africa
Florida suspect in Haiti president killing deepens mystery
The arrest of a failed Haitian businessman living in Florida who authorities say was a key player in the killing of Haiti’s president deepened the mystery Monday into an already convoluted plot surrounding the assassination.
Haitian authorities identified the suspect as Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 62, who once expressed a desire to lead his country in a YouTube video. However, he is unknown in Haitian political circles, and associates suggested he was duped by those really behind the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in an attack last week that critically wounded his wife, Martine, who remains hospitalized in Miami.
Read: 2 Haitian Americans detained in slaying of Haiti president
A Florida friend of Sanon told The Associated Press that the suspect is an evangelical Christian pastor and a licensed physician in Haiti, but not in the U.S. The associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of safety concerns, said Sanon told him he was approached by people claiming to represent the U.S. State and Justice departments who wanted to install him as president.
He said the plan was for Moïse to be arrested, not killed, and Sanon would not have participated if he knew Moïse would be assassinated.
“I guarantee you that,” the associate said. “This was supposed to be a mission to save Haiti from hell, with support from the U.S. government.”
Echoing those sentiments was the Rev. Larry Caldwell, a Florida pastor, who said he worked with Sanon setting up churches and medical clinics in Haiti from 2000-2010. He doesn’t believe Sanon would have been involved in violence.
“I know the character of the man,” Caldwell said. “You take a man like that and you’re then going to say he participated in a brutal crime of murder, knowing that being associated with that would send him to the pits of hell? ... If there was one man who would be willing to stand in the breach to help his country, it would be Christian.”
Read: Haiti President Jovenel Moïse assassinated at home
Haiti’s National Police chief, Léon Charles, said Moïse’s killers were protecting Sanon, whom he accused of working with those who plotted the assassination.
Charles said officers found a hat with the logo of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 20 boxes of bullets, gun parts, four license plates from the Dominican Republic, two cars and correspondence, among other things, in Sanon’s house in Haiti.
Twenty-six former Colombian soldiers are suspected in the killing and 23 have been arrested, along with three Haitians. Charles said five suspects are still at large and at least three have been killed.
“They are dangerous individuals,” Charles said. “I’m talking commando, specialized commando.”
A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official told AP that one of the suspects in Moïse’s assassination was at times a confidential source to the agency, and that the suspect reached out to his contacts at the DEA after the killing and was urged to surrender. The official said the DEA and a U.S. State Department official provided information to Haiti’s government that led to the surrender and arrest of one suspect and one other individual, whom it didn’t identify.
Meanwhile, Colombia’s national police chief, Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, said that a Florida-based enterprise, CTU Security, used its company credit card to buy 19 plane tickets from Bogota to Santo Domingo for the Colombian suspects. Most arrived in the Dominican Republic in June and moved into Haiti within weeks, Vargas said.
Read: 'We need help': Haiti's interim leader requests US troops
He said that Dimitri Hérard, head of general security at Haiti’s National Palace, flew to Colombia, Ecuador and Panama in the months before the assassination, and Colombian police are investigating whether he had any role in recruiting the mercenaries. In Haiti, prosecutors are seeking to interrogate Hérard over the assassination.
Charles said Sanon was in contact with CTU Security and that the company recruited the suspects in the killing. He said Sanon flew into Haiti in June on a private jet accompanied by several of the alleged gunmen.
The suspects’ initial mission was to protect Sanon, but they later received a new order: to arrest the president, Charles said.
“The operation started from there,” he said, adding that 22 additional suspects joined the group.
Charles said that after Moïse was killed, one suspect phoned Sanon, who got in touch with two people believed to be masterminds of the plot. He did not identify them or say if police know who they are.
Sanon’s associate said he attended a recent meeting in Florida with Sanon and about a dozen other people, including Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera, a Venezuelan émigré to Miami who runs CTU Security. He said a presentation was made for rebuilding the country, including its water system, converting trash into energy and fixing roads.
He said Sanon asked why the security team accompanying him to Haiti were all Colombians. Sanon was told Haitians couldn’t be trusted and that the system is corrupt, the associate said. He said Sanon called him from Haiti a few days before the assassination and said the Colombians had disappeared.
“I’m all by myself. Who are these people? I don’t know what they are doing,” the associate quoted Sanon as saying.
Sanon “is completely gullible,” the associate added. “He thinks God is going to save everything.”
Sanon has lived in Broward County in Florida, as well as in Hillsborough County on the Gulf Coast. Records also show he resided in Kansas City, Missouri. He filed for bankruptcy in Florida in 2013 and identified himself as a medical doctor in a video on YouTube titled “Leadership for Haiti.”
However, records show Sanon has never been licensed to practice medicine or any other occupation covered by Florida’s Department of Health.
Sanon said in court papers filed in a 2013 bankruptcy case in Florida that he was a physician and a pastor at the Tabarre Evangelical Tabernacle in Haiti. He said he had stakes in enterprises including the Organization of Rome Haiti, which he identified as a non-governmental organization, a radio station in Haiti and medical facilities in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
At the time of his bankruptcy, he and his wife reported income of $5,000 per month, and a home in Brandon, Florida, valued at about $143,000, with a mortgage of more than $367,000. A federal bankruptcy trustee later determined they hid ownership of about 35 acres in Haiti from creditors.
Florida records show Sanon started about a dozen businesses over the last 20 years, all of which failed, including ones that appeared related to medical imaging, physical therapy, fossil fuel trading, real estate and veganism.
In a 2011 YouTube video, Sanon denounced Haiti’s leadership as corrupt, accusing them of stripping the country of its resources, saying: “They don’t care about the country, they don’t care about the people.”
