Stories about Disaster
Bangladesh battles the country's longest-running floods since 1998
The devastation comes at a time when emergency and health services were already overwhelmed with responding to the COVID-19 epidemic.
Islamophobic post on Facebook leads to deadly violence in Bangalore
India experiences another episode of real-life violence triggered by online hate speech.
An earthquake shook Tanzania. A new law prohibits citizens from speaking about it online.
Revised online content regulations in Tanzania prohibit talking about pandemics, natural disasters or politics without government approval. Is it possible to control essential online conversations? If so, at what cost?
Calls, SMS, and radio: How pre-internet tech helps low-income children's schooling in India's lockdown
An award-winning non-profit start-up from the city of Cuttack, in the state of Odisha, is providing low-cost remote education to over 5,000 children from 400 villages.
Can Sudan's new government solve the annual mass flooding crisis?
No government in Sudan's history has been able to solve the humanitarian disasters brought on by annual flooding, which inevitably leads to chronic destruction and loss of life.
As Armenians and Azerbaijanis clash worldwide, activists petition for peaceful dialogue
When fighting on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border killed 17 people, violent clashes broke out between the diasporas of both countries worldwide. That enmity could close the one avenue for grassroots dialogue,...
In northern Syria, COVID-19 worsens an already dramatic humanitarian crisis
Despite the looming threat of COVID-19, military escalation has re-started in the form of a proxy war in Idlib, leaving peaceful civilians in ever-greater danger.
Georgians approve of government's COVID-19 response but fear economic downturn, survey finds
A new survey reveals that Georgians approve of their leaders and institutions' response to COVID-19. Can the goodwill last until October's parliamentary elections?
In Assad-controlled Syria, the official narrative is ‘no COVID-19 cases’
In order to maintain a facade of control, the Assad regime does whatever it takes to deny the presence of COVID-19 in the territories it controls.
Fruit picking in a pandemic: Europe's precarious migrant workers
Despite COVID-19, Eastern European seasonal labourers continued to toil on farms and in factories as before — sparking a fierce debate about the rights of migrants in wealthier EU states.
In the Brazilian Amazon, fires and pandemic are a disastrous mix
In the middle of the COVID-19 crisis, the increase in fires in the Amazon could overburden even more the healthcare system, with more cases of respiratory problems.
COVID-19 leads to closure of popular bookshops in Bangladesh
"There are so many second-hand books with probably no more copies in the world… many valuable documents of Bengali literary culture will be lost like this."
How COVID-19 affects education for people with disabilities in Ghana
In Ghana, students with disabilities shifted unexpectedly to online learning and faced several technical, economic, and social challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Has COVID-19 provoked a crisis of faith in Georgia's Orthodox church?
As the Georgian Orthodox Church continued to hold prayers during lockdown, its critics hint at a new crisis of faith in church-state relations.
Nationalists in North Macedonia use border closures to sow confusion and mistrust
Local media and politicians have distorted reopening policies in neighbouring countries for political gain.
WHO urges Pakistan to reimpose lockdown after surge in cases
Pakistan has implemented new lockdown restrictions after a letter from the WHO urged the country to improve testing and control outbreak numbers.
People with disabilities left stranded during national lockdown in Uganda
In Uganda, the needs of marginalized people — especially those of persons with disabilities — were conspicuously absent in President Yoweri Museveni’s COVID-19 directives.
Sri Lanka prepares for twice-delayed poll amid militarized COVID-19 response
"The government will not hesitate to arrest opposition activists and voters for violating this or that anti-virus rule while giving a free pass to its own supporters."
Fish prices spike as Cameroon’s mangroves face total depletion
Cameroonians rely heavily on mangroves for fish and firewood, but exploiting its resources has pushed it to the brink. A spike in fish prices is largely blamed on mangrove depletion.
No medicine, no healing: Sudan’s pharmaceutical crisis
Since 2016, medicine prices in Sudan have risen exponentially. To make matters worse, the government’s central bank lacks the foreign currency necessary to import essential drugs from abroad.
