Category Archives: Global development

Ethiopia accused of ‘serious’ human rights abuses in Tigray in landmark case

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Lawyers bringing first complaint to Africa’s top rights body over conflict in country say violations ‘could amount to war crimes’

Ethiopia has committed a wide range of human rights violations in its war against Tigrayan rebel forces, including mass killings, sexual violence and military targeting of civilians, according to a landmark legal complaint submitted to Africa’s top human rights body.

Lawyers acting for Tigrayan civilians said the complaint, filed on Monday, marked the first time that the African Union’s human rights commission had been asked to look into the conduct of Ethiopian troops in their war with the northern region’s rebel forces.

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Kicking back at the regime: artists open another front in Myanmar war

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With the military increasing its use of informants, rappers and artists must keep their identities secret, even from one another

Early one morning last February, a group of young people gathered on a street corner in Myanmar armed with brushes and buckets of paint. In the faint light of dawn, they quickly completed their task and dispersed.

“I felt excited and nervous. I was scared too, because I didn’t want to get caught,” says Tu Tu, a pseudonym for the group’s organiser.

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Desperate Zimbabweans risk police or crocodiles in bid to reach South Africa

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Zimbabweans hoping for a better life abroad or smuggling a few goods over the border face police, soldiers and a dangerous river

A bushy pathway leads to the crossing points along the Limpopo River that are the most treacherous part of the journey for Zimbabweans seeking a better life in South Africa. The river has flooded after weeks of incessant rain, resulting in three drownings of “border jumpers” last month alone.

A few kilometres away, where the roar of the river can still be heard, men and women clutching small bags of belongings trudge along a different dusty track near Malindi Transit Shed. At 9am on a Friday morning in February, the route to the bridge connecting South Africa and Zimbabwe is already heavily patrolled by soldiers clasping rifles.

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Infant killed after coast guard opens fire on boat carrying Venezuelan migrants

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The baby’s mother was injured after the Trinidad and Tobago coast guard shot at the boat, later saying it fired in ‘self defence’

A Venezuelan woman was shot and wounded and her nine-month-old baby was killed in her arms when Trinidad and Tobago’s coast guard opened fire on the boat carrying migrants fleeing their home country.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the coast guard said its personnel had opened fire “in self-defence” on Saturday after “aggressive manoeuvres” by the migrant craft when it was intercepted as it entered Trinidadian waters late on Saturday.

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Scared, hungry and cold: child workers in Kabul – picture essay

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As temperatures fall below freezing, children as young as four trying to make a living on the Afghan capital’s streets are all that stand between their family and starvation

Amid the roadside restaurants and bustling crowds in one of Kabul’s busiest markets, a 10-year-old girl is trying to sell plastic bags to shoppers squeezing past her. “If I don’t work, we will go hungry,” Shaista says. Shops in the Afghan capital are stacked with food, but her family cannot afford any of it.

Each morning, Shaista buys a few shopping bags for 5 afghani (4p) each, then goes to the market to sell them for double that. As the UN predicts that 97% of Afghans could be living below the poverty line by June, the number of child labourers and beggars has tripled in Kabul, aid workers say. Many are fighting just to survive.

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Misinformation and distrust: behind Bolivia’s low Covid vaccination rates

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About half the country’s population is yet to receive a single dose of vaccine, despite availability

In a vaccination centre in El Alto, Bolivia, the staff bagged up in protective gear far outnumbered the few people sitting in plastic chairs waiting for their injection. A young doctor reeled off a list of all the vaccines available: Sinopharm, Sputnik, Pfizer, Moderna. What’s lacking is demand. They see 100 people on a good day.

South America, once the region most afflicted by the pandemic, is now the most vaccinated in the world. But this turnaround doesn’t extend to Bolivia, where roughly half the population is yet to receive a single dose – even though the state has had all the vaccines it needs since October.

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Flying high: how a photo of a Syrian father and son led to a new life in Italy

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A tender moment captured by Mehmet Aslan of Munzir al-Nazzal and his son, both survivors of the Syrian war, prompted Italian organisations to act. A year on, they are settling into life in Tuscany

In January last year, while working on the Turkish-Syrian border, photojournalist Mehmet Aslan photographed a Syrian man, Munzir al-Nazzal, who had lost a leg in a bomb attack. Munzir was playing with Mustafa, his 5-year-old son, who was born without limbs, and the shot portrayed the father, propped up on a crutch, raising his smiling child into the air.

