The United Nations estimates 7.7 million people, half of Somalia’s population, will require humanitarian assistance and protection in 2022.It is appealing for $1.5 billion to assist 5.5 million of the most vulnerable among them.

Decades of conflict, recurrent climatic shocks, disease outbreaks, and increasing poverty, including the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic are devastating the lives and livelihoods of people in Somalia.

They are facing acute hunger. Many are on the verge of famine because the rains have failed to fall for a third year in a row.U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Adam Abdelmoula says 80 percent of the country is affected by drought. 

Speaking on a video link from the capital Mogadishu, he tells VOA 169,000 people have abandoned their homes in search of water, food, and grazing land for their livestock. 

“When I visited the countryside, I saw many dead animals,” he said. “The people I met with, including one woman told me that she lost all her 200 goats, and two camels and her donkey and she and her three children are living under a tree…and the elderly people I met with told me they had not seen this level of drought since the 1970s and 80s.”

Abdelmoula says conditions in Somalia are dire. He expresses concern about a less than adequate response to the U.N. appeal given the fierce competition for funds. He says Somalia has been pushed to the back burner because of emerging crises elsewhere, especially Tigray in northern Ethiopia and Afghanistan. 

He adds the international community would be making a big mistake were it to abandon Somalia.

“When this happened back in the 90’s, some serious consequences ensued. This includes mass migration, starvation and famine, the emergence of al-Shabab and the political instability and widespread piracy,” he said.

Recent projections indicate drought could displace up to 1.4 million Somalis in the coming six months, adding to the nearly 3 million people already displaced by conflict and natural disasters. 

Humanitarian coordinator Abdelmoula says at least 1.2 million children under age five are likely to be acutely malnourished in 2022.He warns some 300,000 children projected to be severely malnourished are at risk of dying without imminent assistance.
…

The Democratic Republic of Congo army and its Ugandan allies said Sunday they had destroyed rebel “strongholds” in the country’s restive east this week, in a campaign launched last month against ADF rebels.

Troops from the two countries bombarded “new enemy camps identified in the Beni district of North Kivu province and in Ituri province” to the north, the DR Congo armed forces said in a statement posted on Twitter.

Since the joint operation was launched on November 30, soldiers had initially improved the region’s roads to make troop movements easier.

The army said it had attacked positions of the Allied Democratic Forces — accused of massacres in eastern DR Congo and bomb blasts in Uganda — in the Virunga national park.

Meanwhile in Ituri, the armed forces said they had “captured 35 ADF terrorists” from several villages in the Irumu district between December 13 and 15.

Uganda’s army had said Saturday that the allies would “step up the operations in different sectors now that the terrorists are no longer encamped, having been dislodged from their former strongholds.”

So far, the armies have not made public a toll of dead or wounded in the anti-ADF push.

They said on December 11 that they had arrested 35 rebels, destroyed four camps and freed 31 Congolese hostages.

On Sunday, they also asked local people to provide the troops with information on the ADF.

A Congolese army spokesman in the Beni region, Antony Mualushayi, said soldiers had arrested a civil society figure in the town of Mbau, not far from the fighting, for “passing intelligence to the terrorists.”

Several attacks that killed at least eight this week in villages in Ituri have been blamed on ADF fighters “fleeing the joint military operation,” one military official said.

The ADF was historically a Ugandan rebel coalition whose biggest group comprised Muslims opposed to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

But it established itself in eastern DRC in 1995, becoming the deadliest of scores of outlawed forces in the troubled region.

It has been blamed for the killings of thousands of civilians over the past decade in the DRC, as well as for bombings in Uganda.
…

The commander of Malawi’s army has criticized what he says is interference from government officials into the affairs of the military. General Vincent Nundwe says this could incite anarchy and should stop.

Nundwe expressed the concern Saturday during a televised parade of newly commissioned military officers at the Malawi Armed Forces College in Salima district.  

At the gathering, which President Lazarus Chakwera also attended as commander-In chief of the defense force, Nundwe said the military has long been receiving instructions from government authorities to promote some officers.   

“Letters have been coming from the office of the president and Cabinet, addressed to the army commander, instructing him to promote some officers. We can’t accept that. We issue promotions to military officers ourselves,” he said.

Nundwe said such tendencies violate military etiquette and can cause conflict.

“We don’t want conflicts in Malawi. If you have time, use that energy for something productive, not bringing conflict into the military, no. I have already given an example about Ethiopia, where military officers are fighting one another. I can’t accept that,” he said.

Nundwe also voiced concern about some military officers lobbying for higher positions through politicians.  

“If you are a military officer, there is a Command Element here which recommends you to the Defense Council if you are worth [a] promotion. You do not go and lobby from a politician as if you are working with politicians. So, to you politicians, if such officers approach you, please desist from engaging them,” Nundwe said.

In March of last year, Nundwe himself became a victim of political interference when then-President Peter Mutharika fired him as army commander for allegedly allowing the military to protect demonstrators protesting the results of the 2019 presidential elections.

Incumbent President Chakwera reinstated Nundwe in September 2020, after Chakwera defeated Mutharika during the rerun of presidential elections three months earlier, saying the aim was to restore justice to the operations of the Malawi Defense Force.    

But Nundwe said Saturday that the Malawi Defense Force is an institution governed by the law and is supposed to serve all people in the country without interference.

In his remarks, Chakwera said his administration will ensure that soldiers receive the necessary support to enable them to deliver on their mandate without any political influence.

“All I expect from you is to stay true to your mandate, stay true to our nation’s citizens, stay true to our nation’s Constitution, and stay true our nation’s flag. I know that doing so involves giving up so much more than we can ever repay,” he said.

Chakwera told military officers that they should know that they are the pride of Malawi.
…

Security forces blocked major roads and bridges in Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Sunday against planned protests over the Oct. 25 military coup that have continued even after the reinstatement of the prime minister.

Demonstrations were also planned in other cities across the country to mark the third anniversary of protests that touched off a popular uprising which led to the overthrow of long-ruling Islamist autocrat Omar al-Bashir.

