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Resolving conflicts can protect world from genocide: UN senior official

Xinhua, January 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

Armed conflicts often create environment for genocide, and thus resolving them is a way of protecting the world from mass atrocities, said UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson here on Wednesday.

Addressing an event which commemorated the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp, Eliasson noted "genocide is an extreme form of perverted identity-based conflict that can happen also in peace time."

"When we prevent or resolve conflicts, we are also reducing the risk of atrocity crimes and genocide," he said.

Noting the recent brutal attacks happened in Nigeria and France, he said these events compel the international community to work harder in defense of diversity and tolerance for ending prejudice and violence so as to remove the conditions that might make atrocity crimes thrive. "Genocide can only happen when we ignore the warning signs -- and are unwilling to take action," he added.

The event entitled "Why we have failed in preventing genocides and how to change that" is held ahead of the International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust which falls on next Tuesday.

The Holocaust was the systematic persecution and execution of approximately 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime that came to power in Germany in January 1933. The memorial day coincides with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Endite