Around the world, people have held vigils, organized protests and painted murals this week to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter protests taking place across America.
These events are also taking place in countries struggling with their own crises — conflict, poverty, the pandemic. America's loud call for justice after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and many more black Americans has resonated.
In Nigeria, a dozen protesters gathered in front of the U.S. embassy in Abuja with signs that said "Black life matters." In Ghana, the president tweeted a drawing of George Floyd and wrote: "Black people, the world over, are distraught by the killing of an unarmed black man."
And in Syria's war-torn city of Idlib, artist Aziz Asmar says he was moved to create a mural after watching the media coverage around Floyd's death.
"I decided to paint George Floyd on the rubble of a building destroyed by aviation ... to send a message to the world that despite the international negligence and blindness of the killing of civilians in Syria over a period of 10 years, we have a humanitarian duty to sympathize with all the oppressed in the world," he wrote to NPR. "Because we are advocates of peace, we hope that racism and crime will disappear and that the world will enjoy happiness."
Here are more examples of how people around the world are honoring black lives and demanding racial equality.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
