Hundreds of mothers of missing people, relatives, and activists marched in protest through downtown Mexico City on May 10 to mark a sad commemoration of Mother’s Day.

The marchers, angry over what they say is the government’s lack of interest in investigating the disappearances of Mexico’s over 100,000 missing people, chanted slogans like “Where are they, our children, where are they?” They carried massive banners that, in some cases, showed nearly 100 photos of missing people.

The government of South Sudan and rebel opposition groups on May 16 signed a “commitment declaration” for peace during high-level mediation talks in Kenya, described as key step in efforts to end the conflict in South Sudan that has long crippled its economy.

The content of the agreement was not made public during the signing ceremony, attended by diplomats and civil society groups. The rebel opposition groups were not part of the 2018 agreement that ended South Sudan’s five-year civil war that left 400,000 people dead and millions displaced.

Switzerland’s top criminal court has convicted a former interior minister of the Gambia for crimes against humanity during repression by the west African country’s security forces against opponents of its longtime dictator, a legal advocacy group said on May 15.

The trial that began in January was seen by advocacy groups as an opportunity to reach a conviction under “universal jurisdiction,” which allows the prosecution of serious crimes committed abroad. The verdict was read out in Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, canton Ticino, on May 15.

Human rights violations as well as any official response to them affect women’s lives in distinct, profound, and often unseen and unspoken ways. For a society grappling with mass atrocities, it is crucial to shed light on these diverse experiences, if they are ever to be acknowledged and repaired. Space must therefore be created for women victims to share their experiences. Libya is one such country. To help raise the voices of women victims and human rights defenders there, ICTJ has been collaborating with diverse women-led civil society organizations since 2019, bringing them together and helping them build their capacities.

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias killed “at least thousands of people” in West Darfur state, an international rights group has said, in what it called apparent “crimes against humanity” and “genocide.”

In a report published on May 9, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that RSF attacks on the Masalit tribe and other non-Arab groups between April and November 2023 were some of the worst atrocities in the ongoing civil war which started that April.

President Joe Biden on May 8 publicly warned Israel for the first time that the United States (US) would stop supplying it weapons if Israeli forces make a major invasion of Rafah, a refugee-packed city in southern Gaza.

Biden acknowledged US weapons have been used by Israel to kill civilians in Gaza, where Israel has mounted a seven-month-old offensive aimed at annihilating Hamas. Israel's campaign has so far killed 34,789 Palestinians, mostly civilians, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

A facility was opened at the Srebrenica Memorial Centre to store the remains, personal belongings, and clothes of victims of the Srebrenica genocide who haven’t been identified—intended as a place of dignified remembrance.

The new facility to store remains of victims of the July 1995 genocide of Bosniaks by Bosnian Serb forces opened with a ceremony on May 8 at the Srebrenica Memorial Centre in the village of Potocari. The US ambassador to Sarajevo, Michael Murphy, said it would serve as a place of memory for those who want to learn from history.

Police in Vietnam have arrested a senior official involved in talks with international organisations on labor reforms, state media said on May 9, adding that the action was linked to disclosure of classified information.

The detention of Nguyen Van Binh follows months of arrests of prominent experts and activists, in what some diplomats see as a further crackdown on civil society amid a major reshuffle of top political leaders in the Communist-ruled country.

A transitional council tasked with choosing new leaders for Haiti is changing the way it operates in a move that surprised many as gang violence consumes the country.

Instead of having a single council president, four longtime politicians will take turns leading the council every five months, according to two members who were not authorized to publicly share the changes because they had not yet been announced.