Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has lifted a six-year-old ban on political rallies. Her predecessor, the late John Magufuli, banned public rallies in 2016, one year after he came to power, saying they could escalate into violence.

The president made the remarks at State House Tuesday during a meeting with leaders of political parties.

“Our responsibility is to protect you to hold political rallies peacefully, finish well and leave safely, the president says. “Your responsibility as a political party is to follow the laws as they say. Let’s do mature politics. Let’s do politics to build and not tear down,” she said. 

Since coming to power after the death of predecessor John Magufuli in 2021, Hassan has taken steps to break away from his policies, which were seen as muzzling political dissent.

Benson Singo is the deputy secretary of the Party for Democracy and Progress, better known as Chadema.

He said, “We are not celebrating this because it’s our right. We were delayed in conducting our duties as political parties, which is our right according to the law. Singo adds that what we need to come together as Tanzanians to push our leaders, who swear to administer and protect the law and should follow the laws.”

Some opposition politicians say the president’s move should be a foundation stone for democracy in the country.

Abdul Nondo is a youth wing national chairperson of the opposition Alliance for Change and Transparency Party.

Nondo said, “As political party leaders, political parties should use this loophole to make sure that we will demand big reforms in our laws and constitution so that all these rights that some leaders have been breaking will be protected. He added that we should make sure there will be no other leaders in the future who come and use their words to break people’s rights.”

Kumbusho Dawson, executive director of Reach Out Tanzania, a non- government organization advocating for human rights, said he is optimistic about the future.

“It is something that is good for the nation because political parties can explain the people’s problems and present their policies, he says. But also, Dawson adds, the president clearly explains the issue of continuing the new constitution process; all of these will contribute to removing oppressive laws,” he said.

In previous speeches, President Hassan has touched on key issues affecting Tanzania, particularly democracy, raising hopes for change.

Implementing these changes may yet prove to be a challenge. Despite the president’s different approach, she is from the same party as Magufuli and will still need its backing.
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A new report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies says “once in a hundred years” floods will become more common in coastal communities due to rising sea levels caused by climate change. As a stretch of West Africa’s coast is set to become the world’s largest megalopolis and an economic powerhouse, academics worry rising sea levels will stymie growth and impact the continent and the world. Henry Wilkins reports from Ganvie, Benin.
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An ancient wooden sarcophagus that was featured at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences was returned to Egypt after U.S. authorities determined it was looted years ago, Egyptian officials said Monday.

The repatriation is part of Egyptian government efforts to stop the trafficking of its stolen antiquities. In 2021, authorities in Cairo succeeded in getting 5,300 stolen artifacts returned to Egypt from across the world.

Mostafa Waziri, the top official at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the sarcophagus dates back to the Late Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, an era that spanned the last of the Pharaonic rulers from 664 B.C. until Alexander the Great’s campaign in 332 B.C.

The sarcophagus, almost 3 meters (9.5 feet) tall with a brightly painted top surface, may have belonged to an ancient priest named Ankhenmaat, though some of the inscription on it has been erased, Waziri said.

It was symbolically handed over at a ceremony Monday in Cairo by Daniel Rubinstein, the U.S. charge d’affaires in Egypt.

The handover came more than three months after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office determined the sarcophagus was looted from Abu Sir Necropolis, north of Cairo. It was smuggled through Germany into the United States in 2008, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg.

“This stunning coffin was trafficked by a well-organized network that has looted countless antiquities from the region,” Bragg said at the time. “We are pleased that this object will be returned to Egypt, where it rightfully belongs.”

Bragg said the same network had smuggled a gilded coffin out of Egypt that was featured at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Met bought the piece from a Paris art dealer in 2017 for about $4 million. It was returned to Egypt in 2019.
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Cameroon’s military says it deployed scores of troops to Oku, Kumbo and Kakiri districts Monday in the central African state’s English-speaking Northwest region.

The military says armed gangs over the weekend sealed markets, chased people and vehicles from the streets and abducted scores of civilians who did not comply with their orders.

Motorcycle taxi driver Lukong Genesis, 54, said armed men seized his motorcycle. He said the separatists, who call themselves Ambazonians or Amba, pointed guns at him and demanded he go home.

“The situation in Kumbo for the past two days has been very, very precarious,” he said. There has been serious gun firing between the Amba and the state forces and today being Monday, the ghost town has been reinforced and the streets are dry. No movement of vehicles and people. Everybody is indoors.”

Lukong said battles between troops and rebels intensified after President Paul Biya’s New Year’s Eve speech.

Biya said many rebel groups have been crushed and the threat from separatists has been significantly reduced.

He praised the central African state’s military for protecting civilians and property during the six-year conflict and said peace would pave the way for the region’s reconstruction.

The rebels say they want to carve out an English-speaking state they call Ambazonia from Cameroon and its French-speaking majority.

Capo Daniel is self-declared deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, one of the rebel groups. He dismissed the allegation that their forces have been significantly reduced.

“That Paul Biya mentioned that peace is returning is laughable. Ambazonia-controlled areas have largely increased. Nineteen Cameroon military men were targeted in Bui and some of them were airlifted for treatment. There have been some arson attacks by the Cameroon military in Bui as well as in Oku. Ambazonia will not give up their fight until we have achieved our goal of independence,” said Daniel.

Civilian people

Cameroon’s military admits that troops have been in running bottles with rebels in several western towns and villages but says their forces did not suffer any casualties.

The military says it killed at least 11 separatists in battles in Kumbo and Oku, a claim which VOA could not independently confirm.

Bernard Okalia Bilai, the governor of the English-speaking Southwest region said civilians should denounce members of armed gangs and hoodlums causing havoc in the community to the military and government officials. Bilai said armed gangs are harassing people, stealing, and abducting civilians for ransom claiming it is a fight for freedom and liberation.

The separatists deny their fighters are abducting and harassing civilians.

Rebels on social media posts Monday said their fighters were enforcing the curfew to counter Biya’s claim that fighters were being defeated.

Separatists in English-speaking western Cameroon launched their rebellion in 2017 after what they said was years of discrimination by the country’s French-speaking majority.

Biya says Cameroon is indivisible and anyone attempting it will be crushed.

The U.N. says the conflict has killed more than 3,500 people and displaced more 750,000.
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Libyan authorities said Sunday they have found 18 bodies buried in a mass grave in a former stronghold of the Islamic State group along the conflict-stricken North African nation’s coast.

The Missing Persons Authority said in a statement the bodies were unearthed in the Sabaa area of Sirte, a city in central Libya. The bodies were taken to a hospital, it added.

Sirte, the birthplace of former longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, fell under the control of Islamic State militants between 2015 and 2016. The militants, along with al-Qaida, gained a foothold in oil-rich Libya amid the chaos that engulfed the country after the 2011 uprising and a NATO intervention in the conflict.

The militants were eventually driven out of the city in December 2016 by Libyan forces supported by the U.S. and allied with the U.N.-backed government in the capital Tripoli. Hundreds of alleged former Islamic State fighters remain incarcerated in Libyan prisons, many of whom are awaiting trial.

Since Gadhafi’s overthrow and killing, Libya has been split between rival authorities. Sirte is now controlled by forces loyal to military leader Khalifa Haftar based in the country’s east.  

In its statement, the Missing Persons Authority said they collected samples of the dead bones in an effort to identify the bodies. Further details on the cause of death for those found were not provided.

Several mass graves have been uncovered across Libya recently. In October, officials said they found 42 bodies in a mass grave at a school site in Sirte.

In December 2018, the bodies of more than 30 men were discovered near Sirte, believed to be the corpses of a group of Ethiopian Christians whom Islamic State fighters executed in a video the group published years earlier.

In the western town of Tarhuna, hundreds of corpses have been uncovered across several graves after militia fighters loyal to Haftar retreated from the area in June 2020.
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At least 20 people have been killed in Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland in clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces over several days, according to a doctor at a public hospital.

For more than a week police and the military have been battling the protesters in Laascaanood, a town in Somaliland’s east which is disputed between Somaliland and neighboring Puntland, one of Somalia’s semi-autonomous regions.

Mohamed Farah, a doctor at Laascaanood Hospital, a public facility in Laascaanood, told Reuters at least 20 people had been killed and dozens injured. He said he had seen the bodies of victims brought into the facility.

Protesters are demanding that Somaliland cede control of the town to Puntland and also accuse security forces of failing to end insecurity in the town.

“Somaliland forcefully occupied Laascaanood and failed to secure it. We are demanding that they leave,” Adaan Jaamac Oogle, the spokesperson of the protesters told Reuters.

“We cannot tolerate continuing bloodshed of civilians.”

The police did not immediately respond to a call from Reuters requesting comment.

Somaliland broke away from Somalia in 1991 but has not gained widespread international recognition for its independence. The region has been mostly peaceful while Somalia has grappled with three decades of civil war.

Puntland’s Vice President, Ahmed Elmi Osman Karash, accused the security forces of violence.

“What is being done by the Somaliland army is a massacre of civilians,” he told Reuters by phone.

Mahad Ambaashe Elmi, a senior commander in the Somaliland army, did not return a Reuters call requesting comment.

Somaliland’s Minister of Information, Saleebaan Cali Koore, appealed to the protesters in a statement Saturday to stop their demonstrations and begin negotiations with the government. 
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At least nine people died, most aged between 10 and 20, in a shopping mall crush as revelers rang in the New Year in Uganda’s capital, police said on Sunday.

After fireworks outside the Freedom City mall in Kampala, “a stampede ensued, resulting in the instant deaths of five people and injuries to several others,” national police spokesman Luke Owoyesigyire said.

Four others died on their way to hospital “largely due to suffocation.”

“Emergency responders arrived on the scene and transported the injured individuals to the hospital, where nine were confirmed dead,” said Owoyesigyire.

“Rash” acts and “negligence” led to the tragedy, he added.

The celebrations to welcome in 2023 were the first in the east African country in three years, after restrictions linked to the Covid-19 pandemic and security issues.

“Most of the dead were juveniles, ages 10, 11 14 and 20,” Kampala police spokesman Patrick Onyango told AFP.

“There are several injured and our team of investigators are following up to get the exact number.”

One of the survivors, businesswoman Sylvia Nakalema, said the stampede started “when we went to view the fireworks on the platform and while returning downstairs.”

“There was a huge crowd. People begun pushing each other for space leading some to fall and the stampede ensued,” she said.

“Children were crying and there was chaos.

“I survived because I was pushed in a corner by the crowd,” said the 27-year-old.

“I felt losing breath but I stayed put since I had no exit until the situation calmed down but some people were already lying down gasping for breath.”

Uganda’s NTV channel broadcast images of relatives of the dead gathered outside a morgue in the Ugandan capital on Sunday.

In 2009, one person died and three were injured in a stampede at Kampala’s Kansanga amusement park.
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The European Union on Saturday urged Rwanda to stop supporting the M23 rebel group, which has captured swaths of territory in the North Kivu province of neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.

The DRC, along with the United States and several European countries, has repeatedly accused its smaller central African neighbor of backing the M23, although Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, denies the charge.

The Tutsi rebel group has in recent months advanced to within a few dozen kilometers of provincial capital Goma.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Saturday that the European bloc had urged Rwanda to “stop supporting the M23 and use all means to press the M23 to comply with the decisions taken by the EAC (East African Community)” and at a November summit in Angola.

“It also firmly urges all states of the region to prevent the provision of any support to armed groups active in the DRC,” Borrell said.

He called on Kinshasa to “take all measures necessary to protect the civilian population in its territory.”

