Up to 43 slaughtered and a further six seriously injured, say anti-jihadist militia
Boko Haram fighters killed at least 43 farm workers and wounded six in rice fields near the north-east Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Saturday, anti-jihadist militia told AFP.
The assailants tied up the agricultural workers and slit their throats in the village of Koshobe, the militia said.
Continue reading...Abiy Ahmed claims Mekelle under command of federal forces and that operation in region now complete
Ethiopian troops are now in “full control” of Mekelle, the capital of the northern region of Tigray, the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, said on Saturday evening.
“With full command of the regional capital, this marks the completion of the Ethiopian National Forces’ last phase … The main operation is successfully concluded,” Abiy said.
Continue reading...Latest tragedy follows string of disasters as Covid worsens poverty and sparks rush to work abandoned shafts in gold-rich country
Dozens are feared dead and others still trapped underground after an abandoned goldmine collapsed in Zimbabwe.
Six men have so far emerged alive from the mine at Bindura, about 70km north of the capital Harare after the disaster on Wednesday. According to officials, nearly 30 miners remain unaccounted for.
Continue reading...The hunt for a coronavirus vaccine is showing promise but it is premature to say the end of the pandemic is nigh. Several rich countries have signed a 'frenzy of deals' that could prevent many poor nations from getting access to immunisation until at least 2024. Also, many drug firms are potentially refusing to waive patents and other intellectual property rights in order to secure exclusive rights to any cure.
Michael Safi, the Guardian's international correspondent, explains why 'vaccine nationalisation' could scupper global efforts to kill the virus and examines what is being done to tackle the issue
Continue reading...Police told to enforce law against cutting girls passed in July as country says it will adhere to African charter on child rights
Sudanese authorities have announced they will end child marriage and enforce the country’s ban on female genital mutilation (FGM), in a major step forward for the rights of women and girls.
Police officers were told on Wednesday they must inform local communities that FGM is illegal following new laws passed in July that make it punishable by up to three years in jail.
Continue reading...Exclusive: documents show links between academic and oligarch placed under US sanctions
Leaked documents show links between an academic serving on a United Nations expert panel on Sudan, and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch under US sanctions who has led Russia’s recent push into Africa.
According to the US, Prigozhin runs the Wagner group, which has sent mercenaries to countries including Sudan, Libya and the Central African Republic (CAR), and is also behind a notorious internet troll factory that supported Donald Trump.
Continue reading...PM Abiy Ahmed makes order after dissident local leaders reject ultimatum to surrender
Ethiopia’s prime minister has ordered federal military forces to launch a “final offensive” on the capital of the restive Tigray region after his 72-hour ultimatum for dissident local leaders to surrender expired.
In a statement posted on social media, Abiy Ahmed said great care would be taken to protect innocent civilians from harm and said efforts would be made by government troops to ensure the city of Mekelle, which has a population of 500,000, was not “severely damaged”.
Continue reading...UN calls for urgent focus on HIV/Aids as coronavirus blocks access to drugs and missed targets threaten to derail progress
Global progress on ending the Aids epidemic by 2030 could be blown off course by coronavirus, a senior UN director has warned.
Just a six-month disruption to medical supplies induced by Covid-19 could result in an extra 500,000 Aids-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2021, according to data modelling in the annual report from UNAids. The agency’s executive director, Winnie Byanyima, said the world is already way off target on combating Aids, and the pandemic “has the potential to blow us even further off course”.
Continue reading...Bloody offensive aims to eliminate Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which dominated for nearly 30 years
In the centre of Mekelle, the highland capital of Tigray, is a complex of memorials and museums. Under the hot sun, old armoured vehicles, jets and helicopters rust quietly. On the city’s wide avenues, statues commemorate the “martyrs” and the victories of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a small band of insurgents who became a guerrilla army, launched a successful rebellion and eventually ruled Africa’s second most populous country for almost 30 years.
This week federal Ethiopian forces have closed in on Mekelle in the final stages of a bloody offensive launched earlier this month by Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, with the aim of eliminating the TPLF as a political force.
Continue reading...But independent review criticises wildlife fund’s inconsistent approach to human rights
A long-awaited report into allegations that conservation rangers supported by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) committed violent abuses in several countries, including murder, has cleared the organisation’s staff of complicity but criticised it for serious shortcomings in oversight.
But even as the report was released, campaigners for tribal rights – including Survival International, which has long been a critic of WWF – suggested the report had failed to investigate some of the most serious issues and that it had been released two days before the US Thanksgiving holiday in an attempt to bury the news.
Continue reading...Abiy Ahmed faces growing calls to end conflict that threatens to destabilise eastern Africa
Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, has forcefully rejected efforts by international powers to bring hostilities in the north of the country to an end.
Abiy’s statement on Wednesday came hours before a deadline for the surrender of the leadership of the restive region of Tigray expires, after which federal troops have been ordered to attack its capital, Mekelle.
