Demonstrators hit the streets of the capital before talks between Alexander Lukashenko and Russia's Vladimir Putin. Belarus police violently detained hundreds of protesters as tens of thousands demonstrated in the capital Minsk in advance of talks between strongman Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Masked policemen in uniform and plain clothes seized people who gathered for the "March of Heroes" demonstration on Sunday, pushing or punching them, video posted on the Belarusian news site Tut.by showed. Oktyabrskaya Square in central Minsk was fenced off with barbed wire with armed law enforcement forces seen behind it. Independence Square was also sealed off. Demonstrators were heading towards the Palace of Independence, President Lukashenko's residence. "Soldiers rounded us up in several circles, people were selectively pulled out of the crowd and beaten," one unidentified demonstrator told Reuters news agency. Lukashenko - in power for 26 years - is facing a groundswell of public anger after declaring a landslide win in last month's presidential election that his opponents say was rigged. He denies the allegations. "I came out for freedom and I am going to protest until we win it through peaceful means," 60-year old marcher Oleg Zimin told AFP news agency. He said he did not vote for Lukashenko last month. "He always lied to us," said Zimin. The opposition urged Lukashenko not to "sell the country" ahead of his first face-to-face meeting with Putin since demonstrations began, which is set to take place in Russia on Monday. 'Snatching People' A vast column protesters marched through the capital chanting "Long live Belarus" and "You're a rat," a taunt that has frequently been used against Lukashenko during demonstrations. They came to a halt and chanted "fascists" as hundreds of riot police with shields blocked off the road. Police said they had detained over 400 people in Minsk alone. A Reuters witness said that detentions were continuing on Sunday evening. Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen, reporting by phone from Minsk, said the internet was blocked and security forces had been making it extremely hard for protesters to gather. Yet, she said tens of thousands rallied in the centre of the capital, although at different locations than initially planned. An Al Jazeera cameraman was briefly detained and nearly dragged into a van but escaped, Vaessen reported. "Vans of masked policemen are driving around the city at high speed, stopping and snatching people from the street," she said. "It is very clear that the strategy today is to clamp down on any more moving towards the Sunday rally." On Saturday, at least 5,000 people marched through the city demanding the release of a jailed opposition leader in the latest wave of mass protests after the August 9 presidential vote. Key opposition figures of Belarus have been either jailed or forced out of the country. 'Meeting Putin' Vaessen said Lukashenko's meeting with Putin was crucial. "He wants to show that he has these protests under control, and images of very large gatherings are not something that he wants to see today." She said the government and demonstrators were digging in and neither wants to compromise. "It's a complete standoff. Lukashenko has repeated again and again that he is not willing to step down. People here are also not willing to stop the protests because they have started something they are calling the 'awakening of Belarus'. After so many years, 26 years of dictatorship, they have passed the point where they can accept it any more." Peter Zalmayev from the Eurasia Democracy Initiative said the month-long mass rallies each Sunday are single-minded in their purpose, the removal of Lukashenko and his "iron-fisted rule". "The one goal the protesters have is to get rid of the guy and they're doing it in a spectacularly democratic fashion with no single leader, with the leadership dispersed, and with a true popular uprising the likes of which Belarus has never witnessed," Zalmayev told Al Jazeera. He said the only reason Lukashenko was "hanging on" was because of the loyalty of his security forces. On Sunday, Russia's defence ministry said it would send paratroopers from its elite Pskov division to Belarus for the joint drills starting on Monday and running till September 25, the TASS state news agency reported. Andrei Gorbachevsky, a 29-year-old doctor, accused Putin of treating Belarus as if it were a Russian province. "He is supporting Lukashenko's regime, he's playing a strange game and that's why our people no longer trust him," he said. Putin and Lukashenko are set to meet in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, with the Kremlin saying the talks will cover plans for closer integration between the neighbouring countries as well as key trade and energy projects. Putin has been keen to unify Russia and Belarus, and Moscow has accompanied its offers of military and economic aid with calls for tighter integration. Analysts say Putin may seek to exploit Lukashenko's political vulnerability to wring concessions from him, but any agreements compromising Belarus's sovereignty and independence are likely to enrage Belarusian protesters further. "The big unknown is Vladimir Putin who has sent contradictory signals. From what we have seen, he is unwilling to contemplate a victory by a street protest, which would create a very unpleasant precedent for Russia and for Putin's rule," said Zalmayev. © 2020 Aljazeera

Members of Nigeria's community in South Africa have raised concerns over renewed anti-immigrant violence, appealing to authorities to intervene before the situation gets out of control. Nigeria's presidency on Monday called the South African government to step in to stop what it said were "xenophobic attacks" following recent reports of violence against Nigerians and other nationals in the capital, Pretoria. Members of Nigeria's community in South Africa have raised concerns over renewed anti-immigrant violence, appealing to authorities to intervene before the situation gets out of control. The Nigerian Union South Africa (NUSA) on Tuesday confirmed that Nigerian homes and businesses in Pretoria West had been attacked in several late-night incidents in recent days. "Homes and shops of Nigerians were targeted and looted in the events of past few days," Emeka Ezinteje Collins, national public relations officer of NUSA, told Al Jazeera, citing at least 10 such attacks. He added: "Our people and other foreigners are apparently living in fear of the unknown as the hoodlums have promised" more attacks from Friday, when a group called the "Mamelodi concerned residents" is reportedly planning to hold a march against foreign nationals. NUSA also said that some of its members had received threatening phone calls asking for payment to protect their houses and businesses. "We have also received reports from our members of receiving threatening anonymous calls requesting that money be paid to avert destruction of their properties," Collins said. "We implore the South African and Nigerian authorities to intervene early and save the situation before it spills out of hand." 'Angry residents' South African police said on Tuesday at least 20 shops possibly belonging to immigrants were looted in Pretoria overnight, but they could not confirm if the attacks had deliberately targeted foreigners. "There are allegations that these shops belong to foreign nationals," police spokeswoman Brigadier Mathapelo Peters told the Reuters news agency. "It is alleged that the community members are saying that these shops were used for drug dealing, but that is unconfirmed. We will only be able to start a formal investigation once the shop owners come forward." Anti-immigrant violence has flared sporadically in South Africa against a background of near-record unemployment, with foreigners being accused of taking jobs from locals and getting involved in crime. "We are sick and tired of foreigners who are coming to sell drugs and kill our people, we can't let the community go down like this," an unemployed man in his mid-twenties, who declined to be named, told Reuters. The attacks in Pretoria West come a few weeks after residents in Rosetenville, a suburb in Johannesburg, reportedly torched properties belonging to Nigerians and other foreigners which allegedly were being used for drug dealing and human trafficking. "The Rosetenville unrest is replicating in Pretoria West," the African Diaspora Forum said in a statement last week. "Those who are living in the area are advised to be careful. Cars and houses are set alight by angry residents claiming to get rid of drugs and prostitution. No one has been arrested after two houses were set alight, various homes raided by Pretoria West community members." 'Dire consequences' Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the Nigerian president's adviser on foreign affairs and the diaspora, said on Monday the South African government must take "decisive and definitive measures to protect Nigerians and other African nationals" within its borders. She also called on the African Union to weigh in on the violence, adding: "Further attacks without any reprimand may have dire consequences". Dabiri-Erewa said there was a need for the continental body to "intervene urgently", claiming that in the last two years "about 116" Nigerians had been killed, including 20 last year. "This is unacceptable to the people and government of Nigeria." There was no independent verification of the claimed number of deaths. According to NUSA, there are about 800,000 Nigerians in South Africa, many of them living in Johannesburg. The community was hit badly by the wave of xenophobic violence that hit the country in April 2015, but South African police said only seven Nigerians died. An independent watchdog has said 640 people died from police brutality or in custody in South Africa. In April 2015, Nigeria recalled its top diplomat in South Africa to discuss the anti-immigrant attacks that sent hundreds of foreigners fleeing to safety camps, as authorities sent in soldiers to quell unrest in Johannesburg and Durban. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Aljazeera News

