Kenya’s national airline is producing diesel fuel made from plastic waste. Authorities say the goal is to provide cheaper fuel and to reduce plastic waste pollution. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo.
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Author: SeeAF
Cameroonians wait for news on president, said to be alive in Geneva
Yaounde, Cameroon — The condition and exact whereabouts of Cameroon’s President Paul Biya remain unclear Thursday, two days after the government was forced to announce Biya was alive in Geneva, Switzerland, in response to rumors on social media that he had died.
Biya has not been seen in public for more than five weeks, since he attended the Africa-China forum in Beijing in early September.
Cameroon’s Territorial Administration minister Paul Atanga Nji told residents of Massock, a village near the Atlantic coast, that Biya dispatched him to provide humanitarian assistance to victims of floods sweeping across the central African state.
Nji, like many Cameroon senior state functionaries, told civilians that Biya is in good health, and that information circulating on social and mainstream media about the 91-year-old president’s death is being spread by people who want to see Cameroon devolve into chaos.
“The president of our nation Cameroon cannot be dead,” Gregory Mewano, a member of Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement party, said Thursday on Cameroon state radio. “And you find the prime minister in Germany with a whole entourage, the minister of interior taking care of internal politics and the minister of public works inspecting projects.”
Officials say Biya will return to Cameroon soon, but they have not said when. There was no indication he was unwell in Beijing. He was scheduled to attend a meeting of French and African leaders in Paris afterward, but he did not appear, and no reason was given for his absence.
Cameroon opposition and civil society groups say they are concerned about Biya’s absence and health, and ask government officials to present Biya to civilians instead of simply saying he is alive.
With elections only a year away, some groups say it is time to begin thinking about a new, much younger candidate who could take the country forward.
“We have had to make it clear to both national and international opinions that a number of opposition political parties are … consulting with regards to the happenings of Cameroon, and this rumor [about Biya’s death] is not an exception,” said Michael Ngwese Eke Ekosso, president of the opposition United Socialist Democratic Party. “Decisions will be arrived at with regards to the upcoming presidential elections.”
Some opposition political parties have proposed uniting behind Akere Muna, an English-speaking anti-corruption lawyer and good governance crusader, as a candidate in the October 2025 presidential election.
Muna, who is 72, said if elected, he would launch a three-year transitional period to lift Cameroon from Biya’s iron-fisted 42-year rule.
“Our profound reflection is that a non-renewable transition is essential,” Muna said. “The vision we are proposing is to strengthen democracy and governance, adopt a new constitution that incarnates the present and future aspirations of the people of Cameroon, and promote free and fair elections.”
If elected, Muna would be Cameroon’s first leader from the western regions where English is the primary language.
His supporters say having a president from that area may help end a seven-year insurgency by English-speaking armed groups, who say English-speakers in Cameroon are marginalized by the French-speaking majority.
Opposition parties blame Biya for not being able to solve the crisis.
Meanwhile, Cameroonians of all parties wait anxiously for concrete signs that Biya is alive and will be returning to his country.
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Prayer camps in Nigeria attract ‘miracle seekers’
The power of simple prayer to heal illness is not clear, according to scientists, and is difficult to study. Whatever your faith, when you’re sick, you should seek treatment from a doctor. But in Nigeria, some people choose spiritual healers and miracle cures over orthodox medicine and hospitals. That creates some dangerous situations. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
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Three African countries on cusp of death penalty abolition
Harare, zimbabwe — The international human rights organization Amnesty International says three sub-Saharan African countries considering ending the death penalty should do it now and pave the way for others around the world to follow in their footsteps.
There hasn’t been an execution in Gambia, Kenya or Zimbabwe in over a decade, Amnesty has said, and all three nations have commuted multiple death sentences during that time.
Lucia Masuka, head of Amnesty in Zimbabwe, said most countries in the world are moving away from the death penalty, and she urged African countries to follow suit.
“It’s time for all countries to move away from this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment once and for all,” Masuka said. “Zimbabwe’s president himself was sentenced to death for terrorism, as a young man, due to his involvement in Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. He narrowly avoided execution. He was below the age of 21 at the time, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison instead.
“The president knows what it is like to be facing the death penalty, and he now has the opportunity to ensure that no one else goes through that.”
Addressing Parliament this month, President Emmerson Mnangagwa stuck to his 2017 promise that he would not allow the death penalty to stand in Zimbabwe.
“Parliament has an obligation to expedite the enactment of all bills that, for one reason or another, are outstanding from previous sessions,” he said. “You can carry the burden.” Bills relating to death penalty abolition “should be passed.”
Casten Matewu, a legislator from the country’s main opposition party, the Citizens Coalition for Change, and a member of the justice, legal and parliamentary affairs committee, said Mnangagwa should not be worried about the death penalty abolition bill.
“I am for the abolition of the death penalty, and this must be abolished before December,” Matewu said. “This is going to sail through seamlessly through Parliament, because there is a majority of parliamentarians, both from both sides of the house, who are actually in support of this bill.”
But not everyone agrees. Zachariah Choga, an attorney who formerly practiced in South Africa and is now practicing law in Harare, said the death penalty “should not be abolished.”
“I’ve had the privilege to practice in the South African legal system,” he said. “If you look at statistics since 1994, when the death penalty was abolished in South Africa, the increase has been a super-increase in heinous crimes, violent crimes and crimes of passion. So I’m actually of the opinion that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime. I think the fear of one losing their life can assist, or can be a deterrent, when one considers committing a crime.”
Amnesty International’s Masuka has a different opinion.
“Countries that still retain the death penalty in their laws often resort to the death penalty, believing the punishment can make their people and communities safer,” she said. “However, that is a misconception. The death penalty does not have a unique, deterrent effect, and it violates the right to life, as proclaimed in the universal declaration of human rights. The small minority of countries that insist on using this punishment must move with the times and abolish the death penalty once and for all.”
According to Amnesty International, 24 countries across sub-Saharan Africa have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, while two countries have abolished it for ordinary crimes only. Zimbabwe’s last known execution was in 2005, though courts continue to impose death sentences. All of the condemned were sentenced to life imprisonment by Mnangagwa’s amnesty in April this year.
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UN calls for safer migration from Horn of Africa to Gulf countries
Addis Ababa, ethiopia — The head of the U.N. International Organization for Migration, or IOM, is calling for safe migration to and from the Gulf countries as the dangerous eastern Horn of Africa route claims more lives.
The so-called eastern route runs from the Horn of Africa to Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf by way of Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Yemen. Migrant workers, mainly from Ethiopia but also from other East African countries, travel over the route in search of jobs and economic opportunities.
At least 48 people died and 75 others were missing or presumed dead after smugglers forced migrants off two boats on October 1 in the Red Sea, off the coast of Djibouti. Almost all of the migrants were Ethiopians.
