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High-risk HIV groups facing record levels of criminalisation as countries bring in draconian laws

Logo pictured outside United Nations Aids agency (UNAids) building in Genevatheguardian.org

People at higher risk of HIV, such as gay men and people who inject drugs, are facing record levels of criminalisation worldwide, according to UNAids.

For the first time since the joint UN programme on HIV/Aids began reporting on punitive laws a decade ago, the number of countries criminalising same-sex sexual activity and gender expression has increased.

In the past year, Mali has made homosexuality a criminal offence, where the law previously only banned “public indecency”, and has also criminalised transgender people. Trinidad and Tobago’s court of appeal has overturned a landmark 2018 ruling that decriminalised consensual same-sex relations, reinstating the colonial-era ban. In Uganda, the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act has “intensified the proscription of same-sex relations”, and Ghana has moved in a similar direction with the reintroduction of legislation that would increase sentences for gay sex.

The crackdown on gay rights comes as the fight against HIV/Aids has been hit by abrupt US funding cuts, which have combined with “unprecedented” humanitarian challenges and climate crisis shocks to jeopardise hopes of ending the global epidemic this decade, UNAids said.

Several groups of people, known as “key populations”, are more likely to be infected with HIV. They include sex workers, gay men and other men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, transgender people, and those in prisons and other enclosed settings.

In 2025, only eight of 193 countries did not criminalise any of those groups or behaviours, or criminalise non-disclosure of HIV status, exposure or transmission, according to the report.

The number of people infected by HIV or dying from Aids-related causes in 2024 was the lowest for more than 30 years, according to the UNAids annual report, at 1.3 million and 630,000 respectively.

Progress was uneven – ranging from a 56% fall in infections since 2010 in sub-Saharan Africa to a 94% increase in the Middle East and North Africa. But coupled with scientific advances – such as twice-yearly drugs to prevent infection – the world had the “means and momentum” to end Aids as a public health threat by 2030, an internationally agreed goal, it said.

However, that has been “seriously jeopardised” in the early months of this year after sweeping US aid cuts that could undo decades of progress. In January, Donald Trump cut funding that had underpinned much of the global HIV response almost overnight.

The report highlights HIV-prevention services as an area of concern, with many particularly reliant on donor funding. The reported number of people receiving preventive drugs in Nigeria in November 2024 was approximately 43,000. By April 2025, that number had fallen to below 6,000.

Activists say access to prevention will be a particular issue for key populations, who may not be able to access mainstream healthcare due to factors such as stigma or fear of prosecution, but relied on donor-funded community clinics that have now closed.

Key populations were “always left behind”, said Dr Beatriz Grinsztejn, president of the International Aids Society (IAS).

The report is being released before an IAS conference next week in Kigali, Rwanda, where researchers will share data on the impact of cuts.

Modelling by Bristol University calculated that a one-year halt in US funding for preventive drugs in key populations in sub-Saharan Africa would mean roughly 700,000 people no longer used them, and lead to about 10,000 extra cases of HIV over the next five years.

UNAids modelling suggests that without any replacement for funding from US Pepfar (president’s emergency plan for Aids relief), an additional 4m deaths and 6m new infections could be expected globally by 2029.

However, Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAids, said 25 of the 60 low- and middle-income countries included in the report had found ways to increase HIV spending from domestic resources to 2026. “This is the future of the HIV response – nationally owned and led, sustainable, inclusive and multisectoral,” she said.

African woman looking downcast while sitting on a low bed in a poorly furnished room.

Lobbyists linked to Donald Trump paid millions by world’s poorest countries

Trump seated in the Oval Office with two men standing either side of him, all wearing navy suits and red ties. An African woman stands beside Trump's desktheguardian.org

Some of the world’s poorest countries have started paying millions to lobbyists linked to Donald Trump to try to offset US cuts to foreign aid, an investigation reveals.

Somalia, Haiti and Yemen are among 11 countries to sign significant lobbying deals with figures tied directly to the US president after he slashed US foreign humanitarian assistance.

Many states have already begun bartering crucial natural resources – including minerals – in exchange for humanitarian or military support, the investigation by Global Witness found.

USAID officially closed its doors last week after Trump’s dismantling of the agency, a move experts warn could cause more than 14 million avoidable deaths over five years.

Emily Stewart, Global Witness’s head of policy for transition minerals, said the situation meant that deal making in Washington could become “more desperate and less favourable to low-income countries”, which had become increasingly vulnerable to brutal exploitation of their natural resources.

Documents show that within six months of last November’s US election, contracts worth $17m (£12.5m) were signed between Trump-linked lobbying firms and some of the world’s least-developed countries, which were among the highest recipients of USAID.

Records submitted under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act reveal some countries signed multiple contracts, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has endured mass displacement and conflict over its mineral wealth for years.

The DRC is primed to sign a mineral deal with the US for support against Rwanda-backed rebels, providing American companies access to lithium, cobalt and coltan.

The DRC – a former top-10 USAID recipient – signed contracts worth $1.2m with the lobbyists Ballard Partners.

The firm, owned by Brian Ballard, lobbied for Trump well before the 2016 US election and was a leading donor to the US president’s political campaign.

Somalia and Yemen signed contracts with BGR Government Affairs – $550,000 and $372,000 respectively.

A former BGR partner, Sean Duffy, is now Trump’s transport secretary, one of myriad links between the US president and the lobbying firm.

The government of Pakistan, a country that struggles with extreme poverty but is extremely rich in minerals, has signed two contracts with Trump-linked lobbyists worth $450,000 a month.

Pakistan is now tied up in deals with multiple individuals in Trump’s inner circle, including the president’s former bodyguard Keith Schiller.

Access to key natural resources has become a priority for Trump, particularly rare earth minerals. These are considered critical to US security, but the global supply chains for them are dominated by China.

Other nations are offering exclusive access to ports, military bases and rare earths in exchange for US support.

Although Global Witness said the revolving door between governments and lobbyists was nothing new, the organisation said it was concerned by the broader, exploitative dynamics driving new deals.

Stewart said: “We’re seeing a dramatic cut in aid, combined with an explicit rush for critical minerals, and willingness by the Trump administration to secure deals in exchange for aid or military assistance.

“Dealmaking needs to be transparent and fair. It is vital to recognise the role that international aid plays in making a safer world for all, and that aid should retain its distinct role away from trade.”

‘One too many’: rapper’s arrest sparks protests against Togo’s ruling dynasty

People set up a barricade during a protest calling for the president’s resignation

On the night last month that he and 34 other young people were arrested in the Togolese capital, Lomé, for coordinating an anti-government demonstration, Bertin Bandiangou said gendarmes beat him with ropes and slapped him. The next morning he was tortured while a commanding officer filmed proceedings.

He was lucky to get out alive: at least 10 people have been killed by security officials since protests began in June calling for the resignation of the small west African country’s president, Faure Gnassingbé.

“From this bitter experience, it is clear that the Togolese regime is prepared to commit the worst atrocities to retain power,” said Bandiangou, a 24-year-old student union president at the University of Lomé.

With the exception of a three-month period in 2005, Togo has been ruled by the Gnassingbés since 1967, when Faure Gnassingbé’s father, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, took power in a bloodless coup.

In February, the government hosted a flamboyant $34m memorial service for Eyadéma, who died in 2005. Observers said the ceremony, attended by five former African presidents, served as a lavish statement of the dynasty’s enduring power.

Then in May, Gnassingbé’s power was further consolidated when he was sworn in as “president of the council of ministers”, a new post that is not subject to term limits. The swearing-in was the culmination of a process that began in March last year when parliament amended the constitution, without a referendum, to do away with presidential elections – a move described by the Touche Pas à Ma Constitution coalition as “a coup against the Togolese people”.

The price of dissent

Though the memorial service and constitutional changes struck a nerve with young people in Togo who want political change, the spark for the recent protests was the arrest of Tchala Essowè Narcisse, a popular rapper known as Aamron, on 26 May.

Aamron has built a following on TikTok, and his songs denounce corruption, economic stagnation and state neglect. His arrest followed a satirical call for a mobilisation to mark Gnassingbé’s birthday.

According to Célestin Kokou Agbogan, his lawyer and the president of Togo’s Human Rights League, Aamron was arrested without a warrant and held incommunicado for 10 days. A video clip then surfaced in which, appearing disoriented, he claimed the state had labelled him mentally unstable and had detained him in a psychiatric facility in Zébé, just outside Lomé.

Agbogan said no official charges had been filed. The opposition alliance Dynamics for Majority of the People condemned the arrest as “unlawful, unjustified, and driven by political motives” and has called for Aamron’s immediate and unconditional release.

In the days after his disappearance, fans flooded social media with clips of his defiant lyrics. Then they took to the streets of Lomé, barricading roads, burning tyres and chanting “Libérez Aamron!” and “Togo Libre!”

“Since Faure Gnassingbé became president, any opinion that does not praise him is seen as a crime,” Bandiangou said. “He systematically imprisons all dissenting voices. Aamron’s arrest was … one too many.”

Bandiangou said his aim was to mobilise people in an attempt to end the practice of arbitrary imprisonment and allow political prisoners to regain their freedom.

Protesters have paid a steep price for their dissent: more than 100 have been arrested since June, and some are still missing. Amnesty International said last week it had interviewed victims and witnesses who described a series of abuses by security forces against demonstrators, including acts of torture.

On 1 July, the Economic Community of West African States urged restraint and called for dialogue. Otherwise, international reaction has been muted, drowned out by geopolitical crises elsewhere.

Nevertheless, diaspora communities and human rights groups are attempting to ramp up pressure on the regime, demanding sanctions and diplomatic scrutiny.

