sunglasses and masks in front of a supermarket of Bamako on March
26, 2020. – The price of masks, gloves and sanitising gel has
increased as supplies have dropped significantly after the first
positive cases of COVID-19 coronavirus was reported this week in
Mali. (Photo by MICHELE CATTANI / AFP)
Mali recorded its first coronavirus death on
Saturday, a day before the West African country voted in a
long-delayed parliamentary election threatened by both the pandemic
and security concerns.
The kidnapping of the leader of the main opposition party
earlier in the week has also cast a pall over the vote, with a
security source saying he is “likely” in the hands of a jihadist
group.
Several opposition parties on Saturday called for the vote to be
postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen 18 people
test positive since the country’s first case was diagnosed on
Wednesday.
Health Minister Michel Sidibe said late Saturday — just hours
before polls opened the following day — that a patient who had
tested positive had died earlier in the day.
“We have a death today,” he said, “because the virus was in his
lungs.”
Though sub-Saharan Mali has had relatively few cases so far
compared to other continents, the impoverished nation of some 19
million people — where large swathes of territory lie outside
state control — is just the kind of state experts fear is
particularly vulnerable.
– Jihadist recordings claim abduction –
In an unprecedented and shocking twist just days before the vote,
veteran opposition leader Soumaila Cisse was kidnapped while
campaigning in the conflict-ravaged centre of the country.
Cisse, 70, who has come second in three presidential elections,
and six members of his team were abducted on Wednesday in an attack
in which his bodyguard was killed.
“According to our information, the opposition leader was likely
kidnapped by jihadists from central Mali claiming to be from Amadou
Koufa,” a security source said.
Fulani preacher Amadou Koufa leads the Katiba Macina jihadist
militia, a branch of the al-Qaeda-aligned Group to Support Islam
and Muslims (GSIM) group active in central Mali.
Cisse and his entourage are probably now “far from where they
were abducted,” the security source told AFP.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
A source close to Cisse also said the opposition leader was in
the hands of the Koufa’s Katiba Macina.
“Not only do we have clear indications from our own sources, but
there are also recordings broadcast by the jihadists,” the source
said.
Since the abduction, recordings seen by an AFP reporter have
circulated on social media in the Fulani and Songhai languages
spoken in central and northern Mali of men declaring loyalty to
Koufa claiming Cisse’s abduction.
– ‘Difficult times’ –
Despite the deepening COVID-19 crisis, Cisse’s Union for the
Republic and Democracy (URD) urged its supporters to turn out in
even greater numbers.
“In these difficult times our country is going through, more
than ever, the party’s activists are resolutely urged to redouble
their efforts for a massive participation in the March 29, 2020
elections,” the country’s main opposition party said Saturday.
But other opposition parties — the National Congress of
Democratic Initiative (CNID), Patriotic Movement for Renewal (MRP)
and the CMAS movement of influential imam Mahmoud Dicko — called
for the vote to be postponed due to the coronavirus emergency.
Three candidates also withdrew from the poll, which will see new
MPs elected to the 147-seat National Assembly for the first time
since 2013.
The current parliament, which is dominated by President Ibrahim
Boubacar Keita’s party — Cisse’s URD has 18 MPs — was supposed to
wrap up in late 2018, but subsequent elections were postponed,
mostly over security concerns.
Voters will be supplied with hand-washing kits and masks at
Sunday’s elections, as well being made to keep separate from each
other, the government has said.
After Sunday’s first round vote, a second round is scheduled for
April 19.
In neighbouring Mauritania, the government announced Saturday
that travel between regions would be banned from noon on Sunday.
The vast Sahel country also confirmed two more coronavirus cases,
bringing its total to five.
-AFP
The post Mali Records First Coronavirus Death Hours Before
Election appeared first from online sources and was reposted by the community on SWP Super Word Press
Nigeria Digitalmarket.i.ng.