Deadly AI drones, Ebola containment struggles, and faltering US food aid: The Cheat Sheet

A weekly read to keep you in the loop on humanitarian issues.

Louise O'brien/TNH

Share & more

Republish article

GENEVA

Our editors’ weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.

On our radar

Ebola response struggles to slow virus’s spread

The Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is failing to match the speed of the virus’s spread, health authorities are warning. Tchomia, in the northeastern province of Ituri, is the latest outbreak zone. Countrywide there have been 136 deaths and 676 confirmed cases, according to the latest grim tally before the Cheat Sheet went to print. Conflict-affected Ituri accounts for more than 94% of those cases, but the virus has also emerged in neighbouring North Kivu, South Kivu, and across the border in Uganda. Contact tracing remains a huge hurdle, with only around 12% of the connections of Ebola patients in Ituri reached. Delayed detection, the high mobility of people, and a lack of community trust in the government and health authorities are frustrating efforts to stop the transmission of what is a rare strain of the virus, with no approved vaccine or specific treatment. By contrast, Uganda has followed up on 91% of contacts of its 19 Ebola patients, and has also imposed cross-border movement restrictions – although health experts say such measures could be counterproductive. See our latest: Ebola outbreak: Uganda’s movement restrictions cripple cross-border trade

Kenya protests against US Ebola quarantine facility turn deadly

Kenyan police killed a protester in Nanyuki on 9 June, where residents have repeatedly marched against a 50-bed quarantine facility the US is building at Laikipia Air Base for Americans exposed to Ebola in DR Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan. Two protesters were killed in similar protests a week ago. A court suspended work on 28 May, but US military flights have continued ferrying staff and equipment in defiance of that order. President William Ruto insists Kenya is “doing the right thing”, calling refusal to work with the Americans on the facility “inhuman”, and citing decades of partnership with Washington. As the latest death unfolded, Trump adviser Massad Boulos was in Oslo thanking Ruto for his “steadfast partnership”.

Brief border closures in Gaza, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank

As the Iran war once again flared, Israel announced the closure of all border crossings into the Gaza Strip on 8 June. The move was short-lived but a reminder that Israel can easily cut Gaza off from the outside support that its population – squeezed into an ever smaller sliver of the enclave and almost entirely living in tents – is dependent on to survive. The Kerem Shalom/Karem Abu Salem crossing re-opened for humanitarian deliveries on 9 June, and the Rafah crossing with Egypt re-opened the following day for limited medical evacuations. Some 18,500 Palestinians need treatment that is not available in Gaza, but only a small number are being allowed to leave. Meanwhile, Amnesty International released a new report that refutes the “bad apples” narrative about settler violence in the West Bank, which argues that it is the result of a few rogue actors. Instead, Amnesty found that Bedouin and herding communities are being pushed off their land in a “state-sanctioned, state-driven, state-implemented” ethnic cleansing campaign. For more, read our latest: Return to Gaza’s Nasser Hospital: “Every single thing in the complex is a crisis”.

US food aid stumbles as hunger hotspots go without

Parts of Somalia are veering close to famine, but the country won’t get any help from the US emergency food aid programme, Food for Peace. The longstanding food assistance scheme, set up to donate American agricultural surpluses, is skipping several countries closest to famine, according to a new analysis from the Council on Foreign Relations. That means countries like Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan – all facing emergency levels of hunger – are passed over while those with still-significant but lesser need are prioritised. After the Trump administration and the Elon Musk-backed DOGE destroyed USAID last year, Food for Peace was moved under the federal agriculture department, the USDA, which has no experience in international humanitarian response. Now, the USDA could spend millions looking for help on how to run Food for Peace – but former staff with the know-how are barred from assisting. DOGE, the analysis notes, “destroyed USAID and displaced Food for Peace under a mandate of eliminating waste and inefficiency, only to manufacture significantly more of both”.

AI drones cross a deadly threshold

Fully autonomous, AI-powered drones have killed people in combat for the first time, Ukrainian drone-maker Alexander Kokhanovskyy claimed at a recent event hosted by a Ukrainian embassy. He said the strikes were part of a one-off test two years ago in which Terminator drones identified their own targets and killed Russian soldiers. If true, this would mark the first known breach of the “human in the loop” principle, whose advocates insist that the use of force should be initiated by a person. Drone warfare has escalated in recent years, dramatically transforming battlefields in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, the Sahel, Myanmar, Colombia, and Haiti. Nearly 20,000 drone strikes were recorded in 2024, and hundreds of non-state armed groups used drones in 2025, up from fewer than 10 in 2020. This rise in drone adoption coincides with an overall spike in battlefield deaths, which reached 245,000 last year, according to the Peace Research Institute Oslo.

In case you missed it

AFGHANISTAN: The governor of Afghanistan’s western province of Herat has confirmed that dozens of women were picked up by female workers of The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice for “improper” hijab wearing in the eponymous capital city. Those detentions, which took place between 6 and 7 June, led to a 9 June protest in which the United Nations reported that at least one juvenile boy was killed by gunfire. A security official in Herat told local media that the protests were a “disruption” to local security and were dealt with accordingly.

