U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is calling for global solidarity with Africa as an essential part of ending the coronavirus pandemic, saying international action is needed to help strengthen its health care systems and food supply and to avoid a financial crisis.Guterres said Wednesday he commends African countries and the African Union for acting quickly to enforce quarantines and border closures, and to rely on regional cooperation to try to stop the spread of the virus.“But the pandemic threatens African progress.  It will aggravate long-standing inequalities and heighten hunger, malnutrition and vulnerability to disease.  Already, demand for Africa’s commodities, tourism and remittances are declining.  The opening of the trade zone has been pushed back – and millions could be pushed into extreme poverty,” he said.In additional to urging international efforts to support education and protect jobs, Guterres also called for African countries to have “equal and affordable access to any eventual vaccine and treatment.”A healthcare worker assists a COVID-19 patient at one of the intensive care units (ICU) of the Moulay Abdellah hospital in Sale, Morocco, April 15, 2020.The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says COVID-19 has killed more than 2,800 people.  The largest numbers of confirmed cases in Africa are in South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Nigeria.Egypt has announced stay-at-home orders for the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and now says starting May 30 that wearing masks will be required in public.A mandatory mask order goes into effect Thursday in Spain for those over the age of six who are in a public place where it is not possible to stay two meters away from others.In China, where the outbreak began in December, officials in the northeastern province of Jilin are trying to contain a new cluster of cases, including four new infections reported Wednesday.Venezuela is also trying to contain an uptick in cases along its border with Brazil and Colombia.  Authorities said there were 131 new cases over the course of 24 hours and linked the increase to migrants returning home.Migrant workers in India will be getting more help in returning to their homes from big cities with Indian Railways announcing that beginning June 1 it will be operating twice as many special trains.  Health screenings and wearing masks are mandatory for riders.June 1 will also bring the opening of bars, restaurants, movie theaters and concert halls in the Netherlands as the country moves to a new phase of its easing of coronavirus restrictions.The country has seen weeks of declining deaths and new infections, but Prime Minister Mark Rutte said people will need to continue observing social distancing measures as businesses resume operations.The pandemic has forced organizers of Japan’s popular summer high school baseball tournament to cancel this year’s event, the first time that has happened since World War II.The nationally televised 16-day tournament was due to be held in mid-August, but the Japan High School Baseball federation said Wednesday there was too much risk of the virus spreading among players from all over the country gathering together.Worldwide there are more than 4.9 million confirmed cases and 323,000 deaths from COVID-19. 
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Kenyan authorities forcibly evicted over 7,000 people from Nairobi slums this month, despite a court order, and in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in a small riot.  Authorities say they demolished the homes because they were built on public land.  But some of those who were evicted claim to have bought the land.  Critics note mass evictions during a pandemic are inhumane and could further spread the virus, as Mohammed Yusuf reports from Nairobi. Camera: Amos Wangwa
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Kenyan authorities have forcibly evicted more than 7,000 people from land in Nairobi slums over the last month, defying a court order. Authorities say they demolished homes because they were built on public land, but critics say mass evictions during a pandemic are inhumane and could further spread the coronavirus.Forty-two-year-old Daniel Ndungu saw the three tractors coming before his home was demolished last week.”We saw police officers coming into the area,” he said. “They blocked the road and left the only one used by tractors. At around nine they started demolition. They didn’t care whether there were children in the house or anything else. They began demolition.”Daniel Ndungu, 42, stands at his demolished home in Ruai area in Nairobi. (Mohammed Yusuf/VOA)Defying a court order, authorities on Friday forcibly evicted Ndungu’s family and other Nairobi slum dwellers, making them homeless in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.Ndungu says he has nowhere to go and no money to move, so he will stay in the cold and wait. Others moved into the crowded dwellings of friends and relatives.The evictions, which started in April, left more than 5,000 people homeless earlier this month in Nairobi’s Kariobangi neighborhood.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
A mother and her child remain in the demolished area of Ruai days after their home was demolished. (Mohammed Yusuf/VOA)Thirty-seven-year-old butcher Hussein Wako says he has government receipts showing he owns the land he was forced to leave.But public land is too often sold illegally in Kenya, leaving those who were cheated out of their money – like Wako – homeless.”They demolished our home and poor people’s homes,” Wako said. “I slept in the cold for two days, and there is a coronavirus pandemic. They told us to go back home when we demonstrated against the demolition. They disrupted it and tear gassed us.”A small riot erupted earlier this month as the evicted clashed with police in Kariobangi and set fire to cars and tires.A Kenyan high court ordered a halt to further demolitions until a petition by residents is heard in June. But for the thousands of Kenyans already left homeless, and those still being evicted, there is little hope for justice.    
 
