Day: October 19, 2021

Witnesses in Ethiopia’s Tigray region said at least two people were killed and several others were injured in two airstrikes Monday carried out by government forces on the regional capital, Mekelle.

Residents who spoke to VOA’s Tigrigna Service said the airstrikes hit two areas: the Enderta district in the morning and the Adi Haki market, later in the day.

The Ethiopian government initially denied launching the attacks, but the state-run Ethiopian Press Agency later acknowledged the airstrikes and said they targeted communications infrastructure.

“Action [was taken] against media and equipment used by the TPLF [Tigray People’s Liberation Front] terrorists in Mekelle,” the press statement said. The TPLF is a former member of the coalition that ruled Ethiopia for more than 30 years. In May, Ethiopia designated the group a terrorist organization.

Dr. Cherinet Gebru works at Mekelle’s flagship Ayder Referral Hospital. He told VOA there were nine victims admitted Monday after the first airstrike.

“From the three people who were initially admitted, two were already dead. One was 12 years old. He was a child, and the other one was 14 years old, and we couldn’t help save them,” he said.

The doctor said the staff at the hospital is monitoring other victims who survived. However, the doctor added, the hospital lacks the medical equipment and medicine to provide proper care, especially for helping those admitted with serious injuries.

Gebremedhin Haylay, a Mekelle resident, said he was on his way to an area called Enda Gabriel, walking with friends when the airstrike hit the Adi Haki market. “There were the three of us and I was hit. My left hand and both my legs are injured,” he told a VOA reporter who visited Ayder Hospital.

Another witness, who says he saw injured people in the area, Jemal Kedir, said the bombardment hit an area no more than 30 meters from the market.

“When they [the Ethiopia’s federal government] say we are targeting leadership [the TPLF], it is a lie,” he said.

Getachew Reda, a TPLF spokesperson, accused Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, of being unwilling to end the conflict. “He has never been for peace, only the appropriate use of sticks can prod him into considering such path. The #AirStrikeonCivilians in #Mekelle is proof positive that he will do everything to terrorize our people, especially when his forces are losing on the battlefield,” he said in a Twitter post Tuesday. “If people had illusions he could keep his promise to resolve the conflict peacefully, yesterday’s attack should make it clear that only sticks are effective.”

The Ethiopian federal government has been engaged in an armed conflict with fighters from the northern Tigray region for nearly a year.

Mekelle has not seen large-scale fighting since June, when Ethiopian forces withdrew from the area and Tigray forces retook control of most of the region. Following that, the conflict continued to spill into the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar.

Last week, Tigray forces said the Ethiopian military had launched a ground offensive to push them out of Amhara.

Source: Voice of America

Cameroon’s French-speaking towns on the border with the English-speaking western regions are creating militias to stop separatist incursions. The militias say separatists are entering French-speaking towns to steal food and weapons for their movement or acting independently as armed criminals.

Cameroon’s military on Monday said it held several top security meetings in the capital, Yaounde, to examine the spillover of the separatist crisis from the English-speaking western regions to French-speaking areas.

Cameroon’s defense minister Joseph Beti Assomo said the military will never allow fighters to transfer the peril they cause in the English-speaking Southwest and Northwest regions to French-speaking border localities. He said he is reinforcing the military presence and increasing financial and material means to stop the separatists from entering French-speaking towns and villages.

Speaking on state radio, Assomo did not disclose the number of troops deployed to stop the separatists.

The military says French-speaking regions infiltrated by separatists include Mbouda, Galim, Babadjou, Babisenge, Foumban, Foumbot and Bafoussam. Two of these places, Foumbot and Bafoussam, are large commercial areas.

The military says there have been at least 60 attacks by separatist fighters in French-speaking localities with dozens of lives lost.

On social media, separatist groups have denied that fighters are looting. But they acknowledge attacks on several military positions, saying that they do so to seize weapons.

Rigobert Nchinda, a cattle rancher who relocated from Galim to Mbouda, said last week that suspected separatists seized five cows and money from him.

Nchinda said civilians live in total fear. He says many people are deserting border villages because of the recent frequent attacks and looting by suspected separatists. Business is at a standstill. To speak the truth, those of us remaining in border localities with English-speaking regions are not comfortable with rising insecurity caused by separatists who are infiltrating, Nchinda adds.

Defense Minister Assomo said civilians should assist the military by reporting suspects and strangers in their localities.

François Franklin Etapa is the most senior government official in Bamboutos, the district where Galim is located.

Etapa said militia groups have been created in all villages and towns on the border with the English-speaking Northwest to stop the incursions.

Etapa said Bamboutos is facing repeated assaults from secessionists because of its geographical location, near English-speaking regions. He said separatist attacks have dampened the spirits of civilians. He said he has decided to create vigilantes in all villages to help fight separatists who cross over from the English-speaking areas to commit atrocities in French-speaking border areas.

Etapa said people should not think that by promoting vigilantes, the country is handing over its duty of protecting citizens to militias. He said the militias should collaborate with traditional rulers, community leaders, the administration and the military by reporting strangers and armed men in the towns and villages.

Civilians and NGOs already contribute food and money to assist the militias. Many of the militiamen go out with locally made guns, machetes and bows and arrows to face intruders.

The military also says vigilantes should signal troops when armed men are spotted in the towns and villages.

Cameroon’s separatists have been fighting since 2017 to create an independent English-speaking state in the majority French-speaking country’s western regions.

The conflict has cost more than 3,000 lives and forced 550,000 people to flee to French-speaking regions of Cameroon or into neighboring Nigeria, according to the United Nations.

Source: Voice of America

Every morning, Wilson Ovwiroro leaves home early to paddle a wooden canoe into thick rainforest in southern Nigeria, where he taps raffia trees, making palm wine from their fermented sap.

The 50-year-old tapper also distils the alcoholic juice into a kind of gin known locally as "ogogoro" or "Sapele water," named after the nearby town where it reputedly originated.

Once the delight of traditional ceremonies, the local beverage is suffering a decline in popularity, battered by modern breweries.

With more than 200 million people, Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation and a huge market for beer.

Deep-pocketed players are vying for Nigerians' drinking money, including local giants International Breweries and Nigerian Breweries, as well as Ireland's Guinness.

The competition may seem unequal, but small-scale tappers and brewers like Ovwiroro still hope to keep their local beverages alive.

"I have been doing this work for 30 years. I started in Ondo state, came to Edo and spent 10 years before coming to Sapele here where I have now spent 15 years," Ovwiroro told AFP inside a wooden shed, which also serves as a mill for the father of eight.

The tapper learnt the skill from his father, and said his wife and brothers assist him in the job.

"I produce original ogorogo here. When you drink it, you know it is original. I don't mix it with ethanol. My own is the real special one. When I cook it, even rich people buy from me," he said.

The alcoholic content of ogorogo is unknown, although one glass, say those who drink it, is enough to make you feel intoxicated.

Ovwiroro also claimed the drink, which is often infused with herbs, had medicinal properties although he offered no evidence.

"When you drink it, you don't get infections. It cures malaria and fever," he claimed, sipping from a cup of fresh palm wine.

Stepping on snakes

Ovwiroro said that he boils palm wine over firewood and distils it to make ogorogo, letting it cool before pouring it into jerry cans.

"I have many customers that buy from me. I have up to 15 customers. I sell (a) 25 kg (55-pound) jerry can for 15,000 naira ($38). I can produce two in a day if I get enough palm wine," he said.

But he admitted that the job was "strong" — tough work — adding that he usually climbs at least 30 trees every day.

"I come here as early as 6:00 a.m. every day. Most times, I don't go home. I sleep in this bush. At times, you will step on snakes. The work is not easy. I work every day. On Sundays, I don't go to church," he said.

"I won't allow my children to do the work because it is too strong."

Ovwiroro wants the government to assist local tappers and brewers to expand their business, adding that the plantation from where he taps was on lease.

"I acquired this place last year. I pay 3,000 naira monthly to the community. I used to tap from another forest but the trees are no longer producing."

Ovwiroro said the government should encourage investments in local gins.

And locals agree.

"This is what we take to clear all our sicknesses and diseases away," claimed Kingdown Arugbo, a 66-year-old businessman who said he had been taking the local specialty since he was born.

He added that lovers of good and strong spirits should come to Sapele to taste local brews.

"If any company from abroad wants it they should come to us and we will give them the well-brewed original ogogoro from the source."

Source: Voice of America

The Ugandan government is known for cracking down on writers who express strong dissent to President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the African country for 35 years. Despite the risks, two writers recently composed deliberately provocative pieces criticizing the president.

Early this month, Ashaba Annah wrote an erotic poem on Facebook to Museveni, titled "I want to be Museveni's side chic."

The poem reads in part, "I want to be Museveni's side chick so that when after reading a poem for him, I tell him that censorship, arrest, torture and imprisonment of writers is inhumane, cowardly an act and violation of rights."

Speaking to VOA, Ashaba said she decided to write the poem after a long observation and listening to several of Museveni's addresses. She said it was clear the government's response to the concerns of citizens was relaxed.

"Someone needs to tell this person that we are tired," she said. "First of all, the education crisis; schools are closed. Teachers are not working. I said, 'If he asks me the kind of car I want, I will ask him to give me an ambulance, and I donate it to hospitals.'"

The Ugandan government has previously come down hard on writers who pen opinions on how the current regime is handling citizen's concerns. This has included arrests, imprisonment and torture.

Twenty-three-year-old Ashaba did not face any of these, but she, too, caught the eye of the authorities and was summoned by the deputy director of the Internal Security Organization.

"He called and said, 'I want to have a chat with you.' I was scared. And he said, 'We just want to have a chat.' So, they asked me this one important question: 'So, what do you want?' And I gave them the answer, that as a writer, I'd gotten what I wanted — the fact that the message had reached the powers that be," she said.

While officiating at the World Teachers Day, celebrated on October 12, Museveni, when asked by teachers to increase pay for all teachers, insisted only science teachers' pay should be increased and not the pay of those teaching arts.

"Don't mix up salary with authority," Museveni said. "Saying that if the administrators get less pay than the scientists that it will spoil administration. I am the president of Uganda. If you want to check my power, you try it."

'Someone tell the life President to shut up'

Danson Kahyana, a senior lecturer at Makerere University, said he was angered by Museveni's comments, and took to Facebook to express his disappointment. In a post titled "Someone tell the life President to shut up," he says, "Someone tell the life-president that it is okay to have the parliament and the judiciary and the army and the police safely in his armpit; but there is a species of people, the arts scholars, who know how smelly every armpit gets."

Kahyana said, "My Facebook post was a form of challenge to him to say, 'Well, I think if you don't have something to say about the arts and how important they are to the country, maybe you should just shut up and listen to people educate you about this. Being a president doesn't mean that you know everything.'"

In a text message to VOA, government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo said these writers are seeking a moment in the spotlight. He said Museveni does not need to be insulted to be heard.

Source: Voice of America

Authors of a new report on Africa’s climate warn the continent is heating up more and faster than other regions in the world, and they said Africa needs immediate financial and technological assistance to adapt to the warming environment.

The African continent is home to 17% of the global population but is responsible for less than 4% of greenhouse gas emissions, which are leading to climate change.

The report finds changing precipitation patterns, rising temperatures and extreme weather triggered by climate change are happening globally, but notes these events are occurring with greater frequency and intensity in Africa.

Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas said there were 700 major disasters on the continent last year. He said more than half have been flooding events, and one-sixth have been storming and drought events, respectively.

“We have seen almost 100 million people who have suffered of food insecurity, and they needed humanitarian assistance … and the combined events of conflicts, climate hazards, and especially this COVID-19, they have been contributing to the increase of 40% of food insecurity,” Taalas said

This multi-agency report, entitled State of the Climate in Africa 2020, was coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization, with the help of the African Union Commission and various U.N. agencies.

The report finds the warming trend over the last three decades in all African subregions was stronger than in the previous 30 years. During this period, it said Africa has warmed faster than the global average temperature over land and ocean combined.

It said higher-than-normal precipitation and flooding predominated in places such as the Sahel, the Rift Valley, and the Kalahari basin. At the same time, dry conditions prevailed in the northern coast of the Gulf of Guinea and other locations, while drought in Madagascar triggered a humanitarian crisis.

Taalas said sea-level rise is threatening many coastal cities in Africa, like Lagos, Nigeria’s economic hub and a major financial center in Africa. He said climate change also is having a devastating impact on the last remaining glaciers in East Africa.

“The three African glaciers, Mount Kenya, the Rwenzori, and Kilimanjaro —and you can see that there has been a major loss of the sea ice area and also sea ice mass," Taalas said. "And if the current trends continue, we will not see any glaciers in Africa in the 2040s.”

The African Union Commission reports adaptation costs in sub-Saharan Africa are estimated at $30 billion to $50 billion, equivalent to two to three percent of regional gross domestic product each year over the next decade.

However, it notes the cost of doing nothing will be much higher. By 2030, it said up to 118 million extremely poor people will be subject to devastating impacts of drought and intense heat. It adds subsequent displacement and migration consequently will lead to a further 3% decrease in GDP by 2050.

Source: Voice of America