Afghanistan
More than 800 people were killed and at least 2,800 injured in one of Afghanistan’s worst earthquakes in years. The 6.0 magnitude quake hit the mountainous eastern region with its epicenter 27km from Jalalabad, the country's fifth-largest city. Rescuers were struggling to reach people in remote areas due to poor weather, impassable roads and rough terrain. The Taliban government -- already struggling with a battered economy, aid cuts, and an influx of refugees returning from neighbouring countries -- appealed for international help. Afghanistan is prone to deadly earthquakes, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountain range, where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet.
More from Reuters here.
Gaza
More than 250 media outlets in over 70 countries today took part in a protest to highlight Israel’s killing of over 250 Palestinian journalists in Gaza. Newspapers were published with blacked out front pages, broadcasters and radio stations paused programming to read out simultaneous statements, and websites displayed blacked out homepages or banners in the action organized by Reporters Without Borders. The media freedom group says about 220 journalists have been killed in Gaza, while an Al Jazeera tally puts the number at 278.
More from Al Jazeera here.
Syria
A massive 850,000 Syrian refugees have returned to their homeland from neighboring countries since the government of Bashar al-Assad was toppled last December, and the number could soon reach one million, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). Kelly T. Clements, Deputy High Commissioner of UNHCR, also told the Associated Press that 1.7 million people who had been displaced internally had returned to their communities. Syria’s brutal civil war, which began in 2011, forced about half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million from their homes. The country’s new leader, President Ahmed al-Sharaa, brought hopes of stability but sectarian violence has erupted in some regions.
More from AP here.
Hi Barry - recent subscriber and really enjoying your work!
Just one comment on language regarding the situation in Afghanistan. I think it is important to note that the refugees are not "returning" from neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, but the majority have been forcefully, and often quite brutally, expelled, dispossessed and kicked out. In the case of Pakistan, many of these people had been living there for years, often decades. I think this is important both generally, in terms of the hostility of neighbouring countries towards the people who have fled Afghanistan over the years, but also in this specific case, because this very recent expulsion has led to a lot of people coming to the region hit by the earthquake, resulting in overcrowding in houses and higher death toll as a result.
The magnitude of the ongoing simultaneous eruption of human suffering is staggering, overwhelming, biblical in its relentless onslaught.