A private high school in California has provided scholarships to three refugee students — one from Ukraine and two from Afghanistan. VOA’s Genia Dulot has the story of an American educator who has even opened her home to the two Afghans teens as they complete their studies.
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Month: April 2024
12 dead, 50 missing in DR Congo landslide
Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo — At least 12 people were killed and more than 50 are still missing after heavy rain caused a ravine to collapse onto a river in southwest Democratic Republic of Congo, a local official and a civil society leader said Sunday.
The landslide occurred around midday Saturday in Dibaya Lubwe commune in Kwilu province. It sent a cascade of clay and debris down to the banks of the Kasai River, where a boat was docking, and people were washing clothes.
Interim provincial Governor Felicien Kiway said, 12 bodies had been pulled from the rubble so far, including nine women, three men and a baby.
“Around 50 people are missing but we are continuing to search through the clay,” he said, adding that the chances of finding survivors were thin as the incident had occurred 12 hours prior.
The coordinator of a local civil society group, Arsene Kasiama, said the landslide also fell on people shopping at a market.
He gave a death toll of 11, with seven seriously injured survivors and more than 60 people still missing.
Poor urban planning and weak infrastructure across the Congo make communities more vulnerable to extreme rainfall, which is becoming more intense and frequent in Africa due to warming temperatures, according to climate experts.
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A year in, no end in sight for Sudan’s ‘forgotten war’
A year since war broke out in Sudan, analysts foresee no end to the conflict and say the longer it drags on, the more likely Sudan will become a breeding ground for terrorist groups. VOA spoke via video to a volunteer at one of the last functioning hospitals in Omdurman. Henry Wilkins reports.
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US helps Israel repel Iranian attack
The White House calls it an “incredible military achievement” that Israel, the United States and other partners succeeded in repelling “more than 300 drones and missiles” launched by Iran toward Israel. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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China ‘deeply concerned’ after Iran strikes, online commenters largely oppose Israel
Washington — China’s foreign ministry Sunday said it is “deeply concerned” about escalating tensions in the Middle East.
Hours after Iran launched more than 320 warheads towards Israel in retaliation for a suspected Israeli strike on Tehran’s embassy in Damascus, China’s foreign ministry published a statement calling for the immediate implementation of a U.N. ceasefire resolution.
“China expresses deep concern over the current escalation and calls on relevant parties to exercise calm and restraint to prevent further escalations. The ongoing situation is the latest spillover of the Gaza conflict.”
China has sought to play the role of mediator in the Middle East, last year helping to broker a deal that saw the restoration of diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
However Chinese companies have also been linked as suppliers for Iran’s military drone program, most recently in a U.S. Commerce department legal notice last week.
Online criticism of Israel
On China’s biggest social network Weibo, the attack became the most discussed topics with over 140 million clicks and more than 23,000 comments in the hours after the news came out.
It’s difficult to gauge the real reaction of Chinese Internet users since comments are routinely censored, but the majority of uncensored comments expressed opposition to Israel and the United States, and support for the Iranian attack on Israel.
China’s official news agency “Central TV News” published a post on Iran’s attack under its Weibo account and attracted over 3,700 comments within one day.
Many of the comments expressed doubts over Israeli reports saying that only one person was injured in Iran’s aerial barrage. A user with the handle “Pikachu and his AD calcium” said: “Israeli soldiers can only die with permission. No death or injuries, I don’t believe the news;” another one named “Owen665996” said, “This is obviously Israel’s propaganda.”
Israel said that its air defenses, aided by the United States and other countries, shot down 99% of the 320 warheads which were launched from places in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The White House called collective defense efforts “an incredible military achievement.”
In contrast to the “mainstream” stance, some readers left supporting comments on the official account of the Israeli Embassy in Beijing.
“Go Israel! Chinese with conscious support you to strike on terrorists,” said one Weibo user “Master of Minions.” Another one with the handle “Hello Hayek” said, “support Israel to strike back and rid the terrorist cult regime!”
The Chinese Embassy in Iran posted on its website on the early morning of Apr 14 that it “once again reminds Chinese citizens and enterprises in Iran to closely follow the local security situation and the security reminders issued by the Embassy.”
It urged Chinese citizens to “effectively enhance security awareness, always tighten the string of security precautions, resolutely avoid going to sensitive areas and densely populated places.”
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Polish abortion opponents march against steps to liberalize strict law
WARSAW — Thousands of Polish opponents of abortion marched Sunday in Warsaw to protest recent steps by the new government to liberalize the predominantly Catholic nation’s strict laws and allow termination of pregnancy until the 12th week.
Many participants in the downtown march were pushing prams with children, while others were carrying white-and-red national flags or posters representing a fetus in the womb.
Poland’s Catholic Church has called for Sunday to be a day of prayer “in defense of conceived life” and has supported the march, organized by an anti-abortion movement.
“In the face of promotion of abortion in recent months, the march will be a rare occasion to show our support for the protection of human life from conception to natural death,” a federation of anti-abortion movements said in a statement.
They were referring to an ongoing public debate surrounding the steps that the 4-month-old government of Prime Minster Donald Tusk is taking to relax the strict law brought in by its conservative predecessor.
Last week, Poland’s parliament, which is dominated by the liberal and pro-European Union ruling coalition voted to approve further detailed work on four proposals to lift the near ban on abortions.
The procedure, which could take weeks or even months, is expected to be eventually rejected by conservative President Andrzej Duda, whose term runs for another year.
Last month Duda vetoed a draft law that would have made the morning-after pill available over the counter from the age of 15.
A nation of some 38 million, Poland is seeking ways to boost the birth rate, which is currently at 1.2 per woman — among the lowest in the European Union. Poland’s society is aging and shrinking, facts that the previous right-wing government used among its arguments for toughening the abortion law.
Currently, abortions are only allowed in cases of rape or incest or if the woman’s life or health is at risk. According to the Health Ministry, 161 abortions were performed in Polish hospitals in 2022. However, abortion advocates estimate that some 120,000 women in Poland have abortions each year, mostly by secretly obtaining pills from abroad.
Women attempting to abort themselves are not penalized, but anyone assisting them can face up to three years in prison. Reproductive rights advocates say the result is that doctors turn women away even in permitted cases for fear of legal consequences for themselves.
