Nigerian authorities in the capital city of Abuja on Saturday said they’re investigating the killing and burning of a man by a mob over accusations of blasphemy. Blasphemy has been a subject of debate in Nigeria in recent weeks after a Christian woman was also burned in the northwestern Sokoto State.

The Abuja Police Command public relations officer, Josephine Adeh, in a statement Saturday said the latest victim was 30-year-old Ahmad Usman a local vigilante member.

She said Usman was involved in an argument with an unidentified Muslim cleric in the Lugbe area of Abuja and it escalated.

She said a mob, numbering about 200, who were supporting the cleric, beat, stoned and then set Usman ablaze before police officials intervened.

“We received a distress call and then we responded to it by deploying our men from Lugbe division,” Adeh told VOA by phone. “We were able to rescue the victim, who suffered a severe degree of burns, and then we took him immediately to the hospital where the doctor confirmed him dead.”

Police surveillance and ambush teams have been patrolling the area since the incident. Adeh said normalcy has been restored. No arrests have been made.

Abuja’s police commissioner on Sunday said the perpetrators will be sanctioned and warned against the use of so called “jungle justice” — taking the law into one’s own hands.

However, many businesses in the area remained shut Saturday evening over fear that more violence could erupt.

“The area is calm now, there’s not much movement around based on what happened earlier, said Princewill Azubuike, a Lugbe resident. “There were gunshots earlier in the afternoon and there were people running around.”

Blasphemy is a sensitive topic in Africa’s most populous nation with a delicate balance of Muslim and Christian populations.

Three weeks ago, a mob in northwest Sokoto state killed and burned the body of a Christian student of the Shehu Shagari College over alleged blasphemy.

The incident triggered protests by Christian groups and human rights organizations. Some of the groups called for the authorities to expunge blasphemy from punishable crimes under the Nigerian law, but for now, it remains on the books.
…

West African leaders Saturday failed to agree what action to take against military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, postponing a decision for a month, insiders at the meeting said. 

They decided to wait until the next ECOWAS summit July 3, a senior source in the Ghanian presidency told AFP, asking to remain anonymous. 

Another source said the leaders had not been able to agree, “particularly over Mali.” 

The summit in Ghana’s capital Accra had been billed as the forum to agree whether to ease or ramp up sanctions against the three junta-ruled nations facing jihadi insurgencies. 

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had met in a bid to rule whether to keep, lighten or lift retaliatory measures on Mali, imposed in January after its military regime announced plans to stay in power for another five years. 

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo opened the summit, attended by the heads of state of most of the 15-member countries but without any representative from Mali, Burkina Faso or Guinea visible in the audience. 

“This present summit will reexamine and assess the situations in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso in light of recent developments within the region and global context,” he said. 

“Our objective has always been to find ways to help these countries return to constitutional order.” 

Guinea, Burkina Faso and Mali are currently suspended from ECOWAS bodies.  

While Mali has already been slapped with sanctions, the other two countries risk further punitive measures from the bloc after ruling juntas in their respective capitals vowed to hold on to power for another three years. 

West Africa has seen a succession of military coups in less than two years — two in Bamako, followed by Conakry in September 2021 and Ouagadougou in January. 

Insurgency  

ECOWAS, keen to limit political instability spreading further, has held summits and tried to pile on pressure to shorten the juntas’ so-called transition periods before a return to civilian rule. 

But strongmen Colonel Assimi Goita in Mali, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya in Guinea and Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba in Burkina Faso, have all resisted that pressure and since been sworn in as presidents. 

They invoke the severity of domestic crises — that span jihadi insurgencies to social problems — and claim they need time to rebuild their states and organize elections. 

A U.N. report published last week said the West African sanctions had contributed to worsening living conditions, particularly for the poor. 

One of the most volatile and impoverished countries in the world, Mali is battling a decade-old jihadi revolt, which began with a regional insurrection and then spread to Niger and Burkina Faso. 

ECOWAS closed borders and suspended trade and financial exchanges, except for necessities. 

In Guinea, the military overthrew President Alpha Conde in September and has vowed a return to civilian rule in three years. 

Burkina Faso’s government was overthrown in January, when disgruntled colonels ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kabore. 

 
…

A commission of senior security and state officials from the troubled Central African Republic and Cameroon has agreed to jointly fight armed C.A.R. rebels they say are fleeing intensive fighting and infiltrating refugee camps in Cameroon. After concluding a meeting in the border town of Ngaoundere, the delegations said they will jointly deploy their militaries to battle the proliferation of weapons, abductions for ransom, attacks for supplies and the illegal exploitation of minerals by rebels along their border.

Senior government and military officials from Cameroon and the Central African Republic (C.A.R) say rebels and armed groups are infiltrating border towns and villages.

The officials ended a security commission meeting Friday in Ngaoundere, a city in Cameroon on the border with the C.A.R. They say scores of civilians abducted for ransom are still being held by C.A.R. rebels and armed groups. They also note that C.A.R. rebels and armed groups are attacking border towns and villages for supplies.

Kildadi Taguieke Boukar is the governor of Cameroon’s Adamawa region, where Ngaoundere is located.

Boukar says Presidents Paul Biya of Cameroon and Faustin-Archange Touadera of the C.A.R say they are deeply concerned their plans to ease the circulation of people and goods across the border are being shattered by C.A.R. armed groups and rebels. Boukar spoke through the messaging app WhatsApp from Ngaoundere. 

He says the two presidents want to immediately stop cattle theft, abductions for ransom, the proliferation of weapons and many other forms of transborder insecurity caused by C.A.R. rebels and armed groups. Boukar says Cameroon and the C.A.R want total peace to return to border localities so that civilians and goods can move freely across the border. Boukar says rebel attacks and theft slow economic development and growth in border towns and villages.

General Freddy Johnson Sakama, C.A.R.’s defense chief in charge of military operations, led his country’s delegation to the Cameroon – C.A.R security commission meeting.

