The war in Ukraine has left much of the population traumatized in some way. Children can have a rough time. That’s why US pediatrician and activist Irwin Redlener founded Ukraine Children’s Action Project – designed to get Ukrainian children access to health care. Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. (Camera: Pavlo Terekhov )
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Month: June 2024
Kabul’s Chinatown: A marketplace for Chinese products
While most Chinatowns in cities around the world either used to be or are still places where many people of Chinese descent live or shop, that is not the case for a Chinatown in Kabul, Afghanistan. VOA’s Afghan service has more on what can be found in Kabul’s Chinatown. The story is narrated by Bezhan Hamdard. Contributors: Roshan Noorzai, Noshaba Ashna
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Female students missing from Afghan university entrance exams for 3rd straight year
Islamabad — Taliban education officials in Afghanistan launched university entrance exams in almost half of the country’s 34 provinces Thursday, with no female students present for the third consecutive year.
The National Examination Authority, which conducts the multistage exam process, has stated that it plans to admit at least 75,000 male candidates to public and private universities this year.
Since reclaiming power three years ago, the hardline Taliban have barred girls 12 and older from attending school beyond sixth grade in Afghanistan. The ban was abruptly extended to female university students in December 2022, depriving them of completing their higher education.
The Taliban’s men-only government has placed sweeping restrictions on women’s rights and freedom of movement, prohibiting many of them from public and private workplaces.
The United Nations and human rights groups have persistently decried and demanded the Taliban remove curbs on Afghan women’s access to education and work.
This Saturday, June 8, will mark 1,000 days since the de facto Afghan authorities prohibited female secondary education, impacting more than one million girls nationwide.
“Afghanistan will never fully recover from these 1,000 days,” Heather Barr, women’s rights associate director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA via email.
“The potential loss in this time – the artists, doctors, poets, and engineers who will never get to lend their country their skills – cannot be replaced. Every additional day, more dreams die,” Barr stated.
The Taliban defend their governance as being in line with Afghan culture and their strict interpretation of Islamic law, dismissing calls for reforms as interference in the country’s internal matters.
No foreign country has formally granted diplomatic recognition to the Taliban government, mainly over human rights concerns and its harsh treatment of Afghan women.
Corporal punishment
The fundamentalist rulers have also ignored U.N. calls for halting the public flogging of Afghan men and women convicted of crimes such as “moral crimes” and running away from home, among others.
The latest such punishments were carried out Tuesday when a group of 63 people, including 14 women, were publicly subjected to mass flogging at a sports ground in the northern Afghan city of Sar-e Pul.
“We are deeply disturbed by the widespread, continued use of corporal punishment in Afghanistan,” Jeremy Laurence, the U.N. human rights spokesperson, said Wednesday.
He noted the accused reportedly were lashed between 15 and 39 times before being returned to prison to complete their sentences. Laurence reminded the Taliban that corporal punishment “is a clear violation” of international human rights law.
“We again urge the de facto authorities to immediately cease all forms of corporal punishment. Furthermore, we call on the de facto authorities to ensure full respect for due process and fair trial rights, in particular access to legal representation, for anyone facing criminal charges.”
The Taliban have publicly flogged hundreds of men and women in sports stadiums across the country since seizing power in 2021. At least five Afghans convicted of murder have also been executed publicly by gunfire.
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Trade union says UK’s Rwanda deportation policy makes officials break law
LONDON — Government officials would be acting unlawfully by implementing Britain’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda in breach of an order from Europe’s human rights court, a civil servants’ trade union told London’s High Court on Thursday.
The FDA union is taking legal action against the government over guidance issued to civil servants on how to implement decisions to remove people to Rwanda. It says this would mean its members breaking international law.
The guidance tells officials to obey ministers if they decide to ignore temporary injunctions — known as interim measures — issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which is based in Strasbourg.
The FDA’s lawyers say this unlawfully involves civil servants in “a clear violation of international law” in breach of their code of conduct.
“The Strasbourg court has made clear beyond any doubt that interim measures are not optional,” the union’s lawyer Tom Hickman said.
The first planned flight taking asylum seekers to Rwanda was blocked in 2022 after the ECHR issued a temporary injunction – a situation Britain’s new law to implement the Rwanda policy seeks to pre-empt by stating that it is for ministers to decide whether to abide by such an order.
Government lawyers argue that the guidance simply follows the new law and that civil servants following ministers’ decisions would be complying with domestic law.
Election is key
The legal challenge comes ahead of a July 4 national election in Britain, in which immigration will again be a major political issue as small boats bearing asylum seekers continue to make the perilous journey across the Channel from France.
Sending asylum seekers who have arrived in Britain without permission to Rwanda is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship immigration policy, but legal and parliamentary obstacles have meant it has never got off the ground.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled the plan was unlawful because of the risk that Rwanda would return asylum seekers to their country of origin. Sunak in response signed a new treaty with the east African country and pushed new legislation through parliament to override the Supreme Court ruling.
But implementation of the policy hinges on Sunak’s Conservatives winning the election.
The first flight is due to leave on July 24 if they do. But the opposition Labour Party, leading by about 20 points in opinion polls, has pledged to scrap the plan if elected.
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In Eswatini, questions linger one year after HPV vaccine program launch
Cervical cancer is the most common cancer among women in the southern African nation of Eswatini, while globally it’s the fourth most common. Despite this, a vaccination program in Eswatini that aims to prevent cervical cancer is meeting resistance. Nokukhanya Musi reports from Manzini, Eswatini.
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Russia says Ukrainian drone attack hit oil refinery
Negotiator discusses the pathways of gaining release of wrongfully detained Americans
Costs of World War II, Ukraine war fuse as Allies remember D-Day without Russia
UTAH BEACH, France — As the sun sets on the D-Day generation, it will rise again Thursday over the Normandy beaches where the waves long ago washed away the blood and boot-steps of its soldiers, but where their exploits that helped end Adolf Hitler’s tyranny are being remembered by the next generations, seeing war again in Europe, in Ukraine.
Ever-dwindling numbers of World War II veterans who have pilgrimaged back to France, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has dashed hopes that lives and cities wouldn’t again be laid to waste in Europe, are making the always poignant anniversaries of the June 6, 1944, Allied landings even more so 80 years on.
As now-centenarian veterans revisit old memories and fallen comrades buried in Normandy graves, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presence at D-Day commemorations with world leaders — including U.S. President Joe Biden — who are supporting his country’s fight against Russia’s invasion will inevitably fuse together World War II’s awful past with the fraught present on Thursday.
The break of dawn almost eight decades exactly after Allied troops waded ashore under hails of gunfire on five code-named beaches — Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword — will kick off a day of remembrance by Allied nations now standing together again behind Ukraine — and with World War II ally Russia not invited by host France. It cited Russia’s “war of aggression against Ukraine that has intensified in recent weeks” for the snub.
With the dead and wounded on both sides in Ukraine estimated in the hundreds of thousands, commemorations for the more than 4,400 Allied dead on D-Day and many tens of thousands more, including French civilians, killed in the ensuing Battle of Normandy are tinged with concerns that World War II lessons are being lost.
“There are things worth fighting for,” said World War II veteran Walter Stitt, who fought in tanks and turns 100 in July, as he visited Omaha Beach this week. “Although I wish there was another way to do it than to try to kill each other.”
“We’ll learn one of these days, but I won’t be around for that,” he said.
Conscious of the inevitability that major D-Day anniversaries will soon take place without World War II veterans, huge throngs of aficionados in uniforms and riding vehicles of the time, and tourists soaking up the spectacle, have flooded Normandy for the 80th anniversary.
