Harare, Zimbabwe — Human rights organizations reacted angrily Tuesday after Zimbabwe’s ruling party acknowledged that more than 100 activists were detained to keep them from protesting during a Southern Africa Development Community summit held over the past weekend.

Authorities said they will start to release those who were detained now that the meeting is over.

Speaking with journalists in Harare, ruling ZANU-PF spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa defended detaining the activists.

“Those are deviants, and they were dealt with properly. And we are very happy they failed. And they will never succeed again,” Mutsvangwa said as he giggled at several points during his comments.

Roselyn Hanzi, director of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, which is representing the activists, said that their detention is no laughing matter.

“Every person in Zimbabwe should be worried where the ruling party openly admits that it fully controls one of the key arms of government that is supposed to provide checks and balances and in fact protect the citizens from the excesses of the other two arms: the legislature and the executive,” she told VOA.

“The judiciary is very key and plays a central role in protecting citizens and ensuring that their rights are realized,” she said. “In this case, you see them admitting that there [are] those people that wanted to protest. … Protest[ing] is not criminal, and it’s not a privilege. You should not be negotiating or begging for it.”

Zimbabwe’s Judicial Service Commission did not comment Tuesday when contacted by VOA.

Mary Lawlor, a U.N. special rapporteur on human rights, called for the immediate release of the activists, alleging that some had been tortured during their detainment by Zimbabwean authorities. State prosecutors and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission said they are investigating the allegations.

“The disrespect shown by the ZANU-PF spokesperson who laughed and joked about such a serious matter at his press conference is telling,” Lawlor said. “The president, [Emmerson] Mnangagwa, has shown how little he believes in the rule of law and how little in SADC’s commitment to human rights as chairman. He wants to pretend that everything in Zimbabwe is rosy and fine. But it is not fine. These charges were a travesty.”

Since taking over in 2017, Mnangagwa has maintained that he is a constitutionalist and respects the rule of law.

But rights lawyer and legislator Daniel Molokele said the law is being selectively applied against democracy activists. Molokele is a member of the country’s main opposition party — the Citizens Coalition for Change — whose members were arrested ahead of the SADC meeting.

“I think what the ZANU-PF spokesperson said clearly confirms what we have always said is happening in Zimbabwe,” Molokele said. “There is too much political interference in the judicial system. There is no rule of law in Zimbabwe. We do not have a proper judicial system because it’s clear that ZANU-PF is abusing our court system for its political benefit.”

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said it hopes the detained activists will be released soon, now that the SADC summit is over. The group said it will decide what steps to take next after hearing from the activists.
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Nairobi — A suspect who police said confessed to killing 42 women and was being detained over the discovery of dismembered bodies in Kenya’s capital has escaped from police custody, officials said Tuesday.

Mohamed Amin, the head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, said Collins Jumaisi Khalusha escaped along with 12 other inmates of Eritrean nationality who had been arrested for being in the country illegally.

Acting police inspector general Gilbert Masengeli said disciplinary measures have been taken against eight officers, including the area and station commanders and officers who were on duty. 

“Our preliminary investigations indicate that the escape was aided by insiders considering that officers were deployed accordingly to guard the station,” he said. 

A police report said the inmates escaped early Tuesday morning after they cut through wire mesh in the cell and scaled the perimeter wall. The escape was discovered as breakfast was being taken into the cell. 

Khalusha, 33, was being detained at the police station after a court allowed detectives seven more days to investigate his alleged crimes before charging him. 

Khalusha was arrested in July after 10 bodies and several body parts were found wrapped in plastic sacks in the Kware area of Nairobi. 

Police said Khalusha confessed to killing 42 women, including his wife. 

“This was a high-value suspect who was to face serious charges. We are investigating the incident and will take action accordingly,” Amin said. 

Khalusha’s lawyer, John Maina Ndegwa, told journalists his client was tortured and forced to confess and maintained he was not guilty. 

Ndegwa told the AP that he last spoke to Khalusha on Friday when he was presented in court. 

“I’m also confounded by the news,” he said. 

