Category: Information

The school year in Cameroon starts Monday with hundreds of schools in the troubled western regions reopening their doors for the first time in three to five years. Anglophone separatists previously used threats to keep the schools closed, but some rebels, for the first time, are saying they should be spared from the conflict.

Cameroon’s government said Monday that several hundred schools reopened in its restive English speaking North West and South West regions.

Most schools in the regions have been shut down for three to five years, since the start of a separatist conflict to carve out an English-speaking state from Cameroon and its French-speaking majority.

Ngida Lawrence Che is the most senior government official in Nkambe, a western district. He says at least half a dozen schools that were sealed by separatists in the 17 villages that make up Nkambe have reopened.

“The turnout in these schools is so encouraging. Every single village of the sub division can boast of functioning schools,” said Che. “This time around, our populations are more than ever before determined that these schools must go operational. Proof is that the populations of these areas under the leadership of their traditional and religious authorities came out to clear the school campuses.”

The government reports that separatists attacked or set fire to more than 200 schools between 2017 and 2019, and nearly all schools in the Northwest and Southwest regions were shut down. Teachers and school children escaped to safer localities.

Capo Daniel is defense chief of staff for the Ambazonia Defense Forces, or the ADF, said to be the largest separatist group in Cameroon. He says ADF has also, for the first time in 5 years, given instructions for schools to reopen.

“The future independent state of Ambazonia will not be governed by uneducated people,” Capo said. “That is why it is very important for us to institute this alternative educational system even in the middle of our struggle for separation from Cameroon.”

Capo however warned government troops not to set foot on any school campus in the restive regions. He said fighters have been instructed to make sure the national anthem of Cameroon is not sung in English-speaking schools.

Capo said any school that fails to respect ADF orders will be closed, and their teachers and students will be punished.

Asheri Kilo is the secretary of state to Cameroon’s minister of education. She says children in areas where fighters still prohibit education should be admitted in schools in safer areas. She says the government will continue to deploy troops to make sure that all Cameroonian children in conflict zones have access to education.

“You know that we are suffering the problem of insecurity, but while certain places get worse, other places are getting better and the minister has devised a way of using those teachers who were posted in places that are not exactly safe to go to places that are safe and make up the manpower so as to teach these children,” Kilo said.

There was no immediate word Monday on how many students in the North West and South West regions had returned to school. For some, it will be the first time in class sine 2016.

Source: Voice of America

The future looked promising for Tinashe Mapuranga, an intern at a leading bank in Zimbabwe who appeared set to get a staff position as soon as he completed his college degree. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Amid the lockdowns, the 24-year-old was one of the first to be laid off and has no idea when he’ll be able to get his degree because of frequent school closures.

“It has really affected me a lot in my studies. I have no money to buy data and I don’t have a personal laptop to study online and keep up like what others are doing,” said Mapuranga, who lives with his mother in Chitungwiza, a sprawling working-class area southeast of Harare, the capital.

“I was supposed to finish in November or December 2021, but as of now, we haven’t completed much of the work,” he said. “Truly speaking, I am not sure when I will finish the degree. I can’t wait to graduate and find a job and do something tangible in life.”

Mapuranga spends most of his time at home, tending a tiny vegetable garden that is the family’s main source of food. His mother ekes out a living traveling to South Africa to sell things like stone carvings and brooms on the streets, a trade also badly hit by the pandemic.

“We’ve been trying to hustle to get some money,” he said. “I tried to do a small business selling cooking gas but the authorities chased us away from the streets. My father passed away. My mother is into informal business, but it’s also down with these lockdowns. Things are not well right now. It’s tough.”

Mapuranga’s situation might look dire, but he says he’s concerned about some of his unemployed peers who have fallen into alcohol, drugs and prostitution.

“Many youths have lost hope,” he said.

Across Africa, many others like Mapuranga are battling the economic downturn caused by COVID-19, losing jobs and seeing their education disrupted, a survey of people aged 18-24 in 15 countries has found.

The pandemic increased the already-high level of unemployment among the group, according to preliminary findings of the second annual Africa Youth Survey.

