A groundbreaking clinical trial is underway in South Africa, marking a pivotal moment in the fight against tuberculosis. The new vaccine could become the first to help prevent pulmonary TB, the most common form of the disease, in adolescents and adults. It would be the first new TB vaccine in more than a century. Zaheer Cassim has the story.
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Kampala — An official of the International Criminal Court has promised victims of Uganda’s rebel Lord’s Resistance Army that the court will provide reparations that were promised after the conviction of a top LRA leader. However, the Tribunal Trust Fund does not have enough money to make the payments, and now some victims worry other world conflicts are drawing down donor funds.

ICC Registrar Osvaldo Zavala Giler, speaking to the media Tuesday in Uganda, assured victims of the violent, long-running LRA rebellion that the court would do as much as possible to ensure victims get their reparations.

In February, ICC judges ordered $56 million in reparations to recognize the harm suffered by 50,000 victims of war crimes for which Dominic Ongwen has been convicted. Those include murder, rape, forced marriage, and the recruitment of child soldiers.

Giler’s commitment comes despite Ongwen’s appeal of his conviction.  Giler said while the appeal is still pending, the ICC will continue efforts to raise funds to pay the reparations and comply with the court order. He also indicated not all victims would receive payments at the same time.

“And that will depend on the fundraising efforts of the trust fund to do this. I am confident that there is enough interest in the international donor-based community to support the effort of the trust fund in trying to achieve its goals,” said Giler.

Speaking to VOA before meeting the ICC registrar, Bishop Nelson Onono-Onweng, a community leader from Gulu district, said what he is hearing from the ICC is worrying.

Bishop Onono said the promised $795 per person allocation for the 50,000 victims is too little, yet the ICC has no money.

“So, if it comes now it will be great. But, we are told they are still raising the money. Fundraising today as you know with the war in the world. I don’t know. But, personally I am worried. Because the international community is now overwhelmed with the needs in the world to support the suffering people,” he said.

Peter Labeja, a journalist from Gulu district, lost his father during the 20-year rebellion. He was also abducted but was lucky to escape.   

Labeja told VOA victims still have questions on how the money will be shared.

“Who is going to take the money? Is it the head of the family taking the money or the entire group in the household taking the money? And, we were quick to calculate. We said this is about three-million shillings in Uganda. What can three-million shillings do? It can’t even send a child to the university for two semesters,” he said.

The community remains hopeful that the communal reparation will be used to build schools and health facilities and improve roads.

Victims will have to wait until September, not for the money, but for the ICC to prepare the implementation plan now being developed.

Dominic Ongwen is serving his 25-year prison sentence in Norway. The LRA fought the Ugandan government for 20 years resulting in the deaths of about 100,000 people.

Meanwhile, 19 years after an arrest warrant was issued for LRA leader Joseph Kony, the ICC pre-trial chamber has set October 15 to hold a hearing confirming charges against him. But according to ICC Mofficials, Kony qualifies as a person who cannot be found so no confirmation hearing can be held.
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Conflict has forced a record number of people around the world to become internally displaced – forced to flee their homes, but still living in their home countries, often in refugee camps. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the figure has increased dramatically in the past five years.
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The United Nations is pledging to help Malawi recover from a widespread drought linked to the El Nino climate pattern. Government officials say the crisis has created a food shortage for nearly half of the country’s population. The pledge comes after U.N. officials visited Malawi to see the damage firsthand and identify ways to offer support. Lameck Masina has more from southern Malawi.
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Yaounde — Cameroon’s military has moved over 300 civilians rescued from Boko Haram terrorist captivity along the central African states border with Nigeria and Chad this week to a northern Cameroon military post. The country’s army says scores of militants of the Nigeria-based insurgent group were neutralized in a border operation called Alpha.

Oumar Fatime, 37, tells Cameroon military and senior government officials that she was a successful vegetable farmer in Ngouboua village, until April 17 when heavily armed Boko Haram fighters abducted her and three of her family members.

Ngouboua is a village in Chad located near the northeastern shore of Lake Chad, a water body shared by Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Fatime said the abductors took her and several dozen civilians to a bush area near Lake Chad and threatened to kill them if their families failed to pay ransom.

Fatime is one of over 300 civilians Cameroon’s military says were rescued from Boko Haram captivity in several villages along the central African states border with Chad and Nigeria within the past seven days.

Cameroon state TV showed video of the rescued civilians brought in military trucks to a military camp in Dabanga district near the border with Chad and Nigeria Monday.

The Cameroon military said most of the freed hostages are women and children. About 200 government troops carried out the rescue operation, the Cameroon military said.

Midjiyawa Bakari is the governor of Cameroon’s Far North region that shares a border with Chad and Nigeria.

Bakari says Cameroon President Paul Biya dispatched him to Dabanga Monday to congratulate the troops that carried out the very successful rescue operation called Alpha. He says government troops seized several hundred weapons including rifles and explosives along with motorcycles and bicycles militants were using to attack communities and kidnap civilians for ransom.

Cameroon’s military says it was assisted in assaults on some Boko Haram strongholds in border localities by government troops from Chad and Nigeria. Scores of militants were killed and several dozens wounded in the operation that lasted one week according to Cameroon officials. Cameroon says militants who surrendered are helping troops in investigations but gave no further details.

VOA could not independently verify if Cameroon carried out joint border military operations with troops from Nigeria and Chad. But in April troops from Chad and Cameroon said they freed scores of civilians who were kidnapped for ransom or to fight with jihadist groups on both sides of the two central African states’ border.

Cameroon says it is in negotiations with its neighbors to allow the rescued civilians who are Chadians and Nigerians to return to their countries voluntarily. Cameroon military says while waiting, the freed hostages will be taken to the center for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration, or DDR, in Meri, a northern town near the border with Chad and Nigeria but did not say when.

Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria report that Boko Haram militants have been returning to towns and villages where government troops had withdrawn after claiming that fighters’ firepower had greatly reduced, indicating a return to peace. The three countries say Boko Haram is recruiting new militants and attacking villages for supplies.

At least 36,000 people have been killed and 3 million have fled their homes since 2009, when fighting between Nigerian government troops and Boko Haram militants spread to Cameroon, Niger and Chad according to the United Nations.
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GENEVA — Conflicts and violence have pushed the number of internally displaced people around the world to a record-breaking high of 75.9 million, with nearly half living in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center.  

The report finds conflicts in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Palestinian territories accounted for nearly two-thirds of new displacements due to violence, which in total spanned 66 countries in 2023.  

“Over the past two years, we have seen alarming new levels of people having to flee their homes due to conflict and violence, even in regions where the trend had been improving,” Alexandra Bilak, IDMC director said.

In a statement to coincide with the publication of the report Tuesday, she said that the millions of people forced to flee in 2023 were just “the tip of the iceberg.”

“Conflict, and the devastation it leaves behind, is keeping millions from rebuilding their lives, often for years on end,” she said.

The report notes the number of internal displacements, that is the number of times people have been forced to move throughout the year to escape conflict within their country, has increased in the last couple of years.

“While we hear a lot about refugees or asylum-seekers who cross the border, the majority of the displaced people actually stay within their country and they are internally displaced,” Christelle Cazabat, head of programs at IDMC, told journalists in Geneva Monday, in advance of the launch of the report.

In its 2023 report on forcibly displaced populations, the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, reported that 62.5 million people had been internally displaced people at the end of 2022 compared to 36.4 million refugees who had fled conflict, violence and persecution that same year.

According to the IDMC, new internal displacements last year were mostly due to the conflict in Ukraine, which started in 2022, as well as to the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the eruption of war in mid-April 2023 in Sudan.

The war in Sudan resulted in 6 million internal displacements last year, which was “more than its previous 14 years combined” and the second most ever recorded in one country during a single year after Ukraine’s 16.9 million in 2022, according to the report.

“As you know, it is more than a year that this new wave of conflict erupted (in Sudan) and as of the end of last year, the figure was 9.1 million” displaced in total by the conflict, said Vicente Anzellini, IDMCs global and regional analysis manager and lead author of the report.

“This figure is the highest that we have ever reported for any country, this 9.1 million internally displaced people.”  

In the Gaza Strip, IDMC calculated 3.4 million displacements in the last three months of 2023, many of whom had been displaced multiple times during this period. It says this number represented 17% of total conflict displacements worldwide during the year, noting that a total of 1.7 million Palestinians were internally displaced in Gaza by the end of the year.

The last quarter of 2023 is the period following the Hamas terrorists’ brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7, eliciting a military response from Israel on the Palestinian enclave.

“There are many other crises that are actually displacing even more people, but we hear a little bit less of them,” said Cazabat, noting that little is heard about the “acute humanitarian crisis in Sudan” though it has the highest number of people “living in internal displacement because of the conflict at the end of last year.” 

In the past five years, the report finds the number of people living in internal displacement because of conflict and violence has increased by 22.6 million.  

Sudan topped last year’s list of 66 countries with 9.1 million people displaced internally because of conflict, followed by Syria with more than 7 million, the DRC, Colombia and Yemen.  

Besides the total of 68.3 million people who were displaced globally by conflict and violence in 2023, the report says 7.7 million were displaced by natural disasters, including floods, storms, earthquakes and wildfires.

As in previous years, the report notes that floods and storms caused the most disaster displacement, including in southeastern Africa, where cyclone Freddy triggered 1.4 million movements across six countries and territories.

The earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria triggered 4.7 million displacements, one of the largest disaster displacement events since records began in 2008.

Anzellini observed many countries that have experienced conflict displacement also have experienced disaster displacement.

“In many situations, they are overlapping. This is the case in Sudan, in South Sudan, but also in Somalia, in the DRC, and other places,” he said. “So, you can imagine fleeing from violence to save your life and then having to escape to higher ground with whatever you can carry as the storm or a flood threatens to wash away your temporary shelter.” 

He said that no country is immune to disaster displacement.  

“Last year, we recorded disaster displacements in 148 countries and territories, and these include high-income countries such as Canada and New Zealand, which recorded their highest figures ever.

“Climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and more intense and that can lead to more displacement, but it does not have to,” he said, noting that climate change is one of many factors that contribute to displacement.

“There are other economic, social and political factors that governments can address to actually minimize the impacts of displacement even in the face of climate change,” he said, including early warning systems and the evacuation of populations before a natural disaster is forecast to strike.
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Juba, South Sudan — In a significant policy reversal, the government of South Sudan has responded to a U.N. appeal and reversed its decision to impose taxes and fees on humanitarian services and products.

However, Titus Osundina, the U.N. Development Program’s deputy resident representative for South Sudan, told VOA that questions remain because some private suppliers and companies that provide services to the U.N. may still be taxed. “We need to see how that clarifies,” Osundina said.

South Sudan’s finance minister explained in a press release that while U.N. humanitarian organizations and diplomatic missions are tax-exempt, companies contracted by the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) are not exempt because they are “profit-making entities” and are subject to taxes under the agreement the mission originally signed with South Sudan.

As South Sudan’s largest humanitarian agency, the United Nations conducts crucial air drops, feeding more than 16,300 people monthly, especially in regions grappling with food insecurity, conflict and natural disasters.  

With nearly half the country’s population facing acute food shortages and the looming threat of floods, the U.N. stressed that new taxes would have added $339,000 to the UNMISS monthly operational costs, affecting food and humanitarian assistance operations.  

No figures have been released about how much the new taxes will cost the U.N. contractors. 

Timo Olkkonen, who heads up the European Union delegation to South Sudan, one of the major international donors to the African country, said agencies need ample time and resources to prepare and deliver relief assistance.

