French defense minister visits Mali after 13 soldiers killed

November 27, 2019

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — France’s defense minister Florence Parly arrived in northern Mali on Wednesday after a helicopter collision killed 13 French soldiers fighting Islamic State group-linked extremists, while some in the West African country debated France’s military presence.

The Monday crash on a moonless night led to France’s highest military death toll in nearly four decades. An investigation has begun into the cause. The military has said the helicopters were flying very low while supporting French commandos on the ground near the border with Niger.

Some in Mali in recent weeks have loudly criticized the French military’s presence as the extremist threat grows and spreads into neighboring countries. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced this year, with well over 100 Malian troops killed in the past two months alone.

Some in Mali even questioned whether the helicopter collision was an accident. In the capital, Bamako, resident Mamadou Fofana mused that it could have been a way to calm the protests and revive “compassion” for the country’s former colonizer.

Others disagreed. “France is a serious state with a reputation in the aeronautic world,” said another Bamako resident, Seydou Touré. And Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said in a statement that “Mali knows what this is costing the country to send its children to the Sahel in defense of this cause, the cause of peace.”

France’s operation in West and Central Africa is its largest overseas military mission and involves 4,500 personnel. The deaths draw new attention to a worrying front in the global fight against extremism, one in which France and local countries have pleaded for more support.

French government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye said French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the military operation during Wednesday’s weekly cabinet meeting. Macron stressed that it aims at “enhancing our own security” and providing “important support” to African countries, Ndiaye said.

A national tribute ceremony will take place Monday at the Invalides monument in Paris. Residents were bringing flowers, lighting candles and writing condolences notes at the town halls of Gap, Pau, Varces and Saint-Christol, where the soldiers were based.

French centrist senator Jean-Marie Bockel’s son was among those killed. Bockel told French news broadcaster BFM TV that his son, Pierre-Emmanuel Bockel, was on his fourth tour to Mali. He was “proud of his mission because he knew that ... if the French military leaves (Mali) tomorrow, this is chaos.”

Most French politicians have praised France’s military operation in the Sahel as key in the global fight against extremism. U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, said in a tweet that he is saddened at the news and that the U.S. sends its condolences to France and the families of those who died.

Corbet reported from Paris.

Former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi dies at 95

February 04, 2020

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Daniel arap Moi, a former schoolteacher who became Kenya’s longest-serving president and presided over years of repression and economic turmoil fueled by runaway corruption, has died. He was 95.

Moi's death was announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta in a statement Tuesday. Moi, who ruled Kenya for 24 years, had been in and out of hospital for months. He died peacefully this morning, said Moi's son Senator Gideon Moi at the Nairobi hospital.

Kenyatta ordered national flags to fly half-mast from Tuesday until sunset of the day of the burial. He said Moi, Kenya's second president, was a leader in the struggle for independence and an ardent Pan-Africanist.

Despite being called a dictator by critics, Moi enjoyed strong support from many Kenyans and was seen as a uniting figure when he took power after the East African country's founding president Jomo Kenyatta died in office in 1978. Some allies of the ailing Kenyatta, however, had tried to change the constitution to prevent Moi, then the vice president, from automatically taking power upon Kenyatta’s death.

So wary was Moi of any threat during that uncertain period that he fled his Rift Valley home when he heard of Kenyatta’s death, returning only after receiving assurances of his safety. In 1982 Moi’s government pushed through parliament a constitutional amendment that made Kenya effectively a one-party state. Later that year the army quelled a coup attempt plotted by opposition members and some air force officers. At least 159 people were killed.

Moi’s government then became more repressive in dealing with dissent, according to a report by the government’s Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission that assessed his rule. Political activists and others who dared oppose Moi’s rule were routinely detained and tortured, the report said, noting unlawful detentions and assassinations, including the killing of a foreign affairs minister, Robert Ouko.

“The judiciary became an accomplice in the perpetuation of violations, while parliament was transformed into a puppet controlled by the heavy hand of the executive,” the report said. Corruption, especially the illegal allocation of land, became institutionalized, the report said, while economic power was centralized in the hands of a few.

In 1991, Moi yielded to demands for a multi-party state due to internal pressure, including a demonstration in 1991 during which police killed more than 20 people, and external pressure from the West.

Multi-party elections in 1992 and 1997 were marred by political and ethnic violence that critics asserted were caused by the state. By the time Moi left power in 2002, corruption had caused Kenya’s economy, the most developed in East Africa, to contract.

Moi often blamed the West for bad publicity and the economic hardships many Kenyans had to endure during his rule. As with his predecessor, Kenyatta, many government projects, buildings and currency notes and coins were named after Moi. Fed up, Kenyans voted for a new constitution that was implemented in 2010 and made provisions to bar personality cults.

Mixed reaction greeted Moi's death. Commentator Patrick Gathara said in a tweet that Tuesday was a day to remember Moi's victims “as well as the thousands who stood against his brutal and murderous kleptocracy. It is a day to remember that the current crop of politicians helped him escape justice for his crimes.”

Salim Lone, a former U.N. spokesman who fled into exile because of harassment under Moi, said the former president began so well and “so many supported your promise of a free more inclusive, corruption-free Kenya.” He said that Moi at the beginning of his rule released political prisoners and famously said it was better to eat sukuma wiki (kale) and sleep in peace than seek riches.

“How it went wrong is not for now,” Lone said in a tweet.

Gambia's ex-dictator Jammeh reportedly wants to come home

January 14, 2020

BANJUL, Gambia (AP) — Gambia's longtime dictator Yahya Jammeh, who fled into exile three years ago after an election loss, has announced plans to return to the West African nation where human rights activists say he ordered the killings of political opponents during his rule.

The deputy spokesman for Jammeh's political party released several audio recordings to the media over the weekend featuring conversations between Jammeh and a top party official. "I am coming back. They said they drove me out of the country. Apart from Allah, nobody can take me out of The Gambia," Jammeh is heard saying. The recordings could not be independently verified and it was not clear when they had been made.

His two-decade-long rule was marked by arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, according to rights activists. Along with political opponents, Jammeh also targeted journalists and members of the gay community.

While he has not been charged in Gambia with a crime, witnesses have testified before an ongoing Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, some saying they had carried out summary executions at his direction.

Authorities also have suggested Jammeh could face economic crimes for pillaging state coffers before he fled into exile in Equatorial Guinea in January 2017. He stole an estimated $1 billion during his rule, according to The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

Equatorial Guinea, led by the same president for more than 40 years, is unlikely to ever extradite Jammeh. It's unclear what measures Gambian authorities would take if Jammeh voluntarily returned home.

Do Sannoh, an adviser to Gambian President Adama Barrow, said Sunday he was unaware of any ongoing negotiations over Jammeh's possible return. But he said the former leader would be welcome to appear before the commission that has been investigating alleged abuses during his rule.

"He is a citizen. He has every right to stay in his hometown and go and answer to the law," he said. The audio recordings prompted outcry from the Gambia Center for Victims of Human Rights Violations, which said the government should arrest Jammeh if he sets foot in the country.

“Former President Yahya Jammeh’s rule in The Gambia was a tyrannical and brutal dictatorship,” said Sheriff Kijera, the center's chairman. “He is a fugitive from justice and a subject of serious allegations of human rights violations."

Kijera added: “If former president Jammeh is authorized to return to The Gambia without being arrested, charged and prosecuted for his crimes or transferred to another state for him to face justice, it would be a big failure on the part of the government of The Gambia to uphold its duty to the people of Gambia, as well as its international obligation to provide an effective remedy to victims.”

Ethiopians brave deserts and smugglers on the way to Saudi

February 14, 2020

LAC ASSAL, Djibouti (AP) — “Patience,” Mohammed Eissa told himself. He whispered it every time he felt like giving up. The sun was brutal, reflecting off the thick layer of salt encrusting the barren earth around Lac Assal, a lake 10 times saltier than the ocean.

Nothing grows here. Birds are said to fall dead out of the sky from the searing heat. And yet the 35-year-old Ethiopian walked on, as he had for three days, since he left his homeland for Saudi Arabia.

Nearby are two dozen graves, piles of rocks, with no headstones. People here say they belong to migrants who like Eissa embarked on an epic journey of hundreds of miles, from villages and towns in Ethiopia through the Horn of Africa countries Djibouti or Somalia, then across the sea and through the war-torn country of Yemen.

The flow of migrants taking this route has grown. According to the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, 150,000 arrived in Yemen from the Horn of Africa in 2018, a 50% jump from the year before. The number in 2019 was similar.

This story is part of an occasional series, “ Outsourcing Migrants,” produced with the support of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

They dream of reaching Saudi Arabia, and earning enough to escape poverty by working as laborers, housekeepers, servants, construction workers and drivers.

But even if they reach their destination, there is no guarantee they can stay; the kingdom often expels them. Over the past three years, the IOM reported 9,000 Ethiopians were deported each month.

