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March 24
On Tuesday morning, the Ever Given sailed into the placid waters of the Suez Canal, the 120-mile-long link on its journey from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, as it carried thousands of tons of cargo bound for the Netherlands.

Then a dust storm hit, limiting visibility and battering ships with heavy winds, according to the Suez Canal Authority. By midmorning, the massive ship - one of the largest in the world at more than 1,300 feet long, more than twice the height of the Washington Monument - was wedged sideways across the canal.

Dozens of boats piled up into a marine traffic jam on the crucial shipping lane as tugboats and diggers tried to free the vessel. Oil prices rose Wednesday amid heightened worries over access to the canal, through which some 12 percent of global trade passes.

The Ever Given container ship became stuck in the canal at 5:40 a.m. UTC on Tuesday

Detail

Cairo

EGYPT

The vessel is 1,312 feet long, exactly the maximum length permitted in the canal

The vessel blockage has caused a jam of dozens of ships waiting at both ends of the canal

Suez Canal

Suez

984 feet

Source: MarineTraffic

3,000 FEET

Source: Planet Labs Inc.

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

The Ever Given container ship became stuck in the canal at 5:40 a.m. UTC on Tuesday

Detail

Cairo

EGYPT

The vessel is 1,312 feet long, exactly the maximum length permitted in the canal

Suez Canal

984 feet

The vessel blockage has caused a jam of dozens of ships waiting at both ends of the canal

Suez

3,000 FEET

Source: Planet Labs Inc.

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Detail

The Ever Given container ship became stuck in the canal at 5:40 a.m. UTC on Tuesday

Cairo

EGYPT

The vessel is 1,312 feet long, exactly the maximum length permitted in the canal

984 feet

Suez Canal

Suez

The vessel blockage has caused a jam of dozens of ships waiting at both ends of the canal

3,000 FEET

Source: Planet Labs Inc.

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Detail

Cairo

The Ever Given container ship became stuck in the canal at 5:40 a.m. UTC on Tuesday

EGYPT

The vessel is 1,312 feet long, exactly the maximum length permitted in the canal

984 feet

Suez Canal

Suez

The vessel blockage has caused a jam of dozens of ships waiting at both ends of the canal

3,000 FEET

Source: Planet Labs Inc.

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Detail

Cairo

The Ever Given container ship became stuck in the canal at 5:40 a.m. UTC on Tuesday

EGYPT

The vessel is 1,312 feet long, exactly the maximum length permitted in the canal

984 feet

Suez Canal

Suez

The vessel blockage has caused a jam of dozens of ships waiting at both ends of the canal

3,000 FEET

Detail

Cairo

The Ever Given container ship became stuck in the canal at 5:40 a.m. UTC on Tuesday

EGYPT

The vessel is 1,312 feet long, exactly the maximum length permitted in the canal

984 feet

Suez Canal

Suez

The vessel blockage has caused a jam of dozens of ships waiting at both ends of the canal

3,000 FEET

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Source: Planet Labs Inc.

Those at the scene marked the stranding as a strange sight to behold.

"Ship in front of us ran aground while going through the canal and is now stuck sideways," Julianne Cona, an engineer on the Maersk Denver, wrote in an Instagram post showing her ship stuck behind the Ever Given. "Looks like we might be here for a little bit."

Vessel traffic at the Suez Canal after blockage

Data from March 24 from 11:27 a.m. to 1:27 p.m. UTC.

Mediterranean

Sea

Vessel

Rosetta

Port Said

Detail

Suez

Canal

Al Ismailiya

EGYPT

Fayed

Cairo

The Ever Given container ship delayed dozens of ships

Suez

30 MILES

Nile River

Red

Sea

Source: MarineTraffic

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Vessel traffic at the Suez Canal after blockage

Data from March 24 from 11:27 a.m. to 1:27 p.m. UTC.

Mediterranean

Sea

Vessel

Rosetta

Port Said

Detail

Suez

Canal

Al Ismailiya

EGYPT

Fayed

Cairo

The Ever Given container ship delayed dozens of ships

Suez

30 MILES

Nile River

Red Sea

Source: MarineTraffic

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Vessel traffic at the Suez Canal after blockage

Data from March 24 from 11:27 a.m. to 1:27 p.m. UTC.

Mediterranean

Sea

Vessel

Rosetta

Detail

Port Said

Suez

Canal

Al Ismailiya

EGYPT

Fayed

Cairo

The Ever Given container ship blocked dozens of vessels at both ends of the canal

Suez

30 MILES

Nile River

Red Sea

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Source: MarineTraffic

Vessel traffic at the Suez Canal after blockage

Data from March 24 from 11:27 a.m. to 1:27 p.m. UTC.

Mediterranean

Sea

Vessel

Detail

Rosetta

Port Said

Suez

Canal

Al Ismailiya

EGYPT

Fayed

Cairo

The Ever Given container ship blocked dozens of vessels at both ends of the canal

Suez

30 MILES

Nile River

Red Sea

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Source: MarineTraffic

Vessel traffic at the Suez Canal after blockage

Data from March 24 from 11:27 a.m. to 1:27 p.m. UTC.

Mediterranean

Sea

Vessel

Detail

Rosetta

Port Said

Suez

Canal

EGYPT

Al Ismailiya

Fayed

The Ever Given container ship blocked dozens of vessels at both ends of the canal

Cairo

Suez

30 MILES

Nile River

Red Sea

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Source: MarineTraffic

Early Wednesday morning, the ship was "partially refloated" and moved along the banks of the canal, according to an update sent to The Washington Post by GAC, a port agent that cited sources with the Suez Canal Authority.

The vessel is being towed to another position and traffic in the canal will be back to normal soon, GAC said in a statement. Experts said it could still take several days to refloat.

The Ever Given, which is operated by the Taiwanese firm Evergreen Marine and flagged in Panama, belongs to a modern class of massive cargo ships and can carry up to 220,000 tons of containers. In 2015, the Suez Canal underwent an $8.5 billion expansion to accommodate the ships and to set up two-way traffic headed north and south - but its owners never envisioned one of those megaships blocking the whole route, experts said.

"The Egyptian government certainly did not expect the route to be blocked both ways by a single ship," said Flavio Macau, a supply chain management expert at Edith Cowan University in Australia, in an interview with The Post. "You can call it ... karma, bad luck or a lack of engineering oversight."

But that's what happened Tuesday morning after the Ever Given left Suez, Egypt, south of the canal, and headed north, according to GAC.

Around 7:40 a.m. local time, the ship ran aground. According to the Suez Canal Authority, the dust storm knocked out power to the ship before it happened.

"The container accidentally ran aground after a suspected gust of wind hit it," Evergreen Marine told Agence France-Presse. "The company has urged the shipowner to report the cause of the incident and has been in discussions with relevant parties including the canal management authority to assist the ship as soon as possible."

Japanese firm Shoei Kisen KK, the ship's owner, could face millions of dollars in insurance claims, Reuters reported.

The accident led to a backup in the busy canal - and nearly some other incidents, according to Cona.

"Right after they ran aground the ship behind us lost power and almost hit us," she wrote on Instagram.

It was quickly clear that getting the Ever Given back on track would be a mammoth operation. Photos and satellite maps showed its bow along the canal's eastern boundary, while its stern nearly touched the western edge.

"From the looks of it that ship is super stuck," Cona wrote on Instagram. "They had a bunch of tugs trying to pull and push it earlier but it was going nowhere."

She added, "There is a little excavator trying to dig out the bow."

Tugboats scrambled to try to "re-float the vessel," according to Leth Agencies, which offers services to ships transiting the canal.

By Wednesday morning, they'd finally succeeded in dislodging the ship from the banks, GAC said, and tugs were working to get it back on its way.

Global shipping firms rely on the Suez Canal to move millions of tons of cargo and oil every day on the shortest route between Asia and Europe. Satellite maps Wednesday showed dozens of vessels idling in the Red and Mediterranean seas waiting for the canal to reopen.

Arrivals and departures at the Suez Canal

100 vessels

The Ever Given container ship becomes stuck in the canal at 5:40 a.m. UTC, blocking vessel traffic

Departures

80

60

40

Arrivals

20

0

Feb. 22

Mar. 1

Mar 8.