Peru sends forces to Chile border where hundreds stranded. People seeking to leave Chile amid increase in restrictions have been stuck in extreme climate with few supplies. The Peruvian government is sending approximately 700 soldiers and police officers to its border with Chile, authorities have said, as hundreds of undocumented migrants seeking to enter Peru are stuck on the frontier. The announcement on Friday comes as hundreds of people – many of whom have said they are seeking to enter Peru to continue on towards their home country of Venezuela – remain in camps on the Chilean side of the border. Other migrants have said they plan to travel north to the United States border, and rights groups have reported that Haitians and other foreign nationals are among those stranded. Peru’s Interior Minister Vicente Romero told local radio station RPP on Friday that about 390 police officers have already arrived at the border and 300 more soldiers would soon get there from different parts of the country. “We are not going to allow any illegal entry, or attacks on the police,” said Romero, repeating claims by government officials that those at the border were committing crimes, with some images showing migrants pushing Peruvian border patrol officers in an effort to enter the country. In recent weeks, Chile has ramped up restrictions on people living in the country without legal documentation, prompting an increase in the number of those seeking to leave. Peruvian President Dina Boluarte declared a state of emergency in Tacna, a town near the border with Chile, earlier this week in response to the influx in arrivals, paving the way for joint operations by the military and police. Chilean President Gabriel Boric Boric had deployed troops to the border in late February to help stop further crossings. In a statement on Thursday, Amnesty International said “at least 300 people, including families with children and teenagers, pregnant women and the chronically sick” were stuck at the border and faced deteriorating conditions. Those stranded have been living in makeshift camps for weeks in the Atacama Desert – one of the driest on the planet and an area with extremely hot days and intensely cold nights. They have reported shortages of water and basic services. Erika Guevara Rosas, the Americas director at Amnesty International, on Thursday accused the Chilean and Peruvian authorities of “needlessly aggravating the situation, turning it into a humanitarian crisis that increases the risk to the lives and safety of these people”. “Militarizing the borders endangers not only refugees and migrants, but also the people living in those areas,” she said in the statement. Earlier in the week, the Chilean government summoned Peruvian Ambassador Jaime Pomareda over statements made by the mayor of the Peruvian border town of Tacna. The mayor, Pascual Guisa, had called Boric “irresponsible” and accused Chile of transferring its migration problems to the border. Amid the impasse, the head of Chile’s lower house of Congress, Vlado Mirosevic, called for a humanitarian corridor involving all the countries in the region to resolve the crisis and allow migrants safe passage back to Venezuela. Meanwhile, the mayor of the Chilean border town of Arica, Gerardo Espindola, had promised to provide resources to support those stranded, particularly children and the elderly. “We will act as quickly as this critical situation affecting the people stranded at the border requires,” Espindola said. SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES For further information, including two videos regarding the military presence please visit: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/28/peru-sends-forces-to-chile-border-where-hundreds-stranded

After a failed progressive majority rewrite, a collection of right-wing parties will now draft a new constitution. Chilean right-wing parties have won a majority of votes to elect advisers to draft a new constitution, marking a sharp shift from a progressive majority that drafted a failed first constitutional rewrite. With 95.13 percent of ballots tallied, Chile’s Republican Party, led by former conservative firebrand presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast, secured nearly 35 percent in Sunday’s vote. A separate coalition of traditional right-wing parties gained more than 20 percent of the vote, while President Gabriel Boric’s left-wing coalition garnered about 29 percent. Centrist parties took the remainder of the vote. “Today is the first day of a better future, a new start for Chile,” Kast, who lost to Boric in 2021, said during a speech in Santiago. “Chile has defeated a failed government.” New constitution The final results will determine the exact makeup of a 50-seat Constitutional Council that will be in charge of drafting a new constitution. Articles will need a three-fifths majority to be approved. This is the latest step in a years-long effort to overhaul the country’s dictatorship-era text after nearly 80 percent of Chileans voted to draft a new constitution in 2020 following violent protests against inequality. Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman, reporting from Santiago, said, “Should the text be found wanting, Chile will have lost the last opportunity for a long time to finally eliminate the last important symbol of its former military dictatorship.” The irony, she added, would be that Chile commemorates the 50th anniversary of the coup that deposed the Popular Unity government that “gave birth to the constitution that so many find illegitimate”. The constitutional advisers elected on Sunday will start drawing up a new constitution in June based on a draft compiled by 24 constitutional experts appointed by the National Congress in March. Voters will then approve or reject the new proposal in December. The Republican Party, the most conservative of those represented in the new council, will now be the leading political force. Luis Silva, the party’s most-voted candidate, told Newman that they never wanted to replace the dictatorship-era constitution. “It’s our starting point. This process allows us to introduce new aspects to it that we believe our constitution deserves,” he said. A failed first rewrite Largely independent and left-wing constituents drafted the first rewrite, which focused on social benefits, environmental rights, gender parity and Indigenous rights. It was considered one of the world’s most progressive constitutions, but many voters found it too polarising, and controversies mired the process. Boric, who took office last March, rose to power on a wave of optimism surrounding reform, but his approval ratings have since plummeted as a struggling economy and rising crime have become the main concerns for voters. Boric also suffered a political defeat after throwing his weight behind the first rewrite, which was rejected by nearly 62 percent of voters. The president has since distanced himself from the process but promised to support it. “The government won’t meddle with the process and will respect the entity’s autonomy in its deliberation,” Boric told reporters on Sunday morning after voting, adding that the government would act as a guarantor and support requests from the new council. After Kast’s victory speech, Boric spoke from La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago and called for unity and urged the opposition to learn from the previous failed attempt. “I want to invite the Republican Party, that’s won an unquestionable majority, to not make the same mistakes we made,” Boric said. “This process can’t be about vendettas, but putting Chile first.” SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES 8 May 2023

Disturbing reports of sexual assault in the Darién Gap reveal yet another horrifying aspect of border warfare. The first time I spoke with survivors of the Darién Gap – the notoriously deadly stretch of jungle on the border between Colombia and Panama – was in 2021 during my brief imprisonment in Siglo XXI, Mexico’s largest immigration detention centre, located in the Mexican state of Chiapas near the border with Guatemala. I was the only detainee who hailed from the United States – the very country responsible for Mexico’s migration crackdown in the first place – and I had ended up in migrant jail purely on account of my own stupidity and laziness in renewing my tourist visa. My fellow inmates were facing rather more existential predicaments, and many of them – from Haiti, Cuba, Bangladesh, and beyond – had been forced to traverse the Darién Gap as they fled political and economic calamity in the hopes of eventually finding refuge in the US. Within the walls of Siglo XXI, where dreams of refuge had been indefinitely put on hold, the Darién was a recurring topic of conversation – a sort of spontaneous exercise in group therapy, it seemed. Women recounted the numerous cadavers they had encountered during their journeys. Rape, it was clear, was rampant in the jungle – to the extent that even those who were not personally assaulted, were vicariously traumatised. Indeed, in this densest and most impenetrable of forests, sexual violence against refuge seekers has become institutionalised. This violence may be perpetrated by local inhabitants, paramilitaries, or an array of criminal actors whose activities are permitted to proceed with impunity in the general context of criminalised migration. In February of this year, I travelled to Panama’s Darién region. I did not, of course, have to risk my life or physical integrity to do so – such being the obscene and arbitrary privilege conferred by the passport of the US, a country known for stirring up trouble worldwide and then militarising its borders against anyone wishing to flee the mess. In the town of Metetí in Darién province, I spoke with Tamara Guillermo, field coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF), who expressed horror at the “level of brutality” and extreme “viciousness” currently on display in the jungle – where sexual aggression, including against men, remained par for the course. According to Guillermo, there had been a recent uptick in reports from people who had been held up by armed assailants in the Darién and forced to remove all of their clothing for a manual inspection of bodily orifices, to ensure that nothing of value had been tucked away. Often, the women were then separated from the group and raped. In Metetí, I also spoke with a young Venezuelan woman – we’ll call her Alicia – whose two-year-old son threw a foam ball at me and pinched my nose throughout our conversation, in between being distracted by a cartoon about velociraptors. Alicia had spent 10 days crossing the Darién, she told me, and every night she had cried. She had not been raped, but she had heard about many rapes, and she had seen plenty of death – like the hunched-over body of an old man under a tree who “looked like he was cold”. She had met a Haitian woman whose six-month-old baby had just drowned. She had been robbed of her puppy and then of all valuables that were not hidden in her son’s diapers when a group of 10 hooded men descended upon her group. In Spanish, the verb “violar” can mean either “to violate” – as in human rights – or “to rape”. And while Alicia may not have been physically violated in the latter sense, the DariénGap pretty much qualifies as one continuous violation. But the Darién Gap is not the only trajectory where refuge seekers must endure the brutal and often sexual violation of their dignity. Worldwide, we humans have demonstrated a sadistic knack for exploiting vulnerable people on the move – people whose status as “migrants” usually has much to do with the fact that they have already suffered tremendously in life. Take Libya, a primary point of departure for Europe-bound refugees fleeing war and economic misery, which has played host to all manner of rape, slavery, and torture -including of refuge-seeking children. Try as the West might to pin responsibility for the whole sinister arrangement on the ever-handy fantasy of African savagery, the reality is that the blame lies right at the foot of Fortress Europe. Meanwhile, in northern Mexico, bipartisan xenophobic US policy has placed countless asylum seekers directly into the hands of rapists and kidnappers. And on the island of Nauru, the site of Australia’s preferred offshore asylum “processing” centre, a 2020 report jointly published by the Refugee Council of Australia and the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre noted: “For years, there have been tragic accounts of rape and sexual abuse of females in Nauru, including by those paid to protect them”. Speaking of supposed “protection”, Panamanian authorities have now come under fire regarding allegations of sexual and other abuse at migrant reception centres in Darién province. Forgive me my pessimism at the prospects for justice. During my stay in the Darién region, I also spoke with Marilen Osinalde, the mental health manager for MSF in Metetí, who regularly attends to patients who have suffered sexual and other violence. She remarked to me that, while there is a persistent Western stereotype of rapists as “psychopaths who grab you in the street in the night”, the phenomenon is rather more complex. In the case of the Darién Gap and other migrant trajectories, she explained, the landscape of sexual aggression against people crossing it has to do with asserting power, status, and impunity – as well as with marking territory. The use of rape as a “weapon” in the Darién also objectifies and dehumanises the migrant “Other”, she said, further solidifying power structures. Zoom out from the Darién, and we find ourselves in a world of borders that dehumanise and criminalise refuge seekers and other have-nots, all in the interest of marking territory and reinforcing power structures. The US penetrates international borders at will while fortifying its own – and converts spaces like the Darién Gap into physical and psychological weapons. From Panama to Libya to Nauru, a war is being waged against people who are deprived not only of the right to cross borders but also of the right to control the very boundaries of their bodies. And that is a violation of humanity indeed. Belén Fernández Al Jazeera columnist 19 Mar 2023

Supporters of the coup in Niger have set fire to the governing party’s HQ as countries decry toppling of President Mohamed Bazoum. Supporters of the Nigerien defence and security forces gather during a demonstration outside the national assembly in Niamey [AFP] By AlJazeera 27 Jul 2023 The situation in Niger “remains fluid” a day after mutinous soldiers detained toppled President Mohamed Bazoum and announced they had seized power in a coup because of the West African country’s deteriorating security situation. Tensions remain high between supporters of the coup and people loyal to the deposed government, Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, who has reported extensively on Niger, said. Supporters of the coup ransacked and set fire to the headquarters of the governing party in the capital Niamey on Thursday. Plumes of black smoke billowed from the building after hundreds of coup supporters who had gathered in front of the National Assembly moved there. A statement tweeted by the army command’s account declared that it would back the coup to avoid a “murderous confrontation” that could lead to a “bloodbath”. Meanwhile, Bazoum defiantly declared that democracy would prevail in the country. Bazoum – who was elected in 2021 in Niger’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since its independence from France in 1960 – appeared to have the backing of several political parties. He is a key ally in the West’s efforts to battle a rebellion linked to al-Qaeda in Africa’s Sahel region. “The hard-won achievements will be safeguarded. All Nigerians who love democracy and freedom will see to it,” Bazoum tweeted early on Thursday. Foreign Minister Hassoumi Massoudou issued a similar call on news network France 24, asking “all Nigerian democratic patriots to stand up as one to say no to this factious action”. He demanded the president’s unconditional release and said talks were continuing. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who spoke to Bazoum by phone on Wednesday, told reporters on Thursday that he was “extremely worried” about the situation in Niger and warned of the “terrible effects on development” and civilians due to “successive unconstitutional changes of government in the Sahel region”. The Economic Community of West African States sent Benin President Patrice Talon to lead mediation efforts. Russia and the West have been vying for influence in the region through the fight against the rebel groups. Armed groups in Niger have carried out attacks on civilians and military personnel, but the overall security situation is not as dire as in neighbouring nations. Bazoum has been viewed by many as the West’s last hope for partnership in the Sahel after Mali turned away from former colonial power France and sought support from the Russian mercenary group Wagner. Wagner appears to be making inroads in Burkina Faso as well. The US is “gravely concerned” about the situation in Niger, said Department of State spokesman Vedant Patel during a briefing with reporters on Thursday. “We are monitoring the situation closely and continue to be in close touch with the embassy,” Patel said. Western countries have poured aid into Niger, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited in March, seeking to strengthen ties. American, French and Italian troops train the country’s soldiers, while France also conducts joint operations. But the threat to Bazoum has raised concerns that Niger could also turn away from the West. International condemnations On Thursday, several hundred people gathered in the capital and chanted support for Wagner while waving Russian flags. Later, they began throwing rocks at a passing politician’s car. “If Mohamed Bazoum resigns from the presidency, Niger will probably move to the top of the list of countries where the Wagner Group will seek to expand,” said Flavien Baumgartner, an Africa analyst at Dragonfly, a security and political risk consultancy. Wagner already had its sights set on Niger, in part because it’s a large producer of uranium. But Bazoum posed an impediment because of his pro-French and pro-Western stance, said Baumgartner. The US Department of State is not aware of any signs that the Wagner Group was involved in the coup, Patel said. Underscoring the importance of Niger to the West, Blinken said that he had spoken with the president, saying that he “made clear that we strongly support him as the democratically elected president of the country”. Blinken, who was in New Zealand, repeated the US condemnation of the mutiny and said his team was in close contact with officials in France and Africa. If designated a coup by the United States, Niger could lose millions of dollars of military support and aid. Members of the presidential guard surrounded Bazoum’s house and detained him on Wednesday morning. The mutinous soldiers, who call themselves the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, took to state television and announced they had seized control because of deteriorating security and poor economic and social governance in the nation of 25 million people. They said they had dissolved the constitution, suspended all institutions and closed all the borders. More than four million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and hundreds of thousands are internally displaced, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters after speaking to senior UN officials in Niger. The international community denounced the coup in Niger, which has undergone multiple coups since independence in 1960. “We firmly condemn the coup that took place in Niger against the country’s civilian democratic authorities,” the French foreign ministry said Thursday. It called for the liberation of Bazoum and his family, and for their security to be ensured. It also called for the immediate restoration of the integrity of Niger’s democratic institutions. France has 2,500 troops in Niger and Chad, conducting anti-rebel operations in the Sahel region. UN Human Rights chief Volker Türk called for Bazoum’s release and said “all efforts must be undertaken to restore constitutional order and the rule of law.” Russia also called for the president’s release. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday in televised remarks that “it’s necessary to restore the constitutional order in Niger.” “We believe that the coup is unconstitutional, and we always take a principled and clear position on that,” he said. SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

The convoy was taking people displaced by an armed uprising back to their homes in Baga, Borno state. At least 11 people have been killed in northeastern Nigeria in an attack on a security convoy that was taking people displaced by an armed uprising back to their homes, police and security sources said. The ISIL (ISIS) group, to which a breakaway faction of Nigerian armed group Boko Haram pledged allegiance in 2016, said on its Amaq website that 30 police officers and soldiers were killed in the attack on Friday on a road leading to the strategic fishing town of Baga in Borno state. In a statement on Saturday, Borno state police said eight police officers and three members of a government-approved militia were killed, and 13 people were wounded in the attack about noon (11:00 GMT) on Friday. Two soldiers, a police officer and a member of the government-approved militia – all speaking anonymously because they were not authorised to speak to journalists – told Reuters news agency at least four soldiers were also killed. Armed groups have forced more than two million people to flee their homes since 2009 when Boko Haram began an armed uprising aimed at creating a state adhering to a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Some 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict. The convoy was taking people back to Baga at the start of an initiative by authorities in Borno to relocate displaced people to their homes. Borno is the birthplace of the armed uprising and the state worst hit by the conflict. Most of the displaced have been housed into squalid camps where they depend on food handouts from international charities. Unnamed security sources told AFP news agency that Borno Governor Babagana Umara Zulum was part of the convoy but was unhurt in the attack. In July, Zulum’s convoy came under attack from ISIL’s West Africa Province (ISWAP) outside Baga, forcing him to cancel his trip to the town. ISWAP has become a dominant force in the region in recent years. The group has recently intensified attacks on military and civilian targets. See full article and the short movie on the topic here. Al Jazeera © 2020

Insiders say UN sought to downplay criticism of Myanmar and was hamstrung by China, Russia opposition to firm response. Yangon, Myanmar - When Liam Mahony travelled to Myanmar to advise the United Nations on its handling of the Rohingya crisis, the dozens of aid workers he spoke to were almost unanimous in their appraisal of the organisation's approach. Their view, the researcher recalls, was "this was all screwed up... this was not going to help the Rohingya population". An aid worker who was helping to manage the detention camps in the western state of Rakhine - where the UN and others provide food and other basic necessities to tens of thousands of Rohingya who were forcibly relocated after riots in 2012 - offered Mahony a grim assessment of her role there. "I just feel like I've spent six months as a jailer," she told him. While assistance in the camps has saved many lives, Mahony's research in 2015 and 2017 led him to the conclusion that it also makes the UN and its partners complicit in what he considers a system of apartheid. The UN has been dogged for years by uncomfortable questions about its approach to the Rohingya. Senior officials have been accused of downplaying human rights abuses and ignoring the warning signs in the run-up to military-led mass killings that started in August 2017, and sent some 730,000 mostly Muslim Rohingya fleeing across the border into Bangladesh. An independent review published last week found "systemic failure" in the UN's handling of the crisis. The report, written by former Guatemalan Foreign Minister and UN Ambassador Gert Rosenthal, was a response to growing pressure for an inquiry. But while some have welcomed the review, others, including Rohingya activists, are angry that Rosenthal failed to hold any individual leaders accountable, instead arguing that "the overall responsibility was of a collective character … it truly can be characterised as a systemic failure". "The system failed because individuals didn't fulfil their obligations," said Nay San Lwin, an activist with the Free Rohingya Coalition. "This is blaming the system to avoid accountability." His group has called for the resignations of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as well as Renata Lok-Dessallien, who held the top UN post in Myanmar until late 2017. They say that in 2012, Guterres, who was then UN high commissioner for refugees, was told by Myanmar's then-President Thein Sein of plans to detain Rohingya in camps and asked to facilitate their removal from the country. While Guterres publicly dismissed the request, the Free Rohingya Coalition says more should have been done. "Myanmar's intent to commit international crimes was thus made clear to the most senior levels of the UN, yet no action was taken," the group said in a statement last week. 'Softly softly' Lok-Dessallien was accused of suppressing a report that predicted "indiscriminate" violence in Rakhine and called for urgent action, and isolating staff who raised concerns about Rohingya rights. A UN spokesperson referred Al Jazeera to the organisation's statement at the time, which denied the allegations and described Lok-Dessallien as "a tireless advocate for human rights". One UN official in Myanmar, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Al Jazeera that in 2014 Lok-Dessallien excluded staff from a meeting to avoid discussions of human rights that went against her "softly-softly" approach. The meeting was held in the aftermath of the Sittwe riots in 2014 when Rakhine nationalists ransacked aid agency buildings in a bid to cut off support to the Rohingya. The official said they bumped into a staffer from the UN Human Rights Council waiting outside the meeting who told them: "Renata won't even let us in the room." Questioning the leadership's approach made staff unpopular, and some feared for their careers, the official added. "The UN does not encourage people to step out of line," the official said. "People take a lot of time to get into and then advance at the UN. They don't want to give that up easily, especially when they feel nothing may happen anyway, especially with Renata as head." A spokesperson for Lok-Dessallien, who is now the resident coordinator in India, did not respond to a request for comment on the 2014 incident. David Mathieson, an independent analyst who was a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch in Myanmar until late 2016, said the UN was further undermined by in-fighting before the 2017 violence. "Dealing with UN officials during this period was like dealing with members of a dysfunctional rich family who despise each other," he told Al Jazeera. Rosenthal's report points to a lack of coordination between different parts of the UN as one of the reasons for its failings, but Mahony says that mischaracterises the problem. "There was actually a very well-coordinated agreement to comply with the government's constraints," he said. "It was actually imposed by the resident coordinator and almost all the UN agencies were quite docile about it." Diplomatic realities For all the criticism, it is far from clear whether the UN could have prevented the slaughter. A key obstacle was opposition from China and Russia, both allies of Myanmar with Security Council vetoes. That, said one diplomat previously based in Yangon, makes it unreasonable to put the blame for the violence on individuals in the UN, even if they did make mistakes. "If it were a similar situation where there's a Security Council resolution and strong support from the Security Council and it still went bad, then you're in a situation where individual accountability makes sense," said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "If someone's converted a strong position into a weak one then you've got to ask why, but the UN's position in Myanmar was always weak." Richard Horsey, an independent analyst who wrote the report that Lok-Dessallien was accused of suppressing, agrees that singling out individuals misses the point. "While there were certainly individual failures, these occurred within a context of serious institutional problems which must be fixed, or those individual failures will keep happening," said Horsey, who has also served as a senior UN official in Myanmar. The UN's approach to Myanmar government mirrored that of the diplomatic community, which was blinded by the reputation of Aung San Suu Kyi, a former dissident who was portrayed as an icon of freedom and became the country's de-facto leader in 2016. "I've talked with diplomats who made it very clear that 'we didn't want to embarrass Aung San Suu Kyi by talking about the Rohingya'," said Mahony. "She wanted them to ignore it, and they wanted to help her out." There are signs that the UN is changing its approach. In a letter to the government earlier this month, the current resident coordinator, Knut Ostby, threatened to withdraw aid from the camps in Sittwe "beyond life-saving assistance" unless there was "tangible progress" towards granting the Rohingya freedom of movement, according to the Guardian newspaper. But larger changes are needed if the UN is to protect the Rohingya more effectively. Rosenthal's report argues that Guterres should put more pressure on Russia and China, and that they could potentially be convinced to support stationing a team of UN human rights observers in Rakhine state. There is deep scepticism about what effect, if any, Rosenthal's recommendations will have. "The UN isn't serious about changing its approach," said Mathieson, "so these recommendations are not to be taken seriously." © June 2019 Al Jazeera. All Rights Reserved.

The hardline approach of the new president and a failed reconciliation process threaten to stir ethnic tensions. Sri Lanka's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa gestures while addressing the nation at the presidential swearing-in ceremony in Anuradhapura on November 18, 2019 [File: Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters] Two weeks after the election of hardliner Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka, the prospects for justice and reconciliation between the different communities on the island lie in tatters. The victory of Gota, as he is commonly known, sent shockwaves across the Tamil-dominated northeast - where memories of his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa's brutal presidency, marked by mass atrocities and enforced disappearances, remain fresh. Gota, who served as defence secretary between 2005 and 2015, stands accused of war crimes committed during Sri Lanka's civil war (1983-2009). The Tamil community were hoping for a victory of Sajith Premadasa, the deputy leader of the United National Party (UNP), who was seen by Tamils as the "lesser evil". While Premadasa also adopted nationalist rhetoric during his campaign, vowing to protect military chief Shavendra Silva from war crimes accusations and pledging to give prominence to Buddhism, minorities were terrified at the prospect of a return to the brutal authoritarianism of the Rajapaksas. Tamils and Tamil-speaking Muslims went to the polls in large numbers, with the vast majority of the northeastern vote going to Premadasa. But it was not enough for his victory. His opponent, Gota, swept the Sinhala south, winning the election with a whopping majority. After the vote, members of the Sinhalese majority levelled accusations of disloyalty and separatism against Tamils - once again exposing the deep fault lines running between the two major ethnic groups on the island. The faint hopes for justice and reconciliation during the term of Gota's predecessor, Maithripala Sirisena, encouraged by over-enthusiastic Western governments and a Colombo-based elite, disconnected from ground realities and preoccupied with promoting superficial processes, are now gone. Sri Lanka is slipping back into chauvinistic politics which threatens to destabilise the country. Rising fears The new president wasted no time reaffirming his "strongman" credentials, immediately rallying his Sinhala Buddhist base after the election. In his inaugural speech on November 18, he pledged to lead the government based on "Buddhist philosophy" and to support the Sinhalese culture and Buddhist heritage and highlighted his role in the civil war. The inauguration ceremony was held at a Buddhist temple in the northern city of Anuradhapura built by Sinhala ruler Dutugamunu, who defeated the Tamil Chola King Ellalan and united the entire island under Sinhala rule. Gota also moved against those he saw as a threat to his government. He imposed a travel ban on police officers involved in investigations of alleged crimes perpetrated by his family after one of them fled the country to Switzerland after the election. Following his escape, an employee of the Swiss visa section was detained and questioned, a worrying development which could endanger the work of foreign embassies on the island. Tamil and Sinhala media have also faced increasing pressure since the vote. Several journalists were forced to hand their computers to the police over unsubstantiated accusations of spreading hate speech. Tamil activists have ramped up their security protocols and some are reconsidering their continued presence in the country. Self-censorship has become the norm once again. Meanwhile, hate speech, particularly against Tamils, has exploded on social media, with no action taken against those posting. In the centre of the country, Tamils were attacked by Sinhalese, who accused them of voting against Gota. It is quite clear that under the new president, Sri Lanka will continue to embrace the persistent chauvinism that has dominated its political scene since independence from Britain in 