The COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating impact on access to food. Gender-based violence remained widespread, and increasing numbers of women and girls underwent unsafe abortions. A woman faced imprisonment for consensual same-sex relations. Tens of thousands of people, including hundreds of...

African leaders attending this year’s Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the UNFCCC must avoid mistakes made during the inaugural Africa Climate Summit, where leaders adopted the Nairobi Declaration on Climate Change and Call to Action (Nairobi Declaration), which in many ways failed to...

Responding to the devastating impact of Tropical Cyclone Freddy, which has claimed more than 120 lives in Mozambique and Malawi, and injured almost a hundred people after strengthening into one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the southern hemisphere, Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty...

Responding to the questioning of the Executive Director of Transparency International Initiative Madagascar (TI-MG) Ketakandriana Rafitoson by the police this afternoon, Muleya Mwananyanda, Regional Director for Amnesty International East and Southern Africa Regional Office said, “The Madagascar...

One of its worst droughts in history claiming lives Amnesty calls on the international community to ramp up relief efforts World leaders must rapidly cut emissions to avert further climate-driven humanitarian crises and wealthy countries must provide substantially increased climate finance to...

With more than a million people facing hunger due to the devastating famine currently ravaging southern Madagascar, donors, foreign governments and regional leaders must ramp up aid efforts to avert a potential human rights crisis, said Amnesty International. As the country experiences its worst...

Journalists and media houses across East and Southern Africa came under increasing attack in the past year, despite the urgent need for access to information during the COVID-19 pandemic and other crises in the region, Amnesty International said today. Across the region, media workers have been...

During the COVID-19 lockdowns imposed by Southern African countries, some homes across the region became enclaves of cruelty, rape and violence for women and girls trapped with abusive family members and nowhere to report or escape the danger, Amnesty International said today in a new briefing....

Authorities must immediately and unconditionally drop spurious charges against environmental human rights defender and allow him to do his work without fear of intimidation or reprisals, Amnesty International said today. Clovis Razafimalala is facing trial on 17 December on old trumped-up charges....

On 23 August 2020, at Farafangana prison in the south-east of the island, taking advantage of the unusual absence of several guards (there were three guards on duty instead of the usual seven), the prisoners staged a revolt. 88 of the 336 prisoners managed to escape, after breaking down part of a...

One year after President Andry Rajoelina pledged to decongest prisons, detainees in Madagascar are still suffering in overcrowded prisons at nearly three times their capacity, Amnesty International said today. Thousands of people are languishing in Malagasy prisons without having been convicted of...

Responding to news that Malagasy security forces killed 22 inmates escaping from Farafangana prison in the south-east of the country, Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa said: “‘This is an appalling attack on the right to life, which shows that...

As COVID-19 continues to spread across Southern Africa, governments are targeting journalists and media houses that are critical of their handling of the pandemic, Amnesty International warned today marking World Press Freedom Day. “From Madagascar to Zambia, we have seen governments criminalizing...