Our editors’ weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.
On our radar
The M23 sets its sights on Goma
The Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has said it will march on Goma, the main city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, after seizing nearby towns in one of the biggest escalations yet in the three-year conflict. Explosions have been heard in the outskirts of the city – home to more than two million people – and large numbers of wounded civilians have been arriving in Goma’s main hospitals. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the latest offensive is heightening the threat of a regional war, though in many ways the fighting already represents an inter-state conflict. The M23, which is supported by thousands of Rwandan troops, briefly seized Goma during its last insurgency over a decade ago, and had stated (in interviews with our reporters) that it would not do so again. Goma is already hosting hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the fighting, and is a major hub for relief operations across eastern DRC. An M23 push on the city could meet resistance from the national army, which is supported by UN peacekeepers, southern African military forces, and local militias, but the rebels are extremely well-armed thanks to their Rwandan backers. See our in-depth reporting for more context.
As ceasefire takes hold in Gaza, Israel escalates West Bank attacks
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect in the Gaza Strip on 19 January, with Hamas releasing three Israeli hostages in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners. While the end of active fighting and bombardment has brought some relief, Palestinians in Gaza are still grappling with the scale of destruction and devastation. Over 90% of housing units in the enclave are destroyed or damaged, nearly 70% of roads have been destroyed, and more than 10,000 bodies are thought to be under the rubble. The number of aid trucks entering Gaza has increased to more than 600 each day – a vast uptick compared to the numbers entering during the past 15 months. But even as some improvement is seen in Gaza, Israel has launched a major military operation in the occupied West Bank focused on the Jenin refugee camp. The UN’s rights office said it was deeply concerned about what it termed Israel’s use of “unlawful lethal force” as well as a rise in violence by Israeli settlers. For more read: Gaza ceasefire: The sobering reality of a day after that may never come.
South Sudan sees increasing fallout from civil war next door
More than one million people have now escaped the war in Sudan for neighbouring South Sudan, the vast majority of them South Sudanese returnees who had fled wars and fighting in their own country in years gone by. South Sudanese have been caught in the crossfire of Sudan’s war but they have also been directly targeted. Earlier this month, when the Sudanese army seized control of the city of Wad Madani from the rival paramilitary-turned-rebel Rapid Support Forces, its soldiers allegedly killed two dozen South Sudanese civilians. The killings drew a sharp rebuke from the South Sudanese government in Juba, while Sudan’s Foreign Ministry in Khartoum, in turn, accused South Sudanese mercenaries of fighting alongside the RSF. Angered by the abuses, a small minority of South Sudanese youth, meanwhile, attacked Sudanese civilians in Juba and other towns. South Sudanese authorities responded to the violence – which claimed over a dozen Sudanese lives – by suspending social media platforms, where hate speech is spreading. For more on how Sudan’s war is impacting its neighbour read this recent reporter’s diary from our Juba-based correspondent Okech Francis.
Colombia: ELN escalation leaves Petro’s “Total Peace” plan hanging by a thread
Clashes between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissident factions of the now-disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have left at least 80 people dead and more than 32,000 displaced along Colombia’s border with Venezuela. The unrest is a major setback for Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who took office in 2022 on the promise to restore “Total Peace” through dialogue with guerrilla groups. Forced to suspend negotiations with the ELN, Petro has now declared a state of emergency and deployed thousands of military troops to northeastern Catatumbo, a mountainous cocaine-producing region near the border with Venezuela. About 1,000 of the displaced crossed into Venezuela, while more than 20,000 escaped to the Colombian border city of Cúcuta, where the football stadium was turned into a massive emergency shelter. The escalation of Colombia’s unrest isn’t limited to the northeast, as violence between different groups has flared across the country. On 20 January, for example, 20 people were killed in clashes between rival armed groups in the southeastern Guaviare jungle. For more on the shortcomings of the “Total Peace” plan, read this report from the violence-stricken Cauca region.
Back in office, Trump rushes out his hardline migration agenda
During his first days back in office, Donald Trump rapidly started implementing his hardline migration agenda, including by declaring a state of emergency at the US southern border. The move allows his administration to access billions of dollars to expand the building of a border wall and to deploy the military and national guard to the area. Around 1,500 active duty soldiers are already being deployed. Trump also reinstated the controversial Remain in Mexico programme from his first administration. This policy, which requires people to wait for asylum appointments in Mexico, helped to create a now-perennial humanitarian crisis in northern Mexico. The Trump administration has also shut down CBP One – a cell phone app for scheduling asylum appointments – leaving thousands of people stranded in Mexico, and it has suspended the US refugee resettlement programme, as well as cancelling travel plans for refugees who had already been approved to enter the country. Trump’s promised mass deportation of millions of undocumented people has yet to get underway, but his administration has begun laying the groundwork for expanded immigration raids – including potentially in schools, churches, and hospitals – and has threatened to prosecute any local officials who don’t comply.
… and humanitarians try to read the tea leaves
Meanwhile, those who receive support from or work for an aid programme fuelled by US funding have some newly urgent questions. Humanitarians have spent the first few days of Trump 2.0 mulling over executive decrees and soundbites. An antagonistic 90-day pause and review of US aid will destabilise – but how soon, how deep, and what exceptions? Trump is the latest to expose the humanitarian sector’s debilitating dependence on US cash. But there are also signs that there are deals to be made, that the US sees strategic value in the UN and the multilateral system, and that there may even be a toehold of common ground. There’s disruption ahead, but it’s not the full picture. Some initial pushback: a lawsuit threatened over Trump’s bid to withdraw from the World Health Organization; a billionaire’s pledge to cover US funding to the UN’s climate body. And in crises around the globe, grassroots groups, neighbourhood networks, and host communities continue putting a foot forward on aid’s front lines.
Weekend read
Questions grow over UNHCR inaction as Uyghurs in Thailand face deportation threat
“Nothing prevents UNHCR from declaring these people refugees.”
Human rights advocates are demanding to know why the UN’s refugee agency hasn’t done more to secure the Uyghurs’ right to asylum.
And finally…
The importance of writing about atrocities
Art – be it visual, written, or otherwise – can often express elements of history that numbers and facts don’t capture, or that those who write history would rather forget. This profile of Han Chang, the South Korean winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, is a reminder of one writer’s ability to do just that. “It’s pain and it is blood, but it’s the current of life,” Han says of her books, which deal with parts of the past some would rather not talk about. An English translation will soon be available of her novel “We Do Not Part”, which is set on the island of Jeju, where an estimated 30,000 people were massacred after an uprising against the government in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Han was born in the city of Gwangju, and another of her books, “Human Acts”, is set during the 1980 pro-democracy protests in the city that were met with a deadly crackdown. As the novelist puts it, her writing about atrocities is about “connecting dead memories and the living present, thereby not allowing anything to die off. That’s not just about Korean history, I thought, it’s about all humanity.”
