Africa Business

French President Emmanuel Macron, on a visit to Benin Wednesday, branded Russia “one of the last imperial colonial powers” for its invasion of Ukraine.

“Russia launched an offensive against Ukraine. It’s a territorial war, the likes of which we thought had disappeared from European soil.

“It’s a war from the early 20th, even the 19th century,” Macron said on the second leg of a trip to Africa to reset France’s relations with the continent, where many nations are former French colonies.

“I speak on a continent that has suffered colonial imperialism,” Macron added.

Delivering the broadside at a news conference with Benin President Patrice Talon, Macron said “Russia is one of the last imperial colonial powers”, because it had decided to “invade a neighbouring country to defend its interests”.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, triggering a war that has killed thousands, displaced millions and sparked fears of a global food crisis over blocked grain exports.

Macron accused the Kremlin of launching “a new type of hybrid world war”.

“It decided that information, energy and food were military instruments placed at the service” of the war in Ukraine, he said.

Macron said he wanted to “describe what’s happening today in the baldest terms”.

He accused Russia of disruption through “disinformation”, describing it as “one of the countries to make the most forceful use of instruments of propaganda”. He referred specifically to the television channels Russia Today and Sputnik.

– Simultaneous Russian tour –

Russia has cut back on gas deliveries to western Europe and Ukrainian grain has remained blocked in ports since the start of the war, driving a surge in global prices for energy and cereals.

Russia’s energy giant Gazprom slashed its gas exports to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline on Wednesday to about 20 percent of its capacity, German authorities have said.

Ukraine, meanwhile, says it had restarted operations at its Black Sea ports, a key phase to resuming grain exports under a UN-backed deal.

The French leader is on a tour of three African countries — Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau — that coincides with an African tour by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

In Ethiopia on Wednesday, Lavrov urged a gathering of African diplomats not to back a US-led world order.

It is up to us to decide whether to have a “world where we have (the) so-called collective West… totally subordinated to the United States and feeling… that it has the right to decide when and how to promote its own interests, without following international law”, he said.

The West responded to Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Moscow.

In Addis Ababa, Lavrov accused the West of throwing its principles “down the drain… when they needed to do what they believe is to punish Russia”.

“I don’t have the slightest doubt that if need be, they will not hesitate to do the same in relation to any other country… which would irritate them,” he warned.

– French pledge of support –

In Cameroon on Tuesday, Macron said the archives on French colonial rule in Cameroon would be opened “in full” and asked historians to shed light on the period’s “painful moments”.

French colonial authorities brutally repressed armed Cameroonian nationalists before the country’s independence in 1960. 

Tens of thousands of supporters of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) party died at the hands of French colonial troops and of the first post-independence president, Ahmadou Ahidjo.

Macron also pledged that France, “acting in support and at the request of our African partners”, would stand by African countries facing security problems.

France is reconfiguring its posture in the Sahel after falling out with the military junta in Mali, the epicentre of a bloody 10-year-old jihadist campaign in the region.

After a pullout from Mali that is expected to be completed in the coming weeks, France’s Barkhane anti-jihadist force will have around 2,500 troops in the Sahel, just under half of the deployment at its peak, French officers say.

The force will also make a tactical shift, acting more in a support role for local forces as opposed to taking the lead, they say.

Benin President Patrice Talon on Wednesday dismissed criticism that his government was holding political prisoners after the jailing of two opposition leaders late last year.

The West African state sitting between Nigeria and Togo was long praised for its thriving multi-party democracy, but critics say freedoms have steadily eroded under Talon, a 64-year-old cotton magnate first elected in 2016.

Talon was speaking during a one-day visit by President Emmanuel Macron to Benin’s economic capital Cotonou after the French leader had travelled to Cameroon.

“In Benin, there are no political detainees, no one is detained in Benin for their political opinion,” Talon said, answering questions from journalists with Macron at his side.

“But people are detained for having acted, for having committed offenses and crimes in the political field, that is true.”

Macron did not talk about the political situation in Benin during his speech.

Talon said it was possible that an amnesty or pardon may be given to detained opposition figures, when asked about releasing the two leaders.

“We have to be able to adjust the political situation so that it gives a good image, favourable to economic development,” Talon said.

“Our image is a little tarnished by the political situation that Benin has experienced lately. I am not ashamed of that.”

Benin opposition leader Reckya Madougou was sentenced in December to 20 years in prison for “terrorism” by a special court in the capital Porto-Novo after a brief trial that her attorneys condemned as a “political attack”.

Madougou was one of several Benin opposition leaders banned from running in last year’s April election when Talon won a second term with 86 percent of the vote.

A former justice minister, she was arrested in Cotonou in March — just weeks before the election — accused of financing an operation to assassinate political figures to prevent the vote and trying to “destabilise” the country.

Another opposition leader Joel Aivo, a professor who had been held for eight months, was also found guilty last December of money laundering and plotting against the state.

Both were tried by a special court dealing with terrorism and economic crimes, known as the CRIET. Critics say the court, created by Talon’s government in 2016, has been used crack down on his opponents.

Less than a week before the April election, a judge from the CRIET fled Benin denouncing political pressure to make rulings, in particular in the case of Madougou’s arrest.

Some opposition figures have fled the country while others have been disqualified from running in elections or targeted for probes by the government, critics say.

Soldiers and police officers were deployed across eastern DR Congo towns Wednesday after days of deadly anti-UN protests that have claimed at least 19 lives in the volatile region.

Calm appeared to have returned to several towns in North Kivu province, according to AFP reporters, after unrest broke out in the provincial capital Goma on Monday and quickly spread. 

Crowds had stormed a United Nations peacekeeping base and a supply centre in the city of Goma in North Kivu on Monday, looting valuables and chanting hostile slogans.

Three UN peacekeepers were then killed on Tuesday after protests spread, in an attack on their base in the town of Butembo.

Government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said during a televised news conference on Tuesday night that 12 protesters in total had been killed during the unrest, in addition to the peacekeepers. 

“In no case is violence justified,” he said. 

The UN mission in DRC, known as MONUSCO, has come under regular criticism in the troubled east, where many accuse it of failing to stop decades-old armed conflict. 

More than 120 armed groups roam the volatile region, where civilian massacres are common and conflict has displaced millions of people. 

Even as tensions began to dissipate in North Kivu on Wednesday, a deadly anti-UN protest erupted in the town of Uvira in neighbouring South Kivu province. 

Four people were killed, according to Uvira town hall spokesman Dominique Kalonzo — raising the total death toll from the anti-UN protests to 19.

Youngsters had attempted to besiege a MONUSCO base in the town on Wednesday morning, he said, before being dispersed by police officers firing warning shots. 

A bullet pierced a high-voltage cable, however, which collapsed on protesters about 100 metres (yards) from the UN base, Kalonzo said, killing four.

– ‘Very volatile’ –

On Wednesday, AFP correspondents saw tighter security in the North Kivu towns of Beni and Butembo, as well as in Goma, the provincial capital.  

Armed police and soldiers were patrolling Beni in jeeps and a highway leading out of the town towards several MONUSCO bases was heavily guarded.

Relative calm had also returned to Goma, where shops were beginning to open again as security forces deployed across the city.

In the town of Sake about 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Goma, Congolese police fired tear gas to deter protesters from approaching a UN base, which was ringed with soldiers and police officers. 

“We will protest until they leave,” said Jackson Kibuya, a protester in Sake, holding up a banner reading “Bye Bye MONUSCO”.  

On Tuesday, MONUSCO released a statement strongly condemning the attacks on its peacekeepers, which it called unjustifiable.  

Farhan Haq, a UN spokesman, also warned reporters in New York on Tuesday that the situation on the ground is “very volatile”.

– Rebel advances –

The latest protests come after the president of the senate, Modeste Bahati, told supporters in Goma on July 15 that MONUSCO should “pack its bags”.

They also coincide with the resurgence of the M23 — a militia that lay mostly dormant for years before resuming fighting last November. 

The rebels have since made significant advances in eastern Congo, including capturing the North Kivu town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border. 

The UN first deployed an observer mission to eastern Congo in 1999. 

In 2010, it became the peacekeeping mission MONUSCO — the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — with a mandate to conduct offensive operations.

It has a current strength of about 16,300 uniformed personnel, according to the UN. 

Botswana has become the second nation in the world, after Eswatini, to reach a landmark UN goal towards eradicating AIDS, researchers said Wednesday, in what health experts hailed as “stellar results”.

The country has met the so-called “95-95-95” target on HIV diagnosis, treatment and viral suppression several years early, according to a study published ahead of a global conference on the disease. 

About one in five people in Botswana live with the virus — one of the highest rates in the world — according to the UN AIDS agency (UNAIDS). 

The agency wanted 95 percent of HIV-positive people to know their status, 95 percent of those diagnosed on medication and 95 percent of those under treatment to show signs that the virus is being suppressed in their blood by 2025. 

But the study led by Botswana’s health ministry found the country had already met or surpassed all three thresholds, with a 95-98-98 score. The global average in 2020 was 84-87-90, UNAIDS says.

“Botswana is making historic new progress against HIV,” Sharon Lewin, president-elect of the International AIDS Society (IAS), told a virtual press briefing presenting the results.

The country is “well positioned to end its HIV epidemic by 2030. To put it simply, these are really stellar results.”

Madisa Mine, the study’s lead author and a Botswana government virologist, said the results were encouraging.

“We have translated a hopeless situation into a situation where now there is hope,” he said.

Now both the government and people on medication could look forward to Botswana one day becoming an AIDS-free country, Mine added.

That was a far cry from when he started working on the disease two decades ago, and it seemed the nation was “facing extinction” due to the high number of infections. 

– ‘Doable’ –

The paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a journal, was based on interviews and blood tests from more than 14,000 people aged 15 to 64.

Another southern African country, the small landlocked kingdom of Eswatini, became the first country to reach the UN target in 2020, UNAIDS says.  

UNAIDS deputy executive director Matthew Kavanagh said Botswana’s progress was down to a series of factors, including government investment and the rapid adoption of self-testing. 

In 2002, Botswana became the first African country to offer free anti-retroviral drugs, which help contain the virus and prevent it from infecting others. 

And in 2019 the country of 2.3 million people decriminalised same-sex relationships — something that Kavanagh said “has helped to get more and more people into care”.

Botswana showed it was possible to rein in the disease, IAS president Adeeba Kamarulzaman said. 

“It’s not an easy feat. But what it shows is, it is doable with investment and political commitment, as well as communities working to deliver the needed services,” she told AFP from Montreal ahead of the 24th International AIDS Conference, which opens in the Canadian city on Friday. 

Globally, about 38 million people, including almost two million children, were living with HIV in 2020, and more than 600,000 died from AIDS-related illnesses, according to UNAIDS.

Eastern and southern Africa are the worst affected regions, accounting for more than half of all cases. 

Al-Qaeda jihadists are tightening the screws on Mali’s military junta, extending their attacks to the south of the country and hitting a key garrison town on the outskirts of the capital.

Raids last week displayed coordination and operational complexity at a range that is unprecedented in the country’s decade-long jihadist campaign, say analysts.

Last Thursday, six attacks unfolded simultaneously at 5 am, striking the country’s troubled centre as well as the southern regions of Sikasso, Koulikoro and Kayes, which until now had never been targeted.

The following day, two explosive-laden vehicles smashed into the gates of an army building in Kati, a garrison town 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Bamako, killing a soldier.

The suicide raid was claimed by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), the main jihadist alliance in the Sahel and an Al-Qaeda affiliate, according to monitoring group SITE.

The operation was “a way of telling (the authorities) that they can strike anywhere,” a Malian analyst in the central town of Sevare told AFP.

The name of Kati has huge resonance in Mali. Its army base was the springboard for the country’s August 2020 coup and reputedly houses the country’s strongman, Colonel Assimi Goita, and Defence Minister Colonel Sadio Camara.

– ‘Corridor’ to south –

GSIM was created in 2017 from several groups — Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, an early pioneer of jihadism in the Sahel that was born in 2007, and Katiba Macina, Ansar Dine and Al-Mourabitoun, which were also led by veteran militants.

A UN-based expert in jihadist groups said the GSIM’s southward push emulated its successful “strategy of contagion” in the centre of the country.

Jihadists first struck the north of Mali in 2012, joining a regional insurgency.

After being scattered the following year by French forces, they regrouped, in 2015 launching attacks in the ethnically volatile centre and cross-border raids on Niger and Burkina Faso.

Across the three countries, thousands of civilians have been killed and more than two million have been displaced, and the economic damage has been devastating.

Heni Nsebia, a researcher at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), said the recent attacks had had “modest results, bearing in mind the means that were deployed”.

However, they were also a potent demonstration of the GSIM’s powers of coordination, proving the organisation is not “just a coalition of disparate groups”, he said.

One insight that emerges is the “major freedom of movement” for jihadists between the centre and south of the country, demonstrating the GSIM’s influence over a vast area that includes the border with Burkina Faso, said Nsebia.

A recent report by UN specialists described a “southwards corridor” enabling GSIM to “extend towards the Atlantic coast” and countries on the Gulf of Guinea beyond Burkina Faso, notably Benin and Togo, where cross-border attacks have been rising.

GSIM’s targeted tactics contrast with those adopted by Islamic State jihadists in Mali, who are often blamed for indiscriminate massacres of civilians.

In areas where it wields special clout, such as the arid regions of the north, the GSIM tries to set up a parallel government to the state, say local sources.

They try to win over local people to their vision of a just and protective society, “proposing Islamic justice, access to health care and security”, said a security source in Timbuktu.

– ‘Mercenaries’ –

In early 2020, GSIM leader Iyad Ag Ghali declared he was willing to hold talks with the government in Bamako, as “between brothers”, provided France and the UN withdrew their forces.

Since then, Mali’s elected government has been replaced by a military one, and French troops are close to pulling out after the junta brought in Russian paramilitaries.

But these major shifts have not been followed by any sign of talks. In fact, violence has risen.

In central Mali, civilians are caught between the jihadists on one side and, on the side, the Malian security forces aided by suspected operatives from the pro-Kremlin Wagner group.

In June at least 132 villagers were massacred — an act that the authorities pinned on the GSIM’s Macina Katiba component, but which the GSIM has denied.

The organisation’s mouthpiece, in claiming the Kati attack, said on Saturday: “If you have the right to hire mercenaries to kill defenceless innocents, then we have the right to destroy and target you.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa rolled out the red carpet for South Africa’s women on Wednesday, saying they deserved to be paid as much as their male counterparts after they won their first Africa Cup of Nations.

South Africa beat tournament hosts Morocco 2-1 in the final on Saturday in Rabat, thanks to a double from striker Hildah Magaia.

It was the first continental title for the side known as Banyana Banyana after five final defeats.

The victory has sparked a public debate around equal pay in the country, after it was reported the players would receive less money in prize bonuses than their male colleagues did for reaching the quarter-finals of the men’s tournament in 2019.

“Our hearts are filled with pride. They are bursting at the seams with a great deal of joy,” Ramaphosa said during a reception at the government’s Union Buildings in the capital.

“You deserve equal pay for equal work that you do,” he told the players, urging the country’s ministers of finance and sports to up the bonus.

“We need to give added remuneration to these young women who have made our country so proud. But having done so, we must then make sure that we eliminate the whole process of unequal pay out of our system.”

The team were met by jubilant fans as they landed back in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

Ramaphosa said the country should outlaw pay discrimination and embark on a programme to bridge the gender pay gap.

“You deserve the best. Welcome home, champions of Africa. You are the Golden Girls of our country. You are the queens of Africa,” he said.

“Whether they like it or they don’t like it, you are the queens.”

Miners in Angola have unearthed a rare pure pink diamond that is believed to be the largest found in 300 years, the Australian site operator announced Wednesday.

A 170 carat pink diamond — dubbed The Lulo Rose — was discovered at Lulo mine in the country’s diamond-rich northeast and is among the largest pink diamonds ever found, the Lucapa Diamond Company said in a statement to investors.

The “historic” find of the Type IIa diamond, one of the rarest and purest forms of natural stones, was welcomed by the Angolan government, which is also a partner in the mine.

“This record and spectacular pink diamond recovered from Lulo continues to showcase Angola as an important player on the world stage,” Angola’s Mineral Resources Minister Diamantino Azevedo said.

The diamond will be sold at international tender, likely at a dazzling price.

Although The Lulo Rose would have to be cut and polished to realise its true value, in a process that can see a stone lose 50 percent of its weight, similar pink diamonds have sold for record-breaking prices.

The 59.6 carat Pink Star was sold at a Hong Kong auction in 2017 for 71.2 million US dollars. It remains the most expensive diamond ever sold.

Miners in Angola have unearthed a rare pure pink diamond that is believed to be the largest found in 300 years, the Australian site operator announced Wednesday.

A 170 carat pink diamond — dubbed The Lulo Rose — was discovered at Lulo mine in the country’s diamond-rich northeast and is among the largest pink diamonds ever found, the Lucapa Diamond Company said in a statement to investors.

The “historic” find of the Type IIa diamond, one of the rarest and purest forms of natural stones, was welcomed by the Angolan government, which is also a partner in the mine.

“This record and spectacular pink diamond recovered from Lulo continues to showcase Angola as an important player on the world stage,” Angola’s Mineral Resources Minister Diamantino Azevedo said.

The diamond will be sold at international tender, likely at a dazzling price.

Although The Lulo Rose would have to be cut and polished to realise its true value, in a process that can see a stone lose 50 percent of its weight, similar pink diamonds have sold for record-breaking prices.

The 59.6 carat Pink Star was sold at a Hong Kong auction in 2017 for 71.2 million US dollars. It remains the most expensive diamond ever sold.

Under an acacia tree in Kenya’s drought-ravaged north, malnourished infants feed on sticky mouthfuls of a nutrient-dense peanut paste long used to prevent child starvation in disasters across the globe.

This wonder food can mean the difference between life and death for a child in hard-hit Marsabit, where aid workers say young children are perishing in conditions that border on famine.

“If we ran out of these, more deaths would be recorded very soon,” James Jarso of aid group World Vision said of the sachets being distributed by charity workers in the parched and isolated village of Purapul.

But just as 1.7 million children face starvation in the drought-stricken Horn of Africa, the cost of these life-saving supplements is skyrocketing because of another crisis unfolding thousands of miles away.

The conflict in Ukraine is making ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) more expensive to manufacture and procure, says UNICEF, which buys almost 80 percent of the world’s supply.

Ukraine is a major exporter of sunflower oil, wheat and other grains. The war has affected the price and availability of staple foods, driven up fuel prices, and disrupted supply chains already off-kilter because of the pandemic.

A knock-on effect has been higher prices for powdered milk, vegetable oils and peanuts — all key ingredients in RUTF, said Christiane Rudert, a nutrition adviser for UNICEF for southern and eastern Africa.

Even the materials used to make RUTF packaging have become scarcer and costlier, she said.

– Power paste –

UNICEF, which purchases around 49,000 tonnes of RUTF every year, is starting to feel the pinch.

“The cost has definitely gone up already, which affects our orders,” Rudert told AFP.

French company Nutriset told AFP it raised the cost of its leading RUTF product “Plumpy’Nut” twice in the past year, including a 13-percent hike in May.

It could not attribute this directly to Ukraine but a confluence of factors, including the war but also the pandemic, higher shipping costs, and environmental disasters, Nutriset said in a statement.

Overall the price of “Plumpy’Nut” — which reached 9.7 million children last year — had risen 23 percent since May 2021, it said.

UNICEF forecasts that by November, prices for RUTF will have risen 16 percent from pre-war levels.

Russia’s invasion has also raised fuel prices, making it costlier to deliver RUTF to where it’s needed.

The timing could not be worse.

More than 1.7 million children in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia are suffering the most lethal form of malnutrition as the Horn of Africa experiences its worst drought in generations.

The rising cost of RUTF means treating those children “will cost $12 million more than it would have cost before Ukraine”, Rudert said.

It is money that is sorely lacking, she said, with donations to address the hunger crisis in the Horn falling well short of need.

“This product… is literally what saves children’s lives when they have already reached that really severe form of malnutrition.

“It’s not just peanuts and milk and sugar and oil… it’s therapeutic,” Rudert said.

– ‘It’s life-saving’ –

Invented a quarter of a century ago, RUTF proved revolutionary in treating severe wasting, a deadly condition where underfed children are too thin for their height.

A single sachet of RUTF delivers 500 calories and essential vitamins and minerals.

Eaten directly from the packet, RUTF helps malnourished children quickly regain weight and energy, and requires no refrigeration or preparation by a healthcare worker.

This is essential in remote and impoverished regions like northern Kenya, where clean water and health workers are in short supply.

