00:08We met online.
00:11They believed he was a friend.
00:16He actually plotted against me.
00:20It was brutal. They were really beating me as if they would kill me.
00:25They were shouting, stone him to death.
00:27Kill him, kill him, his abomination, his abomination.
00:32I thought I would die.
00:34I don't know how I managed to escape being rich that day.
00:49I started this initiative in the year 2015.
00:53And we have a safe house where we are going now for people that lost home because of their passive
00:59sexuality.
01:03This is Bethel.
01:05He's taking us to his shelter in a secret location.
01:09Some of the men living there have survived kidnap, torture and extortion.
01:14They've all been violently rejected by their families.
01:18In Nigeria, where same-sex relations are illegal, their lives are under threat.
01:28This is a safe space, a three-bedroom flat.
01:32This is the sitting room where people can sit.
01:34Twelve men live here right now, all of them in hiding and all of them living with HIV.
01:41Two of the men we're calling Ahmed and Musa agreed to speak to us.
01:47Can you explain what happened that day when you were attacked, if that's okay?
01:51We met online.
01:53We've been chatting for a while.
01:55I believed he was a friend.
01:56But he actually plotted against me just to extort from me and then deal with me.
02:03That was what he said.
02:04So, there was this gang-up in my community that I am the one harboring people that commit Sodor.
02:17They came to my high state and they vandalized, they demolished things.
02:25But most of them were using sticks to beat me.
02:27It was brutal.
02:29They were shouting stone him to death, stone him to death.
02:34Shouting, kill him, kill him.
02:36It's abomination, it's abomination.
02:39They took my phone.
02:40They stripped me of my clothes.
02:42They took videos of me.
02:43I was scared.
02:44I thought I would die.
02:47I had to give them all the money I had in my account.
02:52And still they posted it.
02:55Everything has just been like hell on earth.
02:58I don't even know how I managed to escape being lynched that day.
03:07Bethel explains that Ahmed and Musa are survivors of a growing trend of attacks in Nigeria on gay and trans
03:13people.
03:14They're known by the slang term Keto.
03:18Vigilantes catfish members of the LGBT plus community using dating apps.
03:24They then strip them naked, beat them and even torture them for ransom.
03:29After this incident, this person lost home, lost family, lost job.
03:34This person can't even move freely because the videos are everywhere.
03:40These videos are not only shared with the victim's friends and family to extract ransom, but they are even posted
03:47online destroying their lives.
03:50He looks very scared.
03:55We lost someone yesterday.
03:57This person committed suicide because of shame.
04:01He was outed in a seminar attack?
04:02Yes, he was outed and he's a pastor.
04:05And some years back, three years ago, he got married because of societal pressure.
04:10And they Ketoed him and they recorded him and they shared his nude pictures around.
04:15He couldn't bear it yesterday. He committed suicide.
04:18I'm so sorry.
04:19The stigma is huge.
04:22After Ahmed's assault, he fled to his relatives for help.
04:26But his own family tried to lock him up.
04:31It's not something I can do.
04:34I was beaten by my own family.
04:39I had nowhere to go.
04:41I just had to survive.
04:50Nigeria has some of the strictest laws against homosexuality in Africa, including a 10-year prison sentence for public displays
04:58of affection between same-sex couples.
05:02Twelve of the northern states of the country, like the one we're in, are actually under Islamic law.
05:07And so people can be sentenced to death for engaging in homosexual acts.
05:14Foreign-funded charities like Bethel's were the few safe spaces for the LGBT plus community to get shelter, HIV medication,
05:24testing and preventative therapy.
05:29That is until unprecedented aid cuts from the U.S. and other countries like the U.K. halted funding.
05:35President Donald Trump calling USAID fraud.
05:40It's absolutely obscene.
05:43Current and former USAID officials tell ABC News all of their humanitarian work all around the world has effectively stopped.
05:50Today I've decided that we will fund the initial increase in defence spending by cutting our spending on overseas development.
06:01Bethel has had to close his clinic. The future of the shelter hangs in the balance.
06:07I have been caught off without preparation, without information, without even knowing what to do.
06:13It doesn't just stop there. They came to pick up all our test kits, all our drugs.
06:18It wasn't just the fact that you lost funding and they told you to stop work. They literally removed the
06:23drugs from you.
06:24Yes.
06:25It will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and
06:32female.
06:33With a stroke of my pen on day one, we're going to stop the transgender lunacy.
06:43LGBTQ rights are not just a casualty of the Trump foreign policy. It is the intent of the Trump foreign
06:51policy.
06:53Although some of the aid was restored, the Trump administration took aim at the LGBT plus community.
