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By Michael O’HAGAN Agence France-Presse OTUKE, Uganda (AFP) — Under a warm morning sun scores of weary soldiers stare as millions of yellow locusts rise into the northern Ugandan sky, despite hours spent spraying vegetation with chemicals in an attempt to kill them. From the tops of shea trees, fields of pea plants and tall grass savanna, the insects rise in a hypnotic murmuration, disappearing quickly to wreak devastation elsewhere. The soldiers and agricultural officers will […]
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP) — Somalia on Sunday declared a locust infestation sweeping the Horn of Africa to be a national emergency, as insects devastate food supplies in one of the poorest and most vulnerable regions in the world. “The Ministry of Agriculture… has declared a national emergency in view of the current desert locust upsurge, that poses a major threat to Somalia’s fragile food security situation,” the ministry statement read. Experts say the locust swarms […]
NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) – Fran BLANDY Billions of locusts swarming through East Africa are the result of extreme weather swings and could prove catastrophic for a region still reeling from drought and deadly floods, experts said Friday. Dense clouds of the ravenous insects have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, in the region’s worse infestation in decades. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated one swarm in Kenya at around 2,400 square kilometres […]
by Mustafa HAJI ABDINUR MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP) — Twenty-six people were killed and 56 injured in a 12-hour attack by Al-Shabaab jihadists on a popular hotel that ended early Saturday in the southern Somali port city of Kismayo. A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle loaded with explosives into the Medina hotel on Friday before several heavily armed gunmen forced their way inside, shooting as they went, authorities said. It was the largest coordinated attack by […]
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP) — At least 26 people, including several foreigners, were killed and 56 injured in a suicide bomb and gun attack claimed by Al-Shabaab militants on a popular hotel in southern Somalia, a top regional official said Saturday. A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle loaded with explosives into the Medina hotel in the port town of Kismayo on Friday before several heavily armed gunmen forced their way inside, shooting as they went, […]
The death toll from a double car-bomb attack near the presidential palace in Somalia rose to 20 on Sunday, police said. Police on Saturday had said seven people were killed following the two blasts in Mogadishu, which were claimed by the jihadist Shabaab group. “The number of victims who were killed in the blasts increased to 20 and more than 40 others have been wounded,” said a Somali police official, Ibrahim Mohamed. He said the […]
NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) — Weeks of torrential rain after a long drought have turned from blessing to curse in East Africa, killing hundreds of people and displacing hundreds of thousands of others. In Kenya, which had suffered from three failed rainy seasons, 120 people have died in two months, including eight who were swept off a bridge in a flashflood Thursday night outside the capital, witnesses said. The Red Cross appealed for $5 million (four […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) – The US conducted a pair of drone strikes against Islamic State fighters in Somalia on Friday, the first time America has hit the jihadists in the Horn of Africa nation, officials said. The strikes occurred in northeastern Somalia and killed “several terrorists,” the US military’s Africa Command said in a statement. According to Voice of America, which cited the chairman of the town of Qandala in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, six […]
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP) – Somalia’s deadliest ever attack, a truck bomb in the capital Mogadishu, has now killed 358 people with 228 more injured, the government said late Friday, a major jump in the fatality toll. A truck packed with explosives blew up in Hodan on October 14, destroying some 20 buildings in the bustling commercial district, leaving scores of victims burned beyond recognition. Several experts told AFP the truck was probably carrying at least 500 kilos […]
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP) — At least 276 people have been killed and 300 injured by a massive truck bomb that tore through a busy shopping district of Mogadishu, the government said Monday, making it the “deadliest attack ever” to hit war-torn Somalia. The figure was a huge jump from an initial police estimate of 20 dead in the hours after the deadly explosion ripped through the Somali capital on Saturday, causing scenes of carnage and widespread […]
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP) — The death toll from a massive weekend truck bomb in a busy shopping district of Mogadishu surged to at least 137, police said Sunday, warning it could rise further in the deadliest attack to hit war-torn Somalia. The figure was a huge jump from an initial police estimate of 20 dead in the hours after the deadly explosion ripped through the Somali capital on Saturday, causing scenes of carnage and widespread […]
SOMALI REGIONAL ESTATE, Ethiopia (Reuters) – United Kingdom International Development Secretary Priti Patel has called for a new concerted global push to prevent millions of people losing their lives across East Africa to the threat of starvation and disease. Patel warned that the crisis had reached a critical point and that a loss of momentum in the international response could rapidly reverse the progress made, cost lives and further destabilise the already fragile region. Patel […]
