BUGESERA, Rwanda — Anastasie Nyirabashyitsi and Jeanette Mukabyagaju think of each other as dear friends.

The women’s friendship was cemented one day in 2007, when Mukabyagaju, going somewhere, left a child behind for Nyirabashyitsi to look after.

This expression of trust stunned Nyirabashyitsi because Mukabyagaju, a Tutsi survivor who lost most of her family in the Rwandan genocide, was leaving a child in the hands of a Hutu woman for the first time since they had known each other.

“If she can ask me to keep her child, it’s because she trusts me,” Nyirabashyitsi said recently, describing her feelings at the time. “A woman, when it comes to her children, when someone trusts you with (her) children, it’s because she really does.”

It wasn’t always like that.

‘We had no hope of living’

Nyirabashyitsi and Mukabyagaju are both witnesses to terrible crimes. But, in the government-approved reconciliation village where they have lived for 19 years, they have reached a peaceful coexistence from opposite experiences.

Nyirabashyitsi, 54, recalled the helpless Tutsis she saw at roadblocks not far from the present reconciliation village, people she knew faced imminent death when the Hutu soldiers and militiamen started systematically killing their Tutsi neighbors on the night of April 6, 1994.

The killings were ignited when a plane carrying then-President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down over Kigali. The Tutsi were blamed for downing the plane and killing the president. An estimated 800,000 Tutsis were killed by extremist Hutus in massacres that lasted over 100 days in 1994. Some moderate Hutus who tried to protect members of the Tutsi minority were also targeted.

One victim was a woman who had been a godmother to her child, and later she saw the woman’s body dumped in a ditch, Nyirabashyitsi remembers. “It was so horrible, and it was even shameful to be able [to] see that,” she said. “For sure, we had no hope of living. We thought that we would also be killed. How could you see that and then think you will be alive at some point?”

As for Mukabyagaju, she was a 16-year-old temporarily staying in the southern province of Muhanga while her parents lived in Kigali. When she couldn’t shelter at the nearest Catholic parish, she hid in a latrine for two months, without anything to eat and drinking from trenches, until she was rescued by Tutsi rebels who stopped the genocide.

“I hated Hutu so much to the point that I could not agree to meet them,” she said, adding that it took a long time “to be able even think that I can interact with a Hutu.”

The women are neighbors in a community of genocide perpetrators and survivors 40 kilometers outside the Rwandan capital of Kigali. At least 382 people live in Mbyo Reconciliation Village, which some Rwandans cite as an example of how people can peacefully coexist 30 years after the genocide.

More than half the residents of this reconciliation village are women, and their projects — which include a basket-weaving cooperative as well as a money saving program — have united so many of them that it can seem offensive to inquire into who is Hutu and who is Tutsi.

An official with Prison Fellowship Rwanda, a Kigali-based civic group that’s in charge of the village, said the women foster a climate of tolerance because of the hands-on activities in which they engage regularly.

“There’s a model we have here which we call practical reconciliation,” said Christian Bizimana, a program coordinator with Prison Fellowship Rwanda. “Whenever they are weaving baskets, they can engage more, talk more, go into the details. We believe that by doing that … forgiveness is deepened, unity is deepened.”

‘It pleases my heart’

In Rwanda, a small East African country of 14 million people, women leaders have long been seen as a pillar of reconciliation, and Rwandans can now “see the benefits” of empowering women to fight the ideology behind genocide, said Yolande Mukagasana, a prominent writer and genocide survivor.

Two of three members of Mbyo Reconciliation Village’s dispute-resolution committee are women, and they have been helpful in resolving conflicts ranging from domestic disputes to communal disagreements, residents say.

The women’s activities set an example for children and “promote the visibility of what really this village is like in terms of practical unity and reconciliation,” said Frederick Kazigwemo, a leader in the village who was jailed nine years on charges of genocide-related crimes.

He said of the friendship between Nyirabashyitsi and Mukabyagaju: “It pleases my heart. It’s something that I could have never imagined. … It gives me hope (for) what will happen in future.”

Eighteen women are actively involved in basket weaving, meeting as a group at least once a week. Nyirabashyitsi and Mukabyagaju sat next to each other one recent morning as they made new baskets. A collection of their work was displayed on a mat nearby.

“When we came here the environment was clouded by suspicion. It wasn’t easy to trust one another,” Nyirabashyitsi said. “For example, it wasn’t easy for me to go to Jeanette’s house, because I had no idea what she was thinking about me. But after time, the more we lived together, that harmony and that closeness came.”

Nyirabashyitsi and Mukabyagaju were among the first people to arrive in the village when it was launched in 2005 as part of wider reconciliation efforts by Prison Fellowship Rwanda. The organization, which is affiliated with the Washington-based Prison Fellowship International, wanted to create opportunities for genocide survivors to heal in conditions where they can regularly talk to perpetrators. There are at least eight other reconciliation villages across Rwanda.

President Paul Kagame’s rebel group, the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front, stopped the genocide after 100 days, seized power and has since ruled Rwanda unchallenged.

Rwandan authorities have heavily promoted national unity among the majority Hutu and the minority Tutsi and Twa, with a separate government ministry dedicated to reconciliation efforts. The government has imposed a tough penal code to prosecute those it suspects of denying the genocide or promoting the “genocide ideology.” Some observers say the law has been used to silence critics who question the government.

Rwandan ID cards no longer identify a person by ethnicity. Lessons about the genocide are part of the curriculum in schools.
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GENEVA — Warning that the war in Sudan risks triggering the world’s worst hunger crisis, the World Food Program said Friday that it finally has managed to bring desperately needed food aid into the war-wracked Darfur region for the first time in months.

The U.N. food agency said two convoys crossed the border from Chad into Darfur late last week, carrying food and nutrition assistance for about a quarter-million people in north, west and central Darfur.

It said the long-delayed mission was given the go-ahead following lengthy negotiations to reopen convoy routes after the Sudanese Armed Forces had revoked permission for humanitarian corridors from Chad in February.

“Cross-border operations from Chad to Darfur are critical to reach communities where children are already dying of malnutrition,” said Leni Kinzli, the WFP communications officer for Sudan.

Speaking in Nairobi, Kenya, she said that “All corridors to transport food must remain open, particularly the one from [the city of] Adre in Chad to West Darfur, where levels of hunger are alarming.”

While expressing relief that lengthy negotiations to reopen the routes have paid off, she warned that unless the people of Sudan receive a constant flow of aid through all possible humanitarian corridors, “the country’s hunger catastrophe will only worsen.”

Since the rival Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces plunged the country into war nearly one year ago, the United Nations says more than 8.5 million people have become displaced — 6.5 million within the country.

The WFP says 18 million people are facing acute hunger, 90% of them in hard-to-reach areas. A World Health Organization Public Health Situation Analysis of the Sudan conflict finds a record 24.8 million people — almost every other person — need urgent humanitarian assistance in 2024.

“This is 9 million more than in 2023. So, how catastrophic is that,” said Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesperson.

“People have been forced to flee their homes due to the humanitarian situation and the destruction of essential infrastructure, such as roads, hospitals, medical facilities and schools.

“Also, power, water, communication services, everything — all the infrastructure you need to lead a normal life” has been destroyed, she said.

The WHO says at least 14,600 people have been killed and 33,000 injured. It says two-thirds of the population lack access to medical care, noting that disease outbreaks, including cholera, measles, malaria, poliovirus type 2 and dengue, are increasing.

“Food insecurity is also at a record high, with nearly half of children acutely malnourished,” said the WHO, underscoring that “urgent action is needed to prevent further catastrophe.”

The WFP’s Kinzli said it was critical that aid be quickly and easily delivered to needy people in Darfur through the Tine border crossing or across conflict lines from within Sudan.

