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Tag: Humanitarian crises

  • NGO in ‘race against time’ to rescue 500 onboard boat in distress

    NGO in ‘race against time’ to rescue 500 onboard boat in distress

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    About 500 refugees and migrants are onboard a boat in distress in the Mediterranean Sea after departing Libya for Europe, humanitarian organisations say.

    Italian NGO Emergency said on Wednesday that the vessel – which has 45 women and 56 children on it, including a baby born overnight at sea – was taking on water.

    It said its rescue vessel Life Support was heading towards the boat but needed another 10 hours to reach the location in Maltese waters.

    The nationalities of those onboard remain unknown.

    “It’s a race against time in an attempt to save as many lives as possible,” Albert Mayordomo, head of mission on the Life Support, said in a statement sent to Al Jazeera. “The absence of coordination on the part of the authorities is a grave violation of the law of the sea.”

    Emergency said it had contacted Maltese authorities, in line with maritime procedures, but had received no response since Tuesday when the vessel was flagged by Alarm Phone, a non-governmental organisation that relays distress calls from the Mediterranean to emergency services.

    Emergency said it also had forwarded a request for assistance to the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center, which responded by saying that the case falls under the mandate of Maltese authorities.

    The Maltese coastguard did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment while Italian authorities declined to comment.

    Paolo Fusarini, captain of Life Support, said his crew was preparing for a difficult night-time rescue.

    “Weather conditions are not favourable,” he said in a statement sent to Al Jazeera. “We are going towards waves of 1.5 meters that will make the operation more difficult.”

    Fusarini said he was not too hopeful of reaching the location in time and feared that many people would drown before Life Support gets there.

    On Tuesday, Alarm Phone said local authorities had been informed of the boat’s presence without specifying whether they were Maltese or Italian officials.

    Shortly after, German NGO Sea-Watch said it had sent its light observation aircraft, Sea Bird, to locate the vessel.

    On Wednesday, Alarm Phone said it had lost contact with the boat.

    “We lost contact this morning, after we continuously alerted & updated the authorities in #Malta and #Italy,” it said. “500 people cannot simply disappear!”

    Sea-Watch was unable to locate the boat and said in a tweet, “The fact that the Maltese sea rescue coordination center ignored our calls is unacceptable. We demand immediate clarification.”

    More than 45,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in Italy over the Mediterranean so far this year, the highest number since 2017.

    About 1,090 people are estimated to have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since January, according to the International Organization for Migration.

    ‘Italy delays, Malta ignores’

    This month, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, a European network of 105 NGOs in 39 European countries, summed up the situation at play in the Mediterranean: “Italy delays, Malta ignores, Tunisia and Libya pull back and abuse.”

    “The Italian authorities continue the policy of assigning distant ports to NGO rescue vessels for the disembarkation of survivors,” it said. “Malta failed to rescue more than 7,000 people in distress in the country’s SAR [search and rescue] zone in 2022 and reports of non-response tactics continue to mount.”

    On January 2, the Italian government passed legislation requiring captains of rescue ships to request a port immediately after a rescue rather than continuing at sea and assisting with multiple distress calls.

    Authorities have increasingly been assigning distant ports for disembarkation, which NGOs say is raising costs and decreasing efficiency.

    An estimated 1,090 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since January [Faras Ghani/Al Jazeera]

    Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has rejected claims that government policies to discourage migration played a role in a shipwreck off the nation’s southern coast in March, in which at least 72 people died.

    Almost two weeks after the shipwreck, Italy’s coastguard conducted a large rescue operation, bringing more than 1,000 people stranded on three boats in distress to safety.

    The Maltese government has also faced criticism. A report published in March this year by the Civil Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre, a network of non-governmental actors engaging in search and rescue activities in the Mediterranean, concluded that “at sea, Maltese authorities regularly abandon those in need of rescue”.

    The report said that in 2022, Maltese authorities ignored more than 20,000 people in distress, 413 boats with people needing help were not assisted and only three boats were rescued by Malta’s armed forces.

    “Non-assistance is now a routine part of a suite of deadly measures aimed at reducing arrivals in Malta,” the report said.

    So far in 2023, only 92 people have been rescued by Maltese authorities.

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  • UN’s new Haiti envoy warns of ‘alarming’ surge in violence

    UN’s new Haiti envoy warns of ‘alarming’ surge in violence

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    More than 1,600 homicides, rapes, kidnappings and lynchings reported in first quarter of 2023, BINUH chief says.

    Haitians are living through an “alarming” surge in violence, the head of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) has said, with the number of criminal incidents more than doubling since last year.

    Speaking to the UN Security Council on Wednesday, BINUH chief Maria Isabel Salvador said 1,674 homicides, rapes, kidnappings and lynchings were reported in the first quarter of 2023.

    That is up from 692 such incidents in the same period a year earlier, said Salvador, citing data collected by BINUH and the Haitian National Police (HNP).

    “Gang violence is expanding at an alarming rate in areas previously considered relatively safe in Port-au-Prince and outside the capital,” she said.

    “The horrific violence in gang-ridden areas, including sexual violence, particularly against women and girls, is emblematic of the terror afflicting much of Haiti’s population.”

    Trucks block a street as people protest against gangs in Port-au-Prince, April 25, 2023 [Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters]

    UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed Salvador to lead BINUH and act as his special representative to Haiti in early March, as the Caribbean nation remains embroiled in a political crisis and faces worsening violence.

    Gang violence has been on the rise, particularly after the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, which created a power vacuum. And the country’s virtually non-existent government system has made stemming attacks even more difficult.

    Haiti’s de facto leader, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, whom Moise chose for the post just days before he was killed, has faced a crisis of legitimacy – and attempts to chart a political transition for Haiti have failed, as well.

    The violence has impeded access to healthcare facilities, forced the closure of schools and clinics, and worsened already dire food insecurity by cutting residents of gang-controlled areas off from critical supplies.

    On Sunday, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, Ulrika Richardson, said fighting between rival gangs in the Port-au-Prince neighbourhood of Cite Soleil had left nearly 70 people dead between April 14 and 19.

    “The population feels under siege. They can no longer leave their homes for fear of gun violence and gang terror,” Richardson said.

    Also this week, residents of Port-au-Prince lynched suspected gang members and set their bodies on fire in another part of the capital. Images shared online and by news agencies showed a crowd of people standing near a pile of burned human remains in a street.

    In a brief statement shared on Facebook on Monday, the Haitian National Police said officers had confiscated weapons from “armed individuals” travelling in a minibus in Canape Vert.

    “In addition, more than a dozen individuals travelling in this vehicle were unfortunately lynched by members of the population,” the police force said.

    On Wednesday, Salvador said the HNP was “severely understaffed and ill-equipped” to address the violence, and “deaths, dismissals and increased resignations” among officers have made these deficiencies worse.

    “The need for urgent international support to the police to address the rapidly deteriorating security situation cannot be over-emphasised,” she said.

    Last October, Henry called on the international community to help set up a “specialised armed force” to quell the violence in Haiti, a demand that has the backing of the UN and the United States.

    “Solutions to the crisis must be owned and led by the people of Haiti, but the scale of the problems is such that they require the international community’s immediate response and support,” Guterres said in a report (PDF) this month, reiterating his support for the armed force.

    Police officers walk near people carrying their belongings amid gang violence in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince
    Police officers walk near people who carry their belongings after fleeing their homes due to clashes between gangs, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on April 24, 2023 [Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters]

    The UN secretary-general also warned that insecurity in Port-au-Prince had “reached levels comparable to countries in armed conflict”.

    But many Haitian civil society leaders have rejected the prospect of international intervention, saying history has demonstrated that foreign forces bring “more problems than solutions”.

    Meanwhile, efforts to set up the international armed force have stalled, with no country agreeing to lead such a mission.

    Instead, the US and some of its allies, notably Canada, have focused on providing equipment and training to the Haitian National Police and sanctioning individuals accused of enabling and profiting from the instability.

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  • Blaze on Philippine passenger ferry kills at least 10

    Blaze on Philippine passenger ferry kills at least 10

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    Some 230 people have been rescued after a ferry caught fire in the sea off the southern Philippine province of Basilan.

    At least 10 people have died and around 230 were rescued after a passenger ferry caught fire in the seas off the southern Philippine province of Basilan, a coastguard official and rescue workers said.

    Nine other people were injured in the fire on Wednesday night that started in air-conditioned cabins, Commodore Rejard Marfe, coastguard chief in southern Mindanao, told the DZMM radio station.

    Photographs shared by the coastguard showed the MV Lady Mary Joy 3 ship being sprayed with water, while rescued passengers were brought to the shore.

