Venezuela faces humanitarian crisis after quakes

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0:59the addictive design of its social media platforms and irreplaceable cultural treasure travelling from France to England, a medical advance for unborn twins. But we wanted to begin by revisiting what was a huge story 15 days ago, and that was the two massive earthquakes which rocked northern Venezuela. Why are we going back there? Well, two linked reasons. One is that we do sometimes like to check back on a place when most of the great news caravan has moved on, but also because the humanitarian disaster may no longer be grabbing the headlines, but it is still there. As I've been hearing from Salah Saeed, he's CEO of the British Umbrella Group for Aid Charities, the Disasters Emergency Committee, and he's currently in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

1:48Saleh Saeed:Just over two weeks on from those terrible twin earthquakes in Venezuela, The epicentre was in a coastal town called Laguara, and I was able to visit that. But let me just, before I talk more about what I saw, just give a little bit of context. Thousands of people that sadly have been killed or injured, and 96 ,000 buildings have been destroyed. The level of destruction is just immense. It's catastrophic. People are having to live in the streets. I've witnessed myself an informal shelter of very small camping tents that were camped outside apartment buildings that were simply just not safe for people to return to.

2:33Saleh Saeed:And these families, in order to keep dry from the rains, were putting their tiny mattresses on pallets. They just lost absolutely everything. they weren't allowed even to go back into their buildings to collect their belongings. So they're reliant on humanitarian assistance, the very basics. We're talking about access to clean water in order to prevent disease. Hygiene kits are the simple things like soap and toothpaste, sanitary towels and the like. and also of course shelter the the tents may be okay to keep them in the shade and so forth but this is no way for anybody here to live and then and then finally mental health support in particular for the children they've gone through unbearable trauma many of course lost family and there are tens of thousands of people still missing and you know many still have hope that they will find their loved ones.

3:38Saleh Saeed:But we all know that the search and rescue is more or less effectively over and it won't be long now before that's called to an end. So the focus right now is clearly about ensuring that those thousands of families that have been made homeless get the urgent humanitarian support they need. There has been a lot of criticism, I mean right from the get-go, about the level of response from the state. It's always a challenge for states to, you know, ensure that somehow they meet the tremendous need in such short order. But there has been real criticism for the state in terms of how much it's been able to muster.

4:18What's your impression of the sort of job they've been doing?

4:21Saleh Saeed:This is a hugely immense earthquake that's impacted tens of thousands of people and two million people in the worst affected areas. So for any government, any state, this is always going to be a mammoth task. But really what I want to acknowledge is the first responders, the people, the communities here. Just incredible spirit, incredible resilience, despite obviously that many of their families and their friends, some are still buried under the rubble and, you know, hopefully they will be able to evacuate those corpses. but it's just really hard for people just to now survive the current conditions and that's where the focus lies not just for organizations like the Disasters and Emergency Committee but the first responders here the national organizations the local charities and so forth and that's where we want to focus our attention to ensure they have the resources to help these people survive.

5:22But are you hearing some expressions of that frustration?

5:26Saleh Saeed:we're certainly here seeing people who are clearly very upset not just as a consequence of the conditions they find themselves in and the loss they've experienced but the needs are immense charities alone and national organizations or international organizations alone cannot simply meet the immense needs out there and that's why it's important for us as the disasters immense committee to raise as much money as possible in order to try to fill that gap and meet as much of those needs as possible. Can I ask you about the numbers who are thought to be missing? I don't know if you've got any information on this, but just in the aftermath of the quake, there were really frightening figures about could be tens of thousands of people who have been reported missing.

6:12Since then, I think there's been a bit of reporting to suggest that maybe some of those numbers were double counted, wasn't entirely sure. But I mean, we've got this figure of about, I think 3 ,500 people confirmed dead. Do you have any sense of how many people are perhaps missing?

6:31Saleh Saeed:It's very clear that the official 3 ,500 people dead is extremely on the low side. People here are still missing family. The tens of thousands seems like a more realistic figure given the scale of the damage. I've visited earthquake zones in the past, including many of your listeners will remember the huge earthquakes in Turkey and Syria that sadly killed, I think it was close to 50 ,000 people. So it's difficult really to put a number on it. And who knows, maybe the actual final figure will never be known. But as I've been walking around La Guara and the streets of Caracas, there are billboards and posters with, you know, tens and tens of names of people looking for their loved ones who they can't find.

