The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
NAIROBI, Apr 14 2026 (IPS) - Over 800 households in Ikolomani Constituency in Kakamega County, Western Kenya, fear eviction to pave the way for a British firm, Shanta Gold Limited, to begin extracting gold valued at Sh683 billion ($5.29 billion) on an estimated 337 acres of residential and agricultural land.
Efforts by residents to protest against the looming displacement during an attempt for a public participation session on the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) by the government on 4 December 2025 were met with police brutality, leading to four deaths due to bullet wounds, arbitrary arrests and scores of injuries.
According to the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), the incident is part of a disturbing and escalating pattern in Kenya’s extractive sector, where communities seeking accountability are met with brutal force, political threats, and procedural manipulation.
“Mining zones are increasingly becoming death traps rather than engines of community development,” reads part of a statement issued by the commission following the incident.
This trend mirrors what is happening in many other countries across Africa, where communities living in mineral-rich areas face forceful displacements, abuse of basic human rights, and environmental degradation linked to industrial mineral extraction, often perpetrated by foreign firms with full support of the political class.
According to Appolinaire Zagabe, a Congolese human rights activist and the Director for the DRC Climate Change Network (Reseau Sur le Changement Climatique RDC) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), often, people he terms ‘greedy government officials’ sign contracts with extractive firms to legalise their activities, then use police machinery to forcefully and brutally evict communities without informed consent and proper compensation.
It is based on such injustices that civil society organisations, social movements, faith-based actors, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralist and peasant organisations from Africa under the umbrella of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) launched a campaign calling for land policies that protect African smallholder farmers and communities against punitive extractive practices and land grabbing, which are currently a threat to human rights, livelihoods and sustainable food systems.
“Land is more than a resource; it is our heritage, our identity, and our future,” said Rev. Tolbert Thomas Jallah Jr, the Executive Director at the Faith and Justice Network, during the launch of the campaign on the sidelines of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) in Cartagena, Colombia.
“Across Africa, our soils feed our families, sustain our economies, and connect generations, yet today, land degradation, industrial extractive practices by foreign enterprises, climate change, and land grabbing threaten the very foundation of our food systems,” he added.
In a joint declaration at the conference, the organisations observed that rural communities across the world continue to face dispossession, land concentration, and ecological destruction.
“Despite global commitments to end hunger and poverty, land and food systems are increasingly controlled by corporate and financial interests, while communities that produce food remain marginalised and insecure,” reads part of the declaration statement.
It was further observed that carbon offset projects, extractive industries, agribusiness expansions, and speculative land markets are accelerating dispossession, soil degradation, and social inequality, often excluding communities from territories they have governed collectively for generations.
The campaign, dubbed “Protect Our Land, Restore Our Soil”, is now calling on governments to strengthen land rights and protect smallholder farmers; communities to embrace sustainable farming practices that rebuild soil fertility; and youthful farmers to view agriculture not as a last resort but as a powerful pathway to innovation and resilience.
“When soil is degraded, food becomes scarce, and when land is taken or misused, communities lose dignity and security,” said Rev. Tolbert, who is also the sitting Chairperson at the AFSA’s Board of Directors.
Just like the looming evictions of residents of Ikolomani in Kenya, Amnesty International has also observed that people of the DRC also pay a high price to supply the world with copper and cobalt: forced evictions, illegal destruction of their homes, and physical violence – sometimes leading to deaths.
The DRC supplies 70 to 74 percent of the copper and cobalt used in lithium-ion batteries. These batteries power our smartphones, laptops, electric cars, and bicycles, and they play a major role in the energy transition away from fossil fuels. This transition is urgent and necessary.
However, according to Amnesty International, mineral-rich regions of the DRC are sacrificed to mining development, leading to a shocking series of abuses in the region. Thousands of people have lost their homes, schools, hospitals, and communities due to the expansion of copper and cobalt mines in the country, especially in Kolwezi, which sits above rich copper and cobalt deposits.
The AFSA-led campaign calls on governments and corporate organisations to guarantee meaningful participation of affected communities and free prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples in land, agriculture and climate decision-making to avoid conflicts and abuse of basic human rights.
“The future lies not in further commodifying land and food systems, but in restoring community control over territories, securing pastoralist mobility and commons, and supporting agroecological transitions rooted in justice and ecological integrity,” observed Mariann Bassey Olsson, a Lawyer, and Director at Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria).
IPS UN Bureau Report
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Apr 14 2026 (IPS) - While global attention right now is on escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, another crisis continues quietly in Bangladesh.