    The MV Lady Mary Joy 3 was travelling from Zamboanga City on Mindanao Island to Jolo Island in Sulu province when the fire broke, prompting passengers to jump overboard, an emergency worker told reporters.

    Basilan Governor Jim Salliman said there could be more people missing because the number of passengers on the vessel exceeded the 205 listed in the ship’s manifest.

    “Probably there are passengers who didn’t register in the manifest,” he said. Survivors were taken to Zamboanga and Basilan where the injured received treatment for burns, Salliman said.

    It was not clear how the fire started.

    Nixon Alonzo, chief of the Basilan disaster agency, said some passengers jumped into the sea when the fire broke out.

    “Some of the fatalities were recovered from the vessel, and some drowned,” he said. “There were signs of burns in some of the victims.”

    The coastguard said it will assist in an investigation and safety assessment, as well check for any signs of an oil spill.

    The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,600 islands, has a poor record for maritime safety, with vessels often overcrowded and many ageing ships still in use.

    In May, at least seven people died after a fire in a high-speed Philippine ferry carrying 134 people.

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  • Puerto Rico governor unveils solar energy plans in address

    Puerto Rico governor unveils solar energy plans in address

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    SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Gov. Pedro Pierluisi announced new solar energy initiatives on Tuesday during his annual state of the territory address, a speech viewed by many as critical as he fights plummeting ratings amid growing discontent over costly electric bills, government corruption and slow-moving hurricane reconstruction.

    The more than hourlong speech and ceremony at the U.S. territory’s seaside Capitol was powered entirely by generators to avoid any potential interruptions given the ongoing instability of the island’s crumbling power grid.

    The frail grid has been a priority for Pierluisi’s administration, which oversaw the privatization of the operation of the island’s generation, transmission and distribution of power in widely criticized moves given persistent outages.

    On Tuesday evening, Pierluisi announced that the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency approved microgrid projects to supply 100% of power to the neighboring islands of Vieques and Culebra, which are popular with tourists.

    He also announced $100 million in federal funds for a new voucher program targeting the middle class to finance up to 30% of the costs of installing battery-backed solar systems in their homes.

    Pierluisi has pledged that Puerto Rico will ramp up from 3% to 40% renewable energy by the end of 2025, and 60% by 2040.

    The governor also addressed concerns over ongoing government corruption, with 10 Puerto Rican mayors prosecuted by federal authorities in recent years.

    He urged the legislature to approve pending bills aimed at cracking down on corruption.

    “Zero tolerance and zero impunity,” Pierluisi said.

    He also highlighted ongoing hurricane reconstruction efforts targeting hospitals, homes, roads, schools and other infrastructure that were battered by hurricanes Maria and Fiona.

    Pierluisi noted his administration has so far helped more than 7,400 families of the 12,000 still awaiting aid for homes damaged by Hurricane Maria, a powerful Category 4 storm that struck the island in September 2017, razing the power grid and destroying or damaging hundred of thousands of homes.

    Further damage was caused by Hurricane Fiona, a Category 1 storm that hit Puerto Rico’s southwest region in September 2022, sparking an island-wide blackout.

    Pierluisi also unveiled a preliminary $31 billion budget, which still has to be approved by legislators and a federal control board that oversees the island’s finances. Puerto Rico announced in 2015 that it was unable to pay its more than $70 billion public debt load and then filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in history in 2017.

    Pierluisi touted his administration’s achievements during the address, which comes as he prepares to run for a second term next year in what many consider will be a highly competitive race.

    “It’s obvious that the campaigning began,” said Rafael Hernández, speaker of Puerto Rico’s House and a member of the main opposition Popular Democratic Party. “But there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

    José Luis Dalmau, president of Puerto Rico’s Senate and also a member of the main opposition party, said he was puzzled by the descriptions of Pierluisi’s achievements given the multiple challenges that many on the island of 3.2 million people with a 45% poverty rate still face.

    “It’s clear that the governor lives in another Puerto Rico,” he said.

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  • Picking up the pieces after twin cyclones hit Vanuatu

    Picking up the pieces after twin cyclones hit Vanuatu

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    Port Vila, Vanuatu – Vanuatu is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world and it is regularly affected by cyclones during the wet season from November to April.

    But few in this archipelago nation of more than 80 islands were prepared for two Category 4 cyclones hitting the country within 72 hours in early March.

    “The cyclone kept changing direction and the winds were coming from different directions,” said Cathy Hivo, recounting the fearful hours as the second of the two cyclones churned across Port Vila, Vanuatu’s capital, on March 3.

    “The roofing iron on the house next door tore off and hit one of our windows,” she told Al Jazeera.

    Cyclone Judy had just passed over the archipelago on March 1 when Cathy and her husband Ken endured the second bout of extreme weather, battened down inside their home for more than six hours as the strong winds and driving rain of Cyclone Kevin raged from late afternoon until about 11pm.

    “It got stronger and stronger,” said Ken Hivo, who is the chief of the Freswota settlements in Port Vila.

    “We were told it was a Category 3 cyclone, but it then became Category 4. We have been experiencing stronger cyclones, so we knew what to do,” he said, recounting methods to secure windows and roofs so they do not get ripped off by cyclones.

    Not everyone was so fortunate. Many homes could not withstand the cyclonic winds and lost their roofs and walls. Some structures collapsed entirely.

    “Thankfully, no lives were lost,” Chief Hivo said, adding that many had lost their homes or sustained storm damage.

    While post-cyclone recovery for people in Port Vila will take time, it will be counted in years for the less fortunate residents of the city’s informal settlements like Freswota.

    Children at an informal settlement on the outskirts of Port Vila. These precarious communities are located on land vulnerable to climate disasters, such as cyclones and floods [Catherine Wilson/Al Jazeera]

    ‘Swept out to Sea’

    It takes a ride in a local minibus to reach the sprawling Freswota settlements that are home to more than 12,000 people on the outskirts of Port Vila, and Freswota is just one of more than 20 informal settlements on the outskirts of the capital.

    Visiting on a recent morning, the area’s unpaved streets had turned to mud after a heavy downpour of rain.

    The rapid growth of informal settlements in Pacific Island cities such as Port Vila has been driven by Islanders drawn to the prospect of jobs and better access to education and public services in capitals and major towns. For decades, the growth of settlements in Vanuatu and other island nations has outpaced the capacities of their governments to respond with urban planning, infrastructure and services.

    Settlements have mushroomed — often on flood-prone land where tenure rights are uncertain — and so have unsafe, informal housing and overcrowded living conditions that are particularly vulnerable to the more extreme consequence of climate change.

    Residents of Freswota range from those in permanent employment to the jobless, but what they all have in common is their low incomes. The recent pair of cyclones have only added to the residents’ hardships.

    Destroyed house in Freswota, near Port Vila.
    Cyclones Judy and Kevin, which hit Port Vila during the first week of March, destroyed homes in the Freswota settlement [Photo courtesy of Cathy Hivo]

    There was no power for a week and a half after Cyclone Kevin, and it is still down in some parts of the community.

    “You’re looking at houses that have been damaged and some just totally destroyed”, said Soneel Ram, a Pacific country communications manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

    “The urgent needs here are shelter and clean, safe drinking water, because most of these communities rely on rivers and streams as their water source, but the debris have polluted these water sources,” Ram told Al Jazeera.

    The Red Cross has provided tarpaulin to make temporary shelters, and water and hygiene kits, Ram added.

    The morning after Cyclone Kevin hit, Chief Hivo recalled, he met with other community leaders to prepare a recovery plan and to organise residents, including young people, to start the cleanup and assess local needs.

    “We depend on our local foods. People usually have market stalls selling fresh produce on the sides of the roads in the settlement. But now there isn’t much food to sell,” he said.

    “The most vulnerable people in the settlements when we have a cyclone are the elderly, those in poor health or with medical conditions and people who are without relatives here to support them,” Hivo said.

    “But we share everything together, we help each other,” he added.

    Chief Ken Hivo standing in front of a damaged building in the informal Freswota settlement of Port Vila, Vanuatu.
    Chief Ken Hivo witnessed the path of destruction wrought by Cyclones Judy and Kevin in the informal Freswota settlement of Port Vila, Vanuatu [Catherine Wilson/Al Jazeera]

    Two cyclones, one earthquake, and a tsunami warning

    The severe winds and torrential rain unleashed by the cyclones also destroyed crops and household food gardens throughout the country.

    More than 80 percent of Vanuatu’s population of about 320,000 people were affected by the back-to-back cyclones, and Shefa province, which includes the coastal city of Port Vila on Efate Island, was one of the worst-affected areas.

