Nearly 3,300 migrants stranded in Mexico since January due to a US border policy have been kidnapped, raped, trafficked or assaulted, according to a new report by the campaigning group Human Rights First. The report documents cases of migrants and asylum seekers stuck in Mexico since Joe Biden took office on 20 January. The number of cases has jumped...
Peru was on a knife-edge on Friday as its electoral board reviewed ballots cast in the presidential election, after a challenge to the tally by the losing candidate Keiko Fujimori. The final tally gave the leftist teacher Pedro Castillo a razor-thin 50.17% to 49.83% advantage over his rightwing rival Fujimori, which amounts to about 60,000...
A Canadian soldier is facing rare mutiny charges after allegedly urging fellow members of the armed forces not to help with the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. The Department of National Defence has announced charges against officer cadet Ladislas Kenderesi, a reservist in Ontario. Kenderesi has been charged with “endeavoring to persuade another person to join...
One of the most prominent commanders of a group of Colombia’s former Farc rebels who reject a 2016 peace accord, has been killed in Venezuela in an operation by Colombia’s military, according to his new armed group. Seuxis Hernández, known by his nom de guerre of Jesús Santrich, was one of the chief negotiators for the...
Shaken, shoeless and with a gaping bullet wound to one of his feet, the young man staggered through Flávia Luciana’s front door at around 8am last Thursday as Rio’s decades-long drug conflict plumbed horrifying new depths. “Help me! For the love of God! Help!” she remembers him pleading as he sought shelter inside. It would...
Mass protests were held across Colombia on Wednesday after a night of unrest in the capital city, as street violence continued after more than a week of angry anti-government demonstrations. Twenty-three protesters and one police officer have been killed in the unrest that began with with a general strike over an unpopular tax reform but has grown...
Brazil’s congress has launched a parliamentary inquiry into what critics call Jair Bolsonaro’s disastrous and potentially criminal response to a Covid pandemic that has killed nearly 400,000 Brazilians. The politically charged investigation, which rivals of Brazil’s far-right president hope will torpedo his chances of re-election, will be conducted by 11 of the country’s 81 senators,...
Each morning, the residents of small communities living around Guatemala’s Pacaya volcano wake wondering if the lava will reach their homes. One slow-moving flow descending the volcano has advanced between El Patrocinio and San José el Rodeo. In the case of the latter, the lava has advanced to within two and a half blocks of...
One month after Michel Castro’s premature brush with death, the coronavirus infection has receded but the nightmares persist. In them the 31-year-old father relives the spine-chilling scenes he witnessed as his Covid-hit body battled for survival in a Rio ICU. The six-month-old baby who appeared to be suffocating right next to him. The man urinating...
An ultra-conservative millionaire who admits to scourging himself daily to repress sexual desire is just one of an assortment of low-polling candidates who all have a shot at becoming Peru’s next president. Rafael López Aliaga is technically tied with five other contenders in an unpredictable contest to make a runoff vote in June, including a former goalkeeper,...