A Somali journalist with state-run media was killed Saturday in Mogadishu when a suicide bomber blew up his car, government officials and his colleagues said. Another journalist also was injured.

Abdiaziz Mohamud Guled, better known as Afrika, the director of the state-run Radio Mogadishu, died from his wounds, while fellow journalist Sharmarke Warsame, who was traveling with Guled, sustained a severe injury, according to government spokesperson Mohamed Ibrahim Mo’alimuu.

In a brief statement, Mogadishu police spokesperson Abdifatah Aden Hassan said that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the blast, according to Agence France-Presse.

“A terrorist suicide bomber apparently wearing an explosive vest rushed towards the car in which the journalists were traveling in the Bondhere district of Mogadishu, jumped to the car window, and blew himself up,” Hasan said.

“He was a national hero, a brother, and friend, and we are deeply saddened by his death,” Abdirahman Yusuf Omar, Somalia’s deputy minister for information, wrote on his Facebook page.

Guled was a prominent journalist and had worked with different private radio and TV stations in Mogadishu before he joined the Somali National TV and Radio more than12 years ago.

Guled was once the producer of a popular government TV program, Gungaar, which means “In-Depth.” Guled at least once interviewed al-Shabab and ISIS suspects detained in government prisons by Somalia’s National Security Agency, to reveal information and the tactics used by the two terrorist groups in their attacks.

In November 2020, he was promoted and appointed as the director of the state-run Radio Mogadishu.

According to 2021 report by the Somali Journalists Syndicate and its partner, Somali Media Association, since February 2017, 12 journalists were killed in Somalia — three in 2017; four in 2018; two in 2019; two in 2020; and one in 2021.

According to U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists’ annual Global Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where members of the press are singled out for killing and the perpetrators go free, Somalia remains the world’s worst country for unsolved killings of journalists.
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Defense ministers from Cameroon and the Central African Republic (CAR) say kidnapping for ransom, cattle theft and illegal arms trafficking continue to hinder security along the border of the neighboring countries. During this week’s transborder security meeting in Bouar, a commercial town in the CAR, the defense ministers agreed to jointly deploy troops to protect civilians from rebels fighting to topple the CAR government.

The ministers said they were concerned because rebels and armed groups are increasing transborder criminality and insecurity.  

Cameroon Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo said economic activity and development have been slowed by increasing insecurity on both sides of the border with the CAR. 

Assomo said rebels and armed groups from the CAR regularly attack and seize goods, food and cattle from civilians on both sides of the Cameroon-CAR border. Assomo said civilians are regularly kidnapped for ransom, adding that armed groups are illegally exploiting wood and minerals, especially gold from border villages. 

Assomo said the transborder security meeting this week in Bouar made a firm resolution to eradicate the growing insecurity.

Assomo said rebels from the CAR cross over to Cameroon when the rebels’ hideouts are attacked by CAR government troops. 

U.N. peacekeeping troops of the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission to CAR, MINUSCA, this week reported that rebels attacked U.N. troops protecting civilians near the Cameroon border.

Rameaux Claude Bireau, the CAR’s minister of national defense and army reconstruction, said Cameroon and the CAR agreed during the meeting to carry out joint military operations to stop insecurity and economic hardships on civilians caused by highway robbers and rebels fighting to topple the CAR government. He said the CAR and Cameroon want fleeing civilians to return to their plantations, cattle ranches and markets in border towns and villages so economic activity can be revived. 

Speaking from the CAR’s capital Bangui, Bireau said scores of people were kidnapped for ransom in the past three weeks. He said civilians should inform the military when strange people are seen in border villages.

Cameroon and CAR military officials said several thousand arms and light weapons are illegally circulating on both sides of their border.

The military officials vowed to intensify systematic border control. They said rebels may be disguising themselves as displaced persons and transporting weapons to attack civilians on both sides of the border. 

The defense officials said Presidents Paul Biya of Cameroon and Faustin-Archange Touadera of the Central African Republic want to return peace for the economic growth and development of their respective countries. 

The CAR descended into violence in 2013 when the then President Francois Bozize was ousted by the Séléka, a rebel coalition from the Muslim minority, which accused him of breaking peace deals. The violence forced more than 700,000 Central Africans to flee to neighboring Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria.  

In 2019, the CAR said peace was gradually returning to the troubled country. But in December 2020, renewed violence was sparked by the reelection of Touadera as president. 

Cameroon shares a more than 900-kilometer border with the Central African Republic and hosts 310,000 refugees from the neighboring country.
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In Egypt, 1.8 million children are working, with many doing dangerous jobs outlawed by international conventions, according to the International Labor Organization. To mark World Children’s Day (November 20), Hamada Elrasam spent several days chronicling impoverished Egyptian families who say they have no choice but to send their children to work. Captions by Elle Kurancid.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Senegal, the last stop on his trip to Africa, “to reaffirm the close partnership between our two countries,” the U.S. State Department said earlier this week.

Blinken met with Senegalese President Macky Sall at the presidential palace early Saturday in Dakar “to reaffirm the close partnership between our two countries,” according to the U.S. State Department.

In a speech Friday in Abuja, Nigeria, Blinken outlined the Biden administration’s policy toward Africa, declaring the U.S. sees African countries as equal partners as it seeks to bolster its influence on a continent that receives much of its foreign aid from U.S. rival China.

“The United States firmly believes that it’s time to stop treating Africa as a subject of geopolitics — and start treating it as the major geopolitical player it has become,” Blinken said in Abuja, Nigeria, outlining the Biden administration’s policy toward Africa.

The continent needs billions of dollars annually for massive infrastructure projects such as building roads, railways and dams. Over the past decade, China has provided much of the infrastructure funding Africa has received.

Without mentioning China, Blinken vowed the U.S. would agree only to transparent and voluntary global infrastructure agreements that produce tangible benefits on the continent. 

“Too often, international infrastructure deals are opaque, coercive; they burden countries with unmanageable debt; they’re environmentally destructive; they don’t always benefit the people who actually live there,” Blinken said. “We will do things differently.” 

Blinken’s visit to Senegal marks the end of a five-day, multination visit to Africa, his first as secretary of state. He said Friday his trip is aimed at fostering cooperation on global health security, battling the climate crisis, expanding energy access and economic growth, revitalizing democracy and achieving peace and security.

The trip is part of the Biden administration’s effort to strengthen alliances in Africa after four years of a unilateralist approach under former U.S. President Donald Trump. It comes amid worsening crises in Ethiopia and Sudan. While in Kenya, Blinken called for ending the violence in Ethiopia, combating terrorism in Somalia and reviving Sudan’s transition to a civilian government.

Despite large contributions of money and vaccines to contain COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, the U.S. has had little success in gaining influence on the continent.

Nevertheless, Blinken said U.S. President Joe Biden would continue to work to improve relations with African countries.

“As a sign of our commitment to our partnerships across the continent, President Biden intends to host the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit to drive the kind of high-level diplomacy and engagement that can transform relationships and make effective cooperation possible,” Blinken said.

The top U.S. diplomat did not say when the summit would take place.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday the United States sees African countries as equal partners as it seeks to bolster its influence on a continent that receives much of its foreign aid from U.S. rival China.

“The United States firmly believes that it’s time to stop treating Africa as a subject of geopolitics — and start treating it as the major geopolitical player it has become,” Blinken said in Abuja, Nigeria, outlining the Biden administration’s policy toward Africa.

The continent needs billions of dollars annually for massive infrastructure projects such as building roads, railways and dams. Over the past decade, China has provided much of the infrastructure funding Africa has received.

‘We do things differently’

Without mentioning China, Blinken vowed the U.S. would agree only to transparent and voluntary global infrastructure agreements that produce tangible benefits on the continent.

“Too often, international infrastructure deals are opaque, coercive; they burden countries with unmanageable debt; they’re environmentally destructive; they don’t always benefit the people who actually live there,” Blinken said. “We will do things differently.”

Blinken is nearing the end of a five-day, multination visit to Africa, his first as secretary of state. He said Friday his trip is aimed at fostering cooperation on global health security, battling the climate crisis, expanding energy access and economic growth, revitalizing democracy and achieving peace and security.

The trip is part of the Biden administration’s effort to strengthen alliances in Africa after four years of a unilateralist approach under former U.S. President Donald Trump. It comes amid worsening crises in Ethiopia and Sudan. While in Kenya, Blinken called for ending the violence in Ethiopia, combating terrorism in Somalia and reviving Sudan’s transition to a civilian government.

Despite large contributions of money and vaccines to contain COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, the U.S. has had little success in gaining influence on the continent.

Improved relations the goal

Nevertheless, Blinken said U.S. President Joe Biden would continue to work to improve relations with African countries. 

“As a sign of our commitment to our partnerships across the continent, President Biden intends to host the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit to drive the kind of high-level diplomacy and engagement that can transform relationships and make effective cooperation possible,” Blinken said. 

The top U.S. diplomat did not say when the summit would take place. 

Hours after his speech in Nigeria, Blinken arrived in Senegal, the last stop on his trip to Africa that also took him to Kenya. Blinken will meet in Dakar with Senegalese President Macky Sall “to reaffirm the close partnership between our two countries,” the U.S. State Department said earlier this week. 

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his first visit to Nigeria, delivered a key speech on U.S.-Africa policy to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). At the meeting, the top U.S. diplomat announced that the United States will host a summit of African leaders to further deepen ties with the continent. 

Blinken made the announcement Friday at the ECOWAS headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital — his second stop since he began his three-nation Africa tour this week 

Blinken said “the U.S. president intends to host the U.S.-Africa leaders’ summit to drive high-level diplomacy and engagement that can make effective cooperation possible.” 

He gave no details on when or where the summit may occur.

On Thursday, after a meeting with Nigerian President Muhamadu Buhari and top government officials, Blinken and Nigeria’s foreign affairs minister signed an agreement for the U.S. to give Nigeria $2.1 billion to support health care, education, agriculture and good governance. 

Blinken also discussed renewed cooperation with Nigerian authorities to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, security, and human rights concerns. 

“The engagements that I’ll have throughout my time here in Nigeria reflect the depth of this partnership, now more than six decades, and the way that our cooperation is viable and maybe more viable than ever in tackling sheer challenges and actually delivering results to our people, which is what our responsibility really is,” Blinken said. 

Nigeria has seen increasing waves of violence and a declining human rights record in the last few years.

This week, more than a year after bloody protests against police brutality, a Lagos panel report accused security agents of using excessive force to disperse protesters last October, leading to the death of at least 11 people.

Blinken also met with members of Nigerian’s civil society groups on Friday. While praising the panel’s investigation, Blinken said the government must be more accountable. 

“We anticipate and look to the state and the federal government’s response to the findings and expect those to include steps that ensure accountability and address the grievances of the victims and their families,” he said. 

The secretary of state’s visit comes amid concerns about China’s growing influence in Africa and the increasing debt that many African countries owe Chinese companies. On Friday, Blinken said the U.S. engagements with Africa have “no strings attached.” 

Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama said, “There was just a huge infrastructural deficit that we’re facing in this country and we saw a great opportunity with the Chinese. They’re used to a lot of these huge capital projects and infrastructure projects. We would have gone with anybody else that was providing something at a competitive rate for us.” 

Blinken began his Africa tour Wednesday in Nairobi and will end it with a visit to Dakar, Senegal, where he will meet with President Macky Sall.
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This week, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta signed a new law that will give a half-million refugees in the country an opportunity to earn a living, instead of depending on the aid agencies that assisted them for three decades.

Victor Odero is a policy and advocacy adviser at the International Rescue Committee. He says the law will help aid agencies to focus more on creating opportunities that can improve the lives of the refugees.

“What stands out for me, and I suppose for humanitarian and also development and private sector actors, is that for the first time we see in legislation provisions that allow refugees to become self-reliant, which is very important because over the last couple of decades refugees have been wholly reliant on humanitarian assistance. I think this bill presents an opportunity for us to shift from this and to focus, to enable and empower refugees to become self-reliant,” he expressed.

The refugee bill allows refugees to get education, jobs and integrate into Kenyan society.

Siad Tawane came to the Dadaab refugee camp as a toddler. He is a university graduate. The 34-year-old tells VOA the law can help him and other professionals in the camp to work in other parts of the country to sustain their lives.

“We are very much hopeful that refugees will get access to several opportunities such as work permits because that has been one of the things that we have been asking ourselves; Why the government of Kenya is not giving us the work permit for refugees to work elsewhere, not only in the camps? Some of us are educated, some of us have some skills and if they get the opportunity to move to form the camps and to move to other parts of Kenya. We are very hopeful we can deliver very many things, and we can earn a living.”

Kenya hosts one of the largest refugee populations in Africa. Most of the refugees live in two big camps – Dadaab, which borders Somalia, and Kakuma, which borders South Sudan.

The Kenyan government has said it will close the camps next year.

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) says it has not been able to provide a full food ration to refugees since 2018, and last month it was forced to cut rations another 20 percent.

Twenty-seven-year-old Aza Nsabimana lives in the Kakuma refugee camp. She says getting employment and other opportunities can help her overcome the food shortage experienced in the camps.

“Here in the camp, our needs are too much. There are those who are jobless, and the food we are given in the camp is not enough for two months. And if you are jobless, life becomes hard for you. If they can get those opportunities to work for themselves, it can help so much.”

In September, the WFP said it needs $40 million to feed refugees in Dadaab and Kakuma camps for six months.

The aid agencies in Kenya have argued refugees can contribute a lot to Kenya’s economy and social fabric if given opportunities instead of remaining in the camps.
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Cameroonian, Nigerian and Chadian troops fighting terrorism in the Lake Chad basin say attacks on military positions have been increasing since Boko Haram leader Aboubakar Shekau was declared dead in May.

Military officials from the three countries say the Islamic State in West Africa Province group, or ISWAP, is completely changing terrorism tactics to gain the sympathy of Lake Chad basin civilians. They say ISWAP is emerging as the terrorist group that is taking over from Boko Haram, which is weakened by the death of its leader Shekau.

Major General Saly Mohamadou is commander of Cameroon’s troops fighting terrorism in the Lake Chad Basin. He says, unlike Boko Haram, which attacked civilians for supplies and killed both the military and people who opposed the terrorist group when it was very active, ISWAP only attacks military positions to gain support from civilians. He says ISWAP is fighting to control border areas between Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria.

Mohamadou said senior military officials of the Multinational Joint Task Force or MNJTF met in Maroua, Cameroon this week to formulate a strategy toward the new terrorism threat.

The task force, headquartered in the Chadian capital of N’djamena, is made up of more than 10,000 troops from Niger, Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria.

The MNJTF says militants have carried out scores of attacks on its military positions since May, causing many casualties, but gives no further details.

Officials accuse ISWAP of infiltrating areas along the Cameroon-Nigeria-Chad border. Cameroonian authorities say ISWAP promises jobs and better living conditions to convince vulnerable and jobless youths to join the terror group.

The governor of Cameroon’s Far North region, on the border with Nigeria and Chad Midjiyawa Bakari says Cameroon is carrying out actions that will keep its civilians from sympathizing with terrorists. He says besides fighting terrorists, Cameroon troops have been teaching children in schools abandoned by teachers because of terrorism. He says military medical teams treat wounded and sick civilians who are in villages on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria that are hard to reach. Bakari says the military distributes food and water to civilians in former Boko Haram strongholds.

The governor also said that to stop ISWAP from recruiting vulnerable youths, Cameroon ordered the creation of militias in all northern villages.

ISWAP has not made any formal statement on its expansion to the Lake Chad Basin.

In August though, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said African states should act quickly to stop the restructuring of ISWAP. It says if the countries fail to act, Islamic State’s plans to expand in the region will further endanger millions of Africans. 
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived Thursday in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and a major U.S. partner on the continent. Blinken’s five-day Africa tour comes as crises in Ethiopia and Sudan are worsening. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Thursday that six U.N. staff members had been released but five others, along with one of their dependents, remain in detention in Addis Ababa. 

At least 16 U.N. staff and dependents were detained earlier this month amid reports of widespread arrests of ethnic Tigrayans. 

“Further ethnic profiling can only deteriorate this serious dynamic and can lead to a situation for which we have alarming precedents,” said Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the U.N. special adviser of the secretary-general on the prevention of genocide. 

In a press release on Wednesday, Nderitu reiterated her concern over the “deteriorating situation” in Ethiopia and strongly condemned “the intensification of profiling and arbitrary arrests of ethnic Tigrayans, including United Nations staff.” 

