Month: August 2024

cairo — Fighters from Sudan’s paramilitary group rampaged through a central village, looting and burning and killing at least 85 people, including women and children, authorities and residents said Saturday, the latest atrocity in the country’s 18-month devastating conflict. 

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began attacking Galgani in the central province of Sennar late in July and last week. RSF fighters “indiscriminately opened fire on the village’s unarmed residents” after they resisted attempts to abduct and sexually assault women and girls, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. More than 150 villagers were wounded, it said. 

The RSF has been repeatedly accused of massacres, rapes and other gross violations across the country since the war started in April last year, when simmering tensions between the military and the group exploded into open fighting in the capital Khartoum and elsewhere. 

Describing the hours-long attack, three residents said hundreds of RSF fighters stormed the village Thursday, looting and burning houses and public properties. 

The offensive came after the residents put up resistance and repelled an attack by a small group of RSF fighters, according to a health care worker at the local medical center who spoke to The Associated Press. 

The group retreated but hundreds of RSF fighters in dozens of pickup trucks with automatic rifles and heavy weapons returned, according to the worker and another resident. 

As of Friday, the medical center had received at least 80 bodies, including 24 women and minors, said the worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fears for his safety. 

Mohamed Tajal-Amin, a villager, said he saw seven bodies — six men and one woman — laying in the street midday Friday. 

“The Janjaweed are in the street and people are not able to recover their dead and bury them,” he said, using the name of the Arab militias that became synonymous with genocide and war crimes in Darfur two decades ago. The RSF grew out of that group. 

RSF spokespeople didn’t return requests for comment Saturday. 

In June, the RSF assaulted Sennar’s provincial capital, Singa, about 350 kilometers (217 miles) southeast of Khartoum. They looted the city’s main market and took over its main hospital, forcing thousands of people to flee. 

The latest attack came as the United States has led efforts to resume peace talks between the military and the RSF. The talks, which are boycotted by the military, began last week in Switzerland. 

Diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the African Union and the United Nations were attending the talks. The RSF sent a delegation to Geneva but didn’t take part in the meetings. 

“The RSF remains here ready for talks to start; SAF needs to decide to come,” U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello posted Friday on X, formerly Twitter, using the acronym for Sudan’s Armed Forces. 

The talks were the latest international effort to settle the devastating conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed the country to the brink of famine. Already famine was confirmed last month in a sprawling camp for displaced people in the western region of Darfur. 

The conflict has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the United Nations and international rights groups. 

Sudan’s war has also created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 10.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over 2 million of them have fled to neighboring countries. 
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Manzini, Eswatini — Eswatini has launched an initiative to achieve sustainable development by harnessing the power of nuclear technology in such sectors as agriculture, health and energy planning. The plan was developed with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The aim of the Country Program Framework, or CPF, launched two weeks ago by Eswatini Minister of Natural Resources and Energy Prince Lonkhokhela, is to leverage nuclear technology for social and economic development. Its key focus areas are energy security, food security and human health, aligning with the country’s National Development Plan and the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework.

Bongekile Matsenjwa, a chemical engineer and engineering manager for the Eswatini National Petroleum Company, believes the partnership between Eswatini and the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, can help the country make well-informed decisions about its energy future.

“Access to clean, affordable and safe, reliable energy is an important ingredient for the sustainable development of the country,” he said. “I believe that this partnership can help Eswatini to make knowledgeable decisions on energy supply options with the help of energy planning so the country … can independently chart our national energy future.”

Sonia Paiva, a sustainable agriculture expert and advocate for nuclear technology, who was a panelist at the COP28 U.N. Climate Change Conference, believes Eswatini’s focus on nuclear technology is happening at the perfect moment, as the country has already established policies around the topic and is now moving toward implementation.

“The whole world is looking to see how we can make our planet a better place to live in,” she said.

In addition to its potential benefits in agriculture and energy, Dr. Mduduzi Mbuyisa, a medical doctor, believes this technology has immense potential to improve the health care system in Eswatini.

“Nuclear medicine has a potential to ensure our diagnostic capabilities such that it helps us to take clearer pictures and help us in advanced imaging because we [are] using what we call PET or SPECT, which help to improve the care and overall health care system,” he said. It will also … help develop new skills and open up new career opportunities.”

Eswatini’s venture into nuclear technology is part of a larger trend of African countries seeking to harness the benefits of this technology. Against the backdrop of rising energy demands and climate change concerns, nuclear energy is increasingly seen as a potential solution.
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GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Sarah Bagheni had a headache, fever, and itchy and unusual skin lesions for days, but she had no inkling that her symptoms might have been caused by mpox and that she might be another case in a growing global health emergency. 

She also has no idea where to go to get medical help. 

