APO News from Africa:
The European Union (EU) has given €3 million in humanitarian funds to support UNICEF’s emergency interventions in Ethiopia. The new grant will provide life-saving nutrition treatment for severely malnourished children living in drought-affected areas of the country.
In Ethiopia, below-average rainfall has worsened the situation in Somali, Afar, and parts of Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s (SNNP) regions, already severely affected by protracted drought. Access to water, sanitation and health services in these areas is critically low. In addition, livestock deaths have further reduced communities' capacity to cope, resulting in food and nutrition insecurity. An estimated 303,000 children under the age of five are at risk of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in 2017.
“We are grateful for EU’s continuous and generous assistance for life-saving interventions addressing malnutrition at this critical time,” said Ms Gillian Mellsop, UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia. “We believe that the funding will significantly improve the health condition of children affected by the current drought and reduce the long term impact of malnutrition including life-long cognitive impairments.”
The EU humanitarian funding will support UNICEF to reduce child mortality and morbidity associated with SAM. In order to reach vulnerable children in remote areas, UNICEF will support the Government to expand existing healthcare services and provide treatment supplies – including ready-to-use-therapeutic food (RUTF), therapeutic milk, and medicines. The intervention will also aim at mobilizing communities’ awareness on preventing malnutrition.
“As devastating drought hits pastoral communities in the south and south-east of Ethiopia, bringing in its wake Acute Watery Diarrhoea (AWD) , food and water shortages, the EU is scaling up funding to provide children with vital nutrition care,” said Ségolène de Beco, Ethiopia Head of Office for EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid (ECHO). “Infants and young children are extremely vulnerable to a combination of malnutrition and diseases. To avoid unnecessary deaths and suffering, we need to respond to the needs of these children in time with appropriate treatment and care.”
The concerted efforts of UNICEF with the EU, the Government of Ethiopia and other partners, will relieve the suffering of children while continuing to build long term resilience and strengthening the Government’s capacity to respond to future nutrition emergencies.
Distributed by APO on behalf of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
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Source: APO – Africa-Newsroom: latest news releases related to Africa
Somalia: Rights Priorities for New Government:
Somalia’s new government should ensure that the security forces are accountable and improve protection of the most vulnerable people, Human Rights Watch said today in a 10-point report on human rights priorities. The London conference on security sector reform in Somalia, slated for May 11, 2017, is an important opportunity for Somalia’s leadership and the country’s international partners to make a commitment to address past abuses and improve future responses to the many problems arising from war, famine, and political dysfunction.
On February 8, Somalia’s two houses of parliament selected former prime minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed “Farmajo” as the country’s president following a protracted electoral process. The new government, with support from its international partners, should take concrete steps to remove abusers from the security forces, put a stop to abuses against the country’s over 1.1 million internally displaced people, keep children out of the armed forces, step-up fair prosecutions for sexual violence, and improve media freedoms.
“Somalia’s new political leadership faces many critical problems that urgently need to be addressed,” said Laetitia Bader, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government should act quickly to protect all civilians at risk from further violence by holding rights abusers to account.”
Civilians across the country have borne the brunt of the fighting between government forces and the Islamist armed group Al-Shabab, and politicized clan conflict. Warring parties have all committed serious abuses against civilians during fighting and in areas they control. Given the government’s stated plans to step-up military operations against Al-Shabab, effective oversight and disciplinary mechanisms for the security forces will be crucial for protecting civilians, Human Right Watch said.
Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) has disregarded detainees’ basic rights, holding people for prolonged periods without charge, denying them access to legal counsel, and extracting confessions through coercion. Current discussions around creating a national security structure have so far overlooked the intelligence services. The government should clarify the legal mandate of security forces and provide better oversight to ensure redress for NISA abuses.
In recent years, Somali administrations have relied on military courts to try a broad range of cases beyond these courts’ jurisdiction, such as terrorism-related offenses and cases against civilians, in violation of international standards. At the London conference, the government should make a commitment to respect the fair trial rights of all defendants, prohibit trying civilians in military courts, and impose a moratorium on the death penalty.
All Somali parties to the conflict have used children under 18 in their forces in violation of international law, including government forces, despite public commitments not to do so. The government should establish effective measures to systematically screen the ages of all recruits, including former regional forces and militia members, and cease trying children implicated in crimes before the military courts, which do not apply juvenile justice standards.
With the country on the brink of another famine, the new government has made addressing the humanitarian crisis a priority. As part of those efforts, the authorities should end the serious abuses against displaced people, including illegal forced evictions.
The government should address threats, intimidation, and attacks on journalists that have long posed a threat to a free and vibrant media. It should encourage independent reporting on sensitive issues, such as corruption and security, revise the media law to bring it into line with international standards, and fully and credibly investigate threats and attacks on journalists. The government should also establish an independent and strong national human rights commission.
“Somalia’s international partners should support key reforms aimed at providing justice for serious abuses and bringing meaningful change for Somalia,” Bader said. “They should direct their assistance to ending abuses against civilians, building accountable security forces, and working with the government to assist the country’s most marginalized communities.”
Distributed by APO on behalf of Human Rights Watch (HRW).
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Source: APO – Africa-Newsroom: latest news releases related to Africa
Eritrea must free prize winning journalist, says UN human rights expert:
The Government of Eritrea must free journalist Dawit Isaak who has been awarded a prestigious press freedom prize some 15 years after he was detained, a United Nations human rights expert says.
The Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, Sheila B. Keetharuth, is also calling on the authorities in Asmara to release unconditionally all others detained unlawfully.
“The Eritrean authorities should stop the practice of arrests and detention carried out without legal basis instantly,” said Ms. Keetharuth, welcoming the award of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2017 to Mr. Isaak.
Dawit Isaak, who is 52 and a playwright, journalist and writer, moved to Sweden in 1987, where he later became a citizen. He returned to Eritrea only after independence in 1993 and was one of the founders and reporters of Setit, the first independent newspaper in the country.
Mr. Isaak was arrested in September 2001 during a political crackdown on the so-called G-15, a group of politicians, and journalists critical of Government policies. Some were detained and tortured, others disappeared. The last known sighting of Mr. Isaak was in 2005. His whereabouts now are unknown.
“The case of Mr. Isaak is emblematic of all those who have been subjected to enforced disappearances by the Government of Eritrea and remain unaccounted for,” said Ms. Keetharuth.
The Special Rapporteur recalled the findings of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea, which concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Eritrean officials had committed crimes against humanity, including the crime of enforced disappearance, in a persistent, widespread and systematic manner since 1991.
“The Government of Eritrea has an obligation to urgently provide information on the fate and whereabouts of all those deprived of physical liberty. This would be a first and long-overdue indication that the Government is committed to rebuilding trust with the Eritrean people,” Ms. Keetharuth said.
“By allowing independent monitors immediate and unhindered access to all places of detention, official and unofficial, the Government would send a strong signal that it acknowledges human rights violations of the past, while taking steps to improve the situation on the ground now.
“The arrests of Dawit Isaak and his fellow journalists remain the most visible sign of repression of freedom of expression. The Eritrean authorities continue to stifle all forms of expression that could be perceived as critical of the Government and its policies,” she said.
Ms. Keetharuth reaffirmed that freedom of expression was a basic human right, and a free press one of the tenets of a democratic society, providing a valuable check on potential excesses by government.
Distributed by APO on behalf of Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
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Source: APO – Africa-Newsroom: latest news releases related to Africa
