displaced

Thousands of displaced Palestinians have begun returning to their abandoned and mostly destroyed homes, as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas takes hold, with Israeli forces withdrawing from parts of Gaza.

Families started moving from western residential areas on Friday back towards Gaza City’s main districts, areas from which they were previously forced to flee.

Several Israeli military brigades and divisions have pulled out from central Gaza regions as well.

At the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, families have begun travelling northward, though many remain waiting to enter areas in the Netzarim Corridor, where Israeli forces were stationed. They are holding there until the final Israeli tank departs the area.

Concerning developments include heightened activity of Israeli drones, fighter jets, and warships since early morning. Multiple attacks were reported in the morning at locations where people were gathering to return home.

A huge procession of displaced Palestinians moved northward through dust-filled roads towards Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban centre, which had experienced intense Israeli military operations just days earlier.

“Thank God my house is still standing,” said Ismail Zayda, 40, in the Sheikh Radwan area in Gaza City. “But the place is destroyed, my neighbours’ houses are destroyed, entire districts have gone.”

The Israeli military announced the ceasefire agreement took effect at noon local time (09:00 GMT). Israel’s government ratified the ceasefire with Hamas early Friday, setting in motion a partial troop withdrawal and complete suspension of hostilities in Gaza within 24 hours.

Israeli captives are scheduled for release within 72 hours afterwards, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

The first phase of United States President Trump’s plan to end the two-year Gaza conflict requires Israeli forces to withdraw from major urban centres, though they will maintain control of approximately half the enclave’s territory.

Once the agreement takes effect, aid trucks carrying food and medical supplies will enter Gaza to assist civilians, hundreds of thousands of whom have been living in tents after their homes were destroyed and entire cities reduced to rubble.

As talks continue in Egypt to end the war in Gaza, displaced Palestinians in Deir el-Balah say they’re ready to return to their homes – even if they are in ruins.

“We do not know what to do right now. We do not even have water to drink or bathe with. We don’t know what we would do if the rain falls and meets us in the open air with all our children.”  These are the words uttered by Jacky Tshibala, a resident of the Laurent Desire Kabila camp in Lemba, situated in the southeast of Kinshasa, the national capital of the DR Congo, where over 300 houses were razed to ashes. 

A disturbing silence now reigns in the quarters,  where parents and children this morning  found themselves searching for any personal belongings that the fire might have spared.

One of the affected victims, who is a father and a policeman, reveals that the fire started at 2 a.m. Tuesday morning and spread with unprecedented rapidity to various residential houses.

“We were all taken by surprise at 2 a.m. in the morning by a fire we up to now don’t know its origin. I can tell you that the fire spread so fast that one was unable to save even a pin. Nothing was saved from the more than 300 houses that have been razed to the ground,” declared the policeman with a walkie-talkie in hand.

Another victim,  Julie, told HumAngle that her husband was on an out-of-station assignment when their house was destroyed.  She said she currently depends on neighbours who were not as badly affected as herself.

“Some of them have been giving us their pots with which we are using to cook in the open air. We are still perching outside not knowing where to pass the nights. I have personally lost everything except the clothes I am wearing now,”  she said.  

A group of women sitting on the ground and sweating from the hot temperature said they did not know what to do after the calamity. Some said they had not eaten anything or had a drop of water since the fire struck. They said they were also afraid the rain threatening the horizon might meet them still in the open air with their little children.

Students and primary school children too have been affected as most of them have lost their uniforms and school textbooks. Some of them can be seen sleeping in the open air while their parents struggle to find something for them to eat.

The victims say the vice prime minister in charge of the interior and security, Jacquemain Shabani, had during the day come to express his sympathy and had promised to arrange for assistance to the affected families. However, they had been waiting for the whole day without any indication of the help the vice prime minister promised.

As of now, every victim is sitting on the ruins of what was once their home while waiting for government assistance.

