Global News Podcast - Sudan fighters accused of storming famine-hit camp

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

The paramilitary RSF reported to have stormed Sudan's largest displacement camp. Also: oil clean-up 'scam' warnings ignored by Shell, whistleblower tells BBC, and the beavers who rescued a stalled conservation project.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Jackie Leonard. And at 14 Hours GMT on Wednesday, the 12th of February, these are our main stories. The paramilitary rapid support forces in Sudan are reported to have stormed the country's largest displacement camp, which houses half a million people who fled fighting. The United Nations says it believes 1,400 people were killed during last year's anti-government protests in Bangladesh, mostly by the security

forces. And pressure is growing on the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to clarify his latest Gaza ceasefire demands as the truce edges closer to collapse. Also in this podcast. Between 20 and 60 percent of our nurses responding reported symptoms of anxiety or reported that they had depression or symptoms of depression. A snapshot of the mental health burden on nurses around the world. Zamzam camp in North Darfur houses half a million people who have fled violence in Sudan and who were already facing famine. It's been the target of shelling since late last year. Now refugees there say the RSF paramilitary group has stormed it, there's been looting

and a market set ablaze. Our correspondent in Nairobi, Barbara Platt-Asher, has been following the story. In terms of the casualties, it's really hard to get a clear picture. We don't really have information about numbers or, you know, injuries or deaths. What we have heard is that the injured are having a hard time getting treatment because the hospital in Zamzam no longer does surgeries. And the North Darfur Health Minister has also said that people who were injured weren't able to get to the nearby city of Al-Fasher. If you remember, that's the city that's under siege by the RSF. He says the RSF is blocking the road. Although hospitals in Al-Fasher have also either been shut down or damaged in the long siege. In terms of damage in the camp, it seems as if there was quite extensive damage to the market. That's

what we're told. And there are also videos on social media which show smoldering ruins which we are working at the moment at getting verified. And we know that the people who were living there are already in a terrible situation. Why is the camp a target for the RSF? When an RSF spokesman I contacted actually denied that the fighters had penetrated the camp. He said they had seized a military base near the camp, which belongs to a group called the Joint Forces. This is an armed group that fights alongside the Sudanese military and he said it had been shelling RSF checkpoints for days. And eyewitness told us that the Joint Forces had confronted the RSF in the camp, but he said they arrived

after the attack to respond to it. And looking at the conflict which has been going on for some time now, are we reaching a decisive point? We might be, broadly speaking. The army has made some significant gains in central Sudan recently. It recaptured the key city of Wad Medeni and it has gained control of Jizirah State, which is a strategic state, and now it's closing in on Khartoum from the south and has already reclaimed some regions of the capital city from the RSF in particular Khartoum-Bahri and it's advancing to the center of the city. It's not clear how much resistance they'll face whether

they'll get street-to-street fighting or whether there will still be prolonged battles or whether they will have a victory soon. There really is nowhere else for the people who are currently in Zamzam to go, is there? Not really, no. I mean, you know, before the war there were about 100,000, 200,000, it's not entirely clear, people in Zamzam who had been displaced by previous conflicts in Darfur and the number has really swelled since the civil war. And so you even had people from al-Fasher coming to Zamzam because the fighting there is so intense. So if they're going to be displaced again and according to reports there was an exodus of quite a large number of people because

of the fighting, it's not clear where they can go. Barbara Pletasha in Nairobi. A BBC investigation has revealed allegations that British oil giant Shell ignored repeated warnings that a $1 billion clean-up operation of polluted land in southern Nigeria has been beset with problems and corruption. The claims come as a trial begins this week at the High Court in London between two Nigerian communities and Shell over its pollution of the region ahead of the sale of its assets in the West African country.

