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Sad! Over 2000 people buried alive in new tragedy
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By Kayode Sanni-Arewa
More than 2,000 people are thought to have been buried alive by last Friday’s landslip, a Papua New Guinea government official informed the UN and the country has formally requested international assistance.
The UN estimated that 670 people were killed in the landslip in the rugged interior of the South Pacific island nation; the government estimate is almost three times higher. As of Monday, local authorities had only retrieved the remains of five persons. The reason behind revising the Sunday-reported total of six was not immediately apparent.
The interim head of the nation’s National Disaster Centre, Luseta Laso Mana, said in a letter to the UN resident coordinator dated Sunday that the landslip “buried more than 2,000 people alive” and caused “major destruction” in Yambali village in Enga province.
According to Agence France-Presse, the letter stated that the landslip “caused major destruction to buildings, food gardens and caused major impact on the economic lifeline of the country.”
Since the tragedy, estimates of the death toll have fluctuated greatly, and it was not immediately evident how authorities arrived at the precise number of casualties.
Without new information, the International Organisation for Migration, collaborating closely with the government and spearheading the global response, has not modified the 670 estimated deaths reported on Sunday.
“We are not able to dispute what the government, suggests but we are not able to comment on it,” said Serhan Aktoprak, chief of the UN migrant agency’s mission in Papua New Guinea.
“As time goes in such a massive undertaking, the number will remain fluid,” Aktoprak added.
Officials from Yambali village and the Enga province calculated that over 150 dwellings had been submerged by the landslip, which led to the 670 death toll. Sixty dwellings had been the projection from before.
James Marape, the prime minister of Papua New Guinea, has yet to answer a request for clarification on the basis of the government estimate of 2,000 on Monday. When details regarding the extent of the damage and the number of casualties become available, Marape has pledged to make them public.
Due to tough conditions on the ground, such as the village’s remote position, a lack of telecommunications, and tribal fighting throughout the province, it is impossible to determine the true extent of the tragedy. As a result, military escorts are required for foreign rescue workers and assistance convoys.
In a conflict between two warring tribes in Enga in February, at least 26 tribal warriors and mercenaries were slain, along with an unknown number of onlookers.
The difficulties in ascertaining the possible death toll are further compounded by the national government’s absence of trustworthy census data.
The population of Papua New Guinea is estimated by the government to be approximately 10 million, while research conducted by the United Nations in 2022, using data from satellite images of rooftops, suggested that the number might reach up to 17 million. The country has not conducted a precise census in many years.
Additionally, a 200-meter (650-foot) section of the province’s main highway was submerged in debris that was 6 to 8 metres (20 to 26 feet) thick, posing a significant challenge for relief workers.
Mana predicted that the landslide would significantly affect the nation’s economy.
The first large piece of heavy equipment to assist the locals in searching for bodies with shovels and farming implements is an excavator, which a local builder provided on Sunday. It’s dangerous to work around the still-shifting rubble.
Mana wrote to the UN that “the situation remains unstable” because of the shifting earth, “posing ongoing danger to both the rescue teams and survivors alike.”
Billy Joseph, the minister of defence for Mana and Papua New Guinea, travelled 600 kilometres (370 miles) northwest to Yambali on Sunday in an Australian military chopper to obtain a firsthand understanding of what is required.
Mana’s office posted a picture of Mana at Yambali giving a local official a cheque for 500,000 kina ($130,000) to purchase supplies for 4,000 displaced survivors.
The visit’s main goal was to determine if the government of Papua New Guinea needed to formally request further foreign support.
The military of Papua New Guinea was transporting earthmoving equipment to the disaster site, which was 250 kilometres away from Lae on the east coast.
According to officials, traumatised locals are divided on whether or not to allow heavy machinery to dig up and maybe further injure the bodies of their buried relatives.
Since the landslide on Friday, according to Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles, his staff have communicated with their counterparts in Papua New Guinea.
“The exact nature of the support that we do provide will play out over the coming days,” Marles told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“We’ve obviously (have) airlift capacity to get people there. There may be other equipment that we can bring to bear in terms of the search and rescue (and other matters) … that we are talking through with PNG right now,” Marles added.
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A late-night fire has destroyed six houses, several shops and storage facilities at Kofar Wanbai Market in Kano State, with property worth millions of naira reportedly lost.
The fire broke out at about 9:43pm on Friday in the Babban Layi, Yan Robobi section of the market, according to the Kano State Fire Service.
The agency’s Public Relations Officer, Saminu Abdullahi, confirmed the incident in a statement issued on Saturday.
He said a distress call from a Principal Fire Superintendent, Usman Idris Fagge, prompted the immediate deployment of firefighting teams from the state headquarters and stations at Rijiyar Zaki, Sabon Gari, Government House and Bompai.
