Browse past isues
Help the mission
Support the mission
Get in touch
Through 17 months of conflict, tens of thousands of people have been killed in South Sudan and two million more displaced. Schools, health centers and markets have been looted and destroyed. It took a $1.8 billion humanitarian response last year for the country to avoid a famine. And it’s about to get even worse.
Families across Asia continue to await information about loved ones who have forcibly disappeared while thousands of such individuals languish in unknown prisons around the region. “Asia has the most number of cases of enforced disappearance around the world,” said Mary Aileen Bacalso, secretary general of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearance (AFAD), on the occasion of this year’s observance of the International Week of the Disappeared. Bacalso said that, in Kashmir alone, some 8,000 young men vanished in the 1990s, most of whom are believed to be buried in unmarked graves.
Global humanitarian assistance rose to record levels in 2014, reflecting the scale and scope of prolonged crises such as the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, as well as increased contributions from Middle Eastern donors, according to a study by the non-profit organization Development Initiatives.
With the looming threat of a tragic return to the past, Burundi risks sinking into another civil war. The news that is coming from missionaries based in the capital Bujumbura is certainly not reassuring. The situation is very tense. Schools, markets and shops are closed. People are scared, especially those who have taken part in demonstrations against current President Pierre Nkurunziza who is running for a third term. He has been in power since 2005 and having led the CNDD (National Council for the Defence of Democracy) rebel group, he now wants to run as its candidate for the presidency in the elections on 26 June this year at all costs.
Human trafficking continues to be a very serious problem in Southeast Asian countries. Criminal networks extend from the west of Burma, crossing the coastal areas of Bangladesh, to the southern coast of Thailand. According to the method used by traffickers, money from emigrants is required on arrival in the country of destination, often in Malaysia, where most of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority persecuted in Burma, and the Bengalis fleeing misery, hope to find refuge.
The publicity surrounding an 11-year-old communist rebel reported to have surrendered to the Philippine military this month has served as a harsh reminder of the work still to be done to rid the South East Asian country of the scourge of child soldiers. The boy, referred to in news reports by his nickname Dodong, was recruited at the age of six into the New People’s Army (NPA), which has been waging a Maoist insurgency in the southern Philippines for decades.
The humanitarian situation in Yemen has become catastrophic, relief officials stated, as a coalition of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia, rattled by what they saw as expanding Iranian influence in the Arabian Peninsula, is trying to stop Houthi fighters and loyalists of former President Ali Abdullah Salah taking control of Yemen. But the air campaign has had little success and vital aid was reported to be being held up by both sides. Houthis were stopping convoys of trucks reaching the southern port city of Aden, and an arms blockade by Saudi-led coalition navies, searching ships for weapons, was holding up food deliveries by sea.
As fighting continues in northern Myanmar, along China’s southern border, the government of Beijing is grappling with a flood of refugees, as well as questions about how Chinese authorities should respond to the conflict.
Late last year, the Italian government scrapped its Mediterranean search and rescue operation of the Mare Nostrum after funding shortages. The project was partially replaced by Operation Triton – but the service is far more restricted than its predecessor, both in geography (the patrols only go up to 30 miles off the Italian coast) and budget (roughly a third of Mare Nostrum). Critics have said it could leave tens of thousands of migrants at far greater risk.
As homeless men and women line up under the massive arms of Saint Peter’s colonnade waiting to take advantage of the Vatican’s newly-christened showers and barbershop, volunteers who assist them say they are deeply moved by their encounter with a population often rejected by society.
