Africa

Creatives in Nairobi unleash their imaginations in an effort to inspire a new future for the city.

The 50-year-old is being held after being extradited from Italy, according to reports.

An aerial view of children and their families standing near temporary shelters at the Khamsa Dagiga site for displaced people in Zelingei Town, Central Darfur,and Sudan. Credit: UNICEF/Antony Spalton

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 29 2024 (IPS)

The humanitarian crisis in Sudan continues to deepen as a result of the ongoing Sudanese Civil War. Intensified conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has led to widespread food insecurity, with many humanitarian organizations expressing concern that starvation is being used as a method of warfare. Additionally, heightened violence has caused considerable civilian casualties.

According to a statement by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the civil war has displaced over 11 million people, becoming one of the world’s biggest displacement crises. Reports of widespread violations of international humanitarian law have impeded relief efforts greatly, worsening the pre-existing hunger crisis.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has declared Sudan to be in an emergency state of disaster due to famine. A total of 25.6 million people are facing acute hunger, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

Starvation is most concentrated in the Zamzam refugee camp, currently one of the largest and most populated displacement shelters in Sudan. “Families at Zamzam have been resorting to extreme measures to survive because food is so scarce. They are eating crushed peanut shells that are typically used to feed animals — and across the camp, parents are mourning the deaths of malnourished children,” said Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General.

Additionally, soup kitchens across Sudan have seen mass closures due to severe underfunding and a lack of humanitarian assistance. Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) spoke to reporters of the scale of suffering in Sudan due to famine, opining that starvation is used as a method of warfare by the warring parties. “It’s an underfunded operation, even though it’s the world’s biggest emergency. The war will stop when these warlords feel they have more to lose by continuing fighting, than by doing the sensible thing,” he said.

A November study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Sudan Research Group indicates that the overall death toll has increased significantly following the wake of armed conflict in Sudan. The report estimates that between April 2023 and June 2024, over 61,000 people died in the Khartoum state, marking a 50 percent increase from the pre-war death rate.

It is also estimated that 26,000 deaths were a direct result of violence, with starvation and disease becoming increasingly common causes of death in Khartoum. According to the report, the total death toll may far surpass these figures as approximately 90 percent of all deaths in Sudan go unreported.

In addition to damage caused by the two warring parties, smaller armed groups have participated in looting and attacks. “The parties are tearing down their own houses, they are massacring their own people,” Egeland said.

Humanitarian organizations have expressed concern over the escalation of violence observed over the past several months. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the UN Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, predicts that Sudan could experience a “Rwanda-like genocide” based on the current circumstances. Nderitu also added that there have been reports of ethnic cleansing in El Fasher.

On November 26, the WFP announced that they would scale up aid responses in the most famine-stricken areas of Sudan following the Sudanese government issuing clearance to use the Adre border crossing.

“In total, the trucks will carry about 17,500 tons of food assistance, enough to feed 1.5 million people for one monthIn total, the trucks will carry about 17,500 tons of food assistance, enough to feed 1.5 million people for one month,” said WFP Sudan spokesperson Leni Kinzli.

However, due to pervasive violence and the overall urgent scale of needs, additional funding is in dire need to mitigate the deepening humanitarian crisis. According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), approximately 25 million people require humanitarian assistance, which equates to nearly half of the entire population. The UN’s 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan seeks 2.7 billion dollars to provide life-saving assistance to over 14 million affected people. The UN urges continued donor support as only 56 percent of the required funds have been raised.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The announcement comes after Mauritius's new prime minister expressed doubts over the deal.

Hundreds have reportedly detained in recent weeks as relations between the two countries worsen.

The Maya Train’s Merida-Teya station, in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatan. Stations fill up when the train arrives, but remain empty most of the time. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
VALLADOLID, Mexico, Nov 29 2024 (IPS)

Indigenous craftsperson Alicia Pech doesn’t know about the Maya Train (TM), the Mexican government’s most emblematic megaproject that runs through five states in the country’s south and southeast

“We don’t travel. We lack the resources to travel on the train here. Who wouldn’t like to get on and ride somewhere? Right now… there are no visitors, no people coming. We think that by December there will be a bit more,” the 44-year-old Mayan woman told IPS."The Maya do not manage it or operate it... the government is trying to keep the project from being derailed. People feel it is alien to them; it is the culmination of a process of dispossession": Miguel Anguas.

