Seven men are now in custody in India for the alleged gang-rape of a tourist and assault on her husband, authorities said, in a case that has shone a new spotlight on the endemic problem of sexual violence against women in the country.

On Saturday, police announced that three men had been arrested in connection with the incident and that they were seeking four more.

The couple, who had been traveling by motorcycle from the state of West Bengal to neighboring Nepal, were found late Friday by police officers on patrol, said Pitambar Singh Kherwar, superintendent of Dumka district police in Jharkhand state.

They were taken to the hospital, where the woman told the doctor she had been raped, he said.

Police have formed a special investigative team, Kherwar said. It is unclear whether the suspects have legal representation.

The arrests come after a travel vlogger couple on Saturday posted on their Instagram account that they had “knives (held) to our throats,” during an attack in India. The woman had been raped and brought to the hospital for DNA testing, they said.

The couple posts in Spanish, and the woman says on her Instagram page that she is Brazilian.

On their Instagram story, the woman showed bruises on her face, saying, “This is what my face looks like, but it isn’t what hurts the most. I thought I was going to die.”

In a follow-up post Sunday, the couple thanked their followers for their support, saying they are doing well and that “the police is doing everything possible to catch” the remaining suspects.

India’s National Commission for Women (NCW) condemned the alleged attack.

NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma has spoken to the victim and extended all required assistance, the organization posted on social platform X on Saturday.

Jharkhand minister Mithilesh Kumar Thakur called the alleged assault a “condemnable incident.”

“If a crime has been committed, the culprits will not be spared,” he said on Saturday.

India has struggled for years to tackle high rates of violence against women, with a number of high-profile rape cases involving foreign visitors drawing international attention to the issue.

In 2018, A British woman was allegedly raped while walking to her hotel in the western state of Goa, a popular tourist destination; two years earlier, an American woman was allegedly drugged and raped by a group of men in her five-star hotel room in New Delhi. And in 2013, six men were sentenced to life in prison for the gang rape of a Swiss tourist.

According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, a total of 31,516 rape cases were recorded in 2022, an average of 86 cases per day.

And experts warn that the number of cases recorded are just a small fraction of what may be the real number, in a deeply patriarchal country where shame and stigma surround rape victims and their families.

Around 170 people have been “executed” in attacks on three villages in Burkina Faso’s northern Yatenga province, the regional public prosecutor has said.

Aly Benjamin Coulibaly said in a statement on Friday that his office was initially informed of the “massive murderous attacks” in the villages of Komsilga, Nodin and Soroe on February 25.

The statement was re-posted to the country’s justice ministry’s Facebook page on Sunday.

Coulibaly said people were also injured, although no figure was given.

He appealed for anyone with information to come forward.

The statement did not mention which group was behind the attacks.

Meanwhile, authorities have yet to announce an official death toll from separate attacks on February 25 that targeted a mosque and a church in the north and east of the country.

At least 15 Muslims and 15 Catholics were killed when “hordes of terrorists launched simultaneous attacks” on Tankoualou and Essakane villages, the government press agency Agence d’Information du Burkina (AIB) reported last week.

The European Union condemned those attacks while expressing solidarity with the troubled nation.

The junta-led West African country is one of the world’s poorest nations and has become an epicenter of violence carried out by Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

The violence began in neighboring Mali in 2012 but has since spread across the arid expanse of the Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert.

Large areas of the north and east of Burkina Faso have become ungovernable since 2018. Millions have fled their homes, fearing further raids by gunmen who frequently descend on rural communities on motorbikes. Thousands have been killed.

Malaysia may renew the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, the country’s transport minister said Sunday, as the 10th anniversary of its disappearance nears.

Flight MH370 became one of the world’s most puzzling aviation mysteries when it vanished with 239 aboard en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. Despite the launch of the largest aviation search in history, virtually nothing of the aircraft has since been found.

But days ahead of the 10th anniversary, Malaysian transport minister Anthony Loke vowed to “do everything possible to solve this mystery once and for all.”

“Meaningful changes have been made to prevent a repeat of this tragedy, but I am also clearly aware that the task remains incomplete,” Loke said at an event to mark the disappearance of the Boeing 777.

The US-based seabed exploration firm Ocean Infinity had made a “credible” new search proposal, Loke said, without providing details. The company has previously made two fruitless attempts at finding the plane.

