WARRI, Nigeria (AFP) — A Nigerian man has been shot dead for allegedly flouting a stay-at-home order aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus, police and a lawmaker said on Friday.
Nigeria has introduced a raft of measures, including lockdowns of major cities, to try to contain the virus, which has infected 184 people, two of them fatally.
Joseph Pessu, a resident of the oil city of Warri in the southern state of Delta, was killed Thursday by a soldier deployed to enforce the lockdown, the sources said.
“The incident occurred yesterday with the youths protesting," state police spokesman Onome Onowakpoyeya told Agence France-Presse.
Angry young people lit fires in the streets but police restored calm, he said.
In a statement late Thursday, the lawmaker representing the area condemned the incident and called for the perpetrators to be prosecuted.
"Those who are authorized to bear arms in defense of the nation ought to understand that this comes with responsibility, especially when human life is sacrosant," said Senator Ovie Omo-Agege.
"The killing in Warri ... is one too many, as the issue shouldn't have led to what in my opinion amounted to extrajudicial killing."
He said he heard that the army had arrested the soldier who shot Pessu. He called for a thorough investigation and punishment for whoever was responsible.
Meanwhile, the state journalists' association said some reporters were harassed as they covered the impacts of the coronavirus on people in the state.
"The journalists were attacked by overzealous members of the task force while monitoring the level of compliance with the stay-at-home directive," it said.
"This is barbaric, wicked, primitive and ludicrous."
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MADRID
Spain on Friday is closing a black week with its death toll for the new coronavirus nearing 11,000, more than half of those during the past seven days, and more infections than any other country in Europe.
The bottleneck in Spanish labs conducting the tests has led to relatively low levels of testing in Spain compared to other European countries, authorities acknowledged.
Even with statistics that are believed to be conservative in showing the extent of the pandemic, Spain on Friday neared 118,000 cases, second only to the United States. Official Health Ministry data showed that 7,472 of those infections had been in the past 24 hours.
Italy, with more than 115,000 reported cases as of Friday morning, has seen new infections leveling off after three weeks of the West's first nationwide shutdown.
Spain also registered 932 new deaths, 18 less than its daily record of 950 the day before.
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BERLIN
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is returning to work at the chancellery after two weeks in quarantine at home due to an encounter with a doctor who tested positive for the new coronavirus.
Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said that Merkel was returning to her office on Friday after the recommended 14-day precautionary quarantine. He said, "Thankfully, the chancellor tested negative for the coronavirus several times."
The 65-year-old German leader went into quarantine on March 22 after being informed that a doctor who had administered a vaccination to her had tested positive for the new coronavirus. She received the precautionary vaccination against pneumococcal infection two days previously.
Merkel has continued to lead Cabinet meetings and take part in domestic and international videoconferences from home.
The head of Germany's disease control agency says the number of people who die of Covid-19 is likely being undercounted.
Lothar Wieler of the Robert Koch Institute said Friday that he believes "we have more dead than are officially being reported."
It wasn't immediately clear whether Wieler was suggesting that deaths are being undercounted only in Germany or worldwide, and reporters were unable to ask follow-up questions during his online news conference.