Speaking at the IOM’s regional review of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration held Wednesday in Ethiopia, Director-General Amy Pope said more people were being harmed on the eastern route than on any other migration route in the world, though it does not get a lot of attention.
“What it demonstrates is that we need to build up safe and regular ways for people to move because we know, for example, within the Gulf, there are tremendous opportunities for people to go and live and work, whether they’re going in low-skilled sectors or they’re going in higher-skilled sectors,” she said, commenting on the recent deaths off the Djibouti coast.
“There should be no reason for people to have to move through a smuggler, through a trafficker, a route that will subject them to exploitation and often abuse,” she said.
Pushed into the sea
Frantz Celestin, IOM regional director for East, Horn and Southern Africa, told VOA’s Horn of Africa Service that smugglers forced migrants on two fully loaded boats to jump into the sea about 3 a.m. on October 1.
In an email, Celestin said the first boat, which had two pilots, was carrying 100 migrants voluntarily returning from Yemen to Djibouti who had paid for and planned their trip.
“The two pilots forced them off the boat, even though they had not reached the shore. There were 99 migrants who survived, and one woman died. The pilots were able to flee the arrival of the coast guard and return to Yemen,” he said.
The second boat, with three pilots, had 220 migrants on board who were forced to return from Yemen to Djibouti. They were being brought back either from prison or from several other places in Yemen, Celestin said. Two or three of the migrants were returning voluntarily.
“They forced, pushed or threw the migrants into the sea far from the shore. The pilots abandoned their boat and fled by land,” Celestin said. “The Djiboutian coast guard brought many survivors from the sea point back to shore.”
One of the survivors, who did not want to be identified for safety reasons, told VOA Horn of Africa that the pilots asked them to “get out.”
“They asked us to get out of the boat into the seawater,” the survivor said, adding that the Yemeni pilot told them how to get to land. “But all of us could not make it as it was dark and lack of swimming experience.”
“We are peaceful people who want to work and help our families back home,” a second survivor said.
Root causes
At the regional review, Pope called on the international community to address the root causes of migration, including conflicts, development and climate shocks.
“The drivers of migration are really complex; some of it is about peace. We see, for example, the situation in Sudan, where there are millions of people who have been pushed out of their homes. The solution, the root cause of that, is the conflict, and until there’s peace in Sudan, then people will continue to move,” she said.
“In other cases, it’s the impact of poverty and the lack of economic opportunity for people at home, and the answer to that is about development and governance,” Pope said, adding that countries need to assume responsibility and address climate change, which she identified as one of the drivers of migration.
“On the one hand, it means that governments need to take seriously their obligations to mitigate the impact of climate change, but importantly, that is just not going to be enough, because we know people are being forced to move now,” she said.
“So, working with communities to adapt to climate change and ensuring there are resources to help people who’ve already been displaced by climate change will be critical moving forward.”
Pope urged governments to work together to ensure people vulnerable to exploitation — especially people who are being recruited by smugglers and traffickers — can migrate safely and obtain the information they need to access a regular pathway for migration.
This story originated in VOA’s Horn of Africa Service.
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Kenyan lawmakers impeach deputy president for abuse of office
Nairobi — Kenya’s National Assembly has impeached the country’s deputy president over accusations of corruption and abuse of office. Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to remove Rigathi Gachagua from office in the vote Tuesday night. The fate of the deputy president now rests in the hands of the Senate.
The process to consider removal of Kenya’s deputy president from office moved to the Senate Wednesday after parliamentarians approved a motion to do so Tuesday night.
Ahead of the vote, embattled deputy president Rigathi Gachagua and his allies presented his defense to the National Assembly for more than 90 minutes.
But the lawmakers were not swayed, and 281 of them approved a motion to remove Gachagua from office. Forty-four others voted against the motion, and one abstained.
Gachagua was accused of acquiring properties through corrupt means, though he argued the assets belonged to his late brother. He is also accused of practicing ethnic politics and acting to undermine the government.
The impeachment comes after Gachagua’s fell out with President William Ruto.
The deputy president has denied all the allegations against him, calling them outrageous and saying they are propaganda meant to tarnish his name.
Political commentator Martin Andati said the way in which Gachagua works with other politicians and the people cost him his job.
“His fate is sealed. He antagonized the MPs, he antagonized the Senate by talking badly about the chambers and the speakers, and generally, he is not a pro-people person. He has poor people management skills,” he said.
Some members of parliament, like Robert Mbui, who is also deputy leader of the minority, were against the impeachment. He said the house should concentrate on public issues instead of debating one man.
“The cost of living has gone too high, people have no jobs, Mr. Speaker. Those are the things that this house should passionately deal with, but for a whole day, even the last two or three weeks to deal with one matter, I think we are losing direction. It’s important that we deal with things that are affecting our people,” he said.
In the past four months, Kenya has witnessed a wave of protests aimed at President Ruto’s government over allegations of corruption by some politicians and government officers. Kenyans also protested high taxes and parliament’s alleged failure to act independently from the president.
Some politicians have accused the deputy president of helping to organize anti-government protests, an accusation Gachagua denies.
Kenyan political expert Harman Manyora said the parliament is setting a dangerous precedent that threatens the country’s political future and ethnic cohesion.
“[It] should not surprise us. In the future, we can have governments fall in the manner in which governments come and go in parliamentary democracies like India, Israel, the UK, and Italy, which I doubt we can withstand. From a political front, this is also a country with a lot of flashpoints. It is an ethnically charged country, and a move like this has the potential of negatively impacting the country by causing division, and you can never know where it can lead us,” said Manyora.
The debate and voting about Gachagua’s conduct will continue next week. After that, some believe the issue may go to court, where he could seek legal help to either keep his job or clear his name of the allegations against him.
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Mozambicans casts ballots in election that may prolong ruling party dominance
Maputo — Mozambicans vote Wednesday between the party that has dominated their country’s political landscape for nearly 50 years or something different. Whoever wins will inherit major challenges, including an insurgency in the oil and gas-rich area of Cabo Delgado.
Voters braved morning rain in Maputo to line up as early as 7:00 am to cast their ballots.
They have four candidates to choose from; Daniel Chapo, the ruling Frelimo party leader; Ossufo Momade, the candidate of one main opposition party that came in second in the last presidential election; Lutero Simango, the leader of the Mozambique Democratic Movement and Venancio Mondlane, an independent who seems popular among youth.
Aslak Ore, a researcher on Mozambique at the Christian Michelsen Institute in Norway, said that while supporters of Mondlane have shown excitement, he still faces stiff challenges.
“There’s been a lot of enthusiasm about his candidature, however he doesn’t have the electoral organization of either Renamo or Frelimo. The question is if he’s going to be able to convert that obvious enthusiasm among the population… into the votes,” he said.
At a polling place at the Josina Machel secondary school in Maputo, 22-year-old Augusto Paz said he waited about an hour, but he had to make sure to vote.