Sakama says the rebels and armed groups are escaping heavy fighting with forces of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic, or MINUSCA.  

Sakama says the proliferation of armed groups in the C.A.R. is posing serious security threats to both the C.A.R. and its neighbors — Cameroon, Chad, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo Brazzaville. He says the C.A.R. military is commending efforts made by MINUSCA to bring peace to the C.A.R., but that his country is worried because rebels and armed groups fleeing MINUSCA forces are escaping to neighboring countries.

Speaking on Cameroon state broadcaster CRTV, Sakama said the C.A.R. has agreed to collaborate with militaries of all neighboring states to put an end to mounting transborder insecurity caused by C.A.R. rebels and armed groups.

In March, the U.N. peacekeeping mission to the C.A.R., MINUSCA, said rebels left several towns where they were hiding on the border with Cameroon. MINUSCA said the C.A.R. rebels were fighting to control border towns, and villages and crossing the border to escape fighting with the C.A.R’s military.

Cameroon says some of the rebels are disguised as refugees. Paul Atanga Nji, Cameroon’s minister of territorial administration, visited Gado Baadzere, a refugee camp on the border with the  C.A.R. this week.

Nji says many C.A.R. rebels and armed group members infiltrate refugee camps in Cameroon with weapons and carry out illegal activities like selling ammunition and hard drugs to armed groups in Cameroon. Nji says refugees should not be surprised if joint troops from Cameroon and the C.A.R. visit their camps to search and arrest C.A.R. rebels or former rebels hiding in refugee camps and committing crimes.

Violence was pervasive in the C.A.R. in 2013 when then President Francois Bozize was ousted by the Séléka, a coalition from the Muslim minority groups that accused him of breaking peace deals. 

The C.A.R. says there are 14 rebel groups fighting against the government of the Central African Republic. It says several armed gangs also operate in the country, making peace efforts difficult.  

Cameroon and the C.A.R. say they are committed to their militaries working together in border towns and villages to dismantle rebels and armed groups responsible for increasing insecurity.

The ongoing fighting in the C.A.R. has forced close to a million Central Africans to flee neighboring countries, including Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria, according to the U.N. 
…

It is the new gold rush, and China is leading the hunt as prices surge. Only it’s not gold everyone’s looking for, it’s lithium. Many say the future of electric vehicle production and, more broadly, combatting climate change, depend on the rare metal. 

Prices for the “green metal” have seen an almost 500% increase in the past year, according to Bloomberg.

Sung Choi, a metals analyst at BloombergNEF, told VOA, “The cost of lithium has risen because virtually all automakers have jumped onto producing electric vehicles.” 

Electric car tsar and Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the “insane” costs meant “Tesla might actually have to get into the mining & refining directly at scale.”

That is exactly what China has been doing, and its companies are looking to make sure they don’t run out of the metal needed to make lithium-ion batteries – which China, which has the largest EV market in the world, produces 80% of  globally.

While more than half of global lithium resources are in South America and Australia, China is scouring the world for new sources of the metal, including in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau and elsewhere, but increasingly in Africa.

“Africa has recently been in the spotlight with its ample resources in metals,” Choi said.

Shenzen-headquartered Chinese conglomerate BYD is in talks to buy six new lithium mines in unspecified African countries, Reuters reported, citing Shanghai government supported publication The Paper.  Repeated emails to the company from VOA requesting details of the deals went unanswered.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chinese mining giant Zijin is in a legal battle with Australia’s AVZ minerals over control of the Manono mine – possibly the world’s biggest lithium deposit — in the resource-rich country’s east. 

In Zimbabwe, too, home to large untapped deposits of the resource, China is buying up mines. In a major deal, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt is investing $300 million in its recently purchased Arcadia Lithium mine outside Harare, according to Reuters. The money will be used to construct a plant with a processing capacity of 400,000 metric tons of lithium concentrate a year. 

Shenzhen Chengxin Lithium Group and Sinomine Resource Group are just two of the other companies that have invested in lithium in Zimbabwe in the past year.

The Zimbabwean government has welcomed the investment. Spokeswoman Monica Mutsvangwa told VOA via WhatsApp that the economically unstable country, which is under Western sanctions, plans to rebrand itself as a major player in “the blooming lithium sector.”

“We aim to fill the vacuum being created by the displacement of fossil fuel engines by electric batteries,” she said.

In an apparent reference to the West, she added in an email to VOA, “The battery storage industry of the ushering New Electric Vehicle Era has shunted you by the wayside … Triple digit figures in the mergers and acquisition of Arcadia Lithium, Buhera Lithium deposits and Bikita Minerals have shunted you aside.”  

Joe Lowry, founder of advisory firm Global Lithium, told VOA that Western lithium producers had been taken by surprise regarding the growth of the EV industry and therefore the rush for lithium.

“Lithium has been a tiny niche market for 7 decades. The global market for lithium chemicals didn’t reach a billion dollars until 2015. The industry was not prepared for electrification of transportation,” he said by email.

“You can build a huge battery factory like Tesla does in a couple years. It takes up to ten years to bring a fully integrated lithium chemicals project online,” he said.

Meanwhile, “Chinese producers invested ahead of the curve in resources outside China … (and) are looking at Africa,” Lowry said.

The U.S., too, knows the importance of Africa. General Stephen Townsend, AFRICOM commander, told the House Appropriations Committee in April, “Africa possesses vast untapped energy deposits … (needed to) transition to clean energy, including mobile phones, jet engines, electric hybrid vehicles and missile guidance systems.” 

“The winners and losers of the 21st century global economy may be determined by whether these resources are available in an open and transparent marketplace or are inaccessible due to predatory practices of competitors,” he added.

And while some of the key components for EVs come from Africa, the market for the finished product – made overseas – is still minuscule on the continent. The mines provide jobs, but critics say locals don’t see enough trickle-down from the multimillion-dollar projects.

