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Aurora Humanitarian Issues Media Monitoring 3/11/19
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U.S. Airstrikes Kill Hundreds in Somalia as Shadowy Conflict Ramps Up
Mar 10, 2019 | The New York Times
By Eric Schmitt and Charlie Savage
The American military has escalated a battle against the Shabab, an extremist group affiliated with Al Qaeda, in Somalia even as President Trump seeks to scale back operations against similar Islamist insurgencies elsewhere in the world, from Syria and Afghanistan to West Africa. A surge in American airstrikes over the last four months of 2018 pushed the annual death toll of suspected Shabab fighters in Somalia to the third record high in three years. Last year, the strikes killed 326 people in 47 disclosed attacks, Defense Department data show. -
Sudanese opposition leader's daughter jailed over protests: party
Mar 11, 2019 | Reuters
By Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Aidan Lewis
The deputy head of Sudan’s opposition Umma Party was sentenced to a week in prison on Sunday for demonstrating against the president, a party official and a lawyer said, as activists protested against emergency laws imposed last month. Mariam Sadiq al-Mahdi, the daughter of Umma leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, was among a group of 16 detained while demonstrating in front of Umma’s headquarters in Omdurman, across the Nile from the center of the capital, Khartoum, said defense lawyer Khalafallah Hussein. -
Women in Torit continue struggle to end societal ills that affect them
Mar 10, 2019 | Reliefweb
By Samira y. Salifu
Education for women and girls is often relegated to the background in Torit. Women are frequently considered and treated as items to be bartered for more cattle to raise a family’s fortunes, and challenging this norm can be dangerous. Against this backdrop, many a young woman gives up her dreams even before trying to achieve them. -
Ethiopia Plane Crash Highlights U.N.’s Work in World’s Trouble Spots
Mar 11, 2019 | The New York Times
By Mike Ives
The crash — of a flight that had been nicknamed the “U.N. shuttle” because of how often United Nations staff members take it — has also highlighted the organization’s work in some of the world’s most troubled regions, from South Sudan to North Korea. -
Madagascar battles killer measles outbreak
Mar 11, 2019 | The Guardian.ng
Widespread malnutrition and low rates of immunisation on the Indian Ocean island have ramped up the killing power of the highly infectious virus, called the measles. In the last six months, nearly 1,000 children have been killed by the resurgent disease that vaccination once appeared to have tamed.
Somalia
Sudan
South Sudan
Ethiopia
Madagascar
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U.S. Airstrikes Kill Hundreds in Somalia as Shadowy Conflict Ramps Up
Mar 10, 2019 | The New York Times
By Eric Schmitt and Charlie Savage
WASHINGTON — The American military has escalated a battle against the Shabab, an extremist group affiliated with Al Qaeda, in Somalia even as President Trump seeks to scale back operations against similar Islamist insurgencies elsewhere in the world, from Syria and Afghanistan to West Africa.
A surge in American airstrikes over the last four months of 2018 pushed the annual death toll of suspected Shabab fighters in Somalia to the third record high in three years. Last year, the strikes killed 326 people in 47 disclosed attacks, Defense Department data show.
And so far this year, the intensity is on a pace to eclipse the 2018 record. During January and February, the United States Africa Command reported killing 225 people in 24 strikes in Somalia. Double-digit death tolls are becoming routine, including a bloody five-day stretch in late February in which the military disclosed that it had killed 35, 20 and 26 people in three separate attacks.
Africa Command maintains that its death toll includes only Shabab militants, even though the extremist group claims regularly that civilians are also killed. The Times could not independently verify the number of civilians killed. The rise in airstrikes has also exacerbated a humanitarian crisis in the country, according to United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations working in the region, as civilians are displaced by conflict and extreme weather.
“People need to pay attention to the fact that there is this massive war going on,” said Brittany Brown, who worked on Somalia policy at the National Security Council in the Obama and Trump administrations and is now the chief of staff of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization focused on deadly conflicts.
The war in Somalia appears to be “on autopilot,” she added, and one that is drawing the United States significantly deeper into an armed conflict without much public debate.
Somalia, a country that occupies a key strategic location in the Horn of Africa, has faced civil war, droughts and an influx of Islamist extremists over the years. The growing United States military engagement stands in stark contrast to the near-abandonment not long after the “Black Hawk Down” battle in 1993, which left 18 Americans and hundreds of militia fighters dead.
The intensifying bombing campaign undercuts the Trump administration’s intended pivot to confront threats from great powers like China and Russia, and away from long counterinsurgency and counterterrorism campaigns that have been the Pentagon’s focus since 2001.
Analysts suggested that the increase in American strikes may also reflect an unspoken effort by American commanders to inflict as much punishment on the Shabab while they can.
“Many of our commanders probably see a renewed urgency to degrade the enemy quickly and forcefully,” said Luke Hartig, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council during the Obama administration.
Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, the head of Africa Command, said planned cutbacks elsewhere would not affect what the military is doing in Somalia.
“We’ll maintain our capability and capacity there,” General Waldhauser told the House Armed Services Committee last Thursday. Africa Command is scaling back American forces nearly everywhere else on the continent in a move that poses a particular threat for West Africa, which is grappling with a range of extremist groups.
The Shabab formally pledged its allegiance to Al Qaeda in 2012. But long before that, it fought Western-backed governments in Mogadishu as the group sought to impose its extremist interpretation of Islam across Somalia. In defending the fragile government, the United States has largely relied on proxy forces, including about 20,000 African Union peacekeepers from Uganda, Kenya and other East African nations.
The United States estimates that the Shabab has about 5,000 to 7,000 fighters in Somalia, but the group’s ranks are fluid. A State Department official, citing interviews from Shabab deserters, said that the number of hard-core ideologues may be as few as 500.
There are also now roughly 500 American troops in Somalia. Most are Special Operations forces stationed at a small number of bases spread across the country. Their missions include training and advising Somali army and counterterrorism troops and conducting kill-or-capture raids of their own.
The Shabab has proved resilient against the American airstrikes, and continues to carry out regular bombings in East Africa.
A range of current and former American officials said no seismic strategic shift explains the increased airstrikes and higher body count; the mission remains providing security so the fledgling Somali government will have time and space to develop its own effective military and security services.
But they noted a range of contributing factors for the rise in tempo and lethality of the military campaign.
Taking a page from counterinsurgency tactics developed in Afghanistan, American forces have helped Somali soldiers build several outposts across Somalia, about 20 percent of which is still controlled by the Shabab. One is named for Staff Sgt. Alexander W. Conrad, of Chandler, Ariz., who was killed in a mortar attack last year while he helped to build it.
The Shabab views the outposts “as an irritant, and masses to go after it,” Maj. Gen. Gregg Olson, the Africa Command’s director of operations, said in an interview.
In turn, that has put attacking Shabab fighters in the cross hairs of American airstrikes to defend the Somali forces.
Several officials said intelligence operations — including aerial surveillance, electronic intercepts and informant networks — have improved over the past year.
American troops with the secretive Joint Special Operations Command have built up informant networks that lead to raids and strikes, after which they collect cellphones, laptops and documents to generate information for more.
The drawdown of American military operations elsewhere in the world — including in Syria and, to a lesser immediate extent, Afghanistan — also has most likely freed up more drones and other gunships for use over Somalia, several former United States officials said.
“We were geared up for counterterrorism efforts in Somalia, and now there are more resources to do it, so we’re doing more of it,” suggested Stephen Schwartz, who served as the United States ambassador to Somalia from 2016 to 2017, although he cautioned that he had no current insider knowledge.
“It could be there is some well-thought-out strategy behind all of this,” Mr. Schwartz added, “but I really doubt it.”
