displaced

Fire containment has reached 27 percent in the rampant wildfire that first erupted in the Sierra Nevada foothills near the city of Reno in the state of Nevada in the United States. At least seven people – three first responders and four civilians – have been injured.

The blaze first broke out on Saturday and exploded in size by Sunday, destroying at least 32 homes and damaging six as it spread perilously close to dense neighbourhoods. Local officials, speaking at an afternoon news briefing on Monday, said those numbers are sure to rise as assessment teams begin to survey the charred areas.

They also said the fire had no new growth and has held steady at about 60 square kilometres (23 square miles) since it burned out of control on Sunday.

“We are making progress,” assured US Forest Service District Ranger Matt Zumstein.

Videos posted on social media showed the smouldering ruins of homes and cars, with only a scorched basketball hoop still standing.

By Monday, the number of residents under evacuation orders and warnings was lowered to about 63,000, down from more than 90,000 people when the blaze first mushroomed over the weekend. While winds have eased, there are still concerns that gusts could propel the flames through dry brush into newly developed neighbourhoods in Nevada’s largest city outside of metro Las Vegas. Reno is home to about 280,000 people.

Schools across the local area were closed because of the evacuations and to keep roads clear for emergency crews.

‘Like nothing I’ve seen before’: Reno faces third wildfire in two weeks

Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve said the way the fire spread so quickly at its peak had her fearing for the worst.

“It lit up these areas like nothing I’ve seen before,” she said Monday, adding, “it took your breath away, in the worst way”.

This is the third large wildfire in the craggy, high-desert region north of Reno in just the past two weeks – driven completely by human behaviour, according to fire officials. They have not disclosed whether the Hawk Fire, which is what the blaze is known as due to having started near the Hawk Meadow Trail, was intentionally set or accidental. Much of the area that burned was sagebrush and grass.

Resident Crystal Hallock, 53, has lost her home to a fire twice in under a decade. She moved into the rebuilt house in 2019, a year after an electrical fire burned it down.

Nevada’s governor quickly declared a state of emergency in Washoe County over the weekend after mobilising the National Guard to help with aerial firefighting and protecting evacuated neighbourhoods northwest of downtown Reno. But at one roadblock, residents expressed frustration that they could not get back into their homes, according to The Associated Press news agency.

“There’s no fire here! Why are the National Guard here?” a driver yelled.

Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam said he understands that some residents are frustrated that they can’t get home, but the danger isn’t over yet. “It just takes that little breeze and one ember,” he said.

Reno is southwest of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, site of the annual Burning Man festival, which begins on August 30.

Many who travel to Burning Man make Reno a regular pit stop. Organisers on Monday requested that attendees not take hotel rooms and other resources away from fire evacuees, while being mindful of closures.

“Treat our neighbors, first responders, hospitality workers and everyone affected by this emergency with patience and care,” a Burning Man statement read.

Western wildfire risk stays high

Much of Nevada’s western edge is under an increased risk of wildfires this week because of high winds and low relative humidity, the National Interagency Fire Center said. The National Weather Service says the region will see warm, dry and breezy conditions, and that critical fire weather conditions are possible in the week’s latter half. Reno sits at an elevation of 1,370 metres (4,500 feet).

Extremely dry conditions across the American West have sparked a rash of wildfires this summer. Fires in eastern Washington state forced the evacuation of 60,000 people in the Spokane area in early August.

Nationwide wildfires have topped 50,000 this year, marking a 10-year high for the same period, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Jibia, Katsina State, Nigeria – Safiya Musa’s sewing machine has given her something violence had taken away: a way to provide for her children.

But the livelihood she built after losing her husband and two of her children has left her facing a painful choice: whether to return home or risk losing the fragile independence she has created after being forced to flee.

Safiya cannot remember which month it was, only that it was 2023, when armed bandits raided the town of Kankara in Katsina State, where she and her husband had built their life after moving from their hometown of Batsari. Kankara is a small rural community where farms sit close to homes, and her husband worked as a farmer and foodstuffs trader. They lived there with their two youngest children, Umar (4) and Maryam (6), while their three older children, Sani (12), Hajara (10) and Zubaida (8), were staying with relatives in Batsari.

The attackers had come to kidnap the town head, but the attempt failed. As gunfire spread through the community, Safiya locked herself inside her room while Umar and Maryam were outside playing with other children. Her husband had left for the farm when the attack happened. The bandits killed about 20 people as they left the town.

Three days later, after she had learned that her husband had also been killed during the attack, she fled to Batsari, where she was reunited with Sani, Hajara and Zubaida. When another bandit attack reached Batsari, she fled again with her three surviving children – now aged (15), (13) and (11) – to Jibia, where they eventually settled in a camp for displaced people.