“The Ministry of Transport are ready to invite Ocean Infinity to Malaysia to discuss the proposal of a no-find, no-fee proposal. We are waiting for Ocean Infinity to provide the suitable dates and I will meet them any time that they are ready to come to Malaysia,” Loke said.

He said he would do “everything possible” to get Cabinet approval for a new contract with Ocean Infinity.

“I am glad that there is some progress in some of the new research and new technologies, which have been put into place and we really hope that the search can find the plane,” Loke said.

The mystery surrounding MH370 has gripped the world since its disappearance nearly a decade ago. While the plane has not been found, clues have been scattered across nearby seas.

Debris confirmed or believed to be from the aircraft has washed up along the African coast and on islands in the Indian Ocean, including a wing flag in Tanzania, a wing fragment in Mauritius and a flaperon in Reunion Island.

Loke said the tragedy had been a “wake-up call to the aviation sector at home and abroad.”

“As we approach the 10 years remembrance of this heart-wrenching tragedy, it is a painful reminder of the decade-long journey of grief and resilience that loved ones of the victims have endured,” he said.

Ocean Infinity last attempted to find the missing plane in 2018, with Malaysia offering up to $70 million if the firm had found it.

Singapore is drawing fans from all over Southeast Asia and beyond to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, much to the annoyance of the city-state’s regional neighbors.

The anger is not directed at the superstar but at the Singaporean government for an exclusive deal it struck with concert organizers to make sure the city-state is the only place in Southeast Asia where she performs.

Swift has brought a windfall to Singapore – as she usually does wherever she goes – as fans buy flights, accommodation and souvenirs in the city-state.

But countries in the region have expressed their annoyance with Filipino lawmaker Joey Salceda saying exclusive deals aren’t “what good neighbors do.”

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong responded to the criticism on Tuesday, saying Singapore was not being “unfriendly” to its neighbors by making a deal with the superstar.

“[Our] agencies negotiated an arrangement with her to come to Singapore and perform and to make Singapore her only stop in Southeast Asia,” Lee said at a press conference in Melbourne while on a state visit to Australia.

“Certain incentives were provided to her, and a deal was reached. It has turned out to be a very successful arrangement. I don’t see that as being unfriendly.”

“If we had not made such an arrangement, would she have come to more places in Southeast Asia? Maybe, maybe not?” he added.

Singapore officials had previously acknowledged offering Swift a grant, with the country’s culture minister, Edward Tong, playing down the size of the grant and Monday said that “it is not accurate and not anywhere as high as speculated.”

Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin  had claimed during a business forum in Bangkok on February 16 that Singapore paid Taylor Swift up to $3 million per show on the condition of exclusivity to perform in the country.

Southeast Asia fans dig deep to see Swift

The Eras Tour is a multi-continent extravaganza that surged to become the highest-grossing tour of all time – and Swift is making Singapore a lot of money.

Swift is playing six, sold-out nights to 300,000 fans in Singapore, where 70% of the concertgoers are flying from overseas and spending up to $370 million in the city state, according to estimates by an economist at Maybank.

Between March 1 and 9 when Swift is in town, Singapore-inbound flights shot up by 186% and accommodation bookings almost quintupled, according to Edmund Ong, general manager at travel platform Trip.com in Singapore.

These large-scale global music events are a boon for Singapore’s travel-related services that can add up to 10% of its GDP, HSBC’s ASEAN economist Yun Liu wrote in a recent note.

Fans from the Philippines, Thailand, China and other countries in the region have spent thousands on concert and plane tickets to watch Swift perform, plus whatever it takes to complete the experience with sequined dresses and themed costumes.

For many Filipino fans, traveling to Singapore can be a huge outlay. The GDP per capita in the Philippines is around $3,500 a year, according to the World Bank. In comparison Singapore is one of the world’s wealthiest places in the world where the average person earns more than 23 times has much with a GDP per capita of $83,000.

Filipino fan Charlyn Suizo is among those on a pricey pilgrimage to watch Swift, splashing all out for the once in a lifetime extravaganza.

“This is the biggest amount I have spent for a concert. I never really spent big like six-digit (Philippine peso) amounts for someone else, just Taylor Swift,” Suizo said.

Singapore’s currency is one of the strongest in Asia, making everything relatively expensive for travelers from emerging markets in the region.

Gilliane Granada, 24, who traveled from the Philippines with three other friends, said while its more costly for them to go to Singapore for the concert it makes sense to host it in the city-state.

