United Nations — A United Nations-backed food security report concluded Thursday that more than a year of war in Sudan has pushed parts of North Darfur into famine, including a displaced persons camp that houses more than a half-million people.

“According to the report, catastrophic hunger conditions are projected for the first time in the history of the IPC survey in Sudan, and 14 areas have been declared ‘at risk of famine’ in the coming months,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters about the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the global monitor for food insecurity.

The IPC does not declare famine but provides the evidence for an official declaration to be made.

The IPC says famine conditions are prevalent in North Darfur, including at the Zamzam displacement camp, which is about 12 kilometers (7 miles) south of the regional capital, El Fasher, and are likely to persist through the end of October.

The U.N. says intensified fighting in El Fasher has displaced about 320,000 people since mid-April, with about 150,000 to 200,000 of them believed to have moved to Zamzam camp since mid-May. It says the camp population has expanded to over half a million in just a few weeks.

Fighting between rival generals leading the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces for the past 15 months has severely hindered humanitarian access, exacerbating the hunger crisis.

In addition to the areas facing famine, the U.N. warns that half the country’s population — about 25.6 million people — are at crisis levels or worse of food insecurity.

Dujarric said the World Food Program is rapidly increasing its emergency response and trying to find new ways to reach millions of people across Sudan, especially in hard-to-reach areas.

“Our colleagues at WFP are telling us that we are in a race against time to stop famine in its tracks,” Dujarric said. “But there is an urgent need for a massive increase in funding to ramp up assistance at the scale required to avert famine.”

The United Nations has appealed for $2.7 billion this year for Sudan but has received about a third of that — $870 million.

“We and our partners warn that if the war doesn’t stop, more and more people are being pushed into catastrophic levels of hunger,” Dujarric said.

Nongovernmental organization Mercy Corps said the IPC famine report is “merely the tip of the iceberg.”

“We can only imagine the extent of starvation and deprivation in other regions where we lack similar data, particularly in the 14 areas identified in the latest IPC report, including Greater Darfur, the Kordofan areas, and Khartoum State,” Barrett Alexander, Mercy Corps’ director of programs for Sudan, said in a statement.

He said a recent assessment by his team in Central and South Darfur found that 9 out of 10 children, particularly those under age 5, are suffering from life-threatening malnutrition.

On Monday, the U.N. Security Council expressed its concern about the humanitarian situation, urging the international community to increase assistance.

On July 18, the United States announced an additional $203 million in humanitarian assistance to support those affected by the conflict both inside Sudan and those who have fled to neighboring countries.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the IPC report confirms what was known already — that people have been and continue to die in Sudan from starvation.

“Families who fled horrific violence have been going hungry for months,” she said in a statement. “Children have been eating dirt and leaves, and every day, babies have been starving to death.”

She urged the warring parties to attend the cease-fire talks in Switzerland on August 14, which the United States is mediating, and Switzerland and Saudi Arabia are co-hosting.
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Recent protests in Kenya that forced the president to dissolve his cabinet have been led by  members of Generation Z, many of whom identify as tribeless and classless. Who are these young protesters? Juma Majanga reports. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo.
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Nairobi — Human Rights Watch is accusing Tanzania of forcing indigenous tribes from their ancestral land in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. In a report released Wednesday, the rights group documents a Tanzanian government program to move 82,000 people off their land to use it for wildlife conservation, tourism and hunting.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northern Tanzania is a U.N. World Heritage Site managed by the Tanzanian government. For centuries, the Maasai tribe has lived in the area side by side with wild animals. 

In 2022, the government of Tanzania launched a program to encourage the voluntary relocation of the Maasai tribe from the conservation area to Msomera, a town about 600 kilometers (370 miles) away. 

However, what the government called a voluntary relocation plan was far from voluntary, Human Rights Watch says.   

Allan Ngari, the group’s Africa advocacy director, said the forced movement of the people is against the Tanzanian constitution and international law.  

“There are clear violations, including the Maasai people’s rights to consultation, including prior to planning and execution of the relocation, the prohibition of forced evictions, which is happening even for Msomera residents. And then their culture and development has been inhibited,” Ngari said. “So, there’s just a general disregard of the obligations by the government that raises serious concerns about the prospects of any accountability, justice.” 

