Chios case highlights deplorable conditions on islands despite EU allocating millions of euros to improve facilities, aid workers say
At a desolate refugee camp on the Greek island of Chios earlier this week, a young man died alone in a tent. By the time the guards arrived on the scene, about 12 hours after the Somali refugee’s death, the body was surrounded by rodents.
Asylum seekers who had initially alerted staff spoke in horror at seeing rats and mice swarming about.
Continue reading...People fleeing militant violence near Total’s Afungi project in Cabo Delgado have been blocked by government forces
More than 20,000 Mozambicans have been trapped near a huge natural gas project in the country’s Cabo Delgado province, more than a month since it was abandoned after a militant attack.
People camped at the gates of French energy company Total’s Afungi site have had been unable to escape, despite fears of imminent violence, and have limited food because the Mozambican government has blocked humanitarian access.
Continue reading...As many as 37 people have died and at least 89 reported missing since protests began on 28 April
Colombia has entered its second week of violent unrest as riot police continued a brutal crackdown on nationwide protests against poverty and inequality exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Related: ‘No food and no fuel’: Colombia torn by protests and violent crackdown
Continue reading...Foreign ministry responds to west’s human rights claims, saying countries should ‘face up to their own problems’
China has rejected accusations of human rights abuse and economic coercion, made by G7 foreign ministers, accusing them of “blatantly meddling” in China’s internal affairs, calling their remarks groundless.
“Attempts to disregard the basic norms of international relations and to create various excuses to interfere in China’s internal affairs, undermine China’s sovereignty and smear China’s image will never succeed,” said the foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin. “They should not criticise and interfere with other countries with a superior mentality, and undermine the current top priority of international anti-epidemic cooperation.”
Continue reading...Hospital in Zanzibar and support for child workers in Bangladesh among approved projects to miss out as £2.1m of funding cancelled
The UK has scrapped three rounds of grants to small international development charities, prompting fury that it has wiped out funding for 42 projects around the world to save “less than the [£2.6m] cost of the Downing Street press room”.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told charities last week that rounds six, seven and eight of the Small Charities Challenge Fund (SCCF) would not go ahead because of aid cuts, cancelling in total about £2.1m of funds earmarked for new and future programmes, including many that had been approved.
Continue reading...Investing in midwifery could prevent two-thirds of maternal and newborn deaths, but investment and training are urgently needed
The world is facing a shortage of 900,000 midwives, with more than half the shortfall in Africa, where nearly two-thirds of maternal deaths occur, according to a new survey.
Insufficient resources and a failure to recognise the importance of the role mean there has been little progress since the last study in 2014, according to the State of the World’s Midwifery report, which looked at 194 countries.
Continue reading...23 protesters and one police officer killed after general strike over unpopular tax reform met with heavy-handed response
Mass protests were held across Colombia on Wednesday after a night of unrest in the capital city, as street violence continued after more than a week of angry anti-government demonstrations.
Twenty-three protesters and one police officer have been killed in the unrest that began with with a general strike over an unpopular tax reform but has grown into an outburst of rage over poverty exacerbated by the pandemic, human rights abuses and the authorities’ heavy-handed response to protests.
Continue reading...Decision to allow expeditions to go ahead dealt blow after outbreak on world’s seventh highest mountain
Nepal’s decision to allow people to continue to climb its Himalayan peaks as a vicious Covid-19 wave sweeps the country was dealt a further blow after 19 more climbers tested positive for the virus.
Last month it was reported that the pandemic had reached Everest base camp and though officials later denied it, climbers have reported a wave of infections that were being covered up.
Continue reading...The conservative African country insists it is ‘not yet ready’ for gay rights as campaigners say the flawed legislation sanctions rape
The Ugandan parliament has passed a controversial sexual offences bill which further criminalises same-sex relationships and sex work.
The laws were passed by MPs this week, reiterating sections of legislation first enforced in the country by British colonial rule. They condemn same-sex couples who perform acts deemed against the “order of nature” to 10 years’ imprisonment.
Continue reading...Next month’s runoff election pits the 51-year-old teacher against the far-right daughter of the country’s 90s autocrat
By law, any president of Peru must be born on Peruvian soil. But few of the country’s past leaders know that soil like the frontrunning candidate in the current electoral race – the son of Andean peasant farmers, who grew up in poverty.
On a recent morning, Pedro Castillo wore a woollen poncho, sandals made from old car tyres and a traditional wide-brimmed straw hat as he tended to his cows on his farm in Chugur, a tiny hamlet seven hours’ drive from the city of Cajamarca.