Last year, Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi said that people living in areas with mines were “still languishing in misery,” while foreign multinationals prospered. He has launched a review of his predecessor’s “minerals-for-infrastructure” contracts with Chinese mining companies.
…

The United States has targeted al-Qaida-linked fighters in Somalia, launching its first airstrike since announcing U.S. special operations forces would again be based in the Horn of Africa nation.

Somalia’s Ministry of Information announced the airstrike Friday on Twitter, saying it had targeted al-Shabab militants near Beer Xaani, west of the southern city of Kismayo, after they had attacked Somali forces.

Initial estimates indicated that five al-Shabab fighters were killed and that there were no civilian casualties, the Somali announcement said.

So far, neither the Pentagon nor U.S. Africa Command has shared any details about the incident.

Friday’s airstrike against al-Shabab is the first since the U.S. announced in mid-May that it would reestablish what it described as a “small, persistent U.S. military presence” in Somalia, following a December 2020 decision by the previous U.S. administration to pull out troops that had been stationed in the country.

Senior U.S. administration officials last month called the decision by former President Donald Trump to end the persistent U.S. presence in Somalia a mistake, arguing it gave al-Shabab, already seen as the largest, wealthiest and most dangerous al-Qaida affiliate, a chance to regenerate.

Al-Shabab “has unfortunately only grown stronger,” a senior U.S. official told reporters. “It has increased the tempo of its attacks, including against U.S. personnel.”

Pentagon officials have described the move, which will see fewer than 500 U.S. special operators working out of Somalia, as a repositioning, noting U.S. troops had been flying into the country to periodically work with the Somali military.

New Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud welcomed the change, thanking U.S. President Joe Biden on social media.

Like a number of high-profile U.S. military officials, some Somali officials had been lobbying for the return of a U.S. military presence to help with the fight against al-Shabab.

“This was a wrong decision taken. Withdrawal was a hasty decision,” a senior adviser to Mohamud told VOA, ahead of the official announcement about the return of the U.S. presence.

“It disrupted counterterrorism operations,” said the Somali adviser, who asked not to be named because his position in the administration had not yet been made public. “To reinstate and start with the new president is the right decision, and it came at the right time.”

Somali officials have also said they hope a persistent U.S. military presence in Somalia will lead to an uptick in airstrikes against the group.

So far this year, U.S. Africa Command has publicly confirmed only one airstrike, on February 22, against al-Shabab fighters near Duduble, Somalia. It has not yet commented on the strike reported Friday by Somali authorities.

It is not clear how many, if any, U.S. forces are currently operating in Somalia. Senior U.S. officials said last month it would “take a little bit of time to reach that full implementation stage.”

Intelligence estimates from United Nations member states and shared earlier this year put the number of al-Shabab fighters at close to 12,000 while warning the al-Qaida affiliate has been raising as much as $10 million a month to fund its activities.
…

Two U.N. peacekeepers were killed and two others were injured on Friday after an improvised bomb exploded in central Mali, a spokesman for the MINUSMA mission tweeted.

The soldiers were part of the Egyptian contingent of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, a security official said.

“The head of MINUSMA condemned the attack,” spokesman Olivier Salgado posted.

He said the incident took place near the town of Douentza, on the road to Timbuktu.

On Wednesday, a Jordanian peacekeeper was killed in an attack on his convoy in Kidal, in northern Mali.

With 13,000 members, MINUSMA — the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali — is one of the U.N.’s biggest peacekeeping operations and also one of its most dangerous.

Improvised explosive devices are a weapon of choice for jihadis against MINUSMA and Malian forces. They also kill many civilians.

Seven Togolese peacekeepers were killed in December by an IED explosion between Douentza and Sevare.

On Friday, the Egyptian peacekeepers were in an escort of a dozen U.N. vehicles accompanying a convoy of civilian trucks carrying fuel, Salgado said.

Such convoys can stretch for miles. A mine exploded as the convoy passed, Salgado said. Mines can be detonated on contact or remotely.

Central Mali is a hotbed of violence and jihadi activity that has spread from the north to the center of the country, and then to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of civilians and combatants have died, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.

Two reports published this week, one from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and another from the human rights division of MINUSMA, express alarm at the intensification of the violence in central Mali.
…

A Mali-based coalition of al-Qaida-aligned militants has claimed responsibility for an attack in Togo last month, the SITE Intelligence monitoring group said Friday. 

The Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) has been expanding geographically, threatening northern parts of coastal Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Togo. 

Togo’s government had confirmed a “terrorist attack” on May 11 in the northern town of Kpekankandi, near the border with Burkina Faso, where the insurgents are also present.

Officials had said that eight Togolese soldiers were killed and 13 others were wounded.

JNIM, according to SITE Intelligence, which monitors jihadist activities worldwide, said it had killed eight soldiers, stolen some weapons and damaged two cars.

A senior security source in Togo told AFP that the soldiers were attacked by a group of 60 gunmen who arrived on motorbikes.  

“They exchanged fire for more than two hours … and then a reinforcement unit was hit by an improvised explosive device,” he added.  

Togolese soldiers foiled an attack last November in the northern village of Sanloaga, making the May attack the first to cause casualties. 

The statement from JNIM also claimed attacks in Mali and in Burkina Faso. 
…

The top African Union official met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to discuss the war in Ukraine and its effects on Africa. A cutoff in grain exports has heightened food insecurity in many African countries, leaving millions of Africans hungry.

Senegalese President Macky Sall met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Russian city of Sochi Friday to discuss the war in Ukraine and the effect it’s having on Africa’s 1.3 billion people.

Before the war, the continent annually imported about 30 million tons of wheat and maize from Russia and Ukraine. The war has greatly reduced the exports and sparked a global increase in food and fuel prices.

At Friday’s meeting, Sall, the current African Union chairperson, urged Putin to be aware that African countries are “victims” of the Ukraine conflict, according to the French news agency.  He said food supplies should be “outside” of Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over Ukraine.

Speaking to journalists in Nairobi, Africa Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina, said the rise in oil prices caused by the war is also hurting Africa’s economy.

