BRUSSELS: A factory in Belgium behind a Salmonella contamination in Kinder chocolates sold in Europe can reopen conditionally after a clean-up by owner Ferrero, health authorities said Friday.
Belgium’s AFSCA food health safety agency “has decided to give Ferrero conditional authorization for its production factory in Arlon,” in the country’s southeast, it said in a statement.
The permission was given for three months, during which all the products will be analyzed before they can be distributed and sold, it added.
Ferrero was forced to withdraw more than 3,000 tons of Kinder products worth tens of millions of euros after the Salmonella cases were traced to Kinder chocolates made in its Arlon factory.
AFSCA ordered the factory closed in early April, just before the Easter period that usually sees Kinder products fly off supermarket shelves.
Nearly 400 Salmonella cases ended up being detected across the EU and Britain, many of them in children. There were no deaths.
Salmonella contamination symptoms can include severe diarrhea and vomiting that are particularly dangerous for children under 10.
Ferrero, an Italian confectionary giant that also makes the Nutella chocolate spread in other sites, said it had started the process of reopening the Arlon plant and expected production to restart in a few weeks.
It stressed that it had carried out a “deep clean” of the factory, which has around 1,000 workers, and taken steps so that such a contamination would never happen again. It said the contamination likely was from a filter in a dairy milk tank.
“We are truly sorry for what happened and want to apologize once more to all people who were affected,” Ferrero CEO Lapo Civiletti said.
The company is under several probes by Belgian authorities, who are notably investigating whether it was slow to respond to a hygiene problem that might have come to its attention months earlier.
Officials are seeing if Ferrero met obligations for tracing products in its food chain and if the Salmonella incident put human lives in danger.
Kinder factory at center of Salmonella cases can reopen
https://arab.news/ngkjs
Kinder factory at center of Salmonella cases can reopen
- Health authorities give Ferrero conditional authorization to reopen Arlon factory
- All products to be analyzed before sales and distribution
UN’s top court opens Myanmar Rohingya genocide case
- The Gambia filed a case against Myanmar at the UN’s top court in 2019
- Verdict expected to impact Israel’s genocide case over war on Gaza
DHAKA: The International Court of Justice on Monday opened a landmark case accusing Myanmar of genocide against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority.
The Gambia filed a case against Myanmar at the UN’s top court in 2019, two years after a military offensive forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from their homes into neighboring Bangladesh.
The hearings will last three weeks and conclude on Jan. 29.
“The ICJ must secure justice for the persecuted Rohingya. This process should not take much longer, as we all know that justice delayed is justice denied,” said Asma Begum, who has been living in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district since 2017.
A mostly Muslim ethnic minority, the Rohingya have lived for centuries in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state but were stripped of their citizenship in the 1980s and have faced systemic persecution ever since.
In 2017 alone, some 750,000 of them fled military atrocities and crossed to Bangladesh, in what the UN has called a textbook case of ethnic cleansing by Myanmar.
Today, about 1.3 million Rohingya shelter in 33 camps in Cox’s Bazar, turning the coastal district into the world’s largest refugee settlement.
“We experienced horrific acts such as arson, killings and rape in 2017, and fled to Bangladesh,” Begum told Arab News.
“I believe the ICJ verdict will pave the way for our repatriation to our homeland. The world should not forget us.”
A UN fact-finding mission has concluded that the Myanmar 2017 offensive included “genocidal acts” — an accusation rejected by Myanmar, which said it was a “clearance operation” against militants.
Now, there is hope for justice and a new future for those who have been displaced for years.
“We also have the right to live with dignity. I want to return to my homeland and live the rest of my life in my ancestral land. My children will reconnect with their roots and be able to build their own future,” said Syed Ahmed, who fled Myanmar in 2017 and has since been raising his four children in the Kutupalong camp.
“Despite the delay, I am optimistic that the perpetrators will be held accountable through the ICJ verdict. It will set a strong precedent for the world.”
The Myanmar trial is the first genocide case in more than a decade to be taken up by the ICJ. The outcome will also impact the genocide case that Israel is facing over its war on Gaza.
“The momentum of this case at the ICJ will send a strong message to all those (places) around the world where crimes against humanity have been committed,” Nur Khan, a Bangladeshi lawyer and human rights activist, told Arab News.
“The ICJ will play a significant role in ensuring justice regarding accusations of genocide in other parts of the world, such as the genocide and crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the people of Gaza.”
