A U.S. military strike has killed approximately 30 Islamist al-Shabab militants near the central Somali town of Galcad, where Somalia’s military was engaged in heavy fighting, U.S. Africa Command said in a statement.  

The operation, which the U.S. military described as a “collective self-defense strike,” occurred Friday about 162 miles (260 km) north of the capital Mogadishu, where Somali national forces were under attack by more than 100 al-Shabab fighters, the statement said.  

U.S. Africa Command, the military arm of the American government’s presence on the continent, said no civilians were injured or killed in the strike. It said three vehicles were destroyed. 

Al-Shabab fighters had stormed a Somali military base in Galcad Friday and killed at least seven soldiers, according to the Somali government and the militant group. The fighters exploded car bombs and fired weapons but were eventually repelled. 

Somalia’s Information Ministry said in a statement that in addition to al-Shabab killing seven soldiers, their soldiers had killed 100 of the group’s fighters and destroyed five gun-mounted pickup vehicles known as ‘technicals’. 

Al-Shabab has been fighting since 2006 to topple the country’s central government and install its own rule, based on a strict interpretation of Islam. 

Friday’s attack underscored the formidable threat that al-Shabab poses for Somalia’s military, despite government successes against the al-Qaida-allied militants last year.  
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Large numbers of Eritrean troops have left the town of Shire in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region, where they fought in support of government forces during a two-year civil war, a resident and two humanitarian workers told Reuters Saturday.

The Eritrean forces’ continuing presence in Tigray despite a November cease-fire agreement between Ethiopia’s government and Tigray regional forces that requires the withdrawal of foreign soldiers is seen as a key obstacle to a lasting peace.

The Tigray war is believed to have resulted in tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of deaths and forced millions to flee their homes.

It was not immediately clear if the troops’ movements out of Shire, one of Tigray’s largest towns, was part of an Eritrean withdrawal from the region or merely a redeployment.

Witnesses and an Ethiopian official reported last month that Eritrean soldiers were leaving Shire and two other major towns, but many ended up staying behind.  

Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel did not immediately respond to requests for comment.  

A Shire resident said the Eritrean convoys were seen leaving the town early in the morning until about 5 p.m. Friday.

“I have counted 300 cars,” said the resident, who asked not to be identified for safety reasons. “They left with their heavy weapons too.”

A humanitarian worker in Shire, who also requested anonymity, told Reuters he had seen hundreds of cars packed with soldiers headed north toward the border. All Eritrean troops in the town seemed to have left by Friday evening, he said.

A second aid worker said hundreds of Eritrean vehicles had left Shire but that some soldiers remained in the town.

Redwan Hussien, the Ethiopian prime minister’s national security advisor and a member of the government’s negotiating team, did not respond to a request by Reuters for comment.

Neither did Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) spokesman Getachew Reda.

During the war, Eritrean troops were accused by residents and human rights groups of various abuses, including the killing of hundreds of civilians in the town of Axum during a 24-hour period in November 2020. Eritrea rejected the accusations.

Eritrea considers the TPLF, which leads Tigrayan forces, its enemy. Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a border war between 1998 and 2000, when the TPLF dominated the federal government.
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Tanzania’s main opposition party held Saturday its first mass rally since the lifting of a ban imposed in 2016, raising hopes the government is committed to increased political freedom in the East African nation.

“It was not easy after those seven years of banning political meetings,” the director for communications and foreign affairs for the Chadema party, Jon Mrema, told cheering supporters.  

Thousands of Chadema supporters gathered at the Furahisha grounds in the lakeside city of Mwanza, draped in the party’s blue, red and white colors.  

“We have been silent for almost seven years but finally, our right is restored, and we are ready to move ahead,” Mwanza resident and party supporter Mary Dismas said.  

President Samia Suluhu Hassan this month lifted the ban introduced by her hardline predecessor John Magufuli, who was nicknamed “Bulldozer” for his uncompromising leadership style.

