The strike, which occurred on Wednesday, targeted the Al-Salama neighborhood near a girls’ school, according to the El-Fasher Resistance Committee.

The group attributed the attack to the Sudanese army, which has been engaged in a conflict with the Rapid Support Forces since April 2023.

A medical source said the victims brought to a local hospital included six children, among them three secondary school students.

Sixteen others were wounded in the attack, including women and children, and are receiving treatment.

The strike underscores the continuing toll of the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, where fighting between the army and paramilitary forces has displaced large numbers of civilians and strained already limited medical resources.

The common denominator of these children’s stories is poverty and unemployment.

Today, many children in Iran are forced to drop out of school, due to poverty and the economic crisis, and enter the labor market for their own or their family’s survival. These children are subjected to violence and abuse. This approach is a serious violation of international children’s rights. More than 5% of construction work in Iran, being one of the most difficult tasks, are done by working children.

The employment of low wage working children in the markets is very profitable for owners. For this reason, government institutions in charge in Iran are not only reluctant to solve this problem, but also are the main culprits.

According to the Mehr news agency, based on research conducted by the University of Welfare Sciences. The number of working and street children in Iranian cities is approximately 70,000.

In any city of Iran, you can see them walking in the streets with a bag on their shoulders. They go everywhere looking for waste, plastic bottles and discarded items for recycling. They search garbage bins, rubble, depots, wherever they could find these materials. What stands out is that, unequal to the heavy weight on their shoulders, they are often very young children.

A local reporter, reporting from across the city, said, “I came across a number of these kids searching the garbage bins with a big bag.  I went ahead and opened conversation and asked them about their lives and jobs.”

Vahid is the youngest of them all, but at his young age, he works more than the others. He says, “Including my parents, there are 14 of us and I am the eldest son in the family. My father is old and missing a kidney, so he cannot work”.

When asked, “How many hours a day do you work and how much do you earn?”

Vahid replied, “I leave the house at seven in the morning and return to sleep at night. I collect 30 to 40 kilograms of recyclable waste a day and sell it to a specific person in a garage. He buys them for 1500 tomans (equivalent to 10 cents) per kilogram”.

For another question, “Is this income enough for a family of 14 to meet its ends or not?”

He replied, “I do not know. Every month I go and give the money to my mother and I go back to the garage. I do not know if it is enough for them or not. I cannot make more unless I buy a cart. We came here from Mashhad (northeast of Iran). My family lives in Mallard (suburb of Tehran), but I live in the garage to be close to the garbage dump. I finished my second year of primary school and have not returned to school since my arrival here. I have a seven-year-old brother who should have gone to school this year but could not. They said he must have a cell phone, which we do not have!”

Several families live in the master’s garage

17-year-old Hadi talks about his living place, “This is one of master’s garages. He has three garages in Karaj, and everyone works for him. Meshkin Dasht Garage is around Ebrahimabad Park. There are about 20 of us staying there overnight. The whole garage has been turned into a living room. Several families also live there and pay rent to master”.

Hadi is illiterate and has never gone to school. He has rough workers’ hands and speaks loudly. He says, “We also came here from Mashhad. My father died and I have six sisters who are too young to work. My mother works in a clothing factory and she sleeps there at night with my sisters. In fact, they are also night guards. I work so they can study”.

I was curious about the master and asked them to tell me more about him. Hadi says, “From the beginning, everyone called him master (Arbab). We also call him master. We sell the things we collect to him and he pays us money every day. So far, I have worked for several people and they did not pay me, but the master pays every day”.

I asked them what the master was doing with the junk collected? Hadi continues, “He has a contract with the municipality. This is his area, and we are just allowed to work in his area. If we are outside this area, municipal officials will come and take us away”.

Vahid says, “Master has three garages, and he rides a high-end car. He has a lot of workers and he is rich”.

Hadi and Vahid, despite their young age, suffered as much as an adult. I realized this when I asked Vahid, “Do you not have an older brother?” A bitter laugh settled on the corner of his mouth and he said, “If I had, I would not have had to work like this”. This means that he accepted he is the head of a family and he must suffer and provide for them. These are not the imaginary stories of a thousand and one nights, these are not myths out of reach!

The common denominator of these children’s stories is poverty and unemployment. These factors weigh so heavily on their shoulders and are so harmful that they do not allow them to get out of the current situation.

Vahid and Hadi never spend time for themselves. At the height of adolescence, at their sensitive age period, at times when they need attention, fun and happiness, they work just to keep their families surviving. The days that must be spent building and developing the character of Vahid and Hadi are spent diving dumpsters.

Cyrus Yaqubi is a Research Analyst and Iranian Foreign Affairs Commentator investigating the social issues and economy of the middle east countries in general and Iran in particular.

Instead of shopping for toys, consider spending that money on a family vacation.

Vacations Boost Child Brain Development

If you’re one of the many parents struggling to stem the flow of unwanted toys into your home, here’s some good news. Several experts suggest that gifting children vacations and experiences instead of toys can boost their brain development.

In an article for the Telegraph, child psychotherapist Dr. Margot Sunderland postulated that vacations are an investment in your child’s brain development. She wrote, “This is because on a family holiday you are exercising two genetically ingrained systems deep in the brain’s limbic area, which can all too easily be “unexercised” in the home. These are the PLAY system and the SEEKING system”.

Sunderland cited the work of Professor Jaak Panksepp, a world-leading neuroscientist at Washington State University. Panksepp discovered the PLAY and SEEKING systems.

According to Sunderland, “The brain’s PLAY system is exercised every time you bury your child’s feet in the sand, tickle them on the pool lounger, or take them for a ride on your back. The brain’s SEEKING system is exercised each time you go exploring together: the forest, the beach, a hidden gem of a village”.

Exercising your child’s PLAY and SEEKING systems leads to growth in the frontal lobe. This part of the brain deals with cognitive functioning, problem-solving, emotional expression, memory, language, and judgment. And the more you use these systems, the stronger they become.

When you take your child on a vacation, they have the opportunity to explore a new place. This activates the SEEKING system. And removing your family from your daily, possibly stress-filled routines encourages you to play together.

Well-Being and Happiness

Beyond your child’s brain development, exercising their PLAY and SEEKING systems through a family vacation also contributes to their general happiness and well-being. When we activate those systems in our brain, neurochemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, and opioids are released. These neurochemicals support feelings of closeness in relationships. They also relieve stress and help you feel that all is well and good.

A 2017 study suggests that time together is what makes people feel most loved. The study published in The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships involved asking 495 men and women between the ages of 18 and 93 to complete a questionnaire evaluating what makes people feel loved. Each of the 60 questions began with, “Most people feel loved when…”

The researchers learned that most people felt loved through interactions with other humans, not gifts. Dr. Zita Oravecz, one of the researchers, told NPR, “Our research found that micro-moments of positivity, like a kind word, cuddling with a child, or receiving compassion make people feel most loved.” Family vacations provide ample opportunities for these interactions because your family is removed from the distractions and responsibilities of everyday life.

So, for the next holiday or birthday, instead of shopping for toys, consider spending that money on a family vacation. You can even request that other gift-givers, such as grandparents, contribute to your vacation fund rather than purchasing a toy for your child. The memories from the special time you spend as a family will last far longer than your child’s interest in the next plaything they receive.

Article first published on Healthy Holistic Living.

Emmi Scott is a wellness writer based in Kansas City, MO.

The statement which was issued in cooperation with 13 International organizations stated that 147 children are inflicted with disabilities due to indiscriminate shelling on densely populated areas by the Houthis, landmines and Houthi-affiliated snipers.

The rights group accused Iran-backed militias of detaining 456 children in the Houthi-run prisons, while displacing 43,608 children and forcefully recruiting 12,341 children for militant activities.

Social Affairs Minister Dr. Ibtihaj al-Kamal also called on international organizations dealing with children’s welfare to back the Yemeni government in adopting plans that support children and rehabilitate them.

Kamal said in a statement that “4.5 million Yemeni children have been deprived of education since the Houthi militias led a coup late 2014.”

She accused the insurgents of shelling schools and turning them into military barracks, sending children to battlefronts and adopting curricula that encourage hatred and threaten the social fabric.

The rights group appealed the international community to take stringent actions against the Iran-backed militias to end their crimes, atrocities and violations against the Yemeni children.

The Iranian regime is the top executioner of women and holds the record on per capita executions in the world.

Annual report on the death penalty in Iran, October 2019

Iran top per capita executioner

Hundreds of people in Iran are sentenced to death annually. October 10, the World Day against the Death Penalty, reminds us of the thousands of death row prisoners lingering in jails in Iran.

Iranian regime officials have never heeded to the International community’s calls to abolish the death penalty.

Iran’s deliberate use of capital punishment has been a constant source of international outrage and condemnation. According to several independent international bodies, including the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran and Amnesty International, Iran is the leading state in executions per capita, second only to China in terms of figures. Iran also tops the charts in the number of executions of minors and juvenile offenders.

Iran Human Rights Monitor has recorded the execution of more than 200 individuals since the beginning of 2019 in Iran.

At least eight juvenile offenders and 10 women were executed, and 12 executions were carried out publicly.

There are six political prisoners among those executed.

The Iranian regime uses execution as a tool to suppress and silence a disgruntled public the majority of whom live under the poverty line, are unemployed and deprived of freedom of expression.

In March 2019, the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, appointed a former notorious judge responsible for mass executions as the head of judiciary to keep a lid on social unrest.

Since then Ebrahim Raisi, who has participated in “death commissions” that ordered the 1988 massacre of thousands of prisoners, at least 173 people have been executed across Iran.

At least nine women have been executed in a period of slightly over eight months, while in a year-long period from 2016 to 2018, the number of women executed by the Iranian regime in the whole year ranged between 6 and 10. At the same time, the execution of drug-related prisoners escalated.

On March 5, 2019, the U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino denounced Raisi’s appointment as the head of Iran’s all-powerful judiciary calling it a “disgrace” and a “mockery of legal process” since Raisi is responsible for the deaths of thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s, including the 1988 massacre.

Palladino tweeted (both Farsi and English): “Ebrahim Raeesi (Raisi), involved in mass executions of political prisoners, was chosen to lead Iran’s judiciary. What a disgrace! The regime makes a mockery of the legal process by allowing unfair trials and inhumane prison conditions. Iranians deserve better!”

Executions carried out in prisons across Iran:

Executions in Iran contrary to international law

Death penalty violates the most fundamental human rights, the right to life and the right to freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

160 countries across the world have either abolished the death penalty or at least called a moratorium on its use.

The Iranian regime has not only refused to abolish the death penalty, but it executed:

• 12 people in public
• Eight juvenile offenders
• Mentally disabled
• 10 women
• 33 people on drug related charges
• People convicted of vague charges such as “waging war on God” or “corruption on earth”
• People on other non-violent crimes such as financial offences and ape

Furthermore, because of the clerical regime’s failure to categorize murders according to their degrees, anyone committing murder is sentenced to death, regardless of their motives.

At least 10 women hanged

At least 10 women were executed since the beginning of 2019.

On September 26, 2019, Leila Zarafshan was hanged in the Central Prison of Sanandaj.

An unidentified woman was hanged along with seven male prisoners on September 25, 2019, Raja’i Shahr Prison of Karaj.

A 38-year-old woman was executed in Mashhad Central Prison, on August 25, 2019.

Four women were executed in eight days in July. They include Maliheh Salehian hanged in the central prison of Mahabad, Zahra Safari Moghadam, 43, hanged in the Prison of Nowshahr, and Arasteh Ranjbar and Nazdar Vatankhah who had already spent 15 years in prison, hanged in the Central Prison of Urmia.

The Iranian regime is the top executioner of women and holds the record on per capita executions in the world.

Many of the women convicted of murder in Iran are themselves victims of domestic violence against women and have committed murder in self-defense.

The inhuman verdicts of execution particularly for Iranian women are carried out at the end of a non-standard and illegal due process.

Iran execute eight child offenders

At least eight people have been executed in Iran in 2019 for offences allegedly committed when they were children.

In a flagrant violation of international human rights, the Iranian regime in April flogged and executed two teenage boys without notifying their family or lawyers.

Mehdi Sohrabifar and Amin Sedaghat, two 17-year-old cousins, were executed on April 25 soon after being transferred to Adelabad prison in the southern Fars province. Both were arrested in more than two years ago, when they were 15 years old, and convicted on rape charges.

The boys’ families were granted a visit to the prison the previous day but were not told that it was in preparation for their execution, the human rights group said.

The families reportedly learned of the news when they received telephone calls from Iran’s Legal Medicine Organisation.

Both bodies were reported to have been laden with lash marks, indicating that they had been flogged before their deaths.

Amnesty International said in a statement on April 29.”The Iranian authorities have once again proved that they are sickeningly prepared to put children to death, in flagrant disregard of international law.”

International law strictly prohibits the use of capital punishment in all cases in which the accused was under 18 at the time of the crime.

Iran is a signatory of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids use of the death penalty. 

In 2013 changes to the penal code designed to protect minors in Iran’s criminal justice system were introduced allowing judges to use discretion in sentencing for capital punishment crimes. 

However, according to Amnesty International the changes had not been meaningfully implemented, allowing the authorities to “whitewash their continuing violations of children’s rights and deflect criticism of their appalling record as one of the world’s last executioners of juvenile offenders.”

More than 90 other juveniles remain at risk of execution. Many of them have spent prolonged periods on death row – in some cases more than decade.

Executions on political grounds

Iran has executed several people on vague charges with little transparency or due process.

At least eight prisoners convicted of “waging war on God” or “corruption on earth” has been executed in 2019.

They include Seyyed Jamal Haji Zavvareh, Maliheh Salehian, Abdullah Karmollah Chab, Ghassem Abdullah, Hamid Derakhshandeh, Behrouz Abdipour, Hossein Roshan and Mohsen Kounani.

At least 40 inmates convicted of similar charges are on death row in Iran.

Iran is also notorious for executing people for crimes that do not meet the basic international standard of limiting capital punishment to the most serious offenses.

In a recent case, the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced a supporter of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) to death.

According to the sentence, the PMOI activist Abdullah Qasempour was sentenced to death and eight years of prison on charges of “enmity with God by membership in, endorsement of and cooperation with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran”.

The Court accused 34-year-old Abdullah Qasempour of filming the incident and sending the video to media affiliated with the PMOI/MEK.

The judiciary’s long record of violating detainees’ rights and applying of the death penalty without due process have raised grave concerns.

Two prisoners Abdullah Karmollah Chab and Ghassem Abdullah, from Iran’s Ahwazi Arab minority, were executed on August 4, following months of torture during which both were forced to make false confessions.

In August Iranian authorities executed Hamidreza Derakhshandeh, a man who had killed the regime’s Friday Prayer Leader in Kazerun.

Friday Prayer leaders are mullahs who directly represent Ali Khamenei, the Iranian regime’s supreme leader, in different cities, which makes them much hated among the Iranian population who are fed up with the repression and corruption of regime officials.

Last year, Kazerun was shook by popular protests by thousands of citizens who were enraged by the regime’s policies to change the municipal divisions of the city, which would pave the way for more embezzlement by regime officials and result in lower services to the city’s inhabitants.

Popular protests across Iran regularly target Iranian regime officials, including Friday Prayer leaders, for their role in government corruption.

In comments following the killing of the regime’s Friday Prayer leader in Kazerun, Derakhsan had said, “Dear people of Iran, I love all of you, I love the poor people of Iran, those who don’t have bread to eat at night, those who have become sick of having to borrow money to make ends meet…

“I had heard and seen cases of injustice. Hundreds of these cases. There’s only so much I can do to buy and give to the poor. I saw these crimes. I’m not a criminal. This was my first time. My friends know me. I’m not a criminal.”

Targeting opponents of the death penalty

On June 18, 2019, the Revolutionary Court of Tehran examined a new case filed against Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee and Atena Daemi for their protest while in detention to the executions of three Kurdish dissidents.