‘Our message was clear’

Experts say beneath the anger at the constitutional changes lies a deeper well of frustration over corruption and nepotism that has been exacerbated by a scarce jobs market and a rise in the cost of living.

Protests have erupted periodically for decades – usually over delayed elections, term extensions and heavy-handed crackdowns – but there are signs that discontent is widening.

Civil society groups and opposition parties held demonstrations on three consecutive days in late June over a planned pan-Africanist conference – later cancelled – that they claimed would whitewash the latest power grab, while protests have also broken out in recent weeks over electricity price rises.

“Young people are exasperated by shortsighted and aimless governance, and by being held hostage by a regime incapable of providing the population with the basic necessities of life,” said Bandiangou. “Our message is clear: we no longer want a regime that imprisons our dreams and has terrorised an entire people for nearly six decades.”

A still from Aamron’s video Nouveaux DossiersDemonstrators in Lomé clash with police during a protest calling for the president’s resignationTogo’s president, Faure Gnassingbé.

Trump praises English of the leader of Liberia – where English is the official language

people sitting at a long table

Donald Trump was basking in the praise of a group of African leaders on Wednesday, when the Liberian president took the microphone.

“Liberia is a longtime friend of the United States and we believe in your policy of making America great again,” President Joseph Boakai said in English at a White House meeting before advocating for US investment in his country. “We just want to thank you so much for this opportunity.”

Trump, clearly impressed, inquired where Boakai got his language skills.

“Such good English, such beautiful …” Trump said. “Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where were you educated?”

Boakai seemed to chuckle. English is the official language of Liberia.

“In Liberia?” Trump asked. “Yes sir,” Boakai said.

“That’s very interesting, that’s beautiful English” Trump said. “I have people at this table who can’t speak nearly as well.”

Liberia was founded in 1822 as a colony for free Black Americans, the brainchild of white Americans trying to address what they saw as a problem – the future for Black people in the US once slavery ended. English is Liberia’s official language, though multiple Indigenous languages are spoken there as well.

Trump hosted the leaders from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal at the White House on Wednesday, telling them that he was shifting the US approach to the continent from aid to trade and that the US is a better partner for Africa than China. Many of the leaders at the meeting spoke in their own languages through interpreters.

Trump said his administration was committed to strengthening friendships in Africa, which he hoped to visit at some point.

“We’re shifting from aid to trade,” he said at the start of a White House meeting. “There’s great economic potential in Africa, like few other places. In many ways, in the long run, this will be far more effective and sustainable and beneficial than anything else that we can be doing together.”

The African leaders, in turn, heaped praise on the US president for brokering peace deals around the world and expressed support for his receiving a Nobel Prize.

“We are not poor countries. We are rich countries when it comes to raw materials. But we need partners to support us and help us develop those resources,” said Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, president of Gabon. “You are welcome to come and invest. Otherwise, other countries might come instead of you.”

Leila Aboulela wins PEN Pinter prize for writing on migration and faith

Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela has won this year’s PEN Pinter prize for her writing on migration, faith and the lives of women.

The prize is awarded to a writer who, in the words of the late British playwright Harold Pinter, casts an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze on the world, and shows a “fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies”.

Aboulela grew up in Khartoum, Sudan, and has lived in Aberdeen since 1990. Her six novels and two short story collections include The Translator, Elsewhere, Home and, most recently, 2023’s River Spirit.

“This comes as a complete and utter surprise,” said the writer on hearing the news. “For someone like me, a Muslim Sudanese immigrant who writes from a religious perspective probing the limits of secular tolerance, this recognition feels truly significant. It brings expansion and depth to the meaning of freedom of expression and whose stories get heard.”

Aboulela was announced winner at English PEN’s summer party on Wednesday evening, where actors Khalid Abdalla and Amira Ghazalla read from her work. She will receive the award on 10 October at the British Library in London, where she will announce her choice of winner for the PEN Pinter Writer of Courage award, given to an author “active in defence of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty”.

Aboulela’s work “is marked by a commitment to make the lives and decisions of Muslim women central to her fiction, and to examine their struggles and pleasures with dignity,” said novelist Nadifa Mohamed, who judged this year’s prize alongside the poet and author Mona Arshi and the chair of English PEN, Ruth Borthwick. “In a world seemingly on fire, and with immense suffering unmarked and little mourned in Sudan, Gaza, and beyond, her writing is a balm, a shelter, and an inspiration.”

Aboulela “offers us nuanced and rich perspectives on themes that are vital in our contemporary world: faith, migration, and displacement,” said Arshi.

“She is not the first to write about the experience of migration, but Leila is a writer for this moment, and my hope is that with this prize her gorgeous books find new readers, and open our minds to other possibilities,” added Borthwick.

Last year, Arundhati Roy won the prize, and selected the imprisoned British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah as Writer of Courage.

The prize is awarded annually to writers resident in the UK, Ireland, the Commonwealth or the former Commonwealth. Previous winners include Michael Rosen, Malorie Blackman, Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Hanif Kureishi.

‘Shoot them in the leg’: Kenyan president’s anti-protest rhetoric hardens as death toll rises

A protester lifts a Kenyan flag during demonstrations on Saba Saba day (7 July) on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya.

Kenya’s president, William Ruto, has ordered police to shoot protesters targeting businesses in the legs, in a sharp intensification of his rhetoric days after 31 people were killed in nationwide anti-government demonstrations.

“They shouldn’t kill them but they should shoot their legs so they break and they can go to hospital on their way to court,” Ruto said in the capital, Nairobi.

In his toughest remarks yet about the wave of protests over economic stagnation, corruption and police brutality that have swept the east African country, he also accused his political opponents of orchestrating the demonstrations and said some of those out on the streets were waging a “war” on the state.

“Those who attack our police, those who attack our security men and women, those who attack our security installations, including police stations, that is a declaration of war, that is terrorism,” he said. “We are going to deal with you firmly. We cannot have a nation that is run by terror. We cannot have a nation that is governed by violence.

“This country will not be destroyed by a few people who are impatient and who want to have a change of government using unconstitutional means. It is not going to happen.”

In the latest protests, on Monday, Kenyans took to the streets to mark Saba Saba (Seven Seven), the day on 7 July 1990 when Kenyans rose up to demand a return to multiparty democracy after years of autocratic rule under Daniel arap Moi.

Thirty-one people were killed on Monday and 107 injured, according to the state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, bringing the toll to 51 over the past two months, according to Agence France-Presse.

Unicef condemned the killing of a 12-year-old girl by a stray bullet while she was at home in Kiambu county, nine miles from the capital, as well as the arrest of children during the protests. “Children must be protected from harm at all times and under all circumstances,” the UN agency said.

The demonstrations began in June last year as a youth-led movement against a proposed tax increase, and quickly widened to encompass calls for reform and Ruto’s resignation. The government was forced to withdraw the finance bill that contained the proposed rises, and Ruto dismissed nearly all of his cabinet in an attempt to control the situation.

Police killings and abductions have done little to assuage public anger. The death in police custody last month of a teacher who had reportedly criticised a senior police official on social media, and the police shooting of a man at close range during a subsequent protest, has refocused attention on the security forces.

On occasion, protests have degenerated into looting and violence by some protesters, with thousands of businesses destroyed.

Ruto was elected on a promise to improve the wellbeing of young and ordinary Kenyans, but many feel he has failed to deliver his economic pledges and has responded in a tone-deaf manner to protesters’ demands.

Ruto’s latest comments echo an order to police from the interior minister, Kipchumba Murkomen, two weeks ago to shoot people who approach police stations “with criminal intent”.

Opposition leaders, including Ruto’s former deputy and ally Rigathi Gachagua, have accused the government of unleashing “hostile” state-sponsored violence against its citizens. On Tuesday, they called on the public to “boycott all businesses, services and institutions owned, operated or publicly linked to this regime and its enablers”.

Ruto’s allies have accused Gachagua of bankrolling violent protests, which he has denied. Gachagua also dismissed Ruto’s claims of a plot to overthrow the government, saying on Wednesday: “We want to remove you … through the ballot in 2027.”

Observers say that Ruto has to endear himself both to a disillusioned public and to younger Kenyans – a strong-willed and defiant generation born after the restoration of multiparty democracy who benefited from free primary education that started in 2003, and who have been leading the push for change since last year.

The UN said it was “deeply troubled” over the deaths during this week’s protests and that “intentional lethal force by law enforcement officers, including with firearms, should only be used when strictly necessary to protect life from an imminent threat”.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Young protesters making chants and gestures of determination to the cameraWilliam Ruto surrounded by flagsRiot police fire teargas towards protesters down a wide streetA protester lies in the road watching a burning tyre pile down the road

South Sudan says eight deportees from the US are under government care

an aerial view of a city

War-torn South Sudan has said it is holding a group of eight men controversially deported from the United States.

Only one of them is from South Sudan. The rest comprise two people from Myanmar, two from Cuba, and one each from Vietnam, Laos and Mexico.

The Trump administration is trying to move unwanted migrants to third countries as some nations refuse to accept returnees. Administration officials said the men had been convicted of violent crimes in the US. The decision has been fought in US courts.

“They are currently in Juba under the care of the relevant authorities, who are screening them and ensuring their safety and wellbeing,” the South Sudanese foreign ministry said in a statement late on Tuesday.

It did not give details, but said the “careful and well-studied decision” was part of “ongoing bilateral engagement”.

“South Sudan responded positively to a request from the US authorities as a gesture of goodwill, humanitarian cooperation and commitment to mutual interests,” it added.

The deportations have raised safety and other concerns among some in South Sudan.

“South Sudan is not a dumping ground for criminals,” said Edmund Yakani, a prominent civic leader.

United Nations experts, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the UN, have criticised the move.