She said, however, that “fierce fighting, lack of security and lengthy clearances by the warring parties” have led to delays in the distribution of assistance. She noted it was impossible for aid workers to provide help “to people trapped in Sudan’s conflict hotspots.”

The “WFP needs aid to be consistently reaching war-ravaged communities through every possible route,” Kinzli said, warning that hunger in Sudan will increase as the lean season starts — the period of the year when food stocks are at their lowest.

“Our greatest fear is that we will see unprecedented levels of starvation and malnutrition sweep across Sudan this lean season, and that the Darfur region will be particularly hard hit.”

She pointed out that crop production is at an all-time low because the fighting is preventing farmers from harvesting their crops.

“Recent crop reports show that the harvest for cereals in Darfur this year was 78% below the five-year average,” she said. “That is why WFP is deeply concerned about how serious the hunger crisis will get this lean season.”

Kinzli expressed deep concern that the lean season, which normally runs from May to September, could begin as early as next week and last much longer than usual.
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Nairobi, Kenya — American firms are losing out on business and contracts in Kenya because top government officials demand bribes, the U.S. trade office said in a report released last week, warning that corruption will hurt foreign investment.

According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, American businesses are finding it hard to secure Kenyan government contracts meant to develop the East African nation because senior government officials seek a bribe before awarding such jobs.

The 2024 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers said that the contracts are going mainly to foreign firms willing to pay the bribes.

This level of corruption, say the authors of the report, will cause Kenya to lose future investment from businesses and countries that shun or punish corrupt activities.

Cleophas Malala, secretary general of Kenya’s ruling party, acknowledged that Kenya’s procurement and payment system has been a problem but said President William Ruto and the government are working to solve the problem.

“We know it’s a challenge to us, but the president is keen on fighting corruption. You’ve seen how hard he has been. He moved very swiftly when the KEMSA saga came up,” Malala said, referring to a corruption scandal last year involving a $28 million contract that led to the dismissal of the top officials at Kenya’s Medical Supplies Authority.

“He has been steadfast in ensuring that any public officer who gets involved in corrupt activities languishes his position and faces the rule of law,” Malala said. “As a political party, we’ve said time and again that we are not going to defend anybody.”

According to a survey by Kenya’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the country’s interior, health and transport ministries are the most corrupt. The survey showed that the size of the average bribe doubled in 2023.

Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi told VOA that American businesses are simply being asked to follow what has become a standard procedure in Kenya.

“Kenyans pay bribes every day, not because they want to, but because they are forced to,” Mwangi said. “If you want to apply for an ID, you need to pay a bribe. You go to the police, you tell them to investigate a crime, you pay a bribe. You want to ask for a passport, you pay for a bribe. We are a bribe nation.

“One of the reasons the Chinese succeed in this country very well in doing business is because they are able to pay to play,” he said, adding, “The Americans are not told to do something that is not common. They’ve been asked to do what’s been the norm in this country. … Corruption is a way of life in our country.”

Last year, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission said the lack of transparency, accountability and public participation in some government projects creates a breeding ground for corruption.

That aligns with the U.S. trade office report, which said American firms complained of excessive complexity and inefficiency in the procurement process for contracts.

Malala said the government is working to change some of the procurement laws to help fight corruption and allow investors to compete fairly.

“We would want to ensure that all our investors get justice when it comes to the procurement system,” he said.

Kenya finished low on the Transparency International corruption rankings for 2023, ranking 126th out of 180 countries measured for perception and prevalence of corruption.
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In desert Namibia, invasive acacia trees are sucking up valuable groundwater. Farmers cut them down to make way for pasture for their livestock. Now a company has found a novel way to use fungi to turn the cut-down trees into eco-friendly bricks. Vitalio Angula has the story from Brakwater, Namibia
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WASHINGTON — Somalia said it expelled Ethiopia’s ambassador in Mogadishu and ordered the closure of two consulates — one each in the semi-autonomous Puntland region and the breakaway Somaliland region — in a dispute over a port deal. 

