Kampala, Uganda — Uganda’s government said Sunday it would drop a military trial against opposition figurehead Kizza Besigye, urging him to give up his hunger strike in jail, a minister said.

The pledge was promptly rejected as “suspicious” by Besigye’s wife, UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima.

Besigye, a former ally turned rival of longtime President Yoweri Museveni, went on a hunger strike on February 10 in protest at his detention.

Charging him with treason for allegedly threatening national security, the government has vowed to try him in a military court, despite a Supreme Court ruling that such a move against a civilian is unconstitutional.

Now, however, “the government is fast-tracking the transfer of Besigye’s case from the court martial to the civil court,” Cabinet spokesperson and information minister Chris Baryomunsi told AFP.

“As a government, we are complying with the ruling of the Supreme Court.”  

The minister said in an earlier message on X that he had visited Besigye in prison Sunday “in the presence of his personal doctors” and “asked him to resume taking food” pending the transfer.

The army, which has not yet commented on the announcement, had previously dismissed the Supreme Court ruling and insisted the military trial would go ahead.

Besigye appeared in court for a hearing in a separate case Friday looking frail, prompting outrage from his supporters.

Baryomunsi declined to say whether Sunday’s pledge was prompted by the outcry.

Byanyima told AFP on Sunday that she was “very worried” about her husband’s condition.
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BAMAKO, MALI — At least 48 people were killed in the collapse of an illegally operated gold mine in western Mali on Saturday, authorities and local sources told Agence France-Presse. 

Mali is one of Africa’s leading gold producers, and mining sites are regularly the scene of deadly landslides and accidents. 

Authorities have struggled to control unregulated mining of the precious metal in the country, which is among the world’s poorest. 

“The death toll is 48 following the landslide,” a local police source said. The victims are mainly young women, including one who was carrying her child on her back. 

Boubacar Keita, from the Kenieba gold prospectors’ association, also counts at least 48 deaths. 

“It is an illegal site. There is a lot of complicity in the exploitation of this type of site in the region,” the head of a local environmental organization told AFP, adding that the search for victims was ongoing. 

Saturday’s accident took place at an abandoned site formerly operated by a Chinese company, sources told AFP.   

In January, a landslide at a gold mine in southern Mali killed at least 10 people and left many others missing, most of them women.  

Just over a year ago, a tunnel collapsed at a gold mining site in the same region as Saturday’s landslide, killing more than 70 people. 
…

GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO — Panic swept through eastern Congo’s second-largest city on Saturday as residents fled by the thousands, scrambling to escape the looming advance of Rwanda-backed rebels. Amid chaos and looting, Bukavu braced for what comes next.

A day after M23 fighters entered the outskirts of Bukavu — a city of about 1.3 million people that lies 101 kilometers south of rebel-held Goma — some streets were flooded by residents attempting to leave and looters filling flour sacks with what they could find.

Most people waited in their home, shocked by what filled the vacuum left by Congolese soldiers who abandoned their posts.

“They set fire to the ammunition they were unable to take with them,” said Alain Iragi, among the residents who fled in search of safety on Saturday.

Reports and social media videos showed the region’s factories pillaged and prisons emptied while electricity remained on and communication lines open.

“It’s a disgrace. Some citizens have fallen victim to stray bullets. Even some soldiers still present in the city are involved en masse in these cases of looting,” a 25-year-old resident of a neighborhood being looted told The Associated Press.

The Congo River Alliance, a coalition of rebel groups that includes M23, blamed Congolese troops and their allies from local militia and neighboring Burundi for the disorder in Bukavu.

“We call on the population to remain in control of their city and not give in to panic,” Lawrence Kanyuka, the alliance’s spokesperson, said in a statement on Saturday.

Rebels push south

M23, a militia backed by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, is the most prominent of more than 100 armed groups vying for control of Congo’s mineral-rich east.

The DRC government has repeatedly accused Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebel group, a claim that Rwanda denies. Kigali, in turn, alleges that Kinshasa collaborates with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or the FDLR, a Hutu armed group with ties to the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, an allegation the DRC rejects.

While the United Nations and United States consider M23 a rebel group, DRC considers it a terrorist organization.

Military operations in the region remain fluid, with clashes leading to significant displacement and humanitarian concerns. Analysts warn that continued instability risks deepening the regional conflict, and several peacekeepers from the Southern African Development Community, or SADC, already have been killed since the recent rebel offensive.

Congolese authorities and international observers have accused it of sexual violence, forced conscription and summary executions. M23’s southward expansion encompasses more territory than rebels had previously seized and poses an unprecedented challenge to the central government in Kinshasa.

The rebellion underway has killed at least 2,000 people in eastern Congo and stranded hundreds of thousands of displaced. At least 350,000 internally displaced people are without shelter, the U.N. and Congolese authorities have said.

The rebels on Friday also claimed to have seized a second airport in the region, in the town of Kavumu outside Bukavu.

The AP could not confirm who was in control of the strategically important airport, which Congolese forces have used to resupply troops and humanitarian groups to import aid. The Congo River Alliance claimed on Saturday that M23 had taken control of the airport to prevent Congolese forces from launch airstrikes against civilians.

Government officials and local civil society leaders did not immediately comment, although Congo’s Communications Ministry said the rebels had violated ceasefire agreements and attacked Congolese troops working to avoid urban warfare and violence in Bukavu.

The reports of looting and disorder come a day after residents told AP that soldiers in Kavumu — the airport town north of Bukavu — had abandoned their positions to head toward the city. The chain of events mirror what transpired last month in the lead-up to the M23’s capture of Goma. Congo’s military, despite its size and funding, has long been hindered by shortcomings in training and coordination and recurring reports of corruption.

Fears of spreading conflict

International leaders are expected to discuss the conflict at the African Union summit in Ethiopia this weekend as DRC President Felix Tshisekedi continues to plead with the international community to intervene to contain the rebels from advancing. However, little progress has been made since the government dismissed a ceasefire that M23 declared last week unilaterally as false.

“Regional escalation must be avoided at all costs,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in Addis Ababa. “The sovereignty and territorial integrity of [Congo] must be respected.”
…

Nairobi, Kenya — A new report says the emergence of cheap artificial intelligence tools is leading to a wave of biometric fraud in Africa. The report says fraudsters are using AI to create fake documents, voices, and images that facilitate identity theft and financial crimes. 

In July 2024, Japhet Ndubi, a Kenyan journalist, lost his phone and could not trace it. He replaced the SIM card, bought a new phone, and went on with his life.

Four days later, while on a lunch break, he received a text alerting him that he had sent money to a certain number.

“Now I am using a new phone. When I saw money was sent to a certain number, I was surprised because I have my phone here. I called Safaricom to inquire, ‘How come some money is sent to a certain number without my authorization?’ It’s when they told me, ‘Are you sure you are not the one who has withdrawn? Because we see a transaction has been carried out and sent to this number, and we can see you have used your fingerprints to withdraw the money,’” he said.

The fraudsters even took out a loan that took him months to pay off. Authorities never made an arrest even though his phone was recovered.

Nudbi was a victim of biometric fraud — a type of criminal activity where someone copies another person’s unique characteristics, like their voice or fingerprints, to impersonate them and gain access to their devices or financial accounts.

Smile ID is a U.S.-based company with offices in Kenya that develops software to protect people’s privacy. A report it released late last month says cases of document forgery and deepfakes are on the rise across Africa, as are simpler phishing attempts — all in an effort to steal money from innocent victims.

The Smile ID researchers found that fraudsters especially targeted vulnerable people in low-literacy regions through phishing, data breaches, and making purchases through illicit sources.

Stolen data is then exploited to create fraudulent bank accounts to be used for money laundering operations.

Joshua Kumah, a Ghanaian, received a fake text claiming that money had been transferred to his mobile banking account. The text led to him losing control of his account and SIM card.

“The person told me to follow a short code that the money would be transferred back to him, so I did that without paying attention to the details. So, by the time I realized it was already too late, I had already given him access to my sim card, so I had to report to cancel that sim card. So, I lost the money I had on that sim. I had to start all over again,” he said.