Mar. 15

Mar. 22

Source: MarineTraffic

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Arrivals and departures at the Suez Canal

100 vessels

The Ever Given container ship becomes stuck in the canal at 5:40 a.m. UTC, blocking vessel traffic

Departures

80

60

40

Arrivals

20

0

Feb. 22

Mar. 1

Mar 8.

Mar. 15

Mar. 22

Source: MarineTraffic

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Arrivals and departures at the Suez Canal

100 vessels

The Ever Given container ship becomes stuck in the canal at 5:40 a.m. UTC, blocking vessel traffic

Departures

80

60

40

Arrivals

20

0

Feb. 22

Mar. 1

Mar 8.

Mar. 15

Mar. 22

Source: MarineTraffic

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Arrivals and departures at the Suez Canal

100 vessels

The Ever Given container ship becomes stuck in the canal at 5:40 a.m. UTC, blocking vessel traffic

Departures

80

60

40

Arrivals

20

0

Feb. 22

Mar. 1

Mar 8.

Mar. 15

Mar. 22

Source: MarineTraffic

JÚLIA LEDUR/THE WASHINGTON POST

Macau said that a pause of a day or two in the canal would not have much impact on global shipping. But the longer the wait, the more likely availability of some goods could be affected by shipping delays, some experts warned.

"This is not the canal's busiest time of the year," Macau said. "Autumn and summer in the Northern Hemisphere would be more problematic."
Sudarsan Raghavan in Cairo and Miriam Berger in Washington contributed to this report. Hannah Dormido contributed to the graphics in this report.

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One of the world's biggest ships got stuck sideways in the Suez Canal, blocking traffic

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March 24 On Tuesday morning, the Ever Given sailed into the placid waters of the Suez Canal, the 120-mile-long link on its journey from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, as it carried thousands of tons of cargo bound for the Netherlands.

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CBS News' Imtiaz Tyab reports from Kabul on the state of the country following the U.S. withdrawal.

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Sudan

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The economic issues have heightened longstanding dissatisfaction in the country with the government, many Sudanese observers say.

Nuha al-Zein Mohammed, a professor at Al-Neelain University's Faculty of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and a member of the Association of Professors at Sudanese Universities, Colleges and Higher Institutes, agrees that the universities are closed for political reasons. "The regime aims at discouraging the revolution," she said. "The role of Sudanese universities and their students in supporting the call to change and igniting the first spark of any revolution throughout Sudanese history is well known."

Al-Zein Mohammed says this is not the first time the government has closed the country's universities. Similar actions have been taken in the past, she says, as a result of economic crises, such as fuel shortages in 2013.

Sudan is a young country. Citizens under 24 represented 56 percent of Sudan's population of about 40 million in 2017, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. Although 88 higher education institutions have opened during President Bashir's rule, the government and private companies could not hire the graduates those institutions produced, and the unemployment rate among young Sudanese exceeded 27 percent in 2017, according to World Bank data.

The current round of protests has not resulted in any damage to university buildings or other infrastructure, according to the Association of Professors at Sudanese Universities, Colleges and Higher Institutes. Still, hundreds of students and dozens of professors have been arrested since the protests intensified in December.

"I was arrested at my house and systematically tortured by security agents," said Ahmed al-Tayeb, a fourth-year pharmacy student at Al-Neelain University, a public institution in Khartoum. He also said that six detainees, including three university students, have been killed by torture.

The Human Rights Watch report on Sudan for 2018 catalogues the government's use of arbitrary detention, censorship, travel bans and violence against protestors, including student protestors. Police have used tear gas, clubs, and rifle fire against student protesters, human-rights observers have reported.

On February 12, 17 professors were arrested at a peaceful protest in front of the University of Khartoum's faculty members' building, and some of those professors are still in prison.

Many professors do not deny the involvement of students and university staff in the protest movement, but do not want to suspend studies. Nuha Hasb al-Rasool, the dean of Sudan University of Science and Technology's Faculty of Communication Sciences, believes that the closure of universities hurts students.

"I am against freezing school, this is a waste of time and a waste of the youth's future," she said, noting that the resumption of studies later on will complicate the academic schedule and will increase the burden on professors and students alike.

Some students also believe that the disruption of education due to political conditions is unfair.

"My colleagues and I have become frustrated, we have nothing to do with politics," said Mohamed Abdul-Hadi, a law student at Al-Neelain University. "Our goal is to complete our university studies so that we can start building our independent lives and reducing our burden on our families." He pointed out that the continued disruption of studies could mean the loss of a full academic year.

Other students say a successful revolution is all that matters. "The current revolution is all that concerns the Sudanese people, and there is no education under such a painful situation," said Shahad Amjad, a student at Sudan International University, a private institution in Khartoum.

The decision to close the universities has displaced hundreds of students, who have been forced to leave university housing.

"We are supporting students' mobility and trying to provide housing and living expenses for university students or to help them to earn the necessary money to allow them to return to their homes until their studies resume," said Abbas al-Khair, a student in the forestry department and a representative of University of Khartoum's students.

Al-Zein Mohammed, the Al-Neelain professor, believes that resuming studies now will benefit no one.

"The educational process will not be resumed as desired until the ruling party system is removed from the administration of the country's economy, education and health," she said. "That's what we now have to achieve."

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Sudan Shutters All Its Universities - Al-Fanar Media

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The economic issues have heightened longstanding dissatisfaction in the country with the government, many Sudanese observers say. Nuha al-Zein Mohammed, a professor at Al-Neelain University's Faculty of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and a member of the Association of Professors at Sudanese Universities, Colleges and Higher Institutes, agrees that the universities are closed for political reasons.

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As the deportees were led off the plane onto the steamy San Salvador tarmac, an anguished Araceli Ramos Bonilla burst into tears, her face contorted with pain: "They want to steal my daughter!"

It had been 10 weeks since Ramos had last held her 2-year-old, Alexa. Ten weeks since she was arrested crossing the border into Texas and U.S. immigration authorities seized her daughter and told her she would never see the girl again.

What followed - one foster family's initially successful attempt to win full custody of Alexa - reveals what could happen to some of the infants, children and teens taken from their families at the border under a Trump administration policy earlier this year. The "zero-tolerance" crackdown ended in June, but hundreds of children remain in detention, shelters or foster care and U.S. officials say more than 200 are not eligible for reunification or release.

Federal officials insist they are reuniting families and will continue to do so. But an Associated Press investigation drawing on hundreds of court documents, immigration records and interviews in the U.S. and Central America identified holes in the system that allow state court judges to grant custody of migrant children to American families - without notifying their parents.

And today, with hundreds of those mothers and fathers deported thousands of miles away, the risk has grown exponentially.

States usually seal child custody cases, and the federal agencies overseeing the migrant children don't track how often state court judges allow these kids to be given up for adoption. But by providing a child's name and birthdate to the specific district, probate or circuit court involved, the AP found that it's sometimes possible to track these children.

Alexa's case began in November 2015 under the Obama administration, years before Trump's family-separation policy rolled out. Her 15-month separation from her mother exposes the fragile legal standing of children under the care of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement and a flawed, piecemeal system that can change the course of a child's life

It took 28 minutes for a judge in a rural courthouse near Lake Michigan to grant Alexa's foster parents, Sherri and Kory Barr, temporary guardianship. Alexa's mother and the little girl's immigration attorney were not even notified about the proceedings.

Based on their experiences with Alexa, the Barrs had become convinced that Alexa's mom was a bad mother and that the little girl would be abused if she were reunited with her.

"My wife and I are sick over this," Kory Barr told the judge, who wished him good luck as he granted the foster parents' request two days after Christmas.

The federal system that had custody of Alexa says the state courts never should have allowed foster parents to get that far, no matter how good their intentions. But each state court system, from New York to California, runs wardship and adoption proceedings differently - and sometimes there are even variations between counties.

In Missouri, an American couple managed to permanently adopt a baby whose Guatemalan mother had been picked up in an immigration raid. That seven-year legal battle terminating the mother's parental rights ended in 2014. In Nebraska, another Guatemalan mother prevailed and got her kids back, but it took five years and over $1 million in donated legal work.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement and Bethany Christian Services, the agency that placed Alexa in foster care, would not comment on her case. But Bethany said foster parents are informed they're not allowed to adopt migrant children.

