Blantyre — Medical workers in Malawi’s public health facilities started a nationwide sit-in strike Monday to push the government to meet their longtime grievances, which include special allowances and improved conditions of service. The strike forced patients in many hospitals to return home without receiving medical care. Strike organizers said some medical workers could treat patients with critical conditions.

In some public health facilities medical workers were seen singing and dancing outside the hospitals.

While some patients like Nelia Banda of the M’bwatalika area returned home without receiving attention.

She said “Medical workers told me that they will not attend to me because they are not working today. They said I should come again on Monday next week. I am pregnant and yesterday I fell because of high blood pressure but I haven’t been assisted here.”

The strike is a result of the failure of negotiations between the medical workers and government authorities on worker demands dating back to February of this year.

The government had told the medical workers that it would increase their allowances and improve their working conditions instead of meeting the 15% salary increase that medical workers were demanding.    

The increase was meant for risk allowance, top-up allowance and professional allowance. Put simply, this is income that medical workers receive for working overtime or for performing duties outside their normal schedule.

Daniel Nasimba is the general secretary for the Physician Assistants Union of Malawi (PAUM), one of the organizers of the strike.

He said some staff members at the hospital were allowed to attend to patients with emergencies.

He said, “At least we have people. Every department has someone who can attend to any emergency that can come in. What is happening now is called a sit-in. It’s not a complete shutdown of the health service. We are all at work, nobody is at home.”

Nasimba said the workers will not return to duty fully — until the government honors its promise.

However, the Malawi government has obtained an injunction stopping the strike.

Organizers of the strike, the National Organization of Nurses and Midwives and the Physician Assistants Union of Malawi, said in a statement released Monday evening that they were consulting their legal team about the matter. 
…

…

In Sudan’s North Darfur state, displaced people and doctors say the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are attacking hospitals and camps in the capital, El Fasher. Meanwhile, nonprofit groups say the world is paying little attention as a city that was supposed to be a haven for those forced out of their homes by war is being torn apart. Henry Wilkins has the story.
…

Dakar, Senegal — When armed men entered Safi’s village in northern Burkina Faso and began firing, she hid in her home with her four children. The gunmen found them and let them live — to suffer the guilt of survival — after killing her husband and other relatives.

Safi, whose last name has been withheld for security reasons, is among 2 million people displaced in the West African country by growing violence between Islamic extremists and security forces.

About 60% of the displaced are children. Many are traumatized, but mental health services are limited and children are often overlooked for treatment.

“People often think that the children have seen nothing, nothing has happened to them, it’s fine,” said Rudy Lukamba, the health coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Burkina Faso.

He works on a program to help identify and treat traumatized children. It often relies on mothers to spot signs in children as young as 3 or 4. The chances of a successful outcome after treatment is greater when the children have a parental figure in their lives, he said.

Mass killings of villagers have become common in northern Burkina Faso as fighters linked to the Islamic State group and al-Qaida attack the army and volunteer forces. Those forces can turn on villages accused of cooperating with the enemy. More than 20,000 people have been killed since the fighting began a decade ago, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit group.

Mental health services in Burkina Faso are often reserved for only the most severe cases. A U.N. survey published in 2023 showed 103 mental health professionals in the country of more than 20 million people, including 11 psychiatrists.

Community-based mental health services by social workers are expanding, now numbering in the hundreds and supported by a small team of U.N. psychologists. In addition, traditional medicine practitioners in Burkina Faso say families are increasingly turning to them for help with traumatized children.

But the need is immense. The U.N. said surveys by it and partners show that 10 out of 11 people affected by the conflict show signs of trauma.

With no money and fearing another attack, Safi set off on foot with seven children, including her own, across the arid plains in search of safety. They settled in a community in Ouahigouya, the capital of Yatenga province, and sought help.

It was there that Safi learned how post-traumatic stress can affect children. They had nightmares and couldn’t sleep. During the day, they didn’t play with other children. Through the ICRC, Safi was connected with a health worker who helped through home visits and art, encouraging the children to draw their fears and talk about them.

Traditional medicine practitioners are also helping traumatized children. One, Rasmane Rouamba, said he treats about five children a month, adapting the approach depending on the trauma suffered.

Children in Burkina Faso also have lost access to education and basic healthcare in fighting-affected areas.

The closure of schools is depriving almost 850,000 children of access to education, the U.N. children’s agency has said. The closure of hundreds of health facilities has left 3.6 million people without access to care, it said.

Burkina Faso’s government has struggled to improve security.  

