"Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn published in 1779, with words written in 1772 by the English poet and Anglican clergyman John Newton (1725-1807). It is an immensely popular hymn, particularly in the United States, where it is used for both religious and secular purposes.
Newton wrote the words from personal experience. He grew up without any particular religious conviction, but his life's path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by others' reactions to what they took as his recalcitrant insubordination.
He was pressed (conscripted) into service in the Royal Navy. After leaving the service, he became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1748, a violent storm battered his vessel off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland, so severely that he called out to God for mercy. This moment marked his spiritual conversion but he continued slave trading until 1754 or 1755, when he ended his seafaring altogether. He began studying Christian theology and later became an abolitionist.
Ordained in the Church of England in 1764, Newton became curate of Olney, Buckinghamshire, where he began to write hymns with poet William Cowper. "Amazing Grace" was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year's Day of 1773. It is unknown if there was any music accompanying the verses; it may have been chanted by the congregation. It debuted in print in 1779 in Newton and Cowper's Olney Hymns but settled into relative obscurity in England. In the United States, "Amazing Grace" became a popular song used by Baptist and Methodist preachers as part of their evangelizing, especially in the South, during the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. It has been associated with more than 20 melodies. In 1835, American composer William Walker set it to the tune known as "New Britain" in a shape note format. This is the version most frequently sung today.
With the message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of sins committed and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, "Amazing Grace" is one of the most recognizable songs in the English-speaking world. Author Gilbert Chase writes that it is "without a doubt the most famous of all the folk hymns". [1] Jonathan Aitken, a Newton biographer, estimates that the song is performed about 10 million times annually. [2]
It has had particular influence in folk music, and has become an emblematic black spiritual. Its universal message has been a significant factor in its crossover into secular music. "Amazing Grace" became newly popular during a revival of folk music in the US during the 1960s, and it has been recorded thousands of times during and since the 20th century.
Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
Ecclesiastes 5:10
Verse Concepts
He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity.
2 Timothy 3: 2
Verse Concepts
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
1 Timothy 6:10
Verse Concepts
For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Luke 16:14
Verse Concepts
Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him.
2 Peter 2:15
Verse Concepts
forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
Hebrews 13: 5
Verse Concepts
Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,”
1 Timothy 3: 3
Verse Concepts
not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money.
Florida set to be latest state to enact measures that limit access to ballot boxes and mail-in votes.
Florida's legislature late on Thursday passed a bill that makes it harder to access drop boxes and mail-in ballots, making it the latest Republican-led state to push for what activists say is voter suppression.
Democrats say the Republican measures are designed to lessen the impact of Black voters, whose heavy turnout helped propel Biden to victory and delivered Democrats two US Senate victories in Georgia in January.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed into law new voting restrictions in March that restrict access to mail-in ballots and codifies the use of drop boxes. It also expands early voting for most Georgians.
The move has faced blowback from faith leaders and businesses, including boycotts.
Republicans cite former President Donald Trump's claims that President Joe Biden stole the November election as reasons for the sweeping measures. Judges discredited such claims, made without evidence, in more than 60 lawsuits that failed to overturn the election result.
A voter wears a ‘Count Every Vote’ face mask outside the Miami-Dade County Elections Department during the 2020 US presidential election in Miami, Florida on November 3, 2020 [File: Marco Bello / Reuters]
Chris Sautter, a Democratic consultant who specialises in election law, told Al Jazeera in March that Biden’s election and Democratic victories in the two Senate races in Georgia, “sent shockwaves through conservative and Republican ranks”.
The bill in neighboring Florida, which is considered a battleground state but tends to vote Republican, includes stricter requirements about drop box staffing and requires voters to apply more frequently for mail-in ballots.
The bill also stipulates a widening of the “no-solicitation” area around polling places and expands the definition of solicitations to include “the giving, or attempting to give, any item to a voter by certain persons”. Rights groups warn that will dissuade activists from handing out water and food to voters standing in long lines in the often sweltering state.
A spokesperson for Republican Governor Ron DeSantis told US broadcaster ABC News he will sign the bill to “ensure that Florida remains a national leader in election security, integrity and transparency”.
Marc Elias, a Democratic lawyer who is representing a coalition of civil rights groups suing Georgia over its voting restrictions, tweeted that the Florida business community should have stood up against the bill.
“These voter suppression laws are targeted at Black, Brown and young voters,” Elias tweeted. “Bill now heads to Governor’s desk. Watch this space for more news once it is signed. "
A record 158 million people voted in the November elections, in part thanks to new rules that made voting easier during the COVID-19 pandemic.
New York University's nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found 29 states and the District of Columbia passed laws and changed procedures to expand voting access during the health crisis.
Trump, who still exercises power throughout the Republican party with his sought-after political endorsements, was initially thought to be the frontrunner for the next presidential vote in 2024. But Trump's support is slipping, according to a recent NBC poll.
The poll found only 44 percent of Republicans support him more than the party itself - the first time since July 2019 this has occurred.
DeSantis is already being considered a contender for the 2024 Republican nomination for president, thanks in part to his support of socially conservative measures.
He is also expected to sign a bill banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s and girls’s sports. Signing the voting bill into law will likely further raise DeSantis's profile on the national stage.
First doses of Pfizer's US-made COVID-19 shots sent to Mexico as pressure grows on US to help other countries.