    The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said there was widespread destruction of homes, buildings, food gardens, as well as water, power and telecommunication services.

    While official assessments of the scale of the loss and damage throughout the islands are still being finalised, a UN spokesperson told Al Jazeera that rebuilding homes could take anywhere from a few months to several years.

    Restoration of major infrastructure could take more than three years, according to the UN, and the recovery bill is initially estimated at about $50m.

    A map of Vanuatu with a break-out text for Port Vila.
    Map of Vanuatu (Al Jazeera)

    Located in the tropical Pacific, Vanuatu experiences about two to three cyclones per year. Also located within the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’ of seismic activity, Vanuatu faces a high risk of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.

    And as Cyclone Kevin was wreaking havoc in Port Vila earlier this month, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake shook Vanuatu’s Espiritu Santo island in the north of the archipelago.

    For small island developing states, climate change is the single most significant threat to sustainable development. Now, three weeks after the dual natural disasters, the Vanuatu Government is pushing to achieve climate justice at the UN.

    Vanuatu hopes the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will this week adopt its push for greater priority to be given to the human rights implications of changing climates and for the International Court of Justice to protect vulnerable nations from climate change.

    Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change, Ralph Regenvanu, reported that 119 governments have cosponsored Vanuatu’s UN resolution, which seeks clarity on the legal obligation of states to tackle climate change action, according to the Reuters news agency.

    Vanuatu hopes more nations will sign on to the resolution before the UNGA debate begins this week and a vote on the resolution takes place.

    While the post-disaster clean up and restoration in the central business district of Port Vila has paved the way for the resumption of public transport, services and business, it will be a far longer road to recovery for the people living precariously in settlements such as Freswota.

    “There are people here who have not recovered from Cyclone Pam,” Chief Hivo said, referring to the cyclone that hit in 2015.

    “It will take longer for the most vulnerable people,” he adds.

     

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  • Haiti crisis looms large as Biden visits Canada’s Trudeau

    Haiti crisis looms large as Biden visits Canada’s Trudeau

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    Montreal, Canada – For many months, daily life in Haiti’s capital has been marked by widespread violence and deepening political instability since powerful armed gangs seized control of the streets of Port-au-Prince.

    The still-unfolding crisis is expected to figure prominently in discussions this week between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and United States President Joe Biden, who will be making his first official trip to Canada since taking office in early 2021.

    Washington has been pushing Ottawa to lead a multinational armed force in Haiti, and Biden is expected to seek an answer from Trudeau on whether Ottawa intends to take up the mission during his visit to the Canadian capital on Thursday and Friday.

    But experts say Canada is not ready to lead such a deployment, instead supporting what it calls a “Haitian-led solution” to the country’s political crisis while also advancing a sanctions regime and increased assistance to the Haitian National Police.

    Canada is “not going to get pushed – even by a very strong, powerful neighbour like the US – into doing something it doesn’t want to do here”, said Stephen Baranyi, a professor of international development at the University of Ottawa and an expert on Haiti.

    He said Ottawa’s strategy is based on an assessment that Trudeau and other officials have stated publicly,”that past interventions have failed, that a new approach is needed and at the centre of that has to be a respect for and support for this idea of Haitian-led solutions”.

    “That’s been a sensible position, but we have to acknowledge that the dilemmas arising from that approach are becoming sharper and sharper,” especially as the security situation continues to deteriorate in Port-au-Prince, Baranyi told Al Jazeera.

    “The political process is taking a long time, and so many people are asking, ‘Well, until when can Haitians wait?’” he said.

    ‘Specialised armed force’

    Haiti’s interim prime minister, Ariel Henry, asked the international community in October to help deploy a “specialised armed force” to push back gangs and restore order in the country of 11 million people.

    At the time, a powerful gang coalition had maintained a weeks-long blockade on the main petrol terminal in Port-au-Prince, causing water and electricity shortages, forcing the closure of health facilities and severely disrupting movement in the city.

    Henry’s request drew support from the US as well as the United Nations, but it also set off angry protests. Some Haitians called for the resignation of the prime minister, who has faced a crisis of legitimacy since he took up his post after the July 2021 killing of President Jovenel Moise.

    Haitian civil society leaders also rejected the idea, warning that a history of foreign interventions and occupations, including by the US, has shown such deployments bring “more problems than solutions”. Instead, they called for outside forces to stem the flow of weapons into Haiti and bolster its police force.

    While the US has touted the need for an international force in Haiti, it has shown no desire to lead it. After the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, another intervention “simply has political implications and carries baggage, if you will, for the White House”, said Georges Fauriol, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, DC.

    For Canada, “there is a sort of legitimate concern that this is potentially an open-ended kind of operation,” Fauriol told Al Jazeera. He noted that Haiti is not only grappling with the surge in gang violence but also faces high unemployment, internal displacement and a health crisis.

    So while “the Haitian-led solution concept is a good one”, he said, Haitians have faced a challenge in generating a consensus.

    Indeed, Haiti, which is largely without any functioning government institutions, is juggling competing visions for how to solve the political deadlock. One is backed by Henry and the other by prominent opposition figures and civil society groups.

    Fauriol said one way to help bridge the gap in Haiti might be for Canada and the US to agree to appoint “a trusted go-between that would represent international views without pressing on the Haitians themselves but at least would encourage them towards a workable plan”.

    “Simply kicking the can down the road isn’t going to help,” he said.

    Sanctions, other measures

    In Canada, as questions swirl around the prospect of sending an armed force to Haiti ahead of Biden’s arrival, Trudeau and his ministers have repeatedly reinforced their approach to the crisis.

    “Outside intervention as we’ve done in the past hasn’t worked to create long-term stability for Haiti,” the prime minister told reporters in mid-March as he stressed the need to bolster the Haitian police and other national institutions.

    In past months, Ottawa has delivered security equipment to the police force, imposed sanctions against more than a dozen Haitian political figures and other “elites” accused of being linked to gangs and deployed a military aircraft in the skies above Haiti to provide aerial surveillance and intelligence information.

    The Canadian government also provided $100m Canadian ($73m) in aid to Haiti last year and has contributed $12.3m Canadian ($9m) so far in 2023, said Charlotte MacLeod, a spokesperson for Canada’s foreign affairs department.

    Asked if Ottawa would lead a multinational armed force, MacLeod told Al Jazeera in an email: “At all times, solutions must be made by and for Haitians. Canada is leading international efforts to support Haiti, the Haitian people, and a Haitian-led solution to the crisis.”

    Canada’s top general also has cast doubt on the Canadian military’s ability to lead a mission to Haiti. “My concern is just our capacity,” Chief of the Defence Staff Wayne Eyre said in a recent interview with the Reuters news agency. “It would be challenging.”

    According to Fauriol, Biden’s talks with Trudeau this week are “critical” given the deteriorating security situation in Haiti. “If there isn’t some sort of a breakthrough at the Ottawa meeting, when you look at the calendar, you’re not quite sure exactly what happens next,” he said.

    Baranyi said he believes a major breakthrough is unlikely but that each side would try to get the other to move closer to its respective goals. That means “the Americans will try to get Canada to move faster in planning for a possible multinational force” while “Canada will try to get Washington to broaden its sanctions.”

    A bridge between the two positions, Baranyi said, would be to back Haitian dialogue that could lead to limited international intervention – “mostly policing, time-bound [with] clear rules of engagement” – as well as a political transition agreement that could lay a path towards elections.

    “Without a political agreement inside Haiti [that is] fairly broadly based, … an international intervention will not have domestic legitimacy,” the professor said. “It also might not have domestic legitimacy in countries like Canada.”

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  • Photos: The lasting scars and pain of the war in Darfur

    Photos: The lasting scars and pain of the war in Darfur

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    Twenty years ago, conflict broke out in the western Sudanese state of Darfur as non-Arab tribes rose up against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.

    After Omar al-Bashir came to power through a military coup backed by the National Islamic Front in 1989, tensions grew as non-Arab tribes accused the government of marginalising and underfunding them.

    In 2002, the Darfur Liberation Front (later called the Sudan Liberation Movement) was formed, and on February 26, 2003, it claimed responsibility for an attack on Golo in the Jebel Marra area of Darfur. The group was joined by the Justice and Equality Movement, and a rebellion was launched.

    Khartoum’s response was to support and arm local Arab militia known as the Janjaweed to support its forces in fighting the African tribes. The Janjaweed were later absorbed into Sudan’s official forces by al-Bashir.

    Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and more than two million were displaced, both internally and over the border in neighbouring Chad.

    While a peace agreement was signed in 2020, the people of Darfur still have a long, painful journey ahead of them to heal from the conflict.