She and her husband live in the Bulengo displacement camp in eastern Congo, a region that is effectively ground zero for a series of mpox outbreaks in Africa.

This year’s alarming rise in cases, including a new form of the virus identified by scientists in eastern Congo, led the World Health Organization to declare it a global health emergency on Wednesday. It said the new variant could spread beyond the five African countries where it had already been detected — a timely warning that came a day before Sweden reported its first case of the new strain.

In the vast central African nation of Congo, which has had more than 96% of the world’s roughly 17,000 recorded cases of mpox this year — and some 500 deaths from the disease — many of the most vulnerable seem unaware of its existence or the threat that it poses.

“We know nothing about this,” Bagheni’s husband, Habumuremyiza Hire, said Thursday about mpox. “I watch her condition helplessly because I don’t know what to do. We continue to share the same room.”

Millions are thought to be out of reach of medical help or advice in the conflict-torn east, where dozens of rebel groups have been fighting Congolese army forces for years over mineral-rich areas, causing a huge displacement crisis. Hundreds of thousands of people like Bagheni and her husband have been forced into overcrowded refugee camps around Goma, while more have taken refuge in the city.

Conditions in the camps are dire and medical facilities are almost nonexistent.

Mahoro Faustin, who runs the Bulengo camp, said that about three months ago, administrators first started noticing people in the camp exhibiting fever, body aches and chills — symptoms that could signal malaria, measles or mpox.

There is no way of knowing how many mpox cases there might be in Bulengo because of a lack of testing, he said. There haven’t been any recent health campaigns to educate the tens of thousands of people in the camp about mpox, and Faustin said he’s worried about how many people might be undiagnosed.

“Just look at the overcrowding here,” he said, pointing to a sea of ramshackle tents. “If nothing is done, we will all be infected here, or maybe we are already all infected.”

Around 70% of the new mpox cases in the Goma area in the last two months that were registered at a treatment center run by Medair were from displacement camps, said Dr. Pierre Olivier Ngadjole, the international aid group’s health advisor in Congo. The youngest of those cases was a month-old baby and the oldest a 90-year-old, he said.

In severe cases of mpox, people can develop lesions on the face, hands, arms, chest and genitals. While the disease originated in animals, the virus has in recent years been spreading between people via close physical contact, including sex.

Bagheni’s best hope of getting a diagnosis for her lesions is a government hospital that’s a two-hour drive away. That’s likely out of the question, given that she already struggles with mobility having previously had both her legs amputated.

Seven million people are internally displaced in Congo, with more than 5.5 million of them in the country’s east, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Congo has the largest displacement camp population in Africa, and one of the largest in the world.

The humanitarian crisis in eastern Congo has almost every possible complication when it comes to stopping an mpox outbreak, said Dr. Chris Beyrer, director of Duke University’s Global Health Institute.

That includes war, illicit mining industries that attract sex workers, transient populations near border regions, and entrenched poverty. He also said the global community missed multiple warning signs.

“We’re paying attention to it now, but mpox has been spreading since 2017 in Congo and Nigeria,” Beyrer said, adding that experts have long been calling for vaccines to be shared with Africa, but to little effect. He said the WHO’s emergency declaration was “late in coming,” with more than a dozen countries already affected.

Beyrer said that unlike COVID-19 or HIV, there’s a good vaccine and good treatments and diagnostics for mpox, but “the access issues are worse than ever” in places like eastern Congo.

In 2022, there were outbreaks in more than 70 countries around the world, including the United States, which led the WHO to also declare an emergency that lasted until mid-2023. It was largely shut down in wealthy countries within months through the use of vaccines and treatments, but few doses have been made available in Africa.

The new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox was first detected this year in a mining town in eastern Congo, about 450 kilometers south of Goma. It’s unclear how much the new strain is to blame, but Congo is now enduring its worst outbreak yet and at least 13 African countries have recorded cases, four of them for the first time.

The outbreaks in those four countries — Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda — have been linked to Congo’s, and Doctors Without Borders said Friday that Congo’s surge “threatens a major spread of the disease” to other countries.

Salim Abdool Karim, an infectious disease expert who chairs the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s emergency committee, said the Congo outbreak has a particularly concerning change, in that it’s disproportionately affecting young people. Children under 15 account for 70% of cases and 85% of all deaths in the country, the Africa CDC reported.

Unlike the 2022 global outbreak, which predominantly affected gay and bisexual men, mpox now appears to be spreading in heterosexual populations.

All of Congo’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases, according to the state-run news agency. But Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said Thursday that the country doesn’t have a single vaccine dose yet and he pleaded for “vigilance in all directions from all Congolese.”

Dr. Rachel Maguru, who heads the multi-epidemic center at Goma’s North Kivu provincial hospital, said they also don’t have drugs or any established treatments for mpox and are relying on other experts such as dermatologists to help where they can. A larger outbreak around the city and its numerous displacement camps already overburdened with an influx of people would be “terrible,” she said.

She also noted a pivotal problem: poor and displaced people have other priorities, like earning enough money to eat and survive. Aid agencies and stretched local authorities are already wrestling with providing food, shelter and basic health care to the millions displaced, while also dealing with outbreaks of other diseases like cholera.
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NEAR MOUNT ELGON, Uganda — The dancers shook their hips to the beat of drummers who led the way, anticipating the start of mass circumcision among the Bamasaaba people of Uganda’s mountainous east. 

Yet the frolicking in the streets belied a dispute brewing behind the scenes as some locals questioned their king over the very public presentation of Imbalu, the ritualized circumcision of thousands of boys every other year in this remote community near Uganda’s border with Kenya. 

Could it be turned into a carnival, put on for the gaze of foreigners? Or should it remain a sacred ceremony in which families quietly prepare their sons to face the knife with courage? 

The king, known as the Umukuuka, had his way ahead of the August 3 ceremonial inauguration at a park in the town of Mbale, arguing for a traditional festival that also looked attractive to visitors. The organizers of Imbalu received over $120,000 in financial support from the Ugandan government and a corporate sponsor. 

In an interview with The Associated Press, the Umukuuka asserted that organizing a modern Imbalu was challenging and defended his decision to market the ritual as a tourist event in line with Uganda’s national development plan. 

“Everything is changing as the population expands. People may not manage to follow the cultural processes,” he said, citing the economic hardship and commercialization he said were diluting the communal aspect of Imbalu. “But we are fighting through the clan system that (Imbalu) remains intact.” 

Many question government intervention

But the Ugandan government’s intervention has raised eyebrows among many Bamasaaba and underscored angst over the most important ceremony for this ethnic group of 4 million Ugandans. Some who spoke to the AP said they felt the Umukuuka, in his first year in office, was trivializing Imbalu by exposing it to outside interests. 

“Our leadership is being hijacked by” national political leaders, said Wasukira Mashate, an elder who is a custodian of Bamasaaba cultural property, charging that the Umukuuka was missing the counsel of clan leaders with real spiritual authority. 

“I don’t think they are having any role” in Imbalu, he said, speaking of clan leaders. “It was for our own benefit culturally, but now it is becoming a national event because the government of Uganda has captured it.” 

At the ceremonial inauguration, an angry crowd gathered outside the totemic shrine of the clan that historically has launched Imbalu by cutting the first candidates. Clan members pointed to the young mixed-breed bull tethered to the grass as offensive, saying only a local breed would suffice as an appropriate sacrifice to the gods. 

“This cow is exotic. We are Bamasaaba, and he brought us a white animal,” said Kareem Masaba, speaking of the Umukuuka. “He has insulted us. His predecessors used to come into the shrine and participate in the rituals, but this man will not come here. He is disrespecting us.” 

The dispute over the sacrificial animal delayed the inauguration into the late afternoon as anger grew among men wielding machetes, sharp sticks and other crude weapons. The Umukuuka, seated not far away in a tent among dignitaries from elsewhere in Africa, did not budge. Clan members retaliated by refusing to present the first group of initiates before the Umukuuka, a former forestry officer whose real name is Jude Mudoma. 

The mass circumcisions will last until the end of 2024. 

‘Helps us to be strong’

The tribal initiation of boys into adulthood has long been controversial in African countries such as South Africa, where incidents of botched, deadly circumcisions among Xhosa-speaking people have inspired campaigns for safe clinical circumcision. Among the Bamasaaba, whose cutting method is just as violent, there have been no calls to end the practice. The strongest adherents see Imbalu as more important than ever amid widespread infant circumcision in hospital settings. They say those boys who are not initiated in the tribal way risk suffering lifelong social delinquency. 

Tribal circumcision is performed by a traditional surgeon wielding a knife usually fashioned from melted nails. Bamasaaba hundreds of kilometers away in the Ugandan capital of Kampala are known to hunt down Imbalu dodgers they then cut by force. The bodies of uncircumcised men can be violated before burial. 

Circumcision “helps us to be strong,” said Peter Gusolo, a traditional surgeon, gesticulating to express his people’s purported sex prowess. Those who resist circumcision will be cut “even if (they) are dying,” he said. “We circumcise you at night. We bury you in the morning.” 

He added, “We cannot bury you in the land of the Bamasaaba without (being circumcised). No, no, no. It is in the constitution of the culture of the Bamasaaba … It is a curse if you bury into the land people who are not circumcised.” 