Many migrants have made the journey multiple times in what has become an unending loop of arrivals and deportations.

Eissa is among them. This is his third trip to Saudi Arabia.

In his pockets, he carries a text neatly handwritten in Oromo, his native language. It tells stories of the Prophet Muhammad, who fled his home in Mecca to Medina to seek refuge from his enemies.

“I depend on God,” Eissa said.

“I HAVE TO GO TO SAUDI”

Associated Press reporters traveled along part of the migrants’ trail through Djibouti and Yemen in July and August. Eissa was among the travelers they met; another was Mohammad Ibrahim, who comes from Arsi, the same region as Eissa.

Perched in the country’s central highlands, it’s an area where subsistence farmers live off small plots of land, growing vegetables or grain. When the rains come, the families can eat. But in the dry months of the summer, food dwindles and hunger follows.

The 22-year-old Ibrahim had never been able to find a job. His father died when his mother was pregnant with him — she told him stories of how his father went off to war and never returned.

One day, Ibrahim saw a friend in his village with a new motorcycle. He was making a little money carrying passengers. Ibrahim went to his mother and asked her to buy him one. He could use it, he told her, to support her and his sister. Impossible, she said. She would have to sell her tiny piece of land where they grow corn and barley.

“This is when I thought, ‘I have to go to Saudi,’” Ibrahim said.

So he reached out to the local “door opener” -- a broker who would link him to a chain of smugglers along the way.

Often migrants are told they can pay when they arrive in Saudi Arabia. Those who spoke to the AP said they were initially quoted prices ranging from $300 to $800 for the whole journey.

How the trip goes depends vitally on the smuggler.

In the best-case scenario, the smuggler is a sort of tour organizer. They arrange boats for the sea crossing, either from Djibouti or Somalia. They run houses along the way where migrants stay and provide transport from town to town in pickup trucks. Once in Saudi Arabia, the migrants call home to have payment wired to the smuggler.

In the worst case, the smuggler is a brutal exploiter, imprisoning and torturing migrants for more money, dumping them alone on the route or selling them into virtual slave labor on farms.

Intensified border controls and crackdowns by the Ethiopian government, backed by European Union funding, have eliminated some reliable brokers, forcing migrants to rely on inexperienced smugglers, increasing the danger.

THE LONG WALK

Eissa decided he would not use smugglers for his journey.

He’d successfully made the trip twice before. The first time, in 2011, he worked as a steel worker in the kingdom, making $ 25 a day and earning enough to buy a plot of land in the Arsi region’s main town, Asella. He made the trip again two years later, walking for two months to reach Saudi Arabia, where he earned $ 530 a month as a janitor. But he was arrested and deported before he could collect his pay.

Without a smuggler, his third attempt would be cheaper. But it would not be safe, or easy.

Eissa picked up rides from his home to the border with Djibouti, then walked. His second day there, he was robbed at knifepoint by several men who took his money. The next day, he walked six hours in the wrong direction, back toward Ethiopia, before he found the right path again.

When the AP met him at Lac Assal, Eissa said he had been living off bread and water for days, taking shelter in a rusty, abandoned shipping container. He had a small bottle filled with water from a well at the border, covered with fabric to keep out dust.

He had left behind a wife, nine sons and a daughter. His wife cares for his elderly father. The children work the farm growing vegetables, but harvests are unpredictable: “If there’s no rain, there’s nothing.”

With the money he expected to earn in Saudi Arabia, he planned to move his family to Asella. “I will build a house and take my children to town to learn the religious and worldly sciences,” he said.

THE TRIP

The 100-mile (120-kilometer) trip across Djibouti can take days.

Many migrants end up in the country’s capital, also named Djibouti, living in slums and working to earn money for the crossing. Young women often are trapped in prostitution or enslaved as servants.

The track through Djibouti ends on a long, virtually uninhabited coast outside the town of Obock, the shore closest to Yemen.

There, the AP saw a long line of dozens of migrants led by smuggling guides, descending from the mountains onto the rocky coastal plain. Here they would stay, sometimes for several days, and wait for their turn on the boats that every night cross the narrow Bab el-Mandab strait to Yemen.

During the wait, smugglers brought out large communal pots of spaghetti and barrels of water for their clients. Young men and women washed themselves in nearby wells. Others sat in the shade of the scrawny, twisted acacia trees. Two girls braided each other’s hair.

One young man, Korram Gabra, worked up the nerve to call home to ask his father for the equivalent of $200 for the crossing and the Yemen leg of the trip. It would be his first time talking with his father since he sneaked away from home in the night.

“My father will be upset when he hears my voice, but he’ll keep it in his heart and won’t show it,” he said. "If I get good money, I want to start a business.”

At night, AP witnessed a daily smuggling routine: small lights flashing in the darkness signaled that their boat was ready. More than 100 men and women, boys and girls were ordered to sit in silence on the beach. The smugglers spoke in hushed conversations on satellite phones to their counterparts in Yemen on the other side of the sea. There was a moment of worry when a black rubber dinghy appeared out in the water_a patrol of Djibouti’s marines. After half an hour it motored away. The marines had received their daily bribe of around $100 dollars, the smugglers explained.

Loaded into the 50-foot-long open boat, migrants were warned not to move or talk during the crossing . Most had never seen the sea before . Now they would be on it for eight hours in darkness.

Eissa made the crossing on another day, paying about $65 to a boat captain -- the only payment to a smuggler he would make.

“IT WAS A TERRIBLE THING”

Ibrahim took an alternative route, through Somalia. He traveled nearly 900 kilometers (500 miles), walking and catching rides to cross the border and reach the town of Las Anoud.

Isolated in Somalia’s deserts, the town is the hub for traffickers transporting Ethiopians to Yemen. It is also a center for brutal torture, according to multiple migrants. The smugglers took Ibrahim and other migrants to a compound, stripped him and tied him dangling from a wooden rafter. They splashed cold water on him and flogged him.

For 12 days, he was imprisoned, starved and tortured. He saw six other migrants die of severe dehydration and hunger, their bodies buried in shallow graves nearby. “It’s in the middle of the vast desert,” he said. “If you think of running away, you don’t even know where to go.”

At one point, smugglers put a phone to his ear and made him plead with his mother for ransom money.

“Nothing is more important than you,” she told him. She sold the family’s sole piece of land and wired to smugglers just over $1,000.

The smugglers transported him to the port of Bosaso on Somalia’s Gulf of Aden coast. He was piled into a wooden boat with some 300 other men and women, “like canned sardines,” he said.

Throughout the 30-hour journey, the Somali captain and his crew beat anyone who moved. Crammed in place, the migrants had to urinate and vomit where they sat.

“I felt trapped, couldn’t breathe, or move for many hours until my body became stiff,” he said. “God forbid, it was a terrible thing.”

Within sight of Yemen’s shore, the smugglers pushed the migrants off the boat into water too deep to touch the bottom.

Flailing in the water, they formed human chains to help the women and children onto shore.

Ibrahim collapsed on the sand and passed out. When he opened his eyes, he felt the hunger stabbing him.

“FAR FROM MY DREAMS”

Migrants with reliable, organized smugglers are usually transported across Yemen in stages to the migrant hub cities further down the line, Ataq , Marib, Jawf, and Saada where half the distance is under internationally-recognized government control and the second under Houthi rebels, fighting US-backed coalition since 2015.

But for thousands of others, it’s a confusing and dangerous march down unfamiliar roads and highways.

A security official in Lahj province outside the main southern city, Aden, said bodies of dead migrants turn up from time to time. Just a few days earlier, he told the AP, a farmer called his office about a smell coming from one of his fields. A patrol found a young migrant there who had been dead for days.

Another patrol found 100 migrants, including women, hidden on a farm, the official said. The patrol brought them food, he said, but then had to leave them.

“Where would we take them and what would we do with them?” he asked, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the press.

Many migrants languish for months in the slums of Basateen, a district of Aden that was once a green area of gardens but now is covered in decrepit shacks of cinder blocks, concrete, tin and tarps, amid open sewers.

Over the summer, an Aden soccer stadium became a temporary refuge for thousands of migrants. At first, security forces used it to house migrants they captured in raids. Other migrants showed up voluntarily, hoping for shelter. The IOM distributed food at the stadium and arranged voluntary repatriation back home for some. The soccer pitch and stands, already destroyed from the war, became a field of tents, with clothes lines strung up around them.

Among the migrants there was Nogos, a 15-year-old who was one of at least 7,000 minors who made the journey without an adult in 2019, a huge jump from 2,000 unaccompanied minors a year earlier, according to IOM figures

Upon landing in Yemen, Nogos had been imprisoned by smugglers. For more than three weeks, they beat him, demanding his family send $500. When he called home, his father curtly refused: “I’m not the one torturing you.”

