A Senegal judge has granted Chad’s former dictator Hissene Habre two months’ leave from prison, where he is serving life for crimes against humanity, as the jail is being used to hold new detainees in coronavirus quarantine.

Habre, who ruled Chad from 1982 to 1990, was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at an African Union-backed trial in the Senegalese capital Dakar in 2016.

A Chadian commission of inquiry estimated 40,000 people were killed by his regime.

After he was overthrown, Habre fled to Senegal and for more than 20 years lived freely in an upmarket Dakar suburb with his wife and children.

Dubbed “Africa’s Pinochet”, Habre was finally arrested in 2013 and tried by a special tribunal set up by the African Union under a deal with Senegal.

His trial set a global precedent as the first time a country had prosecuted the former leader of another nation for rights abuses, and was seen as a landmark example of African rights abuses being tried on the continent.

Since his conviction, the ex-leader in his late 70s has been serving his sentence in a penal establishment in Cap Manuel, at the tip of the peninsula where Dakar is located.

His lawyer Mamadou Diawara had requested 60 days’ leave for Habre as, due to his age, he was “particularly vulnerable” to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the judge’s order obtained by AFP on Monday.

Judge Boubacar Ndiaye noted that the Cap Manuel prison has been selected by the Senegalese authorities to hold newly arrested detainees in solitary confinement while they are under quarantine to avoid possible spread of COVID-19 in jail.

He granted a 60-day temporary leave to Habre, to be served at his home in Ouakam, a district of Dakar, and ordered him to return to prison on its expiry.

An association of victims of his regime last week said “the health crisis should not be used as an excuse for the early release of Hissene Habre”.

Senegal has registered 226 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and two deaths.

Source: AFP

It is a cry from the heart and the stomach that is reverberating across African towns and cities reeling under lockdowns and curfews to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

“How can anyone stay home without anything to eat?” asked Garcia Landu, a motorcycle taxi driver in the bustling Angolan seaside capital of Luanda.

He ventured out to try and earn a living, defying the government-ordered anti-coronavirus restrictions.

“We have responsibilities towards our families. We have to go out and get food,” said Landu, sporting a helmet in the national red-and-black colours.

It’s “better to die of this disease or a gunshot than to starve to death,” he said. “To starve to death, I will never, ever accept that. I can’t”.

Days after the government declared a state of emergency and imposed restrictions on March 26, crowds continue to mass at markets, in front of shops or by water points in Luanda.

Under the restrictions, President Joao Lourenco has banned travel, meetings and public activities as the country reported 10 infections with two deaths.

“The situation demands… sacrifices from all citizens, whose rights and professional and social life will have to be restricted,” Lourenco said in a televised speech last week.

– ‘I have nothing at home’ –

But not to the point of depriving people of water, retorted Quechinha Paulina, a widow who has no running water in the heavily-populated Cazenga municipal district in the capital of the oil-rich country.

So she is forced to buy from private water bowsers. She placed an order and still awaits delivery.

“It’s been two weeks and it hasn’t come,” she said. “So today I got up at 3am to buy (elsewhere).

“I have nothing at home. I have children,” she said, complaining that nearly a week into the new month, she hasn’t received her social grant payment yet.

Despite the lockdown, many view earning money, finding food and fetching water as legitimate reasons to leave home.

Announcing a slew of measures to help keep people at home, the government also promised to distribute water in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

Telephone operators have joined in by offering free call minutes to avoid queues of people buying airtime recharge vouchers at their outlets.

But all that has failed to empty the streets of Luanda.

On the eve of the state of emergency, the police chief, Paulo de Almeida, vowed to hammer home the message about the seriousness of the virus.

“But we will not tolerate disobedience,” he warned. “It’s a question of everyone’s health.”

–‘People are stubborn’ –

On Friday, Interior Minister Eugenio Laborinho reported that 1,209 people had been detained in just days, more than 1,000 of them for having entered Angola after the borders were shut on March 27, and 189 for violating the state of emergency.

“The police are not on the ground to please (people) or to distribute chocolates,” Laborinho told journalists. “People are stubborn anyway, they know they have to stay home”.

The lockdown order has largely gone unnoticed in the daily grind and hustle on the capital’s streets.

“The disease is dangerous, we see that. Everyone sees that, everyone knows,” said Domingos Joao, a taxi driver.

