Analysts monitoring Sudan say it might take an internationally supported peacekeeping force to end the ongoing fighting there. That assessment follows multiple failed cease-fire attempts and talks facilitated by Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Until two weeks ago, Hala Alkarib lived in Khartoum, where she’s the regional director for the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa. But she and other colleagues had to relocate because of the horrors created by the ongoing war, including looting.

“I would say 75% or more of Khartoum inhabitants have experienced looting,” Alkarib said. “Our homes were completely looted, our vehicles, our personal properties, our papers and documents were destroyed and burned.”

She said the strategy of the Rapid Support Forces run by General Hamdan Dagalo is not new.

“The presence on the ground inside residential areas being in Khartoum, in Al Fasher, in Nyala or in [El] Geneina, the RSF strategy is to run a war from within and inside civilian residencies,” Alkarib said. “The RSF are the extension of the Janjaweed. It’s been done for over 20 years in rural Darfur, where villagers were terrorized, and infrastructure was completely destroyed.”

Alkarib blames the Sudanese Armed Forces led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, for enabling the RSF to flourish.

“SAF unfortunately, they were for years kind of relying on the RSF to do their dirty work and they were complacent and enabled this criminal organization to grow and right now it grew to the point that it actually threatens the existence of overall Sudan as a state.”

She said it’s unfortunate the international community is not exerting sufficient pressure on countries that could help end the war.

“Seventy-five percent of the causes of this war lies outside of Sudan,” Alkarib said. “UAE [United Arab Emirates] and their significant support to the RSF and Egypt and their position – anti- any type of democratic governance in Sudan and that constantly put them in a position where they support SAF as potential rulers.”

That sentiment was partly echoed by Dr. Edgar Githua, a lecturer at the United States International University and Strathmore University.

“The African Union and the world in general looking at this situation need to step up and need to call out Russia and tell Russia pull out the Wagner group, get it out,” Githua said. “Egypt is an easier group to deal with, the U.S. has a lot of leverage with Egypt. Libya, Khalifa Haftar can be told to back down also, and the UAE can be told to back off.”

Some of the countries mentioned offered to mediate the crisis and denied involvement in the war. Githua said the international community must become more directly involved.

“They are coming to the battlefield with renewed vigor and at some point, the world has no choice but there has to be some external intervention and for me it’ll be a peacekeeping force that creates a humanitarian corridor to just try to restore normalcy.”

The Jeddah talks overseen by the United States and Saudi Arabia were recently suspended and the most recent offer by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, to mediate the crisis also stalled because one of the generals said he didn’t want the Kenyan president leading the group that is made up of South Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

And that’s a problem, said Macharia Munene, professor of History and International Relations at USIU in Nairobi.

“One of the generals, Burhan, has said he doesn’t want anything to do with him, so he’s going nowhere,” Munene said. “He prefers [South Sudan political figure Salva Kiir. Yes, the team is an IGAD team, and he’s supposed to lead the team but if one of the participants, the major player, doesn’t want anything to do about him leading the team, there’s something wrong.”

For now, fighting is showing no signs of letting up.
…

DAKAR, SENEGAL —  A slew of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and instances of torture by Burkina Faso’s military has terrorized communities in the country’s northeast this year, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Thursday.

The violence took place between February and May across the province of Séno. The report identifies at least 27 people who were either summarily executed or disappeared and then killed, most of them members of the Fulani ethnic group.

Jihadi fighters linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have waged a violent insurgency in Burkina Faso for seven years. The violence has killed thousands of people and divided the country, leading to two coups last year.

The report by the New York-based watchdog comes in the wake of an April massacre in which residents say security forces killed at least 150 civilians in Karma, a northern village near the Mali border.

A Burkina Faso government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the report.

In one account, 10 men in the village of Gangaol, all of the Fulani ethnic group, were hauled away in the backs of trucks, pushed out, and fired upon.

“The soldiers shot and I ran. I saw the others falling on the ground, but I kept running,” the HRW report quoted a survivor of the incident. Only four of the men survived, two of whom suffered critical injuries.

“In the cases we documented, most of those who have been victims of these crimes were from the Fulani ethnic group,” explained Ilaria Allegrozzi, the senior regional researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The Fulani people in Burkina Faso and Mali have been accused of collaborating with Islamic extremists, and as a result have often been targeted by security forces and others.

“The only reason is hatred,” said the father of a teen boy who had been shot by suspected government forces, according to the report.

The upsurge in violence comes as the nation’s government recently pledged to double its number of volunteer auxiliary military units, known as VDPs, to 100,000.

“The recruitment of VDPs has coincided with an increase of abuses by both sides,” Allegrozzi said.

Just as Burkinabe soldiers strike villages suspected of harboring extremist elements, the presence of army recruiters in a Burkina Faso community often invites violent intimidation by armed groups.

“I think it’s also important to recognize that they are fighting a legitimate war,” Allegrozzi said, referring to the armed forces. As recently as Monday, 34 members of the military were killed in an ambush by suspected extremist fighters, according to a government press release.

“What we are questioning is the way this fight is conducted, which is not according to human rights standards and doesn’t take into account civilian protection,” she said.

The targeting of civilians is unnecessary, inhumane, and ultimately counterproductive, the report also says.

“Executions and disappearances by Burkina Faso’s army are not only war crimes, but they breed resentment among targeted populations that fuel recruitment to armed groups,” Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch, wrote in Thursday’s report.