Ndubi is still in shock at how his fingerprints were used to access money through his mobile phone. He says that has changed how he uses the device.

“I was very surprised that they were able to use fingerprints, and I kept asking the telecom provider how they were able to access it but they were not able to tell me. So, I even lost faith in the Mpesa mobile banking application; actually, I have never used it,” he said.

To prevent fraud, authorities and businesses now sometimes insist that people present themselves physically and produce valid identification cards to prove their identities.

As for average Kenyans, many are trying to avoid using mobile apps on their phones, and are checking with banks and telecom operators about any transactions made in and out of their accounts. 
…

DAKAR, SENEGAL — Senegal’s Court of Auditors released a long-awaited review of the country’s finances on Wednesday that confirmed the previous government misreported key economic data including debt and deficit figures.

Senegal’s sovereign Eurobonds tumbled following release of the report.

“The work carried out by the Court shows that outstanding debt is higher than that shown in the reporting documents,” the court’s report said.

The court’s report confirmed an audit that had been ordered by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who took office in April 2024.

At the end of 2023, the total outstanding debt represented 99.67% of gross domestic product, the court’s report said. That compared with a previously recorded figure of 74.41%.

The audit ordered by Faye had revealed that Senegal’s debt and budget deficit were much wider than former President Macky Sall’s administration had reported.

As a consequence of the audit, Faye’s government decided in June not to present a request for further disbursement under its three-year $1.8 billion credit facility with the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF had suspended the program pending the Court of Auditors’ review.

The IMF said on Wednesday that it would analyze the report and initiate consultations with authorities to address issues raised.

“The IMF remains committed to supporting the authorities moving forward,” an IMF spokesperson said via email.

The court’s report, which covers public finances from 2019 to March 2024, said it detected other anomalies and data discrepancies between the reported and the actual numbers.

“The deficit calculated and reported to the IMF for the period under review is very far from its real value, if the exact volume of project loan disbursements is taken into account,” the court said in the report.

The reviewed budget deficit for 2023 stood at 12.3% of GDP compared with 4.9% reported by the previous administration, the court said.

Leo Morawiecki, associate investment specialist for emerging market debt at Abrdn, an investment company, said the debt-to-GDP ratio for 2024 was likely to be in excess of 110% given the large deficit being run.

“In response, the IMF will almost certainly move Senegal from moderate to high risk of debt distress,” he said in a note, adding that the government seemed committed to fiscal consolidation and an IMF program.

In a note to investors after the report’s release, Senegal’s finance ministry said it would centralize management of its public debt and implement strict controls over projects financed from external resources.

The ministry will shortly organize a call with global investors, the note said.
…

Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo — Fighting erupted Tuesday in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, three days after a call by African leaders for a ceasefire and a brief lull in the conflict.

M23 fighters attacked Congolese army positions in South Kivu province at dawn, local and security sources told AFP. The DRC government has designated the M23 rebel group as a terrorist organization, while the United Nations and the United States classify it as an armed rebel group. Congo accuses Rwanda of supporting the rebels, a charge that Rwanda denies.

The resurgence comes after east and southern African leaders called on their general staff to propose a plan for implementing an “unconditional” ceasefire by Thursday, in a conflict which has killed thousands and driven vast numbers from their homes.

The M23 has in recent months swiftly seized tracts of territory in mineral-rich east DRC after again taking up arms in late 2021, in a country plagued by numerous conflicts for decades. 

The armed group began advancing in South Kivu after taking control of Goma, the capital of neighboring North Kivu province that borders Rwanda, at the end of last month.

Clashes took place Tuesday near the village of Ihusi, around 70 kilometers (43 miles) from the provincial capital Bukavu and 40 kilometers from the province’s airport, according to security sources.

Several local sources reported “detonations of heavy weapons”.

Kavumu airport is used by the Congolese army to transport reinforcements of troops and equipment to the region and its main military base is located nearby.

Bukavu has been preparing for an M23 offensive for several days, with schools shuttering in the city Friday as residents began to flee and shops closed over fears of an imminent attack.

