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Russia-Ukraine war: Will there be a spring counteroffensive?
Europe’s biggest armed conflict since World War II is poised to enter a new phase in the coming weeks.
With no suggestion of a negotiated end to the 13 months of fighting between Russia and Ukraine, the Ukrainian defense minister said last week that a spring counteroffensive could begin as soon as April.
Kyiv faces a key tactical question: How can the Ukrainian military dislodge Kremlin forces from land they are occupying? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is working hard to keep his troops, and the general public, motivated for a long fight.
Here’s a look at how the fighting has evolved and how the spring campaign might unfold:
HOW DID THE WAR GET HERE?
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 2022, but its attacks fell short of some main targets and lost momentum by July. Ukrainian counteroffensives took back large areas from August through November.
Then the fighting got bogged down in attritional warfare during the bitter winter and into the muddy, early spring thaw.
Now, Kyiv can take advantage of improved weather to seize the battlefield initiative with new batches of Western weapons, including scores of tanks, and fresh troops trained in the West.
But Russian forces are dug in deep, lying in wait behind minefields and along kilometers (miles) of trenches.
HOW HAS RUSSIA FARED SO FAR?
The war has exposed embarrassing shortcomings in the Kremlin's military prowess.
The battlefield setbacks include Russia's failure to reach Kyiv in the early days of the invasion, its inability to hold some areas and its failure to take the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut despite seven months of fighting. Attempts to break the Ukrainian will to fight, such as relentlessly striking the country's power grid, have failed too.
Moscow’s intelligence services badly misjudged Ukraine’s resolve and the West’s response. The invasion also depleted Russian military resources, triggering difficulties with ammunition supplies, morale and troop numbers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, apparently concerned that the war could erode public support for his government, has avoided an all-out push for victory through a mandatory mass mobilization.
“The Russians have no end of problems,” said James Nixey, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House, a think tank in London.
Realizing he cannot win the war any time soon, Putin aims to hunker down and drag out the fighting in the hope that Western support for Kyiv eventually frays, Nixey said.
Russia’s strategy is designed around "getting the West to crumble,” he said.
WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE UKRAINIANS?
The Ukrainian military starts the season with an influx of powerful weapons.
Germany said this week that it had delivered the 18 Leopard 2 tanks it promised to Ukraine. Poland, Canada and Norway have also handed over their pledged Leopard tanks. British Challenger tanks have arrived too.
Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, has said he’s hopeful Western partners will supply at least two battalions of the German-made Leopard 2s by April. He also expects six or seven battalions of Leopard 1 tanks, with ammunition, from a coalition of countries.
Also pledged are U.S. Abrams tanks and French light tanks, along with Ukraine soldiers recently trained in their use.
The Western help has been vital in strengthening Ukraine’s dogged resistance and shaping the course of the war. Zelenskyy recognizes that without U.S. help, his country has no chance to prevail.
The new supplies, including howitzers, anti-tank weapons and 1 million rounds of artillery ammunition, will add more muscle to the Ukraine military and give it a bigger punch.
“Sheer numbers of tanks can drive a deeper wedge into Russian holding positions,” Nixey said.
In their counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces will look to break through the land corridor between Russia and the annexed Crimean peninsula, moving from Zaporizhzhia toward Melitopol and the Azov Sea, according to Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov.
If successful, the Ukrainians "will split the Russian troops into two halves and cut off supply lines to the units that are located further to the west, in the direction of Crimea,” Zhdanov said.
WHAT MIGHT THE END GAME BE?
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, reckons that Ukraine will need to launch a series of counteroffensives, not just one, to get the upper hand.
The operations would have “the twin aims of persuading Putin to accept a negotiated compromise or of creating military realities sufficiently favorable to Ukraine that Kyiv and its Western allies can then effectively freeze the conflict on their own regardless of Putin’s decisions,” the institute said in an assessment published this week.
Nixey has no doubt that each side will keep “tearing chunks out of each other” over the coming months in the hope of gaining an advantage at the negotiating table.
A make-or-break period may lie ahead: If Kyiv fails to make progress on the battlefield with its Western-supplied weapons, allies may become reluctant to send it more of the expensive hardware.
The stakes are high: Defeat for Ukraine would “have global ramifications, and there will be no such thing as European security as we (currently) understand it,” Nixey said.
Harris seeks billions for climate resilience across Africa
Vice President Kamala Harris is pushing for $7 billion in private-sector investments to help Africa prepare for the effects of climate change.
The announcement comes as she wraps up her weeklong trip to the continent on Saturday. Harris plans to visit a farm outside Lusaka, Zambia's capital, where workers are using new techniques and technology to grow more produce, part of her effort to demonstrate ways to secure food supplies despite global warming.
