BOTSWANA: Air Botswana Finds New Marriage With Qatar Airways

Qatar Airways is pleased to announce a code-share partnership with Air Botswana, offering Qatar Airways travellers enhanced access to three key destinations in Botswana, Africa.

The partnership with Air Botswana, the national airline of Botswana, will provide Qatar Airways passengers with connections to the Botswana cities of Gaborone, Francistown and Maun via Qatar Airways’ South Africa gateway Johannesburg. Qatar Airways operates double-daily flights between Johannesburg and its state-of-the-art hub, Hamad International Airport in Doha, with onward flights to more than 150 destinations worldwide.

The new code-share agreement allows business and leisure travellers fast and convenient access to the home of Botswana’s rich mineral industry, abundant game reserves and luxury safari lodges. Botswana’s luxurious tourism experiences are complemented by Qatar Airways’ ultra-modern fleet of aircraft featuring the world’s best Business Class on services to South Africa.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Mr. Akbar Al Baker, said when making the announcement: 'Our new code-share agreement with Air Botswana will offer even greater opportunities for passengers from across our global network, especially from key markets in Europe and Asia to easily connect with popular destinations in Botswana, to take advantage of exclusive leisure experiences. Code-share partnerships and airline alliances continue to play an important role for Qatar Airways. We are committed to serving the travel needs of the African market and the addition of Air Botswana flights to Qatar Airways’ route network is an important expansion of our network'.

The Southern African region is an important market for Qatar Airways, with three destinations in South Africa including Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, and on the east Maputo in Mozambique. Expansion in this region is a key focus for Qatar Airways, having launched services to the Namibian capital Windhoek on 28th of September, with Lusaka in Zambia to follow, and the resumption of services to the Seychelles in December 2016.

Air Botswana’s Acting General Manager, Ms. Agnes Khunwana, said: 'We are delighted to join forces with a renowned global airline like Qatar Airways to launch code-share services to a number of Botswana cities. This partnership provides Qatar Airways’ passengers with easy and direct access to a number of key business and high-end leisure destinations across Botswana while providing easy access to Qatar Airways’ global network for the people of Gaborone, Francistown and Maun when booking directly with Qatar Airways. We look forward to working closely with Qatar Airways into the future'.

In Eastern Africa does Qatar Airways fly to Entebbe, Kigali, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar and this latest expansion into Africa provides the continent with quality air services connecting Africans to the rest of the world with just one stop in the airline's award winning hub airport in Doha, Hamad International.

BOTSWANA: 10 Eritrean Football Players Dissappear From Hotel, Seek Asylum In Botswana

Ten players from the Eritrean football team have refused to return home after playing a World Cup qualifying match in Botswana and are now seeking asylum there, officials say.

The men were detained by police after deciding not to board their plane.

They are reported to have refused to go home despite the intervention of the Eritrean ambassador in Botswana.

There have been a number of mass defections by Eritrean athletes in recent years.

One of the most noticeable was in 2013, when Uganda granted asylum to 15 Eritrean players and their team doctor after they absconded at the end of a football tournament.

A senior official at the Botswana Football Association says it has yet to establish why the players refused to leave with their team-mates.

However a report in the Botswana newspaper The Voice said that the players were distressed about the prospect of joining the Eritrean army and wanted to seek asylum despite being persuaded not to by the ambassador.

The newspaper reported Botswana Football Association vice president Basadi Akoonyatse as saying that the Eritrean players were found missing from their hotel rooms early on Wednesday morning by team officials.

"A report was made to the police who spotted them loitering around Francistown, alleging that they were in search of a Red Cross centre where they could seek assistance to be accorded asylum in Botswana," she said.

Eritrea is notorious for human rights abuses, with torture and slavery both reported by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry report to be commonplace.

The country has also been accused by the UN of forcing its citizens to indefinite national service and of killing people trying to escape abroad.

The Eritrean government dismissed the UN's findings as "totally unfounded and devoid of all merit".


Nation of six million on Red Sea - one of Africa's poorest countries
One-party state - no functioning constitution or independent media
Former Italian colony, later formed loose federation with Ethiopia
1962 - Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie dissolved Eritrean parliament, seized Eritrea
Eritrean separatists - the Eritrean People's Liberation Front - fought guerrilla war until 1991, when they captured capital Asmara
Eritrea voted for independence in 1993
May 1998 border dispute with Ethiopia led to two-year war costing 100,000 lives
Still no peace settlement - thousands of troops face each other along 1,000km (620-mile) border