The U.N. Children’s fund warns that famine is stalking Somalia, as years of climate-related disasters have destroyed crops, dried up water sources and created an environment in which deadly diseases are flourishing.

Somalia is facing a food, malnutrition, and water crisis after three years of consecutive drought, compounded by heavy flooding, and an infestation of desert locusts. The U.N. Children’s Fund, UNICEF, reports that more than four million people, a quarter of the population, need humanitarian food assistance.

It says 1.4 million children are acutely malnourished, including 330,000 at risk of dying if they do not receive special treatment for severe acute malnutrition.

Additionally, UNICEF’s chief of communication in Somalia, Victor Chinyama, said millions of people need emergency water supplies. Speaking from the capital, Mogadishu, he said lack of water is leading to serious outbreaks of diseases, such as measles, and diarrheal diseases including cholera.

Chinyama said families are taking desperate measures to survive. Since November, he notes half a million people have fled their homes in search of food, water, and grazing land for their cattle, exposing them to many risks. He says children on the move are particularly at risk of multiple abuses.

“Such as sexual violence, exploitation, gender-based violence. And in the context of Somalia, we cannot talk about displacement risks without addressing the specter of children being abducted and recruited by armed groups, for example, such as al-Shabab,” he said.

UNICEF reports last year, 1,200 children, including girls, were recruited by armed groups and 1,000 children were abducted. Chinyama said many of these children have been victims of multiple violations.

He urged the international community to act now to support Somalia and avoid a repeat of the 2011 famine, which killed an estimated quarter-million people.

“When the international community waits until a famine is declared as we learned from 2011, that is probably a bit too late. A lot of the mortality happens before the famine is declared. When we start to show pictures of emaciated children, distended pot bellies, I am afraid that is too late,” said Chinyama.

UNICEF is appealing for $48 million to carry out its humanitarian operation. It says $7 million is urgently needed by March to purchase high energy vitamin fortified food. It says the lives of 100,000 severely acutely malnourished children depend upon receiving this treatment.
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Eritrea’s Shannon Ogbnai-Abeda placed 39th in the men’s giant slalom, the only African who managed to complete his run in the event.

A double blast of heavy snow and temperatures dropping to minus 22 degrees Celsius made the downhill race treacherous on Sunday, and only 46 of 87 skiers were able to finish the course.

Abeda clocked runs of one minute, 17.95 seconds and one minute, 22.50 seconds, totaling 2 minutes, 40.45 seconds.

Skiers from Ghana, Morocco and Madagascar were among those who did not complete the race.

The only African female skier in the women’s giant slalom, Madagascar’s Mialitiana Clerc, placed 41st out of the 49 skiers who finished the race.

In the men’s cross-country sprint, Nigeria’s Samuel Ikpefan came in 73rd out of 88 contestants.

Meanwhile, Jamaica made history at the Olympics fielding by its first Alpine skier.

Benjamin Alexander, a former DJ who took to the sport at age 32 six years ago, came in last out of the 46 skiers that completed the men’s giant slalom.

The 38-year-old said he was hopeful that his participation in the Olympics would be an inspiration to others. In December last year, Alexander told Time.com that ”my gold medal is walking in the opening ceremonies.”

 
…

As few as three major criminal groups are responsible for smuggling the vast majority of elephant ivory tusks out of Africa, according to a new study.

Researchers used analysis of DNA from seized elephant tusks and evidence such as phone records, license plates, financial records and shipping documents to map trafficking operations across the continent and better understand who was behind the crimes. The study was published Monday in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

“When you have the genetic analysis and other data, you can finally begin to understand the illicit supply chain — that’s absolutely key to countering these networks,” said Louise Shelley, who researches illegal trade at George Mason University and was not involved in the research.

Conservation biologist Samuel Wasser, a study co-author, hopes the findings will help law enforcement officials target the leaders of these networks instead of low-level poachers who are easily replaced by criminal organizations.

“If you can stop the trade where the ivory is being consolidated and exported out of the country, those are really the key players,” said Wasser, who co-directs the Center for Environmental Forensic Science at the University of Washington.

Africa’s elephant population is fast dwindling. From around 5 million elephants a century ago to 1.3 million in 1979, the total number of elephants in Africa is now estimated to be around 415,000.

A 1989 ban on international commercial ivory trade hasn’t stopped the decline. Each year, an estimated 1.1 million pounds (500 metric tons) of poached elephant tusks are shipped from Africa, mostly to Asia.

For the past two decades, Wasser has fixated on a few key questions: “Where is most of the ivory being poached, who is moving it, and how many people are they?”

He works with wildlife authorities in Kenya, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and elsewhere, who contact him after they intercept ivory shipments. He flies to the countries to take small samples of tusks to analyze the DNA. He has now amassed samples from the tusks of more than 4,300 elephants trafficked out of Africa between 1995 and today.

“That’s an amazing, remarkable data set,” said Princeton University biologist Robert Pringle, who was not involved in the study. With such data, “it becomes possible to spot connections and make strong inferences,” he said.

In 2004, Wasser demonstrated that DNA from elephant tusks and dung could be used to pinpoint their home location to within a few hundred miles. In 2018, he recognized that finding identical DNA in tusks from two different ivory seizures meant they were harvested from the same animal – and likely trafficked by the same poaching network.

The new research expands that approach to identify DNA belonging to elephant parents and offspring, as well as siblings — and led to the discovery that only a very few criminal groups are behind most of the ivory trafficking in Africa.

Because female elephants remain in the same family group their whole life, and most males don’t travel too far from their family herd, the researchers hypothesize that tusks from close family members are likely to have been poached at the same time, or by the same operators.

Such genetic links can provide a blueprint for wildlife authorities seeking other evidence — cell phone records, license plates, shipping documents and financial statements — to link different ivory shipments.

Previously when an ivory shipment was intercepted, the one seizure wouldn’t allow authorities to identify the organization behind the crime, said Special Agent John Brown III of the Office of Homeland Security Investigations, who has worked on environmental crimes for 25 years.

But the scientists’ work identifying DNA links can “alert us to the connections between individual seizures,” said Brown, who is also a co-author. “This collaborative effort has definitely been the backbone of multiple multinational investigations that are still ongoing,” he said.

They identified several poaching hotspots, including regions of Tanzania, Kenya, Botswana, Gabon and Republic of Congo. Tusks are often moved to warehouses in another location to be combined with other contraband in shipping containers, then moved to ports. Current trafficking hubs exist in Kampala, Uganda; Mombasa, Kenya; and Lome, Togo.

Two suspects were recently arrested as a result of one such investigation, said Wasser.

Traffickers that smuggle ivory also often move other contraband, the researchers found. A quarter of large seizures of pangolin scales – a heavily-poached anteater-like animal – are co-mingled with ivory, for instance.

“Confronting these networks is a great example of how genetics can be used for conservation purposes,” said Brian Arnold, a Princeton University evolutionary biologist who was not involved in the research.
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The COVID-19 infection rate for Africa may be as much as seven times higher than reported, while death counts could be two to three times higher, according to the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa.

“We’re very much aware that our surveillance systems problems that we had on the continent, with access to testing supplies, for example,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti said Thursday, “have led to an underestimation of the cases.”

Public health officials have warned for some time that Africa’s COVID infection and death tolls were likely undercounted.

India’s health ministry reported 58,077 new COVID cases on Friday. Like Africa, public health officials have also cautioned that India’s COVID figures are probably under-calculated, as well.

As many as 3,000 New York City municipal workers are facing termination Friday if they do not adhere to the city’s mandate requiring city workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Workers have staged protests, but Mayor Eric Adams has remained firm in upholding the policy imposed by his predecessor Bill de Blasio.

“We are not firing them. People are quitting,” Adams said recently.

Firefighters and police could be among those terminated.

Meanwhile, officials in Paris and Brussels have warned that they will not allow convoys, to enter the cities to stage anti-vaccine protests, similar to the one in Ottawa, Canada. Part of the French convoy is already en route to the capital for the weekend rally.  The Belgian protest is planned for Feb. 14.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Friday it has recorded more than 406 million global COVID infections and almost 6 million deaths. More than 10 billion COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, the center said.  
…

The United Nations in Nigeria said more than $1 billion is needed to help millions of people in the country’s troubled northeast. The U.N. said a million of those people are living in areas that are cut off due to insecurity.

Nigeria has been closing northeastern camps for internally displaced people and urging them to return home, despite ongoing threats from Islamist militants.

The launch of the U.N.’s 2022 humanitarian response plan for Nigeria was held in Abuja Wednesday. 

U.N. Nigeria humanitarian coordinator Matthias Schmale said $1.1 billion is needed to reach some five and a half million people who are in need of aid in the northeast this year. 

The U.N. official said over 2.2 million people remain displaced due to recurring attacks in the region and that one million are in areas designated as “hard to reach” or inaccessible to aid workers. 

“By definition, we’re not close to those people, that’s what hard to reach means, so we’re ringing the alarm bell,” said Matthias Schmale, UN Humanitarian Coordinator. “Out of the million people in hard-to-reach areas, 700,000 are in acute need. And we will try and do our best to expand but it’s really linked to security and access.”

Those areas are still largely controlled by armed militant groups, including Boko Haram, who have been waging a war in the northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe for twelve years. 

The U.N. says hundreds of thousands of people including women and children have been killed and millions reduced to deplorable living standards. 

Officials said the coronavirus pandemic and rising prices for food have further exacerbated conditions for millions of vulnerable people. 

Trond Jensen, who heads Nigerian operations for the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, says the new response plan will target the most vulnerable people first. 

According to Jensen,”The plan is the result of the unwavering commitment by all those involved to ensure that life-saving assistance gets to where it is needed most and also to protect the most vulnerable people.” 

Since late last year, Nigerian authorities have been urging displaced people to return home and closing camps under the caveat of improved security despite threats of attacks by Boko Haram.” Jensen said.

In December, Amnesty International said at least six people were killed and 14 others injured during attacks at resettlement camps.

But authorities also cited the need for residents to return to their farms in order to avert famine and reduce dependence on outside aid. 

The United States ambassador to Nigeria, Marybeth Leonard, said plans are underway to evaluate high-risk areas and provide support before resettling displaced people. 

“We’re so eager to partner with the state authorities to make sure that … we have collaborative, consultative, principled decisions about where it is appropriate for people to go, when we can get them there and how we can support them,” Leonard said

 Last year the United Nations assisted nearly five million people in Nigeria, including 1.3 million who needed nutritional support. 

 
…

Sudanese security forces fired tear gas to disperse protesters trying to march on the presidential palace on Thursday amid nationwide demonstrations against October’s military coup and a wave of political detentions. 

The takeover ended a partnership between the military and civilian political parties, drawing international condemnation and plunging Sudan into political and economic turmoil. 

Protests organized by neighborhood resistance committees have drawn hundreds of thousands of people, and at least 79 have been killed and more than 2,000 injured in crackdowns. 

Hundreds of protesters diverged from planned routes on Thursday to renew efforts to march on the presidential palace but were met with tear gas and a heavy security presence a little more than a kilometer from their goal. 

“We will continue demonstrating in the streets until we bring down military rule and bring back democracy,” said Salah Hamid, a 22-year-old university student. 

Other protests took place across the Nile in the cities of Omdurman and Bahri, and farther away in Gadarif and Sennar. 

