Category Archives: Global development

Armed groups target Colombia’s children as reform process slows

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For families in province of Cauca, time is running out as drug gangs and guerrilla groups exploit Covid chaos


Luis Troches was walking home from the shop in late July when armed men stopped him along a dirt road in south-west Colombia. They gave the 14-year-old an ultimatum: he could join their group – dissidents from the demobilised Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) – or they could take him and his 11-year-old sister by force.

“He came home scared and distant,” said his mother, Luzmery. Both knew that the men, who control their hamlet in the north of Cauca province, would be back for an answer. “He told me, ‘I don’t want to go. What should I do?’”

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The battle to bring Kenya’s warrior children back to school – a photo essay

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Covid closures coincided with an initiation ceremony that has put many on a path out of education and set back years of progress

Photographs by Joost Bastmeijer

Shortly after sunrise, three boys step off their motorcycle, pat the dust off their checkered shuka cloths, and enter their family’s boma – an enclosure built from thorny acacia branches in eastern Samburu.

Now that they are morans, the teenagers are considered adults and are no longer permitted to sleep in their parents’ house. Instead, they go each evening to sleep in a nearby school building and return home in the morning. The school has been shut since the Covid-19 outbreak, and benches have been moved aside to make room for mattresses, and a makeshift kitchen.

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EU bank supports projects linked to human rights violations, NGOs claim

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European Investment Bank accused of failure to properly assess impacts of supported projects in Africa and Asia

The EU-funded European Investment Bank has been using taxpayer cash to support infrastructure projects linked to alleged human rights violations, an investigation by NGOs shows.

The report – led by campaign groups Counter Balance and the CEE Bankwatch Network – has accused the EIB of a lack of transparency and a failure to properly assess the impact of its funding as it extends its role beyond Europe to former Soviet republics, Africa and Asia.

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What’s in a name? How the legacy of slavery endures in Tunisia

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Black people in the north African country suffer hardship and disadvantage, and many still carry the label of ‘liberated’ slaves

Many within Tunisia greeted the news that 81-year-old Hamden Dali had won his two decade-long campaign to have “atig” removed from his name with little more than bemusement.

But for Dali atig – meaning “liberated by” – in his name was a painful reminder of his family’s heritage as former slaves.

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More than 40 fleeing Mozambique violence feared dead after boat sinks

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Children among those reported drowned as Islamist insurgency drives thousands of families from homes in Cabo Delgado

More than 40 people fleeing violence in Mozambique’s conflict-torn north are believed to have drowned after the boat carrying them to safety sank, according to reports.

At least 70 people were on board the vessel when it sank on 29 October in the Indian Ocean just north of the provincial capital of Pemba, where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge from a three-year Islamist insurgency, the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Reuters reported.

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Ethiopia’s PM says airstrikes launched against targets in restive Tigray region

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Fears of civil conflict escalate as Abiy Ahmed says operation will continue until ‘junta made accountable by law’

Ethiopia’s air force has carried out strikes in the restive Tigray region, the country’s prime minister has said, in another escalation of a crisis that observers fear could plunge the country into a bitter and bloody civil conflict.

The prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, said the strikes in multiple locations “completely destroyed rockets and other heavy weapons” belonging to the well-armed regional government and made it impossible for a retaliatory attack.

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Ethiopia’s PM threatens restive province as crisis escalates

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Fears of civil conflict as air raids and artillery battles reported in standoff between TPLF and federal government

The prime minister of Ethiopia has issued a new threat to leaders of the restive province of Tigray, warning that there was “no place for criminal elements” in the east African country.

“The proud Ethiopian people of Tigray [and] other citizens cannot be taken hostage by fugitives from justice forever. We shall extract these criminal elements [from Tigray and] relaunch our country on a path to sustainable prosperity for all,” Abiy Ahmed said in a statement on social media.

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Uganda elections: on the campaign trail with the country’s rudest feminist

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From naked protests to spells in prison, Stella Nyanzi has stood up to President Museveni – now she’s standing as an MP

“Stella is my Mama Africa, because she has always fought for women!” shouts Hanifa Nagujja, a 28-year-old cook at akatale kabalema or “market of the disabled” in the heart of Kampala, Uganda’s capital.

Nagujja is one of about 15 women in gingham aprons who are jumping in the air in elation, clapping, finger-clicking and ululating as Stella Nyanzi weaves her way through bubbling pots of groundnut sauce, beans and matooke. Some of them chant “Nnalongo! Nnalongo!” – the name given to mothers of twins in Buganda culture.

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Child labour doesn’t have to be exploitation – it gave me life skills | Elizabeth Sibale

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Growing up in Africa taught me to be self-reliant and resilient. Putting children to work must be seen in local context

Aged eight, Tayambile would walk with her mother every day to fetch water. On her 2km return journey in 30C heat, she would carry 20 litres in an aluminium bucket on her head.

She would then help to pound maize in a mortar and prepare food for the family – typically fresh fish caught by her father on the lake.

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Lahore’s metro line opened to fanfare – but what is the real cost of China’s ‘gift’?

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The Pakistani city’s railway is a hit with passengers, but critics say worker deaths and huge debt are too high a price to pay

In a global pandemic, people across the world have avoided public transport systems where they can. But last week the Pakistani city of Lahore unveiled its “gift from China” – a $1.6bn (£1.23bn) light-rail transit system. The Orange Line metro is designed to carry nearly a quarter of a million people a day in Pakistan’s second-largest city.

As 50,000 masked commuters packed into gleaming, air-conditioned trains festooned with Chinese and Pakistani flags to celebrate the first day of operation. Tayyaba Urooj, a 45-year-old mother, was among them, and had brought nine of her relatives from Karachi along for the trip. “Alhamdulillah, the train just started. We want it to succeed and for Pakistan to succeed,” says Urooj in the packed carriage. “I am a little worried because it’s congested – but it’s Pakistan, so there’s always a rush.”

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‘Don’t stop the music’: songs bring hope to a Nigerian psychiatric unit

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There is a huge mental health treatment gap across Africa, but in one Nigerian hospital, music therapy is having a positive impact

The music comes on – a soft blend of guitar, saxophone, piano – and people sit still at first, then heads start to sway to the sound. Some hum along; mostly they sing, or laugh and dance. At the end, when quiet returns, their mood is assessed – as it was when the session started.

Once or twice a month, Bola Otegbayo brings a team of singers and instrumentalists into this psychiatric unit at University College hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, Nigeria. Otegbayo realised a few years ago that some of her patients were lonely even though their loved ones visited and caregivers provided succour. So she began to share music. Now she is a musicologist alongside her main job as a renal technologist.

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Uganda’s ‘street uncles’ transform young lives in the slum – a photo essay

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In an area that is infamous for high drug use, a group of men use their own experience of addiction to help children strive for new goals

  • Photography by Katumba Badru Sultan

It was as a child in 1983 that Mark Owori first began using drugs. He started by supplying them to his sister, Lucky, who was a soldier in Uganda’s bush war. Eventually he also became both involved in the war and an addict.

This was under the rule of Ugandan independence leader Milton Obote and during a conflict in which Owori says that everyone had a role – from spying to looking for food. His was to keep soldiers supplied with drugs.

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‘We live in constant fear’: Kabul buries its dead after Isis attack on university

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The brutal killing of at least 35 people on Monday has left Afghanistan’s younger generation fearful of the future

At a mountainside graveyard, surrounded by dusty brown hills specked with colourfully painted houses, 20 year-old Marziah Tahery was laid to rest on Tuesday; a light breeze in the warm autumn air, echoes of children’s play in the distance.

The morning before – as on most other days – she had gone enthusiastically into Kabul University where she had been studying public administration and policy.

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Rich states’ Covid deals ‘may deprive poor of vaccine for years’

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Wealthy countries already have agreements for 3.73bn doses, with another 5m under negotiation, study finds

Governments in predominantly wealthy countries are negotiating to buy nearly 8.8bn doses of prospective Covid-19 vaccines in a “frenzy of deals” that could mean many poor countries would not get access to immunisation until at least 2024, a report says.

None of the 320-plus potential vaccines in development have been approved for use, but countries have already struck advance purchasing agreements for 3.73bn doses of the most promising candidates, with negotiations underway for another 5bn doses, the study by Duke University’s global health innovation centre calculated.

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The women who risk their lives to deliver Pakistan’s polio vaccines

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As activists target female vaccinators, Pakistan remains one of only two countries worldwide not to have eradicated polio

Nasreen Bibi never saw the face of her killer. The 44-year-old had just finished work for the day, vaccinating children against polio in Chaman, Pakistan. As she and her co-worker, Rashida Bibi (no relation), stood waiting for a rickshaw home, a motorcycle skidded up in front of them carrying two masked men.

The men did not utter a word, but through the churned up dust that filled the air, Rashida remembers seeing the raised pistol, hearing the shots and feeling the pain as the bullets hit her hands, her thighs, her back and her stomach. Rashida fell to the ground and felt Nasreen crumple beside her, blood pouring from a dark hole in her forehead.

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‘Lives have been lost’: Pregnant women in Zimbabwe forced to pay bribes when giving birth

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Two women took Harare authorities to court to force them to reopen 42 maternity clinics

In agonising labour pain and turned away from a Harare health centre, Aurage Katume feared that, like many other Zimbabwean women, she could lose her unborn baby.

She struggled to another clinic in the country’s capital. The midwives there were not ready to help her either.

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Rotten river: life on one of the world’s most polluted waterways – photo essay

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Indonesia’s Citarum is relied upon by millions, but decades of pollution have choked it with chemicals and rubbish

  • Words and pictures by Andrea Carrubba in Dayeuhkolot

The smell is the first thing that hits you on the banks of the Citarum River in West Java, Indonesia. The odour is dense: rubbish rotting in hot sun mixed in with an acrid tone of chemical waste.

Some 9 million people live in close contact with the river, where levels of faecal coliform bacteria are more than 5,000 times mandatory limits, according to the findings of the Asian Development Bank in 2013.

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For the sake of Cameroon, life-president Paul Biya must be forced out | Vava Tampa

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The country should be rich, but millions live in dire poverty. France must stop supporting the president and his electoral ploys

On 6 December, Africa’s oldest serving leader, Paul Biya, and his ruling party, Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC), will be declared the winner of the country’s first ever regional elections.

That much is clear, and is expected inside and outside of the west African country – Biya has misruled with an iron fist for nearly 40 years. But the question we should be asking, but as yet have not, is what this means for Cameroon’s 25 million people. In my view the answer is more poverty, more violence, more corruption and more suffering. This should compel us all to act.

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Nollywood’s new generation in the spotlight at Film Africa in London

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Gender equality, postnatal depression and transatlantic migration are all tackled in quest for international audiences

Once Nollywood might have meant films that were low budget and high drama and aimed mostly at a west African audience. But Nigerian cinema has evolved and this year a slew of new film-makers are tackling grittier subjects – and winning international acclaim.

A roster of screenings at autumn’s Film Africa festival in London reveal directors unafraid to look at issues such as gender equality, postnatal depression and transatlantic migration.

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Russia loses UN vote over women’s rights in conflict zones

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Security council resolution that many feared would weaken human rights is rejected by UK, US and other states

Attempts by Russia to introduce a UN security council resolution, which activists said would have unravelled the rights of women in conflict have failed as 10 countries abstained on a crucial vote on Friday.

The UK, US, Germany and France were among the abstaining member states, which meant the resolution did not gain the nine votes required to pass.

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