“I don’t think we’d have a big enough venue to accommodate her, her stage and her production and all that. So, I think that’s probably one of the reasons why they decided to have it here in Singapore because it’s a great stadium,” Granada said.

Her friend, Christel Kaye Kuan, 25, said they all spent about $2,000 for tickets, flights accommodation for the trip, and added that they at least got to turn it into their first international trip as friends.

That’s about six times the national average monthly wage in the Philippines, based on latest government census data.

But it’s all worth it “because we get to see Taylor.”

Ukraine’s military on Tuesday claimed another successful attack on a Russian warship, marking the latest in a string of naval defeats for Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet that Kyiv says has reduced its numbers by more than a third since the start of the war.

The Defense Intelligence of Ukraine said maritime drones operated by its Group 13 special unit struck and sank the 1,300-ton Russian patrol ship Sergei Kotov in the Black Sea, near the Kerch Strait that separates occupied Crimea from the coast of southwest Russia.

“As a result of the strike by Magura V5 maritime drones, the Russian ship Project 22160 ‘Sergei Kotov’ sustained damage to the stern, starboard and port sides,” sparking a fire aboard the vessel, a statement said. The military later confirmed the ship had sunk.

The mission was conducted in cooperation with the Ukrainian Navy and with the support of Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, it added.

Andriy Yusov, representative of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine, said in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the Sergei Kotov had been targeted and hit before, but “this time the Sergei Kotov has been destroyed for sure.”

Ukraine’s maritime drones have taken a heavy toll on Russian naval ships, especially in the past few months, with its campaign in the Black Sea a rare strategic success for Kyiv compared to recent setbacks on the battlefield.

In mid-February, the Russian landing ship Caesar Kunikov was attacked with the same drones used against the Sergei Kotov. The drones punctured “critical holes” on the Russian ship’s left side before sinking it, Ukrainian military intelligence agency said on Telegram.

Earlier in February, Ukraine claimed its forces had disabled about 33% of Russia’s warships, amounting to 24 disabled ships and one submarine. Russia’s worst naval loss of the war was the sinking of the guided-missile cruiser Moskva in April 2022.

The Sergei Kotov was one of Russia newest ships in the Black Sea Fleet. A report from Russian state-run news agency TASS on January 21, 2021, said the ship was floated on that day and would soon join the Black Sea Fleet.

The TASS report said the 300-foot-long (91 meters) warship had a range of 6,000 nauticial miles, could carry a crew of 80 and was equipped with a helicopter, a 57mm gun and a modern air defense system. Ukraine said it had a price tag of $65 million.

Thousands of delegates from across China are gathering in Beijing this week for the start of the country’s most prominent annual political event, where leaders will signal how they plan to steer the world’s second largest economy in the year ahead — and try to dispel deepening concern about the challenges it faces.

Projecting confidence is likely to be high on the agenda for Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his top Communist Party officials during the days-long, highly choreographed event, known as the “two sessions,” when China’s rubber stamp legislature and top advisory body convene.

The largely ceremonial gathering is taking on heightened importance this year as China’s economy has been roiled by a property sector crisis, hefty local government debt, deflation, a stock market rout and tech friction with the US — all fueling questions about whether the country will lose steam before it reaches its goal of becoming a developed global power.

It also will include a significant break with precedent: the scrapping of a closing press conference with China’s premier, a political tradition that has featured in the gathering for three decades – at a times providing a rare window into the thinking of China’s number two leader, who is nominally in charge of the economy.

The press conference would also not take place for the rest of the current five year political cycle “unless there are very special circumstances,” spokesperson Lou Qinjian told reporters in Beijing Monday ahead of the legislative meeting’s opening day, citing other interview opportunities for media throughout the event. This year’s legislative gathering will also last just seven days, a shorter format than was typical prior to the pandemic.

The changes are likely to add to broader concerns about transparency around China’s policymaking and further dim the premier’s profile, which had already been impacted by Xi’s hardline control over all policy areas, including the economy. Under Xi, the premier and the State Council, which functions as China’s cabinet, have been increasingly sidelined.

“By design, they only want one voice — from the (Communist) Party. They don’t want other voices to dilute the voice of the party, which is controlled by Xi,” said Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

That also means Xi is heavily under the spotlight as economic pain has sparked growing frustration within China. The gathering comes one year after he began a norm-shattering third term as president, having consolidated power atop the party and stacked its leadership with a raft of officials who appeared to be selected for their loyalty as much as experience.

