Covid-19 mass testing campaign launched in Luanda

 Luanda – Angolan health authorities announced a Covid-19 mass screening campaign as of Monday (December 27) in Luanda.

To achieve this goal, the health ministry announced plans for 10,000 tests to be conducted in two days.

The objective is to determine the behaviour of the illness.

For Tuesday, the campaign is supposed to cover places with high density population, such as informal markets based in Luanda province.

Angola’s health minister, Sílvia Lutucuta, said her institution will collect data on the level of contagion of the disease.

The process covers both asymptomatic and those who have already been vaccinated but tested positive, among other results.

The minister added that the strategy is to reduce the transmission chain of the sickness.

The government adopted the new measure to reduce the work force to halt the spread of covid-19 pandemic.

Angolan president mourns passing of Desmond Tutu

 Luanda - Angolan head of State João Lourenço Sunday regretted the death of the South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu at 90 years of age, victim of illness.

In condolence message, João Lourenço stated that he was deeply saddened to hear of the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to whom he described as an historic figure of the anti apartheid movement.

The statesman underlined that both South Africa and African continent, in general, have lost one of the biggest icons of the struggle for the conquest of the dignity of their sons.

The note stresses that Tutu was a man of faith who dedicated his own life fighting tirelessly against the heinous system of discrimination based on skin colour.

 

In message, João Lourenço writes that Desmond Tutu will be remembered for his legacy of a courageous patriot by lighting the future generations who are called to preserve an Apartheid-free-Africa and all other conquests.

 

On behalf of Angolan Executive and his own, João Lourenço condoled with South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, and the family over the death of South Africa’s anti apartheid campaigner, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.

 

In recognition of his commitment to fight against Apartheid in South Africa, the Anglican Church archbishop won the Peace Nobel Prize in 1984.

 

Desmond Tutu died on 26 December, 2021 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Fear and loathing in South Africa where foreigners live in danger

 

Many Africans escaping violence and poverty come to South Africa in search of a better life. But they often find themselves in danger in their new home, accused of taking jobs away from South Africans.

Photographer Shiraaz Mohamed caught up with some who live in Johannesburg’s Alexandra township and Hillbrow, an inner city neighbourhood, about what it is like to deal with xenophobia and crime on a daily basis.

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

Supermarket owner Getachew Desta (above) fled Ethiopia in 2010 after he was suspected of supporting an opposition party and now lives behind a steel cage and burglar gates in Alexandra.

He says he finds life better here, but complains about the crime.

“I am OK being locked behind the cage as we don’t know when the criminals will strike. At any given time they can they pop up, point a gun at you and rob you of your money. They can also kill you.”

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

He was a victim of xenophobia in 2016, when a mob ransacked his shop and he was left with nothing.

And again in July this year in the unrest that erupted after the imprisonment of ex-President Jacob Zuma for contempt of court. The violence hit two provinces and killed at least 340 people, with damages exceeding 50bn rand ($3.2bn, £2.4bn).

“It happened at night. I was not there. I called the police to alert them but they did nothing. I lost everything and had to borrow money from my family to restart, but it was not enough and I ended up buying my supplies on credit.”

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

He has also been kidnapped twice – in 2016 and 2019 – until a ransom of more than $3,000 was paid on each occasion.

The shopkeeper still prefers life here to returning to Ethiopia, but he has become increasingly despondent about the police as criminal cases are not followed up. “Police can’t do anything for foreigners here. It’s almost as if they do not care about us.”

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

Fellow Ethiopia supermarket owner Mulugeta Negash (above), who has been in Alexandra for 13 years, says the danger is so extreme he would consider going home.

“We are unable to get identity documents. As a result we cannot open bank accounts and have to carry around cash to buy stock. The thieves are aware of this, which puts us at risk,” the 34-year-old says.

He was also a victim of anti-foreigner attacks after he was beaten up by a mob and lost all his stock not long after he first arrived.

“I live in fear every day,” he says.

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

A 43-year-old man from the Democratic Republic of Congo (above) who lives in Hillbrow says he feels lucky to still be alive: “My best friend was attacked one morning [in the xenophobic violence in 2008].

“He was stoned to death like a dog.

“Imagine someone runs away from his own land and comes here to find peace but ends up getting killed.”

Asking not be named to protect his identity, he told of how he was smuggled into South Africa in a lorry 20 years ago when Catholic missionaries helped him escape from jail after he got into trouble for criticising the Congolese president at the time.

It was difficult for him to find work at first as he could not speak English, but after he was granted refugee status in 2008 he was able to train as a security officer – and is now married and has a family with a fellow Congolese national.

Despite his fears he says he is grateful that he is able to feed his family – his one regret is that he has been unable to make contact with his parents and does not know if they are alive.

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

Mozambican Nelfalda Dule (above) is also proud that she can support herself and her family in South Africa. She runs a hair salon from a pavement on a busy road in Alexandra.

But this also puts her at risk in a township where robberies are an everyday occurrence. She lives within a large Mozambican community and they tend to stick together for safety reasons.

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

Ms Dule says the most hurtful thing is the insults that South Africans often hurl at her, using the term “kwerekwere”, a derogatory word for African migrants.

“This is something that causes me to be sad,” she says.

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

Fellow Mozambican Mateu Madjila, who has lived in Alexandra for the last decade running an upholstery business, says he also tends to get called “kwerekwere”, despite being married to a South African woman with whom he has three children.

“All the people living in South Africa look down on people from Mozambique, Zimbabwe or any other country – life is not easy,” he says.

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

For 41-year-old Philimon Gwetekwete, who came to Alexandra from Zimbabwe in 2016, South Africa’s opportunities are what counts.

He repairs television sets as well as appliances – a trade he learnt back home.

“It was tough in Zim, I had no job and I have six children. Life is better here but I am struggling because there are not a lot of repair jobs. I am making money but it is not enough because the lockdown messed things up.”

Other Zimbabweans seem equally sanguine about their situation, accepting that life is tough but better than at home.

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

A 40-year-old domestic worker (above), who moved to South Africa from Zimbabwe with her family as a teenager, says drugs are her greatest concern.

Asking not to be named, the single mother of three said that Hillbrow was notorious for its drug gangs believed to involve foreigners: “Life is very tough here. We are living under the drug dealers. I am afraid that my kids can get hooked.”

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

Fifty-one-year old Zimbabwean Jafter Ndlovu has also spent a long time in South Africa, arriving 30 years ago in search of work and starting out as a waiter.

He saved enough money to buy a second-hand car to start a taxi business which operates around Hillbrow.

His main angst is that his taxi firm has been severely affected by popular ride hailing company Uber.

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

Helder Massingue, a 27-year-old Mozambican, has been in South Africa for 10 years. He struggles to make a living selling vegetables in Hillbrow – it costs him $30 a day to buy the produce which can go to waste.

He is also under constant threat from the police, as officers can confiscate his goods as he is not allowed to sell from the pavement.

IMAGE SOURCE,BBC/SHIRAAZ MOHAMED

“When you are a foreigner you don’t have an identity document so you cannot get a good job. But I keep trying because I don’t want to get involved in criminal activity.”

Like most migrants, he says it is a matter of survival as he needs to earn money for his mother and daughter who remain in Mozambique.

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Desmond Tutu – the staunch and steadfast healer of a nation

 

Desmond Tutu is remembered with so much joy and affection by so many different people around the world today, that it may seem hard to imagine a time or place when he was viewed, not as a courageous moral crusader, but as a devil.

It was the mid-1970s, and South Africa was ruled by a white-minority regime through a brutal system of racial apartheid. Nelson Mandela was in prison and his Soviet-backed liberation movement, the ANC, was outlawed.

Increasingly, white South Africans focused their fears and hatred on a diminutive but outspoken Anglican priest, recently appointed to a prominent Church position in Johannesburg.

“Tutu was the devil incarnate. Literally. One of our family friends said that. He was the embodiment of evil, and the hatred was just extraordinary,” remembered John Allen, a white journalist who later became Desmond Tutu’s official biographer.

“It was an era when the leadership of the liberation movements was banned, jailed or in exile, and here was this person who was saying what most black South Africans felt. Tutu really was public enemy number one, when Mandela was out of sight, out of mind. He had this extraordinary power to communicate. He would not honey his words so as not to offend white Anglicans,” said Allen.

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

Desmond Tutu was ordained an Anglican priest in 1960 and used his pulpit to speak out against oppression during the darkest days of the apartheid system

From his pulpit, Tutu spoke out against apartheid in a city where black people – their lives controlled by strict racist laws – required special passes simply to walk into “white” neighbourhoods.

“Tutu wasn’t a front for political movements. I think that’s what gave him his moral and spiritual freedom,” said Peter Storey, who led South Africa’s powerful Council of Churches. “It made him very powerful because he was up against an apartheid government that wrapped itself in the Church… and yet here was this black Anglican, able to hit the regime at one of their most vulnerable points.

“Desmond could point out to them – if you claim to be Christian, how can you possibly treat my people like this? This is why he was such an irritant to them.”

Frank Chikane, a prominent liberation leader who was poisoned, and nearly killed, by the same apartheid security forces that also looked for ways to silence Tutu, said: “Tutu was the face of the liberation struggle. The voice of the people. He was a key prophetic voice. But he was non-violent, from beginning to end.”

“It was a very scary moment,” Peter Storey recalled, of the time when he and Tutu were kidnapped and taken into the bush by armed men who said they had instructions “to kill us”.

“For some reason they let us go. Later… we were driving down the road back to Pretoria when Desmond said, ‘let us pray.’ He was at the wheel… and his eyes were closed. So, I held the wheel. I didn’t want to give death another shot at us so soon afterwards.

“But that was Desmond. Nobody understands him unless they understand how deeply he was a man of prayer. I remember him saying, ‘I’m not afraid of these people, because the worst they can do is kill me. And I’m not afraid of death,” said Peter Storey.

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

Desmond Tutu with President Nelson Mandela in 1995. During Mandela’s imprisonment on Robben Island, Tutu served as the voice of the liberation movement

But Tutu – increasingly prominent as the face and voice of the liberation movement – combined fearlessness with a famously mischievous sense of humour, which often helped him to diffuse tensions when confronted with angry crowds in black townships, often after funerals.

“He had the ability to channel people’s anger, and then the ability to say ‘we are better than those people who are up against us, we don’t have to be like them,” Peter Storey said.

“And he would use humour at times like that. At the very darkest moments you would hear this diminutive bishop stand up and say to the regime, ‘why don’t you join the winning side before it’s too late?’ And people would laugh. But they would also know he was telling the truth because he was so utterly convinced that justice would prevail.”

John Allen recalled: “There is a giggle. But to me it’s a cackle. Mostly it was uproarious laughter. And he used to say that laughing is very close to crying.”

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Abroad, Tutu was also known for his humour when engaging with foreign leaders and pushing for the imposition of sanctions against South Africa’s apartheid government, but he could be brutally frank too.

“He was very critical in terms of campaigning for sanctions. He was key, there’s no doubt about it. He came at the right time,” recalled Frank Chikane.

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

Tutu was famously critical of Ronald Reagan’s policy towards the South African government, describing it as “immoral” and “un-Christian”

“Tutu was scathing of the blindness of people who – for economic and political reasons – had a stake in preserving white dominance in South Africa. His opinion of Ronald Reagan was scathing. He called him [a racist]. Tutu’s role was to be clear cut, and not to allow himself to be sucked into the ifs and buts and compromises,” said Storey.

Later, in the aftermath of South Africa’s first democratic elections and the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to delve into the crimes of the apartheid era, those working closely with Tutu saw his public tears, and frequent songs, as the work of a man trying to hold a mirror up to a deeply damaged society.

“There were many moments when he would cry,” said Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, who served on the TRC’s human rights violations committee.

“And he started the practise of singing… about the pain of our past. It was almost as if he was carrying the whole country on his shoulders. He walked into the room and you could feel the sense of hope – no question about it. He was almost like royalty, representing the journey towards freedom for everybody. He was driving the country towards peace and that process (at the TRC) would never have been what it was without him.”

Peter Storey said: “We needed a healer. Tutu became the nation’s pastor and helped us navigate that road to healing. The Truth commission became a safe space for people to share their pain. And also for the bad guys – if they were willing – to come and find some kind of healing themselves. And Desmond was, I think, the perfect person to help that happen while maintaining that incredibly steely strength which refused to be pressured… particularly by the ANC.”

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

Desmond Tutu’s disapproval of President Jacob Zuma’s administration and the ANC as a whole became well known in more recent years

In more recent years, Tutu became fiercely critical of the ANC’s failures in government, in particular its slide towards corruption. But President Jacob Zuma’s administration chose to ignore, or sideline the archbishop, even attempting to prevent him from attending Nelson Mandela’s funeral.

So how, in old age, did Tutu judge South Africa’s current struggles – the inequality, unemployment and violence that continue to plague so many communities?

“I remember sitting with him not all that long ago and him saying, ‘You know, Peter, we understand human nature. And so we shouldn’t be surprised. But we are allowed to be very, very sad,'” said Peter Storey.

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