Lagos, Nigeria — Gunmen riding motorbikes killed around 40 people in a raid on a mining community in north-central Nigeria, opening fire on residents and torching homes, the local government said on Tuesday.

The attack late Monday in Wase district in Plateau state was the latest violence in an area that has long been a flashpoint for disputes over resources and outbreaks of intercommunal clashes.

Armed men invaded Zurak community, shooting sporadically and torching houses, Plateau’s state commissioner for information, Musa Ibrahim Ashoms, told AFP by telephone.

“As we speak, about 40 people have been confirmed dead. Zurak is a popular mining community,” he said.

Local youth leader Shafi’i Sambo said at least 42 people had been killed in the raid.

Wase has deposits of zinc and lead, while Plateau as a whole is known for its tin mining industry.

Sitting on the dividing line between Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south, Plateau often sees outbreaks of violence sparked by disputes between nomadic herders and pastoral farmers.

Climate change has escalated tensions over grazing land, water access and other resources, such as the state’s metal reserves.

Parts of northwest and north-central Nigeria have also been terrorized by heavily armed criminal gangs, who raid villages to loot and carry out mass kidnappings for ransom.

In January, intercommunal clashes erupted in Plateau’s Mangu town that left churches and mosques burned, more than 50 people dead and thousands displaced.
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DAKAR, Senegal — Three Americans involved in a brazen weekend attack on Congo’s presidential palace formed an unlikely band under the leadership of eccentric opposition figure Christian Malanga, who dabbled in gold mining and used cars — before persuading his Utah-born son to join in the foiled coup, according to officials’ description of events.

Six people, including Malanga, were dead and dozens arrested, including the three Americans, following that attack and another on the residence of a close ally of President Felix Tshisekedi, the Congolese army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Sylvain Ekenge said.

Ekenge said Malanga was killed in a shootout early Sunday with presidential guards. The situation “is under control,” he said.

Authorities said they were still trying to untangle how Malanga’s 21-year-old son, Marcel, went from playing high school football to allegedly trying to unseat the leader of one of Africa’s largest countries.

“My son is innocent,” his mother, Brittney Sawyer, wrote in an email to The Associated Press, declining to elaborate.

Sawyer had regularly posted proud family photos on social media, including one in December showing Marcel, a young sister and a toddler hugging in matching Christmas pajamas. In 2020, she posted photos of Marcel lifting weights and dancing during COVID lockdown.

In a Facebook post early Monday, Sawyer angrily wrote that her son had followed his father. “This was an innocent boy following his father. I’m so tired of all the videos being posted all over and being sent to me. God will take care of you people!”

One video that circulated on social media showed her son alongside a bloodied white man, whose identity was unclear, both covered in dust and surrounded by Congolese soldiers. Marcel has his hands raised and a frightened look on his face.

It was far from the persona that Marcel appeared to have been building in videos recently posted on Facebook and TikTok showing him posing with stacks of dollar bills and talking about women.

His father, Malanga, had described himself on his website as a refugee who thrived after settling in the U.S. with his family in the 1990s. He said he became a leader of a Congolese opposition political party and met high-level officials in Washington and the Vatican. He also described himself as a devoted husband and father of eight.

Court records and interviews paint another picture.

In 2001, the year he turned 18, Malanga was convicted in Utah in incidents including assault with a firearm that resulted in a 30-day jail sentence and three years of probation. That same year, he was charged with domestic violence in one assault incident, and battery and disturbing the peace in another, but he pleaded not guilty, and all counts were dismissed.

In 2004, he was charged with domestic violence with threat of using a dangerous weapon, but he pleaded not guilty, and the charges were dismissed. Since 2004, records show several cases related to a custody dispute and a child support dispute. It is unclear if the disputes involved Sawyer.

Malanga described himself as the organizer of the United Congolese Party, a movement aimed at organizing emigres like him against the “current Congolese dictatorship government regime.” He also described himself as president of the “New Zaire” government in exile and published a manifesto with plans for creating business opportunities and reforming Congo’s security services.

