Commentaries about Disasters and displaced populations
  • Mar 9, 2010

    Driving through Port-au-Prince's Parc Jean Marie Vincent camp, the first thing I notice is how massive and congested it is. After that, the smell and the heat hit me. I had come to the camp to interview a young rape survivor, as part of a Human Rights Watch mission to Haiti to investigate sexual and other violence against women in the aftermath of the earthquake. Sexual violence often increases in emergencies, when normal structures have broken down and women struggle to meet basic needs for food, water, shelter and hygiene.

  • Jan 29, 2009

    The advance of Sri Lanka's army into the northern strongholds of the Tamil Tigers marks the end of a chapter in Sri Lanka's long civil war. But the conflict's human-rights toll is heavy, says Meenakshi Ganguly.

  • Dec 12, 2008

    As the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe spreads across regional borders, southern African governments have come together to discuss a regional strategy to stem the outbreak.

  • Jun 2, 2008

    If there is any surprise inside governments or the UN over the Burmese military regime's obstruction of international aid efforts following the devastating Cyclone Nargis, then they haven't been watching the country closely enough.