♪ ♪ narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymonjames financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. brook: these are people who are trying to change the world. startups have this energy that energizes me. i'm thriving by helping others everyday. people who know, know bdo.

narrator: funding was also provided by the freeman foundation. by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. announcer: and now, "bbc news". christian: hello, i'm christian fraser. you are watching "the context" on bbc news. after the street parties in a weekend of coronation celebrations, it was time to get back. the palace leads the way on a national day of volunteering. looting in khartoum as the two warring parties reach a cease-fire. we will speak to the aid agency is ting to prevent a humanitarian disaster. and the cost of war in ukraine.

google releases satellite images that shows the before and after in cities around the country. overnight, more drone attacks on the capital kiev. yiv. welcome to the program. across the u.k., people have been marking the end of the coronation weakened by getting involved in community events. members of the royal family joined in with the volunteering big help out which included beach cleaning, litter picking and wildflower planting. rinses george and louis and princess charlotte were among those lending a hand. our royal correspondent has more. >> right on target. five-year-old prince louis on his first royal engagement is more than happy to get involved volunteering at a scout hunt. >> do you think prince louis would make a good scout? >> definitely.

he is good at helping out and working together with scouts. >> and pretty good at archery. >> he is better than all of us. >> seeing little louis out there is amazing. marvelous that a little kid like him can do stuff like that. >> also helping with a spot of digging, his dad and big brother. >> as a former volunteer scout herself, mom proved expert at toasting motion mellows -- marshmallows. the whole family including charlotte was here to support the big help out. the call to encourage as many people as possible to spend a bit of time today helping out. >> when the bunting calms down and remove him from the coronation, the legacy from this weekend needs to be about service and thinking through, this is not just about this day or weekend. it's about how volunteering

plays a part in the fabric of this country and why it's important to individuals. >> not too far away in redding, sophie, the duchess of edinburgh, was perfecting her skills alongside the duke of edinburgh. the prime minister rishi sunak and his wife were put to work in the kitchen. more than 30,000 charities and community organizations across the u.k. took part, inviting would be volunteers to get involved. on a beach, the archbishop of wales helped out picking up litter. the new first minister of scotland visited a community larder in dundee. and locals got their paddles out around the town in northern ireland. as well as helping others, the big help out is about bringi people together. on stage last night at the coronation concert, prince william said this had always been a priority for king charles. >> my father has always

understood that people of all faiths, all backgrounds and all communities deserve to be celebrated and supported. [applause] >> this evening, images taken on coronation day in the throne room of buckingham palace were released along with a message from the king to those who had joined in the celebrations, that having their support and encouragement was the greatest possible coronation gift. christian: the metropolitan police he announced today it is charging four people in connection with those arrests over the weekend. we will talk about that later in the program. let's turn to events in sudan. food and water is running out in the key cities with civilians left starving in their own homes. many are now breaking into warehouses and shops to steal supplies they can find. the fighting in around the capital continues as representatives of the rival military factions begin luminary talks in saudi arabia.

we have been keeping touch with one of the british that is ins planning to leave on the evacuation flights but was forced to stay behind for his elderly care and to work too infirm to leave. he has been sending us these daily video diaries olife in the city. >> may 7, khartoum. the carnage is still ongoing. people are leaving their houses in search of sugar, wheaet, etc. -- wheat, etc. no cooking oil, wheat, sugar. all these bags of sugar and

wheat have been robb from that warehouse. all of these are stolen goods. christian: meanwhile the united nations is 100,000 refugees have escaped to neighboring states, among those 47,000 that have headed to egypt in the north. chad has seen an influx of 25,000 people. 6000 sudanese nationals have made their way to the central african republic. let's talk to someone who has helped somebody people in these hotspots. the secretary-general of the norwegian refugee council. i'm pictures that we have seen, there are no signs of government forces on the streets. it would appear they are not able to defend any of the warehouses where stores are

being kept. what are your sources telling you? >> my colleagues on the ground, we have national and international staff on the ground in sudan. they tell us about increasing desperation really. it is now only 3, 4 weeks since this carnage started, but for every single day that goes there is more desperation, more looting, pillaging, electricity is down, water supply is down. there is no food supply. there is no telecommunications, so people cannot communicate with their loved ones. it is very easy to start this kind of war. it is very difficult to stop the violence. our only hope now is that in jeddah, the talks, the u.s., saudi arabia, and the u.n. is thankfully organizing. hopefully that will give us a respite and a truce. christian: is there a residual

stock of supplies in neighboring countries? >> in neighboring countries, we have ongoing humanitarian operations. we can go cross-border. it is a question of logistics and funding for those resources. we can go from south sudan, ethiopia, we can go from chad, ypt, djibouti for that matter. however, when there is this kind of crossfire, lawlessness, no humanitarian corridors it is even very difficult to start the cross-border operations. christian: how should agencies react to been we are at the moment with the sporadic fighting, is there a forward bulkhead that could be established and defended in or near sudan by u.n. troops, in neighboring countries? jan: the u.n. has made sudan at the red sea as sort of their hub

at the moment. 3, 4, 5 nongovernmental organizations that did not evacuate our leadership, and we are there so we are planning operations. but really, you cannot do it, when there are also militaries roaming the streets, looting. the insecurity is rampa. all eyes are now on the opportunity and possibility that there stl is to make a humanitarian cease-fire, cessation of hostilities, so that we can come to the relief of the children of sudan. christian: these preliminary talks in jeddah, which the saudi arabians are hosting, usaid, the u.n. heavily involved in, do you see any break at the table, meaningful talks?

jan: indeed. for tirst time, there are talks between representatives of the two inviting generals. before there were proximity talks, emissaries talking to both sides, and it was really paper agreements. now they could hammer out a more important agreement that could have the humanitarian truce, that could have some corridors which we could go with relief items, our expert personnel that we are ready to send in to sudan. however, i understand it is not really talks about peace, about a separation of forces, separation of powers, of a coexistence between these military leaders. so we are going into a very fragile period. yes, we could get a respite so

that we can save lives again. christian: the u.n. secretary general talking about the danger around the region of sudan. you have discussed the pre-positioning of supplies you have in neighboring countries. how concerned are you that this will spill over the border to countries that are already pretty fragile? jan: very concerned, really. this is such a difficult region to start with. these so-called rapid support forces hail from darfur, that borders chad. could easily spill over into chad, many of the neighboring countries. already refugees are flocking across the borders to poverty in a place like south sudan, the poorest place on earth. we really did not need another

horrific tester fee on top of all of the other problems on the horn of africa, whether it is a horrendous drought in somalia, there is a lot of insecurity from the previous wars in ethiopia, and i could go on. we need an end to this madness, senseless fighting before it becomes a regional catastrophe. christian: what about your fundraising? you have talked about the presre for funding for afghanistan, somalia, yemen. where does this fit? how forthcoming have donors been? jan: donors are now in contact with us, have pledged to give us some additional funding. norway, as always, haseen generous with upfront money that we can spend. the moment that we have minimum security inside sudan, we will

start to spend it on the refugee reception in the neighboring countries. but i am very worried for 2023. we will have less money it seems this year compared to last year, that was less than a year before when we had resources to fight the fallout from the pandemic. we have less and less funding in a world that is producing new refugees and displaced people by the hour. too many parallel conflic. sudan is the latest of these horrific catastrophes. ukraine has 14 million displaced. well over 100 million displaced worldwide at the moment, and we are producing hundreds of thousands of new ones in sudan as we speak. christian: jan egeland, always a pleasure ttalk to you. think you for sparing some this evening. around the world and across the

u.k., this is bbc news. ♪ >> it is dirty work but someone has to do it. that is the attitude today here fothe biggest ever cleanup of the river. >> we feel it's important to bring the services together, all the students together, work together as communities to clean up our town really, not just the river. >> this is the fourth cleanup of the river tall in the last two years, and each time things like shopping carts and traffic cones are among the larger items being removed. >> only one or two people do these kinds of things but accidental things get in the river, but a lot of it is deliberate and quite sad. >> as well as making the town this areta f theerle safety of anyone using the water. >> bicycles, tires, that sort of thing. the only reason they're in the river is because somebody has talked to them in the first place. let's have some thought, a bit

of consideration, that there is nobody paid to get the stuff out of the river. christian: you are watching bbc news, let's return to our top story, the coronation weekend here in the u.k. the police have charged four people after making 64 arrests before and during the coronation on saturday. campaigners describe the detentions as an attack on democracy but today the prime minister rishi sunak said that e police did what they thought was best. the met says they have the responsibility to respond in a proportionate manner. we are speaking to graeme smith, the leader of republic, campaigning to replace the monarchy with an elected head of state. good to have you on the program. tell us first of all what happened on saturday. >> we were simply unloading our van which was full of placards, part of arrangements that we had

explained in detail on a number of occasions with police in which they had no concerns of. before we barely started doing that, we were surrounded by a large number of police who then proceeded to detain us, search us, arrested us, held us for 16 hours in a police station. christian: we spoke on friday outside buckingham palace. you told me you had an open conversation with the police through the week. so what went wrong? graham: i don't know what went wrong. i can only say that at some point they started lying to us and, i think, had every intention before we even arrived of arresting us and stopping us from protesting, disrupting the protest. some protesters did continue but we were stopped from using amplification equipment, even though there was clear there was no law against that and that they would not stop us. when we turned up, we were

detained. there was no cause or reason. we have learned in the last hour that they have decided to take kno further action for the people in the republic team that were arrested. there were six of us on the ground where you are arrested, another two arrested for having megaphones as i understand it. now they are not doing anything. that is a decision they are taking very quickly. i think they have been perhaps alarmed by the public reaction, the obvious weakness of their case. christian: so, no charges. you made reference when you were getting out of the van, they suggested that there were materials which they thought would be used for locking on. graham: if they said that, they are lying, because that is not the case. we were getting placards out of the van, so they stopped us. we were not taking anything out of the van which they were referring to.

they were referring to the cab of the van where there were large luggage straps which were there to strap the placards to the trolley so that we could efficiently move them to where we were protesting and get out of everyone's way. it is physically impossible to lock on those straps, as they call it, because they are so easily adjustable. they had not seen them at the point where they detained us. they found them later on when they searched the van. the whole process was a farce from the start. they sent to me that this was premeditated, had gone with the intention of arresting us. christian: so what will you do, how will you respond? graham: we are currently waiting for our lawyers to advise us. we are certainly minded to take further action, also want an explanation as to why we had four months of briefings in which we were told all of our plans were acceptable and fine, well within the law, and that we were arrested.

we want to know where those decisions came from. i would like to know if there was any pressure from the home office, home secretary. i would like a very clear and frank admission of guilt and apology. christian: were you told, when you were arrested, under which law you were being held? graham: yes. they initially arrested us of being in possessioof equipment for locking on, which is new legislation that came in last week. the police then suggested it was not anything to do with the new legislation. i think they really got caught tied up in knots trying to work out how they would detain us, on what charge. that is alarming in itself. they effectively went out of their way to detain peaceful protesters and stop them from peaceful protesting. we are essentially in a

situation where you no longer have the right to peaceful protest, you only have the freedom which is contingent on them. that is alarming in a democratic society. christian: four others notably not from your group that have been charged. two of them are on drug offense charges, nothing to do with the protest. is it possible in this scenario that there were overzealous policing, people under pressure to keep control around that corner, around trafalgar square? graham: the people arresting us were members of what they call the tsg, territorial support group, highly trained officers that are under orders to detain us. they had no grounds whatsoever to do so but they did so anyway. christian: what sort of support have you had since the arrest? graham: we have been inundated. we have been absolutely inundated with support, thousands of new members,

ousands and thousands of pounds coming in for donations. lots of practical and legal help. huge amounts of public support, support from people around the world. this news, i'm told, is making news in mexico. right around the world this is part of the coverage of the coronation, and i think it is shameful that this has had to be a part of the coverage. christian: graham smith, thank you for coming on the program. on any bank holiday, the ports here are busy as people head to europe to enjoy a long weekend, but post brexit there have been occasions where there have been long tailbacks. the eu is considering delaying plans to introduce fingerprinting and facial recognition at english ports amid fears it could delay travel for next year's summer olympics in paris. the move will be discussed at a meeting coming up in brussels at the end of the month. if it is delayed, that will be a

relief to some of the coach operators whose passengers endure delays of up to 14 hours during easter. there are concerns anger printing would add to those delays. let's speak to anthony merritt, the head of the u.k. coach operators association. thank you for being with us. the eu says it is on track for the november introduction. there are sources that the guardian has spoken to today that says that will not happe n and will most like to be pushed back to the summer. what is your reaction to that? >> any introduction at any time will hav muffling effect for coach passengers purely and simply because the volume of checks that need to be done on a coach as oppo to in a car or the lobbies. i understand it is going to go ahead, but the longer it is delayed, the better for us and our members. christian: because another layer

of security would just add to the chaos at dover? >> one of the issues that we have had is there were certain key hotspots during the coaching calendar and the easter bank holiday is one of them where there were hundreds of coaches that all depart at the same time from the same location into europe. big events in spain, cay shot, skiing holidays. it's a perfect storm to congregate at one moment in time. any delay is really painful for the passengers, for the operators, drivers. even when they haveot through 14 hours of waiting, they often have got 10, 12, 14-hour journey afterward on top of the weight, wherever ty come from in the u.k.. you are making a difficult situation 100 times worse. christian: my first instinct

when i read the story this morning, electronic processing would be quicker. but i suppose you still have to do each and every traler. pre-brexit, you pretty much drove through. anthony: exactly. when they would go on to the continent, they would be stopped on occasion for security reasons, spot checks, etc. now every car has to be stamped. even if it is five minutes per coach, when you have 200 per day that need to be checked, every delay has a compound effect going backward. christian: would it be your understanding that as face recognition and fingerprint ing came in, the need to stamped passports will go away? anthony: possibly but how that would occur in dover and other ports is a question needs to be answered. every passenger has to get off

the coach and go through the process of having fingerprints, having their photograph taken. five mins becomes 45 minutes. you multiply that by 200 or 300 coaches on busy days, and the delays run into hundreds of hours i suppose. how it will come into effect and speed the process up, i don't have the answer for that. christian: it seems bank holiday traffic was all departed on schedule today. why is it smooth on some days but other days we get these long tailbacks? anthony: on certain days -- and you mighte coting these on the fingers of one hand. four or five days a year, everything happens at the same time. on that particular bank holiday weekend, every coach that travels onto the continent sends on dover at the same time. a while back, they staggered

journeys because it takes longer to get to spain, longer from croatia. under normal circumstances, while there is a delay, it can be manageable. but on these peak weekends, it becomes very difficult. christian: anthony marret, thank you for coming on. we will go to a short break narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: financial services firm, raymond james. man: bdo. accountants and advisors. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. brook: these are people who are trying to change the world. startups have this energy that energizes me. i'm thriving by helping others everyday. people who know, know bdo.