Beginning April 1, 2026, the World Food Programme (WFP) introduced a revised Targeting and Prioritisation Exercise (TPE) for Rohingya refugees living in camps in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char, according to a statement released by the United Nations in Bangladesh on April 2.
Under the new system, refugee households will receive food assistance of $12, $10, or $7 per person per month, depending on their assessed level of food insecurity. Previously, all refugees received $12 per person.
On paper, vulnerability-based targeting appears reasonable. In many humanitarian crises, such systems help ensure that limited resources reach those most in need. However, the Rohingya context is different.
Nearly nine years after fleeing genocide and persecution in Myanmar, more than one million Rohingya refugees remain confined to camps in Bangladesh, according to the latest data from UNHCR Bangladesh including 144,456 biometrically identified new arrivals and 1,040,408 Registered refugees 1990s & post-2017. 78% them are Women and children.
Unlike refugees in many other countries, Rohingya in Bangladesh have extremely limited freedom of movement and cannot legally work or run small businesses within the camps. Refugees are also not formally employed by humanitarian organizations—except as volunteers receiving small daily allowances. As a result, they remain almost entirely dependent on humanitarian assistance.
Within this context, reducing aid raises serious concerns. When refugees are not permitted to engage in meaningful economic activity, food insecurity becomes less a household condition and more a structural outcome.
Humanitarian agencies have provided life-saving support for years, and their efforts should not be overlooked. But survival is not the same as stability. Instead of creating pathways toward self-reliance for Rohingya and local communities in Cox’s Bazar who are affected due to refugee statements, the current system has largely institutionalized dependency.
Many programs labeled as “livelihood initiatives” have not produced meaningful outcomes. Skills training programs—such as electrical repair or other technical courses—often fail to translate into real opportunities because refugees do not own motorbikes, electricity access is limited in many camp areas, refugees cannot legally move beyond the camps to seek work, and humanitarian organizations don’t employ trained refugees within their own operational structures.
This raises difficult questions: Why invest donor resources in skills that cannot realistically be applied? And what long-term strategy do these initiatives serve?
The new targeting model categorizes refugees as extremely food insecure, highly food insecure, or food insecure. Some vulnerable households—such as those led by elderly individuals, persons with disabilities, or children—will continue receiving the highest level of assistance.
Yet the broader reality remains unchanged: the entire Rohingya population in Bangladesh faces severe restrictions on economic participation.
Recent protests in the camps are often described as reactions to ration reductions. In reality, they reflect deeper concerns about uncertainty and the absence of long-term planning. Refugees are asking a simple question: What happens if funding declines further in the future? Where will we go? Well Bangladesh alone will be left dealing with the Rohingya crisis?
They want to send a message to the world: dependency on aid was designed around the Rohingya. It is time to think beyond relief and give them the tools to stand on their own feet.
Long-term strategic thinking is urgently needed. This includes serious discussions about ensuring safe and dignified lives in the camps until the Rohingya are able to return to Myanmar, expanding economic participation for refugees, and creating policies that allow them to contribute economically while remaining under appropriate regulation.
At the same time, Bangladesh itself is going through a transitional period after the election, and the new government and said it will work closely to make Rohingya repatriation possible and shared data on 8.29 lakh Rohingyas with Myanmar.
But the Rohingya crisis cannot be a lesser priority, the new government also needs to recognize that prolonged displacement cannot be managed indefinitely through restriction and relief alone—the same approach that largely characterized the policies of the previous government.
Carefully regulated work opportunities—such as camp-based enterprises, pilot employment schemes, or limited work authorization programs—could help reduce humanitarian dependency while preserving government oversight.
If even one or two members of each refugee household were allowed to work legally under controlled frameworks, humanitarian costs could gradually decline, camp economies could stabilize, and youth frustration could decrease.
Most importantly, dignity could begin to return.
After nearly nine years, international agencies have managed one of the world’s largest refugee operations with remarkable logistical capacity. Yet the central question remains: what durable systems have been created to help refugees stand on their own feet?
As global funding pressures increase and donor fatigue grows, humanitarian assistance is being recalibrated downward. Without structural reforms, this risks managing dependency more efficiently rather than reducing it.
The Rohingya did not choose dependency on aid. It was created by the restrictions surrounding them. Food assistance remains essential. But the future of an entire population cannot be defined solely by ration cards and vulnerability categories.
The Rohingya crisis requires more than improved targeting of aid. It requires policies that combine protection with participation and living with safety.
The world has learned how to feed the Rohingya.
The real test is whether it will allow them to stand—until the day they can safely return home to Myanmar with rights, safety, and dignity.
