A Tunisian judge has barred radio and television news programs from covering the cases of prominent opposition figures accused of conspiring against state security in recent months, official news agency TAP said Saturday.

The order fuels concerns over rights in Tunisia since President Kais Saied seized extra powers in 2021, moving to rule by decree and then assume authority over the judiciary.

“The investigating judge of office 36 of the anti-terrorism branch issues a decision banning media coverage of the two cases of conspiring against state security,” the court’s spokesperson Hanan el-Qadas told TAP.

TAP later quoted Qadas as saying the order only concerned “audio-visual media” and was intended to keep details of the cases confidential and protect personal data of people involved.

Reuters was unable to immediately reach the spokesperson.

Judges have detained or opened investigations into more than 20 political, judicial, media and business figures with opposition ties over recent months, accusing some of plotting against state security.

The main opposition parties have decried the arrests as politically motivated and rights groups have urged Tunisian authorities to free those detained.

Neither the Interior Ministry nor the Justice Ministry have publicly commented on the arrests so far.

President Saied has described the detainees as terrorists, criminals and traitors, saying judges who free them would be considered as having abetted them.

The opposition accuses Saied of a coup for shutting down parliament in 2021, ruling by decree and writing a new constitution that was passed last year with low turnout to give him nearly unchecked powers.

They say he has dismantled the democratic system introduced after a 2011 revolution that also brought one of the freest media landscapes of any Arab country, in which press regularly reported criticism of the government.
…

An airstrike in Sudan’s capital Khartoum Saturday killed at least 17 people, including five children, health officials said, as fighting continued between rival generals seeking to control the country. 

The attack was one of the deadliest of the clashes in urban areas of Khartoum and elsewhere in Sudan between the military and a powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. 

It was not clear whether the attack was by aircraft or a drone. The military’s aircraft have repeatedly targeted RSF troops, and the RSF has reportedly used drones and anti-aircraft weapons against the military. 

The conflict in Sudan broke out in mid-April, capping months of increasing tensions between the leaders of the military and the RSF. 

Saturday’s strike hit the Yarmouk neighborhood in southern Khartoum, where clashes have centered in recent weeks, according to Sudan’s Ministry of Health. The area houses a military facility controlled by the army. At least 25 houses were destroyed, the ministry wrote in a Facebook post. 

The dead included five children and an unknown number of women and elderly people, and some wounded people were hospitalized, the ministry said. 

A local group that calls itself The Emergency Room and helps organize humanitarian aid in the area, said at least 11 people were wounded in the strike. It posted images it said were of houses damaged in the attack and people searching through rubble. Other images claimed to show a wounded girl and man. 

The RSF claimed in a statement that the military’s aircraft bombed the area, killing and wounded civilians. It claimed it downed a military MiG fighter jet. The paramilitary group’s claims couldn’t be independently verified. 

A military spokesman didn’t respond to messages seeking comment. 

The conflict has plunged the African country into chaos and turned Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields. The paramilitary force has occupied people’s houses and other civilian properties since the onset of the conflict, according to residents and activists. 

The clashes have killed hundreds of civilians and wounded thousands of others. More than 2.2 million people have fled their homes to safer areas inside Sudan or crossed into neighboring countries. 

Along with Khartoum, fighting has raged in Darfur, a sprawling area in western Sudan. Genena, the provincial capital of West Darfur province, has experienced some of the worst battles in the conflict, with tens of thousands of its residents fleeing to neighboring Chad. 

Arab militias known as janjaweed have recently joined the clashes in Genena on the side of the RSF, according to residents and activists. 

On Wednesday, West Darfur Gov. Khamis Abdalla Abkar was abducted and killed hours after he accused the RSF and allied Arab militias in a televised interview of attacking Genena. 

His slaying was blamed on the RSF, a charge the paramilitary force denied. 
…

The conflict in Sudan has displaced more than one million children, 270,000 of them in the Darfur region, the UN children’s agency (UNICEF) has said, warning more were at “grave risk.”

Fighting has raged in Sudan since mid-April between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

As well as the more than one million displaced, at least 330 children have been killed and more than 1,900 wounded, UNICEF said in a statement Thursday.

‘Many more are at grave risk’

The United Nations agency said an estimated 13 million children were in “dire need” of humanitarian assistance.

“Children are trapped in an unrelenting nightmare, bearing the heaviest burden of a violent crisis they had no hand in creating — caught in the crossfire, injured, abused, displaced and subjected to disease and malnutrition,” said UNICEF Sudan representative Mandeep O’Brien.

It said the situation in Darfur, already scarred by a two-decade war that left hundreds of thousands dead and more than two million displaced, was especially concerning.

“The situation in West and Central Darfur, in particular, is characterised by active fighting, severe insecurity and looting of humanitarian supplies and facilities,” UNICEF said.

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

Its paramilitaries have been accused of carrying out the Wednesday killing of West Darfur state governor Khamis Abdullah Abakar hours after he made remarks critical of the paramilitaries in a telephone interview with a Saudi TV channel. The RSF has denied any responsibility.

The United Nations said “compelling eyewitness accounts attribute this act to Arab militias and the RSF,” while the Darfur Lawyers Association condemned the act of “barbarism, brutality and cruelty.”

“All those responsible for this killing must be held to account including those who bear command responsibility,” Jeremy Laurence, spokesman for the UN rights office, told reporters in Geneva.

‘Ominous reminder’

The U.S. State Department said the atrocities unfolding in West Darfur were “primarily” the work of the RSF and provided an “ominous reminder” of the region’s previous genocide.

