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| BIANNA GOLODRYGA, ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to “Amanpour.” Here’s what’s coming up. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have never seen anything like this in Jamaica. And so, we have to have everyone prepared and listen to the fact that this is going to be catastrophic. (END VIDEO CLIP) GOLODRYGA: Hurricane Melissa hits Jamaica. I asked Meteorologist John Morales why it’s the worst storm to hit the island ever, and what the impact could be. Then — (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANTONIO GUTERRES, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: The level of suffering that we are witnessing in Sudan is unbearable. (END VIDEO CLIP) GOLODRYGA: — famine and fighting grip Sudan, and as rebel forces capture the Sudanese city of El Fasher, fears grow for the civilians in their wake. I speak to regional and humanitarian experts asking what can be done to end this deadly civil war. Also, ahead — (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAVID OVALLE, REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: We’re going to start seeing, you know, more emergency room visits, more people suffering conditions. (END VIDEO CLIP) GOLODRYGA: — day 28 of the U.S. government shutdown. David Ovalle from The Washington Post tells Hari Sreenivasan what’s really causing this deadlock and the potential impacts. Welcome to the program, everyone. I’m Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour. The strongest storm of the year, Hurricane Melissa, has hit Jamaica. Called the storm of the century by the U.N., it’s a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 180 miles per hour. The National Hurricane Center is warning of landslides, catastrophic flash floods, and gusts that may cause total structural failure. Several people in the region have also been killed. Earlier today, I spoke to Jamaica’s prime minister about what they’ve been doing to prepare their citizens. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANDREW HOLNESS, JAMAICAN PRIME MINISTER: We have put in place a compulsory, mandatory evacuation order. But in a liberal democracy like Jamaica, we tend to respect the rights of citizens, to protect their property, but to give them the information so that they can protect their lives. We have mobilized over 881 shelters Most of them are activated now. We provided buses to move persons. The take-up was initially slow, picked up afterwards. So, for those residents who have decided to stay, I’m encouraging them to batten down, take all the necessary precautions to keep themselves safe. Don’t worry about property at this time because there’s nothing that you would be able to do in a Category 5 storm to protect your property. Keep your lives safe. (END VIDEO CLIP) GOLODRYGA: All right. let’s now go to Kingston, Jamaica, where people are witnessing the strength of this hurricane firsthand. Marva Allen-Simms works for a partner of the humanitarian organization CARE, which is preparing a response to this already deadly weather event. Marva, thank you so much for taking the time. We can report now that Melissa has officially made landfall. You are there in Kingston. Just tell us first, are you safe? What are you seeing and hearing around you? MARVA ALLEN-SIMMS, BOARD MEMBER, JAMAICA NETWORK OF RURAL WOMEN PRODUCERS: Hi. Thank you for having me. So, I’m in Kingston, and it’s fairly quiet in comparison to perhaps Manchester, St. Elizabeth, St. Anne. We are having wind, which is pretty mild, and also some rainfall. Not much where I am right now, we aren’t having any rains at all, but just light wind. In the night, just last night into this morning, we had much more wind, much more rain. But we know that we are anticipating the hit roundabout now, within another hour, and it’s going to get worse. GOLODRYGA: Yes, especially the southwest part of the country, as we speak, is really on the receiving end of these heavy winds. Coastlines, we’ve been told by some on the ground there, have been completely eroded. And there is a lot of concern about those civilians who have not heeded warnings. Early estimates said that about 50,000 residents were in harm’s way, in terms of the path of the storm right now. And there had been orders issued for them to leave to higher land for safety. As of yesterday, I believe, according to the government, only 1,700 people had heeded those warnings. Talk about some of your concerns about those that didn’t leave. ALLEN-SIMMS: OK. So, it was — what was issued was a mandatory evacuation, as the prime minister said. But of course, we have to respect people’s rights not to move. There are persons who would want to stay to protect their property, also to protect their livestock. We are into — we’re a part of the organization in Jamaica. The one that I’m representing is the Jamaica Network of Rural Women Producers. And we have a number of small producers, you know, women who have like 100 heads of chickens and they have some goats and, you know, other types of livestock. So, there are persons who are not prepared to move. And there are persons who have been through storms before. And they have had the experience of — they’re not very happy when they do leave their property. You know, they do worry, do I — will I come back and see anything? So, there are persons who are prepared to just stay and protect their property. This, of course, is concerning because, you know, the first thing is to save life, to protect your life, because you can always replace whatever it is that you have acquired. So, we are concerned that there are persons who are now asking to be evacuated, which, of course, is not going to be possible because the buses have been pulled, the buses that the government had put in place to evacuate persons to these centers. So, there are persons who may have to find their ways to the centers themselves or to higher ground or to be with family who can offer some more protection than they have