Anglophone Cameroonian separatists have abducted at least a dozen people who were protesting what they said are the rebels’ brutality and crimes. The separatists claim the government of the majority French-speaking country paid the protesters to discredit the separatists, which authorities deny. 

A video widely circulated on social media shows suspected separatists forcing a man and 11 women to confess that the government paid women in Oku, an English-speaking western town, to conduct street protests of fighters’ alleged abuses.  The man has bruises all over his face and the women look tired. They were among several hundred people who protested in Oku.

The suspected separatists say within the past two weeks, similar protests took place in Njikejem, Manchock, Ngemsibaa and Elak, farming and cattle ranching villages in Cameroon’s English-speaking North-West region.

The Cameroon military said the video was taken by separatist fighters in Elak on April 6, and that 14 women were abducted, not just the 11 shown. They did not offer information on the missing three.

Capo Daniel, deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, one of Cameroon’s separatist groups, said those abducted were hired to discredit separatists by government officials and members of the local elite who support Cameroon’s central government in Yaoundé. 

“The group of people you see in that video are individuals that were arrested [abducted] by our forces in Oku,” he said. “The man you see in front is the ringleader. Twelve persons were arrested, four of them have been released, eight of them are going through interrogations, and anybody who is found guilty of collaborating with an alien and foreign government that is occupying our territory will have to face the consequences of his actions.”

Capo said a few fighters found guilty of abusing civilians’ rights were punished but gave no further details. He also said Cameroon’s military abuses the rights of civilians more than the separatists do.

The military has always denied it abuses civilians’ rights.

Government officials in the North-West region deny the women were paid to protest and discredit separatist fighters.

The government said similar protests took place this week in Mbalangi, a village in the English-speaking South-West region, where the military said four women were abducte, but did not say whether they had regained their freedom.

Fifty-six-year-old farmer Ngale Dorothy took part in the Mbalangi protest. She told local media that people are angry about crimes committed against women, especially separatist fighters’ widows.

She said scores of men have been killed by separatist fighters in Mbalangi village, and that the fighters rape girls and widows, and harass civilians who do not give money to show support for the separatist fight. She said the Cameroon military should protect Mbalangi villagers from heinous crimes committed by fighters.

Separatists have been fighting to carve out an independent English-speaking state in majority French-speaking Cameroon since 2017. 

Human Rights Watch, in a report in August, accused both the military and the armed separatists of abusing civilians’ rights in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions. The organization stressed the urgent need to protect communities at risk and to hold those responsible for abuses to account. 

The United Nations says at least 3,300 people have been killed and 750,000 internally displaced during the years of separatist violence.
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As Ivory Coast beefs up its border security with Burkina Faso, ethnic Fulanis say they are being labeled as Islamist militant supporters and persecuted by security forces. Rights groups warn the heavy-handed tactics could backfire, providing fertile recruiting ground for the insurgents. Henry Wilkins reports from Kong, Ivory Coast.
Camera: Henry Wilkins
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Political analysts say a quest for ever-greater power by Tunisian President Kais Saied risks sending the nation back to pre-revolutionary times of “strongman” rule.

On Wednesday, Saied announced changes regarding the coming legislative elections. Tunisians will now vote for individuals instead of lists in a two-round ballot. He also indicated there would be changes to the Independent Electoral Commission, which he said would supervise the election but not with its ”current composition,” Reuters reported.

In late March, Saied, 64, dissolved parliament after legislators defied his warning and blocked emergency powers that he granted himself in a bid to take hold of the executive and judiciary, a move criticized as a coup. Saied’s government described the parliamentary session as ”illegal” and said it would launch investigations into those who participated.

Analysts question whether there is any group capable of pushing back against Saied’s power grab.

“It is hard to pinpoint any single group with the necessary wherewithal and support” to challenge Saied, said Emiliano Alessandri of the Washington-based Middle East Institute. He said that included opposition parties, which he said suffer from a lack of legitimacy stemming from what he called questionable conduct in recent years.

Pressure from citizenry

But, he said, the overall political environment may trigger a public response to Saied.

”In my view, pressure will build up not because of some political initiative, but when ordinary citizens will see that some of their basic needs – including a better economy and accessible prices – remain unattended to even in the context of the new course. When this happens – and it will not take too long – now-discredited actors will be able to gather fresh new support,” he told VOA.

Last July, public fury over poverty, corruption and handling of the pandemic sparked mass protests in this North African nation. Subsequently, Saied suspended parliament and ousted his prime minister and other officials while granting himself extraordinary powers.

In a Facebook post on March 30, Saied said his decision to dissolve parliament was to ”protect the government, the institution and the Tunisian people.” He said this at a meeting with the National Security Council shortly after dissolving the legislature.

Aymen Zaghdoudi at the Institute of Press and Information Sciences in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, told VOA the unilateral posture of the Tunisian president was like that of an ”autocratic leader.”

”Media freedoms are dwindling, freedom of peaceful assembly is being restricted, and the civil space continues to be narrow. We have seen bloggers, lawyers in jail, and they were prosecuted by military courts, and prosecuting civilians in front of military justice is one of the symbols of dictatorship,” he said.

December elections

Saied has set December 17 for legislative elections. Zaghdoudi said per the country’s constitution, snap elections must be held within 45 to 90 days, noting that Saied’s resolve to adhere to an election date more than seven months from now is unlawful.

”This means he [Saied] will not respect the constitution, but he will follow his own path,” Zaghdoudi said.

Ahead of that parliamentary election, Tunisia will hold a constitutional referendum on July 25. Zaghdoudi said about 70% of Tunisians stand with the president. “This is where he gets his legitimacy,” the analyst said.

According to Zaghdoudi, events in other nations have made Tunisians wary of foreign interference. He said Saied thrives on these sentiments to ”adopt any unilateral decision despite opposition from the major political and economic elites.”

He added that ”to build a solid democracy for the future, we must hold an honest national dialogue that includes all political forces in Tunisia to agree on badly needed economic, political and social reforms.”

This story originated in VOA’s English to Africa Service.
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It’s the classic postcard image of Ghana: brightly colored, narrow wooden fishing boats pulling into the dock of seaside village, bringing in the daily catch. But increasingly this way of life is under threat, with a new investigation showing how Chinese vessels engaged in illegal fishing are depleting stocks, sometimes even selling the fish back to the local communities whose livelihoods and food security have been undermined.

China is the world’s biggest fish producer and has the largest distant-water fleet (CDWF) — officially 2,701 vessels but likely thousands more — many of which engage in high instances of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, according to an NGO, the Environmental Justice Foundation.

The group’s report this week found that some 90% of Ghana’s industrial trawl fleet is actually owned by Chinese corporations using local “front” companies to register as Ghanaian and get around the law.

“EJF has identified continuous instances of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and human rights abuses associated with the CDWF in West Africa, especially Ghana, where Chinese companies use elaborate schemes to hide the ultimate beneficial ownership of their so-called Ghanaian domestic vessels. These schemes include joint ventures, shell companies and subsidiaries,” it said.

While the CDWF also operates in waters off Asia and elsewhere, its activities in Africa account for 78.5% of its approved offshore fishery projects, EJF found when analyzing data from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

CDWF bottom-trawlers catch an estimated 2.35 million tons of fish a year in West Africa, accounting for 50% of China’s total distant water catch and worth some $5 billion.

