African wildlife officials meeting in Rwanda noted that urbanization threatens the continent’s biodiversity. To promote nature conservation, Rwanda has restored a degraded wetland in the capital, turning it into its first urban ecotourism and educational park. Senanu Tord reports from Kigali.
…

With less than two weeks before Kenya’s elections, millions of Kenyans watched a presidential debate Tuesday that had only one debater. Deputy President William Ruto appeared solo after his main opponent, Raila Odinga, refused to participate in the live event.

Ruto had the stage to himself for 90 minutes to answer questions and explain what he would do if he occupied the president’s office. He promised, among other things, to reduce the cost of living and fight corruption.

“We are a country that is faced with mounting challenges,” he said. “We have a huge track record of what we have achieved but there is tremendous opportunity out there for more to be achieved. … I believe I am the candidate with a plan to be able to get Kenya to the next level.”

Former prime minister Raila Odinga pulled out of the debate last week, saying he was not willing to debate someone who had no regard for ethics and public morals.

Ruto responded Tuesday night.

“My competitor is not here because he doesn’t have a plan, he doesn’t have an agenda, he cannot articulate anything to the people of Kenya,” Ruto said. “That’s why he is not here.”

A recent survey found Odinga holding a strong lead over Ruto heading into the final weeks before the Aug. 9 election.

Ruto has been deputy president for the past 10 years and held ministerial positions in the previous government. Michael Agwanda, a Kenyan political commentator, said Ruto is having trouble shaking off the political blame that comes with incumbency.

“I strongly believe he was caught between a hard place and a rock because he has been part of the system for a very long time,” Agwanda said.

Agwanda said Ruto has not been helped by saying he had limited power but also saying he had influence in government.

“That was more less basically not being straightforward,” Agwanda said.

Nairobi resident Mellanie Busienei watched Tuesday’s debate. She saod it changed her mind on who she will vote for come Aug. 9, though she did not reveal which candidate she now prefers.

“I just hope for the best definitely,” she said. “Yesterday’s debate changed who I was supposed to vote for. The fact that I have seen who can commit and who cannot, the promises and the agenda have always been the same since independence.”

Matilda Murage said she did not watch the debate. She said previous unfulfilled promises of earlier leaders have made her not vote.

“I don’t trust anybody there,” she said. “There is nobody I want to give my vote to because they lie, they steal. I’d rather keep my vote.”

Ruto, who is 55, is running for the Kenyan presidency for the first time. The 77-year-old Odinga is making his fifth bid for the top job.
…

Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera launched a nationwide anti-corruption campaign Tuesday at the end of a two-day conference on graft. While many Malawians have welcomed the campaign as a step forward, others are skeptical and note that similar efforts in the past have failed.

Chakwera’s 20-week anti-corruption campaign calls for Malawians to recite and abide by the campaign’s slogan: “Corruption is our biggest enemy and is not welcome here.” 

“This is an important campaign that we are starting today,” Chakwera said. “It is important because every time we say those words, we will make it known to those around us what we think of corruption and what we are personally committed to do about it.” 

This is the first national anti-corruption campaign during Chakwera’s administration, which started in 2020.  

During the launch, Chakwera also co-signed statements of commitments from 12 institutions that detailed their plans of action for fighting corruption.  

The 12 stakeholders include the judiciary, civil society organizations, the business community, traditional leaders and parliament.  

Fiona Kalemba, clerk of Malawi’s parliament, said, “The legislature pillar commits to the president and people of Malawi to take the following interventions: Reviewing the laws, including the Corrupt Practices Act, the Public Procurement and Disposals of Assets Act, the Public Audit Act, the Political Parties Act and [the] Public Finance Act.

“This will be done within the mandate of the legislature and the purposes of the mandate for the legislature,” she added. 

Also, the business community pledged to name and shame businesses and entrepreneurs involved in corruption and have their names published in the media. 

The new campaign comes at a time when Malawi is struggling to end corruption. 

“A week does not pass without new revelations about embezzlement of public funds, corruption of public procurement contracts of goods and services, and incidents of abuse of office across the sectors,” said Martha Chizuma, director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau in Malawi. 

The latest report of Transparency International, the global corruption perception index, ranks Malawi 110 out of 180 countries, which Chakwera said is worrying. 

However, some Malawians remain skeptical.   

George Phiri, former political sciences lecturer at the University of Livingstonia in northern Malawi, welcomes the campaign but doubts it will reach its goal. 

“For this campaign to reach each goal, it will be until we see those involved in corrupt practices being arrested, their cases taken to court and prosecuted, and judgment passed on those who are guilty,” he said. “That is when I will say that, indeed, what has happened today has come to the expectations of Malawians.”   

Chizuma, the director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, said the government cannot interfere with the bureau’s operations if the campaign is to meet its goal. 

 
…

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lashed out at Western countries Wednesday as he wrapped up a four-nation trip to Africa with a stop in Ethiopia’s capital. Moscow is seeking to bolster support from African countries, who have largely declined to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Lavrov’s visit comes as the U.S. announced nearly half a billion dollars in additional aid for drought relief in Ethiopia. 

At a Wednesday news briefing in Adds, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denied Western assertions that his country’s invasion of Ukraine is responsible for the global surge in food prices.

Lavrov said prices were rising before Russia invaded Ukraine in February, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and what he called “green policies” pursued by the West.

He also claimed that any additional increases in grain prices were the result of American and European sanctions on Russia.  

“I know that the Western media presents the situation in a totally distorted manner, if only to mention the food crisis, so called food crisis, as if nothing was of concern before February this year,” said Lavrov.

Lavrov is on the last leg of an African tour that has included Egypt, Uganda and the Republic of Congo. He has sought to reassure regional leaders that grain exports through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports will resume, while pinning the blame for their halt on the West.

Lavrov alleged Wednesday that he sanctions imposed on Russia are a sign the United States wants a return to a “colonial” world order.

“The West created a system which was based on certain principles: a free market, fair competition, sanctity of the private property, presumption of innocence, something else,” said Lavrov. “All these principles have been thrown down the drain when they need to do what they believe is to punish Russia.”

While in Addis, Lavrov met with the Ethiopian foreign minister, Demeke Mekonnen. The pair agreed to strengthen cooperation and economic ties, according to state media.

There was no indication that Lavrov met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who has rarely been seen in public lately, or with officials at African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa.

AU officials told VOA that Lavrov’s stop was a bilateral visit between Russia and Ethiopia. 

Earlier Wednesday, the U.S. government announced a package of $488 million to help Ethiopia with drought relief efforts. Dry weather and conflict have left 30 million Ethiopian in need of aid.

Announcing the new funds, Tracey Ann Jacobson, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Ethiopia, said current weather conditions across the region were the “worst in recorded history.”

The new U.S. special envoy for the horn of Africa, Mike Hammer, is expected to arrive in Ethiopia Wednesday, his first visit to the country, where the U.S. is supporting efforts to mediate between the federal government and rebels from the northern Tigray region.
…

Al-Shabab militants who crossed into eastern Ethiopia last week are still active inside the country despite claims by local officials that the force has been “destroyed,” say officials and security experts.

