Dar es Salaam. Good morning! The Chanzo is here with a rundown of major news stories reported in Tanzania over the weekend.
Tanzania: Over 200, 000 inoculated against COVID-19
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health Professor Abel Makubi said Sunday that since the government started rolling out its COVID-19 vaccination program on August 3, 2021, a total of 207, 391 people from the targeted groups, which include people with underlying health conditions, healthcare workers and the elderly, have been vaccinated.
Dr Makubi said in a statement yesterday that among those vaccinated 121, 002, which is an equivalent of 58.3 per cent, are men while 86,389 (41.7 per cent) are women.
Tanzania plans to inoculate at least 35 million people or 60 per cent of the population. The U.S. government had donated the vaccines to Tanzania through the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVAX initiative, the global vaccine-sharing facility that the East African nation requested to join in mid-June this year.
“I’m directing all service providers from all hospitals and [medical] centres to dedicate some time to educate people on the importance of [COVID-19] vaccines,” Prof Makubi said in the statement. “Apart from applauding regional, district and local governments in sensitizing people on COVID-19 vaccines, efforts must be taken to take the awareness campaigns in the peripheries.”
Man arrested in Mtwara over molestation of three children
Police in Mtwara are holding nineteen-year-old Jabir Hamisi Bakari for allegedly being responsible for three incidents involving kidnapping, raping, and molesting children as young as seven-year-old, Mtwara regional police commander Marc Njera told journalists over the weekend.
Njera said that Bakari had neither a job nor a specific physical address. He was arrested on August 12, 2021, in the Mtwara town of Mbae where the alleged child molester was preying on children. Bakari allegedly preferred areas with a heavy presence of children where he’d trick them with candies or other sweeteners before he disappeared with one of them for days.
On June 25, 2021, for example, Bakari is accused of disappearing for four days with an eight-year-old Standard II student and when the child was found the child showed signs of being molested. On July 8 Bakari disappeared with a seven-year-old girl who stayed with her for over fifteen days before the child was rescued on July 24. On August 6 Bakari is also accused of kidnapping a nine-year-old child who went on to molest the child before the child was rescued.
Mr Njera’s statement does not indicate why it had to take three incidents until the police arrested Bakari. But he said as soon as the investigations into Mr Bakari’s alleged crimes is complete he’d be brought to the court to face justice.
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