An Israeli strike targeted a vehicle carrying displaced Palestinians who were evacuating Gaza City to the south under Israeli forced displacement orders on Tuesday. Injured women and children were filmed being carried away from the burning car, while authorities said multiple people were killed.

The Israeli offensive on Gaza City is displacing thousands of starving Palestinians.

France’s most devastating wildfire in decades remains active despite being brought under control, officials announced, as firefighting efforts continue with hundreds of personnel.

The massive blaze in Aude has scorched more than 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) – an area larger than Paris – killing one person, injuring another 13 and destroying numerous homes.

Approximately 2,000 firefighters remain deployed to combat the flames, which were declared under control on Thursday night.

“The fire will not be declared extinguished for several days,” said Christian Pouget, Aude’s prefect. “There is still a lot of work to be done.”

Officials have restricted access to the devastated forests until at least Sunday due to hazardous conditions, including fallen power lines and other dangers.

Pouget confirmed that roughly 2,000 evacuees still await clearance to return home, with hundreds sheltering in school gymnasiums and community centres throughout the region.

This wildfire is the largest in France’s Mediterranean region in at least 50 years, according to government monitoring agencies. The southern area is particularly susceptible to such fires.

At its peak, the blaze consumed about 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) per hour, Narbonne authorities reported. Shifting strong winds over two days made the fire’s behaviour unpredictable.

A 65-year-old woman who refused evacuation orders was found dead in her burned home, while 13 others were injured, including 11 firefighters.

Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, visiting the affected area on Wednesday, called the wildfire a “catastrophe on an unprecedented scale”.

“What is happening today is linked to global warming and linked to drought,” Bayrou said.

Environment Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher wrote in a post on X that this was France’s largest fire since 1949. The country has experienced approximately 9,000 wildfires this summer, primarily near the Mediterranean coast.

Aude has seen increasing burn areas in recent years, exacerbated by reduced rainfall and vineyard removals that previously helped slow fire progression.

In Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, the hardest-hit village, thick smoke continued rising on Thursday from pine-covered hills overlooking vineyards where dry grass still burned.

With Europe facing new August heatwaves, many regions remain on wildfire alert. Portugal extended emergency measures on Thursday due to heightened fire risks.

Near Spain’s Tarifa, fire crews secured areas around tourist accommodation after controlling a major blaze that destroyed hundreds of hectares.

Climate experts indicate that global warming is driving longer, more intense and more frequent heatwaves worldwide, creating more favourable conditions for forest fires.

Escalating attacks in Cabo Delgado are taking place amid major cuts in international aid.

Nearly 60,000 people have fled Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province in two weeks, a United Nations agency has said, amid a years-long rebellion by fighters affiliated with ISIL (ISIS).

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement on Tuesday that escalating attacks that began on July 20 had displaced 57,034 people, or 13,343 families.

Chiúre was the hardest-hit district, with more than 42,000 people uprooted, more than half of them children, the IOM said.

“So far, around 30,000 displaced people have received food, water, shelter, and essential household items,” Paola Emerson, who heads the Mozambique branch of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told the AFP news agency.

Emerson said OCHA was preparing to step up its assistance in the coming days. “The response, however, is not yet at the scale required to meet growing needs,” she said, in a context of cuts to international aid by the United States and other countries.

“Funding cuts mean life-saving aid is being scaled back,” she added. The UN’s 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan for Mozambique has so far received only 19 percent of the pledges requested.

The organisation also stressed that the lack of safety and documentation, and involuntary relocations, were compounding protection risks.

The Southern African nation has been fighting a rebellion by a group known locally as al-Shabab,  though with no links to the Somali fighters of a similar name, in the north for at least eight years. Rwandan soldiers have been deployed to help Mozambique fight them.

More than 6,100 people have been killed since the beginning of the insurrection, according to conflict tracker ACLED, including 364 last year, according to data from the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies.

