munitions, including guided weapons, that are consistent with the damage caused by the munitions that struck Kyrnia.
Witnesses said they saw a fighter jet flying low over Kyrnia and making a deafening noise. “It was a fighter jet, very fast ... it flew low ... from west to east,” said a 35-year-old trader. “I saw it dropping a bomb ... like a fireball ... and I ran for cover under a tree.”
A cowherder, 37, said he had been sitting at the cattle market when he heard a loud rumbling sound, followed by an explosion. He saw thick black smoke rise from houses near the chief’s home, then a second explosion. “The market was a mess,” he said, “stalls blown apart over several meters, and shredded cows and sheep.” He helped clear the rubble from the chief’s collapsed home alongside other residents, while JNIM fighters coordinated rescue efforts. “The chief's second wife was dead, and she had lost … her arms,” he said. “Then [we found] the [bodies of the] two children ... and another boy who had been thrown by the explosion on the roof.”
Analysis of the Africa Corps video and of satellite imagery from June 25 by Human Rights Watch shows two craters in the southern part of Kyrnia, each about 12 meters wide, indicating two large, air-delivered munitions. About nine market stalls, visible on satellite imagery from February 7, appear to have been destroyed by the second strike. The strike outside the chief’s residence fell between structures, causing at least one building to collapse.
Click to expand Image Screenshot of an Africa Corps video and satellite imagery from June 25, 2026, show two craters in the southern part of Kyrnia, each about 12 meters wide, indicating two large, air-delivered munitions. Image © 2026 Planet Labs PBC. Graphics © 2026 Human Rights WatchA camel breeder, 48, said he was “thrown [to the ground] by the blast of the first explosion,” and discovered he was “covered in sand and debris.… [P]eople in front of me were injured, some had broken arms.”
A 40-year-old man said he identified “the bodies of three merchants,” hit “as they rode their three-wheeled vehicle loaded with bags of dates” through the cattle market.
The second strike injured three men, including one who died the following day. A witness said the man had been struck by bomb fragments and “[h]is arms had been torn apart.”
Human Rights Watch reviewed a list with the names of the eight victims, including three children ages 1 to 10, a 24-year-old woman, and four men ages 30 to 40.
Witnesses said that on June 14, a drone presumably operated by the Malian armed forces or the Africa Corps flew over Kyrnia, suggesting the village was under surveillance. “I saw a drone in the sky the day before, between 4 and 5 p.m.,” said the camel breeder. “It made several rounds over the village before leaving.”
Witnesses said about 100 JNIM fighters were in the village at the time of the strikes, most at the mosque, about 150 meters from the strike sites. A man, 40, said that at the mosque, some JNIM fighters were on motorcycles. “They were armed with automatic weapons and dressed in military uniforms or boubous [robes], with their faces covered with turbans,” he said. The trader also said that numerous JNIM fighters and a prominent commander were in or outside the village chief’s shop, located at the cattle market struck by the second munition.
The strikes occurred on a market day, when Kyrnia was crowded with traders, buyers, and villagers. Residents said that since JNIM took control of the area, Kyrnia has become a commercial hub with a large livestock market.
Residents said that JNIM purchased supplies, including fuel and food, from Kyrnia’s market. They said airstrikes may have targeted the village chief’s residence because of his pickup truck, similar to those used by JNIM, was parked outside. They also said three of the chief’s sons are JNIM fighters, but were not in Kyrnia during the attack.
The laws of war applicable to the armed conflict in Mali prohibit attacks that target civilians and civilian objects, that do not discriminate between civilians and combatants, or that are expected to harm civilians or civilian property that is disproportionate to any anticipated military advantage.
Warring parties carrying out attacks are obligated to take all feasible precautions to minimize loss of civilian life. Parties should avoid deploying in densely populated areas. The strikes in Kyrnia did not appear to target specific military objectives, which would make them unlawfully indiscriminate. The fact that the village chief did business with the JNIM would not make him subject to attack. Human Rights Watch uncovered no information that the chief’s home was then being used to store arms or ammunition.
The Malian government has an obligation to investigate the incident and hold accountable those responsible for laws-of-war violations, including Africa Corps members.
“The Malian government cannot hide behind laws-of-war violations committed by their Russian allies,” Allegrozzi said. “The junta has to impartially investigate all possible war crimes committed on their territory, including the airstrikes in Kyrnia, or be held complicit in abuses.”
Australia School Photos Scraped for AI-Fueled Image Misuse
Australia’s eSafety commissioner issued an advisory on July 28 urging schools to review how they share images online, citing a rise in the misuse of school photos. Between January and March 2026, the commissioner received over 100 reports concerning anonymous accounts targeting schools and school staff through misuse of images taken from official school websites and social media accounts. Much of the content, shared on platforms including TikTok and Instagram, involved artificial intelligence (AI)-generated materials depicting both children and school staff, including sexualized deepfake images, face swaps, and other manipulated imagery.
In 2024, Human Rights Watch documented that the personal photos of Australian children, including images posted by schools, had been scraped and used to train AI models. In addition to privacy risks, these practices enable the creation of convincing deepfakes, including sexualized imagery of children, which put children at even more risk of exploitation and harm.
Once online, images shared by schools can be rapidly manipulated and distributed. Photos in data sets used to train AI models can also reveal information that could identify children, including names, events, locations, and schedules. This could expose children to lasting harm, as both the original images and malicious deepfakes created from them can remain accessible indefinitely.
Australia has been considering stronger child data protections rules through the government’s proposed Children’s Online Privacy Code. The draft code, published in March, is expected to be finalized later this year. This code is a critical opportunity to strengthen protections for children’s personal information and require companies to act in children’s best interests in accordance with international human rights law.
The cases highlighted by eSafety underscore the growing risks of a regulatory environment that does not explicitly prohibit the scraping and reuse of children’s images and personal data. As the government moves towards finalizing the code, it should ensure that it explicitly prohibits the scraping of children’s photos and personal data for AI training. It should also prohibit the digital replication or manipulation of children’s likenesses.
Children should not have to worry that photographs shared online by their schools will be scraped, manipulated, and turned into harmful content beyond their control. Australia should make it clear as a matter of law that children’s images are not raw material for AI models.
Vietnam: Quash Conviction of Social Media Commentator
(Bangkok) – The Vietnamese authorities should immediately quash the criminal conviction of a prominent commentator on social media and release her, Human Rights Watch said today.
On July 29, 2026, a court in Hanoi convicted Hoang Thi Hong Thai and sentenced her to six years in prison. Hanoi police had arrested her on January 7 for comments she made on social media criticizing the Vietnamese government and charged her with anti-state propaganda under article 117 of the penal code.
“Hoang Thi Hong Thai should never have been prosecuted for speaking out against injustice and the Vietnamese government’s violations of people’s rights,” said Patricia Gossman, senior associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should immediately release her and others persecuted for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression.”
Hoang Thi Hong Thai, 45, has published hundreds of comments on social media focusing on socio-political issues and expressing empathy for people who have suffered government repression. As of July 2026, her Meta account had 118,000 followers.
In April 2025, the police interrogated her about her writing and threatened to arrest her. A few days later, she posted a message on social media apologizing for having no choice but to stop writing as the police were pressuring her to choose between expressing her views or taking care of her autistic child. “Be a mother or go to prison,” she wrote. A few days later, she resumed writing.
In June 2025, she published an online post criticizing articles 117 and 331 of Vietnam’s penal code for violating the right to freedom of speech enshrined in Vietnam’s constitution, and urged the National Assembly to amend or abolish these laws. Article 117 broadly prohibits “making, storing, disseminating or propagandizing information, materials and products that aim to oppose the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Article 331 criminalizes acts deemed to “infringe upon the interests of the state” with up to seven years in prison.
The Vietnamese authorities have intensified the use of article 117 to prosecute other critics for expressing opinions not strictly line with Communist Party views. In the past year, the authorities have convicted and sentenced at least 14 people to prison, and charged at least 12 others under this article.
In March 2026, a court in Dak Lak province convicted and sentenced former political prisoner Huynh Ngoc Tuan to eight and a half years in prison for posting his opinions on social media. He had previously served 10 years in prison for writing fiction that did not meet with the government’s approval.
In June and July, the police arrested five people for their roles in publishing a controversial book about Ho Chi Minh, the founder of Vietnamese communism.
In 2025 and 2026, the authorities have charged six people with anti-state propaganda for their alleged affiliation with the Collective for Democracy and Pluralism, a pro-democracy group founded in France in 1982 to campaign for civil and political rights in Vietnam. They are Quach Gia Khang, 29; Chu Tuan Anh, 28; Nguyen Thanh Tien, 37; Tran Van Khanh, 41; Dinh Thanh Tung, 37; and Nguyen Huu Binh, 31.
Others associated with the group are already serving prison terms, including Tran Khac Duc and Nguyen Duy Niem, who were arrested in 2024 and 2025. In November 2025, a court in Ho Chi Minh City convicted and sentenced Tran Khac Duc to seven years in prison. In March 2026, a court in Nghe An province convicted and sentenced Nguyen Duy Niem to five years in prison.
On August 3, a freelance journalist, Doan Bao Chau, faces trail in absentia at the People’s Court of Hanoi for participating in discussions on BBC Vietnamese. The authorities accuse him of producing anti-state propaganda and have charged him under article 117 of the penal code. In August 2025, police issued a wanted notice, urging people to turn him in after he had gone into hiding.
In December, courts in Hanoi also convicted and sentenced in absentia Le Trung Khoa, a Berlin-based journalist, and Nguyen Van Dai, a former political prisoner, each to 17 years in prison.
“The Vietnamese government’s claim at international forums that they uphold human rights is contradicted daily by the persecution of citizens who criticize the Communist Party,” Gossman said. “Vietnam’s international donors and trade partners should publicly urge the Vietnamese authorities to immediately release all those imprisoned for peacefully exercising their right to free expression.”
Azerbaijan Jails Prominent TV Journalists, Media Workers
An Azerbaijani court on July 27 sentenced nine journalists, media workers, and civil society activists to between 12 and 15 years in prison. It is the harshest verdict since the government began its ongoing crackdown on independent journalism.
The Baku Grave Crimes Court handed down the sentences in the so-called Toplum TV case. Akif Gurbanov and Ruslan Izzatli, affiliated with the Third Republic civic platform which co-produced Toplum TV’s programming, received 15-year sentences. Toplum TV co-founder Alasgar Mammadli received a 14-year sentence, as did Ali Zeynalov, a researcher at the Democratic Initiatives Institute, an independent organization that supports public initiatives and promotes democratic principles, human rights, and transparent elections in Azerbaijan. Democratic Initiatives Institute staff members Ramil Babayev and Ilkin Amrahov and video editor Mushfig Jabbarov received 13 years each. Journalists Farid Ismayilov and Elmir Abbasov were sentenced to 12 years each.
The authorities initially accused the nine of currency smuggling, later adding other financial crimes. All denied the charges and said the prosecutions were politically motivated.
Toplum TV’s editor, Shahnaz Beylergizi, remains under a travel ban while authorities investigate her on similar charges, in a separate case.
The sentences are the longest imposed during Azerbaijan’s yearslong campaign against independent media and civil society. They exceed the terms of between seven-and-a-half and nine years imposed on AbzasMedia journalists in June 2025 and upheld by the Supreme Court in April 2026.
