In Sudan, heavy fighting was reported in and around the capital Khartoum early Thursday, despite a weeklong cease-fire agreed to by both sides in the conflict.

Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Defense Forces each appeared to be trying to push the other out of central Khartoum and control areas around the presidential palace and army headquarters.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed Wednesday for an end to the fighting in Sudan and international support for the Sudanese people, who he said are facing a humanitarian catastrophe.

“Aid must be allowed into Sudan, and we need secure and immediate access to be able to distribute it to people who need it most,” Guterres said during a news conference in Nairobi, Kenya. “Civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected, and humanitarian workers and their assets must be respected.”

Sudan’s Health Ministry says more than 500 people have been killed and nearly 5,000 wounded since the fighting began April 15, during a power struggle between the leaders of the Sudanese government forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The U.N. migration agency (IOM) said this week that at least 334,000 people have been internally displaced by the fighting, in addition to the 100,000 who have fled the country. The U.N. refugee agency has warned the fighting could cause more than 800,000 people to flee the northeastern African country.

Many are going to the seven countries that border Sudan, including Chad, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Egypt and Ethiopia.

Latest cease-fire efforts

South Sudan’s Foreign Ministry announced Tuesday that Sudanese army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, had agreed to the new cease-fire.

The U.N. chief expressed concern that previous cease-fires have consistently been violated, and he urged the international community to press the two generals to respect and implement the latest one.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir stressed the importance of a longer truce and the naming of envoys to peace talks, to which both sides agreed.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said his government would support talks in Sudan between the rival factions, adding he is “being careful about not interfering in their domestic matters.”

“The entire region could be affected,” he said in an interview Tuesday with a Japanese newspaper, as an envoy from Sudan’s army chief met with Egyptian officials in Cairo.

Humanitarian operation

U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths spent Wednesday in Port Sudan — the Sudanese Red Sea city where the U.N. and many nongovernmental organizations have shifted their operations from Khartoum.

Griffiths and the head of the U.N. in Sudan, Volker Perthes, spoke by phone with al-Burhan and Dagalo.

Griffiths told reporters he is working on getting commitments from the two factions to protect humanitarian assistance and allow aid workers and supplies to move, even when there is no formal cease-fire.

“We will need to have agreements at the highest level and very publicly, and we will need to deliver those commitments into local arrangements that can be depended on,” he said, emphasizing that the humanitarian community is “staying and delivering.”

Most aid operations have been suspended or severely scaled back due to the insecurity. Several aid workers have been killed in the fighting. The Norwegian Refugee Council said Wednesday that one of their Sudanese volunteers was killed Sunday in the volatile city of Geneina in West Darfur.

Looting also has hampered aid operations.

The World Food Program said Wednesday that nearly 17,000 tons of food had been stolen from its warehouses across Sudan, and it was working to determine what supplies remain. Before the fighting, WFP had more than 80,000 tons of stocks in the country. The agency still plans to provide food assistance for 384,000 people in the coming days.

The U.N. refugee agency’s Darfur coordinator said looting has long been a problem in Darfur, and many of their facilities have been robbed since April 15.

“Our facilities in Nyala, in South Darfur, and in El Geneina, in West Darfur, have been targeted by looters, criminals, bandits, out of control militias,” Toby Harward told reporters in a video call from Nairobi, where he was evacuated last week.

He said local authorities in Darfur have been working with humanitarians to try to make sure the various national cease-fires are respected at the local level, so aid can be distributed.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Thursday it has launched an emergency appeal to support the Sudanese Red Crescent Society to deliver assistance to 200,000 people.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Rebels linked to the Islamic State group attacked a village in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s volatile east killing at least six people, local authorities said Tuesday.

Hundreds of people have been killed in rebel and militia attacks in the gold-rich Ituri province, where the IS-linked Allied Democratic Forces also operate.

“The ADF rebels entered Makumo village on Monday night” in the Mambasa area, Gilbert Sivamwenda, a local community leader, told AFP.

“This morning we found six bodies,” he said, underlining that the toll could be higher as they did not go far out into the bush to look for bodies as the area was not secure.

“The army arrived when the rebels had already left,” said Tonge Sorone, a young local.

The ADF, originally insurgents in Uganda, gained a foothold in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1990s and have since been accused of killing thousands of civilians, becoming the deadliest of scores of outlawed forces in the deeply troubled region.

Since 2019, some ADF attacks in eastern DRC have been claimed by the Islamic State group, which describes the fighters as a local offshoot, the Islamic State Central Africa Province.

More than 150 people were killed in Ituri in the first half of April, according to the United Nations. It said nearly 500 people had been killed there between December and March.

Ituri and the neighboring North Kivu province have been under a so-called “state of siege” since 2021, with security officials running the local governments in a bid to stamp out the violence.

The DRC and Uganda also launched a joint offensive that year to drive the ADF out of their Congolese strongholds, but the measures have so far failed to end the group’s attacks. 
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The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced Wednesday the temporary suspension of its food assistance to the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

While describing the move as a “difficult decision,” USAID Administrator Samantha Power said the agency recently discovered that food aid intended for people of the region, who are suffering under famine-like condition, was being diverted and sold on the local market.

The agency referred the matter to its Office of the Inspector General, which launched an investigation and sent leaders from its Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance to Ethiopia before deciding on a temporary pause in food aid, she said.

Power said the U.S. government has raised its concerns with officials from the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray Interim Regional Administration, and that the officials have expressed willingness to work with the U.S. to identify and hold those responsible accountable.