“The plain interference of Ethiopia’s government in the internal affairs of Somalia is a violation of the independence and sovereignty of Somalia,” said the office of Somalia’s prime minister in a statement Thursday. 

The decision followed a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Hamza Barre in Mogadishu. 

A separate statement by Somalia’s foreign ministry said it had ordered Ethiopian Ambassador Muktar Mohamed Ware to leave the country within 72 hours, effective Thursday. 

In an interview with VOA Somali, Somalia’s information minister, Daud Aweis Jama, said the decision came as Ethiopia continued to interfere in Somalia’s internal affairs. 

“Nowadays Ethiopia has been repeatedly violating Somalia’s national, territorial independence. Therefore, the government has taken this decision to close two Ethiopian consulates and send [the] Ethiopian ambassador in Mogadishu and their diplomatic staff back to their country,” said Aweis. 

Tension has been simmering 

Tensions have been growing between Ethiopia and Somalia since January, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed signed “a memorandum of understanding” with Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi, who had been visiting Addis Ababa. 

Both Ethiopia and Somaliland authorities described it as a “historic” initial agreement that would give Somaliland a path to recognition and allow landlocked Ethiopia to have access to the Red Sea. 

Ethiopia said it wanted to set up a naval base there and offered possible recognition of Somaliland in exchange. 

Somaliland has operated independently from Somalia since 1991 but is not recognized by any other country as a sovereign state. 

The Somali government strongly rejected the memorandum of understanding and recalled its ambassador in Ethiopia in protest. 

A month later, in February, Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud called the deal illegal and said that his country would “defend itself” if Ethiopia goes ahead with it. 

Mohamud also said at the time, he did not plan to kick Ethiopian diplomats out of the country. 

 

Today’s government decision, however, came a day after the semi-autonomous state of Puntland, which is also a federal member state, announced it had signed a new cooperation agreement with Addis Ababa. 

Puntland, whose relationship with Mogadishu has been marred by political disputes, said days ago that it had withdrawn from the country’s federal system and that it would govern itself independently, following a dispute over constitutional changes approved by Somalia’s bicameral parliament. 

“Somalia’s federal government is responsible for the country’s foreign affairs and we consider any agreement a country signs with a different side or a region a clear violation against Somali sovereignty,” said Aweis. 

In response to today’s government decision, Puntland Information Minister Mohamud Aidid Dirir accused Mogadishu of trying to assert its control on “a territory it does not govern.” 

“Mogadishu has failed to eradicate terrorist groups and spread governance across the country and now it is trying to impose its decisions on a peaceful region that does not run with its orders. It cannot close a consulate in Puntland,” Aidid told VOA. 

In an interview with VOA Somali, Somaliland Deputy Foreign Minister Rhoda Jama Elmi described Mogadishu’s decision as “a mere dream.” 

The “Mogadishu government had nothing to do with opening of the Ethiopian consulate in Somaliland and its decision has nothing to do with us. It has no impact on Somaliland,” he said. 

According to Reuters, Ethiopia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Nebiyu Tedla, said it did not have information on the Somali government decisions. 

Meanwhile, the Somali Cabinet of Ministers approved the appointment of Abdullahi Mohamed Ali Sanbaloolshe as the new director of the National Security and Intelligence Agency of Somalia (NISA), during the council’s weekly meeting in Mogadishu on Thursday. 

The newly appointed director has previously held the position of NISA’s director twice and has served in other roles, including minister and ambassador. Currently, he is a member of the lower house. 

According to the country’s constitution, the prominent member of parliament, a close ally of President Mohamud, will automatically lose his parliamentary seat. 

The new director will replace Mahad Mohamed Salad, who vacated the position, citing personal and future political plans. Government sources who asked for anonymity said Salad intends to run for the leader of Galmudug regional state in an election this year. 
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New York — Children are being denied access to lifesaving humanitarian assistance in conflict zones around the world in a blatant disregard for international law, a senior U.N. official said Wednesday.

