African press review 8 October 2015

African press applauds China's offer to build 100 hospitals in Africa as Sino African health development forum closes in Cape Town; Boko Haram insurgents meet deadly fire in daring attack on Yobe army headquarters; and car accident victim in Kenya spends 18 hours in ambulance for lack of a bed in ICU.

We begin in Nigeria where the battle to bring an end to the Boko Haram insurgency by December continues to receive wide coverage.

Punch reports that the Nigerian Army fighting with the support of the Air Force, has killed over 100 insurgents on Wednesday as they attempted to take over the headquarters of the 120 Task Force Battalion in Damaturu, Yobe State.

Officials confirmed that four suspected Boko Haram suicide bombers attacked Buhari Housing Estate and a village on the outskirts of Damaturu, killing 18 people and injuring 25 others in the Yobe State capital early, yesterday.

Meantime, the terror group on Wednesday reportedly published a new propaganda video via social media, in which an unidentified fighter read a statement in Hausa and Arabic, flanked by more than a dozen armed fighters.

In South Africa there is a warm reception by the press of China’s growing presence in the health sector.

Mail and Guardian welcomes an offer by China to build 100 hospitals and clinics on the continent. The pledge by Beijing was unveiled at the end of the second Ministerial Forum of China-Africa Health Development held in Cape Town this week.

The Johannesburg-based publication says the package is included in a declaration adopted on Tuesday by Chinese and African health ministers to increase access to facilities, medication, health workers and training in Africa.

According to the newspaper, the ministers pledged in the declaration, to “support a new, well-funded and functional international response system to manage future pandemics” such as the Ebola outbreak that hit West Africa last year.

And South Africa’s Newsday investigates the arrest and detention in Zimbabwe on Wednesday of two Nigerian pastors whose spiritual leader last year prophesied President Robert Mugabe’s death.

The newspaper reports that the arrests forced Chris Okafor, the head of the Liberation City World Ministries who predicted the supposed impending demise of the 91 year old leader to cancel a high profile spiritual mission to Zimbabwe.

Newsday says that Okafor’s prophesy that Zimbabwe would have a new President by March this year left a bad taste in the mouths of Mugabe’s friends and foes.

New Zimbabwe.com reports that seven members of Okafor’s church who had arrived in Zimbabwe on Sunday to prepare for the pastor's “grand” arrival were instantly deported while the local cleric Joseph Magorimbo accused of inviting Okafor was taken for questioning, by security agents.

And Kenya’s Daily Nation reveals the ordeal of an accident victim spent 18 hours in an ambulance because Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi claimed not to have an Intensive Care bed.

According to the paper, in an outrageous display of callous disregard for a patient’s welfare, private hospitals would not admit him without a cash payment of Sh200,000. Daily Nation reports that Alex Madaga, 37, knocked down by a speeding car in Nairobi on Monday was bleeding in his brain when he was rushed to hospital.