On Saturday night, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok warned in a statement that Sudan’s revolution faced a major setback and that political intransigence from all sides threatened the country’s unity and stability.

Security forces sealed off major roads leading to the airport and army headquarters as well as most bridges connecting Khartoum to sister cities Bahri and Omdurman across the Nile river.

Protesters planned to march towards the presidential palace in downtown Khartoum, where security forces including joint army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces were heavily deployed.

It would be the ninth in a series of demonstrations against the coup that have continued even after the military reinstated Hamdok, who had been under house arrest, on Nov. 21 and released him and other high-profile political detainees.

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors says 45 people have been killed in crackdowns on protesters since the coup.

The military and civilian political parties had previously shared power since Bashir’s removal. But the deal reinstating Hamdok faces opposition from protesters who had seen him as a symbol of resistance to military rule and denounced it as a betrayal.

Civilian parties, and neighborhood resistance committees that have organized several mass protests, demand full civilian rule under the slogan “no negotiation, no partnership, no legitimacy.”

On Saturday night and early Sunday morning, people arrived in bus convoys from other states, including North Kordofan and Gezira, to join protests in Khartoum, witnesses said.

A rally on Friday by members of civilian parties, known as the Forces of Freedom and Change coalition, was broken up by tear gas from an unclear source as witnesses told Reuters there was no sign of security forces on the scene. 

 
…

Separatists fighting to create an English-speaking state in western Cameroon have described as grossly one-sided a rights group report says that separatists attack schools, train children as fighters and have deprived at least 700,000 children from having education since 2017. Human Rights Watch also says government troops organized abusive counter insurgencies that affected education. Thousands of children who have fled the English-speaking regions relocated.

Twenty-one-year-old Kingsley Wirba warms up the engine of his motorcycle taxi as he gets ready to work in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé. Wirba says his hope of having education was shattered when separatists called Amba fighters torched his school in Kumbo, an English-speaking northwestern town in 2017.

“Some of these Amba fighters will come and attack the school, threaten our teachers, beat you up,” said Wirba. “One day like that we went to school, the fighters came, attacked one part of the school and had it burned down. There was no way for us to continue school there. I did not leave alone. Hundreds of students left. Even the teachers ran away.”

Wirba said his father was killed in 2017 during a gun battle between separatists and government troops in Kumbo. He said he drives a motorcycle taxi each day to be able to take care of himself and his younger sister in Yaoundé.

Eighteen-year-old Stella Monyuy says she also escaped from Kumbo in 2017. Monyuy says her parents decided to send her to Yaoundé to get an education after she was abducted along with 200 other school children in Kumbo.  

“The Amba boys came in and ordered all of us to follow them. We trekked around 13 kilometers in the bush. We had no water to drink, nothing to ea,” said Monyuy. “Our parents contributed money and we were released, but we were really tortured in the bush.”

In the report Human Rights Watch says attacks on education have become a hallmark of the crisis in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions.  

The report says separatist groups have killed, beaten, abducted and terrorized hundreds of students and teachers in the Anglophone regions. HRW says separatists attack and torch school buildings, use schools as their bases and camps to store weapons and munitions and to torture and hold people hostage.

The right group’s central Africa researcher, Ilaria Allegrozzi, quotes the UN as saying that 700,000 Cameroonian children have been deprived of education since 2017. She spoke to VOA via a messaging app.

“Separatist groups are robbing an entire generation of children of their fundamental right to education,” said Allegrozzi. “Attacks on education have also led to forced displacements of teachers and students and also to early pregnancies after children drop out, and [to] child labor.”

But separatists have described the report as grossly exaggerated. Capo Daniel, deputy defense chief of the separatist group Ambazonia Defense Council says the military also carries out attacks on education.

“The report of the Human Rights Watch is completely one-sided. It fails to mention specific incidents where the Cameroon military has attacked schools within our territory,” said Daniel. “There are the incidents in CPC Bali where the Cameroon government troops rounded up the entire school and made children lie in mud. There are many instances where Cameroon government troops have burned down schools including the partial burning of Sacred Heart College,”

However, the Human Rights Watch report says that government troops have often been brutal in responding to the threats posed by separatist groups. It says the Cameroon military carries out abusive counterinsurgency operations leading to the killing of civilians and the burning and destruction of property.

Allegrozzi says both separatist fighters and government troops should stop attacking schools, which she says are supposed to be safe havens in times of violence. 

Cameroon’s military has denied that its troops attack schools and kill civilians.

Various separatist groups in Cameroon have always blamed each other and the military for attacking schools.

Human Rights Watch calls on the government of Cameroon to address the current climate of impunity and ensure that those responsible for attacks on education are held accountable. 
…

Marking International Migrants Day, the United Nations reports hostility and xenophobia are growing against migrants.  It warns the stigmatization and marginalization of migrants amid a raging pandemic is putting many lives at risk.  

U.N. agencies report one seventh of the global population, or one billion people, are on the move. This number includes a record 281 million international migrants, and 84 million people forcibly displaced by conflict, violence, and climate change.

Director-General of the International Organization for Migration, Antonio Vitorino, says many migrants embark on dangerous, life-threatening journeys in search of better economic opportunities, others are forced from their homes because of natural and man-made disasters.  

He says many of these vulnerable people fall into the hands of unscrupulous people smugglers operating along migration routes worldwide.  He says COVID-19 has worsened the difficulties migrants encounter.

“Beyond the images of closed borders, separated families and economic instability, the now two-year-old global pandemic has spawned a new wave of anti-migrant sentiment and the increasing instrumentalization of migrants as tools in state policy.  Both are unacceptable,” Vitorino said.

Instead of being a liability, he underlines the invaluable contributions migrants make across the world.  He says migrant workers—nurses, health care workers–have kept millions of people safe from COVID.  He says migrant remittances have provided a lifeline for families made destitute by the pandemic.

“The positive social and economic impact in the countries where they reside, and the 540 billion US dollars remitted last year to communities in lower and middle-income countries are measures of the industry, entrepreneurship and community from which we all benefit,” Vitorino said.  

