 Hello, you are watching the Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you some of the top stories from around the world. Let's take a look at the headlines. Report says poor overrepresented in US COVID death rates. Aalha Abdul Fateh launches hunger strike in jail. West Africa faces worst food crisis in 10 years, Rohingya deportation and detentions in India. New research has documented the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the poor and marginalized communities in the United States. A report published by the Poor People's Campaign and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network says the pandemic worsened existing social and economic disparities in the United States. It analyzed data from over 3,200 counties and compared the poorest 10 percent of counties with the richest 10 percent. It found that people in the poorer counties died at nearly twice the rate of their richer counterparts. Death rates were significantly higher during the deadliest phases of the pandemic. For instance, death rates in low-income counties were five times higher during the delta variant phase. The Poor People's Campaign also analyzed the characteristics of the counties with the highest death rates. Over 300 of those counties had a poverty rate of 45 percent. The population of counties with the highest death rates was 56 percent white, 21 percent Hispanic, 16 percent black, 4 percent indigenous and 1 percent Asian. They accounted for 7.5 million people. The poorest counties are also home to nearly 27 percent of all indigenous people in the United States, 15 percent of all black people and 13 percent of all Hispanic people. The rate of people without insurance was twice as high as compared to the highest median income counties. Renowned Egyptian activist Ala Abdel Fattah has launched a hunger strike in prison. His family confirmed that he had been refusing meals since the start of the holy month of Ramadan on April 2. Fattah's sister and fellow activist Mona Saif said on Twitter that he appeared with his head shaven when she visited him. His mother, the leading human rights figure Lala Suif, has said Fattah has been kept under heavy supervision and in solitary confinement he is also denied other basic rights like access to books and exercise. Ala Abdel Fattah is a left wing blogger who gained prominence during the 2011 revolution. He has been imprisoned multiple times for participating in anti-government protests. He was jailed in 2013 and sentenced to five years in prison in 2015 before he was released in 2019. However, just months later he was re-arrested. Al Fattah spent over two years in pre-trial detention in violation of Egyptian law. In December 2021, he was sentenced to five years in prison by an emergency state security court. Rights lawyer Mohammed Al-Bakir and blogger Mohammed Oksajun Ibrahim were also sentenced to four years. All three were convicted on charges of spreading false news. The activists' lawyers were denied access to case files and their prison sentences cannot be appealed. Al Fattah has previously spoken about the brutal conditions in prison in September 2021. His lawyer said the activist was even considering suicide. The decline in Al Fattah's mental health was unprecedented. 11 international human rights organizations have presented figures that indicate the worst food crisis in West Africa in over a decade. An estimated 27 million people in the region face hunger and it could climb to 38 million by June. Over 10 years, there has been a growing food crisis across West Asia including Burkina Faso, Mali and Nigeria. Between 2015 and 2022, people who needed emergency assistance quadrupled. According to Oksajun, serial production in parts of the Sahel region has dropped by about a third since last year. Drought, floods, conflict and COVID-19 have pushed millions of people off their land. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced according to Save the Children. Malnutrition is steadily rising in the Sahel region. An estimated 6.3 million children under five will be acutely malnourished this year. Food prices have risen 20 to 30 percent across Africa in the last five years. The crisis in Ukraine could push food prices up further 30 percent worldwide. The war is also likely to lower wheat availability for West African countries. Some countries import over 50 percent of their wheat requirements from Russia and Ukraine. Another likely side effect is drastic cuts in aid. Some countries have already rolled back their funding commitments. And for our final story, activists in India have raised an alarm over the persecution of Rohingya refugees. A 36-year-old woman, Hasina Begum, was deported to Myanmar late in March, which has sparked tremendous outrage. Begum was among the over 150 Rohingya refugees detained by police in Jammu on 6 March last year. They were transferred to a sub-jail in the Kathwa district, which has been turned into a holding facility. Begum, her husband and their children were registered as refugees with the United Nations. She was separated from her family for over a year before getting deported. Last week, at least 25 Rohingya men were detained in the Ramban district in India's north and also sent to a detention center. They were members of the missionary movement, the Tablighi Jamaat. The United Nations estimates around 40,000 Rohingya refugees are in India. Less than 15,000 are formally registered with the UNHCR. Around 5,000 Rohingya live in camps spread across the Jammu province. The Rohingya have been subjected to surveillance and arbitrary detentions by state forces. They are also frequently under attack from right-wing extremist groups. According to the UNHCR, at least 240 Rohingya are detained in India on illegal entry charges. 235 others are detained at a center in Jammu and 39 in the capital, Delhi. Since 2017, India has deported 16 refugees to Myanmar. This constitutes refoulement or forced return in violation of international law. And that's all for today's episode. For more such stories, visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.