July 8, 2021

UNICEF Warns of Grim Future for South Sudan’s Children

Ahead of South Sudan’s 10th year of independence, the U.N. Children’s Fund warns the country is facing a catastrophic humanitarian situation, with two out of every three children in need of international aid.

South Sudan’s joyous Independence Day celebrations on July 9, 2011, were short-lived. Two years later, civil war erupted. The awful legacy of that war, which is estimated to have killed nearly 400,000 people, lives on today.

The United Nations reports 1.6 million people are internally displaced and 2.2 million people who fled across borders as refugees remain in exile. The U.N. children’s fund reports 8.3 million people, including a record 4.5 million children are in desperate need of humanitarian support.

Speaking from the capital Juba, UNICEF chief of field operations in South Sudan Mads Oyen says the country is suffering from multiple man-made and natural disasters. These include bouts of violence and intercommunal conflicts, revenge killings, recurring floods and droughts, and a worsening economy.

“South Sudan is really one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world and one of the most forgotten. We have the highest percentage of children in need in the world as part of the global population,” Oyen said.

UNICEF reports South Sudan is breaking several unfortunate records. It notes one in 10 children are not expected to reach their fifth birthday, in what represents one of the highest child mortality rates in the world. In addition, according to UNICEF, about 1.4 million of South Sudan’s children are expected to suffer from life-threatening acute malnutrition this year, the highest figure since 2013.

Oyen said UNICEF and its partners have shown they can save many children’s lives if given the resources to provide early therapeutic treatment to them.

“Ninety thousand children suffering from severe acute malnutrition throughout the country were treated and we have a recovery rate of more than 95%. So, a child who is severely acutely malnourished is a disaster, but the treatment is very effective,” Oyen said.

Although successful treatment for this condition is available, Oyen said it would be better to prevent children from becoming malnourished in the first place. He said UNICEF would like to scale up its nutritional programs for children and improve access to clean water. He said other priorities include improving sanitation and hygiene and access to basic health.

But funds are limited. He said UNICEF has received only one third of the $180 million it needs to assist South Sudan’s most vulnerable children this year.

Source: Voice of America

July 8, 2021

Egypt, Sudan Seek UN Help to Resolve Mega Dam Dispute with Ethiopia

The foreign ministers of Egypt and Sudan appealed to the U.N. Security Council on Thursday to intervene in their dispute with Ethiopia over the operation of a mega dam on the Nile River.

“We come here in search for a viable path towards a peaceful, amicable and negotiated solution, and to avert the dire consequences of our inability to reach a settlement to this matter,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said.

“Our expectation is that this council will take the necessary measures to ensure the parties engage in an effective process of negotiation that could yield an agreement that serves our collective interests,” he added.

Tensions have escalated since Addis Ababa said Monday it had begun its second phase of filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam — or GERD, as it is known. Downstream neighbors Egypt and Sudan object, insisting that a legally binding agreement that governs how the dam is filled and operated must first be in place.

“Silence from the council would send out the wrong message and would signify a tacit approval of the fact that this unilateral filling was acceptable,” Sudan’s foreign minister, Mariam al-Mahdi said.

The Nile flows northward, with one tributary (the White Nile) beginning in South Sudan and the other (the Blue Nile) in Ethiopia. They merge in Sudan and continue flowing north to the Mediterranean Sea. Along the way, the river crosses through 11 countries, and populations have depended on its water for millennia.

Ethiopia started building the GERD in 2011 on the Blue Nile as a major hydropower project. Construction is nearly complete, and Addis Ababa says the dam will help bring electricity to 65 million Ethiopians who do not have it.

“We are dealing here with a hydroelectric dam. We are not building a nuclear plant,” said Seleshi Bekele Awulachew, Ethiopia’s minister for water, irrigation and energy. “It’s not the first of its kind in Africa or in the world.”

He urged the council not to become involved in the issue, which the African Union is mediating.

“If the council consents to the path preferred by Egypt and Sudan, it will certainly be entangled in resolving disputes on all transboundary rivers,” Ethiopia’s minister said.

After 10 years of negotiations, the three countries still have not resolved the situation. Council members urged them to find the political will and momentum to quickly resume substantive negotiations to resolve outstanding differences.

