In Ethiopia’s Gambella region, a June attack on the capital by the rebel group, the Oromo Liberation Army, has raised fears of more civil war spreading in the country. Reporter Henry Wilkins spoke to local officials and analysts about what’s behind the violence and what it could mean for Ethiopia’s security.
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United Nations Relief Chief Martin Griffiths has visited Somalia’s South West state, the epicenter of the country’s severe drought. That drought has already displaced more than 1 million people. 

In his first visit to Somalia, the most drought-affected country in the Horn of Africa, U.N. relief chief Martin Griffiths said the country needs global support to curb the worst drought in 40 years.

In a news conference in Baidoa, the epicenter of the drought, after he met with South West state President Abdiasiis Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen, Griffiths said it is “almost unimaginable” that Baidoa is sheltering 750,000 displaced people.

Somalia’s drought, which devastated 90% of the country, has already displaced more than 1 million people and 7.8 million others need humanitarian assistance.

The U.N. relief chief commended the local community in Baidoa for their efforts to help the displaced.

“One more point, we fear the worst may yet to come, we fear that we will see exponentially increasing need, we fear globally that Baidoa and this South West state is going to need the charity generosity and priority of the world because of the scale of suffering that we anticipate,” he said.

In a brief statement Griffiths posted on Twitter after the visit, he said that he saw babies too weak to cry, and mothers who are still children themselves.

“The silence of the international community is deafening,” he wrote.

For his part, South West state President Laftagareen welcomed the visit by the U.N. delegation.

He says they discussed the current issues such as the drought relief efforts and the way that drought-affected people can be supported. They also spoke of ways to provide emergency relief in South West state.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Somalia office said Saturday that food prices have spiked in the country and hunger is rising.

It said that for the first time since 2017 “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity have been confirmed, with 213,000 people in famine-like conditions.

UNICEF earlier told VOA that drought-related malnutrition has already killed 500 children in Somalia.

Somalia last year declared the three-year drought a national emergency.

According to the prime minister’s office, the drought has also killed more than 2 million livestock and affected 28% of the country’s total livestock population.
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At least 33 people were killed following a militia attack on a town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a respected monitor said Saturday, raising an earlier reported death toll.

Kivu Security Tracker, the monitor, tweeted that at least 33 people, including militia members and civilians, had died following an attack by the notorious CODECO militia on Mongbwalu in Ituri province.

It did not specify how many of the dead were civilians, however.

The death toll raises an earlier reported death toll of 22 people killed during the attack on Mongbwalu town.

Town mayor Jean-Pierre Bikilisende earlier this week told AFP that 22 bodies were discovered following clashes between the militants and Congolese troops.

Fourteen civilians and eight militants were killed, he said, explaining that CODECO members had been staging attacks since Tuesday in a bid to free fellow fighters captured by Congolese security forces.

AFP was unable to independently confirm the death toll from this week’s attack.

The CODECO — the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo — is a political-religious sect that claims to represent the interests of the Lendu ethnic group.

It is considered one of the deadliest of the more than 120 militias operating in the troubled eastern part of the country and has been blamed for a number of ethnic massacres in Ituri.

Last year, Congo’s government put security officials in charge of Ituri and neighboring North Kivu province in a bid to curb violence, but the attacks continue.
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Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the appointment Friday of former Senegalese minister and U.N. diplomat Abdoulaye Bathily to be the new U.N. envoy to Libya after the Security Council gave its approval, ending a nine-month search amid increasing chaos in the oil-rich north African nation. 

Libya’s transitional government, which opposed Bathily’s nomination, reportedly sent a protest letter to Guterres, which raises questions about how effective the new envoy can be in trying to resolve the country’s political and economic crisis. 

The last U.N. special representative, Jan Kubis, resigned Nov. 23, 2021, after 10 months on the job, and a number of candidates proposed by Guterres were rejected by council members, Libya or neighboring countries. 

In December, Guterres appointed veteran American diplomat Stephanie Williams, a former U.N. deputy special representative in Libya, as his special adviser — a job that did not require council approval. 

She left at the end of July. So, the mission has had no leader as Libyans grapple with a constitutional and political crisis. 

Years of chaos

Libya has been in chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The country has for years been split between rival administrations, each backed by rogue militias and foreign governments. 

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo warned Tuesday that failure to resolve Libya’s political crisis and hold delayed elections poses a growing threat in the country, pointing to recent violent clashes that killed at least 42 people and injured 159 others, according to Libyan authorities. 

The current stalemate grew out of the failure to hold elections in December and the refusal of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who led the transitional government, to step down. In response, the country’s east-based parliament appointed a rival prime minister, Fathy Bashagha, who has for months sought to install his government in Tripoli. 

Diplomatic experience

Guterres said Bathily brings 40 years of experience to the job of special representative and head of Libya’s U.N. political mission. 

He held various ministerial positions in Senegal, taught history for more than 30 years at the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop in the country, held senior U.N. positions including in Mali and Central Africa, and served as the independent expert for the strategic review of the Libya mission in 2021. 

Bathily has doctorates from Universite Cheikh Anta Diop and the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom and is fluent in English, French, Soninke and Wolof. 
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Mali’s foreign ministry is denying accusations of human rights violations made by the United Nations.

An 11-page statement posted on the official social media accounts of Mali’s foreign ministry denies all allegations leveled in a U.N. note that implicated Malian state security forces.

The U.N. mission to Mali, MINUSMA, released a quarterly note on human rights Wednesday, accounting for the period between April 1 and June 30 of this year. The note said that most of the human rights violations in Mali during that period were committed by Islamist militant groups but also says it has documented “serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law” by state security forces. 

The note adds that there was a decrease in all recorded human rights violations compared to the first quarter of 2022.   

Mali’s foreign ministry statement called the allegations against state security forces biased, and said they were made without “tangible proof” and “under the threat of terrorist groups,” with an objective “to tarnish the image of state security forces.”  

