War crimes are among the gravest violations of international law, committed in armed conflicts across the world. They include the deliberate targeting of civilians, torture, mass executions, sexual violence, the use of banned weapons, and attacks on humanitarian or medical infrastructure. From Ukraine to Gaza, Myanmar to Sudan, civilians continue to pay the highest price in today’s wars. The Explosive Weapons Monitor has reported tens of thousands of civilian casualties from explosive weapons, with a significant rise in recent years. Over 60 percent of these casualties in 2024 occurred in Gaza. Ukraine, Myanmar, and Burkina Faso are also among the worst-affected regions. Attacks on hospitals, schools, refugee convoys, and marketplaces, many captured on video, often amount to war crimes under international humanitarian law.
Mass atrocities continue to unfold in Africa. In Burkina Faso, government forces have been accused of committing mass killings of civilians, including children. Sudan’s ongoing civil war has resulted in countless war crimes committed by both state forces and paramilitary forces, including sexual violence, massacres of civilians, torture, and summary executions. In Myanmar, the military has bombed houses of worship, schools, and hospitals, killing thousands in indiscriminate airstrikes. In the occupied Palestinian territories, repeated bombardments and blockades have caused thousands of civilian deaths and the destruction of hospitals, UN shelters, and entire neighborhoods. One particularly deadly incident on February 29, 2024, where Israeli forces opened fire on civilians waiting for food aid, is now referred to as the “Flour Massacre,” and drew global condemnation.
Drone warfare has also escalated. In Kherson, Ukraine, Russia has used commercial drones to deliberately attack civilians, with videos recorded by Russian forces acknowledging that they are purposely targeting civilians. These attacks have resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties and prompted calls for investigations by the International Criminal Court. Despite clear documentation, impunity remains widespread. The International Criminal Court and UN bodies have opened multiple investigations, but justice is slow and accountability rare.
Currently, over 110 armed conflicts are active around the world, and nearly 120 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced, an overwhelming number of them civilians fleeing war crimes.
The West, led by the Trump administration, has enabled the Netanyahu government to commit crimes against humanity and became complicit in the unfathomably horrific disaster that is being inflicted on the Palestinians in Gaza The war in Gaza has crossed many red lines, rendering Palestinian lives worthless, trivial, and of no consequence. Much of the…
The ongoing civil war in Sudan is tragic, but the greater tragedy is that if the international community sits on its hands and does nothing to stop this horrific war and prevent further escalation of the conflict, it will come at an unfathomable price The human toll of Sudan’s civil war, now in its third…
While a peace accord was reached in February 2020 to end civil war in South Sudan, the agreement remains extremely fragile and needs international support to hold together Righting the Wrong In July 2011, South Sudan became independent from Sudan following six years of autonomy and 20 years of brutal war. Only two years later,…
While tens of thousands of Yemeni men, women and children are dying from starvation and disease, the world is shamelessly watching with deafening silence The bombing continues unabated. The explosions are heard in the distance. A family with seven children is cowering in fear in a corner of their shack, Daring not to step out…
The proxy war that Saudi Arabia and Iran have been waging in Yemen for the past five years goes beyond the pale of human capacity for extreme cruelty and ruthlessness, and against the spirit and the letter of the Quran. Ironically, whereas Saudi Arabia has many reasons to end the war, which prompted its decision…
What the U.S., Iraq, the U.N., and the EU can do to help the ethnic minority return to their homeland in Iraq The genocide of the Yazidis in northern Iraq’s Sinjar District will be remembered as one of the darkest chapters in the rise and “fall” of ISIS. It is hard to fathom the pain,…
A few week ago, I had an opportunity to meet with six members of the Yazidi community, including journalists and activists. I must admit that although I knew and was very shaken when I first learned about the horrifying attack by ISIS on the Yazidi community in Sinjar, Iraq, listening to their account of what…
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