“A balanced and equitable solution to the filling and operation of the GERD can be reached with political commitment from all parties,” U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield said. “Egypt and Sudan’s concerns over water security and the safety and operation of the dam can be reconciled with Ethiopia’s development needs.”

She said the African Union is the most appropriate body to address the dispute and that Washington would provide political and technical support. The U.N., the European Union and South Africa have also been involved as observers to these talks, which recently stalled.

Russia went a step further, proposing that the parties undertake a round of negotiations with the African Union chair while the three ministers are all in New York.

“We believe that this would be the best contribution the council could make to finding a solution to the situation,” Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said.

Egypt and Sudan asked the council to adopt a resolution put forward by council member Tunisia. It demands that Ethiopia stop filling the dam and calls for the three countries to resume negotiations and reach a legally binding agreement within six months.

Sudan’s foreign minister acknowledged after the meeting that the council appeared to have little appetite to adopt the resolution.

But Cairo and Khartoum insist the issue is an important national security issue.

“This is a situation that Egypt cannot and will not tolerate,” Shoukry told the council.

Source: Voice of America

July 8, 2021

UNICEF to Ship 220 Million Doses of J&J COVID-19 Vaccine to African Union

UNICEF said Thursday it has signed a deal to provide up to 220 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to African Union member states by the end of 2022.

The child humanitarian group announced in a statement the agreement was reached with Belgium-based and J&J-owned Janssen Pharmaceutica NV.

An additional 35 million doses of the single-dose vaccine could be delivered to the African Union’s 55-member states by the end of this year and another 180 million doses could be ordered by year’s end, UNICEF said.

“African countries must have affordable and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines as soon as possible. Vaccine access has been unequal and unfair, with less than 1 per cent of the population of the African continent currently vaccinated against COVID-19. This cannot continue,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “UNICEF, with its long history of delivering vaccines all around the world, is supporting global COVID-19 vaccination efforts through AVAT, COVAX, and other channels to maximize supply and access to vaccines.”

The J&J vaccine received emergency approval from the World Health Organization in March.

Source: Voice of America

July 8, 2021

Oxfam: 11 People Die of Hunger Each Minute Around the Globe

Anti-poverty organization Oxfam said Thursday that 11 people die of hunger each minute and that the number facing faminelike conditions around the globe has increased six times over the last year.

In a report titled The Hunger Virus Multiplies, Oxfam said that the death toll from famine outpaces that of COVID-19, which kills around seven people per minute.

“The statistics are staggering, but we must remember that these figures are made up of individual people facing unimaginable suffering. Even one person is too many,” said Oxfam America’s president and CEO, Abby Maxman.

The humanitarian group also said that 155 million people around the world are now living in crisis levels of food insecurity or worse — some 20 million more than last year. Around two-thirds of them face hunger because their country is in military conflict.

“Today, unrelenting conflict on top of the COVID-19 economic fallout, and a worsening climate crisis, has pushed more than 520,000 people to the brink of starvation,” Maxman said. “Instead of battling the pandemic, warring parties fought each other, too often landing the last blow to millions already battered by weather disasters and economic shocks.”

Despite the pandemic, Oxfam said that global military spending increased by $51 billion during the pandemic — an amount that exceeds by at least six times what the U.N. needs to stop hunger.

The report listed a number of countries as “the worst hunger hotspots,” including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen — all embroiled in conflict.

“Starvation continues to be used as a weapon of war, depriving civilians of food and water and impeding humanitarian relief. People can’t live safely or find food when their markets are being bombed and crops and livestock are destroyed,” Maxman said.

The organization urged governments to stop conflicts from continuing to spawn “catastrophic hunger” and to ensure that relief agencies could operate in conflict zones and reach those in need. It also called on donor countries to “immediately and fully” fund the U.N.’s efforts to alleviate hunger.

“We work together with more than 694 partners across 68 countries. Oxfam aims to reach millions of people over the coming months and is urgently seeking funding to support its programs across the world,” the report’s press release said.

Meanwhile, global warming and the economic repercussions of the pandemic have caused a 40% increase in global food prices, the highest in over a decade. This surge has contributed significantly to pushing tens of millions more people into hunger, said the report.