“The United States condemns in the strongest terms the ongoing human rights violations and abuses and horrific violence in Sudan, especially reports of widespread sexual violence and killings based on ethnicity in West Darfur by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied militias,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

“The atrocities occurring today in West Darfur and other areas are an ominous reminder of the horrific events that led the United States to determine in 2004 that genocide had been committed in Darfur.”

Miller said up to 1,100 civilians had been killed in the West Darfur state capital, El Geneina, alone.

“While the atrocities taking place in Darfur are primarily attributable to the RSF and affiliated militia, both sides have been responsible for abuses,” he added.

Now in its third month, the fighting has claimed more than 2,000 lives, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

The International Organization for Migration says the fighting has driven 2.2 million people from their homes, including 528,000 who have fled to neighboring countries.

With mediation efforts at a standstill after repeated abortive ceasefires, the fighting has raged on unabated.

In Khartoum North, just across the Blue Nile from the capital, the regular army carried out air strikes drawing anti-aircraft fire from the RSF, witnesses said.

Across the Nile in Omdurman, an air strike hit the Beit Al-Mal neighborhood, killing at least three people and damaging several houses, the neighborhood “resistance committee” said.

The RSF said the strike killed 20 people, some inside a mosque, and accused the regular army, which has a virtual monopoly of the skies, of carrying out multiple strikes on residential neighborhoods. 
…

Malian Foreign Affairs Minister Abdoulaye Diop on Friday called for the immediate withdrawal of the United Nations peacekeeping mission from his country.

Diop told the U.N. Security Council Mali wanted the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, or MINUSMA, the U.N. force in Mali, removed “without delay.”

“Minusma seems to have become part of the problem by fueling community tensions exacerbated by extremely serious allegations which are highly detrimental to peace, reconciliation and national cohesion in Mali,” said the minister.

“This situation is begetting mistrust among the Malian population and also causing a crisis of confidence between Malian authorities and MINUSMA,” Diop told the council.

The West African country has faced an insurgency since 2012. The U.N. peacekeeping mission was deployed in 2013 but the instability continues.

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

Mali’s top diplomat demanded Friday that U.N. peacekeepers who have been in this West African country grappling with an Islamic insurgency for more than a decade leave immediately, claiming they had failed in their mission. 

Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop made the request in a speech to the United Nations Security Council. He said the U.N. mission had not achieved its objectives and was sowing distrust among the people. 

Mali has struggled to contain an Islamic extremist insurgency since 2012. Extremist rebels were forced from power in Mali’s northern cities the following year, with the help of a French-led military operation, but they regrouped in the desert and began launching attacks on the Malian army and its allies. 

The U.N. peacekeepers — a contingent of more than 15,000 — came a few months later in what has become one of the most dangerous U.N. missions in the world. At least 170 peacekeepers have been killed in the country since 2013, according to the U.N. 

“The Malian government asks for the withdrawal without delay” of the peacekeepers, Diop said in his speech at the council. He said the mission has not “been able to adequately respond to the security situation in Mali” and that its “future outlook doesn’t seem to respond to the security needs” of the Malians. 

Mali has been ruled by a military junta following two coups, starting in 2020, led by Col. Assimi Goita, who now runs the country. 

Since Goita seized power, relations with the international community have become tense — in part also because the junta brought in mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group, who are engaged in Moscow’s war on Ukraine. 

In recent months, Mali’s government has constrained the peacekeepers’ ability to operate, and countries such as Benin, Germany, Sweden, Ivory Coast and the United Kingdom have announced troop withdrawals. 

Diop’s demand came as the Security Council began discussing the mission’s mandate, which expires June 30. 

U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis told Friday’s meeting that Washington was “especially frustrated by Mali’s ongoing restrictions” against the freedom of movement and access for the peacekeeping mission, known as MINUSMA. 

Conflict analysts see Mali’s demand as worrying. 

“It’s a grim development,” said Laith Alkhouri, CEO of Intelonyx Intelligence Advisory, which provides intelligence analysis. Alkhouri said the demand appears to be a result of the junta’s “aspirations to keep a tight grip on power, as well as a response to increasing public pressure after multiple protests.” 

But many Malians say the peacekeepers have brought no stability. 

“What I can see is that despite the presence of the [U.N.], we don’t have peace,” Mohamed Sissoko, a resident of the capital, Bamako, told The Associated Press. 

The spokesperson for the U.N. mission in Mali, Fatoumata Kaba, said the U.N. would respond to the request but couldn’t immediately comment. 

On Sunday, the African nation is to hold a long-awaited referendum on a new constitution as a path to elections, scheduled for February next year. 
…

The United Nations refugee agency has pledged its support of Malawi’s move to resettle more than 50,000 refugees and asylum-seekers currently living at the overcrowded Dzaleka refugee camp in the central part of the country. Last week, Malawi’s government announced it had secured a new site in the northern part of the country to help reduce the number refugees at the Dzaleka camp, which was originally designed to accommodate 12,000 people.

UNHCR Regional Director for Southern Africa Valentin Tapsoba pledged support of the move after meeting Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera, in the capital, Lilongwe.

According to a statement released after the meeting, Tapsoba said UNHCR welcomes the government of Malawi’s commitment to improving living conditions and overall well-being of refugees living in the country by upgrading refugee settlements.

Malawi set up Dzaleka refugee camp in 1994 to accommodate about 12,000 people but now it is hosting more than 50,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia and Ethiopia.

Kenyi Emanuel Lukajo is the associate external relations and reporting officer for the UNHCR in Malawi. He says the government’s relocation of about 8,000 refugees, who have been staying outside the camp, has strained the already scarce resources at the camp.

“Life is very difficult,” said Lokajo. “There is not enough water, not enough shelter, even the children who are pulled out of school in the city are not able to enroll in schools because there are not enough slots. So, everything is not there, so we don’t have the money to provide for an additional number of people that have been relocated.”

Malawi started forcibly relocating refugees, who were illegally living across rural and urban areas of the country last month, after the expiration of the April 15 deadline the government set for voluntary relocation.

In a statement, the UNHCR says that to date, approximately 1,900 individuals have returned to the congested Dzaleka camp amid financial challenges the agency is facing in taking care of the refugees.

The U.N. refugee agency says that as of 1 June, it has only received 15 percent of the required $27.2 million to adequately support refugees and asylum-seekers in Malawi this year.

However, the Malawi government says it has acquired land for a new resettlement site for the refugees in Chitipa district, north of Malawi, to solve overcrowding problems facing the refugees there.

Ken Zikhale Ng’oma is the minister of homeland security in Malawi. He told a press conference last week that the new settlement will also help keep away potential criminals who enter Malawi under the pretext of being refugees and asylum keepers.

“Which is why we want to change the system now. We will close Dzaleka anytime,” Ng’oma said. “And we will open up a new site in Chitipa where we want to make sure that anybody who enters Malawi should be examined before entering Malawi just as Americans do. No asylum seeker will get in and say ‘I will apply inside’ no. It is done at the gate. So, we want to borrow the American system.”

The UNHCR says it stands ready to provide the necessary support toward the new site.

“If the government says they have found a new site, UNHCR has no objection to that as long as UNHCR is involved in the process and then we assess the site to ensure that the site has got enough water, is not prone to flooding and the site is not very close to the border,” said Lokajo. “So if all the conditions are met, then UNHCR will not hesitate to support the process.”

Malawi government authorities have assured to involve UNHCR in the site assessment process and collaborate to secure resources for the development of the new settlement.
…

Extremist rebels killed at least seven farmers in northeast Nigeria, an attack that further threatens food security in the hard-hit region, local authorities told The Associated Press on Friday.

The militants attacked the farmers on Thursday as they worked on their crop fields near Borno state’s Molai area, the authorities said.

Security forces deployed to the scene “were met with a horrifying sight; some victims had their throats slit while others were completely beheaded,” said Abudulmumeen Bulama, a member of the Civilian Joint Task Force that is helping fight the militants.

Sainna Buba, a local government official, described the attack as a “sad occurrence and a setback” to restore peace and farming activities in the troubled region. The victims have been buried, he said.

The attack happened amid state efforts to help farmers and other residents recover from violence and related upheaval in the troubled region. U.N. agencies this week sought more funding for humanitarian assistance.

Islamic extremist rebels launched an insurgency in 2009 in Nigeria’s northeast to fight against Western education and to establish Islamic Shariah law in the region.

At least 35,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced because of the violence by the Boko Haram group and a breakaway faction backed by the Islamic State, according to U.N. agencies in Nigeria.

“These attacks are becoming one too many, and the government needs to do something urgently,” farmer Becky Koji said, echoing the concerns of many in the area. “We are not safe anymore”

On Friday, Nigerian soldiers reviewed a large number of farmers in the area and gave them authorization cards for gaining access to their land. The farmers told the AP that security is only provided on the highway and not in crop-growing areas that usually are several kilometers away from main roads.

The militants have often attacked farmers. Aid groups and analysts have expressed concerns that such attacks could cause more hardship for many in the West African nation already struggling with record unemployment and poverty levels.

The U.N. has warned that limited funding could increase the risk of famine.

At least 4.4 million in the troubled region are projected to face acute hunger at the peak of the lean season between June and August this year, the U.N. World Food Program said on Wednesday.

 
…

Ahead of International Day of the African Child on June 16, rights groups and officials in Cameroon are distributing birth certificates to 30,000 of several million children denied education for lack of the document. A majority of the children without birth registration are from western regions and Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria where separatist and Boko Haram conflicts have displaced several million people.

The Cameroon government says thousands of children have been visiting district councils all over the country this week to collect their birth certificates.

Among the children expecting the Youande City Council to establish their birth certificates is 17-year-old Mustapha Issa.

Mustapha said he is one of the several thousand children denied an education for lack of a birth certificate.

Mustapha said he went to the Yaounde City Council on Thursday and pleaded with the mayor to help him, alongside other children who have not received an education because they lack birth certificates. He said the mothers of some of the children yearning for an education gave birth to their children at home and failed to register their births.

Officials of the Yaounde City Council say they received at least a dozen humanitarian groups asking for birth certificates to be issued for children so they can obtain an education, health care and other government services.

The Ministry of Decentralization and Local Development is supervising the establishment and distribution of birth certificates to needy children. The document is free for babies younger than 90 days old. But older children have to spend about $20 to have birth certificates in a long process that involves officials of Cameroon’s Justice Ministry.

Cameroon’s Ministry of Secondary Education said it is compulsory for children to present their birth certificates before continuing with their education after the primary level.

Mustapha said dropouts become street children, drug addicts and gangsters.

The Cameroon government said several thousand birth certificates were lost or destroyed in Cameroon’s separatist conflict that so far has displaced 750,000 people in English-speaking western regions, most of them women and children.

Tanjong Martin, mayor of the Tubah district in Cameroon’s English-speaking northwest region, said the number of applications for birth certificates is overwhelming.

“During this time of the anglophone crisis, schools were not functioning, councils were not running, and the children for these years had no birth certificates,” Martin said. “Now, we have about 3,000 applications, and as you know, new ones are coming up, so it is a big problem in areas where this crisis hit since 2016.”

Cameroon also said tens of thousands of birth certificates were lost in attacks by Boko Haram militants that have displaced more than 3 million people in northern Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria.

George Elanga Obam, Cameroon’s minister of Decentralization, said Cameroon is working in partnership with Nigeria for displaced children to have birth certificates.

“With Boko Haram, a lot of people came from Nigeria,” he said. “Most of their children do not have their birth certificates. The first thing we do as a state is education, talking to parents with all the means that we can use … talking to the civil society. It is very important to be registered in civil status. We will reduce the amount of children not having birth certificates.”

Cameroon said more 3.3 million children in the country of 26 million do not have required birth certificates. More than 2 million are of school-going age, the government said.
…

Thousands of Sudanese continue to flee the war in their country every day, with many making the long trek south to Kenya. While a fortunate few have friends willing to help them, most of the new refugees are forced to live at the Dadaab refugee complex. While the burden is heavy, analysts say it is in Kenya’s interest to help the new refugees, and make an effort to end the war in Sudan. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi.
…

A catastrophic food crisis looms in Sudan if fighting doesn’t stop, said Freydoun Borhani, team leader with aid organization Mercy Corps in Gedaref state, on the Ethiopian border.

“Right now, it’s planting season in Gedaref state, for example. People there must buy seeds for plantation. The price of the seeds go very high. And this creates a problem for the farmer,” Borhani said.

But that’s not the only challenge farmers face, according to Borhani.

“Besides that, the number of people who moved here have created a lack of food in the market, and the price of food is very high, and some people cannot afford to purchase this food,” Borhani said. “Some places, it’s 134 percent increase. Wheat flour, rice or sugar also 100 percent or more.”

Mercy Corps had plans to distribute seeds to about 2,100 farmers in Gedaref, Nyala and Kordofan states, but for security reasons it will be able to give seeds to only 700 farmers in Gedaref starting next week.

The latest 24-hour cease-fire negotiated by the United States and Saudi Arabia expired early Sunday, and the war is showing no signs of ending, as fighting continues in parts of the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere.

Kenya’s President William Ruto said he and other East African leaders plan to meet the Sudanese generals in person next week to discuss ways to end the war. The announcement follows a gathering of heads of states and government convened by the East African bloc IGAD, or Intergovernmental Authority on Development, in Djibouti earlier this week.

“We have taken the decision that the quartet of Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Somalia will in the next 10 days meet face to face with General [Abdel Fattah al-] Burhan and General [Mohamed Hamdan] Dagalo in a face-to-face engagement, so we can speak to them directly on behalf of IGAD with a view of stopping the war that is raging in Sudan,” Ruto said following the IGAD talks.

Macharia Munene, professor of history and international relations at the United States International University in Nairobi, told VOA the in-person meeting with the two generals is a good step but there are more factors at play.

“The problem with IGAD and AU [African Union] is that it depends on the EU [European Union] and external forces of resources to operate,” Munene said. “That’s the main problem … sometimes it’s difficult to agree on anything, in part because the players are dependent on advice and resources from outside.”

Abdisalan Adan, education and peace advocate and the director of Maarifa College in Kenya, told VOA bringing them to the table might be the solution, but there’s much to accomplish between now and then.

“First of all, bridging the gap and bringing the trust among the two [generals] and from our side, Kenya, we should see the conflict from a wider perspective, then working very softly in terms of bringing all actors together, international actors together, not only IGAD, but bring on board African Union, European Union and Americans,” he said.

Dr. Edgar Githua, a lecturer at USIU and Strathmore University specializing in international relations, peace and conflict, told VOA that Kenya’s Ruto is a good person to lead the negotiations.

“I think he’s seen conflict within Kenya. Remember, in Kenya we had our post-election violence in 2007, and he was part of that mediating team … so he understands what internal conflicts are all about; in Sudan, it’s an internal conflict, so he understands the dynamics,” Githua said.

Ruto also said officials will try to persuade the warring factions to establish a humanitarian corridor in the next two weeks and, following that, initiate a process of an inclusive national dialogue.

But in a statement on Thursday, Sudan’s foreign ministry said it preferred South Sudanese leadership of the initiative.

Since the war started about two months ago, more than 1.65 million people have been displaced, including more than 1.2 million within the country and about half a million to neighboring countries. As long as the conflict continues, Mercy Corps says humanitarian needs will grow among the populations that were already severely food insecure.
…

The international credit rating agency Moody’s and the International Monetary Fund say the Sudan conflict will harm its neighbors’ economies if it continues. In the markets of N’djamena, Chad’s capital, traders and customers alike have already been feeling the pinch from high inflation as the economic fallout of the war threatens their love of hot, sweet, tea. Henry Wilkins reports. (Camera and Produced by: Henry Wilkins)
…

Key African countries stressed the need for grain imports to tackle food insecurity as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares to discuss with the continent’s leaders the fate of a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of food and fertilizer from Ukraine. 

Putin said on Tuesday that Russia was considering quitting the Black Sea Grain Initiative – brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July – because its own grain and fertilizer shipments still face obstacles. The pact could expire on July 17. 

A delegation of African leaders is due to visit both Ukraine and Russia soon in a push to end Russia’s 16-month-long war, and Putin has said he plans to raise the Black Sea grain deal. African leaders could also propose to Putin an “unconditional grain and fertilizer deal,” according to a draft framework document Reuters saw Thursday. 

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he believes Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are aligned with him on the “importance of grain deliveries to Africa for the alleviation of food insecurity,” said Ramaphosa spokesperson Vincent Magwenya. 

“We are therefore not aware of any threats to pull out of the grain deal,” Magwenya told Reuters on Wednesday. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Moscow had not yet made a decision on withdrawing. 

