By Libby George
LAGOS, Feb 3 (Reuters) &#8211; Nigeria&#8217;s Kaduna state has signed a deal with medical delivery firm Zipline that will allow drone shipment of COVID-19 vaccines without significant state investment in cold-chain storage, the company said on Wednesday.
Kaduna&#8217;s partnership with Zipline, which delivered more than 1 million doses of other vaccines in Africa over the past year, will also enable on-demand delivery of blood products, medications and other vaccines.
&#8220;It will help ensure that millions of people in Kaduna State will always get the care they need,&#8221; Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai said.
Zipline said its end-to-end cold chain distribution capability, which can safely deliver even the Pfizer vaccine, would allow Kaduna health facilities to bypass purchases of ultra-low freezers and enable on-demand deliveries of precise amounts of COVID-19 vaccines.
The company said it is working with an unnamed &#8220;major COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer&#8221; to enable access to COVID-19 vaccine deliveries in all the markets where it operates. It currently offers drone delivery of blood, vaccines and other medical equipment in Ghana, Rwanda and the United States.
Zipline is also in talks with other states in Nigeria.
Nations across Africa, with limited cold-chain storage and poor road and rail networks, are grappling with how to deliver COVID-19 vaccines that require ultra-low temperature storage.
The Pfizer vaccine must be stored at around -70 degrees Celsius (-112°F) before being sent to distribution centres in specially designed cool boxes filled with dry ice.
Nigeria has said it will seek vaccines that are less dependent on cooling facilities.
Kaduna services are slated to begin in the second quarter, with round-the-clock service from three distribution centres with 30 drones each.
El-Rufai said Kaduna had also upgraded 255 primary health centres, installed a pharmagrade warehouse and is recruiting and training 3,000 officers to manage the facilities.
(Reporting by Libby George; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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Nigeria’s Kaduna pairs with Zipline for drone-delivered COVID vaccines

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 3 (Reuters) &#8211; A credit scheme central to South Africa&#8217;s efforts to counter the economic impact of the coronavirus is on course to pay out less than a tenth of the loans it is offering, the country&#8217;s banking association said on Wednesday.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the scheme, worth up to 200 billion rand ($13.4 billion) in bank loans partly guaranteed by the government, in April.
It aims to encourage banks to lend more, on more favourable terms, to businesses whose operations have been affected by the pandemic, which has hit South Africa far harder than any other African nation.
But so far it has paid out just 17.84 billion rand, said the Banking Association South Africa (BASA), admitting that a scheme &#8220;conceived and implemented at great speed in a time of crisis has not achieved all it set out to do&#8221;.
With banks having approved little more than a quarter of applications for loans under the scheme, Ramaphosa admitted last month that it needed to be &#8220;fundamentally restructured to improve its accessibility&#8221;.
BASA and other finance industry experts have cited flawed design features, a reluctance to incur debt by businesses low on confidence and a preference for lenders&#8217; other relief measures as reasons for the low take-up by would-be borrowers.
BASA said it expected total payments from the scheme, which was tweaked in July in an attempt to drum up more interest, to reach just 18.9 billion rand overall.
Lenders have rejected 46% of the 48,366 applications received, because they either did not meet the eligibility criteria set by the Treasury and central bank or the bank&#8217;s own risk criteria, BASA said.
Only 27% of applications have been approved while 5% are still being assessed. In some cases, clients have turned down offers.
($1 = 14.9491 rand) (Reporting by Emma Rumney; editing by John Stonestreet)
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Bulk of loans in S.Africa’s COVID crisis scheme to stay untapped, say banks

