Brussels — Action must be taken immediately to address the humanitarian crisis in the Sahel or other countries will be drawn in and it will “become a problem for the world,” a UNHCR official warned Wednesday.

The volatile situations in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso risks overflowing into neighboring countries, the U.N. refugee agency’s director for west and central Africa, Abdouraouf Gnon-Konde told AFP in an interview in Brussels.

“The Gulf of Guinea, Togo, Benin, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire are already suffering because of the spiral of insecurity and the humanitarian situation — the same with Mauritania, the same with Algeria,” he said.

“If we don’t act now, if we don’t respond now, if we don’t find a way to remain there, stay and continue to remain engaged, finding a solution, then somehow those countries will be overwhelmed, the state will be overwhelmed, and it will become a problem for the world,” he said.

The official was on a visit to Brussels to stress to EU officials the need to stay focused on the African regions where some 10.5 million people have been displaced by conflict, even as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza dominate international news.

“Despite all the change, all the crises that we see in the world, despite all the conflict that we have, things are happening in the Sahel and that merits our attention,” Gnon-Konde said.

The day before, he participated in an EU-hosted donors’ conference for the Sahel. At the event, the European Commission pledged 201 million euros ($218 million) for vulnerable people in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Nigeria.

Military regimes in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali have pushed out troops from France, the former colonial ruler, and are increasingly turning to Russia for support as they battle jihadist insurgencies, causing wariness from Western donors.

Gnon-Konde said, for UNHCR, “it doesn’t matter who is in charge” in those countries, as the most important thing was to respond to the needs of the civilian populations.

He added that Chad, located between Niger and Sudan, was emerging as “a testing case” for countries in the region, international donors and the U.N.  

Chad — which has just announced its first government after three years of military rule — is hosting nearly one million Sudanese refugees and “there is a risk that that number will increase by the end of the year,” the UNHCR director said.
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South Africans voted Wednesday in elections being described as the most important in thirty years because the governing African National Congress could get under 50 percent of the vote for the first time and lose its absolute majority in parliament. Kate Bartlett spoke to voters in two very different areas of Johannesburg about why they felt it was important to turn out.
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Investigators using satellite imagery to document the war in western Sudan’s Darfur region say 72 villages were burned down in April, the most they have seen since the conflict began. Henry Wilkins talks with the people who do this research about how so-called open-source investigations could be crucial in holding those responsible for the violence to account.
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JOHANNESBURG — South Africans began voting Wednesday in an election seen as their country’s most important in 30 years, and one that could put their young democracy in unknown territory.

At stake is the three-decade dominance of the African National Congress party, which led South Africa out of apartheid’s brutal white minority rule in 1994. It is now the target of a new generation of discontent in a country of 62 million people — half of whom are estimated to be living in poverty.

Africa’s most advanced economy has some of the world’s deepest socio-economic problems, including one of the worst unemployment rates at 32%.

The lingering inequality, with poverty and joblessness disproportionately affecting the Black majority, threatens to unseat the party that promised to end it by bringing down apartheid under the slogan of a better life for all.

After winning six successive national elections, several polls have the ANC’s support at less than 50% ahead of this one, an unprecedented drop. It might lose its majority in Parliament for the first time, although it’s widely expected to hold the most seats.

Support has been fading. The ANC won 57.5% of the vote in the last national election in 2019, its worst result to date.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the leader of the ANC, has promised to “do better.” The ANC has asked for more time and patience.

Any change in the ANC’s hold on power could be monumental for South Africa. If it does lose its majority, the ANC will likely face the prospect of having to form a coalition with others to stay in government and keep Ramaphosa as president. An ANC having to co-govern has never happened before.

The election will be held on one day across South Africa’s nine provinces, with nearly 28 million people registered to vote at more than 23,000 polling stations. Final results are expected by Sunday. Ramaphosa was due to cast his vote in the morning in the Johannesburg township of Soweto where he was born and which was once the epicenter of the resistance to apartheid.

The opposition to the ANC in this election is fierce, but fragmented. The two biggest opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters, are not predicted to increase their vote by anything near enough to overtake the ANC.

Instead, disgruntled South Africans are moving to an array of opposition parties; more than 50 will contest the national election, many of them new. One is led by South Africa’s previous president, who seeks revenge on his former ANC colleagues.

The ANC says it is confident of retaining its majority. Ramaphosa has pointed out how South Africa is a far better country now than under apartheid, when Black people were barred from voting, weren’t allowed to move around freely, had to live in certain areas and were oppressed in every way.

Memories of that era, and the defining vote that ended it in 1994, still frame much of everyday South Africa. But fewer remember it as time goes on.

“This will be the seventh time that South Africans of all races, from all walks of life, from all corners of our country, will go to vote for national and provincial government,” Ramaphosa said in his last speech to the country before the election. “We will once again assert the fundamental principle … that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people.”

Ramaphosa outlined some of his ANC government’s polices to boost the economy, create jobs and extend social support for the poor. The speech sparked a furious reaction from opposition parties, who accused him of breaking an electoral law that stops those in public office from using the office to promote a party.

On show in the vote will be the country’s contradictions, from the economic hub of Johannesburg — labelled Africa’s richest city — to the picturesque tourist destination of Cape Town, to the informal settlements of shacks in their outskirts. Millions will vote in rural areas seen as still ANC heartlands and analysts haven’t ruled out that the party might cling onto its majority given its decades of experience in government and an unmatched grassroots campaigning machine.

While 80% of South Africans are Black, it’s a multiracial country with significant populations of white people, those of Indian descent, those with biracial heritage and others. There are 12 official languages.

It’s the diversity that Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first Black president, highlighted as a beautiful thing by referring to his country as a “Rainbow Nation.” It’s a diversity that, with the emergence of many new opposition parties, also might now be reflected in its politics.
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Abuja, Nigeria — Representatives from more than 80 civil society and rights organizations in Nigeria held a moment of silence May 28 to remember some 9,000 people who have died in the last year due to various forms of violence. 

The annual National Day of Mourning initiative was launched seven years ago to pay tribute to victims of attacks and demand the government restore security in the country. 

“These incidents of violence have reduced citizens’ rights to life and dignity,” said Lois Auta of the nonprofit Cedar Seed Foundation, one of the event’s organizers. “The frequency of these atrocities have kept Nigerians in a state of perpetual fear and uncertainty, and is impacting social cohesion, the economy and education across the country. All Nigerians suffer the manifested consequences of food insecurity and economic hardships resulting from hindrances imposed by perennial insecurity.” 

Nigeria is struggling to reduce multiple forms of widespread insecurity, including kidnappings, communal clashes, terrorism, extrajudicial killings and secessionist violence. 

The coalition said more than 30,000 people have died in the last six years as a result. 

This year’s commemoration coincides with the one-year anniversary of President Bola Tinubu taking office.  

Tinubu pledged to improve security and boost the economy if elected president. But one year later, critics such as Frank Tietie, founder of Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights, say Tinubu has not only failed on his promises, but the situation has gotten worse.  

“His primary responsibility is to protect the Nigerian people. If nobody has told President Tinubu that he’s failing at this point, at the celebration of his one-year anniversary in government, we are telling him that he has not only failed [but] he has exhibited gross irresponsibility,” Tietie said. “Nigerians are suffering, there’s hardly any family that has not been touched by this level of insecurity.” 

According to a security tracker by Nigerian-based Beacon Security and Consulting Limited, incidents of attacks increased from 5,500 between 2022 and 2023 to 7,800 between 2023 and 2024. 

The number of fatalities and abductions were also higher during the same period. 

Security analyst Kabiru Adamu said despite the government making an effort, poor accountability and unwise appointments in the security sector pose major hurdles.

“It’s very obvious that the government is committed to addressing the security challenges as indicated in policy imperatives and those policy imperatives are very clear. As an expert, if they’re implemented, I believe they’ll reduce or even eliminate the security challenge,” Adamu said. “But the major challenge has been one of implementation, especially due to the absence of capability by some of the security sector leadership.” 

Last Friday, a local district head in Nigeria’s Niger state said gunmen made tea and cooked food as they terrorized villagers, killing 10 and abducting 160 others.  

Adamu said one year is not enough time for the insecurity issues to be fully addressed by a new administration, but that authorities should be able during 12 months to show a positive trajectory towards addressing the problem. 

But for now, rights groups and families of the victims will be reminding the president about the promise he made to keep their loved ones and the country safe.
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Cape Town — The run-up to South Africa’s general elections Wednesday has been mostly peaceful but not without incident. In Western Cape province, the opposition Democratic Alliance, or DA, accused rival parties of trying to intimidate voters in February by chanting violent slogans and brandishing weapons at voter registration locations. For years, some black voters in the province have been scared of being attacked if they admit to supporting the white-led DA.

This supporter of the Democratic Alliance is a single mother who works in a restaurant.

“I don’t want to identify because most of the people in my area is a black people. I don’t know, maybe I can get hurt because they don’t like a DA member. They still vote for the ANC even (though) ANC doesn’t give them nothing. ANC’s too much corruption. That’s why we get fed up with that,” she said.

The woman says she believes that the track record of the DA, South Africa’s main opposition party, speaks for itself.

According to reports from South Africa’s Auditor-General, the Western Cape, which the DA party governs at the provincial level, is the best run province in the country.

Despite this achievement, the DA’s critics say it protects only white business interests.

The voter, whom VOA spoke with, disagrees.

“To me the DA’s for everyone. Even if you are black or white or colored, you are in a rainbow nation,” she said.

The woman’s mother, who is in her late eighties, does not agree and remains a staunch ANC supporter, ever grateful to that party and its former president, Nelson Mandela, for the state-sponsored house she received in 1996.

“When Mandela was coming outside then I was voting ANC because ANC then, they give me a house because I was stay(ing) in a shed,” she said.

However, both women are afraid they will be targeted if people know whom the daughter votes for in the general election.

Political analyst Cherrel Africa, associate professor at the University of the Western Cape’s Department of Political Science, believes that attitudes will change when political leaders stop harping on race to win votes.

“That can often lead to inflammatory rhetoric, particularly racially divisive rhetoric where there’s an attempt to play on the anxiety of particular voters,” said Africa.

While intimidation is a legitimate concern for voters, the Western Cape is not known for political killings. They are far more common in KwaZulu-Natal province, where according to the National Police Minister Bheki Cele, at least 155 officeholders and city councilors had been killed between 2011 and September last year.

And with former President Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe Party making its debut in this election, tensions in that province, Zuma’s home, are heightened.

For this election, police have put more boots on the ground countrywide and urged political parties to adhere to the Electoral Code of Conduct, which makes intimidating candidates or voters an offense.

Parties that break the code can be fined up to 200,000 rand (about $11,000) or sent to prison for up to 10 years.
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Yaounde — Cameroon is observing World Menstrual Hygiene Day (May 28) with caravans visiting schools and public spaces to educate people about social taboos that women should not be seen in public during their menstrual periods. Organizations are also donating menstrual kits to girls displaced by terrorism and political tensions in the central African state.

