OUAGADOUGOU, Sept 30 (Reuters) – Burkina Faso’s military leader said he was in talks to restore calm on Friday after gunfire and a blast in the capital raised fears of a second coup in eight months.
Soldiers and military vehicles took to the deserted streets of Ouagadougou after dawn on Friday, cutting off access to administrative buildings.
By mid-morning, the city, usually buzzing with motorbikes and cars, was quiet. Schools, businesses and banks were shut. State television stopped broadcasting.
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It was not clear if the gunfire near a military base and the explosion were part of a coup attempt, but security sources say there has been frustration within the military at a lack of progress in combating Islamist militants.
Damiba, who took power in a coup in January, urged calm in a statement. Certain members of the armed forces overcome by “moods swings” had created a “confused situation,” he said.
His whereabouts are unknown.
The latest unrest bore the hallmarks of other power grabs that have swept across West and Central Africa over the past two years, undoing years of democratic progress.
The coups have been driven in part by violence committed by Islamist groups who have taken over large areas of northern Burkina Faso and parts of neighbouring Mali and Niger.
Civilian populations have cheered military juntas in the hope that they would be more successful at containing the insurgents than their democratically-elected predecessors.
“If successful, it would mark the sixth unconstitutional takeover in the Sahel in the past two years,” said Eric Humphery-Smith, Senior Africa Analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
“If it isn’t, it’s still a damning indictment for the state of democracy in the region.”
As well as Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, and Guinea have all seen coups since 2020.
INSECURITY
Damiba’s takeover was largely celebrated by Burkinabe fed up with the inability of former President Roch Kabore’s government to rein in militants linked to Islamic State and al Qaeda.
Burkina Faso has become the epicentre of the violence that began in neighbouring Mali in 2012 and has spread across the Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert.
The militants have killed thousands of people in Burkina Faso in recent years.
Damiba had pledged to restore security but attacks have worsened. The army is in disarray and frustrated, security sources say.
Militants have blockaded areas of the north, leaving communities stranded. Government convoys and air drops deliver essential goods to trapped civilians.
This week, unknown assailants killed 11 soldiers in an attack on a convoy taking supplies to a town in northern Burkina Faso. Fifty civilians are missing. read more
Many cities and towns not under siege have seen their populations swell as people flee violence in the countryside.
Protests against the military took place across Burkina Faso this week to demand the government do more to improve the security situation. Much of the country has become ungovernable since 2018.
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Writing by Edward McAllister, Bate Felix and Sofia Christensen, Editing by Angus MacSwan, William Maclean and Toby Chopra
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THE HAGUE, July 22 (Reuters) – The World Court on Friday rejected Myanmar’s objections to a genocide case over its treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority, paving the way for the case to be heard in full.
Myanmar, now ruled by a military junta that seized power in 2021, had argued that Gambia, which brought the suit, had no standing to do so at the top U.N. court, formally known as the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
But presiding Judge Joan Donoghue said all states that had signed the 1948 Genocide Convention could and must act to prevent genocide, and the court had jurisdiction in the case.
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“Gambia, as a state party to the genocide convention, has standing,” she said, reading a summary of the 13-judge panel’s ruling.
The court will now proceed to hearing the merits of the case, a process that will take years.
Gambia took up the Rohingya’s cause in 2019, backed by the 57-nation Organisation for Islamic Cooperation, in a suit aiming to hold Myanmar accountable and prevent further bloodshed.
Gambia Justice Minister Dawda Jallow said outside the courtroom he was “very happy” with the decision and was confident the suit would prevail.
Gambia became involved after his predecessor, Abubacarr Tambadou, a former prosecutor at the U.N. Rwanda tribunal, visited a refugee camp in Bangladesh and said that the stories he heard evoked memories of the genocide in Rwanda.
A representative for Myanmar said that the state would do its “utmost” to protect the country’s “national interest” in further proceedings.
An exhausted Rohingya refugee woman touches the shore after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border by boat through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, September 11, 2017. Picture taken September 11, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui/File Photo
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Protesters outside the court’s gates hoisted a red banner with the text “Free Burma” and yelled at cars carrying the junta’s representatives leaving the building after the decision.