He falsely claimed that Haiti has uranium, oil and other resources that have been taken by government officials.
“Nine million people can’t be in poverty when we have so much resources in the country. It’s impossible,” he said. “We need new leadership that will change the way of life.”
Sanon’s arrest comes as a growing number of politicians have challenged interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who is currently in charge of Haiti with backing from police and the military.
U.S. officials, including representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, met Sunday with Joseph, designated Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti’s dismantled Senate, whom supporters have named as provisional president in a challenge to Joseph, according to the White House National Security Council.
The delegation also met with Haiti’s National Police and reviewed the security of critical infrastructure, it said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the delegation received a request for additional assistance. She said a potential deployment of U.S. troops remained “under review,” but also suggested that Haiti’s political uncertainty was a complicating factor.
“What was clear from their trip is that there is a lack of clarity about the future of political leadership,” Psaki said.
U.S. President Joe Biden said he was closely following developments, adding: “The people of Haiti deserve peace and security, and Haiti’s political leaders need to come together for the good of their country.”
Meanwhile, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Haiti’s request for security assistance is being examined.
The United Nations has been involved in Haiti on and off since 1990, but the last U.N. military peacekeepers left the country in 2017.
South Africa ramps up vaccine drive, too late for this surge
Some in wheelchairs, others on canes, hundreds of South Africans waited recently on the ramps of an open-air Johannesburg parking garage to get their COVID-19 vaccine shots. Despite the masks, social distancing and blustery weather of the Southern Hemisphere winter, a celebratory atmosphere took hold.
“What a relief!” said Vincent Damon, a 63-year-old electrical technician, after getting his second dose. “In the last four days, I’ve lost four friends. All of them under 60. This pandemic has gotten worse. It’s frightening.”
New infections in South Africa rose to record levels in recent days, part of a rapid rise across the continent, and experts say the surge here hasn’t yet peaked. To fight the new wave, South Africa reimposed several restrictions, including shutting restaurants and bars and limiting alcohol sales — and its vaccination drive is finding its feet after several stumbles.
But even as the campaign gathers pace, experts say it’s too late to reduce the deadly impact of the current spike. Instead, South Africa is now rushing to vaccinate enough of its 60 million people to blunt the impact of the next inevitable surge.
Read:Virus infections surging in Africa’s vulnerable rural areas
“Our vaccination campaign is gathering momentum, but obviously it’s too late to do much in terms of reducing the impact of this current resurgence we’re experiencing, which by all accounts is going to completely dwarf what we experienced either in the first or second waves in South Africa,” said Shabir Madhi, dean of health sciences and professor of vaccinology at the University of Witwatersrand.
South Africa accounts for more than 35% of the 5.8 million cases recorded by Africa’s 54 countries, although it is home to just over 4% of the continent’s population. The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths in the country more than doubled over the past two weeks to more than 360 fatalities per day on July 9.
Its troubles reflect a broader trend. Neighboring Zimbabwe went back into lockdown on July 6, and Congo, Rwanda, Senegal and Zambia are among the 16 African countries battling the new surge of infections sweeping across the continent.
“Africa has just marked the continent’s most dire pandemic week ever. But the worst is yet to come as the fast-moving third wave continues to gain speed and new ground,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa.
“The end to this precipitous rise is still weeks away. Cases are doubling now every 18 days, compared with every 21 days only a week ago,” she added Thursday.
The current upsurge comes while the continent’s vaccination rates are painfully low: Just 16 million, or less than 2%, of Africa’s 1.3 billion people are now fully vaccinated, according to the WHO.
More than 4 million South Africans, or about 6.5%, have received at least one dose, with 1.3 million fully vaccinated, according to government figures Saturday. Still, the drive is picking up speed after a bumpy campaign so far, marked by missteps and bad luck.
Although South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was quick to respond to COVID-19 and put the country into one of the world’s strictest lockdowns in March last year, his officials were slow to place firm orders for vaccines, say critics.
Read:Fearing COVID, struggling Malawian women forgo prenatal care
This appeared to be resolved when South Africa’s first delivery of vaccines — 1 million doses of AstraZeneca — arrived in February. Just as the government was to begin administering the shots to front-line health care workers, a small study showed that AstraZeneca provided low protection against the beta variant, which was dominant in South Africa at the time. The AstraZeneca vaccines were scrapped, and South Africa quickly pivoted to Johnson & Johnson, which was still in testing but appeared to show protection against the mutation.
At first, South Africa received such small shipments of the J&J doses that its campaign lurched from week to week. But then a South African pharmaceutical firm was contracted by J&J to produce its vaccine, using large batches of ingredients sent from the U.S. The South African company, Aspen Pharmacare, has the capacity to assemble and package more than 200 million doses of the J&J vaccine per year, one of very few firms in all of Africa with that capability.
But just as the first 2 million J&J doses produced by Aspen were about to be used to kick start South Africa’s sputtering vaccination drive, the U.S. drug regulator recommended a pause in the distribution of the vaccine over concerns about rare blood clots. The suspension was brief, but South Africa eventually had to discard its doses because they were made with materials provided by a U.S. factory where there were concerns about contamination.
A further obstacle came when Health Minister Zweli Mkhize was suspended amid a corruption scandal in which his family members are accused of benefitting from an inflated government contract.
This all exacted a toll on South Africa’s vaccination drive. By the middle of May, the country had inoculated just 40% of its 1.25 million health care workers — a segment of the population it had hoped to be finished vaccinating by that time before moving on to the general public.