Source: Voice of America

July 8, 2021

Court Orders Ugandan Government to Regulate COVID-19 Treatment Costs

Edward Bindhe was diagnosed in early June with COVID-19. Upon consultation with a doctor, he bought drugs off the shelf and stocked up on local herbs.

Then, with a collapsed lung, failed breathing and total body weakness, Bindhe, who had just lost two relatives to COVID-19, was admitted to a private hospital.

Bindhe, who is continuing to receive treatment as an outpatient, said that while in the ward, a cashier constantly visited his bed reminding him of his accumulating medical bill.

“After two days of admission, the hospital told me they needed me to advance some money, 2.5 [million shillings or $750], and I did not have it anyway,” he said. “That’s when I was then transferred to the COVID ward. Thereafter, on 29th, like, I started getting better. And the doctor said, ‘No, now we can discharge you.’ So, at discharging me, that’s when they gave me a medical bill of 8.8 [million shillings, or $2,482].”

Overcharging patients, early dismissals

Through June, local media was awash with reports of hospitals overcharging patients, pushing some families to abandon deceased loved ones in hospitals, while some patients were released from hospitals for failure to pay their bills.

It is for those reasons that Moses Mulumba, the head of the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development, a health advocacy organization, petitioned the High Court in Kampala on June 28, seeking intervention.

The court ruled Thursday that Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng and the attorney general must intervene by making regulations for reasonable fees payable to hospitals for management and treatment of COVID-19 patients.

The court also ordered the Uganda medical and dental practitioners council to make recommendations to the minister of health regarding reasonable fees chargeable by hospitals for treatment and management of persons suffering from COVID-19.

Mulumba said he was happy they got a consent judgment.

“The government has been watching the pandemic for over a year. And it has done all the steps,” he said. “But many of these steps are toward making sure the individual is contained, the individual is held accountable. And it was a very simple ask: that when it comes to a pandemic like COVID-19, the minister should invoke her powers under the public health legislation to actually regulate the actors. Because we believe that the actors are part of the national response. And if they are part of the national response, they need to look at themselves not just as businesspeople.”

The few Ugandans who were ladmitted to public health centers offering free treatment still faced other challenges.

Irene Nakasita spent three weeks in a referral hospital in Jinja after she failed to get admitted at the Mulago National Hospital, where she was told there were no beds left.

Now, back in a private hospital to deal with the side effects of COVID-19 drugs administered to her at the public hospital, Nakasita said that while the government can intervene in the affairs of private hospitals, they need to improve services in the public facilities to save Ugandans from heavy bills.

‘Pay the doctors’

“I know how I suffered,” she said. “So, let government fix issues in the government facilities so that people are comfortable to go there and get medicine. And then also pay the doctors. Because partly why I suffered in Jinja, some of those doctors were complaining they were not paid and now their lives are being risked to attend to COVID patients. They never attended to us — they left us in the hands of nurses.”

Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka said the court order would be followed.

“We are going to advise the Ministry of Health to comply with the order of court,” Kiwanuka said. “And the Ministry of Health and the medical council need to meet and engage with the medical practitioners and get back to court with the compliance.”

At a government news conference last week, the head of the Uganda health care federation said 45 percent of patient bills are driven by personal protective equipment, oxygen and medication.

Source: Voice of America

July 8, 2021

Asmara Teachers Training College graduates 248 students

Asmara Teachers Training College has graduated today, 8 July 248 students including 66 females in postgraduate diploma, first degree, and diploma.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony, Dr. Yonas Mesfun, Dean of the College, said that 15 students graduated in Educational Administration, 32 in Educational Psychology, 42 in Social Science Education, 25 in Language Education, 17 in Mathematics Education, 17 in Biology Education, 26 in Chemistry Education, 8 in Physics Education, 65 in Science Education and one in Physical Education.

Indicating that the college since 2018 has been focused on providing postgraduate programs, Dr. Yonas said that as a result, it has been contributing to promoting the capacity and quality of teachers.

Dr. Yonas also called on the graduates to play due part in the development of the teaching-learning process with the knowledge and skill they have gained during their stay in the college.

Pointing out that the teaching profession is the foundation of all skills and knowledge, the graduates expressed conviction to live up to expectations.

Asmara Teachers Training College has been part of Mai-Nefhi Institute of Technology and has moved to its present location in 2018 and so far has graduated about 800 students.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea