he coronavirus pandemic has taken a toll on many people’s mental health, especially among vulnerable groups like refugees. In Kenya’s urban refugee camps, aid agencies are trying to help people cope with anxiety and depression. Brenda Mulinya reports.
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Ethiopia’s national army launched a ground offensive against forces from the northern region of Tigray on Monday, the region’s ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said.   

TPLF spokesperson Getachew Reda told Reuters by phone that the army, alongside allied forces from the northern Amhara region, had launched the offensive to push Tigrayan forces out of Amhara on Monday morning.   

Reuters could not independently verify Getachew’s statement.   

Asked if a ground offensive had been launched, Billene Seyoum, spokeswoman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, said the Ethiopian government had a responsibility to protect its citizens in all parts of the country from any acts of terrorism.   

“The government of Ethiopia will continue to counter the TPLF’s destruction, violence and killings in the Amhara region and elsewhere,” she added, without elaborating. 

Amhara and Tigray have a decades-long dispute over territory after Tigray enlarged its borders a quarter of a century ago, to include fertile farmlands also claimed by the Amhara region. Amhara sent forces into that territory — officially known as Western Tigray — when fighting erupted in November between the national army and rebellious TPLF forces, and has retained control ever since. 

In June, Tigrayan forces took back control of most of Tigray, forcing the national military to withdraw. Tigray then invaded the neighboring region of Amhara in July, saying it was a tactic to try to force Amhara forces out of the heavily militarized region of Western Tigray.   

The Amhara regional spokesman signaled on Twitter last week that an offensive against Tigrayan forces could be imminent, and since Friday there has been heavy airstrikes reported in several Tigrayan-held areas of Amhara, diplomatic sources said.   

Getachew said ground fighting had begun on Monday. 

“On the morning of Oct. 11, the Ethiopian military with the support of Amhara special forces launched coordinated offensives on all fronts,” the office Getachew heads said in a statement. 

Getachew said there was fighting in Amhara region’s Wegeltena, Wurgessa and Haro towns, and that the forces were using heavy artillery, fighter jets, drones, tanks and rockets to attack.   

Asked for comment, the Amhara regional government referred Reuters to the federal government.   

The fighting since November 2020 has displaced millions of people and forced hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans into famine — a situation the United Nations has blamed on a government blockade. The government denies it is blocking aid. 

The fighting has made around 5.2 million people in Tigray — more than 90% of the population — and another 1.7 million people in Afar and Amhara dependent on food aid.  
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Two soldiers were killed when their motorcycles ran over a homemade bomb in southeast Burkina Faso on Monday, the latest attack in a region previously spared the jihadist violence of the north. 

The West African country has faced increasingly frequent and deadly attacks by jihadists forces linked to the Islamic State group or al-Qaida since 2015. 

The violence has killed around 2,000 people and forced 1.4 million to flee their homes. 

A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two soldiers “were victims of an IED (improvised explosive device) attack” in the town of Farakorosso in the Cascades region. 

Another security source said that the victims were “a pair of soldiers whose motorbike exploded on a mine.” 

Attacks with homemade explosive devices have ramped up since 2018 in Burkina Faso, killing nearly 300 civilians and soldiers, according to an AFP count. Such attacks are often waged in tandem with ambushes. 

Also in the Cascades region, two soldiers were killed by an IED near the town of Larabin on October 2. 

Two days later in the north, 14 soldiers were killed in an attack on a military detachment in Yirgou, the defense ministry said. 

 
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The African Union says it wants to partner with the United Nations in a proposed joint mission to support Somalia in its efforts to battle armed extremists and achieve stability.

In a statement, the African Union’s Peace and Security Council said it endorsed an independent assessment team’s recommendation for a hybrid operation that would replace the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) after this year.  

Since 2007, the regional peacekeeping mission, which operates with U.N. approval, has aided Somali government forces in their battle to stabilize the Horn of Africa country, mainly against al-Shabab militants.  

The African Union communique notes “grave concern at the worsening security situation in Somalia … in large parts of the country, (which) has detracted attention from the critical processes of state-building and stabilization.”

The hybrid mission was among several options recommended by the assessment team in a report released in May. The plan, which the African Union has proposed to take effect in January, would need approval by the U.N. Security Council and Somalia’s central government. 

It faces stiff opposition. Last December, a separate U.N. assessment team had proposed that the African Union reconfigure or modify its current mission. But it did not recommend military involvement by the U.N., which already has a diplomatic mission in Somalia. 

Somali Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdirizak previously rejected calls for a hybrid plan. 

“We prefer an option that emphasizes the Somali transition plan,” he said in an August interview with VOA Somali. That plan “pursues the enemy while building the capacity of the Somali forces and eventually transfers security responsibilities to Somalis.” 

The African Union assessment team’s May report recommended the hybrid A.U.-U.N. mission have a mix of police (50%), military personnel (35%) and civilians (15%). 

The African Union, U.N. and Somali government would have to decide on the strategic objectives, mandate, size and composition of the new mission, the statement said.

Currently, five countries — including Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Kenya and Djibouti — contribute to the more than 19,000 AMISOM military personnel operating in Somalia. The communique said the African Union wants to expand the number of countries supplying troops. 

The communique called for establishing the hybrid mission under the U.N. Charter’s Chapter VII, which it said would “ensure predictable and sustainable multi-year financing for the future mission through U.N. assessed contributions.”

Currently, international donors — mainly the European Union — cover the mission’s operating costs. The IPI Global Observatory has estimated it costs hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

In pressing for the hybrid plan, the African Union communique cited “deep concern” at the political impasse between Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (commonly known as Farmajo) and his prime minister, Mohamed Hussein Roble, and its “significant impact on ongoing political processes. …” The two are embroiled in a fight over the case of a missing female intelligence officer.

Somalia chooses its president through indirect elections. The country is in the midst of a slow-moving election process that could take months. Most lawmakers in the 54-seat Upper House have been elected, but the process to elect 275 members of the Lower House has not begun. The two chambers will vote on a president at a date that has not yet been determined. The next president was expected to have been elected by October 10. 

The communique said that the leaders’ dispute is not only negatively affecting the political process and elections but is also delaying discussions on a post-2021 African Union mission.

The African Union seeks immediate consultations with the U.N., the Somali government and other stakeholders to work out transition plans.  

This report originated in the VOA Somali Service.
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Kenya’s Benson Kipruto won the pandemic-delayed Boston Marathon on Monday when the race returned from a 30-month absence with a smaller, socially distanced feel and moved from the spring for the first time in its 125-year history.

Diana Kipyogei won the women’s race to complete the eighth Kenyan sweep since 2000.

Although organizers put runners through COVID-19 protocols and asked spectators to keep their distance, large crowds lined the 26.2-mile course from Hopkinton to Boston as an early drizzle cleared and temperatures rose to the low 60s for a beautiful fall day. 

They watched Kipruto run away from the lead pack as it turned onto Beacon Street with about three miles to go and break the tape in 2 hours, 9 minutes, 51 seconds.

A winner in Prague and Athens who finished 10th in Boston in 2019, Kipruto waited out an early breakaway by American CJ Albertson, who led by as many as two minutes at the halfway point. Kipruto took the lead at Cleveland Circle and finished 46 seconds ahead of 2016 winner Lemi Berhanu; Albertson, who turned 28 on Monday, was 10th, 1:53 back.

Kipyogei ran ahead for much of the race and finished in 2:24:45, 23 seconds ahead of 2017 winner Edna Kiplagat.

Marcel Hug of Switzerland won the men’s wheelchair race earlier despite making a wrong term in the final mile, finishing the slightly detoured route just seven seconds off his course record in 1:08:11.

Manuela Schär, also from Switzerland, won the women’s wheelchair race in 1:35:21.

Hug, who has raced Boston eight times and has five victories here, cost himself a $50,000 course record bonus when he missed the second-to-last turn, following the lead vehicle instead of turning from Commonwealth Avenue onto Hereford Street.

“The car went straight and I followed the car,” said Hug, who finished second in the Chicago Marathon by 1 second on Sunday. “But it’s my fault. I should go right, but I followed the car.”

With fall foliage replacing the spring daffodils and more masks than mylar blankets, the 125th Boston Marathon at last left Hopkinton for its long-awaited long run to Copley Square. 

A rolling start and shrunken field allowed for social distancing on the course, as organizers tried to manage amid a changing COVID-19 pandemic that forced them to cancel the race last year for the first time since the event began in 1897.

“It’s a great feeling to be out on the road,” race director Dave McGillivray said. “Everyone is excited. We’re looking forward to a good day.”

A light rain greeted participants at the Hopkinton Green, where about 30 uniformed members of the Massachusetts National Guard left at 6 a.m. The men’s and women’s wheelchair racers — some of whom completed the 26.2-mile (42.2 km) distance in Chicago a day earlier — left shortly after 8 a.m., followed by the men’s and women’s professional fields. 

“We took things for granted before COVID-19. It’s great to get back to the community and it puts things in perspective,” said National Guard Capt. Greg Davis, 39, who was walking with the military group for the fourth time. “This is a historic race, but today is a historic day.”

Kenya’s Lawrence Cherono and Worknesh Degefa of Ethiopia did not return to defend their 2019 titles, but 13 past champions and five Tokyo Paralympic gold medal winners were in the professional fields.

Held annually since a group of Bostonians returned from the 1896 Athens Olympics and decided to stage a marathon of their own, the race has occurred during World Wars and even the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. But it was first postponed, then canceled last year, then postponed from the spring in 2021.

It’s the first time the event hasn’t been held in April as part of the Patriots’ Day holiday that commemorates the start of the Revolutionary War. To recognize Indigenous Peoples Day, race organizers honored 1936 and ’39 winner Ellison “Tarzan” Brown and three-time runner-up Patti Catalano Dillon, a member of the Mi’kmaq tribe.

To manage the spread of the coronavirus, runners had to show proof that they’re vaccinated or test negative for COVID-19. Organizers also re-engineered the start so runners in the recreational field of more than 18,000 weren’t waiting around in crowded corrals for their wave to begin; instead, once they get off the bus in Hopkinton they can go.

“I love that we’re back to races across the country and the world,” said Doug Flannery, a 56-year-old Illinois resident who was waiting to start his sixth Boston Marathon. “It gives people hope that things are starting to come back.”

Police were visible all along the course as authorities vowed to remain vigilant eight years after the bombings that killed three spectators and maimed hundreds of others on Boylston Street near the Back Bay finish line.

The race started about an hour earlier than usual, leading to smaller crowds in the first few towns. Wellesley College students had been told not to kiss the runners as they pass the school’s iconic “scream tunnel” near the halfway mark.
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A trial on the assassination of Burkina Faso’s former president, Thomas Sankara, begins Monday, more than three decades after he and 12 others were killed in a 1987 coup. Former President Blaise Compaoré, the main defendant in the trial, who lives in exile in Ivory Coast, will not be attending. Henry Wilkins reports from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
…

A trial on the assassination of Burkina Faso’s former president, Thomas Sankara, begins Monday, more than three decades after he and 13 others were killed in a 1987 coup. Former President Blaise Compaore, the main defendant in the trial, who lives in exile in Ivory Coast, will not be present.

Alouna Traore is the lone survivor of an attack that killed former Burkinabe President Thomas Sankara and 12 others in October 1987. Traore was Sankara’s legal adviser.

We’re standing at the spot where Sankara, still considered a national hero in Burkina Faso, died. On Monday, his alleged killers will stand trial at the military court in Ouagadougou.

Traore remembers the day of the assassination.

He says the president got up, adjusted the tracksuit he was wearing and told the other meeting attendees that he was the one the attackers were looking for. He went out the same door he came in. He walked out of the room with his hands up and headed outside, carrying no weapon. 

Sankara was a popular figure whose influence was felt across West Africa and beyond. 

“He came to be known by some people as the Che Guevara of West Africa… with a big focus on grassroots issues, so really focusing on the well-being of ordinary people,” said Paul Melly, an analyst at Chatham House, a U.K. policy institute. 

Fourteen defendants stand accused of carrying out the assassination or conspiring to, including former top-ranking military officials and former politicians.

The prime defendant, Sankara’s successor as president, Blaise Compaore, will not be in attendance, however.

Compaore was ousted in a coup in 2014 after 27 years of rule and has been in exile in Ivory Coast ever since. His lawyers denounced the trial as “political” last week.

A previous trial for the Sankara assassination was held under Compaore’s rule, but that judgment was dismissed as politicized and invalid by the transitional government after Compaore was ousted.

Prosper Farama is one of the lawyers for the Sankara family. He expects the trial to last four months and says the Sankara family lawyers have amassed irrefutable evidence implicating the defendants. 

He says there are many witnesses who will be heard from the military, civilians, politicians of the time. … For example, the driver who drove the commandos to the execution, is alive and able to give clear testimony, according to Farama. 

Maitre Mathieu Some is representing one of the defendants, Gilbert Diendere.

He thinks the trial is being held in a context that makes the work of judges difficult, a context in which there are prejudices. He says people have already made up their minds about who carried out the assassination, which jeopardizes the presumption of innocence — the main principle of a fair trial, as far as he is concerned.

Nonetheless, the trial has gripped the country. Traore as well as the families of those killed hope to receive justice 34 years later.
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In Nigeria, a country heavily reliant on revenues from its oil exports, entrepreneur Ifedolapo Runsewe has identified another type of black gold: used car tires.

She has set up Freetown Waste Management Recycle, an industrial plant dedicated to transforming old tires into paving bricks, floor tiles and other goods that are in high demand in Africa’s most populous nation.

“Creating something new from something that will otherwise be lying somewhere as waste was part of the motivation,” Runsewe told Reuters at her factory in the city of Ibadan in southwest Nigeria.

“We are able to create an entire value chain around the tires,” she said, holding a paving brick that is one of the company’s best-selling products.

Waste management in Nigeria is patchy at best. In villages, towns and cities, piles of waste are a common sight, and residents often burn them at night for lack of a safer method of disposal. Tires are routinely dumped and abandoned.

Freetown relies on scavengers who collect old tires from dumping grounds. They are paid 70 to 100 naira ($0.17-$0.24) per tire.

Some tires are also supplied directly by mechanics, like Akeem Rasaq, who is delighted to have found a place where he can make some money from old tires.

“Most of the tires end up in public drainage clogging up the drain, but things have changed,” he said at his roadside workshop.

Freetown started operations in 2020 with just four employees, and growth has been so rapid the workforce has jumped to 128. So far, more than 100,000 tires have been recycled into everything from speed bumps to soft paving for playgrounds.

“It is important to support anybody that recycles in our country,” said Houssam Azem, founder of the Lagos Jet Ski Riders Club, which has purchased paving bricks from Freetown for a children’s play area.

“Taking tires, which is an environmental nuisance, and turning them into what children can play on, I think it is a win-win for everybody.”
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A Franciscan nun from Colombia kidnapped by jihadis in Mali in 2017 was freed Saturday, a statement from Mali’s presidential office said.

The statement on the presidential Twitter account paid tribute to the courage of Sister Gloria Cecilia Narvaez, who was held for four years and eight months.

In the official statement, Malian strongman Colonel Assimi Goita assured the Malian people and the international community that “efforts are under way” to secure the release of all those still being held in Mali.

The archbishop of Bamako, Jean Zerbo, confirmed Narvaez’s release, adding that she was doing well.

“We prayed a lot for her release. I thank the Malian authorities and other good people who made this release possible,” the archbishop said.

Her brother, Edgar Narvaez, also confirmed her release in a brief conversation with AFP.

“She is in good health, thank God. They sent me pictures and she looks well,” he said.

Narvaez was taken hostage on February 7, 2017, at Koutiala, 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of the Malian capital, Bamako, while working as a missionary there.

There were irregular reports about her over the years, including at the beginning of 2021, when two Europeans who managed to escape captivity reported that she was well.

Then in March, her brother received a letter passed on from the Red Cross. It was written in capital letters “because she always used capital letters,” contained the names of their parents, and ended with her signature, he told AFP earlier this year. 

Mali has been struggling to contain a jihadist insurgency that emerged in the north of the country in 2012 and that has since spread to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Kidnappings, once rare, have become more common in recent years as a security crisis has deepened in Mali, particularly in the center of the former French colony.
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Nurses in Cameroon are marking this year’s World Hospice and Palliative Care Day (October 9) with visits to terminally ill patients in the country’s restive North-West and South-West regions. The regions’ ongoing separatist conflict has left hundreds of patients unable to receive regular in-home hospice care.  Cameroon’s nurses are calling for that to change.

Mundih Noelar Njohjam a doctor treating patients with terminal diseases at Cameroon Baptist Conventions Health Services in Bamenda, capital of the English-speaking North-West region, says the separatist crisis is depriving many patients of palliative care.

“The high level of insecurity caused by the ongoing crisis has negatively affected access to palliative care for many patients, especially those living with cancers. Patients with terminal diseases are unable to get to health facilities where they can receive adequate palliative care. Consequently, they have to settle for suboptimal palliative care,” Njohjam said.