“The region has experienced the evil of inter-ethnic violence spiraling down to the commission of genocide,” she said. “All possible action must be taken as a matter of utmost urgency to prevent further escalation.” 

Police have denied making ethnically motivated arrests, contending they are only detaining backers of the rebel Tigrayan forces fighting the Ethiopian government. 

Nderitu voiced her concerns the day before the U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, and the African Union’s high representative for the Horn of Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo, returned to Ethiopia with hopes of reviving peace talks and negotiating a cease-fire in the yearlong conflict.

Nderitu warned during an online event earlier this month of the risk of the war spilling across borders and “becoming something completely unmanageable.” She also warned that ethnic-based militias are “so dangerous in this context.” 

The war began a year ago when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed deployed troops to the northern regional state of Tigray in response to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s seizure of military bases. The ensuing conflict has killed thousands of people, displaced several million from their homes and left 400,000 residents of Tigray facing famine, according to a July estimate by the U.N.

A joint investigation by the U.N. and the government-created Ethiopian Human Rights Commission published a report in early November concluding that all sides in the conflict have committed human rights violations, including torturing civilians, committing gang rapes and arresting people based on ethnicity.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has said some of those abuses may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Ugandan authorities have killed at least five people, including a Muslim cleric, accused of having ties to the extremist group responsible for Tuesday’s suicide bombings in the capital, police said Thursday.

Four men were killed in a shootout in a frontier town near the western border with Congo as they tried to cross back into Uganda. A fifth man, a cleric named Muhammad Kirevu, was killed in “a violent confrontation” when security forces raided his home outside Kampala, police spokesman Fred Enanga said.

A second cleric, Suleiman Nsubuga, is the subject of a manhunt, he said, accusing the two clerics of radicalizing young Muslim men and encouraging them to join underground cells to carry out violent attacks.

The police raids came after blasts Tuesday in which at least four civilians were killed when suicide bombers detonated their explosives at two locations in Kampala. One attack happened near the parliamentary building and the second near a busy police station. The attacks sparked chaos and confusion in the city as well as outpourings of concern from the international community.

Twenty-one suspects with alleged links to the perpetrators are in custody, Enanga said.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s explosions, saying they were carried out by Ugandans. Ugandan authorities blamed the attacks on the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, an extremist group that has been allied with IS since 2019.

President Yoweri Museveni identified the alleged suicide bombers in a statement in which he warned that security forces were “coming for” alleged members of the ADF.

Fears of crackdown

While Ugandan authorities are under pressure to show they are in control of the situation, the killings of suspects raised fears of a violent crackdown in which innocent people may be victims.

Despite the horror of the bomb attacks, “it remains critical to ensure no terrorist attack translates into a blank check to violate human rights under a pretext of fighting terror,” said Maria Burnett, a rights lawyer with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

“Across East Africa, terrorism has been a pretext at times to ensnare political opponents, civic actors and even refugees seeking protection,” she said. “Such actions risk radicalizing people in support of nonstate actors and hands those actors an easy propaganda tool.” 

Human Rights Watch has previously documented cases in which Ugandan security officials have allegedly tortured ADF suspects and held them without trial for long periods.

The ADF has for years been opposed to the long rule of Museveni, a U.S. security ally who was the first African leader to deploy peacekeepers in Somalia to protect the federal government from the extremist group al-Shabab. In retaliation over Uganda’s deployment of troops to Somalia, that group carried out attacks in 2010 that killed at least 70 people who had assembled in public places in Kampala to watch a World Cup soccer game. 

But the ADF, with its local roots, has become a more pressing challenge to Museveni, 77, who has ruled Uganda for 35 years and was reelected to a five-year term in January.

The ADF was established in the early 1990s by some Ugandan Muslims who said they had been sidelined by Museveni’s policies. At the time, the rebel group staged deadly attacks in Ugandan villages as well as in the capital, including a 1998 attack in which 80 students were massacred in a town near the Congo border. 

A Ugandan military assault later forced the rebels into eastern Congo, where many rebel groups are able to roam free because the central government has limited control there.
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A Kenyan recycling company is improving sanitation for slum dwellers in Nairobi and turning the waste products into fertilizer for farmers.

Anita Mutinda walks to a small structure located inside the cluster of makeshift houses that she calls home, in the heart of Mukuru kwa Ruben, a poor neighborhood in Kenya’s capital Nairobi.

The structure is one of the toilets installed by a company providing the much-needed service here. It is one of the reasons that Mutinda rented and has lived here for five years.

She says life where she lived before was hard because she had to pay five shillings every time she needed to use a public toilet, and it was far from the house. Here, she doesn’t have to pay a single cent to access this facility.

Her landlady, Deborah Kerubo, says the availability of the toilet facility on her property has become a major selling point.

She says tenants want a facility that has both day and night access. If they don’t get that, they will keep moving, she says, until they get what they are looking for.

No sewage system

Mukuru kwa Ruben, like many other slum areas in Kenya’s capital, is not connected to a sewage system. An estimated 60% of the population lives with this lack of sanitation.

Elijah Gachoki, a clinical officer at a local community health center, says these conditions are a major cause of communicable diseases. “We start getting water wash diseases, conjunctivitis, and skin diseases, so there is a need for proper safe and adequate provision of sanitation,” he expressed.

It is a gap that Sanergy, a company providing sanitation solutions, says it is bridging. Sanergy provides toilets that separate liquid and dry waste and help with waste management in the informal settlements.

