Issue 6 · August 27, 2026 · Libera Mondo Newsletter

More than 50 killed in Plateau Christian villages

About 100 gunmen attacked Jwak Maitumbi, a mainly Christian farming village in Mango, Plateau State, at 7:30 on the morning of August 16, as residents prepared for church, killing more than 30 and burning over 50 houses, shops, churches, and food stores. Security forces arrived after the attackers had gone, a local youth worker told Barnabas Aid. Two nights later armed men went house to house with machetes in Bin-Per, in Mangu, killing at least 20 as they slept, most of them women and children. Residents and Christian relief groups attribute both attacks to Fulani herder militia, part of a long conflict over land in the Middle Belt; Nigerian authorities have identified no one and announced no arrests.

Ashéninka forest patrol leader shot dead in Peru

Américo Pascuala Tumisha, who coordinated the forest surveillance and control committee of the Onconashari Ashéninka community in Peru's Ucayali region and had served as its chief, was shot dead on August 23 while patrolling community land. The regional Indigenous organization ORAU said he had come upon people extracting copaiba oil illegally inside the territory and was killed in the confrontation that followed. ORAU said Pascuala had asked for protective measures and had not been given any, and that Peru's mechanism for defenders lacks both funding and presence on the ground. The public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation. AIDESEP's early-warning system counts at least 38 Indigenous defenders killed in the Peruvian Amazon since 2014.

Security Council splits over Sudan arms embargo

The UN Security Council met on August 25 in a session convened by Denmark to consider a United States proposal to extend the Darfur arms embargo to the whole of Sudan, state explicitly that it covers drones and related technology, and strengthen the panel of experts that monitors it. Denmark, Britain, and France backed the proposal; China and Russia opposed it. Russia's ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, said ordinary Sudanese would carry the heaviest burden of wider restrictions. Sudan's representative, El Harith Idris, objected that the measure equates the army with the Rapid Support Forces. Radio Dabanga reports that more than a dozen states are supplying arms to the two sides. The embargo currently applies to Darfur only.

UN committee tells India to halt Nicobar project

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on India on August 27 to suspend its development scheme on Great Nicobar and the Andaman Islands until an independent study of the environmental, economic, social, cultural, and spiritual impact has been completed. The $10 billion project takes in a port, an airport, a power station, a military base, an industrial park, and a new city for up to 650,000 settlers on an island whose interior is home to the Shompen, who live in voluntary isolation. India has acknowledged that it cannot consult them or obtain their free, prior, and informed consent. In 2024, thirty-nine genocide scholars warned that the Shompen faced genocide if the project went ahead.

Egyptian court delays St Catherine's monastery ruling

Egypt's Court of Cassation was due to consider the ownership of St Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai on August 23 and issued no ruling. Two appeals are pending against a May 2025 judgment of the Ismailia Court of Appeals that neither the Egyptian government nor the monastery accepted. Four Greek members of the European Parliament put a written question to the European Commission on August 19 asking about Egypt's recognition of the monastery's legal personality and of its canonically elected archbishop, Symeon, warning that without them the monastery cannot be effectively represented in court or defend its property. Greece's foreign ministry said in June that a preliminary common understanding had been reached and put to the Sinaitic brotherhood.

Indonesian court hears challenge to conservation law

Indonesia's Constitutional Court was due to take up a challenge to the 2024 conservation law on August 24, after the government and parliament had the August 6 hearing postponed on the ground that they were not ready. The petition, filed in July by the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago together with fisheries and Indigenous rights organizations, argues that the law lets the state designate ancestral land as preservation areas without free, prior, and informed consent, and can turn customary practice into a criminal offense. Communities backing the case include the Dalem Tamblingan of Bali and the Pali of Tana Toraja in South Sulawesi. Rukka Sombolinggi of the alliance said Indigenous peoples are the best guardians of nature.