Otherwise, families quietly reduce meals. Young people seek unsafe informal labor. The risks of child labor, early marriage, unsafe migration. and involvement in illicit activities increase. When opportunity disappears, desperation fills the gap.
Mohammed Zonaid is a Rohingya SOPA 2025 honoree, freelance journalist, award-winning photographer, and fixer. He works with international agencies and has contributed to Myanmar Now, The Arakan Express News, The Diplomat Magazine, Frontier Myanmar, Inter Press Service, and the Myanmar Pressphoto Agency.
IPS UN Bureau
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 14 2026 (IPS) - Trump 2.0 has been marked by the blatantly aggressive exercise of power to secure US interests as defined by him. While many recent trends even predate his first term, his reduced use of ‘soft power’ has exposed his bullying, extortionary use of US power.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Trade liberalisation has been reversed for at least two decades. Almost all G20 developed nations raised trade barriers following the 2008-09 global, actually Western, financial crisis.
The US has illegally weaponised more laws and policies, especially by unilaterally imposing sanctions and tariffs, especially on dissenting regimes.
Often, such threats are not ends in themselves but actually weapons to strengthen the US bargaining position to secure more advantageous deals.
Under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, members are obliged to extend ‘most favoured nation’ status to all other member nations.
On April 2, 2025, President Trump announced supposedly ‘reciprocal tariffs’, ostensibly responding to others having trade surpluses with the US.
Appealing to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism is futile, as the US has blocked the appointment of Appellate Body members since the Obama presidency.
Trump 2.0 has also been trying to get rich investors and governments – mainly from Europe, Japan, and the oil-rich Gulf states – to invest in the US.
Most such investments are in financial markets, rather than the real economy. Such portfolio investments have propped up asset prices, even bubbles.
Trump’s bullying is resented but has not been very effective vis-à-vis strong adversaries. Consequently, allies have been most affected and resentful.
Deepening stagflation
Meanwhile, much of the world economy has never really recovered from the COVID-19 slowdown, while Western sanctions and tariffs have raised production costs, worsening inflation.
Recent trends have also deepened the stagnation since 2009. Many governments and the IMF have made things worse by cutting spending when most needed.
Impacts have varied, generally worse in poorer countries, where the IMF limits policy options and credit rating agencies raise borrowing costs.
US Fed chair Powell’s interest rate hikes, ostensibly to address inflation, also reversed ‘quantitative easing’, which had lowered interest rates from 2009.
Trump’s aggression has reduced economic engagement with the US, inadvertently accelerating de-dollarisation, thus undermining the dollar’s ‘exorbitant privilege’.
Central banks worldwide have responded predictably, refusing to be counter-cyclical in the face of economic slowdown, citing inflationary pressures.
Transactional?
Trump’s transactional approach has meant bilateral, one-on-one dealings, further advantaging the world’s dominant power.
Involving one-time asymmetric ‘zero-sum games’, such transactions ensure the US gains, necessarily at the expense of the ‘other’. Transactionalism also enables ‘buying influence’, or corruption.
The resulting uncertainty reduces investments, not only in the US, but everywhere, due to greater perceived risks, exacerbating the stagnation. Thus, Trump 2.0 policies have reduced investment and growth.
The whole world, including the US, has suffered much ‘collateral damage’, but the White House seems content as long as others lose more.
Unipolar sovereigntism
The transitions to unipolar sovereigntism and then to a multipolar world have been much debated.
Three decades ago, the influential US Council on Foreign Relations’ journal, Foreign Affairs, argued that the post-Cold War unipolar world was actually ‘sovereigntist’.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s ‘Daddy’ reference to Trump suggests that the sovereigntist moment is not quite over, as the US ‘No Kings’ mobilisation suggests.
Trump’s ‘America First’ clearly opposes multilateralism, generating broader concerns. He has withdrawn the US from many, but not all, multilateral bodies.
On January 7, the US withdrew from 66 international organisations deemed “wasteful, ineffective, or harmful”, addressing issues it claimed were “contrary” to national interests.
Trump’s continued, selective use of multilateral bodies has served him well, retaining privileges, e.g., permanent membership of the UN Security Council with veto power.
The UN Security Council’s Gaza ceasefire resolution was used to create and legitimise his Board of Peace, now touted by some as an alternative to the UN!
Trump will not withdraw from the WTO as its Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement is key to US tech bros’ trillions from transnational IP.
End of soft power
Some of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s January 20th remarks at Davos are telling:
“More recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.
“You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination… If we are not at the table, we are on the menu.”
Besides exercising overwhelming military superiority, Trump 2.0 has increasingly weaponised rules, agreements and economic relations to its advantage.
The abandonment of ‘soft power’ – accelerated by Elon Musk’s DOGE – has ripped the velvet glove off US ‘hegemony’, exposing the mailed fist beneath.
USAID and other US government-funded agencies and programmes have been crucial for soft power, fostering the illusion of domination with consent. Abandoning soft power may well increase the costs of achieving America First.
IPS UN Bureau
Apr 13 2026 (IPS) -
CIVICUS discusses recent regressive changes to Argentina’s labour laws with Facundo Merlán Rey, an activist with the Coordination Against Police and Institutional Repression (CORREPI), an organisation that defends workers’ rights and resists state repression.
Facundo Merlán Rey
What does the new law change and why did the government decide to push it through?
Capitalising on its victory in last year’s legislative election, which gave it a majority in both parliamentary chambers, the government pushed through a labour law that introduced changes on several fronts simultaneously.
It increases the daily maximum of working hours from eight to 12, with a weekly cap of 48. Hours worked beyond this limit no longer need to be paid separately, but can be accumulated and exchanged for days off at a later date.
It also introduces the concept of ‘dynamic wage’, allowing part of an employee’s pay to be determined based on merit or individual productivity. The employer can decide this unilaterally with no need for a collective agreement. This would allow two people to be paid differently for doing the same work.
The law creates the Labour Assistance Fund, an account to which the employer contributes three per cent of a worker’s salary, of which between one and 2.5 percentage points come from the worker’s pay. If dismissed, the worker receives the amount accumulated in that fund. This is deeply humiliating. It makes the worker contribute to the financing of their dismissal. Given that these contributions previously went into the pension system, the effect will also be to weaken pensions.
The law restricts the right to strike by expanding the list of occupations deemed essential, which means they are required to maintain at least 75 per cent of their operations during a strike. Previously, this category included air traffic control, electricity, gas, healthcare and water. Now it also includes customs, education at all levels except university, immigration, ports and telecommunications. In practice, this means that in these fields a strike will have a much more limited impact.
Finally, the law repeals the special regimes that regulated working conditions in some trades and professions. Over the next six months, hairdressers, private drivers, radio and telegraph operators and travelling salespeople will lose these protections. The Journalists’ Statute will be abolished from 2027 onwards.
At CORREPI, we believe all these measures are unconstitutional, as they directly contravene article 14 of the constitution, which guarantees the right to work and the right to decent living conditions. The changes put employers in a position of almost absolute dominance in an employment relationship, leaving workers with no real scope to defend their rights.
How have trade unions and social organisations reacted?
The most militant groups highlighted the problems with the new law clearly, but the response from the organised labour movement has been insufficient.
Union leaders responded with a belated and low-profile campaign plan. They have long been criticised for preferring discreet agreements to open confrontation, and this time was no different. They negotiated behind the scenes and secured concessions to protect themselves. The law maintains employers’ contributions to trade union health schemes and the union dues paid by workers for two years. The rights of workers as a whole were sidelined.
What impact are the changes having?
Although the law is already in force, its full implementation faces obstacles, partly because it has internal consistency issues that hinder its practical application. When the government attempts to apply it in employment areas that still retain rights, it will likely face legal challenges, which will increase social unrest.
Even so, some of its effects are already being felt. Unemployment is rising slowly but steadily. Factory closures, driven by the opening up of imports and the greater ease of dismissal, are pushing more workers into informal employment and multiple jobs. The result is a fall in consumption and a level of strain with outcomes that are difficult to predict.
The consequences extend beyond the economic sphere. Increasingly demanding working conditions, combined with high inflation and rising household debt, are taking a toll on workers’ mental health. Regrettably, there is already a worrying rise in the suicide rate.
There’s also a consequence that is harder to measure: this reform erodes the collective identity of workers. When work is informal, individuals tend to solve their problems on their own, making it much harder to organise to demand better conditions. In working-class neighbourhoods, drug trafficking is becoming established as an alternative source of employment, generating situations of violence that largely go unnoticed. Unfortunately, everything points to an ever-deepening social breakdown.
What lessons does this experience hold for the rest of the region?
Regional experience shows it is very difficult to reverse this kind of change. In Brazil, President Lula da Silva came to power in 2022 promising to repeal the labour law passed in 2017 under Michel Temer’s government, similarly opposed by social organisations and trade unions. However, he failed to do so, and the framework Temer left remains in force. Once passed, these laws tend to remain in place regardless of who governs next.
That’s why what’s happening in Argentina should not be viewed as an isolated phenomenon. The reform appears to be part of a broader direction that regional politics is taking under the influence of the USA, one of the main drivers of these changes and a supporter of the governments implementing them.