* Lira trades near five-month highs
* Rouble continues to lag peers
* Czech crown best CEE performer this year
By Ambar Warrick
Feb 3 (Reuters) &#8211; Turkey&#8217;s lira rose on Wednesday as higher-than-expected inflation reinforced bets of tight policy, while the recent rally among most other emerging market stocks and currencies appeared to have cooled.
The lira rose 0.6% to the dollar, staying near five-month highs after consumer price inflation &#8211; a metric closely associated with economic health &#8211; rose above expectations in January.
The reading furthered the case for tight monetary policy in the country, which the central bank has vowed to maintain until inflation falls within its target range.
&#8220;This change in policy was precipitated by lira weakness, FX pressure, a higher deposit dollarisation ratio, widening current account deficit and high inflation,&#8221; Fitch Ratings said in a report.
&#8220;Positive steps have been taken to improve policy credibility but this process will take time, as will rebuilding Turkey&#8217;s depleted foreign exchange reserves.&#8221;
The lira, however, remains one of the best performing EM currencies this year, trading up about 3.8%.
Most other currencies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa were flat after logging large gains earlier this week. The U.S. dollar held around two-month highs as the country&#8217;s economy appeared to be experiencing a stronger recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in comparison with its global peers.
EM stocks and currencies have rallied this week on anticipation of a bumper U.S. stimulus package, as well as renewed optimism over vaccine rollout programs across the globe.
South Africa&#8217;s rand rose 0.1%, extending gains into a fifth consecutive session on optimism over the country acquiring COVID-19 vaccines.
The rand&#8217;s relatively high yield, or carry rate, has sheltered it from weakness caused by local economic ructions, which had existed well before the pandemic.
South African stocks added 0.4%, while the MSCI&#8217;s index of EM equities rose 0.6%, extending gains into a third consecutive session.
Central European currencies rose against the euro, as the unit tumbled on a slow vaccine rollout and signs of a sluggish economic recovery.
The Czech crown is by far the best performing currency in the region this year, and was trading at a near 10-month high on a strong economic recovery.
&#8220;A better-than-expected recovery in economic activity should add to the confidence of the Czech National Bank to normalize its policy faster than its Central European peers,&#8221; Credit Suisse analysts wrote in a note.
Russia&#8217;s rouble and stocks continued to lag their EM peers as concerns over western sanctions weighed. The currency is down more than 3% this year. For GRAPHIC on emerging market FX performance in 2021, see http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh For GRAPHIC on MSCI emerging index performance in 2021, see https://tmsnrt.rs/2OusNdX

For TOP NEWS across emerging markets
For CENTRAL EUROPE market report, see
For TURKISH market report, see
For RUSSIAN market report, see (Reporting by Ambar Warrick in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
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EMERGING MARKETS-Lira extends rally while EMEA peers take a breather

SOUTH AFRICA&#8217;S PUBLIC ENTERPRISES MINISTRY: REMAINING BALANCE OF 10.5 BLN RAND BAILOUT CAN BE TRANSFERRED TO SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS NOW ADJUSTMENTS APPROPRIATION ACT PASSED
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SOUTH AFRICA’S PUBLIC ENTERPRISES MINISTRY: REMAINING BALANCE OF 10.5 BLN RAND BAILOUT CAN BE TRANSFERRED TO SOUTH AFRICAN AIRWAYS NOW ADJUSTMENTS APPROPRIATION ACT PASSED

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 3 (Reuters) &#8211; Africa-focused mobile network operator Africell said on Wednesday it had finalised a deal with Angola to secure a mobile telecommunications operator&#8217;s licence.
Africell will join three other operators &#8211; Movicel, Unitel and state-owned Angola Telecom &#8211; already serving the southern African oil producer.
&#8220;Angola is amongst the most attractive investment destinations in sub-Saharan Africa,&#8221; Africell&#8217;s CEO and Chairman Ziad Dalloul said in a statement. &#8220;So we see this as the logical next step for Africell as we continue to grow our network.&#8221;
Africell currently provides service to around 12 million subscribers in Uganda, Sierra Leone, Gambia, and Democratic Republic of Congo.
The company secured a $100 million loan from the U.S. Development Finance Corporation in 2018 to fund an expansion strategy that includes growing mobile payments and micro-finance offerings and upgrading its 2G, 3G and 4G networks.
Africell said it planned to invest &#8220;several hundred million dollars&#8221; in infrastructure and services during the first phase of its rollout in Angola, with operations expected to create around 6,500 jobs over the next five years. (Reporting by Joe Bavier. Editing by Mark Potter)
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Mobile operator Africell secures Angolan telco licence