Tensions between Mali’s military government and MINUSMA have been rising in recent months. In July, Mali arrested 49 soldiers from Ivory Coast who had arrived as support for a U.N. contingent on their arrival at Bamako’s airport, accusing them of being mercenaries. 

Also in July, MINUSMA’s spokesperson was expelled from the country after he made comments on Twitter claiming the U.N. had notified the Malian government of the soldiers’ arrival. 

The Malian government denied the U.N. access to Moura, Mali, in April, where it wanted to carry out a human rights investigation into an alleged massacre committed by Malian forces working with Russian mercenaries. 

MINUSMA’s quarterly note also claimed to have documented the killing of 50 civilians in Hombori, Mali, by state security forces working with “foreign military personnel.”

The Malian government statement did not address accusations that it is working with foreign military forces. Mali says it only works with official Russian trainers and has received military aircraft and weapons shipments from Russia. 

A number of countries have accused Mali of working with mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group. After nearly 10 years there, France withdrew from Mali in August because of concerns about the country working with the Kremlin-linked paramilitary organization.
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Police in northwest Nigeria say worshippers have been kidnapped while they were observing jumu’at prayers, despite intensified action against armed gangs ordered by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

Zamfara state police spokesperson Mohammed Shehu said the attack took place Friday afternoon at the Jumu’at Central Mosque in the Gummi local government area as worshippers gathered for prayers.

Eyewitnesses told local media the attackers, disguised as worshippers, hid guns in their clothes until they infiltrated the mosque.

The attackers shot sporadically into the air and herded dozens of worshippers into a nearby forest.

Zamfara state police responded to the incident, but Shehu said he could not immediately offer VOA any additional details about the attack.

Armed gangs have terrorized northwest and central Nigeria for years. More recently, violence spread to the southeast, where separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has been largely blamed for causing unrest. IPOB denies the allegations.

Security analyst Senator Iroegbu said the government’s approach to addressing insecurities has not worked.

“It’s a continued red flag,” he said. “I feel most of the responses have been too reactionary and ad hoc in nature. There has not been [a] holistic definition of what is actually happening in the northwest and how to arrest the situation. And this also hampers the effectiveness of the security operatives because for them to operate effectively, their scope of operation need to be well defined.”

Last month during a top security meeting, President Buhari ordered security chiefs to deal with terrorists without constraints.

Days later, the Nigerian air force said airstrikes in the northwest and central regions killed 55 gang members and freed some hostages.
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Authorities in Somalia’s central region of Hiran say al-Shabab Islamist militants carried out deadly attacks against civilians in the region killing at least 22 people.

The Islamist militant group early Saturday attacked a convoy carrying food in Hiran region, an attack that claimed the lives of civilians, according to Hirshabele state officials who spoke with VOA by phone after the attack.

The attack took place on the road between the region’s capital, Beledwayne, and Mahas district.

Officials say the group attacked a humanitarian convoy killing 17 people, and then targeted civilian rescuers with landmines that killed five others.

In a statement, the Somali government strongly condemned the attack and described it as “barbaric and heinous.”

The government said it stands with the local community and promised to respond strongly to the “brutal” attack.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the deadly attack and said it had killed 20 local militia in the attack.

Abdurahman Sheikh Azhari, director of the Mogadishu-based Center for Analysis and Strategic Studies, told VOA that the attacks and activities by al-Shabab in the central region are a retaliation against locals who work with the government and regional security forces against al-Shabab in Hiran and Galmudug. He said it is a collective punishment against the local communities used by al-Shabab to stop them from supporting the government.

Mogadishu independent security analyst Abdulkarim Abdulle told VOA that the attack was a response to the local population’s rejection of an al-Shabab peace proposal. He said the attack Friday was intended to make residents accept the proposal by punishing them collectively for the rejection.

Al-Shabab has been waging an insurgency in Somalia since 2007 and has been fighting both the Somali government and African Union peacekeepers in the country.

Last Month, al-Shabab staged a deadly hotel siege in the capital, Mogadishu, that lasted more than 30 hours and killed 21 people and wounded more than 100 others.
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Gunmen killed at least 42 people in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, two residents who buried the bodies in mass graves said Friday, the latest killings in the country’s most populous region where escalating violence has left hundreds dead.

The latest attack by an armed group against local residents occurred Tuesday, they said, in the Amuru district, around 370 kilometers west of the capital, Addis Ababa.

They said the victims were all Oromos and described the attackers as members of a volunteer militia known as Fano, mostly composed of ethnic Amharas.

Clashes between the Oromo and Amhara, Ethiopia’s two largest ethnic groups, have been rising in recent months.

Oromia has experienced years of violence amid accusations of neglect by the federal government in Addis Ababa.

Oromos account for more than a third of Ethiopia’s total population of around 110 million.

One resident, who spoke to Reuters by telephone but asked not to be named, said that locals had buried 22 people in one place, 15 in another, and five in a third spot.

The second resident said he compiled a list of 46 dead.

Both residents said the attackers, carrying rifles and numbering between 150-200 men, were speaking Amharic and wore a mishmash of uniforms.

Neither Amhara nor Oromia’s regional administrations’ spokespeople responded to requests for comment.
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The Security Council on Friday approved former Senegalese minister and U.N. diplomat Abdoulaye Bathily as the new U.N. envoy to Libya, ending a nine-month search amid increasing chaos in the oil-rich north African nation.

The vote came a day after Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had nominated Bathily.

Libya’s transitional government, which opposed Bathily’s nomination, reportedly sent a protest letter to Guterres, which raises questions about how effective the new envoy can be in trying to resolve the country’s political and economic crisis.

The last U.N. special representative, Jan Kubis, resigned Nov. 23, 2021, after 10 months on the job, and several candidates proposed by Guterres were rejected by council members, Libya or neighboring countries.

In December, Guterres appointed veteran American diplomat Stephanie Williams, a former U.N. deputy special representative in Libya, as his special adviser — a job that did not require council approval.

She left at the end of July. So, the mission has had no leader as Libyans grapple with a constitutional and political crisis.

Libya has been in chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The county has for years been split between rival administrations, each backed by rogue militias and foreign governments.

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo warned Tuesday that failure to resolve Libya’s political crisis and hold delayed elections poses a growing threat in the country, pointing to recent violent clashes that killed at least 42 people and injured 159 others, according to Libyan authorities.

The current stalemate grew out of the failure to hold elections in December and the refusal of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who led the transitional government, to step down. In response, the country’s east-based parliament appointed a rival prime minister, Fathy Bashagha, who has for months sought to install his government in Tripoli.

Guterres said Bathily brings 40 years of experience to the job of special representative and head of Libya’s U.N. political mission.

He held various ministerial positions in Senegal, taught history for more than 30 years at the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop in the country, held senior U.N. positions including in Mali and Central Africa, and served as the independent expert for the strategic review of the Libya mission in 2021.

Bathily has doctorates from Universite Cheikh Anta Diop and the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom and is fluent in English, French, Soninke and Wolof.
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The managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) sparked controversy this week when he said thieves from all levels of society were stealing 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

Mele Kyari even accused churches and mosques of keeping stolen fuel, an allegation religious groups rejected. Kyari addressed a weekly ministerial briefing in the presidential village on Tuesday and said up to 95% of Nigeria’s oil produced at the Bonny Terminal was being stolen.

The NNPC official cited one oil pipeline in the area and said 295 illegal connections had been attached along its 200-kilometer course.

Kyari said the oil theft was mostly being done by organized groups who sometimes work with residents of local communities. He also said religious leaders, churches and mosques were involved in crude oil theft.

Kyari said authorities were attempting to address the problem, but added that the theft was difficult to stop.

“We have some visibility around nearly everything we have, particularly on the security platforms,” Kyari said. “Currently there are 122 arrests, and they will be prosecuted. About 11 vessels, 30 speed boats have been arrested, 179 wooden boats and then 37 trucks.”

Kyari’s comments on mosques and churches taking part in the theft sparked a backlash among religious groups.

A spokesperson for the Catholic Society of Nigeria, Micheal Umoh, said the oil company head must be specific in his opinion.

“Even this thing they’re talking about, that religious leaders being part of it, if there’s any atom of truth in it, it will not be possible if government was responsible and doing its work,” Umoh said. “They’re just trying to bring in all these distractions, but I will not want to begin to disagree with him until he really explains what he means, because many people go by the name ‘religious leaders’ but with very terrible characters.”

Kyari said security operatives had recovered nearly 36 million liters of crude oil and about 22 million liters of diesel. He also said they’d recovered some gasoline and kerosene.

Kyari emphasized that apart from revenue losses, oil bunkering activities and pipeline vandalism were causing irredeemable environmental damage.

But critics such as Umoh are pointing a finger back at authorities, saying they have been reckless in the handling of oil assets, limiting national profit.

Faith Nwadishi, the executive director of the Center for Transparency Advocacy, said the government was only trading blame.

“The question for me to ask is: Can you park a ship in a church or in a mosque? The volumes that we’re talking about are between 85 and 95 percent of crude. I understand the fact that now Nigerians are talking about crude oil theft, depletion of revenue, and that’s why they’re saying the easy way out is to say that other stakeholders are the ones that are stealing the crude,” Nwadishi said.

In August, Nigerian oil officials launched an online portal to track oil theft and promised to reward whistleblowers.

In a controversial move, they also awarded a pipeline surveillance contract to a former militant who used to steal oil.

The governor of Delta state, one of Nigeria’s oil-rich southern states, praised the awarded contract, saying it showed the government took his advice to involve the oil-producing communities in pipeline surveillance.
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Malawi officials say they have arrested two police officers, a medical worker and a Burundian refugee in connection with an apparent human trafficking operation that routes people to Oman.

Malawi officials said Friday that they have been seeking to investigate alleged abuses of Malawians trafficked to the Middle Eastern nation, but that Omani officials have refused their visas.

The arrests are part of the crackdown of people operating unregistered job recruitment agencies who are trafficking Malawians to countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman under the pretext of finding them jobs.

Malawian Minister of Homeland Security Jean Sendeza said at a news conference Friday that the two police officers were arrested Thursday for granting “trafficked persons” clearance to travel to Oman through the Kamuzu International Airport.

She said the medical worker, a public hospital officer, was arrested for providing health certificates for the trafficked persons that cleared them of any diseases, while the Burundian refugee was allegedly conspiring with other people in human trafficking.

Police said the suspects would appear in court soon on charges of human trafficking.

“We have got a lot of cases in our courts — as of now we have got seven cases that have been concluded and 71 of them are still active,” Sendeza said.

Complaints of abuse

Many of the Malawians sent to other countries such as Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates for “employment opportunities” have complained that their employers are sexually, physically and emotionally abusing them.

For example, in a Facebook post that went viral last week, a Malawian woman working in Oman alleged that she’d suffered abuses such as rape, torture and poor pay. She compared her situation in Oman to that of slavery.

Vera Kamtukule, Malawi’s labor minister, said her office had received 40 complaints about abuse from Malawians trapped in Oman. But she said Malawi government efforts to investigate the allegations in Oman were facing challenges.

“We are unable to assist them because we are being denied entry into Oman. That’s the first thing,” Kamtukule said. “The second thing is we don’t have bilateral agreements or international agreements with that country. So, we are using our embassy in Kuwait, and they have been facing a few challenges to break through to investigate these issues.”

There has been no comment from authorities in Oman on the matter.