Officials on Monday said security forces clashed with al-Shabab fighters in Ethiopia’s Somali state at Lasqurun village, near the border town of Feerfeer. The state’s president, Mustafe Omer, was seen meeting with units of federal military forces who were dispatched to the area.

About 500 al-Shabab fighters, including many who originally came from Ethiopia’s Somali and Oromia regions, entered Ethiopia last Wednesday, multiple security and former al-Shabab operatives told VOA Somali’s “The Investigative Dossier” program. The incursion is the militant group’s biggest-ever operation inside Ethiopia.

Omar Mohamed Abu Ayan, a former al-Shabab official who now lives in Sweden, says the incursion was likely mounted for propaganda reasons.

He said the Islamist militant group, which has been fighting Somali governments and African Union peacekeepers since 2007, wants to show it can operate in Ethiopia as well as Somalia and Kenya.

“If they erect their flag that will be a victory for them,” Abu Ayan said. “They have been dreaming of penetrating Ethiopia for a long time, and to erect their flag. It will mean a huge victory. This will encourage global jihadists to support them.”

What happened?

The operation began last Wednesday when al-Shabab militants shut down telephone networks in Somalia’s Southwest state before carrying out surprise attacks on the Somali towns of Yeed and Aato and Washaaqo village. The towns are all located on the Somali-Ethiopian border and protected in part by Ethiopia’s Liyu police security force.

Somali regional and intelligence officials now believe the militant group’s attacks on those towns were diversionary.

Officials from both sides of the border confirmed that the attacks preoccupied Liyu police forces and distracted them as other heavily armed al-Shabab units crossed the border unopposed.

Mohamed Abdi Tall, the governor of Bakool, the Somali region from where al-Shabab launched the attack, said the militants who entered Ethiopia did not participate in the Yeed, Aato and Washaaqo attacks.

“There were two groups – a group fighting at the border, and a second unit that went through,” he said. “They passed through Aato road while the fighting was taking place; they are headed for Bale region,” between Ethiopia’s Somalia and Oromia states.

Tall said the unit that entered through Aato was confronted and surrounded by Liyu police but made it through despite losing most of their vehicles. He said a second al-Shabab unit that entered Ethiopia from another front, east of El-Barde town, has not yet encountered attacks from Ethiopian security forces.

An intelligence official who did not want to be identified because he is not allowed to speak with the media confirmed the second incursion.

“We were told they crossed the border, but they did not go far,” Tall said. “They are somewhere between us and Gode and Qallafo. We have not heard about them encountering fighting but it’s possible they will.”

Al-Shabab’s objectives in Ethiopia

A former Al-Shabab member who did not want to be named for security reasons said the group’s plan is to erect their black flag inside Ethiopia, and then release a prepared statement declaring that “jihad spread to a new front” in the Horn of Africa. The term jihad means holy war.

Horn of Africa analyst Matt Bryden said the offensive appears to be the start of a major, strategic initiative to establish an active combatant presence in Ethiopia, probably in the southeastern Bale Mountains.

Bryden said although the group suffered some tactical defeats, it has achieved some important objectives, mainly to demonstrate for the first time that al-Shabab is capable of major military operations inside Ethiopia.

“Reports from the field suggest that some AS units have penetrated as far as 100 kilometers inside Ethiopia and may still be active,” he said.

Ethiopia’s domestic unrest and the concentration of troops in the north in the Tigray conflict make this an opportune time for al-Shabab to strike, Bryden said.

Ethiopian forces went to war against rebels of the former ruling group, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, in November 2020. The conflict in northern Ethiopia between federal government forces and Tigray rebels weakened federal forces and contributed to ongoing instability in the country.

Bryden said he believes the situation with al-Shabab is very serious.

“The scale of this offensive is probably too great to be contained by local Ethiopian security forces – namely the Liyu police in the Somali and Oromia regions,” he said.

“Unless Addis Ababa can afford to redeploy capable military units from elsewhere in the country, then al-Shabab may well succeed in establishing a military presence in Ethiopia for the first time.”

Al-Shabab’s interest in Ethiopia

Founded in Somalia about 15 years ago, al-Shabab has long been interested in exporting its brand of Islamist extremism to neighboring countries. It launched one deadly attack in Uganda in 2010 and has an extensive presence in Kenya. Both countries contribute troops to the African Union forces that have helped Somali governments battle al-Shabab inside Somalia since 2009.

Al-Shabab tried to establish a presence in Ethiopia before, without success. The first armed incursion took place in early 2007 when military commander Aden Ayrow led a unit into Ethiopia in response to Ethiopian troops entering Mogadishu to support the then-transitional federal government of Somalia. The incursion was immediately repelled.

The group’s late leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, then started training a special unit, named Jabhat, or Ethiopian Front, tasked to carry out attacks in Ethiopia. The unit failed to accomplish much due to robust Ethiopian intelligence, according to Abu Ayan.

Bryden said Godane later tasked al-Shabab’s intelligence wing, the Amniyaat, to carry out attacks in Ethiopia.

“These included a failed bomb plot against a football stadium in Addis Ababa in 2013 and suicide bomb attack against a major shopping mall in Addis in 2014 that was disrupted before it could take place,” Bryden said.

With this new incursion, Ethiopia’s Somali region is mobilizing forces and public support. The region said the operation against Al-Shabab fighters who entered the country on July 20 resulted in the killing of more than 100 militants, and destruction of 13 vehicles. The region’s security council said the militants were encircled in the Hulul village area.

The region’s president thanked the population for supporting the security forces.

“I am very grateful to the people of the Somali region who have shown unprecedented unity and stand by their veterans,” he told the region’s state media. “I am confident that the security of the region cannot be disturbed by the terrorism of al-Shabab.”
…

The United Nations said that three of its peacekeepers were killed in ongoing anti-U.N. protests that turned violent in eastern Congo on Tuesday, while several civilians were also killed in the violence.

“At the MONUSCO Butembo base today, violent attackers snatched weapons from Congolese police and fired upon our uniformed personnel,” U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.

MONUSCO is the acronym for the U.N. Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Protesters in Butembo, in the eastern province of North Kivu, accuse the U.N. of having failed to protect them from an escalation of violence from armed groups.

“Our quick reaction forces are on high alert and have been advised to exercise maximum restraint, using tear gas to disperse protesters and only firing warning shots when U.N. personnel or property are under attack,” Haq said. “Some assistance to protect facilities is being received from the Congolese armed forces.”

He said one military peacekeeper and two U.N. police were killed, and another was injured.

India’s external affairs minister said on Twitter that two Indian peacekeepers were among the dead.

A Moroccan peacekeeper was also identified among those killed, according to multiple wire news outlets.

Diplomats said that India, which is a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has requested a closed meeting Tuesday evening to discuss the escalating violence.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix is in Mali this week and Haq said he would continue on to the DRC in light of the situation.

