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SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 2020
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DUBAI (AFP) - War-torn Yemen reported
its first case of coronavirus yesterday in a
southern province under the control of the
government, raising fears of an outbreak in a
country with few resources left to respond.
The announcement comes on the second
day of a unilateral two-week ceasefire
announced by the Saudi-led coalition
supporting the government in what it said
was a move to help fight the pandemic.
“The first confirmed case of coronavirus
has been reported in Hadramawt province,”
Yemen’s supreme national emergency
committee for COVID-19 said on Twitter.
The committee, run by the internationally
recognised government of President
Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, said the infected
patient was in stable condition and
receiving care.
It said medical teams and concerned
authorities had taken all necessary
precautions and promised to release
further details.
Following years of war and Saudi-led
military intervention, Yemen already faces
what the United Nations (UN) describes as
the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.
Aid groups have warned that when the
coronavirus does hit the country’s broken
healthcare system, the impact is likely to
be catastrophic.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been
killed over the past five years in the war
between the coalition and the Iran-backed
Huthi rebels, who control large parts of
Yemen including the capital Sanaa.
Millions have been displaced and diseases
including cholera are widespread due to the
scarcity of clean water.
Despite two decades of air and drone
strikes by the United States (US), Yemen also
still hosts a significant extremist presence,
with a longstanding al-Qaeda network
challenged in recent years by militants loyal
to the Islamic State group.
Control of Hadramawt province, where the
first coronavirus case was reported, has long
been divided. Coalition-backed government
forces control the coastal towns but parts of
the interior remain in the hands of al-Qaeda.
The coalition said it was observing a
unilateral ceasefire to help efforts to prevent
a COVID-19 outbreak in Yemen.
“The coalition is determined... to support
efforts towards combatting the spread of (the)
COVID-19 pandemic,” coalition spokesman
Turki al-Maliki said on Wednesday.
The move was welcomed by the US but
dismissed by the Huthi rebels who charged
that continued air strikes by the coalition
showed its announcement was a coronavirus
public relations stunt.
“We consider the ceasefire a political
and media manoeuvre,” Huthi spokesman
Mohamed Abdelsalam told
Al Jazeera
news network.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), a key
Saudi ally, said that the battle against the
coronavirus trumped all other concerns.
“The COVID-19 crisis eclipses everything
- the international community must step up
efforts & work together to protect the Yemeni
CAIRO (AFP) - An Egyptian rights group said on
Thursday it had fileda lawsuit against authorities
demanding that relatives of a jailed journalist be
allowed to provide him with medical supplies
to protect against coronavirus.
The Cairo-based Association for Freedom
of Thought and Expression (AFTE) said in
a statement it had filed the lawsuit against
Egypt Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli, the
Interior Minister and prison authorities at an
administrative court on Wednesday, on behalf
of detained journalist Hassan Al-Bana’s family.
The group demanded Bana’s family
be allowed “to provide him with health
supplies and hygiene tools such as alcohol
disinfectants, masks and gloves that help
prevent” against infection with coronavirus.
Egypt halted family visits to inmates last
month citing the “public health and safety
of inmates”.
This has meant relatives cannot bring
medicine, clean clothes and fresh food
directly to those incarcerated.
Bana has been held in Cairo’s Tora prison
on charges of “joining a terror group” for
over two years, according to AFTE. He was
producing a documentary at the time of his
arrest, according to Amnesty International.
AFP contacted the Interior Ministry for
comment on the lawsuit, but did not receive
a response.
AFTE said its lawsuit also demanded that
the familybe kept “informedof all... preventive
measures that the Prison Authority and the
Ministry of Interior are taking to prevent the
spread” of coronavirus within prisons.
Itcomesamidasustainedactivistcampaign
to free prisoners from jails that rights groups
describe as overcrowded, unsanitary and
potential hotbeds of coronavirus contagion.
GAZA CITY, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES (AFP)
- Gaza’s extremist rulers Hamas said they
arrested on Thursday a Palestinian man on
charges of normalising ties with Israelis on-
line, after footage seemingly from a Zoom
call was shared online.
The Interior Ministry in the Gaza Strip
said Rami Aman and an unspecified number
of other people were arrested for “normali-
sation of activities with the Israeli occupa-
tion via the Internet”.
“Establishing any activity or communica-
tion with the Israeli occupation under any ex-
cuse is a crime punishable by law, and is trea-
son against our people,” a statement added.
Aman’s Facebook page said he was a
member of a group that describes itself po-
litically independent in the Gaza Strip, which
Hamas has controlled since 2007.
A link shared online shows Aman, and
other individuals, speaking via the video con-
ferencing group Zoom, with people believed
to be members of Israeli leftwing groups.
Hamas seized Gaza from the internation-
ally recognised Palestinian government in a
2007 near civil war and has fought three wars
with Israel since. All contact with Israelis is
banned and those accused of spying for Is-
rael have been put to death.
Hamas is considered a terrorist organi-
sation by many Western governments. The
popularity of Zoom has grown with the coro-
navirus pandemic, with millions of people us-
ing it to communicate from home isolation.
War-torn Yemen reports first COVID-19 case
people,” UAE Minister of State for Foreign
Affairs Anwar Gargash tweeted.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres
has repeatedly appealed for ceasefires in
conflicts around the world to facilitate the
battle against the coronavirus.
The UN envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths
said last week he was engaged in talks to
secure a nationwide ceasefire.
Griffiths said he was in regular contact
with both sides “on reaching agreements
on a nationwide ceasefire, humanitarian and
economic measures to alleviate the suffering
of the Yemeni people”.
“This process further aims to foster joint
efforts to counter the threat of COVID-19,”
he said.
Saudi Arabia is also scrambling to limit
the spread of the disease at home. Its Health
Ministry has reported more than 3,200
coronavirus infections and 44 deaths from
the illness.
Vehicles drive past a popular public square, which was destroyed in 2017 in an airstrike, in the
capital Sanaa. PHOTO: AFP
Hamas arrests Gazan after Zoom call with Israelis
Egypt NGO files suit demanding
jail access for anti-virus supplies
DAKAR (AFP) - Africa is facing a dire shortage
of intensive-care beds and ventilators, the
World Health Organization (WHO) said in a
statement late on Thursday, as coronavirus
cases rise across the continent.
In a statement, the body said that
there were fewer than 5,000 beds in
hospital intensive-care units across 43
African countries.
“This is about five beds per one million
people in the reported countries compared
to 4000 beds per one million people in
Europe,” the statement said.
Critical COVID-19cases areoften referred
to intensive-care units, where ventilators can
help patients to breathe.
But the WHO said that in 41 African
countries that reported data, fewer than
2,000 ventilators are available in the public
health system.
“There is a critical shortage of treatment
facilities for critical cases of COVID-19
in Africa,” said WHO Africa Director
Matshidiso Moeti.
The continent has registered over 11,500
cases to date, according to an AFP tally, of
whom over 570 have died.
Rates of infection and fatalities from
the novel coronavirus have so far been
muted, however, compared to other parts of
the world.
Many African governments have also
responded to the threat by banning large
gatherings and flights and, in some cases,
locking down large cities.
Nigeria’s megalopolis Lagos is on lock-
down, for example, as is South Africa’s
economic hub, Johannesburg.
The WHO warned on Thursday that the
virus is spreading beyond large cities into
the countryside, where access to healthcare
is often worse.
Africa faces ‘critical shortage’
of virus-fighting facilities: WHO
BAMAKO (AFP) - Three people, including a
government official, were killed on Thursday
in a roadside bomb attack in central Mali,
the government said, as fresh violence hits
the war-torn West African state.
A regional government official was
travelling in a military convoy in the volatile
centre of the country when his vehicle was
struck by a roadside bomb, killing him.
Two others also died in the attack, an
official from Mali’s territorial administration
ministry said, without specifying whether
they were soldiers.
Mali is struggling to contain an extremist
insurgency that erupted in 2012, and which
has claimed thousands of military and
civilian lives since.
Despite the presence of thousands of
French and United Nations (UN) troops,
the conflict has engulfed the centre of the
country, and spread to neighbouring Burkina
Faso and Niger.
Three killed in Mali roadside bomb blast