“Let me be very clear: The Geneva Conventions and the Convention on the Rights of the Child contain key provisions requiring the facilitation of humanitarian relief to children in need,” Virginia Gamba, the U.N. envoy on children and armed conflict, told a meeting of the Security Council.

“The denial of humanitarian access to children and attacks against humanitarian workers assisting children are also prohibited under international humanitarian law,” she said.

Her office verified nearly 4,000 such denial of aid cases in 2022, she said, with the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Yemen, Afghanistan and Mali having the highest number. Gamba said the data for her office’s upcoming report shows the negative trend continuing.

“Some situations involve high levels of arbitrary impediments and/or outright denial of humanitarian access to children, including in situations such as in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and in Haiti to name but two,” she said.

Gamba said denial of aid access is linked to the restriction of humanitarian activities and movements; interference with humanitarian operations and discrimination against aid recipients; direct and indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure; disinformation; looting; and the detention of, violence against and killing of humanitarian personnel.

Children are especially affected by the lack of nutrition, education and health care, which can have lifelong consequences. Gamba said it is even more catastrophic for disabled children. And it also impacts boys differently than girls.

“For instance, restrictions to girls’ movement challenge their access to aid in areas where it may be distributed, including in internally displaced persons camps, while teenage boys could be perceived as associated with an opposing party and, therefore, denied that access,” she said.

Gamba called upon all parties to allow and facilitate safe, timely and unimpeded humanitarian access, as well as access by children to services, assistance and protection, and to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian personnel and assets. She said hospitals, schools and their staff must also be protected under international humanitarian law.

The deputy executive director of the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, urged the Security Council to help humanitarians get the access they need. Ted Chaiban underscored that aid groups need more exemptions in sanctions resolutions for their work; they need to be able to engage with all armed groups without fear of consequences; as well as access across borders and conflict lines.

“Around the world, our teams on the ground are working under increasingly difficult operational circumstances to access children,” Chaiban said, adding they are committed to staying and delivering.

“Children are the first to suffer and the ones who will carry the longest-lasting humanitarian consequences,” he said. “Parties have a legal and moral responsibility to ensure children’s access to humanitarian services.”
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GENEVA — Human rights experts warn the always-shaky security situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is deteriorating further, as armed violence by Congolese and foreign forces battling for control of the region intensifies and threatens to spread throughout the country and beyond.

“As insecurity reaches some of the most alarming levels in recent years, I fear that the enjoyment of human rights in the country will come to a screeching halt,” said Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

The high commissioner was one of several human rights experts who participated in an interactive dialogue on the situation in the DRC which began Tuesday and dipped over into Wednesday at the U.N. Human Rights Council.

“Since our last update to the council in October, the pervasive armed conflict, particularly in the eastern part of the country, has continued to take a heavy human toll,” Türk said.

“I also remain extremely concerned about the spread of conflict and violence in the DRC throughout the region, as well as active involvement of other regional actors in eastern DRC. The cost of this situation for the population is catastrophic,” he said.

A report by the U.N. Joint Human Rights Office has documented 2,110 human rights violations and abuses across the DRC between October 1, 2023, and March 15, 2024.  It finds 59 percent were committed by armed groups, and includes summary executions, conflict-related sexual violence, abductions of civilians and forced recruitment of children.

“Many of these serious human rights violations could amount to atrocity crimes, and perpetrators and their accomplices must be held to account,” said Türk.

During the same period, he said, the DRC’s army or its proxies were responsible for violations of international human rights or humanitarian law including extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and destruction of private property.

“On several occasions, they attacked positions of the United Nations Stabilization Mission (MONUSCO),” noting that U.N. troops are slated to withdraw from the country this year at the request of the Congolese government.  

He warned that “without a rapid build up of national armed forces in areas where populations depended on MONUSCO, the security vacuum could be filled by armed groups, with dire consequences for civilians.”

The concerns were shared by Bintou Keita, the special representative of the U.N. secretary-general in the DRC, and the head of MONUSCO.

She deplored the worsening human rights and security climate in the DRC, particularly in the territories of Masisi, Nyiragongo, and Rutshuru, in North Kivu province.  That, she said, was “due to the intensification of clashes between the M23, which is supported by the Rwandan armed forces, and the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” 

“The M23, in particular, has continued to conquer large swathes of Congolese territory, driving more than one-and-a-half million Congolese from their homes,” she added.

Recurring attacks on peacekeepers and difficult access to combat zones hinder the support that the U.N. and humanitarian organizations can give to civilians in need, she said. 

Congo defends end to death penalty moratorium

During their dialogue, the human rights experts expressed concern about the government’s decision to lift the moratorium on the death penalty and urged Congolese authorities to reverse their decision.

That did not sit well with the DRC’s minister for human rights, Albert Fabrice Puela.  He told the council that his government had decided to bring back the death penalty “in order to deter all these warlords and rid our army of all treacherous soldiers who commit atrocities against the population.”

“This measure of lifting the government’s moratorium as well as that of the state of siege is a response to the cry of distress of the entire population who are fed up with these abuses,” he said.

He spoke in detail about the progress made by the government in the promotion and protection of human rights, including in reforming the country’s electoral process, the promotion of women’s rights, as well as the promotion and equality of gender.

“However, all these efforts are being severely affected by the continuing situation of war imposed on us by the negative forces supported by Rwanda,” he said, noting that U.N. reports and independent observers have accused Rwanda of serious crimes of human rights and international humanitarian law “as well as in the plundering of natural resources” in eastern DRC.

The DRC’s president has reiterated his willingness to engage constructively with Rwanda, he said, but said that was “subject to the immediate cessation of hostilities, and the immediate withdrawal of the M23 from the occupied areas.”

James Ngango, Rwanda’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, rejected the charges and retorted that “The situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo constitutes a security threat in the region and to Rwanda in particular.”

“Rwanda deplores the grave human rights violations against Congolese communities who are at risk of genocide in eastern DRC,” he said, adding that Rwanda believes that the conflict can only “be addressed through peaceful means,” not military means.

His assessment was affirmed by High Commissioner Türk, who said, “The human tragedy in the DRC will never be solved by military action alone.”

“It is time to invest in dialogue.  It is time to invest in restoring and rebuilding the rule of law.  And it is time to invest in peace,” he said.
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DAKAR, SENEGAL — Bassirou Diomaye Faye was sworn in Tuesday in Diamniadio as Senegal’s fifth president, having defeated main rival and ruling party coalition candidate Amadou Ba and winning the delayed election with over 54% of the vote.

Following the ceremony in Diamniadio, which is about an hour from the center of the capital, Dakar, Faye reassured the people who elected him that he’s ready to move Senegal forward, saying the election results showed a profound desire for systemic change.

The Senegalese people have chosen to build a country that is just, he said, adding that he will work tirelessly to preserve the peace and national cohesion.

At 44, Faye is the youngest man elected president in Senegal.

Maimouna Dieye, who leads the women’s wing of the opposition Pasteef party, has been working with Faye for the past 10 years. She said Faye might not have much experience in running a country, but he has a lot of experience in his field, including 15 years as a tax inspector.

Dieye said she believes Faye will deliver on his proposed solutions to the everyday problems of ordinary Senegalese.

Jean Charles Biagui, researcher and political science professor at the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar, said it will be important for the new government to make some changes right away, primarily reducing the advantages associated with government officials’ lifestyles.

That way, he said, the ordinary Senegalese can see that those who are running the country are serving the nation and not serving themselves.

Biagui also said it’s time to think about what constitutes good governance. Governments of the past few decades have provided little to no assessments of what they have accomplished, he said, but the Senegalese people want their leaders to account for what they’ve done.

Meanwhile, many of the new president’s supporters who witnessed the swearing in are hopeful the tensions of the last few months will fade away and be replaced by the hope that their country’s reputation as a beacon of democracy in West Africa is restored.

The presidents of neighboring Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria, as well as high-level officials from other African nations, attended.
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Paris — He ran as the candidate with a platform of “rupture,” championing greater sovereignty for his homeland — including by leaving the CFA West African Franc currency union, created by France nearly a century ago.

The shock victory of new Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has been closely followed in Paris, as questions mount on what the results mean for France’s relations with its former West African colony.

Will a Faye presidency stoke simmering anti-French sentiment, or the rising influence of other foreign powers? Will it further shrink France’s ebbing economic and military presence in West Africa — a region where Paris has already pulled its troops from coup-hit countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger?

Or — as critics suggest — does it underscore, yet again, that France’s ties with its former colonies must be rethought and reset — a process, some add, which is already well under way?

The election of anti-establishment Faye “has been a wake-up call to Western countries like France, which are now in competition with many other powers,” wrote France’s influential Le Monde newspaper. Today, Paris and others, “must learn from the consequences of the current African context, which has increasingly come to resemble a new phase in the long history of decolonization.”

More win-win

In both Paris and Dakar, the first official reactions were positive. President Emmanuel Macron’s office said the French leader called Faye and “warmly” congratulated him after his election, saying France wants to “continue and intensify” bilateral ties.

Faye maintains Senegal will remain a “certain and trustworthy ally,” calling Dakar’s partnership with Paris “correct,” but something “which must be revisited.”

“We need to win more from it,” Faye told France-Info radio in a recent interview, adding, “We’ve already said this for years, but we were unfortunately not listened to.”

The relationship between France and its former colony — once its oldest in sub-Saharan Africa — has historically been close, despite the occasional bumpy ride.

The country’s first president, writer and politician Léopold Sédar Senghor, studied in France. His second wife, Collette, was from Normandy. After leaving office, Senghor became the first Black member of the Academie Française — France’s celebrated literary body.

Until recently, too, France was Senegal’s leading economic partner, and Macron forged a good relationship with Faye’s predecessor, Macky Sall.

But like elsewhere in Francophone Africa, anti-French sentiment is rising, especially among the young. “France degage,” or “French out,” is a common slogan at demonstrations. On X, some rejoiced after reading fake news that Faye had asked France to leave the country. “Long live Senegal, free from France,” wrote one commentator.

Faye’s influential opposition ally, Ousmane Sonko, counts among the critics of France’s allegedly outsized influence in Senegal. While Sonko has softened his rhetoric in recent months, both men call for greater national sovereignty over resources like oil and fisheries.

Not everyone is bashing France, however. In Paris, Senegalese trader Mamadou, who sells berets and Eiffel Tower keychains to tourists, is happy with the status quo. “We have a stable relationship,” said Mamadou of the two countries. “Our ties go back a long way.”

Diminished presence

While France is still a key investor in Senegal — with French bakeries like Paul and supermarket chain Auchan dotting the capital Dakar — its footprint has shrunk sharply in the decades following Senegal’s 1960 independence. Other countries have moved in.

Beijing is now Dakar’s top trading partner. A Saudi firm built the capital’s new airport — which a largely Turkish-controlled company now manages. US, British and Australian companies are involved in Senegal’s oil and gas extraction. European, Turkish and Chinese industrial vessels have sucked up the fish off its shores, pummeling its artisanal fishing industry and deepening hunger and migration.

Meanwhile, non-francophone Nigeria, Angola and South Africa have become Paris’ leading trading partners in sub-Saharan Africa.

“It’s easy to have a speech about Senegal’s ‘sovereignty,’ but it is difficult to take measures against a French presence that isn’t what it was at independence,” Denis Castaing, former head of France’s development agency in Senegal, wrote in France’s Opinion.fr website.

Some commentators also doubt Faye will usher in major upheaval — at least not anytime soon.