Pfizer Inc's shipment of its COVID-19 vaccine to Mexico this week includes doses made in its United States plant, the first of what are expected to be ongoing exports of its shots from the US, a source familiar with the matter has told the Reuters news agency.
The vaccine shipment, produced at Pfizer's Kalamazoo plant in the state of Michigan, marks the first time the drugmaker has delivered abroad from US facilities after a Trump-era restriction on dose exports expired at the end of March, the source said on Thursday.
The US government has been under mounting pressure in recent weeks to provide surplus vaccines to other nations desperately in need as it makes swift progress vaccinating its own residents. Many countries where the virus is still rampant are struggling to acquire vaccine supplies to help tame the pandemic.
Pfizer will use extra capacity in its US facilities to deliver COVID-19 shots abroad while continuing to meet its commitment to supply the US. a source tells Reuters [File: Eric Gaillard / Reuters]
Wealthy governments have been trying to stock up on COVID-19 shots from Pfizer and Moderna Inc because of their extremely high efficacy and after safety concerns and production problems temporarily sidelined vaccines from AstraZeneca Plc and Johnson & Johnson. Pfizer has shipped more than 10 million doses to Mexico so far, becoming its largest supplier of COVID-19 vaccine.
Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE have been supplying other countries with doses from its main European production plant in Belgium.
Mexico's health ministry said it is receiving two million doses from Pfizer this week. It has received more than one million doses from Belgium since Wednesday and expects about another million this week. Reuters could not confirm if all the remaining Pfizer doses would come from Michigan.
Pfizer will use extra capacity in its US facilities to deliver shots abroad while continuing to meet its commitment to supply the US, the source said, adding that the drug manufacturer will also make shipments from Belgium.
Excess supplies
Pfizer has said it will be making up to 25 million shots each week in the US by mid-year, which is more than it needs to meet its commitment to deliver 300 million doses to the US by the end of July.
The company expects to produce as many as 2.5 billion vaccine doses in 2021 and already has agreements to supply more than a billion to governments around the world.
Pfizer has shipped more than 10 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to Mexico so far, becoming its largest supplier [File: Henry Romero / Reuters]
A deal Pfizer signed with the White House last year had barred it from shipping doses made in the US to other countries until after March 31, according to the source and a US official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The US vaccination campaign has been among the quickest and most successful in the world, with nearly 240 million shots administered to more than 140 million residents so far, according to federal data updated on Thursday.
The White House on Monday said it would export up to 60 million vaccines doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 that have been made in a US facility to countries in need.
Officials said on Monday the US no longer anticipates needing the AstraZeneca vaccine to meet its goal of having enough shots for all Americans by the northern-hemisphere summer.
The US government on Sunday said it will immediately ship raw materials for COVID-19 vaccines, medical equipment and protective gear to India, which has become the latest epicenter of the pandemic with its health system on the brink of collapse. It has not yet promised finished vaccine shipments to India.
Near-total disappearance of food sources has created a ‘full-blown nutrition emergency’ in southern Madagascar, World Food Program warns.
People in southern Madagascar have been reduced to eating wild leaves and locusts to stave off starvation after consecutive drought and sandstorms ruined harvests, leaving hundreds of thousands on the brink of famine, according to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).
Amer Daoudi, senior director of global WFP operations, warned on Friday the lives of Malagasy children are in danger, especially those under five years old whose malnutrition rates have reached “alarming levels”.
Speaking by videolink from Madagascar's capital, Antananarivo, Daoudi told a UN briefing in Geneva he had visited villages where “people have had to resort to desperate survival measures, such as eating locusts, raw red cactus fruits or wild leaves”.
“Famine looms in southern Madagascar as communities witness an almost total disappearance of food sources which has created a full-blown nutrition emergency,” Daoudi said.
“I witnessed ... horrific images of starving children, malnourished, and not only the children - mothers, parents and the population in villages we visited,” said Daoudi, a veteran aid worker.
“They are on the periphery of famine; these are images I haven’t seen for quite some time across the globe. ”
Madagascar is one of Africa's poorest countries. A lack of basic services - from health and education to employment opportunities - as well as poverty and climate change have exposed many of its 26 million people to natural disasters.
The WFP said the harvest was expected to be nearly 40 percent below the five-year average.
Malnutrition among children under five has almost doubled to 16 percent from nine percent in the four months to March 2021 following five consecutive years of drought, exacerbated this year by sandstorms and late rains. A rate of 15 percent is deemed emergency level and some districts are reporting 27 percent - or one in four children under five - are suffering from acute malnutrition that causes wasting.
At least 1.35 million people need food assistance in the region, but the WFP is only reaching 750,000 with “half-rations” due to financial constraints, according to WFP, which seeks $ 75m to cover emergency needs through September.
“We need resources, yesterday; we need to turn resources into food, ”Shelley Thakral, spokesperson for the WFP, told Al Jazeera.
“The world is absolutely suffering from COVID, but I think the domino effect in Madagascar, where sandstorms have completely blanketed harvest, they have not had a decent rainfall in years and this will have a massive effect in 2021 on children, on mothers and on families. "
“We have seen images of skin-to-bone, protruding ribs of small children - children who, if you looked at them you'd think that they were perhaps two, three years old and not perhaps 10 years old… It's really worrying, ”Thakral said, warning that“ people are on the edge ”.
“They’re foraging, eating… just whatever they can find,” she added. "The situation is incredibly desperate."
