How ‘Peace with Legality’ agreement is likely to impact new Colombia government domestic policies
Before the June 19 Colombian presidential election, candidates endorsed the 2016 peace deal and criticised the unpopular “Peace with Legality” plan of outgoing President Iván Duque Márquez government, which has involved deadly military operations, including the bombing of children at rebel camps. Defeated right-wing populist Rodolfo Hernandez, a right-of-centre political...
Civil war: Daunting humanitarian crisis Colombia’s newly elected president Gustova Petro faces
Helmut Ángulo lost his parents in 2000 at the height of the Colombian civil war, kidnapped and killed by rebel fighters. When the country signed a peace deal 16 years later, Ángulo vigorously opposed it. He wanted justice for his parents’ deaths, and he wanted to find their remains so...
Sally Hayden: When I started reporting on Libya detention camps UN staff admitted UN is used to whitewash brutal EU policy
Interview continued: The New Humanitarian recently spoke to journalist Sally Hayden, author of the book, “My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route”, published in March this year. Hayden raises questions the roles the European Union and United Nations, and sometimes other aid organisations are...
Journalist’s in-depth account exposes human rights abuses in Libyan detention camps ignored by UN and EU
In 2018, journalist Sally Hayden received a message on Facebook from a refugee in a Libyan detention centre. “We need your help. We are under bad condition in Libya prison. If you have time, I will tell you all the story,” the message read, seemingly sent out of the blue....
African scientists seek ways of sealing loopholes in global collaborations between West and Africa
Researchers at the seventh World Conference on Research Integrity, in Cape Town, South Africa, have been hammering out the equity issues plaguing science partnerships that span the global north-south divide. Several sessions at the event were dedicated to the design of a soon-to-be-published document called the Cape Town Statement on...
Presidential candidate with visual disability and gospel musician sues Kenya’s elections body for discrimination
A gospel singer who wants to be Kenya’s first disabled presidential candidate has filed a case in the country’s courts after being barred from the electoral race. Reuben Kigame, who is blind, filed the case against Kenya’s Electoral Commission (IEBC) this week on Tuesday, claiming he had been blocked from...
Funding disaster: UN emergency aid coordination agency has no classification for forgotten disasters
Bangladesh’s population is nearly 168 million – 99,000 of whom were displaced following 31 disasters in 2021. Nepal’s population is 30 million, meaning that proportionally almost exactly the same amount of displacement occurred. Azmat Ulla, head of Nepal’s delegation at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies...
UN predicts disasters, fuelled by climate change, will rise sharply by 2030 as funding dips steeply
Every year for the past two decades, an estimated 350 to 500 medium-to-large disasters have taken place globally; numbers only expected to rise further due to the climate crisis. But many, like the case studies we report on here in Peru and Nepal, receive little attention beyond the areas directly...
‘Weed’ is currently subject of political storm in Kenya, but is the interest in its hyped medicinal efficacy genuine?
Three weeks ago, I wrote about the various medical approaches to treating pain, and one reader emailed to ask why I hadn’t mentioned cannabis. I had been thinking about more mainstream options, but I was wrong to ignore cannabis because, in several parts of the world, this drug has now...
how video analysis provided evidence of how Russia trucks and ships ferry stolen Ukrainian wheat for export
In late April, video surfaced of columns of covered trucks driving what Ukrainian officials said was captured grain. In an analysis of the video, it has been confirmed it was taken in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, showing the convoy headed southwest on a main road toward Crimea. It was...
