• Lesotho goes to the polls in tense, open election

    Jerome Delay / AP

    A Lesotho man walks to the polling station at the Mpho primary school in Maseru, Lesotho, May 26.

    Voters in the highland African kingdom of Lesotho go to the polls on Saturday in a wide-open election that analysts say could end up without a clear result, as happened in 1998 when South Africa had to send in troops to quell major civil unrest.

    Campaigning has been peaceful but a lack of opinion polls, and Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili's decision in February to quit the ruling party and go it alone under the banner of the new Democratic Congress (DC) party, have kept the landlocked nation's two million people on tenterhooks.

    -- Reported by Ed Cropley of Reuters

    Read the full story.

    Jerome Delay / AP

    Lesotho voters wait outside a polling station in the Machache district of Lesotho, May 26.

    Jerome Delay / AP

    Voters wait outside a polling station in the Machache district of Lesotho, some 40 miles east of the capital Maseru, Lesotho, May 26.

    Alexander Joe / AFP - Getty Images

    A Basotho man casts his vote at a polling station outside Maseru. Polls opened in tiny Lesotho, where a series of party splits have resulted in three former allies fighting the closest general election since independence. Polls opened at 7:00am for 10 hours of voting in this mountainous kingdom where many people walked or rode horses on the cold, early winter morning to reach voting stations in schools and churches.

    Jerome Delay / AP

    Lesotho political party observers witness voters at the Mpho primary school in Maseru, Lesotho, May 26.

     

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  • Jon Hrusa/EPA

    Potso Seoete rides by horseback through a pass in the Maluti mountains on a journey to the Molika-liko health clinic in the Mokhotlong district of Lesotho. Seoete is employed by a new program, called Horse-riding for Health, that pays him to transport blood samples from the remote mountainous region.

    Jon Hrusa/EPA

    A neighbor watches as Potso Seoete prepares for his journey on Sept. 1. Approximately 25 percent of Lesotho’s adult population is living with HIV, and the country suffers from high rates of maternal mortality, infant mortality, and malnutrition.

    Jon Hrusa/EPA

    A woman carries her newborn baby into a clinic in the Mokhotlong district of Lesotho on Sept. 2. Health clinics in the furthest reaches of the district are often impossible to reach by off-road vehicles or even motorbikes.

    Jon Hrusa/EPA

    Village children skip rope in the Mokhotlong district. At an altitude of nearly 10,000 feet, the district is blanketed with snow four to six months out of the year; its steep dirt roads impassable during heavy rains in the summer. It is also is one of the most remote regions in Southern Africa, located in a mountainous area some 185 miles east of Maseru.

    A vital link

    By Jonathan Woods, msnbc.com

    On a recent trip to a remote mountainous region in Lesotho, European Pressphoto Agency Photographer John Hrusa documented a man named Potso Seoete, who provides a vital courier service for his community.

    His job: Transport blood samples by horseback and motorbike to be tested for HIV.

    Three to four times a week, weather permitting, Seoete gets on a horse at 7 a.m. and rides for a half-hour to a staging area where he meets a motorbike driver, who gives him an insulated bag of samples to take to the clinic. It's a journey that takes three to four hours, depending on conditions, and it can't take much longer because if the blood samples he's transporting aren't kept at a constant temperature they will break down. During bad weather, the road to the clinic is impassable for everything except horses.

    His job is funded by a new initiative called Horse-riding for Health. It was started by the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and the Lesotho Ministry of Health. The program contracts people like Seoete to provide this vital link from remote communities to clinics.

    After dropping off the samples, he will often be sent back with medications for the people he serves. His payment is 300 Loti, or the equivalent of $42 USD, which is enough to provide his wife, two children and mother with food.

    Describing the service Seoete provides as essential, Photographer John Hrusa said, "Without these horses, the program would fall flat on its face."