Governments fail to protect civilians from armed groups

Governments are failing to protect millions of civilians from violence by states and armed groups, Amnesty International said on Wednesday, describing the global response to widespread conflict from Nigeria to Syria as "shameful and ineffective."

A year of catastrophic violence had led to one of the worst refugee crises in history, as the number of displaced people worldwide topped 50 million for the first time since the end of the World War II, the rights group said in its annual report.

Almost 4 million refugees have fled a four-year civil war in Syria, and about 95 percent are being hosted by Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, according to the U.N. refugee agency, which has repeatedly urged rich nations to take more refugees.

"As people suffered an escalation in barbarous attacks and repression, the international community has been found wanting," Amnesty Secretary General Salil Shetty said in a statement.

"Government leaders justify human rights violations by talking of the need to keep the world 'safe'," Shetty said. "But knee-jerk reactions do not work. Instead they create an environment of repression in which extremism can thrive."

The growing influence of non-state armed groups such as Boko Haram and Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was a major concern, Amnesty said.

Armed Boko Haram fighters have killed thousands of people in northeastern Nigeria in a five-year insurgency, while ISIL has taken vast parts of Iraq and Syria and declared a caliphate in territory under its control.

Armed groups committed abuses in more than 35 countries in 2014, including the Central African Republic and India, the rights group said.

Amnesty said there would be more victims of abuse and persecution as the influence of such groups spilled across national borders, and singled out the U.N. Security Council for criticism, warning that the situation would get worse this year unless leaders took immediate action.

Shetty said it had "miserably failed" to protect civilians.

The five permanent UNSC members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the US - "consistently abused" their veto right to "promote their political self-interest or geopolitical interest above the interest of protecting civilians," he added.

The report urges the five states to give up their right to veto action in cases where genocide and other mass killings are being committed.

"2014 was a catastrophic year for millions caught up in violence," said Shetty. "The global response to conflict and abuses by states and armed groups has been shameful and ineffective. As people suffered an escalation in barbarous attacks and repression, the international community has been found wanting."

Since 2011, Russia and China have cast four vetoes to block international action in Syria, where more than 210,000 have been killed since the conflict began, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Illegal weapons such as cluster bombs have been used in the Ukraine conflict, Amnesty said.

"Taking into account everything we understand for now, we think that they (cluster bombs) were used by both sides," the organization's senior director for research, Anna Neistat told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday.

In eastern Ukraine "both sides failed to take reasonable precautions to protect civilians, in violation of the laws of war," Amnesty International said.

The group has also recorded abductions, torture and summary killings by volunteer battalions on the government side and by units fighting with the separatists, Neistat said.

Amnesty also urged all governments to ratify and adhere to a global arms trade treaty, which came into force in December and aims to regulate the $85 billion industry and keep weapons out of the hands of human rights abusers and criminals.

Susanna Flood, Amnesty's media director told Al Jazeera: "At least half a million people die every year on average and millions more are injured, raped and forced to flee from their homes as a result of the poorly regulated global trade in weapons and munitions."

The arms trade is "shrouded in secrecy," Flood said, adding "The recorded value of international transfers is approaching $100 billion annually. Five of the top 10 arms exporters have already ratified the arms trade treaty. While the US and Israel have yet to ratify, they have both signed. There has been resistance to ratification from other major arms producers like China, Canada and Russia."

Al Jazeera with wire services