She said USAID “stands ready” to restart the program once strong oversight measures are in place, and it has confidence that assistance will reach the intended vulnerable populations.

A two-year war that broke out in November 2020 between the federal government and forces led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the party that dominates the region, killed tens of thousands of people, created famine-like conditions for hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.

The government and Tigray forces agreed to end the hostilities in November, which has allowed additional aid to reach the region and for some services to be restored.

Power said the pause has dealt another blow to already suffering civilians and reiterated the United States’ commitment to the Ethiopian people.

“While food aid to the Tigray Region is paused, other vital assistance not implicated in the diversion scheme will continue, including life-saving nutritional supplements, safe drinking water, and support for agricultural activities and development,” she said.  
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Nearly a month since armed conflict began between rival factions of the military government of Sudan, efforts by the international community to broker a truce in the country have failed as both parties repeatedly violated three cease-fire agreements.

But leaders in East Africa say they will bar military rule in the region.

Speaking in Nairobi on Tuesday, Kenyan President William Ruto said Sudan had already made progress toward governance and that East Africa leaders would not allow what he termed a small disagreement to destroy those gains. He also said the soldiers would be held accountable.

“They have absolutely no reason to destroy people’s businesses, people’s livelihoods, cause unnecessary chaos and mayhem, when the quarrel can be solved by dialogue or conversation,” he said. “And we are determined to stop our continent from sliding into military rule. The continent is ready, and we are prepared to build our democratic institutions and get the people of this continent to choose the government they want.”

Experts such as Macharia Munene, an analyst on international relations in Kenya, say that despite its failure to end conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the East African Community regional bloc stands a chance to persuade Sudan’s military to end fighting because it is in the military’s interest, as the country itself hopes to become an EAC member.

“Concerted effort is what is needed,” he said, urging anyone with connections to Sudanese army chief General Abdel Fattah Burhan or General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, to “use those avenues to point out that it is in their interest to stop killing each other, and to convince the leaders that they do not want to be perpetual pariahs in the region.”

The fighting has left 400 people dead and has displaced more than 800,000 people since erupting on April 15, according to the United Nations. Each military faction has defended its stance.

Nick Westcott, director of the Royal African Society, sees the conflict as a chance for the East African region to move past failures in the DRC independently and persuade warring soldiers to lay down their arms.

Westcott pointed to MONUSCO, the U.N. peacekeeping force in the DRC. The EAC force sent to DRC “was complementary to that, and its presence was agreed [upon] by various parties involved, particularly Kinshasa authorities,” he said. “In Sudan, there is no existing authority and no agreement on any party that they should be the force coming for peace, not at this stage.”

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development agreed last week to send South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, Kenya’s Ruto and Ismail Omar of Djibouti to help broker a cease-fire in Sudan. Sudan’s former colony brokered the latest cease-fire, and Munene said it was in Kiir’s interest that Khartoum end its war because of his dependence on the port for trade.

“Being a landlocked [country], you know, it is an oil-producing country, and the oil goes through Khartoum to the Red Sea,” he said. “So South Sudan is hurting.”

Kiir on Tuesday said he’d held separate telephone conversations with Burhan and Dagalo, both of whom agreed to send representatives to talk.
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A top United Nations official is calling on Sudan’s rival military leaders to publicly commit themselves to the safe delivery of humanitarian assistance to millions of people struggling to survive amid escalating fighting.

At the end of a three-day troubleshooting visit to the region, Martin Griffiths, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said the Sudanese people face a humanitarian catastrophe.

Speaking by video link from Port Sudan, Griffiths said it was essential that the leaders of the two warring factions publicly back the efforts of humanitarian agencies to provide relief to those in need.

He said he was already working on a plan to get supplies where they are needed and that he sought “to be sure that we have the commitments publicly and clearly given by the two militaries to protect humanitarian assistance.”

Griffiths said it was important for them “to deliver on the obligations to allow supplies for people to move, and that we should do that … even when there is no formal natural cease-fire.”

Griffiths said he and Volker Perthes, U.N. special representative for Sudan, spoke Wednesday with Sudanese Armed Forces leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

In their talks, he said they stressed the need for humanitarian aid to reach the people. But for that to happen, Griffiths said he told the generals that strong guarantees on the safety of aid workers and supplies had to be backed up with agreements from the top.

“It seems to me that getting those commitments is a condition precedent for large-scale humanitarian action,” Griffiths said. “And I say large-scale because humanitarian action is continuing day by day by day, and it has been a mistake to suggest that it stopped.”

Griffiths said the U.N. was hampered in its ability to provide for the Sudanese people because of severe funding shortages. He said only $200 million of the U.N.’s $1.7 billion appeal for Sudan, which was launched before this crisis, has been received.

He said money is needed to get assistance to the different parts of Darfur and to hardest-hit urban areas, especially Khartoum. 

Besides money, Griffiths said, “We need access, we need airlift, we need supplies that do not get looted.

“The World Food Program today told me six trucks of theirs which were going to Darfur were looted, despite assurances of safety and security.”

He reiterated, “We need to be very, very clear about commitments made to ensure the safety of moving the supplies from Port Sudan, or indeed from Chad to Darfur to Port Sudan and westwards to places of need.” 

Griffiths said medicines, food, clean water, fuel and other critical commodities are desperately needed.

He said the Food and Agriculture Organization and WFP told him Wednesday about “the importance of getting the food and seeds into places which are going to be hard to reach because of the rainy season that is coming in June,” and corresponds with the planting season. 

Since fighting between the two warring factions began more than three weeks ago, at least 334,000 people have been displaced inside Sudan, and more than 100,000 have fled to neighboring countries in search of assistance and protection. 

Sudan’s Federal Ministry of Health reports some 528 people have been killed and 4,620 injured, although U.N. agencies say they believe the toll to be much higher. 
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Police in Zambia have surrounded the home of former President Edgar Lungu and are demanding they search it as part of a corruption probe. 

A spokesman for Zambia’s former ruling Patriotic Front party, Raphael Nakachinda, told VOA that police forcefully gained access to the Lusaka home of the former president. 

“It’s not only unconstitutional, but criminal — this government never to respect the supreme law of the land, which is the constitution, which confers the former president with immunity,” Nakachinda said.

Zambian police spokesman Dan Mwale told VOA on Wednesday afternoon that police were still outside the property.   

“Police officers are at the former head of state’s residence. Currently, we can’t give out a statement as to why we have surrounded the house,” Mwale said.

The police action comes 10 months after Zambia’s anti-money laundering agency summoned former first lady Esther Lungu over the ownership of 15 luxury flats in Lusaka.

Investigators said they believed the apartments were ill-gotten gains. The Lungus denied wrongdoing, according to the Patriotic Front party spokesman.

No charges were filed and Lungu’s lawyer told journalists the matter was closed.

Critics say a government campaign against corruption is being used to target and intimidate political opponents.

Numerous officials who served under former President Lungu have been arrested, and his family members questioned.

Current President Hakainde Hichilema has denied allegations that his fight against corruption is targeting opponents. Lungu’s party was defeated by Hichilema and his United Party for National Development nearly two years ago. 
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A high-ranking United Nations official arrived Wednesday in violence-torn Sudan as the deadline approaches for the latest shaky cease-fire agreement between the two warring factions.   
 

U.N. emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths tweeted that he was in the beleaguered city of Port Sudan to “reaffirm the @UN’s commitment to the Sudanese people.” 

Scores of people have crowded into Sudan’s main seaport to escape the nearly three-week-old fighting between Sudanese government forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Sudan’s health ministry says 550 people reportedly have been killed and more than 4,900 wounded since the fighting began on April 15 after relations between the two factions fell apart.  

South Sudan’s foreign ministry announced Tuesday that Sudanese army chief General Abdel Fattah Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, have agreed to a new weeklong cease-fire agreement that will take effect Thursday.   

Previous cease-fire agreements of various lengths have consistently been violated during the fighting, however, with neither side able to secure a quick victory nor showing any signs of backing down – raising the specter of a prolonged conflict that could draw in other countries.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir stressed the importance of a longer truce and the naming of envoys to peace talks, to which both sides agreed.

Burhan and Dagalo were allies in Sudan’s transitional government after a 2021 coup, and they shared power as part of an internationally backed transition toward free elections and civilian government.

With fighting now in its third week, the conflict has forced 100,000 people to flee Sudan for safety, and it is creating a refugee crisis in neighboring impoverished countries, the United Nations said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi said his government would support talks in Sudan between the rival factions but said he also was “being careful about not interfering in their domestic matters.”

“The entire region could be affected,” he said in an interview Tuesday with a Japanese newspaper, as an envoy from Sudan’s army chief met with Egyptian officials in Cairo.

The U.N. World Food Program said Monday it was resuming work in the safer parts of Sudan after a pause earlier in the conflict after some aid workers were killed.

The agency said in a statement on Monday that distribution of food is expected to commence in the states of Gedaref, Gezira, Kassala and White Nile in the coming days to provide life-saving assistance.

“The risk is that this is not just going to be a Sudan crisis, it’s going to be a regional crisis,” said Michael Dunford, the aid agency’s East Africa director.

The United Nations migration agency said earlier this week that at least 334,000 people have been internally displaced in Sudan since deadly fighting broke out last month, in addition to the 100,000 who have fled the country. The U.N. refugee agency, meanwhile, has warned the fighting could cause more than 800,000 people to flee the northeastern African country.    

The top U.N. official in Sudan, Volker Perthes, told The Associated Press on Monday that Sudan’s warring generals have agreed to send representatives — potentially to Saudi Arabia — for negotiations.   

The Sudanese ambassador to the United States, Mohamed Abdalla Idris, told VOA he hopes the cease-fire eventually will lead to meaningful long-term peace talks.    

He said, “a cease-fire, truce, is a two-way traffic,” and noted peace can only be realized if all parties respect the terms of any deal.  

The fighting in Sudan has forced foreign governments to pull their citizens from the country.  

Russia’s military announced Tuesday that more than 200 people will be evacuated on four military transports.   

Hundreds of Americans reached the eastern city of Port Sudan last weekend, watched over by U.S. military drones. Saudi officials said Monday that a U.S. Navy ship took more than 300 evacuees from Port Sudan to the Saudi port of Jeddah.  

The U.S. State Department said Monday that three U.S. convoys evacuated more than 700 people since Friday and reported a total of more than 1,000 U.S. citizens have been evacuated since the violence started.  

The violence has also spread to Sudan’s western Darfur region, where the RSF began as the Janjaweed militia, which was formed by former authoritarian president Omar al-Bashir from Arab tribal militias working alongside government troops in a brutal war against ethnic minority rebels.   

The non-governmental Norwegian Refugee Council issued a statement condemning the violence that has claimed more than 190 lives, including that of an NRC volunteer.  The statement said dozens of settlements have been burned and destroyed as a result of the fighting.   

“Families across Sudan, including those of our colleagues, are being torn apart, and having to choose between remaining trapped in the battlefield, or risking their lives to flee or reach an overcrowded hospital,” said Jan Egeland, the NRC’s Secretary-General.

“They are running out of everything, including water, food, electricity, fuel, and cash,” Egeland continued. “We need the international community to put as much effort into secure humanitarian access, regardless of ceasefire and in providing aid to millions of people as they have in evacuating their own citizens.”

Michael Atit in Khartoum; Margaret Besheer at the United Nations; Anthony LaBruto; John Tanza, Nike Ching at the State Department contributed to this story.  Some information in this report came from The Associated
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Heavy rain that triggered flooding and landslides in western and northern Rwanda has killed at least 109 people, the state-run broadcaster said on Wednesday, as authorities searched for survivors trapped in their homes.

Muddy water flowed swiftly down an inundated road and destroyed houses in a video clip posted by the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency.

“Our main priority now is to reach every house that has been damaged to ensure we can rescue any person who may be trapped,” François Habitegeko, governor of Rwanda’s Western Province, told Reuters.

The death toll stood at 95 in the province, he said. The state broadcaster’s toll of 109 included deaths from a second region, the Northern Province.

Some people had been rescued and taken to hospital, Habitegeko said but did not say how many.

The hardest-hit districts in the Western Province were Rutsiro, with 26 dead, Nyabihu with 19, and 18 each in Rubavu and Ngororero, he said.

Habitegeko said the rain started at about 6 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Tuesday and that the River Sebeya had burst its banks.

“The soil was already soaked from the previous days of rain, which caused landslides that closed roads,” he said.

The Rwanda Meteorology Agency has forecast rainfall above the average in May for the East African nation.

In neighboring Uganda near the border with Rwanda, six people died overnight into Wednesday in an area in the southwestern Kisoro district, after heavy rains pounded the mountainous region, according to the Uganda Red Cross.

Five of the dead are from one family, and emergency workers have begun excavations to retrieve the bodies, the Red Cross said in a statement.

Uganda has also been experiencing heavy and sustained rains since late March and in recent days landslides have been reported in other elevated areas, like Kasese near the Rwenzori mountains, where deluges and floods destroyed homes and displaced hundreds.
…

Some 258 million people needed emergency food aid last year because of conflict, economic shocks and climate disasters, a U.N. report said Wednesday, a sharp rise from 193 million the previous year.   

“More than a quarter of a billion people are now facing acute levels of hunger, and some are on the brink of starvation. That’s unconscionable,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.   

It was “a stinging indictment of humanity’s failure to make progress… to end hunger, and achieve food security and improved nutrition for all,” he said.   

More than 40% of those in serious need of food lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Yemen, the U.N. report said.   

“Conflicts and mass displacement continue to drive global hunger,” Guterres said.   

“Rising poverty, deepening inequalities, rampant underdevelopment, the climate crisis and natural disasters also contribute to food insecurity.”   

In 2022, 258 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity in 58 countries or territories, up from 193 million in 53 countries the previous year, the report said.   

This overall figure has now increased for the fourth year in a row. 
…

Reporters Without Borders has just released its World Press Freedom Index for 2023, and it shows that journalists around the world face an increasingly hostile environment. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has a summary of the main findings. Jessica Jerreat and Lisa Bryant contributed to this report.
…

According to this year’s World Press Freedom rankings, the environment for journalism is bad in seven out of 10 countries worldwide. The yearly rankings published by Reporters Without Borders evaluates 180 countries. From Nairobi, VOA’s Mariama Diallo looks at the meaning of the rankings in Africa where analysts say journalism has become more difficult and dangerous.
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The announcement of a seven-day cease-fire in Sudan’s troubled capital is being welcomed – but what happens now? Washington says officials continue to engage with Khartoum, as the African Union does the same. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House. Nike Ching contributed to her report.
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After a brief hiatus, anti-government demonstrations organized by opposition leader Raila Odinga resumed Tuesday in some parts of Kenya, including the capital, Nairobi.

Odinga and his supporters say they had hoped President William Ruto’s government would let them express their opinions through peaceful protests.

Instead, “at the crack of dawn, police got stationed in all parts of [the] Nairobi metropolis and the city center to prevent us from proceeding with our peaceful protests as we had planned,” Martha Karua said.

It wasn’t only the police that were unleashed, Karua noted at a press conference held later in the day. Karua is a former justice minister who was also Odinga’s running mate.

“As we have earlier warned, hooligans hired by the Kenya Kwanza illegitimate regime were unleashed to cause mayhem and destroy property and blame it on our peaceful protests,” Karua said.

Odinga doesn’t recognize Ruto’s recent election victory, even after legal challenges by the veteran leader ended up with the supreme court deciding Ruto had won.

Karua said, because of today’s conditions, the Odinga camp was not able to present critical petitions to certain offices as planned.

“We intended to present petitions to the IEBC, showing that the results that were announced last August were doctored, and demand an audit of the servers,” Karua said.

“We also intended to petition the office of the president, I am saying this very deliberately, the office of the president with evidence the cost of food, fuel, electricity fees remain unacceptably high. The third office we were to visit was the National Treasury, where we wanted to petition for the immediate release of all funds owed to counties and for the timely payments of salaries to all civil servants.”

There was heavy police presence in many parts of the city, including in the central business district. Local reports show police firing tear gas to disperse a small crowd of protesters. Also, a minibus was set on fire.

On Monday, during a speech on International Workers’ Day, Ruto said he respects the opposition and acknowledged its right to protest, “but we also know what democracy looks like. We also know what human rights are. It is nothing to do with violence. It’s nothing to do with anarchy. It’s nothing to do with destruction of property and destruction of livelihoods and destruction of people’s businesses. That is not democracy. That is not human rights.”

Odinga had suspended protests last month, agreeing to dialogue with Ruto’s camp. But he later said the government was not negotiating in good faith. Odinga supporters say they’ll protest again on Thursday.
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Ugandan lawmakers have passed a harsh anti-LGBTQ bill after minor changes. If signed into law by President Yoweri Museveni, as expected, some same-sex acts could be punishable by the death penalty. Anyone found guilty of promoting homosexuality could face up to 20 years in prison. 

The bill, which passed Tuesday with the support of 301 legislators and only a single dissenting vote, was a modified version of the Anti- Homosexuality Bill of 2023 .

An earlier version of the bill passed in March was sent back to Parliament by President Yoweri Museveni, who suggested three amendments.

This included distinguishing between being a homosexual and actually engaging in same-sex acts. Museveni argued that the law needed to be clear so that what is being criminalized is not how the person identifies but rather their actions and any promotion of homosexuality. The legislation mandates a life sentence for someone convicted of homosexuality.

The president also argued against a clause penalizing property owners whose premises are used by gay or lesbian people, saying it presented constitutional challenges and would be problematic to enforce.

Museveni’s third recommendation was that mandating the public to report any same-sex acts should be restricted to cases involving children and vulnerable people. Failure to comply would fetch a jail sentence of five years. To ensure there was a quorum, Speaker Anita Among took a roll call for members and closed the doors of Parliament to ensure no one could leave.

Among asked legislators to remain steadfast in opposing homosexuality. 

“Let’s protect Ugandans. Let’s protect our values, our virtues,” she said. “We have a culture to protect. The Western world will not come and rule Uganda. We may disagree, but we disagree respectfully.”

Western medical and psychiatric associations regard sexual orientation as innate and part of normal human diversity. LGBTQ rights defenders say the proportion of sexual minorities remains constant from country to country — including those with punitive laws.

Frank Mugisha, a gay rights lawyer and founder of a banned LGBTQ rights organization, Sexual Minorities Uganda, said Museveni’s amendments make a bad bill worse.

“This bill increases the penalty for reporting from three years to five years,” he said. “And, also, this bill, yes, it doesn’t criminalize the identity or identifying as an LGBTQ person, but in promotion it’s vague. If then someone identifies as LGBTQ person, won’t that be seen as promotion?”

Fox Odoi Oywelowo, the sole lawmaker voting against the bill, said, even with modifications, it will lead to abuse of the LGBTQ community.

The bill awaits being signed by Museveni, something he promised to do once Parliament considered his recommendations.
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Aid agencies are gearing up for what is expected to be a massive exodus of more than 800,000 refugees and returnees fleeing for safety from war-torn Sudan to neighboring countries at a time when U.N. humanitarian agencies and partners are facing a severe funding shortage.

“As of this morning, the $1.75 billion joint appeal for Sudan in 2023 is only 14 percent funded,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “In other words, U.N. humanitarian agencies and our partners are facing a funding gap of $1.5 billion.”

The U.N. refugee agency reports more than 100,000 Sudanese refugees have fled to neighboring countries since fighting erupted between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on April 15.

But events are moving quickly. Violence is escalating in the capital, Khartoum, and throughout the country. People are struggling to get food, water, fuel and other critical commodities, pushing an ever-increasing number of desperate people to flee for their lives.

In response to this humanitarian crisis, the UNHCR is drawing up a financial and operational plan based on the 800,000 projected figure. When it is ready, the agency says it will launch an Interagency Regional Refugee Response Plan, which will lay out the preparations being made to deal with the emergency, including financial needs.

The UNHCR notes countries neighboring Sudan already are hosting large refugee and internally displaced populations from previous crises and will require additional support to provide protection and assistance to thousands of newly arriving asylum seekers.

“Among the urgent needs are water, food, shelter, health care, relief items, gender-based violence response and preventions and child protection services,” said Olga Sarrado, UNHCR spokeswoman.

She said the most significant cross-border movements so far have been Sudanese refugees arriving in Chad and Egypt and South Sudanese returning to South Sudan.

An indication of the speed with which things are happening can be seen at South Sudan’s five northern borders with Sudan. A week ago, the UNHCR had registered some 4,000 South Sudanese refugees who had returned home prematurely from Sudan. The agency says that number has now risen to 24,469, as well as 2,800 Sudanese refugees, who have fled to South Sudan for safety.

“We have seen a change in the patterns of people arriving at the border since the first days of the emergency,” said Sarrado. “We saw people arriving with buses, with cars. They had more financial means to pay for this transportation.”

“Those that are arriving now, they are much more vulnerable,” said Sarrado. “They have not had food for days, some of them, and they do not have economic means.”

She said the UNHCR and partners have set up transit centers at the border to provide the new arrivals with emergency assistance, urgent protection and telecommunications service so that they can contact their families, and cash so they can continue their onward movement to other parts of the country.

The scale of displacement inside Sudan has reached a new high. The International Organization for Migration says at least 334,000 people have been displaced within Sudan because of the fighting.

“The number of displaced people in the last two weeks as a result of conflict exceeds all conflict-related displacements reported in 2022,” said Paul Dillon, spokesman for the IOM.

In addition to internal displacement, he said the IOM also is gathering data at various border points in neighboring states.

“Of course, these movements are complicated by a whole series of factors,” he said. These include “instability and lack of security along transit routes, the lack of fuel and transport services for people who are desperate to leave Sudan and are fleeing to safety, as well as inflation in the marketplace.”

He added that staff were seeing some extremely fast-moving situations along the borders. “We are looking at Ethiopia for example, where the number of people arriving daily is between 900 and 1,000 and the needs there are very serious,” he said.

U.N. agencies agree that getting needed supplies to people inside Sudan is particularly difficult. The World Health Organization warns of a looming health disaster because medicine and other essential items are in short supply and only 16% of health care facilities in the country are functioning.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said many people are suffering from trauma injuries “so there is a need for supplies to treat trauma wounds, but also there is the issue of access to other health services, including to maternal health and newborn health,” as well as the lack of clean water.

“What we should keep in mind is that the biggest risk for Sudanese people right now is the conflict itself. Patients and health workers cannot access health facilities and services because they are not available,” he said.

The latest report from Sudan’s Federal Ministry of Health puts the number of injuries at 4,620, including 528 deaths — figures U.N. agencies believe are greatly underestimated.
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Authorities in Cameroon say anglophone rebels have attacked military posts near the country’s port city of Douala, killing several people. The attack is the closest the separatist conflict has come to Douala since fighting broke out in 2017.

Officials in Cameroon say at least 15 heavily armed rebels attacked a military post Monday in Matouke, a farming village less than 40 kilometers west of Douala.

Officials say the separatists killed at least six people and wounded many others without giving a figure. 

The government said it is yet to confirm the identities of victims but rebels and villagers said they killed five troops and a civilian.

Speaking via a messaging app, Samuel Dieudonne Ivaha Diboua, governor of Cameroon’s Littoral region, which includes Matouke and Douala, said he visited the injured in a military hospital Monday night. 

Diboua said both the military and civilians will not accept separatists extending attacks and disorder to Douala, an economic hub in central Africa. He said the military presence has been increased on the border between Cameroon’s Littoral region and the English-speaking Southwest region, where the fighters came from. He said civilians have been mobilized to denounce suspected fighters in their towns and villages.

It’s the first time rebels have attacked so close to Douala, a seaport of about four million people that supplies 80% of imported goods for the landlocked Central African Republic and Chad.  

On several occasions, troops have reported suspected fighters in the city and made arrests.

Speaking via a messaging app, Francis Mbah, a clearing agent at the Douala seaport, said any attacks on the economic hub would impact all of Cameroon and central Africa.

“This attack close to the economic capital of Cameroon is a sign that the government still has a lot to do to reinforce security permanently,” he said. “It is a bad signal given that there are many citizens, Cameroonian citizens, living in the economic capital. This is a call for the government to step in and say this crisis must be stopped.”

Cameroon’s English-speaking separatists have been fighting since 2017 to carve out an independent state from the French-speaking majority nation.

The rebels have vowed to attack all military posts along the borders with Cameroon’s Francophone regions. 

The military says separatists have attacked their positions in the French-speaking West region at least 40 times since the conflict erupted. 

The International Crisis Group estimates that six years of fighting has killed about 6,000 people and displaced more than half-a-million.
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The United Nations migration agency says at least 334,000 people have been internally displaced in Sudan since deadly fighting broke out last month between two military factions.

The data was released Tuesday by the International Organization for Migration at a news conference in Geneva. At the same press briefing the U.N. refugee agency said that more than 100,000 people have fled from Sudan to neighboring countries.

The new figures come a day after the U.N. refugee agency made an ominous prediction that the fighting could force more than 800,000 people to flee the north African country.

Raouf Mazou, the deputy head of the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said Monday that the agency was planning for 815,000 people to flee Sudan into seven neighboring countries. He said that included 580,000 Sudanese along with foreign refugees now living in Sudan.

Mazou said around 73,000 people have already left Sudan.

UNHCR head Filippo Grandi said in a tweet Monday that the agency hopes its planning figures turn out to be too high, but said “if violence doesn’t stop, we will see more people forced to flee Sudan seeking safety.”

Fighting between Sudanese government forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continued Tuesday despite the extension of yet another cease-fire agreement. Sudan’s health ministry says more than 500 people have reportedly been killed and more than 4,000 wounded since the fighting began on April 15 after relations between army chief Abdel Fattah al Burhan and RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. The two generals were once allies in Sudan’s transitional government after a 2021 coup.

The fighting has led to the seizure of a public health laboratory in the capital Khartoum by one of the warring factions. The lab holds samples of infectious diseases such as cholera and other hazardous materials. The World Health Organization said Tuesday the seizure posed a “moderate risk” of biological hazard after conducting risk assessment. The U.N. agency warned last week the seizure potentially posed a “high risk” of biological hazard.

A string of temporary truces has been widely ignored by both sides. The cease-fires were established by the two warring factions to allow people safe passage and to open a means for the country to receive humanitarian aid. However, while fighting has abated in some parts of the capital, heavy fighting has continued elsewhere. Each side has blamed the other for the infractions.

The top U.N. official in Sudan, Volker Perthes, told The Associated Press Monday that Sudan’s warring generals have agreed to send representatives — potentially to Saudi Arabia — for negotiations.

The Sudanese ambassador to the United States, Mohamed Abdalla Idris, told VOA he hopes the cease-fire will eventually lead to meaningful long-term peace talks.

He said, “a cease-fire, truce, is a two-way traffic,” and said peace can only be realized if all parties respect the terms of any deal.

The fighting has led the United Nations and other aid organizations to cut services to Sudan. However, the World Food Program said Monday that it was resuming operations to some areas of the country after a pause of more than two weeks prompted by the killing of three staff members.

The WFP said in a statement that distribution of food is expected to commence in the states of Gedaref, Gezira, Kassala and White Nile in the coming days to provide life-saving assistance.

The agency said, “We will take utmost care to ensure the safety of all our staff and partners as we rush to meet the growing needs of the most vulnerable.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres dispatched U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths to Sudan to assess the situation there.

Writing on Twitter from Nairobi Monday, Griffiths described the situation in Sudan as “catastrophic.”

He said the warring parties must, “protect civilians and civilian infrastructure. Ensure safe passage for civilians fleeing areas of hostilities. Respect humanitarian workers and assets. Facilitate relief operations. Respect medical personnel, transport and facilities.”

The fighting in Sudan has forced foreign governments to pull its citizens from the country.

Russia’s military announced Tuesday that more than 200 people will be evacuated on four military transports.

Hundreds of Americans reached the eastern city of Port Sudan this weekend, watched over by U.S. military drones. Saudi officials said Monday that a U.S. Navy ship took more than 300 evacuees from Port Sudan to the Saudi port of Jeddah.

The U.S. State Department said Monday that three U.S. convoys evacuated over 700 people since Friday and said a total of over 1,000 U.S. citizens have been evacuated since the violence started in Sudan last month.

Britain’s government announced Sunday that it was offering an additional evacuation flight for its nationals in war-torn Sudan.

A late Saturday flight out of Wadi Seidna Airport had been set to be the last flight out of the African country for British nationals. However, Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office announced Sunday that another flight was leaving Monday from the airport in Port Sudan.

Michael Atit in Khartoum; Margaret Besheer at the United Nations; Anthony LaBruto; John Tanza, Nike Ching at the State Department contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Somalia has begun evacuating its citizens from Sudan, with more than 100 returning home on a flight from Khartoum Sunday night, and more flights promised in the coming days. The situation is being watched with special interest by a network of Somalis who were educated in Sudan in the years after the Somali government and schooling system collapsed. As Mohamed Sheikh Nor reports, these Somalis are still grateful to Sudan for the education they received and are hoping the fighting ends soon.
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The growing rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran after years of mistrust was visible on Monday as Saudi Arabia helped evacuate Iranian citizens fleeing the war in Sudan. 

The Saudi navy carried the 65 Iranian citizens from Port Sudan to Jeddah, and they will fly onward to Tehran. 

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani called the transfer “a positive event” that had taken place thanks to Saudi-Iranian cooperation. 

Ahmed al-Dabais, a senior Saudi military officer handling the operation, told Iranian evacuees in a video carried by local television that the two countries were good friends and brothers and that they should regard the kingdom as their own country. 

Saudi Arabia, across the Red Sea from Sudan, has been a major hub for the evacuation effort as countries have worked to pull thousands of foreign citizens out of the conflict that suddenly erupted on April 15. 

Revolutionary Shi’ite Muslim Iran and conservative Sunni Saudi Arabia had feuded for years, backing opposing sides in wars and political struggles across the Middle East in a tussle for influence that fed conflicts and inflamed sectarian hatred. 

Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic relations in 2016 after Iranian protesters stormed the kingdom’s Tehran Embassy following Riyadh’s execution of a Shi’ite Muslim cleric. 

However, the two major oil producers agreed to end their rift and reopen diplomatic missions in a deal brokered in March by China. 
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The United Nations food relief agency has suspended aid deliveries to Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region amid an internal investigation into the theft of food meant for hungry people, according to four humanitarian workers. 

The World Food Program is responsible for delivering food from the U.N. and other partners to Tigray, the center of a devastating two-year civil war that ended with a cease-fire in November. 

More than 5 million of the region’s 6 million people rely on aid. 

WFP informed its humanitarian partners April 20 that it was temporarily suspending deliveries of food to Tigray amid reports of food misappropriation, one of the four humanitarian workers told AP. Three other aid workers confirmed this information. They all insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to a journalist on this matter. 

Last month, AP reported that the WFP was investigating cases of food misappropriation and diversion in Ethiopia, where a total of 20 million people need humanitarian help due to drought and conflict. 

A letter sent by the WFP’s Ethiopia director April 5 asked humanitarian partners to share “any information or cases of food misuse, misappropriation or diversion that you are aware of or that are brought to your attention by your staff, beneficiaries or local authorities.” 

At the time, two aid workers told the AP that the stolen supplies included enough food to feed 100,000 people. The food was discovered missing from a warehouse in the Tigray city of Sheraro. It was not clear who was responsible for the theft. 

Tigray’s new interim president, Getachew Reda, said last month he discussed “the growing challenge of diversion and sale of food aid meant for the needy” with senior WFP officials during a visit by the agency to Mekele, the regional capital. 

A spokesperson for the WFP in Ethiopia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
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As the conflict in Sudan enters its third week with a shaky cease-fire, the current and former Sudanese ambassadors to Washington told VOA they hope the cease-fire will eventually lead to meaningful long-term talks for peace.

Ambassador Mohammed Abdullah Idris said peace can only be realized if all parties respect the terms of the truce.

“A cease-fire, truce, is a two-way traffic, so we hope that the other party will respect the truce and will respect the cease-fire, especially those elements of RSF [Rapid Support Forces] those [that] are deployed in residential areas, on roads, streets, intersections,” he told VOA during a one-on-one interview at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington.

Abdullah Idris said people in neighborhoods where the fighting has occurred need the opportunity to move to safety.

“As far as the government is concerned, I would like to assure you that we are committed to respecting the cease-fire so that the civilians could have the necessary and needed protection, and also to respect international humanitarian law,” he said. “Let us hope that it will hold and give the results, the expected results, on the ground and for the civilians and for the people of Sudan. The people of Sudan, they deserve tranquility, and they need it.”

He expressed hope in the mediation efforts initiated by the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development. The heads of South Sudan, Djibouti and Kenya are spearheading the negotiations for a lasting peace.

Human rights advocates criticized both warring parties for violations of human rights.

“From the start of the fighting, both sides to the conflict in Sudan have shown deadly disregard for the civilian population,” Mohamed Osman, a Sudan researcher at the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Mediation efforts

The United Nations and many western countries have also called for an end to the fighting.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington is in direct talks with General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto leader of Sudan, and General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, also known as Hemedti, head of the RSF.

“We’ve also continued to engage directly with General al-Burhan to press them to extend and expand the Eid cease-fire to a sustainable cessation of hostilities that prevents further violence and upholds humanitarian obligations.” Blinken said. “The Sudanese people are not giving up on their aspirations for a secure, free and democratic future. Neither will we.”

Former Sudanese ambassador Nureldin Satti told VOA he hopes the temporary truce will lead to permanent peace and pave the way for a democratically elected government. But he blames the Sudanese Armed Forces for failing to address the expansion of the paramilitary RSF sooner. The RSF was created in 2013 and has steadily grown in power since that time.

“It was their own making,” Satti said. “They are the ones that created the RSF… they were their partners. And they allowed them to come to Khartoum. They allowed them to amass a fortune. They allowed them to make themselves even more powerful than the army. They allowed them to even occupy army locations around Khartoum.”

Abdullah Idris agreed that the conflict could have been avoided but said going forward, the government will work toward a peaceful transition.

“The government is committed to resume the political process if this kind of crisis is solved. And the political process should also lead to a civilian-led government that could lead a transitional period, expected to also end up with … free and fair elections.” he said.

This story originated in VOA’s English to Africa Service.
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In Cameroon, hundreds of thousands of workers marched on the May 1 International Labor Day, calling for wage increases amid price hikes fueled by Russia’s war on Ukraine. Cameroon’s trade unions want minimum wages for workers doubled to $200 per month while employers argue the price hikes make such a raise impossible. 

These Cameroonian workers are singing in French that they deserve better wages. In the song, they say Cameroon is developing socially and economically due to its labor force, yet workers are poorly paid.

Abraham Babule is a representative of the Confederation of Cameroon Workers Trade Unions. He’s one of the organizers of the Labor Day celebration and the march in Yaounde.  

Babule says trade union leaders unanimously agreed to mobilize workers in all Cameroonian towns and villages to press for better working conditions. He says both the state of Cameroon and private employers do not respect legal contracts that outline employment terms and conditions and either illegally dismiss workers or refuse to pay their wages. Babule says price hikes caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine and armed conflicts are making it very, very difficult for workers to make ends meet.

Babule said trade unions in Cameroon want the government and private employers to double the monthly minimum wage to $200 and increase all workers’ salaries by at least 25 percent.

Workers say since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 15 months ago, many households are going hungry because prices for commodities exported by the two countries, such as wheat, maize, and fertilizer have increased by 40 percent. 

The price of fuel has also increased, by more than 15 percent.

The government gave workers a 5 percent pay raise in February, but workers say with inflation so high, the raise is negligible.

The Cameroon government says more than 30,000 workers marched in Yaounde on Monday, and hundreds of thousands marched in other towns and villages.

Cameroon Minister of Labor and Social Security Gregoire Owona says the world financial crisis makes it impossible for the state and private investors to satisfy the needs of all workers

He says Cameroon is not the only country where unemployment and inflation are high and bankrupt companies are either closing or reducing their labor force because of economic shocks and the climate crisis. He says despite the morose atmosphere, the future is promising because the government is finalizing negotiations with local and foreign investors who have indicated their willingness to invest in Cameroon.

International Labor Day activities were suspended in Cameroon in 2020, after the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in the central African state. Workers say for three years they were unable to demonstrate in large numbers and press for higher wages and better job protection. 
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The World Food Program said in a statement Monday that it has lifted its suspension of operations in Sudan, as the fighting there threatens millions with hunger.  

The WFP said distribution of food is expected to commence in the states of Gedaref, Gezira, Kassala and White Nile in the coming days to provide the life-saving assistance that many so desperately need right now. 

The agency said, “We will take utmost care to ensure the safety of all our staff and partners as we rush to meet the growing needs of the most vulnerable.” 

The WFP suspended operations when three staff members were killed on the first day of the conflict between Sudan’s army and a paramilitary unit, the Rapid Support Forces. 

The WFP noted that more than 15 million people faced severe food insecurity in Sudan before the conflict began, and said it expects the number “to grow significantly as the fighting continues.” 

Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has dispatched U.N. emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths to Sudan to assess the situation there. 

Writing on Twitter from Nairobi Monday, Griffiths said, “We need to find ways to get aid into the country and distribute it to those in need,” as well as protect civilians, ensure safe passage for people fleeing the hostilities, and facilitate relief operations. 

Griffiths is expected to arrive on Tuesday. 
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Pathologists in Kenya began performing autopsies Monday on over 100 bodies of members of a religious cult who starved themselves to death under the belief that doing so would take them to heaven.

Officials found the bodies buried in shallow graves in Kenya’s Shakahola Forest.

A few people were found alive, but they died on the way to the hospital.

Children account for most of the recovered bodies so far, authorities say.

The Christian-based cult was founded by Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, a former taxi driver. He is in police custody and is reported to be refusing food and water.

DNA samples will be extracted from the bodies to compare with relatives who have reported their loved ones missing.

Reuters reports that more than 300 people have been reported missing.
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