More than 750,000 South Sudanese children under age 5 are expected to face acute malnutrition this year, according to the International Rescue Committee.

The IRC’s new spokeswoman, actress Mia Farrow, returned last week from South Sudan’s Unity state and said she’d witnessed a new IRC approach that could treat millions more malnourished children over the next decade than the current global model for treatment. 

She noted Unity state was particularly hard hit by fighting during South Sudan’s five-year conflict and that many people were forced to flee their homes, leaving behind their plots of land where they would grow food for their families.  

‘Catastrophic’ situation

“South Sudan is on the brink of famine. It’s truly a catastrophic humanitarian situation, and people are literally starving,” Farrow told South Sudan in Focus. 

Farrow said she met many people who described how difficult it was to find food. 

“The encouraging thing was meeting these women who are volunteers and who are working within their communities to address some of the very common illnesses that children face,” such as pneumonia and diarrhea, Farrow said. 

“I saw them as heroes because they are absolutely committed to their communities. The children can be brought to them and they very ably, swiftly and effectively address these common problems,” she said.

U.N. efforts

But Farrow said the volunteers are not allowed to treat the condition. The U.N.’s World Food Program and UNICEF took over that task years ago and treat children in clinics. 

“Well, that sounds great, ” Farrow told VOA, but many people live too far away from the help they need.

Farrow said that on her last trip to South Sudan, she witnessed something unforgettable: “A mother was sitting in the corner, holding her baby, a particularly beautiful baby who was panting, and she told us she had walked for five days to reach that clinic. And as I spoke to her, the baby died. The mother just — there was a howl that will remain with me to my last breath.”

The IRC has come up with what Farrow calls “an effective, lifesaving method” of dealing with malnutrition that involves the use of peanut-based nutrients. She said that while training community volunteers for that job has not been implemented widely, “it has to happen.” 

If U.N. agencies adopt the IRC method, Farrow said, mothers no longer will have to walk for days in oppressive heat to have their children treated. 

“These community health care workers, every single woman that I spoke to, expressed the fervent desire to treat malnutrition,” said Farrow, adding that the current setup “doesn’t make sense.”  

‘Moral imperative’

Farrow called it a “moral imperative” to bring the nutrients used to treat malnourished children to the communities, rather than have children brought to a clinic “that may or may not exist.” 

The IRC has run a pilot program using community health care workers to treat acute and moderate malnutrition in South Sudan this past year and has deemed the program “extremely successful.” 
…

Attackers stormed a hospital at the epicenter of Congo’s Ebola outbreak and killed “a dear colleague,” the head of the World Health Organization said Friday as he condemned the latest violence against health workers trying to contain the virus.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a Twitter post others were injured in the attack Friday in Butembo, a city in eastern Congo.

The world’s response to the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has been hampered by a series of deadly attacks on health centers in Butembo and elsewhere that have disrupted medical care and vaccination efforts, leading to a rise in new Ebola cases in the sprawling African nation.

Butembo’s deputy mayor, Patrick Kambale Tsiko, identified the slain WHO staffer as a doctor from Cameroon and blamed a militia group for the attack. He said the militiamen erroneously believed that foreigners had brought the disease with them to Congo.

“According to witnesses at the scene, these militiamen wanted all the expatriates to go home because according to them, Ebola does not exist in Butembo,” Tsiko said. “They said they will continue if these expatriates do not return as soon as possible.”

Police were pursuing the attackers, Tsiko said.

Congo’s health ministry confirmed the assault on the Catholic University of Graben hospital. One aid group, the International Rescue Committee, said the hospital held only non-Ebola patients and many of them fled during the attack.

Dozens of rebel groups are active in eastern Congo. There also has been some community resistance to Ebola containment efforts in a traumatized, wary region that had never faced an outbreak of the virus before.

Ebola can spread quickly and can be fatal in up to 90% of cases. The hemorrhagic fever is most often spread by close contact with the bodily fluids of people exhibiting symptoms or with objects such as sheets that have been contaminated.

Health Minister Dr. Oly Ilunga said in a tweet that local and international health workers are courageously combating the virus, “sometimes at the cost of their lives.”

The attack came three days after President Felix Tshisekedi visited the Ebola outbreak zone, pledging more military and police protection for health workers and asking residents for their cooperation. The president hoped to see the outbreak contained in less than three months, although some health experts estimate it could take much longer.

Robert Kitchen, senior vice president for emergencies with the International Rescue Committee, predicted it could take at least another year to contain the Ebola outbreak without a significant change in “community engagement and understanding.” He said such attacks on health workers are increasingly common.

This month could see the highest rate of Ebola transmission yet, Kitchen said, adding “the trajectory of this outbreak is alarming.”

Since the Ebola outbreak in Congo was declared in August, there have been more than 1,300 confirmed and probable cases, including 843 deaths, the health ministry said Thursday.

