Paris — The Democratic Republic of Congo has filed criminal complaints against Apple subsidiaries in France and Belgium, accusing the tech firm of using conflict minerals in its supply chain, lawyers for the Congolese government told Reuters. 

Congo is a major source of tin, tantalum and tungsten, so-called 3T minerals used in computers and mobile phones. But some artisanal mines are run by armed groups involved in massacres of civilians, mass rapes, looting and other crimes, according to U.N. experts and human rights groups. 

Apple does not directly source primary minerals and says it audits suppliers, publishes findings and funds bodies that seek to improve mineral traceability. 

Apple last year said it had “no reasonable basis for concluding” its products contain illegally exported minerals from conflict-hit zones. The tech giant has insisted it carefully verifies the origin of materials in its output. 

Its 2023 filing on conflict minerals to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said none of the smelters or refiners of 3T minerals or gold in its supply chain had financed or benefited armed groups in Congo or neighboring countries. 

But international lawyers representing Congo argue that Apple uses minerals pillaged from Congo and laundered through international supply chains, which they say renders the firm complicit in crimes taking place in Congo. 

In parallel complaints filed to the Paris prosecutor’s office and to a Belgian investigating magistrate’s office on Monday, Congo accuses local subsidiaries Apple France, Apple Retail France and Apple Retail Belgium of a range of offenses. 

These include covering up war crimes and the laundering of tainted minerals, handling stolen goods, and carrying out deceptive commercial practices to assure consumers supply chains are clean. 

“It is clear that the Apple group, Apple France and Apple Retail France know very well that their minerals supply chain relies on systemic wrongdoing,” says the French complaint, after citing U.N. and rights reports on conflict in east Congo. 

Belgium had a particular moral duty to act because looting of Congo’s resources began during the 19th-century colonial rule of its King Leopold II, Congo’s Belgian lawyer Christophe Marchand said. 

“It is incumbent on Belgium to help Congo in its effort to use judicial means to end the pillaging,” he said. 

The complaints, prepared by the lawyers on behalf of Congo’s justice minister, make allegations not just against the local subsidiaries but against the Apple group as a whole. 

France and Belgium were chosen because of their perceived strong emphasis on corporate accountability. Judicial authorities in both nations will decide whether to investigate the complaints further and bring criminal charges. 

In an unrelated case in March, a U.S. federal court rejected an attempt by private plaintiffs to hold Apple, Google, Tesla, Dell and Microsoft accountable for what the plaintiffs described as their dependence on child labor in Congolese cobalt mines. 

Minerals fuel violence 

Since the 1990s, Congo’s mining heartlands in the east have been devastated by waves of fighting between armed groups, some backed by neighboring Rwanda, and the Congolese military. 

Millions of civilians have died and been displaced. 

Competition for minerals is one of the main drivers of conflict as armed groups sustain themselves and buy weapons with the proceeds of exports, often smuggled via Rwanda, according to U.N. experts and human rights organizations. 

Rwanda denies benefiting from the trade, dismissing the allegations as unfounded. 

Among the appendices to Congo’s legal complaint in France was a statement issued by the U.S. State Department in July, expressing concerns about the role of the illicit trade in minerals from Congo, including tantalum, in financing conflict. 

The statement was a response to requests from the private sector for the U.S. government to clarify potential risks associated with manufacturing products using minerals extracted, transported or exported from eastern Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. 

Congo’s complaints focus on ITSCI, a metals industry-funded monitoring and certification scheme designed to help companies perform due diligence on suppliers of 3T minerals exported from Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. 

Congo’s lawyers argue that ITSCI has been discredited, including by the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) of which Apple is a member, and that Apple nevertheless uses ITSCI as a fig leaf to falsely present its supply chain as clean. 

The RMI, whose members include more than 500 companies, announced in 2022 it was removing ITSCI from its list of approved traceability schemes. 

In July, it said it was prolonging the suspension until at least 2026, saying ITSCI had not provided field observations from high-risk sites or explained how it was responding to an escalation of violence in North Kivu province, which borders Rwanda and is a key 3T mining area. 

ITSCI criticized the RMI’s own processes and defended its work in Congo as reliable. It has also rejected allegations in a 2022 report by campaigning group Global Witness entitled “The ITSCI Laundromat,” cited in Congo’s legal complaint in France, that it was complicit in the false labeling of minerals from conflict zones as coming from mines located in peaceful areas. 

