Editor’s Note: This article contains graphic images and descriptions.

Christine Pascual’s phone started buzzing while she was at work in a hair salon with messages saying former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was about to be arrested.

Laxamana, a 17-year-old with dreams of becoming an online gamer, went missing in August 2018 on his way home from a gaming tournament in the northern Philippines.

“His friends who went with him said they were short on money, so they split ways,” his mother recalled. With no word from him in days, she started her own search for her son. “I started looking for him at every computer shop around our area, thinking he was close to home.”

A week later, a letter from the police arrived. It said her son was dead.

She was taken to the morgue and greeted by a sight she had never imagined; her son’s body pierced by six gunshots and covered in bruises.

“When he was young, I’d worried about him being bitten by flies,” she said.

There is another image she will never forget; a photograph the police showed her of Laxamana’s lifeless body on the street where he was gunned down. She remembers his eyes were still wide open.

Pascual said the officers told her he was killed because “he tried to fight back.”

According to a Philippine Inquirer report, Rosales Municipal Police claimed Laxamana was on a motorbike, ignored a police checkpoint, then fired at officers.

“They accused him of horrible, unimaginable things,” said Pascual – who denies her son was a drug dealer and said he didn’t know how to ride a motorbike.

Pascual is determined to seek justice.

With the help of NGOs, she requested a second autopsy and raised money for his funeral. She has also recounted her testimony at senate hearings and public investigations and continues to work with human rights groups to gather evidence for her son.

She even took a case to the Philippines Supreme Court, but it was dismissed.

“We will fight wherever justice takes us…,” she said, “It’s been hard for me to accept my son died without any explanation. He was accused of something and was killed just like that…I hope that can change in this country,” she said.

Pascual is not alone.

A long-awaited arrest

Duterte’s court appearance in the International Criminal Court (ICC) last month is “a sight families of the thousands of victims of the ‘war on drugs’ in the Philippines feared they would never see,” said Amnesty International’s Southeast Asia Researcher Rachel Chhoa-Howard.

“The very institution that former President Duterte mocked will now try him for murder…is a symbolic moment and a day of hope for families of victims and human rights defenders who have for years fought tirelessly for justice despite grave risks to their lives and safety.”

It shows that those accused of committing the worst crimes “may one day face their day in court, regardless of their position,” Chhoa-Howard added.

Duterte ran the Philippines for six turbulent years, during which he oversaw a brutal crackdown on drugs and openly threatened critics with death.

In his inaugural address in 2016, he claimed there were 3.7 million “drug addicts” in the Philippines and said he would “have to slaughter these idiots for destroying my country.”

The figure was more than twice the number of active drug users reported in a 2015 Philippines Dangerous Drug board (DDB) study, which said 1.8 million people – just under 2% of the population – were using drugs.

By 2019, three years into the ‘war of drugs’, the DDB survey estimated 1.6 million people were taking dangerous drugs in the Philippines – an 11% decrease from 2015.

Among many Filipinos, Duterte’s drug war – and his bombastic disregard for the country’s political elites – remained popular for much of his time in office. But the collateral damage caused by so many extrajudicial deaths also mounted.

Many of the victims were young men from impoverished shanty towns, shot by police and rogue gunmen as part of a campaign to target alleged dealers.

According to police data, 6,000 people were killed – but rights groups say the death toll could be as high as 30,000, with innocents and bystanders often caught in the crossfire.

Duterte’s tough approach on drugs prompted strong criticism from opposition lawmakers who launched a probe into the killings. Duterte in turn jailed his fiercest opponent and accused some news media and rights activists as traitors and conspirators.

His blood-soaked presidency ended in 2022 but, three years on, hundreds, if not thousands, of extrajudicial killings have not been accounted for. Victims’ families are often spooked or threatened not to pursue their case in local courts, leaving hundreds in limbo with little to no due process in the Philippines.

To date, only eight policemen had been convicted for five drug war deaths, according to court documents.

