Sudanese security forces have used teargas in an attempt to disperse protesters in central Khartoum. The demonstrators have been camped for more than two days as they call for the president, Omar al-Bashir, to resign. Protests began in December 2018 after the government raised bread prices, but they have since evolved into nationwide unrest against Bashir's rule.
Continue reading...Category Archives: Africa
What does the battle for Tripoli mean for Libya and the region?
Khalifa Haftar is leading an advance on the capital, with far-ranging consequences
Libya is on the brink of an all-out civil war that will upend years of diplomatic efforts to reconcile two rival armed political factions. An advance led by Khalifa Haftar, the warlord from the east of the country, has diplomats scrambling and the UN appealing in vain for a truce. The French government, the European power closest to Haftar, insists it had no prior warning of his assault, which is now less than 20km from the capital, Tripoli. The outcome could shape not just the politics of Libya, but also the security of the Mediterranean, and the relevance of democracy across the Middle East and north Africa.
Continue reading...Demolition derby: the human cost of Addis Ababa’s rapid growth
Residents of the Ethiopian capital’s historic Piassa neighbourhood have just had their homes bulldozed a second time
“I used to have a small grocery shop right here,” said Selhadin Sulman, spreading his arms wide as he remembered the 25 sq m kebele building that was his home until the police arrived in 2014 and started dismantling it as he slept. He was woken by his neighbours screaming and pleading with them to stop.
Sulman had lived in Wube Berha, part of Addis Ababa’s Piassa historic district, for more than 50 years. Kebele houses were a form of public rental housing built in the 1970s from cheap materials for the Ethiopian capital’s growing number of urban poor.
Continue reading...Rhino poacher killed by an elephant and then ‘devoured’ by lions
Police say the man entered the park with a group intending to shoot and kill rhinos
A rhino poacher is believed to have been attacked by an elephant and then eaten by a pride of lions during an incident in South Africa’s Kruger national park.
Police brigadier Leonard Hlathi said police received information that a group of men had gone into the park on 1 April in order to hunt rhino, “when suddenly an elephant attacked and killed one of them”.
Continue reading...Battle for Tripoli escalates as fighting nears Libyan capital
Fighting rages between UN-backed Tripoli government and self-styled Libyan National Army
The battle for Tripoli escalated on Sunday as a military assault on the city by the eastern Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar led to 21 deaths and nearly 90 injuries, and international calls for calm were ignored.
As the fighting neared the capital, the UN issued a plea for a temporary ceasefire to allow the wounded to be evacuated. Hours earlier, the US announced it was withdrawing some of its troops from the country, citing deteriorating “security conditions on the ground”. India also withdrew a group of its peacekeepers, saying the situation in Libya had suddenly worsened.
Continue reading...Man who fled to UK as child has deportation to DRC halted
Habib Bazaboko is returned to removal centre instead of boarding a flight at Heathrow in apparent U-turn by Home Office
A man who has lived in the UK since childhood and was due to be deported on Saturday on a 6.55pm flight to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country with one of the worst human rights records in the world, has been given an eleventh-hour stay of execution.
Habib Bazaboko, a stonemason, fled to the UK at the age of 11 after his father was murdered in his home country. He has previous convictions, including for grievous bodily harm, but has not committed any crime for nine years.
Continue reading...As the credits roll on Algeria’s dictator, a timely reminder of why history must not be repeated
The screening of a 1966 film about their country’s bitter colonial conflict has seen Algerians unite in peaceful protest
More than half a century since it was released – and promptly banned by French authorities – The Battle of Algiers, depicting the bloody struggle for Algeria’s independence from France in 1962, still has the power to shock.
On Friday night, the black-and-white, 1966 film relating Algerian anti-colonial guerrilla warfare and its brutal repression by the French military was screened in Paris. London-based musical activists Asian Dub Foundation (ADF) performed a live soundtrack.
Continue reading...Haftar’s advance leaves UN’s hopes for Libya settlement in tatters
Critics say policy of appeasement towards strongman has left country at risk of military rule
After more than half a century in and around Libyan politics, and at the age of 75, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar stands poised at the gates of Tripoli, as close to imposing a form of military rule across the country than at any time in his mercurial and often violent career.
It may yet be that his grandly titled Libyan National Army – a misnomer for a band of ideologically incoherent militias – will discover that it has overstretched itself, and his advance will be repelled. In a similar, less planned a ttempt by Haftar to seize power in 2014, he only partially succeeded, by taking control of Benghazi, the main town in the east of the country.
Continue reading...Mummified mice found in ‘beautiful, colourful’ Egyptian tomb
Recently discovered tomb of official dating back more than 2,000 years contains dozens of animals and two mummies
Dozens of mummified mice were among the animals found in an ancient Egyptian tomb that was unveiled on Friday.
The well-preserved and finely painted tomb near the Egyptian town of Sohag – a desert area near the Nile about 390km (242 miles) south of Cairo – is thought to be from the early Ptolemaic period, dating back more than 2,000 years.
Continue reading...Fears of Libyan civil war as militias capture 145 Haftar troops
Action escalates fight between western government-allied militias and Libyan National Army
Fears were mounting of renewed civil war in Libya after militias allied to the government in Tripoli captured scores of troops from a powerful rival force, and the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned he was ending a visit to the country “with a heavy heart and deeply concerned”.
Guterres suggested a key meeting with eastern commander, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, had not resulted in assurances from the strongman leader to avoid an escalation of tensions.
Continue reading...Macron asks experts to investigate French role in Rwandan genocide
Accusations of complicity in deaths of 800,000 in 1994 have clouded diplomatic relations
Emmanuel Macron has appointed a commission of historians and researchers to investigate France’s role in the Rwandan genocide 25 years ago, as accusations of complicity in the deaths of an estimated 800,000 people continue to cloud diplomatic relations between Kigali and Paris.
The French president said the panel of experts would look at state archives, including diplomatic and military documents, and produce a public report. The move was announced after Macron met representatives of a Rwandan genocide survivors’ association at the Élysée – the first time a French leader has held such a meeting.
Continue reading...Libyan strongman orders troops to march on Tripoli
Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar says forces’ move will ‘shake the lands under the feet of the unjust bunch’
The strongman who controls two thirds of Libya has ordered his forces to march to Tripoli, the capital of the UN-backed government, raising fears of a major showdown with rival militias.
Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who commands the “Libya National Army” (LNA) based in the east, described his forces’ move as a “victorious march” to “shake the lands under the feet of the unjust bunch”.
Continue reading...Boeing report: pilots followed guidance but could not control Ethiopian plane
Investigators say pilots were unable to prevent plane’s nose from pointing down
The pilots of the Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max that crashed last month killing 157 people correctly followed Boeing’s emergency instructions but were still unable to stop the plane’s nose repeatedly pointing down, investigators said.
In the final seconds before the crash, pilots tried desperately to right the plane by switching its anti-stall software on and off but to no avail. The jet hit an airspeed of 500 knots (575mph), well above its operational limits, before cockpit data recordings stopped.
Continue reading...Uganda: US tourist kidnapped and held for $500,000 ransom
Security forces are hunting gunmen who abducted a 35-year-old woman and her driver inside a national park close to the border
Ugandan security forces are hunting gunmen who abducted an American tourist and her driver inside a national park close to the border with Democratic Republic of Congo.
Four kidnappers stopped a group of tourists at gunpoint around dusk on Tuesday as they drove through the Queen Elizabeth national park to see wild animals.
Continue reading...The Guardian view on Algeria’s ousted president: what next? | Editorial
Protesters have forced the departure of Abdelaziz Bouteflika. But that may prove to be the easy part
The scenes of jubilation on the streets of Algeria on Tuesday night had vivid, almost uncanny echoes of events in the region eight years ago. A wave of protest in a youthful country has ousted an ageing, authoritarian leader who clung to power for years, at the head of a regime perpetuating a clientelist and unequal economy. The ailing 82-year-old president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, finally succumbed after weeks of protests, sparked by the announcement of his candidacy for a fifth term despite reports that he struggled even to speak.
The country’s oil wealth is drying up, reducing the government’s ability to temper popular discontent via state spending; over a quarter of its youth are unemployed; corruption is endemic. But it was the regime’s sheer contempt for its citizens in nominating a man who has barely been seen in public since a 2013 stroke, and the sense of national humiliation, which brought hundreds of thousands on to the streets. Those behind him hope that his departure will allow them to continue as before. Their opponents, now emboldened by victory, demand real change.
Continue reading...Why were the people worst affected by Cyclone Idai so badly prepared? | Antonio Matimbe
While the world’s poorest bear the brunt of ever more powerful storms, international leaders do little to address the devastating impact of climate change
I am a Mozambican aid agency communicator. Cyclone Idai is just the latest humanitarian crisis I have been involved in.
Mozambique has a history of being affected by huge storms. The upsetting thing to me is that while international leaders and experts talk about climate change and the impact this is having on the world, the very poorest are bearing the brunt of ever more powerful storms.
Continue reading...Algeria’s president Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigns after 20 years
Ailing 82-year-old exits following mass protests against his rule
Algeria’s president Abdelaziz Bouteflika has bowed to weeks of mass protests against his rule and resigned, abruptly putting an end to two decades in power.
The 82-year-old leader announced his resignation on Tuesday night via a brief message from the presidency saying he had “notified the president of the constitutional council of his decision to end his mandate”.
Continue reading...Europe accused of financing Eritrean project based on ‘forced labour’
Campaigners say €20m EU scheme uses recruits from Eritrea’s national service, a system likened to mass enslavement
Eritreans in exile have launched legal proceedings against the EU, accusing it of financing a scheme in Eritrea that uses “forced labour”.
The Netherlands-based Foundation Human Rights for Eritreans (FHRE) has called on the EU to immediately stop a €20m (£17m) road construction project, which it says violates human rights law as well as the EU’s own charter, since it uses national service recruits.
Continue reading...Algeria’s president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, to step down by 28 April
Bouteflika, 82, has faced protests and pressure from army demanding end to his 20-year rule
After two decades in office, Algeria’s president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has announced that he will step down before his current term ends on 28 April, after a succession of loyalists deserted the ailing leader.
Hundreds of thousands of Algerians have taken to the streets in weekly protests which began in late February when Bouteflika launched his bid for a fifth term in office.
Continue reading...Ads about bus stop harassment and ‘bonus wives’ normalise sexism | Rosebell Kagumire
In the race to attract customers, Ugandan firms show scant regard for the intimidation faced by women on a daily basis
Uganda’s leading telecom company MTN has launched a new advert. It depicts a scene at a city bus stop, which in Uganda we call a stage.
A man approaches the stage, where two women are sitting on benches, one either end. Before he takes his seat between them, he launches into some forced conversation with one of the women reading a magazine. Before the woman responds, the man moves closer to her. The second woman looks on, perhaps just curious, but perhaps concerned.
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