The police station from which the suspects escaped was cordoned off with crime scene tape and senior police officers visited it on Tuesday afternoon. 

Two other suspects who were arrested after being found with cellphones belonging to some of the deceased women are to return to court next Monday. 

Police in July said the bodies were discovered after relatives of one missing woman said they had a dream in which she told them to search in a quarry. 

The relatives asked a local diver to help and he discovered the bodies wrapped in sacks. Six bodies were identified after DNA tests, but several body parts remain unidentified. 
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Abuja, Nigeria — Police in Nigeria are searching for 20 medical students who were kidnapped by gunmen Thursday.

The students were on their way to a medical convention when their motorcade was intercepted in central Benue State.

The Benue State police command Monday told VOA it has launched an investigation into the abduction of the medical students and deployed tactical teams on a rescue mission. 

But they said the teams have not reported any success. 

Twenty medical students from universities of Jos and Maiduguri and a medical doctor traveling with them were taken on their way to the conference in eastern Enugu State.

Anene Sewuese Catherine, the Benue state police public relations officer, spoke to VOA via phone.

“The team has moved but we’ve not heard from them,” Catherine said. “Investigation of kidnap is classified, we don’t [share] details or until there’s success. There’s no update for now.”

The abduction sparked widespread condemnation over insecurity in Africa’s most populous nation, where authorities have struggled for several years to control violence from armed gangs locally referred to as “bandits.”

Over the weekend, the national police ordered the deployment of helicopters, drones and specialized tactical teams to aid in the search for the medical students. 

The Nigerian Medical Students Association said the abductors, using the students’ phones, issued a demand of about $31,400 to release the entire group.

The association has been urging authorities to secure the release of the students unharmed.

The association’s national president, Moses Onwubuya, said students are threatening to protest if their colleagues are not released soon.

“The only response we’ve been getting is that we should just calm down, that security agencies are in the matter,” Onwubuya said. “Calls have been going out through the phone numbers of our abducted colleagues. Students are agitating, we’re only trying to see if we can abide by the security guidelines, but I can’t guarantee what will happen any moment from now.”

According to Center for Democracy and Development — West Africa, Nigeria recorded more than 4,000 abductions in 2023, accounting for 58 percent of the total cases in West Africa and the highest in five years.

Security analysts say a severe economic crisis in Nigeria is pushing more people toward crime and kidnapping for ransom. 

Nigerian authorities have pledged to address economic problems along with security challenges. Meanwhile, families of victims are hoping their loved ones return to them safely.
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Geneva — Efforts to achieve humanitarian access to millions of desperately needy Sudanese are moving forward but cease-fire negotiations remain dormant because the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) still refuse to send a delegation to the U.S.-sponsored peace talks, a U.S. official says.

U.S. special envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello told journalists at a briefing Monday in Geneva that given the urgency of the Sudan crisis, delegations from the United Nations, African Union, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been working “through the night” on issues related to humanitarian assistance and civilian protection.

Perriello said this work is paying off in that Sudan’s military has agreed to open the Adre border crossing with Chad to allow food and other relief supplies to enter conflict-rattled Darfur.

“Along with many, many humanitarian and diplomatic colleagues around the world, we are now on the precipice of Adre being open with over 100 trucks ready to roll as early as tomorrow on something that would often take weeks and weeks, if not months,” he said. “And that means that we can be seeing food and medicine reaching areas like Zamzam camp, where well over 400,000 people have been facing starvation and famine.”

Though only the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have turned up at the talks, Perriello said that active negotiations have been going on with both warring parties since the talks began August 14.

“We have worked virtually through phones with the army to accelerate progress that save lives of the Sudanese,” he said, adding that “if the army delegation were here, I guarantee we would be producing more results for the Sudanese people on humanitarian access and on civilian protection than we can do by phone.”

He said the talks are prioritizing the opening of humanitarian corridors on three roads — the Adre border crossing, Dabar Road and the opening of Sennar junction and Sennar State. This, he said “collectively would ensure that 20 million people who currently are cut off completely or largely from food and medicine would be able to get that relief.”

Taylor Garrett, who heads the Sudan rapid support team for the U.S. government, said, “Those routes will open up assistance to reach really the heartland of the crisis to greater Kordofan, Greater Darfur, White Nile, Blue Nile and Sennar.

“Another point that we have made clear is the need for both sides to allow assistance to flow to areas controlled by the other side, as it moves through their territory. So, regardless of territorial control, the assistance has to reach people,” he said.

“We will continue to move forward on the results that matter and we hope that everyone, including the army would see that this is something that the Sudanese people will respond to very positively,” Garrett said.

Since rival generals of the SAF and RSF plunged Sudan into war 16 months ago on April 15, 2023, the Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, estimates more than 18,800 people have been killed and another 33,000 injured.

It reports more than 10.7 million people are displaced inside Sudan, another 2 million refugees have fled to neighboring countries, and about 25.6 million people, more than half of Sudan’s population, face acute hunger, including more than 755,000 people on the brink of famine.

“We are in a crisis of epic proportions,” Perriello said. “The sooner the parties engage in full mediation for the cessation of hostilities, the better it will be for everybody in Sudan. But, we will continue to work for those protections that have to be respected even in wartime under both international law and the Jeddah declarations.

The Jeddah declaration is an agreement signed by both the SAF and RSF last year, reaffirming both group’s core obligations under International Humanitarian Law to facilitate humanitarian action to meet the needs of civilians.

“That is what we are going to continue working on,” Perriello said, adding that this current first round of peace talks will continue for a few more days.
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Nairobi — The Kenyan government plans to raise about $1.2 billion by reinstating some unpopular taxes contained in a finance bill that was scrapped in the face of deadly street protests, a government minister said.

President William Ruto had warned of a funding shortfall after he decided in June to drop the controversial tax hikes after a bloody day in Nairobi that saw the storming of parliament and police firing live bullets on demonstrators.

Finance Minister John Mbadi told private station Citizen TV on Sunday that the government was considering about 49 tax measures to try to raise roughly 150 billion shillings ($1.2 billion).

These include the reintroduction of an “eco levy” on goods such as electronic items as well as plastic packaging, that the government says is aimed at reducing waste.

“If you are injurious to the environment then you must pay for helping make good the harm you have caused,” Mbadi said.

Mbadi is one of four opposition stalwarts who joined a revamped cabinet after Ruto vowed to create a “broad-based” government to try to address the concerns of the protesters, led largely by young Gen-Z Kenyans.

After scrapping the 2024 finance bill, which would have raised about $2.7 billion in taxes, Ruto announced government spending cuts and increased borrowing to plug the gap.

Citizen TV said the new measures contained in the tax amendment bill were expected to be in place by the end of September.

The abolition of the 2024 finance bill saw global ratings agencies Moody’s and Fitch downgrade Kenya’s credit rating over concerns about the government’s ability to service its $78 billion public debt.
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Rita Mawuena Benissan, a Ghanaian American artist, creates art that reflects the beauty of Ghana’s culture and African history. She’s extending her passion to a campaign that seeks the return of artifacts that were created in Ghana centuries ago but now sit in Western museums. Senanu Tord has this report from Accra, Ghana.
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Cairo — Sudan has been stricken by a cholera outbreak that has killed nearly two dozen people and sickened hundreds more in recent weeks, health authorities said Sunday. The African nation has been roiled by a 16-month conflict and devastating floods.

 

Health Minister Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim said in a statement that at least 22 people have died from the disease, and that at least 354 confirmed cases of cholera have been detected across the county in recent weeks.

 

Ibrahim didn’t give a time frame for the deaths or the tally since the start of the year. The World Health Organization, however, said that 78 deaths were recorded from cholera this year in Sudan as of July 28. The disease also sickened more than 2,400 others between Jan. 1 and July 28, it said.

 

Cholera is a fast-developing, highly contagious infection that causes diarrhea, leading to severe dehydration and possible death within hours when not treated, according to WHO. It is transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated food or water.

 

The cholera outbreak is the latest calamity for Sudan, which was plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the military and a powerful paramilitary group exploded into open warfare across the country.

 

The conflict has turned the capital, Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields, wrecking civilian infrastructure and an already battered health care system. Without the basics, many hospitals and medical facilities have closed their doors.

It has killed thousands of people and pushed many into starvation, with famine already confirmed in a sprawling camp for displaced people in the wrecked northern region of Darfur.

 

Sudan’s conflict has 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 those fled to neighboring countries.

 

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

 

Devastating seasonal floods in recent weeks have compounded the misery. Dozens of people have been killed and critical infrastructure has been washed away in 12 of Sudan’s 18 provinces, according to local authorities. About 118,000 people have been displaced due to the floods, according to the U.N. migration agency.

 

Cholera is not uncommon in Sudan. A previous major outbreak left at least 700 dead and sickened about 22,000 in less than two months in 2017.

 

Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesperson for WHO, said the outbreak began in the eastern province of Kassala before spreading to nine localities in five provinces.

 

He said in comments to The Associated Press that data showed that most of the detected cases were not vaccinated. He said the WHO is now working with the Sudanese health authorities and partners to implement a vaccination campaign.

 

Sudan’s military-controlled sovereign council, meanwhile, said Sunday it will send a government delegation to meet with American officials in Cairo amid mounting U.S. pressure on the military to join ongoing peace talks in Switzerland that aim at finding a way out of the conflict.

 

The council said in a statement the Cairo meeting will focus on the implementation of a deal between the military and the Rapid Support Forces, which required the paramilitary group to pull out from people’s homes in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

 

The talks began Aug. 14 in Switzerland with diplomats from the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the African Union and the United Nations attending. A delegation from the RSF was in Geneva but didn’t join the meetings.
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BENTIU, South Sudan — Elizabeth Nyachiew was 16 when she watched her neighbor bleed to death during childbirth. She vowed to become a midwife to spare others from the same fate in South Sudan, a country with one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates. 

“If I saw people dying, I wanted to know why,” she said. “I kept thinking if I was educated, I’d know the cause and I could help.” 

Now 36, in her office at a hospital run by the aid group Doctors Without Borders in the city of Bentiu, Nyachiew said she has weathered civil war, hunger and displacement to make it this far. 

She is one of some 3,000 midwives in South Sudan. The country’s health ministry says that number is insufficient to serve the population of 11 million people. 

And yet Nyachiew’s journey shows the extraordinary effort needed to get here. 

As a girl in Leer in northern Unity State, Nyachiew faced pressure from her family, who didn’t think girls should attend school. She stayed home until age 9 helping cultivate beans, pumpkin and maize on their farm. 

When she finally persuaded her father to let her study, more fighting had begun in the long conflict that eventually ended with South Sudan’s independence from Sudan in 2011. 

Her family fled into the bush. Women were raped and relatives were killed, including her pregnant sister-in-law. As fighting ebbed and flowed, Nyachiew did what she could to study, even traveling to Khartoum and learning Arabic. 

At 18, Nyachiew was admitted to a midwifery course sponsored by aid groups and based in Leer. She struggled to understand medical terms and thought she’d never pass. During the second year, she became pregnant. The school had a policy of not allowing pregnant women to participate, worried they might be distracted. 

But Nyachiew wouldn’t drop out. She threatened suicide and begged her brother to intervene. The administration let her stay. 

Nyachiew named her daughter Jephaenia Chigoa, reflecting the term for “something good” in the Nuer language. 

Even after she became a midwife, Nyachiew lived the dangers that many pregnant women in South Sudan face. 

Much of the country has no road network, meaning that pregnant women often walk for hours or days to the nearest clinic. Some are carried in wheelbarrows or stretchers with the help of relatives and friends. 

Nyachiew made that journey herself. During one miscarriage, she walked for two hours to the closest clinic in Leer while screaming in pain as blood streamed down her legs. 

It was 2011, the year of South Sudan’s independence. A civil war began two years later, killing nearly 400,000 people and ending in 2018. 

When the fighting began, Nyachiew was studying in the capital, Juba. She returned to Leer, and her family again hid in the bush for months as people — including four brothers-in-law — were killed around them. Soldiers beat her, seeking money. 

