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South African police ‘rescue’ lady from Nigerian Pastor

A Nigerian Pastor, Peterside Idah, who once played for the Nigerian national football team, and now resides in South Africa, has been fingered in a row involving a South African lady

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A Nigerian Pastor, Peterside Idah, who once played for the Nigerian national football team, and now resides in South Africa, has been fingered in a row involving a South African lady.

Police in Gauteng, South Africa, say they have rescued a young woman from the home of the ex-Nigerian goalkeeper- turned pastor. The ‘rescue’ came after the lady’s mother, Suzan Mabelane, claimed her daughter was held against her will.

Mabelane claims that her 21-year-old daughter Pabalelo, started acting strangely since joining Peterside’s Christ Ambassador Church last December.

According to Mabelane, Peterside accused her and her mother of witchcraft, claiming they tried to introduce her daughter to witchcraft practices, an allegation which they both denied.

Sources say that Peterside went as far as deposing an affidavit at the Kempton Park police station appointing himself as the girl’s legal guardian, allegedly without the mother’s consent.

In a copy of the affidavit, Peterside wrote that he was staying with Mabelane’s daughter Pabalelo.

However, Mabelane alleged that the pastor had hypnotised her daughter and that she no longer wanted anything to do with her family.

“Imagine not knowing or seeing your daughter for five months and when you find out where she is, a pastor tells you that she is no longer your child. The worst thing was when he called me a witch because I was asking him to give me my child back.” said Mabelane.

“She asked me to give her R8 000 to pay a deposit for a flat but when I asked her how she was going to pay rent, she said God will provide. That’s when I started to get worried,” she added.

The police would have none of it and ordered Pabalelo to pack her bags.

Police spokesman Kay Makhubele confirmed that the provincial police commissioner had instructed police to intervene in the squabble between Peterside and Mabelane.

“The police successfully rescued a girl from a pastor’s house in Kempton Park …”
He said the police were now receiving conflicting stories, with the girl now claiming that she ran to the pastor’s house after her mother and her granny tried to force her to undergo traditional training to become a sangoma.

In his response, Pastor Peter side said:

“I don’t have to answer to you my friend [I am] a journalist, all I ask is do your job as a pro and do an investigation and make sure you come up with the truth ’cause you will meet me in court if you publish what is not the truth and I will keep our conversation as evidence.

If you are wise like I believe you are, call the police officer that came to my house and ask them what truth they found out, it will help you my friend. And pls, come to our church on Sunday and find out what kind of cult you think we are.

Pls, am blocking you know (sic). And am enjoying my football [in Russia]. If you need more info on what to write, my name is Idah Peterside I played for Morocca (sic) Swallows and Tembisa Classic and I played football for the Super Eagles of Nigeria, since you have been sent to tarnish the image I have built in South Africa for twenty years because of xenophobia.

Did I add that the police have called me to apologize because they found out that the woman is lying because I will open a case against them.

Is it wrong to be a foreigner in South Africa?”

Metro

UN report estimates 43,000 died in Somali drought in 2022

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A new report released on Monday by the United Nations has estimated that at least 43,000 people died in Somalia’s longest drought on record in 2022, with half of the victims being children under five years old.

The report which is the first official death toll announced in the drought that ravaged large parts of the Horn of Africa, added that more than 18,000 people, and as many as 34,000, are forecast to die in the first six months of this year.

The report which was put together by the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Agency and carried out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, feared that the current crisis is far from over with neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya both facing a sixth consecutive failed rainy season while rising global food prices and the war in Ukraine complicate the hunger crisis.

“Famine is the extreme lack of food and a significant death rate from outright starvation or malnutrition combined with diseases like cholera,” part of the report said.

“A formal famine declaration data shows more than a fifth of households have extreme food gaps, more than 30% of children are acutely malnourished and over two people out of 10,000 are dying every day.”

Responding to the report, the U.N. resident coordinator in Somalia, Adam Abdelmoula, told journalists on Monday that the risk of famine still remains imminent going into the year.

“The death rate was increasing as the year came to a close. The hardest-hit populations are in Bay and Bakool in southwest Somalia and displaced people who have fled to the capital, Mogadishu.”

“Millions of livestock have died in the current crisis compounded by climate change and insecurity as Somalia battles thousands of fighters with al-Qaida’s East Africa affiliate, al-Shabab,” he added.

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Metro

Gunmen kill nine Chinese nationals at Central African Republic mine

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Armed gunmen have killed nine Chinese nationals and wounded two at a gold mining site in the Chimbolo region of Central African Republic, authorities said on Monday.

The attack on Sunday, according to the Mayor of Bambari Town which oversees Chimbolo, Abel Matipata, occured when the gunmen stormed the mining site and overpowered the guards before opening fire indiscriminately.

The attack came a few days after gunmen kidnapped three Chinese nationals in the country’s west near the border with Cameroon, which prompted the CAR President, Faustin Archange Touadera, to plan a trip to China in a bid to reassure investors.

Local media reports that the assault on the Chimbolo gold mine began around 5 a.m. at the site which was launched just last week.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion fell on the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), which is active in the area and regularly launches attacks on the country’s armed forces, according to local media.

However, the CPC, an alliance of rebel groups aligned with former President Francois Bozize, in a statement,has blamed the attack on Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group.

Its spokesman, Mamadou Koura, said the allegations by the government that it was behind the attack were false.

He claimed that Russian mercenaries had planned the attack “with the goal of scaring Chinese who have been present long before the Russians settled in this part of the country.”

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