The loosening of Obama-era constraints on using force in Somalia, as approved by President Trump in 2017, has also contributed.
Shortly after taking office, Mr. Trump declared Somalia to be an “area of active hostilities” subject to war-zone rules. That freed the United States military to carry out offensive operations whenever Shabab militants presented themselves — including against foot soldiers without special skills or roles.
Mr. Trump also delegated authority to commanders to carry out strikes without high-level interagency vetting. But Africa Command was initially slow to embrace it, waiting months before it carried out its first strike in 2017 under the new rules.
Now, however, it has opened the throttle, according to military data compiled by Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who has tracked counterterrorism airstrikes for more than a decade on his Long War Journal.
Many of the recent airstrikes have targeted large groups of suspected fighters, killing more than 10 people in a single fierce swoop. Africa Command has disclosed strikes and estimated death tolls in a series of terse news releases, earning scant attention from Congress or the news media.
Along with the European Union and the United Nations, the United States also has continued to invest in so-called soft power assistance to Somalia, providing humanitarian aid such as food to drought victims, and development programs on education and training.
Officials cited signs of recent incremental progress in efforts to help the Somali government build a functional national army. And in December, the United States re-established a permanent diplomatic presence in Somalia for the first time since 1991. The current United States ambassador to Somalia, Donald Yamamoto, lives in Mogadishu, although the mission consists of a windowless bunker at the well-guarded airport.
There is good reason for caution. In 2013, Shabab militants carried out a deadly attack at the Westgate mall in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. In January, they attacked a luxury hotel and office complex in Nairobi, killing 21 people. And in late February, the Shabab claimed a double bombing and the siege of a hotel in Mogadishu that killed at least 25 people.
General Olson said the military would continue to go after the Shabab as long as that is its mission.
“We go after the network when the network presents itself, whether a single node or a concentration,” he said. “We’ve developed intelligence and are sussing out the relationship between the leadership and those being led; between those being led and those being trained or recruited or massed for an attack.”
“We understand the network better than we have in years past,” General Olson said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/us/politics/us-somalia-airstrikes-shabab.html
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Sudanese opposition leader's daughter jailed over protests: party
Mar 11, 2019 | Reuters
By Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Aidan Lewis
CAIRO (Reuters) - The deputy head of Sudan’s opposition Umma Party was sentenced to a week in prison on Sunday for demonstrating against the president, a party official and a lawyer said, as activists protested against emergency laws imposed last month.
Mariam Sadiq al-Mahdi, the daughter of Umma leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, was among a group of 16 detained while demonstrating in front of Umma’s headquarters in Omdurman, across the Nile from the center of the capital, Khartoum, said defense lawyer Khalafallah Hussein.
The court also fined her 2,000 Sudanese pounds ($42) for participating in the protest, which called on President Omar al-Bashir to step down, said Mohamed al-Mahdi Hassan, head of the party’s political bureau.
Another of Sadiq al-Mahdi’s daughters, Rabah, was also arrested and fined 500 pounds, according to Hussein.
Bashir declared a state of emergency last month after weeks of demonstrations, the most sustained challenge to his rule since he came to power in the coup that overthrew Sadiq al-Mahdi in 1989.
On Sunday afternoon, hundreds took to the streets in different areas of Omdurman to protest against the emergency laws. Police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse them.
The measures include an expansion of powers for the security services and a ban on unlicensed public gatherings. More than 800 people have been tried in the emergency courts, according to the Democratic Alliance of Lawyers, an opposition group.
On Saturday, nine female Sudanese protesters were sentenced to 20 lashes and one month in prison for rioting, the alliance said.
Mariam Sadiq al-Mahdi was briefly arrested at the end of January in connection with the protests.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-protests/sudanese-opposition-leaders-daughter-jailed-over-protests-party-idUSKBN1QR0HS?il=0
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Women in Torit continue struggle to end societal ills that affect them
Mar 10, 2019 | Reliefweb
By Samira y. Salifu
“I cannot be the only one, surely there are other educated young women in Torit!” protested Flora Sebit, a representative of the youth wing in the women leaders’ association.