Under heavy international pressure to disarm, M23 joined a ceremony last week to deliver the strategic town of Kibumba to an East African military force as a “goodwill gesture” for peace.

The EAC also said the group had to withdraw to the border between the DRC, Uganda and Rwanda.

However, the Congolese army promptly dubbed the Kibumba handover a “sham.”

Borrell’s comments came after a U.N. experts’ report on DR Congo indicated it had collected proof of “direct intervention” by Rwandan defense forces inside DRC territory between at least November 2021 and last October.

The experts’ report says Rwandan troops launched operations to reinforce the M23 against the mainly Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), notably by supplying weapons, ammunition and uniforms.

Kigali sees the FDLR as a threat that justifies interventions inside the DRC.

Rwanda has also accused the DRC, where presidential elections are scheduled for next December, of using the conflict for political purposes as well as fabricating a November massacre of at least 131 civilians.

A U.N. probe blamed those deaths on M23 rebels.

In a statement Saturday, Kinshasa welcomed the findings of the U.N. experts, which it said “put an end to the lies and manipulations” of Rwanda.

Given the gravity of the allegations, it called for the U.N. Security Council to examine the experts’ report with a view to possible sanctions against Rwanda.

Meanwhile, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame blamed Kinshasa for the chaos in its war-torn eastern regions in his New Year’s address.

“After spending tens of billions of dollars on peacekeeping over the past two decades, the security situation in Eastern Congo is worse than ever,” Kagame said in a statement Saturday.

“To explain this failure, some in the international community blame Rwanda, even though they know very well that the true responsibility lies primarily with the government of the DRC. It is high time that the unwarranted vilification of Rwanda stopped.”
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The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Saturday for an attack Friday on a police checkpoint in Egypt’s Suez Canal city of Ismailia. At least four people, including three police officers, were killed, officials and state-run media said.

The attack also wounded 12 others, mostly conscripts who were taken to a hospital, according to a casualty tally document at the hospital.

The dead included three police officers and a still unidentified person, the hospital document obtained by The Associated Press showed.

“A cell of soldiers of the caliphate managed to attack an Egyptian police roadblock … with a machine gun,” the militant group’s Amaq news agency said Saturday.

The attack took place late in the afternoon in Ismailia city, on the western side of the Suez Canal, according to security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The media office of Ismailia province described the attack as a terrorist strike.

State-run al-Qahera New television reported that security forces killed one of the attackers. It broadcast graphic footage purportedly showing a body, saying it was the dead militant.

Egypt has been battling the Islamic State extremist group in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula for years. The militants have carried out numerous attacks in Sinai and elsewhere in the country, mainly targeting security forces, minority Christians, and those who they accuse of collaborating with the military and police.

In May, at least 11 Egyptian soldiers, including an officer, were killed in a militant attack on a water pumping station east of the Suez Canal.

The pace of IS attacks in Sinai’s main theater and elsewhere has slowed to a trickle since February 2018, when the military launched a big operation in Sinai as well as parts of the Nile Delta and deserts along the country’s western border with Libya.
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A vessel carrying at least 700 migrants was intercepted off the eastern coast of Libya, the coast guard said. It was one of the largest interceptions in recent months of migrants seeking a better life in Europe through the war-torn North African country.

The coast guard said the boat was stopped Friday off the Mediterranean town of Moura, 90 kilometers (56 miles) west of the eastern city of Benghazi.

It said in a statement that the migrants hail from different nations and that those who illegally entered Libya would be handed over to their home countries.

The statement did not provide further details.

The coast guard posted images on Facebook showing a large, overcrowded vessel with most of those on board appearing to be young people.

It was one of the largest interceptions in recent months of migrants sailing to Europe, a destination for thousands fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

In August last year, Italian military vessels aided a boat crammed with 539 migrants off the southern island of Lampedusa. The boat was launched from Libyan shores.

Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants seeking a better quality of life in Europe. The oil-rich country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Human traffickers in recent years have benefited from the chaos in Libya, smuggling in migrants across the country’s lengthy borders with six nations. The migrants are then packed into ill-equipped rubber boats and other vessels and set off on risky sea voyages. Officials didn’t say what kind of vessel was found over the weekend.

The International Organization for Migration has reported 1,522 dead or missing migrants in the Mediterranean this year. Overall, the IOM says 24,871 migrants have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014, with the real number believed to be even higher given the number of shipwrecks that never get reported. 
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A court in Mali has sentenced 46 Ivorian troops whose detention in Mali sparked a diplomatic row between the two countries to 20 years in prison, the public prosecutor said Friday.

Three female soldiers among the original group detained in July, and who were freed in early September, were sentenced to death in absentia.

The trial of the 46 Ivorian troops wrapped up on Friday after opening in the capital Bamako on Thursday.

The court proceedings came in the run-up to a Jan. 1 deadline set by West African leaders for Mali to release the soldiers or face sanctions.

The Ivorians were found guilty of an “attack and conspiracy against the government” and seeking to undermine state security, public prosecutor Ladji Sara said in a statement.

The court proceedings were held behind closed doors and under heavy security, an AFP journalist noted.

Forty-nine troops from Ivory Coast were detained after they arrived at Bamako airport on July 10. Three of them, all women, were later freed.

Those remaining, branded by Mali’s junta as “mercenaries,” were charged the following month with seeking to undermine state security.

Ivory Coast and the United Nations say the troops were flown in to provide routine backup security for the German contingent of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali.

The row escalated in September, when diplomatic sources in the region said Mali wanted Ivory Coast to acknowledge its responsibility and express regret for deploying the soldiers.

Bamako also wanted Ivory Coast to hand over people who had been on its territory since 2013 but who are wanted in Mali, they said.

Ivory Coast rejected both demands and was prepared for extended negotiations to free the men, the sources said.

An Ivorian delegation traveled to Mali last week for talks on the crisis, and the Ivorian Defense Ministry said it was “on the way to being resolved.”