Russia has issued a list of demands it wants met, including the resumption of its Black Sea ammonia exports and reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank to the SWIFT payment system. 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters on Thursday that he hoped the talks between Putin and the African leaders led to “a positive outcome in relation to the Black Sea initiative, as well as in relation to the efforts that we are making for the exports of Russian food and fertilizer.”  

‘Devastating toll’ 

While food and fertilizer exports do not fall under the West’s tough sanctions imposed on Russia over the war, Moscow says restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance create barriers. 

Putin also complained that under the deal “almost nothing goes to African countries” and said Moscow is ready to supply grain for free to the world’s poorest countries. 

The United Nations has long said the Black Sea grain deal is a commercial enterprise, but that it benefits poorer countries by helping lower food prices globally. 

Zambian Foreign Minister Stanley Kakubo said in a statement Wednesday that the war in Ukraine and conflict in Sudan had “taken a devastating toll on African communities, resulting in the loss of life, and food insecurity, due to the rising costs of grain and fertilizer.” 

According to U.N. data, more than 31 million tons of grain have been exported under the pact, with 43% of that to developing countries. The U.N. World Food Program has shipped more than 625,000 tons of grain for aid operations. 

The Black Sea grain deal was initially brokered for 120 days. Russia has agreed to extend it three times but warned on Wednesday that its “goodwill” cannot last forever. 

Not all African states were worried, though. 

“If it’s true that we would starve if that grain deal is disrupted, why is it that it’s the West crying more than us Africans? They are crying crocodile tears,” Uganda’s state minister for foreign affairs, Okello Oryem, told Reuters. 

He added that Uganda would have no qualms about accepting free grain from Russia.
…

Farmers in Ghana are embracing new methods to reduce food spoilage after the harvest and boost their revenue streams. The changes are coming at a crucial time. The West African country’s post-harvest loss rate has steadily increased in recent years, affected by storage difficulties and dwindling means of export. Nneka Chile reports from Accra, Ghana.
…

Analysts say the international community is reluctant to put pressure on the Chadian government to transition to civilian rule. In this report from N’djamena, reporter Henry Wilkins speaks to one man arrested during protests against the junta and local politicians who say civilians need political representation to air their grievances against the state.
…

Sudan’s devastating war raged into a third month on Thursday, as a governor’s killing marked a new escalation in the western region of Darfur.

Since April 15, the regular army headed by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo have been locked in combat that has destroyed entire neighborhoods of the capital, Khartoum.

The fighting quickly spread to the provinces, particularly Darfur, and has killed at least 1,800 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project’s latest figures from last month.

Burhan accused the RSF of killing the governor of West Darfur state, Khamis Abdullah Abakar, in a “treacherous attack” on Wednesday.

Abakar was captured and later killed after he made remarks critical of the paramilitaries in a telephone interview with a Saudi TV channel.

The Darfur Lawyers Association condemned his “assassination” as an act of “barbarism, brutality and cruelty.”

Nationwide, Sudan’s war has driven around 2.2 million people from their homes, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Of these, more than 528,000 have sought refuge in neighboring countries, said the U.N. agency.

“In our worst expectations, we didn’t see this war dragging on for this long,” said Mohamad al-Hassan Othman who has fled his home in Khartoum.

Everything in “our life has changed,” he told AFP. “We don’t know whether we’ll be back home or need to start a new life.”

‘Completely devastated’

“We have nothing left,” said one Khartoum resident, Ahmed Taha. “The entire country has been completely devastated.”

“Everywhere you look, you’ll see where bombs have fallen and bullets have struck. Every inch of Sudan is a disaster area.”

U.S. and Saudi mediation efforts are at a standstill after the collapse of multiple cease-fires in the face of flagrant violations by both sides.

A record 25 million people — more than half the population — are in need of aid, according to the U.N., which says it has received only a fraction of needed funding.

Saudi Arabia has announced an international pledging conference for next week.

Many of the displaced have lost loved ones as well as “all their belongings and livelihoods,” said Anja Wolz of the aid group Doctors Without Borders.

The group, which runs mobile clinics for the displaced in Madani, 200 kilometers (120 miles) southeast of Khartoum, noted a “worrying increase” in people escaping the capital.

Despite dangers and obstacles, latest U.N. figures say aid has now reached 1.8 million people, still only a fraction of those in need.

“We have been suffering and suffering and suffering the scourge of this war for two months,” said another Khartoum resident, Soha Abdulrahman.

The conflict’s other main battleground, Darfur, was already scarred by a two-decade war that left hundreds of thousands dead and more than two million displaced.

No ‘red lines’

The army on Wednesday said the “kidnapping and assassinating” of West Darfur governor Abakar was part of the RSF’s “barbaric crimes.”

Sudan analyst Kholood Khair said the “heinous assassination” was meant “to silence his highlighting of genocide… in Darfur.”

Khair, founder of Khartoum-based think tank Confluence Advisory, said in a tweet it was unclear “what the red lines are anymore,” urging international condemnation “as well as action to protect the people of Darfur and elsewhere.”

Homes and markets have been burnt to the ground, hospitals and aid facilities looted and more than 149,000 people sent fleeing into neighboring Chad.

The Umma Party, one of Sudan’s main civilian groups, said El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, had been turned into a “disaster zone,” and urged international organizations to provide help.

The Darfur Lawyers Association described “massacres and ethnic cleansing” in El Geneina carried out by “cross-border militias supported by the RSF” which “serve agendas that have nothing to do with the interests of Darfur or Sudan.”

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

An army official said Wednesday that the paramilitaries had begun using drones, which an RSF source said they had obtained “from commandeered army centers.”

Both sources spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

According to a military analyst from the region who also requested anonymity for his safety, the RSF might have obtained the drones from the Yarmouk weapons manufacturing and arms depot complex, which they overran just days after the collapse of U.S. and Saudi-brokered cease-fire talks.
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A terrestrial emergency is unfolding the world over, and Africa is particularly at risk. In addition to the exponential change in weather patterns and food systems already experienced by many communities across the continent, the projected effects of climate change, deforestation, and land degradation could result in the extinction of species and have profound effects on people and ecosystems. The world’s youngest continent is under siege, in particular, the 70 percent of her population who are under thirty, are staring at a bleak future, unless they do something urgently. Juma Majanga looks at how Africa’s young leaders are fighting to save the planet.
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Kidney dialysis patients are dying, and dead bodies have been left to decompose in a morgue and in city streets as Sudan’s war rages on, despite efforts by volunteers and aid workers to keep critical healthcare running. 

Sudan’s health sector was already near collapse because of a lack of resources before the conflict, and it has been shattered by nearly two months of fighting across the country between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. 

More than 60 hospitals in conflict zones have been put out of service, and the 29 that are still operating are threatened by closure caused by power and water cuts and shortage of staff, according to the United Nations. 

“Despite all the best efforts of Sudanese doctors … who are working in extremely difficult conditions, this is certainly not a sustainable situation,” Patrick Youssef, International Committee of the Red Cross regional director for Africa,  told Reuters. 

Dr. Mohammed Wahbi, who manages one of Sudan’s largest children’s hospitals, across the Nile from Khartoum in Omdurman, said it normally received up to 300 patients a day. 

“Once the war broke out, RSF forces stationed their vehicles in front of the hospital and its soldiers entered the building, which made the facility unsafe for patients,” he said. “Many stayed away, except those who were desperate for dialysis treatment.” 

Two weeks ago, the hospital stopped providing treatment as dialysis supplies dwindled. 

In El-Obeid, southwest of Khartoum, a power outage lasting more than two weeks has put a kidney dialysis unit at risk of shutdown and led to the deaths of at least 12 dialysis patients, a doctors union statement said Sunday. 

Residents say roads into the strategically located city are under blockade, with supplies of food and medicine cut off. 

Engineers tried to reach a local power station to restore electricity, but were assaulted before they could arrive, the doctors union said. 

Renal disease constitutes an important health problem in Sudan, where treatment is limited and expensive. According to the International Society of Nephrology, an estimated 8,000 people in Sudan depend on dialysis to live. 

In Ombada, on the outskirts of Omdurman, the main hospital has had to halve the frequency of patient visits and shut down their operating rooms, said general director Alaa El Din Ibrahim Ali, because of power cuts and lack of fuel for the generator. 

Morgue breakdown 

Nearby, a local morgue was unable to keep its refrigeration system working and 450 bodies began to decompose, seeping blood onto the floor. 

The army has accused the RSF of forcibly evacuating and taking over key hospitals. The RSF said in a statement earlier this week that monitors had observed several of those hospitals, as well as power and water stations, were free of fighters. 

With international humanitarian agencies struggling to scale up aid because of the pervasive danger of violence, one of many local volunteer units trying to maintain basic health services attempted to fix the outage. 

“We faced problems buying equipment and fuel to get the cooling facilities up and running again,” said Moussa Hassan, a member of the group, who said the price of a gallon of fuel had soared to between $58 and $83, from $11 before the war. 

The police and other authorities vanished when the conflict started, blocking burial procedures, he said. 

“No death certificates have been issued. The dead cannot be buried anyway, given the constant fighting happening around us,” Hassan said. 

The situation in Darfur, in western Sudan, is even more desperate. El Geneina, the city hit hardest, has been struck by waves of attacks by Arab militias backed by the RSF while cut off from humanitarian relief and phone networks. 

“There are practically no health services [there] at all. It’s a city of death,” said Yasir Elamin, president of the Sudanese American Physicians. 

The Geneina Teaching Hospital, the most visited hospital in West Darfur State, was forced to close in late April, its patients and doctors evacuated. 

A secondary school teacher from the city, Hisham Juma, said he saw fighters take the hospital over before he fled to neighboring Chad earlier this month. 

“Many patients died, including my neighbor, who needed dialysis every three days,” he told Reuters by phone from Chad.  

Reuters was unable to verify his account or ascertain how many patients had died. 

Moussa Ibrahim, a logistics supervisor in El Geneina for medical aid group MSF, which supported the hospital, said fighting in the city had made it dangerous to fetch basic necessities or retrieve dead bodies from the streets. 

“Access was finally gained, but by that point the bodies had decomposed to the extent that they couldn’t be removed. Now, the best that can be done is to gather the bodies in a single location,” he said in a statement.
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Eight Kenyan police officers were killed when their vehicle was blown up by an improvised explosive device in a suspected attack by Somalia-based jihadi group al-Shabab, police said.

The incident took place on Tuesday in Garissa County in eastern Kenya, a region on the border with Somalia, where al-Shabab has been waging a bloody insurgency against the fragile government in Mogadishu for more than 15 years.

“We lost eight police officers in this attack,” North Eastern Regional Commissioner John Otieno said. “We suspect the work of al-Shabab who are now targeting security forces and passenger vehicles.”

Kenya first sent troops into Somalia in 2011 to combat the al-Qaida-affiliated militants and is now a major contributor of troops to an African Union military operation against the group.

But it has suffered a string of retaliatory assaults, including a bloody siege at the Westgate mall in Nairobi in 2013 that cost 67 lives and an attack on Garissa University in 2015 that killed 148 people.

In Somalia itself, al-Shabab has continued to wage deadly attacks despite a major offensive launched last August by pro-government forces, backed by the AU force known as ATMIS.

In one of the worst recent attacks, 54 Ugandan peacekeepers were killed when al-Shabab fighters stormed an African Union base in Somalia on May 26, according to Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni.

And on Saturday, Somali police said six civilians were killed in a six-hour siege by the militants at a beachside hotel in Mogadishu.
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Calls for countries in the East and Horn of Africa to address the needs of the millions of displaced people in the region came Tuesday at the start of a four-day ministerial conference being held by the Inter-governmental authority (IGAD) in the Ugandan capital.

Hilary Onek, Uganda’s Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, called on ministers to examine and address the wide range of factors that are forcing people from their homes. These factors, he said, include not only material issues but political ones. 

“Some governments don’t tolerate opposition. And they clamp down on them and these people run to exile. Tribal intolerance. Like in Congo here there’s Lendu against the Hema group killing each other, and some are forced to flee their home. Those are the challenges of intolerance I’m talking about. And most of them are driven by ignorance,” Onek said. 

Limited funding has been cited as one of the major challenges in handling the refugee crisis in the East and Horn of Africa. Uganda is currently hosting more than 1.5 million refugees, the largest population in Africa. Other refugee-hosting countries include Ethiopia with more than 830,000 refugees and Kenya, which has 560,000. 

Matthew Crentsil, the UNHCR Country representative, says all these countries have single, unsustainable funding sources while their refugee burdens continue to grow. Crentsil said it is time for countries hosting refugees to look at expanding domestic and internal sourcing of funds, such as engaging the private sector. 

“There should also be other means of supporting refugees,” he said. “It doesn’t pay at all keeping refugees in settlements and camps for years and feeding them for years. That is why we are advocating for an increase in livelihood opportunities and activities for refugees in the region.” 

In October 2021, a military coup destabilized Sudan, which is already home to 1.1 million refugees. The majority of those refugees are from South Sudan, followed by Eritrea and Syria. 

As efforts continue in different parts of the world to bring an end to the conflict in Sudan, Osman AbdulRahman, the deputy Ambassador of Sudan to Uganda, told VOA he hopes the meeting will also find solutions to contribute to peace in his country. 

“This humanitarian situation right now is going to threaten even the region and the entire world unless we do something right now to stop this war,” he said. “And to have peace talks between all elements in Sudan and our partners as well.” 

The UNHCR says the East and Horn of Africa is home to 5.5 million refugees, out of which 2.5 million are from South Sudan. 

The conference in Kampala comes as the United Nations marks World Refugee Day on June 20, with “Hope away from home” as this year’s theme.    
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Others have tried and failed, and now six African leaders are heading to Moscow and Kyiv in the coming days to try to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict. South Africa — leading the delegation — has been accused of favoring Russia, despite its officially neutral stance on the war.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is leading the delegation, which also includes heads of state from Zambia, the Republic of Congo, Egypt, Senegal and Uganda.

The countries have taken different positions on the war, with South Africa, Uganda and the Republic of Congo abstaining from a United Nations resolution earlier this year condemning Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion and demanding it withdraw its troops.

Zambia and Egypt voted in favor of the resolution, while Senegal didn’t participate.

Ramaphosa’s spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, said the delegation’s trip was “imminent,” although exact dates were not made public due to security concerns.

“We are anticipating that quite imminently a delegation of African heads of state will head to both Ukraine and Russia,” he said.

South Africa has been criticized in the West for its warm relations with Moscow — having hosted Russian warships for joint military exercises earlier this year — and last month the U.S. Ambassador to South Africa accused the country of having provided arms to Russia.

South Africa denies the charge that weapons were secretly loaded onto Russian vessel ‘the Lady R’ while it was docked in Cape Town late last year, but the controversy has strained relations with Washington.

A group of U.S. lawmakers raised questions this week on whether South Africa should still be eligible for trade benefits and top South African business leaders have also warned the country could pay economically for its stance, raising the possibility of sanctions.

Steven Gruzd, an analyst at the South African Institute for International Affairs, says it is hard to predict whether the six-leader mission will make a difference. With heavy fighting going on, he says the time is not ripe for negotiations but adds that any attempt at peace making should be welcomed.

“I think it might be a way for South Africa to distract from the ‘Lady R’ scandal, about South Africa allegedly arming Russia on a ship that was loaded at night in secret, and the other flak that South Africa has been getting, but I do think it’s coming from a genuine place of wanting to make a difference,” said Gruzd.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed the African leaders’ mission, as has Ukraine. But in an online news conference last week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba warned that some things are non-negotiable.

“Any peace initiative should respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, it should not imply, even in-between the lines, any cessation of Ukrainian territory to Russia. Second, any peace plan should not lead to the freezing of the conflict,” said Kuleba.

Ramaphosa is a seasoned negotiator, having been instrumental in talks that ended apartheid. But so far, peace plans proposed by other countries, including China, have failed, and critics are skeptical the African leaders’ mission will achieve much.

Meanwhile, the South African government is still mulling over what to do about the upcoming summit of the BRICS group of emerging nations in Johannesburg, which Putin has been invited to attend.

With a warrant from the International Criminal Court out against the Russian leader, South Africa would be obliged to arrest him, and there are reports the country is looking for a way out through a legislative amendment to their ICC agreement.

South Africa has denied speculation it is considering moving the summit entirely.
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More than 100 people are dead after a boat capsized on the Niger River in northern Nigeria Monday night.

Police spokesman Okasanmi Ajayi told reporters late Tuesday the boat was traveling in the western state of Kwara during the pre-dawn hours when the disaster occurred. He said many of the passengers were returning from a wedding ceremony in nearby Niger state.