Photos on Facebook and his website show him meeting then-senior U.S. political figures, including former Utah Rep. Rob Bishop and New York Rep. Peter King.

Bishop told the AP he did not recall the meeting and couldn’t tell when the photo was taken. King could not be reached for comment.

Dino Mahtani, an independent researcher into African issues, said he first heard of Malanga in 2018 while serving as a political adviser to the United Nations in Congo. He said Congolese authorities voiced suspicions that Malanga was involved in a purported plot to kill then-President Joseph Kabila.

In an interview, Mahtani said he had never met Malanga but thinks Malanga was obsessed with capturing some form of power in Congo.

He also speculated Malanga had been set up or betrayed in the weekend attack, given the implausible way it was carried out.

“Somebody put him up to this. It could be external plotters but given his previous close relationship with at least one of Tshisekedi’s current military commanders, there’s some chance the plot was known about internally and this allowed them to move quickly,” Mahtani said.

The alleged coup attempt began at the Kinshasa residence of Vital Kamerhe, a federal legislator and a candidate for speaker of the National Assembly of Congo. His guards killed the attackers, officials said.

Malanga, meanwhile, was live-streaming video from the presidential palace in which he is seen surrounded by several people in military uniforms wandering around in the middle of the night. He was later killed while resisting arrest, Congolese authorities said.

Congo officials have not commented on how the attackers were able to get inside.

“It’s really difficult to imagine how 20, 30 guys thought that by storming the presidential palace when nobody is around at 4 a.m. in the morning could somehow take over the Congolese state,” Mahtani said.

A second American allegedly involved was identified as Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, according to images of a U.S. passport circulated by Congolese media. He graduated from the University of Colorado and attended business administration classes at Georgetown University, court records indicate. He later started a commodity trading business and worked as a courier and Uber driver — the records show.

His connection to Malanga appeared to be through a gold mining company that was set up in Mozambique in 2022, according to an official journal published by Mozambique’s government, and a report by Africa Intelligence newsletter.

No information was released on the third American.

The U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa said it was aware “U.S. citizens might have been involved in Sunday’s events,” adding in a statement that it would cooperate with authorities “as they investigate these violent criminal acts.”
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Journalists living in exile in Kenya are finding support to continue working in their professions, thanks to a fellowship provided by media groups. From Nairobi, Victoria Amunga has more. Camera and video: Jimmy Makhulo
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Accra, Ghana — Anita Akpeere prepared fried rice in her kitchen in Ghana’s capital as a flurry of notifications for restaurant orders lit up apps on her phone. “I don’t think I could work without a phone in my line of business,” she said, as requests came in for her signature dish, a traditional fermented dumpling.

Internet-enabled phones have transformed many lives, but they can play a unique role in sub-Saharan Africa, where infrastructure and public services are among the world’s least developed, said Jenny Aker, a professor who studies the issue at Tufts University. At times, technology in Africa has leapfrogged gaps, including providing access to mobile money for people without bank accounts.

Despite growing mobile internet coverage on the continent of 1.3 billion people, just 25% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa have access to it, according to Claire Sibthorpe, head of digital inclusion at the U.K.-based mobile phone lobbying group GSMA. Expense is the main barrier. The cheapest smartphone costs up to 95% of the monthly salary for the poorest 20% of the region’s population, Sibthorpe said.

Literacy rates that are below the global average, and lack of services in many African languages — some 2,000 are spoken across the continent, according to The African Language Program at Harvard University — are other reasons why a smartphone isn’t a compelling investment for some.

“If you buy a car, it’s because you can drive it,” said Alain Capo-Chichi, chief executive of CERCO Group, a company that has developed a smartphone that functions through voice command and is available in 50 African languages such as Yoruba, Swahili and Wolof.

Even in Ghana, where the lingua franca is English, knowing how to use smartphones and apps can be a challenge for newcomers.

