International report

Those trying to leave Africa or the Middle East by making the journey across the Mediterranean are often saved by the SOS-MSF NGO vessel Aquarius. One such woman was rescued and told her story to Filip Warwick aboard the ship. 30 year old Anne-Sandrine comes from Douala in Cameroon. A mother of two children, this softly spoken woman wanted to share her story as a warning to all Africans and others nationals who are willing to undertake this perilous route migration through Libya and the sea.

Every year thousands of people attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea. The IOM, the UN Migration Agency, reported that over 10,000 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in first two months of 2018. But every year thousands are declared missing or die when attempting Libya’s shores. Operating in international waters since February 2016---- the SOS Méditerranée NGO rescue ship Aquarius, in partnership with Médecins Sans Frontier, have saved more than 27,000 people. In a five-part series, correspondent Filip Warwick reports from aboard the Aquarius.

Twenty five Gaza Strip-based municipalities have recently been forced to freeze fifty percent of their services, which provide key services to two million residents.The decision to halt those services comes as the municipalities face a financial crisis, the severest in the last ten months. Rami Almeghari has this report from the Gaza strip

By the 31st of this month, the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) will officially come to an end. The world’s governing body deployed its peacekeepers to the country in October 2003, to end a nearly two decades-long conflict that had claimed quarter of a million lives. RFI correspondent Darlington Porkpa has this report from Monrovia.

Over one million students, parents, and supporters of gun control took part in protests this weekend across the United States. The demonstrations were collectively known as "March for our Lives", and come in the wake of a deadly school shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida in February.

Though gun control has been a contentious issue in the United States for many years, the debate has intensified in the weeks since the shooting.

A new generation of voices, those of students who feel unsafe at school, is becoming increasingly outspoken and saying: enough is enough.

Correspondent Ryan Thompson has more from Los Angeles.

In India, over 12,000 farmers have committed suicide each year since 2013, due to long periods of drought and chronic debt. But in some rural communities, women are now taking the lead, and developing more sustainable forms of agriculture. Jack Fereday brings us this report from Maharashtra.

Fourteen months after Donald Trump entered the White House, RFI's correspondent Colm Flynn travelled across six of the southern states of the US and asked people who had voted for him how they feel about him now. Some of the answers were surprising, as he reports here.

Thousands of refugees from Ituri Province in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo are fleeing to neighbouring Uganda, as an ongoing conflict between Hema and Lendu ethnic groups continues to spread.

Over forty thousand refugees have taken the dangerous journey by boat across Lake Albert to safety in Uganda since the beginning of the year.

Grainne Harrington reports from western Uganda.

Traditional medicine still plays an important role in Gambian healthcare. In the villages, the 'marabouts' or traditional healers, who are capable of healing what ails a person are often preferred over a conventional hospital.

These healers sometimes overvalue their competences with former president Yahya Jammeh, for example, claiming in the past that he could cure AIDS with plants.

Hundreds of Gambians followed his treatment, and many died. To avoid these excesse, but without losing the beneficial aspects of traditional medicine, the Ministry of Health has been trying for some years to consolidate it with the conventional medicine as Claire Bargelès explains in this report.

According to a study released in January by the medical journal The Lancet, a patient going through surgery in Africa is twice as likely to die following the operation than elsewhere in the world.

The reason, the report says is becuase of minimal follow-up appointments after surgery,the poor state of the equipment, and a lack of competent doctors.

The study includes The Gambia, and its main hospital, the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital in Banjul. In this hospital, around 200 000 patients are treated every year.

But the conditions are poor, and doctors sometimes have to improvise to do their job as Claire Bargelès explains in this, the third report in a series of five on health in the Gambia.