In North Kivu’s capital city of Goma, angry protesters tried to breach the U.N. Development Program’s offices.

“Earlier today, a mob tried to enter the premises of the UNDP compound in Goma but were repelled by security guards,” he said.

“Hundreds of assailants have again attacked our bases in Goma as well as other parts of North Kivu province, fueled by hostile remarks and threats made by individuals and groups against the U.N., particularly on social media,” Haq said. “Mobs are throwing stones and petrol bombs, breaking into bases, looting and vandalizing, and setting facilities on fire.”

DRC government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said on Twitter that at least five civilians had been killed and 50 injured in violence in both cities.

It was the second day of anti-U.N. protests that turned violent. On Monday, demonstrators also targeted MONUSCO bases.

“In Goma, they forcibly entered and looted U.N. facilities, while also throwing stones, setting tires on fire, and creating roadblocks,” Haq told reporters on Monday. “Peacekeepers were forced to push back protesters by firing tear gas and warning shots to protect personnel, the U.N. hospital, and other vital infrastructure.”

He said there was also a similar protest at the U.N. base in Nyamilima, about 38 kilometers north-east of Rutshuru.

“Several peacekeepers there reportedly suffered minor injuries,” he said.

MONUSCO is one of the U.N.’s largest peacekeeping operations, with more than 16,000 uniformed personnel in the DRC’s east. The U.N. has warned that the M23 rebel group, which was defeated by the Congolese army and special MONUSCO forces in 2013, had started to re-emerge in November 2021 and is well-armed and equipped.

 
…

Tunisian President Kais Saied and his supporters are celebrating the apparent adoption of his controversial new constitution, following a referendum Monday. But turnout for the vote was low and the opposition is disputing the results.

Tunisian President Kais Saied promised a new “phase” for his country as he met cheering supporters. He called the results of Monday’s referendum an historic moment that offered lessons for the world.

But President Saied’s political opponents, who called on supporters to boycott the vote, see things differently.

Samira Chaouachi, president of the Heart of Tunisia party and vice president of Tunisia’s now-dissolved parliament, questioned the turnout and numbers presented by Saied’s appointed election commission. She said the opposition would do its own check. Either way, she said the low voter turnout, whether out of opposition or indifference, stripped the draft charter of legitimacy.

President Saied says his new constitution, designed to create a strong presidency, dilute legislative powers and establish a new regional assembly, will end the political gridlock that has gripped Tunisia for years.

The opposition fears it will consolidate his one-man rule that began a year ago, when Saied seized far-reaching powers, dissolving government and firing dozens of judges.

Tunis University professor Hamadi Redissi says the outcome threatens the country’s fledgling democracy.

“Probably this is not the end of the transition, but it is a big step back. Next, we have no idea.”

But voters like furniture salesman Adel Zine are happy with the results.

Still, he believes President Saied can’t rule on his own — he lacks experience. If he becomes a dictator, Zine adds, voters will kick him out.
…

Former South African president Thabo Mbeki launched a rare attack last week on the ruling African National Congress party and President Cyril Ramaphosa. Mbeki said public discontent with the government is so high the country could be headed toward its own “Arab Spring,” the uprising that toppled leaders starting in 2010 and spread across parts of the Arab world.

In his address at the funeral of an ANC stalwart, Mbeki was unequivocal in his criticism of the party to which he’s dedicated his life, saying there was no national plan to address the poverty, unemployment, and inequality plaguing South Africa and warning that it could lead to violence.

“One of my fears is that one of these days, we’re going to have our own version of the Arab Spring,” said Mbeki.

Independent political analyst Asanda Ngoasheng said she thinks Mbeki’s warning is on target.

“I think that former President Thabo Mbeki is right in his assessment that South Africa is ripe for an Arab Spring,” Ngoasheng said. “In fact, I would even take it further and say that South Africa has already had the preemptions and predecessors of revolt.”

Ngoasheng pointed to the riots that broke out after the brief jailing of former president Jacob Zuma last year as one example. She said the COVID-19 pandemic had also exacerbated poverty.

“South Africa has a ticking time bomb of youth unemployment and the combination of the post-Covid world,” Ngoasheng said.

But analyst and author Ralph Mathekga said he thought Mbeki’s comparison went a step too far, arguing that even if the ANC lost power it wouldn’t mean the country would fall apart.

“The problem is that the formulation by Mbeki then says if the ANC’s not holding, then South Africa’s going to an Arab Spring, what that means is only the ANC can actually lead politically,” Mathekga said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed Mbeki’s criticism that he had failed to create jobs in a speech over the weekend, saying “we should challenge the claim that nothing is being done.”

“While we all agree that our overriding objectives are to grow the economy, create jobs, and reduce poverty and inequality and we must remember that the problem and challenge of jobs did not start yesterday,” Ramaphosa said.

Wandile Sihlobo, chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, said it’s vital for government to address unemployment and poverty to prevent growing discontent.

“The crux of this is actually making sure we grow the economy,” said Sihlobo.

But will it be a case of too little too late? With youth unemployment at 63 percent, frequent blackouts and failing state services, South Africa could be primed for a repeat of last year’s violence.
…

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived Monday in Uganda, the third stop on an African tour to strengthen ties with the continent and seek support against Western pressure over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Lavrov was greeted in Entebbe by his Ugandan counterpart, Jeje Odongo, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. 

The top Russian diplomat is scheduled to hold talks on Tuesday with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, according to the Russian Tass news agency. 

Uganda is one of several countries in East Africa that is suffering from food shortages following a severe drought. Rising inflation fueled by the war in Ukraine has further stressed food supplies in the region. 

Western nations blame Russia’s war and its Black Sea blockade of Ukrainian grain for the soaring global food prices that are fueling risks of famine in the Horn of Africa. 

Russia blames Western sanctions for the precarious food situation. 

Like most of Africa, Uganda has remained neutral in the conflict. 

Lavrov’s trip to Africa, which also includes stops in Egypt, the Republic of Congo and Ethiopia, appears to be aimed in part at seeking allies, as Moscow is under intense Western pressure for its invasion of Ukraine. 

In a column published in newspapers in the four countries Lavrov is visiting, the Russian foreign minister wrote, “We appreciate the considered African position as to the situation in and around Ukraine” and described the pressure being put on African nations to join Western sanctions as “unprecedented.” 

Earlier Monday, Lavrov was in the Republic of Congo, the first visit by Russia’s top diplomat to that country and Lavrov’s second stop in Africa, after Egypt. 

The Russian foreign minister met Monday with the Republic of Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso at his residence in Oyo, a town 400 kilometers north of the capital, Brazzaville. 

In Egypt, Lavrov met with the Arab League leadership, seeking the support of the group’s 22 member states and accusing the West of ignoring his country’s security concerns. 

Ahead of his trip, Lavrov praised African nations for their independence and lashed out at Western nations that profited from Africa’s past colonial rule. 

Lavrov’s visit to the Republic of Congo, a former French colony, came as French President Emmanuel Macron arrives in the region for visits to Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau. 

