Menna Farouk

Hazem Suleiman lost almost a quarter of his body weight as he and his family fled time and again from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. But what really worries him is the damage you can't see - the invisible trauma that will mark him forever.

"I won't forget the screams of children and women ... I have nightmares of charred bodies. Horror films do not show this, but it is what happened."

Abdallah Bahr waited with his family for hours in the scorching sun outside the U.N. refugee agency' Cairo office, hoping to receive the asylum identification cards that would allow them to stay in Egypt after fleeing Sudan's war.

They had arrived at 2 a.m. in the morning, and finally got the precious yellow cards at 1 p.m.

In Gaza, the sky is full of menace. As well as the missiles that rain down on schools and shelters, the brutal rays of the sun have made the summer unbearable for those struggling to survive in a ravaged landscape of ruins and rubble.

Samaher al-Daour sometimes wishes she had been killed in the early days of the Israel-Hamas war rather than have to watch her son, who lost a leg during the conflict, endure the unbearable heat.

In a flimsy tent crouched low among the smashed buildings of Rafah, Palestine Bahr felt her contractions begin early one day in May. Her baby was coming but how would she make her way through the rubble-strewn streets to hospital without a car?

She managed to find a donkey cart and rattled her way through the streets of the city in southern Gaza as her contractions got stronger. 

Asma Ibrahim, an unemployed woman who lives in a cramped shack in northern Lebanon, has no idea why she was refused a welfare benefit for the country's poorest people - money that would prevent her five children from going to bed hungry.

"People in need are not receiving anything," she said by phone from the deprived Akkar region, adding that she had been calling a government hotline twice a week to ask why she was turned down after applying more than a year ago.

Muhammed Bilal used to have to wait his turn outside a money transfer office in the scorching heat of Dubai to send home $1,000 to his wife and parents in Pakistan each month, at a cost of about $7 per transfer.

He has since switched to an app that allows him to send money instantly with no transfer fees, joining a growing number of migrants in the United Arab Emirates using cryptocurrencies and blockchain services to send remittances quickly and cheaply.

From soil sensors to AI-powered drones, entrepreneurs in Tunisia are equipping farmers with tech tools and data to help the vital agriculture sector weather the country's worsening water crisis.

The North African nation is enduring its fourth consecutive year of drought - as intensifying climate change affects rainfall in the region - threatening the agriculture industry that is critical for its food security and struggling economy.

A decade ago, the Makthar boarding school in northern Tunisia had little clean drinking water or heat, poor food and no electricity for its nearly 570 students.

But now solar water heaters ensure hot water for showers and solar panels produce enough electricity not only to power the school and three others nearby but to feed the national grid, providing a small income toward paying other school costs.

The Tunisian coastal town of Ghannouch is home to about 600 fishermen, but early one Wednesday morning last month there was hardly a rod or boat in sight.

Fishermen say as climate change brings ever-rising sea levels, threatening the community's beaches, going out to sea is becoming tougher as rocks damage their boats and fishing nets.

Women who mop, sweep and clean homes across Africa are riding a new wave of digital platforms that promise flexible work and fresh opportunity - but critics say the fast-growing apps only expose the gig workers to age-old abuse and exploitation.

They say the women - many of them vulnerable migrants - run a gamut of risks by signing up for gig work on the new apps, from underpay to assault, injury to debt, reputational damage as well as scant benefits and zero trade union representation.