Month: July 2021

At least three soccer players were killed, and six others injured in an explosion Friday in the southern Somali port town of Kismayo, a police officer confirmed.
Mohamed Guled Hassan, deputy commander of Jubaland regional police forces, told VOA Somali that the blast was caused by a bomb planted on a bus carrying a local soccer team.
The bomb was “apparently planted on the bus carrying young players on their way to attend a soccer tournament, which was opening in the town. Three of them were killed and six others were hospitalized for injuries,” said Hassan.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, but the police commander has placed the blame on Somali militant group al-Shabab.
“This heinous attack against young innocent players is another evidence of the terrorists’ enmity against the lives of Somali youth,” read a short statement on Twitter from Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo.
The motive for the attack was unknown. The attack came a day after the Jubaland State assembly met in Kismayo and elected four members of the country’s upper house of parliament. Al-Shabab has threatened to attack anyone involved in the election process.
Elections
The vote Thursday was a crucial a first step toward a new parliament and president in Somalia. The voting was held in a highly secured venue in Kismayo, which was once a stronghold for the al-Shabab terror group.
“We have held the election of four members of our eight seats in the Somalia Upper House today. It was a very successful step taken forward,” said the chairman of the Jubaland State electoral commission, Siyad Mohamed Mursal.
Somalia does not have one person, one vote elections. The country’s powerful clans will choose members of the lower house of parliament, while state assemblies will elect members of the upper house.
No dates have been set for the election of other lawmakers. The elections have been repeatedly postponed due to disagreements on the process between the government and opposition.
Speaking to VOA Somali, the chairman of Somali Federal Electoral Commission, Mohamed Hassan Irro, said Thursday’s election in Kismayo was a milestone.
“It was the beginning of a full success for our long-delayed elections. It was held under secure smooth and a democratic process. We hope that the other states in the country will do the same because process is on the right track despite the setbacks.” said Irro.

Source: Voice of America

Queen Dube is chief of health services in Malawi’s Ministry of Health. She said there will be no repeat of that incident, because a government campaign has now convinced Malawians the vaccines are safe and protective.

She notes that a recent consignment of 192,000 AstraZeneca vaccines, which the country received last Saturday were gone within days.

Even if some of the donated vaccines are due to expire soon, they will be distributed within sufficient time, she said.

“It’s this scenario where you have one week of shelf-life left that puts you in very difficult circumstances,” Dube said. “But, you know, we have created demand. Remember on 27th [July] we vaccinated 75,000 people and so even if we had all those doses that were to expire in two weeks, say for example 100,000 doses, we should be able to quickly use them within two, three days.”

Dr. Alinafe Kasiya is a public health expert with Village Reach, an international health charity that is supporting vaccine delivery in African countries.

He said countries need to think about their storage and distribution systems.

“That means a number of things; Do we have enough capacity to be able to store the vaccines that are coming?” Kasiya said. “I mean some of the vaccines might have different cold chain requirements. But also do we have a logistic system in place to be able to move these vaccines around? Do we have enough people trained? Are we opening up enough sites? Are we looking at doing more to create demand?”

Kasiya, the country director for Village Reach in Malawi, applauds Malawi’s government for creating demand for the vaccine.

Queen Dube says even though the Pfizer vaccine needs ultra-cold storage, no doses will be wasted.

“There are two things with Pfizer,” Dube said. “We now have evidence that if you take it out of an ultra-cold system you can store it at temperatures between two to eight degrees. These are normal temperatures that we store our vaccines in; and you can use it for 31 days.”

So far, Malawi has recorded about 51,000 cases of COVID-19 and nearly 1,600 deaths. Only a tiny fraction of the country’s 18 million people have been inoculated, though that number will quickly rise if more people cooperate with the government’s vaccination campaign.