A year later — as an expected post-Covid recovery has yet to fully materialize, young people struggle to find jobs, investors grapple with market losses and small business owners fight to stay afloat — skepticism has been rising about the direction charted by the leader and his new team. Xi has also overseen a political shakeup in his own ranks, further marring the start of the new term.

Those challenges may not pose a threat to Xi, who is China’s most powerful and authoritative leader in decades. But how his team addresses those concerns will have implications not only for the future of China and its 1.4 billion people, but the global economy at large — and Xi’s top officials are likely stepping into the meeting feeling that pressure.

Policymakers, investors and business owners in capitals across the world will also be watching closely, especially in a year when America’s presidential election could further strain the relationship between the world’s two largest economies.

“The government wants to use this platform to send signals that China’s economy in general is okay and is on the right trajectory,” said Chen Gang, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute.

“Now there are a lot of doubts and suspicions about the capacity of the new administration … (so) they want to showcase that this government, the new administration led by (Xi’s number two) Premier Li Qiang, is capable of handling economic issues,” he said.

Delegates converge

The gathering, which takes place in Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People, is the only time each year that the nearly 3,000-person legislature, the National People’s Congress, meets in person.

The body has little power to chart the course ahead for the country, as major policy direction is set by the party, whose elite members make decisions in closed-door meetings throughout the year.

But the two sessions provide an important platform for China’s notoriously opaque government to broadcast its strategy for economic, social and foreign policies and announce key indicators including China’s economic growth target, its budget deficit limit and military spending for the coming year.

It’s also an opportunity for elite leaders to hear from delegates, who hail from across the country and different social sectors — though the space for such exchanges at the gathering and in general has shrunk as Xi has tightened ideological control and overseen a drive to crush views that deviate from the Communist Party line.

Such controls have also appeared in recent debate about the economy, with some prominent economic analysts subjected to social media restrictions that seem designed to restrict their ability to speak out.

“The regime often utilizes the annual conference to secure support from Chinese society and bolster confidence in the market,” said Xuezhi Guo, a professor of political science at Guilford College in the US.

Now “this is particularly crucial given challenges like China’s real estate downturn, stock market crisis, high unemployment, and weakened demand,” he said.

Observers will be parsing how leaders discuss or comment on key issues like China’s position on the self-governing island of Taiwan, its relations with the US and bid to strengthen innovation as Washington bolsters tech export controls.

“It is conceivable that Xi may adopt a more conciliatory stance towards the US, temporarily shelving the confrontational ‘wolf warrior diplomacy,’ and redirecting efforts towards supporting both the bureaucracy and technocrats to ensure stability in China’s economy,” said Guo.

Such a tone shift could also be signaled by the appointment of a new foreign minister at this year’s gathering – something analysts ahead of the gathering said could happen in the coming days, though an agenda of the event announced Monday did not mention personnel changes.

The role has been filled, in what many expected to be a temporary capacity, by senior diplomat and former Foreign Minister Wang Yi since July, when his newly appointed successor Qin Gang was ousted without explanation after disappearing from public view.

That dramatic moment was followed just weeks later by the disappearance and subsequent removal and replacement of another of Xi’s hand-picked, third-term officials: then Defense Minister Li Shangfu. Again, it was done without explanation alongside an anti-corruption drive and apparent purge within China’s military.

While analysts said the surprise shake-up wasn’t a threat to Xi’s iron-clad grip on power, it did raise questions about his judgment, with lingering vacancies from those removals still a reminder of that.

Besides the foreign minister role, two high-ranking posts in China’s cabinet previously occupied by Li and Qin also remain open.

Economic challenges

Signs leading up to the gathering suggest the Chinese government is gearing up to focus on supporting economic growth in the year ahead, but it’s unlikely China will unveil any major stimulus.

“Beijing will likely use the two sessions to announce tactical measures aimed at boosting short-term confidence in China’s economy but without changing Xi’s underlying strategy of state-led development,” said Neil Thomas, a fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.

The announcement of the economic growth target for 2024, set to be delivered by Premier Li on Tuesday, is among the most important issues to watch during the two sessions.

Analysts widely expect Li to reveal a relatively ambitious growth target of “around 5%,” showing that policymakers are still focused on economic growth, even as challenges pile up.

Observers will also be closely watching how markets respond. Heading into the gathering, many are skeptical that projections of confidence and measures announced at the event will be enough to restore optimism.

But even if they don’t, that’s unlikely to dent Xi’s power.

