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More than a million people are at risk, according to report, as Oxfam says Israeli authorities are blocking relief deliveriesFamine is imminent in northern Gaza with people suffering “catastrophic levels of hunger”, a coalition of aid groups has warned.The situation was called “man-made starvation”, as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a group that includes the World Food Programme and the World Health...

Paris Club of creditor nations agree cancellation as Mogadishu moves towards financial normalisation amid ongoing conflictThe Paris Club, a collection of some of the world’s wealthiest creditor nations, has announced the cancellation of 99% of Somalia’s debt, in a major boost as the country continues its fragile economic recovery from an ongoing three-decade conflict.In a statement released by the Paris Club, which is run...

Group on outskirts of Geneina share stories from November when RSF and allied militias unleashed wave of sexual violenceTwice a week, a group of women gather together in a nondescript house in Ardamata, on the outskirts of Geneina in Sudan’s West Darfur state, to tell their stories to each other, cry, and drink coffee.The women, who work or used to work in education, are...

Loss of Doctors Without Borders services will probably leave void in potentially lifesaving services for migrantsPanama has ordered Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to stop treating people who have crossed the Darién Gap, one of the world’s most dangerous and fastest-growing border crossings.MSF is one of the largest medical NGOs operating on the dangerous jungle frontier which connects Colombia to Panama and the loss of...

Fact-finding mission concludes regime murdered, imprisoned, tortured and raped those who protested the death of Mahsa AminiThe Iranian regime’s human rights violations during its brutal suppression of protests in 2022 amount to crimes against humanity, a UN fact-finding mission (FFM) has said.Established by the UN human rights council in November 2022 – two months after the Woman, Life, Freedom protests swept the country in...

Progress to prevent female genital mutilation needs to be ‘27 times faster’, says UNThe number of girls and women who have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) has increased by 15% in the past eight years according to new data.Figures released by the UN children’s agency, Unicef, show that more than 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM, compared with 200 million...

Activists welcome sanction on Sarah Achieng Opendi and other legislators against a backdrop of anti-LGBTQ+ oppression in AfricaThe Ugandan MP Sarah Achieng Opendi, who called for homosexuals to be castrated during a parliamentary debate on the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws has been denied a visa to attend a UN meeting in New York next week.Opendi expressed “shock” after the US embassy in Kampala rejected...

Tens of thousands of dengue cases recorded this year as high temperatures and rainy weather create ‘perfect formula’ for bugsIn his 20 years cleaning the Buenos Aires subway, Mauricio Ríos, 52, had never seen anything like it: a vast and noisy swarm of mosquitoes churning in dark clouds the length of the platform at Piedras station.Ríos pulled out his phone and filmed the growing...

People in West Darfur’s capital still step over residue from the bodies of some of the 10,000 dead, and thousands have fledGeneina, the capital of West Darfur state in Sudan, can feel like two cities in one. There are mass graves, abandoned armoured vehicles and homeless children, but also newly opened restaurants, bustling markets and factory-fresh Toyotas, nicknamed Kenjcanjia – meaning stolen in the...

Benefits for Latin American host nations could be greater still if access to jobs for migrants were increased, research showsAn exodus of nearly 8 million Venezuelan migrants who have fled poverty and political turmoil is boosting the economies of other countries across South America, two studies published by leading international financial institutions have found.The foreign workforce will lift the economies of their main host...

Antoine Galindo is accused of conspiring with rebels, but press freedom groups say no evidence has been found and call for his immediate releaseEthiopian authorities have detained a visiting French journalist for being part of a “conspiracy to create chaos” in the east African country.Antoine Galindo, a reporter for the Paris-based Africa Intelligence (AI) news website, was arrested by plainclothes security officers at the...

Fears Maduro government is trying to shut down scrutiny after lawyer is arrested and UN human rights office shut downHuman rights groups are calling for the Venezuelan government to halt a crackdown on civil society after it jailed a prominent lawyer and then banished a UN human rights office from Caracas for criticising her arrest.The arrest of the 57-year-old lawyer and military expert Rocío...

