Eritrea Wire

The National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students reported that is exerting effort to produce competent youth that makes an impact in the nation-building process.

Indicating that the National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students that was established in 1978 in Keren under the auspices of the EPLF, Mr. Saleh Ahmedin, Chairman of the union, said that the union is working to play due part in the overall development of the youth by designing a strategic plan.

Pointing out that more than 200 thousand youth organized in various clubs across the country are contributing due part in the implementation of national development drives, Mr. Saleh called for strengthening organizational capacity for a better outcome.

Regarding the vocational and academic capacity of the youth, Mr. Saleh said that currently there 27 youth training centers across the country, and a training program has been organized to over 100 thousand youth in 18 fields.

Mr. Saleh went on to say that the union in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and other stakeholders are providing various awards to outstanding students that scored higher marks in the National School Leaving Examination and are making a modest contribution in supporting disadvantaged citizens as well as in national development programs including in the summer work program and others.

The National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students has branches in the six regions of the country and one in higher education institutions and Sawa.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

Kenya’s Wildlife Service says that for the first time in 21 years, not a single rhinoceros was poached in the country’s national parks in 2020. To maintain the progress, it is conducting the first ever wildlife census and placing mobile container housing in parks for rangers.

Kenya’s Wildlife Service credits intensified surveillance for the drop in rhinoceros poaching cases to zero last year.

The agency says it’s also taking fresh measures to maintain the progress, such as conducting a wildlife census for the first time. Edwin Wanyonyi, the agency’s director of strategies, says new approaches are being implemented.

”There is a new strategy. We are focusing on housing for rangers; we are focusing on buying them equipment, be it firearm[s], whatever they require, be it uniform, be it cold weather clothing, [so] that they can be able to respond at all times,” Wanyonyi said.

In Nairobi National Park, rangers with the rhinoceros monitoring unit are receiving upgrades from old tents. Ranger Augustine Mutua says new container housing units will help them get to work protecting rhinos much faster.

“You have to wake up very early in the morning — you cook your breakfast, then you just walk out, going direct to the patrol. Not as earlier … you come out of the tent, you go outside for water somewhere. You can see we [have] tanks,” Mutua said.

More than two million tourists visited Kenya in 2019. Most, like Rahul Bede, go to see its rare wildlife, like the critically endangered rhinos.

“I think it’s great that there has been no poaching. This park is very well protected, which, I would say, other parks are not very well protected.”

Poachers kill rhinos for their horns, which sell for up to $60,000 per kilogram in Asian markets as aphrodisiacs and status symbols.

Poaching reduced Kenya’s black rhino population by 97% from the 1960s to the 1990s, from more than 20,000 to just a few hundred.

But conservation efforts have helped Kenya’s wild rhino population recover to some 1,200, including the world’s only two remaining northern white rhinos.

Source: Voice of America

Clergy in Cameroon have appealed to both sides in the country’s separatist conflict to stop abducting and harassing priests. Within the past two weeks, six Roman Catholic priests and missionaries were abducted, and a church attacked, leaving at least two dead and 11 wounded.

The Roman Catholic Church in Cameroon says its priests and missionaries are suffering assaults, abductions and torture in the country’s separatist conflict.

A church press release Tuesday says Cameroon’s military took Reverend Father Sylvester Ngarbah Nsah from Vekovi, a northwestern village, on June 4 and have yet to release him.

The church says the military accused Nsah of cooperating with separatists, which the church denies.

Reverend Father Humphrey Tatah Mbui is director of communications at the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon’s Catholic Bishops.

He says rebels also abducted Nsah three months ago and accused him of collaborating with the military before releasing him.

“The church preaches peace. The church teaches that you cannot have peace without justice and without the truth,” Mbui said. “The church must keep on insisting on that justice and truth in and out of season. And when the church will speak the truth, often it does not sit well with one or the other side. Many parishes have been closed or they are not operating as they should.”

Mbui says at least six priests and missionaries were tortured by the military or rebels within the past two weeks and had to be treated at hospitals.

Reverend Father Christopher Eboka is the Cathedral administrator of Mamfe, a town in the anglophone southwest.

He says rebels abducted him on May 22 and freed him only after 10 days in captivity.

“The church has been caught up in between the separatist fighters on the one hand, and the Cameroon military on the other hand,” Eboka said. “The threats on the lives of priests, the attack on priests should be stopped. On Sunday, the 6th of June, priests gathered at the pastoral center, celebrating the anniversary of one of them, were attacked by unknown gunmen, who came in search of a priest.”

The church said one person died in the attack, a second died in the hospital, and 11 others were treated for injuries.

The Episcopal Conference of Cameroon’s Bishops this month called on separatists to stop targeting and harassing local clergy.

Rebels on social media claimed government troops organized the attacks on churches to give the rebels a bad image, an often-repeated claim, which the military denies.

Cameroon’s military on state radio confirmed the rebel attacks on the church and past abductions but did not mention taking any priests into military custody.

Cameroon’s government says civilians suspected of collaborating with rebels are placed under investigation, but a spokesperson would not say how many priests or missionaries have been arrested.

A March Human Rights Watch report says both military and rebel abuses are increasing in Cameroon’s western regions.

The U.N. says Cameroon’s separatist conflict has left more than 3,000 people dead since 2016 and 750,000 internally displaced or to neighboring Nigeria.

Source: Voice of America

The U.N. refugee agency says survivors of the Saturday massacre in a Burkina Faso village are in desperate need of humanitarian aid.

Unidentified gunmen attacked the village of Solhan in Burkina Faso’s northeast Sahel region on June 5. They reportedly stormed the village in the middle of the night, executing at least 138 civilians, seriously injuring nearly 40 other people and setting houses and a market ablaze.

The U.N. refugee agency says more than 3,300 people have fled for their lives to nearby villages. UNHCR spokesman Babar Balloch says the newly displaced, mostly children and women, have been arriving in desperate straits. He says they have few or no belongings and need everything.

“The new arrivals urgently need water and sanitation, shelter, essential aid items and medical care. Authorities have delivered almost 400 tons of food and thousands of relief items, while UNHCR partners are providing medical care and psychosocial support,” he said.

The attack, the deadliest since 2015, highlights the increasing insecurity and violence that has been gaining a foothold in Africa’s Sahel region over the past few years. The UNHCR calls Burkina Faso the fastest growing displacement and protection crisis in the world.

Since 2019, the agency says, violence in the country has forced more than 1.2 million people to flee their homes. Balloch says so far this year, violence has displaced some 150,000.

“84%, either women, who face a high risk of gender-based violence, or children, half of whom have reportedly been subjected to physical violence and abuse. In addition to the IDPs, Burkina Faso continues to generously host more than 22,000 refugees and asylum-seekers, mostly from Mali,” he said.

The UNHCR is appealing for more generous support from the international community. It says the available funds cannot keep pace with the growing humanitarian needs in the hugely insecure Sahelian region.

It notes only a quarter of the nearly $260 million required to assist Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger this year has been received.

Source: Voice of America