Kampala, Uganda — The University of Cambridge has repatriated more than three dozen traditional artifacts to Uganda in a major act of restitution welcomed by the local officials who sought them. 

Some of the objects were shown exclusively to AP journalists on Wednesday. The British university returned the 39 items, which range from tribal regalia to delicate pottery, to the East African country on Saturday. 

The items remain the property of the collection of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge, which is loaning them to Uganda for an initial period of three years, said Mark Elliott, the museum’s senior curator in anthropology. 

Elliott described it as “very much a museum-to-museum collaboration” that stems from years of talks about the possibility of returning objects deemed “exceptionally powerful and exceptionally sensitive to communities whose belongings they were.” 

The objects, selected by Ugandan curators, represent a small fraction of about 1,500 ethnographic objects from Uganda that Cambridge has owned for a century. Cambridge acquired most as donations from private collections, and many were given by an Anglican missionary active in Uganda in the 1890s and early 20th century. 

Uganda was declared a British protectorate in 1894. Independence came in 1962. 

“It’s about putting these objects back in the hands of the Ugandan people,” Elliott said. “These objects have been away from home for so long.” 

The next step is to “research their contemporary significance and to help make decisions about their future,” he said. 

The Uganda Museum in the capital, Kampala, is expected to put on a temporary exhibition of the objects next year. 

Uganda’s agreement with Cambridge is renewable, allowing for the possibility of a permanent loan and perhaps local ownership, said Jackline Nyiracyiza, Ugandan government commissioner in charge of museums and monuments. 

“Sixty years that have passed for us now to get 39 objects,” she said. “We are working now with the Cambridge team to … see that we talk to other museums and be able to repatriate others maybe next year or within the near future.” 

Ugandan officials, seeking such restitution, first traveled to Cambridge in 2022 as more African governments started to demand accountability over items of aesthetic or cultural value that were looted before and during the colonial era. 

Elsewhere in Africa, including the West African nation of Nigeria, there have been successful restitution events in recent years. 

Nelson Abiti, principal curator of the Uganda Museum, spoke of the Cambridge deal as a breakthrough that could prove exemplary for other museums with ethnographic items from Uganda. 

“This is the biggest single movement of objects returned to the African continent” in recent years, Abiti asserted. 

Still, restitution remains a struggle for African governments, and the African Union has put the return of looted cultural property on its agenda. The continental body aims to have a common policy on the issue.
…

ABUJA, Nigeria — Traces of highly potent opioids known as nitazenes have for the first time been found to be consumed by people who use drugs in Africa, according to a report released Wednesday by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, a nonprofit organization.

Nitazenes, powerful synthetic opioids, have long been in use in Western countries as well as in Asia where they have been associated with overdose deaths. Some of them can be up to 100 times more potent than heroin and up to 10 times more potent than fentanyl, meaning that users can get an effect from a much smaller amount, putting them at increased risk of overdose and death.

The report focused on Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau and is based on chemical testing of kush, a derivative of cannabis mixed with synthetic drugs like fentanyl and tramadol and chemicals like formaldehyde. Researchers found that in Sierra Leone, 83% of the samples were found to contain nitazenes, while in Guinea-Bissau it was identified in 55%.

“The GI-TOC ( Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime) believes that these results are the first indication that nitazenes have penetrated retail drug markets in Africa,” the report said.

Many young people in West and Central Africa have become addicted to drugs with between 5.2% and 13.5% using cannabis, the most widely used illicit substance on the continent, according to the World Health Organization.

In Sierra Leone where kush is one of the most widely consumed drugs, President Julius Maada Bio this year declared war on the substance, calling it an epidemic and a national threat.

Nitazenes have been detected repeatedly in substances sold to young people in the region such that users are most likely ingesting them “without knowing the risks they face,” Wednesday’s report said.

The authors said their findings suggest that nitazenes are being imported into Sierra Leone from elsewhere and that the substance being sold as kush in Guinea-Bissau was of similar chemical composition to that found in Freetown.

Officials in the two countries must deploy chemical testing equipment as a first step in tackling drug abuse, the report said. “Without this, it is impossible for the government of Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and the wider subregion to accurately monitor the countries’ illicit drug markets and develop evidence-based responses,” it said.
…

United nations — Sudanese paramilitary forces are using the Central African Republic as a “supply chain,” including for recruitment of fighters, according to a report published Friday by U.N. experts who are concerned about a “spillover effect.” 

