Jetways Airlines Fokker 50 (5Y-JWG, built 1990) was destroyed in a fatal accident on landing at Eelbarde Airstrip, Somalia. The cargo aircraft l ran off the runway and hit a house. At least one of both pilots did not survive.
The cargo aircraft received non-repairable damages in the fatal accident while landing in Somalia.
According to preliminary reports, the plane crash occurred after the plane had a malfunction and could not extend its legs during landing, and crashed into a building near the airport.
The plane was carrying humanitarian supplies for the World Food Programme when it veered off the runway.
“The United Nations in Somalia expresses its condolence to the family and colleagues of the victim, and wishes a speedy recovery for the injured,” UN said in a statement Thursday.
The UN said it was working with the contracted airline, the federal government and South West State authorities to investigate the incident.
The damaged plane and scene of the accident.
The accident comes just a week after a UN helicopter made an emergency landing in al-Shabaab-controlled territory in central Galmudug state.
An internal UN memo circulated to staff in Somalia last week said nine people were on board the helicopter.
Six were reportedly captured, while one passenger was believed to have been killed and two had fled, the memo added.
The older Fokker 50 has been critiqued before by aviation experts. In 2014, Fokker 50 cargo plane, registered 5Y-CET, operated by Skyward International Aviation (renamed Skyward Express) was destroyed when it impacted a residential area at Utawala, Embakasi, shortly after takeoff. All four on board were killed.
UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock has released Ksh1 billion (US$10 million) from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to help fight devastating desert locust outbreak in Kenya.
The outbreak, which is affecting the Horn of Africa, Southwest Asia and the Red Sea, is the worst of its kind in 25 years for Ethiopia and Somalia – and the worst Kenya has seen for 70 years. The impacts in these countries are particularly acute as pastures and crops are being wiped out in communities that were already facing food shortages.
The US$10 million allocation from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund will go to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and fund an increase in pesticide aerial spraying operations which, given the scale of the current swarms, is the only effective means to reduce the locust numbers.
“This devastating locust outbreak is starting to destroy vegetation across East Africa with alarming speed and ferocity. Vulnerable families that were already dealing with food shortages now face the prospect of watching as their crops are destroyed before their eyes. We must act now. If left unchecked, this outbreak has the potential to spill over into more countries in East Africa with horrendous consequences. A swift and determined response to contain it is essential. This allocation from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund will fund a massive scale-up in aerial operations to manage the outbreak.” Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock said
In Kenya, which was hit by back-to-back droughts and then floods in 2019, the past week has seen a significant and extremely dangerous increase in swarm activity, and eight counties are now affected.
In Somalia, tens of thousands of hectares of land have been affected in Somaliland, Puntland and Galmudug (Mudug), and mature swarms are present in the Garbahare area, near the Kenyan border. Meanwhile, recent weather in East Africa has created conditions that support rapid locust reproduction.
Today’s allocation comes from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund, Established by the UN General Assembly in 2005 as a global fund ‘for all, by all’, CERF enables timely, effective and life-saving humanitarian action supporting UN agencies and others to kick-start or reinforce emergency response across the world, which provides rapid funding in response to sudden-onset or rapidly deteriorating crises and is designed to grow into a $1 billion-a-year emergency relief mechanism.
Nils Melzer a UN expert who visited the 48-year-old Australian Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a London prison on May 9, nearly a month after his arrest at Ecuador’s embassy where he was seeking asylum has said that the UK government wants to kill the whistleblower with psychological torture.
The UN independent expert spoke to AFP via email and raised his concerns based on the new medically relevant information he has received from several reliable sources.
“Mr Assange’s health has entered a downward spiral of progressively severe anxiety, stress and helplessness typical for persons exposed to prolonged isolation and constant arbitrariness.” reads part of Melzer’s email to AFP
“Unless the UK urgently changes course and alleviates his inhumane situation, Mr Assange’s continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life,” the UN special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, Nils Melzer, said in a statement.
“While the precise evolution is difficult to predict with certainty, this pattern of symptoms can quickly develop into a life-threatening situation involving cardiovascular breakdown or nervous collapse,” he warned.
In a statement released, yesterday Friday 1st November, Melzer noted that in May, he had urged that London immediately take measures to protect Assange’s health and dignity.
