Africans recruited to work in Russia say they were duped into building drones for use in Ukraine

Parts of downed Shahed drones launched by Russia are piled in a storage room of a research laboratory in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 8, 2024. (AP photo)
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Updated 11 October 2024
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Africans recruited to work in Russia say they were duped into building drones for use in Ukraine

  • Lured to play a computer game with a faraway adventure in Europe as prize, dozens of young women from Africa and Sri Lanka end up being forced to work in a combat drone factory in Russia's Tatarstan region
  • With unemployment at record lows and many Russians already working in military industries, fighting in Ukraine or having fled abroad, plant officials turned to using vocational students and cheap foreign labor

The social media ads promised the young African women a free plane ticket, money and a faraway adventure in Europe. Just complete a computer game and a 100-word Russian vocabulary test.
But instead of a work-study program in fields like hospitality and catering, some of them learned only after arriving on the steppes of Russia’s Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.
In interviews with The Associated Press, some of the women complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages and areas of study, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching.
To fill an urgent labor shortage in wartime Russia, the Kremlin has been recruiting women aged 18-22 from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.
That has put some of Moscow’s key weapons production in the inexperienced hands of about 200 African women who are working alongside Russian vocational students as young as 16 in the plant in Tatarstan’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone, about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) east of Moscow, according to an AP investigation of the industrial complex.




This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows buildings in Tatarstan's Alabuga Special Economic Zone, about 1,000 kilometers east of Moscow on Nov. 21, 2021, before President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

“I don’t really know how to make drones,” said one African woman who had abandoned a job at home and took the Russian offer.
The AP analyzed satellite images of the complex and its internal documents, spoke to a half-dozen African women who ended up there, and tracked down hundreds of videos in the online recruiting program dubbed “Alabuga Start” to piece together life at the plant.
A hopeful journey from Africa leads to ‘a trap’
The woman who agreed to work in Russia excitedly documented her journey, taking selfies at the airport and shooting video of her airline meal and of the in-flight map, focusing on the word “Europe” and pointing to it with her long, manicured nails.
When she arrived in Alabuga, however, she soon learned what she would be doing and realized it was “a trap.”
“The company is all about making drones. Nothing else,” said the woman, who assembled airframes. “I regret and I curse the day I started making all those things.”
One possible clue about what was in store for the applicants was their vocabulary test that included words like “factory” and the verbs “to hook” and “to unhook.”
The workers were under constant surveillance in their dorms and at work, the hours were long and the pay was less than she expected — details corroborated by three other women interviewed by AP, which is not identifying them by name or nationality out of concern for their safety.
Factory management apparently tries to discourage the African women from leaving, and although some reportedly have left or found work elsewhere in Russia, AP was unable to verify that independently.
A drone factory grows in Tatarstan
Russia and Iran signed a $1.7 billion deal in 2022, after President Vladimir Putin invaded neighboring Ukraine, and Moscow began using Iranian imports of the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, in battle later that year.
The Alabuga Special Economic Zone was set up in 2006 to attract businesses and investment to Tatarstan. It expanded rapidly after the invasion and parts switched to military production, adding or renovating new buildings, according to satellite images.
Although some private companies still operate there, the plant is referred to as “Alabuga” in leaked documents that detail contracts between Russia and Iran.
The Shahed-136 drones were first shipped disassembled to Russia, but production has shifted to Alabuga and possibly another factory. Alabuga now is Russia’s main plant for making the one-way, exploding drones, with plans to produce 6,000 of them a year by 2025, according to the leaked documents and the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.




An Iranian Shahed exploding drone launched by Russia flies through the sky seconds before it struck buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine, Oct. 17, 2022. (AP)

