World
Bodies of 18 migrants found in abandoned truck in Bulgaria
Police in Bulgaria on Friday discovered an abandoned truck containing the bodies of 18 migrants, who appeared to have suffocated to death.
The Interior Ministry said that according to initial information, the truck was carrying about 40 migrants and the survivors were taken to nearby hospitals for emergency treatment.
Bulgarian Health Minister Assen Medzhidiev said most of the survivors were in very bad condition.
“They have suffered from lack of oxygen, their clothes are wet, they are freezing, and obviously haven’t eaten for days,” Medzhidiev said.
The truck was found abandoned on a highway near the capital, Sofia. The driver was not there, but police discovered the passengers in a secret compartment below a load of timber.
Authorities did not immediately give the nationalities of the migrants. Bulgarian media reported they all were from Afghanistan.
Bulgaria, a Balkan country of 7 million and the poorest member of the European Union, is located on a major route for migrants from the Middle East and Afghanistan seeking to enter Europe from Turkey. Very few plan to stay, with most using Bulgaria as a transit corridor on their way westward.
Bulgaria has erected a barbed-wire fence along its 259-kilometer (161-mile) border with Turkey, but with the help of local human traffickers many migrants still manage to enter.
Read more: 37 Bangladeshi migrants feared dead trying to reach Europe: Govt
In Britain in October 2019, police found the bodies of 39 people inside a refrigerated container that had been hauled to England. British police said all the victims, who ranged in age from 15 to 44, came from impoverished villages in Vietnam and were believed to have paid smugglers to take them on a risky journey to better lives abroad.
Police said they died of a combination of a lack of oxygen and overheating in an enclosed space. The truck discovered in the town of Grays, east of London, had arrived in England on a ferry from Zeebrugge in Belgium.
Sheriff: Gunman kills 6 including ex-wife in Mississippi
A lone gunman killed six people including his ex-wife and stepfather Friday at multiple locations in a tiny rural community in northern Mississippi, the sheriff said, leaving investigators searching for clues to what motivated the shocking rampage.
Armed with a shotgun and two handguns, 52-year-old Richard Dale Crum opened fire at about 11 a.m. and killed a man in the driver's seat of a pickup truck parked outside a convenience store in Arkabutla, near the Tennessee state line, Tate County Sheriff Brad Lance said.
Deputies were working the crime scene when a second 911 call alerted authorities to another shooting a few miles away. After arriving at a home, they found a woman, whom the sheriff identified as Crum's ex-wife, shot dead and her current husband wounded.
Lance said deputies caught up with Crum outside his own home and arrested him. Behind the residence they found two handymen slain by gunfire — one in the road, another in an SUV. Inside a neighboring home, they discovered the bodies of Crum's stepfather and his stepfather's sister.
“Everybody has crime, and from time to time we have violent crime, but certainly nothing of this magnitude,” Lance said in an interview. He added: “Without being able to say what triggered this, that’s the scary part.”
Crum, 52, was jailed without bond on a single charge of capital murder, and Lance said investigators were working to bring additional charges. It was not immediately known if Crum had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
That initial murder charge was for the killing of Chris Eugene Boyce, 59, the man who was shot outside the store. Boyce's brother was in the truck with him at the time and fled, according to the sheriff. Lance added that Crum chased the brother through a wooded area before he escaped unharmed.
“I heard the gunshot from inside my house,” Ethan Cash, who lives near the store, told WREG-TV. “I had just woken up and I look back here, and I see dude walking back here with a shotgun.”
Cash said he went to the scene and found one person who had been shot. He said he checked for a pulse but found none.
Read more: Gunman kills 3, then himself at Michigan State University
In the lobby of the Sheriff’s Office, Norma Washington told The Associated Press that Chris Boyce was her nephew and he was from Florida. She said he and the brother, Doug, who lives in Alaska, had been in town cleaning up a property they inherited from their deceased uncle.
