(United Nations)* —Some of the most intimidating sights in nature are rolling dark clouds of sand and dust that engulf everything in their path, a phenomenon that turns day into night and wreaks havoc everywhere from Northern China to sub-Saharan Africa.
Cibitoke, Burundi – The last thing Elizabeth Uwimana remembered before the Rusizi River swallowed her two eldest children is the fear in their eyes as a violent surge of water tore them from her grasp.
Elizabeth Uwimana sits at a transit site in Burundi, exhausted after fleeing violence in the DRC with her children. Photo: IOM Burundi 2025/Alexander Bee
“The river took them from me,” she whispers, seated in a makeshift shelter surrounded by hundreds of other displaced families. “To this day, I don’t know if they are alive.”
Elizabeth, a mother of four, is among tens of thousands who fled renewed violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 4 2025 (IPS)* – The prospect of New Yorkers electing their first Muslim Mayor, come November, has ignited a rash of paranoid statements by right-wing US politicians, including Islamophobia– the irrational fear and hatred against Islam and Muslims.
3 July 2025 — US headlines have been dominated by coverage of the many ways President Trump’s budget bill will gut healthcare programs and deepen economic inequality in the United States if it is passed into law.
Somewhat lost amidst all that noise is the story of how the Trump administration also weaponized the bill to benefit the wealthiest US corporations by undermining global efforts to tax businesses fairly.
(UN News)* —The blistering early-summer heatwave that’s brought life-threatening temperatures across much of the northern hemisphere is a worrying sign of things to come, UN weather experts said on Tuesday .
Three days after Spain’s national weather service confirmed a record 46°C reading in the southern town of El Granado, there’s been little let-up in stifling day and night temperatures across the continent and beyond.
SEVILLE & BHUBANESWAR, Jul 2 2025 (IPS)* –While droughts creep in stealthily, their impacts are often more devastating and far-reaching than any other disaster.
In Nairobi’s Kibera, the largest urban informal settlement in Africa, girls and women wait their turn for the scarce water supply. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS
Inter-community conflict, extremist violence, and violence and injustice against vulnerable girls and women happen at the intersection of climate-induced droughts and drought-impoverished communities.
Five consecutive years of failed rain in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya brought the worst drought in seventy years to the Horn of Africa by 2023.
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 2025 (IPS)* –The demand for cobalt and other minerals is fueling a decades-long humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Living in Camp Roe in the Democratic Republic of Congo Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
In pursuit of money to support their families, Congolese laborers face abuse and life-threatening conditions working in unregulated mines.
(UN News)* —Conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa in the last two years reportedly killed, maimed, or displaced over 12 million children across the region, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Alarmingly, 110 million children in the region live in countries affected by war, with homes, schools and health facilities damaged or destroyed in fighting.
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 22 2022 (IPS)* – The ominous warnings keep coming non-stop: some of the world’s developing nations, mostly in Africa and Asia, are heading towards mass hunger and starvation.
Credit: World Food Programme (WFP)
The World Food Programme (WFP) warned last week that as many as 828 million people go to bed hungry every night while the number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared — from 135 million to 345 million — since 2019. A total of 50 million people in 45 countries are teetering on the edge of famine.
But in what seems like a cruel paradox the US Department of Agriculture estimates that a staggering $161 billion worth of food is dumped yearly into landfills in the United States.
How conflict and extreme weather have displaced millions and fuelled severe food insecurity in the Horn of Africa country
Farhia Ali and her daughter Ruqiya at a health clinic in Mogadishu. The family counts among the many displaced people sheltering in Somalia’s capital and other urban areas. Photo: WFP/Sara Cuevas Gallardo
—The cramped streets of Mogadishu buzz with cars, donkey-drawn carts and three-wheeled vehicles known as tuk-tuks – all competing to navigate the slippery, muddy channels carved out by unexpectedly heavy rains.
Somalia’s unpredictable weather has struck again. The rainy season, marked by a massive and deadly downpour hitting the capital in May, has destroyed homes and infrastructure. But the upcoming dry season risks wreaking even more devastation.
Elizabeth Uwimana sits at a transit site in Burundi, exhausted after fleeing violence in the DRC with her children. Photo: IOM Burundi 2025/Alexander Bee
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 