“International law is clear that no one shall be sent anywhere where there are substantial grounds for believing that the person would be in danger of being subjected to … torture, enforced disappearance or arbitrary deprivation of life,” 11 independent UN rights experts said in a statement.

The deportees left the United States for South Sudan in May but their flight ended up in Djibouti when a US district court imposed a stay on third-country deportations. That ruling was overturned by the supreme court earlier this month.

The group arrived in South Sudan on 5 June with an official, speaking on condition of anonymity, saying they had been returned by US marines.

A South Sudan foreign ministry spokesperson, Apuk Ayuel Mayen, said Juba maintains a strong commitment to its people, including “its nationals returning under any circumstances” and “persons with recognised links to South Sudan”.

Simmering rivalry between South Sudanese president, Salva Kiir, and his vice-president, Riek Machar, boiled over into open hostilities in March.

The tensions have raised fears of a return to full-scale war in the world’s youngest country, where a civil war killed 400,000 people in 2013-2018.

AFP and the AP contributed reporting

US completes deportation of eight men to South Sudan after legal wrangling

An Ice officer with back to camera

Eight men deported from the US in May and held under guard for weeks at an American military base in the African nation of Djibouti while their legal challenges played out in court have reached the Trump administration’s intended destination, war-torn South Sudan, a country the state department advises against travel to due to “crime, kidnapping and armed conflict”.

The men from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan arrived in South Sudan on Friday after a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to relocate them in a case that had gone to the supreme court, which had permitted their removal from the US. Administration officials said the men had been convicted of violent crimes in the US.

“This was a win for the rule of law, safety and security of the American people,” Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokesperson, said in a statement on Saturday announcing the men’s arrival in South Sudan.

The supreme court cleared the way for the transfer of the men last Thursday.

The men had been put on a flight in May bound for South Sudan but which was diverted to a base in Djibouti, where they were held in a converted shipping container. The flight was diverted after a federal judge found that the administration had violated his order by failing to allow the men a chance to challenge the removal.

The supreme court’s conservative majority had ruled in June that immigration officials could quickly deport people to third countries. The majority halted an order that had allowed immigrants to challenge any removals to countries outside their homeland where they could be in danger.

A flurry of court hearings on4 July resulted in a temporary hold on the deportations while a judge evaluated a last-ditch appeal, before the judge decided he was powerless to halt their removals and that the person best positioned to rule on the request was a Boston judge whose rulings had led to the initial halt of the administration’s effort to begin deportations to South Sudan.

By Friday evening, that judge had issued a brief ruling concluding that the supreme court had tied his hands.

US authorities have reached agreements with other countries to house immigrants who cannot quickly be send back to their homelands.

‘We want closure’: family searches for answers over Kenyan police officer missing in Haiti

A photo of Benedict Kuria is seen on the screen of a phone held in the hand of his wife. He has a beard and is in civilian clothing with a wide-brimmed cotton hat and big brown scarf around his neck.

The relatives of a Kenyan police officer who went missing while working in Haiti have spoken of their anguish and anger at Kenyan authorities over a lack of definitive information about what has happened to him.

Benedict Kuria and some colleagues were ambushed in March by suspected gang members. Haitian media reported that he had died, but Kenya’s police service says a search is continuing.

“We’ve tried many times to get information from the government, but they’ve refused,” said Kuria’s wife, Miriam Watima. “We don’t know what to do any more.”

Hundreds of Kenyan officers have been posted to Haiti as part of a US and UN-backed mission to help police in the Caribbean country get to grips with rampant gang violence. More than a million people have been forced from their homes in a relentless cycle of indiscriminate killings, kidnappings, gang rapes and arson.

Kuria’s case has reignited public concern over Kenya’s involvement in the multinational security support mission (MSS), which started last year and was the subject of intense domestic public and legal scrutiny from the outset.

In a search for answers, Kuria’s family filed a court petition in June that listed the attorney-general, the inspector general of police and various ministers as respondents. A Nairobi court has scheduled a hearing for September but the family, who want the matter treated with urgency, have called for the session to be brought forward.

“We entrusted our son with the government,” said Kuria’s mother, Jacinta Kabiru. “They should give us the information.”

Kuria, a 33-year-old administration police officer, joined the MSS last July. On 26 March the MSS said he was “unaccounted for” after an ambush the day before on a team who had gone to assist the recovery of a Haitian police vehicle stuck in a ditch that it suspected had been dug by gangs.

Later on 26 March, Kenyan police said a search and rescue mission was continuing, while local leaders and police chiefs went to Watima’s house in the town of Kikuyu, north-west of Nairobi in Kiambu county, to tell her that her husband was missing.

But the following day, Haitian media outlets reported that Kuria had been killed, quoting Haiti’s presidential transitional council as saying that he “fell … while carrying out his mission” and “gave his life for a better future for our country”.

In the months since, his family’s desperate scramble for clarity has included visits to police – who have told them a search and rescue mission is continuing – and politicians’ offices. Through their lawyer, Mbuthi Gathenji, they have petitioned parliament and written letters to Kenya’s attorney-general and María Isabel Salvador, the special representative of the UN secretary-general in Haiti.

Their court petition accuses government officials of “refusing and/or neglecting” to provide the family with information on Kuria’s whereabouts “to ease their agony”, and asks judges to assist in “compelling the respondents to disclose information”.

“You can imagine the pain that the parents and relatives are going through,” said Gathenji. “We are asking the government to come out with finality.”

The Guardian has approached Kenya’s interior cabinet secretary as well as the MSS and the Kenyan police for comment.

Kenya’s leading role in the mission stemmed from a desire by the US and the UN to restructure international intervention in Haiti with a multinational mission headed by an African country, after a series of floundering UN missions during which UN troops caused a cholera outbreak and peacekeepers were accused of sexual assault.

Kenya, which has participated in many peacekeeping missions internationally, volunteered to lead the Haiti intervention. For its president, William Ruto, the deployment was a chance to position his country as a reliable international partner and burnish the reputation of its police force, which regularly uses violence against civilians.

The arrival of the Kenyan officers in June 2024 brought some hope to Haiti, but the mission, beset by funding, equipment and personnel issues, has failed to repel the criminal advance.

In April, Salvador said Haiti was approaching a “point of no return”. And on Wednesday, Ghada Waly, the executive director of the UN office on drugs and crime, told the UN security council that gangs now controlled an estimated 90% of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Kuria’s mother had tried to dissuade him from joining the mission after learning about Haiti’s violent reputation, but he was determined to go, motivated in part by the extra pay the job came with, which he planned to use to improve his relatives’ lives. “This is an opportunity we have got as a family,” his brother, Philip Kuria, recalled him saying.

Kuria was due to return this year at the end of his one-year contract. “It’s a struggle,” said Philip. “What we want is closure.”

Kuria’s uncle, Daniel Ndung’u, said the family was open to any news. “My prayer is that he’s going to come back to join us,” he said. “This suspense is actually torturing us.”

Watima recalled her last call with Kuria as they discussed academic plans for their 17-year-old daughter. She tops up credit for her husband’s phone so it doesn’t get deactivated, hoping that one day he’ll call again. In the meantime, she waits for the government. “They should tell us whether he’s alive or not,” she said. “That’s all we want to know.”

Miriam Watima sits outdoors; she has short-cropped hair and wears a pale turquoise hooded top with a yellow snowflake-like pattern across the front and a striped lining to the hood. Philip Kuria and Jacinta Kabiru; he sits on the arm of a purple sofa above his mother. There is a yellow and rust-brown striped curtain behind them; he wears a dark blue polo shirt and she wears a purple coat. Phone screen shows a picture of Benedict Kuria wearing army combat fatigues and heavy boots; in this picture he is clean-shaven with a shaven head and he sits on a plastic road barrier.

US judge clears path for eight immigrants to be deported to South Sudan

Seen from behind, man wearing vest that says Police Ice

A federal judge has briefly halted the deportations of eight immigrants to war-torn South Sudan, the latest twist in a case that came hours after the supreme court cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport the men to a country where almost none of them have ties.

On Thursday, the nation’s highest court affirmed that US immigration officials can quickly deport people to countries to which they have no connection. Then on Friday afternoon, in an extraordinary Fourth of July hearing, the district judge Randolph Moss sent the case north from Washington to another judge in Boston. Moss concluded that the judge best equipped to deal with the issues was Brian Murphy, whose rulings led to the initial halt of the Trump administration’s effort to begin deportations to the eastern African country.

Moss extended his order halting the deportation until 4.30pm Eastern time, but it was unclear whether Murphy would act on the federal holiday to further limit the removal. Moss said new claims by the immigrants’ lawyers deserved a hearing.

The eight men awaiting deportation are from countries including Vietnam, South Korea, Mexico, Laos, Cuba and Myanmar. Just one is from South Sudan. All have been convicted of serious crimes, which the Trump administration has emphasized in justifying their banishment. Many had either finished or were close to finishing serving sentences, and had “orders of removal” directing them to leave the US.

A lawyer for the men have said they could “face perilous conditions” upon arriving in the country. South Sudan is enmeshed in civil war, and the US government advises no one should travel there before making their own funeral arrangements.

The administration has been trying to deport the immigrants for weeks. The government flew them to the US naval base in Djibouti but couldn’t move them further because Murphy had ruled no immigrant could be sent to a new country without a chance to have a court hearing.

The supreme court vacated that decision last month, and then Thursday night issued a new order clarifying that that meant the immigrants could be moved to South Sudan. Lawyers for the immigrants filed an emergency request to halt their removal later that night.

The case was assigned to Moss, who briefly barred the administration from moving the immigrants from Djibouti to South Sudan until his afternoon hearing concluded. He slightly extended that bar after he sent the case to Murphy. The administration has said it expected to fly the immigrants to South Sudan sometime on Friday.