“As a young Mozambican man, I feel like this is important because it might be the choice that would change things in our country. I am talking about healthcare, education, and development in general,” he said.
After casting his ballot, Sergio Pantie, a member of parliament and Frelimo supporter, told us he is confident his party will win.
“People continue to love and highly consider Frelimo as an option to continue running this country… the results will prove, once again, that Frelimo is loved and esteemed by the Mozambican people,” he said.
Two of the candidates, Momade and Simango, voted at the same polling place where outgoing President Filipe Nyusi casts his ballot.
Former St. Lucia prime minister Dr. Kenny Anthony, who arrived in Maputo on October 2nd, heads the Commonwealth International Observers’ delegation. He told VOA his group was still visiting other polling stations and getting reports from other parts of the country. Meanwhile…
“There seems to be some optimism that this is going to be a better administered election than previous elections. Whether that will be the case, I don’t know… we’ve just visited this polling station, and all seem to have gone on very well here,” he said.
Whoever wins these elections will inherit many challenges starting with the economy and debt repayments, Ore said.
“It’s between 12 and 14 billion dollars in external debt. Recently they have been able to pay back much of that debt, but they have done so by way of accumulating a lot of domestic debt. The state takes up loans from the banking system and institutions locally, so they are accumulating debt at the same time as they are paying back the external debt,” said Ore.
In addition to debt challenges, the government has been battling an insurgency in the gas- and oil-rich Cabo Delgado province, where about 4,000 people have been killed and about 1 million displaced since 2017, hindering multibillion-dollar oil and gas projects.
Some countries, including Rwanda, have stepped in recently to help quell the insurgency — an act that Adriano Nuvunga, a social activist and director of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Mozambique, disagrees with.
“Mozambique, big as it is, massive as it is… 33 million people… but it needs to import soldiers from Rwanda to protect its sovereignty… Rwanda, a tiny country of 13 million people to protect us here,” said Nuvunga.
Ruling party candidate Chapo said if he wins, securing the Cabo Delgado area will be his top priority because without security, there is no development he recently told supporters.
Nuvunga said while Frelimo was seen as a liberation movement 50 years ago, times have changed.
“The people here, they have nothing to do with what people did five decades ago. It’s about today; are you able to put in place credible policies and put in place a credible system of governance that would work for the people,” said Nuvunga.
More than 17 million people are registered to vote.
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Cameroon citizens want proof their 91-year-old president is alive
Yaounde, Cameroon — Cameroon government officials said the central African state’s 91-year-old president, Paul Biya, is in good health, contrary to information circulating on social and mainstream media.
Biya has not been seen in public since his official visit to China more than 1 month ago. Citizens say they want proof that their longtime leader is well.
Biya is in excellent health, according to a statement issued Tuesday by Samuel Mvondo Ayolo, director of the Civil Cabinet.
Ayolo said Biya is in Geneva, Switzerland, where he has been granting audiences and working for the development of Cameroon.
The statement comes after social media reports on Tuesday said Biya was dead but gave no details as to where and when the long-serving leader had died.
Biya was last seen in Beijing over a month ago during a China-Africa leaders forum. In the meantime, some citizens said they do not believe Biya is alive.
One of those is Gloria Wirkom, a businessperson in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde.
“He is our president, and if there is something wrong with him, we have the right to know,” she said. “So we are pleading with the government of Cameroon to let us know the health state [state of health] of our president.”
Wirkom said she does not trust government officials’ declarations that Biya is in good health. Wirkom said she will believe Biya is alive only when she sees him.
On Cameroon State TV, government spokesperson Rene Emmanuel Sadi said he unequivocally affirms that the rumors of Biya’s death are pure imagination.
Sadi said the day after the China-Africa summit, Biya stayed briefly in Europe, and that wherever he might be, Biya is attentive to the well-being of Cameroonians.
Akongnwi Neba, a merchant, said it is wrong for the government to wait until a rumor spreads before explaining where Biya is.
“We are asking the government to prove to us where he [Biya] is,” said Neba. “We need to know his whereabouts, whether he is alive or dead. It is our right as citizens of the country to know where our president is.”
Cameroon officials have not said whether Biya will appear in public in Geneva. VOA could not independently confirm whether Biya was in the Swiss city.
Biya is the oldest leader in the world. He has ruled Cameroon for more than four decades, and his supporters have been holding public rallies asking him to be a candidate in elections expected in October 2025. Biya has not said whether he will run for president again.
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Burkina Faso suspends VOA broadcasts
washington — Authorities in Burkina Faso on Monday suspended Voice of America for three months over comments made by one of the network’s journalists.
The junta also temporarily banned local news outlets from using any international media reports, the reports said.
Burkina Faso’s superior council for communication, also known as CSC, accused VOA of demoralizing troops in Burkina Faso and nearby Mali in a broadcast on September 19, according to media reports. The interview was later aired by a privately owned local radio station, according to Reuters.
In the communique that banned local news outlets from using any international media reports, the CSC said it noted the “dissemination of information of a malicious and biased nature” by national outlets using international media reports.
In the communique, which did not specifically mention VOA, the CSC said such reports tend to “insidiously apologize for terrorism.”
The phone number listed online for the CSC was not working. VOA attempted to request comment via an online form on the CSC website, but it returned an error message.
VOA and its parent organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Burkina Faso’s Foreign Ministry did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment for this story.
Earlier suspension
This would not be the first time VOA has been suspended in Burkina Faso.
Authorities suspended VOA and the BBC in April following the broadcast of news stories about a Human Rights Watch report accusing the Burkinabe army of abuses against civilian populations.
“VOA stands by its reporting about Burkina Faso and intends to continue to fully and fairly cover events in that country,” VOA’s then-acting director John Lippman said in a statement about the April suspension.
Military leaders in Burkina Faso seized power in a coup in September 2022. Since then, media watchdogs have documented a decline in media freedoms, with media outlets suspended and foreign correspondents expelled.
In 2021, Burkina Faso ranked 37 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index, where 1 shows the best media environment. This year, Burkina Faso ranked 86.
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UN Rights Council says human rights in DR Congo on a downward spiral
GENEVA — Human rights experts warn the human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, already troubled for decades, is on a downward spiral again as armed clashes, attacks on schools and hospitals, sexual violence and other forms of abuse escalate.
Kicking off a discussion of the DRC at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urged the international community to pay more attention to the plight of Congolese civilians victimized by a “volatile mix of escalating violence, regional and international interests, exploitative businesses and weak rule of law.”
He said the number of victims of human rights violations is growing, with armed groups fighting in the eastern provinces responsible for most of these violations, including “deadly attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals.”
He said sexual violence is spreading despite efforts to prevent and investigate cases.
“The armed groups take people prisoners, subject women and girls to sexual slavery. Many of them have been killed after being raped. These cases, of course, have not all been reported. This is atrocious,” he said.
