The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, reports it is stepping up critical aid to thousands of refugees and internally displaced people in conflict-ridden northern Ethiopia.

Aid agencies report they now have unhindered access to Ethiopia’s northern Tigray, Afar and Amhara regions. They say the November 2 peace agreement signed between the Ethiopian government and the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front is holding.

Millions of people, especially in Tigray, have been largely deprived of food, medicine, and other essentials throughout the two-year conflict. Since the peace treaty was signed, UNHCR representative in Ethiopia, Mamadou Dian Balde said his agency and partners have been able to increase the level of assistance and protection within the region.

Speaking from the capital Addis Ababa, he said as of this week, the UNHCR has been able to send in 61 trucks loaded with much needed relief supplies into Tigray.

“This is a game changer,” Balde said. “It is an opportunity for us. Will it last or not? I do not have the capabilities to predict that. … Things remain always fragile. But all steps taken by both parties are very important.”

Balde said UNHCR has relocated 16,000 Eritrean refugees to the recently established Alemwach site in the Amhara region. It also has assisted more than 7,000 Eritreans who had been stranded in two other camps in western Tigray so they can rebuild their lives and stand on their own.

He said a week ago he met a recently relocated refugee, who told him how relieved he was that his children could finally go back to school after more than two years.

“The fact that they were resuming education, that was indeed heartbreaking to hear,” Balde said. “That during all this time, they could not have it and they were relieved we are able to help refugees, children resume education and start normal life.”

Balde said the UNHCR also is working closely with local authorities in northern Ethiopia to support Ethiopians displaced by the conflict.

Between January and October, he said the agency has provided various protection services, shelter, household items and other services to more than 2 million internally displaced people.
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Ahead of World Human Rights Day this Saturday (12/10), Cameroonian rights groups are protesting what they call dehumanizing treatment of women and children displaced by the separatist crisis in two western provinces. The rights groups say displaced women and girls are forced into physical and sexual abuse and domestic work without pay.

These are the voices of several hundred women and girls singing in streets in, Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde.

Civilians should denounce human rights abusers, they say. Anyone fearing reprisal for doing so should discreetly tell female associations when anyone abuses the rights of women and girls. 

The protests in the capital and in Cameroon’s economic hub, Doula, were organized by the Association for the Fight Against Violence on Women and Young Girls. 

Human rights activist Jeanette Ebale, the association coordinator, calls it very disheartening that so many women and girls fleeing the separatist war in Cameroon’s English-speaking western regions do not find peace, love and comfort in French-speaking towns.

Ebale says her strong message on Human Rights Day is that civilians should denounce those who physically and sexually abuse women and girls displaced by Cameroon’s separatist crisis. She says 130 of the roughly 370 displaced females who rushed to her association for help after they were raped or forced into prostitution in the past two months were diagnosed with gonorrhea, chlamydia and or syphilis.

Eighteen-year old Immaculate Efossi escaped from Mamfe, an English-speaking southwestern town, in February after armed men torched a girls’ school dormitory. She says she spent two months living in the courtyard of the Roman Catholic church cathedral in French-speaking Douala.

Efossi says a man who promised her a domestic worker job instead abused her.

“I did every work, cleaning the house, cleaning the children and dresses and then cooking, yet I had only one meal each day,” said Efossi. “He kept on promising to pay my salary which he never paid for seven months. Honestly I could not leave his house despite the abuse because I had nowhere to go.”

Efossi said she was directed by a friend who left Mamfe and was abused sexually for a year to Women’s Rights, a female activist group. Women’s Rights says the man who abused Efossi and 11 other displaced girls and women is now facing charges in Douala. 

Cameroon’s government says children in the troubled western regions face violence, kidnapping, rape, being forced out of schools and into early marriage, and recruitment by armed groups. 

When they escape to French-speaking towns for safety, many become homeless, lack an education and are forced into prostitution and hard labor in plantations. Some are raped, arbitrarily arrested, detained and tortured.

Rights groups say it is difficult to know the number of women and girls whose rights are violated because most victims stay quiet for fear of reprisal. 

Marie Theres Abena Ondoua is Cameroon’s minister of women’s empowerment and the family. She says victims should denounce perpetrators of human rights abuses. She says the state will make the accused appear before the courts.