An agreement reached last week between Mali and Ivory Coast leaves the possibility open of a presidential pardon by Mali’s junta leader Assimi Goita, who is due to make a national address on Saturday.

On December 4, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) set New Year’s Day as a deadline for the soldiers’ release, failing which the bloc would impose new sanctions against Mali.
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Ugandan police fired tear gas and arrested more than 30 opposition supporters attending a Friday prayer rally organized by musician-turned-politician Bobi Wine. Police say the meeting was illegal as organizers failed to inform the chief of police before holding it.

Uganda police have confirmed the arrests of at least 30 members of Bobi Wine’s opposition party while at a prayer meeting organized by the umbrella group, the United Forces of Change.

Those gathered were set to pray for people arrested, dead, abducted and all opposition supporters, especially from Wine’s National Unity Platform, whose whereabouts are still unknown in the past two years.

Other opposition members included the Conservative Party and the Forum for Democratic Change.

But Lucas Owoyesigyire, the deputy spokesperson for the Kampala Metropolitan Police, told VOA by phone that the opposition group did not give the Inspector General of Police Okoth Ochola advance notice about the prayer meeting so he could set up security for it due to ongoing terrorism threats.

“This was a public place,” said Owoyesigyire, “and they ought to have informed the IGP — especially the owners of the venue — should have informed the IGP about this. So, we could not allow them to go ahead with this.”

Owoyesigyire added that “we have some suspects here, at CPS [Central Police Station] but they are more than 30.”

Ugandan politician Joel Ssenyonyi told VOA that they had paid for the venue but upon their arrival Friday morning, the police and army had cordoned off the venue forcing them to pray from outside.

“When we got there, we saw one of the guys who had the most peeps,” said Ssenyonyi. “We requested him, please come and speak to us. He refused to come. Because we were at the gate, they couldn’t let us in. The law says notify…the law does not say ask for permission. We informed them and asked them to provide security for our function to go on undisturbed because we were going to be indoors.”

In the past two years, especially before the 2021 general elections, a number of opposition supporters have been bundled into vans and taken to both known and unknown detention centers.

While many have returned maimed, claiming torture, many others are suspected to either have died or still be in detention. The opposition said it has provided those names several times to parliament, asserting they are being held by security and demanding in vain that the government provide an explanation.

To date, the abductions continue — including a 17-year-old boy picked up from his place of work as he peeled potatoes.

Speaking to VOA, the boy’s mother, Nambazira Sauda, recalled that on November 5, a friend of her son told her about her son’s disappearance. Since then, Sauda said she has checked all known detention centers without success and fears her son may be dead.

“They say when a child is dying, a mother gets birth pangs,” she said. “I go to the bathroom all the time, I don’t eat, I don’t drink, I lose my senses. When I start moving, I find myself coming out from another direction.”

“My son is young,” she said. “They should come and kill me instead.”

President Yoweri Museveni has in recent months stated he is not aware of any abductions going on in the country. He also maintains that mistakes by security personnel while on duty are being corrected.

It is still not clear exactly how many members of the opposition group are either dead or in detention.
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A soldier has been killed and another wounded in an ambush by jihadis in Cameroon’s Far North, military and local sources said Friday.

The attack happened on Thursday in the town of Ldaoussaf in a region troubled by jihadi insurgents, the two sources told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“An army patrol was ambushed,” a senior army officer said, adding that a soldier had been killed and another injured. “The assailants fled with weapons.”

A local authority representative who also asked to remain anonymous confirmed the toll.

The Far North is a tongue of land that lies between Nigeria to the west and Chad to the east.

Nigeria’s Boko Haram and its dissident branch, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), have in recent years carried out deadly attacks against security forces and civilians in northern Cameroon, as well as adjacent parts of Nigeria, Niger and Chad.

Boko Haram launched an insurgency in northeast Nigeria in 2009 before it spread through the region.

More than 36,000 people have been killed since, mainly in Nigeria, and 3 million people have fled their homes, the United Nations says.
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A prominent Algerian journalist is behind bars and the offices of his website and radio station were shut down based on accusations that they threaten state security, according to a defense lawyer.

Ihsane El-Kadi was detained December 23 at his home and held in a police facility until Thursday, when he appeared in an Algiers court. An investigating judge ordered him kept in custody, according to Zoubida Assoul, a lawyer who is part of a collective that is defending the journalist.

El-Kadi, who was active in Algeria’s Hirak pro-democracy protest movement in 2019, appears to be the latest target of an encroaching crackdown on dissenting voices in the North African country.

The case against him is linked to the crowdfunding used to finance his media outlets, Maghreb Emergent and Webradio, Assoul said. The website and radio station operated in Algeria for years but did not have government recognition as official media organizations.

El-Kadi is accused of violating an article in the criminal code targeting anyone who receives funds aimed at “inciting acts susceptible to threaten state security,” stability or Algeria’s fundamental interests, the lawyer said. If convicted, he could face five to seven years in prison.

His supporters view El-Kadi’s arrest as punishment for articles that angered Algerian authorities.

His outlets were seen by many as outposts of free debate in Algerian media that provided journalists and opposition politicians a platform to point out contradictions or shortfalls in the government’s policies.

Police questioned El-Kadi in the past then released him. His family and friends expected that to happen again Thursday, but instead were disappointed and indignant at the decision to hold him.

“Algeria is sliding dangerously into an Orwellian universe,” said Madjid Madhi, who is also a journalist.

Algerians expressed dismay online, including some who said they disagreed with El-Kadi’s views. 
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Record inflation in Ghana, the highest in 21 years, is making the holiday season a struggle for many people.  The high cost of living has forced many Ghanaians to cap their expenses, including traditional travels to the countryside to spend time with relatives.  Families are instead trying to save money as the New Year approaches with uncertainty about what 2023 holds for the debt-laden West African economy.

Most Ghanaian city dwellers, like 40-year-old Florence Cudjoe, spend Christmas in the countryside with friends and relatives.  

But Ghana’s struggling economy, hit by the pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine, pushed inflation to a record 50.3%. 

The World Bank says the cost of food in Ghana is the highest in sub-Saharan Africa, more than doubling in the past year, with a loaf of bread nearly tripling in price. 

The costs are forcing families such as Cudjoe’s to stay in the city this holiday season.  

She says last year’s holiday season was much better, as they had money to buy food and spend quality time with family and friends in the village.  Things are very expensive now, says Cudjoe, so she must cut down on holiday expenses because she has a lot of bills to settle next year, including her children’s school fees.  She says they couldn’t even take the children out to the beach or restaurant to celebrate Christmas.

Cudjoe’s 12-year-old daughter, Priscilla, says this will go down as her worst Christmas ever.

I want to go out, she says, but my parents said they don’t have money.  Priscilla says some of her friends in the neighborhood went to KFC, the beach, and the pool to have fun, but they have stayed home all week.  She didn’t even get a Christmas dress from her mother, she says, and feels very sad.

At Accra’s busy Neoplan Station, where holiday travelers can take a bus to other parts of the country, most of the commercial drivers sit idle, waiting for passengers.

Forty-year-old driver Kojo Mintah tells VOA the poor economy forced many Ghanaians to cancel holiday travels.

“They have reduced fuel, but things are still expensive,” Mintah said. “Last year was not like this.  Last year we had COVID, but it was better than today.  This is very bad to us.”

Ghana is Africa’s second biggest exporter of cocoa and gold and was once touted as the continent’s rising economic star.  

It now, though, has been struggling to pay its debts, at a ratio of more than 80% of GDP, and its currency, the cedi, is the worst-performing on world markets. 

The high cost of living has led to sporadic protests and calls for the finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, to step down. 

Daniel Amarteye, an economist with the Accra-based Policy Initiative for Economic Development, tells VOA Ghana must focus more on improving domestic production.

“We need to produce goods that we have the competitive edge and also minimize importation of commodities that, in my view, are unnecessary and we have the advantage to produce same,” Amarteye said.

Despite the economic woes, President Nana Akufo-Addo still sounded optimistic for Ghana’s future in his Christmas address to the nation.

“We have had to ride turbulent storms and we have been faced with the unknown,” Nana said. “I am happy that in spite of it all, we are beginning to emerge out of the difficulties, which encourages me to say that with hard work, dedication and continued prudence in the management of the affairs of our nation, we will rise up again.”

Ghana in November announced spending cuts, a freeze on government hiring, and a hike in the value-added tax to try to turn the economy around.

The International Monetary Fund this month agreed a $3 billion credit arrangement with Ghana for the next three years to help support and revive its economy.    

Ghanaians can only hope the measures will be enough for a happier New Year.  
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As Somalia security forces dislodge al-Shabab from new territories in the central regions, the United Nations agency running al-Shabab defector rehabilitation centers says it has not received funding to continue its work.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which implements donor support for the centers in Mogadishu, Baidoa and Kismayo, said it does not have funding for the new year.

“At the moment, IOM has no funding to continue to support the program,” Frantz Celestin, IOM Somalia chief of mission, told VOA Somali.

The agency has recently informed Somali authorities that funding for the multimillion-dollar project could stop in the new year unless the Somali government and donors reach a deal on the future operations of the program.

“If we don’t get the funding between now and 31st December, we will not be in a position to continue to support the program,” Celestin said in a written response to VOA Somali.

“Our support will cease on 31st December 2022.”

The move is not a permanent cessation but a pause until there is an agreement with the government on a way forward, he emphasized.

Known as the National Program for the Treatment and Handling of Disengaged Combatants, the defector project started more than a decade ago and has helped rehabilitate and reintegrate thousands of al-Shabab defectors.

More than 450 defectors are currently benefiting from the program, according to a source familiar with the center. The defectors include men and women who left al-Shabab. Defectors spend up to one year in the centers before they are reintegrated into the community.

Celestin says additional funding is contingent upon an agreement between the donors and the Somali government.

“As has been the case since 2012, the donors are committed to supporting the program, but they would like to see a path to government ownership of the program. I believe this is what’s under discussion,” he told VOA.

The project’s main donors are the United Kingdom and Germany. A spokesperson for the British embassy and the German embassy in Somalia said the two countries have supported the program for many years.

“The program aims to establish a safe pathway for low-risk combatants and associated women to disengage from non-state armed groups and sustainably reintegrate into their communities,” the spokesperson said.

The U.K. and German embassies said they intend to continue the financial support for the program in 2023-24 but indicated they wanted to see the Somali government take over the project.

“To ensure it is sustainable in the long term, ownership will be transitioned to the government of Somalia,” the spokesperson said.

“We are contributing to the design of the transition and are planning to support its implementation once a plan has been confirmed. Discussions remain ongoing.”

VOA Somali reached out to the Somali Internal Security Ministry, the lead government agency in charge of the program. Officials at the ministry declined to be interviewed for this story.

The program’s funding crisis comes at a crucial time as the Somali government and local forces are pushing al-Shabab from large areas of the countryside. Officials believe if the current operations continue the pressure, there will be more defections, which will make the role of the rehabilitation centers even more crucial.

A military source, who asked not to be named because he doesn’t have permission to discuss the topic, said they have recently confirmed 17 al-Shabab militants who surrendered in Middle Shabelle region.

Former Minister of Internal Security Abdullahi Mohamed Nor, who handed over the post in August, says the program is particularly important during this period because of the ongoing operations against al-Shabab.

“At this time, more centers need to be opened and their capacity increased,” Nor said.

He said the centers need to offer psychological counseling support to the defectors who, he said, are “a hundred percent traumatized” because of the violence.

Nor said thousands have graduated from the program and left the centers to reintegrate.

“In Mogadishu for instance, there is always one hundred people in the center, at a minimum,” he said.

