SAINT-DENIS DE LA REUNION: Local authorities said Sunday that the likely death toll from cyclone Chido’s passage across Mayotte was “definitely several hundred” though the disruption means reaching an exact count will be difficult.
Rescue workers and supplies are being rushed in by air and sea, but their efforts are likely to be hindered by damage to airports and electricity distribution in a territory where even clean drinking water was already subject to chronic shortages.
A previous toll shared with AFP by a security source had confirmed only 14 deaths.
“I think there will definitely be several hundred, perhaps we will come close to a thousand or even several thousand” deaths, prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville said on broadcaster Mayotte la Premiere.
He added that it would be “very difficult to reach a final count” given that most residents are Muslim, traditionally burying their dead within 24 hours.
The mayor of Mayotte’s capital Mamoudzou, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, had earlier told AFP that nine people were gravely wounded and fighting for their lives in hospital, while 246 more were seriously injured.
“The hospital is hit, the schools are hit. Houses are totally devastated,” he said, adding that the hurricane “spared nothing.”
Mayotte’s 320,000 residents had been ordered into lockdown Saturday as cyclone Chido bore down on the islands around 500 kilometers (310 miles) east of Mozambique with gusts of at least 226 kilometers per hour.
Electricity poles were hurled to the ground, trees uprooted and sheet-metal roofs and walls torn off improvised structures inhabited by at least one-third of the population.
Information from the locked-down population, in shock and largely cut off from water and electricity supplies, is slow to filter out, a source familiar with the recovery effort told AFP.
One local resident, Ibrahim, told AFP of “apocalyptic scenes” as he made his way through the main island, having to clear blocked roads for himself.
Interior Minister Retailleau will travel to Mayotte on Monday, his office said, alongside 160 soldiers and firefighters to reinforce the 110 already deployed to the islands.
Medical personnel and equipment were being delivered from Sunday by air and sea, said the prefecture in La Reunion, another French Indian Ocean territory some 1,400 kilometers away on the other side of Madagascar.
A first aid plane landed in Mayotte at around 3:30 p.m. local time (1230 GMT) with three tons of medical supplies, blood for transfusions and 17 medical staff, authorities in La Reunion said, with two military aircraft expected to follow.
A navy patrol ship was also to depart La Reunion with personnel and equipment including for electricity supplier EDF.
Pope Francis, visiting French Mediterranean island Corsica on Sunday, urged people to pray for Mayotte’s residents.
Just northwest of Mayotte, the Comoros islands, some of which had been on red alert since Friday, were also hit, but suffered only minor damage.
Cyclone Chido later slammed into Mozambique, bringing gale-force winds and heavy rain when it made landfall early Sunday around 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the northern city of Pemba, weather services said.
Buildings were damaged and power knocked out in some areas of Mozambique’s northern coastal provinces of Nampula and Cabo Delgado early Saturday, authorities said.
But by the afternoon Chido was traveling over the inland province of Niassa and had weakened, said the president of the National Institute for Risk and Disaster Management, Luisa Meque.
UNICEF said it was on the ground to help the people impacted by the storm, which had already caused some damage.
“Many homes, schools and health facilities have been partially or completely destroyed and we are working closely with the government to ensure continuity of essential basic services,” it said in a statement.
Cyclone Chido is the latest in a string of storms worldwide to be fueled by climate change, according to experts.
The “exceptional” cyclone was super-charged by particularly warm Indian Ocean waters, meteorologist Francois Gourand of France’s Meteo France weather service told AFP.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Friday it was similar in strength to cyclones Gombe in 2022 and Freddy in 2023, which killed more than 60 people and at least 86 in Mozambique respectively.
It warned that some 1.7 million people were in danger, and said the remnants of the cyclone could also dump “significant rainfall” on neighboring Malawi through Monday, potentially triggering flash floods.
Zimbabwe and Zambia were also expected to see heavy rains, it added.
