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Our editors’ weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.
On our radar
New flashpoint looms in Tanzania’s deadly election crisis
Church groups in Tanzania have condemned the deadly state violence that killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people protesting the 29 October elections. Christian leaders said it marked an unprecedented moral and humanitarian crisis for the country. Gruesome images of piles of civilian corpses, and people that have clearly been shot, have flooded the internet. There have also been reports of the security forces disappearing bodies to conceal evidence, and of mass graves. Civil society groups and opposition parties have demanded an inquiry by the UN, the International Criminal Court, and the regional body SADC – which refused to endorse an election in which the opposition was effectively banned. A small hardline group around President Samia Hassan is believed to control the levers of power. An early test of their resolve will be how they handle a planned pro-democracy march on 9 December – amid fears of another crackdown. Regional governments have floated the idea of a transitional government as a way out of the crisis, but that has been rejected by the opposition. They are demanding accountability for the killings, and Hassan’s resignation. See our story: Tanzania election killings: Outcry and calls for international investigations.
Gaza’s dubious ceasefire crosses the one-month mark
Israel’s war in Gaza hasn’t ended. It has only changed its tempo, Palestinian journalist Nour ElAssy wrote in The New Humanitarian on 11 November. Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect on 10 October, the Israeli military has killed at least 260 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded over 630, according to health authorities in the Strip. The Israeli military is still deployed in over 50% of Gaza, and Israeli authorities are still restricting the entry of aid. On 12 November, Israel announced it was reopening the Zakim Crossing after shuttering it two months earlier. The move will theoretically allow more aid to enter directly into northern Gaza, where Israel was waging a major military offensive before the ceasefire and where an Israeli-imposed siege had precipitated a famine by the end of August. But the aid response appears to be in flux, with a new US-led coordination centre aiming to replace Israel’s COGAT as the main entity overseeing humanitarian efforts. Will it actually happen? And even if it does, will it lead to better outcomes for Palestinians in Gaza? Both answers remain unclear. As ElAssy wrote: “The ceasefire has kept us breathing. It has not made us free. Freedom – not a pause between violent raids, not a quota of aid trucks, not the right to rebuild ruins again – is the only end to this story that deserves the word peace.” Read her article here.
Weeks after the ceasefire was announced, the first edition of the Gaza International Festival for Women's Cinema took place in Deir al-Balah – a cultural event honouring women in the Gaza Strip, held with support from the Palestinian Ministry of Culture and local and international film groups. According to the UN, 70% of women killed in conflicts around the world between 2023 and 2024 were in Gaza. See the closing for the event here.
Al-Sharaa’s journey from US target to trusted US ally
Less than a year ago, Ahmed al-Sharaa had a $10 million US bounty on his head, as he led a rebel offensive through Syria that toppled 50 years of rule by the family of former president Bashar al-Assad. This week, al-Sharaa was in Washington as Syria’s president, and his foreign minister shared a video of him playing basketball with US military officials a day before he met with President Donald Trump in the White House. It is an extraordinary journey by any measure, and this week’s meetings included announcements that the US was suspending more sanctions on Syria, and that Syria was officially joining the coalition against the so-called Islamic State (IS). The latter was arguably true before – as al-Sharaa has been fighting the group for years in his role as head of Hayat Tahrir al-Shams (HTS), but the latest messaging (including the handshaking, basketball, and red tie) is likely key if Syria’s transitional president wants to be seen as a stable world leader who can leverage sanctions relief into investment and reconstruction, especially given the fact that he has plenty of challenges waiting for him at home.
South Sudan’s dangerous succession drama
He was widely seen as ailing President Salva Kiir’s hand-picked successor for South Sudanese leader, but businessman and vice president Benjamin Bol Mel is now the latest casualty of Kiir’s trigger-happy purges. In recent months, Kiir has chewed through security chiefs and ruling-party heavyweights in what analysts saw as an effort to clear the decks for the politically inexperienced and corruption-tainted Bol Mel. Kiir also eliminated his long-time opposition rival and wartime foe Riek Machar, the first vice president, who is now standing trial for terrorism and treason – a case that killed off a peace agreement and power-sharing deal. The upheaval has caused deep disquiet across the political landscape: The government has been attacking opposition military positions, while Kiir’s political and security elites have been furious at Bol Mel’s elevation. Fears of state fragmentation and renewed civil war have been raging, though what comes next in the succession drama seems anyone's guess.
Regional tensions rise after attacks in both India and Pakistan
This week saw bombings in the capitals of regional rivals Pakistan and India. On Monday, the area around Delhi’s famous Red Fort was the site of a car bomb that led to 13 deaths. The federal cabinet called it “a heinous terror incident” and by Friday the authorities had demolished the home of a Muslim resident of Indian-administered Kashmir, accusing him of carrying out the attack. Police claim Umar Un Nabi, a 35-year-old doctor, was behind the wheel of the explosives-laden vehicle. They also claim Nabi had ties to groups based in neighbouring Pakistan, where an attack outside an Islamabad court led to at least 12 deaths on Tuesday. Though Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was quick to claim that groups "actively backed by India" were involved in the attack, authorities later arrested four men whom they claim were either Afghan nationals or received instructions from Afghanistan. This accusation comes as Kabul and Islamabad have failed to secure a long-term ceasefire after a series of attacks and skirmishes saw leaders from both countries go to Qatar and Türkiye for peace talks that have failed to yield long-lasting results.
Indigenous groups make themselves heard with COP flotilla
The COP30 climate summit saw a huge display of people power this week, as 7,000 Indigenous activists sailed into the Amazonian city of Belém, Brazil on a flotilla of 200 boats. It was the biggest civil society action in years at a COP: The past three iterations having been held in countries that restrict such overt demonstrations. The activists were protesting against oil drilling in the Amazon, and a planned railway – which critics fear could exacerbate the degradation of one of the world’s most precious ecosystems and a critical carbon sink. The collapse of the Amazon is one of several watershed moments of ecological collapse that could have major cascading effects on the rest of the environment. A report on the concept, released at COP this week, warned that “multiple climate tipping points pose catastrophic risks to billions of people” now that the world has failed to limit global warming to 1.5C. For more COP-related coverage, read our investigation into the failure of the Great Green Wall in the Sahel, and our primer on conflict and climate overlap.
Weekend read
COP30: The cautionary tale of the Sahel’s Great Green Wall
“Its power is its ability to attract funding in Europe and the United States. The problem is that’s all it does.”
The vision was of a wall of trees halting the advance of the desert, but the reality is a failed form of green neo-colonialism.
And finally…
Urban myth or murder? Italy investigates Sarajevo sniper safaris
Myths and urban legends accompany every war, but Italian investigators are now taking seriously the tales of sniper safaris during the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s. Milan public prosecutors are looking into claims rich Italians (and other nationalities) paid to travel to Sarajevo with the besieging Serb forces of Radovan Karadžić, and paid different prices for the chance to shoot at Bosnian civilians trapped in the city. The participants then returned and continued life as usual, “respectable in everyone’s eyes”, said Ezio Gavazzeni, the Italian journalist whose evidence – now turned over to the prosecutors – sparked the case. There have long been rumours of human manhunts during the conflict and that the intelligence services knew about the practice: A documentary on the topic was even made in 2022. However, Gavazzeni told the Guardian newspaper he has now identified some of the Italians allegedly involved and expects them to be quizzed by prosecutors.