“The United States is committed to these types of innovative solutions to support climate adaptation, mitigation and resilience,” she said Friday during a news conference with President Hakainde Hichilema.
Harris' trip, which included stops in Ghana and Tanzania, is intended to advance U.S. efforts to make inroads in Africa, where China's influence runs deep. The $7 billion announcement is the biggest-ticket item that Harris has announced, but more work will be needed to follow through.
For example, African Parks, a nonprofit group, has committed to raise $1.25 billion over the next seven years in order to expand its conservation program. Another organization, One Acre Fund, plans to raise $100 million to plant 1 billion trees by the end of the decade.
The politics of climate change are complicated in Africa, which has contributed far less to overall greenhouse gas emissions than richer corners of the world such as the United States. According to the International Energy Agency, 43% of Africans didn't have access to electricity in 2021, and recent outages have sparked frustration.
In Ghana, Harris was questioned at a news conference about how the West can demand that Africa go green and forgo using its natural resources. She also was pressed on whether wealthy nations would supply $100 billion annually to help poor countries cope with climate change, a commitment made under the Paris climate accord.
Harris said it is “critically important that, as global leaders, we all speak truth about the disparities that exist in terms of cause and effect and that we address those disparities.” She said there were opportunities in the “clean energy economy” that could help generate growth in Africa.
As for the money, President Joe Biden has requested $11 billion in his proposed budget to meet its international commitments.
“We are waiting for Congress to do its work,” Harris said.
Rare shipment from Pakistan reaches Israel
An American Jewish organization celebrated the “first shipment” of food supplies from Pakistan that arrived in Israel.
The trade last week included Pakistani-Jewish businessman Fishel BenKhald and three Israeli businesses, according to a statement issued by the American Jewish Congress from its New York offices, reports Voice of America.
BenKhald resides in Karachi, where he manages a Jewish kosher certification business for food makers selling to international markets. Last Tuesday, he announced the unusual trade on Twitter, the VOA report said.
The trader shared a video of his products, which included dates, dried fruit, and spices, on display in a Jerusalem market. The video has subsequently received over 640,000 views.
Read More: India-Bangladesh trade using rupee instead of US dollar could start soon
"I was not expecting it to be taken that big of a deal," BenKhald said in written comments to VOA, adding that this was not the first export of Pakistani products to Israel.
"The Israeli government and buyers have no problem accepting the direct shipment from Pakistan,” he said, adding that Israel does not have a problem sending payments to Pakistani banks, said the report.
BenKhald's attempt was largely lauded by Pakistani Twitter users, who included journalists, politicians, and businesses, some of whom sought his assistance on how to market their products to Israel. He tried to respond to every communication, it added.
Pakistani officials did not immediately comment on the unusual exchange.
Read More: Trade and investment opportunities opening up between Bangladesh, Brazil
Islamabad has no diplomatic relations with Israel and refuses to recognize it as a sovereign state until the state of Palestine is created, a position shared by many Muslim-majority nations.
Nevertheless, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain established ties with Israel in 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords, which were brokered by the United States. Sudan and Morocco followed suit.
"Trade exhibits hosted by the UAE helped Pakistani and Israeli businessmen conclude a deal that enabled this week's Pakistani shipment to Israel," the American Jewish Congress noted. "We welcome this small step that can have wider implications for Israeli and Pakistani economies and for the region at large."
Pakistan is a recognized nuclear power, while Israel is commonly believed to possess nuclear weapons. Since their foreign ministers met publicly in 2005, the two nations have had secret discussions on security matters. Pakistani Islamist organizations and right-wing parties are adamantly opposed to establishing formal relations with Israel over the Palestinian issue, the report also said.
Read More: Traders fined in Faridpur for selling meat in violation of price list
Pakistani people are barred from visiting Israel since their passport plainly states that they are valid for all nations except Israel.
UN General Assembly adopts historic resolution to advance climate justice
The UN General Assembly has adopted a consensus resolution requesting the International Court of Justice to provide advisory opinion on the obligations of States in respect of climate change.
The resolution, tabled by a core group of countries including Bangladesh, is a landmark achievement for countries advocating for climate justice and equity.
Introduced by the Prime Minister of Vanuatu, the resolution requests the ICJ to provide its opinion based on existing international law including international human rights law and the recognized principles, the legal obligations of the States to ensure the protection of climate system and the rights of the present and future generations to be protected from the effects of climate change.
The ICJ is also requested to advise on the legal consequences of the acts or omissions that have caused significant harm to the climate system with respect to the States that are, due to their geographical circumstances and level of development, are injured or specially affected by or are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.
Foreign Secretary Ambassador Masud Bin Momen represented the Bangladesh delegation to the session.
In his statement Foreign Secretary Momen stated that, “despite clear warnings on the devastating and irreversible threats of climate change, global response to climate change is nowhere close to what is needed for the survival of humanity.
This resolution and the subsequent advisory opinion will provide better understanding of the legal obligations of States in respect of climate change and rights of affected States and the people to be protected from climate change.”
Noting that the Court’s advisory opinions have tremendous importance, the Secretary General in his remarks stated that such an opinion, if and when given, would assist the General Assembly, the UN and Member States, to take the bolder and stronger climate action that our world so desperately needs.
The resolution has received overwhelming support from the member States as well as international civil society organizations, including climate activists and the youth.
The core group, founded by Vanuatu, led an intense campaign throughout the process which included multiple negotiations with the broader UN membership in an open and transparent manner.
Bangladesh, as a member of the core group, remained actively engaged in the drafting and negotiations process as well as in the outreach efforts.
“This is a defining moment for climate justice. We are thankful to the member States for their interest and engagement throughout the process, which testifies their deep commitment towards addressing the climate crisis”, said the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh Ambassador Muhith, who played an instrumental role in securing support from a number of key member States.
Later in the evening the Foreign Secretary participated in a reception organized by Vanuatu to celebrate the adoption of the resolution.
38 dead in Mexico fire after guards didn't let migrants out
When smoke began billowing out of a migrant detention center in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, Venezuelan migrant Viangly Infante Padrón was terrified because she knew her husband was still inside.
The father of her three children had been picked up by immigration agents earlier in the day, part of a recent crackdown that netted 67 other migrants, many of whom were asking for handouts or washing car windows at stoplights in this city across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.
In moments of shock and horror, Infante Padrón recounted how she saw immigration agents rush out of the building after fire started late Monday. Later came the migrants’ bodies carried out on stretchers, wrapped in foil blankets. The toll: 38 dead in all and 28 seriously injured, victims of a blaze apparently set in protest by the detainees themselves.
“I was desperate because I saw a dead body, a body, a body, and I didn’t see him anywhere,” Infante Padrón said of her husband, Eduard Caraballo López, who in the end survived with only light injuries, perhaps because he was scheduled for release and was near a door.
But what she saw in those first minutes has become the center of a question much of Mexico is asking itself: Why didn't authorities attempt to release the men — almost all from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador — before smoke filled the room and killed so many?
“There was smoke everywhere. The ones they let out were the women, and those (employees) with immigration,” Infante Padrón said. “The men, they never took them out until the firefighters arrived.”
“They alone had the key,” Infante Padrón said. “The responsibility was theirs to open the bar doors and save those lives, regardless of whether there were detainees, regardless of whether they would run away, regardless of everything that happened. They had to save those lives.”
Immigration authorities said they released 15 women when the fire broke out, but have not explained why no men were let out.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday that both immigration agents and security guards from a private contractor were present at the facility. He said any misconduct would be punished.
Pope Francis on Wednesday offered prayers at the end of his general audience for the victims who died in the “tragic fire.”
Surveillance video leaked Tuesday shows migrants, reportedly fearing they were about to be moved, placing foam mattresses against the bars of their detention cell and setting them on fire.
In the video, later confirmed by the government, two people dressed as guards rush into the camera frame, and at least one migrant appears by the metal gate on the other side. But the guards don't appear to make any effort to open the cell doors and instead hurry away as billowing clouds of smoke fill the structure within seconds.
“What humanity do we have in our lives? What humanity have we built? Death, death, death,” thundered Bishop Mons. José Guadalupe Torres Campos at a Mass in memory of the migrants.
Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, which ran the facility, said it was cooperating in the investigation. Guatemala has already said that many of the victims were its citizens, but full identification of the dead and injured remains incomplete.
U.S. authorities have offered to help treat some of the 28 victims in critical or serious condition, most apparently from smoke inhalation.
Advocacy groups blamed the tragedy on a long series of decisions made by leaders in places like Venezuela and Central America, and by immigration policymakers in Mexico and the United States, as well of residents in Ciudad Juarez complaining about the number of migrants asking for handouts on street corners.
“Mexico’s immigration policy kills," more than 30 migrant shelters and other advocacy organizations said in statement Tuesday.
Those same advocacy organizations published an open letter March 9 that complained of a criminalization of migrants and asylum-seekers in Ciudad Juarez. It accused authorities of abusing migrants and using excessive force in rounding them up, including complaints that municipal police questioned people in the street about their immigration status without cause.
The Mexican president had said Tuesday that the fire was started by migrants in protest after learning they would be deported or moved. “They never imagined that this would cause this terrible misfortune,” López Obrador said.
Immigration activist Irineo Mujica said the migrants feared being sent back, not necessarily to their home countries, but to southern Mexico, where they would have to cross the country all over again.