Banks were still shut in the city Tuesday.

The capture of Bukavu would give full control of Lake Kivu to the M23 and Rwandan troops.

Almost 300 Congolese soldiers are currently on trial in a military court in the city, for charges including rape, murder and looting.

The M23, which claims to want to “liberate all of Congo” and oust President Felix Tshisekedi, has attempted in recent days to advance into the highlands overlooking the main road to Bukavu to cut off the DRC army’s supply lines.

But Burundian soldiers, who are in east DRC to support the Congolese army, stopped the M23 advances, security sources said.   

Around 10,000 Burundian soldiers are deployed in South Kivu, according to a security source.

Bujumbura sent at least one additional army battalion to the area Friday, a security source told AFP.

The M23 has begun setting up its own administration in Goma, a city of 1 million people, launching recruitment campaigns, including to create a police force.

The humanitarian situation in Goma is worsening with no running water in large parts of the city and residents forced to take water from Lake Kivu, where bodies were recovered after the fighting.

An increase in cholera cases has been seen in the region, particularly among people displaced by the conflict, UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, said.

The city’s airport also remains closed despite a United Nations appeal last week to try allow for the transport of humanitarian aid and the wounded.

The crisis in east DRC is set to be discussed at an African Union meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Friday.

With the recent intensification of the conflict, calls for de-escalation from the international community have increased amid fears the fighting could lead to a regional war.

But diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict that has lasted for more than three years have so far been unsuccessful.

The DRC has called for “targeted sanctions” against Rwanda but with little effect.

Kinshasa accuses Kigali of wanting to plunder natural resources in the DRC, such as tantalum and tin used in batteries and electronic equipment, as well as gold.

Rwanda denies this, saying it wants to remove armed groups it believes pose a permanent threat to its security, notably the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), created by former Hutu leaders of the 1994 genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda.

To add to Kinshasa’s woes, an attack by a militia from the Lendu ethnic group in the northeastern Ituri province killed 51 people, local and humanitarian sources told AFP on Tuesday.

Members of the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO) killed 51 mostly displaced people in three adjoining areas of Ituri province on Monday, humanitarian sources and a local community leader, Jules Tsuba, said.

CODECO was a peaceful agricultural cooperative before transforming into an armed rebel movement fighting the rival Hema community. Monday’s raid was allegedly a response to a strike by a Hema militia earlier in the same area.

Different conflicts and rebellions have plagued the country for more than 30 years.
…

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Gabon’s courts are effectively closed because the magistrates who run them refuse to work due to what they call poor working conditions and pay. They have rejected pleas by leaders to return to work while waiting for conditions to improve.

Civilians say hundreds of people seeking justice have been turned away from the courts for close to a month now.

Courts in Gabon traditionally handle cases that include land disputes, marriage disputes, divorce, labor disputes, inheritance and criminal offenses. The courts also authenticate documents and establish certificates of nonconviction for civilians who want to get national identity cards or run for public office.

Shopkeeper Narcisse Eboko said he visited the court at the administrative center in Gabon’s capital, Libreville, five times within the past 10 days to apply for a certificate of nonconviction, but no one has attended to him.

Eboko is surprised that the government is allowing courts, which ensure the protection of human rights and freedoms, to be paralyzed for so long, he told VOA via a messaging app from Libreville on Tuesday.

Magistrates in Gabon launched their protests on Jan. 13, saying that they want an immediate application of the general status of their profession, which gives financial and material advantages to guarantee their independence. It is very difficult for magistrates to make fair decisions based on the law without adequate remuneration as stated in Gabon’s laws, the magistrates say.

Gabon’s National Trade Union of Magistrates, or SYNAMAG, said it is surprised there has been no concrete response from the central African state’s government on if there are plans to improve the magistrates’ working conditions.

SYNAMAG President Landry Abaga Essono said the union launched protests because Gabon’s government refused to improve working conditions of magistrates and declined calls for dialogue.

He said the protests will continue until the government improves working conditions.