now. GOLODRYGA: Right. And you don’t want to put — ALLEN-SIMMS: So, it is concerning, you know. GOLODRYGA: And you don’t want to put the lives of the disaster relief first responders at risk either at this point because, as you noted, the mandatory evacuation orders had been put in place, but it’s very difficult to physically force people to leave their homes and property. Some of them do it, as you noted, in their own volition by wanting to protect their property and their land. But there, of course, are concerns about those, whether they’re elderly, children, young, just not able to physically leave in enough time. What is being done to address those issues for that most vulnerable part of the population? ALLEN-SIMMS: OK. So, persons have been asked just to look out for your neighbors. So, we know that we are a caring people. Jamaicans are caring. So, we are looking out for our neighbors. I spoke with persons this morning, and they have lent a helping hand. There was, you know, persons who have had persons coming into their homes. Last night, there was — I was watching something where a pastor said I think he’s going to have like — I forget how many persons who are actually going to come over to stay just to ride out this hurricane because where they are, it’s pretty vulnerable. And, you know, we really don’t want any loss of life out of this. So, we are still asking persons to seek higher ground, to be, you know, just to look out for themselves, for their neighbors, for the children, for those old persons who can’t help themselves. But there are persons who are doing this. And the authorities have said that in the event that they can help people still, we would not do this. We would still send transportation, if at all possible, to get persons to the shelters that are there for them. GOLODRYGA: Safety, of course, is the utmost priority here. I think officially there have been three confirmed deaths that have been related to this storm. Tragically, we can likely expect that number to rise given the magnitude of this storm, which, as we just reported, has officially made landfall. Marva Allen-Simms in Kingston, Jamaica, thank you so much for joining us. Please stay safe. ALLEN-SIMMS: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thanks for having me. GOLODRYGA: For more on this mega storm, I’m joined by veteran meteorologist and atmospheric scientist John Morales. He’s been covering extreme weather events for decades. But in recent years, he’s witnessed the growing intensity of hurricanes, and it is natural that it has been deeply affecting him and all of us throughout the years. It’s very difficult to just keep a professional hat on when you’re watching the magnitude of these storms and the lethality that they unleash in their wake. Thank you so much, John, for joining us. As we noted, you’ve covered countless hurricanes and storms. What makes Melissa different? What are you most concerned about right now as this unprecedented Category 5, hitting Jamaica the first time Category 5 hurricane has struck the island of Jamaica? JOHN MORALES, METEOROLOGIST, CLIMADATA: That’s right. So, we know, just based on the magnitude of the hurricane, that this is going to be the worst disaster in the history of Jamaica. And what I’m worried about is the long- term, the lasting effects of the hurricane upon their region, because hurricanes don’t just take lives, they ruin lives, and they ruin lives in many, many ways. In the short-term, of course, communities that are going to be cut off from civilization just because, you know, bridges were washed out or roads were washed away, you know, with no power and no ability to, you know, otherwise just fend for themselves because nobody’s going to come and aid them in the short-term. And this is particularly true for the western half of Jamaica. And I want to make this point because, you know, you just had an interview in Kingston, and Kingston is pretty far removed from the core of this hurricane. So, the places most being impacted are Manchester Parish as well as St. Elizabeth Parish and further west into Westmoreland Parish. Those three locations, including obviously where it made landfall near New Hope, that was at 1:00 eastern time in the U.S., 1700 Greenwich Mean Time in the afternoon, that’s the location and time of this landfall with sustained winds of 295 kilometers per hour and wind gusts that were 30 to 50 percent higher than that because of the effects of the topography upon the region where you can get a 1.5 gust factor. So, that takes gusts, believe it or not, close to 450 miles — sorry, kilometers per hour, 450 kilometers per hour and some of the hilltops and mountaintops. That’s what I’m concerned about. GOLODRYGA: And I spoke with the prime minister of Jamaica earlier today, and he made it clear that they’ve gone to extreme lengths and measures to put in place any sort of resources that they can provide and prepare their citizens for this storm. This isn’t obviously the first storm or hurricane that the country has faced, but they’ve never seen one of this size and scale. And he also said that no Caribbean island could withstand a storm of this magnitude. So, for those who have not heeded the warnings and evacuated, what is their fate likely in the next few hours ahead? MORALES: Well, I mean, you know, hopefully they did. You know, a lot of the construction there, especially middle and upper class, is going to be in the form of cinder block construction with poured concrete on rebar roofs. And that is sturdy and that can withstand that type of wind. The problem is that lower middle class and the frontline communities, the poor communities, don’t have that type of construction. Hopefully they did evacuate, not only because of the weakness of the structure, but also if they’re located anywhere near a flood zone, anywhere near where some of these rivers and creeks can become absolute torrents of water, that, too, needed to be done, as well as at the coast where the storm surge height or the