That target is now ahead of schedule, with Alabuga building 4,500, said David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who works at the institute.
Finding workers was a problem. With unemployment at record lows and many Russians already working in military industries, fighting in Ukraine or having fled abroad, plant officials turned to using vocational students and cheap foreign labor.
Alabuga is the only Russian production facility that recruits women from Africa, Asia and South America to make weapons according to experts and the AP investigation.
About 90 percent of the foreign women recruited via the Alabuga Start program work on making drones, particularly the parts “that don’t require much skill,” he said.
Documents leaked last year and verified by Albright and another drone expert detail the workforce growing from just under 900 people in 2023 to plans for over 2,600 in 2025. They show that foreign women largely assemble the drones, use chemicals and paint them.
In the first half of this year, 182 women were recruited, largely from Central and East African countries, according to a Facebook page promoting the Alabuga Start program. It also recruits in South America and Asia “to help ladies to start their career.”
Officials held recruiting events in Uganda, and tried to recruit from its orphanages, according to messages on Alabuga’s Telegram channel. Russian officials have also visited more than 26 embassies in Moscow to push the program.
The campaign gave no reasons why it doesn’t seek older women or men, but some analysts suggest officials could believe young women are easier to control. One of the leaked documents shows the assembly lines are segregated and uses a derogatory term referring to the African workers.
The factory also draws workers from Alabuga Polytechnic, a nearby vocational boarding school for Russians age 16-18 and Central Asians age 18-22 that bills its graduates as experts in drone production. According to investigative outlets Protokol and Razvorot, some are as young as 15 and have complained of poor working conditions.
Surveillance, caustic chemicals — and a Ukrainian attack
The foreign workers travel by bus from their living quarters to the factory, passing multiple security checkpoints after a license plate scan, while other vehicles are stopped for more stringent checks, according to the woman who assembles drones.
They share dormitories and kitchens that are “guarded around the clock,” social media posts say. Entry is controlled via facial recognition, and recruits are watched on surveillance cameras. Pets, alcohol and drugs are not allowed.
The foreigners receive local SIM cards for their phones upon arrival but are forbidden from bringing them into the factory, which is considered a sensitive military site.
One woman said she could only talk to an AP reporter with her manager’s permission, another said her “messages are monitored,” a third said workers are told not to talk to outsiders about their work, and a fourth said managers encouraged them to inform on co-workers.
The airframe worker told AP the recruits are taught how to assemble the drones and coat them with a caustic substance with the consistency of yogurt.
Many workers lack protective gear, she said, adding that the chemicals made her face feel like it was being pricked with tiny needles, and “small holes” appeared on her cheeks, making them itch severely.
“My God, I could scratch myself! I could never get tired of scratching myself,” she said.
“A lot of girls are suffering,” she added. A video shared with AP showed another woman wearing an Alabuga uniform with her face similarly affected.
Although AP could not determine what the chemicals were, drone expert Fabian Hinz of the International Institute for Strategic Studies confirmed that caustic substances are used in their manufacture.
In addition to dangers from chemicals, the complex itself was hit by a Ukrainian drone in April, injuring at least 12 people. A video it posted on social media showed a Kenyan woman calling the attackers “barbarians” who “wanted to intimidate us.”
“They did not succeed,” she said.
Workers ‘maltreated like donkeys’
Although one woman said she loved working at Alabuga because she was well-paid and enjoyed meeting new people and experiencing a different culture, most interviewed by AP disagreed about the size of the compensation and suggested that life there did not meet their expectations.
The program initially promised recruits $700 a month, but later social media posts put it at “over $500.”
The airframe assembly worker said the cost of their accommodation, airfare, medical care and Russian-language classes were deducted from her salary, and she struggled to pay for basics like bus fare with the remainder.
The African women are “maltreated like donkeys, being slaved,” she said, indicating banking sanctions on Russia made it difficult to send money home. But another factory worker said she was able to send up to $150 a month to her family.
Four of the women described long shifts of up to 12 hours, with haphazard days off. Still, two of these who said they worked in the kitchen added they were willing to tolerate the pay if they could support their families.
The wages apparently are affecting morale, according to plant documents, with managers urging that the foreign workers be replaced with Russian-speaking staff because “candidates are refusing the low salary.”
Russian and Central Asian students at Alabuga Polytechnic are allowed visits home, social media posts suggest. Independent Russian media reported that these vocational students who want to quit the program have been told they must repay tuition costs.
AP contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry and the offices of Tatarstan Gov. Rustam Minnikhanov and Alabuga Special Economic Zone Director General Timur Shagivaleev for a response to the women’s complaints but received no reply.
Human rights organizations contacted by AP said they were unaware of what was happening at the factory, although it sounded consistent with other actions by Russia. Human Rights Watch said Russia is actively recruiting foreigners from Africa and India to support its war in Ukraine by promising lucrative jobs without fully explaining the nature of the work.
Russia’s actions “could potentially fulfill the criteria of trafficking if the recruitment is fraudulent and the purpose is exploitation,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, noting that Moscow is a party to the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime.
The AP contacted governments of 22 countries whose citizens Alabuga said it had recruited for the program. Most didn’t answer or said they would look into it.
Betty Amongi, Uganda’s Minister for Gender, Labour and Social Development, told AP that her ministry raised concerns with its embassy in Moscow about the Alabuga recruiting effort, particularly over the age of the women, because “female migrant workers are the most vulnerable category.”
The ministry said it wanted to ensure the women “do not end up in exploitative employment,” and needed to know who would be responsible for the welfare of the Ugandan women while in Russia. Alabuga’s Facebook page said 46 Ugandan women were at the complex, although Amongi had said there were none.
How accurate are the drones?

