Fears of jihadist push in Gulf of Guinea after Macron and allies pull out
France and its European partners are to begin a military withdrawal from Mali after more than nine years fighting a jihadist insurgency, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, confirmed on Thursday.
Asked at the Élysée if the withdrawal marked a failure for France and its policy of fighting terrorism in west Africa, Macron said: “I completely reject that term.”
Continue reading...Across the continent, young Africans are using their unique local knowledge and bargaining power to challenge beliefs about female genital mutilation
It took courage for Ayodeji Bella to raise the subject of female genital mutilation in her rural community in southern Nigeria. She knew local chiefs were key to challenging beliefs around the practice but when Bella, who was cut at five, broached the issue with an elder from her village, she was rebuked.
“I was young and unmarried and they wouldn’t take me seriously.”
Continue reading...With Russian mercenaries invited to Mali as European forces withdraw, how worried should the west be about Russia’s increasing influence across Africa?
Even in the turbulent, conflict-wracked Sahel region of Africa, the recent military takeover in Burkina Faso was intriguing. Amid the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation, the decision by neighbouring Mali’s military-led government to invite fighters from the Wagner Group, widely seen as a paramilitary network of mercenaries with Russian connections, is causing growing concern in many western capitals.
Mali’s transitional government faces a rough road to recognition after the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) announced a strengthening of economic and diplomatic sanctions in January in response to the proposal to postpone elections until at least 2026.
Continue reading...NGOs call for aid exemption to EU-backed sanctions imposed after election postponement and arrival of Russian paramilitary
More than a dozen aid organisations have called for humanitarian exemptions to heavy sanctions imposed on Mali after the military leadership postponed planned February elections.
The EU has announced support for the sanctions imposed earlier this month by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), which include closing borders and a trade embargo.
Continue reading...Lazare Eloundou Assomo wants to address imbalance that benefits rich nations and protect sites threatened by climate crisis and war
It covers 9 million sq miles (24m sq km) from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and from the Sahara in the north to Cape Point in the south. And in between lie some of the world’s most ancient cultural sites and precious natural wonders.
However, despite its vast size, sub-Saharan Africa has never been proportionately represented on Unesco’s world heritage list, its 98 sites dwarfed by Europe, North America and Asia.
Continue reading...Insurgents shoot villagers going to a market on the same day UN peacekeeping convoy attacked, killing one person
Militants have killed at least 31 people in central Mali when they fired upon a bus ferrying people to a local market and attacked a UN convoy in the north of the country in a region racked by a violent insurgency.
The bus was attacked on Friday by unidentified gunmen as it travelled its twice-weekly route from the village of Songho to a market in Bandiagara six miles (10km) away, said Moulaye Guindo, the mayor of the nearby town of Bankass.
Continue reading...It is hard to protect yourself from HIV when having sterile syringes or condoms can lead to arrest: discrimination is restricting progress in eliminating HIV
Forty years after the first cases of Aids were discovered, goals for its global elimination have yet to be achieved. In 2020, nearly 700,000 people died of Aids-related illnesses and 1.5 million people were newly infected with HIV.
This is despite scientific and medical advances in the testing, treatment and care of people living with HIV.
Continue reading...A storm took the roof off Binta Bah’s house before torrential rain destroyed her family’s belongings, as poverty combines with the climate crisis to wreak havoc on Africa’s smallest mainland country
The windstorm arrived in Jalambang late in the evening, when Binta Bah and her family were enjoying the evening cool outside. “But when we first heard the wind, the kids started to run and go in the house,” she says.
First they went in one room but the roof – a sheet of corrugated iron fixed only by a timbere pole – flew off. They ran into another but the roof soon went there too.
Continue reading...Mali president’s office pays tribute to the courage of Gloria Cecilia Narváez as it confirms her release
A Franciscan nun from Colombia kidnapped by jihadists in Mali in 2017 has been freed, Mali’s presidential office said.
The statement on the presidential Twitter account paid tribute to the courage of Gloria Cecilia Narváez, who was held for four years and eight months.
Continue reading...Mali’s military leaders under pressure to pull back from suspected agreement with Wagner Group
The UK has joined a mounting international campaign of pressure on Mali’s military leaders to step back from a suspected deal with a Russian mercenary company, amid fears that the agreement will further complicate insecurity in the region.
Mali’s leaders, battling a jihadist insurgency – and amid a fragile political transition following multiple coups – have been coy on details of a reported deal with the Wagner Group.
Yet Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, conceded last week that talks with Mali had occurred. “They have turned to a private military company from Russia,” he said at the UN general assembly last Saturday. “France wants to significantly draw down its military component which was present there.”
The developments have sparked international concerns, anger in France, and mixed reactions within Mali amid the worsening violence suffered in the country.