07:00Everybody must be a man or you be a woman.
07:04Any reference whatsoever to the LGBT plus community?
07:07They don't want it on the program.
07:08They can't even buy it on the program?
07:09Yes, they scrap it.
07:09And that's literally what your program is?
07:12Exactly.
07:13And there's no chance of the money coming back?
07:15No.
07:16Right now, the only option for those living with HIV, like Ahmed and Moussa, is to go to the government
07:22clinics.
07:23There are many who rather deal with the infection, live with it, than to go to the government hospital.
07:30Going to the public hospital is like outing yourself. It just have every negative thing attached to it.
07:36It's like a debt warrant.
07:42In the south of the country, we meet Yemi.
07:45Like Bethel, they run centers and safe spaces for members of the LGBT plus community living with HIV.
07:54They've also lost funding.
07:57Yemi worries aid cuts have caused a massive surge in infections, which will fuel more violence against the community.
08:04Do you think the stigma is going to get worse if infections go up?
08:08It will get worse. And already, over the last couple of months, there have been so much outing and beating
08:15and maiming gay persons in Nigeria.
08:17I mean, the guy that was buried recently was thrown off a two-story building.
08:22During the guy's funeral, you had a bunch of community youths singing homophobic slurs.
08:29The guy is dead already. Let him rest in peace.
08:32This is actually an existential threat. It is. It is. It is. It is.
08:38And now, without, like, HIV medication, that's a double threat.
08:42It's a double threat. It makes it worse.
08:46Yemi takes us to meet Anima Shahan, a queer rights activist living with HIV.
08:52He runs multiple social media channels monitoring and responding to a surge in keto attacks.
09:01Currently, we have 131 members there on this group.
09:06So, this is the latest one that I'm hands in.
09:11Some of the rich are told me that there's a guy that needs my attention, that he has been keto.
09:16They are asking for 500k. So, when we have an emergency, we could drop it on this WhatsApp.
09:22Then all of us start working on it.
09:25In these groups, people report abductions and try to crowdsource ransoms.
09:30We have what we call keto diary, that we keep all these pictures of bad guys.
09:35We normally post it on Facebook.
09:37And why can't you report this to the police?
09:39Yes, we report. But police...
09:42The problem is that the system that we have in Nigeria is too slow.
09:48And our community members are not willing to come out if we want to prosecute them.
09:54Because they don't want the judge to know that they are gay.
09:57Those who come forward risk being convicted themselves for breaking the laws governing same-sex relations.
10:05And now activists like Yemi and Amina Shahan don't even have the funds to help.
10:14Yemi is particularly worried about trans women living with HIV, like Riri, a sex worker and trans activist.
10:22She explains trans women are also the target of deadly violence and keto attacks.
10:28There was a trans woman that, she's also a sex worker on the island.
10:32And we've not seen her for the past one year now.
10:36She was kidnapped.
10:37What happened? What was the last communication?
10:39We don't know because she didn't share a location where she was going to.
10:44Being a black trans person living in Nigeria, we get a lot of assault.
10:49I've been assaulted by Nigerian police.
10:51I've been assaulted by my family.
10:54I've been assaulted by friends.
10:56Riri ended up in sex work to survive after being rejected by her family as a teenager.
11:02My dad threw my things out.
11:04You were homeless?
11:05Yes.
11:06And I was raped by seven guys.
11:08Sorry, you were raped by...
11:10Seven guys, yes.
11:11And that's how you were infected with HIV?
11:12With HIV at a young age.
11:15Like Moussa, her biggest fear is being outed at a public health facility.
11:19Her government ID lists her sex at birth.
11:23It's crazy.
11:24I've stopped going to any healthcare centre for the past one year plus now.
11:29And sometimes I have to just call a friend of mine.
11:33She's also living with the virus.
11:34So please, you have pills like...
11:36So you find going to these clinics now is so upsetting that you're actually borrowing medication?
11:40Yes.
11:42What would you say to someone sitting in the US and the UK who says it's Nigeria's responsibility?
11:49We don't have a good government.
11:52It's only the Western government that take care of us.
11:55And now Donald Trump asks them to stop taking good care of us.
11:58They should not leave us behind.
12:00We are dying.
12:01Like, we are dying.
12:04Well, the world has a new wonder drug for preventing HIV.
12:08It's a milestone moment.
12:09It's potentially the best tool we've had yet in the history of HIV.
12:13This has been a defining moment for the AIDS epidemic.
12:16And now we have a tool that really could end HIV as a public health crisis.
12:22This is Lena Kapavir.
12:24It's a twice yearly jab that provides near complete protection against developing HIV.