He said he supports bringing the program under the control of the Somali government.

“I would like the Somali government to take over responsibility completely because these are sensitive centers, undertaking sensitive work,” he said.

He acknowledged the role of the donors in supporting the program but said it’s right for Somalia to take over.
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Kenya’s health ministry says sex education digital services launched to help rein in the country’s teenage pregnancy problem have attracted more than 5,000 youths. “Nena Na Binti,” which means “Speak with a Sister” in Swahili, gives information and counseling on reproductive health by mobile application and a toll-free number to Kenyan teenagers, who have the world’s third highest rate of pregnancy. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi, Kenya. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo
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Tensions between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda are threatening the region’s endangered mountain gorillas. Despite the strain, communities living along both sides of the border have teamed up to improve gorilla conservation. Senanu Tord reports from Musanze, Rwanda.
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The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs, or UNOCHA, says an estimated 30,000 people from South Sudan’s Greater Pibor Administrative Area have fled their homes in the face of the recent inter-ethnic violence.

The clashes involving members of the Murle and Nuer communities have left close to 60 people dead, according to officials.

News reports say the trouble resulted from frequent conflict between youth from the two communities.

The U.N. says the violence has led to cattle raiding, destruction of properties, and displacement of thousands of people. Some 5,000 internally displaced people, or IDPs, including women and children, have arrived in Pibor town after fleeing the conflict-ridden areas of Gumuruk and Lekuangole in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area.

Sara Beysolow Nyanti, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan, said the ongoing conflict has resulted in the loss of lives and livelihoods.

“People have suffered enough. Civilians — especially those most vulnerable — women, children, the elderly and the disabled — bear the brunt of this prolonged crisis,” Nyanti said.

Peter Nyang, a teacher, is one of the thousands of IDPs. Along with his wife and five children, Nyang fled Gumuruk when the attackers raided the village and torched his house.

“They have burned our houses to ashes, the whole of Gumuruk town they were burned to ashes,” Nyang said. “We separated and ran to different directions, others crossed the river, my close relatives, I don’t know where they are. My uncle, my grandmother, I don’t know where they are.”

The spokesperson for the chief in Greater Pibor administrative area, John Kaka, said Thursday the humanitarian needs for the displaced persons are immense and fears are rife that there could be an outbreak of diseases. 

“We have hundreds and thousands of people displaced from Gumuruk and Likwangole. They are already at Pibor girls’ and Pibor boys’ primary school. There is no good water and there is no feeding,” Kaka said. “So, we are asking international organizations who are supporting people on feeding. Help people who have been displaced.”

Bol Deng Bol, chairperson of the Jonglei Civil Society Network (JCSN) and executive director of INTREPID South Sudan, said there is an urgent need to end the violence. He explained that the prolonged clashes could take a huge toll on the efforts to restore peace in South Sudan. 

“There will be nothing constructive that will be done,” Bol said. “Instead they will be deconstructing the recent peace efforts.”

According to the United Nations, a projected 9.4 million people will need humanitarian assistance and protection next year. An estimated 2.8 million people are expected to face physical violence, including rape and other forms of gender-based violence, and they will need protection. 

 
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The photo of 15-year-old Walid Zreidat stares out from a banner, a serious-looking youngster with bright brown eyes and a Levi’s T-shirt. Flanking him are those of 17 other youngsters who set sail for Italy from this southern Tunisian fishing town, never to return.

“He left on a Wednesday,” said his father, Salim, slumped nearby and smoking a cigarette, of Walid’s departure in September. “On Thursday, we didn’t get a call from him saying, ‘Dad, we’ve arrived in Lampedusa.’ Same thing Friday.”

Fishermen and other rescuers eventually recovered eight bodies, some buried in unmarked graves. But Walid counts among 10 others still missing after their rickety boat disappeared in the Mediterranean off Zarzis’ shores.

The boys’ bid to leave their homeland underscores a broader desperation in this North African country over the crumbling economy, soaring joblessness and a democracy gone awry.

“There’s a sort of collective despair,” says Alaa Talbi, director of the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, an NGO specializing in migration, among other issues. “People want to change things — their context, their neighborhood, their town — Tunisians want to leave their country.”

Talbi’s group says Tunisian migration is hitting numbers not seen since its 2011 revolution, which catalyzed a wider revolt against authoritarian systems across the Arab world.  

Nearly 40,000 clandestine Tunisians reached European shores this year via Italy and a newer route through Serbia, according to the forum’s estimates. Nearly 30,000 were pushed back by coast guards. Hundreds of others like 15-year-old Walid are dead or missing.

Still, others are leaving the country legally — including some 400,000 engineers and more than 3,000 doctors over the past five years, reports say.

“It’s not just linked to the economic and social crisis,” Talbi says, “It’s also linked to mobility and a choice to live elsewhere.”

Shrinking prospects

Those who stay face shrinking prospects. In Zarzis, whose economy turns around olives, fishing and a fickle tourism industry that dries up in the winter, men of all ages idle in coffee shops.

Tunisia’s economy has been battered by poor decisions, and more recently the COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine. Basics like sugar, milk and gas are in short supply. Unemployment stands at nearly 20%. The country is hoping for a $1.9 billion IMF loan to help stay solvent.

The multiparty democracy that emerged from Tunisia’s revolution has all but vanished since President Kais Saied seized far-reaching powers last year — consolidated under a new constitution he pushed through in July, despite less than 30% voter support. Nine in 10 eligible Tunisians did not vote in December 2022 elections for a vastly weakened parliament, which Saied instead argues helps strengthen grassroots democracy by bypassing party lists.  

Most political parties boycotted the vote, and after the dismal results called on Saied to step down. The powerful Tunisian General Labor Union, or UGTT, has also broken with the president, criticizing him for setting up a system that was “fertile ground for oppression and one-man rule.”

Yet some remain hopeful Tunisia’s democracy isn’t buried for good.

