Tag: GreatLakesNews

{Few adolescents are being tested for HIV as parents assume that their children are not engaging in early sex.}

About 180,000 adolescents in schools are HIV positive, government said on Tuesday.

Of these, 75,600 were not accessing ARVs, Education Ministry Assistant Director Margaret Mwirigi said.

National Aids Control Council (NACC) official Celestine Mugambi said 14 teenagers die daily of HIV complications while 98 are infected.

“These are your students. By the end of this conference almost 500 would have died,” she said.

She added that few adolescents are being tested for HIV as parents assume that their children are not engaging in early sex and are not infected with HIV.

She further added that adolescents and youth account for 1.8 million pregnancies every year.

“There are low testing rates among adolescents with only 46 females and 58 per cent males who are tested for HIV,” Ms Mugambi said.

She said there is still need for increased awareness of HIV as only 58 per cent of those affected know issues regarding HIV and how to prevent it.

“Risky behaviours are difficult to change while many people have unanswered questions on HIV with no one to inform them,” she said.

However, she said investments and advocacy in the HIV response has increased.

She said NACC has a two-year plan to reduce new student infections by 40 per cent.

“We want to reduce AIDS related deaths by 20 per cent and reduce stigma and discrimination by 20 per cent,” she said.

She two made separate remarks during the ongoing primary school heads meeting at the Sheikh Zayed Children’s Welfare in Mombasa.

Over 10,000 heads are attending the meeting.

{Witnesses told a local rights group that the attack was carried out by a coalition between a local ethnic Hutu militia group, Nyatura, and Rwandan Hutu rebels.}

A rebel attack in eastern Congo has killed at least seven civilians and wounded three, a local official said today. Dozens of homes were burned in the attack overnight Sunday in Kabanda, about 180 kilometers north of Goma in North Kivu province, said Justin Mukanya, administrator of the Rutshuru territory.

He could not identify which group staged the attack in an area where there have been ethnic tensions. “I will launch an investigation, because this is an area besieged by several foreign and local militias,” he said. Eastern Congo is home to multiple armed groups, many vying for control of the region’s vast mineral resources.

Witnesses told a local rights group that the attack was carried out by a coalition between a local ethnic Hutu militia group, Nyatura, and Rwandan Hutu rebels known by their French acronym, FDLR, said Omar Kavota, director of the Center for Studies of Peace and Defense of Human Rights. The group tracks civilian deaths in the region. Attacks since Saturday have left at least 17 people dead in the region, Kavota said. The attacks came after the killing of a civilian by the Mai-Mai militia group in Kibirizi, which displaced community members to other areas, he said.

Mukanya, the territorial administrator, said the various ethnic populations have lived together for years. He blamed the latest violence on local leaders.

“It’s a manipulation by certain local leaders to impose the influence or their political positions to try to manipulate the peaceful populations,” he said.

{Mr Nyakera said that the government was determined to fulfil its manifesto of providing employment to the youth.}

The government is determined to ensure that Kenyans get the requisite skills and training to run the standard gauge railway (SGR) line upon its completion, the Principal Secretary for Transport Irungu Nyakera has said.

“Skills transfer is mandatory in order to ensure seamless operation and management of the railway line upon its official launch.

“Our aim as a government is to build local capacity where Kenyan professionals will be exposed to aspects of design, construction and management of railways,” said Mr Nyakera.

Mr Nyakera said that the government was determined to fulfil its manifesto of providing employment to the youth through projects like SGR and others that it had undertaken.

“This project will contribute greatly in providing employment to our youth as is in our manifesto.

“So far, the SGR project has created job opportunities for Kenyans with China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) having directly employed 19,000 workers and additional 8,000-plus employed by sub-contractors,” he added.

{{SH1BN INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADE}}

He lauded the Railway Training Institute’s efforts in providing a pool of competent human workforce adding that the government has committed Sh1 billion towards infrastructure upgrade and equipping training workshops with state-of-the-art training equipment, the same as what CRBC have pledged to give towards the construction of an engineering school in the institution.

The PS was speaking at the graduation ceremony of the first batch of technicians who have been undergoing training at the Railway Training Institute.

A total of 102 technicians received their certifications after a four-month training in telecommunications control engineering, traffic and transport management and locomotive maintenance.

{{EFFICIENT TRANSPORT SYSTEM}}

Mr Nyakera added that the government was committed to ensuring that an effective and efficient transport system is developed in line with its commitment to achieving the Vision 2030 blueprint.

“The government indeed recognises that infrastructure is key to development.

“With the transport sector contributing between five and 15 per cent of the GDP, we recognise that we enjoy a [geographically] strategic location surrounded by growing economies that provide an enormous opportunity for transport business,” said the PS.

CRBC is currently constructing the first phase of the SGR between Mombasa and Nairobi, which is expected to be ready for use by June 2017.

Work on the first segment of the second phase between Nairobi and Naivasha has already begun.

The SGR, once in use, is expected to improve speed and capacity of railway transport in the country, improving trade internally and also with neighbouring countries.

{Large herds of elephants have destroyed crops as well as killing a person in Serengeti District, a wildlife official disclosed here yesterday.}

“The elephants have been invading villages at the same time destroying crops for the whole month of July,” said John Lendoyane, in an interview. According to him the stray jumbos killed a 55-year-old man of Nyamatoke village when he was tending his farm.

The elephants are reportedly migrating from Ikorongo/Grumeti Game Reserves and the Serengeti National Park seeking pastures. “One of the reasons is drought and also the animals are following their traditional routes,” he said.

Peasants living in the affected villages complained that the ramping animals have this time reached villages that are not close to the game protected areas. Lendoyane said efforts to chase them were being hampered by poor roads. “The animals are many. It’s indeed a big issue,” he said.

He said the elephants have destroyed various crops, mostly maize farms, in many villages of the district. Serengeti officials say more than 20 of their villages are prone to rampaging elephants. Other districts of Mara region affected by the problem are Bunda and Tarime.

{The federal government is warning Burundian authorities against attempting to sow discord within the diaspora community in Canada.}

Global Affairs Canada issued a sternly worded statement following a controversial event last week in Quebec City, at which a senior member of the current Burundian government spoke.

In an address at the conference, Willy Nyamitwe, a communications advisor to President Pierre Nkurunziza, said reports of human rights abuses by Nkurunziza supporters are overblown.

{{Burundi clashes kill almost 90}}

“I wanted the Canadian opinion to hear another part of the story about Burundi, because some news stories are really biased about Burundi,” Nyamitwe told CBC News following his July 30 speech.

International observers have grown alarmed about an ongoing crackdown on opposition groups in Burundi. The United Nations and several rights groups have documented numerous cases of torture and extra-judicial killings in the East African country.

Human Rights Watch has said abuses have also been committed by armed opposition groups.

The country has been in the throes of a prolonged political crisis since Nkurunziza announced last April that he will seek a third term as president, which many argue is a violation of the peace accords that helped end a decades-long civil war in 2005.

‘Any attempt by Burundi authorities to move the debate to Canada would be a regrettable, useless and ill-timed distraction.’
– Global Affairs Canada

Rising tensions have prompted fears Burundi could slide back into a civil war pitting its ethnic Hutu and Tutsi communities against each other. The previous conflict claimed an estimated 300,000 lives.

The International Crisis Group has maintained that while the current conflict in Burundi is essentially political, the current ruling party is using, “ethnically-charged rhetoric and demonstrating an obvious desire to bring the democratic consensus of the Arusha Accords to an end.”

Human Rights Watch has said abuses have also been committed by armed opposition groups.

Quebec, and Quebec City especially, has a large Burundian expatriate community. Global Affairs Canada cautioned the Nkurunziza government about using the community as political leverage.

“Canada was not officially informed of which participants were to take part in the Quebec City meeting,” Global Affairs said in a statement to CBC News.

“However, any attempt by Burundi authorities to move the debate to Canada would be a regrettable, useless and ill-timed distraction.”