The fair-like atmosphere fueled by World War II-era jeeps and trucks tearing down hedge-rowed lanes so deadly for Allied troops who fought dug-in German defenders, and of reenactors playing at war on sands where D-Day soldiers fell, leave open the question of what meaning anniversaries will have once the veterans are gone.
But at the 80th, they’re the VIPs of commemorations across the Normandy coast where the largest-ever land, sea and air armada punctured Hitler’s defenses in Western Europe and helped precipitate his downfall 11 months later.
Those who traveled to Normandy include women who were among the millions who built bombers, tanks and other weaponry and played other vital World War II roles that were long overshadowed by the combat exploits of men.
“We weren’t doing it for honors and awards. We were doing it to save our country. And we ended up helping save the world,” said 98-year-old Anna Mae Krier, who worked as a riveter building B-17 and B-29 bombers.
Feted wherever they go in wheelchairs and walking with canes, veterans are using their voices to repeat their message they hope will live eternal: Never forget.
“To know the amount of people who were killed here, just amazing,” 98-year-old Allan Chatwin, who served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, said as he visited Omaha, the deadliest of the Allied beaches on D-Day.
He quickly added: “I don’t know that amazing is the word.”
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Biden congratulates India’s Modi as US looks forward to more Indo-Pacific cooperation
Washington — U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday congratulated Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his election victory, and Washington said it looked forward to further cooperation with New Delhi to ensure a free Indo-Pacific region.
“The friendship between our nations is only growing as we unlock a shared future of unlimited potential,” Biden said in a posting on social media platform X.
Modi, whose National Democratic Alliance retained power with a surprisingly slim majority in voting results announced on Tuesday, said he had received a call from Biden.
“[I] Conveyed that India-U.S. comprehensive global partnership is poised to witness many new landmarks in the years to come. Our partnership will continue to be a force for global good for the benefit of humanity,” Modi said on X.
The United States and India have deepened ties in recent years given shared concerns about China’s growing power, even though New Delhi has maintained its long-standing relationship with Russia despite the war in Ukraine, and human rights issues.
In a statement issued shortly after Biden’s congratulatory message, the U.S. State Department said Washington looked forward “to continuing to further our partnership with the Indian government to promote prosperity and innovation, address the climate crisis, and ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Tuesday called the U.S.-Indian relationship “a great partnership,” although the U.S. had concerns about human rights, which it would continue to raise openly with New Delhi.
Ties have been tested by the discovery of assassination plots against Sikh nationalists in Canada and the United States. In November, U.S. authorities said an Indian government official had directed the plot in the attempted murder of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Sikh separatist and dual citizen of the United States and Canada.
Last month, the U.S. ambassador to India said Washington was satisfied so far with India’s moves to ensure accountability in the alleged plots, but many steps were still needed and there must be consequences for what was a “red line for America.”
Political analysts say Washington has been restrained in public criticism of Modi because it hopes India will act as a counterweight to an expansionist China.
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Turkish arms industry gains greater role in supporting Ukraine
Turkey is supplying weapons to Ukraine as Kyiv works to resolve its ammunition shortage. A Turkish weapons manufacturer is teaming with the U.S. to open a munitions factory, while another Turkish firm is set to open a drone factory in Ukraine. From Istanbul, Dorian Jones reports.
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Poland launches investigation into Russian, Belarusian political influence
Johannesburg: The Evolving Face of Chinatown and South African Chinese
South Africa has seen several waves of immigration from China, with early generations of migrants fleeing extreme poverty at home and newer arrivals seeking business opportunities. Kate Bartlett has the story about Chinese South Africans who have established businesses Johannesburg’s old and new Chinatowns.
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From refugee camps to World Cup glory: Inspiring journey of Afghanistan cricket
Washington — When the parents of Karim Sadiq and Taj Maluk fled a wrecked Afghanistan torn apart by the 1979 Soviet invasion and infighting warlords, they didn’t imagine their children — Karim and Taj — would return to reunite the war-torn nation through cricket.