She was born and lives in Dzitnup, from where she travels every day by bus to Valladolid, a city in the southeastern state of Yucatán, 30 minutes away, to work in the clothing shop she owns with 11 other Mayan women. They weave and embroider blouses, dresses and other textiles, a couple of blocks from the city’s downtown.

The weaver, a married mother of three, complains about low sales. “We can’t afford to pay for the shop, there are no people right now,” she said.

Valladolid, which has a population of about 85,500, is one of 26 stations already in operation on the railway, whose construction began in 2020 and five of the seven planned routes have been operating since December 2023.

The TM was initially in charge of the governmental National Fund for Tourism Development (Fonatur) and since 2023 of the Ministry of National Defence (Sedena). It runs for some 1,500 kilometres through 78 municipalities in the three states of the Yucatán peninsula – Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatán – and two other neighbouring states – Chiapas and Tabasco.

Sedena is building the two pending routes, with seven stations, between Quintana Roo and Campeche.

The line has sparked polarised controversy between its supporters and critics over deforestation in Latin America’s second largest jungle massif after the Amazon, in an issue that has become a source of weariness for the region’s communities.

A Maya Train unit waits at Chichén Itzá station, home to the archaeological site of the same name in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatán. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Pech shares the situation of thousands of people in the Yucatán peninsula, the inaccessibility of the railway and the generation of benefits, despite official promises, as IPS found during a tour of  section 3, from Calkiní (Campeche) to Izamal (Yucatán) and from there to Cancún (Quintana Roo), on  route 4.

This is in addition to the delay of the project and its cost overrun, which exceeds US$15 billion, 70% more than the initial estimate.

The train, intended for tourists, curious users and causing little enthusiasm among the local population, is empty in the larger stations, Mérida or Cancún, and passengers are scarce in the smaller ones, and does not include cargo, for now.

Between December 2023 and August, the TM carried 340,622 passengers, at a rate of 1,425 per day, according to official figures, on the 10 trains that currently run the routes, according to official data.

The tourist sites of Cancun, Merida (the Yucatan capital), Playa del Carmen, Valladolid and Palenque, which has an archaeological site, account for 80% of the passengers on the TM, which has suffered more than 20 accidents since it opened.

Although more international tourists have arrived at Merida airports or tourist destinations such as Cozumel between January and September this year, compared to the same period in 2023, it is difficult to link this to the effect of the new railway. Meanwhile, arrivals in Cancun fell by 1.5%.

Fares range from around three dollars for a one-station ride to a maximum of 156 dollars for a domestic visitor and 208 dollars for a foreign visitor, revenue that goes into the military coffers.

The Yucatán peninsula is home to the majority of the Maya population, one of Mexico’s 71 indigenous groups and one of the most culturally and historically representative in the country.

Mérida-Teya station in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatán. Stops are located outside towns and cities, which makes mobility difficult due to a lack of alternatives and increases travel costs. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Someday…

In the municipality of Maxcanú – “place of the four monkeys” or “beard of Canul”, an indigenous chieftain, in the Mayan language – and some 65 kilometres from Mérida, Madelin Ortiz, a clothing shop owner, believes the train is beneficial, although she doesn’t use it and her business has not prospered yet.

“The prices are affordable, there are more visitors. There is a lack of trains, because there are few departures. There is not as much fluidity in the timetables. I’ve wanted to go to Cancún, but I haven’t been able to,” the 78-year-old shopkeeper, a married mother of four, told IPS.

But the town is not overflowing with visitors, although there are many locals celebrating the Jicama (Pachyrhizus erosus) Fair, a tuber known as the Mexican turnip.

As in other stations, Maxcanú has eight empty premises with signs such as “Food”, “Community Tourism” and “Handicrafts” waiting for shops. The same happens in Valladolid, and at the Mérida-Teya station on the outskirts of the capital, only two food shops operate, one offering TM souvenirs, another advertising a future bakery, and a car rental place.

