Tag: GreatLakesNews

Nurdin Babu, the Kilimanjaro regional commissioner, told Xinhua in a telephone interview that the firefighters have been drawn from the Tanzania Fire and Rescue Force, the Tanzania National Parks, police, scouts, members of the militia and the private sector.

The fire broke out on Friday night at about 4,000 meters altitude on the south side of the mountain and was quickly spread by strong winds, said Babu.

“We are hoping that the fire will be contained by tonight by the 600-plus strong team of firefighters,” he said, adding that the cause of the fire and the damaged caused were yet to be established.

He said initially there were plans to request the Tanzania People’s Defense Forces (TPDF) to help in fighting the fire but the plans were dropped after reports indicated that there was good progress in putting out the fire.

On Saturday afternoon, Babu said he flew over the mountain with a team of experts for aerial survey to assess damage caused by the fire but the mission was cut short due to heavy smoke and bad weather.

“We made another attempt on Saturday night and managed to see affected areas,” he said, adding that there were no reported casualties.

In October 2020, a fire broke out on the mountain and destroyed 95.5 square kilometers of vegetation and 12 huts, two toilets and solar equipment used by tourists climbing the mountain.

Mount Kilimanjaro, with its snow-capped peak with about 5,895 meters above sea level, is one of Tanzania’s leading tourist destinations.

Roughly 50,000 trekkers from across the world attempt to reach the summit of the mountain annually.

Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS), a local humanitarian agency, said on Sunday that among the new arrivals include those who had returned recently thinking the situation was getting better.

Irene Nakasiita, URCS spokesperson, said it is not yet possible to estimate the number of asylum seekers who crossed to Uganda through the border town of Bunagana on Saturday.

Esther Anyakun, Minister of State for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, told Xinhua by telephone preparations were in high gear to receive the refugees.

“According to the reports we have so far received, there are many, many refugees who have re-entered the country. The World Food Programme is already on the ground to offer some support,” Anyakun said.

She added that government was in the process of relocating the previous entrants from holding centers to resettlement camps and with the re-entrance of more refugees, they will have to work faster.

“They rushed to return home, because the situation was not yet stable. We had given some of them transport to go to resettlement camps but they opted to return home. Now you can see they have come back to Uganda,” Anyakun noted.

She also said the United Nations Refugee Agency had dispatched a team to offer humanitarian assistance to the refugees.

“Over 1,000 Congolese refugees have already crossed into Uganda following fresh fights between the M23 rebels and the Congolese government forces. They are currently camped at Bunagana border town in Kisoro district,” Ismail Ndayambaje, a local leader, told Daily Monitor, a Ugandan independent daily newspaper.

“We appeal to the humanitarian organizations in liaison with the office of the Prime Minister to transport these refugees straight to Nyakabande refugee transit camp where they can be accommodated. We faced a lot of challenges as we accommodated them here at Bunagana town council in March this year when they crossed into Kisoro district because of similar fights,” Ndayambaje added.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that 200 cattle and a combined total of 15,400 sheep and goats departed via MV Bunyas Lome shipping vessel for the Salalah Port in Oman.

“The livestock export gives renewed impetus in the utilization of Lamu port as a central cog in international trade by facilitating quick and effective use of sea transport,” the ministry said in a statement released in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, Monday.

The ministry added that the export is especially timely as it comes at a time when drought has ravaged many parts of the country.

“The export offers an opportunity for Kenyan livestock owners to sell their animals to a promising market,” it said.

The ministry noted that international sales would also prevent the loss of thousands of animals to the current drought as well as empower livestock farmers.

Kenya inaugurated the first berth of the Lamu port in May 2021, which is part of the Lamu Port South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor.

China Communication Construction Company undertook the construction of the first berth of the port facility that can handle large vessels with a carrying capacity ranging from 12,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) to 18,000 TEUs.

Museveni said in a national address telecast live that the lockdown will last 21 days.

According to the measures, movement in and out of the two districts is prohibited. The two districts have also been placed under a night curfew with only cargo vehicles allowed to exit.

Public gatherings have been prohibited including places of worship and entertainment centers.

Schools will remain open but under strict supervision by district medical teams.

Mubende was the epicenter of the Ebola virus disease outbreak after the index case was announced on Sept. 20.

The country currently has 58 confirmed cases of Ebola, with 19 deaths, and 20 people have recovered since the index case was reported, according to government data.

Emmanuel Ainebyoona, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, in a statement issued in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, said the number of dead since the virus was first reported in the country on Sept. 20 now stands at 17.

Ainebyoona said as of Oct. 9, the cumulative number of confirmed cases was 48 after four new confirmed cases were registered in the last 48 hours. Of the 48 confirmed cases, nine are health workers. The cumulative number of recoveries is 14 people.

Earlier Monday, Ainebyoona confirmed that a team of senior World Health Organization (WHO) officials was in the country to discuss support for the Ebola response. According to the WHO, the senior officials will also attend the High-Level Emergency Ministerial Meeting on Cross Border Collaboration for Preparedness and Response to Ebola Virus Disease scheduled for Oct. 12.

The dead included three Congolese soldiers, said the source, who spoke under customary anonymity, without offering further details.

