Musings From Abroad

Over 1,000 confirmed killed, 1,500 injured as powerful earthquake rips through Afghanistan

Published

2 years ago

June 22, 2022

More than 1,000 people have been confirmed killed with another 1,500 injured after a powerful earthquake ripped through a local province in a rural and mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, according to state run Bakhtar News Agency.

Officials have also warned that the death toll is likely to rise as there are fears that more people could still be buried in the rubble as rescue operations have been hampered by the topography of the region.

According to the neighbouring Pakistan’s Meteorological Department, the earthquake’s epicenter was in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of the city of Khost but buildings were also damaged in the nearby Khost province, as the tremors were felt as far away as the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

The death toll as given by the Bakhtar News Agency was equal to that of a quake in 2002 in northern Afghanistan that struck immediately after the US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban government, but deadlier than a landslide in1998, when a 6.1 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tremors in Afghanistan’s remote northeast killed at least 4,500 people.

Rescue operations have also been hampered because of the absence of international agencies who were chased out of the country after the overthrow of the government by the Taliban last year.

Many international humanitarian organizations have also left the troubled country because of concerns about security and the Taliban’s poor human rights record after it swept across the country in 2021.

Earlier on Wednesday, the director-general of the news agency, Abdul Wahid Rayan, wrote on Twitter that 90 houses have been destroyed in Paktika and dozens of people are believed trapped under the rubble, while the Afghan Red Crescent Society had sent some 4,000 blankets, 800 tents and 800 kitchen kits to the affected area, he added.

In the capital Kabul, Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund convened an emergency meeting at the presidential palace to coordinate the relief effort, and Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, wrote on Twitter to urge aid agencies to send teams to the area.

The magnitude 6.1 temblor has, however, posed a major test for the Taliban-led government, which seized power last year as the US planned to pull out from the country and end its longest two-decades war after toppling the same insurgents in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Related Topics:Afghanistan Death Earthquake Featured Taliban

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Musings From Abroad

Finnish court imprisons Nigeria’s Simon Ekpa for aiding terrorism

Published

11 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Simon Ekpa, a Nigerian separatist leader based abroad, has been placed under detention by the Päijät Häme District Court in Finland on suspicion of inciting others to commit acts of terrorism.

According to the local daily, Helsingin Sanomat, the court rendered the ruling on Thursday following his arraignment by the Central Criminal Police for his involvement in the terror attacks that have afflicted the southeast area of Nigeria.

“The police suspect that the man has promoted his efforts from Finland with means that have led to violence against civilians in the region of South-Eastern Nigeria,” stated Otto Hiltunen, the crime commissioner and investigation head.

“The man has carried out his activity, among other things, on his social media channels.”

Hiltunen also informed the court that the police suspected four additional individuals in Finland of funding Ekpa’s activities.

According to the story, Ekpa is of Nigerian descent and was born in the Finnish city of Lahti.

His offence occurred between August 23, 2021, and November 18, 2024, according to court documents cited in the publication.

Ekpa is not the only person the police have arrested. In February 2023, they caught him at a private Lahtian flat, but he was freed the same day.

Through the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement, Ekpa has continued to be outspoken on social media, raising money and agitating for a Biafran nation to secede. In the southeast part of Nigeria, both factions have been involved in acts of violence, murders, and maimings.

Since gaining formal independence in 1960, Nigeria has seen the emergence of several separatist organisations. The latest surge of calls for self-determination among different ethnic groups has been louder under its immediate previous President Muhammadu Buhari.

Musings From Abroad

Malian singer Rokia Traore arrested in Italy, to be sent to Belgium

Published

1 day ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

After Italy’s top court denied her appeal, well-known Malian singer, Rokia Traore, who was detained in Rome in June due to a global child custody dispute, will be sent over to Belgium in the next few days, her attorney announced on Wednesday.

The 50-year-old Traore is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR and one of Africa’s most well-known vocalists.

“Rokia suffered an injustice. She was arrested without the Belgian criminal court hearing her voice. Now, the battle for Rokia’s rights moves to Brussels,” lawyer Maddalena Del Re said in a statement to Reuters.

The attorney also stated that in its decision late Tuesday, Italy’s Court of Cassation upheld an extradition decision from the European Court of Justice.

Under a European arrest order, Traore was taken into custody on June 20 at the Fiumicino airport in Rome. In October 2023, she was given a two-year prison sentence in Belgium related to a dispute over her daughter’s custody.

She had flown to perform outside Rome’s Colosseum, and she has been imprisoned in Civitavecchia, close to the Italian city, since her detention at Fiumicino.

Lawyer Del Re said that because a conviction was rendered without the defendant’s presence, the Belgian process goes against both international norms and Italian constitutional standards.

After she disregarded a court order to turn over her baby to her Belgian father, the singer’s divorced ex-partner, she was initially taken into custody in France in 2020 on a Belgian arrest warrant.

She disobeyed orders not to leave France until her extradition case was handled by taking a private jet to Mali months after being conditionally released. Mali is where her daughter resides.