Burkina Faso says an Islamist militant attack on an aid convoy has left 11 troops dead and dozens of civilians missing. 

The Burkina Faso government said Tuesday that armed fighters ambushed a 150-vehicle military-escorted convoy carrying supplies to the northern town of Djibo.

It said at least 11 soldiers were killed and more than 50 civilians are missing.

The government said that the incident occurred Monday in the commune of Gaskinde in the northern province of Soum, where, since 2015, armed organizations affiliated with al-Qaida and Islamic State have taken over large swathes of territory.

Government spokesman Lionel Bilgo described the incident as “cowardly and savage.”

The death toll could reach 60, according to French news agency AFP, which cited a security source who said “practically the entire caravan was burned.”

The attack will likely exacerbate shortages of basic supplies, such as food and fuel in Djibo, which has been under a de facto siege for months by militant groups.

It may also increase concern about Burkina Faso, where some two million people are displaced amid increasing conflict and climate change.
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A Kenyan lawyer who was charged with bribing and threatening witnesses who were to testify against the country’s current president, William Ruto, has been found dead.

Kenyan police and family members of Paul Gicheru confirmed his death Monday night to local media.

It was not immediately clear what caused the 50-year-old lawyer’s death, and a police spokesman did not answer our calls.

The Kenyan Human Rights Commission told VOA news Gicheru’s death while he faced a trial before the International Criminal Court for alleged witness tampering is quite unfortunate. Senior program advisor Martin Mavenjina.

“It’s unfortunate that he has passed on under mysterious circumstances. As we speak right now there have not been conclusive investigations surrounding the circumstances of his death,” Mavenjina said.

Mavenjina says that he’s been keeping up on Gicheru for a long time and death is a big surprise. 

“I have been keenly following Paul Gicheru since he surrendered to the ICC,” Mavenjina said. “At no point in time have we been informed that Paul Gicheru had any health conditions or underlying health conditions or was sick at any point in time. We received this news in shock yesterday because the way it was reported you know he was found dead at his house with foam coming out of his mouth.”

Gicheru was facing charges of bribing and threatening witnesses in a case against Kenya’s newly-elected president, William Ruto, and broadcaster Joshua Sang.

Ruto and Sang were among several Kenyans, including former president Uhuru Kenyatta, who were charged with prompting violence in the 2007 disputed election.

Street clashes over the election left more than 1,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

The ICC declared a mistrial in 2016, citing witness tampering, and a trial against Gicheru and Sang began in February with Gicheru pleading not guilty.

ICC spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah told VOA he could not comment on Gicheru’s case until the confirmation of Gicheru’s death was submitted by Kenyan authorities to the trial chamber. 

A statement issued by the Law Society of Kenya urged the inspector general of the National Police Service to ensure that thorough investigations are conducted. It goes on to say that it’s in the public domain that several witnesses in the ICC cases have either disappeared or died, therefore there is significant public interest in knowing what caused Gicheru’s death. 

The group also wished a speedy recovery to Gicheru’s son, who was reportedly in the same house with his father at the time of his death and has been admitted to the hospital in critical condition. 
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Somalia’s state media on Monday said the military has pushed al-Shabab terrorists out of large parts of the country’s central area in the latest gains in a large-scale offensive. 

An offensive by the Somali tribal militia backed by the Somali government was launched in the Hiran region a few weeks ago against al-Shabab militants, liberating several key townships before moving on to Galgaduud and then the Bay region in the south.  

There has been significant progress in the liberation of 40 settlements in the Hiran region alone, with the support of the Somali government’s military commandos trained by the United States. 

However, the actual fight is taken up by the clan-based, state-supported independent Macawisley militia as part of the popular uprising against militants. 

Local militia members formally linked to the southwest administration of Somalia captured four settlements on the outskirts of Baidoa in the Bay region from militants with the support of the Somali national army forces Monday, proving that the uprising against the group has now expanded to the south. 

State-run media reported Monday that Busley, Bulo-Jadid, Matani and Usli were among the newly liberated villages. 

In an appearance on a talk show hosted by a local TV station Sunday, Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, the interior minister of the Somalia government, said the Somali army and local militia tribes had defeated militants in central Somalia after liberating much of the Hiran and Galgaduud regions. 

He noted that 40 settlements in Hiran and six more in Galgaduud had been liberated in less than three weeks, deeming this work commendable. 

“Our forces seized territory from militants which stretches over 40 settlements including villages, places where fewer people live and others where more people live,” he said. “These 40 settlements are located only in the Hiran region and a new operation has been launched in the Galgaduud region to liberate more territories, and you can imagine what happened yesterday and today when militants fled their dead comrades and ammunition, and so far, six villages have been liberated, and this only started yesterday.” 