“You look at the energy prices today, energy prices have gone up to the roof of course which benefits all the exporting countries but you, for example, Kenya, you spend a lot of money importing fuel,” Adesina said. “So fuel made importing countries suffer as a result of that which has a tendency to slow down economic growth.”

Adesina also lamented the Russian blockade of ships in the Black Sea, which is holding back millions of tons of Ukrainian grain meant for other countries, including some in Africa.

The Africa Development Bank recently authorized a $1.5 billion program to ensure that Africa grows enough food to feed its citizens.  The bank group said the money would benefit 20 million African farmers.

Adesina said the bank is determined to make Africa less reliant on outside countries for its food supply.

“Africa will not have a food crisis,” he said “We will support Africa to produce its food and we will use this opportunity. We must not lose, and wait for a crisis, to get Africa to be a solution to global food issues. Africa has 65 percent of all arable land left in the world. So what Africa does with agriculture will determine the future of food in the world. We must take agriculture as a business.”  

 In the meantime, some countries are facing severe problems feeding their populations. 

Chad, a landlocked African country, declared a food emergency Thursday and authorities called other countries for help.

Last month, the United Nations said the number of food-insecure people in the world has doubled from 135 million to 276 million in two years.  The crisis is blamed on climate change, the global pandemic and the current war in Ukraine.

As African leaders meet the Russian president, the head of the African Development Bank is calling for an end to the war that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands and negatively impacted millions of people around the world.
…

Chad on Thursday declared a “food emergency” in the impoverished landlocked country, urging the international community to help.

The plea for aid comes before a meeting Friday between the head of the African Union and Russia’s president to discuss grain supplies in the aftermath of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.  

“Following the constant deterioration of the food and nutritional situation this year and taking into account the growing risk to populations if no humanitarian aid… is provided, this decree declares a food emergency,” read the document signed by the head of the military junta ruling the country.

“The government calls on all national actors and international partners to help the populations,” the decree said.

The United Nations has warned that 5.5 million people in Chad — more than a third of the population — would need humanitarian assistance this year.

The World Food Program in March estimated that 2.1 million Chadians would be “severely food insecure” during the lean season starting in June.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions on Moscow have disrupted deliveries of wheat and other commodities from the two countries, fueling concerns about the risk of hunger around the world.

Around 30% of the world’s wheat supply comes from Ukraine and Russia.

Food prices in Africa have already exceeded those in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab springs and the 2008 food riots.

Friday, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will receive Senegalese President Macky Sall, who chairs the African Union, to discuss “freeing up stocks of cereals and fertilizers, the blockage of which particularly affects African countries”, Sall’s office has said.

Chad is the planet’s third poorest nation, the United Nations says.

In 2021, it ranked 113 out of 116 nations on the “Global Hunger Index” — a peer-reviewed tool compiled by European NGOs.

A junta led by General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno has ruled Chad since last year, after his father, long-serving strongman Idriss Deby Itno, died in battle.
…

Central African Republic refugees in Cameroon have started returning home after fleeing political and sectarian violence there since 2014. There are around 300,000 C.A.R. refugees in Cameroon, most of them women and children. Hundreds have agreed to return home after Bangui promised peace has returned to their towns and villages.

Cameroonian officials handed out food and blankets at a camp in Gado Badzere Wednesday to about 300 Central African refugees who agreed to return home.

Gado Badzere hosts more than 30,000 C.A.R. refugees out of 300,000 who fled conflict.

Thirty-five-year-old farmer Robert Bissa is one of the refugees who is returning this week to the Central African Republic.

He left the C.A.R. in 2017 after a rebel attack on a military base killed civilians and destroyed the shop where he sold his produce.

Bissa said he received assurances from his family back home that peace has returned to his village in the south of the C.A.R. He said he intends to go back to his farm and grow beans and groundnuts.

Cameroon authorities and the U.N.’s refugee agency (the UNHCR) say 2,500 refugees, most of them women and children, have agreed to return home before the end of this year.

But UNHCR Cameroon representative Olivier Beer said most of the refugees in Cameroon are still reluctant.

Beer said a majority of the refugees have not accepted to voluntarily return because security is unstable in the C.A.R. But he said there are some towns and villages that have been pacified by the C.A.R.’s military.

A C.A.R. official receiving the refugees on the border said they would be socially and economically re-integrated and that their safety and security would be assured.

Cameroon’s territorial administration minister, Paul Atanga Nji, said militaries on both sides will protect refugees as they were returning home.

Nji said there are still problems of C.A.R. rebels crossing into Cameroon to steal supplies and abduct civilians for ransom.

“It is important to reiterate the instruction of President Paul Biya that the departure [of refugees] must be voluntary and the convoy must have all the necessary security measures. We have asked the security forces [military] in Cameroon to accompany the convoy and by the time we get to the boundary (border) the security forces military from the neighboring country [C.A.R.] will continue with the convoy,” he said.

Violence erupted among armed groups in the C.A.R. in 2013, when then-President Francoise Bozize was ousted by the Séléka, a Muslim minority rebel coalition.

In January 2021, hundreds of C.A.R. civilians fled sporadic clashes after the presidential election, many of them to Cameroon.

The U.N. says since 2013, close to a million Central Africans have fled conflict to neighboring Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria.

The voluntary repatriation of C.A.R. refugees began in 2016 but was suspended in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
…

In Mogadishu, a group of young filmmakers are hoping to take their vision to the world. VOA’s Abdulkadir Zubeyr reports.
…

Suspected terrorists attacked a U.N. peacekeeping convoy in northern Mali on Wednesday, the United Nations said. A Jordanian peacekeeper was killed and three other Jordanians were wounded. 

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the supply convoy was under sustained fire for about an hour from attackers who used small arms and rocket launchers. 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the attack and sent his deepest condolences to the families of the peacekeepers and the government and people of Jordan, Dujarric said. 

According to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali, the attack was the fifth incident in the northern Kidal region in one week, Dujarric said. 

“It is a tragic reminder of the complexity of the mandate of the U.N. mission and of its peacekeepers, and the threats peacekeepers face on a daily basis,” he said. 

The Security Council later released a statement condemning the attack and calling on authorities in Mali to investigate and bring those responsible to justice. The statement added that the Security Council “underlined that attacks targeting peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law.” 

Mali has struggled to contain an Islamic extremist insurgency since 2012. Extremist rebels were forced from power in Mali’s northern cities with the help of a French-led military operation, but they regrouped in the desert and began attacking the Malian army and its allies. Insecurity has worsened with attacks in the northern and central regions on civilians and U.N. peacekeepers. 

Mali’s military returned to Kidal, a longtime rebel stronghold in the north, in February 2020, six years after its forces retreated amid violence. U.N. peacekeepers have also been deployed in the north. 

Deadliest mission

The U.N. force has said more than 250 of its peacekeepers and personnel have died since 2013, making Mali the deadliest of the U.N.’s dozen peacekeeping missions worldwide. 

The U.N. special representative for Mali, El Ghassim Wane, issued a statement Wednesday saying the U.N. mission remained determined to support Mali’s people and government in their quest for peace and security, Dujarric said. 

In August 2020, Malian President Boubacar Ibrahim Keita, who died in January, was overthrown in a coup that included Assimi Goita, then an army colonel. Last June, Goita was sworn in as president of a transitional government after carrying out his second coup in nine months. 

In mid-May, Goita’s government said security forces had thwarted a countercoup attempt that it said was supported by an unnamed Western government. 

The accusations of foreign interference came as Goita’s regime has become increasingly isolated. A day earlier, the government announced that Mali was dropping out of a five-nation regional security force known as the G5. It was also sharply critical of former colonial power France, which announced in February that it was pulling its troops out of Mali. 

While Mali’s junta initially agreed to an 18-month transition back to civilian rule, it failed to organize elections by the deadline in February. Last month, the government said it would need two more years in power before it could organize a vote.
…

A new app is helping Zimbabwe’s journalists stay safe in environments in which they are at risk.

Set up by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), the tool acts as a panic button. It is seen as an important resource leading up to the country’s 2023 elections.

Nompilo Simanje, from MISA Zimbabwe, said the media watchdog set up the app after documenting a trend of unlawful detentions and assaults against journalists.

“So in light of those trends, which have seen to actually increase during election periods, MISA Zimbabwe launched this alert button,” Simanje said. “It is very timely and it will be very useful with the general election coming up next year and also for the purposes of reporting any media violence and calling for assistance in the event of any media violation.”

Journalists in distress can press a ‘Trigger” icon on the app, which immediately alerts MISA and key contacts to the emergency and the person’s location.

Blessed Mhlanga, a journalist with the Alpha Media Holdings news group, has already signed up for the app. Mhlanga, who was arrested in early May, said he could see the value of being able to seek help quickly.

“I was arrested just a few weeks ago while covering elections in Chitungwiza,” he said. “There was an amazing response from MISA Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, chiefly because when we were arrested, there were some journalists who then made calls and we managed to get quick responses. But imagine if there was no one around.”

When President Emmerson Mnangagwa took over in 2017, he promised to improve the media landscape in Zimbabwe. But Reporters Without Borders said levels of violence against journalists “remain alarmingly high” in Zimbabwe, and harsh laws are still in effect.

On Monday, Nick Mangwana, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, told reporters the government was promoting “development” journalism – stories focused on the economy, climate change and infrastructure. He said authorities were not standing in the way of journalists’ work.

“It is very important and paramount that the welfare of journalists should be elevated to a level where it becomes an integral [part] of the developmental project that is being rolled by government,” he said, “because the media are a key component of creating the critical mass buy-in from the public to the national development goals.”

Mangwana promised a Media Practitioners’ Bill in parliament “soon” as part of efforts by the government to allow journalists like Mhlanga to work freely in Zimbabwe.

The ability of media to work unhindered is vital as Zimbabwe prepares for elections next year. During that time, Mhlanga said, the MISA app will be an asset.

“It is going to be very useful,” he said. “And it comes as a relief and guarantee to me as a journalist.”

Reporters Without Borders recently ranked Zimbabwe 137th out of 180 countries on its annual index, where 1 is the most free.
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As health authorities in Europe and elsewhere roll out vaccines and drugs to stamp out the biggest monkeypox outbreak beyond Africa, some doctors acknowledge an ugly reality: The resources to slow the disease’s spread have long been available, just not to the Africans who have dealt with it for decades.

Countries including Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, the United States, Israel and Australia have reported more than 500 monkeypox cases, many apparently tied to sexual activity at two recent raves in Europe. No deaths have been reported.

Authorities in numerous European countries and the U.S. are offering to immunize people and considering the use of antivirals. On Thursday, the World Health Organization will convene a special meeting to discuss monkeypox research priorities and related issues.

Meanwhile, the African continent has reported about three times as many cases this year.

There have been more than 1,400 monkeypox cases and 63 deaths in four countries where the disease is endemic — Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo and Nigeria — according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So far, sequencing has not yet shown any direct link to the outbreak outside Africa, health officials say.

Monkeypox is in the same family of viruses as smallpox, and smallpox vaccines are estimated to be about 85% effective against monkeypox, according to WHO.

Since identifying cases earlier this month, Britain has vaccinated more than 1,000 people at risk of contracting the virus and bought 20,000 more doses. European Union officials are in talks to buy more smallpox vaccine from Bavarian Nordic, the maker of the only such vaccine licensed in Europe.

U.S. government officials have released about 700 doses of vaccine to states where cases were reported.

Such measures aren’t routinely employed in Africa.

Dr. Adesola Yinka-Ogunleye, who leads Nigeria’s monkeypox working group, said there are currently no vaccines or antivirals being used against monkeypox in her country. People suspected of having monkeypox are isolated and treated conservatively, while their contacts are monitored, she said.

Generally, Africa has only had “small stockpiles” of smallpox vaccine to offer health workers when monkeypox outbreaks happen, said Ahmed Ogwell, acting director of the Africa CDC.

Limited vaccine supply and competing health priorities have meant that immunization against monkeypox hasn’t been widely pursued in Africa, said Dr. Jimmy Whitworth, a professor of international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“It’s a bit uncomfortable that we have a different attitude to the kinds of resources we deploy depending on where cases are,” he said. “It exposes a moral failing when those interventions aren’t available for the millions of people in Africa who need them.”

WHO has 31 million doses of smallpox vaccines, mostly kept in donor countries and intended as a rapid response to any re-emergence of the disease, which was declared eradicated in 1980.

Doses from the U.N. health agency’s stockpile have never been released for any monkeypox outbreaks in central or western Africa.

Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO’s emergencies chief, said the agency was considering allowing rich countries to use the smallpox vaccines to try to limit the spread of monkeypox. WHO manages similar mechanisms to help poor countries get vaccines for diseases like yellow fever and meningitis, but such efforts have not been previously used for countries that can otherwise afford shots.

Oyewale Tomori, a Nigerian virologist who sits on several WHO advisory boards, said releasing smallpox vaccines from the agency’s stockpile to stop monkeypox from becoming endemic in richer countries might be warranted, but he noted a discrepancy in WHO’s strategy.

“A similar approach should have been adopted a long time ago to deal with the situation in Africa,” he said. “This is another example of where some countries are more equal than others.”

Some doctors pointed out that stalled efforts to understand monkeypox were now complicating efforts to treat patients. Most people experience symptoms including fever, chills and fatigue. But those with more serious disease often develop a rash on their face or hands that spreads elsewhere.

Dr. Hugh Adler and colleagues recently published a paper suggesting the antiviral drug tecovirimat could help fight monkeypox. The drug, approved in the U.S. to treat smallpox, was used in seven people infected with monkeypox in the U.K. from 2018 to 2021, but more details are needed for regulatory approval.

“If we had thought about getting this data before, we wouldn’t be in this situation now where we have a potential treatment without enough evidence,” said Adler, a research fellow at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Many diseases only attracted significant money after infecting people from rich countries, he noted.

For example, it was only after the catastrophic Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2016 — when several Americans were sickened by the disease among the more than 28,000 cases in Africa — that authorities finally sped up the research and protocols to license an Ebola vaccine, capping a decades-long effort.

At a press briefing on Wednesday, WHO’s Ryan said the agency was worried about the continued spread of monkeypox in rich countries and was evaluating how it could help stem the disease’s transmission there.

“I certainly didn’t hear that same level of concern over the last five or 10 years,” he said, referring to the repeated epidemics of monkeypox in Africa, when thousands of people in the continent’s central and western parts were sickened by the disease.

Jay Chudi, a development expert who lives in the Nigerian state of Enugu, which has reported monkeypox cases since 2017, hopes the increased attention might finally help address the problem. But he nevertheless lamented that it took infections in rich countries for it to seem possible.

“You would think the new cases are deadlier and more dangerous than what we have in Africa,” he said. “We are now seeing it can end once and for all, but because it is no longer just in Africa. It’s now everybody is worried.”
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Aid agencies warn the number of people facing starvation in the Horn of Africa is expected to reach 20 million by the end of September without a stronger response to an ongoing drought.

The warning comes after the fourth rainy season in a row for the region without adequate rain. The worst drought in 40 years has killed more than seven million livestock across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.  

In some parts of East Africa, communities have not seen significant rainfall for the past two years.  

Yusuf Guure, 67, who lives in northeastern Kenya, said he has lost 294 animals to drought.  

“We have never seen such a persistent drought, a drought that has wiped out pasture and a drought that has left animals with nothing to feed,” he said, adding, “Where do you get that money to feed them and you are unemployed?” 

Shashwat Saraf is the regional emergency director for East Africa with the International Rescue Committee. He said pastoral communities living in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are feeling the effects of the drought, and that millions are on the move in search of water, food and pasture.  

“We are seeing anywhere between 60 to 100 percent loss of livestock, which is a mainstay for the population because they lost their only source of livelihood,” he said. “We are seeing massive displacement happening of households and people moving to urban centers or moving to other locations and to find ways to make their household food secure.” 

Agencies say that since mid-2021, one-third of all livestock in Somalia has died and 3.6 million livestock have died in Ethiopia and Kenya. 

Alyona Synenko, regional spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said Somalia is the most affected country of the three and decades of conflict have complicated the situation for those suffering and for aid agencies. 

“The needs are extremely high and sometimes you look at people and you see people who are displaced and they lost everything,” she said. “So it’s difficult to say that people are getting the help they need because their needs are so important. We also speak about a crisis that is one of the most protracted crises in the region and there is also a level of donor fatigue, especially when there is so much competition for the humanitarian funds, so sometimes we have to make very difficult choices.”   

The combination of harsh weather and rising food and fuel prices has made the humanitarian outlook worrisome for months to come. 

The U.N. humanitarian office, UNOCHA, said Somalia is at risk of famine, and more than 80,000 people are experiencing extreme hunger. Officials also said Tuesday that severe acute malnutrition is on the rise across the three countries and poses an immediate threat to children’s lives. 

The U.N. and aid agencies have reached 6.5 million people in the affected areas with food, water and health services. They warn more funding and food are needed to save lives in the coming months.  

 
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A clergyman of Nigeria’s Methodist Church has revealed the church paid a ransom of nearly a quarter-million dollars for his release. Gunmen abducted the prelate Sunday while he was traveling in Nigeria’s southeastern Abia state. The payment comes as Nigeria’s president is expected to sign a bill punishing those who pay ransoms with up to 15 years in prison. 

The prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Samuel Kanu-Uche, made the announcement while briefing journalists in Lagos on Tuesday, soon after his release.