“Burkina Faso should ensure that provost marshals, who are responsible for discipline in the armed forces and detainees’ rights, are present during all military operations,” the report stressed, adding that transitional authorities should work with the U.N. human rights office to hold offenders within its military’s ranks accountable. 
…

Observers of Sierra Leone’s election are raising concerns about vote count irregularities in a ballot that declared President Julius Maada Bio’s re-election. As the Muslim-majority nation marks Islam’s Eid al-Adha, the feast of sacrifice, there are calls for peace and unity, after violence during the polling process left at least one dead. Senanu Tord reports from Freetown, Sierra Leone.
…

About 180,000 Zimbabweans working in South Africa who faced the threat of being kicked out of the country, even if their children are citizens, have welcomed a court ruling to stop the action. Pretoria’s High Court ruled the government’s plan to terminate their special residency permits was unconstitutional.

The High Court’s decision is a blow to South Africa’s Home Affairs Ministry and a win for Zimbabweans, many of whom have been in South Africa for more than a decade, having left neighboring Zimbabwe amid political and economic turmoil during former president Robert Mugabe’s rule.

To deal with the influx from across the border, South Africa initially introduced special permits to allow them to work but in 2021 said it was ending the program.

The Zimbabwe Immigration Federation challenged the government’s intention to force Zimbabweans to return home and the group’s chairman, Luke Dzviti, on Thursday welcomed the court’s verdict.

“I welcome with two hands the judgment, handed yesterday by the High Court of South Africa, in the favor of our organization, Zimbabwe Immigration Federation, and such stance or gesture shows that justice is still prevailing in the Republic of South African, and we are grateful because there was going to be a humanitarian disaster,” he said.

Dzviti said the ending of the Zimbabwe exemption permits would have caused a huge exodus and meant many families in Zimbabwe being supported by a breadwinner in South Africa would have been pushed into greater poverty.

The court ruled that the permits would be extended for one more year. After that, Dzviti said his organization would launch another application.

Siya Qoza, spokesman for South Africa’s Minister of Home Affairs, said it was uncertain whether the government would appeal.

“The minister is still studying the two judgements and taking legal advice on them. He will, in due course, respond fully to them. In the ensuing communication he will outline further steps that will be taken, including appeals, if any,” he said.

Silous Sibanda is a driver who has been living in South Africa for about 20 years and currently holds an exemption permit.

“When there was no verdict yet, we remember we were still in the dark. We couldn’t do anything, we couldn’t move, we were worried that maybe we’d lose whatever we’d done. … It’s better for those with jobs and who were working. But at least now we are given the space so we can do things properly, and proper planning as well, so it was a big relief for most of us,” said Sibanda.

As Africa’s most industrialized economy, South Africa is a favored destination for Zimbabweans and other migrants from the continent. There have been incidents of xenophobic violence, however, with South Africans targeting other African nationals. Last year, a Zimbabwean man in Johannesburg was killed by a mob.
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The war in Sudan that began in April 15 has so far forced some 2.5 million people from their homes, according to the U.N., with about 80 percent of them displaced internally. Sidahmed Ibraheem spoke to some of the displaced, now living Sudan’s Al Jazirah state, in this story narrated by VOA’s Vincent Makori.
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Cameroon is cracking down on the smuggling of cocoa, cotton, and other cash crops to Nigeria by temporarily banning the legal trade as well. Since announcing the ban two weeks ago, authorities have sent hundreds of police to the border and seized scores of trucks. But Cameroon’s struggling farmers are protesting the ban, saying it’s more profitable and safer to sell their goods to Nigeria.

Cameroon police and customs officials say they blocked scores of trucks that attempted to smuggle cash crops in the past two weeks from northern towns and villages into Nigeria.

Police say they seized wheat, corn, rice, cocoa, and cotton since launching a temporary ban on all crop exports to Nigeria on June 13.

Cameroon’s ministry of trade says the ban was needed as it loses $165 million each year from the smuggling of cash crops to its northern neighbor – 60% of the total trade.

The government ordered hundreds of police to the border and to track down at least 12 trucks that fled from authorities.

Cameroon’s farmers say the ban will be hard to enforce along the porous, 2,000-kilometer-long border.

Baba Ahmadou is the spokesperson of the Association of Cereal Farmers on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria.

Speaking by phone from the border town of Mara, he says many farmers are not able to store their crops for selling in Cameroon.

Ahmadou says Cameroon does not have enough facilities to protect cocoa, wheat, corn, rice and sorghum from moisture, dust, and [insect] swarms that invade and destroy crops after harvest. He says farmers prefer selling their produce to a ready Nigerian market because rice, corn, and raw cotton processing equipment is scare, old, and there are regular power cuts.

Ahmadou says selling to Nigerian merchants is also more profitable, and he cites the example that farmers can get about 20% more for a 50-kilogram bag of unprocessed rice.

Cameroon’s government complains it pays subsidies to farmers to sell their cash crops locally and at agreed prices.

The ban was announced by Cameroon’s trade minister Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana.

He says they are aware of the challenges for the government and the farmers.

“One of the challenges, of course, is the inadequacies of post-harvest processing and storage facilities,” he said. “The government has developed some programs to process 40 percent of our total production, and now with the prohibition of child labor and with the prohibition of deforestation, those people who are destroying forests to create new plantations will not have access to the international market.”

Cameroon’s Ministry of Agriculture says illegal cocoa exports to Nigeria spiked after anglophone separatists in 2017 launched a rebellion against Yaoundé.

The rebels are seeking to create a breakaway state from Cameroon’s French-speaking majority.

Shivron Arrey, a cocoa exporter in Kumba, an English-speaking Southwestern town, says the rebels stop them from selling the cash crops to French-speaking towns.