Toplum TV was among Azerbaijan’s last independent news outlets before the authorities began arresting its staff and associates in 2024. The authorities have used similar currency smuggling allegations against journalists from AbzasMedia and Meydan TV. The trial of 12 Meydan TV journalists and media workers remains ongoing.
Azerbaijan’s restrictive regulatory framework has largely excluded independent media and civil society groups from lawful avenues for operating and accessing funding, forcing many to work at the margins of the law and leaving them vulnerable to retaliatory prosecutions on spurious financial charges.
The Azerbaijani authorities should seek to have the convictions voided and those imprisoned released, and end the politically motivated prosecutions of journalists and media workers. Azerbaijan’s international partners should publicly condemn the sentences, press the authorities to release those imprisoned, and make clear that continued repression of independent media will have consequences for political, economic, and security cooperation.
South Sudan: Abuse of Civilians in Western Equatoria
(Nairobi) – South Sudan’s army, opposition forces, and their respective allied militias abused civilians causing much of the population to flee during fighting in 2025 in Nagero County, Western Equatoria, Human Rights Watch said today. The abuses include intentional killings of civilians, rape and torture, or other cruel treatment that constitute war crimes.
Western Equatoria state has been the site of repeated fighting between the army and opposition forces since 2018, with both parties carrying out serious abuses against civilians. From January to February 2025 and then again from September to November 2025, South Sudan’s army–South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF)–clashed with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in-Opposition (SPLA/IO) in Nagero County. During and after the clashes, government forces and allied fighters summarily executed at least eight civilians, including children; raped women; subjected other civilians, including detainees, to ill-treatment after accusing them of supporting the opposition; and burned and pillaged civilian property.
“Government forces and allied militia carried out serious abuses against civilian communities in Nagero County, leaving many with nothing to return to,” said Laetitia Bader, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government needs to investigate these violations promptly and effectively, and hold the leaders of these forces to account.”
Between March 2025 and June 2026, Human Rights Watch interviewed 31 survivors and witnesses from Nagero County, and 6 other sources. Some of those interviewed had been displaced to other areas, notably to Wau and Bazia (Western Bahr El Ghazal), and Juba, the country’s capital. Human Rights Watch also analyzed satellite imagery showing active fires or burn marks over several villages in Nagero County during January and February 2025. Civilians have returned to Nagero town and environs, but continue to live in fear, and the government has continued to limit aid access into Nagero County as in other conflict-affected areas. Human Rights Watch wrote to the army’s Chief of General staff on July 2, 2026, with preliminary research findings. The letter was reportedly forwarded onto the office of the Minister of Defence but received no response.
In January 2025, the army seized an SPLA/IO controlled checkpoint at a strategic bridge known as Kubri-Bo, triggering clashes. Thousands of civilians fled. On February 7 and 8, as government forces moved from the Kubri-Bo checkpoint south to their main barracks, soldiers detained and killed two school students and burned civilian property in Nagero town and surrounding areas.
On September 28, opposition forces attacked the Nagero town army barracks, prompting additional deployment of government forces. The UN reported that as of late September, at least 21,000 people had fled. In the weeks that followed, the army and allies summarily executed civilians, raped women, arbitrarily detained others, accusing them of supporting the opposition, and destroyed civilian property and infrastructure.
On October 6, government soldiers went to a makeshift camp where people had fled, ordering them to return home, witnesses said. The soldiers then killed six civilians, including three boys, they rounded up at the camp.
One man who witnessed the killings, said that 30 soldiers with “12 machine guns, RPGs and AK47s” took him, 4 other men and 4 boys away from the camp into the bush: “Soldiers tied us together two by two. At this time, one man escaped and soldiers ran and shot at him. The soldiers took a step back and took the big machine guns with bullets in a long chain. Then the soldier in charge gave the order to shoot.” The witness and one other survived. Government forces also pillaged and burned civilian property in and around the town and looted and damaged infrastructure, including health facilities and schools.
On September 29, five government soldiers went to the house of a 19-year-old woman in Lindi neighborhood and set alight six of her family’s houses and a food store. “Our home was burned to ashes,” she said. “They burned our clothes, mattresses, plastic chairs. We were planning to open a restaurant…they burned food such as new groundnuts and cassava flour.”
Government forces also beat and otherwise ill-treated and detained civilians, including in military barracks, as they tried to flee or after they returned home, often accusing them of being rebel fighters or supporters. Civilians began returning home around mid-October 2025, in response to warnings from the military that people found in the bush would be considered SPLA/IO fighters or collaborators, as well as deteriorating conditions in displacement areas.
Two women told Human Rights Watch that government soldiers raped them when they returned home. A 27-year-old woman said that government forces gang raped her and another woman near the Nagero army barracks on November 12. “Three of us were getting vegetables when we met five soldiers,” she said. “One woman threw her vegetables on the ground and ran away. The soldiers then warned the two of us, ‘If anyone runs, we will shoot them.’ They said, ‘Take off your clothes.’ Three soldiers raped us one after the other.” She said she had reported the attack to the neighborhood chief who then reported it to an army commander, but as far as she was aware, no action had been taken.
Multiple people interviewed and experts said that the army’s Division Six forces, along with special forces known as Mobile II, under commander James Nando, were reinforcements for locally posted army units throughout the violence. Media reports corroborated this. Nando had defected from the SPLA/IO in 2020, bringing a group of fighters with him, and has since been deployed alongside government forces. The US Treasury designated Nando on its sanction list in June 2023 for conflict-related sexual violence.
Opposition forces carried out attacks in and near civilian areas during the violence. One man said he was abused by armed men whom he suspected to be SPLA/IO forces or their allies because of their language. The man, age 52, said three-armed men beat him, his wife, and his nephew on October 21 at their home. They handcuffed the two men, marched them off into the bush where, the witness said, “They untied my hands and one pointed a gun at me. I started crying and praying and one said, ‘Are you not a man, why are you afraid to die?’…He took a step back aimed for my chest, his colleague pushed the gun away, but he shot my leg.”
In April 2026, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global group that includes UN agencies, humanitarian organizations, and other expert stakeholders, reported that insecurity in Nagero County still restricts people’s access to markets and farms. “How many times are we told to come home and that there will be no more fighting?” one person said. “But when people go back the SSPDF come and kill us and take our property. We run, leave our homes and when we get back, we find we have nothing to return to. How can we live like this and for how long?”
The South Sudanese government should take immediate action to end all abuses against civilians by its armed forces including suspending commanders credibly implicated in abuses pending inquiry; conduct independent, impartial, effective investigations, and publicly report on their findings, Human Rights Watch said. The government should also guarantee safe, immediate humanitarian access throughout Nagero County and facilitate the safe and voluntary return of those displaced.
The SPLA/IO should strictly observe its obligations under international humanitarian law, including to take all feasible precautions to avoid and in any event to minimize harm to civilians, such as during attacks on bases located near civilian areas that could foreseeably expose civilians to retaliation or crossfire. They should also immediately end all abuses against civilians, including those it accuses of links to the army.
The UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) should continue to deploy regular protection patrols and human rights monitoring missions to Nagero county. Donors should continue to press the government to allow safe and immediate access throughout conflict-affected areas, and increase assistance to Nagero County.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights should consider undertaking a promotional or fact-finding engagement on the protection of civilians and accountability in South Sudan and report its findings to the AU Peace and Security Council. On its part, the Peace and Security Council should request regular reporting from the AU Commission and African Union Mission in South Sudan on civilian protection including in Western Equatoria, and publicly assess progress on the implementation of accountability mechanisms stipulated in the peace agreements, including the establishment of the Hybrid Court for South Sudan.
“Government authorities should ensure that communities repeatedly displaced in Western Equatoria are able to return home safely,” Bader said. “They can start by removing and holding to account abusive commanders and forces, and guaranteeing safe, immediate aid access.”
Click to expand Image ©2026 Human Rights WatchLongstanding tensions in Western Equatoria, including Nagero county between the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in-Opposition (SPLA/IO), have been compounded by tensions between the Balanda and Azande communities, widely perceived as aligned with the opposition and the government, respectively. Nagero County is predominantly inhabited by Balanda, while James Nando is Azande.
After government armed forces on January 6, 2025, took Kubri-Bo–a strategic junction linking Nagero and Tambura, in the south, to Wau, toward the north, fighting broke out between the warring parties and intensified after President Salva Kiir dismissed Western Equatoria Governor Alfred Futuyo Karaba, an SPLM/IO nominee and ethnic Balanda, and replaced him with a government-aligned candidate.
Government reinforcement soldiers came from Division 6 under General James Akech Adim and Nando’s forces stationed in Tambura and Maridi. This was reported as part of a broader government effort to clear SPLA/IO checkpoints along this road.
Fighting reignited on September 28 when the SPLA/IO forces attacked military barracks in Nagero town, and again on October 6, with violence continuing through mid-October.
While witnesses and survivors of abuses described below were not always able to identify their attackers, many attributed most abuses described in this report to government forces, because of their uniform or insignia, their language and vehicles, and which forces controlled the area at a given time.
Killings, including Summary Executions, Injuries of CiviliansGovernment forces and allies killed civilians, including summarily executing at least eight, during the violence in February and October 2025.
On February 7, as government forces withdrew from Kubri-Bo along the main road through Nagero Town, a 51-year-old man saw “four cars full of government soldiers” arrive at the Nagero town market. “The soldiers started beating people and shooting in the air and at people,” he said. “Before I could close my shop, they shot [dead] a man with a mental health condition. One soldier [then] came and shot me in the leg without saying anything. I remained on the ground until morning.” He saw the forces looting and burning shops and homes as they moved along the road through the town.
The forces spent the night in the town’s barracks.
On February 8, as they left their barracks, the soldiers detained and badly beat two young men, Jackson Erneo Kumbo and Stephen Natale Diko, students at a local secondary school, and then took them away. “I saw them forcing the two boys [young men] to sit down on the main road, beating them, with sticks and the back of machetes,” a witness said. “They took both their phones.”
That afternoon, the witness found the young men’s bodies riddled with bullets, 40 kilometers away. “Stephen’s head was badly injured, it was horrible, part of his face was missing. […] His body had also been burned along with the grass around. Jackson was shot in the chest, and […] his right hand and right leg were also broken.” Fearing government forces would return to Nagero town, relatives waited until early the following morning to bury them.
October 6 executionsIn the early afternoon of October 6, 2025, in Nagero town, about thirty heavily armed soldiers arrived at makeshift camps where people had sheltered for over a week, three witnesses said. One witness said that six soldiers looted his cash and phones and warned him to return to town.
The soldiers detained the local chief, Jacob Paingbayo Carmello, who was in the camps, and took away four other men and three boys into the bush area, killing all but two men.
One man who escaped said, “When they tied us, they started firing. They shot many bullets at a go.” He said that the child who had been tied to him, called Saviour, was facing the soldiers and was shot first. “We both fell. I [managed to cut myself away] and started running. The area was full of trees, [bushes]. As I ran, the machine gun also shot towards me. I could see leaves falling around me, but no bullet hit me.” Saviour had been shot dead.
