Rights groups in Malawi have urged authorities to quickly find and deport a Chinese man who was found to be making and selling exploitative videos of children. A BBC investigation found the man, Lu Ke, paid children to sing and speak Mandarin in disturbing videos that he sold online.

The BBC’s investigation found that Lu Ke was shooting hundreds of videos per day and selling them at up to $70 apiece to a Chinese website. The kids performing in the videos were paid about half a dollar each. 

Lu Ke taught the children phrases in Mandarin in which they praised Chinese people, made fun of poverty, and chanted a racist epithet saying they are “a black monster” and that their “IQ is low.” 

Sylvester Namiwa, executive director for the Center for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives in Malawi, said these videos are an insult not only to Malawians but also to Black people across the globe.   

“We have also extended our call to [the] Chinese embassy to make a public apology to all people of Malawi and the Black community in the world,” Namiwa said. “Failure to do so, we will be forced to mobilize Malawians to stage endless peaceful demonstrations.” 

The Chinese embassy in Malawi has condemned the contents of the videos, saying it will work with the Malawian government to ensure the matter is properly addressed. 

In the statement on its official social media platforms, the Chinese government further said it has noted the videos were shot in 2020 and that China has in recent years been cracking down on such unlawful online acts.  

But Namiwa said the statement is distasteful. 

“It is like they want to create an impression that since this thing was done in 2020, then there is no need to worry,” he said. “We are telling them if … it was filmed in 1906, we should have asked them to apologize no matter what. What we want is action, not the rhetoric.”  

Comfort Mankhwazi, president of the University of Malawi Child Rights Legal Clinic under the Faculty of Law, said her organization will hold street protests next week and present a petition to the Chinese embassy in the capital Lilongwe. 

“One of the things we are going to highlight is that money was made at the expense of these children’s humiliation and maybe for ignorance to what they were actually doing,” she said. “We think that it’s only fair if these children were compensated for that because in a sense, it’s them that earns that money.” 

In the meantime, Mankhwazi is appealing to the governments of Malawi and China to help track down the culprit, who is believed to have left the country.   

 
…

Islamist militants launched an attack Saturday in the Seytenga commune in northern Burkina Faso, leaving at least 79 dead according to government reports. 

The attack comes after months of increasing violence in both Mali and Burkina Faso, both countries currently under military rule. ACLED, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, now puts Burkina Faso as the epicenter of the Sahel conflict.

Though violence has drastically increased in Burkina Faso, Mali too has seen an increase in violence in 2022 – particularly in the Menaka and Gao regions, where there have already been more civilians killed by Islamist groups in 2022 than in any previous year.

Abdoul Aziz Azeibou, a security consultant working in Burkina Faso, said via messaging app from Ouagadougou that these Islamist groups work across borders, and have put not just the Sahel at risk, but coastal West African countries. Benin and Togo suffered attacks by Islamist militants in April and May.

He says, if we want to fight against people who have erased borders, we have to also work in an integrated manner. If Mali takes care of itself, and Burkina Faso also tries to move forward in its own manner, as long as there is no synergy of action, the problem will just get worse.

Dan Eizenga is a research fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. He says that in some way the Seytenga attack is characteristic of the violence that has plagued that region in recent years, but that the scale of civilian deaths sticks out.

“I think not only are we looking at a situation where the security situation in both countries is likely to continue to deteriorate, and possibly deteriorate at a much more rapid pace, that we can expect that these juntas will continue to make the claim that because of that deterioration they need to remain in power.”

Mali’s military government previously cited the country’s insecurity as a reason that elections could not be held in February of this year as originally promised. The army has launched a publicized military campaign against Islamists, the claims of which often conflict with local reports of the military killing civilians rather than Islamist extremists.

Mali was sanctioned by regional bloc ECOWAS over the elections delay in January, after they announced a new plan to hold elections in 2026. ECOWAS released a statement today condemning the Seytenga attack, and will be holding a meeting on the situations in Burkina Faso and Mali on July 3.
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A new study has found that Facebook has failed to catch Islamic State group and al-Shabab extremist content in posts aimed at East Africa as the region remains under threat from violent attacks and Kenya prepares to vote in a closely contested national election. 

An Associated Press series last year, drawing on leaked documents shared by a Facebook whistleblower, showed how the platform repeatedly failed to act on sensitive content including hate speech in many places around the world. 

The new and unrelated two-year study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found Facebook posts that openly supported IS or the Somalia-based al-Shabab — even ones carrying al-Shabab branding and calling for violence in languages including Swahili, Somali and Arabic — were allowed to be widely shared. 

The report expresses particular concern with narratives linked to the extremist groups that accuse Kenyan government officials and politicians of being enemies of Muslims, who make up a significant part of the East African nation’s population. The report notes that “xenophobia toward Somali communities in Kenya has long been rife.” 

The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab has been described as the deadliest extremist group in Africa, and it has carried out high-profile attacks in recent years in Kenya far from its base in neighboring Somalia. The new study found no evidence of Facebook posts that planned specific attacks, but its authors and Kenyan experts warn that allowing even general calls to violence is a threat to the closely contested August presidential election. 

Already, concerns about hate speech around the vote, both online and off, are growing. 

“They chip away at that trust in democratic institutions,” report researcher Moustafa Ayad told the AP of the extremist posts. 

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue found 445 public profiles, some with duplicate accounts, sharing content linked to the two extremist groups and tagging more than 17,000 other accounts. Among the narratives shared were accusations that Kenya and the United States are enemies of Islam, and among the posted content was praise by al-Shabab’s official media arm for the killing of Kenyan soldiers. 

Even when Facebook took down pages, they would quickly be reconstituted under different names, Ayad said, describing serious lapses by both artificial intelligence and human moderators. 

“Why are they not acting on rampant content put up by al-Shabab?” he asked. “You’d think that after 20 years of dealing with al-Qaida, they’d have a good understanding of the language they use, the symbolism.” 

He said the authors have discussed their findings with Facebook and some of the accounts have been taken down. He said the authors also plan to share the findings with Kenya’s government. 

