#displacement

#displacement

On the first Sunday in September, around a hundred people from municipalities in Ourense, Madrid, Barcelona, and Ponferrada travel to a chapel and a cemetery on a special spot in the vast landscape of southeastern Spanish region of Galicia. The location is enveloped by the Serra Seca mountains (1,100 meters above sea level), the eternal route to Castile, and the Invernadoiro Natural Park (1,550 meters).

Gustavo Petro's rise to power once again sparked hopes that the elusive goal of peace with the ELN, pursued by nearly every Colombian government this century, was finally attainable. The leftist president even signed an unprecedented six-month ceasefire with guerrilla commander Antonio Garcia in mid-2023, the first milestone in the now-weary policy of total peace.

Now I have no work, I can't provide for my family, he told Al Jazeera, adding that he used to work in the infrastructure and farming sectors. I used to work with an axe to open water channels between the trees, plough the soil around them, spray pesticides, and plant tomatoes and cucumbers. I used to work from 7am to 4pm for 4050 shekels [$13-$15] per day.

Israeli forces have begun demolishing dozens of buildings housing Palestinian families in the northern occupied West Bank, forcing mass displacement as winter sets in, and leaving communities scrambling for shelter. Israeli military bulldozers and cranes tore through residential blocks in the Nur Shams refugee camp on Wednesday, flattening homes that housed about 100 families. Thick clouds of dust rose over the camp as residents watched from a distance, according to an AFP news agency journalist at the scene.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: When I listen to a song, I listen for the lyrics. The words put images in my head, if they're good, like a Springsteen line. (Singing) The screen door slams. Mary's dress waves. Or they convey an emotion, AJR describing a guy who's sorry for himself, hearing the world's smallest violin. Song lyrics even influence how I try to write for you, writing for your ear.

More than 1 million people have been displaced, many of them two, three or even four times. Neither the Mozambican army nor a Rwandan intervention have managed to quell the insurgency, which has ravaged northern Mozambique since October 2017, when militants from Islamic State-Mozambique, an affiliate of the main IS group in the Middle East, carried out their first attacks, in Mocimboa da Praia in Cabo Delgado province in the north-east.

In the quiet village of Kozubivka in Ukraine's Poltava region, Nelia and her husband Oleksandr open their home to people displaced from Kharkiv, where bombing and shelling have forced thousands to flee. But rebuilding a life in rural Ukraine is not easy. City people must learn to navigate unfamiliar routines on the farm, endure physical labour and bear the emotional weight of displacement.

However, across the Atlantic, the term "peace" remains elusive in many parts of the African continent, including the DRC. Instead of celebrating the agreement signed on December 4, people in eastern DRC remained sheltered in their homes, gripped by fear of what to expect next, as animosities continue. In the week following the peace agreement, more than 500,000 people were displaced across the region, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

At slightly larger than California, the African nation of Cameroon is home to roughly 30 million people and more than 300 indigenous languages. But a long-lasting civil war and other humanitarian crises have made the future of those languages uncertain. Today, most Cameroonians in their 40s and 50s are as proficient in their indigenous languages (including Lamnso', Oroko, and Batanga) as they are in a colonial language such as English or French. Their parents, in contrast, spoke indigenous languages more dominantly.

"The Royal Government of Cambodia has decided to fully suspend all entry and exit movements at all Cambodia-Thailand border crossings, effective immediately and until further notice," the Cambodian Interior Ministry said in a statement. The announcement comes after Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said that his country would keep up military strikes on Cambodia until it no longer felt under threat from its neighbor, telling local media there was no ceasefire in place.

A single mother to two autistic children, who had to leave her home in Bray at the end of November, has been placed in emergency accommodation over 100 kilometres away in County Wexford, despite both of her children attending primary school in the town.

At around midnight on December 8, 2024, the 20-year-old Yamen was on his phone as news poured in that the regime might be on its last legs. A rebel operation from the north of Syria had overtaken Aleppo, Hama and Homs, and word was that they were on their way to Syria's capital city. Yamen told a few friends and joined them in the streets of Damascus.