Month: June 2022

Two soldiers were killed Monday in fighting against M23 militants in eastern Congo, the DRC army said, the latest violence in a long-standing conflict that has escalated in recent weeks and caused a diplomatic rift with Rwanda.

The rebels shelled an army position in North Kivu, killing two soldiers and injuring five. Congo accuses the neighboring state of supporting the M23, which Rwanda denies.

That clash followed a raid on a village in neighboring Ituri province on Sunday by suspected Islamists from another rebel group that killed at least 18 people, local sources said.

Fighters believed to be from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) killed residents and burned down houses in Otomabere, said a witness, a local chief and a local human rights group.

Congolese army spokesman Jules Ngongo confirmed the ADF attack without giving a death toll, and said Congolese forces were in pursuit of the rebels.

The ADF is a Ugandan militia that moved to eastern Congo in the 1990s and killed more than 1,300 people between January 2021 and January 2022, according to a United Nations report.

“We were chatting with some friends outside (when) we heard gunshots, and everyone fled in a different direction. It was total panic,” said Kimwenza Malembe, a resident of Otomabere.

“This morning we counted 18 dead, killed by knives and firearms.”

Irumu chief Jonas Izorabo Lemi said he had received word of 20 dead.

Christophe Munyanderu, coordinator of the local group Convention for the Respect of Human Rights (CRDH), put the death toll at 27, up from a provisional figure of 20.

Uganda has sent at least 1,700 troops to neighboring Congo to help fight the ADF, and last week the two countries extended a joint operation launched late last year.

Source: Voice of America

CAIRO– The amount of electricity generated from renewable energy in Egypt increased from 8.7 billion kWh in 2019/2020, to 10.2 billion kWh in 2020/2021, marking a year-on-year increase of 17.2 percent, Egypt’s official statistics agency said, yesterday.

“Egypt has the largest wind and solar energy capacity in the Middle East and North Africa,” according to a report issued by the country’s Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), on the eve of the World Environment Day, which is marked by the United Nations on Jun 5, every year.

The number of natural gas-powered cars in Egypt increased by 20.6 percent from 42,292 cars in 2019/2020, to 51,000 cars in 2020/2021, according to the report.

Egypt is heading towards a higher usage of renewable energy, as part of its Egypt Vision 2030 agenda.

Over the past few years, Egypt has been building the Benban Solar Energy Park, in the southern province of Aswan, which is one of the world’s largest solar plants.

Egypt will also host the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference later this year, in Sharm el-Sheikh, a Red Sea resort city.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, yesterday condemned the killing of two Egyptian members of the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, a UN spokesman said.

Another peacekeeper was injured, when their armoured personnel carrier hit an improvised explosive device, outside of the town of Douentza, in the Mopti region, said Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for Guterres. “They were going from Douentza to Timbuktu. They were escorting … from what I understand … civilian trucks.”

Since May 22, there have been six attacks on UN mission convoy, the spokesman said. A terrorist assault on a convoy near the town of Kidal, in the northern part of Mali, killed a Jordanian peacekeeper and injured three colleagues on Wednesday.

The secretary-general wishes a prompt recovery to the injured peacekeeper, Dujarric said, adding that, the peacekeepers are fulfilling the Security Council mandate in extremely challenging conditions.

“The head of the UN mission in Mali, El-Ghassim Wane, also condemned the new attack,” Dujarric said.

“He also condemned the attack in the Kayes region earlier this week, in which two members of the Malian Red Cross were killed.”

The spokesman said, despite the deadly attacks, “UN colleagues are continuing their mandated work. As an example, the UN peacekeeping mission helped to rehabilitate two bridges in the Mopti region, which had been destroyed in earlier attacks. The restoration of these two bridges will bring relief to the people of the region and will facilitate the resumption of travel, commerce and activity, including between Mopti and Bandiagara.”

He added that, in the Kidal and Gao regions, peacekeepers assisted the populations of Anefis and Tanbankort towns, as part of their ongoing support in the North.

MINUSMA, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, was established on Apr 25, 2013, by the Security Council Resolution 2100, to stabilise the country after the Tuareg rebellion of 2012. With more than 200 peacekeepers killed since its deployment on July 1, it has become the UN’s most dangerous peacekeeping mission.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — A commission of senior security and state officials from the troubled Central African Republic and Cameroon has agreed to jointly fight armed C.A.R. rebels they say are fleeing intensive fighting and infiltrating refugee camps in Cameroon. After concluding a meeting in the border town of Ngaoundere, the delegations said they will jointly deploy their militaries to battle the proliferation of weapons, abductions for ransom, attacks for supplies and the illegal exploitation of minerals by rebels along their border.

Senior government and military officials from Cameroon and the Central African Republic (C.A.R) say rebels and armed groups are infiltrating border towns and villages.

The officials ended a security commission meeting Friday in Ngaoundere, a city in Cameroon on the border with the C.A.R. They say scores of civilians abducted for ransom are still being held by C.A.R. rebels and armed groups. They also note that C.A.R. rebels and armed groups are attacking border towns and villages for supplies.

Kildadi Taguieke Boukar is the governor of Cameroon’s Adamawa region, where Ngaoundere is located.

Boukar says Presidents Paul Biya of Cameroon and Faustin-Archange Touadera of the C.A.R say they are deeply concerned their plans to ease the circulation of people and goods across the border are being shattered by C.A.R. armed groups and rebels. Boukar spoke through the messaging app WhatsApp from Ngaoundere.

He says the two presidents want to immediately stop cattle theft, abductions for ransom, the proliferation of weapons and many other forms of transborder insecurity caused by C.A.R. rebels and armed groups. Boukar says Cameroon and the C.A.R want total peace to return to border localities so that civilians and goods can move freely across the border. Boukar says rebel attacks and theft slow economic development and growth in border towns and villages.

General Freddy Johnson Sakama, C.A.R.’s defense chief in charge of military operations, led his country’s delegation to the Cameroon – C.A.R security commission meeting.

Sakama says the rebels and armed groups are escaping heavy fighting with forces of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic, or MINUSCA.

Sakama says the proliferation of armed groups in the C.A.R. is posing serious security threats to both the C.A.R. and its neighbors — Cameroon, Chad, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo Brazzaville. He says the C.A.R. military is commending efforts made by MINUSCA to bring peace to the C.A.R., but that his country is worried because rebels and armed groups fleeing MINUSCA forces are escaping to neighboring countries.

Speaking on Cameroon state broadcaster CRTV, Sakama said the C.A.R. has agreed to collaborate with militaries of all neighboring states to put an end to mounting transborder insecurity caused by C.A.R. rebels and armed groups.

In March, the U.N. peacekeeping mission to the C.A.R., MINUSCA, said rebels left several towns where they were hiding on the border with Cameroon. MINUSCA said the C.A.R. rebels were fighting to control border towns, and villages and crossing the border to escape fighting with the C.A.R’s military.

Cameroon says some of the rebels are disguised as refugees. Paul Atanga Nji, Cameroon’s minister of territorial administration, visited Gado Baadzere, a refugee camp on the border with the C.A.R. this week.

Nji says many C.A.R. rebels and armed group members infiltrate refugee camps in Cameroon with weapons and carry out illegal activities like selling ammunition and hard drugs to armed groups in Cameroon. Nji says refugees should not be surprised if joint troops from Cameroon and the C.A.R. visit their camps to search and arrest C.A.R. rebels or former rebels hiding in refugee camps and committing crimes.

Violence was pervasive in the C.A.R. in 2013 when then President Francois Bozize was ousted by the Séléka, a coalition from the Muslim minority groups that accused him of breaking peace deals.

The C.A.R. says there are 14 rebel groups fighting against the government of the Central African Republic. It says several armed gangs also operate in the country, making peace efforts difficult.

Cameroon and the C.A.R. say they are committed to their militaries working together in border towns and villages to dismantle rebels and armed groups responsible for increasing insecurity.

The ongoing fighting in the C.A.R. has forced close to a million Central Africans to flee neighboring countries, including Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria, according to the U.N.

Source: Voice of America

ACCRA, GHANA — West African leaders Saturday failed to agree what action to take against military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, postponing a decision for a month, insiders at the meeting said.