“We encourage all the stakeholders to resolve this issue so that the fuel and other essential items will be coming here for the service of the South Sudanese, and so that the humanitarian community and the U.N. can continue with their lifesaving and peacekeeping work,” Olkkonen said.

The U.N.’s role in ensuring stability in South Sudan ahead of the upcoming national election in December highlights the urgency of resolving this issue promptly.

 
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YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Opposition candidates in Chad who lost the recent presidential election have filed paperwork challenging President Mahamat Idriss Deby’s victory. The legal challenge comes as the media there appeal a decision barring them from reporting on election-related violence. 

State television reported on Monday that the country’s Constitutional Council received a petition from opposition candidate Succes Masra, calling for results of the May 6 vote to be annulled. 

The central African state’s elections management body, or ANGE, declared Masra second with more than 18% of the votes cast. Deby, the transitional president, won more than 61% of the vote, exceeding the 50% mandate needed to avoid a runoff.  

Deby’s victory follows the death of his father, Idriss Deby, in 2021 and completes the country’s three-year transition from military to civilian rule. 

Masra and the Transformers party he leads allege massive electoral fraud, including the stuffing of ballot boxes and soldiers chasing opposition representatives from polling stations. 

Masra alleges that soldiers carried ballot boxes to military barracks, where government troops counted and declared results, instead of ANGE. The Transformers say scores of opposition officials and hundreds of Masra supporters were arrested and detained by government troops.  

Chad’s military government says Deby won the election and some opposition parties want to create chaos by not respecting the vote. Deby calls the allegations unfounded. 

Sitack Yombatina Beni, the Transformers’ vice president, spoke Monday with VOA via a messaging app from Chadian capital N’djamena. 

Beni said Masra has asked civilians to maintain peace and avoid reacting violently to ongoing provocations from Deby’s supporters. He said it is an open secret that rights and freedoms are abused in Chad, but that this time civilians, opposition and civil society are ready to fight back if the Constitutional Council fails to render justice and give back what he calls Masra’s stolen victory. 

Beni said peaceful demonstrations were held Friday, Saturday and Sunday in several areas, including N’djamena and Moundou, Chad’s second-largest city. 

Yacine Abdramane Sakine, another losing candidate, said he also filed a petition asking the Constitutional Council to order ANGE to do a public recount of the votes.   

Evarist Ngarlem Tolde, a political affairs lecturer and researcher at the University of N’djamena in Chad, said the fact that Chad’s military leaders ordered government troops to undemocratically vote for Deby is an indication they are not ready to lose their grip on power.

He added that it is surprising that Chad’s elections management body published provisional results at 8 p.m. May 9 after it had announced at 2 p.m. that it was very difficult for the body to assemble result sheets from more than 26,000 polling stations. 

Tolde said it will be very difficult for the Constitutional Council to cancel provisional results of the May 6 presidential elections declared by ANGE. Both institutions were formed by Deby. 

ANGE says it is independent and that the results published are free, transparent, and credible, reflecting the verdict of the ballot.  

Civil society and opposition groups say the troops deployed after the May 9 publication of partial results are still intimidating and arresting civilians, especially in N’djamena. They say the death toll from shooting since May 9 has increased to 30. 

On Monday, Chad’s journalism union condemned a government order that stops the news media from reporting on post-election tensions and violence and orders news organizations to desist from giving casualty figures. 

The Constitutional Council has until May 21 to rule on the petitions and proclaim definitive results. But Chad’s transitional officials report that Deby already has been congratulated by Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, Guinea Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Kenyan President William Ruto. 
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The South African government is hoping to strengthen protections for whistleblowers who report on corruption in business and government. Proponents say it’s not only about making whistleblowers feel comfortable coming forward, but also about protecting them from retaliation. VOA’s Ihsaan Haffejee reports
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CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Rescue teams in South Africa forged ahead Monday with efforts to find any survivors still trapped under rubble a week after an apartment building that was under construction collapsed.

Their hopes were boosted over the weekend when one of the construction workers was found alive after six days without food and water.

Authorities said 24 construction workers who were on the site when the unfinished five-story building came down have been confirmed dead, while another 28 are missing, raising the possibility that the death toll could ultimately be above 50.

More than 600 emergency services and other personnel have been involved in the search for survivors in the wreckage of the building in the city of George on South Africa’s south coast, which collapsed last Monday.

There were 81 workers on the site when it collapsed, and 29 have been pulled out alive, the city said. It said 13 of them remained in a hospital without giving details of their condition. The city has previously said that many of the survivors were in critical condition when they were found.

The disaster management team overseeing the emergency response maintained that the operation was still rescue rather than recovery, pointing to the survivor pulled out on Saturday.

The man, who was identified as 32-year-old Gabriel Guambe, was in stable condition in the hospital and “remarkably sustained only minor injuries,” the city said. Guambe was trapped in the rubble for 118 hours, it said.

His survival underlined rescuers’ hopes that there may be more people alive in what they called voids in the ruins of the building — areas where there are gaps between the concrete that might have allowed some workers to survive the collapse.

Rescue teams have been using cranes and other heavy machinery to move some of the thousands of tons of concrete in an attempt to reach deeper into the wreckage. Sniffer dogs were also being used and one was responsible for locating Guambe.

Many of the workers were foreign nationals from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi and authorities were calling for translators to help communicate with survivors. They also said it was making the identification of victims difficult.

Multiple investigations into the cause of the building collapse were underway, including by police, who declared the site a crime scene. The construction company responsible is being investigated to see if it followed proper safety protocols.

People began leaving flowers around the edge of the site as a mark of respect for the victims, while the city and the disaster response team issued a joint statement asking South Africans to observe a moment of silence at 2.09 p.m. on Monday, the exact time the building collapsed last week.
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With Chad recently confirming Mahamat Déby as civilian president after a long-delayed election, Western powers are watching to see what role, if any, they will play in countering terror threats in the Sahel region. Henry Wilkins has more on the election, which follows a series of military coups in the region.
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LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria’s fashion and traditional dances were at full display on Sunday as Prince Harry and Meghan arrived in its largest city, Lagos, as part of their three-day visit to the country to promote mental health for soldiers and empower young people.

The couple, invited to the West African nation by its military, were treated to different bouts of dancing, starting from the Lagos airport where a troupe’s acrobatic moves left both applauding and grinning. One of the dancers, who looked younger than 5 years old, exchanged salutes with Harry from high up in the air, standing on firm shoulders.

Going with Meghan’s white top was the traditional Nigerian aso oke, a patterned handwoven fabric wrapped around the waist and often reserved for special occasions. It was a gift from a group of women a day earlier.

The couple visited a local charity – Giants of Africa — which uses basketball to empower young people. There, they were treated to another round of dancing before unveiling a partnership between the organization and their Archewell Foundation.

“What you guys are doing here at Giants of Africa is truly amazing,” Harry said of the group. “The power of sport can change lives. It brings people together and creates community and there are no barriers, which is the most important thing.”

Masai Ujiri, the charity’s president and an ex-NBA star, wished Meghan a happy Mother’s Day and acknowledged how hard it can be “for us to be away from our kids and family to make things like this happen.”

“To do so shows dedication (and) we truly appreciate it,” he told the couple.

Meghan and Harry later attended a fundraiser for Nigeria’s soldiers wounded in the country’s fight against Islamic extremists and other armed groups in the country’s conflict-battered north. The event was related to Harry’s Invictus Games, which Nigeria is seeking to host in the future.

The couple were also hosted at the Lagos State Government House, where Meghan received another handwoven Nigerian fabric.

“We’ve extended an additional invitation to them that they can always come back when they want to,” Lagos Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu told reporters.
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BANGUI — Armed rebels Sunday attacked a Chinese-run gold mining town and killed at least four people in Central African Republic, authorities said. 

Maxime Balalu, a local government spokesperson, told The Associated Press that the Coalition of Patriots for Change, an alliance of rebel groups aligned with former President Francois Bozize, had carried out the attack in Gaga, a village roughly 125 miles (200 kilometers) from the capital, Bangui. 

He said the death toll might rise and included several individuals who worked at the nearby mine. Several others were injured in the attack, Balalu said. 

Central African Republic has been in conflict since 2013, when predominantly Muslim rebels seized power and forced President Francois Bozize from office. Mostly Christian militias fought back. 

A 2019 peace deal only lessened the fighting, and six of the 14 armed groups that signed later left the agreement. The Coalition of Patriots for Change was founded in 2020 in the aftermath of the agreement. 

The country remains one of the poorest in the world despite its vast mineral wealth of gold and diamonds among others. Rebel groups have operated with impunity across the embattled country over the past decade, thwarting mining exploration by foreign companies. 

Many of those now operating in the country are Chinese-run and have faced security challenges. Last year, nine Chinese nationals were killed at another gold mine in Central African Republic during an attack that the government blamed on the same rebel alliance. In 2020, two Chinese nationals died when residents led an uprising against a Chinese-operated mine in Sosso Nakombo. 
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Tunis, Tunisia — Tunisian authorities on Sunday ordered the arrest of two journalists over critical comments, a lawyer told AFP, a day after security forces stormed the bar association and took political commentator Sonia Dahmani into custody.  

Dahmani, also a lawyer, was arrested late Saturday after criticizing the state of Tunisia on television, her attorney Dalila Msaddek said in a post on Facebook. 

Msaddek said there was a “police attack against the bar association headquarters” in Tunis, with “lawyers assaulted and the abduction of colleague Sonia Dahmani to an unknown location.” 

It came on the same evening that TV and radio presenter Borhen Bssais and political commentator Mourad Zeghidi were arrested for critical comments, lawyer Ghazi Mrabet told AFP. 

Mrabet said that the judiciary on Sunday placed the pair under a “48-hour detention warrant and [they] will have to appear before an examining magistrate.” 

According to Mrabet, Zeghidi was being pursued “for a social media post in which he supported an arrested journalist,” referring to Mohamed Boughalleb, who was sentenced to six months in prison for defamation of a public official, as well as for “statements made during television shows since February.” 

Zeghidi is a commentator on Tunisian television and works with Bssais, who hosts programs on private radio and TV channels. 

The exact motivation for Bssais’s arrest remains unclear, but according to Mrabet, he was detained under Decree 54 which punishes the production and dissemination of “false news.” 

The law, signed by President Kais Saied in September 2022, has been criticized by journalists and opposition figures who say it has been used to stifle dissent. 

Since the decree came into force, more than 60 journalists, lawyers and opposition figures have been prosecuted under it, according to the National Union of Tunisian Journalists. 

Dahmani was also arrested under Article 54, Tunisian media reported, saying she was detained while seeking safety at the bar association. 

The event was being filmed live by news channel France 24, which said it was forced to stop broadcasting by masked police officers. 

The channel denounced the police officers in a statement, saying they had “torn the camera from its tripod” and briefly detained their cameraman. 

It condemned what it said was a “brutal intervention by security forces that prevented journalists from practicing their profession as they were covering a lawyers’ protest for justice and in support of freedom of expression.” 

The bar association condemned what it described as an “invasion of its headquarters and blatant aggression” in front of the press, demanding the immediate release of Dahmani and announcing a regional strike starting Monday.  

‘Extraordinary country?’

Msaddek said Dahmani was summoned to court on Friday to explain her remarks but refused to appear. A court then issued a warrant ordering law enforcement to bring Dahmani before the investigating judge. 

Islam Hamza, another lawyer in Dahmani’s defense team, confirmed to AFP that she had been arrested. 