BEIJING, Feb 3 (Reuters) &#8211; Two COVID-19 vaccines from Chinese companies including Sinopharm triggered immunity against a highly transmissible coronavirus variant first found in South Africa, but their effect appeared weaker, a small-sample lab study released on Tuesday showed.
Variants of the virus have stirred concern that they might weaken effects of vaccines and treatments developed prior to their emergence.
Twelve serum samples each taken from recipients of two vaccines developed by a subsidiary of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) and a unit of Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products retained neutralising activity against the South African variant, their researchers said in a paper.
The paper was written by researchers from Sinopharm-affiliated Beijing Institute of Biological Products, the Institute of Microbiology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is co-developing a candidate with Zhifei unit, and two other Chinese agencies.
However, the samples&#8217; activity against the variant was weaker than against the original virus and another variant currently spreading globally, according to the paper published on website BioRxiv ahead its peer-review. https://bit.ly/3rfr2UZ
The activity reduction &#8220;should be taken into account for its impact for the clinical efficacy of these vaccines,&#8221; they said.
The Sinopharm vaccine is approved in China for general public use and is also used in several other countries including the United Arab Emirates. The Zhifei shot is in late-stage clinical trials in China and overseas.
Preliminary clinical trial data on vaccines from Novavax Inc and Johnson &amp; Johnson also showed they were significantly less effective at preventing COVID-19 in trial participants in South Africa, where the potent new variant is widespread. (Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Ryan Woo; Editing by Miyoung Kim &amp; Simon Cameron-Moore)
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Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine remained active against S.Africa variant, effect reduced – lab study

By Nick Mulvenney
SYDNEY, Feb 3 (Reuters) &#8211; Cricket Australia (CA) interim chief executive Nick Hockley on Wednesday denied &#8220;in the strongest possible terms&#8221; that financial considerations had played a part in the decision not to play next month&#8217;s test series in South Africa.
CA announced on Tuesday that their test team would not play the three matches in South Africa because of the health risks &#8211; a decision that was greeted with disappointment and frustration by Cricket South Africa.
Hockley said Australia was committed to playing the series at some stage in the future but the combination of a second wave of COVID-19 cases in South Africa as well as the emergence of a new strain of the virus made a March tour too risky.
&#8220;At the end of the day, (because) of the weight of the medical advice, our duty of care to our players and staff, we were really left with no alternative,&#8221; he told reporters.
&#8220;I think the reaction of Cricket South Africa is totally understandable, just given the amount of work we&#8217;ve put in to make this tour go ahead &#8230; (but) the residual risk, even with all the biosecurity arrangements in place, was just too high.&#8221;
Australia have played a limited overs series in England and hosted India in a lucrative test series since the start of the pandemic but postponed matches against Bangladesh, Afghanistan and now South Africa.
Hockley said that at one stage Australia had offered to host the South Africa series and bristled at the suggestion financial considerations had played a part in the postponements.
&#8220;I&#8217;d refute that in the strongest possible terms,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;We have done absolutely everything we possibly can to make this tour happen. It&#8217;s a very challenging situation in South Africa at the moment and that makes it even more heartbreaking that we are not able to go.
&#8220;We would love to go but the medical advice says it&#8217;s not safe to do so. We want to play cricket, we want to support world cricket.&#8221;
Hockley said the Australian players were &#8220;very disappointed&#8221; at the postponement, not least because it dealt a hefty blow to their chances of playing in the inaugural World Test Championship final at Lord&#8217;s in July.
&#8220;We all knew the rules going in, I think that&#8217;s what&#8217;s made this decision really, really hard,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve done everything we possibly can to make the tour go ahead but at the end of the day we have to listen to the overwhelming medical advice.&#8221; (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, Editing by Himani Sarkar)
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Cricket-Health concerns, not finances, behind decision to pull S.Africa tour – Cricket Australia

FRENCH PRESIDENT MACRON SAYS WE NEED GLOBAL VACCINE PRODUCTION TO SUPPLY AFRICA, LATIN AMERICA WITH VACCINE DOSES
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FRENCH PRESIDENT MACRON SAYS WE NEED GLOBAL VACCINE PRODUCTION TO SUPPLY AFRICA, LATIN AMERICA WITH VACCINE DOSES

