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Famine Stalks Millions as Acute Hunger Rises Globally

The World Food Program warns tens of millions of people, mainly in Africa, are teetering on the brink of famine because of conflict, climate shocks and economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.N. food agency estimates more than 270 million people, most of them in Africa and the Middle East, around the world are acutely food insecure, with millions at risk of starving to death.

It says the number of people at imminent risk of famine has increased from 34 million last year to 41 million now.

Without immediate emergency food aid, World Food Program spokesman Tomson Phiri warns the slightest shock will push those extremely vulnerable people over the cliff into famine. He says more than half-a-million people already are facing famine-like conditions.

“These are people in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, Madagascar—particularly in the southern part, South Sudan, especially now as we are now at the height of the lean season in that country and Yemen,” Phiri said.

Phiri says Nigeria and Burkina Faso also are of particular concern because in recent months pockets of people have been in a state of famine. He says the WFP is mounting the biggest operation in its history to avert the catastrophic situation from taking hold.

“WFP is focused on scaling up life-saving food and nutrition assistance to meet the essential needs of those furthest behind, overcoming access challenges and expanding cash-based transfers with significant scale-ups foreseen across several operations,” Phiri said.

Phiri says the WFP is targeting its food assistance program to 139 million people in countries at particular risk, including Ethiopia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Syria. He says the WFP will need $5 billion to carry out the mammoth operation this year.

Source: Voice of America

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UNHCR Delegation Visits South Sudan Amid More Aid Worker Attacks

The head of a high-level U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) delegation visiting a refugee camp in Maban, South Sudan, this week said threats and attacks against aid workers are continuing in parts of the country despite some government intervention.

Arafat Jamal, UNHCR’s country representative, said Thursday the delegation recently went to Maban to see how UNHCR and other agencies are working on the ground and to determine how aid work is sustaining the livelihoods of locals during and after the conflict.

In 2019, up to 2,000 young people forcefully entered the UNHCR compound and those of 14 other aid agencies in Maban, which led to looting, arson, and the destruction of several vehicles and structures.

The 2019 attacks forced aid agencies to suspend services in the area except for life-saving activities. Nearly 400 aid workers were evacuated from the Maban area.

Even though the government has tried to address the threats and attacks on aid workers, the problem persists, according to Jamal.

“The government is aware,” Jamal told South Sudan in Focus. “I know that they are doing their best to help us — we are also working with UNMISS [United Nations Mission in South Sudan], the peacekeepers, on this — but it is a problem, and it is not over yet, and I would like to [implore the government to] please enable us to do the work that we need to do.”

Eastern Equatoria state

Humanitarians have faced similar attacks in Eastern Equatoria state. An aid worker with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) was killed Tuesday night in Unity State’s Panyijar County. The local worker was on his way home from a video hall he owned in Nyal when he was attacked, said County Commissioner Colonel William Gatjiek Mabor.

“The late [aid worker] had a place for football, so he advised the other one to pay for the game — actually they are relatives. After [the alleged assailant] was told to go home and bring money, he went and picked up his Kalashnikov [rifle], and then when [the aid worker] wanted to go home, he came and attacked him,” Col. Mabor told South Sudan in Focus.

Mabor said the alleged assailant is known, and county authorities expect to arrest him soon, although they still had not done so as of late Friday.

Carol Sekyewe, IRC’s country director for South Sudan, said the repeated attacks on aid workers derail the delivery of humanitarian assistance to those who need it most.

“It makes it very difficult for us to work when humanitarian workers are attacked and killed,” Sekywew told South Sudan in Focus. “Initial analysis does not show [the assailant] was directly against IRC, but still, [the aid worker] was our colleague and we all feel the pain of his loss. He was doing a lot for nutrition [for] a lot of people in Nyal.”

Panyijar County

Last month, IRC aid worker Dr. Louis Edward Saleh was found dead in Ganyiel Payam of Panyijar County, where he was serving in the only medical clinic in the area.

A forensic report released by the government said Saleh bled to death from several cuts on his neck and other stab wounds. Two guards at the clinic were arrested.

The IRC pulled out of the area following the murder. As a result, villagers are suffering, said Mabor.

“They are dying every day and that is why I want NGOs to ask for their protection, not because they don’t have the right to pull out. They have rights, but I need them to ask for their protection and then serve the innocent people,” Mabor told VOA. “Panyijar people are not wild animals, they are human beings.”

Lakes state

Earlier this month, two workers with the Italian charity Doctors with Africa were killed when their convoy was ambushed in a village about 64 kilometers from Rumbek in Lakes state.

Arafat said the South Sudan government officials should address the problem of attacks on aid workers once and for all.

“In South Sudan in general there is a problem of security of humanitarian workers, and I have discussed this at many levels with the government,” Jamal told VOA. “We are here to work together with the government and people of South Sudan, but it is essential for us to also be protected. You cannot attack the people who are here to protect.”

Maban County Commissioner Peter Alberto said he took steps to beef up security and end the violence against aid workers after he was appointed to the post several months ago.

