Tag: Africa

Africa
bududa

Uganda to hear first rights case concerning climate change

A case has opened before a court in Uganda, brought by citizens charging the central government with failing to uphold its human rights obligations to protect threatened communities from the effects of climate change. Forty-eight survivors of a deadly landslideassert that the Ugandan government violated their “rights to life, property, and the right to a clean and healthy environment.” Following torrential rains in December 2019, the landslide killed more than 30 people and destroyed hundreds of homes in the Bududa district of Uganda, in the Mount Elgon region. The suit alleges that the government knew of the risk of life-threatening landslides for years. In the Mount Elgon region alone, there were more than 400 landslides recorded between 2008 and 2018. (Photo via The Watchers)

Africa
tigray protest

Podcast: solidarity with Tigray

In Episode 70 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Daniel Woldu, US representative of Omna Tigray, an international network calling for action to halt the genocide in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Woldu discusses the abrogation of Tigray’s self-rule under the Ethiopian regime of Abiy Ahmed, atrocities that have taken place under cover of an information blockade, the ongoing plunder and weaponization of humanitarian aid, why Eritrea has intervened on the side of the Ethiopian central government, and the urgent need for accountability and an independent investigation into war crimes and genocide. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Omna Tigray via Twitter)

Africa
Tigray

Abuses, aid blocking continue in Ethiopia

International pressure on parties to the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region is building, but abuses of civilians and aid blockages and looting continue. The Eritrean military remains in Tigray, and is accused of looting and abuses despite a pledge by Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed that its forces would pull back. AFP news agency obtained documents from Tigray’s Abiy-appointed interim government describing harassment and looting of aid supplies by Eritrean troops. Meanwhile, reports mount of the rounding up and detention of thousands of Tigrayans, seemingly on grounds of ethnicity. The UN says 90% of displaced people have still not received help with shelter, and a major road into the region was blocked by hostilities for 12 days. (Photo: UNHCR)

Africa
somalia

Somalia: drought compounds political crisis

The political heat is rising in Somalia over the determination of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, known as Farmajo, to cling to power despite his term having ended in February. He’s embraced a decision by the lower house of the Federal Parliament to extend his (and their) stay in office for an extra two years, to allow the running of delayed elections. The move was rejected by the Senate as “unconstitutional. The Senate called on Farmajo to rejoin UN-led talks—which he has rejected. As the crisis deepens, there are reports of a troop build-up in the capital and the fragmentation of the security forces. Yet this political tussle is being played out in the Mogadishu bubble. In the countryside, where the government holds little sway, a new drought emergency is underway. Almost 40,000 people have been forced from their homes in the first three months of the year due to poor rains, joining the 1.3 million displaced in 2020 by combined humanitarian disasters. (Photo: Joe English/UNICEF)

Africa
fact

Chad: president killed as rebels advance

President Idriss Déby of Chad died following injuries sustained in fighting against rebels in the country’s north, authorities announced. The president’s son, Gen. Mahamat Kaka, is said to be serving as interim president. Déby had just been declared provisional winner of another presidential term, with nearly 80% of the vote. He had been in power for three decades. The rebel Front for Change & Concord in Chad (FACT) invaded the country from its bases across the border in Libya, in an attempt to disrupt the elections. Both sides are claiming victory after clashes in the northern region of Kanem, and FACT says that its forces are advancing on the capital, N’Djamena. (Image via Twitter)

Africa
el Geneina

Hundred killed in new Darfur violence —again

Hundreds of armed militants launched repeated attacks on Abu Zar displaced persons camp outside El Geneina, capital of Sudan’s West Darfur state. The waves of attacks by presumed Arab militias on mostly Masalit camp residents claimed at least 100 lives and uprooted thousands, some across the border into neighboring Chad. Aid groups have suspended their operations, while a state of emergency has been declared across West Darfur. A similar series of attacks on camps around El Geneina in January left over 150 dead. Many accuse militias of stepping up attacks following the December withdrawal of a UN-African Union peacekeeping mission after 13 years on the ground in Darfur region. (Photo: Philip Kleinfeld/TNH)

Africa
Juba protest

South Sudan: protests after singer’s death

Juba, capital of South Sudan, saw street protests after popular singer Trisha “Cee” Cosmaswas killed when the bici-taxi she was riding in was struck by a truck. At least a score were arrested in the demonstrations, and the local Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation (CEPO) charged that peaceful protesters were swept up by police. A demonstration called by youth group Anataban decried both lawless motorists on the capital’s streets and a lack of emergency services. Tanker-trucks delivering water to districts where residents have no indoor plumbing have been involved in several such incidents. Speaking before his arrest, one activist told local Radio Tamazuj, “The same government that gives foreigners driving licenses, without a street driving test, has failed to provide health services, and many people have died because of water truck accidents.” (Photo: Radio Tamazuj)

Africa
Coalition for the Sahel

Outrage over French air-strike in Mali

A French airstrike killed 19 civilians attending a wedding celebration in a remote Malian village, according to an investigation by the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, MINUSMA. The report based its findings on hundreds of interviews, satellite images, and evidence gathered from a trip to Bounti, the village hit by the January strike. The French defense ministry rejected the report, maintaining the casualties were Islamist militants. French troops were hailed as heroes by many Malians when they drove out militant groups from the country’s desert north in 2013. But criticism has grown as a 5,000-strong regional counterinsurgency force—called Operation Barkhane—has failed to prevent militants from regrouping and expanding across West Africa’s Sahel. Despite recent battlefield gains, the operation is drawing increasing comparisons to the US war in Afghanistan. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Africa
Dirkou

US steps up drone ops as Sahel violence flares

In the latest outbreak of fast-escalating violence across Africa’s Sahel, gunmen in Niger killed at least 58 people when they intercepted a convoy of four commercial transport vehicles carrying local civilians from a weekly market, and attacked nearby villages. The passengers were summarily executed, and homes and granaries put to the torch in the villages. The attacks took place in the Tillabéri region, near the flashpoint “tri-border area” where Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso come together. Militant groups linked to ISIS and al-Qaeda cross between all three countries. The CIA is stepping up drone surveillance flights from a base it has established at Dirkou, in Niger’s Agadez region. MQ-9 Reapers are stationed at the base, and armed strikes on militant targets are said to be under consideration pending a review by the Biden administration. (Photo: Airman Michelle Ulber via Israel Defense)

Africa
JCET

US, Portugal send special forces to Mozambique

A week after the US State Department added the Islamist insurgents in northern Mozambique to its list of “foreign terrorist organizations,” the Pentagon is now preparing to send a team of military advisors into the conflict zone. The US Embassy in Maputo announced that the two-month Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program will see US Special Forces troops instructing Mozambican marines. This follows an announcement by Portugal, the former colonial power in Mozambique, that it is dispatching an elite military unit to help fight the insurgents, known locally as the Shabaab. Lisbon is also petitioning the European Union to send a military mission to the region to back up the Mozambique Armed Defense Forces. (Photo: US Embassy in Mozambique)

Africa
OLA

Ethiopia: Oromo rebels behind new ethnic massacre?

At least 29 were killed, including women and children, when gunmen attacked a church in Horo Guduru zone of Ethiopia’s Oromia regional state. Local residents were gathered in the church to celebrate the start of the two-month Lent fast by followers of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo rite. The massacre was the bloodiest in a wave of attacks on residents of the Amhara ethnicity in the region over the past months. The National Movement of Amhara (NaMA) blames the attacks on the rebel Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), but also accuses the central government of complicity. NaMA said that at rallies in support of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in the region, Amhara are stigmatized and referred to by the pejorative “neftegna“—meaning “rifleman” or “musketeer,” a reference to armed settlers in Oromia under the Amhara-dominated Abyssinian monarchy. (Photo via Addis Standard)