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Month: September 2024
Russia reports shooting down 144 Ukrainian drones
Poland thanks military dogs for their service, giving them army ranks
NOWY DWOR MAZOWIECKI, Poland — The new privates received their ranks amid military pomp in a town near Warsaw where a Napoleonic fortress attests to a long military history. The group was made up of a German shepherd, a Dutch shepherd and two Belgian Malinois.
The dogs — Einar, Eliot, Enzo and Emi — were bestowed with their ranks Friday as part of a new Polish program aimed at honoring the service of dogs used to detect explosives, a job valued for its role in protecting human life.
General Wiesław Kukuła, chief of the general staff of the Polish army, decided last year that dogs serving in the army would qualify for six military ranks ranging from private through corporal to sergeant.
The change has been welcomed by their loyal human handlers.
“The rank is meant to honor the hard work of the dog in service,” said Lance Corporal Daniel Kęsicki, who recently completed a five-month training course with Eliot, a 2-year-old Belgian Malinois. “To me it’s a symbolic recognition that the dog is serving the homeland.”
The dogs honored Friday belong to the 2nd Mazovian Engineer Regiment, which in 2007 became the first unit of Poland’s armed forces to introduce dogs into service, according to spokesperson Captain Dominik Płaza. He said none have died in action.
During the ceremony, each dog’s handler was handed a badge with the animal’s rank, which was attached to the dog’s harness. The ceremony occurred during the commemoration of the regiment’s 80th anniversary. The dogs were given their ranks for having completed basic training and having served for more than a year.
The ranks are a largely symbolic recognition “so that we, too, are aware that such a dog is a member of the armed forces,” Płaza said.
“It is not just a tool for detecting explosives, but it is a living being,” he said.
The unit was recently deployed to Paris for the Summer Olympic Games and the Paralympics, where the regiment’s soldiers and four of its 16 dogs reinforced French security efforts in scanning facilities for explosives. Everything passed off peacefully.
Polish army dogs have carried out service elsewhere in international missions, including Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the NATO nation’s support for U.S.-led efforts.
Poland, a close ally and neighbor of Ukraine, earlier this summer also announced that it was sending 12 trained dogs to support the Ukrainian military in clearing mines.
The soldiers who work with the dogs volunteer for the assignment, and it becomes a commitment that lasts for the rest of the dog’s life.
Soldiers who were with their dogs Friday explained that they select their dogs, train with them, live with them, and care for them even after their four-legged charges retire.
Kęsicki described Eliot as an obedient companion who has become integrated into his family life.
“The dog can already do a lot after the beginning course alone, and we still have a few more years of service ahead of us,” he said.
Płaza, the spokesperson, laughed when asked if a dog could ever outrank his handler — or if a soldier might have to salute a dog.
“Soldiers do not salute dogs,” Płaza said. “The handler will always be of a higher rank than his dog. It is simply impossible for a service dog to have a higher rank than his handler.”
Though the master-dog hierarchy is preserved, great love and appreciation are clearly shown to creatures in Poland, where pets are everywhere and some even lay their beloved companions to rest in special pet cemeteries. The Polish government has in recent years also ensured retirement benefits to dogs and horses working in the police, border guard and fire departments.
On Friday, as the sun beat down on a hot square in the middle of town, Kukuła interrupted the ceremony and ordered the overheated dogs removed — even as human soldiers continued to stand there in their uniforms and boots.
Staff Sergeant Michał Młynarczyk served in Afghanistan with a dog named Elvis starting in 2011. Together they checked vehicles arriving at the base of an international force for explosives. Elvis died in 2018.
Now Młynarczyk is paired with Kobalt, a German shepherd who received his private rank in April.
Private Kobalt goes home with him at night and plays with his children. While he loves the entire family, he never loses sight of who is the master.
“All of the work the dog does is done for me,” Młynarczyk said. “It’s a bond, it’s a friendship.”
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Experts applaud steps US steps to disrupt Russian disinformation
washington — The U.S. Justice Department announced September 4 that two Russian nationals, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, had been charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the Southern District of New York.
“The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.”
That same day, the Justice Department announced the seizure of 32 internet domains used in the Russian government-directed “Doppelganger” foreign malign influence campaign, which it said violated U.S. money-laundering and criminal trademark laws.
Experts who study disinformation say disrupting the paid-influencer campaign is an important step in efforts to counter the Kremlin’s broader disinformation strategy of spreading propaganda that undermines support for Ukraine and stokes American political divisions.
Disrupting the Doppelganger campaign
“Persistent efforts to impersonate authoritative news websites and promote their content at scale in a coordinated manner can have a tangible impact, casting propaganda narratives far and wide consistently,” wrote Roman Osadchuk and Eto Buziashvili, researchers at the Disinformation Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.
According to an FBI affidavit, Russia’s “Doppelganger” campaign created domains impersonating legitimate media sites, produced fake social media profiles and deployed “influencers” worldwide.
According to the Atlantic Council researchers, the primary method used by those involved in “Doppelganger” is to post, on X and other social media platforms, links to fake news sites in replies to posts by politicians, celebrities, influencers and others with large audiences.
Osadchuk told VOA that while the FBI’s measures are unlikely to stop Russian influence activities, they will make them more costly, noting those involved in the Russian influence campaign will be forced “to rewrite scripts, change the operation’s infrastructure, etc.”
At the same time, according to Osadchuk, the U.S. government’s moves against those involved in the influence campaign, which were widely covered in the U.S. and international media, will educate a broader audience.
“Researchers of the Russian disinformation have known about the Doppelganger campaign for some time,” he said. “Now, Americans and people in other countries have learned about it and maybe will become more aware that not all information they consume is coming from legitimate sources and hopefully will be more attentive to the domain names and other signs that might indicate that the page they are reading is not The Washington Post or Fox News but a fake created by Kremlin-linked entities.”
Influencers will be more aware
In a statement it released after indicting the two RT employees, the Justice Department said that “over at least the past year, RT and its employees, including Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, deployed nearly $10 million to covertly finance and direct a Tennessee-based online content creation company [U.S. Company-1],” and that “U.S. Company-1″ had “published English-language videos on multiple social media channels, including TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube.”
While the Justice Department did not specifically identify “U.S. Company-1,” it is thought to refer to Tenet Media, a Tennessee company co-founded by entrepreneur Lauren Chen, who recruited six popular U.S. influencers with a large following.
YouTube subsequently took down Tenet Media’s channel on the platform, along with four other channels that YouTube said were operated by Chen.
Bret Schafer, a disinformation researcher at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a political advocacy group set up under the auspices of the German Marshall Fund, a Washington think tank, told VOA that by financing the U.S. content creation company, Russia was able to create an information channel with a large audience, and to use it for such messages as blaming the U.S. and Ukraine for the March terrorist attack at a Moscow concert hall.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack.
Shutting down that Russian information channel sent a powerful message to influencers and content creators to do “due diligence about people funding their work and to try to figure out who’s behind these companies and their motives,” Schafer added.
Ben Dubow, a disinformation researcher affiliated with the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington-based research group, believes that influencers contracted by Tenet Media are unlikely to lose their existing followers, but that they might have difficulty attracting new ones.
“Hopefully, people who might otherwise explore those influencers will recognize their names and understand them as untrustworthy now,” he told VOA.
The Justice Department’s indictment quotes RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonian, as saying in an interview on Russian television that RT built “an enormous network, an entire empire of covert projects,” to influence Western audiences.
The FBI affidavit also revealed that one of the sanctioned Russian companies had a list of 2,800 people active on social media in the U.S. and 80 other countries, including “television and radio hosts, politicians, bloggers, journalists, businessmen, professors, think-tank analysts, veterans, professors and comedians,” whom the company refers to as “influencers.”
