Rafael Abuchaibe

BBC Monitoring

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President Jovenel Moïse declared a state of emergency over the weekend as Haiti experiences what officials say may be a new, deadlier wave of the coronavirus being blamed for the deaths of at least three public figures so far.

“The government declares a state of health emergency for eight days,” President Jovenel Moïse tweeted Saturday. “Today, more than ever, respecting the restrictions is imposed on everyone.”

Prominent figures Pastor Emmanuel Sannon, Chesnel Pierre and Frantz Gérard Verret died of COVID-19 symptoms over the weekend, according to local reports. Ex-senator Jean Robert Bossé also tested positive.

Pierre was a former general director of the National Old Age Insurance Office (ONA) and Verret was the president of the provisional electoral council between 2007 and 2009.

Haiti has been seeing about 70 new coronavirus infection cases per day, on average, Moïse said last week. The English and Brazilian variants were detected in Haiti, officials said.

Haiti also accepted 130,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine last week, but there’s no word yet of when the vaccine will arrive. Source

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Torrents of lava poured into villages after dark in eastern Congo yesterday with little warning, leaving at least 15 people dead amid the chaos and destroying more than 500 homes, officials and survivors said.

The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo on Saturday night sent about 5,000 people fleeing from the city of Goma across the nearby border into Rwanda, while another 25,000 others sought refuge to the northwest in Sake, the United Nationa’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today.

More than 170 children are still feared missing and UNICEF officials said they were organising transit centres to help unaccompanied children in the wake of the disaster.

Goma ultimately was largely spared the mass destruction it suffered the last time the volcano erupted in 2002. Hundreds died then and more than 100,000 people were left homeless. But in outlying villages closer to the volcano, Sunday was marked by grief and uncertainty.

Aline Bichikwebo and her baby managed to escape when the lava flow reached her village, but said both her mother and father were among those who perished. Community members gave a provisional toll of 10 dead in Bugamba alone, though provincial authorities said it was too soon to know how many lives were lost.

Bichikwebo says she tried to rescue her father but wasn’t strong enough to move him to safety before the family’s home was ignited by lava.

“I am asking for help, because everything we had is gone,” she said, clutching her baby. “We don’t even have a pot. We are now orphans and we have nothing.”

The air remained thick with smoke because of how many homes had caught fire when the lava came.

“People are still panicking and are hungry,” resident Alumba Sutoye said. “They don’t even know where they are going to spend the night.”

Others died while evacuating

Elsewhere, authorities said at least five other people had died in a truck crash while they were trying to evacuate Goma, but the scale of the loss had yet to be determined in some of the hardest-hit communities.

Residents said there was little warning before the dark sky turned a fiery red, sending people running for their lives in all directions. One woman went into labour and gave birth while fleeing the eruption to Rwanda, the national broadcaster there said.

Smoke rose from smouldering heaps of lava in the Buhene area near the city Sunday.

“We have seen the loss of almost an entire neighbourhood,” Innocent Bahala Shamavu said. “All the houses in Buhene neighbourhood were burned and that’s why we are asking all the provincial authorities and authorities at the national level, as well as all the partners, all the people of good faith in the world, to come to the aid of this population.”

Elsewhere, witnesses said lava had engulfed one highway connecting Goma with the city of Beni.

However, the airport appeared to be spared the same fate as 2002, when lava flowed onto the runways.

Goma is a regional hub for many humanitarian agencies in the region, as well as the UN peacekeeping mission. While Goma is home to many UN peacekeepers and aid workers, much of surrounding eastern Congo is under threat from myriad armed groups vying for control of the region’s mineral resources.

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He also called out Broward County’s large Caribbean-American community, who he says have been generally hesitant to take the shot.

“We have seen in Broward County, some of our southern zip codes and some areas of West Broward show an alarming discrepancy in the percentage of people vaccinated. We’ve seen hesitancy particularly gaming the Caribbean-American communities. Again, it does not matter your age, ethnicity, or national origin. I am urging everybody to protect themselves and their community. Get vaccinated. COVID is not over,” he said.

Mayor Geller says that as more variants of the virus emerge and become present in the United States, it has become even more necessary for residents to take the shot. He also urged businesses and residents to continue to follow safety protocols, despite the new CDC guidelines.

