It is not often that reports from Africa are positive and reflect cooperative agreements and gestures of good will. There is the case against the Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga, the ethnic Hema accused of enlisting and conscripting children to his union of Congolese Patriots to kill members of the rival Lendu ethnic group during the war in the Congo from 1998 to 2003. There are also the problems confronting Zimbabwe economically, the War in the Sudan and the international conflict occurring in Somalia.
But there is some good news from West Africa’s president of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade announced that his nation would be sending a plan to the earthquake torn nation of Haiti. The plan will not be offering financial aid, but it will bring back a valuable resource — college students.
Senegal will host some 160 Haitian students who were victims of January’s quake, in an effort to allow them to continue their studies in Senegal’s universities. Originally, the West African Nation offered free land in Senegal to Haitians left homeless by the disaster.
Mamadou Seye, a spokesman for Senegal’s Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, said the chartered flight would bring the Haitian students to Dakar by this Wednesday and that Haitian President Rene Preval and his wife would be accompanying the students. President Wade had already asked Senegalese families to host the students when they arrive.
Historically, both nations are former French colonies. Almost 300,000 people died with more than some two million being displaced after the earthquake hit Haiti on Jan 12.