Ayad said both civil society and government bodies such as Kenya’s national counterterrorism center should be aware of the problem and encourage Facebook to do more. 

Asked for comment, Facebook requested a copy of the report before its publication, which was refused. 

The company then responded with an emailed statement. 

“We’ve already removed a number of these pages and profiles and will continue to investigate once we have access to the full findings,” Facebook wrote Tuesday, not giving any name, citing security concerns. “We don’t allow terrorist groups to use Facebook, and we remove content praising or supporting these organizations when we become aware of it. We have specialized teams — which include native Arabic, Somali and Swahili speakers — dedicated to this effort.” 

Concerns about Facebook’s monitoring of content are global, say critics. 

“As we have seen in India, the United States, the Philippines, Eastern Europe and elsewhere, the consequences of failing to moderate content posted by extremist groups and supporters can be deadly, and can push democracy past the brink,” the watchdog The Real Facebook Oversight Board said of the new report, adding that Kenya at the moment is a “microcosm of everything that’s wrong” with Facebook owner Meta. 

“The question is, who should ask Facebook to step up and do its work?” asked Leah Kimathi, a Kenyan consultant in governance, peace and security, who suggested that government bodies, civil society and consumers all can play a role. “Facebook is a business. The least they can do is ensure that something they’re selling to us is not going to kill us.”
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Britain has canceled its first deportation flight to Rwanda after a last-minute intervention by the European Court of Human Rights, which decided there was “a real risk of irreversible harm” to the asylum-seekers involved. 

The flight had been scheduled to leave Tuesday evening, but lawyers for the asylum-seekers launched a flurry of case-by-case appeals seeking to block the deportation of everyone on the government’s list. 

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss had said earlier in the day that the plane would take off no matter how many people were on board. But after the appeals, no one remained. 

The decision to scrap the Tuesday flight caps three days of frantic court challenges as immigration rights advocates and labor unions sought to stop the deportations. The leaders of the Church of England joined the opposition, calling the government’s policy “immoral.” 

Earlier in the day, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had emphatically defended the plan. “We are going to get on and deliver” the plan, Johnson declared, arguing that the move was a legitimate way to protect lives and thwart the criminal gangs that smuggle migrants across the English Channel in small boats. 

The prime minister announced an agreement with Rwanda in April in which people who entered Britain illegally would be deported to the East African country. In exchange for accepting them, Rwanda would receive millions of pounds (dollars) in development aid. The deportees would be allowed to apply for asylum in Rwanda, not Britain. 

Opponents have argued that it is illegal and inhumane to send people thousands of miles to a country they don’t want to live in. Britain in recent years has seen an illegal influx of migrants from such places as Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Iraq and Yemen. 

Activists have denounced the policy as an attack on the rights of refugees that most countries have recognized since the end of World War II. 

Politicians in Denmark and Austria are considering similar proposals. Australia has operated an asylum-processing center in the Pacific Island nation of Nauru since 2012.
…

Joe Biden plans to visit the Middle East in July, with stops in Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia. It will be the first time an American president flies directly from Israel to an Arab state that doesn’t recognize the country. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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At least seven people have died in recent jihadi-related violence in northern Mozambique, local sources said Tuesday, as the United Nations said 10,000 people had fled their homes.

Attacks occurred in gas-rich Cabo Delgado province, where jihadis launched a bloody insurgency in 2017, sparking a regional military mission last year that had restored a sense of security.

Four people were beheaded in the remote village of Natupile, terrified residents who fled the area told AFP.

“People from Natupile took photos, so we know it happened,” Antonio Kalimuka told AFP by telephone.

“I’ve already left with my family, but I haven’t harvested my fields yet. I’ll have to come back once it’s safe.”

Suspected jihadis last Wednesday killed two workers at an Australian-owned graphite mine, Triton Minerals, the company said.

“Two of our security/caretaker staff were fatally injured,” it said in a statement.

The following day, southern African regional military forces staged an attack on insurgents in a forest in Macomia district north of Pemba, the provincial capital.

“During the joint operation, terrorists were killed and other suffered severe injuries,” the mission said in a statement.

The military forces suffered one death and six injuries, it added.

The United Nations meanwhile estimated that 10,000 people had fled their homes over the last week.

The total number of displaced varies from month to month, but in May it was estimated at more than 730,000 by the U.N. refugee agency.

The United States on Tuesday announced aid worth $29.5 million for Mozambique through the U.N.’s World Food Program as diplomat Victoria Nuland visited the country.

“Displaced people were witness to killings, beheadings, rape, houses being burned, and abductions, and reported the kidnapping of several boys,” British charity Save the Children said in a statement.

More than 80% of those forced to flee their homes are women and children, it added.

More than 4,000 people have been killed in Mozambique since 2017, according to the conflict watchdog ACLED.

Some 3,100 troops from several African countries deployed in Cabo Delgado last June and retook control over much of the territory.

Diplomatic and humanitarian officials say the insurgents have since split into three groups.

One of them staged several attacks this month in Macomia, forcing aid groups to limit their operations.

The unrest has forced a halt to a $20-billion gas project by France’s TotalEnergies, an investment that had symbolized Mozambique’s dreams of using its mineral wealth to lift the nation from poverty.

 
…

If it’s a battle for hearts, minds – and wallets – then according to young Africans, China is outperforming the U.S. these days.

A new survey by Johannesburg-based think tank The Ichikowitz Family Foundation, found this week that the vast majority of African youth see China as the most influential foreign player on the continent.

By contrast, U.S. influence has dropped by 12% since 2020, according to the survey of more than 4,500 Africans 18 to 24 years old and living in 15 countries across Africa.

Seventy-seven percent of young Africans said China was the “foreign actor” with the greatest impact on the continent, while giving the U.S. an influence rating of just 67%. In a follow-up question on whether that influence was positive or negative, 76% said China’s was positive, while 72% said the same of the U.S.

The top reasons those surveyed say China’s influence is positive: affordable Chinese products, Beijing’s investments in infrastructure development on the continent and China’s creation of job opportunities in African countries.

