Month: August 2024

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FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE — A military court in Sierra Leone sentenced 24 soldiers to lengthy prison terms Friday for their roles in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of President Julius Maada Bio in November 2023.

The sentences were read out in court with the judge handing out prison terms ranging from 50 and 120 years for those convicted.

They were among 27 men court-martialed for participating in the attempted coup on November 26 that saw gunmen attack military barracks, two prisons and other locations, freeing about 2,200 inmates and killing more than 20 people.

The sentencing followed the jailing in July of 11 civilians, police and prison officers for their role in the insurrection.

A seven-member military jury found most of the court-martialed soldiers guilty by unanimous verdict after hours of deliberations. The men faced a total of 88 charges including mutiny, murder, aiding the enemy and stealing public or service property.

All but one of those arraigned were rank-and-file soldiers. A lieutenant colonel was found guilty and received the longest prison term, 120 years.

Before handing out the sentences, Judge Advocate Mark Ngegba — himself a former military officer — said, “When we reach this conclusion for sentences, it is to send a message of zero tolerance for such an act in the military.”

Of the remaining three, one was found not guilty, another was sentenced earlier due to pleading guilty, and the third’s trial will conclude later.

Family members of the convicts wailed inside the court as the sentences were announced.

The failed attempt followed an election which Bio narrowly won to secure a second term. His victory was disputed by the main opposition APC party, while some local and international observers also questioned the transparency of the vote.
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Kampala, Uganda — Eight people, including two children, were killed when mountains of garbage collapsed at a landfill in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on Saturday, city authorities said.

Local media said homes, people and livestock were engulfed in the landslide at the vast garbage dump in Kiteezi, a district in the north of Kampala, after heavy rainfall.

“On a very sad note, eight people have so far been found dead, six adults and two children,” the Kampala Capital City Authority, or KCCA, which operates the site, said in a statement.

The disaster comes eight months after the ceremonial head of the authority described the situation at the landfill as a “national crisis.”

The KCCA said in the statement posted on social media platform X that 14 people had been rescued and taken to hospital. It did not disclose their condition.

“The rescue operation is still ongoing, and we shall share updates as they come in,” it said.

Images from Kiteezi showed a Ugandan police excavator churning through huge mounds of rubbish as large crowds of residents looked on.

Some were gathered behind a yellow police tape, carrying pictures of their missing loved ones.

Structural failure

The KCCA said there was a “structural failure in waste mass this morning resulting in a collapsed section of the landfill.”

“Our teams, along with other government agencies, are on ground taking the necessary measures to ensure the area is secure and to prevent any further incidents,” it said.

“The level of damage is still being assessed.”

In January, KCCA ceremonial head Erias Lukwago, who carries the honorary title of Lord Mayor of Kampala, had warned that people working and living near the Kiteezi landfill were at risk of numerous health hazards due to overflowing waste.

He said the site was not maintained at all, describing the situation as a “national crisis” that needed the central government and Parliament to intervene.

The official in charge of the site, Vincent Mbaizireki, said it was full to capacity.

The Daily Monitor, an independent newspaper in Uganda, said the 14-hectare (36-acre) landfill was established in 1996 and was the dumpsite for all garbage collected across Kampala, receiving about 1,200 tons of waste a day.

Several parts of East Africa have been battered by heavy rains recently, including Ethiopia, the second-most-populous country on the continent.

Devastating landslides in a remote and mountainous area in southern Ethiopia last month killed around 250 people, with the U.N.’s humanitarian response agency OCHA saying several thousand people needed emergency evacuation.

In February 2010, mudslides in the Mount Elgon region of eastern Uganda killed more than 350 people.
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SAVE VALLEY CONSERVANCY, Zimbabwe — On the impoverished edges of a conservancy that protects wildlife in southeastern Zimbabwe, 14-year-old Esther Bote wakes up at dawn to a practiced daily routine.

She cleans the house, lights the fire, cooks, bathes and gets into her neat grey and white school uniform. Then it’s time for what she considers the most perilous chore: the 5-kilometer walk to school through bush paths and forests where dangerous animals might lurk.

The teenager has been living with such threats for some time now but there is no getting used to it. Children as young as 5, some held by the hand by slightly older peers or siblings, briskly walk in thick forests to school and then back home.

“Sometimes we see animal footprints. We see their footprints and can tell that the elephants are still around,” she told The Associated Press from her home, where she stays with her elderly grandparents.

In this humid, densely forested area in a semi-arid Zimbabwean district, repeated droughts, juiced by the naturally occurring El Nino weather phenomenon and human-caused climate change, have led to food and water shortages, leaving people and animals to compete for resources. Wildlife is getting dangerously close to human populations, and children are having to learn how they can live in this new reality without putting themselves at too much risk. To adapt, schoolchildren are now taking basic lessons in animal behavior.

On a recent day in July, when Esther and her friends spotted elephant footprints on the way from school, they reported it to a wildlife ranger. The animals had cut across a farming field and bush path that they regularly use to and from school. A few days prior, a child was severely injured from a crocodile attack.

Although no fatalities have been reported, Esther and her friends are still cautious.

“We usually walk in groups to feel safer,” said Esther.

Since last year, the privately owned Save Valley Conservancy and the country’s parks agency have been running a program for school-age children on how to recognize danger signs and how to coexist with wildlife. Dozens of students such as Esther are now able to identify different wildlife footprints, animal sounds and can read wind direction by the blowing sand and know how and when to take cover.

“The person who is affected mostly is the kid. It’s the kid who goes to school, it’s the kid who goes to fetch water, it’s the kid who goes to fetch firewood,” said Dingani Masuku, community liaison manager for Save Valley Conservancy. “That’s why we are targeting schools so that they can know how animals behave, what to do with the animals.”

