Rwandan genocide fugitive captured
One of the four remaining fugitives from the 1994 Rwandan genocide has been captured. Fulgence Kayishema was arrested on Wednesday in Paarl (South Africa), as announced by the UN court that tries genocide suspects.
Kayishema was charged in 2001 with genocide for orchestrating the killing of more than 2,000 Tutsi men, women and children inside a Catholic church.
In a statement, the court described Kayishema as “one of the world’s most wanted genocide fugitives.”
The prosecutor explains that the arrest of this man, who had used various aliases and false documents, has been possible thanks to an international operation in which many countries participated.
According to the indictment, Kayishema was directly involved in planning and carrying out the massacre, including procuring and distributing gasoline to burn down the church with the refugees inside. When this failed, Kayishema and others used a bulldozer to collapse the building, burying and killing the refugees inside. They then supervised the removal of the bodies from the church grounds to mass graves.
Since 2020, the UN tribunal has found the whereabouts of five fugitives accused of genocide by the Rwanda tribunal. Now there are only three fugitives left.
The United Nations headquarters celebrated this Thursday the International Day of Peacekeepers, when the 75th anniversary of the operations of the blue helmets is celebrated.
In 1948 the historic decision was made to deploy military observers to the Middle East to monitor the implementation of the Armistice Agreements between Israel and the Arab states. Since then, more than two million peacekeepers from 125 countries have served in 71 operations around the world. Currently, 87,000 women and men are deployed in 12 conflict zones in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
He General secretary He said that the blue helmets must be given new functions.
“Unfortunately, our peacekeepers are increasingly working in places where there is no peace to keep,” he told the General Assembly. “We must seriously reflect on the need for a new generation of peace enforcement missions and counter-terrorism operations, led by our partners with a mandate from the Security Council of the UN under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, with guaranteed financing, specifically through quotas”.
Guterres laid a wreath in honor of the more than 4,200 UN peacekeepers who have lost their lives since 1948.
The Secretary-General also presented the Military Gender Champion Award to Captain Cecilia Erzuah, from Ghana, who served in Abyei, an area disputed between Sudan and South Sudan.
Mexico consolidates as a country of asylum
Mexico, traditionally a country of transit and origin for refugees and migrants, was once again one of the countries that received the most asylum applications last year.
Although in 2021 the number of asylum applications reached a record of 131,414, 2022 represented the second year with the highest number, registering 118,756 applications.
Honduras was the most represented country of origin with 26% of the requests, followed by Cuba (15%), Haiti (14%), Venezuela (13%) and Nicaragua (8%).
UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, supported 132 shelters in 48 cities with improvements in infrastructure, staff, distribution of non-food items and increased reception capacity. More than 15,000 people received assistance in these spaces.
UNESCO adds new documents to the Memory of the World
The Unesco has announced the inscription of 64 documentary collections in its Memory of the World registry.
The program, created in 1992, seeks to preserve valuable documents, whether on paper, audiovisual, digital or in any other format.
“Documentary heritage is the common memory of humanity. It should be protected for research purposes and shared with as many people as possible. It is a fundamental part of our collective history,” said director Audrey Azoulay.
The record has 494 collections. Among the 64 added this year are the complete works of the Sufi poet and philosopher Mawlana and the archives of the first meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Canada submitted documents on the assimilation of indigenous children; Ukraine, the archives of the Nazi massacres at Babi Yar; and France and Germany, Claude Lanzmann’s Holocaust film “Shoah” and two hundred hours of archival material.
