The Missing Voices coalition, consisting of 16 civil rights groups whose mission is to end disappearances and killings in Kenya, met Sunday with mothers of victims and other survivors of police abuse in Nairobi. The coalition also launched “They Were Us,” a book on the subject. The coalition said it documented 119 police killings and 23 enforced disappearances between January and September 2021. Police deny the accusations.

Forty-eight-year-old Lilian Njeri’s son and two others were killed in May 2018, allegedly by police in the Kiamaiko area of Nairobi. 

“After the killing of my son, I wanted to commit suicide. My other son asked me who would take care of him if I killed myself. I drank a lot. Since I joined the women’s network whose children were killed, it helped me heal and defend others,” she said.

The mother of two said she reported the matter to the Independent Police Oversight Authority, or the IPOA, a body mandated to check on the work of the police. The IPOA advised Njeri to file the case with the other two victims, in hopes of bolstering the investigation and getting convictions. However, Njeri says she is still looking for one of the mothers. 

In September, five officers were charged in Nairobi with murder over the death of a man killed in September 2018. The man was arrested for possessing illegal alcohol and IPOA investigators concluded that he died of multiple injuries inflicted with blunt force. The court ordered the officers involved to be held until December 6. 

Last month, the chairperson of IPOA, Anne Makori, told Kenyan editors the court is handling 98 cases of police abuses against the public. Since 2010 IPOA said there have been eight police convictions. 

The Missing Voices consortium, a group investigating unlawful killings, said 167 people were killed or disappeared in 2020.It says 157 of those deaths were as a result of police killings. 

Kenya’s police spokesperson Bruno Shioso says these allegations are unfounded. 

“It’s wrong to say police have killed youths because we don’t have that data, that information. These are wild allegations but when you tell them to come forward and bring proof or something tangible about nobody comes. So, it is very hard for us to react to something without any evidence. But we tell people if they are sure the police are complicit in any criminal undertaking let them come forward, let them make a formal report to us and we pick it from there if they can’t come to us, they can go to the oversight authorities,” he said. 

Aileen Wanjiku works with Missing Voices, the organizer of Sunday’s book launch, shining a light on the stories of police victims. She told VOA most families have yet to see justice for the deaths of their loved ones. 

“There is a challenge and problem even getting investigated, just pushing it in a court is an issue and when we get to court, there is that delayed justice… So, the reason many of these cases haven’t been investigated, pushed or documented it’s because a lot of witnesses don’t want to come forward because the protection of witnesses is lacking significantly. So, you see cases where witnesses are killed for coming forward,” said Wanjiku.

Josephine Akoth, 50, is one of those featured in the 64-page book. Her son, Sylvester Onyango, disappeared in August 2015. The mother of six recalls that on the day he vanished, massive police operations were taking place in the Dandora area, an eastern suburb in Nairobi, and its surroundings where he worked as a public bus driver. 

Akoth says she has gone through a lot, and she is requesting the government to help her search for her son and to help her know whether he is alive or dead. She says even if he has died, she would like to know where he was killed. At least she can collect the remains and bury them, she says.

Last month, 16 mutilated bodies were retrieved in Garissa County from the River Tana, the longest river in the country. Hundreds of families went to the area in hopes of identify the remains of missing loved ones. 
…

Madagascar is known for its rich and diverse wildlife, but experts say forest degradation is a growing threat to both animals and humans. As Anne Nzouankeu reports from Madagascar’s Tsitongambarika Forest, there are success stories thanks to reforestation efforts meant to reverse the effects of climate change.
…

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok is under house arrest in what appears to be a military coup, according to local TV reports.  

Citing family sources, Reuters reported that a military force stormed the prime minister’s residence early Monday. Four cabinet ministers and one civilian member of the ruling sovereign council also were arrested, Al-Hadath TV reported. 

Party leaders and additional government officials have been detained as the internet in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, has been disrupted, according to journalists and activists on the ground. Sudan’s international airport has been closed, according to reports.  

“Those in support of a military takeover will argue that this is a ‘correcting’ of the path of the revolution’ but I think many who have had their hearts set on a transfer of powers to a full civilian rule will definitely see this as a setback,” said Isma’il Kushkush, an independent journalist and former East Africa reporter at the New York Times. “I see this as a setback for the transition into a democracy,” Kushkush told VOA. 

Hamdok, an economist and diplomat who has worked for the U.N., was named the country’s transitional prime minister in August 2019. He leads an interim government that took power following the ouster of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir who was arrested during widespread street protests. The country is preparing for elections late next year and, under the constitution, Hamdok is forbidden from running.    

But Hamdok has faced stiff resistance from elements of the country’s military. On September 21, forces loyal to al-Bashir used tanks to block a key bridge and attempted to seize power. The coup was put down and dozens of soldiers were arrested. 

Last week, thousands of protesters took to the streets to voice concern about the prospect of a return to military rule. “This country is ours, and our government is civilian,” protesters chanted. 

The Sudanese Professionals Association, an organization made up of trade unions instrumental in organizing the protests, called on the public Monday to go out and occupy the streets to protect the transitional government.   

“It is a major blow to the democratic experiment in Sudan,” said Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, an expert on Sudan and former White House Africa director. 

The apparent coup attempt comes a day after Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman concluded two days of meetings in Sudan to underscore U.S. support for Sudanese democracy.  

Hudson said Feldman received assurances from military leaders that they were committed to the work of the transitional government.  

“The U.S. has invested more diplomatically in Sudan than almost anywhere else in the world in trying to prove that countries can move from autocracy to democracy,” Hudson told VOA. “This is a setback to transitions in Chad, Mali, and Guinea where the stakes are high, but which had not received nearly as much U.S. diplomatic attention as Sudan.” 

“From day one of [the ousting] al-Bashir, the greatest fear that many Sudanese had was that the fate of the Sudanese revolution will be similar to that of the similar uprisings in the region and perhaps that the greatest fear is unfolding as we speak,” Kushkush said. 
…

Ethiopia conducted two air strikes in Tigray on Sunday as the government intensifies a nearly week-old campaign of aerial bombardment against the rebellious forces who control most of the region.

One strike hit the western Tigray area of Mai Tsebri, targeting a training site of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), government spokesperson Legesse Tulu said. The other hit the northern Tigray town of Adwa, targeting a military manufacturing facility controlled by the TPLF, the government said in a statement.

“I can confirm there was a successful air strike in Mai Tsebri targeting training site of illegal recruits of the TPLF and a depot of heavy artillery,” Legesse said.

It was not immediately possible to verify the claim as communications are down throughout most of war-hit Tigray.

TPLF spokesperson Getachew Reda told Reuters he had verified with colleagues that an air strike hit near a local hospital in Mai Tsebri.