Sheila Kibuthu, Sanergy Kenya’s external relations manager, says the company believes in not wasting any waste. On a regular basis, she notes “we make sure that we provide a waste management service where all of the sanitation waste is generated is then safely removed and transported to our organics recycling factory for processing along with other forms of organic waste.”

Turned into fertilizer

The toilet waste is collected daily and mixed with other organic waste from the community. It is then processed at Sanergy’s plant on the outskirts of Nairobi and turned into organic fertilizer and other agricultural inputs like high protein feed for livestock.

“One of the biggest challenges farmers are facing today is soil infertility, so what the organic fertilizer does is that it helps restore the soil fertility and that way farmers can improve their yields.”

Sanergy believes more and more farmers will be served as it keeps the cycle of turning waste into useful products going, while providing a necessary service.

Currently, the company has more than 5,000 toilets spread across 11 informal settlement areas in Nairobi, serving over 140,000 residents.
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A Kenyan recycling company is improving sanitation for slum dwellers in Nairobi and turning the waste products into fertilizer for farmers. Brenda Mulinya has more from Nairobi.
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The U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights has denounced the killing of Sudanese demonstrators protesting the country’s October 25 military coup.

Sudanese security forces fired live ammunition at protesters on Wednesday, killing 15 in the deadliest day of violence since the takeover and increasing the death toll during pro-democracy protests to 39.

The U.N.’s Michelle Bachelet said in a statement Thursday that her office has repeatedly asked the country’s security forces and military “refrain from the use of unnecessary and disproportionate against demonstrators.” 

“Shooting into large crowds of unarmed demonstrators, leaving dozens dead and may more injured, is deplorable, clearly aimed at stifling the expression of public dissent, and amounts to gross violations of international human rights law,” Bachelet said.

The U.N., citing reliable medical sources, said more than 100 demonstrators were wounded in Wednesday’s protests, including 80 who were shot in their upper bodies and heads.

Police said 89 officers sustained injuries.

The protests were the latest marches held by Sudan’s pro-democracy movement since a joint civilian-military government was ousted in the military takeover.

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

Sudan’s Army Chief, General Abdel Fattah Al-Buhran, said he dissolved the joint civilian-military council and the government due to “political quarrels that were threatening the security of the country.

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

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Kenyan authorities say they have captured three convicted terrorists who escaped Monday from a maximum-security prison in Nairobi.

The three convicts were arrested in Kitui County, central Kenya, after residents reported suspicious-looking people to the local authorities. 

The three convicts include: Musharaf Abdalla, who was convicted of attempting to attack the parliament in 2012; Joseph Juma Odhiambo, who was arrested in 2019 at the border between Kenya and Somalia for planning to join the Somali terror group al-Shabab; and Mohamed Ali Abikar, who was convicted for his role in al-Shabab’s attack on Garissa University in April 2015. That attack killed at least 148 people, most of them students. 

Kenyan media reports the three men were trying to reach Somalia and had asked people for directions to Garissa. 

Bob Mkangi, a constitutional lawyer, says the terror convicts will be treated like other prison escapees. 

“So, it’s a penal code that determines what the court can pronounce against you. It’s treated as a misdemeanor, about 2-3 years sentence. Now when you go back to prison, the prison authorities [are] under the guidance of the Prison Act and how they treat different convicts. You foresee extra measures to ensure that they are secure.” 

Before their escape, the three men were housed with more ordinary criminals inside Kamiti prison.

The escape prompted Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to fire the head of prisons, Wycliffe Ogalo, on Wednesday.
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Zimbabwe’s government says the COVID-19 pandemic is “under control” in the country, following several days with few or no reported deaths and few infections from the virus. But doctors are warning against complacency and say a fresh wave of infections is likely coming. 

After this week’s cabinet meeting, Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa told journalists that Zimbabwe was managing the COVID-19 situation. 

“The number of COVID-19 cases in schools is declining. The number of people in need of hospitalization for COVID-19 also decreased, with no patients under intensive care. In general, therefore, this indicates that the national response measures instituted by government continue to pay off and that the pandemic is being brought under control,” Mutsvangwa said.

Dr. Norman Matara, the head of Zimbabwe Association for Doctors for Human Rights, agrees with the government’s assessment.

“We do agree that at the present moment the COVID-19 pandemic has been brought control, as shown by the figures. The World Health Organization says that the COVID-19 pandemic, which is out of control, is signified by a positive rate of more than 5% and anything below 5% is a well-controlled pandemic. Our positivity rate for the past three-four weeks has been less than 2.5%,” Matara said.

Matara warned Zimbabweans to maintain protective measures against the virus.  

“However, we need to guard against complacence. There is danger of another wave coming in, another strain coming in especially when we have not achieved a herd immunity,” Matara said.

Zimbabwe has fully inoculated just above 2.7 million people since February when it began its vaccination program to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government has a target of vaccinating at least 10 million Zimbabweans — or 60% of the population — by the end of the year.     

Dr. Cleophas Chimbetete, president of Zimbabwe College of Public Health Physicians, says it’s not time to relax until that is achieved.      

“We know that predictions are that we will have a fourth wave. So my advice to the government is that this is the time to continue to double efforts to make sure that more and more Zimbabweans get vaccinated. Furthermore, this is the time to strengthen our management pillar as we anticipate a fourth wave.  It is important that we capacitate hospitals across the nation. Not just in our major cities and towns, but in every district in every province of the district,” Chimbetete said.