VOA has not independently verified the Somali government claims. 

The Somali military gains come just one day after al-Qaida-linked militants attacked a training camp, killing one soldier and wounding six others. 

The Somali government’s campaign to regain control of the country comes at a time when the country is experiencing a raging drought, which U.N. officials warn will lead to famine within months. 

 
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South African protesters angry over water shortages shut down part of the country’s longest highway with rock barricades and burning tires.

Police described the situation in Ventersburg in the Free State province as volatile. The rural town is a popular refueling and resting place for motorists and truckers travelling on the N1 highway, which stretches from Cape Town in the south to the Beit Bridge border post with Zimbabwe in the north.

Warrant Officer Loraine Earle says the Welkom Public Order Policing Unit is on the ground monitoring the situation. She says they have spoken to some of the protesters and asked about their demands.

“They started this morning to protest. It’s because of the water situation in town. It’s now for the past few weeks that they don’t have water,” she said. “Members are on the scene. They’re monitoring the situation and nobody was arrested as yet.”

She says they have had water problems in Ventersburg on-and-off for the past seven weeks with no water for the past three weeks.

Those using the highway at Ventersburg have been advised to take alternative routes.
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At least 11 people, including eight police and a local chief, have been killed in drought-stricken northern Kenya by cattle rustlers whom they had been chasing, police said Sunday. 

The theft of livestock or quarrels over grazing and water sources are common between cattle herding communities in northern Kenya.  

Police said on Twitter that a “criminal and cowardly ambush” by cattle rustlers had taken place in Turkana county on Saturday. 

Eight of the dead were police officers, two were civilians and one a local chief, they said. 

The police who were killed had been pursuing members of the Pokot ethnic group who had attacked a village and fled with cattle. 

In November 2012, more than 40 policemen were killed in an ambush as they pursued cattle thieves in Baragoi, a remote district in Kenya’s arid north. 

And in August 2019, at least 12 people, including three children, were killed in two attacks in northern Kenya by cattle rustlers suspected to be from the Borana ethnic group. 

Kenya, the most dynamic economy in East Africa, is in the grip of the worst drought in four decades after four failed rainy seasons wiped out livestock and crops
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A 48-hour strike by air traffic controllers in West and Central Africa has been suspended, their union said Saturday. 

The strike, which started Friday, has disrupted flights across the region and left hundreds of passengers stranded at airports Saturday. 

The Union of Air Traffic Controllers’ Unions (USYCAA), which called the wildcat strike, said in a statement it decided to suspend its strike notice for 10 days immediately so as to allow for negotiations. 

“Air traffic services will be provided in all air spaces and airports managed by ASECNA from today Saturday, September 24, 2022 at 1200 GMT,” the statement said. 

The union said more than 700 air traffic controllers joined the strike to demand better working conditions and pay. 

The controllers work under the Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) an 18-member state agency that manages air traffic over an area covering 16 million square km of airspace. 

 

Stranded passengers

Across the region, airport operations ground to a near halt as authorities tried to keep control towers operational for some flights. 

Hundreds of passengers were stranded at Douala International Airport in Cameroon Saturday morning, national television CRTV reported. National carrier Camair-Co said Friday it had canceled all its flights because of the strike. 

Nsoh Brinston, a stranded passenger who was to fly to Kigali, Rwanda, said his flight has canceled.  

“I will have to spend more than I intended due to the canceled flight. I will have to do another COVID test, which costs 30,000 CFA francs ($45),” he said.  

He would also have to find a place to spend the night. 

West, central Africa affected

In Senegal, the airport departure board showed cancellations for flights operated by Brussels Airlines, Kenyan Airways and Emirates as passengers gathered to check if their flight was still on schedule.  

A group of students from Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, who were due to fly back home from Dakar said they were stuck at the airport because they could not afford the fare to the city, around 50 km from the airport.  

“We were supposed to board at 0900 GMT but we’re still here,” one of the students said, requesting to remain anonymous. “We have been told the situation could be resolved by tomorrow.” 

“I was supposed to leave at 1400 GMT. The flight was announced as scheduled but we have just been told that it has been canceled,” said Maxine Compaore, who was supposed to fly to Abidjan, Ivory Coast. 

In Ivory Coast, eight flights scheduled to leave the commercial hub of Abidjan Saturday were canceled.  
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Most African states have stayed silent as Western nations and rights groups condemn China over a recent United Nations human rights report on China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region. 