“When people reach the north, it’s like a ping-pong game — they send them back down south,” Mujica said.
“We had said that with the number of people they were sending, the sheer number of people was creating a ticking time bomb," Mujica said. "Today that time bomb exploded.”
The migrants were stuck in Ciudad Jaurez because U.S. immigration policies don’t allow them to cross the border to file asylum claims. But they were rounded up because Ciudad Juarez residents were tired of migrants blocking border crossings or asking for money.
The high level of frustration in Ciudad Juarez was evident earlier this month when hundreds of mostly Venezuelan migrants tried to force their way across one of the international bridges to El Paso, acting on false rumors that the United States would allow them to enter the country. U.S. authorities blocked their attempts.
After that, Ciudad Juarez Mayor Cruz Pérez Cuellar started campaigning to inform migrants there was room in shelters and no need to beg in the streets. He urged residents not to give money to them, and said authorities removed migrants intersections where it was dangerous to beg and residents saw the activity as a nuisance.
For the migrants, the fire is another tragedy on a long trail of tears.
About 100 migrants gathered Tuesday outside the immigration facility’s doors to demand information about relatives. In many cases, they asked the same question Mexico is asking itself.
Katiuska Márquez, a 23-year-old Venezuelan woman with her two children, ages 2 and 4, was seeking her half-brother, Orlando Maldonado, who had been traveling with her.
“We want to know if he is alive or if he’s dead,” she said. She wondered how all the guards who were inside made it out alive and only the migrants died. “How could they not get them out?”
Some in dry Somalia break Ramadan fast with little but water
This year’s holy month of Ramadan coincides with the longest drought on record in Somalia. As the sun sets and Muslims around the world gather to break their daily fasts with generous dinners, Hadiiq Abdulle Mohamed and her family have just water and whatever food might be at hand.
Mohamed is among more than 1 million Somalis who have fled their homes in search of help while an estimated 43,000 people died last year alone. She and her husband and their six children now take refuge in one of the growing displacement camps around the capital, Mogadishu.
Ramadan brought an increase in food prices for a country already struggling with inflation caused in part by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the withering of local crops by five consecutive failed rainy seasons. Millions of livestock that are central to people’s diets have died.
Now food is even harder to come by for those displaced. For Ramadan, Mohamed and her family rely on well-wishers to provide their single meal a day. First, they break their fast with water and pieces of dates, then spoons of rice. Finally, they eat the donated meal of rice cooked with mixed meat, bruised banana and a small plastic bag of juice, which Mohamed waits in line for hours under the searing sun to obtain.
“I recall the Ramadan fast we had in the past when we were enjoying and prospering,” she said. “We would milk our goats, cook the ugali (maize porridge) and collard greens and drink water from our catchment. However, this year we are living in a camp, without plastic to cover us from rain, without food to eat, thirsty and experiencing drought. We have this small hot meal, but do you think that this can feed a family of six children, plus a mother and father? That is not possible.” The family once was prosperous and owned farmland and goats in a village about 140 kilometers (87 miles) west of the capital. Now they try to get by on the little money her husband makes by carrying goods in a wheelbarrow. But food prices have soared so much that his income is no longer enough to buy a 1 kilogram (2.2 pound) bag of rice.
The inflation in Somalia pinches the more well-off, too. The typical Ramadan fast-breaking meal includes samosas and other snacks; juice and tea and coffee; the main dish of rice or spaghetti or flatbread with camel, goat, chicken or fish; and finally, dessert.
The Horn of Africa country imports the majority of its food, from Ukraine-grown wheat to the bottles of Mountain Dew stocked in some gleaming Mogadishu shops. Meanwhile, prices of basics like rice and cooking oil continue to rise in parts of the country.
This month, World Food Program monitoring reported that supply chain resilience was generally good in Somalia, but the spike in demand for Ramadan would be “a disadvantage to vulnerable households who depend on local markets.”
“We are really experiencing a soaring price of food and another basic commodities,” said Ahmed Khadar Abdi Jama, a lecturer in economics at Somalia University. “Whenever there is an external factor that can reduce the supply of food, such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it is more likely that Somalis will feel a low supply.”
For example, a kilogram of camel meat that cost about $4 before the holy month now costs about $6. But this inflation will subside after the month is over, Khadar said.
Ramadan is a month of alms and forgiveness throughout the Muslim world. With the growing number of Somalis displaced by the drought, the imams of the mosques in Mogadishu are leading efforts to encourage the city’s wealthy and others who can afford it to sympathize with the poor and give generously.
“Some people need food to afford to break their fast," said one imam, Sheikh Abdikarim Isse Ali. "Please help them.”