Apple mentioned ITSCI five times in its 2023 filing on conflict minerals. The filing also made multiple mentions of the RMI, in which Apple said it had continued active participation and leadership but did not mention the RMI’s ditching of ITSCI. 

In its July statement, the U.S. State Department said flaws in traceability schemes have not garnered sufficient engagement and attention to lead to changes needed. 

Robert Amsterdam, a U.S.-based lawyer for Congo, said the French and Belgian complaints were the first criminal complaints by the Congolese state against a major tech company, describing them as a “first salvo” only. 

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse. 
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MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE — At least 34 people were killed and 43 injured when Cyclone Chido smashed into three northern provinces of Mozambique on Sunday and Monday. The head of the country’s disaster management agency says the numbers are preliminary, as rescue teams search through rubble. 

After visiting the affected areas late Monday, the chair of Mozambique’s National Institute for Disaster Risk Management and Reduction, Luisa Meque, said around 2.5 million people were affected by the cyclone.  

Several districts in Cabo Delgado province, including the capital Pemba, were hit hard by the cyclone, and teams on the ground are reporting significant damage. 

The cyclone made landfall Sunday in Mecufi, a district in the province of Cabo Delgado, and destruction in the area was near total, with 100% of homes damaged and very few structures still standing.  

Canjar Amade told VOA via WhatsApp that he lived through the cyclone tearing apart his house. He said the wind took the sheets off during the night, and the house fell down Monday morning.

Meteorologist Acacio Tembe from the national weather agency said the provinces of Niassa and Cabo Delgado, as well as other parts of Mozambique, are still getting hit by remnants of the storm, including rains and strong winds.  

The system, which also hit Malawi and the island of Mayotte, is expected to dissipate near Zimbabwe by late Tuesday. 

Mozambique is considered one of the countries most severely affected by global climate change. During the rainy season, which runs from October to April, it experiences cyclical floods and tropical cyclones. 

Experts say with a potential La Nina effect in southern Africa in early 2025, the frequency and intensity of heavy rains and tropical cyclones is expected to increase in the Indian Ocean, with floods expected in areas currently affected by drought.
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The United Nations says the HIV/AIDS epidemic could be ended by 2030. But patients need to follow their treatment plans to keep the virus in check. Games could help, as Zaheer Cassim reports from Johannesburg.
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JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN — South Sudan is grappling with an influx of people living with disabilities as victims of ongoing conflicts in neighboring countries, such as Sudan, come in search of devices like artificial limbs. This surge puts immense pressure on South Sudan, a nation with just three specialized orthopedic centers. 

At 9 years old, Ladu Jackson had to learn to walk with elbow crutches after a road accident forced doctors to amputate his left leg.  

The incident initially turned Jackson’s life upside down, leaving him unable to engage in his favorite childhood activity, football.  

Today, Jackson, now 23 years old, is one of South Sudan’s most recognizable amputee footballers, using the crutches to move while he kicks the ball with his remaining leg.

“In 2021, I started learning how to play football with one limb,” he said. ‘I didn’t know there was something called amputee football. I was just thinking, ‘I wish my leg was not amputated’ because I loved playing football so much.” 

Jackson received support at the Physical Rehabilitation Reference Centre in Juba, established in 2009, two years before the country gained independence.  

The center, supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), is not only helping South Sudanese like Jackson but also aiding refugees fleeing civil war in Sudan. 

“Of course, there are already clients with these conditions, but their numbers keep getting bigger because of conflicts and more road accidents,” said Uwar Bosco, head of the Juba-based prosthetic and orthotic center. 

One such client is Adam Ahamed Mohamed, a refugee from Sudan who received his first prosthetic leg at the center. He fled to South Sudan after his entire family was displaced from their home in Sudan’s Darfur region.  

Mohamed said he was shot in both legs. One leg was amputated at the Juba Teaching and Referral Hospital before he was taken to the Rehabilitation Reference Center, where he got a prosthetic leg.

The growing influx of refugees has placed immense strain on South Sudan’s fragile health care system, still recovering from its own civil war.  

James Ochan, a disability inclusion adviser, said the center is coping with a rising tide of patients. 

“So far, the data we’ve registered this year — from January to October — is 2,549,” he said. “We’ve not yet recorded the data for November.” 

