Victims tell Guardian about widespread practice in war-torn Omdurman
Women struggling to survive in the war-torn Sudanese city of Omdurman say they are being forced to have sex with soldiers in exchange for food.
More than two dozen women who have been unable to flee fighting in Omdurman said that sexual intercourse with men from the Sudanese army was the only way they could access food or goods that they could sell to raise money to feed their families.
Continue reading...Analysis of imagery from conflict zones shows evidence of burned-out and flattened buildings, with long-term impacts on education
Airstrikes, arson, shelling and ground fighting between the military and armed rebel groups have damaged at least 174 schools and universities in Myanmar since a military coup in 2021, according to a new report.
Open source investigator, the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), said analysis of imagery from conflict zones showed burned and collapsed buildings.
Continue reading...Saudis living in the UK claim Riyadh is targeting them for speaking out on human rights and jailing of female activists
Saudi exiles living in the UK have spoken of threats to their lives and harassment over their support for improvements in human rights in their home country.
Saudi Arabia has been attempting to present itself as a reformed state since the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi hit squad at its consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
It has spent billions on sporting deals and promoting tourism in the country and was recently named host of a UN commission on women’s rights, despite what Amnesty International called its “abysmal” record on women’s rights.
Continue reading...At the lawless triple border between Brazil, Colombia and Peru, drug trafficking, illegal logging and gangs jeopardise the ecological and social fabric of the rainforest
The area of the Amazon where Brazil, Colombia, and Peru meet – referred to as Tres Fronteras (triple frontier) – brims with wildlife and natural resources. It is also a hotbed of illicit activity. Criminal groups are clearing the forest to plant coca and erect laboratories to turn the crop into cocaine. In the process of making coca paste, these labs discharge chemical waste – including acetone, gasoline and sulphuric acid – into rivers and soil.
Increasingly, these outfits are branching into illegal logging, gold dredging and fishing, in part because these activities allow them to launder money made from drug trafficking. These activities compound the environmental harm the groups are inflicting.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Pouria Zeraati ‘no longer felt safe in UK’ as Tehran regime steps up threats and attacks on critics in exile
An Iranian television presenter, who was attacked in London by men believed to be acting for the Tehran regime, has moved abroad, saying that he no longer felt safe in the UK.
Pouria Zeraati said the UK’s approach to the threat posed by Iran on British soil could not guarantee his safety.
Continue reading...President wins 99.15% of the vote, allowing him to extend authoritarian rule by further five years
Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, has swept to another overwhelming election victory, winning more than 99% of votes in a provisional count in the east African country’s elections that will extend his near quarter of a century in power.
The poll on Monday was seen as a formality, with just two other candidates allowed to compete in a country that is kept under tight control by its longtime leader.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch says ill-treatment of some minors arbitrarily held in gang crackdown amounts to torture
About 3,000 children – including some as young as 12 – have been swept up in El Salvador’s mass detentions since President Nayib Bukele began his crackdown on gangs two years ago, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The report, which draws on case files and almost 100 interviews with victims, police and officials, documents the arbitrary detention of children and ill-treatment that in some cases amounted to torture.
Continue reading...Campaigners applaud decision not to repeal law in west African country with one of the highest rates of FGM
MPs in the Gambia voted on Monday to retain a law outlawing female genital mutilation (FGM), sparking joy and relief among campaigners.
Thirty-four out of 53 lawmakers voted to maintain the ban, which was introduced in 2015, aid workers told the Guardian. The remainder voted to repeal it.
Continue reading...Vaccine misinformation has added to crisis of collapsed healthcare and poor nutrition, Unicef and WHO report
Conflicts have hampered efforts to vaccinate children across the world, health leaders have warned, as new figures showed about 14.5 million children had not received a single immunisation dose.
More than half of the children live in countries where armed conflicts or other humanitarian crises had created fragile and vulnerable situations, according to data from the UN children’s agency, Unicef, and the World Health Organization.
Continue reading...Hugh Bayley says NGOs would also benefit as he releases report on impact of UK programme in Afghanistan
The UK should consider restoring its diplomatic presence in Afghanistan to support Afghan women and to help monitor the impact of British aid, a commissioner for the official UK aid watchdog has suggested.
Hugh Bayley, who visited Kabul in May, said he believed Afghan women and NGOs would welcome more western diplomats to represent the opinions of women to the Taliban as he released a report by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) on the effectiveness of the UK programme, which is the second largest operated by Britain.
Continue reading...Miskito and other groups face a dire challenge as illegal deforestation threatens their ancestral lands and culture
Avilés Morphy pulled out his mobile phone and swiped through the photos until he reached a shot showing fallen trees in what looked like the aftermath of a hurricane. “That was a big forest and look how it is now: everything’s been destroyed,” he says. “And these are the coordinates.”
Then he played a video. The camera focused on a startled man wearing a red track-and-field shirt, resting his back against a post as he responded to questioning.
Continue reading...Doctors deplore decision and point to country’s high neonatal mortality rate as bank, which opened in June, forced to close without taking a single deposit
When he heard a hospital in Karachi was setting up a milk bank for babies, the news was a “huge relief” to Mohammad Munawwar.
With his wife very sick and their premature son Ayan in hospital, the 52-year-old father had had to collect milk five or six times a day from different female relatives who were breastfeeding their own babies.
Continue reading...Category 3 storm with wind speeds of up to 120mph continues to wreak ‘utter devastation’ in Caribbean
Hurricane Beryl is barrelling through the Cayman Islands after causing death and destruction in Jamaica.
The British overseas territory is bearing the brunt of the hurricane, which has been causing “utter devastation” in the Caribbean since Monday, when it almost destroyed parts of Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Continue reading...Two died in detention facility and one in hospital, officials say, after protests over Mohamed Ould Ghazouani’s win
Three protesters have died in detention in Mauritania, the interior ministry has said, after mass arrests during protests in the opposition stronghold of Kaédi after the north-west African country’s presidential election outcome.
Officials said protests had turned violent in the southern town near the border with Senegal late on Monday, prompting security forces to confront demonstrators.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Activist claims she was threatened with release of the footage in order to silence her, amid multiple reports of sexual violence inflicted upon imprisoned Afghan women
The Guardian has seen video evidence of a female Afghan human rights activist being gang-raped and tortured in a Taliban jail by armed men.
There have been mounting reports that sexual violence is being inflicted on women and girls being held in detention in Afghanistan, but this video is believed to be the first direct evidence of these crimes occurring.
Continue reading...As the election nears, we scrutinise how each of the main contenders would deal with problems around the world
Conflicts and environmental disasters are stretching humanitarian resources, and a new UK government will have to decide what role it will play on the world stage in dealing with global problems, especially after budget cuts and closure of the Department for International Development by the Conservatives, and with priorities so focused on Ukraine. We’ve talked to the main parties and looked at their manifestos to see what their plans are.
Continue reading...MSF says it is overwhelmed in country where 31.8 million people are suffering from hunger
An unprecedented number of children in northern Nigeria are suffering from acute malnutrition, aid workers in the country have said.
Nigeria has the “largest number of food insecure people globally” at 31.8 million, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization office in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri said.
Continue reading...Man-made crises in Gaza and Sudan leaving millions of people at risk, says retiring British diplomat Martin Griffiths
Sudan is facing horror “beyond imagination”, the outgoing UN aid chief has warned, with 750,000 people under imminent threat of famine and with conditions in danger of worsening even further.
The British diplomat Martin Griffiths will retire from his job as the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs at a time when famine on a historic scale is looming over Sudan and Gaza.
Continue reading...Leaked documents from Philip Morris reveal ‘secret’ strategy to market its heated tobacco product IQOS
The tobacco company Philip Morris International has been accused of “manipulating science for profit” through funding research and advocacy work with scientists.
Campaigners say that leaked documents from PMI and its Japanese affiliate also reveal plans to target politicians, doctors and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as part of the multinational’s marketing strategy to attract non-smokers to its heated tobacco product, IQOS.
Continue reading...Deo Kato detained by security services for three weeks after being arrested near Juba on run from South Africa to UK
A Ugandan-born Londoner on a 9,000-mile run from South Africa to London has been released from jail in South Sudan, his partner has told the Guardian.
Deo Kato had already run more than the length of Africa – the equivalent of more than 200 marathons – when he was arrested near Juba, the capital of South Sudan, on 2 June. His partner and project manager, Alice Light, had no idea where he was, only discovering he was in prison on 17 June.
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