SYNAMAG also blamed the government for failing to improve the functioning of understaffed courts with dilapidated infrastructure, especially in Libreville, Mouila, Port-Gentil, Makokou and Franceville.

Justice Minister Paul Marie Gondjout defended the government, saying it is not reluctant to solve the problems and is concerned about the plight of the magistrates and other court workers. He cited a new court building in Ntoum as proof.

The country’s financial difficulties make it impossible to raise the $40 million needed to immediately solve the problems presented by the magistrates, Gondjout said on state TV Monday. The government is, however, looking for a way to satisfy some urgent needs of magistrates, he said.

Essono did not agree, saying Gabon does not lack the financial means to improve working conditions in a sector as important and sensitive as justice, especially when the courts will be highly important during presidential elections in two months. The vote is expected to end a military transition that began with a coup on Aug. 30, 2023.

Essono also pointed out that the government had the resources to increase job benefits for government troops only a few months ago.

The magistrates say they have petitioned Gabon’s transitional president, General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, to immediately order his government to improve their living conditions. VOA could not verify whether Nguema had received the request.

SYNAMAG said it is calling on citizens to be patient, saying that the protest is necessary to improve the delivery of justice.
…

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS — Judges at the International Criminal Court have officially asked Italy on Monday to explain why the country released a Libyan man suspected of torture, murder and rape rather than sending him to The Hague.

Italian police arrested Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, last month but rather than extraditing him to the Netherlands, where the ICC is based, sent him back to Libya aboard an Italian military aircraft.

“The matter of state’s non-compliance with a request of cooperation for arrest and surrender by the court is before the competent chamber,” the court’s spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah said in a statement.

Addressing parliament last week, Italian Justice Minister Carlo Nordio defended the decision to send al-Masri home, claiming the ICC had issued a contradictory and flawed arrest warrant. The court, he said, “realized that an immense mess was made,” he told lawmakers.

Al-Masri was arrested in Turin on the ICC warrant on Jan. 19, the day after he arrived in the country from Germany to watch a soccer match. The Italian government has said Rome’s court of appeals ordered him released on Jan. 21 because of a technical problem in the way that the ICC warrant was transmitted, having initially bypassed the Italian justice ministry.

The ICC said it does not comment on national judicial proceedings.

Al-Masri’s arrest had posed a dilemma for Italy because it has close ties to the internationally recognized government in Tripoli as well as energy interests in the country.

According to the arrest warrant, al-Masri heads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Defense Force, which acts as a military police unit combating high-profile crimes including kidnappings, murders as well as illegal migration.

Like many other militias in western Libya, the SDF has been implicated in atrocities in the civil war that followed the overthrow and killing of longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Additionally, any trial in The Hague of al-Masri could bring unwanted attention to Italy’s migration policies and its support of the Libyan coast guard, which it has financed to prevent migrants from leaving.

In October, the court unsealed arrest warrants for six men allegedly linked to a brutal Libyan militia blamed for multiple killings and other crimes in a strategically important western town where mass graves were discovered in 2020.
…

Dubai — The formation of a new Sudanese government is expected to happen after the recapture of Khartoum is completed, military sources told Reuters on Sunday, a day after army head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said he would form a technocratic wartime government. 

The Sudanese army, long on the backfoot in its war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has in recent weeks regained ground in the capital Khartoum along several axes, closing in on the symbolic presidential palace along the Nile. 

The RSF, which has said it would support the formation of a rival civilian administration, has retreated, overpowered by the army’s expanded air capacities and ground ranks swollen by allied militias. 

“We can call it a caretaker government, a wartime government, it’s a government that will help us complete what remains of our military objectives, which is freeing Sudan from these rebels,” Burhan told a meeting of army-aligned politicians in the army’s stronghold of Port Sudan on Saturday. 

The RSF controls most of the west of the country — and is engaged in an intense campaign to cement its control of the Darfur region by seizing the city of al-Fashir. Burhan ruled out a Ramadan ceasefire unless the RSF stopped that campaign. 

The war erupted in April 2023 over disputes about the integration of the two forces after they worked together to oust civilians with whom they had shared power after the uprising that ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir. 

