Humanitarian agencies
complained Monday that the focus on terrorism at African Union summit had
sidelined the meeting's official theme of maternal and infant health. African
leaders opened the meeting Sunday in Kampala two weeks after bomb blasts in the
Ugandan capital claimed by Somalia's Al-Qaeda-inspired Shabaab insurgents
killed 76 people.
Ugandan President Yoweri
Museveni urged his peers in a speech to the summit on Sunday to unite in the
battle against terrorism in the continent.
"Obviously the
bombings were a tragedy. Nobody disputes that," Tanya Weinberg of Save the
Children told AFP.
"But the ultimate
tragedy is losing a child or losing the maternal head of a household. And that
is happening every day on this continent," she said
She said that to capture
media attention for the plight of children she must try to slip the word
"Somalia" into her press releases for the group, even when there is
no direct link.
"I'm just waiting for
the day when millions of child deaths actually has a catchy news peg," she
said.
Libyan leader and former AU
chairman Muammar Gaddafi last week made clear who he believed should deal with
children and women's health when asked about his thoughts on the summit's
official theme.
"Maternity and infants?
We are not UNICEF. Those things are UNICEF's job," he said, referring to
the UN Children's Fund.
Roshan Khadivi of UNICEF
said the key to getting media coverage of maternal and infant health is for
heads of state at the summit to strongly push the message.
Jos, the Plateau state capital, boiled yet again recently leaving in the wake of it hundreds of lives lost and properties worth billions of Naira destroyed. A good number of those who survived crisis have been economically displaced and may have to start life all over again.
A number of people would have kept their dead parents in the mortuary for months, thereby delaying the natural process of decomposition, all for fear of kidnap in the southeast today.
Deregulation, the magic wand, we've been told is the only solution to our petroleum needs. Nigerians, the federal government insists, must embrace deregulation if they need petroleum products or face the fate of returning to the medieval era of using firewood and stones or at best acquire plenty of donkeys from northern Nigeria, if they must move around.
Hey Ladies, In the last publication we
talked about being independent as a lady and highlighted so many points, but we
want to continue exploring the independent state of mind placing emphasis on
when the quest for independence could turn into arrogance in homes or amidst
friends.
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