A group supporting victims of crime in South Africa says it will legally challenge a controversial Foreign Ministry decision to grant immunity to Grace Mugabe, a move which allowed the wife of Zimbabwe’s president to leave the country without standing trial for an alleged assault on a young model.

AfriForum’s chief Kallie Kriel said Monday that the civil rights organization was preparing a court injunction to set aside the decision to grant diplomatic immunity to Grace Mugabe after she reportedly assaulted Gabriella Engels, a 20-year-old model, with an electrical extension cord at a hotel in Johannesburg.

“We are going to ask the court to say that the decision to grant immunity is unlawful because our legislation says that diplomatic immunity cannot apply in serious crimes, and violence is part of that,” said Kriel.

The rights campaigner also said that Grace, the wife of Zimbabwe’s ailing leader Robert Mugabe, was in South Africa for medical assistance, adding that she could not enjoy diplomatic immunity during the stay.

“We believe that the diplomatic immunity should not have been granted,” Kriel said, adding, “She had been here for medical assistance with regards to her foot and therefore diplomatic immunity does not apply.”

Grace flew out of South Africa in the early hours of Sunday despite being sought by police for the assault on Engels, which left the young model with cuts on her forehead and on her head that required stitching. That had prompted the model to file an assault charge against Mugabe.

South Africa’s Foreign Ministry said later on Sunday in a statement that it had granted Grace Mugabe immunity, although it acknowledged that the decision “was not an easy one to make” and came after “careful consideration of all the relevant factors.”

AfriForum said, however, that seeking diplomatic immunity for Mugabe was an “afterthought” and that the Foreign Ministry’s decision was in line with a regional “culture of impunity.”

The group vowed to help Engels seek justice, adding that even if the court did not accept to overrule the immunity, the effort would still be positive as it could stop Grace Mugabe from visiting South Africa again.

“In the worst case scenario, if we get to a situation where she cannot come to the country any more, I think that will be a positive step,” said Kriel, adding, “But the first prize is to make sure she is being prosecuted.”

Source: Presstv

Susan Namondo Ngongi, outgoing Country Director for UNICEF Ghana, has been appointed as the new UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative for Eritrea. The Cameroonian born UN official was recently appointed to head Eritrea’s UN office and is due to take up her new post this August.

Prior to her coming to Ghana, Susan Namondo Ngongi, has worked with UNICEF across Africa spanning over a decade. She started her UNICEF career in 2000 as an emergencies specialist in Sudan before moving into a co-ordination role with UNICEF’s regional office for Eastern and Southern Africa and UNICEF headquarters in New York.

Susan supported programme development, monitoring and evaluation as Deputy Representative in Liberia in 2008. She then moved to the Comoros as Representative in 2010, three years later she took the post of UNICEF Representative in Ghana.

Ms Ngongi has a Master’s in Public Administration from Columbia University, USA and a Masters in Animal Health from the University of Reading, UK. She has and continues to be celebrated as one of the leading women making Cameroon and the African continent proud through her service to humanity.

Source: Journal du Cameroun

Livestock are dying in parts of Ethiopia that are overwhelmingly reliant on their milk as deepening drought pushes up the number of districts in need of life-saving aid by 19 percent, according to a report.

At least 8.5 million people in 228 districts of Ethiopia need urgent food aid in the second half of the year, up from 5.6 million in January, according to the study published on ReliefWeb, a website run by the United Nations.

Ethiopia’s eastern Somali region is one of the country’s worst affected zones and is home to a quarter of the country’s cases of severe acute malnutrition, UN agencies said.

Severe acute malnutrition is a condition that kills up to half of sufferers under five years old.

“The number of districts requiring immediate, life-saving intervention increased to levels not seen since the height of the El Niño drought impacts in 2016,” said the joint report, which was compiled by the UN and the Ethiopian government.

A strong aid response almost halved the number of Ethiopians needing food aid to 5.6 million since mid-2016. But the devastating drought was followed by poor spring rains this year in the southern and eastern parts of the country.

Since the end of last year, about 2 million animals have died in Somali region, which is home to many herding communities, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“For livestock-dependent families, the animals can literally mean the difference between life and death, especially for children, pregnant and nursing women for whom milk is a crucial source of nutrition,” FAO said in a statement last week.

The UN agency is helping the worst hit communities to protect their remaining livestock with vaccinations, supplementary feed and water, and improved fodder production.

“It is crucial to provide this support between now and October – when rains are due – to begin the recovery process and prevent further losses of animals,” said Abdoul Karim Bah, FAO’s deputy representative in Ethiopia.

(Source: Reuters)

Boko Haram terrorists have stepped up attacks on vulnerable people including those living in camps in northeastern Nigeria pushing the displaced from “one hell into another,” a leading international aid agency says. The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Friday that the terrorists were looking for softer targets, including camps hosting the displaced, following the intensification of offensive by the Nigerian military against the militants.

Latest data from the NRC showed that civilians were affected by violence on about 200 occasions last month – three times more than the total for June. It also indicated that at least 32 attacks were carried out on camps and sites for those uprooted by the conflict since July.

“Camps sheltering innocent families fleeing war should be places of refuge but instead they are turning into death traps,” the head of programs for NRC in Nigeria, Ernest Mutanga, said in a statement. “Armed groups in this conflict are pushing people from one hell into another,” he added.

Terrorists have killed and injured dozens of civilians in recent months in a spate of attacks on camps and areas sheltering the displaced that bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram. Eight years of militancy by Boko Haram has so far killed more than 20,000 people and forced more than 2.7 million to flee their homes.

Last year, the Nigerian army seized large swathes of territory from the terrorists; however, the militants have struck back with renewed zeal since June and killed at least 170 people and weakened the army’s control in the northeast. Many aid agencies, including the NRC, have been forced to temporarily suspend their aid work in Maidiguri, the capital of Borno state, due to threats from Boko Haram.

“We are worried that if these attacks continue, a very bad situation will grow even worse when it comes to aid access and delivery,” Jackie Okao, protection and advocacy adviser at the NRC in Nigeria, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

The United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) says about 5.2 million people are expected to need food aid by the end of this month – an increase of 500,000 from the start of 2017 – in a region threatened with famine. According to aid agencies, the situation could be far worse with many areas cut off from help due to the threat of Boko Haram and the arrival of the rainy season restricting access.

Culled from Presstv

Grenade attacks on two cafes killed at least three people and wounded 27 others in the Burundian capital of Bujumbura, police and hospital sources said on Friday.

Police spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye told reporters on Friday that one person died at the scene and 29 others were rushed to hospital after grenades were thrown into two bars in the Buyenzi district on Thursday night. Hospital sources said two people died of their injuries later.

One survivor, who asked not to be named, said the attackers had not attempted to rob the bars or the patrons.

Burundi has suffered from periodic low-level violence since 2015, when President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to seek a third term in office. Opponents said his candidacy violated the constitution and a peace agreement that ended a civil war in 2005. The opposition mostly boycotted the polls and Nkurunziza won a third term.

A wave of unrest followed. The International Criminal Court said it left about 450 people dead and forced hundreds of thousands to flee. Since then, political violence has continued to simmer. Earlier this month, attackers targeted another bar in the same district, causing two deaths and wounding four.

(Source: Reuters)