“I lost my brother, and now this one,” Washington said. “This has been something else.”
It was unclear whether Crum knew either of the brothers.
The killings stunned residents of Arkabutla, home to 285 people and located about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Memphis, Tennessee. It's the hometown of famed actor James Earl Jones, and nearby Arkabutla Lake is a popular fishing and recreational destination.
An elementary school and a high school in nearby Coldwater both went on lockdown while the suspect was being sought, according to the Coldwater Elementary School Facebook page. A short time later, a second post on the page said the lockdown had been lifted and “all students and staff are safe.”
April Wade, who lives in Arkabutla and grew up in Coldwater, said both are small communities where most people know each other, “but if you don’t, you know somebody who knows somebody.”
Speaking from a local tire store in the afternoon, Wade said she and her husband were aware of the shootings but had not yet heard the names of the suspect or victims.
“I think it’s crazy,” Wade said. “You do not expect something like that to happen so close to home.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said its agents were providing assistance to the sheriff’s department and state investigators. Lance said one of their top priorities was to determine a motive.
Read more: LA mass shooting suspect kills 10 near Lunar New Year fest
The sheriff, who has lived in the area his entire life and served in law enforcement for 25 years, said he could recall no prior problems with Crum.
The shootings are the first mass killing in the U.S. since Jan. 23, which saw the last of six in a three-week period, according to an Associated Press/USA Today database. It defines a mass killing as four or more people dead, not including the perpetrator.
Military finishes recovering Chinese balloon debris
The U.S. has finished efforts to recover the remnants of the large balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, and analysis of the debris so far reinforces conclusions that it was a Chinese spy balloon, U.S. officials said Friday.
Officials said the U.S. believes that Navy, Coast Guard and FBI personnel collected all of the balloon debris off the ocean floor, which included key equipment from the payload that could reveal what information it was able to monitor and collect.
U.S. Northern Command said in a statement that the recovery operations ended Thursday and the final pieces are on their way to the FBI lab in Virginia for analysis. It said air and maritime restrictions off South Carolina have been lifted.
The announcement capped three dramatic weeks that saw U.S. fighter jets shoot down four airborne objects — the large Chinese balloon on Feb. 4 and three much smaller objects about a week later over Canada, Alaska and Lake Huron. They are the first known peacetime shootdowns of unauthorized objects in U.S. airspace.
The officials also said the search for the small airborne object that was shot down over Lake Huron has stopped, and nothing has been recovered. U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations. The U.S. and Canada have also failed to recover any debris so far from the other two objects which were shot down over the Yukon and northern Alaska.
While the military is confident the balloon shot down off South Carolina was a surveillance airship operated by China, the Biden administration has admitted that the three smaller objects were likely civilian-owned balloons that were targeted during the heightened response, after U.S. homeland defense radars were recalibrated to detect slower moving airborne items.
Due to their small size and the remote areas where they were shot down, officials acknowledge that recovering any debris is difficult and probably unlikely. Those last two searches, however, have not been formally called off.
Much of the Chinese balloon fell into about 50 feet (15 meters) of water, and the Navy was able to collect remnants floating on the surface, and divers and unmanned naval vessels pulled up the rest from the bottom of the ocean. Northern Command said Friday that all of the Navy and Coast Guard ships have left the area.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden directed national security adviser Jake Sullivan to lead an interagency team to establish “sharper rules” to track, monitor and potentially shoot down unknown aerial objects.
Meanwhile, key questions about the Chinese balloon remain unanswered, including what, if any, intelligence it was able to collect as it flew over sensitive military sites in the United States, and whether it was able to transmit anything back to China.
The U.S. tracked it for several days after it left China, said a U.S. official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. It appears to have been blown off its initial trajectory, which was toward the U.S. territory of Guam, and ultimately flew over the continental U.S., the official said.
Balloons and other unidentified objects have been previously spotted over Guam, a strategic hub for the U.S. Navy and Air Force in the western Pacific.
It’s unclear how much control China retained over the balloon once it veered from its original trajectory. A second U.S. official said the balloon could have been externally maneuvered or directed to loiter over a specific target, but it’s unclear whether Chinese forces did so.
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Copp reported from aboard a U.S. military aircraft.
Ukrainian refugees safe, but not at peace, after year of war
Months after Russian forces occupied southern Ukraine's Kherson province last year, they started paying visits to the home of a Ukrainian woman and her Russian husband. They smashed their refrigerator and demanded possession of their car. One day, they seized the wife and her teenage daughter, put pillowcases over their heads and led them away.
The woman was locked up for days, her legs beaten with a hammer. The men accused her of revealing Russian soldiers’ locations. They subjected her to electric shocks and bore down on her feet with the heels of their military boots until two of her toes broke. She heard screams nearby and feared they came from her daughter.
More than once, with a bag on her head and her hands tied, a weapon was pointed at her head. She'd feel the muzzle at her temple, and a man started counting.
One. Two. Two and a half.
Then, a shot fired to the floor.
“Although at that moment, it seemed to me that it would be better in my head,” she told The Associated Press, recounting the torture that lasted five days, counted by the sliver of sunlight from a tiny window in the room. “The only thing that kept me strong was the awareness that my child was somewhere around.”
The Russian officials eventually released the woman and her daughter, she said, and she made her way home. She took a long shower and packed a bag, and the two fled the occupied area — first to Russian-occupied Crimea and then to mainland Russia, from where they crossed by land into Latvia and finally Poland.
Her body was still bruised, and she could barely walk. But in December in Warsaw, she reunited with a son. And she and her daughter joined the refugees who have fled their homes since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Nearly a year has passed since the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion sent millions fleeing across Ukraine’s border into neighboring Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova and Romania. Crowds of terrified, exhausted people boarded trains and waited for days at border crossings.
Across Europe, about 8 million refugees have been recorded, according to U.N. estimates based on data from national governments, and nearly 5 million of those have applied for temporary protection. Experts say those numbers are fluid — some people apply in more than one country — but they agree it's the largest movement of refugees in Europe since World War II. Unlike refugees from recent conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, the Ukrainians were largely met with an outpouring of sympathy and help.
Yet while the Ukrainian refugees have found safety, they have not found peace.
They suffer from trauma and loss — uprooted from their lives, separated from relatives, fearing for loved ones stuck in Russian-occupied areas or fighting on the frontline. Children are separated from fathers, grandparents, pets. Others have no family or homes to return to.
The woman from Kherson spoke to the AP this month at a Warsaw counseling center run in partnership with UNICEF. She insisted on anonymity; she fears for the safety of her husband and other relatives in Russian-occupied areas.
She doesn’t like to talk about herself. But she has a goal: For the world to see what Russian troops are doing.
“Even now, I am afraid,” she said, wiping her eyes with her pastel-color nails and fiddling over a tissue. “Do you understand?”
She is among the refugees seeking trauma treatment, most often from Ukrainian psychologists who themselves fled home and struggle with their own grief and loss. No agency has definitive numbers on refugees in treatment, but experts say the psychological toll of the conflict is vast, with rates of anxiety and depression skyrocketing.
At the Warsaw center, psychologists describe treating crying children, teenagers separated from everything they know, mothers unknowingly transferring trauma to their kids.
One patient, a boy from Mariupol, was used as a human shield. His hair has already begun to turn gray. The home of the counselor who treats him was destroyed by a Russian bomb.
Refugee mental health is a priority for aid organizations large and small, even as they work to meet needs for housing, work and education.
Anastasiia Gudkova, a Ukrainian providing psychological support to refugees at a Norwegian Refugee Council reception center in Warsaw, said the most traumatized people she meets come from Mariupol, Kherson and other occupied territories. Those who flee bombing in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia also arrive terrified.
But there’s pain for those even from relatively safer areas in western Ukraine, she said: “All Ukrainians, regardless of their location, are under a lot of stress.”
According to the U.N. refugee agency, 90% of the Ukrainians who have sought refuge abroad are women, children and the elderly.
The psychologists see women struggle to put on a brave face for children, trying to survive in countries where they often don’t speak the language. Many women with higher education have taken jobs cleaning other people’s homes or working in restaurant kitchens.
The luckiest ones are able to keep doing their old jobs remotely from exile or are beginning to envision new lives.
Last January, Anastasia Lasna was planning to open her own bakery in Mykolaiv after finding success with providing other businesses with her vegan foods and healthy desserts. Today she is running a food pantry of the Jewish Community Center in Krakow, which has helped some 200,000 Ukrainian refugees, and integrating herself into the southern Polish city’s growing Jewish community.
She has Israeli citizenship, but doesn’t want to live in another conflict-scarred land. Joined now in Krakow by her husband and her 6-year-old daughter, she cannot imagine returning to her former home.
“There is no future there,” she said.
But many refugees still dream of returning home. Their belief that Ukraine will eventually prevail helps them cope.
Last Feb. 23, Maryna Ptashnyk was in the Carpathian mountains celebrating her 31st birthday with her husband and daughter. For months, Russian forces had surrounded her country; waves of anxiety came as she pondered whether there would be “a big war.” So she switched off her phone for her special day.
It was the last night of peace for Ukraine, the last night of normality for Ptashnyk. The next morning, her husband, Yevhen, woke her and told her Kyiv was being bombed.
Now Yevhen is in the Ukrainian army, serving in an artillery unit near Soledar in eastern Ukraine, an area of brutal fighting. Ptashnyk lives alone with their 3-year-old daughter, Polina, in a small suburban Warsaw apartment.
Though Polina is settling well into a Polish preschool, her mother sees the stress.
“For the last year she often asks me about death, about when we will die,” she said.
Polina sees other children out with their fathers, but she’s seen hers only three times since the war began. On a recent visit home, she embraced him. “Daddy’s mine,” she said.
For the woman from Kherson, trying to face the trauma from her torture is just one challenge. She also must find work to afford an apartment in Warsaw, which is now home to more Ukrainian refugees than any other city.
The influx of people has exacerbated a housing shortage and caused rental prices to surge amid high inflation — an issue in many countries welcoming refugees.
The mother finds herself struggling to create a home, a sense of normalcy. The physical pain and scars haunt her, but some days the lack of moral support hurts the most.
Her husband's family in Russia supports the invasion. Worst of all, he and other loved ones remain trapped in the Russian-occupied territory.
“I am safe now, but it is very dangerous there," she said. “And I can’t know if they will survive.”
Key moments in a year of war after Russia invaded Ukraine
The war in Ukraine that began a year ago has killed thousands, forced millions to flee their homes, reduced entire cities to rubble and has fueled fears the confrontation could slide into an open conflict between Russia and NATO.
A look at some of the main events in the conflict.
2022
FEBRUARY
On Feb. 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin launches an invasion of Ukraine from the north, east and south. He says the “special military operation” is aimed at “demilitarization” and “denazification” of the country to protect ethnic Russians, prevent Kyiv’s NATO membership and to keep it in Russia’s “sphere of influence.” Ukraine and the West say it’s an illegal act of aggression against a country with a democratically elected government and a Jewish president whose relatives were killed in the Holocaust.
Russian troops quickly reach Kyiv’s outskirts, but their attempts to capture the capital and other cities in the northeast meet stiff resistance. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy records a video outside his headquarters to show he is staying and remains in charge.
MARCH
On March 2, Russia claims control of the southern city of Kherson. In the opening days of March, Russian forces also seize the rest of the Kherson region and occupy a large part of the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, including the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest.