“It was my first thing to do,” Alberto told South Sudan in Focus. “I formed a joint operation, which is stationed at a bridge at the river bisecting Maban into two, and I had to order the officers on the roads — nobody has to carry a gun.”

Alberto said he is trying to restore law and order, and that he has instructed local authorities to hold criminal suspects accountable for their actions.

Source: Voice of America

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At Least 80 Students Missing After Latest School Raid in Nigeria

Police in Nigeria say armed men have attacked a school in the northwest state of Kebbi, killing a police officer and abducting at least 80 students and teachers. It’s the latest in a series of school kidnappings for ransom that have exposed growing insecurity in northern Nigeria.

About 250 gunmen on motorbikes invaded the government college in Yauri, Kebbi state midday Thursday. They shot sporadically, killed a police officer and abducted five lecturers along with the students.

However, one of the students with bullet wounds was dropped along the way.

The attack is the latest in a string of kidnappings in northern Nigerian schools since December, and the third in the last month.

Speaking to Lagos-based Channels Television Friday morning, Yusuf Sununu, a local constituent leader in Yauri said security operatives are making progress with the search mission.

“We have made a lot of contacts and as at last night, even around 1 a.m. this morning, I had a discussion with the field commander, [he said] that they have succeeded in entering into the den of the kidnappers and I think this is a major success because security agents are now taking the fight to the base of the kidnappers” Bununu said.

The government school and many others in Kebbi were shut down Friday.

Amnesty International reports about 600 schools in northern Nigeria have closed as a result of persistent attacks since late last year.

Earlier this year, the government promised more security deployment to schools.

But Emmanuel Hwande, spokesperson of the Nigerian Union of Teachers, says schools remain poorly protected.

“As far as the security situation as it affects our schools is concerned, nothing has changed” Hwande said. “We can only say things have changed where we receive reports of less of such occurrences. But in the span of just this week, we have heard a kidnap of a lecturer and a kidnap in a polytechnic in Kaduna.”

Nigeria authorities have faced increased criticism over the kidnappings, one of the many security challenges including Boko Haram conflict in the northeast, and a growing separatist movement in the country’s southeast.

The separatist calls have led to the creation of various regional security forces, which authorities say are illegal and threaten national security.

The U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard, says lack of opportunities is the major reason for the escalating security issues.

“Challenges to security are more than just about a physical response. While there may be very many different reasons for insecurity in Nigeria for example, I think we may all agree that lack of opportunity underpins many of them,” Leonard said. “I was just in Kebbi last week, more farmers are being employed to grow rice to bring to the factory where people have jobs.”

Late last month, armed men seized 136 young students from an Islamic Seminary school in central Niger state. So far, only 11 of them have been freed.

Source: Voice of America

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Cameroon Deploys Troops to Fight Separatists

YAOUNDÉ – Cameroon this week deployed an additional 300 troops to Bui, a northwestern administrative unit that the military says has become a stronghold for separatists. The troops are conducting house-to-house searches for weapons and destroying improvised explosive devices and rebel camps. But Civilians accuse both sides of abuses and rights violations.

Cameroon’s military says Bui, an administrative unit in the English speaking North West Region, is becoming an epicenter of separatist atrocities. About 35 improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, were destroyed by the military within the past two weeks.

Other IEDs planted by separatists, the military says, destroyed vehicles and roads.

Troops sent to restore order in June killed seven fighters including three self-proclaimed separatist generals, authorities said. Four soldiers died while seizing weapons from fighters.

General Valere Nka is commander of government troops fighting the separatists.

He said 300 additional troops have been deployed this week to Bui with a mission to destroy IEDs and separatist camps.

Nka said there is no time to rest for his troops as killings and looting by rebels is still rife in Bui. He said fighters continue to threaten freedoms and liberties of civilians. He said President Paul Biya, who is commander-in-chief of Cameroon’s armed forces, has instructed the military to destroy separatist camps and neutralize rebels and their self-proclaimed generals.

Nka urged civilians to assist the military in reporting suspects and helping identify their hideouts.

The Presbyterian Church in Bui said dozens of its members, especially motorcycle riders who transport travelers, have fled months of fighting.

Forty-year-old Christopher Tatah said he escaped to the French-speaking western town of Bafoussam. He said government forces seized his motorcycle in Kumbo, the capital of Bui.

“When they [the military] come, they break into houses and then they loot. They collect telephones, musical sets and then any other electronical gadget that they need. When they see any motor bike, they just collect and they do not give it back. So, we are pleading. The government should see [negotiate] a way that this war [separatist crisis] should come to an end,” he said.

Tatah said civilians accused of collaborating with the military are targeted and tortured by fighters.

He said before leaving Kumbo last Sunday, six civilians were killed when an explosive device planted by fighters detonated.

Separatists have been fighting for the creation of an independent English-speaking state called Ambazonia.

Capo Daniel is a self-proclaimed deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, a rebel group in Cameroon’s western regions. He claims responsibility for the IEDs, but says fighters target only the military. He spoke via the messaging app, WhatsApp.

“Those civilians that were affected by those bombs [IEDs] were civilians who were being transported in Cameroonian military vehicles. Those military vehicles are legitimate targets for our forces on the ground. We will continue to target them and any civilians that allow themselves to be transported in military armored personnel carriers will definitely come under fire.”

Capo blamed the military for most of the atrocities. Nka said the military has remained professional and respects the rights of citizens.

Deben Tchoffo is the governor of Cameroon’s Northwest region. He said the troops deployed to Bui this week have been instructed to search homes and seize illegal weapons said to be in wide circulation.

“There are some prophets of doom who want to bring chaos in our region by destabilizing the population of the Northwest region. We instructed the administrative authorities and the security forces [the military] to recuperate all those guns, ammunition that are circulating in the region. The process is ongoing. We are going to make sure all those that are still keeping guns and ammunition in the region are brought to book and prosecuted,”

Violence erupted in 2017 in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions when teachers and lawyers protested alleged discrimination at the hands of the French-speaking majority. The military reacted with a crackdown and separatist groups took up weapons, claiming that they were protecting civilians. The U.N. says 3,000 people have been killed and more than 50,000 displaced in French-speaking towns and in neighboring Nigeria.

Source: Voice of America

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Japan to Ease COVID-19 Restrictions as Tokyo Olympics Near

Japan unveiled plans Thursday to slowly ease the coronavirus state of emergency in Tokyo and several other prefectures in time for next month’s opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced that the government will switch to “quasi-emergency” measures once the state of emergency expires Sunday. The looser restrictions would remain in place until July 11, just 12 days before the start of the Olympic Games.

In addition to looser restrictions, the government is expected to announce a plan to allow up to 10,000 spectators to enter venues holding Olympic events.

The initial one-month state of emergency was first declared in April due to a surge in new COVID-19 infections in the Japanese capital and beyond, and was extended in late May. The surge prompted staunch public opposition against staging the Olympics, especially among a prominent group of medical professionals that urged Suga to call off the games.

The Tokyo Olympics are set to take place after a one-year postponement as the novel coronavirus pandemic began spreading across the globe. Foreign spectators have been banned from witnessing the event.

Disappointing results for CureVac vaccine

Late-stage testing of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine has revealed some disappointing results. Preliminary findings show the vaccine developed by German biophaaceutical company CureVac is just 47% effective against the virus — below the 50% threshold set by the World Health Organization.

The vaccine has been given to 40,000 volunteers in Latin America and Europe. Franz-Werner Haas, CureVac’s chief executive, has blamed the disappointing results on the huge number of COVID-19 variants that have emerged since the start of the pandemic.

The European Union had reached an agreement with CureVac to purchase at least 225 million doses of the vaccine. The company says the Phase 3 trial will continue, with final results expected within a few weeks.

Growing concern in Africa

A report by the Associated Press Thursday reveals that public health officials on the African continent are alarmed over the slow rate of vaccinations and a surge in new COVID-19 infections. The AP says the continent has received only 2% of all vaccine doses administered globally, despite its 1.3 billion people accounting for 18% of the world’s population. Some countries have yet to inoculate a single person.

The World Health Organization says nearly 90% of African countries are set to miss the global target of vaccinating 10% of their people by September.

Source: Voice of America

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Danakali Says Tests Prove Predictable, High-Grade Potassium Sulfate Production at Colluli

Danakali Ltd. said Thursday that tests for its Colluli potassium sulfate project in Eritrea prove predictable high-grade production at low chloride levels.

The group, which owns the project through a 50-50 partnership with the Eritrean National Mining Corporation, said an optimized-process plant design significantly reduces capital expenditure, operating costs and maintenance costs.

“Every study has increased our certainty that Colluli is the asset that will dominate the SOP (potassium sulfate) industry and change agriculture for the better in Eritrea, across Africa and beyond,” Executive Chairman Seamus Cornelius said.

Source: Dehai Eritrea Online

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Support to families of martyrs

Employees of the Ministry of Marine Resources and Salina Salt Factory in Massawa have assumed the responsibility of supporting 20 families of martyrs.

At the event conducted at the Ministry of Marine Resources compound on 23 June, it was stated that the beneficiary families of martyrs are from Foro, Massawa, Gindae, and Shieb sub-zones.

According to the report, the employees of the Ministry of Marine Resources assumed the responsibility of supporting 15 families of martyrs while workers of Salina Salt Factory 5 families of martyrs for one year.

Mr. Ismael Osman, representative of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare branch, on his part stating the goodwill the employees undertook is part of the initiative nationals inside the country and abroad have been undertaking called on others in the civil service to follow the noble example.

Commending the initiative the employees of the Ministry of Marine Resources and Salina Salt Factory undertook, Mr. Rezene Adonay, Secretary of the PFDJ branch in the Northern Red Sea region, called for reinforced effort in ensuring the sustainability of the program.

The number of families of martyrs being supported by civil servants in the Northern Red Sea Region has reached 150, the report stated.

In related news, members of the youth workers organization in the Southern Red Sea region contributed financial and material support to 15 families of martyrs in the Port city of Assab.

Speaking to Erina, the chairperson of the youth workers organization in the region, Mr. Ibrahim Saleh stated that since last year members of the organization have been supporting families of martyrs by raising money from their monthly salaries.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea