By: Danielle L. Gwozdz
Impunity Watch News Reporter, Africa

DAKAR, Senegal – Human Rights Watch has released a report stating that thousands of patients in Senegal suffer from excruciating pain every year without any type of relief.  The reason is due to unnecessarily restrictive government regulations and poor training for healthcare workers, which impede their effective medical treatment.

Patients are in need of pain relief to reduce suffering from prolonged illnesses, like cancer, but only a few hundred have access to medications, such as morphine.

Human Rights Watch says each year 70,000 people need this pain relief and that Senegal needs to integrate palliative care measures into its regular health care system.

This came from HRW’s 85-page report titled, “Abandoned in Agony: Cancer and the Struggle for Pain Treatment in Senegal.”

Morphine is an essential and inexpensive medication for treatment of severe pain, but Senegal only imports about one kilogram of morphine each year – enough to treat only 200 cancer patients. HRW also found that morphine is unavailable outside of Dakar, Senegal’s capital.

Frequent shortages limit access to the medication in the capital as well.

The reports also explain that an estimated 80 percent of patients with advanced HIV suffer from moderate to severe pain throughout the course of their illness.

Worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) claims that approximately 80 percent of people have no or insufficient access to treatment for such pain.

“Many thousands of cancer patients and other Senegalese suffer unnecessary agony because they can’t get morphine to treat their pain,” said Angela Chung, health and human rights fellow at Human Rights Watch.

“Senegalese officials should ask themselves whether they would want their own parents or children – or themselves – to suffer such pain when there is a cheap and effective way to relieve it.”

The Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance says the situation is particularly bad in sub-Saharan Arica, where only six countries – South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Swaziland – have made palliative care programs part of their national health plans.

“Palliative care in Senegal, and a lot of sub-Saharan countries in general, is very poorly developed because it’s not seen as a priority,” Chung said. “I think people might erroneously assume that cancer is something you get in a developed country, but it’s actually a huge problem in Africa and it’s increasing every year.”

People suffering from disease must often travel as much as 10 to 15 hours just for some pain relief.

HRW interviewed more than 170 patients, family members, medical personnel, and officials about the problem. Many patients, however, said they were in too much pain even to be interviewed.

“I am in pain 24 hours a day,” said a 47-year-old man in Dakar who has prostate cancer and suffers during morphine shortages.

“You cannot believe the pain I have all over my body. It is in my bones. I cannot have a real life without my medication. I try to bear the pain for 2 or 3 days, and when I cannot handle it I will take one pill . . . I went to all the pharmacies and they do not sell it.”

For more information, please visit: 

Human Rights Watch – Senegal: Thousands Urgently Need Pain Relief – 24 October 2013
Tolerance – Senegal: Thousands Urgently Need Pain Relief – 24 October 2013
Leuk Senegal – Senegal: Thousands Urgently Need Pain Relief – 70,000 a Year Suffer Torment for Lack of Treatment – 25 October 2013
RSS Pump News – Senegal – Thousands Urgently Need Pain Relief – 70000 a Year Suffer Torment – 24 October 2013
My Legal Right – Senegal: Thousands Urgently Need Pain Relief – 24 October 2013
allAfrica – Senegal: Rights Group Presses for Chronic Pain Care in Senegal – 25 October 2013

By Erica Smith
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of the Congo — The United Nations peacekeeping mission for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), or MONUSCO, issued a report Thursday detailing the continuing recruitment of child soldiers in the DRC.

According to the report 1,000 cases of child recruitment were verified by MONUSCO between January 2012 and August 2013, predominantly in the conflict prone eastern province of North Kivu. The armed groups Nyatura, Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) and the 23 March Movement (M23) were identified as having recruited 451 children total during the reporting period. Children formerly associated with M23 describe how they were forced to dig graves for other children and adults killed in fighting with the DRC army.

In  most of cases, children were abducted and forced to join the groups. Other children joined voluntarily after having been promised money, education, and jobs by recruiters. Children were used as porters, cooks, spies, sex slaves, guards and combatants. The children are also reported to have been victims and witnesses to other children’s rights violations, such as rape, abduction, killing and maiming.

“Despite awareness raising campaigns and attempts to pacify armed groups, recruitment of children remains endemic in the country, with high numbers of children recruited in the past two years as a result of renewed hostilities in the east of the country,” the report states.

“This situation is unacceptable and has been going on for much too long with impunity. Recruiting children into armed groups is a crime, and destroys the lives of the victims who are forced to do things that no child should be involved in…We need to stop this now. One case of child recruitment is one case to many,”said Martin Kobler, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for DRC and head of MONUSCO.