The Russian army soon gets stuck near Kyiv, and its convoys — stretching along highways leading to the Ukrainian capital — become easy prey for Ukrainian artillery and drones. On March 16, Russia strikes a theater in the strategic port city of Mariupol where civilians had been sheltering, killing hundreds of people in one of the war’s deadliest attacks.
Moscow announces the withdrawal of forces from Kyiv and other areas March 29, saying it will focus on the eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces since 2014 following the illegal annexation of Crimea.
APRIL
The Russian pullback from Kyiv reveals hundreds of bodies of civilians in mass graves or left in the streets of the town of Bucha, many of them bearing signs of torture in scenes that prompt world leaders to say Russia should be held accountable for possible war crimes.
On April 9, a Russian missile strike on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk kills 52 civilians and wounds over 100.
Intense battles rage for Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, and Russian air strikes and artillery bombardment reduce much of it to ruins.
On April 13, the missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, is hit by Ukrainian missiles and sinks the next day, damaging national pride.
MAY
On May 16, Ukrainian defenders of the giant Azovstal steel mill, the last remaining Ukrainian stronghold in Mariupol, agree to surrender to Russian forces after a nearly three-month siege. Mariupol’s fall cuts Ukraine off from the Azov coast and secures a land corridor from the Russian border to Crimea.
On May 18, Finland and Sweden submit their applications to join NATO in a major blow to Moscow over the expansion of the military alliance.
JUNE
More Western weapons flow into Ukraine, including U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers.
On June 30, Russian troops pull back from Snake Island, located off the Black Sea port of Odesa and seized in the opening days of the invasion.
JULY
On July 22, Russia and Ukraine, with mediation by Turkey and the United Nations, agree on a deal to unblock supplies of grain stuck in Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, ending a standoff that threatened global food security.
On July 29, a missile strike hits a prison in the Russia-controlled eastern town of Olenivka where Ukrainian soldiers captured in Mariupol were held, killing at least 53. Ukraine and Russia trade blame for the attack.
AUGUST
On Aug. 9, powerful explosions strike an air base in Crimea. More blasts hit a power substation and ammunition depots there a week later. signaling the vulnerability of the Moscow-annexed Black Sea peninsula that Russia has used as a major supply hub for the war. Ukraine’s top military officer later acknowledges that the attacks on Crimea were launched by Kyiv’s forces.
On Aug. 20, Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian nationalist ideologist Alexander Dugin, dies in a car bomb explosion outside Moscow that the Russian authorities blame on Ukraine
SEPTEMBER
On Sept. 6, the Ukrainian forces launch a surprise counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region, quickly forcing Russia to pull back from broad areas held for months.
On Sept. 21, Putin orders mobilization of 300,000 reservists, an unpopular move that prompts hundreds of thousands of Russian men to flee to neighboring countries to avoid recruitment. At the same time, Russia hastily stages illegal “referendums” in Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions on whether to become part of Russia. The votes are widely dismissed as a sham by Ukraine and the West.
On Sept. 30, Putin signs documents to annex the four regions at a Kremlin ceremony.
OCTOBER
On Oct. 8, a truck laden with explosives blows up on the bridge linking Crimea to Russia’s mainland in an attack that Putin blames on Ukraine. Russia responds with missile strikes on Ukraine’s power plants and other key infrastructure.
After the first wave of attacks on Oct. 10, the barrage continues on a regular basis in the months that follow, resulting in blackouts and power rationing across the country.
NOVEMBER
On Nov. 9, Russia announces a pullback from the city of Kherson under a Ukrainian counteroffensive, abandoning the only regional center Moscow captured, in a humiliating retreat for the Kremlin.
DECEMBER
On Dec. 5, the Russian military says Ukraine used drones to target two bases for long-range bombers deep inside Russian territory. Another strike takes places later in the month, underlining Ukraine’s readiness to up the ante and revealing gaps in Russian defenses.
On Dec. 21, Zelenskyy visits the United States on his first trip abroad since the war began, meeting with President Joe Biden to secure Patriot air defense missile systems and other weapons and addressing Congress.
2023
JANUARY
On Jan. 1, just moments into the New Year, scores of freshly mobilized Russian soldiers are killed by a Ukrainian missile strike on the city of Makiivka. Russia’s Defense Ministry says 89 troops were killed, while Ukrainian officials put the death toll in the hundreds.
After months of ferocious fighting, Russia declares the capture of the salt-mining town of Soledar on Jan. 12, although Kyiv does not acknowledge it until days later. Moscow also presses its offensive to seize the Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut.
On Jan. 14, when Russia launches another wave of strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities, a Russian missile hits an apartment building in the city of Dnipro, killing 45.
78m children don’t go to school at all: UN chief
A staggering 78 million girls and boys around the world today “don’t go to school at all” because of conflict, climate disasters and displacement – while tens of millions more receive only sporadic teaching – UN Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday.
Calling for more funding for education in emergencies spearheaded by the UN global fund Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN chief in a video message said no one should be denied their chance to learn.
A full 222 million children today experience blighted education, Guterres said. “To help them, 18 countries and private partners have pledged $826 million for UN global fund ECW, on the opening day of the landmark conference.”
“No matter who you are, no matter where you live, no matter what barriers stand in your way, you have a right to a quality education,” he said, in an appeal for greater international efforts to ensure that more vulnerable children and youngsters get their chance to succeed.
Read more: Govt to launch countrywide school feeding programme from June: State Minister
Delivering his comments at the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva, the Secretary-General welcomed the fact that since it was founded in 2017, the fund had trained 87,000 teachers and given seven million children in crisis “the education they deserve”.
As pledges from 18 countries and the private sector topped $826 million on the first day of the conference, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of ECW High-Level Steering Group Gordon Brown said: “We are talking about the most isolated, the most desolate, the most neglected children of the world. We’re talking about girls who find themselves trafficked or forced into child labour or child marriage unless we can help them.”
UN appeals for $5.6 billion for millions affected by Russia-Ukraine war
Almost a year since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UN has appealed for $5.6 billion to help millions of people affected inside the war-torn country and beyond.
The situation for many in Ukraine remains desperate, amid “relentless” shelling of civilian targets and infrastructure, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, told the media Wednesday in Geneva.
Humanitarian funding is needed to continue supporting lifesaving aid convoy deliveries to communities on the front line, “into areas of great danger and difficulty and priority needs,” said Griffiths, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
To continue doing the lifesaving work, the OCHA chief appealed for $3.9 billion to help 11.1 million of the 18 million people who need humanitarian assistance inside Ukraine. Officially called the Humanitarian Response Plan for Ukraine, it brings together more than 650 partners, the majority of them Ukrainian organisations.
In parallel with the OCHA appeal, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is also seeking $1.7 billion to help Ukrainian refugees in 10 host countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi said: “I think we’re becoming a little bit used to this; we shouldn’t, because it’s quite appalling what the Russian invasion is doing to the country,” he said.
“Refugees from the conflict have every intention of returning to Ukraine at some point. But until that happens, Tuesday’s Refugee Response Plan appeal will continue to help millions of refugees and hundreds of UN partners on the ground.”
In particular, funding will support health and nutrition services, education, livelihoods and temporary protection, the high commissioner said.
Read more: War's longest battle exacts high price in 'heart of Ukraine'
“The Ukraine refugee crisis – displacement crisis – remains the largest in the world, clearly,” he added. “Almost six million estimated internally displaced people. Plus, you know, the refugees in Europe who have registered for temporary protection are close to five million now, 4.8 million. But we know that there's many more that have not.”
Amid reports that violence is escalating in the east, the latest UN estimates indicated that more than 7,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine in the last year, with 12,000 injured. “This is almost certainly a low estimate,” Griffiths said.
Asked about UN-led efforts to secure an extension of a deal to delivery of fertilisers and foodstuffs from Ukraine and Russia to the many countries that need them all over the world, the aid official said: “The Global South and international food security needs that operation to continue.”
More than 21.3 million tonnes of corn, wheat, oil and other comestibles have been shipped across the Black Sea, as part of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which should be allowed to continue, the UN emergency relief coordinator added. “We don’t need it stopped in the middle of March and I hope – I hope and believe, actually – that it will be extended. And that is because it is an obvious case for international humanitarian security.”
Inside Ukraine, the UN migration agency, IOM, said the scale of destruction in the south and east has been massive – so much so, that one senior UN humanitarian worker with the agency told UN News that some towns “don’t even exist anymore.”
“We see heavy fighting on both sides (of the contact line),” said IOM Area Manager Johannes Fromholt, who described how some locations were “filled with military personnel, military equipment.”
Amid an uptick in violence in the east, Fromholt said some civilians have managed to flee from Donetsk oblast to the more central town of Znamyanka, where IOM is helping to repair collective shelters for new arrivals.
Read more: Impact of Russia-Ukraine War on Asia’s climate goals
For those unable to leave, the situation remains dire.
“In frontline locations (the conflict is) actually getting worse, with increased fighting on a day-to-day basis,” the IOM worker said. “So, people simply have to stay down in the basements into shelters where of course, it’s cold. There’s no electricity in these frontline locations.”
World Bank to get new president in 2023 as Malpass announces early departure
The World Bank is poised to get a new president in 2023, as David Malpass announced his departure Wednesday.
David Malpass, a former senior United States Treasury official nominated by then President Donald Trump, served as chief of the World Bank Group (WBG) since 2019.
In a post on the social media platform LinkedIn, Malpass said he intends to step down by June, one year before the end of his four-year appointment.
“I’m proud of what we have achieved during my term,” Malpass wrote, who previously was chief economist at the now-defunct investment bank Bear Stearns.
“We’ve worked hard together to reduce poverty, increase economic growth, reduce government debt burdens, and improve living standards across the full range of human development, including education, health, social protection and jobs, gender, and access to clean water and electricity.”
Under Malpass' leadership, the Bank Group more than doubled its climate finance to developing countries, reaching a record $32 billion in 2022.
Malpass also led efforts to enable and increase private sector investment and trade. During his tenure, the World Bank has also enhanced its support for inclusive and sustainable growth, launching a pandemic fund, and developing a climate change action plan.
Highlighting other achievements, Malpass pointed to the Group’s $150 billion in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and $170 billion response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its spillover effects.
“By the end of the fiscal year, we will be well-positioned to feature sustainability more clearly in the mission of the World Bank Group, align the mission with resources, and set in motion an effective evolution to increase the institution’s impact on people in the developing world,” he wrote.
“I am eagerly looking forward to working on the multiple challenges facing economics, business, development, and global finance,” he continued. “As I have done throughout my public sector career, I will be looking for ways to improve people’s lives and living standards. This is an important and constructive opportunity for the World Bank Group to set its course.”
Established in 1944, the World Bank provides low-interest loans, zero to low-interest credits, and grants to developing countries to support investments in such areas as education, health, public administration, infrastructure, financial and private sector development, agriculture, and environmental and natural resource management.
UN appeals for $1 billion to help Türkiye earthquake survivors
The United Nations launched a $1 billion appeal Thursday to help 5.2 million survivors of the most devastating earthquake in Türkiye’s modern history, two days after starting a $397 million appeal to help nearly 5 million Syrians across the border.
The funding, which covers three months, will allow aid organisations to swiftly ramp up their operations to support government-led response efforts in areas that include food security, protection, education, water and shelter.
Both appeals will be followed by fresh appeals for longer-term help.
“Türkiye is home to the largest number of refugees in the world and has shown enormous generosity to its Syrian neighbours for years,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said.
“Now is the time for the world to support the people of Türkiye – just as they have stood in solidarity with others seeking assistance.”
UN Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said: “The people of Türkiye have experienced unspeakable heartache. I met families who shared their stories of shock and devastation. We must stand with them in their darkest hour and ensure they receive the support they need.”
The UN and partners have been rushing to support Türkiye and neighbouring Syria in the wake of the devastating earthquakes that struck on February 6.
More than nine million people in Türkiye alone have been directly impacted by the once-in-a-generation disaster, which has left 35,000 people dead in the country, according to the latest figures from the government.
Read more: Turkey probes contractors as earthquake deaths pass 33,000
The earthquakes struck at the peak of winter, leaving hundreds of thousands of people – including small children and elderly people – without access to shelter, food, water, heaters and medical care in freezing temperatures.
Some 47,000 buildings have been destroyed or damaged, including schools, hospitals and other essential services.
Thousands of people have sought refuge in temporary shelters across the country. Many families have been separated, and hundreds of children are now orphaned or unable to be reunited with their parents.
Around 3.6 million Syrians have found a safe haven in Türkiye, along with nearly 320,000 people of other nationalities, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.
More than 1.74 million refugees live in the 11 provinces impacted by the earthquakes.
The UN is coordinating the operations of thousands of search-and-rescue personnel in five provinces – Adiyaman, Gaziantep, Hatay, Kahramanmaraş and Malatya – and humanitarian organisations have begun relief operations in the hardest-hit areas, in support of the government-led response.
This week also saw the launch of a nearly $400 million appeal for Syria, where aid delivery from across the border with Türkiye is continuing.
UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said shelter needs are the top priority among displaced people there, where many homes have collapsed in the aftermath of the earthquakes.
Read more: UN appeals for $1 billion to help Türkiye earthquake survivors
More than 8,900 buildings are completely or partially destroyed, leaving 11,000 people homeless. Other priorities include food, cash assistance and supplies to cope with the harsh winter weather.
S. Korea, US to hold simulated drill on North use of nukes
South Korean and United States militaries will hold a tabletop exercise at the Pentagon next week to hone their joint response to a potential use of nuclear weapons by North Korea, Seoul officials said Friday.
The one-day computer simulation set for Wednesday comes as the two countries push to strengthen their 70-year alliance in the face of North Korea’s increasingly aggressive nuclear doctrine.
The exercise is meant to focus on measures against North Korean nuclear threats and discuss how to boost a U.S. extended deterrence — America's ability to use its full capabilities, including nuclear, to deter attacks on its allies, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
It said the exercise would set up possible scenarios where North Korea uses nuclear weapons, explore how to cope with them militarily and formulate crisis management plans.
Worries about North Korea’s nuclear program deepened in South Korea after the North conducted a record number of missile tests in 2022 and adopted a law that authorizes the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. Many of the missiles tested were nuclear-capable weapons that place South Korea within striking distance.
In response to the intensifying North Korean threats, South Korea and U.S. militaries have expanded their joint drills and stepped up pressure on the North to abandon its nuclear program. In January, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the U.S. would also increase its deployment of advanced weapons such as fighter jets and bombers to the Korean Peninsula.
During their annual meeting in November, Austin and South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-Sup also agreed to conduct tabletop exercises annually and further strengthen the alliance’s information sharing, joint planning and execution. Austin reiterated a warning that any nuclear attack against the U.S. or its allies would result in the end of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's regime.
North Korea has previously slammed military drills between its rivals as an invasion rehearsal and responded with its own weapons tests, and could make an angry response to next week’s South Korea-U.S. tabletop exercise.
Some experts say North Korea has used some of the South Korea-U.S. drills as a chance to test and perfect its weapons systems. They say North Korea would eventually aim to use its enlarged nuclear arsenal to win international recognition as a legitimate nuclear state and win sanctions relief and other concessions.