Since the 1980s, however, Bethany acknowledged that nine of the 500 migrant children assigned to its foster program have been adopted by American families. The children, ages 3 to 18, were adopted after it was determined it wouldn't be safe or possible for them to go back to their families; at least one asked to be adopted by his foster parents, and another was a trafficking victim, Bethany said.

"We never want families to be separated," Bethany CEO Chris Palusky said. "That's what we're about, is bringing families together."

John Sandweg, who headed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Obama administration, said he worries that many more migrant children recently taken from their families may never see them again.

"We have the kids in the U.S. and the parents down in Central America, and now they'll bring all these child welfare agencies into play," Sandweg said. "It's just a recipe for disaster."

In Ramos' darkest days, she would lay on her bed, stare at the ceiling and sob, her hand on her stomach.

"This girl, she was here, in my womb," she said. "We are meant to be together. Always."

Alexa's mother was born in the middle of a bloody civil war in El Salvador that gave way to violent street crime. She was pregnant at 13; that daughter was raised by grandparents.

Starting at age 19, Ramos had four sons with another man over the course of a decade, followed by the arrival of Alexa in 2013. She and her daughter looked alike - both bright-eyed, with dark hair framing their smooth skin.

It was after the children's father found another woman that the abuse began, Ramos said.

"The worst time was when he kicked me so hard it left a bruise and it never went away," she later told an asylum officer. Without makeup, a dent in the center of her forehead is apparent.

Ramos went to a shelter, but said she became increasingly convinced that her former partner would track her down and kill her. She applied for a U.S. visa, she said, but got nowhere.

During a custody battle in their home city of San Miguel, Ramos said her children's father filed false police reports, including one alleging that she encouraged a 17-year-old girl to have sex with an adult. With the help of his own mother, who told authorities her son had made up the accusations, she successfully cleared her name and the cases were dropped.

Yet it was that information - later deemed "outdated and unsubstantiated" by the U.S. Justice Department - that was used in a Michigan court as support for the argument that Alexa should be permanently separated from her mother.

Ramos scraped together $6,000 to pay a smuggler who could help her escape from the man she said warned her she'd "never be at peace." On the month-long, 1,500-mile pilgrimage, she carried Alexa, a change of clothes, diapers, cookies, juice and water.

The toddler was exhausted by the journey. She slumped for days in a backpack carrier when they walked, and dozed and fidgeted when they traveled by car. When she was sleepy and agitated, she insisted on being cradled in her mother's arms.

After crossing the Rio Grande near Roma, Texas, Ramos and her 2-year-old were arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Their ordeal appeared nearly over, since domestic violence was then considered grounds for asylum.

In El Salvador, Ramos might earn $5 a day selling clothes or waitressing. In the U.S., she could earn more than that in an hour. Ramos yearned for a new beginning.

It took less than an hour for her hopes to shatter. The border agent screening her records spotted a red flag: She was a criminal, he said, charged in El Salvador. Alexa, crying, was pulled from her mother's arms.

"They told me I would never see her again," Ramos recalled, her eyes filling at the memory.

She said she begged agents to send Alexa to friends in Texas, but said they gave up when two calls went unanswered.

Three days after their separation, court records show, the U.S. government labeled Alexa an "unaccompanied minor," which meant she entered the bureaucracy for migrant youth, typically teens, who arrive in the U.S. alone. The toddler was issued a notice to appear on "a date to be set, at a time to be set, to show why you should not be removed from the United States."

At 28 months, Alexa was intelligent and engaging, but her vocabulary was limited to Spanish words for colors, some numbers and her favorite foods.

She initially was placed with a Spanish-speaking foster family in San Antonio, Texas, who would call Ramos in the detention center and put Alexa on the phone. "Each time they called, I could not stop crying," Ramos said. "Crying and crying, because I wanted to be with her."

More than two weeks after their separation, ICE agents moved Ramos seven hours away to a rural Louisiana facility surrounded by high fences topped with coiled razor wire. While Alexa and her foster family decorated a Christmas tree, Ramos slept in a pod of bunkbeds.

Two months after her arrival there, Ramos used a translator to speak on the phone with an asylum officer who asked about her family, why she left El Salvador and what her children's father might do if she went back. Alexa was safe, Ramos told the officer, but "I think he will kill me."

The next day, Ramos got word that she had "demonstrated a credible fear of persecution or torture," according to the asylum supervisor at the Department of Homeland Security.

Her case was assigned to Oakdale Immigration Court in Louisiana, where the three judges had denied 95 percent of all asylum requests that year, compared to the national average of about 50 percent. She said she called the list of pro bono lawyers she was provided, to no avail.

Without a lawyer, her chance at asylum slipped away. Like everyone else around her, she was being deported.

The federal government offers all deported parents the chance to take their children with them, but Ramos said she was ordered to sign a waiver to leave Alexa behind. "The agent put his hand on mine, he held my hand, he forced me to sign," she said.

Immigration agents then handcuffed Ramos and put her on a plane south, soaring over the volcanoes and jungles of Central America.

At the time, it was unusual for parents to be deported while their children remained behind in federal foster care, but that occurred again and again this summer. More than 300 parents were deported to Central America without their children this summer, many of whom allege they were coerced into signing paperwork they didn't understand, affecting their rights to reunify with their children. Some parents also contended that U.S. officials told them their children would be given up for adoption.

"And the reality is that for every parent who is not located, there will be a permanent orphaned child, and that is 100 percent the responsibility of the administration," U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw said in August while overseeing a lawsuit to stop family separations.

The AP asked the State Department, as well as embassy officials in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, whether they were working with deported parents to find their children in the U.S.

The State Department deferred to the Department of Homeland Security, which said in a statement: "DHS is not aware of anyone contacting embassy or consulate in a foreign country to be reunified with a child. This is unsurprising given the fact that these parents made a knowing decision to leave their child in a foreign country."

By April 2016, Alexa was transferred to the care of Bethany Christian Services, one of the nation's largest adoption agencies. As thousands more Central American children crossed the border alone during President Barack Obama's second term, the nonprofit agency's work providing temporary and long-term foster care to unaccompanied children had begun to grow.

Over the years, the Michigan-based agency has received support from local donors that include Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her family members, who have contributed more than $3.1 million. One DeVos relative worked for Bethany, and another served on its board.

As the agency started receiving more Central American children, several former Bethany social workers said they were encouraged to recruit new foster families at the agency's traditional base, the Christian Reformed Church, and other local churches.

"All of a sudden when we had these younger kids to place, everyone was really excited about that," said Sarah Zuidema, a former Bethany supervisor who grew up within the denomination. "They just felt that if these kids could know Jesus, everything would be OK."

Among the families who stepped up to help were the Barrs - Kory, a physical therapist at a nearby rehabilitation hospital, and his wife, Sherri, who ran a home-organization business. The Barrs had three daughters who were raised in a devout home and already had fostered two Salvadoran sisters in 2013.

Bethany's outreach to local families was part of a rising Christian movement to mobilize support to address what Bethany has called the "global refugee crisis." The movement emphasizes that fostering is aligned with spiritual beliefs, and urges families to approach the role with open hearts.

When Bethany placed Alexa in the Barrs' home, the couple signed a form promising they would not try to seek custody because the Office of Refugee Resettlement was legally responsible for the child. But eight months later, fearing for the girl's safety, that is exactly what they did.

On June 5, 2016, Alexa celebrated her third birthday 3,000 miles away from her mother. The next month, a social worker sent Ramos Facebook photos showing Alexa wearing an American flag tank dress, drawing outside in the Michigan sunlight. In another shot, the girl appears at the Barrs' front door clad in a hot pink ensemble, next to a little red wagon and the family dog.

Around this time, Alexa began meeting with a play therapist and, based on their observations of the girl, the Barrs became deeply suspicious that she had been exposed to abuse before she reached their home. Ramos said they then began limiting her phone contact with her daughter.

The foster program notified the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, which opened an investigation but decided the complaint lacked sufficient evidence.

Ramos had cried when social workers approached her about the abuse allegations and insisted that Alexa had always been safe in her care. Because Alexa had spent nearly a third of her life away from her mother, she then grew distressed at the thought that her daughter might have been harmed during their separation.

In August, the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, which has a federal contract to advocate for the best interests of immigrant children navigating the legal system, began investigating whether Alexa could safely be returned to her mother. An evaluator repeatedly visited Ramos and interviewed her family, neighbors and employer.

Meanwhile, Salvadoran diplomatic officials began making periodic visits to Grand Rapids to check on Alexa and advocate for her release.

"The foster family started putting up barrier after barrier to delay her departure," said Patricia Maza-Pittsford, El Salvador's consul general in Chicago.

Finally, the girl's immigration attorney, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. immigration courts all reached agreement: It was past time for Alexa to be back with her mother.

Just days before Christmas 2016, a federal immigration judge ordered her deported. The Barrs were told to pack up Alexa's things and have her ready to go at a moment's notice.

Alexa had learned to speak English, bonded with her foster sisters and captured their hearts. The Barrs were certain she had been abused and remain so to this day. So they hired a lawyer and went to court.

"The Office of Refugee Resettlement is planning to put Alexa on a plane back to her abuser," the couple said in a handwritten application seeking guardianship. Alexa's mother, they wrote, "has not owned her crimes, not been rehabilitated."

During an emergency hearing, Kory Barr pounded on the judge's bench as he begged him to help them keep the girl in Michigan and insisted that child-welfare experts needed more time to investigate.

"Every day they are telling us this could happen very fast," he said. "We have her bags packed."

Judge Mark Feyen confessed he wasn't familiar with the federal agencies involved, saying, "This is kind of hard to pin down exactly who the interested parties are."

Responding to their concerns that Alexa's life could be in danger, Feyen granted the Barrs temporary custody after their attorney, Joshua Mikrut, asserted he had a "loose understanding" that a prior order had been issued suspending Ramos' parental rights, though he didn't know where. The judge asked him to return with proof, and also scheduled a full guardianship hearing for a few weeks later.

"Every time I get one of these, I learn a little more," the judge said.

Within days, a federal immigration judge granted an emergency motion to stay Alexa's departure.

When state courts gain control of a child being detained by the federal government, that child can become invisible in the system. Alexa and her mother were held in federal custody. But states - not the federal government - typically run child-welfare systems.

Alexa's mom didn't know where to turn, and she didn't have the money to hire an attorney. But she did have Facebook.

In El Salvador, in the days surrounding the Michigan guardianship hearing, she posted a series of increasingly desperate videos - which went viral in Central America and in one case attracted 2.5 million views - speaking directly to the Barrs, to her daughter, to anyone who might help her get Alexa back.

"I'm the girl's mother. You aren't anything to her - you just met her because I traveled with her," she sobbed in one video, her voice breaking as she addressed the Barrs. "Look inside your hearts. I had her in my belly for nine months. I'm the mother and I'm waiting for her."

In another video, she cried as she displayed dolls modeled on the Disney movie "Frozen" that she bought to give Alexa for Christmas.

Outraged and sympathetic comments poured in and word reached Salvadoran government officials in El Salvador and the Chicago consul's office. Pressure mounted.

A month after the Barrs were granted guardianship of Alexa, the Justice Department weighed in sharply.

"The Barrs obtained their temporary guardianship order in violation of federal law," U.S. prosecutors argued. The Barrs' attorney and the Michigan judge also violated federal law by seeking and granting guardianship, and failed to inform Ramos or Alexa's lawyers about the proceedings, they wrote.

More than a month after they had petitioned to keep Alexa, Sherri and Kory Barr despairingly gave up. The federal government, they wrote the judge, "seems to have us painted into a corner with no way out."

While Mikrut acknowledges the Barrs sometimes were blinded by their passion, he said the federal system should allow challenges to its decisions about the welfare of children in its care.

A few days later, the Barrs sent Alexa home with a huge bag of toys and clothes and a letter from "Papa Foster," as Kory Barr called himself.

"Mi querida Alexa," he began, or "my dear Alexa." He wrote about how she loved her first snow, how they pretended to hold wrestling matches, how he cried at the thought of life without the "baby" of their family.

"I hope this is not the last time we see you, but if it is, I want you to know that I will keep you in my heart forever," he wrote.

Alexa was stunned when she landed in El Salvador in February 2017. Her mother sobbed and clung to her, but the girl barely recognized this woman who called herself Mama. When could she go home to "Mama Foster, Papa Foster" and her three blonde, blue-eyed sisters? And what was this woman saying?

Alexa had lost all her Spanish and spoke English to her mother, using words like "water" and "chicken." Ramos, who spoke almost no English herself, had to point to pictures or call friends to translate.

The Ramos' small brick home, shared with two of Alexa's brothers, is on a quiet dirt street a few blocks from the main drag, a colorful and chaotic mix of shops and services.

Alexa pined for her house in suburban Grand Rapids, its green lawn, her pink room. She rarely giggled and didn't want to play or eat.

Children traumatically separated from their parents are more likely to suffer from emotional problems throughout their lives, according to decades of scientific research. And some more recent studies have found that separation can damage a child's memory.

Ramos showed Alexa baby pictures to help her relearn their relationship.

"I am your mother. I love you so very much," she told her in Spanish, over and over.

Slowly, over time, Alexa began to smile and understand her native tongue. She bonded again with her mother and brothers. Bright and energetic, she now often winds her small arms around her mother's waist and neck. When she wants attention, she whispers in her mother's ear.

Ramos still struggles with the pain of the separation, and to support her family on the few dollars a day she earns at a pizzeria. She often posts Facebook photos and videos of herself with her daughter, a visual assertion of their bond.

She fears for parents who were separated from their children under the zero-tolerance policy and has taken to Facebook to urge them to fight to get their kids back.

"If they give our children up for adoption without our permission, that isn't justice," she said during a recent interview in a park. "They are our children, not theirs."

For months after she came home, Alexa asked if she could talk to the Barrs but Ramos wasn't ready. She had a change of heart when she learned Sherri Barr was ill and now lets them talk every so often.

"I do not feel resentment for them because they also love her and because the family is going through a bad time," Ramos said. "We all deserve an opportunity."

The Barrs worry about Alexa's safety in El Salvador, but say they also worry about Ramos' well-being. They now consider their relationship with mother and daughter part of God's plan.

"No one wins in this one," Sherri Barr said.

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Deported parents may lose kids to adoption, investigation finds

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As the deportees were led off the plane onto the steamy San Salvador tarmac, an anguished Araceli Ramos Bonilla burst into tears, her face contorted with pain: "They want to steal my daughter!" It had been 10 weeks since Ramos had last held her 2-year-old, Alexa.

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VICE Special Report: A World in Disarray

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A World in Disarray, a VICE special report, is a feature-length documentary that explores the disorder in today's international landscape and how it plays out in four regions of conflict and tension.

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With exclusive personal footage, VICE News gains an insight into the desperate trek of two Syrian refugees who give first-hand accounts of their journey, the life they left behind, and their hopes for the future.

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The rise of ISIS, explained in 6 minutes

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Watch full-length episodes of PBS documentary series FRONTLINE for free. The Rise of ISIS - FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith reports from Iraq on the miscalculations and mistakes behind the brutal rise of ISIS.

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Congo's conflict minerals leave a trail of destruction as they make their way from the mines in eastern Congo to the mobile phone in your pocket. How does the process work? What is the human cost? What can consumers do to help end the violence being fueled by Congo's illicit mineral trade?

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story | TED

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A number of researchers are developing tools to defuse or detonate land mines without harming civilians

smithsonian.com

Decades of internecine fighting and invasions by foreign forces into Afghanistan have left a deadly legacy for the country's residents. In 2016, nearly 1,000 children were killed in Afghanistan, the most since the United Nations began keeping track seven years ago, in large part due to a 66 percent increase in casualties from land mines. With Islamic State (ISIS) militants making indiscriminate use of these violent, hidden weapons across Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, the problem is far from over.

How did this insidious weapon, with its long-lasting consequences that disproportionately affect civilians, come to be so prevalent?

