World Tour: Fire in Johannesburg

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour, with our reporter in Nigeria, Onize Ohikere.

AUDIO: [Singing]

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Johannesburg fire incident — Today’s global news roundup starts in South Africa where members of the ruling party and some Christian leaders sang and prayed at the scene of a deadly fire.

At least 77 people died after the blaze ripped through a five-story building in the largest city of Johannesburg. More than 50 others were injured. Many of the building’s residents were squatters.

Authorities said some of the victims had jumped out of windows to get away from the fire.

In Johannesburg’s city center, gangs or other groups often take over abandoned buildings and lease them to people who can’t afford other forms of housing. South Africa’s department of public works says more than 1,200 state properties are hijacked by these squatters.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa says the incident serves as a wake-up call.

RAMAPHOSA: The lesson for us is that we've got to address this problem and root and everything else to root out those criminal elements.

But the prayers and singing by government officials have angered some locals, who are calling on authorities to do more.

AUDIO: [Booing]

They include Emmanuel Mahangula, who also resided in the building.

MAHANGULA: I saw people dying, people jumping and falling. My friends, my real friends that I was sharing a room with. Today, they are not with me here because of this thing. Now someone from another political party is coming to sing for that person that I struggled to bury. It doesn't make sense to me.

The South African police have launched a criminal investigation.

AUDIO: [Protest chant]

Armenia unrest — We head next to a rally in Armenia.

Thousands of demonstrators chanted and waved flags in the capital city of Yerevan on Saturday.

They demanded the reopening of a blockaded road that links the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region to Armenia. The Lachin Corridor is the only supply route into the region.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. The latest blockade began in December and has left residents short of basic supplies. Azerbaijan blames environmental activists for the blockade, but residents in the region see it as another attempt at ethnic cleansing.

POLITICIAN: [Speaking Armenian]

This Armenian politician says mothers holding hungry children are fighting an ideological battle for their identity and self-determination.

Last week, the U.S. State Department warned about the worsening humanitarian consequences of the blockade and called for the reopening of the Lachin corridor.

Ecuador violence — We head over to Ecuador where some normalcy has returned after prison inmates held law enforcement officers hostage.

Ecuador’s National Police reported explosions in the capital city of Quito and another province bordering Peru last Thursday. Inmates across six prisons also held more than 50 police officers and prison guards hostage. Many of them were at the Turi prison in the southern Azuay province.

As of Friday, the inmates had released all of the hostages.

Consuelo Orellana is the provincial governor.

ORELLANA: [Speaking Spanish]

She says here that authorities have already changed the prison security staff.

Authorities said the attacks come after the corrections system relocated various inmates and searched for weapons at one prison in an attempt to crack down on violence.

The latest violence comes less than a month after the murder of a presidential candidate at a campaign rally in the capital.

Luisa Gonzalez, the current presidential frontrunner, wore a bulletproof vest to a Sunday meeting with indigenous women.

GONZALEZ: [Speaking Spanish]

She says here it’s sad to run a campaign after another candidate was assassinated and she continues to receive death threats.

Ecuador’s presidential runoff is slated for October.

AUDIO: [Chanting]

South Korean teachers’ rally — We wrap up today in South Korea where tens of thousands of chanting teachers dressed in black to protest against widespread harassment.

The mass walkout on Monday follows the death of a 23-year-old teacher in July. Her colleagues found her at her school in the capital after an apparent suicide. She had expressed anxiety over incessant complaints from students’ parents.

Teachers have rallied since her death.

TEACHER: [Speaking Korean]

This teacher who helped organize the rally says they face heavy workloads, excessive complaints from parents and students and insufficient legal support.

Teachers also say parents exploit a 2014 legislation, which calls for the immediate suspension of any instructor accused of child abuse. They say some parents accuse teachers of abuse after scolding or restraining violent children.

South Korea’s Education Minister threatened disciplinary action against teachers who planned to take a leave of absence to attend the rally.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

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