Aslan entitled his photograph Hardship of Life.

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‘We want the truth’: families of ethnic Pamiris killed in Tajikistan call for justice as tensions rise

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Urgent protection for minority groups facing increased repression needed in crisis connected to escalating clashes across central Asian ex-Soviet region, say human rights groups

Parents of men killed by Tajikistan forces have called on the international community to step in and urgently protect ethnic groups being targeted by the Tajik regime.

In a rare interview, families from the Pamiri ethnic minority have demanded that soldiers who killed their sons be brought to justice and urged the UN to prevent a new phase of conflict in Tajikistan, a landlocked country in central Asia.

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‘My first time holding a gun’: from Myanmar student to revolutionary soldier – a cartoon

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Faced with increasing state violence, young people across Myanmar are learning to fight. This is one young woman’s story

In the year since the 1 February coup, young people across Myanmar have risked their lives to resist military rule.

At least 295 young people aged 18-25 have been killed in the military’s suppression of the pro-democracy movement. More than 1,000 have been arrested, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. In response, thousands have left their homes and families to train as revolutionary fighters.

JC is a young artist and illustrator from Myanmar’s ethnic Karen community. She was born in Myanmar and raised on the Thai-Myanmar border

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My dying grandmother’s pain inspired me to challenge Zimbabwe’s pharmacy system | Dudzai Mureyi

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Finding the right medicine at the right price was once a lottery – now the crowdsourcing service I set up is bringing down the cost of illness

In July 2015, as my 82-year-old grandmother, Sophie Mafuku, lay dying of a terminal illness in Zimbabwe, I spent a day speaking to fellow pharmacists as I tried to fill her morphine prescription. If it takes 24 hours for the grandmother of a well-connected medical professional to access scarce drugs, I thought, how long is it taking people with no connections? It set me off on a journey.

In Zimbabwe, systemic shortages are common. Sometimes, only a handful of pharmacies have particular drugs in stock. The shortages are caused by well-documented economic challenges, which affect Zimbabwe’s capacity to manufacture or import medicines.

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Mothers of the Myanmar revolution: ‘I worry about whether he has warm clothes’

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Spurred on by military atrocities, young people are turning to armed struggle against the regime – leaving supportive but fearful families behind

When Peh Reh’s* mother, Mi Nya*, lost contact with him in September, she had little doubt as to where he had gone. Four months earlier, the 19-year-old had told her he wanted to join the armed resistance against the military, which had seized power from the democratically-elected government in Myanmar in February 2021. Yet she refused to let him leave their home in Myanmar’s south-eastern Karenni state (also known as Kayah).

“In my eyes, he is still so young,” she says. “If I could, I would like to keep my son next to me all the time.”

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Afghan universities reopen with strict rules for female students

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Women required to attend separate classes and follow dress code at facilities in Kandahar and Helmand as they restart classes for first time since Taliban takeover

Public universities in Kandahar and Helmand provinces in Afghanistan have reopened after being closed for nearly nine months, with some female students joining classes.

Despite calls from education activists and students, universities and high schools across Afghanistan stayed shut after their usual summer break as the Taliban came to power. High schools have since reopened, but only for boys.

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‘It gives me joy’: the LGBT Colombians embracing visibility in town with a legacy of abuse

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In El Carmen de Bolívar, LGBTQ+ people want the history of their brutal persecution by police and paramilitaries to be told, but the sense of safety is fragile and many still face prejudice

  • Photography by Sam Ritholtz

In a mountain town near the north coast of Colombia, three drag queens strike poses in the blazing sun. Wearing extravagant Caribbean carnival costumes, they place each high heeled step carefully to avoid puddles. Neighbours come out to take photos and cheer.

This impromptu show has unique significance in the streets of El Carmen de Bolívar, representing the remarkable resurgence of a community once brutally victimised by homophobic armed groups.

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While the focus is on Ukraine, Russia’s presence in the Sahel is steadily growing | Bruce Mutsvairo, Mirjam de Bruijn, Kristin Skare Orgeret

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With Russian mercenaries invited to Mali as European forces withdraw, how worried should the west be about Russia’s increasing influence across Africa?

Even in the turbulent, conflict-wracked Sahel region of Africa, the recent military takeover in Burkina Faso was intriguing. Amid the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation, the decision by neighbouring Mali’s military-led government to invite fighters from the Wagner Group, widely seen as a paramilitary network of mercenaries with Russian connections, is causing growing concern in many western capitals.