Dahmani told journalists before her arrest that she refused to appear “without knowing the reasons for this summons.” 

During a show on the Carthage Plus TV channel on Tuesday, she responded to another pundit’s claim that migrants from sub-Saharan African countries were seeking to settle in Tunisia. 

“What extraordinary country are we talking about?” she asked sarcastically, triggering angry reactions from some Tunisian social media users. 

The North African country is a key departure point for thousands of migrants who risk perilous Mediterranean Sea crossings each year hoping for a better life in Europe. 

But the situation of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia has worsened, particularly after a speech by Saied last year in which he painted “hordes of illegal migrants” as a demographic threat. 

Decree 54 mandates up to five years in prison for the use of communications networks to “produce, spread [or] disseminate … false news” or to “slander others, tarnish their reputation, financially or morally harm them.”
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NAIROBI, Kenya — Armed with gardening hoes while others cradled bamboo seedlings, students gathered outside their school in Kenya’s capital. They hoped the fully grown bamboo would help to filter filthy air from one of Africa’s largest trash dumps next door.

More than 100 bamboo plantings dot the ground around Dandora secondary school, which shares a name with the dumpsite that was declared full 23 years ago. Hundreds of trucks still drive in daily to dump more trash.

Allan Sila, 17, said sitting in his classroom is like studying in a smelly latrine.

Acrid smoke billowing from the burning of trash fills the air every morning, hindering visibility and leaving some students with respiratory issues.

“Asthma is a disease that is commonly known,” Sila said.

The school’s principal, Eutychus Maina, recalled being greeted by the smell and smoke when he was posted to the school last year. He knew he had to do something.

“My motivation for initiating the bamboo project in the school was to mitigate the effects of the dumpsite. It really pollutes the air that we breathe,” he said.

He said he researched online and came across the use of bamboo. He believes it will help reduce the cases of respiratory infections in the community.

The fast-growing bamboo has been promoted by the United Nations and others for its high uptake of carbon dioxide.

Aderiana Mbandi is an air quality research and policy expert at the United Nations Environment Program, based in Nairobi. She said the impact of air pollution is felt in all parts of the body including the brain, and the best way to reduce its effects is minimizing exposure.

The seedlings the students began planting last August are already nine feet (three meters) tall. The giant bamboo variety is expected to reach 40 feet when mature, depending on soil conditions.

Students hope the bamboo will help transform the school compound into a green haven in the litter-strewn Dandora neighborhood.

The publicly funded school relies on donations to afford the seedlings that retail at 400 Kenyan shillings ($3) each.

But the school management is determined to keep going until bamboo lines the 900-meter wall that separates the school and the dumpsite.

The Dandora dump occupies about 50 hectares (123 acres) of land and receives more than 2,000 tons of waste daily from around Nairobi, home to 4 million people.

Its stench can be smelled kilometers (miles) away.

UNEP, in partnership with the Stockholm Environment Institute, deployed sensors to the Dandora neighborhood from October to April to monitor pollution levels from the dumpsite.

Out of the 166 days monitored, only 12 had a daily average of excellent air quality according to World Health Organization guidelines.

Nairobi’s air is also polluted by emissions from secondhand cars that make up much of the city’s transport. Other pollutants include smoke from industries that are often located near residential areas.

The Dandora school is also planting trees including jacaranda and grevillea.

Student Josiah Nyamwata called them easy to obtain and easy to plant. “The other advantage is that the trees will be helpful in order to boost our air circulation around our school,” he said.

The air isn’t the school’s ‘ only challenge. Vultures from the dumpsite are a nuisance at mealtimes. Students guard their plates from being snatched.
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NAIROBI, Kenya — Winnie Makinda, 35, says she is facing the worst crisis and lowest moment of her life because of the Kenyan government’s response to floods that devastated her poor community in the capital, Nairobi.

The floods and mudslides swept away people and inundated homes, killing at least 267 people and affecting more than 380,000, according to government statistics. The floods are fueled by unusually heavy rainfall during Kenya’s rainy season, which starts in March and sometimes extends to June.

The hardest hit are people living close to rivers, including the Mathare River running through Nairobi.

To save lives in the future, the government last week ordered evacuations and the demolition of structures and buildings that had been built illegally within 30 meters (98 feet) of riverbanks. Officials say that at least 181,000 people have been moved since last week and that measures have been taken to provide temporary shelter, food and other essentials.

But the demolitions have led to more suffering as those affected say they are being carried out in a chaotic and inhumane way. At least three people have died in the past week when bulldozers brought down structures on top of them, according to rights groups, family members of the deceased and residents who spoke to The Associated Press.

Among those killed was Makinda’s 17-year-old son, Ian Otieno, who was crushed to death when an excavator brought down a wall of the Pentecostal Evangelistic Fellowship of Africa church while he was inside helping save property.

“The driver of the excavator refused to listen to the pleas by the women that there were children inside the church,” Makinda said amid sobs.

Otieno was the only one of her eight children attending school, and he carried the family’s hopes for a better future. A single parent of four sons and four daughters, Makinda faces forceful eviction this week from the $15-a-month tin shack she calls home in Kenya’s populous Mathere slums.

One of her children is suffering from sickle cell anemia, which often leaves her bed-ridden and in need of costly treatment, and her youngest needs frequent medical attention after being scalded by boiling water around the torso.

Overwhelmed by her situation, Makinda tried to jump into the raging waters of the Mathare River to “end the stress.” Her neighbors stopped her Wednesday and calmed her by giving her a local moonshine called Changaa, which is popular in rural and low-income areas of the capital.

Makinda makes $2 a day washing other people’s clothes and says she can barely afford one proper meal a day for her children let alone pay hospital bills. And now she must raise money for her son’s burial, a costly exercise for most people in western Kenya, and move to a new house.