France has pulled back support from some former colonies, such as Mali, as they have become less democratic. Mali is under military rule and is accused by Paris of hiring Russian mercenaries. Both Moscow and Bamako deny deploying Russian mercenaries in Mali. 

After visiting Uganda, Lavrov will next travel to Ethiopia, where the African Union has its headquarters. 

During his Africa trip, Lavrov is also promoting the second Russia-Africa summit, which would be held in mid-2023, he announced Sunday in Egypt. 

The U.S. plans to hold a summit with African leaders in December. 

Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse.
…

A new Tunisian constitution greatly expanding presidential powers easily passed a referendum on Monday, according to an exit poll, but with very low turnout. 

President Kais Saied ousted the parliament last year and moved to rule by decree, saying the country needed saving from years of paralysis. He rewrote the constitution last month. 

Opposition parties boycotted the referendum, saying it dismantles the democracy Tunisia introduced after its 2011 revolution and could start a slide back toward autocracy. 

Tunisia, meanwhile, faces a looming economic crisis and is seeking an International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package, issues that have preoccupied ordinary people far more over the past year than the political crisis. 

The exit poll by Sigma Conseil said 92.3% of the eligible voters who took part in the referendum supported Saied’s new constitution. There was no minimum level of participation. The electoral commission put preliminary turnout figures at 27.5%. 

The new constitution gives the president power over both the government and judiciary while removing checks on his authority and weakening the parliament. 

His opponents say his moves last year constituted a coup and have rejected his unilateral moves to rewrite the constitution and put it to a referendum as illegal. 

However, his initial moves against the parliament appeared hugely popular with Tunisians, as thousands flooded the streets to support him, but with little progress in addressing dire economic problems, that support may have waned. 

Official turnout figures for the referendum will be closely watched and the electoral commission is expected to release its own preliminary number later. 

The lowest turnout of any national election since the 2011 revolution, which triggered the Arab Spring, was 41% in 2019 for the parliament that Saied has dissolved. 

The president’s opponents have also questioned the integrity of a vote conducted by an electoral commission whose board Saied replaced this year, and with fewer independent observers than for previous Tunisian elections. 

Casting his own vote on Monday, Saied hailed the referendum as the foundation of a new republic. 

Western democracies that looked to Tunisia as the only success story of the Arab Spring have yet to comment on the proposed new constitution, although they have urged Tunis over the past year to return to the democratic path. 

“I’m frustrated by all of them. I’d rather enjoy this hot day than go and vote,” said Samia, a woman sitting with her husband and teenage son on the beach at La Marsa near Tunis. 

Others voiced support for Saied. 

Casting his vote on Rue Marseilles in downtown Tunis, Illyes Moujahed said former law professor Saied was the only hope. 

“I’m here to save Tunisia from collapse. To save it from years of corruption and failure,” said Moujahed, first in line. 

But the atmosphere was muted in the run-up to the referendum, with only small crowds attending rallies for and against the constitution. 

Economic decline since 2011 has left many Tunisians angry at the parties that have governed since the revolution and disillusioned with the political system they ran. 

To address economic privations, the government hopes to secure a $4 billion loan from the IMF, but faces stiff union opposition to the required reforms, including cuts to fuel and food subsidies. 

 
…

Tunisia voted Monday on a new constitution that supporters hope will end years of economic and political turmoil and that critics fear will end the Arab Spring’s only democracy. Though the opposition called for a boycott of the referendum, voters are expected to approve the new constitution pushed by Tunisian President Kais Saied. For VOA, Lisa Bryant reports from the Tunis suburb of Ariana.
…

A demonstration was held at the Ministry of Transportation in Abuja on Monday morning by the relatives of victims still in captivity.

The protest was triggered by footage released Sunday by the kidnappers, who were shown mercilessly flogging the captives. The kidnappers also threatened to kill some of the victims and sell the rest if the government did not respond to their demands.

They also threatened to abduct Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Kaduna state Governor Nasir El-Rufai.

It is not clear what the terrorists’ demands are, but the video triggered criticism of the government’s inability to rescue the victims.

On Sunday, the president’s spokesperson, Garba Shehu, called the terrorists’ threats “propaganda” and said security and defense forces “have their plans and ways of doing things.”

Shehu was not immediately available for further comment, but security analyst Senator Iroegbu said the terrorists cannot possibly kidnap the president. But he warned that the threats must be taken seriously.

“They’re trying to show that they’re more emboldened and there’s nothing the commander in chief can do. They could smell weakness, that this government is weak. The fear is that citizens are more vulnerable.”

Nine people were killed, and scores kidnapped on the Abuja-Kaduna train the night of March 28 after armed men bombed the tracks and derailed the moving train.

Experts blamed the attack on an unprecedented alliance between jihadists and criminal gangs.

In the recent video, one of the terrorists claimed to have been freed from the Kuje prison in Abuja after a jail break on July 5.

The claim corroborates claims that bandits and terror groups were working hand in hand, says Iroegbu.

“Terrorists can use banditry as a means to obtain money to advance their cause. Bandits can also use terrorism to obtain whatever they’re looking for, so there’s a mix already. The linkage between terrorism and banditry that is going on, the terrorists have seen a loophole there and married the two together.

Protesting relatives say they will not relent until authorities free their loved ones from their captors.

Temitope Kabir’s husband is among those held.

“We’re tired of waiting. We don’t want a situation where these people will carry out their threats. We need the government to do something, and they should do it now. We’re ready to be here for as many days as we can under rain, under sun.

Experts and families say Nigerian authorities have shown weak political will to secure the release of the victims. But authorities say they’re trying to tactically handle the issue without losing innocent civilians to a gun battle with the terrorists.

This month, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) claimed responsibility for a jail break that freed hundreds of inmates from Kuje prison, including high-profile terrorists.

Authorities have been searching for missing inmates. Also this month, Buhari’s advance convoy was ambushed in his hometown in Daura in northwest Katsina state. The president was not in the convoy.
…

The Somali Journalists Syndicate has condemned police in the breakaway region of Somaliland for briefly detaining five journalists with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on Saturday. BBC broadcasts in Somaliland remained off the air Monday following a ban imposed last week by authorities.

The Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) and the Somali Media Association (SOMA) on Monday called for authorities in the breakaway republic of Somaliland to halt the threats and harassment against BBC staff and journalists.

They also called on Somaliland to unconditionally allow the BBC to resume operations in the region.

Somaliland police in the capital, Hargeisa, raided the BBC Media Action office on Saturday and detained five staff members, according to Somali media defenders.

The media associations identified the arrested journalists as Mohamed Gaas, Abdullahi Jama and Samatar Gahnuug, film editor Ahmed Fa’iz and their transport manager Yahye Ali. 

National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) secretary-general Omar Faruk Osman said the shutdown of the BBC office was “an angry response that helps no one.” 

“[The] National Union of Somali Journalists see the banning of [the] BBC from operating in Somaliland intimidation and action that doesn’t serve independent journalism,” he said. “We see it as an action that is against freedom of expression that doesn’t also translate the democratic gains that Somaliland has achieved.”

