Severe flooding has hit South Sudan’s northern state of Unity, cutting off communities from accessing supplies of food and other vital commodities, a state official said Friday.

More than 700,000 people have been affected by the worst flooding in the country for nearly 60 years, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said in October, blaming climate change.

In Unity, which borders Sudan, the floods have left a trail of food shortages, caused malnutrition in children and increased the spread of diseases such as malaria, said Lam Tungwar Kueigwong, the state’s minister of land, housing and public utilities.

Oil from the fields in the region had contaminated the water, he said, leading to the death of domestic animals.

The suffering caused by the floods, including food shortages and illnesses, is putting pressure on the health facilities, said international charity Médecins Sans Frontières, which operates in the area.

“We are extremely concerned about malnutrition, with severe acute malnutrition levels two times the WHO threshold, and the number of children admitted to our hospital with severe malnutrition doubling since the start of the floods,” MSF said.

For Nyatuak Koang, a mother of three boys and two girls, that concern is all too real for her after the floods forced her to move twice.

“We don’t have anywhere to sleep, we don’t have any mosquito nets and we don’t have material to cover our house,” she said.

Nearly a decade after South Sudan gained independence following a war, it faces the threat of conflict, climate change and COVID-19, the outgoing head of the U.N. mission in the country said in March.

Nearly all the population depends on international food aid, and most basic services such as health and education are provided by the United Nations agencies and aid groups. 
…

Zimbabwe’s government, which has confirmed the presence of the omicron variant of COVID-19 in the country, has ruled out easing its new tough restrictions on visitors and returning citizens as it tries to contain the new variant.

The country’s Vice President Constantino Chiwenga – who is also the country’s health minister – said in a message broadcast on national television Thursday night that Zimbabwe had a confirmed case of the omicron variant and was conducting genomic sequencing.

“We have already known that we now have it [the Omicron variant] in this country. Therefore, we must remain vigilant. So we want everyone to be safe. So let’s be vaccinated, let’s follow the protocols. We do not want to put extra measures, but if you follow these measures, I think everyone of us will be safe and together will conquer this invisible enemy,” Chiwenga said.

Earlier this week Zimbabwe announced a nine-hour curfew and compulsory 14-day quarantine for anyone arriving in the country, to prevent the spread of the omicron variant.

Samantha Jogo is one many Zimbabweans who have called for the government to relax the measures. She says that her siblings around the globe who she was expecting this holiday season were now unlikely to come because of the new measures. She wants the government to reconsider before the holiday season starts.

She says that given the number of Zimbabweans in the diaspora, if they were to be quarantined in hotels or other centers, they would be crowded and some would contract COVID-19 there. If someone has a negative COVID-19 test, she says, they should be asked to quarantine at home.

Ndabaningi Mangwana, the permanent secretary for Zimbabwe’s Information Ministry, told a government-controlled television station the new measures would not end quickly.

“What is the purpose of returning for festive seasons? You are returning for Christmas, aren’t you? There is nothing that stops you until this avalanche is gone and come home. We are not forcing people to come home, you are choosing to come home at this critical time,” Mangwana noted.

Zimbabwe became the first country in southern Africa to enact such restrictions since the emergence of the omicron variant, which spreads more easily.

Dr. Cleophas Chimbetete, president of Zimbabwe College of Public Health Physicians, says “the omicron variant has been confirmed in our nation, there is absolutely no need for us to panic. We can overcome COVID-19, we can even overcome the new variant. Please let’s vaccinate those that are still considering vaccination. The advice from Zimbabwe College of Public Health Physicians, the advice from your medical fraternity is vaccines are safe and vaccines save life. Let’s maintain the usual public health measures that we have been speaking and speaking about repeatedly.”

Zimbabwe has fully inoculated just above 2.8 million people since February, when it began its vaccination program, with a target of vaccinating at least 10 million people by the end of the year, a figure which some say might be difficult to reach given the scarcity of resources and short time left.

Thursday, the WHO Africa Regional Office said the detection of the omicron variant is coinciding with a 54% surge in COVID-19 infections in Africa, mainly due to an uptick in southern Africa. 
…

The U.N. refugee agency says more than 11,500 Nigerians have fled to neighboring Niger over the last month, seeking refuge from increasingly violent, deadly attacks by armed groups.

In November, armed groups repeatedly attacked villages in Sokoto state in Nigeria’s northwest. U.N. officials express alarm at the frequency, intensity and brutality of the raids.

Violence is not unknown in this region. Intercommunal clashes between farmers and herders often erupt as competition increases resource scarcity that has been aggravated by the climate crisis.

But those clashes were not as destructive as the recent criminal attacks to which villages are being subjected.

U.N. refugee agency spokesman Boris Cheshirkov says Nigerian refugees arriving in Niger are telling aid workers horrific details about their ordeal. They say killings and other atrocities have prompted them to flee their homes.

“These armed groups, they have criminal motives,” he said. “In fact, the arriving refugees are telling our staff that they call them bandits. They are taking people, kidnapping them for ransom. They are looting homes and houses and villages.”

Refugees’ needs growing quickly

Cheshirkov says the majority of the refugees are women and children. Most, he says, are living with local communities in 26 villages across Bangui, a rural commune in Niger’s Tahoua region. He says that area already hosts 3,500 Nigerians.