Deadly fire highlights immigration pressures on Mexico
The fire that killed 38 people at an immigration detention center in Mexico happened as Western hemisphere countries face pressure to address the extraordinary number of people fleeing their homes.
Mexico has expanded its network of dozens of detention centers while working closely with the United States to limit movement of asylum-seekers through its territory to the U.S. border, including to Ciudad Juarez, where authorities said migrants set mattresses on fire late Monday in a detention center after learning they would be deported.
Here are some questions and answers about the conditions and policies that led to one of Mexico's deadliest events at an immigration detention center.
WHY WERE THESE MIGRANTS DETAINED?
Specifics have yet to be released, but Mexico has emerged as the world’s third most popular destination for asylum-seekers, after the United States and Germany. It is still largely a transit country, though, for those on the way to the U.S.
Asylum-seekers must stay in the state where they apply in Mexico, resulting in large numbers being holed up without work in Tapachula, near the country’s southern border with Guatemala.
Tens of thousands are also assembled in border cities, including Ciudad Juarez, often arriving illegally after harrowing journeys or paying someone off. A sprawling network of lawyers, fixers and middlemen has sprung up to provide documents and counsel to migrants who can afford to speed up the system.
More than 2,200 people are believed to be at Ciudad Juarez migrant shelters, and more are living elsewhere in the city after arriving from Guatemala, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and El Salvador, according to a report issued last month by the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin.
Mexico carried out more than 106,000 deportations last year, with about 8 out of every 10 sent to Guatemala or Honduras.
HOW ARE U.S. POLICIES AT WORK?
The Trump and Biden administrations have relied increasingly and heavily on Mexico to curb a flow of migrants that has made the United States the world's most popular destination for asylum-seekers since 2017, according to U.N. figures.
Guatemalans were the largest group among those killed or injured in Monday's blaze, according to Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office. Others were from Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.
Guatemalans have been disproportionately affected by a U.S. policy in effect since March 2020 to return people who enter the U.S. illegally to Mexico. The practice suspended their rights to seek asylum on grounds of preventing COVID-19.
Mexico takes back Guatemalans and some other nationalities, while people from other countries are often released in the U.S. to pursue their cases in immigration court. That's due to the costs and diplomatic challenges of sending them home.
On May 11, the Biden administration plans to end the pandemic-era rule, known as Title 42, and replace it with a sweeping new policy that largely bans asylum for anyone who travels through Mexico without first seeking protection there.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security received more than 11,000 comments on the new policy before a Monday deadline for public feedback. The U.N. refugee agency said “key elements of the proposal are incompatible with principles of international refugee law.”
The American Federation of Government Employees, the main union representing asylum officers, opposes the change.
The proposal is subject to revisions based on public comment and will almost certainly be challenged in court.
Amid the uncertainty and rapid change, frustration is running high among many migrants about a glitch-plagued app called CBPOne, which was expanded in January to grant some exemptions to the asylum restrictions. The U.S. has been admitting about 740 migrants daily at land crossings through CBPOne.
About 80 migrants are being admitted daily from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso using CBPOne, according to the Strauss Center.
WHY CIUDAD JUAREZ?
The Biden administration has been under intense pressure after the tally of illegal border crossings reached its highest levels ever recorded last year. Traffic has slowed sharply since January, when the administration extended humanitarian parole to Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who enter through an airport with a financial sponsor.
At the same time, Mexico agreed to start taking back people from those four countries who crossed the border illegally. Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said at a Senate hearing Tuesday that the policy on those four countries has been “tremendously successful.”
Toward the end of last year, El Paso became the busiest of the Border Patrol's nine sectors along the Mexican border, causing many migrants to sleep outside or in overcrowded shelters upon their release and prompting Joe Biden's first visit to the border as president.
El Paso, with its expansive network of shelters in Ciudad Juarez, remained the busiest corridor for illegal crossings in February, when migrants were stopped more than 32,000 times. Nearly half of those incidents involved people from Mexico.
38 dead in Mexico fire after guards didn't let migrants out
When smoke began billowing out of a migrant detention center in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, Venezuelan migrant Viangly Infante Padrón was terrified because she knew her husband was still inside.
The father of her three children had been picked up by immigration agents earlier in the day, part of a recent crackdown that netted 67 other migrants, many of whom were asking for handouts or washing car windows at stoplights in this city across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.
In moments of shock and horror, Infante Padrón recounted how she saw immigration agents rush out of the building after fire started late Monday. Later came the migrants’ bodies carried out on stretchers, wrapped in foil blankets. The toll: 38 dead in all and 28 seriously injured, victims of a blaze apparently set in protest by the detainees themselves.
“I was desperate because I saw a dead body, a body, a body, and I didn’t see him anywhere,” Infante Padrón said of her husband, Eduard Caraballo López, who in the end survived with only light injuries, perhaps because he was scheduled for release and was near a door.
But what she saw in those first minutes has become the center of a question much of Mexico is asking itself: Why didn't authorities attempt to release the men — almost all from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador — before smoke filled the room and killed so many?
“There was smoke everywhere. The ones they let out were the women, and those (employees) with immigration,” Infante Padrón said. “The men, they never took them out until the firefighters arrived.”
“They alone had the key,” Infante Padrón said. “The responsibility was theirs to open the bar doors and save those lives, regardless of whether there were detainees, regardless of whether they would run away, regardless of everything that happened. They had to save those lives.”
Immigration authorities said they released 15 women when the fire broke out, but have not explained why no men were released.
Surveillance video leaked Tuesday shows migrants, reportedly fearing they were about to be moved, placing foam mattresses against the bars of their detention cell and setting them on fire.
In the video, later confirmed by the government, two people dressed as guards rush into the camera frame, and at least one migrant appears by the metal gate on the other side. But the guards don't appear to make any effort to open the cell doors and instead hurry away as billowing clouds of smoke fill the structure within seconds.
“What humanity do we have in our lives? What humanity have we built? Death, death, death,” thundered Bishop Mons. José Guadalupe Torres Campos at a Mass in memory of the migrants.
Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, which ran the facility, said it was cooperating in the investigation. Guatemala has already said that many of the victims were its citizens, but full identification of the dead and injured remains incomplete.
U.S. authorities have offered to help treat some of the 28 victims in critical or serious condition, most apparently from smoke inhalation.
For many, it the tragedy was the foreseeable result of a long series of decisions made by leaders in places like Venezuela and Central America, by immigration policymakers in Mexico and the United States, right down to residents in Ciudad Juarez complaining about the number of migrants asking for handouts at street corners.
“You could see it coming,” more than 30 migrant shelters and other advocacy organizations said in statement Tuesday. “Mexico’s immigration policy kills.”
Those same advocacy organizations published an open letter March 9 that complained of a criminalization of migrants and asylum seekers in Ciudad Juarez. It accused authorities of abusing migrants and using excessive force in rounding them up, including complaints that municipal police questioned people in the street about their immigration status without cause.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador offered sympathy Tuesday, but held out little hope of change.
He said the fire was started by migrants in protest after learning they would be deported or moved.
“They never imagined that this would cause this terrible misfortune,” López Obrador said.
Immigration activist Irineo Mujica said the migrants feared being sent back, not necessarily to their home countries, but to southern Mexico, where they would have to cross the country all over again.
“When people reach the north, it’s like a ping-pong game — they send them back down south,” Mujica said.
“We had said that with the number of people they were sending, the sheer number of people was creating a ticking time bomb," Mujica said. "Today that time bomb exploded.”
The migrants were stuck in Ciudad Jaurez because U.S. immigration policies don’t allow them to cross the border to file asylum claims. But they were rounded up because Ciudad Juarez residents were tired of migrants blocking border crossings or asking for money.
The high level of frustration in Ciudad Juarez was evident earlier this month when hundreds of mostly Venezuelan migrants tried to force their way across one of the international bridges to El Paso, acting on false rumors that the United States would allow them to enter the country. U.S. authorities blocked their attempts.
After that, Ciudad Juarez Mayor Cruz Pérez Cuellar started campaigning to inform migrants there was room in shelters and no need to beg in the streets. He urged residents not to give money to them and said authorities would remove them from intersections where it was dangerous to beg and residents saw it as a nuisance.
For the migrants, the fire is another tragedy on a long trail of tears.
About 100 migrants gathered Tuesday outside the immigration facility’s doors to demand information about relatives. In many cases, they asked the same question Mexico is asking itself.
Katiuska Márquez, a 23-year-old Venezuelan woman with her two children, ages 2 and 4, was seeking her half-brother, Orlando Maldonado, who had been traveling with her.
“We want to know if he is alive or if he’s dead,” she said. She wondered how all the guards who were inside made it out alive and only the migrants died. “How could they not get them out?”
Police: Nashville shooter fired indiscriminately at victims
The shooter who killed three students and three staff members at a Christian school in Nashville legally bought seven weapons in recent years and hid the guns from their parents before carrying out the attack by firing indiscriminately at victims and spraying gunfire through doors and windows, police said Tuesday.
The violence Monday at The Covenant School was the latest school shooting to roil the nation and was planned carefully. The shooter had drawn a detailed map of the school, including potential entry points, and conducted surveillance of the building before carrying out the massacre, authorities said.
The suspect, Audrey Hale, 28, was a former student at the school. Hale did not target specific victims — among them three 9-year-olds and the head of the school — but did target “this school, this church building,” police spokesperson Don Aaron said at a news conference Tuesday.
Hale was under a doctor's care for an undisclosed emotional disorder and was not known to police before the attack, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at the news conference.
Also read: Nashville shooter was ex-student with detailed plan to kill
If police had been told that Hale was suicidal or homicidal, “then we would have tried to get those weapons," Drake said. “But as it stands, we had absolutely no idea who this person was or if (Hale) even existed."
Tennessee does not currently have a “red flag” law, which lets police step in and take firearms away from people who threaten to kill.
On Tuesday night, Tennessee's governor said one of the victims, 61-year-old substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, was a close friend of his wife, Maria, and that the two had been scheduled to have dinner after Peak taught that day.
“Maria woke up this morning without one of her best friends,” Gov. Bill Lee said, adding that his wife once taught with Peak and another victim, Katherine Koonce, and the women and “have been family friends for decades.”
Hale legally bought seven firearms from five local gun stores, Drake said. Three of them were used in Monday’s shooting. Police spokesperson Brooke Reese said Hale bought the guns between October 2020 and June 2022.
Hale's parents believed their child had sold one gun and did not own any others, Drake said, adding that Hale “had been hiding several weapons within the house.”
Hale's motive is unknown, Drake said. In an interview with NBC News on Monday, Drake said investigators don't know what drove Hale but believe the shooter had “some resentment for having to go to that school.”
Drake, at Tuesday's news conference, described “several different writings by Hale” that mention other locations and The Covenant School.
Asked at a Senate hearing whether the Justice Department would open an investigation into whether the shooting was a hate crime targeting Christians, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said federal officials were working with local police to identify a motive.
Police have released videos of the shooting, including edited surveillance footage that shows the shooter's car driving up to the school, glass doors being shot out and the shooter ducking through one of them.
Additional video, from Officer Rex Engelbert's bodycam, shows a woman meeting police outside as they arrive and telling them that all the children were locked down, “but we have two kids that we don't know where they are.”
The woman then directs officers to Fellowship Hall and says people inside had just heard gunshots. Three officers, including Engelbert, search rooms one by one, holding rifles and announcing themselves as police.
The video shows officers climbing stairs to the second floor and entering a lobby area, followed by a barrage of gunfire and an officer yelling twice: “Get your hands away from the gun." Then the shooter is shown motionless on the floor.
Police identified Engelbert, a four-year member of the force, and Michael Collazo, a nine-year member, as the officers who fatally shot Hale. The White House said President Joe Biden spoke Tuesday with Drake, Engelbert and Callazo to thank them for their bravery.
Police response times to school shootings have come under greater scrutiny after the attack in Uvalde, Texas, in which 70 minutes passed before law enforcement stormed the classroom. In Nashville, police said about eight minutes passed from the initial call to when officers arrived at the scene.
Surveillance video shows a time stamp of just before 10:11 a.m., when the attacker shot out the doors. Police said they got the call about a shooter at 10:13. Aaron said in an email Tuesday that dispatch records show officers arrived on campus shortly before 10:22.
At about 10:24, officers engaged the suspect, the chief said during the news conference. Within two minutes of that, the suspect was down, according to the dispatch records.
“There were police cars that had been hit by gunfire. As officers were approaching the building, there was gunfire going off,” Drake said.
“We feel, our response right now, from what I’ve seen, I don’t have a particular problem with it. But we always want to get better. We always want to get there in two or three minutes,” he said, adding that traffic was “locked down” at the time.
Traffic was indeed stopped along a nearby two-lane road with a turning lane as police tried to weave their way to the school.
Police have given unclear information on Hale's gender. For hours Monday, police identified the shooter as a woman. Later in the day, the police chief said Hale was transgender. After the news conference, Aaron declined to elaborate on how Hale identified.
In an email Tuesday, police spokesperson Kristin Mumford said Hale “was assigned female at birth. Hale did use male pronouns on a social media profile.” Later Tuesday, at the news conference, Drake referred to Hale with female pronouns.
Authorities identified the dead children as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. The adults were Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61.
The website of The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school founded in 2001, lists a Katherine Koonce as the head of the school. Her LinkedIn profile says she has led the school since July 2016. Peak was a substitute teacher, and Hill was a custodian, according to investigators.
Koonce was remembered as someone who would run toward danger, not away from it.
“I guarantee you if there were kids missing (during the shooting), Katherine was looking for them,” friend Jackie Bailey said. “And that’s probably how she got in the way — just trying to do something for somebody else. She would give up her own life in order to save somebody else’s.”
Founded as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church, the school is in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood just south of downtown Nashville. It has about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade and roughly 50 staff members.
Before Monday’s violence in Nashville, there had been seven mass killings at K-12 schools since 2006 in which four or more people were killed within a 24-hour period, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. In all of them, the shooters were males.