But the most difficult part was still being unable to help pregnant women, watching them die for lack of proper equipment and care. 

South Sudan has made a fragile recovery from civil war. Violence between some communities remains deadly, and the United Nations says 9 million people — 75% of the population — rely on humanitarian aid. 

Nyachiew lives in a displacement camp along with 100,000 others, including 17 relatives who rely on her as their sole breadwinner. Like others in the camp, she is scared to move out, worried that conflict could resume. 

South Sudan’s health system continues to suffer. The government allocates less than 2% of the national budget to the health ministry, whose system is propped up by aid groups and the international community. Many health centers outside the capital still have a desperate, wartime feel. 

“The changes have been slow and uneven,” said Janet Michael, director general for nursing and midwifery at the health ministry. 

Data collection is so poor that no one knows for sure how many women are dying in childbirth. The U.N. has estimated that 1,200 women die per 100,000 live births. 

Some women who survive still lose their babies. 

In June, Nyalith Mauit lost one of her twins while giving birth. Health workers at a clinic struggled to deliver the first twin, who came out feet first. She was transferred to the Doctors Without Borders-run hospital, where Nyachiew leads more than a dozen midwives. But they were unable to deliver the second twin in time. 

Mauit cradled her surviving day-old son. 

“I am grateful there is a hospital here. If there wasn’t, yesterday might have been the end of my life,” she said. 

Nyachiew, slender and serious, holding a walkie-talkie as she did her hospital rounds, hopes to see more midwives emerge to help. 

The United Nations Population Fund is working with South Sudan’s health ministry to train them and create mobile clinics to reach remote areas. But schools lack textbooks and trained tutors, and there is never enough funding, the health ministry said. 

Nyachiew, who was expecting her sixth child while speaking to The Associated Press, hopes such issues can be addressed by the next generation. 

“My message to little girls is to tell that they have to go to school because school it is very important, because if you go to school, you should become a doctor, you should become a nurse, you should become a midwife,” she said. “So that you can help the entire community.” 
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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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ABUJA, NIGERIA — Barely 48 hours after the World Health Organization declared mpox a global health emergency, Nigeria went on high alert Friday, announcing new mpox cases and raising concerns about the country’s ability to contain the outbreak.

The Nigeria Center for Disease Control and Prevention, or NCDC, said it has recorded 39 cases of mpox so far this year amid a surge in infections across Africa. No deaths have been recorded in Nigeria.

Bayelsa, Cross River, Ogun and Lagos states are the most affected by the outbreak.

Speaking at a news conference, NCDC lead Dr. Olajide Idris said that the nation is ramping up its response to manage the spread of the virus and prevent the disease from being imported.

Mpox is a rare viral zoonotic disease, meaning it is primarily an animal disease that can be transmitted to humans. It is endemic in several African countries, with over 2,800 cases reported across 13 countries this year, claiming more than 500 lives.

Symptoms include fever, body aches, weakness, headaches and rashes.

With a more lethal strain emerging, Idris said that vaccination plans are being considered for high-risk populations.

“The Nigerian government is making effort to make vaccines available to the public, especially for the hotspot areas,” he said. “These vaccines have been shown to have a favorable safety profile. They are not yet in the country, but they are on their way.”

Olayinka Badmus, deputy project director for Global Health Security, Breakthrough Action Nigeria, said the new strain poses a higher risk.

“This particular strain is new, and anything new requires new learning. The things that we have seen related to this particular strain is the fact that it is spreading quite fast, the presenting symptoms — especially the rash — are widespread,” she said, meaning that the rash is all over the body.

“We are also seeing more children affected with mpox compared to the other strains,” Badmus said.

Another cause for concern, she said, is that this strain has “a higher human-to-human transmission at an accelerated rate.”

Idris stressed the need for public awareness in containing the spread and urged people to seek medical attention if they experience symptoms.

“We encourage everybody feeling feverish, muscle pain, sore throat to please visit the nearest health care facility,” he said.

Public health experts are also urging people to adhere to preventive measures such as avoiding contact with potentially infected animals and practicing good hygiene.
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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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