Continue reading...Rights groups warn many more survivors face being locked up after MPs back Home Office change
More victims of trafficking will be locked up in detention and forcibly removed from the UK after MPs approved a change in Home Office rules relating to this vulnerable group, campaigners have warned.
MPs recently confirmed what is known as a statutory instrument. This change in rules relating to the detention of trafficking victims comes into force on 25 May and will require them to provide a higher standard of proof that they should not be detained.
Continue reading...A Guardian analysis finds EU countries used brutal tactics to stop nearly 40,000 asylum seekers crossing borders
EU member states have used illegal operations to push back at least 40,000 asylum seekers from Europe’s borders during the pandemic, methods being linked to the death of more than 2,000 people, the Guardian can reveal.
In one of the biggest mass expulsions in decades, European countries, supported by EU’s border agency Frontex, has systematically pushed back refugees, including children fleeing from wars, in their thousands, using illegal tactics ranging from assault to brutality during detention or transportation.
Continue reading...Riot police rampage across streets, shoot protesters and charge at crowds with motorcycles in week of unrest across the country
The United Nations has condemned the violent repression of protests in Colombia, after clashes between police and demonstrators left at least 18 dead and 87 people missing.
In a week of unrest across the country, riot police have rampaged across the smoke-filled streets, shooting protesters at point-blank range and charging at crowds with their motorcycles.
Continue reading...Network of safe houses set up amid fears of rising violence as Nato forces prepare to pull out in September
Dozens of journalists have moved to safe houses across Afghanistan, and others have been sent abroad, as threats against media workers continue to rise.
New safe houses have been set up in several Afghan cities as evacuations increase, offering some security for targeted journalists.
Continue reading...In a letter to the PM campaigners say forced marriage law fails to protect young people
A legal loophole that allows 16- and 17-year-olds in England and Wales to marry with parental consent is being exploited and used to coerce young people into child marriage, campaigners have warned.
More than 20 organisations have signed a letter to the prime minister insisting current forced marriage law does not go far enough in protecting young people.
Continue reading...Technology could ensure critical medicines reach Lake Victoria communities with country’s highest prevalence of HIV/Aids
As the bottles of medication are carefully loaded into the body of the drone, a small crowd gathers to watch on the other side of the yellow tape marking out the grassy landing strip.
With a gentle buzz the drone rises, a little uncertainly, into the sky, on its 1.5-metre wings. The precious cargo leaving Bufumira health centre III, in Uganda’s Kalangala district, is critical drugs for people living in some of the most far-flung communities in the region. Kalangala is made up of 84 islands in Lake Victoria, the world’s largest tropical lake, which Uganda shares with Tanzania and Kenya.
Continue reading...At least 16 demonstrators and one officer dead after police fired at protesters and rammed crowds with motorcycles
Colombia is bracing for further unrest after a weekend in which largely peaceful nationwide demonstrations were met with a violent police reaction which left at least 16 demonstrators and one police officer dead and hundreds injured.
Videos shared on social media over the weekend showed police firing at protesters sometimes from close range, ramming crowds with motorcycles, and bashing demonstrators with their shields.
Continue reading...Infectious hits produced on a shoestring allow Zimbabwe’s aspiring musicians to express their struggles and dream big
Inside a grimy flat in Mbare, Zimbabwe’s oldest township in the capital Harare, about 10 young musicians nervously rehearse their lyrical chants as they wait to be called into the recording booth.
Many celebrated musicians in Zimbabwe have been born out of this old flat. For those here now, this is their one shot at stardom, or at least a future in music.
Continue reading...Following 803 pregnant and postpartum deaths, authorities have warned women to delay pregnancy as alarm rises
This month should have been one of the happiest in Letícia Aparecida Gomes’s life. The pregnant 23-year-old Brazilian had been due to marry before delivering her baby, Elloah, in August.
Instead, as the Covid-19 pandemic swept Gomes’s country claiming thousands of lives each day, she was taken to hospital having been infected herself.
Continue reading...Building an arts centre in Uganda, in a pandemic, was never going to be easy but it’s crucial to our post-Covid future
I’ve been raising funds for a building project: not a hospital, not a school, but an arts centre.
It’s not an easy sell at the best of times but add in a pandemic and the fact that I’m in Africa and, according to the current rules of financial engagement, art is the verylowest of priorities.
Continue reading...