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Health officials in Montserrat said there is no link between two recent deaths and the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The Ministry of Health and Social Sciences issued a report on Friday following the conclusion of post-mortem investigations which were conducted by pathologist Dr Stephen King.

According to Ministry officials, Dr King ruled out any possibility that the COVID-19 vaccine contributed to the deaths of two individuals who died suddenly.

The Ministry of Health said in a release that none of the deaths recorded in the country since the vaccination programme began in February were a result of complications related to the COVID vaccine.

Residents are now being urged to be more discerning in the news they share.

The Ministry said in its statement that disseminating fake news creates public panic and undue emotional stress.

Officials continue to assure the public that investigations will continue into any death deemed suspicious, as is routinely done.

“The public will be duly informed should any local safety concerns of the AstraZeneca vaccine be found. To date, no severe reactions to the vaccine have been noted locally,” the Ministry said.

Meanwhile, residents who have not yet been vaccinated are being urged to register by contacting a health centre of their choosing or by using the online registration portal www.gov.ms/vaccination.

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Late last year, inspections were performed on the cables themselves, including magnetic inspections on the primary cables of the lift: the cable that pulls the cabin up the mountain, the support cable that holds the car and the rescue cables.

In December another visual check was performed, the ministry said.

The mayor of Stresa, Marcella Severino, quoted witnesses as saying they heard a “loud hiss”, apparently when the lead cable snapped.

She said the cabin reeled back down the line until it apparently hit a pylon and then plummeted to the ground. It rolled over two or three times before crashing into trees, she said.

It was not immediately clear why a brake had not engaged.

 

 

Some of the bodies were thrown from the car and were found amid the trees, she said.

The funicular line is popular with tourists and locals alike to scale Mottarone, which reaches a height of 4,900ft and overlooks several picturesque lakes and the surrounding Alps of Italy’s Piedmont region.

The mountain hosts a small amusement park, Alpyland, that has a children’s rollercoaster, and the area also has mountain bike paths and hiking trails.

It only reopened a few weeks ago after Italy’s wintertime coronavirus lockdowns lifted, and officials hypothesised that families were taking advantage of a sunny Sunday to visit the peak and take in the view.

The Israeli foreign ministry identified the five Israelis killed as Eitan’s parents, Amit Biran and Tal Peleg-Biran, an Israeli-born couple studying and working in Pavia. Mr Biran’s Facebook page identifies him as a medical student at the University of Pavia.

Their two-year-old son, Tom Biran, was killed at the scene, as were Ms Peleg-Biran’s grandparents, Barbara and Yitzhak Cohen. The ministry said they had arrived in Italy on May 19 to visit their granddaughter and great-grandchildren.

Amit Biran’s sister, Aya, was not involved in the crash and was at the bedside of Eitan at Turin’s Regina Margherita hospital, the foreign ministry said, adding that other family members were flying to Italy from Israel to join her.

The Israeli embassy is working to help repatriate the bodies to Israel.

Among the other victims were an Italian researcher, Serena Consentino, and her Iranian-born companion, Mohammadreza Shahaisavandi, according to a statement from Italy’s National Council of Research, where Ms Consentino had a research grant.

Also killed at the scene were Vittorio Zorloni and his wife Elisabetta Persanini.

Their six-year-old son Mattia died at Regina Margherita after multiple efforts to restart his heart, hospital officials said.

A young couple, Silvia Malnati and Alessandro Merlo, were killed while Ms Malnati’s brother stayed down in town and frantically tried to call her, Italy’s La Stampa newspaper reported, quoting the brother.

Another couple, Roberta Pistolato and Angelo Vito Gasparro, were celebrating Mr Gasparro’s 45th birthday.

La Stampa said Ms Pistolato texted her sister in Puglia just before the tragedy, saying: “We’re going up in the funicular. It’s paradise here.”

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The Gulf Coast and the eastern United States are likely due for another above-average Atlantic hurricane season, according to a forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency released yesterday.

The upcoming year is expected to see anywhere from 13 to 20 named storms—those with wind speeds above 39 mph—with six to 10 expected to develop into hurricanes. Of those, between three and five are likely to develop into Category 3 hurricanes or stronger. Warmer than average sea temperatures fuel the activity; hurricanes generally require the ocean water temperature to be above 80 degrees to a depth of 150 feet.

