Category Archives: Global development

Turning grief into hope: one Afghan terror victim’s legacy of learning

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When his sister Rahila was killed by a bomber, Hamid Rafi was inspired by her diaries to set up an education centre in her name

The night before she died, Rahila Rafi felt too tired for homework; uncharacteristic for the studious 17-year-old. When her brother Hamid asked what was wrong, she told him she had a strange feeling in her heart and couldn’t bring herself to look at her books.

Hamid kissed his sister’s forehead and asked her what she wanted to do after she passed the Kankor exam – Afghanistan’s standard university admissions test. 

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Fighting cyclones and coronavirus: how we evacuated millions during a pandemic

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Bangladesh has battled the twin perils of a super-cyclone and Covid-19. We can offer lessons for others facing similar dangers

There was no time to lose when Cyclone Amphan began forming over the Indian Ocean in May.

But shelters are not built with social distancing in mind in Bangladesh and the country faced a challenge: how to move 2.4 million people from the destructive path of the storm without delivering them into an even greater danger – Covid-19. 

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Yemen faces ‘macabre tragedy’ as aid funding falls short by $1bn

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UN says country is on cliff edge after fundraising summit raises only $1.35bn for the year

Yemen remains on the brink of “a macabre tragedy”, the UN has warned after a humanitarian fundraising summit raised only $1.35bn (£1.05bn) for this year, around $1bn short of the target and only half the sum raised at the equivalent pledging conference last year.

The UN’s humanitarian chief, Mark Lowcock, said unless more money was raised Yemen “will face a horrific outcome at the end of the year”. 

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Voice of defiance: the Mexican radio journalist who refused to be silenced

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Carmen Arestegui’s battle to stay on the airwaves is the subject of a film highlighting the risks of exposing corruption and crime

When Mexican news anchor Carmen Aristegui was fired from a popular radio show after revealing a presidential scandal on air, it sparked an outpouring of anger and protests.

For millions of listeners Aristegui is a trusted voice cutting through government spin and corruption, and her absence left a void.

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Rape and murder of student in church sparks outrage across Nigeria

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Brutality of 22-year-old Vera Uwaila Omozuwa’s killing has shocked the country amid a chorus of demands for justice

Vera Uwaila Omozuwa, a 22-year-old microbiology student, sought the quiet of her empty church in Benin City, southern Nigeria, as a place to study. Hours later she was raped and killed in a crime that has sparked outrage across Nigeria. 

Last Wednesday evening, a church security guard found Uwa, as she is known, unconscious in a pool of blood, according to her family.

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‘Stigmatized, segregated, forgotten’: Colombia’s poor being evicted despite lockdowns

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Authorities are forcing people from homes they say were unlawfully built during a nationwide quarantine

Don Pacho has been running from the rival factions of Colombia’s civil war his whole life. Now, he’s running from the police, as authorities in the country’s capital push on with a wave of evictions despite a strict coronavirus lockdown.

Hundreds of Bogotá’s poorest residents are caught between two brutal forces: a nationwide quarantine that makes working impossible and authorities forcing people from homes they say were unlawfully built.

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Yemen’s hidden migrants risk conflict and coronavirus in fight for survival

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Refugees face violence and disease as they travel across the Red Sea hoping to find work in the Gulf states

Yellow and purple headscarves and patterned dresses made a jarring contrast with the camouflage uniforms worn by soldiers milling around a bullet-ridden checkpoint in the southern Yemeni city of Aden. 

It was 8am, and the sun was already hot. The family of six – four women and two men from Ethiopia, across the Red Sea – had already walked eight miles (13km) so far that morning. They stopped to ask the soldiers for water before continuing on their journey.

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‘The water will come back’: why Kenya’s struggle against flooding is far from over

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Record-breaking rainfall has devastated communities – and with thousands displaced and more rain predicted the picture is bleak

Using a short piece of nylon line with a hook at one end and a long thin stick on the other, a mechanic and a nightclub doorman have only caught one small fish all day.

“I’ve never been a fisherman before,” says Erick Ochieng on the edge of a flooded creek in the port city of Kisumu on the banks of Lake Victoria. “I used to work as a bouncer but nightclubs have closed. Sometimes my family sleeps without eating.”

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Pakistan polio fears as Covid-19 causes millions of children to miss vaccinations

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Officials voice concern as coronavirus halts annual programme in country already struggling against resurgence in cases

In April, almost 40 million children missed their polio drops in Pakistan after the cancellation of the nationwide vaccination campaign. 

Alongside Afghanistan, Pakistan is one of only two countries in the world where polio is still endemic. It was very close to becoming  polio free, with only 12 cases in 2018, but last year the number of cases rose to 147. In the same year, Pakistan was  accused of covering up the resurgence of the P2 strain of the virus, which was thought to have been eradicated in 2014. 

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Lockdown in Dhaka: where social distancing is an illusion

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The Bangladeshi capital has had coronavirus restrictions since 26 March. Photographer Noor Alam, who lives in the city, has been documenting life in neighbourhoods where people can’t afford to stay at home

A deceptive calm has fallen over Dhaka. In this densely populated city of 21 million, the main roads are empty, the sounds of horns have disappeared and the polluted sky has cleared. But social distancing within our neighbourhoods is an illusion. We are all packed into the same bazaars and homes.

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Is Bolivia’s ‘interim’ president using the pandemic to outstay her welcome?