China’s gain is often to the detriment of countries like Ghana, Sierra Leone, the Gambia, Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, EJF says, with the highest number of illegal fishing incidents reported in the West African region between 2015 and 2019.

“Illegal fishing and overcapacity in the Ghanaian trawl sector is having catastrophic impacts on coastal communities across the country,” EJF’s Chief Operating Officer Max Schmid told VOA by phone, with some 80-90 percent of local fishers in Ghana reporting a decline in income over the last five years.

Women — who are usually responsible for processing and selling the local catch — are often hit hardest by the loss of income, turning to transactional sex, according to EJF, a phenomenon locally dubbed “fish for sex.”

Meanwhile, locals working on the Chinese trawlers often experience human rights abuses, with ten Ghanaians interviewed by EJF saying that they had all “experienced or witnessed physical abuse by Chinese captains.”

It’s also becoming more and more common for the Chinese vessels to catch small pelagic fish, which are the main population caught by small-scale fishers, and then sell them back to communities for profit, the organization found.

In Ghana, neither the Navy nor the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development responded to emailed request for comment.

The Chinese Embassy in Accra did not answer phone calls from VOA or respond to emailed requests for comment.

However, China has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, with one article in the state-affiliated Global Times newspaper last year “refuting Western media rumors of “China’s illegal fishing” and saying Beijing had introduced moratoriums on squid fishing and had in fact, “tightened its oversight of deep-sea fishing vessels in recent years.”

Another piece in the paper said “the country has done more than any other to protect the sea’s environment and resources.” Separately, China’s state news agency Xinhua has pointed to Chinese-funded developments, such as a new fishing port complex in Ghanaian capital Accra, saying it will “greatly improve the working and living conditions for local fishermen.”
…

Somalia’s top leaders are at odds again after Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble ordered the expulsion of an African Union envoy heard criticizing the head of government on leaked audio files. President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed has called the expulsion an illegal action.

Analysts say the latest stand-off between the leaders could further destabilize Somalia as long-delayed elections are wrapping up.

The announcement by Roble that the African Union’s top official in Somalia, Ambassador Francisco Madeira, was no longer welcome in the country amount to yet another dispute between the prime minister and the president.

Roble accused Madeira of engaging in acts that are incompatible with his status.

But in a sharp rejoinder, the presidency dismissed Roble’s order as an illegitimate and reckless decision, noting it had not received any complaints against the AU official. 

Roble’s decision was linked to leaked audio files in which the AU envoy is purportedly heard accusing the prime minister of ganging up with the opposition to prevent the re-election of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, also known as Farmaajo. 

In the leaked audio, the ambassador also says the prime minister and opposition leaders used the death of a former member of parliament Amina Mohamed, who was killed in a car bomb explosion, for political ends against Farmaajo.

Samira Gaid, executive director of the Hiraal Institute, a Mogadishu-based security research group, said that regardless of how the power struggle turns out, Madeira’s days in Somalia are numbered.

“It is a very ugly state of affairs at the moment. This nastiness is not normal for the diplomatic circles,” she said. “I don’t think we hear this kind of language when we think about diplomats and how they engage. I think the two, the letters from the office of the president and the previous one from the office of the prime minister aside, I don’t expect the AU to maintain Ambassador Madeira in Somalia following these revelations, seeing as he’s lost the confidence of the prime minister and a huge section of Somalia society.”

Critics of the prime minister’s move say the decision to declare Madeira persona non grata was uncalled for and against regular procedure. 

“What Roble is now doing and the opposition is uncalled for and totally unacceptable,” said professor Abdiwahab Abdisamad, chairman of the Institute for Horn of Africa Strategic Studies.”The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in fact, they refused even, you know, to comment on the issue, because the right process is, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, if you have any complaints, any malpractice, they must forward the whole issue to the head of state and the head of state has to endorse it.”

Coming in the wake of increased attacks by militant group al-Shabab targeting Somalia’s ongoing elections, the removal of Madeira and a fresh fallout between the president and prime minister could worsen the security situation in the country. 

Only two weeks ago, more than 50 people were killed in al-Shabab attacks in Mogadishu and the central Somali town of Beletweyne.

If expelled, Madeira would be the third senior foreign diplomat to be thrown out of Somalia in recent years. Last November, Madeira’s deputy, Simon Mulongo, was shown the door, while then-U.N. envoy Nicholas Haysom was expelled barely three months into his job in January 2019.
…

A study by the World Health Organization finds the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa to be a fraction of the true number of people infected with the coronavirus that causes the disease.

A new analysis of the spread and the presence of asymptomatic cases of SARS-CoV 2, the virus that causes COVID-19, finds infections in Africa skyrocketed from 3% of the population in June 2020 to 65% by September 2021.

The WHO regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said the analysis of 151 studies reveals the true number of COVID-19 infections in Africa could be 97% higher than the number of confirmed reported cases.

“This suggests that more than two-thirds of all Africans have been exposed to the COVID-19 virus,” she said. “And this compares to the global average, where the true number of infections is about 16 times higher than the number of confirmed reported cases … In real terms, this means that in September 2021, rather than the reported 8.2 million cases, there were in fact 800 million infections.”

The World Health Organization confirmed 11.6 million cases of COVID-19 on the African continent as of April 3, including more than 250,000 deaths. Given the new findings, the WHO acknowledged the number of actual infections is likely to be much larger.

Moeti said it is complicated to get accurate data in Africa because 67% of people with COVID-19 have no symptoms. She said that highlights the need to sustain high levels of routine testing and surveillance to stay ahead of the pandemic.

“With many social protection measures now being relaxed, it will become even more important to allow for tracking of the virus in real time, and monitoring of its evolution,” she said. “Our analysis is clear evidence of the continued significant circulation of the COVID-19 virus among the people on the continent. With this comes the heightened risk of more lethal variants that can overwhelm existing immunity.”

The WHO study finds exposure to the coronavirus rose sharply following the emergence of the beta and the delta variants.

People who become ill with COVID-19 enjoy some degree of immunity. However, Moeti said vaccination remains the best defense against infection as well as adding a level of protection against newly mutating strains of the virus.
…

Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble declared Ambassador Francisco Madeira, the African Union chair’s special representative for Somalia, persona non grata and ordered him to leave the country within 48 hours.

In a late-night statement, Roble accused Madeira of “engaging in acts that are incompatible with his status.”

Roble requested that the AU Commission recall Madeira and “comply with this request.”

But Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, also known as Farmaajo, immediately rejected the expulsion in what appears to be another dispute between the country’s top leaders. In a statement, the president said that he had not authorized any action against Madeira. He also had not received any reports from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Madeira committing acts against the sovereignty of the country, he said.

The president said the decision to expel Madeira was issued by an office that didn’t have sole responsibility for making such a crucial decision. Madeira could not be immediately reached for comment.

Madeira, who is from Mozambique, was appointed to the office in October 2015. He is not the first foreign diplomat to be expelled from Somalia.

Simon Mulongo, Madeira’s deputy, was expelled in November.

In January 2019, the Somalia government declared former United Nations envoy to Somalia Nicholas Haysom persona non grata for “violating protocols” and interfering in Somalia’s affairs.