“Human rights violations committed by the defense and security forces during their military operations against armed groups, also remain of concern,” he said noting that hate speech and other incitement to discrimination and violence “are fueling the conflict and increasing political tensions across the country.”
Türk appealed to countries of influence to use their power to ensure the fighting stops, stating that “any role played by Rwanda in supporting the M23 in North Kivu, and by any other country supporting armed groups active in the DRC, must end.”
Responding to Türk’s comments, DRC Minister of Human Rights Chantal Shambu Mwavita said her government has made great progress in protecting human rights, in spite of challenges posed by the war in the east.
Alluding to Rwanda, she pointed her finger at so-called “negative forces” supporting the armed groups from the outside. She “called on the international community to condemn these actions strongly and to impose targeted sanctions on Rwanda for its destabilizing role.”
Mwavita said the war in the eastern provinces is closely linked to the seizure and illegal exploitation of her country’s natural resources by Rwanda and other countries.
She also demanded the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Rwandan troops from DRC territory.
North Kivu and surrounding provinces of the eastern DRC have been wracked by violence for decades, as armed groups battle for control of the region’s rich natural resources.
Rwanda has denied supporting the M23 rebels, with Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe renewing that denial on Saturday. The minister, who was attending a two-day “Francophonie” summit in Paris, accused his Congolese counterpart of refusing to sign “an agreed deal” to resolve the M23 rebel conflict in the DRC.
On Tuesday, Rwanda’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, James Ngango, also expressed concern about the escalation of abuse and human rights violations in the eastern DRC, “particularly sexual violation and violation against children in the region affected by armed conflict and inter community conflicts,” he said.
He said Rwanda remains committed to dialogue and the regional peace processes. He said, “No military solution can address the root causes of the conflict in eastern DRC.”
It is unclear whether the DRC’s demand for the withdrawal of Rwandan forces will be met, nor is it clear if and when MONUSCO, the U.N.’s peacekeeping force, will withdraw from the country as demanded by the government of Felix Tshisekedi.
The U.N. says the peacekeepers, who were supposed to leave by the end of the year, apparently have been given a reprieve. Several thousand soldiers remain in North and South Kivu and Ituri provinces.
Bintou Keita, special representative of the secretary-general in the DRC and head of MONUSCO, made little reference to the potential consequences for the stability of the DRC once U.N. peacekeepers leave the country.
However, she painted a worrying picture of human rights in the DRC due to “the deteriorating security situation” in the eastern provinces from attacks on civilians, “causing loss of human lives and mass displacements of peoples towards Kinshasa and Kisangani.”
“The M23, in the quest for territorial gains, extended its hold on territories towards Lubero Kanyabayonga, which was captured in late June after intense fighting. Hospitals and IDP sites were deliberately targeted by M23. Several civilians fled their homes, further exacerbating the humanitarian crisis,” she said.
She affirmed that MONUSCO “will continue to provide its support to the DRC … in strict conformity with the U.N. human rights due diligence policy, including support for the establishment of the human rights compliance framework.”
Keita added, “The return of peace to the DRC will come about through pooled military and non-military efforts to find lasting solutions, both national and regional.”
Conflict in the DRC has come at a high price. The United Nations said the country is struggling with twin humanitarian crises — an internal displacement crisis and a food crisis. It reports that 7.2 million people currently are internally displaced, and nearly 26 million face acute hunger.
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US slaps sanctions on Sudan paramilitary leader
Washington — The United States on Tuesday announced sanctions against a senior leader in war-torn Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for his role in obtaining weapons for the paramilitary organization.
Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced since war broke out in April 2023 between Sudan’s army and the RSF after their head generals refused a plan to integrate.
Algoney Hamdan Daglo Musa was sanctioned “for his involvement in RSF efforts to procure weapons and other military materiel that have enabled the RSF’s ongoing operations in Sudan,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
His actions have fueled war in Sudan “and brutal RSF atrocities against civilians, which have included war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing,” Miller said.
The U.S. Treasury said that as a result of such sanctions “all property and interests in property of the designated persons… that are in the United States or in the possession or control of US persons are blocked and must be reported.”
The United States has led diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting in Sudan but has seen limited success and leverage, with RSF commanders unlikely to hold major assets in the West that would be affected by sanctions.
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Eswatini groups call for ‘hit list’ of game rangers accused of shooting poaching suspects with impunity
Mbabane, Eswatini — The main opposition party in Eswatini is compiling a “hit list” of game rangers in response to what it says are state-sanctioned murders of suspected poachers. Communities have been urged to assist in identifying rangers involved in the killings. As tensions mount over poaching-related deaths in Eswatini, the fear of violence looms large.
Although there is no definitive count of suspected poachers killed in Eswatini’s game parks, the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs estimates that dozens are slain each year.
However, Eswatini’s opposition parties allege hundreds of families have been impacted by these deaths and have called for a compilation of a game ranger “hit list.”
Velephi Mamba, treasurer general of main opposition party PUDEMO, one of the groups calling for possible violence against the rangers, said the news of the list of game rangers that was announced a week ago still stands. In fact, he said, it’s an ongoing issue. Mamba said his party request that all Swazis compile a list of the names of game rangers that are killing our people.
Amid the growing controversy, legislators and human rights activists in Eswatini recently demanded an urgent review of the Game Act of 1991. They say the law allows game rangers in the southern African kingdom to shoot suspected poachers in national parks with little or no consequence.
Human rights lawyer Sibusiso Nhlabatsi is among those calling for revision of the law. He said game rangers need to make greater efforts to arrest suspected poachers and bring them to court, rather than killing or torturing them.
“The game rangers themselves should understand that they should prioritize the use of non-lethal methods for the apprehension when dealing with suspected poachers,” Nhlabatsi said. “The use of excessive force, in my view, does not only violate human rights but also undermines the credibility of the conservation efforts.”
Mandla Motsa, a game ranger in Eswatini, defended his colleagues’ actions, saying there is an urgent need to protect endangered species in the parks from extinction, and that rangers face a formidable threat from well-armed poachers. There have been multiple reported incidents of rangers and poachers exchanging gunfire.
“We are getting a lot of pressure from poachers who are always armed and attacking the rangers on duty, while we have got organizations who feel like the poachers should be allowed to do whatever they are doing, which is against the work the rangers are doing,” Motsa said.
Meanwhile, Eswatini government spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo condemned the calls for a “hit list” and urged citizens to shun requests to provide names. He emphasized the importance of following due process and the rule of law for achieving justice.
“Nobody should heed to such calls because they are going to lead into an escalation of violence in our communities around the country, and we know that that is the kind of atmosphere they want to create around the kingdom of Eswatini,” Nxumalo said.
Legislators have begun discussing reforms to the Game Act of 1991 but so far there have been no amendments proposed, and no votes scheduled as of yet.
