TITLE: The Ukraine War is Driving a Wave of Suicides in India’s Surat
https://inkstickmedia.com/the-ukraine-war-is-driving-a-wave-of-suicides-in-indias-surat/
EXCERPTS: Vaishali Bhen had always had confidence that her husband, Nitin Bhai, would find a way to support their family. For years, he worked in the diamond industry in the west Indian city of Surat, cutting and polishing diamonds, an industry that brought the city international fame.
Then, as Western sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine war went into effect, the once-reliable diamond trade in the city began to crumble. Nitin lost his job — not once but twice — plunging him into despair.
“He was unemployed for five to six months, and when he finally found a job, it lasted just a few days,” Vaishali recalled. “He was always tense. He would come home and say, ‘There is a recession. How will we get our salary? How will we run the home?’”
Vaishali tried to reassure him that things would get better, but one afternoon, after returning from work, Nitin took his own life. “My children saw it through the door,” she said, her voice breaking, “I wasn’t home. He [had] so much tension, and he just couldn’t take it anymore.”
Nitin’s case is not a one-off. He is one of at least 65 diamond workers in Surat who have died by suicide over the last 16 months owing to financial constraints arising out of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Surat has long been the global hub for diamond polishing, employing more than 600,000 workers who cut and polish 80% of the world’s diamonds. But since the war in Ukraine began, sanctions imposed on Russia — one of the largest suppliers of rough diamonds — have caused the industry in Surat to collapse.
The European Union and G7 have banned Russian diamonds, even those routed through third-party countries. This has severely disrupted the supply of rough diamonds to India’s industry, leaving thousands of workers in Surat without jobs.
The sanctions, enforced in March 2022, wiped out nearly one-third of India’s diamond trade revenue. Western buyers, cautious of dealing with Russian-sourced gems, pulled back on orders. Factories that had once buzzed with workers fell silent as demand collapsed, exports halted, and paychecks disappeared, plunging families into financial hardship.
As the work dries up, so do the wages that workers depend on to support their families. Many factories have either shut down or slashed their workforce significantly, with those remaining open offering only part-time shifts at reduced wages.
Bhavesh Tank, the Vice President of Diamond Workers’ Union in Surat, says the strain on workers is unlike anything they have seen in recent history. “The workers are under immense pressure to take care of their families, but they don’t have any income,” he said. “They can’t pay their rent, they can’t pay for their children’s education, and many are drowning in debt. It’s pushed some of them to the breaking point.”
As the crisis deepens, the Diamond Workers Union has called on the Gujarat government to provide financial relief to struggling families. They have also urged the government to reduce the taxes that workers must pay, which they argue are unfair in light of the current situation. But despite repeated pleas, the government has yet to take action.
“We have asked the government to waive the professional tax for diamond workers,” Tank said. “They are already struggling to survive, and they shouldn’t have to pay this tax. We have also asked for an economic package to help the families of those who have died by suicide, but the government hasn’t responded.”
TITLE: Africans recruited to work in Russia say they were duped into building drones for use in Ukraine
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-drones-shahed-africans-11602ab837f0ff4635926d884b422185
EXCERPTS: The social media ads promised the young African women a free plane ticket, money and a faraway adventure in Europe. Just complete a computer game and a 100-word Russian vocabulary test.
But instead of a work-study program in fields like hospitality and catering, some of them learned only after arriving on the steppes of Russia’s Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.
In interviews with The Associated Press, some of the women complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages and areas of study, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching.
To fill an urgent labor shortage in wartime Russia, the Kremlin has been recruiting women aged 18-22 from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.
That has put some of Moscow’s key weapons production in the inexperienced hands of about 200 African women who are working alongside Russian vocational students as young as 16 in the plant in Tatarstan’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone, about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) east of Moscow, according to an AP investigation of the industrial complex.
“I don’t really know how to make drones,” said one African woman who had abandoned a job at home and took the Russian offer.
The AP analyzed satellite images of the complex and its internal documents, spoke to a half-dozen African women who ended up there, and tracked down hundreds of videos in the online recruiting program dubbed “Alabuga Start” to piece together life at the plant.
The woman who agreed to work in Russia excitedly documented her journey, taking selfies at the airport and shooting video of her airline meal and of the in-flight map, focusing on the word “Europe” and pointing to it with her long, manicured nails.
When she arrived in Alabuga, however, she soon learned what she would be doing and realized it was “a trap.”
“The company is all about making drones. Nothing else,” said the woman, who assembled airframes. “I regret and I curse the day I started making all those things.”
One possible clue about what was in store for the applicants was their vocabulary test that included words like “factory” and the verbs “to hook” and “to unhook.”
The workers were under constant surveillance in their dorms and at work, the hours were long and the pay was less than she expected — details corroborated by three other women interviewed by AP, which is not identifying them by name or nationality out of concern for their safety.