The other survivor said, “When they shot us, someone fell on top of me and I fell unconscious. I lay in that position until the next day. In the evening, I tried to get up and found I had been shot in the thigh and buttocks. The other bodies were starting to smell, and maggots were falling off my body when I moved. I tried to leave that place and started crawling.” He later realized he had been lying on his son’s body.
The army told the media that they had not killed civilians, claiming that those killed were fighters in civilian clothes.
A young woman and her brother returned to Nagero and were repairing their roof when two soldiers confronted them on October 30. The soldiers questioned her brother, saying: “‘When did you come to this house? We have been patrolling here for the last month, and nobody has been living here.’” Her brother said they had fled with other residents when the violence began and just returned.
The woman said, “The soldiers said, ‘If you fled, that means you are a rebel.’ They started beating him with a rubber stick and their guns. [My brother] told me in our language to run, while he fought the soldiers. He grabbed a knife from one soldier and stabbed him in the stomach. The other then shot [my brother] repeatedly in the chest and he fell down.”
Her brother died and the soldier later died of his injury.
Abusive, Arbitrary Detention; Other Ill-TreatmentPeople interviewed said that they were arbitrarily arrested and held in military barracks, beaten and ill-treated by soldiers as they fled the violence or when they returned home. The forces often accused civilians of supporting the opposition forces.
A 54-year-old man said he was detained on September 28, 2025, taken to the prison in Nagero town and accused of supplying the SPLA/IO with food and medicine. He said soldiers beat him twice a day with a rubber pole or stick for 11 days in a row. He was denied food and water for the first two days. He said, “Water would be poured on me, and I would be given 120 lashes on my buttocks and back. This only stopped when a new captain took over.” The man was released after a church representative intervened.
Once he returned home, harassment by soldiers still in the area forced him to flee: “The soldiers did not allow us to live freely or work in our farms. They could beat anybody they got. They said anybody who lived in that area is SPLA/IO and they will be shot or arrested.”
A 45-year-old woman said soldiers detained her on October 7 in Nagero town along with her mother and eight other women, holding them for three days at their base at Kubri-Bo. “The men were kept separate and I did not see them until I left. The women [were made to] fetch water and cook beans for the soldiers.”
A 31-year-old woman who sheltered in a makeshift camp, which she said was protected by the opposition forces, left on October 7. Government forces stopped her group, she said, and asked, “Where we came from, what we saw in the IO camp, whether we were wives and children of rebels, why we ran from our homes. They beat people with rubber pipes and beat two boys with the backs of their guns. The soldiers asked them for money, but they said they didn’t have and that they were students. The soldiers then said, ‘Oh you are the true rebels.’ They were beaten badly.”
Rape and Sexual ViolenceIn addition to the two women mentioned above who were raped when they returned home, a 25-year-old woman said she and another woman were gang raped while collecting firewood with two other women in late October:
One soldier climbed up a tree maybe to keep watch. Three soldiers took the woman in her 30s a small distance and raped her there. Another soldier tied the other woman, in her 50s, with a rope on her hands and feet and left her seated. Two soldiers started tearing my clothes and pushing me to the ground. I tried to refuse and they beat me and pointed a knife and a gun at me saying, ‘If you disturb, we will finish you.’ When they were done, the [lookout] soldier came down from the tree, beat, slapped and also raped me.
Burning, Looting, Destruction of Civilian PropertyDuring the violence in February, September, and October, 2025, government forces looted food stores, as well as other private and public property.
Witnesses to both episodes said soldiers deliberately burned their property and burned homes including grass thatched houses, notably along the road through Nagero town and surrounding villages. Others said they were not sure if some burning was the result of crossfire, or had spread from other fires started by the soldiers such as when they burned grass along the roadsides to deprive opposition fighters of coverage.
A civil society representative documented homes being burned in multiple neghborhoods on February 7 and 8 including in Awolbot, Bandala, Bangaru, Diayanga, Kpangu, Mapiso Naagbagi, Nakptaguru, Nakpanangbara, Ngoi, Maringindo, and Zamoi.
Human Rights Watch analyzed satellite imagery from the morning of February 7, 2025, showing smoke plumes over Nakptaguru, a village four kilometers north of Nagero town. Imagery from the following day shows active fires in the northwest part of Nagero town and over Maringindo village, about nine kilometers south on the road to Tambura.
Click to expand Image Short-wave infrared visualization of satellite imagery from February 8, 2025, shows active fires and smoke plumes over Nagero and Maringindo, Western Equatoria, South Sudan. Image ©2026 Copernicus. Sentinel-2 data. Graphics ©2026 Human Rights WatchPeople interviewed and activists said that government forces again burned civilian property on September 28 and 29.
On September 29, nine government soldiers stopped a man, 29, as he fled with his family. They forced them to return home in Nakptaguru neighborgood and beat him in front of his children: “[They said] ‘If you are not a rebel, why are you running away?’ They started beating me with ropes, with their hands and guns, my children started crying.” They looted cassava, groundnuts, millet flour, and chickens, and other civilian goods and infrastructure, and burned down his two houses.
In addition to the burning, the forces also stole personal goods from civilians, and damaged and looted civilian property.
The 27-year-old woman beaten alongside her stepmother said the soldiers stole her father’s bicycle and radio, and the battery from a solar panel, then burned their homes.
The 54-year-old man who was detained on September 28 and taken to a prison in Nagero town said the soldiers first looted three new bicycles, two 20-liter jerricans of petrol, solar batteries and lamps, and a big box with medicines.
People interviewed said that government forces also damaged and looted healthcare and education facilities.
A 56-year-old man who guarded a small health facility said that on September 28, soldiers attacked the facility, beat patients, doctors and nurses, and looted it. He said that four soldiers entered the facility: “They…pushed [the doctor] down using a gun. They broke down the door, found medicine and set it on fire. Then…took a laptop, and removed six installed solar batteries. Two climbed the roof and took down nine solar panels and three new batteries in cartons. They forced the doctor and other people…to carry the looted goods.”
A 58-year-old man said that 15 soldiers, some in uniforms and others in civilian clothes, arrived in a military pick-up truck and Landcruiser on October 7 at the Nagero primary school: “One jumped from the truck and started shooting bullets in the air then he opened the school gate. I…[hid] but could see them clearly. They broke into classrooms, into offices and into stores using iron bars. They broke windows and took everything they could find into the cars and then they drove off.”
Humanitarian Impact, Aftermath of ViolenceAfter clashes broke out on September 28, 2025, some civilians fled into army barracks in the town while many fled into the nearby bush and forest, then further afield. REACH, an organization that provides humanitarian data, reported that displaced community leaders and elders said that the entire population of eight neighborhoods of Nagero Payam was displaced, with local authorities reporting that 16,000 people were sheltering around a church in Bazia town alone. Thousands remained displaced into 2026.
Displacement was particularly harsh on older people, people with disabilities, and pregnant people.
A 34-year-old man said that when he fled toward Bazia in late September a journey of four to seven days on foot, five older people died on the way apparently from illness and inadequate food, and one woman died after childbirth. A health official said that a 67-year-old man who was unable to walk due to severe rheumatism was left behind for two months after his family fled the September violence. “The man’s remains were found when people returned to visit in November,” the official said. He also said a blind man in his 70s died in mid-October in the bush after his grandson fled leaving him alone.
Media reported in January 2026 that the looting of health facilities had compounded an already struggling health system, forcing patients to travel long distances or rely on traditional remedies that they might not have otherwise prioritized if other medical care was available.
A survivor from the October 6 executions said that when he eventually returned to Nagero, one of his children fell ill, “I took him to the health facility, and found [it] empty. There was a bed but no mattress.” A medical volunteer said he cried when he saw the state of the main health facility in Nagero town and that as of June 2026, while they had received some very basic supplies, they had no lighting because they had not been able to replace the solar panels that had been destroyed, or other basic supplies such as bandages.
A school official said all the schools in the town were damaged or looted, adding that only half of the schools in and around Nagero were functioning as of June 2026 because teachers have not returned: “Pupils lack exercise books, people who return have no money to buy these things.” A survivor of the October 6 executions said they have still not been able to harvest crops and so he cannot afford to send his children back to school.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned in April 2026 that an already critical nutrition situation in Nagero county was expected to deteriorate further through July because of ongoing insecurity.
Two witnesses of the October 6 summary executions say they have seen some of the same soldiers involved in the incident around the town. A relative of the two students killed on February 8 said that he reported the case, but over a year later no investigation has taken place, and he cannot even afford to build a tombstone for the two. “Every morning I wake up and see the spot where we’ve buried them, we’ve not built with cement, just with soil,” he said. “It rains on top of it.”
Bangladesh: Fair Trial Concerns at Tribunal
(London) – Bangladesh authorities are failing to uphold international legal standards at the country’s International Crimes Tribunal, Human Rights Watch said today. The failures risk denying justice to victims, undermining the rule of law, falsely imprisoning political opponents, and repeating the rights violations of the past.
On July 27, prosecutors submitted charges against 41 people for crimes against humanity and genocide. The tribunal is prosecuting individuals, including politicians, members of security forces, and even journalists, accused of serious human rights violations under former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government, which was toppled by protests in 2024 after over 15 years of increasingly authoritarian rule.
“Those responsible for the many abuses committed under the Sheikh Hasina government should be appropriately held to account, but many prosecutions are falling short of international fair trial standards,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Bangladesh needs to urgently reform its criminal justice system, and the new government should ensure that there is no room for political vendettas through shoddy investigations and arbitrary allegations.”
The tribunal is hearing cases related to the security forces crackdown on student-led protests in July and August 2024, resulting in over 800 deaths and thousands of serious injuries, which ultimately toppled the Awami League government. The tribunal is also prosecuting other abuses, including alleged extrajudicial killings and disappearances, committed during Hasina’s rule.
Human Rights Watch monitoring of over a dozen cases being prosecuted by the International Crimes Tribunal—a domestic tribunal mandated to try serious crimes under international law—raises significant concerns regarding due process. Prosecutors have detained and charged individuals for alleged crimes and in multiple cases relied on witness statements in which incriminating passages appear to have been cut and pasted into multiple statements.
Since the fall of Hasina’s government, the tribunal has completed 6 trials, resulting in the conviction of 62 people for crimes against humanity; 42 were tried in absentia, including Hasina herself; and 16 were sentenced to death.
The tribunal was first established by Hasina’s government in March 2010, to prosecute individuals who had allegedly committed crimes under international law, such as crimes against humanity, in support of the Pakistan military during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence. Those trials, which resulted in six executions, were widely criticized for lack of evidence, political bias, collusion between prosecutors and judges, and absence of basic due process protections.
After Hasina’s government was toppled by protesters in 2024, an interim government amended the law governing the tribunal, altering the definition of offenses under its jurisdiction to comply with international standards. However, these amendments fell short of ensuring due process and procedural standards equivalent to international courts dealing with similar offenses, Human Rights Watch found. The current administration led by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party was elected in February 2026 and made no further amendments.
The law governing the tribunal still allows prosecutors to order the arrest of individuals without meeting any evidential threshold, to hold detainees for months without written reasons for their detention, and to provide no right of interlocutory appeal to a separate court. Trials can begin three weeks after the prosecution discloses its evidence, leaving little time for adequate defense preparation. Trials in absentia are held without appropriate safeguards including defendants’ right to choose lawyers to represent them. And the tribunal restricts defense lawyers’ ability to cross-examine witnesses.
