Month: November 2022

In northern Kenya, the government and aid groups have launched a project teaching computer coding to herders so they can find more sustainable jobs. But not everyone supports education that could end their traditional way of life, as Victoria Amunga reports from Isiolo Kenya. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo
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Kenya is hosting a third round of talks aimed at bringing peace to the volatile eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The East African Community regional bloc has convened a meeting in Nairobi to discuss how to solve the political, security and social problems that have plagued the eastern DRC for decades.

This week’s talks are essentially an inter-Congolese dialogue, involving local community leaders, civil society organizations, and some of the armed groups active in eastern Congo. 

The EAC says Congo needs to implement political and institutional reforms that will make it conducive to defeat and disarm the armed groups. 

Former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is also the bloc’s peace envoy to the DRC, said the Congolese people need to own the peace process and address the real insecurity problems in Ituri, North and South Kivu and two other provinces.

“To also deepen the consultation of communities and armed groups from the concerned areas for the greater inclusivity and greater ownership of the process, including for the first time with the representatives from Maniema and Tanganyika, and identification of root causes of the conflict in the five provinces and finally to evaluate the concrete modalities for the restoration of state authority in each province,” Kenyatta said.

The eastern DRC is engulfed in violence in part because of armed groups competing over the area’s rich mines. Neighboring countries’ troops have crossed into Congo, chasing rebel groups that they accuse of trying to destabilize their countries.

Most recently, the Congolese army has been fighting with the rebel group M23, which it accuses of receiving military support from Rwanda, an accusation denied by Kigali.

The M23 agreed to a cease-fire last week during talks in Angola but said they will not withdraw from territories captured from the Congolese army.

The rebel group has blamed the army and some rebel groups for attacking their families and uprooting them from their homes.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who joined the conference online, said Congo’s problems can be solved but all communities must be involved in the peace process.

“The internal groups of Congo come from the weakening of the state authority in that area for a prolonged period but even this problem can be solved by combining the political method, i.e. dialogue, with military method,” he said. “The peaceful solution should be the outcome of that dialogue but the victim communities and the refugees should also be consulted.”

Kenyan President William Ruto said the region must work towards peace and respect international laws. 

“We are here to emphasize the urgent need for dialogue, de-escalation and to encourage and facilitate every actor to intensify their pursuit through the effective engagement of regional and international dispute resolution mechanisms,” he said. “We also encourage regional states to maintain their commitment to existing regional bilateral as well as multilateral understanding.”

The DRC said it will hold presidential and parliamentary votes by December 2023 and the electoral commission said it will stick to the deadlines despite the threat of armed groups.
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Rescue workers in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, are searching for people believed trapped under a landslide that killed at least 14 people and injured scores more Sunday. The victims were attending a funeral when the landslide occurred.

Civilians mourn as they join rescue workers in digging and searching for people they fear are trapped underneath a huge pile of debris.

The soil and stones collapsed Sunday evening on several hundred community members from Cameroon’s west region who had gathered for a funeral of people who died within the past month.

Rosette Ngeufack, 50, is among the mourners. She says she saw the ground collapse on scores of people including her two sons.Ngeufack says she is still searching for her 24-year-old son who was buried by the landslide alongside his motorcycle. She says she left the Yaounde central hospital at 2 a.m. after hospital staff reassured her that her 21-year-old son, also a victim of the landslide, is responding to treatment.

It is a tradition in Cameroon for communities to organize funeral events in towns after burial of their community members in villages.

People who attended the funeral prior to the landslide said they had prayed for the departed and were sharing drinks and food when the unfortunate incident occurred.

Nasseri Paul Bea, governor of Cameroon’s center region where Yaounde is located, visited the disaster site for the second time within 15 hours on Monday morning. He says that investigations carried out by Cameroon police indicate that some civilians are still trapped in the landslide.

Bea says he asked the government for more troops to assist rescue workers who for the past 14 hours have been searching for people. He says bodies removed from the disaster site are identified by the police and taken to the mortuary of the central hospital in Yaounde and then eventually to their family members.

Cameroon’s government says the landslide occurred when an 18-meter-high embankment collapsed on several hundred civilians attending a funeral in a house constructed in a risky area.

Bea said the embankment that gave way was not solid enough to stop the soil from collapsing.

Cameroon’s Housing Ministry Monday asked people living in areas deemed at risk of landslides to immediately to leave or be forced to relocate.

Yaounde, a city of about 3 million people, has had devastating floods caused by heavy rains within the past three months. The government says more than 25 houses constructed in risky areas have collapsed, injuring and killing scores of people.
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Cameroon and Serbia battled to a 3-3 draw Monday in a goal-filled match at the men’s World Cup in Qatar as they tried to keep alive hopes of advancing past the group stage.

The scoring outburst came after neither side netted a goal in its first game of the tournament, with Serbia falling 2-0 to Brazil and Cameroon losing 1-0 to Switzerland.

Cameroon opened Monday’s scoring with a goal in the 29th minute as Jean-Charles Castelletto tapped the ball in behind the goaltender off a corner kick.

Serbia responded during stoppage time in the first half, netting two goals in quick succession off the head of Strahinja Pavlovic and the foot of Sergej Milinkovic-Savic.

Serbia seized a 3-1 advantage in the 53rd minute as Aleksandar Mitrovic finished off a series of passes in front of Cameroon’s net.

But Cameroon mounted a comeback ten minutes later, striking twice in quick succession to even the score at 3-3.

Vincent Aboubakar snuck behind Serbia’s defense and lifted the ball over goalkeeper Vanja Milinkovic.  Three minutes later, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting drove a left-footed shot into the net.

