Tag: GreatLakesNews

{Officers recovered guns, bullets and other items believed to have been used for break-ins.}

Police have shot dead five suspected robbers in Kiambu and recovered two guns, several rounds of ammunition and an assortment of items believed to have been stolen.

Kiambu County Police Commander Larry Kieng’ said the suspects were trailed from Nairobi by officers from the Special Crime Prevention Unit who had received information about their intended robbery.

“When officers confirmed that indeed they intended to rob, they challenged them to surrender but instead they shot at the officers, prompting them to retaliate and unfortunately five of them were fatally injured,” said Mr Kieng’.

He said that police recovered a pistol loaded with six rounds of ammunition and a homemade pistol loaded with two bullets.

“They also had several master keys, tools believed to be used for break-ins and phones that were stolen,” Mr Kieng’ said.

{More than 8,000 South Sudanese entered Uganda on Thursday alone.}

A picture taken on July 22, 2016 shows makeshift graves at the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS), the UN House for internally displaced persons in the Jebel area in Juba on July 22, 2016. Growing numbers of refugees are crossing into Uganda amidst reports of continued fighting in parts of South Sudan, the United Nations said on Friday.

Growing numbers of refugees are crossing into Uganda amidst reports of continued fighting in parts of South Sudan, the United Nations said on Friday.

More than 8,000 South Sudanese entered Uganda on Thursday alone — the largest daily total this year, the UN refugee agency reported.

Arrivals in Uganda have surpassed 24,000 in the past six days, the agency added. That brings the total number of South Sudanese refugees in Uganda to about 230,000.

“The influx is severely stretching the capacity of collection points, transit centres and reception centres,” UN refugee agency spokesman Andreas Needham told reporters on Friday.

Some 7,000 South Sudanese slept on Wednesday night at Elegu collection point, which is intended to accommodate 1,000 people, Mr Needham noted.

“New arrivals in Adjumani report continued fighting between forces loyal to President Kiir and those loyal to First Vice-President Machar,” he said.

LOOTING

“There are reports that armed gunmen continue to loot properties, forcibly recruit boys and young men, and murder civilians in Magwi.”

The new influx follows fighting in Juba, South Sudan’s capital, and other areas that broke out on July 7.

A 10-day-old ceasefire appears to be holding in Juba.

Many refugees are travelling to Uganda by truck now that the 200-kilometre Juba-Nimule road has been cleared of checkpoints, the UN has said.

Thousands more refugees could enter Uganda on Friday, Mr Needham added, noting that another Uganda People’s Defence Force convoy evacuating Ugandan nationals from South Sudan is expected to reach the border.

“On previous occasions, a large number of refugees have taken the opportunity to flee the country by accompanying the convoy,” he said.

{The newly revived Mount Meru International Marathon has been scheduled for next September, with the race still sticking to its 21 kilometres’ half-marathon as the ceiling for main event.}

But the announced September 4 date may even cause the Mount Meru race to clash with the other running event, the Safari Marathon which of late has been an on and off affair, having skipped the last year schedule due to what the organisers described to be paving way for the 2015 country political campaigns and general election.

The Mount Meru Marathon’s organising secretary Alfred Nicolas said here that the aim of this year’s race is to promote tourism (which again seems to be the turf for Safari Marathon), to discover and promote new talents in athletics and encourage physical exercise through sports for the maintenance of people’s well-being. At least 3,000 participants are expected to run this year, based on previous experiences and that, the event will also attract over 10,000 spectators.

“We are ready to present prizes worth 2.5m/- to the winners and at the moment we have 1,000 medals to award winners and finishers,” said Nicolas in an official statement. The start and finishing points are yet to be announced; but usually the race would be flagged off from the Sheikh Amri Abeid Stadium and end up there.

Sometimes though, coordinators may decide to choose the central Clock- Tower junction as the starting point. There will only be two categories of the Mount Meru Marathon; the main event of 21 kilometres’ race and the 5 kilometres run which comes in two categories; children race and women runners, with the participants advised to register at the Mamboleo Digital event office or online at ‘mountmerumarathon. com’.

September, the month scheduled for Mount Meru Marathon, is also the same time that the other marathon the Safari Run is expected to resume this year, how the two athletic events will survive alongside each other is the bridge that needs to be crossed upon being reached.

{Gen Kayihura is sued along with senior police officers.}

Two victims of the recent police brutal beatings have sued the Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura, and seven other police commanders.