Attacks marked major intensification in violence that has wreaked havoc across Cabo Delgado province for over three years.
Tens of thousands of people have fled the town of Palma in northern Mozambique following attacks late last month that killed dozens of people, the United Nations has said.
The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Friday that approximately 30,000 people fled Palma since the fighters linked to ISIL (ISIS) raided the coastal town on March 24.
UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said the agency was “deeply concerned by the humanitarian consequences of the rapid escalation of violence” in northern Mozambique, voicing particular concern about “the safety and wellbeing of the most vulnerable among the displaced, including women and children”.
The raids late last month marked a significant intensification in violence that has wreaked havoc on Cabo Delgado province for more than three years as the fighters seek to establish a caliphate.
The violence pushed France's Total to suspend work on a nearby multibillion-dollar gas project.
“Those who fled have faced significant barriers trying to reach safety both inside the country and while attempting to cross borders,” Baloch told reporters in Geneva.
‘Rights abuses’
Conflict in the region has “resulted in grave rights abuses, the disruption of critical services and severe impact on civilians, particularly children”, Baloch said.
Equally concerning, he said, was the separation of families.
“Hundreds of children have arrived traumatized and exhausted after being separated from their families. Many others have come with their mothers. "
Baloch said those escaping violence were arriving with “no belongings, often with health issues including injuries and severe malnutrition”.
Cabo Delgado has been battered by a bloody rebellion since 2017 by a group known locally as al-Shabab.
The violence has killed at least 2,600 people, according to the US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project, and the UNHCR says more than 700,000 have been displaced.
Brazilians struggle with pain of losing loved ones to coronavirus as country reaches sombre milestone.
Sao Paulo, Brazil - Nicole Martins had hoped her mother, hospitalized with COVID-19 last month, was on the mend. But when the 24-year-old arrived at the hospital, the look on her father's face confirmed her worst fears.
“I thought she was getting out,” Martins told Al Jazeera. "But then I got there and saw my dad in tears."
The Martins are one of hundreds of thousands of Brazilian families who have lost a loved one to COVID-19 since the coronavirus first began spreading across the country like wildfire.
On Thursday the South American nation surpassed 400,000 coronavirus-related deaths, the second-highest total in the world after the United States. More than half of those were recorded in 2021, while April has been the deadliest month since the start of the pandemic.
Nicole Martins ’mother died from COVID-19 [Avener Prado / Al Jazeera]
Experts blame several factors for the recent uptick, including the more contagious P1 variant, fatigue with restrictive measures such as lockdowns, and slow vaccine rollout.
“With 50 percent of the deaths from COVID happening this year, it shows that the crisis is totally out of control,” Jesem Orellana, an epidemiologist with the Fiocruz medical research institute in the Amazonian capital of Manaus, told Al Jazeera.
Manaus is where the P1 variant was first detected and where in January patients died in their beds asphyxiated due to inadequate oxygen supplies.
Brazil's far-right populist President Jair Bolsonaro's response to the crisis, which included downplaying the severity of the disease and casting doubt on masks and vaccines, has been condemned by health experts worldwide.
A Senate commission opened an inquiry this week into the government’s handling of the pandemic.
“We've suffered here a lot with access to information and fake news, like the virus is just a little flu,” said Andre Ferreira, a community leader with Brigada Pela Vida (Life Brigade), an NGO that does COVID-19 outreach in poor communities across Sao Paulo.
Meanwhile, thousands of families continue to suffer each day as their loved ones die.
Gravediggers lower a casket in the Vila Formosa cemetery [Avener Prado / Al Jazeera]
In Sao Paulo's low-income Fazenda da Juta neighborhood, where the Martins family lives, more than five people died from the coronavirus on the same street in March, including Martins' mother. Thalia Novaes's 61-year-old father fought for his life for 30 days and was transferred to three different hospitals before he passed away in March. Like many residents, he was buried in the nearby Vila Formosa Cemetery, Latin America's largest, which has seen queues for people needing to be buried.
“We couldn’t give him the kind of burial we wanted,” Novaes told Al Jazeera. "There were 12 people before us."
The huge increase in demand led local authorities to set up a generator and lights so that burials could happen at night. It also has taken a physical and mental toll on burial workers.
“It's hard to see so many people upset,” said James Gomes, a gravedigger for eight years.
Thalia Noves, whose father died in March, holds a baby in the Fazenda da Juta neighborhood [Avener Prado / Al Jazeera]
Socioeconomic conditions in Brazil, one of the world's most unequal countries, continue to be a deciding factor in who bears the brunt of coronavirus deaths.The death rate per 100,000 people in Sao Paulo's Sapopemba, where Fazenda da Juta is located, is three times higher than in the city's trendy Pinheiros neighborhood, according to a study published earlier this year in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
“Of all the ways that a person can work or can study safely, it’s much more difficult for the poor,” said Marcelo Neri, an economist at Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation.
The Fazenda da Juta neighborhood in Sao Paulo's Sapopemba district. [Avener Prado / Al Jazeera]
Back in Fazenda da Juta, Martins said her father has struggled to cope since her mother passed away.
Martins still lives below her parents ’home, a common arrangement for many families across Brazil, especially in low-income neighborhoods, and she said she tries to remember better days.
“She used to just call down to me for things she needed, like garlic, something she’d forgotten to get at the shops,” Martins said, about her mother. "I miss those calls now."