Getachew said there were no casualties to his knowledge. He said he had no information about the strike on Adwa. “The government makes it sound as though all of the Tigray region is a training center. It doesn’t make any sense, we don’t have all these training centers.”

“Today in Adwa, a center that the terrorist group TPLF was using to manufacture military equipment was destroyed by an air strike,” the Government Communications Service said in a statement posted on Facebook.

Ethiopian federal forces and forces loyal to the TPLF have been fighting for almost a year in a conflict that has killed thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million.

Mai Aini and Adi Harush Refugee Camps, which host thousands of Eritrean refugees, are both in the vicinity of Mai Tsebri.

Legesse said the refugee camps were not affected by the strike.

Representatives from Ethiopia’s Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
…

A U.N. Security Council mission that is visiting Mali this weekend to assess the security situation is urging the country’s authorities to set elections for February to meet agreements reached with a West African regional bloc after a coup last year. 

The mission led by Kenya’s ambassador to the U.N., Martin Kimani, met with civil society organizations, groups that have signed a peace agreement, Mali’s prime minister and transitional president, Col. Assimi Goita, during their weekend visit. 

“I was struck by the thirst for reform (both political and institutional) that is desired by most of the Malian population,” Kimani Sunday said at a news conference. “We are now waiting for the end of the transition period which should lead to the organization of elections.”

However, Malian authorities have said after the meetings with the U.N. Security Council mission, they want to organize days of consultations in December amongst Malian groups to determine a path toward elections. 

“The Malian authorities have spoken to us about these meetings as a prerequisite for the elections. These meetings will take place in December,” said Abdou Abarry, Nigeria’s ambassador to the U.N. who was a part of the delegation. “We are not opposed to it, but only insist it does not delay the end of the transition and give Malians the opportunity to choose their leaders.” 

Abarry said that Goita assured the delegation that “the transitional authorities are not here to stay in power and any commitments the transitional authorities will make will be in the interest of Malians.” 

Goita seized power in August 2020 by overthrowing Mali’s democratically elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who had only served two years of his five-year term after being reelected in 2018. Goita eventually agreed to a transitional government led by a civilian president but ousted those leaders in May after they announced a Cabinet reshuffle that sidelined two junta supporters without consulting him.

Goita was then sworn in as president of the transitional government in June. He has pledged to keep the country on track to return to civilian rule with an election in February 2022.

The U.N. diplomats also raised the issue of security in Mali. The peacekeeping mission in Mali remains the deadliest of all the U.N. missions since 2013. 

“The Malian authorities have insisted that they are putting much emphasis on security challenges, and MINUSMA (the U.N. mission in Mali) is ready to help them, especially in Central Mali where there is the highest threat of terrorism,” said Nicolas de Rivière, France’s ambassador to the U.N.

Mali has been fighting growing insecurity since 2012, when al-Qaida-linked groups took over parts of the north. Despite a French-led military operation that forced many rebels from their northern strongholds in 2013, insurgents quickly regrouped and have been advancing year after year toward the south of the country, where the Malian capital is located. They also launch frequent attacks on the Malian army and its allies.
…

A former al-Shabab commander who is under house arrest in Somalia says he is being held to prevent him from seeking elected office. 

Mukhtar Robow Ali, popularly known as Abu Mansour, was the deputy leader of al-Shabab and had been sought by the United States, which once had a $5 million bounty on his head. He defected from the terror group after violently clashing with them in August 2017. The Somali government initially hailed his defection but later arrested him to stop him from running for president of the Southwest region back in 2018, when it held its last leadership election.

Speaking from Mogadishu, where he has been under house arrest since 2018, Abu Mansour told VOA Somali that his detention was politically motivated. 

“I was detained to stop me from running,” he said. “I was detained in order to hijack the Southwest election,” he added.  

His comments, made last Thursday, come as Somalia is in the middle of elections to choose lawmakers for parliament’s lower and upper chambers. 

The 275 lawmakers from the Lower House and 54 senators from the Upper House will choose a national president at the end of the current election process. Southwest is one of five regions that plays a major role in the election of lawmakers who choose the head of state.

President Farmaajo is running for reelection and competing against more than a dozen people who have declared their candidacy, including two former presidents. 

Abu Mansour says he does not want Farmaajo elected to a second term.

“To all Somalis everywhere, don’t give Farmaajo a single vote,” he said. 

Abu Mansour says he is not giving up on running for political office despite being in detention for almost three years. 

“I will always be ready to work for the development of our people and our country,” he said. “I will not be demoralized; if I don’t die, I will continue that journey.” 

Abu Mansour said he decided to contact VOA, alleging he has been “abducted” and that he has been denied his basic rights. 

Abu Mansour said he feels unsafe under house arrest. 

“I can’t say my safety is secured.”  

VOA reached out to the presidential palace and the leaders of Southwest State, but they have not responded to requests for comment. The government defended its decision to block his political aspirations. The internal security ministry said Abu Mansour did not meet all the preconditions for running for office. The Somali government said Abu Mansour was still under sanctions by members of the international community for his prior membership with al-Shabab. 

Abu Mansour says despite being in detention for almost three years, government officials never spoke to him in person about the reasons behind his arrest. Abu Mansour said he received a message through his traditional elder who told him the government would send him to an unnamed country if he were willing to take the opportunity. Abu Mansour said he rejected the proposition. 

“I will not go into exile; this is where I was born, and I will die here.” 

Qatar is the only country that has agreed to accept high-profile al-Shabab defectors so far. In February 2016, Qatar agreed to give asylum to Mohamed Said Atom, a former commander of Al-Shabab in the Galgala Mountains of Puntland, following his defection.  

In his interview with VOA, Abu Mansour condemned the militant group for targeting civilians and carrying out unlawful killings, including religious scholars.

“I left al-Shabab because of differences over credence,” he said. 

Asked if he regrets becoming a member of al-Shabab, Abu Mansour said he did not become involved in “plots” while in the militant group.  

“Whatever the mistakes I made I repent to Allah; no one is forcing me to say that; but I don’t regret whatever the good things I have done.”

In June 2017, the United States withdrew its $5 million reward offer for the capture of Abu Mansour.
…

Pope Francis on Sunday made an impassioned plea to end the practice of returning migrants rescued at sea to Libya and other unsafe countries where they suffer “inhumane violence.”

Francis also waded into a highly contentious political debate in Europe, calling on the international community to find concrete ways to manage the “migratory flows” in the Mediterranean. 

“I express my closeness to the thousands of migrants, refugees and others in need of protection in Libya,” Francis said. “I never forget you, I hear your cries and I pray for you.” 

Even as the pontiff appealed for changes of migrant policy and of heart in his remarks to the public in St. Peter’s Square, hundreds of migrants were either at sea in the central Mediterranean awaiting a port after rescue or recently coming ashore in Sicily or the Italian mainland after setting sail from Libya or Turkey, according to authorities.