Osman called on authorities to allow the BBC to operate and find ways to resolve issues with the network other than through harassment and intimidation.

Yasmin Omar Mohamoud, chairperson of the Human Rights Center in Somaliland, told VOA by phone that the police detained the BBC staffers “unlawfully.”

“The police arrested five BBC media action staff members, although fortunately, they have [been] released,” she said. “But the arrests [have] been conducted unlawfully and without any court warrant. The problem is arresting people without any wrongdoing, and we are sorry for what happened.”

Last week, Somaliland announced a ban on the BBC, saying the broadcaster had reduced its identity and dignity of the 

Somaliland is a self-declared independent republic considered internationally to be part of Somalia.
…

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is visiting Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda and the Republic of Congo this week, trying to counteract Western blame of Russia for a growing global food crisis. Experts say Russia will push its own narrative as to why it’s attacking Ukraine and use the visit to show it has friends.

Lavrov was in the Republic of Congo Monday, the second day of his tour, to meet with the leadership of the central African nation.

Steven Gruzd is the head of the Russia-Africa Program at the South African Institute of International Affairs, said Russia will play the victim card when meeting with African leaders.

“It’s a propaganda war as much as it’s a shooting war and we have seen from the Ukrainian side how successfully President Zelensky has used social media,” Gruzd said. “He gives daily messages, he talks to parliaments and to [the U.S.] Congress and to groups around the world. Virtually, he is seen being on the frontline and Russia is mounting a counter-offensive. I think this is all part of that same trend.”

Gruzd said it’s interesting that it is an in-person visit rather than online communication.

“I think it’s deliberately calculated to show that Russia is not isolated, that Russia still has friends in the world, that Russia still cares about Africa,” Gruzd said.

In Egypt, Lavrov met with Arab League leadership, seeking the support of the group’s 22-member states and accusing the West of ignoring his country’s security concerns. He is expected to do the same when he visits African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa.

Wale Olusola, who teaches international politics at Nigeria’s Obafemi Awolowo University, said Russia is using the African visit to clean up its image after invading Ukraine and seeks to influence the continent.

“The visit reverberates across all of Africa, so there is a message it sends globally in terms of a new relationship that Russia is trying to cut,” Olusola said. “Russia can make a big deal out of this visit, to at least give the impression to other members of the global community that it’s not isolated.”

Olusola said Russia could be seeking a long-term gain as well.

“These kinds of visits are not just diplomatic purely on the surface,” Olusola said. “We expect that some arrangement, some deals may be signed or informally agreed upon with Russia fairly in respect to countries that are having issues with security.”

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said Africa imports almost half of its military equipment from Russia, adding that arms export is a critical component of Russia’s economic growth.

By the institute’s count, the number of African countries buying weapons from Russia has grown to 21 from 16 in the 2000s. A handful of countries also use Russian-supplied mercenaries.

Olusola said African countries should use opportunities such as Lavrov’s visit to push for their own interests and that Russia must be willing to provide some kind of concrete economic and financial support for the challenged African economies.

“I think it’s an opportunity for African countries to reinstate the African position on the Ukraine crisis and, of course, to see ways beyond the Western relations and benefits it gets from Western countries,” Olusola said.

At the United Nations General Assembly in March, 38 African countries condemned Russia’s war on Ukraine, but supporters of Ukraine accuse African countries of doing too little to hold Russia accountable for its invasion.
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A report Monday in the British newspaper The Guardian said a growing number of people in the Mahama refugee camp in Rwanda are registering in health centers for non-communicable diseases, or NCDs, that are usually seen in older people and in urban areas.

Examples cited in the paper included a hypertensive 6-year-old, a 2-year-old with respiratory problems, a 40-year-old woman with kidney failure who became hypertensive during a pregnancy, and a 20-year-old woman, diagnosed with diabetes after falling into a coma.

The report says while the number of people with NCDs at Mahama is at 5% of the total caseload, the figures are rising every month. Mahama houses 58,000 of the country’s 127,000 refugees, The Guardian reported.

Dieudonne Yiweza, senior regional public health officer for East and Horn of Africa at the U.N. refugee agency told the publication, “Before, we said NCDs affect urban settings. Now, they are attacking refugee settings . . . Now, they are affecting children and young people. For refugees, this is a challenging situation.”

Yiweza said it is not uncommon to encounter children as young as 10 or 15 who have suffered strokes.

Contributing factors to the NCDs in young people, Yiweza said, include poor housing, a limited diet that often lacks protein, and trauma.  
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Kenyan local reports say 34 passengers on a bus have died after the vehicle swerved off a bridge and fell 40 meters into a valley.

The bus belonging to the Modern Coast company was traveling from the central town of Meru to the coastal city of Mombasa.

Rescue efforts resumed Monday morning and rescuers recovered more bodies and survivors after the Sunday evening accident.

Some of the injured are receiving treatment in nearby hospitals.

The Daily Nation reports an initial investigation showed that the buses brakes might have failed.

Witnesses say the bus driver had lost control of the vehicle before it fell into the river.

Reuters reports that Kenya’s transport regulator has ordered all buses belonging to Modern Coast to suspend operations pending an investigation into the crash.

Kenya’s National Transport and Safety Authority data shows 1,968 people died in road accidents in the first six months of 2022, compared to 1,800 in the same period last year.

The National Bureau of Statistics says 4,579 people died in traffic accidents last year in Kenya, up from 3,478 in 2020.
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is in Cairo for talks Sunday with Egyptian officials as his country seeks to break diplomatic isolation and sanctions by the West over its invasion of Ukraine.

Lavrov landed in Cairo late Saturday, the first leg of his Africa trip that will also include stops in Ethiopia, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Russia’s state-run RT.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Foreign Minister Sameh Shukry was holding talks with Lavrov Sunday morning.

The Russian chief diplomat was scheduled to meet later Sunday with the Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit. He will also address the permanent representatives of the pan-Arab organization, RT reported.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has had dire effects on the world economy, driving up oil and gas prices to unprecedented levels.

Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but Russia’s invasion of the country and naval blockade of its ports have halted shipments. Some Ukrainian grain is transported through Europe by rail, road and river, but with higher transportation costs.

The war has disrupted shipments of Russian products because shipping and insurance companies did not want to deal with Western sanctions on the country.

African counties are among those most affected by ripples of the war. The prices of vital commodities skyrocketed and billions of dollars in aid have been directed to help those who fled the war in Europe. That has left millions of people in conflict areas in Africa and the Middle East suffering from worsening growing shortages in food and other assistance.

Lavrov’s meetings with Egyptian officials and Arab envoys in Cairo come less than two weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden’s Mideast trip. Biden met with the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, before convening a summit with the leaders of Arab Gulf countries, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq in Saudi Arabia.

Egypt, the Arab World’s most populous country, refused to take sides since the war in Ukraine began in February as it maintains close ties with both Moscow and the West.

