Help our local partners realise their vision of hope for their communities
8 July 2016
News from HART
- We are hiring! HART is currently recruiting a creative and dynamic Communications and Fundraising Executive. The deadline for applications is 12 noon on 18th July. Please download the application pack here: www.hart-uk.org/about-you/jobs
Burma
- Two mosques in Burma have suffered arson attacks over the past two weeks. It is starkly clear that Burmese society is divided along ethnic and religious lines. Sporadic but fierce violence against Muslims in Myanmar has occurred since rioting broke out in 2012, forcing more than 100,000 members of the Muslim Rohingya minority to flee their homes in western Rakhine State.
- The Burma Army’s deputy regional commander visited Mong Yaw village in Lashio Township on Sunday, giving “donations” to victims’ families after seven people in and around the village were killed on June 28, with locals blaming the Burma Army. The local police refused to investigate the killings, urging locals that they will not investigate killings in a ‘conflict zone’.
India
- This week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya. His visit aims to enhance ties between Africa and India.
Nigeria
- President Buhari has stated that Nigeria’s unity is not negotiable after attacks by militants on oil and gas installations in the Niger Delta.
- Al Jazeera has reported on the escalating conflict between Fulani cattle-herders and farming communities in central Nigeria.
- A Sierra Leonean diplomat kidnapped in Nigeria last week has been freed unharmed five days later. The government of Sierra Leone has denied paying a ransom.
South Sudan
An image from ‘Dear World’, an online photo exhibition of messages from the people of South Sudan by Robert Fogarty
- Saturday will mark the 5–year anniversary of South Sudan’s independence from Sudan. Escalation in violence over the past months, despite to so-called Peace Agreement leave little to celebrate.
- Former rebels aligned with Vice President Riek Machar on Wednesday accused the South Sudanese government of arrests and killings they said could drag the country back to civil war.
- Up to 4.8 million people in South Sudan will face severe food shortages and some may face a hunger catastrophe in coming months, three UN agencies said last week. The current deterioration in food security and nutrition is primarily due to physical insecurity, the economic crisis, and depleted stocks from the last harvest.
- Rains have flooded the shelters of over 4,000 IDPs, mostly women and children, in Yei who escaped violence in the Western Equatoria region last year.
- Thousands of people internally displaced by the recent violence in Wau and now live in United Nations protection of civilians sites as well as churches have rejected calls by the state government for them to return to home.
- CARE International have released a statement highlighting the alarming prevalence of rape being used as a weapon of war in South Sudan. A recent UN Population Fund survey found one-in-five displaced women in South Sudan had been raped during the conflict.
- Amnesty International have released a new report highlighting the devastating impact on mental health that the conflict that erupted in December 2013 has caused. You can access the report here.
Sudan
- About 10 members have been removed from Sudan’s National Dialogue committees so far because of critical views, according to Dr. Saad-Eddin Mohammed Al-Tayib, ex-member of the governance committee.
- The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) has expressed its doubts about the intention behind the four-month cease-fire for South Kordofan and the Blue Nile states. According to Malik Agar, chairman of the SPLM-N, the unilateral cease-fire is “merely a declaration of intent, as any cease-fire agreed-on by the parties in dispute requires monitoring and enforcement mechanisms”.