depth of the inundation could be four meters above where people stand. So, many of these issues being looked at right now in terms of what people are facing because it’s happening as we speak. These conditions are ongoing right now as we speak with the hurricane making landfall. One more thing. I spoke about the short-term effects. There are peer reviewed studies that indicate that morbidity and mortality extend not just months, but years, if not a decade and a half after powerful major hurricanes make landfall. So, there’s bound to be health — physical health and mental health issues well beyond this hurricane’s landfall. GOLODRYGA: Half of Jamaica, we should note, is mountainous. Can you explain why the terrain of the island nation makes the storm even more destructive? MORALES: Of course, what happens with mountainous terrain is that you have the prevailing winds around the circulation of the hurricane, striking the windward side of all these hills and mountains. And as that happens, that air is forced to rise. It is lifted. And as it is lifted, the temperature of those — of that air cools down condensation points and you get more and more water vapor condensing into liquid water droplets, which simply accentuates the amount of rainfall that you can receive in all these locations. That’s how we can get to rainfall accumulations of 750 to 1,000-milliliter — sorry — where am I going? Not milliliters, millimeters of rain. 750 to 1,000 millimeters of rain, which is equivalent to 30 to 40 inches of accumulation for those regions. GOLODRYGA: We know Caribbean waters are about two and a half degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal. How does that impact the strength of these storms? And the fact that we’re sort of as of late seeing a relatively new phenomenon, and that is such slow-moving storms that allow for such a huge drop of rain and flooding. MORALES: Right. So, two separate things we need to talk about here. First and foremost, the most obvious. The planetary heating, the global warming we’ve seen over the last several decades. This is manmade, as we all know, due to the injection of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. That heating of the planetary system has been greatly absorbed by the oceans. The oceans have kept the atmosphere cooler than it otherwise would have been. But in the process, the oceans are heating up. And it’s not just the surface of the ocean where we’re seeing those hotter sea surface temperatures, it’s the depth of the warm water. It’s the ocean heat content well below the surface of the oceans and the seas that is allowing for these hurricanes to, yes, as you described, sit in one place and not up well enough cold water to knock down their strength. So, this particular hurricane, Melissa, meandered, right? It took a long time to get past the South Central Caribbean Sea to the water south of Jamaica, basically a week. OK. It’s taken to get to this point. And despite that, it continues to feed off of incredibly warm waters. That figure that you mentioned, one and a one and a half degrees Celsius, approximately hotter than normal, that figure is made 600 to 700 times more likely, based on attribution studies, due to manmade climate change. So, we’ve changed the physics and the thermodynamics of how these hurricanes work. There are speed limits in terms of what the highest wind speed can possibly be is changing, is increasing. And there you have it. We have a hurricane making landfall with maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour. The last one to do that was Hurricane Dorian in 2019 when it hit the northwest Bahamas. And by pressure, I want to repeat once more, by barometric pressure, it is the strongest landfalling hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin, tying the Great Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. GOLODRYGA: You’re dealing with a number of challenges here, trying to cover and understand and explain new phenomena and more and more powerful storms than you ever have. Each year seems to be setting a new record. At the same time, given that we rely and so many citizens and viewers rely a lot on social media, the phenomena of misinformation and disinformation is also another factor weighing in on people’s decisions as to how to respond to these storms and prepare for them. How do you combat that? MORALES: Well, I mean, I wrote about this in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which, by the way, looks at the threats to humanity, not just nuclear proliferation, which was founded for doing that, but now these days it includes climate change as a threat to humanity. The title of the article is “The Role of the Scientist in the Post-Truth World,” because that’s where we’re at right now. This is a post-truth world, sadly, where facts are mixed with all the other stuff that’s out there, because everybody has a bullhorn and the expertise is no longer looked at as the sole source, as the trustworthy source of information. How do we deal with that? Listen, we can’t throw textbooks at people’s heads. We have to meet people where they’re at and try to relate to them as much as possible. If they only care about themselves and their families, OK. Well, then let’s talk about how these changes that we’re observing, the increase in temperatures, the increase in extreme weather events is impacting each one of those families and how it’s impacting them. And I think people will react to that. GOLODRYGA: Yes. Well, it’s really a life-or-death situation for so many of these families now as this massive hurricane officially makes landfall in Jamaica. Obviously, our thoughts are with the citizens there and in neighboring Cuba which is expecting the raft shortly after. John Morales, thank you so much for joining us, really appreciate your expertise. MORALES: Thank you. GOLODRYGA: We turn now to the devastating civil war in Sudan. Rebel forces known as the Rapid Support Forces or RSF have claimed the city of Fasher — El Fasher in Darfur, raising fears for a quarter of a million civilians living there. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called it a terrible escalation. El Fasher was the last remaining stronghold of the National Army which says that it retreated to, quote, “spare citizens and the rest of the city from destruction.” The United Nations has already raised the alarm over atrocities being committed there. Since the war began in April of 2023, tens of thousands have been killed and it’s considered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis with widespread famine. For more on this, I’m joined by Sudan analyst Shana Lewis and the Darfur crisis lead for the International Rescue Committee, Arjan Hehenkamp. Welcome both of you. So, Arjan, let me start with you. As has been reported, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said the move to retreat from El Fasher was intended to spare civilians there and citizens from destruction. At this point, given the change in dynamic, what are we seeing and hearing on the ground in El Fasher? ARJAN HEHENKAMP, DARFUR CRISIS LEAD, IRC: So, I just came back from Tawila, which is about 70 kilometers south of El Fasher. I’ve been in the area close to El Fasher. And I just left on the — a couple of days before the RSF was reportedly taking over El Fasher. What we’re seeing in Tawila, which is a place where there’s already 400,000 displaced who have been there for a long time, but also increased since the attack on Zamzam before, we’re seeing only a few numbers coming from El Fasher. There’s up to 5,000 people who have come to Tawila. They arrived in deplorable state. Many of them are sick and wounded, having lived the siege for a period of six to seven months. There’s many children, many women, many elderly, but also a big gap in terms of the young men and adult men that are not being seen in those numbers. The big concern that we have right now is, where’s the rest of the population of El Fasher? Because they were supposed to be — or we were hoping and we were thinking that they would come to Tawila in order to be able to receive safety and assistance, but we haven’t seen the big numbers that we were expecting so far. So, that is very disturbing and that’s raising a big question in my mind. GOLODRYGA: And sticking with you, Arjan, for another question here on this point in terms of the impact on civilians. The U.N. says more than 26,000 newly displaced and 250,000 civilians are currently trapped around El Fasher. What do these people need the most right now? HEHENKAMP: What they need the most right now is to go to a safe place. El Fasher, from all that we hear, is not a safe place. We have seen horrific video circulating online yesterday that put our colleagues in Tawila to tears when they were — who are in our office. We’re hearing horrific stories about dead bodies lining the road and people are wounded along the road that have traveled to come to Tawila. And so, the biggest thing that we need, the biggest thing that the people of El Fasher need, is to have safe passage to a safe destination like Tawila. GOLODRYGA: Shayna, does the fall of El Fasher mark a permanent geographical split between the RSF held west and the SAF held east? SHAYNA LEWIS, SENIOR ADVISER, PAEMA: It’s certainly a turning point, Bianna, where we now see SAF in control of pretty much the entire central and eastern portion of the country, and the RSF has now cemented their control over the western region. However, I think it’s a little bit preemptive to talk about a definitive split in the country, particularly because the western region, known as the Kordofan, is still very much in play, even though right now we are focusing on El Fasher because of the severity of the atrocities that are taking place, which I think it’s also very important to note the international civil society community and Sudanese themselves have been warning about the atrocity risk for over two years for the population of El Fasher, but it’s El Fasher and the Kordofan region. Just a couple of days ago, on the 26th, the emergency lawyers documentation group reported on a massacre committed by the RSF of hundreds of civilians in a town known as Bara in North Kordofan, but we also know that similar siege tactics that were employed for over 16 months in El Fasher are also being used in South Kordofan, in the cities of Kadugli and Dilling. So, even though we are talking right now about El Fasher and the need for safe routes for civilians and also for humanitarian aid to flow into the population that have not been able to flee the city, those same measures are also needed in the Kordofan region and if the International Community does not immediately and urgently increase humanitarian assistance to these areas, many more people will die due to a lack of access to healthcare, food and water. And we already know and have known for many months at this point that famine is present across the region of Darfur and also in South Kordofan. So, it’s incumbent on the International Community to act now to save further lives in addition to the hundreds who have already been killed in massacres in El Fasher. GOLODRYGA: Arjan, second to this war coming to an end, which is urgently needed, it’s been going on for far too long, several years now, how difficult is it to get aid into those who need it most right now? HEHENKAMP: It is incredibly difficult. I worked as a humanitarian for more than 30 years and certainly providing aid in Darfur is amongst the most difficult things that I’ve had to do with my teams. It is logistically difficult. It is — you know, you have to travel across the terrain. It takes two days to get to Tawila. There are checkpoints, there are fees that vendors will have to pay for if they want to end up in Tawila. And so — but apart from that, we are able to work in a place like Tawila. We are not able to go to El Fasher right now because of the situation that is still developing in El Fasher. And so, with all our efforts, we are able to be present, we are able