Nearly 20% of the 4,500 respondents said they became unemployed because of the pandemic and 37% were forced to stop or pause their education. Another 8% saw their pay docked, 18% had to move back home and 10% said they had to care for family members, according to the survey, which was commissioned by the Johannesburg-based Ichikowitz Family Foundation, whose founder, Ivor Ichikowitz, runs Paramount Group, an aerospace, security and military contractor.

Of the 1.3 billion people in Africa’s 54 countries, an estimated 250 million are aged 18-24. The study was conducted in major urban and trading centers in Angola, Congo, the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda and Zambia. The researchers for PSB Insights, a global polling company, were nationals of each country where the survey took place and went door-to-door for in-depth, face-to-face interviews.

People surveyed said the pandemic caused substantial disruptions to their schooling, emphasizing the need for more computers and internet access in Africa for online education.

Bola Badejo, 29, saw her salary at the broadcast station where she worked in Abuja, Nigeria, cut in half, and she complained that she could not make it on the equivalent of $146 a month.

“I was already poor and I was working just for the sake of doing the job,” she said. Then, in April 202, she was laid off.

“I fell into depression because the whole thing was really sad. I felt I had nowhere to go,” Badejo said.

After seven months without a job, she started a home cleaning business, and that has boosted her outlook, she said.

Badejo is typical of many who have found different ways to support themselves.

In 2020, about 40% of those surveyed expressed optimism about the future. The pandemic dented that confidence, lowering it to 31%, according to the survey.

Uganda has had two lockdowns since April 2020, the second of which was relaxed in July. But businesses involving close human interaction — bars, gyms and nightclubs — remain closed by presidential order, leaving many young people without work.

Ronald Maathe, a 25-year-old janitor at a gym outside Uganda’s capital of Kampala, shook his head sorrowfully when saying that his monthly salary is now the equivalent of $43. That’s half of what he used to earn before the pandemic.

“After I pay the rent, I am left with almost nothing,” he said. “The half salary doesn’t do anything.”

His face lights up when describing how he makes ends meet by selling passion fruit — or grenadillas — that he buys from farmers near the border with Congo. He makes a small profit on every sack of fruit he sells in Kampala.

“My business is still small. But I have a dream,” he said. “If I can get someone to hold my hand, and give me a loan to expand my business, that’s what I want. I am not waiting for the government to help me.”

Source: Voice of America

A new report released Wednesday by the United Nations indicates extreme weather events have increased fivefold over the past 50 years, while the number of fatalities related to those events has dropped.

Officials from the U.N.’s weather and climate agency, the World Meteorological Organization, introduced the report during a briefing from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. The report shows weather-related disasters have occurred on average at a rate of one per day over the past five decades, killing 115 people and causing $202 million in losses daily.

Mami Mizutori, U.N. special representative for disaster risk reduction, told reporters she found the report “quite alarming.” She noted that this past July was the hottest July on record, marked by heat waves and floods around the world. The study shows that more people are suffering due to this increased frequency and intensity of weather events.

Mizutori said 31 million people were displaced by natural disasters last year, almost surpassing the number displaced by conflicts. She said on average, 26 million people per year are pushed into poverty by extreme weather events. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic is compounding the problem.

The U.N. disaster risk specialist said, “We live in this, what we call, the multihazard world, and it demonstrates that we really need to invest more in disaster risk reduction and prevention.”

WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said the good news in the report is that during that same period, fatalities related to these disasters dropped by nearly three times, due to early warning systems and improved disaster management.

But the study also shows that more than 91% of the deaths that do occur happen in developing or low-income countries, as many do not have the same warning and management systems in place.

The WMO officials said the economic losses associated with these disasters will worsen without serious climate change mitigation. Taalas said if the right measures are put in place, the trend could be stopped in the next 40 years. WMO called on the G-20 group of world economic powers to keep their promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Source: Voice of America

Authorities in northern Nigeria announced three separate groups of kidnapped students were freed within 24 hours, prompting speculation late Friday that large ransoms had been paid to the gunmen blamed for a spate of recent abductions.

Among those now free are some of the youngest children ever taken hostage in Nigeria, a group of 90 pupils who had spent three months in captivity. Hours after those youngsters were brought to the Niger state capital, police in Zamfara state said that 15 older students also had been freed there.

