Yearly Archives: 2021

DR Congo announces end of Ebola outbreak

África, República Democrática do Congo

Via: RFI

The Ebola outbreak, the DRC’s 12th since the disease was first identified in 1976, was rolled back thanks to a campaign to vaccinate hundreds of people, according to the new health minister Jean-Jacques Mbungani. The latest outbreak of the disease was first detected on 7 February in the eastern province of North Kivu, where a 22-month epidemic ended last June, leaving a death toll of 2,287, the worst in the DRC’s history. Mbungani urged the population to remain vigilant, and said surveillance teams will continue to work with the local health authorities to identify any further cases.

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Cape Town fire: Satellite images show the destruction caused by the blaze

África, África do Sul, Incêndio

Via: The South African

Satellite images from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel-2 Earth observation mission add a new perspective to the widespread destruction caused by the Cape Town fire, which broke out on Sunday, 18 April and burned for three days. An area of approximately 622 hectares (6.22 square kilometres), which is represented by an ugly fire scar in the images, was destroyed by the Cape Town fire. The Cape Town fire was reportedly started by a vagrant near Table Mountain National Park and spread quickly. There was significant damage to buildings at the upper campus of the University of Cape Town (UCT) — where students were evacuated — and invaluable works housed in the special collections library were lost.

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Chad President Idriss Deby dies visiting front-line troops

Chade, Crise Política, Eleições presidenciais, Segurança

Via: Aljazeera

Chad’s longtime President Idriss Deby has died of wounds suffered on the front line in the country’s north, where he had gone to visit soldiers battling rebels, the armed forces said. Deby, 68, “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield” over the weekend, army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement read out on state television on Tuesday (20/04), a day after Deby was declared the winner of a presidential election. The exact circumstances of Deby’s death were not immediately clear. The army said the president had been commanding his army at the weekend as it battled rebels who had launched a major incursion into the north of the country on election day on April 11. Agouna also said a military council led by the late president’s 37-year-old son, four-star General Mahamat Idriss Deby, would replace him. A curfew has been imposed and the country’s borders have been shut in the wake of the president’s death.

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