“So many of these men, women and children are subject to inhumane violence,” he added. “Yet again I ask the international community to keep the promises to search for common, concrete and lasting solutions to manage the migratory flows in Libya and in all the Mediterranean.”

“How they suffer, those who are sent back” after rescue at sea, the pope said. Detention facilities in Libya, he said “are true concentration camps.” 

“We need to stop sending back [migrants] to unsafe countries and to give priority to the saving of human lives at sea with protocols of rescue and predictable disembarking, to guarantee them dignified conditions of life, alternatives to detention, regular paths of migration and access to asylum procedures,” Francis said. 

U.N. refugee agency officials and human rights organizations have long denounced the conditions of detention centers for migrants in Libya, citing practices of beatings, rape and other forms of torture and insufficient food. Migrants endure weeks and months of those conditions, awaiting passage in unseaworthy rubber dinghies or rickety fishing boats arranged by human traffickers. 

Hours after the pope’s appeal, the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders said that its rescue ship, Geo Barents, reached a rubber boat that was taking on water, with the sea buffeted by strong winds and waves up to three meters (10 feet) high. It tweeted that “we managed to rescue all the 71 people on board.” 

The group thanked the charity group Alarm Phone for signaling that the boat crowded with migrants was in distressed. 

Earlier, Geo Barents, then with 296 migrants aboard its rescue ship, was awaiting permission in waters off Malta to disembark. Six migrants tested positive for COVID-19, but because of the crowded conditions aboard, it was difficult to keep them sufficiently distant from the others, Doctors Without Borders said. 

In Sicily, a ship operated by the German charity Sea-Watch, with 406 rescued migrants aboard, was granted permission to enter port. But Sea-Watch said that a rescue vessel operated by a Spanish charity, with 105 migrants aboard, has been awaiting a port assignment to disembark them for four days.

While hundreds of thousands of migrants have departed in traffickers’ boats for European shores in recent years and set foot on Sicily or nearby Italian islands, many reach the Italian mainland.

Red Cross officials in Roccella Ionica, a town on the coast of the “toe” of the Italian peninsula said on Sunday that about 700 migrants, some of them from Afghanistan, reached the Calabrian coast in recent days on boats that apparently departed from Turkey.

Authorities said so far this year, about 3,400 migrants had reached Roccella Ionica, a town of 6,000 people, compared to 480 in all of 2019. The migrants who arrived in the last several days were being housed in tent shelters, RAI state television said.

Italy and Malta have come under criticism by human rights advocates for leaving migrants aboard crowded rescue boats before assigning them a safe port.

The Libyan coast guard, which has been trained and equipped by Italy, has also been criticized for rescuing migrants in Libyan waters and then returning them to land where the detention centers awaited them.

On Friday, Doctors Without Borders tweeted that crew aboard the Geo Barents had “witnessed an interception” by the Libyan coast guard and that the migrants “”will be forcibly taken to dangerous detention facilities and exposed to violence and exploitation.”

With rising popularity of right-wing, anti-migrant parties in Italy in recent years, the Italian government has been under increasing domestic political pressure to crack down on illegal immigration.

Italy and Malta have lobbied theirs European Union partner countries, mainly in vain, to take in some of those rescued at sea. 
…

In a pair of Cape Town warehouses converted into a maze of airlocked sterile rooms, young scientists are assembling and calibrating the equipment needed to reverse engineer a coronavirus vaccine that has yet to reach South Africa and most of the world’s poorest people.

The energy in the gleaming labs matches the urgency of their mission to narrow vaccine disparities. By working to replicate Moderna’s COVID-19 shot, the scientists are effectively making an end run around an industry that has vastly prioritized rich countries over poor in both sales and manufacturing.

And they are doing it with unusual backing from the World Health Organization, which is coordinating a vaccine research, training and production hub in South Africa along with a related supply chain for critical raw materials. It’s a last resort effort to make doses for people going without, and the intellectual property implications are still murky.

“We are doing this for Africa at this moment, and that drives us,” said Emile Hendricks, a 22-year-old biotechnologist for Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, the company trying to reproduce the Moderna jab. “We can no longer rely on these big superpowers to come in and save us.”

Some experts see reverse engineering — recreating vaccines from fragments of publicly available information — as one of the few remaining ways to redress the power imbalances of the pandemic. Only 0.7% of vaccines have gone to low-income countries so far, while nearly half have gone to wealthy countries, according to an analysis by the People’s Vaccine Alliance.

That WHO, which relies upon the goodwill of wealthy countries and the pharmaceutical industry for its continued existence, is leading the attempt to reproduce a proprietary vaccine demonstrates the depths of the supply disparities. 

The U.N.-backed effort to even out global vaccine distribution, known as COVAX, has failed to alleviate dire shortages in poor countries. Donated doses are coming in at a fraction of what is needed to fill the gap. Meanwhile, pressure for drug companies to share, including Biden administration demands on Moderna, has led nowhere. 

Until now, WHO has never directly taken part in replicating a novel vaccine for current global use over the objections of the original developers. The Cape Town hub is intended to expand access to the novel messenger RNA technology that Moderna, as well as Pfizer and German partner BioNTech, used in their vaccines.

“This is the first time we’re doing it to this level, because of the urgency and also because of the novelty of this technology,” said Martin Friede, a WHO vaccine research coordinator who is helping direct the hub. 

Dr. Tom Frieden, the former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has described the world as “being held hostage” by Moderna and Pfizer, whose vaccines are considered the most effective against COVID-19. The novel mRNA process uses the genetic code for the spike protein of the coronavirus and is thought to trigger a better immune response than traditional vaccines.

Arguing that American taxpayers largely funded Moderna’s vaccine development, the Biden administration has insisted the company must expand production to help supply developing nations. The global shortfall through 2022 is estimated at 500 million and 4 billion doses, depending on how many other vaccines come on the market.

“The United States government has played a very substantial role in making Moderna the company it is,” said David Kessler, the head of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. program to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development. 

Kessler would not say how far the administration would go in pressing the company. “They understand what we expect to happen,” he said. 

Moderna has pledged to build a vaccine factory in Africa at some point in the future. But after pleading with drugmakers to share their recipes, raw materials and technological know-how, some poorer countries are done waiting. 

Afrigen Managing Director Petro Terblanche said the Cape Town company is aiming to have a version of the Moderna vaccine ready for testing in people within a year and scaled up for commercial production not long after. 

“We have a lot of competition coming from Big Pharma. They don’t want to see us succeed,” Terblanche said. “They are already starting to say that we don’t have the capability to do this. We are going to show them.”

If the team in South Africa succeeds in making a version of Moderna’s vaccine, the information will be publicly released for use by others, Terblanche said. Such sharing is closer to an approach U.S. President Joe Biden championed in the spring and the pharmaceutical industry strongly opposes. 

Commercial production is the point at which intellectual property could become an issue. Moderna has said it would not pursue legal action against a company for infringing on its vaccine rights, but neither has it offered to help companies that have volunteered to make its mRNA shot.

Chairman Noubar Afeyan said Moderna determined it would be better to expand production itself than to share technology and plans to deliver billions of additional doses next year. 

“Within the next six to nine months, the most reliable way to make high-quality vaccines and in an efficient way is going to be if we make them,” Afeyan said.

Zoltan Kis, an expert in messenger RNA vaccines at Britain’s University of Sheffield, said reproducing Moderna’s vaccine is “doable,” but the task would be far easier if the company shared its expertise. Kis estimated the process involves fewer than a dozen major steps. But certain procedures are tricky, such as sealing the fragile messenger RNA in lipid nanoparticles, he said.

“It’s like a very complicated cooking recipe,” he said. “Having the recipe would be very, very helpful, and it would also help if someone could show you how to do it.” 

A U.N.-backed public health organization still hopes to persuade Moderna that its approach to providing vaccines for poorer countries misses the mark. Formed in 2010, the Medicines Patent Pool initially focused on convincing pharmaceutical companies to share patents for AIDS drugs.

“It’s not about outsiders helping Africa,” Executive Director Charles Gore said of the South Africa vaccine hub. “Africa wants to be empowered, and that’s what this is about.”

It will eventually fall to Gore to try to resolve the intellectual property question. Work to recreate Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is protected as research, so a potential dispute would surround steps to sell a replicated version commercially, he said. 

“It’s about persuading Moderna to work with us rather than using other methods,” Gore said. 

He said the Medicines Patent Pool repeatedly tried but failed to convince Pfizer and BioNTech – the first companies out with an effective vaccine – to even discuss sharing their formulas.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is among the members of Congress backing a bill that calls on the United States to invest more in making and distributing COVID-19 vaccines in low-and middle-income countries, said reverse engineering isn’t going to happen fast enough to keep the virus from mutating and spreading further.

“We need to show some hustle. We have to show a sense of urgency, and I’m not seeing that urgency,” he said. “Either we end this pandemic or we muddle our way through.”

Campaigners argue the meager amount of vaccines available to poorer countries through donations, COVAX and purchases suggests the Western-dominated pharmaceutical industry is broken.

“The enemy to these corporations is losing their potential profit down the line,” Joia Mukherjee, chief medical officer of the global health nonprofit Partners in Health, said.  

“The enemy isn’t the virus, the enemy isn’t suffering.”

Back in Cape Town, the promise of using mRNA technology against other diseases motivates the young scientists.

“The excitement is around learning how we harness mRNA technology to develop a COVID-19 vaccine,” Caryn Fenner, Afrigen’s technical director, said. But more important, Fenner said, “is not only using the mRNA platform for COVID, but for beyond COVID.”
…

A U.S. envoy underlined Washington’s support for a democratic transition to civilian rule in Sudan on Saturday during talks with the head of its ruling council and the prime minister, the U.S. embassy in Khartoum said. 

It tweeted that Jeffrey Feltman, special envoy for the Horn of Africa, had also urged all sides to recommit to working together to implement Sudan’s constitutional declaration, signed after a 2018-2019 uprising that resulted in the removal of president Omar al-Bashir. 

Feltman met with Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sovereign Council, and his deputy General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. 

Tensions between the civilian and military leaders who now share power have soared in the wake of an attempted military coup in September, which the army said it had foiled. 

As an economic crisis deepens, a coalition of rebel groups and political parties have aligned themselves with the military, which has accused the civilian governing parties of mismanagement and monopolizing power, and are seeking to dissolve the Cabinet. 

In response, hundreds of thousands demonstrated in several parts of Khartoum and other cities on Thursday against the prospect of military rule. Several Cabinet ministers took part. 

In a statement after the meeting with Feltman, Burhan praised American support for Sudan’s transition to democracy and said the military was keen to protect that transition.
…

Somali filmmaker Khadar Ahmed won the top prize at the FESPACO film festival in Burkina Faso on Saturday for “The Gravedigger’s Wife,” which he wrote and directed. 

The 40-year-old was not at the ceremony to receive the Golden Stallion award, but his work bested 16 other African films for the top prize. The films in competition were made by directors from 15 African countries. 

This year’s international jury was led by Mauritanian producer Abderrahmane Sissako, who won France’s coveted Cesar in 2015 for “Timbuktu.” 

The Golden Stallion, said Sissako, was “for any African filmmaker, the best prize you can have, a source of great pride.” 

The festival, first staged in 1969, is held every two years in the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou. 

The event is closely followed by the U.S. and European movie industries, which scout the event for new films, talent and ideas. 

Its top prize is named after the Golden Stallion of Yennenga, a mythical beast in Burkinabe mythology. 

The event was originally set for February 27-March 6 but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. 

 
…

At least 20 people were killed and more than 40 wounded on Saturday when a moderate Islamist group clashed with Somali government troops over control of a town in central Somalia, according to witnesses and regional officials.

The clashes started at dawn Saturday morning when government troops, who have been amassing on the outskirts of Guri-El, a central Somali town some 400 kilometers north of the capital, Mogadishu, attacked bases held by Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a (ASWJ) rebels.

According to residents, both sides used heavy artillery, mortars, machineguns, and vehicle-mounted anti-aircraft guns during a fierce battle in the streets.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, military officials from the opposing sides told VOA that both sides suffered fatalities.

A senior official with the Somali National Security Agency, Col: Abdirisaq Mohamud Yusuf, told VOA that the regional commander of Somali’s Danab Brigade, Abdiladif  Feyfle, was among the dead.

Danab or “lightning” brigadiers are U.S.-trained Somali commandos.

“I can confirm that three of our soldiers were killed and more than 10 injured during the fighting,” Ahmed Shire Falagle, Galmudug’s regional state information minister, told VOA’s Somali Service. “I also know that a significant number of Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a militia were killed, although I cannot give exact number.”

Falagle also said government troops ultimately took control of the town and that opposing combatants retreated.

“We have driven the militia out of the town and now they are firing back from the outskirts,” he said.

But witnesses who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal said that government forces managed to hold control of only the police station, the district headquarters and several ASWJ administrative buildings.

“None of the two sides is in full control [of the town] yet,” one witness told VOA. “We can hear heavy gunfire and shelling. The government soldiers are positioned at strategic bases at the heart of the town.”

VOA phone calls to several ASWJ officials went unanswered.

A moderate Sufi sect, ASWJ previously assisted Somali government troops battling al-Shabab Islamist extremists, temporarily striking a regional power-sharing deal with the Somali government. Saturday’s fighting followed a simmering dispute over ASWJ’s representation in local, state and national government.

Mogadishu has been denying the group’s request to have power as an Islamic entity, saying its members should peacefully seek power through their respective clans. It also wanted the group’s militia to be integrated into national forces.

In February of last year, Somali troops seized towns previously under ASWJ control, including Guri-El.

Earlier this month, the Islamist group took control of Guri-El unopposed after forcing Somali government troops to withdraw.

In an interview with VOA Somali at the time, the group’s chief, Sheikh Shakir, said it wants to take control of towns and regions to better protect them from al-Shabab extremists.

Since then, tension has been building as government troops began amassing military reinforcement near the town.

The U.N. said on Thursday over 100,000 people had been displaced in Guri-El because of the military buildup.

Efforts to mediate differences by local elders and regional leaders failed, leading to Saturday’s bloody battle.

The fighting comes two days after Somalia’s president and prime minister said they had struck a deal to speed up the country’s long-delayed election process and to end a simmering feud that threatened to plunge the Horn of Africa nation into a fresh crisis.

The two men had been deadlocked over top security appointments and dismissals that were triggered by the mysterious disappearance of a female Somali spy who has long been declared dead by the country’s National Intelligence and Security Agency.

Experts warn that continued political instability and renewed fighting with the moderate Islamist group could benefit al-Shabab.

Abdiwahid Mo’alim Isaq has contributed this report from Galkayo. This story originated in VOA’s Somali Service.

 
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The U.N.’s World Food Program says thousands of destitute people in Cameroon’s crisis-prone western regions are going hungry and their situations may become worse if the separatist crisis there continues. Chris Nikoi, WFP regional director for west and central Africa is visiting hungry community members – most of them farmers chased from their farms by Cameroon’s separatist conflicts who are pleading to be spared from fighting between the military and separatists.

Hundreds of civilians in the town of Bamenda Thursday welcomed Nikoi in their English-speaking town in Cameroon’s restive North-West region.

Among those who came out was 59-year-old farmer Clifford Tayong. Tayong said he asked Nikoi to thank the WFP for the assistance the U.N. body has been giving people suffering as a result of the separatist crisis in Cameroon’s western regions.

Tayong said besides rice and vegetable oil, the WFP gave him and his three children $60 in August. He said his family again received $80 from the WFP in September. Tayong said he used the money to buy school supplies for his children. He said he also bought two roosters and eight hens to start a poultry farm that will enable him to earn money and take care of his family.

Tayong said he lost all his beans and corn when his one-hectare farm was burned down in the English-speaking Bafut Subdivision near Bamenda. He said the military accused him of giving food to separatist fighters and torched his farm.

Tayong and many others who fled the separatist crisis recounted their suffering to Nikoi. They pleaded to be spared from the fighting and said they wanted to return to their villages.

Nikoi said thousands of Cameroonians chased from their towns and villages by the separatist crisis are now very poor and hungry.

“I can’t help thinking about the women and the men and the stories about their farms being torched and to the point where the little dignity that they are able to retain in their lives is because of the monthly little assistance that they are having from the World Food Program, so I am living here proud of what we are doing to sustain people’s lives,” he said.

Nikoi said famine looms should the separatist crisis persist and force farmers to stay away from their fields. He said the WFP is assisting 280,000 civilians in the English-speaking North-West region.

Most of those receiving WFP assistance are displaced persons living with disabilities, pregnant women or people whose houses have been burned.

Farmers say their farms, houses and plantations have been destroyed by both government troops and separatist fighters. They say separatist fighters torch houses and farms of people suspected of collaborating with government troops, while government troops destroy the properties of people suspected of supporting the rebels.  

Both the Cameroon military and separatists have always denied that their troops target civilians, their farms, plantations or houses.

Cameroon Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Gabriel Mbairobe said farmers who return to their farms will be given seed and fertilizers at reduced prices. He said the military will protect displaced people who return to places where there is relative peace.

The WFP reports that as part of its crisis response operations, it distributed 1,608 metric tons of food to 199,000 beneficiaries in Cameroon’s North-West and South-West regions. The U.N. also reports that as part of its malnutrition prevention program the WFP provided 48 metric tons of specialized nutritious foods to 8,100 children aged 6 to 59 months and to 5,500 girls and pregnant women. 

According to the U.N., 4.4 million of the 25 million Cameroonians need humanitarian assistance, and more than 1.9 million were food-insecure between June and August.

The separatist crisis has forced more than 750,000 people to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in late 2017, according to the U.N. Ongoing armed clashes, civilian casualties and the burning of houses, hospitals and other infrastructure are causing further displacement, suffering and hunger.
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Gunmen have attacked a prison in southwest Nigeria, freeing dozens of inmates, an official told The Associated Press Saturday.  

The third jailbreak in Africa’s most populous country this year raises more concerns about how safe detention facilities are in the West African nation where authorities have struggled to stem rising violence. A handful of security facilities, especially police stations, have been attacked in a similar manner in the past year.

Olanrewaju Anjorin, a spokesman of the Oyo correctional center in Oyo state, told the AP that the gunmen attacked the facility late Friday night and an investigation into the incident which will reveal the extent of damage has begun.

“I can’t ascertain the number of people that escaped or that were recaptured but I am telling you that the security has been beefed up around the custodial center and the town,” he told AP in a phone interview.

Francis Enobore of the Nigerian Prisons Service also confirmed the incident and said he was on his way to the attacked facility.

Friday’s attack is the third this year in Nigeria, where jailbreaks are becoming more frequent and police only capture a fraction of those who escape. Lagos-based online newspaper TheCable reported in July this year that at least 4,307 inmates had escaped from prisons since 2017, based on compiled media reports.

In 2021 alone, more than 2,000 inmates were freed in two earlier jailbreaks: on Sept. 13 when 240 inmates were freed after gunmen attacked a detention facility in north-central Kogi state with explosives and on April 5 when at least 1,800 were freed in the southeast Imo state when another facility was also blown up.

Most of the recent jailbreaks in Nigeria seem not to be connected although the attacks are carried out in a similar manner with the use of explosives. Authorities have managed to rearrest some escaped inmates, sometimes in neighboring states, while others return willingly. 

A good number of those who have escaped in such attacks are yet to be convicted and still awaiting trial. Nigerian prisons hold 70,000 inmates but only about 20,000, or 27%, have been convicted, according to government data.
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Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch:

Airstrikes target Mekelle 

The Ethiopian government launched a series of airstrikes this week on Tigray’s capital, Mekelle, one of which forced a U.N. aid flight to turn around midair. 

New provocations from DPRK 

North Korea has continued to test-fire missiles, spurring the United States, Britain and France to call a U.N. Security Council meeting on Wednesday.

