Follow @{0}Meeting with government officials. Dozo hunters deny committing atrocities ABIDJAN, 3 January 2014 (IRIN) – Since fighting for Côte d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara during the election violence in 2010-2011, armed traditional hunters known as “dozo” appear to have increasingly taken on the role of regular forces, mounting roadblocks, patrolling, and arresting civilians. They have also been accused of committing atrocities. “Their use by certain politicians drew them to the country’s political scene, but now that we are in a lawful state, more than two years since the post-election crisis, we think it’s high time they resumed their [traditional] activities,” said…
Author: ARIN News
Follow @{0}More West African countries were seen to be highly corrupt in 2013DAKAR, 3 January 2014 (IRIN) – Poor public services in many West African countries, with already dire human development indicators, are under constant pressure from pervasive corruption. Observers say graft is corroding proper governance and causing growing numbers of people to sink into poverty.“If you want to put a human face to corruption… then see how we have kids who walk miles to school because there are no public transport systems,” said Harold Aidoo, the executive director of the Institute for Research and Democratic Development in Monrovia, the…
MAROUA, 27 December 2013 (IRIN) – The authorities in Yaoundé, the Cameroonian capital, have set up tighter border controls in the Far North region to guard against infiltration by jihadist Boko Haram fighters from neighbouring Nigeria as civilians flee insurgent attacks and a Nigerian military offensive, seeking safety across the border in Cameroon. A rapid response military unit has also been deployed and beefed up in the northern regions and some tourist hotels now have armed guards. “We have revised our security strategy. We have registered all expatriates and established police posts in areas where they work. There are security…
MINAWAO CAMP, 24 December 2013 (IRIN) – Only around 1,800 of the thousands of Nigerians forced to find refuge from the fighting in the northeast between the jihadist Boko Haram and the Nigerian military have settled in a camp in neighbouring Cameroon. Others are living with relatives in villages along the border, complicating their identification and raising concern by the Cameroonian authorities that insurgents could infiltrate local communities. The border separating Cameroon and Nigeria often divides villages of similar ethnicity, and local authorities say the Nigerians who have sought safety with their relatives in Cameroon often do not consider themselves…
Follow @{0}Life-saving: the sofosbuvir molecule has been approved in the US and Europe for the treatment of hepatitis CNew York, 23 December 2013 (IRIN) – Following approvals in the US and Europe this month of a new drug to treat hepatitis C, activists are pushing for the medication to be made available in poor countries, a development reminiscent of the activism that forced down HIV/AIDS drug prices a decade ago in Brazil, South Africa and Thailand. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that as many as 185 million people are infected with hepatitis C, which is often called a “viral…
Follow @{0}Medical consultation. Local and international NGOs underscore need for collaboration to tackle humanitarian crisesDAKAR, 20 December 2013 (IRIN) – UN agencies and international NGOs (INGOs) are increasingly stressing the need to reach out to new partners, including local NGOs, to build their capacity to respond to humanitarian crises. Yet agencies are still said to “arrive, set the agenda, do their activities and leave,” said Sayadi Sani, head of the local Nigerien nutrition NGO Befen. How can aid agencies better empower local NGOs?A recent study by the accountability and learning non-profit ALNAP concluded that partnerships between INGOs and local NGOs…
Follow @{0} Ivoirian refugees being repatriated home from Liberia ABIDJAN, 19 December 2013 (IRIN) – Fear of reprisal is preventing thousands of Ivoirians from returning to Cote d’Ivoire from Ghana and Togo, where they sought refuge following the violently disputed 2010-2011 presidential elections.Of the 12,500 Ivoirians who fled to the two countries, only 710 have returned home, according to the state-run Service for the Assistance of Refugees and Stateless People (SAARA).By contrast, increasing numbers of Ivoirians who fled to Liberia during the violence have been returning in recent months.Many of those who fled to Ghana are from Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial…
Follow @{0} Some 58,000 children have suffered severe malnutrition in northern Cameroon this year MAROUA, 18 December 2013 (IRIN) – Mairam Umaru’s year-old son had suffered vomiting and fever on and off for a month before she sought medical help.“I thought it was my milk affecting him, or that he was teething,” said the 17-year-old mother at the referral hospital in Maroua, the capital of Cameroon’s Far North Region, where her son was being treated for severe acute malnutrition and other complications.Around a dozen mothers watched over their sick children in the ward. Some 58,000 children under the age of…
Follow @{0} A mother and her malnourished twins at Mopti reference hospital in central Mali DAKAR, 13 December 2013 (IRIN) – The mortality rate among children under age five living in Yirimadjo, Mali, southeast of the capital, Bamako, decreased by nearly tenfold over three years after the Malian Ministry of Health and NGOs Tostan and Muso introduced a new healthcare model: proactively seeking out patients and treating them early.A study on the programme, by researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), published this week in PLoS ONE, found under-five mortality dropped from 155 deaths…
Follow @{0} A house despite in a previous bout of inter-communal violence in the north (file photo) DAKAR, 13 December 2013 (IRIN) – The deaths of more than 3,000 victims of sectarian violence in central Nigeria since 2010 have largely been ignored by the government, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released on 12 December, Turning a Blind Eye to Mass Killings.HRW documented “horrific” acts of inter-communal violence between Muslims and Christians in Plateau and Kaduna states – two of the worst-affected areas. More than 10,000 people have been killed in these states since 1992 in ongoing periods…