“However, what we have seen from the UK Government is outright contempt for Mr Assange’s rights and integrity. Despite the medical urgency of my appeal, and the seriousness of the alleged violations, the UK has not undertaken any measures of investigation, prevention and redress required under international law,” he charged.
In the statement, the expert pointed out that Assange had completed his prison sentence for violating his British bail terms in 2012.
“Assange is being held exclusively in relation to the pending extradition request from the United States. He continues to be detained under oppressive conditions of isolation and surveillance, not justified by his detention status,” he said.
Assange is facing the extradition request by the US over charges he violated the US Espionage Act by publishing a huge cache of military and diplomatic files in 2010.
“While the US Government prosecutes Mr. Assange for publishing information about serious human rights violations, including torture and murder, the officials responsible for these crimes continue to enjoy impunity. No one was arrested leave alone being questioned. So why is Assange in inhumane prison?” Melzer asked.
As if what the UK is doing to the father of free press isn’t enough, he has been denied access to a team which means he’s facing charges that he can’t prepare for his defence.
“Despite the complexity of the proceedings against him led by the world’s most powerful Government, Mr Assange’s access to legal counsel and documents has been severely obstructed. He has been denied his most fundamental right to prepare his defence.”
Melzer also urged that London should bar Assange’s extradition to Washington D.C. they should promptly release and allow Assange to recover his health and rebuild his personal and professional life.
Abdel-Adheem Hassan has emerged victorious in Sudan’s social media and internet blackout suit that he had filed.
On the ruling made on Sunday, the lawyer won a lawsuit against Zain Sudan over the blackout that was ordered by Sudan’s military heads.
Adheem’s victory has seen he be the only living person in the entire Sudan that has his internet connected back and his personal social media accounts activated.
Sudan’s internet was cut off after security forces violently dispersed protesters camping in central Khartoum.
Sudan’s citizen protesters want to end the military rule after their successful coup against longest serving ruler Omar al-Bashir in April this year.
Hassan told this site that he is currently the only civilian in Sudan able to access the internet free from military hacks.
Talking to this writer, Hassan assured our investigators that he will be back in Court today, 25th of June, to win the right for more Sudanese.
“Today we have a court session and another one tomorrow. It’s my hope that one million civilians will gain internet access by the end of this week,” Hassan statement to this site reads.
Our sources in Khartoum have ground confirmation that the internet is still blocked to everyone.
Everybody in Sudan’s military has avoided being responsible for the blackout.
This Internet and social media blackout is an international crime against humanity and violation of human rights that can see any liable person being charged at The International Criminal Court.
United Nations had requested Sudanese authorities to allow human rights monitors access the country and end military “repression” against civilian protesters.
Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva,
Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations human rights chief urged Sudan’s military rulers to end the internet shutdown.
For those who don’t know what led to all these Military menace In Sudan; The Sudanese military ejected their Commander in Chief, the then President Omar Al- Bashir from office in April after months of Civil protests.
The military Chiefs then appointment a council of 7 generals that assumed power on 11 April this year.
The seven-member Transitional Military Council (TMC) is led by Lt-Gen Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan.
They, the military council insists that they need to be in charge to ensure order and security a decision the civilian protestors strongly oppose.
That has resulted to a military and civilian struggle to return normality to the country that the protesters want a civilian rule.
On the 3rd of June this year, the military violently attacked protestors in Khartoum that left at least 30 Sudanese dead.
Earlier this month, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed flew to Sudan to try and broker an agreement between the TMC and the civilian protesters.
On Sunday, the council rejected Ethiopia’s proposal which the protesters had agreed to on Saturday.
TMC said that they had not studied the Ethiopian initiative, which they described as unilateral.
Our Sudanese source on the ground says that there is real fear the current situation in Sudan could turn terribly bad very quickly anytime.
A job with the UN remains one of the prestigious opportunities many people look up to but humanitarian work is not a walk in the sandy beaches as Sid would later come to learn in life. The oomph and the glamour that the organization beams is just a painting but not really what’s inside. As for Siddharth whose name I keep bitting my lips struggling to pronounce and the UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya, the math is more complicated. He’s the face of UN in Kenya, the backstops with him. As the head, he gets the balloons and stones which puts him in a position that only those fitted with crocodile skin can survive through.