One new company in Ghana is trying to close the digital gap. Uniti Networks offers financing to help make smartphones more affordable and coaches users to navigate its platform of apps.

For Cyril Fianyo, a 64-year-old farmer in Ghana’s eastern Volta region, the phone has expanded his activities beyond calls and texts. Using his identity card, he registered with Uniti, putting down a deposit worth 340 Ghanaian Cedis ($25) for a smartphone and will pay the remaining 910 Cedis ($66) in installments.

He was shown how to navigate apps that interested him, including a third-party farming app called Cocoa Link that offers videos of planting techniques, weather information and details about the challenges of climate change that have affected cocoa and other crops.

Fianyo, who previously planted according to his intuition and rarely interacts with farming advisors, was optimistic that the technology would increase his yields.

“I will know the exact time to plant because of the weather forecast,” he said.

Kami Dar, chief executive of Uniti Networks, said the mobile internet could help address other challenges including accessing health care. The company has launched in five communities across Ghana with 650 participants and wants to reach 100,000 users within five years.

Aker, the scholar, noted that the potential impact of mobile phones across Africa is immense but said there is limited evidence that paid health or agriculture apps are benefiting people there. She asserted that the only beneficial impacts are reminders to take medicine or get vaccinated.

Having studied agricultural apps and their impact, she said it doesn’t seem that farmers are getting better prices or improving their income.

Capo-Chichi from CERCO Group said a dearth of useful apps and content is another reason that more people in Africa aren’t buying smartphones.

Dar said Uniti Networks learns from mistakes. In a pilot in northern Ghana designed to help cocoa farmers contribute to their pensions, there was high engagement, but farmers didn’t find the app user-friendly and needed extra coaching. After the feedback, the pension provider changed the interface to improve navigation.

Others are finding benefit with Uniti’s platform. Mawufemor Vitor, a church secretary in Hohoe, said one health app has assisted her to track her menstruation to help prevent pregnancy. And Fianyo, the farmer, has used the platform to find information on herbal medicine.

But mobile phones are no substitute for investment in public services and infrastructure, Aker said.

She also expressed concerns about the privacy of data in the hands of private technology providers and governments. With digital IDs in development in African nations such as Kenya and South Africa, this could pave the way for further abuses, Aker said.

Uniti Networks is a for-profit business, paid for each customer that signs up for paying apps. Dar asserted that he was not targeting vulnerable populations to sell them unnecessary services and said Uniti only features apps that align with its idea of impact, with a focus on health, education, finance and agriculture.

Dar said Uniti has rejected lucrative approaches from many companies including gambling firms. “Tech can be used for awful things,” he said.

He acknowledged that Uniti tracks users on the platform to provide incentives, in the form of free data, and to provide feedback to app developers. He acknowledged that users’ health and financial data could be at threat from outside attack but said Uniti has decentralized data storage in an attempt to lessen the risk.

Still, the potential to provide solutions can outweigh the risks, Aker said, noting two areas where the technology could be transformative: education and insurance.

She said mobile phones could help overcome the illiteracy that still affects 773 million people worldwide according to UNESCO. Increased access to insurance, still not widely used in parts of Africa, could provide protection to millions who face shocks on the front lines of climate change and conflict.

Back in Fianyo’s fields, his new smartphone has attracted curiosity. “This is something I would like to be part of,” said neighboring farmer Godsway Kwamigah.
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KINSHASA — Congo’s army says it has “foiled a coup” early Sunday morning and arrested the perpetrators, including several foreigners, following a shootout between armed men in military uniform and a top politician’s guards that left three people dead in the capital, Kinshasa.  

The attempted coup d’état was “nipped in the bud by Congolese defense and security forces [and] the situation is under control,” Congolese army spokesperson Brigadier General Sylvain Ekenge said at a media briefing. He did not give further details.   