Bolstered by the foreign recruits, Russia has vastly increased the number of drones it can fire at Ukraine.
Nearly 4,000 were launched at Ukraine from the start of the war in February 2022 through 2023, Albright’s organization said. In the first seven months of this year, Russia launched nearly twice that.
Although the Alabuga plant’s production target is ahead of schedule, there are questions about the quality of the drones and whether manufacturing problems due to the unskilled labor force are causing malfunctions. Some experts also point to Russia’s switching to other materials from the original Iranian design as a sign of problems.
An AP analysis of about 2,000 Shahed attacks documented by Ukraine’s military since July 29 shows that about 95 percent of the drones hit no discernible target. Instead, they fall into Ukraine’s rivers and fields, stray into NATO-member Latvia and come down in Russia or ally Belarus.
Before July, about 14 percent of Shaheds hit their targets in Ukraine, according to data analyzed by Albright’s team.
The large failure rate could be due to Ukraine’s improved air defenses, although Albright said it also could be because of the low-skilled workforce in which “poor craftsmanship is seeping in,” he said.
Another factor could be because Russia is using a Shahed variant that doesn’t carry a warhead of 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of explosives. Moscow could be launching these dummy drones to overwhelm air defenses and force Ukraine to waste ammunition, allowing other UAVs to hit targets.
Tourism, paintball games and a pitch on TikTok
The Alabuga Start recruiting drive relies on a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos with upbeat music that show African women visiting Tatarstan’s cultural sites or playing sports.
The videos show them working — smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while directing cranes, and donning protective equipment to apply paint or chemicals.
One video depicts the Polytechnic school students in team-building exercises such as paintball matches, even showing the losing side — labeled as “fascists” — digging trenches or being shot with the recreational weapons at close range.
“We are taught patriotism. This unites us. We are ready to repel any provocation,” one student says.
The videos on Alabuga’s social media pages don’t mention the plant’s role at the heart of Russian drone production, but the Special Economic Zone is more open with Russian media.
Konstantin Spiridonov, deputy director of a company that made drones for civilian use before the war, gave a video tour of an Alabuga assembly line in March to a Russian blogger. Pointing out young African women, he did not explicitly link the drones to the war but noted their production is now “very relevant” for Russia.
Alabuga Start’s social media pages are filled with comments from Africans begging for work and saying they applied but have yet to receive an answer.
The program was promoted by education ministries in Uganda and Ethiopia, as well as in African media that portrays it as a way to make money and learn new skills.
Initially advertised as a work-study program, Alabuga Start in recent months is more direct about what it offers foreigners, insisting on newer posts that “is NOT an educational program,” although one of them still shows young women in plaid school uniforms.
When Sierra Leone Ambassador Mohamed Yongawo visited in May and met with five participants from his country, he appeared to believe it was a study program.
“It would be great if we had 30 students from Sierra Leone studying at Alabuga,” he said afterward.
Last month, the Alabuga Start social media site said it was “excited to announce that our audience has grown significantly!”
That could be due to its hiring of influencers, including Bassie, a South African with almost 800,000 TikTok and Instagram followers. She did not respond to an AP request for comment.
The program, she said, was an easy way to make money, encouraging followers to share her post with job-seeking friends so they could contact Alabuga.
“Where they lack in labor,” she said, “that’s where you come in.”
 


UN’s Guterres urges ‘give peace a chance’ in Israel-Iran conflict

Updated 4 sec ago
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UN’s Guterres urges ‘give peace a chance’ in Israel-Iran conflict

Guterres said there were “moments when the directions taken will shape not just the fate of nations, but potentially our collective future“
Rafael Grossi, IAEA’s head, outlined Israeli attacks on nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan and Arak

NEW YORK: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that expansion of the Israel-Iran conflict could “ignite a fire no one can control” and called on both sides and potential parties to the conflict to “give peace a chance.”