Nogos can’t blame his father. “If he had money and didn’t help me, I’d be upset,” he said. “But I know he doesn’t.”

Finally, the smugglers gave up on getting money out of the boy and let him go. Alone and afraid at the stadium, he had no idea what he’d do next. He had hoped to reach an aunt who is living in Saudi Arabia, but lost contact with her. He wanted one day to go back to school.

“It’s far from my dreams,” he added, in a dead voice.

After a few weeks, Yemeni security forces cleared out the stadium, throwing thousands back onto the streets. The IOM had stopped distributing food, fearing it would become a lure for migrants. Yemeni officials didn’t want to take responsibility for the migrants’ care.

Eissa, meanwhile, made his way across the country alone. At times, Yemenis gave him a ride for a stretch. Mostly he walked endless miles down the highways.

“I don't count the days. I don't distinguish, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday,” he said in audio message to the AP via Whatsapp.

One day, he reached the town of Bayhan, southern Yemen, and went to the local mosque to use the bathroom. When he saw the preacher giving his sermon, he realized it was Friday.

It was the first time in ages he was aware of the day of the week.

He had traveled more than 250 miles (420 kilometers) since he landed in Yemen. He had another 250 miles to go to the Saudi border.

“PRAY FOR ME”

In the evenings, thousands of migrants mill around the streets of Marib, one of the main city stopovers on the migrants’ route through Yemen. In the mornings, they search for day jobs. They could earn about a dollar a day working on nearby farms. A more prized job is with the city garbage collectors, paying $4 a day.

Ibrahim had just arrived a few days earlier when the AP met him, his black hair still covered in dust from the road.

Ibrahim had wandered in Yemen for days, starving, before villagers gave him food.

He made his way slowly north. Not knowing the language or the geography, he didn’t even know what town he was in when a group of armed fighters snatched him from the road.

They imprisoned him for days in a cell with other migrants. One night, they moved the migrants in a pickup, driving them through the desert. Ibrahim was confused and afraid: Where was he going? Who had abducted him? Why?

He threw himself out of the back of the pick-up, landing in the sand. Scratched and battered, he ran away into the darkness.

Now in Marib, he was stranded, unsure how to keep going. His arm was painfully swollen from an insect bite. He wouldn’t be able to work until it was better. The only food he could find was rice and fetid meat scraps left over from restaurants.

Using the AP’s phone, he called his mother for the first time since the horrific calls under torture at Las Anoud.

“Pray for me, mama,” he said, choking back tears.

"I know you are tired and in pain. Take care of yourself,” she told him.

Was it worth all this to reach Saudi Arabia, he was asked.

He broke down.

“What if I return empty-handed after my mother sold the one piece of land we have?” he said. “I can't enter the village or show my face to my mother without money.”

THE KINGDOM

North of Marib, migrants cross into Houthi territory at Hazm, a run-down town divided down the middle between the rebels and anti-Houthi fighters. It’s a 3-mile (5-kilometer) no-man’s land where sniper fire and shelling are rampant.

Once across, it is another 120 miles (200 kilometers) north to the Saudi border.

Eissa walked that final stretch, a risk because the militiamen have a deal with migrant smugglers: Those who go by car are allowed through; those on foot are arrested.

“Walking in the mountains and the valleys and hiding from the police,” Eissa said in an audio message to the AP.

He traversed tiny valleys winding through mountains along the border to the crossing points of Al Thabit or Souq al-Raqo.

Souq al-Raqo is a lawless place, a center for drug and weapons trafficking run by Ethiopian smugglers. Even local security forces are afraid to go there. Cross-border shelling exchanges and airstrikes have killed dozens, including migrants; Saudi border guards sometimes shoot others.

Eissa slipped across the Saudi border on Aug. 10. It had been 39 days since he had left home in Ethiopia.

After walking another 100 miles, he reached the major town of Khamis Mushayit. First, he prayed at a mosque. Some Saudis there asked if he wanted work. They got him a job watering trees on a farm.

“Peace, mercy, and blessings of God,” he said in one of his last audio messages to the AP. “I am fine, thank God. I am in Saudi.”

To see the full photo essay on the migrants’ journey, click here.

To see a photo essay, “Portraits of Ethiopian girls, women on the march to Saudi,” click here.

Digital producers Nat Castañeda and Peter Hamlin contributed to this report.

French summit aims to boost counterterror fight in W. Africa

January 13, 2020

PAU, France (AP) — French and West African heads of states paid tribute Monday to French soldiers killed in Mali, in a symbolic ceremony ahead of a summit aimed at fighting escalating extremist attacks in Africa's Sahel region.

Leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Mauritania have joined French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss security issues at the summit in the southern French city of Pau. The summit comes as Niger said the death toll from an attack by Islamic extremists on its military last week rose to at least 89, making it the most deadly attack of its kind in years in the country.

France is preparing its military to better target Islamic extremists in the Sahel region. But first, French President Emmanuel Macron is asking African heads of state to answer a key question: “Do you want us there?"

Macron hopes to counter anti-French sentiment that has bubbled up amid frustration over the extremist attacks that killed thousands of people last year alone. France, which once colonized much of West Africa, has some 4,500 troops in the sprawling Sahel region and has been accused by some residents of failing to stabilize it. Some in Mali, which has struggled for close to a decade with extremism, have protested the French presence.

Macron wants the summit to help re-legitimize the French operation in the Sahel by sending a strong joint message. A declaration is expected in which France and the African nations vow to fight extremism by military and political means.

In recent weeks, Macron has found himself on the defensive. In a visit last month to Ivory Coast, he rejected accusations that France’s involvement in the region is motivated by imperialist or economic purposes.

“I don't belong to a generation that has known colonialism,” the 42-year-old said. Macron promised to continue the fight against the extremist groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group that are pushing south from the arid Sahel into more populated areas, worrying the tier of coastal West African countries including Ivory Coast.

But the French leader added: “We need to define much more clearly the military, political and development objectives for the next six, 12 and 18 months." A united effort is crucial, he said, and the French need to know their troops are welcome.

An adviser to Macron, speaking anonymously in accordance with the French presidency's customary practice, said France wants its troops to focus on the porous border separating Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso where extremist fighters flow with little challenge.

Macron’s adviser didn't rule out a reduction in the number of French troops in the area if the military and political situation doesn’t improve in the next six months. But “this is not the favorite scenario,” he said.

Macron called the summit with West African leaders following a helicopter collision during a combat operation in November that killed 13 French soldiers fighting Islamic extremists in Mali near the Niger border. It was France's worst military loss in nearly four decades.

The six heads of state attended Monday's ceremony, where 7 the French soldiers who died were based. Initially scheduled for December, the summit was postponed after a Dec. 11 attack by Islamic extremists that killed at least 71 soldiers in Niger, the deadliest such assault against Nigerien troops.

Since that attack, France has carried out its first armed drone strike, killing seven extremists in Mali. Another French military action killed 33 extremists in central Mali. The French military operation, France's largest overseas mission, enjoys broad support at home. France intervened in Mali in 2013 after extremists seized control of major towns in the north and implemented a harsh version of Islamic law. The fighters were expelled but have since regrouped.

The French summit is expected to call for broader international support for counterterror efforts in the region where the U.N. envoy for West Africa and the Sahel, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, last week said public confidence has been shaken by the “unprecedented terrorist violence."

The attacks have increased five-fold in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger since 2016, with over 4,000 deaths reported in 2019 compared with an estimated 770 deaths in 2016, Chambas said. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will attend the summit’s dinner, along with European Council President Charles Michel, European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell and African Union Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat.

Fleeing war, poverty, African migrants face racism in Egypt

January 02, 2020

CAIRO (AP) — Two Sudanese sisters, Seham and Ekhlas Bashir, were walking their children home from elementary school in a Cairo neighborhood when a group of Egyptian teenagers crowded around them. The boys taunted them, calling them “slave” and other slurs. Then they tried to rip off Ekhlas' clothes.

An onlooker intervened, scolding the young harassers, and the sisters and their three children managed to escape. But they were shaken. They had just arrived in Cairo months earlier, fleeing violence in their homeland. The harassment brought up traumatic memories of detention, torture and rape they said they experienced at the hands of militias in Sudan's Nuba mountains.

“We have come here seeking safety,” said Ekhlas, recounting the incident that took place in November. “But the reality was very different.” Egypt has for decades been a refuge for sub-Saharan African migrants trying to escape war or poverty. But the streets of Cairo, a metropolis of some 20 million, can bring new dangers in the form of racist harassment or even violence in ways that other significant migrant communities here, such as Libyans and Syrians, don't face. While other major centers of African migration like Europe have been wrestling with racist violence, Egypt has only made small starts toward addressing the issue.