Taj Maluk became the first coach of the Afghan national team. Fans refer to him as one of the founding fathers of Afghan cricket. Younger brother Karim Sadiq played a key role in Afghanistan’s qualification in the World Cup in 2010, creating history for the cricket-loving nation of more than 40 million.
The brothers were brought up in a refugee camp called Katcha Garhi, in Peshawar, Pakistan. The family left a decent life in the eastern Nangarhar province to live in a sea of mud houses and poverty.
“Life was all struggle those days,” Karim Sadiq recalls. “Doing odd jobs in the night and playing cricket in the daytime. We used a stick as a bat, used to make plastic balls from plastic waste material.”
There was an old black-and-white TV set in their refugee camp where the young and elders watched international matches, including Pakistan winning the 1992 World Cup. These events had a huge influence on aspiring cricketers in Afghan refugee camps.
The elder brother, Taj Maluk, searched for talent in refugee camps and founded the Afghan Cricket Club, which arguably laid the foundation of the future Afghanistan team.
Another Afghan cricketer, Allah Dad Noori, also played a key role by pioneering a path for cricket in Afghanistan.
Like the brothers, many international Afghan players, such as Mohammad Shehzad, Raees Ahmadzai, Mohammad Nabi, and the country’s first global star Rashid Khan, now captain, all grew up learning cricket and becoming cricketers in Peshawar, Pakistan.
“It was our passion. We didn’t know then that Cricket would bring such happiness to the Afghan nation,” Karim Sadiq told VOA. “Cricket conveys a message that Afghanistan is not a country of war and drugs. It’s a country of love and sports.”
In 2001, after the invasion of the U.S. forces against the Taliban rule, cricket flourished in Afghanistan, which became an associate member of the ICC, the world’s cricketing body.
A new younger generation of cricketers emerged. Now, Afghanistan is a full member of the ICC’s elite club of 12 countries, and it enjoys the status of a test-playing nation.
The Afghan team won many hearts in the 2023 World Cup after earning wins against the former world champions — Pakistan, England and Sri Lanka.
“Afghan players fight for every match as they are fighting for the nation,” Pakistan’s former captain, Rashid Latif, who coached Afghanistan, told VOA. “T20 cricket needs aggression and Afghanistan players have it. They are capable of surprises in the World Cup.”
Now, Afghanistan is playing in the T20 Cricket World Cup co-hosted by the United States and West Indies. It has strong contenders like New Zealand and West Indies in the group, along with minnows Papa New Guinea and Uganda. Some experts call it the “Group of Death” because only two teams will make it through the knockout stage.
The Taliban banned all women’s sports and put restrictions on some men’s sports, but not cricket. There is speculation it’s because they enjoyed the game themselves or were apprehensive about the possible public reaction if they banned it, given its massive popularity.
A few weeks ago, when Afghanistan’s team captain, Rashid Khan, visited Afghanistan to meet family and friends, Taliban officials presented him with bouquets and took selfies with the superstar.
Rashid and his team members, including young superstars — batters Rehmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran, allrounder Azmatullah Omarzai, spinners Mujeeb-ur Rehman and Noor Ahmed — have arrived in the West Indies, as have their diehard supporters from Europe, Canada and the U.S.
Back in Afghanistan, Karim Sadiq is now working to promote the sport, while his elder brother, 49-year-old Taj Maluk, has turned to religion. “Cricket is not just a game. It reunites Afghans and brings joy to the lives of people,” Taj Maluk told VOA. “We will pray for their success.”
Karim Sadiq recalls when Afghanistan qualified for the T20 World Cup in 2010. “When we returned home, it was a festival. Everywhere, celebrating crowds held up the Afghan flag. We all wish to see such festivity again, to see Afghanistan become the World Champion.”
Across Afghanistan, fans have made special arrangements to view the matches. Some have pooled their money to buy dish antennas. Others have decorated the hujras, or living rooms, with national flags.
“Afghanistan is a wounded land. Cricket helps people stitch those wounds,“ said Shams ul Rahman Shirzad, a cricket fan in Nangarhar, from where the brothers Taj Maluk and Karim Sadiq hailed and once dreamed of having a national cricket team.
This story originated in VOA’s Afghan service.
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Narendra Modi’s path to becoming India’s prime minister
Chad, Sahel states receive Russia’s foreign and defense ministers
Yaounde, Cameroon — Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected in Chad’s capital N’djamena Wednesday, continuing an African tour that has taken him to Guinea and Congo. Russian Defense Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov has also been on the move in Africa, visiting Libya and Niger. The visits are seen by civil society and analysts as Russia’s attempt to establish its troops in the Sahel region after military leaders seized power, sparking ideological differences over the presence of American and French troops in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Niger and Chad.
Several hundred people gathered at the N’djamena International airport Wednesday to welcome Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Chad’s government says it mobilized civilians to receive Lavrov because he is the first top foreign official to visit after the inauguration of Mahamat Idriss Deby as Chad’s President and the formation of a new government to end a three-year transition in the central African state.
Among those awaiting the Russian envoy is 38-year-old merchant Immaculate Djeida.
Djeida said she expects Russia, one of the leading producers and exporters of wheat, to transfer technology and know-how to Chad, where civilians have enough land to produce wheat, rice, maize and beef but do not have enough food to eat. She said she expects Russia to assist Chad in developing a viable electricity network that can bring electrical power to 90 percent of Chad’s citizens.
Djeida spoke to VOA via a messaging app from N’djamena Wednesday.
In a statement released Wednesday, Chad’s government said Lavrov will discuss efficient methods to combat terrorism, and enhance military, diplomatic, economic and trade ties between Chad and Russia.
The government said Lavrov will also discuss the security situation in the countries of the Sahel as well as the war in Sudan, which has displaced close to a million people across Sudan’s border to Chad and Libya.
Chad says Russia will support it in dealing with the humanitarian crisis caused by the war against Boko Haram terrorists that has killed more than 36,000 people and displaced 3 million according to the United Nations.
Chad is fighting Boko Haram alongside troops from neighbors Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Lavrov is visiting Chad at a time when Russia is expanding its military presence in Sahel countries including Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Sudan and Chad. At the same time, Sahel countries are asking troops of their former colonial ruler, France to leave.
Niger’s military rulers said in May of this year, high-level talks were held with U.S. military officials in Niamey to coordinate plans to also withdraw more than 900 American military forces before the end of 2024.
Chad says most U.S. troops left its territory before the central African states’ May 6 presidential elections. Mahamat Idriss Deby, the declared winner, told Chad state TV during his inauguration that cooperation with U.S. troops is under review, but gave no further details.
U.S. troops have been stationed in Chad and Niger to help local militaries combat Islamist terrorists in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Sudan and Chad.
Yamingue Betinbaye is a political analyst at Chad’s Anthropology and Human Sciences Research Center. He spoke on Chads State TV Wednesday.
Betinbaye said Russia has been successfully reinforcing its military presence in countries of the Sahel region since 2021, when the Mali army, led by Colonel Assimi Goïta, seized power from President Bah Ndaw. He said Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali that have military rulers are suspending military cooperation with France because Paris never succeeded in pushing back jihadist threats even with the one-time presence of 5,500 stationed French troops in the region.
Betinbaye said anti-French sentiments increased in the Sahel when France supported Niger’s ousted President Mohamed Bazoum who was toppled by a popular military led by General Abdourahamane Tiani.
He said the presence of France, a former colonial power in Central and West Africa and the Sahel, is largely seen as an exploitative and overbearing political influence. France has always said it is present in Africa to promote democracy, human rights, economic growth and fight increasing insecurity.