to deliver, we are able to support all the people in Tawila and we are very, very disturbed and desperately waiting for, it sounds weird to say it, but we want these people to have a safe route and displace themselves to a place where we can assist them and where they can be safe themselves. GOLODRYGA: And, Shayna, beyond starvation and displacement, sexual violence has been one of the systematic weapons of war here that we’ve been reporting on since 2023. Let me read an excerpt for you from The New Yorker’s Escape from Khartoum. This is a harrowing account of RSF fighters raping a man and then burning him alive. It is quite gruesome and challenging to listen for our viewers, but it’s important for them to understand what is happening on the ground. Mudathir heard a commotion outside his house. RSF fighters in khaki uniforms were stealing a man’s money. They raped him — then they raped him, Mudathir said. They passed him from one to another. Once the fighters left, Mudathir ran out to help the man, but the soldiers returned carrying a can of gasoline. The fighters poured fuel on the man. Mudathir tried to stop them, but they were armed. The man was weeping as the fighter set him on fire. A soldier warned Mudathir, your turn is coming. Why has sexual violence and how has sexual violence been allowed to be used so indiscriminately against men, women and children in this gruesome war? LEWIS: Thank you, Bianna, for amplifying that testimony and really shedding light on what is happening, as you said, to not only women and girls in Sudan, first and foremost, but also to men and boys. This is a tactic that is being used indiscriminately by both sides, although there is certainly more documentation of the RSF’s use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. But this is a this is a weapon being used because this is fundamentally a war against the civilians of Sudan. Both the RSF and SAF are trying to dismantle the progress that was made during the December revolution in Sudan towards peace, justice and freedom. And the best way that they can undermine this progress is through reducing, annihilating or attempting to annihilate the dignity of Sudanese civilians. And what has been really apparent in this conflict is that it is a pattern of violations that are occurring. They have been well documented, first and foremost, by Sudanese civil society, Sudanese documenters who remain on the ground and continue to do the work of sharing these stories with the International Community at incredibly significant cost to themselves. But I have also sat in on interviews with survivors of sexual violence in Sudan. I remember one particularly poignant story of a woman who had been taken by the RSF. The RSF entered her family home and when her father attempted to enter the room to protect his daughter, the father was killed. And this is just one story, but the current estimate is that only 3 percent of the actual rapes that are happening in Sudan are being documented. So, we know this is happening. Part of our question here is not only where are the displaced, because they’re not arriving at the main humanitarian haven in the region at the moment, which is Tawila, but also I’ve been observing and analyzing the footage, the self-recorded footage by the RSF of their violations over the past 48 hours. And I have seen very few women or children in this footage. So, it’s also the question of where are the women and children in addition to where are the young men? GOLODRYGA: And when you say only 3 percent have been documented and you couple that with what UNICEF has documented already, over 220 child rapes since early 2024. That includes infants. Just try to wrap your head around that when we couple that with the statistic that you just told us, and that is only 3 percent of these types of atrocities have already been documented. Arjan, I do want to ask you about the role of the UAE here, because they have been denying what evidence has been proving otherwise and mounting over the last couple of years since this war began, and that is that they are arming the RSF. In what interest is it of the UAE to continue to do so? HEHENKAMP: That’s a question that I don’t really have a readymade answer for. We do know, however, that in Sudan, both the warring parties are being supported significantly by outside actors, UAE, but also other countries in the region. And this in turn has aggravated and escalated the war in Sudan and made it made it very, very difficult for any mediation and any negotiations to take place. And so, that’s the reality of Sudan. It’s a regional war with many outside interests and that that continues to fuel the war and creates havoc and disaster and tragedy amongst its civilian population. GOLODRYGA: Shayna, let me ask you that same question, how do you interpret Abu Dhabi’s position here? LEWIS: Yes, the UAE’s ongoing involvement in the Sudan conflict is a question on many of our minds. Part of the dynamics here is that the UAE is attempting to prop up the leader of the RSF, Hemedti, as a counterweight to the rising Islamist influence in Sudan, particularly the former regime of Omar al-Bashir was an Islamist regime and following the coup of October 2021 that the head of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the head of the RSF jointly perpetrated, there has been the re-establishment and re- entrenchment of the former regime. When I was in Khartoum in June of this year, just after the recapturing of Khartoum, the capital by the Sudanese Armed Forces, it was very clear to me that the old state, that the old regime was fully back in power. And this translates to a suppression of civic space, threats against humanitarian workers, particularly Sudanese, who are working in the emergency response rooms and other grassroots initiatives, but also human rights documenters. And just in the past three weeks, we know of multiple human rights monitors and journalists who were killed in El Fasher by the RSF. So, when we think about the UAE’s interest