A U.N. fact-finding mission concluded that a 2017 military campaign by Myanmar that drove 730,000 Rohingya into neighbouring Bangladesh had included “genocidal acts”.
Myanmar has denied genocide, rejecting the U.N. findings as “biased and flawed”. It says its crackdown was aimed at Rohingya rebels who had carried out attacks.
While the Hague court’s decisions are binding and countries generally follow them, it has no way of enforcing them.
In a 2020 provisional decision it ordered Myanmar to protect the Rohingya from harm, a legal victory that established their right under international law as a protected minority.
However Rohingya groups and rights activists say there has been no meaningful attempt to end their systemic persecution.
Rohingya are still denied citizenship and freedom of movement in Myanmar. Tens of thousands have now been confined to squalid displacement camps for a decade.
Bangladesh’s foreign ministry welcomed the judgment in a statement.
“For the victims living in the camps in Bangladesh as well as in Myanmar, they see the hope that justice will be delivered to them and that the perpetrators in the Myanmar military will be brought to accountability,” said Ambia Parveen of the European Rohingya Council outside the court.
The junta has imprisoned democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who defended Myanmar personally in 2019 hearings in The Hague.
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Reporting by Toby Sterling, and Poppy McPherson in Bangkok; Editing by Peter Graff and Alison Williams
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KATI, Mali, July 22 (Reuters) – Islamist militants struck Mali’s main military base, just outside the capital Bamako, on Friday in a complex attack involving car bombs, but the armed forces said they had repelled the assault and had the situation under control.
Militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State have repeatedly raided bases across Mali during a decade-long insurgency concentrated in the north and centre but never so close to Bamako in the south.
Heavy gunfire rang out for about an hour early on Friday at the Kati camp, about 15 km (10 miles) northwest of Bamako. A convoy carrying the leader of Mali’s junta, Colonel Assimi Goita, later sped away from his house in Kati in the direction of Bamako, a Reuters reporter said.
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The military said in a statement that the assault involved two car bombs and was carried out by the Katiba Macina, a branch of al Qaeda’s local affiliate that is most active in central Mali.
One soldier died in the attack and six people were wounded, while seven assailants were killed and eight arrested, it said.
“The military staff wishes to reassure the population that the situation is under control and that it can go about its activities,” the military said.
After the attack, soldiers shot and killed a man outside the camp when his vehicle did not heed their orders to stop, witnesses told Reuters. The other person in the vehicle fled, they said.
The military also blamed Katiba Macina for several attacks on Thursday against bases in central Mali, which it said had killed one soldier and wounded 15.
Kati was the site of mutinies in 2012 and 2020 that led to successful coups, but camp residents told Reuters that the soldiers did not appear to be fighting among themselves this time.
Mali’s ruling junta came to power in an August 2020 coup. It staged a second coup in 2021 to force out a civilian interim president who was at odds with Goita.
Goita’s transitional government has sparred repeatedly with neighbouring countries and international powers over election delays, alleged army abuses and cooperation with Russian mercenaries in the fight against the Islamist insurgency.
Despite coming to power pledging to stamp out the insurrection, the junta has been unable to prevent the insurgents from extending their operations further south.
Last week, unidentified armed men killed six people at a checkpoint just 70 km east of Bamako. read more
The only major attack to hit Bamako occurred in 2015, when al Qaeda-linked militants killed 20 people at a luxury hotel.
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Reporting by Fadimata Kontao; Additional reporting and writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Edmund Blair, John Stonestreet and Nick Macfie
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DAKAR, July 17 (Reuters) – Ghana has officially confirmed two cases of the Marburg virus, a highly infectious disease similar to Ebola, its health service said on Sunday, after two people who later died tested positive for the virus earlier this month.
Tests conducted in Ghana came back positive on July 10, but the results had to be verified by a laboratory in Senegal for the cases to be considered confirmed, according to the World Health Organization. read more
“Further testing at the Institute Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal has corroborated the results,” Ghana Health Service (GHS) said in a statement.
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GHS is working to reduce any risk of the virus spreading, including the isolation of all identified contacts, none of whom have developed any symptoms so far, it said.