MONUSCO has called on all armed groups and their commanders in the DRC to halt recruiting children and to unconditionally release all children currently in their custody.

The mission recommended that the Government, the international community, donors and all child protection advocates ensure that all efforts are made to prevent child recruitment and to ensure long-term, sustainable reintegration programs for victims of child solider recruitment.

For more information, please see:

UPI — U.N. envoy says child-soldier recruitment in Congo ‘unacceptable’ — 25 October 2013

United Nations News Centre — Child recruitment remains ‘endemic’ in DR Congo, UN says in new report — 24 October 2013

UPI — Rwanda denies backing child soldiers in DRC — 7 October 2013

Reuters — U.S. sanctions Rwanda, others over child soldiers — 3 October 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: Danielle L. Gwozdz
Impunity Watch News Reporter, Africa

MOGADISHU, Somalia – At least 16 people have been killed and more than 30 people injured after a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded restaurant in the central Somalia town of Beledweyne.

Al-Shabab said it had carried out the bombing targeting troops in an African Union peacekeeping force fighting the Somali Islamist group.

The bombing happened at a restaurant near a military base around 210 miles north of Mogadishu. The city is under control of the central government and AU peacekeepers from Djibouti.

“Our main target was Ethiopian and Djibouti troops who invaded our country. They were sitting there,” al-Shabab’s military operation spokesman, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, said.

But witnesses have reported that most of those killed by the bomb were civilians.

“There is a lack of medicine in the hospital and they can’t cope with the flood of wounded patients, so we asked the central government to send us planes to evacuate patients,” Mr Jessow said by phone.

“A man with an explosives jacket entered unexpectedly in the tea shop where soldiers and civilians sat . . . and blew himself up,” local elder Ahmed Nur said from the scene of the blast.

 “I could see the bodies of several soldiers being carried, but I could not make out whether they were dead or injured.” Al-Shabaab frequently attacks political targets, as well as restaurants, and other recreational spaces popular with foreigners and government soldiers.

 Al-Shabab militants have been driven out of Somalia’s major towns, including Mogadishu and the key southern port of Kismayo, by a UN-mandated AU force of some 18,000 soldiers.

 But the militants still control large parts of southern Somalia.

 Last month the group claimed the attack on the Westgate shopping center in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in which 72 people died in a four day siege.

 Straddling a major highway that links south-western Somalia to southern and northern parts of the country, Beledweyne is the maine gateway to the Ogaden region in Ethiopia and a strategically vital area that Addis Ababa has often controlled.

“In a way this attack is also a message of weakness as al Shabaab are not able to carry out a conventional assault on the town in the way they use to two years ago,” analyst Abdi said.

 Ethiopian troops have been fighting Islamist militants in neighbouring Somalia for much of the past decade.

 For more information, please visit:

 BBC News – Somali suicide bombing kills AU soldiers in Beledweyne – 19 October 2013
The Frontier Post – Somali bombing kills AU soldiers – 20 October 2013
Yahoo! News – Suicide bomber kills 16 in Somali cafe attack aimed at foreign troops – 19 October 2013
The Guardian – Al-Shabaab suicide bomber attacks restaurant in Somalia – 19 October 2013
Standard Media – Al Shabaab claims responsibility, says AU forces were the target – 19 October 2013

By Erica L Smith
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

MONROVIA, Liberia — Charles Taylor, former dictator of Liberia, was transferred to British custody Tuesday. The transfer comes just a day after the release of documents detailing his life behind bars in The Hague and his desire to serve out his prison term in Rwanda.

“Charles Ghankay Taylor… was transferred today (Tuesday)  from the Netherlands and the custody of the Special Court to the United Kingdom, where he will serve the remainder of his 50-year sentence,” the UN’s Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL)’s Freetown office said in a statement.

Taylor is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison after his conviction and 50 year sentence for arming rebel groups during the Liberian Civil War was upheld by the SCSL last week. Taylor supported the Revolutionary United Front rebels in exchange for “blood diamonds.”  The rebel group became well know for widespread killings and amputations during the 11 year conflict.

Taylor wished to serve his sentence out in Rwanda because he fears for his safety in British custody. Taylor and his defense team argue that there are numerous individuals of Sierra Leonean background in British detention and Taylor fears they may attack him because of his association with “horrendous atrocities.” The defense team points to the case of Radislav Krstic, a Bosnian Serb war criminal, who was attacked three times while in British custody in 2010.

