Children who grew up under the oppressive regime of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are struggling to process grief and trauma that built up over years of silence and hiding. School enrollment in Syria is among the world's lowest, unexploded munitions threaten children at play and many children have lost one or both of their parents, aid groups warn. UNICEF estimates that over 7.5 million children across the country need humanitarian aid.
Relatives of Ukrainians captured by Russian forces are being coerced to commit espionage or sabotage against Ukraine by Russian agents who threaten to torture prisoners or promise better treatment if their families cooperate, a BBC investigation has found. The Ukrainian Security Service urges families to report any coercion attempts and emphasizes that cooperating with Russian agents will not aid the prisoners and could result in severe legal consequences, including charges of treason.
While overall irregular migration to the EU decreased, new migration corridors emerged in 2024. The Eastern Mediterranean route saw a 14% increase in crossings, largely due to new crossings from eastern Libya. Additionally, there was an 18% rise in migrants using the Western African route, primarily traveling to the Canary Islands from Mauritania.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai has called on Muslim leaders to hold the Taliban accountable for "gender apartheid" at a Pakistan summit on girls' education. "The Taliban are explicit about their mission. They want to eliminate women and girls from every aspect of public life and erase them from society. Simply put, the Taliban do not see women as human beings. They cloak their crimes in cultural and religious justification," Yousafzai says.
Antisemitism has risen significantly over the past decade, the Anti-Defamation League warns, highlighting a global survey that shows that 46% of adults hold antisemitic beliefs and 20% deny the Holocaust. "The fact that nearly half of the global population has elevated antisemitic sentiments tells us we are in nothing short of a global emergency," says ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.
Authorities in Kano, Nigeria, are working to remove over 5,000 children living on the city's streets -- where they are considered likely to be recruited by criminal groups as they struggle with economic hardship and family breakdowns -- and relocate them to rehabilitation camps where they could receive psychosocial support or education opportunities. Kano State accounts for 1.9 million of the 18.5 million children across Nigeria who are not enrolled in school, UNICEF reports.
A local radio station in Kenya is helping empower rural women with information on their health and gender-based violence, as well as media literacy workshops that train community members to verify information before sharing it. Dada Radio -- Dada means Sister in Swahili -- aims to ensure women are not left behind by advancing technology and cultural beliefs that urge them to be silent.
More than 150 Nobel and World Food Prize winners are calling for increased global investments in "moonshot" technologies to tackle global hunger, which is worsening because of climate change. Innovations like enhancing photosynthesis, developing climate-resilient crops and using AI for crop genetics improvements could significantly boost food production and sustainability, the experts say in an open letter to world leaders.
The aid sector must be decolonized by transferring decision-making and resources from countries with colonial legacies to the global south, says Oxfam Great Britain CEO Halima Begum. The NGO aims to increase the share of funds directed to global south countries from 60% to 70% within five years by reducing the direct involvement of UK-based teams in international projects while focusing more on advocacy for systemic change in areas like climate crisis and debt cancellation.
Heavily armed gangs in Haiti have expanded their control of the country, now overseeing more than 85% of the capital and key routes despite efforts from the Kenya-led mission, which has faced funding shortages and reluctance from international partners due to its lack of visible success. The UN's International Organization for Migration reports that the number of people displaced by gang violence in Haiti has surged to more than a million, up from 315,000 a year ago.