TUNIS, Feb 2 (Reuters) &#8211; Tunisia expects to receive four million free doses of COVID-19 vaccine through the Geneva-based GAVI vaccine alliance from mid-February, Health Minister Fouzi Mehdi said on Tuesday.
The doses will be enough to immunise 2 million of Tunisia&#8217;s 11.5 million population.
Tunisia become the third country in Africa to approve use of Russia&#8217;s Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said on Saturday. (Reporting by Tarek Amara Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
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Tunisia expects COVID-19 vaccines from GAVI alliance mid-February -minister

* Ethiopia first international bond issuer to seek G20 debt relief
* That worries creditors, raises concern over market access
* DSSI countries due to pay bondholders over $6 billion this year
By Marc Jones and Karin Strohecker
LONDON, Feb 2 (Reuters) &#8211; One year into the coronavirus pandemic, Ethiopia looks set to become a test case for how the world&#8217;s poorest countries deal with huge debt increases as the crisis bites.
It could be bad news for their private creditors.
Addis Ababa has signalled it could be the first country with an international government bond to use a new debt relief framework from the G20 group of major economies that encourages governments to defer or negotiate down external debt.
Creditors have mostly continued to get paid during the coronavirus crisis despite its immense pressures. Losses have only been endured in places like Argentina, Ecuador, Lebanon and Zambia that were heading for default anyway.
Ethiopia&#8217;s surprise announcement last week though inflicted the biggest ever daily loss on its sole bond and hit debt issued by Cameroon and Mozambique &#8211; both identified by analysts as vulnerable countries potentially facing solvency issues.
Investment company Aberdeen Standard&#8217;s Kevin Daly, one of the voices lobbying countries to continue paying their bonds during international discussions over the last nine months, said he expected this would prompt investors to take a step back and think twice about where they put their money to work.
&#8220;It will be painful for all of us involved,&#8221; said Daly. &#8220;There will be a reassessment of lending, and how much lending investors want to do certainly going forward.&#8221;
Credit rating agencies have warned that even delaying the small coupon payments bonds usually provide would be a default. Defaults are problematic because they can cause years of legal wrangling that freeze governments out of capital markets.
Recently, those markets had started reopening for some of 40 or so https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/debt/brief/covid-19-debt-service-suspension-initiative countries that altogether received around $5 billion of temporary relief under the G20&#8217;s Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) set up last year.
This was helped by the prospect for private sector involvement (PSI) in debt relief seemingly having faded, even as World Bank chief David Malpass continued to criticise creditors for hitching a &#8220;free ride&#8221; on G20 support.
As yet, there are no firm details on Ethiopia&#8217;s debt plans.
A finance ministry adviser told Reuters on Tuesday it was too early to say what it would do regarding its sovereign bond, but bondholders know they are in the crosshairs.
The European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad), comprising 50 non-governmental organisations, calculates DSSI countries are due to pay bondholders just over $6 billion and other commercial lenders $6.5 billion this year &#8211; a combined $12.5 billion, not far off the $16.6 billion countries owe to G20 governments.
That $6 billion alone could buy roughly 2.8 billion of Oxford-Astrazeneca&#8217;s COVID-19 vaccines based on $2.15 a shot.
&#8220;The age-old question of whether an IMF (International Monetary Fund) programme could become a force for debt restructuring is relevant again,&#8221; said Nick Eisinger at Vanguard. &#8220;We need to pay attention to the IMF debt sustainability assessment it provides to most frontier (poorer) countries.&#8221;
PRECEDENT?
In sub-Saharan Africa, interest payments suck up close to 50% of government revenues for Ghana and around 30% for Nigeria and Angola, S&amp;P Global calculates.
Zambia, Mozambique, Republic of Congo and Angola have all seen their debt burdens soar above 100% of GDP, while Morgan Stanley is flagging concerns about Cameroon, Kenya, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Tunisia, Sri Lanka, Laos and the Maldives.
&#8220;The obvious question is who’s next,&#8221; said Renaissance Capital chief economist Charles Robertson.
Many countries had seen debt already rise in the run-up to the pandemic, but the economic fallout, shrinking GDP and a sharp rise in borrowing costs hit especially riskier borrowers hard. COVID-19 saw average government debt in EMEA emerging markets soar to 63.5% of GDP compared to 51.8% in 2019.
There are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to a debt overhaul, however.
Vanguard&#8217;s Eisinger hopes that policymakers will push to re-profile Eurobonds rather than inflict full-scale losses or &#8220;haircuts&#8221; as they are known.
Aberdeen&#8217;s Daly hopes value recovery instruments &#8211; linked to future revenue streams or growth &#8211; could be part of the mix. And some hope countries will just keep paying, judging that keeping their hard-earned access to borrowing markets will be more beneficial in the long term than instant debt relief.
&#8220;If you sign up to DSSI and try to push through similar terms on your private debt, you risk your reputation with debt markets,&#8221; said GMO sovereign analyst Carl Ross, who was heavily involved in last year&#8217;s Argentina and Ecuador restructurings.
&#8220;If the official sector backed off from its insistence and rhetoric about private sector involvement (in DSSI), I think there would be much greater take-up.&#8221;