On May 14, the tribunal ordered the arrest of two journalists for their reporting on a May 2013 protest by a fundamentalist group called Hefazat-e-Islam. While human rights groups had reported excessive use of force that killed several protesters, the prosecutors accused Mozammel Babu, managing director of Ekattor TV, a network that supported the then-Awami League government, and Farzana Rupa, a prominent presenter, of helping the government cover up the killings by presenting “false information.”
The journalists’ lawyers told Human Rights Watch that the prosecutors did not provide either journalist with a written explanation of the grounds for their arrest, in breach of Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and as required by Bangladesh’s International Crimes (Tribunal) Act.
On July 27, the prosecutors included the 2 journalists among 41 people listed in charges submitted to the Tribunal, accusing them of crimes against humanity, and also genocide. Under international law, genocide is defined as certain acts committed with the intent of destroying, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such.
Human Rights Watch has found that tribunal prosecutors and judges are relying on statements recorded by investigating officers that contain passages duplicated across multiple statements, casting doubt on their authenticity.
One example is the case of Dr. Muhammad Hasan Mahmud Chowdhury and others, in which the tribunal set out three charges against 22 Awami League politicians and activists over killings in Chittagong city center on July 16 and 18, and August 4, 2024. A key part of the prosecution’s evidence are 55 witness statements that have been made public.
One six-line passage, which appears almost word-for-word in fourteen separate statements, claims that seven named politicians had through their “planning, financing, provocation and instructions” used “Awami League terrorists” to kill six people. A second, longer passage, which appears virtually identically in nine further statements, claims that six of the accused had repeatedly made “provocative statements,” branded the protesters “militants, terrorists, and communal agitators,” and instructed the sixteen other accused to “use maximum force to suppress the movement and explicitly ordered the killing and torture of innocent, unarmed, peaceful students and the public.”
In this same case, the defense team for one of the 22 accused, ABM Fazle Karim Chowdhury, a senior Awami League politician who is in custody, provided journalists with recordings purportedly of a tribunal prosecutor offering to secure Karim’s bail earlier in the year in exchange for 10 million takas (US$82,000). The prosecutor resigned following the disclosure, but the chief prosecutor’s office has yet to complete its investigation, while the judges have proceeded with framing charges and the trial is due to start on August 6.
“Bangladesh authorities need to recognize that they cannot repeat the abuses of the past, when the Awami League conducted political witch-hunts,” Ganguly said. “Allegations based on duplicated witness statements, however, show the lack of a credible justice process, which will once again fail victims, their families, and all Bangladeshis.”
Indonesia: Environmentalists, Indigenous Leaders Unjustly Prosecuted
(Jakarta) – Indonesian authorities are pursuing wrongful prosecutions of environmentalists and Indigenous community leaders who protest deforestation and pollution, or defend land rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Since taking office in 2024, the administration of President Prabowo Subianto has intensified the crackdown on free expression by expanding the military’s role in state-owned mining, oil palm plantations, infrastructure projects, and so-called food and energy estates.
The 70-page report, “Grabbed Land, Silenced Justice: The Persecution of Environmentalists and Indigenous Leaders in Indonesia,” documents how Indonesian police have responded to complaints filed by company officials or politicians by silencing Indigenous villagers who demand their customary land rights and the activists who defend them. The authorities have targeted environmental and Indigenous community defenders using the criminal code and other laws to bring charges ranging from defamation to “spreading communism” to silence protest over environmental harm.
July 28, 2026 Grabbed Land, Silenced Justice“Successive Indonesian governments have sought to silence activists and Indigenous leaders protesting forced displacement, loss of customary land, and deforestation by prosecuting them for baseless crimes,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Prabowo government, while cracking down on corporate corruption, has ignored local community grievances and instead deployed the military and other heavy-handed measures to pursue its economic objectives.”
Human Rights Watch examined more than 50 cases from 2015 to 2025 from the islands of Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and the Moluccas, as well as the 6 provinces of Papua to select 15 high-profile cases as examples of specific laws and legal provisions used to target activists and community leaders, including in SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) actions. The report is based on 69 interviews with villagers, Indigenous leaders, and environmental activists, as well as lawyers, academics, and government officials, and a review of police and court documents.
The police and prosecutors have accused critics on slender evidence of Criminal Code offenses, Human Rights Watch found. In other cases, the authorities used provisions of the Plantation Law, the Mineral and Mining Law, the Job Creation Law, or the Prevention of Forest Destruction Law. While higher courts eventually rejected most cases, the targeted activists had to spend months rebutting baseless lawsuits.
Haris Azhar, a human rights lawyer who was eventually acquitted of criminal defamation, said: “I had to spend time and energy overcoming attacks from the oligarchs and the police. I lost opportunities to build my advocacy work and to develop my professional career.”
Indonesia is the world’s biggest producer of palm oil; a major gold, timber, paper and pulp producer; and the largest supplier of nickel, a key material for making steel and electric batteries. The Prabowo government has deployed the military to build “food and energy estates,” displacing local communities in South Papua.
Since early 2025, the Prabowo government has seized control of plantations, mining sites, and other resource-rich land on corruption claims, and handed around six million hectares of oil palm plantations, among others, to state-owned companies. But some members of the government task force investigating the companies are themselves facing serious allegations of corruption.
Under international human rights treaties that Indonesia has ratified, the government has the obligation to uphold the rights to life, liberty, speech, peaceful assembly, and association, among others. The duty to protect includes preventing corporations from committing abuses and taking steps to hold them accountable and provide reparation to victims when they do so.
Business enterprises have a responsibility under the 2011 United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to avoid causing or contributing to human rights abuses. Indonesia's government has drafted but not yet submitted legislation that would legally require companies operating in Indonesia to address the human rights impacts of their operations.
The Prabowo administration should take steps to end the misuse of the Indonesian criminal justice system to harass, intimidate, and improperly punish environmentalists and Indigenous leaders, Human Rights Watch said. It should ensure prompt and equitable resolution of land conflicts between companies and local communities, especially in places such as Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, the Moluccas Islands, and the six provinces of Papua. This includes restoring traditional ownership upon seizing illegal plantations and mining operations after consulting with the Registration of Indigenous Peoples, which has been mapping customary land rights.
“The Indonesian government needs to make clear that arbitrarily dispossessing communities of their land is no longer business as usual,” Pearson said. “The authorities should fairly arbitrate disputes instead of punishing those who protest egregious abuses.”
Selected Accounts
Police arrested James Watt, an Indigenous Dayak farmer, who was living in Seruyan, Central Kalimantan, and championing sustainable agriculture in Jakarta on March 7, 2020, based on complaints by a company that the Dayak villagers had “harvested” palm fruits from a disputed 117-hectare site. Police also arrested two other farmers, Hermanus and Dilik. Hermanus died in police detention after being denied proper medical attention. On June 15, 2020, the Sampit district court found James Watt and Dilik guilty of stealing the oil palm fruits under the Plantation Law, sentencing James Watt to 10 months in prison and Dilik to 8 months.
“The Indigenous community's rights were lost, and those who dared to question that decision were criminalized,” James Watt told Human Right Watch. “The governor [of Central Kalimantan] wrote a letter, declaring that those 117 hectares were outside the company’s HGU [right to use land]. His letter was simply ignored. The 10 months in prison is not a short time for me. The dramatic arrest in Jakarta, poor prison cells, and losing a friend [Hermanus], they all have a psychological impact. My good name, my time to be with my three children, my responsibility to find food for my family, to take care of my farm, these are losses that I must bear. They grabbed our lands, silenced those that sought justice. The injustice is clear.”
Haslilin, a homemaker in Torobulu village, South Koname, Sulawesi Island, joined a protest against pollution caused by a nickel mining company on November 6, 2023. The villagers had repeatedly asked the company, as well as government officials, for the environmental impact assessment report (AMDAL), but their demands had gone unheeded. In March 2024, the police charged Haslilin and Andi Firmansyah, another villager, with “hindering” mining operations. On October 1, 2024, the Andoolo district court acquitted them, finding their assertion of a right to a healthy environment legitimate.
“The company began to dig in 2021,” Haslilin said. “It was okay then, pretty far from the residential areas, but by 2023, it had become unbearable because they were digging very close to our houses. My youngest child has lung problems. Our water is polluted. We were curious how this could have happened and wanted to see their AMDAL [environment assessment report]. But they ignored us. So, I stopped the excavator, climbing the wheel and demanding that the operator show me the document. He did not have it. I was protesting because my village, my environment, is destroyed.”
Police arrested Sorbatua Siallagan, an elder of the Indigenous Ompu Umbak Siallagan community in Simalungun, North Sumatra, on March 22, 2024, charging him with theft and arson, including burning eight eucalyptus trees belonging to a pulp and paper company. He was detained for seven months, and finally acquitted by the Supreme Court in June 2025. In January 2026, the Indonesian government revoked the company’s permits along with those of 27 others after authorities linked their alleged forest misuse to floods in Sumatra. Siallagan welcomed the government’s actions but said that the company’s security personnel still patrolled the overlapping territory.
“They wouldn’t let us in” he said. “My friends were angry. The government should let the community return to their land, including for sacred rituals. We ask the government to truly return the land to us.”
Villagers in the Tumpang Pitu area, Banyuwangi, East Java, organized a protest on April 4, 2017, outside the gate of a gold mining company they alleged had polluted the water, air, and soil, displaying protest banners. The company reported that one banner had a hammer and sickle. Police charged Heri Budiawan, nicknamed Budi Pego, a farmer involved in the protest, with “spreading communism.” On September 4, 2017, the Banyuwangi district court sentenced him to 10 months in prison. He appealed, saying that the banner, which was not presented in court, was not theirs. In October 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the decision, sentencing him to four years in prison. He was granted parole in November 2024. He said the villagers were continuing their fight but were demoralized.
“I have concluded that it’s impossible to find the truth and to seek justice in Indonesia,” he said “The court has never presented that particular banner, only the photo. Our strength has been weakened.”
Strikes Endangering Civilians in Yemen and Saudi Arabia
Yemeni government forces in coalition with Saudi Arabia attacked Sanaa airport on July 13 with at least five airstrikes, three of which targeted the airport’s runway, according to Human Rights Watch’s analysis of satellite imagery. The attack was meant to prevent a flight operated by Mahan Air, a privately-owned Iranian airline, from landing at Houthi-controlled Sanaa airport, according to the Yemeni government.
Hours later, the Houthis attacked Abha International Airport in Saudi Arabia with dozens of ballistic missiles and drones. The attack was “in response to the Saudi attack against Sanaa airport,” according to the Houthi spokesperson.
Sanaa airport is the only airport providing international flights to and from Houthi-controlled territory, where the majority of Yemen’s population lives, and serves as a critical entry point for humanitarian personnel and aid.
The latest round of strikes is the first the Saudi-led coalition has carried out against the Houthis since the start of the United Nations-brokered truce in April 2022. Despite this four-year pause, the strikes are, in many ways, a repeat of attacks seen prior to the truce.
Between 2014 and 2022, the Houthis attacked airports in Saudi Arabia—attacks that Human Rights Watch found to likely be war crimes—and the Saudi-led coalition carried out attacks on critical civilian infrastructure throughout Yemen.
