Month: January 2022

CAPE TOWN— South Africa on Saturday held a state funeral for Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the last great hero of the struggle against apartheid, that was stripped of pomp but rich in glowing tributes.

Tutu died last Sunday, aged 90, triggering grief at home and abroad for a life spent fighting injustice.

Famous for his modesty, Tutu gave instructions for a simple, no-frills ceremony, with a cheap coffin, followed by an eco-friendly cremation.

Family, friends, clergy and politicians gathered at Cape Town’s St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, which was illuminated in purple, the colour of his clerical robes.

It was there where Tutu used the pulpit to rail against a brutal white-minority regime and it’s there he will be buried.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who accorded Tutu the official funeral usually reserved for presidents, described the ceremony as “category-one funeral with religious characteristic”.

“Our departed father was a crusader in the struggle for freedom, for justice, for equality and for peace, not just in South Africa… but around the world as well,” said Ramaphosa.

“While our beloved (Nelson Mandela) was the father of our democracy, Archbishop Tutu was the spiritual father of our new nation”, lauding him as “our moral compass and national conscience”.

“His was a life lived honestly and completely. He has left the world a better place. We remember him with a smile,” said Ramaphosa before handing South Africa’s multicoloured flag to the “chief mourner”, Tutu’s widow, Leah.

The flag — a reminder of Tutu’s description of the post-apartheid country as the “Rainbow Nation”, was the only military rite accorded to him, respecting his request before he died that military protocol be minimal.

The funeral ended South Africa’s week of mourning, with the diminutive rope-handled pinewood coffin, adorned by a small bunch of carnations, immediately removed from the church by vicars in cream robes.

Under apartheid, South Africa’s white minority cemented its grip with a panoply of laws based on the notion of race and racial segregation, and the police ruthlessly hunted down opponents, killing or jailing them.

With Nelson Mandela and other leaders sentenced to decades in prison, Tutu in the 1970s became the emblem of the struggle.

The purple-gowned figure campaigned relentlessly abroad, administering public lashings to the United States, Britain and Germany and other countries for failing to slap sanctions on the apartheid regime.

At home, from his pulpit, he slammed police violence against blacks, including the gunning down of school students during the 1976 Soweto uprising. Only his robes saved him from prison.

After apartheid was dismantled and South Africa ushered in its first free elections in 1994, Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which exposed the horrors of the past in grim detail.

He would later speak out fearlessly against the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for corruption and leadership incompetence.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

ABUJA— Nigerian policemen raided a bandits’ camp belonging to one Isiya, a notorious bandit, located in Sabon Birni forest of Igabi Local Government Area (LGA) of Kaduna State on Friday.

One bandit was killed while two were arrested during the operation, the State Command’s Public Relations Officer, ASP Jalige Mohammed, disclosed in a statement.

He also said nine kidnapped victims were rescued by the operatives that stormed the camp after gathering intelligence that victims were held hostage for ransom in the said forest.

“The mission was cautiously and successfully executed which resulted in one bandit neutralized, while many others escaped with varying degrees of bullet wounds.

“Two suspects namely; Rabe Baushe and Badamasi Usman, were arrested and taken into custody for further investigation,” he said.

Meanwhile, eight of the nine rescued victims have since reunited with their families after undergoing a medical checkup at the Police medical facility and were profiled.

He said the remaining victim was rushed to the Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital Kaduna having sustained a bullet injury.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

CAIRO —

The World Food Program has suspended its operations across Sudan's province of North Darfur following recent attacks on its warehouses, a decision expected to affect about 2 million local people.

A statement released by the U.N. food agency Thursday said all three of its warehouses in the area were attacked and looted. More than 5,000 tons of food apparently were stolen, the group said.

Earlier in the week, the WFP said an unidentified armed group had attacked one of its warehouses in North Darfur's provincial capital of el-Fasher. In response, local authorities imposed a curfew across the province.

However, the attacks continued until early Thursday, said the statement. Hundreds of looters have also dismantled warehouse structures, WFP added.

"This theft has robbed nearly 2 million people of the food and nutrition support they so desperately need," said WFP Executive Director David Beasley. "Not only is this a tremendous setback to our operations across the country, but it endangers our staff and jeopardizes our ability to meet the needs of the most vulnerable families."

The agency said it cannot divert assistance from other parts of the East African country to the looted warehouses without compromising the needs of vulnerable Sudanese living outside the province.

Sudan is one of the poorest counties in the world, with nearly 11 million people in need of food security and livelihood assistance in 2022, said the WFP.

The agency urged Sudanese authorities to recover the looted stocks and guarantee the security and safety of the WFP operations in North Darfur.

On Thursday, the country's state-run news agency reported that a number of suspects were arrested in el-Fasher after they were seen riding trucks and animal-drawn carts loaded with food stocks that were allegedly stolen from the WFP warehouses. SUNA news agency did not say how many were arrested.

The WFP decision comes amid political upheaval that followed the October military coup.

On Friday, a doctor's group said that five people were killed in anti-coup protests that erupted a day earlier in several provinces across the country. Security forces fired tear gas and live ammunition to disperse thousands of protesters, the group said. With Thursday's fatalities, the total death toll since the coup has risen to 53.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese police acknowledged in a statement issued Friday that four protesters were killed and more than 290 were wounded in the protests. The statement posted on SUNA made no mention of police using tear gas or live ammunition. The police added that more than 40 policemen were wounded in clashes with protesters.

Source: Voice of America