Luanda - Construction of the oil pipeline linking Lobito (Benguela, Angola) and Lusaka (Zambia) may cost over US$2 billion, in an investment without resort to public funds.
Implementation of the AZOP-Angola-Zambia Oil Pipeline project, whose Memorandum of Understanding was signed on the evening of Thursday, 29 March, will only be carried out after feasibility studies, which will be carried out over a two-year period by technical teams from both countries.
The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the Angolan Minister for Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas, Diamantino Azevedo and by the Zambian Energy Minister, Mattheu UKuwa.
Sonangol and the company to be indicated on the Zambian side will soon carry out feasibility studies on economic, technical, financial, environmental aspects and other issues.
Following the signing of this instrument, the conditions will be created so that the components inherent to the study can be carried out.
After two years of the feasibility study, which will be carried out, the results will be submitted to the governments for a final decision on this project, suggested by the Republic of Zambia.
If implemented, the initiative is expected to create 8,000 to 12,000 jobs in the two countries during the construction phase, according to Zambian Minister Matthew UKuwa, speaking to the press after signing the Memorandum.
"Once implemented, the pipeline project, which will have several lines, could create up to 4,000 permanent jobs in Angola and Zambia," Matthew Nkuwa said.
According to the Minister for Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas, Diamantino Azevedo, Angola's role in this project is crucial, despite the responsibility of both countries.
According to the Angolan minister, the Memorandum of Understanding sets out guidelines for the two countries, but before that it will be necessary to wait for the studies of these instruments signed by the two countries and the results that will determine the viability of the project and benefits.
Luanda - The Minister of Culture, Tourism and Environment, Jomo Fortunato, Thursday highlighted the need to promote reflection around the world of dance in Angola.
In a message on the occasion of the World Dance Day, Jomo Fortunato considers it a moment to rethink the value of Angolan traditional dances, in all its forms of expression, within a national and universal context, highlighting the values inherent to the cultural reality of Angola.
The Cabinet minister expressed the desire that the level of choreographic creativity honours even more the history of Angolan dance, which is intended to be structured on a genesis based on contemporaneity and cultural diversity.
According to the government official, it is also necessary to pay tribute to the cultural agents of the modality that made history, and stimulate the emerging of a contemporary dance of endogenous inspiration, alive, active and of universal projection.
The International Dance Day was instituted on April 29th 1982, by the International Dance Committee (CID) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), with the objective of celebrating the art and showing its universality, independently of political, cultural and ethical barriers.
Luanda - The health authorities have registered three deaths, 263 new cases and 22 recovered patients, in the last 24 hours.
According to State secretary for Public Health, Franco Mufinda, Luanda province reported 235, Cuanza Norte 12, six in HuÃla, four in Cabinda, three in Huambo, two in Malanje and one in UÃge.
Among the new cases, 145 are women and 118 men, with ages ranging from one month old to 73-year old.
The three deaths of Angolans, aged between 47 and 83, were registered in Luanda.
As for the recovered patients, 20 reside in Luanda, one in HuÃla and one in Lunda Sul.
The recovered patients are aged between 20 and 88 years.
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected 26,431 Angolans, with 594 deaths, 23,606 recovered and 2,231 active. Among the active ones, 9 are critical, 15 severe, 86 moderate, 60 mild and 2,661 asymptomatic.
Laboratory technicians processed 2,923 samples in the last 24 hours, with a daily positivity rate of 8.9 per cent.
Authorities monitor 123 people in institutional quarantine centres, 1,575 under epidemiological surveillance and 130 patients in treatment centres.
Luanda - The government will reactivate the Platform for drafting of the National Investment Plan for Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition (PNIASAN), 2021/2022, to allow for greater efficiency in spending, State Secretary for Planning, Milton Reis said today.
According to the Govrenment official, this platform will improve the quality of agricultural public spending in Angola, promoting joint planning of investments in agriculture and greater articulation in the implementation of projects.
Speaking Thursday, at the Bi-Weekly Briefing of the Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP), he noted that with the platform efforts will be reduced and it will be easier to identify functional mechanisms.
Besides the Ministry of Planning, the platform is coordinated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MINAGRIP) and has technical support from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
The platform aims to promote a process of consultation and technical dialogue with all government bodies that plan and execute investment in agriculture and fisheries, to elaborate a cohesive and feasible National Investment Plan for Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition (PNIASAN).
It intends to guarantee the alignment of Government efforts, of investments in agriculture and fisheries, and to foster the discussion on which are the best strategies to implement according to the Country's needs.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — People in Turkey stocked up on groceries, filled markets and left cities for their hometowns or the southern coast Thursday before the country entered its strictest lockdown of the pandemic.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan imposed a “full lockdown” that took effect at 1600 GMT (12 p.m. EDT) and will last until May 17 amid soaring COVID-19 cases and deaths. It is the first nationwide lockdown lasting nearly three weeks. The Turkish government had previously opted for partial lockdowns or weekend curfews in a bid to reduce the economic impact.
Under the new restrictions, residents are required to stay home except for grocery shopping and other essential needs, while intercity travel is only allowed with permission. Restaurants are allowed to deliver food.
Some businesses and industries are exempt from the shutdown, including factories and agriculture, health care and supply chain and logistics companies. Lawmakers, health care workers, law enforcement officers and tourists are also exempt from the stay-home order.