Cabo Delgado has large offshore natural gas reserves, and the fighting caused the suspension of operations by the French company Total Energies in 2021. The French fossil fuel giant has said it hopes to re-ignite the $20bn gas project this summer.

Human Rights Watch last month said the armed group had “ramped up abductions of children”, using them as fighters or for labour or marriage. The group said recruiting or using children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities constitutes a war crime.

Sudanese women who fled the city of el-Fasher say paramilitary Rapid Support Forces fighters killed, looted, and raped people during their escape. Now in Tawila, about 60km to the west, they face rain, hunger, and a growing cholera outbreak.

At the Muna Kumburi camp along Dikwa Road in Maiduguri, northeastern Nigeria, displaced families are taking desperate steps to survive. 

With the provision of humanitarian aid having been ceased for over three years and growing insecurity keeping them from farming freely, dozens of internally displaced people (IDPs) have begun dismantling and selling the very shelters meant to keep them safe.

“We have no choice,” Malum Aisami, the camp chairperson, told HumAngle. “People are in such a desperate situation that they sell their shelter and travel using the money.”

The makeshift tents, constructed from wood, tarpaulin, and zinc sheets, are sold for ₦40,000 to ₦50,000. They use the money to feed their families, buy seeds, cultivate lands in remote areas, or attempt to resettle in safer areas.

When HumAngle visited the camp on July 24, many spaces where shelters once stood now lay bare, marked by upturned soil and abandoned frames. 

While some moved into nearby host communities after selling their shelter, other families squeezed into overcrowded shelters with relatives in the camp. Many travelled to remote bush areas to work on farmlands, and some relocated entirely to farming settlements for the duration of the rainy season–a common practice among families in the region seeking seasonal agricultural income.

“I sold it so that I can use the money to go and buy seeds and feed myself on the farm,” Baisa Modu said, pointing to the plot where his shelter used to be.

Camp residents say the situation worsened when the state government began constructing buildings in parts of the camp, displacing even more families within an already overcrowded space. Some residents relocated to nearby host communities, but many remain in desperation for a good life.

“So far, we’ve recorded over 50 households who dismantled and sold their shelters and moved on. Even me, I sold one of mine. There is hunger, and we cannot go to a farm in peace. There is insecurity and abduction on a daily basis,” Aisami said. 

In February this year, several residents of the same camp were abducted while fetching firewood in the bush. Their families were forced to launch crowdfunding efforts, scraping together ₦300,000 in a desperate attempt to pay the ransom demanded.

Now, as hunger worsens and with risks rising, selling shelters has become a survival strategy, even if it means sleeping in the open or starting over in a new place.

Despite their depressing conditions, over 200 households were also forced to vacate parts of the Muna Kumburi camp last month to make way for a government construction project. The development, which affected nearly half of the camp’s area, rendered many families homeless, pushing them to seek refuge in surrounding host communities.

The camp, which accommodates over 3,000 individuals across more than 600 households, is now experiencing one of its most severe humanitarian crises to date. The perios is marked by food shortages, insecurity, and the gradual disappearance of what little shelter remains.

HumAngle reached out to both the Borno State Police Command and the State Government spokesperson for comments regarding the increasing cases of abductions targeting returnees in Dalori and the humanitarian distress in Muna Kumburi. At the time of filing this report, no official response had been received. 

Abduction cases are rising

After Boko Haram members abducted and killed her husband in 2019, Maryam Indi fled her hometown of Goniri Kadau in Konduga local government of Borno State.

Accompanied by her family, she fled to Maiduguri, the capital city, settling at the Kawar Maila camp for displaced people. She lived there for about six years until the government shut down the camp in 2023 and repatriated her and all other occupants to the 1,000 Housing Units situated at Dalori village along the Bama–Maiduguri road. 

She now lives there with her six children, she says, and life has only grown more difficult and unbearable since their return.

The 55-year-old worked as a farm labourer but stopped this year when suspected Boko Haram members began kidnapping residents who were going to the fields.