They decided to wait until the next ECOWAS summit July 3, a senior source in the Ghanian presidency told AFP, asking to remain anonymous.

Another source said the leaders had not been able to agree, “particularly over Mali.”

The summit in Ghana’s capital Accra had been billed as the forum to agree whether to ease or ramp up sanctions against the three junta-ruled nations facing jihadi insurgencies.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had met in a bid to rule whether to keep, lighten or lift retaliatory measures on Mali, imposed in January after its military regime announced plans to stay in power for another five years.

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo opened the summit, attended by the heads of state of most of the 15-member countries but without any representative from Mali, Burkina Faso or Guinea visible in the audience.

“This present summit will reexamine and assess the situations in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso in light of recent developments within the region and global context,” he said.

“Our objective has always been to find ways to help these countries return to constitutional order.”

Guinea, Burkina Faso and Mali are currently suspended from ECOWAS bodies.

While Mali has already been slapped with sanctions, the other two countries risk further punitive measures from the bloc after ruling juntas in their respective capitals vowed to hold on to power for another three years.

West Africa has seen a succession of military coups in less than two years — two in Bamako, followed by Conakry in September 2021 and Ouagadougou in January.

Insurgency

ECOWAS, keen to limit political instability spreading further, has held summits and tried to pile on pressure to shorten the juntas’ so-called transition periods before a return to civilian rule.

But strongmen Colonel Assimi Goita in Mali, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya in Guinea and Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba in Burkina Faso, have all resisted that pressure and since been sworn in as presidents.

They invoke the severity of domestic crises — that span jihadi insurgencies to social problems — and claim they need time to rebuild their states and organize elections.

A U.N. report published last week said the West African sanctions had contributed to worsening living conditions, particularly for the poor.

One of the most volatile and impoverished countries in the world, Mali is battling a decade-old jihadi revolt, which began with a regional insurrection and then spread to Niger and Burkina Faso.

ECOWAS closed borders and suspended trade and financial exchanges, except for necessities.

In Guinea, the military overthrew President Alpha Conde in September and has vowed a return to civilian rule in three years.

Burkina Faso’s government was overthrown in January, when disgruntled colonels ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

Source: Voice of America

ABUJA, NIGERIA — Nigerian authorities in the capital city of Abuja on Saturday said they’re investigating the killing and burning of a man by a mob over accusations of blasphemy. Blasphemy has been a subject of debate in Nigeria in recent weeks after a Christian woman was also burned in the northwestern Sokoto State.

The Abuja Police Command public relations officer, Josephine Adeh, in a statement Saturday said the latest victim was 30-year-old Ahmad Usman a local vigilante member.

She said Usman was involved in an argument with an unidentified Muslim cleric in the Lugbe area of Abuja and it escalated.

She said a mob, numbering about 200, who were supporting the cleric, beat, stoned and then set Usman ablaze before police officials intervened.

“We received a distress call and then we responded to it by deploying our men from Lugbe division,” Adeh told VOA by phone. “We were able to rescue the victim, who suffered a severe degree of burns, and then we took him immediately to the hospital where the doctor confirmed him dead.”

Police surveillance and ambush teams have been patrolling the area since the incident. Adeh said normalcy has been restored. No arrests have been made.

Abuja’s police commissioner on Sunday said the perpetrators will be sanctioned and warned against the use of so called “jungle justice” — taking the law into one’s own hands.

However, many businesses in the area remained shut Saturday evening over fear that more violence could erupt.

“The area is calm now, there’s not much movement around based on what happened earlier, said Princewill Azubuike, a Lugbe resident. “There were gunshots earlier in the afternoon and there were people running around.”

Blasphemy is a sensitive topic in Africa’s most populous nation with a delicate balance of Muslim and Christian populations.

Three weeks ago, a mob in northwest Sokoto state killed and burned the body of a Christian student of the Shehu Shagari College over alleged blasphemy.

The incident triggered protests by Christian groups and human rights organizations. Some of the groups called for the authorities to expunge blasphemy from punishable crimes under the Nigerian law, but for now, it remains on the books.

Source: Voice of America