7:20Saleh Saeed:And clearly two weeks on after the crisis, one has to worry and be concerned that those individuals are sadly trapped under the rubble somewhere. And that was Salah Saeed, CEO of the Disasters Emergency Committee. He was speaking to me from Caracas.

7:44Nicaragua has long been under the stifling grip of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo. But now the ratchet has been turned even further. 2 ,000 lawyers have just learned that their licences have been revoked without explanation. Jan Michael Simon is chair of the UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua. What's his understanding of what just happened? Well, as far as we understood 24 hours ago, they have been delisted from the lawyers register and the Supreme Court. Just to explain to you, there's no independent bar association in Nicaragua. All lawyers and advocates must be listed at the court, and the court has complete control over these lists.

8:34Has any explanation been given as to why these lawyers, 2 ,000 of them, have had their licenses revoked? Not at all. There is no official communication, no legal argument. We're awaiting that this might happen. But given the complete arbitrariness of the regime, one might wonder whether this will happen or not. OK, so they've turned up at court and what been told? No, your your past doesn't work sort of thing. No, they have been checking through the internet systems. They have a digital system where all of the lawyers are listed, and they don't appear there anymore. This has been happening, too, regarding people who have, for example, been looking for their birth certificate and have been previously stripped of their nationality, etc., etc.

9:29So this is part of the modus operandi of the regime in Icarawa. And are you able, you, as part of this UN group of human rights experts, are you able to go and investigate this on the ground in Nicaragua? We do not have access to the country because they do not permit any access. In fact, they do not permit any access of independent journalists or representatives of international organization at all to the country. So what we do is we have a lot of people in exile, Well, more than 12 % of the whole population left the country within the last six years. Most of them have connects on the ground and we have established connects on the ground where we check and monitor the information without having direct access to the country.

10:19And what sort of shape is the legal system in or has it been in up to this point? Because, you know, when we talk about Nicaragua, you know, we often say it's become increasingly authoritarian, increasingly repressive that Daniel Ortega and his chums have a sort of ever tighter grip on the various organs of the state, including the court system. Have these lawyers up to this point been able to practice in a way that is at all free and fair? When it comes to litigations that have to do with ordinary family stuff, etc., they still might have some room to exercise their profession. But when it comes to the systematic persecution of victims in Nicaragua and or victims outside Nicaragua, because it's also a factor of transnational repression, the judicial system is also used before this, the objective.

11:28There is no room for any independent lawyers to exercise their profession, no room for due process. It's a completely arbitrary system, which is based on the methodological dismantling of virtually all the ex-advalances that you have in a country. Just in terms of the human rights picture more broadly across the country, can you sketch it out for us? Well, there are several factors here. First of all, what is well known is that we have come to the conclusion of prima facie cases of crimes against humanity, in particular persecution on political grounds, prohibited acts that you will find here is torture, arbitrary detentions, summary executions, etc., etc.

12:20But what is important here is that this all builds on the dynastic co-presidential model, which is unique in the world. I haven't seen any country in the world which has two presidents, Mr. Ortega and Ms. Morello, who have institutionalized everything in order to stay in power. The judiciary has not only been merely a case of lack of independence. It has been used and weaponized in order to persecute people. And what is more, the regime has now reached out transnationally to those who have fled the country in order to shut them up. This may amount to murdering civilians against excels on scale.

13:04That projects domestic repression abroad with all the tools that are at their hands. And this is also unique. You will not find this in Venezuela. Neither would you find this, at least to that extent, in the case of Cuba. And that was Jan Michael Simon, chair of the UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua. He was speaking to me from Geneva. You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC.

13:34coming up on the program the magnificent priceless Bayer tapestry arrives for the first time in England under the watchful gaze of France's ambassador it was such an emotion to see the truck arriving and then after the doors opening the containers going out and you know for France It's an extraordinary gesture, this loan of the Bayeux tapestry. More from Hélène Cheyeux-Duchene and what it means for the Bayeux tapestry to make this journey for the first time in 900 years. More on that in about 30 minutes. One headline from the BBC newsroom. The BBC has found that foreigners from more than 40 countries have been killed fighting for Russia and Ukraine as Moscow widens its recruitment efforts.