Recently, UN Social 500, an in-house indexing platform ranked Sid at number 5 globally amongst UN employees globally actively using social media to champion for social good. This brings me to the main point of this article. Kenya is just coming from a lengthened period of ruthless politics that did not only end in election nullification, injuries and loss of lives but the reputation and characters of many people were left bruised as collateral damage in a highly ethnic country.
Kenya is exceptionally polarized with a sizeable tolerance to dissenting opinions, it is this factor that voting is predominantly tuned along tribal divisions. On the 8th of August, the general election was held but the presidential election that gave Uhuru Kenyatta the upper hand would later be nullified by the supreme court on the 1st of September and a fresh election would later happen in three months.
During this period, the international community including the envoys, observers, and organizations such as UN came under fierce criticism especially from the opposition NASA coalition accusing them of conspiring to rig in and endorse a fraudulent election of Uhuru Kenyatta. This was fueled by the speedy endorsement of the contested election by a majority of the western representatives. Many would be left on the focus radar and that’s where I picked up the story of Siddharth.
SIDDHARTH CHATTERJEE, a former Indian Army Special Forces Officer being decorated for gallantry.
Through UNDP which is a partner and a funder of IEBC, the UN was accused of meddling in the election in an alleged move to favor the re-election of Uhuru Kenyatta. In the crossfire, Ms. Sheila Ngatia the Assistant Country Director in UNDP Kenya, became a target of a vicious social media campaign of claims that her father is Mr. Fred Ngatia, President Kenyatta’s lawyer join to the conspiracy dots that she was working in favor of Uhuru, but when Kenya Insights later did a background check on the rumours on social media, we found out that Sheila’s father passed away 10 years ago and had no relations with the President’s lawyer.
However, the onslaught impugning the motives of the head of the UN Country Team in Kenya Mr. Siddharth Chatterjee didn’t stop but instead opened. His relationship with Jubilee government would specifically be scrutinized and a curious case of his close ties with Ambassador Amina who by then was looking for the top AU seat came into focus. He was accused of lobbying for her in a move that compromised the UN’s independence and nonpartisan stands.
Kenya Insights had an interview with Sid an on this particular issue of lobbying for Amina which he vehemently denies. In his defense, he wouldn’t have taken a compromising position, “I as a UN staff have no influence to lobby anyone for a political position like the AU. Besides not only does it go against the principles of the UN but contradicts all the values I uphold. I was specially invited to go to Addis to discuss the Kenya Ethiopia Cross-border programme, which has the potential of transforming peace, security and human development for the good. The President of Kenya and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia take this programme very seriously. . Ambassador Amina Mohamed and former Foreign Minster of Ethiopia Dr Tedros signed the MOU and wrote a joint OP-ED about this fascinating initiative. Kenya and Ethiopia: A cross-border initiative to advance peace and development..”The programme that was to foster tranquillity along the border for development was a brain of the two governments in partnership with the IGAD and the UN.
For many, the existence of Sid became a reality after the August Election, that’s when he started hitting the social media waves. We track back the talk from Matthew Russel who’s a UN HQ’s based blogger. He opened a case and pushed it to Kenya’s blogosphere on on dishonest Sid was at his work, in fact, it is through him that we came to know that the coordinator was a son-in-law to the former Sec Gen, Ban Ki-Moon, Matthew insists Sid’s appointment was not based on merits but influenced based on nepotism n his relationship with Moon, a claim that Sid himself laughs off. “I met my wife in 2004 in Sudan during the Darfur crisis and married in 2006. This is well before Mr. Ban became the United Nations Secretary-General. In fact I joined the UN in 1997(10 years before Mr Ban and rose from an IFLD 4 in Bosnia to a P-5 in Somalia by November 2004.” An article to clarify this was published by Forbes – Misread Nepotism At The U.N.: Why Siddharth Chatterjee’s Well-Earned Appointment Requires Explanation
Sid believes that he’s a target of fake news championed by the UN based controversial blogger, “Mr. Matthew Russell Lee, who runs a blog called Inner City Press. Over the last 10 years, he has repeatedly published malicious, false and libelous allegations against me. This started in 2007 and continues to date.” He said.
