Share & more
Republish article
Share
GENEVA
Our editors’ weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.
On our radar
Glacial collapse triggers catastrophic Himalayan flood
A catastrophic landslide and flash flood struck a Himalayan border area connecting Nepal and China’s Tibet region on 26 August, destroying roads, bridges, homes, and hydropower facilities, and damaging the Gyirong Port border crossing. At the time of publication, the death toll had reached 538 in Nepal and five in Tibet, with as many as 1,500 people, including foreign tourists and pilgrims, still listed as missing. The US Geological Survey reported that the landslide was likely caused by a glacial collapse in Nepal, sending a rapidly accumulating mass of ice, rock, river water, and debris 100 kilometres downstream. Experts say climate warming likely played a role by destabilising mountain ice and rock, though the immediate cause of the collapse remains under investigation. Similar surges have become more frequent and intense as Himalayan ice loss accelerates. China suspended rescue efforts on 28 August in areas threatened by further flooding from a debris-dammed lake that has begun to overflow.
In Haiti, a new massacre threatens December’s election
Haiti’s gang violence is continuing to flare and spread. On 23 August, at least 47 people were killed, 22 injured, and dozens kidnapped in Kenscoff, a farming community on the hills overlooking Port-au-Prince. Gang members also burnt houses and raped women, fuelling fears the violence could expand further into the few relatively safe areas around the capital. The massacre comes as Haiti prepares to hold presidential elections next December – the first in more than a decade – and underscores the scale of the security challenge facing a country where the unrest has now displaced nearly 1.5 million people, or 10% of the entire population. Efforts to contain the gangs have so far failed. In September 2025, the UN authorised a UN-backed Gang Suppression Force. Six months earlier, the Haitian prime minister created aspecial task force to conduct drone strikes against gangs with support from controversial US private military contractor Erik Prince. Neither has managed to restore the security needed for elections. According to the UN, at least 1,408 people were killed and 656 injured during the second quarter of 2026, with security forces operations accounting for 40% of the deaths.
Ratko Mladić, convicted of Srebrenica genocide, dies at 84
Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladić, who commanded forces responsible for one of the worst atrocities in Europe since the 1940s, has died in prison in The Hague aged 84. He led a brutal campaign during the Bosnian war, which began in 1992 as Yugoslavia broke apart. Bosnian Serb forces sought to seize territory and establish a separate Serb-controlled state within Bosnia. In the process, Mladić’s forces besieged Sarajevo and murdered more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica, despite UN peacekeepers being stationed nearby. After 16 years on the run, Mladić was arrested in 2011 and, in 2017, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted him of genocide for Srebrenica, among other crimes, sentencing him to life imprisonment. Yet some Bosnian Serbs continue to deny his crimes and see him as a protector during the war, a reminder that securing justice for atrocities does not necessarily bring post-war reconciliation.
Liberia begins receiving Trump’s third-country deportees
Twenty deported migrantsarrived in Liberia from the United States this week, the first of up to 1,200 deportees – none Liberian – the country has agreed to receive under a deal with Washington. Future arrivals will include nationals from North America, South America, the Caribbean, and other African countries. The Trump administration has deported more than 23,000 people under opaque agreements with 35 countries looking to curry his favour. These forced third-country transfers can occur with no warning, and immigration lawyers describe the practice as a deliberate policy to deny protection and spread fear among people who have been granted – or are seeking – safety in the United States. Cases have included a gay Moroccan woman deported to Cameroon – where homosexuality is illegal – and an Iranian woman with US court protection against being returned to Iran who was sent to the Central African Republic. Although such transfers can amount to refoulement – prohibited under international law when people face persecution or serious harm – US courts have so far allowed them to proceed. A US appeals court ruled in March that the deportationscan proceed for the time-being, although a verdict is expected imminently on a legal challenge.
Syria’s Kurdish-led SDF dissolves, but true integration remains elusive
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced its dissolution on 25 August, as part of a plan to integrate its fighters into Syria’s army. The move is a key part of Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s plans for a united Syria – a country that this week was removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. In return for bringing the SDF – a powerful force and key part of the fight against the so-called Islamic State – under state control, analysts say Syria’s Kurds have secured some important concessions, including recognition of Kurdish as a national language, positions for Kurdish civil servants, and theappointment of SDF leader Mazloum Abdi as a presidential adviser. These are significant gains after decades of anti-Kurdish discrimination under the al-Assad regime. But not all Syrian Kurds support the deal, and obstacles remain. Most notably, the future of the SDF’s all-women unit, the YPJ, is unresolved. The all-female militia is important symbolically, politically, and on the ground, and with the Syrian army having no units for women anymore, discussions over the YPJ’s role are ongoing.
El Niño and Indian Ocean Dipole raise East Africa flood risk
The Indian Ocean Dipole, a climate pattern involving contrasting sea-surface temperatures in the western and eastern tropical Indian Ocean, doesn’t get as much press as its Pacific cousin, El Niño. But it can have a significant impact on weather conditions in East Africa, especially when the two systems work together. With El Niño<a href="https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/el-nino-forms-expected-to-strengthen-say-noaa-forecasters” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>already established and expected to strengthen through the end of the year, areport by the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) warns that the coming rainy season could bring widespread flooding and displacement, depending in part on how the two climate patterns interact. The DRC report outlines three scenarios for October to December, with as many as 3 million people at risk of displacement in Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan, and Uganda. Kenya, which could face more than a million displacements, is already planning evacuations,mapping out flood hotspots and revamping drainage systems in Nairobi, and urging businesses in areas that could be cut off for months to stock up on essentials. In Somalia, which has the highest projected displacement, the World Food Programme is planning to assist between 800,000 and 1.2 million flood-exposed people, warning that preparations may need to scale up.
In case you missed it
BANGLADESH:Bangladesh is reportedly looking to join the so-called Mecca pact, a joint defence agreement signed earlier this month by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan. Such a move could complicate its relations with neighbouring India and test Bangladesh’s longstanding foreign policy of non-alignment.
COLOMBIA:Social media is helping fuel a surge in child recruitment by Colombian armed groups, with at least 1,500 children signed up since 2021, according toa report from Human Rights Watch. It says armed groups use platforms such as Facebook and TikTok “to glorify” life in their ranks and recruit children through chat forums and private messaging services.
EGYPT: On 21 August, a new asylum system came into effect, shifting responsibility for registering and adjudicating claims from the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, to the Egyptian government. The change comes amid concerns over the arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention, and expulsion of asylum seekers by Egyptian authorities, and as the country has become a major EU partner in the effort to prevent migration to Europe. Egypt hosts over <a href="https://data.unhcr.org/en/country/egy” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>one million refugees – including more than 850,000 from Sudan. For more, read:Egypt ramps up Sudanese refugee deportations with little UNHCR pushback.
GLOBAL: Military expenditure increased for the 11th consecutive year in 2025, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). European states accounted for most of the additional global spending, while military expenditure in Asia and Oceania rose 8.1% from 2024. Total global spending reached $2887 billion.
NIGERIA: President Bola Tinubu has ordered a manhunt for gunmen who kidnapped an estimated 600 people from four mosques in northcentral Niger State. The order came after the kidnappers posted a video on social media of some of those abducted. Nigeria’s kidnapping industry collected nearly $5.8 million in ransom payments in the last year, according toa new study.
PALESTINE: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz warned on 23 August that the Israeli military would attack people flying kites in the Gaza Strip and forcibly displace Palestinians from areas where kites were being flown. The statement came after 10 kites flown by children living in displacement camps recently floated across the border into Israel. After a brief pause in airstrikes at the beginning of August, Israel has continued to carry out attacks, killing nearly 1,300 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since last October’s so-called ceasefire.
RUSSIA/US: CIA director John Ratcliffe made an unannounced visit to Moscow on 25 August, prompting widespread speculation about its purpose and outcome. Ratcliffe reportedly warned Russian intelligence counterparts against attacking NATO territory but did not meet President Vladimir Putin. US President Donald Trump described the visit as “semi-routine”, though it was the first known visit by a CIA director to Russia since 2021, months before Russia invaded Ukraine. A BBC reporter called it “highly unusual”.
UNITED KINGDOM: Forty unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who disappeared from UK Home Office hotels remain missing, according to a 27 August parliamentary report. Of 472 children reported missing in recent years, 432 have since been located, some in exploitative situations and potentially as victims of trafficking. Two of the remaining 40 are believed to still be under 18.
UNITED STATES:Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained nearly 50,000 people in July and deported almost 34,000, according to newly released data. Both numbers are the highest of Trump’s second term. They are also an indication that the administration’s mass deportation drive is continuing unabated despite stepping back from the kind of large-scale, militarised operations that provoked widespread civil resistance.
UNITED STATES:A US military judge has finally ordered Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and three co-defendants to stand trial, in June 2028. Mohammed, accused of orchestrating the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, was held for years in secret CIA prisons, where he was tortured, before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006. He has spent more than a quarter of a century in custody without trial.
YEMEN: The UN’s migration agency reports that 1,362 people were forcibly displaced between 25 and 26 August in Yemen’s Taiz province, with clashes and shelling forcing the evacuation of camps for people who had already been displaced by the country’s war.
Weekend read
Nine years on, a Rohingya survivor revisits the massacre that killed her family, and dreams of going home
Laila Begum knows justice won’t restore what she has lost but struggles to understand why it can’t help her return home with safety and dignity.
And finally…
Russia’s African influence campaign, and the West’s retreat
Russia has been planting ghost reporters and fake experts in African media to advance its strategic interests, according to a new report by Code for Africa and Graphika. The content typically praises Russia’s paramilitary groups and good works, while denigrating Moscow’s geopolitical rivals – especially Ukraine, France, and the United States. So far, so unsurprising.Code for Africa we know does a sterling service around data journalism on the continent, supported by US philanthropies. What’s more interesting is who Graphika is. It turns out they receive their funding from US government military research grants to track foreign disinformation. Which begs the question, what the hell happened to the West’s own influence campaigns? Makes you feel almost nostalgic for the old days, when the US State Department provided golden ticketjunkets to Washington for journalists to see democracy in action; when they bothered to groom civil society talent; when the continent felt a little more wooed. Now it all seems shabbier. No romance, just fork over the raw materials.
