November 20, 2021 – Page 2 – Djibouti News Gazette

November 20, 2021

Hundreds Protest in Sudan Ahead of Anti-coup Demonstrations Sunday

Hundreds of Sudanese anti-coup demonstrators rallied Saturday to denounce a deadly crackdown that doctors say has left 40 people dead since last month’s military takeover. Mass protests are planned for Sunday.

The United States and the African Union condemned the deadly crackdown on protesters and called on Sudan’s leaders to refrain from the “excessive use of force.”

Sudan’s top general Abdel-Fattah Burhan on October 25 declared a state of emergency, ousted the government and detained the civilian leadership.

The military takeover upended a two-year transition to civilian rule, drew international condemnation and punitive measures, and provoked large protests.

Demonstrations on Wednesday were the deadliest so far, with a toll of 16 killed after a teenager who had been shot died, doctors said.

The independent Sudan Doctors Committee said the 16-year-old had been shot “by live rounds to the head and the leg.”

Hundreds of protesters rallied against the military in North Khartoum, putting up barricades and setting tires on fire, an AFP correspondent said. Other protesters took to the streets in east and south Khartoum, according to witnesses.

They chanted “no, no to military rule” and called for “civilian rule.”

During the unrest in North Khartoum, a police station was set on fire, the correspondent said.

Pro-democracy activists made calls on social media for mass anti-coup protests with a “million-strong march” to take place on Sunday.

Police station ablaze

Security forces and protesters traded blame for the torching of the police station.

Police spokesman Idris Soliman accused an unidentified “group of people” of setting it on fire.

But North Khartoum’s resistance committee claimed the police were responsible.

“Police forces withdrew from the station … and after, members of the police carried out acts of sabotage,” it said in a statement.

“We accuse clearly and explicitly the military establishment for causing this chaos,” added the committee, part of the informal groups that emerged during 2018-2019 protests that ousted president Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.

Most of those killed on Wednesday were in North Khartoum, which lies across the Nile River from the capital, doctors said.

On Saturday, Sudanese authorities said an investigation into the killings would be launched.

Dozens mourned

Dozens of protesters also rallied Saturday to mourn the latest deaths, demanding a transition to civilian rule.

Protesters also took to the streets of Khartoum’s twin-city Omdurman to denounce the killings, chanting “down with the (ruling) council of treachery and betrayal.”

Police officials deny using any live ammunition and insist they have used “minimum force” to disperse the protests. They have recorded only one death, among demonstrators in North Khartoum.

On Friday, police forces sporadically fired tear gas until late at night to disperse demonstrators who had rallied in North Khartoum, witnesses said.

The Sudanese Professionals Association, an umbrella of unions that were instrumental in the months-long demonstrations that led to Bashir’s ouster, said security forces have also “stormed homes and mosques,”

An AFP correspondent said police forces also frisked passers-by and checked identification.

‘Abuses and violations’

The U.S. and African Union denounced the deadly crackdown.

“We call for those responsible for human rights abuses and violations, including the excessive use of force against peaceful protesters, to be held accountable,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

“In advance of upcoming protests, we call on Sudanese authorities to use restraint and allow peaceful demonstrations.”

The African Union, which suspended Sudan after the coup, condemned “in the strongest terms” Wednesday’s violence.

AU Commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat called on Sudan’s authorities “to restore constitutional order and the democratic transition” in line with a 2019 power-sharing deal between the military and the now-deposed civilian figures.

The Committee to Protect Journalists called for the release of reporters detained Wednesday while covering anti-coup protests, including Ali Farsab.

“Sudanese security forces’ shooting and beating of journalist Ali Farsab make a mockery of the coup government’s alleged commitment to a democratic transitional phase in the country,” said the CPJ’s Sherif Mansour.

Sudan has a long history of military coups, with rare interludes of democratic rule since independence in 1956.

Burhan insists the military’s move “was not a coup” but a step “to rectify the transition” as factional infighting and splits deepened between civilians and the military under the now-deposed government.

He has since announced a new ruling council in which he kept his position as head, along with a powerful paramilitary commander, three senior military figures, three ex-rebel leaders and one civilian.

But the other four civilian members were replaced with lesser known figures.

Source: Voice of America

November 20, 2021

Blinken Visits Senegal to Reaffirm Partnership

On the last day of a trip to Africa to bolster U.S. influence on a continent that receives much of its foreign aid from U.S. rival China, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said U.S. efforts to strengthen alliances in Africa must be evaluated on results.

The top U.S. diplomat visited Senegal Friday and Saturday on the last leg of a five-day, multi-nation trip during which he outlined the Biden administration’s policy toward Africa, declaring that the U.S. sees African countries as equal partners.

“We have to be judged on what we do and not simply on what I say and so let’s see over the coming months and coming years how we do,” Blinken said at a news conference Saturday in the Sengalese capital of Dakar.

Foreign Minister Aissata Tall Sall said at the news conference that U.S. influence in Africa “will always be important.” She noted the U.S. “never colonized” Africa and said the Sengalese “see the United States as a country of freedom.”

Earlier Saturday, Blinken met with Senegalese President Macky Sall at the presidential palace in Dakar. The two leaders also attended an event at Dakar’s Institut Pasteur, which hopes to begin producing COVID-19 vaccines with U.S. assistance next year.

On Friday, Blinken summarized the Biden administration’s policy toward Africa in a speech in Abuja, Nigeria.

“The United States firmly believes that it’s time to stop treating Africa as a subject of geopolitics — and start treating it as the major geopolitical player it has become,” Blinken said.

The continent needs billions of dollars annually for massive infrastructure projects such as building roads, railways and dams. Over the past decade, China has provided much of the infrastructure funding Africa has received.

Without mentioning China, Blinken vowed the U.S. would agree only to transparent and voluntary global infrastructure agreements that produce tangible benefits on the continent.

“Too often, international infrastructure deals are opaque, coercive; they burden countries with unmanageable debt; they’re environmentally destructive; they don’t always benefit the people who actually live there,” Blinken said. “We will do things differently.”

Blinken, who witnessed the signing of contracts valued at more than $1 billion Saturday between Senegal and four U.S. companies, said the U.S. is investing in Africa without imposing unmanageable levels of debt.

“As we look at infrastructure investment, and more broadly investment across the board, our purpose, the guiding principle, is to make this a race to the top. And if other countries want to engage in that race to the top … that’s a very good thing,” Blinken said.

Blinken’s visit to Africa was his first as secretary of state. He has said his trip is aimed at fostering cooperation on global health security, battling the climate crisis, expanding energy access and economic growth, revitalizing democracy and achieving peace and security.

The trip is part of the Biden administration’s effort to strengthen alliances in Africa after four years of a unilateralist approach under former U.S. President Donald Trump. It came amid worsening crises in Ethiopia and Sudan.

While in Kenya, Blinken called for ending the violence in Ethiopia, combating terrorism in Somalia and reviving Sudan’s transition to a civilian government.

On Saturday in Senegal, Blinken addressed the civil war between Ethiopian government forces and rebels in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.

“Intensive diplomacy is ongoing with leadership from the African Union and its high representative, former Nigerian President Obasanjo supported by the United States,” Blinken said.

“We continue to push for an immediate end to hostilities without preconditions and humanitarian access to the millions of people who need life-saving aid,” he added.

Despite large contributions of money and vaccines to contain COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, the U.S. has had little success in gaining influence on the continent.

Nevertheless, Blinken said U.S. President Joe Biden would continue working to improve relations with African countries.

“As a sign of our commitment to our partnerships across the continent, President Biden intends to host the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit to drive the kind of high-level diplomacy and engagement that can transform relationships and make effective cooperation possible,” Blinken said.

The top U.S. diplomat did not say when the summit would take place.

Source: Voice of America

November 20, 2021

600 Migrants Found Crammed Into 2 Trailers Rescued in Mexico

©MEXICO CITY — Some 600 migrants from 12 countries were rescued Saturday in Mexico after they were found crammed into two tractor-trailers, the country’s National Migration Institute said.

The 145 women and 455 men, who hailed from Central America, Africa and the Indian subcontinent, were found in the southeastern state of Veracruz, the institute said in a statement.

The vast majority were from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua but a total of 37 were from Bangladesh, six from Ghana, and one person was from India and Cameroon each, the institute added.

The migrants were crammed into the trailers of two trucks, said Tonatiuh Hernandez, the local head of the Human Rights Commission.

“There are children, minors, I saw pregnant women, sick people,” Hernandez said.

As the corridor between Central America and the United States, Mexico has seen vast numbers of migrants flow through its territory.

Two caravans of several hundred migrants are currently making their way through southern Mexico, aiming to acquire documents that allow them to transit through the country.

The flow of undocumented migrants has surged with the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden, who has taken a more humane approach to the border crisis than his predecessor Donald Trump.

The United States has recorded 1.7 million people trying to enter illegally from Mexico between October 2020 and September 2021, an all-time high for the period.

Source: Voice of America

November 20, 2021

Car Bomb Kills Popular Broadcast Journalist in Somalia

A Somali journalist with state-run media was killed Saturday in Mogadishu when a suicide bomber blew up his car, government officials and his colleagues said. Another journalist also was injured.

Abdiaziz Mohamud Guled, better known as Afrika, the director of the state-run Radio Mogadishu, died from his wounds, while fellow journalist Sharmarke Warsame, who was traveling with Guled, sustained a severe injury, according to government spokesperson Mohamed Ibrahim Mo’alimuu.

In a brief statement, Mogadishu police spokesperson Abdifatah Aden Hassan said that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the blast, according to Agence France-Presse.

“A terrorist suicide bomber apparently wearing an explosive vest rushed towards the car in which the journalists were traveling in the Bondhere district of Mogadishu, jumped to the car window, and blew himself up,” Hasan said.

“He was a national hero, a brother, and friend, and we are deeply saddened by his death,” Abdirahman Yusuf Omar, Somalia’s deputy minister for information, wrote on his Facebook page.

Guled was a prominent journalist and had worked with different private radio and TV stations in Mogadishu before he joined the Somali National TV and Radio more than12 years ago.

Guled was once the producer of a popular government TV program, Gungaar, which means “In-Depth.” Guled at least once interviewed al-Shabab and ISIS suspects detained in government prisons by Somalia’s National Security Agency, to reveal information and the tactics used by the two terrorist groups in their attacks.

In November 2020, he was promoted and appointed as the director of the state-run Radio Mogadishu.

According to 2021 report by the Somali Journalists Syndicate and its partner, Somali Media Association, since February 2017, 12 journalists were killed in Somalia — three in 2017; four in 2018; two in 2019; two in 2020; and one in 2021.

According to U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists’ annual Global Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where members of the press are singled out for killing and the perpetrators go free, Somalia remains the world’s worst country for unsolved killings of journalists.

Source: Voice of America

November 20, 2021

After Years of War, Millions of Syrians Now Face Serious Water Crisis

With the Syrian civil war in its 10th year and more than half the country’s population forcibly displaced by conflict, millions of Syrians face a new crisis: insufficient access to safe water that has increased food insecurity, diminished livelihoods and spurred further migration in search of resources.

According to an October 21 U.N Security Council report, people in Syria’s north and northeastern regions remain unable to reliably access sufficient supplies of safe water. The reasons are both environmental and man-made.

According to the U.N.’s September 9 action plan to address the water crisis, 5.5 million Syrians’ access to a critical water supply, the Euphrates River, is in jeopardy because of water levels that have been dwindling since January.

Less water flowing into the river from upstream, accompanied by irregular and reduced rainfall and higher-than-average temperatures, has created drought-like conditions in the region, according to the September U.N. report. The severity of the situation in Syria, say some experts, is largely attributed to the impact of climate change in the region.

Steven Gorelick is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment and director of its Global Freshwater Initiative, a program that aims to increase freshwater supplies in countries threatened by climate change, such as Jordan.

Gorelick said that the outcomes of his work in Jordan may be used to evaluate water scarcity in other Middle Eastern countries, such as Syria. Droughts occur regularly in the region and in Syria, with its naturally semi-arid climate, but are worsened by the present environmental crisis, he said.

“Given climate change, much of the Middle East is highly vulnerable to the impacts of drought, which in portions of the region will become more frequent, last longer and will be more severe,” he said.

In addition to climatic factors precipitating the water crisis, civilian access to water has been further diminished because of the water supply systems.

According to the U.N. action plan, recurring shutdowns and “reduced operational capacity” of the Alouk water station in northeastern Syria has threatened about 500,000 people’s direct access to water in the city of Al-Hasakeh and the surrounding region. Similar issues have occurred with the Al-Khafsa water station, which supplies Aleppo from the western bank of the Euphrates, and the nearby Ein El-Bayda water pumping station, which supplies an estimated 184,000 people with water.

Water treatment and sanitation plants are also critical to maintaining a safe water supply, but Rula Amin, senior communications adviser and spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) regional bureau for the Middle East and North Africa, said her agency estimates some 50% of them are not functional.

The present situation is drastically different from 2011, the start of the civil war. At that time, more than 90% of the population had access to safe water, according to Amin.

‘Bound to get worse’

The water crisis has led to larger problems for Syria. Water scarcity has damaged crops and agricultural livelihoods, decreasing access to food and dramatically raising the prices of food and basic goods. At least 12.4 million Syrians are estimated to be food insecure, according to the U.N. action plan, a figure that, along with malnutrition rates, will only worsen with drought.

The need for water, food and basic supplies can drive already displaced persons to migrate again.

“The crisis is bound to get worse. And we expect that it will lead towards displacement, and it will weaken people’s ability to sustain their livelihood,” Amin said.

U.N. researchers say the water crisis has also increased the prevalence of water-borne diseases, an added strain to Syria’s public health system amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The water crisis is yet another obstacle for Syrians to overcome while they continue to work toward a sense of normalcy following decades of conflict.

“It’s that vicious, vicious cycle that is taking hold of the country and of the ability of the people to … even not just survive [but] to try to rebuild their life, to sustain a dignified level of living where they can actually maintain a good level for their well-being,” Amin said.

The present U.N. plan to address the water crisis is aimed at ensuring 3.4 million people have access to safe water through rehabilitating water stations and supplies and improving water treatment, according to its September 9 report.

The U.N. is also working to address food insecurity, malnutrition and income loss, and to increase access to essential health services. Along with UNHCR, other agencies, such as UNICEF and the Food and Agriculture Organization, are working in Syria to address civilians’ needs, according to Amin.

Sustainable, long-term solutions are required to address Syria’s growing needs, which Amin stressed. That may begin with increasing the breadth of humanitarian operations inside the country.

“You have to invest in projects that will help alleviate the impact of this water crisis, and that doesn’t happen within a one- or three-months project,” Amin said.

Syrians must now live with an added level of pressure and uncertainty.

“I think people feel squeezed,” Amin said. “It’s hard to find a job, it’s hard to put food on the table, it’s hard to rebuild your house. … So [there] are very few options for them to look through where they see an opportunity, where … things will get better.”

Source: Voice of America