The database does not include school shootings in which fewer than four people were killed, which have become far more common in recent years. Last week alone, for example, school shootings happened in Denver and the Dallas area within two days of each other.
Nashville shooter was ex-student with detailed plan to kill
The former student who shot through the doors of a Christian elementary school in Nashville and killed three children and three adults had drawn a detailed map of the school, including potential entry points, and conducted surveillance of the building before carrying out the massacre.
Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake did not say exactly what drove the shooter to open fire Monday morning at The Covenant School before being killed by police. But he provided chilling examples of the shooter’s elaborate planning for the targeted attack, the latest in a series of mass shootings in a country that has grown increasingly unnerved by bloodshed in schools.
“We have a manifesto, we have some writings that we’re going over that pertain to this date, the actual incident,” he told reporters. “We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place.”
He said in an interview with NBC News that investigators believe the shooter had “some resentment for having to go to that school.”
The victims included three 9-year-old children, the school’s top administrator, a substitute teacher and a custodian. Amid the chaos a familiar ritual played out: Panicked parents rushed to the school to see if their children were safe and tearfully hugged their kids, and a stunned community held vigils for the victims.
Rachel Dibble, who was at a nearby church where children were taken to be reunited with their parents, described the scene as everyone being in “complete shock.”
“People were involuntarily trembling,” she said. “The children … started their morning in their cute little uniforms, they probably had some Froot Loops and now their whole lives changed today.”
Police gave unclear information on the gender of the shooter. For hours, police identified the shooter as a 28-year-old woman and eventually identified the person as Audrey Elizabeth Hale. Then at a late afternoon press conference, the police chief said that Hale was transgender. After the news conference, police spokesperson Don Aaron declined to elaborate on how Hale currently identified.
Authorities said Hale was armed with two “assault-style” weapons as well as a handgun. At least two of them were believed to have been obtained legally in the Nashville area, according to the chief. Police said a search of Hale’s home turned up a sawed-off shotgun, a second shotgun and other unspecified evidence.
The victims were identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all 9 years old, and adults Cynthia Peak, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; and Mike Hill, 61.
The website of The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school founded in 2001, lists a Katherine Koonce as the head of the school. Her LinkedIn profile says she has led the school since July 2016. Peak was a substitute teacher and Hill was a custodian, according to investigators.
Founded as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church, The Covenant School is located in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood just south of downtown Nashville that is home to the famed Bluebird Café – a spot typically beloved by musicians and songwriters.
The school has about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade, as well as roughly 50 staff members.
“Our community is heartbroken,” a statement from the school said. “We are grieving tremendous loss and are in shock coming out of the terror that shattered our school and church. We are focused on loving our students, our families, our faculty and staff and beginning the process of healing.”
Before Monday’s violence in Nashville, there had been seven mass killings at K-12 schools since 2006 in which four or more people were killed within a 24-hour period, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. In all of them, the shooters were males.
The database does not include school shootings in which fewer than four people were killed, which have become far more common in recent years. Just last week alone, for example, school shootings happened in Denver and the Dallas-area within two days of each other.
Monday’s tragedy unfolded over roughly 14 minutes. Police received the initial call about an active shooter at 10:13 a.m.
Officers began clearing the first story of the school when they heard gunshots coming from the second level, Aaron said. Police later said the shooter fired at arriving officers from a second-story window and had come armed with significant ammunition.
Two officers from a five-member team opened fire in response, killing the suspect at 10:27 a.m., Aaron said.
Late Monday night, police released approximately two minutes of edited surveillance video showing the shooter’s car driving up to the school from multiple angles, including one in which children can be seen playing on swings in the background. Next an interior view shows glass doors to the school being shot out and the shooter ducking through one of the shattered doors.
More footage from inside shows the shooter walking through a school corridor holding a gun with a long barrel and walking into a room labeled “church office,” then coming back out. In the final part of the footage, the shooter can be seen walking down another long corridor with the gun drawn. The shooter is not seen interacting with anyone else on the video, which has no sound.
Aaron said there were no police officers present or assigned to the school at the time of the shooting because it is a church-run school.
President Joe Biden, speaking at the White House on Monday, called the shooting a “family’s worst nightmare” and implored Congress again to pass a ban on certain semi-automatic weapons.
A reeling city mourned during multiple vigils Monday evening. At Belmont United Methodist Church, teary sniffling filled the background as vigil attendees sang, knelt in prayer and lit candles. They lamented the national cycle of violent and deadly shootings.
“We need to step back. We need to breathe. We need to grieve,” said Paul Purdue, the church’s senior pastor. “We need to remember. We need to make space for others who are grieving. We need to hear the cries of our neighbors.”