The weakening of labour rights and collective organising is not a side effect; it is the objective being pursued. Dismantling workers’ ability to organise collectively facilitates the advance of extractive and financial interests and guarantees access to cheap labour. In that sense, Argentina offers a warning to the rest of the region.
CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.
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BANGKOK, Thailand, Apr 13 2026 (IPS) - As the Pacific recovers from a severe cyclone season and Asia braces for the monsoon, flood readiness has become a defining test of sustainable urban development.
The Asia and the Pacific 2026 SDG Progress Report signals a hard truth: while poverty reduction, health and basic infrastructure have advanced, the region is regressing on climate action, disaster resilience and biodiversity—areas now decisive for long-term development.
The widespread flooding across the region in November 2025 was not merely a weather event; it was a warning and a new baseline. From Hat Yai to Colombo, dense urban districts were underwater for days, exposing millions of people and billions in assets to cascading disruption.
Across the Asia-Pacific region, climate extremes are intensifying, increasing water inflow to drainage systems by over 53%. In coastal areas, flooding can halt transport, isolate communities, delay emergency response and lead to saltwater intrusion that damages agriculture and freshwater supplies.
ESCAP’s analysis (Figure 1) examines how these threats are expected to continue to increase in the region’s low-lying river deltas, small island nations and rapidly growing coastal cities. For example, Seenu Atoll in the Maldives is expected to face a six-fold jump in population exposure to coastal flooding by 2050.
Looking across the region, Jiangsu Province in China, West Bengal in India, Khula and Marisal Divisions of Bangladesh, and Bến Tre and Bạc Liêu Provinces of Viet Nam are all expected to see hundreds of thousands of people exposed along their respective coastlines in the next 25 years.
Figure 1 – Percentage of People Exposed to Coastal Flooding of 0.5 Meters and Above in States/Provinces Across the Asia-Pacific Region and in Atolls of the Maldives (2018 Baseline vs. 2050 RCP8.5).
In the face of these risks, cities become engines of growth only when they are resilient. So, why do many cities across the Asia-Pacific region find themselves underwater while others weathered the storm with far less disruption? The answer lies in whether cities treat rain as a resource or as waste
Traditional “grey” systems, such as pipes, pumps and channels, aim to move water out fast. In a nonstationary climate and denser urban fabric, this is no longer sufficient. Sponge city design blends green-blue-grey systems (permeable surfaces, parks, wetlands, bioswales, green corridors) with modernized drainage to capture, store, and safely release rainfall at the source.
China’s national Sponge City Initiative (launched in 2015) built on international practice and showed how integrated planning can retrofit districts and guide new growth to manage water where it falls. The logic is simple: expand infiltration and storage, reduce peak runoff and use engineered conveyance when and where needed.
Results from early adopters are tangible
In Wuhan, sponge city measures contributed to a 50% reduction in locations experiencing overflow and pipe overloading during high flow years. Over the life of assets, green-blue systems can cost significantly less than like-for-like grey expansions, while delivering co-benefits that traditional drains cannot: cooler neighborhoods, improved air quality, biodiversity and accessible public space.
For cities facing rising loss and damage under SDG 11.5 (deaths, affected people and economic losses), sponge city programmes generate a resilience dividend—not just a flood fix.
Sponge city thinking is also evolving toward smart hybrid infrastructure
Nature-based systems are being coupled with engineered assets and digital tools, such as digital twins, to model urban hydrology and optimize performance in real time, enabling city planners to simulate rainfall scenarios, forecast flood hotspots and manage infrastructure adaptively, thereby improving the effectiveness of sponge-city interventions.
This pairing turns static drainage into adaptive urban water management, essential as rainfall intensity and patterns shift, reducing and managing risk through early warning, community preparedness and basin scale controls.
Urban resilience is also ecological
The Asia-Pacific region is home to an estimated 30–40% of the world’s wetlands, yet only around 22% are formally protected. As wetland buffers are drained or reclaimed, cities lose natural absorption, filtration and surge moderation, just as extremes intensify. Protecting and restoring urban and peri-urban wetlands is therefore core infrastructure policy, reinforcing SDG 15 while directly advancing SDGs 11.5 and 13.1.
Sponge city approaches are not a panacea. Their effectiveness can be constrained by governance capacity, implementation scale and maintenance requirements, land availability and high-density development. They must therefore be complemented by robust end-to-end early warning systems and coordinated disaster risk management frameworks.
To this end, ESCAP supports countries across the region by providing regional and national risk analytics through its Risk and Resilience Portal, enabling policymakers to integrate climate and disaster information directly into development planning.
These analyses and tools are tailored to regional and country needs, such as ClimaCoast, which focuses on coastal multi-hazard and socio-economic exposures. These initiatives are complemented by targeted financing from the Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness, through programmes that strengthen coastal resilience in Asia and the Pacific. Together, these initiatives aim to reverse the current regression in resilience related SDG targets and help safeguard sustainable development in the region’s high risk hotspots.
Asia and the Pacific region can no longer rely on drainage systems built for a different climate and century. By adopting sponge city principles, Asia Pacific cities can embed resilience into everyday urban life—a development imperative, not just a technical shift.
Strengthening urban resilience is essential to advancing SDG 11 and SDG 13 and protecting hard won development gains that too often wash away when floods strike.
Temily Baker is Programme Management Officer, ESCAP; Leila Salarpour Goodarzi is Associate Economic Affairs Officer, ESCAP and Elisa Belaz is Consultant, ESCAP
IPS UN Bureau
NEW YORK, Apr 10 2026 (IPS) - The past several weeks have marked a significant escalation in hostilities across the Middle East, with tensions rising among Israel, Lebanon, Iran, and the United States following large-scale exchanges of bombardment. Recent statements from U.S. President Donald Trump, including threats of extensive destruction in Iran, have further inflamed regional tensions and complicated ongoing diplomatic efforts. Humanitarian experts warn that these developments risk further destabilizing cross-border relations and could trigger a broader regional conflict.
“Every day this war continues, human suffering grows. The scale of devastation grows. Indiscriminate attacks grow,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “The spiral of death and destruction must stop. To the United States and Israel, it is high time to stop the war that is inflicting immense human suffering and already triggering devastating economic consequences. Conflicts do not end on their own. They end when leaders choose dialogue over destruction. That choice still exists. And it must be made – now.”
In late February, Israel coordinated a series of airstrikes targeting Iranian military infrastructure, triggering retaliatory drone and missile strikes from Iran. According to figures from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), over 3.8 million Iranians have been impacted by the war in Iran as of early April. Iran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MoHME) reports that over 2,100 civilians have been killed as of April 3, including 216 children, 251 women and 24 health workers. Over 1,880 children, 4,610 women, and 116 health workers have been injured in that same period.
The scale of destruction to civilian infrastructure across Iran has been particularly severe. The Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) estimates that roughly 115,193 civilian structures have sustained significant damage, including at least 763 schools. Israeli airstrikes have targeted numerous densely populated areas and critical civilian infrastructures, including airports, residential areas, hospitals, schools, industrial facilities, cultural heritage sites, water infrastructure, and a power plant in Khorramshahr, as well as nuclear facilities in Khonab, Yazd, and Bushehr.
Iran’s healthcare system has borne a massive toll, with damage to over 442 health facilities across the nation, disrupting access to lifesaving care for over 10 million people, including 2.2 million children. The Pasteur Institute of Iran—one of the oldest research and public health centers in the Middle East, and a critical source of vaccines for infectious diseases—has been severely damaged, leaving thousands of children increasingly vulnerable. Tofigh Darou, a key producer of pharmaceutical products for chronic conditions such as cancer, has been destroyed, raising broader concerns of a severe, nationwide health crisis.
These challenges are especially pronounced for Iran’s growing population of internally displaced persons (IDPs), which has swelled to approximately 3.2 million since the escalation of hostilities. Iran also currently hosts over 1.65 million refugees. These vulnerable communities are in dire need of access to basic services, many of which have been severely disrupted. IDPs and refugee communities face significant protection risks, alongside critical shortages of healthcare, food, clean water, and financial support for basic needs and relocation assistance.
“Unprovoked attacks by the US and Israel — launched amid diplomatic negotiations and without authorisation from the Security Council — violate the fundamental prohibition on the use of force, sovereign equality, territorial integrity, and the duty to peacefully settle disputes under Article 2 of the UN Charter. They also violate the right to life,” said a coalition of UN experts on April 4. “The targeting of civilians, educational facilities, and medical institutions constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law….Calls by the US and Israel for Iranians to seize control of their own government are reckless and put countless civilian lives at risk.”
On April 8, the U.S. brokered a two-week ceasefire with Iran, mediated by Pakistan, in an effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway and one of the world’s most prominent oil and gas passes, and to de-escalate tensions in the 2026 Iran War. Immediately following the implementation of the ceasefire, Israel launched a series of large-scale airstrikes in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah sites, resulting in widespread damage to civilian infrastructure and a significant loss of human life.
Attacks across Lebanon have been widespread, with Israeli authorities reporting that they had carried out approximately 100 strikes across the country within 10 minutes. Southern Lebanon has experienced immense destruction, along with the southern suburbs of Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley, all reporting significant damage to civilian infrastructures. Attacks have been reported in the vicinity of the Hiram Hospital in Al-Aabbassiye near Tyre, as well as on an ambulance on the Islamic Health Authority in Qlaileh, causing three civilian deaths.
Figures from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) show that more than 1,500 people had been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon between early March and April 8, including over 200 women and children. Additional figures from the UN reveal that the attacks on April 8 alone resulted in more than 200 deaths and over 1,000 injuries across Lebanon. Many victims are believed to be still trapped beneath the rubble of destroyed infrastructure, as hospitals and rescue teams struggle to respond amid the overwhelming scale of casualties and urgent humanitarian needs.
“The scale of the killing and destruction in Lebanon today is nothing short of horrific,” said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. “Such carnage, within hours of agreeing to a ceasefire with Iran, defies belief. It places enormous pressure on a fragile peace, which is so desperately needed by civilians. The scale of such actions, coupled with statements by Israeli officials indicating an intention to occupy or even annex parts of southern Lebanon, is deeply troubling. Efforts to bring peace to the wider region will remain incomplete as long as the Lebanese people are living under continuing fire, forcibly displaced, and in fear of further attacks.”
On April 7, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a series of posts on social media in which he warned of potential large-scale destruction in Iran, which elicited significant concern and outrage from regional and international actors. His subsequent partial withdrawal of these comments did little to ease concerns and only further underscored the volatility of the U.S.’s role in foreign affairs.
“Today, the President of the United States again resorted to language that is not only deeply irresponsible but profoundly alarming, declaring that ‘the whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back’,” Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the UN, told the Security Council on April 7. He added that Trump’ s comments only acted as an open declaration of “intent to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity”, underscoring the troubling precents that the U.S. is setting for international conflicts.
“The announcement of a two-week ceasefire is a welcome step but it is partial, fragile, and incomplete. Most urgently, it does not include Lebanon, where I visited IRC programs last week and where airstrikes, evacuation orders and active hostilities not only continue to threaten civilians but intensify. A ceasefire that leaves one front of the conflict burning risks prolonging the crisis, not resolving it,” said David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee.
“The war in Iran has already triggered a dangerous domino effect, spreading humanitarian need, economic shock, and instability across the region and beyond. This moment must be used to expand the ceasefire, ensure the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb and other critical routes remain open to allow scaled-up humanitarian aid and essential supplies to reach those in need, and to stabilize economies under strain. Without that, the gap between rising needs and shrinking resources will only deepen. Civilians must be given the space to begin rebuilding their lives with dignity which can only happen if there is a permanent cessation in hostilities,” he continued.
IPS UN Bureau Report
FREETOWN, Apr 10 2026 (IPS) - As Sierra Leone prepares for its next national election in 2028, political parties across the country have begun setting strategies and preparing to select their candidates. However, persons with disabilities say they remain poorly represented and are calling on political parties to nominate them as candidates ahead of the election.
Samuel Alpha Sesay, a person with a physical disability living in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, is among those advocating for change. He still recalls the last general election, held in 2023, and how there was no person with a disability vying for any position in government.
In 2025, he founded the All Political Party Disability Association to challenge the long-standing exclusion of persons with disabilities from governance. Sesay says the lack of representation of persons with disabilities in national elections pushed him to establish the group.
According to Sierra Leone’s 2015 Population and Housing Census, about 93,129 people in the country have a disability, representing approximately 1.3% of the total population. The 2018 Integrated Household Survey reported a higher figure of 310,973 persons with disabilities, accounting for 4.3% of the population.
“For decades, persons with disabilities have actively participated in elections as voters, rarely as candidates, despite forming a significant part of Sierra Leone’s population,” says Sesay, who believes that participation in political parties’ activities alone is no longer enough.
“We do not want to remain in the party wings. We want persons with disabilities to be part of the core leadership of political parties,” he adds.
Breaking Deep-Rooted Perceptions
Sesay and others argue that stigmatisation and deep-rooted societal perceptions are among the barriers affecting their participation in politics.
Sylvanus Bundu, a man with a physical disability in his fifties, agrees with Sesay. He told IPS that one of the most persistent barriers to political inclusion is the perception that persons with disabilities are incapable of effective leadership.
“People feel sorry for us, but we do not want sympathy. Disability does not mean inability. We want society to unlearn these perceptions and allow us to lead,” says Bundu.
He adds that such perceptions are deeply embedded in social and political institutions and often translate into exclusion from candidate selection processes and leadership appointments.