The U.N.'s International Organization for Migration says Egypt hosts more than 6 million migrants, more than half of them from Sudan and South Sudan, where simmering conflicts continue to displace tens of thousands of people annually. For some, Egypt is a destination and a haven, the closest and easiest country for them to enter. For others, it is a point of transit before attempting the dangerous Mediterranean crossing to Europe.

In visits to several migrant communities throughout Cairo, at least two dozen sub-Saharan Africans, including four children, told The Associated Press that they have endured racist insults, sexual harassment or other abuses in the past three months.

The children said they have had rocks and trash thrown at them as they go to or from school. One woman from Ethiopia said neighbors pound on the windows of her family’s home, yelling “slaves” before disappearing into the night.

There are signs that Egypt is starting to recognize and censure racist crimes. In November, there was a public outcry over a video that went viral showing three Egyptian teenagers bullying a schoolboy from South Sudan.

In the video, taken by mobile phone, the teenagers block the boy’s way, laughing and making fun of his appearance before trying to take his backpack. In the aftermath, police detained the teenagers for a day before their families reached a settlement with the family of the South Sudanese boy, John Manuth.

Weeks later, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi hosted Manuth at a youth forum in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and made a rare high-level acknowledgement of the problem. “They are our guests and negative treatment is not acceptable and not allowed,” el-Sissi told the audience.

In 2018, a court sentenced to seven years in prison a man who was known to harass refugees and who beat to death a South Sudanese teacher who had worked in a community-run school for refugees in Cairo.

Refugees and rights workers say the country still has a long way to go. Reported cases of sexual and gender-based violence against migrants has increased in recent months, according to the IOM. Women and girls are the most effected, but so are vulnerable men and young boys, said Shirley De Leon, a project development officer at the organization. She said that could in part be because of Egypt's economic strains — “challenges remain and are exacerbated by inflation, eroded income and high youth unemployment.”

Most migrants live in crowded poorer neighborhoods, where they form insular communities in small, packed apartment buildings. The idea is to protect families and vulnerable new arrivals from abuses. Racism has roots in Egyptian society. For centuries, Egypt was colonized by Arab, Turkish and European imperial powers. Lighter skin was identified with the elite. Darker-complexioned Egyptians and sub-Saharan Africans have been portrayed as doormen, waiters, and cleaners in films for decades. Some Egyptians still unabashedly address people by their skin color, calling them “black,” “dark,” or “chocolate.” Historically, many have preferred to think of themselves as Arab, rather than African.

Attia Essawi, an expert on African affairs at Cairo’s al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, says it will take a lot to break some societal beliefs. “Authorities should be decisive, with more severe measures against racism and bullying,” he said.

But for many, reporting a crime is not an option. Two South Sudanese women, who work as part-time house cleaners, told the AP they had been sexually assaulted by their employers. Neither of them reported the allegations to police, as one of them has not finalized her documents as a migrant in Egypt and the other feared reprisals from her attacker. For the same reasons, they spoke on condition of anonymity.

Now, they and others say they make sure to be home by nightfall, and only go out in groups. El-Sissi has said in the past that his country doesn’t need camps for refugees, because it is welcoming and absorbs them so readily. Many sub-Saharan African migrants enter the country legally but overstay visas. Enforcement on those who stay illegally is lax, and a large number of them work in the huge informal economy as street vendors and house cleaners.

In a café frequented by migrants in a central Cairo neighborhood, Ethiopian refugee Ahmed el-Athiopi says that he came to the city five years ago to escape repression at home. He believes the only reason he has been able to keep a job is because he makes half that of an Egyptian.

For now, though, he says Cairo remains his best available option. “I hope things get better in the future. Here is much better than in my home country as there is likely a zero chance to leave for Europe,” he said.

UN praises Turkey's treatment of refugees

March 12, 2020

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Deputy Representative for Turkey Jean Marie Garelli today praised efforts toward asylum-seekers in every region of Turkey.

“Turkey is a country where refugees and asylum-seekers are welcomed in the best way and get significant support; you are a praiseworthy model to the whole world in this manner,” Garelli said during a delegation visit to Edirne where asylum-seekers wait at the Greek border to be allowed to cross to Europe.

At the end of last month, Turkey allowed thousands of migrants and asylum seekers to cross its borders with Greece in response to the EU’s lack of action in the Syrian governorate of Idlib.

Thousands of asylum seekers and migrants have been waiting at the border region separating Turkey and Greece since 27 February to cross into Europe amid reports of abuse at the hands of Greek authorities.

Turkey has said Europe violated a deal it signed with Ankara in 2016 aimed at thwarting the movement of refugees to Greece and then on to other European countries.

EU officials have, however, slammed Turkey for using refugees as a political tool.

Turkey hosts around 3.6 million refugees – more than any other country. And since December 2019, hundreds of thousands more people have fled towards its border with Syria as a result of the regime’s airstrikes on the province as President Bashar Al-Assad fights to recapture the last opposition stronghold in Syria.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200312-un-praises-turkeys-treatment-of-refugees/.

Ex-guard frees dozens of hostages in Manila mall, is subdued

March 02, 2020

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A recently dismissed security guard freed his hostages and walked out of a shopping mall in the Philippine capital on Monday, ending a daylong hostage crisis in an upscale commercial district near the police and military headquarters, officials said.

The former guard at the commercial complex, identified by police as Archie Paray, left the V-Mall in suburban San Juan city in metropolitan Manila with his hostages, who were secured by police. The suspect was allowed to speak before reporters and authorities for several minutes to describe his grievances against his superiors, whom he accused of corruption and abuse, before police approached and subdued him.

“I’m very thankful that everything ended up peacefully,” said San Juan city Mayor Francis Zamora, who negotiated with the hostage-taker to give up his weapons and guaranteed his safety shortly before the crisis ended.

About 60 to 70 people were held hostage by Paray, he said. Zamora said the suspect, who was armed with a pistol and possibly grenades, shot one person at the V-Mall before he rushed to the second floor and took hostages in an administration office. The victim was in stable condition at a nearby hospital.

Zamora said the suspect was a disgruntled former security guard. “He felt bad because he was removed as a guard,” Zamora told reporters, adding that the man tried but failed to convince fellow guards to join him.

He was apparently dismissed after abandoning his job in recent weeks without notifying management, Zamora said. The suspect later used his cellphone to deliver a message to the guards and the media, expressing his anger over a change in his work hours and accusing his superiors of corruption.

In a bid to appease the hostage taker, six officers in charge of overseeing the mall's security apologized to the suspect at an early evening news conference for their “shortcomings” and resigned or offered to quit.

“I’m asking for his forgiveness, and because of this, I’ll resign from my job so this crisis will come to an end,” said Oscar Hernandez, one of the security officers. Earlier in the day, more than a dozen SWAT commandos entered the mall, their assault rifles ready. Other policemen stood by outside, along with an ambulance.

The shopping complex, popular for its restaurants, shops, bars and a bazaar, lies near an upscale residential enclave, a golf club and the police and military headquarters in the bustling Manila metropolis of more than 12 million people, where law and order have long been a concern.

Three years ago, a gunman stormed a mall-casino complex in Manila, shot TV monitors and set gambling tables on fire, killing 36 people who were mostly suffocated by thick smoke. The gunman stole casino chips before he fled but was found dead in an apparent suicide in an adjacent hotel at the Resorts World Manila complex.

The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group, but Philippine authorities rejected the claim, saying the attacker was not a Muslim militant but a heavily indebted gambler.

Associated Press journalists Kiko Rosario in Bangkok and Joeal Calupitan in Manila contributed to this report.

Disgruntled ex-guard takes dozens of hostages in Manila mall

March 02, 2020

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine police on Monday surrounded a shopping mall in an upscale section of Manila after a recently dismissed security guard opened fire and took dozens of people hostage, an official said.

Mayor Francis Zamora of San Juan in the Philippine capital said the gunman, who was armed with a pistol, shot one person at the V-Mall. The victim was in stable condition at a nearby hospital. Zamora said a police negotiator was trying to talk to the gunman — a disgruntled former security guard at the shopping complex — inside a mall administration office.

“He felt bad because he was removed as a guard,” Zamora told reporters, adding that the man tried but failed to convince fellow guards to join him. Aside from a pistol, the hostage taker was yelling that he had a grenade, but authorities could not immediately confirm that, Zamora said.

“We have evacuated all the people in the shopping center and we’re in a lockdown here in the entire mall,” he said. An initial police report said the hostage taker, who was identified as Archie Paray, shot a mall official before rushing to the second floor of the complex, where he was holding dozens of mostly employees in an office. The report said “more or less 50 staffs" were being held hostage, but it did not provide other details.

Zamora said about 30 to 40 people were being held, adding that his estimate was based on the size of the administrative office were they were being held. The suspect was complaining of “unequal treatment,” the police report said.

The man demanded to talk to fellow guards and the media, Zamora said, but it was not clear if officials would agree to those conditions. More than a dozen SWAT commandos were earlier seen entering the mall, their assault rifles ready. Other policemen stood by outside, along with an ambulance.

The shopping complex, popular for its restaurants, shops, bars and a bazaar, lies near an upscale residential enclave, a golf club and the police and military headquarters in the bustling metropolis of more than 12 million people, where law and order have long been a concern.

Associated Press videojournalist Joeal Calupitan contributed to this report.

Moscow activists vow to fight on after clashes with police

March 20, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Activists in Moscow vowed Friday to persist with their campaign against plans to bulldoze a highway through a radioactive waste site, despite a police crackdown and mass detentions. The campaign started two months ago as a small grassroots effort, and made national headlines on Thursday night after riot police stormed the protesters' make-shift command post near the site and detained more than 60 people.

On Friday, several dozen people gathered near the site once again. “We will continue to fight. Of course, we're not willing to give up,” Larisa Bodrova, one of the activists, told The Associated Press before the meeting.

Awareness about environmental issues has been growing in Russia in recent years. In a poll released in December 2019 by the Levada independent pollster, 48% of Russians named environmental pollution as the number one threat of the 21st century, prioritizing it over terrorism.

Environmental activism has been on the rise too. In 2018-2019, spontaneous environmental campaigns across the country — mostly against toxic landfills operating at capacity — accounted for the biggest non-political protests.

Bodrova and dozens of other activists live in residential blocks in southeast Moscow, where city authorities plan to build a multi-lane motorway. Part of it is supposed to go through a plot of land where at least 60,000 tons of nuclear waste are buried, according to Russia's public health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor.

Digging into this contaminated land is dangerous as it would stir up a huge amount of radioactive dust, Alexei Ozerov, a physicist supporting the activists, told the AP. “People will be inhaling it, and (the dust) will spread quite far — 10-15 kilometers (around the site),” Ozerov said.

Radiation levels on the surface of the soil in the area are already several times higher than normal, activists who regularly take measurements argue. Construction work was supposed to start in early January, but the activists blocked the entrance to the contaminated area, not letting workers and trucks in. Since then, they have been camping out there 24/7, keeping warm in an old used minivan they all chipped in to buy.

“I don't have another home, I don't have a place I could move to,” activist and local resident Katya Maksimova told the AP in February. “Neither do other residents, so we (continue to) keep the vigil.”

In late January, Moscow officials acknowledged the problem and admitted the area had “minor traces” of contamination. They promised to start removing the contaminated earth in the spring, but the activists continued their 24/7 watch, demanding a through investigation into the levels of contamination first.

As the starting date for earth removal works loomed, the police turned up the pressure on the activists and tried to clear out the make-shift camp this week. Their first attempt on Tuesday night to tow away the minivan and fence off the area was unsuccessful: the activists, supported by dozens of local residents, blocked the tow truck and refused to go away despite the presence of a riot squad. The resistance continued on Wednesday, and on Thursday resulted in mass detentions.

By Friday morning, almost all of those detained were let go. The minivan was towed away, and the area where the activists used to gather was fenced off, but the group called for a gathering nonetheless.

“Yes, it is scary,” Maksimova said, recalling clashes with the police on Thursday. “But we're not prepared to throw in the towel."

Putin approves law that could keep him in power until 2036

March 14, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law on constitutional changes that could keep him in power for another 16 years, a step that must still be approved in a nationwide vote. Putin signed the measure on Saturday, the Kremlin said, three days after it sailed through the Russian parliament with only one vote against. It must be approved by the country's Constitutional Court and in a referendum set for April 22.

Under current law, Putin would not be able to run for president again in 2024 because of term limits, but the new measure would reset his term count, allowing him to run for two more six-year terms. He has been in power since 2000.

Other constitutional changes further strengthen the presidency and emphasize the priority of Russian law over international norms — a provision reflecting the Kremlin's irritation with the European Court of Human Rights and other international bodies that have often issued verdicts against Russia.

The changes also outlaw same-sex marriage and mention “a belief in God” as one of Russia's traditional values.

Russian lawmaker suggests scrapping presidential term limits

March 10, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to have flown in space and a lawmaker with Russia's ruling party, proposed Tuesday to scrap presidential term limits in order to allow Russia President Vladimir Putin to run for re-election in 2024. The move prompted Putin to rush to the parliament, where he is expected to weigh in on the proposal.

Tereshkova came forward with the idea at a parliamentary session, during the second reading of constitutional amendments Putin introduced to the parliament in January. The sweeping reform is widely seen as part of an effort by Putin, who has has to step down in 2024 after having served the two consecutive terms that the country's constitution currently allows, to stay in power.

“The very existence of an opportunity for the current president (to get re-elected), given his major gravitas, would be a stabilizing factor for our society,” Tereshkova told the Kremlin-controlled State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, on Tuesday.

Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin announced a 90-minute break in the session to ponder the proposal and said Putin will come to the Duma himself to weigh in on the proposal. “The amendment Tereshkova has come forward with requires consulting with the current president,” Volodin said.

Tereshkova's proposal contradicts what Putin said earlier about the possibility of remaining president — he rejected the idea of scrapping term limits just last week, saying it's important to guarantee government rotation in Russia in the future.

“Why don't I want to scrap limits? It's not that I fear myself: I'm not going to lose my mind, it's not about me,” Putin said Friday during a meeting with workers and activists in Ivanovo, a city northeast of Moscow famous for its textile industries.

“Stability, calm development of the country may be more important now, but later when the country becomes more confident and gets richer it will definitely be necessary to ensure government rotation."

Putin backs amendment allowing him to remain in power

March 10, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday backed a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow him to seek re-election after his current term ends in 2024, ending uncertainty about his future.

A lawmaker who is revered in Russia as the first woman to fly in space proposed either scrapping Russia's two-term limit for presidents or resetting the clock so Putin's four terms wouldn't count. Putin and the Kremlin-controlled State Duma quickly endorsed the proposal put forward by former Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova.

Kremlin critics denounced the move as cynical manipulation and called for protests. Lawmakers also passed a sweeping set of constitutional changes Putin proposed in January that Kremlin foes saw as intended to keep him in power.

In a speech to lawmakers Tuesday, Putin spoke against scrapping presidential term limits altogether but backed the idea that if the constitution is revised, the two-term limit only would apply from 2024 on. The president's current six-year term expires in 2024.

A vote on the constitutional amendments is scheduled for next month. Putin, 67, has been in power for more than 20 years and is Russia's longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. After serving two presidential terms in 2000-2008, he shifted to the Russian prime minister's office while protege Dmitry Medvedev served as a placeholder president.

After the length of a presidential term was extended to six years under Medvedev, Putin reclaimed the presidency in 2012 and won another term in 2018. Observers had speculated that Putin could use the constitutional amendments he unveiled in January to scrap term limits; move into the prime minister's seat with strengthened powers; or continue calling the shots as the head of the State Council.

However, it wasn't clear until Tuesday how Putin would try to achieve that goal. The Russian leader finally revealed his cards after Tereshkova, a legendary figure widely revered for her pioneering 1963 space flight, offered her ideas.

“I propose to either lift the presidential term limit or add a clause that after the revised constitution enters force, the incumbent president, just like any other citizen, has the right to seek the presidency,” she said to a raucous applause.

After Tereshkova spoke, Putin quickly came to parliament to address lawmakers. He said he was aware of public calls for him to stay on as president and emphasized that Russia needs stability above all.

“The president is a guarantor of security of our state, its internal stability and evolutionary development,” Putin said. “We have had enough revolutions.” However, he said that since the constitution is a long-term document, scrapping the term limit wasn't a good idea.

Then he dropped the bombshell, saying he positively viewed Tereshkova's alternate proposal to restart the term count when the revamped constitution enters force. “As for the proposal to lift restrictions for any person, any citizen, including the incumbent president, to allow running in future elections ... this option is possible,” Putin said.

He added that the Constitutional Court would need to judge if the move would be legal, although the court's assent is all but guaranteed. Putin's statement came as lawmakers were considering the amendments in a crucial second reading when changes in the document are made.

The Kremlin-controlled lower house, the State Duma, quickly endorsed the proposed amendments by a 382-0 vote with 44 abstentions. A vote on a third reading will be a quick formality. A nationwide vote on the proposed amendments is set for April 22.

Russia's leading opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, mocked the proposed change. "Putin has been in power for 20 years, and yet he is going to run for the first time,” Navalny tweeted. A group of opposition activists called for a protest rally in Moscow on March 21, saying in a statement, “The country where the government doesn't change for 20 years has no future,. they said in a statement.

Putin's approval ratings have remained high despite a recent drop amid Russia's economic troubles and stagnant living standards. It's unclear if the fragmented and disorganized Russian opposition can mount a serious challenge to the Kremlin.

The ruble's sharp drop this week, caused by a steep fall in global oil prices in the wake of the collapse of OPEC's agreement with Russia to control crude output, could herald deeper economic problems and hurt Putin's popularity.