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, speaking at the same United Nations Security Council session, warned that attacks on nuclear facilities could result in the release of radiation “within and beyond boundaries” of Iran, and called for maximum restraint.

Guterres said there were “moments when the directions taken will shape not just the fate of nations, but potentially our collective future.”

“This is such a moment,” he said.

He said expansion of the conflict would “ignite a fire that no one can control” and added: “We must not let that happen.”

“To the parties to the conflict, the potential parties to the conflict, and to the Security Council as the representative of the international community, I have a simple and clear message: give peace a chance,” Guterres said.

The Security Council session took place as European foreign ministers met their Iranian counterpart on Friday hoping to test Tehran’s readiness to negotiate a new nuclear deal despite there being scant prospect of Israel ceasing its attacks soon.

Israel has repeatedly bombed nuclear targets in Iran and Iran has fired missiles and drones at Israel as a week-old air war escalated with no sign yet of an exit strategy from either side.

The White House said on Thursday US President Donald Trump would make a decision within the next two weeks whether to get involved on Israel’s side. Iran said on Friday it would not discuss the future of its nuclear program while under attack by Israel.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said his country sought genuine efforts to dismantle Iran’s nuclear capabilities from Friday’s meeting between European and Iranian ministers, not just another round of talks

“We have seen diplomatic talks for the last few decades, and look at the results,” he told reporters.

“If it is going to be like another session and debates, that’s not going to work.”

Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, outlined Israeli attacks on nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan and Arak.

He said the level of radioactivity outside Iran’s Natanz site has remained unchanged and at normal levels, indicating no external radiological impact on the population or the environment there.

However, he said that within the facility there was both radiological and chemical contamination. He said the IAEA was not aware of any damage at Iran’s Fordow plant at this time.

An attack on Iran’s Bushehr plant would be most serious, he said: “It is an operating nuclear power plant and hosts thousands of kilograms of nuclear material.”

“I want to make it absolutely and completely clear: In the case of an attack on the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a direct hit would result in a very high release of radioactivity to the environment,” Grossi said.

“Similarly, a hit that disabled the only two lines supplying electrical power to the plant could cause its reactor’s core to melt.”

He said any action against the Tehran nuclear research reactor will also have severe consequences, “potentially for large areas of the city of Tehran and its inhabitants.”

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Dorothy Camille Shea, said the United States “continues to stand with Israel and supports its actions against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

“We can no longer ignore that Iran has all that it needs to achieve a nuclear weapon,” she said.

China and Russia demanded immediate de-escalation.

Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, said Israel’s actions risked pulling third countries into the conflict and internationalization of the conflict must be avoided.

He said targeting of what he called Iran’s peaceful civilian nuclear facilities was “liable to plunge us into a hither to unseen nuclear catastrophe.”

Iran says its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons. It neither confirms nor denies this.

Greek coast guard says over 600 migrants rescued from 2 fishing boats

Updated 20 June 2025
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Greek coast guard says over 600 migrants rescued from 2 fishing boats

  • The first fishing boat, carrying 352 people, was spotted overnight about 55 kilometers south of the tiny island of Gavdos
  • The second was found 90 kilometers south of the island of Crete with 278 people on board

ATHENS: More than 600 migrants were rescued overnight and early Friday from two wooden fishing boats found sailing miles (kilometers) from the southernmost part of Greece, the country’s coast guard said.

The first fishing boat, carrying 352 people, was spotted overnight about 30 nautical miles (35 miles, 55 kilometers) south of the tiny island of Gavdos, the coast guard said. Passengers were rescued by a ship from the European border patrol agency FRONTEX, aided by a coast guard patrol boat and four other vessels.

The second was found 50 nautical miles (about 60 miles, 90 kilometers) south of the island of Crete with 278 people on board. The passengers were picked up by a passing Portuguese-flagged cargo ship. In both cases, the migrants were transported to Crete.

There was no immediate information on the nationalities of those on board the two fishing boats.

Another two boats carrying migrants were located in the same area on Thursday, the coast guard said. One, carrying 73 men, was found south of Gavdos and another with 26 people, including one woman and three minors, was found near the coast of southern Crete.

The coast guard said those on the smaller boat told authorities they had set sail the previous evening from Tobruk in Libya, and had each paid smugglers either 4,000 euros ($5,500) for their passage to Greece. Two Sudanese teenagers, one aged 16 and the other 19, were arrested on suspicion of migrant smuggling after other passengers identified them as having been operating the boat.