1948. The main idea behind it is that Sri Lanka is a Sinhala Buddhist country and those of different faith or ethnicity migrated from elsewhere and are not part of the native population of the island. Today, the Sri Lankan constitution gives Sinhala Buddhism primacy, guaranteeing it the "foremost place" and entrusting the state with protecting and fostering it. State institutions, the military and the economy are also dominated by a Sinhala supremacist ethos. Meanwhile, those perceived as "outsiders" - Tamils, Tamil-speaking Muslims, Christians and others - are expected to submit to Sinhala Buddhist primacy on the island and relent to being treated as subordinate. Any resistance to their inferior status is seen as a threat to Sinhala Buddhist supremacy in Sri Lanka and viciously attacked by the majority. A defiant Tamil community It was against this chauvinism of the Sinhalese majority that the Tamils rose in rebellion in the 20th century. The long-running war for Tamil self-rule culminated in the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009. A yet unknown number of Tamil civilians died in the final months of the war. The United Nations says there could have been more than 70,000 deaths during this time, while some activists say the figure is closer to 140,000. Calls for justice for repeated atrocities committed against Tamils by the state have fallen on deaf ears. Nevertheless, families of the forcefully disappeared during the conflict continue to raise their voices, defying a state that denies that crimes were committed against the Tamil community. Gota's victory is seen as a major setback by Tamils, but has not discouraged them. Ten days after his inauguration, Tamils turned out in droves to commemorate Maaveerar Naal, the Tamil National Remembrance Day, in moving ceremonies at multiple locations across the northeast. This, despite harassment by local authorities, arrests of a number of individuals involved in preparations for the commemoration and fears of a crackdown. Every main Tamil newspaper on the island covered the day on their front pages, sometimes with emotional tributes. In Kilinochchi, the former administrative capital of the Tamil Eelam administration, thousands took part in a ceremony, laying flowers and lighting torches at a burial ground for LTTE fighters destroyed by the army. Amid tears and wailing by those mourning the dead, songs were played promising the establishment of Tamil Eelam, as the crowd sang along. The defiance was palpable. As I joined families filing past the fragments of headstones, one man, whose sister was an LTTE fighter, killed in the fighting, told me, "We will not forget and our children won't forget. For as long as we exist as a people, the struggle for freedom from oppression will continue." Ten years after the end of the LTTE, the resistance to the state continues to define the politics of Tamils. A bleak future When Sirisena of the opposition Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) defeated Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2015, Sri Lanka was prematurely hailed as a success story, as the United States and the European Union swiftly re-engaged with the government, restarting trade and military cooperation, which had suffered severely under the first Rajapaksa reign. While the then-government made a plethora of pledges to enact political reforms and establish an accountability mechanism, it failed to act on them. The enthusiastic coddling of Sri Lanka by the international community post-2015 undermined the urgency for progress, by removing the pressure brought about by international criticism, which had made Sri Lanka commit to those pledges in the first place. The openness of the last five years under the internationally supported but shaky UNP-SLFP government is seen by many Tamils as an abnormality. Repression has been the norm in Sri Lanka and Gota's victory is a return to that norm. The events of November once again revealed the fundamental problem of the country and its nation-building project. The Sri Lankan political system has failed to give minority communities proper representation, while the state continues to promote an exclusionary national identity. Gota has reiterated that he will not focus on political grievances, instead putting his efforts into the development of Tamil regions. This will not appease the Tamils. Without a fundamental rethinking of the Sri Lankan state, national identity and the foremost place given to Sinhala Buddhism, the conflict that has plagued this island since independence will continue to fester. While there is no appetite among Tamils for a renewed war, the unfettered Sinhala Buddhist nationalist agenda touted by Gota, expected to include renewed efforts to change the demographic makeup of the northeast, will fuel ethnic conflict and division. As this government has made it abundantly clear that it will not initiate the necessary reforms to accommodate minorities, the international community must condition its engagement with Sri Lanka on progress on justice and political devolution. Without these political changes, Sri Lanka will remain a failed nation and a divided island. Copyright 2019 Al Jazeera ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mario Arulthas is the Advocacy Director for the Washington DC-based People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL). Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct the positions Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Sajith Premadasa have occupied. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

Nearly 1,000 people have been killed, and more than 200,000 displaced by an armed group in northern Mozambique. The fighters say they reject the government and want to establish political Islam. The army has failed to contain it, and has itself been accused of rights abuses. Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb reports. ©Al Jazeera 2020

More than 800 people have been killed or wounded in "deliberate attacks" targeting civilians in Afghanistan during the first half of 2020, the UN has said, raising concerns the rising violence aims to derail planned peace talks between the government and the Taliban. While violence dropped in the run-up to the signing of a deal between the US and the Taliban in February, and immediately after a three-day ceasefire in May, attacks have since been increasing across the country. "In the first six months of 2020, preliminary figures indicate more than 800 civilians were killed and injured in deliberate attacks against civilians," the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a statement on Thursday. The mission said the Taliban was responsible for half of those casualties. The Taliban and Afghan forces have regularly clashed across provinces, but in recent weeks attacks have targeted prosecutors, religious leaders, worshippers, journalists, and healthcare and human rights workers. In May, a brazen daylight assault on a hospital in Kabul saw armed men rampaging through a maternity ward, killing 25 people including 16 mothers. The Taliban denied responsibility for this and many other attacks, but acknowledges fighting government forces in the provinces. The bloodshed comes as the Taliban and Afghan authorities prepare to launch much-delayed peace talks aimed at ending the country's nearly two-decades-old war. "It's taken enormous work and some brave decisions for Afghans to reach the point of being on the eve of unprecedented intra-Afghan negotiations," UNAMA chief Deborah Lyons said. "There are spoilers who do not wish to see an end to war. No matter what tactics they employ to derail the peace process, they cannot be allowed to succeed." UNAMA urged the Taliban and Afghan authorities not to target civilians and push on with efforts to de-escalate the conflict ahead of upcoming talks. Under the US-Taliban deal, the armed group was supposed to begin peace talks with the Kabul government in March. No start date has been announced. © Al Jazeera 2020 © AFP News Agency 2020

Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso - Growing up in a community of farmers in northern Burkina Faso, KI, who prefers that his full name not be used for safety reasons, never wanted for much. His family ate what they sowed and bred enough cattle to feel financially secure. But now, for the first time in his life, the 65-year-old does not know how he is going to survive the months ahead. Decades of climate change and years of increasing violence by armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and the ISIL (ISIS) armed group as well as local defence forces - a combination of community volunteers armed by the government and groups who have taken up arms on their own - have pushed KI's once comfortable family into poverty. Chased from his farm by armed men in November, he has been unable to cultivate. Meanwhile, his herd of 30 cows, most of which scattered and got lost during the attack, has been reduced to just two. Now displaced, his family lives between Titao town where the two cows remain and Ouahigouya, Yatenga province's largest urban centre - a dry and dusty town with a buzzing market surrounded by what was once a dense forest but is now just arid desert. KI grew up approximately 65km (40 miles) from the town but this is the first time he has ever lived there. "I've never been in this situation before," he explained, sitting in a dimly lit office owned by a relative in Ouahigouya. "It's devastating," the stoic father of 15 added in a rare show of vulnerability. Seated upright on the edge of a couch, KI allowed only occasional glimpses during the hours-long conversation into the pain he felt after losing almost everything he had spent his life working for. The Sahel region, an arid expanse below the Sahara Desert where Burkina Faso is located, is one of the hardest-hit areas in the world by climate change. About 80 percent of the Sahel's farmland is degraded with temperatures rising 1.5 times faster than the global average, according to the World Economic Forum. Burkina Faso has been affected by an increase in the scale and intensity of droughts, rain, heat waves, strong winds and dust storms, according to a government report. The country is the 20th most vulnerable to climate change and the 35th least ready in the world, said Richard Munang, the Africa regional climate change coordinator for the United Nations Environmental Programme. More than one-third of Burkina Faso's land is degraded with degradation expanding at a rate of 360,000 hectares (889,579 acres) a year, he explained. Climate change has played a part in the "genesis of the crisis affecting the Central Sahel" according to the International Crisis Group. Droughts in the 1970s and 1980s changed agro-pastoral dynamics in favour of the grain and vegetable farmers who were less harshly affected than the marginalised herder communities. Years of drought devastated the cattle of herdsmen, who depended on moving their livestock from one grazing ground to another. While farmers were also hit hard, they continued producing food and with the surplus money, they invested in livestock and employed the now impoverished herdsmen. According to the International Crisis Group, this period was the origin of the marginalisation of pastoral communities. The climatic and economic devastation in Burkina Faso has been compounded by armed conflict in the region. Following the 2012 military coup in neighbouring Mali, armed groups capitalised on the instability and captured parts of that country's north. Since then, regional violence has reached unprecedented levels and sparked a dire humanitarian crisis in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. More than one million people are internally displaced across all three countries, according to the UN. Attacks linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL have recently made Burkina Faso the epicentre of the crisis. For years, the once peaceful nation largely stayed out of the conflict inflicted on its neighbours. But in 2014, the overthrow of the country's longtime president, Blaise Compaore, which also saw the dismantling of the special forces unit, created a path for attacks. Violence that began in the Sahel and northern regions has since spread across the country to the east and west displacing almost one million people and killing almost 2,000 last year. Armed groups exacerbate existing grievances over land, resources and ethnicity, perpetrating violence and driving communities like KI's into desperation. In better days For as far back as he can remember, KI's life was defined by farming. As a young boy, he helped his father cultivate maize, rice, sesame and millet in his small village of Bouna in the country's Loroum province, where he lived until armed men attacked it in November. In the early 1960s, little effort on small plots yielded immense results, he recalled. One harvest could produce food for a year, even providing enough crops to give as gifts to less well-off neighbours. "We didn't use any pesticides, no special techniques or even donkeys or oxen, we'd do it by hand," KI said. Smiling nostalgically, he remembered the harvests, where 30 to 40 extra staff were needed to carry overflowing baskets of fruit and vegetables on their heads and into the house from the farm. There was so much yield that each person had to walk the approximately 5km (3 miles) several times in order to transport everything, he said. Back then, people rarely needed money, they just lived off the land. The farm produced more than enough for him and his 10 siblings to eat, and sufficient cotton for the women to sew clothes. If anyone wanted to travel, people would either walk or use a donkey. Even though school was free, most families only sent one child to be educated as the only schools were in larger towns and education was not yet seen as a priority, he recalled. KI's older brother went to school in Ouahigouya, while the rest of the children remained on the farm. Even when money was needed, it did not exist like it does today. Until just after KI was born, people paid for goods in seashells rather than paper money, he said. But spotting an old shell today is rare. Most have been bartered for goods, although some can still be found in store windows - a reminder of easier, simpler times. "When I think about that period compared to now, people weren't suffering the way they are suffering now," KI said. 'The harvest was so bad' Years of climate change and violence have triggered a dire humanitarian crisis in the Sahel. In April, the World Food Programme warned that the situation was "spiralling out of control", with more than five million people facing severe food insecurity across the Central Sahel region. In Burkina Faso there are more than two million severely food insecure people - from more than 680,000 at the same time last year - a greater number than in neighbouring Mali and Niger. In northern provinces, such as Loroum, where KI has his farm, the nutritional situation is expected to remain serious through July, according to a report from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. For years, KI watched his family's economic and food security gradually decline. What began as less consistent rainfall led to soil degradation and a shortage of crops. Unable to remember specific months or years, KI pegs all significant moments to who was leading the country at the time. He recalls that when things took a stark turn for the worse, Prime Minister Gerard Kango Ouedraogo was in office. That was in the early 1970s. One hundred thousand people were killed in the Sahel as a result of droughts and famine in the 1970s and 1980s. "The harvest was so bad that people had to look for leaves and fruit to eat in the bush," recalled KI. On at least one occasion, the government flew food into the town of Titao, the largest near KI's village, to try and alleviate the hunger. KI remembers lugging bags of red millet back to his family via a cart pulled by a cow. But when asked how the hunger affected him, he felt more comfortable talking about its effect on the other villagers. "We knew people during that time who only had one meal a day … It was hard to watch the village suffer," he said. As the years went by, the land dried up, the trees disappeared and the rain became sparser. Rains that used to begin in May now started in June or July. "It wouldn't rain enough or sometimes when it rained you could go outside after and the ground was dry," KI said. By the time his father died in 1985, the life he had known as a boy was gone. He and his older brother took charge of the farm and became responsible for ensuring everyone had enough to eat. "After our father died there was a lot of pressure to provide food," he said. KI started rationing and storing crops to prepare for hard years and bought fertiliser to moisten the soil. Around this time, some of his uncles who were struggling with their own farms moved to the western town of Bobo-Dioulasso, where the government was distributing fertile plots of land. But KI did not want to leave his family's farm and chose to stick it out, some years producing plenty and others nothing at all, each year having to save enough for the inconsistency that lay ahead. Over time, it became harder to find fertile land to cultivate and farmers had to venture deeper into the bush to grow food. Unlike when he was a boy working with his father when good farmland was right beside his house, KI's son would spend two months sleeping on the farm during the harvests, because viable farmland was so much further away. Sprawled on the couch across from his father in the office in Ouahigouya, 26-year-old Soumaila said he spent 10 years living on the farm during harvests. "It's hard if you go to the field, there's less security than sleeping at home and there are snakes and bush animals," he said. When Soumaila left his village to attend school in Ouahigouya