31 People Hurt Armed Attack

On Thursday after an illegal armed group opened fire on them while they destroyed crops of coca, the chief ingredient in cocaine, at least 31 indigenous people were wounded in southeast Colombia. this attack took place in the rural municipality of Caldono, in Colombia's Cauca province. this region is a strategically important for drug trafficking and is disputed by armed groups including dissidents of the demobilized Farc guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and other criminal organizations made up of former right-wing paramilitaries.

The Regional Council of Indigenous in Cauca (CRIC) said in a statement, "So far 31 indigenous people have been reported injured and five attackers have been detained by the Indigenous Guard," Efforts to eradicate coca crops and attacks against members of the community are ongoing, meaning the number of injured could rise, CRIC added, describing indigenous communities in the region as victims of state absence. Illegal armed groups fight for territorial control of strategic areas for growing coca and the production of cocaine, according to the government and security sources. Colombia, with its geographically strategic position surrounded by two oceans, is considered the world's biggest cocaine producer.

On Tuesday, indigenous governor Sandra Liliana Peña Chocue - who opposed coca crops in indigenous lands - was assassinated in the same region. Colombia's government condemned the attacks against the indigenous communities. "It's reprehensible that criminals are raging against indigenous communities and against women who defend their territory from the presence of illicit economies that threaten the integrity of young people and the purity of soils," Emilio Archila, the presidential adviser for implementing the peace deal, said in a statement.

And Other ‘Unnecessary sadness’ Inside Ontario’s critical care physician Laveena Munshi saw her intensive care unit (ICU) at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital fill with pregnant and post-partum COVID-19 patients.

During that week, the ICU doubled the total number of pregnant COVID-19 patients it had previously seen throughout the entire pandemic. Swamped with patients with complex medical needs, one day Munshi ended up pulling a 36-hour shift. "You do what you have to do," she said. Ontario's hospitals and ICUs have been crushed by a punishing third coronavirus wave, as depleted resources and overworked staff push Canada's healthcare system - often held up as a model for the rest of the world - to the brink.

Munshi and her colleagues spent agonizing hours discussing what to do if a pregnant woman needed an artificial lung to help her get enough oxygen. "Having delivery equipment outside an ICU room is never a thing you want to be walking into at the beginning of your shift," she said. "It just adds an added layer of unnecessary sadness to this whole pandemic."

ICUs in Ontario, Canada's most populous province, had 800 COVID-19 patients, with such admissions at the highest point since the pandemic began. Patients are coming in younger and sicker, driven by more highly transmissible virus variants. Hospital staff say they are seeing whole families infected due to transmission at front-line workplaces that have remained open through lockdowns and stay-at-home orders. Mount Sinai Hospital just added a third ICU. It has seconded non-ICU nurses to help deliver critical care to the most seriously ill patients as it braces for the worst.

"The next couple of weeks are going to be extremely busy, there's no question," Munshi said, adding that people most affected by the current wave do not come from privileged backgrounds that would allow them to protect themselves, for example by working from home. The provincial government has promised more ICU beds and requested medical staff from other provinces.