He said they are trying to teach “a sense of ownership in the kids” so that they “don’t see the animal as an adversary, but they see it as something beneficial to the community, something which should be respected.”

On a recent sunny day, over two dozen children sat outside on dusty ground in searing heat for one of the sessions at Chiyambiro Secondary School. An 18-year-old who recently left school and is now part of a new corps of young women rangers from the community was teaching them animal behavior and how to protect themselves.

“Don’t approach an animal. If it’s a lion, it’s looking for food. That’s why it’s in the community. It is looking for cheap, easy prey, and you could be the easy prey,” she said, wearing military-type green fatigues. Some of the children said they travel up to 15 kilometers to school, and are forced to walk before daybreak when animals such as hyenas would still be on the prowl.

An official from the national parks agency talked about the benefits of wildlife to the community such as tourism. He pointed to the recently recruited women rangers as an example of how wildlife can create employment for locals. He encouraged them to take the message home to their parents — many who view wild animals as either enemies or a source of food.

Alphonce Chimangaisu, the School Development Committee chairperson at Chiyambiro Secondary School, said parents hoped the initiative would make children safer.

“Some parents have stopped their children from going to school because they don’t know what might happen,” he said.

Although there is no concrete data yet on the effectiveness of the initiative, Chimangaisu said the school has been using it to convince some previously reluctant parents to change their attitudes. Many agree with the training but still ask for concessions, such as the school allowing their children to arrive later for class, he said.

School authorities in affected rural areas are often forced to delay the start of classes and end them early to allow affected children to walk to and from school during daylight when wild animals are unlikely to be roaming around communities, said Obert Masaraure, president of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe.

“We have reports of learners who have completely withdrawn from school fearing for their lives,” he said, adding that teachers who live far from schools are also increasingly not turning up for work. “These challenges are compounding other existing vulnerabilities for rural learners further denying them access to quality education.”

The country’s parks agency is now pushing to initiate animal behavior and conservation training at schools countrywide in areas where people are increasingly being forced to co-exist with wild animals that make regular forays into communities for food and water due to climate change-related droughts, said Tinashe Farawo, the spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.

Aside from learning how to keep safe, schoolchildren can be a useful way to deliver the message home, he said.

“We have established environmental clubs at many schools where we raise awareness and education,” added Farawo. “When children are taught about these dangers and animal behavior, they also go home and teach their parents. We have found that it’s easier for parents to listen when their children speak.”

He said the conflict is likely to worsen due to increased frequencies of droughts, noting that the parks agency received between 3,000 and 4,000 distress calls from communities battling confrontations with wildlife in the last three years, compared to about 900 calls in 2018.

For Esther, although the training has not eliminated the risk, she said it could come in handy when danger arises.

“It helps, we now know a lot of things about animals that we didn’t know before,” she said, adding that as long as the animals are still there, she won’t be able to fully enjoy school.
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Abuja, Nigeria — LGBTQ+ activists in Nigeria are raising concerns about their safety after a popular cross-dresser was killed Thursday in the capital. Police have launched a probe into the killing, which activists say is one of many cases recorded in recent weeks.

Franklin Ejiogu is trying to come to terms with the tragedy that struck early Thursday — his friend, a Nigerian cross-dresser known as the “Abuja Area Mama,” was killed by unknown attackers.

Area Mama’s body was found by the roadside. Ejiogu says it’s not clear how the events unfolded, but the cross-dresser had a gunshot wound to his head.

He blames a recent surge in fatal attacks on LGBTQ+ people on the signing of the so-called Samoa Agreement by Nigerian authorities.

“What actually pushed up these hate crimes is the signing of this Samoa Agreement. Media houses in Nigeria broke news that Nigerian government was encouraging LGBTQ+ movement in Nigeria and now the nonstate actors are now targeting the transgender community members and nonbinary people,” he said. “On Sunday, one transperson was lynched in Kogi state and on Monday, another transperson was also lynched.”

Ejiogu is the founder of Nigeria’s Creme De la Creme, a trans and nonbinary peoples’ support organization. He says they’ve been issuing security warnings to community members on an online forum, and that’s where he hears about attacks.

Nigerian authorities signed the controversial Samoa Agreement, a pact between the EU and 79 other countries, including African, Caribbean and Pacific nations, on June 28.

Authorities say the agreement aims to strengthen partnerships for democratic norms and human rights as well as promote economic growth and development.

But critics, including members of parliament, said the deal needs to be clearer on clauses that promote gender rights.

Nigerian police have launched a probe into Area Mama’s killing.

Abuja police spokesperson Josephine Adeh did not reply to VOA’s request for comment.

But LGBTQ+ activist Promise Ohiri, known as Empress Cookie, said such a killing, if not punished, will embolden more homophobic crimes.

“This is a gateway to uncivilized injustices against the queer community especially the trans community, phobic people attacking us, start killing us illegally in a way that is not acceptable or even following the laws that criminalizes us,” Ohiri said. “We’re really scared.”

Nigeria’s national law punishes same-sex relationships by up to 14 years in jail. And in the more conservative Muslim north, it could lead to a death sentence under sharia law.

In 2022, Nigerian authorities tried to enact a law to criminalize crossdressing, but the law was suspended following protests.

Months ago, Area Mama appeared in a viral video, saying he’d been targeted by a mob and injured with a machete.

Empress Cookie called for justice, saying, “This person that was murdered was human, and they need to give justice to this person. It’s because Area Mama is a well-known person, that’s why her own came to timeline and bloggers are posting it… but on a daily basis we’re being killed.”

More than 30 of Africa’s 54 countries have laws criminalizing homosexuality. Many people, like Ejiogu and Empress Cookie, say they will continue to tread carefully. 
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