On Tuesday, another helicopter belonging to the Uganda army crashed at the Kabarole border area between the two countries, during joint operations between the two armies to hunt down the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group.

According to the Congolese army’s media service, the helicopter hit a cluster of power lines. A Ugandan soldier and a Congolese soldier died in the crash that happened Tuesday, confirmed Mak Hazukayi, spokesperson for the joint Congolese-Ugandan military operations.

Since last year, the armies of the DRC and Uganda have launched joint military operations in the northeastern DRC to hunt down ADF rebels.

In Rumangabo, a town of the North Kivu province, currently the epicenter of violent armed conflicts between the government army and rebels of the March 23 Mouvement (M23), around 4,000 displaced people are scattered across different schools, making classrooms and resources more scarce than before.

Marie Simire and her six children, who fled the city of Bunagana which was taken control by the rebels, now live in a small makeshift house in a school. Her husband was killed by a stray bullet on his way home while he was working the fields when the government army and the M23 crossed fires.

Like most of her fellows in the village, she and her children fled for days on foot and finally settled down in the school during the summer vacation. As the new school year started on Sept. 5, life has become more harsh and difficult.

“I arrived here with my children for a few months without taking anything from our abandoned house in Bunagana. Now the studies have resumed but I do not have the capacity to send my children to class due to the lack of means and difficult conditions in which we currently live at this site,” she explained.

Jean-Baptiste Habyarimana, the head of the Rumangabo center primary school, pointed out the cruel fact that the school is at capacity and the massive displacement have become a huge conundrum for both the displaced refugees and the school kids.

“The schools are almost totally occupied by displaced people from villages far from this city. A situation that makes it difficult for us to function as a school,” said Habyarimana.

Schools are jam-packed with people seeking refuge, some displaced children spend their day chopping wood and selling it at the makeshift market as the only way to survive.

“The majority of the children at this site do not go to school. This is how they prefer to resort to these jobs of cutting just to survive. We deplore this situation, which risks affecting the future of these children in the long term,” insisted Katitima Justin, head of a make-shift refugee site in Rumangabo.

Asked by Xinhua about the current school situation in areas troubled by clashes between the army and the M23 rebels, the military governor of North Kivu Constant Ndima acknowledged that about 70 percent of the schools are being affected.

“This situation which has affected the school sector since the start of the school year is more than dramatic and it goes beyond our jurisdiction at the provincial level,” said Constant Ndima, promising “quick solutions” for the affected children.

For the military authorities of North Kivu, the effective solution remains that of restoring peace in this part of the country as soon as possible in order to allow the displaced population to return to their homes.

For Simire, however, going home seems like a sheer delusion as her hometown is still in the hands of the rebels who are deemed as “terrorists” by the Congolese government.

Since the end of March 2022, the M23 has been on the offensive in DRC’s northeastern province of North Kivu, where several townships fell into the hands of the rebels for months.

Ruto, who retained one serving cabinet secretary, appointed former deputy prime minister Musalia Mudavadi as the prime cabinet secretary, a newly created position.

He also appointed the former Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Governor Njuguna Ndung’u to be the cabinet secretary for the National Treasury.

Ruto, who nominated current and former lawmakers to the Cabinet, said the prime cabinet secretary’s office is the most senior after that of the President and deputy president’s office.

Ruto told a televised news conference in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, that the prime cabinet secretary will assist the deputy president and the president in liaison with the interior ministry.

“He will oversee the government projects. He will coordinate the national legislative agenda,” Ruto said.

The president also appointed former Machakos County Governor Alfred Mutua to be the cabinet secretary for Foreign Affairs and Kithure Kindiki, former Senate deputy speaker, as the cabinet secretary for Interior.

According to the Constitution, Kenya’s Cabinet should contain no fewer than 14 but no more than 22 cabinet secretaries.

Ruto also appointed former National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi as the Attorney General, Mercy Wanjau as secretary to the Cabinet, and Monica Juma, who was the serving cabinet secretary for Energy in the previous government, as National Security adviser.

The nominees will be subjected to vetting by the National Assembly.

The president also announced the resignation of Inspector-General of Police Hilary Mutyambai who he said has proceeded on terminal leave and the resignation of the head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti.

“After discussing with Mutyambai, I have accepted his terminal leave,” Ruto said.

Ruto said Kinoti has formally resigned, having served as the country’s top detective under former President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The president said he will pick someone to act in the place of Kinoti as his replacement awaits.

Felix Kulayigye, a military spokesperson, tweeted that the MI-24 helicopter developed a mechanical fault while in flight and the pilot made an emergency landing.

“Fortunately no casualties both to the occupants of the plane and on the ground,” he said.

Kulayigye said a team has been dispatched to the crash site from the air force headquarters to establish the cause of the accident.

Last year in February two cadet trainees of the Uganda military were injured when a military helicopter they were traveling in crash-landed soon after take-off at the Entebbe International Airport, 40 km south of Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The February accident occurred just after a week when another Ugandan military helicopter crashed in Somalia, injuring four soldiers on an African Union peacekeeping mission.

In January 2020, the military lost two soldiers in a Jet Ranger which crashed in the central district of Gomba.