“As regards my appointment as the UN Resident Coordinator to Kenya, perhaps a bit of background may help. Every Resident Coordinator has to pass a UN Resident Coordinator Assessment. Failure rates at the assessment are quite high. A private human resources company from Canada undertook the assessment during my time. I passed the assessment in 2008 and was proposed by UNICEF (the agency I served with) to become the UN Resident Coordinator to Namibia in 2009. I declined that job because of my personal situation” Sid explains.
He continues, “Just to clarify, I was invited to apply by UNDP for this role. Following that I got the support of UNFPA (I was the UNFPA Representative to Kenya) to do so, I applied for the UN Resident Coordinator role to Kenya in 2016. Again I went through a selection process called the Inter-Agency Appointments Panel and was shortlisted. Regardless of the decision being taken, the final decision rests with the Government of the country where an RC is being proposed to.”
Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi who has made a name out of controversy dwelling on fraud cases and accountability advocacy, accused the coordinator on his blog that he got together with John Kerry and Tony Blair to rig the elections in favor of Jubilee and that he profited from Kenya’s SGR project. We’ve however established that neither UNDP nor the UN had nothing to do with this project. Sid terms the allegations as “outrageous and malicious statements. This is not just absurd but totally fake news.”
For a soldier who later turned on his career to become a humanitarian and a development enthusiast, Sid holds a strong belief that Kenya is a beacon of hope regardless of the intrigues and turmoil it undergoes.
SIDDHARTH CHATTERJEE with US Ambassador Godec on finishing a 21KM race for the anti FGM campaign.
Mohamed Guleid, former Deputy Governor testifies
Mr. Chatterjee for having been at the forefront personally in the struggle for empowering those usually on the fringes of social and economic agenda, including women and girls, as well as the youth.
He has championed the delivery of maternal, child and adolescent health services to areas previously left out and brought private sector participation in remote North Eastern counties. We have witnessed the different organizations like UNDP, UNFPA, Unicef, WHO, UN Women, FAO and many others are making in the Frontier Counties. Here is an opinion piece by Mr Guleid. “Falsehoods targeting development partners end up hurting us”
Kenya Insights sought to know what is the motivational factor behind Sid despite being a target of negative publicity, especially on social media, “ I am the face of UNDP so it is easy to attack me. The fake news got propagated after the elections. I can take the attacks but will stand in between when it comes to my staff. The safety, security and reputation of my staff is paramount and non-negotiable. I will go to the end of the earth to defend them ” He said. “The man from Inner City Press reached out to others who are perhaps more gullible. As you can see he has an obsessed mind. He has the facts but is nudged on by vested interests.” He adds. ” I have responded to his allegations but my response is difficult to find. So here it is: https://siddharthchatterjee-wws.blogspot.co.ke/2017/02/siddharth-chatterjees-response-to-mr.html”
As for the motivational factors, Mr. Chatterjee told Kenya Insights, “My father was a refugee from East Pakistan now Bangladesh. I have seen first hand on what displacements does to families and how it impoverishes them. I feel for people that are displaced by conflicts of natural disasters.”
“I have a personal mission to champion the rights of women and girls because I have seen how this half of humanity has been treated and what harm that is bringing to our societies. As a young officer in the Indian Special Forces, at the front lines of combat in counterinsurgency environments, I have seen how brutal and savage all parties to the conflict become. Again I have seen this in my work at the UN posted in Iraq, South Sudan, Darfur, and Somalia.” He continues.
A comment picked up from a colleague
“The years I spent in fragile environments will always remain a poignant reminder of the disparate harm that women are predisposed to whenever one form or other of humanitarian crisis arises. Some were victims of rape and torture, others were widowed at young ages, their husbands murdered or kidnapped. I have seen how rape is used as a weapon in conflicts. I have seen children as young as 5 being recruited as child soldiers. In many of the countries I have worked in, disease outbreaks, lack of water and sanitation were the order of the day. Reproductive health services, including midwifery outreach services, antenatal care, management of prenatal complications and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS were not readily available in conflict regions. These problems had particularly harsh consequences among women and children. I believe that access to quality health care must be a fundamental and nonnegotiable human right.” He concludes.
Sid who runs to work regularly and most Sundays does a 21KMs half marathon, wraps up our talk which is basically a right of reply to accusations flying around he quotes Rev. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “If you want the truth to go around the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go around the world, it will fly; it is light as a feather and a breath will carry it.”