Youssef Cherif, Tunis office director of the Columbia Global Centers policy institute, predicts the country is in for a stormy “transitional phase” in the years to come, “with one ruler and no political parties” — but a political alternative could emerge again.

“Tunisia as never before is in need of a fresh air of ideas, a fresh air of faces, a fresh air of political alternatives. And this is the perfect moment to provide that,” says Zied Boussen, a research fellow at the Arab Reform Initiative. “I don’t know where it’s going to come from.”

For now, however, many ordinary Tunisians have given up on politics. They blame the country’s raft of often-bickering parties for years of post-revolution gridlock and corruption. Once-soaring support for Saied, elected in a landslide in 2019, has dwindled as well — although he remains popular, analysts say, for lack of alternatives.

Risking the sea anyway

“We have no confidence in Kais Saied, or Ennahdha, or any of the other politicians,” says Salim Zreidat, the bereaved father, referring to the once-powerful Islamist-inspired party that counts among Saied’s main opponents.

He and other grieving families, along with locals in Zarzis, have staged protests and an ongoing sit-in, demanding explanations from the government over its perceived failure to find and identify their missing loved ones. Several were later discovered buried in unmarked graves.   

Saied has called for an investigation and speedy answers. But families say that hasn’t yet happened.

Some are searching for answers elsewhere.

“My cousin died, so did my best friend. Most of the people in the boat were from my neighborhood,” says Belsam Hnid, 25.

Even so—and despite having been recently deported from France as an illegal migrant—Hnid wants to take the boat again.

“There’s no future here,” he says. “There’s nothing that would make me stay.”

That sentiment is shared by sub-Saharan African migrants who have made Zarzis a stopover point—undeterred by two graveyards a few kilometers away that are filled with bodies of fellow travelers who failed.

“I have no documents to take me to Europe by plane,” says 23-year-old Christiana Bockarie from Sierra Leone, who crossed the Sahara by motorbike before making her way to Tunisia.

Today, she earns about $6 a day doing housework, saving for her boat fare.

“I take the risk to go to Europe by sea,” she adds. “It’s not easy, but you have to do it to succeed.”  
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South Sudan is sending 750 troops to join the East Africa Force trying to bring peace in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, despite its own struggles to restore peace back home.

President Salva Kiir officially deployed troops to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to join an East African regional force aimed at ending decades of bloodshed in that country.

The troops join contingents from Kenya, Burundi and Uganda, in what is seen as a test of the East African Community’s ability to respond to violence in the region and stabilize the country.

Addressing the troops in Juba, Kiir advised the force to maintain highest level of professionalism.

“You are now going on a mission to achieve and keep peace in Congo,” he said. “Now, you are going on a peacekeeping mission, only your caps will change to blue caps, because you will participate in a joint operation between all the countries of East Africa. I warn you of the need to show discipline and order, and to carry out orders.”

He also instructed the troops not to commit crimes such as rape.

“SPLA during the liberation struggle was very disciplined. I don’t want you to go and cause chaos or disorder, don’t go and engage in the raping of women and girls,” he said.

Minister of Defense and Veteran Affairs Angelina Teny said that as a member of the East African community, South Sudan has a stake in the security and stability of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“We were asked to contribute to a battalion, and we have been preparing all this time and the battalion is ready today. They have just received their final orders from the president and commander in chief; they will now be on their way for that operation,” she said.

Teny said the East African Community had given regional backing to South Sudan’s troop deployment in the eastern DRC. She described the country’s troop deployment as a positive move by a country grappling with its own security issues.

“We are very proud today because the flag of the republic of South Sudan is going to be flying as a region continuing to contribute to stability and peace,” she said. “This is a great opportunity for us to change the image of this country.”

South Sudan’s troops will be stationed in Goma city. They will conduct operations to restore normalcy to the region, where Congolese troops are fighting the M23 rebel group.
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Lucy Kassa never expected to be a war correspondent. Working for a Norwegian magazine, the freelance journalist wrote about issues related to development and the economy in Ethiopia.

But then fighting broke out in her home region of Tigray, in Ethiopia’s north.

“I had a different dream for my life. It was never my plan to get into all of this,” she told VOA.

When Lucy began receiving disturbing reports of atrocities in late 2020, she started to document witness and survivor accounts of gang rapes, killings and other human rights abuses.

She was reporting from the capital, Addis Ababa, at the time, and media access to the region was blocked. So, she relied on contacts with old sources in the region, alongside tools such as geolocation to verify accounts.

But, Lucy said, more independent investigations are needed to uncover everything that has happened.

Two years of reporting on the war has taken a toll.

“I have put so much energy into documenting war crimes. I have sacrificed a lot, even I risked my life,” Lucy said.

In 2021, three unidentified armed men forced their way into her home and knocked her to the ground. They questioned her and searched material she had collected for a story. They left with her computer and pictures.

Soon after, Lucy left Ethiopia. She now lives in Europe with the support of an international organization. For safety reasons, she does not share specific details about her life or whereabouts.

“I have security here. The organization here provides me security, but I don’t have a social life with the Eritrean, Ethiopian, and even the Tigrayan community at all,” she said.

Lucy is not alone when it comes to journalists harassed or imprisoned for their coverage of the war in Tigray. Authorities in Ethiopia also blocked internet and mobile phone use in certain regions.

“The situation in Ethiopia is quite horrendous. We are extremely concerned about the safety of journalists,” said Kiran Nazish, founding director of the Coalition For Women In Journalism (CFWIJ), in a written response to VOA.

“Over the last year, we have come across multiple journalists sharing stunning stories of censorship, where journalists do not feel free to report without fear of government reprisal,” Nazish said. “Meanwhile, we have witnessed a year where arrests escalated dramatically.”

Often, she said, authorities give no reason for an arrest.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released a report in August showing at least 63 journalists detained or briefly held since November 2020 after covering stories about the war or politically sensitive topics.

“Since the civil war [in Ethiopia’s Tigray region] started two years ago, we have had many journalists who have been detained for periods, often without charge,” Angela Quintal, Africa program coordinator at CPJ, told VOA.

VOA contacted the Ethiopian Media Authority, which regulates journalism in the country, and the office of the prime minister for comment. Neither had responded before the time of publication.

Documenting abuses

The work of journalists has been essential in uncovering abuses on all sides of the conflict that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions in Tigray and the Amhara and Afar regions.

A team of United Nations investigators say they found evidence of war crimes committed by Ethiopian federal forces, Tigrayan forces and soldiers from neighboring Eritrea.

The team was denied access to the region, so it collected evidence based on interviews with 185 individuals, including survivors of attacks.

Ethiopia’s government rejected the report for “exceeding its mandate,” The Associated Press reported.

Lucy said a lack of access to conflict areas was used as a way to try to discredit her work or to question the authenticity of the accounts that survivors and witnesses shared with her. But those interviews are etched in her memory, along with the videos and images she has sifted through in the process of verifying accounts.

“To see that humans can do all these things and get away with it creates some kind of hopelessness in you,” Lucy said. “I was asking myself what’s the point of this? What’s the point of me being consumed in this work if it’s not going to bring anything?”

But Lucy’s work, including how rape was weaponized, has been recognized internationally.

More recently, she received the Magnitsky Award for investigative journalism. The human rights awards are named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in pre-trial detention in a Moscow prison after working to expose government corruption.

Catherine Belton, a journalist who for several years was Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times, called Lucy “a true journalistic hero.”

“She’s one of the bravest journalists I’ve ever met,” Belton said in a speech during the award presentation.

Lucy said she was in a dark place when the award was announced. She still has trouble accepting recognition.

“I was terribly depressed by the pressures from all sides. I was so frustrated by the fact that there’s no accountability to the war crimes committed by all sides,” she told VOA. “I remember talking to a father who had a good life [prior to the war] and that he couldn’t feed his baby anymore because he was out of work.”

People find it hard to ask for help, she said. “They don’t want to say, ‘I didn’t eat food,’ or they don’t want to say that I’m hungry. And that breaks my heart.”

Lucy hopes her work will eventually pave the way to justice for the subjects of her reporting.

“As a journalist, all I care about is finding evidence and verifying the accounts. But I’m also a human being. As a human being, you expect some kind of justice,” Lucy said.
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A court in Ivory Coast on Wednesday handed down life terms to four Malian men convicted of abetting a jihadi attack on a beach resort that left 19 people dead.

The court in Abidjan, the country’s commercial hub, found the four “guilty of the deeds for which they are accused and sentences them to life imprisonment,” Judge Charles Bini announced.

The March 13, 2016, assault was the first jihadist attack in Ivory Coast, one of West Africa’s economic powerhouses.

In an operation echoing a jihadi massacre the previous year in Tunisia, three men wielding assault rifles stormed the beach at Grand-Bassam, a resort 40 kilometers east of Abidjan popular with Europeans, before attacking hotels and restaurants.

The 45-minute bloodbath ended when Ivorian security forces shot the attackers dead.

The 19 fatalities comprised nine Ivorians, four French citizens, a Lebanese, a German, a Macedonian, a Malian, a Nigerian and a person who could not be identified.

Thirty-three people of various nationalities were wounded.

Al-Qaida’s North African affiliate, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), claimed responsibility the same day.

It said the attack was in response to anti-jihadi operations in the Sahel by France and its allies, and targeted Ivory Coast for having handed over AQIM operatives to Mali.

Several dozen people were later arrested, including three suspected accomplices of the dead attackers, who were detained in Mali.

Eighteen were charged in Ivory Coast with acts of terrorism, murder, attempted murder, criminal concealment, illegal possession of firearms and ammunition “and complicity in these deeds,” said Public Prosecutor Richard Adou.

“We have to discourage the followers of these terrorist acts,” he said, summing up his case before Wednesday’s verdict.

“We have been confronted with horror and barbarity.”

Of the 18, only four — Hantao Ag Mohamed Cisse, Sidi Mohamed Kounta, Mohamed Cisse and Hassan Barry — were present in court.

They allegedly played a subsidiary role.

The 14 others, including the suspected masterminds, are either on the run or being held in Mali, Aude Rimailho, a lawyer for French civilian plaintiffs, said before the trial.

Seven of these 14 were handed life sentences in absentia, and the other seven were acquitted.

Defense lawyer Eric Saki said he had “mixed feelings” about the verdict.

“I am happy for those who have been declared totally innocent, but I am sad for the four who, from my point of view, should also have benefited from an acquittal.”

The attack on Grand-Bassam was the first and so far deadliest in a string of sporadic attacks on countries on the Gulf of Guinea south of the Sahel.
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The first of many Ethiopian Airlines flights arrived in Mekelle, Tigray’s regional capital, Wednesday, signaling an end to the two-year isolation of the region from the rest of the country. Families on the flight were seen embracing one another after arriving in the city.

Ethiopian airlines said Tuesday the daily flights will help families reconnect as well as boost business and tourism.

The end of the isolation comes weeks after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front rebel group and the Ethiopian government signed a peace deal in South Africa, agreeing to resolve their differences through dialogue and end the suffering of the population. 

The peace agreement has helped to open up the region, allowing aid to reach millions of people and restoring telecommunications and banking services.

On Monday, Ethio Telecom representatives joined a delegation led by the parliament speaker to assess the war-damaged telecommunications infrastructure.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s spokesperson Billene Seyoum tweeted on Wednesday that Ethio Telecom had completed the connection of 27 towns and 981 fiber optic cables.

The national airline said it would increase the number of daily flights depending on demand.

Kenyan and African Union delegations are expected to visit Mekelle this week to oversee the implementation of the November peace agreement. 

 
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