Category: Africa

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – With the deaths of four American servicemen in Niger, a window has opened onto U.S. operations in West Africa – an area barely known even to U.S. legislators who have sent U.S. soldiers there in harm’s way.

The latest soldier to die on a tour in the French-speaking region is Texas-born Staff Sergeant, Logan J. Melgar, a Latino. His death in Mali is attributed to strangulation and two elite members of the U.S. Navy Seal Team Six are being investigated for his murder.

Melgar’s Special Forces teammates were there at the request of Paul Folmsbee, U.S. ambassador to Mali for a previously undisclosed and highly unusual clandestine mission to support French and Malian counterterrorism forces battling Al Qaeda’s branch in North and West Africa, as well as smaller cells aligned with Al Qaeda or the Islamic State, according to the New York Times.

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | LAGOS (IDN) – A government-led plan to restore the home of the parents of Afro music legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and turn it into a museum has cheered and excited Fela’s many fans and followers.

The colonial era one-story building was built by the late Israel Ransome-Kuti, Fela’s father, and his wife, Funmilayo, over a century ago.

Mr. and Mrs. Ransome-Kuti made their names as educationists and unionists long before one of their sons, Fela, became known across the world as an iconoclastic musician and social crusader.

By Klara Smits

BRUSSELS (IDN) – More than 30 organizations gathered in Brussels at the conference on ‘Eritrea and the Ongoing Refugee Crisis’ have expressed “deep concern” about the remarks by Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, that now there is “a real chance of closing the Central Mediterranean route” with a view to halting the flow of refugees from the Horn of Africa. Tusk was commenting the conclusions of the European Council meeting.

“Leaders agreed to offer Prime Minister Gentiloni stronger support for Italy’s work with the Libyan authorities. We have a real chance of closing the Central Mediterranean route,” Tusk said at the press briefing of European Council meeting of October 19.

By A.D. McKenzie

PARIS (IDN) – Africa is the world’s most entrepreneurial region, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), but “manufacturing is receding”.

To discuss solutions as well as highlight some of the challenges facing the continent, the organisation’s 17th International Economic Forum on Africa brought together government leaders, businesspeople, civil society and others in Paris on October 4, with a focus on entrepreneurship and industrialisation.

“Of the 25 countries with the strongest economic growth between 2004 and 2014, 10 were African,” says the Paris-based OECD. Yet, “not enough jobs have been created for the rapidly expanding youth population” and “growth has not been inclusive enough,” the organisation adds.

By Fabíola Ortiz

GOMA (IDN) – Since February this year, 16-year old Melvin* lives in a shelter for former child soldiers in the suburbs of Goma, the capital city of North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He belongs to a small community.

His story resembles that of many Congolese boys living in the faraway communities in eastern DRC. He was abducted from his home village to forcedly join the Nyatura rebels – a Mayi-Mayi ethnic community-led armed group founded in 2010 mainly by the Congolese Hutus. Among the human rights violations they have been accused of is the recruitment of child soldiers – one of the most heinous crimes they have committed.

It is two years now that the introverted Melvin, who has lost track of his family, has not been able to return to his community. He is likely to be one among thousands of orphans from the conflict.

By Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – Zannah Mustapha, a champion for the rights of displaced children growing up amid violence in north-eastern Nigeria to get a quality education, was honoured with the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR‘s Nansen Refugee Award on October 2 for his dedication and commitment to ensuring children and orphans affected by the conflict in Borno State can attend school. A lawyer turned property developer in Borno state, Mustapha also took part in mediating between Boko Haram and the Nigerian government.

Mustapha took home prize money of $150,000, funded in partnership with the Norwegian Refugee Council, the Swiss Government, the Norwegian Government and the IKEA Foundation.

By Jeffrey Moyo

MWENEZI; Zimbabwe (IDN) – Raviro Chawuruka scoops out sand from a well on a stream bank closer to her rural home in Rutenga, 443 km west of Harare, in Mwenezi district in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo Province.

At the age of 72, Chawuruka says she has known no rest while scavenging for water, this as she daily battles it out with the sand-filled water well in the vicinity of her home. She stands out among millions of Africans to whom piped water still remains a luxury, decades after several African nations gained independence from their former colonisers: Zimbabwe over 37 years ago.

According to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, 65 percent of Zimbabwe’s 14 million people such as Chawuruka are domiciled in rural areas, where they have become the number one victims of lack of piped water.

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (IDN) – He struggles with a huge solar panel as he crawls on the rooftop of his house. Just below him, on the ground, stands his wife gazing upwards, with one hand partially covering her face from direct sun heat.

Nevson Devera, for that is his name, at the age of 44 and domiciled in Harare the Zimbabwean capital, has not had electricity from the country’s main power utility, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, connected to his house, 15 years after he built it. Tired of using fossil fuels for energy, he and his wife Sarudzai have turned to the sun for electricity.

Interview with Dr. Kim Eva Dickson, Representative of the UNFPA Sierra Leone

NEW YORK | FREETOWN (IDN) – UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is paying specific attention to the needs of women and girls affected by the floods and mudslides in the country’s capital city Freetown that killed over 495 people on August 14, 2017. Joan Erakit, UN correspondent of IDN, flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate (INPS) Group, spoke with Dr. Kim Eva Dickson, Representative of the UNFPA Sierra Leone. Following is the full text of the interview.

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (IDN) – At one stage in her life, she was a top accountant with the National Railways of Zimbabwe. Now, domiciled in Epworth, a crowded informal settlement in south-eastern Harare Province, 25 kilometres outside Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, hers has turned out to be a riches-to-rags tale.

Shuvai Chikoto, a 48-year-old mother of three who was widowed five years ago, is just one of millions of other Southern African urban dwellers who have plunged into poverty over the years – and she is not particularly impressed that the United Nations has set the goal of ending poverty in all its forms everywhere within the next 13 years.