About 90% of the foreign women recruited via the Alabuga Start program work on making drones, particularly the parts “that don’t require much skill,” said [David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector].
In the first half of this year, 182 women were recruited, largely from Central and East African countries, according to a Facebook page promoting the Alabuga Start program. It also recruits in South America and Asia “to help ladies to start their career.”
Officials held recruiting events in Uganda, and tried to recruit from its orphanages, according to messages on Alabuga’s Telegram channel. Russian officials have also visited more than 26 embassies in Moscow to push the program.
The campaign gave no reasons why it doesn’t seek older women or men, but some analysts suggest officials could believe young women are easier to control. One of the leaked documents shows the assembly lines are segregated and uses a derogatory term referring to the African workers.
They share dormitories and kitchens that are “guarded around the clock,” social media posts say. Entry is controlled via facial recognition, and recruits are watched on surveillance cameras. Pets, alcohol and drugs are not allowed.
The foreigners receive local SIM cards for their phones upon arrival but are forbidden from bringing them into the factory, which is considered a sensitive military site.
One woman said she could only talk to an AP reporter with her manager’s permission, another said her “messages are monitored,” a third said workers are told not to talk to outsiders about their work, and a fourth said managers encouraged them to inform on co-workers.
The airframe worker told AP the recruits are taught how to assemble the drones and coat them with a caustic substance with the consistency of yogurt.
Many workers lack protective gear, she said, adding that the chemicals made her face feel like it was being pricked with tiny needles, and “small holes” appeared on her cheeks, making them itch severely.
Although AP could not determine what the chemicals were, drone expert Fabian Hinz of the International Institute for Strategic Studies confirmed that caustic substances are used in their manufacture.
In addition to dangers from chemicals, the complex itself was hit by a Ukrainian drone in April, injuring at least 12 people. A video it posted on social media showed a Kenyan woman calling the attackers “barbarians” who “wanted to intimidate us.”
“They did not succeed,” she said.
TITLE: African migrant workers stuck in Lebanon as Israel's war expands
https://www.africanews.com/2024/10/08/african-migrant-workers-stuck-in-lebanon-as-israels-war-expands//
EXCERPTS: As the conflict in Lebanon rages on, many countries have started airlifting their citizens out of the country, while people from some African countries have been left on the streets of different cities and towns after fleeing their homes. They are desperate for food, shelter and safety.
The Lebanese government said that more than 1.2 million people have been displaced because of the Israeli bombardment of the country.
With minimal resources, the government has prioritized the space it has to shelter its own citizens, leaving tens of thousands of migrants on the streets.
After a journey that saw them scattered on the streets, moving from one city to the other, a group of 80 women from Sierra Leone finally found a roof over their heads.
"I came here to work to take care of my family, my kids, but since this war, I don't have a job. Because of the war, there are no jobs everywhere. I was working in Kounine village. Because of too many bombs, I was too afraid. I came to Beirut to Sabra one month, within two months, they also strike in Sabra," said Mary Koroma, a Sierra Leonean migrant in Lebanon.
Leaving her two children and husband, 28-year-old Koroma came to Lebanon to work and support her family back home. When she had a job, she used to send all the 200 dollars she earned as her monthly salary back to her family in Sierra Leone.
Koroma's colleague in this shelter, Hassanatu Conteh is in a much worse condition. She had a car accident right before the war in Lebanon intensified, limiting her ability to move.
"I don't know yet what will happen in the future. Yes, I feel scared because of the war and my condition, because I cannot work for myself. They are helping me, if I need help, like if I want to go to the toilet, if I want to stand up, they help me. I don't plan to stay, because now I am scared of Lebanon. One, I had an accident, then two, the war," said Conteh.
Unfortunately, most of the African migrants at the shelter have not found anyone to pay for their evacuation. And to make matters worse, none of these women even have their passports.
Under the country's labor system called "Kafala," which is an Arabic word meaning sponsorship, most migrant workers are tied up to their employer and cannot work elsewhere or use their passports to leave Lebanon as the travel documents are held by their bosses.
If they complain about the often deplorable working conditions, they are kicked out and left on the streets without any rights.
"It is called modern day slavery, because, first of all, it gives no rights to migrants. They are treated as second class humans. Often, they are abused at homes, not even paid for the hard work they do, and evidently not provided any basic rights. So, most of them don't get days off, and all of that is acceptable under the Kafala system. Some women tell me the house got bombed. Probably even their employers don't even have their own passports. This crisis is the biggest the country has seen," said Dia Haj Shahin, a Lebanese activist.
The United Nations said on Friday that many Lebanese families who evacuated the country have left their house workers locked inside their residences.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that the number of cases where house workers have been abandoned is spiking, estimating that there are nearly 170,000 migrant workers in Lebanon.
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How Africa is Paying for Pursuit of the Last Hamas
https://indepthnews.net/how-africa-is-paying-for-pursuit-of-the-last-hamas/