“With the separatists’ crisis, enterprises no longer come to buy cocoa,” she said. “Fighters destroy vehicles belonging to companies that attempt to buy. Cocoa farmers were abandoned to themselves. The easiest market they could count on was across the border in Nigeria.”

Cameroon authorities say the military is protecting farmers from rebels so the domestic trade can resume.

But farmers say smuggling to Nigeria will continue as long as their options are facing separatist violence and lower prices at home or risking illegal exports across the porous border.
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The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday it facilitated the release of 125 Sudanese soldiers who were held by the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The ICRC statement said 44 of the freed soldiers had been wounded and that the agency determined they were fit to travel along with the rest of the group from Khartoum to the city of Wad Madani.

“This positive step means that families will be celebrating Eid-al Adha with their loved ones. We stand ready to act as a neutral intermediary for the release of detainees from all side to the conflict whenever requested,” Jean Christophe Sandoz, ICRC’s head of delegation in Sudan, said in a statement.

The ICRC said Wednesday’s release followed another on Monday involving 14 wounded people who were detained in the Darfur region.

Fighting between the Sudanese military and the RSF broke out in mid-April, and the country’s health ministry said the conflict has killed more than 3,000 people.

Multiple cease-fires between the two sides have failed.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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A British court ruled Thursday that a government plan to send asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda is unlawful, delivering a blow to the Conservative administration’s pledge to stop migrants making risky journeys across the English Channel

In a split two-to-one ruling, three Court of Appeal judges said Rwanda could not be considered a “safe third country” where migrants could be sent.

But the judges said that a policy of deporting asylum seekers to another country was not in itself illegal. The government is likely to challenge the ruling at the U.K. Supreme Court. It has until July 6 to lodge an appeal.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to “stop the boats” — a reference to the overcrowded dinghies and other small craft that make the journey from northern France carrying migrants who hope to live in the U.K. More than 45,000 people arrived in Britain across the Channel in 2022, and several died in the attempt.

The U.K. and Rwandan governments agreed more than a year ago that some migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in small boats would be sent to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed. Those granted asylum would stay in the East African country rather than return to Britain.

The U.K. government argues that the policy will smash the business model of criminal gangs that ferry migrants on hazardous journeys across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Human rights groups say it is immoral and inhumane to send people more than 6,400 kilometers to a country they don’t want to live in, and argue that most Channel migrants are desperate people who have no authorized way to come to the U.K. They also cite Rwanda’s poor human rights record, including allegations of torture and killings of government opponents.

Britain has already paid Rwanda $170 million under the deal, but no one has yet been deported there.

Britain’s High Court ruled in December that the policy is legal and doesn’t breach Britain’s obligations under the U.N. Refugee Convention or other international agreements, rejecting a lawsuit from several asylum-seekers, aid groups and a border officials’ union.

But the court allowed the claimants, who include asylum-seekers from Iraq, Iran and Syria facing deportation under the government plan, to challenge that decision on issues including whether the plan is “systemically unfair” and whether asylum-seekers would be safe in Rwanda.

In a partial victory for the government, the appeals court ruled Thursday that the U.K.’s international obligations did not rule out removing asylum-seekers to a safe third country.

But two of the three ruled Rwanda was not safe because its asylum system had “serious deficiencies.” They said asylum seekers “would face a real risk of being returned to their countries of origin,” where they could be mistreated.

Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett – the most senior judge in England and Wales – disagreed with his two colleagues. He said assurances given by the Rwandan government were enough to ensure the migrants would be safe.

The government of Rwanda took issue with the ruling, saying the nation is “one of the safest countries in the world.”

“As a society, and as a government, we have built a safe, secure, dignified environment, in which migrants and refugees have equal rights and opportunities as Rwandans,” said government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo. “Everyone relocated here under this partnership will benefit from this.”

Yasmine Ahmed, U.K. director of Human Rights Watch, said the verdict was “some rare good news in an otherwise bleak landscape for human rights in the U.K.”

She urged Home Secretary Suella Braverman, the minister in charge of immigration, to “abandon this unworkable and unethical fever dream of a policy and focus her efforts on fixing our broken and neglected migration system.”

Even if the plan is ultimately ruled legal, it’s unclear how many people could be sent to Rwanda. The government’s own assessment acknowledges it would be extremely expensive, coming in at an estimated $214,000 per person.

But it is doubling down on the idea, drafting legislation barring anyone who arrives in the U.K. in small boats or by other unauthorized means from applying for asylum. If passed, the bill would compel the government to detain all such arrivals and deport them to their homeland or a safe third country.
…

WASHINGTON – Four months into a social media ban, communications businesses and civil rights groups in Ethiopia are feeling the impact. Strict regulations are making it harder for them to reach audiences or verify information.

In March, the country blocked access to Facebook, TikTok, Telegram and YouTube nationwide following a disagreement with the country’s Orthodox Church, where some religious leaders called for protests.

But human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have said the ban violates freedom of expression and goes against Ethiopia’s constitution, laws and international treaties.

“The restriction further stains the country’s already dismal record on media freedom,” Flavia Mwangovya, Amnesty’s deputy director for East and Southern Africa, said in a statement shortly after the ban was introduced.

The ban has created challenges for those who use social media to share news or to promote their businesses. And while they can use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to circumvent the ban, some say that limits their ability to reach audiences within Ethiopia.

Until the ban was imposed, social media influencer and filmmaker Luna Solomon used the platforms to make advertisements for products and institutions.

An architect by training, she is better known for her videos aimed at young people. She has over 140,000 followers on TikTok alone, and she  gained recognition for her film “Behind the Surface,” which examines childhood trauma.

Luna says she can create her work using a VPN, but doing so limits her from reaching new followers and limits her income.

“When we use a VPN, it always changes the country of location. So, the audience is also determined according to proximity,” she told VOA. “It doesn’t reach the people we intend to reach, and that reduces the engagement, viewership and page reach.”

Luna said it is also creating obstacles for generating money.

“It has impacted the income we get, especially when it is in dollars. We cannot withdraw money using PayPal or other trading applications because our location always varies, and the system flags us,” she said.

The ban was imposed following tensions in February, when three archbishops in Ethiopia’s Oromia region broke away from the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and announced a new structure.

The move resulted in clashes where at least three people were killed in Shashamene, over 200 kilometers south of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.

Church leaders and supporters then staged a protest and blacked out their social media pages to express solidarity.

Bahru Zeinu, deputy director of Digital Transformation Ethiopia and CEO of Africom Technologies, estimated that the ban has forced 30 million internet users in the country to use VPNs to access social media.

“This situation has caused many problems. After the ban and the introduction of VPNs, internet and social media users have decreased because VPN service is expensive,” he said.

Bahru, whose association focuses on policy and legislation related to digital issues in Ethiopia, said his organization informally submitted a request to lift the social media ban but has not yet received a response.

“They always respond saying they are working on it. Yet to be honest, as the association spokesperson and as an individual expert, the ban should not take this long. It is not even justifiable,” he said.

Some Ethiopian nongovernmental organizations and civic institutions, including the Center for Advancement of Rights and Democracy, have cited concerns about the ban’s impact on the right to freedom of expression and how it has hampered documentation of rights abuses.

Atnafu Brhane, the organization’s program director, said they have submitted an open letter to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office.

“For the past six years, we had been vocal about how the interruption of the internet affects human rights,” Atnafu told VOA. “And our letter explains how the internet interruptions worsen human rights violations, how various parties can use this opportunity to avoid reporting human rights violations. And it is preventing various sections of society from receiving medical treatment or other services.”

Ethiopia is not alone in restricting access to the internet during times of tension or unrest. In its 2022 Freedom on the Net report, Freedom House found several countries, including Ethiopia, China, Cuba, Russia, Iran and India, all had blocked social media or messaging apps.

Abiy’s government has also imposed similar bans since coming to power in 2018, including during the war in Tigray.

“The shutdown has prevented people in Tigray from sharing their stories and reporting on actions by combatants that human rights groups have described as mass atrocity crimes, limiting opportunities for accountability and global solidarity,” Freedom House said in its report.

In response to VOA’s request for comment, internet and telephone provider Ethio Telecom said via messaging app, “The decision didn’t come from us. Please contact other government officials.”

Ethio Telecom CEO Frehiwot Tamru said in a presentation on June 23 that her organization was waiting for signals from officials to open internet access.

VOA’s request for comment, sent via messaging app to the spokesperson for the Ethiopian prime minister’s office, went unanswered.

This story originated in VOA’s Horn of Africa Amharic Service.
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Hundreds gathered in the Sudanese capital Khartoum Wednesday to pray for peace on the first day of the Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday, but gunfire shattered the brief respite, residents said.

Witnesses in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman late Wednesday reported airstrikes and anti-aircraft fire, despite separate unilateral truces announced by the warring generals for the holiday.

“The country can’t take any more of this,” Khartoum resident Kazem Abdel Baqi told AFP earlier in the day.

Nearly 2,800 people have been killed and more than 2.8 million displaced in the war between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy-turned rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). 

Burhan on Tuesday called for Sudanese “youth and all those able to defend” to take up arms with the military. His appeal echoed one from the defense ministry last month, and has been widely rejected by civilians. 

“We pray to God to make our country safe and secure,” Baqi said, rejecting Burhan’s call to arms, after the early morning prayer that rang in the three-day festival, normally a highlight of the year for Sudanese. 

In neat rows in an empty courtyard, men in white and women in brightly colored outfits gathered to pray, embracing and wishing each other well in a rare moment of respite from more than 10 weeks of relentless gunshots, airstrikes and artillery fire that have reduced civilians’ homes to rubble. 

In both Khartoum and the western region of Darfur, where most of the violence has occurred, bodies have been left to rot in the streets. 

Similar prayer gatherings took place outside Khartoum, including in Jazira region where many have fled from the capital. 

Grim Eid 

With millions trapped in the embattled capital still rationing electricity and water in the oppressive heat, families struggled to conjure up holiday cheer. 

Omar Ibrahim, who lives with his three children in Khartoum’s Shambat district, said the rituals of Eid have become an “unattainable dream”.  

“Will the guns be silent for Eid?” asked Ibrahim.  

Multiple ceasefires announced by both sides have been systematically violated, as well as others mediated by the United States and Saudi Arabia. 

The United Nations mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) welcomed the latest unilateral truce announcements. 

“May Eid al-Adha be a reminder that the violence must stop,” it said in a statement, reminding warring parties that “accountability for crimes committed during wartime will be pursued.” 

In past years, those Sudanese Muslims who could afford it would slaughter an animal for Eid, but now a record 25 million people in Sudan need humanitarian aid, the U.N. says. 

The RSF and the army battled for control of Khartoum on multiple fronts this week, with paramilitaries seizing the capital’s main police base and attacking military bases across the city. 

In his Eid address urging the youth to defend Sudan, Burhan called the RSF “an existential threat” to the state. 

Khartoum resident Ahmed al-Fateh said he was “against Burhan’s call to tell the youth to take up arms and fight with the army.” 

“The youth have never fought before, and could do more harm than good,” he told AFP. 

More than a month ago the defense ministry had called on army reservists and military pensioners to report to military bases, before the governor of Darfur urged civilians to take up arms to defend themselves. 

On Twitter, researcher Hamid Khalafallah called Burhan’s address “very irresponsible”, given fears that what began as a power struggle between generals is spiraling into civil conflict. 

‘Every 30 seconds’

In the western region of Darfur the situation continues to worsen. 

Entire cities are under siege, the U.N. says, and neighborhoods burned to the ground. 

Residents, as well as the U.N., United States and others, say civilians have been targeted and killed for their ethnicity by the RSF and allied Arab militias — in a bleak reminder of Darfur’s bloody history. 

In 2003, former strongman Omar al-Bashir armed and unleashed the RSF’s predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, against Darfur’s non-Arab ethnic minorities in a war that killed more than 300,000 and displaced 2.5 million. 

Since April, more than 170,000 people have fled Darfur into neighboring Chad, according to the U.N. refugee agency. 

A total of almost 645,000 people have sought refuge outside Sudan, according to the latest International Organization for Migration data, with around 2.2 million more displaced within the country. 

According to Laura Lo Castro, UNHCR’s representative in Chad, “every 30 seconds, five (Sudanese) families cross the border into Chad through Adre town.”
…

A South African court on Wednesday ruled against the government and ordered it to reconsider its decision to terminate the special permits allowing nearly 200,000 Zimbabwe nationals to live and work in the country.

The government’s decision was set to force Zimbabweans to return home if they didn’t obtain regular work visas, even if they have children who were born in South Africa and are South African citizens.

In its ruling, the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria said the Department of Home Affairs’ decision in 2022 to end the special exemption for citizens from neighboring Zimbabwe was “unlawful” and “unconstitutional” because it didn’t follow “a fair process” of consultation.

The permits were extended until at least June 28 next year under the court ruling.

The department initially set a deadline of June 30 this year — Friday — for the termination of the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit system. That deadline was recently extended to the end of the year.

Around 178,000 Zimbabwe nationals live in South Africa under the scheme. It was introduced in 2010 in an attempt to deal with a surge in migration by Zimbabweans escaping the economic woes of their home country, which have persisted.

The Helen Suzman Foundation NGO and a group advocating for the rights of migrants in South Africa took the government’s Department of Home Affairs to court over its decision.
…

Zimbabwe opposition lawmaker Job Sikhala was found guilty in May of obstruction of justice and is now on trial on additional charges of incitement to commit violence, and disorderly conduct. But he’s not alone. Rights groups say the charges against Sikhala are part of a wider crackdown on the opposition ahead of August 23 elections. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, Zimbabwe. Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe.
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Fighting raged in the Sudanese capital on Tuesday, the eve of the Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday, after paramilitaries seized Khartoum’s main police base.

Fighting in the city between the army led by General Abdel Fattah Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo is now concentrated around military bases.

At the same time in Sudan’s west, the conflict is worsening to “alarming levels” in Darfur, the United Nations warned.

Since the war erupted on April 15, the RSF has established bases in residential neighborhoods of the capital while the army has struggled to gain a foothold on the ground despite its air superiority.

As the RSF fights to seize all of Khartoum, millions of people are still holed up despite being caught in the crossfire without electricity and water in oppressive heat.

Late Sunday, the RSF said it had seized the headquarters, on Khartoum’s southern edge, of the paramilitary Central Reserve police, sanctioned last year by Washington for rights abuses.

On Tuesday the RSF attacked army bases in central, northern and southern Khartoum, witnesses said.

Mawaheb Omar, a mother of four who has refused to abandon her home, told AFP that Eid, normally a major event in Sudan, will be “miserable and tasteless,” as she cannot even buy mutton, a usual part of the feast.

Looting, violence

Burhan took to state television on Tuesday to urge “all the young people of the country, and all those who can defend it, not to hesitate to do so … or to join the military units.”

The United States, Norway and Britain, known as the Troika, on Tuesday condemned “widespread human rights violations, conflict-related sexual violence, and targeted ethnic violence in Darfur, mostly attributed to soldiers of the Rapid Support Forces and allied militias.”

RSF are descended from Janjaweed militia unleashed by Khartoum in response to a rebel uprising in Darfur in 2003, leading to war crimes charges.

In the current fighting, the RSF has been accused of looting humanitarian supplies, factories and houses abandoned by those displaced by the fighting or taken by force.

Dagalo responded to these accusations on Tuesday in an audio recording posted online.

“The RSF will take swift and strict action” against those in its ranks who have carried out such abuses, he said.

The RSF had said Monday evening that it was beginning to try some of its “undisciplined” members and announced the release of “100 prisoners of war” from the army.

Since the beginning of the conflict, both sides have regularly announced prisoner swaps through the Red Cross, without providing the exact number of those captured.

Dagalo, a former Darfur militia chief, also warned against “plunging into civil war.”

The U.N. and African blocs have warned of an “ethnic dimension” to the conflict in Darfur, where on Tuesday, Raouf Mazou, the U.N. refugee agency’s assistant high commissioner for operations, told a briefing in Geneva there is a “worsening situation” in West Darfur state.

“According to reports from colleagues on the ground, the conflict has reached alarming levels, making it virtually impossible to deliver life-saving aid to the affected populations,” he said.

New fronts

Elsewhere in the country, new fronts have opened against the army from a local rebel group in South Kordofan state, south of the capital, as well as in Blue Nile state on the border with Ethiopia.

In South Kordofan, authorities have decreed a nighttime curfew to curb the violence.

The Troika expressed “deep concern” about the fighting in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, as well as Darfur, that “risked further broadening the conflict.”

Hundreds of civilians have fled over the border to Ethiopia because of the fighting reported around Kurmuk in Blue Nile, the U.N. said.

This adds to the ever-increasing number, now almost 645,000 people, who have fled to neighboring countries, mostly Egypt and Chad, according to the latest International Organization for Migration data. About 2.2 million people have been displaced within Sudan, the agency said.

A record 25 million people in Sudan need humanitarian aid and protection, the U.N. says.
…

Plans by a United Nations agency to cut food aid beginningJuly 1 for refugees in Uganda, Africa’s biggest refugee host, are expected to worsen their struggle with food shortages from climate change. The U.N.’s World Food Program says aid cuts leave them no choice but to help only the most vulnerable. Halima Athumani reports from Palorinya refugee camp in Obongi district, Uganda. Camera: Francis Mukasa
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The United States on Tuesday accused companies in the United Arab Emirates, the Central African Republic and Russia of engaging in illicit gold deals to help fund the mercenary fighters of Russia’s Wagner Group.

The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement it has sanctioned four companies linked to Wagner and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, that it alleged were used to help pay the paramilitary’s forces fighting in Ukraine and undertaking operations to support Russian interests in Africa.

“The Wagner Group funds its brutal operations in part by exploiting natural resources in countries like the Central African Republic and Mali. The United States will continue to target the Wagner Group’s revenue streams to degrade its expansion and violence in Africa, Ukraine, and anywhere else,” Brian Nelson, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in the statement.

The State Department said the sanctions were unrelated to Wagner’s short-lived mutiny last weekend against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s defense leadership for its handling of Russia’s war against Ukraine. The sanctions block any assets the companies hold in the U.S. and prohibit them from engaging in new deals in the U.S.

Wagner has fought in Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic, Mali and other countries, and has fought some of the bloodiest battles of the 16-month war in Ukraine, including at Bakhmut. Wagner was founded in 2014 after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula and started supporting pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

The sanctions were imposed on Central African Republic-based Midas Ressources SARLU and Diamville SAU; UAE-based Industrial Resources General Trading; and Russia-based DM, a limited liability company.

Russia’s embassy in Washington and Industrial Resources did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Reuters could not immediately reach a spokesperson for Midas Ressources, Diamville or Limited Liability Company DM.

Andrey Nikolayevich Ivanov, a Russian national, was also sanctioned. The Treasury Department accused him of being an executive in the Wagner Group and said he worked closely with senior Malian officials on weapons deals, mining concerns and other Wagner activities in the country.

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.
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Fleeing drought and conflict in Somalia, refugees have been pouring into the Dadaab refugee camps in neighboring Kenya. Humanitarian agencies say the influx of people has strained services in the already overcrowded camps and are warning of health risks. Juma Majanga reports from the Dadaab camps.

   
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Authorities in Zambia have arrested former President Edgar Lungu’s son and daughter-in-law on charges of money laundering and possessing property believed to be proceeds of crime worth more than $5 million. Lungu’s Patriotic Front Party has described the move as continued persecution of Lungu’s family by the government.

Police spokesperson Rae Hamoonga told VOA on Tuesday that Dalitso Lungu and his wife, Matildah, have been arrested in their capacity as directors of Saloid Traders Limited.

He said they are accused of owning 69 motor vehicles and other properties believed to have been proceeds of crime.

Hamoonga outlined the charges.

“Police have arrested and charged Dalitso, aged 36, and Matilda Likando Milinga, aged 36, for the offense of possession of properties suspected to be proceeds of crime, contrary to Section 71 of the Forfeiture of Proceeds of Crime Act of 2010. Dalitso Lungu has also been arrested and charged for the offense of money laundering. The duo has since been released from police custody and will appear in court soon,” said Hamoonga.

The arrests come a week after Zambian authorities announced the seizure of some 20 properties linked to Dalitso, former President Lungu’s wife, Esther, and daughter Tasila.

Brian Mundubile, one of the lawyers for Dalitso and his wife, confirmed the arrests and charges.

Mundubile also confirmed Tuesday on WhatsApp to VOA that his clients have since been released on bail pending a court appearance soon.

He added that the Lungus should be accorded the dignity of their status as the former first family.

Mundubile described his clients’ arrests as unnecessary actions meant to harass them. He said the government must be clear about their intentions regarding the family instead of embarrassing them. Mundubile notes that the arrests have caused pain and anger to the Lungu family and does not think this is the way for the state to go.

The Zambian president of anti-corruption group Transparency International, Sampa Kalunga, says his organization has been following with keen interest cases that have to do with corruption — especially cases involving the Lungu family and former officials in Lungu‘s government.

He adds that law enforcement needs to follow through on the cases to the end.

“As much as we applaud this, but [at] the same time, we would like to make a caution to the law enforcement agencies that they do a good job on investigations on gathering evidence so that we do not see cases which only end up at either seizing properties or being withdrawn by the courts,” said Kalunga.

The acting president of Lungu’s Patriotic Front Party, Given Lubinda, addressed party members in Lusaka on Tuesday and advised them to brace for more arrests of Patriotic Front Party members.

He accused authorities of only focusing on PF members in their fight against corruption.

“We have a team of lawyers who are ready to defend us. There are even other lawyers who are coming on board to come and join the team of our lawyers to defend you, so don’t be cowed. Continue to organize. Continue to mobilize the party. Don’t be scared. Zambia is for us all,” said Lubinda.

Current President Hakainde Hichilema has said multiple times that the fight against corruption is not aimed at political opponents but is meant to protect the country’s public funds.
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In Sudan’s western Darfur region, conflict and unrest have sparked sexual violence against women, according to the United Nations. Many who fled the region to neighboring Chad say there has been a complete breakdown of law and order, allowing for more attacks on women. Henry Wilkins speaks to survivors of sexual violence in this report from Koufroune, Chad.
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A man was stoned to death after being accused of blasphemy in northwest Nigeria, authorities and activists said, sparking outrage on Monday from rights groups worried about what they said were growing threats to religious freedom in the region.

Usman Buda, a butcher, was killed Sunday in Sokoto state’s Gwandu district after he “allegedly blasphemed the Holy Prophet Muhammad” during an argument with another trader in a marketplace, police spokesman Ahmad Rufa’i said in a statement Sunday night.

Residents shared videos that appeared to be from the scene showing a large crowd that included children pelting stones at Buda on the floor as they cursed him.

Rufa’i said a police team was deployed in the area but when they arrived, “the mob escaped the scene and left the victim unconscious.” He was later declared dead at Usmanu Danfodiyo Teaching Hospital in Sokoto, Rufa’i said.

The killing was the latest attack rights campaigners have said threatens religious freedom in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim northern region. Blasphemy carries the death penalty under Islamic law in the area.

Amnesty International Nigeria’s office said the failure to ensure justice in such cases would encourage more extrajudicial killings. “The government is not taking the matter seriously and that has to change,” Isa Sanusi, acting director of Amnesty International Nigeria, said.

Sokoto Governor Ahmed Aliyu said residents should not take laws into their hands. But he also warned that his government would “deal decisively” against anyone found guilty of blasphemy.

“Sokoto people have so much respect and regard for Prophet Muhammad … hence the need for all the residents to respect [and] protect his dignity and personality,” Abubakar Bawa, his spokesman, said.

Many of those accused of blasphemy never make it to court for trial. Last year, a student in Sokoto was beaten and burnt to death for alleged blasphemy while a man was killed and set ablaze for the same reason in the capital city of Abuja also in the northern region.

The police in Sokoto said it has opened an investigation into the latest incident, though arrests are rare in such cases.

“Even where arrests were made, there were serious allegations that those arrested were either later released or the whole case is jeopardized. This is very dangerous, and it shows the Nigerian authorities are deliberately not willing to do the right thing to fix this dangerous situation,” Sanusi added.
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Britain’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda will cost $215,035 per person, according to the first detailed government assessment of a high-stakes promise to tackle record numbers of people arriving in small boats. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government wants to send thousands of migrants more than 6,400 kilometers to Rwanda as part of a deal with the central African country agreed to last year. 

The government sees the plan as central to deterring asylum seekers arriving in small boats from France. Sunak has made this one of his five priorities amid pressure from some of his own Conservative lawmakers and the public to resolve the issue, with his party well behind the main opposition Labour Party in opinion polls ahead of a national election due next year. 

In an economic impact assessment published on Monday, the government said the cost of deporting each individual to Rwanda would include costs such as an average $133,485 payment to Rwanda for hosting each asylum-seeker, $28,000 for the flight and escorting, and $22,882 for processing and legal costs. 

Home Secretary (interior minister) Suella Braverman said these costs must be considered alongside the impact of deterring others trying to reach Britain and the rising cost of housing asylum-seekers. 

Unless action is taken, Braverman said that the cost of housing asylum seekers will rise to $13.9 billion a year, up from about $4.5 billion currently. 

“The economic impact assessment clearly shows that doing nothing is not an option,” she said. 

The government said the potential savings were “highly uncertain,” but estimated that to break even the plan would need to have the effect of deterring almost two in five people arriving on small boats. 

Labour said the economic assessment was a “complete joke” and it failed to accurately say what the overall cost of the plan would be. 

The Scottish National Party accused the government of spending an “astronomical” amount of money deporting desperate people while failing to help people in Britain with the rising costs of mortgages and food bills. 

On Thursday, the Court of Appeal will hand down its judgment on whether the Rwanda flights are lawful. 

The first planned flight last June was blocked by a last-minute ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which imposed an injunction preventing any deportations until the conclusion of legal action in Britain. 

In December, the High Court in London ruled the policy was lawful, but that decision is being challenged by asylum seekers from countries including Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Iran and Vietnam along with some human rights organizations. 

Last year, a record 45,000 people came to Britain in small boats across the Channel, mainly from France. Over 11,000 have arrived so far this year.
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A Somali American who came to the U.S. as a refugee is now helping chart the future of her state as an elected representative. Mohamud Mascadde sat down with Hodan Hassan for a one-on-one interview in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in this story narrated by Salem Solomon
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Five people were killed on Sunday when armed assailants attacked two villages in Lamu county in southeast Kenya, police said. 

The attackers also burnt houses and destroyed property. 

Police described the incident as a “terrorist attack,” a phrase they typically use to refer to incursions by Somalia’s Islamist al-Shabab group. 

Lamu is near Kenya’s border with Somalia and fighters from al-Shabab frequently carry out attacks in the area as part of efforts to press Kenya to withdraw troops from Somalia, where they are part of an international peacekeeping force defending the central government. 

Police said a group of assailants attacked Salama and Juhudi villages early on Sunday morning. 

A 60-year-old man was bound with a rope and “his throat slit, his house was burnt with all belongings.” Three others were killed in a similar manner while a fifth victim was shot. 