14:33A passenger on board a flight from Greece to Memmingen in Germany has had to have had medical treatment after a window dislodged in flight. Reports say that the 61-year-old man from Serbia was partially sucked out of the opening headfirst before the aircraft was operated by Malta Air, a subsidiary of Ryanair, landed safely. Our business and transport correspondent Theo Leggett is across the story for us. Theo, what's your understanding of what happened? Well, we know from Ryanair that there was an incident on board, an early morning flight from Thessaloniki in Greece to Memmingen in southern Germany.

15:07The plane had been in the air for just a few minutes. It was still climbing. And then an incident occurred in which, according to Ryanair, a window was displaced. Now, passengers who were on board the aircraft have spoken extensively to local media in Greece and also to media in Germany. And they claim that there was a loud bang and that the oxygen masks came down and there is unverified social media video showing this. And a man was caught in the airstream. Obviously, there was very rapid decompression of the aircraft and his head and shoulders ended up partially outside the plane. Obviously, extremely traumatic.

15:45This aircraft, you know, it wasn't at its cruising altitude, but it was still high. It would have been very cold. It would have been traveling at high speed. Fortunately, that man seems to have escaped without serious injuries. According to reports, he's in hospital suffering from friction burns and probably we can infer quite a lot of shock. We don't know why this incident occurred. There are reports in Greece that the aircraft had also suffered an engine failure. And there is a theory that the window was hit by debris from an exploding engine. We don't know if that's true, but if it is, then it would be a very similar incident to something that happened in 2018 to a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737, in which there was an uncontained engine failure, a window was shattered by debris, and a passenger was unfortunately killed when they were partially sucked out of the aircraft.

16:35So that's what we know at the moment. There's not a lot of detail coming from Ryanair. They have said that the plane turned round, that it landed safely and that a passenger, and I quote, requested and received medical assistance on the ground. Right. I dare say he did. The fact that he had, and I understand that we're sort of straining the limits of what you may know, but the fact that he is reported to have had friction burns, does that suggest that he fortunately still had his seatbelt on? Because presumably, I mean, that would have been a happy accident if he did still have his seatbelt. On the face of it, it looks as though he was lucky on two counts.

17:12First of all, that the aircraft was in the early stages of its flight. And we can tell from looking at the flight radar 24 trace that this occurred a few minutes into flight when the aircraft was at about 15 ,000 feet or 5 ,000 meters. Now that's less than half its normal cruising altitude. If it had been higher than that, then the explosive decompression would have been greater. The onrushing wind, if you like, would have been much greater and he could have been more badly injured. Also, yes, early in the flight, as you well know, you're told to keep your seatbelt on. He would have been restrained and that may have helped prevent further injury as well.

17:47Right. And do we know what happened on board at all? I know that you said there's some unverified social media, but do we know? I mean, were other passengers or members of the crew sort of hanging on to him? There are reports that his wife was hanging on to him, as were other passengers. And you can imagine the chaos in the plane after this has occurred. One moment you're sitting in a plane that is taking off normally, then a loud bang, rushing air, wind, noise, all of these things. And there is footage, as I say, that seems to come from the plane showing people in the aftermath sitting there with a lot of noise, masks hanging down and that kind of thing.

18:26And there are also pictures of somebody receiving medical attention in the aisle of the aircraft after it's landed. Theo Leggett, thank you very much for bringing us the latest on that story. And, of course, if we do get any further details on it, we will bring them to you.

18:46Now, at the time the Trump-backed Gaza peace plan came into effect last October, the United Nations reported that just 4 % of Gaza's pre-war farmland remained both accessible and undamaged. Eight months on, Israeli forces continue to occupy much of the territory's agricultural land, leaving most Gazans dependent on aid or often unaffordable food markets. With access to fresh fruit and vegetables still limited, one seed bank in central Gaza is trying to help locals take greater hold of their own food security, as Theo White reports.

19:23Two years of war has not only devastated Gaza's infrastructure, its buildings and roads, but also its ability to feed itself. The food supply is unreliable. Prices are high, and even for those who can afford it, there's little choice in what to eat. We first started thinking about this project in 2013. In 2017, it officially began operating, and we started distributing seeds to farmers. This is Salama Mahana. In response to the difficulties facing Gaza's food supply, he started a seed bank with his daughter Hanadi, funded by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Salama gives the seeds out to farmers and they return the same number after the harvest.

