14-Year-Old Who Fled South Sudan: 'They're Killing Women, Children'

They used not to kill women but these days .... they're killing women, children, elderly even the pastors, the bishops, they don't spare us," says a 14-year-old mother who fled South Sudan.
The buses line up at the Invepi refugee camp in northern Uganda.
One after the other they drop off dozens of South Sudanese seeking refuge on this side of the border.
They come off carrying whatever possessions they still have: sometimes that means empty plastic jugs, sometimes it means chickens that provide food along the way. Many of the refugees are barefoot. When they've finished with their registration and vaccinations, some just sit there, staring into space.
As the fighting in South Sudan has intensified, so has the flow of refugees to Uganda. Just over the past week, Invepi went from receiving about 1,000 refugees a day to about 3,000.
For that moment at least, the world here feels normal.Tabu smiles as she watches the kids play tag through a cloud of dust. They slide and they swing and they chase a football.It's simple things, she says, pointing at the swing set, where there's a long line of kids waiting their turn. Each one counts to ten swings, they jumps off and give the other one a turn.When the playground first opened, Tabu says, the kids would fight along ethnic lines. But slowly, Tabu and other case workers helped them understand how to solve problems without violence.Tabu walks from the family's house in the camp to a big playground built by Save the Children.It was hard, she says, but she was safe and eventually managed to reunite with her parents and go to college.But here in Uganda, she says, they have a chance. She knows that from personal experience. Back in the '90s, when Tabu was 13 and war was raging between north Sudan and south Sudan, her parents sent her off to Uganda on her own. She landed in Camp Rhino.Tabu, the case worker, says that many of the children are traumatized and have yet to come to terms with what they've witnessed. She says some of the kids still don't have shoes and at school they don't have educational materials.Now, she has peace, but she doesn't have her mother, she says. And while she is in school, she sits in a classroom with dozens of other students. Some classes have more than 100 kids.She calls Ludiya, one of the young people in her care. She gives her a smile and asks how she's doing. When Ludiya was 17 last year, her mother did not have enough money for the whole family to flee. So she sent Ludiya off with four younger kids."The father just sent him to come, so sometimes he doesn't talk," she says.Tabu points to one of the little ones — 6-year-old Santo, whose parents took whatever money they had saved and sent him off to search for a refugee camp. It might seem unfathomable that young children can find the camps on their own, but they usually find an older kid or an adult to tag along with.On a recent day, she stops to visit Kani Jane. Kani Jane came with two children of her own — then began accepting foster kids. Now, she lives with 13 children in a small mud hut that the older kids built.She moves through the vast camp talking to families and checking up on those who have been placed in foster homes.Cecilia Tabu is a case worker for the aid group Save the Children. She works with South Sudanese children at Camp Rhino in Uganda. A big part of her job is to find foster families for children who flee South Sudan on their own."So the long term prospects of the country are grim," he says.He says that many children, for example, are not being educated, because much of the aid simply goes toward keeping people alive by feeding them.The number of women and children affected, he says, is also testing the aid response. For example, it's become clear that his group's efforts to help that population would have to be scaled up many times over to meet the needs of the displaced.He says that in a lot of ways the civilians in South Sudan have been caught in a perfect storm: Conflict has combined with an economic collapse and a bad drought.Jerry Farrell, South Sudan country director for the aid group Catholic Relief Services, says in most conflicts, it is women and children who suffer most. But the number of them being displaced in this conflict is "extremely high."The situation for women and children is bleak: Human rights groups have documented fighters raping girls and sexually mutilating boys by castrating them. Both sides have abducted over 3,000 children for use as soldiers since 2013, according to the U.N.This week, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued a report that found the country was on the brink of genocide. And last month, the U.N. declared a famine in some of parts of country.In 2011, amid massive celebrations, it became the world's newest independent nation. But just a few years later, South Sudan's president Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, accused his vice president Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer, of planning a coup. As Kiir's Dinka troops disarmed and attacked Machar's Nuer fighters, the country quickly descended into a civil war.It wasn't long ago that the world had high hopes for South Sudan."They used not to kill women but these days now they're killing women, children, elderly even the pastors, the bishops, they don't spare us," she says.Fatuma, the midwife, says their group walked four days through the bush. South Sudan has been an ethnic battleground on and off for decades, but Fatuma says this conflict is different. She says she saw young pregnant women raped — and the road in front of her house had become a killing field.The only midwife in town took off. And Angurese's mother told her she had no choice but to follow the midwife because at that time, she was pregnant."When the Dinkas come, they either slaughter you with the knife or they cut you with a machete, so we're now running away because we could not wait," she says.She sits inside a mud hut holding her baby son. She says that over the past few months, fighting between the Dinkas and Nuers, the two biggest ethnic groups in South Sudan, had gotten really bad around her home right outside of Lainya, a village southwest of Juba. At one point, she says, the fighters even started attacking civilians.Angurese, 14, lives about at the Bidibidi refugee camp in Uganda, about two hours away from the nearest paved road. NPR is only using first names of refugees to protect their security.Many of these women are fleeing from "war, hunger and appalling acts of gender-based violence," said Refugees International, a humanitarian organization that advocates for displaced people, in a statement on Friday. "We are yet again seeing the use of rape and other forms of violence against women fleeing South Sudan."Perhaps one of the most stunning statistics is that most of them — the U.N. Refugee Agency estimates 86 percent — are women and children.

The unfortunate necessity of diving in the modern era of football

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The English attitude to diving and cheating means we lose out a few too many times.

In the wake of Barcelona’s victory on Wednesday, it was interesting to compare some of the reactions of people across Europe to the result. Apart from obviously being in amazement at the fact that the comeback happened, it was striking how often people in England (whether it’s on message boards, on the radio, in newspapers) commented on the refereeing decisions, and how much Barcelona cheated in order to win.

Barcelona were awarded two penalties, both of which (in particular the second one) were dubious. They also tried to pressurise the officials at every opportunity so that they would get their way. In France and Spain, this passed without comment, in particular among fans of Paris Saint-Germain, who you would have thought would have been the most wound up about some of what was going on. They were much more concerned about the poor play from their side. The only person after the game among their team who mentioned the referees was Thiago Silva, to which his teammate Marco Verratti had a swift rebuttal “We lost 6-1; it wasn't the referee's fault.”

Winning at all costs

For some people in England the focus was on Luis Suarez’s dive for the second penalty and about how the comeback only happened because of cheating and how awful it was that they can get away with it. Do Barcelona and their fans care though if they bent the rules a bit in order to make it through? Not at all. They did whatever they could in order to get through, and were even willing to take the risk of getting caught in order to make it. 

Too many English sides, and in particular the national team, get caught up in being on some moral high ground about diving and cheating. We get so worked up when we see it happen as we think that everyone should adhere to some perfect moral code, but we fail to realise that this is part of the game and that we are losing out because we’re being all high and mighty about it. Getting worked up isn’t going to change it from happening, whether it’s diving or surrounding the referee, so we need to, frankly, grow up about it, and join in from time to time. 

England's wrong priorities

How is diving in the box, for example, any worse than a two footed challenge? If anything, the latter is worse as someone could get seriously injured if that was to happen, and yet such challenges are seen as strong and a good thing in England, with some people saying that there’s nothing wrong with them.

Furthermore, the English are so hypocritical when it comes to diving. We complain when other people do it, but if one of our own does it, and gets away with it (such as Michael Owen vs Argentina at the 1998 and 2002 World Cups), then we don’t care a bit, since we’re the ones who are getting the decisions in our favour. The will to win of other nations is seemingly much greater than ours, hence they’ll do whatever they can to gain victory. Maybe if we changed our attitude towards it, we might win a bit more too.

Is diving an unfortunate necessity in the modern game? Let us know in the comments section below.

Pregnant teen girl raped in government hospital

She was referred to the adjoining Medicare Diagnostics for an ultrasonographic test, an official allegedly raped her while getting it done



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In a horrific incident, a pregnant teenage girl was raped at a government health centre where she had gone for a routine check-up.
In a complaint at the Memari police station, the 19-year-old housewife, who was four months pregnant, said that, on Friday, she went to the Memari rural hospital for a regular check-up. She was referred to the adjoining Medicare Diagnostics for an ultrasonographic test, an official allegedly raped her while getting it done.
The Memari police said that an FIR has been filed. "The girl was sent for a medical test and was been produced before a magistrate for recording her statement," said a senior IPS officer.
He added that the investigation process met a stumbling block because the victim had been unable to identify the offender. "She does not know the name of the accused and it could be any doctor or technician. So we called all staff members of the diagnostic centre, took photographs and showed to the girl. Still, she could not recognise the offender," a police officer said.
The police are going through the daily roster and trying to zero in on the people who were present there when the incident occurred.
According to the girl's complaint, she went to the centre with her family members, but the accused took her inside for the test. He asked others to wait outside, stating that no one other than the patient would be allowed to come inside.

Beyoncé, Madonna and more sign gender equality open letter for International Women’s Day

 

“Fighting for gender equality is the emergency and the opportunity of our time.”
Artists including Beyoncé, Madonna, John Legend and Coldplay have signed an open letter on gender equality published through Global Citizen.
“All over the world, women are on the frontlines fighting for our future. Yet millions of girls and women are still denied basic equal rights,” it reads. “This is about hearing a call – to join us wherever you are. About raising an alarm – drawing attention where there is work to be done. And about celebrating – those who are already showing us, against impossible odds, what is possible.”
The letter also promotes Chime For Change, a charity co-founded by Beyoncé and Salma Hayek (who also signs) aiming to spread female empowerment globally.
Other signees include journalist and activist Lydia Cacho, Oscar-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, Arianna Huffington, Gucci CEO Mario Bizzarri, and Minh Dang of the U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking.

Grimes’ ‘Visions’ to be reworked for classical concert series

Grimes‘ 2012 album ‘Visions’ is getting a classical reworking for a concert series called ‘Many Visions: Plumes Deconstructs the Music of Grimes.’place
Each song will receive a classical music interpretation by a different composer, marking a total of 13 different creations.
The concert series was founded by Plumes, a Montreal-based ensemble. Shows are set to take place across Canada this month, while there are also plans for some of the performances to be streamed online.

“We wanted to see how we could bridge the gap between popular and classical music—we have a suspicion it’s smaller than people think,” Luke Nickel (co-director of Winnipeg’s Cluster New Music and Integrated Arts Festival) told MusicWorks. “We want to think about interpretation and rearrangement, not only in terms of musical material but also in terms of the spirit of an artist. That led us to Grimes, whose DIY attitude seems to resonate across genres.”

“The theme of the festival is dismantling, taking something apart and reconstructing it,” Plumes’ Geof Holbrook told MusicWorks. In an interview with NOW Magazine, composer Monica Pearce said, “It’s going to be quite different from the album, which I think will be really exciting.”
You can see the full tour dates for ‘Many Visions: Plumes Deconstructs the Music of Grimes’ below.
03-10 Montreal, Quebec – Rocket Science Room
03-11 Toronto, Ontario – The Music Gallery
03-12 Hamilton, Ontario – The Casbah
03-13 Windsor, Ontario – University of Windsor
03-15 Guelph, Ontario – University of Guelph
03-16 Kitchener, Ontario – Wilfrid Laurier University
03-17 Winnipeg, Manitoba – Cluster Festival
03-18 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – Village Guitar & Amp Co
03-21 Vancouver, British Columbia – Music on Main

Policeman, 73-yr-old blind man, 3 others killed in bank robbery

Five people have reportedly been killed by armed robbenewsrs in Ogbagi Akoko in Akoko North-West Local Government Area of Ondo State shortly after a robbery attack on a branch of the Skye Bank Plc in the town on Tuesday, March 7, 2017.

 

 

 

 

Punch reports that the robbers made away with an unspecified amount of money following the successful robbery operation.

ALSO READ: Four persons killed in robbery attack on two banks

A security man attached to the bank, a policeman, a blind septuagenarian along with two others were killed in the attack.

According to eyewitnesses, the unknown gunmen reportedly blew up the door of the bank in order to gain access into the building.

Punch reports that the robbers continued to shoot sporadically into the air during the robbery operation, causing those within the vicinity to scramble for safety.

However, some people are reported to have suffered varying degrees of injuries from the pandemonium and stray bullets.

Operatives of the Nigerian Army reportedly arrived on the scene of the robbery shortly after the culprits made away with their price.

The Public Relations Officer of the Ondo State Police Command, Mr. Femi Joseph, while confirming the incident said that he had information that three people died in the robbery operation.

ALSO READ: Armed robbers write letter to residents of Ogun community

He added that the robbers had been 15 in number and stormed the robbery scene on motorcycles.

Joseph said, “One Adebayo Onipona, who is a blind  73-year-old man, one David Joseph, the security man at the bank were killed and we also lost a police sergeant, Abubakar Umar.  We are on their trail and we will get them".

The PPRO also added that the corpses of the deceased have been deposited at the Federal Medical Centre morgue, Owo.