(Additional reporting by Tom Arnold in London; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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ANALYSIS-Is the ‘free ride’ over for poor countries’ bondholders?

CAIRO, Feb 2 (Reuters) &#8211; Saudi Arabia on Tuesday suspended entry to the kingdom from 20 countries, with the exception of diplomats, Saudi citizens, medical practitioners and their families, to help curb the spread of the coronavirus, the state news agency reported.
The temporary ban, effective from Feb. 3, includes people arriving from the United Arab Emirates, Germany, the United States, Britain, South Africa, France, Egypt, Lebanon, India and Pakistan. (Reporting by Alaa Swilam and Ahmed Tolba Editing by Gareth Jones)
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Saudi Arabia suspends entry from 20 countries from Feb 3 – state news agency

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 2 (Reuters) &#8211; A Lebanese shipbuilder at the centre of a $2 billion debt scandal in Mozambique said it made payments to its now-president and ruling party in 2014, but said these were legal campaign donations not bribes, according to a London court filing.
Privinvest said payments made to President Filipe Nyusi in the run-up to his election and to the Frelimo party were allowed under Mozambican law, according to the Jan. 15 filing at London&#8217;s High Court.
The case relates to a series of tuna fishing, maritime security and shipbuilding projects in which Privinvest was the sole contractor and for which Mozambique borrowed $2 billion between 2013 and 2014, provided or arranged by banks including Credit Suisse. Nyusi was defence minister at the time the projects were agreed.
U.S. authorities say hundreds of millions of dollars went missing in what they described as a front for a bribery and kickback scheme. The scandal prompted donors including the International Monetary Fund to cut off support to Mozambique, triggering a currency collapse and debt default in 2016.
Nyusi&#8217;s spokesman, Caifadine Manasse, denied that the Mozambican leader had any connection with the scandal and said that any campaign donations were in line with the law.
&#8220;President Nyusi has no possible relation to the illegal debt,&#8221; Manasse told Reuters in response to questions about Privinvest&#8217;s court filing.
&#8220;We are waiting serenely for the truth to come out, and that will show that neither Frelimo or President Nyusi are involved in any wrongdoing,&#8221; Manasse said.
The filing by Privinvest was part of its response to a lawsuit brought by Mozambique in 2019 against it, Credit Suisse and other defendants, seeking compensation and the recovery of loan funds. Mozambique also sued Privinvest&#8217;s billionaire owner Iskandar Safa later that year, accusing him of fraud.
Both Privinvest and Safa have denied wrongdoing, while Credit Suisse issued a counter claim to the London lawsuit arguing it had the right to seek damages for money it is owed.
The Jan. 15 filing by Privinvest and Safa says Privinvest made campaign donations to Nyusi and the Frelimo party but that &#8220;none of this was a quid pro quo for the projects&#8221; and that &#8220;no claim of bribery&#8221; could be made.
&#8220;If there was any such conspiracy, President Nyusi&#8230;was fully aware of, and/or participated, in it, and indeed was at the heart of the matters now complained of by the Republic,&#8221; the filing said.
Credit Suisse declined to comment on the London filing.
U.S. prosecutors brought a separate case in relation to the scandal in 2019, in which three Credit Suisse bankers pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to violate anti-bribery laws. Credit Suisse has said that the defendants hid their contacts from the bank. U.S. authorities have also charged a former Mozambican finance minister over his alleged role and are seeking his extradition from South Africa.
The United States was the first to bring charges in the affair, with criminal and civil actions by authorities in Mozambique following soon afterwards. (Reporting by Emma Rumney in Johannesburg and Manuel Mucari in Maputo; Writing by Emma Rumney; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Nick Tattersall)
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(MHH)-Shipbuilder in Mozambique debt scandal says made payments to now-President Nyusi