Carlos Caceres, the International Monetary Fund resident representative in Zimbabwe, says his organization is happy with authorities’ swift response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Nonetheless, the pandemic took a severe toll on the economic and humanitarian situation—with Zimbabwe’s economy contracting cumulatively by about 11 percent during 2019-20 owing to the combined effects of the pandemic, Cyclone Idai, a protracted drought, and weakened policy buffers. Following a severe wave from June to August 2021, COVID-19 infection rates have slowed significantly, lockdown measures have been eased, and the vaccination program continues steadily,” Caceres said.

Overall, Zimbabwe has 133,505 confirmed coronavirus infections and 4,698 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, which tracks the global outbreak.      
…

The last time Polenli Combary spoke to her son on the phone, she prayed for God to bless him. Shortly after, she called back, but the line was dead.

Her 34-year-old son was returning a truck used to move the family’s belongings from their village in eastern Burkina Faso after jihadis forced everyone to leave. He disappeared in March.

“We will keep searching. … I’m just praying to God to have him back,” said Combary, 53, sitting despondently in the eastern city of Fada N’Gourma where she now lives. 

Islamic extremist violence is ravaging Burkina Faso, killing thousands and displacing more than 1 million people. 

And people are going missing. Reports of missing relatives quadrupled from 104 to 407 between 2019 and 2020, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which defines a missing person as someone whose whereabouts cannot be accounted for and requires state intervention. 

“With the conflict, you have more sudden movements of people. You have more incidents which can lead to separation and disappearance,” said Marina Fakhouri, head of protection with the ICRC in Burkina Faso. “Certainly, we are concerned also by the number of families who are coming to us directly to signal that they have a missing relative and need support.”

People have previously gone missing in the West African nation due to migration, floods or shocks from climate change, but the magnitude has increased because of the violence, she said. 

Tracing people during a conflict and in a context of mass displacement is challenging, can cause tensions within families and communities, and psychological and physical distress. One month after her son disappeared, Combary’s husband died of a heart attack due to the shock, she said. 

While some families blame the jihadis for the disappearances of their loved ones, many others point to the security forces as the main perpetrators. During a trip to Fada N’Gourma in October and speaking to people in the Sahel province by phone, three families, including Combary’s, told The Associated Press they suspect the army is responsible for their missing relatives.

The military has been accused by rights groups of extrajudicial killings and targeting people deemed to be associated with the jihadis. About 70% of families reporting people missing allege it is linked to the security forces, said Daouda Diallo, executive secretary for the Collective Against Impunity and Stigmatization of Communities, a civil society group. 

There’s been a reduction of reported cases affiliated with the military since the end of last year, which Diallo attributes to a report by Human Rights Watch that accused the army of being involved in mass killings, said Diallo. But now the abuses are being committed by volunteer fighters, civilians armed by the state, he said.

“It is sad to see that the violence has been subcontracted to armed civilians or militia in the field,” Diallo said. 

The Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comment.

Burkina Faso’s increasing violence fuels impunity among the security forces, and the abductions and killings highlight the absence of the rule of law, conflict analysts say. 

“A significant proportion of the violence is attributed either to jihadist groups or ‘unidentified armed men,’ making it easy to absolve certain parties of responsibility. It’s easy to kill people or make them disappear, but much more difficult to protect them,” said Heni Nsaibia, senior researcher at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

Families searching for relatives they believe were taken by state agents say they don’t know where to turn. Hamadou Diallo’s nephew was allegedly arrested by the army outside Dori town in the Sahel province in 2019, he said. Unaware of any organization that could help other than the military, Diallo stopped searching. 

“Nobody had the courage to approach (the army),” he said. “After one or two weeks, if you don’t see a family member, that means (they’re dead).”

Rights groups say the government is obligated to investigate all cases of disappearances, hold people responsible and use the judiciary and the national human rights commission, said Corinne Dufka, West Africa director for Human Rights Watch.

“Both institutions need to redouble their efforts on behalf of families whose loved ones went missing at the hands of state security forces or armed Islamists. They have a right to the truth and to justice,” she said.

But while families with missing relatives search for answers, they live in limbo. 

Fidele Ouali hasn’t seen his 33-year-old brother since he disappeared a year and a half ago, he said. A farmer and father of five, Ouali said he was close to his brother, but as time passes, he’s finding it harder to remember him. 

“All my memories are wiped out,” said Ouali. Clutching his brother’s birth certificate, which he carries everywhere, Ouali said he is torn between giving up completely and hanging onto the hope that one day he might see his brother again. 

 
…

Here’s a look at what U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top diplomats have been doing this week:

Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal

Blinken is visiting Africa November 15-20, with stops in Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal. He met with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi on Wednesday to discuss urgent regional security, with pulling Ethiopia back from the brink of civil war high on the agenda. At a news conference in Nairobi, Blinken said he and Kenyatta discussed the crisis in Ethiopia and the African effort to resolve it, led by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Blinken, in Kenya, Pushes for End to Ethiopia War

Blinken is set to start events in Nigeria on Thursday, where he is expected to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, security issues and revitalizing democracies.

Nigerian Experts Have Big Expectations Ahead of Blinken’s Visit Thursday

Blinken’s last visit will be with Senegalese President Macky Sall in Dakar “to reaffirm the close partnership between our two countries.”

Blinken’s trip to Africa comes as the U.S. aims to boost an African Union-led initiative to end the fighting between the Ethiopian government and ethnic Tigrayans. 

Blinken to Visit Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal to Discuss Ethiopian Crisis

Myanmar

American journalist Danny Fenster was released Monday after being held in Myanmar for 176 days. Bill Richardson, a former U.S. representative and ambassador to the United Nations, took part in negotiations with the Myanmar junta for Fenster’s release, and he called for protection for journalists worldwide. 