Sesay says similar perceptions once shaped attitudes toward women before the introduction of the 30 percent quota ahead of the 2023 general elections. He argues that such views were used to justify excluding women from leadership positions.
However, he notes that the introduction of the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) Act 2022, which mandates a 30 percent quota for women’s political representation, marked a turning point.
The UN Women Transparency report indicates that following the introduction of the 30% quota under the GEWE Act 2022, women’s representation in Sierra Leone’s Parliament approximately doubled from 14.5% to around 28–30.45%, with notable increases also recorded in local councils and cabinet positions.
“Today, women are leading across sectors and contributing meaningfully to national development. The same transformation can happen if persons with disabilities are given space,” Sesay says, adding that he believes the 2028 elections present a crucial opportunity to shift this dynamic and ensure that affirmative political action is extended to persons with disabilities.
Electoral Quota
Despite international human rights treaties, including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, political representation for persons with disabilities in Sierra Leone remains weak.
Disability rights advocates say the representation of persons with disabilities in Sierra Leone does not even reach one percent a concerning figure in a country where the eleven-year civil war significantly increased the population of people living with disabilities.
The International Foundation for Election Systems reported that, as a result of the civil war and subsequent conflict, more than 3,000 people in Sierra Leone had limbs amputated and many others suffered severe war wounds. The 2015 Population and Housing Census identifies causes such as illness, congenital conditions, accidents and war injuries as contributing to disability prevalence.
Sesay says the solution lies in a legally backed electoral quota system that guarantees representation at both national and local levels.
“We are not asking for short-term appointments. We are asking for long-term, meaningful representation across all regions of the country,” he says.
Bundu believes that inclusion in governance is about policymaking that reflects lived realities. He wants a five percent quota to be clearly enshrined in Sierra Leone’s constitution and the 2011 Persons with Disability Act, both of which are currently under review.
“They say who feels it knows it, so if persons with disabilities are part of governance structures, our needs will be better understood and prioritised,” Bundu says.
While advocates push for enforceable quotas, independent regulatory bodies overseeing political parties cite legislative constraints. Eugene Momoh, Senior Outreach Officer of the Political Parties Regulation Commission (PPRC), an independent regulatory body of political parties, says the commission promotes inclusion but cannot mandate quotas.
“Section 43 of the Political Parties Regulation Commission Act of 2022 requires political parties to endeavour to make adequate provisions for persons with disabilities in executive positions from ward to national level,” states Momoh.
According to him, the commission monitors compliance with this provision by engaging political parties to ensure persons with disabilities are included within their structures. However, Momoh notes that during engagements, party leaders often disclose that persons with disabilities do not actively participate in party activities.
Ibrahim Dumbuya, Acting Secretary General of the Sierra Leone Union on Disability Issues (SLUDI), a disability rights group, acknowledges that interest levels may vary but insists that the willingness to participate exists.
“It is true that some persons with disabilities may not show strong interest in politics, but there are many who do yet are not given the platforms to hold leadership positions within political parties,” says Dumbuya.
He argues that when persons with disabilities engage politically, they are often treated as charity cases, which subjects them to discrimination.
“In some instances, political parties showcase persons with disabilities during political parties’ events, but they do not give them meaningful platforms to contest for parliamentary or local council seats.”
Learning from Uganda
As Sierra Leonean disability rights advocates call for a disability quota system, Uganda offers a working model on the African continent.
Lilian Namukasa, Programme Manager of the National Council for Persons with Disabilities, under the Secretariat for Special Interest Groups, told IPS that Uganda’s quota system, introduced years ago as an affirmative action measure, has led to the representation of persons with disabilities in Parliament and local councils.
“We have five reserved seats for persons with disabilities in Parliament; one of these seats is specifically reserved for a woman with a disability. In fact, in this recent election, we have two parliamentarians who are women with disabilities,” says Namukasa.
She explains that this representation also extends to local government structures nationwide and has created space for people with disabilities to influence policy, budgets and national development.
Namukasa adds that the structured inclusion has translated into tangible outcomes, including the allocation of dedicated funding for the economic empowerment of persons with disabilities, the provision of annual university scholarships, and the introduction of severe disability grants for children with disabilities, among other initiatives.
Crossroads
As the 2028 elections approach, advocates believe Sierra Leone stands at a crossroads. They say the question is no longer whether persons with disabilities can lead, but whether the political system is willing to create space for them to do so.
Whether the country responds to this call, they argue, may well define the depth of its democratic commitment in the years ahead.
“We have voted for others for decades,” Sesay reflects. “Now, we are asking to be voted for.”
IPS UN Bureau Report