Haysom’s expulsion from Somalia came after he had asked the government whether U.N.-supported forces were involved in the shooting of demonstrators in Baidoa in December 2018.

The shooting, which led to the death of about a dozen people, occurred as violence broke out following the arrest of former deputy al-Shabab leader Mukhtar Robow, also known as Abu Mansour, to block him from seeking election for regional leadership.

Before his expulsion, Haysom demanded answers from the Somali government on the legal basis for the arrest of Robow, who remains in detention. In an exclusive interview with VOA in October last year, Robow said he was being held for political reasons and to prevent him from seeking office.

New AU mission

The move to expel Madeira came just days after the U.N. Security Council authorized a new AU Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) to operate in the country until the end of 2024. ATMIS replaces the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

The U.N. mandate gives ATMIS forces to reduce the threat posed by al-Shabab, support the capacity-building of the integrated Somali security and police forces, and conduct a phased handover of security responsibilities to Somalia, according to the resolution.

ATMIS will have 19,626 troops, including at least 1,040 police personnel. It will operate in the country until December 2022, when it be reduced by 2,000 troops. The reduction of troops will continue in September 2023 and again in June 2024 by 2,000 troops each time until the mission ends in December 2024.

Under the new arrangement, the Somali government also commits to assuming security responsibilities from AU forces. The Somali government is required to generate more than 22,825 forces by June 2024 to take over from ATMIS.

In the first official statement by the Somali government, Roble announced Wednesday night that he welcomed the new ATMIS mission and looked forward to working with the new mission head.

But security experts say there is little difference between AMISOM and ATMIS.

“To me, (it’s) just a name change exercise,” said Samira Gaid, who oversaw Somali security reform under former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire. “Nothing substantive has changed, meaning the troop numbers, the composition of countries, and the sectors they are located at, their mandate remains largely the same, fighting AS (al-Shabab) and supporting FGS (Federal Government of Somalia).”

Gaid, now the executive director of Hiraal Institute, a security think tank, said that she believed the Somali government could generate forces before the ATMIS withdrawal but that there was uncertainty over equipping the forces.

“The Somali government does not have an issue with force generation. It has an issue with force sustainment, and that remains the main issue,” she said. “The forces can be generated, but without the required lethal and nonlethal support, transition will still be unlikely.” 
…

Burkina Faso’s ex-president, Blaise Compaore, has been sentenced to life in prison for the 1987 assassination of predecessor Thomas Sankara. The ruling is seen by many as a symbolic victory for a region that has been mired by instability in recent years.

The trial of Compaore and his co-defendants began last October — more than 34 years after Sankara’s death.

Of the 14 men prosecuted, three were acquitted while the others received sentences ranging from three years to life in prison.

The defendants were prosecuted on charges of attacking state security, the concealment of a corpse and complicity in murder.

Throughout the six-month trial, hundreds testified about the plot to take down Sankara and his team.

The late President Sankara spoke out frequently against Africa’s colonial powers and was considered a revolutionary pan-African icon.

He and a dozen others were gunned down in October 1987 at a meeting of the National Revolutionary Council in the capital, Ouagadougou.

Compaore, who was a close friend of Sankara, has long been suspected of orchestrating the killings, although he has continuously denied the allegations. After Sankara’s assassination, he assumed the presidency and remained in power for 27 years. During that time, he took on an authoritarian role and suppressed inquiries into the circumstances of Sankara’s death.

Compaore was overthrown in 2014 and fled to Ivory Coast, where he has lived in exile ever since. He was tried in absentia.

Compaore’s lawyers announced last week he would boycott the trial. The proceedings were rife with irregularities, they said, and Compaore should benefit from immunity as a former head of state.

“Beyond the feeling of relief is the hope that is being reborn in Burkina Faso. It’s the hope that is being reborn in Africa,” said Bénéwendé Stanislas Sankara, the Sankara family lawyer. “To know that no one is untouchable. Everyone can be held to account; the law is the same for everyone.”

The trial took place amid a backdrop of military takeovers throughout the region, including a January coup in Burkina Faso that briefly interrupted the proceedings.

That the current military rulers have allowed the trial to proceed is a victory on its own, said Anta Guissé an international criminal lawyer who worked on the Sankara family’s legal team.

“The fact that the trial went through the end and that a judgment has been issued — it is a win,” she said. “After the coup in Ouagadougou, we were not sure that the trial could go through to the end. It’s also a win in terms of saying that justice is independent.”

Guissé said she does not expect the Ivorian government to extradite Compaore to Burkina Faso to serve his sentence.
…

When Sudan’s military ousted the country’s civilian government in October it quickly set its sights on the media.  

Authorities shuttered at least 36 radio stations in the first two weeks following the coup over their reporting on protests against the Sudanese junta.  

A period of instability followed during which Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was briefly reinstated before standing down in January after failing to reach a settlement between military and civilian leaders.  

But months of protest and unrest were marked by an uptick in media harassment and attacks.

Between October 2021 and March 2022, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor documented 55 violations against media. The Geneva-based rights group recorded arbitrary detention, harassment, raids and shutdowns of media organizations, and physical and psychological assaults.

“Restrictions were imposed on freedom of expression, there were repeated internet blackouts, and punitive measures were enforced against media outlets that covered the popular protests and human rights violations that followed the coup,” the report said. 

Attacks on the press are part of a broader assault on freedoms in the country, according to Cameron Hudson, a Sudan expert at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington.   

“The military is tightening its hold on power but doing it in a way as to undermine perceived enemies of the state. And those are democratic protesters, outspoken politicians, and members of the free press,” he told VOA.   

Around 90 people have been killed and hundreds injured since October 2021, according to local and international rights groups.

Sudan’s embassy in Washington didn’t respond to VOA’s request for comment.

Security vulnerability

Observers say Sudan has experienced major security uncertainty since the overthrow of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. This uncertainty, they say, has been particularly challenging for journalists.

“Even though the media played a major role in toppling the former regime of al-Bashir, unfortunately there is still crackdown on journalists and media outlets,” said Amany El Sayed, who anchors a weekly show on the national Sudan TV.  

“In Sudan today, you can criticize the government, including ministers and other high-ranking officials, just like what I’m doing now by speaking with you. But it seems the military particularly targets those who cover anti-coup protests,” El Sayed told VOA from Khartoum.

Article 57 of Sudan’s constitutional document, adopted in October 2019, stipulates that the state “guarantees freedom of the press.”  

But in a fluid political and security environment, “the margin of freedom that journalists have can easily be disrupted by those who don’t tolerate critical voices,” El Sayed said.  

“Journalists could be beaten and arrested, and even their families could be threatened if a certain authority didn’t like their reporting,” she added.

Crackdown before the coup

Violence directed at journalists is not new in Sudan.   

The transitional authority that came to power after al-Bashir threatened, harassed, and detained some journalists under the pretext of “eliminating remnants of the former regime,” El Sayed said.   

In some cases, journalists are targeted for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Ali El Dali, a 39-year-old Sudanese journalist, recalled how a meet-up with friends at a café in the capital Khartoum last August escalated into a violent confrontation. 

The friends witnessed a crash between a military vehicle and civilian car, but when military personnel tried to blame the other driver, Dali stepped in.   

“Two cars collided right before our eyes,” Dali told VOA in a phone interview. “Because I witnessed what happened, I had to interfere and tell them it wasn’t right to put the blame on someone who wasn’t at fault.”

Traffic police arrived and Dali says they too determined that the military vehicle was responsible for the accident.  

“In order to retaliate against me, the military guys asked me to remove my car, which was parked in front of a nearby building.” Dali said. “The building apparently was theirs, but it didn’t have any sign, yet they still told me I wasn’t allowed to park there.”

When Dali refused, he says the personnel asked him to go with them for questioning, but he refused.  

The argument heated up when they learned Dali was a journalist, he said.

“All five men attacked me, threw me to the ground and started beating me. I passed out and only opened my eyes at the hospital.”

Dali spent 10 days at the hospital during which a delegation from the military intelligence agency visited and offered him a formal apology.    

The incident was widely reported in Sudanese and Arab media.  

Dali, who now works with a press office that provides services to international news organizations, filed a lawsuit over the attack. An arrest warrant was also issued.  

But Dail says, “[The] coup happened, and everything has been stalled since then.”     

Sanctions  

The United States on March 21 imposed sanctions on Sudan’s Central Reserve Police, a militarized police unit, for human rights abuses against protesters.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. was “taking this step to hold to account those perpetrating abuses and to deter future violence.

“We call for an immediate end to unjust detentions of civil society activists, politicians, journalists, cultural figures, and humanitarian workers; closure of media outlets; continued violence against peaceful protesters including sexual violence and attacks on medical facilities; and communications blackouts,” he said in a statement.

Experts say such measures are not enough.  

“Since the announcement of the sanctions, there has been no discernible change in the behavior of the Reserve Police or the military junta in general,” analyst Hudson said.  

If anything, he said, “The group has become more brutal and brazen, and less afraid of the consequences of their actions as a result of these sanctions.”   

Hudson referred to photos shared last week by Sudanese and regional media in which members of the Central Reserve Police were seen using machetes and knives to attack protesters in Khartoum.  

“That’s why I have said from the very beginning that sanctions need to target individuals in the leadership structure of the military junta. Those are people who deploy troops to carry out these crimes,” Hudson said.  
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Human rights groups are condemning a Nigerian court’s sentencing of an atheist activist to 24 years in prison on charges of blasphemy.

Mubarak Bala, 37, pleaded guilty to 18 charges, including criticizing Islam and its prophets on social media.

Rights group Humanists International said Bala’s decision to plead guilty to the charges during a court hearing Tuesday was surprising, given that his legal team had advised him not to do so. Soon afterward, the Kano state high court issued its verdict.

In a statement late Tuesday, Amnesty International said, “No one should go to jail for peacefully exercising his rights to freedom of expression, thought and belief.”

Seun Bakare, Amnesty International’s spokesperson, said the ruling “came to us as a shock. We at Amnesty International remain deeply concerned; we do not believe that anyone should be sentenced basically for expressing themselves, and of course we’ve campaigned vigorously on this case before now.”

The ruling followed Bala’s arrest at his home in April 2020 for making posts on Facebook that the court said criticized Islam and the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

Humanists International called for a reversal of the ruling and said it was a day of shame for Nigerian authorities. The government has not commented on the court action.

Possible reasons for plea

Activists suggested that Bala’s sudden decision to plead guilty was perhaps made under duress or done in hopes of getting a more lenient sentence.

“It is difficult to know what may have prompted Mubarak Bala to plead guilty even against the advice of his lawyer,” Bakare said, but it’s “very clear” that Nigeria’s correctional system has an impact on those being held. A defendant’s mental health history “certainly should be one of the factors that the court should consider in sentencing or handing down punishment.”

This is not the first time citizens have been sentenced for blasphemy under the strict religious laws enforced in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north.

In August 2020, a 22-year-old musician was sentenced to die for blasphemy, but the death penalty was later lifted. He still faces trial on blasphemy charges.

Ariyo-Dare Atoye of the Nigeria Liberty Center says sharia, or Islamic law, is taken very seriously in the north.

“The core northern part of Nigeria is still largely a closed society when it comes to religious freedom,” Atoye said. “Extremism still rules.”

Bala heads Humanist International’s Nigeria chapter. Some observers said he could have faced the death penalty if his trial had taken place in a sharia court.
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Thousands of Sudanese marched in the capital of Khartoum and other cities on Wednesday in new protests against an October military coup that plunged the African country into political turmoil and aggravated its economic woes. 

It was the latest in efforts to pressure the ruling generals, whose takeover has triggered near-daily street protests demanding civilian rule. Called by pro-democracy groups, the demonstrators marched in Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman amid tight security around the presidential palace, which has seen violent clashes in previous protests. 

There were also rallies elsewhere, including in Qadarif and Port Sudan in the east and war-ravaged Darfur region in the west. Footage on social media, which corresponded with The Associated Press reporting, shows young people setting tires on fire and blocking roads. 

The army’s takeover upended Sudan’s transition to democracy after three decades of repression and international isolation under autocratic President Omar al-Bashir. It also sent the country’s fragile economy into free fall, with living conditions rapidly deteriorating. A popular uprising forced the military to remove al-Bashir and his Islamist government in April 2019. 

Since the coup, a crackdown on protesters has killed more than 90 people, mostly young men, and injured thousands, according to a Sudanese medical group. 

Western governments and world financial institutions suspended their assistance to Sudan in order to pressure the generals to return to civilian-led government. 

The U.N. envoy for Sudan warned last month that the country was heading for “an economic and security collapse” unless it addresses the political paralysis following the coup. 

Wednesday’s marches were called for by the Sudanese Professionals’ Association and the so-called Resistance Committees, which were the backbone of the uprising against al-Bashir and have also spearheaded the ongoing anti-coup protests. They demand an immediate handover to a fully civilian government, the removal of the generals behind the coup and holding them accountable in “swift and fair trials.” 

“Those generals should be prosecuted before revolutionary courts, and the military should return back to its barracks,” said Taha Awad, a protest leader with the Resistance Committees in Khartoum. 

The generals insist that they will hand over power only to an elected government; elections are scheduled for next year. 

A rebel alliance, the Sudan Revolutionary Front, allied with the military, offered a roadmap forward in a meeting Tuesday with Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of Sudan’s ruling sovereign council and the coup leader. The roadmap calls for the generals to release detained protest leaders, end violence against protesters and lift the state of emergency as trust-building measures before engaging in a dialogue about a technocrat Cabinet. 

Ossama Said, a spokesman for the rebel alliance, said that Burhan welcomed the initiative but did not elaborate. 

The U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price on Tuesday urged Sudan’s military rulers to allow peaceful protests to “continue without fear of violence.” 

President Joe Biden’s administration last month imposed sanctions on Sudan’s Central Reserve Police, which it described as a militarized unit of the country’s police forces, for using violence against pro-democracy protests. 

The latest protests come on the third anniversary of the beginning of a sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum that accelerated the removal of al-Bashir. 

They also come on the 37th anniversary of the overthrow of President Jaafar al-Nimeiri in a bloodless coup in 1985 after a popular uprising. At the time, the military quickly handed power to an elected government. 