Houses belonging to those killed and other residents were torched in the attack and the assailants then disappeared into a nearby forest, police said. 

The al-Qaida-allied al-Shabab has been fighting for years in Somalia to topple the central government and establish its own rule based on its strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law. 
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Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said it had seized the headquarters of a heavily armed police unit Sunday as it sought an edge in its war with the army during heavy fighting in the capital Khartoum.

The RSF said in a statement that it had taken full control of the camp belonging to the Central Reserve Police in southern Khartoum, and posted footage of its fighters inside the facility, some were removing boxes of ammunition from a warehouse.

Reuters was not immediately able to verify the footage or the RSF statement. There was no immediate comment from the army or the police.

Since late Saturday, fighting has surged in the three cities that make up the wider capital — Khartoum, Bahri and Omdurman — as the conflict between the army and the RSF entered its 11th week.

Witnesses also reported a sharp increase in violence in recent days in Nyala, the largest city in the western Darfur region. The U.N. raised the alarm Saturday over ethnic targeting and the killing of people from the Masalit community in El Geneina in West Darfur.

Khartoum and El Geneina have been worst affected by the war, though last week tensions and clashes escalated in other parts of Darfur and in Kordofan, in the south.

Fighting has intensified since a series of cease-fire deals agreed at talks led by the United States and Saudi Arabia in Jeddah failed to stick. The talks were adjourned last week.

The Central Reserve Police have been deployed by the army in ground fighting in recent weeks. It had previously been used as a combat force in several regions and to confront protesters demonstrating against a coup in 2021.

It was sanctioned last year by the United States, accused of using excessive force against protesters.

Left alone

The army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has been using airstrikes and heavy artillery to try to dislodge the RSF led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, from neighborhoods across the capital.

“Since the early morning in north Omdurman we’ve had airstrikes and artillery bombardment and RSF anti-aircraft fire,” 47-year-old resident Mohamed al-Samani told Reuters by phone. “Where are the Jeddah talks, why did the world leave us to die alone in Burhan and Hemedti’s war?”

In Nyala, a city that grew rapidly as people were displaced during the earlier conflict that spread in Darfur after 2003, witnesses reported a marked deterioration in the security situation over the past few days, with violent clashes in residential neighborhoods.

“Today I left Nyala because of the war. Yesterday there was bombardment in the streets and bullets going into homes,” Saleh Haroun, a 38-year-old resident of the city, told Reuters.

There was also fighting between the army and the RSF last week around El Fashir, capital of North Darfur, which the U.N. says is inaccessible to humanitarian workers.

In El Geneina, which has been almost entirely cut off from communications networks and aid supplies in recent weeks, attacks by Arab militias and the RSF have sent tens of thousands fleeing over the border to Chad.

On Saturday, U.N. Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani called for safe passage for people fleeing El Geneina and access for aid workers following reports of summary executions between the city and the border and “persistent hate speech” including calls to kill the Masalit or expel them.

Of those uprooted by the conflict in Sudan, nearly 2 million have been displaced internally and almost 600,000 have fled to neighboring countries, according to the International Organization for Migration.
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Fighting between rival Sudanese generals in Darfur Sunday killed at least a dozen civilians, said a doctor in the devastated region.

Speaking from the capital of South Darfur state, the doctor said fighting there had led to “a provisional toll of 12 civilians killed in Nyala.”

But the source — speaking anonymously for security reasons — noted that “the violence of the fighting restricts movement” of victims to hospital.

Residents had reported battles Saturday, with shelling and artillery strikes in Nyala.

Darfur, a vast western region on the border with Chad, has witnessed the deadliest violence in the battle for power between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, Rapid Support Forces paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

The United Nations says violence in Darfur has taken an “ethnic dimension” and could constitute “crimes against humanity.”  

Daglo’s RSF have their origins in the Janjaweed militias which former strongman Omar al-Bashir unleashed in response to a rebellion by ethnic minorities in Darfur in 2003, drawing charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Nearly 2,800 people have been killed in Sudan since battles began in the capital Khartoum on April 15, according to a new toll from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.  

Almost 2 million others have been displaced within the country, and roughly 600,000 have fled over Sudan’s borders, the International Organization for Migration said.  

The U.N. urged “immediate action” Saturday to stop the killings of people fleeing El Geneina, the West Darfur state capital, by Arab militias aided by the paramilitaries.

Up to 1,100 people have been killed in El Geneina, the United States State Department said in mid-June.

Bodies have been left lying in the streets, including several that appeared to be face down together on a dirt road. Shops have been ripped open by looters.

Rockets are falling

In the chaos, families try to avoid bullets on the 30-kilometer (18-mile) journey to neighboring Chad — where more than 155,000 have taken refuge.

Across the border in Adre, refugees gather under tarpaulins stretched over branches, and form long lines to collect food and water.

Aid has reached at least 2.8 million people in Sudan, the U.N. said, but agencies report major hurdles to their work, from visas for foreign humanitarians to securing safe corridors.

International donors pledged $1.5 billion in aid at a conference in Geneva last week — less than half the estimated needs for Sudan and its affected neighbors.

The United States, which along with Saudi Arabia sought to mediate between the warring sides and ensure humanitarian aid can reach those in need, said Thursday it had put its efforts on hold.

Outside of Darfur, the capital Khartoum has been the war’s main battleground. The armed forces have stepped up air raids there, while RSF artillery targets army and police bases.  

Residents who remain in the city are suffering electricity and water shortages.

On Sunday, several of them reported artillery fire in the south of the city, and fighting elsewhere.

“Rockets are falling on the houses,” a witness in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman told AFP.
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