Her father-in-law, Ba Modu, was taken just five days before, while returning from the farm in Lawanti, a remote village in Konduga. He was one of eight people abducted from the community when HumAngle visited on July 25.

“The kidnappers demanded ₦1 million per person, but we couldn’t raise the money,” she said.

The abductors warned that Ba Modu would be killed in a week if the ransom was not paid. Maryam says this isn’t the first time their family has suffered such an ordeal.

“We have had three other cases of abduction in our family since we were repatriated to this estate. We paid ₦400,000 to free them,” she recalled.

But now, there is nothing left to give. And the process to raise the money is nearly impossible for many families.

“We used to go around the neighbourhood collecting donations from people, like ₦200 here, ₦500 there. But this time, we couldn’t raise anything. Everyone is suffering,” Maryam told HumAngle.

Maryam now begs in the markets across Maiduguri to feed her children. She said her daughter had recently narrowly escaped an attempted kidnapping while fetching firewood. Her son, who was with her, became sick with shock after witnessing the incident.

“We are scared. We can’t even go outside without fear. We are just surviving on begging and prayers,” she said.

Women like Maryam now bear the brunt of farming-related risks. While farming is often considered a male-dominated occupation in the region, the current insecurity has pushed many men into hiding, leaving women to farm in distant and dangerous areas. 

“Our men are afraid to go. If they go, they’re targeted more. So we, the women, take the risk,” Maryam said.

Since 2021, the Borno State government has implemented a phased closure of displacement camps across Maiduguri, relocating IDPs to newly built housing units in their ancestral communities or nearby towns. The policy was premised on restoring dignity, reviving local economies, and reducing long-term aid dependency.

As part of the exercise, at least ten informal camps in Maiduguri have been shut down. The most recent was the closure of Muna IDP camp in May 2025, during which the state governor, Babagana Umara Zulum, oversaw the relocation of 6,000 displaced families.

The government said the decision was driven by rising issues of crime, drug abuse, and child exploitation within the camp. However, the transition has deepened the humanitarian burden for many, particularly those unable to relocate or access livelihoods.

For many returnees, the promise of stability and improved living conditions remains unfulfilled.

Yakaru Abbagana, 30, another returnee, fled Shettimari in Konduga and lived at the same camp with Maryam before being relocated to the Dalori estate. She now lives with her husband and eight children in what was meant to be a fresh start.

“I used to be a farmer. Now, my children and I beg for survival. Sometimes my children and I go three days without food,” she told HumAngle in a faint voice.

When HumAngle visited her for an interview, her brother, Mammadu, had been abducted ten days before while working as a farm labourer in Lawanti. As with Ba Modu, the captors are demanding ₦1 million. The family cannot raise it; their only asset is the house gifted to them through the resettlement scheme.

“We told them we don’t have that money. They told us to sell our house for his release. But if we do that, we’ll have no shelter. Nothing,” she said.

Yakaru’s family had faced abductions in the past, too.

“Two of my uncle’s children were kidnapped last year. We paid ₦500,000 each to get them out. But now, we have nothing. Only this house the government gave us,” she said.

The uncertainty and fear have left many families choosing between starvation and the risk of death. “We are just begging. That’s our only means now,” Yakaru said.

On July 25, Nagari Bunu’s younger brother, Mustapha Bukar, 20, was abducted while farming. Ngari told HumAngle that, in two days, their family managed to raise ₦900,000 out of the ₦1 million ransom through community donations. 

He added that their father had considered selling their tent to raise the money, but community members helped. “People came together to help. They said we shouldn’t sell the house,” Nagari said.

Mustapha was abducted alongside others, but he remains the only one in captivity as others have paid and regained their freedom. The captors did not set a deadline but made it clear that Mustapha would not be released until the full ransom was paid.

Muhammed Usman, 30, is a community representative of the repatriated families from Kawar Maila camp, overseeing about 400 households now living in Dalori. His account reflects a community on the verge of collapse.