This report from our correspondent Simi Jalawa Sho in Agoniland in the Niger Delta. It's been seven decades since oil was discovered in southern Nigeria. Now, formerly fertile landscapes appear as toxic wasteland. The family of 50-year-old mother of six, Polina Abepepe, survived on fishing for generations, until a decade ago. The place was greener, not only mangroves, but all by the shoreline, there were popo trees, palm trees and more. But during the spills, the destruction has polluted everywhere. During the spill, most of the spills, the destruction has polluted everywhere.

During the spill, most of the children have gotten diseases from drinking the water, and many have died. I've lost eight kids, my husband is sick. I think it's because of the pollution in the environment. It's the reality of many here. environment. It's the reality of many here. Literally smells like petrol. And this is the water that you're expected to use to drink, cook, wash. It smells like we're in the fuel station. I guess that's why it's even foaming up.

Thirty seven year old Grace Aldi lives in O'Galley with her partner and two-year-old. Oil spills have contaminated the only borehole they have access to, meaning they must buy clean water for 4,500 naira or three US dollars a day. The average wage here is less than eight. So do you have to be careful how you, how much water you use? In 2011, the UN found people were drinking water contaminated with a known carcinogen

at levels over 900 times above an international guideline. It led to the formation of a new clean-up agency called Hi-Prep. Run by the Nigerian government and part funded by oil companies, including Shell. The project was to take 30 years to complete. Now the BBC can reveal the $1 billion clean-up operation has been beset with allegations of collusion and fraud. A whistleblower who worked on the scheme and whose identity we're protecting because they fear reprisals told us the operation is a con to siphon money

and was widely known by the government and Shell to be failing. It's common knowledge that really what we're doing is a scam. Most of it is to fool Duganian people. The BBC has seen internal documents suggesting representatives of Shell and of the Nigerian government were warned over years of alleged failings at the agency, including the awarding of contracts to incompetent companies and even of falsified test results. Getting away with a scam starts with issuing contracts to contractors who have absolutely

no interest or experience in remediation. Then you enter into the world of a high degree of collision between the government agencies, the regulators and the contractors. In a meeting with a British high commissioner to Nigeria last year, minutes of which have been obtained under freedom of information laws, Shell representatives acknowledged the institutional challenges of the clean-up agency and the chance of the refusal of future funding towards it. When we asked Shell whether it knew of alleged failings at Hi-Prep, the company told us, Hi-Prep is an agency established and overseen by the federal government of Nigeria with its

governing council largely made up of senior ministers and government officials, along with five representatives of communities and NGOs and a single Shell representative. The BBC also visited areas where the Nigerian government and Shell have repeated claims have been cleaned up. It did not take long for us to see oil seep from the ground and float's the black. Shell told the BBC, The operating environment in the Niger Delta remains challenging because of the huge scale

of illegal activities such as oil theft. We take extensive steps to prevent this activity and the spills it causes. When spills do happen from our facilities, we clean up and remediate, regardless of the cause. If it's an operational spill, we also compensate people and communities." The BBC has asked High Prep and the Nigerian government to comment on the allegations, but has received no response. This week, two Nigerian communities will bring a case against Shell at a London High Court. The company is selling its onshore facilities in Nigeria, but questions over its conduct

and legacy here remain. Simi Jalawa Show in the Niger Delta UN human rights investigators say they believe 1,400 people were killed during last year's anti-government protests in Bangladesh, mostly by the security forces. The protests began as a student-led movement against public sector job quotas but soon morphed into a nationwide uprising that forced the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee to India. Now the UN says the deadly violence against protesters could amount to crimes against humanity.

Our South Asia editor is Ambar Arseneh Terajan. According to this UN investigation, many of these violence were targeted and they were all carried out with the knowledge, coordination and direction of those in power and the security officials basically to maim people and they were also alleged to have given directions to kill and enforce disappearances and many of these incidents happened and they went to Bangladesh soon after the government of Sheikh Haseena fell and they spoke to more than 230 people, spoke to weapons experts and the victims and the families of those who were killed in this violence in Bangladesh. Now, how this happened?

