Month: January 2021

About 1.3 million Ethiopian children continue to suffer despite humanitarian efforts 12 weeks into the conflict in the Tigray Region, the United Nations’ children’s agency said in a press release Wednesday.   
 
UNICEF’s inability to fully assess the impact on children because of access restrictions could worsen their conditions, the release said.
 
“Our knowledge of the situation is still very limited. Our concern is that what we don’t know could be even more disturbing.”
 US Says Eritrean Forces Should Leave Tigray Immediately A State Department spokesperson in an email to The Associated Press cites credible reports of looting, sexual violence, assaults in refugee camps and other human rights abusesLimited knowledge gleaned from the accounts of partner organizations and U.N. assessments indicate health care delivery has stopped due to the destruction of health facilities or pillaging of essential supplies.
 
In effect, immunizations have also stopped in Ethiopia’s troubled region, according to the release, which said access to water and sanitation systems has been curtailed by the lack of fuel to power them.
 
Children have returned to school in most of Ethiopia following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions but not those in Tigray, where they continue to suffer acute malnourishment related to the fighting since November between government and regional forces.
 
Rates of severe acute malnutrition are up to 10% among children below the age of five in Tigray’s Shire region, according to a January study by a UNICEF partner organization.
 
This grim figure, which translates to about 70,000 children, is above the World Health Organization’s emergency threshold of 3%, the release underscored.
 
Limited access to conflict-affected populations across the Tigray Region is delaying or thwarting efforts of the international humanitarian community.
 
UNICEF said a small opening that allowed them to dispatch truckloads of relief items is no longer enough.
 
“The one thing we do know is that every additional day of waiting for help will only worsen children’s suffering,” the organization warned in the statement.
 
To reach the children, UNICEF also urged the Ethiopian government to pay the salaries of civil servants and grant access to humanitarian staff to deliver relief items and services.
 
Approximately 300 unaccompanied or separated children are among the refugees who fled to Sudan, according to the release, which warned that many more children could be among the internally displaced persons.  
 
Military forces of Ethiopia’s central government have clashed with fighters of the Tigray Region, where local leaders are accused of treason. Local leaders, on the other hand, say they are against the postponement of elections because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  
 
UNICEF said the parties to the conflict have a “fundamental obligation to enable rapid, unimpeded, and sustained access to civilians in need of assistance.”
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The U.N. refugee agency is appealing for $100 million to provide protection and support for thousands of African refugees risking their lives trying to reach and cross the Mediterranean Sea.Escalating conflicts and violence in Africa’s Sahel region and new displacement in the east and Horn of Africa are causing increasing numbers of people to flee across the Sahara Desert.  Many subsequently embark on dangerous sea journeys across the Mediterranean to Italy in search of asylum.   The U.N. refugee agency reports at least 1,064 people died or disappeared in the central and western Mediterranean Sea in 2020. The agency has verified the deaths of about 1,800 people on the land journey across the Sahara, but says that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as it is not possible to collect data on the missing. FILE – Nigeriens and third-country migrants head toward Libya from Agadez, Niger, June 4, 2018.Vincent Cochetel, the UNHCR’s special envoy for the central Mediterranean situation, says refugees and migrants recount harrowing tales of brutality and abuse along their journeys.  The main risk people face, he says, is that of extortion from smugglers who very quickly become traffickers. “We heard from many women that they have experienced rape several times along the route,” he said. “So, risk of extortion, risk of labor exploitation, sexual exploitation, rape and just murder. Some people were just abandoned in the desert in total neglect, without food and water.”  The UNHCR’s $100 million strategic action plan and appeal covers 25 countries that are related to the movements of refugees and migrants. Cochetel says the aim is to assist the refugees along their way, as well as to lessen their need to embark on dangerous journeys.  “We may not be able to stop dangerous journeys, but we do not believe in their inevitability,” he said. “It is almost too late for us to intervene when people arrive in Libya or in the Western Sahara. Investment in better services and on protection must take place along the route and not only in coastal states.”  Cochetel says money will be used to help refugees access education and livelihoods in countries of asylum. Priority will be given to provide protection for refugees in remote locations and to give cash assistance to vulnerable refugees in urban settings. The UNHCR is appealing to countries to strengthen safe and legal pathways for refugees, including through family reunification, which is a right under international law. 
 
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Zimbabwe’s government held burials Wednesday for two Cabinet ministers and a former prison official who died from COVID-19.   The Cabinet now has lost four ministers to the coronavirus — three of them this month — and more than 1,000 people overall.  Public health experts blame Zimbabwe’s collapsed healthcare system. 
At the burial of the transport and foreign affairs ministers, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga urged Zimbabweans to observe social distancing, wear face masks and wash their hands to fight the coronavirus.      “COVID-19 has taught us an important lesson; that we are all mortals,” he said. “The fight against this pandemic does not allow us to choose who to walk with, work with, or run with. It does not discriminate, between the powerful and the weak, the privileged and the deprived, the haves and the have nots. It is a ruthless juggernaut that leaves a trail of destruction and desperation. But we will eventually conquer it. We will eventually conquer it and conquer it as a people.” The burials of Minister of Foreign Affairs Sibusiso Moyo, Transport Minister Joel Biggie Matiza and former head of Zimbabwe’s prisons Paradzai Zimondi — all COVID-19 cases — come hardly a week after President Emmerson Mnangagwa presided over the burials of a minister and a senior official of the ruling ZANU-PF party at the same national shrine. Following the deaths, the country’s government spokesman, Nick Mangwana, accused the country’s health workers of being “assassins.” He has since apologized following public outcry.      Dr. Pamela Magande, president of Zimbabwe College of Public Health Physicians, says the recent surge in coronavirus cases was caused by a “relaxed festive season,” when people did not social distance and did not wear face masks.   “We know that to prevent this disease and to protect ourselves, we need to keep our masks on, we know that social distance is important and we also know that hygiene is also important… So as long as there is no actual treatment or vaccine, we have no options but to stick to these public health interventions,”  she said.Zimbabwean Deputy President Constantino Chiwenga, center, arrives to officiate at the burial of three top government officials at the National Heroes Acre in Harare, Jan. 27, 2021.On Wednesday, Vice President Chiwenga, who doubles as Zimbabwe’s health minister,  said the country was in the process of acquiring coronavirus vaccine. A health official this week told a parliamentary committee that China and Russia were among countries that had offered to supply Zimbabwe with the vaccine. Critics blame Mnangagwa and his predecessor, the late Robert Mugabe, for allowing the country’s healthcare system to decline to the point where some hospitals have no pain killers and in some cases patients are asked to bring their own water.  On several occasions in the past year, health care workers have gone on strike, citing low pay and a lack of safety gear to protect themselves against the coronavirus.    
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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is calling on wealthy countries to, in his words, stop hoarding coronavirus vaccines so that poorer countries can have access to them. Ramaphosa spoke at a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum Tuesday, as VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports. 
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Most marriages in Zimbabwe are customary rather than legal unions that, if ended by divorce or death, leave the women empty handed.  But a court ruling last year granted women the right to equal property if the marriage is registered. Thirty-nine-year-old Juliet Gwenere’s customary marriage of 12 years ended in 2016.  She was left with five children to care for and no property or support from her ex-husband.     She was forced to move in with her mother in Chitungwiza town, about 40 kilometers southeast of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.   Gwenere wants her three daughters not to make the same mistake she made when they get married.Thirty-nine-year-old Juliet Gwenere lives in Chitungwiza, about 40 kilometers southeast of Zimbabwe’s Harare, Jan. 2021. (VOA/Columbus Mavhunga)“I encourage my children to go to school. Just to empower yourself. At least if you are empowered you can stand on your two feet. That’s what I always tell my kids, that’s what I always encourage other women; to stand on their own two feet,” Gwenere said.Most marriages in Zimbabwe are customary, unregistered unions that give no legal protection or inheritance rights to women if the union ends. However a Zimbabwe Supreme Court ruling last year granted women the right to equal property – if the marriage is registered.    Hilda Mahumucha, from Women Lawyers of Southern Africa-Zimbabwe, says that since the ruling her organization is noticing more women becoming aware of their rights.Hilda Mahumucha, from Women Lawyers of Southern Africa-Zimbabwe, says that since the Supreme Court ruling her organization is noticing more women becoming aware of their rights (VOA/Columbus Mavhunga) “This has been a development in the positive direction, especially for women who had been disadvantaged for years. Most of our clients who visited our offices expressed their confidence in the judiciary system, especially with regard to their right to protection, which is a constitutional right.  They even expressed that they even have (the) right to equality with their male counterparts unlike in the past when the burden of proof was placed on the woman to indicate how she contributed towards the acquisition of the matrimonial property,”  Mahumucha said.But rights advocates say women, especially in the countryside, need to be educated on the importance of marriage registration.Maureen Sibanda, head of governance for U.N. Women in Zimbabwe says gender equality advocates need to continue with advocacy and engage with lawmakers, judges in terms of the promotion of women’s rights.Maureen Sibanda, head of governance for U.N. Women in Zimbabwe said, “We have a lot of work out for us or civil society.  Gender equality advocates need to continue with advocacy.  We need to engage with lawmakers, we need to engage with judges in terms of the promotion of women’s rights, on judiciary activism, even interpretation of some of the normative frameworks that are out there that promote women’s rights.”  While Zimbabwe’s wheels of justice turned too slowly for women like Juliet Gwenere, there is at least a more hopeful future for equality and legal protection for her daughters. 