The report, published by then-U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet on her last day in office in August, said China’s actions against Uyghurs and others in the Xinjiang region “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity,” citing abuses such as arbitrary detention in camps, torture and sexual violence.

 

Some Western nations and their allies are now pushing for the U.N. to establish a commission of inquiry to further investigate the report’s findings.  But whether that happens depends on the number of member states who side with the West. 

China’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Chen Xu, delivered a joint statement September 13, during the 51st session of the Human Rights Council, saying the Xinjiang assessment was “based on disinformation and draws erroneous conclusions.” The statement was signed by 28 other countries, with close to half of the supporters from African countries such as Burundi, Cameroon, Comoros, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Last year, out of 43 countries, only two in Africa, Eswatini and Liberia, signed a U.N. communique condemning China’s policies in Xinjiang. In June, they signed again, but they are rare outliers.

South Africa, the continent’s third-largest economy, neither signed the letter supporting China’s position nor staked out a position critical of China. Analysts told VOA that South Africa — seen as the continent’s leading democracy — has simply mostly remained silent on the issue.

“South Africa, with its proud tradition as a shining example for human rights, struggles now, saying nothing about China’s apartheid,” said Magnus Fiskesjo, an associate professor at Cornell University’s Department of Anthropology, alluding to a system of discrimination and segregation that took place in South Africa from 1948 to 1994 

Officials from South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

Siding with China

Cobus van Staden, a China-Africa expert at the South African Institute of International Affairs, said that because of China’s economic clout, most African countries simply don’t want to “pick a fight” over Xinjiang, which, to many, seems far away. 

“We’ve seen most African countries side with China, and this includes a lot of majority Muslim countries. … In terms of how the African partners will vote on the human rights council [if there is a vote], I tend to fear that they will probably vote with China,” he said.

There are reasons for this, he said. China is Africa’s biggest trade partner, far outstripping the West, and a lot of African countries “tend to be quite suspicious of separatist movements and quite suspicious of militant or political Islam.” Nigeria, for example, has been plagued by Islamist militant groups.

Analysts say some African countries can relate to China’s position, as stated by the state-run Xinhua news agency, that “Xinjiang-related issues are not about human rights, ethnicity or religion at all but about combating violent terrorism and separatism.”

Van Staden said that it all plays into the wider animus between the West and its former colonies on the continent, with some African states seeing the West’s raising of rights issues such as Xinjiang as hypocritical considering the United States’ rights violations at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. 

African nations, according to observers, are also unwilling to alienate China, their Belt and Road initiative benefactor and the source of massive infrastructure loans.

 

Beijing has been offering African diplomats trips to the Xinjiang region, trying to present its position. Xinhua reported last year that ambassadors to China from the Republic of Congo and Sudan defended Beijing’s “anti-terrorism” efforts at a lecture in Beijing. Burkina Faso’s ambassador to China, Adama Compaore, reportedly said “Western forces” were “hyping up” the issue.”

Zeenat Adam, deputy executive director of the Afro-Middle East Center in Johannesburg and a former South African diplomat, said such tours by China are “a very strong marketing exercise of trying to continue their reach into Africa and by getting countries from within the African region … to see things from a Chinese government perspective.”

“It ensures that their investments and their trade into Africa is unhindered and unquestioned,” she added. “Investments from China are lucrative, not just for South Africa but for the entire African region, and this really affects the level of which any of these governments may question the mighty Chinese superpower regarding its policies on Muslims.”

China’s Muslim supporters

Egypt is among the Muslim countries in Africa that have supported China on the Uyghur issue, says Bradley Jardine, a political analyst who focuses on China and recently published a study for the Wilson Center on China’s global campaign against the Uyghurs.

“Across the Muslim world, it’s a very diverse region with very diverse strategic interests,” he said. “There are a lot of economic interests at play, particularly [with] actors such as Egypt, who in 2017 detained hundreds of Uyghur students and deported them to China.” 

According to Jardine’s research, more than 1,500 Uyghurs abroad have been detained or extradited — many in North Africa.

Carine Kaneza Nantulya, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said she sees a slight decline in joint statements with China on the Xinjiang issue. “The number of signatories has not only plateaued but, in fact, recently dropped.”

“Plenty of other African states have abstained, declining to join China’s counternarrative,” she said, pointing to Eswatini and Liberia, who joined other countries in condemning China’s policies in Xinjiang. 
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An air traffic control strike grounded flights in and out of West and Central Africa on Friday, causing chaos for passengers traveling to Europe and the United States and inside the continent.  