Federal judge again halts deportation of eight immigrants to South Sudan

Seen from behind, man wearing vest that says Police Ice

A federal judge has briefly halted the deportations of eight immigrants to war-torn South Sudan, the latest twist in a case that came hours after the supreme court cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport the men to a country where almost none of them have ties.

On Thursday, the nation’s highest court affirmed that US immigration officials can quickly deport people to countries to which they have no connection. Then on Friday afternoon, in an extraordinary Fourth of July hearing, the district judge Randolph Moss sent the case north from Washington to another judge in Boston. Moss concluded that the judge best equipped to deal with the issues was Brian Murphy, whose rulings led to the initial halt of the Trump administration’s effort to begin deportations to the eastern African country.

Moss extended his order halting the deportation until 4.30pm Eastern time, but it was unclear whether Murphy would act on the federal holiday to further limit the removal. Moss said new claims by the immigrants’ lawyers deserved a hearing.

The eight men awaiting deportation are from countries including Vietnam, South Korea, Mexico, Laos, Cuba and Myanmar. Just one is from South Sudan. All have been convicted of serious crimes, which the Trump administration has emphasized in justifying their banishment. Many had either finished or were close to finishing serving sentences, and had “orders of removal” directing them to leave the US.

A lawyer for the men have said they could “face perilous conditions” upon arriving in the country. South Sudan is enmeshed in civil war, and the US government advises no one should travel there before making their own funeral arrangements.

The administration has been trying to deport the immigrants for weeks. The government flew them to the US naval base in Djibouti but couldn’t move them further because Murphy had ruled no immigrant could be sent to a new country without a chance to have a court hearing.

The supreme court vacated that decision last month, and then Thursday night issued a new order clarifying that that meant the immigrants could be moved to South Sudan. Lawyers for the immigrants filed an emergency request to halt their removal later that night.

The case was assigned to Moss, who briefly barred the administration from moving the immigrants from Djibouti to South Sudan until his afternoon hearing concluded. He slightly extended that bar after he sent the case to Murphy. The administration has said it expected to fly the immigrants to South Sudan sometime on Friday.

UNAids chief ‘shaken and disgusted’ by US cuts that will mean millions more deaths

Portrait of Winnie Byanyimatheguardian.org

The head of the global agency tackling Aids says she expects HIV rates to soar and deaths to multiply in the next four years as a direct impact of the “seismic” US cuts to aid spending.

Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAids, said that if the funding permanently disappeared, the world faced an additional 6 million HIV infections and 4 million Aids-related deaths by 2029.

“It is a deadly funding crisis, a global response knocked totally off course. This is a pandemic, and pandemics have no borders,” she said in an interview with the Guardian at the UN international development funding summit this week in Seville, Spain.

Byanyima, a Ugandan aeronautical engineer and politician who has led UNAids since 2019, said seeing the impact of Donald Trump’s cuts had been the worst experience of her life.

“Personally I am devastated. Appalled. Shaken and disgusted. I don’t have the English words to use,” she said, admitting that the sheer scale of the challenge in the face of such massive cuts had made her consider resigning from her role.

“But I can’t run away. I told myself I’m going to fix it. I need to take my gloves off.”

US global health funding has stagnated over the past few years, and countries including the UK have been actively moving away from investment in aid from the target spending of 0.7% of GDP that UN member states set themselves in 2015. But in February, Trump abruptly halted Pepfar – the president’s emergency plan for Aids relief set up by Republican George Bush in 2003 to provide treatment, prevention and care for people living with or affected by HIV/Aids. A later vaguely worded waiver on certain parts of Pepfar funding had not had an effect on the ground, said experts.

“Every year, donors were reducing and the war in Ukraine saw that accelerate,” Byanyima said. “But the shock … Pepfar was 60% of my budget.

“It is a drop, a drop of money that is nothing in one of these rich G7 countries,” she said. “And it did so much for people who are so vulnerable. And yet you are spending so much more on wars. The rich men at the top take away from the poorest at the bottom.

“To create such crisis, such pain and such anger on the ground. This cut, that’s dedicated people losing jobs, loyal support gone, research ended, vulnerable people abandoned. And it is deaths. What went away immediately was prevention services, so we are very worried about the new infections and about deaths. Then support services and clinics. Now research, cutting edge research, is going.

“I myself had to have therapy to keep myself strong to be there for others. We have to make sure people who are staying do not burn out to try to even out our workload.

“This is a huge shift because it is so connected to geopolitics and to power shifts. It is seismic. But after the first wave of panic, and of pain, we have now to work hard, on less than half of what we had, to get change quickly to save lives.

“We already lost 12 million people we should not have lost if ARVs [antiretrovirals] had been shared immediately around the world instead of held on to by the pharmaceutical companies making money. We now face this, more deaths. Health is a human right, no one should die if we can prevent it.

“But of course many people will die, so many vulnerable people have already lost support, young girls, men who have sex with men, these are people who hide, who are shunned.

“There will be an additional 6 million newly infected persons in the world,” she said. “That has started already.”

Byanyima said the loss of overseas development assistance on all sides was now focusing attention on the unfair way in which Africa was treated by the west in terms of financing, debt interest and risk rates, and regarding illicit funding flows.

“African countries are struggling. Some much more than others. But they are not lying down and dying, and they are not holding out a begging bowl for more aid. Huge efforts are being made to fill the funding gaps in smart ways.

“We need debt justice, we need tax justice. The amount of money flowing from the south to the north has been greater than what has gone the other way for a long time and that is clear to see.

“The message for us all is clear too. The aid model cannot stand any more, it’s too unpredictable, the future has to be less about charity and more about international solidarity.”

US supreme court clears way for deportations of eight men to South Sudan

Supreme court building and flags

The supreme court on Thursday cleared the way for the deportation of several immigrants who were put on a flight in May bound for South Sudan, a war-ravaged country where they have no ties.

The decision comes after the court’s conservative majority found that immigration officials can quickly deport people to third countries. The majority halted an order that had allowed immigrants to challenge any removals to countries outside their homeland where they could be in danger.

The court’s latest order makes clear that the South Sudan flight detoured weeks ago can now complete the trip. It reverses findings from federal Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts, who said his order on those migrants still stands even after the high court lifted his broader decision.

The majority wrote that their decision on 23 June completely halted Murphy’s ruling and also rendered his decision on the South Sudan flight “unenforceable”. The court did not fully detail its legal reasoning on the underlying case, as is common on its emergency docket.

Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, saying the ruling gives the government special treatment. “Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the supreme court on speed dial,” Sotomayor wrote.

Attorneys for the eight migrants have said they could face “imprisonment, torture and even death” if sent to South Sudan, where escalating political tensions have threatened to devolve into another civil war.

“We know they’ll face perilous conditions, and potentially immediate detention, upon arrival,” Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said Thursday.

The push comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Trump’s Republican administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally. The Trump administration has called Murphy’s finding “a lawless act of defiance.”

The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Authorities have reached agreements with other countries to house immigrants if authorities cannot quickly send them back to their homelands. The eight men sent to South Sudan in May had been convicted of serious crimes in the US.

Murphy, who was nominated by Democratic president Joe Biden, did not prohibit deportations to third countries. But he found migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in danger of torture if sent to another country.

US supreme court clears way for deportation of migrants to South Sudan

Supreme court building and flags

The supreme court on Thursday cleared the way for the deportation of several immigrants who were put on a flight in May bound for South Sudan, a war-ravaged country where they have no ties.

The decision comes after the court’s conservative majority found that immigration officials can quickly deport people to third countries. The majority halted an order that had allowed immigrants to challenge any removals to countries outside their homeland where they could be in danger.

The court’s latest order makes clear that the South Sudan flight detoured weeks ago can now complete the trip. It reverses findings from federal Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts, who said his order on those migrants still stands even after the high court lifted his broader decision.

The majority wrote that their decision on 23 June completely halted Murphy’s ruling and also rendered his decision on the South Sudan flight “unenforceable”. The court did not fully detail its legal reasoning on the underlying case, as is common on its emergency docket.

Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, saying the ruling gives the government special treatment. “Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the supreme court on speed dial,” Sotomayor wrote.

Attorneys for the eight migrants have said they could face “imprisonment, torture and even death” if sent to South Sudan, where escalating political tensions have threatened to devolve into another civil war.

“We know they’ll face perilous conditions, and potentially immediate detention, upon arrival,” Trina Realmuto, executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said Thursday.

The push comes amid a sweeping immigration crackdown by Trump’s Republican administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living in the United States illegally. The Trump administration has called Murphy’s finding “a lawless act of defiance.”

The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Authorities have reached agreements with other countries to house immigrants if authorities cannot quickly send them back to their homelands. The eight men sent to South Sudan in May had been convicted of serious crimes in the US.

Murphy, who was nominated by Democratic president Joe Biden, did not prohibit deportations to third countries. But he found migrants must have a real chance to argue they could be in danger of torture if sent to another country.

Two tourists from UK and New Zealand killed by elephant, Zambian police say

An adult elephant walks along the bank of the river.

Two female tourists from the UK and New Zealand have been killed by an elephant while on a walking safari in a national park in Zambia, police in the southern African country have said.

The Eastern Province police commissioner, Robertson Mweemba, said the victims, who he named as 68-year-old Easton Janet Taylor from the UK and 67-year-old Alison Jean Taylor from New Zealand, were attacked by a female elephant that was with a calf.

Safari guides who were with the group attempted to stop the elephant from charging at the women by firing shots at it, police said. The elephant was hit and wounded by the gunshots. The guides were unable to prevent the elephant’s attack and both women died at the scene, police said.