“The country’s economic problems are eroding ordinary people’s trust in the leadership’s ability to deliver higher growth and improved livelihoods,” said Asia Society’s Thomas.

“However, Xi does not need to win elections so what matters most for him is elite control rather than popular approval. And the economy seems a long way from the type of collapse that could overwhelm the party’s sophisticated apparatus of repression.”

South Korea and the United States began their annual Freedom Shield joint military drills on Monday to bolster readiness against North Korea.

The 11-day drills will integrate elements of “live exercises” with constructive simulations, according to United States Forces Korea (USFK) and South Korea’s Defense Ministry.

The exercises will focus on deterring North Korea’s nuclear threats, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Lee Sung-jun said last week.

USFK said in a statement that the drills “will include but not be limited to lessons learned from current and ongoing conflicts to increase the units’ combat readiness and combined defense posture, as well as strengthen the security and stability on the Korean Peninsula and across Northeast Asia.”

In addition to Freedom Shield, the two allies are conducting several smaller field training exercises to enhance their defense posture and cooperation “through air, land, sea, space, cyber and special operations,” the USFK said in its statement.

North Korea has previously condemned US and South Korea joint military drills, but it has not yet made any official comment or response to the current exercises.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has drawn an increasingly harder line against South Korea in recent months, saying the North will no longer seek reconciliation and reunification with the South and instructing the country’s army, munitions industry, nuclear weapons and civil defense sectors to accelerate war preparations in response to “confrontation moves” by the US.

In January, Kim called the South the North’s “primary foe and invariable principal enemy” and ordered a reunification monument in the North Korean capital to be demolished.

Meanwhile, North Korea has fostered closer ties with Russia, providing Moscow with arms for its war in Ukraine. In return, Western analysts say Russia could be a source of technology and expertise for Kim as he refines a nuclear-capable missile program that could threaten not only his neighbors in East Asia, but possibly the mainland United States with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Haiti’s government declared a state of emergency on Sunday after thousands of inmates apparently escaped from its largest prison during a surge of gang violence that has upended the Caribbean nation for months.

The government cited the “deterioration of security,” notably in the capital Port-au-Prince, and “increasingly violent criminal acts perpetrated by armed gangs,” including kidnappings and killings of citizens, violence against women and children and looting, according to a statement from Finance Minister Patrick Boivert, who is serving as acting prime minister.

It also cited the attacks by armed groups on Saturday against the country’s two largest prisons, one in Port-au-Prince and another in Croix des Bouquets, which led to the escape of “dangerous prisoners” and caused deaths and injuries among police and prison staff.

A United Nations’ source said Sunday that around 3,500 prisoners are believed to have escaped Haiti’s National Penitentiary in Port-Au-Prince during the weekend.

There had been 3,687 prisoners at prison, according to the source. The UN mission in Haiti tracks incarcerated populations and humanitarian conditions in prisons in the country.

The Haitian Ministry of Communication said in a statement Sunday that police confronted “heavily armed criminals seeking at any cost to free people from custody” and were “not able to stop the criminals from freeing a large number of prisoners.” The violence left several inmates and prison staff injured, it said.

Earlier, in a post on X, one of Haiti’s police unions pleaded for all officers in the capital with access to cars and weapons to assist police battling to maintain control of the prison. It warned that if the attackers were successful, “we are done. No one will be spared in the capital because there will be 3,000 extra bandits,” according to the statement.

On Friday, Haitian gang leader Jimmy Cherizier, also known as Barbecue, said he would continue in his effort to try to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

“We ask the Haitian National Police and the military to take responsibility and arrest Ariel Henry. Once again, the population is not our enemy; the armed groups are not your enemy. You arrest Ariel Henry for the country’s liberation,” Cherizier said, adding, “With these weapons, we will liberate the country, and these weapons will change the country.”

Cherizier is a former police officer who heads an alliance of gangs. He has faced sanctions from both the UN and the United States Department of Treasury.

Public frustration, which had been building against Henry over his inability to curb the unrest, boiled over after he failed to step down last month, citing the escalating violence.

Under a previous agreement, he had committed to hold elections and transfer power by February 7.

Caribbean leaders said Wednesday that Henry had agreed to hold general elections no later than August 31, 2025.

The recent fighting came as Henry was visiting Kenya to finalize details with Kenyan President William Ruto for the expected deployment of a multinational security support mission to Haiti.

Meanwhile, gunfire near the airport on Thursday forced airlines to suspend flights.

