Follow @{0}Keeping other outbreaks under controlDAKAR, 12 June 2014 (IRIN) – With health authorities and medical personnel battling Guinea’s first outbreak of Ebola, there have inevitably been concerns about finding the human and physical resources to combat other diseases. Unlike Ebola, measles and meningitis are well known to Guinea and require a major, coordinated response from both the state and NGOs. Despite the ‘Ebola factor’, health organizations say they have maintained their operations and are combating measles and meningitis effectively.Ebola still advancingAccording to World Health Organization (WHO), over 200 people in Guinea have died of Ebola, with 344 infected since…
Author: ARIN News
Follow @{0}Military occupations of schools can make them targetsBANGKOK, 12 June 2014 (IRIN) – Schools are targeted in conflicts around the world – they might represent ideas viewed as controversial, the destruction of a civilian building that is important to a community inflicts terror, and a school reduced to rubble can rob an entire generation of education. But attacks are only part of the problem, as significant harm can also be done when educational buildings remain intact and armed forces move in.”Attacks on educational buildings, students, teachers and academics have resulted in hundreds of students and educators being killed and…
Car children in ChadSARH, 12 June 2014 (IRIN) – The violence in Central African Republic forced 97,000 civilians to flee across the border to Chad. Some 1,200 of those in flight were unaccompanied or separated children, who now long to find their families and return to school and to safety, or at least some semblance of normality.“What I want most is to find my father,” said Lamine, 12. “I don’t know if he is alive or dead. If I knew that… then I could at least move on.”The attempts to get children back to their families have met with some…
Follow @{0}Pretender to the throne. Bodiel Ould Houmeid wants to fix Mauritania’s problemsNOUAKCHOTT, 12 June 2014 (IRIN) – President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz will face four rival candidates in Mauritania’s 21 June elections, which are being boycotted by the main opposition coalition on grounds that they are a sham and its supporters claiming that the outcome is a foregone conclusion.Cheikh Sidi Ahmed Ould Babamine, the head of the 17-member opposition National Forum for Democracy and Unity (FNDU) has denounced the elections as a “masquerade”. Thousands of Mauritanians heeded opposition calls for a demonstration against the elections on June 4, flocking…
Follow @{0}Malnutrition is high among the refugeesGBITI, 6 June 2014 (IRIN) – More than 80,000 Central Africans have fled the worsening conflict into neighbouring Cameroon since the start of the year. But as the influx continues, aid officials warn that donor support is not keeping pace, hobbling relief efforts and leaving refugees ever more vulnerable.The UN Refugees Agency (UNHCR) says that only US$ 4.2 million of the $ 22.6 million it needs to assist those escaping violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) has been received, and just 12 percent of the $ 247 million requested by 15 aid groups…
Follow @{0}Making room for the neighboursLOLO, 3 June 2014 (IRIN) – New open-air butcheries and stalls now flank the unsealed road running through Lolo village in the east of Cameroon. The settlement of some 10,000 Central African Republic (CAR) refugees in the 2,000-strong hamlet is firing up the local economy, but has also triggered disputes between the peasant farming community and its cattle-keeping new residents.The upsurge in violence in neighbouring Car has forced more than 80,000 people to flee into eastern Cameroon since the start of the year. Recent arrivals have suffered torturous journeys to refuge. Most have trekked for…
Follow @{0}Tsetse flies are found only in Sub-Saharan AfricaKISUMU/NAIROBI, 28 May 2014 (IRIN) – Scientists have welcomed the development of genome sequence data on the tsetse fly, the vector responsible for the transmission of human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), commonly known as sleeping sickness. They say it could be instrumental in devising strategies to eradicate the fly and reduce deaths and the spread of other diseases associated with it. “The genome data could ultimately advance knowledge on the biology of the tsetse fly and the trypanosome parasite it carries. Aspects of its biology may offer some vulnerabilities, such as the rearing…
Follow @{0}In the capital Freetown, once known as ‘the darkest city in the world’ blackouts are a part of life.FREETOWN, 27 May 2014 (IRIN) – In the face of inadequate provision of power by the Sierra Leonean government, companies are stepping in to provide solar electricity systems that ordinary Sierra Leoneans can afford.Since the 1980s Sierra Leone has been unable to reliably provide electricity to its citizens. Its capital Freetown, once dubbed “the world’s darkest city”, experiences daily power cuts. Outside the major cities the situation is far worse, with just one in 10 Sierra Leoneans having access to the…
Follow @{0}Children at the open-air informal school set up by the displaced in Doyaba campDOYABA/SIDDHO/N’DJAMENA, 26 May 2014 (IRIN) – Some 40,900 children and thousands more youths displaced by the violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) are stuck in transit camps in southern Chad with no formal school to attend, few to no training opportunities, and no jobs, leaving them with no sense of what the future will bring.“There is nothing to do here – we do nothing all day,” said Ibrahim Oumar, 25, in Doyaba transit camp near Sarh, which houses mainly Chadian returnees from CAR, many of…
Follow @{0}Looks like rain: traditional weather forecasts can involve studying termite movementsKISUMU, 23 May 2014 (IRIN) – In the latest of several partnerships between tradition and modern science aimed at improving resilience to climate change, pastoralists and meteorologists in Tanzania are working together to produce weather forecasts better suited to farmers.The hope is that by drawing from both indigenous knowledge and contemporary weather forecasting techniques, crop yields could be increased.“We wanted to see if the two can complement or supplement each other,” Isaac Yonah, a senior officer coordinating community meetings employed by the Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA), told IRIN by…