“Our society should banish he numerous manifestations of incivility, such as violence against women,” said Ondoua. “The government has made this a major concern through the promotion of the human rights of all citizens. It is extremely important for us to have peace and the promotion of the rule of law.”

The U.N. says the separatist crisis in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions that degenerated into an armed conflict in 2017 has claimed 3,500 lives and displaced 750,000 people.

Human Rights Day is celebrated every December 10, the day on which, in 1948, the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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Aid workers in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo warned Thursday of a possible “health disaster” because of an alarming surge in cholera cases in makeshift camps for displaced people. 

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said that between November 26 and December 7, 256 patients had been admitted to its cholera treatment center in Munigi, near the eastern city of Goma. 

A third of them were children under five, the aid agency added. 

“In just 10 days, the number of people suspected of having cholera has increased alarmingly,” MSF said in a statement. 

More than 177,000 people were “now trapped in dire conditions” in the Nyiragongo area north of the city, having fled the advance of the M23 rebel group in recent weeks. 

And as heavy showers fell during the rainy season, these displaced people were forced to live in shelters made from nothing more than branches and tarpaulin. 

“We have neither showers nor toilets,” Nyira Safari, the mother of an eight-year-old girl with cholera symptoms, told MSF. 

She took her daughter, who was “very weak and could barely stand,” to an MSF-supported health center for treatment. 

Aid response inadequate 

Tens of thousands of people are living packed together with no access to sanitation. 

“Given the lack of food, shelter, latrines and showers, all the ingredients are there for a health disaster,” said Simplice Ngar-One, head of MSF’s cholera response in Goma. 

“Despite our repeated calls, the current humanitarian response is far from adequate,” Ngar-One said. “That is just not understandable, as these people are only a few kilometers from Goma, home to many humanitarian organizations.” 

The M23, a mostly Congolese Tutsi group, resumed fighting in late 2021 after lying dormant for years, and has seized swathes of territory north of Goma. 

Kinshasa accuses Rwanda of providing the M23 with support — something that U.N. experts and U.S. officials have also pointed to in recent months.  

But Kigali has accused the DRC of collusion with the FDLR, a former Rwandan Hutu rebel group established in the DRC after the genocide of the Tutsi community in 1994 in Rwanda.  

 
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At least 10 people, most of them civilian volunteers supporting the armed forces, were killed in northern Burkina Faso in an attack by suspected jihadis, local sources told AFP on Thursday. 

The attack took place Wednesday at Boala in the central-north region, two residents and a regional leader of the VDP volunteer force told AFP. 

“At least 10 volunteers were killed and there were several wounded, who were taken to the medical center in Boulsa,” the main town in Namentenga province, one of the residents said. 

The VDP official said that “several terrorists were neutralized by volunteers” after a two-hour fight. 

A poor landlocked country in the heart of the Sahel, Burkina Faso is battling a seven-year jihadi insurgency that swept in from neighboring Mali. 

Thousands of civilians and members of the security forces have died, and nearly 2 million people have fled their homes. 

More than a third of the semi-desert country is in the control of the militants, and anger within the armed forces at military losses has spurred two coups this year. 

The latest attack is the fourth in Burkina Faso since Sunday and brings the latest tally of deaths to at least 27. 

On Sunday six civilians, including four teachers, were killed by suspected jihadis at Bittou near the southeastern border with Ghana and Togo. 

At least nine civilians were killed in the north on Monday and Tuesday in attacks on a village and a convoy of traders. 

On November 26, four soldiers were killed by a bomb in the north, and three civilians were shot dead in the northeast. 

The VDP — the Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland — is an auxiliary force that supports the poorly equipped army. 

Set up in December 2019, it comprises civilian volunteers who are given two weeks of military training and then carry out surveillance, information-gathering or escort duties.  

But hundreds of volunteers have died, especially in ambushes or explosions caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted along roadsides.  

Despite the losses, 90,000 people signed up during a recruitment drive for the VDP in November, according to the authorities. 

 
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Cameroon’s military has taken over construction of roads linking its troubled western regions to Nigeria after what it said were repeated separatist attacks. The military says the rebels abducted eight people this week, including road workers, who were abandoning work sites due to insecurity. 