in 2014, one of his siblings replaced him during the harvests. This continued until the family was chased from the farm by gunmen last November. As the years went by, the land dried up, the trees disappeared and the rain became sparser. Rains that used to begin in May now started in June or July. "It wouldn't rain enough or sometimes when it rained you could go outside after and the ground was dry," KI said. By the time his father died in 1985, the life he had known as a boy was gone. He and his older brother took charge of the farm and became responsible for ensuring everyone had enough to eat. "After our father died there was a lot of pressure to provide food," he said. KI started rationing and storing crops to prepare for hard years and bought fertiliser to moisten the soil. Around this time, some of his uncles who were struggling with their own farms moved to the western town of Bobo-Dioulasso, where the government was distributing fertile plots of land. But KI did not want to leave his family's farm and chose to stick it out, some years producing plenty and others nothing at all, each year having to save enough for the inconsistency that lay ahead. Over time, it became harder to find fertile land to cultivate and farmers had to venture deeper into the bush to grow food. Unlike when he was a boy working with his father when good farmland was right beside his house, KI's son would spend two months sleeping on the farm during the harvests, because viable farmland was so much further away. Sprawled on the couch across from his father in the office in Ouahigouya, 26-year-old Soumaila said he spent 10 years living on the farm during harvests. "It's hard if you go to the field, there's less security than sleeping at home and there are snakes and bush animals," he said. When Soumaila left his village to attend school in Ouahigouya in 2014, one of his siblings replaced him during the harvests. This continued until the family was chased from the farm by gunmen last November. Threats of armed attacks Located in one of the epicentres of the violence, KI's community is one of many being squeezed between the encroaching threats of climate change and violent attacks. On May, 30 the government said "terrorists" killed at least 15 people, including children in an attack on a group of traders travelling between towns in the north, not far from KI's village. On April 28, four women, one of whom was pregnant, were killed by an improvised explosive device on their way from the market in Titao commune, the same area as KI's farm, according to an internal security report for aid organisations seen by Al Jazeera. It was the second explosion in that area in a month. The further people have to go in search of land, the more exposed they are to the risk of being kidnapped by armed men, said Mamoudou Ouedraogo, founder of the Association for Education and Environment, a local aid group. In October, a mechanic from Titao town was kidnapped by "terrorists" while searching for good terrain, said Ouedraogo. "We haven't heard anything from him up till now," he added. Ouedraogo has also heard that women have been kidnapped and sometimes raped while searching for firewood. Climate-related kidnappings are more prevalent in the rainy season - beginning around May or June - because people travel further to cultivate, he said. In 2019 abductions increased from the year before, although he was not able to provide specific numbers. With more than 20 years of experience working on environmental issues across the country, Ouedraogo has noticed a direct correlation between climate change and people being recruited into armed groups. "When you have lost everything, even food, you are on the edge of despair and as a consequence [people] will be ready to find a solution wherever possible, including terrorists," he said. A lot of recruits come from the most impoverished parts of the country, he added. Yet some people who have been attacked by them say that no matter how desperate they become they would never join. "If you're being chased by people in these groups why would you join them? Even if they're providing money or food," said Soumaila. "I would rather die." KI has a small house in Titao with his three wives and children, but he said it is too small to hold everyone, yet he does not have enough money to build a bigger one. Unable to farm, they are living off the food from last year's harvest and relying on handouts from friends and family. But when asked about what happened when their village was attacked, KI does not want to discuss it. Nor does he want to talk about the country's growing volatility, which has forced him off his land and crippled his livelihood. Instead, he sits quietly, staring straight ahead, struggling to find solutions. The lack of financial stability has prevented him from building a new house, fixing his motorbike and buying updated machinery such as an electric hoe, which would make it easier to grow crops, he said. But most of all, it has made him worry. This is the first year the family is unable to access their farm due to insecurity. While they are farming on a smaller plot in the town they have been displaced to, they will not cultivate enough to last the year and KI is worried his family will not have enough food to survive. Adapting to climate change Violence in the Sahel has been largely linked to competition over natural resources, yet international observers warn that when the government and aid groups provide communities with climate change solutions, they need to come at it from a different perspective. "It is essential to fight climate change and its effects, which include increased land pressure, particularly in rural areas. But resource scarcity is neither the only nor the determining factor behind rising insecurity," said International Crisis Group in a report in April. There are often plenty of resources but authorities lack the ability or the legitimacy to mediate conflicts over access to them, said the report. Climate policies should focus more on adaptation rather than on the premise that resources are not plentiful enough. In an attempt to take an adapted and stronger approach to climate change, approximately five years ago, Burkina Faso's government altered the ministry of environment's name to include the words "green economy and climate change", said Colette Kabore, the ministry's director for the promotion of action for climate resilience. The ministry is focusing on combining forestry and agriculture, something Kabore calls natural regeneration. If people want to cut down trees, the government is advising not to cut down every tree in the vicinity but to leave a few standing, she said. The ministry is also helping people in climate-affected industries adapt to drought by encouraging them to plant trees that can survive with less water as well as fruit trees, such as Ballantines, to provide the population with more food. It is also promoting practices that do not pollute the environment, such as using renewable energies like solar pumps, said Kabore. In the past 10 years, pollution has had a devastating impact, particularly for cattle breeders. Thirty percent of cattle die from ingesting plastic, said Ouedraogo who runs the local environmental group. Cows are an important source of revenue for farmers, providing milk, meat and manure for fertiliser. One cow can sell for approximately $300, so when farmers have fewer cows, they have less financial stability. Four years ago, Ouedraogo lost nine out of 10 cows who died from ingesting plastic when they grazed too close to the city, he said. "When you opened them up, their stomachs were full of plastic." His organisation works with local communities in Titao and the neighbouring commune of Ouindigui, to collect and transform plastic bags into floor tiles, handbags and shopping bags. They plan to start making tables and benches. The group also tries to plant trees in areas where they have all been chopped down, but it is hard. Many of the trees die because there is not enough water. During a trip to Ouahigouya in April, Al Jazeera visited an area that residents said was a plush forest full of wildlife four decades ago. Today, it is an arid patch of land marked with a few shrubs. Over the years, cattle breeders forced from the Sahel due to desertification came further south and many parts of Ouahigouya suffered from overgrazing. Cattle breeders like KI say the lack of grass has made it impossible to care for as many cows as they used to. "In the past if you had 10 cattle, now you can manage five," he said. Since losing almost all of his cows during the attack in November, KI does not want to entertain the idea of selling the only two he has left. But if he cannot produce enough food for the family this planting season, he might not have a choice. "If there's no food, I'll have to sell them," he said, darting his sad eyes to the floor. "But I'm still hoping some of them might return." © Al Jazeera 2020