The US Embassy in Haiti issued a security alert Friday, warning of gunshots and disruptions to traffic near the domestic and international terminals, as well as surrounding areas including a hotel and the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police.

In a statement Sunday, the embassy urged US citizens to leave the country due to violence, adding that it would be on limited operations Monday. The French Embassy in Haiti said it was suspending visa and administration services on Monday.

Haiti has been gripped by a wave of unrest and gang violence in recent years.

Warring gangs control much of Port-au-Prince, choking off vital supply lines to the rest of the country. Gang members have also terrorized the metropolitan population, forcing more than 300,000 people to flee their homes amid waves of indiscriminate killing, kidnapping, arson and rape.

Some 1,100 people were killed, injured or kidnapped in January alone, in what the UN called the most violent month in two years.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

A growing number of children in Gaza are dying from dehydration and malnutrition, the Palestinian health ministry said Sunday, amid desperate conditions due to Israel’s throttling of aid and destruction of the besieged enclave — reinforcing the urgency of this week’s ceasefire talks.

The official said the reason was that Hamas had not responded to two Israeli demands: a list of Israeli hostages specifying which are alive and which are dead; and confirmation of the ratio of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli prisons, in exchange for the hostages taken when Hamas militants attacked communities in southern Israel on October 7.

It comes as the United States is increasingly vocal about the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, where the United Nations warns hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of famine and US ally Israel continues to obstruct the bulk of aid deliveries.

On Saturday, the US made its first humanitarian airdrop into the strip — 66 bundles containing meals but no water or medical supplies, a US official said. Aid groups have criticized the air drops as an ineffective and degrading way to get aid to Palestinians in Gaza, with the International Crisis Group’s UN director saying they are at best a “temporary Band-Aid measure.”

One of the strongest rebukes of Israel by a US official to date came from US Vice President Kamala Harris, who on Sunday forcefully called for more humanitarian aid into Gaza, saying that people in the region are “starving” in the face of “inhumane” conditions and urged Israel to do more.

She called for an “immediate ceasefire for at least the next six weeks,” a proposal currently on the negotiating table, and urged Hamas to free Israeli hostages.

“What we are seeing every day in Gaza is devastating. We have seen reports of families eating leaves or animal feed. Women giving birth to malnourished babies with little or no medical care, and children dying from malnutrition and dehydration,” Harris said, citing the deaths of dozens of Palestinians amid Israeli gunfire and panic at Gaza food lines.

“The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid. No excuses,” said Harris.

Her comments also come at a critical moment in the Israel-Hamas war. On Monday, the vice president is expected to meet with a key member of the Israeli War Cabinet, Benny Gantz, in Washington as the US continues to advocate a temporary ceasefire and hostage release.

Children starving to death

In northern Gaza, children are starving to death and others fighting for their lives as critical supplies are held up from reaching those in need.

A Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson said Sunday the number of children who have died of dehydration and malnutrition in northern Gaza has risen to 15.

A further 124 people were killed over the past 24 hours, the Gaza Ministry of Health said Monday, bringing the death toll in the enclave since October 7 to 30,534.

Doctors at the Kamal Adwan Hospital also “fear for the lives of six children suffering from malnutrition and diarrhea in intensive care as a result of the cessation of the electric generator and oxygen and the weakness of medical capabilities,” Dr. Ashraf Al-Qidra, the Ministry spokesman in Gaza, said in a statement.

The death toll has been rising since last week when incubators and oxygen supplies at Kamal Adwan Hospital ceased to operate at night because of fuel shortages, the ministry said.

One recent incident exposed the particularly desperate situation in northern Gaza.

More than 100 people were killed last week when Israeli troops opened fire on crowds, triggering panic as hungry Palestinian civilians were gathering around food aid trucks, Palestinian officials and eyewitnesses said.

Israel said its troops fired warning shots to disperse the crowd. A UN team that visited victims said many suffered gunshot wounds.

The United Nations children’s agency has called for urgent action, requesting “multiple reliable entry points” to allow them to bring aid.

“Humanitarian aid agencies like UNICEF must be enabled to reverse the humanitarian crisis, prevent a famine, and save children’s lives,” UNICEF’s Adele Khodr said in a statement Sunday.

UNICEF said it was aware of at least 10 children dying due to dehydration and malnutrition in recent days at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

“There are likely more children fighting for their lives somewhere in one of Gaza’s few remaining hospitals, and likely even more children in the north unable to obtain care at all,” Khodr added.

