Help our local partners realise their vision of hope for their communities
17 June 2016
Burma
Credits: JPaing, The Irrawaddy.
A military consultant writing for HIS Jane’s has highlighted the use of unmanned aerial drones by the Burma Army. The Chinese made drones have the capability of delivering surgical airstrikes, as well as undertaking surveillance roles. The drones have been deployed in Kachin and Shan states.
A screening of a film critical of Burma’s former military junta was cancelled this week. The film, “Twilight Over Burma: My Life as a Shan Princess”, directed by Austrian filmmaker Sabine Derflinger, tells the true story of Inge Sargent, an Austrian woman who married Sao Kya Seng, a prince – or saopha – of Myanmar’s Shan ethnic minority. Burma’s censorship board deemed the film capable of causing ‘disunity among national races’.
India
Amartya Sen has spoken out about India’s caste system stating, “I would say caste is anti-national because it divides the nation. We want to be national, not anti-national, for which it is important to eliminate all divisions”.
According to the Times of India, “men of upper caste electrocuted a 12-year-old ‘jaatav’ boy for merely plucking corn from their farm field in Agra”.
Nigeria
Credits: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters
The BBC has reported that, “Boko Haram have shot dead 18 women at a funeral in Nigeria’s northeast, rampaging through a village, setting houses on fire and shooting at random, witnesses and local government officials”.
According to the Premium Times, an operation carried out by troops of the Nigerian Army has resulted in the “arrest of two key Boko Haram’s commanders”
Bloomberg has reported that the Niger Delta Avengers threaten more violence stating that they will need, “a genuine attitude and conducive atmosphere” in order to, “commit to any proposed dialogue.”
Uganda
Between April and May 2016, intruders broke into the offices of at least three groups in Kampala – the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), and the Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda (HRNJ-Uganda). Human Rights Watch has highlighted the lack of investigation by Uganda’s police.
Sudan
Credits: Alberto Gonzales Farran
According to The Washington Post, “The United Nations said Tuesday it has verified that 80,000 people have fled a conflict that began in January in Darfur’s Jebel Marra region”.
“More than five million people in Sudan need urgent assistance after new displacements in Darfur and a surge of refugees arriving from South Sudan, a top European Commission official said Wednesday”, reported the Daily Mail.
AllAfrica has reported that, “More than 20 families from the war-affected Sudanese state now reside in Kaya camp in Upper Nile.” Fleeing fighting in Kilgo in Sudan’s Blue Nile these refugees have now South Sudanese camp, “with more expected to arrive”.
South Sudan
Credits: Henry Wilkins/Al Jazeera
In South Sudan, “Drought and economic collapse leave 20 percent of Northern Bahr el Ghazal’s population weeks away from famine.”
It has been reported that, “There are roughly 16,000 child soldiers in South Sudan, according to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan and UNICEF”.