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  • China reports 2 new COVID deaths as some restrictions eased

    China reports 2 new COVID deaths as some restrictions eased

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    HONG KONG — China on Sunday reported two additional deaths from COVID-19 as some cities move cautiously to ease anti-pandemic restrictions following increasingly vocal public frustrations.

    The National Health Commission said one death was reported each in the provinces of Shandong and Sichuan. No information was given about the ages of the victims or whether they had been fully vaccinated.

    China, where the virus first was detected in late 2019 in the central city of Wuhan, is the last major country trying to stop transmission completely through quarantines, lockdowns and mass testing. Concerns over vaccination rates are believed to figure prominently in the ruling Communist Party’s determination to stick to its hard-line strategy.

    While nine in 10 Chinese have been vaccinated, only 66% of people over 80 have gotten one shot while 40% have received a booster, according to the commission. It said 86% of people over 60 are vaccinated.

    Given those figures and the fact that relatively few Chinese have been built up antibodies by being exposed to the virus, some fear millions could die if restrictions were lifted entirely.

    Yet, an outpouring of public anger appears to have prompted authorities to lift some of the more onerous restrictions, even as they say the “zero-COVID” strategy — which aims to isolate every infected person — is still in place.

    The demonstrations, the largest and most widely spread in decades, erupted Nov. 25 after a fire in an apartment building in the northwestern city of Urumqi killed at least 10 people. That set off angry questions online about whether firefighters or victims trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other anti-virus controls. Authorities denied that, but the deaths became a focus of public frustration.

    The country saw several days of protests across cities including Shanghai and Beijing, with protesters demanding an easing of COVID-19 curbs. Some demanded Chinese President Xi Jinping step down, an extraordinary show of public dissent in a society over which the ruling Communist Party exercises near total control.

    Beijing and some other Chinese cities announced that riders can board buses and subways without a virus test for the first time in months. The requirement has led to complaints from some Beijing residents that even though the city has shut many testing stations, most public venues still require COVID-19 tests.

    On Sunday, China announced another 35,775 cases from the past 24 hours, 31,607 of which were asymptomatic, bringing its total to 336,165 with 5,235 deaths.

    While many have questioned the accuracy of the Chinese figures, they remain relatively low compared to the U.S. and other nations which are now relaxing controls and trying to live with the virus that has killed at least 6.6 million people worldwide and sickened almost 650 million.

    China still imposes mandatory quarantine for incoming travelers even as its infection numbers are low compared to its 1.4 billion population.

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  • UN still awaiting full access to bring aid to ‘desperate’ Tigray

    UN still awaiting full access to bring aid to ‘desperate’ Tigray

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    World Health Organization says peace process has not yet allowed medical aid to reach all those in need in Ethiopia’s northern region.

    The United Nations still cannot get unfettered access to bring humanitarian aid into Ethiopia’s Tigray, one month after the ceasefire, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

    The UN’s health agency said on Friday that just a trickle of aid had managed to get into the northern region which is in the grip of a humanitarian crisis after a two-year conflict.

    The Ethiopian government and regional forces from Tigray agreed on November 2 to cease hostilities, a dramatic diplomatic breakthrough in a war that has killed thousands, displaced millions and left hundreds of thousands facing famine.

    “That peace process has not yet resulted in the kinds of full access, unfettered access and in the massive scale of medical and health assistance that the people of Tigray need,” the WHO’s emergencies director Dr Mike Ryan told a news conference.

    “I remain cynical on that front because we’ve been a long time waiting to get access to these desperate people.”

    Last week the UN’s World Food Programme said aid deliveries into Tigray were “not matching the needs” of the stricken region.

    Ryan said there were issues in the west of Tigray in areas under the control of militias, and other areas controlled by Eritrean troops.

    “There are still significant parts of the country that are occupied by Eritrean forces, for which there is no access, and very disturbing reports emerging around the experiences of the people there,” he said.

    Troops from Eritrea, to the north, and forces from the neighbouring Ethiopian region of Amhara, to the south, fought alongside Ethiopia’s military in Tigray but were not party to the ceasefire.

    Tigray was isolated from the world for more than a year and faced severe shortages of medicines and limited access to electricity, banking and communications – services that need restoring for relief logistics operations to function.

    “It’s really hard to plan a scale-up when at every moment you can have your ambitions curtailed,” Ryan said, adding that UN bodies “welcome any cessation of violence, any access that’s given”.

    “But the people in Tigray are desperate,” he said. “They’ve been years now without access to proper healthcare and nutrition and they need our help now. Not next week, not next month. Now.”

    Ryan said some WHO staff had been able to go in, while a small fuel allocation might allow the organisation to service a tiny percentage of the needs in the region.

    Meanwhile on Thursday Ethiopia’s government said that it together with Tigrayan forces had convened inside the Tigray region to outline disarmament plans that were also part of the peace deal signed in South Africa last month, the AFP news agency reported.

    The peace agreement said Tigray forces should be disarmed within 30 days of the ceasefire signing, and Ethiopian security forces would take full control of “all federal facilities, installations and major infrastructure such as airports and highways within the Tigray region.”

    However, Tigray officials have said disarmament cannot start until Ethiopia’s government removes fighters from Eritrea and Amhara.

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  • Russia rains missiles on recaptured Ukrainian city

    Russia rains missiles on recaptured Ukrainian city

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    KHERSON, Ukraine — Natalia Kristenko’s dead body lay covered in a blanket in the doorway of her apartment building for hours overnight. City workers were at first too overwhelmed to retrieve her as they responded to a deadly barrage of attacks that shook Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson.

    The 62-year-old had walked outside her home with her husband Thursday evening after drinking tea when the building was struck. Kristenko was killed instantly from a wound to the head. Her husband died hours later in the hospital from internal bleeding.

    “Russians took the two most precious people from me,” their bereft daughter, Lilia Kristenko, 38, said, clutching her cat inside her coat as she watched on in horror Friday as responders finally arrived to transport her mother to the morgue.

    “They lived so well, they lived differently,” she told The Associated Press. “But they died in one day.”

    A barrage of missiles struck the recently liberated city of Kherson for the second day Friday in a marked escalation of attacks since Russia withdrew from the city two weeks ago.

    The city was shelled 17 times before midday Thursday, and strikes continued into the evening, killing at least four people and injuring 10, according to Kherson’s military administration. Soldiers in the region had warned that Kherson would face intensified strikes as Russian troops dig in across the Dnieper River.

    Scores of people were injured in the strikes that hit residential and commercial buildings, lighting some on fire, blowing ash into the air and littering the streets with shattered glass. The attacks wrought destruction on some residential neighborhoods not previously hit in the war that has just entered its tenth month.

    After Kristenko’s parents were hit, she tried to call an ambulance but there was no phone network, she said. Her 66-year-old father was clutching his stomach wound and screaming “it hurts so much I’m doing to die,” she said. He eventually was taken by ambulance to the hospital but died during surgery.

    On Friday morning people sifted through what little remained of their destroyed houses and shops. Containers of food lined the floor of a shattered meat store, while across the street customers lined up at a coffee shop where residents said four people died the night before.

    “I don’t even know what to say, it was unexpected,” said Diana Samsonova, who works at the coffee shop, which remained open throughout Russia’s occupation and has no plans to close despite the attacks.

    The violence is compounding what’s become a dire humanitarian crisis. As Russians retreated, they destroyed key infrastructure, leaving people with little water and electricity. People have become so desperate they’re finding some salvation amid the wreckage.

    Outside an apartment building that was badly damaged, residents filled buckets with water that pooled on the ground. Workers at the morgue used puddles to clean their bloody hands.

    Valerii Parkhomenko had just parked his car and gone into a coffee shop when a rocket destroyed his vehicle.

    “We were all crouching on the floor inside,” he said, showing the ash on his hands. “I feel awful, my car is destroyed, I need this car for work to feed my family,” he said.

    Outside shelled apartment buildings residents picked up debris and frantically searched for relatives while paramedics helped the injured.

    “I think it’s so bad and I think all countries need to do something about this because it’s not normal,” said Ivan Mashkarynets, a man in his early 20s who was at home with his mother when the apartment block next to him was struck.

    “There’s no army, there’s no soldiers. There are just people living here and they’re (still) firing,” he said.

    The government has said it will help people evacuate if they want to, but many say they have no place to go.

    “There is no work (elsewhere), there is no work here,” said Ihor Novak as he stood on a street examining the aftermath of the shelling. “For now, the Ukrainian army is here and with them we hope it will be safer.”

    ———

    Associated Press writer Mstyslav Chernov in Kherson contributed reporting.