“But (by) staying at home, we won’t achieve anything. That is why we are in the streets, working with (and obeying) the rules, as you see.

“Before passengers climb in, they are disinfected first,” he said showing a bottle of hand sanitiser.

Out doing his shopping, teacher Geraldo Dala, is fearful that “if COVID-19 starts spreading here, that will be it! Thousands will be infected”.

But he justified his and others being out on the streets because “people have to go out for bread or a kilo of rice”.

“The state of emergency will not be respected as long as people depend on street hawking to feed their families,” said veteran journalist Rafael Marques.

Marques, who is usually critical of the government, agrees the emergency steps “were taken for the good of the people”.

Source:  AFP

Soldiers tower over youngsters in South Africa’s Soweto township, forcing them to do push-ups and roll on the floor as punishment for not adhering to a lockdown meant to halt the spread of coronavirus.

Caught on camera and circulated on social media, they added to a string of videos purporting to show violence by security forces deployed to enforce curfew and confinement across Africa.

Rubber bullets, tear gas and whips have been used to maintain social distancing in shopping queues and to discipline citizens caught outside their homes without valid reason.

“It seems to be the only way in which authorities know how to deal with the populace, through violence and humiliation,” said Amnesty International’s Shenilla Mohamed, executive director for South Africa, adding that abuse had also been reported from Zimbabwe, Kenya and Nigeria.

South African police are investigating the deaths of three citizens allegedly killed by patrols for defying the lockdown, which came into force last Friday.

“That’s almost the same amount of people that have died from coronavirus,” noted Mohamed, referring to the nation’s latest death toll of five.

One person was allegedly shot by police on his way home from a bar — a direct breach of regulations prohibiting the sale of alcohol during the 21-day shutdown.

Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has condemned the reported heavyhandedness and vowed to withdraw soldiers caught abusing their powers.

– Intimidation tactics –

To date coronavirus has infected more than 5,690 people in Africa and killed at least 195, according to an AFP tally.

The pandemic has been slow to reach the continent, despite an acceleration in recent weeks, and numbers remain relatively low compared to other parts of the world.

Dozens of African governments have made use of the extra time to roll out curfews and shutdowns earlier than their worse-hit counterparts in the West.

But such measures are difficult to enact in countries where most people live in poverty and work informally, often in packed urban slums with little access to sanitation.

“If we take measures which starve everybody, they will quickly end up being defied,” said Benin’s President Patrica Talon on Sunday, adding that his country lacked the means to enforce public confinement.

As governments have struggled to keep citizens indoors, their security forces have been quick to fall back on intimidation tactics, raising widespread concern.

“It is unacceptable to see such inhuman and degrading treatment against the population,” tweeted Nicolas Simard, Canada’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, in response to a video of masked policemen beating a young man to the ground in the capital Kinshasa, which went into lockdown last week.

– ‘Excessive’ and ‘detestable’ –

“This is uncalled for and inappropriate,” tweeted Mombasa governor Hassan Joho after police charged hundreds of commuters waiting for a ferry in Kenya’s port city.

Clad in riot gear, they fired tear gas at the crowd before the start of a dusk-to-dawn curfew, forcing people to the ground and whipping them.

The Mombasa Law Society denounced the police intervention as “excessive” and “detestable”.

Uganda’s army meanwhile apologised for a “high-handed” response after security forces violently cleared the streets in the capital Kampala, causing an outcry.

In a separate incident, two men were hospitalised after being shot by police for violating a restriction on public transport.

Footage from Senegal surfaced last week showing policemen beating people found outside after a night curfew.

In one video, officials force three young men to do squats after they were caught exercising at night.

“No torture, no inhuman degrading treatment and no excessive use of force,” pleaded Amnesty International’s former West and Central Africa director Alioune Tine.

Police eventually assured that all “excessive interventions” had been punished.

– Innocent victims –

Yet the risk of a beating has done little to stop citizens across the continent from pursuing their daily activities.

The need to make a living trumps both fears of catching the deadly virus and encountering the police, prompting law enforcement officers to step up their show of force.

More than 1,100 people have been arrested for lockdown violations in South Africa, while Ivory Coast has detained 450 for failing to respect curfew.

Ivorian Human Rights Movement (MIDH) chief Doumbia Yacouba said many of the detainees had been beaten and mistreated.

“It is unacceptable and it adds to the psychosis created by coronavirus,” he said.

Further cause for concern emerged when Kenyan police called for an inquiry into the death of a 13-year old boy felled by a bullet allegedly fired by police as they cleared a slum area last week.

In South Africa, three young children were wounded when security officials allegedly opened fire against a man.

Human Rights Watch has called for urgent investigations into all abuse allegations and “disproportionate” use of force.

Source: AFP

A former president of the Republic of Congo has died after contracting coronavirus. Jacques Joaquim Yhombi-Opango is reported to have died at the age of 81 in a Paris hospital.

His family confirmed that he had underlying health conditions before contracting the virus. He served as president and Prime Minister in the Central African country.

Yhombi-Opango was president of Congo-Brazzaville from April 1977 until he was toppled in February 1979 by the country president Denis Sassou Nguesso.

He spent years in prison till the country introduced multi-party democracy in 1991. He served as Prime Minister under the government of Pascal Lissouba between 1992 and 1997, until a civil war broke out in 1997.

He went into exile in France, before being allowed to return home 10 years later.

Source: Africa News

Four countries led by war-ravaged Mali on Wednesday joined the lengthening list of African countries hit by the novel coronavirus as fears of the disease swept members of Nigeria’s political elite.

Mali, mired in an eight-year-old conflict, said two nationals who had returned from France had tested positive for the virus.

Libya, another conflict-torn country, as well as the volatile West African state of Guinea-Bissau and Uganda in East Africa also reported their first cases of COVID-19.

More than 2,400 cases were recorded in all of Africa as of Wednesday, according to an AFP tally, with 64 deaths.

Although the toll is far lower than those recorded in Europe, the United States and the Middle East, health experts say the world’s poorest continent is especially vulnerable to the virus.

Poor healthcare infrastructure, weak governance and crowded slums present ideal conditions for the respiratory disease to spread.

Conflict, in particular, is a major factor in aggravating the risk.

Mali is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency that erupted in the north in 2012 which has claimed thousands of military and civilian lives.

The conflict has since spread to the centre of the country, and large swathes of the vast semi-arid state lie outside of government control.

The government, which earlier banned commercial flights from virus-stricken countries, appealed for the public to “remain calm and to strictly respect the recommended preventive measures”.

The UN on Wednesday placed the spotlight on the Central African Republic (CAR), also gripped by conflict.

CAR “is one of the least prepared countries to face a COVID-19 outbreak, with 2.2 million people already in need of health assistance and about 70 percent of health services provided by humanitarian organisations,” the country’s coronavirus Global Humanitarian Response Plan warned.

– ‘Jittery’ in Nigeria –

In the Nigerian capital Abuja, meanwhile, fears spread of coronavirus infection among senior politicians.

A number of state governors as well as Vice President Yemi Osinbajo were in self-isolation after coming into contact with two individuals infected with COVID-19.

According to the president’s office and local media, one of them is President Muhammadu Buhari’s chief of staff, Abba Kyari, one of Nigeria’s most influential figures.

The political elite “is in panic mode following the confirmed case of the chief of staff,”a source close to the presidency said.

“As the engine room of government, (Kyari) has contact with various segments of the society. So everybody who has had contact with him since he returned from Germany is jittery. Most of us are in self-isolation.”

Nigeria’s elite often jet abroad for private medical care, typically favouring Britain or the United States, rather than entrusting themselves to the country’s rundown hospitals.

“STUCK!”, said author Elnathan John on social media. “Nowhere to run.”

Buhari, 77, who was re-elected in February last year, made several trips to London during his first four-year term for a condition that has never been disclosed.

– Lockdowns, curfews –

African states have been adopting increasingly restrictive measures against the invisible peril.

Senegal and Ivory Coast have declared states of emergency and ordered nighttime curfews, similar to South Sudan, which has ordered a nightly lockdown from 8 pm to 6 am.

South Africa, the continent’s largest economy, is set to enter a lockdown from Thursday.

Ethiopia announced Wednesday it would free more than 4,000 prisoners to help prevent an outbreak in overcrowded prisons.

The measures will apply to those jailed for “petty crimes” and drug offences or have less than a year remaining on their sentences.

Conditions in Ethiopia’s prisons are “harsh and in some cases life-threatening,” marred by “gross overcrowding and inadequate food, water, sanitation and medical care,” according to the latest annual human rights report on Ethiopia from the US State Department.