Throughout the nearly 12-year armed conflict in Yemen, warring parties, namely the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis, have killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions living in Yemen. The majority of the population does not have adequate access to food. There has been almost no accountability or justice for the many war crimes and violations of the laws of armed conflict that warring parties committed during this time. Deliberate attacks on objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population are war crimes.
As the conflict now enters a new chapter, it is imperative that warring parties are held to account for their violations so that these cycles of civilian harm do not continue to repeat. The Houthis, the Yemeni government, and Saudi Arabia, as well as all other warring parties in the region, should ensure that civilian airports and other critical infrastructure remain protected and focus on ensuring that people’s basic needs are met.
Saudi Arabia: New Executions of Ethiopian Migrants
(Beirut) – Saudi authorities executed five Ethiopian migrants for nonlethal drug-related offenses on July 27, 2026, without due process, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities have executed at least 17 Ethiopian nationals since the beginning of 2026 on drug-related charges.
At least 79 more remain at imminent risk of execution on similar charges. Saudi authorities have executed at least 116 people in 2026 as of July 27, according to the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights.
“Saudi authorities are executing marginalized Ethiopian migrants after court hearings that sometimes barely last a few minutes without a lawyer or a translator,” said Joey Shea, senior Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Dozens of vulnerable migrants remain at risk of imminent execution after trials that were barely trials at all, in a system that treats their lives as disposable.”
Since April, Human Rights Watch has interviewed more than a dozen informed sources about the cases of Ethiopian migrants facing imminent execution for nonlethal drug-related offenses, including two with direct knowledge of the most recent executions. Saudi authorities said the most recent executions were for “smuggling hashish.” The sources said that all five men were from Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, where rights abuses have persisted and the humanitarian situation remains dire following the 2020-2022 armed conflict. Escalating tensions between the Ethiopian federal government and Tigrayan authorities have raised fears of renewed atrocities in the region. The five migrants fled Tigray and had taken the dangerous eastern migration route across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen.
Human Rights Watch interviewed an informed source with direct knowledge of the cases of the five men, and another informed source corroborated the general facts of the case. One of the sources said that one of the men executed had been living in Yemen for over a year without employment or access to support services when a Yemeni man approached him in March or April 2023 and offered him and the four others a job. The five men were “physically and mentally weak” after their arduous journey from Ethiopia as well as unemployment and poverty and felt they “had to accept that job despite not knowing what the job was,” the source said. The man told them to carry a package with unknown contents a short distance and where to deliver it, and the man then disappeared.
Saudi authorities arrested them as they walked on the side of a road. They were “surprised to find Saudi soldiers arresting” them because they did not realize they had crossed the border into Saudi Arabia, the source said.
The men were detained for more than three years in the Khamis Mushait detention facility in the Asir province of Saudi Arabia. They were forced to sign documents in Arabic, a language they did not understand, and only had three court sessions lasting between three and twenty minutes, two of them held remotely. A translator provided by Saudi authorities was present during only two of the sessions, and the migrants were told they would be sentenced to death for smuggling hashish. The men did not have legal representation or an opportunity to provide a meaningful defense.
During the first court session, the men were informed they could write an appeal letter and submit it to the Saudi security guards at the detention center. Because the men could not read or write Arabic, at least one of them asked a Saudi prisoner to write the appeal letter and had “no idea if the letter was presented to the court or to the judges,” the source said. “The security guard could just throw it into the garbage.”
The five men were Christians and the sources said that prison officials would not have permitted them to practice their religion. “If the Christians want to pray together, the police come and stop this,” the source said. One of the prisoners also reported that the police forcefully removed a cross necklace, the source said.
Before the July 27 executions, on June 23, 2026, Saudi authorities had executed five other Ethiopians for allegedly “smuggling hashish.” In one of these cases, a smuggler had forced a man to carry qat, a mild stimulant plant native to Ethiopia, from Yemen into Saudi Arabia as a condition of facilitating his journey.
Cathinone, the stimulant in qat, is banned in Saudi Arabia but legally permissible and culturally consumed in parts of Ethiopia as well as in Yemen. The sources said that the man did not know that carrying qat into and within Saudi Arabia was illegal.
On May 12, the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church appealed to Ethiopian and Saudi authorities to halt the execution of Ethiopian nationals. In a July 13 statement, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “remains closely engaged with the relevant authorities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia regarding matters affecting Ethiopian nationals,” including “individuals facing legal proceedings and judicial measures.” The statement did not specify whether this included those sentenced to death for drug offenses.
Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty. Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty is contrary to international human rights law, which upholds every human being’s “inherent right to life” and limits the death penalty to “the most serious crimes,” which result intentionally in death.
In 2025, nonlethal drug-related offenses accounted for 68 percent of Saudi executions. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention condemned Saudi Arabia’s practice, finding that executions for drug-related offenses are incompatible with international human rights law and fall outside the scope of the “most serious crimes.” The working group urged Saudi authorities to reinstate a moratorium and emphasized that imposing the death penalty for such offenses constitutes a clear violation of international legal standards.
Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians live and work in Saudi Arabia. While many migrate for economic reasons, many have fled serious human rights abuses by their government, including during the recent brutal armed conflict in northern Ethiopia. Human Rights Watch has for years documented a wide range of human rights abuses against migrants taking the same route.
The detention of migrants in deplorable facilities in Saudi Arabia is a longstanding problem, which Human Rights Watch has found amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment. In 2023, Human Rights Watch found that Saudi border guards had killed at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border, which, if committed as part of a Saudi government policy to murder migrants, would be a crime against humanity.
Saudi Arabia should immediately cancel the death penalty for Ethiopian migrants and review all sentences in line with Saudi Arabia’s international obligations, including the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Ministry and its representatives in Saudi Arabia should urgently intervene with their Saudi counterparts and at a minimum ensure that their nationals receive immediate consular assistance.
“Governments should urgently press Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s authorities to halt these executions and commute the sentences of the dozens more awaiting the same fate,” Shea said.
Proposed DHS Work Authorization Rule Threatens Immigrant Domestic Violence Survivors
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposed a policy change in June that would significantly limit employment authorization available for many immigrants.
But for many, including survivors of domestic violence, the ability to work in the United States is crucial to being able to leave an abusive situation.
Survivors of domestic violence may qualify for employment authorization with an approved Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) petition or U visa, but often wait years as applications become increasingly backlogged. Many receive a grant of deferred action, designed to protect them from deportation during this process. The new policy would impact those with deferred action in addition to survivors that may have employment authorization through programs unrelated to their abuse.
The new policy would require proof of “economic necessity” in order to work, which may place additional burdens on immigrant survivors if abusers withhold financial documents. Employment authorization would also be limited to one year. Individuals seeking renewal must be with employers using the federal E-Verify program, a program that checks work eligibility. Renewals are already more difficult since DHS ended automatic extensions last year.
Many immigrant women are more vulnerable to domestic violence because they often need their spouse’s assistance to establish legal status, fear involvement with police, and are financially dependent. Immigrant survivors can delay leaving abusers because they are unable to financially support themselves or their children without employment authorization. Access to employment decreases financial dependence, supporting immigrant survivors in reporting or leaving their abuser. Employment also serves as a stepping stone for future financial independence, stable housing, and improved wellbeing. Any limit on access to employment authorization can make it harder for survivors to take these first steps.
This policy should not go into effect without careful consideration of its potential impacts. Organizations and individuals can help by commenting on DHS’s proposed rule by August 4.
Vietnam Should Release Ailing Political Prisoners
Can Thi Theu, 64, is serving an eight-year prison sentence at Prison No. 5 in Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa province because she joined protests against land confiscation and environmental degradation in 2016 and publicly supported other human rights activists and political prisoners languishing behind bars.
During a recent visit, Can Thi Theu’s family learned that she had been suffering from acute abdominal pain and fever for days. They said medical personnel at the prison told her it was nothing and gave her some painkillers. Her daughter, Trinh Thi Thao, filed a petition to allow Can Thi Theu to seek care at a hospital outside the prison.
Can Thi Theu had a similar episode last summer and in January suffered from dizziness and tremors and could not walk without assistance for two weeks. In both instances, the prison authorities ignored her requests to have independent medical examination and treatment.
Her sons, Trinh Ba Tu and Trinh Ba Phuong, are also serving long prison sentences for their peaceful activism.
Can Thi Theu is among a number of political prisoners in Vietnam suffering from poor health. Tran Duc Thach, Nguyen Nang Tinh, and Phan Van Bach, all imprisoned for campaigning for democracy, have also fallen ill in Prison No. 5.
This July, Tran Duc Thach’s wife filed a petition urging the authorities to allow her husband, who suffers from severe eye pain, to seek treatment at an outside hospital. Nguyen Nang Tinh’s wife meanwhile has said he suffers from osteoarthritis and severe nerve compression and is in great discomfort.
During a visit in February, Phan Van Bach’s wife said he suffered from severe tooth pain and has subsisted on congee (rice porridge) for more than a year. He felt “chest tightness, shortness of breath, and unsteady gait.” He also told his family that prison guards pepper-sprayed him and another prisoner beat him for protesting prison conditions.
The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) provide that “[a]ll prisons shall ensure prompt access to medical attention in urgent cases. Prisoners who require specialized treatment or surgery shall be transferred to specialized institutions or to civil hospitals.”
Vietnam’s international trade partners and donors should press the Vietnamese government to immediately release Can Thi Theu, Tran Duc Thach, Nguyen Nang Tinh, and Phan Van Bach, and allow them to seek adequate medical care at home or abroad.
DR Congo: Oil Company Operations Pose Grave Pollution Threat
(Kinshasa) – Pollution linked to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s only oil producer poses serious health risks to communities near its operations, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Congolese government commissioned an environmental audit of the French-British oil and gas company Perenco’s operations in December 2024 because of longstanding reports of pollution. However, it has not provided a timeline for the publication of the final audit report, published any interim findings, or publicly disclosed vital information about air, soil, and water quality.
“The Congolese government should immediately publish the interim findings of the environmental audit of Perenco’s concession and disclose all environmental monitoring data,” said Agathe Bounfour, senior fossil fuel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Residents of nearby communities have a right to know the extent of pollution in their environment and the risks to their health.”
In January 2026, a team of Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed 45 local residents, oil workers, health professionals, government officials, and environmental and public health experts in Muanda, where the operations are based, and in Kinshasa, the capital. Human Rights Watch also analyzed satellite imagery and geolocated videos and photographs received from local sources.
Perenco has engaged in gas flaring—the controlled burning of natural gas released during oil production—at five oil storage and processing sites close to residential communities. Human Rights Watch found that Perenco’s gas flaring and waste burning have contributed to poor air quality on its concession, creating health risks for local residents. In one location, flaring occurred less than 80 meters from housing. Residents with respiratory illnesses living near these flaring sites told Human Rights Watch that they believed air pollution from these operations was responsible. Residents also described acute health symptoms, such as chest pain and nausea, that they linked to smoke from burning at a waste treatment facility two kilometers from a village.
Perenco has also not prevented oil spills from wells and pipelines from leaking into the soil and riverbeds, based on a Human Rights Watch site visit and interviews with community members. Independent studies conducted in 2013 and 2025 documented serious environmental contamination associated with oil operations in the area that exposed residents to gases, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, and other compounds well-documented to be toxic and harmful to human health.