Journalist Held in Myanmar Back in US After Release

US, China

The United States and China will ease access restrictions on journalists from each other’s countries. The State Department said the People’s Republic of China was committed to extending visa validity for U.S. journalists to one year. In return, the U.S. committed to do the same for PRC journalists. The PRC also pledged to permit U.S. journalists already in the country to freely depart and return, which they had previously been unable to do, and the U.S. plans to do the same for Chinese journalists.

China, US Agree to Ease Restrictions on Journalists

The journalist reciprocity agreement discussed between working-level officials came before U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a virtual meeting Monday to ensure that the competition between the two countries “does not veer into conflict.”

US, Chinese Officials Laud Progress in Inaugural Presidential Meeting

Blinken participated in the virtual meeting, where senior officials from the U.S. and China held “an extended discussion” on Taiwan. Biden clarified U.S. interests, ensuring there were “no unilateral changes to the status quo” across the Taiwan Strait. And, according to a senior U.S. administration official, Biden was “quite direct about his concerns about some of Beijing’s behavior that he believes is at odds with” peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. 

US, Chinese Leaders Share Differing Interpretations on Taiwan

Religious freedom 

Blinken designated China, Russia and eight other countries as violators of religious freedom. In a statement Wednesday, he said that the 10 countries “engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom.” Other countries on this year’s list are Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Eritrea, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Pakistan. Nigeria, which was removed from the list this year, will host Blinken’s visit this week.

US Designates China, Russia, 8 Others as Violators of Religious Freedom

Cambodia

The U.S. announced sanctions against two high-level Cambodian military officials last week, setting off a storm of invective from Phnom Penh and ratcheting up tensions related to Chinese development around the strategically located Ream Naval Base. In statements about the decision, the U.S. specifically cited corruption related to the naval base, which has become a geopolitical flashpoint between the superpowers as the U.S. worries it may become a Chinese military outpost in the Gulf of Thailand.

Phnom Penh Rebuffs US Sanctions of Cambodian Military Leaders

U.S., Qatar

Qatar will represent American interests in Afghanistan beginning December 31, Blinken announced last Friday during the U.S.-Qatar strategic dialogue. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul closed after last summer’s withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan, ending the country’s 20-year war and leaving it under Taliban control.

Qatar to Represent US Interests in Afghanistan
…

Four construction workers were killed Wednesday in another deadly building collapse in Nigeria’s economic capital, Lagos. 

Officials of the Lagos state fire service said search teams rescued five workers and that those workers are in stable condition. 

Officials say an unknown number of people remains trapped under the debris. The building, a one-story structure in the Magbon area on the outskirts of Lagos, caved in Wednesday afternoon. 

Earlier this month, a 21-story building collapsed in the Ikoyi area of Lagos state, killing at least 42 people and raising concerns among both citizens and authorities. 

Experts attribute the frequent collapses seen in Nigeria to substandard building materials and poor monitoring by authorities.  

“What is government doing to have prevented this occurrence? We can’t continue to be wasting lives. Every professional body has a regulatory body, we have the Nigerian Institute of Architects, we have Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria. To what extent are those regulatory bodies delivering on their mandate?” asked Festus Adebayo, founder of the Housing Development Advocacy Network. 

After the Ikoyi building collapse, Lagos state authorities set up an independent team to investigate the incident. They also declared three days of mourning in the state for victims, who included the owner of the real estate company that was developing the site. 
…

Unidentified gunmen have killed at least 25 people in southwest Niger, officials said Wednesday, the latest in a string of deadly raids along the country’s border with Mali. 

Attackers on motorcycles stormed the camp of a local self-defense militia near the village of Bakorat in the Tahoua region on Tuesday, said Attawane Abeitane, mayor of the nearby town of Tillia. 

A gunfight lasted for several hours before Nigerien security forces arrived and repelled the attackers, Abeitane said. A security official said only one of the defense militia survived. 

“These are terrorists who came from outside, and there were many of them,” Abeitane said. “There were deaths among the terrorists, and motorcycles were also burned.” 

No group claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack. A local affiliate of Islamic State has killed hundreds of people in rural communities near the Malian border this year. 

One raid on Bakorat and neighboring villages in March killed 137 people, one of the deadliest days in Niger’s recent history. Local officials blamed that attack on Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. 

In the absence of a permanent military presence, some villages and towns have taken up arms to defend themselves, though security analysts fear this can stoke the violence. 

The attack is part of a wider wave of violence that since 2017 has swept across West Africa’s Sahel region, a band of arid terrain south of the Sahara Desert. 

Some of the worst attacks have been centered in the border region of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Thousands of civilians have been killed in the region, and millions have been displaced. 

 
…

Two demonstrators were shot dead in Sudan’s capital Wednesday at a protest over the military’s recent coup, according to a pro-democracy doctors’ group.

The Central Doctors’ Committee said dozens of other protesters sustained gunshot wounds.

The shootings occurred as protesters gathered across Khartoum and other cities to demonstrate against the October 25 military takeover.

Witnesses said security forces fired tear gas at protesters in several places. They also said mobile phone lines in the country were cut during the demonstrations.

Protest organizers are calling for a full handover of power to civilian authorities and for the leaders of the military takeover to be tried in court.

The 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 President Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising in 2019.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed developments in Sudan during a visit Wednesday to Nairobi, where he met with President Uhuru Kenyatta and other officials.

Blinken, in the midst of a five-day trip to Africa that also includes visits to Nigeria and Senegal, said “it’s vital that the transition regain legitimacy that it had.”