The conflict has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises with the displacement of more than 12 million people and half the population facing hunger. 

Burhan said there would be changes to the country’s interim constitution, which the military sources said would remove all references to partnership with civilians or the RSF, placing authority solely with the army which would appoint a technocratic prime minister who would then appoint a Cabinet. 

Burhan called on members of the civilian Taqadum coalition to renounce the RSF, saying they would be welcomed back if they did so. 

 
…

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is interested in developing the mining sector in Africa. On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order focusing on minerals, mineral extraction, and mineral processing.

“Mainly in the United States but if you read closely there are also multiple references in that executive order to international partnerships and you know, cooperating with partner nations,” said Scott Woodard, the acting deputy assistant secretary of state for energy transformation at the U.S. State Department.

Woodard spoke at a recent African mining conference — also known as an indaba — in Cape Town, South Africa.

Moderator Zainab Usman, director of the Africa Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, asked Woodard whether the U.S. understands that in addition to mineral extraction, Africans want projects that add value to the raw material in order to boost the continent’s industrialization.

Woodard replied that the Trump administration is still putting together its policies.

In recent years, America’s investment in the African minerals needed for cleaner energy has been driven by the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

In 2022, the U.S. entered into agreements with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia to establish a supply chain for electric vehicle batteries, underscoring its interest in both countries’ copper, lithium and cobalt resources.

The U.S. also has funded the rebuilding of the Lobito Rail Corridor, which will transport minerals from Congo, Zambia and Angola on the west coast.

Speaking in the exhibition hall during the indaba, Zambia’s minister of transport and logistics, Frank Tayali, thanked the U.S. for its leadership.

“We have something like a $350 billion gap in terms of infrastructure gap financing that the continent needs,” said Tayali. “Now this focus on infrastructure development is really key in helping the African economies to be able to improve so that they are able to look after their people more effectively.”

China, meanwhile, is invested in rehabilitating the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority — known as TAZARA — to bolster rail and sea transport in East Africa.

And in South Africa, the conference’s host country, transport and logistics problems at the state-owned Transnet railway system are being considered.

“The CEO of Transnet is very open about the state of the rail network,” said Allan Seccombe, head of communications at the Minerals Council of South Africa. ” … it needs a lot of work.”

How will they raise the money?

“They are going out on public tenders to try and get that investment in,” said Allan Seccombe, head of communications at the Minerals Council of South Africa. “Also, significantly they’re speaking to their customers who are by and large, large mining companies to maybe through tariffs they can invest in the rail network, improve it, then have private trains they can operate on the network.”
…

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA — Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame was due to meet his Congolese counterpart Felix Tshisekedi in Tanzania on Saturday as regional leaders convene in a bid to defuse the conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo.

The M23 armed group has rapidly seized swathes of territory in the mineral-rich eastern DRC in an offensive that has left thousands dead and displaced vast numbers.

The group took the strategic city of Goma last week and is pushing into the neighboring South Kivu province in the latest episode of decades-long turmoil in the region.

Kagame and Tshisekedi are due to attend a joint summit in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam, bringing together the eight countries of the East African Community and 16-member South African Development Community.

Since the M23 reemerged in 2021, several peace talks hosted by Angola and Kenya have failed.

Rwanda denies military support for the M23 but a U.N. report said last year it had around 4,000 troops in DRC and profited from smuggling vast amounts of gold and coltan — a mineral vital to phones and laptops — out of the country.

Rwanda accuses the DRC of sheltering the FDLR, an armed group created by ethnic Hutus who massacred Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Local fears

The summit comes as the M23 advances on the town of Kavumu, which hosts an airport critical to supplying Congolese troops.

Kavumu is the last barrier before the South Kivu provincial capital Bukavu on the Rwandan border, where panic has set in.

A Bukavu resident said shops were barricading their fronts and emptying storerooms for fear of looting, while schools and universities suspended classes on Friday.

“The border with Rwanda is open but almost impassable because of the number of people trying to cross. It’s total chaos,” they said.