Cameroon says scores of government troops and road construction equipment of its military engineering corps are moving from Yaounde to at least six western towns and villages on the border with Nigeria. 

The equipment that departed the capital Tuesday includes loaders, bulldozers, dump trucks and compactors, the military says.

Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo told parliament this week that President Paul Biya ordered the military engineering corps to take over construction of the road linking the Kumba and Ekondo-Titi districts.

Assomo said a majority of civilian road construction engineers abandoned work following repeated armed attacks and destruction of equipment by separatist fighters.

He said army forces are capable of taking over the work.

Assomo said besides its regular participation in combat operations, forces of Cameroon’s military engineering corps are trained and have a wide range of experience in constructing public edifices, including buildings and roads. He said only Biya, who is commander in chief of the armed forces, authorizes the military to construct roads in areas deemed necessary or where there are armed conflicts.

The road is part of the government’s efforts to reconstruct the western areas devastated by the separatist conflict that has claimed 3,500 lives and displaced 750,000 people.

The government says eight civilians including road construction workers were abducted by separatist fighters from a bus on Monday in Ekondo-Titi.

Separatists have claimed responsibility for the abductions but have not made any requests for ransom, as is usually the case when workers are kidnapped in Cameroon’s western regions.

Mukete Ekoko, a traditional ruler in Kumba, said when constructed, the road will increase trade between Cameroon and a market of 180 million people in Nigeria and reduce poverty in border towns and villages. He said he was happy that the military is taking over the construction of the road.

“This is the most important project for the time being, to take us to the next stage and that is why we the chiefs, we take it so important, we take it so seriously and we want the authorities to know that we are thankful,” he said.

The Cameroon military says civilians should denounce fighters hiding in the community and harassing civilians. The military says it will assure the safety of people and property in the area and complete the 60-kilometer road in less than three months.

Njume Peter Ambang, a lawmaker from Cameroon’s Southwest region where Kumba and Ekondo-Titi are located, said youths who join separatists because they are unemployed will have opportunities to sell their crops when the road is developed.

“We have taken the engagement to tell these boys who are disturbing this road that, please, enough is enough, to please not disturb this road again,” he said.

English-speaking armed groups have been fighting for the secession of two western regions from the rest of Cameroon and its French-speaking majority since 2017.

The last major move by Cameroon’s military to take over the construction of roads was on the northern borders with Chad and Nigeria in 2018 after Chinese contractors abandoned the work following repeated attacks from armed Boko Haram fighters.
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Ethiopia’s electric company says it has reconnected the Tigray region’s capital, Mekelle, to the national grid for the first time in more than a year. 

Ethiopian Electric Power spokesman Moges Mekonen told VOA’s Tigrigna Service that work was underway to repair damaged power lines in eight other areas of the Tigray region. The director of Mekelle’s flagship Ayder Hospital, Kibrom Gebreselassie, told VOA on Wednesday that power has resumed in Mekelle. Residents who spoke to the BBC also confirmed that they are enjoying the “full resumption of electricity.”

Ethiopian state media reported Tuesday that power had been restored to the capital.

It was not possible for VOA to immediately verify the claims as Ethiopia’s government does not allow journalists into Tigray.

Mekelle’s power supply has been erratic since federal forces were forced to withdraw in June 2021, while most of Tigray has been without phone, internet and banking services since war broke out between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, more than two years ago.

Aid workers say the lack of services has worsened the humanitarian crisis in Tigray, where 90% of the 6 million population need aid.

The two sides signed a landmark cease-fire deal in early November that restored its services and commited the federal government to “unhindered” aid to the embattled region. However, since the deal was signed, power, internet and phone lines are still down in most parts of the Tigray region. And while food and medical aid has started trickling into the region, it has been limited.

The World Health Organization said Friday it still does not have “unfettered access” to deliver medical supplies to Tigray.

For its part, Tigrayan forces were expected to disband their fighters within 30 days of the November 2 cease-fire. 

Tigray’s top military commander last week said his forces have withdrawn from 65% of frontline areas but would remain in areas where foreign forces are still present.

Tigrayan leaders accuse Eritrean troops of continuing to commit atrocities in the region, including rapes and executions.