This is only the second outbreak of Marburg in West Africa. The first ever case of the virus in the region was detected last year in Guinea, with no further cases identified.
“(Ghanaian) health authorities have responded swiftly, getting a head start preparing for a possible outbreak. This is good because without immediate and decisive action, Marburg can easily get out of hand,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
The two patients in southern Ghana’s Ashanti region both had symptoms including diarrhoea, fever, nausea and vomiting, before dying in hospital, the WHO said.
There have been a dozen major Marburg outbreaks since 1967, mostly in southern and eastern Africa. Fatality rates have varied from 24% to 88% in past outbreaks depending on the virus strain and case management, according to the WHO.
It is transmitted to people from fruit bats and spreads among humans through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, surfaces and materials, the WHO says.
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Reporting by Alessandra Prentice and Nellie Peyton; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Daniel Wallis
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LONDON/KISUMU, Kenya, July 13 (Reuters) – After decades of work, the World Health Organization endorsed the first-ever malaria vaccine last year – a historic milestone that promised to drive back a disease that kills a child every minute.
In reality, efforts are falling well short of that, with a lack of funding and commercial potential thwarting GSK Plc’s capacity to produce as many doses of its shot as needed, according to Reuters interviews with about a dozen WHO officials, GSK staff, scientists and non-profit groups.
The British drugmaker committed to produce up to 15 million doses every year through 2028, following 2019 pilot programs – considerably less than the WHO says is needed. It is currently unlikely to make more than a few million annually before 2026, according to a source close to the vaccine rollout.
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A GSK spokesperson told Reuters that it could not make enough of its vaccine Mosquirix to meet the vast demand without more funds from international donors, without giving details on the numbers of doses it expected to produce annually in the first years of the roll-out.
“Demand over the next five to 10 years will probably outstrip the current forecasts on supply,” said Thomas Breuer, GSK’s chief global health officer.
The vaccine’s effectiveness at preventing severe cases of malaria in children is relatively low, at around 30% in a large-scale clinical trial. Some officials and donors are hoping that a second shot being tested by Oxford University may prove better, cheaper and easier to produce in bulk.
Yet the world’s inability to fund more Mosquirix shots dismays many in Africa. Children on the continent account for the vast majority of the roughly 600,000 global malaria deaths every year.
“Mosquirix has the potential to save a lot of precious lives before another new vaccine arrives,” said Kwame Amponsa-Achiano, a public health specialist leading a pilot vaccination program in Ghana. “The more we wait, the more children die needlessly.”
Rebecca Adhiambo Kwanya in the Kenyan city of Kisumu needs no convincing: her four-year-old child Betrun has suffered numerous malaria bouts since birth, yet her 18-month-old Bradley – vaccinated in the pilot program – hasn’t caught it.
“My elder one was not vaccinated and he was sick on and off,” she said. “But the smaller one, he got the vaccine and he was not even sick.”
The limited international appetite to produce and distribute more Mosquirix stands in stark contrast to the record speed and funds with which wealthy countries secured vaccines for COVID-19, a disease that poses relatively little risk to children.
Unlike many pharmaceutical products, there is no major market for a malaria vaccine in the developed world, where drug companies typically make the large profits that they say allows them to make their products available at far lower prices in poorer countries.
“This is a disease of the poor, so it’s not been that appealing in terms of the market,” said Corine Karema, chief executive of the nonprofit RBM Partnership to End Malaria, which is working with governments in Africa to eliminate the disease.
“But one kid dies of malaria every minute – that’s unacceptable.”
EXTRA DATA, ADDED YEARS
In the coming weeks, global health organizations will announce the next steps to make Mosquirix widely available, including the first procurement deal and the WHO’s recommended allocation to prioritize roughly 10 million children at highest risk, the source familiar with the rollout plans said.
Long-term, WHO officials say roughly 100 million doses a year of the four-dose vaccine will be needed, which would cover around 25 million children. When the U.N. agency backed Mosquirix last October, it said that even a smaller supply could save 40,000 to 80,000 lives each year, without specifying the number of doses required. read more
GSK’s maximum target of 15 million doses could prevent up to about 20,000 deaths each year, according to a Reuters review of the malaria vaccine models used by WHO.