12:30It's been called the closest thing to a vaccine.
12:33It's really painful.
12:38The hope is that it will bring about the end of AIDS by reducing new affections to zero.
12:44Particularly among marginalised, criminalised communities.
12:48The really sort of groundbreaking thing about LEN is that it provides six months' worth of protection.
12:54Most oral prep you have to take all the time.
12:57You have to get new prescriptions of it monthly.
13:00For communities where it's either logistically difficult or expensive,
13:04to go to a clinic, to have to make two visits a year, is a game-changer.
13:11Now, HIV is an infectious disease for which there is no vaccine and no cure.
13:15And we also know, for example, in this country that up to 15% of HIV diagnoses come from British
13:21people travelling abroad.
13:23It makes good sense to use the best kind of medicine, the latest technology,
13:28to prevent people from ever getting this disease in the first place.
13:33But it needs to be properly deployed.
13:36Médecins Sans Frontières doctors I met who are on the ground are increasingly frustrated by the lack of access.
13:42So this is our lab where we do all the testings for STI and as well, very a lot for
13:48HIV.
13:50Since this week we are out of stock. The countries are out of stock.
13:54If we do it a piece, maybe we don't fully deploy and make sure it gets to people.
13:59The expected impact would be very, very small.
14:03Gilead Sciences, the manufacturer, insists it's working hard to bring lenacapavir to those most in need.
14:11But Charles Sonko, who spent decades fighting HIV, worries that major medical charities like MSF are being prevented from purchasing
14:21this vital drug.
14:22In Eswatini, we have only managed to access up to 100 doses in the last four weeks.
14:29The manufacturer, Gilead, has actually limited access to countries even where the trials happened.
14:36They have limited access specifically also to MSF.
14:39So we can't actually buy Rena Kapava directly from Gilead.
14:44We are calling upon Gilead to cut that monopoly to open access to NGOs like us who are in contact
14:53with very high risk people that are transmitting HIV.
14:57How frustrating is it for you when we have these game changing tools, when we're so close to the finishing
15:02line?
15:02How is that for you as someone who's lived this so vividly on the ground?
15:07I've never been scared in my life like in my medical school days.
15:15Our medical school time was almost the peak of the epidemic in Uganda and without treatment.
15:22That was terrifying.
15:24There's no family that wasn't affected.
15:26My uncles died of HIV.
15:29So many deaths of adults that you can't even imagine.
15:34That was completely devastating.
15:36We couldn't even test for HIV.
15:38The last 20 years, people have forgotten about people dying.
15:43People now know the treatment is there.
15:45HIV is manageable.
15:47They can live a better life.
15:48And now we are telling them that actually we don't have the treatment anymore.
15:52And they are going to die again in big numbers.
15:56This is the moment that we shouldn't turn back.
16:04For now, the funding is still gone.
16:07I get a desperate message from Bethel asking for help.
16:11Despite all his efforts, they've completely run out of money.
16:15And the rent for the shelter is due.
16:18So what's happening?
16:21The organisation is at the verge of losing the safe space if it didn't pay by the end of this
16:25month.
16:26And where would they go from there?
16:27Where would they go from the shelter home from next week?
16:30These people, their life is already at risk.
16:32You sound very upset.
16:34I mean, you must be exhausted.
16:36I don't sleep in the daytime.
16:37I don't sleep at night.
16:38I lost a period of eating.
16:39I can't send these people away.
16:41I can't send them home.
16:42At this point, we are like family to them.
16:44We'll keep being together.
16:45We'll keep pushing it together.
16:46I will tell them, let's pray and see if there will be a miracle.
16:50I'm so sorry, Bethel.
16:52I feel that.
16:53I feel alone.
16:57This is the ongoing nightmare.
16:59The aid is gone.
17:01Services are closing.
17:03And infections are rising.
17:06What is the worst case scenario if this funding doesn't come back?
17:10If other countries cut more funding?
17:12I think we are going to have disaster and each have a pandemic within the queer community.
17:21Have you had moments where you haven't been able to get access to your drugs?
17:25Yeah, sometimes it's really difficult.
17:28I'm worried about that.
17:29Like millions of Nigerians will be at risk.
17:32Because I'm afraid people around me aren't safe anymore.
17:37It is a matter of life or death.
17:40We are actually seeing ourselves going back to those moments two decades ago when people were actually dying without hope.
17:50This is completely devastating and doesn't make sense.
17:56It's a big problem for the world.
17:58We plead with them.
17:59We are begging them.
18:00They should look at our plight.
18:02We are in need of them right now.
18:24By the way, by the way.
18:36We are on the way.
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