In recent weeks, the supply issues have eased: Large shipments are arriving weekly of the 40 million Pfizer doses that South Africa purchased. The country is getting another 31 million J&J vaccines, most assembled in South Africa. Vaccinations began for those 60 and over in late May, and schoolteachers and police officers became eligible for vaccines in June. In early July, shots opened up to those age 50 and over, and later this month the eligibility will be expanded to those 35 and older.
Vaccination sites have multiplied from a few dozen to several hundred, and the country soon hopes to be on pace to inoculate two-thirds of its population by the end of February.
Read:In poorest countries, surges worsen shortages of vaccines
The increased supply can be seen at the vaccine center atop the Johannesburg parking garage. It started giving about 200 shots per day when it opened in May. In the first week of July it reached 1,000 a day and last week it was jabbing 2,000 daily, according to workers at the busy site.
Even if the country can manage to get about half of the population over 40 vaccinated in the coming months, expert Salim Abdool Karim said he thought it would blunt the impact of another surge.
“We could basically avert a significant fourth wave, maybe it could just be a minor fourth wave,” said Abdool Karim, who is director of the Center for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa. “But that is contingent on one thing: that we do not have to fight a new variant. As we’ve seen with the beta and delta variants, a new one could change everything.”
Haiti President Jovenel Moïse assassinated at home
Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated after a group of unidentified people attacked his private residence, the country’s interim prime minister said in a statement Wednesday.
First Lady Martine Moïse is hospitalized following the attack late Tuesday, interim Premier Claude Joseph said.
Read: Haiti fights large COVID-19 spike as it awaits vaccines
Joseph condemned what he called a “hateful, inhumane and barbaric act,” adding that Haiti’s National Police and other authorities had the situation in the Caribbean country under control.
The nation of more than 11 million people had grown increasingly unstable and disgruntled under Moïse’s rule. Its economic, political and social woes have deepened, with gang violence spiking heavily in the capital of Port-au-Prince, inflation spiraling and food and fuel becoming scarcer at times in a country where 60% of the population makes less than $2 a day. These troubles come as Haiti still tries to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake and Hurricane Matthew that struck in 2016.
Moïse, 53, had been ruling by decree for more than two years after the country failed to hold elections, which led to Parliament being dissolved. Opposition leaders have accused him of seeking to increase his power, including approving a decree that limited the powers of a court that audits government contracts and another that created an intelligence agency that answers only to the president.
In recent months, opposition leaders demanded the he step down, arguing that his term legally ended in February 2021. Moïse and supporters maintained that his term began when he took office in early 2017, following a chaotic election that forced the appointment of a provisional president to serve during a year-long gap.
Read: Hurricane Elsa races toward Haiti amid fears of landslides
Haiti was scheduled to hold general elections later this year.
Zimbabwe returns to strict lockdown to fight virus surge
Zimbabwe has returned to strict lockdown measures to combat a resurgence of COVID-19 amid vaccine shortages, the country’s information minister announced Tuesday.
Infections have dramatically increased in recent weeks despite a night curfew, reduced business hours, localized lockdowns in hotspot areas, and a ban on inter-city travel. The virus has spread to rural areas which have sparse health facilities.
Read:Virus infections surging in Africa’s vulnerable rural areas
To try to contain the spread, most people must stay at home, similar to restrictions on movement adopted in March last year when towns and cities became almost deserted, Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa announced after a Cabinet meeting Tuesday.
People will now need letters from employers to justify why they must venture out of their neighborhoods “with immediate effect,” said Mutsvangwa.
“Stiffer penalties will be imposed for violations,” including revoking the licenses of offending businesses, she said.
Read:Fearing COVID, struggling Malawian women forgo prenatal care
Zimbabwe is one of more than 14 African countries where the delta variant is quickly spreading.
Infections are shooting up. Zimbabwe’s 7-day rolling average of daily new cases quadrupled over the past two weeks from 2.04 new cases per 100,000 people on June 21 to 8.39 new cases per 100,000 people on July 5, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Previously the country’s crowded cities were the centers of infection, but now rural areas are hard hit, said Mutsvangwa.
Read:Ethiopia declares immediate, unilateral cease-fire in Tigray
Government officials reported shortages of personal protective equipment, misinformation discouraging people from getting vaccines and shortages of health care workers. Some rural district hospitals require bulk oxygen tanks, while others need “functional” isolation centers, Mutsvangwa said.
Zimbabwe is one of many African countries suffering a resurgence of the disease, in contrast to other parts of the world where vaccines have allowed a return to something like normal life. To date, 9% of Zimbabwe’s 15 million people have received at least one vaccine dose and 3.7% have received two doses. Across Africa, less than 2% of the continent’s 1.3 billion people have received at least one vaccine jab, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Virus infections surging in Africa’s vulnerable rural areas
For Pelagia Bvukura, who lives in a rural part of north-central Zimbabwe, COVID-19 had always been a “city disease,” affecting those in the capital, Harare, or other, distant big towns.
“There was no virus for us. We only used to hear it was in Harare or other towns or when city people died and we buried them here,” she said recently, referring to the custom in Zimbabwe where those who move to the city often are buried at their family’s rural home.
That is changing now. A new surge of the virus is finally penetrating Africa’s rural areas, where most of the continent’s people live, spreading to areas that once had been viewed as safe havens from infections that hit cities particularly hard.
Read:Fearing COVID, struggling Malawian women forgo prenatal care
With facilities in the countryside ill-prepared to fight the coronavirus, residents like Bvukura worry that the next graves being dug could be for their neighbors — or even themselves.
Her village of Zvimba, 110 kilometers (68 miles) from Harare, has yet to record a major spike in infections, but it sits in a province that is the current epicenter of the virus.