“It looks like this crisis situation has made Putin drop his mask and do something he had originally planned, and to do it quickly," Abbas Gallyamov, an independent political analyst said. In a speech to lawmakers, Putin vowed that the new coronavirus and plummeting oil prices would not destabilize Russia.

“Our economy will keep getting stronger and the key industries will become more powerful and competitive,” he said.

Russian winter warmer, booze deaths down

March 05, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Winter has been unusually mild in much of Russia this season and the number of deaths from alcohol consumption declined. An alcohol policy group says the two developments are connected. The National Center for Alcohol Policy Development said Thursday that accidental deaths from alcohol poisoning in Russia were down 37% in January compared to the same month a year ago. The center said 619 people died from alcohol in January, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

Interfax quoted center director Pavel Shapkin as saying less severe winter weather reduces “the alcohol burden on the population. As a result, the negative consequences of alcohol use go down sharply.”

This winter has been the warmest ever recorded in Russia, with Moscow seeing little snow and temperatures generally staying above freezing.

India hangs 4 men convicted for fatal New Delhi gang rape

March 20, 2020

NEW DELHI (AP) — Four men sentenced to death for the gruesome gang rape and murder of a woman on a New Delhi bus in 2012 were hanged Friday, concluding a case that exposed the scope of sexual violence in India and prompted horrified Indians to demand swift justice.

The four stood trial relatively quickly in India's slow-moving justice system, their convictions and sentences handed down less than a year after the crime. India's top court upheld the verdicts in 2017, finding the men's crimes had created a “tsunami of shock” among Indians.

“The four convicts were hanged together at 5.30 a.m.,” said Sandeep Goel, head of the Tihar Jail in New Delhi. The victim, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, was heading home with a male friend from a movie theater when six men tricked into getting on a private bus. With no one else in sight, they beat her friend and repeatedly raped the woman. They penetrated her with a metal rod, causing fatal internal injuries. They dumped both victims on the roadside, and the woman died two weeks later.

Asha Devi, the mother of the victim, thanked the judiciary and government after the convicts were hanged. "Today, we got justice and this day is dedicated to the daughters of the country,” she told reporters. “I could not protect her but I was able to fight for her.”

Devi said she hoped that courts in India will end delays in rape cases and punish convicts within a year's time. The case drew international attention at the time and prompted Indian lawmakers to stiffen penalties for rape, part of a wave of changes as India confronted its appalling treatment of women.

Facing public protests and political pressure after the attack, the government reformed some of India's antiquated laws on sexual violence and created fast-track courts for handling rape trials that formerly could last more than a decade.

The new laws prescribed harsher punishments for rapists and addressed new crimes, including acid throwing and stalking. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Friday that justice had prevailed and it was of utmost importance to ensure the dignity and safety of women.

"Together, we have to build a nation where the focus is on women empowerment, where there is emphasis on equality and opportunity,” he said on his Twitter account. Hundreds of police were deployed outside the jail to control a crowd that waited to celebrate the executions. Dozens of people held placards hailing the hangings. The crowd chanted slogans like “Justice for women” and cheered by clapping and blowing whistles.

Another suspect had hanged himself in prison before his trial began, though his family insists he was killed. The sixth assailant was a minor at the time of the attack and served three years in juvenile detention.

Amnesty International India condemned Friday’s executions, saying they “mark a disheartening development.” It called again for India to abolish the death penalty. “There is no evidence that the punishment acted as a particular deterrent to the crime and will eradicate violence against women,” the group said in a statement.

The executions were carried out as two recent attacks renew attention to the problem of sexual violence in India. Activists say new sentencing requirements haven’t deterred rape, with Indian government data showing police registered almost 34,000 cases in 2018.

The real figure is believed to be far higher since stigma surrounding sexual violence keeps victims from reporting their attacks to police.

Poland's idle restaurants send free food to medical 'heroes'

March 20, 2020

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A popular Warsaw entertainment center looks empty and closed amid a government ordered shutdown from the coronavirus, but inside, cook Bozena Legowska is busy. One hot pizza after another is lifted out of the oven, boxed and whisked to a nearby hospital for a hungry staff of doctors who are working harder than ever under the pressure of the spreading virus.

The pizza boxes are inscribed with upbeat messages, including, “You are our heroes.” The Ale Zebra center in northern Warsaw has joined a growing nationwide network of restaurants and eateries showing their appreciation for the doctors, nurses and other medical professionals by bringing them free meals.

Last week, the government imposed a “national quarantine” that closed schools, universities, restaurants and culture centers, asking everyone to stay home if possible. But that order doesn't apply to health care workers, who face a time of incessant, intensified effort. A nation of 38 million, Poland has 378 confirmed cases of coronavirus infections. Five of the patients have died.

While restaurants are closed to the public to try to keep the virus from spreading, they can still do takeout orders and deliveries. That has prompted #gastropomaga — “Gastronomy is helping” — and similar actions on social media to alleviate at least some of the worries for hospital workers who have no time to get a tasty meal.

“At least the doctors don't go hungry or worry where and how to get food,” said Iwona Sobczak, a secretary at the rescue ward of the Bielany Hospital, as she came out into the parking lot to collect the 10 offered pizzas. While those infected with the coronavirus are being treated at another facility, the Bielany Hospital is under greater pressure than usual as other patients are transferred there.

Other messages on the pizza boxes for the doctors read: “We are with you” and “Zebra is helping.” Maciej Kolacinski, the host-manager at Ale Zebra, said the “feeling of joy one has when doing something good for the others is hard to describe.”

His usually bustling Ale Zebra club caters to all ages with its pizza parlor that can host a party for 120 people, and features laser tag, billiards, slot machines and even an “Escape Room” where players are locked in and must hunt for clues to try to find a way out.

It's all empty and quiet now. Hand disinfectants are next to a wash basin and on the counter. A customer collects his order of two pizzas through a small window from the outside and pays with a touch card.

“Our financial situation is not a comfortable one," Kolacinski said. "We are making no money, but this is true for every one now. We are trying to do something positive.” On March 11, the government announced a “shield program” worth 212 billion zlotys ($52 billion; 47 billion euros) for businesses hit by the pandemic. The bailout includes state contributions to wages, postponement of social insurance payments and an injection of cash for infrastructure and education investments.

The “meals for medics” campaign has been joined by many others in Warsaw. The Indian Taste restaurant is among those delivering food to the contagious diseases hospital on Wolska street, where coronavirus patients are treated.

One of the deliverymen wearing a scarf across his face carried a container of spicy food with lots of garlic and ginger. “I live nearby. Maybe I also catch the virus and I will have to be hospitalized here,” he told the OKO.press independent news portal in a video interview.

The campaign to provide free food for medics began last week in the eastern city of Bialystok and has spread nationwide. Magdalena Rothe, owner of the Futu Sushi bar in Bialystok, was among the first to call hospitals to ask how she can help. Now a group of restaurants and bakeries have organized a schedule of deliveries to hospitals to avoid overlapping.

“We will not feed the entire hospital, but those 15 meals will allow the doctors to sit down for a while and eat something," Rothe told The Associated Press by phone. "It is a spontaneous gesture of thanks for their very stressful work these days."

In other acts of social solidarity during an uncertain time in Poland, people are posting notices for elderly neighbors, offering to go shopping or walk their dogs so the vulnerable can stay home and isolate themselves from infection.

An ambulance station that is on the front line of the virus crisis was another recipient of the free pizzas from Ale Zebra. Paramedic Jozef Grygo took to social media to thank them, saying a “full rescuer is a good rescuer."

—- While nonstop global news about the effects of the coronavirus have become commonplace, so, too, are the stories about the kindness of strangers and individuals who have sacrificed for others. "One Good Thing" is an AP continuing series reflecting these acts of kindness.

Illinois and New York join California in ordering lockdowns

March 20, 2020

Illinois and New York state joined California on Friday in ordering all residents to stay in their homes unless they have vital reasons to go out, restricting the movement of more than 70 million Americans in the most sweeping measures undertaken yet in the U.S. to contain the coronavirus.

The states' governors acted in a bid to fend off the kind of onslaught that has caused the health system in southern Europe to buckle. The lockdowns encompass the three biggest cities in America — New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — as well as No. 8 San Diego and No. 14 San Francisco.

"No, this is not life as usual,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said as the death toll in the U.S. topped 200, with at least 35 in his state. “Accept it and realize it and deal with it." Cuomo said that starting Sunday, all workers in nonessential businesses must stay home as much as possible, and gatherings of any size will be banned in the state of over 19 million people. California likewise all but confined its 40 million residents on Friday, and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a similar order set to take effect on Saturday for the state's 12.6 million people.