It happened at the South Luangwa national park in eastern Zambia, about 600km (370 miles) from the capital, Lusaka.

Female elephants are very protective of their calves and can respond aggressively to what they perceive as threats.

Last year, two American tourists were killed in separate encounters with elephants in different parts of Zambia. In both cases, the tourists were also women and were on a safari vehicle when they were attacked.

Skeleton found in pot is first ancient Egyptian to undergo whole genome analysis

A composite of the skull and facial reconstruction

A man whose bones were shaped by a lifetime of hard labour more than 4,500 years ago has become the first ancient Egyptian to have his entire genetic code read and analysed by scientists.

The skeleton of the man, who lived at the dawn of the Age of the Pyramids, was recovered in 1902 from a sealed pottery vessel in a rock-cut tomb in Nuwayrat, 165 miles south of Cairo, and has been held in a museum since.

His DNA was remarkably well preserved given its age and the hot climate, which rapidly degrades biological material. Scientists suspect the unusual nature of the burial may have helped the DNA survive the past four millennia.

“It’s exciting that we can get genomes from this place and time,” said Pontus Skoglund, who leads the ancient genomics laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in London. “It’s only one individual, but it provides a valuable first glimpse into the ancestry of an early Egyptian in the old kingdom.”

The skeleton was donated to the Liverpool Institute of Archaeology and later transferred to the city’s World Museum. There it survived bombings during the blitz that destroyed almost all of the other human remains in the collection.

According to radiocarbon dating, the man lived a few centuries after the unification of upper and lower Egypt, a critical time of transition between the early dynastic period and the Old Kingdom, which spanned the third to the sixth dynasties. The Old Kingdom, also known as the Age of the Pyramids, was marked by significant progress including the construction of the first step pyramid at Saqqara.

DNA from one of the man’s teeth found he had dark skin, brown eyes and hair, and north African Neolithic ancestry mixed with a 20% genetic contribution from the Fertile Crescent region in the Middle East. The finding supports archaeological evidence of ancient trade between the two regions.

The man’s bones cast further light on his story. Middle-aged, perhaps in his 60s, he was old for the time and riddled with arthritis. Marks on the skeleton suggest he spent long periods sitting on hard ground with his legs and arms extended and head down. His right foot revealed unusual signs of wear.

After studying tomb paintings of ancient Egyptian workers, the researchers suspect he may have been a potter or similar craftsman. The potter’s wheel was introduced to Egypt from the Fertile Crescent in about 2,500BC and was often stabilised with one foot. But the high-class burial, which took place before Egypt embraced artificial mummification, would have been unusual for such a worker.

Joel Irish, a professor of anthropology and archaeology at Liverpool John Moores University, said of all the occupations the team reviewed, the bone markings were most consistent with the man being a potter, but he might have been weaving baskets or doing other work on the ground.

Irish said: “It’s interesting that the man was found in a pot. That in itself is odd. He was put in a relatively high-class tomb and not any old person ends up in a rock-cut tomb. Maybe he was a super-good potter and ended up in someone’s favour.”

Skoglund said the work, published in Nature, sheds light on which tombs might harbour remains that are well-enough preserved to yield large amounts of DNA.

The team now plans to examine more skeletons in British collections to paint a fuller picture of the genetic history of the Egyptians. “There will be more individuals that we can get DNA from and we can use that to build an ancient, public genetic record of ancient Egypt,” he said.

black and white photo of rock-cut tombSkeleton remains in a pottery vessel.The pottery coffin.

‘We won’t let them get away with this’: activists to sue Tanzania’s government over ‘sexual torture’

Agather Atuhaire and Boniface Mwangi  sitting in front of microphones

Two east African activists say they plan to sue Tanzania’s government for illegal detention and torture over their treatment during a visit in support of an opposition politician in May.

Boniface Mwangi, from Kenya, and Agather Atuhaire, a Ugandan, sent shock waves around the region earlier this month when they gave an emotional press conference in which they alleged they had been sexually assaulted and, in Atuhaire’s case, smeared in excrement after their detention in Dar es Salaam. “[The authorities] take you through sexual torture,” Mwangi said at the time.

Even in a region accustomed to recurrent rights abuses, the apparent targeting of foreigners by the Tanzanian authorities marked a new and worrying turn in a crackdown on critics and opponents of the president, Samia Suluhu Hassan.

In interviews with the Guardian, Mwangi and Atuhaire said they planned to initiate cases in a Tanzanian court as well as through regional and international avenues, including the east African court of justice and the African court on human and peoples’ rights.

“We’re not going to let them get away with this,” said Mwangi, a well-known Kenyan photojournalist and activist. Atuhaire, a lawyer, journalist and critic of the government of the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, said: “We need to hold these guys accountable to know that they cannot violate people unprovoked like that.”

Mwangi and Atuhaire, who had travelled to Tanzania to attend a court hearing for a treason case against the opposition politician Tundu Lissu on 19 May, say they were taken from their hotel by people they described as security officials, illegally detained and verbally and physically abused.

Mwangi said his beating started at an immigration office that afternoon when a security official slapped and punched him repeatedly in the presence of Atuhaire and three lawyers. He said he was assaulted again at a police station, where security personnel accused the activists of having travelled to Tanzania to disrupt peace and ruin the country.

“The real torture,” Mwangi said, happened that evening when a group of about seven men – whom he described as having bloodshot eyes and smelling of alcohol – and a woman handcuffed and blindfolded him and Atuhaire and drove them to a compound.

Both activists said that at the compound they were ordered to strip and were suspended upside down then hit with wooden planks on their soles. They said their attackers stifled their screams by stuffing Mwangi’s underwear into his mouth and putting some cloth in Atuhaire’s mouth.

The activists said their attackers inserted what seemed to be their hands or other objects into their rectums and smeared excrement on Atuhaire’s body, then photographed them and told them not to reveal what had happened. Two days later they were dumped at their countries’ borders.

“I didn’t see us coming out of there alive,” said Atuhaire. “It was really, really painful.”

Mwangi said: “Nothing in my mind or in my life prepared me for this. I’ve been injured before, I’ve been beaten before, I’ve been shot before. My house has been bombed. I’ve seen all kind of extremities and cruelties, but I’ve never felt such kind of pain.”

The Guardian has approached a Tanzanian police spokesperson for comment. Last week Tanzania’s representative to the UN, Abdallah Possi, told a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva: “Although these claims against the government are highly doubtful, we take the allegations of torture, sexual abuse and malpractices very seriously. That is why the government is currently investigating and, if established, those concerned will be held accountable.”

A series of killings, kidnappings, arrests and tortures over the past year have prompted widespread condemnation locally and internationally. Among those killed was Mohamed Ali Kibao, a member of the secretariat of the main opposition party Chadema, who was found beaten and with his face doused with acid in September.

In April, Father Charles Kitima, a Catholic priest who is vocal on democratic reforms and rights issues, was brutally attacked near his residence. Earlier this month, the government deregistered a church belonging to Josephat Gwajima, a politician from the ruling party, after he called out illegal detentions and enforced disappearances and announced a prayer campaign to seek divine intervention for Hassan and other national leaders. And last week two men who posted talkshows about democracy and governance on YouTube were arrested for “improper use of social media”.

There is no evidence of Hassan’s personal involvement in the incidents, many of which the government has condemned. Nevertheless, opposition politicians and rights campaigners say her administration is overseeing a return to the fear-based tactics of her predecessor, John Magufuli. Earlier this month she warned activists from neighbouring countries against “trying to destabilise” Tanzania.

Maria Sarungi Tsehai, a Tanzanian rights activist, described the targeting of non-Tanzanians as unprecedented and a “sign of huge panic” on the part of the Hassan administration in the run-up to her first presidential electoral test.

“What we’re seeing is a very insecure presidential candidate,” said Tsehai, who lives in self-exile in Nairobi. “She has to lean more heavily on that security apparatus. And she has decided that she doesn’t want to have any free or fair election. She just wants to get her second term. And that decision comes at a very heavy price.”

Last year, Tsehai was abducted from the streets of the Kenyan capital by armed men and feared she would become the latest victim of a spate of enforced deportations from Kenya. However, she was released a short time later without crossing the border after news of her kidnapping spread quickly on social media.

In the months after Hassan took office following Magufuli’s death in 2021, the president gained domestic and international approval for reconciling with the opposition and reversing some of Magufuli’s repressive policies. But since then a wave of repression has wiped out hopes of lasting reform.

Hassan’s CCM party has ruled the country since independence. The opposition and civil society have long called for reform of the constitution, which critics say grants the president and the ruling party excessive powers.

Earlier this year, Lissu was arrested and charged with treason and cybercrime offences, and his Chadema party – which had called for a boycott of this year’s elections unless electoral reforms were enacted – was disqualified from participating.

Mwangi said CCM was acting for self-preservation. “What Suluhu is trying to do is win an election by any means necessary,” he said. “She’s reading from a dictator’s manual [that says] ‘brutalise and beat people into submission’.”

Atuhaire – whose work in exposing corruption won her an international women of courage award from the US last year – said her and Mwangi’s experience showed the “level of impunity” in Tanzania.

The activists are still nursing injuries on their feet and other parts of their bodies, in addition to having psychological trauma. They said they had decided to speak about their alleged abuse to shine a light on the plight of Tanzanians who had gone through similar experiences.

“There’s no level of shame or stigma that is more important than pursuing justice,” Atuhaire said. “Justice is the driving factor – these people must be held accountable for what they did to us, for what they have done to Tanzanians.”

Boniface Mwangi sits on a chair holding a walking stick and wearing foot bracesAgather Atuhaire shows some of her bruises and scars to colleagues at a hospitalSamia Suluhu Hassan

Trump eyes mineral wealth as Rwanda and DRC sign controversial peace deal in US

Congolese police climb into a van after surrendering to the M23 rebel group

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo will sign an agreement in Washington on Friday to put an end to a conflict in the eastern DRC that has killed thousands, although questions remain on what it will mean for the region.

Donald Trump has trumpeted the diplomacy that led to the deal, and has publicly complained that he yet to receive a Nobel peace prize.

But the agreement has also come under scrutiny for its vagueness, including on the economic component, with the Trump administration eager to compete with China and profit from abundant mineral wealth in eastern of the DRC, an area which has long been turbulent.

In late 2021 the M23 rebel group in launched a new offensive that escalated sharply early this year, seizing broad swathes of territory including the key eastern DRC city of Goma.

The Kinshasa government has long said – a position supported by Washington – that M23, which consists mostly of ethnic Tutsis, receives military support from Rwanda.

Rwanda has denied directly supporting the rebels but has demanded an end to another armed group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which was established by ethnic Hutus linked to the massacres of Tutsis in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

The Rwandan and DRC foreign ministers will sign the agreement in Washington in the presence of Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, a state department spokesperson, Tommy Pigott, said. The White House also said Trump will meet the foreign ministers in the Oval Office.

In a joint statement, the three countries said the agreement would include “respect for territorial integrity and a prohibition of hostilities” as well as the disarmament of all “non-state armed groups”.

The agreement was mediated through Qatar, a frequent US partner, and Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-American businessman and father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany who was asked by the president to be a senior adviser on Africa.

The statement also spoke of a “regional economic integration framework” and of a future summit in Washington bringing together Trump, Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, and the DRC president, Felix Tshisekedi.

Denis Mukwege, a gynaecologist who shared the 2018 Nobel peace prize for his work to end the DRC’s epidemic of sexual violence in war, voiced alarm that the agreement was too opaque.

He said that the talk of economic cooperation was an unjust reward for Rwanda. The deal “would amount to granting a reward for aggression, legitimising the plundering of Congolese natural resources, and forcing the victim to alienate their national heritage by sacrificing justice in order to ensure a precarious and fragile peace”, he said in a statement.

On the eve of the signing, the news outlet Africa Intelligence reported that the deal was asking Rwanda to withdraw its “defensive measures” and for the DRC to end all association with the FDLR.

The Rwandan foreign minister, Olivier Nduhungirehe, denied the matter on X. “As a matter of facts, the words ‘Rwanda Defense Force’, ‘Rwandan troops’ or ‘withdrawal’ are nowhere to be seen in the document,” he said.

In April, while on a visit to Washington to start the negotiations, the Congolese foreign minister, Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, said that Rwanda should be obliged to withdraw from her country, which has been ravaged by decades of war.

Both countries have sought favour with the US. The DRC – which has enormous mineral reserves including lithium and cobalt, which are vital in electric vehicles – has pitched an agreement to seek US investment, loosely inspired by the Trump administration’s minerals deal with Ukraine.

Rwanda has been discussing taking in migrants deported from the US, a major priority for Trump.

Rwanda, one of the most stable countries in Africa, had reached a migration deal with Britain’s former Conservative government but the arrangement was killed by the Labour government that took office last year.

Rising poverty in conflict zones ‘causes a billion people to go hungry’

Women in colourful clothing queue for food

Extreme poverty is accelerating in 39 countries affected by war and conflict, leaving more than a billion people to go hungry, according to the World Bank.

Civil wars and confrontations between nations, mostly in Africa, have set back economic growth and reduced the incomes of more than a billion people, “driving up extreme poverty faster than anywhere else”, the Washington-based body said.

Underscoring the breadth of conflicts beyond the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars, it said the 39 developing economies classified as being in fragile and conflict-affected situations are plagued by instability and weak institutions, “hindering their ability to attain the robust, sustained economic growth needed for development”.

In its first assessment of conflict zones since the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, the World Bank urged western governments to step up support for war-torn countries to end the conflicts and rebuild vital institutions.

Since 2020 the level of national income per head of population has shrunk by an average of 1.8% a year in the affected countries, while it has expanded by 2.9% in other developing economies, the report found.

The World Bank, which lends to poor nations to promote stable economic growth, said acute hunger was increasing and development goals set by the United Nations were now “further out of reach”.

The report said: “This year, 421 million people are struggling on less than $3 a day in economies afflicted by conflict or instability – more than in the rest of the world combined. That number is projected to rise to 435 million, or nearly 60% of the world’s extreme poor, by 2030.”

The number of deaths in wars and conflicts across the world was stable before the 2008 banking crisis, which forced many developing countries to cut back welfare and education programmes to pay for rising debt payments.

The report said the average number of such fatalities was about 50,000 between 2000 and 2004 and even lower between 2005 and 2008, but then there was an increase to more than 150,000 in 2014. Since the pandemic the number of deaths in conflict has averaged 200,000, reaching more than 300,000 in 2022.

“For the last three years, the world’s attention has been on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and this focus has now intensified,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s chief economist.

“Yet more than 70% of people suffering from conflict and instability are Africans. Untreated, these conditions become chronic. Half of the countries facing conflict or instability today have been in such conditions for 15 years or more. Misery on this scale is inevitably contagious.”

He said of the 39 economies currently classified as facing conflict or instability, 21 are in active conflict.

Several major donors to investment programmes across the developing world have reduced their funding in recent years, including the UK and the US.

Some philanthropic organisations, including the Bill Gates Foundation, have said they cannot increase funding to fill gaps left by governments, leaving many countries to scramble for funds to pay loan interest payments.

According to the report, the extreme-poverty rate has fallen to 6% on average across all developing world countries. However, in economies facing conflict or instability the rate is nearly 40%.

The 39 countries have a rate of national income per head of $1,500 (£1,282) a year, “which has barely budged since 2010 – even as GDP per capita has more than doubled to an average of $6,900 in other developing economies,” the report said.

Joining the army of local militia can also be an attractive option for young men and women. In 2022, the latest year for which such data was available, more than 270 million people were of working age in these economies, yet fewer than half were employed.

“The global community must pay greater attention to the plight of these economies,” said M Ayhan Kose, the World Bank Group’s deputy chief economist.

“Jumpstarting growth and development here will not be easy, but it can be done – and it has been done before. With targeted policies and stronger international support, policymakers can prevent conflict, strengthen governance, accelerate growth, and create jobs.”

At least 16 people killed and 400 injured in Kenyan protests

Demonstrators kick back teargas canisters shot by police during a protest in the central business district of Nairobi, Kenya, 25 June 2025

At least 16 people have been killed and 400 injured in Kenya as a nationwide demonstration to honour those killed during last year’s anti-government protests turned chaotic, with police clashing with protesters in different parts of the country.

A joint statement from groups supporting the protests said 83 people were seriously injured and at least eight people were being treated for gunshot wounds.

“We pray for our nation, dialogue and a way forward from the political impasse facing Kenya,” said the statement from the Law Society of Kenya (LSK), the Police Reforms Working Group and the Kenya Medical Association.

Thousands of Kenyans took to the streets early on Wednesday to pay tribute to more than 60 people who died when police opened fire on a crowd that tried to storm parliament while MPs inside passed legislation to raise taxes.

“We face an unfortunate paradox as a country where more lives are being lost as the people seek justice for the lives already lost,” the LSK’s president, Faith Odhiambo, said on X. “Our hearts break for all the victims of the continued trend of police brutality and excesses.”

In Nairobi, police barricaded major roads a few kilometres from the central business district and turned away buses and minibuses farther away from the city centre. They also blocked off access to key buildings, including the parliament and the official residence of the president, William Ruto, with razor wire.

In the city centre, where many businesses were closed, thousands gathered for the march, waving Kenyan flags and placards with images of victims of last year’s protests.

Others lit street fires and chanted slogans against Ruto. Later violence ensued, with police firing tear gas and water cannons and hitting protesters with batons, while protesters threw stones and other objects at them.

A source at Kenyatta national hospital in Nairobi told Reuters the facility had received 56 people, most of them with injuries from rubber bullets.

The planned marches also developed into clashes between civilians and police in the cities of Mombasa, Nakuru and Kisumu and other parts of the country. Protestors torched parts of court buildings in Kikuyu town in Kiambu county.

The communications authority of Kenya ordered TV and radio stations to stop live coverage of the protests, threatening those that failed to follow the directive with regulatory action. NTV and KTN, two leading TV stations, were later taken off air.

Lawmakers left parliament buildings in Nairobi, and protests continued to intensify in the city centre. Elsewhere, throngs of people marched along major roads towards the capital.

Outrage has been growing in Kenya over the past few years due to corruption, unemployment, government excesses and rising living costs.

Wednesday’s protests come against a backdrop of demonstrations last year prompted by proposed tax increases, in which dozens of people died and many more disappeared.

The street protests reduced over time, but killings, arrests and disappearances continued, triggering more anger towards the authorities.

Two incidents this month – the death of the teacher Albert Ojwang in police custody after reportedly criticising a senior police official on social media, and the police shooting of the vendor Boniface Kariuki at close range during a protest over Ojwang’s death – have further inflamed public anger.

Stephanie Marie, a young protester in Nairobi, said she was at Wednesday’s march because of Ojwang. “It could be my brother, it could be my cousin, it could be anyone,” she said. “These are just normal boys, doing normal things.”

She called for leaders to heed what the they were saying: “The people voted. You’re here for the people. You’re working for the people ... We just want you to listen to the people. That’s it.”

Another young protester in Nairobi, Innocent, was commemorating the loss of his friend in last year’s protests. He said he’d been exposed to a lot of teargas from police on Wednesday but he was relentless.