“It is now on our doorsteps. It’s scary. We don’t know how to protect ourselves. We have never dealt with such a problem before,” she said.
Like many here, she wasn’t wearing a mask and is yet to be vaccinated.
Africa has recorded over 5.3 million cases and is experiencing the worst of a wave driven by more contagious and deadlier variants. The continent recorded a 39% increase in new cases in the week from June 14-20, according to the World Health Organization.
With homesteads spaced far apart, few visitors and rare public gatherings, rural areas appeared so insulated that they drew some people from cities to escape both infection and economic hardship.
“It was a dangerous, false sense of security. Now a tragedy is unfolding,” said Dr. Johannes Marisa, president of the Medical and Dental Private Practitioners of Zimbabwe Association in Harare.
The delta variant that has devastated India has been detected in at least 14 African countries including Congo, Mozambique, Namibia, Uganda, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and not just in the cities.
“We are starting to see an upward trend in the rural and marginalized areas,” said Edward Simiyu, Uganda country director of the charity group Mercy Corps, in a statement earlier in June.
In Zimbabwe, three of the four districts under strict lockdown and declared as epicenters of the outbreak are in the predominantly rural Mashonaland West province, which recorded over half of the 801 cases reported last weekend. Other hot spots also are largely rural, a first for this country.
“We are going to see a lot of deaths, especially arising from rural areas. COVID-19 is now coming from the rural areas,” said Marisa, attributing the spike to “a high degree of complacency,” a lack of information and few vaccinations, with urban areas prioritized.
Read:In poorest countries, surges worsen shortages of vaccines
The virus can also spread at funerals when city dwellers return to visit rural relatives.
“I was at a funeral in a rural area recently and people were surprised to see me wearing a mask,” he said.
Rural areas are ill-equipped to deal with the surge, and urban health care facilities are under strain in treating an increasing number of people from the countryside. Zimbabwe’s major referral hospital, Parirenyatwa in Harare, is prioritizing beds for COVID-19 patients.
“Parirenyatwa is almost full. These are not people from Harare. Health facilities in rural areas are miserable, so all those people are being referred to city hospitals,” Marisa said.
In Mozambique’s remote Tete province, a hotbed of infections where the delta variant was recorded, President Filipe Nyusi expressed worry.
“We don’t have many beds. … We don’t have many health staff in Tete either,” Nyusi said.
Because health care facilities in the countryside in places like Uganda are more poorly staffed than those in urban areas, “a penetration of COVID-19 infections in these rural and vulnerable regions is likely to be devastating, … risking more people slipping deeper into poverty, further worsening social inequities, divisions, and conflict,” said Simiyu of Mercy Corps.
Rural residents are finding it difficult to get vaccinated because of weak public health systems and vaccine distribution problems. Only 1% of Africa’s 1.3 billion people have been vaccinated, according to the WHO and the Africa Centers for Disease Control.
The Zvimba Rural District hospital only had just a small number of coronavirus vaccines, reserved for second doses, its staff said.
But even after the vaccine becomes available, “the ability of health systems to absorb those doses and get them distributed — particularly in rural communities — is the next huge problem on the horizon,” said Sean Granville-Ross, Africa regional director for Mercy Corps, in an interview with The Associated Press.
“There’s a risk vaccines could sit spoiling in warehouses across African capitals if countries aren’t ready to hit the ground running with mass vaccination campaigns, including in the hardest-to-reach rural areas where health infrastructure is already weak, as is trust in public health systems,” Granville-Ross said.
Read:‘This IS INSANE’: Africa desperately short of COVID vaccine
Those in rural areas who are desperate for the vaccines, including the elderly, live far from hospitals and clinics.
Matrida Tendayi, who is 100 years old, said she is too frail to walk to the nearest clinic in Dema, a rural area about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Harare, even if a vaccine was available.
“I have been waiting and waiting,” she said. “But they are not coming.”
Tigray fighters in Ethiopia reject cease-fire as ‘sick joke’
The fighters now retaking parts of Ethiopia’s Tigray region will pursue soldiers from neighboring Eritrea back into their country and chase Ethiopian forces to Addis Ababa ”if that’s what it takes” to weaken their military powers, their spokesman said Tuesday, as a conflict that has killed thousands of civilians looked certain to continue.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Getachew Reda said that “we’ll stop at nothing to liberate every square inch” of the Tigray region of 6 million people, nearly eight months after fighting erupted between the Tigray forces and Ethiopian soldiers backed by Eritrea.
He rejected the unilateral cease-fire Ethiopia’s government declared Monday as a “sick joke” and accused Ethiopia of long denying humanitarian aid to the Tigrayans it now “pretends to care about.” Ethiopia declared the unilateral cease-fire as its soldiers and hand-picked regional interim administration fled the Tigray regional capital following some of the fiercest fighting of the war.
Read:Ethiopia declares immediate, unilateral cease-fire in Tigray
“We want to stop the war as quickly as we can,” the Tigray spokesman said.
But he said liberating the region is not just about territory. “If there is still a menace next door,” whether it be in Eritrea, “extremists” from the neighboring Amhara region who have occupied western Tigray or Ethiopian forces, it’s about assuring Tigrayans’ security, he said.
The comments were sure to bring new alarm from the United States, United Nations and others who have pressed for an end to the fighting in Africa’s second most populous country that has sent hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans into the world’s worst famine crisis in a decade.
This week’s swift turn in the war has left people scrambling to understand the implications for Tigray, as communications links remained largely cut.