Eritrea denies any wrongdoing and did not take part in the November peace deal. 

 
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The Democratic Republic of Congo says the civilian death toll from what it calls a massacre by rebels with the March 23 movement, known as M23, has risen to 272.

The increased death toll was announced at a press briefing Monday in Kinshasa by Minister of Industry and former governor of North Kivu province, Julien Paluku.

The Congolese army last week accused the March 23 movement rebels, M23, of killing at least 50 civilians in North Kivu’s Kishishe village.

The government later increased the estimate to more than 100.

But Paluku said figures from local groups put the death toll closer to 300. In total, he said, about 272 civilians were killed. Paluku added that the rhetoric from Rwanda’s (President Paul) Kagame claims that it is the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda who are being killed, it is the armed groups. But in Kishishe, he said, most of the people who were killed were in an Adventist church. 

A spokesman for the M23 rebels, Lawrence Kanyuka, told VOA that the group did not target civilians and blamed the Congolese army for breaking a November 23 truce.

But M23 said “stray bullets” from clashes killed eight civilians.

The fresh fighting broke out just days the presidents of the DRC and Rwanda, meeting in Angola, agreed to a ceasefire.

The M23 rebels were not part of the deal, but since the agreement there had been no fighting reported between the Congolese army and M23 until last Thursday.

Kinshasa accuses Kigali of supporting the M23 rebels, which it denies.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday urged Rwanda’s President Kagame to cease all support for M23 and called for all sides to respect the Angola truce.

Separate week-long talks in Nairobi between the DRC government, armed groups in eastern Congo, and regional leaders wrapped up Tuesday with calls for more efforts for peace with talks in the DRC.

The main rebel group, M23, was not invited to the talks because they refused to give up territory seized since fighting erupted a year ago.

The M23 rebels are mainly Congolese ethnic Tutsis who say the government broke a deal to integrate them into the army.

They began taking territory in November 2021 and in October moved toward the city of Goma.

The East African Community has deployed hundreds of troops from Burundi and Kenya as part of a regional force to try to quell the violence.
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The U.N. refugee agency warns humanitarian conditions are deteriorating for tens of thousands of Somalis in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps as unrelenting drought grips the Horn of Africa and funding dries up.

More than 80,000 Somalis fleeing conflict and drought have arrived in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps over the past two years, more than 24,000 since September.

This is exacting an enormous burden on the local communities and refugees already living in the camps, which house an estimated 230,000 refugees.

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, reports refugees, especially those who have arrived since the end of September are in urgent need of assistance.  It says shelter for the new arrivals is running out.  This is forcing many to live in makeshift shelters, with limited or no access to clean water and sanitation.

To make matters worse, UNHCR spokesman Boris Cheshirkov said a cholera outbreak at the end of October has infected more than 350 people, mainly children.  He said the spread of cholera is declining thanks to the efforts of health partners.  However, the risk of further infection remains.

“UNHCR is providing new arrivals to Dadaab with clean drinking water and extending sanitation and hygiene facilities to the outskirts of the camps.  We are also providing targeted protection services for the most vulnerable to ensure their needs are met.  Malnourished children are being screened and admitted to stabilization centers,” said Cheshirkov.

He notes the UNHCR also is assisting nearby host communities.  It is rehabilitating boreholes, providing generators for water pumps, and trucking in water.  While tending to the immediate needs of the refugees and local populations, he said the UNHCR, and the Kenyan government are seeking long-term solutions for this intractable problem.

Kenya has been hosting more than half a million refugees and asylum seekers in Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps and urban areas for over three decades.  This is the second largest number in Africa after Ethiopia.

Cheshirkov said neither voluntary repatriation to Somalia nor resettlement in third countries of asylum are viable solutions currently.

“What we are focusing on now is to find ways for refugees to become self-reliant in Kenya.  And that includes through education, through vocational training and through access to financial services so that people can access businesses.  So that they have a prospect as a longer-term solution is found to their plight,” he said.

In the meantime, the UNHCR warns its life-saving operations for more than 257,000 drought-affected people in Kenya is foundering for lack of financial support.  It notes only half of an appeal issued in June for $11.1 million has been met.
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The first shipment of grain as part of Ukraine’s own initiative to supply countries in need arrived Monday in Djibouti for delivery to neighboring Ethiopia amid the region’s worst drought in decades. 

Ukraine’s embassy in Ethiopia confirmed that the “Grain from Ukraine” shipment of 25,000 tons is separate from a United Nations World Food Program effort that has funded humanitarian grain shipments from Ukraine. 

A second ship with 30,000 tons of wheat will be heading to Ethiopia next week, while a third vessel is being loaded with 25,000 tons of wheat bound for Somalia, an embassy statement said. 

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last month announced the initiative aimed at helping “countries the most struck by the food crisis.” Ukraine has said it plans to send more than 60 ships to Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Kenya, Yemen and other countries. 

Millions of people in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya are going hungry during a drought following the fifth straight failed rainy season, while conflicts in Ethiopia and Somalia have worsened the crisis. 

Ethiopia has not yet commented on the new grain shipment from Ukraine. But Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in August criticized reports of a U.N. effort to ship grain from Ukraine to Ethiopia as an attempt to paint “a picture that we are starved.” 

 
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Press freedom groups have condemned Burkina Faso’s halting of broadcasts by French media outlet Radio France International (RFI). Ouagadougou’s military leaders linked the ban to RFI reporting that the junta describes as false. Critics say the military is seeking to control news and information as it struggles against worsening insecurity.

Burkina Faso is the second West African country, after Mali, to take the French broadcaster off the air. Both countries are under military rule.

In a statement, the Burkinabe military junta says Radio France International made false reports pertaining to an alleged foiled coup attempt last week and had given voice to Islamist militants. 

In the wake of the ban, announced Saturday, RFI issued a separate statement saying it “strongly deplores” the authorities’ actions and will “explore all avenues to restore RFI’s broadcasting.” RFI also cited its unwavering commitment to the freedom to inform and to the “professional work of its journalists.”

Jonathan Rozen is with the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based advocacy group.

“The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by and investigating the suspension of French broadcaster RFI in Burkina Faso. It’s unfortunate that as people in Burkina Faso and across the Sahel grapple with insecurity, authorities have chosen to deny access to a prominent source of news and information,” he said.

Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, says the authorities’ decision will prevent other journalists from reporting on terrorism and could be illegal.

Sadibou Marong is RSF’s West Africa director.

“CSC is the media regulator, which according to the law has the prerogative to suspend or sanction the media. Unless the law has been changed this is also a violation of the media regulation laws,” said Marong.

Burkina Faso has been at war with militants linked to Islamic State and al-Qaida for more than six years. As the violence has worsened, so has political instability, with the country enduring two military coups this year, one in January, one in September. Both juntas have promised to resolve the country’s security problems.

Andrew Lebovich is an analyst with Clingendael Institute, a Netherlands-based research group. He says the current junta led by Ibrahim Traoré is under increasing pressure to produce results. 

“Attacks have continued, and the junta is still significantly under threat and still faces I think important pressures. I think political pressures, but also pressure even potentially within the military, so there’s a lot for them to balance right now and I don’t think they’ve shown real signs of success yet,” he said.

The action against RFI comes after a number of anti-French protests across the country in recent months. Some blame Burkina Faso’s military partnership with its former colonizer for the failure to stop the violence.

Earlier this year, France announced it would downsize its counter-insurgency military operation in the Sahel and regroup and recast itself under a European umbrella.

Across the western Sahel countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, fatalities caused by conflict have increased by more than 50 percent this year, according to information from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. 

(Lisa Bryant in Paris contributed to this report.)
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Cameroon’s government is praising U.S. authorities for arresting three Cameroonian Americans accused of supporting separatist violence in the country’s western regions. The three, arrested a week ago and indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice, allegedly raised funds to abduct persons and use weapons of mass destruction in a foreign country.

Cameroon’s government has for years been urging the U.S. and Europe to crack down on separatists operating outside the country. Government forces have been battling separatist groups for five years.

John Billy Eko, inspector general in Cameroon’s External Relations Ministry, said the arrest of the three Cameroonian-born U.S. citizens indicates the U.S. has come to understand that some people who sponsor the separatist conflict live in America.