The season is not expected to match last year’s historic barrage of hurricanes. It was the most active year on record, with 30 named storms and seven Category 3 or stronger systems causing more than $50B in damage. Eleven storms made landfall in the US, breaking the 1916 record of nine. 

The season officially starts June 1.

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The United States will expand Haitian eligibility for a humanitarian program that grants deportation relief and work permits to immigrants who cannot safely return to their home countries, the Department of Homeland Security said on Saturday.

A new designation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will cover an estimated 150,000 Haitians already living in the United States, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez said in a statement praising the decision.

“After careful consideration, we determined that we must do what we can to support Haitian nationals in the United States until conditions in Haiti improve so they may safely return home,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement, citing security concerns, increased human rights abuses, “crippling poverty and lack of basic resources.”

Democrats, a few Republicans and pro-immigrant advocates had pressed President Joe Biden administration’s to make more Haitians who are in the country illegally eligible for deportation relief. Republican former President Donald Trump had sought to end most TPS enrollment, including that of Haitians, but was stymied by federal courts.

The program allows people already in the United States to stay and work legally if their home countries have been affected by natural disasters, armed conflicts or other events that prevent their safe return. The designations last six to 18 months and can be renewed.

Haitians were granted the protected status following a devastating 2010 earthquake in the Caribbean island nation. The program currently covers about 54,000 Haitians residing in the United States since January 2011, a DHS spokeswoman said.

The new move would extend the program for 18 months for those already in it and expand eligibility to Haitians in the United States as of May 21. That would make roughly 100,000 more people eligible, the spokeswoman said.

Mayorkas stressed that Haitians who arrive in the United States after May 21 will not be eligible and could be deported.

Menendez applauded the move, saying in a statement that it “will avoid destabilizing the island’s fragile recovery efforts.”

The Biden administration opened the TPS program to an estimated 320,000 Venezuelans living in the United States in March and for several thousand Syrians in January.

Roughly half of the Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants in the United States live in Florida, according to the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

In the coming months, the Biden administration will also face decisions over whether to renew or expand TPS eligibility for immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and five other countries covered by the program.

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Bogotá (CNN) What started as a tax reform proposal to help ease the strain of the pandemic on the economy and balance government finances ended with people taking to the streets to express their discontent.

Large-scale protests in Colombia are now in their third week, and prosecutors have announced homicide charges after a national police officer was seen on video shooting and killing a 17-year-old in the city of Cali during the first day of demonstrations.

Last week, Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office released a statement charging the police officer, Luis Ángel Piedrahita Hernández, with aggravated homicide in connection to the killing of Marcelo Agredo Inchima. Officer Piedrahita Hernández maintains his innocence and the case will go before a criminal court.

The charges were announced on the same day that the head of Colombia’s National Police, General Jorge Luis Vargas, just four months into the new role, defended the credibility of the force — which has been fiercely criticized for its heavy-handed response to the protests — while admitting that police would be the first to recognize their faults.

“Any act that a police officer commits against the law is forcefully rejected,” General Vargas said, speaking to Spanish newspaper El País last week. “Whoever has individual responsibility, we hope that the full weight of the law falls on him. And we will be the first to ask for forgiveness when it is determined,” he added.

The institution the general oversees has found itself in the middle of a credibility crisis, as reports of human rights violations increase and international humanitarian groups including the United Nations voice concerns. On Saturday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) formally requested access to the country to investigate these abuse allegations.

At least 42 people have died in the protests according to Colombia’s Ombudsman Office. Rights groups say the death toll could be higher. According to a compilation by human rights organization Temblores, at least 2,387 cases of police violence have been reported.

The shooting of Marcelo Agredo Inchima

Marcelo Agredo Inchima was among the first casualties that resulted in the protests, on a day when social media videos of brutal repression by police would ignite fury across an already angered nation.

Seventeen-year-old Agredo and his brother joined an anti-tax bill rally on April 28, the first day of protests in Cali — a city in southwest Colombia that would soon become the heart of the movement. Little did they know it would be the last day he would be seen alive

Reckoning with lethal violence in Colombia’s prolonged wave of protests

Dramatic social media footage shot from a balcony in the Mariano Ramos neighborhood shows Agredo kicking a police officer on a motorcycle. Shots can be heard as people scatter in panic. Agredo attempts to run away on foot, but the police officer grabs his gun and shoots, downing the young man.

A second social media video from another angle shows Agredo running and then falling to the ground. A third shows his body on the pavement in a pool of blood, as people frantically try to move him. “They killed him!” a woman screams, terror resonating in her voice.

“No, he’s already dead,” she sobs near Agredo’s still body.

The following day, the young man’s father spoke on camera with Temblores and confirmed the death of his son.

“My kid died there as a result of a shot that a police officer gave him. My son attacked a policeman with a kick,” Armando Agredo Bustamante said, arguing the kick wasn’t a reason to take his son’s life when his son was unarmed and “defenseless.”

For many Colombians, what started as protests over the now-withdrawn tax reform that would have hit many families already struggling economically, have transformed into a cry to end excessive police force directed at protesters— something they say has plagued the nation for decades.

“The way that they decided to take these things is to bring the police and the military forces against their own people. That’s why we are all here,” Juan Pablo Randazzo, 21, told CNN during a peaceful protest in the capital of Bogotá, the brightly colored yellow, blue and red Colombian flag wrapped around his neck like a cape.

“We are not prepared to hear the next day that one of our friends, that one of our family, that one of our brothers is getting killed,” the university student added with emotion in his voice.

In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour last week, Colombian president Iván Duque announced 65 investigations have been opened into police abuse adding that there were “strict protocols” on the use of force in the country.

Duque said his government had “always trusted and defended the fundamental right in our institution for specific protests.”

Nevertheless, government officials also maintain that leftist militants and illegal armed groups are behind some of the violence.

Last week, Colombia’s Defense Ministry announced security forces had detained a leader of a local cell of the largest leftist guerrilla group in the country, the National Liberation Army (ELN). The Ministry accused him of attempting to blend into the protests in Cali with plans to detonate a hand grenade and blame security forces, but offered no proof.

A cascade of discontent

The withdrawal of the tax reform proposal, which the government said was necessary to ease the pandemic’s blows, was too late to allay protesters’ fury over months of economic pressure, reinforced by police brutality, all of which has deepened the sense of inequality that many Colombians feel.

Protesters have burned public buses, police precincts, looted stores and blocked roads throughout the nation, further hampering the economy and flow of goods.

“The Colombian Constitution does not establish the right to block, for violence, or vandalism,” Interior Minister Daniel Palacios said on Twitter. “The blockades generate poverty, don’t build a country and end the economy,” he added.

Negotiations between the Colombian government, indigenous groups and the National Strike Committee are ongoing but have so far been unsuccessful. Even President Duque’s announcement last week to cut tuition for lower-income students in the second semester of 2021 has failed to stem the protests.

Meanwhile, Colombians are sinking deeper into poverty, a problem exacerbated by the pandemic and nationwide lockdowns. According to the country’s National Statistics Department (DANE), the poverty rate increased from 36 percent in 2019 to 42.5 percent in 2020.

In Colombia’s protests, pandemic pressures collide with an existential reckoning for police

A study from DANE also reports the number of Colombian families eating less than three meals per day has tripled since the start of the pandemic.

Sociology and history professor Jose Alejandro Cifuentes tells CNN the economic situation Colombia faces is grim and entangled with its history of civil war and inequality.

“We are in a very serious situation in the face of access to higher education, employment, and we are facing a situation of high informal employment that is the only space left for these youths,” Cifuentes said in regard to the many young Colombians taking to the streets to voice their frustrations and concerns.

Not only has the pandemic hit the future generations though. It has also affected people like Marlon Rincon Peralta, 46, a father of five who we met as he waved down the few visitors who drove past his mostly empty tables.

Rincon Peralta was forced to go from business owner to waiting tables at a restaurant in the once bustling colonial tourist town of Zipaquirá, north of the capital.

“Never, never have I seen this situation,” Rincon Peralta told CNN as he got emotional sharing how the pandemic only helped make the rich richer and the poor poorer due to the inequality the country has faced and continues to live.

Financially, he is at his worst.

“I tell my wife, my kids, if we continue like this, no, no… what are we going to do?” he said with tears in his eyes.

“The pandemic has a cure,” he said but the economy and inequality doesn’t. “If we don’t do something, we will never have a cure.”

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