Malcolm Bidali, a Kenyan who blogged about migrant workers’ plight, detained by Qatari security services
A Kenyan security guard in Qatar who has written about the plight of migrant workers has been “forcibly disappeared”, human rights group say.
Malcolm Bidali was detained by the Qatari security services over a week ago and is being held in an undisclosed location, according to a coalition of rights groups, which include Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Continue reading...A nun working in war-torn Tigray has shared her harrowing testimony of the atrocities taking place
The Ethiopian nun, who has to remain anonymous for her own security, is working in Mekelle, Tigray’s capital, and surrounding areas, helping some of the tens of thousands of people displaced by the fighting who have been streaming into camps in the hope of finding shelter and food. Both are in short supply. Humanitarian aid is being largely blocked and a wholesale crackdown is seeing civilians being picked off in the countryside, either shot or rounded up and taken to overcrowded prisons. She spoke to Tracy McVeigh this week.
“After the last few months I’m happy to be alive. I have to be OK. Mostly we are going out to the IDP [internally displaced people] camps and the community centres where people are. They are in a bad way.
Continue reading...Ethiopian nun speaks of widespread horror she and colleagues are seeing on a daily basis inside the heavily isolated region of Tigray
Thousands of women and girls are being targeted by the deliberate tactic of using rape as a weapon in the civil war that has erupted in Ethiopia, according to eyewitnesses.
In a rare account from inside the heavily isolated region of Tigray, where communications with the outside world are being deliberately cut off, an Ethiopian nun has spoken of the widespread horror she and her colleagues are seeing on a daily basis since a savage war erupted six months ago.
Continue reading...Amnesty International says private military firm in Cabo Delgado abandoned others to their fate
Survivors of a recent attack by Islamist insurgents in Mozambique have told Amnesty International that private military contractors prioritised white workers for evacuation as the extremists closed in during days of confused fighting.
An estimated 220 civilians sought refuge in the Amarula hotel in Palma, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, during the attack in late March.
Continue reading...Court ruling gives go-ahead for sugar plantation in Bugoma forest, home to endangered chimpanzees
Conservationists in Uganda have condemned as “shallow and absurd” a court ruling that authorised the government to allow swathes of a tropical forest to be cleared for a sugar-cane plantation.
Three environmental groups had taken the government to court over a decision to allow Hoima Sugar Ltd to build on 5,500 hectares (13,500 acres) in the Bugoma Forest Reserve.
Continue reading...A decade after Istanbul convention was drawn up to end gender-based violence, activists report decline in women’s rights and safety
A decade after the launch of the Istanbul convention, the landmark human rights treaty to stop gender-based violence, women are facing a global assault on their rights and safety, according to campaigners.
This week marked 10 years since the first 13 countries signed up to the convention, seen as a turning point in efforts to address violence against women.
Continue reading...Social media celebrity Shakiro and friend given five-year sentences as rights groups fear crackdown on LGBT+ community
Two transgender women in Cameroon have been convicted of “attempting homosexuality” and sentenced to five years in prison, in a case feared to be part of a growing campaign against sexual minorities, according to rights groups.
Shakiro, a popular social media figure, and Patricia were convicted on Tuesday. The charges included public indecency and non-possession of a national ID card, an offence rarely prosecuted in Cameroon.
Continue reading...As the value of gold reached new heights last year, those mining it continued to face crippling deprivation and dangerous conditions
The muddy slopes surrounding the eastern Congolese gold-mining town of Kamituga hold vast wealth and crippling deprivation.
In South Kivu province near the borders of Rwanda and Burundi, Kamituga has mineral resources estimated to be worth $24tn (£17tn) in untapped deposits. Yet the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has one of the lowest levels of GDP per capita in the world and people work in dangerous conditions with little hope of scratching out anything more than a meagre existence from tough and dangerous work.
Continue reading...Photojournalist Hugh Kinsella Cunningham has been embedded with Congolese soldiers in the DRC’s ‘triangle of death’. The elusive insurgents they are hunting have pledged allegiance to Islamic State
At the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, in a vast territory that ranges from the lofty Rwenzori mountains to the lush rainforest of the Semliki valley, one of the world’s most active militant groups is responsible for the massacre of hundreds of civilians.
The ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) was originally an opposition rebel group from Uganda rooted in a radical agenda of religious militancy. Taking advantage of the regional power vacuum, the group fled to Beni territory in neighbouring DRC to find shelter from the Ugandan army.
Continue reading...People eating termites and clay as UN says acute malnutrition has almost doubled this year in south
Madagascar’s worst drought in 40 years has left more than a million people facing a year of desperate food shortages.
The south of the island will produce less than half its usual harvest in the coming months because of low rains, prolonging a hunger crisis already affecting half the Grand Sud area’s population, the UN estimates.
Continue reading...Najla El-Mangoush subjected to personal abuse after demanding withdrawal of Turkish troops and mercenaries
Libya’s first female foreign minister has come under pressure to resign and been subjected to personal abuse seven weeks into the job, after she called for Turkish troops and mercenaries to leave her country.
Najla El-Mangoush, a lawyer and human rights activist, was appointed foreign minister by the country’s interim prime minister, Abdelhamid Dbeibah, after he faced a backlash for backtracking on promises that 30% of ministerial posts would go to women.
Continue reading...Orthodox priest releases video statement on suppression of Tigray district
Ethiopian government forces and their allies are committing genocide in the country’s war-torn northern province of Tigray, the head of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church has claimed in a videoed statement demanding urgent international intervention.
The appeal by Abuna [Patriarch] Mathias follows fresh allegations of ethnic cleansing, gang rapes, extrajudicial killings and other atrocities by soldiers loyal to Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, who ordered an invasion of Tigray last November.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to China
Continue reading...Save the Children’s analysis finds Britain will spend 80% less on nutrition abroad this year, as hunger levels rise around the world
Britain is set to spend 80% less on helping feed children in poorer nations than before the pandemic, according to a charity’s analysis.
Save the Children said the British government will spend less than £26m this year on vital nutrition services in developing countries, a drop of more than three-quarters from 2019. The estimate of aid cuts to nutrition comes after UN agencies called for urgent action to avert famine in 20 countries including Yemen, South Sudan and northern Nigeria.
Continue reading...Italian government supplied vessel to help Tripoli control flow of migrants in Mediterranean
An Italian fisher wounded when his trawler was machined-gunned by the Libyan coastguard was fired on from a boat supplied by Italy’s government to help Tripoli control the flow of migrants.
Libyan authorities, who say the coastguard vessel fired warning shots into the air, said three Italian fishing vessels had entered Libyan territorial waters without authorisation before the incident on Thursday, the latest episode in a territorial dispute involving crews from the Sicilian port of Mazara del Vallo who fish for red prawns off the Libyan coast.
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...Navy rescues man, who was injured in one arm, after coastguard fired on his boat off the coast of Misrata in Sicily
Italy’s navy has rescued an Italian fisher who was wounded after the Libyan coastguard reportedly fired on his boat.
Salvatore Quinci, mayor of the fishing port of Mazaro del Vallo in south-western Sicily, said members of the coastguard shot at the fisherman’s boat off the coast of Misrata, the Italian news agency Agi reported.
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...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...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.
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