“This year alone, more than ten people have been abducted from our community while trying to farm. At least eight are still in captivity. The total ransom demanded is over ten million naira,” Muhammed said.

He explains that farming is not only a livelihood but the only lifeline left for many. Yet the farmlands surrounding Dalori and other nearby farming areas have become hunting grounds for Boko Haram.

Each time their community members are abducted, they resort to crowdfunding as authorities or organisations do not support them in the process. Muhammad says they do it alone year in year-round. 

“We rely on neighbours to contribute what they can to rescue victims. But now, even that system is failing. We are all empty,” he told HumAngle.

According to locals interviewed by HumAngle, security presence is patchy. Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) members are stationed in some areas, but vast stretches of farmland remain unprotected.

“The government helps by giving us these houses. But they don’t help when our people are kidnapped. No food, no aid, no security. We are on our own,” Muhammad said.

The displaced communities continue to appeal for urgent government intervention to address their growing insecurity, hunger, and lack of support in resettlement areas

Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon – Fatima Kandeel, 43, and her two sons moved into a new rented apartment in the southern suburbs of Beirut in March.

They had been staying with her sister Aida nearby for four months after a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon had stopped the worst, but not all, of Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, and it felt good to have their own place.

In their barely furnished living room in Laylake, Dahiyeh, with only two armchairs and a shisha pipe between them, the walls make clear where the family stands.

A framed photo of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah hangs beside a martyr’s portrait of Fatima’s 21-year-old nephew, a Hezbollah fighter killed in an Israeli air strike in Jnoub in October.

In the rubble, scraps of home

When the war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah declared its support for Palestine and escalated tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border for about a year until Israel invaded and launched full-scale war.

The suburbs of Dahiyeh have been repeatedly targeted in Israeli strikes as it is widely recognised as a Hezbollah stronghold.

The family’s previous home in Dahiyeh’s Hay el-Selom, a 10-minute walk from Laylake, was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in October.

Yet Fatima was warm and hopeful in early June, her hazel eyes still smiling from below her hijab while recounting the pain of loss, displacement and hardship.

Energetic and confident, she spoke expressively, using her hands as if she were on stage.

Like many Lebanese hosts, she offered drinks and an invitation for lunch while chatting about what it was like to feel under attack in Dahiyeh and whether that changed her relationship with her neighbourhood.

After her family’s home was destroyed and they fled to Aida’s, Fatima said, her sons, 24-year-old Hassan and 20-year-old Hussein, managed to salvage two wardrobes and a bed from the rubble along with other scraps from their lives there.

Proud of that small victory, Fatima flung open the bedroom doors to show off the two wardrobes restored to the point where it would be hard to guess they had been in a bombing. The rescued bed is used by one of her sons after getting new slats and a new lease on life.

“These are the most important pieces of furniture in the house,” she said, gently running her hand over one of the damaged surfaces.

“They’re historical [because they survived]. I was so happy we got them back.”

Hassan and Hussein found more in the rubble of their home: a stuffed toy that Hassan used to play with and a few of the books from their mother’s library.

As she spoke, Fatima held the stuffed toy in her hands, smiling and looking at it. Hussein was quietly observing his mother as she shared her thoughts.

“He used to sleep with it beside him every night,” Fatima recalled. “I couldn’t save much from their childhood after my divorce, but I kept this, and now it survived the war too.”

In her bedroom, a small table holds a stack of books about history, religion and culture – a fragment of what she once owned.

Scars, visible and invisible

From the living room balcony, the scars of war are visible. The top floors of a neighbouring building have been destroyed, the lower floors still standing – a daily reminder of what was lost.

Yet Fatima holds Dahiyeh dear and is determined to stay.

“I love the people here,” she said. “Everyone is kind. … Dahiyeh is home.”