CUBA: UN Human rights chief Volker Türk warned that the US oil blockade imposed last January and the tightening of sanctions are causing children to die due to doctors’ lack of access to medications and medical supplies. According to the agency, only 30% of the normal supply levels of essential medicines are available and the survival rate for childhood cancer has declined by 20%. For more on Cubans’ daily struggles, read this story.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO: A Congolese military court has sentenced an army colonel to death for taking part in a conspiracy to murder two UN experts nearly a decade ago. Colonel Jean de Dieu Mambweni was found guilty of orchestrating the killings of Zaida Catalán, a Swedish-Chilean, and Michael Sharp, an American, who were investigating mass killings in the Kasai region in eastern Congo.

HAITI: The number of internally displaced people reached a record high of 1.5 million in mid-May, according to a new UN report. The figure represents an 845% increase over nearly three years. The situation is particularly alarming as communities that used to host displaced families are now increasingly turning into displacement hotspots themselves while gang violence continues to expand. For more on the life of displaced people in Haiti, read these dispatches and this story.

INDIA: Indian authorities have deported thousands of Bangladeshi citizens in the month since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won elections in the state of West Bengal last month. Shortly after rising to power, BJP officials ordered the creation of detention centres for Bangladeshis and Rohingya Muslims who are fleeing persecution in their native Myanmar and mistreatment in refugee camps in Bangladesh.

LOSS & DAMAGE: Kenya is the first country on the African continent to receive funding through the Santiago Network, a technical support mechanism set up through UN climate negotiations, Mongabay reported. This is separate from a more high-profile loss and damage fund that countries agreed to in hard-fought negotiations. This fund is due to make its first disbursements this year.

MEASLES: Measles cases in the Americas registered a fourfold increase in the first 20 weeks of 2026 compared to the same period last year. With over 20,000 confirmed cases and 25 deaths, the figure is the highest since 2019. Most cases were reported in Mexico and Guatemala, and children under one face the highest incidence rate across the region. Last February the Pan American Health Association issued an alert and called to strengthen vaccination.

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN: The United Nations has documented that at least 13 civilians have been killed by recent Pakistani airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan. The attacks were carried out in the provinces of Paktika, Khost, and Kunar in the late evening hours between 9 and 10 June. Over the last year, Islamabad has been accused of repeatedly killing and injuring civilians across Afghanistan, including in a strike on a drug rehab centre in Kabul. The strikes are being carried out based on the claim that the Islamic Emirate government is harbouring armed fighters who launch attacks into Pakistani territory.

PHILIPPINES: A 7.8-magnitude earthquake and landslides have led to dozens of deaths and the displacement of more than 41,000 people. The earthquake struck the island of Mindanao, the nation’s second most populous, on 8 June just as public schools were returning from summer holiday. Officials say most of the deaths were the result of collapsing structures, falling debris, and subsequent landslides that followed what has been billed as the strongest earthquake to hit the nation this year.

SUDAN: The Sudanese Armed Forces should ensure that Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanders who have defected to the Sudanese army are held to account for their role in serious crimes, Human Rights Watch said this week. This includes cooperating with ongoing independent regional and international investigations into serious international crimes in Darfur and other parts of Sudan.

YEMEN: It has now been two years since Yemen’s Houthi rebels began arresting Yemeni aid workers, and at last count 73 UN staff and dozens of others who worked at international NGOs remain in custody. Three rights groups released a statement about the ongoing detentions this week, demanding their release and arguing that the arrests have had a “direct impact on the delivery of lifesaving assistance to people in critical need of aid”.

Weekend read

“Avoid using the term”: Oxfam in Africa retracts LGBTQ censorship guide

The move comes as anti-LGBTQ legislation advances across the continent, fuelled by a powerful interfaith coalition backed by the US Christian right.

And finally…

The global game in a bordered world

Omar Artan was supposed to be the first referee from Somalia to officiate at a World Cup. Instead, the US labelled him a threat to national security and denied him entry. Iraqi striker Aymen Hussein was interrogated for nearly seven hours after landing in the US. He was eventually allowed in, but the team’s photographer was not. Dozens of ticket-holding fans from Morocco and Scotland have been denied US visas, and amid the ongoing war, the Iranian national team is staying in Mexico and commuting to the US for matches because Donald Trump said it would be better for them “for their own life and safety”. This all unfolded before the first match of the 2026 World Cup on 11 June, which the US is hosting, along with Mexico and Canada. Sadly, none of it is particularly surprising. Trump is a virulently nationalistic president who has a long track record of expressing racist antipathy for people from much of the rest of the world – and of turning those sentiments into policy. Right-wing leaders who share a similar worldview when it comes to immigration, diversity, and human rights are on the march from Latin America to Europe. The World Cup is usually a moment of global unity. This year, it is starting to feel more like a mirror to our divided times.

Deadly AI drones, Ebola containment struggles, and faltering US food aid: The Cheat Sheet

El Fasher’s dark anniversary, a worsening siege in Yemen, and protests in Paris

Rethinking Humanitarianism | Why the WFP cyber-attack matters