Kamtukule said the Malawi government had intensified its crackdown on people who are operating illegal job recruitment agencies.

She gave an example of her personal efforts to stop such activities. Accompanied by a nonuniformed police officer, she went undercover, posing as a prospective employee at a suspected “illegal job recruitment office” in the capital, Lilongwe. The undercover operation resulted in a number of arrests.
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Africa’s largest e-commerce company, Jumia, launched the first commercial drone delivery service on the continent this week, offering delivery of products across Ghana.

After more than three months of testing in the town of Omenaku, Jumia and California-based instant-delivery service Zipline have started delivering products to homes.

The service is available nationwide in the West African country. Jumia says it has made 100 delivery flights so far.

“Today, we believe it’s a great enabler for service for far-flung areas in Africa, very quickly in good speed and also with a great amount of sustainability and safety,” said Apoorva Kumar, Jumia’s chief operations officer.

A March 2022 Forbes report shows that Africa lags in access to energy and road networks, but the continent has made significant strides in internet penetration, which is estimated at 70%. So digital entrepreneurs are using technology to solve problems that are typically reserved for more traditional forms of infrastructure.

However, economists such as Ken Gichinga say that poor addressing systems for homes are still a major obstacle to drone delivery.

“Droning, if it is marked well with geo-mapping, can open up the industry in terms of delivery, but for good delivery we need to have a proper addressing system,” Gichinga said. “We don’t have them like in the west, proper addressing systems.”

According to the United Nations conference on trade and development, Africa also is lagging in key aspects of e-trade because of connectivity issues, lack of payment systems, and various government policies.

Less than 40% of African countries have adopted data privacy legislation, economist Wohoro Ndohho told VOA. If consumers fear their personal information will be shared with the wrong party, he said, the drones-for-delivery business may not take off.

“Africa is ready for drones to the extent that, in one sense, it leads to the whole question of building infrastructure,” he said. “For example, what is done in Rwanda, another part of Africa where they have used drones in delivery of medicine, but there must be an underlying legal system that support taking advantage of drones.”

Jumia operates in 11 African countries, with more than 30 warehouses. The group hopes to expand drone delivery services across the continent in the future.
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The Serum Institute of India signed a deal this week with South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare to make four vaccines used in Africa.

The deal has been hailed as saving local vaccine production, which was at risk of shutting down after receiving no orders for a COVID vaccine. But medical aid group Doctors Without Borders says more efforts are needed for vaccines to be fully produced in Africa for Africans.

Four routine pediatric vaccines — pneumococcal vaccine, rotavirus vaccine, polyvalent meningococcal vaccine and hexavalent vaccine — will be made in South Africa with products from bulk drug substances supplied by India’s Serum Institute.

In addition to the 10-year agreement, South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare also anticipates receiving grant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, CEPI.

“The partnership represents an important step for preventing the kinds of gross inequities of access to life-saving vaccines that emerged during the COVID pandemic,” said CEPI’s chief executive officer, Richard Hatchett. “We are proud to be part of an effort that will secure critically needed vaccine manufacturing capacity in Africa, for Africa so that it can be ready when it faces future epidemic or pandemic threats.”

But Candice Sehoma with Doctors Without Borders’ Access Campaign in South Africa is calling for more than just fill-and-finish deals.

“I think it’s a great step towards realizing the improvements in the African continent’s manufacturing capacity, particularly looking at vaccines. And actually looking into routine vaccines. I think that, for me, is a great step,” Sehoma said. “But I think, definitely, we could do with a lot more and even a full sharing of technology, so that we don’t find ourselves waiting in line for vaccines that are coming from high-income countries.”

Petro Terblanche, managing director of the South African company Afrigen, which reproduced Moderna’s MRNA COVID vaccine, says Aspen’s deal with the Serum Institute may not be healthy for other companies on the continent, as it could drown out local competition.

“So, the manufacturing capacity and the technology capabilities and the reach of the Serum Institute is very dominant, it is very, very powerful. However, if Serum Institute is prepared to do partnerships with Africa and South Africa for end-to-end manufacturing and technology transfer to Africa, it’s a positive development,” Terblanche said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, deputy director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, says the agreement is an important step for African vaccine manufacturing.

“It has responded to African Union heads of state and government calls that 30 percent of our continent’s requirements for human vaccines be procured from Africa manufacturers. And we look forward to this being motivation for more expanded manufacturing of vaccines here on the continent of Africa,” Ouma said.

According to the Africa CDC, less than 1% of vaccines currently used on the continent are locally manufactured.

Aspen’s Group Communications Consultant Shauneen Beukes says they cannot comment on calls for the full African production of vaccines at this stage.
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Tigrayan rebels in Ethiopia say government forces and troops from neighboring Eritrea have launched a coordinated offensive, as fighting intensifies in the region.

On Thursday, a spokesperson for the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front said on Twitter that Eritrean forces have joined Ethiopian federal forces in the fight against the TPLF. 

Getachew Reda said the forces launched what he called a “massive four-pronged offensive” early Thursday in the Adyabo area of northwestern Tigray, adding that TPLF forces are defending their positions. 

A later statement by the Tigray Military Command said planes belonging to Ethiopian Airlines are being used to transport military personnel and supply munitions to troops in the north.  

There has been no independent confirmation of the TPLF accusations. An Ethiopian government spokesperson and the Eritrean ministry of information did not respond to requests for comment.  

In their own statements, Ethiopian officials have accused the TPLF of launching attacks in Amhara this week. 

Bloomberg News reports that Ethiopia’s foreign minister told diplomats Thursday that the government is taking measures against Tigrayan forces while trying to avoid civilian casualties. 

William Davison, analyst with the International Crisis Group, a research institution based in Belgium, said, “Now Tigrayan reports, which seem to be accurate, of a large-scale incursion into Tigray from the north by Eritrean and federal forces. So, it is evident that the conflict is now seriously escalating.