Greece has been on one of the preferred routes into the European Union for people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia for decades.

Arrivals from neighboring Turkiye to the east and the Libyan coast to the south spiked last year, with Greece recording more than 60,000 people arriving — the vast majority by sea — in 2024, compared to just over 48,000 the previous year, according to figures from the UN refugee agency.

As of June 15 this year, a total of 16,290 arrivals were recorded, with more than 14,600 of those by sea.

With authorities closely patrolling the eastern sea border with Turkiye to prevent migrant boats reaching nearby Greek islands, smugglers appear to be increasingly opting for the much longer and riskier Mediterranean Sea crossing from the north African coast to the southern tip of Greece, using larger boats into which they can cram more people.


Health officials issue warnings as UK bakes in the first heat wave of 2025

Updated 20 June 2025
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Health officials issue warnings as UK bakes in the first heat wave of 2025

  • Temperatures are expected to peak at 34 degrees Celsius
  • The UK Health Security Agency has issued an amber heat health alert covering all of England

LONDON: British health officials are warning people across the country to take precautions when out in the sun as the UK bakes under its first heat wave of the year.

Temperatures are expected to peak at 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) in some parts of eastern England on Saturday following a week of unusually warm weather, according to the national weather agency the Met Office. That’s about 12 C (22 F) higher than normal for this time of year.

The UK Health Security Agency has issued an amber heat health alert covering all of England because of increased health risks for people over 65 and those with heart and lung problems.

“Heat can result in serious health outcomes across the population, especially for older adults or those with pre-existing health conditions,” Dr. Agostinho Sousa, head of the UKHSA, said in a statement. “It is therefore important to check on friends, family and neighbors who are more vulnerable and to take sensible precautions while enjoying the sun.”

Saturday is expected to be the hottest day of the heat wave, with temperatures falling slightly on Sunday and dropping back into the more normal temperatures next week, the Met Office said. The heat alert is currently scheduled to remain in effect until Monday morning.

Unusually, temperatures in London this week have been higher than in many parts of Western Europe. That’s because the high temperatures are not the result of hot air moving north from the Iberian Peninsula or North Africa as is often the case, the Met Office said.

Instead, this weather system originated in air high over the Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland. As it approaches the UK, it descends toward ground level, causing it to warm rapidly, Chief Meteorologist Matthew Lenhert said.

That said, it has been plenty hot in Europe too. Aviation enthusiasts attending the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget, north of Paris, this week sought the shade of a Boeing 777’s wing, cooling off as temperatures hovered in the low 30s C (mid-80s F.)

Met Office scientists this week published research showing that climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme high temperatures in the UK The chance of temperatures exceeding 40 C (104 F) is now more than 20 times higher than it was in the 1960s, the researchers said.


In Java, Indonesian conservationist leads efforts to protect endangered silvery gibbons

Updated 20 June 2025
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In Java, Indonesian conservationist leads efforts to protect endangered silvery gibbons

  • Rahayu Oktaviani won the 2025 Whitley Award, which recognizes grassroots conservation leaders
  • There are fewer than 2,500 Javan gibbons in the wild, half of which live at a national park in West Java

JAKARTA: It was deep in the heart of an Indonesian rainforest in West Java that Rahayu Oktaviani, known as Ayu, first heard the “song” of the Javan gibbon. 

She had her first encounter in 2008 while visiting the Mount Halimun Salak National Park for an undergraduate research project that required her to obtain a voice sample of the primate. 

After waiting patiently for two weeks, coming in and out of the forest, she finally heard a Javan gibbon make its distinctive call. 

She recalled how the sound she described as melodic and haunting had created a hush, as it echoed throughout the forest. 

“It’s like the most beautiful song that I ever heard in my life. It’s so amazing,” Ayu told Arab News. 

“They are non-human primates, but they can have like this beautiful song that can make all of … the creatures in the forest just keep silent.” 

In the 17 years since, Ayu has dedicated her life to protecting the endangered animals, which are also known as “silvery gibbon,” or “owa jawa” locally.

This undated photo shows a Javan gibbon sitting on a tree branch in West Java, Indonesia. (Whitley Awards) 

A vast archipelago stretching across the equator, Indonesia is a top global biodiversity hotspot and home to over 60 species of primates, about 38 of which are endemic to the country. 