Sudan descended into war in April 2023 when the generals in charge of the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took up arms against each other in a fight for control, rejecting a plan to integrate. 

“The spillover effect of the conflict in the Sudan has significantly affected the situation in the Central African Republic,” said the expert committee, formed by the U.N. Security Council to monitor sanctions on C.A.R. 

They highlighted in particular the humanitarian situation, as the country sees an influx of millions of Sudanese refugees, as well as incursions by the two warring Sudanese parties – plus air raids by the Sudanese army in and around the Umm Dafog border post, where the RSF is present. 

This “continues to constitute a security threat to civilians and an impediment to humanitarian activities in the area,” the experts said. 

They insist the paramilitaries are also using the Am Dafok area in C.A.R. on the border “as a key logistical hub.” 

Because the RSF can “move between the two countries easily through a long-standing network,” they have been able to recruit “from among armed groups in the Central African Republic.” 

“Opposition armed groups from the Central African Republic have been reported to have actively recruited for, and sent members of their own groups to fight in, the Sudan under RSF,” the experts said. 

They noted in particular fighters in Sudan since as early as August 2023 from the Popular Front for the Rebirth of Central Africa, a C.A.R. rebel group.

The experts said they are aware that this armed group and others “are still able to cross between the Sudan and the Central African Republic at will and use Sudanese territory to launch attacks.” 

The experts thus called on C.A.R. authorities to “counteract the surge in arms trafficking from neighboring countries, particularly given the current conflict situation in the Sudan.” 

They also asked the leaders to combat “the infiltration of foreign fighters into the Central African Republic, which poses a significant long-term threat to the region.” 
…

ABUJA, Nigeria — The World Bank has approved a $2.25 billion loan for Nigeria to shore up revenue and support economic reforms that have contributed to the worst cost-of-living crisis in many years for Africa’s most populous country. 

The bank said in a statement late Thursday that the bulk of the loan — $1.5 billion — will help protect millions who have faced growing poverty since a year ago when President Bola Tinubu came to power and took drastic steps to fix the country’s ailing economy. 

The remaining $750 million, the bank said, will support tax reforms and revenue and safeguard oil revenues threatened with limited production caused by chronic theft. 

President Tinubu’s economic reforms — including ending decadeslong but costly fuel subsidies and unifying the multiple exchange rates — have resulted in surging inflation that is at a 28-year high. 

Under growing pressure from citizens and workers protesting the hardship, Tinubu’s government said in May that it was seeking the loan to support its long-term economic plans. 

Mohamed Malick Fall, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, told a U.N. news conference in New York that about $800 million will go to a cash transfer program that will enable the number of households benefitting from social support to increase from 3 million to 15 million. That will help alleviate immediate suffering and could impact up to 70 million people, considering every household has five to seven people, he said. 

Fall said the government has put about $450 million into a social protection scheme, and to sustain the social safety net in the long term, the U.N. is advising it to develop a sustained investment program that isn’t dependent on foreign assistance as part of its poverty alleviation plan. 

The government said it was also taking steps to boost foreign investment inflows, which fell by 26.7% — from $5.3 billion in 2022 to $3.9 billion in 2023, according to the Nigerian Economic Summit Group think tank. 

Nigeria already has a high debt burden that has limited how much money the government can spend from its earnings. Its reliance on borrowing for public infrastructure and social welfare programs saw public debt surge by nearly 1,000% in the past decade. 

The World Bank, however, said it was “critical to sustain the reform momentum” under Tinubu. The government’s economic policies have placed the country “on a new path which can stabilize its economy and lift its people out of poverty,” according to Ousmane Diagana, the World Bank vice president for Western and Central Africa. 
…

…

Pentagon — About 600 U.S. military personnel remain in Niger, as American troops continue to withdraw from the country before a mid-September deadline, according to a senior U.S. defense official.

“We are on track to be done before the 15th of September,” the senior U.S. defense official told reporters Friday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues. However, the official cautioned that the rainy season could potentially slow withdrawal efforts.

Last month, U.S. and Nigerien leaders agreed to a phased withdrawal of American forces from Niger after being in the country for more than a decade.

At that time, there were about 900 U.S. military personnel in Niger, including active duty, civilians and contractors, according to two U.S. officials, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity ahead of the withdrawal agreement.

The withdrawal agreement between the U.S. and Niger confirmed protections and immunities for U.S. personnel and approved diplomatic clearances for withdrawal flights “to ensure smooth entries and exits.”

American forces were deployed in Niger to help local militaries combat Islamist terrorists in the Sahel.