For the 86-page report, titled “It’s Like Killing Culture,” Human Rights Watch interviewed at least 100 people, including Ngorongoro Conservation Area residents who were resettled.  

Community members say they were not informed about the resettlement plans and that consent was not sought.

In January, government spokesman Mobhare Matinyi said the relocation process was ongoing and on the right track despite some civil societies and others spreading false information. According to local activists, some 8,000 people have been relocated.  

Ngorongoro is home to more than 80,000 people, but since 2021 residents say the government has reduced the availability of essential services in the area like water, land for food production and adequate schools. 

Local media reports the government has denied reducing such services. But Ngorongoro resident Denis Oleshangay said authorities are edging them out of their homes.  

“The government is trying to make the situation uncomfortable, to make them restless, to make the situation hard for the human being to survive, by denying them the right to access all important places for pasture and water,” Oleshangay said. “But as a result of that, many people lost their livestock because now they have not enough place to pasture. The situation in schools, you have no permit to build even a collapsing classroom, build houses.” 

Residents also say government-employed rangers assault and beat them with impunity, and that moving around Ngorongoro has become dangerous.  

Over the years, the Tanzanian government has developed a plan to set aside more land for tourists, wild animals, and game hunting. 

Authorities argue that though they allowed the Maasai to live within national parks, the growth of their population has put them in direct competition with wildlife.   

Ngari of Human Rights Watch said the government needs to discuss its plan with the affected communities and provide necessities to those still residing in the conservation area. 

“We are asking for availability and accessibility of basic services,” Ngari said. “So there needs to be a restoration of funding and resources to the Ngorongoro conservation area. This has been removed by the government.” 

The New York-based group says the government needs to respect the rights of the indigenous people and ensure their survival, well-being, and dignity. 
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Johannesburg — Former South African president Jacob Zuma has been expelled from his longtime political home, the African National Congress, after throwing his support behind a rival political party and campaigning for it ahead of May’s game-changing elections.

Zuma was a member of the African National Congress, or ANC, for 65 years. 

The octogenarian politician joined the anti-apartheid movement as a young man in 1959. Like fellow ANC stalwart Nelson Mandela, he was jailed on Robben Island for his part in the fight against white minority rule. 

Also like Mandela, Zuma went on to serve as president after the advent of South Africa’s democracy. 

But his association with the storied movement saw an ignoble end on Monday. 

“Jacob Zuma has actively impugned the integrity of the ANC and campaigned to dislodge the ANC from power,” ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula said, explaining the party’s decision to expel Zuma. 

Zuma, 82, was forced to resign in disgrace near the end of his second term as president in 2018 amid numerous corruption scandals. He is widely accused of enabling what is known in South Africa as “State Capture” — basically the handing over of state-owned enterprises and even some ministries to his businessmen friends. He denies wrongdoing. 

Bitter at the ANC, Zuma threw his weight behind the newly-formed uMkhonto weSizwe, or MK party, in December 2023. Despite his suspension from the party, he remained a member of the ANC while acting as the public face and leader of the populist MK party. 

While Zuma himself was barred from running for office due to a prior criminal conviction, he campaigned for MK using vicious rhetoric against his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa. 

Despite the corruption allegations against him, Zuma has retained massive support in his home province of Kwa Zulu-Natal. MK did very well there in May 29 elections, which saw it become the third biggest party in South Africa with almost 15 percent of the vote. 

Despite MK’s success, Zuma rejected the results, falsely claiming voting irregularities without any evidence. Mbalula also referenced this when announcing the expulsion. 

“Furthermore, former president Zuma has been running on a dangerous platform that casts doubt on our entire constitutional edifice,” Mbalula said. “He has meted out a host of anti-revolutionary outbursts, including mischievously calling into question the credibility of our electoral processes without cause.” 

Official election results saw the ANC lose its parliamentary majority for the first time since the start of democracy in 1994, forcing it to form a coalition in order to govern. MK is now the official opposition in parliament, led by a Zuma-aligned disgraced former judge. 

Professor David Everatt of Johannesburg’s Witwatersrand School of Governance said he was surprised it took the ANC so long to expel Zuma. 

“It shows very clearly that the balance of forces has swung very clearly against Jacob Zuma and he doesn’t have the support inside the ANC to try and defend himself,” Everatt said. 

But political analyst Sandile Swana noted that the ANC had protected Zuma for years. 

“All of them have supported Jacob Zuma in one form or another and tolerated the decay in the ANC, so Zuma is one of the stars of the decay and demise of the African National Congress, that is his legacy,” Swana said. 

Zuma is due in court next year to face corruption charges over a 1999 arms deal.
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Bangkok — Millions of lives could be put at risk unless urgent action is taken to curb the spread of drug-resistant malaria in Africa, according to a new paper published in the journal Science.

The paper says the parasite that causes malaria is showing signs of resistance to artemisinin, the main drug used to fight the disease, in several east African countries.

“Mutations indicating artemisinin-resistance have been found in more than 10% of malaria infected individuals in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania,” according to the report.

Artemisinin Combination Therapies, or ACTs, have been the cornerstone of malaria treatment in recent years — but there are worrying signs that they are becoming less effective, says report co-author Lorenz von Seidlein of the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok.

“We have increasing reports from eastern Africa saying that they have documented resistance against the first line treatments against malaria,” he says. “The first line treatments are artemisinin combination therapy – that has been used for the last 20 years and has worked excellently well. And it’s now not working quite as well as it used to do.”

It’s estimated that over one thousand children die every day from malaria in Africa. The World Health Organization estimates that the global death toll from malaria in 2022 — the most recent figures available — was 608,000.

Past lessons

Before artemisinin therapies were developed, chloroquine was the medicine most used to treat malaria. The report authors say that in the 1990s and early 2000s, signs that the malaria parasite was developing resistance to chloroquine were widely ignored.

“When chloroquine resistance slowly sneaked into Africa there was a whole wave of childhood mortality followed by it. So really, a large number of children — probably in the millions — died because chloroquine didn’t work as well as it used to do. And now we see these first signs that something similar is happening with the ACTs. And that is of course very worrying,” von Seidlein says.

Urgent action

The report authors urge policymakers and global funding bodies to act now to prevent artemisinin resistance taking hold.

Their recommendations include combining artemisinin drugs with other medicines.

“Combining an artemisinin derivative drug with two partner drugs in triple artemisinin combination therapies [TACTs] is the simplest, most affordable, readily implementable, and sustainable approach to counter artemisinin resistance,” the report says.

The authors also call for the rollout of new, more effective insecticides and mosquito nets; better training of community health workers; the rapid deployment of new malaria vaccines; and better monitoring of parasite mutations.

Southeast Asia

Many of these methods were used to halt the spread of artemisinin resistance in south-east Asia since 2014, notes von Seidlein.

“Ultimately, there was an understanding that this could be a major health emergency globally and so there were a lot of investments from funders for the from high-income countries towards these countries in the Greater Mekong sub-region to stop the spread of artemisinin resistant parasites,” he says.

The report says that sense of urgency must now be applied to tackling artemisinin resistance in Africa.

“We ask funders, specifically the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria [GFATM] and the U.S. Government’s President’s Malaria Initiative, to be visionary and to step up funding for malaria control and elimination programs to contain the spread of artemisinin resistance in Africa — as they have done effectively in Southeast Asia since 2014,” says report co-author Ntuli Kapologwe, the director of preventive services at Tanzania’s Ministry of Health.
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Cairo, Egypt — A court in Libya on Sunday sentenced 12 current and former officials to terms of up to 27 years in prison over their involvement in the collapse of two dams last year that sent a wall of water several meters high through the center of a coastal city. Thousands of people died.

The two dams outside the city of Derna broke up on Sept. 11 after they were overwhelmed by Storm Daniel, which caused heavy rain across eastern Libya. The failure of the structures inundated as much as a quarter of the city, officials have said, destroying entire neighborhoods and sweeping people out to sea.

The Derna Criminal Court on Sunday convicted 12 current and former officials of mismanagement, negligence and mistakes that contributed to the disaster, according to a statement from the office of the country’s top prosecutor.

The defendants, who were responsible for managing the country’s dams, were given prison terms that ranged from nine to 27 years, the statement said, without identifying them. Three of the defendants were ordered to return “money obtained from illicit gains,” the statement said without elaborating.

The court acquitted four other people, it said.

Sunday’s verdict could be appealed before a higher court, according to Libya’s judicial system.

The oil-rich North African nation has been in chaos since 2011 when a NATO-backed uprising-turned-civil war ousted longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. For most of the past decade, rival administrations have claimed authority to lead Libya. Each is backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

The country’s east has been under the control of Gen. Khalifa Hifter and his self-styled Libyan National Army, which is allied with a parliament-confirmed government. A rival administration is based in the capital, Tripoli, and enjoys the support of most of the international community.

The dams were built by a Yugoslav construction company in the 1970s above Wadi Derna, a river valley that divides the city. They were meant to protect the city from flash floods, which are not uncommon in the area. The dams were not maintained for decades, despite warnings from scientists that they could burst.

A report by a state-run audit agency in 2021 said the two dams hadn’t been maintained despite the allocation of more than $2 million for that purpose in 2012 and 2013.

The flood of water from the dams left as much as one-third of Derna’s housing and infrastructure damaged, according to the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.

The World Health Organization said more than 4,000 flood-related deaths have been registered, but the head of Libya’s Red Crescent previously cited a death toll of 11,300. OCHA said at the time that along with the registered deaths, there were at least 9,000 missing people.
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Cotonou — At least seven members of Beninese security forces and five rangers working with a conservation nonprofit have been killed in an attack by an armed group in Benin’s National Park W that is overrun by militants, according to the conservation group. 

The attack Wednesday happened not far from the Mékrou River in the 10,000-square-kilometer (3,800-square-miles) park which straddles the borders with Burkina Faso and Niger, the African Parks group said in a statement Saturday. 

Authorities in Benin have not yet spoken about the attack, which is common with the government and the military. 

It is the latest in a surge in violence in which jihadis from the conflict-battered Sahel region that is south of the Sahara Desert have spread farther into West Africa, targeting coastal states like Benin. 

It was not clear which jihadi group carried out the attack in Park W, into which militants from troubled neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger have recently moved, raising fears they could use its vast protected area as a base for infiltrating other West African countries. 

The al-Qaida linked JNIM group has been the most active in the Sahel and most recently in coastal West African states like Benin and Togo. 

Although they were once believed to be spreading to the coastal states for better cover to recuperate, get financing and gather weapons to launch more attacks on Sahel governments, their fighters have started to attack communities and security forces as militancy begins to take root. 

 
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KENITRA, Morocco — Golden fields of wheat no longer produce the bounty they once did in Morocco. A six-year drought has imperiled the country’s entire agriculture sector, including farmers who grow cereals and grains used to feed humans and livestock.

The North African nation projects this year’s harvest will be smaller than last year in both volume and acreage, putting farmers out of work and requiring more imports and government subsidies to prevent the price of staples like flour from rising for everyday consumers.

“In the past, we used to have a bounty — a lot of wheat. But during the last seven or eight years, the harvest has been very low because of the drought,” said Al Housni Belhoussni, a small-scale farmer who has long tilled fields outside of the city of Kenitra.

Belhoussni’s plight is familiar to grain farmers throughout the world confronting a hotter and drier future. Climate change is imperiling the food supply and, in regions like North Africa, shrinking the annual yields of cereals that dominate diets around the world — wheat, rice, maize and barley.

The region is one of the most vulnerable in the world to climate change. Delays to annual rains and inconsistent weather patterns have pushed the growing season later in the year and made planning difficult for farmers.

In Morocco, where cereals account for most of the farmed land and agriculture employs the majority of workers in rural regions, the drought is wreaking havoc and touching off major changes that will transform the makeup of the economy. It has forced some to leave their fields fallow. It has also made the areas they do elect to cultivate less productive, producing far fewer sacks of wheat to sell than they once did.