She still remembers the night she lost much of her family.

“Minutes later, silence overwhelmed the atmosphere,” she recalled. “Then I started thinking about my husband, who had left for the farm, and my children, who were outside playing with other kids.”

The thought of them pushed her out of hiding.

But she was too late.

“They were all killed,” she told Al Jazeera.

Safiya’s experience reflects a wider crisis affecting communities across northwest Nigeria. For more than a decade, the region has faced attacks, kidnappings and village raids by armed groups commonly called bandits.

The violence has forced thousands of families from their homes, disrupted farming and trade, and left many people struggling to rebuild their lives.

Katsina State, which borders Niger, has been among the areas hardest hit.

After arriving in Jibia, Safiya survived by taking whatever work she could find. She ground grain for local residents and relied on temporary jobs to support her children.

She was then selected for a handbag-making training programme organised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through its Climate Security Project.

The initiative provides women affected by conflict with vocational training and equipment to help them start small businesses.

Months later, the programme gave her a source of income. The work brought stability, but it also created a new uncertainty: whether she could continue the business if she returned home.

“The essence is to give them an opportunity to become self-reliant,” said Muhammad Hamisu, the project coordinator in Jibia.

A skill that changed her circumstances

After completing the training, Safiya turned handbag-making into a source of income for her family.

With sewing materials and new skills, she began cutting fabric, stitching designs and producing handbags she could sell to support her children.

The work did not erase the pain of what she had lost, but it gave her something she had struggled to regain since fleeing: the ability to provide for herself.

“I used to wake up with nothing to offer my children,” she said. “There were days I sent my boys out with bowls to beg for food because I had nothing to give them. Now I can feed them myself.”

In March 2024, the Climate Security Project trained 20 women in Jibia in handbag production and provided sewing machines and materials to help them begin working.

Jibia’s location near the border with Niger also gives traders access to cross-border markets, including those in the Maradi region, one of Niger’s major commercial areas.

For some women, the business has become an important source of income.

“I make approximately $50 a month,” said 30-year-old Karima Sule, who has lived in Jibia since fleeing violence four years ago. “When demand is high, I earn even more. I help my husband and pay the school fees for my two older children from this business.”

A business shaped by insecurity

But building a business in a conflict-affected area remains difficult.

Safiya said her biggest challenge is finding enough money to buy materials.

“Sometimes I run out of stock and don’t have the funds to buy more,” she said. “When that happens, I lose customers.”

Karima said violence continues to affect sales.

“Whenever violence happens, market activities slow down for days,” she said. “People stop buying, and we lose income.”

Their growing economic activity may also expose them to new risks, according to Abdussamad Ahmad Yusuf, a human security researcher at HumAngle, a Nigerian newsroom that reports on conflict.

“Kidnapping for ransom in that region is becoming more targeted,” he said. “Authorities should conduct regular conflict and security risk assessments to identify high-risk trading routes, markets and emerging threats before expanding commercial activities.”

The Katsina government established the Community Watch Corps in 2023, a local security initiative that uses community members to gather intelligence and support responses to attacks.

Officials said security has improved in some communities, but many families who fled violence remain uncertain about returning home.

An uncertain future

Safiya hopes to return home one day and reunite her children with their relatives.

But the livelihood she has built in Jibia has become a reason to hesitate.

The handbag business has allowed her to buy food, support her children and depend less on unstable work. Leaving it behind could mean losing the independence she has worked hard to build.

She has been told that conditions in her hometown are improving, but she remains unsure whether she could rebuild the same source of income there.

For Safiya, returning home is not only about finding safety again. It is also about whether she can continue providing for her family.

“I want to go back home because my children need their relatives,” she said. “But I am afraid of losing this business. If I cannot continue it there, how will we survive?”

An Israeli attack on the al-Mawasi camp in Khan Younis has killed several people, including a mother and her child. More than one hundred tents belonging to displaced Palestinians were also destroyed.

Mérida, June 29, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan and international rescue teams continue to search for survivors under collapsed buildings following last Wednesday’s back-to-back earthquakes.

The 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude tremors caused widespread destruction, primarily in the coastal state of La Guaira, which has been described as “ground zero.” Geological services have registered more than 500 aftershocks since the original earthquakes.

On Monday, Venezuelan officials reported that there have been 1,719 people killed, 5,034 injured, and more than 15 thousand displaced. According to the country’s authorities, 855 buildings have been damaged, including 189 totally collapsed, along with damage to 38 hospitals and 1,645 road structures.

“We are in critical and crucial hours to continue saving lives,” National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez stated during a Monday press conference. He confirmed that over 25,000 rescue workers, including military personnel, police, firefighters, and civil protection units, are currently deployed, supported by 3,319 international rescuers from 25 nations and 137 specialized canines.

Rodríguez added that 90% of electricity service has been restored in La Guaira State, and that a special hotline remains active to provide psychological support to relatives of the victims, displaced people, and those suffering from post-traumatic stress following the earthquakes.

Earlier on Monday, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez celebrated the rescue of 21-year-old Aaron Levi Cantillo, who was pulled alive from the rubble in La Guaira after being trapped for 106 hours. The rescue was the result of 43 hours of intense, coordinated work by Venezuelan Civil Protection and brigades from Mexico, Chile, and Argentina. Emergency workers have warned that, as time passes, the probability of still finding survivors drastically decreases.

Over the weekend, the Venezuelan government has likewise ramped up efforts to tend to displaced families, with 15 temporary shelters set up in La Guaira and a further 50 in Caracas.

Other areas beyond La Guaira have also been severely impacted. Local residents reported structural damage and service failures in Morón, Carabobo state, close to the earthquakes’ epicenters. Similarly, in Tucacas, Falcón state, residents called for assistance from authorities as they face interrupted electricity or water services.

As part of its response to the crisis, the acting Rodríguez government restricted access to the state of La Guaira, the hardest-hit area. The measure aims to prevent traffic congestion and prioritize the movement of emergency vehicles and heavy machinery. Venezuelan officials have urged the public to avoid traveling to the area to ensure that rescue efforts are not impeded.

At the same time, authorities have sought to organize volunteer brigades, both for search and rescue operations and to tend to temporary shelters, via a registration center at the Poliedro complex in Caracas. 

As of June 29, 10,834 volunteers had registered, and they have been categorized according to their area of expertise: survivor rescue, medical care, logistics at temporary camps, and other essential tasks.

Following the double earthquake, the United States government has ramped up its presence in the Caribbean nation. The US Department of State has deployed a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) and specialized urban search and rescue units.

The Department of War has sent an expeditionary airfield management team to repair and reopen the damaged Simón Bolívar International Airport, which is now serving as the primary hub for international relief flights. The US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) has stated that it is currently “managing tower and ground operations” at the country’s most important airport.

SOUTHCOM is also assessing conditions at the port of La Guaira and has docked the USS Fort Lauderdale warship to coordinate maritime deliveries. Various aircraft, including C-17 Globemaster, C-130 Hercules, MV-22 Ospreys, and helicopters, have conducted aerial surveys and transported rescue teams and supplies. 

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez personally thanked President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for US support following the natural disaster. In a social media message, the acting president said she was “deeply grateful for this gesture of friendship and cooperation.”

The Trump administration announced that humanitarian assistance to Venezuela has been increased to over $300 million. However, Washington has not offered any relief from widespread economic sanctions, only issuing a time-limited license allowing earthquake relief-related transactions.

The White House also retains control over Venezuelan oil export revenues, with the disbursement timings and amounts left at US officials’ discretion.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

Rats are invading displacement camps across Gaza, where piles of garbage, overflowing sewage and overcrowded shelters are worsening a public health crisis. Doctors report more severe skin diseases as families struggle without proper sanitation or adequate medical care.

Muhammadu Mahe wasn’t at home when terrorists came for him one rainy night. It was during the rainy season in 2023. He had travelled to sell livestock and spent the night in the Shinkafi area of Zamfara, North West Nigeria.

The following morning, his brother, Alhaji Usman, rang his phone.

“Dan Hajiya, Yan Bindiga came looking for you last night,” Usman said over the phone. The term, Yan Bindiga, is what most rural residents call terrorists in the area. Muhammadu, who is known as Dan Hajiya in his Ruwan Bado village in the Maradun Local Government Area (LGA), did not fully grasp the message, so he asked, and his brother explained succinctly.

Six armed men on three motorcycles had stormed the village and gone straight to Muhammadu’s house. When they were told he was not around, the terrorists asked one of his children to let them know when he returned. They neither fired a single shot nor abducted any of his three wives and 13 children.

“Normally, they would have abducted a family member to force me to look for them, but they didn’t. It was very surprising,” Muhammadu told HumAngle on the afternoon of June 4 in a town in Zamfara, where he now lives with his family.

Hearing about the terrorists’ visit, he wanted to rush home to check if any of his children had been hurt. He had thought the terrorists were targeting him for more extortion. However, his brother advised him to stay in Shinkafi for at least two more days until they could determine the reason the terrorists were looking for him.