Africa hardest hit by climate change 

A new U.N. climate report says the African continent is warming faster and to a higher temperature than other parts of the world, despite being responsible for less than 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Human rights discussions 

The U.N. General Assembly’s third committee had its annual briefings Friday from the special rapporteurs on the human rights situations in North Korea and Myanmar.

News in brief

— UNICEF said Tuesday that 10,000 children have been killed or maimed in Yemen since fighting started in March 2015. That is the equivalent of four children every day. And that is the number of cases the U.N. children’s agency has been able to verify; the real number is likely higher.

— UNICEF said the numbers of women (71) and children (30) kidnapped for ransom in Haiti in the first eight months of 2021 have surpassed the totals for all of 2020. The overwhelming majority of abductees are Haitians and are taken in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

— The U.N. Security Council has set off on its first field mission since before the pandemic. The 15 members are heading to Mali and Niger through Tuesday. They are checking on Mali’s transition and discussing terrorism, the effects of climate change in the Sahel and other issues with leaders, civil society and U.N. country teams.

— U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the U.N. Security Council separately welcomed the declaration of a unilateral cease-fire on October 15 by President Faustin Archange Touadéra in the Central African Republic. That country has been trying to restore state authority after years of intercommunal violence and territory grabs by armed groups.

Some good news

The United Nations said a national house-to-house polio vaccination campaign in Afghanistan will resume November 8, after a three-year halt, with the support of the Taliban authorities.

Quote of note

“Today, women’s leadership is a cause. Tomorrow, it must be the norm,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday on the 21st anniversary of Resolution 1325, which demands the full and equal participation of women in conflict resolution, peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction.

Next week

The G-20 meets in Rome ahead of a critical U.N. climate conference in Scotland in early November. On Tuesday, the U.N. General Assembly will hold its own pre-conference high-level session on delivering climate action.

Did you know?

U.N. peacekeepers are called “blue helmets” because of the color of their berets and helmets. There are more than 87,000 peacekeepers from 121 countries currently deployed in a dozen missions. Their missions are authorized by U.N. Security Council resolutions to protect civilians and strengthen security in post-conflict and fragile states.
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Ethiopian forces carried out an airstrike Friday on the city of Mekelle, their fifth on the Tigray regional capital since Monday. 

There were no immediate reports of casualties following Friday’s airstrike, which witnesses say hit a farmer’s field near a fenced off area on the eastern side of Mekelle University.

A U.N. humanitarian flight bound for Mekelle had to turn back in mid-air to Addis Ababa Friday because of the airstrike, according to Gemma Connell, head of the regional office for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 

Connell said this week’s air strikes and recent fighting in Tigray have had major consequences because not a single aid truck has entered the embattled northern Ethiopian region since Monday.

Ethiopia’s state-owned Fana Broadcasting Corporation reported Friday’s airstrike targeted military training spots used by Tigrayan forces.

“Another one of the terrorist group TPLF’s [Tigray People’s Liberation Front] training sites has been the target of air strikes today,” said the report, which cited the website Ethiopia Current Issue Fact Check, a pro-government initiative.

“This site was ENDF’s [Ethiopian National Defense Force’s] training center before being appropriated by TPLF for military training of illegal recruits. It is also serving as a battle network hub by the terrorist org.” 

TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael said the airstrikes are a last ditch effort to turn the tide in the conflict between the TPLF and the Ethiopian government, which has raged on for nearly a year.

“They are desperate on the war front,” he said, speaking to Reuters by satellite phone from an undisclosed location. “My interpretation is they are bombing us because they are losing on the ground and it’s their reprisal. The fact that they are bombing shows they don’t care about Tigrayan civilians.” 

On Wednesday, U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq confirmed that three children were among those killed in this week’s attacks. 

Haq said colleagues at the U.N. “are alarmed at the intensification of the conflict and once again reminded all parties to the conflict of their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure.” 

Witnesses who spoke to VOA’s Tigrigna Service reported civilian injuries and deaths. 

The airstrike Thursday that targeted Mesfin Industrial Engineering, an equipment manufacturing company, injured 15 people, who are receiving medical help at Mekelle’s flagship Ayder Referral Hospital, according to Girmay Legas, the director of the emergency room at the hospital, who spoke to VOA’s Tigrigna Service. 

“There are many who were seriously injured, especially two of the people who had to go straight into the operating room right after they were admitted,” Girmay said. “We have a five-year-old child among the 15 injured and one of the injured was pregnant and she is receiving care to find out the condition of the child.” 

Girmay said most of those admitted to the hospital had “serious physical injuries,” and said the hospital did not have enough medical equipment and medicine to help the victims. 

Biniam Kassa was one of those injured. “Mesfin industrial’s work focuses on normal projects like transportation but I don’t know why and in what case it was targeted,” he said. “Only thing I can say at this moment is that only civilians were attacked but nothing else.” 

Filimone Yohannes was another person injured and underwent surgery on his right leg. He says the attack happened while they were in the middle of work.

“I was injured on my knee and couldn’t stand up but pulled myself to move a bit further until people came and lifted me up and brought me here [Ayder hospital] in an ambulance. I am not sure how people will go back to work and might lose their jobs and won’t be able to feed themselves if they don’t have work, people will be displaced. If you are bombarded in your place of work, how would you go back to work? How can you work?” 

Ethiopian government spokesman Legesse Tulu said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that the military is making precise aerial attacks and making every effort to avoid civilian casualties. 

“We confirm and assure these surgical operations have no any intended harm to civilians,” Legesse wrote. 

He added that Tigrayan forces have used civilian facilities for military purposes. “They have been adept at hiding munitions and heavy artillery in places of worship and using ordinary Tigrayans as a human shield,” he wrote. “The purpose of the air strikes was just to deter the damages and atrocities the TPLF terrorist group plan[n]ed to make on the social well-being of the country and citizens.” 

The Tigray conflict began almost a year ago between Ethiopian troops and the TPLF, which governed Ethiopia for three decades but now rules only the northern Tigray region.

Mekelle has not seen large-scale fighting since June, when Ethiopian forces withdrew from the area and Tigray forces retook control of most of the region. Following that, the conflict continued to spill into the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar. 

Last week, Tigray forces said the Ethiopian military had launched a ground offensive to push them out of the Amhara region and to recapture territory lost to them several months ago.

VOA Tigrigna Service’s Mulugeta Atsbeha contributed to the report from Mekelle. VOA’s Margaret Besheer contributed to the report from the United Nations. 

 
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Nigerian separatist Nnamdi Kanu has pleaded not guilty to charges brought against him by authorities. The leader of secessionist group The Indigenous People of Biafra, or IPOB, was captured in Kenya in June and repatriated to Nigeria to face trial. 