In response, the government has announced restrictions on water use in urban areas — including on public baths and car washes — and in rural ones, where water going to farms has been rationed.

“The late rains during the autumn season affected the agriculture campaign. This year, only the spring rains, especially during the month of March, managed to rescue the crops,” said Abdelkrim Naaman, the chairman of Nalsya. The organization has advised farmers on seeding, irrigation and drought mitigation as less rain falls and less water flows through Morocco’s rivers.

The Agriculture Ministry estimates that this year’s wheat harvest will yield roughly 3.1 billion kilograms, far less than last year’s 5.5 billion kilograms — a yield that was still considered low. The amount of land seeded has dramatically shrunk as well, from 36,700 square kilometers to 9,540 square miles 24,700 square kilometers.

Such a drop constitutes a crisis, said Driss Aissaoui, an analyst and former member of the Moroccan Ministry for Agriculture.

“When we say crisis, this means that you have to import more,” he said. “We are in a country where drought has become a structural issue.”

Leaning more on imports means the government will have to continue subsidizing prices to ensure households and livestock farmers can afford dietary staples for their families and flocks, said Rachid Benali, the chairman of the farming lobby COMADER.

The country imported nearly 2.5 million tons of common wheat between January and June. However, such a solution may have an expiration date, particularly because Morocco’s primary source of wheat, France, is facing shrinking harvests as well.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization ranked Morocco as the world’s sixth-largest wheat importer this year, between Turkey and Bangladesh, which both have much bigger populations.

“Morocco has known droughts like this and in some cases known droughts that las longer than 10 years. But the problem, this time especially, is climate change,” Benali said.
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ABUJA, Nigeria — As the sun blazes down in Abuja, Ahmed Bukar turns on his home air conditioner to a blast of hot air. The cooling gas that the appliance runs on is leaking from the charging valve on the unit. A technician had recently helped him refill the air conditioner with gas, but he didn’t test for possible leaks. 

In Abuja and across Nigeria, air conditioners sprout from the walls as the appliance turns from a middle-class luxury into a necessity in an increasingly hot climate. The industry is governed by regulations prohibiting the release of cooling gases into the air – for example, by conducting leak tests after an appliance is fixed. Still, routine release of gases into the atmosphere because of shoddy installations, unsafe disposal at the end of use, or the addition of gas without testing for leaks is a common problem in Nigeria, though unlawful. 

The cooling gases, or refrigerants, have hundreds to thousands of times the climate warming potency of carbon dioxide, and the worst of them also harm the ozone layer. Following global agreements that promised to limit these gases from being spewed into the air, like the Montreal Protocol and Kigali Amendments, Nigeria has enacted regulations guiding the use of these gases. But enforcement is a problem, threatening Nigeria’s commitments to slash emissions. 

“Those laws, those rules, nobody enforces them,” said Abiodun Ajeigbe, a manager for the air-conditioning business at Samsung in West Africa. “I have not seen any enforcement.” 

‘I was not taught’ 

The weak regulatory system for the cooling industry in Nigeria is evident in the rampant lack of proper training and awareness of environmental harm caused by refrigerants among technicians, according to Ajeigbe. And it is common to see. 

After uninstalling an air conditioner for a client who was moving to another neighborhood, Cyprian Braimoh, a technician in Abuja’s Karu district, casually frittered the gas from the unit into the air, preparing it to be refilled with fresh gas at the client’s new location. 

If he followed the country’s regulations, he would collect the gas into a canister, preventing or minimizing the gas’s environmental harm. Technicians like Braimoh and those who serviced Bukar’s appliance without testing for leaks are self-employed and unsupervised. But they often get customers because they offer cheaper services. 

“I was not taught that; I only release it into the air,” said Braimoh, who originally specialized in electrical wiring of buildings before fixing air conditioners to increase his income options. He received patchy training that did not include the required safety standards for handling refrigerants. And he still did not conduct a leak test after installing the air conditioning unit at his client’s new location, which is required by the country’s cooling industry regulations. 

Installations done by well-trained technicians who follow environmental regulations can be costlier for customers. It’s often the case in Nigeria, where hiring the services of companies like Daibau, who later helped Bukar fix his leaks, could result in higher costs. 

Manufacturers who offer direct refrigeration and air-conditioning installation services to big commercial customers have tried to self-regulate with safety training and certifications for their technicians, Ajeigbe said. 

Potent greenhouse gases 

According to industry professionals and public records, the most common air conditioners in Africa still use what’s known as R-22 gas. This refrigerant is less harmful to the ozone layer compared to the older, even more damaging coolants called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). CFCs have been largely eliminated, thanks to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which was created to protect the ozone layer, the vital shield in the atmosphere that protects against cancer-causing ultraviolet rays. 

But R-22 is 1,810 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Just one pound of the coolant is nearly as potent as a ton of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, but while CO2 can stay in the atmosphere for over 200 years, R-22 stays in the atmosphere for around 12 years. R-22 air conditioners also have low energy efficiency and most of the electricity powering them in Africa is from fossil fuels. 

Nigeria plans to phase out the R-22 refrigerant by January 1, 2030. But with lax enforcement, meeting the phaseout target is in doubt, Ajeigbe said. 

Newer air conditioners that use a family of gases called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) don’t harm the ozone and consume less electricity. But HFCs are still potent greenhouse gases and account for around 2% of all human-caused warming in the atmosphere. 

One HFC, R-410A, which is still a common refrigerant in Europe and the United States, has a warming potential 2,088 times greater than that of carbon dioxide and lasts roughly 30 years in the atmosphere. Air conditioners running on it are the next most common in Africa. 

Another HFC, R-32, is 675 times more potent than CO2, lasts about five years in the atmosphere, and is more energy-efficient. But it is just “marginally” in the African market, Ajeigbe said. 

Air conditioners running on HFCs are more expensive, meaning they’re less popular than the more polluting ones, according to sellers and technicians in Abuja and Lagos. 

A wider problem 

It’s not just Nigeria. In Ghana, the cooling industry also struggles to get technicians to comply with environmental standards. 

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, “poor servicing practices prevalent” in the country are largely driven by consumers, who choose low-trained technicians on price considerations and neglect recommended standards. 

In Kenya, the demand for cooling systems is growing as temperatures warm, the population grows and electricity access expands. Air conditioners running on R-22 are still very common in Kenya, but the National Environmental Management Authority told The Associated Press there have not been new imports since 2021, in line with 2020 regulations. 

The regulations require technicians handling refrigerants and cooling appliances to obtain a license, but that is not enforced, technicians told AP, leaving space for environmentally unsafe practices. 

“You just need to be well-trained and start installations. It’s a very simple industry for us who are making a living in it,” said Nairobi-based technician Jeremiah Musyoka. 

One cooling gas that’s energy-efficient and less harmful to the atmosphere, R-290, is slowly gaining traction as an alternative for refrigeration and air conditioning in developed markets like the European Union. The demand for efficient heat pumps is rapidly expanding in the EU, but adoption in Africa remains insignificant because of cost barriers and limited awareness. 

Countries like Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya have also identified R-290 as the product that will ultimately replace HFCs, but models using it are not commercially available. And they still have to worry about specialized training for technicians because of R-290’s high flammability. 

“It worries me there is not enough training and existing regulations are not enforced,” Ajeigbe, manager at Samsung, said. But he said enforcing the import ban on banned gases and the appliances that use them would make a difference. 

Anastasia Akhigbe, a senior regulatory official at Nigeria’s National Environmental Standards and Regulations Agency, added that increasing awareness among appliance importers, technicians and consumers about the environmental impacts of certain refrigerants would also help. 

“Enforcement is a known challenge, but we are moving gradually,” Akhigbe said.
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Attacks, arrests and restrictions on journalists including over coverage of youth demonstrations is causing concern among Kenyan media. Journalists are taking to the streets to protest. Juma Majanga covered the protests and filed this report from Nairobi, Kenya. Camera: Amos Wangwa
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