And, yet he notes too many governments continue to exclude migrants from their pandemic social and economic recovery plans because of their legal status.  

U.N. and international organizations are appealing to governments to grant migrants access to lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines. To do otherwise, they say would pose a threat to the health of all people.
…

The head of the World Health Organization says the continuing surge of COVID-19 cases is a result of the unequal distribution of vaccines.

Speaking at the First International Conference on Public Health in Africa, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted that it has been just over a year since the first COVID-19 vaccines began to be administered.

He said, “A year ago, we all hoped that by now vaccines would be helping us all emerge from the long, dark tunnel of the pandemic. Instead, as we enter the third year of the pandemic, the death toll has more than tripled, and the world remains in its grip. COVID-19 has now killed more than 5 million people. And they’re just the reported deaths.”

Tedros told the virtual conference that the rapid development of not one, but several safe and effective vaccines, is a triumph of science. But he said, “the inequitable distribution of vaccines has been a failure for humanity.”

The WHO chief said that while more than 8.5 billion doses have been administered globally – the largest vaccination campaign in history, only 8% of Africa’s eligible population is fully vaccinated.

“We have often said that as long as vaccine inequity persists, the more opportunity the virus has to spread and mutate in ways no one can prevent or predict. And so, we have omicron,” the director-general said.

Tedros noted, however, that vaccine-sharing programs are “picking up speed.” He said, “In the past 10 weeks, COVAX has shipped more vaccines than in the first nine months of the year combined.”

 
…

Egyptian health authorities said they have identified the country’s first cases of the highly transmissible omicron variant of the coronavirus.

Three people were found to have the variant among 26 travelers who tested positive for coronavirus at Cairo International Airport, the Health Ministry said in a statement late Friday. It didn’t say where the three came from.

The local Masrawy news outlet reported the three were among travelers from South Africa.

The ministry said two of the people infected showed no symptoms, while the third suffered from mild symptoms. The three have been isolated in a Cairo hospital, it said.

Authorities on Friday reported more than 900 confirmed new cases of coronavirus and 43 deaths over the previous 24 hours.

Egypt has reported a total 373,500 cases, including 21,277 fatalities, since the pandemic began. 

 
…

Moroccan security forces with U.S. support have foiled a suspected bomb plot by the so-called Islamic State group and arrested an alleged supporter of the outlawed organization, counterterror police said Friday.

“This arrest is the culmination of close collaboration between (Moroccan security forces) and U.S. law-enforcement,” Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ) said in a statement without giving further details about the joint operation.

The arrested suspect was “an extremist belonging to the so-called Islamic State” and from the Sala Al-Jadida region north of Rabat, the statement added.

According to preliminary inquiries, the man had allegedly pledged allegiance to the group.

He had planned to join foreign jihadist training camps “before deciding to join a terror plot in Morocco using explosive devices,” the statement added.

The police subsequently seized electronic devices and materials used for the preparation of explosives.

“This security operation highlights the importance and effectiveness of bilateral cooperation between (Moroccan security services) and US intelligence and security agencies in the fight against extremist violence and the threat of international terrorism,” the BCIJ said.

Moroccan outlets reported a vast nationwide counterterror operation on Dec. 8, but official sources did not confirm the crackdown.

On Oct. 6, counterterrorism police announced the dismantling of a “terror cell” in Tangiers and the arrest of five suspects accused of plotting bomb attacks.

In September, a cell affiliated to the Islamic State group was dismantled in south Morocco, and seven people were arrested.

Since 2002, Moroccan police claim to have dismantled 2,000 “terror cells” and arrested some 3,500 people in cases linked to terror, according to BCIJ data published in February. 
…

With violence by armed groups spreading beyond Mozambique’s northernmost province of Cabo Delgado into neighboring Niassa province, President Filipe Nyusi on Thursday cautioned against panic.

That comment followed the president’s assurance, at the opening of a new road Monday in Cabo Delgado’s Balama district, that young soldiers in Niassa “are waiting for the terrorists.” Nyusi attributed what he called “expanding pockets” of violence to insurgents on the run from a military offensive by Mozambican forces, bolstered by troops from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community regional bloc.

Insurgents linked to the Islamic State have staged attacks since October 2017 in Cabo Delgado, a coastal province rich in natural gas reserves and host to an estimated $60 billion worth of international investment in gas projects. The violence has left at least 3,100 dead, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), which tracks political violence around much of the world.

Conflict there also has displaced nearly 856,000 people, nearly half of them children, according to UNICEF.

As recently as Wednesday, militants looted five villages in Cabo Delgado’s Macomia district, burning several huts and allegedly beheading a man working in a field near Nova Zambézia village, witnesses and other sources told VOA Portuguese. Authorities did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

Attacks in Niassa, the province directly to Cabo Delgado’s west, have been reported since at least mid-November, according to ACLED.

For instance, suspected Islamist militants struck November 28 at the village of Naulala-1 in Niassa’s northeast Mecula district.

The attackers were armed with four guns “and the rest had machetes and there were some ladies with them,” local resident Gabriel Naita told VOA Portuguese, adding that “they started shooting in the air and people fled. … They looted food and the health post and took medicines.”

Residents did not mention any civilian injuries or deaths. VOA sought more details from the Niassa provincial command for the Mozambican Republic Police, but a spokeswoman, Mirza Mecuande, would neither confirm nor deny it occurred.

‘The conflict is not over’

Mozambican authorities have been closemouthed “as the insurgency began to launch attacks in Niassa province” last month, according to Sam Ratner, an ACLED senior researcher focused on Mozambique.

“The Mozambican government effectively denied that this was happening,” maintaining that its interventions, aided by Rwanda and SADC, “have been successful and that we’re nearing the end” of conflict in Cabo Delgado, Ratner said. While the allied forces have made some security gains, he added, “This new development of attacks in Niassa province and expanded attacks in Cabo Delgado seems to suggest that that’s not actually true — that actually the conflict is not over, is perhaps not close to being over.”

But in recent days, both Nyusi and Mozambique’s top police official acknowledged the insurgency had breached Cabo Delgado’s borders — perhaps months earlier.