Sudan’s long-standing economic woes have been exacerbated since last month by the blockade of the Northern Artery, a key route for trucks carrying exports from Sudan into Egypt. 

That protest, originally against a rise in electricity prices for farmers, has expanded to reject military rule and demand more support for both farmers and traders. It also has trapped hundreds of Egyptian trucks in Sudan. 

While some protesters in Khartoum said they were opposing a normalization of relations with Israel, which has been spearheaded by the military, others marched for the more than 2,000 people who lawyers say have been arrested since the coup. More than 100 remain in jail, one lawyer said on Thursday. 

Two prominent political critics of the military, Khalid Omer Yousif and Wagdi Salih, were arrested on Wednesday. 

Brigadier General Altahir Abu Haja, media adviser to military ruler General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said in a statement carried by state news agency SUNA that their arrests were not political and that investigations were continuing. 

A prosecution statement said that Salih and others faced charges of breaking laws related to corruption, foreign currency and financial procedures. 

The U.S. State Department said Washington, along with Britain, Canada, Norway, Switzerland and the European Union, “condemn this harassment and intimidation on the part of Sudan’s military authorities.” 

“This is wholly inconsistent with their stated commitment to participate constructively in a facilitated process to resolve Sudan’s political crisis to return to a democratic transition,” it said in a statement, calling on the military to release all those unjustly detained and lift a state of emergency. 

 
…

Many Zimbabwean schools that closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic remain shuttered as teachers refuse to return to the classroom, citing a need for better pay.

The teachers are paid less than $100 a month. The government has offered a 20 percent pay increase and other incentives, but the teachers have rejected that offer as insufficient.

Meanwhile, some youths are studying independently. One such student, a 16-year-old, said, “My appeal [to the government] is for a salary increment for teachers so that they come to work, because we aren’t learning. It’s like we are paying fees for nothing. It’s so painful as my parents are struggling for it when I am not learning at all.”

The pay dispute goes back to October 2018, when the government stopped paying teachers in U.S. dollars, switching to the reintroduced Zimbabwean dollar. The new currency has steadily lost value, effectively reducing teachers’ wages.

Obert Masaraure, president of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, said the instructors want their old salaries restored and that the offer of a 20 percent raise amounted to almost nothing.

“We asked for the restoration of salaries, which were robbed from us by the government of the day,” Masaraure said. “And the message to the government is clear: We need our pre-October 2018 salaries of 540 dollars U.S. We know these shenanigans of adding an extra dollar to our salaries — that does not add up.”

Government officials see the ongoing talks in a different light and voice optimism about a successful resolution.

Paul Mavima, Zimbabwe’s minister of public service, labor and social welfare, said, “In many ways we already have a breakthrough. The leaders of the workers have to a very large extent welcomed this package and they are only saying: Let’s discuss how it is going to be implemented.”

The teachers and government are expected to meet in coming days to resume negotiations. Meanwhile, students wait to resume their studies months after the COVID-19 pandemic forced their schools to close.
…

Schools in Zimbabwe were scheduled to resume this week after the long closure caused by COVID-19. But now, teachers are refusing to return to the classrooms, citing a need for better pay. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare. Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe, Producer: Barry Unger
…

Uganda has rejected a ruling from the U.N.’s International Court of Justice ordering it to pay war reparations to the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Analysts say Uganda could have avoided the $325 million fine if it had agreed to mediation.

In a statement, Uganda’s minister for foreign affairs described the the ICJ ruling as unfair and wrong.

On Wednesday, the U.N. court ordered that Uganda pay $325 million to the Democratic Republic of Congo as reparations for damages to people, property and resources inflicted during Uganda’s invasion of the DRC’s Ituri province in the late 1990s, during the Second Congo War.

Foreign Affairs Minister Okello Henry Oryem said the judgement singled out Uganda for punishment, ignoring the presence of other countries’ armed forces in Ituri during the period. 

He also denied the Ugandan army committed abuses in Ituri, saying the army is a very disciplined force.

“The judgement of 2005 gave the DRC the burden of proof of the number of people they claimed were killed, the number of properties they claimed were destroyed. By the time this judgement was made yesterday, the DRC had not proved those issues that were raised,” Oryem said.

VOA reached out to the DRC’s information minister for comment on the ruling but the ministry said he did not have time to talk.

The ICJ ruling calls for Uganda to make annual payments of $65 million beginning this September, continuing until 2026. 

But Uganda’s Oryem says paying the money is not really the issue.

“The fact that we might be able to resolve this matter diplomatically which might not require paying any money. And if there’s another possible legal option, it won’t take money,” he said.

The DRC has pursued reparations for the invasion for decades. In 2002, officials from Congo and Uganda met in Gambia trying to negotiate some of the issues.  

The DRC filed its first case with the International Court of Justice in 2005, and the court ordered Uganda to pay 11 billion dollars. 

Uganda refused and the countries resumed negotiations. However, security analyst Dismas Nkunda who attended the meeting, says Uganda failed to sign.

“They are lucky that the amount has been reduced. They are lucky that they have been given installments. This is a matter of the Ministry of Justice and the attorney general’s office to have dealt with in the beginning. It wouldn’t have come to this,” Nkunda said.

Uganda says it will continue to constructively engage with the DRC on the matter.
…

Ugandan rights groups are criticizing a proposed law that would punish people who refuse to be vaccinated during an outbreak with up to six months in prison.

Last week, Uganda’s state minister for trade introduced an amendment to the Public Health Act that would impose fines and jail sentences on those who evade measures meant to curb the spread of infectious disease.

The bill does not specifically mention COVID-19, but of course, COVID-19 is the disease the country and the world are dealing with right now.

The bill states that whoever conceals an infectious disease could face fines of $850 or up to one year in jail. 