Clashes were reported between men in military uniform and guards of a local politician at the politician’s house on Tshatshi Boulevard, about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the presidential palace and where some embassies are also located.   

This came amid a crisis gripping President Felix Tshisekedi’s ruling party over an election for the parliament’s leadership which was supposed to be held Saturday but was postponed.   

The armed men attacked the Kinshasa residence of Vital Kamerhe, a federal legislator and a candidate for speaker of the National Assembly of Congo, but were stopped by his guards, Michel Moto Muhima, his spokesperson said on the X social media platform.   

“The Honorable Vital Kamerhe and his family are safe and sound. Their security has been reinforced,” he wrote.   

Local media identified the men as Congolese soldiers. It wasn’t clear if the men in military uniform were trying to arrest the politician.   

Two police officers and one of the attackers were killed in the shootout that started around 4:30 a.m. at the house on Tshatshi Boulevard, according to Muhima.   

Footage, seemingly from the area, showed military trucks and heavily armed men parading deserted streets in the neighborhood.   

On Friday, President Felix Tshisekedi met with parliamentarians and leaders of the Sacred Union of the Nation ruling coalition in an attempt to resolve the crisis amid his party which dominates the national assembly.   

He said he would not “hesitate to dissolve the National Assembly and send everyone to new elections if these bad practices persist.”   

Tshisekedi was reelected as president in December in a chaotic vote amid calls for a revote from the opposition over what they said was a lack of transparency, following past trends of disputed elections in the central African country.   

The United States Embassy in Congo issued a security alert, urging caution after “reports of gunfire.” 
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mbale, uganda — Barbara Nabulo was one of three girls in her family. But when a sister died, her mother wailed at the funeral that she was left with just one and a half daughters.

The half was the ailing Nabulo, who at age 12 understood her mother’s meaning.

“I hated myself so much,” Nabulo said recently, recalling the words that preceded a period of sickness that left her hospitalized and feeding through a tube.

The scene underscores the lifelong challenges for some people with sickle cell disease in rural Uganda, where it remains poorly understood. Despite Nabulo’s knowledge of how the disease weakens the body, she spoke repeatedly of “the germ I was born with.”

Infections, pain, organ damage

Sickle cell disease is a group of inherited disorders in which red blood cells — normally round — become hard, sticky and crescent shaped. The misshapen cells clog the flow of blood, which can lead to infections, excruciating pain, organ damage and other complications.

The disease, which can stunt physical growth, is more common in malaria-prone regions, notably Africa and India, because carrying the sickle cell trait helps protect against severe malaria. Global estimates of how many people have the disease vary, but some researchers put the number between 6 million and 8 million, with more than 5 million living in sub-Saharan Africa.

The only cure for the pain sickle cell disease can cause is a bone marrow transplant or gene therapies such as the one commercially approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December. Last week, a 12-year-old boy last week became the first person to begin the therapy.

Those options are beyond the reach of most patients in this East African nation, where sickle cell disease is not a public health priority despite the burden it places on communities. There isn’t a national database of sickle cell patients. Funding for treatment often comes from donor organizations.

A patient, a caregiver

In a hilly part of eastern Uganda that’s a sickle cell hot spot, the main referral hospital looks after hundreds of patients arriving from nearby villages to collect medication. Many receive doses of hydroxyurea, a drug that can reduce periods of severe pain and other complications, and researchers there are studying its effectiveness in Ugandan children.

Nabulo, now 37, is one of the hospital’s patients. But she approaches others like her as a caregiver, too.

After dropping out in primary school, she has emerged in recent years as a counselor to fellow patients, speaking to them about her survival. Encouraged by hospital authorities, she makes weekly visits to the ward that has many children watched over by exhausted-looking parents.

Nabulo tells them she was diagnosed with sickle cell disease at 2 weeks old, but now she is the mother of three children, including twins.

Such a message gives hope to those who feel discouraged or worry that sickle cell disease is a death sentence, said Dr. Julian Abeso, head of pediatrics at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital.

Some men have been known to divorce their wives — or neglect them in search of new partners — when they learn that their children have sickle cell disease. Frequent community deaths from disease complications reinforce perceptions of it as a scourge.

Health workers encourage testing

Nabulo and health workers urge openness and the testing of children for sickle cell as early as possible.

Abeso and Nabulo grew close after Nabulo lost her first baby hours after childbirth in 2015. She cried in the doctor’s office as she spoke of her wish “to have a relative I can call mine, a descendant who can help me,” Abeso recalled.

“At that time, people here were so negative about patients with sickle cell disease having children because the complications would be so many,” the doctor said.

Nabulo’s second attempt to have a child was difficult, with some time in intensive care. But her baby is now a 7-year-old boy who sometimes accompanies her to the hospital. The twin girls came last year.

Speaking outside the one-room home she shares with her husband and children, Nabulo said many people appreciate her work despite the countless indignities she faces, including unwanted stares from people in the streets who point to the woman with “a big head” — a manifestation of the disease in her. Her brothers often behave as if they are ashamed of her, she said.

Once, she heard of a girl in her neighborhood whose grandmother was making frequent trips to the clinic over an undiagnosed illness in the child. The grandmother was hesitant to have the girl tested for sickle cell when Nabulo first asked her. But tests later revealed the disease, and now the girl receives treatment.

“I go to Nabulo for help because I can’t manage the illness affecting my grandchild,” Kelemesiya Musuya said. “She can feel pain, and she starts crying, saying, ‘It is here and it is rising and it is paining here and here.'”

Musuya sometimes seeks reassurance. “She would be asking me, ‘Even you, when you are sick, does it hurt in the legs, in the chest, in the head?’ I tell her that, yes, it’s painful like that,” Nabulo said.

Nabulo said she was glad that the girl, who is 11, still goes to school.

The lack of formal education is hurtful for Nabulo, who struggles to write her name, and a source of shame for her parents, who repeatedly apologize for letting her drop out while her siblings studied. One brother is now a medical worker who operates a clinic in a town not far away from Nabulo’s home.

“I am very happy to see her,” said her mother, Agatha Nambuya.

She recalled Nabulo’s swelling head and limbs as a baby, and how “these children used to die so soon.”

But now she knows of others with sickle cell disease who grew to become doctors or whatever they wanted to be. She expressed pride in Nabulo’s work as a counselor and said her grandchildren make her feel happy.

“At that time,” she said, recalling Nabulo as a child, “we didn’t know.”
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Dakar, Senegal — An alliance of separatist rebel groups fighting Malian government forces on Saturday accused the army and Russian paramilitary group Wagner of killing 11 civilians earlier in the week.

The Malian authorities did not respond to a request for comment from AFP about the allegations posed in a statement from the Permanent Strategic Framework for the Defense of the People of Azawad (CSP-DPA), an alliance of predominantly Tuareg armed rebel groups.

The CSP-DPA said that Wednesday, the village of Tassik in the northern Kidal region “was targeted by a patrol of mercenaries from the Russian Wagner group and the Malian army, who committed serious violations against the population.”

The separatist alliance put the death toll at 11 civilians, whose bodies were discovered “burned,” with two more civilians reported missing.

It added that the patrol had ransacked several stores and vehicles.

“The CSP-DPA unreservedly condemns these terrorist operations programmed with the aim of carrying out a targeted ethnic cleansing and accelerated depopulation of the Azawad territory of its Indigenous people,” the statement said.

Azawad is the name of the territory claimed by separatists in northern Mali.

Fighting between the separatists and Mali government troops broke out last August after eight years of calm, as both sides scrambled to fill the vacuum left by the withdrawal of United Nations peacekeepers (MINUSMA), ordered to leave by the ruling junta in Bamako.

The offensive in northern Mali has been marked by numerous allegations of abuses against civilians by Malian forces and, since 2022, their Russian allies, which the Malian authorities systematically deny.