Aside from the president’s comments, at an event Sunday to launch a new crime prevention effort, General Police Commander Bernardino Rafael said that the Mozambican Defense and Security Forces had killed an insurgent leader while on a patrol in Niassa’s Mecula district.

“Our patrol walked into an ambush, and in the ensuing fight one of the terrorists was shot,” Rafael said. “ … We concluded that the terrorists had moved on to Niassa province.”

Rafael, who said he had received many queries about Niassa, did not specify when the incident occurred, nor did he comment further.

August 20 attack

But Cabo Ligado — a Mozambique conflict observatory run by ACLED, Zitamar News and Mediafax — noted in a report posted Wednesday that Rafael could have referred to the August 20 “ambush of a Mozambican police vehicle on the road in Mavago district. The attack, which was not confirmed to be the work of insurgents at the time, resulted in the death of one member of the police and injuries to others,” Cabo Ligado reported.

It also said the insurgent who died may have been Ali Cassimo, an Islamic leader from Mecula.

The insurgency is connected to the Islamic State, but “the nature of that connection is a little bit unclear,” said Ratner, of ACLED. He said insurgents identify as an Islamist group whose “core grievances are really about the lack of control that local people have over their lives.” The insurgents propose wresting local control from the central government in Maputo and instead having “an Islamist form of self-government in the north.”

The U.S. State Department’s newly released Country Reports on Terrorism 2020 said that in that year in Mozambique, “an estimated 1,500 deaths were due to ISIS-Mozambique attacks.”

The report also noted challenges with border security in northern Mozambique: “Terrorists are known to cross the porous border with Tanzania, which serves as a recruitment and transit point for terrorist and criminal organizations.”

Observers long have warned that the insurgency likely could not be contained to Cabo Delgado. In early January, Niassa’s chief police commander, Arnaldo Chefo, expressed concern that as “neighbors to that province, we have to be constantly vigilant so that terrorists do not penetrate our province.”

The SADC military support mission in Mozambique is scheduled to end in January. Researcher Borges Nhamirre said he believed the SADC forces would be renewed. But, if they withdraw, he told VOA Portuguese, “it will be a total failure for the entire region. I think that what the region should do is mobilize more funds to maintain its mission in Mozambique.”

In Ratner’s view, “the most pressing issue” in Cabo Delgado is a food shortage, leaving civilians increasingly vulnerable and desperate. The World Food Program says a combination of manmade conflict, climate change and COVID has heightened hunger risks, while funding shortfalls limit what the agency can provide to needy people everywhere, including those who have been displaced in northern Mozambique.

“There’s pressure for displaced people to return to the conflict zone to find food,” Ratner noted, which “both puts them at greater danger and also gives insurgents access to more resources that civilians bring with them.”

Reporting for the VOA Portuguese Service were Ramos Miguel from Maputo and André Baptista from Manica. Ana C. Guedes and Carol Guensburg contributed from Washington. 
…

Following last month’s release of a joint report by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and the United Nations citing widespread human rights abuses in the country, a U.N. human rights body voted Friday to establish a group of experts to further monitor human rights abuses in Ethiopia as a yearlong war between government forces and forces in the country’s Tigray region continues.

Ethiopia’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Zenebe Kebede Korcho, called the move “neocolonialist” and said it was a “deliberate destabilization effort.” The government “will not cooperate with any mechanism imposed on it,” he said.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said that there was “value added” in continuing to investigate alleged human rights violations, but that the formation of a new group was “repetitive, counterproductive to ongoing implementation processes, and further delays redress for victims and survivors.”

The group will have a one-year mandate.

“The conflict has continued with ongoing fighting beyond the borders of Tigray. Our office continues to receive credible reports of severe human rights violations and abuses by all parties,” Nada al-Nashif, the U.N. deputy high commissioner for human rights, told representatives at Friday’s session. “The humanitarian impact of the conflict is increasingly dramatic.”

‘Gravely concerned’

The U.S. State Department in a statement Friday said it was “gravely concerned” about reports “alleging mass detentions, killings and forced expulsions of ethnic Tigrayans in western Tigray by Amhara security forces.”

It called on Amhara leaders to “renounce violence against civilians” and on Eritrea “to remove its forces from Ethiopia.”

“We urge the Ethiopian authorities to investigate these reports to determine their veracity and to commit to inclusive, transparent processes to hold responsible those accountable,” the statement said.

Last month’s report said human rights violations including torture, extrajudicial executions, and sexual and gender-based violence, including gang rapes, were being committed by all sides in the conflict.

The war in Ethiopia began in November 2020, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed deployed troops to Tigray in response to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s seizure of military bases.

The ensuing conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced several million from their homes and left more than 9 million people dependent on food aid.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
…

A freelance video journalist accredited to the Associated Press and two other local journalists have been detained in Ethiopia, according to police and the country’s media regulator.

Federal police accused the journalists in a statement late on Wednesday of “promoting terrorism” by interviewing members of the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which parliament has designated a terrorist group.

The AP reported that its freelancer, Amir Aman Kiyaro, was detained on November 28 under the country’s war-related state of emergency after returning home from a reporting trip. He has not been charged, the report said.

“These are baseless allegations. Kiyaro is an independent journalist who has done important work in Ethiopia on all sides of the conflict,” AP Executive Editor Julie Pace said in a statement. “We call on the Ethiopian government to release Kiyaro immediately.”

The police statement identified the other detained journalists as independent cameraman Thomas Engida and Addisu Muluneh of the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting network.

Admasu Damtew, chief executive of Fana, declined to comment, saying Addisu’s arrest “doesn’t relate to us.” He did not elaborate.

The journalists could face seven to 15 years behind bars for violating Ethiopia’s state of emergency and anti-terrorism law, federal police Inspector Tesfaye Olani told state media.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed oversaw sweeping reforms when he took office in 2018, including the unbanning of more than 250 media outlets, the release of dozens of journalists and the repeal of some widely criticized media laws.

