GENEVA — An independent expert warns that multifaceted crises facing Mali, propelled by increasing attacks from Islamist armed groups, are leading to a rapid deterioration of the country’s security situation and surging human rights violations, with potentially serious effects in the region. 

“I reiterate my serious concerns by the rapid and continuing deterioration of the security situation in almost all regions of Mali that appears to be escaping from all control of the authorities,” said Alioune Tine, an independent expert on human rights in Mali. 

Tine, who submitted his latest report to the U.N. Human Rights Council Thursday, said, “Increasingly we see confrontation of violent extremist groups seeking to control the country to the detriment of civilians, who are the main victims caught in the crossfire.” 

The independent expert expressed serious concern about attacks on civilians and Malian defense and security forces by violent extremist groups. 

Beginning with December 2023, the report documents numerous cases of killings and injuries from improvised explosive devices, kidnappings of civilians, pillaging, armed robberies, extortion and destruction of property. 

The report says deadly attacks have occurred in all regions of the country, principally in Gao and Timbuktu in the north; Mopti, Bandiagara and Segou in central Mali; and Kayes and San in the south.

Tine said he was worried by the marked deterioration of the human rights situation and protection of civilians.

“According to recent information between 2022 and 2023, violations and attacks on human rights rose by almost 86%, violations and attacks on the right to life rose by almost 28%, and gender-based violence documented cases rose by 12.5%.” 

Additionally, he noted that insecurity and ongoing humanitarian crises have forced many schools to close, depriving almost 500,000 children of the right to education, “which is a ticking social time bomb.” 

He called on Malian authorities to step up their efforts to prosecute human rights violators and to hold them accountable for their crimes. 

“While violent extremist groups have continued to be the presumed perpetrators of most human rights violations in Mali, the high number and severity of the violations attributed to the Malian defense and security forces and particularly their impunity are a major concern,” Tine said. 

“Furthermore, in addition to the violations in my report, I continue to receive allegations regarding violations of human rights attributed to the army, and at times also foreign military personnel.” 

That is a reference to alleged crimes committed by the Wagner Group, a Russian state-funded private military company that has been in Mali since 2022.   

A report published Thursday by Human Rights Watch, says Wagner fighters have helped the Malian army carry out drone strikes in counterinsurgency operations in Mali’s central and northern regions since December, and of killing and summarily executing dozens of civilians, including children. 

Mamoudou Kassogue, Mali’s minister of justice and human rights, rejected the findings of the independent expert. 

“My delegation takes note of the present report, which is essentially incriminating on the basis of unverified and overly alarming information,” he said. “I would like to highlight the progress and successes recorded to date by the Malian armed forces against terrorist and extremist groups and their allies. This reality contrasts sharply with the security situation described as worrying in the report.” 

Contradicting other aspects of the report, he said that his government has been actively working to put an end to impunity, noting “the systematic opening of investigations for every serious human rights violation reported.” 

He said political and institutional reforms were underway, and “the fight against gender-based violence and sexual violence committed during conflicts has been addressed in the draft penal code and the code of criminal procedure.” 

While reaffirming his government’s sovereign right to pursue its human rights agenda as it saw fit, the justice minister said, “Mali will continue to support the mandate of the independent expert and encourages him to pursue an objective and constructive approach.” 

For his part, Tine recommended that the International Criminal Court “extend the scope of its current investigation” to establish criminal liability for the crimes that “continue to be committed in Mali.” 
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WASHINGTON — Somalia changed its constitution Saturday during a parliamentary vote that, among other things, gives the country’s president the power to appoint and dismiss a prime minister.

After weeks of intense debate, Somalia’s bicameral federal parliament approved amendments to the first four chapters in the country’s provisional constitution.

In a joint session in Mogadishu, lawmakers voted on each chapter individually before casting votes on the overall amendments proposed by the Independent Constitutional Review and Implementation Commission, or ICRIC.

