Ethiopia, Gaza, El Salvador.

Today's three stories you should know.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s Tigray war, which lasted from 2020 to 2022, is one of the most criminally under-covered conflicts in modern history. The war took place under a near-total communications blackout, and there were persistent reports of civilian massacres and women and girls raped in huge numbers. A new report now says that attacks on women and children were systematic. Forced pregnancy and actions intended to destroy the fertility of Tigrayan women point to genocide. “Having worked on gender-based violence for two decades … this is not something I have ever seen in other conflicts,” Payal Shah, a co-author of the report, told the Guardian. “It is a really horrific and extreme form of sexual violence, and one that deserves the world’s attention.”

More from the Guardian here.

Gaza

A word on Gaza: Given Proximities most often highlights under-reported stories, and Gaza is the subject of massive coverage, I will focus on finding stories slipping through the cracks rather than the day’s headlines. Much Western media coverage is inaccurately framed and replete with bias, so I will also point to more reliable sources when I can. Today, I want to highlight the story of just one Palestinian mother. Too often, Palestinians are reported as numbers, not people. We hear of people shot dead by Israeli soldiers as they tried to get food. We see mothers cradling emaciated children. But who are they? Reuters news agency today carried a report on Nasma Ayad, desperately trying to get help for her malnourished eight-year-old daughter Jana. Her story is just one of many.

More from Reuters here.

El Salvador

El Salvador’s congress has voted to allow indefinite presidential re-election, opening the door for Nayib Bukele to run a third time. Bukele won a second term last year despite a prohibition in the constitution after the country’s top court ruled it was his human right to run again. The bill also extended presidential terms from five years to six and ditched runoffs. Bukele, 44, is hugely popular in El Salvador, partly because of a massive and far-reaching crackdown on criminal gangs despite rights groups saying thousands have been arbitrarily detained.

More from AP here.