One of the four proposals being processed in parliament would decriminalize assisting a woman to have an abortion. Another one, put forward by a party whose leaders are openly Catholic, would keep a ban in most cases but would allow abortions in cases of fetal defects — a right that was eliminated by a 2020 court ruling. The two others aim to permit abortion through the 12th week.
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Thailand’s extended Songkran festival sees millions celebrate
Bangkok — Thailand is in the middle of its Songkran celebrations, marking the country’s traditional New Year, which have millions participating in the world’s biggest water fight.
Thai officials and business owners have welcomed the festivities that increase the country’s soft power and boost its economy.
In many areas of Thailand, including the capital, Bangkok, Songkran public water fights usually last for three days starting on April 13. But this year the festival began a day earlier as Thailand enjoys a long public holiday weekend. In some areas, like the northern city of Chiang Mai, the public water fighting rituals tend to last longer.
Millions of domestic tourists and foreign visitors celebrate the occasion, boosting business for Thai companies in the tourism industry.
Chan Holland, owner of travel agency Canary Travel Thailand in Bangkok, said she believes this Songkran festival has attracted more visitors.
“More people come to Songkran this year; it’s busier for both Thai and [international] tourists” she told VOA. “There are concerts and shows, parades at the royal grounds in front of the Grand Palace. The Thai government is trying to promote the festival more internationally.”
May Kung, a part-owner of Ruen Thong restaurant in Bangkok, said bookings have increased.
“My restaurant [bookings] are better than last year. About 20% [busier],” she told VOA.
Thais enjoy the festivities by visiting temples, cleaning Buddha statues, and engaging in public water fights, which are seen as cleansing rituals. In Bangkok, excited revellers from Thailand and abroad began with the water dousing as early as Thursday.
People in the capital wore colorful, flowery shirts, armed themselves with toy water guns and buckets of water, and drenched each other from morning until night.
Authorities closed major roads for the crowds, but it was still shoulder-to-shoulder in popular areas like the Silom district, Khao San Road and the Sanam Luang field near the Grand Palace. The Siam Songkran Music Festival is another major event taking place over the weekend.
The Thai government says the Songkran celebrations, officially the “Maha Songkran World Water Festival,” will be extended this year. This comes after UNESCO designated Songkran as an Intangible Cultural Heritage in December.
“To honor its recent UNESCO designation, the 2024 festival will be celebrated [for up] to three weeks, from April 1 to 21, uniting all 77 provinces in a celebration of unmatched scale,” Nithee Seeprae, the deputy governor for marketing communications at the Tourism Authority of Thailand, told VOA.
Confusion from some international visitors has put a damper on the celebrations. Some international visitors thought that public water fights would last for the entire three weeks, prompting the Thai government to respond by saying the celebrations would not all take place simultaneously.
But the festival does come at a time when Thailand has fewer concerns than recent years. The Southeast Asian country has been marred by political unrest, military coups and the COVID-19 pandemic in the last decade.
“It’s the first year under civilian government and without real fears regarding COVID-19,” Pravit Rojanaphruk, a veteran journalist at Khaosod English newspaper, told VOA.
Thailand is now led by Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin after nine years under military governance. Songkran shows Thailand’s soft power, officials say.
“The Srettha government is very keen to promote it as a key festival on the global calendar and in this regard, Thailand is succeeding, despite the fact that Songkran is also celebrated in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and even parts of China,” Pravit added.
While the Songkran festival is one of the biggest holidays on the Thai calendar, the nationwide event significantly boosts the economy, which relies heavily on tourism.
The industry provides around 20% of jobs in the Southeast Asian country. Thailand saw 28 million tourist arrivals in 2023 with 35 million expected in 2024.
“We estimate that there will be over 500,000 international tourists in Bangkok and around for the Maha Songkran World Water Festival 2024 from April 11 to 15, joining locals and domestic travelers at the extravaganza at the heart of this year’s celebration,” Nithee Seeprae said.
“For economic benefit, this constitutes 8.76 billion Baht (around $240 million) from international tourism and 15.66 billion Baht (around $428.3 million) from domestic tourism with 510,000 visitor arrivals and 4.29 million domestic trips,” he added.
Tourism analyst Gary Bowerman said he believes Thailand’s government will want to maximize Songkran but must be cautious about overdoing the festival in the future.
“Essentially, Thailand is seeking to ‘extend the franchise,’ and make Songkran a three-week festival around the country to promote water-themed tourism activities,” he told VOA.
“The timing is important, as this is the start of the traditional off-peak season, and the [Tourism Authority of Thailand] doesn’t want the momentum that developed in the first quarter to drop significantly, as it has set itself an ambitious full-year visitor arrivals target.
“The risk is that, ultimately, you could dilute the cultural resonance of Songkran, and turn it into a less meaningful event across a longer period. There will be a lot of learnings from this first year of making it an extended festival. Next year will likely see further changes based on the 2024 Songkran experiences for the tourism sector across the country,” he added.
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Cameroon opens museum honoring oldest sub-Saharan kingdom
Foumban, Cameroon — To enter the Museum of the Bamoun Kings in western Cameroon, you have to pass under the fangs of a gigantic two-headed snake — the highlight of an imposing coat of arms of one of the oldest kingdoms in sub-Saharan Africa.
Thousands of Cameroonians gathered in the royal palace square in Foumban on Saturday to celebrate the opening of the Museum of the Bamoun Kings.
Sultan King Mouhammad Nabil Mforifoum Mbombo Njoya welcomed 2,000 guests to the opening of the museum located in Foumban — the historic capital of the Bamoun Kings.
The royal family, descendants of a monarchy that dates back six centuries, attended the event dressed in traditional ceremonial attire with colorful boubous and matching fezzes.
Griot narrators in multicolored boubous played drums and long traditional flutes while palace riflemen fired shots to punctuate the arrival of distinguished guests which included ministers and diplomats.
Then, princes and princesses from the Bamoun chieftaincies performed the ritual Ndjah dance in yellow robes and animal masks.
For Cameroon, such a museum dedicated to the history of a kingdom is “unique in its scope”, Armand Kpoumie Nchare, author of a book about the Bamoun kingdom, told AFP.
“This is one of the rare kingdoms to have managed to exist and remain authentic, despite the presence of missionaries, merchants and colonial administrators,” he said.
The Bamoun kingdom, founded in 1384, is one of the oldest in sub-Saharan Africa.
To honor the Bamoun, the museum was built in the shape of the kingdom’s coat of arms.
A spider, which is over 5,000 square meters (54,000 square feet), sits atop the building while the entrances represent the two-headed serpent.
“This is a festival for the Bamoun people. We’ve come from all over to experience this unique moment,” 50-year-old spectator Ben Oumar said.
“It’s a proud feeling to attend this event. We’ve been waiting for it for a long time,” civil servant Mahamet Jules Pepore said.
The museum contains 12,500 pieces including weapons, pipes and musical instruments — only a few of which were previously displayed in the royal palace.
“It reflects the rich, multi-century creativity of these people, both in terms of craftsmanship and art — Bamoun drawings — as well as the technological innovations of the peasants at various periods: Mills, wine presses etc.,” Nchare said.
Also on display are items from the life of the most famous Bamoun King, Ibrahim Njoya, who reigned from 1889 to 1933 and created Bamoune Script, a writing system that contains over 500 syllabic signs.
The museum exhibits his manuscripts and a corn-grinding machine he invented.
“We pay tribute to a king who was simultaneously a guardian and a pioneer… a way for us to be proud of our past in order to build the future” and “show that Africa is not an importer of thoughts,” Njoya’s great-grandson, the 30-year-old Sultan King Mouhammad said.
To commemorate his grandfather’s work, former Sultan King Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya launched the construction of the museum in 2013 after realizing the palace rooms were too cramped.
The opening of the museum comes months after the Nguon of the Bamoun people, a set of rituals celebrated in a popular annual festival, joined UNESCO’s List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
your ad here19 dead, two missing after Indonesia landslide
Jakarta — At least 19 people have been found dead and two more are missing after a landslide in central Indonesia, local authorities said on Sunday.
The dead and two survivors were evacuated from two landslide-hit villages in Tana Toraja regency, South Sulawesi province on Saturday evening, said local disaster agency head Sulaiman Malia.
“There have been 19 fatalities, with 4 deaths in South Makale and 15 others in Makale villages,” Malia told AFP on Sunday.
“Currently, we are still searching for other victims,” he said, adding that there are still two individuals reported missing, presumably buried under the landslide debris.
Tana Toraja and its surrounding areas have been “continuously hit by heavy rainfall, especially over the past week, with hardly any stop”, Malia added.
The heavy rainfall eroded the soil of residential areas located on mountain slopes, leading to landslides that buried residents’ homes, he said.
Indonesia is prone to landslides during the rainy season and the problem has been aggravated in some places by deforestation, with prolonged torrential rain causing flooding in some areas of the archipelago nation.
Last month flash floods and landslides on Sumatra island killed at least 30 people with scores still missing.
A landslide and flooding swept away dozens of houses and destroyed a hotel near Lake Toba on Sumatra in December, killing at least two people.
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Sexual assaults rise in Central African Republic
BANGUI, Central African Republic — It was too late for the mother to shield her children when the two masked and armed Russian fighters burst into her home, held her at gunpoint and took turns raping her. Her five children were forced to watch in the dark.
Seated in a restaurant in Central African Republic’s capital, to which she fled after the attack, she wiped away tears. Two years on, the assault has “stayed with me in my core,” she said. The Associated Press does not identify survivors of sexual assault.
She blamed the Russians who are part of the Wagner mercenary group that operates alongside Central African Republic’s army and has been accused by locals and rights groups of abuses. She had seen them patrolling in her town of Bambari before. On the day of the assault, they were fighting rebels there.
Gender-based violence is rising in Central African Republic amid ongoing conflict, weak legal and care systems, and the stigma attached to speaking up, locals and aid groups say.
Since 2020, incidents have jumped from about 9,200 reported cases to 25,500, according to cases tracked by the U.N. and partners.
But international funding for the country has dropped, with gender-based violence receiving some of the least support. The humanitarian request for about $14 million received less than 15% of that, according to the U.N.
Central African Republic has been in conflict since 2013, when predominantly Muslim rebels seized power and forced the president from office. Mostly Christian militias fought back. A 2019 peace deal only lessened the fighting, and six of the 14 armed groups that signed later left the agreement.
Wagner, a U.N. peacekeeping mission and Rwandan troops are all on the ground to try to quell the violence.
“More than 10 years on since this crisis unfolded, many people are still displaced, vulnerable and live at the mercy of armed groups,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director for Human Rights Watch. “A new dynamic has emerged as well whereby mercenaries aligned with the government are also, at times, preying on the local population.”
Most likely don’t report
Doctors Without Borders, one of the main organizations working on gender-based violence, says it has seen an increase in patients due to the expansion of services and outreach. But it says the majority of survivors likely don’t come forward, often because help is not available where they live.
The 37-year-old who fled to the capital, Bangui, said she received mental health treatment and assistance for her children from an international aid group. She’s too afraid to return home and survives by selling charcoal in the market and on handouts from friends. She never reported the attack to police because she thought it was futile.
“Who can arrest the Russians in this country?” she asked.
A local fighter who works with Wagner asserted that he saw six of the Russians rape a local woman in the tent where he was sleeping at their base in Bambari in early 2023. He said the Russians give women canned food like sardines or bottled water afterward. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
The Russian government didn’t respond to questions.
Women don’t usually blame Wagner because its fighters are so entrenched in communities that they fear retaliation, aid groups said. During a visit by The Associated Press in March, Russians could be seen driving trucks around Bangui and walking in the western town of Bouar.
Women who come forward find it hard to receive justice, said Lucie Boalo Mbassinga, vice president of the Association for Women Lawyers for Central Africa. She said they had 213 cases of sexual assault and rape reported in 2022 and 304 cases in 2023. Sometimes women open a case against local fighters but withdraw it because perpetrators’ families pay survivors not to proceed, she said.
The challenges are compounded by funding cuts.
In November, Mbassinga’s organization closed a program that was helping survivors across eight provinces, including in the capital, because there was no more money, she said. The cuts by the U.N. Development Program have prevented staff from reaching women in more rural areas, accompanying them to court, and providing medical and mental health support, she said.
“Victims are abandoned,” Mbassinga said. She suggested having mobile courts to better reach rural areas.
Donor fatigue and multiple global crises are part of the reason for cuts in funding, but some diplomats and aid workers say the presence of Wagner mercenaries embedded so closely with the government and in communities makes it hard to justify giving aid. There are concerns that funding could be associated with Wagner.
Other culprits
But not only Wagner fighters are accused of rape.
The AP spoke with three women who said they had been sexually assaulted. One blamed Wagner. One blamed an armed bandit. One, a security guard, blamed a U.N. peacekeeper.
The 39-year-old security guard said she was assaulted in November while on the night shift in Bangui at the peacekeeper’s home. He left her about $65 when it was over, she said.
She asked her supervisor to be transferred to another house but never reported the attack. Her pastor cautioned against it to keep her job.
The U.N. mission didn’t receive any allegation of sexual assault involving its personnel last November, spokesman Vladimir Monteiro said, and stressed that the U.N. takes such allegations seriously.
The U.N. has long wrestled with allegations of sexual assaults by U.N. peacekeepers in Central African Republic and elsewhere. Three years ago, the secretary-general ordered the immediate repatriation of the entire U.N. Gabonese peacekeeping contingent following credible reports of sexual abuse.
The government’s justice ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment. The new constitution has measures to tackle the issue, saying authorities must ensure that sexual assault is eliminated.
But that comes as little comfort for survivors.
In December, a 29-year-old woman said she was assaulted at a market about 124 miles (200 kilometers) from Bangui. Three men with knives and machetes robbed her and one raped her.
She didn’t report it because she didn’t know the man and thought police would refuse to investigate.
Now the mother of two wants to move on. She finds comfort in a program run by Doctors Without Borders, meeting weekly with a dozen other survivors.
“The advice I’ve been given is to not think about the aggressor and to stay busy,” she said.
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Oregon city asks US Supreme Court: Can homeless people be fined for sleeping outside?
GRANTS PASS, Oregon — A pickleball game in this leafy Oregon community was suddenly interrupted one rainy weekend morning by the arrival of an ambulance. Paramedics rushed through the park toward a tent, one of dozens illegally erected by the town’s hundreds of homeless people, then play resumed as though nothing had happened.
Mere feet away, volunteers helped dismantle tents to move an 80-year-old man and a woman blind in one eye, who risked being fined for staying too long. In the distance, a group of boys climbed on a jungle gym.
The scenes were emblematic of the crisis gripping the small, Oregon mountain town of Grants Pass, where a fierce fight over park space has become a battleground for a much larger, national debate on homelessness that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
The town’s case, set to be heard April 22, has broad implications for how not only Grants Pass, but communities nationwide address homelessness, including whether they can fine or jail people for camping in public. It has made the town of 40,000 the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis, and further fueled the debate over how to deal with it.
“I certainly wish this wasn’t what my town was known for,” Mayor Sara Bristol told The Associated Press last month. “It’s not the reason why I became mayor. And yet it has dominated every single thing that I’ve done for the last 3 1/2 years.”
Officials across the political spectrum — from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, which has nearly 30% of the nation’s homeless population, to a group of 22 conservative-led states — have filed briefs in the case, saying lower court rulings have hamstrung their ability to deal with encampments.
Like many Western communities, Grants Pass has struggled for years with a burgeoning homeless population. A decade ago, City Council members discussed how to make it “uncomfortable enough … in our city so they will want to move on down the road.” From 2013 to 2018, the city said it issued 500 citations for camping or sleeping in public, including in vehicles, with fines that could reach hundreds of dollars.
But a 2018 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals changed the calculus. The court, whose jurisdiction includes nine Western states, held that while communities are allowed to prohibit tents in public spaces, it violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment to give people criminal citations for sleeping outside when they had no place else to go.
Four years later, in a case challenging restrictions in Grants Pass, the court expanded that ruling, holding that civil citations also can be unconstitutional.
Civil rights groups and attorneys for the homeless residents who challenged the restrictions in 2018 insist people shouldn’t be punished for lacking housing. Officials throughout the West have overstated the impact of the court decisions to distract from their own failings, they argued.
“For years, political leaders have chosen to tolerate encampments as an alternative to meaningfully addressing the western region’s severe housing shortage,” the attorneys wrote. “It is easier to blame the courts than to take responsibility for finding a solution.”
In Grants Pass, the town’s parks, many lining the picturesque Rogue River, are at the heart of the debate. Cherished for their open spaces, picnic tables, playgrounds and sports fields, they host everything from annual boat-racing festivals and vintage car shows to Easter egg hunts and summer concerts.
They’re also the sites of encampments blighted by illegal drug use and crime, including a shooting at a park last year that left one person dead. Tents cluster along riverbanks, next to tennis courts and jungle gyms, with tarps shielding belongings from the rain. When the sun comes out, clothes and blankets are strung across tree branches to dry. Used needles litter the ground.
Grants Pass has just one overnight shelter for adults, the Gospel Rescue Mission. It has 138 beds, but rules including attendance at daily Christian services, no alcohol, drugs or smoking and no pets mean many won’t stay there.
Cassy Leach, a nurse, leads a volunteer group providing food, medical care and other basic goods to the town’s hundreds of homeless people. They help relocate their tents to comply with city rules.
At one park last month, she checked on a man who burned his leg after falling on a torch lighter during a fentanyl overdose and brought him naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal medication. In another, she distributed cans of beans, peas and Chef Boyardee mini ravioli from a pickup truck.
“Love, hope, community and a safety net is really as important as a shower and water,” Leach said.
Dre Buetow, 48, from northern California, has been living in his car for three years after a bone cancer diagnosis and $450,000 in medical bills. The illness and treatment kept him from returning to his old tree-trimming job, he said.
Laura Gutowski’s husband died from a pulmonary embolism and she suddenly found herself, in her 50s, with no income. They didn’t have life insurance or savings and, within a month, she was sleeping outside in the city she grew up in.