On a twice-monthly visit to Purapul, government doctor Mohamed Amin said most women and children were surviving on little else than the packs of paste he prescribed.

“It has really been a challenge,” he told AFP at a mobile health clinic, where mothers were handed two weeks’ worth of supplements to feed their children between screenings.

“At least it boosts them.”

UNICEF buys enough RUTF to feed at least 3.5 million children a year. But at current funding levels, a 16-percent price rise could mean 600,000 miss out on this life-saving treatment, Rudert said.

This would have disastrous consequences not just for the Horn but elsewhere in Africa such as South Sudan, where 300,000 children are expected to require RUTF treatment this year. 

Jarso, from World Vision, said the impact of RUTF in a place like Purapul could not be overstated. 

“There is no milk. There is no meat… there is no food for them. Therefore, it is life-saving.”

The Commonwealth Games are sometimes seen as a quirky relic in the modern sporting calender but former International Olympic Committee (IOC) marketing chief Michael Payne says they have consistently defied the doomsayers.

The 22nd edition of the Games opens in Birmingham on Thursday, bringing together around 5,000 athletes from 72 nations and territories — mostly former British colonies — to compete in 19 sports over 11 days.

Some track and field stars will be absent when the competition gets under way — just days after the end of the world championships in Eugene, Oregon.

But there will still be plenty of big names on show at the event, which features sports as diverse as lawn bowls and marathon running. 

The Commonwealth Games are not on the scale of the Olympics that Birmingham once aspired to host — the city was beaten by Barcelona for the right to put on the 1992 Games — but officials hope they can provide a big economic boost for the area.

According to the Financial Times, the West Midlands Combined Authority estimates the event will be worth £1 billion ($1.2 billion) to the regional economy.

Payne, credited with transforming the IOC brand and finances through sponsorship, said the Commonwealth Games had shown remarkable resilience over the decades.

“People have been talking of the demise of the Commonwealth Games for nearly half a century but they are still going, so I would not write them off just yet,” he told AFP.

Another former IOC marketing executive, Terrence Burns, who since leaving the organisation has played a role in five successful Olympic bid campaigns, said it was important for the event to find its own niche and evolve accordingly.

“These other Games are not the Olympic Games but tend to try to mirror them in look, feel, and impact,” he said. “That’s just not possible or credible.

“So I think they need to redefine ‘success’ and build their product accordingly.” 

– ‘Proud nation’ –

The Commonwealth Games have, like other global events in recent years, had trouble in attracting host cities.

“Finding nations willing to host is a challenge for many sports bodies these days,” said Payne. “That is why you have seen a far more flexible process introduced to identify potential hosts.

“But the Commonwealth Games do face a major hurdle, as their marketing and sponsorship revenue potential is limited and, as such, nations wanting to host must be willing to commit to $1 billion of taxpayer support.”

Burns said the nature of the Games, held every four years, throws up obstacles for organisers.

“I think an event that aspires to be global but by definition limits its participation base to a finite set of nations and territories, has a global fan interest challenge as well as a hosting city challenge,” he said. “That part is just maths.”

Steps have been taken to remodel the event, with the Commonwealth Games Federation last year publishing a roadmap for the future.

One recommendation was for “approximately” 15 sports to feature at the Games, with athletics and swimming compulsory but some flexibility to allow hosts to choose from a wider list of core sports.

Payne says that makes sense but he takes issue with a bolder idea of awarding co-hosting admittedly “only in exceptional circumstances” to non-Commonwealth countries.

“Like staging the Asian Games in Europe, it is a non-starter.”

He says the Commonwealth Games are a vital showcase for smaller nations and territories that struggle to attract compete at the bigger events.

“For many of the smaller nations this is their one moment on the world sports stage, with an opportunity to shine and win medals,” said the 64-year-old Irishman.

“That is important for these nations and governments to drive local sports interest. At the Olympics there is no chance for them to medal.”

This is reflected by the lengths the impoverished Sri Lankan team have gone to  get to Birmingham.

Commonwealth Games organisers and the Sri Lanka cricket board have covered their costs.

“We want to stand like other nations, in front of our flag, as a proud nation, keeping our backs straight, our heads strong and we want to do our best,” said Dampath Fernando, the team’s chef de mission.