However, some rights groups say press freedom has eroded [[   since then as the government has faced outbreaks of deadly violence, including the conflict that broke out in the northern Tigray region in November 2020.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 14 journalists have been arrested since a state of emergency was declared on November 2 this year.

Asked about the latest arrests, Ethiopia’s media regulator said police detained the three journalists for “violating the law of the land.”

“They were caught while producing promotional content for a group that has been designated as a terrorist organization,” Mohammed Edris, head of the Ethiopian Media Authority, told Reuters, referring to the OLA.

The OLA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Edris dismissed accusations of a clampdown on media freedom, saying “the reality on the ground is that there are more media outlets and journalists freely working in the country now than ever.”

A spokeswoman for the prime minister did not respond to a request for comment.
…

The U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR) says the number of Cameroonians fleeing communal violence in the north of the country to neighboring Chad has reached 82,000. Cameroon has dispatched a delegation to Chad to convince those who fled the fighting over water resources to return home.

Fighting broke out in the Cameroonian border village of Ouloumsa two weeks ago between Arab Choua cattle herders and Mousgoum fishers, sending tens of thousands fleeing to Chad.

Cameroonian officials said the clashes over water resources left villages and markets torched, plantations destroyed, and livestock killed or stolen.

The UNHCR representative in Chad, Papa Kysma Sylla, said the needs of fleeing civilians is increasing by the day.

“We are on an emergency mode openly declared from our headquarters, so we created a coordination with several NGOs and UN agencies (like) WFP, UNICEF, Red Cross,” Sylla said. “So we are all providing assistance and mobilizing money and or human resources.”

Mahamat Kerimo Sale, mayor of the N’djamena 9 district in Chad, spoke to VOA via messaging application.

Sale said the president of Chad’s Transitional Military Council, Mahamat Deby, gave instructions to Chadians to peacefully welcome civilians fleeing the conflicts in Cameroon. He said they are providing basic needs like food and water and aid groups and UN agencies like UNICEF are also helping with soap and blankets to reduce the suffering of those displaced from Cameroon.

Sale said members of the clashing communities who fled Cameroon are kept separately to avoid conflict in Chad.

Cameroon’s government this week dispatched a delegation to Chad to assist those who fled the violence.

Territorial administration minister Paul Atanga Nji led the delegation of ministers, military officials, and lawmakers. He thanked Chad’s government and people for the care given to displaced Cameroonians. He also asked the displaced to return to their homes in Cameroon and make peace with their neighbors.

“As much as we preach peace, unity, harmony and living together, we are trying to sensitize the population that they should not take the laws into their hands and that if there is any problem, they have to go to the closest administrative authorities or the forces of law and order and complain,” he said. “If because of land or grazer and farmers problems, you start killing and looting, I think it is not a very good example. We are in a state of law.”

Nji said so far 6,000 Cameroonians who fled to Chad have agreed to return home.

Cameroonian authorities said they have deployed troops to the areas in conflict to ensure the safety of all citizens. 

 
…

A militia blockade of the interim government’s headquarters in Tripoli appears to have ended Thursday, amid strong tensions in the Libyan capital just over a week before scheduled presidential elections. U.N. envoy Stephanie Williams met with key military leaders to try to prevent any violence which might jeopardize the elections.  

U.N. special envoy to Libya Stephanie Williams met with rival political and military forces from eastern and western Libya in the port city of Sirte Thursday afternoon, hours after an Islamist militia group ended its siege of interim government headquarters in the capital Tripoli. 

Tensions reportedly remain high in Tripoli just over a week before scheduled presidential elections.

Islamist militia commander Salah Badie issued a video statement late Wednesday threatening to scuttle the planned December 24 election and claiming that he will throw U.N. envoy Williams out of Libya.

The head of Libya’s High National Election Commission, Emad al Sayah, told journalists several days ago that preparations for the election are continuing on schedule.

He said that he affirms to the Libyan people and political leaders that his committee will not ignore its obligation to hold free and fair elections, respecting the rights of all parties involved.

Saudi-owned al Arabiya TV, however, reported that another member of the commission called the December 24 election date “wishful thinking.”

Libya analyst Aya Burweila tells VOA that “fair elections are possible provided that candidates who violate the U.N. Roadmap and the electoral law…..are removed from the list of candidates and foreign monitors are sent to polling stations to minimize the appetite of militia cartels in Tripoli who are hostile to elections.”

One former U.N. Libya envoy, Lebanon’s Tarek al Mitri, told Arab media that the “only way to stabilize Libya is to dismantle the militias causing havoc in the country.” 

Burweila agrees, arguing that such militias are likely to “attack and intimidate voters.” Libyans, she adds, “are fed up and determined to exercise their basic right to choose their own government and take their country back after seven years of foreign-appointed rule and militia occupation….”

However, Libyan analyst Ezzedin Naguil told Al Arabiya TV that he thinks “both Russia and Turkey are unlikely to remove their militia forces from Libya until they achieve their strategic goals, which will likely involve tough international negotiations.”

The leaders of two of Libya’s closest neighbors, Algerian President Abdel Mejid Tebboune and Tunisian President Qais Saeed, met Wednesday to encourage Libyans to vote. 

Tebboune insisted that it is up to the people to decide their fate.

He says that the solution in Libya is in the hands of the Libyan people and they must get rid of mercenaries and foreign forces and deal with each other.

Libya’s parliament is due to meet in the eastern city of Beida early next week to make a final decision on whether to hold the election as scheduled.
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The United States and three other countries voiced encouragement Thursday over a political deal to reinstate Abdalla Hamdok as Sudan’s prime minister.

Sudanese military leaders struck a deal with civilian political forces on November 21 to return Hamdok to power after he was deposed in an October 25 military coup and spent nearly four weeks under house arrest.

The deal empowers Hamdok to lead a government during a political transition expected to last until 2023 while sharing power with the military.

Members of major political parties and Sudan’s influential protest movement have opposed the agreement, with some calling it a betrayal.

The November deal is meant to be based on an earlier agreement reached between the military and civilian political forces after the ouster of Omar al-Bashir in 2019, when they had agreed to share power until elections.