While the use of explosive devices goes back to 13th-century China, when the Song Dynasty military used bombs to fend off invading Mongolians, the land mine didn't take its modern form as a metal container rigged with gunpowder, a fuse and a detonation cap until the American Civil War. These "torpedoes" or "subterra shells" were pioneered by Gabriel Rains, a native North Carolinian who began the war fighting for the Union, before resigning to join his fellows in the Confederate Army. Rains, whose U.S. Military Academy records indicated a high aptitude for chemistry and artillery, first experimented with a tactical explosive device in April 1840, during the Seminole Wars in Florida. But it wasn't until the Civil War that his invention was put to wide use.

The "Rains Patent" was a mine made of sheet iron, with a fuse protected by a brass cap covered with a solution of beeswax. It was detonated either by direct contact with the friction primer of the buried shell, or movement of an object attached to the primer by strings or wires, such as a tool like a hammer or shears.

Following the Siege of Yorktown in the spring of 1862, Rains and his men planted land mines along their route as the Confederate Army retreated. The explosives lined the road to Richmond and the abandoned fort, and were a horrifying surprise to the Union soldiers, writes historian W. Davis Waters. "Periodic explosions disturbed the quietness of Yorktown as unsuspecting Union cavalrymen and their horses moved through the abandoned Confederate fortification only to have the ground ripped beneath them."

The soldiers were petrified and the generals appalled. "The rebels have been guilty of the most murderous and barbarous conduct in placing torpedoes within the abandoned works near wells and springs, and near flag-staffs, magazines, and telegraph offices, in carpet-bags, barrels of flour, etc.," went the statement from Union General George McClellan in the May 12, 1862 edition of the New York Herald.

Even Confederate generals expressed some qualms about the use of these subterra torpedoes, and briefly banned their use. But as the tides of war continued to turn against the Confederates, the generals grew less reluctant. Eventually Confederate Secretary of War George Randolph drafted the ethical standards for the use of the torpedoes. As Rains himself said, "Each new invention of war has been assailed and denounced as barbarous and anti-Christian. Yet each in its own turn notwithstanding has taken its position by the universal consent of nations according to its efficiency in human slaughter."

Before long, Confederates had found ingenious ways to hide the bombs, wiring them so that they detonated upon direct contact, or by moving the articles attached to the primer. An especially well-disguised version was the " coal torpedo," whose iron container was coated in beeswax then powdered with coal dust. Confederate soldiers could slip these into Union coal supplies, and when the fake nuggets of coal were unwittingly placed in the burner of a steam engine, the whole vessel would explode.

Although there are no precise figures on how many soldiers were killed and maimed by land mines, what's known is how many ships they wrecked: 35 belonging to the Union and one of the Confederates. Rains reported 2,363 land mines were hidden around Richmond, and more were buried elsewhere throughout the South. They were so widespread that land mines continued to be recovered as late as the 1960s in Alabama.

From the Civil War, land mine technology spread rapidly around the world. The use of the devices was widespread throughout WWI and WWII, and in regional conflicts that occurred during the Cold War. By the 1990s, more than 26,000 people were victims of land mines each year.

"In the post-Cold War years-1989, 1999-the largest refugee population in the world were Afghanis and Pakistanis. They were being blown up by the thousands," says Ken Rutherford, a professor of political science at James Madison University and the director of the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery. "What we're talking about is a weapon of mass destruction that moves in slow motion."

So began efforts to launch the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The group organized a Mine Ban Treaty that called for banning the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of antipersonnel land mines and required countries to destroy their stockpiles, clear affected areas of mines, and assist victims. Rutherford, who is himself a bilateral lower leg amputee due to a near-fatal land mine injury he sustained in 1993 in Somalia, played a role in bringing the treaty to fruition.

"For a year I really believed my story was kind of different and odd, a freak accident," Rutherford says of the period immediately after he was injured. "I'm a Colorado boy, I'm telling people and they don't believe it and I don't believe it. But my story wasn't unique, it wasn't special at all. The real strange thing is so many people were being maimed and killed and nobody was writing about it."

When the final draft of the treaty was written in 1997, over 120 countries became signatories; now, 162 have signed it, including all countries in the Western Hemisphere except Cuba and the United States. The U.S. is a leader in combating land mines, Rutherford says, and was the first country to permanently ban the export of land mines. The refusal to sign the treaty comes down to North Korea; if North Korean forces invade South Korea, the U.S. wants to be able to deter an invasion with the weapons of our choice.

"I'm proud of our country that we [support demining and help victims], but I'm not so proud because there are a lot of countries that look to the U.S. for leadership," Rutherford says.

Today a number of organizations focus their energy on assembling a toolbox of technology for the continuing effort to eradicate land mines. One example is TIRAMISU, a research program that received funding from the European Commission and has collaborated with 26 groups around Europe for the research and development of new demining tools. The goal of these toolboxes is to assist in locating the mines, excavating them, and defusing or detonating them without any loss of life.

"I am very optimistic in our ability to create demining technology or to use at our advantage technology developed for other purposes, such as drones, tablets, etc.," said TIRAMISU project coordinator Yann Yvinec by email.

The most widely used tools are metal detectors, Yvenic said, which have become so sensitive that they can detect tiny pieces of metal. But using metal detectors is a time-consuming process, since they require deminers (who work on the ground with various tools to locate, excavate and deactivate land mines) to investigate all kinds of metal, not just land mines. In some cases, an area that is mined can be up to 98 percent mine-free, making it a time-consuming process. When Cambodia cleared 54 square kilometers of land and destroyed 20,000 land mines in 2014, the country accounted for 27 percent of the worldwide total clearance for that year. Demining is a slow, dangerous business, with no obvious end in site.

"More than 100 tons of unexploded ordinance are found in Belgium alone every year, and most of it dates from WWI," Yvinec said. "I'll therefore not venture an estimation of the time it will take to remove all mines and unexploded ordinance."

But there's plenty of new technology coming onto the market that might speed the process up-though Yvenic cautions it can be hard for humanitarian organizations to afford the new technology and to convince operators to use it. Nevertheless, he's excited by the innovations that are emerging.

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The Historic Innovation of Land Mines-And Why We've Struggled to Get Rid of Them

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smithsonian.com Decades of internecine fighting and invasions by foreign forces into Afghanistan have left a deadly legacy for the country's residents. In 2016, nearly 1,000 children were killed in Afghanistan, the most since the United Nations began keeping track seven years ago, in large part due to a 66 percent increase in casualties from land mines.

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Migrants and Refugees: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

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China's Ghost Towns: Strolling the Thames (VICE on HBO Ep. #6 Extended)

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Vice correspondent, Ryan Duffy takes a stroll with some tour guides through Thames Town in Songjiang, China and learns about the English 'Copy Cat City', its value, uses and the 'One City, Nine Towns' plan China has established for the outskirts of Shanghai.

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North Korea, otherwise known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a unique nation for all the wrong reasons. It is easily the most backward, isolated country on the planet.

Because of this isolation, information about the nature of the country, and the regime in power, is scarce and often not widely known.

But North Korea is a small, belligerent nation with the capability to cause real harm to the country's around it, even the United States. These are 10 things you should know about the rogue state of North Korea.

1. Without oil, they've turned to wood-powered cars.

One of the ways in which North Korea is unique is that it gives us a look at what a future without oil might look like under the worst possible scenario.

The reclusive nation, whose only trading partner is China, functions almost entirely without gasoline and petroleum products, which has forced them to improvise.

Vehicles have been retrofitted to run on what they refer to as "wood gas," carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas that's produced from wood or coal.

Of course, using wood as fuel for cars is an ecological disaster that ruins air quality in cities and dumps immense amounts of carbon pollution into the atmosphere.

Wood gas engines were invented in 1839 and were used through WWII, when near the end of the war, Germany turned to powering more than 500,000 vehicles with the gas.

RELATED: 7 Strange And Hilarious Coincidences In Human History That Will Make You Scratch Your Head

2. The country's widespread poverty is even visible from space.

North Korea's economy is strictly centrally planned. Some reforms have occurred since 2015 but for the most part, it is still an incredibly rigid, command economy.

There is very little data about the country's economy, but it's likely that North Korea has the weakest economy on Earth.

The average GDP per capita in North Korea is $1,800, making it 197th in the world. The GDP is 18 times higher in South Korea and 28 times higher in the United States.

Half of the nation's 24 million citizens live in extreme poverty, according to the KUNI report, and a third of children have stunted growth due to malnutrition.

North Korea's life expectancy is only 69 years old and has been in decline since 1980. Most homes are heated with fire places where citizens burn whatever they can find for heat to survive the bitingly cold North Korean winters.

Electricity is unreliable, as should be obvious from the image above. Most homes receive just a few hours of electricity a day, if any at all.

RELATED: 12 of The Rarest and Weirdest Diseases Know to Mankind

3. North Korea has no laws regarding Marijuana.

I hesitate to say that marijuana is legal in North Korea, but it's also not criminalized in any way.

Cannabis appears to be sold pretty freely in the nation with one 29-year-old freelance writer from England recounting a story of how he purchased an entire bag of weed from an indoor market in a rural town in North Korea and smoked it in restaurants, bars, and in parks.

According to an anonymous source, Kim Jong Un's regime doesn't see marijuana as a drug and therefore doesn't see any reason to interfere with it.

It's possible, though unconfirmed, that marijuana consumption is encouraged as an alternative to tobacco, a luxury most North Koreans cannot afford.

RELATED: According To Experts - 10,000 Years Ago Humans Were Getting High On Cannabis, Using It For Food And Clothing

4. North Korea operates concentration camps.

People are well aware of the concentration camps from World War II, where Germany imprisoned and murdered millions of "undesirable" people, and even the United States used to intern Japanese-American citizens during the war in the Pacific. While many of us may think that concentration camps are a horrid relic of an age passed, they're alive and well in North Korea.

It is believed that up to 200,000 North Koreans reside in prison camps, arrested because of supposed political crimes. If one person commits a political crime, their entire family is interned.

If they escape, often their entire families are killed. 40% of the prisoners interned at these concentration camps die of malnutrition. Many are sentenced to "hard labor" for a seemingly reasonable length of time but are then promptly worked to death.

5. Children must attend school, but at a cost.

Children in North Korea are mandated to attend school, similar to in the United States. But unlike in the U.S., North Korea's school children are required to bring their own desks and chairs and are required to give up money to pay for heat. Some parents keep their kids out of school by bribing teachers to not report them.

RELATED: New Research Says Homework Is Damaging To Children And Should Be Banned Until High School

6. It's the year 105 in North Korea.

In North Korea, their calendars are not based on what the rest of the world uses. Instead of it being 2017, it is the year 105 inside their borders. Why? Their calendar is based on the date of their dear revolutionary leader Kim Il-Sung's birth: April 15, 1912.

RELATED: This Guy Got High On 52 Drugs Then Drew These Trippy Self-Portraits

7. North Korea holds elections.

While North Korea does hold elections, they aren't exactly free elections. Each election gives you once choice, and I'll give you 1 chance to guess who the choice is. When the votes are tallied, 100% of the votes cast are cast for their dear leader.

RELATED: THIS Was Donald Trump's First Tweet As The New President-Elect

8. North Korea will punish you for three generations.

If you are born in North Korea and your grandfather committed a crime, you're on the hook for that crime too. When someone commits a crime, their whole family is held responsible for it.

Grandparents, parents, and children can wind up in prison work camps because of the infractions of one individual. They call this their "3 generations of punishment rule."

9. Kim Il-Sung is their only true leader.

While Kim Il-Sung, their first leader since the communist revolution, is long dead, he is still considered the leader of the country.

It's why his son, and now grandson, were able to so easily take the reins of leadership when the former dies. While the heirs have the reins, Kim Il-Sung will forever have the heart of the DPRK.

10. The newest leader, Kim Jong Un, is an eccentric, brutal dictator.

When he assumed power after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, it was hoped that Kim, much younger than previous leaders as well as educated in Europe, would bring about reforms. This has not proven to be case. Kim is just as bent on preserving his power as his father and grandfather were.

The list of eccentricities is long. Among them, he's the only "general" in the world with no military experience, he got plastic surgery to look more like his grandfather, he has issued the execution of people via mortar rounds, is obsessed with Michael Jordan, had his uncle "obliterated" for supposed crimes against the state, and even executed his ex-girlfriend.

For North Korea, it's hard to see a way out of the vile, kleptocratic dictatorship they're forced to live under. Kim Jong Un is leader for life, and there's no sign that he will instigate reforms. For the millions of starving, impoverished people in the DPRK, we can only pray.

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10 SHOCKING Facts You Never Knew About North Korea

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North Korea, otherwise known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a unique nation for all the wrong reasons. It is easily the most backward, isolated country on the planet. Because of this isolation, information about the nature of the country, and the regime in power, is scarce and often not widely known.

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ISTANBUL - Mohammed, 14, uses a wheelchair to move around the tiny apartment where he lives in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa with his brother and a friend of the family who acts as his nurse.

The apartment is on the third floor of a dilapidated walk-up building. It has no air conditioning. The doorways in the apartment are narrow. His wheelchair doesn't fit through all of them, so Mohammed, originally from eastern Syria, often pushes himself out of the chair and hops around the apartment on one foot.

ISIS chopped off Mohammed's right hand and left foot two weeks ago. ISIS tried to turn Mohammed into a child soldier. The group disfigured him because he refused to cooperate.

Ahmed is another boy from the same part of Syria as Mohammed, but is two and a half years older than him. Ahmed says ISIS coerced him into fighting for the group with a combination of threats and false promises.

Interviews by NBC News with Mohammed, Ahmed, their guardians, Syrian activists and a former ISIS commander who defected, reveal a disturbing ISIS strategy to recruit and deploy an army of child soldiers, brainwashing them until they are ready to blow themselves up or carry out terrorist attacks in the Middle East and abroad, and brutalizing those who refuse to cooperate.

Much has been written about ISIS's monstrous treatment of girls, forcing them to become child brides or sex slaves, passed from fighter to fighter. This is a story about what ISIS is doing to the boys in areas under its control.

Rebel boys

Although Ahmed and Mohammed both look like typical young teenagers, pimples and all, the boys were both part of rebel groups fighting against the Syrian regime and ISIS. Mohammed worked as a spotter, using binoculars to help the rebels locate their targets.

"First we were going to (anti-government) demonstrations. Later on we got armed with the Free (Syrian) Army, and we fought the (Bashar) al-Assad regime for three years," Mohammed says with obvious pride in his voice.

Ahmed started out as a helper, serving the rebels meals and running errands, until he eventually earned enough respect to be given a gun.

The balance of power shifted in in eastern Syria in 2014. After ISIS took over the Iraqi city of Mosul, the group had renewed enthusiasm and new American-made weapons abandoned by the Iraqi army when it broke ranks and collapsed in cowardice. ISIS quickly took over eastern Syria and began its reign of terror. Mohammed, Ahmed and other boys who worked with the rebels went into hiding.

"I stayed at home for seven months," Mohammed said. "Later on, ISIS started arresting members of the Free (Syrian) Army. One of the detainees told them that I was also member."

Mohammed didn't know he'd been informed on until a group of ISIS fighters showed up at his door to seize him.

Ahmed managed to escape eastern Syria when ISIS moved in, but found himself in an unfamiliar part of the country without friends, money or options.

"ISIS guaranteed if we returned, they would guarantee our safety," Ahmed said. "I needed to see my family. (ISIS) said if I go back, give up my weapon and that I wouldn't be harmed." He took ISIS at its word and returned to eastern Syria.

After Mohammed was discovered and arrested, he was locked in an ISIS jail for two months. He says he was in a room with 75 other boys and men. He says they were all tortured savagely, beating his shins with bats and applying electric shocks to his genitals.

"Many people died there. No water, no electricity. They provided water twice a day. We used the toilet once a day," Mohammed said.

Ahmed found out ISIS's offer of amnesty came with conditions. After returning to eastern Syria, he was ordered to "repent" by going an ISIS indoctrination school. He says special attention was given to boys like him for brainwashing.

"They talked about Osama bin Laden, and how he attacked the twin towers. They were saying that they need to do that again," Ahmed said. "They also talked about the attack on the French newspaper (Charlie Hebdo). They said this was made by the Islamic State. They were so happy."

After behind tortured, Mohammed was released from prison and also sentenced to repent by going to the ISIS indoctrination school. But Mohammed was convinced that if he went to the school, he'd be sent to the front lines to die or used as a suicide bomber. Mohammed decided to try to escape with a group of friends.

