Day: October 11, 2021

The commander of multinational troops fighting Boko Haram has said at least 3,600 of the militants have surrendered since August. Nigeria-born Major General Abdul Khalifa Ibrahim spoke Sunday at the end of a visit to Cameroon.

General Ibrahim, commander of the four-nation Multinational Joint Task Force Commission, or MNJTF, says the number of militants escaping from Boko Haram is increasing by the day.

“I can tell you authoritatively from the beginning of August, about 3,000 Boko Haram members have surrendered. This is just within the Multinational Joint Task Force in Cameroon and in Nigeria,” he said.

He says it is suspected that an additional 600 militants who surrendered within the past two months to the Joint Task Force are former Boko Haram fighters.

Several thousand other defections were reported in May, when infighting broke out among Boko Haram factions after Boko Haram leader Aboubakar Shekau was declared dead.

MNJTF, headquartered in Chad’s capital N’djamena, is made up of more than 10,000 troops from Niger, Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria. Ibrahim says that since August, his forces have launched “ceaseless” raids on Boko Haram camps in the Sambisa forest and the Lake Chad Basin, causing confusion among militants.

The jihadists have not responded to claims that many militants are defecting. Boko Haram usually uses social media platforms to dismiss such claims.

Ibrahim was in Yaounde for a meeting of officials of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, from Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria.

The general and various officials say the weakening of Boko Haram has allowed thousands of displaced people to return to their homes.

Midjiyawa Bakari is governor of Cameroon’s Far North region on the border with Nigeria. He says Cameroon is providing aid kits of blankets, mattresses, food and water to Nigerians who voluntarily return home.

“We have already accompanied more than 5,000 Nigerians who have gone back to Borno state and the head of state decided to hand to each refugee a kit to enable them, once in their land to start their lives.”

In September, more than 1,200 former Boko Haram fighters and their family members who escaped from the jihadist group to Cameroon had returned to Chad and Nigeria.

Mahamat Fadoul Mackaye is governor of Lake Province, an administrative unit in Chad.

Mackaye says Chad’s government is socially integrating militants and former fighters who are returning. He says his country is expecting foreign donors and funding agencies to provide financial and material support to develop localities destroyed by Boko Haram. He says since the death of Shekau, jihadist fighters have not had the courage to attack government troops.

Mackaye, however, said that remaining fighters of the jihadist group regularly attack villages for food.

The defections from Boko Haram do not mean the jihadist threat is going away. Lake Chad Basin member states accuse the Islamic State in West Africa Province, or the ISWAP, a Boko Haram splinter group, of infiltrating areas along the Cameroon-Nigeria and Chad border. Cameroon says ISWAP is trying to persuade civilians, especially youths, to join the jihadist group.

Source: Voice of America

The African Union says it wants to partner with the United Nations in a proposed joint mission to support Somalia in its efforts to battle armed extremists and achieve stability.

In a statement, the African Union’s Peace and Security Council said it endorsed an independent assessment team’s recommendation for a hybrid operation that would replace the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) after this year.

Since 2007, the regional peacekeeping mission, which operates with U.N. approval, has aided Somali government forces in their battle to stabilize the Horn of Africa country, mainly against al-Shabab militants.

The African Union communique notes “grave concern at the worsening security situation in Somalia … in large parts of the country, (which) has detracted attention from the critical processes of state-building and stabilization.”

The hybrid mission was among several options recommended by the assessment team in a report released in May. The plan, which the African Union has proposed to take effect in January, would need approval by the U.N. Security Council and Somalia’s central government.

It faces stiff opposition. Last December, a separate U.N. assessment team had proposed that the African Union reconfigure or modify its current mission. But it did not recommend military involvement by the U.N., which already has a diplomatic mission in Somalia.

Somali Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdirizak previously rejected calls for a hybrid plan.

“We prefer an option that emphasizes the Somali transition plan,” he said in an August interview with VOA Somali. That plan “pursues the enemy while building the capacity of the Somali forces and eventually transfers security responsibilities to Somalis.”

The African Union assessment team’s May report recommended the hybrid A.U.-U.N. mission have a mix of police (50%), military personnel (35%) and civilians (15%).

The African Union, U.N. and Somali government would have to decide on the strategic objectives, mandate, size and composition of the new mission, the statement said.

Currently, five countries — including Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Kenya and Djibouti — contribute to the more than 19,000 AMISOM military personnel operating in Somalia. The communique said the African Union wants to expand the number of countries supplying troops.

The communique called for establishing the hybrid mission under the U.N. Charter’s Chapter VII, which it said would “ensure predictable and sustainable multi-year financing for the future mission through U.N. assessed contributions.”

Currently, international donors — mainly the European Union — cover the mission’s operating costs. The IPI Global Observatory has estimated it costs hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

In pressing for the hybrid plan, the African Union communique cited “deep concern” at the political impasse between Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (commonly known as Farmajo) and his prime minister, Mohamed Hussein Roble, and its “significant impact on ongoing political processes. …” The two are embroiled in a fight over the case of a missing female intelligence officer.

Somalia chooses its president through indirect elections. The country is in the midst of a slow-moving election process that could take months. Most lawmakers in the 54-seat Upper House have been elected, but the process to elect 275 members of the Lower House has not begun. The two chambers will vote on a president at a date that has not yet been determined. The next president was expected to have been elected by October 10.

The communique said that the leaders’ dispute is not only negatively affecting the political process and elections but is also delaying discussions on a post-2021 African Union mission.

The African Union seeks immediate consultations with the U.N., the Somali government and other stakeholders to work out transition plans.

Source: Voice of America

Kenya’s Benson Kipruto won the pandemic-delayed Boston Marathon on Monday when the race returned from a 30-month absence with a smaller, socially distanced feel and moved from the spring for the first time in its 125-year history.

Diana Kipyogei won the women’s race to complete the eighth Kenyan sweep since 2000.

Although organizers put runners through COVID-19 protocols and asked spectators to keep their distance, large crowds lined the 26.2-mile course from Hopkinton to Boston as an early drizzle cleared and temperatures rose to the low 60s for a beautiful fall day.

They watched Kipruto run away from the lead pack as it turned onto Beacon Street with about three miles to go and break the tape in 2 hours, 9 minutes, 51 seconds.

A winner in Prague and Athens who finished 10th in Boston in 2019, Kipruto waited out an early breakaway by American CJ Albertson, who led by as many as two minutes at the halfway point. Kipruto took the lead at Cleveland Circle and finished 46 seconds ahead of 2016 winner Lemi Berhanu; Albertson, who turned 28 on Monday, was 10th, 1:53 back.

Kipyogei ran ahead for much of the race and finished in 2:24:45, 23 seconds ahead of 2017 winner Edna Kiplagat.

Marcel Hug of Switzerland won the men’s wheelchair race earlier despite making a wrong term in the final mile, finishing the slightly detoured route just seven seconds off his course record in 1:08:11.

Manuela Schär, also from Switzerland, won the women’s wheelchair race in 1:35:21.

Hug, who has raced Boston eight times and has five victories here, cost himself a $50,000 course record bonus when he missed the second-to-last turn, following the lead vehicle instead of turning from Commonwealth Avenue onto Hereford Street.

“The car went straight and I followed the car,” said Hug, who finished second in the Chicago Marathon by 1 second on Sunday. “But it’s my fault. I should go right, but I followed the car.”

With fall foliage replacing the spring daffodils and more masks than mylar blankets, the 125th Boston Marathon at last left Hopkinton for its long-awaited long run to Copley Square.

A rolling start and shrunken field allowed for social distancing on the course, as organizers tried to manage amid a changing COVID-19 pandemic that forced them to cancel the race last year for the first time since the event began in 1897.

“It’s a great feeling to be out on the road,” race director Dave McGillivray said. “Everyone is excited. We’re looking forward to a good day.”

A light rain greeted participants at the Hopkinton Green, where about 30 uniformed members of the Massachusetts National Guard left at 6 a.m. The men’s and women’s wheelchair racers — some of whom completed the 26.2-mile (42.2 km) distance in Chicago a day earlier — left shortly after 8 a.m., followed by the men’s and women’s professional fields.

