A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Pakistan to Poland
Continue reading...Category Archives: Africa
Oxford University identifies 145 artefacts looted in Benin raid
Plundered items likely to be returned to Nigeria include plaques, bronze figures and musical instruments
The University of Oxford is holding 145 objects looted by British troops during an assault on the city of Benin in 1897 that are likely to be repatriated to Nigeria, a report has said.
More than two-thirds of the plundered items are owned by the university’s Pitt Rivers Museum, and 45 are on loan. They include brass plaques, bronze figures, carved ivory tusks, musical instruments, weaving equipment, jewellery, and ceramic and coral objects dating to the 13th century.
Continue reading...As millions face famine #CongoIsStarving is calling on Joe Biden to help | Vava Tampa
Only a UN tribunal, sponsored by the US president, can end the culture of impunity fuelling violence and poverty in the DRC
The numbers are difficult to absorb. According to a new IPC report, a record 27 million Congolese – roughly a quarter of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC’s) population – are facing hunger, with 860,000 children under five acutely malnourished. The DRC is home to more starving people than any other country in the world. This could have been prevented.
Without faith that their own president Félix Tshisekedi will act, people are turning to the US president, hoping that lobbying using the hashtag #CongoIsStarving on Twitter will urge Joe Biden to back the creation of an international criminal tribunal for the DRC to end the impunity fuelling violence and famine risk. Shockingly, it could be that simple to bring an end to this suffering; we are asking for solidarity, not charity, to save lives and end this nightmarish crisis.
Continue reading...Uganda police kill five men after suicide bombings, including Muslim cleric
Authorities accuse the five of having ties with the extremist group blamed for bomb blasts in the capital Kampala
Ugandan authorities have killed at least five people, including a Muslim cleric, accused of having ties to the extremist group responsible for Tuesday’s suicide bombings in the capital.
Four men were killed in a shootout in a frontier town near the western border with Congo as they tried to cross back into Uganda, police said on Thursday. A fifth man, a cleric named Muhammad Kirevu, was killed in “a violent confrontation” when security forces raided his home outside Kampala, police spokesperson Fred Enanga said.
Continue reading...Sudan pro-democracy activists call for escalation after lethal crackdown
Demonstrations against military coup expected to continue after 15 protesters reportedly killed in a day
Pro-democracy protesters and Sudan’s military appeared set for a cycle of escalation on both sides after a day in which at least 15 demonstrators were killed by security forces.
Despite a heavy-handed crackdown by the military in the capital, Khartoum, and other cities, activists called on Thursday for an escalation of protests against last month’s military coup, a day after the deadliest security clampdown to date on demonstrators demanding the restoration of a civilian government.
Continue reading...‘Horrific’: 10 people suffocate in overcrowded migrant boat off Libya
MSF rescue 99 survivors who spent 13 hours on vessel trying to reach Europe as authorities accused of ignoring distress call
Ten people were found dead in the lower deck of a severely overcrowded wooden boat off the coast of Libya, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has reported.
According to survivors, those who died on Tuesday suffocated after 13 hours on the cramped lower deck, where there had been a strong smell of fuel.
Continue reading...There’s a brutal conflict in Ethiopia. My family there ask: why does no one hear us? | Magdalene Abraha
People in Tigray are crying out for the world’s help, as war has left them starving and fearing for their lives
On 4 November 2020 the world was occupied with the results of the US election. For myself and many others with family and friends in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, however, that day marked the beginning of a year-long nightmare. And it’s one which the world has, for the most part, ignored.
When on that day the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, a Nobel peace prizewinner, announced a military offensive in Tigray, it was hard to predict the scale of the human suffering that would ensue. But almost instantly Tigray, a region in the far north of the country that is home to more than 7 million people, was cut off from the world: phone lines were shut down, the internet was cut off, banks were closed and journalists were barred from the region.
Continue reading...Dirty dollars: how tattered US notes became the latest street hustle in Zimbabwe
In country hit by hyperinflation, a shortage of dollars means those struggling to survive can make a profit dealing torn notes
In time-honoured street hawker tradition, Kaitano Kasani is using charm and persuasion to get people to sell him their tattered US banknotes.
Kasani, 42, bellows through a megaphone as he walks through Glen Norah, a township in Harare, in the sweltering November heat.
Continue reading...Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar to run for president
Head of self-styled Libyan National Army to stand in country’s first presidential elections in December
A Libyan warlord who led a 14-month assault on the capital and once said the country was not ready for democracy has announced his candidacy in its first presidential elections at the end of next month
Khalifa Haftar, the head of the self-styled Libyan National Army, which fought against its internationally recognised government in the 2014-2020 civil war, declared he wanted to bring the Libyan people “glory, progress and prosperity” as he joined a contest that also includes the son of Libya’s former dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, among its hopefuls.
Continue reading...Covid now a pandemic of poor nations, WHO envoy tells UK MPs
Rich counties taking risk by ‘hoovering up’ boosters, all-party group on coronavirus told
Covid is now a pandemic of poor nations, a leading global expert has told a cross-party group of MPs, adding that governments that are attempting to vaccinate their way out of the pandemic are taking a huge risk.
Dr David Nabarro, the World Health Organization’s special envoy on Covid, told the all-party group on coronavirus that the world was still deep in the pandemic, with 5,413 reported deaths in the past 24 hours alone. “This is a disease now fundamentally of poor people and poor nations,” he added.
Continue reading...Scores of children killed by starvation in Tigray, says health official
Research suggests terrible suffering amid communications and aid blockade affecting Ethiopian region
Almost 200 children under the age of five died of starvation in 14 hospitals across Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region between late June and October, according to data collected by local doctors and researchers.
The research, shared with Agence France-Presse by Dr Hagos Godefay, the former head of the health bureau in the pre-conflict Tigrayan government, offers a snapshot of the suffering in Tigray, where a communications blackout by federal authorities has prevented a full examination of the toll of the war.
Continue reading...At least three killed in suicide bomb attacks in Ugandan capital, Kampala
Two explosions within minutes in attack blamed on Allied Democratic Forces extremist group
Two explosions rocked Uganda’s capital, Kampala, early on Tuesday, killing at least three civilians in what police described as a coordinated attack by extremists.
Three suicide bombers also died in the blasts, police said. The explosions caused chaos in Kampala as terrified residents fled the city’s centre.
Continue reading...Kenyan police officers jailed for manslaughter of British aristocrat
Alexander Monson was found dead in police cell in May 2012 after arrest in beach town of Diani
Four police officers have been jailed after Kenya’s high court found them guilty of the manslaughter of Alexander Monson, a British aristocrat who was found dead in a police cell in the beach town of Diani in 2012.
Two reports by government pathologists concluded that Monson, who had moved to Kenya in 2008 to live with his mother, had died after suffering a traumatic blow to the head.
Continue reading...Stop talking, start acting, says Africa’s first extreme heat official
Rising temperatures are already killing people in Sierra Leone’s Freetown, says Eugenia Kargbo, who is planning how best to protect the hundreds of thousands living in informal settlements
When she was growing up, Eugenia Kargbo could have a leisurely stroll, jog or cycle around the streets of Freetown. But that easy life no longer exists in Sierra Leone’s capital for her two children. The city is so swelteringly hot that children run the constant risk of sunburn or heat rashes if they are outdoors for very long.
“Over the past 10 years, there has been a dramatic change,” says Kargbo, 34, who has been appointed as Freetown’s chief heat officer – the first such post in Africa and only the third globally, after Athens and Miami.
Continue reading...‘Living from flood to flood’: the crisis of Gambia’s sinking city
As well as floods, sewage and crocodiles, those living in Banjul’s slums face the effects of a climate crisis they did little to cause
Yedel Bah would move home if she could, but she can’t. With no income of her own, four children to feed and a husband who just about manages, her family lives from day to day, and from flood to flood, on the banks of a litter-strewn, stagnant canal.
Every rainy season, the neighbourhood of Tobacco Road in the Gambian capital, Banjul, braces for downpours of such intensity that the canal overflows, spilling its murky, pungent depths into the slum-like homes that run alongside it.
Continue reading...Ugandan children held in prison for months after crackdown on opposition
Victims describe systematic physical abuse, denial of basic legal rights and appalling conditions
Ugandan security services held children for months in prisons after successive crackdowns against opposition activists earlier this year, witnesses and victims have said.
Adults and children described systematic physical abuse, denial of basic legal rights and appalling conditions as they waited for trial on charges they claim were fabricated.
Continue reading...Military chief pledges UK cooperation with Kenya in Wanjiru case
Gen Sir Nick Carter says alleged murder of Agnes Wanjiru by British soldier was ‘truly shocking’
The head of the British armed forces has said the military will be working with Kenyan authorities to bring those accused of killing a young woman in the east African country to trial.
The body of Agnes Wanjiru, 21, was found in 2012 after she reportedly went out partying with British soldiers at the Lions Court hotel in the central town of Nanyuki, where the UK army has a permanent garrison.
Continue reading...Son of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi runs for president
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has spent past decade out of sight after his father was killed in 2011 uprising
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, one of the sons of the former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has confirmed that he is to run for the presidency of Libya in elections due to start on 24 December.
He registered his nomination in the southern city of Sebha, the High National Electoral Commission has confirmed.
Continue reading...Sudan security forces kill at least 5 as protesters defy shutdown
Teargas and live bullets used to break up demonstration in Khartoum against the military coup
Sudanese security forces killed at least five people on Saturday and injured dozens more when they used teargas and live bullets to break up a protest in Khartoum against a military takeover of the government.
Protesters defied a military shutdown of the city to call for a return to civilian rule, as plain-clothed snipers reappeared on the streets on Saturday. On Friday, coup leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan cemented his hold on power by swearing in a new ruling council that excluded the main civilian coalition.
Continue reading...How risk of kidnap became the cost of an education in Nigeria
Abductions are rife in the north of the country, where armed gangs target schools and colleges with apparent impunity
When his two daughters were abducted from their university dormitories by armed men in April, Friday Sani volunteered to deliver the ransom. In two bags he carried banknotes to the value of more than 40m naira (£70,000), the price to free Victory and Rejoice, and 37 others taken from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in Afaka, Kaduna.
In April and May more than 70 students were abducted from the federal college and the nearby Greenfield University. With little faith that police could help, a group of parents went to the kidnappers, through an intermediary, and paid to get their children back.
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