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  • Oregon public defender shortage: nearly 300 cases dismissed

    Oregon public defender shortage: nearly 300 cases dismissed

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    PORTLAND, Ore. — District attorneys in Oregon are once again sounding the alarm over the state’s critical shortage of court-provided attorneys for low-income defendants. The lack of public defenders has strained the criminal justice system and left more than 700 people statewide without legal representation.

    Judges in Multnomah County, which is home to Portland, have dismissed nearly 300 cases this year due to a lack of defense attorneys able to handle cases. The county’s top prosecutor, Mike Schmidt, said that the shortage poses “ an urgent threat to public safety ” and released a tally this week of dismissed cases. He pledged to release new numbers each week to draw attention to the crisis.

    More than two-thirds of the dismissed cases are felonies; in 53% of them, property crime was the primary charge. The next most common primary charge was for weapon crimes, which accounted for 16% of dismissed felonies, while person crimes, which include assault and robbery, accounted for 12%.

    “Months into this crisis, many are still waiting for their day in court while others have seen their cases dismissed altogether,” said Schmidt, a progressive prosecutor who was elected in 2020 on a platform of criminal justice reforms. “This sends a message to crime victims in our community that justice is unavailable and their harm will go unaddressed. It also sends a message to individuals who have committed a crime that there is no accountability while burning through scarce police and prosecutor resources.”

    The statement reflects an increasingly popular tactic used by prosecutors in Oregon. Powerless to fix the problem on their own, they have tried to force the state’s hand. Earlier this month, Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton said that his office would seek a court order requiring the state’s public defense agency to appoint its own staff attorneys to represent defendants if no other attorneys were available.

    The head of Oregon’s public defenders’ office said that she would work with Schmidt “to address this systemic access to justice emergency.”

    “Public defense is a critical component of the public safety system,” Jessica Kampfe, executive director of the Office of Public Defense Services, said in an email, adding that “public defenders need significant investments to retain existing staffing levels and increase capacity.”

    As of Wednesday, statewide there were 763 low-income defendants who lack legal representation, according to the state Judicial Department.

    The Oregon Legislature is set to tackle the issue when the next session begins in January. A working group that includes lawmakers has been meeting for months and considering major reforms that could overhaul the system. One proposal would reassign the Office of Public Defense Services from the Judicial Department, where it’s currently housed, to the governor’s office, in response to criticism of conflicts of interest.

    Oregon’s system for providing attorneys to criminal defendants who can’t afford them has shown cracks for years, but case backlogs have significantly worsened since the coronavirus pandemic. The public defender shortage has overwhelmed the courts, frustrated defendants and impacted crime victims, who experts say experience more trauma when cases are dismissed or take longer to be resolved.

    The state has been sued twice this year for allegedly violating defendants’ constitutional rights to legal counsel and a speedy trial. While the original lawsuit was dismissed, a similar second suit was filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court last month.

    An American Bar Association report released in January found that Oregon has only 31% of the public defenders it needs to run effectively. Every existing attorney would have to work more than 26 hours a day during the work week to cover the caseload, the report said.

    Oregon’s public defense system is unique in that it’s the only one in the country to rely entirely on contractors. Cases are doled out to either large nonprofit defense firms, small cooperating groups of private defense attorneys that contract for cases or independent attorneys who can take cases at will.

    The public defender shortage is “the predictable end result” of the unique contracting system, said Jon Mosher, deputy director of the Sixth Amendment Center. According to Mosher, the contracting and subcontracting of public defense services makes it difficult for the state to track which attorneys are assigned to which cases.

    “On any given day, the state of Oregon can’t know literally the identity of the lawyers providing the services, which means that Oregon can’t know whether those lawyers are qualified to handle the cases or whether they have enough time to handle their cases effectively,” he said. “That creates a massive amount of … a lack of oversight, a lack of accountability.”

    Public defenders say that uncompetitive pay, high stress and overwhelming caseloads also affects staffing levels.

    “You’re being asked as a public defender to be a lawyer, a social worker, a counselor, an investigator,” said Carl Macpherson, executive director of Metropolitan Public Defender, a large nonprofit public defender firm in Portland. “The criminal legal system doesn’t help people with severe issues. It’s a short-term punitive response to a bigger issue.”

    Macpherson said that the crisis extends beyond the public defense system and includes “multiple system failures.”

    “It doesn’t just affect the individuals that are without representation,” he said, before mentioning victims of crime, prosecutors, police and the public. “It affects everyone.”

    ———

    Claire Rush is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Claire on Twitter.

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  • Children account for 40 percent of cholera cases in Haiti: UNICEF

    Children account for 40 percent of cholera cases in Haiti: UNICEF

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    UN agency says Haitian children face ‘triple threat’ of malnutrition, cholera and armed violence in crisis-hit nation.

    Approximately two in five cholera cases are among children in Haiti, the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) said, as the Caribbean nation grapples with a deadly outbreak made worse by widespread violence and instability.

    UNICEF said on Wednesday that about 40 percent of confirmed cholera cases have been in children while nine in 10 were reported in parts of the country also hardest hit by malnutrition and hunger.

    “In Haiti right now, there is a triple threat to children’s lives – malnutrition, cholera and armed violence. And sometimes all three together,” Manuel Fontaine, director of UNICEF’s office of emergency programmes, said as he concluded a four-day visit to Haiti.

    “I was shocked to see many children at risk of dying in the cholera treatment centres. In just a few hours, acute watery diarrhoea and vomiting dehydrate and weaken them so much they may die without timely and adequate treatment. Cholera and malnutrition are a lethal combination, one leading to the other,” Fontaine said in a statement.

    Last month, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said nearly half of the Haitian population – a record 4.7 million people – were dealing with “acute hunger”.

    Patients receive treatment for cholera at the Gheskio Center Hospital supported by UNICEF in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, October 14, 2022 [Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters]

    Haiti’s response to the hunger and cholera crises has been complicated by increased gang violence, which skyrocketed in the aftermath of President Jovenel Moise’s assassination in Port-au-Prince last year.

    A weeks-long gang blockade on a petrol terminal in the capital that began in September led to water and electricity shortages, crippling the Haitian healthcare network and prompting experts to warn that the country faced a “time bomb for cholera”.

    Caused by drinking water or eating food contaminated with cholera bacteria, the illness can trigger severe diarrhoea, as well as vomiting, thirst and other symptoms. It also spreads rapidly in areas without adequate sewage treatment or clean drinking water.

    While the Haitian authorities regained control of the blockaded Varreux fuel terminal this month – allowing petrol stations to reopen – a spokesman for Haiti’s health ministry warned that it could lead to more cholera cases because people would be able to move around again.

    As of Monday, Haiti had reported more than 11,600 suspected cholera cases and 949 confirmed infections since the outbreak began in early October, according to the latest figures (PDF) from the Haitian public health department. At least 202 people have died.

    Haiti had last reported a cholera case more than three years ago, after a 2010 outbreak linked to United Nations peacekeepers caused approximately 10,000 deaths and more than 820,000 infections.

    That outbreak was tied to a sewage leak from a UN peacekeeping base, spurring condemnation and sowing public distrust in the international body across Haiti. The UN apologised in 2016 for its role in the epidemic.

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  • IMF, South Sudan sign agreement for $112.7m in emergency funds

    IMF, South Sudan sign agreement for $112.7m in emergency funds

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    In early November, UN agencies said up to two-thirds of South Sudan’s population may face severe food shortages in 2023.

    The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and South Sudan have reached a staff-level agreement for the release of about $112.7m in emergency financing.

    “This emergency financing under the new Food Shock Window will help South Sudan address food insecurity, support social spending, and boost international reserves,” the IMF said in a statement on Tuesday.

    The IMF’s executive board will approve the financing in the coming weeks, the fund said.

    In early November, United Nations agencies said up to 7.8 million people in South Sudan, two-thirds of the population, may face severe food shortages during next year’s April-to-July lean season due to floods, drought, and conflict.

    South Sudan erupted into civil war shortly after getting independence from Sudan in 2011 and while a peace agreement signed four years ago is largely holding, the transitional government has been slow to unify various military factions.

    On Tuesday, the IMF put the number of people experiencing severe food insecurity at an estimated 8.3 million.

    “The combination of continued localised conflict, four consecutive years of severe flooding, and the rising price of staple commodities from Russia’s war in Ukraine has increased the number of people experiencing severe food insecurity,” it said.

    On Monday, the IMF also announced the approval of an $88.3m disbursement to Malawi under the new “food shock window” emergency lending facility launched in response to food price spikes and shortages caused by the war in Ukraine.