Source:  AFP

South Africa’s coronavirus cases jumped again to 709, the health minister said Wednesday, as the country with the most cases in Africa prepared to go into lockdown first thing Friday.

Health Minister Zweli Mkhize on state television pointed out “intense local spread” in Free State province among attendees of a church gathering where five cases were reported. All five in people who had recently traveled abroad. Now almost 30 cases have been recorded.

Cases across Africa are now well above 2,400. With Libya announcing its first case, 44 of the continent’s 54 countries now have the virus.

Those that have not recorded cases are Mali, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Burundi, Malawi, Botswana, Comoros, Lesotho and Sao Tome and Principe, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some have the most fragile health systems on the continent.

Congo became the latest country to close its borders while reporting its third death. The sprawling nation has one of Africa’s weakest health systems and has been battling another global health emergency, a deadly Ebola virus outbreak in the east.

While that outbreak now appears to be within days of being declared over, Congo also faces a large measles outbreak.

As more countries across Africa impose restrictions on gatherings and travel, many informal workers are suffering. Ethiopia’s government in a proposal to the Group of 20 major industrialized nations has said Africa needs a $150 billion emergency financing package because “COVID-19 poses an existential threat to the economies of African countries.”

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

Source: AP

The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo closed the country’s borders and imposed a state of emergency on Tuesday to contain the coronavirus outbreak, following other African nations that have imposed strict measures in recent days.

The virus is spreading quickly across Africa, infecting more than 1,700 people across 45 countries, challenging already fragile healthcare systems. Senegal and Ivory Coast on Monday declared their own states of emergency, imposing curfews and travel restrictions on their populations.

Over 40 people have contracted the virus in the DRC and three have been killed, raising concerns of a widespread outbreak, especially in the crowded capital Kinshasa where social distancing is an alien phenomenon.

“Coronavirus does not need a passport, visa or voter’s card to circulate in our house,” President Felix Tshisekedi said in a speech to the nation on Tuesday. “We find ourselves at war with an invisible adversary.”

The president banned internal passenger flights and river transport to and from Kinshasa, where all 45 of the known cases have been found. Last week, he suspended commercial flights from other countries with the virus, banned large gatherings and closed clubs, restaurants and bars.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

Suspected Islamist militants killed 29 Malian soldiers on Thursday in an attack on a base in the country’s northeast, the army said.

Suspected Islamist militants killed 29 Malian soldiers on Thursday in an attack on a base in the country’s northeast, the army said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in the town of Tarkint, which is about 125 km (78 miles) north of the city of Gao. Mali’s army has repeatedly suffered heavy casualties from jihadist fighters active in the area with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State.

The army said earlier in the day that just two soldiers had died but tweeted later that the death toll had “heavily evolved” to 29 killed and five wounded.

Vast swathes of central and northern Mali are effectively lawless, used by the jihadists as a base for attacks in Mali and into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso, where security has deteriorated markedly over the past year.

Former colonial power France has had thousands of troops across the semi-arid band beneath the Sahara Desert known as the Sahel, but French officials acknowledge they have failed to slow the violence.

French army chief Francois Lecointre told senators last month that the Malian, Nigerien and Burkinabe armies were losing the equivalent of one battalion per year to the militants’ attacks.

(REUTERS)

Burkina Faso has joined the list of African countries to have recorded corona-virus related death. Authorities announced the first COVID-19 death on Wednesday.

The country’s confirmed cases as at today Wednesday (March 18) are 26 with over 230 contacts being monitored. Other African countries that have reported fatalities include Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Sudan.

The authorities say the patient was a diabetic woman aged 62 years. Some reports on social media say it is a top lawmaker, Ms Rose Marie Compaore, who was the first-vice president of the parliament.

This is a very contagious illness that is potentially fatal and that for now has no treatment aside from prevention.

“This tragic event calls us all to recognise the scale and seriousness of the problem which confronts us all,” said Martial Ouedraogo, Burkina Faso’s COVID-19 response coordinator.

“This is a very contagious illness that is potentially fatal and that for now has no treatment aside from prevention,” he stressed.

 The West African country says the cases are concentrated in the capital Ouagadougou with Bobo-Dioulasso, the country’s second largest city, recording its first case recently.

Source: Africa News