School administrators who admit students without evidence of vaccination, or a parent who fails to present their child for vaccination, could face up to six months in jail, a fine of about $1,100 or both.

Allana Kembabazi is a health policy analyst with the NGO the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights.  She says the proposed punitive measures would only lead Ugandans to find means of dodging the rules.

“The way they have handled the roll out has been poor. You go to a health centre they tell you, they are out today,” said Kembabazi. “You take your first Pfizer dose, you have to hunt for the second. If they could address the issue with the roll out and really put in place a targeted community outreach campaign, that would be, I think, more effective. Because, when you put all these punitive sanctions, some people will just try and go ahead and forge.”

At the Naguru government hospital, a new mother walked in to get her first COVID-19 shot. She was turned away by health workers who told her she was late for her scheduled vaccination time.

She told VOA she delayed getting the vaccine because when she was pregnant, she was never assured that it was safe for her and her unborn baby.

“I don’t think the vaccine is like 100 percent authentic,” she said. “The normal vaccines we know, like for vaccinating children, they take about five years to manufacture. This is something of maybe a few months for a vaccine to be developed. So, negative.”

Dr. Driwale Alfred, the head of Uganda’s immunization program, tells VOA that those who want to dodge vaccination should know this is a public good and other Ugandans need to be protected from people who make reckless decisions.

He argues that the government has already carried out sufficient awareness of both the disease and the vaccines.   

“There are those who are not going to comply, but they will either make other people fall sick or they will frustrate the containment effort,” said Driwale. “Now, to protect the public and appealing to people’s conscience for responsible decision making. If they fail then that becomes a mischief. A law will now come in to deal with this issue.”

The Ministry of Health continues to urge Ugandans to wear masks, social distance and use hand sanitizer.  However, the ministry argues that in order to save lives using vaccines, any measure that makes people get vaccinated is welcome.  

The bill is before the health committee in parliament, which will carry out public consultations on whether the new amendments are necessary.
…

Legislation has advanced in the U.S. House of Representatives to impose sanctions on Ethiopians committing human rights abuses, blocking food aid delivery, or taking other actions that are worsening the country’s 15-month crisis. It would also sanction those providing training, weapons, or financial support to those involved in the conflict.

The proposed Ethiopian Stabilization, Peace and Democracy Act was voted out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. It can now be voted on by the full U.S. House. A similar bill is being considered in the Senate.

If enacted, the bill would sanction individuals as well as suspend U.S. security and financial assistance to the Ethiopian government until certain human rights conditions are met. It would also require the U.S. to oppose loans by international agencies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Congressman Tom Malinowski, a Democrat from New Jersey who co-sponsored the bill, said urgent action is needed.

“The war in Ethiopia has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, and all the combatants, along with their foreign backers, are responsible for horrific abuses of basic human rights,” he said.

“Today, Congress is coming together to say that the conflict must end, and to hold accountable all those responsible for perpetuating it.”

The bill follows September sanctions and the November decision to suspend Ethiopia from the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which allows African countries’ exports duty-free access to the U.S. market.

One of the issues of ongoing concern to Congress is also the mass detention of Tigrayan civilians in several cities across Ethiopia, including the capital, Addis Ababa. Rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, say ethnic Tigrayans have been targeted since the start of the conflict in November 2020, citing reports of forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests among other human rights violations.

“The mass detention of Tigrayan civilians in unlivable conditions is a human rights violation so outrageous that it demands a forceful U.S. response,” tweeted Congressman Brad Sherman of California, calling for action on what he called an atrocity.

The bill calls on the State Department to determine whether war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide has been perpetrated by any party to the conflict. It also asks State to report on the role of foreign governments including those of China, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey in fueling the conflict.

The bill has drawn condemnation from the Ethiopian government and supporters in the global diaspora.

The American-Ethiopian Public Affairs Committee, a nonprofit diaspora organization that has supported the government during this conflict put the blame squarely on the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, which the government has designated a terrorist group, and armed forces in Tigray.

“This bill ignores the millions in Amhara and Afar … who were victims of the TPLF’s attacks,” the AEPAC said in a tweet.

The group further criticized the impact it would have on ordinary Ethiopians. “It will do nothing to repair the lives of those who have been left without loved ones or who have suffered serious injuries.”

Others in the Tigrayan diaspora have, however, supported the bill and previous U.S. sanctions on Ethiopian and Eritrean officials, including Omna Tigray, a nonprofit group consisting of Tigrayans residing in the diaspora who see the move as a way to protect the lives of civilians caught in the conflict.

Other analysts point to the effectiveness of earlier sanctions. Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that “the praiseworthy design of the sanctions regime avoids typical pitfalls.” She said that implemented sanctions are meant to give “legal exceptions for humanitarian relief delivery.”

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has emphasized the goal of targeted sanctions is to ensure perpetrators are held to account.

“These sanctions authorities are not directed at the people of Ethiopia or Eritrea,” a White House official said in September during a call with reporters. “The new sanctions program is deliberately calibrated to mitigate any undue harm to those already suffering from this conflict.”

The United Nations has said thousands have been displaced by conflict in the country, and more than 60,000 Ethiopians, mostly from the Tigray region, are seeking refuge in neighboring Sudan. The U.N. estimates that about 9.4 million people in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray, Amhara, and Afar regions are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
…

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed stark vaccine inequities among high- and low-income nations and has underscored Africa’s dependence on outside countries for shots. A new initiative in Senegal, however, hopes to reduce that inequity and make the continent more vaccine self-sufficient. 

Senegal administered its first doses to the public in March 2021, months after COVID-19 vaccines had become available in the West.  

Since then, supplies repeatedly have run dry in Senegal and other African countries that have relied on the international community for the vaccines. Today, 11% of Africans are fully vaccinated, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared with 64% in the U.S, according to the U.S. CDC, and 85% in Britain, according to the U.K.’s government’s coronavirus dashboard.

But scientists are aiming to change that. Last week, scientists in South Africa announced they had successfully made a copy of the Moderna vaccine, and a new initiative at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar is on a similar track. The institute has partnered with BioNTech to build a production facility for its mRNA vaccines.

Left behind 

“Africa has been somehow left a little bit behind when it comes to supply of vaccines,” said Amadou Sall, the director of the Pasteur Institute. “The need to make sure that we have control over our supply is something that is critically important in terms of health security. Having a different level of protection in different parts of the world won’t help control and end this pandemic.”  

Africa currently imports 99 percent of all its vaccines. The new facility is scheduled to open later this year and produce 300 million COVID doses annually.  

The institute hopes to manufacture vaccines not just for the next pandemic, but also for endemic diseases such as measles and polio. Doses would be distributed throughout West Africa and perhaps even the entire continent.  

“The whole philosophy that we have here is really to make sure that Africa becomes self-sufficient by building vaccines in Africa for Africa,” Sall said.  

Producing vaccines is already a tall task under the best of circumstances, because it requires a great deal of capital and technological prowess. To repeat the process in a low-income country would be a massive accomplishment.  

“The standards are indeed getting higher and higher,” said Antoine Diatta, the vaccine quality control manager at the Pasteur Institute. “It requires a level of human resources and skills that are extremely high as well. It’s not always within reach or easily found in Africa because it’s new technology.” 

‘A certain expertise’

But the institute already produces yellow fever vaccines. Scientists there have been manufacturing them for decades.  

The institute “has a certain expertise in the domain of vaccine development,” said Dr. Ousseynou Badiane, the director of Senegal’s expanded immunization program. “So there’s nothing to prevent them from producing another that’s developed elsewhere.” 

Misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines has run rampant throughout Africa. If the vaccines were made locally, Badiane said, it could help increase the number of people willing to get the jab. 

“There’s a lot of misinformation and rumors, especially surrounding clinical trials,” Badiane said. “If they’re made in Africa by Africans, it could increase the level of trust.”
…

The COVID pandemic exposed stark vaccine inequities between high- and low-income nations and underscored Africa’s dependence on outside countries for jabs. However, a new initiative in Senegal hopes to reduce that inequity Annika Hammerschlag reports from Dakar, Senegal.
Camera: Annika Hammerschlag
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Health care workers in Somalia suffer from high rates of anxiety, depression and stress because of their work with COVID-19 cases, a new study finds.

The study was presented at a health research conference in the Somali town of Garowe last week. Initial findings recorded a high prevalence of anxiety in the workforce at 69.3%, 46.5% for depression and 15.2% for stress.

The study used the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS), widely used in scientific circles to measure the three emotional states. Researchers interviewed 186 health care workers in three hospitals in Mogadishu between May and August 2021.

Dr. Abdirazak Yusuf Ahmed, the study’s lead author and director of the De Martino Hospital, the main COVID-19 medical facility in Mogadishu, said several factors played a role in the prevalence of these traumatic experiences in the health care workforce.

“The first one is that this disease is associated with deaths,” Ahmed said. “They (workers) were afraid they could take the virus to their homes and pass on to their loved ones.”

He also mentioned low motivation among the COVID-19 workers.

Doctors working in Somalia are not surprised that the multiplier effects from COVID-19 contributed to the workers’ ill health.

Since March 16, 2020, when the first case was detected, Somalia has recorded 1,340 COVID-19 deaths and 26,203 positive cases, at a fatality rate of 5.1%. But independent studies and press reports argued that COVID-19 deaths in Somalia have been enormously undercounted. Somalia has administered more than 1.6 million COVID-19 vaccine doses so far, with only 5.6% of the population fully vaccinated.

The discovery of personal health challenges among frontline workers comes at a time when the country lacks enough health care workforce to provide services.

Last week’s conference, which was attended by federal and regional health officials, local doctors and international health workers, including representatives from the World Health Organization, recognized the severity of the lack of health care workers.

A statement issued at the end of the conference stated that the low workforce density in the country stands at 5.4 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 10,000 population. WHO recommends a ratio of 44.5 per 10,000.

The statement further said that according to WHO’s health workforce guidelines, there is a gap of 55,000 skilled health professionals in the country.

It said the gap affects all components of the health system, ranging from service delivery, health workforce, health information systems, access to essential medicines, financing and leadership, policy and governance.

This shortage is attributed to the migration of health workers from Somalia because of war and crisis, according to Dr. Mamunur Rahman Malik, WHO’s Somalia representative.

“This shortage means that the country doesn’t have adequate health workers who are required to run and manage primary health centers or hospitals,” he said. “So, services are below optimal or of poor quality as the services are provided by lay health workers.”

Good news for child mortality

The conference predicted progress in reducing child mortality and maternal mortality in Somalia in coming years.

With investment and implementation of basic health services, the maternal mortality ratio is expected to decline to 332 deaths per 100,000 live births by the year 2030, signifying a 50% reduction from the present level, the statement said.

Similarly, the mortality rates for neonatal, infant and children younger than 5 are expected to decline from 122, 77 and 38 per 1,000 live births in 2020 to 63, 42 and 20 deaths per 1,000 live births, respectively, by the year 2030.

Child mortality in Somalia is believed to be the highest in the world, according to a report published by Amnesty International in August 2021, with an estimated 15% of people having access to medical care in rural areas.

This report originated in VOA Somali service’s “Investigative Dossier” program.  
…

Nigeria is making its debut in cross-country skiing at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. 

Samuel Ikpefan is representing Africa’s most populous nation, though he holds French citizenship as well.   

On Monday, Ikpefan took to Instagram in a green headscarf with the flag of Nigeria in green and white on the front, saying “I am looking forward to giving the best of myself.” 

“With the food or the music, I have always been immersed in the Nigerian culture,” the 29-year-old told the official Olympics website.  

The former French youth sprint champion, who grew up in Annemasse in the French Alps, said skiing for Nigeria helps him make a stronger connection to his father’s country. 

He said he hopes to motivate younger Nigerians to become skiers, adding that his Olympic journey will peak in 2026 when the Winter Games are held in Italy, in Milano and Cortina. 

“For Milano Cortina 2026, I was appointed captain of a team composed of three young skiers that are from Nigeria but live in other countries. [My role] is to explain to them the process and to help them on their Olympic journey,” he said. 

In January 2021, Ikpefan took part in his first World Cup in Sweden’s Falun. 

Nigeria made headlines in Pyeongchang in 2018 when its athletes competed in skeleton and bobsled. 

 
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Libya’s parliament is set to vote on a new prime minister on Thursday, but incumbent Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah has rejected the balloting, saying Libyans should not have another period with an interim government.  

“I will not allow new transitional periods. We will not retreat from our role in government that we pledged to the people until elections are achieved,” al-Dbeibah said in a speech Tuesday.  

The planned vote, if held, will have just two of the seven declared candidates getting formal approval to be on the ballot.  

“Only two candidates submitted their papers in full, namely Fathi Bashagha, and Khaled al-Bibas. Five others submitted their papers incomplete,” said Aqila Saleh, speaker of the House of Representatives in the eastern city of Tobruk. 

Al-Dbeibah was appointed in February 2021 through the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, a body created in 2020 to help Libya regain its democratic functions.  

The plan was for elections this past December, but instead parliament postponed it and moved on to vote for a new prime minister in what amounted to another transitional period.    

The planned parliament vote is most likely to face disapproval by the High Council of State (HCS) in Tripoli, which says legislators first need to reach consensus on the road map toward stability and democracy.

“This political arrangement is not worth anything and is a leap in the air,” said HCS President Khalid al-Mishri during a news conference Sunday in Tripoli. “We approved the parliament’s demand to change the government, but it is necessary to determine the constitutional path for the elections first.”

Another hurdle is dealing with Libya’s militias, which are divided over the status of Dbeibah. Last week, clashes erupted among rival militias in Tripoli in the wake of parliament’s attempts to oust the prime minister.

Some 33 loyalist militia leaders in Tripoli and Misrata, the most powerful military bloc in western Libya, have opposed the east-based parliament’s decision.

“A new prime minister can only take over if he has at least the acceptance or even better the support of the major Misrata militias and of some of the more important militias from the capital Tripoli,” said Wolfgang Pusztai, former military attaché in Libya.

Since incumbent Prime Minister Dbeibah and candidate Fathi Bashagha are both from Misrata, it’s unclear which side militias will take.

Who is likely to be Libya’s next prime minister?

Bashagha has the likely advantage if voting takes place Thursday as scheduled. Unlike al-Bibas, who is currently a Libyan diplomat in Morocco, Bashagha has served as interior minister and was previously a presidential candidate.

He gained greater political renown after becoming the de facto strategic leader of the defense of Tripoli when General Khalifa Haftar attempted to take over the capital.

He also met with Haftar seeking a compromise during the preparation of the now-postponed elections in December 2021.

“If the majority of the militias… I would even call them kingmakers… decide or agree that Bashagha takes over, this will be the case,” Pusztai said.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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Mali’s army has confirmed it took part in a joint attack last week with French and European forces that killed at least 20 Islamist militants. The attack in southern Mali went ahead despite rising tensions between Mali’s government and the country’s former colonial power.

French and Estonian Takuba Task Force troops, along with soldiers from the Malian armed forces, killed “nearly 30 Islamists” in the Liptako region of Mali, near the borders with Niger and Burkina Faso, according to a statement from the French Army Ministry on Tuesday.

The statement also says that equipment and fuel was seized, and that vehicles and “about 10 kilograms of explosives” were destroyed during the joint operation, which involved ground forces, drone surveillance and a Mirage 2000 fighter jet.

The Malian army also released a statement Tuesday referencing several recent operations, including an operation with the Takuba Task Force in In Délimane, the same locality cited in the French Army Ministry statement.

Colonel Souleymane Dembele, a spokesperson for the Malian army, confirmed by telephone that the operation cited in the French statement is the same operation cited by the Malian Army.

Twenty terrorists were killed and several vehicles destroyed, according to the Malian statement, as well as several weapons recovered.

The French and European military operations in Mali have grown increasingly unpopular as the country struggles to contain Islamist militant activity.

On Monday, Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga said during a meeting with the diplomatic community that the Takuba Task Force was created “to divide Mali,” among several other accusations aimed at the French military intervention.

French forces arrived in 2013 to help Mali fight militant groups that had taken over the country’s north.

The Takuba Task Force is a European operation deployed in 2020, made up of about 900 soldiers. The government asked a Danish contingent of the task force to leave soon after it arrived in January.
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Kenya will be sitting out the Winter Olympics in Beijing after the country’s hopefuls either failed to qualify or pulled out of The Games due to lack of financial support. The ice hockey team did not have a place to train. Brenda Mulinya reports from Nairobi. Videographer: Amos Wangwa 
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The death toll from Madagascar’s latest cyclone rose to 29 Tuesday as residents of a devastated coastal town tried to fix their homes or build temporary shacks from wood and palm fronds scattered by the violent winds.

Cyclone Batsirai slammed into the Indian Ocean island late Saturday, battering the southeastern coastline until it moved away late Sunday, leaving 91,000 people with damaged or destroyed homes, according to the state disaster relief agency.

It was Madagascar’s second destructive storm in two weeks, after Cyclone Ana killed 55 people and displaced 130,000 in a different area of the country, further north.

The island nation, which has a population of nearly 30 million, was already struggling with food shortages in the south, a consequence of a severe and prolonged drought. The World Food Program said Batsirai had made the situation worse by destroying crops that were just two weeks from harvest.

In Mananjary, one of the worst affected towns, entire neighborhoods had been flattened, with planks of wood, palm fronds, clothing and household items strewn everywhere. A long sandy beach was covered in debris.

“Our TV, my CD player, all of our clothing, all the kitchenware, everything is gone,” said resident Philibert Jean-Claude Razananoro, 49, surveying his collapsed home.

He and his family were staying in a school, designated as an evacuation center by the government, but they had been told they would have to leave at the weekend for lessons to resume next week.

“We plan to build a small shack just here, but we don’t really have the means to do it,” he said, appealing to the international community to help.

Many other residents were hammering at toppled wooden walls, seeking to separate individual planks to start rebuilding, but the task was daunting. Drone footage filmed by Reuters showed vast areas where almost nothing was left standing.

Doctor Malek Danish Andrianarison, known locally as Dr. Gino, had to turn away a man with an injured leg for lack of medicines or clean bandages to treat him after the cyclone blew away the roof of his house, which also contained his medical practice.

“You see here I have no roof, the medicine is ruined,” he said, gesturing helplessly at piles of damaged boxes of medication and soggy patient notes strewn on the ground. “You saw the man that was here, I couldn’t do anything for him.”

Dr. Gino said he was relatively privileged and had enough to eat, but he felt desperately sorry for poorer people in the neighborhood who had been left destitute.

Lisa Mara Lang, head of supply chain for Madagascar at the World Food Program, said humanitarian agencies were working alongside the Madagascar authorities to assess the extent of the damage and the needs of the population. She said it would likely take several days for a fuller picture to emerge.

(Additional reporting by Lovasoa Rabary in Antananarivo; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

 
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The U.N. human rights office says it fears heightened tension between Hema herders and Lendu farmers in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo may erupt into more violence following last week’s deadly attacks.

At least 62 internally displaced members of the Hema ethnic community were killed and 38 injured when their camp was attacked by an armed group last week. Fighters from CODECO, the Cooperative for the Development of Congo, staged a night-time raid on the Plaine Savo IDP camp in DR Congo’s Ituri province.  

The attack, which took place February 1, is only the latest in a string of devastating assaults on IDP sites by CODECO, which is mainly composed of Lendu farmers.  

U.N. human rights spokeswoman Liz Throssel says all the victims in the camp of 24,000 people were either shot or attacked with machetes and knives.  

“It is already on vulnerable people. It is IDPs. It is people who are in camps. So, of course it is creating fears, tension. It is leading to people fleeing from the violence. Following deadly attacks last week and further attempts over the weekend, there is significant risk that other IDP sites could be attacked as well,” Throssel said.  

U.N. officials note ethnic tensions between the Hema and Lendu communities have existed for years. Last year, the U.N. agency documented 10 attacks on IDP sites in Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu provinces. In all, it says at least 106 people were killed, 16 injured and some seven women subjected to sexual violence.  

The human rights agency is calling on DRC authorities to immediately strengthen the protection of civilians in the troubled areas. It says they must ensure the safety and security of people who have sought refuge from violent inter-ethnic attacks in IDP camps.  

Military authorities in the region have launched a preliminary investigation into the recent onslaughts. U.N. officials say the investigation must be independent, effective, and transparent, and perpetrators must be brought to justice. 
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Mali’s interim prime minister has accused France of using its military mission there against Islamist militants to divide the African country.

Speaking to diplomats late Monday, Interim Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga said Mali would always be grateful to French soldiers who died in the fight against Islamist militants. But he added that the French mission to help Mali was aiding the terrorists.

He said the French people, some who have children who have died in Mali, don’t know that it was their government that cut Mali in two.

“France created a sanctuary for terrorists to regroup and reorganize for two years, so that they could come back and invade our country,” he said.

Maiga has in the past accused the French military of training terrorists and supporting Tuareg separatists when the French intervention began in 2013. He has not offered evidence to back up those accusations or those made during his speech Monday. There was no immediate reaction from the French government or the embassy in Bamako.

A French military operation known as Serval helped take back northern Mali from Islamist militants.

The operation ran from 2013 until 2014 when it was replaced by Operation Barkhane, an ongoing anti-insurgent mission.

Barkhane last year began drawing down troops from northern Mali military bases.

Europe says Mali has contracted Russian mercenaries, which the Malian government claims are just military trainers.

Maiga on Monday also accused the European Takuba Task Force sent to help Mali fight insurgents of being created to divide the country.

In January, a Danish contingent of Takuba that had just arrived in Mali was asked to leave.

Paris is evaluating its military presence in Mali after Bamako last week expelled the French ambassador after France’s foreign affairs minister sharply criticized the military government.

Tensions between Mali and France have been rising since Paris backed West African sanctions for the military delaying elections.

Mali has had two coups since 2020. The military government pulled back from an agreement to hold elections in February, saying the vote would instead take place in 2026.
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Cameroonian authorities have erected sanitary barriers around poultry farms in the western city of Bafoussam after an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu. Authorities say a “huge” number of birds have died while farmers say they’ve been forced to cull thousands of chickens.

At the chicken market in Bafoussam, the Association of Chicken Sellers says at least 1,300 birds were sent to cities across the country Tuesday, despite a bird flu outbreak.

Dieudonne Kepseu is a spokesman for the association. He says they fear their chickens may be culled after livestock officials told them of the bird flu outbreak this week in Kongso, a nearby village.

Kepseu says livestock officials have visited the Bafoussam chicken market several times this week to ask sellers to report whenever their birds stop eating or have labored breathing. He says the sellers are vigilant because some poultry farm owners bring sick birds to sell at cheaper prices.

A statement by Cameroon’s West region governor on Monday said the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu caused a “significant” number of bird deaths at a poultry farm.

It gave no further details.

Jonas Temwa is the most senior government livestock official in the region.

Temwa says tests conducted by Cameroon’s National Veterinary laboratory confirmed the outbreak of the pathogenic H5N1 bird flu in Kongso village. He says the government immediately erected sanitary barriers and deployed several police officers to stop the buying and selling of birds on farms. Temwa says access to the farms is limited to livestock workers who are authorized to cull the birds.

Temwa says the killing of sick birds began on Monday as ordered by the national government.

He would not give the number of birds culled but described it as “huge.”

Three poultry farmers in Bafoussam told VOA they each lost at least one thousand birds due to the virus or through culling due to exposure to the infection.

Cameroonian authorities say the outbreak has so far been contained to Bafoussam and surrounding villages.

Cameroon’s livestock minister says only birds with sanitary certificates that show they are not contaminated are authorized to be sold.

Cameroon’s Interprofessional Association of Poultry Farmers says the H5N1 virus may have been imported through chicken feed, which authorities are investigating.

Francois Djonou is president of the association.

Djonou says all poultry farmers in Cameroon should be patient and disciplined. He also says he is certain that if all poultry farmers respect measures taken by the government, the outbreak will be quickly controlled.

Cameroon’s last outbreak of bird flu in 2016 forced the culling of 45,000 birds while hundreds of producers lost their jobs.

Cameroon has been recovering from a scarcity of chickens that came with supply disruptions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Poultry sellers say trade restrictions to stop the spread of COVID-19 created a shortage and drove up chicken prices.

Cameroon has been importing chicks and hatching eggs from Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of poultry, to meet demand.
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KAMPALA, Uganda — Drought conditions have left an estimated 13 million people facing severe hunger in the Horn of Africa, according to the United Nations World Food Program.

People in a region including Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya face the driest conditions recorded since 1981, the agency reported Tuesday, calling for immediate assistance to forestall a major humanitarian crisis.

Drought conditions are affecting pastoral and farming communities across southern and south-eastern Ethiopia, south-eastern and northern Kenya, and south-central Somalia. Malnutrition rates are high in the region.

WFP said it needs $327 million to look after the urgent needs of 4.5 million people over the next six months and help communities become more resilient to extreme climate shocks.

“Three consecutive failed rainy seasons have decimated crops and caused abnormally high livestock deaths,” it said in a statement. “Shortages of water and pasture are forcing families from their homes and leading to increased conflict between communities.”

More forecasts of below-average rainfall threaten to worsen conditions in the coming months, it said.

Others have raised alarm over a fragile region that also faces sporadic armed violence.

The U.N. children’s agency said earlier in February that more than 6 million people in Ethiopia are expected to need urgent humanitarian aid by mid-March. In neighboring Somalia, more than 7 million people need urgent help, according to the Somali NGO Consortium.
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Millions of people around the world enjoy a daily cup of coffee; however, their daily caffeine fix could be under threat because climate change is killing coffee plants, putting farmers’ livelihoods at risk.

Inside the vast, steamy greenhouses at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the leafy suburbs of west London, Aaron Davis leads the research into coffee.

“Arabica coffee, our preferred coffee, provides us with about 60% of the coffee that we drink globally. It’s a delicious coffee, it’s the one we love to drink. The other species is robusta coffee, which provides us with the other 40% of the coffee we drink – but that mainly goes into instant coffees and espresso mixes,” Davis explains.

The cultivation of arabica and robusta coffee beans accounts for millions of livelihoods across Africa, South America and Asia.

“These coffees have served us very well for many centuries, but under climate change they’re facing problems,” Davis says.

“Arabica is a cool tropical plant; it doesn’t like high temperatures. Robusta is a plant that likes even moist conditions; it likes high rainfall. And under climate change, rainfall patters are being modified, and it’s also experiencing problems. In some cases, yields are dramatically reduced because of increased temperatures or reduced rainfall. But in some cases, as we’ve seen in Ethiopia, you might get a complete harvest failure and death of the trees.”

The solution could be growing deep in the forests of West Africa. There are around 130 species of coffee plant – but not all taste good. In Sierra Leone, scientists from Kew helped to identify one candidate, stenophylla, growing in the wild.

“This is extremely heat tolerant. And is an interesting species because it matches arabica in terms of its superb taste,” Davis says.

Two other coffee species also show promise for commercial cultivation in a changing climate: liberica and eugenioides, which “has low yields and very small beans, but it has an amazing taste,” according to Davis.

Some believe the taste is far superior. At the 2021 World Barista Championship in Milan, Australia’s Hugh Kelly won third prize with his eugenioides espresso. Kelly recalled the first time he tasted it at a remote farm in Colombia. “It was a coffee like I’ve never tasted before; as I tasted it, it was unbelievably sweet … I knew that sweetness and gentle acidity were the bones for an incredible espresso,” Kelly told judges in Milan.

Researchers hope Kelly’s success could be the breakthrough moment for these relatively unknown beans.

The team at the Botanic Gardens is working with farmers in Africa on cultivating the new coffees commercially. Catherine Kiwuka of the Ugandan National Agricultural Research Organization, who oversees some of the projects, says challenges still lie ahead.

“What requirements do they need? How do we boost its productivity? Instead of it being dominated by only two species, we have the opportunity to tap into the value of other coffee species.”

It’s hoped that substantial volumes of liberica coffee will be exported from Uganda to Europe this year. Researchers hope it will provide a sustainable income for farmers – and an exciting new taste for coffee drinkers.
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