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  • Russia-Ukraine grain deal extended in win for food prices

    Russia-Ukraine grain deal extended in win for food prices

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    ANKARA, Turkey — A wartime agreement that unblocked grain shipments from Ukraine and helped temper rising global food prices will be extended by four months, the United Nations and other parties to the deal said Thursday, preventing a price shock to some of the world’s most vulnerable countries where many are struggling with hunger.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the 120-day extension a “key decision in the global fight against the food crisis.” Struck during Russia’s war in Ukraine, the initiative established a safe shipping corridor in the Black Sea and inspection procedures to address concerns that cargo vessels might carry weapons or launch attacks.

    The deal that Ukraine and Russia signed in separate agreements with the U.N. and Turkey on July 22 was due to expire Saturday. Russia confirmed the extension but said it expected progress on removing obstacles to the export of Russian food and fertilizers.

    Ukraine and Russia are key global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food to countries in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia where millions of impoverished people lack enough to eat. Russia was also the world’s top exporter of fertilizer before the war. A loss of those supplies following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine had pushed up global food prices and fueled concerns of a hunger crisis in poorer countries.

    While the extension prevents a price shock in developing nations that spend far more on food and energy than richer countries, threats persist from droughts in places like Somalia and the weakening of currencies around the world, which makes buying imported grain more expensive.

    “I was deeply moved to know that in Istanbul, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and the U.N. had come to an agreement for the rollover of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, allowing for the free exports of Ukrainian grains,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

    The Turkish Defense Ministry said the decision to extend the deal came after two days of talks in Istanbul between delegations from Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and the U.N. that were held in a “positive and constructive” atmosphere.

    Russia had voiced dissatisfaction with the deal facilitating exports of Russian grain and fertilizer, hinting that it might not approve an extension and even briefly suspending its part of the deal late last month. It cited risks to its ships following what it alleged was a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

    Although Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine did not target food exports, many shipping and insurance companies were reluctant to deal with Moscow, either refusing to do so or greatly increasing the price.

    Guterres said the U.N. was “fully committed” to removing hurdles to shipping food and fertilizer from Russia.

    The United Nations has been working to overcome issues related to insurance, access to ports, financial transactions and shipping for Russian vessels, according to a U.N. official who was not authorize to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said the insurance issue has mainly been resolved in recent days.

    Russia has offered to donate 260,000 metric tons of fertilizer stored in European ports to farmers in the developing world who have been priced out of the fertilizer market because of shortages, and the official said the first ship is slated to leave the Netherlands on Monday for Mozambique, where the fertilizer will go by land to Malawi. Further shipments are expected from Belgium and Estonia, the official said.

    The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow had allowed the extension to take effect “without any changes in terms and scope.” It said Russia noted the “intensification” of U.N. efforts to hasten Russian exports.

    “All these issues must be resolved within 120 days for which the ‘package deal’ is extended,” the ministry said.

    During talks on the extension, the sides discussed possible additional measures to “deliver more grain to those in real need,” the ministry added, apparently to address Russian complaints that most of the grain has ended up in richer nations.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested Thursday that wheat from Russia could be turned into flour in Turkey and shipped to African nations in need.

    U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said last month that 23% of the exports from Ukraine under the grain deal have gone to lower- or lower-middle-income countries and 49% of all wheat shipments have gone to such nations.

    Markets were pleasantly surprised by the extension, said Ian Mitchell, co-director of the Europe program at the Center for Global Development who specializes in agriculture and food security. Following the announcement, wheat futures prices dropped 2.6% in Chicago.

    “Ukraine and Russia are such important grain exporters that the rest of the market can’t fully substitute for the complete absence of Ukrainian grain,” he said. “So that deal is going to matter to food prices significantly, even if the volumes are not what they were before the invasion.”

    He said, however, that uncertainty is “unhelpful in this deal.” Toward the end of the four-month extension, markets will “price in the risk that it wasn’t extended, and prices will rise a little bit again.”

    Arnaud Petit, executive director of the International Grains Council, said the Black Sea region produces some of the world’s cheapest wheat and securing those supplies prevents a price shock to developing nations.

    There have been good harvests in the region, contributing to an expected 10 million more tons of wheat worldwide compared with last year, he said. The extension means that Ukrainian farmers can plan to plant.

    Petit called the extension a building block in “an unstable region where things can change on a daily basis.”

    However, when it comes to food prices, trade movement isn’t as important as currencies around the world weakening against a strong U.S. dollar, which commodities like wheat and other grain are priced in, Petit said.

    The council calculated that for Ghana, which mainly imports its wheat from Canada, the price of wheat in dollars from Canada has been largely stable for two years. But changing into local currency translated to a 70% price hike.

    Global food prices declined about 15% from their March peak after the grain initiative was adopted in July.

    “With the delivery of more than 11 million tons of grains and foodstuffs to those in need via approximately 500 ships over the past four months, the significance and benefits of this agreement for the food supply and security of the world have become evident,” Turkey’s Erdogan said.

    ———

    Bonnell reported from London. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the food crisis at https://apnews.com/hub/food-crisis and war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Armed gangs ‘terrorising’ Haiti as cholera spreads: UN official

    Armed gangs ‘terrorising’ Haiti as cholera spreads: UN official

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    UN coordinator in Haiti says nearly 200 murders were recorded last month as cholera cases are now reported in eight of 10 provinces.

    Armed gangs are “terrorising” residents in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, a United Nations official has warned, as deadly violence and instability continue to complicate the country’s response to a worsening outbreak of cholera.

    Ulrika Richardson, the UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, told reporters on Wednesday, November 16 that 195 murders were recorded in October – about three per day – along with 102 kidnappings.

    Armed gangs that control approximately 60 percent of the territory in Port-au-Prince are using “sexual violence, including rape … to instill fear and to punish and to terrorise the local populations”, Richardson said during a news conference broadcast at UN headquarters.

    “They do this in order to expand their influence throughout the capital,” she added.

    In addition to violence and political instability, Haiti is also grappling with rising numbers of cholera cases. Richardson said on Wednesday that cholera has now been recorded in eight of the country’s 10 provinces.

    People receive treatment for cholera in a tent at a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Cite Soleil, an impoverished neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, on October 15, 2022 [Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters]

    As of Saturday, more than 7,200 people have been hospitalised with cholera across Haiti and at least 155 have died since the outbreak began in early October, according to the latest figures (PDF) from Haiti’s public health ministry.

    But UN and Haitian officials have said they fear cases will rise, especially after the end of a weeks-long, gang-led blockade on a key petrol terminal that paralysed the capital. The blockade was lifted this month and petrol stations are reopening.

    “The cholera situation in Haiti continues to worsen,” Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Director Dr Carissa Etienne said during a separate briefing on Wednesday.

    “This is a dangerous situation, and PAHO urges all countries to increase vigilance, while we support Haiti in providing life-saving care to patients, deploying health workers and facilitating access to fuel for health facilities,” Etienne said.

    Haitian hospitals said in late September that they were being forced to cut back on services due to the blockade on the Varreux fuel terminal, which spurred water and electricity shortages and complicated the local response to the cholera outbreak.

    Powerful Haitian gangs have been battling for control in the aftermath of President Jovenel Moise’s assassination in July 2021, which worsened political instability in the country.

    Trucks being loaded with fuel at the Varreux terminal in Port-au-Prince
    A weeks-long blockade on the Varreux fuel terminal was lifted earlier this month [Ralph Tedy Erol/Reuters]

    Last month, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said nearly half of the Haitian population – a record 4.7 million people – were dealing with “acute hunger”. The violence-plagued Port-au-Prince neighbourhood of Cite Soleil faced a particularly alarming situation.

    “Currently, 65 percent of its population, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, are in high levels of food insecurity with 5 percent of them in urgent need of humanitarian assistance,” WFP reported on October 14.

    Cholera is caused by drinking water or eating food contaminated with cholera bacteria, and it can trigger severe diarrhoea as well as vomiting, thirst and other symptoms. It also spreads rapidly in areas without adequate sewage treatment or clean drinking water.

    Haiti had last reported a cholera case more than three years ago, after a 2010 outbreak linked to United Nations peacekeepers caused approximately 10,000 deaths and more than 820,000 infections.

    PAHO has warned that as many as 500,000 Haitians are at risk of contracting cholera in the current outbreak.

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  • Will the agreement on Tigray hold?

    Will the agreement on Tigray hold?

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    Video Duration 24 minutes 55 seconds

    From: Inside Story

    The Ethiopian government and rebels pledge to speed up aid in war-torn Tigray.

    Ethiopia’s government and rebels have agreed to allow immediate humanitarian access to Tigray and other regions in the north.

    The pledge, signed in Nairobi, Kenya, is the latest step towards ending two years of conflict.

    It follows last week’s talks on implementing a peace deal agreed at the beginning of November.

    The war has killed tens of thousands of people and forced millions from their homes.

    So, is peace in northern Ethiopia possible?

    Presenter: Hashem Ahelbarra

    Guests:

    Teklay Gebremichael – Associate editor of Tghat, a platform that documents the war in Tigray

    Martin Plaut – Senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies

    Bizuneh Getachew Yimenu – Teaching fellow at the University of Birmingham

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  • Ukrainian police, TV broadcasts return to long-occupied city

    Ukrainian police, TV broadcasts return to long-occupied city

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    MYKOLAIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian police officers returned Saturday, along with TV and radio services, to the southern city of Kherson following the withdrawal of Russian troops, part of fast but cautious efforts to make the only regional capital captured by Russia livable after months of occupation. Yet one official still described the city as “a humanitarian catastrophe.”

    People across Ukraine awoke from a night of jubilant celebrating after the Kremlin announced its troops had withdrawn to the other side of the Dnieper River from Kherson. The Ukrainian military said it was overseeing “stabilization measures” around the city to make sure it was safe.

    The Russian retreat represented a significant setback for the Kremlin some six weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Kherson region and three others provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine in breach of international law and declared them Russian territory.

    The National Police chief of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko, said Saturday on Facebook that about 200 officers were at work in the city, setting up checkpoints and documenting evidence of possible war crimes. Police teams also were working to identify and neutralize unexploded ordnance and one sapper was wounded Saturday while demining an administrative building, Klymenko said.

    Ukraine’s communications watchdog said national TV and radio broadcasts had resumed in the city, and an adviser to Kherson’s mayor said humanitarian aid and supplies had begun to arrive from the neighboring Mykolaiv region.

    But the adviser, Roman Holovnya, described the situation in Kherson as “a humanitarian catastrophe.” He said the remaining residents lacked water, medicine and food — and key basics like bread went unbaked because a lack of electricity.

    “The occupiers and collaborators did everything possible so that those people who remained in the city suffered as much as possible over those days, weeks, months of waiting” for Ukraine’s forces to arrive, Holovnya said. “Water supplies are practically nonexistent.”

    The chairman of Khersonoblenergo, the region’s prewar power provider, said electricity was being returned “to every settlement in the Kherson region immediately after the liberation,”

    Despite the efforts to restore normal civilian life, Russian forces remain close by. The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said Saturday that the Russians were fortifying their battle lines on the river’s eastern bank after abandoning the capital. About 70% of the Kherson region remains under Russian control.

    Ukrainian officials from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on down chave autioned that while special military units had reached the city of Kherson, a full deployment to reinforce the advance troops still was underway. Ukraine’s intelligence agency thought some Russian soldiers may have stayed behind, ditching their uniforms for civilian clothes to avoid detection.

    “Even when the city is not yet completely cleansed of the enemy’s presence, the people of Kherson themselves are already removing Russian symbols and any traces of the occupiers’ stay in Kherson from the streets and buildings,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

    Zelenskyy said the first part of the stabilization work includes de-mining operations. He said the entry of “our defenders” — the soldiers — into Kherson would be followed by police, sappers, rescuers and energy workers, among others.

    “Medicine, communications, social services are returning,” he said. “Life is returning.”

    Photos on social media Saturday showed Ukrainian activists removing memorial plaques put up by the occupation authorities the Kremlin installed to run the Kherson region. A Telegram post on Yellow Ribbon, a self-described Ukrainian “public resistance” movement, showed two people in a park taking down plaques picturing Soviet-era military figures.

    Moscow’s announcement that Russian forces were withdrawing across the Dnieper River, which divides both the Kherson region and Ukraine, followed a stepped-up Ukrainian counteroffensive in the country’s south.

    In the last two months, Ukraine’s military claimed to have reclaimed dozens of towns and villages north of the city of Kherson, and the millitary said that’s where stabilization activities were taking place.

    Russian state news agency Tass quoted an official in Kherson’s Kremlin-appointed administration on Saturday as saying that Henichesk, a city on the Azov Sea 200 kilometers southeast of Kherson, would serve as the region’s “temporary capital.”

    Ukrainian media derided the announcement, with the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper saying Russia “had made up a new capital” for the region.

    Across much of Ukraine, moments of jubilation marked the exit of Russian forces, since a retreat from Kherson and other areas on the Dnieper’s west bank would appear to shatter Russian hopes to press an offensive west to Mykolaiv and Odesa to cut off Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea.

    In Odesa, the Black Sea port, residents draped themselves in Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow flags, shared Champagne and held up flag-colored cards with the word “Kherson” on them.

    But like Zelenskyy, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba sought to temper the excitement.

    “We are winning battles on the ground, but the war continues,” he said from Cambodia, where he was attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

    Kuleba brought up the prospect of the Ukrainian army finding evidence of possible Russian war crimes in Kherson, just as it did after previous Russian pullbacks in the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions.

    “Every time we liberate a piece of our territory, when we enter a city liberated from Russian army, we find torture rooms and mass graves with civilians tortured and murdered by Russian army in the course of the occupation,” Ukraine’s top diplomat said. “It’s not easy to speak with people like this. But I said that every war ends with diplomacy and Russia has to approach talks in good faith.”

    U.S. assessments this week showed Russia’s war in Ukraine may already have killed or wounded tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

    Elsewhere, Russia continued its grinding offensive in Ukraine’s industrial east, targeting the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian General Staff said.

    Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko reported Saturday that two civilians were killed and four wounded over the last day as battles heated up around Bakhmut and Avdiivka, a small city that has remained in Ukrainian hands.

    Russia’s continued push for Bakhmut demonstrates the Kremlin’s desire for visible gains following weeks of setbacks. It would also pave the way for a possible push onto other Ukrainian strongholds in the heavily contested Donetsk region.

    In the Dnipropetrovsk region west of Donetsk, Russia again shelled communities near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the Ukrainian regional governor said.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Ethiopia hosts UN internet meeting after cutting off Tigray

    Ethiopia hosts UN internet meeting after cutting off Tigray

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    GENEVA — A U.N. body devoted to promoting broader and better access to the internet is about to hold its annual meeting in Ethiopia, whose government has cut off internet access in its northern Tigray region during a two-year war there.

    Critics say Ethiopia stands out as an egregious example of a government preventing citizens from getting online — jeopardizing family ties, human rights and information flows.

    The Internet Governance Forum, whose annual gathering has drawn top leaders like former German Chancellor Angela Merke in the past, scheduled this year’s Nov. 28-Dec. 2 meeting in Ethiopia well before the government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed spearheaded a military campaign in Tigray against regional fighters in November 2020.

    Since then, fighting has impeded humanitarian access into the region as Ethiopia’s federal authorities try to isolate Tigray’s rebellious leaders by impeding humanitarian aid deliveries, isolating its beleaguered residents and shutting down banking and telecommunications services — leaving them largely incommunicado from the rest of the world.

    Ethiopian authorities, however, insist they haven’t deliberately targeted the Tigrayan people.

    Under a widely praised cease-fire deal agreed on Nov. 2, Ethiopia’s government is to continue restoring basic communications, transport and banking services for Tigray’s more than 5 million people, and both sides promised to allow unfettered access for humanitarian aid.

    Ethiopia’s government in the past has said it needed security guarantees for workers sent in to repair communications infrastructure.

    The government of Ahmed, who won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, has promoted the upcoming IGF gathering in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, as it strives to promote Ethiopia’s status as a regional economic power and African diplomatic hub.

    Organizers of the meeting seek concrete steps to achieve “universal and meaningful internet connectivity.”

    The Geneva-based forum laments that 2.7 billion people worldwide remain unconnected. It will focus this year’s meeting on “connecting all people and safeguarding human rights,” and avoiding internet fragmentation. It decries government policy that “limits uses of the internet or affects the open and interoperable character of the internet.”

    Chengetai Masango, the forum’s program and technology manager, said Addis Ababa was a “prime place” to hold the annual meeting as Ethiopia is fast-developing country, home to a “large youth base” and a diplomatic hub — with many embassies, international institutions and the headquarters of the African Union.

    “Ethiopia is a UN member state and as such is entitled to host U.N. meetings,” Masango wrote, adding: “The IGF and UN’s position on shutdowns everywhere has been consistent; they are incompatible with human rights.”

    Even before the Tigray conflict began, the U.N. human rights office expressed concern about internet access and communications in Ethiopia, citing a “communications blackout” that began in January 2020 in areas under federal military control — namely western Oromia — during military operations against an armed faction there.

    Fighting in the Oromia region this week led to several dozen casualties, witnesses said.

    The rights office noted that Ethiopia is far from the only country to impose restrictions on the internet.

    A U.N. report published in June noted internet shutdowns or clampdowns on social media in places including Myanmar, Sudan and Russia. It said shutdowns often occurred in places where governments carry out armed operations — and some may have been aimed to cover up human rights violations.

    “The U.N. as a whole has been outspoken about the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia, and also about the alleged violations of human rights, humanitarian and refugee law,” Masango saiad.

    Many Tigrayans have told The Associated Press they have been unable to contact loved ones in the region since the conflict began, and don’t know whether they are still alive.

    The #KeepItOn coalition — which brings together over 280 organizations from 105 countries to promote open internet access — says it’s petitioning the African Union “to condemn the Ethiopian government’s prolonged shutdown, which has had devastating impacts on people living through a conflict, and to help reestablish internet access in the region and across Ethiopia.”

    Access Now, another advocacy group, has launched a campaign to highlight Tigray’s two years without internet. It says the meeting in Addis Ababa offers an opportunity to focus on internet shutdowns and “to urge governments, particularly in Africa, to put an end to the practice.”

    “Authorities have weaponized internet shutdowns against people in and outside of Tigray — disconnecting families, destroying business, and impeding humanitarian aid delivery,” it said. “This compounds the humanitarian crisis and provides cover for the human rights abuses.”

    ———

    Anna reported from Nairobi, Kenya.

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  • UN: Taliban has plunged Afghanistan into `dire’ conditions

    UN: Taliban has plunged Afghanistan into `dire’ conditions

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    UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution Thursday accusing the Taliban of violating the human rights of Afghan women and girls, failing to establish a representative government, and plunging the country into “dire economic, humanitarian and social conditions.”

    The resolution also pointed to persistent violence in the country since the Taliban takeover 15 months ago and the presence of terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State and their affiliates as well as the presence of “foreign terrorist fighters.”

    Germany’s U.N. ambassador, Antje Leendertse, had hoped the 193-member General Assembly would approve the German-facilitated resolution by consensus.

    But a vote was requested and it was adopted 116-0, with 10 countries abstaining — Russia, China, Belarus, Burundi, North Korea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Nicaragua, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. Sixty-seven countries did not vote.

    General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, unlike Security Council resolutions, but they do reflect world opinion.

    The adoption came the same day that the Taliban, which already banned girls from middle school and high school, prohibited women from using gyms and parks.

    Before the vote, Leendertse told the assembly that since the Taliban came to power in August 2021 Afghanistan has seen “a massive economic contraction and humanitarian crisis” which has left half the population facing “critical levels of food insecurity.”

    “We expect a harsh winter and levels of needs that we have not seen in the last decades with little prospect for economic recovery and reduction of poverty,” she warned.

    Introducing the resolution, Leendertse told the assembly that the Taliban control the country but aren’t living up to their responsibility toward meeting the needs of the Afghan people.

    “The resolution is a clear call to respect, protect and fulfill human rights, develop inclusive governance and fight terrorism,” she said. “It contains a clear message that without that, there cannot be business as usual and no pathway toward recognition.”

    The resolution pledges continued U.N. support for the Afghan people “in order to rebuild a stable, secure and economically self-sufficient state, free of terrorism, narcotics, transnational organized crime, including trafficking in persons, and corruption, and to strengthen the foundations of a constitutional democracy as a responsible member of the international community.”

    It calls for improved access for aid workers and recognizes the need to help address Afghanistan’s economic challenges, including efforts to restore the banking and financial systems and enabling Central Bank assets — held mainly in the United States — to be used to help the Afghan people.

    The resolution expresses deep concern at human rights abuses against women and girls, including sexual violence, and calls on the Taliban to promote “full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of women in all aspects of Afghan society.”

    It condemns all attacks, reprisals and violence against journalists and media workers and calls for their perpetrators to be brought to justice.

    The resolution reaffirms the assembly’s expectation that the Taliban will live up to its commitments to allow the safe departure of all Afghans and foreign nationals that want to leave the country.

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  • In a first, doctors treat fatal genetic disease before birth

    In a first, doctors treat fatal genetic disease before birth

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    A toddler is thriving after doctors in the U.S. and Canada used a novel technique to treat her before she was born for a rare genetic disease that caused the deaths of two of her sisters.

    Ayla Bashir, a 16-month-old from Ottawa, Ontario, is the first child treated as fetus for Pompe disease, an inherited and often fatal disorder in which the body fails to make some or all of a crucial protein.

    Today, she’s an active, happy girl who has met her developmental milestones, according to her father, Zahid Bashir and mother, Sobia Qureshi.

    “She’s just a regular little 1½-year-old who keeps us on our toes,” Bashir said. The couple previously lost two daughters, Zara, 2½, and Sara, 8 months, to the disease. A third pregnancy was terminated because of the disorder.

    In a case study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors describe an international collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic that led to the treatment that may have saved Ayla’s life – and expanded the field of potential fetal therapies. The outlook for Ayla is promising but uncertain.

    “It holds a glimmer of hope for being able to treat them in utero instead of waiting until damage is already well-established,” said Dr. Karen Fung-Kee-Fung, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at The Ottawa Hospital who gave the treatment and delivered Ayla.

    Fung-Kee-Fung was following a new treatment plan developed by Dr. Tippi MacKenzie, a pediatric surgeon and co-director of the Center for Maternal-Fetal Precision Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who shared her research after the pandemic prevented Ayla’s mother from traveling for care.

    “We were all motivated to make this happen for this family,” MacKenzie said.

    Doctors have treated fetuses before birth for three decades, often with surgeries to repair birth defects such as spina bifida. And they’ve given blood transfusions to fetuses through the umbilical cord, but not medicines. In this case, the crucial enzymes were delivered through a needle inserted through the mother’s abdomen and guided into a vein in the umbilical cord. Ayla received six biweekly infusions that started at about 24 weeks of gestation.

    “The innovation here wasn’t the drug and it wasn’t accessing the fetal circulation,” said Dr. Pranesh Chakraborty, a metabolic geneticist at Childrens Hospital of Eastern Ontario, who has cared for Ayla’s family for years. “The innovation was treating earlier and treating while still in utero.”

    The unusual partnership also involved experts at Duke University in Durham, N.C., which has led research on Pompe disease, and University of Washington in Seattle.

    Babies with Pompe disease are often treated soon after birth with replacement enzymes to slow devastating effects of the condition, which affects fewer than 1 in 100,000 newborns. It is caused by mutations in a gene that makes an enzyme that breaks down glycogen, or stored sugar, in cells. When that enzyme is reduced or eliminated, glycogen builds up dangerously throughout the body.

    In addition, the most severely affected babies, including Ayla, have an immune condition in which their bodies block the infused enzymes, eventually stopping the therapy from working. The hope is that Ayla’s early treatment will reduce the severity of that immune response.

    Babies with Pompe disease have trouble feeding, muscle weakness, floppiness and, often, grossly enlarged hearts. Untreated, most die from heart or breathing problems in the first year of life.

    In late 2020, Bashir and Qureshi had learned they were expecting Ayla and that prenatal tests showed she, too, had Pompe disease.

    “It was very, very scary,” recalled Qureshi. In addition to the girls who died, the couple have a son, Hamza, 13, and a daughter, Maha, 5, who are not affected.

    Both parents carry a recessive gene for Pompe disease, which means there’s a 1 in 4 chance that a baby will inherit the condition. Bashir said their decision to proceed with additional pregnancies was guided by their Muslim faith.

    “We believe that what will come our way is part of what’s meant or destined for us,” he said. They have no plans for more children, they said.

    Chakraborty had learned of MacKenzie’s early stage trial to test the enzyme therapy and thought early treatment might be a solution for the family.

    The treatment could be “potentially very significant,” said Dr. Brendan Lanpher, a medical geneticist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who was not involved in the research.

    “This is a progressive disease that builds up over time, so every day a fetus or baby has it, they’re accumulating more of the material that affects muscle cells.”

    Still, it’s too early to know whether the protocol will become accepted treatment, said Dr. Christina Lam, interim medical director of biochemical genetics at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital in Seattle.

    “It’s going to take some time to really be able to establish the evidence to definitively show that the outcomes are better,” she said.

    Ayla receives drugs to suppress her immune system and weekly enzyme infusions that take five to six hours — a growing challenge for a wiggly toddler, her mother said. Unless a new treatment emerges, Ayla can expect to continue the infusions for life. She is developing normally — for now. Her parents say every milestone, such as when she started to crawl, is especially precious.

    “It’s surreal. It amazes us every time,” Qureshi said. “We’re so blessed. We’ve been very, very blessed.”

    ———

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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