Mayesha Alam

Este archivo solo abarca los artículos del autor incorporados a este sitio a partir del 1 de diciembre de 2006. Para fechas anteriores realice una búsqueda entrecomillando su nombre.

Demonstrators clash with riot police in the Suba neighborhood in Bogota, Colombia, on June 29. (Raul Arboleda/AFP/Getty Images)

The covid-19 pandemic has devastated lives and livelihoods globally since it began 16 months ago. More than 4 million people have died, and the virus has stretched health-care systems in high- and low-income countries to the brink. The number of people living in extreme poverty is rising for the first time in two decades.

While equitable vaccine distribution worldwide will be crucial to containing the virus, the international community faces another big challenge: responding to the pandemic’s effect on conflict and instability. Research that tallies incidents of violence around the world gives some clues, but leaves an incomplete picture of the complex ways the pandemic is shaping conflict.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Rohingya child at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh on Jan. 25. (Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images)

As of February 2018, the United Nations estimates that almost 1 million Rohingya refugees have fled Burma’s violent campaign of ethnic cleansing. Almost universally, they’ve moved into refugee settlements in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

That is straining Bangladesh, which has absorbed a remarkable number of people in just six months, leading to desperately cramped conditions in the camps. Bangladesh is small, low-lying, under-resourced and overcrowded. And its leaders and citizens are growing impatient with the fallout of Burma’s purge of the Rohingya. Here are five ways this massive number of refugees is straining their host nation.

Political impact

When the military of Burma, also called Myanmar, launched its mass violence campaign in late August 2017, Bangladesh was initially reluctant to open its border to Rohingya refugees.…  Seguir leyendo »

Members of Burma’s Rohingya ethnic minority walk through rice fields after crossing the border into Bangladesh near the Teknaf area of Cox’s Bazar on Sept. 5. (Bernat Armangue/AP)

A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding along the Bangladesh-Burma border. More than 370,000 Rohingya have fled a violent military crackdown in Burma, also known as Myanmar, and are crowded in desperate conditions in Chittagong, Bangladesh. This political and humanitarian emergency is acute, volatile and could breed instability in Bangladesh and beyond.

Here are five points essential to understanding the complex and multidimensional crisis.

1. Civilians are paying the price for a small, armed insurgency

For decades, Burma has systematically persecuted the Rohingya, an ethnic and religious minority living in the state of Rakhine; at times, that persecution has included violence. But the current scale of attacks is unprecedented.…  Seguir leyendo »