S. Sudanese children flee country alone
Compiled from news services
The world’s newest nation has been mired in civil war since December 2013. The conflict began as a political one between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, a member of the Dinka tribe, and his former Vice President Riek Machar, who is a Nuer. Violence between government forces and rebels has spread throughout the country and stoked ethnic divisions. Tens of thousands of people have been killed. More than 3 million have been displaced and famine is threatening the food security of millions more.
South Sudan’s children are bearing the cost. Many who have escaped to refugee camps in Uganda have lost mothers, fathers or siblings. A growing number of child refugees are arriving alone, aid workers say.
Uganda currently hosts more than 900,000 South Sudanese refugees. About 190,000 have arrived so in 2017, with an average of 2,000 refugees coming every day.
More than 62 percent of the new arrivals are children, U.N. officials report. And in a worrying trend, aid workers say a growing number of these kids are coming alone.
More than 1 million children have fled South Sudan because of the conflict. Another 17,000 youngsters are believed to have been recruited as child soldiers.
Deadly raid in Bahrain
A raid by forces in Bahrain against a pro-opposition stronghold has left at least five people dead and hundreds detained in one of the deadliest crackdowns since protests erupted in 2011 against the Persian Gulf nation’s Western-backed monarchy.
Bahrain's Interior Ministry said they had carried out the raid on Tuesday in the village of Duraz and officers had come under attack including from assailants wielding explosives, the state news agency said.
In addition death toll in Tuesday’s raid, the timing was striking: Two days after President Donald Trump publicly assured the king of Bahrain that their relationship would be free of the kind of “strain” that had occurred in the past — an apparent reference to periodic chiding of Bahrain by the Obama administration for human rights violations.
Venezuela death toll
The death toll from nearly eight weeks of Venezuelan street protests rose to 56 on Wednesday after three opponents of President Nicolas Maduro were reported killed by gunfire in Barinas state, the birthplace of the late President Hugo Chavez.
Violent clashes between demonstrators and police and national guardsmen trying to contain the protests have been reported across the country, with more than 1,000 reported injured and 2,700 arrested.
Demonstrators have taken to the streets to protest a series of actions taken by Mr. Maduro that, in their view, cripple the country’s democratic institutions. They include his plan to convene a new constitutional assembly this summer that in effect would cancel out the National Assembly elected in 2015 that is composed of two-thirds opposition legislators.
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