Source: Voice of America

The United Nations warns global hunger is increasing and urgent action is needed to stave off famine and death over coming months in nearly two dozen unstable, violence-prone countries.
A report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program said more than a half-million people are experiencing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity and 41 million are at risk of famine.
The report from the WFP and FAO focuses on the particularly serious situation in 23 so-called hunger hot spots. Most of those countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, with others in Central America, Asia and the Middle East.
Patrick Jacqueson, FAO officer in charge of the Geneva office, said acute hunger is set to increase in those countries over the next four months without urgent, scaled-up humanitarian assistance.
“Conflict continues to be the primary driver for the largest share of people facing acute food insecurity,” Jacqueson said. “Closely associated with conflict are humanitarian access constraints, which remain significant, compounding food insecurity. Weather extremes and climate variability are likely to affect several parts of the world during the outlook period.”
The report said dry conditions are likely to affect Haiti, Nigeria’s Middle Belt and the “Dry Corridor” in Guatemala, while above-average rainfall and flooding are forecast in South Sudan, central and eastern Sahel, and Gulf of Guinea countries.
400,000 face starvation in Tigray
The report highlighted the perilous situation in Ethiopia and Madagascar, the world’s newest highest-alert hunger hot spots.
Annalisa Conte, WFP Geneva Office director, said the aggravation of conflict in recent months is having a catastrophic impact on the food security of the Tigrayan population in Ethiopia. She warned that more than 400,000 people would face starvation if they did not receive sufficient humanitarian aid.
“If we move to Madagascar, Madagascar is experiencing the worst drought in 40 years,” Conte said. “On top of that, economic decline largely caused by COVID. As a result, 1.3 million people are currently facing the acute food insecurity.”
The FAO and WFP said fighting, blockades that cut off lifesaving aid to families on the verge of famine, and a lack of funding were hampering efforts to provide emergency food aid to millions of desperate people.
The agencies said families who rely on humanitarian aid to survive were hanging by a thread. They noted that most of those on the verge of famine in the 23 hot spots were farmers and must receive help to resume food production. That, they said, will allow them to feed themselves and become self-sufficient.

Source: Voice of America

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to cuts in foreign aid from donor nations such as Britain — which cut its aid budget by $5.5 billion — Australia, Japan and Saudi Arabia. The funding loss is being felt in Burkina Faso, where it could shut down a group that helps thousands of survivors of gender-based violence and rape.
The largest international nonprofits say the shock waves of the cuts will be felt by people across Africa in all kinds of situations and will result in deaths.
“For countries like the [United Kingdom] and others to be cutting their aid budgets in a global pandemic is extremely shortsighted, and we know it will put the fight back against poverty by many decades,” said Sam Nadel, Oxfam government relations chief. “So, the U.N. secretary general, for example, has called these cuts a death sentence, and it really is that stark for many people.”
Marie Stopes, a group offering family planning to countries in crisis like Burkina Faso, is primarily supported by British aid money.
The cuts will impact large numbers of women, according to the head of Marie Stopes-Burkina Faso, Dr. Toumbi Sissoko. The group has been able to assist more than 500,000 people over two years, she said.
“Alice,” whose name has been changed to protect her identity, received help from Marie Stopes after she fled her village in northern Burkina Faso, when gunmen attacked. She trekked through the bush for three days, seeking refuge, but then was seized by a group of terrorists.
She says they told her to put her daughter down, before one of them hit her with the back of his gun, knocking her to the ground. Six of them raped her, then discussed whether they should kill her, but, she says, they concluded it was useless to kill a woman. They got on their motorbikes and left.
When she reached the relative safety of Kaya the next day, she was directed to Marie Stopes-Burkina Faso.
Alice says a woman from Marie Stopes immediately gave her morning-after pills and advice. She was still traumatized and could neither eat nor breastfeed her daughter. She says that the woman at Marie Stopes encouraged her to eat and told her that her life was still worth living.
Flora Guibere, who works for Marie Stopes, fears that with the foreign aid cuts, beneficiaries will be left on their own, and many of her organization’s workers will be out of a job.
For women like Alice who fall victim to gang rape, it will mean they may no longer receive emergency birth control or support.

Source: Voice of America