{{Controversial participants}}

Besides Nyamitwe, the meeting featured a number of other supporters of the Burundian government, including controversial Belgian activist Luc Michel, who in the past has been associated with far right political parties.

The meeting was dismissed as “government propaganda” by Richard Moncrieff, Central African Project Director with the International Crisis Group, a think tank that monitors violent conflicts.

“It’s fairly clear that it wasn’t meant to be a balanced perspective,” Moncrieff said.

“The government at the moment doesn’t tolerate proper debate and difference of opinion. It just wants to have people echo back its own point of view at the moment.”

Worsening Burundi chaos finds UN less ready than for 1994 Rwanda genocide, official warns

But those who attended the meeting said it was an important opportunity to share information that is often left out of media reports.

“Hutus didn’t invest in media when they came to power,” said Marie Banyankindidagiye, an audience member who described herself as a Hutu.

“They need to have more of their voices heard in international media instead of all the lies.”

{{Undermining cordial relations?}}

Relations within the Burundian diaspora in Canada are generally cordial in spite of political and ethnic differences, said Charles Makaza, who heads the Association des Burundais du Canada, a group aligned with the opposition.

“What we observe is two distinct groups: one that is pro-government, one that is anti-government,” Makaza said.

“What they do is they separately organize events where the other side can come or not come, but I wouldn’t go as far a saying there is high tension.”

But Makaza is also concerned that meetings like the one held in Quebec City could undermine relations between the two groups. He wants Ottawa to ban similar meetings from taking place in the future.

{While the Gatumba massacre of 2004 in the African country of Burundi stands out as the worst of the attacks on the Congolese Banyamulenge tribe, problems continue for the ethnic group.}

Members of the tribe will visit Wollongong in New South Wales on Saturday to remember their friends and family who were killed in the August 13 attack 12 years ago.

Most of the Banyamulenge in Australia are here as refugees, and want their new country to know about the struggles still faced by their tribe in Africa.

“I think most Australians don’t know about this, and I think it’s because Australia is far from Africa,” Banyemulenge member in Australia Claude Muco said.

“Now Australia has become more involved in international relations, Australians will come to know what’s happened in Africa and the Congo.”

The attack happened at the Gatumba Refugee Camp in Burundi, and along with those killed, more than 500 people were severely injured.

All victims were people who had already escaped persecution in their country of origin, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The commemorative event will feature a public talk on Friday at the Illawarra Multicultural Services office in Wollongong at noon, followed by a peaceful march starting in Wollongong’s Crown Street Mall on Saturday at 11:30am.

{{Being part of a rejected race}}

Imagine not being accepted in any country in which you live.

No matter where you flee to, each country kicks you out or actively sets out to kill you.

This is the life of members of the Banyamulenge, who have been rejected as Congolese people, despite evidence of Banyamulenge coming to Congo in the 16th century.

“It’s really hard. When I look at myself, even now, I don’t know where I belong,” Mr Muco said.
“My parents and grandparents don’t know where they belong. It’s really hard and frustrating.

“Congolese don’t agree we are Congolese. They’re killing us and we are like a ball — everyone pushes us back and from generation to generation, people are dying because of their ethnicity.”

Mr Muco said he had been afforded not only human rights, but citizenship and the right to vote since settling in Australia, but he could not enjoy the same quality of life in his country of birth.

{{Problems still occurring in Congo}}

Congo has had extensive periods of war over the past 20 years, including the first Congo war from 1996-1997 and the second Congo war from 1998-2003.

Along with tensions between civilians, the conflict is one of the reasons why people like Mr Muco and his friend Mutebutsi Bugegeri have been forced to emigrate to Australia.

Mr Bugegari came to Wollongong in 2014 and is a qualified teacher who has worked as a librarian and school principal.

“My life has been changed since I came to Australia. Now I feel like I’m in a peaceful country and I can assume my security and safety,” he said.
“I’ve been surprised since I came to Australia because I grew up in Congo where I couldn’t speak to my colleagues at school and express my emotions.

“Since I came here I have rights and freedoms to talk what I want and express my emotions, and I feel like I’m relaxed.”