The Cameroon Association of Terminally Ill Patients reports that more than 900 patients are denied access to palliative care in the English-speaking western regions. 

The association says hundreds of patients in need of help to relieve them of pain and suffering are dying in towns and villages. They say several hundred caregivers have fled hospitals in Cameroon’s troubled English-speaking regions since the separatist crisis escalated in 2017.

Hundreds of patients who have the means relocate to safer French-speaking towns to receive medical care for their terminal illnesses. The patients say they prefer to relocate to Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, and Douala, a coastal city where many of their family members have rushed to for safety.

Among others, the nurses visited the Yaounde residence of Christophe Esselebo, a 67-year-old retired teacher who has been living with HIV and liver disease for three years. He says he faces a great deal of stigma from family members and friends.

He says to prevent developing a mental health crisis, he avoids feelings of emotional attachments with family members who have abandoned him because of his condition. He says he avoids mental trauma during his remaining days by being positive about life and making friends on social media with people who think positively.

Esselebo says he regularly follows up treatment recommended by his doctor.

The visit to homes of people living with terminal diseases this year was organized by the Cameroon Association of Terminally Ill Patients and Santo Domingo Cameroon, a center that cares for people with terminal diseases.

Fulbert Kenfack Jiofack, coordinator of Santo Domingo Cameroon, says poverty pushes 70% of sick Cameroonians to seek assistance from African traditional healers. He says because of either illiteracy or lack of financial means, families abandon their members diagnosed with terminal diseases at home until they die. 

Jiofack said fighters in the English-speaking western regions and government troops should avoid inflicting more pain on patients who are already suffering from diseases that cannot be cured. He said medical staff members should be allowed to give health care to people in need. 

The nurses ask civilians to stop prejudging the terminally ill in Cameroon.

Cameron’s health ministry says the greatest prejudice is shown toward those suffering from infectious terminal diseases such as HIV. 

The health ministry says stigma is driven by the thought that those receiving palliative care will die soon and that terminal illnesses are divine punishment for wrongdoing. Some families prohibit palliative caregivers from visiting their sick patients at home, the government reports.

Nurses said the role of palliative caregivers is to ease patients’ physical pain with medicines and provide psychological, emotional and spiritual counseling to people who have life-threatening and terminal illnesses. 
…

A U.N. official says a funding shortage means humanitarian aid will have to be cut for many of the nearly 10 million people in Democratic Republic of Congo facing multiple crises because of lack of money.

Conflict in the eastern DRC has forced 5.3 million people to flee their homes, Africa’s largest number of internally displaced people.  Additionally, conflict in neighboring countries has prompted more than half a million refugees to flee to the DRC.  

The U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in the DRC, David McLachlan-Karr, says millions of people in the eastern provinces are victims of long-simmering inter-ethnic conflicts and conflicts over natural resources.  

He says the situation is particularly concerning in Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu provinces, as well as territories in northern Tanganyika. These protracted conflicts, he says, have left millions of people destitute and in urgent need of assistance.  

He says it will be difficult to provide that aid because only 27% of the U.N.’s nearly $2 billion appeal for this year has been funded.

”[It is] impacting our ability to reach the most vulnerable. And those populations, of course, leave us with a very stark choice. Who do we assist when we have such a reduced amount of assistance, forcing us to prioritize … in the DRC, which is a vast country with multiple crises,” McLachlan-Karr said.

For example, he said, the country is prone to repeated epidemics of many diseases, including Ebola, cholera, measles, and malaria. Currently, he says, the DRC is facing a lethal meningitis outbreak.

McLachlan-Karr said a recent World Food Program and UNICEF survey found 26.7 million people suffering from acute hunger in the DRC.

“They are literally living day to day in a precarious situation with an inadequate nutritional intake, leading to, essentially, a weakened condition, which, of course, makes them more prone and vulnerable to diseases across the country,” he said.

McLachlan-Karr said priority needs include food, shelter, health care, water and sanitation, education, as well as psychosocial counseling for victims of gender and sexual abuse.
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French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that his country will return 26 African artworks — royal thrones, ceremonial altars, revered statues — to Benin later this month, part of France’s long-promised plans to give back artwork taken from Africa during the colonial era.

Discussions have been under way for years on returning the artworks from the 19th century Dahomey Kingdom. Called the “Abomey Treasures,” they currently are held in the Quai Branly Museum in Paris. The museum, near the Eiffel Tower, holds thousands of works from former French colonies.

Macron said the 26 pieces will be given back at the end of October, “because to restitute these works to Africa is to give African young people access to their culture.” It remains unclear when exactly they will arrive in Benin.

“We need to be honest with ourselves. There was colonial pillage, it’s absolutely true,” Macron told a group of African cultural figures at an Africa-France gathering in the southern city of Montpellier. He noted other works already were returned to Senegal and Benin, and the restitution of art to Ivory Coast is planned.

Cameroon-born art curator Koyo Kouoh pressed Macron for more efforts to right past wrongs.

“Our imagination was violated,” she said.

“Africa has been married to France in a forced marriage for at least 500 years,” Kouoh said. “The work (on mending relations) that should have been done for decades wasn’t done…It’s not possible that we find ourselves here in 2021.”

A sweeping 2018 report commissioned by Macron recommended that French museums give back works that were taken without consent, estimating that up to 90% of African art is located outside the continent. Some other European countries are making similar efforts.

Three years later, few artworks have been returned. To facilitate the repatriation of the Abomey Treasures, France’s parliament passed a law in December 2020 allowing the state to hand the works over and giving it up to one year to do so.

The Africa-France meeting Friday was frank and occasionally heated. Macron, who is trying to craft a new French strategy for Africa. met with hundreds of African entrepreneurs, cultural leaders and young people. 

Speakers from Nigeria, Chad, Guinea and beyond had a long list of demands for France: reparations for colonial crimes, withdrawal of French troops, investment that bypasses corrupt governments and a tougher stance toward African dictatorships.

Macron defended France’s military presence in Mali and other countries in the Sahel region as necessary to keep terrorists at bay, and he refused to apologize for the past.

But he acknowledged that France has a “responsibility and duty” to Africa because of its role in the slave trade and other colonial-era wrongs. Noting that more than 7 million French people have a family link to Africa, Macron said France cannot build its future unless it “assumes its Africanness.”
…

At least six migrants were shot dead at a Tripoli detention center on Friday, the head of the U.N. migration agency’s Libya mission said, as many reportedly escaped from the facility and others gathered in nearby streets.

Overcrowding triggered chaos at the Ghot Shaal center, with people sleeping in the open and different security forces present, said Federico Soda, the Libya mission head for the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

“Shooting started,” he said, adding that at least six people had been killed.

Libyan security forces have cracked down on migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers over the past week, detaining more than 5,000.

There are hundreds of thousands of migrants in Libya, some seeking to travel to Europe and others coming to work in the major oil exporter.

They routinely face violence in a country that has had little peace for a decade, with many held in detention centers that the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said were crowded and unsanitary, and where Amnesty International on Friday said they face torture and sexual abuse.

Libya’s Government of National Unity was not immediately available for comment.

A decade of strife

The country has been in crisis since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising against Moammar Gadhafi, and much of it is controlled on the ground by local armed forces that operate independently of the government.

Numerous videos posted on social media on Friday, which Reuters could not immediately authenticate, showed dozens of people pouring through a gap in a fence, and larger numbers marching through Tripoli streets.

Two residents said they had seen large numbers of migrants running through the streets in that area.

Soda said security forces in Tripoli had detained at least 900 migrants later Friday, a group that likely included many of those who had fled the detention center.

A Reuters journalist who had seen dozens of migrants sitting on the floor surrounded by guards said that there was a very heavy security presence around the area and there had been sporadic sounds of shooting.

UNHCR said earlier on Friday that it was increasingly alarmed about the situation for migrants and refugees in Libya after more than 5,000 had been arrested in the recent crackdown.

“The raids, which also involved the demolition of many unfinished buildings and makeshift houses, have created widespread panic and fear among asylum-seekers and refugees in the capital,” it said in a statement.

On Monday U.N. investigators said abuses against migrants and refugees in Libya were “on a widespread scale … with a high level of organization and with the encouragement of the state … suggestive of crimes against humanity.”
…

“It’s worse than a plague,” said Pedro Antonio Sanchez, fuming over the volcanic grit coating his bananas, the main source of wealth on the Canaries’ island of La Palma.

“It’s worse than a pest or disease because it scratches [the fruit],” said Sanchez, gesturing at the black sandy deposits that have rained down since the volcano erupted on September 19.

The volcano has caused major damage to banana plantations in La Palma, the second-largest producer in the Atlantic Canary Islands, where the crop accounts for 50 of the island’s economy, industry figures show. 

Once the ash lands on the bananas, it is almost impossible to remove.

And it causes further damage in the handling, transport and packing, with the huge bunches, which are known as “pineapples” and can weigh up to 70 kilos (150 pounds), carried on the shoulders.

“You have to blast it off with water or something — to be honest, I don’t know how to do it,” said Sanchez, 60, who owns a small plantation. “When the dew forms overnight, it really makes the grit stick, and in the morning it just won’t come off.”

Can’t be sold

The skin blackens in the form of a scratch but nothing like the brownish-black markings that show the fruit is ripe.

And although the banana is perfect, it is rejected and cannot be sold.

“European quality regulations ban the sale of bananas with more than four square centimeters of scratches per fruit, even if they are perfect inside and can be eaten without risk,” said Esther Dominguez of ASPROCAN, which represents banana producers in the Canary Islands.

The volcano’s eruption has predominantly hurt the Aridane valley on the western flank of La Palma, although the problem caused by volcanic ash and grit has affected a much wider area. 

“It is not just the Aridane valley, because the wind changes direction and ash is blown all over. So 100 percent of the island is affected,” Juan Vicente Rodriguez Leal, head of the Covalle agricultural cooperative, told AFP. 

“So we are going to have a significant loss of at least one year’s crop,” he said, estimating losses of “around 120 to 130 million euros [$140 to $150 million].” 

The plantations are also suffering from a lack of water after the lava destroyed the area’s irrigation pipeline.

Bananas need a lot of water and the current shortage “is the biggest threat,” Sanchez said.

La Palma has long suffered from water shortages. It has no rivers, lakes or reservoirs, so the island gets its water from underground aquifers or rain collected by pine trees and transferred to the ground.

Bananas “need a lot of irrigation every seven days. Now we’re irrigating every 15 days to save water, and although they’re not going to dry out, the fruit feels the impact,” Sanchez said.

A third of Canaries’ crop 

In 2020, La Palma produced 148,000 metric tons of bananas, or 34.5% of the Canaries’ overall crop, ASPROCAN figures show.

In terms of production, it is second only to Tenerife, which is three times larger.

One-tenth of La Palma’s 700 square kilometers (270 square miles) is dedicated to agriculture, of which 43% is planted in bananas, according to the Biosphere Reserve of La Palma. 

More than 80% of the banana plantations in the Canaries are modest plots of less than 2.5 acres (one hectare), with many farmers living hand to mouth.

Although Sanchez enjoys the work, he’s had enough of living on the bread line.

“There are months when you bring in 1,000 euros ($1,150) or a bit more, but it’s normally less,” sometimes even as little as 300 euros, he said.

“It just doesn’t make me feel like working.”
…

A case of Ebola has been confirmed in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to an internal report on Friday from the national biomedical laboratory, five months after the end of the most recent outbreak there. 

Congo’s health minister declined to confirm the information but said a statement would be published shortly. 