U.N. rights chief Volker Turk warned: “If nothing is done, the worst may be yet to come, for the people of the eastern DRC, but also beyond the country’s borders.”

‘Gang rape, slavery’

Turk said nearly 3,000 people had been confirmed killed and 2,880 injured since M23 entered Goma on Jan. 26, and that final tolls were likely much higher.

He also said his team was “currently verifying multiple allegations of rape, gang rape and sexual slavery.”

The M23 has already installed its own mayor and local authorities in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

It has vowed to go all the way to the national capital Kinshasa, even though it lies about 1,600 kilometers away across the vast country, which is roughly the size of Western Europe.

The DRC army, which has a reputation for poor training and corruption, has been forced into multiple retreats.

The offensive has raised fears of regional war, given that several countries are engaged in supporting DRC militarily, including South Africa, Burundi and Malawi.

Regional foreign ministers gathered on Friday for the first day of the summit in Tanzania ahead of their leaders on Saturday.

Kenyan foreign secretary Musalia Mudavadi said there was a “golden opportunity” to find a solution, calling for the previous peace processes hosted by Angola and Kenya to be merged into one.  
…

NAIROBI, KENYA — African governments are gearing up for what is to come following the 90-day pause on most U.S.-funded foreign aid as they worry about the potential effects.

In Kenya, for instance, Health Cabinet Secretary Deborah Barasa said Wednesday in Nairobi that as her country navigates complex challenges, ensuring continuation of essential health services, especially with programs related to HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, is essential.

“For more than 40 years, we’ve been able to depend on partners. PEPFAR has done a great job in ensuring that HIV patients, TB patients are receiving health services,” she said, referring to the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a program that works with partners in 55 countries worldwide.

“With more than 3.7 million being on HIV medication [in Kenya] … I believe it’s critical for us to think of sustainable solutions … [and] alternative forms of funding,” Barasa said.

While the freeze has been modified to allow waivers for “life-saving humanitarian assistance,” including “core life-saving medicine,” which may apply to health programs such as PEPFAR, many countries are working to assess the implications of what may amount to an end of U.S. foreign aid.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the waiver is clear: “If it saves lives, if it’s emergency lifesaving aid — food, medicine, whatever — they have a waiver. I don’t know how much clearer we can be.”

South Africa, with 7.8 million people with HIV, has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the PEPFAR program the past two decades. Its health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, told reporters last week in Johannesburg that the country was taken by surprise by the pause in aid and that officials are still trying to decipher the full meaning.

This week, Motsoaledi met with U.S. Embassy officials to discuss bilateral health cooperation and the new U.S. policies on assistance. The two sides promised to keep the communications channels open as they discuss lifesaving health partnerships, according to a joint statement after the meeting.

Asanda Ngoasheng, a South African political analyst, said countries will be affected one way or the other because many public health systems exist only because of the PEPFAR program.

“Even in the case PEPFAR is not funding 100% of the programs, any money that is removed means that countries simply would not be able to afford programs that they were able to afford with the money that was being supplemented by PEPFAR before,” Ngoasheng said.

Programs not related to health are also affected. In Senegal, for example, an infrastructure and development project financed by the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an initiative that was started by Republican U.S. President George W. Bush, could lose funding.

The $550 million power project being implemented by Millennium Challenge Account Senegal was designed to improve the country’s transmission network and increase electricity access in rural areas and to those on the outskirts of cities in the south and central regions.

Mamadou Thior, a journalist and chair of the media watchdog CORED, told VOA: “The financing coming from the U.S. for this second phase will impact about 12 million people.”

Thior referred to a recent speech by Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko that emphasized the need for countries to work on being self-sufficient.

“It’s high time for Africans and other people to depend on themselves and not from Western aid because this is what can be the drawbacks,” Thior said.

“They will have to depend on national resources to go ahead with the rest of the [electricity] project because there’s no way to go backwards,” he said.

In Nigeria, a country that received about $1 billion in U.S. foreign aid last year, officials this week launched a committee with members from finance, health and environmental ministries to develop an alternative for some U.S.-funded programs.
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