However, the dysfunctional administration lasted only a few years until al-Bashir — a career army officer — forged an alliance with Islamist hard-liners and toppled it in a 1989 coup. 

 
…

Human Rights Watch and Mali’s National Commission on Human Rights have called for an independent investigation into an alleged massacre of hundreds of civilians by government troops and suspected Russian mercenaries. After reports surfaced of the killings last month in the central village of Moura, Mali’s military government said their forces there had killed 203 “terrorists.” But witness accounts contradict the official version of those killed and offer some of the clearest evidence that Mali’s military is working with Russian mercenaries, despite the military’s denial.

On a rooftop in Bamako Tuesday evening, a group of around 15 men sat together and spoke Fulani in hushed tones.

They arrived that afternoon from the village of Moura in central Mali, where reports of killings by the Malian army and Russian mercenaries have been circulating since last week. They said they are here in Bamako to testify for a human rights organization.

In the sparsely furnished living room in the house below, one man described how the killings began. He said helicopters arrived on the morning of Sunday, March 27, and began shooting indiscriminately.

He said white soldiers who spoke neither French nor English descended from the helicopters on the edge of town with a smaller number of Malian army soldiers, and began sorting men into groups.

For five days, town residents and those who were visiting for market day were seated on the ground, under guard by the Malian and foreign soldiers, while witnesses said summary executions were carried out.

Most residents of Moura and the surrounding villages are ethnic Fulani, a traditionally pastoralist ethnic group spread across West Africa, who have long accused the Malian army of unfairly targeting them during anti-terrorism operations.

He said, “They told us ‘Wuli’ in Bambara. Wuli, we know that means get up. They chose another one, ‘Hey! Wuli! Get up!’ They made maybe 12, 15 people stand up, they made them get in a line; they brought them barely 100 meters away. They made them kneel, they had dug a big ditch, they made them put their hands on their heads, then they killed them in front of everyone. Even in front of our children,” he said.

Many governments have accused Mali’s military government of working with mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a private Russian military company with alleged links to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Malian government denies the accusations, saying it only works with official “Russian trainers.”

Both the Russian embassy in Bamako and President Putin have denied an official Russian military presence in Mali, although Putin also said during a recent press conference that Mali has the right to work with private Russian military contractors.

Human Rights Watch published a report on the events in Moura on Tuesday, including reports of more than 200 men killed.

From Washington, Corinne Dufka, West Africa director at the organization, said Human Rights Watch spoke with 19 witnesses who were present in Moura during the five-day operation.

“If people are killed in this manner, summarily executed, be they suspects or civilians, it’s against Malian law, international law, and on a practical level it serves to fill the ranks of the violent non-state actors,” said Dufka.

Within Mali, the National Commission on Human Rights, or CNDH, a governmental agency, has also called for an investigation of events in Moura.

Aguibou Bouare, the president of the commission, said it’s important that an independent and credible investigation be conducted, as many times probes into state actions take place without results.

He said that although the CNDH does not yet have “formal proof” of a Wagner presence in Mali, they are opposed to such military collaborations.

Bouare said, “We know that these are organizations that do not respect human rights, This is why we really fear interventions by these types of private military enterprises.”

The Malian army released a statement last week saying it killed “203 terrorists” in an air and land operation in Moura.

Another statement released Tuesday said the army has been the object of “unfounded allegations” of abuses against the civilian population.

A Malian army spokesman reached by phone declined to comment.

Last month, Radio France Internationale and France 24 were taken off the air in Mali after RFI reported on alleged human rights abuses by the army near Diabaly, Mali, also against the Fulani population.
…

An international agreement under negotiation at the United Nations this week seeks to reduce harm to civilians by curbing the use of heavy explosive weapons in cities, towns and villages.

The Ukrainian city of Mariupol is one of the latest examples of a populated area that has been turned to rubble by the relentless use of heavy explosive weapons. Ongoing bombing and shelling of cities and towns in Yemen, Ethiopia, and Syria, among others, are devastating whole communities and causing irreparable harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure.

Data collected over the past decade show 123 countries have experienced a similar fate. The International Network on Explosive Weapons, a coalition of non-governmental activists, says tens of thousands of civilians are killed and wounded every year using explosive weapons in populated areas. It says civilians comprise 90 percent of the victims.

The coordinator of the network, Laura Boillot, says restrictions must be placed on the use of explosive weapons such as aircraft bombs, multi-barrel rocket systems, rocket launchers, and mortars.

Boillot says direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects are prohibited under the rules of armed conflict and international humanitarian law. She notes, however, the use of explosive weapons is not illegal per se.

“But what we are seeing, and finding is that too often warring parties are killing and injuring civilians with outdated, inaccurate and heavy explosive weapons systems in towns and cities and this is because of their wide area affects, which makes them particularly risky when used in urban environments,” she said.

The crisis and conflict researcher for Human Rights Watch, Richard Weir, is in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Weir has seen for himself the havoc caused by explosive weapons on populated areas. He says they have a long-lasting, harmful impact on communities.

“They litter their impact areas with the remnants of their weapons and leave a deadly legacy in the form of unexploded ordnance… The effects of these weapons are devastating. They are present and they are continuing. And that is why these negotiations are important. That is why states need to commit now to avoiding their use in populated areas,” he said.

Activists are calling on negotiators to set new standards to reduce harm to civilians. They say the new international agreement also should contain commitments to assist the victims and families of those killed and injured, and to address the long-lasting humanitarian impact of explosive weapons.
…

ADDIS ABABA — Two leading human rights groups on Wednesday accused armed forces from Ethiopia’s Amhara region of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing against ethnic Tigrayans during a war that has killed thousands of civilians and displaced more than a million. 

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in a joint report that abuses by Amhara officials and regional special forces and militias during fighting in western Tigray amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity. They also accused Ethiopia’s military of complicity in those acts. 

“Since November 2020, Amhara officials and security forces have engaged in a relentless campaign of ethnic cleansing to force Tigrayans in western Tigray from their homes,” said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. 

Amhara government spokesman Gizachew Muluneh told Reuters the allegations of abuses and ethnic cleansing in western Tigray were “lies” and “fabricated” news. 

Ethiopia’s government and military spokespeople, the former commander of Amhara’s special forces and the administrator for western Tigray did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Amnesty and HRW said Tigrayan forces also committed abuses during the 17-month war, but that this was not the focus of the report. 

The report, which is based on 427 interviews with survivors, family members and witnesses, is the most comprehensive assessment to date of abuses during the war in western Tigray. 

Western Tigray has seen some of the worst violence in the war, which has pitted Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and its allies from the Amhara region against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The TPLF dominated Ethiopia’s government before Abiy’s rise to power in 2018. 

Both Amhara and Tigray claim the area, which is controlled by Amhara forces and the Ethiopian military. 

Besides repeated massacres, the report cited meetings in which Amhara officials discussed plans to remove Tigrayans and restrictions they imposed on the Tigrayan language as evidence of ethnic cleansing. 

Federal authorities failed to investigate allegations of ethnic cleansing, while the national army committed “murder, arbitrary arrest and detention, and torture against the Tigrayan population,” the report said. 

The Amhara government spokesman Gizachew said regional forces had always respected the rule of law. 

Reuters could not independently verify details in the report. The news agency has previously reported about massacres committed by Amhara and Tigrayan forces in western Tigray. 

In March of last year, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused forces from Amhara of committing “acts of ethnic cleansing.” 
…

In parts of northern Ivory Coast, local militiamen called Dozos drive along the countryside’s dusty roads, where they help the state keep the locals safe. Unlike the nation’s prosperous south, development, security and rule of law have struggled to reach the north.   

Armed groups linked to Islamic State and al-Qaida already wreak havoc less than 100 kilometers away, over the country’s northern border in Burkina Faso and Mali. As they begin to attack and try to recruit in Ivory Coast, Ivorian analysts say many of the conditions that caused conflict in Burkina Faso and Mali are present here: lack of state security, development, and intercommunal tensions.  

One Dozo, who gave his name only as Sekongo, said violence and crime led the militias to organize.   

He said the Dozos work with the rangers, the police, the gendarmerie. Often, the Dozos are called upon to join them on missions, he added. 

In Burkina Faso and Mali, militia groups also emerged in areas now overrun by terror groups, where state control was weak.    

Bakary Ouattara, who runs the chapter of the Dozos in Korhogo, a major city in the Ivorian north, believes the government does not have enough resources to install security forces in the smaller villages, especially those that are 25, 50, and 60 kilometers away from the gendarmerie or the police station.

“Imagine if the population is attacked, by the time the police arrive and intervene, the attackers will already have left,” he said. 

He added that security in the region remains good, however.   

Traditional leaders in the north also supplement justice and the rule of law by arbitrating disputes.   

Issa Coulibaly of Korhogo said when citizens have a problem that they are unable to deal with, they turn to him. 

The traditional leader also said development in the north has improved in recent years, although the majority of those living outside of big towns or cities interviewed by VOA disagreed.   

Another major cause of the conflict in neighboring countries is tension between herder and farmer communities, which analyst Lassina Diara of the Timbuktu Institute said is also a problem in Ivory Coast.  

Diara said the lack of cohesion between herder communities and other communities has not yet seen a very strong response on the part of the state.

Arthur Ranga, a military historian at Félix Houphouët Boigny University in Abidjan, advises the government on the security situation in the north. He said tensions in the north have not reached a critical state.  

There is concern, he said, but there is no exodus or displacement yet, because so far the government has been able to give a good military response and is also trying to build a social response. 

The Ivorian Ministry of Security did not respond to an interview request by VOA.   
…

Malian forces and suspected Russian fighters killed about 300 civilians in late March in the center of the conflict-torn Sahel nation, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.  

In a report, the rights group suggested the alleged massacre perpetrated over four days, in the town of Moura in volatile central Mali, was a war crime. 

Malian soldiers and white foreign fighters arrived in the town by helicopter on March 27 and exchanged fire with about 30 jihadis, several witnesses told Human Rights Watch (HRW). Some jihadis then attempted to blend in with the local population. 

Over the ensuing days, Malian and foreign fighters allegedly rounded people up and executed them in small groups.  

HRW estimated about 300 people were killed in total, with the vast majority of the victims being ethnic Fulanis.  

“The incident is the worst single atrocity reported in Mali’s decade-long armed conflict,” the report said.  

Mali’s army said on Friday that it killed 203 militants in Moura. However, that announcement followed widely shared social media reports of a civilian massacre in the area.  

Faced with the multiplication of testimonies reported by the press, the army issued a new statement late Tuesday, dismissing the “unfounded allegations” which it said were aimed at “tarnishing the image” of the armed forces.  

Without referring specifically to HRW, it reiterated that respect for rights was “a priority in the conduct (of) operations” and called for “restraint against defamatory speculation.” 

International concern

The United States, European Union, United Nations and Mali’s former colonial power, France, have all raised concerns about the possible killing of civilians in Moura. 

AFP was unable to independently confirm the Malian armed forces’ account or the social media reports.  

HRW’s recent report attests to fears of a mass civilian killing in Moura, however. 

The study was based on interviews with 27 people, including witnesses from the Moura area, foreign diplomats and security analysts, the rights group said.  

“The Malian government is responsible for this atrocity, the worst in Mali in a decade, whether carried about by Malian forces or associated foreign soldiers,” said HRW Sahel Director Corinne Dufka, who urged an investigation.  

Several witnesses and other sources identified the foreign soldiers as Russians to HRW.  

Russia has supplied what are officially described as military instructors to Mali, an impoverished country that has been battling a brutal jihadist conflict since 2012.  

However, the United States, France and others say the instructors are operatives from the Russian private-security firm Wagner. 

Mali’s ruling military, which seized power in a coup in August 2020, denies the allegation. It also routinely defends the rights record of the armed forces.  

The Malian army, in its statement published Tuesday evening, said troops had attacked a group of “terrorists” and engaged them in heavy fighting.  

Once control of Moura was secured, the soldiers identified more “terrorists” hidden among the population, it said.  

The statement mentioned military casualties but said nothing of any foreign soldiers. 

 
…

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says one quarter of Africa’s 346 million people faces a “food security crisis.”

The problem, the ICRC says, spans the entire continent with “millions of families skipping meals every day” and “an alarming hunger situation that risks intensifying in the coming months.”

The causes, according to the ICRC, are conflict, drought, rising food prices, increases in the cost of fuel and lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a disaster going largely unnoticed. Millions of families are going hungry and children are dying because of malnutrition,” says Dominik Stillhart, the head of the ICRC’s global operations.

“We are scaling up our operations in countries like Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria and Burkina Faso and many others to try and help as many people as we can, but the number of people going without food and water is staggering.”

Last month, the ICRC said Somalia was the most severely affected of the Horn of Africa countries facing the ongoing drought. The ICRC noted that crops had failed, water levels were depleted, and livestock lost. 
…

An alleged former militia leader in Sudan’s Darfur region has pleaded not guilty to 31 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The trial of the militia leader known as Ali Kushayb is the first at the International Criminal Court to deal with the Darfur conflict.

Wearing a blue suit, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman sat with folded arms as he listened to a long list of atrocities he allegedly participated in nearly two decades ago.

Speaking here through a translator, he denied the charges against him.

“I reject all these charges. I am innocent of all these charges. I am not accused of any of these charges.”

International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan offered a very different take. He outlined brutalities supposedly committed by Abd-Al-Rahman and other alleged members of Sudan’s feared Janjaweed militia in 2003 and 2004.

“Rapes against women and girls, children being targeted and attacked and abducted, men and boys amongst others, being executed and killed, homes being wantonly destroyed, people fleeing with nothing. For many, their lives never to be the same again.”

This is the first trial at the Hague-based criminal court dealing with the Darfur conflict, which the United Nations says killed roughly 300,000 people and displaced some 2.5 million others. It’s also the first trial resulting from a U.N. Security Council referral to the ICC.

“This is a really important moment,” expressed Elise Keppler, the associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch.

“It’s not the end, in fact it’s really just a beginning. But we have not seen any meaning accountability for crimes in Darfur and victims have been clamoring to see justice, that justice is such an important step,” she added.

Also known as Ali Kushayb, Abd-Al-Rahman was considered a senior Janjaweed member. The militia group was fighting non-Arab rebels, who had launched a revolt, complaining of discrimination.