She described the situation as “man-made, predictable, and entirely preventable,” and warned the death toll among children could rapidly increase unless immediate action is taken.

“The widespread lack of nutritious food, safe water and medical services, a direct consequence of the impediments to access and multiple dangers facing UN humanitarian operations, is impacting children and mothers, hindering their ability to breastfeed their babies, especially in the northern Gaza Strip,” she said.

“People are hungry, exhausted and traumatized. Many are clinging to life.”

From above, Haiti’s capital city Port-au-Prince still looks serene, its white-washed homes climbing steep green hills that encircle a glittering bay. But to step onto its cracked streets requires a careful calculation of risk and reward.

Ruthless gangs have a stranglehold on the city, preying on the population, carving neighborhoods into warring criminal fiefdoms, and cutting Haiti’s international port off from the rest of the country.

It was a glimpse into the viral daily torment of life in Haiti, where frequent civilian protests emphasize that the population has reached a breaking point. Gangs control 80% of the capital, according to UN estimates, and are fighting to seize the rest.

Since last week, Port-au-Prince has been gripped by a wave of highly coordinated gang attacks, with armed groups burning down police stations and freeing prisoners in what one gang leader described as a direct challenge to Haiti’s unpopular Prime Minister Ariel Henry. On Sunday, Haiti’s government declared a state of emergency after thousands of inmates apparently escaped from its largest prison.

“We have chosen to take our destiny in our own hands. The battle we are waging will not only topple Ariel’s government. It is a battle that will change the whole system,” said Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier, a former police officer who styles himself as Robin Hood figure in his territory, in a statement reported by local media.

Henry’s whereabouts are currently unclear, after a visit to Kenya last week.

‘The country cannot continue like this’

Each year in recent memory has been worse than the last, each catastrophe another blow to the disintegrating Haitian state. In downtown Port-au-Prince, the country’s historic National Palace is still in ruins from Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake. Now, multiple courthouses in the area have now been taken over and occupied by gangs.

Many Haitians blame their prime minister for rapidly ceding ground to the gangs over the past three years, while refusing to organize elections that would bring in a new government and give the country a fresh start. Henry and his allies say that the current insecurity would make a free and fair vote impossible, but such explanations do little to appease popular outrage.

Earlier this month, when rumors swirled in one Port-au-Prince neighborhood that a local police station would be closed, fed-up residents quickly spilled into the streets, toppling a bus and burning tires as they called for Henry’s ouster.

“Ariel Henry has to go,” one protester shouted. “We are living in total precarity. We’re living on trash, on sewage. I have nothing, I’m empty. I can’t go to work, I can’t support my family, I can’t send my kids to school.”

Even for some within the gangs, the brutality of the current situation has become unbearable.

“The sentiment on the ground is that the country cannot continue like this. The level of violence that people are exposed to is inhumane,” United Nations deputy special representative in Haiti Ulrika Richardson warned in a press briefing in New York Wednesday.

80% of Port-au-Prince controlled by gangs

On TikTok and WhatsApp, accounts flaunting guns and flashy cars tout affiliation with groups like the 5 Segond gang, 400 Mawozo (notorious in the US for the 2021 kidnapping of over a dozen foreign missionaries), and Kraze Barye, whose leader has a nearly $2 million bounty on his head from the FBI.

Haiti’s gangs were once seen as thuggish instruments for powerful politicians and business elites.  But today, they seem to have slipped their leashes; the gangs overrunning Port-au-Prince have become independent “violent entrepreneurs,” according to a recent analysis by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

In an impoverished country with little to exploit, the gangs are treating human beings like commodities, snatching at least 2,490 people off the street last year to trade in a fast-growing kidnapping business, per UN figures.

Victims whose families cannot pay for their release are often killed, adding to the thousands of others who have lost their lives to indiscriminate gunfire, waves of arson, and other abuses. Haiti’s national homicide rate doubled last year, reaching 41 murders for every 100,000 people, the UN says – one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Haiti’s National Police, which boasts an aggressive new anti-gang unit, has seen some success in apprehending some criminal figures and holding back gang expansion in a key areas of the city, including next to the US embassy. But with nearly 100 growing gangs in the metropolitan area, the force just does not have the firepower or training to restore calm to the country, sources say.

According to UN figures, Haitian police are quitting en masse, with 1,663 officers leaving in 2023 alone.