Then late Friday, word came of a third hostage liberation in Kaduna state. Thirty-two more of the students taken from a Baptist high school in early July also had been freed, according to the Rev. Joseph Hayab, chairman of the Kaduna state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria.

The wave of releases comes after more than 1,000 students have been kidnapped since December, according to an AP tally. While earlier school abductions had been blamed on Islamic extremists in the northeast, authorities have only said that bandits are behind the latest kidnappings for ransom.

“The happiness can’t be quantified,” said Yahya Aliyu Babangida, 54, a teacher whose two children aged 7 and 17 were among those who had been kidnapped from the Salihu Tanko Islamic School in Tegina in late May.

Some of the kidnapped preschoolers who spent months in captivity were just 4 years old, and authorities said Friday that one child had died during the ordeal. Several others were undergoing medical treatment after their release late Thursday.

“They are exposed to this harsh weather, no food, mosquitos everywhere,” he said. “Some of them had never been outside the comfort of their homes.”

News of the children’s release was celebrated across Nigeria, where abductions have stepped up pressure on the government to do more to secure educational facilities in remote areas.

But questions remained Friday about how much ransom had been paid to secure the children’s release, and if so whether that could in turn fuel further abductions by the unknown armed groups referred to locally as bandits.

Muhammad Musa Kawule, 42, acknowledged paying intermediaries in hopes of securing his 6-year-old daughter’s freedom.

“I spent a lot of money but today, I’m happy,” he told The Associated Press on Friday. He did not specify how much he had paid nor whether government officials had been involved.

The youngsters were later brought to the Niger state capital, Minna, where they underwent medical checkups and met the governor. Video showed scores of children as young as kindergartners coming out of white minibuses, the little girls wearing long blue hijabs known as chadors.

While Nigeria has seen scores of school abductions for ransom, the Niger state kidnappings left people aghast because the children were so young. The ramifications also could be long lasting as parents reconsider whether to send their children to school.

“This has affected the morale and confidence of the people and has even made parents think twice before they send their children to school,” Niger state Gov. Abubakar Sani Bello said of the children’s abduction. “We will do whatever it takes to bring (the kidnappers) to justice.”

As the attacks have mounted across the north, there are also signs they are becoming more violent.

After one kidnapping at a university in Kaduna state earlier this year, gunmen demanded ransoms equivalent to hundreds of thousands of dollars. They killed five students to compel other students’ parents to raise the money and later released 14.

Also Friday, Zamfara state police spokesperson Mohammed Shehu said that 15 other students had been handed over to officials on Friday, 11 days after they were abducted from the College of Agriculture and Animal Science in Nigeria’s troubled northwest.

It was not immediately clear how they were rescued, but the students are now being looked after by Zamfara state officials and will soon be reunited with their parents, authorities said.

Source: Voice of America

Gunmen have released some of the children kidnapped from a school in northern Nigeria back in May, some of whom were as young as 5 years old, the school’s head teacher said late Thursday.

Abubakar Garba Alhassan told The Associated Press that the freed students were on their way to the state capital, Minna, but added he could not confirm the exact number freed.

Authorities have said that 136 children were abducted along with several teachers when gunmen on motorcycles attacked the Salihu Tanko Islamic School in Niger state. Other preschoolers were left behind as they could not keep pace when the gunmen hurriedly moved those abducted into the forest.

Alhassan did not provide details of their release, but parents of the students have over the past weeks struggled to raise ransoms demanded by their abductors. There was no immediate comment from police or the Niger governor’s office.

The release, though, came a day after local media quoted one parent as saying six of the children had died in captivity.

More than 1,000 students have been forcibly taken from their schools during those attacks, according to an AP tally of figures previously confirmed by the police. Although most of those kidnapped have been released, at least 200 are still held by their abductors.

The government has been unable to halt the spate of abductions for ransom. As a result, many schools have been forced to close because of concerns about the kidnapping risk.

After one abduction at a university in Kaduna state earlier this year, gunmen demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom. They killed five other students to compel the students’ parents to raise the money, and later released 14 others.

Source: Voice of America