HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Heads of state of the Southern African Development Community regional bloc are due to meet next week in Zimbabwe on post-election violence in neighboring Mozambique, where the political opposition is disputing poll results.

Mozambique has been rocked by violence following its October 9 elections, with police accused of killing some 30 protesters, according to civil society organizations there. Amnesty International says the crackdown on human rights by the government led by the winning Frelimo party continues.

Venancio Mondlane, leader of Mozambique’s opposition PODEMOS party, is disputing that Frelimo’s Daniel Chapo won the presidential election.

Speaking to VOA Friday from her base in Johannesburg, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for East and Southern Africa, Khanyo Farise, urged Southern African Development Community leaders to advocate for an end to the violence when they meet in Harare.

“The situation in Mozambique gets worse every day as the death toll spirals, yet the SADC remains shockingly silent,” Farise said. “Regardless of the outcome of the elections, SADC must take a strong stand against the assault on the right to protest and the killing of protesters.

“SADC has been painfully slow to respond to Mozambique’s crisis,” she said. “The bloc must forcefully speak out now against the ongoing violations of human rights by Mozambican security forces and put human rights and accountability at the center of its upcoming summit in Harare.”

Adriano Nuvunga, director of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Mozambique, said that his country has experienced post-election violence before but that this year, “the magnitude and the duration of incidences is unprecedented.”

“It is nationwide violence led by the young people,” Nuvunga said, who “feel that the results announced favoring Frelimo did not reflect the will of the people expressed at the polls.”

“In the past three days everything is paralyzed,” he said. “The ports are paralyzed, corridors, borders are paralyzed, which is affecting not only Mozambique but neighboring countries that depend on Mozambique to access to sea and ports. So, this makes it a regional crisis not only a domestic crisis.”

But, Nuvunga said, the leaders of Tanzania, Zimbabwe and South Africa have “taken sides [a] long time ago” because they acknowledged Frelimo and Chapo as the winners of the election even before results were announced by the Constitutional Council.

“So, SADC will meet. SADC will discuss. But the trust in SADC is not that big,” he said.
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JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s government says it won’t help a group of illegal miners inside a closed mine in the country’s North West province who have been denied access to basic supplies as part of an official strategy against illegal mining.

The miners in the mineshaft in Stilfontein are believed to be suffering from a lack of food, water and other basic necessities after police closed off the entrances used to transport their supplies underground.

It is part of the police’s Vala Umgodi, or Close the Hole, operation, which includes cutting off miners’ supplies to force them to return to the surface and be arrested.

Police had earlier indicated that information received from those who recently helped bring three miners to the surface indicated that up to 4,000 miners may be underground.

However, on Thursday afternoon, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said that they believed the number was exaggerated and maybe be far less than that, estimating a figure of between 350 and 400 miners.

“We feel that the numbers are being exaggerated. We have deployed maximum resources to this case including our intelligence operative who are on the ground who have engaged with all stakeholders.

“We have managed to estimate the numbers to be between 350 and 400,” Mathe said.

South African ministers of police and defense are on Thursday expected to visit the mine to engage with officials and community members on the ground, Mathe said.

Stilfontein is one of the mines that were targeted by police as they intensified their operation in the North West province from October 18.

It’s unclear how long the current group of miners have been underground, as the groups are reported to often stay underground for months, depending on supplies of basic necessities like food and water from the outside.

“We have taken a decision that no police officer, no soldier or government official will go down to an abandoned mine. There is a high risk of loss of life,” she said.

Mathe said they had information that the miners may be heavily armed, adding that since embarking on operations against illegal miners since last December, police had seized more than 369 high caliber firearms, 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 5 million rand ($275,000) in cash and 32 million rand ($1.75 million) worth of uncut diamonds.

In the past few weeks, more than 1,000 miners have surfaced at various mines in North West province, with many reported to be weak, hungry and sickly after going for weeks without basic supplies.

Police continue on Thursday to guard areas around the mine to catch all those appearing from underground.

Cabinet Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters on Wednesday that the government wouldn’t send any help to the illegal miners, because they are involved in a criminal act.

“We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out. Criminals are not to be helped. We didn’t send them there,” Ntshavheni said.

Illegal mining remains common in South Africa’s old gold-mining areas, with miners going into closed shafts to dig for any possible remaining deposits.

The illegal miners are often from neighboring countries, and police say the illegal operations involve larger syndicates that employ the miners.

Their presence in closed mines have also created problems with nearby communities, which complain that the illegal miners commit crimes ranging from robberies to rape.

Illegal mining groups are known to be heavily armed, and disputes between rival groups sometimes result in fatal confrontations. 
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ABUJA, NIGERIA — The Nigerian National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday inaugurated a forum targeting rights violations in the West African nation.

The Human Rights Defenders Forum was held on the sidelines of an NHRC meeting to review the state of human rights in Nigeria.

The initiative is a partnership between the NHRC and the European Union.

Officials say the forum, comprising various human rights groups, will be responsible for ensuring greater protection of civil liberties in Nigeria and serve as a unified platform for rights defenders to interact and address common challenges.

NHRC Executive Director Anthony Ojukwu said, “We’re gathered here not only to discuss the current state of human rights in Nigeria, but also to start to chart a way forward — one that ensures safer protection for civil liberties, fosters democratic consolidation and safeguards the fundamental rights of all Nigerians, especially those who stand up for the rights of others.”

The meeting comes amid a recent spate of human rights violations, including a crackdown on antigovernment demonstrations in August and the prolonged detention of minors who took part.

The delegates also discussed digital rights, privacy protection, gender-based violence and child abandonment by parents.

The NHRC said security forces were contributing to human rights violations in Nigeria.

Hilary Ogbonna, a senior adviser to the agency, said, “The majority of these violators are the Nigerian police, the military, bandits and parents of children. We also saw an upsurge of sexual and gender-based violence.

“But that is not as worrisome as 4,300 [cases of] child abandonment,” he said.

The Nigerian police and military have not responded to being named as violators of human rights, but last week, the NHRC found the military culpable for infanticide and extrajudicial killings during a 2016 operation in a remote village in northeastern Borno State.

The NHRC also raised concerns about the growing threat of insecurity in Nigeria and its impact on the rights of the people.

The commission said it recorded more than 1,700 cases of kidnappings and about 1,500 killings between January and September this year.

Damilola Decker, programs officer with the Nigeria-based group Global Rights, said economic vulnerability is one of the reasons that the rights situation is deteriorating.

“What we’re observing under the [Nigerian President Bola] Tinubu administration is that civic space is under attack, attacks on journalists, attacks on the rights of people to protest,” Decker said.

“We’re also seeing economic and sociocultural rights of Nigerians being impacted majorly because of the harsh economic conditions especially related to energy prices,” he said. “It’s cascading — crime is on the rise; the state of insecurity is on the increase.”
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NEW DELHI — Analysts interviewed by VOA expressed skepticism over China’s recent decision to eliminate tariffs for goods from least developed countries with diplomatic relations with Bejing, including 33 in Africa, next month.

The move was announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing in early September.

The analysts see it as an effort to expand China’s influence in Africa without bringing much benefit to the LDCs.

“This move has not generated the excitement it should, due to well-known structural difficulties in Africa,” Emmanuel Owusu-Sekyere, director of research, policy and programs at the African Center for Economic Transformation in Accra, Ghana, told VOA.

“Cooperation between China and Africa has benefitted China much more than it has Africa,” he said, adding, “Africa has given China unbridled access to its markets, which has crippled local production capacity in several aspects of the manufacturing sector e.g., textiles.”

Xi described the zero-tariffs plan as making China the first major economy to take such a step to offer Africa a substantial opportunity to do business in the large Chinese market.

Analysts see it as Beijing’s attempt to compete with the United States. The U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act provides duty-free access to the U.S. market for more than 1,800 products from 32 sub-Saharan African countries. It will come up for renewal next year. They say China is also trying to take advantage of resentment of some African countries barred from AGOA on such grounds as human rights or lack of democracy and free markets.

“China’s move to allow African LDCs to export tariff-free is clearly a move to project its power in an alternative world order,” said Samir Bhattacharya, associate fellow at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.

“The rigid policies of the U.S. have made some African countries averse towards it. China sees this as an opportunity to undermine the U.S.-led world order and promote its own narrow interests,” Bhattacharya said.

“China has reworked its trade basket to lure African leaders,” he added.

“This scheme would offer additional support to dictators and military leaders in African countries who are not comfortable with the U.S.,” he said. “It would not improve the economy of these countries.”

China’s viewpoint

Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson He Yongqian has said that the initiative would boost LDC exports. It will also promote solidarity and cooperation among the countries of the Global South and advance the goal of “inclusive and equitable economic globalization,” she said.

She said China has signed framework agreements on economic partnership for common development with 22 African countries, including Ethiopia, Burundi, Gabon and Zimbabwe.

However, Owusu-Sekyere expressed a different view.

“African countries are not strategically located in Asian production value chains like Bangladesh and Vietnam. Lack of strategic positioning and planning as well as structural bottlenecks will make it difficult for African countries to take advantage of this plan,” Owusu-Sekyere said.

Every time China’s government enters into a trade or investment agreement with another country, Chinese entrepreneurs usually rush to grab the business opportunities created by the deal. This has been the experience of several countries in Africa and Asia that have received Chinese investments.

Owusu-Sekyere said several African countries have enacted laws reserving the retail sector exclusively for locals but it has been taken over in those countries by Chinese entrepreneurs using local partners as fronts.

The bigger challenge for African countries are nontariff barriers related to such things as quality, he said.

“African economies are not diversified enough to supply at the quality and scale required to meet the sophisticated and diverse demands of a huge market as China.” according to Owusu-Sekyere. 
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Juba, South Sudan — The United Nations Mission in South Sudan has called for tangible evidence of progress toward democratic elections the country.

Briefing the United Nations Security Council this week, special representative of the secretary-general and head of UNMISS, Nicholas Haysom, told government leaders “the clock on the extension is already ticking.”

Since winning its independence in 2011, South Sudan is just beginning its fourth extension of the transitional period government, with elections now rescheduled for 2026.

Speaking for Haysom, U.N. South Sudan acting spokesperson Rabindra Giri said, “The international community needs tangible evidence that this country’s leaders and political elite are genuinely committed to a democratic future.”

As the country struggles with increasing internal conflict, the delay in democratic reform affects the hopes for peace, stability and development, even beyond South Sudan’s borders, impacting the entire East African region.

UNMISS officials stressed that time is running out for political leaders to fulfill their obligations under the peace agreement.

“We must collectively seize the opportunity to make this extension the last and deliver the peace and democracy that the people of South Sudan deserve,” Giri said.

On the streets of Juba, South Sudanese citizens were eager to talk about how the delays in implementing the peace agreement raise doubts about whether their leaders genuinely care about the nation’s well-being and are impacting their hopes for peace, stability and development.   

Nunu Diana, a women’s rights advocate in South Sudan, is one of them.

“I think because of the extension, personally, as a young person, I have lost morale in the governance system of the country,” Diana said.

Data Gordon, an advocate for peace and gender equality, is another.

“The time for political statements without tangible and time-bound action is over,” Gorton said. “For elections to take place as scheduled, the government needs to walk the talk.”

UNMISS said it is moving ahead with support to the National Elections Commission, while Haysom highlighted civic education, preparing for voter registration, a code of conduct between political parties, civil society, media and election security among the areas that the parties could immediately address.

Haysom said time is a nonrenewable resource. He said this is South Sudan’s last chance to deliver on its promise of democracy, and there is a need for sustained international support while holding South Sudan’s leaders accountable to their own commitments.

“This cannot be business as usual for the parties to the peace agreement, the political elite, the guarantors of the peace agreement or the international community,” Giri said. “We must collectively seize the opportunity to make this extension the last and deliver the peace and democracy that the people of South Sudan deserve.”
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Authorities in Sierra Leone have launched an Ebola vaccination campaign targeting at least 5,000 health workers. Many health workers caught the Ebola virus during the outbreak that hit West Africa a decade ago. Victoria Amunga reports from Kenema, Sierra Leone. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo.
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GUBIO, Nigeria — Unrelenting price rises and a brutal insurgency had already made it hard for Nigerians in northeastern Borno State to feed their families. When a dam collapsed in September, flooding the state capital and surrounding farmland, many people ran out of options.

Now they queue for handouts in camps for those displaced by fighting between extremist Boko Haram rebels and the military. When those run out, they seek work on local farms where they risk being killed or raped by local bandits.

“I can’t even cry anymore. I’m too tired,” said Indo Usman, who tried to start again in the state capital Maiduguri, rearing animals for the two annual Muslim holy days, after years of repeatedly fleeing rebel attacks in rural Borno.

The flood washed that all away, driving her, her husband and their six children to a bare room at Gubio, an unfinished housing project about 96 km northwest of Maiduguri that has become a displacement camp.

Torrential rains and floods in 29 of Nigeria’s 36 states this year have destroyed more than 1.5 million hectares of cropland, affecting more than 9 million people, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Climate change is a factor, as is Nigeria’s poorly maintained or non-existent infrastructure as well as vulnerabilities caused by the weakening Naira currency and the scrapping of a government fuel subsidy.

The cost of staples like rice and beans has doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in a year, depending on location — an unmanageable shock for millions of poor families.

Mass kidnappings for ransom in the northwest and conflict between farmers and pastoralists in the central belt, traditionally the nation’s bread basket, have also disrupted agriculture and squeezed food supplies.

‘Hungriest of the hungry’

Roughly 40% of Nigeria’s more than 200 million people live below the international poverty line of $2.15 per person per day, the World Bank estimates.

Already, 25 million people live in acute food and nutrition insecurity – putting their lives or livelihoods in immediate danger, according to a joint analysis by the government and U.N. agencies. That number is expected to rise to 33 million by next June-August.

“The food crisis in Nigeria is immense because what we are seeing is a crisis within a crisis within a crisis,” said Trust Mlambo, head of program for the northeast at the World Food Program, in an interview with Reuters in Maiduguri.

With international donors focused on emergencies in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, Mlambo said there was not enough funding to fully meet Nigeria’s growing need for food aid.

“We are really prioritizing the hungriest of the hungry,” he said.

In Borno, the Alau dam, upriver from Maiduguri, gave way on Sept. 9, four days after state officials had told the public it was secure. Local residents and engineers had been warning that it was under strain.

Hundreds of people were killed in the resulting flood, according to aid workers who did not wish to be identified for fear of offending the state government. A spokesperson for the state government did not respond to requests for comment.

Zainab Abubakar, a self-employed tailor in the city who lived in relative comfort with her husband and six children in a house with a refrigerator, was awoken at midnight by water rushing into her bedroom.

They ran for their lives while the flood destroyed their house and carried everything away, including her sewing machine. Now, they are sheltering at Gubio and collecting rice from aid agencies in a plastic bucket.

“There is no alternative,” she said.

In Banki, on Nigeria’s border with Cameroon about 133 km southeast of Maiduguri, Mariam Hassan lost crops of maize, pepper and then okra in repeated flooding of her subsistence farm this year, leaving her with nothing to eat or sell.

“I beg the neighbors or relatives to give me food, not even for me but for my children, for us to survive,” said Hassan, who has eight children. “The situation has turned me into a beggar.”
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Johannesburg  — President-elect Donald Trump talked tough on China during his campaign, vowing to impose higher and sweeping tariffs on imports from the Asian giant. Beijing will now also be closely watching the incoming administration’s movements further afield, in Africa, where U.S.-China rivalry is high.

Experts disagree on what a second Trump term will mean for Beijing’s ambitions on the continent, with some saying it could be a boon for China – Africa’s biggest trade partner – if the U.S. pursues an isolationist, “America First” agenda that mostly ignores the region.

But Tibor Nagy, who served as Trump’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2018 to 2021 has a different perspective. He said Trump grasped how powerful a player China had become on the continent.

“It was the Trump administration that was the first to kind of recognize the existential threat that China poses,” Nagy told VOA.

“We were on the front lines of that in Africa, and we saw what the Chinese were doing,” said Nagy, who also served as the U.S. ambassador to Guinea and Ethiopia during the administrations of presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Nagy told VOA he does not think the incoming Republican administration will neglect Africa because it sees China as a threat to U.S interests there. He also said the continent is a major source of critical minerals attractive to both superpowers.

Nagy credits the first Trump administration with introducing policies on the continent intended to counter China’s influence.

“We had … the right focus because we made it about the youth. You know, our premise was that Africa is going to be undergoing a youth tsunami with the population doubling by 2050. And that more than anything, what the youth really wanted was jobs,” he said.

To this end, Nagy says, the first Trump administration set up Prosper Africa in 2018, an initiative designed to assist American companies doing business in Africa, and he expects the incoming administration will remain engaged there.

“Africa remains very much the front lines,” he said. “The United States is extremely concerned about our strategic minerals, and when a hostile power has a lock on strategic minerals, that’s really not very good when you need the strategic minerals for your top-end technology and for weapon systems.”

But Christian-Geraud Neema, Africa editor for the China-Global South Project, is skeptical and said a second term for Trump could be an opportunity for Beijing.

“Looking at his first term, Trump didn’t show much interest in Africa, which is likely to be the case still now,” he told VOA. “Only a few countries will matter — countries whose resources or position matter to the U.S. national security interests.”

“China will have room to maneuver and increase its influence in so many ways,” he added.

Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, echoed this.

“I doubt that Africa will be a featured priority for Trump,” she told VOA in an emailed response, adding that the United States’ absence on the continent “will boost the prominence of the Chinese position by its presence.”

Lobito corridor future

Views on how successfully President Joe Biden’s administration has engaged with Africa are also mixed. Many analysts said regardless of whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in office, the continent is usually an afterthought in U.S. foreign policy, which does not differ much from one administration to the next.

The current administration said it was “all in on Africa,” when Biden hosted dozens of heads of state at his first African Leaders Summit in 2022, an event seen as an attempt at reasserting U.S. influence in the face of a rising China.

Yet, “African leaders or the African Union were not consulted about the agenda of the 2022 US-Africa Leaders Summit. This was also the case with the US’s Africa strategy,” wrote Christopher Isike, the director of African Centre for the Study of the United States at the University of Pretoria, in an article co-signed by Samuel Oyewole, political science postdoctoral research fellow at the university

While Trump never traveled to Africa as president, top Biden administration officials did visit the continent, including the vice president. Biden is also expected to travel to Angola before the end of his term in December.

Under Biden, the U.S. agreed to develop the Lobito Corridor and Zambia-Lobito rail line, a project described by the State Department as “the most significant transport infrastructure that the United States has helped develop on the African continent in a generation.”

The rail line is seen as part of a transcontinental vision connecting the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

The undertaking is to be financed through a joint agreement calling for the U.S., African Development Bank, Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) and the European Union to support Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zambia.

Observers see it as an attempt to compete with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s global infrastructure project the Belt and Road Initiative, which has built railways, ports and roads across Africa.

There is concern among some analysts that Trump could pull back from this.

“Existing bilateral and multilateral business partnerships … such as the Lobito Corridor … might wane significantly during the next Trump administration,” said Oluwole Ojewale, a Nigerian analyst with the Institute for Security Studies, in an email to VOA.

“When that happens China will gain significant mileage in areas where the US Government’s exit creates a vacuum on the continent,” he added.

But Nagy disagreed, saying the Lobito Corridor is the “kind of project which would have come right out of the Trump administration.”

Therefore, there’s likely to be continuity, he added, noting: “The deal is done. Again, I can’t speak for President Trump, or the people who are going to be coming in … but it’s logical.”

‘Other Friends’

When asked how African leaders will navigate the next Trump administration, Sun said they could play the U.S. and China against each other.

“Africa could highlight its role in the US-China great power competition in order to strengthen its position in the US grand strategy,” she said in an email to VOA.

But she is doubtful African leaders will take that route because it “will carry the effect of being forced to choose, which I doubt that Africa will want to do.”

However, at least one African politician has already alluded to this option.

Kenya’s Raila Odinga, who is in the running to take over as chair of the African Union Commission next year, was blunt in his assessment of how African governments would handle a more isolationist U.S. under Trump.

“If he does not want to work with Africa,” Odinga told Agence France-Presse last week, “Africa has got other friends.”
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Yaoundé, Cameroon — The government of Chad said Tuesday that hundreds of Boko Haram fighters are fleeing the central African state’s territory and crossing over into Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria. State TV reports the fighters fled after clashes with Chadian forces over the weekend that killed more than 100 Boko Haram fighters as well as close to 20 Chadian soldiers. 

Chad state TV reports that assaults have continued against Boko Haram strongholds after the central African state’s military saw almost 20 soldiers killed and 32 others injured in a Saturday battle with Boko Haram terrorists in the Lake Chad basin.

A government statement said about 100 Boko Haram fighters were killed and a dozen others injured during the clashes, and that Boko Haram fighters are now fleeing to Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger.

Earlier this month, Chad’s military launched an operation aimed at dislodging Boko Haram terrorists from areas around Lake Chad, according to the central African state’s president, General Mahamat Idriss Deby.

Deby said the operation – named Haskanite — is to avenge the killing of 40 government troops in October and to improve security for civilians in the area.

The offensive hit a complication last week, when Deby said the fighting forces of Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger, who all contribute troops to a regional anti-terrorism joint task force, had decided to not collaborate with the Chadian offensive.

Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger have made no public statements confirming or denying Deby’s claim, and VOA could not independently verify if the three countries have chosen not to participate in the Chadian operation.

Cameroon’s military said it is security the country’s borders and protecting its civilians.

Deby has said he planned to withdraw his troops from the multi-national force, which has about 11,000 troops, because of the absence of what he calls coordinated efforts among member states to fight Boko Haram terrorism.

Remadji Hoinathy is a lecturer at the University of N’Djamena in Chad and a researcher on strategic development in central Africa and the Lake Chad Basin Commission.

He said it is imperative for neighboring states to strategize and join Chad in fighting Boko Haram because the terrorist group has a high capacity to infiltrate communities in Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger when attacked by forces from Chad. Remadji says fighters that survive onslaughts from Chad government forces will escape to safety areas in Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria and return to Chad to commit more atrocities when Operation Haskanite ends.

Chad has not said when it might withdraw its troops from the U.N.-assisted joint fighting force.

Chad civil society groups and political parties say they are surprised that officials of the joint task force have neither reacted to Chad’s threat to withdraw nor announced plans to cooperate with the offensive against Boko Haram.

Hisseine Abdoulaye is spokesperson of The Patriots, one of Chad’s political parties. He spoke to VOA via a messaging app from Chad’s capital N’djamena.

Abdoulaye said although it is the right of any state or party to pull out of an organization if its interests are not protected and respected, he disagrees with Chad’s announced plan to withdraw its troops from the Multinational Joint Task Force of the Lake Chad Basin Commission. He saif Chad’s military alone cannot stop militants from attacking government troops and communities.

Boko Haram launched an armed rebellion against the Nigerian government in 2009 to establish an Islamic state. Fighting has since spread to neighboring countries and has killed more than 40,000 people, displacing over 3 million according to the United Nations.
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WASHINGTON — According to the Somaliland National Electoral Commission, more than 1 million registered and eligible voters head to the polls Wednesday to elect their president for the next five years.

Three candidates, including incumbent President Muse Bihi Abdi, seek to consolidate the region’s fragile democracy, boost economic growth and gain international recognition that the Somali enclave has struggled to secure for 33 years.

Abdi, of the ruling Peace, Unity and Development Party, also known simply as Kulmiye, seeks a second term in Wednesday’s polls.

He is running against Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, known as “Irro,” of the Waddani party and Faisal Ali Warabe of the Justice and Development Party, or UCID.

Promises

In an interview with VOA Somali, each of the three candidates promised to strengthen democracy, boost economic growth and seek international recognition for the breakaway region.

Abdi, 76, who was elected head of the region in 2017, has pledged there will be progress on a controversial maritime deal that Ethiopia signed with Somaliland earlier this year.

“On our side, we [Somaliland] are free, we are ready to implement the MOU [Memorandum of Understanding], and we are waiting from the Ethiopian side so that we can go ahead with it,” Abdi said. “Ethiopia needs access to sea, and we need recognition, and this MOU is about these needs.”

This is the fourth presidential election since the region on the northwestern tip of Somalia broke away from the rest of the country, following the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991.

The territory declared independence that year but has never achieved international recognition.

Despite this, Somaliland has a functioning government and institutions, a political system that has allowed democratic transfers of power between rival parties, its own currency, passport and armed forces.

According to Freedom House’s 2024 flagship annual report, which assesses the condition of political rights and civil liberties around the world, Somaliland experienced an erosion of political rights in the past several years.

The report said, “Journalists and public figures face pressure from authorities. Minority clans are subject to political and economic marginalization, and violence against women remains a serious problem.”

Talks between Somaliland, which is seeking full statehood, and Mogadishu, which fiercely opposes the move, have been held on and off between 2012 and 2020 but failed to bear fruit.

Irro, of the Waddani party, who also served as speaker of the House of Representatives of Somaliland’s lower chamber of parliament for more than 11 years, said he would resume talks with Somalia.

“It was not our choice to talk to Somalia because our goal has always been getting recognition, but the international community urged us to talk. If I am elected, I will resume the talks if the Somaliland interest lies there, and [at] the same time we will review the previous failed talks,” said Irro.

Warabe, of the Justice and Development Party, said that if elected, he would seek recognition through the establishment of a national unity government in Somaliland.

“The return of Bihi [Abdi], who has been for seven years in power, and his party, which has been in power since 2010, is not [an] option for Somaliland voters,” Warabe said. “If I am elected, I will lead Somaliland to recognition and [a] more prosperous road.”

Regional tension

Somaliland’s Wednesday vote comes at a time when tensions remain high between Somalia and Ethiopia over the controversial Memorandum of Understanding that Ethiopia signed with Somaliland.

The deal would grant Ethiopia a 50-year lease of access to 20 kilometers of the Red Sea coastline in exchange for the potential recognition of Somaliland’s independence, which Somalia views as a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The deal signed on January 1 in Addis Ababa by Abdi and Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sparked anger in Mogadishu, which considers Somaliland as part of its national territory. The opposition to the deal plunged the two neighboring countries into a deadlocked situation.

In April, Somalia expelled Ethiopian Ambassador Muktar Mohamed Ware, alleging “internal interference” by Ethiopia. Somalia also ordered the closure of Ethiopia’s consulates in Somaliland and Puntland, although they remained open.

Last month, Somalia expelled Mogadishu-based Ethiopian diplomat Ali Mohamed Adan, who was a counselor at Ethiopia’s embassy in Mogadishu.

In July and August 2024, two rounds of talks between Ethiopia and Somalia, mediated by Turkey, failed to solve the dispute, with Somalia demanding Ethiopia withdraw from the deal and Ethiopia insisting that it does not infringe on Somalia’s sovereignty.

On Saturday, Somali Defense Minister Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur repeated the Somali government position against Ethiopian troop involvement in a new African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia starting in January.

“I can say that Ethiopia is the only government we know of so far that will not participate in the new AU mission because it has violated our sovereignty and national unity,” Nur said Saturday in a government-run television interview.

Somaliland’s last presidential elections were held in 2017. The current presidential election was originally set to take place in 2022 but was postponed until 2023 and then again pushed back to November 2024, following a controversial extension of Abdi’s mandate by the parliament’s upper house.

The Somaliland National Election Commission, or NEC, said at the time that the delays were due to “time, technical and financial constraints.” Opposition parties vehemently denounced the delays.

The president is directly elected for a maximum of two five-year terms and appoints the Cabinet.

Sahra Eidle Nur and Harun Maruf contributed to this report.
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Nairobi — A prominent human rights group is calling for the deployment of peacekeepers in Sudan, following a recent wave of attacks on civilians in Al Jazirah state widely blamed on the Rapid Support Forces, one of the warring sides in the country’s ongoing conflict.

Human Rights Watch says the situation has become so grim that a mission is needed to protect the population. 

According to a local pro-democracy group, the Wad Madani Resistance Committee, 169 people have been killed since the violence started in southeastern Jazirah state on Oct. 20.  

The attacks began after a commander for the Rapid Support Forces defected and joined the Sudanese army. Rights groups report that in response, RSF forces entered villages and towns in the area where the commander was from and carried out targeted killings and abuse.  

Laetitia Bader, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa division, said the violations have added more problems for a population reeling from more than 18 months of war.  

“Sudanese women’s rights groups have been documenting cases of sexual violence against women and girls in these towns and villages. And we’re talking here about over 30 towns and villages which have been attacked in recent weeks, and these attacks are ongoing,” Bader said. “It led to massive displacement of the civilian population in an area where people had already fled to and from. So it’s just adding to the layers of suffering.” 

The RSF has denied attacking communities in Jazirah state and has accused Sudanese forces of arming local communities.  

The RSF and Sudan’s military have been at war since April of last year. Rival generals lead the parties and are locked in a power struggle. 

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch and other observers are calling for the deployment of peacekeepers to Jazirah and other parts of Sudan, in hopes of protecting civilians.  

Getting a presence on the ground could deter further attacks and help monitor humanitarian obstruction, Bader said, and also play a role in bolstering local cease-fire efforts and efforts by emergency response teams to provide assistance. 

“Right now the problem is that what is happening at the local level cannot act alone,” Bader added. 

Ahmed Hashi, a Horn of Africa political and security commentator, said troops are needed, and strong action must be taken against the leaders of the warring groups.  

“There is a need to send at least 50,000 United Nations soldiers. There is a need to take the criminal generals to the International Criminal Court and issue a warrant for their arrest,” Hashi said. “It is important for the United Nations to put its foot down on conflicts because they are going to metastasize into a massive humanitarian catastrophe.” 

In a report issued last month, the office of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed shock at the human rights violations often witnessed in Sudan’s western Darfur region being repeated in the Jazirah area. 

The United Nations Security Council is slated to discuss the report on Sudan later this month.
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N’DJAMENA — Boko Haram insurgents killed 17 Chadian soldiers in a weekend attack on a military post that also left 96 of the assailants dead in the country’s west, Chad’s army said.

The attack in the Lake Chad region happened on Saturday, army spokesperson Gen. Issakh Acheikh said on national television Sunday night. He did not provide details.

The Lake Chad region has been plagued this year by frequent attacks from insurgents, including Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa. It has revived fears of violence after a period of peace following a successful operation launched in 2020 by the Chadian army to destroy the extremist groups’ bases.

Last month, 40 soldiers were killed during an attack on a military base, prompting President Mahamat Deby Itno to launch an operation to dislodge Boko Haram militants from Lake Chad. In March, an attack the government blamed on Boko Haram killed seven soldiers.

Boko Haram, which launched an insurgency more than a decade ago against Western education, seeks to establish Islamic law in Nigeria’s northeast. The insurgency has spread to West African neighbors including Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

Chad, a country of nearly 18 million people, has been reeling from political turmoil before and after a controversial presidential election that resulted in Deby Itno’s victory. He had led the country as interim president during the period of military rule that followed the death of his father in 2021.
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