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Hundreds of anti-government protesters faced off against riot police outside the Tunisian parliament Tuesday as lawmakers inside confirmed a cabinet reshuffle amid growing unrest. Mired in a political and economic crisis worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, the North African country has been rocked by a wave of anger at a political class seen as obsessed with power struggles and disconnected from the suffering of ordinary people. Tunisian Prime Minister Hichem Michichi attends the presentation of his new ministers before the Tunisian Assembly headquarters in the capital Tunis, Jan. 26, 2021.Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi told the assembly that by naming 11 new ministers to the interior, justice, health and other key portfolios, he aimed to create a “more effective” reform team. He faced opposition from President Kais Saied, however, who said he was not consulted. Saied charged that one of the proposed ministers was involved in a corruption case and that three others were suspected of conflicts of interest. Mechichi said the new cabinet would listen to the demands of the protesters. Security forces have carried out mass arrests during more than a week of nighttime riots and daytime protests against police repression, poverty, inequality and corruption. Tunisia has often been praised as a rare success story for its democratic transition after the Arab Spring regional uprisings sparked by its 2011 revolution. Protesters march from the Ettadhamen city suburb on the northwestern outskirts of Tunisia’s capital Tunis in a bid to reach an anti-government demonstration outside the Tunisian Assembly headquarters, Jan. 26, 2021.But many Tunisians are angered by a political class seen as disconnected from the suffering of the poor, amid high unemployment and spiraling prices. “Poverty is growing, hunger is growing,” read one sign carried by the protesters, while another demanded “Dignity and freedom for working-class neighborhoods.” ‘Threat of the baton’The session came a day after protesters clashed with police in the town of Sbeitla, in Tunisia’s marginalized center, after a young man hit by a tear gas canister last week died in the hospital. Some chanted slogans against the government and Ennahdha, the biggest party in parliament. But police forces stopped demonstrators from gathering at the usual square in front of the parliament. “The politicians are producing the same strategies that until now have only led to failure,” said Yosra Frawes, head of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women. “They must change their governance model or step down.” Some lawmakers criticized the heavy security deployment around the assembly and called for further dialogue. Security forces confront protesters from the Ettadhamen city suburb on the northwestern outskirts of Tunisia’s capital Tunis, Jan. 26, 2021.One complained of a vote held “under police siege” and said: “All that’s missing is to vote under the threat of the baton.” Some members of the opposition held up pictures of the young man who was killed. An AFP correspondent said there were clashes between police and demonstrators on Tuesday on the sidelines of his funeral. Protests have been held in defiance of a coronavirus-related ban on gatherings and a nighttime curfew recently extended until February 14. The virus has killed more than 6,000 people in Tunisia and wreaked havoc on an already struggling economy. Fragile alliancesTunisia’s politics have also been turbulent and seen a deepening rift between the prime minister and head of state. President Saied — an independent academic who has criticized parliamentary democracy — has been seeking to reposition himself at the center of an unstable political scene. The task of forming a government has become more difficult since elections in October 2019 resulted in a parliament split among myriad parties and fragile alliances. Islamist-inspired Ennahdha came top in the polls but fell far short of a majority and eventually agreed to join a coalition government. Mechichi’s outgoing cabinet was sworn in in September after the previous executive, the second since the polls, resigned in July. Mechichi had initially put together a team including civil servants and academics, some close to the president. But he gradually moved away from Saied, and made changes with the support of Ennahdha, which is allied with the liberal Qalb Tounes party and Islamist group Karama. Saied has threatened to block the swearing-in of some new ministers, a move that could aggravate animosities that have paralyzed political action. 
 
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Ghanaians will pay their last respects to former President Jerry Rawlings Wednesday in the capital, Accra, where his funeral is being held.   Rawlings, who was 73-years old, died in November of last year, but his cause of death has not been made public.  He was expected to be buried last month, but the delay was partly because Ghana’s political leaders disagreed on some logistics of his funeral.  Rawlings was widely viewed as an advocate for the poor, with a checkered past in Ghana, having staged two coups and led a military junta before being democratically elected president in 1992.  Rawlings won a second four-year term in office in 1996. Rawlings held sway for two decades in Ghana, wielding influence even after leaving office, helping President Nana Akufo-Addo get elected for the first time in 2016. 
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The northern white rhino is on the brink of extinction.  Poachers decimated the population, but now science has a chance to bring it back.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.Camera:  Reuters Produced by: Arash Arabasadi  
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