Musings From Abroad

Patient stabs Kenyan nurse to death in the US

Published

2 years ago

October 23, 2022

A Kenyan nurse identified as June Onkundi, has been stabbed to death by a patient in a mental health care centre in North Carolina, United States, while discharging her duties, the police said in a report on Saturday.

The incident happened at a psychiatric centre known as Freedom House Recovery Center where police were called to intervene on an emergency but arrived to find the Kenyan nurse already killed.

According to the police statement, Onkundi, who hailed from Kisii County in the East African country, “who was working as a nurse practitioner in Durham City, met her death on Tuesday after she was attacked with a knife by a mentally deranged patient she was taking care of, killing her on the spot.”

The police said officers were invited and the suspected murderer, James Gomes 47, was taken into custody.

Local television stations described Gomes as a serial criminal who has spent more than half of his life in prison, and was reportedly released recently after serving time in prison for other criminal violations.

“Mr Gomes is a misogynist and incorrigible criminal who had been charged previously for targeting women in the area.

“The suspect has a history of attacking women. Each time he gets out of prison, it’s a matter of mere months before he gets back behind bars again. Gomes was convicted in 2006 of attempted rape and kidnapping,” Sarah Kruger, a reporter with the TV station in Raleigh, North Carolina, said.

Another local TV in Raleigh, ABC 11, described the deceased as, “a mother, wife, sister, cousin and a psychiatric nurse practitioner.

“Jane Onkundi was the epitome of love, taken too soon while doing exactly what she loved,” the station said.

The deceased who had a Master’s degree in Psychiatric Nursing was about to commence her PhD program at Duke University, a leading institution of higher learning in North America, before she met her untimely death, Andrew Nyabwari, a brother-in-law to the slain nurse, told reporters.

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Musings From Abroad

UN Security Council deliberates stance on Sudan war

Published

4 days ago

November 13, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The UN Security Council is discussing a British-drafted resolution calling on Sudan’s warring parties to stop hostilities and permit safe, quick, and unimpeded assistance supplies across borders and front lines.

The world’s largest relocation crisis began in April 2023 when the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces engaged in a power battle ahead of a planned transfer to civilian administration.

Waves of ethnically motivated violence have resulted, with the RSF mostly to blame. The RSF has blamed the action on rogue actors and denies causing harm to civilians in Sudan. Two RSF generals were named last week by a Security Council committee in the first U.N. sanctions levied during the ongoing conflict.

“Nineteen months into the war, both sides are committing egregious human rights violations, including the widespread rape of women and girls,” Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Barbara Woodward, told reporters at the start of this month as Britain assumed the Security Council’s presidency for November.

“More than half the Sudanese population are experiencing severe food insecurity,” she said. “Despite this, the SAF and the RSF remain focussed on fighting each other and not the famine and suffering facing their country.”

According to diplomats, Britain wants to vote on the draft resolution as soon as possible. A resolution must receive nine votes or more to pass and not be vetoed by the United States, France, Britain, Russia, or China.

Nearly 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, require aid, according to the U.N., since 11 million people have abandoned their homes and famine has spread to displacement camps. Of those, around 3 million have departed for other nations.

In its draft language, Britain “demands that the warring parties immediately cease hostilities” and “demands that the Rapid Support Forces immediately halt its offensives” throughout Sudan.

It also “calls on the parties to the conflict to allow and facilitate the full, safe, rapid, and unhindered crossline and cross-border humanitarian access into and throughout Sudan.”

Additionally, the draft urges that assistance deliveries continue to be made through the Adre border crossing with Chad “and stresses the need to sustain humanitarian access through all border crossings, while humanitarian needs persist, and without impediments.”

Sudanese authorities have permitted the U.N. and relief organisations to enter Darfur through the Adre border crossing for three months, ending in mid-November.

Musings From Abroad

South Africa worry Trump’s victory might affect climate fight

Published

7 days ago

November 10, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

South Africa’s environment minister has expressed concern about the potential effects of Donald Trump’s victory on climate change negotiations.

The demise of Germany’s coalition government this week and Trump’s election coincide with COP29 negotiations to address global warming, which experts credit for this year’s devastating hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves.

“We are concerned about America because we don’t know what they’re going to do … how (it) is going to approach COP,” South African Environment Minister Dion George told Reuters.

“Mr. Trump said that he would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, but we don’t know what will happen,” George added in a telephone interview on Friday.

International partners are concerned that the prospect of an administration led by Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, will de-motivate poor and middle-income countries who want rich nations to shoulder more of its financial burden.

South Africa, which is one of the world’s top 15 greenhouse gas emitters and accounts for 30% of the continent’s emissions, has accepted $11.6 billion from rich nations, mainly in loans, for a switch from coal to renewable energy.

This is seen as a potential model for other ‘Global South’ countries who say financing pledges of $100 billion, which took years to come through, are insufficient.

“It’s certainly not enough. We need another target,” George said. “But then the question is: as the voter base is shifting in developed economies, are they actually going to pay it?”

The South African minister said he had been reassured by German officials that Europe’s stance at the COP29 climate talks will not be hurt by Berlin’s political crisis.

George said that Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s state secretary for international climate action, had contacted him to say it will be up to the European Union to maintain leadership.

“Their position is not changed and that is how they will approach COP,” George said, adding: “They’re on Team Europe. The European Union and German have clearly set out their objectives.”