“In the first edition of the pan-African youth survey we asked young Africans which country they believed had the biggest influence on the continent and at that point it was without any doubt the United States,” said Ivor Ichikowitz, who heads the foundation that carried out the research.

“This year, two years later, post-COVID, the picture is completely different … the most influential country in Africa at the moment is China.”

Ichikowitz told VOA there are a few reasons for this change.

“(Former President) Donald Trump resonated with African youth. He was seen as a powerful, charismatic leader … and as a consequence the United States topped the list of most influential countries in Africa,” he explained.

But mostly, he said, it’s down to investment.

“Young Africans are telling us that they are seeing tangible, visible and very impactful signs of the role that China has played in the development of Africa,” Ichikowitz said.

“Albeit that there is significant criticism of Chinese investment in Africa, it’s very difficult for African governments not to value China because China is providing capital, providing expertise, providing markets at a time when Europe and the United States are not,” he added.

The African Union Commission reported more than 40% of the world’s youth is expected to reside in Africa in the next decade. The fact that China is helping to create a middle class on the continent means they will also help create one of the biggest consumer populations in the world, Ichikowtiz said.

However, the study also found some young Africans concerned over whether they are reaping enough of the benefits from China’s exploitation of their mineral wealth and natural resources.

Twenty-four percent of those interviewed said Chinese investments in their countries were a form of “economic colonialism,” with 36% of those surveyed saying the Chinese are exporting African resources without fair compensation. Yet other interviewees — 21% — said the Chinese showed a lack of respect for African values and traditions.

Among the countries surveyed was South Africa.

Woniso, a 23-year-old medical student at a busy sidewalk café in Johannesburg, told VOA she understood why China had come out on top. Chinese investment in Africa was significant, she noted.

However, she had some concerns about Chinese human rights abuses in Xinjiang and said she preferred Western-style democracy.

“Socially I’d probably put them (China) last because of like all the social injustices happening against the Muslim community,” said the student, who didn’t wish to give her last name.

Young South Africans, she said, are also “a very liberal sort of generation” and liked “the U.S. in terms of their liberal nature of doing things.”

However, when it comes to a Western style democracy, only 39% of the youth surveyed said it should be emulated. While the survey found African youth favoring democracy, more than half of those interviewed said a Western type of democracy “is not suitable” and African countries need a style of governance that fits them.

Chatting to a friend outside a mall a short distance away, Thandazani Nyathi, a businessman in his 30s, said he didn’t have a preference between the U.S. and China.

“They’re both looking to profit. I guess I would lean towards the country that wants to profit but on the most equitable terms,” he said.

“Which one am I particularly in favor of? The one that doesn’t come screw us,” he added, roaring with laughter.
…

The World Food Program reports it has been forced to suspend food assistance for 1.7 million people in South Sudan because of a funding shortfall of $426 million.

Conflict, three years of flooding, localized drought, and soaring food prices made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine have brought South Sudan to its knees.

The World Food Program’s acting country director in South Sudan, Adeyinka Badejo, says the country is facing its worst year of food insecurity since independence in 2011. Speaking from the capital, Juba, she says the WFP had planned to assist 6.2 million people this year. Since it has run out of cash, she says the WFP has been forced to take food away from the hungry to feed the starving.

“These cuts are happening at the start of the lean season when families have completely exhausted any food reserves and are likely to continue to suffer acute levels of hunger as the lean season deepens…We are in famine prevention mode as we focus our available resources to assist people at the brink of famine and some of those at risk of starvation.”

Badejo says the funding situation is so critical that food rations for many of the U.N. food agency’s beneficiaries have had to be cut in half. These cuts, she notes, are occurring when food stocks are at their lowest. She warns millions of people will suffer acute levels of hunger as the lean season deepens and reaches its peak in July.

Consequently, she says, many people will be forced to adopt negative coping strategies just to survive.

“My team in western Bahr El Ghazal, where we have seen the highest increase in acute malnutrition, report that local communities are resorting to chopping down more and more trees to make and sell charcoal just to survive. We are also seeing an increase in the number of child beggars in just the last two weeks.”

The WFP estimates 8.3 million people, including 2 million women and children at risk of acute malnutrition, will endure acute hunger during the lean season. It says food aid must be urgently restored in areas where it has been suspended to prevent people from falling into starvation and famine.

The food agency says generous support from donors and early humanitarian action can avert a deadly crisis and save lives.
…

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has announced the formation of a committee to begin peace talks with Tigray forces after 18 months of war.

Abiy spoke to parliament on Tuesday about the conflict in comments broadcast on state television.

“We need to repeat the victory that we made on the battlefield in peace talks,”  he said adding that the war is hindering the country’s development. “Every bullet that is shot is like a dollar lost.” 

Abiy said that the committee would be led by Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen and would be given 10 to 15 days to decide what will be up for negotiation.

Although the talks may have the potential to bring an end to Ethiopia’s civil war, William Davison, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, a Belgium-based non-profit research group, told VOA that important details are yet to emerge  

“We don’t have a clear idea of the participants,” he said. “To achieve a sustainable peace that would need the representation from other actors in the conflict.

The return to Tigray forces (TPLF) of the disputed region of West Tigray, which was occupied by Amhara and national forces in the recent conflict, is likely to be a major sticking point in peace talks.

Last week TPLF spokesperson Gettachew Reda denied claims that the TPLF has “abandoned claims to Western Tigray.”

The conflict in Tigray between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front began in late 2020. It quickly exploded into a civil war which, along with famine, has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced 2 million from their homes.
…

A U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Eritrea has issued a report critical of the deteriorating situation there, noting forced military conscription, arbitrary arrests, disappearances and torture among the violations recorded.

In a report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker said Eritrea’s involvement in the armed conflict in neighboring Ethiopia shines a light on the impact of the Eritrean government’s system of indefinite national military service. He described the rights situation as dire.

Those who attempt to evade the draft, he said, are imprisoned in inhuman and degrading conditions for indefinite periods of time.

“The authorities also punish draft evaders by proxy, for example by imprisoning a parent or a spouse in order to force them to surrender themselves,” he said. “I also received reports about the conscripts who were killed as they tried to escape from Tigray or from military training centers in Eritrea.”    