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

 
…

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is in Kenya as part of efforts to pull Ethiopia back from the brink of civil war. The visit is the first stop on a three-country tour for Blinken.

Blinken met with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi on Wednesday to discuss climate change, trade, the COVID-19 pandemic and most urgently, regional security.

At a news conference in Nairobi, Blinken said he and Kenyatta discussed the crisis in Ethiopia and the African effort to resolve it, led by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo.

“Our special envoy Jeffrey Feltman is working with high representative Obasanjo to press the parties to end hostilities immediately and without preconditions, to stop human rights abuses and violations, to provide humanitarian access for the millions in northern Ethiopia who are in dire need of life-saving supplies,” he said.

The Ethiopian government has been at war with the northern Tigray region for a year, and both sides are accused of committing widespread abuses against the population.

Concern about the situation has grown in recent weeks as Tigrayan and allied forces threaten to march on the capital.

On Sunday, Kenyatta visited Ethiopia, hoping to bridge the gap between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and Tigray regional leaders.

Kenya’s Foreign Minister Raychelle Omamo said it’s possible to find a solution to the crisis, and said Ethiopians need to work hard on a peaceful resolution to the war.

“We believe in the potential of Ethiopia to find a resolution to this crisis. We believe a ceasefire is possible. We believe the other conditions regarding humanitarian access are possible. We must believe in the fortitude and wisdom of the Ethiopian people because, in the end, the solutions will come from them. What we can do as a neighbor is to support,” said Omamo.

Meanwhile, Blinken also touted U.S. help to Africa in battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We provided more than 50 million doses to 43 African countries to date, including 4 million doses here in Kenya. We also gave $1.9 billion in COVID-related assistance across Africa to help meet humanitarian needs, including $76 million to Kenya. And we have done this with no political strings attached. This is about saving lives, that’s the only metric that matters,” he said.

Secretary Blinken next travels to Nigeria, followed by a visit to Senegal.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken opened his three-nation tour of the African continent with a warning that several factors have led to a “recession” of democracy around the world. 

Speaking before a group of human rights activists Wednesday in Nairobi, Kenya, Blinken said “even vibrant democracies like Kenya” have become increasingly vulnerable to misinformation, corruption, political violence and voter intimidation. 

“The United States is hardly immune from this challenge,” Blinken said in an apparent reference to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capital by supporters of then-President Donald Trump in an attempt to force lawmakers to disqualify Joe Biden’s victory in last November’s presidential election. “We’ve seen how fragile our own democracy can be.” 

The top U.S. diplomat told the participants he wanted to hear their perspectives on democratic challenges and their ideas on solving them, as well as “how the United States can be helpful” to these efforts. 

Blinken’s remarks were made before scheduled talks with President Uhuru Kenyatta and Foreign Affairs Ambassador Raychelle Omamo. The U.S. State Department said the trio would discuss the partnerships between their governments with respect to “ending the COVID pandemic and investing in health, addressing the climate crisis, building a more inclusive global economy, and strengthening democracy and respect for human rights.” 

Blinken will also address specific regional issues such as ending the violence in Ethiopia, combating terrorism in Somalia and reviving Sudan’s transition to a civilian government, the State Department said Tuesday. 

Kenya, a member of the United Nations Security Council, is an important player in issues related to regional countries including Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia. 

Blinken’s upcoming visit to Kenya is part of a three-nation tour to Africa that also includes trips to Nigeria and Senegal. His trip is partially aimed at raising America’s profile as a key player in the region as it competes with China. 

Despite its large contributions of money and vaccines to contain the coronavirus and other infectious diseases, the United States has had little success in gaining influence in the region.  

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.  
…

The United Nations expressed alarm Tuesday at surging arrests in Ethiopia since the country introduced a state of emergency November 2. 

The U.N. human rights agency said most of those detained in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa as well as in Gondar, Bahir Dar and other locations were of Tigrayan origin. 

“According to reports, at least 1,000 individuals are believed to have been detained … with some reports putting the figure much higher,” spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters in Geneva. 

The arrests have been occurring since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government declared a state of emergency two weeks ago, when Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) fighters threatened to march on the capital. 

Lawyers have also said that thousands of Tigrayans have been arbitrarily detained since the announcement of the measures, which allow authorities to detain without a warrant anyone suspected of supporting “terrorist groups.”

Among those arrested since the state of emergency was declared are a number of U.N. staff members. 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated his call for the immediate release of the employees in a statement from his spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Tuesday evening. 

“As far as the secretary-general is aware, the staff members are being held without charge, and no specific information has been provided regarding the reasons for their arrest,” Dujarric said. 

Throssell said 10 local U.N. staff members and 34 drivers subcontracted by the U.N. were still being held. 

“We call for all those still in detention to be immediately released,” she said, adding that if that does not happen, “a court or other independent and impartial tribunal should review the reasons for their detention, or they should be formally charged.” 

She acknowledged that it was “challenging” for the remaining U.N. rights agency staff members to do their work, adding this was why “we have reports of at least 1,000 people detained, but we’re not in a position to give a more definitive number.” 

Detention conditions were generally reported to be “poor,” she said, with many of those detained held in overcrowded police stations. 

Throssell decried that many of those detained had reportedly not been informed of the reasons for their detention, let alone formally charged. 

“We are also concerned at some reports of ill-treatment in detention,” she said, adding that while the agency had no specific evidence of torture in detention, this was clearly a concern. 

The war between the Ethiopian authorities and the TPLF has over the past year killed thousands, displaced more than 2 million people, and left hundreds of thousands in famine-like conditions. 

The U.N. says all sides in the conflict have committed serious human rights violations. 

 
…