Zanzibar

Fishermen in Zanzibar have caught a coelacanth, an ancient fish once thought to have become extinct when it disappeared from fossil records 80-million years ago, an official said on Sunday. Researcher Nariman Jidawi of Zanzibar’s Institute of Marine Science said the fish was caught off the tropical island’s northern tip.

Hundreds of dead dolphins have washed up along the shore of a popular tourist destination on Zanzibar’s northern coast, and scientists have ruled out poisoning. It was not immediately clear what killed the 400 dolphins, whose carcasses on Friday were strewn along a 4km stretch of Nungwi.

A month-long outbreak of cholera has killed 21 people and sickened 253 in mainland Tanzania and the semi-autonomous Zanzibar archipelago, officials said on Wednesday. Twelve people have died in the past four days and 115 others were taken to hospitals in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, said city council spokesperson Gaston Makwembe.

Villagers on the Zanzibar archipelago appealed for food aid on Thursday, after being hit by a drought that has hurt farmers across East Africa. The drought has also led to hunger in mainland Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti. ”We are facing a serious shortage of food in our village.”

Authorities in Tanzania’s semiautonomous state of Zanzibar on Saturday started rationing water in the capital due to shortages at reservoirs caused by a searing drought that has placed millions at risk of famine across East Africa, officials said. ”The only option is to start rationing the little water we get,” an official said.

The police on Tanzania’s semi-autonomous Indian Ocean Zanzibar archipelago said on Tuesday they were probing the death over the weekend of a South African tourist after a mishap at sea. ”We are still investigating the cause of the death of the tourist, however a preliminary finding shows he was not attacked,” said Zanzibar deputy police chief Kheir Khamis.

Zanzibar’s incumbent president was sworn in for a second and final term on Wednesday, a day after the electoral commission declared him and his party the winners of general elections marred by violence, intimidation and allegations of fraud. President Amani Abeid Karume was presented with a 21-gun salute.

Zanzibar’s opposition leader condemned weekend presidential and legislative elections as not free and fair, speaking on Monday after riot police fired tear gas and water cannons on his supporters. Seif Shariff Hamad said about 8 000 people were denied their right to vote in the elections.

Voters in Tanzania’s offshore state of Zanzibar go to the polls on Sunday for hotly contested elections amid fears of violence on the politically volatile islands. The polls are taking place despite the postponement of elections in mainland Tanzania after the death of an opposition candidate.

Medical personnel and emergency workers on Tanzania’s volatile Zanzibar archipelago on Friday prepared for possible election violence as voters readied to cast ballots in hotly contested weekend polls. Equipment is being stockpiled and facilities for emergency care set up as part of contingency plans to deal with hundreds of casualties.

Arsonists set fire to three homes and a branch opposition party office in Zanzibar on Thursday, as political violence escalated ahead of elections on the semi-autonomous Tanzanian island. Despite a suspension in voter registration for the October polls intended to ease rising tension between Zanzibar’s rival parties, attackers used gasoline to set fire to the houses and the office at dawn

Arsonists set fire to a Zanzibari opposition leader’s home and protesters attempted to raid a voter registration centre, as violence flared months ahead of elections in the semi-autonomous archipelago, and the Zanzibar Electoral Commision suspended a voter registration drive on Monday.

Police on Tanzania’s semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar have arrested 18 people in connection with weekend political violence that left more than two dozen people injured, officials said on Tuesday. According to witnesses, about 100 police officers overnight on Monday raided homes of people suspected of involvement in Sunday’s rioting.

Bucking oppposition from conservative Islamists, Zanzibar’s Parliament on Wednesday repealed a controversial law that prescribed jail terms of up to two years for unmarried young women who fall pregnant. The jail sentence has been replaced with six months of community service for pregnant young women.

The commander of a paramilitary group backed by Zanzibar’s ruling party was stabbed to death following several days of violence related to voter registration on the semi-autonomous archipelago, police said Friday. An unidentified assailant killed Ayoub Mohammed Suleiman, the commander of the Volunteer Group on the northern island of Pemba, on Thursday night in the main town of Chake Chake, said police commander Faraji Kayuga.

Masked men torched a Roman Catholic church in Zanzibar over the weekend, the third such attack in a week in the predominantly Muslim Indian Ocean archipelago, a church leader said on Monday. Suspicions fell on Islamic extremists, highlighting rising Islamic militancy and growing political tensions as Zanzibar prepares elections.

Lawmakers in Zanzibar have overwhelmingly passed a Bill that outlaws homosexual sex in the semiautonomous Indian Ocean archipelago. Legislators approved the Bill late on Tuesday, amending Zanzibar’s 70-year-old penal code to make gay sex punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment.