Month: April 2024

Fifty-one passengers were rescued after the bus they were traveling in was swept away by floodwaters on a river bridge in northern Kenya, authorities said Tuesday (Apr.9).

The bus is still stuck in the river some 30 meters away from the bridge, although the waters are continuing to subside,Tana River county commander Ali Ndiema told The Associated Press.

Ndiema said the road has now been closed indefinitely. He said anyone found violating the order will be arrested and charged.

He said all passengers are accounted-for. Police are looking for the driver of the bus who ignored passengers’ concerns and insisted on driving through the water.

Police said some of the passengers managed to escape just before the bus was submerged, while others climbed onto the roof.

The incident happened just hours after Kenya’s roads agency announced the closure of another section of the same road that was flooded after the Tana River swelled due to continuing heavy rains.

The government had on Monday issued a flood alert to residents of Tana River and Lamu counties after a dam upstream was breached by flooding.

The Cuban boxing team defeated their French opponents in all eight bouts, gaining “mental strength” and “preparation” in a friendly bout on the road to the qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

All winners were by 5-0 unanimous decision.

“The French team won, mentally they won,” Dominique Nato, president of the French boxing federation, told to SNTV, who is very clear that the goal is preparation. “We came here to look for mental, technical and tactical strength” he added.

“Both teams worked, one won and the other lost but neither lost because we came here to prepare.” Said Luis Mariano Gonzalez, coach of the island’s boxing team since 2007.

The string of victories was led by Olympic champions Julio Cesar La Cruz (92 kg) and Arlen Lopez (80 kg), against Soheb Bouafia and Cesar Yojerlin respectively, in the friendly match held Friday night at the Varadero resort.

“Today we fought in Cuba, they (the Cuban team) were in front of their public and that gave them a lot of strength, said to SNTV the twice French champion Soheb Bouafia (92kg). “When we are in France we will be with our French public and so we can win,” he said.

Sofiane Oumiha (63.5 kg), two-time Olympic silver medalist and three-time World Champion, was a last-minute withdrawal from the line-up because he was not feeling well, and was replaced by twice national champion Hugo Robert Grau.

Cuba’s economic crisis and the migration of athletes has hit boxing hard , a sport that historically filled the medal table of the island in Olympic events and other international competitions.

The Caribbean country has accumulated 41 Olympic titles since the first gold medal won in this sport by Téofilo Stevenson in Munich 1972.

“To have fought with the French team, almost all of them already qualified for the Olympic Games, and to have beaten them here, apart from fighting in our home ground , it is a good sign for us.” La Cruz said.

The last Olympic qualifying tournament will be held in Thailand from May 25 to June 3.

More than people were killed off Mozambique’s northern coast on Sunday, when the makeshift ferry they were travelling in sank, according to local media.

The boat was carrying 130 people, including many children, who were attempting to make the crossing to Mozambique Island from Lunga in Nampula province.

Local online media TV Diário Nampula reported that some of those onboard had been travelling to attend a fair on the island while others were fleeing a cholera outbreak.

Nampula Secretary of State Jaime Neto was reported as saying that misinformation about an alleged cholera outbreak caused people to panic and board the boat.

“Because the boat was overcrowded and unsuited to carry passengers it ended up sinking,” said Mr. Neto.

While rescue efforts continued on Monday, only five people of the 130 onboard have so far been rescued, according to officials.

Alongside neighbouring countries Zimbabwe and Malawi, Mozambique has in recent months been affected by a deadly cholera outbreak that authorities are battling to contain.

Since October 2023, Mozambique has reported 13,700 confirmed cases and 30 deaths. Nampula province has been one of the worst-affected by the outbreak.

The northern province has seen an influx of people fleeing conflict in neighbouring Cabo Delgado province, with the latest wave of violence in February resulting in over 33,000 new arrivals.

In a video unveiled by leading Zimbabwean newspaper The Sunday Mail, president Emmerson Mnangagwa dismissed allegations he would run for an unconstitutional third term.

“There is not an iota of evidence where Zanu PF or I, as President, has ever expressed the violation of our Constitution,” the 81-year-old said.

“We in Zanu PF are very democratic and we obey the Constitution.”

Zanu PF, the ruling party has reigned over Zimbabwe since independence.

Much attention has been drawn to a slogan heard at Zanu PF rallies in recent months ‘2030 vaMnangagwa vanenge vachipo’ (loosely translated as ‘2030 Mnangagwa will still be president’).

The party secured a supermajority in Parliament last February in disputed by-elections.

This left it closer to changing the constitution if it wishes.

Zimbabwe’s 2013 Constitution limits the presidential term of office to two five-year mandates and establishes a constitutional court.

A supporter of a hard line and heavyweight of the party in power (Zanu-PF) since independence, Mnangagwa became head of state at the end of a war of succession which opposed him to Grace Mugabe, the wife of president Robert Mugabe who was dismissed in 2017.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says it is assessing the impact of a deep drought in Africa and working on ways to provide support to the affected countries. It comes as several African countries declared national emergencies over drought.

Julie Kozack, Communications Director, International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Thursday in a press conference that the ‘IMF has over the last several years and decade seen an increased frequency of climate shocks globally’.

“And Africa has been particularly hard hit by these climate shocks. And we see this, of course, happening now with these droughts in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia.”

East Africa is facing its worst drought in 40 years, impacting more than 29 million people. The ripple effects are huge. Mass population displacement, malnutrition, food insecurity, and disease outbreaks such as Cholera.

In Somalia alone, about 1.4 million people have been displaced by drought while in Zambia, President Hakainde Hichilema declared a national disaster and emergency over drought in March, saying it had devastated food production and electricity supply.

The country’s Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union held Tuesday a protest in the western county of Kisumu while the union convened a general assembly of doctors, medical interns and students in Nairobi.

Talks between the government and the union have so far not borne any deal.

The striking professionals demand among other grievances comprehensive medical cover for the doctors, that the government posts 1,200 medical interns and accuses authorities of failing to implement a raft of promises from a collective bargaining agreement signed in 2017.

The striking professionals also demand the payment of salary arrears.

Local media reported late Monday that clinical officers have joined the doctors in the strike.

The impact of the 3-week strike is being felt across the country with many patients left unattended or being turned away from hospitals across the East African nation.

Many can’t afford going to private hospitals

Kenyan doctors began their nationwide strike on March 15.