“Maybe a lot of people know about the orangutan, about the rhino, about the tiger, but how about the overlooked species, just like, for example, the Javan gibbon? Not so many people know about them,” Ayu said.  

Fewer than 2,500 Javan gibbons remain in the wild today, according to an estimate by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. About half of them live in the 87,000-hectare Mount Halimun Salak National Park, where Ayu and her team have laid the building blocks for grassroots conservation of the endangered species. 

The gibbons rely on a continuous canopy for movement and foraging, making them particularly vulnerable to forest fragmentation and habitat degradation. As around 55 percent of Indonesia’s 270 million population lives in Java, the survival of the endemic species found only in the island’s forests is threatened by deforestation and illegal animal trafficking. 

“With the situation in Java, where only like 10 percent of the natural forests are remaining, it means the forest itself should be intact. The forest itself still needs to be there not only for the Javan gibbons, but also for the other species that need this habitat for their lives,” Ayu said. 

In 2020, she co-founded the conservation nongovernmental organization Kiara to expand efforts to save the Javan gibbon, believing that a key aspect in protecting the species was to engage the local community. 

When she started out as a primatologist, spending much time in the forest to study the gibbons, Ayu did not realize that she was neglecting the very people who lived alongside the primates. 

She recalled a question a villager posed at the time, a woman named Yanti, who was curious as to why Ayu always went to the forest but rarely stopped by the village. 

“That’s a really casual and simple question, but it kept me thinking about what I’ve been doing so far. Is there something that I’ve been missing?” Ayu said. 

Yanti’s query eventually led her to realize that she needed to do more with the community. 

“We want to build together with the communities, where actually the gibbon can be something that they can be proud of,” she said. “Community engagement is 100 percent the core for conservation because without community, we cannot do everything.” 

Ayu has employed people from Citalahab, a small village enclave located within the national park where locals make a living working in tea plantations or as rice farmers. Eight of them now work in the field alongside Ayu and her team to monitor the gibbons in the wild. 

With Kiara, she also established the Ambu Halimun initiative, which involves 15 local women between the ages of 17 and 50 in ecoprinting workshops and financial literacy training. 

In April, Ayu won the prestigious Whitley Award, which recognizes achievements in grassroots conservation, to advance her work in protecting the Javan gibbons. 

With 50,000 British pounds ($67,000) from the award, Ayu plans to scale up her programs with Kiara to mitigate threats from human activities and to protect the gibbons’ habitat. 

This includes developing a data management system to enhance park-wide conservation efforts, training the park rangers in biodiversity monitoring techniques, and guiding conservation strategies. 

The 38-year-old, whose role models are “the Trimates,” primatologists Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas, has faith that humans can live in coexistence with wildlife. 

“Actually, if we put aside our ego, we are part of the ecosystem itself. We are not separated from the ecosystems, so it means we have to have more balance with nature,” she said. “And to do that, we also have to respect what else (is) actually living together with us in these ecosystems.” 

Ayu said the Whitley Award served as good momentum to raise awareness about the species she loves dearly, the Javan gibbons. 

“I believe not so many people are aware of the existence of the Javan gibbon, so it’s the right momentum to share the love for the Javan gibbon and make people care about it,” she said. “Because how can you care about the species if you know nothing about them?”

With the award and the coverage that it garnered internationally, Ayu is also hopeful about inspiring a new generation of conservationists from Indonesia. 

“I think women also play a good part to be conservationists in the future … It’s also about … regeneration: the importance of nurturing the new generation of conservationists and primatologists from Indonesia, especially because we need more and more people who work in this field.” 


UK working with Israel to arrange charter flights out of Tel Aviv, Lammy says

Updated 20 June 2025
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UK working with Israel to arrange charter flights out of Tel Aviv, Lammy says

LONDON: Britain is working with Israeli authorities to arrange charter flights for British nationals from Tel Aviv when the airport reopens, foreign minister David Lammy said on Friday.
“As part of our efforts to support British nationals in the Middle East, the government is working with the Israeli authorities to provide charter flights from Tel Aviv airport when airspace reopens,” Lammy said in a statement.
Israel’s main international gateway, Ben Gurion Airport, closed last week due to Israel and Iran’s spiralling air war.
On Monday, the British government advised its citizens in Israel to register their presence with British authorities, saying it was monitoring the situation and considering options for assistance.
It said it had increased its logistical support for citizens who have turned to overland routes into Jordan and Egypt.