Gambia

BANJUL, Jan 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Gambia’s Vice President Badara Alieu Joof has died of illness in India, President Adama Barrow said on Wednesday.

Joof, 65, was appointed vice president of the West African country in 2022. He previously served as education minister from 2017 to 2022.

Barrow said on Twitter that Joof had died “after a short illness”, without providing further detail, including when he died.

The vice president had left The Gambia about three weeks ago to seek medical treatment and had not been seen in public for months before the trip.

Banjul, Gambia; 7 Oct 2022 (UMMN): 66 children are suspected to have died after taking Indian made cough syrup in Gambia, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

Their death, caused by kidney injuries, may be linked to contaminated cough and cold syrups made by an Indian drug manufacturer Maiden Pharma.

Oct 5 (Reuters) - The deaths of dozens of children in Gambia from kidney injuries may be linked to contaminated cough and cold syrups made by an Indian drug manufacturer, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters that the U.N. agency was conducting an investigation along with Indian regulators and the drugmaker, New Delhi-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

BANJUL, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The runner-up in Gambia's election, Ousainou Darboe, has launched a legal challenge to President Adama Barrow's victory, his party said on Monday

Barrow won the Dec. 4 poll with 53% of the vote, well ahead of Darboe who got about 28%. The election was the first in 27 years without despotic former president Yahya Jammeh and was seen as a test of the tiny West African nation's fragile democracy.

BANJUL, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Alieu Momar Njie, chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) of The Gambia, declared on Sunday that Adama Barrow, the leader of the National People's Party (NPP), as the winner of the presidential election held on Saturday.

Barrow amassed 457,519 votes, around 53 percent of the total votes cast. He beat his main challenger Ousainu Darboe of the United Democratic Party (UDP) who collected 238,253 of the votes cast.

BANJUL, Gambia, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Voting came to an end exactly at 5:00 p.m. Saturday evening in Gambia's capital Banjul as the president and other candidates all called for peace and calm in the country.

It is the first presidential election since long-term ruler Yahya Jammeh was defeated in 2016 by the current leader.

LUSAKA, March 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States will give Zambia a new one year bilateral grant of $389 million for AIDS relief starting in October after Congressional approval, Zambia’s ministry of health said in a statement.

The grant under the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) follows a meeting on Zambia which was held last week in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“The meeting reviewed key policies, strategies and activities to be undertaken towards the goal of achieving epidemic control of HIV,” the statement said.

BANJUL, Dec 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Thousands of protesters in the Gambian capital Banjul have called for President Adama Barrow to keep his promise to quit after three years in office and step down next month.

He came to power as the head of an alliance of parties opposed to the former autocratic leader Yahya Jammeh.

The coalition agreed he would lead a provisional government for three years and then call elections.

NOUAKCHOTT, Dec 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — At least 62 migrants travelling on a makeshift boat have drowned off the coast of Mauritania, in the worst loss of life this year along the increasingly travelled western Atlantic migration route to Europe.

Eighty-three survivors managed to swim to shore after their boat, which was heading for Spain’s Canary Islands, capsized when it hit a rock.

BANJUL, The Gambia, Nov 12 (NNN-ANN) – On behalf of OIC, the Gambia files the case with International Court of Justice, seeking orders to stop atrocities on Rohingyas, immediately.

The Gambia filed a case with the top court, accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority, more than two years, after some 750,000 Rohingyas fled a military crackdown in the Rakhine State.