As hunger spreads, popular anger grows

One recent morning in the neighborhood of Delmas, dozens of women from the nearby gang-controlled slum of Cité Soleil lined up to receive food handouts from the UN’s World Food Programme, distributed by Catholic charity St. Kizito.

“I was at home with my family, when a rival group to our local gang attacked the neighborhood. I had the time to run with my child, but my husband was too slow behind us. They burned the house down with him inside.”

Over 300,000 civilians have been made homeless by inter-gang warfare, according to the UN.

But in rural areas, the threat is hunger. Gang control of key roads in and around Port-au-Prince has dramatically slowed the transport of vital imported food and fuel across the country. Exorbitant bribes are required for safe passage.

Prices are spiking unsustainably for a population where more than 60% of households live on less than $4 per day, according to World Bank estimates.

The stress of trying to make ends meet in these conditions is fraying the social fabric. In January, rioters attacked the St. John Bosco school, trying to break down its gates and reach food stocks donated by the UN’s World Food Programme, according to the administrator.

The food was intended for impoverished students’ lunches – often their only meal of the day. But since then, the terrified kids have not come back.

Anger boils over

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon by training, was appointed prime minister in 2021 with the backing of the United States, Canada and other key allies, following the assassination of former President Jovenel Moise.

The job was a poisoned chalice; even then, gangs were estimated to be in control of more than half of Port-au-Prince. Henry vowed to restore order and hold elections, but two and half years later, the world’s first free Black republic is further than ever from those democratic fundamentals. Haiti’s last elections were in 2016, so most terms have long since expired, leaving elected offices vacant – including the presidency and the entire legislature.

It’s a fertile landscape for political opportunists. Earlier this month, Guy Philippe, a rebel leader who was recently repatriated by the United States to Haiti after serving time for money laundering, called for a revolution. Accompanying him in some videos were members of the Haitian Environment Ministry’s security brigade (BSAP), raising fears of a state security force gone rogue.

“Any revolution that can free the Haitian people from this dictatorship, we are ready to stand with it,” he said, adding the caveat that BSAP does not intend to turn their arms against the government and that his only action so far had been to participate in protests in Port-au-Prince.

The gangs meanwhile have shown no qualms about attacking government institutions directly.

As armed groups pounded the National Penitentiary, one of Haiti’s police unions posted a desperate message to X on Saturday, pleading for reinforcements. If the prison’s detainees are released to join gangs already at large, the union warned, “we are done. No one will be spared in the capital.” But by the end of the day, the prison had been opened; over 3,500 prisoners are thought to have escaped, according to UN estimates.

Violence continued throughout the weekend, with Haiti’s government on Sunday announcing a state of emergency in the West department, where Port-au-Prince is located, and a curfew from 6pm to 5am in an effort to “regain control of the situation.”

Hope in a foreign uniform

February 7 was the date that a new elected government should have taken power in Haiti, per an agreement between Henry’s government and a coalition of influential figures from Haiti’s civil society and business sector.

But the necessary elections were never held, so Henry last month could offer only a rare national address asking for patience as the deadline came and went, telling citizens it is time to “put our heads together to save Haiti.”

“The principal task of this transitional government is to create the conditions in which elections can be organized,” he assured viewers.

“My interim government is working hand-in-hand with the police to restore normal life in the country. We are aware that many thing have to change, but we need to make those changes together and calmly,” he also said.

A new transition deadline has already been proposed: Last week, the leaders of regional bloc Caricom said in a statement Henry had agreed to hold general elections no later than August 31, 2025.

Until then, Henry’s best hopes may rest on an outside solution over which he wields little control: The Kenyan-led “military support” force requested by his government last year and greenlit by the United Nations Security Council.

Anger toward the government for Haiti’s gangs problem is misplaced, he also said, emphasizing that the government has limited options.

“The situation is so complicated that the gangs have more ammunition than us,” he said.

Foreign military interventions are viewed with deep skepticism in Haiti, where UN peacekeepers are synonymous with sex abuse scandals and the deadly introduction of cholera. How exactly the Kenyan-led mission will operate and what kind of human rights precautions its forces will take remain unclear.

It may be no coincidence that the latest wave of gang violence began while Henry was in Nairobi last week to sign an agreement underpinning the mission.

The stakes are high: If the promised 1,000-plus troops are delivered, the foreign muscle is expected to pose a serious challenge to gang control – potentially renewing hope for change in the country and buying time for the embattled premier.

But if the mission does not come soon, experts and government insiders warn that mounting pressure over Haiti’s unbearable violence is likely to explode.