The threat of being held to account in the ICC has been hanging over Duterte’s for almost a decade. Prosecutors first said they were watching what was happening in the Philippines in 2016, but it wasn’t until 2021 that a formal investigation was launched.

For years, Duterte – along with his loyal allies and fierce supporters – argued that allegations of wrongdoing should be dealt with by the Philippine justice system, saying the involvement of foreign courts would impede the country’s judicial independence and sovereignty.

As president, he even withdrew the Philippines from the ICC – which took effect in March 2019. That, however, proved to be no protection; the ICC still has jurisdiction for crimes alleged during the years the nation was a member.

Last week, Duterte went from boasting about killing drug dealers to being arrested for crimes against humanity as the ICC finally caught up with him.

In a dramatic arrest, the 80-year-old was outnumbered by local police when he returned to Manila from Hong Kong. After being detained for hours at an airbase, he was put on a plane bound for the Netherlands to face the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity – alleged to have been committed between 2011 and 2019.

On Thursday (March 14), Duterte made his first appearance via video link at The Hague where he appeared tired and slightly uneasy.

His defense lawyer, Salvador Medialdea, called the arrest a “pure and simple kidnapping.”

During the hearing, Presiding Judge Iulia Motoc read Duterte his rights and set September 23 as the date for a hearing to determine whether the evidence presented by the prosecution would be sufficient to take the case to trial.

Left without closure

Thousands of lives have been upended by the drug war killings. They not only left devastated parents to bury their children but also left dozens of children as orphans.

Eya was just 9-years-old when both her parents were shot by hooded, uniformed policemen at around three in the morning in August 2016.

Now 18, she and her sister work at a coffee shop in Manila run by families of victims.

”I hope justice will be given to us. And others responsible for the thousands of those who died will also get arrested.”

Cresalie Agosto was at work when her 16-year-old daughter called her in on December 1, 2016 with shocking news.

”Ma, dad has been shot. Please come back,” she heard her daughter say.

Agosto rushed home. Nearby, police had cordoned off an area surrounding her husband’s body.

Witnesses told her they saw two motorbikes each carrying two masked men carrying big, long guns, looking for a man named “Roy”. They asked her husband, Richie Reyes, if he was “Roy”.

She was told that he said he was not the man they were looking for, but they shot him anyway.

“There’s nothing more that we want other than justice and accountability,” Agosto said. “When Duterte was arrested upon arrival his rights were still read aloud to him. For us, our loved ones were greeted with bullets with no explanation.”

Luzviminda Siapo was away from home as migrant worker in Kuwait when tragic news that her 19-year-old son, Raymart, was killed by police in 2017.

Her son was born with clubfoot deformities – a condition which can affect mobility.

A witness who was sleeping in a parked jeepney in an alley told Siapo they heard police yell at Raymart to run away.

“No, I cannot run. I don’t want to run,” Raymart cried out, according to the witness. A gunshot was then heard.

Luzviminda said she wants to see Duterte “rot in jail” for her son’s death.

“He may be in jail, but he is alive unlike my son who died and is no longer with us. I cannot hug him anymore nor talk to him.”

The UK government took effective control Saturday of Britain’s last remaining factory that makes steel from scratch from its Chinese owners, after lawmakers approved an emergency rescue.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer summoned lawmakers for the unusual Saturday sitting, only the sixth since World War II, to back a bill primarily aimed at blocking British Steel’s Chinese owners, Jingye Group, from closing the two massive blast furnaces at its Scunthorpe plant in the north of England that are key in the steelmaking process.

The bill, which was debated over several hours and which is now law after being given royal ascent by King Charles III, gives Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds the power to direct the company’s board and workforce, ensure its 3,000 workers get paid and order the raw materials necessary to keep the blast furnaces running.

Jingye has said the Scunthorpe plant is losing 700,000 pounds ($910,000) a day as a result of challenging market conditions and increased environmental costs. The recent decision by US President Donald Trump to impose a 25% tariffs on imported steel hasn’t helped.