It was not immediately known if the case was related to the 2018-20 outbreak that killed more than 2,200 people in eastern Congo, or the flare-up that killed six this year. 

The report from the biomedical lab, the INRB, said the positive result came from a 2-year-old in a densely populated neighborhood of the city of Beni, one of the epicenters of the 2018-20 outbreak, which was the second deadliest on record. 

Three of the baby’s neighbors presented symptoms consistent with Ebola last month and then died, the report said, but none were tested for the virus. 

It is not unusual for sporadic cases to occur following a major outbreak, health experts say. Particles of the virus can remain present in semen for months after recovery from an infection. 

Congo has recorded 11 outbreaks since the disease, which causes severe vomiting and diarrhea and is spread through contact with body fluids, was discovered near its Ebola River in 1976. 

The country’s equatorial forests have been a breeding ground for the virus.
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Refugee and humanitarian crises in Afghanistan and Ethiopia were the focus of intense debate during this week’s annual U.N. refugee conference.

The U.N. high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, said the weeklong discussions were constructive. He said there was general agreement on the need for urgent, flexible and unconditional aid to be delivered to millions of internally displaced Afghans through humanitarian agencies.

He said that this was doable, but that the delivery of food, shelter and other essential supplies must be done quickly before the onset of winter. He said the Taliban would not impede these operations.

Grandi noted that since the Taliban takeover, Afghan society has been barely functioning. He warned that this could lead to an even bigger humanitarian crisis unless the international community stepped in to prevent a complete meltdown of the country’s service, banking and economic systems.

“It is extremely difficult because much of these economy services functioned in Afghanistan before thanks to international support that now has been frozen or suspended,” he said. “So, the question is how to ensure that these services and the economy can function and how can we prevent a major humanitarian crisis.”

Millions in need in Ethiopia

Grandi said Ethiopia was the second crisis that commanded a lot of attention at the conference. He said delegates expressed great concern about the recent expulsion from the country of senior U.N. officials by the Ethiopian government. He said the delegates worried about the limited ability to provide aid to millions of civilians trapped in Tigray and about the conflict spreading to other regions in northern Ethiopia.

“And of course, the appeal is always the same,” he said. “Abandon this useless and devastating approach, which is a military approach, and go for a negotiated process. That is the only way to stop the escalation of humanitarian needs in the country.”

The U.N. reports around 5.2 million people in Tigray, or 90% of its population, needs humanitarian aid.

While most attention was focused on Afghanistan and Ethiopia, Grandi said he appealed to states at the meeting to not forget other refugee crises, noting they exist in every region of the world. They include the Rohingya in Southeast Asia, West Africa’s Sahel region, Syria in the Middle East, and Venezuela in Central America.
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Cameroon’s Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute visited the troubled western regions this week, calling for armed separatists to lay down their weapons or be killed. Civilians and rights groups say peace will only return if the government declares a cease-fire.

Ngute was met with shooting in Matazen, an English-speaking village bordering the French-speaking West region of Cameroon. He was rushed to his car.

Military troops said hidden separatist fighters in the surrounding bush wanted to scare civilians who were welcoming Ngute on his way to Bamenda, capital of the English-speaking North West region. The military said it did not fire back and the shooters escaped. 

Ngute told hundreds of civilians in Bamenda that he was the bearer of a special message. He spoke in Pidgin, a popular language in Cameroon’s English-speaking western regions. 

Ngute said Cameroonian president Paul Biya sent him to ask for an end to fighting, killing and the destruction of property. He said most Cameroonians want an end to the separatist crisis. 

Fighters in the English-speaking regions who refuse to drop their weapons will be killed, Ngute said. 

Scores of senior state functionaries, government ministers, lawmakers, traditional rulers and clergy accompanied Biya’s envoy to Bamenda.

Asheri Kilo, secretary of state in the Ministry of Basic Education, said Ngute asked leaders to give the separatists a message. 

“He made us know that peace cannot come if we do not start it, if we do not promote it,” said Kilo, who is from Bui, an administrative unit near Bamenda called Division. “And he also intimated that we should continue to tell the truth to our people. We should continue to tell them that whatever they are looking for in the name of a Southern Cameroon [breakaway state] will never happen.”

Civilians carried billboards asking for an immediate cease-fire.

Daniel Fondoh, a French-speaking activist with the rights group Dynamique Citoyenne, said the Cameroonian government will likely not stop the fighting if it does not withdraw its military and begin negotiations with fighters for a return to peace. If the government of Cameroon continues to send its troops to fight the separatists, the central African state will continue to lose the lives of its citizens, Fondoh added.

Cameroon says it has created a special status for the English-speaking regions as a solution to the demands made by English speakers in the majority French-speaking nation. The special status means assemblies of chiefs, regional assemblies and regional councils for the two English-speaking regions, with each of them having elected presidents and three commissioners responsible for economic, health, social, educational, sports and cultural development affairs. 

The special status for the English-speaking regions was proposed duringa grand national dialogue called by Biya from September 30 through October 4, 2019, to propose solutions to the crisis in the country’s English-speaking regions. Separatists reject the special status. 

The United Nations says that the separatist war has forced more than 500,000 people to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in late 2017. More than 3,000 people have been killed.
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French President Emmanuel Macron faced the frustration of young people from across Africa on Friday over a range of issues, including migration and the vestiges of colonialism, at a summit aiming to turn the page with the continent.

Billed as a chance to prove France’s commitment in particular to young Africans, the Africa-France summit gathering some 3,000 business leaders, artists and athletes in the southern city of Montpellier was largely dominated by the region’s crises.

“I can no longer stand to see African youths dying in the sea” trying to reach Europe, a woman told Macron as he visited the dozens of round tables at the vast Sud de France arena overlooking the Mediterranean.

A young Guinean urged him to “support the transition” after the military coup that deposed the West African country’s long-time president Alpha Conde last month.