“We remain cautious and vigilant because the indictment is perhaps only the first phase of a judicial process which began with our government’s persistence in convincing American authorities to take action [against separatist sponsors],” he said. “So, we await trial and sentencing. There are many, many more unindicted co-conspirators and accomplices in the United States and elsewhere who were not cited in this indictment.”

Cameroonian lawyers in the U.S. say they have filed complaints against 200 Cameroonians and American citizens of Cameroon origin in the U.S. who are suspected accomplices to separatist violence.

Armed groups seeking to separate two predominantly English-speaking regions from Cameroon and its French-speaking majority launched their military campaign in 2017.

Eko said that since then Cameroon has appealed to friendly nations to take actions against separatist supporters working within their national territories.

On November 28, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the charges against Claude Chi, Lah Nestor Langmi and Francis Chenyi, all Cameroonian-born U.S. citizens in their 40s. The three arrested defendants are charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a conspiracy to kidnap persons and use weapons of mass destruction in Cameroon.

The U.S Department of Justice says in addition to more than $350,000 the defendants raised through voluntary donations, the three men conspired with others to kidnap civilians in Cameroon and hold them for ransom.

It says in some instances, U.S. citizens were extorted for ransom payments to secure the release of their kidnapped relatives living in Cameroon, with ransom payments subsequently transferred to separatist fighters to fund their operations.

“We have examined the case filed into court by the United States prosecutor. We had previously condemned kidnapping for ransom and the use of Ambazonia forces for personal benefit,” said Capo Daniel,spokesperson of the Ambazonia Governing Council, one of the chief separatist groups. “This war remains the primary cause of the chaos and the emergence of criminal gangs and cartels that seek to use Ambazonia to legitimize their criminal activity.”

Before last week’s indictment, Christopher John Lamora, U.S. ambassador to Cameroon, had condemned abductions for ransom and attacks on education.

“I have seen a lot of videos where people are calling for violence, where people are suggesting that killing students and preventing them from going to school is somehow a valid approach to resolving social concerns. It isn’t,” said Lamora, speaking to Cameroon state broadcaster CRTV. “The people in the diaspora, be they in the United States or elsewhere, who have been calling over the past several years for violence to stop. There is no question about that.”

If convicted, the defendants face a maximum penalty of up to 15 years in prison for the material support charges, up to three years in prison for receiving money from a ransom demand charge and up to 20 years in prison for the money laundering conspiracy charge, according to the U.S Department of Justice.
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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s fate was hanging in the balance on Monday ahead of a meeting of the executive committee of the governing party to discuss allegations he may have committed misconduct and violated the oath of office.

The inquiry relates to findings that large sums of foreign currency were hidden at Ramaphosa’s private game farm and he failed to report the money missing when it was stolen in 2020.

Ramaphosa has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crimes. He has said the money stolen was the proceeds of the sale of buffaloes and far less than the millions of dollars alleged when the theft came to light in June.

Ramaphosa said on Sunday he would attend the meeting of the African National Congress National Executive Committee (NEC) and would accept its decision.

“By lunchtime, depending on where we’ll be on the program, we will bring the treasurer general to come and do a doorstop with yourselves,” ANC spokesman Pule Mabe told reporters.

Party leaders and supporters of Ramaphosa clad in the colors of the ANC party were seen arriving at the venue of the meeting on Monday. Some supporters sang in support of Ramaphosa.

Having received firm backing from his allies within the party, Ramaphosa has vowed to fight on, with his spokesman saying the panel’s findings would be challenged.

Investors fear uncertainty and that any other president could slow down or reverse economic reforms and increase government spending and take on more debt at levels they deem unsustainable.

Despite the doubts raised over Ramaphosa’s integrity, he is still seen by investors at home and abroad as cleaner than any of his rivals.

South Africa’s main opposition liberal Democratic Alliance (DA) party said it had submitted a motion to dissolve the national assembly and reiterated its call for an early election.

“Parliament’s role is precisely to step up at times such as this… It can only do this by dissolving the National Assembly so that the president can call an early election,” said DA leader John Steenhuisen.

South Africa’s rand was trading stronger on the day, up 1.74% as of 0842 GMT, as expectations that Ramaphosa might resign were quashed.
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