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Dancing the blues away: Nigerian salsa teacher fights mental health stigma

Dancing the blues away: Nigerian salsa teacher fights mental health stigma

NIGERIA'S Emeka Adindu says salsa saved his life. Growing up in a country with a deep-rooted stigma against mental health issues, Adindu, 35, found solace in the popular Latin dance as he battled abuse, depression and suicidal thoughts. He now helps others do the same - with free dance classes in the capital city Abuja. "Salsa was the only thing that could make me smile all those days that I was battling, fighting with my demon," he says. A 2021 UNICEF report shows one in six Nigerians aged between 15 and 24 are depressed, anxious or have other mental health…
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Children evacuated from orphanage where dozens died in Sudan’s capital

Children evacuated from orphanage where dozens died in Sudan’s capital

ABOUT 300 children have been evacuated from an orphanage in Sudan's capital Khartoum where dozens of orphans were found last month to have died since mid-April due to nearby fighting between rival military factions. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which facilitated the evacuation late on Wednesday, said the children aged between 1 and 15 had been taken to a safer location in Wad Madani, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) southeast of Khartoum. The ICRC said in its initial statement that 280 children and 70 caretakers had been evacuated, and an ICRC spokesperson said the number of evacuated children had…
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Sudan’s conflict inflicts heavy toll on children

Sudan’s conflict inflicts heavy toll on children

AFTER surviving weeks of fighting in Khartoum, Sanaa Mahmoud has finally got her family to safety in Cairo. However, she says her daughter still wakes up at night screaming because of the gunfire and airstrikes that rocked her neighbourhood. "They saw everything, the gunfire was falling on us at home ... they saw horrible scenes," said Mahmoud, speaking at a shelter in Cairo where she has found sanctuary for her two daughters. "She still screams at night and cries to me 'Why are these people coming to kill us?'" she said. Sanaa Mahmoud, a Sudanese displaced woman, and her daughters…
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Eastern DRC Conflict: Thousands of schools forced to close

Eastern DRC Conflict: Thousands of schools forced to close

THOMAS Tumusifu Buregeya wishes he were studying for his final school exams. Instead, he scrapes a living doing odd jobs in a displaced people's camp in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after a wave of rebel violence upended his life yet again. Buregeya fled the town of Kibumba with his family in October amid a renewed offensive by the M23 rebel group - the third time in 15 years he has been forced to escape his home and has not been able to study for a whole year. He is now 22 and still waiting to complete school. "When…
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Five girls rescued after Nigeria’s latest abductions

Five girls rescued after Nigeria’s latest abductions

FIVE girls who were among 73 children kidnapped from a school in northwestern Nigeria have been rescued, police in Zamfara State said, although other sources gave different details in the aftermath of the mass abduction. The attack on a secondary school in the village of Kaya was the latest in a spree of raids on schools across the northwest by armed gangs seeking ransoms. More than 1,100 children and teenagers have been abducted since December. "The ongoing search and rescue mission is yielding positive result as five abducted female students were today rescued," Zamfara State Police said in a statement.…
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Over 100 000 Tigray children at risk

Over 100 000 Tigray children at risk

GIULIA PARAVICINI and STEPHANIE NEBEHAY THE United Nations children's agency has revealed that more than 100 000 children in Ethiopia's northern region of Tigray could suffer life-threatening malnutrition in the next 12 months, a 10-fold increase to normal numbers. UNICEF spokesperson Marixie Mercado said that one-in-two pregnant and breastfeeding women screened in Tigray were acutely malnourished. "Our worst fears about the health and well-being of children... are being confirmed," she told a briefing in Geneva. Spokespeople for the prime minister and a government task force on Tigray - where fighting between rebellious regional and federal forces have continued since November…
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Malnutrition among children is rife in Nigeria. What must be done

Malnutrition among children is rife in Nigeria. What must be done

MALNUTRITION is one of the world’s major public health and development concerns. In Nigeria, the situation is dire. Currently, UNICEF says 5 in 10 children under five years old suffer from the effects of being malnourished. This has an overarching impact on the lives, future and productivity of Nigerian children. Ogechi Ekeanyanwu, from The Conversation Africa, asked Blessing Akombi-Inyang, a maternal and child health expert, to explain the reasons for this high rate of malnutrition. BLESSING AKOMBI-INYANG PHD, MPH, Lecturer in Global Health, UNSW Why is malnutrition so endemic in Nigeria? The main reason is malnutrition’s close association with poverty.…
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US holds UNICEF monopoly for 74 years – in a world body where money talks

US holds UNICEF monopoly for 74 years – in a world body where money talks

THALIF DEEN With Henrietta Fore’s decision last week to step down as UNICEF Executive Director, her successor is most likely to be another American since that post has been held– uninterruptedly — by US nationals for almost 74 years, an unprecedented all-time record for a high-ranking job in the UN system. The seven U.S. nationals who have headed the UN children’s agency since its inception in 1947 include Maurice Pate, Henry Labouisse, James Grant, Carol Bellamy, Ann Veneman, Anthony Lake and Henrietta Fore. Pate held the job for 18 years, from 1947 to 1965, and Labouisse for 14 years, from…
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Kidnaps could create lost generation of students

Kidnaps could create lost generation of students

LIBBY GEORGE and ABRAHAM ACHIRGA Yusuf Lado had not yet learned to read or write when his school closed for fear of attacks by armed gangs, which have been snatching students across northwest Nigeria in hopes of lucrative ransom payouts. The 7-year-old has now set aside his dream of becoming a doctor and is training to be a welder, despite his slight build. "I hope to perfect this work I'm learning and be as good as my boss," he told Reuters late last month at his new workplace on the outskirts of the Kaduna state capital. Humanitarian agencies warn that…
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‘Child soldiers carried out Burkina Faso massacre’

‘Child soldiers carried out Burkina Faso massacre’

A massacre in northeast Burkina Faso in which more than 130 people were killed this month was carried out mostly by children between the ages of 12 and 14, the United Nations and the government have revealed. Armed assailants raided the village of Solhan on the evening of June 4, opened fire on residents and burned homes. It was the worst attack in years in an area plagued by jihadists linked to Islamic State and al Qaeda. Government spokesman Ousseni Tamboura said the majority of the attackers were children, prompting condemnation from the U.N. "We strongly condemn the recruitment of…
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