“My son’s body is lying in the mortuary without preservation because I have not paid. I cannot even afford transportation to the morgue,” she said.

Like hundreds of poor Kenyans whose houses are being demolished, Makinda feels betrayed and abandoned by the government. Some say they were evicted without the legally recommended three-month notice period that should be given before action is taken.

They also say they have not received the $75 in aid to look for alternative accommodation that President William Ruto has pledged.

Millicent Otondo, 48, a mother of three, lost both her home and her 20-year-old business during this week’s demolition.

The caretaker of a five-story building that was brought down, Otondo recounted how engineers marked the building housing her shop and home for demolition, which prompted people to break into it and steal her entire stock.

“I am really bitter because police stood by as people looted my belongings,” Otondo said from a local primary school where she has received temporary shelter.

Otondo says she has not received the $75, and even if she did, it wouldn’t cover her rent and is a drop in a bucket compared with the $6,000 in losses from her property that was looted. She also wondered why the building was demolished despite it not being within 30 meters of the riverbank.

The government has defended itself against opposition accusations it was ill-prepared for the impact of the floods despite early warnings.

“I don’t think anyone would be prepared for the weather extremes we are seeing,” Environment Cabinet Secretary Soipan Tuya said in an interview with local broadcaster Citizen TV. “Some parts of this country have never seen floods before.”

Experts say the devastating rains are a result of a mix of factors, including the country’s seasonal weather patterns and human-caused climate change, as well as natural weather phenomena.

However, observers point out that the government received early warnings of the floods from the metrological department in October.

“This is hypocrisy and insensitivity of the highest order,” said rights activist Boniface Mwangi. “The government knew the floods were coming, and even set aside 10 billion [$76 million] to prepare a nationwide response. What happened to those funds?”

He said the government also abdicated its responsibility by allowing the building of houses on land near rivers and swamps.

“Greed is the reason people are dying. Corrupt civil servants approved and issued title deeds for riparian lands,” he said.

And amid the death and destruction caused by floods, the government is demolishing houses in the name of bringing development through a government affordable housing program, he said.

“Demolishing people’s homes in the name of affordable housing is a sign that we have a tone-deaf government. People living in shanties can’t afford to pay for houses costing millions. Their entire life’s wages can’t buy any of the houses the government is building,” Mwangi said.
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cairo — Sudan’s military and allied armed groups have staved off an attack by a paramilitary group and Arab militias on a major city in the western region of Darfur, officials and residents said Saturday. 

The attack Friday was the latest by the Arab-dominated Rapid Support Forces against el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, where hundreds of thousands of people are sheltering, many of them having fled fighting elsewhere in Darfur. 

The RSF, which has been at war with the military for more than a year, has built forces up in recent months to wrestle control of el-Fasher, the last city still held by the military in the sprawling Darfur region. 

Sudan’s conflict began in April last year when soaring tensions between the leaders of the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum and elsewhere in the country. 

The conflict wrecked the country and pushed its population to the brink of famine. It killed more than 14,000 people and wounded thousands more amid reports of widespread sexual violence and other atrocities that rights groups say amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

Darfur witnessed some of the worst atrocities in the war, with the RSF taking control of many cities and towns across the region. Human Rights Watch said in a report last week that RSF attacks constituted a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the region’s non-Arab population. 

The RSF and their allies launched the attack on el-Fasher’s eastern side early Friday and clashed with military forces and other armed groups defending the city, said resident Amany Mohamed. She said the military and allied forces have repelled the attack. 

“Yesterday was a very difficult day,” she said over the phone Saturday. “There were fierce clashes that lasted for six hours.” 

‘The situation is catastrophic’

Another resident and activist, Ibtisam al-Doum, fled with her family to a school-turned-shelter on the southern side of the city during heavy fighting Friday. She said she saw hundreds of people escaping on foot to safer areas. 

“The situation is catastrophic. We don’t know when this will end,” she said, speaking from the Jiser al-Jinan shelter. “What’s happening is senseless.” 

The military-led camp and the RSF blamed each other for initiating Friday’s fighting. 

Local media reported heavy clashes in parts of the city including its power planet. Footage on social media platforms showed army troops and allied forces celebrating and captured fighters in RSF uniform being paraded in the streets. 

“Reports of intensifying clashes in the city are deeply alarming,” Martin Griffiths, the United Nations relief chief, wrote on X and called for warning parties to de-escalate. “The people of Darfur need more food, not more fighting,” he said. 

Friday fighting displaces hundreds

The International Organization for Migration said the military launched airstrikes Saturday on the RSF positions in the northern and eastern parts of el-Fasher. It said Friday’s fighting had forced about 170 households, or about 800 people, from their homes. 

The United Nations last month said the RSF had encircled the city and warned an attack would have “devastating consequences” for its 800,000 people. 

The RSF and allied Arab militias have launched a series of attacks on el-Fasher and its surroundings in recent weeks, taking several villages on the northern side. 

Such attacks “resulted in horrific reports of violence, including sexual violence, children injured and killed, homes set on fire and destruction of critical civilian supplies and infrastructure,” Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF, said earlier this month. 

“The fighting and growing fear of ethnically motivated violence has driven many families to overcrowded displacement camps such as Zamzam camp and informal gathering sites in and around el-Fasher city,” she said. 
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YAOUNDE, CAMEROON   — Chad says it has deployed combat-ready troops to stop armed attacks and maintain peace as the death toll increased to 12 people in post-election violence on Saturday. At least 90 people have sustained severe injuries in the capital, N’djamena. 

Chad state TV reports that keeping and using war weapons and firearms is prohibited until further notice by the central African state’s military. It noted the prohibition of weapons was imposed after 9 people were killed and upwards of 60 were injured in shootings in N’djamena on Thursday night, after provisional results of the May 6 presidential elections were announced.  

Chad’s police say three other injured victims died in two hospitals in N’djamena on Friday night. About 30 other civilians were injured in confrontations and shootings, and they were rushed to hospitals, where the government has ordered they be treated at no charge. 

Opposition and civil society say several hundred civilians who protested the May 6 presidential election results have been arrested and detained, especially in the capital city and in Moundou, Chad’s second-largest city. 

Chad’s elections management body, known as ANGE, has proclaimed transitional ruler General Mahamat Idriss Deby the winner, with more than 61% of the vote. His main challenger, Succes Masra, is second, scoring 18.53% of the vote. Masra claimed he won, but Deby stole his victory. 

Chad’s military said among the shooters were armed supporters celebrating Deby’s victory. They may have run into a confrontation with armed opposition supporters, Chad’s military said Saturday, noting that illegal arms proliferation is rampant in the central African state. 

Mbairamadji Desire, president of the N’djamena headquarters of the Rainbow Youth Association for Social Stability in Africa, said he is pleading with armed civilians to drop their weapons and spare Chad from looming civil strife.  

Mbairamadji said all Chadians, especially youths, should put down their weapons they are keeping illegally because peace is priceless. He warned that Chad could descend into worsening chaos because it is very difficult for its military to be effective on multiple fronts, including seizing weapons hidden in homes, fighting Boko Haram terrorists who are infiltrating the Lake Chad basin, and stopping violence between farmers and nomadic herders that has worsened all over Chad in recent years.

In a message after ANGE proclaimed the results, Deby said he is the democratically elected president of all Chadians, including opposition party leaders who are contesting his victory. Deby said he will do everything possible to strengthen Chad’s internal security to guarantee threatened peace and stability.  

Hussein Abdoulaye, a political analyst and lecturer at the University of Ndjamena, spoke with VOA via a messaging app from N’djamena.  

He said civilians are increasingly aware that Chad’s government has a tradition of rigging elections and using the military to crack down on the opposition, but that Chadians know their rights and may use violence if they think the opposition was deprived unfairly of victory. 

In several messages shared on social media, including WhatsApp and Facebook, Masra is calling on civilians to calmly mobilize and demonstrate peacefully for what he calls his stolen victory to be restored.  

Chad’s government and the elections body say candidates have five days from the date of publication of provisional results to file complaints at the constitutional council. 

The action could cancel the elections if it establishes that there was massive fraud, including stuffing of ballot boxes and intimidation of civilians at polling stations as the opposition claims. 

Definitive results are scheduled to be declared by Chad’s Constitutional Council on May 21. 
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JOHANNESBURG — A man was rescued from the rubble five days after a deadly building collapse in South Africa in what Western Cape Premier Alan Winde said was “nothing short of a miracle.”

Officials said in a statement that of 81 people who were on site when the five-story building collapsed on Monday in the city of George, east of Cape Town, 13 were confirmed dead, 29 were alive and 39 were still unaccounted for.

In a post on social media platform X, Winde said on Saturday the survivor had been successfully extracted from the debris after 116 hours.

After Monday’s collapse, rescuers used cranes, drills and their bare hands to try to reach those trapped. Rescue operations were continuing.
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Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — Research into online abuse and hate speech reveals most women in Ethiopia face gender-targeted attacks across Facebook, Telegram and X.

The abuse and hate speech are prompting many Ethiopian women to withdraw from public life, online and off, according to the recent research.

The Center for Information Resilience, a U.K.-based nonprofit organization, spearheaded the study. The CIR report, released Wednesday, says that women in Ethiopia are on the receiving end of abuse and hate speech across all three social media platforms, with Facebook cited as the worst.

Over 2,000 inflammatory keywords were found in the research, which looked at three Ethiopian languages — Amharic, Afan Oromo and Tigrigna — as well as English. The list is the most comprehensive inflammatory word lexicon in Ethiopia, according to the researchers.

Over 78% of the women interviewed reported feelings of fear or anxiety after experiencing online abuse.

It is highly likely similar problems exist in areas of society that have not been analyzed yet, said Felicity Mulford, editor and researcher at CIR.

“This data can be used by human rights advocates, women’s rights advocates, in their advocacy,” she said. “We believe that it’s incredibly impactful, because even though we’ve only got four languages, it shows some of the [trends] that exist across Ethiopia.”

Online abuse is so widespread in Ethiopia that it has been “normalized to the point of invisibility,” the report’s authors said.

Betelehem Akalework, co-founder of Setaset Power, an Afro-feminist movement in Ethiopia, said her work has opened doors to more-serious, targeted attacks.

“We [were] mentally prepared for it to some extent,” she said. “We [weren’t] surprised that the backlash was that heavy, but then we did not anticipate the gravity of that backlash. So, we took media training, and we took digital security trainings.”

The Ethiopian Human Rights Defenders Center, established three years ago, offers protection for human rights defenders and social media activists in the country.

The center’s program coordinator, Kalkidan Tesfaye, said there must be more initiative from the government in education and policymaking to help women protect themselves from online abuse.

“In our recommendation earlier, we were talking about how the Ministry of Education can incorporate digital safety training … a very essential element to learning about computers or acquiring digital skills,” Tesfaye said.

The researchers also investigated other protected characteristics under Ethiopian law, including ethnicity, religion and race. The findings showed that women face compounded attacks, as they are also often targeted for their ethnicity and religion.
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YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Chad has ordered the immediate deployment of troops to maintain peace, especially in the capital, N’djamena, after provisional results of the May 6 presidential elections surprisingly published on Thursday night declared transitional ruler General Mahamat Idriss Deby winner with over 61% of the votes. The main challenger, Succes Masra, claimed he won, with over 73% of the votes.

Residents in Chad’s capital, N’djamena, said they awoke Friday morning to the sound of heavy gunshots. Forty-five-year old Oumar Saleh is a resident of the Machaga neighborhood spoke to VOA on Friday morning via a messaging app.

Oumar said the shooting may have been ordered by Chad’s government to intimidate those objecting to the results of Chad’s May 6 presidential elections published by the country’s elections management body, ANGE, Thursday night.

Chadian state TV reports that there were isolated gunshots in N’djamena but does not say who the shooters are.

Public Security and Immigration Minister Mahamat Charfadine Margui said in a release Thursday that enough police have been deployed to stop what he called the use of weapons and explosives all over Chad, but specifically in Ndjamena.

Chad’s military also said before the announcement of the partial results that enough troops had been deployed to protect people and their goods, especially in N’djamena and Moundou, the central African state’s second-largest city.

According to the provisional results, transitional President General Mahamat Deby is the official winner with 61.3% of the votes, more than the 50% needed to avoid a run-off.

Members of the opposition and the public say they are surprised ANGE published the figures in three days instead of 15 days after the voting, as stated in the electoral code. ANGE says it is legal to publish results within 15 days.

Deby in a late-night message said he is very grateful to the majority that voted for him.

Deby said he is now the democratically elected president of all Chadians, including opposition party leaders who lost. Deby says he is particularly delighted because he scored a resounding victory, and that he is going to work immediately to fulfill his electoral promises.

Deby said he will concentrate on providing jobs for unemployed youths and strengthening Chad’s internal security to guarantee peace and stability.

ANGE says more than 75% of the registered 8.2 million voters took part in the vote.

Deby’s main challenger, Succes Masra, scored 18.53% of the vote while Albert Pahimi Padacke, the first transitional prime minister, got 7.91%.

Masra had earlier declared that he won a resounding victory in the first round of voting, but that his victory was stolen by Deby. He spoke in a message broadcast on Facebook Thursday afternoon.

He said Chadians voted en masse to say enough is enough to the over three-decade dictatorial rule of Chad’s former president Idriss Deby Itno and his son Mahamat Idriss Deby. Masra said all his supporters and security forces should strongly oppose an attempt by Deby to steal victory from the people.

Masra said all Chad civilians should calmly mobilize and demonstrate peacefully for the stolen victory to be restored.

Opposition and civil society members say there is perceivable tension that may cause chaos in Chad following the publication of the results.

Candidates have five days from the date of publication of provisional results to file complaints at the constitutional council, which has 10 days rule on fraud and irregularities allegations. Definitive results will be declared by Chad’s Constitutional Council on May 21.

Deby took power in April 2021 after the death of his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who died on the front line of a war against rebels after ruling for 30 years.
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CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Hope was fading Friday for 44 construction workers buried for days in the rubble of a building that collapsed in South Africa, with authorities saying rescuers are now faced with the challenge of moving thousands of tons of concrete with heavy machinery to see if there are any more survivors.

The death toll rose to nine after a worker who was in critical condition died in the hospital, authorities said.

Of the 28 workers rescued from the site, 21 were in critical condition or had life-threatening injuries following Monday’s collapse of the five-story apartment complex that was under construction.

With fears that the final death toll could exceed 50, authorities in the city of George on South Africa’s south coast said large earth-moving equipment had arrived and rescue teams were removing huge slabs of concrete and rubble to reach deeper into the wreckage.

City authorities said it was still a rescue rather than a recovery operation, but no survivors have been located or brought out since Wednesday.

“Despite the introduction of large machinery, rescue techniques will still be applied meticulously and sensitively by the highly skilled and experienced disaster management team,” the city said in a statement.

It also revised the number of missing from 38 to 44 after determining that there were more construction workers at the site than previously thought. New information provided by the construction company showed there were 81 workers when the building came crashing down, not 75 as authorities had initially announced, it said.

More than 600 personnel are involved in the rescue operation, with many brought in from nearby towns and cities. George, which is about 400 kilometers east of Cape Town, is a small city known as a vacation and golfing destination.

Authorities say multiple investigations are under way into the cause of the collapse, including by police, the provincial government and the national department of labor.
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N’DJAMENA, Chad — Chad’s state election body said on Thursday interim President Mahamat Idriss Deby had won the May 6 presidential election outright with more than 61% of the vote, citing provisional results, even as his main challenger declared himself the winner.

Chad’s junta has become the first of the coup-hit countries in West and Central Africa to stage a return to constitutional rule via the ballot box, but some opposition parties have cried foul over vote-rigging concerns.

With tensions running high, large numbers of security forces deployed at major intersections in the capital, N’Djamena, ahead of the results announcement.

National Election Management Agency chief Ahmed Bartichet said Deby had secured 61.3% of the vote, comfortably more than the 50% needed to avoid a runoff.

He said Deby’s prime minister and top opposition candidate Succes Masra, 40, had won 18.53%.

Just before the ceremony, Masra claimed victory in a live broadcast on Facebook and called on security forces and his supporters to oppose what he called an attempt to steal the vote.

“A small number of individuals believe they can make people believe that the election was won by the same system that has been ruling Chad for decades,” he said.

“To all Chadians who voted for change, who voted for me, I say: mobilize. Do it calmly, with a spirit of peace,” he said.

What happens next is unclear.

While Masra drew larger-than-expected crowds on the campaign trail, analysts had widely predicted that the victor would be Deby, who seized power when rebels killed his long-ruling father, Idriss Deby, in April 2021.

“Post-election protests are possible, though the threat of police repression could dissuade many people from taking to the streets,” Crisis Group experts said ahead of the vote.

The election is being closely watched from abroad.

While other juntas in the insurgency-torn Sahel region, including Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, have told Paris and other Western powers to withdraw and turned to Moscow for support, Chad remains the last Sahel state with a substantial French military presence.

Security and the economy have been key campaign issues. One of the world’s least-developed countries, Chad’s meagre resources have been stretched thinner by multiple shocks including climate change-fueled heatwaves and a refugee crisis linked to the civil war in Sudan. 
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