He had been received by a cheering crowd of church members and immediately held prayers at the church before the briefing.

Kanu-Uche said the church paid about $240,000 as ransom to his abductors to secure his freedom and that of the two pastors travelling with him.

Eight armed men ambushed them on their way to the airport in Abia state on Sunday, shooting sporadically at their vehicle before taking them hostage. The clergymen’s driver and one other church member escaped the assault.

Kanu-Uche said the kidnappers showed them the rotted bodies of previously kidnapped victims who could not raise ransom payments and threatened to do the same with him.

Nigerian authorities have yet to comment on his release. But officials have repeatedly objected to paying ransom for kidnap victims, saying the payments make the abductors more powerful.

Archbishop Chibuzo Opoko heads the Methodist church in Abia State. He says paying the ransom was necessary.

“They would not have released them if that was not done, it wasn’t the security that intervened,” he said. “How effective will that law be when security agencies are not doing their best? What is the law for those who kidnap and demand for ransom?”

Armed groups and criminals have kidnapped hundreds, possibly thousands of people for ransom across Nigeria over the last two years. UNICEF says the number includes at least 1,500 students abducted in northcentral and northwestern Nigeria since late 2020.

In an effort to curb the abductions, the Nigerian Senate recently approved legislation that would punish ransom payments with up to 15 years imprisonment.

The bill would also punish kidnapping with a death sentence if the abductee dies in custody.

Rights groups and families of kidnapped victims continue to protest the measure. Among them is Abdulfatai Jimoh, a spokesperson for the families of passengers kidnapped from a train in Kaduna state in late March.

“It’s an abnormal bill, abnormal in the sense that in a country where such a bill can exist should be a country that has a law in place that when anybody is kidnapped, that person must be rescued within 48 hours. Without anything like that in place there’s no way they can stop anybody from paying ransom,” he said.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has yet to say whether he will sign the bill into law.
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Nigerian manufacturers say they are struggling with rising grain prices, especially for wheat, sparked by Russia’s war on Ukraine. But even before the war started in February, Nigeria had been dealing with fuel and power shortages and high inflation. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja, Nigeria.
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Islamic State on Tuesday claimed responsibility for an attack that killed at least 15 civilians in a village in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday, the militant group said on an affiliated Telegram channel.   

A rights group and a local official said on Monday that fighters believed to be members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) stormed the village of Bulongo in North Kivu province after dark on Sunday, pillaging homes, murdering inhabitants that crossed their path and setting fire to six vehicles. Read full story.

The ADF is a Ugandan militia that has been active in east Congo since the 1990s and killed scores of civilians, many in middle-of-the-night attacks carried out with machetes and hatchets. It pledged alliance to Islamic State in 2019.   

Islamic State claimed its members killed nearly 20 Christians and set fire to six trucks in the attack using machine guns, and returned to their bases unhurt. 
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One of two Kenyans wanted for alleged involvement in wildlife and drug trafficking has been arrested in a joint U.S.-Kenyan operation. The U.S. government had announced a reward for information leading to the arrest of Badru Abdul Aziz Saleh.

U.S. officials said Kenya’s security agencies received a tip from the public that led to the arrest of Saleh Monday in Liboi, Garissa county. An embassy statement said U.S. and Kenyan law enforcement officials cooperated to apprehend Saleh.  

Another suspect, Abdi Hussein Ahmed, remains at large.

On Thursday, the United States announced rewards of up to $1 million each for information leading to the arrest, prosecution and conviction of the two Kenyans.

Eric W. Kneedler, chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, said Monday’s arrest of Saleh “would not have been possible without the public’s support. He appealed for information leading to Ahmed’s arrest.

Saleh remains in police custody in Nairobi and is expected to be extradited to the U.S.

Saleh was arrested back in 2019 for drug trafficking but released on bail, according to the U.S. State Department. A statement said he was a fugitive with an outstanding warrant for his arrest. A federal grand jury in New York indicted him in 2021.

Saleh and Ahmed were accused in the transportation, distribution and smuggling of 190 kilograms of rhinoceros horns and 10 tons of elephant ivory from different African countries.

They were also alleged to have been involved in transporting and distributing 10 kilograms of heroin from Kenya to the United States.

If convicted, both could face up to 10 years in prison in the U.S.  

In March, Kenya launched a financial toolkit to help fight illegal wildlife trade. 
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In Cameroon nearly 150 manatees, an endangered aquatic species also known as sea cow, are killed each year by poachers or fisherman, often unintended by the latter. An aid group has created a mobile app to collect data to help reduce manatee deaths. Anne Nzouankeu reports from lake Ossa, Cameroon.
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The head of the African Union is calling on Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to lower tensions. The DRC accuses Rwanda of supporting the rebel group M23, which continues to battle the Congolese army in eastern Congo. But analysts are doubtful the tensions or the situation in eastern Congo as a whole will soon improve.

Calm has returned in some parts of the eastern DRC, which saw heavy fighting last week between the Congolese army and the rebel group M23.

Jean-Mobert Senga, Amnesty International’s DRC researcher, told VOA there is a lull in the fighting.

“When it comes to M23, there has been some calm in the last few days,” he said. “There have been no clashes reported and in some parts, civilians have started to return but that doesn’t mean that the conflict is over in North Kivu and Ituri. Civilians are still being killed by other armed groups, so it’s not only M23 which is the problem. There are also other groups who have been killing people and are continuing to kill civilians with impunity.”

Reports say the Congolese army, with the help of the U.N. peacekeeping force MONUSCO, recently repelled a rebel advance on the city of Goma. The reports say M23 fighters have now returned to their hideouts near the border with Uganda.

But residents of North Kivu and Ituri remain fearful of M23 and other armed groups in the region, which have competed for years for control of the area’s rich mines. Some of the groups have ties to Rwanda, Uganda or Burundi.

The DRC government accuses Rwanda of supporting M23 in an effort to destabilize the country.