The United States has used two military bases in the country — Air Base 101 in Niamey and Air Base 201 in Agadez — to monitor various terror groups. Most U.S. forces in Niger are currently based in the latter, which cost the U.S. $110 million to build, and began drone operations in 2019.

Niger’s natural resources have increased its importance to global powers, and its location had provided the U.S. with the ability to conduct counterterror operations throughout much of West Africa.

Countries in the region, including Niger, Mali, Nigeria and Burkina Faso, have seen an expansive rise in extremist movements.

According to the Global Terrorism Index, an annual report covering terrorist incidents worldwide, more than half of the deaths caused by terrorism last year were in the Sahel.

Niger’s neighbor, Burkina Faso, suffered the most, with 1,907 fatalities from terrorism in 2023.

Unless the U.S. can find another base to use in West Africa, counterterror drones will likely have to spend most of their fuel supply flying thousands of kilometers from U.S. bases in Italy or Djibouti, severely limiting their time over the targets and their ability to gather intelligence.

“That’s a significant policy matter that the U.S. is grappling with right now,” the senior U.S. defense official told reporters Friday.

Coup forced withdrawal 

Tensions between the U.S. and Niger began in 2023 when Niger’s military junta removed the democratically elected president from power.

After months of delay, the Biden administration formally declared in October 2023 that the military takeover in Niger was a coup, a determination that prevented Niger from receiving a significant amount of U.S. military and foreign assistance.

In March, after tense meetings between U.S. representatives and Niger’s governing military council, the junta called the U.S. military presence illegal and announced it was ending an agreement that allowed American forces to be based in the country.

During that meeting, the U.S. and Niger fundamentally disagreed about Niger’s desire to supply Iran with uranium and work more closely with Russian military forces.
…

…

CAIRO — Sudan’s army said on Friday it had killed Ali Yagoub Gibril, a senior commander for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces who was under U.S. sanctions, during a battle in the besieged north Darfur city of al-Fashir.

There was no immediate comment from the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.

Gibril was a leading commander for the RSF in al-Fashir, the last major city in the Darfur region of Sudan that the paramilitary force does not control.

The army said in a statement Yacoub was killed as an RSF attack was thwarted early Friday by its troops and allied “joint forces” fighting alongside it — a reference to non-Arab former rebel groups from Darfur that are aligned with the army.

The RSF has been besieging al-Fashir, a city of 1.8 million people, for weeks, and top United Nations officials have warned that the worsening conflict there could trigger widespread intercommunal violence.

The U.N. Security Council called Thursday for a halt to the siege.

War between the army and the RSF erupted over conditions for a transition to democracy in mid-April last year in the capital Khartoum, soon spreading to other parts of the country.

The conflict has led to the world’s largest displacement crisis, renewed ethnic violence in Darfur blamed on the RSF and its allies, and a sharp increase in extreme hunger.
…

HARARE, ZIMBABWE — The U.N. says an estimated 60 million people in southern Africa are food insecure due to the El Nino-induced drought — and the problem is not only in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, countries that have made international appeals for help.

In a statement, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization said Angola, eSwatini, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Tanzania are also being affected by the drought hitting southern Africa.

Plaxedes Madzikatire, who lives about 100 kilometers south of Harare, is one of the millions struggling to cope with the drought. She is getting $65 a month from the World Food Program (WFP) which she is using to take care of her four children after her crops dried up and died.

She said from the money, $25 is used to pay for food and $20 for school fees. She uses the remaining $20 to finance and upgrade her business of selling hoes and axes she makes from scrap metal. She’s hoping the WFP can extend its assistance by a few more months.

WFP winds up assistance in Madzikatire’s area next month, but the organization hopes to restart soon — and in the whole of Zimbabwe — as the effects of the El Nino drought intensify.

In a recent interview via Skype from Zambia’s capital Lusaka, WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain, who was visiting the region to assess the impact of drought, described it as a disaster.

“These people have lost everything,” she said. “They have no income. They have no way of surviving without assistance for the whole year because their next growing season will not be harvested until next May. These people depend on the stores they get from their crops, they didn’t get any this time.”

McCain said the recurrence of droughts due to climate change calls for greater investment into weather forecasts so people can be prepared for what is coming.

And that’s not all, she said. Drought-resistant crops and good water-management practices can help, too.

“We should treat and manage this drought crisis, the same way we would an emergency crisis in a war zone, let’s say,” she said. “This is very serious and can devastate a country. So, it’s important that we can better use the tools we have and offer new science and technology to help farmers to be able to grow.”

Last month, at a virtual summit of SADC heads of state and government on the El Nino-induced humanitarian crisis, regional leaders appealed for $5.5 billion.

The FAO says as El Nino’s grip loosens, La Nina looms and the region should brace for new challenges, as that weather phenomenon usually leads to heavy rainfall and flooding, leading to crop damage and displacement of people.
…

united nations — The U.N. Security Council demanded Thursday that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) halt their siege on the North Darfur capital, El Fasher, as they are poised to take the last remaining city in Sudan’s Darfur region from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

The council adopted a British-drafted resolution in a 14-0 vote. Russia abstained. The council also called for de-escalation in and around the city, where more than 800,000 civilians have been sheltering, many of them displaced from other parts of Darfur that have fallen to the paramilitary group. 

“This council has sent a strong signal to the parties to the conflict today,” British Ambassador Barbara Woodward said. “This brutal and unjust conflict needs to end.”

It was not immediately clear if the parties would heed the council’s demands. An earlier resolution in March that called for a cease-fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan was ignored.

The situation in North Darfur’s capital escalated on May 10 when clashes erupted inside El Fasher between the SAF, who are inside the city, and the RSF, who attacked surrounding towns before entering the state capital. Thousands of people have since tried to flee, and humanitarians report hundreds of civilian casualties. 

Sudan’s deputy U.N. ambassador said El Fasher is facing “great and unprecedented dangers,” and he urged the council to hold responsible external actors who are fueling the conflict. 

“The support by some countries to these militias directly contributes to the continuation of violence and destruction in the Sudan,” Ammar Mohammed said. “And we name here the official and regional sponsor of the criminal militias — namely the United Arab Emirates — whose support and weaponry leads to entrenching the suffering and misery of civilians in the Sudan.” 

The United Arab Emirates has repeatedly denied sending arms to the RSF. But a report by a U.N. panel of experts earlier this year said there was substance to media reports that cargo planes originating in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, had landed in eastern Chad with arms, ammunition and medical equipment destined for the RSF. 

Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation grows more dire by the day. The United Nations warns that 5 million Sudanese are on the brink of famine, including tens of thousands of people in the Darfur region. 

The council demanded in its resolution Thursday that the parties ensure the protection of civilians and facilitate rapid, safe and unhindered aid access. 

“The impact of today’s vote will be measured by the results on the ground,” said U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield. “So, the RSF and SAF must heed the demands of this council. We will be watching closely. If the situation on the ground doesn’t change for the better, this council must take further action.” 

She said that could include authorizing cross-border aid access from Sudan’s neighbors. 

Catastrophe unfolding 

The head of Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which has been tracking action on the ground in Sudan for months using satellite and other technology, told reporters on a conference call Thursday that an SAF defeat in El Fasher could be imminent. 

“We are talking hours and days before the potential fall of El Fasher,” Nathaniel Raymond said. “And we are talking about a Sudanese Armed Forces contingent — the 6th Infantry Division — that we can assess is clearly outnumbered and surrounded by RSF, who are gaining ground … from multiple directions inside El Fasher city.” 

He said the lab has also observed growing damage in and around El Fasher in the past 10 days, equivalent to the size of more than 200 football pitches. That includes signs of significant looting at the city’s last remaining hospital. People are also on the move in large numbers. 

The United Nations and others fear a full-scale battle for El Fasher could unleash atrocities similar to the genocide carried out by Arab Janjaweed fighters against African Zaghawa, Masalit, Fur and other non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur in the early 2000s. Janjaweed fighters make up elements of today’s RSF. 

Paris-based medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said Thursday that only one surgical hospital is still functioning in El Fasher since South Hospital was shut down after being raided and looted by the RSF. 

Both the RSF and SAF were added to the annual U.N. list of shame, published Thursday, for perpetrating grave violations against children during 2023. They were blacklisted for killing and maiming children, for attacking schools and hospitals, and in the case of the RSF, for sexual violence and recruiting and using children in their ranks. 

“We have to alert the international community that there is a catastrophe happening in El Fasher of a magnitude that we have not seen before,” said Omer Ismail, a former Sudanese diplomat who was born in Darfur and documents war crimes for The Enough Project and The Sentry organizations. 

“I know the attention of the world is not on Sudan at this point, but we call for that urgently,” he told reporters in a briefing call. 
…

…

…

Nairobi — The top U.S. law enforcement officer has concluded a five-day visit to Kenya, pledging to continue working with the East African nation to ensure peace and stability in the region. FBI Director Christopher Wray said there was a need for continued cooperation and collaboration with Kenyan security agencies to deal with ongoing terror threats from groups such as al-Shabab.

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation will partner with Kenya’s security agencies to enhance operations for the stability of Kenya and the region.

Speaking at Kenya’s Department of Criminal Investigations (DCI), FBI Director Christopher Wray said there was a need to work together to stop criminals who threaten the country and global peace and stability. 

“I have said before that the bad guys are not constrained by international borders, so the good guys should not be either. And together, leveraging our collective insights and authorities and perspectives, we’re making a huge impact on the threats we face. Terrorism, of course, is very much top among them,” he said.

While in Kenya, the FBI head visited shopping malls, a national park, and the Dusit D2 Hotel, which was attacked by al-Shabab militants in January 2019, resulting in the deaths of 21 people.

In February 2020, a year after the Dusit D2 hotel terror attack, the FBI and the U.S. State Department partnered to assist Kenya in creating the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which consists of the country’s security agencies and some ministries. The agencies rely on each other’s expertise to fight threats.

Kenyan security agencies have been accused of lacking coordination in dealing with terrorists when they storm populated areas like the Westgate Mall attack in 2013 and the Garissa University attack in 2015. 

Kenya’s head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Amin Mohamed, said the Joint Terrorism Task Force has helped his country provide better security to its citizens and visitors.

“Our various security agencies were operating in silos. Then we said, why can’t we all bring them like a one-stop shop, whereby now we can exchange information and ideas. And we have really registered a lot of success,” he said.

Kenyan security expert Richard Tuta said a security collaboration can defeat criminals who have defied borders.

“I think what is of importance is that aspect of collaboration. Collaboration in terms of intelligence gathering, intelligence analyzing and intelligence dissemination. That is something that is very important because one thing that we should agree among us, all of us, is that it takes a network to beat a network. Criminals are networked, so security agencies must be networked,” said Tuta.

He said there are also more persistent security threats and challenges in the world that will require U.S. support for Kenya to manage.

“Some aspects of crime defies country boundaries, like, for instance, matters to do with human trafficking, drug trafficking, terrorism, other issues, like, for instance, matters to do with cybercrime. All of it now, it requires a concerted effort to counter such like aspect of crime,” said Tuta.

The al-Qaida-linked terror group al-Shabab has been unsuccessful in conducting terror attacks in the capital, Nairobi, for the last couple of years, but the group continues to carry out attacks against government forces and civilians in northeastern and coastal regions that border Somalia.

In his five-day visit to Nairobi, Wray met with the ethics and anti-corruption agency head and officials, and focused on countering corruption, money laundering, and other economic crimes.

Washington said it will provide support, training, and modern investigation tools to help agencies prosecute economic crimes suspects that have contributed to terrorism and insecurity in the continent. 

Kenyan government agencies hope the visit will make them better prepared to manage the security of the country and, if need be, the region. 
…

Geneva — The United Nations refugee agency says forced displacement around the globe surged to historic new heights last year, driven by conflict, persecution, human rights violations, climate crises and other disturbing events.

In its 2024 Global Trends Report, UNHCR says 117.3 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide by the end of 2023. Some 68 million were uprooted from their homes by conflict and remain displaced within their own countries. Another 31 million were refugees, while tens of millions more were asylum seekers, returnees or stateless people.

The report, released Thursday, finds that the number of forcibly displaced has continued to rise this year and that the current figure now stands at 120 million.

“Regrettably, this is the 12th consecutive year in which this figure goes up,” U.N. refugee chief Filippo Grandi told journalists in Geneva Monday in advance of the report’s publication. “Conflict remains a very, very big driver of displacement.”

Grandi added that UNHCR “declared 43 emergencies in 29 countries” in 2023. “This figure, until two, three years ago, used to be on average eight, maximum 10 times a year.”

Grandi deplored changes in the conduct of wars, noting that warring parties almost everywhere nowadays “disregard the laws of war, of international humanitarian law and often with the specific purpose of terrorizing people, of instilling fear in people.”

“This, of course is a powerful contributor to more displacement than even in the past,” he said.

The report cites the conflict in Sudan as a key factor driving the current surge in forcible displacement.  By the end of 2023, a total of 10.8 million Sudanese were displaced from their homes — triple the number before the war began in April of that year.  Most of the uprooted Sudanese — 9.1 million — are internally displaced, while another 1.7 million are refugees.

Describing himself as “very keen” to speak out about Sudan, Grandi called it “a very forgotten crisis although it is one of the most catastrophic ones — not just in terms of displacement, but in terms of hunger, lack of access, violation of human rights, and so forth.”

Other crises that have created a spike in new forced displacements are the conflicts in Gaza, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. UNRWA, the UN relief and works agency for Palestine refugees, estimates up to 1.7 million people — over 75% of the population — “have been displaced within the Gaza Strip, with some having been forced to flee multiple times.”

The report says more than 1.3 million people were displaced within Myanmar in 2023 “by escalating violence following the military takeover in February 2021” and that a resurgence of fighting in the eastern part of DRC uprooted 3.8 million people who “were newly internally displaced” during the year.

The U.N. report also touches on what the report calls endless conflicts that continue to displace people in countries that include Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

Of the complex mix of diverse factors uprooting populations globally, Grandi described climate change as a particularly virulent driver of conflict and displacement, with one sometimes triggering the other.

“It can be a driver of conflict and hence of displacement, especially when the very scarce resources of very poor communities become even scarcer because of climate change,” he said. “That drives conflict. We have seen it in so many parts of Africa, in the Sahel, for example. In the Horn of Africa, but also elsewhere.”

The report debunks a common misperception that many refugees go to rich countries.

“The vast majority of refugees are hosted in countries neighboring their own, with 75 percent residing in low-and middle-income countries that together produce less than 20 percent of the world’s income,” say the report, which also notes that although children account for 30% of the world’s population, they account for 40% of all forcibly displaced people.

Syria remains the world’s largest displacement crisis, UNHCR reports, “with 13.8 million forcibly displaced in and outside the country.”

The United States is identified as the world’s largest recipient of new asylum claims with 1.2 million applications tallied in 2023, followed by Germany, Egypt, Spain, and Canada.

Authors of the report acknowledge that solutions for forced displacement are very rare.  They note that only around five million internally displaced people and one million refugees returned home in 2023.

Despite this grim assessment, High Commissioner Grandi said that solutions do exist, citing the example of Kenya which has enacted the so-called Shirika plan, to resolve its nagging refugee problem.

“The President has decided, and the country’s institutions have approved, that for the 600,000 refugees in Kenya, mostly Somalis and South Sudanese, measures will be progressively taken to include them in the communities in which they live.

“I consider that a positive trend,” he said. “And Kenya being an important country in East Africa, I hope that this will have a positive impact also on other countries.”
…

Juba, South Sudan — The Nile River is the second-longest river in the world. It provides crucial resources to 11 countries, including South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation.

As dawn breaks each day over the Nile, its waters carry a silent plea at the center of a 21st century environmental challenge.

“The river cries out, choked by the very hands it feeds,” said Lueth Reng Lueth, executive director at Community Action Against Plastic Waste South Sudan. “We stand here today to silence that cry, to transform habits, and to introduce sustainable solutions for our people.”

Community Action Against Plastic Waste is a youth-driven nongovernmental organization. Lueth, the organization’s founder, said this once majestic, ancient lifeline for civilizations is now facing a severe environmental threat.

“The Nile is bleeding red — not with blood, but with plastics and waste that suffocate its waters,” said Lueth. “Our town, river and future are all interconnected. The situation here in Bor is dire, and it’s our duty to act.”

Environmental experts predict that more frequent and intense heat waves could cut the Nile’s flow by 75 percent, spike conflicts over water resources and food insecurity, and heighten health risks related to inadequate water supply and sanitation.

Joseph Africano Bartel, South Sudan’s undersecretary of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry Management, explained the importance that water quality has for those who live and work near the banks of the Nile.

“People drink water directly from the Nile or from the streams, resulting into cholera, diarrhea and other waterborne diseases,” said Bartel. ” So, the only solution to improve the quality of water in South Sudan is to establish liquid, solid and medical waste management.”

Lueth believes a good beginning would be for the government to facilitate workshops to teach effective waste management, implement policies that discourage single-use plastic consumption, and provide trucks to regularly collect waste from people who live along the riverbank.

“We are supposed to clean the river sides,” said Elijah Mau, who lives along the riverbank. “It is our lifeline.”

In the longer term, Community Action Against Plastic Waste envisions regular waste collection, plastic levies and fines for littering to enforce environmental awareness. But for now, those changes aren’t on the government’s immediate horizon.

“As a country, we have joined with the U.N., United Nations Environment Program,” said Bartel. “Through the intergovernment negotiating committee, we’re coming up with a treaty that will ban plastic pollution globally.”

Lueth said “The story of Bor and the Nile is at a crossroads.” And the path they choose today will determine if the river continues to sustain life or becomes a relic.
…

A public-private partnership in Kenya provides female students with free sanitary napkins dispensed from converted ATMs at school. The goal is to provide pads to young women from poor families so they don’t miss school because they are menstruating. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi, Kenya.
…

Gaborone, Botswana — Some Southern African countries pushing against the United Kingdom’s anti-hunting efforts suffered a blow when the Labor Party, expected to form the next government, committed last week to support a ban on hunting trophy imports.

Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe said in a joint statement that they are disappointed Britain’s Labor Party will attempt to ban hunting trophies.

The countries said, however, that unlike the Conservative government, the Labor Party has “at least pledged a full consultation on a policy with significant ramifications for conservation programs in our countries.”

Botswana, with the largest elephant herd in the world at more than 130,000, has been at the forefront of a campaign against efforts by the U.K. and other European nations to ban hunting trophies from Africa.

Adam Hart, a U.K.-based ecologist and conservation scientist specializing in southern Africa, told VOA he is disappointed with the Labor Party’s move.

“It shows that perhaps they have not listened to the sides that have gone in front of the Conservative Party, and they have not listened to the voices of the affected nations,” he said.

In its manifesto, the Labor Party says it will put forward a comprehensive plan to end animal cruelty that includes a ban on the import of hunting trophies from abroad.

“I think politicians see this as an easy win,” said Hart, who is a professor at the University of Gloucestershire. “It’s only when they start getting involved more with the issues that they realize that it is nowhere near as straightforward as they thought.”

He said the Labor Party must be honest in its consultation with the affected southern African countries.

“We have to give [the Labor Party] the benefit of the doubt and suggest that perhaps the consultation will be genuine,” he said. “Many people when they go into this debate think that they have the answers. They think that it’s a very … simple issue, that banning hunting trophies will save endangered species.

“Of course, once you start digging into the issue, you realize it’s much more complicated than that and that, in fact, it can have the opposite effect.”

Countries such as Botswana and Zimbabwe are pursuing alternative markets.

Botswana’s permanent secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Boatametse Modukanele, said, “We are looking at the Middle East. We are also looking at the United Arab Emirates, as an example. We are looking at those countries because they also have a hunting culture, and they do not have the many restrictions that we have currently.”
…

…

abuja, nigeria — A new report by rights group Amnesty International accuses Nigeria’s military of inhumane treatment toward women and girls who survived Boko Haram. Nigerian defense authorities reject the report’s findings, saying that military personnel operate within the scope of international laws of conflict.

A statement said the military has “self-regulating mechanisms to address any proven case of misconduct” by its operatives.

The report from Amnesty International, titled “Help Us Build Our Lives,” said women and girls who survived Boko Haram captivity were subjected to further suffering, including prolonged, unlawful detention by the military and inadequate support by authorities for them to rebuild their lives.

“We still stand by what we have said,” said Isa Sanusi, Amnesty International’s Nigeria director. “We believe that if somebody is saying that what you’re saying is not true, he should provide evidence. This research took more than a year and it is based on interviews with over 126 people.”

The Amnesty report said girls who were not detained were left to fend for themselves in camps where they sometimes reunite with former or so-called “repentant” Boko Haram husbands — putting them at risk of continued abuse from the men.

“These girls were picked when they were children,” said Sanusi. “They didn’t give their consent, they were forced. And what they went through is more or less human trafficking and abduction, therefore it is completely based on illegitimacy and it is unacceptable that they will be kept in government-run camps and pretend that they’re married or something. Even if the girls say that they want to live with them, an investigation should be done in a free atmosphere without coercion.”

Nigerian troops have been fighting Boko Haram insurgents in northeast Nigeria since 2009. The group’s rebellion has killed more than 35,000 people and displaced millions, according to the United Nations.

The Nigerian military’s approach and tactics have often sparked criticism.

Nigerian authorities said the military will engage with Amnesty International but said authorities were “unperturbed by such self-serving statements targeted at dampening the morale of troops.”

Security analyst Senator Iroegbu says the matter is a delicate topic and must be treated with caution.

“Anything associated with Boko Haram is a sensitive matter, there are a lot of misgivings over this so-called rehabilitation and reintegration of Boko Haram terrorists,” said Iroegbu. “For the military, they’re also in a very delicate situation. Once these survivors are rescued there’s a detention facility where they’re being vetted. Now the challenge is how long are they being vetted? The military in the first place are not even trained for the role they’re playing.”

Last year, a Reuters news agency investigation accused the military of secretly running a mass abortion program for girls and women rescued from Boko Haram.

Authorities set up an investigation into the matter but Amnesty International says the findings are shrouded in secrecy.

Iroegbu says sometimes overzealous personnel are to blame for the misconduct.

“The military as an institution might have committed to observing human rights but there are some individual soldiers that might have committed rights violations in their own actions,” said Iroegbu, the security analyst. “What I expected the military [to do] is say, ‘Okay, we’ll investigate.'”

Amnesty says before releasing the report, it presented Nigeria’s federal and state authorities as well as the United Nations with its findings.

The military referred to Amnesty International’s sources as “intrinsically unreliable.”
…

Blantyre — Medical workers in Malawi’s public health facilities started a nationwide sit-in strike Monday to push the government to meet their longtime grievances, which include special allowances and improved conditions of service. The strike forced patients in many hospitals to return home without receiving medical care. Strike organizers said some medical workers could treat patients with critical conditions.

In some public health facilities medical workers were seen singing and dancing outside the hospitals.

While some patients like Nelia Banda of the M’bwatalika area returned home without receiving attention.

She said “Medical workers told me that they will not attend to me because they are not working today. They said I should come again on Monday next week. I am pregnant and yesterday I fell because of high blood pressure but I haven’t been assisted here.”

The strike is a result of the failure of negotiations between the medical workers and government authorities on worker demands dating back to February of this year.

The government had told the medical workers that it would increase their allowances and improve their working conditions instead of meeting the 15% salary increase that medical workers were demanding.    

The increase was meant for risk allowance, top-up allowance and professional allowance. Put simply, this is income that medical workers receive for working overtime or for performing duties outside their normal schedule.

Daniel Nasimba is the general secretary for the Physician Assistants Union of Malawi (PAUM), one of the organizers of the strike.

He said some staff members at the hospital were allowed to attend to patients with emergencies.

He said, “At least we have people. Every department has someone who can attend to any emergency that can come in. What is happening now is called a sit-in. It’s not a complete shutdown of the health service. We are all at work, nobody is at home.”

Nasimba said the workers will not return to duty fully — until the government honors its promise.

However, the Malawi government has obtained an injunction stopping the strike.

Organizers of the strike, the National Organization of Nurses and Midwives and the Physician Assistants Union of Malawi, said in a statement released Monday evening that they were consulting their legal team about the matter. 
…

Brussels — A court in Brussels on Monday sentenced a 65-year-old Belgian-Rwandan man to 25 years in prison for murder and rape committed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.  

Emmanuel Nkunduwimye was found guilty of war crimes and genocide for a series of murders as well as the rape of a Tutsi woman. 

Nkunduwimye, who was first arrested in Belgium in 2011, owned a garage in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, in April 1994 when the genocide began. The garage was part of a complex of buildings that was the scene of massacres perpetrated by Interahamwe militiamen.  

Nkunduwimye was close to several militia leaders – including Georges Rutaganda, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and died in 2010. 

The jury at the trial in Brussels found the accused assisted the militia “with full knowledge of the facts.”  

“He could not have been unaware of the abuses committed there,” the sentencing said, according to Belga news agency.  

During the trial, Nkunduwimye was formally identified by the woman he raped, who came to testify in private at the hearing. 

Nkunduwimye denied the accusations and his defense called for his acquittal, arguing in particular that the prosecution’s evidence was unreliable. 

Prosecutors at the trial, which began in April, had requested a sentence of 30 years in jail.  

The genocide in Rwanda, which took place between April and July 1994, claimed at least 800,000 lives, according to the U.N. The victims were mainly members of the Tutsi minority, but also included moderate Hutus.  

The trial of Nkunduwimye was the seventh such trial to be held in Belgium since 2001 involving alleged crimes committed during the genocide. 

Belgium – which controlled Rwanda during the colonial period – can prosecute alleged genocidaires because its court recognizes universal jurisdiction for crimes under international humanitarian law committed outside the country. 

In the most recent trial, Seraphin Twahirwa was sentenced in December 2023 to life imprisonment for dozens of murders and rapes perpetrated by himself or the Interahamwe militiamen under his authority in Kigali between April and July 1994.
…

…

…

…