Ethiopia’s military offensive against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front began November 4, 2020. Since then, thousands of Eritrean conscripts have been forced to participate in the conflict.  

Investigator Babiker said children as young as 14 have been rounded up and recruited, and that Eritrean refugees in Ethiopian camps have been kidnapped and forced to fight. He said the human rights situation in Eritrea continues to push thousands to flee to other countries for asylum.

“I remain gravely concerned by the situation of hundreds of Eritreans who have been disappeared and arbitrarily detained in secret prisons in violation of human rights standards,” he said. “I continue to hear testimonies from witnesses and victims who were held and tortured in places known as ‘villas.’ These are actually secret places of detention that cannot be readily identified.”

Tesfamicael Gerahtu, an ambassador in Eritrea’s foreign ministry, said he would not respond to the allegations in the report, saying they were based on information from select and irresponsible sources. He added that there was no human rights crisis in Eritrea and that the harassment and sanctions imposed on his country had to stop.

Eritrea was reelected to serve as a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council in October 2021. Rapporteur Babiker said the country’s failure to promote and protect human rights puts the credibility and integrity of the council in jeopardy.
…

A court in Senegal on Monday sentenced a fugitive rebel leader and two other men to life in prison for murder and armed insurrection over a massacre that claimed 14 lives. 

Cesar Atoute Badiate, head of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC), a rebel group fighting for autonomy in the southern Senegalese region, was sentenced in his absence for the killings. 

Omar Ampoi Bodian, another member of the group, and journalist Rene Capain Bassene, received the same sentence, their lawyer, Cire Cledor Ly, told AFP. 

The court in Ziguinchor, the main city in Casamance, handed down six-month suspended sentences to two other defendants and acquitted 11 others. 

The cases arose out of an incident on January 6, 2018, when 14 men were rounded up and executed as they went to cut wood in a protected forest near Ziguinchor. 

Casamance rebel fighters used the forest as a base and the Senegalese authorities accuse them of financing their activities by trafficking the wood, as well as cannabis. 

The rebel group denied any involvement, accusing corrupt local officials. 

Ly said his clients had been the victims of a “judicial swindle,” arguing that those who had escaped the massacre had not recognized the accused, and that some of the defendants had been tortured. 

Casamance, Senegal’s southernmost region, is almost separated from the rest of the country by the tiny state of The Gambia. It has a distinct culture and language derived from its past as a former Portuguese colony. 

The MFDC has led a low-intensity separatist campaign since 1982 that has claimed several thousand lives. 

But the conflict was mostly dormant until Senegal launched a major offensive last year to drive out the rebels.
…

Felicien Kabuga, an alleged financier of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, is fit to stand trial, a U.N. tribunal ruled Monday, saying it must begin “as soon as possible” in The Hague. 

“The Defence has not established that Kabuga is presently unfit for trial,” the ruling said, after lawyers had sought to halt proceedings on health grounds. 

Kabuga was arrested on May 16, 2020, in a Paris suburb after 25 years on the run. 

He is accused of helping create the Interahamwe Hutu militia, the main armed group of the 1994 genocide that claimed more than 800,000 lives, according to the United Nations. 

Kabuga, 87, is currently in detention in The Hague awaiting trial before the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT), which is completing the work of the disbanded International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. 

Various experts were involved in preparing the case for the tribunal, which “unequivocally demonstrates that Kabuga is in a vulnerable and fragile state and requires intensive medical care and monitoring,” the MICT said. 

The opinions of independent forensic experts differed on Kabuga’s fitness to stand trial, but they agreed that his condition could render him unfit in the future, the tribunal said. 

He needs “24-hour nursing care” and as such currently resides in a prison hospital, it added. 

The judges conceded that the issue of Kabuga’s fitness to stand trial had not been “easy to determine” and recommended that his condition be monitored continuously. 

The MICT said it was in the interests of justice for the trial to begin as soon as possible and to proceed in the tribunal’s branch in The Hague — rather than its Arusha chamber. 

Kabuga, a former president of the Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines, which broadcast calls for the killing of Tutsis, is accused by the MICT of genocide, incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.
…

Clashes in Sudan’s Darfur between Arab and non-Arab groups have killed more than 100 people, adding to a toll of hundreds in the region over recent months. 

The latest fighting broke out last week between the Arab Rizeigat and non-Arab Gimir tribes in the district of Kolbus, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from El Geneina, the capital of the West Darfur state. 

It started as a land dispute between two people, one from the Rizeigat and another from the Gimir, before morphing into broader violence involving other members from both tribes. 

“The fighting has so far killed 117 people and left 17 villages burnt,” including three Monday, Ibrahim Hashem, a leader in the ethnic African Gimir tribe, told AFP by phone. 

Hashem said the deaths counted so far were largely among the Gimir tribe. He added that “many people” from his tribe have gone missing since the violence broke out and was continuing. 

It was not immediately clear how many were killed among the Arab tribe. 

The latest violence highlighted a broader security breakdown in Darfur which was exacerbated by last year’s military coup led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. 

The October coup derailed a fragile transition put in place following the 2019 ouster of President Omar al-Bashir. 

In April alone, more than 200 people were killed in clashes between an Arab community and the non-Arab Massalit minority in the Krink area of West Darfur. 

The United Nations estimated 125,000 people were displaced in that unrest. 

A month earlier, fighting in South Darfur between the ethnic Fallata and the Arab Rizeigat tribes killed at least 45 people. 

On Monday, U.N. special representative Volker Perthes said he was “appalled” by the violence in Kolbus. 

“The cycle of violence in Darfur is unacceptable & highlights root causes that must be addressed,” he said on Twitter. 

Perthes called on the fighting sides to “de-escalate.” 

Sudan’s western Darfur region was ravaged by a bitter civil war that erupted in 2003. 

The conflict pitted ethnic minority rebels who complained of discrimination against the Arab-dominated government of then-President Bashir. 

