Category: General

Mozambique’s defense minister says South African troops are expected this week to join operations meant to counter insurgents in northern Cabo Delgado province.
Defense Minister Jaime Neto says terrorists are being cornered as a result of intense operations by Mozambican and Rwanda forces in Cabo Delgado.
Briefing the media in Maputo on Friday, the defense minister said it was difficult to count the number of insurgents killed in the operations.
He was referring to an announcement made by Rwandan authorities in Kigali about the killing of 14 terrorists in Cabo Delgado during an operation this week.
Rwandan soldiers, who arrived in Cabo Delgado about a week ago, are fighting alongside Mozambican troops under the framework of a bilateral agreement.
In addition to Rwanda, Mozambique will have support from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), following the approval by regional leaders of a “joint standby force” during a summit in Maputo last month.
Neto said Rwanda and Mozambique are operating together but SADC will start. The contingents will arrive. He said I think the South African contingent will start very soon, within this week, which is significant but also a contingent from Botswana is coming. He said an Angolan contingent will also arrive and part of it is already on the ground.
The number of soldiers the regional bloc will send to Mozambique is not publicly known, but experts from the SADC, who were in Cabo Delgado, proposed that the mission should have around 3,000 soldiers.
Armed groups have terrorized Cabo Delgado province since 2017, with some attacks being claimed by the Islamic State militant group.
Humanitarian organizations estimate that more than 3,100 people have been killed and up to a million others displaced.

Source: Voice of America

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA – Tanzania’s main opposition party and rights activists are condemning the arrest of CHADEMA party leader Freeman Mbowe, who faces terrorism charges.

Police on Wednesday arrested Mbowe and 10 other party members as they were about to attend a conference to discuss changes to Tanzania’s constitution.

Mbowe was brought before a court in Dar es Salaam Monday to face charges of economic sabotage. He is accused of funding terrorist activities aimed at assassinating government leaders. There has been no comment from the government.

The charges were read out in court, but Mbowe was not allowed to respond.

Opposition supporters and human rights activists condemned what they see as a flagrant violation of Mbowe’s rights.

Rights activist Merciana Mhagama says the entire incident goes against Tanzanian law.

Mhagama says since Mbowe was arrested and taken to court, we have seen a huge abuse of law and principles, but also the incident has gone against freedom of opinion and expression. In a democratic country, we know our constitution allows people to give out their opinion, she says.Another activist, Antele Benjamin, says he is disappointed in seeing Mbowe arrested.

Benjamin says CHADEMA decided to use their constitutional right to demand a new constitution but in return to an unusual situation, we have seen its leader is charged with terrorism-related crimes, something which is a sad thing, and in a civilized society it is something that we didn’t expect to happen.

Police on Tuesday dismissed the accusations that Mbowe’s arrest was linked to politics. David Misime is a police spokesperson.

He says Freeman Mbowe knew that he had accusations against him, and he will be held by police for further legal action until the investigation against him is accomplished. He says Mbowe saw it is better to run to Mwanza for the umbrella of constitutional meeting so if arrested, people would believe he was arrested for that, which is not true.

However, political analyst Aika Peter sees Mbowe’s arrest as a threat to democracy in the country.

Democratically with incidents like these, whether it is a message they are trying to send or the message that is there from somewhere that we are no longer safe, said Peter. They are telling us that whatever promises we were told, it was just to please people so as to see we have direction but so far we are back to square one and we have returned to a very bad situation.

Late President John Magufuli, who died in March, was known for running Tanzania an iron-fisted manner. Many activists hoped for a change after President Samia Hassan took over.

Hassan has made a sharp turn on COVID-19 policy, rejecting Magufuli’s belief that the infection did not exist in Tanzania and paving the way for the country to get its first shipment of vaccines.

But she has not embraced political reforms the way some activists were hoping.

On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said, “Instead of arresting political opponents who are calling for constitutional reform, President Hassan’s government should … protect everyone’s rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly in line with international human rights norms.”

Source: Voice of America

ABUJA, NIGERIA – A Nigerian court has ordered the secret police to release five suspects detained for wearing T-shirts criticizing President Muhammadu Buhari, their lawyer said Tuesday.

The men were arrested early this month by the Department of State Service (DSS) during a church service led by a well-known evangelical pastor in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

They had been wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Buhari Must Go!” inside the church when they were arrested and detained.

The church was accused of aiding the arrests, but it denied the allegation.

On Monday, the federal high court Abuja ordered the DSS to release the suspects, lawyer Allen Sowore told AFP.

“The judge ordered their release forthwith without any condition. But we have not got a certified true copy of that order,” he said.

He said his clients were yet to be freed.

“Unfortunately, the judge has not signed the order. So, we just came here [to the DSS office] thinking that they will act on the order of the court, but they have not acted.”

Buhari, a former army commander, has come under fire after his government recently banned Twitter, a move Western allies and critics warned undermined freedom of expression.

Officials announced the ban after Twitter removed a remark from Buhari’s personal account for violating its policies.