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Jeanine Áñez has postponed elections, and her government, which mixes militarism with religious zeal, is accused of persecuting political opponents

As locked-down Bolivians looked to the skies this Easter, they were met with an unusual sight. Cassock-wearing priests, some wielding statues of the apostles, sprinkled holy water and blessings over four cities from circling air force helicopters. 

The episode encapsulated the uneasy mix of militarism and religious zeal that has defined six months of the caretaker presidency of Jeanine Áñez. A little-known evangelical politician from Bolivia’s tropical lowlands, Áñez was catapulted to power last November with one job: to hold new elections as soon as possible.

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‘Men don’t trust we’re strong enough’: Somali women push into fish industry

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Selling fish has enabled some to quadruple their usual earnings but sexist attitudes are harder to overcome

Every morning before sunrise, when most residents in the southern coastal city of Kismayo are asleep, Fardowsa Mohamed Ahmed, 32, goes to the beach to purchase fresh fish, which she will sell in the market.

Like most women in this business, she depends on men to catch the fish. Men dominate the fishing sector. It is considered “men’s work” in Somali society. But Ahmed is determined to push her way in.

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Covid-19 has gifted us a chance to end gender-based violence. We must take it

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If the world can unite to beat coronavirus, it should apply the same energy to rooting out abuse

The pandemic is gifting us an unprecedented opportunity to take innovative action and comprehensively confront the scourge of violence against women.

We have a unique window in which, as a human family, we are able to boldly address the social ills Covid-19 is unearthing, and redesign and rebuild our social fabric.

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Italy considers charges over Malta’s ‘shocking’ refusal to rescue migrants

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Foreign ministry condemns Valletta for not abiding by international rules and ordering stricken boat to Sicily at gunpoint

The Italian government  has confirmed that Malta’s armed forces turned a migrant boat away at gunpoint from Maltese waters, after giving them fuel and the GPS coordinates to reach Italy.

Police in Sicily are investigating and the prosecutor’s office may open an investigation against Malta in the next few days. Maltese officers risk being charged with aiding illegal immigration. 

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Rainforest Alliance certifying unethical pineapple farms, activists claim

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Group facing allegations that auditors are being duped in Costa Rica, where undocumented workers are being exploited

The Rainforest Alliance, one of the world’s most recognisable ethical certification schemes, is facing allegations of labour exploitation, use of illegal agrochemicals and the concealment of hundreds of undocumented workers at some of the pineapple plantations it certifies in Costa Rica. 

Rainforest Alliance-certified pineapples are sold in their millions at a premium price to consumers across the UK and Europe on the promise that they have been grown and harvested according to strict ethical and environmental standards.

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‘I want my kids back’: how overseas adoptions splinter Uganda’s families

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Birth mother’s legal battle to bring back son from US highlights flaws in system that allows children to be taken abroad

When Mugalu* was adopted, his birth family says they were told they would still be able to speak to him regularly and he would come back for visits. “They said we would be one big happy family,” says his mother, Sylvia, wiping away tears.

But Sylvia, 40, has not seen her son since he was adopted from Uganda almost seven years ago by an American couple. She is now fighting to get her son back, taking her case to the high court in Uganda and exploring her legal options in the US.

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Surge in deaths in North Darfur raises fears of disastrous Covid-19 outbreak

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Doctors warn ill-equipped healthcare system may be unable to provide basic care for coronavirus patients

The cemeteries of El Fasher are now watched over by Sudanese police guards, posted to stop a surge in rushed burials.

The town’s elderly are reportedly dying at such an alarming rate that the government has now banned funerals without death certificates as it investigates the cause, and has placed the state of North Darfur on lockdown.

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Ethiopia’s security forces accused of torture, evictions and killings – report

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Prime minister Abiy Ahmed has been lauded for his democratic reforms. But Amnesty International are now urging him to investigate allegations of serious human rights abuses

Ethiopia’s Nobel peace prize-winning prime minister Abiy Ahmed has been urged to investigate allegations that state security forces have committed a raft of serious human rights abuses including torture and unlawful killings since he came to power in 2018.

According to a report by Amnesty International, published on Friday, Ethiopia’s military and police in its two most populous regions arbitrarily detained more than 10,000 people, summarily evicted whole families from their homes – some of which were burnt and destroyed – and in some cases were complicit in inter-communal violence targeting minorities.

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‘Make noise and don’t panic’: India tries to ward off locust invasion

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Delhi braces for swarm while farmers in badly-hit north play loud music and honk car horns to try to prevent decimation of fields

Residents of Delhi are bracing themselves for a possible invasion of locusts, which have been ravaging areas in the north of the country.

A change in wind direction could save the city, but Dr K L Gurjar, deputy director of the Locust Warning Organisation, has warned residents to be prepared to “make a lot of loud noise so that instead of settling, they keep flying and fly past the city. And don’t panic”.

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Halt plan to withdraw Sudan peacekeepers, UN urged

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Civil groups fear replacing 26,000 troops with a ‘political mission’ will threaten fragile security situation in Darfur

Activists in Sudan are urging the UN and African Union not to go ahead with plans to withdraw 26,000 peacekeepers from Darfur this year, claiming the move will put lives at risk.

The peacekeepers from the AU-UN hybrid operation in Darfur (Unamid), which has a mandate to protect civilians by force if necessary, will leave in October under plans expected to be agreed by the UN security council, although it is understood the UK and Germany want to delay troop withdrawal.

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