IRIN | Hear our Voices

Hear our Voices

Africa

Doh St Michel, “The land and my machete are my president”

Doh St Michel fled his village near Duékoué in western Côte d’Ivoire after gunfire erupted and farmers were killed on 28 November 2010, the day of the presidential run-off election.
full testimony

Christine Amony, “Finding food for the whole family is becoming a nightmare”

The sudden rise in food and fuel prices in the past four months in Uganda is raising concerns, with residents agitating for the government to intervene and curb the increases.
full testimony

Mahamud Abdi Omar, "I am not only surviving but thriving"

Mahamud Abdi Omar, 25, is a small businessman in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia, which for years has been a battlefield between government troops and insurgents.
full testimony

Asia

Mary Benny, “My husband is a policeman… he shot at me twice”

According to Amnesty International, two-thirds of the women in Papua New Guinea have been hit by their partners; in parts of the densely populated rugged provinces that comprise the Highlands, that figure swells to nearly 100 percent.
full testimony

Anusha Ravichandran, "Please bring my sister back to me"

Sixteen months after the end of the civil war in northern Sri Lanka, thousands of former rebel fighters are still missing or in government detention, according to the government and a local NGO, Law & Trust Society.
full testimony

Domestic abuse survivors speak

Months after the long-awaited passage of a law criminalizing domestic violence, IRIN met survivors staying at shelters in the capital, Dili, and in the southern Timorese town of Salele run by the NGO East Timor Women’s Communication Forum and Catholic missionary group Sister Servants of the Holy Spirit, respectively. Below are some of their testimonies:
full testimony

Middle East

Karrad, "If I stop working, how can we survive?"

Karrad, 16, and his family fled the sectarian violence in Iraq following the US-led invasion in 2003 and came to Syria in 2005. Although the Syrian government provides Iraqi children with free education in its public schools, Karrad and his brother Ali, 12, cannot go to school because they are the breadwinners. Karrad told his story to IRIN:
full testimony

Ali Saleh Ahmad, "It was a hard trip with Zaraa on my back"

Ali Saleh Ahmad, 45, and his family arrived in the Al Mazraq camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the northwestern Yemeni province of Hajjah after fighting between the Saudi army and Houthi-led Shia rebels in the northern Saada governorate forced them to flee their home in Ghafri village, Dhahiri district.
full testimony

Nasser Ridhwan, "I had nothing in life but my wife, who I’ve now lost"

Nasser Ridhwan, 78, is a recent arrival in the al-Mazraq camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Haradh District, Hajjah Governorate, some 130km southwest of his home village of Mashnaq, near Dukhan Mountain, which has become a battleground in fighting between the Saudi army and Houthi-led Shia rebels.
full testimony

via irinnews.org