World Tour: Mudslides in Kenya and protests in Iraq

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

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Protests continue in Iraq—We start today in the Middle East.

AUDIO: [Iraqi students protest]

Protests in Iraq show no signs of slowing. Students in the southern city of Basra took to the streets Monday to demand a new government. At least 13 protesters died in clashes with police there.

Another protester died on Tuesday during protests in Baghdad. Nearly 3-hundred-fifty people have died since the protests started on October 1st.

AUDIO: [Iraqi student protestor]

Protesters like this man demand police stop firing live ammunition and tear gas canisters into crowds. U.S. officials and the United Nations have also denounced the use of force.

Despite the ongoing public anger, political leaders in Baghdad have so far rejected calls to step down.

Korean evangelist killed in Turkey—Next to Turkey.

A Korean evangelist died last week after an attacker stabbed him. Jinwook Kim had lived in Turkey for five years and had just planted a small church there.

Police are treating the stabbing as a botched robbery. But Christians believe the unidentified attacker targeted Kim because of his faith. They are calling Kim a martyr—Turkey’s first since 2007.

Floods and mudslides in Kenya—Next we go to Africa.

AUDIO: [Floods in Kenya]

Search crews are continuing to find victims of weekend flooding and mudslides in Kenya. The death toll now stands at 65.

AUDIO: [Fredrick Kimanga]

Fredrick Kimanga is the district county commissioner of West Pokot, one of the hardest hit areas. He urged people to evacuate because the rain is expected to continue and relief supplies could be slow to arrive.

Torrential rains are not normal in Kenya this time of year. But an unusual weather system has dumped heavy rain over the entire region. South Sudan and Somalia have also seen record-breaking rainfall.

French soldiers killed in Mali—Next to Mali.

AUDIO: [Florence Parly]

Thirteen French soldiers died Monday during an operation against insurgents near the borders of Burkina Faso and Niger. It was the heaviest single loss for the French military in nearly four decades.

French Defence Minister Florence Parly said the soldiers were on board two military helicopters that collided in midair. She called the soldiers “heroes who died for France.”

French forces have been fighting Islamic militants in Mali since 2013. Insurgents have increasingly targeted army outposts in recent weeks despite efforts to stop the violence.

Egyptian woman wins inheritance case—And finally, we end today in Egypt.

A Coptic Christian woman won a significant inheritance case on Tuesday. A court in Cairo ruled that Huda Nasrallah may inherit the same share as her brothers. That reverses the previous law that said women can only inherit half of what their brothers get.

Nasrallah is a human rights lawyer. She based her arguments on Christianity’s equal treatment of sons and daughters—making her victory even more remarkable in the Muslim-majority country.

That’s this week’s World Tour. For WORLD Radio, I’m Onize Ohikere reporting from Abuja, Nigeria.

(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) A woman reacts to tear gas fired by security forces during clashes between Iraqi security forces and anti-government demonstrators, in downtown Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Nov. 15, 2019. 

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.