“There are also reports of confrontations and a heavy federal military buildup around Wag Hemra in northern Amhara, a little bit to the west of where fighting started, shows that the fighting has spread to a major new front,” he added.  

Eritrea is a longtime opponent of the TPLF, which effectively ruled Ethiopia from 1991 to 2018. 

Fighting between Tigrayan fighters and pro-Ethiopian government forces resumed in northern Ethiopia a week ago, ending a five-month cease-fire. 

As a result, the U.N. has stopped humanitarian aid deliveries to Tigray, where relief groups say parts of the region are likely in a state of famine.  

 
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A U.N. monitoring committee is urging Benin and Zimbabwe to address alleged discrimination against minority and marginalized groups in their countries. The committee released findings this week on progress in seven countries whose records were under review.

The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed regret that Benin’s national plan of action against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and intolerance has been only partially implemented since it was adopted in 2014.

While discrimination and hate speech remain prevalent, mainly against albinos, the committee said few people have formally complained about the crimes.

Committee member Pansy Tlakula surmised it might be due to lack of awareness of available judicial remedies, lack of confidence in the justice system or fear of reprisals on the part of victims.

She said people with albinism are most victimized by the discrimination that pervades the society. “In our interactive dialogue with Benin, the committee raised concerns about reports that people with albinism are often subjected to extreme physical attacks, stigmatization and discrimination based on beliefs related to witchcraft and skin color.”

The committee urged Benin to take effective measures to protect people with albinism from such vicious behavior and to ensure they have equal access to education, health, and employment.

Regarding Zimbabwe, the committee said it was pleased with the positive measures taken by the government to implement the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

However, Tlakula said the committee was disturbed by reports that atrocities committed during the Gukurahundi violence of the 1980s continue to be a source of ethnic tension. Around 20,000 Ndebele-speaking people were killed in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces by government forces in the 1980s.

Tlakula said many victims remain traumatized. She said the committee is concerned that they are barred by state agents from participating in mourning and commemorative activities.

“It urged Zimbabwe to take measures to ensure that mourning and commemorative activities can be conducted without restrictions or threats. It also called on the state party to ensure that the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission fulfills its responsibilities to provide a platform for post-conflict public truth-telling,” she noted.

The committee also criticized the widespread discrimination against people who work in the informal sector or as domestic laborers, noting most are Black women who face low wages and work in dehumanizing conditions.

The U.N. experts requested Zimbabwe amend its labor laws to end discrimination on the grounds of race, class, and gender.
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Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema has pledged to improve the country’s financial situation after it received a $1.3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund. Zambia was the first African country to default on its debt in the COVID-19 era.

President Hakainde Hichilema, speaking Thursday at the launch of plans aimed at boosting the country’s socioeconomic development, said the IMF Executive Board had approved a financial assistance program for Zambia.  

“They approved our extended credit facility for this great country whose greatness lies ahead of us and for us to make our country greater we have to do what is necessary in all the spheres and in all the areas,” said Hichilema.

The $1.3 billion bailout is aimed at kickstarting the country’s economy and restructuring its debt. The plan allows Zambia to immediately access $185 million.  

The financial assistance approved on Wednesday will give Zambia room in the budget to increase social spending and strengthen governance. The framework of the bailout will require the country to improve its public financial management.

According to Zambian government debt data, the country accumulated $31.74 billion by the end of 2021, of which $17.27 billion was external debt.  

Nearly one-third of the debt — $5.78 billion – is owed to China.

In November 2020, Zambia was unable to make its payments on a $42.5 million Eurobond, becoming the first African country in the pandemic era to default on its debt.

In July of this year, the southern African nation canceled projects worth $2 billion to prevent its debt from growing further.  

The country plans to increase copper production to 3 million tons a year in the next 10 years and produce foodstuffs for export in an effort to reduce its debt.

Hichilema says his government will have to make tough choices for high economic growth.

“The macroeconomic objectives set out in the eight national development plans are to place our economy on a higher growth trajectory, no question about it,” said Hichilema. “That’s the agenda next to restrain fiscal deficits that we experienced in the last seven or so years to a point where we failed to live within our means and defaulted on our obligations.”

Hichilema said the country must depart from rampant corruption, overvaluing the government projects and failing to finish them on time.

He pledged to reduce domestic debt and inject money into the economy.

Zambia’s next step is to sign a legally non-binding memorandum of understanding with the G-20 bilateral creditors committee, which is intended to assist countries in resolving their debt. The authorities hope to complete discussion on the memorandum by the end of 2022. The G-20 refers to the Group of 20 large economies.
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A helicopter herds thousands of impalas into an enclosure. A crane hoists sedated upside-down elephants into trailers. Hordes of rangers drive other animals into metal cages and a convoy of trucks starts a journey of about 700 kilometers to take the animals to their new home.

Zimbabwe has begun moving more than 2,500 wild animals from a southern reserve to one in the country’s north to rescue them from drought, as the ravages of climate change replace poaching as the biggest threat to wildlife.

About 400 elephants, 2,000 impalas, 70 giraffes, 50 buffaloes, 50 wildebeest, 50 zebras, 50 elands, 10 lions and a pack of 10 wild dogs are among the animals being moved from Zimbabwe’s Save Valley Conservancy to three conservancies in the north — Sapi, Matusadonha and Chizarira — in one of southern Africa’s biggest live animal capture and translocation exercises.

“Project Rewild Zambezi,” as the operation is called, is moving the animals to an area in the Zambezi River valley to rebuild the wildlife populations there.

It’s the first time in 60 years that Zimbabwe has embarked on such a mass internal movement of wildlife. Between 1958 and 1964, when the country was white-minority-ruled Rhodesia, more than 5,000 animals were moved in what was called “Operation Noah.” That operation rescued wildlife from the rising water caused by the construction of a massive hydro-electric dam on the Zambezi River that created one of the world’s largest man-made lakes, Lake Kariba.