Rights groups claim the Janjaweed’s response was a deliberate act of ethnic cleansing. Abd-Al-Rahman allegedly played a key role in Janjaweed attacks against at least four villages.

Prosecutor Khan aired clips of interviews of alleged witnesses and victims of the attacks.

“What has hit me every time I’ve interacted with Darfouris, and actually survivors throughout the world, is their dignity and remarkable resilience,” Khan pointed out.

The trial comes amid an uptick of violence in Darfur, and unrest across Sudan following a military coup last October.

Sudan’s former president, Omar al-Bashir, and three others are also being sought by the ICC for alleged war crimes in Darfur. Khartoum has yet to hand them over.
…

The Rwandan man portrayed as a hero in the movie “Hotel Rwanda” should not have his 25-year sentence extended to life in prison, a Rwandan court ruled Monday.

Paul Rusesabagina was convicted in September on eight terrorism charges for his role in a group opposing President Paul Kagame.

Rusesabagina said that he was a leader in the Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change but had no role in the group’s armed wing, the National Liberation Front, which has carried out attacks.

He refused to take part in the September trial, calling it a sham, and was not present at Monday’s ruling.

Prosecutors called the 25-year sentence too lenient.

His family has lobbied for his release, saying he is ill.

Rusesabagina saved around 1,200 people by sheltering them in a hotel during the country’s 1994 genocide, which saw over 800,000 killed.

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

South Africa’s tourism industry is seeing a return to normality after the Omicron COVID variant brought international travel to a standstill last year. President Cyril Ramaphosa has removed COVID restrictions and tour operators hope that will bring a surge of holiday-goers and combat record unemployment.  Linda Givetash reports from Johannesburg
…

TRIPOLI — With the arrival of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in war-scarred Libya, a group of volunteers work around the clock to restore old or damaged copies of the Quran. 

Khaled al-Drebi, one of Libya’s best-known restorers of Islam’s holy book, is among the artisans who arrive at a Tripoli workshop daily to meet the needs of the influx of customers during Ramadan. 

For Muslims, Ramadan is a month of spirituality, where a daily dawn-to-dusk fast is accompanied with prayer and acts of charity — often translating into a surge in sales of Qurans. 

“The purchase of new Qurans traditionally increases before the month of Ramadan, but this has recently changed in Libya,” Drebi told AFP. 

For many, tradition has been interrupted by an increase in the cost of Qurans, especially “since the state stopped printing” them in Libya, he added. 

The North African nation has endured more than a decade of conflict, leaving many of its institutions in disarray and dealing a major blow to the oil-rich country’s economy. 

“The cost of buying (Qurans) has increased, and so the turnout for restoring old Qurans has gained unprecedented popularity,” Drebi said. 

Compared to the cost of a new Quran — at more than $20 depending on the binding — Drebi’s workshop charges just a few dollars to restore one. 

‘Indescribable joy’  

But cost is not the only factor — for many, the older copies also have a sentimental value. 

“There is a spiritual connection for some customers,” Drebi said, adding that many choose to preserve Qurans passed on from relatives. “Some say this Quran has the smell of my grandfather or parents.” 

At the back of the room, Abdel Razzaq al-Aroussi works on sorting through thousands of Qurans based on their level of deterioration. 

“The restoration of Qurans with limited damage takes no more than an hour, but for those that are very damaged, they could require two or more hours,” Aroussi said.   

They “must be undone, restored and then bound,” he said — a meticulous process that requires a great deal of “time and concentration.”

Mabrouk al-Amin, a supervisor at the workshop, said the restoration process “requires a good number of artisans.”

“Working with the book of God is very enjoyable and we don’t get bored… there is an indescribable joy in this work,” he said. 

Restorers say they have repaired a staggering half a million Qurans since the workshop opened in 2008, and more than 1,500 trainees have graduated from 150 restoration workshops. 

Women restorers  

In recent years, more and more women have been joining the ranks of the volunteer restorers. 

“A large number of women were trained on restoring the holy Quran and today they have their own workshops,” Drebi said. 

One female restorer, Khadija Mahmoud, has even held training sessions for blind women. 

“We would not have been able to think of doing this… were it not for this capable woman,” Drebi added. 

For Mahmoud, who trains women at a workshop in Zawiya, 45 kilometers west of Tripoli, restoring Qurans in a women’s workshop allows them to work comfortably and at a faster pace. 

She added that the restoration work has given many women a meaningful way to fill their “spare time.”

“A large segment of trainees and restorers are retirees,” she said. “For them, there is nothing better than spending their spare time in the service of the Quran.” 
…

The United States is following “extremely disturbing accounts” of large numbers of people killed in a village in central Mali, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Sunday.

Mali’s military said on Saturday that it had killed more than 200 Islamist militants in the latest clash in a month of escalating violence.  

Tensions with the West have increased since a move by Mali’s ruling military junta to delay democratic elections in February, as well as over its collaboration with private military contractors belonging to Russia’s Wagner Group.  

In a statement, Price said there were conflicting reports about who was responsible for the killings that took place in late March in the village of Moura, about 250 miles (400 km) northeast of the capital, Bamako.

“We are concerned that many reports suggest that the perpetrators were unaccountable forces from the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group. Other reports claim the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) had targeted elements of known violent extremist groups,” he said.

“These conflicting reports illustrate the urgent need for the Malian transition authorities to give impartial investigators free, unfettered, and safe access to the area where these tragic events unfolded.”

Officials at Russia’s embassy in Washington declined immediate comment on reports of the Wagner Group’s involvement.

The European Union has imposed sanctions on the Wagner Group, accusing it of clandestine operations on the Kremlin’s behalf. President Vladimir Putin has said the group does not represent the Russian state, but that private military contractors have the right to work anywhere in the world as long as they do not break Russian law.

The United Nations has repeatedly accused Malian soldiers of summarily executing civilians and suspected militants over the course of their decade-long fight against groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State.

The military has in some cases acknowledged that its forces were implicated in executions and other abuses, but few soldiers have faced criminal charges.

Meanwhile a surge in attacks since early March by an Islamic State affiliate has killed hundreds of civilians, according to official and military sources.
…

Cameroon observed World Autism Awareness Day Saturday with rights groups advocating for autistic children to be given an education. Supporters say autistic children often can’t go to school because autism is falsely believed to be a result of witchcraft.

The Timely Performance Care Center, a school for disabled children in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, organized a campaign for parents and communities to stop the stigma that autistic kids often are subject to.

The center has an enrollment of 70 autistic children.

The school’s manager, Betty Nancy Fonyuy, said autistic children are frequently kept at home because of stigma. She said many communities and parents abuse the rights of autistic children by refusing to educate them or give them the freedom to socialize with other children.

“We want parents to accept the children that God has given them and to be able to educate the society that these children are not a form of divine punishment for witchcraft or a class of any evil thing. These children have a lot to offer to society if given a chance. Give them the chance. The world needs to know what autism is. Accept individuals born and living with autism,” she said.

Fonyuy said in January 2021, the center organized a door-to-door campaign to urge parents to send their autistic children to school. She said the response was encouraging, but that many parents still hide their autistic children at home.

