Gangs intensify rampage in Haiti capital
Schools to reopen in S.Sudan:
South Sudan’s government on Tuesday said schools will reopen next week following a two-week closure due to extreme heat across the country.
The health and education ministries said temperatures were expected to steadily drop with the rainy season set to begin in the coming days.
South Sudan in recent years has experienced adverse effects of climate change, with extreme heat, flooding and drought reported during different seasons.
During the heat wave last week, the country registered temperatures up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit).
Teachers have been urged to minimize playground activities to early morning or indoors, ventilate classrooms, provide water during school time and monitor children for signs of heat exhaustion and heatstroke.
Health Minister Yolanda Awel Deng singled out Northern Bahr El-Ghazel, Warrap, Unity and Upper Nile states as the most affected areas. (AP)
❑ ❑ ❑ Kenya handing over bodies:
Kenya’s government on Tuesday began handing over to relatives the bodies of 429 members of a doomsday cult at the center of a legal case that has shocked the country.
Exhumed bodies from a vast rural area in coastal Kenya have shown signs of starvation and strangulation. Cult leader Paul Mackenzie is accused of asking his followers to starve themselves to death and now faces charges that include murder.
Authorities are using DNA testing to help identify bodies and their families. On Tuesday, the first bodies were handed over to relatives. Emotions ran high at the Malindi mortuary as families collected loved ones for reburial. Some wailed, overwhelmed. (AP)
❑ ❑ ❑ Nigeria sentenced man to death:
A Nigerian court on Tuesday sentenced a Chinese national to death after finding him guilty of killing his girlfriend, a government
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 27, (AP): Gangs have intensified their rampage in the downtown area of Haiti’s capital, setting fire to a school and looting pharmacies across the road from the country’s largest public hospital.
The attacks that began Monday and continued into early Tuesday mark nearly a month since gunmen began targeting key infrastructure across Port-au-Prince including police stations, the main international airport that remains closed and Haiti’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates.
“The violence and instability in Haiti have consequences far beyond the risk of the violence itself,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s executive director, said in a statement Tuesday. “The situation is creating a child health and nutrition crisis that could cost the lives of countless of children.”
The number of children in Haiti estimated to suffer from severe acute malnutrition has increased by 19% this year, according to UNICEF. In addition, some 1.64 million people are on the precipice of famine.
“This malnutrition crisis is entirely human made,” Russell said.
Closure
Violence has forced the closure of roads and certain hospitals and prevented aid groups from delivering critical supplies at a time they are needed the most.
Only two of five hospitals in Haiti are operational across the country, according to UNICEF. In addition, the violence in Port-au-Prince has prevented the distribution of health and nutrition supplies for at least 58,000 children who are severely wasted, the agency said.
Meanwhile, members of a regional trade bloc known as Caricom have pushed to accelerate the formation of a transitional presidential council in official told The Associated Press, vowing to recommend execution if he unsuccessfully appeals the ruling.
Frank Geng-Quangrong was convicted by a local court in northern Nigeria’s economic hub of Kano state, Kano Justice hopes it could soon help quell the ongoing violence.
The council would be responsible for choosing a new prime minister and a council of ministers. Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was locked out of Haiti when the attacks began, has said he would resign once the council is created.
However, multiple setbacks continue to delay formation of the council, which will be composed of nine members, seven of them with voting powers.
Also:
RIO DE JANEIRO: Dozens of kids and teenagers from Rio de Janeiro’s neighborhood gathered for the launch of a book in which they show, with their own words and pictures, how violence in their poor, bayside community weighs on their young lives.
The book, titled “I Was Supposed to be at School,” features drawings and testimonies collected from youngsters aged between 5 and 17.
All too often, when Rio state’s military police conduct operations and face off with local drug traffickers, class is canceled and they take shelter behind washing machines, under their beds or far from windows that a stray bullet might shatter. Mare is one of Rio’s most populous favelas, with about 130,000 residents.
“Some policemen invade our houses. They turn things upside down, they attack, they even steal our food,” according to one child’s account in the book, which launched Monday.
“Sometimes police fire at children, too,” another account says, going on to reference 14-year-old
whose death in 2018 sparked outrage and protests. Residents say police shot him in the back as he left home for class, but the case remains unsolved and sealed by Rio police.
Vinícius da Silva, ❑ ❑ ❑ Mare Marcus
Commissioner Haruna Dederi said. GengQuangrong had pleaded not guilty.
“This is a signal that whoever is coming to a society should be prepared to comply with the extant laws of that society,” Dederi said.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina:
Judges overseeing a high-profile human rights trial in Argentina convicted 11 former officials of crimes against humanity on Tuesday, in the first case to focus on the former military dictatorship’s overlooked practice of committing sexual violence against transgender women.
The trial at the court in a southern suburb of the capital, spanned nearly four years and added new details and insight to previously chronicled atrocities, deepening the nation’s understanding of its traumatic history. Transgender plaintiffs took the witness stand for the first time in a series of chilling hearings that put a spotlight both on the suffering of the transgender community and on the widespread tactic of sexual violence under the right-wing dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983.
Human rights groups estimate that 30,000 people suspected of opposing the military government were abducted, systematically tortured in clandestine detention centers and “disappeared” during the time.
CARACAS, Venezuela:
Venezuela’s main opposition coalition said Tuesday afternoon that the country’s government allowed them to register a provisional candidate for the upcoming presidential election, amid a wave of criticisms after opposition leaders said they were blocked from registering their candidate of choice the night before.
The coalition, the Unitary Democratic Platform, said they temporarily enlisted former diplomat
as their candidate as a way to “preserve the exercise of the political rights that correspond to our political organization” until they are able to register another candidate. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the coalition said it was not allowed to access the registration system, but was later granted an extension.
Urrutia ❑ ❑ ❑ La Plata, Edmundo González
Death sentences for capital offenses are common in Nigeria and sometimes involve foreigners. A Danish man in 2022 was sentenced to die by hanging for killing his wife and daughter. (AP)
❑ ❑ ❑ 4 get death in Tunisia:
A Tunisian court sentenced four people to death and two to life in prison on charges stemming from the murder of a left-wing politician, a public prosecutor said Wednesday.
Chokri Belaid, the 48-year-old leader of the Popular Front coalition, was shot in his car outside his home in Tunis in February 2013. His assassination, the country’s first in decades, prompted mass protests and helped lead to the resignation of the thenprime minister.
Those criticisms and subsequent assassinations later that year set off a political crisis for Tunisia as it struggled to transition from dictatorship to democracy. (AP)
❑ ❑ ❑ Journalist to face trial:
A prominent Tunisian journalist was put under pre-trial detention on a judge’s order after a Tuesday hearing in which he dangled the prospect of publishing reporting on corruption and the misuse of public funds by several ministers and public institutions.
Mohamed Boughalleb’s court hearing came four days after he was arrested in Tunis on suspicion of insulting a public official on social media. (AP)