in propping up the RSF, we can’t ignore those dynamics which play into what is happening in the broader region. But I think it’s also worth noting that there are other external backers who are involved. We have Egypt, we have Saudi Arabia, particularly on the side of the Sudanese Armed Forces. And the U.S. has been very kind of proactive in assembling these external backers into a forum that is known as the Quad. And the Quad is currently trying to pursue ceasefire negotiations. But fundamentally, we can’t achieve a ceasefire unless Sudanese, not just the RSF and SAF, because there are multiple other parties who are part of this conflict, but also including Sudanese civilians, because the civilian leadership has to be at the table. Otherwise, the integrity of any kind of process on the ground is very much in question. GOLODRYGA: Well, one could argue that another factor that is keeping a ceasefire from forming at this point is global pressure and condemnation and widespread attention here to this war. The U.N. called this the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. And I asked just last month, Kholood Khair, why this isn’t getting the type of attention that it so rightly deserved. And here’s what she said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KHOLOOD KHAIR, SUDANESE RESEARCHER AND POLITICAL ANALYST: The world is pretending that it has all these other conflicts in the world that it is on its docket, which is true. But frankly speaking, the world can walk and chew gum at the same time. This is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. It’s also the world’s largest hunger crisis. It’s also the world’s largest displacement crisis. And it’s also the world’s largest protection crisis. There is no good reason other than racism, frankly, at this point, that means that Sudan is not getting the attention it deserves. (END VIDEO CLIP) GOLODRYGA: Let me start with you, Shayna, how do you respond to that take from Kholood? LEWIS: I’m not sure I can say it any better than Kholood. But fundamentally, there are countries that are running cover for the external backers within the Security Council. There are a raft of measures that the International Community could have taken in terms of atrocity prevention and conflict de-escalation, particularly for El Fasher. The community, as I said, have been raising the alarms for over two years. And I know at PAEMA, my organization, we went back through our records this morning, and we have issued over 20 public and private statements to the International Community warning about the atrocity dynamics. So, this really comes down to not a lack of information by policymakers. They have known the entire time what was coming for the civilians of North Darfur, but it’s a lack of political will. We had Security Council Resolution 2736 from I believe June of last year, but it has just existed as a piece of paper without any political will on implementation in Sudan. So, until that political will is derived, and actually some soul-searching on why countries continue to prioritize blood money over the lives and blood of Sudanese civilians, this political intractability will continue for the foreseeable future. And many, many thousands more Sudanese civilians will die because of international inaction. GOLODRYGA: Really sobering words, sobering take. Nothing more than a sheet of paper in terms of a global response and any sort of fierce, fierce attempt to bring this deadly conflict to an end. It is a shame, and sadly, this is a tragedy that we will continue to likely cover in the weeks and months to come. In the meantime, Arjan Hehenkamp and Shayna Lewis, thank you so much for this conversation. We will continue to cover this very important story. We appreciate your time. LEWIS: Thank you. GOLODRYGA: And coming up after the break, the government shutdown continues. How a Washington Post reporter is shedding light on the health care debate that has Congress in a deadlock. GOLODRYGA: Next to Washington, D.C. where a government shutdown is about to enter its fifth week. Negotiations remain at a standstill. The debate over health care funding for undocumented immigrants one of the main sticking points between Democrats and Republicans. And according to our next guest it’s a debate riddled with misleading claims. Washington post reporter David Ovalle tells Hari Sreenivasan his latest article is setting the record straight. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) HARI SREENIVASAN, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, thanks. David Ovalle, thanks so much for joining us. You wrote a piece recently, which was very simply titled “Here’s who pays when undocumented immigrants get health care in America,” and this is literally the center of why the federal government is shut down right now. You have Republicans saying that Democrats want to have, you know, undocumented people get free health care and Democrats saying, that’s just not the way that law works today. And you point out exactly what’s happening. DAVID OVALLE, REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: I think it’s definitely um an issue that’s very nuanced and very gray and it does not fit neatly into the narratives that really either side are putting out there in terms of what’s going on with the health care debate. But the reality is taxpayers do pay some for indirectly and indirectly for care for undocumented people, but it is neither as glaring and as stark as Republicans might have you believe and some of the talking points that are going on right now or the debate about the shutdown. SREENIVASAN: OK. So, the Democrats say look, that’s just not how the law works, you can’t get health care in America if you aren’t documented. That said, if an undocumented human being walks into an emergency room because their, you know, arm is broken they’re going to get health care in America, who pays for that? OVALLE: Right. So, at the end of the day, the Republicans have really zeroed in on emergency