A boat reportedly packed with people from Africa and South Asia bound for Italy has sunk off the Libyan coast, raising fears that dozens have died. A security official in the western Libyan town of Zuwarah, from where the overcrowded boat had set off, said on Thursday there had around 400 people on board. Many appeared to have been trapped in the cargo hold when it capsized. Blog: Why Al Jazeera will not say ‘Mediterranean migrants’ By late in the evening, the Libyan coast guard rescued around 201, of which 147 were brought to a detention facility for illegal migrants…
Author: AMA
Art Festival electrifies Ghana’s Streets. According to the inscription in the board, the girls never look backward. “We face neither East nor West, we face forward” Isn’t that inspiring? Source:: Al Jazeera
The Somali capital, Mogadishu, is hosting an international book festival, the first such event in the city in more than two decades. Authors, playwrites, poets, artists and musician have travelled from across the world to attend the three-day event that was also guested by the Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. “We are holding this fair to revive the culture of writing and reading in our country. Another aim is to connect local writers with their counterparts from abroad so they can exchange ideas.” Mohamed Diini, the event organiser, told Al Jazeera by phone from Mogadishu. “More than 30 writers are…
Conservationists are facing a race against time to prevent one of Ethiopia’s most sacred religious site from crumbling away. The ancient churches of Lalibela in northern Ethiopia have been a place of pilgrimage for local Christians since they were constructed 800 years ago. The 11 churches were carved out of the mountainside during the reign of the priest-king Lalibela, who hoped to give Ethiopians a place for pilgrimage inside the country and help them avoid making the dangerous journey to Jerusalem. However, moisture is eating away at the structures and the sacred site is literally crumbling away. The geological properties…
By Inside Story: South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has signed a peace deal that it is hoped will end 20 months of war. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and brought the world’s newest country to the brink of famine and economic collapse. Rebel leader Riek Machar signed the deal last week, but President Kiir had, until Wednesday, expressed reservations. The agreement calls for an immediate end to the fighting and the creation of a demilitarised zone in the capital Juba. It also calls for a transitional power-sharing government, with Machar returning as South Sudan’s vice president. But…
South Sudan President Salva Kiir has signed a peace deal with rebels – more than a week after initially refusing to do so – at a ceremony in the capital Juba attended by African regional leaders. Rebel leader Riek Machar signed the accord in the Ethiopian capital last week, but Kiir had said on the same day that his government needed more time to study the text. In an exclusive interview on Wednesday, Machar told Al Jazeera that the agreement includes several reforms, including the reconsitution of the army, security forces and the police. “There were reasons for the war,…
South Sudan President Salva Kiir is expected to sign a peace deal with rebels more than a week after refusing to do so, a presidential spokesman has said. The comments from Machar’s spokesperson come as the UN Security Council said that it would take immediate action if Kiir did not sign the agreement on Wednesday. Kiir is expected to sign the deal in Juba with the leaders of Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, and Ethiopia in attendance. Al Jazeera’s Anna Cavell, reporting from the capital, Juba, said the move was potentially very important and could change the lives of hundreds of thousands…
Hungary has announced it will deploy 2,100 police officers to help control its border with Serbia as record numbers of refugees try to enter the state trying to claim asylum. The Hungarian police chief’s announcement on Wednesday came amid scenes of brief violence on the country’s border with Serbia. Television footage showed Hungarian officers firing tear gas at refugees trying to overcome the barriers and enter the EU-member state. Police rounded up around 300-400 migrants and were addressing them through loud speakers, the Reuters news agency reported. Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from the Serbian capital Belgrade, said the violence…
His back turned to the camera as he looks out over a nondescript housing development in Copenhagen, “The Shadow” describes how he fell victim to recruiters from the armed Somali group Al-Shabab. He outlines the conditions that make boys such as him susceptible to the lure of the “holy war,” explaining that, “Nothing in my life made any sense.” So eloquent is he in his account that one might think it was scripted, but what happened to him is as real as the scenes from a suicide attack by one of his former friends. A number of other very young…
Sierra Leone’s last known Ebola patient has been released from hospital, raising hopes the west African nation may finally have beaten the devastating epidemic. President Ernest Bai Koroma hailed “the beginning of the end of Ebola in Sierra Leone” pn Tuesday as Adama Sankoh, 34, was released from hospital in Makeni, the country’s third-largest city, in a festive ceremony. “The Ebola fight is not yet over – go and tell members of your community that,” the president said when presenting the certificate to the woman. “Go back to your community and continue to live life as you used to.” Sankoh,…
The UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has called on European countries to come together to create a working strategy to deal with the massive influx of refugees making their way to Europe. The agency said that all European countries and the EU must act together to provide support to countries such as Greece, Macedonia and Serbia whose capacities were overstretched and called for the equitable redistribution of refugees across the EU. “It’s vital that these people are treated humanely, also that essential assistance is provided, not just by responding to their basic needs but respecting also their dignity, their…
Eight South African police officers have been found guilty of murdering a Mozambican man who died after being dragged behind a moving police van two years ago. Mido Macia, a 27-year-old taxi driver, died in police custody in February, 2013 after being arrested for parking his car on the wrong side of the road. Bystanders filmed Macia being manhandled, handcuffed to the back of a police van and dragged hundreds of metres in Daveyton, east of Johannesburg. Just over two hours later he was found dead in his cell in a pool of blood. In Pretoria’s high court on Tuesday,…
Sicily, Italy – “Hey Rasta!” a man calls across the street, the latest passer-by to greet their young neighbour outside his house. With long dreadlocks falling over his blue pyjamas, Italian flag flip-flops under his feet, Rasta reflected on his popularity. “It’s very nice to be a cool man,” said the 25-year-old from Sierra Leone. Despite appearing at home in his surroundings, Rasta is about as far from his former life in the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown, as anyone could imagine. Until recently, a professional footballer by his own account and that of those around him, Rasta now finds himself…
By Al Jazeera The number of Ethiopians who will need food aid by the end of this year has surged by more than 1.5 million from earlier estimates due to failed rains, UN agencies have said. Ethiopia needs an extra $230m from donors to secure aid for a total of 4.5 million people now projected to require assistance this year, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN children’s agency UNICEF said in a statement on Monday. The country of 96 million people is one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies, but failed…
By Al Jazeera At least 19 people have been killed in car bomb attacks in two cities in Somalia, police and military sources have said. A car exploded in the capital Mogadishu at a busy junction on Saturday evening, killing at least five people. “So far we know five civilians died in this evening’s blast and seven others were injured,” Mohamed Yusuf, the spokesman for the interior security ministry told reporters at the scene. The explosion was close to the Internal Security Ministry and a large hotel, Witnesses told Al Jazeera that said they also heard gunfire during the incident.…
http://bc05.ajnm.me/665003303001/201508/2618/665003303001_4431575048001_20150819-fight-mad-somalia-nostraps.mp4 The Somali army is training new recruits in the port city of Kismayo, one of the last remaining strongholds of al-Shabab. Until they finish their training, fighters from the regional administration have the task of defending the territory under government control. Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow reports from the frontline. Source:: Al Jazeera
By Al Jazeera A Mauritanian court has upheld a two-year prison sentence against three anti-slavery activists who were arrested during a protest against bondage in the west African nation. In an open letter from prison published on Wednesday, one of the accused, Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid, vowed to continue his fight against slavery and appealed for the United States and European Union to put pressure on Mauritania to act against the practice, including stopping financial aid. “From my dark cell I urge them to mobilise all legal and diplomatic means, including the suspension of all financial aid, to push…
By Al Jazeera Assailants have reportedly shot dead a reporter for the New Nation newspaper in South Sudan in an apparently targeted attack, days after President Salva Kiir allegedly made a thinly veiled threat to target journalists who reported “against the country”. Colleagues, who gathered at the hospital in the capital Juba where Moi Peter Julius’ body was taken on Thursday, said the reporter’s money and his telephone were reportedly not taken by the gunman after the killing. Julius is the seventh journalist killed this year, in a country devastated by a prolonged conflict between government forces and armed groups.…
Five years ago, 40 percent of Reunion, a French territory east of Madagascar, was named a UNESCO world heritage site and turned into a national park. The territory’s special status attracts tourists, but farmers who live in the park are being forced to change their way of life due to new limitations. http://bc05.ajnm.me/665003303001/201508/897/665003303001_4434238765001_20150820-reunion-heritage-tpa-nostraps.mp4 Al Jazeera’s Tania Page reports from Reunion. Source:: Al Jazeera The post UNESCO status forces change on Reunion’s island farmers appeared first on African Media Agency.
By Al Jazeera For one tribe in Kenya, it has been their home for centuries. But now a forest on the border with Somalia has become a main hideout for fighters from al-Shabab, the Somalia-based armed group that says it is at war with the Kenyan government. Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow reports from the Boni National Reserve, on how the conflict is uprooting tribal communities. Source:: Al Jazeera http://bc05.ajnm.me/665003303001/201508/3529/665003303001_4434006942001_20150820-kenya-boni-forest-mad-nostraps.mp4?videoId=4433962562001 The post Kenya tribe uprooted by al-Shabab conflict appeared first on African Media Agency.