After the House of Commons passed the bill on a voice vote, Starmer arrived in Scunthorpe to meet workers, who were clearly relieved that the town’s steelmaking heritage, which stretches back around 150 years, has been preserved.

“You and your colleagues for years have been the backbone of British Steel, and it’s really important that we recognize that,” Starmer said. “It’s your jobs, your lives, your communities, your families.”

The relief in the town was evident during the interval of Scunthorpe United’s soccer match, where the crowd at the Attis Arena cheered on a few dozen steelworkers on the field of play. The team is known as “The Iron,” a fond reflection of the town’s identity.

Starmer had been under pressure to act after Jingye’s recent decision to cancel orders for the iron pellets used in the blast furnaces. Without them and other raw materials, such as coking coal, the furnaces would likely have to shut for good, potentially within days, as they are extremely difficult and expensive to restart once cooled.

That would mean the UK, which in the late 19th century was the world’s steelmaking powerhouse, would be the only country in the Group of Seven industrial nations without the capacity to make its own steel from scratch rather than from recycled material, which use greener electric arc furnaces rather than blast furnaces.

The repercussions would be huge for industries like construction, defense and rail and make the country dependent on foreign sources for so-called virgin steel, a vulnerability that lawmakers from all political parties balked at.

“We could not, will not and never will stand idly by while heat seeps from the UK’s remaining blast furnaces without any planning, any due process or any respect for the consequences, and that is why I needed colleagues here today,” Reynolds told lawmakers.

Reynolds criticized Jingye for making “excessive” demands of the government in discussions in recent months, and that without the government’s intervention, the company would have “irrevocably and unilaterally closed down primary steel making at British Steel.”

Though the legislation does not transfer ownership of the plant to the state, Reynolds conceded it was a future possibility.

It’s unclear what role Jingye, owner of British Steel since 2020, will have in the day-to-day running of the steelworks. But should it fail to abide by the new laws, the company and its executives could face legal sanctions.

Voters in oil-rich Gabon headed to polling stations on Saturday in a presidential election that the country’s military rulers hoped would legitimize their grip on power.

It’s the first election since a 2023 military coup ended a political dynasty that lasted over 50 years. Analysts have predicted an overwhelming victory for the interim president who led the coup.

Some 920,000 voters, including over 28,000 overseas, are registered to participate across more than 3,000 polling stations. A third of the country’s 2.3 million people live in poverty despite its vast oil wealth.

The interim president, Gen. Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, 50, toppled President Ali Bongo Ondimba nearly two years ago. He hopes to consolidate his grip on power for a seven-year term in office.

Bongo was placed under house arrest after the coup but freed a week later due to health concerns. His wife and son were detained and charged with corruption and embezzlement of public funds. Bongo himself was not charged.

Following the coup, Oligui Nguema promised to “return power to civilians” through “credible elections”. He has touted himself as a leader who wants to unify the Gabonese and give them hope, running his presidential campaign under the slogan: “We Build Together.”

In January, the parliament adopted a new contentious electoral code allowing military personnel to run in elections.

The country’s new constitution, adopted in a referendum in November, has also set the presidential term at seven years, renewable once, instead of the unlimited fiver-year term. It also states family members can’t succeed a president and has abolished the position of prime minister.

A challenger with an anti-colonial approach

A total of eight candidates are running for president.

However, Oligui Nguema’s main challenger is Bongo’s former prime minister Alain Claude Bilie-By-Nze, who has promised to reorganize public finances, create jobs for young people and “end the umbilical cord” with former colonial ruler France.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Bilie-By-Nze said he didn’t expect the election to be fair or transparent.

“Everything has been done to lock down the vote,” he said.

In a region where France is losing longstanding allies in many of its former colonies, Gabon stands out as one of only a few where that partnership has not been threatened. It still has more than 300 French troops present, one of only two African countries still hosting them.

Oligui Nguema has not signaled an end to the French military presence, but Bilie-By-Nze has said “no subject is off limits” in renegotiating the ties between the two countries.