One of them turned him in.

'This is the judgment of God'

Within a few hours, Mohammed was brought before an ISIS judge. His crime was trying to escape ISIS-held areas, thereby choosing to leave the realm of "true Islam" for the land of the infidels, which ISIS considers everywhere else.

"He said to me 'This is the judgment of God. You were going to the land of the infidels... so you are like them. Your leg and arm must be cut off.'"

The punishment was carried out the next day. What Mohammed described is graphic and may be difficult to read, but it demonstrates ISIS's systemic brutality against those who oppose it, including young boys.

The "chopping" ritual is carried out in a carnival-like atmosphere with an assembled crowd cheering and jeering as the condemned are brought to a city square. A section of honor in the square is reserved for the children of foreign fighters.

The sons of foreign fighters are expected to cheer and jeer the loudest. They're being trained, both Ahmed and Mohammed say, to be elite members of ISIS's next generation of suicide bombers and foreign terrorists. Sometimes the sons of foreign fighters carry out executions themselves, erasing their respect for human life while they're still impressionable.

Mohammed's punishment was to have his opposing limbs cut off: his right hand (considered in Islamic culture to the "clean" hand) and his left foot. ISIS attempts to make the horrific ritual appear hygienic. The ISIS members who held Mohammed's limbs in place wore surgical gloves and squirted iodine on his hand and foot. Mohammed says he was given an injection. He doesn't know what it was but says he was told it would calm him down.

The "chopping" ritual is carried out in a carnival-like atmosphere with an assembled crowd cheering and jeering as the condemned are brought to a city square.

ISIS members tied Mohammed's arm and leg with tourniquets to cut off the blood flow to his hand and foot. The purpose of the amputations is not to kill the victim, but maim him forever. The tourniquets were left on for about 15 minutes. Then, Mohammed's arm was stretched out on a block of wood. A large meat cleaver was placed on top of his wrist at the point where the cut would be made. A man with a mallet smashed the back of the cleaver so it would cut straight through bone and flesh. Mohammed and three others identified the man who carried out the punishment as an Iraqi from ISIS's "chopping committee" known by the nickname "The Bulldozer."

The first chop was met with celebratory cries of Allahu Akbar - God is greatest.' The ritual was repeated to cut off his foot. Mohammed was then taken to an ISIS clinic where his skin was stretched and sewn over the stumps. Mohammed's mother picked him up from the clinic, brought him home and smuggled him to Turkey a few days later.

'Who wants to be a martyr?'

After indoctrination school, Ahmed thought he'd finally paid his dues and that ISIS would make good on its promise of amnesty. Unlike Mohammed, Ahmed was cooperating. But ISIS kept adding demands. As the brainwashing course was wrapping up, Ahmed was told he was now an ISIS fighter and was being sent to the frontline. With no idea where he was going, Ahmed was loaded on a bus and taken to Anbar province in Iraq. He managed to escape from there to Turkey.

Ahmed says ISIS repeatedly tried to convince him and the other boys at indoctrination school to become suicide bombers. Some agreed.

"They asked us, "Who wants to be a martyr?' One of the boys who was with us, he was 12 years old. He blew himself up in an area called Haditha (in Iraq)," Ahmed said.

Mohammed and Ahmed both say ISIS is trying to create a fresh crop of radicals by targeting boys.

"They are fooling children with money," Mohammed said. "They are fooling them to bomb themselves. They give a boy some money, or a bicycle, and after two days they take him in a car to bomb himself. They target children the most. They focus on children, because children are unaware of anything in this life."

Ahmed today is trying to make his way in Turkey, one of around two million Syrian refugees in the country.

Mohammed doesn't have enough money for the medical and psychological care he badly needs. His brother and the family friend who nurses him do the best they can with the help of a few generous Turks. Mohammed was disfigured by ISIS only two weeks ago. He cries every time his bandages are changed. He has nightmares, wets his bed and gets confused. Last week, he forgot his foot was missing and fell down the stairs of the building where he is living. His brother takes him outside every day to get some fresh air.

"They target children the most. They focus on children, because children are unaware of anything in this life."

"I can only sleep after I take sleeping pills," Mohammed said. "The most difficult time is when I go to sleep. The pain starts. In the daytime, I sit in the street and watch the people passing by to forget the pain."

But Mohammed says what hurt more than falling down the stairs was when a Turkish man approached him and gave him 50 Turkish lira, the equivalent of about 15 dollars. Mohammed wasn't begging. He was just sitting his wheelchair, as he says, to forget the pain.

When he looked at the money in his lap, he started to cry. It dawned on him that he'd become what in Arabic is called a "miskeen," someone who deserves pity. That's not how Mohammed sees himself, but he realized that's how others see him.

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ISIS Brutalizes Boys to Create an Army of Child Soldiers

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ISTANBUL - Mohammed, 14, uses a wheelchair to move around the tiny apartment where he lives in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa with his brother and a friend of the family who acts as his nurse. The apartment is on the third floor of a dilapidated walk-up building.

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Adam Ruins Everything - Why "Buy One, Give One" Companies Don't Help Anyone

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"Greater Israel" and The "Disappearance" of Palestine: Israel is Considering the Annexation of the West Bank Territories
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu says that Israel can possibly annex West Bank territories because he has the support from both sides of the political spectrum, if the Peace Process had failed. He also denied any plans of "unilateral territorial withdrawals" from the West Bank. According to the Jerusalem Post, Natanyahu was interviewed by Bloomberg View and said "The idea of taking unilateral steps is gaining ground, from the center-left to the center-right."
Last December, Arutz Sheva, an Israeli-based news network reported that economics minister Naftali Bennett had proposed that Israel could annex key areas of the West Bank which includes Judea in the Southern West Bank and Samaria located in the northern West Bank (both biblical names given by Israelis to justify their claims on the West Bank based on religious grounds) which are dominated by Jews and place them under the control of Israeli Defense Forces. Bennett said

"I favor implementation of Israeli sovereignty over the zone where 400,000 Jews live and only 70,000 Arabs."

Since "only 70,000 Arabs" live in both Judea and Samaria, then maybe the Israeli government can exile them to other Arab nations and at the same time, create a refugee crisis. The Israeli government's idea to annex certain areas of the West Bank because there is a Jewish population already living there is absurd. The Jerusalem Post article reported what Natanyahu had said in regards to a "unilateral withdrawal" in what he described as a left-wing idea to appease the Palestinian Authorities:

Many Israelis are asking themselves if there are certain unilateral steps that could theoretically make sense," he added. But Netanyahu appeared to dismissed left-wing ideas of territorial withdrawal from portions of the West Bank as one possible unilateral option.

He explained that Israel's 2005 disengagement from Gaza, a unilateral plan designed to rescue a frozen peace process, had strengthened terrorist groups bent on destroying Israel and had failed to bring peace. "People also recognize that the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza didn't improve the situation or advance peace - it created Hamastan, from which thousands of rockets have been fired at our cities," Netanyahu said

The Prime Minister also spoke about the two-state solution and Iran's relationship with the Palestinians when he said "The first point of consensus is that we don't want a binational state. Another point of consensus is that we don't want an Iranian proxy in territories we vacate." Natanyahu is clear that they do not want a two-state solution because they only want a Jewish state to exist, nor do they want to withdraw from West Bank territories because of the so-called "Iranian threat" to Israel. Natanyahu also said that "We want a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the nation-state of the Jews. How do you get that if you can't get it through negotiations? "The Palestinians don't agree to recognizing Israel as the Jewish nation-state, and it's not clear to me that they'll agree to elements of demilitarization that are required in any conceivable plan that works." So far, there has been no success with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process since the Palestinians have made it clear on their decision not to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state". Doing so would be admitting that their presence in Palestine has been illegitimate, therefore it would be conceding to Israel's demands. It will also designate Jews with the right to be in Palestine. As for the Palestinians themselves, they would need permission of the "Jewish state" to live in Palestine since they do not have an innate right to do so. It would be a political disaster for the Palestinians if they agreed to such demands. It is a major condition that comes with risks if a Jewish state were to be imposed on the Palestinians. Natanyahu believes that the conditions should be considered to move forward on peace, but the Palestinians would not negotiate on Israel's terms. He said that "The minimal set of conditions that any Israeli government would need cannot be met by the Palestinians." The Natanyahu Government was also not happy when the Palestinian Authority decided to form a unity government including Hamas to negotiate with Israel. Natanyahu said:

