The International Organization for Migration reports that its staff have documented shocking conditions on North African migrant routes—including what they describe as "slave markets" faced by hundreds of young African men bound for Libya. Staff with the IOM's office in Niger, reported on the rescue of a Senegalese migrant (referred to as "SC" to protect his identity), who was returning to his home after being held captive for months. According to SC's testimony, while trying to travel north through the Sahara, he arrived in Agadez, Niger, where he paid a trafficker 200,000 CFA (about $320) to arrange trasnport north to Libya. But when the pick-up truck reached Sabha in southwestern Libya, the driver insisted that he hadn't been paid by the trafficker, and brought the migrants to an area where SC witnessed a slave market taking place. "Sub-Saharan migrants were being sold and bought by Libyans, with the support of Ghanaians and Nigerians who work for them," IOM staff reported.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's referendum on granting himself sweeping powers took place in an atmosphere of terror, with opposition leaders silenced and detained. So the reuslts in favor are hardly a surpirise. International observers are yet to give the election a clean bill of health, but whether there was any actual monkey-business with the vote is almost beside the point.  Some 51.3% of the more than 58 million Turkish voters apparently said "yes" to the constitutional amendment package put forth by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The amendment package was backed by the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and opposed by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and leftist Kurdish-led Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest party in parliament. The opposition has not conceded, claiming voting irregularities.

"More Than 7,000 People Evacuated From 4 Besieged Syrian Towns." That's the somewhat misleading headline in the New York Times of April 14. Reads the lede: "After nearly two years of punishing siege and bombardment by their enemies, more than 7,000 people were bused out of four towns in Syria on Friday in the most recent population transfer during six years of war." Note the euphemistic language. This isn't "evacuation," which implies it is voluntary and in response to some objective disaster. This is "sectarian cleansing," part of an intentional Assad regime strategy to purge its growing areas of control of Sunnis, all of whom are apparently deemed official enemies. "Population transfer," as it is dubbed in the lede, is another euphemistic term, one all too familiar to those who have followed the growing consensus for territorial purging of perceived ethno-sectarian enemies in Israel.

Physician Jumana Nagarwala was charged April 13 in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan for performing female genital mutilation (FGM) on minors out of a medical office in Livonia, Mich. According to the complaint (PDF), the girls were as young as six to eight years of age and were transported from out of state by their parents or other family members secretly to the facility to perform the procedure. Federal authorities learned of Nagarwala's actions based on a tip from an unidentified source and interviews conducted of two minor victims from Minnesota who were taken by their parents to the Livonia facility.

At least 750 female detainees have joined in a hunger strike to protest harsh conditions at the 1,500-bed Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Wash. The strike was reported to be in its fourth day on April 13, with no sign of ending despite ongoing negotiations between detainees, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the GEO Group, the prison contractor that operates the facility. Detainees are protesting the quality of food, facility hygiene, poor access to medical care, lack of recreation, and what they call exorbitant commissary prices. The detainees also seek an increase in the $1 a day they are paid for performing menial jobs at the center. The strike has been led by the group NWDC Resistance, which is composed of detainees and seeks to end all immigration-related detentions.

The US dropped its most powerful non-nuclear weapon, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, on an area of eastern Afghanistan said to be controlled by ISIS militants. The April 13 air-strike targeted a cave complex believed to be used by fighters affiliated with the Islamic State's self-decalred "Khorasan Province" in Achin district of Nangarhar, near the border with Pakistan. A US special forces solider was killed in the same area last week. The MOAB, nicknamed the "mother of all bombs," is a 21,600-pound, GPS-guided munition that is the largest among the Pentagon's series of so-called "bunker-busters." The strike marked the first time it has been used in combat. (The Independent, CNN, LWJ)

Hearings began in Spain on April 10 regarding potential war crimes committed by President Bashar Assad's regime in Syria. The case is a result of a Spanish national's brother being abducted and tortured in Damascus before being executed in 2013. The family claims that the brother was not part of an opposition group and just a truck driver making a delivery. The family was able to identify the body after a forensic photographer smuggled the photos out of Syria. The photographer may testify in the case next month. The investigation involved nine of Assad's closest aides but not Assad himself due to his immunity. Spain is the first to hold a criminal investigation of potential war crimes into Syria, as Russia has blocked referral of the Assad regime to the International Criminal Court.

Alarming reports are emerging that Chechyna has opened "the first concentration camp for homosexuals since Hitler," following a "gay purge" in the southern Russian republic. Russian newspapers and human rights groups say more than 100 gay men have been detained "in connection with their non-traditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such" over the past weeks. Campaigners say gay men are being tortured with electric shocks and beaten to death. The principal camp is reportedly at a former military barracks in the town of Argun.