Many people left large cities such as Istanbul and Ankara to spend the shutdown — which spans the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, as well as the three-day Eid holiday — at vacation homes on the coast. Bus terminals and airports were packed with travelers, while vehicles backed up in severe traffic at the entrance of the Aegean coastal resort of Bodrum, broadcaster Haberturk and other media reported.
People crowded shops to stock up on food and other supplies even though grocery stores will remain open.
Shops selling alcohol weren’t exempted and are being forced to close during the lockdown. Social media saw an uproar as users accused Erdogan’s conservative government of trying to impose its Islamic values.
This month, Turkey’s confirmed COVID-19 infections averaged around 60,000 per day during the peak week. The country recorded its highest daily death toll on April 21, with 362 fatalities.
On Thursday, the country reported 37,674 new confirmed cases and 339 deaths. Turkey’s total death toll in the pandemic now stands at 39,737.
Erdogan said daily confirmed cases would have to rapidly drop below 5,000 for Turkey “to not be left behind” as many European countries start reopening. The country relies heavily on tourism to bring in foreign currency and wants to slow infection rates before the season starts.
Erdogan’s government has come under intense criticism for holding mass party congresses across the country, in breach of social distancing rules. Opposition parties have blamed his ruling party for the surge in cases.
Top government officials were also seen attending crowded funerals while many businesses remained closed and the public was required to keep attendance at funerals small.
JERUSALEM (AP) — A stampede broke out early Friday at a Jewish religious festival attended by tens of thousands of people in northern Israel, killing nearly 40 people and leaving some 150 hospitalized, medical officials said.
The stampede, one of the deadliest civilian disasters in Israeli history, occurred during the celebrations of Lag BaOmer at Mount Meron. Tens of thousands of people, mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews, gather each year to honor Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a 2nd century sage and mystic who is buried there. Large crowds traditionally light bonfires, pray and dance as part of the celebrations.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “great tragedy,” and said everyone was praying for the victims.
Media estimated the crowd at about 100,000 people.
Eli Beer, director of the Hatzalah rescue service, said he was horrified by how crowded the event was, saying the site was equipped to handle perhaps a quarter of the number who were there.
“Close to 40 people died as a result of this tragedy,” he told the station.
The incident happened after midnight, and the cause of the stampede was not immediately clear. Videos circulating on social media showed large numbers of ultra-Orthodox Jews packed together in tight spaces.
A 24-year-old witness, identified only by his first name Dvir, told the Army Radio station that “masses of people were pushed into the same corner and a vortex was created.” He said a first row of people fell down, and then a second row, where he was standing, also began to fall down from the pressure of the stampede.
“I felt like I was about to die,” he said.
Zaki Heller, spokesman for the Magen David Adom rescue service, said 150 people had been hospitalized, several dozen in serious or critical condition. Army Radio, citing anonymous medical officials, said the death toll had risen to 44.
That would match the death toll of a 2010 forest fire, which is believed to be the deadliest civilian tragedy in the country’s history.
Heller told the station “no one had ever dreamed” something like this could happen. “In one moment, we went from a happy event to an immense tragedy,” he said.
Photos from the scene showed rows of wrapped bodies.
The Israeli military said it had dispatched medics and search and rescue teams along with helicopters to assist with a “mass casualty incident” in the area. It did not provide details on the nature of the disaster.
It was the first huge religious gathering to be held legally since Israel lifted nearly all restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic. The country has seen cases plummet since launching one of the world’s most successful vaccination campaigns late last year.
Health authorities had nevertheless warned against holding such a large gathering.
But when the celebrations started, the Public Security Minister Amir Ohana, police chief Yaakov Shabtai and other top officials visited the event and met with police, who had deployed 5,000 extra forces to maintain order.
Ohana, a close ally of Netanyahu, thanked police for their hard work and dedication “for protecting the well-being and security for the many participants” as he wished the country a happy holiday.
Netanyahu is struggling to form a governing coalition ahead of a Tuesday deadline, and the national tragedy is sure to complicate those efforts.
Unable to fly out under lockdown, Zimbabwe’s wealthy must now take their chances in local hospitals alongside everyone else.
Harare, Zimbabwe – Twenty-three-year-old Gladys Marima has albinism and skin cancer.
In December she had to leave her home in Harare, when her family kicked her out. Her cancer, which is linked to her albinism, had caused a deep, septic wound on her cheek that had become infected with maggots and, she says, her family could not tolerate the smell.
Now she is staying with relatives in Chipinge, 400km from Harare. But she is unable to receive treatment because the two public hospitals which offer chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment in Zimbabwe – Parirenyatwa General Hospital in Harare and Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo – were forced to close these departments in January when the hospitals became overwhelmed with COVID patients.
Gladys, who had not sought medical attention for the wound on her cheek before the hospitals closed their cancer units, has received some support from Noble Hands Zimbabwe, a charity which helps people with albinism, after it heard of her plight on social media. Marvellous Tshuma, deputy director of Noble Hands, says: “We went [with her] to Parirenyatwa hospital but the cancer department was closed and they were not attending to cancer patients.” All they could get from the hospital, she adds, was some pain medication, food handouts and sun cream to protect Gladys’s skin.
The closure of these hospital units because of the pandemic comes as a major blow to cancer sufferers throughout the country.
