Family say the body of Dr Nader Alemi, who was taken by armed men in September, showed signs of torture
One of Afghanistan’s most prominent psychiatrists, who was abducted by armed men in September, has been found dead, his family has confirmed.
Dr Nader Alemi’s daughter, Manizheh Abreen, said that her father had been tortured before he died.
Continue reading...Exclusive: the Hollywood actor, who lawyers have listed as a key witness, describes scenes of desperation on the Open Arms vessel
The Hollywood actor Richard Gere has revealed for the first time the full story behind his mercy mission to the NGO rescue boat Open Arms as he prepares to testify as a witness against Italy’s former interior minister and far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, who is on trial for attempting to block the 147 people onboard from landing in Italy.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Gere, 72, who lawyers have listed as a key witness to the situation aboard the NGO rescue boat Open Arms, described the scenes of desperation he saw when he arrived on the vessel being held off the Italian island of Lampedusa in the summer of 2019 with conditions rapidly deteriorating.
Continue reading...Only a UN tribunal, sponsored by the US president, can end the culture of impunity fuelling violence and poverty in the DRC
The numbers are difficult to absorb. According to a new IPC report, a record 27 million Congolese – roughly a quarter of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC’s) population – are facing hunger, with 860,000 children under five acutely malnourished. The DRC is home to more starving people than any other country in the world. This could have been prevented.
Without faith that their own president Félix Tshisekedi will act, people are turning to the US president, hoping that lobbying using the hashtag #CongoIsStarving on Twitter will urge Joe Biden to back the creation of an international criminal tribunal for the DRC to end the impunity fuelling violence and famine risk. Shockingly, it could be that simple to bring an end to this suffering; we are asking for solidarity, not charity, to save lives and end this nightmarish crisis.
Continue reading...With a year to go, the new stadiums, hotels and roads are finished and locals are excited, but the low-paid workers who built them are ambivalent
When asked if he’s looking forward to the World Cup, Mohamed, an Indian salesman, grins as he casts his fishing line off the promenade in the heart of Qatar’s capital, Doha. “Very much,” he says. “I love cricket!”
With a year to go until the football World Cup kicks off, Mohamed’s response may have the event’s organisers worried. After all, about 70% of Qatar’s population are from the cricket-loving subcontinent.
Continue reading...MSF rescue 99 survivors who spent 13 hours on vessel trying to reach Europe as authorities accused of ignoring distress call
Ten people were found dead in the lower deck of a severely overcrowded wooden boat off the coast of Libya, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has reported.
According to survivors, those who died on Tuesday suffocated after 13 hours on the cramped lower deck, where there had been a strong smell of fuel.
Continue reading...Despite mental health and climate concerns, youth believe they can improve the world, survey for World Children’s Day finds
Young people are often seen as having a bleak worldview, plugged uncritically into social media and anxious about the climate crisis, among other pressing issues.
But a global study commissioned by the UN’s children’s agency, Unicef, appears to turn that received wisdom on its head. It paints a picture of children believing that the world is improving with each generation, even while they report anxiety and impatience for change on global heating.
The majority of young people saw serious risks for children online, such as seeing violent or sexually explicit content (78%) or being bullied (79%).
While 64% of those in low- and middle-income countries believed children would be better off economically than their parents, young people in high-income countries had little faith in economic progress. There, fewer than a third of young respondents believed children today would grow up to be better off economically than their parents.
More than a third of young people reported often feeling nervous or anxious, and nearly one in five said they often felt depressed or had little interest in doing things.
On average, 59% of young people said children today faced more pressure to succeed than their parents did.
Continue reading...Sum sent back home from former residents of low-income countries surpasses overseas aid and rich nations’ direct investment
Migrants from low- and middle-income countries are expected to send almost £600bn to support friends and relatives by the end of the year, after global economic growth spurred a 7.3% rebound in remittance payments.
The increase in cross-border payments, especially from migrants based in Europe and the US, reversed a 1.7% fall in remittance payments last year, the World Bank said.
Continue reading...Criminalisation means survivors are vulnerable to blackmail to avoid imprisonment and stigma, but there is hope the colonial-era legislation could soon be repealed
It was when the police knocked on Aatifa Farooqui’s* door and threatened to send her to prison that she first realised suicide was illegal in Pakistan.
Farooqui’s father pleaded with the officers to be lenient, explaining that his daughter was just 19 and had made a mistake, but quickly realised the police had other motives for dropping by.
Continue reading...People in Tigray are crying out for the world’s help, as war has left them starving and fearing for their lives
On 4 November 2020 the world was occupied with the results of the US election. For myself and many others with family and friends in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, however, that day marked the beginning of a year-long nightmare. And it’s one which the world has, for the most part, ignored.
When on that day the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, a Nobel peace prizewinner, announced a military offensive in Tigray, it was hard to predict the scale of the human suffering that would ensue. But almost instantly Tigray, a region in the far north of the country that is home to more than 7 million people, was cut off from the world: phone lines were shut down, the internet was cut off, banks were closed and journalists were barred from the region.
Continue reading...In country hit by hyperinflation, a shortage of dollars means those struggling to survive can make a profit dealing torn notes
In time-honoured street hawker tradition, Kaitano Kasani is using charm and persuasion to get people to sell him their tattered US banknotes.
Kasani, 42, bellows through a megaphone as he walks through Glen Norah, a township in Harare, in the sweltering November heat.
Continue reading...Irma Galindo Barrios, a member of the Mixtec people, was defending indigenous lands from illegal logging
A Mexican environmental campaigner has been declared missing barely a week after a savage attack on indigenous villagers displaced from the lands she was defending against illegal logging.