Cameroon closes its Group G schedule with a game Friday against Brazil, while Serbia plays Switzerland.  Both Cameroon and Serbia will need to win in order to have any chance of moving on to the knockout round.

Other games Monday include Brazil against Switzerland, South Korea facing Ghana, and Portugal against Uruguay.
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Explosions and gunfire rang out Monday from a hotel in Somalia’s capital that was attacked by a group of insurgents Sunday. 

Four people were killed overnight in the hotel, according to an Agence France Presse report.  

“The terrorist gunmen are trapped inside a room in the building and the security forces are about to end the siege very soon…so far we have confirmed the death of four people,” Mohamed Dahir, a security official told AFP.  

Reuters reports Somalia’s parliament canceled sessions for both of its houses because of the militants’ hotel attack.    

Al-Shabab militants carried out the complex attack on the Villa Rossa hotel, located in a secure area not far from the presidential palace in Mogadishu and a prison run by the national intelligence agency, according to witnesses and police. The hotel is frequented by government officials and politicians. 

Witnesses have seen special security forces moving into the area. Police said they rescued many civilians and officials.  

In a Telegram post, the militant group said its fighters conducted a suicide infantry mission. 

The attack comes as Somali government forces supported by local fighters continue an offensive against the militants in Hirshabelle and Galmudug states.  

Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre last week said security forces have killed more than 600 militants and injured 1,200 others during three months of military operations against the group.  

In a report marking the first 100 days of his Cabinet, he said security forces have also recovered 68 localities from al-Shabab.  

“The government of Dan Qaran (National Interest) has launched a three-front war, militarily, economically and ideology against the Khawarij,” he said. 
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Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has extended a quarantine placed on two districts that are the epicenter of the country’s Ebola outbreak by 21 days, adding that his government’s response to the disease was succeeding.

Movement into and out of the Mubende and Kassanda districts in central Uganda will be restricted up to Dec. 17, the presidency said late Saturday. It was originally imposed for 21 days on Oct. 15, then extended for the same period Nov. 5.

The extension is “to further sustain the gains in control of Ebola that we have made, and to protect the rest of the country from continued exposure,” according to Museveni.

The government’s anti-Ebola efforts were succeeding with two districts now going for roughly two weeks without new cases, the president said.

“It may be too early to celebrate any successes, but overall, I have been briefed that the picture is good,” he said in a statement.

The East African nation has so far recorded 141 infections. Fifty-five people have died since the outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever was declared on Sept. 20th.

Although the outbreak was gradually being brought under control, the “situation is still fragile,” Museveni said, adding that the country’s weak health system and circulation of misinformation about the disease were still a challenge.

The Ebola virus circulating in Uganda is the Sudan strain, for which there is no proven vaccine, unlike the more common Zaire strain, which spread during recent outbreaks in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. 
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A landslide in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde Sunday killed at least 14 people who were attending a funeral, the region’s governor said.

“We are carrying the corpses to the mortuary of the central hospital, while the search for other people, or corpses, is still ongoing,” Naseri Paul Bea, governor of Cameroon’s Center region, said.

Dozens of people were attending a funeral on a soccer pitch at the base of a 20-meter-high soil embankment, which collapsed on top of them, witnesses told Reuters.

Yaounde is one of the wettest cities in Africa and is made of dozens of steep, shack-lined hills. Heavy rains have triggered several devastating floods throughout the country this year, weakening infrastructure and displacing thousands.
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Four people were killed in a failed coup attempt on Sao Tome and Principe, the state news agency STP-Press said Sunday reporting a toll from the armed forces chief of staff.

The military, which Friday thwarted a coup bid in the tiny Portuguese-speaking archipelago off central Africa considered a beacon of democracy, announced “four human lives were lost” after “exchanges of fire” at a military site.

Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada told STP-Press that “four citizens” and 12 soldiers and fighters from South Africa’s officially disbanded Buffalo Battalion were involved in the attempted overnight putsch.

The army said Sunday 12 active-duty soldiers were involved.

They were “neutralized and captured” after trying to storm military sites and three of them died from their wounds despite the army’s efforts to preserve their lives by taking them to the hospital, Trovoada added.

One of the victims was Arlecio Costa, who once served as a mercenary in apartheid South Africa’s Buffalo Battalion, disbanded in 1993. Trovoada accused him of being one of the ringleaders.

The army said Costa — also held in 2009 over accusations of plotting a coup — died following his arrest Friday after he “jumped from a vehicle,” without giving further details.

Trovoada said the former president of the outgoing National Assembly Delfim Neves was also one of several people arrested after the attack on army headquarters, in a Friday video message confirmed by the justice minister.

A judicial source told AFP two inquiries had been launched to investigate the alleged attack on a military barracks in Sao Tome and the “torture” and “murder” of four suspects.

The government on Sunday condemned what it called a “violent attempt to subvert the constitutional order,” saying the deaths and the coup attempt would be investigated.

It added that an international team was coming to the archipelago to support investigators and called on the hospital services to look after the victims’ bodies.

A resident speaking to AFP anonymously by phone said she had heard “automatic and heavy weapons fire, as well as explosions, for two hours inside the army headquarters” in the nation’s capital.

In the video message, authenticated and sent to AFP by the press office of Sao Tome’s prime minister, Trovoada is seen sitting at a desk saying he wants to “reassure” the population and “the international community.” 

Trovoada initially said a soldier had been “taken hostage” and wounded but “would be able to resume his activities in a few days.” 

A former Portuguese colony in the Gulf of Guinea, the nation of some 215,000 people is deeply poor and depends on international aid but is also praised for its political stability and parliamentary democracy.
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