“We took things for granted before COVID-19. It’s great to get back to the community and it puts things in perspective,” said National Guard Capt. Greg Davis, 39, who was walking with the military group for the fourth time. “This is a historic race, but today is a historic day.”

Kenya’s Lawrence Cherono and Worknesh Degefa of Ethiopia did not return to defend their 2019 titles, but 13 past champions and five Tokyo Paralympic gold medal winners were in the professional fields.

Held annually since a group of Bostonians returned from the 1896 Athens Olympics and decided to stage a marathon of their own, the race has occurred during World Wars and even the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. But it was first postponed, then canceled last year, then postponed from the spring in 2021.

It’s the first time the event hasn’t been held in April as part of the Patriots’ Day holiday that commemorates the start of the Revolutionary War. To recognize Indigenous Peoples Day, race organizers honored 1936 and ’39 winner Ellison “Tarzan” Brown and three-time runner-up Patti Catalano Dillon, a member of the Mi’kmaq tribe.

To manage the spread of the coronavirus, runners had to show proof that they’re vaccinated or test negative for COVID-19. Organizers also re-engineered the start so runners in the recreational field of more than 18,000 weren’t waiting around in crowded corrals for their wave to begin; instead, once they get off the bus in Hopkinton they can go.

“I love that we’re back to races across the country and the world,” said Doug Flannery, a 56-year-old Illinois resident who was waiting to start his sixth Boston Marathon. “It gives people hope that things are starting to come back.”

Police were visible all along the course as authorities vowed to remain vigilant eight years after the bombings that killed three spectators and maimed hundreds of others on Boylston Street near the Back Bay finish line.

The race started about an hour earlier than usual, leading to smaller crowds in the first few towns. Wellesley College students had been told not to kiss the runners as they pass the school’s iconic “scream tunnel” near the halfway mark.

Source: Voice of America

Eritrea’s senior delegation led by Foreign Minister Osman Saleh is participating at the 60th annual High-Level Meeting of Non-Aligned Movement convened today, 11 October, in Belgrade, Serbia. The Eritrean delegation includes Presidential Adviser Mr. Yemane Gebreab as well as Eritrea’s Ambassadors to Italy and the United Nations.

The Non-Aligned Movement that was founded in 1961 in the former Yugoslavia encompasses 120 developing countries and 10 global organizations.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

I bring to this important 60th Anniversary Commemorative Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, the greetings of the people and government of Eritrea and of President Isaias Afwerki.

Excellencies,

The Non-Aligned Movement was born at a critical juncture in history, a period of hope, enthusiasm, and vibrant energy. It embodied the profound aspirations of the peoples of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, South America, the Pacific, and other regions of the world for self-determination, for genuine sovereignty and territorial integrity, for independent paths to political, economic, and social development, for equitable and just world order. It was a visionary movement that crystallized the determination of these nations and their towering leaders to seize their own destiny into their own hands, to free themselves from colonial, neo-colonial, and imperialist subjugation, to resist and fight unwarranted intervention in their affairs. It sought to build humane societies, with people at the center of development.

Much has been achieved by the Non-Aligned Movement and its constituent nations over the past six decades. Yet, it is glaringly clear, that the Mission Has Not Been Accomplished. The principles of Bandung are routinely flouted, our world more unequal and unjust than ever. In this light, we the peoples and countries of NAM need to rededicate ourselves to its vital principles and lofty goals, which remain highly relevant today. We need to strengthen the unity of our ranks and act in concert in pursuit of our common vital interests and the cause of human survival and advancement. We need to go further and develop effective organizational mechanisms that will enable us to address the myriad challenges that we face and benefit from the vast opportunities that are available to us.

Excellencies,

The world is undergoing profound change and transformation. A historic breakthrough is possible. It will not be easy as our project will be resisted and fought tooth and nail by the privileged beneficiaries of the current unjust system. But it can be done. We now have a critical mass of capabilities- a powerful blend of natural, human and cultural capabilities. We owe it to our people and our coming generations to make it happen. Let’s seize this historical moment. Let’s make Belgrade 2021, this 60th Commemoration, mark the relaunching and revitalization of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea