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Calls for Death Penalty Rise in Response to South Sudan Lakes State Violence

The newly appointed governor of South Sudan’s Lakes state is facing calls to institute the death penalty for anyone involved in inter-communal fighting, cattle raids or road ambushes, all of which have become rampant in the state.

The governor, Lieutenant General Rin Tueny Mabor, listened Sunday as hundreds of Lakes state residents, including traditional chiefs, attended a workshop in Juba’s Freedom Hall on ending the violence.

“Murder must be punishable by death, and any revenge killings that occur after the culprits have been detained must be punishable by death as well. Those who are found in possession of arms without the support of the law must be penalized and disarmed by all means possible, including the use of lethal force,” said moderator Jacob Adut Mabor, reading from a list of recommendations put forward by Lakes state citizens.

Participants agreed on 23 resolutions, including one that would arrest and punish politicians and military officials found guilty of inciting communities to fight and those that supply weapons to civilians.

Tighten rule of law

After listening to all of the recommendations, the governor vowed to tighten the rule of law in order to stop the vicious cycle of killings in parts of the state.

“My administration will fully effect the punishment of law on such elements destabilizing our state. Bandits, cattle rustling is a criminal offense against the state and must be dealt with properly. We must not succumb to criminals and must not allow our people to despair,” Mabor told the assembled crowd.

General Majak Akech, inspector general of the South Sudan National Police Service, and a Lakes state native, encouraged Mabor to apply the proper punishment for criminals commensurate with the situation, including death by firing squad.

“If the situation requires firing squad, do it. If the situation requires humanity, do it. But you should focus on strengthening local courts. If we depend on the courts in Juba, it will take long process and delay the justice process,” said Akech.

Akech said once the country’s unified forces are graduated from training camps, they will carry out a nationwide disarmament exercise.

Work without interruption

Peace and stability will not return to Lakes state until politicians and military leaders allow the new governor to do his work without interruption, according to chief Madut Buoi, who spoke at the workshop.

“We hear that there are people who have a power to bring governor and power to remove him when they don’t need him. These are our politicians who stand behind their people at home. By the time the governor starts to do his work and touch some people, the same politicians will return to Kiir and say that the governor is not doing what we want; remove him,” said Buoi.

Nepotism and sectarianism are the main challenges standing in the way of justice and enforcement of the law in Lakes state, according to Buoi.

Tired of burying men

Martha Aterieu, a member of parliament representing Lakes state, said women are tired of burying men killed in communal violence or of being abandoned by men who kill, then run away.

“After killing each other, they ran away to hide, leaving their dead colleagues for women to bury because if they engage in burial, they will be included in the fight, so they hide and leave it to women to carry the body, dig the grave and bury them. Is it right for us to be burying people? Is that our mission when we are not the ones who killed them? You must shoot them,” said Aterieu.

The number of inter-communal attacks, cattle raids, and road ambushes has increased in several parts of the state over the past couple of years.

Earlier this month, 18 people were killed during inter-communal violence between two communities in the town of Rumbek.

In late March, at least 13 people were killed during inter-communal clashes over a two-day period in Rumbek.

Source: Voice of America

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Northeast Nigeria Facing Acute, Life-Threatening Hunger

The United Nations is urgently appealing for $250 million to provide life-saving food assistance for millions of people in northeast Nigeria, many of whom risk starving to death.

The U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator for Nigeria, Edward Kallon, says he has come to Geneva to warn the international community that Nigeria is at a crossroads and in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

He says 4.4 million people in northeast Nigeria’s Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states are facing a looming catastrophic situation of food insecurity that eventually could result in a famine.

“Of these 4.4 million people, 775,000 are in critical needs of food assistance and risk death, and also further dispossession, if necessary action is not taken now,” he said.

Kallon says malnutrition rates are rising in all three states in northeast Nigeria, reaching a particularly dangerous high of 13.6% in Yobe State. The U.N. Children’s Fund reports severe acute malnutrition causes stunting, wasting, physical and mental impairment, and even death.

U.N. coordinator Kallon says these children urgently need special nutritional feeding to save their lives. However, providing aid in this volatile region is dangerous, and in some cases, impossible.

“Ongoing insecurity, which has resulted in further displacement of people and also compounded by the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19. And closely linked to the issues of insecurity [are] issues of access in areas that are controlled by the nonstate armed groups, where we have well over 800,000 people we cannot reach,” he said.

Northeast Nigeria has been in almost constant turmoil since the Boko Haram insurgency began in 2009, and the situation has grown worse in recent months with a wave of mass kidnappings for ransom.

The United Nations reports 8.7 million people in northeast Nigeria need humanitarian aid. Earlier this year, the U.N. appealed for $1 billion to assist 6.4 million of the most vulnerable. To date, only 55% percent of the required funding has been received.

Source: Voice of America

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World Bank Says Zimbabwe’s Economy on Recovery Path

In a report this month, the World Bank predicts Zimbabwe’s economy will grow 3.9% this year even as the country sees an alarming rise in poverty levels, especially in urban areas. The report says a record 7.9 million Zimbabweans are “extremely” poor, earning less than 30 U.S. dollars a month.

Forty-one-year-old Richard Luzani is one of many unemployed Zimbabweans hoping the economy will recover and that the coronavirus pandemic will end soon.

Each day he pushes a cart full of water buckets while selling the scarce precious liquid in Hatcliffe — one of the poorest suburbs of Harare. He works with his 58-year-old father, Weluzani.

“I wish I could a get any formal job,” Luzani said. “I am just barely making a living from this hustle of selling water so that my family can survive. But so far everything is down.”

He said on a good day they go home with $5 each — but other days, nothing.

That is not case with 40-year-old Tafadzwa Gamanya in Goromonzi, a rural area about 50 kilometers east of Harare.

A World Bank report says Zimbabweans living in rural areas are doing better than their counterparts in the urban areas thanks to subsistence farming. So is Gamanya.

“This year is much better for us here. We had good rains. We have enough water to irrigate our crops until the next rain season,” Gamanya said. “I have maize and sweet potatoes; my peas are at flowering stage. I sell my vegetables to get money for sugar, for tea which we have with sweet potatoes. Our maize is enough for this year. We have nothing more to ask or cry for.”

Last week, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government said the number of food insecure Zimbabweans has drastically fallen because of the good rains the country has enjoyed during the 2020/2021 agriculture season.

Mukami Kariuki, who heads the World Bank in Zimbabwe, says the economy could recover faster depending on how the pandemic and regional economy perform.

“Zimbabwe’s economy is expected to grow faster than its neighbors, rising from 3.9% in 2021 to 5.1% in 2022,” Kariuki said. “By comparison, the average growth rate for sub-Saharan Africa in 2021 is 2.8%. So overall, we note that the recovery of the country is on a positive trend and if sustained, this momentum will impact positively on the lives and livelihoods of people of Zimbabwe.”

An upward swing would be welcome news for Richard Luzani and millions of Zimbabweans like him. The World Bank reports 49% of the country’s population now live in poverty due to both the pandemic and ailing economy.

Source: Voice of America

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Nearly 6,000 Displaced Return Home After Niger Jihadist Attacks

Nearly 6,000 people who fled jihadist violence in 2015 have returned home to the town of Baroua in southeast Niger’s troubled Diffa region, local authorities said Monday.

They are the first group to go home as part of a operation to return people to 19 towns and villages in the region, which has been ravaged by jihadists from neighboring Nigeria.

“It is a voluntary return of 1,187 households totaling 5,935 people” who returned on Sunday to Baroua, a town of some 15,000 near Lake Chad, said Yahaya Godi, a top official in the Diffa region.

Between 8,000 and 10,000 people are expected to return to Baroua in total.

State television showed images of around 20 trucks loaded with food, water, beds and building materials, with the returnees perched on top, arriving in Baroua.

Diffa is home to 300,000 refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) who have fled attacks by the Nigeria-based jihadist group Boko Haram and its breakaway faction Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), according to the UN.

Niger’s government gave the go-ahead for the return of IDPs “given positive changes in the (security) situation on the ground,” said Diffa regional governor Issa Lemine, who was in Baroua to welcome the returnees.

Niger’s security forces are working to ramp up protection for returning residents, he added.

Most of the IDPs had fled to other parts of the region, notably the city of Diffa itself.

Some 120,000 refugees from jihadist attacks in northeastern Nigeria are housed in camps around the Diffa region.

ISWAP has become a dominant threat in Nigeria, attacking soldiers and bases while killing and kidnapping civilians.

Baroua “is in ruins and we will have to start from scratch,” a local elected official told AFP.

Health clinics, drinking water distribution facilities, schools and mosques are “all run down”, he added.

Godi said people who are still reluctant to return will be encouraged by the stepped-up security as well as rebuilt infrastructure.

And the government will hire returnees to work on rebuilding projects in Baroua.

Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum, elected in February, campaigned on a promise to return all refugees and displaced people to their homes by the end of 2021.

The former French colony, which by the yardstick of the UN’s Human Development Index is the poorest country in the world, also houses nearly 60,000 people who fled after the jihadist insurgency erupted in neighboring Mali in 2012.

Source: Voice of America

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Somalia, Congo, Afghanistan, Syria Among Most Dangerous for Children in Conflict

Somalia, Congo, Afghanistan and Syria top the list of the most dangerous conflict zones for children, the United Nations said Monday, accounting for nearly 60% of all violations among the entries on its annual blacklist of countries where children suffer grave abuses.

“Children can no longer be the last priority of the international agenda nor the least protected group of individuals on the planet,” Virginia Gamba, U.N. special representative for children in armed conflict, told reporters Monday at the report’s launch. “We need to give children an alternative to violence and abuse. We need peace, respect for children’s rights, and democracy.”

Gamba said the most widespread violations in 2020 were the recruitment and use of children by security forces and armed groups and the killing and maiming of children.

“We are extremely alarmed at the increase in the abduction of children by 90% compared to previous years, as well as the increase in rape and other forms of sexual violence, registering an increase of 70% compared to previous years,” she added.

More than 3,200 children were confirmed abducted in conflict situations in 2020, and at least 1,268 were victims of sexual violence, the report said.

Of the worst offenders, Gamba said Somalia had the “most violations by far,” primarily perpetrated by al-Shabab terrorists. In Afghanistan, she said the Taliban was responsible for two-thirds of violations, and the government and pro-government militias the rest.

Myanmar also ranked high on the list of grave violations, including for the highest numbers of children recruited and used, while Yemen has among the highest figures for children killed or maimed.

Attacks on schools and hospitals remained high last year at 856, mostly in Afghanistan, Congo, Syria and Burkina Faso.

“Education against girls was particularly targeted,” Gamba said.

As with everything else in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic only complicated matters.

The report found, for example, that the use of schools by militaries rose last year. Many schools were closed temporarily because of the pandemic, making them easy targets for military occupation and use.

New to the list are Cameroon, Burkina Faso and the Lake Chad Basin region.

The report contained some good news. Due to advocacy efforts, armed groups and security forces released 12,643 children. And the number of actors engaging with Gamba’s office, signing on to action plans and making new commitments toward children is growing.

However, human rights groups have criticized the report over the years, saying that double standards apply to the creation of the blacklist and that some countries escape accountability.

“We strongly urge the (U.N.) Secretary-General to reconsider his decision and hold parties to conflict all over the world to the same standard,” Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International, said in a statement.

“Secretary-General (Antonio) Guterres is letting warring parties implicated in the deaths and maiming of children off the hook by leaving Israel, the Saudi-led coalition (in Yemen) and other violators off his ‘list of shame,'” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “His repeated failure to base his list on the U.N.’s own evidence betrays children and fuels impunity.”

Responding to the criticism, Gamba said that regarding Israel, violations carried out during the recent fighting in Gaza would be examined in next year’s report.

She added that she did not experience any political pressure from parties in terms of who would be listed.

Source: Voice of America

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