This time it’s the lack of water that has made it necessary to move wildlife as their habitat has become parched by prolonged drought, said Tinashe Farawo, spokesperson for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.

The parks agency issued permits to allow the animals to be moved to avert “a disaster from happening,” said Farawo.

“We are doing this to relieve pressure. For years we have fought poaching and just as we are winning that war, climate change has emerged as the biggest threat to our wildlife,” Farawo told The Associated Press.

“Many of our parks are becoming overpopulated and there is little water or food. The animals end up destroying their own habitat, they become a danger unto themselves and they encroach neighboring human settlements for food resulting in incessant conflict,” he said.

One option would be culling to reduce the numbers of wildlife, but conservation groups protest that such killings are cruel. Zimbabwe last did culling in 1987, said Farawo.

The effects of climate change on wildlife is not isolated to Zimbabwe. Across Africa, national parks that are home to myriad wildlife species such as lions, elephants and buffaloes are increasingly threatened by below-average rainfall and new infrastructure projects. Authorities and experts say drought has seriously threatened species like rhinos, giraffes and antelopes as it reduces the amount of food available.

For example, a recent study conducted in South Africa’s Kruger National Park linked extreme weather events to the loss of plants and animals, unable to cope with the drastic conditions and lack of water due to longer dry spells and hotter temperatures.

The mass movement is supported by the Great Plains Foundation, a non-profit organization that works “to conserve and expand natural habitats in Africa through innovative conservation initiatives,” according to its website. The organization is working with the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, local experts, the University of Washington-Seattle’s Center for Environmental Forensic Science and Oxford University’s Department of Zoology, according to the website.

One of the new homes for the animals moved in Zimbabwe is Sapi Reserve. the privately run 280,000-acre private concession is east of Mana Pools National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site known for its splendid setting along the Zambezi River that forms the border between Zimbabwe with Zambia.

Sapi “is the perfect solution for many reasons,” Great Plains Chief Executive Officer Dereck Joubert said on the foundation’s website.

“This reserve forms the middle-Zambezi biosphere, totaling 1.6 million acres,” wrote Joubert. “From the 1950s until we took it over in 2017, decades of hunting had decimated wildlife populations in Sapi Reserve. We are rewilding and restoring the wild back to what it once was.”
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Africa’s nations must develop strategies to address climate change, which poses an existential threat to the continent’s megacities, Gabon’s President Ali Bongo Ondimba said at the third Africa Climate Week conference.

African officials and experts should sharpen the positions they will present at the 27th annual United Nations climate conference to be held in Egypt in November, said Bongo.

The third African climate meeting is bringing together more than 1,000 government officials and stakeholders in Gabon’s capital Libreville. They are working to form strong African regional climate responses.

“Climate change is a profound challenge in Africa and a great challenge of our time, amplifying existing social, political and economic inequalities,” Patricia Scotland, secretary-general of the Commonwealth group of former British colonies, said to the meeting.

The African climate week comes as the continent reels from several extreme weather events such as drought in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, sandstorms and extreme heat in West Africa’s Sahel region, and destructive flash floods, storm surges including cyclones in central, western and southern Africa.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who will host the upcoming U.N. conference, lamented that promises made to African countries to help them fight climate change have not been fulfilled.

“The international community is lagging behind in mitigation, adaptation and finance. Several pledges on mitigation and adaptation finance celebrated in Glasgow are yet to be delivered,” said Shoukry.

He said the “backtracking on commitments by many developed countries is a matter of concern” for many African countries. “The delayed delivery of climate finance continues to affect Africa’s efforts to contribute to the global effort against climate change,” he said.

The African climate week conference will discuss other critical concerns of the continent including food security, carbon markets, climate migrants, and coastal resilience. Climate early warning systems, integrated water management to address scarcity and international cooperation to boost climate action are also issues to be examined.
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Authorities in Namibia have confirmed a family of four German tourists and their pilot were killed when their plane crashed Tuesday during take-off in the country’s northern Zambezi Region.

Namibia’s Ministry of Works and Transport says it is investigating what caused the six-seater Cessna 210 to crash shortly after take-off, killing all five people on board.  

The ministry says the plane crashed on Tuesday afternoon near Impalila Island, on the Zambezi river in the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area.

The plane was carrying four members of a German family on holiday. Namibian media report the pilot was South African.

Ministry spokesman Julius Ngweda told VOA the plane belonged to a local company, Scenic Air, but could provide no further details.

Scenic Air Managing Director Michael Bottger said in a press release the cause of the crash is not known.  

“Everyone at Scenic Air is devastated by this tragic event,” read the release, “and our deep and heartfelt condolences go out to the families and friends who lost loved ones.”

Namibia’s Police Chief Inspector Elifas Kuwinga told VOA authorities would release the names of the deceased after their next-of-kin were notified.
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Officials from Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville have agreed to demarcate their 100-year-old border to reduce border communities’ disputes over forestry and wildlife. The deal follows similar agreements with Gabon in May and the Central African Republic in June. Conservationists say having better defined borders will help crack down on wildlife poaching that has plagued the Congo basin.

Congo-Brazzaville and Cameroon say they want to make their common border an instrument of peace and shared development, and stop potential border communities’ rivalry over natural resources.

Jacques Essissongo, Congo-Brazzaville’s director general of territorial administration, says experts from Cameroon and Congo who are meeting in Yaounde, are members of the technical sub-commission in charge of border demarcation. He says the experts must lay the groundwork for an effective and efficient demarcation of the over 460 kilometer Cameroon Congo border.

Essissongo said according to the document signed in Berlin, Congo and Cameroon share a 140-kilometer land border and over 320 kilometers of maritime and fluvial boundary.

Paul Atanga Nji, Cameroon’s minister of territorial administration, led the country’s delegation to the border demarcation meeting.

Nji says from Yaounde, experts will move to the border to make sure that demarcation begins within the shortest possible time.

“The experts will go to the field to mark the pillars and to give a comprehensive report on all the border issues between the Republic of Cameroon and the Republic of Congo. We have been working closely under the leadership of the two heads of state. They have given us all the support for us to do our job, they have given us all the facilities and we are very comfortable in exercising this mandate which has been given to us.”

Nji said their mandate includes planting boundary pillars destroyed by erosion and floods. He said some of the markers were either destroyed by rival communities, or crumbled with age. He said Congo and Cameroon have agreed to retrace their border in a way that will satisfy both states.

The two countries said they will use the border map drawn by former German and French colonial powers in 1908 as a guiding document.

Congo, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, D.R Congo and Gabon belong to the Congo Basin which the U.N. says is the second largest rainforest in the world.

The U.N. says the Congo basin teems with unique animal and plant species whose protection is vital in preventing global warming.

Cameroon and Congo say demarcation will reduce border community conflicts over natural resources, especially forest and wildlife. Cameroon and Congo say border communities cross over to neighboring states in search of the resources and fighting erupts regularly.

Ofir Drori is director of Eco Activists for Governance and Law Enforcement or EAGLE NETWORK, an international conservationist group that fights wildlife crimes. He says the Congo basin is one of the world’s highest poaching areas and border communities fight for resources.

Drori says wildlife knows no boundary, but if borders are demarcated, conservationists will be able to know where there are more wildlife crimes to finetune their anti-poaching activities.

“The poaching situation in north Congo is quite severe and we have many arrest operations in the area. Some of it is moving towards southeast Cameroon. We try to tackle especially the poaching of pangolins and illegal trade in pangolin scales moving from the Central African Republic to Cameroon in industrial scale [quantities]. EAGLE is taking care of these aspects in arrest operations with the governments in Cameroon and in Congo.”

Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Central African Republic have already launched the demarcation of their borders established by German and French colonial powers in the late 19th century. The boundaries have not changed since the states gained independence in 1960, but there are frequent clashes among border communities.
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An air strike has hit near a hospital in the capital of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, said the head of another hospital which received casualties, less than a week after fighting shattered a four-month ceasefire.

At war since late 2020, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls the region, and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s central government have blamed each other for renewed conflict that is disrupting desperately-needed food aid.

Kibrom Gebreselassie, chief executive of Ayder General Hospital, tweeted that an area near Mekelle General Hospital had been hit late on Tuesday.

The extent of damage and casualties was unclear.

Ethiopian government spokesperson Legesse Tulu, military spokesperson Colonel Getnet Adane and the prime minister’s spokesperson Billene Seyoum did not respond to requests for comment.

Getachew Reda, the TPLF spokesperson, said on Twitter that at least three bombs had been dropped and that the Mekelle hospital was among the targets.

Another doctor at Ayder confirmed to Reuters he had heard three explosions late at night.

Reuters was unable to reach people in Mekelle for confirmation because the region has not had phone communication since Ethiopian troops pulled out more than a year ago.

The latest strike follows a hit on a children’s play area on Friday that killed seven people, including women and children.

Humanitarian convoys halted

Almost all of Tigray’s 5.5 million people need food aid, but humanitarian deliveries via the last remaining route — through neighboring Afar region — has been halted due to security concerns, a United Nations official said.

On Tuesday, the TPLF said an offensive had been broken and a counter-offensive launched. He underscored the devastation in the region, which has not had banking, phone or electricity services for more than a year.

Fuel restrictions have also limited aid distribution, while patients are dying for lack of medicine and equipment.

Restoring services is a key demand of the TPLF before peace talks. The government wants talks to begin without conditions.

On Saturday, the Ethiopian government communication service said it had pulled its forces out of the town of Kobo, in the Amhara region bordering Tigray, blaming the TPLF for sending “human waves” against the town and endangering civilians.

The government said Tigrayan forces were attacking in two directions — along the border with Amhara to the south and along the border with Afar to the east.
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The International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, says there were 64,000 cases of persons reported as having disappeared across Africa in the past year — nearly one-third more than the previous year. The ICRC says armed conflict is to blame for most of the disappearances, and Nigeria alone accounts for more than 25,000 missing people, including nearly 14,000 children, the highest in Africa.

A joint team of officials from the ICRC, National Human Rights Commission, the Humanitarian Affairs ministry and the army addressed journalists in Abuja Tuesday to commemorate the International Day of the Displaced.

Officials say the latest figures include more than 2,000 cases registered since January of last year, and do not represent the true state of things.

Officials said more than half of the missing persons were minors when they vanished, and that disappearances were mainly from armed conflicts, disasters, and risky migration via the desert and Mediterranean Sea.

Arrests, detentions and abductions were also cited as reasons for disappearances.

Yann Bonzon is the head of delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“The number of missing persons continues to rise every year, yet the ICRC knows that this figure represents a fraction of a wider undocumented humanitarian tragedy. These figures reveal [an] alarming fact that children are particularly more vulnerable than adults to disappearance in Nigeria as the conflict continues raging in the country,” he said.

Thirty-five active armed conflicts are raging in Africa, including the insurgency in northeast Nigeria that began more than 12 years ago. The war has spilled into neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Officials of the Nigeria humanitarian affairs and disaster management ministry have pledged to collaborate with other relevant authorities to help families of missing people reunite with their loved ones.

Nasir Sani-Gwarzo is the permanent secretary of the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry.

“I want to assure you that the ministry is working earnestly to develop humanitarian policies and provide effective coordination of national and international intervention to ensure strategic disaster mitigation, preparedness and response, managing the implementation of fair social inclusion and protection programs in Nigeria. We will work with the National Human Rights Commission, the ICRC to continue to pursue important initiatives to tackle the issue of missing persons in Nigeria,” he said.