The speaker of the Lower House, Sheikh Adan Mohamed Nur Madobe, announced a significant majority of members were in favor of amending the constitution.

“A total of 212 members of the Lower House and 42 members of the Upper House supported the amendments, with no abstentions or rejections. Therefore, the amendment has been approved with a unanimous vote,” said Madobe.

Hussein Idow, chairperson of the Constitutional Review Committee, said that three proposed provisions in a draft related to religion would get further review.

“This decision of the postponement of the religion provisions aims to ensure that these provisions align with the principles and values of the Somali people,” he said.

“This provisional constitution has been under review for nearly a decade. From 2012, three parliaments have tried to amend it, but the efforts to finalize the review gained momentum in late 2023. Thanks to the 11th parliament of Somalia for daring to conduct the amendment,” said Idow.

President and prime minister

One key provision in the approved draft establishes that Somalia will have a president and a prime minister. The president will hold the authority to appoint and remove the prime minister from office, an amendment that replaces the previous requirement for the prime minister to obtain a vote of confidence from parliament and allowing more flexibility in the executive branch.

Somalia’s politics are characterized by disputes among Somali presidents and prime ministers, which stem from a complex political landscape that has been shaped by historical, regional, clan-based and ideological factors.

Since the establishment of the office of president in 1960, there have been nine official presidents in Somalia. The last four presidents, including the current president in his first term, have fired a prime minister with the help of parliament.

One key aspect of the disputes revolves around the distribution of power and resources among different clans and regions within Somalia.

According to constitutional experts, the power struggle between the two top offices has always been sparked by the way their roles are designated in the constitution.

Among the proposed constitution amendments was a provision that would have turned Somalia into a system of government in which the president is both head of state and head of government, and the ceremonial duties are delegated to a vice president. During review the parliament removed that provision.

Multi-party system

The amended constitution sets the term of office for government constitutional bodies at five years and refers to regional state presidents as leaders.

It also establishes the presence of three political parties in the country, promoting a multi-party system.

Some political stakeholders, including former Somali Presidents Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo and Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, as well as Puntland state leaders, strongly opposed that amendment.

They expressed concerns about the lack of consensus among political actors regarding the changes.

In a separate statement released Saturday, a group of influential politicians, including former prime ministers Hassan Ali Khaire and Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, have vehemently criticized President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud for being responsible for the approval of the amendment.

“The president has led the nation to a dark path, turmoil, political uncertainty and jeopardized the state building efforts by pushing the parliament to approve controversial provisions in the constitution,” said the statement.

In February, the ICRIC submitted suggested amendments to parliament, focusing on the first four chapters. Those amendments cover the age of maturity for girls and the criminalization of female genital mutilation. The approved amendments establish the age of maturity at 15 and the age for responsibility at 18 — suggesting that everyone under 18 should remain protected by juvenile justice standards.

But rights groups say this would risk reinforcing existing traditional norms, which can force girls to marry at the age of 15.

On Friday, Human Rights Watch warned that the constitutional proposal in its current form puts children at risk.

“It would place girls in particular at greater risk of child marriage, which affects their health, notably reproductive health, their access to education and their protection from other forms of abuse,” Human Rights Watch said.

“Somalia’s parliament should resist efforts to weaken constitutional protections for children, especially girls,” said Laetitia Bader, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Somalia’s donors should press the government to carry through on its claims that it is taking significant steps to meet its international human rights commitments.”
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ZIGUINCHOR, Senegal — Mariama Sonko’s voice resounded through the circle of 40 women farmers sitting in the shade of a cashew tree. They scribbled notes, brows furrowed in concentration as her lecture was punctuated by the thud of falling fruit.

This quiet village in Senegal is the headquarters of a 115,000-strong rural women’s rights movement in West Africa, We Are the Solution. Sonko, its president, is training female farmers from cultures where women are often excluded from ownership of the land they work so closely.

Across Senegal, women farmers make up 70% of the agricultural workforce and produce 80% of the crops but have little access to land, education and finance compared to men, the United Nations says.

“We work from dawn until dusk, but with all that we do, what do we get out of it?” Sonko asked.

She believes that when rural women are given land, responsibilities and resources, it has a ripple effect through communities. Her movement is training women farmers who traditionally have no access to education, explaining their rights and financing women-led agricultural projects.

Across West Africa, women usually don’t own land because it is expected that when they marry, they leave the community. But when they move to their husbands’ homes, they are not given land because they are not related by blood.

Sonko grew up watching her mother struggle after her father died, with young children to support.

“If she had land, she could have supported us,” she recalled, her normally booming voice now tender. Instead, Sonko had to marry young, abandon her studies and leave her ancestral home.

After moving to her husband’s town at age 19, Sonko and several other women convinced a landowner to rent to them a small plot of land in return for part of their harvest. They planted fruit trees and started a market garden. Five years later, when the trees were full of papayas and grapefruit, the owner kicked them off.

The experience marked Sonko.

“This made me fight so that women can have the space to thrive and manage their rights,” she said. When she later got a job with a women’s charity funded by Catholic Relief Services, coordinating micro-loans for rural women, that work began.

“Women farmers are invisible,” said Laure Tall, research director at Agricultural and Rural Prospect Initiative, a Senegalese rural think tank. That’s even though women work on farms two to four hours longer than men on an average day.

But when women earn money, they reinvest it in their community, health and children’s education, Tall said. Men spend some on household expenses but can choose to spend the rest how they please. Sonko listed common examples like finding a new wife, drinking and buying fertilizer and pesticides for crops that make money instead of providing food.

With encouragement from her husband, who died in 1997, Sonko chose to invest in other women. Her training center now employs more than 20 people, with support from small philanthropic organizations such as Agroecology Fund and CLIMA Fund.

In a recent week, Sonko and her team trained over 100 women from three countries, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and Gambia, in agroforestry – growing trees and crops together as a measure of protection from extreme weather – and micro gardening, growing food in tiny spaces when there is little access to land.

One trainee, Binta Diatta, said We Are the Solution bought irrigation equipment, seeds, and fencing — an investment of $4,000 — and helped the women of her town access land for a market garden, one of more than 50 financed by the organization.

When Diatta started to earn money, she said, she spent it on food, clothes and her children’s schooling. Her efforts were noticed.

“Next season, all the men accompanied us to the market garden because they saw it as valuable,” she said, recalling how they came simply to witness it.

Now another challenge has emerged affecting women and men alike: climate change.

In Senegal and the surrounding region, temperatures are rising 50% more than the global average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the UN Environment Program says rainfall could drop by 38% in the coming decades.

Where Sonko lives, the rainy season has become shorter and less predictable. Saltwater is invading her rice paddies bordering the tidal estuary and mangroves, caused by rising sea levels. In some cases, yield losses are so acute that farmers abandon their rice fields.

But adapting to a heating planet has proven to be a strength for women since they adopt climate innovations much faster than men, said Ena Derenoncourt, an investment specialist for women-led farming projects at agricultural research agency AICCRA.

“They have no choice because they are the most vulnerable and affected by climate change,” Derenoncourt said. “They are the most motivated to find solutions.”

On a recent day, Sonko gathered 30 prominent women rice growers to document hundreds of local rice varieties. She bellowed out the names of rice – some hundreds of years old, named after prominent women farmers, passed from generation to generation – and the women echoed with what they call it in their villages.

This preservation of indigenous rice varieties is not only key to adapting to climate change but also about emphasizing the status of women as the traditional guardians of seeds.

“Seeds are wholly feminine and give value to women in their communities,” Sonko said. “That’s why we’re working on them, to give them more confidence and responsibility in agriculture.”

The knowledge of hundreds of seeds and how they respond to different growing conditions has been vital in giving women a more influential role in communities.

Sonko claimed to have a seed for every condition including too rainy, too dry and even those more resistant to salt for the mangroves.

Last year, she produced 2 tons of rice on her half-hectare plot with none of the synthetic pesticides or fertilizer that are heavily subsidized in Senegal. The yield was more than double that of plots with full use of chemical products in a 2017 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization project in the same region.

“Our seeds are resilient,” Sonko said, sifting through rice-filled clay pots designed to preserve seeds for decades. “Conventional seeds do not resist climate change and are very demanding. They need fertilizer and pesticides.”

The cultural intimacy between female farmers, their seeds and the land means they are more likely to shun chemicals harming the soil, said Charles Katy, an expert on indigenous wisdom in Senegal who is helping to document Sonko’s rice varieties.

He noted the organic fertilizer that Sonko made from manure, and the biopesticides made from ginger, garlic and chili.

One of Sonko’s trainees, Sounkarou Kébé, recounted her experiments against parasites in her tomato plot. Instead of using manufactured insecticides, she tried using a tree bark traditionally used in Senegal’s Casamance region to treat intestinal problems in humans caused by parasites.

A week later, all the disease was gone, Kébé said.

As dusk approached at the training center, insects hummed in the background and Sonko prepared for another training session. “There’s too much demand,” she said. She is now trying to set up seven other farming centers across southern Senegal.

Glancing back at the circle of women studying in the fading light, she said: “My great fight in the movement is to make humanity understand the importance of women.”
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Johannesburg — Former South African President Jacob Zuma is not eligible to run in upcoming elections, the Independent Electoral Commission has ruled. 

The commission said at a media briefing on Thursday that it had upheld an objection against Zuma’s candidacy in the May 29 elections. 

In July 2021, Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison for defying a court order to appear before a judicial commission that was investigating corruption allegations during his 2009-18 presidency. He was granted medical parole after two months and allowed to serve the rest of the sentence under house arrest. 

South Africa’s Constitution bars people convicted and sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment, without an option of a fine, from holding public office. 

Zuma and his legal team stormed out of the judicial proceedings when he was asked about wide-ranging allegations of corruption during his rule, including the role of an Indian family, the Guptas, who allegedly had influence over his Cabinet appointments. 

Zuma, 81, has until April 2 to appeal the commission’s ruling. 

He is the now face of a new political party, uMkhonto weSizwe Party, abbreviated as MK, that has emerged as a potentially significant player in South Africa’s upcoming elections after he denounced the governing African National Congress, which he had previously led. 

The new party is named after the former military wing of the ANC, which was disbanded at the end of white minority rule and racial segregation policies under the former apartheid regime. 

Zuma’s announcement that he is leaving the ANC has been one of the notable developments ahead of the elections. 

His face is on the MK Party’s election posters, and he is the party’s most prominent figure and the main speaker at its election rallies. 

His battle against the ANC has landed in some of the country’s highest courts, with the MK Party scoring a victory this week when a court ruled against the ANC’s application to deregister the MK Party and ban it from participating in the elections. 

In a separate case, the ANC is contesting the MK Party’s use of its name and logo, which closely resembles that of the ANC’s former military wing. 

Local news outlet News24 reported that Zuma was involved in a car accident on Thursday but was unharmed.
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Dakar, Senegal — Senegal’s Constitutional Council on Friday confirmed anti-establishment candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye as president-elect, releasing final official results giving him a first-round victory of 54.28 percent in the March 24 vote. 

The governing coalition’s candidate, former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, finished with 35.79 percent, and the council other contenders had raised no objections. 

Faye, 44, is due to be sworn in as Senegal’s youngest president on Tuesday in the city of Diamniadio, according to the presidency. 

The handover of power from outgoing leader Macky Sall is then scheduled at the presidential palace in the capital, Dakar. 

Faye’s victory is the first time a Senegalese opposition candidate has won the election in the first round since independence in 1960. 
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