The 18 pupils from St Mary’s Diocesan School for Girls in Pretoria, who were in Nepal when the earthquake struck on Saturday, say they are happy that they have returned to South Africa safely.
The girls returned home on Friday.
They had visited the Asian country to participate in educational expeditions. Their anxious parents flocked to the OR Tambo International Airport to welcome them back.
One of the parents, Judith Jenkins, says she is relieved that the children are back home, “I’m so, so relieved. I’m so blessed that she is back home it’s just fantastic to touch her, look at her and feel her. I’m just so happy.”
Her daughter, Chloe Jenkins, say the experience was very confusing, “It was a bit confusing because we didn’t really know what was going on, because we felt the tremor and we didn’t feel the earthquake.”
Another mother, Khahliso Matoane, says she could not imagine losing her only child, “There is nothing as good as having my daughter back and safe in my arms.” Ntshikeng  Motoane , her daughter, says it was a bad experience.
“We weren’t affected as extremely, but the people there, we felt really bad because we left and they have to rebuild their lives again.”

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The girls’ flight was delayed by a few hours. The pupils had been in Nepal since April 15 and as part of the competition rules, they had to leave their cell phones behind.
This meant that they were not able to personally communicate with their families about their wellbeing when the devastating
earthquake broke last Saturday.
The death toll in Nepal is said to be over 6000.

14:33

United Nations (UN) authorities have suspended and threatened employment termination of Anders Kompass, a senior UN aid worker, for leaking reports detailing sexual abuse by French troops during relief and peacekeeping operations in the Central African Republic (CAR) last year.

The CAR has experienced intermittent civil war since 2004, with the latest conflict being sparked by a coup by Seleka rebels in 2012 removing President Francois Bozize from power. The Seleka group leader, Michel Djotodia, declared himself president and promptly suspended the CAR constitution and dissolved the National Assembly. The Seleka coup and Djotodia presidency sparked religious conflict and an anti-Balaka coalition of mostly Christians formed to fight the Seleka which is predominantly Muslim.
The civil war in CAR prompted an international peacekeeping response lead by the French government and UN. The sexual abuse took place in 2014 when the UN was forming the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) in 2014, according to the Guardian newspaper.
According to reports, French troops working with MINUSCA raped and sodomized a series of homeless boys around nine years old. These abuses were reported the UN authorities who, according to Anders Kompass, did not investigate the matters seriously. The UN’s inadequate investigation and response to these rapes caused Mr. Kompass to leak the reports to French authorities and human rights groups.
The Guardian reported that one child “described [to UN authorities] how they were sexually exploited in return for food and money. One 11-year-old boy said he was abused when he went out looking for food. A nine-year-old described being sexually abused with his friend by two French soldiers at the IDP camp when they went to a checkpoint to look for something to eat.”
The UN Office for Internal Oversight has suspended Kompass for leaking the documents and have threatened termination, siting that he breached UN protocols on confidential documents.

14:28

According to military sources, 234 women and children were freed on Thursday from Boko Haram enclaves in the Sambisa forest through the Kawuri and Konduga sections.
A screening process is currently ongoing in order to determine the identities of those rescued.
SaharaReporters has not yet confirmed whether this group of 234 women and children is in addition to those who were previously recovered.
The Nigerian Military is continuing its anti-terrorist campaign against Boko Haram and rescuing civilian hostages.

14:25