A worker cleans the glass doors of community tourism and handicraft sales premises, which remain empty at the station in the municipality of Maxcanú, in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatán. Stops have few shops, despite government offers to operate these spaces. Credit:Emilio Godoy / IPS

There are more idle times than busy ones with passengers at the station in Maxcanú, with just over 24,000 people. Four National Guard soldiers pass the time, along with three stray dogs, seeking the coolness of the station, fugitives from the sun, while five workers clean the place.

To avoid protests and urban disruption, Fonatur and Sedena built the stations on the outskirts of cities and towns, which makes it difficult to access them, due to their disconnection, and increases costs and journey times.

When he promoted the project, then president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who ruled between 2018 and last October, said the TM would support community tourism and that there would be spaces for craftspeople. But people like Alicia Pech are still waiting.

The government claims the train will bring thousands of tourists, create jobs, boost tourism beyond traditional visitor centres, and develop the regional economy, but there is no proof of this, especially since it does not carry cargo.

Permanent

There are wounds that never heal. The TM route has left cuts that mark the Mayan jungle, where there used to be trees, animals and plants. The project has faced accusations of deforestation, pollution, environmental damage and human rights violations.

Aerial view of the planned section 6, which runs from Tulum airport to Chetumal, in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo. Credit: Google Earth

Miguel Anguas, co-founder of the non-governmental organisation Kanan Derechos Humanos, says the TM creates a new territorial order causing harmful impacts, in some cases irreversible.

“The balance is clear.  The Maya do not manage it, nor do they operate it. From what we can see, the government is trying to keep the project from being derailed. People feel it is alien to them; it is the culmination of a process of dispossession,” he told IPS.

The construction cut down at least 11,485 hectares of jungle and emitted 470,750 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, according to research by the government’s Yucatan Scientific Research Centre, made public in September.

In fact, the government paid itself to compensate for the logging.

The government’s National Forestry Commission paid 4.11 million dollars to 11 private landowners and 18 ejidos (public land assigned for collective use) for the destruction of 2,867 hectares in 2023, and 4.38 million to 40 private individuals and 15 ejidos for 2,827 hectares this year.

Compensation is a legal mechanism that allows for the restoration of one area for damage done to another.

To increase revenues and minimise losses, President Claudia Sheinbaum, in office since 1 October, plans to extend the route to Puerto Progreso, on the Yucatan coast north of Mérida, to move freight.

But the TM will continue to use resources, as the 2025 budget plans an allocation of US$ 2,173 million, both for the two lines under construction and to maintain those already in operation.

The Mexican government knew since 2022 that the mega-project would increase the initial budget.

The updated cost-benefit analysis, prepared that year by the private Mexican consulting firm Transconsult and obtained by IPS through an access to information request, concluded that the cost would be from two to four times more than the initial estimate.

“The stations were defined in terms of serving the greatest number of locations, thus covering the greatest amount of demand in the area,” the document states.

This implies losses for the TM, which would make a profit in the medium term.

While the TM struggles to advance, Pech and Ortiz fantasize that one day they will wait on the platform, see it arrive and board one of its cars.

Despite contributing just 0.02% of total greenhouse gas emissions, Pacific Island states are drowning in the consequences of others’ actions. Credit: UNICEF/Sokhin

By Ralph Regenvanu
PORT VILA, Vanuatu, Nov 29 2024 (IPS)

The climate crisis has become devastating across the world over the past few months: super typhoons sweeping through the Western Pacific, unprecedented superstorms in the Gulf of Mexico, raging wildfires across the Amazon rainforest, severe flooding in Central and Eastern Europe, just to mention a few. Rising seas and intensifying storms threaten to devastate communities and erase entire countries from the map.

For countries on the front line, like Vanuatu, urgent action to halt warming is essential. In the first part of 2023, we were struck by two category 4 cyclones within days of each other. In October of the same year, another category 4 storm struck our islands.

In the face of such slow progress, Vanuatu has led an initiative to speed up climate action. We took the climate crisis to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world’s highest court

This current year has been easier but the sea levels are still rising all the same and Vanuatu is projected to lose 25% of its gross domestic product (GDP) every year due to climate disasters. All the while, those responsible for the crisis continue to delay and resist the solutions that we already have at hand.

In 2015 the Paris Agreement set the course for governments to protect people and the planet and hold global warming to 1.5⁰C. The deal has led to some actions but, so far, no country is on track to meet this goal and only 10 countries are projected to come close.