Each year in Zimbabwe, 5,000 new cancer cases are diagnosed and more than 1,500 deaths are recorded. “Cancer is set to overtake HIV and AIDS as the leading cause of death in Zimbabwe. The disease is often diagnosed late and with very few oncologists in public hospitals, most cancer patients lose their lives prematurely,” a 2019 report tabled by the cancer committee in Zimbabwe’s parliament revealed.
Resources for cancer patients were already thin before the pandemic, with fewer than 300 radiographers registered to practise in Zimbabwe in 2019. Parirenyatwa hospital received 7,000 cancer patients in 2018, and 2,000 died. These are all people who would not be able to receive treatment at all during the COVID-19 pandemic. A 2020 study by the World Health Organization found Zimbabwe recorded 32.1 percent premature cancer deaths in 2016, compared with 23.3 percent in South Africa. This death rate is expected to surge.
“Cancer patients mostly in the albinism community are emanating from the rural areas and most they don’t have accommodation and in some cases, families do not want to support their relatives with albinism who are sick,” Marvellous explains.
While private hospitals are still operating cancer services, spaces in them are limited and most people cannot afford the $1,000 to $2,000 average cost for a course of chemotherapy, as well as extras such as $650 to be admitted to hospital and $500 for specialist tests.
Had she been wealthy, in the past Gladys might have had the option of travelling overseas to seek treatment as a medical tourist – perhaps to South Africa where it costs about $1,000 for chemotherapy treatment. But today even rich Zimbabweans are finding these avenues closed because of the pandemic. They, too, are now being forced to confront the reality of a public healthcare system that has been underfunded for decades.
It is not only cancer patients who are being turned away.
Chitungwiza Central Hospital has gone through phases of turning away what it terms “non-critical” cases when it has been overrun with COVID patients. Leonard Mugwade, 33, a resident of Chitungwiza, recounts: “We took a neighbour to hospital – Denford Kanochena, who is 60, who was complaining of shortness of breath – on 22 February, but on arrival the hospital turned us away, saying they could not take patients after they fumigated their wards against COVID-19.
“The hospital advised us to take the patient to a private hospital nearby. But before we could find the money to pay the $25 appointment fee, he had already died.”
A general view of Gleneagles Hospital, where Zimbabwe’s former President Robert Mugabe received medical treatment, in Singapore [File: Feline Lim/Reuters]
Medical tourism – a booming industry
Before his death, former president Robert Mugabe regularly travelled abroad for medical care. When he died from cancer in 2019, it was at the Gleneagles Hospital in Singapore. The 258-bed Singaporean hospital boasts a range of medical and surgical specialities and has been accredited by the Joint Commission International (JCI), which measures best practice for quality and patient safety, a pipe dream for most Zimbabwean patients.
An estimated 20,000 Zimbabwean citizens have spent $4bn on medical tourism over the past decade – mostly in India. This translates to $400m each year, or $20,000 per person.
“We are losing millions each year through these referrals,” said Finance Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube, highlighting these figures during his mid-term budget review in 2019.
Health Minister Constantino Chiwenga responded by promising to ban health tourism, saying it was “bleeding forex reserves”, and instead to improve health facilities in Zimbabwe. “We will not export our patients. We will not make referrals to our patients. It is everybody, [including] ministers. Those who have been going out, it is you and me. Is it not? Altogether that export bill was too high and that is what we want to do away with,” he said on his appointment to the post in September 2020.
He added: “We will have hospitals that will specialise in different treatment services across the country. We are restructuring from the village health worker right up to the top hospital.”
However, no law against health tourism has as yet been passed and the healthcare system remains dilapidated. Furthermore, the newly installed minister himself allegedly skipped the country for treatment in December.
Medical staff are seen assisting a patient at a hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe [File: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]
While each medical tourist leaving the country to seek treatment overseas spends on average $20,000 each year, Zimbabwe’s own spending on healthcare was just $21 per citizen in 2020 (nearly 1,000 times lower) – showing the stark inequality in healthcare between rich and poor.Healthcare spending in Zimbabwe has historically been poor compared with other countries in the region, according to a 2013 report on the state of health financing in the African region conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO). A minimum spending level of $44 per capita was recommended by the High Level Task Force on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems in 2009. The WHO overall recommends a spending level of $86 per person – more than four times what Zimbabwe allocates.
The WHO report also noted that rural health centres are particularly at risk in the country. These were allocated $16 million in 2012, just five percent of the total health budget, despite the fact that 70 percent of people live in rural areas. The country had 214 hospitals, of which 120 are government hospitals, 66 mission hospitals and 32 are privately owned. There were six central government hospitals and 63 district hospitals, with the balance being rural hospitals, according to a 2015 tally.
“There is a need to boost government spending on rural health centres to avoid dependence on donor financing to be able to better cater for over 70 percent of Zimbabwe’s population that lives in the rural areas,” said the 2020 Health Budget Brief from UNICEF.
The COVID-19 pandemic has only piled more pressure on Zimbabwe’s crumbling healthcare system.
A health worker in protective gear at Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe, on January 11, 2021 [File: AARON UFUMELI/EPA-EFE]
‘Don’t catch the virus if you can avoid it’
The influx of patients to public hospitals caused by the pandemic in the second wave which began in December had not been anticipated. Death figures have risen during this wave; the highest number of deaths in a day was 70, recorded on January 25. As of mid-April, cumulative COVID case figures for the pandemic were 37,859, with 1,553 deaths, within a population of 15 million.