Muhammadu had paid a ₦1.5 million “farming tax” to a terrorist group led by Jamilu, a loyalist of the notorious criminal mastermind, Halilu Sububu, who was killed by the military in 2024. Halilu, originally from Maradun, maintained several camps in the forest reserves in the Sububu/Tubali, Bakura, and Kaya axes. One of such camps is now controlled by Jamilu. Ruwan Bado, Muhammadu’s village, sits not far from Janbako and Faru, two bigger villages in the Talata Mafara town. Terrorist groups routinely attack communities and motorists on the road, a situation that forced several farmers to abandon their farms. 

The lingering crisis engulfing northwestern Nigeria began as a farmer-herder clash in Zamfara over a decade ago. Thousands of people have since been killed, with over a million displaced. Motorcycle-riding terrorists invade communities, schools, farmlands, and roads to abduct people for ransom. Terrorist attacks have persisted in the region despite kinetic and non-kinetic approaches. 

Amid the ongoing armed violence, farmers are severely affected as terrorist attacks disrupt their agricultural activities. Each year, with the onset of the rainy season, terrorists intensify their attacks on rural communities to intimidate farmers, ultimately seeking agreements that often lead to residents paying millions as taxes. Funds collected from farmers help finance their terrorist activities. Farmers who fail to pay are forced to flee their communities for fear of being attacked by the terrorists. However, even paying the tax does not guarantee safety, as seen in several cases, especially in Zamfara State. 

Of recurring attacks and farming taxes

Before the violence escalated in his community, Muhammadu said he had always wondered what he would do without his farms. He is a farmer like his father and grandfather. Everyone in his family is a farmer, including those who have taken government jobs or other businesses. Everyone had a farm before terrorists began to invade their communities. 

The day the terrorists came looking for him was not their first time in the village. Before the rainy season in 2023, Muhammadu said, terrorists attacked the village in broad daylight. “I’ll never forget that attack,” he says as he unravels how the ugly event unfolded. And even before then, there were about three attacks.

A little before 3 p.m. on a Friday, he was sitting down outside the mosque with friends and relatives when terrorists barged into the community, shooting sporadically. He didn’t remember much of what happened immediately after he heard the gunshots, but he ran outside the village. “I ran for several minutes and decided to lie down on my stomach,” he says. His wives and some of his children who were at home also ran out.

The attack didn’t last long. When he returned, people had converged on the village square close to the mosque, with three dead bodies lying on the ground. “It was one of the saddest days of my life. My nephew, Haladu, was one of those killed. His mother is my elder sister. Malam Abubakar Jijji and Malam Usman were also killed in that attack.”

The violent incident changed Muhammadu’s life and that of several others in the community. “Our vigilante members said they got information that the terrorists vowed to turn our community upside down if we didn’t cooperate with them. They said what they did was a warning attack,” he says. Cooperating with the terrorists literally means paying taxes to them before farming. 

The community leaders would later meet to discuss how to negotiate with the terrorists for peace to reign. “We decided to pay the money. We had no option,” Muhammadu says. The terrorists said anyone with more than one farm must pay ₦1.5 million. 

Payment for one farm ranged from ₦400,000 to ₦600,000, depending on the number of acres. His brother, Usman, paid for one farm. The terrorists said the community should not pay the money in a lump sum, but whoever was ready should go and pay their own. 

Muhammadu said he sold some of his livestock to raise the “farming tax”. He had volunteered to take the money to the terrorists in the forest. He took his money and that of another villager, Alhaji Sani, who contributed ₦2 million, resulting in a total of ₦3.5 million. The terrorists asked him to wait on the main road after the Faru community. A few minutes after he arrived, two terrorists on a motorcycle emerged from the shrubs, collected the money, and sped off. 

That same night, Jamilu, the leader of the terrorists, called to inform them that the money had been collected. He instructed them not to go to their farms and to wait for further instructions. While the residents awaited the next directive, the terrorists arrived looking for Muhammadu.

On the run

Muhammadu didn’t wait in Shinakafi for two days, as his brother suggested.

The following morning, he took the first car from Shinkafi to Boko, and from there, another car to Talata Mafara. He disembarked in Janbako, a community neighbouring his village. He said he was being careful because of informants lurking nearby. While waiting for someone to pick him up, his brother called again, asking him to head to Maradun instead because “they got information that the terrorists would kill me”.

He spent three days in Maradun and later sneaked back into his village, Ruwan Bado. At home, he gathered his family members, including his daughters, who were already married, and told them about the situation he had found himself in. 