He says the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, in coordination with Nigerien authorities, is registering new arrivals and providing them with emergency assistance. He notes the need for shelter, food, water and health care is rising rapidly.

At the same time, he says, the UNHCR has established a presence in Nigeria’s Sokoto state to assist people displaced by the violence.

“What we are attempting to do is to deliver humanitarian assistance to communities that are internally displaced and that are being affected by these attacks inside Nigeria,” Cheshirkov said. “But we are concerned that this year, especially in the last few months and in the month of November, that the frequency of these attacks has increased, and we are seeing more people fleeing across the border into Niger.”

Niger now hosts more than 200,000 Nigerian refugees. The UNHCR says humanitarian efforts to respond to the massive caseload are dangerously overstretched.

It says only 64 percent of the $110 million needed for its operation in Niger this year has been funded. It is appealing to international donors to provide the support it needs to continue providing lifesaving assistance.
…

The World Health Organization has recognized Botswana for its efforts to prevent the transmission of HIV from expectant mothers to unborn children. Officials say no children born to HIV-positive mothers this year had the virus.

WHO awarded Botswana the ‘silver tier’ status this week; The silver tier certification is given to countries that have lowered the mother-to-child HIV transmission rate to under five percent and provided prenatal care and anti-retroviral treatment to more than 90 percent of pregnant women.

Botswana has achieved the WHO’s target of an HIV case rate of fewer than 500 per 100,000 live births.

WHO regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti, in awarding the certificate in Gaborone on Thursday, said Botswana has demonstrated that an AIDS free generation is possible.

“I want to applaud, this is huge accomplishment by Botswana, which we know has one of the most severe HIV epidemics. This achievement demonstrates that an HIV/AIDS free generation is possible. It also marks an important step towards ending AIDS across the entire continent. Perhaps most importantly, it illustrates the remarkable progress that can be achieved when the needs of mothers living with HIV and their children, are prioritized.”

Botswana has the world’s fourth highest HIV prevalence but has made strides in fighting the virus.

President Mokgweetsi Masisi says the award recognizes the country’s progress towards an HIV-free generation.

“The award is given to Botswana and Batswana as testimony for the success of our efforts as a country in the path to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV. We are excited by this development because we have been battling the HIV/AIDS pandemic for many years. The award therefore, which is the first to be awarded to an African country, demonstrates that our efforts have not been in vain,” Masisi said. Also noting that HIV rate significantly decreased from 37.4 percent in 2003 to 18.4 percent in 2019.

HIV-positive young women, like Tlotlo Moilwa, say the country is on a reassuring path.

“The reasons that drive this change is that the moment a woman is pregnant, they are also tested for HIV and if the result is positive, at that very moment, they enroll for prevention of mother-to-child transmission. This means they cannot infect the unborn baby or even during birth,” Moilwa expressed.

With the country making strides in preventing mother-to-child HIV transmissions, Moilwa says the future is much brighter for her and other HIV-positive women.

“I see a huge change for our future. If you look at the youth living with HIV at the moment, a lot of them got infected at birth. If right now babies are born HIV negative, it means that there will not be HIV positive young people in the future if we are to take care of ourselves.”

According to WHO, 15 countries globally, have been certified for eliminating mother-to-child HIV transmission, but none had an epidemic as large as Botswana. 
…

Coronavirus cases have risen rising dramatically in South Africa since the discovery of the omicron variant. Government and other entities are scrambling to vaccinate more people to avoid severe cases.

Vaccines can’t guarantee you won’t be infected by the coronavirus, but they can save your life. That was the message South Africa’s health minister Joe Phaahla delivered today as the country enters its fourth wave.

More than 11,000 people tested positive on Thursday alone — a massive spike from the roughly 330 daily cases being detected two weeks ago.

Phaahla says now is not the time to be hesitant toward vaccines.

“No one amongst our scientists ever said to us that the vaccines will prevent us from being infected with the virus. But that what they have always said, and which were seeing as this wave’s getting into operation, that 80 to 90% when you are vaccinated, you’ll get mild illness.”

While vaccines are widely available, less than half the adult population has been inoculated.

The omicron variant that was discovered by South African scientists last month is driving the new wave of infections.

What is clear is that vaccinated people are making up just 2% of hospitalizations.

“There’s definitely early evidence that this virus, or this variant, is more transmissible and also early evidence that there is some degree of immune escape. Vaccination will prevent against the severe disease, but you may still get infections, even though you’ve been vaccinated,” said Dr. Michelle Groome, South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

The severity of the omicron variant is not yet fully clear, with scientists saying more data is still needed.

What is different from previous waves is that a higher number of children under the age of 5 are being hospitalized.

However, Groome says it is still too early to be certain of the risks and severity for children. “But I think we do just need to highlight the importance of surge preparation, preparedness, to also include pediatric beds and staff.”

Vaccines are not yet available to children under the age of 12 in South Africa. Approval for such use is not likely to come until the new year, officials said.

In the meantime, nonprofits and community groups remain focused on the most vulnerable adults.

Sophie Hobbs is the spokesperson for Nacosa, an organization that supports people living with HIV and tuberculosis.

“Given that, that the estimation is that we have 8½ million people in South Africa living with HIV, I think that yes, that message needs to come across very strongly that that people living with HIV must, a, make sure that [they are] taking their medication, because that can protect them, and, b, that they should get vaccinated,” she said.