The Nigerian leader is also under pressure to tackle the country’s insecurity.

The security forces are battling an Islamist insurgency in the northeast, a surge in mass kidnappings by criminal gangs in central and northwestern states, and separatist tension in parts of the south.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA – The International Organization for Migration says at least 57 migrants, most from West Africa, drowned Monday, when their boat capsized off the Libyan Coast.

About 70 people were on board the doomed vessel when it left the Libyan port of Khums late Sunday evening. Reports say the boat, which had embarked for Europe, ran into trouble soon after, took on water and sank.

U.N. migration agency spokesman Paul Dillion says no additional bodies have been found. He told VOA at least 20 women and two toddlers were among the missing and are presumed dead. He said survivors have been taken to the offices of the Libyan investigation’s unit in Khums, where they are being assisted.

“Libyan fishermen and the Libyan coast guard rescued 18 people and brought them to shore.… Our staff, who are providing regional assistance, medical, food and water to the survivors, described them as shocked, deeply traumatized, and exhausted from their ordeal,” he said.

Dillon said the survivors are natives of Nigeria, Ghana, and Gambia. He said he does not know what will happen to the migrants once they’ve recovered from their ordeal.

However, he said the IOM believes Libya is not a safe port of return and migrants who are picked up at sea should not be returned to Libya because of the instability in the country.

“Of particular concern are the conditions, well documented, in detention centers in the country where migrants are warehoused and routinely subject to a wide variety of well documented human rights abuses, be they extortions, sexual violence and other things,” Dillon said.

Every year, thousands of people, fleeing conflict and poverty, embark on dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa to Europe in pursuit of a better life. Every year many hundreds lose their lives.

The IOM says this latest tragedy off the Libyan coast pushes the 2021 death toll on the central Mediterranean route to 970 men, women, and children. As the weather improves, the agency warns the death toll will rise as an increasing number of flimsy smuggler boats depart from Libya and Tunisia for Europe.

Source: Voice of America

KUJE, NIGERIA – Some Nigerian companies are using coconut and palm shells to make charcoal briquettes in an effort to slow ongoing deforestation. Nigeria banned charcoal exports after a World Bank report showed the country lost nearly half its forest cover in just a decade.

Nothing goes to waste at the coconut processing facility started by Emeka Ugwueje 10 years ago outside Abuja.

“We began thinking inward to say, ‘OK, let our waste become the necessary energy to make fire’ and this is where we have come,” Ugwueje said.

The shells burn for about an hour before turning from brown to a carbon-rich black derivative.

They are cooled, ground and later manually molded into briquettes.

But Ugwueje said there’s a plan to scale up mechanically.

“We intend to introduce several types of machines. Among them is the molder, the cutter, and the drying system – a dehydrator that will bring these briquettes into a more solid form,” Ugweuje said.

Major environmental repercussions

Ugwueje’s company, SFK Coconut, which makes products made from coconut, is one of many in Nigeria using coconut briquettes as fuel in place of wood charcoal.

Experts said Nigeria’s huge charcoal market causes major environmental repercussions. Charcoal from here is mostly exported to Europe and the United States.

A 2017 World Bank Report showed Nigeria lost nearly half of its forest cover between 2007 and 2017 as a result of the charcoal trade. The report also predicted Nigeria’s forests could be completely gone by 2047.

Political will is missing

Conservationist David Michael Terungwa, executive director of the Global Initiative for Food Security and Ecosystem Preservation, said a lack of compliance with Nigeria’s charcoal export ban is to blame for continued deforestation. He also cites a lack of political will to address the problem.

“I think the issue is compliance and compliance monitoring, and enforcement by the regulatory agency,” Terungwa said.

He was referring to Nigeria’s National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency.

For years, Nigerian authorities have been encouraging tree planting to replace decimated forests.

But experts say in the absence of adequate monitoring systems, Nigerians must make a conscious effort to use other alternatives to tree-derived charcoal for fuel.

Source: Voice of America

Cameroon says hundreds of civilians have fled Sagme, a northern village on the border with Nigeria, after a Boko Haram attack Saturday that left eight government troops dead and 13 wounded, according to a press release. The Cameroonian military deployed to the area and said fighters were also killed.

Cameroon’s military says about 90 heavily armed terrorists on six military tactical vehicles and several motorcycles entered the country from Nigeria Saturday, launching attacks on Sagme village.

Sagme is located in Cameroon’s Far North region that shares a border with Nigeria’s Borno state, said to be an epicenter of jihadist group Boko Haram.

The press release by Army Captain Cyrille Serge Atonfack Guemo says the troops fought back but did not say how many combatants were killed. Guemo said the fighters escaped to Nigeria carrying bodies of their dead peers.

Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of Cameroon’s Far North region, said six of the Cameroonian troops were killed on the spot while the other two died while being transported to a hospital in the northern town of Maroua. He said many troops suffered severe wounds during the intense shootout with Boko Haram terrorists but managed to escape. Bakari said he is extending the condolences of Cameroon’s President Paul Biya to the families of the soldiers killed.