Ms. Sebit’s outburst came during a radio discussion on Radio Miraya, which focused on social exclusion issues faced by women in the Eastern Equatoria region of South Sudan. She explained that she is very often delegated as a spokesperson on women’s issues at functions because organizers know she is literate and can express herself well.
Fortunately, she does indeed have some eloquent peers and sisters.
“In this society, a (young) woman with children sees her children as a rope. She feels tethered and unable to continue with her education or seek a better life,” said Joyce Amito, secretary of the women leaders’ association.
Education for women and girls is often relegated to the background in this region. Women are frequently considered and treated as items to be bartered for more cattle to raise a family’s fortunes, and challenging this norm can be dangerous. Against this backdrop, many a young woman gives up her dreams even before trying to achieve them.
“When you come to Torit, you will find the streets teeming with young women selling tea. This is because they either did not go to school or dropped out of school, so they lack the necessary employable skills,” Ms. Sebit continued.
Ms. Sebit and Ms. Amito are two of the women leaders in the region who defy the status quo. Their association, Women Leaders’ Association in Torit, counsels young women who have been the victims of early or forced marriages, or sexual and gender-based violence, or both. Their organization raises awareness on the importance of girl child education. In addition, with the support of development partners, it also provides young girls and women with vocational trainings, like baking and dressmaking.
Under this year’s local theme for International Women’s Day, “Think Equal: Make 35% + Count for Women’s Participation’’, their association joined hands with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, the Ministry of Gender and other partners to increase the reach of their advocacy for women’s rights.
“Eastern Equatoria has made some strides in engaging women at all levels of government. However, in the spirit of reinforcing gains, the government has committed to further increasing female participation to exceed the 35 per cent rate,” said the Torit governor Tobiolo Alberio Oromo.
His words resonated with those used by the United Nation’s Secretary-General, António Guterres, in a speech read on his behalf at the launch:
“We live in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture. Only when we see women’s rights as our common objective, a route to change that benefits everyone, will we begin to shift the balance. … Increasing the number of women decision-makers is fundamental.”
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan continues to engage with the women leaders association and other gender based groups to build on and consolidate social integration efforts.
“We are ready, willing and committed to this process of working with state institutions to eradicate common social exclusion ills like early and forced marriages, sexual and gender-based violence and the neglect of girl child education in Eastern Equatoria,” assured Anthony Nwapa, a representative of the peacekeeping mission.
https://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan/women-torit-continue-struggle-end-societal-ills-affect-them
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Ethiopia Plane Crash Highlights U.N.’s Work in World’s Trouble Spots
Mar 11, 2019 | The New York Times
By Mike Ives
Two days before Joanna Toole, a United Nations fisheries consultant, boarded an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Nairobi, Kenya, she tweeted that she was happy to be among an increasing number of women working for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
“Great to be part of the growing number of women” working on fisheries issues, she wrote, adding a hashtag referring to International Women’s Day.
On Sunday, Ms. Toole, from southwest England, was among at least 22 people who worked for United Nations-affiliated agencies who were killed when the Kenya-bound flight crashed after takeoff. The crash killed all 157 people aboard and raised questions about the safety of the model of aircraft, the Boeing 737 Max 8.
The crash — of a flight that had been nicknamed the “U.N. shuttle” because of how often United Nations staff members take it — has also highlighted the organization’s work in some of the world’s most troubled regions, from South Sudan to North Korea.
The United Nations said its staff members on the flight had worked with several agency programs and affiliated organizations, as well as United Nations offices in Kenya and Somalia.
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, offered “heartfelt condolences” to the families and loved ones of the United Nations staff members who died in the crash. He also said in an email to staff that flags at United Nations offices would fly at half-mast on Monday to honor the victims.
The World Food Program said seven of its staff members had died in the crash, the most of any United Nations organization. The program’s work focuses on widespread hunger caused by war or instability in Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen, among other countries.
“As we mourn, let us reflect that each of these W.F.P. colleagues were willing to travel and work far from their homes and loved ones to help make the world a better place to live,” David Beasley, the head of the program, said in a statement. “That was their calling, as it is for the rest of the W.F.P. family.”
The World Food Program victims included Ekta Adhikari of Nepal, who had worked for the program in Ethiopia; Michael Ryan of Ireland, who had helped Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh prepare for seasonal monsoons; and Zhen-Zhen Huang of China, who had worked in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.
“I cannot imagine the loss felt by your loved ones, especially your son,” one of Ms. Huang’s colleagues, Faizza Tanggol, wrote on Twitter.
Other victims of the crash had been traveling to United Nations events. One was Sebastiano Tusa, an underwater archaeologist from Italy who had been traveling to Kenya for a Unesco conference about safeguarding underwater cultural heritage in Eastern Africa.
Others, including Ms. Toole, were traveling to the United Nations Environment Assembly, a meeting in Kenya this week focusing on issues like sustainable development and environmental challenges related to poverty, natural resources and waste management.
Another person traveling to that gathering was Victor Tsang, a gender expert from Hong Kong who worked for the United Nations Environment Program in Nairobi. According to his biography on the Environment Program website, Mr. Tsang had worked in Chad, Ethiopia, Panama and South Sudan.
A Twitter account that appears to be Mr. Tsang’s says that while his profession was working on sustainable development, his passion was camping with his 2-year-old son in the family’s garden. His penultimate Twitter post appears to show him dancing with colleagues on Valentine’s Day to celebrate sustainable development.
“Victor was so dedicated, and a dear colleague,” one of his former colleagues in Nairobi, Oona Tully, wrote on Twitter.
Ms. Toole, the fisheries expert from England, had been traveling to the Environment Assembly to represent the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Manuel Barange, the department’s director, wrote on Twitter.
Ms. Toole, 36, was from Exmouth, in the southwestern English region of Devon. The Exmouth Journal reported that she had attended a local community college before studying animal behavior at the university level.
“Everybody was very proud of her and the work she did. We’re still in a state of shock,” her father, Adrian Toole, told the local news site Devon Live. “Joanna was genuinely one of those people who you never heard a bad word about.”
Ms. Toole, who had kept homing pigeons and pet rats as a child, often posted on social media about initiatives to protect animals from marine pollution and make the fishing industry more environmentally friendly.
Her father retweeted her penultimate post, about her friend who was paddle boarding around the Maldives to raise money for turtles affected by derelict fishing gear.
Mr. Toole’s next retweet was of a post on the same day by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
“We won’t bring about peace in the world merely by praying for it; we have to take steps to tackle the violence and corruption that disrupt peace,” the Dalai Lama wrote. “We can’t expect change if we don’t take action.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/world/africa/ethiopian-airlines-plane-crash-victims.html
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Madagascar battles killer measles outbreak
Mar 11, 2019 | The Guardian.ng
Frangeline is aged two but weighs no more than a four-month-old — the terrible result of her battle with measles, which is cutting a deadly swathe through Madagascar.
Widespread malnutrition and low rates of immunisation on the Indian Ocean island have ramped up the killing power of the highly infectious virus.
In the last six months, nearly 1,000 children have been killed by a resurgent disease that vaccination once appeared to have tamed.
Now on a drip, the scrawny infant was only saved because her mother Soa Robertine, 32, made the 25-kilometre (15-mile) trek from her home to the Anivorano-nord health centre, in the island’s far north.
Without her timely action, respiratory or neurological complications arising from the virus would have proved fatal, doctors said.