Khartoum responded by unleashing the Janjaweed, mainly recruited from Arab pastoralist tribes, who were blamed for atrocities including murder, rape, looting and burning villages. 

The scorched-earth campaign left 300,000 people dead and displaced 2.5 million, according to the United Nations. 

Many Janjaweed have since been integrated into the feared paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, de facto deputy leader of Sudan, according to rights groups. 

In 2020, Sudan signed a peace deal with key rebel groups including those from Darfur. 

The main conflict has subsided over the years, but the region remains awash with weapons and deadly clashes often erupt over access to pasture or water.
…

Despite global efforts to curb plastic use, sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to see a sixfold increase by 2060, says the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In South Africa, one man is trying to make a difference by creating jobs and transforming plastic waste into outdoor furniture and playgrounds. Linda Givetash reports from Johannesburg. Camera: Zaheer Cassim
…

Pregnancy puts women at higher risk of severe medical complications or death from COVID-19, according to a new study of more than 1,300 women in sub-Saharan Africa. Researchers argue that vaccinating pregnant women against the coronavirus should be made a priority across the region, where most countries do not yet recommend vaccination during pregnancy.

Multiple studies have already shown that COVID-19 is more dangerous to pregnant women than to those who are not pregnant. But most of the women in these studies lived in Europe, North America or Asia. Until now, little data was available from Africa.

“Africa is not Europe, is not the U.S.A.,” said Jean Nachega, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and lead author of the new study. “We should not just rely on data coming from the U.S., Europe or China to try to understand COVID on the continent.”

Populations in Africa are typically younger than those in Europe, North America and East Asia. But certain infectious diseases like HIV, malaria and tuberculosis (TB), as well as noninfectious diseases such as sickle cell anemia, are more common there. Those conditions can make it harder for the body to fight off infections.

In the study, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, Nachega and his colleagues from the AFREhealth research network analyzed health records from 1,315 women treated at hospitals in six countries in sub-Saharan Africa between March 2020 and March 2021. Roughly a third were pregnant and had tested positive for the coronavirus. Another third were pregnant and had tested negative, and the other third were not pregnant and had tested positive. The researchers tested how pregnancy, infection with the coronavirus, and conditions such as HIV, TB, malaria and sickle cell anemia affected a woman’s likelihood of severe disease or death.

The findings were grim. Pregnant women who were hospitalized in sub-Saharan Africa were five times more likely to die in the hospital if they tested positive for the coronavirus. And being pregnant doubled the odds that a woman admitted to a hospital with COVID-19 would die. 

“We had it in both ways: pregnancy impacted COVID, and COVID impacted pregnant women,” said Nachega.

Pregnant women with COVID-19 were also at higher risk of serious complications requiring intensive care. It wasn’t possible to tell whether pregnancy made the combination of COVID-19 and TB or HIV riskier, but women with HIV, TB, malaria or sickle cell who had the coronavirus were more likely to get seriously ill. 

“It’s very good that the study was conducted in sub-Saharan Africa, and it is very reassuring that the findings are consistent with the results of other studies,” said Ana Langer, a physician specializing in reproductive health and head of the Women and Health initiative at Harvard University. 

Because the study considered only hospitalized women, it wasn’t possible to tell if pregnancy makes women more likely to get infected with the coronavirus or if they get sick from it in the first place. Using data collected in the past can also cause problems with the analysis, which the researchers used statistical tools to correct. But “this was the best study they could do with the availability of funding and the other circumstances,” Langer said. 

Nachega hopes that his findings will convince policymakers in sub-Saharan Africa to recommend vaccination for pregnant women and women who could become pregnant.

“The bottom line is that pregnant women need to get vaccinated,” he said. “If not then, before even she gets pregnant. The most important implication of this study is to advocate for COVID vaccination in women of childbearing age.”

Multiple studies have shown that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective during pregnancy, and 110 countriesrecommend COVID-19 vaccination for some or all pregnant women. However, only 13 of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 countries currently do so. Lack of government support stymies efforts to make the vaccine more accessible to pregnant women and is complicated by high rates of vaccine hesitancy in sub-Saharan Africa, where only about 19% of women intend to get the vaccine.

“Women and their families are worried about their safety, they think that the vaccine could harm them, or their fetuses and babies, and it has been extensively demonstrated that that’s not the case,” said Langer. “The vaccine is safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women.”
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At least six people were killed in northern Burkina Faso in several attacks attributed to jihadists, local and military sources told AFP on Sunday. 

Several hundred people took to the streets of Burkina over the weekend to protest the wave of jihadist attacks engulfing the poor West African nation. 

“A terrorist attack cost six civilians their lives in Alga,” a town in the province of Bam, on Saturday, a security source told AFP. 

“The terrorists, who came in large numbers, attacked the (nearby) village of Boulounga and the gold-mining site of Alga,” a resident said, confirming the same toll. 

“They set fire to houses and looted property on the gold-mining site,” he said, adding that “at least four people” had been injured. 

Residents were leaving the village on Sunday, heading towards the large town of Kaya, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) away, he said. 

A second security source said another “deadly attack” took place Saturday night in Seytenga, also in the north of the country, near the Niger border. 

There were “several victims,” the source said, without giving further details. 

People in Seytenga fled to Dori, a town in northern Burkina Faso. 

A local politician in Dori confirmed “the massive arrival of more than 2,000 people in the town,” adding that “the authorities and people are working hard to set up a site to receive the displaced.” 

A government statement Sunday confirmed the attack, saying a death toll had not yet been established because of the “complexity of the situation.” 

On Thursday, suspected jihadists killed 11 police in Seytenga, the army said. 

A gendarme brigade came under a “terrorist attack,” the military said, adding that they died along with “several terrorists.” 

One of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso has been gripped by an almost seven-year insurgency launched by jihadists crossing from neighboring Mali. 

More than 2,000 people have died and some 1.8 million people have fled their homes. 

Attacks have been concentrated in the country’s north and east. 

The nation has been under military rule since January, when colonels angered at failures to roll back the insurgency ousted the elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kabore. 