By John Miller
ROMANSHORN, Switzerland, Feb 2 (Reuters) &#8211; An 89-year-old passenger ship, out of commission due to the coronavirus pandemic, was re-purposed on Tuesday as a COVID-19 vaccination centre for thousands of residents from cities on Lake Constance.
The 500-passenger MS Thurgau normally carries tourists and commuters between German and Swiss cities on Europe&#8217;s third-largest lake. In coming weeks it will serve as a floating inoculation hub for northern Swiss towns Romanshorn, Arbon and Kreuzlingen.
Regional officials emphasized the ship&#8217;s practicality since it can sail from harbor to harbor, earning it the nickname &#8220;vaccine vaporetto&#8221; with some locals.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve heard of a fondue ship, and a spaghetti ship, but this is my first shot ship,&#8221; Switzerland&#8217;s Health Minister Alain Berset told reporters just after the first people to be vaccinated walked the gangway.
Switzerland reported just over 1,600 new infections on Tuesday, bringing its total to 526,000, with the cases of fast-spreading variants doubling every week. Nearly 8,800 people have died.
Aboard MS Thurgau there are two shot stations capable of vaccinating 24 people per hour &#8211; one every five minutes &#8211; or 168 people daily during a seven-hour shift.
As more vaccines arrive in Switzerland, stations can be expanded to eight.
For the first week, the ship will be in Romanshorn, a historic lakeside grain trading centre, followed by two weeks in larger Kreuzlingen.
After another week in nearby Arbon, the vessel will make the return voyage to Romanshorn, so those inoculated earlier can get a required booster shot.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve already got my second appointment, also for the ship,&#8221; said one man as he left the vessel.
Only Moderna shots are being used aboard the MS Thurgau, since the 10-dose vials are slightly easier to prepare in the ship&#8217;s cramped quarters, medics said.
The canton of Thurgau initially considered creating vaccine centres aboard buses, but eventually opted for the idled pleasure cruiser.
&#8220;We wanted to figure out just how we could vaccinate as many people as possible, with as few vaccination centres as were necessary,&#8221; said Urs Martin, a Thurgau elected official.
Like elsewhere in Europe, the tourism-reliant Lake Constance region has been broadsided by the pandemic.
A border fence temporarily erected between adjacent towns of Constance, Germany, and Kreuzlingen, Switzerland, last year divided families, friends and lovers for weeks.
The initial round of shots aboard the MS Thurgau is planned for the next 12 weeks, said Adriano Mari, leader for all of Thurgau&#8217;s vaccination centres run by private hospital group Hirslanden, a unit of South Africa-based Mediclinic.
He hopes an extension beyond this maiden voyage won&#8217;t be necessary.
&#8220;Hopefully by then, things will have eased and the ship can return to carrying passengers on its regular route,&#8221; Mari said. ($1 = 0.8977 Swiss francs) (Reporting by John Miller and Arnd Wiegmann; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
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Swiss pleasure cruiser turned into vaccine ‘shot ship’ for lakeside towns