Exceptions were made for essential jobs and errands, such as buying groceries and medicine, as well as for exercise. The lockdowns sent another shudder through the markets, where many fear a recession is a near certainty. Stocks tumbled on Wall Street, closing out their worst week since the 2008 financial crisis. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 900 points, ending the week with a 17% loss.

The increasingly drastic measures in the U.S. came as gasping patients filled the wards of hospitals in Spain and Italy, and the global death toll surpassed 11,000, with the virus gaining footholds in new corners of the world. Over a quarter-million people worldwide have been infected, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University, though close to 90,000 of them have recovered.

Italy, the hardest-hit country in Europe, reported 627 new deaths, its biggest day-to-day rise since the outbreak began, and said new cases also shot up. Italy now has seen over 4,000 deaths — more even than China — and 47,000 infections. The soaring numbers came despite a nationwide lockdown.

The World Health Organization highlighted the epidemic’s dramatic speed, noting it took more than three months to reach the first 100,000 confirmed cases but only 12 days to reach the next 100,000. Across the U.S., where the number of infected topped 17,000, governors and public health officials watched the crisis in Europe with mounting alarm and warned of critical shortages of ventilators, masks and other gear at home.

In New York City, health officials told medical providers to stop testing patients for the virus, except for people sick enough to require hospitalization, saying testing is exhausting supplies of protective equipment.

As promised earlier in the week, President Donald Trump officially invoked emergency wartime authority to try to speed production of such equipment. Countries frantically prepared for a deluge of patients in the coming weeks.

In Britain, the government asked 65,000 retired nurses and doctors to return to work. A convention center and hotels in Madrid were being turned into field hospitals for nearly 10,000 patients. France's military worked to build a makeshift medical center in the hard-hit town of Mulhouse. The U.S. readied military hospitals for civilian use.

Trump also announced the closing of the Mexican border to most travel but not trade. That brings it in line with the restrictions on the Canadian border earlier this week. The federal government also moved the income tax filing deadline from April 15 to July 15.

“We’re about to enter into a new way of living here in Los Angeles," Mayor Eric Garcetti said as California went into lockdown. “What we do and how we do it and if we get this right will determine how long this crisis lasts."

The streets of America's cities were quieter than normal, even in many communities not under lockdown. In New York, Edjo Wheeler said he knew two people very sick with flu-like symptoms, which can indicate the coronavirus.

“That makes me walk around with my hands in my pocket to make sure I'm not touching things,' said Wheeler, 49, who runs a nonprofit art center. He added: “If everyone doesn't cooperate it's not going to be effective."

At the Paramount Drive-in near Los Angeles, Forrest and Erin McBride figured a drive-in movie was one of the few ways they could responsibly celebrate their anniversary. “We were like, what can we do? Everything’s closed,” Forrest said before a showing of “Onward.” “We were like, ‘Well, a drive-in theater is kind of like a self-quarantined movie date.’”

The virus has struck at the very identities of many countries: closing down cafes, restaurants and boulevard life in France, ending la dolce vita in Italy, shutting down England's pubs and the ceremonial changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, damaging sales of tulips from Holland and shuttering the Statue of Liberty in the U.S.

Governments are trying to balance locking down residents with the need to keep food, medicine and other essentials flowing. In Britain, the category of vital workers includes doctors, nurses and paramedics — and also vicars, truckers, garbage collectors and journalists. In New York, people venturing outside will have to stay at least 6 feet apart. And while they will be free to get some exercise to keep their sanity, there will be no "playing basketball with five other people,” Cuomo said.

“These provisions will be enforced,” the governor said. “These are not helpful hints.” In Bergamo, the epicenter of the Italian outbreak, cemeteries were overwhelmed. Patients at the city's main hospital lined up in a narrow ward, struggling for breath as doctors and nurses moved swiftly from one beeping machine to the next.

“When the virus arrived here, there was no containment and it spread through the valleys very quickly. ... Some said it was the normal flu. We doctors knew it was not,” said Dr. Luca Lorini, head of intensive care at the hospital, where nearly 500 beds were dedicated to people suffering severe symptoms. Eighty patients were in intensive care.

While the illness is mild in most people, the elderly are particularly susceptible to serious symptoms. Italy has the world’s second-oldest population, and the vast majority of its dead — 87% — were over 70.

Still, even younger people are at risk. “You’re not invincible," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned them. He noted that many countries are reporting that people under 50 make up a “significant proportion” of patients needing to be hospitalized.

Some of the only good news came from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the outbreak began and where hospitals were struggling just weeks ago. For the second day in a row, no new infections were reported and only 39 cases were recorded nationwide, all brought from the outside, the government said.

With the crisis waning there, China has begun sending medical supplies to Europe. The shutdown of whole swaths of the world economy took its toll, from millions of unsold flowers rotting in piles in Kenya to the slow emptying of the world's skies. Canada received 500,000 applications for unemployment benefits, versus 27,000 for the same week last year.

In the U.S., lawmakers and the White House sought to put together a $1 trillion economic rescue plan that would include the dispensing of relief checks of $1,200 for adults and $500 per child. The British government likewise unveiled a huge package under which the country for the time in its history would help pay the wages of those in the private sector.

Iran's official toll of more than 1,400 dead was rising quickly as well amid fears it is underreporting its cases. As the virus strengthened its foothold in Africa, the continent's busiest airport, in Johannesburg, announced that foreigners will no longer be allowed to disembark.

Associated Press reporters around the world contributed.

The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Coronavirus extends across West, Californians must stay home

March 20, 2020

ROME (AP) — Italy's deaths from the coronavirus pandemic eclipsed China’s on Thursday as the scourge extended its march across the West, where the United States and other countries increasingly enlisted the military to prepare for an onslaught of patients and California's governor ordered people in the most-populous U.S. state to stay home.

The U.S. Army prepared mobile military hospitals for deployment in major cities. In Madrid, Spain, a four-star hotel was turned into a hospital. Long lines of motorists waited for nurses to swab their nostrils at new U.S. drive-thru testing sites.

The virus has infected at least one European head of state: Monaco's 62-year-old Prince Albert II, who continued to work from his office. And it appeared to be opening an alarming new front in Africa, where health care in many countries is already in sorry shape.

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world is “at war with a virus” and warned that “a global recession, perhaps of record dimensions, is a near certainty.” “If we let the virus spread like wildfire — especially in the most vulnerable regions of the world -- it would kill millions of people,” he said.

Italy, with 60 million citizens, has recorded 3,405 deaths, or roughly 150 more than in China, a country with a population over 20 times larger. As Italy reached its bleak milestone, China is seeing signs of hope. Wuhan, the city where the new virus emerged three months ago, had no new infections for a second day Friday, a sign its draconian lockdowns had worked.

Health authorities cited a variety of reasons for Italy’s high toll, key among them its large population of elderly, who are particularly susceptible to serious complications from the virus. Italy has the world’s second-oldest population, and the vast majority of its dead — 87% — were over 70.

Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit, a virologist at Germany's Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, offered another reason for Italy's high death rate: “That's what happens when the health system collapses."

In a measure of how the fortunes of East and West have shifted, New York officials were sent to China to buy more ventilators. And in Italy, the leader of a delegation from the Chinese Red Cross openly castigated Italians for failing to take the national lockdown seriously.

On a visit to the hard-hit city of Milan, Sun Shuopeng said he was shocked to see so many people walking around, using public transportation and eating out in hotels. “Right now we need to stop all economic activity, and we need to stop the mobility of people,” he said. “All people should be staying at home in quarantine.”

Worldwide the death toll surpassed 10,000 and infections topped 240,000, including 86,000 people who have recovered. In the U.S., where deaths reached at least 205, and infections climbed past 14,000, Army officials announced plans to deploy two hospitals, probably to Seattle and New York City. Washington state had the highest death toll, 74. President Donald Trump said earlier this week that he would send a Navy hospital ship to the West Coast as well as one to New York City, which is rapidly becoming a U.S. epicenter, with more than 4,000 cases.

Damage to the world's largest economy kept increasing, with the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits surging by 70,000 last week. On Wall Street, though, stocks rose modestly amid optimism over efforts by the Federal Reserve and other central banks to shore up the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained almost 200 points, or 1%.

Congress is weighing a proposed $1 trillion emergency package that would dispense relief checks to households in as many as two rounds, the first of which would consist of payments of $1,000 per adult and $500 for each child.

Around the country, governors and mayors sounded increasingly alarmed and took ever more drastic measures to fend off the crisis. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom late Thursday expanded to nearly 40 million people the restrictions he said already applied to about half the state. He said the statewide restriction on non-essential movement outside people's homes is necessary to control the spread of the virus that threatens to overwhelm California's medical system.

Newsom earlier in the day issued the dire prediction that 56% of California’s population could contract the virus over the next eight weeks. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf ordered the closing of all “non-life-sustaining” businesses in the state, with exceptions for gas stations, grocery stores, pharmacies and takeout restaurant service, and warned that violators could be subject to fines or imprisonment.