Continue reading...Aid agencies say debts should be restructured or cancelled due to the pandemic and warn other countries could follow
Zambia has become the first African country to default on its debts since the pandemic, leading to fears that a “debt tsunami” could engulf the continent’s most heavily indebted nations as the financial impact of coronavirus hits.
A hastily-arranged G20 finance minister meeting in Saudi Arabia failed to sort out Zambia’s debt, after the southern African country missed a $42.5m (£32m) coupon payment on its bonds in October. Missing another payment on 14 November meant a technical default.
Continue reading...Anticov study with international research institutions aims to stop disease progression and protect fragile health systems
A network of 13 African countries has joined forces with global researchers to launch the largest clinical trial of potential Covid-19 treatments on the continent.
The Anticov study, involving Antwerp’s Institute of Tropical Medicine and international research institutions, aims to identify treatments that can be used to treat mild and moderate cases of Covid-19 early and prevent spikes in hospitalisation that could overwhelm fragile and already overburdened health systems in Africa.
Continue reading...Abiy Ahmed’s war against Tigrayan rebels endangers a fragile union whose collapse would destabilise the Horn of Africa
Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed has promised military victory in Tigray. He says he will capture the capital, Mekelle, and the leadership of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which he calls a criminal junta. If he succeeds, it will be a pyrrhic victory – prospects for peace, democracy and protection from famine in Ethiopia will be set back a generation.
There are artillery barrages, airstrikes, armoured assaults. The Ethiopian army announces a Tigrayan town captured every other day and this week it plans to surround Mekelle. But there’s something missing. We’re not seeing pictures of prisoners of war, recovered military equipment, or newly-captured towns with local people welcoming their liberators. Perhaps the TPLF evacuated the towns and retreated to the mountains. Or maybe there are things that Ethiopian TV doesn’t want the world to see.
Continue reading...Student tells how he and others were arrested on Covid-related charges, publicly humiliated and left without a place to stay
When you ask Ronald Ssenyonga, a 21-year-old Ugandan, to tell you about his arrest, he asks: “Which one?” Like many gay people struggling to survive in a country that has used Covid-19 as an excuse to clamp down on human rights, Ssenyonga is used to arrests and raids.
Even before the pandemic Uganda was labelled the worst place to be gay after its parliament proposed the death penalty for some homosexual acts. The constitutional court annulled the law in 2014, but security agencies continue to hound gay people – relying on information from community vigilantes to attack and smoke them out of places they thought were safe.
Continue reading...PM Abiy Ahmed has implied operation will soon be over, but many leaders have found their planned short wars will not end quickly
Within days, the conflict in the north-western Ethiopian region of Tigray may reach a bloody climax.
The fighting between federal forces and those loyal to the ruling party of the unsettled province has been chaotic and bitter. Hundreds have been killed – both combatants and civilians – and many thousands forced to flee their homes. Regional and international powers have looked on with increasing anxiety as violence threatens the stability of one of Africa’s most fragile regions.
Continue reading...‘No mercy’ ultimatum stokes international concerns as conflict enters third week
Ethiopia’s military have warned civilians in the capital of the wartorn Tigray region to “free themselves” from rebel leaders or be offered “no mercy” in a coming assault on the city.
The Ethiopian military said tanks would be deployed to encircle Mekelle, the highland capital of the northern Tigray region, and that it may also use artillery on the city, state media reported on Sunday.
Continue reading...Pioneering Ndebele artist fears young people are losing a sense of their roots
One of Africa’s best-known artists has made an impassioned appeal for governments and communities across the continent to preserve their traditions and culture in the face of globalisation.
Esther Mahlangu, 85, said that she was worried young people in Africa were losing a sense of their roots.
Continue reading...As conflicts rapidly unfold in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, the US, UK and European states are being sidelined
The Ethiopian army’s assault on Tigray province marks a serious backwards step by the country’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, who has been feted internationally as a moderniser and Nobel peace prize winner. Abiy calls it a “law enforcement operation” – but he risks being blamed for an expanding refugee emergency and a burgeoning region-wide crisis.
An even bigger fear is the break-up of Ethiopia itself in a Libyan or Yugoslav-type implosion. The country comprises more than 80 ethnic groups, of which Abiy’s Oromo is the largest, followed by the Amhara. Ethnic Somalis and Tigrayans represent about 6% each in a population of about 110 million. Ethiopia’s federal governance structure was already under strain before this latest explosion.
Continue reading...Confidential papers warn that, despite talk of success, army faces heavy resistance and regional stability is at risk
Ethiopian national forces are meeting heavy resistance and face a protracted “war of attrition” in the northern region of Tigray, a confidential United Nations assessment reveals.
Though officials in Addis Ababa, the capital, have repeatedly claimed that key towns have been secured, paramilitaries and militia deployed by the army are still struggling to clear and secure territory. Heavily armed regular troops have continued to advance into Tigray as they rush to reach the capital, Mekelle, the assessment says.
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