Eritrean soldiers, accused by witnesses of some of the war’s worst atrocities against Tigrayans, left the towns of Shire, Axum and Adwa, witnesses said, but it was not clear whether the retreat was temporary. The information ministry of Eritrea, a longtime enemy of Tigray’s former leaders and described by human rights groups as one of the world’s most repressive countries, did not immediately respond to questions.
“We don’t yet know if they are withdrawing” from Tigray altogether, acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Godec told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. He said the U.S. had seen no statement from Eritrea saying it was committed to the cease-fire after “what appears to be a significant withdrawal of Ethiopian national defense forces from Tigray.”
The Tigray leaders have waged a guerrilla war since November after a political falling out with the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who had sidelined them from influential roles in Ethiopia’s government and military. An Ethiopian military spokesman did not answer the phone Tuesday.
Read:Witnesses: Airstrike in Ethiopia's Tigray kills more than 50
The arrival of Tigray forces in the regional capital, Mekele, on Monday was met with cheers. The fighters on Tuesday moved into Axum and Shire, a town that in recent months saw the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing intimidation in western Tigray and is a key staging area for humanitarian aid.
Tigray forces are now in control of much of the region after a major counteroffensive with mass popular support, International Crisis Group analyst William Davison said in a statement. They are “now in a position to facilitate access to many previously hard to reach areas,” he said, urging Ethiopia’s government not to sabotage the urgent humanitarian efforts.
But the Tigray forces’ talk “indicates how distrustful they are of the cease-fire,” Aly Verjee, a senior adviser at the United States Institute of Peace, told AP. “Of course, I think it’s highly irresponsible for them to say such things. It doesn’t do anything for people on the brink of famine. At the same time, I understand they’re motivated by deep suspicion of Eritrean forces in particular.”
Major questions remained about the fate of the more than 1 million civilians that the United Nations has said remain in parts of Tigray that have been hard, if not impossible, to reach with aid. The United States has said up to 900,000 people now face famine conditions, in the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade.
That famine “is entirely man-made,” the acting U.S. assistant secretary of state said.
Sarah Charles, assistant to the administrator for the United States Agency for International Development, told the Washington hearing that the next week or two will be consequential. She urged Ethiopia to lift a “communications blackout” on Tigray and said forces from the Amhara region must lift checkpoints on key roads for aid delivery.
Read:Witnesses say airstrike in Ethiopia’s Tigray kills dozens
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters that “the impact of the current situation on the humanitarian operations in the region remains unknown right now.” Operations have been “constrained for the past few days due to the ongoing fighting.” The airport in Mekele was closed, and routes to deliver aid were not open, he said.
Ethiopia has said the cease-fire is in part for the delivery of aid but will last only until the end of the crucial planting season in Tigray — which is in September.
In Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, people said they weren’t sure who to believe amid the battlefield claims, and hoped for peace.
“It’s the innocent children, farmers and the poor people that are at the front of the war and are suffering,” resident Biruk Dessalegn said.
Fearing COVID, struggling Malawian women forgo prenatal care
Prenatal services at the health clinic were free, but the motorcycle taxi fare cost more than Monica Maxwell could afford. Just four weeks before delivering her baby, she cobbled together 1,400 kwacha ($1.75) for the 50-kilometer (31-mile) round trip. It was only her third visit -- fewer than her first two pregnancies. The money she made selling tomatoes at the local market dried up due to the pandemic. Her husband’s income selling goat meat also dwindled.
“It was the most difficult period of our lives. We had no money for our daily survival,” Maxwell, 31, said as she waited outside with other women to be seen by a medical midwife. “Mostly we stayed home.”
In a country where hospitals are so bare that women are expected to bring their own razor blades for cutting their babies’ umbilical cords, the deepening poverty brought on by the pandemic is further imperiling women’s lives.
Read:Virus outbreak in Fiji batters economy, tests health system
Officials say far fewer pregnant women in Malawi are getting the health care they need amid the pandemic, with many forgoing medical visits and relying solely on traditional birth attendants, who provide emotional support and administer traditional herbal treatments but are technically banned by the government from delivering babies because of their lack of formal training. Many families can’t afford clinic visits, or, like Maxwell, the transportation to get there; they also fear they’ll catch coronavirus in a medical facility.
At risk are the gains that Malawi — a largely rural sliver of a country, with 18 million people — has made over the past decade to combat its poor record of maternal deaths. Malawian women face a 1-in-29 lifetime risk of death related to a pregnancy or birth, according to the United Nations Population Fund. The country has 439 such deaths per 100,000 live births — a figure it had worked to reduce from 984 per 100,000 in 2004, as women got better access to medical care, especially in emergencies.
Still, Malawi’s rate is the third-highest in southern Africa. The rates are 19 per 100,000 births in the United States and 7 per 100,000 in the United Kingdom.
Malawian hospitals also suffered staffing shortages when nurses were mobilized to treat coronavirus patients — leading to some lack of experienced personnel for births, said Young Hong, of the United Nations Population Fund.
“Not only did the pandemic affect availability of manpower, it also exerted much pressure on the entire health system, including the stock out of certain medicines, equipment, basic medical supply like surgical gloves,” said Hong, who noted that eight Malawian women die daily of pregnancy complications, far higher than the COVID-19 toll. “This had a huge impact on the quality of maternal health service provision during the pandemic.”
At the Ndirande Health Center, just northeast of the country’s commercial capital of Blantyre, about 100 women visited daily for prenatal services before the pandemic. When COVID-19 emerged, that number dropped by half, and now is as low as 15 to 20 patients, said Jacqueline Kolove, a nursing officer at the clinic.
Sometimes even the women who come for prenatal care are afraid to deliver at the clinic during the pandemic, preferring to give birth at home. Malawian women are encouraged to give birth without medical intervention, and many here believe that emergency measures such as cesarean sections are shameful and a sign of weakness. Deciding to give birth at home, though, can be deadly — most women live too far away to make it in time if a dangerous complication arises.
“We explain to them why such a decision might have the dire consequences ... sometimes even calling their husbands and parents to try to reason with them,” Kolove said.
At Ndirande and other clinics, nurses, aides and medical midwives give pregnant women ultrasounds and use equipment to listen to the vital signs of mother and baby. A woman can undergo a cesarean section if needed, and medications are available to stop severe bleeding. Clinic staff take medical courses, observe simulated births, and become licensed.
Traditional birthing attendants learn from elders who pass down knowledge through generations and use little to no medical equipment — they listen to women’s bellies by placing their ears there, for example, and gather herbs to induce labor. They say certain herbs, boiled into a dark-green liquid, can address situations such as breech babies who needs to change positions.
Read:Australia battles several clusters in new pandemic phase
The government banned traditional birthing attendants’ delivery work in 2007, but the practice has continued, with the ban rarely enforced. Some attendants charge nothing, and they’ve seen an increase in women coming to them during the pandemic. Attendants such as Lucy Mbewe, who’s 56 and estimates she’s delivered 4,000 babies since 1983, say their work is key for women who can’t afford anything else.
Even the colorful African cloth that is widely used to wrap babies, carry them on mothers’ backs or create makeshift diapers can be a potential obstacle to care, Mbewe noted. “The government hospitals recommend that a woman who is going to deliver needs to carry with her at least 10 pieces of cloth, which is a deterrent to those that cannot even afford to put food on the table,” she said.
At government facilities, Malawian women are even expected to bring a covering for the delivery bed, buckets for water, and sometimes candles or flashlights. Mbewe provides clothing and soap when she helps women give birth. She pays for transportation home. Some women are so grateful they return to pay her; she uses that money to care for other needy clients, she said.
But medically trained midwives say the mounting use of attendants has caused a spike in complicated deliveries, with women going to the hospital only once it’s too late to save them. Mbewe says the complications are caused not by the traditional caregivers, but are attributable to expectant mothers getting pregnant at younger ages — a trend confirmed by a government report.
Midwives and health officials also say they’re fighting against misinformation about the virus and vaccines that deters women from seeking proper medical care. Malawi didn’t have a full social lockdown and has seen a dramatic rise in coronavirus cases, part of a surge across southern Africa. Experts believe cases are undercounted, and apprehension about the vaccine is widespread.
The Malawian government has administered less than 213,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. And officials destroyed about 20,000 expired doses provided by COVAX, the U.N.-backed program to ship vaccines to poor countries. Across all of Africa, just 1% of the population of 1.3 billion people in 54 countries has had one dose of the vaccine, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nurses and midwives say some women fear they’ll secretly be given the vaccine if they deliver at a medical facility.
“They feel, as health workers, we are giving them the COVID-19 vaccine instead of oxytocin,” said Kolove, the nursing officer at the Ndirande Health Center, referring to medicine that strengthens contractions and reduces the risk of bleeding. “They feel we are cheating them. As a result, there are some cases where women refuse.”
Medical staff also understand that they and the women they treat are at a higher risk of contracting coronavirus. The medically trained midwives try to educate women, and they take every precaution possible against the virus, even though their work delivering babies makes keeping a physical distance impossible, said Keith Lipato, president of the Association of Malawian Midwives.
“We make sure that all midwives are screened and tested so that those with signs and symptoms are excused from work, and given the necessary medical treatment so that they do not infect clients and patients,” Lipato said.
The precautions don’t persuade many expectant mothers, though. Five months into her pregnancy, Margret Kosamu has yet to visit a health clinic. Instead, the 30-year-old has turned to a traditional birth attendant for just two visits. Her family’s farming income has dropped, but it’s not just an issue of money; she fears visiting a medical facility could kill her, not save her life.
“One is more likely going to contract the virus at the hospital than here,” she said of the attendant’s care.
Lipato and other medical workers fear that the pandemic will have long-lasting effects on women’s health in Malawi and beyond.
Read:As variant rises, vaccine plan targets ‘movable middle’
Patricia Gunde, 26, has not received any prenatal services during her first pregnancy. She prefers instead to receive the herbs her attendant says will keep her healthy and hasten labor. Gunde has no plans to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
“I am afraid,” she said. “I have heard many stories about it.”
With the traditional birth attendant, she feels at ease because women are seen one at a time.
When the attendant brings Gunde in for care, neither wears a mask.
Ethiopia declares immediate, unilateral cease-fire in Tigray
Ethiopia’s government declared an immediate, unilateral cease-fire Monday in its Tigray region after nearly eight months of deadly conflict as Tigray fighters occupied the regional capital and government soldiers retreated in a region where hundreds of thousands are suffering in the world’s worst famine crisis.
The cease-fire could calm a war that has destabilized Africa’s second most populous country and threatened to do the same in the wider Horn of Africa, where Ethiopia has been seen as a key security ally for the West. It comes as the country awaits the results of national elections that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed promoted as the centerpiece of reforms that won him the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
Read: Witnesses: Airstrike in Ethiopia's Tigray kills more than 50
Abiy’s transformation from making peace to waging war has appalled many observers since the fighting in Tigray erupted in November. Since then, the world has struggled to access much of the region and investigate growing allegations of atrocities including gang rapes and forced starvation. Thousands of people in the region of 6 million have been killed.