No matter what the spin is about blaming Israel, do we actually expect Abbas, who seems to be embracing Hamas, to give a negotiated deal? In all likelihood, no. I hope he does, but I'm not sure he's going to do it," Natanyahu continued "There is an emerging consensus that we don't have a partner who can challenge constituencies, do something unpopular, do something that is difficult. Abbas has not done anything to challenge the prevailing Palestinian consensus. In fact, he's doing the opposite: the Hamas reconciliation, internationalizing the conflict, not giving one iota on the right of return, not giving an iota on the Jewish state. He wouldn't deal with Kerry's framework

According to Israel Shahak's article, "Greater Israel": The Zionist Plan for the Middle East", he explains what Israel's main objective is by expanding further into Palestinian territories and other areas of the Middle East:

The Zionist project supports the Jewish settlement movement. More broadly it involves a policy of excluding Palestinians from Palestine leading to the eventual annexation of both the West Bank and Gaza to the State of Israel. Greater Israel would create a number of proxy States. It would include parts of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the Sinai, as well as parts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Here is a map of Israel's expansion into Palestine since 1946:

Palestine is slowly disappearing. Annexation by the Israeli government would result in an international backlash and a public relations disaster. It can also start a new conflict if Israel were to annex more land in the West Bank. In an opinion piece written by Gershon Baskin for the Jerusalem Post described what the consequences would be if Israel were to annex certain areas of the West Bank:

Not only will annexation of the territories bring on the wrath of the whole world, the Palestinians will never give up their nationalism and if they have no political avenue to wage their struggle in the world, they will use violence against Israel, and we will certainly feel the pain of their wrath

Israel's intention of acquiring more land through force would not improve relations with the Palestinians or their Arab neighbors, and it certainly would not bring any peace in the foreseeable future.

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"Greater Israel" and The "Disappearance" of Palestine: Israel is Considering the Annexation of the West Bank Territories Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu says that Israel can possibly annex West Bank territories because he has the support from both sides of the political spectrum, if the Peace Process had failed.

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António Guterres thinks that we can solve the global refugee crisis -- and he offers compelling, surprising reasons why we must try. In conversation with TED’s Bruno Giussani, Guterres discusses the historical causes of the current crisis and outlines the mood of the European countries that are trying to screen, shelter and resettle hundreds of thousands of desperate families. Bigger picture: Guterres calls for a multilateral turn toward acceptance and respect -- to defy groups like ISIS’s anti-refugee propaganda and recruiting machine.

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Vladimir Putin has been ruling Russia since 1999. In that time, he's shaped the country into an authoritarian and militaristic society. Today, as president of Russia, he's challenging the US-led Western world order by propping up dictators, tampering with elections, and invading his neighbors. It's all part of his worldview, which has been taking shape since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. To understand Vladimir Putin, you need to understand how he saw the end of the Cold War.

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, a 40-year-old Putin was in East Germany working as a spy for the KGB. By 1991, the Soviet Union had collapsed into a loose constellation of 15 countries, including what became known as the Russian Federation. Putin later described the collapse as the "major geopolitical disaster of the century," lamenting that millions of his "co-patriots found themselves outside of Russian territory."

The new Russia didn't get off to a good start. It first had to sell off almost 45,000 businesses that had been owned and run by the communist government. The firms fell into the hands of a few opportunistic men, making many of them billionaires overnight. These men came to be known as the Russian oligarchy - and would later become crucial allies that helped Putin maintain, and expand, his hold on power.

At the same time, Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, was wildly unpopular, with many ordinary Russians seeing him as a weak-willed leader incapable of standing up to the US or protecting his country from terror attacks launched by militants from the breakaway republic of Chechnya. Russia's economy went into a nosedive, and corruption was rampant.

Enter Vladimir Putin.

The former spy became the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in 1991. He quickly gained favor with the oligarchy by helping them structure monopolies and restricting licenses to their competitors. Criminal organizations also became very powerful during the post-Soviet chaos, and Putin helped them launder money and set up front companies.

This network of cronies helps Putin rapidly ascend to the upper echelons of Russian politics. In 1999, Yeltsin appointed Putin as his prime minister. With Yeltsin's popularity in free fall, Putin became the face of a new Russian nationalism. He crushed the Chechen rebellion, flattening the capital city of Grozny and killing an estimated 80,000 people, and appeared on television nightly preaching his vision of a strong, internationally respected Russia. His popularity jumped from 2 percent to 45 percent in a matter of weeks.

On December 31, 1999, Yeltsin resigned and made Putin the interim president. A successful war in Chechnya had made Putin extremely popular, and in 2000 Putin was elected president.

He quickly began to remake the Russian state, enriching the oligarchs who supported him and crushing those who didn't. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, was an outspoken critic of Putin, until he was swiftly arrested for corruption and sent to a labor camp in east Russia.

Putin also began to push his worldview outside of Russia's borders. As a former Soviet spy, Putin was deeply skeptical and paranoid about the West. He was particularly concerned about the possibility of former Soviet republics like Ukraine, Georgia, and the Baltic states joining the NATO military alliance, since that would bring them out of Russia's sphere of interest and place them squarely in that of the US and its allies.

In 2008, Putin invaded Georgia. Although the world erupted in protest, little was done to punish Russia, paving the way for Putin to annex two small parts of Georgia. His strategy was simple. First, Russian hackers stoked pro-Russian support in Georgia using propaganda and misinformation campaigns. When those demonstrations became violent, Putin sent in the Russian military. Six years later, he did the same thing in Ukraine, quickly conquering and annexing the Crimean Peninsula.

Putin continues to project power by propping up autocratic regimes to counter Western influence. He intervened in a bloody civil war in Syria by sending fighter planes and weapons to dictator Bashar al-Assad. Assad appeared to be losing to US-backed rebel groups until Russian help arrived, and he is now quickly regaining control of Syria.

Putin has also tightened his grip on his own country. With the continued support of criminal organizations, oligarchs, and the Russian security services, Putin has been able to stifle Russia's free press while gutting its civil institutions and eliminating any semblance of political opposition. Critics such as journalist Anna Politkovskaya and political dissident Denis N. Voronenkov are murdered, their killers never found.

Here in the US, meanwhile, the American political system is riven by partisan warfare over Putin's interference in the 2016 elections - interference designed to help Donald Trump win the White House.

Putin's power has come at enormous cost - Russia's population is shrinking, its life expectancy is falling, and its economy is in the midst of a prolonged recession - but ordinary Russians don't seem to care. Seventeen years after Putin became Russia's president, there's no sign of if, or when, the Putin era will come to a close.

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From spy to president: the rise of Vladimir Putin

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Vladimir Putin has been ruling Russia since 1999. In that time, he's shaped the country into an authoritarian and militaristic society. Today, as president of Russia, he's challenging the US-led Western world order by propping up dictators, tampering with elections, and invading his neighbors.

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UPDATE: Since the making of this video, Greek police have arrested the leader of Golden Dawn on charges of forming a criminal organisation. Find out more here: http://bbc.in/19bckOI On 17 September a left-wing Greek rapper was stabbed to death while watching a game of football at a café in an Athens suburb.

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0:00 / 0:15•Watch full video

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From HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

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STUCK is a new award-winning documentary film, produced by Both Ends Burning that uncovers the personal, real-life stories of children and parents navigating a rollercoaster of bureaucracy on their journeys through the international adoption system, each filled with hope, elation -- and sometimes heartbreak.

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Adam Ruins Everything - Why Building a Border Wall Makes No Sense

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Just building a wall would be practically impossible and could cost up to 25 billion dollars. Subscribe: http://full.sc/1s9KQGe Watch Full Episodes for FREE: http://bit.ly/1Rw2yzp Check Adam's Sources: http://bit.ly/1Q7MHpK In Adam Ruins Everything, host Adam Conover employs a combination of comedy, history and science to dispel widespread misconceptions about everything we take for granted.

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shoes

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HBO documentary film 2012 3. 22 downloaded from whichwayhome.net for Zeega program