Nigeria Reports 359 Cholera Deaths in First Nine Months of Year

FILE PHOTO: A health worker at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors without Borders) Cholera Treatment Center, checks intravenous fluid for a newly arrived cholera patient Ali Bakura, 3, in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria October 18, 2022. REUTERS/Christophe Van Der Perre/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A health worker at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors without Borders) Cholera Treatment Center, checks intravenous fluid for a newly arrived cholera patient Ali Bakura, 3, in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria October 18, 2022. REUTERS/Christophe Van Der Perre/File Photo
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Nigeria Reports 359 Cholera Deaths in First Nine Months of Year

FILE PHOTO: A health worker at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors without Borders) Cholera Treatment Center, checks intravenous fluid for a newly arrived cholera patient Ali Bakura, 3, in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria October 18, 2022. REUTERS/Christophe Van Der Perre/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A health worker at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors without Borders) Cholera Treatment Center, checks intravenous fluid for a newly arrived cholera patient Ali Bakura, 3, in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria October 18, 2022. REUTERS/Christophe Van Der Perre/File Photo

More than 350 people have died from cholera in Nigeria in the first nine months of this year, a 239% jump from the same period last year, data from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) showed on Monday.
Cholera, a water-borne disease, is not uncommon in Nigeria where health authorities say there is a lack of potable drinking water in rural areas and urban slums, reported Reuters.
NCDC said 359 people had died between January and September compared to 106 during the same period last year.
The number of suspected cholera cases also surged to 10,837, up from 3,387 the previous year, with most of those affected being children under five years old.
Lagos, the country's commercial capital, recorded the highest number of cases, NCDC said.
Authorities in northeastern Borno said on Friday that a cholera outbreak had hit the state, which is also dealing with flooding that has displaced nearly 2 million people.



Russian Court Sentences US Citizen Gilman to Over 7 Years in Prison on Assault Charges

The Russian flag waves in the wind on the rooftop of the Consulate General of Russia in San Francisco, California, US, September 2, 2017. (Reuters)
The Russian flag waves in the wind on the rooftop of the Consulate General of Russia in San Francisco, California, US, September 2, 2017. (Reuters)
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Russian Court Sentences US Citizen Gilman to Over 7 Years in Prison on Assault Charges

The Russian flag waves in the wind on the rooftop of the Consulate General of Russia in San Francisco, California, US, September 2, 2017. (Reuters)
The Russian flag waves in the wind on the rooftop of the Consulate General of Russia in San Francisco, California, US, September 2, 2017. (Reuters)

A Russian court on Monday sentenced US citizen and ex-Marine Robert Gilman to seven years and one month in prison for assaulting a prison official and a state investigator, the local prosecutor's office said.
Gilman, 30, is already serving a 3-1/2-year sentence for attacking a police officer while drunk, a charge he was convicted of in October 2022.
Prosecutors in Voronezh, a city about 300 miles (500 km) south of Moscow where Gilman is incarcerated, said he had attacked a prison employee and a state investigator on separate occasions in the autumn of 2023.
Reuters was not immediately able to contact a lawyer for Gilman. The US Embassy in Moscow did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Russian state news agency RIA said Gilman, whose lawyers have previously told the TASS state news agency that he had come to Russia to study and obtain citizenship, had pleaded guilty to all the charges.
RIA cited Gilman as telling the court last week that he had been forced to use violence after the prison inspector had caused pain to his genitalia and after the investigator had insulted his father.
Gilman is one of at least 10 US nationals behind bars in Russia over two months after a prisoner swap between Moscow and the West on Aug. 1 freed 24 people, including three Americans.