“I used to love camping,” she said through tears. “And now I can’t stand it anymore.”
Volunteers like Leach came to her rescue. “They’re angels,” she said.
But some residents want to limit aid because of the trash left behind after encampment moves or food handouts. The City Council proposed requiring outreach groups to register with the city. The mayor vetoed it, laying bare the discord gripping Grants Pass.
Before the council attempted, unsuccessfully, to override the veto last month, a self-proclaimed “park watch” group rallied outside City Hall with signs reading, “Parks are for kids.” Drivers in passing cars honked their support.
The group regularly posts images of trash, tents and homeless people on social media. On Sundays, they set up camp chairs in what they say is a bid to reclaim park space.
Brock Spurgeon says he used to take his grandkids to parks that were so full it was hard to find an available picnic table. Now, open drug use and discarded needles have scared families away, he said.
“That was taken away from us when the campers started using the parks,” he said.
Still, Spurgeon said his own brother died while homeless in a nearby city, and his son is living in the parks as he struggles with addiction. Once, he said, he realized with shock that the homeless person covered with blankets that he stepped past to enter a grocery store was his son.
“I miss my son every night, and I hold my breath that he won’t OD in the park,” Spurgeon said.
Mayor Bristol and advocates have sought to open a shelter with fewer rules, or a designated area for homeless people to camp. But charged debates emerged over where that would be and who would pay for it.
While support for a designated campground appears to be growing, the problem remains: Many homeless people in Grants Pass have nowhere else to live. And some advocates fear a return of strict anti-camping enforcement will push people to the forest outside town, farther from help.
Even if the Supreme Court overturns the 9th Circuit’s decisions, Bristol said, “we still have 200 people who have to go somewhere.”
“We have to accept that homelessness is a reality in America,” she said.
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Germany’s Scholz arrives in China on a visit marked by trade tensions, Ukraine conflict
BEIJING — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in China on Sunday on a visit focused on the increasingly tense economic relationship between the sides and differences over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Scholz’s first destination was the industrial hub of Chongqing, where he and his delegation of ministers and business leaders were to visit a partially German-funded company and other sites in the vast city, which is a production base for China’s auto and other industries.
Scholz is also scheduled to visit the financial hub of Shanghai during his three-day visit, before traveling to the capital, Beijing, to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang.
German companies such as BMW and Volkswagen are highly reliant on the Chinese market, even as Beijing’s support for Russia creates frictions with the West.
Germany’s economy has benefited from China’s demand for investment and manufactured items from cars to chemicals, but those ties have frayed amid increasing competition from Chinese companies and tightened regulations. Political interference has also been blamed for a sharp drop in foreign investment.
German companies have argued they face unfair market barriers in China and the government has pushed for a policy of “de-risking” to reduce reliance on the Chinese market and suppliers.
Despite that, China remained Germany’s top trading partner for the eighth straight year in 2023, with 254.1 billion euros ($271 billion) in goods and services exchanged between the sides, slightly more than what Germany traded with the U.S.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV showed Scholz descending from his plane in Chonqing and leaving in a motorcade, but did not carry any comments made to the welcoming delegation.
Prior to his arrival, Scholz posted on social platform X that he had discussed the “massive” Russian air attacks on civilian energy infrastructure with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday and declared that Berlin will “stand unbreakably by Ukraine’s side.”
China has refused to criticize Russian aggression. It has maintained trade relations with President Vladimir Putin’s government and aligned its foreign policy with Moscow in opposition to the U.S.-led liberal political order, while touting its authoritarian one-party system as a superior alternative.
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Archeologists find frescoes of Trojan War figures in Pompeii
rome, italy — Archaeologists excavating new sites in Pompeii have uncovered a sumptuous banquet hall decorated with intricately frescoed mythological characters inspired by the Trojan War, officials said Thursday.
The hall, which features a mosaic floor, was uncovered as part of a project to shore up the areas dividing the excavated and unexcavated parts of Pompeii, the ancient city near Naples that was destroyed in A.D. 79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted.
The banquet hall was used for refined entertaining and features black walls, a technique that prevented the smoke from oil lamps from being seen, said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii archaeological park.
The figures painted against that black backdrop include Helen of Troy and Apollo. Experts said the reference to mythological figures was designed to entertain guests and provide conversation starters.
The room, which is about 15 meters (16.4 yards) long and 6 meters (6.56 yards) wide, opens onto a courtyard near a staircase leading to the first floor of the home, the park said in a press release.
Excavations in Pompeii have recently focused on areas of the city where the middle classes and servants lived, while previous ones have concentrated on the elaborately frescoed villas of Pompeii’s upper classes.
The excavations that yielded the new banquet hall are designed to improve the hydrogeological structure of the entire park, to make it more sustainable as the region copes with climate extremes — heavy rainfall and intense heat — that are threatening the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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Nigerian families cope with trauma of more school kidnappings
KADUNA, Nigeria — His weak body stood in the doorway, exhausted and covered in dirt. For two years, the boy had been among Nigeria’s ghosts, one of at least 1,500 schoolchildren and others seized by armed groups and held for ransom.
But paying a ransom didn’t work for 12-year-old Treasure, the only captive held back from the more than 100 schoolchildren kidnapped from their school in July 2021 in the northwestern Kaduna state. Instead, his captors hung on, and he had to escape the forests on his own in November.
Treasure’s ordeal is part of a worrying new development in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country where the mass abduction of 276 Chibok schoolgirls a decade ago marked a new era of fear —with nearly 100 of the girls still in captivity. Since the Chibok abductions, at least 1,500 students have been kidnapped, as armed groups increasingly find in them a lucrative way to fund other crimes and control villages in the nation’s mineral-rich but poorly policed northwestern region.
The Associated Press spoke with five families whose children have been taken hostage in recent years and witnessed a pattern of trauma and struggle with education among the children. Parents are becoming more reluctant to send their children to school in parts of northern Nigeria, worsening the education crisis in a country of over 200 million where at least 10 million children are out of school — one of the world’s highest rates.