Irma Galindo Barrios, a member of the indigenous Mixtec (ñuù savi) people who worked to protect forests in southern Oaxaca state, was last heard from on 27 October. She was scheduled to attend a virtual meeting so she could join a state mechanism for protecting journalists and defenders, but did not attend, according to Rosi Bustamante, a US-based activist who had been in close contact with Galindo.
Continue reading...Months after Mohadese Mirzaee became Afghanistan’s first female commercial airline pilot, the Taliban took Kabul. Now a refugee in Bulgaria, she is determined to fly again
Sitting alone in her small flat in Bulgaria, Mohadese Mirzaee contemplates the future. Three months ago, she left behind her family, and her dream job, in Afghanistan. At 23, Mirzaee was the country’s first female commercial airline pilot.
“Today, I don’t know where to go, but I’m not giving up. I’ve started applying for pilot jobs anywhere because I know I need to get back to flying,” she says by phone from the capital, Sofia.
Continue reading...Increasingly intense and frequent spells of humidity linked to global heating may exacerbate mental health conditions, with women and young people worst affected
More frequent spells of intense humidity caused by the climate crisis are more likely than heatwaves to be linked to increased rates of suicide, according to new research.
The study found that women and young people were particularly affected by levels of humidity, the intensity and frequency of which are increasing because of global heating.
Continue reading...Rising temperatures are already killing people in Sierra Leone’s Freetown, says Eugenia Kargbo, who is planning how best to protect the hundreds of thousands living in informal settlements
When she was growing up, Eugenia Kargbo could have a leisurely stroll, jog or cycle around the streets of Freetown. But that easy life no longer exists in Sierra Leone’s capital for her two children. The city is so swelteringly hot that children run the constant risk of sunburn or heat rashes if they are outdoors for very long.
“Over the past 10 years, there has been a dramatic change,” says Kargbo, 34, who has been appointed as Freetown’s chief heat officer – the first such post in Africa and only the third globally, after Athens and Miami.
Continue reading...Growing rush for land is destroying ecosystems and disrupting lives to satisfy global demand for goods, study warns
Businesses and governments must stop the growing rush of commodities-driven land grabbing, which is “trashing” the environment and displacing people, says new research.
Palm oil and cobalt were extreme risks for land grabs according to an analysis of 170 commodities by research firm Verisk Maplecroft published last week. It also warned that, alongside cobalt, other minerals used for “clean” technology, including silicon, zinc, copper, were high risk and undermined the sector’s label.
Continue reading...As well as floods, sewage and crocodiles, those living in Banjul’s slums face the effects of a climate crisis they did little to cause
Yedel Bah would move home if she could, but she can’t. With no income of her own, four children to feed and a husband who just about manages, her family lives from day to day, and from flood to flood, on the banks of a litter-strewn, stagnant canal.
Every rainy season, the neighbourhood of Tobacco Road in the Gambian capital, Banjul, braces for downpours of such intensity that the canal overflows, spilling its murky, pungent depths into the slum-like homes that run alongside it.
Continue reading...Humans have encroached on the animals’ habitat – now villagers face daily raids as the elephants break into their homes in search of food
It was around midnight when Kittichai Boodchan heard two loud crashes coming from in front of his home. He knew immediately what was happening. An elephant was outside, and it wanted the family’s stash of bananas.
Boonchuay, a local bull from the nearby Kaeng Krachan national park notorious for his habit of raiding the village in search of snacks, had come to call. Kittichai had earlier bought 200kg of bananas to sell and, although stored inside, the sweet scent had undoubtedly piqued Boonchuay’s interest.
Continue reading...Travel agents in Middle East and migrants who have reached Poland describe how thousands are making the journey
On a dark forest road last month, Polish police were in pursuit of a speeding car that had skipped a checkpoint. The car’s driver was a people smuggler, and his passengers three Syrians who had paid thousands for him to take them to Germany, the final leg of their journey from the Middle East via Belarus. A truck coming in the opposite direction tried to dodge them but could not. Ferhad Nabo, 33, a married father of two from Kobane, was killed instantly in the crash.
“He left Syria, like many others, to reach Europe,” said his cousin Rashwan Nabo, a Syrian humanitarian worker. Ferhad had boarded a direct flight to Minsk from Erbil, in northern Iraq. “In Raqqa, Damascus and Aleppo, word has been spreading for months that the easiest and fastest way to reach Europe is a direct flight to Belarus,” his cousin said.
Continue reading...Abductions are rife in the north of the country, where armed gangs target schools and colleges with apparent impunity
When his two daughters were abducted from their university dormitories by armed men in April, Friday Sani volunteered to deliver the ransom. In two bags he carried banknotes to the value of more than 40m naira (£70,000), the price to free Victory and Rejoice, and 37 others taken from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in Afaka, Kaduna.
In April and May more than 70 students were abducted from the federal college and the nearby Greenfield University. With little faith that police could help, a group of parents went to the kidnappers, through an intermediary, and paid to get their children back.
Continue reading...Mukuru, one of Kenya’s largest informal settlements, has cleaned up its act with improved water, roads and sanitation
The people who live in Mukuru, one of the vast, sprawling “informal settlements” in Nairobi, used to dread the rains, when the slum’s mud-packed lanes would dissolve into a soggy quagmire of sewage, stagnant water and slimy rubbish.
But a few years ago, things began to change. On a newly paved road Benedetta Kasendi is selling sugar cane from a cart. It gives her a clean platform, somewhere she can keep her wares tidy. Her biggest challenge now is what to do with the sugar-cane waste as she does not want to clog up Mukuru’s revamped sewers.
Continue reading...