Ethiopia’s statement was carried by state media shortly after the Tigray interim administration, appointed by the federal government, fled the regional capital, Mekele, and called for a cease-fire on humanitarian grounds so that desperately needed aid can be delivered.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he had spoken with the prime minister and “I am hopeful that an effective cessation of hostilities will take place.”
Meanwhile, Mekele residents cheered the return of Tigray forces for the first time since Ethiopian troops took the city in late November and Abiy declared victory. The Tigray fighters, loyal to the former regional ruling party that for years dominated Ethiopia’s government before being sidelined by the new prime minister, undermined the declaration by waging a guerrilla war in the region’s rough terrain.
Read: Witnesses say airstrike in Ethiopia's Tigray kills dozens
As Tigray forces occupied the airport and other key positions in Mekele and broadcast a message telling residents to stop celebrating and go home, retreating Ethiopian soldiers shot at students at Mekele University, killing two and wounding three, said a nurse at Ayder hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
Ethnic Tigrayans, even those who didn’t support the former ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front before the war, say they have been targeted harshly for suspected links with the Tigray fighters. Ethiopia has denied it.
But Abiy in an interview aired last week alarmed observers by recalling that aid to Tigray during Ethiopia’s devastating 1980s famine had bolstered the Tigray fighters who eventually overthrew the ruling regime. Such a thing will “never happen” now, he said.
Monday’s cease-fire declaration signaled a new approach, at least for a while.
The cease-fire “will enable farmers to till their land, aid groups to operate without any military movement around and engage with remnants (of Tigray’s former ruling party) who seek peace,” Ethiopia’s statement said, adding that efforts to bring Tigray’s former leaders “to justice” continue.
Ethiopia said the cease-fire will last until the end of the crucial planting season in Tigray. The season’s end comes in September. The government ordered all federal and regional authorities to respect the cease-fire — crucial as authorities and fighters from the neighboring Amhara region have been accused of atrocities in western Tigray.
“The government has the responsibility to find a political solution to the problem,” the head of the interim administration, Abraham Belay, said in calling for the cease-fire, adding that some elements within Tigray’s former ruling party are willing to engage with the federal government.
There was no immediate comment from the Tigray fighters, with whom Ethiopia had rejected talks. And there was no immediate comment from neighboring Eritrea, whose soldiers have been accused by Tigray residents of some of the worst atrocities in the war.
“If Abiy has a genuine desire to find a political solution, first he has to undo the terrorist label against the elected government of Tigray,” said Desta Haileselassie Hagos, who leads efforts to compile a list of those killed in the war. Abiy also needs to order the Eritrean soldiers to leave, he said.
Tigray in recent days has seen some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict. International pressure on Ethiopia spiked again last week after a military airstrike on a busy market killed more than 60 people, and after Doctors Without Borders said three staffers had been murdered in a separate incident.
Amid the upheaval on Monday, the United Nations children’s agency said Ethiopian soldiers entered its office in Mekele and dismantled satellite communications equipment, an act it said violated the world body’s immunity. UNICEF last week warned that at least 33,000 severely malnourished children face “imminent risk of death” without more aid reaching Tigray’s people.
At U.N. headquarters in New York, the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland called for an emergency open meeting of the Security Council. The U.N.’s most powerful body has discussed Tigray behind closed doors but not in an open session. They need support from nine of the 15 council members to hold an open meeting.
Witnesses: Airstrike in Ethiopia's Tigray kills more than 50
An airstrike hit a busy market in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray village of Togoga on Tuesday and killed at least 51 people, according to health workers who said soldiers blocked medical teams from traveling to the scene.
An official with Tigray’s health bureau told The Associated Press that more than 100 other people were wounded, more than 50 seriously, and at least 33 people were still missing. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about retaliation.
The alleged airstrike comes amid some of the fiercest fighting in the Tigray region since the conflict began in November as Ethiopian forces supported by those from neighboring Eritrea pursue Tigray’s former leaders. A military spokesman and the spokeswoman for Ethiopia’s prime minister, Billene Seyoum, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wounded patients being treated at Ayder hospital in the regional capital, Mekele, told doctors and a nurse that a plane dropped a bomb on Togoga’s marketplace. The patients included a 2-year-old child with “abdominal trauma” and a 6-year-old, the nurse said. An ambulance carrying a wounded baby to Mekele, almost 60 kilometers (37 miles) away by road, was blocked for two hours and the baby died on the way, the nurse added, speaking on condition of anonymity because of concerns about retaliation.
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Hailu Kebede, foreign affairs head for the Salsay Woyane Tigray opposition party and who comes from Togoga, told the AP that one fleeing witness to the attack had counted more than 30 bodies in the remote village that’s linked to Mekele in part by challenging stretches of dirt roads.
“It was horrific,” said a staffer with an international aid group who told the AP he had spoken with a colleague and others at the scene. “We don’t know if the jets were coming from Ethiopia or Eritrea. They are still looking for bodies by hand.”
On Tuesday afternoon, a convoy of ambulances attempting to reach Togoga, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Mekele, was turned back by soldiers near Tukul, the health workers said. Several more ambulances were turned back later in the day and on Wednesday morning, but one group of medical workers reached the site on Tuesday evening via a different route.
“We have been asking, but until now we didn’t get permission to go, so we don’t know how many people are dead,” said one of the doctors in Mekele.
Another doctor said the Red Cross ambulance he was traveling in on Tuesday while trying to reach the scene was shot at twice by Ethiopian soldiers, who held his team for 45 minutes before ordering them back to Mekele.
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“We are not allowed to go,” he said. “They told us whoever goes, they are helping the troops of the TPLF.”
The TPLF refers to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which governed Tigray until it was ousted by a federal government offensive in November. The subsequent fighting has killed thousands and forced more than 2 million people from their homes.
More than 25 of the wounded finally reached Ayder hospital later on Wednesday, a day after the airstrike, the regional health official said.
While the United Nations has said all sides have been accused of abuses in the Tigray conflict, Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers have been repeatedly accused by witnesses of looting and destroying health centers across the Tigray region and denying civilians access to care.
The European Union “strongly condemns the deliberate targeting of civilians” in Togoga, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Wednesday, calling it the latest in a “horrific series” of abuses committed in Tigray. He again called for an immediate cease-fire and urged the international community “to wake up and take action.”
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This month, humanitarian agencies warned that 350,00 people in Tigray are facing famine. Aid workers have said they have been repeatedly denied access to several parts of the region by soldiers.
The government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says it has nearly defeated the rebels. But forces loyal to the TPLF recently announced an offensive in parts of Tigray and have claimed a string of victories.
On Wednesday one of the former Tigray leaders, Getachew Reda, asserted that Tigray forces had shot down a C-130 transport plane carrying explosives, military officers and “Eritrean camouflage uniforms.” The claim could not immediately be verified.
A resident in Adigrat, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Mekele, said a group of Tigrayan fighters briefly entered the town on Tuesday, although he said it had since been retaken by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces. He said federal police had since been seen beating people in the center of the town.
“Everybody is staying at home, there is no movement in the town,” he said.
Renewed fighting was also reported in Edaga Hamus and Wukro, two towns that sit on the main road to Mekele.
The reports came as Ethiopia held federal and regional elections on Monday. The vote was peaceful in most parts of the country, although there was no voting in Tigray.
The vote was delayed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, heightening tensions between the federal government and the TPLF, which went ahead with its own regional election in September.
Witnesses say airstrike in Ethiopia’s Tigray kills dozens
An airstrike hit a busy market in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray village of Togoga on Tuesday, according to health workers who said soldiers blocked medical teams from traveling to the scene. Dozens of people were killed, they and a former resident said, citing witnesses.
Two doctors and a nurse in Tigray’s regional capital, Mekele, told The Associated Press they were unable to confirm how many people were killed, but one doctor said health workers at the scene reported “more than 80 civilian deaths.” The health workers spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
The alleged airstrike comes amid some of the fiercest fighting in the Tigray region since the conflict began in November as Ethiopian forces supported by those from neighboring Eritrea pursue Tigray’s former leaders. A spokeswoman for Ethiopia’s prime minister did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wounded patients being treated at Mekele’s Ayder hospital told health workers that a plane dropped a bomb on Togoga’s marketplace. The six patients included a 2-year-old child with “abdominal trauma” and a 6-year-old, the nurse said. An ambulance carrying a wounded baby to Mekele was blocked for two hours and the baby died on the way, the nurse added.
Read:UN: Famine is imminent in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region
Hailu Kebede, foreign affairs head for the Salsay Woyane Tigray opposition party and who comes from Togoga, told the AP that one fleeing witness to the attack had counted more than 30 bodies and other witnesses were reporting more than 50 people killed.
“It was horrific,” said a staffer with an international aid group who told the AP he had spoken with a colleague and others at the scene. “We don’t know if the jets were coming from Ethiopia or Eritrea. They are still looking for bodies by hand. More than 50 people were killed, maybe more.”
On Tuesday afternoon, a convoy of ambulances attempting to reach Togoga, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Mekele, was turned back by soldiers near Tukul, the health workers said. Several more ambulances were turned back later in the day and on Wednesday morning, but one group of medical workers reached the site on Tuesday evening via a different route.
Those medical workers were treating 40 wounded people but told colleagues in Mekele that the number of wounded is likely higher as some people fled after the attack. Five of the wounded patients were said to need emergency operations but the health workers were unable to evacuate them.
“We have been asking, but until now we didn’t get permission to go, so we don’t know how many people are dead,” said one of the doctors in Mekele.
Another doctor said the Red Cross ambulance he was traveling in on Tuesday while trying to reach the scene was shot at twice by Ethiopian soldiers, who held his team for 45 minutes before ordering them back to Mekele.
Read: 'People are starving': New exodus in Ethiopia's Tigray area
“We are not allowed to go,” he said. “They told us whoever goes, they are helping the troops of the TPLF.”
The TPLF refers to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which governed Tigray until it was ousted by a federal government offensive in November. The subsequent fighting has killed thousands and forced more than 2 million people from their homes.
While the United Nations has said all sides have been accused of abuses, Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers have been repeatedly accused by witnesses of looting and destroying health centers across the Tigray region and denying civilians access to care.
This month, humanitarian agencies warned that 350,00 people in Tigray are facing famine. Aid workers have said they have been repeatedly denied access to several parts of the region by soldiers.
The government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says it has nearly defeated the rebels. But forces loyal to the TPLF recently announced an offensive in parts of Tigray and have claimed a string of victories.
A resident in Adigrat, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Mekele, said a group of Tigrayan fighters briefly entered the town on Tuesday, although he said it had since been retaken by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces. He said federal police had since been seen beating people in the center of the town.
Read:Amnesty report describes Axum massacre in Ethiopia’s Tigray
“Everybody is staying at home, there is no movement in the town,” he said.
Renewed fighting was also reported in Edaga Hamus and Wukro, two towns that sit on the main road to Mekele.
The reports came as Ethiopia held federal and regional elections on Monday. The vote was peaceful in most parts of the country, although there was no voting in Tigray.
The vote was delayed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, heightening tensions between the federal government and the TPLF, which went ahead with its own regional election in September.