A villager in the Perenco concession area said: “Oil goes into the rivers where we swim.” A man in his mid-40s who lives near a tank farm—an oil storage and processing facility—said: “When gas is flared at the tank farm, our eyes burn and we experience headaches and dizziness.” The head of health personnel at a local hospital said that in his estimation, villages with oil infrastructure experienced “higher rates of respiratory conditions compared with areas where oil production is absent.”
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Congo is a party, guarantees the right to “the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.” The right to health obligates governments to ensure “the prevention and reduction of the population’s exposure to … harmful chemicals or other detrimental environmental conditions that directly or indirectly impact upon human health.”
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the committee of experts that monitors the implementation of the covenant, has stated that this requires governments to take measures to prevent pollution by third parties, such as mining companies. A government’s “failure to enact or enforce laws to prevent the pollution of water, air and soil by extractive and manufacturing industries” can constitute a violation of human rights law.
Congolese environmental law prohibits certain oil production and waste management practices that may harm public health or safety. However, the government has not regularly monitored air, water and soil quality in the Muanda area. In November 2025, the minister of hydrocarbons announced a one-year extension of the December 2024 contract of the environmental and fiscal audit of damage caused by the company’s activities without providing a clear explanation for the renewal or committing to a specific release date.
Human Rights Watch wrote to the Congolese government in May 2026 seeking information on pollution prevention, remediation, monitoring, and oversight of Perenco’s operations in Muanda, including access to the environmental audit, but has not received a response.
Perenco, in response to queries from Human Rights Watch, denied that its operations “would cause air, soil and water pollution or detrimental acute health conditions.” The company stated that it considers scientific studies conducted on-site to be methodologically inadequate, and that it has invested in pollution prevention and local development initiatives, including health initiatives. It also said it had stopped flaring at 220 “flare points” within the concession and was fully cooperating with Congolese authorities in efforts to further reduce gas flaring.
The right to health obligates governments “to provide education and access to information concerning the main health problems in the community, including methods of preventing and controlling them.” The UN Human Rights Committee has clarified that the right to information includes the right of access to information held by public bodies and to ensure easy, prompt, effective, and practical access to government-held information that is of public interest. Such information would include the results of an environmental audit such as the government-commissioned audit of Perenco’s activities.
In its correspondence with Human Rights Watch, Perenco did not respond to questions regarding pollutant monitoring nor a request to share monitoring data. Likewise, the Congolese Ministries of Environment and Hydrocarbons did not respond to Human Rights Watch’s request for information on measures taken to monitor environmental conditions in the region.
“The Congolese government needs transparency on oil pollution levels to meet its obligations to uphold the right to health and to fully enforce its laws,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should acknowledge the threat to people’s health in oil concession areas, immediately report on pollution levels, and act to reduce population exposure.”
Perenco’s Operations in Democratic Republic of Congo
The French-British oil and gas company Perenco is Congo’s sole oil operator. The company operates both onshore and offshore oil extraction in a region that stretches along the country’s narrow 37-kilometer coastline and encompasses dozens of villages and smaller informal settlements in the eastern part of Muanda city in Kongo Central province. The company retains exclusive exploration and production rights across nearly all onshore coastal blocks and the entirety of Congo’s maritime area.
Previously published independent studies documented serious environmental contamination associated with oil operations in the area. A 2013 investigation report by the Congolese Senate, to which Human Rights Watch gained access, found elevated concentrations of the air pollutants sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide near gas flaring sites, as well as hydrocarbon contamination of groundwater and surface water and high concentrations of heavy metals.
A 2025 study by researchers from several universities in Congo and Cameroon found high levels of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in soil surrounding oil extraction sites in the villages of Kinkazi, Kitombe, and Tshiende, which the researchers attributed to oil spills.
Gas Flaring
Gas flaring involves burning gaseous byproducts generated during crude oil extraction. Flaring can take several forms: gas may be funneled into a vertical stack and burned at an elevation; directed through horizontal flare systems at hydrocarbon processing plants or refineries; or combusted at ground level in pits or near-surface installations, with burning occurring directly at the well site.
Gas flaring can produce several air pollutants that are detrimental to human health, including particulate matter, VOCs, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, nitrogen dioxide, and black carbon. The health impacts associated with exposure to these common air pollutants from gas flaring increase as proximity to flaring sites increases.
Gas flaring is prohibited under Congolese law unless under exceptional circumstances and only with prior authorizationfrom the Hydrocarbons Ministry. Neither Perenco nor the Ministry responded to a Human Rights Watch request for information about whether the company is authorized to conduct gas flaring and, if so, the conditions under which that authorization was granted. However, Perenco wrote that it considers gas flaring “operationally necessary to ensure the continuity of oil production in the region of Muanda” and that “the competent Congolese authorities are ... fully aware of the situation.”
Human Rights Watch found, based on analysis of remote sensing data and witness accounts, that gas flaring occurred at five sites between January 2025 and March 2026 within Perenco’s concession associated with oil storage and processing infrastructure, either vertically through stacks or horizontally.
During this period, daily flaring activity was detected at Kinkazi Tank Farm at a Perenco pipeline gathering point four kilometers southeast of Muanda city, and at another site in a residential area in the city’s northeast. Signs of flaring were also detected at the Mibale Tank Farm near Tshiende and at the Liawenda Tank Farm. Several indications of ground flaring at the well level were also observed in 2025, while no evidence of ground flaring was identified from March to June 2026. Human Rights Watch was unable to conduct a remote sensing analysis of the flaring volumes at these sites due to the limitations of the data and heavy cloud cover of the area during this period.
Click to expand Image Site de torchage vertical à Mibale, en République démocratique du Congo. © 2026 Human Rights WatchThe close proximity of gas flaring sites to villages and homes within Perenco’s concession exposes residents nearby to significant health risks, Human Rights Watch said. Most of the population of the concession lives within five kilometers of one of the five main flaring sites. Much of the densely populated urban area of Muanda is included in this zone, and in northeast Muanda city, the nearest residents live less than 80 meters from the flaring site. Several villages, including Liawenda, Tshiende, Kinkazi, Mamputu, Kitombe, and Kimini, are also within three kilometers of active flaring sites. In Tshiende village and Kinkazi village, the nearest residents live approximately 1.3 kilometers and 2.5 kilometers, respectively, from the tank farm flaring sites.
Click to expand Image Map of the population density in the Perenco concession overlaid with the distance to the five active main flaring sites that Human Rights Watch identified. Population data © 2026 GRID3 / CIESIN / WorldPop COD, Gridded Population Estimates v4.4 (December 2025). Analysis and graphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch. Click to expand Image Satellite imagery from January 6, 2024, shows the proximity of a flaring site located in the northeastern part of Muanda town to houses and residential areas. Analysis by Human Rights Watch showed that the site was still active in 2025 and early 2026. Image © 2026 Airbus. Google Earth. Graphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch.In correspondence with Human Rights Watch, Perenco wrote that “220 flare points have been permanently extinguished and the corresponding sites in the Kinkazi and Kitombe areas have been restored.” Perenco added that the company was “in discussions with the relevant Congolese authorities regarding gas valorization options [making use of the natural gas] that would, in due course, further reduce or eliminate gas flaring altogether.”
Oil Waste Burning
Perenco operates a 10-hectare waste treatment facility approximately two kilometers southeast of Kinkazi village. Human Rights Watch obtained, verified, and geolocated photographs and video footage of the facility and found that some oil waste is burned in open-air incinerators within the facility.
Congo’s 2011 Law on the Fundamental Principles of Environmental Protection prohibits the disposal of waste in locations where it may generate unpleasant odors or harm the environment, public health, or public safety.
Kinkazi villagers interviewed reported respiratory illnesses that they attributed to smoke from the facility. A resident in his mid-40s said: “When they burn the waste at night in the area, the smells drift toward the village when there’s wind,” and that he experiences ‘‘chest pain and a persistent cough.” Another person in their mid-40s said: “We smell a lot of smoke; we experience nausea and headaches.” Workers said that the company produces two main types of waste during oil drilling operations: oil mud, consisting mainly of drilling fluid residues, and paraffins, waxy hydrocarbon deposits from crude oil that accumulate inside pipelines and must be periodically removed. On-the-ground oil leaks also pollute the soil.
Click to expand Image Satellite imagery from February 23, 2026, shows Perenco’s waste management facility in Kinkazi, Democratic Republic of Congo. Image © 2026 Planet Labs PBC. Analysis and graphics © 2026 Human Rights Watch. Click to expand Image Corporate sign signaling a “Paraffin Treatment Zone” at the Perenco waste facility near Kinkazi village, Democratic Republic of Congo. © 2026 PrivatePhotographs and videos from early 2026, verified by Human Rights Watch, show open burning tanks and incinerators within an area marked in a sign as a “paraffins treatment zone.” Workers said that these tanks and incinerators are used to burn paraffin waste to dissolve it. “We bring a quantity of paraffin to burn every night,” a Perenco worker said. “Gas-filled pipes are used, creating a flare, and after the paraffin is burned, it turns into sand.”
A video taken in early 2026 and verified by Human Rights Watch verifies the description, showing tall flames rising from an open incinerator inside the facility at night. Kinkazi residents also reported fires at the facility every night. A palm vine cultivator, 40, from Kinkazi said: “At night, we smell smoke drifting toward the village. There is the smell of smoke, and it smells bad.”
Click to expand Image Incinerators at the Perenco waste facility near Kinkazi village, Democratic Republic of Congo. © 2026 Private Click to expand Image The incinerator at the Perenco waste facility near Kinkazi village burning at night. © 2026 Private
Daniel Bain, associate professor in the Geology and Environmental Science Department at the University of Pittsburgh, reviewed visual evidence collected by Human Rights Watch and noted that while “data on local air quality remains limited, areas around waste burning will have elevated volatile organic carbon and particulate matter content in the atmosphere.”
Water and Soil Pollution
Human Rights Watch found that Perenco has not prevented oil wells from spilling and leaching crude oil into the soil. Crude oil drilled from the ground is a complex mixture of thousands of chemical compounds and heavy metals, many of which are toxic and can be harmful to human health.
The country’s 2011 Environmental Protection Law prohibits the discharge of waste or other substances that are likely to alter or degrade the quality of surface or groundwater, as well as any activity likely to cause pollution, erosion, or any other form of soil or subsoil degradation.
Several residents within the concession said that oil regularly overflows from wells during heavy rainfall, often near—and sometimes within—villages. “When it rains heavily and the water rises, oil spills next to it,” a Tshiende resident said.
In several locations within the concession area, Human Rights Watch researchers observed and photographed unprotected wellheads covered with what appeared to be crude oil residues and oil traces on the surrounding ground.
Click to expand Image Oil well near Tshiende, Democratic Republic of Congo. © 2026 Human Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch researchers also observed pipelines from Perenco’s oil extraction and processing facilities with visible signs of erosion, running beneath or alongside villages and agricultural land and sometimes crossing riverbeds. Nearby residents described past ruptures of these pipelines. “Pipelines cross rivers, and when one bursts, crude oil spills into the water,” a Kinkazi resident said.
Oil industry workers said that these frequent leaks and overflows are the result of inadequate maintenance of oil infrastructure. One former employee said: “There is no regular maintenance of the pipes, and they only clean the big pipes, not the small ones. In case of high heat, the density decreases and it explodes.” Bain, the University of Pittsburgh professor, also highlighted the lack of preventive measures, noting that drilling sites did not appear to be surrounded by earthen berms to contain spills.
The Congolese government does not undertake regular monitoring of environmental conditions in the region, Human Rights Watch said. However, a 2013 official Senate Committee investigation found contamination of groundwater and surface water in the region by hydrocarbons and heavy metals. Water samples from this investigation showed lead and mercury at levels exceeding the World Health Organization’s guidelines for drinking water quality. Lead is a particularly harmful heavy metal: chronic exposure can harm the kidneys, cardiovascular system, and reproductive health, and contribute to anemia and hypertension. Mercury can harm the nervous, digestive, and immune systems, as well as the lungs, kidneys, skin, and eyes, with serious health effects possible even at low levels of exposure.
Click to expand Image Graphic © 2026 Human Rights Watch Click to expand Image Graphic © 2026 Human Rights WatchA 2025 study by several universities in Congo and Cameroon reported elevated levels of volatile organic compounds and hydrocarbons in soil near oil wells in the villages of Kinkazi, Kitombe, and Tshiende. The authors concluded that these pollutants posed potential risks to both ecosystems and human health and recommended soil remediation measures, together with the establishment of a long-term monitoring system for soil and groundwater quality.
In correspondence with Human Rights Watch, Perenco said that “infrastructure integrity and pollution prevention” were “central to its operations” and “structured around ‘three fundamental principles’: the systematic inspection of equipment and infrastructure, the technical and structural assessment of assets following each inspection, and repair or replacement operations when necessary.” The company indicated that “since 2021, it had invested over [US]$100 million” in infrastructure integrity and maintenance operations and “decommissioned 35 km of onshore pipelines.”
Perenco also indicated that “many sources of environmental harm” should be considered, such as “the daily use by the local population of waterways and rivers for the large scale washing of motor vehicles” or “frequent acts of vandalism and sabotage of its installations,” as well as “the existence of extensive fuel trafficking between the DRC and Angola, involving the storage, transportation and sale of fuel in precarious conditions.”
Environmental Monitoring
A representative of the Congolese Control Office (Office Congolais de Contrôle, OCC), a government agency that works with the Environment Ministry on environmental monitoring of the oil concession, spoke with Human Rights Watch.
The representative said that while the OCC conducts occasional inspections using portable equipment to measure air pollutants and soil contamination in several communities—including Liawenda, Banana, Mibale, Nsiafumu, and Makelekese—there was no regular government monitoring program. He said that while Perenco had installed air-quality monitoring sensors in several villages, the OCC had no access to the data.
In 2025, a committee from the Kongo Central regional parliament urged national authorities to “acquire and install national monitoring sensors … at sites across the province that are susceptible to pollution,” and to “require all companies engaged in polluting activities to submit, on a monthly basis, monitoring data collected from surveillance sensors.” Two provincial assembly members said that Perenco holds pollutant monitoring data for the concession but has not given the members access.
The head of a Muanda-based environmental organization said: “There is no public data available on pollutant measurement, which is why local NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] are trying to commission their own analyses.”
No Justice 20 Years Since Sri Lanka’s Muttur Massacre
I was in Sri Lanka on August 4, 2006, when 17 humanitarian aid workers were brutally murdered in the embattled town of Muttur, near the coastal city of Trincomalee. I’ve written about the incident ever since, but 20 years later, I still cannot report that those responsible have been held to account.
During the height of the fighting between the Sri Lankan government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2006, LTTE forces on August 2 captured Muttur. Sri Lankan staff members of the Paris-based international aid organization Action Contre la Faim (Action against Hunger, or ACF) were caught up in the shelling and shooting, stranded in their office compound.
After Sri Lankan security forces retook the town following the LTTE’s withdrawal around noon on August 4, they reported a horrific discovery: the bodies of 15 ACF workers lying face down in their compound, with bullet wounds to their heads and necks fired at point-blank range. The bodies of two other ACF workers, who appeared to have tried to escape, were found in a vehicle nearby.
The Sri Lankan military informed foreign journalists shown the scene that the LTTE had murdered the 13 men and 4 women, all ethnic Tamils except for one Muslim. However, in-depth reporting by the nongovernmental University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) later debunked the official account. The group said that two police constables and Sri Lankan naval special forces commandos were responsible for the killings, and that senior police and justice officials were involved in a coverup.
The Muttur massacre was just one of many atrocities by both sides during Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war, which ended with the LTTE’s destruction in 2009. It was among the dozen major rights cases that successive governments promised to pursue—but never seriously did.
The families of the ACF workers, as well as those of thousands of others unlawfully killed, forcibly disappeared or otherwise unaccounted for, have been waiting decades for justice.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s government needs to make good on its 2024 election-year pledge to establish an independent prosecutor to pursue emblematic cases from the civil war, including the Muttur massacre. Concerned governments should continue to press for accountability in Sri Lanka and highlight the need for justice for all victims of wartime abuses and its aftermath.
End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists in Yemen
Journalist Muhammad Aidha, who had reported for the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya and Al Hadath channels since 2019, was killed in Mukalla in eastern Yemen on June 24 by an explosive device planted in his car.
Three days later, on June 27, Marib security forces detained journalist Hamoud Haza while he was covering a public event. Haza told Human Rights Watch that he was held incommunicado and released two days later, only after he signed a pledge to not criticize the internationally recognized government and its minister of information.
The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate condemned Aidha’s killing, saying the attack “added to a series of crimes and violations against journalists and media workers, including the assassination of journalists Rasha al-Harazi and Saber al-Haidari in Aden.” The National Organization of Yemeni Reporters said in a statement that over 90 journalists and media workers have been killed since Yemen’s conflict began in 2015, adding, “This bloody toll reflects the desire of the parties to the conflict to impose a complete media blackout and to entrench a culture of impunity.”
Government authorities are not alone in their abuses against journalists. In March, Houthi forces abducted journalist Salah al-Deen al-Rawhani from his home in Sanaa, and he has not been heard from since, according to the International Federation of Journalists.
In September 2025, Human Rights Watch documented warring parties’ systematic violations against Yemeni journalists, including killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and other ill-treatment. The report found all parties to the conflict, including the Houthis, the Southern Transitional Council, and the Yemeni government, have committed serious abuses with impunity against journalists and media workers.
International humanitarian law obligates all warring parties to protect civilians, including journalists, who are not taking a direct part in hostilities. International human rights law further protects journalists’ rights to liberty, security of person, and freedom of expression, and prohibits arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance.
The Yemeni government should conduct a prompt, impartial, and transparent investigation into the killing of Mohammed Aydah, and investigate all other attacks on journalists that have taken place within territories under their control, and hold those responsible to account. Houthi authorities should also release all detained journalists and media workers, including Salah al-Deen al-Rawhani.
West Bank: Surge in Settler Violence Threatens Mass Atrocities
(Beirut) – Two Israeli settler attacks on Tal village near Nablus in the West Bank on July 24, 2026, resulted in the killing of four Palestinians and two Israelis, Human Rights Watch said today.
The incident triggered a wave of settler reprisal attacks in nearby Palestinian villages, the Israeli government’s announcement of a “major counterterrorism operation,” and Israeli officials calling for the destruction of Palestinian homes and villages. Concerned governments should urgently act to prevent further settler violence and atrocities.
“The Israeli government didn’t prevent the settler attacks on Tal village, so now it needs to stop settler reprisals and escalating military action that will make a bad situation worse,” said Sarah Sanbar, acting Israel and Palestine researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Years of lawlessness and impunity for attacks has turned the West Bank into a powder keg waiting to explode, and decisive action is urgently needed.”
The July 24 killings in Tal bring the Palestinian death toll in the occupied West Bank since July 19 to 10. As of July 19, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported 68 Palestinians killed in the West Bank in 2026, at least 13 by settlers. OCHA reported that as of July 15, 20 Israelis had been injured in 2026 in the West Bank. Settler violence has risen sharply since the current Israeli government took office in October 2022, with the most recent spike in March and April 2026, during the United States and Israel’s war with Iran.
Human Rights Watch interviewed two witnesses to the attacks and a local activist, and verified six videos of the incidents posted to social media platforms and shared directly with researchers.
Between 6:10 and 6:45 a.m. on July 24, 40 to 50 settlers, including children, approached Tal from the east, attacked four or five Palestinian homes with stones, and tried to break in, witnesses said. A confrontation between the settlers and Palestinians erupted, during which an armed settler shot and wounded a Palestinian man, the witnesses said. More Palestinians then arrived to assist the family, and the settlers fled.
About 30 minutes later, the same group of settlers reentered Tal from the southwest, where they were joined by Israeli soldiers, said Mujahid Waleed, a local resident who witnessed both incidents.
“When I arrived [to the second location], the settlers and the Palestinians were already fighting,” Waleed said. “The settlers were attacking the Palestinians, and the army stood by and didn’t intervene. The army only intervened once a Palestinian man disarmed a settler and started shooting at the soldier and settlers. The army fired back and killed point-blank the [Palestinian] carrying the weapon, and settlers and soldiers shot the other three unarmed Palestinians.”
The attacks took place in Area B, an area under joint Israeli-Palestinian Authority security control under the Oslo II Accords. The four Palestinians killed were two brothers and two cousins from the Ramadan family.
Human Rights Watch verified and geolocated two videos showing the confrontation that are consistent with Waleed’s account. One video shows two armed settlers alongside a uniformed soldier, close to a group of Palestinian men. The settlers apparently start the physical altercation, kicking a Palestinian man before a fight breaks out and a soldier fires into the air.
When two Palestinian men try to take the settlers’ weapons, gunshots are heard and a Palestinian man falls to the ground. A settler is seen holding a raised weapon. A second video shows the second Palestinian man taking a firearm from a settler and pushing him to the ground; the settler draws a handgun, and the Palestinian man appears to fire at him.
The Israeli military stated at 9:32 a.m. that soldiers were dispatched to the area following a report regarding “an attack on Israeli civilians who were hiking in the area” and that “terrorists stole the weapon of a security personnel who had arrived at the scene and opened fire toward the Israeli civilians.” The military later announced that the incident resulted in the killing of Benyahu Mellet, 32, and Maj. Yuval Ezra, 27, an active-duty soldier. The Israeli military said the platoon commander returned fire and killed the Palestinian gunman, the Times of Israel reported. It did not provide details about the killing of the other three Palestinians.
Human Rights Watch, other nongovernmental organizations, and the media have repeatedly reported attacks by armed settlers that often occur alongside Israeli army units or with soldiers standing by and failing to intervene. They found that settlers responsible for attacks often operate with the financial, material, and legal backing of the Israeli state.
The Times of Israel reported that Mellet headed the civil defense squad of the Havat Gilad settlement. Following October 7, 2023, the National Security Ministry established these squads in West Bank settlements and gave them special policing powers, uniforms, and weapons. The squads’ establishment, along with settler-only “regional defense battalions” in the Israeli military, have contributed to the dangerous blurring of the line between settlers and soldiers.