Taylor also wanted to be imprisoned in Rwanda so that his family would be able to visit him. Taylor believes that the higher costs and visa complications facing Liberians traveling to the U.K. will make it impossible for him to see his family.

“The consequence of these factors is that if I am incarcerated in the United Kingdom some family members will see me much less than if I were to serve my sentence in Rwanda. Many of my children would not be able to see me at all,” Taylor said.

Taylor is reported to have 15 children, five of whom are under the age of 10.

The documents further reveal that Taylor remained on good terms with his guards and is outspoken when he believes his living conditions are not satisfactory.

“Mr. Taylor does not take part in creative lessons, but takes the opportunity to regularly enjoy fresh air and tries to keep himself as fit as the regime will allow,” a May 2012 profile prepared by Paddy Craig, the chief custody officer at the International Criminal Court detention center reads.

Taylor also enjoyed playing tennis while incarcerated in The Hague.

For more information, please see:

Nigerian Tribune — War crimes: Charles Taylor secretly sent to UK jail — 16 October 2013

BBC News — Liberia’s Charles Taylor transferred to UK — 15 October 2013

IOL News — Taylor wants to serve time in Rwanda — 15 October 2013

ABC News — Documents Detail Charles Taylor’s Life Behind Bars — 14 October 2013

 

 

By: Danielle L. Gwozdz
Impunity Watch News Reporter, Africa

PRETORIA, South Africa – The bodies of two toddlers, aged two and three, were found dumped in community toilets on Tuesday morning after they went missing on Saturday.

South African police are questioning three people over the deaths of the two toddlers who were cousins. The deaths have sparked violent protests and looting.

Residents accused police of failing to protect the girls who were discovered by local resident in Diepsloot township, north of Johannesburg.

The toddlers had disappeared Saturday night with an unknown man when their mothers went to a nearby spaza shop.

“It is not clear how the children were killed,” said police spokesperson Lungelo Dlamini. Unverified local media reports said they were strangled.

President Jacob Zuma has urged the violent protestors to not take the law into their own hands.

“We condemn these murders in the strongest possible terms. Whilst we appeal to the communities not to take the matters into their hands, we also want to urge them to work with law enforcement authorities to find the perpetrators and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law,” Zuma stated.

“These gruesome incidents of extreme torture and murder of our children do not belong to the society that we are continuously striving to build together,” South Africa’s Sowetan newspaper quoted Zuma as saying.

Lieutenant Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said three people had been taken in for questioning and that police were also searching for a fourth person, the South African Press Association reports.

Dlamini also stated that they were investigating a possible link between the murders and that of a five-year-old girl found dead in the same area in September.

“It is suspected that she was sexually violated and strangled. A suspect who was taken in for questioning relating to the murder was later released,” Lt-Col Dlamini said.

Diepsloot, which borders one of the country’s wealthiest gated estates, Dainfern, is among the most impoverished areas of Johannesburg.

Some parts of the township have no running water and residents share pit latrines or mobile toilets.

In a separate case, the bodies of two other children were found in a field in Katlehong township in East Rand, Guateng province.

The children, aged one and two, were found next to their mother, who had been critically injured, according to iAfrica.com.

Police Colonel Katlego Mogale said: “It appears as if they were dropped by the husband in an open place and then the husband drove away. They are all Mozambican nationals.”

The death of a young boy whose body, bearing marks of torture, was found in a field east of Johannesburg is also being investigated by police.

The murders have sparked paranoia and fury in the community.

One Diepsloot mother, Olorato Mokoena, says she no longer trusts men around her three-year-old daughter.

Community leader Lizzie Chauke said police had sealed a shack in which investigators had found evidence of what is believed to have been the girls’ murder.

“It was terrible. There was blood and flies everywhere. Police found their clothes, four blankets covered in blood, feces, and a ‘fake penis’ and crowbar. They had blood on them,” she said.

Childline director Joan van Niekerk said though the government had sufficient laws and policies to protect children with, the challenge was in implementing them.

For more information, please visit:

BBC News – South Africa suspects questioned after toddler murders – 16 October 2013
Yahoo! News – South Africa Toddlers Found Dead In Toilet – 16 October 2013
The Independent – Murder of two toddlers whose bodies were found in toilet sparks riots in South Africa – 16 October 2013
Times Live – ‘What would you do if it was your baby?’ – 16 October 2013
msn news – Toddler deaths shock South Africa – 16 October 2013
iAfrica.com – JZ ‘shocked’ by toddler murders – 16 October 2013