Eight years of displacement for Abu and the Rohingya people
Abu, 18, has spent nearly half his life in this refugee camp.
“Today I am eighteen. I grew up in this refugee camp, waiting for education, waiting for a future, waiting to return home with dignity and rights.”
Abu*, an 18-year-old boy, was only 10 when he and his family fled Myanmar in 2017. Eight years on, he reflects on his life as a refugee and his hopes and fears for the future.
It was a Thursday in August. After lunch, we were resting when suddenly we heard shouting around our house. Our peaceful village, Thingana, surrounded by green fields and trees, turned into chaos.
An armed group was ordering people to leave their homes. They threatened to set fire to the houses and kill anyone who stayed.
(UN News)* — In the days leading up to the fall of Goma, the capital of North Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dr. Thierno Balde slept with a helmet and bulletproof vest beside his bed as shells rattled the walls of his hotel.
Gunfire tore through the dark. Night after night, the 44-year-old physician from Guinea clung to the hope that the besieged city would hold somehow.
Then, one morning in late January, the call came: he and the remaining international staff had to be evacuated immediately.
“We took the last flight out,” he recalled.
Hours later, Goma was in the hands of M23. The Tutsi-led rebel group, backed by neighbouring Rwanda, had just landed its boldest military victory in the region yet.
The data show “a proportion of civilian slaughter with few, if any, parallels in modern warfare.”
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Bodies of Palestinians, including children, killed in Israeli airstrikes targeting residential neighborhoods are brought to al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for identification and funeral preparation on 21 Aug 2025.
(Photo by Khames Alrefi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
An investigation published today [21 Aug 2025] belied Israeli government claims of a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio in Gaza, as classified Israel Defense Forces intelligence data revealed that 5 in 6 Palestinians killed by the IDF through the first 19 months of the US-backed war were, in fact, civilians.
NEW YORK/GENEVA, 26 August 2025 (UNICEF)* -– Despite progress over the last decade, billions of people around the world still lack access to essential water, sanitation, and hygiene services, putting them at risk of disease and deeper social exclusion.
People living in low-income countries, fragile contexts, rural communities, children, and minority ethnic and indigenous groups face the greatest disparities.
(UN News)* — Some 2.2 billion people worldwide still lack access to safely managed drinking water services, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) – an increasingly urgent challenge as demand for safer access to the vital resource grows.
Currently underway in Stockholm from 24 to 28 August, the 35th World Water Week meeting highlights the crucial link between water and global warming, under the theme, Water For Climate Action.
(UN News)* —From Gaza to Sudan, wars are being waged on the very systems set up to protect civilian populations, with health workers, hospitals, health centres and ambulances being targeted in horrifying numbers, according to the UN agency for reproductive health and rights, UNFPA.
Attacks against health facilities doubled between 2023 and 2024, and more than 900 health workers were killed last year, the agency reported.
Humanitarian aid workers were also killed in record numbers in 2024.
Yet, 2025 is outpacing even these dark statistics at a time when funding for humanitarian work is shrinking and support services established over decades are struggling to operate.
(UN News)* — Extreme heat is fast becoming one of the biggest threats to workers’ health and livelihoods, the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Friday [].
The new joint report, Climate change and workplace heat stress, underscores the mounting risks as climate change fuels longer, more extreme, and more frequent heatwaves.
Stressing that workers in agriculture, construction, and fisheries are already suffering the impacts of dangerous temperatures, the report points out that vulnerable groups in developing countries – includingchildren, older adults, and low-income communities – face increasing dangers.
(UN News)* —One of the many ugly consequences of wars and conflict is injuries leading to a loss of limbs. Gaza, which now has the highest number of child amputees per capita anywhere in the world, is no exception.
UN News | Palestinian child Maryam Abu ‘Alba lying on a hospital bed in Gaza; her right leg amputated while the left leg is severely injured.
“I was going to buy falafel,” says Mohammed Hassan. “On the way home, I looked up and saw a rocket heading towards me. I tried to run, but it was too fast. I found myself pinned to the wall, and my foot had been blown off.”
Brought to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the young boy looks down at his heavily bandaged left leg, and the stump where his foot used to be.
In another area of the hospital, a small child, Maryam Abu Alba, is crying in pain.
Christiana, Angélica, and Delza at a UNICEF-assisted organization in Brazil, which empowers black youth to confront racism and advocates for equal education and work opportunities. PHOTO:UNICEF/Alejandro Balaguer
Running from January 1, 2025, to December 31, 2034, this decade embraces the theme “People of African Descent: Recognition, Justice, and Development,” aiming to highlight the importance of acknowledging the rights and contributions of people of African descent.
(UN News)* — Victims of atrocities and freedom fighters across history can inspire future generations to build just societies, the chief of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said on the occasion of theInternational Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, commemorated annually on 23 August.
UN News/Eileen Travers | The ‘tronco’ was used to restrain enslaved people in the 18th century, seen here as part of an exhibit at UN Headquarters. (file)
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“It is time to abolish human exploitation once and for all and to recognise the equal and unconditional dignity of each and every individual,” Ms. Azoulay said.
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The Day is intended to inscribe the tragedy of the slave trade in the memory of all peoples.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 