More than 102,000 people have received an experimental but effective Ebola vaccine.
…

A new film called “The Burial of Kojo” is a tale of family tensions with an overlay of magical realism. Set in Ghana, it is first feature from Samuel “Blitz” Bazawule, an Ghana-born musician and director who wanted to avoid the cliches of many films set in Africa, themes of war and famine. 

Bazawule maintained creative control of the project by using the crowd-funding site Kickstarter, and he hired a Ghanaian cast and local crew. The Burial of Kojo is now reaching a global audience on Netflix.

Bazawule lives in Brooklyn but says the story is reminiscent of the tales that he heard as a child in Ghana. It concerns a girl, Esi, her father, Kojo, and his brother, Kwabena.

“One of the brothers goes missing on a mining expedition,” Bazawule explains, “and his daughter has to go on the magical journey to rescue him.” The quest lands Esi in a dreamlike world.

Rapper and filmmaker

Bazawule, known as Blitz from his days as a rapper, wanted to move from musical to visual storytelling, and this film includes both. He wrote its script and composed the film’s soundtrack. With several short films already under his belt, this was his feature debut.

The project was initially self-funded, and he completed the film by raising $78,000 through the website Kickstarter. That “gave us the autonomy that we needed,” Bazawule said. “We didn’t have anyone looking over our shoulder, we didn’t have anyone telling us what to do, what not to do. It was always us deciding with ourselves, does this make sense for this narrative?”

Showing on Netflix

The film is being shown on the streaming service Netflix as part of a distribution deal with ARRAY, a Hollywood company founded by filmmaker Ava DuVernay, that highlights the work of filmmakers of color and women directors.

“Netflix is in 190 countries, so that’s a lot of places where you can find beautiful work,” said ARRAY’s Tilane Jones.

It’s good for movie lovers, Bazawule added, and international filmmakers are also finding an audience. 

“You build credibility for the stories that you’re telling,” he said, with fresh faces and new voices bringing art from countries like Ghana to the screen.
…

On Thursday, Zimbabwe marked the anniversary of its 1980 independence from Britain. The anniversary coincides with efforts to heal the wounds brought on by state-sanctioned massacres in the 1980s.

Some 20,000 people were massacred during the presidency of Robert Mugabe, human rights organizations say. One of the most affected areas is Tsholotsho, a rural district about 600 kilometers southwest of the capital, Harare. There, people are opening up about reburial efforts and requesting compensation from the government.

Local resident Melwa Ngwenya says a recent decision by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration – to allow victims in shallow or mass graves to be reburied – is not cause for celebration on this Independence Day. Ngwenya says his son was beaten to death during the massacres when Mnangagwa was state security minister. The killings were known as Gukurahundi.

According to Ngwenya, the army assaulted his son, Sibangani, who died along with eight others in February 1983. They were buried in a shallow grave about five kilometers from the family home.

“I don’t usually come to this place,” Ngwenya said, standing at Sibangani’s grave site. “… For the pain and sorrow to go, I have to be given something to console me. A two-bedroom house will console my spirit that, yes, my son died.”

​Gukurahundi debate

Under Mugabe’s rule, people were persecuted for discussing the massacres, and reburial of the victims was prohibited. On the eve of Independence Day, his successor, Mnangagwa, said that citizens were now free to talk about Gukurahundi.

“The question of Gukurahundi – personally, I don’t see anything wrong [with] debating it in newspapers, on television,” the president said on state TV. “… Actually, it’s critical that we have that debate. Some of the issues could’ve been resolved a long time back. … Gukurahundi has nothing to do with other people. It is an internal matter which has happened among us Zimbabweans, which we must discuss among ourselves.”

But Ngwenya, still grieving for his son, is skeptical. “He is not sincere,” the 80-year-old said of the president. “He is blindfolding us. He is trying to silence us because we want compensation.

“I want to have a place to mourn my son,” he said, saying it should be “a permanent structure, something to stay in.”

Calling for compensation, Ngwenya added, “If he {Mnangagwa] cares about our cries and if the government cares about us and has sympathy, it must build me at least a two-bedroom house.”

​Only half of the issue

The rights organization Ibhetshu Likazulu has been vocal in calling for addressing the Gukurahundi issue. The group’s secretary, Mbuso Fuzwayo, says Mnangagwa has to deal with more than just allowing people to discuss the massacres and reburials openly.

“It is not those who are in mass or shallow graves who are going to be buried. Everyone will have peace when he knows where his father, daughter, son is lying,” Fuzwayo said. Mnangagwa “doesn’t talk about women who were raped. He is talking about half of what happened. Gukurahundi is complex.”

Now it remains to be seen if the government has the will and funds to accommodate the people’s demands on Gukurahundi.
…