At a video conference with Trump, governors complained they were having difficulty obtaining such things as swabs and protective gear for doctors and nurses. And New York Mayor Bill de Blasio lashed out at the president as “the Herbert Hoover of your generation," referring to the man who was president when the stock market crashed in 1929 and the Depression set in.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state does not have enough ventilators for the expected surge of patients in need of help breathing, and needs to acquire thousands before the outbreak overwhelms hospitals.

“Every state is shopping for ventilators. We're shopping for ventilators. We literally have people in China shopping for ventilators which is one of the largest manufacturers. So this is a major problem,” he said.

A Houston hospital that opened its doors to drive-thru testing quickly saw a line of hundreds of vehicles stretching more than a mile. At a white tent, workers in masks and head-to-toe protective gear swabbed motorists. Petra Sanchez waited to find out whether she had the virus.

“I have an 80-year-old dad, and I haven’t been around him for the same reason,” she said. ”I don't know what I have." The U.S. State Department, meanwhile, warned Americans in the strongest terms yet not to travel abroad under any circumstances.

The British government, criticized as slow to react to the virus, shifted gears and drew up legislation giving itself new powers to detain people and restrict gatherings. The bill is expected to be approved by Parliament next week.

Supermarket chain Sainsbury's reserved the first hour of shopping for vulnerable customers. Among them was Jim Gibson, 72, of London, who was concerned that the country wasn't ramping up testing fast enough.

“You can't go on ignoring World Health Organization guidelines — if they're wrong, who the hell is right?” he said. “Let's have no shilly-shallying.” French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe pleaded with people to social distance, even as the crisis pushed them to seek comfort. “When you love someone, you should avoid taking them in your arms,” he said in Parliament.

China for the second day said Friday the locked-down city of Wuhan, where thousands once lay sick or dying in hurriedly constructed hospitals, had no new cases of infections. All 39 new cases recorded nationally were from abroad.

“Today, we have seen the dawn after so many days of hard effort,” said Jiao Yahui, a senior inspector at the National Health Commission, said Thursday. Officials say they will only lift the quarantine of Wuhan after the city goes 14 consecutive days with no new cases.

China is slowly coming back to life, with the government saying about 80% of economic activity has been restored, although millions of workers remain stranded by travel bans. Beijing's tourism industry is still on hold, just as it should be ramping up for the summer season.

The World Health Organization warned, though, that the virus is spreading quickly in Africa, from about five countries a week and a half ago to 35 of the continent's 54 nations — an “extremely rapid evolution,” said WHO’s Africa chief, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti.

Sullivan reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press reporters around the world contributed to this report.

The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

UK pubs shut, state steps in to pay wages in face of virus

March 20, 2020

LONDON (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic has turned everything on its head in the global economy, not least in Britain where the center-right Conservative government effectively socialized large chunks of the private sector and shut down the pubs.

After announcing Friday the closure of the recreation and leisure industry, including cinemas, gyms and restaurants for an indefinite period, in an effort to contain the virus' spread, the government said it would be stepping in to pay a large chunk of people's wages.

That's something that has never happened in the country's history. Treasury chief Rishi Sunak said the government would be offering grants to all employers to pay four-fifths of the salaries of people who are not working but retained on the payroll rather than being laid off.

“For the first time in our history, the government is going to step in and help to pay people’s wages,” he said. The so-called Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will cover 80% of the salary of retained workers up to a total of 2,500 pounds ($2,875) a month. Employers will be able to top up salaries further if they choose to.

In addition, he announced further support measures for those who have lost their jobs and for those who are self-employed. A series of taxes, including those on sales, have been deferred while a business interruption loan scheme, worth 330 billion pounds, is now to be interest-free for 12 months.

“Unprecedented measures, for unprecedented times,” he said. Though other countries around the world are firefighting the economic shock in similar ways, this is a staggering response from a government that won an overwhelming majority at December's general election, partly by attacking the supposed free-spending platform of the main Labour Party opposition.

Labour has been arguing for swifter action for the government and cautiously welcomed the latest moves but said more needed to be done, especially with regard to those who have lost their jobs, the self-employed, and for those who are sick.

Still, in just over a week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government has announced a series of stimulus measures aimed at keeping a lid on the economic damage likely from the virus outbreak. The scale of Friday's measures suggest that it is deeply concerned about the scale of the recession and the associated job losses to come and that more measures are likely in the days and weeks ahead.

“If enacted fast and coupled with more robust interventions to support the most vulnerable the labour market, such as the self-employed and unemployed, these measures are likely to provide economic certainty to the population as it prepares for a prolonged period of distress,” said Dr Ivan Petrella, Associate Professor of Economics at Warwick Business School.

Italy sees biggest day-to-day rise in coronavirus deaths

March 20, 2020

ROME (AP) — Italy has recorded its highest day-to-day-rise in the number of deaths of people infected with the new coronavirus. Civil Protection Chief Angelo Borrelli said Friday the country recorded 627 more deaths in the 24 hours since Italy surpassed China on Thursday as the nation with the most COVID-19-related deaths. The total now stands at 4,032.

Authorities said most of the people who died had existing health problems such as heart disease and diabetes before they were infected with the virus. Borrelli says Italy also saw a staggering increase of 5,986 cases from a day earlier, bringing the official total in Italy to 47,021.

The soaring numbers come despite a national lockdown that drastically limits when residents are allowed to leave their homes. Police have issued citations to thousands of people for being out and about without valid reasons, such as going to work or shopping for food.

Mayors and governors throughout the country have been demanding even stricter measures. Italy's national government is widely expected to respond soon. For days now, Italian authorities have said at daily briefings that the virus outbreak that emerged in northern Italy four weeks ago could reach its peak in a matter of days and the number of new infections might start going down.

Borrelli addressed the question Friday by saying, ""We'll never know when the peaks will be" n advance. He noted that some experts have spoken of cases peaking "the next week or the week after" that.

Russia deports Chinese for violating self-quarantine rules

March 20, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Authorities in Moscow are detaining and deporting Chinese nationals for violating quarantine procedures the city government mandated in response to the coronavirus, according to court filings and a lawyer working on at least 15 cases.

Since the beginning of the year, as many as 79 Chinese people have been taken into custody and fined for leaving their place of residence during the 14-day self-quarantine period they were ordered to observe after returning from China, defense lawyer Sergei Malik told The Associated Press.

The majority have been deported from Russia, while 27 remain at Moscow's migrant detention facility awaiting deportation or rulings on appeals arguing the detentions were arbitrary, Malik said. About half of the Chinese nationals detained were university students, he said.

“Someone decided to target Chinese citizens,” Malik said. “Our brave police were acting on someone's orders. No one was detaining Italians or Iranians. Just the Chinese." Some of the detained people from China said in court documents reviewed by the AP that they did not receive thorough explanations or know the Russian language well enough to understand the rules they had to follow while in self-quarantine.

Among the reasons given for coming out of home confinement was needing to buy groceries, obtain immigration documents or to pay for studies. As part of the Russian capital's strategy to prevent the new virus from spreading, Moscow officials in late February said everyone arriving from China had to observe a mandatory two-week quarantine. The city government also sent police to track down Chinese people by raiding hotels, dormitories, apartment buildings and businesses.

The AP reviewed more than 20 verdicts handed out by Moscow courts in cases involving Chinese nationals detained for evading self-quarantines in the past month. The judgments were available on the city's court system website.

In half of the cases, the addresses of where police detained the suspects matched the addresses of where the Chinese nationals were supposed to be quarantined but didn't include apartment numbers. The defendants in several cases claimed they had been falsely accused of leaving their apartments or were lured out by police officers.

Moscow police did not respond to a request for comment. Information on the website of Moscow City Hall states that failing or refusing to observe self-quarantine is subject to criminal prosecution if the violation leads to mass infections and deaths. The website doesn't mention potential penalties in situations when no such consequences result from someone breaking home quarantine requirements.

The alleged lack of clear guidance and regulations raises concerns among some Russian human rights activists. “What is happening now is just so obscure,” said Svetlana Gannushkina, head of the migrant and refugee rights group Civic Initiative. “We can't get clear answers about what decisions are being made and what we should do....Instead, there are just hectic moves.”

The penalty for not following sanitary and epidemiological regulations in Russia usually constitutes a fine of less than $10 and certainly not deportation, lawyer Malik said. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that foreigners who “violate quarantine orders” indeed may be deported in accordance with existing Russian regulations.

The ministry monitors the situation “with Chinese citizens and citizens of other countries” and works closely with respective embassies, Zakharova said. The Chinese Embassy in Russia did not respond to repeated requests for comments. Last week, the embassy's spokesperson confirmed to the Kommersant newspaper that courts in Moscow were ordering Chinese citizens deported for “violating self-isolation rules (set by) the Russian side."