After a relative lull, jihadist attacks resumed, inflicting a toll of more than 200 civilians and military deaths over the past three months.
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Belgium’s King Philippe ended his historic tour of the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday in the eastern city of Bukavu, as the Congolese army repulsed a rebel attack further north. 

The king visited Nobel laureate Denis Mukwege on the outskirts of the city, on the last leg of his six-day visit to the former Belgian colony.

Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war — which is rampant in eastern DRC.

But the Belgian sovereign’s visit came as rebels from the M23 group, some 300 kilometers further north, launched an assault on the strategic town of Bunagana. 

The militia was later pushed out of the town, according to military officials.

M23 attacks have sent relations between the DRC and its neighboring central African state Rwanda into a nosedive. 

The DRC accuses Rwanda of backing the group — an allegation Rwanda has repeatedly denied.

However, on Sunday, Mukwege also accused Rwanda of being behind the M23 and called on Belgium to help the DRC make its case to the international community. 

“This royal visit is an exceptional act of courage,” the Nobel laureate said. “Visiting us at this time, when Congo is the victim of yet another aggression, is a strong humanitarian act.” 

Belgium is the former colonial power in both the DRC and Rwanda. 

Mukwege also criticized what he termed the “double standard” applied to the DRC.

“When Russia attacked Ukraine, all nations asked for this aggression to stop,” he said. 

King Philippe did not address the public in Bukavu. 

However, Belgian Cooperation Minister Meryame Kitir, who was travelling with the monarch, said that the DRC had the right “to defend its population against armed groups and any external interference.” 

“Both the DRC and its neighbors must make internal efforts to improve the security situation,” she added. 

Relations between the DRC and Rwanda have been strained since the mass arrival in eastern DRC of Rwandan Hutus accused of slaughtering Tutsis during the 1994 Rwanda genocide. 

The M23, a primarily Congolese Tutsi militia, is one of more than 120 armed groups active in eastern DRC.

Philippe is due to return to Belgium on Monday after his first visit to the DRC since ascending the throne in 2013.

His father, King Albert II, visited the country in 2010. 

In a speech on Wednesday, the king expressed regret for the “paternalism, discrimination and racism” of colonial-era Congo.

“It led to abuse and humiliation,” Philippe said. He fell short of offering a full apology, however.  

King Leopold II, the brother of Philippe’s great great grandfather, oversaw the conquest of what is now the DRC, governing the territory as his personal property between 1885 and 1908 before it became a Belgian colony. 

Millions of people perished under a system of forced rubber collection under his rule, historians estimate.
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Regional authorities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo said Rwandan soldiers and artillery had supported attacks by the M23 rebel group Sunday, accusing Rwanda of seeking to occupy the Congolese border town of Bunagana.

The violence pushed over 25,000 people to flee the area, with thousands escaping to neighboring Uganda, the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said.

Congo’s accusations are part of an escalating dispute between the neighbors that has revived old animosities. Rwanda denies backing the M23 offensive.

The office of the governor of North Kivu province said Congolese forces had repelled early-morning attacks by M23, backed by Rwandan forces, near Bunagana and elsewhere.

“The goal pursued by Rwanda is to occupy Bunagana in order not only to asphyxiate the city of Goma but also to put pressure on the Congolese government,” it said in a statement.

The Rwandan government could not immediately be reached for comment. It denies playing any role in M23’s recent attacks but has echoed M23 charges that Congo is cooperating with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group run by ethnic Hutus who fled Rwanda after taking part in the 1994 genocide.

On Thursday, Congo accused Rwanda of sending 500 commandos in disguise into eastern Congo.  

On Friday, the countries accused each other of firing rockets across their shared border. Congo’s army said one strike killed two Congolese children.
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Armed men in Nigeria have freed 11 out of more than 60 passengers of an Abuja- Kaduna train who were abducted in late March, bringing the number of released passengers to 14. 

Kaduna-based newspaper publisher and member of the negotiation team, Tukur Mamu, made the announcement in the publication, Desert Herald, on Saturday.

He said released victims include six females and five male passengers and that they were set free in the Kidandan forest where they were picked up. Mamu said the armed men had initially agreed to free all the female passengers who were kidnapped.

He also said the move was facilitated by Muslim cleric Ahmad Gumi and that they’re negotiating the release of the remaining hostages.

On March 28, gunmen bombed the tracks of the moving train in Kaduna and opened fire on passengers scrambling to safety. Nine people were killed and dozens went missing.

VOA had reported Kaduna resident Gideon Gambo’s two brothers were among the missing passengers. Gambo says he received news from the negotiators that both of them are among those who were recently freed.

“Two of my brothers and the other lady that works with them were among the ones that were released,” he said. “They’re in Abuja; we don’t know where exactly so I’m planning to come to Abuja tomorrow by God’s grace. The guy that actually did all the negotiations called me on Monday to ask me to identify my brothers on the picture which I did, so it’s true that they have been released.”

Nigerian authorities and police have yet to comment on the incident.

Last month, security experts warned that the negotiations for the release of the remaining hostages could be deadlocked after the kidnappers demanded authorities free their men who had been captured.

Nigeria is seeing a wave of violence across many regions roughly one year ahead of the country’s next elections. Last Sunday, armed gangs invaded a church, detonated explosives and shot at worshippers, killing at least 40 people.

On Thursday authorities in Kaduna said gunmen killed 32 people in an attack and burned many houses.
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Meteorologists predict the La Niña weather phenomenon is likely to persist into next year, prolonging devastating drought conditions in the Horn of Africa.

The World Meteorological Organization says La Niña, which started in 2020, will continue until at least August and might persist into 2023. La Niña refers to the large-scale cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.

WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis said La Nina affects temperature and rainfall patterns in different parts of the world and exacerbates drought and flooding.

“So, the ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa and southern South America bear all the hallmarks of La Niña, as does the above average rainfall in South-East Asia and Australasia, as well as the predictions for an above average hurricane season in the Atlantic,” she said.

The WMO said all naturally occurring climate events, such as La Niña, now take place in the context of human-induced climate change. Though La Niña has a cooling influence,  temperatures are continuing to rise due to global warming.