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Hopes are high across politically fractious Lesotho as Moeketsi Majoro, the nation’s finance minister, prepares to become prime minister.His swearing in, scheduled for Wednesday, comes after two years of bitter political squabbles in the tiny mountain kingdom surrounded on all sides by South Africa.”I think he is a good guy,” politician Motlalentoa Letsosa, deputy leader of the Democratic Congress, the main opposition party, told VOA via WhatsApp. “He has been in the government administration for quite a long time. He was once the principal secretary for the same ministry of finance, where he is now the minister. He was also the minister of development and planning, and now he is going to be the prime minister.”And remember, he worked at IMF for quite a long time. So he’s a gentleman who is familiar with the Lesotho political landscape and international politics, especially when it comes to financial international politics. So I think he’s going to take our country forward.”Letsosa’s party will join a coalition with Majoro’s ruling All Basotho Convention — a move that, just months ago, would have been thought impossible in the nation’s deeply divided political landscape.Thabane’s resignationFILE – Lesotho’s Prime Minister, Thomas Thabane, left, and his wife Maesaiah are seated in court, in Maseru, Feb. 24, 2020.This new political dispensation comes after months of bitter political wrangling to force Prime Minister Thomas Thabane to resign, which he did in May. His rule has been marred by a number of killings of high-ranking officials in recent years. Critics say that is an inevitable consequence of Thabane’s failure to keep the nation’s security forces out of politics.Thabane and his current wife are also suspects in the 2017 killing of one of his former wives, an issue that riveted the nation in recent months.Thabane was not offered immunity from prosecution in return for stepping down. And so, says Motlamelle Anthony Kapa, an associate professor in political science at the National University of Lesotho, the nation will have to clean up that legal issue before it can move on.”We are expecting both of them to appear before the courts to hear the case of the murder of his former wife,” Kapa told VOA on the WhatsApp platform.Coronavirus pandemicLetsosa says he also has high expectations for the new leader regarding his handling of the global coronavirus pandemic.”Lesotho has one case to date, but we are not going to be complacent and say we are immune to this. No one is immune. So we are expecting that he will take the fight to another level to make sure that this one case does not multiply,” Letsosa said. “Another thing which is so important is our national economy. Our economy is struggling and he has been the minister of finance, he knows that.”Kapa agrees, and notes that this is an unusual moment for the tiny country which, despite its size, is a major global wool and mohair supplier.”I must indicate this is the first time we have a prime minister coming like this. And there are a lot of expectations on him and his government to take the country out of the crisis that it has been in the last two, two and half years or so,” Kapa said. “People are excited, they are now waiting to see what is going to happen, this government is going to do differently from the one that he’s replacing.”The new government is expected to be sworn in by the end of the week.  
 
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Voters in Burundi will choose the country’s new president, members of parliament and local officials in Wednesday’s elections, which are tempered by the challenge of the coronavirus outbreak and allegations of voter suppression. The concern prompted the African Union Commission and United Nations to release a joint statement Sunday urging the defense and security forces and state-owned media to fully contribute to preserving a stable and peaceful environment, a pre-requisite for free, inclusive, fair, transparent and credible elections in Burundi. Burundi’s election marks the country’s first step in moving away from President Pierre Nkurunziza’s 15-year reign, which has been marred by allegations of human rights abuses, and his controversial decision to seek a third term five years ago, which propelled the country into an economic crisis. General Evariste Ndayishimiye, the presidential candidate for the ruling CNDD-FDD party is considered the frontrunner among six other candidates. Ndayishimiye has suggested voters not fear the coronavirus, saying “God loves Burundi and if there are people who have tested positive, it is so that God may manifest his power in Burundi.”  Burundi’s leadership has largely ignored the threat of the coronavirus, allowing large political rallies leading up to the vote and imposing no restrictions on people’s movement. The government also just expelled, with no explanation, four top World Health Organization (WHO) officials changing the response to the epidemic.  So far, Burundi has confirmed 42 cases and one death from the virus, but some doctors have expressed concern the government is not revealing the full impact of the virus on the population.  
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The weekend arrest of Felicien Kabuga, sought for decades for his alleged role in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, surprised a neighbor in their affluent Paris suburb and gratified those working on human rights and justice.   “I would see this man going out, maybe once a day, alone or with someone,” Jean-Yves Breneol, a resident of the same block on which the 84-year-old fugitive lived in a five-story apartment building, told Reuters news service. The neighbor said he thought the frail-looking man had lived there for four or five years. “We didn’t know his name, nothing.” Kabuga was arrested early Saturday in Asnieres-Sur-Seine, just northwest of Paris, where he had been living quietly under an assumed identity with help from at least some of his 11 adult children.   French authorities said those children provided a large network of support for Kabuga. He was indicted by a United Nations international criminal tribunal in 1997 on genocide and six other criminal charges. “Félicien Kabuga’s arrest is a major victory for victims and survivors of the genocide in Rwanda who have waited more than two decades to see this leading figure face justice,” Mausi Segun, Africa director at Outside view of La Sante prison, where Rwanda genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga is being held, according to a source close to the investigation, in Paris, May 18, 2020.Uncertainties over trial Kabuga is being detained in Paris’ La Sante Prison, according to Reuters, and is expected to face an extradition hearing, perhaps early this week. Ultimately, his case is intended to go to trial at the International Criminal Court of Justice in the Hague.   But some in Rwanda would welcome a trial in the central African country. “Kabuga’s judgment in Rwanda would be a very good thing, a strong message for the fight against impunity,” said Bideri Diogene, principal adviser to the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG) in Rwanda.   Diogene told VOA he hoped Kabuga would be forced to face survivors and the relatives of genocide victims. The accused could seek their forgiveness, he added. Asked about Kabuga’s advanced age, Diogene said, “when he killed people, he was young. And even before his arrest, he never made any sign of repentance.”   A nod to French collaboration At various times, the fugitive Kabuga had “stayed with impunity” in Germany, Belgium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya and Switzerland, according to French justice ministry statement. Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu, a spokesman for the London-based SURF Survivors Fund (Supporting Survivors of the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda), saw it as “a great sign for [Kabuga] to be caught in a country like France, which has been said to protect genocide suspects. … We commend the cooperation between the Rwandan government and the Residual Mechanism International Tribunals,” he said in a news briefing.   Rwanda’s government had broken off diplomatic ties with France in 2006 after a French judge issued arrest warrants for Rwandan officials over the downing of Habyarimana’s plane. The two governments began restoring relations in 2009. In April 2019, on the 25th anniversary of the massacre’s start, it was announced that French President Emmanuel Macron had authorized an investigation into the French government’s role in Rwanda during the five years leading up to the genocide. Results are expected in 2021, Reuters has reported.   Paris-based journalist Catherine Field, who has been immersed in covering the story, told VOA, “The fact that Franco-Rwandan relations are back on track probably helped significantly to bring this arrest around.” VOA’s Central Africa and English to Africa services contributed to this report. 
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Alor Koul, chief administrator for Abyei, reacted positively Monday to word that the United Nations Security Council extended the mandate for Abyei for six months, but cautioned that renewing the U.N. mandate will not alone solve the dispute between Sudan and South Sudan over who controls the area.  According to Koul, what is required is a strong political decision by the governments of both countries to determine the final status of the area. “We urge the two countries to expedite their discussions over the issues of Abyei so that the final status of Abyei is determined before the end of this mandate. And this is what we really want as the people of Abyei,” Koul told South Sudan in Focus. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to extend the mandate of the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) and urged Khartoum, Juba and local communities to take all necessary steps to ensure that the area is effectively demilitarized and to fully cooperate with UNISFA. The Council emphasized that the Abyei area will be demilitarized from any forces, as well as local armed militias. The only military allowed will be UNISFA and the Abyei Police Service.  Sudan’s transitional government reiterated its commitment to strengthen cooperation with UNISFA and the government of South Sudan to fully implement provisions outlined in the Abyei protocol. General Abdulfatah Al Burhan, the head of the Sudanese Sovereign Council, said Sudanese leaders are ready to cooperate with authorities to resolve the dispute over Abyei. “We have discussed a lot of issues related to elevating more cooperation between Sudan and South Sudan, especially the issue of peaceful coexistence in the area. We also discussed how to strengthen cooperation for the establishment of a joint mechanism between the two countries, based on the previous agreement signed by both sides,” said Al Burhan. Several attacks and counter attacks have been reported in the Abyei region over the past three months. More than 50 people have been killed, including women and children.  Both the Ngok Dinka and the Misseriya Arab nomads have blamed each other for the deadly clashes. Mukhtar Babo Nimir, a paramount chief of the Sudanese Misseriya tribe, insisted that the Misseryia have responded in self-defense to attacks from the Ngok Dinka. But he said he regretted loss of life on both sides.  “Any disagreement among ourselves, our people will be affected. Even if one person is killed, we will be held responsible about this. We are supposed to live as one people, we have vast land that all of us can occupy. Our ancestors lived together for hundreds of years, and yet they were not educated. Why can’t we live together as one people?” Nimir told South Sudan in Focus. Yousif Malok, who is from the Ngok Dinka, and heads the Abyei Civil Society in Sudan, said he is not optimistic about UNISFA’s role in the region, saying the U.N. mission failed in the past to protect lives and property in the Abyei area.  “Our opinion is that UNISFA has failed in fulfilling its mandate. Now, when this mandate is again renewed, we wonder whether they are the same forces or something has been added to their mandate to protect local civilians. Are they empowered now to fulfil all their mandates that they have failed to carry out during the past?” asked Malok. Under the terms of U.N. resolution 2519, the Council extended the mandate for activities in the area bordering Sudan and South Sudan and reiterated its demand for both countries to provide full support for the mission, including removing any obstacles hindering efforts to protect civilians. The Security Council first authorized the deployment of a peacekeeping force to Abyei in June 2011 following renewed violence, escalating tensions and population displacement in the area as Southern Sudan prepared to formally declare its independence from the Sudan. 
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The International Criminal Court ruled Monday that ex-Congolese vice president and militia leader Jean-Pierre Bemba is not entitled to damages after his successful appeal of a war crimes conviction.  Bemba’s lawyers failed to convince the court that their client must be compensated for the nearly $75 million they claimed he lost because of his imprisonment, including legal fees and what they say was the court’s mismanagement of his seized assets. The judges acknowledged Monday that the 10 years Bemba spent in jail awaiting trial is a “significant amount of time to spend in custody, likely to result in personal suffering.” But they also ruled that Bemba “failed to establish that he had suffered a grave and manifest miscarriage of justice.”  Among the assets seized from Bemba are planes, boats and luxury homes.  Bemba was an opposition politician and one of four vice presidents in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2003 to 2006.  He was arrested in 2008 for crimes against humanity allegedly carried out by opposition forces under his command who fought against an attempted coup in neighboring Central African Republic in 2002. The ICC convicted Bemba in 2016 and sentenced him to 18 years in prison. His conviction was overturned on appeal two years later.   
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Senegal’s controversial decision to reopen mosques as the Muslim-majority country is still battling the coronavirus pandemic has split the religious community. Senegal has about 2,500 confirmed infections and at least 25 deaths from COVID-19. While some Muslims have welcomed being able to pray at the mosque during the last week of the holy month of Ramadan, others worry it’s too soon and the decision may put worshippers at greater risk of infection.  Senegal’s allowing mosques to reopen for the final week of Ramadan was welcomed by thousands of worshippers at the Massalikul Jinaan mosque for Friday prayers.    But while requirements for social distancing and sanitary measures remain in place during the pandemic, not all of Senegal’s Muslims are keen to return to group prayer.     Adja Fama Lo is in charge of the women’s prayer room at the mosque. Many people are afraid of the disease, she said. They are afraid to come. At hat hour, the mosque was usually full, she ays. Now they are coming back step by step. She said those who are not afraid will come, those who are afraid will stay at home.  Many Muslims, like 26-year-old programmer Fily Baye, prefer to continue praying at home to reduce the risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19.      For him, group worship — for Ramadan and until the coronavirus is under control — needs to remain online.       Baye said it is a way that makes it possible to spend Ramadan safely. It also brings a dose of spirituality. By being alone, he said, it is true that it is a bit complicated and that people experience difficult things. But spiritually speaking, he said, it’s a time that allows us to refocus on ourselves.   Many Imams chose not to reopen mosques out of concern for controlling crowds. Ahmadou Kante is imam of Mosue Point E in Dakar.   They prefer to be careful, he said, and that by the end of Ramadan they will see how it evolves and what other receivers of worshippers are telling them. Kante said if they are told that there is a decline[in cases], that the dynamic is not on the rise, they could satisfy this religious demand of a few believers to resume the public prayers.Senegal’s Catholic churches have also chosen to keep their doors closed while the pandemic continues. Meanwhile, all believers — whether at home or the mosque — are praying for a swift end to the coronavirus pandemic.   
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Medical staff in Cameroon are asking for additional security at hospitals following a series of attacks by people upset that they or their loved ones were diagnosed with the coronavirus. Cameroon so far has 3,300 confirmed cases of the virus with 147 deaths.Gervais Gabriel Atedjoe, secretary general of Cameroon’s National Medical Council, said attacks on hospitals, especially health care workers, are increasing by the day.Speaking by phone from the coastal city of Douala, Atedjoe said health workers are being attacked by people who either contest tests showing them positive for COVID-19, or reject medical reports that their relatives died of coronavirus.He said the National Medical Council of Cameroon is scandalized and wants to state categorically that it is totally inadmissable to attack medical staff members who are simply carrying out their duties of saving lives. He said they are asking the government to increase protection at hospitals and to educate civilians to desist from attacking health workers because within the past three weeks, medical doctors, nurses and laboratory technicians have been attacked on a daily basis.The Medical Council reports attacks in seven hospitals since Thursday. Six workers sustained injuries and are being treated, and eight others sustained minor injuries.In the most extreme attacks, doctors said that last week, angry crowds exhumed at least four corpses of people buried after they died of COVID-19 in the cities of Douala and Bafoussam to stop the spread of the killer virus.The exhumers said they wanted to give the bodies a proper burial.FILE – Some people wear masks as they walk by the entrance to the Yaounde General Hospital in Yaounde on March 6, 2020. Cameroon has been hit harder by the coronavirus than any other country in Central Africa.Awah Fonka, governor of Cameroon’s Western Region where Bafoussam is found, said health workers who tried to stop the crowds were attacked and beaten.Fonka, speaking via a messaging app from Bafoussam, said the lives of the health workers were saved only when the police arrived and dispersed the mobs. Police and health care workers then reclaimed and reburied the bodies.”It is unbelievable, unacceptable that a medical doctor or medical personnel should be putting up a fight over a corpse with a family. They [the crowds] should understand that these people [the health care workers] are coming to help so that they should not be infected,” said the governor.Cameroon’s Health Minister Manaouda Malachie has condemned the attacks and said he is calling on all Cameroonians to accept the reality that COVID-19 exists and is killing people.Speaking on Cameroon state radio CRTV, he said measures have been taken to increase security at hospitals.He said President Paul Biya has asked him to encourage and tell all health workers that he is aware of the challenges they face and has given instructions to the government to take necessary measures to protect them. Manaouda says Biya and his government are very much appreciative and will never abandon Cameroon medical staff members in their efforts to conquer COVID-19.On May 1st, Cameroon eased restrictions put in place to curb COVID-19. The government is still asking people to protect themselves by washing their hands regularly and keeping a distance of a least a meter and a half from people.It has also warned people against believing that COVID-19 has been conquered, or even worse, doesn’t exist. 
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Nigerian jihadist groups are gaining sway in the restive northwest and the region could become a “land bridge” to Islamists across the Sahel, the International Crisis Group warned Monday. Northwestern Nigeria has been wracked by years of insecurity involving clashes between rival communities over land, attacks by heavily-armed criminal gangs and reprisal killings by vigilante groups.The violence has left an estimated 8,000 people dead since 2011 and displaced over 200,000, the Brussels-based research group said in a report released Monday.”As security has deteriorated, the region has steadily come under the renewed influence of jihadist groups, which have also stepped up attacks on security forces,” it said. “The spike in jihadist activity in the North West has raised fears that the region could soon become a land bridge connecting Islamic insurgencies in the central Sahel with the decade-old insurgency in the Lake Chad region of north-eastern Nigeria.”Nigeria has suffered from a 10-year conflict with fighters from the Boko Haram group and its splinter factions in the northeast of the country that has left over 36,000 people dead.Officials have during the past year sounded the alarm over signs of the growing jihadist influence among the numerous armed groups in the northwest. “Two Boko Haram offshoots are making inroads into the region, where they are forging tighter relationships with aggrieved communities, herder-affiliated armed groups and criminal gangs,” the report said.  One of the factions is an al-Qaeda linked outfit known as Ansaru that broke off from the main Boko Haram group in 2012 and was widely seen as dormant after being dismantled by security forces.  The second splinter is the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), which has become a dominant force in the northeast of Nigeria after declaring allegiance to the Islamic State group in 2016. Both Ansaru and ISWAP have been sending supplies and clerics to the northwest and started claiming credit for attacks in the region, the report said.  In a sign of Ansaru’s growing menace the Nigerian police announced a major operation against the group in February in which it claimed to have killed 250 fighters. The report warned that the “poorly secured international boundary” between Nigeria and Niger to the north “enables the influx of arms and facilitates the movement of jihadists.” Those ties could be fortified and stretch further to Burkina Faso and Mali where jihadists also under the IS banner killed thousands last year. The Nigerian authorities have launched repeated military operations and local peace talks to try to curb the violence in the northwest. But so far neither strategy has succeeded in ending the violence and much of the region remains a security vacuum. 
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Panic has gripped several hundred people after a popular Cameroon pastor and candidate in the central African state’s last presidential election, Frankline Ndifor, died of COVID-19 following his prayers that hundreds of his supporters  cured of the coronavirus. Cameroon police used force to gain access to his residence in the economic capital city Douala, as some of his supporters blocked entrances, praying for his resurrection.Hundreds of followers sang Sunday morning at Ndifor’s Douala residence  that the man popularly referred to as the prophet is not dead, but he is rather on a spiritual retreat with God and will return soon. Their singing and prayers were broadcast by several local radio stations.Ndifor died and was buried in front of his residence Saturday by workers of Cameroon’s COVID-19 response team in Douala.Doctor Gaelle Nnanga said by messaging application from Douala that Ndifor died less than a week after being diagnosed with COVID-19.He says that some members of Ndifor’s Kingship International Ministries Church called him to come to the pastor’s aid when they found out Ndifor was in agony, and that when the medical team he leads arrived, Ndifor was having  severe respiratory difficulties. He says the pastor died less than 10 minutes after they treated him. The governor of Cameroon’s coastal region, where Douala is, said in a release he deployed police to force their way to Ndifor’s residence when his followers chased medical staff away, claiming that the pastor was on a spiritual retreat with God, rather than dead, and should not be buried.Ndifor follower Rigobert Che says the “prophet” last Wednesday prayed for him and several dozen people diagnosed with COVID-19, and some who suspected they were carriers or had symptoms. He says via a messaging application that Ndifor’s death has brought panic to the hundreds of people who have been visiting him for prayers for a divine cure. “This is a pastor that has been laying hands [on the sick] and claiming that he cures COVID-19,” Che said. “If you, the person that claims that you are curing COVID-19, you are dead, what about the fellow people that were affected by the COVID-19? Now that he is dead, I do not know how the people that he was laying hands on will be healed.”Medical staff are asking all those who came in contact with the pastor to report to hospitals to be tested for COVID-19.Besides praying for COVID-19 patients at his home and his church, Ndifor was also donating buckets and soap to the poor to protect themselves from the coronavirus by washing their hands. His last public outing was on April 20, when he went out into Douala’s streets to distribute facemasks. Ndifor had a reputation as a miracle healer, and he was a contender in Cameroon’s 2018 presidential election, emerging seventh out of nine candidates, with 23, 687 votes.
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United Nations and private aid agencies warned Friday that an unprecedented number of people in Africa’s volatile Sahel region are in desperate need of life-saving assistance and protection.Aid agencies say they are alarmed but not surprised by the extent of the humanitarian crisis gripping the Sahel.  Years of conflict in half a dozen countries, terrorist attacks, climate change causing food insecurity and now the COVID-19 pandemic have stripped the population of its ability to protect and provide for itself.The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports 24 million people, or 1 in 5 of the Sahel’s total population of 120 million, need international assistance and protection to survive.  This is the highest number ever recorded.  OCHA spokesman, Jens Laerke says children account for half of those affected.“The multilayered crisis is triggered by a deterioration in security that has led to displacement within countries and across borders, rising hunger, inequality, and the direct and indirect consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, including a reported rise in gender-based violence,” Laerke  said.The U.N. reports escalating conflict and instability in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, north-east Nigeria, Chad and northern Cameroon have displaced 4.5 million people in the region, both internally and as refugees.  It notes 12 million people are short of food, with many on the brink of starvation and 1.6 million children are severely malnourished.Aid agencies warn the lean season between June and August, when food stocks are exhausted, will worsen this situation.  Another flashpoint is the growing number of coronavirus cases in the region, currently at more than 9,000.The United Nations has appealed for $2.8 billion to reach 17 million people in need.  So far, only 18% of the funds has been received.  In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Sahel, the U.N. requested an additional $638 million earlier this month.  Aid agencies say failure to support emergency operations in the Sahel will cost many more lives and devastate communities.  They warn this humanitarian crisis could spill into new regions and into West African coastal countries if life-saving needs are ignored.
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An armed group killed at least 20 civilians in an overnight raid on a village in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday, the latest incident in a surge of ethnic violence that has forced 200,000 people from their homes in two months. Fighters from the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo (CODECO) militia group, which is made up of fighters from the Lendu ethnic group, attacked the Hema village of Ndjala in Ituri province at around 1 a.m. on Sunday, the army and local authorities said.”They cut with the machetes several of my compatriots, 20 have already died and more than 14 seriously injured,” said Solo Bukutupa, a local administrator. “It’s unbearable to see people die like that.”The attackers fled after United Nations peacekeepers arrived at the village and they later fired on a nearby UN base, a UN source said.Fighting by an array of armed groups in the region has complicated Congo’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and an Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 2,200 people since 2018. CODECO split into several competing factions after the Congolese army killed its leader Justin Ngudjolo in late March. Earlier this month Ngabu Ngawi Olivier, who claimed to have taken over the leadership of CODECO, surrendered to the army and called for the militia to lay down its weapons. Another faction later issued a statement denouncing Olivier as an imposter. No fighters have followed Olivier’s orders yet, said army spokesman Jules Ngongo.   Rich in natural resources including gold, diamonds and coltan, Ituri province was the site of some of the country’s worst fighting between 1999 and 2007, after a power struggle between rebel groups descended into ethnic violence — much of it between the Hema and Lendu. After several years of relative calm, tit-for-tat fighting erupted again in December 2017, reviving longstanding tensions over land.   The unrest has since evolved into more coordinated attacks by the Lendu community on the army and the Hema ethnic group. Late last year the army launched a large-scale operation to uproot a constellation of militias operating in the east of the country, sparking a backlash that has seen at least 350 people killed by armed groups in Ituri, the UN source said. 
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Egypt will bring forward the start of its curfew by four hours to 5 p.m. and halt public transport from May 24 for six days during the Eid holiday, as it seeks to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, the prime minister said on Sunday.Shops, restaurants, parks and beaches will be closed for the extended holiday at the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, and restrictions on citizens’ movements will remain in place for at least two weeks afterwards, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said.Egypt has reported 11,719 cases of the novel coronavirus, including 612 deaths. Daily increases in the number of cases have been rising as the government slightly eased a night curfew and other measures. The number of cases rose by 491 on Saturday, the Health Ministry said.Madbouly indicated that there could be a gradual reopening of some activities including sports clubs and restaurants from mid-June, and that a reopening of places of worship would also be considered.After Eid, the curfew will last from 8pm-6am, as it did before Ramadan.Anyone entering enclosed spaces with other citizens or taking public transport will be required to wear a mask, and the government was working on producing washable masks for general use, Madbouly said. 
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Scientists are putting an herbal remedy from Madagascar, purported to cure COVID-19, to the test.Researchers at Germany’s Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, in Potsdam, are collaborating with a U.S. company, ArtemiLife, to test an extract from the plant Artemisia annuaMadagascar’s President Andry Rajoelina drinks a sample of the “COVID Organics” or CVO remedy at a launch ceremony in Antananarivo on April 20, 2020. (Photo by RIJASOLO / AFP)The controversial plant mixture first came to prominence when Madagascar’s President Andry Rajoelina announced it had been shown to treat the coronavirus. He said he considered it a “miracle cure.” The herbal medicine has also been used for treatment of malaria.“The patients who have healed have taken no other product than COVID-Organics,” Rajoelina said, speaking in French to France 24. “The patients tend to heal [in] seven to 10 days,” Rajoelina added when asked for evidence. More than 20 African countries have placed orders for what is now dubbed “COVID-Organics,” including the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania.No evidenceDespite Madagascar’s exports of the herbal medicine to several countries, doubts remain. Professor Stanley Okolo, the director-general of the West Africa Health Organization, part of the regional Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, sounded a note of caution on VOA’s Daybreak Africa radio program. “We have not seen the evidence of the research,” he said. “I have heard that it has cured two people, and for us in the medical field and in the health profession, we need evidence before we can support a cure.”There has been additional skepticism coming from the World Health Organization and other prominent health bodies. “Seventy traditional medicine experts from countries across Africa held a virtual meeting with the WHO on the role of traditional medicine in the COVID19 response,” WHO’s regional office for Africa tweeted on May 12. “They unanimously agreed that clinical trials must be conducted for all medicines in the Region, without exception.”70 traditional medicine experts from countries across #Africa held a virtual meeting with @WHO on the role of traditional medicine in the #COVID19 response. They unanimously agreed that clinical trials must be conducted for all medicines in the Region, without exception. pic.twitter.com/fCKYiYiMqb— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) May 12, 2020Denis Chopera, a virologist working in South Africa, said that, since there are no side effects, the herb can’t cause harm, but people shouldn’t presume it is a miracle cure. “People are taking immune boosters and so on,” he said on VOA’s English-to-Africa’s radio and TV programs. “So, I don’t think there’s any harm, but I don’t think people should expect that it will treat them and cure COVID-19 because that has not been proven scientifically.”This story originated in the Africa Division with reporting contributions from VOA’s English-to-Africa’s James Butty and Jason Patinkin. 
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Shelling killed two people on Saturday at a displaced people’s shelter in a part of the Libyan capital of Tripoli that has been under bombardment by eastern forces seeking to capture the city, officials said.The shelling caused a fire at the shelter in Fornaj district, located near a front line and home to people forced from their homes after earlier bouts of fighting, said Usama Ali, spokesperson for Tripoli’s emergency and ambulance service.Ali said the emergency services were attempting to evacuate the shelter of the remaining displaced people and relocate them elsewhere in the city, Ali said. People in the Fornaj shelter were mostly from the nearby Ain Zara district.The eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) launched an offensive 13 months ago to capture Tripoli, seat of the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is recognized by the United Nations.The United Nations said last month that 80 percent of civilian casualties in Libya’s civil war during the first three months of 2020 were attributable to the LNA, which is backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia.The GNA has made progress against the LNA this year with new help from Turkey, pushing it out of a string of towns west of Tripoli and putting it under pressure in its northwestern strongholds of Tarhouna and al-Watiya airbase.Turkish support for the GNA has been most effective through its deployment of anti-aircraft defenses, and with its drones that have hammered LNA efforts to resupply the northwest battlefronts from the east.On Saturday, the LNA said it had destroyed a Turkish drone at al-Watiya. The GNA said it had destroyed a Russian-supplied anti-aircraft system at the same location, though an LNA spokesman denied that.The fighting in and around Tripoli has added to difficult conditions for residents, who this week faced long power and water cuts during a fierce spike in temperatures.
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Zimbabwe’s leader has extended a lockdown to contain COVID-19, which has officially infected 42 people in the poverty-stricken nation.  Public health experts say the extension is the right move, but jobless informal workers are asking the government to pay them.In a televised address, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said Saturday that he was worried by the increase in cases of local transmission of the coronavirus in Zimbabwe and that the country was not yet in a position to lift the lockdown.“Zimbabwe will therefore continue on Level 2 lockdown for an indefinite period,” he said. “We shall have regular two-week interval reviews to assess progress or lack of it. This should give us more time to strengthen the prevention and case management approaches for the various risk populations. … Social and physical distancing will continue to be maintained and enforced at all times. I appeal to our people to exercise greater discipline in this regard.”The United Nations says Zimbabwe is facing a plethora of humanitarian problems, such as recurring droughts, food insecurity and a collapsing economy, and needs international assistance.Trevor River, pictured May 16, 2020, sells building materials in one of Harare’s poor townships. He says without government payouts, the lockdown is painful as his income was cut off in March when the lockdown started. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)One of those feeling the pinch is Trevor River, 28, who sells building materials in one of Harare’s poor townships. He wants the government to pay him as long as there is a lockdown and he can’t work.“The lockdown is quite difficult,” River said. “The impact we are facing right now is quite huge because we are no longer selling. The source of our income has been cut short. So it’s quite difficult for us to survive.”Earlier this week, police arrested some members of the political opposition who participated in a demonstration demanding that the government pay those who can’t earn a living because of the coronavirus lockdown.Fortune Nyamande, head of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, said the country was still far from ready to lift its lockdown. He said he sympathized, though, with the unemployed, who have had no source of income since late March, when restrictions were imposed.Residents queue for water, May 16, 2020, at a borehole sunk by the U.N. as part of efforts to contain waterborne disease in Harare. Some residents say hygiene problems may make it hard to fight COVID-19. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)“The WHO [World Health Organization] specifies that for a country to a lift a lockdown, a country must not have a widespread community transmission,” Nyamande said. “It must have conducted adequate testing so that it can reflect on the extent of the disease. The health system should be well-equipped to respond to a surge in cases of COVID[-19]. Then finally the government should have the capacity to test, isolate and trace all the contacts of all those who test positive for COVID 19.”Basing on this criteria, we still think that there is still a lot to be done. But however, extending the lockdown without addressing these four fundamental issues raised by the WHO is futile.”Some informal traders are not waiting for the government to pay them. They are defying the lockdown and flooding the streets of Harare, selling their wares to make money.
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Robert Kyagulanyi, a member of Uganda’s National Assembly popularly known as Bobi Wine says he is not excited about a court ruling that declared police orders to halt his concerts in the country illegal. Obiga Kania, Uganda’s internal affairs minister, says as long as the law says they can halt his shows, they will continue doing so. Wine last held a concert in Uganda three years ago.
The High Court of Kampala nullified Uganda Police Force orders barring popular legislator and musician Wine from staging concerts in the country.
Justice Esta Nambayo said it was illegal for the police to stop event managers from organizing what they dubbed Kyarenga extra concerts, after one of his songs, which were to be held at Wine’s One Leave Beach among other venues in Uganda.
After a court battle lasting a year, Nambayo said the order was illegal and issued an order to allow all his future concerts to be held. Wine told VOA the ruling doesn’t change anything because the police, whom he describes as militarized personalized police working for President Yoweri Museveni, will not allow him to hold a concert.
“There’s nothing to excite me at all because it’s not the first time that the court rules something, but again, the police act otherwise. With or without the court ruling, I had the right to work. So, I will still attempt to work within the law. I know that until there is a rule of law, until the courts can be respected, still, the same thing are going to be happening,” Wine said.
Kania, the internal affairs minister, said the court ruling will not stop the police from implementing public order management laws that govern any public gathering.
“Police is not out to frustrate Kyagulanyi as a person or to frustrate assemblies for the sake of it. No. If the law says, the police should not be anywhere, where Kyagulanyi is holding meetings, then the police will not be. The Police Act itself still gives the police powers to manage assemblies, then they will still continue,” Kania said.
Erias Lukwago, Wine’s lawyer said the only challenge they are bound to face is police impunity. Otherwise he says, the court order was explicit.
“He is free to hold any concert, anywhere in the country, without even seeking for the permission of police. Without even seeking for any clearance. Court did not stop at making a declaration. They went ahead to issue an injunctive order against police. They said police is stopped from interfering with any musical concert organized by Honorable Kyagulanyi,” Lukwago said.
Wine held an online concert last weekend, attracting hundreds, but it is not clear whether this can be turned into a live concert in the country without police interference.
 
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French police have arrested a man accused of funding militias that massacred hundreds of thousands of people in Rwanda 1994 genocide.The French Justice Ministry said police arrested Felicien Kabuga near Paris Saturday after 26 years on the run.The 84-year-old was Rwanda’s most wanted man and one of the last primary suspects in the 1994 slaughter of some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu extremists.Kabuga, once one of Rwanda’s wealthiest men, was indicted in 1997 on a charge of genocide and six other criminal counts, according to an international tribunal established by the United Nations.Authorities said Kabuga was living under a false identity in Asnieres-Sur-Seine, north of Paris, with the aid of his children.Kabuga, a Hutu businessman who had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, allegedly funded the purchases of large quantities of machetes and agricultural tools that were used as weapons during the genocide, a U.N. news website said.The justice ministry said Kabuga will appear before the Paris appeal court before being brought in front of the international court in The Hague.International justice authorities are still pursuing Rwandan genocide suspects Augustin Bizimana and Protais Mpiranya. 
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Malian troops have killed about 30 militants in a raid, the army said Friday, in the latest violence in the war-torn West African state.  The country’s armed forces said on Twitter that they had killed “about 30 terrorists” near the border with neighboring Burkina Faso on Thursday afternoon.  They added that they had seized 25 motorbikes as well as other equipment, without offering further details about the attack.  Mali is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency that erupted in 2012 and has claimed thousands of military and civilian lives since.Despite the presence of thousands of French and U.N. troops, the conflict has engulfed the center of the country and spread to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.
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South Sudan health officials announced the country’s first death from COVID-19 on Friday, with a top health official describing the deceased as a 51-year old “high-profile South Sudanese.”   The deceased arrived at a military hospital in Juba on Wednesday evening in critical condition, according to health ministry undersecretary Dr. Makur Matur Koriom, who is also a member of South Sudan’s High-Level Taskforce for COVID-19.   “While arrangements were being made for referral to Dr. John Garang Infectious Disease Center, the victim sadly succumbed to his illness and the results came out today confirming the cause of death to be respiratory failure due to COVID-19 infection,” Matur told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.  Victim a military official? There are reports that the COVID-19 victim is a senior South Sudanese military official, although South Sudan army spokesperson Brigadier General Lul Ruai Koang told VOA he has not heard of a military officer or commander dying from COVID-19.  The deceased is among 28 new COVID-19 cases the task force announced Thursday night. Twenty-seven of the 28 cases are South Sudanese; the other is a Kenyan, Matur said.  Two of the new cases were in contact with a known COVID-19 patient, 20 were identified from random screenings in Juba, and the remaining six cases were tested in Juba following alerts from members of the public, Matur said. The health ministry undersecretary urged citizens to immediately report suspected cases to health officials so they can get tested.   “It’s important because almost all the suspects we have at the moment in the [isolation] facility, including the dead, arrived at the facility late, due to delay[s] at home or they were managed in private facilities for some times before they were sent to our health facilities in critical condition,” Matur said.   Almost 4,000 samples wait to be testedAs of Thursday evening, 3,986 samples at Juba’s public health laboratory needed to be tested for coronavirus. Contact tracing for 465 people who came into contact with COVID-19 patients was underway according to health officials. Health ministry spokesperson Doctor Thuou Loi said officials suspect there are many more unconfirmed COVID-19 cases in communities across the country.    “By simple calculation when we know one case we say that there are another 2.5 we don’t know outside there,” Loi said.  He said the public should continue practicing social distancing, wearing masks in public, and following other preventative measures outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the health ministry.   “All of us in the Republic of South Sudan are at risk, and we don’t know now who has it and who does not have it, and the only way to do that is for us to consistently implement what the health experts are telling us: keep social distancing, hands hygiene, no handshaking,” Loi told VOA. WHO and health ministry officials said last week that despite a rising number of confirmed cases in South Sudan, some COVID-19 patients refused to cooperate with health workers involved with contact tracing.  
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The armed rangers set off at dusk in pursuit of poachers. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a new alertness, and a new fear.With tourists gone and their money, too, protecting endangered wildlife like black rhinos has become that much more challenging. And the poachers, like many desperate to make a living, might become more daring.Rhinos have long been under threat from poachers who kill them for their horns to supply illegal trade fueled by the mistaken belief that the horns have medicinal value.Now there are concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic may increase such poaching, said John Tekeles, a patrol guide and head of the dog unit at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.”We are more alert because maybe more poachers will use this time to come in to poach,” Tekeles said.The number of black rhinos in Africa has been slowly increasing though the species remains “critically endangered,” according to a report in March by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN. It credits, in part, effective law enforcement.Ol Pejeta is home to more than 130 black rhinos, the single largest population in East and Central Africa, said Richard Vigne, the conservancy’s managing director.Protecting them is expensive. Ol Pejeta spends about $10,000 per year per rhino on that protection, Vigne said.Lost revenue”In our case that comes to close to $2 million a year,” he said. “In the time of COVID, when tourism has completely stopped, where most of our revenue comes from tourism, the revenue we need to earn to protect the rhino comes from tourism, it’s a complete disaster.”The conservancy expects to see $3 million to $4 million in lost revenue this year. Therefore, Vigne said, “our ability to look after the rhinos is compromised.”Conservationists across Africa are now monitoring to see how poachers might try to take advantage, and whether more rare wildlife will be killed.Africa’s various rhino species had been seeing a downward trend in poaching, according to the IUCN, with 892 poached in 2018, a drop from a peak of 1,349 in 2015.And the population of black rhinos had been growing by an annual rate of 2.5% between 2012 and 2018 to more than 5,600.That growth was projected to continue over the next five years, the IUCN has said. 
 