“Frangeline is suffering severe malnutrition and she wasn’t vaccinated” against measles,” said the clinic’s head of medicine, Hollande Robisoa.
“She contracted a complicated form of measles and she would have died if she hadn’t been brought here.”
Many other children have not been so lucky.
Between last September and February, there were more than 79,000 cases of measles in Madagascar, 926 of which were fatal, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Anivorano-nord clinic has had 510 patients suffering from “kitrotro” and “kisaosy” — the local names for measles.
Roughly 100 patients were hospitalised but only four lost their lives, according to official statistics.
But many local people dispute the numbers in a community where rumours are common.
“I heard that hundreds of children have already died,” said Sylvain Randriamaro, 46, sitting in the hospital waiting room.
“I was alarmed, so I decided to vaccinate my two children,” aged five and six, he said.
Measles has hit Madagascar barely a year after it was gripped by an outbreak of plague that claimed 200 lives.
“It’s a major epidemic,” said doctor Vincent Sodjinou, a WHO representative.
“It’s down to the fact that for almost a decade the rate of vaccine coverage was not high enough and, over generations, the numbers of unvaccinated people have increased.”
‘Malnutrition a bed for measles’
Measles can be relatively benign if symptoms like fever and cough are handled promptly.If not, there is a risk of “opportunistic” illness such as pneumonia or diarrhoea — diseases that can fatally attack patients with weak immune systems.
In Madagascar, where 47 percent of children under five are malnourished, the disease has proved particularly dangerous.
“It’s often said that malnutrition makes a bed for measles,” said Sodjinou. “The most serious cases are often reported in malnourished children.”
The paediatric ward at Antsiranana’s military hospital, north of Anivorano, has been overwhelmed.
“Normally we only treat one measles case here every two months,” said head of medicine Ravohavy Setriny Mahatsangy. “We’ve had 444 just since December.”
Mahatsangy blamed physical contact between patients, their “reluctance to go to hospital and opposition to vaccinations”.
The combination of factors has wrought a tragic toll on his patients.
One example is Marie Lydia Zafisoa, aged eight, whose “mother took her to a witchdoctor… and then a traditional healer who prescribed six baths,” according to her aunt Bana Tombo.
When that failed, Zafisoa’s father carried her to the clinic.
“It was too late — she died on the way, on her father’s shoulders,” said Tombo.
Seven-month-old Adriano Luc Rakototsioharana was more fortunate.
Her grandmother Catherine had also turned to traditional medicine before taking her to hospital.
She barely survived the ordeal — but even so, Catherine remains adamant that traditional medicine holds the key.
“For measles, you need a cow dung infusion or a tea with bark from the lazalaza tree,” she said.
‘It’s the culture’
Doctors say that such beliefs are frustrating their efforts to roll back the disease.“It’s the culture,” Ravohavy said, with a resigned smile.
“Changing people’s mentality is far more difficult than treating measles.”
The profession also complains that the situation is worsening despite the state paying for most measles treatment.
“But the people prefer traditional healers who often advise them to refuse any hospitalisation,” said a health ministry official, doctor Said Borohany.
“And most villages are hours away from basic medical centres.”
The other viable solution, vaccinations, has been complicated by the lack of funds available for such a programme.
Until now the nation’s vaccination programme has administered only a single dose when the WHO recommends two.
The UN agency estimates that 5.6 million doses would be needed to contain the epidemic.
But Madagascar is $1.6 million (1.42 million euros) short of the $11.2 million needed to fund such an operation.
Newly-elected President Andry Rajoelina has promised to vaccinate all children aged between six months and nine years.
“Our goal is to eradicate measles,” he said.
But the fight will be long and difficult.
“Madagascar put in place a routine vaccination programme,” said the WHO envoy, Sodjinou. “But it remains inadequate to reach the furthest reaches of the country.”
https://guardian.ng/news/world/madagascar-battles-killer-measles-outbreak/
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