Category: General

The World Food Program warns it will be forced to cut food rations for half-a-million people suffering from acute hunger in northeast Nigeria unless it receives urgently needed funding.

Millions of people in Nigeria’s crisis-ridden Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states are suffering from years of conflict and insecurity and the socio-economic fallout from COVID-19.

The WFP says 4.4 million people are facing acute hunger. It warns it will have to start cutting food rations for half-a-million men, women, and children in a matter of weeks unless it gets an immediate infusion of $55 million.

WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri says hunger is peaking now as the country emerges from the so-called lean season. That is the period between June and August when food stocks are at their lowest.

He says attacks by armed groups are heightening insecurity in the region and discouraging people from working their land.

“The states in the north are largely agrarian in nature. They rely on agriculture to survive and when you have insecurity, they are unable to farm. They are unable to rear livestock. And this is sort of fueling the food insecurity situation,” he said.

Phiri siaid the WFP is providing food assistance to 1.9 million Nigerians. He said 800,000 of them are facing food emergency levels that are just one step from famine.

“Although famine has not been confirmed, the suffering of the people is quite immense. We are concerned as the World Food Program as over one million children are malnourished in the northeast and…a lot of people have been displaced. These are people who have been displaced multiple times. So, people are really, really knocking on the door of starvation,” Phiri said.

To sustain its humanitarian lifesaving operations in northeast Nigeria until March, the WFP urgently requires $197 million. As of now, WFP officials say they only have received $6 million.

Source: Voice of America

The United Nations’ migration agency has recalled a staff member identified by two U.N. sources in Addis Ababa as the head of its mission to Ethiopia over audio recordings containing criticism of senior U.N. officials.

In the recordings, two women who say they work for the U.N. in Ethiopia but do not give their names tell a freelance journalist that some top U.N. officials globally sympathize with forces from the northern Tigray region that are fighting Ethiopia’s government.

Reuters heard the women’s comments after the recordings were released online but could not independently verify the authenticity of the recordings.

In a letter dated October 11, the head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said a staff member had been recalled to headquarters and put on administrative leave pending an investigation into the recordings.

“The opinions attributed in the audio recordings to the staff member do not correspond to IOM’s principles and values,” IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino wrote in the letter, seen Tuesday by Reuters.

In his letter, Vitorino did not name the person who had been recalled.

Two U.N. staff members in Addis Ababa identified one of the women in the recording as Maureen Achieng, the IOM’s chief representative in Ethiopia.

An IOM spokesperson did not immediately respond when asked whether the person recalled to headquarters was Achieng. Achieng and the journalist could not immediately be reached for comment.

The U.N. says Ethiopia’s government is preventing aid from reaching hundreds of thousands of people experiencing famine in Tigray, where war has made nearly 7 million people dependent on food aid. The government denies it is blocking aid. Ethiopia last month decided to expel seven senior U.N. officials, accusing them of meddling in internal affairs.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s spokesperson, Billene Seyoum, criticized IOM on Twitter on Tuesday. She said Achieng – whom she referred to by linking to Achieng’s verified Twitter account — had told “the unvarnished truth on institutional bias with the U.N. system.”

War broke out in November 2020 between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the political party that controls Tigray.

In the recordings, the two women say – without citing evidence – that World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is among the U.N. officials who sympathize with Tigrayan forces. Tedros, who is Tigrayan, has repeatedly denied taking sides in the conflict.

Source: Voice of America

Ethiopia’s Seifu Tura Abdiwak won the Chicago men’s marathon on Sunday and Kenya’s Ruth Chepngetich the women’s race.

The 24-year-old Tura completed the 42-kilometer course in 2:06:12, beating out American Galen Rupp, who finished close behind with an official time of 02:06:35.

Chepngetich, 27, finished her race in 02:22:31, with Emma Bates of the United States coming in second at 02:24:20.

One of the best-known long-distance races, the Boston Marathon, is set for Monday in the northeastern U.S. city. The coronavirus pandemic caused the race, normally run in April, to be moved to Monday’s date.

Source: Voice of America

In Nigeria, a country heavily reliant on revenues from its oil exports, entrepreneur Ifedolapo Runsewe has identified another type of black gold: used car tires.

She has set up Freetown Waste Management Recycle, an industrial plant dedicated to transforming old tires into paving bricks, floor tiles and other goods that are in high demand in Africa’s most populous nation.

“Creating something new from something that will otherwise be lying somewhere as waste was part of the motivation,” Runsewe told Reuters at her factory in the city of Ibadan in southwest Nigeria.

“We are able to create an entire value chain around the tires,” she said, holding a paving brick that is one of the company’s best-selling products.

Waste management in Nigeria is patchy at best. In villages, towns and cities, piles of waste are a common sight, and residents often burn them at night for lack of a safer method of disposal. Tires are routinely dumped and abandoned.

Freetown relies on scavengers who collect old tires from dumping grounds. They are paid 70 to 100 naira ($0.17-$0.24) per tire.

Some tires are also supplied directly by mechanics, like Akeem Rasaq, who is delighted to have found a place where he can make some money from old tires.

“Most of the tires end up in public drainage clogging up the drain, but things have changed,” he said at his roadside workshop.

Freetown started operations in 2020 with just four employees, and growth has been so rapid the workforce has jumped to 128. So far, more than 100,000 tires have been recycled into everything from speed bumps to soft paving for playgrounds.

“It is important to support anybody that recycles in our country,” said Houssam Azem, founder of the Lagos Jet Ski Riders Club, which has purchased paving bricks from Freetown for a children’s play area.

“Taking tires, which is an environmental nuisance, and turning them into what children can play on, I think it is a win-win for everybody.”

Source: Voice of America

BAMAKO, MALI — A Franciscan nun from Colombia kidnapped by jihadis in Mali in 2017 was freed Saturday, a statement from Mali’s presidential office said.

The statement on the presidential Twitter account paid tribute to the courage of Sister Gloria Cecilia Narvaez, who was held for four years and eight months.

In the official statement, Malian strongman Colonel Assimi Goita assured the Malian people and the international community that “efforts are under way” to secure the release of all those still being held in Mali.

The archbishop of Bamako, Jean Zerbo, confirmed Narvaez’s release, adding that she was doing well.

“We prayed a lot for her release. I thank the Malian authorities and other good people who made this release possible,” the archbishop said.

Her brother, Edgar Narvaez, also confirmed her release in a brief conversation with AFP.

“She is in good health, thank God. They sent me pictures and she looks well,” he said.

Narvaez was taken hostage on February 7, 2017, at Koutiala, 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of the Malian capital, Bamako, while working as a missionary there.

There were irregular reports about her over the years, including at the beginning of 2021, when two Europeans who managed to escape captivity reported that she was well.

Then in March, her brother received a letter passed on from the Red Cross. It was written in capital letters “because she always used capital letters,” contained the names of their parents, and ended with her signature, he told AFP earlier this year.

Mali has been struggling to contain a jihadist insurgency that emerged in the north of the country in 2012 and that has since spread to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Kidnappings, once rare, have become more common in recent years as a security crisis has deepened in Mali, particularly in the center of the former French colony.

Source: Voice of America

It’s worse than a plague,” said Pedro Antonio Sanchez, fuming over the volcanic grit coating his bananas, the main source of wealth on the Canaries’ island of La Palma.

“It’s worse than a pest or disease because it scratches [the fruit],” said Sanchez, gesturing at the black sandy deposits that have rained down since the volcano erupted on September 19.

The volcano has caused major damage to banana plantations in La Palma, the second-largest producer in the Atlantic Canary Islands, where the crop accounts for 50 of the island’s economy, industry figures show.

Once the ash lands on the bananas, it is almost impossible to remove.

And it causes further damage in the handling, transport and packing, with the huge bunches, which are known as “pineapples” and can weigh up to 70 kilos (150 pounds), carried on the shoulders.

“You have to blast it off with water or something — to be honest, I don’t know how to do it,” said Sanchez, 60, who owns a small plantation. “When the dew forms overnight, it really makes the grit stick, and in the morning it just won’t come off.”

Can’t be sold

The skin blackens in the form of a scratch but nothing like the brownish-black markings that show the fruit is ripe.

And although the banana is perfect, it is rejected and cannot be sold.

“European quality regulations ban the sale of bananas with more than four square centimeters of scratches per fruit, even if they are perfect inside and can be eaten without risk,” said Esther Dominguez of ASPROCAN, which represents banana producers in the Canary Islands.

The volcano’s eruption has predominantly hurt the Aridane valley on the western flank of La Palma, although the problem caused by volcanic ash and grit has affected a much wider area.

“It is not just the Aridane valley, because the wind changes direction and ash is blown all over. So 100 percent of the island is affected,” Juan Vicente Rodriguez Leal, head of the Covalle agricultural cooperative, told AFP.

“So we are going to have a significant loss of at least one year’s crop,” he said, estimating losses of “around 120 to 130 million euros [$140 to $150 million].”

The plantations are also suffering from a lack of water after the lava destroyed the area’s irrigation pipeline.

Bananas need a lot of water and the current shortage “is the biggest threat,” Sanchez said.

La Palma has long suffered from water shortages. It has no rivers, lakes or reservoirs, so the island gets its water from underground aquifers or rain collected by pine trees and transferred to the ground.

Bananas “need a lot of irrigation every seven days. Now we’re irrigating every 15 days to save water, and although they’re not going to dry out, the fruit feels the impact,” Sanchez said.

A third of Canaries’ crop

In 2020, La Palma produced 148,000 metric tons of bananas, or 34.5% of the Canaries’ overall crop, ASPROCAN figures show.

In terms of production, it is second only to Tenerife, which is three times larger.

One-tenth of La Palma’s 700 square kilometers (270 square miles) is dedicated to agriculture, of which 43% is planted in bananas, according to the Biosphere Reserve of La Palma.

More than 80% of the banana plantations in the Canaries are modest plots of less than 2.5 acres (one hectare), with many farmers living hand to mouth.

Although Sanchez enjoys the work, he’s had enough of living on the bread line.

“There are months when you bring in 1,000 euros ($1,150) or a bit more, but it’s normally less,” sometimes even as little as 300 euros, he said.

“It just doesn’t make me feel like working.”

Source: Voice of America