A study in Burkina Faso and Mali suggests combining anti-malarial drugs and vaccination could reduce deaths and hospitalisations
A trial combining vaccinations and prevention drugs has substantially lowered the number of children dying of malaria in two African countries, according to researchers.
The results of the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, have been hailed as “very striking”, especially at a time when decades-long progress on combating malaria has stalled in some countries.
Continue reading...Militants attacked three villages near Niger border in latest in wave of civilian massacres in Sahel region
More than 51 people have been killed in northern Mali by jihadists, who attacked three villages near the border with Niger, killing and torching homes, in the latest mass attack in a region beset by violence.
Militants on motorbikes overwhelmed the villages simultaneously on Sunday evening, entering and killing indiscriminately and burning and ransacking homes, according to security officials.
Continue reading...Every year thousands of refugees from conflict, climate and instability in Africa board vessels in search of a new life in Europe but hundreds never arrive
At 6.30am on Friday 28 May, three fishermen at work four miles off the southern coast of Tobago spotted a large white boat adrift on the dawn waters of the Caribbean.
As they drew closer, the trio saw the boat’s shape was far from local, and noticed a strong smell coming from inside it. The body the fishermen glimpsed at the bow was enough to confirm their suspicions. They called the coastguard who, unable to dispatch a vessel, asked them to tow the boat ashore at Belle Garden beach.
Continue reading...Col Assimi Goïta escapes unharmed after incident during Eid al-Adha celebrations in Bamako
A man has tried to stab Mali’s transitional president, Col Assimi Goïta, during Eid al-Adha celebrations at the Grand Mosque in Bamako.
Witnesses said the incident happened after the imam went to slaughter sheep at the mosque in the capital. One man with a knife and another with a gun participated in the attack, the witnesses said.
Continue reading...Attack occurs in Gao region where insurgents linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State are active
Thirteen UN peacekeepers have been wounded in northern Mali by a car bomb, the UN mission said, while Mali’s army said six of its soldiers were killed in a separate attack in the centre of the country.
The attack on Friday in the north targeted a temporary base set up by the peacekeepers near the village of Ichagara in the Gao region, where Islamist insurgents linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State are active.
Continue reading...Military victories combined with new alliances and shifts in strategy reinforce militants’ position across much of continent
Islamic State’s affiliates in Africa are set for major expansion after a series of significant victories, new alliances and shifts in strategy reinforced their position across much of the continent.
Following recent gains in Nigeria, the Sahel, in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Isis propaganda published by the group’s leadership in its heartland in the Middle East is increasingly stressing sub-Saharan Africa as a new front which may compensate the group for significant setbacks elsewhere.
Continue reading...Bayes Ag Bakabo was prime suspect in 2013 kidnapping and shooting of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon
French soldiers have killed a Malian jihadist suspected of being responsible for the kidnapping and death of two French journalists in 2013.
Florence Parly, the defence minister in Paris, said French forces in the Sahel region killed “four terrorists” during an operation in northern Mali on 5 June, including Bayes Ag Bakabo, the prime suspect in the deaths of Radio France International (RFI) reporters Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon.
Continue reading...Aide of the vice-president who led last year’s coup claims both leaders have stood down while in detention
Mali’s interim president and prime minister have reportedly “resigned”, two days after they were arrested by the military in a widely condemned coup, according to an aide to the military-appointed interim vice-president.
Both civilian leaders, the president, Bah Ndaw, and the prime minister, Moctar Ouane, remained under military arrest on Wednesday in the Kati army base, outside the Malian capital Bamako, amid widespread international condemnation and promises of sanctions.
Continue reading...World leaders condemn ‘grave and serious’ kidnapping of Mali’s leaders as Col Assimi Goïita seizes power
Mali’s interim vice-president, Col Assimi Goïta, who led a military coup last year, has declared he has seized power from the transitional president and prime minister, after they failed to consult him about the formation of a new government.
In a statement broadcast on state television, Goïta said Mali’s civilian president, Bah Ndaw, and prime minister, Moctar Ouane, had been placed “outside of their prerogatives”, and that he orchestrated their arrests and removal to the Kati military base, outside of the capital, Bamako.
Continue reading...Armed conflicts, the climate crisis and Covid-19 are contributing to chronic risk of food insecurity in the region, says Unocha report
A record 29 million people will need humanitarian assistance in the Sahel and the Lake Chad basin in 2021 amid a deepening crisis, a report by the UN office for humanitarian affairs (Unocha) has estimated.
Almost one in four people in the border areas of Burkina Faso, northern Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger and north-east Nigeria are expected to need aid in 2021, 5 million more than a year ago, and a 52% rise on 2019.
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