The court sentenced them to 1.5 years’ imprisonment for “propaganda against the state” and to 2 years and one-month imprisonment for “insulting the leader (i.e. Ali Khamenei).”

Amir Raissian, lawyer of Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, told the press on September 5, 2019, that the same verdict had been upheld in the revision stage without being examined by the Revision Court.

They have been sentenced to 1.5 years in prison on the charge of “propaganda against the state,” and to 2 years and 1 month for “insulting the leader (Ali Khamenei).” Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was released from prison in April after more than three years in jail.

In September 2019, on the first anniversary of the executions of Kurdish political prisoners Zaniar Moradi, Loghman Moradi and Ramin Hossein Panahi, Atena Daemi sent an open letter out of Evin Prison emphasizing her opposition to death penalty.

In part of her letter, she referred to her new sentence, writing, “What an honor to receive another prison sentence for my opposition to death penalty and for defending humane living.”

Call for the elimination of the death penalty

On the eve of October 10 which marks the World Day against the Death Penalty, Iran Human Rights Monitor urges all international human rights organizations, especially the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, journalists and the media, to condemn horrendous executions in Iran and take immediate action to stop these medieval crimes being carried out in the twenty-first century.

We want an Iran, free of any executions.

Article first published on Iran Human Rights Monitor.

Some of the foolish, ignorant people, lacking intelligence, scare their small innocent children and frighten them by saying: so-and-so (monster) will come (and take you), or so-and-so (demon) will (do such-and-such to you).

So the child gets scared and this fear and anxiety remains in his heart, and this becomes permanent in his heart so that he is constantly in anxiety, fear, and distressed.

Sometimes it is the father who scares his son and sometimes it is the mother who scares her son or daughter.

But the most foolish ones are those who tell us that when a child does something wrong (then as punishment) he should be locked inside his room, alone.

They do not feel sorry for him even when he shouts and screams nor do they open the door. And this is one of the means by which a Jinn overpowers (and possesses) the child.

This was conveyed by one of the Jinns who had possessed a child and said that he entered in him when his father had locked him inside the room, and he began to shout and scream, and that’s when he possessed him.

So we should be alert and take precautions from the things which can become a means for the Jinn to overpower us.”

Article taken from Ilm4all Facebook page, with reference to Bayan Haqeeqatul-Sara’al Jinn Lil-ins.

The Iranian-backed rebels started their unjustified attacks on civilians the last day of Ramadan, when they targeted a densely populated area in Al Masrakh district with a rocket- propelled grenade in southern Taiz, killing 2 children and wounding four others.

The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights said in a statement on Friday that at least 16 children were killed or wounded after being targeted by snipers and indiscriminate shelling on residential  areas in the city of Taiz during the past few days.

“The children were targeted with shells and snipers stationed on the outskirts of Taiz, the main exits of which have been besieged by the Houthi movement since August 2015, despite the fact that the city is mostly controlled by government forces,” the ministry stated.

“We call on local and international organizations to document and condemn all crimes committed against the inhabitants of Taiz,” it added.

On the day of Eid, a sniper positioned in Alsalal hill killed Mohammed Emad and injured his parents, local residents said.

Children in the besieged Houthi-held city have been traumatized by daily artillery fire, rockets and anti-aircraft gun, aid agencies said.

13-year-old Amro Yaqop Ali was the second child to be target by a Houthi sniper positioned in Alwash Mountain.

Ali was happily playing near his house when he was shot in the head, eyewitnesses said.

A 12-year-old girl Basma Razaz Ghaleb died after a bullet fired by a sniper went through her neck and she died in the hospital five days later.

Houthi criminals don’t spare the old Yemeni women as well.

A 55-year-old Jomana was shot dead on Saturday in Osaifra neighborhood by a Houthi sniper. Her sister was also shot dead when she ran to save Jomana.

Taiz has been suffering from an unjust siege imposed by Iran-backed Houthi militia since 2015. Ever since, the Houthi militia have been committing heinous crimes against civilians amid silence among international human rights organizations.

The report is based on RepublicanYemen.net