Staff at the Agency for Aerial Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA), which regulates air traffic across 18 countries, stopped working Friday during a dispute over working conditions and pay, defying court rulings and government bans barring them from doing so. 

On Friday night, a busy one for travel, flights to and from Europe and the United States were halted, said Reuters’ reporters at Senegal’s Blaise Diagne International Airport and in the United States.  

Flights inside Africa were also affected, airlines and passengers said.  

ASECNA told customers to check airline websites for updates. 

“In spite of the prohibition of the strike by all the courts … the Union of Air Traffic Controllers’ Unions (USYCAA) has launched a wildcat strike,” ASECNA said Friday. 

“We have already exhausted both administrative and institutional remedies in the management of this crisis, but we have in front of us trade unionists who are stubborn to do whatever they want,” ASECNA’s head of human resources, Ceubah Guelpina, told a news conference.  

The USYCAA union said in a statement that its members would cease providing services to all but “sensitive” flights until their demands were satisfied. 

Paul Francois Gomis, a leader of Senegalese air traffic controllers who were on strike, said that some union members in Cameroon, Congo and the Comoros had been arrested for participating in the strike. 

Air Senegal had grounded several flights as a result of the action, Reuters said. The airline could not be immediately reached for comment.  

Flights to the United States, Portugal and Turkey were hit, travelers said.  

On Thursday, a court in Senegal suspended the call to strike by air traffic controllers in Senegal and Ivory Coast, ASECNA said. 

ASECNA said it has developed a contingency plan to allow airlines to take alternative routes when certain airports are impacted by temporary staff shortages, in case the strike should drag on.  
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Aid groups say more than 37 million people in the Horn of Africa are struggling with hunger fueled by a deadly record drought that has killed nearly 9 million animals. The worst situation may be in Somalia, where more than 700 children have died of malnutrition this year.

Exacerbated by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine, the global hunger situation is getting worse by the day, according to experts.

Dr. Deepmala Mahla, vice president for humanitarian affairs at CARE International, said the world “is facing a devastating global hunger crisis, and this is happening in this world of abundance. We are talking about 50 million people just being one step away from starvation.”

The crisis has grown especially dire in the Horn of Africa, which is now dealing with a fifth consecutive failed rainy season and a prolonged drought that began in October 2020.

In Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, over 36 million people are dealing with chronic hunger, according to CARE International. Experts say Somalia’s humanitarian crisis will further deteriorate in the coming months as famine is already projected in two regions of the country.

Alinur Aden, executive director of Gargaar Relief and Development Organization, a humanitarian organization in Somalia, said the “COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, locust invasion and four years [of] consecutive failure of rain have contributed to all these problems.”

Women and children are bearing the brunt of hunger. According to the World Food Program, 942,000 children under age 5 and 135,000 pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers are acutely malnourished and in need of treatment in arid and semiarid regions that are under drought in Kenya.

“We do see already alarming rates of mortality and malnutrition occurring in all the three countries,” said Abyan Ahmed, global humanitarian nutrition adviser at CARE. “We have seen increased admission rates across those countries in the first quarter of 2022, and the number of severe cases has increased by up to 15% in the last five months, which basically means that in every minute, one extra child is becoming malnourished, severely malnourished and has an increased risk of dying without any intervention.”

Mahla said urgent interventions are needed, “so we call upon world leaders, international communities, governments, to step up. Allocate immediate, flexible, multiyear resources so that we can deliver a humanitarian response to help people now, because the people in the Horn of Africa need for us to act right now and not later.”

The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided nearly $1.3 billion in humanitarian assistance in the Horn since 2020.

During his speech to the U.N. General Assembly this week, President Joe Biden pledged $10 billion to fight global hunger, but it was not clear how much of this will go to the Horn of Africa.
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One person was killed and two others wounded in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday during a demonstration against the M23 rebel group, local officials said.

Civil society groups staged the rally in the town of Rutshuru in North Kivu province to protest the army’s perceived inaction against the M23 — which has captured swathes of territory since the summer.

A mostly Congolese Tutsi group, the M23 first leapt to prominence in 2012 when it briefly captured North Kivu’s capital of Goma before being driven out.

M23 rebels resumed fighting in late 2021 after lying dormant for years. They have since seized territory across North Kivu, including the strategic town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border.

Congo has repeatedly accused its smaller central African neighbor Rwanda of backing the M23, although Kigali denies the charge.

On Thursday, protesters gathered outside the office of the military administrator in Rutshuru on the 100th day of the M23’s occupation of Bunagana.

