VIF News Digest: International Developments (Africa), 25 – 31 March, 2019

Cyclone-hit Mozambique sitting on a 'sanitation, hygiene ticking bomb': VOA, 25 March 2019

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is appealing for $30.5 million to provide life-saving aid for 200,000 of the most vulnerable survivors of Cyclone Idai in Mozambique.

IFRC Secretary General Elhadi As Sy is launching this emergency appeal after returning from a visit to Beira in Mozambique. Cyclone Idai destroyed an estimated 90 percent of the coastal city, according to the Red Cross. Click here to read... [2]

UNHCR: 500,000 displaced Cameroonians urgently need humanitarian aid – VOA, 26 March 2019

The U.N. refugee agency is appealing for $184 million to support its life-saving operations for nearly a half-million Cameroonians displaced inside their country and as refugees in Nigeria. Violent clashes between the Cameroonian military and armed separatists in the English-speaking parts of the country have intensified during the past year.

The U.N. refugee agency estimates more than 437,000 Cameroonians are internally displaced and more than 35,000 others have fled to Nigeria in search of refuge. Click here to read... [3]

UN Officials: 13 million in Congo need major increase in aid: VOA, 26 March 2019

The number of people needing humanitarian aid in Congo has increased dramatically in the past year to 13 million and "hunger and malnutrition have reached the highest level on record,'' the head of the U.N. children's agency said Monday.

UNICEF's Executive Director Henrietta Fore told a news conference that 7.5 million of those needing aid are children, including 4 million suffering from acute malnutrition and over 1.4 million from severe acute malnutrition "which means that they are in imminent risk of death.'' Click here to read... [4]

Mali Inter-Ethnic violence spikes; UN calls for probe: VOA, 26 March 2019

The United Nations Human Rights Office is calling on the government of Mali to investigate the killing of more than 150 people and to bring the perpetrators to justice. The agency says an attack Saturday in Ogossagou in the Mopti region of central Mali, marked a significant increase in violence.

The U.N. reports that over the past year, fighting between the Fulani and Dogon ethnic communities has resulted in the deaths of some 600 women, children and men. Click here to read... [5]

Cyclone Idai crisis deepens as first cases of cholera confirmed in Mozambique: The Guardian, 27 March 2019

The first cases of cholera have been reported in the cyclone-ravaged Mozambican city of Beira, complicating an already massive and complex emergency in the southern African country.

The announcement of five cases of the waterborne disease follows days of mounting fears that cholera and other diseases could break out in the squalid conditions in which tens of thousands have been living since Cyclone Idais truck on 14 March, killing at least 700 people across the region. Click here to read... [6]

UN Assesses situation in Zimbabwe amid calls for food assistance: VOA, 28 March 2019

The United Nations is assessing the Cyclone Idai humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe as calls for the government to provide aid more quickly grow louder. At Machongwe village in Zimbabwe’s Chimanimani district, the area hardest hit by Cyclone Idai, people wait as officials arrange food. Click here to read... [7]

Housing in Sub-Saharan Africa improves but millions of people live in slums: The Guardian, 28 March 2019

From cities to the countryside, Africa has undergone a dramatic transformation in living conditions over the past 15 years, according to a new study.

But the research, based on state of the art mapping and published in science journal Nature, also found that almost half of the urban population – 53 million people across the countries analysed – were living in slum conditions. Click here to read... [8]

Xenophobic attacks spark South African response: BBC, 31 March 2019

Early on Monday morning three people died amid protests targeting shops, many of which are foreign-owned. Around 50 people sought shelter at a police station when a group of unemployed South Africans forced them out of their homes in the night. Foreigners are targeted by people who accuse them of taking jobs from locals.

About 100 people attacked small food shops on Sunday night and into Monday morning, looting and burning the buildings. Click here to read... [9]

Egypt President raises minimum wage, now $116 from $70: Africanews, 31 March 2019

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has raised the country’s minimum wage to 2,000 Egyptian pounds ($116) a month from 1,200 pounds, he said at an event on Saturday celebrating women.

Sisi said the raise would apply to all Egyptian workers and added that pensions would rise by 15 percent, with pensioners receiving a minimum increase of 150 pounds to take the minimum pension to 900 pounds. Click here to read... [10]