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One rainy spring evening, a young Iranian mother with a mangled arm, her husband and their 3-year-old daughter met a smuggler near the Iraqi border who gave them a stern ultimatum: Ensure the child’s silence or leave her behind. The mother, Sima Moradbeigi, 26, recalled that she dashed to a pharmacy for a bottle of cough syrup to drug her daughter into a stupor. Under the cover of night, the family followed the smuggler out of Iran along mountain paths, sometimes crouching or crawling through muddy scrubland to avoid border guards stalking their route with flashlights. Hours later, Ms. Moradbeigi and her husband said, they arrived safely at a mosque outside the city of Sulaimaniya in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan Region. The Islamic Republic — the theocracy that arose after Iran’s 1979 revolution — was never hospitable to women who rebelled against its strict religious codes for dress and behavior.

Persons: Sima Moradbeigi, Moradbeigi, Juan, —, Mahsa Amini Locations: Iranian, Iran, Sulaimaniya, Iraq’s, Kurdistan Region, Republic

☆ At Least 78 Die as Migrant Ship Sinks Near Greece
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Cora Engelbrecht | Niki Kitsantonis | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

At least 78 people drowned in the Aegean Sea after a large fishing boat carrying migrants sank early Wednesday, the Greek Shipping Ministry said, in the deadliest such episode off the country’s coast since the height of the 2015 migration crisis. More than 100 people were rescued, but the Greek Coast Guard warned that the death toll would probably increase. The boat foundered about ‌50 miles southwest of the city of Pylos, in southern Greece, after the authorities were alerted to its unusual movements on Tuesday‌, according to a statement from the Greek Coast Guard. A Greek Shipping Ministry official said that the boat had refused assistance offered by the authorities. He also said that cargo ships in the area had given the migrants food and water.

Organizations: Greek Shipping Ministry, Greek Coast Guard Locations: Aegean, Pylos, Greece

☆ A ‘Dystopian Nightmare’ Unfolds in Sudan’s Battered Darfur Region
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | Cora Engelbrecht | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The gunmen arrived at dawn on motorcycles, horses and in cars. For hours afterward, they fired into houses, rampaged through shops and razed clinics, witnesses said, in a frenzied attack that upended life in El Geneina, a city in the Darfur region of Sudan. Truce agreements have so far failed to end the brutal fighting that broke out on April 15 between the Sudanese army and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The fighting has decimated many areas of the capital, Khartoum. But the war between the military factions has also swept across the country to the long-suffering western region of Darfur — an area already blighted by two decades of genocidal violence.

Persons: Peace Organizations: Rapid Support Forces Locations: El Geneina, Darfur, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Khartoum

☆ What’s Behind Rising Tensions in Kosovo?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Cora Engelbrecht | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Dozens of NATO peacekeepers were injured this week in northern Kosovo when they clashed with ethnic Serbs, raising fears of a larger escalation between Serbia and Kosovo. The violence came after Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership sent heavily armed security forces to take control of town municipal buildings, the latest turn in a dispute that has roots going back to the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. Kosovo, where a majority of the population is ethnic Albanian and Muslim, declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after NATO’s bombing campaign that drove Serb forces, responsible for years of brutal mistreatment of ethnic Albanians, from Kosovo. Since then, the two countries have clashed over Kosovo’s treatment of its minority ethnic Serb population.

Organizations: NATO Locations: Kosovo, Serbia, Albanian

☆ Fire in Guyana School Dormitory Kills at Least 20
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Cora Engelbrecht | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A time of celebration in Guyana as it prepared to mark its independence day this week turned to mourning on Monday after at least 20 people, many of them children, were killed when a fire engulfed a girls’ dormitory at a school in the central part of the South American country. The country’s president described the fatal blaze as “horrific” and a “major disaster.”The ages of the victims are not known, but students enrolled at the school are between 12 and 16. Several others were injured in the fire, which broke out late Sunday in Mahdia, a gold mining town about 120 miles southwest of the capital, Georgetown. Seven students in critical condition were being evacuated to the capital. “The focus now is on the children to ensure that we do everything, to give them as much help as we can,” President Mohamed Irfaan Ali told journalists early Monday at Ogle airport, also known as Eugene F. Correia International Airport, where he was organizing a “full-scale emergency” plan.

☆ Serbia Offers Amnesty for Illegal Firearms, and Thousands Are Collected
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Cora Engelbrecht | Joe Orovic | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The Serbian authorities have collected thousands of weapons in a sweeping campaign to reduce the number of firearms in the hands of civilians in the week after two mass shootings stunned the country, officials said Friday. More than 9,000 illegal and legal weapons have been collected, according to Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic, who called the effort “a great step forward for a safer environment for our children” and “all our people,” at a news conference on Friday. “Some people say it’s not the gun that shoots the bullet but a man,” he said. “But if that man doesn’t have a gun, the evil in his head can’t do any harm.”Mr. Vucic did not specify if all the guns had been handed over voluntarily or if some had been seized.

Persons: Aleksandar Vucic, ”, Mr, Vucic Organizations: Serbian

☆ ‘We Don’t Want This War’: Trapped in Khartoum as Combat Rages
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | Cora Engelbrecht | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Nurses maneuver through gunfire and shelling to make house calls, delivering babies and providing care to those who can’t reach hospitals. Families barely eat in order to conserve dwindling food and water supplies, as temperatures rise. And the few good Samaritans who venture out to help the elderly or put out a blazing fire face intimidation and arrest by the fighters in the streets. The Sudanese capital, Khartoum, has endured the most intense fighting, prompting embassies and the United Nations to evacuate their nationals and staff members — leaving behind millions who now face shortages of water, food, medicine and electricity. The clashes — between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces — have continued despite repeated cease-fires purportedly agreed to by both sides.

