OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 10:48 AM PT – Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Seventy-six years after the liberation of Auschwitz, January 27 marks International Holocaust Memorial Day. One America’s Christina Howitson has more.
January 25 - 2021 LONDON
By Rebecca Tinsley
A massacre in West Darfur comes just days after international peacekeepers withdrew from the troubled western region of Sudan. Lord Alton has called on Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is currently visiting the region, to press Sudan s transitional government to crack down on violence by armed militia.
The El Geneina attack, which began on January 15 with an argument in the market place between an ethnically African Massalit man and an Arab Sudanese, escalated when the Arab-associated armed militia arrived. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says the violence left 200 people dead and 240 injured. Another 46,000 people have been added to Darfur s 1.6 million displaced people who remain homeless, following the destruction of African villages by armed militias and the Sudanese security forces since 2003.
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center located in Israel, has once again launched its IRemember Wall, whereby participants can be either randomly or specifically linked with the name of one of the 4.8 million names stored on Yad Vashem’s Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names to commemorate International Holocaust Memorial Day, taking place on January 27th.
This year, Yad Vashem is partnering with Facebook to promote the project across social media. The wall, which will be available in six languages - English, Hebrew, French, Spanish, German, and Russian - can be easily shared on other social media platforms including Twitter and Pinterest.
TODAY (Wednesday January 27) is international holocaust memorial day - an annual event where the international community pays tribute to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and reaffirms its unwavering commitment to counter antisemitism, racism, and other forms of intolerance that can lead to group-targeted violence. The date marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau by Soviet troops on January 27 1945. Whilst the Holocaust profoundly affected countries where Nazi crimes were perpetrated, it also had universal implications and consequences in many other parts of the world. We share a collective responsibility for addressing the residual trauma, maintaining effective remembrance policies, caring for historic sites, and promoting education, documentation and research, seven decades after the genocide.