In a statement Monday, Rwandan Foreign Minister Vicent Biruta encouraged its neighbor to de-escalate its rhetoric. He said collaboration could restore security and bring lasting stability to the region.

The minister also said the rebel group M23 was Congo’s internal problem and should be resolved among Congolese themselves.

On his Twitter account, African Union chairperson Senegalese President Macky Sall said he is concerned about the tensions between the DRC and Rwanda.  Sall said he spoke to DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame in a quest to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis. 

Researcher and political analyst Ntanyoma Rukumbuzi said the tension between the countries and the unrest in the DRC are likely to continue. 

“I don’t see any future escalation between the two countries, Rwanda and the DRC,” he said. “I think both countries have an interest in dialogue and settling many of these issues in a pacific way through dialogue but would this be enough if Rwanda and DRC agree to solve the tension in a pacific way? Will this lead to the stability of the DRC? I am not sure.”

M23 insists it is fighting ethnic Hutu groups to protect the minority Tutsi living along the border between Congo and Rwanda.

But, Human Rights Watch DRC senior researcher Thomas Fessy notes M23 was expelled from peace talks between Congo and various armed groups that took place in Kenya at the end of April.

“All of this has created a context of tension which is sparking fears of new military confrontation on Congolese territory and civilians are always the ones always to pay the biggest price,” he said. “In a few days of heavy fighting near Goma, over 70,000 people were displaced. According to the humanitarian organizations, many of them will now need assistance.”

Congo is home to some 5.6 million internally displaced people, more than any other country in Africa.
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Cameroon’s military says it has freed a senator who was held captive by separatists for a month along with other hostages.

Cameroon’s military on Tuesday said it managed to rescue Senator Regina Mundi, after what a spokesman called two days of heavy battles with rebels who had taken her hostage.

Military spokesman Serge Cyrille Atongfack said in a press release that the clashes took place in Batibo district in Cameroon’s Northwest region.

Atongfack said separatists tried to escape advancing government troops on Sunday with six hostages, including Senator Mundi.

But he said the troops stopped the rebels, killing ten of them and capturing three, without any harm to the captives.

The military did not identify the other hostages but said they were receiving medical treatment after the ordeal.

Rights groups in Cameroon welcomed Senator Mundi’s release after a month in captivity.

Mumah Bih Yvonne of the Women’s Peace Movement led church prayers for Mundi’s release after her April abduction.

“I hope she is sound health wise. For those who took Mundi and kept her for this long, I pray you have a change of mindset. You are perpetuating pain and suffering on people. I congratulate those who succeeded in getting her out,” she said.

A separatist spokesman confirmed that government troops freed Mundi and other hostages but denied the military’s claim that fighters were killed and captured.

Capo Daniel is deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, one of Cameroon’s rebel groups. The separatists have been fighting since 2017 to break away from Cameroon and its French-speaking majority to create an English-speaking state called Ambazonia.

Daniel says the military abused civilians during the weekend raids to free Senator Mundi.

“Hundreds of Cameroon military brutalized our civilian population, rounded them up, tied their hands behind their backs, women were tortured, houses were searched, occupants were tied up and forced to sit in city squares where they were not allowed to have access to communication. None of our soldiers were killed or captured, We have regrouped and we will make sure that those areas remain under strong Ambazonia control,” he said.

None of Daniel’s claims could be immediately or independently confirmed.

One local, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation, told VOA both sides committed abuses and detained civilians during the clashes.

Cameroon’s military denies any abuses.

Armed separatists abducted Senator Mundi with her driver in Bamenda, capital of the English-speaking North West region, on April 30.

The rebels accused Mundi of collaborating with Cameroon’s central government and demanded 47 of their arrested leaders be freed in return for her release. The government refused.

Esther Njomo Omam is executive director of Reach Out Cameroon, a group calling for a cease-fire to end the separatist conflict.

“Parties to the conflict, this is the time to talk more among ourselves and resolve our differences in a peaceful way,” she said.

Unrest in Cameroon’s English-speaking western regions broke out in 2016 after teachers and lawyers protested the dominance of French in the officially bilingual country.

The military’s harsh response led separatists to take up arms, saying they had to defend the minority English speakers.

The U.N. says clashes between the two sides have since left at least 3,300 people dead and more than 750,000 internally displaced.
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At a news conference in Mogadishu, Somalia’s special envoy for humanitarian issues on Monday said more than six million Somalis were affected by the record drought.

Abdurahman Abdishakur Warsameh said the number of people suffering was quickly approaching half of Somalia’s population.

Warsameh said the drought has hit 72 of Somalia’s 84 districts and that six of them were already facing famine-like conditions with extreme food insecurity.

He says our people are starting to die now. Deaths have begun, famine is looming in some areas, and drought is turning into famine. Warsameh says the Somali people at home and abroad should help us in taking on some of the responsibility.

The special envoy did not give any figures on how many Somalis have died from hunger but appealed for aid to reach those in need.

Warsameh said the current drought, the worst in forty years, had displaced nearly 700,000 Somalis from the countryside and forced them to seek help in nearby cities.

He said the U.N. and aid agencies requested $1.4 billion for drought relief but so far received only $58 million.

Warsameh said international aid was more focused on the COVID pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and crises in Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen.

The humanitarian envoy also said not much attention is given to humanitarian needs because of Somalia’s focus on politics last year and a half of delayed elections.

International aid agencies warned Monday that the threat of starvation was worsening in Somalia and neighboring countries across Ethiopia and Kenya.

The Horn of Africa region is facing a record fifth rainy season without adequate rain, according to meteorological experts and humanitarian groups, which include U.N. agencies.
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In Ghana, sexual assault victims must show medical reports to prove they have been assaulted before a rape suspect can be prosecuted. These medical examinations come at a relatively high cost, and are not covered by the national health insurance, and so can deter a victim from pressing charges. Now, a lawmaker is seeking to abolish the health exam requirement so that more women are able to pursue justice. Senanu Tord reports from Battor, Ghana.
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