Month: April 2022

DURBAN: Police, army and volunteer rescuers on Friday widened the search for dozens still missing five days after the deadliest storm to strike South Africa’s coastal city of Durban in living memory as the death toll rose to nearly 400.

The floods, which affected nearly 41,000, left a trail of destruction and at least 395 people dead, regional head of the disaster managing ministry Sipho Hlomuka said.

With the government coordinating the search-and-rescue operation, the official number of people missing in KwaZulu-Natal province stood at 55.

A fleet of cars and helicopters carrying police experts set out early Friday to comb through a valley in Marianhill suburb, west of Durban, to look for 12 people reported missing in the floods, AFP correspondents said.

It is an increasingly desperate search for survivors.

Travis Trower, a director for the volunteer-run organisation Rescue South Africa, said his teams had found only corpses after following up 85 calls on Thursday.

President Cyril Ramaphosa — recalling the Covid 19 pandemic and the deadly July riots, described the floods as “a catastrophe of enormous proportions… not seen before in our country” — urged Good Friday prayers for survivors.

“Just as we thought it was safe to get out of (the Covid) disaster, we have another disaster, a natural disaster descending on our country, particularly on our KwaZulu-Natal province.

“The floods have caused a lot of devastation a lot of havoc,” he said.

“Let us pray for our people in KwaZulu-Natal so that they receive the healing that is required… so that they can get on with their lives,” Ramaphosa told El-Shaddai Tabernacle church congregants in the eastern town of Ermelo.

Thousands of survivors, left homeless after their houses were destroyed, are being housed in shelters scattered across the city, sleeping on cardboard sheets and mattresses on the floors.

Housing minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, told reporters that 13,593 houses have been damaged, with nearly 4,000 of them totally destroyed.

Meanwhile, volunteers, with gloves and trash bags, fanned across the city’s beaches to pick up debris left by the massive storms ahead of an expected surge of Easter weekend holidaymakers.

‘Absolute devastation’

Software manager Morne Mustard, 35, was among the scores of volunteers, who included children, picking up debris and broken reeds from Durban’s famous Umhlanga beach.

“This is my local beach where I bring my kids, and this is where we spend our weekend, so this is for our community,”.

He roped in workmates, families and friends to help clean up as beach restaurants offered free breakfast for the volunteers.

Recalling the day the rain fell, Mustard said, “It didn’t feel real, absolute devastation, a horrendous sight, stuff spilling out on the beach must have come from someone’s house… brooms and mops, household utensils, it was such a heart sore to see.”

Some of Durban’s poorest residents have been lining up to collect water from burst pipes and digging through layers of mud to retrieve their scant possessions.

Ramaphosa declared the region a state of disaster to unlock relief funds.

Speaking to Newzroom Afrika television Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said an initial tranche of a billion rand ($68 million) in emergency relief funding was immediately available.

Weather forecasters said apocalyptic levels of rain were dumped on the region over several days.

Some areas received more than 450 millimetres (18 inches) over 48 hours, or nearly half of Durban’s annual rainfall, the national weather service said.

The South African Weather Service issued an Easter weekend warning of thunderstorms and flooding in KwaZulu-Natal.

“According to the warning that we have received, damaging winds are forecast for areas along the coast from midday (Friday) into Saturday evening,” said Hlomuka, adding disaster teams were on “high alert”.

Over 4,000 police officers have been deployed to help with relief efforts and maintain law and order amid reports of sporadic looting.

The Durban port, one of the southern hemisphere’s largest, resumed shipping operations on Thursday afternoon, after closing during the floods, state logistics firm Transnet.

WASHINGTON: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that Russia could use nuclear weapons out of desperation as its invasion falters, echoing comments by CIA director William Burns.

Asked about the threat, Zelensky said “all of the world” should be worried that Russia “began to speak about… nuclear weapons or some chemical weapons.”

“They could do it, I mean they can,” he told CNN. “For them, life of the people is nothing… let’s not be afraid — be ready.”

Burns said Thursday that Russia’s battlefield setbacks raised the risk that President Vladimir Putin could deploy a tactical or low-yield nuclear weapon.

The Kremlin said it had placed Russian nuclear forces on high alert shortly after the assault began on February 24, but the United States says it has not seen any sign of unusual nuclear movements.

Russian military doctrine includes the “escalate to de-escalate,” principle of launching a small nuclear weapon to regain the initiative in the war.

US President Joe Biden is “deeply concerned about avoiding a third world war, about avoiding a threshold in which nuclear conflict becomes possible,” said Burns.

An elderly couple died in their home as they tried to evacuate a wildfire in Ruidoso, New Mexico, that has destroyed hundreds of houses and forced thousands to flee the mountain town, local officials said.

The remains of the couple were found on Thursday at their burned home in northeast Ruidoso after family members told police they attempted to evacuate but were unaccounted for, New Mexico State Police said in a statement.

The couple, who were not identified, were the first reported fatalities of the so-called McBride Fire that has destroyed 207 homes and burned 5,736 acres (2,321 hectares) since it started on Tuesday, according to local officials.

Fanned by spring winds gusting at up to 90 mph (144 kmph), the fire has torn through forested canyons dotted with homes.

Flames surrounded the town’s middle school on three sides on Tuesday as teachers and parents evacuated students, according to social media posts.

The fire burned within a few hundred feet of Ruidoso’s main street, and half a mile from the county hospital, before firefighters were able to block it on Wednesday.

Around 5,000 residents have fled their homes in the resort town in the Sierra Blanca mountains about 135 miles (217 km) southeast of Albuquerque, according to local officials.

“Firefighters have successfully held the fire from moving further into the town of Ruidoso at this time,” Laura Rabon, a spokeswoman for the Lincoln National Forest, told reporters.

Flames moved to the northeast on Thursday over largely unpopulated mountains and canyons. Wind gusts were expected to drop to 20 mph, aiding air attacks. Another blaze 10 miles (16 km) to the northwest known as the Nogal Fire burned six houses.

Like other southwestern states hit by climate change, New Mexico is suffering an early start to its fire season as blazes race through grassland, while tree-ring research in New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains shows forests have endured their worst drought in 500 years.

The group, which also includes Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez, is making the latest in a string of visits by foreign politicians to the island in defiance of pressure from Beijing.

A US government plane touched down in Taipei on Thursday evening for what Washington’s de facto embassy said were talks on “US-Taiwan relations, regional security, and other significant issues of mutual interest”.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry said the group would meet President Tsai Ing-wen, foreign minister Joseph Wu and defence officials.

China’s Communist Party has never controlled self-ruled Taiwan but it views the island as part of its territory and has vowed to one day seize it, by force if necessary. Those threats have become more bellicose under President Xi Jinping, making the security of Taiwan a rare subject of bipartisan support in Washington.

Menendez was among a group of lawmakers who introduced a bill in February to rename Taipei’s de facto embassy in Washington the “Taiwan Representative Office”.

That would be a diplomatic departure from the tradition of using the word “Taipei”.

Beijing baulks at use of the word Taiwan on the international stage and opposes any country having official exchanges with the democratic island.

Lithuania’s recent decision to allow Taiwan to use its own name for a representative office triggered Beijing to launch a trade war against Vilnius that has angered the European Union.

China’s foreign ministry warned the US senators against “going down on the wrong and dangerous path” ahead of their arrival.

Khan, 47, who represents the northern English city of Wakefield, said he would resign in order to “focus entirely on clearing my name”.

“While legal proceedings are ongoing, I do not believe that it would ordinarily be appropriate to resign,” he wrote on Twitter. “However, owing to long delays in the legal process, my constituents have already been without visible parliamentary representation for a year.

“Consequently I am resigning as MP for Wakefield and withdrawing from political life.” A jury found Khan, who has been kicked out of the Conservative Party, guilty of sexually assaulting the boy after forcing him to drink gin at a party in 2008.

The unnamed victim told the court he was left feeling “scared, vulnerable and numb” and that Khan applied “slow caressing” to his legs. Khan said he only touched the teenager’s elbow after he became upset during a conversation about his “confused sexuality”.

The victim said he approached the Conservative Party press office days ahead of the 2019 election that saw Khan elected to tell them what had happened but “I wasn’t taken very seriously”.

The sentencing in The Hague is one of the latest in a series of efforts by Europeans to bring people to account for crimes in conflict-torn nations, including Syria and Afghanistan — as eyes turn to Ukraine.

Abdul Razzaq Rafief “treated the prisoners cruelly and dishonourably and arbitrarily deprived them of

their liberty,” judge Els Kole told The Hague regional court, adding “these are war crimes”.

Rafief, 76, played a leading role in the abuse of prisoners at the Pul-e-Charkhi jail between 1983-88 “where he had effective command and control”, the judge said.

She said he was head of the prison during a period when Afghanistan’s communist regime was fighting a Soviet-backed war against mujahideen resistance fighters.

Thousands of prisoners were tortured and some executed, many of those who were seen as enemies of the regime, Kole said.

Rafief “was involved in the violence. He gave orders and knew what was happening in the prison and did nothing to stop his subordinates” from abusing inmates, the judge said.

This included a prisoner who was beaten up on Rafief’s orders “because he complained about the conditions in the prison.” Prisoners were held in three blocks at the jail, with the worst being reserved for political detainees and those with death sentences, the judge said.

The blocks were overcrowded and the prisoners covered with fleas and lice.

Medical help was almost non-existent, the judge said.

‘Deep, lasting scars’

Prosecutors said some were executed without trial and those who were brought before a judge only received a hearing “for show.” “Prisoners were in a cruel world and were being detained in inhuman conditions without any hope for the future,” judge Kole added.

“The suspect’s actions left deep and lasting scars,” on the victims, she said.

Dutch authorities started investigating in 2012 after blogs said the former commander of Pul-e-Charkhi was living in the Netherlands, where he was arrested in 2019.

He came to the Netherlands as a refugee in 2001.

Rafief, who previously attended in a wheelchair and was not present for the verdict, had told the court his trial was a case of mistaken identity.

But judges threw out the defence, saying that an Afghan driver’s licence, confiscated during his arrest showed that he was indeed the correct person.

He was also positively identified by numerous of the 19 witnesses in the trial.

“Even though it was a long time ago, there is no reason to doubt the reliability of these witnesses’ testimony,” Kole said.

Ahmed Faquri, 66, one of the victims who was present at the hearing said he was “relieved” when the sentence was read.

“One of the people who tortured me has been judged and sentenced,” he said outside the courtroom. “It doesn’t matter for how long. This is about recognition,” Faquri said. Rafief’s lawyer said he would appeal the sentence.

“We disagree on almost every point the judge mentioned in the courtroom,” Marijn Zuketto said.