The agreement sparked massive street protests in Khartoum and other cities days after it was reached. As of late November, at least 40 unarmed protesters had been killed by excessive force used by the country’s security forces during nationwide protests since the coup, according to Amnesty International, which attributed the death toll to the Sudanese Doctors Committee.

“We urge signatories to live up to the commitments made in the political agreement,” the U.S., Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Britain said in a joint statement. “In this respect we note with appreciation the recent releases of political detainees, and the establishment of a committee of investigation to ensure that those responsible for violence against protestors are held accountable.

The military coup occurred after weeks of escalating tensions between military and civilian leaders over Sudan’s transition to democracy.

The coup has threatened to derail the process that began after the ouster of longtime autocrat Bashir in a popular uprising in 2019.

Some information in this report also came from Reuters.
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Rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say forces from Ethiopia’s Amhara region have committed a series of atrocities in the neighboring Tigray region.

According to the two group’s reports, released Thursday, Amhara region militia forces are carrying out mass detentions and killing civilians in western Tigray.

Joanne Mariner, Director of Crisis Response at Amnesty International, says “The new onslaught of abuses by Amhara forces against Tigrayan civilians remaining in several towns in Western Tigray should ring alarm bells.”

Mariner also called on immediate intervention to prevent further atrocities on ethnic Tigrayans in detention facilities.

The rights groups said they learned of the atrocities from victims, witnesses and residents of Western Tigray.

The rights group says Amhara region police officers, police militias and a civilian militia group known as Fanos have systematically rounded up Tigrayans in the towns of Adebai, Humera, and Rawyan since early November.

According to the report, the Amhara forces are also involved in looting shops and villages. Witnesses say the forces also shoot locals when they attempt to flee.

Both rights groups called on the Ethiopia government and its allies to stop targeting civilians, release the detainees, and allow humanitarian agencies access to Western Tigray.

They asked the international community to put pressure on the government and pave the way for an international investigation.

Amnesty International says it has sought a comment from Ethiopian authorities on the matter but got no response.

Western Tigray is a disputed area between Tigray and Amhara regions. Amhara forces entered this fertile area following the outbreak of hostilities between the federal government and Tigrayan forces in November 2020.

On Friday, the U.N. Human Rights Council will hold special session on the situation in Northern Ethiopia following the request by the EU. But Ethiopia objects to the move and said the decision is politically motivated.
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Pro-government forces in Ethiopia are responsible for a new wave of violence in the country’s northern Tigray region involving “mass detentions, killings and forced expulsions of ethnic Tigrayans,” two human rights groups said Thursday.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued a joint statement based on interviews with more than 30 witnesses and relatives who alleged the regional Amhara security forces carried out the abuses on Tigrayan civilians with guns, machetes and knives.

The rights groups said the forces attacked and killed Tigrayans trying to escape the renewed violence in November and December in the western part of the region. Scores of Tigrayans in detention are subjected to torture, starvation and other “life threatening conditions” while being denied medical care, the groups said.

Other civilians were taken away and remain unaccounted for, they said. 

“Without urgent international action to prevent further atrocities, Tigrayans, particularly those in detention, are at grave risk,” Amnesty International crisis response director Joanne Mariner said in the statement.

The allegations come one day before the U.N. Human Rights Council holds a special meeting to consider appointing an international team to investigate the extensive violations that have occurred during Ethiopia’s 13-month war.

The war began with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s deployment of troops to Tigray in response to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s seizure of military bases. 

The ensuing conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced several million from their homes and left more than 9 million people dependent on food aid. 

The Amhara regional government did not immediately comment on the allegations.

Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press provided some information for this report.
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The Israeli government on Wednesday said it was donating 1 million coronavirus vaccines to the U.N.-backed COVAX program.

The Foreign Ministry said the AstraZeneca vaccines would be transferred in the coming weeks, a decision that was part of Israel’s strengthening ties with the African countries.

“I am delighted that Israel can contribute and be a partner in eradicating the pandemic around the world,” said Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.

The announcement said the vaccines would reach close to a quarter of African countries, though it did not provide a list. Israel has close ties with a number of African nations, including Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. Israel also established relations with Sudan last year as part of a series of U.S.-brokered accords.

COVAX is a global initiative that aims to provide coronavirus vaccines to poorer nations. Wealthier countries have acquired the most of the world’s vaccine supplies, causing vast inequality in access to jabs.

Israel was one of the first countries to vaccinate its population. Early this year, it came under criticism for not sharing enough of its supplies with the Palestinians.

Since then, Israel has vaccinated tens of thousands of Palestinians who work in Israel and its settlements, and the Palestinians have procured vaccines from COVAX and other sources. 

 
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A freelance video journalist accredited to The Associated Press in Ethiopia has been detained by police in the capital, Addis Ababa, the news organization said Wednesday.

Amir Aman Kiyaro was detained under the country’s new war-related state of emergency powers on November 28 after returning home from a reporting trip. He has not been charged.

Officials with the Ethiopian Media Authority, the prime minister’s office, the Foreign Ministry and other government offices have not responded to repeated requests from the AP for information about him since his detention.

State media on Wednesday reported his detention, citing federal police, and said he was accused of “serving the purposes” of a terrorist group by interviewing it. The report said local journalists Thomas Engida and Addisu Muluneh also were detained.

Federal police inspector Tesfaye Olani told state media that the journalists violated the state of emergency law and Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law and the violations could lead to seven to 15 years behind bars.

In a statement, AP Executive Editor Julie Pace urged that Kiyaro be freed: “The Associated Press is extremely concerned that AP freelancer Amir Aman Kiyaro has been detained by the Ethiopian government, accused of promoting terrorism. These are baseless allegations. Kiyaro is an independent journalist who has done important work in Ethiopia on all sides of the conflict. We call on the Ethiopian government to release Kiyaro immediately.”

She said the AP until now had chosen to keep the case out of the public eye while the news organization worked on potential diplomatic channels.

Ethiopia’s government in November declared a state of emergency, which includes sweeping powers of detention, after a year of war as rival forces from the country’s northern Tigray region in collaboration with the Oromo Liberation Army moved closer to the capital. The government this year declared both the Tigray forces and the OLA as terrorist groups.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the war that erupted in November 2020. The Tigray forces say they are pressuring the government to lift a deadly blockade on their region but also want Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to step aside. Mediation efforts by the United States and African Union for a cease-fire have made little progress.

Kiyaro has covered both sides of the war this year for the AP, including groundbreaking reporting on the alleged mass killings by Tigray forces in the community of Chenna Teklehaymanot after the fighters in recent months moved into Ethiopia’s neighboring Amhara region.

In late November, the country’s state of emergency command sought to restrict media reporting on the war, forbidding the sharing of nonofficial information on “military-related movements, battlefront results and situations.” Foreign media have been barred from Tigray for much of the war, with communications links severed.

The government-created Ethiopian Human Rights Commission on Wednesday said it was monitoring the situation of four other local journalists detained in recent weeks.

Last month, it said it was alarmed by the conditions of the detentions of perhaps thousands of people who have been swept up under the state of emergency. It urged authorities to immediately release people detained without “evidence establishing reasonable grounds for suspicion.”

Spokespeople for the commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Kiyaro.

“Ethiopia has again become one of the worst jailers of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement last week, describing the media environment as “hostile” three years after the prime minister took office and his government freed journalists as part of sweeping political reforms that have since been eroded.
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Istanbul hosts a two-day African Summit this week, the latest effort by Turkey to expand its diplomatic and economic influence in Africa. For VOA, Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.

Produced by: Marcus Harton
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French troops have left a military base in Timbuktu, Mali, where they were posted since liberating the area from Islamist militants in 2013. French forces have been gradually withdrawing from the region, despite ongoing fighting with militants that threatens stability. Locals are expressing unease about the French troops’ departure.

On Tuesday, French troops left their military base in Timbuktu as part of a reorganization of Operation Barkhane announced by French president Emmanuel Macron in June. 

The Kidal and Tessalit bases were handed over to the Malian army in October and November, respectively. The French troops first set up a base here when the city, along with several others in northern Mali, was liberated in 2013 from Islamist militants. Then-French president Francois Hollande visited Timbuktu the day after its liberation and was welcomed by residents. 

Salem Ould El Hadj, a historian and a teacher at Timbuktu’s famous Ahmed Baba Institute, spoke from a public square by Timbuktu’s Sankore mosque about his experience when the city was liberated.  

We needed it, he says, and you’ve seen how the population welcomed them with widespread enthusiasm. An unabashed fervor. It’s true. I was in Bamako, he says, and it’s thanks to [the French intervention] that I came back to Timbuktu.

Since 2013, Mali has weathered two more coup d’etats. Violence and killings have increased and moved further south into the country’s center. Large protests in Bamako have called for the departure of French troops, with popular sentiment in the capital favoring a potential Russian intervention in Mali. 

Mohamed El Bashir, president of Timbuktu’s municipal youth council, says that withdrawing Barkhane troops from Timbuktu will make the region less secure.

It’s not the same feeling here, he says, because the people in Bamako don’t live what we’re living here in Timbuktu. What we’re living here, people in Bamako aren’t living. They should come here, and we will go to Bamako, and they can ask that Barkhane leaves, he says, then they will understand. That’s the reality.

France has been gradually retiring its troops from military bases in northern Mali and moving them to Gao, which will now serve as Operation Barkhane’s northern base. 

General Etienne du Peyroux, Barkhane’s representative in Mali, says that the handing over of Timbuktu’s military base is not an abandonment.  

He says, this is ultimately the goal of Operation Barkhane, to allow Mali to take its destiny in its hands. After a phase of preparation, after a phase of ramping up, after a training phase. And always in partnership, which will be different, with less of a physical presence but just as real, he says.  

At a ceremony on the military base yesterday, the French flag was lowered, the Malian flag raised, and a symbolic key to the base handed over from the French military to the Malian army. Malian military authorities declined to comment to journalists, who were asked to leave the ceremony before their commander spoke to Malian troops. 

French armored vehicles exited the base for the last time.

At the airport, French troops could be seen boarding a military plane headed for Gao. The fate of Timbuktu, once a symbol of Mali’s liberation from extremist rule, now rests in the hands of Mali’s army.
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China is financing the construction of four coal-fired power plants in southern Africa, despite its climate pledge in September to quit supporting such infrastructure overseas. But the new facilities taking shape in South Africa and Zimbabwe are just a few of Beijing’s massive investments in airports, railway lines and other national infrastructure on the African continent. 

Many countries have been eager for the investment, but mounting levels of debt over the past five years are raising doubts about the long-term prospects for more expensive infrastructure projects.

China committed to lending African countries $153 billion from 2000-2019, but that pace of lending may be slowing down. Chinese loan commitments dropped by 30% in 2019 when compared with the previous year, according to the China-Africa Research Initiative at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. The research looks at loan commitments which get “disbursed to borrowers as projects are implemented.”

In Zambia for example, Chinese financiers committed $10.3 billion in loans from 2000-2010.Since 2000, Zambia has only repaid some $1.2 billion to Chinese lenders. 

Uganda now owes China $200 million for its only international airport, fanning fears that China could seize it. Both countries have rejected speculation in African media outlets of a Chinese takeover.

Loan repayment measures

Neighboring Kenya had received a $4.5 billion loan to build a railway from Nairobi to the port city of Mombasa, and China indicates it will redo the terms after a committee of the African country’s parliament found that operating losses and debt to Chinese banks were straining taxpayers.

Some analysts have warned that opaque lending terms means China could eventually seize infrastructure should countries struggle to meet repayments

U.S. and British officials say, “debt traps,” where countries cannot raise enough money to repay China’s loans, are structured to give Beijing leverage over time. Last month, the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, Richard Moore, in an interview with BBC Radio 4 said Beijing can acquire “significant ports which have the potential to become naval facilities etcetera.”

Sri Lanka earlier this year passed legislation that critics say will give China control over a key deep-water port that Beijing financed.

But that has not happened so far in Africa, where Chinese diplomats reject seizures are a part of Beijing’s strategy.

“Not a single project in Africa has ever been “confiscated” by China because of failing to pay Chinese loans. On the contrary, China firmly supports and is willing to continue our efforts to improve Africa’s capacity for home-driven development,” stated the Chinese Embassy in Uganda. 

Instead of seizing assets, Beijing will likely extend deadlines for loan repayment or rework payback terms such as interest rates, analysts told VOA. Those measures would avert takeovers of the infrastructure itself and in turn preserve China’s reputation in Africa where trade and lending have bested its superpower rival in dollar terms.

China will probably “keep kicking the can down the road” until creditors find the means to settle the loans, Bulelani Jili, an African studies Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University, told VOA.

To confiscate any assets, including minerals, would “confirm people’s initial biases of China as a neocolonial actor,” Jili said, and risk upsetting diplomatic ties with “some of the few friends that China has on the global stage.”

“From the China side, it’s about getting access to new possible markets and expanding both economic activity — also the diplomatic relation,” he said.

Chinese loan concerns

China encourages lending to Africa in search of high returns on investments and a global reputation as a supporter of poor countries, said Edward Miguel, Oxfam professor in Environmental Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. It is trying to “equal the U.S.” as a donor country, he said.

However, China differs from other international lenders and donors mainly for its relative lack of transparency that raises questions in Africa as well as in the West, Miguel believes.

Unlike loans from western governments or international lending bodies like the World Bank, which require labor and environmental safeguards on financed projects, China’s aid and loans to Africa have been described as “no strings attached,” which has been attractive for many countries.

 But African nations, especially with economies slipping because of the impacts of COVID-19, face increasing trouble paying back loans, said Hannah Ryder, senior associate with the Africa Program at the U.S. think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“China and other countries are becoming more sophisticated in bargaining with one another,” wrote Deborah Brautigam of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School’s Meg Rithmire in a joint article. 

Residents in Dakar, Senegal, where the 500-person Forum on China-Africa Cooperation meeting took place on November 29-30, want more Chinese-funded infrastructure but without debt levels like those of the 1990s, Ryder noted.

Chinese creditors are expected to lend less money to Africa going forward and more carefully analyze the projects those loans support, experts say. Loans have already “sobered down” [tapered off] from a peak in 2014, Jili said.

Commitments for loans and other investments made at the China-Africa Cooperation meeting came to $40 billion, one-third less than the $60 billion made at the same conference in 2018.

Lenders may calibrate loans based on predictions of a post-pandemic future when African countries have more cash, said Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington. Another option, she said, is to ensure Chinese equity from future projects as repayment for older loans, she said in a VOA interview.

“It’s politically risky, because although it’s not an equity-asset swap, it smells a lot like some sort of swap, and [that] China is exploiting Africa’s weak position, so I don’t think it will happen in the immediate future and in fact this debt restructuring is also taking quite a while,” Sun said.

China is becoming more confident all the while in setting up international public-private partnerships, though many African countries still worry about a repeat of the debt crisis in the 1980s and 1990s when nations could not pay off debt, Ryder says in an African Business commentary. International organizations ultimately wrote off that wave of unaffordable debt with conditions including opening “their economies to international trade, liberalize their currencies and drastically cut costs in exchange for loans,” wrote Peter Fabricius in the Institute for Security Studies.

Fast forward to the present, with loans from China, African countries, Miguel said, often end up asking “what did we agree to do” and “how much do we owe” China.

 
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Congolese rumba is among at least nine new entries on UNESCO’s “representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.”

UNESCO is making its 2021 designations this week, recognizing cultural heritage ranging from Arabic calligraphy to falconry to Nordic clinker boat traditions. 

Congolese rumba was named to the list Tuesday. The Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo jointly bid for UNESCO to recognize the music and dance, which helped energize people in those countries to shake off colonial rule by Belgium and France, respectively, in Congo, in 1960. 

UNESCO’s director general, Audrey Azoulay, summarized rumba’s significance. 

“In the 20th century, the Congolese rumba was a symbol for the fight for emancipation, dignity and political independence on the African continent,” she said in a statement shared with VOA. “Therefore, the inscription of this music is not just the recognition of a cultural practice but a historic decision. It underlines the political nature of this music, which inspires so many artists all around the world today.” 

Through its ongoing list, UNESCO aims to safeguard cultural practices and ensure that they’re handed down through generations. 

The list of new entries includes:

— Pasillo song and poetry from Ecuador.

— Pottery-related practices and knowledge of Peru’s Awajún people.

— Dances and other expression affiliated with Panama’s Corpus Christi festivities.

— Venezuela’s festive cycle around worship of St. John the Baptist. 

— Bolivia’s Grand Festival of Tarija. 
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Drought conditions in Somalia are worsening despite rains in parts of the country, a top United Nations humanitarian official said.

Ian Ridley, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Somalia, says the recent rains are not enough, and the drought situation is deteriorating in the country.

“There is not nearly enough rain, so we are calling it very low rainfall for the season,” Ridley told VOA Somali in an interview that aired Tuesday.

“Importantly, this comes on top of failed or low rains in the last two rainy seasons,” he said. “We are now in the third rainy season where the amount of rainfall is below average, and that is why the drought situation is worsening through the country.”

Ridley has been visiting some of the worst affected areas in the country in recent weeks. Speaking from Mogadishu, he said shallow wells are starting to dry up, increasing demand on deep wells.

“The overall availability of water is very, very low, and what we are seeing as a result is pastoralists are moving with their animals in search of water,” he said.

He said people are being displaced, with some traveling 30 or 40 kilometers from rural areas in search of water in urban centers.

He said another impact of the drought is outbreaks of certain diseases. The incidence of acute water diarrhea and cholera is increasing; the incidence of measles is increasing as people come together in IDP [Internally Displaced Persons] camps, he said.

OCHA has just conducted a rapid assessment of the situation. Ridley says preliminary data shows that almost 3 million Somalis are feeling the impact of drought, and more than 100,000 people moved in search of water.

Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble declared a state of humanitarian emergency in the country last month because of the drought.
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