Concrete steps and good timing
Several experts commended the U.S. government for taking concrete steps.
“They are sanctioning individuals and disrupting the supply chain of influence available to these threat actors,” noted Olga Belogolova, director of the Emerging Technologies Initiative at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
“Punitive measures absolutely have to be part of the package,” said Jakub Kalenský, a senior analyst at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki. “Otherwise, the aggressors have a free hand to continue their aggression unopposed. And in order to identify those who deserve to be punished, a proper investigation from the authorities is necessary.”
Experts also said that the Justice Department’s actions were taken early enough to prevent influence in the November U.S. elections and to signal to Russia and other foreign actors that the U.S. government is monitoring their actions and will respond aggressively.
“Of course, that was what the Obama administration was concerned about in 2016 and led to them not being as transparent as they probably should have been with the American public about what they knew about Russian interference,” Schafer said.
In announcing their actions against the Russian disinformation campaign, U.S. government representatives did not mention which political party or candidate they thought that the Russians were trying to assist.
“I know that the U.S. government, including agencies and the Foreign Malign Influence Center at ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence], have been doing a lot of thinking over the last few years about how to strategically communicate these actions without unintentionally amplifying the very campaigns they are trying to thwart or politicizing the topic. And I think they’ve actually done a good job of striking that balance, at least from what I’ve seen thus far,” Belogolova said.
Ihor Solovey, who heads the Ukrainian government’s Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security, welcomed the U.S. government’s actions but told VOA that more steps are needed to thwart Russian activities on social media.
“X, TikTok or even more so the Russian Telegram – they are unlikely to want to spend on the fight against bots, troll farms or planned disinformation,” he said, adding that only pressure by a state, or even a coalition of states, will be able to force these social media platforms to block intruders and malicious content.
Andrei Dziarkach of VOA’s Russian Service contributed to this report.
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Guinea-Bissau police seize over 2 tons of cocaine from Venezuelan flight
UN: Taliban’s morality laws targeting women deepen Afghanistan’s isolation
Islamabad, Pakistan — The United Nations rights chief expressed his “abhorrence” Monday at the recent promulgation of “so-called morality laws” in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan that silence women or order them to cover their faces and bodies in public.
Volker Türk told a U.N. Human Rights Council session in Geneva that the new laws were implemented alongside bans on Afghan girls attending secondary school, prohibiting female students from accessing university education, and severely curtailing women’s access to public life and employment opportunities.
“I shudder to think what is next for the women and girls of Afghanistan. This repressive control over half the population in the country is unparalleled in today’s world,” the U.N. Human Rights Commissioner stated.
Türk denounced the morality laws as outrageous and amounting “to systematic gender persecution.” He warned that the intensifying curbs on women are “propelling Afghanistan further down a path of isolation, pain, and hardship.” It would also jeopardize the country’s future by “massively stifling its development,” he added.
Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of Afghan human rights, also spoke and informed Monday’s session in Geneva that the Taliban had lately barred him from visiting the country to conduct assessments in line with his mandate.
He added that the morality law “marks a new phase in the ongoing repression of respect for human rights” since the Taliban regained control of the country three years ago.
The 114-page, 35-article law enacted by the Taliban last month outlines various actions and specific conduct that the Taliban consider mandatory or prohibited for Afghan men and women in line with their strict interpretation of the Islamic law of Sharia.
The restrictions prohibit Afghan women from traveling without a male guardian, require them to be silent in public, enforce mandatory covering of females from head to toe, including their faces, and forbid eye contact between women and unrelated men.
The law empowers the Taliban’s contentious Ministry for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice to enforce it strictly.
Ministry enforcers are ordered to discipline offenders, and penalties may include anything from a verbal warning to fines to imprisonment for offenses such as adultery, extramarital sex, lesbianism, taking pictures of living objects, and befriending non-Muslims.
Taliban leaders did not comment on Monday’s U.N. assertions, but they have rejected previous international criticism of the morality laws.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesperson, recently stated that “non-Muslims should educate themselves about Islamic laws and respect Islamic values” before rejecting or raising objections to them. “We find it blasphemous to our Islamic Sharia when objections are raised without understanding it,” he said.
No country has officially recognized the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan, citing human rights concerns, particularly the harsh treatment of women.
“Any normalization of engagement with the de facto authorities must be based on demonstrated, measurable, and independently verifiable improvements in human rights,” Bennett stressed in his speech Monday, urging the Islamist Taliban to reverse current policies.
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HRW calls for stronger Sudan arms embargo as UN weighs sanctions
Nairobi, Kenya — The United Nations Security Council is expected to vote Wednesday on whether to renew existing sanctions that prevent the transfer of military equipment to Sudan’s western Darfur region. The pending vote comes as Human Rights Watch calls on the council to expand an existing arms embargo, currently on the restive region, to the rest of the country.
The western Darfur region has been the epicenter of Sudan’s current civil war, which pits the Sudanese armed forces, or SAF, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, and other militias against each other. U.N. agencies and rights groups say the parties involved have committed war crimes and other human rights violations during the conflict, which has lasted nearly 18 months.
Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, Human Rights Watch is urging the council to consider imposing an arms ban on the entire country to stop the ongoing rights violations and the suffering of the people. The Sudanese government opposes expansion of the embargo.
Human Rights Watch investigators found that some of the weapons being used in the conflict were acquired after the civil war broke out in April of last year.
Jean-Baptiste Gallopin is a senior researcher in Human Rights Watch’s crisis, conflict, and arms division.
“We based our research on an analysis of photos and videos posted on social media and primarily taken by the fighters themselves, showing them in possession and using equipment such as attack drones, drone jammers, anti-tank guided missiles, as well as truck-mounted multiple rocket launchers systems and mortar munitions,” said Gallopin.
The rights group’s report shows some of the mortars fired were manufactured in China last year. Companies in Iran, Russia, Serbia, and the United Arab Emirates have also produced some of the weapons used, according to the organization.
In 2004, a year after the start of another Darfur conflict between ethnic militias and government-backed militias known as the Janjaweed, the U.N. imposed the arms embargo on Darfur. The embargo originally applied to non-governmental entities and was later extended to all parties in the conflict, including the Sudanese government.
Ahmed Hashi is a Horn of Africa political and security commentator. He said the regional and international community is doing little to end the conflict, and said that in fact, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedi, is receiving strong foreign support.
“I think the United Arab Emirates and other proxy states are arming Mr. Hamedi. I think that the rebellion inside Sudan is foreign-led. I think that the people who caused the Janjaweed and caused international human rights, international crime are fighting in Sudan. I’m afraid that terrorism will rear its ugly head. It is the tragic human rights issue of the 21st century. And we are all, including me, ashamed as Africans that we have not done anything,” he said.
The UAE has denied arming the RSF.
Gallopin said imposing an arms ban in one region would not solve the conflict. He said a ban is needed nationwide.
“We believe that the existing embargo is not sufficient, that there needs to be a wholesale embargo on the sale of armed and military equipment to the whole of Sudan, because we documented, we and others documented very serious abuses carried out by the warring parties since last year, including widespread war crimes, crimes against humanity. We know we published a report on Darfur showing that ethnic cleansing was committed. And so we think it’s urgent for the Security Council to broaden that arms embargo,” he said.
The group also is calling on the Security Council to condemn governments that are violating the existing arms embargo on Darfur and take urgent measures to sanction individuals and entities that are also doing so.
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From exile, Afghan outlets find ways to amplify women’s voices
Taliban laws and restrictions make journalism in Afghanistan increasingly challenging. But media in exile are ensuring that voices of women and others are still being amplified. For Mohammad Qasim Mandokhil in London, Bezhan Hamdard has the story for VOA. Roshan Noorzai contributed to the story. (Camera: Jonathon Spier, Helay Asad)
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Cyprus, US sign defense deal outlining ways to tackle regional crises
nicosia, cyprus — Cyprus and the United States have signed a defense cooperation framework agreement that outlines ways the two countries can enhance their response to regional humanitarian crises and security concerns, including those arising from climate change.
Cyprus Defense Minister Vassilis Palmas and U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander hailed the agreement Monday as another milestone in burgeoning Cypriot-U.S. ties in recent years that saw the lifting in 2022 of a decades-old U.S. arms embargo imposed on the east Mediterranean island nation.
“The Republic of Cyprus is a strong partner to the United States, in Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, and plays a pivotal role at the nexus of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East,” Wallander said after talks with Palmas.
The U.S. official praised Cyprus for acting as a haven for American civilians evacuated from Sudan and Israel last year and for its key role in setting up a maritime corridor to Gaza through which more than 20 million pounds of humanitarian aid has been shipped to the Palestinian territory.
“It is evident that Cyprus is aligned with the West,” Wallander said.
Palmas said Cyprus would continue building toward “closer, stronger and beneficial bilateral defense cooperation with the United States.”
According to a joint statement, the agreement also foresees working together on dealing with “malicious actions” and bolstering ways for the Cypriot military to operate more smoothly with U.S. forces.
your ad here4 migrants dead, others missing after boat capsizes off Senegal
DAKAR, Senegal — A boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of Senegal over the weekend, leaving at least four people dead and several others missing, local authorities said Monday.
The artisanal fishing boat left the town of Mbour, nearly 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital, Dakar, heading to Europe on Sunday afternoon before capsizing a few miles off the coast, Amadou Diop, the district’s prefect, told The Associated Press.
Local fishermen rescued three people who were brought back to shore by naval authorities.
Senegal’s navy is looking for those missing, Diop said, adding that the exact number of passengers remained unknown.
In recent years, the number of migrants leaving West Africa through Senegal has surged with many fleeing conflicts, poverty and the lack of job opportunities. Most head to the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of West Africa, which is used as a stepping stone to continental Europe.
Since the beginning of the year, more than 22,300 people have landed on the Canary Islands, 126% more than the same period last year, according to statistics released by Spain’s Interior Ministry.
Last month, the Senegalese army said it had arrested 453 migrants and “members of smuggling networks” as part of a 12-day operation patrolling the coastline. More than half of the arrested were Senegalese nationals, the army said.
In July, a boat carrying 300 migrants, mostly from Gambia and Senegal, capsized off Mauritania. More than a dozen died and at least 150 others went missing.
The Atlantic route from West Africa to the Canary Islands is one of the deadliest in the world. While there is no accurate death toll because of the lack of information on departures from West Africa, the Spanish migrant rights group Walking Borders estimates the victims are in the thousands this year alone.
Migrant boats that get lost or run into problems often vanish in the Atlantic, with some drifting across the ocean for months until they are found in the Caribbean and Latin America carrying only human remains.
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Kate, princess of Wales, says she completed chemotherapy, will return to limited public duties
london — Kate, the princess of Wales, has completed chemotherapy and will make a limited number of public appearances in the coming months, bolstering Britain’s royal family after it was rocked by the twin cancer diagnoses of the princess and King Charles III.
The 42-year-old wife of Prince William on Monday released a video in which she appeared alongside her husband and children as she described how difficult the past nine months have been for her family and expressed “relief” at completing her course of treatment.
“Life as you know it can change in an instant, and we have had to find a way to navigate the stormy waters and road unknown,” she said in the video, which was shot in a woodland near the family’s summer home in Norfolk. “The cancer journey is complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone, especially those closest to you. With humility, it also brings you face to face with your own vulnerabilities in a way you have never considered before, and with that, a new perspective on everything.”
The royal family has been buffeted by health concerns for much of this year, beginning with the announcement in January that the king would receive treatment for an enlarged prostate and Kate would undergo abdominal surgery. In February, Buckingham Palace announced that Charles was receiving treatment for an undisclosed type of cancer. Six weeks later, Kate said she, too, was undergoing treatment for cancer, quieting the relentless speculation about her condition that had circulated on social media since her surgery.
While the announcements triggered an outpouring of good wishes for the ailing royals, they also put the royal family under tremendous pressure. Queen Camilla and Princess Anne, the king’s sister, took on additional duties to cover the seemingly endless list of public events that make up the daily routine of the House of Windsor. William also took time off to support his wife and their three young children.
Charles began his return to public duties in late April when he visited a cancer treatment center in London. He is scheduled to make the first long-haul trip since his diagnosis when he travels to Australia and Samoa in the fall.
Kate said Monday that while she had completed her chemotherapy treatment, the path to full recovery would be long and she would “take each day as it comes.”
“William and I are so grateful for the support we have received and have drawn great strength from all those who are helping us at this time,” she said. “Everyone’s kindness, empathy and compassion has been truly humbling.”
In June, the princess acknowledged that she had good days and bad days while undergoing treatment.
While she stepped away from most public duties during her treatment, Kate has made two appearances this year. First, during the king’s birthday parade in June, known as Trooping the Colour, and most recently during the men’s final at Wimbledon in July, where she received a standing ovation.
“To all those who are continuing their own cancer journey — I remain with you, side by side, hand in hand,” Kate said Monday.
“Out of darkness, can come light, so let that light shine bright.”
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Flooding in Morocco, Algeria kills more than a dozen people
RABAT, Morocco — Torrential downpours hit North Africa’s normally arid mountains and deserts over the weekend, causing flooding that killed more than a dozen people in Morocco and Algeria and destroyed homes and critical infrastructure.
In Morocco, officials said the two days of storms surpassed historic averages, in some cases exceeding the annual average rainfall. The downpours affected some of the regions that experienced a deadly earthquake one year ago.
Meteorologists had predicted that a rare deluge could strike North Africa’s Sahara Desert, where many areas receive less than an inch of rain a year.
Officials in Morocco said 11 people were killed in rural areas where infrastructure has historically been lacking, and 24 homes collapsed. Nine people were missing. Drinking water and electrical infrastructure were damaged, along with major roads.
Rachid El Khalfi, Morocco’s Interior Ministry spokesperson, said Sunday in a statement that the government was working to restore communication and access to flooded regions in the “exceptional situation” and urged people to use caution.
In neighboring Algeria, which held a presidential election over the weekend, authorities said at least five died in the country’s desert provinces. Interior Minister Brahim Merad called the situation “catastrophic” on state-owned television.
Algeria’s state-run news service APS said the government had sent thousands of civil protection and military officers to help with emergency response efforts and rescue families stuck in their homes. The floods also damaged bridges and trains in the area.
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‘Bucha Witches’ are keeping skies over Kyiv drone-free
They call themselves Bucha Witches – an all-female volunteer air defense unit near Kyiv targeting the Iranian Shahed drones that Russia fires at Ukraine. They operate 24/7 and are using unconventional but effective weapons to bring down the deadly aerial vehicles. Anna Kosstutschenko has their story. VOA footage and video editing by Pavel Suhodolskiy.
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Rubble and grief: Morocco’s High Atlas marks one year since record earthquake
IMI N’TALA, Morocco — The rescue crews and bystanders are long gone but the remnants of homes still sit in piles off to the side of the jagged roads.
A year after nearly 3,000 people died when a record earthquake shook communities throughout Morocco’s High Atlas, it still looks like a bomb just went off in villages like Imi N’tala, where dozens of residents died after a chunk of mountainside cracked off and flattened the majority of buildings.
Broken bricks, bent rods of rebar and pieces of kitchen floors remain but have been swept into neater piles alongside plastic tents where the displaced now live. Some await funds to reconstruct their homes. Others await approval of their blueprints.
The region shaken by the earthquake is full of impoverished agricultural villages like Imi N’tala, accessible only via bumpy, unmaintained roads. Associated Press reporters revisited half a dozen of them last week ahead of the first anniversary.
In some places, residents who say they’re awaiting governmental action have begun reconstructing buildings on an ad hoc basis. Elsewhere, people tired of the stuffiness of plastic tents have moved back into their cracked homes or decamped to larger cities, abandoning their old lives.
Streets have been neatly swept in towns like Amizmiz and Moulay Brahim, although cracked buildings and piles of rubble remain, much as they were in the days after the quake.
The rhythms of normal life have somewhat resumed in some of the province’s larger towns, where rebuilding efforts on roads, homes, schools and businesses are underway and some residents have been provided metal container homes. But many of those displaced from the more than 55,000 homes destroyed by the temblor remain vulnerable to summer’s heat and winter’s cold, living in plastic tents, impatient to return.
Mohamed Soumer, a 69-year-old retiree who lost his son in last year’s earthquake, is angry because local authorities have forbidden him from rebuilding his home on the same steep mountainside due to safety concerns. He now spends his days with his wife in a plastic tent near his now-rubbled home and fears moving elsewhere and restarting his life in a larger, more expensive area.
“Residents want to stay here because they have land where they grow vegetables to make a living,” he said. “If they go somewhere else and abandon this place, they will not be able to live there.”
The government early on promised households monthly stipends in the aftermath of the earthquake and additional funds for seismically safe reconstruction. It said last week that both had been provided to the majority of eligible families and households.
“Specific solutions are being deployed on the ground for difficult cases,” Morocco’s Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.
But on the ground, its disbursal has been uneven, residents say, with many still waiting for funds or reconstruction to commence.
Anger has mounted against local authorities in towns like Amizmiz and villages like Talat N’Yaqoub, where residents have protested against their living conditions. They have criticized the slow pace of reconstruction and demanded more investment in social services and infrastructure, which has long gone neglected in contrast with Morocco’s urban centers and coastline.
Officials have said rebuilding will cost 120 billion dirhams ($12 billion) and take about five years. The government has rebuilt some stretches of rural roads, health centers and schools but last week the commission tasked with reconstruction acknowledged the need to speed up some home rebuilding.
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Bomb blast hits Pakistan polio team amid national immunization drive
Islamabad — Authorities in northwestern Pakistan said Monday that a roadside bomb explosion injured at least 10 people, including anti-polio vaccinators and police personnel escorting them.
The bombing in the South Waziristan district near the border with Afghanistan targeted a convoy carrying polio workers and their guards on the opening day of a nationwide immunization campaign.
Area security and hospital officials reported that three health workers and six security personnel were among the victims. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the violence in a region where security forces are fighting militants linked to the outlawed Pakistani Taliban.
Last week, Pakistan reported its 17th wild poliovirus case of the year from Islamabad, saying it paralyzed a child and marked the first infection in 16 years in the national capital.
Pakistani health officials said in the lead-up to Monday’s polio campaign that it is designed to vaccinate more than 33 million children under five in 115 districts nationwide.
Muhammad Anwarul Haq, coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Center for Polio Eradication, stated that the immunization drive would primarily focus on districts where “the virus has been detected and the risk of continued transmission and spread is really high.”
Haq encouraged all parents and caregivers to ensure their children get vaccinated, lamenting that “parents have not always welcomed and opened their doors to the vaccinators when they visit their homes.”
Pakistan and Afghanistan, which reported nine paralytic polio cases so far in 2024, are the only two remaining polio-endemic countries globally. Polio immunization campaigns have long faced multiple challenges in both countries, such as security and vaccine boycotts, dealing setbacks to the goal of eradicating the virus from the world.
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