To mark World Autism Awareness Day on Saturday, scores of community leaders, parents of autistic children and heads of educational establishments in Cameroon’s economic capital, Douala, emphasized at an event that autistic children, like any other children, need love, care and education.

Among the speakers was Carine Bevina, a psychologist at the University of Douala.

Bevina said parents should enroll their children in school because the parents would find it difficult to train their autistic children on their own. Bevina spoke by a messaging app from Douala.

She said autism level one means that a child needs regular attention and help to surmount difficulties initiating social interactions and maintaining reciprocity in social interactions. She said autism level two means that a child has repetitive behaviors and requires substantial support, and autism level three means the child’s communication skills are regressing.

Ndefri Paul, 45, is the father of an 11-year-old autistic child.

Paul said he came out on World Autism Awareness Day to tell anyone who doubted it that autistic children can compete with other children if well educated. He says in 2021, his autistic son, like many children without autism, wrote and passed the entrance examination to get into secondary school.

The educational talk at the Douala city council courtyard on Saturday was part of activities marking World Autism Awareness Day.

Similar activities were held in towns, including Bafoussam, a western commercial city, Garoua and Maroua on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria, and Yaounde.

Officials in Cameroon say there are 750,000 autistic children in the central African state. Sixty-five percent of them are denied education.

Cameroon’s Social Affairs minister, Pauline Irene Nguene, said communities should stop stigmatizing autistic children with the erroneous belief that autism is divine punishment for parents of autistic children. She said communities should denounce parents who hide autistic children at home and schools that refuse to teach children with the disorder.

The U.N. says that autism is genetic and families with one child with autism have an increased risk of having another child with autism. The U.N. says family members of a person with autism also tend to have higher rates of autistic traits.

World Autism Awareness Day celebrates the resilience of people affected by the disorder and supports causes that promote awareness of autism. Children in schools are educated about autism and encouraged to accept it. The U.N. launched World Autism Awareness Day for the first time in 2007.
…

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan — when the faithful fast from dawn to dusk — began at sunrise Saturday in much of the Middle East, where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent energy and food prices soaring.

The conflict cast a pall over Ramadan, when large gatherings over meals and family celebrations are a tradition. Many in the Southeast Asian nation of Indonesia planned to start observing Sunday, and some Shiites in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq were also marking the start of Ramadan a day later.

Muslims follow a lunar calendar, and a moon-sighting methodology can lead to different countries declaring the start of Ramadan a day or two apart.

Muslim-majority nations including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates had declared the month would begin Saturday morning.

A Saudi statement Friday was broadcast on the kingdom’s state-run Saudi TV and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates, congratulated Muslims on Ramadan’s arrival.

Jordan, a predominantly Sunni country, also said the first day of Ramadan would be on Sunday, in a break from following Saudi Arabia. The kingdom said the Islamic religious authority was unable to spot the crescent moon indicating the beginning of the month.

Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic group, Muhammadiyah, which counts more than 60 million members, said that according to its astronomical calculations Ramadan begins Saturday. But the country’s religious affairs minister had announced Friday that Ramadan would start on Sunday, after Islamic astronomers in the country failed to sight the new moon.

It wasn’t the first time the Muhammadiyah has offered a differing opinion on the matter, but most Indonesians — Muslims comprise nearly 90% of the country’s 270 million people — are expected to follow the government’s official date.

Many had hoped for a more cheerful Ramadan after the coronavirus pandemic blocked the world’s 2 billion Muslims from many rituals the past two years.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, millions of people in the Middle East are now wondering where their next meals will come from. The skyrocketing prices are affecting people whose lives were already upended by conflict, displacement and poverty from Lebanon, Iraq and Syria to Sudan and Yemen.

Ukraine and Russia account for a third of global wheat and barley exports, which Middle East countries rely on to feed millions of people who subsist on subsidized bread and bargain noodles. They are also top exporters of other grains and sunflower seed oil used for cooking.

Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, has received most of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine in recent years. Its currency has now also taken a dive, adding to other pressures driving up prices.

Shoppers in the capital, Cairo, turned out earlier this week to stock up on groceries and festive decorations, but many had to buy less than last year because of the prices.

Ramadan tradition calls for colorful lanterns and lights strung throughout Cairo’s narrow alleys and around mosques. Some people with the means to do so set up tables on the streets to dish up free post-fast Iftar meals for the poor. The practice is known in the Islamic world as Tables of the Compassionate.

“This could help in this situation,” said Rabei Hassan, the muezzin of a mosque in Giza as he bought vegetables and other food from a nearby market. “People are tired of the prices.”

Worshippers attended mosque for hours of evening prayers, or tarawih. On Friday evening, thousands of people packed the al-Azhar Mosque after attendance was banned for the past two years to stem the pandemic.

“They were difficult (times) … Ramadan without tarawih at the mosque is not Ramadan,” said Saeed Abdel-Rahman, a 64-year-old retired teacher as he entered al-Azhar for prayers.

Higher prices also exacerbated the woes of Lebanese already facing a major economic crisis. Over the past two years, the currency collapsed and the country’s middle class was plunged into poverty. The meltdown has also brought on severe shortages in electricity, fuel and medicine.

In the Gaza Strip, few people were shopping on Friday in markets usually packed at this time of year. Merchants said Russia’s war on Ukraine has sent prices skyrocketing, alongside the usual challenges, putting a damper on the festive atmosphere that Ramadan usually creates.

The living conditions of the 2.3 million Palestinians in the impoverished coastal territory are tough, compounded by a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since 2007.

Toward the end of Ramadan last year, a deadly 11-day war between Gaza’s Hamas rulers and Israel cast a cloud over festivities, including the Eid al-Fitr holiday that follows the holy month. It was the fourth bruising war with Israel in just over a decade.

In Iraq, the start of Ramadan highlighted widespread frustration over a meteoric rise in food prices, exacerbated in the past month by the war in Ukraine.

Suhaila Assam, a 62-year-old retired teacher and women’s rights activist, said she and her retired husband are struggling to survive on their combined pension of $1,000 a month, with prices of cooking oil, flour and other essentials having more than doubled.

“We, as Iraqis, use cooking oil and flour a lot. Almost in every meal. So how can a family of five members survive?” she asked.

Akeel Sabah, 38, is a flour distributor in the Jamila wholesale market, which supplies all of Baghdad’s Rasafa district on the eastern side of the Tigris River with food. He said flour and almost all other foodstuffs are imported, which means distributors have to pay for them in dollars. A ton of flour used to cost $390.

“Today I bought the ton for $625,” he said.

“The currency devaluation a year ago already led to an increase in prices, but with the ongoing (Ukraine) crisis, prices are skyrocketing. Distributors lost millions,” he said.

In Istanbul, Muslims held the first Ramadan prayers in 88 years in the Hagia Sophia, nearly two years after the iconic former cathedral was converted into a mosque.

Worshippers filled the 6th-century building and the square outside Friday night for tarawih prayers led by Ali Erbas, the government head of religious affairs. Although converted for Islamic use and renamed the Grand Hagia Sophia Mosque in July 2020, COVID-19 restrictions had limited worship at the site.

“After 88 years of separation, the Hagia Sophia Mosque has regained the tarawih prayer,” Erbas said, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. 
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