“The youth are unstoppable,” he said. “Because we’ve come to fight for our rights.” He added: “We don’t want bad leadership”.

Mourners left waiting as court orders halt to former Zambian president’s funeral

A portrait of Zambia's former President Edgar Lungu is displayed as Archbishop Alick Banda walks towards the altar for a Mass, at the Cathedral of Christ the King, in Johannesburg, South Africa

The funeral of the former Zambian president Edgar Lungu has been stopped while mourners waited in a cathedral in Johannesburg, as an extraordinary feud Lungu had with his successor continues to play out after his death.

A high court judge in Pretoria ordered a halt to Lungu’s burial at the Cathedral of Christ the King in central Johannesburg on Wednesday morning, following a last-minute request by by Zambia’s attorney general. Lungu’s black-clad wife arrived at the cathedral, visibly upset, shortly after the judge’s order and a mass was held instead.

The judge ordered a full hearing to take place 4 August.

Lungu, who led Zambia from 2015 to 2021, died in South Africa this month aged 68 after an undisclosed illness. His family said he had made a specific request that the current president, Hakainde Hichilema, should not attend his funeral. The government had planned a state funeral presided over by Hichilema.

The attorney general, Mulilo Kabesha, told the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation that state funerals with full military honours were required by law, citing a previous local court ruling on the burial of Zambia’s first president, Kenneth Kaunda.

Kabesha said: “The high court ruled that a former president is not a private arrangement, is not private property, is national property and his burial should be handled by the state. The moment that a national mourning is declared, the law kicks in.”

Court papers filed by Kabesha said a grave had been prepared for Lungu in the national cemetery where all other former presidents were buried. A state funeral for Lungu has already been cancelled twice.

Hichilema defeated Lungu in a bitterly fought election in 2021, having lost to him in 2016. In 2017, Hichilema was sent to prison for four months on charges of treason, when his convoy did not give way to Lungu’s presidential motorcade. The charges were dropped and Hichilema released after an international outcry.

After Hichilema took power, Lungu accused his successor of targeting him and in effect placing him under house arrest. In 2023, police stopped Lungu from going out for runs, saying they were “political activism” and needed to be approved beforehand to “ensure public safety”.

Lungu’s wife, Esther Lungu, and their children have faced various corruption charges. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of stealing cars, which she was due to face in court this week.

Last year, Lungu attempted to return to frontline politics but was barred from running again for the presidency in next year’s election. Zambia’s constitutional court ruled that when Lungu took over as president after the incumbent, Michael Sata, died in 2015, the period until the 2016 election counted as a full first term in power.

Associated Press contributed to this report

Former Zambian president Edgar Lungu’s funeral stopped on request of attorney general

A portrait of Zambia's former President Edgar Lungu is displayed as Archbishop Alick Banda walks towards the altar for a Mass, at the Cathedral of Christ the King, in Johannesburg, South Africa

The funeral of the former Zambian president Edgar Lungu has been stopped while mourners waited in a cathedral in Johannesburg, as an extraordinary feud Lungu had with his successor continues to play out after his death.

A high court judge in Pretoria ordered a halt to Lungu’s burial at the Cathedral of Christ the King in central Johannesburg on Wednesday morning, following a last-minute request by by Zambia’s attorney general. Lungu’s black-clad wife arrived at the cathedral, visibly upset, shortly after the judge’s order and a mass was held instead.

The judge ordered a full hearing to take place 4 August.

Lungu, who led Zambia from 2015 to 2021, died in South Africa this month aged 68 after an undisclosed illness. His family said he had made a specific request that the current president, Hakainde Hichilema, should not attend his funeral. The government had planned a state funeral presided over by Hichilema.

The attorney general, Mulilo Kabesha, told the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation that state funerals with full military honours were required by law, citing a previous local court ruling on the burial of Zambia’s first president, Kenneth Kaunda.

Kabesha said: “The high court ruled that a former president is not a private arrangement, is not private property, is national property and his burial should be handled by the state. The moment that a national mourning is declared, the law kicks in.”

Court papers filed by Kabesha said a grave had been prepared for Lungu in the national cemetery where all other former presidents were buried. A state funeral for Lungu has already been cancelled twice.

Hichilema defeated Lungu in a bitterly fought election in 2021, having lost to him in 2016. In 2017, Hichilema was sent to prison for four months on charges of treason, when his convoy did not give way to Lungu’s presidential motorcade. The charges were dropped and Hichilema released after an international outcry.

After Hichilema took power, Lungu accused his successor of targeting him and in effect placing him under house arrest. In 2023, police stopped Lungu from going out for runs, saying they were “political activism” and needed to be approved beforehand to “ensure public safety”.

Lungu’s wife, Esther Lungu, and their children have faced various corruption charges. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of stealing cars, which she was due to face in court this week.

Last year, Lungu attempted to return to frontline politics but was barred from running again for the presidency in next year’s election. Zambia’s constitutional court ruled that when Lungu took over as president after the incumbent, Michael Sata, died in 2015, the period until the 2016 election counted as a full first term in power.

Associated Press contributed to this report

Fears of unrest as Kenyans mark first anniversary of storming of parliament

Pro-government counter-protesters run down the street with bats in their hands in downtown Nairobi, Kenya 17 June, 2025

Kenyans plan to march countrywide on Wednesday, the first anniversary of the historic storming of parliament by protesters, to honour those killed during last year’s anti-government protests, but there are fears that the march could escalate into unrest.

Rights activists, family members of killed and missing protesters, and young Kenyans, who were the main drivers of last year’s protests, have mobilised online and offline, with opposition leaders terming the day a “people’s public holiday” and the government warning against attempts to disrupt public order.

Last year’s demonstrations, in which 60 people died and many more disappeared, were prompted by proposed tax increases. They started peacefully on 18 June but later turned chaotic after a violent police response, and people accused of being involved in the protests disappeared and were killed. The demands of the protests then widened to calls for reform and the resignation of the president, William Ruto.

In reaction, Ruto scrapped the finance bill that contained the proposed tax increases and restructured his cabinet to include opposition figures and create a “broad-based” government.

The street protests started declining from September, but killings, arrests, disappearances and public resentment towards the authorities continued.

A recent series of demonstrations were triggered by the death of a teacher, Albert Ojwang, this month while he was being held in police custody after reportedly criticising a senior police official on social media. Public anger erupted further as an officer shot a vendor, Boniface Kariuki, at close range during another round of protests last week.

In addition to concerns about police brutality, issues Kenyans protested about last year – including corruption, unemployment, government excesses and rising living costs – persist.

Mikhail Nyamweya, a political analyst, said the trust of many Kenyans – especially younger people – in the government remains low and they view the administration as “unresponsive and detached from everyday struggles”.

“Despite promises of reform, the Kenyan youth view the state as incapable of delivering and always quick to suppress dissent through coercive means,” he said. “Continued reports of human rights violations and inadequate accountability have reinforced the perception that little has changed.”

Wednesday’s plan includes peaceful processions in different parts of the country, and digital campaigns using hashtags. In Nairobi, people are expected to walk towards the parliament and the president’s office, laying flowers along the road and light candles outside the premises. Vigils were scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Recent demonstrations, including those over the death of Ojwang, have been infiltrated by men whom protesters have described as hired goons who disrupt protests by beating and robbing peaceful demonstrators.

Last week, Nairobi’s regional police commander, George Seda, called for calm from those who participate. “What I would like to urge the public is, let’s restrict ourselves to what we call ‘peaceful demonstrations’,” he said. “Let’s not have demonstrations that are going to interfere with other people who may not be part of the demonstrators.”

But some of Ruto’s allies and pro-government politicians have made threats against younger Kenyans. David Ndii, the chairperson of Ruto’s council of economic advisers, posted on X: “You allow yourself to be weaponised by self seekers, there’ll be casualties”, before telling a user: “Wewe tokea [You show up], and say your goodbyes before you leave home just in case you catch a stray.”

Rights activists have called for solidarity. “Let’s stand together as brothers and sisters tomorrow, united in solidarity,” said Hanifa Adan on X. “Let’s look out for one another and protect each other. May the Lord shield us from violence, political interference, and most of all, from the brutality of bloodthirsty police.”

In a joint statement on Tuesday, envoys from 12 countries including the US and the UK stated its support for “every Kenyan’s right to peaceful assembly and to express themselves” and urged all parties “to facilitate peaceful demonstrations and to refrain from violence”.

The Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops called for peaceful activities on Wednesday and criticised excessive use of force by police during demonstrations.

“A society that instils fear in its youth for simply speaking out is a society walking away from justice,” Nyeri archbishop Anthony Muheria said at a press conference. “The government’s primary responsibility is to protect its citizens, not to threaten, silence, or punish them.”

WHO says attack on Sudanese hospital killed more than 40 civilians

A soldier stands next to a large gun holding a flag

The head of the World Health Organization has condemned an attack on a hospital in Sudan that he said had killed more than 40 civilians, as the country’s civil war, which has caused the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, rages on.

The attack on al-Mujlad hospital in West Kordofan happened on Saturday close to the frontline between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The WHO’s local office, which did not assign blame, said six children and five health workers were among the dead and that there were “dozens of injuries”.

The RSF and Sudan’s armed forces have been fighting since April 2023, when a power struggle broke out into open warfare in the capital, Khartoum. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 12 million displaced, 4 million of them to outside the country. More than 20 million are in need of food aid and areas of the country are in famine.

The WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a post on X: “We cannot say this louder: attacks on health must stop everywhere!”

The RSF said in a statement on its website that the armed forces were responsible for Saturday’s attack. “The Rapid Support Forces strongly condemn and denounce the barbaric aggression … This attack constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, including the 1949 Geneva conventions, which explicitly prohibit the targeting of health facilities and personnel,” it said.