Voters cast their ballots

Dozens of voters, from various age groups, lined up at ballot stations early Saturday in the capital city, Libreville, as voting progressed peacefully.

Jonas Obiang told the AP while waiting to cast his ballot in the working-class district of Damas that he would vote for Bilie-By-Nze because he viewed the 2023 coup as a continuation of the malpractice of the previous regime.

“General Oligui Nguema led the country with the same people who plundered the country, the former members of the Bongo regime. I will not vote for him,” he said.

His views were echoed by Antoine Nkili, a 27-year-old unemployed man with a Master’s degree in law.

“The choice is personal, but I’m telling you that for me, the military has failed,” Nkili said. “They promised to reform the institutions, but they haven’t. Instead, they’ve enriched themselves.”

But Jean Bie, 57, who works in the construction sector, said the military rule has benefited the population.

“In 19 months, General Oligui Nguéma has completed several projects expected of the former regime. I’m voting for him, hoping he’ll do more over the next seven years,” he said.

Asked why she and other Ukrainian people choose to keep living under Russian occupation instead of fleeing, the woman paused for a moment.

“I don’t know how to explain the feeling,” she said. “It’s like you just can’t believe that evil could win. Even after three years, people can’t believe that this is it. They still believe that the occupation will end. That’s why they are still staying here and not running away.”

The woman, a member of the all-female resistance group Zla Mavka, lives in a city in southeastern Ukraine that fell under Russian control just days after Moscow launched its full-scale, unprovoked invasion of the country in February 2022.

“You can be arrested for anything. You have to worry about everything. You have to check your phone, you have to check what you have in your apartment, you have to hide a lot of things, you can’t say what you’re thinking and you cannot trust anyone,” she said.

US President Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants the war in Ukraine to end, even if it means further territorial loses for Kyiv. Trump has said it was “unlikely” Ukraine would get all of its pre-war territory back, saying: “(Russia) took a lot of land, and they fought for that land, and they lost a lot of soldiers.”

This could include the Zla Mavka woman’s hometown.

“People abroad always talk about territories, and they forget, maybe, that it’s not only about territories. It’s about people. And people here are still waiting. People have not moved, and they don’t want to move. And why (should) they have to move from their homes?” the woman said.

Russian forces currently occupy nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, home to about 6 million people, including 1 million children, who are living in what the United Nations has described as a “bleak human rights situation.”

Stepan, a 22-year-old Ukrainian man who recently escaped from an occupied area in southern Ukraine to Kherson, which is under Kyiv’s control, has experienced firsthand what the occupying forces are capable of.

Stepan and his parents were detained by Russian troops in summer 2022. He was held for two weeks and repeatedly beaten and tortured with electricity. His parents were held for several more months.

None of the family was ever told why they were being detained. They have never been convicted or charged with any crimes.

When Stepan was released, he was separated from the rest of his family. He ended up on the left bank of the Dnipro River, which is still occupied by Russia. His mother Olha managed to escape to a government-controlled area after she was released in spring 2023.

Stepan was lucky – he managed to escape and was reunited with his family last month. He was brought back thanks to a “coordinated effort” that involved the “Angels,” a Ukrainian special forces unit that rescues vulnerable people from occupied territories, according to Roman Mrochko, the head of Kherson City Military Administration. Stepan and his family said they were not allowed to share details of the operation.

Dire consequences

Both Stepan and the Zla Mavka member said that even the slightest suspicion of being “pro-Ukrainian” can have dire consequences for people living under occupation.

“My friends and acquaintances were often taken away because they did not want to get a Russian passport or for not registering for military service. They were taken away and brought back a week later with broken arms and legs, sometime heads. There were many, we are talking about dozens of people,” Stepan said.

Human rights groups say that Moscow has intensified its campaign to “Russify” occupied Ukraine in recent months, likely to stake claim to the areas in any future peace negotiation.

“They try to remove anything Ukrainian from our city, from the language to traditions,” the Zla Mavka woman said, adding that the group has made it one of its missions to keep Ukrainian culture alive under occupation.

