Cape Verde, Togo to Open Consulates in Morocco’s Western Sahara

Cape Verdean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Regional Integration Rui Alberto De Figueiredo Soares at Wednesday'e event. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Cape Verdean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Regional Integration Rui Alberto De Figueiredo Soares at Wednesday'e event. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Cape Verde, Togo to Open Consulates in Morocco’s Western Sahara

Cape Verdean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Regional Integration Rui Alberto De Figueiredo Soares at Wednesday'e event. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Cape Verdean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Regional Integration Rui Alberto De Figueiredo Soares at Wednesday'e event. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Cape Verde and Togo will will soon open general consulates in Dakhla, Western Sahara’s second largest city.

Cape Verdean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Regional Integration Rui Alberto De Figueiredo Soares and Togo's Foreign Minister Robert Dussey made the announcement following talks with their Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita on the sidelines of the first Ministerial Conference of the Atlantic African States.

Cape Verde will also soon open an embassy in Rabat.

Bourita expressed his gratitude to Cape Verde for its support of Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara.

He recalled Cape Verde's commendable participation at the African Ministerial Conference on the African Union's support to the United Nations political process on the regional dispute over the Sahara. The event was held in Marrakech on March 25, 2019.

Twenty-five consulates have been opened so far in the Western Sahara region. There are 13 consulates in Dakhla and 12 in Laayoune.



WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.