Hussein agreed that he feels most at home in Dahiyeh with its strong sense of community and friends and neighbours all around.

During the war, he struggled emotionally, constantly stressed and getting into fights. He has seen two therapists but hasn’t felt much improvement.

Unlike his mother, Hussein is open to the idea of leaving Dahiyeh, but he pointed out practicalities – rents and the overall cost of living outside Dahiyeh are much higher if they could find a place to rent.

And, he said, they could face sectarian discrimination if they relocate.

The family had to leave Dahiyeh briefly during Israel’s war on Lebanon and sought shelter in the nearby coastal Beirut suburb of Jnah. Fatima still carries a painful memory from that time.

A Jnah grocery store owner snidely remarked: “Look at those trashy Shia people,” as he looked at newly arrived families dressed in the slippers and pyjamas they fled in.

The comment left a scar, and she refuses to leave Dahiyeh again.

“If war comes again, what do you teach the next generation?” she asked. “That it’s OK to give up your home? Or that you stand your ground?”

‘If it were just me, I’d stay’

While Fatima has chosen to stay in Dahiyeh, her 55-year-old sister, Iman, wants to leave.

Iman lives with her husband, Ali, a plastering foreman, and their four children: Hassan, 25, a programmer; Fatima, 19, a university student; and 16-year-old twins Mariam and Marwa, both in school.

All the children still share a single bedroom in their modest but light and joyful home.

The living room was full of laughter as Iman sat with Mariam and Hassan, passing around chocolate and juice while cousins chatted in the background.

There was teasing as they shared memories of fear, displacement and resilience.

Dahiyeh has never been entirely safe. Its history has been shaped by the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War and Israeli assaults, including the devastating 2006 war.

It’s a cycle, Iman said – another war, another wave of fear and displacement. During Israel’s most recent war on Lebanon, the family fled multiple times.

They first went to Kayfoun village in the Mount Lebanon governorate in late September, but tensions there were high, and a local man spread rumours of imminent Israeli strikes, trying to scare displaced families away.

They left Kayfoun after a week and fled to Tripoli in the north, where life was quieter and the presence of nearby relatives offered some comfort, but mistrust lingered.

Iman was often judged by her hijab, which marked her as “resistance-aligned” to people who blamed Hezbollah for Israel’s attacks on Lebanon.

“We all became introverts,” Hassan recalled. “We stayed home most of the time, but we had relatives nearby and met some good friends. We’d sit together, play cards. It helped.”

In early October, they followed friends to Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, where they were welcomed warmly – more warmly, they said, than in parts of Lebanon.

After the ceasefire, they returned. “There’s no place better than our country,” Iman insisted, but Dahiyeh does not feel safe to her any more despite her deep ties to the neighbourhood, so she is searching for a new home – anywhere that’s safer.

“If it were just me, I’d stay,” she said. “But I have kids. I have to protect them.”

‘They don’t rent to Shia families’

Iman’s son Hassan recalls the first time Israel bombed near their apartment – on April 1 in breach of the November ceasefire.

“I just wanted out,” he said. “I don’t care where we go. Just somewhere that isn’t a target.”

But finding a new place to rent is far from simple.

They considered moving to Hazmieh. It is close to Dahiyeh but not part of it, making it relatively safer. And it would be closer to Iman’s sister Mariam, who lives there.

But Iman said: “In Hazmieh, most of them don’t rent to Shia families, or they would double the price.”

Despite the mounting fear, the family does not want to leave Lebanon, and Hassan has turned down a job offer abroad. They’re exhausted, they said, but not ready to abandon their country.

Even in the midst of war, Hassan said, his parents did not want to leave Dahiyeh. He had to work on convincing them to go first to Kayfoun, then eventually Iraq.

It was the same after the ceasefire with long discussions about whether to leave, and it was his mother’s fear for her children that made her eventually agree.

But more than a month after they spoke to Al Jazeera in early June, they’re still searching for a place that will take them and that they can afford.