The coronavirus infection is spreading rapidly around the world and the news is coming thick and fast. Our program coordinators are monitoring events in the project countries and in the Global South. Here they give their reading recommendations: These are the most important news items on the coronavirus crisis in the Global South.
Mozambique gets creative with handmade anti-virus gear – Global Voices
Cloth masks, reusable protective equipment, and traditional baths to relieve minor symptoms – these are some of the solutions found by Mozambican authorities and citizens as cases of COVID-19 continue to mount in the cash-strapped country. There have been 80 cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Mozambique so far, northern province of Cabo Delgado, according to the Ministry of Health, and no deaths.
Pandemic, confinement and repression in El Salvador – Nachrichtenpool Lateinamerika
(Mexico City, April 28, 2020, desinformémonos) – The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has given the National Police and the army permission to shoot to arrest members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), 18-Revolucionarios and 18-Sureños gangs on the streets (and to kill them if they resist arrest).
Bolsonaro chants against lockdown and supports suspected lawbreakers
Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro wants to lift the lockdown as quickly as possible and attends a demonstration against the restrictions. He doesn’t seem to be interested in the death statistics. For the sake of completeness: today, on April 22, Brazil has a total of 43,368 infected people, of whom 24,325 have recovered and 2761 have died. At least these are the official figures according to the John Hopkins Institute.
The demonstrators that the president visited may have violated the law, writes Stern. They loudly advocated military intervention against the parliament. Bolsonaro has previously expressed his support for the past military dictatorship, its torture and crimes.
Supreme Court expected to investigate demo with Bolsonaro participation
The Brazilian Supreme Court is expected to investigate possible violations of the law during a demonstration against the coronavirus restrictions that President Jair Bolsonaro took part in on Sunday. Chief Justice Alexandre de Moraes spoke out in favor of such an investigation on Tuesday.
G20 debt deferral all well and good, but CS has to go along!
The Group of 20 leading economic powers (G20) are giving developing countries a breather. They can repay the total of 20 billion US dollars later and can invest in healthcare. However, this only applies to debts to the G20 central banks, not to private creditors such as corporations or banks. This is set to change, as these loans are just as burdensome. In the case of Mozambique, Crédit Suisse (CS) must now follow suit and cancel the already illegitimate loan of one billion! Mozambique was already groaning under the consequences of the hurricanes before the coronavirus crisis, and now the pandemic is threatening to break out.
Between the virus chair and the neoliberal bank
Between the virus chair and the neoliberal bank
It was mainly European tourists and then travellers from the USA who brought the coronavirus to this region, where the epidemic was still largely in its early stages at the end of March 2020. Weak and partially privatized healthcare systems, in mostly highly indebted countries with a large proportion of the population without formal employment and with weak social security systems, bode ill for the coming months.
Young People Struggle To Access ARVs During Lockdown
Zimbabwe and South Africa are under curfew. We are receiving reports from these countries that HIV/AIDS-positive young people are no longer allowed to go to their health centers to pick up their medication. This can be very dangerous, as the HIV viruses can become stronger without medication and weaken the immune system.
Young People Struggle To Access ARVs During Lockdown – HealthTimes
YOUNG People Living with HIV have raised alarm over their struggle to access life saving Antiretroviral drugs and other key sexual reproductive health (SRH) services from health institutions during the lockdown period.
‘We feel abandoned’: HIV positive Tanzanians brace for COVID-19
Arusha, Tanzania – If Mwanyika Thomas had a choice, she would lock herself inside her small home and not venture outside at all. “I have to leave my house to get money for food. But if I didn’t have to, I would never leave,” the 48-year-old said.
“How differently Latin America is fighting the coronavirus crisis”
In Latin America, the corona crisis is affecting countries in different situations. The Tagesspiegel keeps us up to date on how some South and Central American countries are faring, including our project country Nicaragua. Scenes such as those described by the Tagesspiegel in Ecuador are unfortunately likely to soon become part of everyday life in other countries too.
How Latin America is fighting the coronavirus crisis in different ways
A picture from the port city of Guayaquil in Ecuador is doing the rounds: “I called the emergency number and got no help,” is written on a cardboard box. Beneath it lies a corpse wrapped in a blanket on a park bench, red flowers on its chest, a parasol clamped to the bench.
“Courage to take unusual measures”
In addition to the Tagesspiegel article above, we recommend this report from other Latin American countries. Deutschlandfunk Kultur describes the quick and thorough reaction of El Salvador, where we are involved in projects. The solidarity of Cuba, which is sending its well-trained doctors to other countries to treat corona patients – even to Italy – should also be emphasized.
Corona crisis in Latin America – courage to take unusual measures
Unbearable and extremely irresponsible: this is what migration expert Gerald Knaus says about the situation of refugees on the Greek islands under the current aggravated circumstances of the coronavirus. Lesbos in particular is a ticking time bomb. More In the Bihać region of Bosnia, the coronavirus crisis is turning the already desperate situation of refugees into a tragedy.
“‘We’ll die of hunger first’: Despair as Zimbabwe lockdown begins”
The first corona cases are now appearing in Zimbabwe. However, the country has been in crisis for a long time, with famine looming due to crop failures. The poor sections of the population are now all the more at risk, as they have to search laboriously for food every day and have to travel in overcrowded buses.
Read article at Aljazeera.com (English)
“How coronavirus fake news is endangering lives in Nigeria”
Only those who know how the coronavirus is transmitted and how it can be killed can protect themselves. False information about cures and treatments is circulating in Africa: For example, simply sitting in the sun is supposed to help or having as much sex as possible. Others even claim that African blood is completely immune. This opens up a second front for the Nigerian authorities: they are not only fighting against the virus, but also against the misinformation.
Read the article at Die Zeit and on the same topic at ARD-Tagesschau
“Covid-19 and the lessons we learned from Aids – getting it right in South Africa”
Almost 3 million people have died of HIV/AIDS in South Africa to date. The pandemic dug deep wounds into South African society, as the disease was and is associated with shame, guilt and stigma like no other, even for the relatives of those who died.
Signs of fear that are now being reawakened by the coronavirus. History must not be allowed to repeat itself. We must learn from the mistakes made during the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Becausethe virus can onlybe stopped with solidarity.
‘We’ll die of hunger first’: Despair as Zimbabwe lockdown begins
Harare, Zimbabwe – It was still early on Sunday morning when Stewart Dzivira, his wife and their two-year-old son, jumped on a bus in Glen View, a densely populated suburb of Harare, to head into Zimbabwe’s capital.
“When gangs take care of your health”
The Brazilian favelas are of little concern to the government. “If the government doesn’t get its act together, then organized crime will take matters into its own hands”, this message reaches the residents of the famous slum “City of God”. It imposes a curfew, which it enforces with patrols. More than President Bolsonaro is doing against the coronavirus pandemic.
Read the article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung
Our own news
In addition to the most important news on the corona crisis in the Global South, terre des hommes schweiz provides information on the situation in its project countries. You can find all the important information here.
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