By Dado Ruvic
VELIKA KLADUSA, Bosnia, Feb 2 (Reuters) &#8211; Fourteen year-old Amim Hzam from Iraq says he has tried to enter European Union member Croatia with his family forty times from northwestern Bosnia over the last two years.
On one attempt about a year ago his mother and one of his siblings got through. They then managed to travel to Germany. But he and his father and two more children were caught by police and sent back to Bosnia.
The family is among more than 8,000 migrants from Asia, the Middle East and North Africa who are stuck in Bosnia, which since early 2018 has become a transit route for those aiming to reach wealthier EU states.
But it has become increasingly difficult to cross EU borders and impoverished Bosnia has become a cul de sac with its ethnically divided government unable to cope. The coronavirus pandemic has seen the EU seal its borders, leaving the migrants with little hope of entering and requesting asylum.
Now Hzam and his siblings learn German, and get sad when their mother calls from Germany and cries.
&#8220;I need mama, I need school, but Croatian police say: &#8216;Sorry, go back to Bosnia'&#8221; said Hzam.
Many of the migrants live in tents in the woods or in houses and factories destroyed in the Bosnian war of the 1990s.
Hzam&#8217;s family is staying in a furnished house near the border town of Velika Kladusa, belonging to a Bosnian living abroad who agreed with a local charity to provide them with shelter.
The family do not leave the house, for fear of abuse by some local people who resent their presence in the village.
&#8220;They are judged when they come out, these houses are actually their hiding places,&#8221; said Zehida Bihorac Odobasic, a school teacher and activist who the migrants call &#8220;Mother&#8221;. She brought Hzam&#8217;s family some food and coloured pencils to draw, and helped arrange their accommodation.
&#8220;We can&#8217;t go outside, we just sit at home,&#8221; said Hojjat, a migrant among an Afghan family of five staying in similar accommodation, explaining they could have trouble from neighbours and police.
Even Bihorac Odobasic has received verbal and physical attacks from locals for helping and defending the migrants. She says her complaints to police went nowhere.
Last November, the UN human rights experts called on the Bosnian government to investigate a &#8220;smear campaign and death threats&#8221; against Bihorac Odobasic and bring those responsible to justice according to international standards, but to no avail.
&#8220;Here and now we are witnessing an absolute violation of human rights,&#8221; Bihorac Odobasic told Reuters in a forest tent camp covered by snow, where around 50 people were trying to get warm in sleeping bags.
The EU has repeatedly called on Bosnian authorities to provide accommodation to at least 1,000 people sleeping rough during the winter. Since early 2018, the EU has provided more than 88 million euros to help Bosnia manage the migrant crisis. (Reporting by Dado Ruvic, writing by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
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‘I need mama, I need school’, migrant child stuck in Bosnia appeals to EU

By Kieran Guilbert
LONDON, Feb 2 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) &#8211; Human traffickers worldwide are increasingly targeting children and will likely exploit school closures during the coronavirus pandemic to abuse the young, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
Children make up a third of trafficking victims who are uncovered &#8211; a share that has tripled in the past 15 years, with girls mainly exploited for sex and boys forced into work, a report by the U.N. Office On Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found.
About 49,000 victims were detected and reported in total in 2018 &#8211; up from 24,000 in 2016 &#8211; according to the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, which was based on research conducted before the start of the pandemic.
While worsening poverty and job losses spurred by COVID-19 have left millions of people globally at risk of trafficking, out-of-school children are especially vulnerable, UNODC said.
About 222 million schoolchildren &#8211; one in eight pupils &#8211; are affected by school closures, according to UNESCO, the U.N.&#8217;s cultural agency. The figure hit 1.6 billion in April last year.
&#8220;It is particularly alarming that in recent years more and more children are being targeted by traffickers,&#8221; UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly said during a virtual briefing.
&#8220;Already targeted and potentially at risk, youth who are denied their right to education will particularly find themselves easier prey for traffickers,&#8221; she added.
Trafficking of children is more prevalent in poorer countries where it is linked to child labour, according to UNODC, which said young people are &#8220;easier to exploit&#8221; when communities are used to sending them to work away from home.
The report said the practice was common across West Africa, with children working on sites from gold mines to cocoa farms.
&#8220;In such settings, child trafficking victims may be hidden in plain sight,&#8221; the report read. &#8220;Broad cultural acceptance of child labour can serve as a fertile ground for traffickers.&#8221;
The United Nations launched the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour last month, saying urgent action was needed to meet a goal of ending the practice by 2025 as COVID-19 puts more children at risk and threatens decades of progress.
Prior to the pandemic, the number of child workers dropped to 152 million from 246 million in 2000, according to U.N. data.
UNODC also highlighted that the proportion of adult women among detected victims fell to 50% from 70% over the past 15 years while the share of men nearly doubled to 20% in that time.
Overall, half of victims were trafficked for sex, 38% for forced labour and 6% were made to commit crimes, found the report, which identified 534 trafficking routes worldwide.
An estimated 25 million people worldwide are victims of labour and sex trafficking, according to the United Nations, with concerns growing that more will be affected as support services are halted and efforts to secure justice are hindered. (Reporting by Kieran Guilbert; Editing by Helen Popper. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
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Traffickers found targeting more children as COVID-19 school closures fuel danger