The victims, Mr Ronald Muhereza and Mr Michael Nyesiga, have petitioned High Court seeking for Shs50m compensation each.

Gen Kayihura is sued along with senior police officers James Ruhweza (Kampala North Regional police boss), Andrew Kaggwa, (Kampala South Regional boss) and Samuel Bamuzibire, (Kampala Metropolitan Field Force unit commander).

Others sued are Geoffrey Kaheebwa (Deputy Regional Police Commander, Kampala South), Aaron Baguma (Kampala Central Police Station commander), Jonathan Baroza, (personal Assistant to IGP Kayihura) and Daniel Tandeka Rwabwere.

Most of the sued officers are accused of issuing orders to beat up supporters of former Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, as he travelled to the party headquarters in Najjanankumbi.

In their suit filed yesterday, Mr Muhereza and Mr Nyesiga state that the actions of the police officers, in surrounding them and mercilessly beating them up at the junction from Busaabala Road to Najjanankumbi on Entebbe Road as they cheered Dr Besigye, was unconstitutional.

The duo also claim that the police during the resultant violence, confiscated and damaged their bicycle and motorcycle, respectively, thereby violating their right to work to which they also claim compensation for loss of work.

“The action by the police and other security operatives on the July 13 of encircling boda boda riders at the junction from Busaabala Road to Najjanankumbi off Entebbe Road and wantonly, brutally, arbitrarily, angrily and violently beating, forcing them to abandon their motorcycles and later confiscating those motorcycles constituted a violation of their right to work, livelihood and an adequate standard of living which is protected under Articles 22 (1) and 45 of the Constitution,” reads in part the court documents.

The two victims through their lawyers, are also seeking for a court declaration that the said police commanders are unfit to be in the Force and should be dismissed with disgrace.

“The defendants are not fit and proper persons to be police officers of Uganda Police Force and shall be dismissed from the Force immediately,” the petition reads in part.

Early last week, for two days running, the police mercilessly beat up Dr Besigye’s supporters who spontaneous gathered to applaud him in excitement.

On the first day, Besigye had just been released from Luzira prison on bail while on the second day, he was leaving Nakawa Magistrate’s Court where his treason case had been heard.

Following the telecasting of the horrid footage of several television stations and criticism by human rights groups and citizens, Gen Kayihura applauded Mr Kaggwa and his team for stopping the crowds from “spilling over to Entebbe Road”.

He said the beatings had been sanctioned by the Force and that tear gas and rubber bullets have been eliminated.

However, yesterday Parliament as well as government condemned police for its high handedness. Some of the sued police officers are facing charges in the police disciplinary court on the same incidents and of “bringing in disrepute the police force’s name”.

{Those shot dead were identified as Salim Hanjary Benzimba and Kibwana Ahmed Abdalla alias Rajab.}

Two terror suspects have been killed and three hand-grenades seized from their house in Mombasa.

The two men, who police said escaped capture during raids in Majengo and Malindi, were with two others who got away with bullet wounds during the 4pm incident in Mshomoroni, Kisauni Sub-County.

Speaking at the Dog Section Unit Police Station, Kisauni deputy OCDP Walter Abondo said the two were members of the terrorist group Al-Shabaab and were suspected to have been planning to carry out attacks in Mombasa.

Police also seized 17 rounds of ammunition, three liquid explosives, four plastic explosives and four bomb detonators.

“This evening members of the public tipped us [off] that there were suspicious characters within the area. And when we surrounded the house and approached the four, they started shooting at our officers,” said Mr Abondo.

He added: “The two have been in our books and their day was today. We are currently trailing the other two and we are appealing to members of the public to continue supporting us.”

Police believe the suspect who escaped is called Ishmail Shoshi and he has been on the list of wanted terror fugitives since last year.

Those shot dead were identified as Salim Hanjary Benzimba and Kibwana Ahmed Abdalla, alias Rajab.

A police report further said those killed were “logistical facilitators” for Al-Shabaab and some of their tasks were to identify and rent houses to shelter other militants.

The report also associated them with another fugitive called Hussein Barbly.

“They were involved in the [renting] of the Majengo residence in which police recovered a cache of arms. They also leased a house in Malindi, Kwachache area, where officers killed four terror suspects.”

The report appealed to the public to be vigilant and report any suspicious activities.