Sibila Saminatou Ouedraogo, a Burkina Faso participant at the conference, said that African nations — many of them former French colonies — still labored under a “relationship of dependency” towards France that was holding back their development.

More than 1,000 youths were at the gathering which, though dubbed a “summit” by the French hosts, pointedly excluded leaders other than Macron.

‘System of humiliation’

The French president will later debate with 12 young people chosen by the Cameroon intellectual Achille Mbembe, who was tasked with organizing the meeting.

“We hope that Montpellier will mark a fresh start — that people listen to Africa and African youths, which have things to say to the world and France,” said Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute.

But the meeting also comes as many youths in particular have bristled at Macron’s decision to slash visas to Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians in a dispute on illegal immigration.

Mehdi Alioua, a political science professor in Rabat, denounced “a collective punishment” and a “system of humiliation” — sparking fierce applause.

“We’re stuck between condescending language from the West that want to educate Africans, and language from our governments claiming that the West wants to impose its values,” said Habiba Issa Moussa, a Nigerian studying in France.

Expectations are high that Macron will announce concrete steps such as those proposed by Mbembe, which include a fund for promoting democratic initiatives or increased opportunities for students to study abroad.

In a report given to the president this week, Mbembe said France was failing to recognize “new movements and political and culture experiments” underway in several countries.

After arriving in Montpellier, Macron said 26 artworks and other prized artefacts stolen by French colonial forces from Benin a century ago would be returned this month as promised.
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NATO is studying options to bolster support for the multinational G5 Sahel Joint Force in the troubled three-borders region of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, where a surge in jihadis violence has cost thousands of lives, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a letter seen by AFP on Thursday.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization could extend such support through its Support and Procurement Agency, the U.N. chief said in a recent letter to the Security Council.

Guterres said he is convinced of the need to create a U.N. support office for the G5 Sahel force, which comprises around 5,000 soldiers from Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso, which would be funded by contributions from the United Nations.

He said such a technique would be “the most effective approach to provide sustainable and predictable support to the Joint Force.”

But the United States, the U.N.’s biggest financial backer, has so far rejected the plan, which is favored by France and several African countries.

In June, U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N. Jeffrey DeLaurentis said his country wanted to maintain a clear separation between efforts to fight terrorism and efforts to maintain peace in order to protect the U.N.’s neutrality.

For years, the United States has said it prioritizes aid to the Sahel countries directly, rather than ramping up U.N. involvement.

“The creation of the G5 Sahel Joint Force, despite the persisting challenges, is a strong manifestation of political will by the five core states of the Sahel that merits the support of the international community,” Guterres said.

“While all interlocutors underscored their strong support to the G5 Sahel Joint Force as an exceptional initiative that warranted international support, there is no convergence of views within the international community on how best to support it,” the U.N. chief added.

The Security Council, currently led by Kenya, is set to send representatives for a visit to Mali and Niger at the end of the month, to study the security situation.

Guterres pointed out that despite the African Union’s willingness to take on an integral role in fostering cooperation in the region, “the AU stressed that it would require financial support by another donor” to manage logistical support of the Joint Force.

The U.N. currently provides fuel, water and food to the Joint Force through the Minusma peace-keeping mission in Mali, plus bilateral medical support arranged in the last few years.
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Spain’s airport authority for the Canary Islands shut down the airport on the island of La Palma again Thursday because of accumulating ash from a volcano that has been erupting there for 18 days. 

From its Twitter account, the airport authority, Aena, said the facility was closed because of accumulating ash. In news agency video from the airport, the cloud of ash could be seen hanging over the runways. The airport was closed once last month because of ash as well.

Scientists monitoring the course of Cumbre Vieja’s eruption say it has been unpredictable. It settled down several days ago, but earlier this week, it reawakened. In the latest report from its Twitter account, the Canary Island Volcanic Institute said the activity had become more explosive in recent hours.

The German Research Center for Geosciences, which sent a team to La Palma, told The Associated Press the lava flow on the island was 6,300 meters long, more than 1,000 meters wide at its broadest point and up to 25 meters (82 feet) thick. 

The experts said the molten rock from the crater was now flowing down a lava tube beneath earlier, hardened lava, straight into the sea. That has eased fears it could spread wider and cause more destruction. 

The volcanic eruption that started September 19 has forced the evacuation of more than 6,000 of La Palma’s roughly 85,000 residents. The island is part of the Canary Islands archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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With the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa has seen hunger increase nearly threefold, according to a national survey. One man is helping to tackle the problem by launching community farms to help feed inner city residents. Linda Givetash reports from Johannesburg. Camera – Zaheer Cassim. Video editor – Henry Hernandez.
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More than 260,000 African children under the age of five die from malaria each year, including more than 10,000 in Kenya, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO’s backing of a malaria vaccine, Mosquirix, for children in sub-Saharan Africa has raised hopes of preventing those deaths. The vaccine proved effective in a pilot program in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization gave the green light for the use of the vaccine for children between five and 24 months of age in Africa and other regions prone to a high level of malaria transmission.

This follows trials of the vaccine in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. The four-dose shot was administered to 800,000 African children.

Thirty-year-old Salome Awuor allowed her son, now three years old, to take part in the malaria vaccine trials in Kisumu County, western Kenya.

The mother of four said previously she would visit her nearest clinic four times a month to get malaria treatment for him. At the time, he was 12 months old.

“My son was given three jabs, and malaria went down. I never went back to the clinic seeking malaria treatment. I feel so good my children no longer get sick most of the time. That’s why whenever I hear about vaccines, I run to get them because it helps a lot,” she said.

WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus described the malaria vaccine breakthrough as historic and one that could save the lives of tens of thousands of young people each year.

According to the WHO, malaria affects more than 229 million people each year and kills more than 400,000.

In Africa, more than a quarter of a million children die from the mosquito-borne disease.

Earlier trials in 2015 showed the vaccine could prevent 40 percent of malaria cases and about 30 percent of severe cases.

Bernhards Ogutu is a chief researcher at Kenya Medical Research Institute. He said Kenya’s participation in the study proves the vaccine will work on the country’s population.

“If it’s safe you know it was done in your population and you know it’s good for you. You are not relying on data from another population but from your own population. So that you can confidently advise the government this is safe for us, it works and its approved and it was done by us and we contributed to this development,” he said.

The first three vaccine doses are given a month apart when children are babies, and a final booster is given when the child is one-and-a-half years old.

Ogutu has voiced confidence that Kenyan parents will vaccinate their children from malaria.

“People have been asking where it is now that we have been given the go ahead, we can now go for the rollout. I think it’s time to get to our people and tell them now it’s available and now it’s a matter of procuring the vaccine and ensuring it’s available and start getting it to those who need it,” said Ogutu.

So far, there is no word on when the vaccine will become available to the general public.
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Google plans to invest $1 billion in Africa over the next five years to ensure access to fast and cheaper internet and will back startups to support the continent’s digital transformation, it said on Wednesday.

The unit of U.S. tech company Alphabet Inc made the announcement at a virtual event where it launched an Africa Investment Fund, through which it will invest $50 million in startups, providing them with access to its employees, network and technologies.

Nitin Gajria, managing director for Google in Africa told Reuters in a virtual interview that the company would among others, target startups focusing on fintech, e-commerce and local language content.

“We are looking at areas that may have some strategic overlap with Google and where Google could potentially add value in partnering with some of these startups,” Gajria said.

In collaboration with not-for-profit organization Kiva, Google will also provide $10 million in low interest loans to help small businesses and entrepreneurs in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa so they can get through the economic hardship created by COVID-19.

Small businesses in Africa often struggle to get capital because they lack the necessary collateral required by banks in case they default. When credit is available, interest rates are usually too high.

Google said a program pioneered last year in Kenya in partnership with Safaricom that allows customers to pay for 4G-enabled phones in instalments would be expanded across the continent with mobile operators such as MTN, Orange and Vodacom.

Gajria said an undersea cable being built by Google to link Africa and Europe should come into service in the second half of next year and is expected to increase internet speeds by five times and lower data costs by up to 21% in countries like South Africa and Nigeria.
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The U.N. Secretary-General told Ethiopia’s government Wednesday that it should show him any documents or evidence the country has to substantiate accusations related to the expulsion of seven senior humanitarian officials from the country.

In a rare and unusual public exchange, Antonio Guterres took the floor of the U.N. Security Council after the Ethiopian ambassador leveled accusations against the staffers, including that they inflated the numbers of people in need of aid by 1 million and reported deaths that never happened.

“I would like to ask you one thing, Mr. Ambassador,” Guterres said, directing his remarks to Ethiopian envoy Taye Atske Selassie, who was seated at the council table. “If there is any written document provided by the Ethiopian government to any U.N. institution about any of the (seven) members of the U.N. that were expelled, I’d like to receive a copy of that document, because I haven’t any knowledge of any of them, and it would be very useful to me.”

Guterres went on to say that he twice told Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed that if he had concerns about the lack of impartiality of U.N. staff, he should raise them directly with him so he could investigate.

“Until now, I have no response to this request,” the secretary-general said.

He added that Addis Ababa’s move to expel the officials is a violation of international law. U.N. staff are protected by immunity conventions.

Guterres emphasized that he seeks cooperation with the government so humanitarians can do the necessary work to ease the suffering of millions of Ethiopians.

“We have no other interest but to help stop that suffering,” he said.

Reporters outside the council asked him about the exchange.

“It is my duty to defend the honor of the United Nations,” Guterres replied.

On Sept. 30, Ethiopia announced the seven had 72 hours to leave the country, accusing them of meddling in its internal affairs and diverting aid and telecommunications equipment to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The government has been fighting the TPLF in the north of the country for nearly a year.

On Monday, the United Nations confirmed the seven were no longer in the country.

New accusations

At Wednesday’s council meeting, Ethiopian envoy Selassie appeared to level new accusations.

He said there were a “multitude of transgressions,” including efforts by the staffers to create a “Darfur-like” situation — referring to the massive humanitarian crisis in Sudan in the early 2000s.

“They suddenly and overnight created 1 million victims,” he alleged.

“We have evidence that the entire endeavor was created by a higher and more sophisticated motivation that seeks to undermine the Ethiopian state and rescue the TPLF,” he said without elaboration.

The humanitarian situation in Tigray and the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar is deteriorating. Guterres said Wednesday that up to 7 million people in the three conflict-affected areas are in need of food assistance and other support. He warned that obstacles have “crippled” humanitarian operations.

Council members also expressed their concern about the expulsion of the U.N. staffers.

“There is no justification for the government of Ethiopia’s action,” U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield said. “None at all.”

She said the expulsions followed a “pattern of escalating obstruction” by the government that must be reversed.

“And if these calls for humanitarian access continue to go unheard, then the Security Council must act,” she said. “We can ensure the U.N. is allowed to deliver impartial aid. We should immediately consider all tools at our disposal to facilitate this, including a Security Council resolution, to save lives and promote international peace and security.”

The African members of the council — Kenya, Niger and Tunisia — along with China, urged “quiet diplomacy” to resolve the rift between Addis Ababa and the United Nations.

Russia’s representative was more explicit, saying that while the expulsions were regrettable, they should not be “dramatized.”

“We are certain that pressure involving the U.N. Security Council, threats and resolutions, and the imposition of unlawful unilateral sanctions and the creation of a toxic atmosphere in the media is counterproductive,” Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Anna Evstigneeva said.

 
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