“They all agreed that I should leave,” Muhammadu says. “One of my daughters thought it was suicidal to return to the community. So, I left for Talata Mafara in the morning.”

The choice of Talata Mafara was intentional as the town sits on the edge of the Bakalori dam with sprawling farmlands where residents engage in year-round farming. From Colony via Rini down to Gora on one side and River Bobo inside Mafara town down to Tumfafiya to the boundaries of Danbaza, stretches of water lie abundant for irrigation farming. 

“I was wrong. I didn’t know that farmers were also fleeing the Rini (in Bakura) and Gora (in Maradun) axis due to incessant attacks. Most of the farms are now abandoned,” he recalls. He moved farther down to the other side of Mafara town, this time to Tsakuwa, a suburb on the road to the communities of Sauna, Garbadu, Morai, and Kagara in southern Mafara. 

However, these communities also face terrorist attacks, making the roads and the farms on both sides of the road very vulnerable. This situation compounds Muhammadu’s problems.

“Since then, I’ve not gone back to Ruwan Bado. My family joined me here after three months.”

Even after three years, Muhammadu says he has not looked back because several people he knows have left the community. His elder brother, Usman, has also left for Maradun town with his family because Ruwan Bado and the communities around it have continued to witness terror attacks. 

“Even some months back, people were killed in our community as the attacks continued,” Muhammadu says. “I don’t know whether the Yan Bindiga (bandits) are still looking for me, but I think it’s unsafe to go home.” Only a few families remain in Ruwan Bado. 

Sani, the person whose farming tax Muhammadu took to the terrorists alongside his, has also left the community for Mafara town. “Even after collecting our money, the terrorists kept returning. There was a time they attacked the community and stole our livestock. I lost more than 10 cows to that attack,” the 63-year-old man told HumAngle. 

Muhammadu said he heard about the attack last year and advised Sani to leave the community. Sani was one of the three well-to-do people in the area. Life was good to him; he had three wives and 17 children, some of whom were already married. Aside from owning five farm fields, he was a trader and livestock merchant before the violence consumed his property. He sold some of his livestock out of fear of cattle-rustling terrorists and retained only the animals he used for ploughing on his farms.

“I encouraged our people to accept the terrorists’ demand for farming tax, believing that we would be allowed to go to the farm. But after we paid, the terrorists allowed us to start working, after which they continued attacking us. It was very unsafe for me to continue living in the community,” Sani, who now lives with his family in a rented apartment in Mafara, said. He has tried, to no avail, to gather the remnants of his wealth to start a business in the town but he said “it’s frustrating because the capital is too small and I don’t even know where to start from.”

As Muhammadu continues to flee, many farmers in the region are suffering from terrorist attacks, especially with the onset of the rainy season in the core northern states. The situation in communities like Ruwan Bado is worsened by a lack of adequate security agents to protect residents. Since there is an absence of conventional security forces in most of the communities, residents pay a farming or protection tax as requested by terrorists to avoid being attacked.

‘There was only a road checkpoint for soldiers on the Colony – Boko road, which is even farther away from us. Without adequate security agents, it’ll be difficult for us to go to farms or markets. When the terrorists attack, it’s only the vigilante group members who fight them back,” Muhammadu said. HumAngle learnt that the Zamfara State government recruited operatives for its Community Protection Guards (also known as Askarawa) and posted them to all communities facing security challenges in the state. But Muhammadu, who left Ruwan Bado in 2023, couldn’t confirm if there are Askarawa in his community now. 

James Barnett, a conflict researcher at Hudson Institute, believes terrorists are using the vacuum created by the absence of governance in some of the rural communities in North West Nigeria. The terrorists believe it’s easier and more profitable to enforce levies than to attack communities. “Communities that have no protection from the state often have no choice but to submit to bandit demands in order to be allowed to farm—and survive,” he said. 

“The regions where bandits are strongest are the sorts of areas where there has been almost no meaningful state presence in years—roads, schools, clinics and the like. Bandits have essentially filled a vacuum in those parts of rural Nigeria that the state has neglected,” Barnett, who has written extensively on the banditry conflict in the North West, added. 

The consequences of this reality are evident in communities, where residents say concerns about survival and security now overshadow everyday economic worries.

“Many villages in Tsafe are no longer thinking about where to get the cheapest fertiliser; instead, they are worried about how to access their farms safely. In some communities, despite paying ransoms and levies to the terrorists, locals are still not confident that their lives will be spared,” Abubakar Bala, a resident of Tsafe in Zamfara, told HumAngle.