20:07That way, the model keeps working year on year. We even introduced farmers to heirloom seeds. Local seeds can withstand the drought, pests and harsh weather conditions. His goal is to give farmers what they need to produce a variety of produce locally. When Israeli forces advanced into Gaza in 2024, Salama and Hanadi's home was destroyed, along with the original seed bank. Now from a tent, they have started again. Shelves of seeds line the white tarpaulin walls. Each variety is held in a small container. The war, Hanadi says, has made their project even more important. The war pushed most residents of the Gaza Strip toward agriculture, whether farming next to tents, in home gardens or in rooftops for those who were not displaced.

20:59Almost every individual in Gaza practiced agriculture during the war over the past three years. This was due to the high prices of vegetables in the market and their scarcity. Youssef Al-Astal is one of the farmers working with the seed bank. He stood in blazing sunshine in a golden field of his own barley, but says he grows much more than this. Right now I have planted local arugula, parsley, all local. I have planted two types of cowpies, two types of okra, watermelon, mulukhia, pumpkin, corn and sunflower. Youssef says he's dedicated a large part of his life to making Gaza more self-sufficient.

21:43The Gaza strip is besieged and completely closed. Some seeds were close to extinction and some have already disappeared. So we try to preserve them. we achieve self-sufficiency. But this project accounts for only a tiny fraction of Gaza's food needs. The UK was among a number of countries last month to describe the aid coming into Gaza as insufficient, both in terms of quality and quantity. The Israeli authorities responsible for bringing aid into Gaza told us that, going by UN guidelines, they'd allowed four times the food needed into the territory since the ceasefire with Hamas was struck last year.

22:21Even when food is able to enter Gaza, it might not reach everyone equally. The International Committee at the Red Cross says the situation isn't good enough. Foreign journalists aren't allowed into Gaza, so I talked to their spokesman in the territory remotely. Farming in Gaza, it's an incredibly difficult situation right now. There is very little space. The soil that is available has been reused again and again, so that it is very poor. The soil itself is exhausted, as are the farmers. And then on top of that, you have the restriction and what is able to be brought in to support agriculture in Gaza itself.

22:56No seeds, no fertilizer, no nursery soil to support new seeds. Despite these challenges, Hanadi and Salama's seeds are taking root across Gaza. Farmers in the territory, for now, have options. Theo White on farmers somehow trying to make life work for them in Gaza. You're listening to News Air.

23:49This soft power, this influence was an incredible invention. For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

24:03Welcome back to NewsHour. Morocco became the last African country to exit the World Cup on a hot Boston afternoon on Thursday, losing 2-0 to France in the quarterfinals. The whole Arab world is very proud of Morocco. Myself, I'm from Saudi Arabia, not Morocco. But we rooted for Morocco. We were here for the team. And we supported them as much as we can.

24:24Saleh Saeed:Oh, we feel upset. I'm just like any other Moroccan fan. We had a dream. And unfortunately, France always stops our dream for some reason. Some of the disappointed fans cheering on Morocco. Nine of the 48 original teams in this expanded competition had come from Africa. So what's the verdict? Has this been a success or a disappointment for the continent's huge number of fans? Osaso Obayuano is a writer on African football and was at the game yesterday. What's his verdict? Success? No. Has it been a disaster? No. I think for the last 36 years, African teams have been very long on promise and potential and very short on achievement.

25:07Game management remains the perennial problem of African teams. They have the talent, they have the ability, but they are not managing their games properly. That's why Senegal, despite having a 2-0 lead up to the 86th minute, got kicked out of the competition. And even though I have very serious issues with how the French referee handled the Argentina game, I also think that the Egyptians too lost the game partly to game management as well. I find that amazing. I mean, it may well be true what you're saying, But, I mean, I thought these days, you know, everybody, all teams, national teams, but also, I mean, actually, even at the club level, you know, people know about tactics and about game management.

25:57The players themselves, they're, you know, they're very fit. They can keep going for the entire duration of the match. It's not as if they sort of get exhausted and give up halfway through the second half. so I'm just surprised that you know that's it seems to be that that you think is letting African teams down it's not just a question of me thinking so I think the facts bear this out I think the technicians in African football those who are responsible for coaching for tactics they need to have what the South Africans would call an indaba they need to sit down and look at this because if we've been having the same problem across so many African teams for the last 36 six years.