Ochan attributes the increase to neighboring Sudan’s civil war, which has intensified over the past year. 

“This year, we’ve seen a lot of influx from the crisis in Sudan. We have a team doing response at all the entry points from Sudan to South Sudan,” he said. 

South Sudan ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on Feb. 21, 2023. The convention ensures equal rights for individuals with disabilities and supports societal reintegration for people like Jackson and Mohamed. 

Ochan said that beyond providing prosthetics, the center helps individuals rebuild their lives and reintegrate into society. 

“After rehabilitation and fitting with devices, they need to go back home or into society to start anew. After such incidents, some may feel they’re no longer part of society,” he said. 

The center also promotes sports and economic activities for persons living with disabilities, helping them regain a sense of normalcy. 

“We are supporting sporting activities like wheelchair basketball and amputee football,” Ochan said. “This is fully supported by the ICRC. We also have microeconomic initiatives to help persons with disabilities start businesses and become productive citizens.” 

South Sudan is in the process of enacting a disability act, which Ochan believes will further cement the rights and freedoms of persons with disabilities.
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Nairobi, Kenya — Human Rights Watch has accused Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and allied militias of rape and other acts of sexual violence against women and girls in South Kordofan state. The rights group says the sexual violence constitutes war crimes, and that it underscores the urgent need for international action to protect Sudanese civilians and deliver justice to the victims.

Human Rights Watch says representatives met with raped or sexually abused women in Sudan’s South Kordofan state during their visit this past October.

The women, from the Nuba minority ethnic group, said they were violated and exploited by members of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and allied militias.

The RSF was not available to respond to the allegations against its fighters.

Belkis Wille is an associate director in the Crisis, Conflict and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch.

“In this new report of Human Rights Watch, we have included details that we gathered into the cases of 79 women and girls who were raped by the RSF, including girls as young as seven years old. And indeed we also documented the case of a group of 51 women and girls who were taken by the RSF and held on a military base and used as sex slaves for months,” she said.

The survivors and witnesses told investigators that they had been gang-raped since December 2023, and some of the victims were still missing.

Local and international rights groups have documented many alleged human rights violations by both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces since the sides went to war in April 2023, battling for power and control of the country.

Hala al-Karib is the regional director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa. She said RSF is known to use sexual violence against communities to drive them out of their homes.

“Most of the communities and families who are forced to leave their homes in Sudan, in Khartoum, in Al Gezira and other territories under the control of the RSF. People left because of sexual violence, so it’s used as a land grabbing tool, it’s used to break communities’ capacity to resist and its used also to control communities and to spread fear,” she said.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant in 2009 against former President Omar al-Bashir and some commanders of militia groups on allegations of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region.

Experts say the failure to hand over Bashir, who was ousted in 2019 and is now being held at a military hospital on the outskirts of Khartoum, is one factor that is fueling the conflict in Sudan.

Al-Karib said despite victims of past abuses not receiving justice, people will refuse to accept any solution that does not address the abuse and violations against them.

“Demands for justice should never be silenced. This time, it should be an integral part of any political process because the grievances and the pain communities are having is way too much, and I don’t think they are going to accept a political process that will conclude without justice arrangements,” she said.

Wille of HRW said survivors and victims of sexual violence need justice and protection.

“It’s really important, first and foremost, for the RSF to take action against these abuses. That means investigating their own forces for carrying out incidents of rape. It means immediately releasing any women and girls who are still being held and ensuring that this kind of act doesn’t continue. But we do need to see leadership from other actors as well. The U.N. Security Council and the African Union could do far more, for example, creating this mission with a mandate to protect civilians that could be sent into Sudan,” she said.

As the violence and suffering of Sudanese civilians continued, in September, Sudan’s military-led government rejected a U.N. plan to deploy a mission to protect civilians. 
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Tripoli, Libya — One of Libya’s main refineries in the west has been shut down after clashes between local armed groups erupted early Sunday and caused fires on infrastructure, state oil company NOC said.

Several tanks at the Zawiya refinery, a town 45 km west of Tripoli and the only one in western Libya that supplies the local market with fuel, caught fire, according to videos posted on social media, before being brought under control.  

Built in 1974, the Zawiya refinery, which is also a port terminal for importing and exporting fuels, is the largest in the country after that of Ras Lanouf (north), with a refining capacity exceeding 120,000 barrels per day.

The NOC announced in a statement the suspension of production, declaring “a state of force majeure and a state of emergency level three (maximum degree) following the damage caused to several tanks at the Zawiya refinery in the early hours of December 15.”

“Clashes with heavy and medium weapons broke out between armed groups in the perimeter of the refinery, causing serious fires, brought under control by civil defense personnel,” according to the statement.

Libyan news sites reported a death toll of one dead and 10 injured among the armed groups, without official confirmation.  

“All the fires that broke out in the refinery’s tanks, which were hit by gunfire, have been brought under control,” NOC spokesperson Khaled Ghulam told Libya al-Ahrar TV.

“We reassure the residents of Zawiya and Tripoli that the fuel supply to the tanks of the Brega Oil distribution company is secure and that the distribution of gasoline to gas stations continues without interruption,” the official added.

Zawiya, the third largest city in Tripolitania after Tripoli and Misrata, is the scene of violent and recurring fighting between armed groups. In May, clashes between rival gangs left one dead and a dozen injured before the intervention of notables and tribal leaders.  

Classes have been suspended in all schools and at the university in Zawiya, according to the Libyan news agency Lana. The coastal road linking the city to Tripoli has been reopened after a closure that lasted until early morning.  

Invoked in exceptional circumstances, the “state of force majeure” allows an exemption from the NOC’s liability in the event of non-compliance with oil delivery contracts.

Since the fall and death of leader Muammar Gadhafi in 2011, Libya, which has the most abundant hydrocarbon reserves in Africa, has struggled to extricate itself from more than a decade of chaos and division, with two rival governments vying for power.

Blockades of oil and gas sites have been frequent in recent years in Libya, linked either to social grievances, security threats or political disputes.  

Thanks to a lull and new investments in infrastructure, production, which has been around 1.2 million barrels per day for the past ten years, rose to 1.4 million barrels per day at the beginning of December (compared to 1.5 to 1.6 million before the 2011 Revolt).
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Nairobi, Kenya — Voters were busy across the globe in 2024 and more than a dozen countries in Africa staged presidential, parliamentary or local elections. 

While some of Africa’s longtime dominant ruling parties retained power, in others, incumbents went down in surprising and crushing defeats. 

Southern Africa

The small archipelago of Comoros — off Africa’s east coast — was the first to host presidential elections in 2024. Incumbent President Azali Assoumani, a former military officer who first came to power in a coup in 1999, won a fourth term. 

Election results were immediately rejected by the opposition, triggering violent protests that killed one and injured 25. 

In Mozambique, the Frelimo party won general elections again, extending its nearly 50 years in power. The official results were immediately rejected by opposition leader and runner-up Venancio Mondlane, triggering violent protests in the southern African country.

Many analysts, including Maputo’s Center for Democracy and Human Rights’ Director Adriano Nuvunga, predicted a Frelimo win despite heavy youth support for Mondlane.

“The terrain is already prepared, regardless of what we see — the enthusiasm, dynamism of the young people that are rallying behind this opposition candidate,” Nuvunga told VOA.

American University’s Kwaku Nuamah hopes President Daniel Chapo of Frelimo can extend an olive branch to the opposition to avoid a prolonged conflict in Mozambique. “When you win, you have the responsibility to unite the country. Hopefully, he’s able to do that… We don’t need another African country going down in flames,” Nuamah told VOA. 

Similarly, Namibia’s ruling party SWAPO retained power after many decades of governance but made history by electing its first female president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah.

Her main challenger, however, called the elections flawed, after multiple examples of election day technical difficulties and ballot paper shortages were documented. 

Unlike Mozambique, Comoros, and Namibia, Botswana ushered in a new era by electing a leader from the opposition for the first time in nearly 60 years, following decades of rule by one party. 

“Let’s carry those who came before us, those we have today and those who will come after us, to greater heights,” Duma Gideon Boko addressing supporters at his swearing-in ceremony.

Elections were peaceful in neighboring South Africa, but the outcome predicted by some surprised many. The African National Congress, in power since 1994 — when Nelson Mandela was elected president following the end of apartheid — failed to win the elections with an outright majority, forcing it for the first time to form a coalition government.

Simphiwe Malambo, an architect in South Africa. welcomed the change telling VOA “The ANC is finally going to be in a position where they have to reconsider how they’ve been approaching running the country.”

While ANC leaders asserted the country made progress under its stewardship, many voters expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s failure to deliver reliable electricity and other services. Allegations of corruption and disunity within the party played a role in the ANC’s ability to win a majority. 

“[Former President] Jacob Zuma’s party Mkhonto We Sizwe or MK has been completely unexpected. It arrived on the scene quite late in the run up to the elections and completely scrambled everything,” Daryl Glaser, University of Witwatersrand in South Africa told VOA a few days before the vote took place.  

East Africa 

In Rwanda’s elections, President Paul Kagame, in power for 30 years, won almost 100% of the vote. Some analysts credit Kagame for bringing peace, unity, and economic development to Rwanda after the country’s 1994 genocide.

“Voters want a leader who provides solutions for them… The achievement is tangible. You can see it,” analyst Teddy Kaberuka tells VOA.

But others like Strathmore University professor Edgar Githua question his popularity within the country.

“If you have a vote where 98% of a population vote for one candidate, that is a red flag. Nobody is that popular in this world,” he said.

A 2022 Human Rights Watch report said the space for political opposition and free media remained closed in the east African country.

West Africa

In West Africa, where a wave of coups recently dominated the political landscape, two countries seen as beacons of democracy didn’t disappoint. 

In Ghana, after serving only one term about a decade ago, President John Mahama made a stunning comeback in 2024 and beat the country’s ruling party candidate and Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia.

University of Ghana’s senior lecturer Kwame Asah-Asante told VOA that many voters in the country were thinking about the economy and their financial situations when they cast ballots because “it’s a bread-and-butter issue. We’ve seen time and again that anytime you have a very difficult economy, campaigning becomes difficult for the government of the day,” he said.

Ghana is the second largest cocoa producer in the world, but the country defaulted on most of its $30 billion external debt in 2022 after the effects of years of borrowing were made worse by the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mahama vows to cultivate a 24-hour business environment — enabling businesses and public institutions to operate 24/7, in three shifts of eight hours each — to bolster job creation and improve the economy.

In Senegal, little-known opposition leader Bassirou Diomaye Faye, 44, became Africa’s youngest president. Faye promised to fight corruption, rebuild institutions, and unite the country.

His election victory — just a few weeks after getting out of prison — followed a failed attempt by outgoing President Macky Sall to postpone the election process, plunging the country into a brief political crisis.

“It was very interesting, very educational scenario for those who are learning about democracy,” analyst Kaberuka told VOA about the Senegal vote.

Sahel region

While elections went on as planned in most African nations, they’ve been postponed in others including the ones plagued by coups in the Sahel, signaling military juntas’ intention to stay in power, analysts warn.  

Elections were officially postponed in Mali and Burkina Faso and Niger’s junta spoke of a three-year transition.

According to the 2024 rankings on media freedom by Reporters Without Borders, already-high restrictions on access to information increased in the Sahel, where several countries suspended local retransmissions of foreign broadcast media.
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ABUJA, NIGERIA — West African leaders from the regional group ECOWAS were meeting on Sunday for a summit with security and the departure from the bloc of three military-led governments high on the agenda.

Before the Economic Community of West Africa States meeting, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger reaffirmed as “irreversible” their decision to quit the bloc, which they condemned as subservient to ex-colonial ruler France.

The departure of the three could have a major impact on free trade and movement as well as on security cooperation in a region where jihadist groups are gaining ground across the Sahel.

Among those attending the summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja will be Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was appointed as a mediator with the breakaway states by the 15-member ECOWAS in July.

Faye said last week he was “making progress” in talks with the three and said there was no reason for them not to maintain relations, especially given the security situation.

The departure of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger will become effective one year after the announcement, in January, according to the bloc’s regulations.

The three states have also formed their own confederation, the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), after severing ties with France and pivoting towards Russia.

The three breakaways have not announced plans to attend the Abuja summit, but they held a separate ministerial-level meeting Friday in Niger’s capital, Niamey.

“The ministers reiterate the irreversible decision to withdraw from ECOWAS and are committed to pursuing a process of reflection on the means of exiting in the best interests of their peoples,” they said in a joint statement.

The three states have all gone through military coups and jihadist insurgencies in recent years. ECOWAS member state Guinea is also run by a military government after a 2021 coup.

Army intervention threat

Tensions with ECOWAS spiked after the group threatened a military intervention over a July 2023 coup in Niger — the region’s sixth in three years — and imposed heavy sanctions on the country.

Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbe has also been mediating with the Sahel states.

In March, ECOWAS lifted some of the sanctions imposed on Niger in a bid to restart dialogue, especially over the fate of deposed President Mohamed Bazoum who has been detained since the coup.

Earlier this year, Nigeria’s top military commander met Niger’s army chief to strengthen security cooperation, especially communication between the two militaries and participation in a multinational task force along the border area.

Since a coup in 2021, ECOWAS member Guinea has also been led by a military chief, General Mamady Doumbouya, who has since been sworn in as president.

Under pressure from ECOWAS, Guinea’s military-led leaders had agreed to organize elections by the end of 2024. But they have since admitted they will not live up to that commitment. 
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GENEVA — An attack on the main hospital in the western Sudanese town of Al-Fashir on Friday killed nine people and wounded 20, including patients and their families, the head of the World Health Organization said.

In a posting on X Saturday, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus added that “continued attacks on health across Sudan are deplorable.”

“We urge for the protection of all patients and health professionals, and for all attacks on and around health facilities to stop,” he said.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been ravaged by a war between two generals, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.

The war has left tens of thousands of civilians dead, displaced more than 11 million people, and plunged the East African country into the worst humanitarian crisis in recent years.

Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur, has been besieged since May by the RSF, which has blocked trade and aid deliveries to the region.
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HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Rights groups are urging Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa to sign into law a bill that would abolish the death penalty, following the bill’s landmark passage Thursday by the country’s senate, after earlier passage by the lower house of parliament.

In an interview with VOA, Zimbabwe’s justice minister, Ziyambi Ziyambi, said passage of the death abolition bill is welcomed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who, since coming to power in 2017, has refused to sign death warrants for those facing capital punishment.

“He is a man who has not been an advocate of death penalty,” Ziyambi said. “The passage of the bill by the senate towards Christmas is an early Christmas present to him, as he has been an advocate to say, ‘We can’t do this.’ And that’s the reason why I said he is the man who is going to appreciate the work that has been done by both houses.”

Human rights groups are now calling for Mnangagwa to sign the bill, among them Lucia Masuka, the head of Amnesty International in Zimbabwe.

“Amnesty International commends the progressive legislative efforts made so far to make the abolition of the death penalty from the country’s statutes a reality,” Masuka said. “We urge the president to take heed of this historic landmark decision by signing this bill without delay and commuting all death sentences to prison terms. The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and has no place in our world.”

In the past Mnangagwa has refused to sign some bills after parliament had passed them. But Ziyambi said that will not happen this time.

“How would I say it’s an early Christmas present if he does not want to sign it?” Ziyambi said. “He has lived the trauma of being on death row and was saved by a technicality. He is ready to sign like yesterday.”

But not everyone is happy with this latest development. One of them is Zachariah Choga, an attorney in Harare.

“I still believe adequate to search was not properly done on this regard,” he said. “If you look at the increase in crime in Zimbabwe at the moment, especially violent crimes, robberies, armed robberies to be specific house-breaking, it’s only going to escalate further with the death penalty off the table because it appeared with the death penalty on the table. It could have been the only deterrent that we had at this particular point, but now with the death penalty gone, we’re going to see a rise in violent crimes of that nature.”

According to Amnesty International, 24 countries across sub-Saharan Africa have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, while two additional countries have abolished it for ordinary crimes only.

Zimbabwe’s last known execution was in 2005, though courts continue to impose death sentences – for cases of murder committed under aggravating circumstances.

In April, all those condemned to death had their sentences commuted to life in prison by President Mnangagwa.
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Abuja, Nigeria — Nigerian authorities in oil-rich Rivers State unveiled on Friday six military-grade gunboats to help security agents battle the piracy and oil theft that have plagued the Niger Delta region for decades. The latest measure is part of a broader crackdown aiming at boosting Nigeria’s oil production. 

Local singers and dancers enthralled hundreds of delegates at the ceremony marking the handover of six military gunboats to Nigeria’s navy in southern Rivers State. 

It’s the latest effort by state authorities to support a national crackdown on oil thieves and to check piracy along the waterways in the Niger Delta. 

Officials said the boats will bolster the navy’s ability to patrol and respond to threats, especially near submerged oil export pipelines, which are often prone to attacks by thieves. 

Siminalayi Fubara is the Rivers State governor. 

“We’re doing logistics support to the Nigerian navy, who are the closest agency that can battle the ones off the land,” said Fubara. “It’s a big problem. When you see the technology involved in the lines, you’d see that it’s not small engineering, it’s a professional thing.” 

Nigeria has long declared a war on crude oil theft, but the problem has continued to cut into the government’s income and disrupt exports. 

Authorities estimate the country loses $10 billion every year, or the equivalent of about 200,000 barrels of oil per day, to illegal actors. 

Corruption, lack of security, and poor regulation have hindered authorities’ ability to effectively curb the problem. 

Fubara said in addition to heightening security measures, state authorities will expand investments in infrastructure, health care and education in local communities most prone to oil theft to dissuade them from the practice. 

“This problem is not just a problem that attacking those people on the field can solve,” said Fubara. “What we need is a total reorientation. You need to engage them.” 

The state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company said this week that 94 incidents of crude oil theft occurred between November 30 and December 6. 

On Thursday, the Nigerian military said its 90-day Operation Delta Safe, a program that aimed to reduce oil theft and increase production, was successful upon its conclusion in mid-October. 

Rear Admiral John Okeke is commander of the operation. He spoke to journalists. 

“We’ve been able to arrest, and the appropriate handling of over 300 vehicles comprising trucks, tankers, cars, tricycles conveying crude oil and illegal products,” said Okeke. “Similarly, we’ve been able to handle over 15 million liters of stolen crude oil and about four million liters of illegally refined automotive gasoline oil.” 

Authorities say Nigeria plans to use drones, automated metering systems and other technology to monitor its oil pipelines next year. 
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Gaborone, Botswana — The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is building a military logistics hub in Botswana to ensure rapid deployment of troops. The construction follows the regional bloc’s 2021 failure to quickly send forces to quell an insurgence in northern Mozambique.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, in his capacity as SADC chairperson, performed the groundbreaking ceremony Friday to mark the start of construction. 

The 19 hectare-SADC Standby Force Regional Logistics Depot will be built in Rasesa, 40 kilometers north of Gaborone. 

“This groundbreaking ceremony is timely and marks a significant stride in our journey towards promoting and consolidating peace, stability and security in our region,” said Mnangagwa. “Regrettably, the last four years have seen our region witnessing complex and multifaceted threats to peace and security. These require urgent and collective regional responses.”           

Having faced previous deployment challenges, Mnangagwa says the establishment of the center will ensure the region will be able to deploy troops quickly.

“The regional logistics depot will serve as a critical hub for the storage of and the rapid deployment of resources, personnel and equipment,” said Mnangagwa. “This ensures that the SADC Standby Force has tactical capability to swiftly respond to the threats to peace and security.”       

However, Mnangagwa says only $15 million of the $45 million required to complete the facility has been raised. He appealed to international partners to come to the SADC’s aid.   

Botswana President Duma Boko said the military hub will give the SADC the capacity to intervene in strife-torn regions.

“They (people) are mostly unsafe in some of their countries. They face strife, they face belligerent hostilities,” said Boko. “They are in distress and they are looking for help and we in SADC have taken it upon ourselves when these calls of distress are raised to step in, to step up and come to the rescue we set up therefore, a force through which we intervene in some of these situations.”   

Boko said the depot will be crucial to the distribution of military equipment when needed.   

“We have taken it upon ourselves to respond, to take to these trouble spots and deploy forces to assist and to bring an end to the conflicts,” said Boko. “Such missions require facilities where the equipment they will need in the execution of their missions will be kept and from which such equipment can then be moved and distributed with speed and dispatched to the front lines where it is needed.”  

Zimbabwe-based political analyst Effie Dlela Ncube said while it is critical to have the armory, regional leaders must first address the root cause of conflict.   

“We need to go beyond that (deploying troops) and deal with the political, socio-economic, legal and other structural root causes of conflict in the region,” said Ncube. “We need to ensure that there are free and fair elections so that people do not have to rely on war in order to change governments. We need to eradicate discrimination on the basis of where people come from, on the basis of the language they speak, because that is a key driver of conflict. We need to deal with poverty, corruption (and) economic inequalities.”   

The SADC has seen the emergence of trouble spots, notably in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and in northern Mozambique. 
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