News from Africa

MADRID (Reuters) - A UN official censured Spanish authorities for allowing seasonal strawberry pickers to live in “inhumane” and potentially deadly conditions, after three fires broke out in migrant shanty towns in Andalusia. The fires hit camps around the town of Huelva within five days last week, injuring at least four people, the southern region’s emergency situations department said on Twitter. Local governments needed to urgently improve the “deplorable conditions” endured in the strawberry townships before people died, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Olivier De Schutter, said in a statement. “This reality of fires and inhumane conditions in the shanty towns cannot be tolerated any longer.” Often dirty and dangerous, and lacking water, sanitation and electricity, such camps have been used as accommodation for Spain’s seasonal fruit-pickers for many years. “The situation is deteriorating alarmingly each day, made worse amid the COVID-19 pande...

DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegal is strengthening its coronavirus testing capacity to enable travellers to get tested before leaving the country, and testing those arriving in the West African state. Senegal, which depends on tourism for around 4% of GDP, has reported 9,422 cases since the outbreak, with 182 deaths. It lifted a ban on international flights from July 15 but said it will apply the principle of reciprocity to travellers from countries that do not allow citizens from Senegal. Around 1.7 million people holidayed in Senegal in 2019. The health ministry has accredited four testing centres in the capital Dakar, from only one at the onset of the outbreak, to test travellers. It plans to expand testing in other major towns. Papa Alassane Diaw, who manages the IRESSEF lab in Dakar, told Reuters on Friday that their two labs, one close to the airport, had the capacity to carry out 2,000 tests per day, but the labs were currently testing around 100 to 150 every day. “This cen...

(Reuters) – Almost 40 countries have reported record single-day increases in coronavirus infections over the past week, around double the number that did so the previous week, according to a Reuters tally showing a pick-up in the pandemic in every region of the world.FILE PHOTO: A nurse works inside a field hospital builtÊon a soccer stadium in Machakos, as the number of confirmed coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases continues to rise in Kenya, July 23, 2020. Picture taken July 23, 2020.REUTERS/Baz Ratner/File Photo The rate of cases has been increasing not only in countries like the United States, Brazil and India, which have dominated global headlines with large outbreaks, but in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Bolivia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Uzbekistan and Israel, among others.   Many countries, especially those where officials eased earlier social distancing lockdowns, are experiencing a second peak more than a month after recording their first. “We will no...