By Elias Biryabarema
KAMPALA, Feb 2 (Reuters) &#8211; Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine and his party said on Tuesday that around 3,000 of his supporters had been detained or abducted by state agents since November, when protests flared over his arrest during a presidential election campaign.
The police said they were investigating all reports of disappearances. They have previously said they arrested nearly 600 people in connection with the November unrest, and accused protesters of rioting and looting.
Government spokesman Ofwono Opondo and President Yoweri Museveni&#8217;s spokesman Don Wanyama did not immediately answer telephone calls seeking comment on the assertions.
Wine, who is also a pop star, on Monday filed a court challenge to the results of the Jan. 14 presidential election, which handed victory to Museveni, in power since 1986.
Officials in Wine&#8217;s National Unity Platform (NUP) told a news conference that squads of state security personnel had appeared around Uganda in unmarked minivans and taken supporters to unknown locations.
After the news conference, NUP Secretary General David Lewis Rubongoya told Reuters that people had begun to disappear on Nov. 18, the start of two days of protests.
&#8220;The state started conducting operations across the country, picking people and taking them away,&#8221; he said.
Fifty-four people were killed as the army and police used bullets and teargas to quell the riots, which began after Wine was arrested for alleged violation of social distancing rules.
Rubongoya said the NUP&#8217;s estimate was based on reports from relatives or friends of people who had gone missing since Nov. 18. Most of the disappearances were in central Uganda, where Wine has strong support, but people also vanished in the east and north, he said.
Oryem Nyeko, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, said he was aware of many such reports, and that they raised &#8220;very serious concerns&#8221;.

TINTED WINDOWS
Wine has said he defeated Museveni but that the election was rigged by ballot stuffing, pre-marking of ballots, intimidation of voters by security agencies, and other tactics.
Wine&#8217;s large following includes many young people attracted by his bold criticism of Museveni&#8217;s government, a longtime ally of the West.
Rubongoya told Reuters that security men typically came to a house with rifles, in unmarked minivans with tinted windows, and told people to get in. &#8220;If you try to resist, they force you in there, beat you up and take you away.&#8221;
Mostly, relatives and the NUP do not know where those people have been taken, Rubongoya said.
Police spokesman Fred Enanga said Deputy Police Chief Paul Lokech had ordered the criminal investigations directorate to probe all alleged disappearances, and that anyone suspected to have caused them would be investigated.
Police said last month that at least 110 polling agents from Wine&#8217;s party had been arrested since Jan. 13. During the election itself, 223 people were arrested for offences including assault, intimidation and voter bribery.
Wine said the disappearances recalled the many abductions perpetrated in the brutal reign of Idi Amin in the 1970s. (Editing by William Maclean and Kevin Liffey)
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Ugandan opposition say 3,000 of their supporters seized since November

BAMAKO, Feb 2 (Reuters) &#8211; Mali&#8217;s industrial gold production reached 65.2 tonnes in 2020, slightly higher than the previous year&#8217;s record production of 65.1 tonnes, mines ministry statistics showed on Tuesday.
Production had been forecast at 59.7 tonnes but surpassed expectations for the second year in a row due to improved technical performance by mining companies, said Aboubacar Ogognagaly, head of the mines division.
Mali&#8217;s total gold output for the year was estimated at 71.2 tonnes including an additional 6 tonnes of gold produced by artisanal miners, Ogognagaly added.
The West African country is one of Africa&#8217;s biggest gold producers with about 13 mines operated by multinational companies including Barrick Gold , B2Gold and Resolute Mining.
Industrial production is expected to increase further in 2021, although official forecasts were not yet available, said a mines ministry official. (Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Nellie Peyton; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html
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