We Held Ourselves Together and Apart

In New York, we lifted 13 hands and kept two lowered, passing the U.N. resolution that backed a U.S.–crafted plan for Gaza: a ceasefire, an International Stabilization Force, and a Board of Peace that promised reconstruction before return. Even as diplomats called it historic, those of us in Gaza refreshed headlines in dark rooms, wondering if another blueprint drawn far from home could truly keep us alive this time.

Before dawn in Kebbi State, Nigeria, we lost 25 of our daughters when gunmen stormed the Government Girls’ Comprehensive Secondary School. They broke open the dormitory, killed staff, and dragged girls into the night while mothers shouted names into the dust. A decade after Chibok, we still hadn’t learned how to keep our children safe from ourselves.

In Paris, under a cold November sky, we signed Ukraine’s letter of intent for up to 100 Rafale jets, drones, and air-defense systems. Cameras caught leaders smiling, but in Odesa we were pulling 16 crew members off the burning Turkish tanker Orinda after a drone strike turned the Danube’s edge into a wall of flame that forced Romanian villages to evacuate.

Across Pakistan, we sent more than 140,000 health workers door to door to vaccinate over 57 million children against measles, rubella, and polio. We carried cold boxes through alleys where vaccinators had once been killed, and we placed sweet vaccine drops on toddlers’ tongues—small acts of defiance against diseases we still haven’t beaten.

In Ethiopia’s Omo region, we spoke the word Marburg with the old dread it deserves. Three of us had died already, more deaths were suspected, and 100 contacts were being traced across villages near the South Sudan border. Health teams packed gloves, chlorine, and clipboards, hoping the virus hadn’t outrun them.

In Dhaka, we sentenced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death for the 2024 student crackdown that left up to 1,400 of us dead. The verdict rippled from tea stalls to exile apartments in India, splitting us again into those who saw justice and those who saw vengeance, neither side certain the wound would close.

On the desert road between Mecca and Medina, a bus of Indian Umrah pilgrims collided with a tanker and erupted in fire. All but one passenger died—whole families gone in the time it takes for flames to cross a window. Tonight, in Hyderabad, relatives sit among suitcases they had packed for welcome-home celebrations that turned into condolence gatherings.

In Australia and New Zealand, we shuttered more than 70 schools after discovering asbestos in brightly colored children’s play sand sold in familiar stores. Hazmat suits sifted through sand pits while confused students stayed home. Even our toys, it seemed, carried the residue of older harms we hadn’t fully put to rest.

At COP30 in Belém, we listened as climate-vulnerable nations told wealthier ones that 1.5°C was not a goal but a boundary between survival and disappearance. Outside, the Amazon humidity clung to us like a reminder that patience is a luxury the rivers no longer have. Inside, we clapped, negotiated, postponed—still trying to turn warning into will.