‘Definitely several hundred’ killed as Cyclone Chido devastates Mayotte
https://arab.news/7c2c2
‘Definitely several hundred’ killed as Cyclone Chido devastates Mayotte
- A previous toll shared with AFP by a security source had confirmed only 14 deaths
African Union ‘dismayed’ US withdrawing from WHO
Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO over its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic
ADDIS ABABA: The African Union expressed dismay Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, urging his administration to reconsider.
Just hours after taking office on Monday, Trump signed an executive order directing the US to withdraw from the UN agency, which threatens to leave global health initiatives short of funding.
African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said in a statement he was “dismayed to learn of the US government’s announcement to withdraw” from the Geneva-based WHO.
Washington is easily the biggest financial contributor to the organization and the pullout comes as Africa faces a range of health crises, including recent outbreaks of mpox and Marburg viruses.
“Now more than ever, the world depends on WHO to carry out its mandate to ensure global public health security as a shared common good,” Moussa Faki said, adding he hopes “the US government will reconsider its decision.”
He said Washington was an early supporter of the Africa CDC, the African Union’s health watchdog which works with the WHO to counter present and emerging pandemics.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO over its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and said prior to his inauguration that “World Health ripped us off.”
The United States was in the process of withdrawing from the WHO during Trump’s first term, but the move was reversed under Joe Biden.
Tom Frieden, a former US senior health official, wrote on X that the withdrawal “weakens America’s influence, increases the risk of a deadly pandemic, and makes all of us less safe.”
It comes as fears grow of the pandemic potential of a bird flu outbreak, which has infected dozens and claimed its first human life in the United States earlier this month.
WHO member states have been negotiating the world’s first treaty on handling future pandemics since late 2021 — negotiations now set to proceed without the US.
In Itaewon, Seoul’s Korean Muslim minority finds a sense of belonging
- Muslims make up only around 0.3 percent of South Korea’s 51 million population
- Seoul Central Mosque in Itaewon is South Korea’s first and largest
SEOUL: Tucked away behind the main avenue of Seoul’s central Itaewon district, the signs along “Muslim Street” — which features the Korean alphabet Hangul and Arabic script side by side — is the first giveaway of the neighborhood’s soul.
A little walk up the street, visitors would then find the Seoul Central Mosque — the country’s first and largest — that for decades has served as a beating heart for South Korea’s minority Muslim community.
“Korean Muslims are one of the smallest minority groups in Korea … In Itaewon, no one thinks I am weird when I tell them I am Muslim, or when I pray at the mosque or dress in Arab clothes. It gives me a sense of tranquility. And it also satisfies a big portion of the loneliness I feel as a Muslim,” Eom Min-a, a 35-year-old government official, told Arab News.
“When I meet friends in Itaewon, or when I pray in the mosque with other Muslims, I feel that I am not alone in this country. That makes me keep wanting to go there.”
In South Korea, Muslims make up only around 0.3 percent of the country’s 51 million population, according to the Korea Muslim Federation. Migrant workers from Muslim countries make up the bulk of the Korean Muslim community, as around 70 percent of them are foreigners.
For Koreans like Eom, being Muslim is often a lonely and alienating experience. She deals with microaggressions from time to time and often feels excluded from the larger society.
But whenever she visits Itaewon, she feels liberated. It is also the place where she meets her Muslim friends — most of whom are foreigners — and eats Arab food.
“When you go to Itaewon, you can see the mosque on top of the neighborhood’s highest hill. You feel a sense of pride,” she said. “I feel liberated and I find a lot of emotional comfort there.”
Though small, the growth of the Muslim community in Korea is often traced back to when the Seoul Central Mosque was built in 1976, with funding from Saudi Arabia.
Since then, Muslims in and around Seoul have visited the mosque in Itaewon especially to get together and celebrate the main holidays in Islam, Eid Al-Adha and Eid Al-Fitr.
“Before my child was born, I would go to the central mosque in Itaewon during Ramadan or Eid and participate in the prayers,” business owner Kim Jin-woo told Arab News.
“From our point of view as Muslims, the neighborhood and the Central Mosque feel like home … In our heart, it is a place like home.”