Nigerian authorities last year launched a register for missing people and said they have had some success finding and reuniting them with their families.

They also say the ongoing conflict poses huge risks to progress.

Anthony Ojukwu is the executive secretary of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

“The issue of missing persons [has] become increasingly prominent in Nigeria, not only because of the consequence of the conflicts in the various parts of the country, but as a result of acts of criminality nationwide, senseless and ruthless killings, and armed hostilities. We have established the database of missing persons in Nigeria, which would address the gap which exists in documentation of cases, and also gives families the platform to engage with in addressing the cases of their missing loved ones,” he said.

Nigeria has been waging a war against armed conflicts ravaging its northeastern Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.

The U.N. estimates that more than 37,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced.

As the world remembers the missing people, authorities are renewing efforts not only to find them but to help families get closure.
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Angola’s opposition party has filed a complaint against the election victory of the ruling MPLA party in which President Joao Lourenco won a second term and the party got a reduced majority in the legislature.

The main opposition party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, known as UNITA, said Tuesday that it has submitted an objection to the results.

“UNITA reiterates that it will not recognize the results announced by the National Electoral Commission until the complaints already in its possession are resolved,” the party said in a statement.

If UNITA’s written complaint is rejected, the party can take the objection to the Constitutional Court, which must rule on the complaint within 72 hours, according to Angola’s electoral regulations.

The Peoples Movement for the Liberation of Angola, known by its Portuguese acronym MPLA, won with 51% of the votes cast, extending its 47-year rule of the country, according to the electoral commission’s results.

As the party’s leader, Lourenco, 68, welcomed the official results which have given him a second five-year presidential term.

UNITA got its best-ever result, coming in second with about 44% of the votes, according to the electoral commission.

However, UNITA on Tuesday claimed that according to its calculations it should have won the election with 64% of the vote.

Although UNITA’s leader, Adalberto Costa Junior has rejected the official results, he has urged calm. There have been no reports of major demonstrations in the capital, Luanda, or other cities.

Voter turnout was low on voting day last week with just 45.7% of registered voters casting their ballots.

In the national legislature, the MPLA lost the two-thirds majority that it needs to pass major bills, although it won a majority with 124 of the National Assembly’s 220 seats. UNITA has nearly doubled its presence in the legislature to 90 seats. The remaining seats were won by smaller parties.

UNITA had campaigned for the support of Angola’s young, urban population and it won in Luanda, Angola’s most populous province, and in Cabinda and Zaire, the country’s main oil-producing provinces.

Angola is Africa’s second-largest producer of oil and has rich diamond deposits, but the majority of the southern African country’s 34 million people remain in poverty, according to the U.N, and unemployment is currently above 30%.

Both the MPLA and UNITA are former rebel movements that fought Portuguese colonial rule. The MPLA won power with backing from the Soviet Union and established Marxist rule when Angola became independent in 1975.

UNITA fought a bitter civil war against the MPLA, with support from the U.S. and apartheid-ruled South Africa.

In a negotiated truce, the MPLA agreed to multiparty elections held in 1992. UNITA furiously rejected the MPLA’s win and the country was plunged back into civil war that only ended in 2002.

Since then, UNITA has transformed itself from a rebel group into a political party, particularly under the new leadership of Costa Junior, who didn’t fight in the civil war. Costa Junior has succeeded in gaining support from other opposition politicians and intellectuals.

UNITA legally challenged its loss in the 2017 election but the courts ruled in favor of the MPLA.
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The first shipment of Ukrainian grain to Africa since Russia’s invasion arrived in Djibouti on Tuesday. The grain will be distributed in Ethiopia to help the drought-stricken nation cope with worsening hunger that threatens to become a famine. 

Mike Dunford, East Africa regional director for the U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP), spoke to reporters at the port.  

“The food on the [U.N.-chartered ship] Brave Commander will feed 1.5 million people, for one month in Ethiopia,” he said. “So, this makes a very big impact, for those people who currently have nothing and now WFP will be able to provide them with their basic needs.” 

A Russian blockade of Ukraine’s seaports forced Ukraine to halt nearly all deliveries of grain, which sparked worries of a worldwide food crisis. Russia invaded the country in February. 

A settlement between Kyiv and Moscow that was mediated by the U.N. and Turkey in July, known as The Black Sea Initiative, saw a resumption in exports of wheat, other foodstuffs, and fertilizers from three Black Sea ports at the beginning of August. 

The WFP said 150,000 tons of additional wheat grain from Ukraine will be sent in the coming weeks thanks to funding provided by the United States. 

In landlocked Ethiopia, where the grain is now headed, more than 5 million people have been displaced because of conflict. A total of 17 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance as the Horn of Africa endures another year of drought.  

Dunford said the Black Sea Initiative is a step toward easing the situation.  

“We’ve already seen a reduction of 15% in wheat prices globally, since the Black Sea Initiative commenced,” he said. “What we want to see is more food flowing. We need, from WFP’s perspective, millions of tons in this region. In Ethiopia alone, three quarters of everything that we used to distribute originated from Ukraine and Russia.” 

There are concerns the resumption of exports from Ukraine may not be enough to make a dent in the crisis. 

Adullahi Halakhe, with the Washington-based advocacy group Refugees International, said the amount of grain arriving to Ethiopia is not enough. 

“When you consider over 20 million people are in need of humanitarian aid, food inflation stands at 40%, I think this is very important,” he said. 

Humanitarian organizations say parts of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region may be in a state of famine, because of the conflict there and a de facto humanitarian blockade imposed by Ethiopia’s federal government. 

Although limited aid was entering the region, renewed fighting between the government and Tigrayan forces that began last week led to the U.N. announcing Monday that it has suspended aid convoys into the region.  

 
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