Senegal: caregivers strike after lawsuits against 6 midwives

Senegal's public health system was affected Thursday by controversial strikes launched to protest in particular against the legal proceedings against six midwives, after the death of a pregnant woman who moved the country.

Among several movements, there was that of the national association of midwives , which decreed a "day without childbirth" , with a boycott of maternity wards , and received the support of a central trade union formed in particular by doctors.

The strike slogans , called by different unions for a period of one to three days, have "paralyzed health" , Mballo Dia Thiam , head of the Alliance of Trade Unions , told AFP on Thursday . Autonomous Health (Asas). “It is a sector on the ground” , he assured. Reached Thursday by AFP, the Ministry of Health said it had "taken measures" , without further details, and without giving details on the impact of these strikes.

On private radio Iradio , a woman testified that she was told to come back on Friday for treatment for a pregnant woman she was accompanying to a facility in Dakar. Another woman expressed her anger, calling on the authorities to react as messages flourishing on social networks severely criticizing the strikers.

The various health strikes also aim to demand better working conditions and compliance with financial agreements signed, according to the unions, with the government. Six midwives are to be tried on April 27 in the Louga court for "non-assistance to a person in danger" , after the death, on April 1, of a nine-month-pregnant woman in the public hospital of this city. from the north of the country.

Health Minister Abdoulaye Diouf Sall acknowledged on April 14 that the death of this young woman, Astou Sokhna , could have been avoided with more vigilance. According to the Senegalese press, Astou Sokhna, in her thirties, died after having waited in great suffering for about twenty hours for the caesarean she was asking for.

The staff reportedly refused her request, arguing that her operation was unplanned, and threatened to kick her out if she insisted. Her baby was not saved. The tragedy sparked a flood of protests on social networks against the shortcomings of the public health system in Senegal. The director of the hospital was fired.

Mali: a Russian in operation with FAMA killed by an explosive device

A Russian national in operation with Malian soldiers was killed by an explosion in central Mali, a region plagued by the activity of jihadist groups.

This is the first confirmed death of a Russian in the context of military operations in Mali since the military junta in power in Bamako made massive use of what it presents as "instructors" from Russia while Westerners ( France and the United States in particular) denounce the presence in the country of "mercenaries" from the Russian private Wagner militia , which the Malian colonels firmly deny.

According to a security source, a detachment made up of Malian soldiers and "Russian instructors" suffered an improvised explosive device attack on Tuesday morning near the town of Hombori . The explosion caused "one death" , a "Russian instructor" , who died after being evacuated by air to Sévaré , some 260 km to the south-east, the same source added.

"We confirm that a soldier of Russian nationality died on Tuesday from injuries in Sévaré. He is in his thirties. The vehicle transporting him with Malian soldiers jumped on a mine ," a hospital source told AFP. joined in this city.

"We have learned of the death of an agent of Wagner who was fighting yesterday alongside the Malian army in the region of Mopti" , the chief town of the area, declared for his part an elected Malian from the center of the country, on condition of anonymity for security reasons: "The car transporting them hit a mine" .

“I neither wish to confirm nor deny the death of what [some call] a Russian mercenary of Wagner ,” a Malian military source told Sévaré. According to the security source, the military detachment retaliated after coming under enemy fire and "18 [attackers were] neutralized" . AFP was unable to cross-check this information.

The Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) did not officially communicate on these events. In a message on Twitter , the United Nations mission in Mali (Minusma) said it was "concerned" by information - the origin of which it did not specify - on "allegations of human rights violations committed [Tuesday during] the weekly market in Hombori, during an operation carried out by the Malian Armed Forces which were allegedly accompanied by a group of foreign soldiers" .

The Minusma adds that it has opened, "in accordance with its mandate" , "an investigation to verify the facts with the intention of going to the scene soon. It also calls on "the Malian authorities to shed full light on these events" .

Earlier, in Geneva, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights had deplored that the Malian authorities had still not granted access to Minusma investigators in Moura , a village in central Mali, where the army claims having killed around 200 jihadists at the end of March while the American NGO Human Rights Watch accuses Malian soldiers associated with foreign fighters of having summarily executed some 300 civilians there.

Led since August 2020 by soldiers who came to power by force, Mali has been plunged since 2012 into a deep security crisis that the deployment of foreign forces has not been able to resolve. Starting in the north of the country, the jihadist violence spread towards the center and the south before the conflict became complicated with the appearance of community militias and criminal gangs.