That could spell bad news for the Horn of Africa, where millions of people are suffering from acute hunger due to four consecutive years of failed rains. Nullis noted the hoped-for rains once again have failed to come during the March to May rainy season in Somalia, parts of Kenya, and Ethiopia.

“And now there is a real risk that the October to December rainy season could fail,” she said. “So, should these forecasts materialize, then obviously the humanitarian situation will become even more acute.”

Last month, 14 meteorological and humanitarian agencies issued a joint alert. They warned that the extreme, widespread drought affecting Somalia, and parts of Kenya and Ethiopia could lead to mass starvation.
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The U.N. refugee agency says fatalities are rising along the Mediterranean Sea crossing to Europe, even as fewer migrants and refugees are making the dangerous journey. 

Migration reached a peak in 2015, when more than a million refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe.  That number declined to 123,300 in 2021. However, the U.N. refugee agency says more than 3,200 died or went missing at sea last year, an increase of nearly 1,000 over recorded fatalities in 2018.

In addition to the rising death toll at sea, UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo says even greater numbers may have died or gone missing along land routes through the Sahara Desert and remote border areas. 

She says deaths and abuses most commonly occur in and through the countries of origin and transit, including Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Libya.

“UNHCR has continuously been warning of the horrific experiences and dangers faced by refugees and migrants who resort to these journeys,” said Mantoo. “Many among them are individuals who are fleeing conflict, violence, and persecution.  The data visualization focuses specifically on the route from the East and Horn of Africa to the Central Mediterranean Sea.” 

Mantoo says refugees and migrants have few options but to rely on smugglers.  She says they are exposed to a high risk of abuse from smugglers, whether they take the land route across the Sahara Desert or cross the sea from Libya and Tunisia toward Italy or Malta.

“In many cases, those who survive the journey through the Sahara and attempt the sea crossings are often abandoned by their smugglers, while some of those leaving Libya are intercepted and returned to the country, where they are subsequently detained,” said Mantoo. “Each year, thousands perish or go missing at sea without a trace.”   

The UNHCR is urging greater action to prevent deaths, provide alternatives to the dangerous journeys and prevent people from becoming victims of traffickers.  It is calling for increased humanitarian assistance and solutions for people in need of international protection.
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An internet rumor blazed through the country that desperate people were selling their toes for cash. The false report became so widespread that the country’s Deputy Minister of Information Kindness Paradza visited street vendors in central Harare earlier this month to debunk it.

One-by-one the traders took off their shoes to show that they had all 10 toes, as Zimbabwe’s state media recorded the digital investigation.

Paradza declared the toes-for-money story a hoax, as did local and foreign fact-checkers. Police later arrested a street vendor who now faces a fine or 6 months in jail on charges of criminal nuisance for allegedly starting the story.

It’s starkly true, however, that Zimbabweans are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Zimbabwe’s inflation rate has shot up from 66% to more than 130%, according to official statistics. The war is blamed for rising fuel and food prices.

The war in Ukraine has exacerbated inflation around the world. Consumer prices in the 19 European Union countries that use the euro currency surged 8.1% in May, a record rate as energy and food costs climbed. In the U.S. and the United Kingdom, annual inflation hit or was close to 40-year highs of 8.3% and 9%, respectively, in April. Turkey approached Zimbabwe’s eye-watering prices, with inflation reaching 73.5% in May, the highest in 24 years.

In Zimbabwe, the impact of the Ukraine war is heaping problems on its fragile economy. The war “coupled with our historical domestic imbalances, has created challenges in terms of economic instability seen through the currency volatility and spilling over into price volatility,” Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube told Parliament in May.

Teachers “can no longer afford bread and other basics, this is too much,” tweeted the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe in early June. The three largest teachers’ unions are demanding the government pay their salaries in U.S. dollars because their pay in local currency is “eroded overnight.”

“Because of high inflation, the local currency is collapsing,” economic analyst Prosper Chitambara told The Associated Press. “Individuals and companies no longer trust the local currency and that has put pressure on the demand for U.S. dollars. The Ukraine war is simply exacerbating an already difficult situation.”

Many fear Zimbabwe could return to the hyperinflation of 2008, which was estimated at 500 billion percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. At that time, plastic bags full of 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollar banknotes were not enough to buy basic groceries.

The economic catastrophe forced then-President Robert Mugabe to form a “unity government” with the opposition and adopt a multi-currency system in 2009 in which US dollars and the South African rand were accepted as legal tender.

The U.S. dollar continues to dominate with prices in local currency often benchmarked to the rates for the American currency on the flourishing illegal market, where most individuals and companies get their foreign currency.

Across the country, currency traders line the streets and crowd entrances to shopping centers waving wads of both the local currency and U.S dollars.

Many Zimbabweans who earn in local currency such as government workers are forced to source dollars on the illegal market, where exchange rates are soaring, to pay for goods and services that are increasingly being charged in U.S. dollars.

Retailers said the rising rates for U.S. dollars on the illegal market are forcing them to frequently increase prices, often every few days, to allow them to restock.

The once-prosperous southern African country’s economy is battered by years of de-industrialization, corruption, low investment, low exports and high debt. Zimbabwe struggles to generate an adequate inflow of greenbacks needed for its largely dollarized local economy.

Ordinary Zimbabweans are returning to coping mechanisms they relied on during the hyperinflationary era such as skipping meals. Others now buy food items in smaller quantities, sometimes in such tiny packages they are enough for just a single meal. Locals call them “tsaona,” meaning “accident” in the local Shona language.

Promising better days ahead, Ncube, the finance minister, said the government “will not hesitate to act and intervene to cushion against price increases and exchange rate volatility.”

Many are skeptical of such vows from the government, saying nothing short of a miracle will pull Zimbabwe out of its economic crisis. Even while coping with constantly rising prices, many can’t help making grim jokes about the situation.

“I still have all my toes intact but it wouldn’t hurt selling one,” chuckled Harare resident Asani Sibanda. “I could still walk without it, but my family would at least get some food.”
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Nigerian officials have blamed the terrorist group Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) for an attack on a church in the country’s southwest that killed at least 40 people.

Sunday’s shooting at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo was the first linked to ISWAP in Nigeria’s southwest, raising fears that terrorism in the country is spreading.

Nigerian Interior Minister Rauf Aregbesola spoke to journalists in Abuja on Thursday, soon after a National Security Council meeting. He said authorities had monitored the situation for days and that “from all indications, they’re zeroing in on the Islamic State of West African Province.”

Aregbesola warned Nigerians to be alert but said the attack had no ethnic-religious connections. He also raised concerns about recent killings over allegations of blasphemy in southwest Sokoto state and Abuja.

The church attack was the first time ISWAP, which has carried out many assaults in the northeast and northwest parts of the country, had been blamed for an attack in the southwest.

The region was not one of the areas authorities were worried about until last week. Now, there are concerns that terrorists are expanding their enclaves to new regions.

But Beacon security analyst Kabir Adamu said there were multiple reasons why ISWAP might have carried out the attack.

“There are several factors,” Adamu said. “Number one is terrorism, number two is political and then number three, it may be a message being sent to the governor,” who has tried to clamp down on marijuana producers. “We were told that Owo is one of the key states where marijuana is produced. A neighboring state, that is Kogi state, has witnessed such attacks, and it’s possible that those groups have crossed over into Ondo.”

Ondo state authorities said the death toll had risen to at least 40 from Sunday’s attack, with 87 others injured. They said some survivors had been discharged from the hospital.

Armed men detonated explosives and opened fire at the St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo toward the end of the service. Five days later, the street in front of the church is quieter than normal. People hover around the church, chatting in small groups, hoping to get the latest information about the attack.

The resident priest declined to comment on the situation, saying it was affecting his mental health.

A youth leader in Owo, who identified himself as Comrade Olakposan, said local elders were trying to stop youths from carrying out reprisal attacks.

“We feel aggrieved,” he said. “The sense of reprisal has been so high in the community since last Sunday, but given the fact that [King] Kabiyesi has been so diplomatic in all to appeal to the community, people, to be calm,” there is confidence “that he will do what is just, politically, traditionally and culturally.”

In a separate incident, authorities in Nigeria’s northwestern Kaduna state said gunmen killed 32 people in an attack Wednesday and razed dozens of houses.

Nigeria is seeing a wave of terrorist attacks and kidnappings a year ahead of presidential elections, and crime is certain to be a major issue in the campaign. President Muhammadu Buhari, who vowed to focus on security when first elected in 2015, is constitutionally barred from seeking another term.
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Britain’s plan to fly asylum seekers 6,000 kilometers to Rwanda faces a last-minute legal challenge.

The first flight is scheduled to leave June 14, carrying up to 100 migrants. However, a group of non-governmental organizations and refugee campaigners have launched a legal case at the High Court in London to seek an injunction blocking the flight. A decision is expected in coming days.

Among the plaintiffs is Clare Moseley, the founder of the charity Care4Calais. “People come from Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Iran. They are all terrified. They have all fled their home countries due to absolutely terrible circumstances. A number of them have suffered extreme torture or trafficking,” Moseley told Reuters.

Deadly journey

So far this year, more than 10,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel in small boats or inflatable dinghies to reach Britain. The route takes them across the busiest shipping lane in the world. Dozens of people have died attempting the crossing, including small children.

Britain says the flow has to stop. Earlier this year British Home Secretary Priti Patel signed a five-year deal, which would see up to 30,000 migrants forcefully deported to Rwanda, where they would be processed through Rwanda’s asylum system. Patel said it would act as a deterrent to migrants hoping to cross the channel.

Britain agreed to pay Rwanda an initial $149 million and cover the operational costs of the plan, estimated at between $25,000 to $35,000 per migrant.

‘Island country’

“Every country has a different approach to migration issues and challenges. We in the United Kingdom are very unique. We are an island country. We’ve also faced flows of literally over 20,000 people in the last calendar year, coming to our country through dangerous routes and dying in the channel, but also dying in the Mediterranean,” Patel told reporters May 19.

“We’re a government along with our partners, the government of Rwanda, finding new, innovative solutions to global problems,” Patel added.

The migrants would be housed in converted houses and hostels in Rwanda.

“At some point once their status has been fixed, they will have to go and live with other Rwandans. But they will be free. They will not be prisoners,” Rwandan government spokesperson Alain Mukurarinda told Associated Press May 19.

“We have the experience of welcoming refugees and we Rwandans have also experienced this situation of being a refugee. So, if there is a way to solve this problem by saving lives, I don’t think Rwanda could not accept,” Mukurarinda added.

U.N. Criticism

However, the policy has been widely criticized, including by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “UNHCR understands the frustration of the UK government on that and is not in favor of channel crossing, of course. We think there’s more effective ways and more humane ways to address this,” Larry Bottinick, a senior legal officer at the UNHCR, told the Associated Press.

Critics say the policy breaches international refugee conventions, to which Britain is a signatory. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the judge will rule in the migrants’ favor, says immigration lawyer Colin Yeo, author of the book Welcome to Britain: Fixing Our Broken Immigration System.

“States shouldn’t breach treaties that they’ve signed up to in good faith, but if you’re an individual who’s relying on that treaty, it doesn’t mean that you can just say, ‘well it’s a breach of international law, therefore you can’t do it to me.’ There’s got to be some domestic UK law that you rely on because those treaties don’t automatically become part of British law,” Yeo told VOA.

Fair hearing

Lawyers for the migrants argue they could be denied a fair hearing in the Rwandan asylum system. Separately, lawyers are also arguing that specific individuals scheduled to be on the flight should not be sent to Rwanda.

“So it could be somebody who’s been a victim of trafficking for example. It could be somebody who has been wrongly assessed as being an adult, and actually they say they’re a child. It could be somebody who’s got a serious illness,” Yeo said.

Some of the migrants could also argue that they would face discrimination in Rwanda – for example, if they are from the LGBTQ+ community. “Apparently there’s no anti-discrimination laws, there are reports that some people have been denied access to the asylum system on that basis,” Yeo added.
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