Scores of youths, a majority of them girls, are told that menstruation is a natural part of the reproductive cycle.

Officials in Cameroon’s social affairs and health ministries say the monthly flows are not a curse and girls and women should never be isolated from markets, schools, churches and other public places because of their menstrual cycle.

The government of the central African state says it invited boys to menstrual health day activities because boys often mock girls in schools when they see blood dripping on their legs or skirts.

Tabe Edwan is the spokesperson of Haven of Rebirth Cameroon, an association that takes care of victims of sexual and gender-based violence. She says she participates in in activities to mark World Menstrual Health Day to battle taboos about menstruation that persist in Cameroon.

“We are looking at instances of stigmatization such as prohibition from cooking, prohibition from attending religious ceremonies or visiting such spaces,” she said. “Most often a young girl who is having her menstrual flow is considered to be unclean and so anything that she touches becomes unclean or it also becomes contaminated.”

Cameroon’s government says World Menstrual Day activities took place in many towns and villages, especially in the northwest and southwest regions, where a separatist conflict, now in its seventh year, has displaced about 750,000 people.

The country’s Social Affairs Ministry says displaced women and girls have lost nearly everything and lack even the $2 needed to buy sanitary pads each time they are on their monthly cycle.

Mirabelle Sonkey is founder of the Network for Solidarity Hope and Empowerment, a founding member of the International Menstrual Hygiene Coalition.

Sonkey says she is disheartened when women and girls use rags, papers and tree leaves or just anything unhealthy to stop blood flow because they cannot afford sanitary pads.

“We usually give about 1,000 dignity kits which include buckets, soap, pants and reusable, washable menstrual pads,” she said. “We are still advocating for pads to be free. Our mission is to have an environment where pads will be accessible, that is why we are opening pad banks now where vulnerable women and girls can go there and have pads.”

Sonkey pleaded with donors to provide sanitary pads to give to several thousand northern Cameroonian girls and women displaced by Boko Haram terrorism.

Cameroon’s government says 70% of menstruating women and girls lack access to regular basic sanitation products but it has not reacted to pleas from NGOs to distribute sanitary pads free of charge.

The central African state’s officials say families and communities should help put an end to stigmas by openly discussing menstrual flow and letting everyone know that menstruation is a normal and natural biological function.
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WARSAW, Poland — Polish President Andrzej Duda has spoken on the phone with Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi to try to obtain the release of a Polish traveler who was sentenced to life in prison in the Central African country on espionage charges, an aide said Monday.

Congolese forces detained Mariusz Majewski, 52, in February and he later faced a military court in the restive nation, accused of spying.

The allegations against him said that he had “approached the front line with Mobondo militiamen,” moved along the front line without authorization and “took photos of sensitive and strategic places and secretly observed military activities.”

The Mobondo have been involved in intercommunal violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s southwest since 2022.

Majewski was convicted last week and sentenced to life in prison. No details have been released as to where he is being held. 

Duda’s aide, Wojciech Kolarski, did not say what the outcome of the conversation between the two presidents was but stressed that the state had the obligation to take care of its citizens who find themselves in such dramatic situations overseas.

Majewski’s family says he is in poor health and insists that he is just a traveler.

Last week, Polish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pawel Wronski said without elaborating that Majewski “is not a spy, he is a member of a travelers club” and was just following his “passion in life.”

Wronski said a chain of coincidental circumstances and events led to Majewski’s presence in Congo and his “behavior was the result of a lack of knowledge of local customs.”

Polish authorities are aware of the “very difficult political situation in Congo” and a recent coup attempt there but expressed hope that Majewski would not be implicated in a situation he has no connection to.

Poland does not have a diplomatic mission in Congo.

Earlier this month, the Congolese army said it had foiled a coup attempt and arrested the perpetrators, including some foreigners. Several U.S. citizens were among those arrested.
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Nairobi — Chinese authorities are setting up a China book corner in Kenya’s state training institutions, to provide Chinese literature, language resources and insights for scholars and students. But analysts say such a display of soft power is an effort to maintain Beijing’s influence on the continent.

At one school in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, more than 30 students are enrolled in part-time classes on Chinese language and culture. Steve Wakoli has been teaching the three-month course for three years.

Inspired by employment opportunities as a translator, Wakoli learned Chinese in 2020. Now a private teacher, he said Chinese literature is helping him earn a living.

”I did accounts as my bachelor’s degree, but it reached a point where everyone is doing accounts and others are doing finance. This is a field that was crowded, so I decided to go for something unique. I found that there were translation jobs, teaching jobs,” he said.

Kenyan authorities have begun to display Chinese literature to the public in places like the state workers training institute — the Kenya School of Government.

More than 100 books on governance, politics and development are showcased in the school’s library in what is called the “China Book Corner.”

Prisca Oluoch, the school’s director of linkages, collaborations and partnerships, said the books can help readers understand how China grows an economy.

”A lot of our books currently in our library are from American authors, from European authors. How about the East? How about China, Korea, Singapore? How did they do it?” Prisca said. “Having the China corner helps us to have that perspective to be able to also build, in terms of our own African leadership and management, drawing from the Chinese experience.”

According to a study by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a key pillar of China’s efforts to gain influence in Africa and globally is to create the impression of universal support for the Chinese Communist Party in a strategy known as the “united front.”

Historical relations between African countries like Kenya and the West or Europe can be unassailable for newcomers, but Beijing is taking advantage of its technological expertise to make inroads, said international relations professor Chacha Nyaigotti.

“African nations, which some of them were colonized by the French and others, British or English people, still cherish that network between the U.K. and commonwealth countries in Africa, and France with French speaking countries in Africa. But I think African[s] are being driven toward China mainly because China supports their infrastructural development,” Chacha said.

The books, authored by writers including China President Xi Jinping, were donated by the Chinese Embassy in Kenya. Some are translated into the Kenyan language, Swahili. Officials believe that with access to Chinese literature, the public can learn different economic methods which may help alleviate poverty.
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Nairobi, Kenya — Kenya has agreed to help the European Union in dealing with maritime crime suspects in the region, amid a rising threat from pirate activity and attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The EU, which has a force operating in the Indian Ocean, is concerned that the insecurity which is also affecting ship traffic in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, is disrupting international trade.  

With threats to shipping on the rise in the Indian Ocean, Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea, the European Union is asking Kenya for assistance in prosecuting suspected criminals caught in the region’s waters.

Henriette Geiger, the EU ambassador to Kenya, said the bloc is working with Kenya in dealing with suspected criminals caught in the region’s waters.

“Kenya would conclude a legal finished agreement with the European Union which would allow then EU Atalanta to drop, first seized arms, weapons but also traffickers, arms and drug traffickers, here for prosecution,” she said. “Seychelles has already agreed, they already have a legal finished agreement, but it’s a small island; they cannot stand alone.”

The EU’s Operation Atalanta is a military operation in the Horn of Africa that counters piracy at sea.

Geiger explained that the EU navy force lacks the authority to prosecute suspects and cannot detain them for long without charges. Therefore, countries like Kenya are needed to assist in prosecuting suspects.

Isaiah Nakoru, the head of Kenya’s Department for Shipping and Maritime Affairs, says his country is ready to work on issues that promote security and the free flow of goods and people.  

“We have to work together to ensure that we achieve the aspiration for ensuring there is sustainability and security, and all activities that threaten the livelihoods of people and movements of people have to be addressed in partnership with all those who have a stake,” he said.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Kenya is holding at least 120 suspected pirates and has convicted 18 of them.  

Kenya faced criticism about whether its legal system allows the prosecution of suspected pirates accused of having committed crimes far away from its territory. However, in 2012, a Kenyan court ruled the East African nation has jurisdiction to try Somali pirates carrying out attacks in international waters.

Andrew Mwangura is a consultant on maritime safety and security in Kenya. More than ten years ago, he helped negotiate the release of some pirate captives. He says Kenya will always face legal challenges in prosecuting suspects who have not committed a crime in its territory.  

“The problem is still the same because there are challenges to prosecution in Kenya of the Somali pirates,” he said. “This pirate activity happens away from Kenya. They do not happen in Kenyan waters, and there will be legal challenges. To prosecute, to arrest them, that’s not a solution. The solution is to fight illegal fishing in East African territorial waters.”  

Recently, there have been reports of piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia, sparking worries about the return of Somali piracy. In the early 2010s, Somali pirates hijacked dozens of ships, holding them for millions of dollars in ransom.  

Two weeks ago, six suspected pirates accused of attacking a merchant vessel were moved from Somalia to the Seychelles for trial by the EU naval force. Last Friday, the EU force freed a merchant ship and its 17 crew members.
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Life expectancy in Europe has returned to the level it reached before the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, while the U.S. is still trying to regain lost ground. Overall, new numbers show life expectancy has increased in most parts of the world, with eastern sub-Saharan Africa showing the biggest gains over the past three decades. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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LILANDA, Zambia — Extreme weather events have hit parts of Africa relentlessly in the last three years, with tropical storms, floods and drought causing crises of hunger and displacement. They leave another deadly threat behind them: some of the continent’s worst outbreaks of cholera.

In southern and East Africa, more than 6,000 people have died and nearly 350,000 cases have been reported since a series of cholera outbreaks began in late 2021. 

Malawi and Zambia have had their worst outbreaks on record. Zimbabwe has had multiple waves. Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia also have been badly affected. 

All have experienced floods or drought — in some cases, both — and health authorities, scientists and aid agencies say the unprecedented surge of the water-borne bacterial infection in Africa is the newest example of how extreme weather is playing a role in driving disease outbreaks. 

“The outbreaks are getting much larger because the extreme climate events are getting much more common,” said Tulio de Oliveira, a South Africa-based scientist who studies diseases in the developing world. 

De Oliveira, who led a team that identified new coronavirus variants during the COVID-19 pandemic, said southern Africa’s latest outbreaks can be traced to the cyclones and floods that hit Malawi in late 2021 and early 2022, carrying the cholera bacteria to areas it doesn’t normally reach. 

Zimbabwe and Zambia have seen cases rise as they wrestle with severe droughts and people rely on less safe sources of water in their desperation like boreholes, shallow wells and rivers, which can all be contaminated. Days after the deadly flooding in Kenya and other parts of East Africa this month, cholera cases appeared. 

The World Health Organization calls cholera a disease of poverty, as it thrives where there is poor sanitation and a lack of clean water. Africa has had eight times as many deaths this year as the Middle East, the second-most affected region. 

Historically vulnerable, Africa is even more at risk as it faces the worst impacts of climate change as well as the effect of the El Niño weather phenomenon, health experts say. 

In what’s become a perfect storm, there’s also a global shortage of cholera vaccines, which are needed only in poorer countries. 