Since seizing power in 2020, Mali’s junta has broken ties with France and turned politically and militarily toward Russia. 
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GENEVA — As U.N. agencies warn of a looming famine in Sudan, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights says U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk held separate phone calls with Sudan’s rival generals this week to try to deescalate the conflict. 

“The high commissioner warned both commanders that fighting in el-Fasher, where more than 1.8 million residents and internally displaced people are encircled and at imminent risk of famine, would have a catastrophic impact on civilians, and would deepen intercommunal conflict with disastrous humanitarian consequences,” Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the high commissioner, told journalists in Geneva Friday. 

Since fighting for control of el-Fasher, the last stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces in western Darfur, dramatically escalated last week, the United Nations says at least 58 civilians have been killed and 213 injured. 

Shamdasani said during separate telephone conversations Tuesday with Sudanese Armed Forces Commander Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Türk “appealed to both generals to put the interests of the people first.” 

She said human rights chief Türk, who has been trying to have a conversation with the two competing leaders since August, expressed his “deep distress” at the situation in Sudan and urged them “to take specific concrete steps to cease hostilities.” 

Shamdasani said the high commissioner told them “to resume peace negotiations, to ensure that people have access to adequate humanitarian assistance, to not block humanitarian assistance, and to ensure that their troops and their allied forces fully respect international humanitarian law and human rights law.” 

She said the generals each acknowledged the importance of respecting international humanitarian law and that SAF Commander Burhan indicated that he would facilitate visas for more U.N. human rights staff. 

“The visa issue is an important one,” she said, noting that her office currently has only one international staff member in Port Sudan. 

“The high commissioner did ask for his designated expert to get access to Sudan as well as more of our staff to get access, and that was a positive outcome of the call,” she said, adding that “it is very important for us to be on the ground, to be able to cover such important crises more closely.” 

Since war between the SAF and RSF erupted in mid-April 2023, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, reports more than 15,500 people have been killed, some 33,000 others injured, and an estimated 6.8 million have been displaced within the country. 

“In Sudan, half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid,” said Jens Laerke, OCHA spokesperson. “Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in. The fighting is closing in on civilians, especially in Darfur.” 

He said that the U.N. aims to reach and support 15 million of the worst-affected people, and that efforts to help so many citizens were under threat because the U.N.’s appeal for $2.7 billion was only 12% funded. 

“This is not just an underfunded appeal; it is a catastrophically underfunded appeal,” he said. “People in Sudan are staring famine in the face.” 

The World Health Organization warns famine is looming, especially in parts of Darfur and in the capital, Khartoum, with more than one-third of the population facing acute hunger. 

“The number of under-5 children and pregnant and breastfeeding women suffering from acute malnutrition has increased by 22% from 3.9 million to 4.9 million people in 2024,” Dr. Shible Sahbani, the WHO representative in Sudan, said in Port Sudan Friday. 

“The recent escalation of violence in Darfur, and particularly in el-Fasher, is alarming and causing more deaths and injuries among civilians as access to health facilities is hampered by the ensuing insecurity,” he said. 

The WHO has recorded 62 verified attacks on health care. It says two-thirds of Sudan’s 18 states currently are experiencing multiple outbreaks of killer diseases. 

It warns that disease outbreaks such as cholera, measles, dengue fever and malaria are spreading and likely to worsen during the upcoming rainy season “as people living in makeshift shelters will be more exposed to the elements” and access to those in desperate need becomes even more difficult. 

“We stand ready to do more and utilize all available avenues to reach the most vulnerable populations across Sudan, but we need assurances of security for our staff and supplies,” Sahbani said, adding that “health cannot be ensured in the absence of peace.” 
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Goma, DR Congo — Reputed to be the coltan capital of the world, the mining town of Rubaya, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, has fallen into the hands of rebels. The fall of Rubaya is causing a stir among local residents who fear M23 will use profits from the coltan mines to fund their war against the DRC government.