“Some of these fatalities would have been avoided if we had a functioning healthcare system, hospitals, doctors, nurses, drugs and equipment,” says Tendai Biti, an opposition politician for the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance (MDC) party.
“We don’t have all the basics, the system is a shell. That’s why people are dying like this. We could have partly avoided this situation. Inadequate stocks of basic medicines and corruption have caused more suffering to users of public hospitals.”
“President Emmerson Mnangagwa, his ministers and their cronies are marooned locally, they can’t go to South Africa, Singapore and China, but they have destroyed hospitals, [and are] now facing the consequences,” says Biti. “They should have invested in health, but they didn’t, hence people are dying.”
Medical staff assist a patient at a hospital in Harare [File: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]
In 2011, Zimbabwe had 2.6 doctors for every 10,000 patients. By contrast, for every 10,000 people in South Africa, there were 40.7 doctors in 2018.This has translated into an inefficient response to the coronavirus pandemic in Zimbabwe.
“I am not satisfied with the way the coronavirus has been handled because our testing levels have been low, hospitals are not equipped to manage COVID patients and people are unable to get proper and advanced medical treatment,” says Dr Mthabisi Bhebhe, a government medical officer at Plumtree District Hospital.
Plumtree town is at the southwestern tip of Zimbabwe, near the Botswana border, 110km from Bulawayo. The hospital caters for poor, rural people in Matabeleland South Province. The decaying healthcare facilities are similar to most hospitals in Zimbabwe.
“The current health system in Zimbabwe is in crisis. COVID-19 has made obvious all the shortfall in the system, poor funding, corruption, shortage of health workers and lack of adequate vital medicines, poor referral system and dilapidated health infrastructure,” says Bhebhe.
“The current situation is that cases [of COVID] continue to increase, isolation centres are full, health workers have no adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and are poorly paid. SARS-COV2 testing capacity is unacceptably low and people are scrambling for hospital beds and oxygen. The ordinary man in Zimbabwe is generally unable to enjoy their constitutional right to access healthcare.”
A health worker offers his hands for sanitising inside a ward at Mpilo Central Hospital on January 28, 2021 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe [File: KB Mpofu/Getty Images]
Business unusual
At a church-run mission hospital, funded by the church and the government, in Chiredzi Town, in southeast Zimbabwe, one nurse, who asked not to give her name, shared her experience.
“I started caring for coronavirus patients from January 2021 with 25 positive patients in the isolation ward. At first, I was scared and lacked in confidence. Though I had undergone training on COVID-19, still I felt I could not manage the task,” she explained.
In her line of work, she says, there is no such thing as a “normal day”. “At one moment the patient is stable and the next, I need to ventilate the patient. Out of 25 positive patients, only one died and 19 have recovered. I am happy for the recoveries and a bit disappointed by the death.”
Though they have enough personal protective equipment (PPE), she says she is frightened by the lack of medical equipment. “We have only two ventilators which are small and not enough for the patients. The scariest thing is going into the ward and administering medication to the sick patients.”
In public hospitals, employees are demoralised, says a nurse at Chitungwiza hospital, who did not wish to be identified. “There is a shortage of medication for disease like diabetes and BP (hypertension) and most elderly patients are skipping their medication, running the risk of losing their lives because they cannot afford to buy medication from private pharmacies.
“Our hospital equipment is sometimes broken and overwhelmed by patients and we have to refer patients to other bigger hospitals in Harare or private hospitals with better equipment.”
A member of staff cleans a corridor at Mpilo Central Hospital on January 28, 2021 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe [KB Mpofu/Getty Images]
An empty manifesto
The ZANU-PF 2018 election campaign manifesto under now-President Emmerson Mnangagwa pledged to “ensure that treasury allocates at least 15 percent of the national budget to healthcare sector”. It further proposed to review medical professionals’ remuneration, and to rehabilitate and invest in new healthcare facilities. Most of these promises remain on paper, however.
The 2021 national budget committed $683 million towards health – 12.9 percent of the country’s overall budget.
The state denies that there is a health crisis in the country or that the nation’s hospitals are overwhelmed. “Let me reassure citizens that Zimbabwe’s public and private health institutions still have adequate capacity to offer health services to all patients,” Health Minister Chiwenga, who is also the vice president, was quoted as saying in the media.
However, the finance minister painted a gloomier picture for public healthcare during the national budget presentation in November. “The COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on the challenges in the healthcare system and infrastructure, from shortages of testing and medical supplies to access to health services for underserved populations,” Ncube said.
“The health crisis provides useful lessons for longer-term reforms required to build greater resilience in our health systems against any future shocks,” he added. The country’s six central hospitals were allocated $32 million, a rise of just over 10 percent from the previous year.
The Ministry of Health did not respond to Al Jazeera’s questions about the state of the healthcare system and how it is coping with the pandemic.
Nurses at a hospital in Harare on January 26, 2021 [File: Tafadzwa Ufumeli/Getty Images]
Chickens come home to roost for Zimbabwe’s wealthy
Wealthy members of Zimbabwean society are starting to feel the full force of the travel ban, which has been in place at times over the past year because of the global pandemic.
Four ministers have died after succumbing to COVID-19-related complications and being forced to seek treatment in Zimbabwe’s hospitals.
Many state officials have retreated to their countryside getaways, even though lockdown rules have at times forbidden unnecessary travel within the country.
