A missionary writes, ‘May we beg for your redoubled prayers as a “Double Whammy” threatens our communities. The Ugandan lockdown seems to be stemming Covid-19 and has just been extended for 21 days. Very tough on children; folk barely earning enough to eat; Sudanese refugees with 30% cut in rations and unable to plant more than a few vegetables; and the elderly with no one to help them. But many have spent lockdown in the fields, preparing to plant. Rains have begun and seeds are beginning to grow. This morning I rode my bicycle past fields of young beans and groundnuts. However, another threat hangs over us now. The locusts experienced in January have bred and millions of young are growing and devastating crops, trees, and cattle fodder. The military and everyone are concentrating on Covid-19. The locusts are spreading towards the huge refugee settlements and West Nile. Massive hunger could weaken the population, and we really wonder what might follow.’

Despite relentless caution from medical workers battling the virus in hospitals, President Hassan Rouhani’s government pressed ahead and reopened sectors of the economy deemed to be less vulnerable in the face of the disease. The project saw public transport, with strict protocols, resume normal activity. However, overcrowded buses and metro wagons prompted the government committee tasked with fighting the virus in Tehran to warn that it would only be a matter of days before the megacity was rocked by an exponential infection growth. Now the media are reporting that at least three Iranian provinces are experiencing a resurgence of coronavirus. ‘We are playing a chess game with coronavirus,’ said health minister Saeed Namaki. An updated government report stated that at least three provinces (including Qom, the initial epicentre) are currently grappling with a resurgence of the pandemic.

The Burmese military recently bombed Hnan Chaung village, in Chin State. Houses were burned down, seven civilians were killed (including two children, a mother and an infant), and at least eight others were injured. Fighting between the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed resistance group, and the Burmese military (named the Tatmadaw) had been ongoing for several days with gunfire and explosions. Two Tatmadaw jets bombed the village many times, damaging several churches. Also, a 53-year-old man was hospitalised after stepping on a landmine. During the coronavirus pandemic, human rights organisations and others are calling for a nationwide ceasefire in Burma, saying that everyone should focus efforts on fighting the virus and protecting the vulnerable, not fighting wars and killing civilians.

A ceasefire few expected to last is holding in Idlib, for now - but the last rebel-held area in northwest Syria is bracing itself for the expected onslaught of the deadly coronavirus. The 5 March truce between Russia and Turkey halted a dangerous escalation of nine punishing years of war in Syria, but Idlib's breathing space is fraught with fear of the new enemy. The health system has been destroyed by bombing by Russian and Syrian warplanes. Nearly a million displaced people, sheltering inside flimsy tents, or on open ground, have few defences against the powerful Covid-19. ‘There's a humanitarian and political imperative for a complete, immediate nationwide ceasefire throughout Syria’, said the UN special envoy, in his recent briefing to the UN Security Council.