Abdullahi said firefighters arrived to find the blaze had engulfed parts of a two-storey building measuring about 120 by 125 feet and used mainly as plastic shops and storage facilities.
He identified the affected houses as Gidan Alhaji Sani, Gidan Sani Muhammad, Gidan Alhaji Kwa Kwa, Gidan Alhaji Shafi’u and Gidan Alhaji Sulaiman.
According to him, the fire started on the upper floor before spreading to two shops on the ground floor, two on the first floor, six permanent stores and four temporary units on the top floor.
Firefighters eventually brought the inferno under control and prevented it from spreading to adjoining sections of the busy market.
Preliminary findings by the fire service indicated that the blaze was caused by a faulty solar system installation.
The Director of the Kano State Fire Service, Sani Anas, urged traders and residents to observe fire safety measures, install smoke detectors and ensure that functional fire extinguishers are available in commercial and residential premises.
A Kaduna-based man, Nasiru Musa Idris, has accused Islamic cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi of allegedly keeping his Moroccan wife away from him for about 11 months after he took her to the cleric for counselling.
Idris made the allegation in an interview with RFI Hausa, claiming he took his wife to Gumi after the cleric requested to counsel her because she was young.
According to him, his wife stopped responding to his calls after the meeting, while attempts to have security agencies investigate the matter were allegedly frustrated.
“For 11 months now, my wife has been in his hands through injustice and ill-treatment. He has no relationship with her; she had never known him. The only place they knew each other was through me,” Idris alleged.
Gumi, however, has denied the allegation, insisting that the Moroccan woman had already left Nigeria and was in Morocco with her parents.
The cleric, who declined to provide further details because the matter is before a court, also threatened to sue Idris for defamation.
“But I will take him to court for defamation against me. As for the issue of the girl, she has already left Nigeria and she is in Morocco happily with her parents,” Gumi said.
Idris said he first met Gumi at a pharmacy on Isa Kaita Road in Kaduna while he was with members of his family and later introduced his Moroccan wife to the cleric.
He said his wife had no prior connection with anyone in Nigeria before he travelled to Morocco to marry her, adding that the marriage was conducted with the approval of her parents and relevant authorities.
“The Moroccan girl had never known anyone in Nigeria and nobody knew her except through me. I went to seek her hand in marriage in her country, and we had an engagement with the approval of the embassy and the approval of her parents,” he said.
The dispute, according to Idris, escalated after Gumi allegedly asked him to obtain another marriage certificate from a Sharia Court despite the couple already having marriage documents issued in Morocco and Nigeria.
“I told him that I did not agree with the marriage certificate he told me to obtain. Later, he went to the Sharia Court in Malali and asked them to issue one to him,” Idris alleged.
He said he submitted several documents supporting the marriage, including papers from Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nigerian embassy in Morocco, alongside other documents and a police character report.
Idris further alleged that Gumi later sought the dissolution of the marriage and interfered with efforts by security agencies to investigate the matter.
He urged the cleric to honour a police invitation and submit himself to questioning.
“My complaint is that he should come forward and answer the invitation of the police so that an investigation can be conducted. If he is right, there is nothing stopping him from going to the authorities to clear his name,” he said.
Idris also rejected claims that his wife’s mother travelled to Nigeria and took her daughter back to Morocco.
He maintained that he personally processed the documents that enabled his wife to travel to Nigeria, insisting that he only took her to Gumi because he trusted the cleric and believed he was seeking to help the young woman.
“Because I trusted him, I took her there. From then on, whenever I called, she did not answer the phone,” he alleged.
Meanwhile, Malam Nasiru Ayuba, popularly known as Dan Agaji, chairman of the Volunteers of Sultan Bello Mosque, Kaduna, and Gumi’s personal assistant on special assignment, denied that the cleric kept Idris’ wife in his house.
“The allegation that Malam kept his wife in his house is not true. It was the woman herself who went to Malam to ask him for help,” Ayuba said.
He claimed that the Moroccan woman approached Gumi over a personal matter and sought his intervention, after which the cleric took the matter to court.
“She brought the matter herself because she knew what she was going through. Th
Today sons and daughters of Ikwerre LGA in Port Harcourt held a civic reception in his honour.
The message was as they declare that on election day, before 11 am, Rotimi Amaechi will tell his people to boycott the election because he knows there’s no way he’ll defeat us. If he wins his village, Ubima, then he has won the election. That’s if he will win his own polling unit.
Watch below:
Fire Guts Kano Market, Destroys Six Houses, Shops, Warehouses
Moroccan Wife Has Been Away From Me for 11 Months — Husband Accuses Sheikh Gumi
Watch Wike delivering his speech at civic reception held in his honour today
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