Mali’s transitional government faces a rough road to recognition after the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) announced a strengthening of economic and diplomatic sanctions in January in response to the proposal to postpone elections until at least 2026.

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Calls for security crackdown as 60 are killed in DRC camp violence

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Casualties included 15 children, as families sheltering in a camp for displaced people were caught in escalating violence

At least 60 people, including 15 children, were killed during an attack in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Wednesday, the latest in a series of violent assaults on civilians in the area.

Armed men reportedly attacked the Plaine Savo camp in Ituri province, in the east of the country, with machetes and guns. Local sources who spoke to Reuters blamed the militia group Cooperative for the Development of Congo, or Codeco, for the attack.

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Allegations of worker exploitation at ‘world’s greatest show’ in Dubai

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Migrant workers employed at Expo 2020 allege confiscated passports, racial discrimination and withheld wages

Security guards, cleaners and hospitality staff at Dubai’s Expo 2020 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are allegedly working in highly abusive conditions that may amount to forced labour, according to a human rights group.

Migrant workers employed at the international fair in the UAE – taking place now after being delayed by Covid – allege they have been forced to pay illegal recruitment fees, suffered racial discrimination and had wages withheld and passports confiscated, said the report by Equidem.

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‘We have to prepare’: Tigray’s neighbours on war footing as peace remains elusive

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Ethiopia’s government has declared a new phase of reconciliation, but a cycle of atrocities on all sides has left a legacy of mistrust. War is far from over, say those on the ground

At first sight, it could have been any normal year. Pilgrims, shrouded in white shawls, smiled as they walked the winding cobblestone streets, shaded from the glare of the midday sun by a sea of colourful umbrellas. Young men and women danced and sang, thrusting wooden sticks joyously into the air, as priests blessed onlookers beside a church carved into the mountainside.

The Epiphany of Saint George, an ancient Orthodox Christian tradition, was celebrated in Lalibela on 26 January just as it has always been. The northern Ethiopian town, a Unesco world heritage site renowned for its dazzling rock-hewn churches, is coming back to life after several angst-ridden months on the frontline of Ethiopia’s devastating civil war. “It is a day of double joy for us,” says Father Tsige Mezgebu, the archbishop who officiated the ceremony.

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Teachers on the run: striking public sector workers hunted by Myanmar’s military

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Protests against the coup mean hospitals and schools are on the brink of collapse, while workers have left their homes to avoid arrest and interrogation

When hundreds of thousands of workers across the country walked out of their jobs in protest at the military’s seizure of power in Myanmar on 1 February 2021, Grace* was among the first to join.

Although she was seven months pregnant, the middle-school teacher from Chin state was determined to resist the military by refusing to work under its administration. Joining her was her husband, also a government employee.

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‘We relied on the lake. Now it’s killing us’: climate crisis threatens future of Kenya’s El Molo people

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Lake Turkana’s shores have been home to the El Molo for millennia but as rising waters swallow homes and sacred sites they face losing everything

Mombasa Lenapir briefly strokes the waters of Kenya’s Lake Turkana with his hand as he boards the rickety canoe. A piece of hippo tooth or kalate, dangles from his right earlobe, evidence that he once killed a hippo in his younger years as a rite of passage.

Lenapir, who says he is 70 but looks older, is a member of the El Molo community that has lived on the shores of Lake Turkana for millennia. Two years ago, he was forced to move out of his home when rising waters engulfed his village, Komote, turning it into an island. Fearing being marooned by the expanding lake, Lenapir and other families built new homes on the mainland, while some opted to remain on the new island and use canoes to travel between the two settlements.

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I photographed Myanmar’s protesters one day – and their funerals the next

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Photojournalist Moe documented the military’s terrifying and brutal attacks on protests in Mandalay, until even carrying his camera became too risky

My first encounter with the military came on 4 February 2021, three days after the coup. From the back of my friend’s motorcycle, I hid my camera under my clothes and attempted to photograph soliders as they drove in trucks through my native city of Mandalay carrying their guns. I couldn’t get a good picture, however, because one of the vehicles started following us and we had to retreat.

Within days, almost the whole country had erupted in protest. I couldn’t stay still any more, and I joined the crowds on 7 February.

‘The whole country had erupted in protest. I couldn’t stay still any more, and I joined the crowds’

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