In response to the incident, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened an emergency security meeting, announced the redeployment of five military battalions to the West Bank, and directed the military to carry out an “intensive counterterrorism operation.”
Since then, settler reprisal attacks have been reported in nearbyvillages, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. The attacks have resulted in injuries, arson, and other property damage.
Netanyahu also announced that he would accelerate the regularization of settler outposts and the establishment of new ones. These outposts, which have often served as launching pads for attacks on Palestinian communities, are illegal under both Israeli law and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Their retroactive legalization serves to push the frontier of settlement expansion and enable the appropriation of Palestinian land, often serving as precursors to larger settlements.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Netanyahu to “allow the establishment of a settlement at the Sela outpost, near the place where the severe attack took place this morning. To this end, it is necessary to transfer this area from Area B to Area C [fully Israeli-controlled territory], take responsibility for it and allow a settlement to be established there.”
Since the attack, Israeli officials have issued statements calling for the destruction of Palestinian homes and villages. Smotrich said the villages “should look like the refugee camps in Nablus and Tulkarem,” which were destroyed during an Israeli military operation in January 2025 that Human Rights Watch found amounted to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.
In a post on X, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said: “The cities and villages of the killers in the West Bank should be treated the same way Beit Hanoun [an embattled Palestinian town] was treated in Gaza. ... For every Jew murdered - the enemy must absorb the loss of lands and homes.”
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice found that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful and that Israel is in breach of the prohibition of racial segregation and apartheid. The court found Israel has an obligation to evacuate all settlers in the West Bank including East Jerusalem, allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, and provide them with reparations.
Governments should urgently act to prevent further atrocities across the West Bank, including by imposing targeted sanctions on those implicated in ongoing grave abuses, suspending arms transfers to Israel, banning trade with illegal settlements, suspending preferential trade agreements with Israel, and supporting the International Criminal Court and its ongoing investigations, including by executing its arrest warrants.
“The settler violence against Tal is a reminder that if the violence is not stopped and those responsible are not held to account, escalation and further atrocities are inevitable,” Sanbar said. “Governments need to act urgently so that the Israeli government does not continue to act as if it has a green light to commit further atrocities.”
US, Iran Threaten Attacks on Civilian Infrastructure
(Washington, DC) – President Donald Trump announced on July 24, 2026, that the United States was considering “a massive attack” on Iran following a breakdown of the ceasefire and US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding. US and Iranian leaders have threatened to retaliate and attack targets that could be civilian infrastructure, in violation of the laws of war.
On July 23, Trump stated: “From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran.”
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament, posted on X on July 22 that “If our security is not ensured, no infrastructure will be safe.”
The laws of war prohibit deliberate attacks against civilian objects and attacks whose expected civilian harm is excessive compared to the anticipated direct military advantage. Individuals who commit serious laws-of-war violations with criminal intent—that is, deliberately or recklessly—are responsible for war crimes.
The following quote can be attributed to Balkees Jarrah, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch:
“US and Iranian leaders are threatening deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure following earlier fighting between the two countries in which their forces unlawfully attacked civilians and civilian objects in Iran, Gulf countries, and Israel. Other countries should make clear to the United States and Iran that those responsible for war crimes will be brought to justice, including through universal jurisdiction.”
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Removed
(New York) – The Assembly of States Parties of the International Criminal Court (ICC), during a special session on July 24, 2026, decided to remove the court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, from office for serious misconduct and serious breach of duty.
The following quote can be attributed to Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch:
“In this moment, there are two equally important issues to emphasize. First, the ICC is more than any one person; it’s a critical court of last resort that anchors a global movement for justice. Governments should protect its independence and ensure that its essential work can move forward, across its docket. Second, the ICC should hold itself to the highest standards. This includes ensuring a safe workplace with effective and credible mechanisms available to staff or others who experience abuse, including sexual violence or harassment.”
When You Watch the Tour de France, Think Sudan War
As the Tour de France wraps up this weekend, all eyes will be on the UAE. The leading team’s principal sponsors are state-owned United Arab Emirates companies.
But, while fans watch the race through the French countryside, human rights abuses perpetuated by the United Arab Emirates are unfolding elsewhere, out of public view.
Sponsoring elite athletic competition is an attempt to use sportswashing to deflect attention from the UAE’s rampant systemic rights violations. By sponsoring NBA games and F1 races, the UAE’s government deters scrutiny about its treatment of migrant workers, who face widespread abuses, and its unjust jailing of political dissidents.
Seeing the UAE connected to a Tour de France victory would be another welcome advertisement for the UAE's rulers, as a growing body of evidence indicates that the UAE provides support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan. This abusive warring party has carried out atrocities that amount to crimes against humanity.
Since fighting erupted in 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF, civilians have faced massacres, hunger, and destruction. Hundreds of thousands have died and over 11 million people have been displaced. The RSF also carried out mass killings and mass rapes of people fleeing El Fasher in October of 2025.
The UAE has supported the RSF by providing weapons and by facilitating the travel of foreign fighters to Sudan. In a recent report, Human Rights Watch documented how Colombian private military contractors apparently hired by a UAE-based company transited through UAE military bases before being deployed alongside the RSF in Sudan.
As you watch the UAE's state-sponsored cycling team in the Tour this weekend, spare a thought for the people in Sudan who bear the deadly consequences of the UAE-fueled atrocities, and inform yourself, also about the fate of migrant workers and dissidents in the Emirates.
Iranians Face Double Peril of Gallows and Bombs
Iran’s authorities executed a young man, Mehdi Khanaki, on July 22. He was the 24th known person arbitrarily executed since March 18 in connection with recent protests.
The number of executions of real and perceived dissidents on vague national security charges has significantly increased. Over the past four months alone, authorities have executed at least 50 people on such charges, including several 18 and 19-year-old teenagers.
These executions are arbitrary under international law. Cases have been characterized by extremely summary proceedings and gross fair trial violations. Proceedings connected to recent protests have ranged between three and six months from arrest to execution.
In many cases, authorities have executed individuals on charges that do not meet the threshold of the “most serious crimes” and on vaguely worded charges such as “waging war on God.” Several men have been arbitrarily executed in recent months over accusations of “espionage” or “collaboration with hostile states,” including based on the new Espionage Law, used by the authorities to further repress the population, especially since the January 2026 massacres.
Since the resumption of US-Iran hostilities in early July, authorities have announced several executions on national security charges. Scores of protesters and dissidents remain on death row, with a human rights organization reporting on over 70 protesters under death sentences in one prison alone. It’s a harrowing reminder of the atrocity risks people in Iran face: lethal domestic repression and unlawful military strikes, such as the one that killed scores of children in a primary school in Minab on February 28.
President Trump’s threats, once again, to target infrastructure that may be indispensable to civilian survival have only heightened these concerns.
Fears are also growing for prisoners, especially in southern Iran, where deteriorating conditions are reported, including water and electricity cuts caused and/or exacerbated by military strikes amid extreme heat. Many impacted cities are home to ethnic minorities who already face structural discrimination and marginalisation.
Authorities should immediately halt all executions, unconditionally release those arbitrarily detained, and implement regulations allowing for the release or leave of prisoners on humanitarian grounds. Countries with embassies in Iran should press the authorities to establish a moratorium on executions and request to send diplomatic observers to capital trials. All parties to the conflict should abide by the laws of war.
Nepal: Government Actions Threaten Judicial Independence
(Geneva) – Recent actions by the government of Nepal that threaten the independence of the country’s judiciary are a source of serious concern, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said today.
In particular, political pressure has reportedly been applied to alter the composition of the Supreme Court through the forced resignation or impeachment of sitting justices. In May 2026, the government improperly amended the Constitutional Council Act through an executive ordinance, rather than through parliamentary legislation, as required under Nepal’s Constitution and rule of law principles.
The organizations are concerned about the consequences of amendments to the Constitutional Council Act, which altered the quorum and voting requirements of the Constitutional Council, the body responsible for recommending appointments to key constitutional offices, including the chief justice. Given that political office holders already constitute a majority of the council’s membership, the amendments further increase the risk of undue political influence over judicial appointments and undermine international standards on judicial independence and the rule of law.
“The independence of the judiciary is a cornerstone of the rule of law and an essential safeguard for the protection of human rights,” said Ian Seiderman, senior legal and policy director of the ICJ. “Any reform of Nepal's justice system should strengthen—not weaken—the independence, impartiality, and integrity of the courts.”
These concerns have been compounded by the recent appointment of Dr. Manoj Kumar Sharma as chief justice. His appointment departed from Nepal's long-standing practice of appointing the senior-most serving justice, even though three more senior judges remain in office. The Parliamentary Hearing Committee nevertheless endorsed his appointment despite complaints having been submitted concerning the nomination and without any meaningful public examination of those complaints.
The organizations have received credible reports that the three more senior Supreme Court justices, Sapana Pradhan Malla, Kumar Regmi, and Hari Phuyal have been subjected to political pressure to resign and threatened with impeachment if they refuse. The organizations are unaware of any publicly stated allegations that would satisfy the constitutional grounds for impeachment under Nepal’s Constitution.
Under Nepal's Constitution, the initiation of impeachment proceedings results in the suspension of the judge concerned pending parliament’s determination about the charges. The suspension of three senior Supreme Court justices would significantly affect the composition and functioning of the court at a time when it is considering a number of highly consequential constitutional cases involving challenges to government decisions and executive action.
The use or threatened use of impeachment against judges without clear constitutional justification risks creating the appearance that constitutional procedures are being used to influence the composition of the court and, potentially, the outcome of pending litigation, the groups said. Nepal has previously attempted to use impeachment proceedings against judges in circumstances that undermine judicial independence and the rule of law.
“Public confidence in the judiciary depends not only on the competence and integrity of judges but also on the transparency, fairness, and independence of judicial appointments,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Appointments or removals that appear susceptible to political influence undermine confidence in the administration of justice and weaken the rule of law.”
Under international standards, judges must be able to be free from improper influence, pressure, threats, or interference and removals must be based on objective criteria and protected against political influence.
While judicial reform may be necessary to strengthen the administration of justice in Nepal, any reform process should reinforce, rather than diminish, judicial independence, transparency, accountability, and the rule of law, the groups said.
“The objective of judicial reform should be to build stronger, more independent institutions that enjoy public confidence, not institutions that are more vulnerable to political pressure,” said Isabelle Lassee, acting regional director for South Asia at Amnesty International. “Reforms should be firmly grounded in internationally recognized principles of judicial independence, separations of powers, transparency, and accountability. Reforms that depart from these principles risk weakening the very institutions they are intended to strengthen.”
The Nepal government should:
Respect and protect the independence and integrity of the judiciary by refraining from exerting pressure on judges to resign or from initiating impeachment proceedings, except on clearly established constitutional grounds and in accordance with the rule of law and due process guarantees.Ensure that appointments to judicial office, including the office of chief justice, are conducted through transparent, objective, and merit-based procedures capable of safeguarding judicial independence.Review the amendments to the Constitutional Council Act through an open parliamentary process and ensure that the legal framework governing judicial appointments adequately protects the judiciary from political domination and undue influence. Ensure that any future reforms affecting the judiciary strengthen judicial independence, transparency, accountability, and public confidence in the administration of justice, consistent with Nepal’s Constitution and the rule of law, including international human rights standards.