The suspension of a Congolese player for a gun gesture referring to conflict in DRC raises questions over government’s refugee policyWhen a Congolese footballer made a brief gesture after scoring in an east African league match last weekend, it felt like little more than a talking point among the spectators.Yet the gesture by midfielder Héritier Luvumbu at the game in Kigali has prompted a...

The lack of medicine, food and water means thousands of people with asthma, kidney disease or diabetes are unable to treat or control their conditionsFour months of conflict in Gaza is jeopardising the health of thousands of people with chronic illnesses such as kidney disease, diabetes and asthma, doctors have warned.The chronically ill are the hidden casualties of the war, as access to water,...

Shipments of food and medical supplies from Asia are having to take longer, more expensive routes to avoid seaborne assaultsAttacks by Houthi forces against ships in the Red Sea are holding up shipments of vital aid to Sudan and driving up costs for cash-strapped humanitarian agencies in the east African country, where conflict has put millions at risk of famine.The attacks mean ships carrying...

The animal translocation scheme by wildlife NGOs including African Parks, once headed by the royal, has been dogged by controversyFour more people have died after an elephant translocation overseen by two wildlife organisations, including one that was headed by Prince Harry, in a protected area in Malawi. The recent deaths bring the total fatalities connected to the relocated elephants to seven.In July 2022, more...

Police name husbands as suspects in separate deaths of women, two of whom were pregnantThe deaths of three women in one week, all allegedly murdered by their husbands, has caused outrage in Somalia and sparked days of protests over the country’s femicide rates.Police have named the suspects in all three killings, which took place in the first week of February, as the dead women’s...

Witnesses claim victims shot ‘execution style’ during house raids after clashes between government forces and Fano rebelsEthiopian government troops went door-to-door killing dozens of civilians last month in a town in the country’s Amhara region, according to residents, who said the bloodshed took place after clashes with local militia.The killings in Merawi appear to be one of the deadliest episodes in Amhara since a...

China ‘threatens relatives in Tibet’ to exert control over activists in exile, with greater transnational repression at Tibetan new yearThousands of Tibetans around the world have been subjected to spying, blackmail and threats against family members still living in Tibet, according to a new report.The Chinese government’s repressive policies in Tibet continue to be documented, but the new report by the Tibetan Centre for...

Ten months of armed conflict in the country has displaced nearly 11 million people and left half the population facing hungerThere is “epic suffering” in Sudan says the UN, where fighting between rival military factions since April has created the world’s biggest internal displacement crisis and raised fears of state failure.On Wednesday, the UN appealed for $4.1bn (£3. 25bn) to meet humanitarian needs, amid...

Activists will cross the continent visiting areas where the practice is prevalent to revive progress in protecting women and girlsAfrican female genital mutilation survivors will lead thousands of campaigners in a two-year “caravan campaign” across the continent, calling for an end to the practice.Organised by #FrontlineEndingFGM, a group of grassroots activists and organisations in Africa will cover about 7,400 miles (12,000km) across 20 countries,...

Exclusive: $9bn port, airport and military base on Great Nicobar Island will cause ‘genocide’ of isolated Shompen, academics warnAcademics from around the world have urged India to cancel a huge construction project on Great Nicobar Island, warning it would be “a death sentence” for the Shompen hunter-gatherer people who live there.The $9bn (£7bn) port project, planned to transform the Indian Ocean island of 8,000...

A year on from the devastation, questions remain about the pace of reconstruction amid the rubbleDays before the anniversary of twin earthquakes that devastated swaths of Turkey’s south-east on 6 February 2023, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan returned to Hatay province, the area worst hit by the destruction that killed at least 55,000 in Turkey and Syria. Standing on stage in a sports stadium on the...

More than half a million people made treacherous, weeklong trek in 2023, facing horrors including mass rapes by armed banditsA sevenfold increase in sexual attacks against people crossing the Darién Gap is compounding the misery for people trekking one of the world’s most dangerous and underreported border crossings, said Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).Complete impunity for armed gangs in the lawless stretch of jungle that...