(Beirut, August 28, 2020) – Local authorities in northern Syria have failed to advance efforts to find people kidnapped by ISIS more than a year after its territorial defeat in Syria, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should promptly dedicate resources to uncover what happened to the thousands of missing people.

Fires resulting from unchecked deforestation are poisoning the air millions of people breathe, affecting health throughout the Brazilian Amazon, the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), the Institute for Health Policy Studies(IEPS), and Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Fires and deforestation in the Amazon increased dramatically during 2019, President Jair Bolsonaro’s first year in office, and 2020 is already proving to be worse, the groups found.

Attacks on Fleeing Demonstrators, Health Workers, Media

Conditions Worsen in Rakhine State, Bangladesh Refugee Camps

Qatari authorities’ efforts to protect migrant workers’ right to accurate and timely wages have largely proven unsuccessful, Human Rights Watch said in a report and an accompanying video released today. Despite a handful of reforms in recent years, withheld and unpaid salaries, as well as other wage abuses, are persistent and widespread across at least 60 employers and companies in Qatar.

Source: Official government data from Brazil’s Space Research Agency (INPE).

Saudis Fire on Survivors, Detain Hundreds in Appalling Conditions

End Insurmountable Barriers

(New York, August 13, 2020) – The Covid-19 pandemic and related lockdown are making it even harder for the Wayuu, an indigenous group in Colombia and Venezuela, to survive, Human Rights Watch and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health said in a joint report and accompanying multimedia piece released today.