DR Congo: Fourteen killed in machete attack in Ituri province

 Fourteen people, including seven children, have been killed with machetes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Red Cross has said, as a community leader blamed a notorious armed group for the bloody attack.

The attack took place in a displaced people’s camp in the country’s northwestern Ituri province on Saturday, the humanitarian aid group reported.

Among the victims were five women aged between 25 and 32 and a two-year-old girl, according to a list shown by the Red Cross to the news agency AFP.

Jean D’Zba Banju, a community leader in Ituri’s Djugu area, said the perpetrators belonged to the CODECO armed group, which has been blamed for a string of ethnic massacres in the area.

“CODECO militiamen entered Drakpa and started to cut people with machetes. They did not fire shots in order to operate calmly,” Banju told AFP on Sunday. “The victims are displaced people who had fled Ngotshi village to set up in Drakpa,” he said, adding that five others were wounded.

Gold-rich Ituri province has been plunged back into a cycle of violence since late 2017 with the rise of CODECO, which has since split into rival factions. The group is a political-religious sect that claims to represent the interests of the Lendu ethnic group.

Ituri and neighbouring North Kivu have been under a state of siege since May 6, an exceptional measure to combat armed groups including CODECO and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). The ISIL (ISIS) armed group bills the ADF as its local affiliate.

Despite the crackdown, and support from the Ugandan military since late November, attacks have continued and more than 1,000 civilians have been killed from May 2021 to January this year, figures from the Danish Refugee Council show.

In the region of Beni, which neighbours Ituri, “four young people were killed in an ambush by ADF rebels on Sunday, three kilometres (1.8 miles) from Eringeti,” said Sabiti Njiamoja, an official from the office of the governor of North Kivu province.

Vice president praises Methodist Church’s contribution to youths training

 Luanda – Angola’s vice-president Bornito de Sousa praised Sunday the involvement of the United Methodist Church in the training and education of children and youths in the country.

The recognition is contained in a message read during the worship service that marked the 137th anniversary of the creation of Methodist Church in Angola.

Bornito de Sousa underlines that in addition to expanding the gospel, the Methodist Church continues to support the country through excellence in teaching and training of children and adolescents for the country’s development.

"After 137 years, we urge the church to continue with the strength, will and desire to see a better Angola, since in the past they undertook a relentless struggle against Portuguese colonialism until the achievement of independence," reads the message.

The festivities of 137 years of the Methodist Church in Angola took place at Bethel Temple.

The event brought together rulers, including the vice president of the ruling MPLA party, Luisa Damião;  Minister of Culture, Filipe Zau;  Minister of Health, Silvia Lutucuta; leader of the opposition Unita party, Adalberto da Costa Júnior.

Also religious entities, members of political parties with parliamentary seats and faithful attended the event, held under the slogan "Methodist people 137 years called to improve the present moment".

The Methodist Church in Angola was founded in 1885 with the arrival of the caravan of American missionaries to Luanda led by Bishop William Taylor.

 

US: Biden to visit Poland on Europe trip

 President Joe Biden has added a stop in Poland to his trip this week to Europe for urgent talks with NATO and European allies, as Russian forces concentrate their fire upon cities and trapped civilians in a nearly month-old invasion of Ukraine.

Biden will first travel to Brussels and then to Poland to meet with leaders there, press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Sunday night.

Poland is a crucial ally in the Ukraine crisis. It is hosting thousands of American troops and is taking in more people fleeing the war in Ukraine — more than 2 million — than any other nation in the midst of the largest European refugee crisis in decades.

Biden will head to Warsaw for a bilateral meeting with President Andrzej Duda scheduled for Saturday. Biden will discuss how the U.S., along with its allies and partners, is responding to “the humanitarian and human rights crisis that Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked war on Ukraine has created,” Psaki said.

On Monday ahead of his trip, Biden will discuss the war with European leaders.

President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom are expected to take part, the White House said Sunday. (Independent).

‘The consequences of not running Free SHS far outweighs the cost’ – Education Ministry

The Ministry of Education is brushing away calls for a review or scraping of the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) programme.

The ministry’s Public Relations Officer, Kwasi Kwarteng, stressed that the overall cost of not implementing the programme far outweighs the cost of implementing it.

According to him, the country risks having hundreds of thousands of its young people staying without secondary education without the flagship programme.

“The cost in not implementing Free SHS in the long term has very dire consequences on us as a nation because it means that every year we will be having about 100,000 students that will not have access to education up to the secondary level and that will be dangerous for our socio-economic transformation that we seek to achieve. As compared to the current cost that we incur as a people, we should have the conversation within the proper context,” he said.

Kwasi Kwarteng’s comment comes on the back of pressure mounting on the Akufo government to review the policy with the latest coming from the quarters of the Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission, Prof. Stephen Adei.

Prof. Stephen Adei explains that the GH¢7.6 billion expenditure on the programme over the past five years is taking a toll on Ghana’s economy.

Other civil society organizations have also called for a review of the programme including suggestions that the programme be limited to persons who are genuinely poor and unable to fund their secondary education.

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