Egypt is among the world’s largest importers of wheat, with much of that from Russia and Ukraine.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has cultivated a close personal rapport with Russia President Vladimir Putin. Both leaders have strengthened bilateral ties considerably in the past few years.

Lavrov’s visit to Cairo came as Russia’s state-owned atomic energy corporation, Rosatom, began last week the construction of a four-reactor power plant it is building in Egypt.
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Moving home is stressful for anyone — and rhinoceroses are no exception.

Vets in South Africa have just transferred more than 30 orphaned young rhinos to a sanctuary designed to keep the animals safe from poachers who killed their mothers.

The move took six weeks and required extraordinary planning, including the help of animal friends who accompanied the orphans.

“We can’t just move them all at the same time and go ‘boom, there’s a new home’,” said Yolande van der Merwe, who oversees their new home.

“You have to take it on very carefully because they’re sensitive animals,” she said.

Van der Merwe, 40, manages the Rhino Orphanage, which cares for calves orphaned by poachers, rehabilitates them and then releases them back into the wild.

This month, after its old lease expired, the non-profit moved to bigger premises, in a secret location between game farms in the northern province of Limpopo.

Benji, a white calf who is only a few months old was the last rhino to relocate.

At birth, rhinos are small, not higher than an adult human knee, and tip the scales at around 20 kilograms (44 pounds).

But they eat a lot and quickly pick up weight, ballooning up to half a tonne in their first year of life.

Given Benji’s recent loss, staff were worried he would freak out during the process that saw him anesthetized and loaded in the back of a 4×4.

But thankfully Benji’s friend, Button the sheep, was by his side throughout the move — and his presence helped ensure that everything went smoothly.

“Mostly, their mothers have been poached,” said Pierre Bester, a 55-year-old veterinarian who has been involved with the orphanage since its founding 10 years ago.

“(They) all come here, and you handle them differently… you put them in crèches, give them a friend and then they cope.”

‘Love and care’

South Africa is home to nearly 80 percent of the world’s rhinos.

But it is also a hotspot for rhino poaching, driven by demand from Asia, where horns are used in traditional medicine for their supposed therapeutic effect.

On the black market rhino horns fetch tens of thousands of dollars.

More than 450 rhinos were poached across South Africa in 2021, according to government figures.

At the sanctuary, orphaned calves are nursed back to health by a team of caregivers who sometimes pull 24-hour shifts, sleeping in the same enclosure as the animals to help them adjust.

“Rhinos have their calves at foot the whole day, 24/7, and that’s the kind of care they require,” said van der Merwe.

“So we need to give that intense love and care to get them through the trauma,” she said, adding some younglings showed signs of post-traumatic-stress-disorder.

When they are fit enough, the animals are released back into the wild. Up to 90 percent normally make it.

At the new sanctuary, Benji and his friends enjoy bigger enclosures with more space to roam.

They are fitted special transmitters to monitor their movement as part of an array of security measures to keep poachers at bay.

The orphanage asked AFP’s reporters not to disclose its new location.
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Police in Madagascar detained two leading members of the main opposition party on Saturday during a protest in the capital against rising living costs and economic hardship.

Several hundred anti-government demonstrators gathered in the center of Antananarivo in the morning, watched by a heavy military and police presence.

Police said they arrested Rina Randriamasinoro, the secretary general of the opposition Tiako I Madagasikara (TIM) party, and its national coordinator Jean-Claude Rakotonirina following tensions between demonstrators and security forces. The pair were later released.

“They were arrested and placed in police custody because they made comments inciting hatred and public unrest,” Antananarivo’s prefect Angelo Ravelonarivo told AFP.

Inflation has soared to the highest level in decades in many countries, fueled by the war in Ukraine and the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.

Organizers had wanted to hold the rally inside a warehouse belonging to opposition leader Marc Ravalomanana, but demonstrators arrived to find security forces blocking access to the venue.

Protesters then staged a sit-in outside the building.

Footage shared on social media showed police pulling Randriamasinoro and Rakotonirina from the crowd before taking them away in a police vehicle.

“The rally was authorized yesterday by the prefect and then this morning we discovered the police outside the gate,” said opposition lawmaker Fetra Ralambozafimbololona.

The arrests sparked further remonstrations, with demonstrators vowing not to leave the area until the two men were released — before eventually dispersing in the afternoon.

Randriamasinoro and Rakotonirina were eventually let go early in the evening, a police spokesperson said, adding authorities were yet to decide whether to press charges against them.

Protests are rare in the country with the opposition and rights groups accusing the government of President Andry Rajoelina of stifling dissent and rarely allowing demonstrations.

“We can’t say anything anymore,” said Samuel Ravelarison, a 63-year-old accountant attending the rally. “We came to demonstrate against the high cost of living.”

Ravelonarivo, the prefect, said that while the demonstration had not been banned, he had suggested it be held at a different location away from the city center.

One of the poorest nations in the world, Madagascar is still reeling from the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic and a series of extreme weather events.

Tropical storms and cyclones have battered the country this year, killing more than 200 people, adding to the damage of a severe drought that has ravaged the island’s south leading to malnutrition and instances of famine.

Rajoelina, 48, first came to power in 2009, ousting Ravalomanana with the backing of the military.

He returned to the presidency in 2019, after beating his predecessor in an election beset by allegations of fraud.
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Al-Qaida’s affiliate in Mali claimed responsibility Saturday for an attack on the country’s main military base, which it said was a response to governmental collaboration with Russian mercenaries.

Friday’s raid on the Kati base 15 kilometers outside the capital Bamako killed at least one soldier and represented the first time in Mali’s decade-long insurgency that Islamist militants have hit a military camp so close to Bamako.

The raid, carried out using two car bombs, also wounded six people, while seven assailants were killed and eight arrested, Mali’s military said.

The media unit for al-Qaida’s local affiliate, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), said in a statement its Katiba Macina branch had carried out the attack, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist statements.

The Malian military had blamed Katiba Macina for the attack in a statement Friday.

The JNIM statement said a Malian fighter had detonated a car bomb at the base’s gate and a fighter from Burkina Faso detonated another inside the base, allowing additional fighters to enter the camp.

It justified the attack by citing the presence in Mali of mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group, which began supplying hundreds of fighters last year to support the Malian military and has since been accused by human rights groups and local residents of participating in massacres of civilians.

“We say to the Bamako government: if you have the right to hire mercenaries to kill the defenseless innocent people, then we have the right to destroy you and target you,” it said.

The Russian government has acknowledged Wagner personnel are in Mali, but the Malian government has described them as instructors from the Russian military rather than private security contractors.

Wagner has no public representation and has not commented on the accusations of human rights violations.

In a separate statement on Saturday, JNIM also claimed responsibility for attacks in five central and southern Mali towns on Thursday, which the Malian military said had killed one soldier and wounded 15. 
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Hundreds of protesters gathered in central Tunis on Saturday to demonstrate against a referendum to be held on Monday on a new constitution that they reject as illegal.