The needs of countries that benefited the least from the past few centuries of uncurbed emissions have been sidelined as wealthier countries have not prioritised the emissions reductions needed.

Despite contributing just 0.02% of total greenhouse gas emissions, Pacific Island states are drowning in the consequences of others’ actions. A decade after Paris, governments like mine are still trying to prevent further harm while repairing the loss and damage that has already occurred.

In the face of such slow progress, Vanuatu has led an initiative to speed up climate action. We took the climate crisis to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world’s highest court.

Hon. Ralph Regenvanu

For the first time, the Court will confront the climate crisis, and is now tasked with preparing a new set of guidelines – a compass – to establish the obligations of countries to take action on climate change based on existing international laws. Its advisory opinion could overcome the political inertia that has delayed the lifesaving action we need.

This is the moment for the international justice system to require countries to recognise and correct the injustices of the climate crisis; acknowledging how carbon emissions are driving deadly weather events, and how polluting countries have failed to prevent the disasters that now plague us.

After the most recent round of U.N. climate change talks, a gap of USD 1 trillion gap needs to be closed between what poorer countries need and what wealthy countries are currently contributing to climate funding, to cover the costs of damages and the costs of preparation for the future impacts of the climate crisis.

The International Court of Justice gives us a platform where we, small island states, could finally overcome the power of wealthy countries, with the authority of international law to finally drive just climate action.

People around the world back this shift: 80% of citizens worldwide want more ambitious climate action to repair and revive our world. This is our chance to work together for a safe and healthy planet.

We do not yet know how the Court will decide. Some of the richest and most polluting countries would prefer not to be held accountable for deadly inaction.

For the Court to form a lifesaving opinion, countries must deliver powerful statements; their participation will be an important step in advocating for the ICJ’s guiding opinion. By collectively laying down the facts, we will be able to bridge the gap between countries’ current commitments and what is needed to restore and protect our homes.

For those of us overwhelmed by the impacts of the climate crisis, a strong ruling from the ICJ would offer hope. This opinion has the potential to become the most comprehensive tool to hold those responsible for the climate crisis accountable and help us restore what has already been lost.

Countries must own up to their responsibility. That means phasing out fossil fuel use, speeding up emissions cuts and paying for the damages that have already occurred due to their heavy reliance on fossil fuels.

I am confident that the ICJ’s opinion will become the guiding star to achieve this. The world needs governments, corporations and all major emitters to rise to the challenge of halting the climate crisis.

Whether we fail or succeed in navigating the oceans of global warming will determine the future of Vanuatu and all of us suffering from this crisis, those of us alive today and those yet to be born. Our children and grandchildren deserve to inherit a world where their rights and livelihoods are protected, not eroded by the reckless actions of previous generations. Now is the time for action.

Excerpt:

Ralph Regenvanu, Special Envoy for Climate Change and Environment of the Republic of Vanuatu

Dozens - perhaps hundreds - of West African troops who fought for France in World War Two were killed.

Growing up in poverty, Kenya's Emmanuel Wanyonyi herded cattle as a boy and endured the sudden death of his father before finding purpose in athletics.

The Central African nation cites "sovereignty" as it ends a years-long deal with its former colonial ruler.

The Central African nation cites "sovereignty" as it ends a years-long deal with its former colonial ruler.

Growing up in poverty, Kenya's Emmanuel Wanyonyi herded cattle as a boy and endured the sudden death of his father before finding purpose in athletics.

Growing up in poverty, Kenya's Emmanuel Wanyonyi herded cattle as a boy and endured the sudden death of his father before finding purpose in athletics.

Zimbabwe's parliament was plunged into darkness after the finance minister's budget speech.

A selection of the week's best photos from across the African continent and beyond.

A selection of the week's best photos from across the African continent and beyond.

A selection of the week's best photos from across the African continent and beyond.

Owas Mwape posted on Facebook about his son's drug addiction - and then met up with him for a BBC interview.

Owas Mwape posted on Facebook about his son's drug addiction - and then met up with him for a BBC interview.

Owas Mwape posted on Facebook about his son's drug addiction - and then met up with him for a BBC interview.