Day: March 1, 2023

The coffins of 65 victims of a devastating migrant shipwreck off Italy’s southern coast were laid out Tuesday in a local sports hall, five of them small and white, containing the bodies of the youngest children that died.

Flower bouquets adorned each coffin in the building in Crotone, while a toy blue car had been laid on the smallest, ready for mourners to pay their respects.

Earlier, the coffins had been opened to allow the identification of the dead, with relatives having flown in from countries including Germany and Austria.

One woman let out a scream which shattered the silence of the sports hall.

A German-speaking man told reporters he was the nephew of an Afghan man who survived — but lost his wife and three children aged five, eight and 12, after paying $30,000 for the family to cross. A 14-year-old child survived.

The toll from Sunday’s shipwreck rose to 65 on Tuesday after another body was found, local officials reported.

Fourteen children were among those confirmed to have died when their overcrowded boat shattered in a storm, the interior ministry said.

Another 79 survived, while several more are believed still to be missing.

It was one of the most tragic incidents in the Central Mediterranean, which tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers cross each year hoping to find a new life in Europe.

“We go to this beach in summer. All residents will remember this, that there were so many victims, especially these children and young people,” said Daniela Brugnana, 45, who came to pay homage to the victims.

Three men — two Pakistanis and a Turkish national — have been detained for alleged people smuggling over the incident, a police spokesman said.

Bodies, shoes and debris have been washing up along the shoreline for the past three days.

Divers are still searching for potentially up to 20 missing people, although it is not yet clear how many were on the boat.

Charities working with survivors believe there may have been up to 200 people had been on board, from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, also Somalia and Syria.

The overcrowded wooden boat was called Summer Love and it set off last Thursday from Izmir in Turkey, survivors told Red Cross charity workers.

Many of those on board were seated below deck and had difficulty breathing, they reportedly said.

Survivors said they paid smugglers between five and eight thousand euros ($5,300 to $8,500), according to the Corriere della Sera daily.

The Afghan foreign ministry expressed its “great sadness” for those killed.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan prays for forgiveness for the martyrs and patience for the families and relatives of the victims, urging all citizens once again to avoid going to foreign countries through irregular migration,” it said.

Amid questions about whether more could have be done to prevent the tragedy, both Italy’s coastguard and the EU border Frontex revealed they had tried to help.

Frontex said one of its planes had spotted a “heavily overcrowded boat” heading towards Italy late on Saturday, and had informed the Italian authorities.

“There were no signs of distress,” it said, adding that the plane monitored the ship until it had to go home to refuel.

It said Italy dispatched two patrol boats to intercept the vessel but they were forced by bad weather to return to port.

Italy’s coastguard, for its part, said Frontex had seen the boat “with only one person visible”, and a financial crimes police vessel had tried to intercept it.

At 4.30am on Sunday (0330 GMT), reports had come in suggesting the boat was in danger just “a few minutes from the coast”, and a rescue mission was launched.

Source: Nam News Network

Eli Lilly will cut prices for some older insulins later this year and immediately give more patients access to a cap on the costs they pay to fill prescriptions.

The moves announced Wednesday promise critical relief to some people with diabetes who can face thousands of dollars in annual costs for insulin they need in order to live. Lilly’s changes also come as lawmakers and patient advocates pressure drugmakers to do something about soaring prices.

Lilly said it will cut the list prices for its most commonly prescribed insulin, Humalog, and for another insulin, Humulin, by 70% or more in the fourth quarter, which starts in October.

List prices are what a drugmaker initially sets for a product and what people who have no insurance or plans with high deductibles are sometimes stuck paying.

A Lilly spokeswoman said the current list price for a 10-milliliter vial of the fast-acting, mealtime insulin Humalog is $274.70. That will fall to $66.40.

Likewise, she said the same amount of Humulin currently lists at $148.70. That will change to $44.61.

Lilly CEO David Ricks said Wednesday that his company was making the changes to address issues that affect the price patients ultimately pay for its insulins.

He noted that discounts Lilly offers from its list prices often don’t reach patients through insurers or pharmacy benefit managers. High-deductible coverage can lead to big bills at the pharmacy counter, particularly at the start of the year when the deductibles renew.

“We know the current U.S. health care system has gaps,” he said. “This makes a tough disease like diabetes even harder to manage.”