Russia started deploying military equipment and trainers to Sahel countries when military leaders who seized power began forcing out French troops.
Russia says the visits of the two officials will end with the signing of joint security agreements with Chad, Guinea, Congo, Libya and Niger.
In January, Chad President Mahamat Idriss Deby met with the Russian leader Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. Deby said among issues he discussed with Putin were the military, diplomatic and trade ties Chad needs to fasten its development and bring lasting peace to the country where armed gangs and jihadist are in running battles with government troops.
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Refugees, migrants risk lives on dangerous routes from Africa to Europe
GENEVA — Every year, many of the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa seeking asylum or jobs in Europe are “at great risk of harm and death” because few protection services are available to help them on their perilous journey, according to a report issued by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, Tuesday.
“The absence of critical services is placing refugees and migrants at great risk of harm and death and is also triggering dangerous secondary onward movements,” Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR special envoy for the central Mediterranean situation told journalists at a briefing Tuesday in Geneva.
“Some refugees and migrants underestimate the risks, while many fall victim to the narratives of smugglers and traffickers,” he said.
The report highlights the horrors faced by refugees and migrants who risk their lives moving on dangerous routes stretching from the East and Horn of Africa and West Africa towards North Africa’s Atlantic coast, and across the Central Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
The UNHCR reports refugees and migrants from about 20 different African countries “die while crossing the desert or near borders.” As well as Sub-Saharan Africans, it says an increasing number of people from countries in Asia and the Middle East, including Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria are arriving in North Africa.
The report says most of the refugees and migrants “suffer serious human rights violations en route” including ‘’sexual and gender-based violence, kidnappings for ransom, torture, and physical abuse.”
“Protection services along the routes that can help mitigate the risks these people face — such as immediate humanitarian assistance, shelter for people who have been exposed to violence, and access to justice — are often not available,” Cochetel said.
“In many countries, the services that were there in 2022-2023 are no longer there. This is the case, in particular, in Morocco, in Mauritania, in Sudan because of the conflict, in the northern part of Niger, in the southern part of Algeria. So, basically these are in key hubs, key crossing routes that are used by migrants and refugees,” he said.
Aside from the conflict in Sudan, several other crises emerged in 2023 that forced people to flee their homes.
“Regrettably, more emergencies cannot be ruled out in 2024,” authors of the report warn. “Neither can the human need of people to flee or abandon their homes to find safety and or better… basic life conditions for themselves and their families.”
Cochetel observed that the lack of sustained funding threatens the limited services that currently are available, including search and rescue missions.
“In the past, la gendarmerie nationale [the national military police] in Agadez, Niger, would pick up people who had been stranded or abandoned by smugglers and traffickers in the desert. But such rescue missions,” he said, “no longer occur along that route.”
“The only country on the African continent where I know that this concept is implemented is in Djibouti,” Cochetel said.
He said Djiboutian authorities are patrolling the land side of their coast “to see people that have been abandoned by smugglers in the desertic areas or people who have returned with the same smugglers from Yemen and who are dropped in the middle of nowhere,” adding that such search and rescue projects needed to be developed in partnership with local authorities in Nigeria, southern Morocco, Mauritania, and other desert regions.
“We would need that to save more lives and bring back to safety people stranded or abandoned there,” Cochetel said.
Since the publication of the previous report in July 2022, the UNHCR says an estimated 3,045 individuals have been reported dead or missing along the combined Central and Western Mediterranean and Northwest Africa Maritime routes.
“However, the real figures could be significantly higher, as many incidents likely go undetected and remain unrecorded,” it said.
While the report is meant to make governments aware of the shortcomings in support services, UNHCR’s Cochetel said it also is intended to provide useful information on the availability of services for refugees and migrants who are “lost, stranded, and abused along the routes.”
For example, he said the report contains GPS coordinates and WhatsApp numbers that refugees and migrants can use to locate essential, possibly life-saving protective services.
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