Day: March 20, 2022

Posted on

Premature South Sudanese Elections Could Spur Violence, UN Panel Says

A United Nations watchdog panel is warning that South Sudan could plunge into massive violence if elections are held before the government implements constitutional provisions aimed at solidifying the country’s shaky peace agreement. The three-member Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan has submitted its latest report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

South Sudan has had a three-year transitional period to implement provisions of the Revitalized Peace Agreement ending the country’s civil war, which was to be followed by general elections in 2023.

However, Commission members say key areas of the peace agreement remain unimplemented. They say that and continuing violent conflict in parts of the country, as well as widespread, systematic human rights violations, preclude the possibility of free and fair elections.

The commission’s chair, Yasmin Sooka, said the conflict has displaced 4 million people both within the country and as refugees in neighboring countries. She said nearly 9 million people need humanitarian aid. She said the government is riddled with corruption and the country’s treasury is being looted by the political elite.

She said civil rights are repressed, with human rights activists and journalists routinely facing death threats and arbitrary detention. She said conflict-related sexual violence against women and girls is widespread and systematic throughout South Sudan.

“In this climate of fear and terror, how can we talk about constitution-making, elections, and transitional justice? Are national consultations even possible? …The growing political crisis threatens to exacerbate the existing humanitarian and human rights crises, which cause widespread suffering and makes the life of many South Sudanese unbearable,” said Sooka.

Commission member Andrew Clapham said core elements of a constitution are not yet agreed to. He said both constitution-making and elections require considerable legal, institutional, security and logistical arrangements. He said all are yet to be established.

“Beyond these key legal and procedural considerations, it is critical to recognize the risks of further polarization and political violence around these elections, particularly when insufficient groundwork has been laid for the process. The consequences of a rushed poll, within a contested political system and without requisite security and democratic conditions in place, could indeed be disastrous,” said Clapham.

South Sudan’s Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Ruben Madol Arol disputes the Commission’s claims. He said his government is making progress in the implementation of the provisions in the Revitalized Agreement.

However, he said lack of outside support is hindering progress in this regard. He said South Sudan needs technical assistance and capacity-building to move the process forward. He appeals to the U.N. Council and Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to provide these tools.

Source: Voice of America

Posted on

Malawi Launches Polio Vaccine for East and Southern Africa Countries

Malawi Sunday launched a polio vaccination campaign after the country in February confirmed its first case, 30 years after it eradicated the disease.

UNICEF, the World Health Organization and other partners of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative are leading the campaign, which targets over 20 million children in Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania by July.

The vaccine rollout comes after it was confirmed last month that a 3-year-old girl was paralyzed by wild poliovirus in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe.

Until February, Malawi had last reported a polio case in 1992. The southern African country was declared polio-free in 2005 — 15 years before the whole continent achieved the same status.

UNICEF says over 9 million children are to be vaccinated in the first round of the mass campaign in Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi.

UNICEF said the mass immunization will also target children previously vaccinated.

“We need to vaccinate children who have been vaccinated before because it takes multiple doses of the polio doses to get fully immunized as regards to polio and every additional dose gives children extra protection,” says Rudolf Schwenk, UNICEF’s representative in Malawi.

Schwenk says if some children are not immunized during the campaign, starting Monday the risk of polio will remain not only in Malawi but in neighboring countries as well.

So far, UNICEF has procured over 36 million doses of polio vaccine for the first two rounds of immunizations of children in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia.

In Malawi, the U.N. children’s agency is set to administer 6.8 million doses of the polio vaccine to be used in the first two rounds of vaccination in March and April, targeting 2.9 million children.

Three more rounds of vaccination will follow in the coming months, covering a total of more than 20 million children from the targeted four African countries.

However, in Malawi some health experts fear the immunization campaign would meet with vaccine resistance, as has been the case with COVID-19 vaccine in Malawi.

But UNICEF says efforts were made already to increase acceptance and demand for the polio vaccine among parents and communities.

“So we have worked with faith leaders, with high-level government officials, we have spoken to community leaders and with our partners we have done sensitization discussion to help the understand the importance of vaccinating the children,” said Schwenk.

He also says they have distributed information, education and communication materials across Malawi and aired radio messages about the advantages of the polio vaccine.

Dr. Mike Chisema, the manager for the Expanded Program on Immunization in the Ministry of Health in Malawi, told journalists Thursday that the government was ready for the polio vaccination campaign despite shortage of health care workers.

“Issue of human resource remains a challenge,” he said. “It’s not just about this particular program of outbreak response alone. But what is most important to note is that we have the teams that are available; our health surveillance assistants who do this work all the time. But it’s a question of adding the numbers over time. But we will work to manage with available human resource on the ground.”

In a statement released Sunday, UNICEF said in partnership with the World Health Organization they have trained health care workers in all the countries where they are administering the polio vaccine.

In Malawi they have trained 13,500 health workers and volunteers, 34 district health promotion officers. While in Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia they have trained a combined total of about 3,000 health care workers.

Source: Voice of America

Proudly powered by WordPress