Category: Key Issues

WASHINGTON— It was supposed to be a regular flight for a pregnant woman and other passengers aboard a United Flight UA 977 and headed for Washington but things took a quick, beautiful turn.

According to a video shared by Ms Nancy on Facebook, the woman, due for late February, had to quickly be attended to when she called for help.

Thankfully, a certain Dr Ansah-Addo, a Ghanaian practising in the United States of America, was on board and quickly came to the rescue, helping deliver the baby boy.

“On board @united Flight UA 977 today, a lovely baby boy was born. The baby Who was due late February decided to arrive 34,000 f above sea level.

“Dr. Ansah-Addo a Ghanaian practicing in the USA made himself available when the pilot called for assistance of medical personnel on board,” she captioned her video.

Ms Nancy added that the baby was born 2 hours before the plane landed and they were met on arrival by paramedics in Washington.

“With assistance from the whole United crew, a bouncy baby boy was delivered 2hours to landing. The flight was met on arrival by paramedics upon landing at the Washington Dulles international airport.”

“The baby and his mother GG are currently under medical care,” she wrote.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

DAKAR — About 50 people were sentenced to death in Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday in connection with the murders of U.N. experts Zaida Catalan and Michael Sharp in 2017, a human rights group tracking the trial said.

A local immigration official was among those given death sentences while an army colonel was given 10 years in prison, said Thomas Fessy, Human Rights Watch’s senior researcher on Congo. Congo has observed a moratorium on the death penalty since 2003 so those convicted will serve life sentences.

But Fessy and Catalan’s sister said investigators had ignored the potential involvement of higher-level officials and the trial had not revealed the truth.

Catalan, a Swede, and Sharp, an American, were investigating violence between government forces and a militia in the central Kasai region in March 2017 when they were stopped along the road by armed men, marched into a field and executed.

Five year trial

Congolese officials have blamed the killings on the Kamuina Nsapu militia. They initially denied any state agents were involved but later arrested the colonel and several other officials who they said were working with the rebels.

After a nearly five-year trial marked by repeated delays and the deaths of several defendants in custody, a military court in the city of Kananga delivered its verdict on Saturday.

Among those sentenced to death was Thomas Nkashama, a local immigration official who met with Catalan and Sharp the day before their fatal mission, Fessy told Reuters. Others were alleged members of the militia.

Colonel Jean de Dieu Mambweni, who also met with Catalan and Sharp before their mission, was sentenced to 10 years, Fessy said.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers in the case were not immediately available for comment.

Sister urges more questions

Catalan’s sister, Elisabeth Morseby, said after the verdict that testimony in the case was of dubious reliability given how much time the defendants had spent together in prison and said the conviction of Mambweni was a smokescreen.

“In order for the truth to emerge, all suspects, including those higher up in the hierarchy, need to be questioned, which has not yet been done,” she told Reuters.

Sharp’s mother, Michele, said she was glad some perpetrators were being held accountable, but wondered who gave the orders.

“Surely someone in the upper echelons of power,” she said. “We await further developments.”

Prosecutors say they have followed the available evidence.

Fessy said there were still more questions than answers after the verdict.

“The investigation and ultimately this trial have failed to uncover the full truth about what happened. Congolese authorities, with U.N. support, should now investigate the critical role that senior officials may have played in the murders,” he said.

Ann Linde, Sweden’s foreign minister, echoed that call on Twitter: “Crucial that investigation concerning others involved continues to further uncover truth and bring justice. We encourage authorities to fully cooperate with the UN mechanism.”

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA — The U.N, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, warns it may be forced to end its humanitarian operation in northern Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray province because supplies are running out.

Intense fighting in northern Ethiopia has prevented aid from getting through to millions of destitute people in Tigray since mid-December.

OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke says U.N. and private aid agencies already have been forced to scale back operations because of severe shortages of supplies, fuel and cash.

“Organizations have warned that operations could cease completely by the end of February,” said Laerke. “Nutrition supplies for supplementary feeding and treatment of severe acute malnutrition have already run out.”

The World Food Program says 13 percent of Tigrayan children under the age of five, and half of all pregnant and breastfeeding women are malnourished, a condition that increases the risk of infection and death.

Laerke says international aid agencies operating in Tigray report their last fuel stocks were depleted on January 24. Since then, he says aid workers have been delivering the little remaining humanitarian supplies and services on foot, where possible.

“We have seen in recent days — of course, the U.N. Humanitarian Air Service has picked up again and they are delivering. But you cannot deliver by plane at all, the kind of volumes of aid that is clearly needed in this situation,” said Laerke.

War between Ethiopian government forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front broke out in November 2020. Since then, the conflict has spread to the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions, displacing hundreds of thousands, and pushing up rates of hunger and malnutrition.

Unlike the situation in Tigray, Laerke says aid agencies can scale up assistance in accessible parts of Amhara and Afar. He says food has been distributed to more than half-a-million people in Amhara during the past week, and nearly 380,000 people in Afar have been reached in an ongoing round of food distribution.

Source: Voice of America

KINSHASA–The African Union has denounced the coup d’état in Burkina Faso and demanded the release of detained President Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

Chairman of the continental bloc, President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo, said Kabore was illegally arrested and he should be freed without condition.

Tshisekedi called on “Ecowas, (the west African bloc), the African Union and the international community to work together for a peaceful and non-violent solution to the political crisis in Burkina Faso.”

Kabore, first elected in 2015 and later re-elected in 2020 on a promise to prioritise the fight against insurgency, has faced growing public anger at the state’s failure to stop the bloodshed.

On Sunday, January 23, he was arrested and detained by the junta under the banner of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration.

The Burkinabe leader came to office following the ouster of Blaise Compaoré, who is now accused of being behind the assassination of the country’s transformative leader Thomas Sankara in October 1987.

The intensity and frequency of jihadist attacks on Burkinabe soil have increased over the years, placing Kabore’s leadership in sharp focus.

The junta said they will “put the country back on the right track” and “fight for territorial integrity.”

They shut all land borders and suspended the constitution, even though they promised to shortly oversee a transition back to civilian rule.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Thousands of Sudanese took to the streets in the capital of Khartoum and other cities Monday, activists said, continuing relentless anti-coup protests that have rocked the country since a military coup three months ago.

Security forces fired tear gas to disperse protesters in several locations in the capital, including the area around the fortified presidential palace, which has seen clashes in previous rounds of protests since the Oct. 25 coup, according to the activists.

The military takeover has upended Sudan’s transition to democratic rule after three decades of repression and international isolation under autocratic President Omar al-Bashir. The African nation has been on a fragile path to democracy since a popular uprising forced the military to remove al-Bashir and his Islamist government in April 2019.

Protesters, mostly young people, marched Monday in the streets of Khartoum and its sister city of Omdurman, according to the pro-democracy movement. There were also protests elsewhere in the country, including the provinces of Kassala, Red Sea, Jazira and the already restive Darfur region, the movement said.

Footage circulated online showed security forces attempting to disperse protests with tear gas. Protesters were seen taking cover and hurling stones at the troops.

Activist Nazim Sirag said two protesters suffered gunshot injuries in Khartoum. No fatalities were reported Monday.

More than 70 people have been killed and hundreds of others injured in protests since the coup, according to a local medical group.

Sudan has been politically paralyzed since the coup. The turmoil has further worsened since the resignation earlier this month of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

Hamdok resigned earlier this month, citing failure to reach a compromise between the generals and the pro-democracy movement. He had been reinstated in November in a deal with the military that angered the pro-democracy movement.

The United Nations mission has in the past two weeks been engaged in separate consultations with Sudanese rival factions in efforts to find a way out of the crisis.

 

 

Source: Voice of America