The start of the trial in Federal High Court on Thursday was the first time Kanu has been seen in public since he was captured in late June.

Kanu was brought to an Abuja courtroom by state security agents in a heavily guarded convoy. The trial began shortly afterward but journalists, lawyers and supporters were denied access to the courtroom. 

Kanu is charged with terrorism, treason, involvement with a banned separatist movement, inciting public violence through radio broadcasts, and defamation of Nigerian authorities through broadcasts. 

Kanu denies the allegations, and his lawyer, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, told reporters the dismissal of charges is being sought.

“We’re challenging the seven-count amended charge.” Ejiofor said. “Once the court hears it and rules in our favor, that’s the end of the case and he’ll walk out of court a free person.” 

Justice Binta Nyako adjourned the trial to November 10 and declined an application by Kanu’s counsel for the defendant to be transferred to a correctional facility in Abuja, where he’d be more accessible, instead of the state security custody. 

The IPOB, led by Kanu, wants the southeastern region of Biafra to break away from Nigeria. An attempt to separate in 1967 triggered a civil war that killed more than one million people, mostly Biafrans.

Nigerian authorities consider the IPOB’s activities to be a threat and banned the group in 2017.

But the IPOB continued to win supporters, especially in the southeastern region, where the movement is most active.

The IPOB has launched a security arm, the Eastern Security Network, ESN, which authorities blame for unrest in the region and the killing of more than 120 people this year. 

The IPOB has denied the allegations. Public affairs analyst Abu Mohammed, a supporter of the separatist movement, said the Nigerian government’s failures are motivating separatists. 

“Today they’re calling for another system of government that may not work and that is why people are agitating,” Mohammed said. “If we’re supposed to get to so-so place and we haven’t gotten there, definitely there should be separation for us to go because maybe we have our vision.” 

Southeastern Nigeria was largely shut down on Thursday after the IPOB called for a “sit-at-home” strike to show solidarity with Kanu.
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The World Health Organization has issued an action plan to address allegations that its staff and contractors engaged in widespread sexual abuse and exploitation during a recent Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

An independent commission established to investigate these allegations issued a searing report September 28. It found international staff and local hires responding to an Ebola outbreak between 2018 and 2020 had forced dozens of women to exchange sex for the promise of jobs.

The WHO says its plan for preventing similar abuse from occurring in the future puts the victim and survivor at the heart of its response. The plan outlines a series of reforms aimed at creating a culture of accountability and measures for bringing perpetrators of sexual exploitation and abuse to justice.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says neither impunity nor inaction in the face of criminal behavior will be tolerated. He says the WHO already has acted in this regard.

“WHO has terminated the contracts of four people identified as perpetrators who were still employed by WHO when we received the report of the independent commission. Other people who have been identified as actual or alleged perpetrators are no longer employed by WHO. And what WHO can do is make sure that their names are referred to U.N. database to prevent re-employment in the U.N. system,” he said.

Jasarevic said people accused of allegations of rape and other physical violence also will be referred to national authorities in the DRC and in their national countries for investigation.

He said many of the recommendations of the commission are being put into place during the newest, current Ebola outbreak, which was detected in North Kivu province October 8.

“All staff who are deployed to the DRC for Ebola or recruited in the field are briefed on how to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse. They have signed an inter-agency code of conduct on this matter and have completed a mandatory training. The briefing on preventing sexual exploitation and abuse has also been given to drivers and guards working with us,” Jasarevic said.

As part of its victim and survivor-centered approach, the WHO says it will provide livelihood support, as well as comprehensive medical and psycho-social support for those who have suffered from sexual exploitation and abuse.

The agency says it also will support children born because of these violations, through educational grants and will cover any medical fees incurred.
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Chinese companies like Huawei and the Transsion group are responsible for much of the digital infrastructure and smartphones used in Africa. Chinese phones built in Africa come with already installed apps for mobile money transfer services that increase the reach of Chinese tech companies. But while many Africans may find the availability of such technology useful, the trend worries some experts on data management.

China has taken the lead in the development of Africa’s artificial intelligence and communication infrastructure. 

In July 2020, Cameroon contracted with Huawei, a Chinese telecommunication infrastructure company, to equip government data centers. In 2019, Kenya was reported to have signed the same company to deliver smart city and surveillance technology worth $174 million. 

A study by the Atlantic Council, a U.S.-based think tank, found that Huawei has developed 30% of the 3G network and 70% of the 4G network in Africa. 

Eric Olander is the managing editor of the Chinese Africa Project, a media organization examining China’s engagement in Africa. He says Chinese investment is helping Africa grow.

“The networking equipment is really what is so vital and what the Chinese have been able to do with Huawei, in particular, is they bring the networking infrastructure together with state-backed loans and that’s the combination that has proven to be very effective. So, a lot of governments that would not be able to afford 4G and 5G network upgrades are able to get these concessional loans from the China Exim Bank that are used and to purchase Huawei equipment,” Olander said.

Data compiled by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a Canberra-based defense and policy research organization, show China has built 266 technology projects in Africa ranging from 4G and 5G telecommunications networks to data centers, smart city projects that modernize urban centers and education programs.  

But while the new technology has helped modernize the African continent, some say it comes at a cost that is not measured in dollars. 

China loaned the Ethiopian government more than $3 billion to be used to upgrade its digital infrastructure. Critics say the money helped Ethiopia expand its authoritarian rule and monitor telecom network users. 

According to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal, Huawei technology helped the Ugandan and Zambian governments spy on government critics.  In 2019, Uganda procured millions of dollars in closed circuit television surveillance technology from Huawei, ostensibly to help control urban crime.

Police in the East African nation admitted to using the system’s facial recognition ability supplied by Huawei to arrest more than 800 opposition supporters last year.

Bulelani Jili, a cybersecurity fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard University, says African citizens must be made aware of the risks in relations with Chinese tech companies.

“There is need [for] greater public awareness and attention to this issue in part because it’s a key metric surrounding both development but also the kind of Africa-China relations going forward…. We should also be thinking about data sovereignty is going to be a key factor going forward.” 

Jili said data sharing will create more challenges for relations between Africa and China. 

“There are security questions about data, specifically how it’s managed, who owns it, and how governments depend on private actors to provide them the technical capacity to initiate certain state services.”  

London-based organization Privacy International says at least 24 African countries have laws that protect the personal data of their citizens. But experts say most of those laws are not enforced. 
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Activists in Nigeria gathered this week to demonstrate on the one-year anniversary of massive street rallies last year against police brutality. As Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja, many victims of police abuse say they have yet to see justice.
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Protests erupted in the streets of Khartoum on Thursday over Sudan’s hybrid transitional government.

Supporters of the northeast African nation’s civilian coalition, the Forces of Freedom and Change, turned out after crowds who support a military-led government marched against civilian rule Saturday.