Yet even hitting 15 million could take years, according to several officials at the WHO and elsewhere in the malaria effort who said wider distribution beyond the pilot countries was unlikely before early 2024, and even then it would start slowly.
GSK also has to upgrade its manufacturing capacity to reach its target. It said it had set up a funding deal with international vaccine alliance Gavi to help stockpile a key ingredient of the shot to ensure there was no gap in supply during that process.
“We are on course to complete the agreed stockpiling volume,” said a spokesperson.
The drugmaker has invested 700 million pounds ($840 million)in the vaccine’s development and says it won’t charge more than 5% above the cost to produce it.
“No company wants to be in a situation where you build manufacturing which oversupplies the market and vaccines will not be used,” said Breuer said, referring to a future split in demand between Mosquirix and the Oxford vaccine, if approved.
After 2028, India’s Bharat Biotech will take over production of Mosquirix’s key ingredient.
GSK’s Breuer expects the deal with Bharat to accelerate production. The British drugmaker will continue to produce the adjuvant – immune-boosting portion – of the vaccine, and recently committed to doubling production to 30 million doses annually, without offering a timeline.
Bharat Biotech, which has yet to outline its manufacturing plans, did not respond to requests for comment.
A nurse administers the malaria vaccine to an infant at the Lumumba Sub-County hospital in Kisumu, Kenya, July 1, 2022. REUTERS/Baz Ratner
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LOSING SOMEONE TO MALARIA
GSK has donated 10 million doses to pilot programs in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, and less than half have been shipped so far. The countries plan to expand campaigns this year and next using a mix of the remaining donations and purchased shots.
GSK said a WHO decision to collect additional data on safety and effectiveness from the pilot programs had added years to the launch process, during which it had to idle a dedicated production facility.
The WHO said safety questions had to be addressed before approval, and that it was working urgently to boost supply.
Mary Hamel, the agency’s malaria vaccine implementation head, told Reuters that COVID vaccines had shown how quickly things could move with the political will and funding – which she said malaria had never had.
Mosquirix has been in development since the 1980s, in part because of the complexity of targeting the malaria parasite.
Its regulatory pathway has also been slow. In 2015, GSK published results from a large-scale clinical trial showing vaccine reduced the risk of severe malaria by about 30%. The WHO sought more data on the shot’s safety and effectiveness, gathering information from 2019 during the pilot vaccination programs, before endorsing Mosquirix.
In the past, such real-world data on a vaccine has often been tracked after it has been authorized for use.
“Would we have done it in the West? I don’t know,” said WHO’s Hamel, who was not involved in the decision, referring to holding up the deployment of shots to collect extra data.
BIG DONOR: NO SILVER BULLET
Now recommended for use, it is not clear how the shot’s distribution will be financed long-term. Funding for malaria totaled $3.3 billion in 2020, less than half of the estimated need, the WHO said, for tools such as treatments, bed nets and insecticides.
Adding malaria vaccines could cost between $325 million and more than $600 million annually, depending on how widely they are used, according to a study by global health researchers published in the Lancet journal in 2019. The WHO estimates that the GSK vaccine will cost around $5 per dose.
Two of the biggest funders behind the development and pilot programs for Mosquirix, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told Reuters they were committing almost no additional financing to deploy the vaccine.
“It’s not a silver bullet, and it’s relatively expensive compared to other interventions used for malaria,” said Peter Sands, head of the Global Fund. “The fundamental issue with malaria isn’t actually about tools. It’s about the fact that we spend far too little money on it.”
The Gates Foundation said it would continue to back research into how to best use the “historic” vaccine, but “concerns about the relatively low efficacy, short duration, and constrained supply challenges” meant it would not fund deployment.
Gavi is currently the only significant source of funding for a wider Mosquirix rollout. It has approved about $155 million for 2022 through 2025, alongside some funding from the countries themselves. Internal documents seen by Reuters suggest Gavi’s investment in the first year is only expected to be $20 million.
A source familiar with the plans said the group hoped that getting the vaccine rolled out, and countries showing demand, would make the case for more investment.
OXFORD SHOT IN THE WORKS
Several global health officials said future funding from donors might be better committed to a new shot from the scientists at Oxford University who developed AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine.
Data from small trials showed 77% efficacy over a 12-month period, if given to babies shortly before the peak malaria season. Results from a much larger clinical trial are expected in the coming weeks. Some researchers suggest the GSK vaccine, too, may show higher effectiveness if given seasonally.
Oxford scientist Adrian Hill told Reuters his team aims to secure a WHO recommendation for their malaria shot within a year of submitting data to the agency.
The Serum Institute of India, which will manufacture the vaccine, told Reuters it expects to be able to make up to 200 million doses annually by the end of 2024.
In the years ahead, there are also hopes for a shot being developed by BioNTech (22UAy.DE), using the same mRNA technology as their successful COVID vaccine made with Pfizer . BioNTech aims to begin human trials by the end of 2022.
But in the years before either of those shots might be used, there will not be enough vaccines even for those 10 million children the WHO says are most at risk.
“We should have had this vaccine a long time ago,” said Alassane Dicko, professor of public health at the University of Science, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako in Mali, who has led some of the Mosquirix trials.
“We have to do more.”
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Reporting by Jennifer Rigby and Natalie Grover in London, and Maggie Fick in Nairobi; Additional reporting by Baz Ratner in Kisumu, Kenya; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Pravin Char
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JOHANNESBURG, June 16 (Reuters) – Russia, supported by Belarus, Central African Republic, Kyrgyzstan and Mali, has torpedoed a Western-backed proposal to discuss whether its diamonds are funding war ahead of an international conflict diamond meeting in Botswana, letters seen by Reuters show.
The rift in the Kimberley Process (KP), which certifies rough diamond exports, risks paralyzing the body which makes decisions by consensus.
The letters, which have not been previously reported, show a dispute over a proposal by Ukraine, the European Union, Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and whether to broaden the KP’s definition of conflict diamonds to include state actors at its June 20-24 meeting in Botswana.
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The United States and Britain have already placed sanctions on Russia’s Alrosa (ALRS.MM), the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds, which accounted for around 30% of global output last year, and is partly state-owned. read more
A draft agenda dated May 20 included an hour-long slot to discuss the issue, but the item was removed after objections from Russia, Belarus, Central African Republic (CAR), Kyrgyzstan, and Mali.
“We find ourselves at an impasse,” Botswana’s KP chair Jacob Thamage told participants – who include 85 nations, industry representatives, and civil society organisations – in a June 9 letter urging them to find common ground.
The KP defines conflict diamonds as gems used to fund rebel movements seeking to undermine legitimate governments.
Officially labelling Russian diamonds “conflict diamonds” would require widening the definition. The KP Civil Society Coalition has been calling for such a change for years, along with some KP member countries.
The certification scheme, designed to eliminate the trade in so-called “blood diamonds”, was set up in 2003 in the wake of devastating civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, which were largely financed by the illicit diamond trade.
Russia’s KP delegate said in a May 20 letter that the situation in Ukraine has “no implications” for the Kimberley Process and is “absolutely beyond the scope” of its certification scheme.
Belarus, CAR, Kyrgyzstan and Mali all similarly argued that the proposal was “political” or outside the scope of the KP, and that its inclusion on the agenda was inappropriate. All four countries have backed Russia in recent United Nations General Assembly votes.
War-torn CAR is the only country in the world currently under a partial KP embargo for rough diamond exports. Russia, with which it has close trade and security ties, has worked to lift those restrictions.
Mali also has close ties with Russia. Hundreds of Russian military contractors have deployed there since the beginning of this year to help the government fight insurgents.
“If the Kimberley Process is to be a credible guarantor that diamonds exported with a KP certificate are actually conflict-free, it cannot refuse to consider the valid questions that have been raised about whether rough diamonds exported by Russia are financing its invasion of Ukraine,” Canada’s Ioanna Sahas Martin wrote to the KP chair earlier this month.
In a letter to the chair on Monday, Ukraine KP representative Andrii Tkalenko proposed two amendments to the certification scheme: To widen the definition to include government actors, and to allow KP countries, by a majority vote, to expel a country that infringes on another KP member’s sovereignty.
Britain, the European Union and the United States also said Russia should step down from the KP committees it currently chairs. read more
“Inaction would undermine the credibility and integrity of the Kimberley Process not only as a conflict prevention mechanism but also as a trade regulation mechanism,” the European Commission’s Marika Lautso-Mousnier said in a letter.
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Reporting by Helen Reid
Editing by Amran Abocar, Sandra Maler and Mark Potter
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LAGOS, June 5 (Reuters) – Gunmen attacked a Catholic church in southwest Nigeria during mass on Sunday, killing at least 50 people including women and children, according to a hospital doctor and media reports.
The gunmen shot at people outside and inside the church building, killing and injuries worshippers, said Funmilayo Ibukun Odunlami, police spokesperson for Ondo state.
She did not say how many people were killed or injured at St Francis Catholic Church in the town of Owo but added police were investigating the cause of the attack.
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Ondo state Governor Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, who visited the scene of the attack and injured persons in hospital, described Sunday’s incident as “a great massacre” that should not be allowed to happen again.
The identity and motive of the attackers was not immediately clear.
“It is so sad that while the Holy Mass was going on, unknown gunmen attacked St Francis Catholic Church…leaving many feared dead and many others injured and the Church violated,” said Catholic Church spokesman in Nigeria, Reverend Augustine Ikwu.
Ikwu said the bishop and priests from the parish had survived the attack unharmed.
A doctor at a hospital in Owo told Reuters that at least 50 bodies had been brought into two hospitals in the town from the attack. The doctor, who declined to be named because he is not authorised to speak to the press, also said there was a need for blood donations to treat the injured.
President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the attack, calling it “heinous”, and the Vatican said Pope Francis was praying for the victims who had been “painfully stricken in a moment of celebration”.
Nigeria is battling an Islamist insurgency in the northeast and armed gangs who carry out attacks and kidnappings for ransom, mostly in the northwest.
In the southwest, attacks such as this are rare.
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Reporting by Fikayo Owoeye in Lagos, MacDonald Dzirutwe, Camillus Eboh and Felix Onuah in Abuja; Editing by Catherine Evans, David Holmes and Lisa Shumaker
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A man stands at the scene of explosion in which over 100 people lost their lives, at an illegal crude oil bunkering site at Abaezi forest, in Ohaji-Egbema Local Government Area of Imo state, Nigeria April 24, 2022. REUTERS/Tife Owolabi
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Bunkering site was on border of Rivers and Imo states
Illegal refining in Niger Delta fuelled by poverty
Blast follows recent crackdown by Rivers state governor
YENAGAO, Nigeria, April 24 (Reuters) – Charred bodies were left scattered among burnt palms, cars and vans on Sunday after a weekend explosion which killed more than 100 people at an illegal oil refining depot on the border of Nigeria’s Rivers and Imo states.
Flip flops, bags and clothing belonging to those who died littered the ground, which was blackened by oil and soot while still emitting smoke in some places despite overnight rain.
“There are so many people that died here. I’m pleading to the government to look into this,” Uche Woke, a commercial bike rider, told Reuters at the scene of the blast on Saturday night.
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The Nigerian Red Cross Society was on the scene on Sunday to assess the blast, which destroyed a section of the Abaezi forest, which straddles the border of the Ohaji-Egbema Local Government Area of Imo state with Rivers state.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement that he would intensify the clampdown on illegal refineries after what he described as a “catastrophe” and “national disaster”.
Unemployment and poverty in the oil producing Niger Delta have made illegal refining attractive, but with often deadly consequences. Crude oil is tapped from a web of pipelines owned by major oil companies and refined in makeshift tanks.
The process has led to fatal accidents and polluted a region already blighted by oil spills in farmland, creeks and lagoons.
The Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre said several vehicles that were in a queue to buy illegal fuel were burnt.
“The fire outbreak occurred at an illegal bunkering site and it affected over 100 people,” Goodluck Opiah, the state commissioner for petroleum resources, said of the accident.
The border location is a reaction to a recent crackdown in Rivers on illegal refining in an effort to reduce worsening air pollution. read more
“In the last month or two, there were several raids and some security agents involved were tackled,” Ledum Mitee, former president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), said.
At least 25 people, including some children, were killed in an explosion and fire at another illegal refinery in Rivers state in October. read more
In February, local authorities said they had started a crackdown on the refining of stolen crude, but with little apparent success. read more
Government officials estimate that Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer and exporter, loses an average of 200,000 barrels of oil per day, more than 10% of production, to illegal tapping or vandalising of pipelines.
That has forced oil firms to regularly declare force majeure on oil and gas exports.
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Additional reporting by Felix Onuah in Abuja and Julia Payne in Lagos, Writing by Julia Payne and MacDonald Dzirutwe, Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, Ros Russell and Alexander Smith
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ATHENS, April 19 (Reuters) – Greece has impounded a Russian oil tanker off the island of Evia, the Greek coastguard said on Tuesday, as part of European Union sanctions imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier this month, the EU banned Russian-flagged vessels from the 27-nation bloc’s ports, with some exemptions, as it adopted new sweeping sanctions against Russia for what the Kremlin describes as a “special military operation”.
The 115,500-deadweight tonnage Russian-flagged Pegas, with 19 Russian crew members on board, was seized near Karystos on the southern coast of Evia, which lies just off the Greek mainland near Athens.
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The Russian embassy in Athens, the Greek capital, said on Twitter that it was looking into the case and was in contact with Greek authorities on the issue.
“It has been seized as part of EU sanctions,” a Greek shipping ministry official said.
A coastguard official said the ship’s oil cargo had not been confiscated. It was not clear who the charterer of the cargo was, but the vessel was managed by Russia-based Transmorflot.
Transmorflot was not immediately available for comment.
The Pegas, which was renamed Lana in March, had earlier reported an engine problem. It was headed to the southern Peloponnese peninsula to offload its cargo onto another tanker but rough seas forced it to moor just off Karystos where it was seized, Athens News Agency reported.
On Tuesday afternoon the ship was still moored at Karystos bay, Reuters witnesses said.
U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), which monitors Iran-related tanker traffic through ship and satellite tracking, said the Pegas loaded around 700,000 barrels of crude oil from Iran’s Sirri Island on Aug. 19, 2021.
It subsequently tried to unload the cargo at a Turkish port before heading to Greece, UANI said its analysis showed.
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Reporting by Renee Maltezou, Jonathan Saul and Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Alexander Smith
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TUNIS, April 17 (Reuters) – Tunisia will work with other countries that have offered to help it to prevent environmental damage after a merchant ship carrying up to one thousand tonnes of oil sank in Tunisian waters, the defence ministry said on Sunday.
The ship was heading from Equatorial Guinea to Malta when it sank seven miles off the coast of the southern city of Gabes on Friday. The Tunisian navy rescued all seven crew members following a distress call. read more
It was carrying between 750 tonnes and one thousand tonnes of fuel, officials said.
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The defence ministry did not name the countries that had offered to help, but local media said Italy was expected to send a naval vessel specialised in dealing with marine disasters.
A specialised marine diving team has begun work around the ship to check for any oil leakage.
The merchant fuel ship which sank off the coast of Gabes in Tunisia on April 15, 2022 is seen this handout picture taken in Rostov-on-Don, Russia November 12, 2017. Dmitry Frolov/Handout via REUTERS
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“The situation is reassuring and under control, and no leakage of gasoil has been recorded until now from the tank of the sinking ship,” Rabie Majidi the transport minister said.
He said the next stage was “delicate and sensitive” as the ship must be taken out of the water without allowing leakage.
On Saturday, Tunisian authorities opened an investigation into the sinking, which the environment ministry said was caused by bad weather.
“Tunisia will determine later the losses and will demand compensation,” Laila Chikaoui, the environment minister said.
The ministry said barriers would be set up to limit the spread of the fuel.
The coast of Gabes has suffered major pollution for years, with environmental organisations saying industrial plants in the area have been dumping waste directly into the sea.
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Reporting By Tarek Amara; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Barbara Lewis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.