President Kais Saied published the draft constitution, giving himself far more powers, reducing the role of the parliament and judiciary, and removing most checks on his power, less than a month ago.

The referendum is the latest move in what his foes call a march to one-man rule since he moved against the elected parliament a year ago, replacing the government and moving to rule by decree in what critics call a coup.

“Shut down the coup!” “Stop autocratic rule!” shouted the protesters on Habib Bourguiba Avenue, the main street in central Tunis.

“The Tunisian people will deal a major blow to Saied on the day of the illegal referendum and will prove to him that it is not interested in his populist path,” said Nejib Chebbi, the head of the anti-referendum coalition.

Saturday’s protest was organized by the coalition, which includes activist group Citizens Against the Coup and Ennahda, an Islamist party that was the biggest in the dissolved parliament.  

A large number of police stood along the avenue but there were no initial signs of violence.

During a separate protest on Friday evening by civil society groups and smaller political parties, police used sticks and pepper spray to disperse demonstrators, arresting several of them.

Divisions among the political parties and civil society organizations criticizing Saied’s moves has made it harder for the opposition to form a clear stance against him and mobilize street protests.  

Saied’s moves against the parliament last July came after years of political paralysis and economic stagnation and appeared to have widespread support.

However, there has been little sign of public enthusiasm for his referendum, with only limited numbers of people attending rallies to support it.

Many Tunisians, when asked about the political turmoil, point instead to a looming economic crisis as the most urgent issue facing the country. 
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Fighting between rival militias in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, which tailed off late Friday, have left a confusing political situation as two rival governments continue to lock horns, and political leaders flex their muscles to control more territory and determine who is more powerful.

Libyan media claimed that a militia loyal to outgoing Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh gained ground in the fighting over a rival militia, which supports the ruling presidential council in Tripoli. It was not immediately clear what ignited the fighting that claimed more than a dozen civilian casualties.

The three-man presidential council ordered a Libyan army unit, the 444 Brigade, to deploy in parts of Tripoli after the fighting subsided. It remains to be seen which political force now has the upper hand. Burned out vehicles could be spotted on several streets and some residential dwellings also appeared damaged.

Fighting erupted just as Libya began to step up oil production following a stoppage earlier this year. The new head of the Libyan National Oil Company indicated at a press conference Friday the country was now producing 650,000 barrels of oil per day. VOA could not independently confirm the figure.

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) called for an investigation into what prompted the clashes in Tripoli and insisted there be justice for victims and their families. U.N. Special envoy Stephanie Williams was shown meeting with Presidential Council leader Khaled al Meshri.

Libya analyst Aya Burweila tells VOA there are moves afoot between the Dbeibeh government and Libya’s National Army (LNA)—which controls the largest portion of the country—”to unify armed groups in the West of the country with the national army.”

Burweila went on to say that militias in Tripoli have refused to integrate with the national army since 2012, with the security situation deteriorating markedly in 2014, when “nominally Islamist militias invaded Tripoli from Misrata.” The Libyan National Army, she notes, “launched a failed offensive in 2019 to remove the militias that had become ensconced in the capital.

Libya analyst Faraj Zeidan told Arab media that the “main reason for the fighting was differences between the presidential council and outgoing National Unity Prime Minister Dbeibeh.”  

Dbeibeh, he said, “is trying to weaken the forces supporting the presidential council.”

“Fighting,” he asserts, “will ultimately get worse, because the militias that control the situation on the ground are more powerful than the logic of the state.”

Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV reported late Saturday that fresh fighting has erupted between rival militias in the coastal city of Misrata. VOA could not independently confirm the report.

 
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India and Namibia have signed an agreement to bring cheetahs to the forests of the South Asian country, where the large cat became extinct 70 years ago.

According to the agreement signed Wednesday, eight African cheetahs will be transferred from Namibia to India in August for captive breeding at the Kuno National Park (KNP) wildlife sanctuary, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

Indian officials said that as part of the “ambitious” project, 12 more African cheetahs from South Africa are expected to be brought to the park, though a formal agreement between the two countries has not yet been signed.

The KNP wildlife sanctuary is the new Indian home for African cheetahs, complying with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines, including a specific focus on site quality, abundant prey base and vast swaths of grasslands.

“The main goal of cheetah reintroduction project is to establish viable cheetah metapopulation in India that allows the cheetah to perform its functional role as a top predator,” a statement from the Indian Environment Ministry said.

The arrival of the cheetahs is expected to coincide with India’s 75th Independence Day celebrations on August 15, 2022.

After signing the agreement in New Delhi with Namibia’s Deputy Prime Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, India’s Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav tweeted: “Completing 75 glorious years of Independence with restoring the fastest terrestrial flagship species, the cheetah, in India, will rekindle the ecological dynamics of the landscape.”

In another tweet, he said, “Cheetah reintroduction in India has a larger goal of re-establishing ecological function in Indian grasslands that was lost due to extinction of Asiatic cheetah. This is in conformity with IUCN guidelines on conservation translocations.”

A statement from the Environment Ministry said the KNP can currently host up to 21 cheetahs, but after the restoration of a wider landscape, its capacity will be increased to about 36.

The cheetah, the fastest land animal, has been rapidly heading toward extinction and is classified as a vulnerable species under the IUCN’s red list of threatened species. An estimated 7,000 cheetahs remain in the wild and almost all of them are in Africa.

The plummeting number of cheetahs across the world is blamed mostly on the depletion of habitats and poaching. Hunting, loss of habitat and food scarcity led to the animal’s extinction in India.

It is believed that more than 10,000 Asiatic cheetahs roamed the wilds of India during the 16th century.

The cheetah population in India dwindled during the 19th century, largely because of bounty hunting by local Indian kings and ruling British officials.

The last three Asiatic cheetahs were hunted down in 1948 by an Indian king in central India. In 1952, the cheetah was declared officially extinct in the country.

Just a dozen or so Asiatic cheetahs are left in the wild right now — all in Iran.

In 2010, India initiated an effort to revive the cheetah population at the KNP wildlife sanctuary by bringing in African cheetahs. But in 2012, an Indian court stalled the project, noting it would come in conflict with a then-ongoing plan to introduce lions in the sanctuary.

In 2020, India’s Supreme Court announced African cheetahs could be introduced in a “carefully chosen location” in India on an experimental basis. Since then, India has been making an effort to ship in the African cheetahs.

Indian officials are hopeful that this time, the plan to introduce African cheetahs in India is going to succeed, and the country will be able to revive its cheetah population.
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When the gunshots rang out, Dansira Karikumutima jumped to her feet.

“I ran away with my family,” she said of the March day that M23 rebels arrived in Cheya, her village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province. “We scattered, each running in a different direction out of fear.”

Months later, the 52-year-old, her husband and their 11 children have regrouped in an informal camp in Rutshuru town, where they’re spending nights in a schoolhouse and scavenging for food by day.

They’re among the latest victims of rising volatility in the eastern DRC. If unchecked, the unrest “risks reigniting interstate conflict in the Great Lakes region,” as the Africa Center for Strategic Studies warned in a late June report on the worsening security situation.

M23 is among more than 100 armed groups operating in the eastern DRC, an unsettled region where conflict has raged for decades but is escalating, especially in recent months. Nearly 8,000 people have died violently since 2017, according to the Kivu Security Tracker, which monitors conflict and human rights violations. More than 5.5 million people have been displaced — 700,000 just this year, according to the United Nations.

The Norwegian Refugee Council identified the DRC as the world’s most overlooked, under-addressed refugee crisis in 2021, a sorry distinction it also held in 2020 and 2017.

Fueling the insecurity: a complicated brew of geopolitics, ethnic and national rivalries and competition for control of eastern DRC’s abundant natural resources.

The fighting has ramped up tensions between the DRC and neighboring Rwanda, some of which linger from the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, where ethnic Hutus killed roughly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Competition for resources and influence in DRC also has sharpened longstanding rivalries between Rwanda and Uganda.

How does M23 fit in?

The DRC and its president, Felix Tshisekedi, accuse Rwanda of supporting M23, the main rebel group battling the Congolese army in eastern DRC. M23’s leaders include some ethnic Tutsis.

M23, short for the March 23 Movement, takes its name from a failed 2009 peace deal between the Congolese government and a now-defunct rebel group that had split off from the Congolese army and seized control of North Kivu’s provincial capital, Goma, in 2012. The group was pushed back the next year by the Congolese army and special forces of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO).

Rwanda and its president, Paul Kagame, accuse the DRC and its army of backing the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Congo-based mainly Hutu rebel group that includes some fighters who were involved in the genocide.

What sparked the resurgent crisis?

Last November, M23 rebels struck at several Congolese army positions in North Kivu, near the borders with Uganda and Rwanda. The rebels have made advances that include the overrunning of a Congolese military base in May and taking control of Bunagana, a trading town near the border with Uganda, in June.

Bintou Keita, who as head of MONUSCO is the top U.N. official in the DRC warned in June that M23 posed a growing threat to civilians and soon might overpower the mission’s 16,000 troops and police.

M23’s renewed attacks aim “to pressure the Congolese government to answer their demands,” said Jason Stearns, head of the Congo Research Group at New York University, in a June briefing with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The rebels want implementation of a 2013 pact known as the Nairobi agreement, signed with the DRC government, that would grant them amnesty and reintegrate them into the Congolese army or civilian life.

How is Uganda involved?

“The longstanding rivalry between Uganda and Rwanda in the DRC and the Great Lakes region is a key driver of the current crisis,” the Africa Center observed in its report. It cited a “profound level of mistrust at all levels — between the DRC and its neighbors, particularly Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, as well as between all of these neighbors.”

Late last November, Uganda and the DRC began a joint military operation in North Kivu to hunt down the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an armed group of Ugandan rebels affiliated with the Islamic State and designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has blamed ADF for suicide attacks in Kampala last October and November.

Ugandan officials have accused Rwanda of using M23 to thwart its efforts against ADF, the Africa Center report noted, adding that the U.N. also “has implicated Uganda with aiding M23.” U.N. investigators a decade earlier had claimed credible evidence of Rwandan involvement.

Stearns, of the Congo Research Group, said the joint Ugandan-DRC military operation created “geopolitical ripple effects in the region,” with Rwanda essentially complaining that Uganda’s intervention “encroaches” on its sphere of interest in eastern Congo.

What economic factors are at play?

Some of the fighting is over control of eastern DRC’s vast natural resources, including diamonds, gold, copper and timber. The country has other minerals — cobalt and coltan — needed for batteries to power cellphones, other electronics and aircraft.

“The DRC produces more than 70% of the world’s cobalt” and “holds 60% of the planet’s coltan reserves,” the industry website Mining Technology reported in February, speculating that the DRC “could become the Saudi Arabia of the electric vehicle age.”

The Africa Center report noted there is “ample evidence to suggest that Ugandan- and Rwandan-backed rebel factions — including M23 — control strategic but informal supply chains running from mines in the Kivus into the two countries.” It said the groups use the proceeds from trafficked goods “to buy weapons, recruit and control artisanal miners, and pay corrupt Congolese customs and border officials as well as soldiers and police.”

Access also has value. In late 2019, a three-way deal was signed to extend Tanzania’s standard gauge railway through Burundi to DRC, giving the latter two countries access to Tanzania’s Indian Ocean seaport at Dar es Salaam.

And in June 2021, DRC’s Tshisekedi and Uganda’s Museveni presided over groundbreaking of the first of three roads linking the countries. The project is expected to increase the two countries’ trade volume and cross-border transparency, and to strengthen relations through “infrastructure diplomacy,” The East African reported. The project includes a road connecting Goma’s port on Lake Kivu with the border town of Bunagana.

“Rwanda, in between Uganda and Burundi, sees all this happening and feels that it’s being sidelined, feels that it’s being marginalized,” Stearns said in the CSIS briefing.

Rwanda has had its own deals with the DRC — including flying RwandAir routes and processing gold mined in Congo —but the Congolese government suspended all trade agreements in mid-June.

What can be done to address the crisis?

The DRC, accepted this spring into the East African Community regional bloc, agreed to the community’s call in June for a Kenya-led regional security force to protect civilians and forcibly disarm combatants who do not willingly put down their weapons.

No date has been set for the force’s deployment.

The 59-year-old Tshisekedi, who is up for re-election in 2023, has said Rwanda cannot be part of the security force.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame, 64, told the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency he has “no problem” with that.

The two leaders, at a July 6 meeting in Angola’s capital, agreed to a “de-escalation process” over fighting in the DRC. The diplomatic roadmap called for ceasing hostilities and for M23’s immediate withdrawal.

But fighting broke out the next day between M23 and the Congolese army in North Kivu’s Rutshuru territory.

Speaking for the M23 rebels, Major Willy Ngoma told VOA’s Swahili Service that his group did not recognize the pact.

“We signed an agreement with President Tshisekedi and Congo government,” Ngoma said, referring to the 2013 pact, “and we are ready to talk with the government. Whatever they are saying — that we stop fighting and we leave eastern DRC — where do you want us to go? We are Congolese. We cannot go into exile again. … We are fighting for our rights as Congolese.”

Congo’s government says it wants M23 out of the DRC before peace talks resume.

Paul Nantulya, an Africa Center research associate who contributed to its analysis, predicted it would “take time to resolve the long-running tensions between Rwanda and the DRC.”

In written observations shared with VOA by email, he called for “a verifiable and enforceable conflict reduction initiative between Congo and its neighbors — starting with Rwanda” and “an inclusive democratization process in Congo.”

Rwanda’s ambassador to the DRC, Vincent Karega, warned in a June interview with the VOA’s Central Africa Service that hate speech is fanning the conflict. Citing past genocides, he urged “that the whole world points a finger toward it and makes sure that it is stopped before the worst comes to the worst.”

Etienne Karekezi, Geoffrey Mutagoma, Venuste Nshimiyimana, Austere Malivika and Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
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