The country’s military leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, seized power in 2022 amid frustrations with the government over the deadly attacks. He is expected to remain in office for another five years, delaying the junta’s promises of a democratic transition.

Around half of Burkina Faso’s territory remains outside government control. Civic freedoms have been rolled back and journalists expelled.

And the country has distanced itself from regional and Western nations that don’t agree with its approach, severing military ties with former colonial ruler France and turning to Russia instead for security support.

Safi, adrift with her children, said she plans to stay in her new community for now. She has no money or other place to go. 

“There’s a perfect harmony in the community, and they have become like family,” she said. 
…

NAIROBI, Kenya — Gunmen in northern Kenya fatally shot four construction workers at a hospital site near a refugee camp and the border with Somalia where a militant group is active, police said Saturday.

A group of eight workers were resting Friday when they were attacked, leaving four shot dead at close range, a police official who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue told The Associated Press. The other four workers escaped unharmed, the official said.

The hospital construction site is near Kenya’s largest refugee camp, Dadaab, and the border with Somalia where the al-Shabab militant group is based. Garissa county has in the past been attacked by al-Shabab militants who cross through the porous border.

Local police say the Friday attack may have been staged by an armed group that had warned the contractor to stay away from the area, which they consider their turf.

Northern Kenya has in recent days seen violence that has left several people dead in different locations.

On Wednesday, police at the Mandera border point recovered an improvised explosive device that was about to detonate. Last week, two herders were killed at a watering point, also in the Mandera area, by gunmen. In April, five people were killed in a donkey cart explosion in Elwak town.

The government says security operations in northern Kenya have been increased.

The recent attacks have forced the government to suspend plans to reopen the 698-kilometer (434-mile) Kenya-Somalia border that was closed in 2011, although illegal crossings are still rampant.
…

DAKAR, Senegal — Russia’s top diplomat pledged help and military assistance while on a whirlwind tour of several countries in Africa’s sub-Saharan region of Sahel this week, as Moscow seeks to grow its influence in the restive, mineral-rich section of the continent.

Russia is emerging as the security partner of choice for a growing number of African governments in the region, displacing traditional allies like France and the United States. Sergey Lavrov, who has made several trips to Africa in recent years, this week stopped in Guinea, the Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso and Chad.

Moscow has aggressively expanded its military cooperation with African nations by using the private security company Wagner and its likely successor, Africa Corps, with Russian mercenaries taking up roles from protecting African leaders to helping states fight extremists.

The Polish Institute of International Affairs said in a study this month that in “creating the Africa Corps, Russia took an assertive approach to expand its military presence in Africa.

Moscow is also seeking political support, or at least neutrality, from many of Africa’s 54 countries over its invasion of Ukraine. African nations make up the largest voting bloc at the United Nations and have been more divided than any other group on General Assembly resolutions criticizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Russia-linked entities also spread disinformation to undermine ties between African states and the West, the Africa Center For Strategic Studies, an academic institution within the U.S. Department of Defense, wrote in a March report. Moscow has been “sponsoring 80 documented campaigns, targeting more than 22 countries,” it said.

Here’s a look at how Russia is expanding its influence in Africa. 

Why are African nations turning to Russia? Russia has taken advantage of political unrest and discontent in coup-hit nations, capitalizing on popular frustration and anger with former colonial power France. Military coups have ousted governments seen close to France and the West and doing little to alleviate grinding poverty, unemployment and other hardships.

Russia offers security assistance without interfering in politics, making it an appealing partner in places like Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, all ruled by military juntas that seized power in recent years. In return, Moscow seeks access to minerals and other contracts.

Violence linked to extremists allied with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group has been on the rise in Sahel for years, despite efforts by France, the U.S. and other Western allies to help fight the jihadi groups there. In 2013, France launched a near decade long operation in Mali to help fight militants, which expanded to Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad. The operation ended nine years later but the conflict did not, contributing to anger with the West.

The U.S. has further lost its footing with key allies for forcing issues — including democracy or human rights — that many African states see as hypocrisy, given Washington’s close ties to some autocratic leaders elsewhere.

While the West may pressure African coup leaders over democracy and other issues, Russia doesn’t meddle in domestic affairs, Rida Lyammouri, a senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, told The Associated Press.

What is Russia’s interest in African countries? Africa is rich in minerals, oil and other resources, which come with political and legal challenges. Its resources are increasingly central to economic and national security, such as cobalt, which is used in electronics like mobile phones, or lithium, which is used in batteries.

Russia has thrived in countries where governance is limited, and has signing mining deals through companies it controls. An EU parliament study showed that Russia secured access to gold and diamonds in the Central African Republic, cobalt in Congo, gold and oil in Sudan, chromite in Madagascar, platinum and diamonds in Zimbabwe, and uranium in Namibia.

The U.S. based non-profit Democracy 21 group said in an analysis last December that Wagner and Russia may have made about $2.5 billion through the African gold trade alone since invading Ukraine in February 2022.

Though Russia is increasingly a partner to African countries in the oil and mining sector, it lags far behind as an overall trading partner. For example, data by the International Monetary shows less than 1% of Africa’s exports go to Russia, compared with 33% to the European Union.

Where do Russian contractors operate in Africa? The first reports of Wagner mercenaries in Africa emerged in late 2017, when the group was deployed to Sudan to provide support to then-President Omar al-Bashir, in exchange for gold mining concessions. Wagner’s presence soon expanded to other African countries.

In 2018, Russian contractors showed up to back powerful commander Khalifa Hifter in eastern Libya who was battling militants. They also helped Hifter in his failed attempt to seize the capital of Tripoli a year later.

In the Central African Republic, Russian mercenaries have been providing security since in 2018 and in return have gained access to some of the country’s gold and diamond mines.

Coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021, in Burkina Faso in 2022 and in Niger in 2023, brought military juntas critical of the West to power. All three eventually ordered French and other Western forces out, and instead turned to Russia for military support.

Niger ordered the U.S. to withdraw its troops and close its multimillion dollar flagship investment in a sprawling military and spy base in Agadez earlier this year, after a meeting with a U.S. delegation ended poorly. The decision has upended U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Africa’s Sahel.

Weeks later, Russian trainers arrived in Niger with new defense equipment.
…

KINSHASA, Congo — Three Americans accused of being involved in last month’s coup attempt in Congo appeared in a military court in the country’s capital, Kinshasa, on Friday, along with dozens of other defendants who were lined up on plastic chairs before the judge on the first day of the hearing.

The proceedings before the open-air military court were broadcast live on the local television channel.

Six people were killed during the botched coup attempt led by the little-known opposition figure Christian Malanga last month that targeted the presidential palace and a close ally of President Felix Tshisekedi. Malanga was fatally shot for resisting arrest soon after live-streaming the attack on his social media, the Congolese army said.

The defendants face a number of charges, many punishable by death, including terrorism, murder and criminal association. The court said there were 53 names on the list, but the names of Malanga and one other person were removed after death certificates were produced.

Malanga’s 21-year-old son, Marcel Malanga, who is a U.S. citizen, and two other Americans are on trial for their alleged roles in the attack. All three requested an interpreter to translate the proceedings from French to English.

Malanga’s son was the first to be questioned by the judge, who asked him to confirm his name and other personal details. The military official chosen to translate for him was apparently unable to understand English well. Eventually, a journalist was selected from the media to replace him, but he too had trouble translating numbers and the details of the proceedings.

“He’s not interpreting right. We need a different interpreter who understands English, please,” Marcel Malanga said to the judge after the journalist incorrectly translated his zip code.

But no other translator emerged, and the defendants had to make do with the journalist, who worked for national radio. Malanga appeared frustrated and defiant as the interview stumbled ahead.

Tyler Thompson Jr., 21, flew to Africa from Utah with the younger Malanga for what his family believed was a vacation, with all expenses paid by the elder Malanga. The young men had played high school football together in the Salt Lake City suburbs. Other teammates accused Marcel of offering up to $100,000 to join him on a “security job” in Congo.

Thompson appeared before the court with a shaved head and sores on his skin, looking nervous and lost as he confirmed his name and other personal details.

His stepmother, Miranda Thompson, told The Associated Press that the family found out about the hearing too late to arrange travel to Congo but hoped to be present for future court dates. Before this week, the family had no proof he was still alive.

“We’re thrilled with the confirmation,” she said.

Miranda Thompson had worried that her stepson might not even be aware that his family knew he’d been arrested. On Monday, the U.S. Embassy in Congo told the AP it had yet to gain access to the American prisoners to provide consular services before the trial.

The embassy didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Thompson’s family maintains he had no knowledge of the elder Malanga’s intentions, no plans for political activism and didn’t even plan to enter Congo. He and the Malangas were meant to travel only to South Africa and Eswatini, Thompson’s stepmother said.

Marcel Malanga’s mother, Brittney Sawyer, has said her son is innocent and simply followed his father, who considered himself president of a shadow government in exile. Sawyer and the Thompsons are independently crowdfunding legal expenses and travel funds to be present for the rest of the trial.

Both families say they remain worried about their sons’ health — Malanga has a liver disease, and Thompson contracted malaria earlier in the trip.

“As a mother, my heart is crying each day,” Sawyer wrote on her crowdfunding page. “My main goal each day is to bring him home.”

Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, is the third American on trial. He was seen seated in the back row and was the last to be interviewed. He told the court he wasn’t married and had three children. The AP was unable to reach his family for comment.

Zalman-Polun, who in 2015 pleaded guilty to trafficking marijuana, is reported to have known Christian Malanga through a gold mining company that was set up in Mozambique in 2022, according to an official journal published by Mozambique’s government and a report by the Africa Intelligence newsletter.

A prominent Belgian-Congolese researcher on political and security issues, Jean-Jacques Wondo, also appeared in court on Friday. It was unclear what evidence was held against him. Human Rights Watch said it had consulted with Wondo for years on research, and his only link to Malanga appears to be an old photo.

“Wondo and others detained should be credibly charged with a criminal offense or immediately released. An arrest based only on a 2016 photo is just not credible,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Friday.

The defendants will appear in court again next Friday to continue with the trial. 
…

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Presidents and finance ministers from eleven central African countries have failed to agree on merging three economic blocs.

Analysts say breaking down economic barriers among member countries of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community, CEMAC, the Economic Community of Central African States, ECCAS, and the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries CEPGL will boost trade and growth in a region that is said to be among the poorest and most conflict-ridden in the world. 

But after a meeting in Cameroon’s capital, officials say combining the three economic blocs will take longer than the leaders of the regions expect.

Gilberto Da Piedade Verissimo is the president of ECCAS.

He says the process of merging the economic blocs is taking longer than planned because of a lack of political will, conflicting interests and bureaucratic duplication among 3 rival economic groups. He says each time there is a leadership change, ECCAS officials start explaining the importance of fusing the economic blocs for the general interest of the eleven central African states to new governments all over again because different leaders have different understandings of the combination.

Verissimo said merging economic blocs will stop the duplication of regional projects such as airlines, roads, electricity, agriculture and aquaculture, making it easier for funding agencies to invest in such projects. 

ECCAS consists of Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic, Gabon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Sao Tome and Principe and was created in 1983. It is officially recognized by the African Union as central Africa’s regional economic community. 

In 1999 Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, Gabon, Congo and Equatorial Guinea launched CEMAC, but remained members of ECCAS.

In 2003 Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda created CEPGL but also remained in ECCAS. 

The three economic blocs claim that their mission is to facilitate the free movement of goods and persons across borders and promote regional integration, reduce inequality and poverty. 

But the African Union, or AU, says the central African states remain among the poorest countries, although their economic and social potential is very strong. In 2006, the AU asked central African leaders to merge the three economic blocs.   

Edouard Normand Bigendaka is the governor of the Bank of the Republic of Burundi. He says the participants in the Yaounde meeting created an organization to examine a new currency to replace the West African CFA Franc and the Central African CFA Franc.

“This high monetary authority will be in charge of preparing the different steps towards a free trade zone and then a common market, so that’s the rationale of having a common currency,” Bigendaka said. “There are a number of steps that have to be put in place by member countries before we attain this particular objective.”

Cameroon’s Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute represented President Paul Biya at the meeting.

Ngute says despite the challenges, committed leaders of the region will continue advocating for a strong regional economic community that will improve business, encourage the free movement of people and reduce poverty. He says central African states cannot continue to think that they can single handedly solve their problems while other countries, including developed nations, are counting on economic blocs to tackle their problems.

The AU says fusing the economic blocs will facilitate trade and growth among central Africa’s 240 million inhabitants and allow member states to concentrate on infrastructure development and jointly combating climate shocks, terrorism and armed groups that are destabilizing the eleven countries.
…

WASHINGTON — The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday elected Somalia to the 15-member U.N. Security Council for a two-year term starting in 2025.

The tiny Horn of Africa nation was among five countries that received the winning votes, alongside Denmark, Greece, Pakistan, and Panama.

“It is both symbolic and strong diplomatic status for Somalia to appear among the Security Council members and this will help Somalia to have a better access for member nations,” said Somalia analyst Abdiqafar Abdi Wardhere, who is based in Virginia.

For the first time in more than 50 years, he said, Somalia will have a vote on decisions regarding world conflicts.

“The Security Council is the only U.N. body that can make legally binding decisions such as imposing sanctions and authorizing use of force. Therefore, Somalia would get a vote that determines the world issues and resolutions,” Wardhere said.

Announcing the elections’ results, the U.N. General Assembly President Dennis Francis, said, “In a secret ballot, the elected countries secured the required two-thirds majority of Member States present and voting in the 193-member General Assembly.”

Following the news, the United Nations in Somalia congratulated the Somali government and its people “on their country’s election today to a seat on the UN Security Council for 2025-2026.”

“Somalia has come a long way over the past three decades on its path to peace, prosperity, and security,” said the UN Secretary-General’s Acting Special Representative for Somalia James Swan. “Election to a seat on the Security Council is recognition of that commendable progress.”

“Somalia’s experiences place it in a unique position to contribute to Council deliberations on international peace and security,” Swan added.

The Security Council’s five permanent veto-wielding members are Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

The five countries that got elected Thursday will replace Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland, whose terms end December 31.

Somali and the other elected new members will join existing non-permanent members Algeria, Guyana, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone and Slovenia, whose terms started in January.

According to United Nations, the 10 non-permanent seats on the Security Council are distributed according to four regional groupings: Africa and Asia; Eastern Europe; Latin America and the Caribbean; and the Western European and other States group.

The newly elected members were endorsed by their respective regional groups and ran largely uncontested.

Margaret Besheer contributed this report from New York. 
…

Zimbabwe is facing long hours of power cuts due to its dilapidated infrastructure and the impact of recurring droughts on hydropower. To help, the United Nations Development Program is installing solar panels on government-owned health facilities. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Bulawayo.
…

…

Johannesburg, South Africa — South Africa’s ruling ANC party was holding internal talks on Thursday to decide how to form a government, after it failed to win an outright majority in last week’s general election.  

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress won 40 percent of the vote — its lowest score ever — and for the first time since the advent of democracy in 1994 needs the backing of other parties.   

“What are you doing here?” Ramaphosa quipped to reporters, as he arrived at a hotel on the outskirts of Johannesburg where the ANC’s decision-making body was meeting. “Are you that worried?”  

The party of late anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is divided over who to share power with, analysts say.   

It will have only 159 members in the 400-seat National Assembly, down from 230 in 2019.   

On Wednesday, ANC spokeswoman Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said the top leadership favored forming a broad coalition for a government of national unity.  

“We want to bring everybody on board because South Africans want us to work together for their sake,” ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula told reporters on Thursday.   

But observers say this might be hard to pull off given radical differences between some groups that should be part of it.    

“I cannot… see how it can really work,” analyst and author Susan Booysen told AFP.   

“There is just so much bad blood and ill feeling between different political parties.”    

Among them are the center-right Democratic Alliance (DA), which won 87 seats with a liberal, free-market agenda, and the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which secured 39 lawmakers and supports land redistribution and the nationalization of key economic sectors.    

Bhengu-Motsiri said the ANC was in discussions also with the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), which will hold 17 seats, and the anti-immigration Patriotic Alliance (PA) that will have nine.   

The ANC also “repeatedly” reached out to former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, which won 14.6 percent of the vote and 58 seats, but received no response.   

Zuma, a former ANC chief, has long been bitter about the way he was ousted under a cloud of corruption allegations in 2018.   

The MK, which was only established late last year, has rejected the election results and said it would not back an ANC-led government if Ramaphosa remains at the helm.   

But the president’s party plans to keep him.   

‘Outcry’

Analyst Daniel Silke said the ANC was likely floating the idea of a “broad church” government to appease some members before veering towards a narrower coalition if national unity talks failed.   

Many within the party oppose a deal with the DA, which is favored by investors and the business community but has policies at odds with the ANC’s left-wing traditions.   

Reports suggesting the ANC was considering forming a minority government with external backing from the DA caused a “huge outcry”, said Booysen.     

Outside the hotel where the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) was meeting, a handful of protesters held signs reading “Not in our name. #NotwiththeDA.”    

The South African Communist Party, an historic ally of the ANC, also said it was against any arrangement with “the right-wing, DA-led anti-ANC neo-liberal forces.”   

Together the ANC and the DA hold a comfortable majority in parliament.   

Any agreement with the EFF would instead require the support of at least another party.    

The new parliament is to meet in less than two weeks and one of its first tasks will be to elect a president to form a new government. 
…