Nacosa also works with young adults, women experiencing abuse, sex workers and drug users.

Hobbs says while misinformation is playing a role in stopping some of them from getting vaccinated, there are more complicated reasons. “If you don’t have a job and you don’t have food, and you’re living in an unsafe environment, you know, really COVID, the risk of COVID is really the last thing on your mind. It’s a socioeconomic issue.”

Health officials are bracing for a surge in patients as seen in previous waves of the pandemic. They say hospitals are being equipped with beds and steady oxygen supplies in preparation. 
…

Concerns about the omicron COVID-19 variant are growing in Africa but health experts say vaccination can help reduce infections in the population.

This week has seen a surge in coronavirus cases in Africa due to the new omicron variant. The continent reported 52,000 cases for the week, and 31,000 were reported in South Africa.  

Speaking at a virtual press briefing Thursday, John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called for African countries to work together to deal with the new variant and the pandemic.

“What we need to do going forward is to have a coordinated approach for managing these variants because we know that there will be another variant and we know we will deal with this variant for sure,” said Nkengasong. “There is a lot we don’t know about the variant, no need to panic. We just need to be patient and understand this variant. I know we are not helpless today. We flooded many tools on the battlefield against the virus as a whole. It’s still the same COVID.”

Moses Masika, a Nairobi-based virologist, says the continent will continue to suffer until most of the population is vaccinated.

“Regardless of the new variant omicron, the situation was still equally bad because we have delta [variant] across the continent and the entire globe and the majority of the people in Africa are susceptible to this infection because the vaccination level is so low is less than 10% or 1 in 10 people have received at least a single dose of the vaccine so that means many people are susceptible they can get infected,” said Masika.

Masika blames the lack of vaccines for poor vaccination levels in Africa.

“The infrastructure in many places is not that bad. It’s decent enough but right now, there is nothing to distribute to many of these facilities,” said Masika. “Governments like ours have opted to keep the vaccine in larger centers where people can go because if they were to distribute it to all health centers there would not be enough to cover everybody and give them two doses. But I think our biggest challenge is still supply. If the supply side is sorted, then the vaccine can be taken much closer to the people.”

Africa needs at least 2.2 billion doses.

Africa CDC says 54 countries have procured 417.5 million vaccines.

The Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team has distributed 22.4 million vaccine doses.  

Later this month, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will convene a meeting with the continent’s health ministers to develop ways to make people take the vaccines available in their countries.
…

Abuja resident Freda Igri was preparing to make her native afang soup for her family, but her cooking gas tank was empty.

The price to refill a 12.5 kg tank with gas — about $25 U.S. — was nearly triple the normal price, and she said she couldn’t afford to spend that much on gas alone.

“This scarcity of gas and the high price, it is unbearable, because going to the market right now, buying foodstuffs [is] costly, and coming back to cook again with the gas [is] costly. It’s not easy,” Igri said.

The Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers attributes the increase in the cost of the fuel to the introduction in August of a 7.5 percent import tax, or value-added tax, on gas in a bid to expand the country’s revenue base.

Up to 70 percent of the gas consumed locally in Nigeria comes from imports, even though the country is a major oil producer with huge gas reserves — ninth globally. Economists also say devaluation of the Nigerian naira currency and an unstable inflow of foreign exchange are driving up prices.

The situation is causing many Nigerians like Igri to turn to cheaper alternatives — firewood and charcoal.

“We just use it because it’s at least manageable,” Igri said. “If you want to go for gas, it’s quite expensive.”

The growing demand for charcoal fuel is helping local dealers like Ashiru Mohammed make more profit. He said he’s increasing his output. Business hadn’t been good because people were using gas, but now his customers are all buying charcoal, he said.

But environmentalists warn that the demand for charcoal could lead to serious deforestation. David Michael Terungwa, a conservationist and founder of the Global Initiative for Food Security and Ecosystem Preservation, wants authorities to reverse the gas import tax.

“There will be massive deforestation, which is already going on, but this hike in prices will even make it worse,” Terungwa said. “The average Nigerian could afford to use gas, but right now, not everybody can afford it.”

In November, the Nigerian gas dealers association called on President Muhammadu Buhari to address the issue. Nigerian authorities have yet to respond, but at the recent global climate change summit, Buhari pledged to end deforestation by 2030 and carbon emissions by 2060 — a goal conservationists say now hangs in the balance.
…

Two soldiers were killed and several more were wounded when Islamist militants attacked a border security post in northern Benin on Wednesday night, the army said. 

The raid in Porga region was the second in Benin this week. Islamist militants attacked an army patrol in the department of Alibori on Tuesday morning, army chief Colonel Fructueux Gbaguidi said in an internal statement on Thursday seen by Reuters. 

The army killed one militant in Tuesday’s attack and another on Wednesday night, he said. An official statement by the army later confirmed the deaths and attributed the attacks to unidentified armed men. 

Militant attacks are rare in Benin, but groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State are active in its northern neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger and have made increasing incursions south. 

Islamist militant violence has ravaged much of West Africa’s Sahel region, and states on the Gulf of Guinea have reinforced security to try to keep it at bay. 

“This new test reminds us in blood and pain that the danger on the ground is real,” Gbaguidi said in his note to officers. 

Benin had not reported an Islamist attack since 2019, when two French tourists were kidnapped in a national park and later taken by the militants into Burkina Faso. They were rescued by the French military. 

Neighboring Togo said last month it had repelled an attack near its northern border, which was the first by suspected Islamists in the country. 

 
…

The tale of two South Sudanese brothers recently rescued in the Mediterranean Sea is a common one among the many African migrants seeking better lives in Europe. The two men left Libya on a flimsy boat, but the engine broke down and they were eventually picked up by the Ocean Viking rescue ship. Reporter Ruud Elmendorp was on board the rescue vessel and has their story. 

Producer: Rob Raffaele. Camera: Ruud Elmendorp.
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Sudden travel bans imposed on South Africa in the past week over the omicron variant have dealt a blow to an already struggling economy, experts say. The jobless rate is creeping up to affect half the population and the lost tourism this month will have far-reaching impacts beyond the travel sector. Linda Givetash reports from Johannesburg.
…

Sudden travel bans imposed on South Africa in the past week over the omicron variant of coronavirus have dealt a blow to an already struggling economy, experts say. The jobless rate is creeping toward half the population and the lost tourism this month will have a far-reaching impact extending beyond the travel sector.

The Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum, at the center of the apartheid struggle in South Africa, is normally bustling with tourists.

Since the recent discovery of the omicron coronavirus variant, foreign visitors have vanished. Britain was the first to halt flights to South Africa, with the United States and other countries quickly following suit.

People working in the tourism industry say panic over the new variant is decimating business, just as travel was starting to pick up over the past two months.

Wayne Barnes is a sales manager with MoAfrika Tours.

“When the U.K. actually opened up and took us off the red list, we started seeing an increase [in] numbers [of] travelers from all around the world started to support us again. So, their decisions is definitely affecting, you know, everybody around the world on their decisions,” he said.

And the decision blindsided many. 

Barnes said his company lost over $30,000 to refunds in just one day for canceled December bookings.

Tour guides like Thabang Moleya went from leading groups of over 40 people last week to no one today.

“I’m very hurt at the moment, namely, because things were starting to look like we were starting to be working normally, that which will remind us of life before COVID,” said Moleya.

It’s not just the tourism industry that’s hurting.

From vehicle suppliers to website developers, the collapse of travel is having a domino effect across the economy.

Nearly 47% of South Africans were jobless last quarter, according to government statistics released this week.

It’s a bleak landscape for parents and breadwinners like Thabang Moleya, who are again facing layoffs.

“At some point, I wanted to come up with an idea of what one can do. Also, it was not easy for one to find any job. I’m just hoping and believing that one day one would work again, the world would travel again,” said Moleya.

But economists say recovery is years away.

And locking down will only slow that recovery and make life harder for the poorest.

Dawie Roodt is the chief economist for the Efficient Group in Pretoria.

“The biggest killer out there is not a virus or TB, or AIDS or anything, the biggest killer out there is poverty. It might be necessary to prevent larger crowds to get together and things like that. But it’s not necessarily necessary to stop airlines from flying and to necessarily stop people from going, stay at home [and] not go to work, or stay at home and not go to the factory and things like that,” said Roodt.

For those who have managed to cling to their jobs, like Johannesburg tourism ambassador Mbali Ngema, the situation still feels demoralizing.

“Before, you used to have that thing of waking up in the morning to say I’m going to work, I’m going to see new people, I’m going to meet new people. But due to this, you just wake up and you sit and you do nothing,” said Ngema.

Until scientists better understand the omicron variant and politicians change their views on travel, South Africans will have to continue waiting for normal life to return.
…

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday that southern African nations that first detected the omicron COVID-19 variant are being collectively punished with travel restrictions, and he urged “common sense” to respond to the new variant.

“What’s unacceptable is to have one part of the world — one of the most vulnerable parts of the world economy — condemned to a lockout when they were the ones that revealed the existence of a new variant that, by the way, already existed in other parts of the world, including in Europe, as we know,” Guterres told reporters.

He appealed to the more than 50 governments that have imposed travel restrictions on visitors from South Africa, where scientists first reported the omicron variant on November 24, according to the World Health Organization, and seven other African countries, amid concerns the new mutation is highly transmissible.

“This is a very strong appeal that I launch, an appeal to common sense,” Guterres said. “We have the instruments to have safe travel. Let’s use those instruments to avoid this kind of, allow me to say — travel apartheid — which I think is unacceptable.”

Guterres had just concluded meetings with African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat.

“We’ve seen as a result of being transparent that most of Africa has been subjected to sanctions — flights between this region and a certain number of countries have been banned, and that is regrettable,” Faki said, condemning the measures as unjustified.

He noted that less than 6% of Africans are fully vaccinated because of unequal distribution.

WHO said Tuesday that blanket travel bans will not prevent international spread of the variant and could hurt the global COVID-19 response because it will discourage countries from reporting new variants.

WHO urges all travelers to adhere to mitigation measures, including getting vaccinated, washing hands and wearing masks.
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Armed with placards that read “Stop BBC,” “Stop CNN” and “Stop FAKE news on Ethiopia,” supporters of Ethiopia’s government are protesting in cities across the world.

Their demand: an end to what they see as biased coverage of the war in Ethiopia. Many blame international media outlets for what Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has called “a sophisticated narrative war waged against the nation.”

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was praised for releasing journalists and supporting a free press when he came to power.

But more recently he said on Twitter that journalists are “using disinformation as a pathway for their sinister moves. Each Ethiopian must play a role in pushing back and reversing the distorted narrative.”

His comments are backed by action from the country’s government and media regulator, both of which have issued warnings and restrictions for foreign and local media.

A state of emergency announced November 2 also allows authorities to “cancel licenses or suspend any media outlet or journalist providing moral support to terrorist groups, directly or indirectly,” Ethiopia’s attorney general, Gedion Timothewos, said at a press conference.

Further guidance came from the country’s State of Emergency Operation Command on November 25, in the form of four rules that included bans on sharing details of military activity and updates on the front line, and assisting what Ethiopia deems to be terrorist groups.

Authorities have said action will be taken against those who use freedom of speech as a pretext to “support the terrorist group either directly or indirectly” — an apparent reference to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which Ethiopia’s government designated a terrorist group.

The ruling could be used to block reporting on the TPLF or the Oromo Liberation Army, a rebel group that is also fighting the central government.

The regulatory Ethiopian Media Authority has already warned foreign outlets including CNN, BBC, Reuters and The Associated Press about reporting that it said “sowed seeds of animosity among people and compromised the sovereignty of the country.”

The authority on November 19 threatened to revoke licenses and said the outlets had failed to “rectify journalistic misconduct” previously flagged.

The warning is the latest example, observers say, of Ethiopian efforts to discredit, intimidate or block reporting on the conflict. The federal government has repeatedly accused foreign media of sympathizing with or supporting the TPLF in their coverage of the war.

Over a dozen journalists have been arrested since fighting broke out in November 2020. At least one foreign journalist was expelled, and in July, the license of the news website Addis Standard was briefly revoked.

In October, the media regulator told the Ethiopian broadcaster Ahadu Radio and TV to cease sharing foreign news reports.

As a VOA affiliate, the station relied on the U.S. broadcaster for foreign news content. But it stopped airing those segments after receiving the order.

VOA has called on the media regulator to reconsider its decision.

“The order restricts the free flow of information to the citizens of Ethiopia and undermines press freedom,” VOA acting Director Yolanda Lopez said in a statement at the time.

Fitsum Arega, Ethiopia’s ambassador to the U.S., did not respond to VOA’s request for comment sent via a messaging app. Email requests to the prime minister’s office and to spokesperson Billene Seyoum went unanswered.

Government officials have previously said the measures are needed to address inaccurate or biased reporting.

“Coverage had been hijacked by the operatives affiliated with the TPLF, who are residing in different parts of the Western world,” Dina Mufti, a spokesperson for Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told VOA earlier this year.

Arrests, harassment increase

A few days before the Ahadu order, two of the broadcaster’s journalists were arrested on accusations of circulating false information.

The charges related to an October 22 interview in which an official said Tigrayan forces had captured the town of Hayq in the country’s Amhara region.

Other media outlets including VOA have spoken with people who fled the town and similarly stated that it had been occupied by Tigrayan forces.

Ahadu later retracted its report and issued an apology, saying the information it had received was incorrect, according to a lawyer for the two journalists and the news website Ethiopia Insider.

Ahadu journalists Luwam Atikilti and Kibrom Worku were detained and questioned, according to their lawyer. Luwam was released after about 20 days, but police in Addis Ababa appealed to remand Kibrom.

For media rights groups, the latest arrests reflected a trend seen since fighting began.

“I have to say that what is happening here is not exactly surprising, given the experience of the past one year,” said Muthoki Mumo, the sub-Saharan representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

CPJ criticized the new state of emergency, saying that it could allow Ethiopia to silence the press and public debate over the war.

“We are of course concerned about how this law will be implemented and whether it will be implemented to the detriment of free reporting,” Mumo said. “A very valid fear, again considering the arrests and the violations that we’ve seen over the last one year, considering that the state has demonstrated itself as quite eager to control the narrative around this war and quite willing to take extreme steps to control that narrative.”

The work of journalists is also being hampered by regular internet blackouts in the Tigray region and elsewhere.

Blackouts have affected Tigray since the conflict began in November 2020 and have spread to other regions, affecting an estimated 10 million people, said Felicia Anthonio, who works with digital rights group Access Now on its #KeepItOn Campaign.

Atrocities in Ethiopia are taking place in the dark because no one can document them, Anthonio said.

Findings from a joint investigation by the United Nations and the state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission last month found serious abuses, torture, sexual violence and human rights violations committed by all sides, and called for citizens to be protected.

“Journalists, human rights defenders, civil society activists count on the internet and digital platforms to monitor and document conflicts and provide resources during health and humanitarian crises,” Anthonio told VOA.

The digital rights campaigner added, “It is really making it increasingly hard, if not impossible, if I would say, for journalists and activists to corroborate accounts of these violations that are coming out of the affected regions in Ethiopia.”
…

Pro-government forces in Ethiopia have recaptured the northern town of Lalibela, a United Nations World Heritage Site, from Tigray forces, according to the office of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. 

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front and forces aligned with the group had seized control of the historic town in northern Ethiopia’s Amhara region about four months ago. 

The TPLF did not immediately comment on the government’s seizure of Lalibela, home to ancient rock-hewn churches and a holy site for millions of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. 

Since the TPLF announced large territorial gains last week as part of an advance on the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, the government said it had retaken control of several small towns in the regions of Afar and Amhara, including Lalibela. 

The TPLF ruled Ethiopia for three decades. The war began about a year ago with Abiy’s deployment of troops to the northern regional state of Tigray in response to the TPLF’s seizure of military bases.

The TPLF-led authority administering the Tigray region says it is the Tigray Regional Government. Ethiopian federal authorities say that government was dissolved and that a provisional administration has the mandate in Tigray. 

The ensuing conflict has killed thousands of people, displaced several million from their homes and left more than 9 million people dependent on food aid.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Nigeria has confirmed its first cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus in two travelers from South Africa. But Canada had already reported cases of the variant in Canadians who had recently returned there from Nigeria. The infections raise concerns that the easily spread variant could be taking hold in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.

Nigeria’s Center for Disease Control made the announcement in a statement early Wednesday and said three cases had been confirmed so far.

However, officials corrected the report which had earlier suggested that Nigeria had found evidence of omicron since October in follow-up statement released Wednesday afternoon.

The earlier report raised concerns that the variant may have been circulating for weeks before it was detected and officially announced in South Africa last week.

The variant has spread to least 24 countries. 

Nigeria CDC Director General Ifedayo Adetifa says authorities are already taking measures to prevent its spread in Nigeria.

“We are enhancing surveillance in terms of looking at travelers and likely importation of cases and ensuring that travelers adhere to all of the travel advisories. We’ll continue to watch as this variant spreads through the population,” he expressed.

On Sunday, Canadian authorities said they detected the variant in two travelers, who had recently been in Nigeria and expanded a travel ban to include Nigeria and nine other African countries.

But Nigerian authorities had maintained that no case of the variant had been seen in the country. However, during a weekly COVID-19 update in Abuja Monday, Nigeria’s health minister Osagie Ehanire said the country was preparing for any eventualities.

“We are adopting a watchful, waiting posture — watchful waiting posture in that we’re looking very closely at all developments and watching the points of entry,” he noted.

The World Health Organization has designated omicron a variant of concern and urged leaders to take urgent control measures.

But Adetifa says restricting travel is a step taken too soon. “We are currently the subject of travel bans ourselves for reasons that are not given by the science. This is not driven by the science, and we think from a technical perspective at the moment that this is not the way to go,” he pointed out.

Nigerian authorities say they will continue to maintain strong surveillance, hoping to limit the variant’s spread and apply stricter measures if need be. 
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South Africa’s teenage pregnancy rate jumped 60% during the COVID-19 pandemic, an increase affecting the education of many young women and their hopes to escape the poverty cycle. Even though South Africa has introduced sex education in schools, parents have resisted as Franco Puglisi reports from Johannesburg.
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A Kenyan video game company has launched a football game that encourages young men to be active during the pandemic and help stop gender-based violence. Surveys show about 40% of Kenyan women will face gender-based violence in their lifetimes.  Lenny Ruvaga reports from Nairobi.
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Nigeria has detected its first case of the omicron coronavirus variant in a sample it collected in October, weeks before South Africa alerted the world about the variant last week, the country’s national public health institute said Wednesday.

It is the first West African country that has recorded the omicron variant since scientists in southern Africa detected and reported it and adds to a list of nearly 20 countries where the variant has been recorded, triggering travel bans across the world. 

Genomic sequencing of positive cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria identified two cases of the omicron variant among travelers from South Africa, the Nigeria Center for Disease Control said in a statement issued by its director-general.

The two unidentified travelers arrived in the West African country last week, but the variant has also been confirmed in cases in Nigeria prior to their arrival.

“Retrospective sequencing of the previously confirmed cases among travelers to Nigeria also identified the omicron variant among the sample collected in October 2021,” Nigeria CDC director-general Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa said.

Much remains unknown about the new variant, including whether it is more contagious, as some health authorities suspect, whether it makes people more seriously ill, and if it can thwart the vaccine.

The Nigeria CDC urged the country’s states and the general public to be on alert and called for improved testing amid concerns that Nigeria’s low testing capacity might become its biggest challenge in the face of the new variant.

Testing for the virus is low in many states and even in the nation’s capital, Abuja. For instance, in parts of Kuje, a suburb of Abuja, Musa Ahmed, a public health official, told The Associated Press that no one has been tested for the virus for weeks.

The detection of the omicron variant in Africa’s most populous nation, with 206 million people, coincides with Nigeria’s new requirement that all federal government employees must be inoculated or present a negative COVID-19 test result done in the last 72 hours. 

With the vaccine mandate taking effect on Wednesday, there were chaotic scenes at several offices in the nation’s capital as civil servants without a vaccination card or a negative PCR test were turned away by security agents.

Many of the workers and security agents were not wearing face masks.

“Governments should invest in promoting narratives around vaccine safety, efficacy, and the broader public health security implications of poor vaccines uptake,” Adewunmi Emoruwa, lead strategist at Gatefield, an Abuja-based consultancy. “If public servants are convinced about these issues, they are naturally more effective advocates to their constituents.”

Across Nigeria, the news of the omicron variant — which the World Health Organization has warned poses “very high” risk — has triggered concerns and renewed fears over the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the airport in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city and economic hub, authorities insisted that travelers must wear their face masks at the counters, though not much attention is paid to many others flouting health protocols around the airport premises and in the city. 

Nigeria — with 214,218 confirmed infections including nearly 3,000 deaths — has updated its travel advisory, ordering incoming international travelers to have a PCR test 48 hours before embarking on their trip to the country and two more tests, two days and seven days after arrival. Incoming international arrivals must also isolate for seven days.

Amid global concern over the omicron variant, the Nigeria CDC director-general told reporters that the country remains at alert in the face of the emerging crisis.

“We are working very hard to enhance ongoing surveillance, especially for inbound travelers, and also trying to ramp up testing (including) at the land borders,” he said.

A slew of nations moved to ban travels from many countries especially southern African nations in the aftermath of the emergence of the omicron variant. But the move has been widely condemned by many including South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is currently in Nigeria on a two-day visit.
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Ethiopia has filed a complaint with Twitter accusing the social media giant of suspending accounts critical of Tigrayan rebels it has been fighting in a gruesome, year-long war, a government spokeswoman said Tuesday. 

The dust-up highlights how both sides are trying to use social media to shape the narrative of the conflict between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group. 

“We have reason to believe that Twitter is targeting and suspending pro-Ethiopia voices that are raising awareness about the TPLF’s atrocities and its lies,” Abiy’s spokeswoman Billene Seyoum said at a press conference. 

“We have shared this with their policy team, that we believe Twitter has been infiltrated by TPLF sympathizers in the same manner that many democratic institutions and corporate spaces have also been infiltrated to provide a TPLF narrative.” 

Billene later told AFP that “a formal complaint” had been sent to Twitter. 

She did not specify which “pro-Ethiopia voices” had been suspended. 

But neighboring Eritrea, which has backed Abiy in the war, on Tuesday complained that Twitter had suspended the New Africa Institute, a self-described think tank that routinely echoes Ethiopian and Eritrean government talking points concerning the war, and its executive director Simon Tesfamariam. 

Simon “deserves accolades, among others, for his meticulous research and balanced reports (New Africa Institute) to counter mainstream media disinformation stemming from political bias,” Eritrean government spokesman Yemane Gebremeskel said on Twitter. 

“Twitter’s suspension of his accounts is thus unwarranted & requires urgent review.” 

A Twitter spokesperson said Simon’s accounts had been suspended for violations of rules “including our platform manipulation and spam policy”. 

“This includes the creation of multiple accounts to post duplicative content and create fake engagement, and the operation of fake accounts,” the spokesperson said, adding that rules are enforced “objectively” and that Twitter is politically “neutral”. 

The war in Ethiopia broke out in November 2020 after Abiy sent troops into the country’s northernmost Tigray region to topple the TPLF — a move he said came in response to TPLF attacks on army camps. 

Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers have been accused of massacres and mass rape in Tigray, while more recently the TPLF has been accused of similar abuses during its offensives in neighboring Afar and Amhara regions. 

A joint investigation published this month by the UN human rights office and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission warned of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by all sides during the conflict.
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An estimated 16.6 million children in sub-Saharan Africa alone are forced into illegal labor, according to the U.N. And despite being outlawed, advocates say child labor is on the rise. Globally, 1 in 10 children are now believed to be involved in some form of child labor. In this report from southern Burkina Faso, reporter Henry Wilkins looks at why child labor is such a persistent problem.

Camera: Henry Wilkins
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In Kenya, refugees and their supporters have welcomed a new law that gives the country’s half a million refugees better access to education and work. But the law comes as Kenya plans by July to close two of the region’s largest refugee camps that are home to more than 400,000 people who fled conflict in Somalia and South Sudan. Brenda Mulinya reports from Nairobi. 
 
Camera: Amos Wangwa
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The migrant crisis on Poland’s border, which Western powers accuse Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko of engineering, caught international attention in November. But asylum seekers on the Poland-Belarus border aren’t alone in being shunted back and forth across Europe’s land and sea borders, say rights organizations and other monitors.

Throughout the year, irregular migration to Europe has been increasing, with more than 160,000 migrants entering the European Union this year, mostly through the Balkans and Italy. That’s a 70% jump from 2020, when pandemic travel restrictions are thought to have impacted the mobility of would-be migrants, and a 45% increase over the previous pre-pandemic year.

And with irregular migration picking up again, rights campaigners say the EU and national governments are increasingly skirting or breaking international humanitarian laws in their determination to prevent war refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants from entering or remaining on the continent.

They say European leaders appear determined to avoid a repeat of 2015, when more than a million asylum seekers from the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and central Asia arrived in Europe, roiling the continent’s politics and fueling the rise of anti-migrant political parties.

Reports have multiplied of refugees and migrants being forcibly pushed back over the EU’s external borders. So, too, have reports of refugees being prevented from filing asylum applications. Poland passed a law in August stipulating that migrants who cross the border are to be “taken back to the state border” and “ordered to leave the country immediately,” preventing them from making an asylum application.

Pushbacks breach both European human rights laws and the 1951 Geneva Convention, which outline the rights of refugees as well as the legal obligations of the 146 signatory states to protect them.

Signatory states aren’t allowed to impose penalties on refugees who enter their countries illegally in search of asylum, nor are they allowed to expel refugees (without due process). Under the convention, refugees should not be forcibly returned, technically known as “refoul,” to the home countries they fled. Asylum seekers are meant to be provided with free access to courts, and signatory states are required to offer refugees administrative assistance.

The EU, its border agency, Frontex, and the bloc’s national governments, say they do observe international humanitarian law, but according to several recent investigations by rights organizations, the rules are now being flouted routinely and systematically.

“EU member states have adopted increasingly restrictive and punitive asylum rules and are focusing on reducing migration flows, with devastating consequences,” Amnesty International warned recently.

“We are witnessing tremendous human suffering caused by the EU-Turkey deal and by the EU-Libya cooperation, both of which are leaving men, women and children trapped and exposed to suffering and abuse,” the rights organization says in reference to deals struck with Turkey and Libya to block migrants heading to Europe and readmit them when they are ejected from Europe.

In the case of Libya, migrants are often returned to detention camps run by militias where Amnesty International and others have documented harrowing violations, including sexual violence against men, women and children. In a report published earlier this year, Amnesty noted, “Decade-long violations against refugees and migrants continued unabated in Libyan detention centers during the first six months of 2021 despite repeated promises to address them.”

Lighthouse Reports, a Dutch nonprofit journalism consortium, has documented dozens of instances in which Frontex surveillance aircraft were in the vicinity of migrant boats later intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard. “There is a clear pattern discernible. Boats in distress are spotted, communications take place between European actors and the Libyan Coast Guard,” Lighthouse researchers said in a report this year.

Frontex has routinely denied the allegations but lawmakers in the European Parliament accused the agency, after a four-month investigation, of failing to “fulfill its human rights obligations.” In the Balkans, the Border Violence Monitoring Network and other NGOs say they have gathered testimony from hundreds of refugees who allege they have been beaten back into Bosnia-Herzegovina across the Croatian border by baton-wielding men whose uniforms bear no insignia.

Europe’s peripheral countries have also been erecting border fences and building walls with the prospects of more Afghan refugees appearing on their borders acting as a spur. Greece has completed a 40-kilometer wall along its land border with Turkey and installed an automated surveillance system to try to prevent asylum seekers from reaching Europe. Other countries are following suit and have been pushing the EU to help with funding.

Critics say the wall-building now contrasts with the criticism European leaders leveled four years ago against then-U.S. President Donald Trump over his plan to build a wall on America’s southern border with Mexico. “We have a history and a tradition that we celebrate when walls are brought down and bridges are built,” admonished Federica Mogherini, then the EU’s foreign policy chief.

While migrant advocates complain of rights violations, calls are mounting in Europe for changes to be made to both the Geneva Convention and the bloc’s humanitarian laws. Critics of the convention say it was primarily drawn up to cope with population displacement in Europe in the wake of the Second World War. They say it fails to recognize the nature and scale of the much more complex migration patterns of the 21st century, which could see numbers swell because of climate change.

Last week in Budapest, Balázs Orbán, a deputy minister in the Hungarian government, said the current EU migration laws should be replaced. The current legal system is “catalyzing the influx of illegal migrants, and not helping to stop them on the borders,” he said. “This framework was created during the time of the Geneva Convention in 1951, when refugees from the Soviet Union needed to be accommodated for. Now, times have changed,” he added. 
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Nigerian authorities are searching for more than 250 inmates still at large after an armed group attacked a prison in the central city of Jos. Prison authorities say nine escapees were killed in clashes with security forces.

An unspecified number of heavily armed men invaded the medium security prison yard in the city of Jos on Sunday evening, shooting sporadically.

Nigerian Prison Services officials say one soldier was killed during an exchange of gunfire with the armed men and one prison staffer was shot in the hand. 

Officials say one attacker was killed and more than 250 inmates were freed. They say six inmates were injured during the attack and are receiving treatment.  

This was the fourth major attack on prisons this year in the West African nation.

Nigeria Prisons Services public relations officer Francis Enobore described the incident as unfortunate.

“Unfortunately, we’re now faced with this new sheriff in town – armed men coming to invade the facilities with military-based weapons, including explosives and all of that, but we’re not folding our hands,” Enobore said.

Last month, a similar attack on a prison in southwestern Oyo state freed about 392 inmates. 

In April, correctional service authorities in southeastern Imo state said 1,844 inmates escaped after a prison attack that was blamed on a separatist group known as the Indigenous People of Biafra or IPOB. The group denied the accusation.

Enobore said authorities are taking steps to prevent further jailbreaks.

“We are trying to upgrade the training of our arms corps personnel. The military is assisting us in that regard, so that we’ll be able to deploy military weapons to be able to withstand those attackers. We’re also working on reclaiming our buffer zones to enable [us to] profile whoever is encroaching into your territory,” Enobore said.

Last week, Nigerian authorities designated certain armed groups in the country as terrorist organizations. 

Experts praised the move, saying that charging the groups with terror-related offenses will make it easier to crack down on their activities.

But security expert and former defense spokesperson John Agim says there’s more to be done.

“The prison officials should be able to study the pattern of the breaks and know where the problem is from. What they’re supposed to do is to look at the caliber of prisoners they have. Then they will know what level of security they’ll require to safeguard the prison,” Agim said.

There were some 1,060 inmates in the Jos prison before Sunday’s attack. Prison authorities and the police are searching for 252 escapees who have been missing since the break.
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In search of a better life, many migrants cross from Africa to Europe through what has been dubbed the “deadliest border in the world:” The Mediterranean Sea. But despite the risks, the International Organization for Migration says the number of people crossing has doubled in the first half of this year to an estimated 77,000. For VOA, Ruud Elmendorp reports from onboard the Ocean Viking, a rescue vessel in the Mediterranean Sea.
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