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JOS, NIGERIA — My wife Nanbam and I didn’t plan to have a child amid a global pandemic, but we didn’t have a choice.   
   
Looking at the news, our fears grew as we saw other families losing their loved ones to the coronavirus. But, on April 18, we welcomed Deborah Ememabasi into the world.   
    
The first case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was confirmed in February, when my wife was already seven months pregnant.    
 
She became apprehensive about attending her antenatal sessions regularly due to the often-crowded nature of the hospitals. But she made sure to perform checkups at less frequent intervals and take her pregnancy medications regularly.       
 
Labor started quite unexpectedly. Based on the Expected Date of Delivery (EDD) provided by the hospital, the baby had not been due to arrive for another three weeks.  
 Child births amid lockdownsSitting in the hospital waiting room, I held my wife’s hands as the contractions progressed, but was most grateful, looking around, to see there were fewer people than usual in the hospital that evening.  
 
My family members kept asking for regular updates through phone calls and messaging apps. “How far along is she?” “What did the doctor say?” “Has she given birth?”  
 
Things took a scary turn for us when the doctor failed to pick up his phone just when it seemed the contractions were the strongest. My anxiety grew as I wondered why.
 
Thankfully, the doctor arrived some minutes before midnight to assist with the delivery, which went through without a hitch thanks to his years of experience and the sheer grace of God.
 Help for new birth
 
In Nigeria, a grandmother usually comes to stay with the new parents to help with the baby and the mother’s healing after the birth. The Ibibio tribe in South-South Nigeria, where I am from, call the practice “Umaan.”
 
During this period, the grandmother helps to cook the meals and provides hot water therapy and sitz baths to hasten proper physical and internal healing.  
 
But with COVID-19 travel restrictions, and both our mothers in the high-risk age range, we have had to handle things on our own – including entertaining our 3-year-old son.     
   
The grandmothers still get to check in with us often via phone calls and social media apps, to make sure everything is going well and to offer us wisdom from their wealth of experience.
   Upsurge in COVID-19 cases
 
Despite increasing numbers of infections, Nigerian authorities on May 4 eased a weeks-long lockdown in major cities – but not in Jos.  
 
Nigeria recorded its highest number of single-day infections on the same day the country began a six-week phase-out of lockdowns in the major cities of Lagos and Abuja as well as in Ogun state.  
 
The loosening of restrictions came with conditions including the compulsory wearing of face masks in public, overnight curfews and a ban on interstate travel. Still, the country has seen the number of COVID-19 cases rise to more than 4,000 infections in the last week.
 
Social distancing guidelines are still largely ignored by many. The authorities have suggested that the total lockdowns will be reimposed if citizens continue to ignore the guidelines aimed at preventing the spread of the virus.  
   
As for me, I continue to work from home as much as possible to keep our growing family healthy.  
 
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