{It looks like Missoula’s first round of refugees will be from sub-Saharan Africa, not Syria.}

“We haven’t finalized when they’ll be coming, so I can’t give you specifics, but it will most likely be Congolese to start, Congolese from the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Molly Short Carr said Wednesday.

Carr, Missoula’s new International Rescue Committee director, arrived in Missoula two weeks ago to start preparations for a resettlement office that was approved earlier this year by the U.S. State Department. A native of Buffalo, New York, she spent most of the past two years as an administrator based in Nairobi, Kenya, working on “the other side” of the international continuum of refugee resettlement efforts.

Carr said she has been in the three camps the Congolese refugees to Missoula are most likely to come from – Gihembe in Rwanda, Nakivale in Uganda and Nyaragusa Refugee Camp on the coast of Tanzania. She was in Nyaragusa just a month ago.

“This year there’s been a push to bring certain populations out of Africa, so our resources on the continent were shifted to certain locations,” said Carr. “That’s why I was with those populations.”

Refugee numbers from the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo swelled in the mid- to late 1990s as people tried to escape civil war. An estimated 150,000 people reportedly crossed Lake Tanganyika to escape ethnic and political violence.

Secretary of State John Kerry announced last week that the Obama administration will meet its highly controversial target of settling 10,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S. by Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year. The national IRC office played it close to the vest, but there were indications in recent months that some of those Syrian refugees would be headed for Missoula.

That doesn’t appear to be the case, at least not initially, said Carr, who expects the first Congolese to arrive in August or September.

Missoula County commissioners touched off a firestorm when they sent a letter to the U.S. State Department last winter saying they’d welcome the resettlement of 100 refugees a year to deal with the worldwide crisis, which has reached proportions not seen since the aftermath of World War II.

One hundred is roughly the number Carr expects to work with, though Bob Johnson, a senior adviser for the IRC office in Seattle, said the number isn’t set in stone.

“It’s pretty hard to predict because we don’t know family size,” he said. “It could be 100, it could be 125 total people. One hundred within the first 12 months was kind of how we calculated, given that things would start off very slow.”

“We’re not going to put more refugees here than the capacity,” Carr said. “We have to look at what’s available, how many refugees would we be able to support and provide assistance to, and how many would the community be able to support and provide assistance to.”

Missoula has a number of advantages, she noted, including the assistance of Soft Landing Missoula, which has built an impressive network of support and volunteers. It’s a bike-friendly community which now offers a fare-free Mountain Line bus system.

***

The first arrivals are now in refugee camps in East Africa and should be aware of their destination after up to three years of intensive screening and background checks. The vetting process for Syrian refugees has come under scrutiny but Carr, who has seen the system in action in Africa, insisted it is extremely thorough.

“We’re going to make sure that everyone who comes through is exactly who they say they are, doing what they said they were going to do,” she said. “We’re going to be very risk adverse in this process. The highest priority on the national side is security and the integrity of the program.”

As Carr understands it, the IRC’s initial intent is to resettle families, though coming from a war-torn nation they aren’t likely to be intact.

“We may have single moms or dads, we may have older children, younger children. Many of the younger children who come will have lived their entire lives in a refugee camp,” she said.

Office space for the IRC has been secured in the Solstice Building on West Broadway, and interviews are ongoing this week to fill the positions of caseworker and a half-time finance manager. The focus is on hiring locally from what Johnson characterized as a deep pool of applicants.

“We feel that the local knowledge of the community is going to be invaluable as we bring in the refugees,” Carr said.

Those who fled the Congo may speak a variety of languages, including Swahili, Lingala, or Kikongo.

“Maybe a little English. There are some English training programs in the camps, but it’s very minimal,” Carr said. “Some of them will have French, because the Congo is a French-speaking country. That will be helpful for learning English, because grammatically they’re very similar.”

Missoula has no Congolese community to speak of, but it does offer a strong international component at the University of Montana and an uncommonly large return population of Peace Corps volunteers.

“If they were anywhere in East Africa, they’ll probably speak Swahili and be able to help us communicate and work with the refugees,” Carr said of the latter.

The university will do its part, assistant professor Tobin Miller Shearer, director of the African-American Studies program, said in an email Wednesday

His department “will be very interested in connecting with the families, and finding ways to support them,’ Shearer said, “especially in terms of providing any orientation that we could to racial realities in the U.S.”