Day: August 31, 2022

DJIBOUTI, A UN-chartered ship loaded with thousands of tonnes of Ukrainian wheat arrived in Djibouti on Tuesday, destined for some of the 22 million people at risk of starvation in the Horn of Africa.

The bulk carrier Brave Commander, which is carrying 23,000 tonnes of grain, has docked in Djibouti, a spokesman for the UN’s World Food Programme said in a brief email message, two weeks after leaving a Black Sea port in Ukraine.

Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, was forced to halt almost all deliveries after Russia’s invasion of the country in February.

But Black Sea exports have resumed under a deal brokered by the UN and Turkiye in July that lifted a Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports and set terms for millions of tonnes of wheat and other grain to start flowing from silos and ports.

The WFP said earlier this month that the number of people at risk of starvation in the drought-ravaged Horn of Africa region has increased to 22 million.

“There is still no end in sight to this drought crisis, so we must get the resources needed to save lives and stop people plunging into catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation,” WFP executive director David Beasley said.

Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are already going through their worst drought in 40 years and the UN’s World Meteorological Organization warned last week that the situation is set to get even worse with a fifth consecutive failed rainy season.

Source: Nam News Network

An 83-year-old American nun who was abducted by jihadists in northern Burkina Faso in April has been released, the Catholic Church said.

Sister Suellen Tennyson, a nun with the Congregation of Marianites of the Holy Cross, had been kidnapped in the parish of Yalgo, where she had worked since 2014.

In a statement, the bishop of the diocese of Kaya, Theophile Nare, announced “to all, that with great joy and gratitude to God,” Tennyson “has been released by her kidnappers.”

She is “currently in a safe place … [and] in good health,” Nare said, in the statement that reached AFP on Wednesday, adding that he had no details about the conditions of her release but was “deeply grateful to all those who worked for it.”

In Washington, a U.S. State Department spokesman confirmed “the release of a U.S. citizen in Niger who had been held hostage in West Africa.”

The spokesman did not identify the individual, but Tennyson was the only known American hostage in the region.

“This individual will soon be reunited with loved ones. It is the wish of the individual to remain private at this time, and we ask that all respect that wish,” the spokesman said.

Yalgo lies between the towns of Kaya and Dori, in the heart of a region of northern Burkina Faso that, like neighboring Niger, has been plagued by jihadists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

Thousands of people have died and nearly 2 million people have fled their homes in the 7-year-old insurgency.

In April 2021, three Europeans who had been reported missing after an attack in eastern Burkina — two Spaniards and an Irishman — were “executed by terrorists,” the authorities said at the time.

Source: Voice of America