☆ What’s Behind Serbia’s Gun Violence
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Cora Engelbrecht | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Back-to-back shootings in Serbia this week, one in a school, have stunned the population and brought global attention to gun control in a country with one of the world’s highest rates of gun ownership. Promising an “almost complete disarmament,” the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vucic, said on Friday that he planned to introduce sweeping changes to tighten gun regulations in response to the two shootings, one by a minor and the other with an illegal firearm. He also called for a one-month amnesty on Friday for gun owners to surrender illegal weapons without penalty ahead of the more stringent measures. Here is a look at Serbia’s trouble with guns and the restrictions the government proposed this week.

Persons: Aleksandar Vucic Locations: Serbia, Serbian

☆ What We Know About the Explosions Over the Kremlin
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Cora Engelbrecht | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

One explosion caused a brief fire, although it was unclear whether the drones exploded as planned or were shot down. About twelve hours after the explosions, the Kremlin issued a rare statement saying that it had foiled an “attempt on the life of the president,” who was not in the Kremlin at the time. The Kremlin houses the Russian Senate and an apartment where Mr. Putin occasionally stays, among other offices. There were no casualties or serious damage, the Kremlin said. They have accused Russia of manufacturing the incident to justify increased attacks on Ukraine or to drum up public support for its war.

☆ 7th Grader Opens Fire at School in Serbia, Killing 8 Children
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Cora Engelbrecht | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Shortly after, the authorities received a call from the perpetrator, saying that he had shot several people at the school and giving its address, Mr. Miljic said. Six children and a teacher were injured in the attack and taken to the hospital. A security guard was killed while trying to stop the attack, according to the district’s mayor, Milan Nedeljkovic. “He wanted to prevent a tragedy, which would have been even greater if he had not stood in front of the boy who shot,” Mr. Nedeljkovic said in an interview with state media outside the school on Wednesday. Something like this has never been recorded in the history of Belgrade schools,” he added.

☆ Hunger Strikes Have Long Served as a Tool of Nonviolent Protest
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Cora Engelbrecht | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

How is force-feeding hunger strikers viewed? The authorities are typically eager to quash any potential fallout from prisoners’ dying and loathe the spectacle that hunger strikes can create. International groups like the United Nations, the International Red Cross and the World Medical Association have long recognized the right of prisoners to refuse food. And it has been labeled “a form of torture and is contrary to medical ethics,” according to the World Medical Association. Despite these objections, the U.S. military has force-fed prisoners on hunger strikes at Guantánamo Bay, saying that it had no other choice but to keep them alive, and none have starved.

☆ Cease-Fire Is Extended in Sudan, but Bombardments and Gunfire Ensue
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | Cora Engelbrecht | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Civilians continued to flee renewed clashes in Sudan on Friday, as a three-day extension of an already-tenuous truce got off to a fitful start, and foreign countries ramped up evacuations after warning of an escalation of violence in the coming days. Gunfire and loud explosions rocked at least two neighborhoods in the capital, Khartoum, residents said, as the battle between Sudan’s army, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, entered its 14th day. Clashes also continued in the western region of Darfur, aid workers said, even as the African Union, the United Nations and countries including the United States welcomed the decision to extend a fragile cease-fire for an additional 72 hours. “What I am seeing is thick smoke. What I am hearing is shelling and gunshots,” said Ahmad Mahmoud, a Sudanese resident of Khartoum who witnessed a massive bombardment of the Burri neighborhood in the capital.

☆ Fighting Intensifies in Khartoum as Sudan Cease-Fires Fail
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Isabella Kwai | Cora Engelbrecht | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Fighting in Sudan intensified on Thursday morning as a bombardment by warplanes in the center of the capital, Khartoum, amounted to one of the most fearsome assaults yet in the violent days-long clashes. With two generals vying for power over the country, residents in Khartoum said that the fighting had destroyed hospitals, airfields and homes, and left civilians caught in the crossfire. Despite repeated international calls for a cease-fire, proposed pauses in the fighting have not held. A shaky truce that allowed some residents to flee from parts of Khartoum on Wednesday night has since collapsed. And concerns are mounting that the chaos could draw nearby nations — including Egypt, which has troops in Sudan; Chad; Ethiopia; and Libya — into the conflict.

☆ What We Know About the Fighting in Sudan
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Isabella Kwai | Cora Engelbrecht | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A patchy cease-fire between Sudan’s two rival generals held in parts of the capital on Wednesday night, as desperate residents looked for ways to escape the city after five days trapped by the chaotic fighting with dwindling stocks of water and food. Evacuation from the capital, Khartoum, has proved intensely dangerous since conflict erupted over the weekend between Sudan’s military and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces. Nearly 300 people have been killed and over 3,000 wounded since fighting erupted on Saturday, the World Health Organization said. Conditions have deteriorated with dizzying speed in Sudan, even by the standards of modern warfare. Khartoum was already a fragile city before fighting erupted on Saturday, with frequent power outages and soaring food prices.

Many other hospitals were also reported to have come under attack on Monday, the third day of fighting in Sudan. Russia has also been trying to make inroads in Sudan, and members of the Kremlin-affiliated Wagner private military company are posted there. Leaders from around the world called for a cease-fire, but it was not clear who, if anyone, was in control of Sudan, Africa’s third-largest country, by area. “Everyone is afraid,” said Ahmed Abuhurira, a 28-year-old mechanical engineer who went out to try to charge his cellphone. “The humanitarian situation in Sudan was already precarious and is now catastrophic,” he said.

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