The news site Darfur 24 cited the West Kordofan Emergency Response Rooms, part of a network of Sudanese grassroots humanitarian groups, as saying the attack was an airstrike carried out using a Sudanese military plane. Emergency Lawyers, a group that documents abuses by both sides in the war, said the hospital was hit by a military drone.

Nabil Abdallah, a spokesperson for Sudan’s military, said the allegations were false. “Sudanese armed forces do not violate international law and do not target civilians, but target the places of militia gatherings everywhere as legitimate targets, against facilities used by the militia for military purposes,” Abdallah said.

“These are lies and propaganda aimed at blaming false charges [on] the Sudanese state and its armed forces and [are] part of the regional and international conspiracy against Sudan.”

The United Nations’ children’s agency, Unicef, said in an X post: “The attacks do not only kill and injure but also severely impede the communities’ ability to receive life-saving services. We urge the government and all parties to the conflict to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law. The attacks and violence must end now.”

In January, 70 people were killed in an attack on what was then the only functional hospital in the besieged city of El Fasher, in the Darfur region. The attack was blamed on the RSF.

In March, Sudan’s armed forces recaptured the presidential palace as they asserted control over Khartoum. Meanwhile, the RSF consolidated their dominance over the western region of Darfur, where their predecessors, the Janjaweed Arab militias, were accused of committing genocide against non-Arab tribes in 2004.

Earlier this month, a UN aid convoy came under attack, with five people killed, as it tried to bring supplies to El Fasher, which has been under siege by the RSF for more than a year.

Virginia Gamba, the UN secretary general’s special adviser on the prevention of genocide, told the UN Human Rights Council on Monday: “Both parties have committed serious human rights violations.”

She said: “RSF and allied armed Arab militias continue to conduct ethnically motivated attacks against the Zaghawa, Masalit and Fur groups. The risk of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan remains very high.”

Nigerian communities to take Shell to high court over oil pollution

King Bebe Okpabi, ruler of Ogale in Nigeria, holds up a bottle of polluted water during a protest ahead of an Ogale and Bille communities vs Shell trial outside the high court in London

Residents of two Nigerian communities who are taking legal action against Shell over oil pollution are set to take their cases to trial at the high court in 2027.

Members of the Bille and Ogale communities in the Niger delta, which have a combined population of about 50,000, are suing Shell and a Nigerian-based subsidiary of the company, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, which is now the Renaissance Africa Energy Company.

The two communities began the legal action in 2015, claiming they had suffered systemic and ongoing oil pollution for years due to the companies’ operations in the African country, including the pollution of drinking water.

They are seeking compensation and asking for the companies to clean up damage caused by the spills.

The companies are defending the claims, saying that the majority of spills are caused by the criminal acts of third parties or illegal oil refining, for which they are not liable.

On Friday, Mrs Justice May ruled on more than 20 preliminary issues in the claims after a hearing held in London over four weeks in February and March.

She said that “some 85 spills have, so far, been identified”, but added that the case was “still at a very early stage”.

Her findings included that Shell could be sued for damage from pipeline spills caused by third parties, such as vandals, in efforts to steal oil, a process known as bunkering.

She also said that, while there was a five-year limitation period on bringing legal claims, a “new cause of action will arise each day that oil remains” on land affected by the spills.

The cases are due to be tried over four months, starting in March 2027.

Reacting to the ruling, the leader of the Ogale community, King Bebe Okpabi, said: “It has been 10 years now since we started this case. We hope that now Shell will stop these shenanigans and sit down with us to sort this out. People in Ogale are dying; Shell need to bring a remedy. We thank the judicial system of the UK for this judgment.”

A Shell spokesperson said that the company also welcomed the judgment. They said: “For many years, the vast majority of spills in the Niger Delta have been caused by third parties acting unlawfully, such as oil thieves who drill holes in pipelines or saboteurs.

“This criminality is the cause of the majority of spills in the Bille and Ogale claims, and we maintain that Shell is not liable for the criminal acts of third parties or illegal refining. These challenges are managed by a joint-venture, which Shell’s former subsidiary operated, using its expertise in spill response and clean-up.”

Ordinary Zambians lose out twice: to global looting and local corruption | Letters

Shoppers at a market in Lusaka, Zambia.

Your editorial (The Guardian view on Zambia’s Trumpian predicament: US aid cuts are dwarfed by a far bigger heist, 10 January) highlights research by Prof Andrew Fischer, and the exploitation of Zambia’s commodity resources via illicit financial schemes. Many Zambians have raised the issue of this looting for years, but have met coordinated resistance. Consequently, Zambia’s treasury loses billions of dollars in revenue. These losses are driven by well-known multinationals working in concert with certain insiders close to the Zambian state.

Your editorial also says: “The US decision to cut $50m a year in aid to Zambia … is dreadful, and the reason given, corruption, rings hollow.” Alas, I disagree and wish to place this in context.

The aid cut followed large-scale theft of US-donated medical supplies by individuals connected to and within the Zambian state. Even before Donald Trump assumed office, Michael Gonzales, the US ambassador, confronted Zambian authorities about this. US officials engaged in 33 meetings with senior members of the Zambian government and officers from the Zambia police service and other law enforcement agencies. US officials urged the Zambians to take action to ensure medicines reached the country’s poorest citizens. The president’s inner circle ignored the warnings, ultimately leading to the aid cut. The Zambian government’s reaction was to dismiss these legitimate concerns, saying diplomats should stay out of Zambia’s internal affairs.

This response is inadequate, as the issues go beyond mere bureaucratic inefficiency and touch on profound state corruption.

The government’s refusal to confront this reality is disappointing and has led to more suffering, where ordinary people who benefited from this aid will be most affected.
Emmanuel Mwamba
Zambia’s high commissioner to South Africa (2015-19)

As a Zambian and UK citizen, I am both enraged and heartbroken by Prof Andrew Fischer’s research exposing the systematic plunder of my country’s wealth. While Donald Trump cuts our aid, citing “corruption”, the real thieves operate with complete impunity under the guise of legitimate business.

The figures are devastating: $5bn extracted in 2021 alone. This isn’t corruption in the traditional sense, it’s legalised theft orchestrated by multinational corporations that exploit our resources while leaving us in poverty. How can we be called corrupt when the very system designed to “help” us facilitates our exploitation?

I think of my fellow Zambians struggling to access basic healthcare, education and clean water while billions flow to Swiss bank accounts. We sit on some of the world’s most valuable mineral deposits, yet we’re drowning in debt. This isn’t coincidence – it’s by design.

Foreign direct investment is often foreign direct extraction in disguise. Companies like Glencore and First Quantum Minerals have treated Zambia like a cash machine, using complex financial structures to strip our wealth while paying minimal taxes. When confronted, they simply leave or settle for pennies in the pound.

This global economic architecture, which enables legal plunder, must be challenged. African countries need new models of resource governance that prioritise our people over foreign shareholders. We need transparency requirements exposing these shadowy financial flows, progressive taxation capturing fair value from our resources, and regional cooperation preventing companies from playing us against each other.

The west’s moralising about corruption while facilitating this systematic theft is breathtaking hypocrisy. Until the international community addresses the structural violence of this extractive system, their aid will remain what it truly is – a drop in the ocean compared with the torrent of wealth flowing out of Africa.
Fiona Mulaisho
London

Woman dies of rabies in Yorkshire after contact with dog in Morocco

Two stray dogs

A woman from Yorkshire has died from rabies after contact with a stray dog while on holiday in Morocco, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said.

Yvonne Ford, from Barnsley in South Yorkshire, was diagnosed in Yorkshire and Humber after returning from the north African country in February.

In a Facebook post, Ford’s daughter Robyn Thomson said her mother had become infected after being “scratched very slightly by a puppy”.

“At the time, she did not think any harm would come of it and didn’t think much of it,” Thomson wrote. “Two weeks ago, she became ill, starting with a headache and resulted in her losing her ability to walk, talk, sleep, swallow.”

Thomson, who said her mother died soon afterwards, warned people about the dangers of rabies. “We never thought something like this could happen to someone we love,” she wrote. “Please take animal bites seriously, vaccinate your pets, and educate those around you.”

The UKHSA said there was no risk to the wider public because there was no evidence that rabies could be passed between people. However, as a precautionary measure it was assessing health workers and close contacts to offer vaccination where necessary.

Rabies is a deadly virus spread via the saliva of infected animals, and people usually contract it after being bitten.

Animals such as cows, cats and foxes can carry the virus but, in some countries, stray dogs are the most likely to spread rabies to humans.

Once a person shows signs and symptoms of rabies, the disease is nearly always fatal, but treating a wound immediately after being bitten may prevent death.

The first symptoms can be similar to flu, while later symptoms include fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, agitation, anxiety, difficulty swallowing and excessive saliva.

The case is only the seventh time this millennium that a person in the UK has been diagnosed with rabies after exposure to an infected animal. All cases started with the person becoming infected abroad.

In he UK rabies is not found in wild or domestic animals and, aside from cases linked to individuals being bitten by bats, which can carry a rabies-like virus, there has not been a reported case of a person becoming infected in the UK from an animal other than a bat since 1902.

Inflected people may develop fears over such things as swallowing drinks and can experience hallucinations and paralysis.

Dr Katherine Russell, the head of emerging infections and zoonoses at the UKHSA, said: “I would like to extend my condolences to this individual’s family at this time.

“If you are bitten, scratched or licked by an animal in a country where rabies is found, then you should wash the wound or site of exposure with plenty of soap and water and seek medical advice without delay in order to get post-exposure treatment to prevent rabies.”

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