Category: Health

The UN on Tuesday condemned the murder of two aid workers in South Sudan and called on authorities to bring their killers to justice following a spate of similar attacks.

The victims were ambushed Monday evening as their convoy returned from delivering food relief in a village some 64 kilometres (40 miles) from Rumbek, in the conflict-prone Lakes State.

They were working for the Italian charity Doctors with Africa CUAMM.

“I call on the government to strengthen law enforcement, investigate these crimes, and to bring the perpetrators swiftly to justice,” said Matthew Hollingworth, acting head of the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA.

“Four aid workers have been killed in the last month alone. I fear that continued attacks on humanitarians and the consequent suspension of activities will have a serious impact on humanitarian operations in South Sudan.”

Jacob Akuochpiir Achuoth, health minister for Lakes State, expressed “great sorrow” at the aid workers’ deaths and vowed to work closely with investigators to find those responsible.

South Sudan is considered one of the most dangerous countries for aid workers.

The UN, which maintains a peacekeeping mission in the troubled country, says 128 humanitarian workers — most of them South Sudanese — have been killed on the job since 2013.

Last month a South Sudanese doctor was murdered in the northern, oil-rich Unity state, barely a month after a nurse was killed in Eastern Equatoria, a south-eastern state.

In January, another aid worker was shot dead near Bentiu, also in Unity state.

The nationality of the latest victims has not been released.

South Sudan achieved independence from Sudan in 2011 but descended into civil war two years later, costing 380,000 lives before a ceasefire was reached in 2018.

The oil-rich country relies on foreign aid and despite ending the war is plagued by armed violence, with clashes between rival ethnic groups claiming more than 1,000 lives in the second half of 2020 alone.

Source: Voice of America

Fifteen-year-old Beriha lost one eye in the war and was permanently blinded in the other.

And like many of the children hospitalized in Mekelle, the capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, she traveled for weeks to get here. Children in the ward had been shot, knifed or hit by shrapnel from heavy artillery. Some lost limbs from stepping on landmines.

“She and her cousin went out to play in the yard,” said her father, Gebray Zenebe. “Suddenly, they saw people running. They also ran, and they were both shot.”

Gebray and Beriha traveled from town to town searching for a functioning health care center. When they arrived at Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekelle, it took three days for Beriha to regain consciousness. She was shot in the right cheek, and the bullet exited through her left eye.

The only medical treatment she received before reaching the hospital was water to clean the wound.

The Tigray region has been at war since November 2020. Doctors Without Borders says less than 15% of health care centers are operating normally. Most have been looted, and many have been damaged.

“While some looting may have been opportunistic, health facilities in most areas appear to have been deliberately vandalized to render them nonfunctional,” the organization said in a statement in March. ?

Open but empty

After the fighting stopped in Edaga Hamus, Nurse Tefetawit Tesfay emerged from where she was hiding just out of town. She went to her clinic on the main road from Mekelle to find a burned-out tank, bullet-riddled signs and dead soldiers on the streets. Like so many others, her clinic was empty.

“I came and the door was opened,” she said. “The glass (was) broken, and the equipment (was) stolen.”

Patients, including children and victims of rape, still come to her with war injuries, but there is very little she can do.

“Emergency medicine (was there),” she said, sifting through what was left in her cabinets. “It was stolen, and some in here. Infusions and dressing, suturing, all the equipment (was) stolen.”

Tefetawit said she refers patients to the few hospitals in the main cities, where medical workers say they are short of supplies in every department.

Mussie Tesfay Atsbaha, administrative chief and business development director of Ayder Referral Hospital, said that because of ongoing battles and road closures, only a small percentage of injured people make it to the city for treatment.

“If one person comes, they will tell us 20 or 30 couldn’t make it,” he said Monday in his office.

Likewise, parents say for every child survivor in the hospital, many more children did not make it.

Mourning

Michaele Kahsay, 16, was at the school where his father worked as a groundskeeper when it was hit by heavy artillery. Michaele lost the lower part of his left leg. His brother, 19, was killed in the attack.

“I didn’t feel pain at the time,” he said. “When I woke up in the hospital, I saw my leg was cut.”

Michaele looked listlessly at a photograph of his brother. Before the coronavirus, before the war, there was school. Michaele was good at mathematics and wanted to be a doctor, he said. Now, he also wants revenge.

Michaele, like many people in Tigray, said the region is under attack by federal forces, Eritrean soldiers and militias. The government said it is fighting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, not the people of Tigray, as the group continues to stage attacks after losing control of most of the region.

The Ethiopian government also said “it takes very seriously” its responsibility to alleviate the suffering of people in Tigray.

But at the hospital, parents said the people are reeling — short of food and electricity and in constant fear of new battles. Farm fields have been abandoned, and roughly 2 million people have fled their homes.

“How can I farm in these conditions?” said Gebray, Beriha’s father. “Look, she is here. And my wife and other three children are missing. I don’t know if they are alive or dead.”

Source: Voice of America

Veteran fighter Ambassador Gebriel Fassil passed away on 4 June at the age of 82 due to illness.

Veteran fighter Ambassador Gebriel who joined the EPLF in 1975 served with dedication and commitment in various departments of the EPLF during the armed struggle for Independence.

After Independence Ambassador Gebriel served his country and people from 1991 to 2002 as head of various departments of the Ministry of Finance, from 2002 to 2005 as Eritrea’s Ambassador to India and Thailand, and later as manager of the National Bank.

Veteran fighter Ambassador Gebriel Fassil is survived by his wife and four children.

The funeral service of Ambassador Gebriel was conducted on 5 June in Khartoum, Sudan.

Expressing deep sorrow of the passing away of Ambassador Gebriel Fassil, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses condolences to families and friends.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

Eritrean nationals in Sweden known as “Eri-Childhood” contributed 100 wheelchairs to disabled nationals. According to Mr. Gebrehiwet Tekle, head of Physiotherapy Center at the Orotta Referral Hospital, wheelchairs will have a significant contribution in alleviating the problem of the disabled citizens and their caretakers and expressed appreciation for the initiative the members of the “Eri-Childhood” took. Indicating that the support has been in continuation to the “Eri-Childhood” members have been contributing, Mr. Gebrehiwet said that the wheelchairs have been distributed to all regions.

Mr. Meseret Feshaye, representative of the group, on his part, said that the “Eri-Childhood” group has so far contributed 250 wheelchairs to disabled nationals. The wheelchairs have been distributed to all-region including 50 to the Central region, 20 to the Southern region, 15 to Gash Barka, as well as 5 each to the Anseba, Northern, and Southern Red Sea regions.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

Attackers killed 88 people in Nigeria’s Kebbi state on Thursday, spurring its governor to pledge a bigger deployment of security forces on Sunday as insecurity spreads largely unchecked through the country’s northwest.

Perpetrators swept through eight villages, killing people and sending residents fleeing, police said, giving a death toll of 88. Details began to emerge on Saturday.

A spokesperson for Kebbi Governor Abubakar Bagudu said on Sunday the attackers had come from neighboring Niger and Zamfara states, rustling cattle and destroying crops.

Gunmen have ramped up attacks on the region’s communities in recent years, forcing thousands to flee across Nigeria’s northern border to Niger. The attackers have become globally notorious because of mass kidnappings at schools, with more than 800 students abducted since December.

The rampant violence has spawned a humanitarian crisis, international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Thursday.

On Sunday, the governor promised financial aid, and “requested communities in the area to be tolerant, accommodating, friendly and peaceful,” his spokesperson said in a statement.

Source: Voice of America