The AP could not speak with Treasure, who is undergoing therapy after escaping captivity in November. His relatives, however, were interviewed at their home in Kaduna state, including Jennifer, his cousin, who was also kidnapped when her boarding school was attacked in March 2021.
“I have not recovered, my family has not recovered (and) Treasure barely talks about it,” said Jennifer, 26, as her mother sobbed beside her. “I don’t think life will ever be the same after all the experience,” she added.
Unlike the Islamic extremists that staged the Chibok kidnappings, the deadly criminal gangs terrorizing villages in northwestern Nigeria are mostly former herdsmen who were in conflict with farming host communities, according to authorities. Aided by arms smuggled through Nigeria’s porous borders, they operate with no centralized leadership structure and launch attacks driven mostly by economic motive.
Some analysts see school kidnappings as a symptom of Nigeria’s worsening security crisis.
According to Nigerian research firm SBM Intelligence, nearly 2,000 people have been abducted in exchange for ransoms this year. However, armed gangs find the kidnapping of schoolchildren a “more lucrative way of getting attention and collecting bigger ransoms,” said the Rev. John Hayab, a former chairman of the local Christian association in Kaduna who has often helped to secure the release of abducted schoolchildren like Treasure.
The security lapses that resulted in the Chibok kidnappings 10 years ago remain in place in many schools, according to a recent survey by the United Nations children’s agency’s Nigeria office, which found that only 43% of minimum safety standards such as perimeter fencing and guards are met in over 6,000 surveyed schools.
Bola Tinubu, who was elected president in March 2023, had promised to end the kidnappings while on the campaign trail. Nearly a year into his tenure there is still “a lack of will and urgency and a failure to realize the gravity of the situation, or to respond to it,” said Nnamdi Obasi, senior adviser for Nigeria at the International Crisis Group.
“There is no focused attention or commitment of resources on this emergency,” he added.
Treasure was the youngest of more than 100 children seized from the Bethel Baptist High School in the Chikun area of Kaduna in 2021. After receiving ransoms and freeing the other children in batches, his captors vowed to keep him, said the Rev. Hayab.
That didn’t stop his family from clinging to hope that he would one day return home alive. His grandmother, Mary Peter, remembers the night he returned home, agitated and hungry.
“He told us he was hungry and wanted to eat,” she said of Treasure’s first words that night after two years and three months in captivity.
“Treasure went through hell,” said the Rev. Hayab with the Christian association. “We need to work hard to get him out of … what he saw, whatever he experienced.”
Nigerian lawmakers in 2022 outlawed ransom payments, but desperate families continue to pay, knowing kidnappers can be ruthless, sometimes killing their victims when their relatives delay ransom payments often delivered in cash at designated locations.
And sometimes, even paying a ransom does not guarantee freedom. Some victims have accused security forces of not doing anything to arrest the kidnappers even after providing information about their calls and where their hostages were held.
Such was the experience of Treasure’s uncle Emmanuel Audu, who was seized and chained to a tree for more than a week after he had gone to deliver the ransom demanded for his nephew to be freed.
Audu and other hostages were held in Kaduna’s notorious Davin Rugu forest. Once a bustling forest reserve that was home to wild animals and tourists, it is now one of the bandit enclaves in the ungoverned and vast woodlands tucked between mountainous terrains and stretching across thousands of kilometers as they connect states in the troubled region.
“The whole forest is occupied by kidnappers and terrorists,” Audu said as he talked about his time in captivity. His account was corroborated by several other kidnap victims and analysts.
Some of his captors in the forest were boys as young as Treasure, a hint of what his nephew could have become, and a sign that a new generation of kidnappers is already emerging.
“They beat us mercilessly. When you faint, they will flog you till you wake up,” he said, raising his hand to show the scars that reminded him of life in captivity.
No one in the Peter family recovered after their experience with kidnapping.
Jennifer says she rarely sleeps well even though it’s been almost three years since she was freed by her captors. Her mother, a food trader, is finding it hard to raise capital again for her business after using most of her savings and assets inherited from her late husband to pay for ransoms.
Therapy is so costly, that the church had to sponsor that of Treasure while other members of the family are left to endure and hope they eventually get over their experiences.
“Sometimes, when I think about what happened, I wish I did not go to school,” said Jennifer with a rueful grin. “I just feel sorry for the children that are still in boarding school because it is not safe. They are the main target.”
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Cyprus suspends processing of Syrian asylum applications
NICOSIA, Cyprus — Cyprus said Saturday it’s suspending processing all asylum applications by Syrian nationals because large numbers of refugees from the war-torn country continue to reach the island nation by boat, primarily from Lebanon.
In a written statement, the Cypriot government said the suspension is also partly because of ongoing efforts to get the European Union to redesignate some areas of the war-torn country as safe zones to enable repatriations.
The drastic step comes in the wake of Cypriot President Nicos Christodoulides’ visit to Lebanon earlier week to appeal to authorities there to stop departures of migrant-laden boats from their shores. The request comes in light of a 27-fold increase in migrant arrivals to Cyprus so far this year over the same period last year.
According to Cyprus Interior Ministry statistics, some 2,140 people arrived by boat to EU-member Cyprus between Jan. 1 and April 4 of this year, the vast majority of them Syrian nationals departing from Lebanon. In contrast, only 78 people arrived by boat to the island nation in the corresponding period last year.
On Monday, Christodoulides and Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on the European Union to provide financial support to help cash-strapped Lebanon stop migrants from reaching Cyprus.
Just days prior to his Lebanon trip, the Cypriot president said that he had personally asked EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen to intercede with Lebanese authorities to curb migrant boat departures.
Although the EU should provide “substantial” EU support to Lebanon, Christodoulides said any financial help should be linked to how effectively Lebanese authorities monitor their coastline and prevent boat departures.
Lebanon and Cyprus already have a bilateral deal where Cypriot authorities would return migrants attempting to reach the island from Lebanon. But Cypriot Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou has said that Lebanon is refusing to hold up its end of the deal because of domestic pressures.
Lebanon — which is coping with a crippling economic crisis since 2019 — hosts some 805,000 U.N.-registered Syrian refugees, of which 90% live in poverty, the U.N.’s refugee agency says. Lebanese officials estimate the actual number is far higher, ranging between 1.5 and 2 million. Many have escaped the civil war in their country which entered its 14th year.
Ioannou this week visited Denmark, Czechia and Greece to drum up support for a push to get the EU to declare parts of Syria as safe. Doing so would enable EU nations to send back Syrians hailing from those “safe” areas.
The Cypriot interior minister said he and his Czech and Danish counterparts to draft an official document for the EU executive to get a formal discussion on the Syrian safe zone idea going.
Additionally, Ioannou said he hand his Czech counterpart agreed on a sending joint fact-finding mission to Syria to determine which areas in the country are safe.
However, U.N. agencies, human rights groups, and Western governments maintain that Syria is not yet safe for repatriation.
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US, Beijing aim to boost number of American students in China
WASHINGTON — Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he sees interest among fellow scholars wane even after China reopened.
Common concerns, he said, include restrictions on academic freedom and the risk of being stranded in China.
These days, only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of close to 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at U.S. schools.
Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see as diminishing economic opportunities and strained relations between Washington and Beijing.
Whatever the reason for the imbalance, U.S. officials and scholars bemoan the lost opportunities for young people to experience life in China and gain insight into a formidable American adversary.
And officials from both countries agree that more should be done to encourage the student exchanges, at a time when Beijing and Washington can hardly agree on anything else.
“I do not believe the environment is as hospitable for educational exchange as it was in the past, and I think both sides are going to need to take steps,” said Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.
The U.S. has advised its. citizens to “reconsider travel” to China over concerns of arbitrary detentions and widened use of exit bans to bar Americans from leaving the country. Campbell said this has hindered the rebuilding of the exchanges and easing the advisory is now under “active consideration.”
For its part, Beijing is rebuilding programs for international students that were shuttered during the pandemic, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has invited tens of thousands of U.S. high school students to visit.
The situation was far different after President Barack Obama started the 100,000 Strong initiative in 2009 to drastically increase the number of U.S. students studying in China.
By 2012, there were as many as 24,583 U.S. students in China, according to data by the Chinese education ministry. The Open Doors reports by the Institute of International Education, which only track students enrolled in U.S. schools and studying in China for credit, show the number peaked at 14,887 in the 2011-12 school year. But 10 years later, the number was down to only 211.
In late 2023, the number of American students stood at 700, according to Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China, who said this was far too few in a country of such importance to the United States.
“We need young Americans to learn Mandarin. We need young Americans to have an experience of China,” Burns said.
Without these U.S. students, “in the next decade, we won’t be able to exercise savvy, knowledgeable diplomacy in China,” warned David Moser, an American linguist who went to China in the 1980s and is now tasked with establishing a new master’s program for international students at Beijing Capital Normal University.
Moser recalled the years when American students found China fascinating and thought an education there could lead to an interesting career. But he said the days of bustling trade and money deals are gone, while American students and their parents are watching China and the United States move away from each other. “So people think investment in China as a career is a dumb idea,” Moser said.
After 2012, the number of American students in China dipped but held steady at more than 11,000 for several years, according to Open Doors, until the pandemic hit, when China closed its borders and kept most foreigners out. Programs for overseas students that took years to build were shuttered, and staff were let go, Moser said.
Amy Gadsden, executive director of China Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, also attributed some of the declining interest to foreign businesses closing their offices in China. Beijing’s draconian governing style, laid bare by its response to the pandemic, also has given American students a pause, she said.
Garrett, who is on track to graduate this summer from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, said he is ambivalent about working in China, citing the lack of access to information, restrictions on discussions of politically sensitive issues and China’s sweeping anti-spying law. He had lived in Hong Kong as a teenager and interned in mainland China, and said he is still interested in traveling to China, but not anytime soon.
Some American students remain committed to studying in China, said Andrew Mertha, director of the China Global Research Center at SAIS. “There are people who are interested in China for China’s sake,” he said. “I don’t think those numbers are affected at all.”
About 40 U.S. students are now studying at the Hopkins-Nanjing center in the eastern Chinese city, and the number is expected to go up in the fall to approach the pre-pandemic level of 50-60 students, said Adam Webb, the center’s American co-director.
Among them is Chris Hankin, 28, who said he believed time in China was irreplaceable because he could interact with ordinary people and travel to places outside the radar of international media. “As the relationship becomes more intense, it’s important to have that color, to have that granularity,” said Hankin, a master’s student of international relations with a focus on energy and the environment.
Jonathan Zhang, a Chinese American studying at the prestigious Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said it was more important than ever to be in China at a time of tense relations. “It’s really hard to talk about China without being in China,” he said. “I think it’s truly a shame that so many people have never stepped foot in China.”
Zhang was met with concerns when he deferred an offer at a consulting firm to go Beijing. “They’re like, ‘Oh, be safe,’ or like, ‘What do you mean, you’re going back to China?'” Zhang said. “I feel like the (Chinese) government is trying with an earnest effort, but I feel like a lot of this trust has been broken.”
Gadsden said U.S. universities need to do more to nudge students to consider China. “We need to be more intentional about creating the opportunities and about encouraging students to do this deeper work on China, because it’s going to be interesting for them, and it’s going to be valuable for the U.S.-China relationship and for the world,” she said.
In China, Jia Qingguo, a professor of international relations and a national political adviser, has suggested Beijing clarify its laws involving foreign nationals, introduce a separate system for political reviews of foreign students’ dissertations, and make it easier for foreign graduates to find internships and jobs in Chinese companies.
Meanwhile, China is hosting American high school students under a plan Xi unveiled in November to welcome 50,000 in the next five years.
In January, a group of 24 students from Iowa’s Muscatine High School became the first to travel to China. The all-expenses-paid, nine-day trip took them to the Beijing Zoo, Great Wall, Palace Museum, the Yu Garden and Shanghai Museum.
Sienna Stonking, one of the Muscatine students, now wants to return to China to study.
“If I had the opportunity, I would love to go to college in China,” she told China’s state broadcaster CGTN. “Honestly, I love it there.”
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Police identify man who stabbed 6 people to death in Sydney
SYDNEY — Police have identified the man they say stabbed six people to death at a busy Sydney shopping center before he was fatally shot by a police officer.
New South Wales Police said Sunday that Joel Cauchi, 40, was responsible for the Saturday afternoon attack at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Bondi Junction, in the city’s eastern suburbs and not far from the world-famous Bondi Beach.
NSW Assistant Police Commissioner Anthony Cooke told reporters at a media conference on Sunday that Cauchi suffered from unspecified mental health issues and police investigators weren’t treating the attack as terrorism-related.
“We are continuing to work through the profiling of the offender but very clearly to us at this stage it would appear that this is related to the mental health of the individual involved,” Cooke said.
“There is still, to this point … no information we have received, no evidence we have recovered, no intelligence that we have gathered that would suggest that this was driven by any particular motivation — ideology or otherwise,” he added.
The attack at the shopping center, one of the country’s busiest and which was a hub of activity on a particularly warm fall afternoon, began around 3:10 p.m. and police were swiftly called.
Six people — five women and one man — were killed in the attack and 12 others were injured, including a 9-month-old child, whose mother died during the attack.
Two of the six victims were from overseas and have no family in Australia, Cooke said Sunday.
Video footage shared online appears to show many people fleeing as a knife-wielding Cauchi walked through the shopping center and lunged at people.
Other footage shows a man confronting the attacker on an escalator in the shopping center by holding what appeared to be a post towards him.
Cauchi was shot dead by a lone female police officer at the scene.
NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said the officer was doing well under the circumstances and will be interviewed Sunday.
“She showed enormous courage and bravery,” Webb said, adding other responding police, civilians and staff at the center had too. “It was an awful situation … but it could have been much worse.”
The shopping center remains closed Sunday and will be an active crime scene for days, police said.
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Biden returns to White House after Iran targets Israel
washington — U.S. President Joe Biden cut short a weekend visit to his holiday Rehoboth beach home in the state of Delaware to quickly return to the White House after Iran targeted Israel with more than 100 armed drones.
“Iran has begun an airborne attack against Israel,” said White House National Security spokesperson Adrienne Watson in a mid-afternoon statement on Saturday. The president’s team “is in constant communication with Israeli officials as well as other partners and allies. This attack is likely to unfold over a number of hours. President Biden has been clear: our support for Israel’s security is ironclad. The United States will stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran.”
After returning to the White House, Biden went to the situation room for a briefing.
Among those present, according to the White House, were Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Q. Brown, Central Intelligence Agency Director Bill Burns, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Vice President Kamala Harris and Chief of Staff Jeff Zients attended through a secure video connection.
Biden had told reporters Friday that he expected an Iranian attack on Israel “sooner rather than later.” Asked by a journalist what was his message for Iran, the president succinctly replied: “Don’t.”
The U.S. military began moving extra troops and equipment to sites in the Middle East, defense officials confirmed on Friday. It has about 40,000 troops in the region.
The U.S. Navy moved two guided-missile destroyers capable of intercepting drones and incoming missiles closer to Israel in anticipation of the Iranian attack, reported The Wall Street Journal.
The U.S. military is prepared to assist Israel in intercepting any weapons launched at its ally, CNN reported. Following confirmation of Iran’s launch of the drones, media reports said American and British warplanes began shooting down some of the aircraft before they reached Israel.
U.S. Navy forces in the Red Sea have previously intercepted long-range missiles launched toward Israel from Yemen by the Iranian-allied Houthi forces.
The Biden administration’s response to the Iranian attack will be closely watched by his political opponents, coming less than seven months before a general election rematch between the Democratic Party incumbent and his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.
Even before the Iranian drones reached Israeli airspace, some Republican lawmakers began reacting.
Representative Steve Scalise of the state of Louisiana wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that the United States “must stand strongly with our greatest Middle East ally as they defend themselves against Iran,” adding that the Biden administration “cannot continue to capitulate to terrorists.”
Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of the state of Tennessee, in a message on X, called for Biden to “move quickly and launch aggressive retaliatory strikes on Iran.”
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Hundreds rally in Niger’s capital to push for US military departure
NIAMEY — Hundreds took to the streets of Niger’s capital Saturday to demand the departure of U.S. troops, after the ruling junta further shifted its strategy by ending a military accord with the United States and welcoming Russian military instructors.
Marching arm in arm through central Niamey, the crowd waved Nigerien flags in a demonstration that recalled anti-French protests that spurred the withdrawal of France’s forces from Niger last year after the army seized power in a coup.
One hand-written sign in English read “USA rush out of Niger,” in a show of support for the junta and its decision in mid-March to revoke an accord that had allowed around 1,000 U.S. military personnel to operate on its territory out of two bases.
“We’re here to say no to the American base, we don’t want Americans on our soil,” said protester Maria Saley on the sidelines of the march.
Until the coup, Niger had remained a key security partner of France and the United States, which used it as a base as part of international efforts to curb a decade-old Islamist insurgency in West Africa’s Sahel region.
But the new authorities in Niger have joined juntas in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso in ending military deals with one-time Western allies, quitting the regional political and economic bloc ECOWAS and fostering closer ties with Russia.
The arrival on Wednesday of Russian military instructors and equipment was further evidence of the junta’s openness to closer cooperation with Moscow, which is seeking to boost its influence in Africa.
A few Russian flags were visible at the protest, but some citizens told Reuters Friday they did not want the welcomed Russian defense assistance to lead to a permanent presence in Niger.
“We must not subsequently see the implementation of Russian foreign military bases,” said Abdoulaye Seydou, the coordinator of the M62 coalition of civil society groups that led anti-French protests last year.
His concerns were echoed by student Souleymane Ousmane: “This is how the French and the Americans and all the other countries settled in Niger — from military cooperation, they ended up occupying large parts of our country.”
It is unclear, however, if or when the U.S. troops will leave.
In March, the top U.S. general appeared to suggest there was at least some support from within Niger’s junta for a continued U.S. military presence despite its announced revocation of the accord.
One of the U.S. programs in Niger is a drone base known as Air Base 201, which cost more than $100 million.
Violence in the central Sahel hit a high in 2023, with conflict fatalities in the region rising by 38% compared with the previous year, according to U.S.-based crisis-monitoring group ACLED, citing reports of over 8,000 people killed in Burkina Faso alone last year.
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