Estimated to hold more than 70 percent of the planet’s coltan reserves, the town of Rubaya has been under the control of the M23 rebels since April 30. 

According to Mapenzi Mulume, a young man from Masisi territory, the rebels have set up teams to exploit the minerals 24 hours a day, and women and children are also invited to join, he laments.

He says that since the M23 rebels occupied the mining town of Rubaya, they’ve been mining 24 hours a day. He noted that children are working in rotating shifts. He said he deplores child labor and calls on the international community to intervene on behalf of the people of Rubaya.  

The M23 rebels have been fighting the DRC government since 2021, following an earlier conflict that ended with a government victory.

People in Masisi territory fear the rise in power of the rebels and their allies in the Rwandan army. Exaucé Kavatsawa, a local resident, believes the rebels have achieved one of their primary objectives with the conquest of the important coltan reserve.

He says that Rubaya is a really rich deposit of coltan and other raw materials, and so the fall of Rubaya is a salvation for the M23. He says the access to Rubaya will enable the rebels to find the means to finance their war.  

In a communiqué issued by the Ministry of Mines, the Congolese government asserted that, since the occupation of Rubaya by the M23, tons of raw materials from the Democratic Republic of Congo have been crossing the Rwandan border on a daily basis via the Nyiragongo territory occupied by the M23. Rwanda has not commented on the issue.

These assertions are rejected by the rebels, whose military spokesman is Major Willy Ngoma. He confirms that mining continues in the mines, but he asserts it is by local indigenous populations.

He says the struggle of the government is not about minerals, and asserts that none of their authorities, civil or military, can get involved in this mineral trafficking business. When a citizen is in his own backyard, he says, digging, finding something and selling it, it has nothing to do with the authorities. The population can sell because they are free in their country, and we only ensure their security.   

The M23 rebels have extended their zone of control beyond the town of Rubaya in recent weeks, where the minerals of cassiterite and manganese are also mined in considerable quantities.
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A new report by Human Rights Watch has called on the United Nations and African Union to place an arms embargo on Sudan amid ongoing ethnic cleansing in Darfur. Henry Wilkins speaks to the author of the report, who says the response by the international community has been disappointing.
Camera: Henry Wilkins 
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — South Africa urged the United Nations’ top court on Thursday to order a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip during hearings over emergency measures to halt Israel’s military operation in the enclave’s southern city of Rafah.

It was the third time the International Court of Justice held hearings on the conflict in Gaza since South Africa filed proceedings in December at the court, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, accusing Israel of genocide.

The country’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Vusimuzi Madonsela, urged the panel of 15 international judges to order Israel to “totally and unconditionally withdraw” from Gaza.

The court has already found that there is a “real and imminent risk” to the Palestinian people in Gaza by Israel’s military operations. “This may well be the last chance for the court to act,” said Irish lawyer Blinne Ni Ghralaigh, who is part of South Africa’s legal team.

Judges at the court have broad powers to order a cease-fire and other measures, although the court does not have its own enforcement apparatus. A 2022 order by the court demanding that Russia halt its full-scale invasion of Ukraine has so far gone unheeded.

During hearings earlier this year, Israel strongly denied committing genocide in Gaza, saying it does all it can to spare civilians and only targets Hamas militants. The country says Rafah is the last stronghold of the militant group.

The latest request focuses on the incursion into Rafah.

South Africa argues that the military operation has far surpassed justified self-defense. “Israel’s actions in Rafah are part of the end game. This is the last step in the destruction of Gaza,” lawyer Vaughan Lowe said.

According to the latest request, the previous preliminary orders by the court were not sufficient to address “a brutal military attack on the sole remaining refuge for the people of Gaza.” Israel will be allowed to answer the accusations Friday.

In January, judges ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive that has laid waste to the Palestinian enclave.

In a second order in March, the court said Israel must take measures to improve the humanitarian situation.

South Africa has to date submitted four requests for the international court to investigate Israel. It was granted a hearing three times.

Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been displaced since the fighting began.

The war began with a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants in its count.

South Africa initiated proceedings in December 2023 and sees the legal campaign as rooted in issues central to its identity. Its governing party, the African National Congress, has long compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to its own history under the apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most Blacks to “homelands.” Apartheid ended in 1994.

On Sunday, Egypt announced it plans to join the case. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Israeli military actions “constitute a flagrant violation of international law, humanitarian law and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 regarding the protection of civilians during wartime.”

Several other countries have indicated they plan to intervene, but so far only Libya, Nicaragua and Colombia have filed formal requests to do so.
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YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Chad’s constitutional council was expected on Thursday to declare final results of the May 6 presidential election and name transitional president General Mahamat Idriss Deby as the winner. This despite calls for annulment of the polls due to what the opposition says was massive fraud. Analysts say uncertainty lies ahead as tensions remain high.

Residents of N’djamena, say that since Wednesday night, there has been a massive deployment of troops on streets and what they call the capital city’s strategic locations and neighborhoods considered to be opposition strongholds.

Twenty-four-year-old Abdoul Koulemann is a student at the University of N’djamena. He spoke with VOA on Thursday morning via a messaging app.

Koulemann says business has been at a standstill in N’djamena since Chad’s constitutional council announced on Wednesday night that results of the central Africa states May 6 presidential elections are to be proclaimed on Thursday.

Koulemann says the presence of heavily armed troops deployed by Chad’s military government all over N’djamena scares civilians. He says streets are empty because civilians have decided to remain in their houses as tension is perceived in the city.

Last week, Chad’s Elections Management Body, or ANGE, announced that Mahamat Deby had won the May 6 election with 61 percent of votes.

Monday, several opposition candidates filed petitions with the constitutional council challenging the official results. They say there was massive electoral fraud, including the stuffing of ballot boxes and soldiers chasing opposition representatives from polling stations. Prime Minister Succes Masra, who finished second with 18 percent, says voters were intimidated and arrested.

Deby calls the allegations unfounded.

Deby earlier this week said he is now the president of all Chadians, including candidates who did not win the May 6 polls. He says he is now concentrating in respecting his electoral promises, especially bringing back peace to Chad.

Opposition and civil society groups say they are also surprised over the council’s announcement that it was ready to finalize the election results without ruling on the petitions.

Electoral laws give the council until May 21 to rule on the petitions, according to the opposition.

The council has already said that election-day incidents like fighting and the late arrival of ballot boxes to polling stations were not enough to influence the outcome of the vote.

Beral Mbaikoubou is spokesperson for an opposition party, the Movement of Chad Patriots for the Republic, or MPTR.

He says it is now evident that Chad may descend into violence and chaos after Thursday’s proclamation of definitive results by the constitutional council because Deby rigged elections by falsifying results sheets and intimidating civilians with his military. He says the results declared by ANGE and to be confirmed by Chad’s constitutional council were prepared by Deby, who wants to confiscate power.

Mbaikoubou said civilians should stay at home to avoid confrontations with the military, which he says was deployed by Deby to crack down on people protesting election results.

Deby took power in April 2021 as leader of a transitional government after his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who had ruled Chad for more than three decades, died fighting northern rebels.

Lydie Beassemda is the only female who contested the polls. Speaking on Chadian state TV Thursday, she said that by confiscating power, Deby is failing to show love for the country. She says Chad is becoming a Deby dynasty.

She says her Party for Integral Democracy and Independence wants military leaders to note that Deby is not Chad’s democratically elected president and civilians have so far decided not to violently protest against stolen victory because they want peace in the volatile nation. She says angry Chadians may react violently if government troops continue to provoke civilians whose victory is stolen.

The Economic Community of Central African states, or CEEAC says Chadians should avoid chaos by protesting peacefully if they feel cheated in the elections.
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