Cameroon’s military said Biya immediately ordered the deployment of more troops to secure the country’s territory and civilians.

Bakari said several hundred civilians escaped from Sagme and neighboring villages to the bush for safety. He said the fleeing civilians should return to their villages as the military has been redeployed to protect lives and property.

He said people who think that Boko Haram has been eradicated from northern Cameroon are wrong. He said he is calling on civilians to help the military fight the terrorists through information sharing.

Bakari said he has asked traditional rulers, the clergy and community leaders to remobilize self-defense groups, especially along the border with Nigeria.

The Nigerian government has not issued a statement regarding the attack. But the Multinational Joint Task Force of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, comprising troops from Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Benin, has acknowledged the incident and said the fighters crossed over from Nigeria.

Security analyst and former military spokesman Didier Badjeck says the Cameroonian military alone cannot defeat Boko Haram terrorists.

He said Boko Haram has been infiltrating many localities on the northern border with Nigeria and that it is very difficult for the military to detect the terrorists if civilians do not collaborate by reporting strangers in all border towns and villages. Badjeck said churches and mosques should ask civilians to stop lodging visitors and giving strangers food, thinking that they are obeying religious teachings.

Badjeck said fighters may be disguising themselves as ranchers moving around in search of food for their cattle or as farmers visiting markets to sell crops.

In December 2020, Bakari said Boko Haram was establishing ties with top officials of his region. The revelation came after Cameroon’s military arrested Blama Malla, a former lawmaker, for allegedly supplying cattle to the Nigerian terrorist group. Malla was detained in the northern town of Mora.

Boko Haram terrorists have been fighting for 11 years to create an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria. The fighting has spread to Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin, with regular killings, burnings of mosques, churches, markets and schools, and attacks on military installations.

The United Nations reports that Boko Haram violence has killed 30,000 people and displaced about two million in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

Source: Voice of America

Cameroon’s government has sent Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo, to the border between the English- and French-speaking regions amid increasing English-speaking separatist incursions into French-speaking towns and villages.

Officials say many businesses have been abandoned and construction work on government buildings halted due to the increased separatist attacks.

Scores of people watch as members of the Cameroon military display military weapons in Foumban, a French-speaking town on the border with Cameroon’s English-speaking North-West region.

Warrant Officer Bouba Dawanga Syraye, the ranking officer at the military post in Foumban., says the weapons were seized from suspected rebels.

He says government troops arrested 10 suspects and recovered guns, ammunition and several locally made explosives. He says all the suspects and their accomplices have denied accusations of arms trafficking.

The military says arms proliferation in the French-speaking West region, where Foumban is located, has been on the rise since 2017. The military says English-speaking rebels fighting to create an independent state they call Ambazonia in French-majority Cameroon infiltrate French-speaking towns and villages with weapons.

The government says at least 40 deadly separatist incursions have been reported in the West region since 2017. Bamboutos, Noun and Menou administrative units, also known as divisions, bordering the North-West region are the hardest hit by the separatist fighters.

Awah Fonka, the governor of Cameroon’s West region, says the fighters attack and kill government troops, loot shops and destroy schools. He says the rebel incursions and killing have halted work on some government projects.

“We have recorded attacks at the level of several projects which would have helped in the development of the region,” said Fonka. “The case of Babadjou, Bamenda, Bambotos [road projects], as well as the road leading from Kuikong to Bandjoun and especially the divisions bordering the [English speaking North-] West region and the South-West region.”

Fonka said the military has been deployed to protect engineers on roads whose construction has been abandoned. He pleaded with civilians to help stop separatist incursions by reporting strangers in their towns and villages.

Fonka did not say how many government troops, rebels and civilians have been killed, but said the military was deployed this week to stop the incursions.

On July 15, Cameroonian officials said anglophone rebels were disguising themselves as military troops and launching attacks on villages and towns in the West region.

This week, Cameroonian President Paul Biya sent Assomo to lead a high-profile military delegation to French-speaking areas bordering the English-speaking North-West and South-West regions.

During a meeting with local military officers and governors of the North-West and West regions on Friday, Assomo said he was asked to encourage troops fighting the separatists. He said the government adopted a new strategy to fight the rebels but did not say what the new strategy entails.

Rodrique Sufor, who sells chicken in Mbouda, where Assomo and his delegation visited, says he is one of the many people who have relocated their businesses from the town of Galim because of regular separatist incursions and killing there.

“When we hear Ambazonians [separatist fighters] beheading soldiers, the situation cannot leave [allow] us that we can stay in peace, so we want the government to take the situation seriously by reinforcing the security around the area,” said Sufor.

Sufor says many people have also fled from the town of Babadjou to safer French-speaking towns.

The government is asking the fleeing civilians to return and assuring them that the military will assure their security and safety.

Cameroon’s separatist conflict has cost more than 3,000 lives and forced 550,000 people to flee to French-speaking regions of Cameroon or into neighboring Nigeria, according to the United Nations.

Source: Voice of America