Officials say several children were among those who died in the accident. Ajayi said at least 103 were killed in the accident, while 100 people or more have been rescued.

Searchers are still looking for more victims, so the death toll may rise.

Kwara state Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq issued a statement expressing his condolences to the families.

River boat accidents are common in Nigeria due to a combination of overcrowding, poor maintenance and lax safety regulations. At least 15 children died back in May when a boat capsized while traveling through the northwestern state of Sokoto.

The 4,184 kilometer long Niger is the main river in western Africa, originating in Guinea and cutting a path through the Niger Delta before flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
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It’s been a year since armed men in Nigeria’s southwest Ondo state rushed into St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church during a Mass and attacked worshippers, killing 41 people and injuring scores of others. Nigerian officials and the Catholic diocese held a memorial service and dedicated a park to honor the memory of those killed. Timothy Obiezu has the latest from Owo, one year on.
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The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission has called for an end to what it calls a rising trend of enforced disappearances in the country. The Ethiopian government has yet to respond to the commission’s report, which says at least 12 people have been arrested or abducted under unclear circumstances.

In a report released June 5, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said the enforced disappearances have happened across Amhara and Oromia regions, as well as in the capital, Addis Ababa.

Imad Abdulfetah, regional director for the commission, said the disappearances seem to be related to the war in the northern Tigray region, which ended last year following an African Union-brokered peace deal, and ethnic conflicts elsewhere.

“Primarily, these became more common in the aftermath of the conflicts in the country,” Abdulfetah said. “These incidents are connected to the conflict in one way or the other. So, this one year or a half — at most not more than two years — since this became widespread.”

The commission’s report says victims of enforced disappearances include members of the Ethiopian National Defense Force, as well as opposition political parties.

The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), an opposition political party, said four of its members have gone missing over the past few years.

Party chief Merara Gudina said attempts to locate them have failed.

“It looks to me like the government has decided to rule by force,” Gudina said. “And we have been meeting and talking with government officials, but they have not taken any meaningful steps.”

The OFC’s secretary-general, Tiruneh Gamta, said the party has confirmed the death of Melesse Chala, a local-level party official who was missing for more than two years.

“A person who … had closed his eyes, and prepared his dead body, has informed us,” Gamta said. “So, even though the government has not publicly announced this, we have heard from others.”

Such actions hurt the democratic process and push people to take up arms instead, said Merera.

“If the government is narrowing and stifling the political playground, those who have the capacity and the force will think, ‘Let me go into the forest and try my luck instead of being imprisoned and wasting away.’”

Victims of these enforced disappearances sometimes show up weeks or months later, still alive, but in locations far from where they were last seen, and often in poor physical condition, according to the report.

The government-established commission said it is investigating allegations that some of the victims were tortured.

The Rights Commission has called for the Ethiopian government to adopt and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in order to ensure the protection of civilians.
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Rwandan refugees and asylum-seekers in Malawi say they fear being deported or losing their right to stay in the country, following steps by the government to apprehend refugees wanted in their home countries on various charges.

Malawi’s government said last week it has received a request from Rwanda to help track down 55 so-called warlords who are hiding in Malawi. Rwandan refugees say officials need to verify the allegations before acting.

The Rwandan refugees expressed their fears in a statement following the deportation Monday of a Rwandan genocide suspect, Vincent Ngendahimana Kanyoni, who was indicted in 2019.

In a statement, a refugee group called the Concerned Rwandan Refugees said Malawi should be cautious with requests from the Rwandan government. The group said Rwanda might be playing what it called “the genocide card” to target political opponents in exile.

Odette Narikundo, a representative of Rwandan refugees in Malawi, told VOA she believes Kanyoni’s deportation was based on wrong information. She said the suspect never worked as a soldier in Rwanda and never had any military training there.

Narikundo said she doubts Rwanda’s claim that so many former Rwandan generals are hiding in Malawi. She said that if the generals were hiding, they would not have been at Dzaleka refugee camp. She wondered why Malawi was acting in such a way.

Narikundo said she believes that Rwanda is using genocide-related accusations to target political opponents living abroad. She said many Rwandan refugees fear being picked up and deported without even being taken to court to defend themselves, as was the case with Kanyoni.

Now, she said, people are living in fear. Because he didn’t go to court before being deported, she called Malawi’s actions kidnapping.

Narikundo said Malawi should verify any information from Rwanda with the group known as the Government of Rwandans in Exile, based in France, before rushing to take any action.

Patrick Botha, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Homeland Security in Malawi, told VOA that Malawi is a sovereign state doing everything according to its laws.

“But we have a working relationship with different countries especially our neighbors [and] that includes Rwanda, Burundi, just as we do with Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania,” Botha said. “In terms of security, we work hand in hand with these governments.”

Botha, however, declined to take more questions, citing the sensitivity around the issue.

“That’s all I can say on the matter,” he said. “The other issues concerning this are very sensitive, many security issues, so it’s not right for me to go into those details.”

Michael Kaiyatsa, executive director for the Center for Human Rights and Rehabilitation in Malawi, shares the concerns of the Rwandan refugees.

“Because the way the government is doing it, it means even genuine refugees stand a risk of being deported like that,” Kaiyatsa said. “They will not have an opportunity to defend themselves. You know, police or immigration [officers] cannot make that determination, they are not a court themselves.”

Last month, Malawi started revoking the citizenship of refugees and asylum-seekers whom officials say obtained their status fraudulently.

Some 400 people, mainly from Burundi and Rwanda, have had their Malawian citizenship revoked and plans are under way to deport them.
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