Patient advocates have long called for insulin price cuts to help uninsured people who would not be affected by price caps tied to insurance coverage.

Lilly’s planned cuts “could actually provide some substantial price relief,” said Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University who studies drug costs.

She noted that the moves likely won’t affect Lilly much financially because the insulins are older, and some already face competition.

Lilly also said Wednesday that it will cut the price of its authorized generic version of Humalog to $25 a vial starting in May.

Lilly also is launching in April a biosimilar insulin to compete with Sanofi’s Lantus.

Ricks said that it will take time for insurers and the pharmacy system to implement its price cuts, so the drugmaker will immediately cap monthly out-of-pocket costs at $35 for people who are not covered by Medicare’s prescription drug program.

The drugmaker said the cap applies to people with commercial coverage and at most retail pharmacies.

Lilly said people without insurance can find savings cards to receive insulin for the same amount at its InsulinAffordability.com website.

The federal government in January started applying that cap to patients with coverage through its Medicare program for people 65 and older or those who have certain disabilities or illnesses.

President Joe Biden brought up that cost cap during his annual State of the Union address last month. He called for insulin costs for everyone to be capped at $35.

Biden said in a statement Wednesday that Lilly responded to his call.

“It’s a big deal, and it’s time for other manufacturers to follow,” Biden said.

Aside from Eli Lilly and the French drugmaker Sanofi, other insulin makers include the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk.

Representatives for both Sanofi and Novo Nordisk said their companies offer several programs that limit costs for people with and without coverage.

Source: Voice of America

Security experts are meeting this week in Senegal to discuss the fight against rising violent extremism in Africa, particularly in the Sahel region, where Islamist militant attacks are increasing at an alarming rate.

Over the last decade, an abundance of resources in the form of military personnel and dollars have poured into the fight against militant violence in Africa. Scores of conferences, forums and training exercises have been held to discuss causes and solutions.

The problem has not only persisted but has gotten worse.

Deaths linked to Islamist militants on the continent skyrocketed by nearly 50 percent in the last year to more than 19,000 people, much of it in the western Sahel region, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. The violence has also expanded geographically, trickling into new regions, such as West African coastal states and the Lake Chad Basin.

“It is no secret that the security situation in West and Central Africa continues to deteriorate,” said Giovanie Biha, head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel, in a speech that kicked off the meeting. “Terrorist groups continue to exploit the multifaceted challenges facing the region, notably its environmental, political and socioeconomic weaknesses and inequalities.”

“A regional challenge demands a regional response,” she added. “It has been proven that no country can effectively combat violent extremism and terrorism alone.”

In 2015, the United Nations launched the Prevention of Violent Extremism program to counter militant violence. This week’s meeting will examine that plan and determine how individual regions and states can better implement its strategies.

The meeting is being organized by the U.N. Office for West Africa and the Sahel, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and Senegal’s Center for Advanced Studies in Defense and Security.

Albert Kan-Dapaah is the minister of national security in Ghana. He says it is the only West African coastal state that has not recorded any extremist attacks.

Though Kan-Dapaah admits he can’t be sure why Ghana has managed to elude violence, he said the country implemented a national framework based on the U.N. plan after it was released.

“[A country’s response] should not be something that is exclusive to the government in power – it never works,” Kan-Dapaah said in a speech at the conference. “You need to involve the minority parties, you need to involve the civil society organizations, you need to involve women organizations and also the youth.”

Part of Ghana’s effort to prevent attacks involved supplying communities that were vulnerable to radicalization with resources such as potable water, schools and clinics, Kan-Dapaah said.

A report released last month by the U.N. Development Program found that 25 percent of people who’ve joined terrorist groups in sub-Saharan Africa did so primarily out of the need for employment – nearly quadruple the number who did so in 2017. Those citing religion as the main reason decreased by 57 percent to just 17 percent of recruits.

“Each state has their own individual strategy and solution to a transnational problem. But in the fight against terrorism you need to forget about borders,” said Mahamoudou Savadogo, a security expert with Granada Consulting in Burkina Faso. “So long as there is no union between states, so long as there’s no clear dialogue, and so long as there’s no region or continent-wide response, it’s going to be difficult.”

The conference continues through Thursday.

Source: Voice of America