Kim’s visits to Itaewon are also related to household needs at times, including buying halal or Arab ingredients. From dates to homemade hummus to falafel, the shop Kim goes to carries more Arab products than Korean ones.
“My family also goes to Itaewon to shop for groceries. My wife mostly cooks Moroccan food at home, and the shopping center there has a large assortment of Arab groceries and halal meat,” he said.
Over the years, Seoul’s Muslim neighborhood has grown into a beacon of diversity and peaceful coexistence even for other Itaewon residents, including for 83-year-old Kim C., a non-Muslim who has run a shop in the area for over 40 years.
“I have hired foreign Muslim employees myself. They are genuine people,” Kim told Arab News. “They are no different from my other neighbors.”
200,000 intl troops needed to secure any Ukraine peace: Zelensky
- Zelensky said that given the small size of the Ukrainian army compared to that of Russia, “we need contingents with a very strong number of soldiers” to secure any peace deal
- “From all the Europeans? Two hundred thousand. It’s a minimum. Otherwise, it’s nothing“
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said any peace deal agreed with Russia would require at least 200,000 European peacekeepers to oversee it, according to comments published Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has raised the spectre of some kind of halt in the fighting after he vowed to end the war — though he has never explained how.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos a day earlier, Zelensky said any deal to end the conflict would need to be overseen by a large foreign contingent of peacekeepers.
Zelensky said that given the small size of the Ukrainian army compared to that of Russia, “we need contingents with a very strong number of soldiers” to secure any peace deal.
“From all the Europeans? Two hundred thousand. It’s a minimum. Otherwise, it’s nothing,” he said.
He said any other arrangement would be akin to the monitoring mission led by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in eastern Ukraine that disintegrated when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
“They had offices and that’s all,” Zelensky said, underscoring the need from the Ukrainian perspective for an armed force to prevent further Russian attacks.
The Ukrainian leader has repeatedly said that Ukraine must be represented at any talks with international parties to end the conflict and that only robust security guarantees can dissuade Russia from attacking again.
Ukraine’s fear that Moscow would use a truce to rebuild its military stems partially from the decade that followed peace agreements between Kremlin-backed separatists and Kyiv in 2014 which failed to halt Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
In an earlier address at Davos, Zelensky called on Europe to establish a joint defense policy and said European capitals should be prepared to increase spending, while calling into question Trump’s commitment to NATO, the US-led security bloc.
Trump on Tuesday indicated he would consider imposing fresh sanctions on Russia if President Vladimir Putin refuses to negotiate a deal to end the war in Ukraine.
Afghan suspect arrested after two killed in knife attack in German park
- The Afghan suspect was detained at the scene in Schoental park
- A 41-year old man and a two-year old boy were fatally injured, police said
BERLIN: A 28-year-old man from Afghanistan has been arrested following a knife attack in a park in the German city of Aschaffenburg on Wednesday in which two people were killed, including a toddler, police said.
The suspect was detained at the scene in Schoental park, an English-style garden in the Bavarian city, where the attack occurred at around 1045 GMT.
A 41-year old man and a two-year old boy were fatally injured, police said in a post on social media platform X. Two seriously injured people were receiving hospital treatment.
Police said there was no indication of further suspects and no danger to the public.
The stabbing adds to a string of violent attacks in Germany that have raised concerns over security and stirred up tensions over migration ahead of parliamentary elections on Feb. 23.
A doctor was arrested after a car-ramming attack at a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg on Dec. 20, in which six people were killed and around 200 injured.
Macron says Europe must protect sovereignty in face of Trump’s return
- Macron made the remarks at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz
PARIS: More than ever, Europeans, including France and Germany, must protect their sovereignty in the face of the return of US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday.
He made the remarks at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Paris, adding that it was important to support the automobile, steel, chemical sectors, among others.
“After the inauguration of a new administration in the United States, it is necessary more than ever for Europeans and for our two countries to play their role of consolidating a united, strong and sovereign Europe,” Macron said.