They cannot flout international travel bans, however. “The international travel restrictions have made sure that everyone, powerful and weak, is going to [have to] use the available, poorly resourced health services. I hope this will serve as a lesson to the elites to improve and develop the health sector for the benefit of everyone,” says Bhebhe.
The aloe plant is used to make home remedies against COVID by people in Zimbabwe, but doctors say there is no evidence it is beneficial [Derick Matsengarwodzi/Al Jazeera]
The ultimate equaliser
Well-off Zimbabweans used to be able to travel across the border to South Africa to access better equipped public hospitals. Tendai Muchenje, 55, a car dealer who lives in an exclusive suburb of Harare, says: “I was scheduled to travel to South Africa for my regular, general medical check-up before the lockdown was announced in December.
“For now, I have to rely on local health facilities but most of their services and drugs are overpriced and cannot be compared with South Africa,” he adds.
Nesta Chitembwe, 35, a businesswoman from Harare, used to travel to South Africa for cancer treatment.
“I was privileged to travel to South Africa but after the border closed I now rely on private hospitals for my cancer treatment but they are very expensive. Rich and famous citizens, most Zimbabweans are failing to access treatment at hospitals and suffer in silence and die at home. Something must be done to revamp our healthcare system which is a time bomb,” says Nesta.
Children pick guava leaves to make home ‘remedies’ for COVID. They can be used to make tea and for steam bathing. Many Zimbabweans rely on such home ‘remedies’ rather than use the country’s overstretched healthcare system [Derick Matsengarwodzi/Al Jazeera]
‘Steam or die’
In order to avoid attending crowded, understaffed and poorly equipped hospitals, many poorer citizens are turning to home remedies for their ailments, instead.
Home remedies have long been used by ordinary Zimbabweans, even before the pandemic, but more are doing so now. Indeed, an estimated 80 percent of the nation’s population uses traditional herbal medicine for its immediate health needs, the WHO has observed.
Innovative concoctions of lemon, ginger, eucalyptus leaves, guava leaves, fever tea tree and aloe plants are regular “treatments” for coronavirus. They are harvested in woodlands or grown in home gardens, administered by herbalists and family members.
As well as drinking tea, steam bathing is performed regularly in many homes in a bid to improve people’s respiratory systems, much to the frustration of doctors. “Zumbani tea, steaming, among other things lack scientific evidence to support their use in the treatment of COVID-19. People must know that they are doing all these practices at their own risk,” says Bhebhe.
An assortment of guava, avocado, Fever Tree and mango leaves which many Zimbabweans use to make home remedies against COVID, rather than rely on the overrun healthcare system [Derick Matsengarwodzi/Al Jazeera]
‘We are just asking for basic healthcare, not expensive holidays abroad’
Meanwhile, ordinary Zimbabweans must continue in their struggle to obtain critical medical care when they need it.
Giving birth to a fourth son was a blessing for Anna Bangure, 28, from Nyatsime, just outside Chitungwiza town. She delivered her 3.5kg baby at the public Beatrice Hospital with her husband, a self-employed technician, at her side. But, two weeks later, with the baby failing to breastfeed, the celebration turned to mourning. “My child was crying non-stop for days and we took him to Chitungwiza Hospital [one of the six central government hospitals]. On arrival, we were attended by a doctor who diagnosed that it was pneumonia.”
After waiting for six hours for treatment which never came, other patients and a nurse told her to buy milk for her child who was constantly crying.
“The doctors were avoiding direct contact with patients to minimise being infected by coronavirus. So, I went home with the baby, but he did not recover. We did not have money for the private hospital, so we continued to try to breastfeed,” says Anna.
On the third day, moments after feeding her baby, he died in her arms. “The death of my child has caused a lot of pain in my family,” she says.
Like most Zimbabweans, Anna feels betrayed by a healthcare system that was supposed to protect her family, but could not. “All we are asking for is a right to live and access to humane health facilities, nothing special such as expensive holidays abroad,” she said.
A general view of Gleneagles Hospital, where Zimbabwe’s former President Robert Mugabe received medical treatment, in Singapore [File: Feline Lim/Reuters]
Medical staff are seen assisting a patient at a hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe [File: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]
A health worker in protective gear at Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe, on January 11, 2021 [File: AARON UFUMELI/EPA-EFE]
Medical staff assist a patient at a hospital in Harare [File: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]
A health worker offers his hands for sanitising inside a ward at Mpilo Central Hospital on January 28, 2021 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe [File: KB Mpofu/Getty Images]
A member of staff cleans a corridor at Mpilo Central Hospital on January 28, 2021 in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe [KB Mpofu/Getty Images]
Nurses at a hospital in Harare on January 26, 2021 [File: Tafadzwa Ufumeli/Getty Images]
The aloe plant is used to make home remedies against COVID by people in Zimbabwe, but doctors say there is no evidence it is beneficial [Derick Matsengarwodzi/Al Jazeera]
Children pick guava leaves to make home ‘remedies’ for COVID. They can be used to make tea and for steam bathing. Many Zimbabweans rely on such home ‘remedies’ rather than use the country’s overstretched healthcare system [Derick Matsengarwodzi/Al Jazeera]
An assortment of guava, avocado, Fever Tree and mango leaves which many Zimbabweans use to make home remedies against COVID, rather than rely on the overrun healthcare system [Derick Matsengarwodzi/Al Jazeera]