“We are spreading Ukrainian poems and the works of Ukrainian authors, and (celebrating) Ukrainian holidays, the traditional ones, just to remind to everybody that this is not Russia, and never was, and never will be,” she said.

She described living in the city like “getting into a time machine and going back to the USSR.”

“There’s propaganda and Soviet-style monuments, and Soviet holidays, and we are always waiting in lines, like in Soviet times, to get help, or to go to the doctor, or to get some documents, you have to wait in these long lines and there are no normal shops and no brands… just stuff you can get in the street markets and some strange Chinese products.”

Russian authorities have been meticulously erasing Ukrainian national identity, religion and language in occupied Ukraine. They have staged sham referenda on joining Russia and have been forcing the local population to become Russian citizens.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new decree ordering Ukrainian citizens living in these areas to “regulate their legal status” by adopting Russian citizenship. According to the decree, those who don’t do so by September will become foreigners and will only be allowed to stay for limited time.

But Moscow has already effectively coerced many Ukrainian people into accepting Russian passports because life is nearly impossible and very dangerous without them.

Those who don’t have Russian documents face the daily threat of arrest and deportation to Russia, have no right to work, no access to even the most basic health services or pensions and are barred from owning property.

“You can’t even call an ambulance without (a Russian passport). If you don’t have a Russian passport, the ambulance will not come,” the resistance woman said.

Human rights watchdogs have repeatedly said that Moscow is breaking international law by forcing the Ukrainian population to adopt Russian passports.

“And then the big problem for men, the men who (were forced to get) Russian passports, they are now trying to mobilize them into the Russian Army. They want to force them to fight against their own people,” the woman added.

The risk of trying to leave

Millions of Ukrainians are refusing to leave their homes in occupied territories – most because they still believe that Kyiv, with the help of its Western allies, will eventually liberate all its land.

There are also some who sympathize with Russia and are happy with the new regime – although both the Zla Mavka woman and Stepan said they believe this is only a small minority.

“These are often people who did not have a very good life before. For example, they didn’t have education and didn’t have a good job, but now, if they cry out loud ‘I love Russia,’ they will get a job in the government, they will get help and money from Russia,” the Zla Mavka member said.

SOS Donbas, a Ukrainian helpline for people living in occupied territories and combat zones, received more than 57,500 calls last year. Violeta Artemchuk, the director of the organization, said most people are asking for advice on how to leave safely, how to access help and what are the implications of staying and being forced to take a Russian passport.

The Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly told people in occupied areas to do whatever they need to stay safe.

“If you need to get some documents, get them. This does not change your status,” Heorhii Tykhyi, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said after the decree requiring Ukrainians in occupied territories to become Russian citizens was announced.

Tykhyi said that “the best solution, if possible, is to leave for the controlled territory of Ukraine.”

But for many, leaving is impossible because it’s too dangerous, too expensive and too treacherous.

“Theoretically, it’s possible to leave, but you have to go through filtration,” the Zla Mavka woman said, referring to a security screening process conducted by Russian forces on all exits from the occupied areas.

“They’re checking everything there, so… let’s say there is a woman whose husband was a soldier in 2014, and if they find out, she will have a huge problem, so for her, it is safer not to try. But this could be anything, like a comment on social media, something on your phone, they can just arrest you and deport you to Russia,” she said.

It is impossible to cross directly from occupied Ukraine into government-controlled areas, which means that anyone wishing to flee must travel through Russia, get out of Russia and then travel through Europe back to Ukraine.

“It’s not easy to leave everything and become a refugee. You can’t sell your apartment, you cannot cross the border with a large amount of money, you can’t take much… so it is possible, but not for everyone,” the woman said.

So, for now, she and millions of others are staying and watching the news coming from the White House and elsewhere in horror.

“People are very nervous and they’re very afraid to hear about a negotiation, and how our cities will become Russia, this is the biggest fear. But I can tell you that even if this happens, resistance won’t stop.”