‘We are not barbaric’

Gusolo, whose family lives in a house on the side of a hill planted with arabica coffee plants, spent days isolating himself in a cave and postponing intimacy with his wife so that he could be possessed by the spirit of Imbalu. Even though men like Gusolo wield certificates issued by local health authorities to prove their skill, the title is hereditary. The surgeons say they cannot afford to be flippant with their work because the wounds they inflict will not heal if they are not spiritually strong. 

The first candidate for initiation this year was a teenager whose face had been smeared with mud and the dregs of homemade beer. He spread his legs and unblinkingly stared at the sky while a swarm of frenzied people around him pushed and shoved, demanding courage. The surgeon, applying no anesthetic, took hold of the boy and skinned him with a swift movement of his hands. A member of the boy’s family, aiming to protect the boy from the threat of witchcraft, collected the skin and took it home. 

Emmanuel Watundu, the father of a 17-year-old boy who was among the first to be cut, said he stood by Imbalu, describing it as the life-changing event his son asked for. But he criticized what he saw as a carnival atmosphere by “peer groups (who) normally behave differently than we used to.” 

Outside Watundu’s house, where a crowd had gathered, drunken people of all ages danced wildly, and one woman briefly exposed her breasts. A politician seeking a seat in the national assembly had a procession marching in the dirt road. Boys fondled girls and swung legs at them. 

Watundu said the street dancers he saw were “from different areas” and that most people attending Imbalu came “to do business.” He said of the Ugandan government’s involvement that it had “given some bad picture” about the Umukuuka’s role as the chief organizer of Imbalu. 

Wilson Watira, who chaired the Imbalu organizing committee, defended the government’s role as a supporter of Bamasaaba tradition. The exuberant street processions left people feeling joyful, he said. 

“When it comes to performance of culture, of culture itself … it remains culture. We only want to show the world that even when we are performing this culture, it can also attract other people,” he said. 

In the past, people thought the ritual was barbaric and brutal, Watira said. 

“It’s the reason why we said, ‘No, we are not barbaric. We can make this thing very attractive, and you will enjoy it.'” 
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CAIRO — The United States on Friday called on Sudan’s military to join talks aimed at calming the country’s grinding conflict as the African country faces a worsening humanitarian crisis.

The military has boycotted the negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland, now in their third day, despite international pleas that it take part in the talks. Sudan’s military is battling the powerful paramilitary, known as Rapid Support Forces.

“The RSF remains here ready for talks to start; SAF needs to decide to come,” U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello posted on X on Friday, using the acronym for Sudan’s Armed Forces.

Diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the African Union and the United Nations were at the talks, which started earlier this week. Sudan’s paramilitary sent a delegation to Geneva.

On Thursday, Sudan’s governing council, which is led by top military generals, announced that they had opened the key border crossing of Adre, from neighboring Chad into Sudan’s restive western region of Darfur, which has been the worst hit by fighting and displacement.

The announcement was welcomed by the U.N. and the U.S., but it remained unclear how it will affect aid delivery on the ground, where heavy flooding has also impeded access in recent weeks.

Both sides have traded accusations of attacking civilians and obstructing aid since the country’s war started in April 2023. The northeastern African nation plunged into chaos last year when tensions between the military and the RSF turned into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, before spreading across the country.

The Geneva-led talks come as more people face severe hunger and displacement, and civilian deaths mount.

On Thursday, UNESCO said a bomb detonated at a school and market in the city of El Obeid the previous day, killing five girls and injuring 20 other children.

Aid workers say the situation has grown even more dire for Sudanese civilians in Darfur, many of whom are facing worsening hunger and malnutrition.

Tammam Aloudat, president of the Netherlands board of Doctors without Borders, or MSF, returned from a mission in Niyala, South Darfur, this week. He told The Associated Press he saw many children at the group’s hospital who were so malnourished that they stopped eating and needed medical interventions.

“We have directly seen severe pockets of severe malnutrition,” he said, including infants whose age was more than a year old yet appeared to be no more than 4 or 5 months old.

“They can’t walk, they are severely malnourished,” he said.

Aloudat said he hopes the announcement of the reopening of the border crossing will mean more U.N. aid can reach hard-hit areas, but that many obstacles remain.

“Meaningful humanitarian access can be measured when the millions of people in need of assistance and protection start to receive it, not when decisions are simply announced,” he said.

The conflict has killed thousands of people and pushed many into starvation. The atrocities include mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the U.N. and international rights groups.

Sudan’s war has also created the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 10.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes since fighting began, according to the International Organization for Migration. Over 2 million of them have fled to neighboring countries.

Last month, global experts confirmed that starvation at a massive camp for displaced people in Darfur has grown into famine. And about 25.6 million people — more than half of Sudan’s population — will face acute hunger, the experts from the Famine Review Committee warned.
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