The government’s change of heart comes as Hassan, in power for 22 months, seeks to break with some of Magufuli’s policies.

The move was cautiously welcomed as a gain for democracy by rights groups and the country’s opposition parties.  

Magufuli had banned political rallies early in his tenure, saying it was time for work, not politics.

But critics said the ban applied only to opposition groups, with the ruling party free to assemble, and rival gatherings were violently broken up by police and their officials jailed.

‘Opening new page’ 

There was early optimism when Hassan, the first woman elected as the country’s president, reached out to rivals, reopened banned media outlets and reversed some of Magufuli’s most controversial policies.

But her presidency fell under a shadow when Chadema chairman Freeman Mbowe, along with a number of other senior party officials, were arrested in July 2021 just hours before they were to hold a public forum urging constitutional reforms.

Mbowe, who spent seven months in prison on terrorism charges, is attending the Saturday rally, organized in the port city where they were arrested.

“We are now going to strongly campaign for a new constitution and an independent electoral commission,” Dismas told AFP.  

Chadema officials said a series of grassroots rallies had been lined up.  

“We will organize as many rallies as possible to reach all wards and villages in the country,” said Sharifa Suleiman, acting chairperson of the Chadema women’s wing.  

“This is our time to build the grounds for 2025 elections,” she said.

Another official, Hashim Juma Issa, said the party was “opening up a new page” as it celebrated its 30th anniversary.
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Soldiers rescued a group of 62 women and four babies abducted by suspected jihadis last week in northern Burkina Faso, state television and a security source said Friday. 

The news came just hours after security sources said a series of attacks on Thursday had left around 30 people dead in the volatile West African nation that has been battling an insurgency since 2015. 

The abduction of the women and babies last week prompted alarm from the United Nations, while the country’s military junta warned of a rise in jihadi attacks on civilians.  

In its main evening news bulletin, Burkina Faso’s RTB channel, referring to an army operation, showed images of the women freed on Friday and brought to the capital, Ouagadougou. 

Several security sources confirmed the news to AFP. 

The women and babies were abducted last week on Thursday and Friday near Arbinda, in the northern Sahel region, as they foraged for food outside their village. 

Security sources said they were found in the Tougouri region, 200 kilometers further south. Helicopters flew them to Ouagadougou, where they were met by senior army officers.  

“Their debriefing will allow us to know more about their abductors, their detention and their convoy,” one security source said. 

The authorities had mobilized search teams on the ground and in the air to trace the women. 

Parts of Burkina Faso, including the Sahel region, have for months been under a blockade by jihadi groups in the region, making it increasingly difficult to supply the communities there. 

The resulting shortages forced local people to leave the safety of their villages to search for food. 

News of the women’s return came as security sources reported four attacks by suspected jihadist attacks Thursday, killing 30 people, including 16 members of a civilian auxiliary supporting the army. 
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Four suspected jihadi attacks have left about 30 people dead in Burkina Faso, including 16 volunteers backing up the army, security sources said Friday.

The attacks, which happened on Thursday, were the latest to hit a civilian auxiliary force supporting the military in their seven-year fight against jihadis in the volatile West African nation.

Since 2015, Burkina Faso has been grappling with an insurgency led by jihadis affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group that has killed tens of thousands and displaced around 2 million people.

The “first attack targeted an advance party of Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP) in Rakoegtenga,” a town in the northern province of Bam, a VDP official said on condition of anonymity.

Six auxiliaries and a woman died in the attack, he said.

Around 10 people were wounded, some seriously, and were “evacuated to Ouagadougou for appropriate care,” the VDP official said.

He said the second attack killed about 10 auxiliaries and a person in Nayala province in the northwest “in the afternoon when a convoy escorted by auxiliaries and soldiers was ambushed.”

Security sources confirmed two attacks but gave no death toll, referring only to “a number of losses.”

The VDP, set up in December 2019, is made up of civilian volunteers who are given two weeks of military training and then work alongside the army, typically carrying out surveillance, information-gathering or escort duties.

Two other incidents linked to armed jihadi groups were recorded on Thursday, according to other security sources. In the north-central province of Sanmatenga, a joint military and VDP team was targeted in Zincko, one of them said.

“About 10 terrorists were neutralized [killed]. Unfortunately, four civilians were also killed,” the source said.

Later in the evening, gunmen raided the town of Sanaba in Banwa province, killing eight civilians.

Some commentators worry that the poorly trained volunteers are easy targets for jihadis and may dangerously inflame ethnic friction without proper controls.

Late last year, authorities launched a drive to recruit 50,000 VDP — 90,000 signed up — but hundreds of volunteers have died, especially in ambushes or roadside bomb attacks.

Violence targeting security forces and civilians has increased in recent months, especially in northern and eastern regions bordering jihadi-hit Mali and Niger.

The escalating toll unleashed two military coups last year, launched by officers angered at failures to stem the bloodshed.
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U.S. officials say food insecurity in Africa will worsen this year because of climate change, conflict, and market disruptions caused partly by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Speaking online to journalists Thursday from Malawi, Cary Fowler, special envoy for Global Food Security, said looking for solutions is key.

“As much as I wish I could bring the hopeful message that the food crisis will be over this year, we have to recognize that the chief drivers of the food crisis are still with us,” Fowler said. “And it behooves us, therefore, to be looking at solutions for all of those, or adaptive measures. That’s the situation as I see it today.”

According to the 2022 Global Food Crisis Report, one in every five Africans goes to bed hungry, and at least 140 million people on the continent face acute food insecurity.

African farmers continue to practice traditional farming methods, but the weather has been unpredictable in recent years, causing farmers to produce less food. Farmers complain about high seed and fertilizer prices and a failure to produce enough food for the population.

Drought also has contributed to food insecurity in some parts of the continent, particularly the Horn of Africa, destroying livestock and crops and forcing people to rely on humanitarian assistance for food and medicine.

In 2022, the U.S. government invested $11 billion in humanitarian assistance in 55 countries, including some from Africa.

Dina Esposito, the USAID Global Food Crisis Coordinator, said her government is also supporting African farmers in producing their own food to overcome hunger and food insecurity.

“We have also got a global hunger initiative that is exactly focused on what are the right systems and approaches to advancing agriculture, taking that very localized context in mind, advancing drip irrigation and other forms of water-saving measures where it makes sense, helping farmers adapt to a changing climate in other ways, fundamentally always looking – we see our role really as helping these farmers shift from subsistence farming to more intensified and sustainable production,” she said.

Esposito also said the U.S. government is committed to partnering with leaders to advance global food insecurity and solve global hunger.

Koech Oscar teaches land, resource management and agricultural technology at the University of Nairobi. He said no single African country can solve the food crisis alone, and there is a need for a regional approach to deal with growing hunger on the continent.

“We need our nations to work together because of our connectedness. We are one ecosystem at the end of the day, our animals are in Uganda. Some of them are going to Tanzania and others are coming in, so we need to have regional strategists to support our communities because these are regional problems and we need to see significant investment in this production, especially in agriculture,” he said. “You look at the national budgets of these African countries, how much goes into agriculture because we cannot have a peaceful nation, we cannot have a prosperous nation, development, without people producing food for themselves and enough food for themselves.”

Last October, African ministers of agriculture meeting in Ethiopia pledged to support sustainable food security, transform food systems, and build a viable commercial agricultural ecosystem on the continent.
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Sixty-nine al-Shabab militants were killed in two separate military operations in south and central Somalia, Somali military officials said Thursday.  

“In a joint operation conducted by the National Army, allied clan militia and international partners in the Middle Shabelle region, at least 49 militants were killed,” said Brigadier General Abdullahi Ali Anod, a spokesman for the country’s Ministry of Defense. Government soldiers also seized weapons from the terrorist group, he added. 

The joint forces fought the militants at a farm late Wednesday, Anod said.  

“We launched a surprise attack against them as they were regrouping in the farm of Sheikh Qasim near Dhagahow area under Hawadley village in the country’s Middle Shabelle province,” Anod said.  

The farm, about 60 kilometers north of the capital, Mogadishu, was wrested from al-Shabab control in October by government forces and allied clan militias.  

On Tuesday, the militants launched a deadly attack on a nearby Somali military base, killing at least seven government soldiers, including a commander.  

The al-Shabab attack on the government base came a day after the government claimed a “historic victory” over the jihadis with the capture of strategic coastal towns, including Harardhere, once the main operating port for pirates hijacking ships at sea for ransom. 

In a separate operation, at least 20 al-Shabab militants were killed and others were injured when Somali National Army fighters launched an attack Thursday on a militant base at Goof-Gadud village 30 kilometers north of Baidoa, the temporary administrative capital of Southwest state, officials said Thursday.  

“National Army carried out the attack to preempt an attack the militants were planning to launch from this village to government forces. At least 20 militants were killed during the operation,” said Hassan Abdulkadir, Southwest state minister of justice.  

He said senior al-Shabab commanders were among those killed, along with five government soldiers. 
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Ethiopia’s tourism authorities say the industry lost $2 billion during the past two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in the Tigray region. With the November peace deal between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front moving forward, the Ministry of Tourism is ramping up efforts to revive tourism.

Ethiopia’s Epiphany festival, known as Timkat in Amharic, is expected to attract thousands of Christians during its two-day celebration, which ends today.

Rhoda Berger and her friend Fatima Arnous traveled from France and Germany and are taking  part in Ethiopia’s Epiphany festival at Jan Meda, Addis Ababa. The two-day celebration, known as Timkat in Amharic, ends today. It is expected to attract thousands of Christians.

“I’m half Ethiopian, half German so I’ve been in Ethiopia before, last time was 2020, so three years ago,” Berger said. “I was actually trying to come last year but then I decided not to because of the conflict and COVID as well. But then, yeah, I really wanted to and I missed it a lot because I have family here and friends here, so I really wanted to come back and I was just waiting until the situation got a bit better.”

Her friend is in Ethiopia for the first time.

“When I read … newspapers and when I was talking to people and everything, everybody tells me yeah, you have to be careful … . But I guess it’s everywhere the same situation and I wanted to visit the country and that’s why I’m here,” Arnous said.

Members of the tourism sector hope the tides are turning for the industry. 

Henok Abebe, who has worked as a tour guide for over 10 years in the city of Gonder, the epicenter of Timkat celebrations, saw work opportunities dwindle to nothing in the past three years as the war worsened and travel restrictions increased. Travel advisories — specifically from western Europe, where Abebe said a majority of his guests reside — deeply hurt his business. 

During that time, Abebe and his fellow tour guides turned to local tourists. But at one point, when Tigrayan fighters had entered the Amhara region, Abebe left to join the fighting.

Ethiopia suffered heavy financial losses from the disruption to tourism, according to state minister for tourism, Sileshi Girma.

He said that, because of impacts of the war and COVID-19, an estimated 2 billion dollars have been lost in revenue as a country with the loss in business from about 3 million tourists.

With the peace deal holding, the ministry is working on revamping the battered industry. This includes reinstating flights to Tigray region cities and opening up historic destinations like the Amhara town of Lalibela.

Officials are also looking for more sources for tourism, such as countries in Africa and the Middle East. 

 
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Kenya’s President William Ruto said this week that there was a plot to murder the country’s top electoral official last August to prevent him from announcing Ruto as the winner of the presidential election. This was the first time the president has mentioned the plot after months of rumors on social media, and Ruto’s supporters are urging an investigation.

President Ruto made the allegation at the State House Tuesday as he met with outgoing commissioners of Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, including outgoing chairman Wafula Chebukati.

Last August, Chebukati declared Ruto as winner of Kenya’s presidential election, which Ruto won by a narrow margin over his main challenger Raila Odinga.

Ruto alleged that unnamed individuals plotted to kill the IEBC chairman and take other steps so the election results could not be announced.

“The mechanism constituted a syndicate to execute a series of strategies consisting of bribery, blackmail, extortion, threats and intimidation of various public officials of the IEBC, attempt their abduction, torture and assassination, to storm the national tallying center and attempt treasonous insurrection,” he said.

Rumors about efforts to disrupt the election have circulated on social media for months but police have yet to open an investigation.

Opposition parties say if Ruto has evidence about a plot, he should order police to investigate.

The head of the former ruling Jubilee party, Jeremiah Kioni, says those suspected of threatening the electoral commissioner’s lives must be charged.

“There are unfortunate things coming out from the head of state. If he had evidence, he should have used the agencies charged with the criminal justice system to ensure that those culpable are dealt with by the institutions as provided for in our laws,” he said.

Many Kenyans see Ruto’s allegations as plausible. Chris Msando, a Kenyan official in charge of ICT, was kidnapped and killed a few days before the 2017 election. That killing is still unsolved.

However, political commentator Martin Andati says Ruto is making a mistake by bringing attention to the alleged plot to kill Chebukati.

“He is opening a pandora’s box because the late Msando was abducted and eventually killed and Kenyans have not forgotten,” he said. “The country has started healing and you saw the reception President Ruto received in Luo Nyanza but when he starts making allegations, he is now making and opening wounds which has started healing, then we will get derailed, and we will not be able to heal as a country, we will not be able to address some of the challenges that he needs to address and we are likely to lose focus.”

Ruto won the August election by less than two percentage points over Odinga, and four members of the seven-member IEBC challenged the official results in court. The Supreme Court upheld the final count.

Kenya now faces months without an electoral commission after the terms of the last three remaining commissioners, including the chairperson, ended this week.

The departing commissioners have recommended the commissioners be appointed to the electoral body two years before the election, strengthening electoral laws and improving security at the tallying centers in the country.

Kenya has appointed electoral commissioners through the Inter-Parties Parliamentary Group (IPPG) since 1997. The opposition anticipates that a similar approach will be used in the formation of a new election agency.
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In Senegal, two major traffic crashes in just eight days killed 62 people, reviving the question of road safety standards in Senegal and across Africa. The continent is home to the highest rate of road fatalities in the world. Experts blame a dangerous mix of poor infrastructure and driver education as well as low-quality imports.

Rusted buses fill Dakar’s roads at rush hour. Passengers hang off the back doors, while teenagers on rollerblades cling to the sides, dodging horse carts and unpainted speed bumps. There are no traffic lights or stop signs — cars have the right of way and pedestrians cross at high risk.

Road conditions outside Senegal’s major cities can feel even more dangerous, where packed buses barrel down two-lane potholed roads, their roofs piled with mountains of cargo and sheep. There are no medians or street lights and farm animals roam freely into unchecked traffic.

On Monday it was a donkey that caused a public bus to swerve and collide with a truck in the country’s northern region of Louga. Twenty-two people were killed and 28 injured.

Just eight days prior, 40 people were killed and about 80 injured in a crash in Senegal’s southeastern Kaffrine region. A tire had burst, sending a passenger bus into the path of another oncoming bus.

The government responded by banning night bus trips between districts and outlawed used tire imports.

Worst traffic fatality rate in world

At 26.6 deaths per 100,000 people, Africa has the worst rate of traffic fatalities in the world — nearly triple that of Europe, according to a 2018 report by the World Health Organization.

Christopher Kost, the Africa Program Director at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, an urban planning nonprofit, says that in order to improve road safety, African countries need to shift public transportation business models.

“In so many African countries, we’re still operating with a target system where driver incomes are directly related to the number of people they carry. And as a result, they rush as fast as possible to the destination, and that leads to a lot of the road safety challenges that we have,” he said.

Switching to a salary system would incentivize drivers to drive safely instead of cramming their buses full and speeding to their destinations, Kost said.

Carolyne Mimano, a partnerships manager also with the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, says public transport could be further improved by limiting the age of buses, increasing bus inspections, and capping driver hours.

Within cities, governments have many options to improve safety. African city streets are shared by cars, pedestrians, cyclists, street vendors and even horse carts, yet planning efforts focus only on vehicles, Mimano said.

Pedestrians in Africa represent 40% of all road traffic deaths, compared to 23% globally, according to the WHO.

“We still have that car centric approach to transport planning,” Mimano said. “Even with road crashes, we think that the solution is to expand the road. And that doesn’t really solve the problem. What actually happens is people speed more.”

Improvement is possible. Mimano points to Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, which has speed cameras and salaried bus drivers, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which has elevated pedestrian crosswalks, wide sidewalks, and 21 kilometers of dedicated bus lanes.

“Africa and its development partners must prioritize road safety in their national budgets at a level that is commensurate to the burden and develop and implement national road safety programs in a way that engages all of the government including health, transport, education, finance and trade sectors,” said Nneka Henry, the head of the United Nations Road Safety Fund.

Senegal sees an average of 745 road fatalities per year, with most deadly accidents occurring at night, according to Senegal’s information bureau.
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KIBATI, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO — Acrid smoke swirls amid the buzzing of dozens of chainsaws under the majestic Nyiragongo volcano, producing scenes of devastation in the heart of the lush natural treasure in eastern DR Congo.
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Cameroon’s government deployed at least 100 troops Wednesday to Gayama, a village on the border with Nigeria, after clashes between Cameroonian separatists and Nigerian herders left at least 12 people dead.

Cameroonian officials say the fighting broke out six days ago, after herders who crossed the border in search of food for their cattle refused to pay taxes the rebels demanded.

Abdoulahi Aliou, the highest-ranking government official in Menchum, the administrative unit in charge of Gayama, said the rebels killed two herders immediately upon their refusal to pay. The surviving herders, who are ethnic Fulani from Taraba and Benue states, returned  home and organized a counterattack.

Aliou said the herders came back in huge numbers, attacked separatist camps, and killed at least four fighters. Six civilians, including the traditional ruler of Munkep village and his son, were also killed in the clashes.

Authorities say at least 20 civilians were injured, scores of cattle were killed, and homes were torched.

The Roman Catholic Church in Menchum says many civilians fled Gayama and neighboring villages to avoid getting caught in clashes between separatists and the arriving troops.

The governor of Cameroon’s Northwest region, Deben Tchoffo, said civilians should not fear the military. Speaking by telephone from the region’s capital, Bamenda, he said villagers should help the troops by denouncing rebels hiding in their communities.

“The future is bright, provided we are united against the agents of chaos that are trying to hijack our youths,” Tchoffo said. “The armed forces are bringing themselves close to the population. That is the reason why, compared to last year, things are becoming more and more normal in the Northwest region, even if we still have some hotspots.”

Tchoffo said Cameroon’s military would protect civilians in all border villages.

Separatists on social media, including WhatsApp and Facebook, acknowledged they have been battling Nigerian herders, who they say should respect their orders.

This is not the first time Cameroon’s anglophone separatists have attacked Nigerians along the border. 

Last June, villagers in western Akwaya town said armed men believed to be rebels carried out a series of attacks that killed at least 30 people, including five Nigerian merchants.

The separatists have been fighting since 2017 to carve out an English-speaking state from French-speaking majority Cameroon.

The U.N. says the conflict has left more than 3,500 people dead and 750,000 displaced.   

 
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