Displaced civilians turn reluctant opium farmers in Myanmar
Opium production is booming in Myanmar as displaced civilians reluctantly become poppy farmers to survive the country's civil war.
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Al Jazeera
11 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Why are people in Sudan's el-Fasher starving?
Sudan's 27-month civil war is being compounded by a hunger crisis affecting the vulnerable, especially the people trapped in North Darfur's capital, el-Fasher. Despite numerous pleas for help from the people within, aid agencies say they have been denied access to el-Fasher. As a result, some 740,000 people are deteriorating from hunger, according to the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies. In December 2024, global hunger monitor the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, declared a famine in Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps – two camps housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people in North Darfur – and warned that it could spread to el-Fasher by May. So, how did things get so bad in el-Fasher? Here's what you need to know: In April 2024, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) imposed a siege on el-Fasher, angered when local armed groups declared allegiance to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). The RSF, which has been fighting SAF since April 2023, locked down all the ways in and out of the city, tightening its siege in the last months as it gradually closed in. Local journalists, the United Nations and relief groups say the price of food is surging, leaving most people unable to afford staples such as sorghum and wheat. The UN says food costs about four times more in el-Fasher than the rest of the country, while local journalist Mohamed Zakaria told Al Jazeera the markets are often bare. In addition, he said, communal kitchens, which played a pivotal role in feeding civilians across the country, have shut down due to food shortages brought on by the siege. People originally from el-Fasher and generations of displaced people who sought refuge in North Darfur over the last 20 years are trapped in the capital. Some first came to the city to escape the government-backed nomadic 'Arab' Janjaweed militias during the first Darfur war in 2003. Many of these armed groups are now fighting as part of the RSF. Others fled to North Darfur to escape the RSF as it swept through the other four states of the sprawling region: South, East, West and Central Darfur. Most recently, in April, families fled to el-Fasher after the RSF invaded the nearby Zamzam camp, which sheltered more than half a million people. In March, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that about half of the people trapped in and around el-Fasher were children. There is a hunger crisis across Sudan, mainly caused by the continuing civil war and the use of starvation as a weapon of war, according to Al Jazeera's previous reporting. In el-Fasher, the catastrophic hunger is due to the RSF's siege as it tries to capture the city, which would give it control over the entire strategic region of Darfur. If it succeeds, Sudan could potentially be partitioned, with RSF rule over the western and southern regions while the SAF controls the centre, north and east. The SAF has mostly relied on sedentary 'non Arab' armed groups, which it fought during the first Darfur war, to repel repeated RSF attacks since the siege began. These armed groups are collectively known as the 'Joint Forces', and despite holding el-Fasher so far, they are losing ground. The SAF has flown some aerial bombardment missions over the el-Fasher region, but no campaign has been launched to liberate the city. At this point, many have turned to animal fodder. They are eating fodder known locally as ambaz, which is made from the residue of pressed oilseeds like peanuts, sesame and sunflower seeds. People are now grinding these pellets up to make a slurry that can keep them alive. Zakaria added that people are trying to grow some food in their huts to survive, but it's not enough to sustain them. Children are the most vulnerable to starvation. Over the last 15 months, many people have managed to escape. Ignoring calls to allow aid agencies to reach civilians, the RSF instead opened a 'humanitarian corridor' to Tawila, a town some 40km (24.8 miles) away. Thousands of people have gone to Tawila, where a major cholera outbreak is threatening the lives of already malnourished children. However, some aid agencies have been able to help people there. Despite the health crisis, those who made it to Tawila consider themselves lucky compared with those who were captured and killed by the RSF when they tried to escape el-Fasher. Young men are often accused of fighting for army-aligned armed groups, which happened on August 2, when the RSF killed 14 people and injured many others in a village along the route out of el-Fasher, according to the Emergency Lawyers, a local monitor. Daily, it seems. In the first six months of this year, 239 children in el-Fasher died of hunger, according to the Sudanese Doctors' Network. That number could mushroom if aid doesn't reach people in the besieged city soon, warn UN agencies. The World Food Programme (WFP) has said in a statement that it has been unable to send aid trucks into the city due to the siege, and warned that thousands of people face starvation. In a video of an elderly woman from el-Fasher shared on TikTok, which Al Jazeera's Sanad agency has verified, she pleaded for the army to open a corridor so aid could reach people trapped in the besieged city. 'All of you and your families are outside [el-Fasher], and none of you are starving like this,' she said.
Al Jazeera
12 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Trump's transshipment crackdown spells danger for Southeast Asian economies
Taipei, Taiwan – Southeast Asia's export-driven economies are facing new uncertainty from United States President Donald Trump's trade war, as his administration cracks down on exports directed through third countries to avoid his tariffs on China. Under an executive order issued by Trump last week, goods imported into the US face a punitive 40 percent tariff, plus penalties and any applicable country-of-origin duties, if US Customs and Border Protection determines they have been 'transshipped'. The tariff is set to go into effect on Thursday, along with Trump's latest country-specific tariffs ranging from 10 to 41 percent. While China is the main target of the new tax on transhipments, which applies to all redirected goods irrespective of country of origin, Southeast Asia could suffer much of the fallout, because of the region's highly integrated supply chains with Chinese manufacturers, trade experts say. The effect will depend on exactly how the Trump administration defines transhipments, which is still unclear, said Puan Yatim, an associate professor at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia's Graduate School of Business. 'If Washington maintains a narrow interpretation – targeting only those goods that are imported from China, minimally processed or relabeled and then re-exported to the US – the economic impact on ASEAN may be limited,' Yatim told Al Jazeera, referring to the Southeast Asian regional bloc. 'However, a broader and more punitive interpretation – where goods with any significant Chinese input are also deemed in violation – could prove economically devastating for countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Malaysia,' she added. Chinese manufacturers have for years been steadily expanding into Southeast Asia as part of a strategy known as 'China Plus One'. The strategy has helped Chinese firms avoid US tariffs, exploit cheaper labour, and diversify their supply chains – a particular concern during China's COVID-19 lockdowns. From 2020 to 2024, Chinese foreign direct investment into the 10 ASEAN nations grew from $7.1bn to $19.3bn, according to ASEAN data. During the same period, exports from China to Southeast Asia rose from $385bn to $587bn, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The surge in Chinese exports, including goods illegally mislabeled to conceal their origin, has placed Southeast Asia in the Trump administration's crosshairs. '[Companies] need intermediate imports from China to create products which get shipped to the US, but because companies have been embroiled in illegal transshipments in the region, there's a huge bias in the Trump administration that ASEAN is the predominant channel,' Priyanka Kishore, principal economist at Asia Decoded in Singapore, told Al Jazeera. A key example of trade that invoked Washington's ire centred on the solar cell industry. Following a years-long investigation, the US Department of Commerce in April announced tariffs of up to 3,500 percent on Southeast Asian manufacturers alleged to have illicitly exported Chinese goods. Southeast Asia is now in a 'sticky situation' where it must appease the US – the region's top export market – while not alienating China, Kishore said. Beijing has threatened to 'resolutely take countermeasures' against countries that agree to trade deals with the US that go against its interests. In May, Malaysia announced that it would no longer allow nongovernmental organisations such as chambers of commerce to issue certificates of origin, as part of its efforts to ensure the integrity of its exports. Vietnam similarly agreed to a 40 percent transshipment tariff in a framework deal reached with the US in May, while Indonesia's Trade Minister Budi Santoso said last month that his country was opposed to transshipping. Despite Southeast Asian governments' efforts to mollify the US, the transshipment tariff could create major compliance issues for the private sector, said Steve Okun, founder and CEO of APAC Advisors in Singapore. A top concern will be how the US treats products made with components from multiple countries. US tariffs are typically determined by the location where a product underwent 'substantive transformation', but if the Trump administration were to apply duties based on the presence of even small amounts of Chinese components, compliance and enforcement would be extremely difficult, Okun said. 'You're going to have to be doing due diligence on supply chains that you never had to do before,' Okun told Al Jazeera. The changes would 'potentially redefine trade,' he said. A strict interpretation of transshipping could further dim Southeast Asia's appeal, at a time when the Trump administration is already chipping away at its China Plus One competitive advantage with his tariffs on the region's economies, said Richard Laub, CEO and cofounder of Dragon Sourcing, a global procurement service provider. Under Trump's latest tariffs, Singapore is subject to a 10 percent rate, while Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia are subject to rates of 19 or 20 percent – less than the 30 percent rate proposed for China under the White House's latest tariff framework. Trump's transshipment tariff potentially eats into that advantage. 'A lot of the Chinese supply strategy has been to establish some kind of facility abroad with limited content, limited value, adding those facilities to basically circumvent those transshipments. I suspect that that will come to a standstill,' Laub told Al Jazeera. A Washington, DC-based consultant who advises businesses on trade and supply chain issues in China, said he had observed a similar phenomenon, but to the detriment of US exporters. 'We are seeing [multinational corporations] from around the globe, particularly those that served the China market from the United States, doing more to localise supply chains for China in China,' the consultant told Al Jazeera, asking not to be named. Companies in sectors that rely on materials like foreign-sourced steel – which is subject to separate tariffs – have found manufacturing becoming too expensive in the US and started moving manufacturing out of the country, the consultant said. 'This is a terrible outcome and the opposite of what the administration intends,' he said. Nick Marro, principal economist for Asia at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said despite the uncertainty, the direction of the policy in Washington is ambiguously bad for Southeast Asia. 'Clearly, the US is concerned about transshipments,' Marro told Al Jazeera. 'Clearly, it is moving to crack down on them, and so for those investors, those companies, those governments that have staked their premise on things like China Plus One, we are now seeing a reassessment, and that is something which investors have to be integrating into their strategies.'
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Al Jazeera
Covering 14 years of Syria
From the 2011 civil war that first broke out in Daraa, to the fall of Damascus in late 2024, Zeina Khodr was at the forefront of some of Syria's most major moments. In this Between Us, she takes us through her experience of reporting on the country over the years.