As you mentioned, it all started as a student protest, then it became a widespread anti-government movement with various political parties and religious groups joining this student protest and as a result Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on the 5th of August, she fled to India in a helicopter after this mass uprising and then now an interim government headed by the noble laureate Mohammed Yunus is in charge and they asked for this investigation to find out because we saw the television pictures of police firing into the crowd and then there were clashes between the protesters and the security forces and now the UN says that it could amount to crimes against humanity and then calling for criminal

investigation. Yeah I think the report says three-quarters of those who were killed were victims of shooting by military rifles including shotguns with pellets. But one of Sheikh Hasina's former ministers dismissing it all as preposterous allegations. I messaged him and he responded by saying that these allegations were preposterous and no security official was given the order

to shoot at civilians straight away into the protesters. In fact, he said, Muhammad Ali Arafat, he was the minister at that time, he said he was very much involved in the meetings regarding the July protests. At any of these meetings, he was never aware of giving them direction to the security forces to stop these protesters, disperse them at any cost. But then the UN report suggests otherwise and it also talks about the supporters of the then governing Awami League also targeting these protesters. And we spoke to several doctors at the time in hospitals

where many bodies were brought and then hundreds of injured civilians were brought and there was a popular uprising against the government at that time. Now what this UN report gives is a legal standing, some document by an external agency which has gone into these allegations of human rights abuses, now has come out with a fact-finding report and that gives a chance for the government to use this for criminal investigation and also to launch legal proceedings but at the moment she is in India she is in exile and it all depends on whether Delhi wants to extradite her back to Bangladesh to face these

criminal charges. Anbaras and Eti Rajan speaking to Ben Brown. There's mounting pressure for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to clarify his latest Gaza ceasefire demands as the fragile truce edges closer to collapse. After a long Israeli Security Cabinet meeting yesterday, Mr Netanyahu appeared to back President Trump's suggestion that Israel cancels the ceasefire deal altogether unless the hostages were returned by Saturday. Hamas has issued a statement renewing its commitment to the ceasefire and accusing Israel of jeopardising it.

Our Middle East correspondent Yolande Nel gave us her assessment of Mr Netanyahu's comments. The Prime Minister is someone who always chooses his words very carefully. He came out with this video statement after the Security Cabinet met for four hours. He said they had reached a unanimous decision and he said if Hamas doesn't return our hostages by noon on Saturday, the ceasefire will stop. He stopped short of specifying all our hostages exactly echoing the language of President Trump when he had proposed this kind of threat. That could mean

then potentially all 76 of the remaining hostages or it could mean what he said, just the three who were originally scheduled to be released before Hamas said that it was freezing the releases of the hostages because of ceasefire violations by Israel, which of course Israel has denied. So we then had these different briefings, key ministers who came out across the Israeli media last night and on social media and they said that the Security Cabinet meant that demand was for all hostages. But you've got some Israeli analysts saying crucially this morning that he has deliberately, the Prime Minister, not closed the door on the deal.

And the IDF meanwhile is saying that it has raised its level of readiness. What does that mean? So what we understand is that the Israeli military has begun to mobilize reserve units, it's deployed reinforcements both inside Gaza and close to the border to be prepared to go back on the offensive if the ceasefire with Hamas collapses and they're saying that they could get back onto a fighting foot very quickly. The situation now is very different from that before the beginning of the war, because of course the Israeli military still does have troops deployed along the Philadelphia corridor, the strategic strip of land between Gaza and Egypt and all

around the perimeter inside the Gaza Strip. At the moment they're supposed to be on defensive missions but they're saying they can easily be put on the offensive instead. Now the next stage of the ceasefire was always going to be difficult. Where does the ceasefire stand right now and what is being done behind the scenes to try and keep it on track? I would say that overall the ceasefire really is in its most delicate moment since it was first implemented three weeks ago. You can guarantee that Arab countries, that the mediators, Qatar and Egypt in particular are behind the scenes putting a lot of pressure on Hamas to try to kind of get things back