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Mozambique election winner faces tough financial squeeze
JOHANNESBURG — Whoever wins Mozambique’s presidential election on Wednesday will face an economy battered by worsening cyclones, insecurity, delays to planned gas projects and high levels of debt.
Ruling party candidate Daniel Chapo is the frontrunner, though there are three other candidates vying to replace Felipe Nyusi as president of the southeast African nation.
Rising borrowing costs are putting pressure on Mozambique to embrace fiscal discipline, particularly as delayed gas revenues mean it is running out of options to refinance its debt – which is nearly as big as its annual GDP.
“Debt in the country is rocketing,” Gabriel Muthisse, a former transport and communications minister, told Reuters. “Debt servicing is (diverting)…resources that could be used to finance the real economy.”
The yield on Mozambique’s international bond due 2031 stands at close to 13%.
The country of 34 million people is still trying to shake off a decade-old “tuna bonds” scandal involving Credit Suisse, in which loans for a fishing fleet went missing, leading Mozambique to default on its debt and the International Monetary Fund to suspend lending.
Last year, the Swiss bank settled out of court.
“Financing options for the deficit are limited,” said Kevin Daly, portfolio manager at Abrdn, which holds Mozambique’s 2031 international bond.
Mozambique struck a $456 million deal with the IMF in May 2022, but its program expires next year and will have to be renegotiated.
“The future of the economy is really based on the development of these oil and gas…(fields),” said Thys Louw, portfolio manager at global asset manager, Ninety One. Yet Islamist violence has delayed TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil’s development of some of Africa’s biggest gas fields.
Total says it is still committed to them, but investor enthusiasm is waning.
“There was a time where everyone was excited and waiting to go into Mozambique,” said Tshepo Ncube, head of International Coverage at Absa Corporate and Investment Bank.
“Now it is all about: ‘let’s see how it plays out’.”
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Tunisia’s Kais Saied wins landslide reelection
TUNIS, Tunisia — President Kais Saied won a landslide victory in Tunisia’s election Monday, keeping his grip on power after a first term in which opponents were imprisoned and the country’s institutions overhauled to give him more authority.
The North African country’s Independent High Authority for Elections said Saied received 90.7% of the vote, a day after exit polls showed him with an insurmountable lead in the country known as the birthplace of the Arab Spring more than a decade ago.
“We’re going to cleanse the country of all the corrupt and schemers,” the 66-year-old populist said in a speech at campaign headquarters. He pledged to defend Tunisia against threats foreign and domestic.
That raised alarm among the president’s critics including University of Tunis law professor Sghayer Zakraoui, who said Tunisian politics were once again about “the absolute power of a single man who places himself above everyone else and believes himself to be invested with a messianic message.”
Zakraoui said the election results were reminiscent of Tunisia under President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who ruled for more than 20 years before becoming the first dictator toppled in the Arab Spring uprisings. Saied received a larger vote share than Ben Ali did in 2009, two years before fleeing the country amid protests.
The closest challenger, businessman Ayachi Zammel, won 7.4% of the vote after sitting in prison for the majority of the campaign while facing multiple sentences for election-related crimes.
Yet Saied’s win was marred by low voter turnout. Election officials reported 28.8% of voters participated on Oct. 6 — a significantly smaller showing than in the first round of the country’s two other post-Arab Spring elections and an indication of apathy plaguing the country’s 9.7 million eligible voters.
Saied’s most prominent challengers — imprisoned since last year — were prevented from running, and lesser-known candidates were jailed or kept off the ballot. Opposition parties boycotted the contest, calling it a sham amid Tunisia’s deteriorating political climate and authoritarian drift.
Over the weekend, there was little sign of an election underway in Tunisia apart from an anti-Saied protest on Friday and celebrations in the capital on Sunday evening.
“He will re-enter office undermined rather than empowered by these elections,” Tarek Megerisi, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on X.
Saied’s critics pledged to keep opposing his rule.
“It’s possible that after 20 years our kids will protest on Avenue Habib Bourguiba to tell him to get out,” said Amri Sofien, a freelance filmmaker, referring to the capital’s main thoroughfare. “There is no hope in this country.”
Such despair is a far cry from the Tunisia of 2011, when protesters took to the streets demanding “bread, freedom and dignity,” ousted the president and paved the way for the country’s transition into a multiparty democracy.
Tunisia in the following years enshrined a new constitution, created a Truth and Dignity Commission to bring justice to citizens tortured under the former regime and saw its leading civil society groups win the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering political compromise.
But its new leaders were unable to buoy the country’s flailing economy and quickly became unpopular amid constant political infighting and episodes of terrorism and political violence.
Against that backdrop, Saied — then a political outsider — won his first term in 2019 promising to combat corruption. To the satisfaction of his supporters, in 2021 he declared a state of emergency, suspended parliament and rewrote the constitution to consolidate the power of the presidency — a series of actions his critics likened to a coup.
Tunisians in a referendum approved the president’s proposed constitution a year later, although voter turnout plummeted.
Authorities subsequently began to unleash a wave of repression on the once-vibrant civil society. In 2023, some of Saied’s most prominent opponents from across the political spectrum were thrown in prison, including right-wing leader Abir Moussi and Islamist Rached Ghannouchi, the co-founder of the party Ennahda and former speaker of Tunisia’s parliament.
Dozens of others were imprisoned on charges including inciting disorder, undermining state security and violating a controversial anti-fake news law critics say has been used to stifle dissent.
The pace of the arrests picked up earlier this year, when authorities began targeting additional lawyers, journalists, activists, migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and the former head of the post-Arab Spring Truth and Dignity Commission.
“The authorities seemed to see subversion everywhere,” said Michael Ayari, senior analyst for Algeria & Tunisia at the International Crisis Group.
Dozens of candidates had expressed interest in challenging the president, and 17 submitted preliminary paperwork to run in Sunday’s race. However, members of the election commission approved only three.
The role of the commission and its members, all of them appointed by the president under his new constitution, came under scrutiny. They defied court rulings ordering them to reinstate three candidates they had rejected. The parliament subsequently passed a law stripping power from the administrative courts.
Such moves sparked international concern, including from Europe, which relies on partnership with Tunisia to police the central Mediterranean, where migrants attempt to cross in from North Africa to Europe.
European Commission Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said Monday the EU “takes note of the position expressed by many Tunisian social and political actors regarding the integrity of the electoral process.”
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UN food program helps fight rising cases of malnutrition in Malawi
Chikwawa, Malawi — In Malawi, the U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP) is working to address a rising number of malnourished children amid an ongoing drought, the worst to hit southern Africa in decades. The WFP’s efforts include providing supplementary feeding for children in health facilities and distributing emergency food items to affected households.
Malawi has faced food insecurity for the past three years because of natural disasters that also affected other parts of southern Africa.
These include Tropical Storm Ana in 2022, Tropical Cyclone Freddy in 2023 and the El Nino weather phenomenon this year, which has led to severe drought in the region.
Climate change is also believed to play a part.
The WFP says in Malawi, the drought has damaged 44% of crops leaving 5.7 million people without food. This is over a quarter of Malawi’s population.
Gertrude Chasafali is among those affected. She said she grows various types of crops including some vegetables but now struggles to find something to eat. Sometimes she eats one meal a day, or none at all.
Health experts say the food shortage situation has increased malnutrition cases among vulnerable groups such as pregnant and lactating women, and children under 5 years of age.
Feston Katundu is a nutrition officer in the Chikwawa district of southern Malawi, one of the hardest hit areas.
“The prevalence of underweight children is 18%, which is high compared to Malawi as a nation because Malawi is at 13%,” Katundu said. “For wasting we are also at 5%, while Malawi is [usually] at 3%, meaning that we are not doing well.”
Katundu also said 34% of children under the age of 5 in Chikwawa are suffering stunted growth.
The situation has forced the WFP to provide supplementary feeding to malnourished children.
Paul Turnbull, WFP country director in Malawi, said in recent years the country could manage the situation but now needs help.
“In the last few years, the level of moderate acute malnutrition were possible by the Ministry of Health to manage by itself,” Turnbull said. “But with [the] increase in number[s] now, we want to be able to ensure that the capacity is there in the Ministry of Health. So, we are supplying additional products and doing training so that children who have got acute moderate malnutrition won’t deteriorate further.”
Charles Kalemba, commissioner for the Department of Disaster Management Affairs in Malawi, said another reason the country faces food shortages is because of its dependence on rain-fed agriculture.
“If we can put our act together by moving away from rain-fed agriculture to irrigated agriculture we may solve this problem once and for all,” Kalemba said.
In the meantime, the WFP and Malawi’s government are delivering emergency food assistance to millions of Malawians impacted by the drought.
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Cameroon says homeless flood victims escaped to Chad as fresh floods ravage camps
Yaounde — Officials in Cameroon say fresh flooding has forced at least 70,000 people out of temporary camps that were set up for flood victims along the country’s northern border with Chad and Nigeria. Some of the displaced flood victims have now moved to neighboring Chad, where at least two million people have been rendered homeless by this year’s ceaseless floods according to Chad’s government.
Kamsouloum Abba Kabir urged flood victims in Kousseri, a town on Cameroon’s northern border with Chad, to rush to safety in surrounding schools, mosques and churches.
Kamsouloum is a lawmaker representing Kousseri civilians in Cameroon’s lower house of parliament. He told civilians in several villages that waters from the Lake Chad basin are overflowing and causing havoc to civilians, animals and the environment.
In a video, broadcast on Cameroon state TV on Monday, Kamsouloum, accompanied by Cameroon government officials, said the lives of over 70,000 civilians rendered homeless by recent floods are again threatened by fresh floods sweeping through more villages and camps.
Thirty-nine-year old farmer Nogoue Shivom is among the flood victims chased by fresh floods from a camp constructed by the government to temporarily host flood victims.
Shivom said floods woke her from her bed in the Kousseri camp for flood victims at about 10 pm on Sunday. She said she was able to save the lives of her three children, but books, food and clothes she was given by a charity organization after the first floods swept through her village were carried away by last night’s floods.
In September, Cameroon reported that floods had affected over 2 million civilians on its northern border with Chad and rendered over two hundred thousand homeless. The central African state said farm plantations were devastated and cattle, goats, fouls and sheep either killed or swept away by the floods.
Cameroon warned of a looming famine and began transferring civilians rendered homeless by floods to several camps including Kousseri.
Rebeka, who goes by only one name, is the highest government official in Kousseri.
He said by Sunday night, several thousand flood victims fled from their camp and surrounding villages and are seeking refuge in safer places. He said a greater portion of the victims who left the camp have crossed over to Chad’s capital N’djamena where they hope to find safety.
The Cameroon government reports that about 70,000 flood victims have either crossed into Chad or are seeking refuge in border villages. The government says scores of people have died in the floods but gives no further details.
The report comes when Chad’s government says it is pleading for international support after floods caused by severe rainfall since July of this year have killed at least 500 people and displaced about 2 million civilians.
Chad has not commented on the influx of Cameroon flood victims. It is not the first time Cameroonians have sought refuge in Chad. In 2021, Cameroon reported that at least a hundred thousand civilians fled its northern border to Chad after conflicts over water between cattle ranchers and fishermen killed 40 people and wounded 70.
Last month Doctors Without Borders reported that a coordinated and rapid international response is needed to save the lives of thousands of people who have fled floodwaters and are seeking refuge with desperate shortages of food, shelter, drinking water and health care.
Cameroon and Chad said last August that the lives of more than 5 million people in the two countries were threatened by a severe humanitarian crisis triggered by climate shocks. The two countries also said the floods will lead to famine and conflicts over food and drinkable water.
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Rwanda begins Marburg vaccinations to curb deadly outbreak
KIGALI — Rwanda said Sunday it had begun administering vaccine doses against the Marburg virus to try to combat an outbreak of the Ebola-like disease in the east African country, where it has so far killed 12 people.
“The vaccination is starting today immediately,” Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana said at a news conference in the capital Kigali.
He said the vaccinations would focus on those “most at risk, most exposed health care workers working in treatment centers, in the hospitals, in ICU, in emergency, but also [in] the close contacts of the confirmed cases.”
The country has already received shipments of the vaccines including from the Sabin Vaccine Institute.
Rwanda’s first outbreak of the viral hemorrhagic fever was detected in late September, with 46 cases and 12 deaths reported since then. Marburg has a fatality rate as high as 88%.
Marburg symptoms include high fever, severe headaches and malaise within seven days of infection and later severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
It is transmitted to humans by fruit bats and then spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of those infected. Neighboring Uganda has suffered several outbreaks in the past.
“We believe that with vaccines, we have a powerful tool to stop the spread of this virus,” the minister said.
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Prospects of peaceful resolution to Congo-Rwanda crisis dim
paris — They did not exchange a glance. Congolese Félix Tshisekedi and Rwandan Paul Kagame were nevertheless a few meters from each other, for the “family photo” which opened the Francophonie summit, Friday in Villers-Cotterêts north of Paris.
The heavy diplomatic and military dispute between their two countries in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), ravaged by decades of violence, remains alive, despite Paris’ hopes of seeing them come closer.
The DRC, as well as the U.N. group of experts, accuse Rwanda of having deployed troops in support of the M23 (“March 23 Movement”), a predominantly Tutsi rebellion that has seized large swathes of territory in this mineral-rich region since 2021.
The idea of a Kagame-Tshisekedi meeting fizzled out. French President Emmanuel Macron, the summit’s host, finally spoke separately with his two counterparts to “encourage” them to conclude a peace agreement “as soon as possible,” while Angola, the mediator appointed by the African Union, has been trying for months to make progress on this sensitive issue.
And the summit almost ended in a clash. At the closing Saturday, Macron called for the “withdrawal of the M23 and Rwandan troops” from Congolese soil, as Kinshasa is demanding. Tshisekedi had slammed the door of the plenary the day before, angry at the silence of the French president on the situation in the DRC, according to a Congolese government source to AFP.
Harmonized plan
On the Angolan mediation side, discussions are running into new blockages despite the “important” compromises obtained recently with a view to a possible peace agreement, starting with the cease-fire agreement signed at the end of July, according to Rwandan and Congolese sources contacted by AFP.
Alongside ongoing political discussions, intelligence officials from both countries met in secret several times in August to establish a “harmonized plan” for ending the crisis, the sources said.
This plan, which was spread over four months, consisted for the Congolese to launch operations to “neutralize” the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), to respond to the concerns of Kigali. This rebel group formed by former senior Hutu leaders of the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994, and who have since taken refuge in the DRC, constitutes a permanent threat in the eyes of Kigali.
In return, Rwanda gave the green light to “a disengagement of forces” deployed in the east of the DRC and hostile to Kinshasa.
Alas. The progress of the negotiations finally came to a halt on September 14, at the end of yet another meeting between the Rwandan and Congolese foreign ministers Olivier Nduhungirehe and Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner.
Go further
The first, questioned by AFP, accuses the DRC of having “blocked everything” over a matter of timing, “because the harmonized plan planned to launch operations to neutralize the FDLR on D+25”, while the withdrawal of rebel and Rwandan “forces” was to begin five days later, on D+30.
“The plan proposed was reasonable, it was a good plan,” Nduhungirehe assures.
“The principle that should have been enacted is that of the simultaneity of operations, because it is much more effective,” the Congolese government source told AFP. “In any case, it is not the military and intelligence experts who ultimately decide, but the political leaders.”
At the U.N. on September 25, President Tshisekedi unsurprisingly called on the international community to impose “targeted sanctions” against Rwanda, insisting that its military presence on Congolese soil is an “aggression (which) constitutes a major violation of our national sovereignty.”
“Approving this plan would have been politically risky for Tshisekedi, reelected a year ago on a belligerent program towards Kagame and it could have been interpreted by public opinion as a 180-degree turnaround,” explains Onesphore Sematumba, expert for the International Crisis Group (ICG).
According to him, “there will be no purely military solution to the current crisis which has caused a humanitarian catastrophe [with nearly 7 million internally displaced people], it is an illusion.”
“We will have to go much further than the ‘harmonized plan,'” he said, and address the issue of mineral resources, the subject of fierce competition, but also political dialogue with the myriad of armed groups present on the ground.
In the meantime, the Angolan mediator has proposed a new inter-ministerial meeting on October 12. Both parties assure AFP that they will go.
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Tunisia votes with Saied set for reelection
Tunis — Tunisians cast ballots on Sunday in a presidential election, with incumbent Kais Saied expected to secure another five years in office as his main critics are behind bars.
Three years after Saied staged a sweeping power grab, the election is seen as a closing chapter in Tunisia’s experiment with democracy.
The North African country had prided itself for more than a decade for being the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings against dictatorship.
The ISIE electoral board said about 9.7 million people were expected to turn out. About 47% of them are aged between 36 and 60.
At one polling station in central Tunis, a group of mostly older men were seen lining up to vote.
“I came to support Kais Saied,” 69-year-old Nouri Masmoudi said. “My whole family is going to vote for him.”
Fadhila, 66, said she voted “in response to those who called for a boycott.”
The station had seen “a good influx of voters,” mostly over 40 years of age, its director, Noureddine Jouini, said, with 200 voters in the first half hour of polling.
An hour into the vote, Farouk Bouasker, head of ISIE, said the board had seen a “considerable attendance” of voters.
In another station in the capital, Hosni Abidi, 40, said he feared electoral fraud.
“I don’t want people to choose for me,” he said. “I want to check the box for my candidate myself.”
In Bab Jedid, a working-class neighborhood, there were fewer voters, and most were elderly men.
Saied cast his ballot alongside his wife at a station in Ennasr, north of Tunis, in the morning.
After rising to power in a landslide in 2019, Saied led a sweeping power grab that saw him rewrite the constitution.
A burgeoning crackdown on dissent ensued, and a number of Saied’s critics across the political spectrum were jailed, sparking criticism both at home and abroad.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has said more than “170 people are detained in Tunisia on political grounds or for exercising their fundamental rights.”
Jailed opposition figures include Rached Ghannouchi, head of the Islamist-inspired opposition party Ennahdha, which dominated political life after the revolution.
Also detained is Abir Moussi, head of the Free Destourian Party, which critics accuse of wanting to bring back the regime that was ousted in 2011.
‘Pharaoh manipulating the law’
“Many fear that a new mandate for Saied will only deepen the country’s socio-economic woes, as well as hasten the regime’s authoritarian drift,” the International Crisis Group recently said.
Yet voters are being presented with almost no alternative to Saied, after ISIE barred 14 hopefuls from standing in the race, citing insufficient endorsements among other technicalities.
Mohamed Aziz, a 21-year-old voter, said he was “motivated by the elections because choosing the right person for the next five years is important.”
Hundreds of people protested in the capital on Friday, marching along a heavily policed Habib Bourguiba Avenue as some demonstrators bore signs denouncing Saied, 66, as a “Pharaoh manipulating the law.”
Standing against him Sunday are former lawmaker Zouhair Maghzaoui, 59, who backed Saied’s power grab in 2021, and Ayachi Zammel, 47, a little-known businessman who has been in jail since his bid was approved by ISIE last month.
Zammel currently faces more than 14 years in prison on accusations of having forged endorsement signatures to enable him to stand in the election.
In a speech on Thursday, Saied called for a “massive turnout to vote” and usher in what he called an era of “reconstruction.”
He cited “a long war against conspiratorial forces linked to foreign circles,” accusing them of “infiltrating many public services and disrupting hundreds of projects” under his tenure.
The International Crisis Group said while Saied “enjoys significant support among the working classes, he has been criticized for failing to resolve the country’s deep economic crisis”.
Voting is set to end at 6:00 pm (1700 GMT).
The electoral board has said preliminary results should come no later than Wednesday but may be known earlier.
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Sex workers find themselves at center of Congo’s mpox outbreak
KAMITUGA, Congo — It’s been four months since Sifa Kunguja recovered from mpox, but as a sex worker, she said, she’s still struggling to regain clients, with fear and stigma driving away people who’ve heard she had the virus.
“It’s risky work,” Kunguja, 40, said from her small home in eastern Congo. “But if I don’t work, I won’t have money for my children.”
Sex workers are among those hardest-hit by the mpox outbreak in Kamituga, where some 40,000 of them are estimated to reside — many single mothers driven by poverty to this mineral-rich commercial hub where gold miners comprise the majority of the clientele. Doctors estimate 80% of cases here have been contracted sexually, though the virus also spreads through other kinds of skin-to-skin contact.
Sex workers say the situation threatens their health and livelihoods. Health officials warn that more must be done to stem the spread — with a focus on sex workers — or mpox will creep deeper through eastern Congo and the region.
Mpox causes mostly mild symptoms such as fever and body aches, but serious cases can mean prominent, painful blisters on the face, hands, chest and genitals.
Kunguja and other sex workers insist that despite risks of reinfection or spreading the virus, they have no choice but to keep working. Sex work isn’t illegal in Congo, though related activities such as solicitation are. Rights groups say possible legal consequences and fear of retribution — sex workers are subject to high rates of violence including rape and abuse — prevent women from seeking medical care. That can be especially detrimental during a public health emergency, according to experts.
Health officials in Kamituga are advocating for the government to shutter nightclubs and mines and compensate sex workers for lost business.
Not everyone agrees. Local officials say they don’t have resources to do more than care for those who are sick, and insist it’s sex workers’ responsibility to protect themselves.
Kamituga Mayor Alexandre Bundya M’pila told The Associated Press that the government is creating awareness campaigns but lacks money to reach everyone. He also said sex workers should look for other jobs, without providing examples of what might be available.
Sex work a big part of economy
Miners stream into Kamituga by the tens of thousands. The economy is centered on the mines: Buyers line streets, traders travel to sell gold, small businesses and individuals provide food and lodging, and the sex industry flourishes.
Nearly a dozen sex workers spoke to AP. They said well over half their clients are miners.
The industry is well organized, according to the Kenyan-based African Sex Workers Alliance, composed of sex worker-led groups. The alliance estimates that 13% of Kamituga’s 300,000 residents are sex workers.
The town has 18 sex-worker committees, the alliance said, with a leadership that tries to work with government officials, protect and support colleagues, and advocate for their rights.
But sex work in Congo is dangerous. Women face systematic violence that’s tolerated by society, according to a report by UMANDE, a local sex-worker rights group.
Many women are forced into the industry because of poverty or because, like Kunguja, they’re single parents and must support their families.
Getting mpox can put sex workers out of business
The sex workers who spoke to AP described mpox as an added burden. Many are terrified of getting the virus — it means time away from work, lost income and perhaps losing business altogether.
Those who recover are stigmatized, they said. Kamituga is a small place, where most everyone knows one another. Neighbors whisper and tell clients when someone is sick — people talk and point.
Since contracting mpox in May, Kunguja said she’s gone from about 20 clients daily to five. She’s been supporting her 11 children through sex work for nearly a decade but said she now can’t afford to send them to school. To compensate, she’s selling alcohol by day, but it’s not enough.
Experts say information and awareness are key
Disease experts say a lack of vaccines and information makes stemming the spread difficult.
Some 250,000 vaccines have arrived in Congo, but it’s unclear when any will get to Kamituga. Sex workers and miners are among those slated to receive them first.
Community leaders and aid groups are trying to teach sex workers about protecting themselves and their clients via awareness sessions where they discuss signs and symptoms. They also press condom use, which they say isn’t widespread enough in the industry.
Sex workers told AP that they insist on using condoms when they have them, but that they simply don’t have enough.
Kamituga’s general hospital gives them boxes of about 140 condoms every few months. Some sex workers see up to 60 clients a day — for less than $1 a person. Condoms run out, and workers say they can’t afford more.
Dr. Guy Mukari, an epidemiologist working with the National Institute of Biomedical Research in Congo, noted that the variant running rampant in Kamituga seems more susceptible to transmission via sex, making for a double whammy with the sex industry.
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Through music and dance, Sudanese performers transport refugee audiences home
cairo — As the performers took the stage and the traditional drum beat gained momentum, Sudanese refugees sitting in the audience were moved to tears. Hadia Moussa said the melody reminded her of the country’s Nuba Mountains, her family’s ancestral home.
“Performances like this help people mentally affected by the war. It reminds us of the Sudanese folklore and our culture,” she said.
Sudan has been engulfed by violence since April 2023, when war between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces broke out across the country. The conflict has turned the capital, Khartoum, into an urban battlefield and displaced 4.6 million people, according to the United Nations migration agency, including more than 419,000 people who fled to Egypt.
A band with 12 Sudanese members now lives with thousands of refugees in Egypt. The troupe, called “Camirata,” includes researchers, singers and poets who are determined to preserve the knowledge of traditional Sudanese folk music and dance to keep it from being lost in the ruinous war.
Founded in 1997, the band rose to popularity in Khartoum before it began traveling to different states, enlisting diverse musicians, dancers and styles. They sing in 25 different Sudanese languages. Founder Dafallah el-Hag said the band’s members started relocating to Egypt recently, as Sudan struggled through a difficult economic and political transition after a 2019 popular uprising unseated longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir. Others followed after the violence began. El-Hag arrived late last year.
The band uses a variety of local musical instruments on stage. El-Hag says audiences are often surprised to see instruments such as the tanbour, a stringed instrument, being played with the nuggara drums, combined with tunes of the banimbo, a wooden xylophone.
“This combination of musical instruments helped promote some sort of forgiveness and togetherness among the Sudanese people,” el-Hag said, adding that he is eager to revive a museum in Khartoum that housed historic instruments and was reportedly looted and damaged.
Fatma Farid, 21, a singer and dancer from Kordofan, moved to Egypt in 2021. Her aunt was killed in 2023 when an explosive fell on their house in al-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan.
“The way I see art has changed a lot since the war began,” she said. “You think of what you present as an artist. You can deliver a message.”
Kawthar Osman, a native of Madani city who has been singing with the band since 1997, feels nostalgic when she sings about the Nile River, which forms in Sudan from two upper branches, the Blue and White Nile.
“It reminds me of what makes Sudan the way it is,” she said, adding that the war only “pushed the band to sing more for peace.”
More than 2 million Sudanese fled the country, mostly to neighboring Egypt and Chad, where the Global Hunger Index has reported a “serious” level of hunger. Over half a million forcibly displaced Sudanese have sought refuge in Chad, mostly women and children.
Living conditions for those who stayed in Sudan have worsened as the war spread beyond Khartoum. Many made hard decisions early in the war either to flee across frontlines or risk being caught in the middle of fighting. In Darfur, the war turned particularly brutal and created famine conditions, with militias attacking entire villages and burning them to the ground.
Armed robberies, lootings and the seizure of homes for bases were some of the challenges faced by Sudanese who stayed in the country’s urban areas. Others struggled to secure food and water, find sources for electricity, and obtain medical treatment since hospitals were raided by fighters or hit by airstrikes. Communications networks are often barely functional.
The performers say they struggle to speak with family and friends still in the country, much less think about returning.
“We don’t know if we’ll return to Sudan again or will see Sudan again or walk in the same streets,” Farid said.
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