Mass starvation risk is rising: UN
‘Restart talks’
GENEVA, April 11, (Agencies): The UN’s refugee agency says the risk of mass deaths from starvation is growing in parts of east Africa, Yemen and Nigeria due to a combination of conflict, drought and a shortfall in humanitarian aid funding to help beleaguered populations cope. UNHCR says some 20 million people, more than onefifth of them refugees, live in areas affected by drought. The agency is raising its projections for displacement from South Sudan and Somalia.
Spokesman Adrian Edwards cited a “particularly pernicious combination” of factors in the areas, pointing to the “world’s biggest humanitarian crisis” in Yemen, conflicts in South Sudan and Somalia, and violence and instability caused by radical group Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Lake Chad basin.
UNHCR said 7 million people in northern Nigeria are struggling with food insecurity.
Meanwhile, two months after the world’s youngest nation declared a famine amid its civil war, hunger has become more widespread than expected, aid workers say.
Edwards
‘Restart W. Sahara talks’:
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for new talks over the longrunning Western Sahara dispute, saying the negotiations should include proposals from both Morocco and the Polisario independence movement, according to a UN document.
The UN call for a restart to talks came after months of tensions in the disputed territory, which Morocco claims as part of its kingdom and Polisario says belongs to the Sahrawi people who fought a guerrilla war until a 1991 UN-backed ceasefire.
UN attempts to broker a settlement have failed for years in the vast desert area, which has contested since 1975 when Spanish colonial powers left. Morocco claimed the territory while Polisario established its self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic there.
“I intend to propose that the negotiating process be relaunched with a new dynamic and a new spirit,” the UN chief said in his report presented for review to the security council on Monday.
Pirates rescue Indian dhow:
Somali security forces rescued a hijacked Indian cargo dhow on Monday, but pirates took the 11-member crew with them when they fled to land, authorities said.
The Al Kausar vessel was seized earlier this month, part of a sudden string of attacks by Somali pirates after years without a reported incident.
“We attacked the Indian ship and rescued it but the pirates took away the 11 crew. We rescued two crew and they went with nine crew into the hilly areas between El Hur and Hardheere,” Mohamed Hashi Arabey, Vice-President of Galmudug state, told Reuters.
Galmudug is a federal state within the Horn of Africa country that operates its own security forces.
The two crew were in a car that the pirates had to abandon after they were chased, Galmudug’s vice-president said.
Protesters racists — Zuma:
South African President Jacob Zuma on Monday accused some protesters of racism after marches last week that drew tens of thousands of people demanding his resignation, while the opposition announced plans for a new protest.
More than 60,000 people marched in South African cities on Friday in largely peaceful protests to demand Zuma quit after a cabinet reshuffle set off the latest crisis of his presidency.
Speaking at a memorial to commemorate the 24th anniversary of the assassination of anti-apartheid and Communist Party leader Chris Hani — whose murder led to nationwide riots — Zuma said South Africa had not yet built a non-racial society decades after white-minority rule ended in 1994.
In his first public response to the protests, Zuma said they “demonstrated that racism is real” in South Africa.
Congo protests fall flat:
Opposition calls for mass protests against Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila fell flat on Monday when only a handful of people showed up, undermining efforts to oust him after his refusal to quit on expiry of his mandate last year.
The sparse turnout in the capital Kinshasa and other major cities pointed to the opposition’s waning credibility and persistent difficulties convincing Congolese to risk frequently deadly crackdowns by security services.
The normally hectic streets of Kinshasa, a city of more than 10 million people, were nearly deserted on Monday as the police patrolled heavily and fearful residents stayed home.
“How was I supposed to march?” said Papy Kazadi, an opposition supporter on Kinshasa’s deserted Boulevard Triomphal, where the march was supposed to begin. “There is no one here.”