Police officers shot at demonstrators, killing one and wounding two, according to Justin Bin Serushago, a spokesperson for a local civil society group.

“We will not move until military operations have resumed against the M23,” he told AFP.

An official at Rutshuru general hospital who requested anonymity confirmed that one person — a young man — had died after he was shot in the chest.

A senior police officer in Rutshuru told AFP that several people had been wounded in the protest, without offering further details.

The front between the army and the M23 has remained relatively calm in recent weeks, with soldiers and rebels observing each other from their positions without engaging.

The protest in Rutshuru comes after Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi met his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame on Wednesday in New York, in a meeting brokered by French President Emmanuel Macron in a bid to calm regional tensions.
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U.N. investigators are accusing the Ethiopian government of committing serious violations in the Tigray region which could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

The International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia submitted its first report Thursday to the U.N. Human Rights Council. The three-member Commission says widespread, horrific acts of violence have been committed since fighting in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray province broke out in November 2020. 

It finds neither the government nor the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front has clean hands. However, it notes the government is responsible for most of the atrocities documented in the report, adding that some of these crimes are ongoing. 

The investigators blame the government for the dire humanitarian situation in Tigray. The Commission chair, Kaari Betty Murungi, said the federal government and its allies have looted and destroyed goods indispensable for the survival of the civilian population.   

She added these and other tactics have left 90 percent of the population in desperate need of assistance. 

“We have reasonable grounds to believe that the widespread denial and obstruction of access to basic services, food, health care, and humanitarian assistance amounts to the crime against humanity of persecution and inhumane acts,” Murungi said. “We also have reasonable grounds to believe that the federal government is committing the war crime of using starvation as a method of warfare.”   

Murungi noted the Commission also has received information indicating that Tigrayan forces have looted or otherwise misappropriated humanitarian aid. 

She said there are reasonable grounds to believe the Ethiopian Air Force has committed war crimes, including intentional attacks against civilians and the use of armed drones against civilian targets, causing many civilian deaths and injuries.  

“The Commission also found that rape and crimes of sexual violence have been perpetrated on a staggering scale since the conflict began, with Ethiopian and Eritrean forces and regional militias targeting Tigrayan women and girls with particular violence and brutality,” Murungi said. “At times their attackers used dehumanizing language that suggested an intent to destroy Tigrayan ethnicity.”   

The Commission said the Tigrayan forces also have committed serious human rights abuses, some of which amount to war crimes. It accused the forces of large-scale killings of Amhara civilians, rape and sexual violence, and widespread looting and destruction of property. 

The Ethiopian Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Zenebe Kebede, said the allegations in the report were unsubstantiated, selective, discriminatory, and politically motivated. 

He said Ethiopia is committed to peacefully resolving the conflict in Tigray under the auspices of the African Union. He called on members of the Human Rights Council to reject the report and not to extend the mandate of the Commission. 

 
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Suspected jihadis have shot dead 11 farmers, nine from Niger and two Nigerians, in southeastern Niger, a local official said on Wednesday. 

“Eleven farmers have been executed by shooting [Tuesday] morning by elements of Boko Haram, seven kilometers from Toummour,” Issa Bonga, Toummour’s mayor, told AFP. 

The town is in the Diffa region close to the Lake Chad basin, a strategic area where the borders of four countries converge: Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.  

Boko Haram and its rival, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), have established bases on the many small islands in the vast, swampy Lake Chad basin. 

The 11 victims had set off to cut wood in the bush, the mayor said. 

The nine from Niger, who came from Bosso, a neighboring town to Toummour, were scheduled to be buried early Wednesday, the mayor added. 

“Thirteen woodcutters [who] left to look for wood have been intercepted by elements of ISWAP. Eleven have been executed,” a local group called Jeunesse Diffa (Diffa Youth), which has closely reported on the security problems in southeast Niger, said on Facebook. 

“In addition, the terrorists sent a message through the channel of one of the released woodcutters to warn residents to no longer frequent” the area where they operate, the group’s posting said. 

Jihadis killed several fishermen from Niger and Nigeria at the start of the month for having disobeyed an order to leave the Lake Chad area. 

At the end of August, they had ordered locals to leave the islands and killed some people who did not comply, according to a local official. 

Niger, the world’s poorest country by the benchmark of the U.N.’s Human Development Index, has been hit hard by the jihadi insurgency that began in northern Mali in 2012. 

Niger is also facing an insurgency on its southeastern frontier with Nigeria, a campaign launched by Boko Haram. 

Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad revived the Multinational Joint Task Force in 2015 to fight the extremists.
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