“It doesn’t affect countries with resources,” said Dr. Daniela Garone, the international medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF. “So, it doesn’t bring the resources.” 

Billions of dollars have been invested into other diseases that predominantly affect the world’s most vulnerable, like polio and tuberculosis, largely because those diseases are highly contagious and could cause outbreaks even in rich countries. But that’s not the case with cholera, where epidemics remain contained. 

WHO said this month there is a “critical shortage” of oral cholera vaccines in the global stockpile. Since the start of 2023, 15 countries — the desperate few — have requested a total of 82 million doses to deal with deadly outbreaks while only 46 million doses were available. 

There are just 3.2 million doses left, below the target of having at least 5 million in reserve. While there are currently cholera epidemics in the Middle East, the Americas and Southeast Asia, Africa is by far the worst-affected region. 

Vaccines alliance GAVI and UNICEF said last month that the approval of a new cholera vaccine would boost stocks. But the result of the shortage has already been measured in deaths. 

Lilanda, a township on the edge of the Zambian capital of Lusaka, is a typical cholera hot spot. Stagnant pools of water dot the dirt roads. Clean water is like gold dust. Here, over two awful days in January, Mildred Banda saw her 1-year-old son die from cholera and rushed to save the life of her teenage daughter. 

Cholera shouldn’t be killing anyone. The disease is easily treated and easily prevented — and the vaccines are relatively simple to produce. 

That didn’t help Banda’s son, Ndanji. 

When he fell sick with diarrhea, he was treated with an oral rehydration solution at a clinic and released. He slipped back into dehydration that night at home. Banda feels terrible guilt. 

“I should have noticed earlier that my son was not feeling well,” she said, sitting in her tiny concrete house. “I should have acted faster and taken him back to the clinic. I should have taken him back to save his life.” 

Because of the vaccine shortage, Zambia couldn’t undertake a preventative vaccination campaign after neighboring Malawi’s outbreak. That should have been a warning call, said de Oliveira. Zambia only made an emergency request when its cases started mounting. 

The doses that might have saved Ndanji started arriving in mid-January. He died on Jan. 6. 

In Zimbabwe, a drought worsened by El Niño has seen cholera take hold in distant rural areas as well as its traditional hot spots of crowded urban neighborhoods. 

Abi Kebra Belaye, MSF representative for Zimbabwe, said the southern African nation normally has around 17 hard-hit areas, mostly urban. This year, cholera spread to 62 districts as the struggle to find water heightened the risk. 

“This part of Africa is paying the highest price of climate change,” Kebra Belaye said. 

Augustine Chonyera, who hails from a cholera-prone part of the capital, Harare, was shocked when he recently visited the sparsely populated rural district of Buhera. 

He said he heard grim tales of the impact of the disease: a family losing five members, a husband and wife dying within hours of each other and local businesses using delivery trucks to take the sick to a clinic several kilometers (miles) away. 

“It seems now the people in rural areas are in more danger than us. I still wonder how it happened,” Chonyera said. 

He said he returned home as soon as he could — after giving a large bottle of treated water he had brought with him to an elderly woman. 
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Cairo — More than two weeks of fighting between Sudan’s military and a notorious paramilitary group over a major city in the western Darfur region killed at least 123 people, an international aid group said Sunday.

The fighting in el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, also wounded more than 930 people in the same period, Doctors without Borders said. 

“This is a sign of the violent intensity of the fighting,” the group said. “We urge the warring parties to do more to protect civilians.”

Clashes between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) escalated earlier this month in the city, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

El-Fasher has become the center of the conflict between the military and the RSF, which is aided by Arab militias commonly known as Janjaweed. The city is the last stronghold still held by the military in the sprawling Darfur region.

Sudan’s conflict began in April last year when soaring tensions between the leaders of the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.

The conflict killed more than 14,000 people and wounded thousands more amid reports of widespread sexual violence and other atrocities that rights groups say amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It also pushed the country’s population to the brink of famine. The U.N. food agency warned the warring parties earlier this month that there is a serious risk of widespread starvation and death in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they don’t allow humanitarian aid into the vast western region.

The RSF has built up forces in recent months seeking to wrest control of el-Fasher. Along with its Arab militia allies, the RSF besieged the city and launched a major attack on its southern and eastern parts earlier this month.

The clashes renewed Thursday in the Abu Shouk camp for displaced people in the Salam neighborhood in the city’s northern part, as well as its southern western parts, the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration reported.

On Saturday, a shell hit the house of a Doctors Without Borders aid worker close to the city’s main market, killing the worker, the charity said.

The U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan Clementine Nkweta-Salami blasted the “tragic” killing. The aid worker was not identified.

Nkweta-Salami urged warring parties to stop fighting in the city where “hundreds of thousands of women, men, and children in North Darfur are once again caught in the crossfire of war.”

“A human tragedy of epic proportions is on the horizon, but it can, and must, be prevented,” she said.
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JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s main opposition party Democratic Alliance on Sunday made its final appeal to South Africans to help it unseat the ruling African National Congress as it concluded its campaign ahead of elections this week.

The Democratic Alliance is the biggest opposition party in South Africa and has gathered some smaller opposition parties to form a pact known as the Multi-Party Charter for South Africa, which will see a group of political parties combine their votes to challenge the ruling ANC after the elections.

Sunday’s rally coincided with that of the smaller opposition Inkatha Freedom Party, which has the populous KwaZulu Natal province as its stronghold and has committed to work with the main opposition.

Recent polls and analysts have suggested the ANC could receive less than 50% of the national vote. The Democratic Alliance is under pressure after its support declined in the last national elections and a number of its former leaders left the party to form new political parties that will be competing in the polls.

Its leaders and supporters came out in the thousands Sunday in Benoni, east of Johannesburg, where its blue colored flags and party memorabilia decorated a small stadium in the town.

“Make no mistake, if DA voters stay at home, or they split the vote among many small parties on the ballot, then our country’s next chapter could be even uglier than the past,” said party leader John Steenhuisen.

“If we sit back and allow a coalition between the ANC, the [Economic Freedom Fighters] and the [uMkhonto weSizwe], aided by the sell-outs in the Patriotic Alliance, then our tomorrow will be far, far worse than yesterday. It will be doomsday for South Africa,” he said to loud applause.

A coalition between the DA and other parties including the Patriotic Alliance in the Johannesburg council after the 2021 local government elections collapsed, handing power back to an ANC-led coalition and resulting in political animosity between the two parties.

Steenhuisen has repeatedly accused the ruling ANC and the leftist opposition party Economic Freedom Fighters of planning to go into coalition after the elections.

Speaking ahead of its final rally in the city of Richards Bay in KwaZulu-Natal on Sunday, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Velenkosini Hlabisa said their main objective was to see the current government removed.

“The IFP is campaigning to remove the ANC from power and become part of the government at a policy making level and also cut the ANC to below 50% at national level.

“We are calling on people to take action and vote IFP to remove the government that has failed them,” said Hlabisa.

He said most negotiations would take place after the results were in. Hlabisa highlighted unemployment, poverty, crime and the country’s electricity crisis as some of the major problems South Africans are facing.

“We all know the crisis we are facing, we all know the depth of the struggle in South Africa and the daily trauma so many people endure. What the country needs to hear is that there is a way out,” he said.
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CAPE TOWN, South Africa — For years, the African National Congress rose above politics in South Africa. It was a movement dedicated to freeing Black people from the oppression of white minority rule and to the lofty principle of democracy, equality and a better life for all South Africans.

It was widely revered as a force for good under Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for his opposition to the apartheid system of racial segregation.

But 30 years after the ANC transformed from a liberation organization to a political party in government at the end of apartheid in 1994, it faces growing dissatisfaction from South Africans who feel it has failed to live up to its promises.

South Africans will vote on May 29 in a national election that could be the biggest rejection yet of the ANC, which has governed one of Africa’s most important countries largely unchallenged since it led the fight to bring down apartheid.

Now, the ANC is for many a byword for graft and failed government. Here’s how the famous party lost its way:

Broken promises

While the end of apartheid gave every South African the right to vote and other basic freedoms, the challenge for the ANC was to convert that into a better life, especially for the Black majority who had been systematically repressed.

That has been difficult for the ANC government to sustain after some early success in raising living standards in its first 10 years in power. South Africa sits today with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, is still ranked as one of the most unequal countries, and its widespread poverty — which still disproportionately affects Black people — spurs most of the criticism of the ANC’s three decades in charge.

The ANC has often pointed to the difficulties in reversing nearly a half-century of racist laws under apartheid and hundreds of years of European colonialism before that, which kept millions in poverty. It maintains that South Africa is a better country than it was under apartheid and that is undoubtedly true.

But the most pressing problems for many South Africans in 2024 boil down to a failure of basic government services, with communities across the nation regularly protesting against the lack of electricity in their neighborhoods, broken or nonexistent water and sewage systems, garbage piling up on streets, and a shortage of proper housing that leaves millions living in shacks.

Corruption

While around half of South Africa’s population of 62 million live under the poverty line, according to the World Bank, ANC officials have been implicated in enriching themselves in a succession of corruption scandals.

Corruption is alleged to have been especially bad under former President Jacob Zuma, who was accused of allowing a decade of rampant graft to play out before he stepped down in disgrace in 2018.

There were countless stories of wrongdoing, with politicians receiving bribes in return for influence or lucrative state contracts as a culture of graft pervaded all levels of government. South Africans heard how senior ANC figures allegedly received money to buy expensive suits, throw lavish parties or renovate their homes.

The disappearance of $15 million designated for the removal of harmful asbestos from the houses of poor people was one of many cases that enraged the country. President Cyril Ramaphosa promised to clean up the ANC when he succeeded Zuma, but he was involved in his own scandal and survived an impeachment vote.

The ANC’s reputation hasn’t recovered.

Infighting

The ANC has been hampered by infighting since Mandela stepped down as president in 1999 after one term and handed over to a younger generation.

His successor, Thabo Mbeki, was forced out as Zuma undermined his position as the head of the ANC. The party turned on Zuma, who is disqualified from running in next week’s election, when the corruption allegations became overwhelming.

Ramaphosa has spent his first term as president since 2019 battling a part of the party still loyal to Zuma. In its early days, the ANC celebrated that it was a “broad church” of people dedicated to freedom and democracy. It now has factions much like any other political party, affecting its ability to solve South Africa’s problems.

The future

From a dominant position when it once commanded 70% of the vote, the ANC has seen people gradually desert it, especially among a new generation of South Africans who don’t remember apartheid.

The election is widely expected to be a landmark moment for the country’s post-apartheid democracy as recent polls have the ANC’s support at less than 50%, suggesting it might lose its parliamentary majority for the first time.

The ANC is still expected to be the biggest party but dropping below 50% would lead to it having to govern alongside others in a coalition.

That would be the biggest political shift in South Africa since the ANC ascended into the government and a humbling moment for a party Zuma once said would rule “until Jesus comes back.”
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NAIROBI, Kenya — Participants at a global conference on how to reduce the world’s energy use called for universal access to clean cooking through government incentives and subsidies to unlock more private sector funds. 

The Paris-based International Energy Agency’s ninth annual conference on energy efficiency, held Tuesday and Wednesday in Nairobi, brought together ministers, CEOs and thought leaders from around the world to discuss how to speed up progress on energy efficiency, which experts say can drastically reduce planet-warming emissions. How to deliver affordable clean cooking, which involves using electricity, solar and other solutions instead of more polluting fuels like charcoal, wood and kerosene, was on the agenda. 

“There are many practical barriers to energy efficiency, and of course the barrier of the need for investment up front,” said Brian Motherway, head of IEA’s office of energy efficiency and inclusive transitions. “The key to unlocking efficiency is in the hands of governments. Strong, coordinated policies by governments will unlock finance and enable business and consumers to take the actions required to lower their bills.” 

This year’s conference focused on accelerating progress toward doubling energy efficiency by 2030 as agreed upon by governments at the COP28 climate change conference in 2023. 

Rashid Abdallah, executive director of the Africa Energy Commission, said at a panel discussion on Tuesday that “clean cooking should be part of any energy policy” or socioeconomic development plan. 

Globally, around 2.3 billion people cook using solid biomass fuel – such as wood and charcoal – and kerosene. In Asia, 1.2 billion people lack access to clean cooking facilities, and in Africa, more than 900 million people use biomass as their primary energy source. These energy sources release harmful toxic fumes and smoke that lead to illnesses and deaths and contribute to climate change. 

There’s also evidence that household air pollution from cooking with dirty fuels can lead to diabetes and adverse pregnancy outcomes such as stillbirth and low birth weight, said Matt Shupler, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “There are many known health effects,” he said. 

Cleaner alternatives include electric and ethanol cookers that emit fewer pollutants. 

High prices are an obstacle to making clean, green and affordable cooking available to all, but positive trends are emerging in the sector, with investment in clean cooking enterprises surging to an all-time high of $215 million in 2022 and the number of clean cooking enterprises with revenue exceeding $1 million growing to 11 that same year, according to a report by the Clean Cooking Alliance. 

Despite this progress, a huge capital gap remains in achieving universal access to clean cooking by 2030. IEA estimates that $8 billion will be needed annually as investment in clean cooking stoves, equipment and infrastructure to meet the goal. 

One of the countries that have significantly scaled up affordable, high-quality, clean cooking is Indonesia. In 2007 the government started implementing a program to transition its primary cooking fuel from kerosene to liquefied petroleum gas. The proportion of the population with access to clean cooking doubled from 40% in 2010 to 80% in 2018. Regulation and incentives have been key to the program’s success, said Dadan Kusdiana, secretary-general of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

“What we do is to provide the energy with affordability,” he said at a panel discussion on Tuesday. “They need this kind of energy, but they can’t afford it at the commercial price.”
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Dakar, Senegal — Malian opposition politicians said Saturday that they had formed a transition government in exile to rival the one governing the country, ruled by the military since a 2020 coup. 

It was the latest maneuver by the civilian opposition since Mali’s military rulers failed to meet a March deadline to hold elections and hand over power to a civilian government. 

“The citizen assembly of the civil transition has today elected the members of the government,” read a statement datelined Geneva and signed by exiled Malian politician Adaman Traore, identified as the body’s president. 

This “civil transition (government) … is the only legitimate one in Mali,” the text said. 

It named the prime minister and defense minister of the rival government as Mohamed Cherif Kone, one of several prominent exiled politicians listed as members. 

The announcement came a day after the political movement behind Mali’s junta-appointed civilian prime minister, Choguel Kokalla Maiga, openly criticized the military rulers for the first time. 

AFP was not able to confirm whether Maiga endorsed that position or Saturday’s statement by the rival government. 

The colonels running the junta have kept a tight hold on power, suspending all political activities and muzzling opponents, journalists and human rights activists. 

Mali has since 2012 been plunged into a political and security crisis fueled by attacks from jihadis and other armed groups, as well as a separatist struggle in the north. 
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Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso — Burkina Faso’s military regime, in power since a 2022 coup, will extend its rule for five years under an accord adopted during national consultations on Saturday, the talks’ chairman said. 

“The duration of the transition is fixed at 60 months from July 2, 2024,” Colonel Moussa Diallo, chairman of the organizing committee of the national dialogue process, said after the talks. 

He added that coup leader and acting president Ibrahim Traore could run in any elections at the end of the transition period. 

What was supposed to be a two-day national dialogue began earlier Saturday, ostensibly to chart a way back to civilian rule for the West African nation beset by jihadi violence. 

The army has governed Burkina Faso since 2022, carrying out two coups that it said were justified in large part by the persistent insecurity. 

Jihadi rebels affiliated with al Qaida and the Islamic State group have waged a grinding insurgency since 2015 that has killed thousands and displaced millions. 

An initial national dialogue had resulted in a charter that installed Traore as president and put in place a government and a legislative assembly. 

Under the new charter, quotas will no longer be used to assign seats in the assembly to members of traditional parties. Instead, “patriotism” will be the only criteria for selecting deputies. 

“You have just rewritten a new page in the history of our country,” said Minister of Territorial Affairs Emile Zerbo, who opened the meeting on Saturday morning. 

The initial charter set the transition to civilian rule at 21 months, with the deadline set to expire July 1. 

But Traore had repeatedly warned that holding elections would be difficult given the perilous security situation. 

The new charter also calls for a new body called the “Korag” to “monitor and control the implementation of the country’s strategic vision in all areas and through all means.” Its composition and operations are at the discretion of the president. 

Civil society representatives, the security and defense forces and lawmakers in the transitional assembly took part in the weekend talks, which most political parties boycotted. 

Human rights groups have accused Burkina Faso’s junta leaders of abuses against civilians during their military campaigns against jihadis, and of silencing media and opposition leaders.  

After taking power, the coup leaders expelled French troops and diplomats, and have instead turned to Russia for military assistance.   
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JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s four main political parties began the final weekend of campaigning Saturday before a possibly pivotal election that could bring the country’s most important change in three decades.

Supporters of the long-governing African National Congress, which has been in the government ever since the end of white minority rule in 1994, gathered at a soccer stadium in Johannesburg to hear party leader and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa speak.

The ANC is under unprecedented pressure to keep hold of its parliamentary majority in Africa’s most advanced country. Having seen its popularity steadily decline over the last two decades, Wednesday’s vote could be a landmark moment when the party once led by Nelson Mandela drops below 50% of the vote for the first time.

Several polls have the ANC’s support at less than 50%, raising the possibility that it will have to form a national coalition. That would also be a first for South Africa’s young democracy, which was only established 30 years ago with the first all-race vote that officially ended the apartheid system of racial segregation.

As thousands of supporters in the ANC’s black, green and gold colors attended its last major rally before the election, Ramaphosa recognized some of the grievances that have contributed to his party losing support, which include high levels of poverty and unemployment that mainly affect the country’s Black majority.

“We have a plan to get more South Africans to work,” Ramaphosa said. “Throughout this campaign, in the homes of our people, in the workplaces, in the streets of our townships and villages, so many of our people told us of their struggles to find work and provide for their families.”

The main opposition Democratic Alliance party had a rally in Cape Town, South Africa’s second-biggest city and its stronghold. Party leader John Steenhuisen made a speech while supporters in the DA’s blue colors held up blue umbrellas.

“Democrats, friends, are you ready for change?” Steenhuisen said. The crowd shouted back “Yes!”

“Are you ready to rescue South Africa?” Steenhuisen added.

While the ANC’s support has shrunk in three successive national elections and appears set to continue dropping, no party has emerged to overtake it — or even challenge it — and it is still widely expected to be the largest party by some way in this election.

But losing its majority would be the clearest rejection yet of the famous party that led the anti-apartheid movement and is credited with leading South Africans to freedom.

Some ANC supporters at the rally in Johannesburg also expressed their frustration with progress, as South Africa battles poverty, desperately high unemployment, some of the worst levels of inequality in the world, and other problems with corruption, violent crime and the failure of basic government services in some places.

“We want to see job opportunities coming and basically general change in every aspect,” ANC supporter Ntombizonke Biyela said. “Since 1994 we have been waiting for ANC, it has been long. We have been voting and voting but we see very little progress as the people, only a special few seem to benefit.”

While conceding to some failures, the ANC has maintained that South Africa is a better place than it was during apartheid, when a set of race-based laws oppressed the country’s Black majority in favor of a small white minority. The ANC was also widely credited with success in expanding social support and housing and other services for millions of poor South Africans in the decade after apartheid, even if critics say it has lost its way recently.

“There are many problems in South Africa, but nobody can deny the changes that have happened since 1994, and that was because of the ANC,” said 42-year-old Eric Phoolo, another supporter of the ruling party. “These other parties don’t have a track record of bringing change to the country.”

As some voters have turned away from the ANC, it has led to a slow fracturing of South African politics. They have changed allegiances to an array of different opposition parties, some of them new. South Africa has dozens of parties registered to contest next week’s election.

South Africans vote for parties and not directly for their president in national elections. Parties then get seats in Parliament according to their share of the vote and the lawmakers elect the president — which is why the ANC losing its majority would be so critical to the 71-year-old Ramaphosa’s hope of being reelected for a second and final five-year term.

If the ANC goes below 50, it would likely need a coalition or agreement with other parties to have the votes in Parliament to keep Ramaphosa, once a protege of Mandela, as president.

The far-left Economic Freedom Fighters had their last big pre-election gathering in the northern city of Polokwane, the hometown of fiery leader Julius Malema.

The new MK Party of former South African President and former ANC leader Jacob Zuma was also campaigning in a township just outside the east coast city of Durban, although Zuma didn’t attend the event. The 82-year-old Zuma rocked South African politics when he announced late last year he was turning his back on the ANC and joining MK, while fiercely criticizing the ANC under Ramaphosa.

Zuma has been disqualified from standing as a candidate for Parliament in the election because of a previous criminal conviction.
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NAIROBI, Kenya — An illegal gold mine collapsed in northern Kenya, leaving at least five miners dead, police said Saturday.

The collapse of the Hillo mine in the Dabel area near the Kenyan border with Ethiopia on Friday was attributed to a landslide. Marsabit County Police Commander Patrick Mwakio said the miners died on the spot after the debris covered them.

No other miners have been found and it was not clear if anyone else was missing in the collapse.

Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki in March declared the area disturbed and banned mining activities after clashes over a mining dispute led to the deaths of seven people.

The mining activities were also in violation of the law because no environmental impact assessment had been done, and the tunnels were described as weak and on the brink of cave-in. Residents told media outlets that mining had continued despite the March ban and blamed authorities for allowing it.
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