Medicaid. Now, what’s interesting about emergency Medicaid is all of this stems from laws that were passed in the ’80s under President Reagan that basically said, you cannot — that you cannot deny someone cover — emergency coverage at the emergency room if they come in. And obviously, there’s the basic human element, right? We don’t want people not being able to be treated for something like a car crash or for a fall or for some emergency thing. So, there is the emergency Medicaid program, which if you are otherwise eligible for Medicaid then you can get coverage through, you can get — the hospitals can get reimbursed for the services that are provided, OK. So, this is going to be for that very narrow emergency room visit, right? So, this may pay for your broken arm if you fall on a construction site, right, but it’s not going to pay for the rehabilitation visits, it’s not going to pay for the ongoing care that you might need afterward. So, it’s — really, emergency Medicaid is a — is less than 1 percent of all Medicaid spending. So, it’s — you know compared to the vast majority of spending that is done for primarily U.S. citizens it is a very, very small amount of money, but it is something that is explicitly built into law that allows for federal funds to pay for emergency care for people without papers. SREENIVASAN: So, if it’s less than 1 percent, the Republicans also talk about kind of the number that you hear in the press is $200 billion, that if the provisions are kind of reinstated, you know, basically the big beautiful bill rolled back some of this kind of extensions of tax credits, if these tax credits come back in, 200 billion, where’s that number from? OVALLE: Well, there’s a lot of conflation that’s going on and a lot of the claims that are going back and forth. And so, one of the things that I think is important for people to understand is the Trump administration has really zeroed in on people that it believes should never have been afforded any kind of legal status to begin with under the Biden administration, right? So, these are going to be people that got protection under TPS programs, under other immigration programs. And so, this was a lot of people that came into the United States and were given some sort of legal status. For the Republicans, they say, well, these are people that should have never gotten any kind of protections. And so, therefore, the healthcare that they are afforded because of that legal status should not be afforded to them. So, there’s sort of some conflation going on there because it’s not really the undocumented population that we think of that had just snuck across the border and is living and working here. These are people that came in, have had some sort of legal status. Some of it’s in limbo, right? We have hundreds of thousands of people from countries that are in sort of legal limbo right now because their TPS programs have been pulled back. But there are a lot of people that would fall under this bucket, right? So, some of these numbers get a little bit conflated. But what the big beautiful bill did was it tightened eligibility for a lot of these programs. So, some of those people are now no longer eligible for any of these federal healthcare programs. And so, what rolling back some of those provisions in the big beautiful bill would do is give those people back some of that coverage. SREENIVASAN: Got it. You spoke to individuals who are getting healthcare or not getting healthcare in America, along with the providers, the clinics and so forth in this story. One of the things that you point out is, the more common experience for millions of people living in the United States illegally is that they often forego routine medical appointments, pay out of pocket for specialized care, rely on community clinics and turn to emergency rooms as a last resort, according to healthcare providers and immigrant advocates. How does someone who doesn’t have papers in America just kind of navigate normal life, whether it’s the common cold or flu or whether ultimately getting to that kind of broken arm example? OVALLE: Look, healthcare in America is complicated for citizens, right? Just navigating whether you have healthcare, whether you don’t have healthcare, whether you have some mix of charity care and government backed help. But at the end of the day, it’s just as difficult and then some for people without papers. So, I think community clinics tend to be sort of the go-to places for a lot of people without papers and people who just don’t have money, you know, people who are impoverished. So, this will be for very common preventative type things, right? You have a cold, you have — you know, maybe you need blood pressure medication, maybe you’re diabetic. And so, you go to these – – especially like in rural areas and underserved areas where there is just not that much access to healthcare. Those provide a real crucial place for people to get healthcare. And what’s interesting about that is that there’s — you know, most of them are required by law to serve whoever is in their local area, right? Regardless of whether they’re eligible or not, or whether they have any kind of documented status, right? So, that is built into the law. Now, the Trump administration has been trying to pull back on some of those, the funding that goes toward these types of programs. But again, that also, a lot of that money comes from the state or is federal money that’s routed through the state, right? So, it’s not always as clear cut as federal taxpayer money is funneling down to community clinics. That’s really — it’s a lot more complicated than that. But that is one way. And even then, undocumented immigrants still pay for some of their care, for a lot of their care. And moreover, they want to pay for a lot of their care. If you read my story, I spoke to a medical director at a clinic here in South Florida where I’m based. And she pointed out that a lot of the undocumented immigrants are used to paying for healthcare in their home