Thousands of pro-democracy protesters called for a fully civilian government. Their demonstrations skirted around the presidential palace, where pro-military protesters have sat for six days, according to Reuters. Factional rivalries threaten to break apart Sudan’s tenuous power-sharing agreement before elections scheduled for 2023. 

Civilian leaders have shared power with Sudan’s military generals since former President Omar al-Bashir was ousted in 2019. But hopes for democratization have run aground after the transitional government’s military wing began calling for the civilian Cabinet’s dissolution.

Protesters on Thursday accused General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, chairman of the Sovereignty Council of Sudan, of continued loyalty to Bashir, Al Jazeera reported. 

Burhan has called for dismantling the Cabinet of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. Burhan’s supporters say Hamdok’s government has bungled Sudan’s economic recovery, The Associated Press reported. Despite these tensions, both Hamdok and Burhan have asked their supporters to stay peaceful as protests across the country continue.

The Sudanese Professionals Association, an organization of trade unions instrumental in organizing the protests, said on Twitter that security forces attacked demonstrators outside parliament. 

Reuters reported that protesters burned tires, waved Sudan’s flag and chanted pro-democracy slogans, part of the largest demonstrations of Sudan’s post-Bashir transition. Some Sudanese government officials even took part in Thursday’s protests. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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A group of mixed-race women who were abducted as children by state officials in what was then Belgian Congo is suing the Belgian state for crimes against humanity. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the case comes as Belgium struggles to reconcile with its brutal colonial past.
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Ethiopian forces carried out an airstrike Thursday on Mekelle, their third on the Tigray regional capital this week, as the government attempts to weaken the Tigrayan forces they’ve been fighting for almost a year.

Spokesman Legesse Tulu told reporters the airstrike targeted a training center for Tigrayan forces. He said the base previously was used by Ethiopian forces in the area.

There was no immediate word on casualties.

War erupted nearly a year ago between Ethiopian troops and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which governed Ethiopia for three decades but now rules only the northern Tigray region.

Mekelle has not seen large-scale fighting since June, when Ethiopian forces withdrew from the area and Tigray forces retook control of most of the region. Following that, the conflict continued to spill into the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar.

Last week, Tigray forces said the Ethiopian military had launched a ground offensive to push them out of Amhara and to recapture territory lost to them several months ago.

U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters Tuesday that U.N. colleagues “are alarmed at the intensification of the conflict and once again reminded all parties to the conflict of their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure.”
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A United Nations rights commission in South Sudan says the government is harassing activists, journalists and their families, limiting their activities, and targeting their work and finances.

In a statement of “concern” issued this week, the United Nations Commission of Human Rights in South Sudan said the pattern of harassment is impeding the already slow pace of achieving peace among feuding factions and stifling public opinion crucial to achieving democracy.

“Civic space in South Sudan is eroding at the accelerating pace, undermining efforts to achieve a sustainable peace,” said Yasmin Sooka, the commission chairwoman.

The government slammed the statement, with a spokesman saying the commission was spreading untruths,

“This U.N. Human Rights Commission, who is monitoring them?” asked Michael Makuei, South Sudan’s information minister. “Who is supervising them? They just sit in their offices here in Juba and they write because they must write something controversial to prove that they are doing their job, so that they continue in their job.”

The commission blames government security officers for a continuing crackdown that it says has forced some prominent activists to flee the country.

The commission says those include James David Kolok, a member of the technical committee to conduct a consultative process on truth, reconciliation and healing, and Wani Michael, who has acted as a youth representative on the national constitution amendment committee.

Andrew Clapham, one of the commissioners, said the government’s targeting of high-profile human rights defenders “will have a chilling effect on civil society, and will discourage public participation.”

He said government actions will undermine confidence in the work on transitional justice, framing a constitution, and setting up national elections, which Clapham said are essential to the success of the transition set out by the 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement.

The commission says the latest restrictions and acts of harassment began after the creation of the opposition Peoples Coalition for Civil Action in July.

The security clampdown accelerated after a planned nationwide government protest in August fizzled amid what activists say was an intentional internet outage and warnings from security officials of serious consequences against organizers if the demonstration happened.

Since then, some activists say their phone service has been disrupted and bank accounts frozen and journalists say they have been increasingly harassed.

A key parliament member recently said that journalists should be restricted in covering the newly formed parliament.

Agents also detained a government broadcaster after he allegedly declined to report news about recent presidential decrees on the South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation airwaves.

In addition, three journalists recently were detained and a radio station was closed as the government clamped down on the August protests. 

Government spokesman Makuei says the government could not allow the planned protests by the PCCA, which he described as “enemies.”
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A top U.N. official for central Africa recently visited the Lake Chad Basin to assess living conditions in the area. Years of attacks by Boko Haram have left much of the infrastructure there in ruins. 

Francois Lounceny Fall, the U.N. Secretary General’s special representative in central Africa, says attacks by the jihadist group have diminished over the past five months.

Fall says the U.N. is mobilizing the international community to support the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), a regional military alliance, as it fights against the extremist group for a lasting peace to return. He says he is visiting Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Niger to assess ways to start rebuilding and focus on reducing poverty.

Those four countries contribute troops to the MNJTF, along with Benin. 

Fall said the U.N. Development Program is raising funds to build roads linking Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad to facilitate movement of people and goods. He said the UNDP is also helping villagers to plant trees. 

He said the U.N. refugee agency is helping displaced persons return to their villages, establishing lost documents like birth certificates, and providing funds for women to open businesses. 

The U.N. reports that a majority of the estimated 40 million people in the Lake Chad Basin live in poor conditions, partly due to Boko Haram’s attacks. 

Civilians need assistance and are asking Cameroonian authorities and the U.N., to help them create better conditions, notes Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of Cameroon’s Far North region on the border with Nigeria and Chad.

Bakari says that economic activity is picking up gradually after more than 10 years of inactivity due to instability caused by Boko Haram attacks. He says within the past 5 months, civilians and merchants have been travelling freely with their goods between Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad. 

He also said although there is apparent calm, Cameroonian troops fighting terrorism on the northern border with Nigeria are on standby to protect civilians, should there be a large-scale attack by jihadist groups. 

Cameroon’s government says it has allocated 300 million dollars to reconstruct infrastructure destroyed by Boko Haram. It says that in some of the relatively calm areas, construction of schools, water wells and toilets and dozens of markets and hospitals has begun. 

Officials from Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria met in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde on October 8 and agreed to work together to rebuild areas destroyed by Boko Haram. 

The officials said the Lake Chad basin is gradually returning to normalcy since Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau was declared dead in May. 

Still, they said unemployment may be pushing young people to join the jihadist group, which continues to recruit in the area.
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