on track. Egypt, meanwhile, has confirmed that it has this kind of comprehensive vision for reconstruction of Gaza. There is also, we can see from the Arab states, a kind of more concerted effort now to put up a sort of united front. They're promising to have a summit later this month to formulate their own plans for Gaza that will not require the removal of the entire Gaza population, some two million people, in the way that President Trump has been outlining with his plan. Yoland Nel in Jerusalem. In Australia, two nurses who appeared in a video apparently threatening to refuse to treat

and even to kill Israeli patients have been suspended by the health authorities. The video was posted on TikTok and has attracted widespread political condemnation. Police in the state of New South Wales say they are aware of the incident. The federal health minister, Mark Butler, said the views expressed were completely unacceptable. It is the obligation of every single health professional to treat and care for whomever comes before you. The idea that you would single out a particular group in our community and indicate you wouldn't care for them runs against every single principle in our health care system. Our correspondent in Sydney is Phil Mercer. This appears to have been recorded in a hospital. The video was shared on TikTok by a content creator called Max Weifer who says he's from Israel. Now in the footage,

another man who claims to be a doctor tells Mr Weifer that he sends Israelis to an Islamic place akin to hell. Now this man goes on to make a throat-slitting gesture. A woman then comes on the screen and says that she won't care for Israelis in the hospital. I won't treat them, I will kill them, she says. And as you'd imagine, this video has generated immense outrage and fear here in Australia and beyond. So what do we know about the people who are in this video and what's happened to them? Well the police here in Australia say that they have identified the two nurses involved in the video. They have been suspended. Now state authorities here in New South Wales say that these two nurses are under

investigation and will never work in the Australian health system again. The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, said that this video was disgusting and vile. So apart from the political reaction, what other sorts of reaction has there been? Well this all comes as Australia has recently passed tougher laws against hate crimes following a wave of high-profile anti-Semitic attacks here in Australia in recent weeks and months. We have heard from the head of the Executive Council of Australian Jury a man called Alex Rivchin and he's given his reaction to seeing this video.

This morning we saw a video that eloquently illustrated the evil of anti-Semitism and video. and particularly coming from our medical professionals who we look to for care and support was a ghastly thing to see. The views there of Alex Rivchin who is a senior member of the Jewish community here in Australia in recent months in incidents unconnected to this hospital video there have been a series of arson and graffiti attacks involving homes, cars and synagogues in Jewish areas across Australia, worth noting too that community groups have said that there has been a sharp rise in Islamophobic attacks as well here in Australia in recent months too. That was Phil Mercer. Still to come.

Whilst authorities were wrangling for years over the project plan, the beavers did what beavers do, building a dam of their own. The beavers who rescued a long-stalled conservation project. The Ukrainian president has given a wide-ranging interview to the British Guardian newspaper in which for the first time he's spoken of a possible land exchange with Russia in the event of negotiations to end the war. Volodymyr Zelensky said parts of Russia's Kursk region, which had been held by Ukrainian troops for the last six months, could be swapped for territory in Ukraine currently occupied by Russia. The Russians, well they don't seem keen on the idea. It was described as nonsense by Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev, a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Later in the week, Mr Zelensky will

meet the US Vice President JD Vance and attempt to secure America's continued military support. Kurt Volker was Donald Trump's United States Special Representative for Ukraine during his first term. He told the BBC why the president wants an end to the fighting there. First off I think this is one of Trump's top priorities. I think he has made it very clear he wants to end the carnage, end the fighting, stop the war. The second is that he has told the American people we shouldn't be spending American taxpayer money on the war in Ukraine.

And now there are various ideas on the table about how to support Ukraine, how to end the war but not have it cost the American taxpayer. So what to make of the interview. James Waterhouse is in Kiev. We're in a transactional phase, shall we say, of Russia's full-scale invasion. In the past, it was about President Zelenskyy pleading for what he saw as being right, you know, helping a democratic country, a sovereign nation stand up against a larger aggressor. Now he is having to sell the commercial benefits. It's as simple as that really it seems for America to continue supporting it. So

he'd always said this surprise attack into Russia's Kursk region wasn't about long-term occupation. The hundreds of square kilometres they've seized are a relative sliver compared with what Russia has taken the other way. But now for the time, he's being clearer. He's saying we're going to use this as political leverage for a potential peace negotiation. If Russia wants what we've taken back, you'll have to give back what you currently occupy inside Ukraine, because there is also an operational reality here in that his forces have been unable to shift Russian troops or even hold them back in many parts

of the frontline in the East. So I think this is what President Zelensky is shifting himself towards now. He's gearing up, as you said, for the Munich Security Conference, where he is meeting a US Vice President who's been extremely critical of American support for Ukraine.

The White House has its eyes on Ukraine's natural resources. It wants to invest in them as a kind of return on the billions it's given and so this is this kind of transactional tone we are starting to see from Ukraine's leader. And even this tentative suggestion of land swaps, the Russians have already suggested that they're not interested. We've heard from Dmitry Medvedev, he says it's nonsense. Is there some sort of middle ground possibility? That may well materialise down the line. At the moment the Kremlin is just repeating its demands, really, these really quite extreme demands of complete control of the four Ukrainian

territories it occupies territory in. That would involve Ukraine surrendering entire cities that have yet to fall. And it wants the complete demilitarization of Ukraine. And it's repeated that false claim that Ukraine is run by a Nazi government. So Russia is standing firm. But if you look at the language from Washington, it's looking to appease Moscow already. We're already seeing the conversation shift to Donald

Trump and Vladimir Putin. And President Zelensky is just fighting to keep himself in that conversation because what he's said time and time again is that there can be no talks about Ukraine without Ukraine, but that's materialising. James Waterhouse in Kiev. A study of 9,000 nurses in 35 countries has found the profession faces an unprecedented challenge through public violence and aggression towards nurses and also high rates of anxiety and depression. Professor Alison Squires of the Rory Mayors College of Nursing in the US led the study.

What we were aiming to do was to actually document the scope of nurses' mental health and see how it was similar and also different across different countries. So my research consortium, we were able to take the early data from our ongoing study and actually start taking a look at where we were seeing similarities and differences, but also seeing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and showing how really it didn't matter where you were

if you were a nurse, the pandemic was having a significant impact on your mental health. And so what was the state of their mental health did you find? Well, we were finding about an average of, I mean, it was quite a wide range between 20 and 60% of our nurses responding reported symptoms of anxiety or reported that they had depression or symptoms of depression. And so, you know, but the average overall was running about somewhere around about 30%. So slightly higher than what's typically seen for most general mental health statistics

in a population. And were there any countries that stood out for you that were worse off before or that had gotten worse or some which were doing better? Well what's interesting is for a lot of the countries involved in this particular study they had no baseline mental health statistics of their nurses. So this was one of the first studies to really, as far as we can tell, for many of the low and middle income countries to actually capture sort of a baseline idea of what, how our nurses doing and what is the state of their mental health. And it did

strike me particularly that nurses in Mongolia reported particularly high rates of both anxiety and depression overall compared to most of the other countries. But we also noticed that for some other countries that many people said, no, I don't have anxiety. I don't have depression, but I have a lot of the symptoms. So there's also a stigma that is coming through in our data where nurses may not feel comfortable reporting or naming that they have anxiety or depression, but they're more comfortable sharing that, well, yeah, I have a lot of the symptoms that go with anxiety and depression.

We know that some of the countries that you are looking into, you just mentioned Mongolia. Some of them will not be rich countries. They will not have enough resources. So what is the support system there to help those who've come or who've told you that there is, you know, they have anxiety, that they are a bit depressed? One of the things that we saw was nurses tended to turn toward either their co-workers or their family and friends first, and that was their primary source of support. And so in low risk, and that was true regardless of whether it was high income countries or low

income countries. So that, you know, your inner circle is the first place that people start when they're looking for support. But the question is, is one that gets beyond what just your friends, your family members, maybe even for those who comfort in religious support from a clergy person, then, you know, what happens though when you get beyond that need? And that's where we need to figure out things like what happens if you do need that support. One of my consortium members, they hadn't completed the study yet, but they shared that USAID had actually been doing rapid response training in mental health for health workers in

Malawi. Due to the recent events in the US and the stopping of USAID programming, those efforts have been stopped at the moment. So, there was examples out there of being able to do some rapid intervention and provide support in low-income settings, but the legacy and how sustainable that will be now is under question. FLOOR. Professor Alison Squires and she was speaking to Victoria O'Wonghonda. Here in the UK, the government has toughened up its immigration rules, making it almost impossible for people who arrive in the UK via illegal routes or methods to become a British citizen. The move

has been condemned by charities and some MPs. Rob Watson, our political correspondent, is following the story. It is a big change, Jackie, but in a funny sort of way it represents a toughening after a softening on the previous government, let me explain. So the last Conservative government had introduced what many thought was pretty draconian measures in 2023, which they thought might violate UN conventions on refugees, essentially saying, if you came to the UK in a small boat, no matter how good your claim was, no matter how deserving you were for refugee asylum status, you would not be considered because you have arrived here as the government thought illegally. The new Labour government

has repealed that but it's toughening things by saying look even if you've got asylum status, even if you've been considered yes you're a legitimate refugee, in most cases you will normally refuse the next step of being considered for citizenship if you came here illegally. And what sort of reaction has there been? Well, I guess you could divide it into two Jackie. There's those more to the left or on the sort of human rights, civil rights side who would say this was terrible. So, for example, you've got several Labour MPs saying this is crazy because, you know, it would turn refugees into second-class citizens. You've got the Refugee Council saying that's a group that, if you like, promotes the rights of refugees,

says that just doesn't make any sense at all. I mean, if people have come here, surely you'd want them to be full participants in society and give them citizenship if they've earned it. On the other side, on the right, if you like, you've got the Conservative Party, the former governing party and reform, the sort of populist party of the right saying you should not, the Labour government should not have softened the rules in the first place about considering people arriving in small boats. So if you like, the new Labour government finds itself caught from both sides. That was Rob Watson. In the Czech Republic, an important conservation project has been completed south of Prague.

It had been held up for several years and was expected to cost about a million dollars. But while the humans wrangled over the details, a family of beavers stepped in and completed the job themselves. David Lewis has been following the story. Beavers are known for gnawing wood, felling trees and getting dams done. And now the can-do creature can add contributing to the coffers to its peculiar portfolio. Czech officials had been planning a dam, built by humans it should be added, to protect endangered crayfish in the Klubava River from acidic water spilling over from two nearby ponds. But the ever-ready rodents, well, they had other ideas.

Whilst authorities were wrangling for years over the project plans at the former army site, the beavers did what beavers do, building a dam of their own. The active animals thus created a wetland with pools and canals. The area is now roughly twice larger than previously planned. The beaver family then moved onto a gully encircling the ponds and they haven't finished there yet. They've built at least four dams in that gully and are still working on more. Beavers create these pools of water to protect themselves against predators and to hold their food during the winter. Environmentalists claim there were discussions about building dams there with water companies.

Now the estimated saving is 30 million Czech Krona. That's 1.2 million dollars. Bohemel Fajr from the Czech Nature Conservation Agency can scarcely contain his delight. It's full service. Beavers are absolutely fantastic and when they're in an area they can't cause damage, And that was David Lewis. podcast later. If you would like to comment on this one or the topics covered in it, do please send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on x at BBC World Service or use the hashtag global news pod. This edition was mixed by Gareth Jones. The producer was Ed Horton. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jackie Leonard. And until next time, goodbye.