countries, and they don’t want to come here and just, you know, feel like they’re leeching off the government. They want to pay at something for some of their care. So, a lot of it is done on a sliding scale. So, you come in, you’re going to pay, you know, maybe only $55, $60 for a visit, and the medications will be much more, right? And so, a lot of this can get kind of complicated and messy for people. And a lot of times they’ll just forego the care, right? If they have something, then they’ll just go buy, you know, over-the- counter Tylenol or medications for your common cold or whatever. And oftentimes they just — you know, they just don’t go unless it’s absolutely, absolutely an emergency. SREENIVASAN: I wonder if the people that you spoke with, are they foregoing care that could be preventing further costs down the line? OVALLE: And that’s one of the things that doctors and public health officials and immigrant advocates stress is that by — if we are cutting off care on the preventative side, it ends up costing taxpayers more when they do go to emergency rooms, right, when there is a complication from diabetes or there is a complication from cardiovascular disease, by not treating it on the front end, we are actually going to increase the cost on the back end. And I think where we’re going to see that take place a lot is in some of the immigration enforcement that’s going on. So, that’s sort of separate from all the debate about taxpayer money going, but you’re having a lot of people without papers or questionable papers, or maybe people who live in mixed families. So, maybe they’re undocumented, but their kids are citizens. And so, a lot of them are just foregoing the care because they are afraid of going out. They are getting targeted by immigration enforcement. And I mean, I’ve spoken to people at different community clinics who said, yes, we were arranging. We’ve had people skip surgeries. We’ve had people not — you know, just skipping appointments because they are generally terrified of going out. So, that is going to play out in — you know, when you have, you know, these health conditions that start getting worse and getting worse. And then ultimately, when there’s no remedy, then those people are going to end up going to emergency care. So, there is a lot of consternation about that. And that’s something that we may end up seeing play out down the road. SREENIVASAN: So, is there anything that you’ve discovered so far in your research that indicates that there’s a way through this? I mean, because on the one hand, you see just from a number standpoint, look, if these are subsidies that exist for certain populations and ideologically want to roll these back, that seems like a non-starter. And on the other hand, you kind of have people who are saying, look, this is, you know, structurally not the way that healthcare is designed. But if there are any government funds going, it’s because that’s also part of the law, that people have to get care in emergency rooms. So, it just seems like there’s a pretty big gap here as we all live through this government shutdown. OVALLE: Yes. And I think — but I think some of this is going to — a lot of this is going to go on even when the shutdown is resolved, right? I mean, you know, one of the things that the big beautiful bill did was it changed the ratio of how much the federal government pays for emergency Medicaid, right? So — but at the end of the day, the states will now have to burn a little bit more of the money that goes toward emergency Medicaid, but the money still has to get paid. People still have to get treated at the hospital. So, the states are now — and this is not just in healthcare, but this is in a lot of different areas where we’re seeing states taking on more and more of a burden and the federal government sort of withdrawing from a lot of these efforts, right? And so, we see that in healthcare. You know, even with — there are programs, certain states that do provide healthcare for undocumented people through separate Medicaid type programs, right, like California being the most — the biggest example. D.C., a few other states, blue states. So, you can get healthcare if you’re eligible for Medicaid through places in California, right? And that’s been a big source of consternation for Republicans who believe that that should not happen, right? But what’s happening now is because there’s budget crunches, because the states are getting so much less money from the feds, now some of these states are starting to pull back spending on some of these programs, right? So, it’s going to tax the existing healthcare infrastructure that much more, the community clinics that much more. Community clinics are facing a lot fewer dollars from Washington and from their state capitals. So, it’s going to sort of like start trickling down, and that’s when we’re going to start seeing, you know, more emergency room visits, more people suffering conditions because, you know, there’s just less — it’s just greater barriers to getting care. SREENIVASAN: David Ovalle of the Washington Post health and science reporter, thanks so much for joining us. OVALLE: Thank you. Appreciate it. (END VIDEOTAPE) GOLODRYGA: And finally, bright lights, colorful costumes, and skeleton face paint. It can only mean one thing, Mexico’s Day of the Dead festivities have begun. The main avenue of Mexico City was transformed into a parade of elegant dresses and oversized hats as hundreds of people honored La Catrina, a figure who originated in a piece of art over a century ago and has become one of the most iconic symbols of the annual holiday. The parade is just one of many events taking place this week to celebrate the lives of loved ones who have passed away. All right. That is it for us for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episodes shortly after it airs on our podcast. Remember, you can always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media. Thanks so much for watching, and goodbye from New York. END |