A 12-year-old girl thought to be the only survivor of the Yemenia air crash has told how she was thrown into the ocean and watched her aircraft sink.
Baya Bakari told her father at a hospital in Yemen that she heard voices around her in the Indian Ocean, but could not see anyone.
She was found clinging to debris some two hours after the crash.
The plane, going to the Comoros Islands from Yemen’s capital Sanaa, came down in bad weather with 153 on board.
The death toll from the worst cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe’s history continues to rise and now stands at 1,608, the United Nations said today, adding that the number of cases of the acute intestinal infection caused by contaminated food or water has risen to 30,365 as of 29 December.
UN agencies are continuing their efforts to help the country to tackle the epidemic, which affects all provinces of the southern African country and comes amid a collapsing health system and worsening humanitarian situation.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has in recent days set up a response team comprised of an environmental health officer, epidemiologists and data managers.
The nation was in deep shock and mourning yesterday, following the news of a horrendous disco hall stampede during the Eid el Fitr celebrations in Tabora town on Wednesday evening, in which 19 children perished and 16 others were hospitalised.
Twelve of those admitted had been treated and discharged by last evening, leaving behind four with serious injuries. The stampede was apparently caused by some panic in the overcrowded hall.
The children, aged between seven and 18 years, died in the incident in the disco hall, where they had gone to make merry in festivities marking the end of Ramadan, the month-long fast for Muslims.
President Jakaya Kikwete yesterday ordered a thorough investigation into the incident, as he dispatched Labour and employment minister Juma Kapuya to coordinate the burials of the dead children on behalf of the Government.
ALGIERS (AFP) – Flooding following rare torrential rains on the edge of the Algerian desert have killed at least 30 people and injured 50, while damaging hundreds of homes, officials said Thursday.
Algeria’s Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said the floods are the worst for a century and warned of higher casualties in Ghardaia, some 600 kilometres (375 miles) south of Algiers in the M’Zab Valley, a UN World Heritage site.
“Based on the overflight that we made, the toll unfortunately could be greater,” Zerhouni told reporters after meeting local authorities in the region, which links the High Plateau area with the Sahara.
MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) _ Officials say at least 89 people have died in wildfires sweeping through Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland.
The Mozambique government says that 49 people have died in central Mozambique and the toll may rise further. The fires claimed more than 40 lives in South Africa and Swaziland.
A humanitarian plane carrying 17 people — most of them relief workers — has crashed during a storm in a mountainous region in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said Tuesday.
Search and rescue crews were not immediately able to land their helicopter in the area and determine whether anyone survived the crash in the east of the country, said Christope Illemassene, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the capital city of Kinshasa.
But Air Serv International, the relief group that operated the plane, said an aerial survey has indicated that all the occupants on the Beechcraft 1900 plane died.