A Faye presidency would not be “a revolution which breaks everything in its path but a much more moderate stance,” Burkina Faso’s L’Observateur Paalga newspaper wrote in an editorial.

Senegalese analyst Pape Ibrahim Kane similarly predicted it would take time for Faye, for example, to make good on promises to leave the CFA for a proposed West African currency called Eco.

“Perhaps in a year, a year and a half, we’ll have more clarity,” he told France’s RFI broadcaster.

But change could come more quickly on another front. Reports suggest Macron wants to further cut France’s already diminished military presence in West Africa, including in Senegal, where France has about 350 armed forces personnel. Calling on Paris to shutter its last two bases in Senegal might be an easy win for the new Faye government, Kane says.

“From a symbolic point of view, I think it would show how [Dakar] is reassuming Senegalese sovereignty without many consequences,” said Senegalese analyst Kane. “The French themselves are already rethinking their military presence on the continent — so it could happen very quickly.”
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Yaounde — Members of Cameroon’s opposition parties are encouraging citizens to learn from Senegal, where a 44-year-old politician was elected last week as the youngest leader on the African continent. They say it’s time for change in Cameroon, where President Paul Biya, now in his 90s, has ruled for more than four decades and is preparing to run for re-election.

Nothing has generated debates on the streets, in offices, within political parties and in Cameroon’s media organs so much as Senegal’s March 24 elections.

Participants in a debate program aired by Equinox Television said civilians in central African countries, especially Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic, Congo and Gabon should emulate the example from Senegal and democratically oust leaders who keep a tight grip on power and rule with an iron fist.

Njamnsi Theodore is a 35-year-old teacher who hopes Cameroonians will get inspired by what just happened in Senegal.

“The results of the presidential election in Senegal and the entire process sends a very clear message to Cameroonians especially the youths,” he said. “Register and vote. If you don’t register, you wouldn’t vote and if you don’t vote you wouldn’t have that chance of getting the leaders that you really want, so register, that is the clear message, that is the lesson we get from the Senegalese situation.”

Opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye is now Senegal’s president-elect after winning a first-round victory fueled largely by young voters.

In Cameroon, opposition and civil society groups say voter apathy is high because elections are always marred by fraud.

Ninety-one-year-old President Paul Biya has won all presidential elections since the return of multiparty politics in Cameroon in 1990 and is preparing to run again next year.

The opposition says Senegal’s election shows it is possible to stop leaders from clinging to power. Senegal’s President Macky Sall attempted to postpone this year’s election but backed down after widespread protests.

Mbang Boniface is a member of Cameroon’s Renaissance Movement Party. He says youth can remove Biya from power if they register as voters, choose their candidate, vote and defend their votes if necessary after the polls.

He says Senegal’s youths massively voted for Bassirou Diomaye Faye because they believe only young people can effect changes needed on a continent where leaders are generally old and out of touch with the views and aspirations of the population.

“Of course, Senegal is sending a very strong message to Cameroon,” he said. “The Senegalese president is 44 years [old], meaning he is young and able to understand the problems of the youth. Here in Cameroon, we have a president who is 91 years. He started ruling when Faye was just born. Faye is able to understand the problems of the youths unlike here in Cameroon, where the youths will have to sort their problems by themselves.”

But Samson Websi, political analyst at Cameroon’s National Institute of Management and Technology says it will be difficult to oust Biya in an election.

He says unlike in Senegal where government institutions are independent, Biya has loyalists planted throughout the government.

“Senegal stands out as an example to what happens in Cameroon, where democracy is suffering from military involvement in politics,” he said. “Parliament in Cameroon is virtually at the beck and call of the executive. The judiciary in Cameroon is not independent. The president of the republic [Biya] is the head of the judiciary. He is the one who guarantees the independence of the judiciary, which means that democracy is in trouble.”

Cameroon’s government insists that its institutions are independent, while Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement Party say the president has fairly won all elections.

They say Biya enables young people to participate in decision-making through bodies such as Cameroon’s National Youth Council. However, the opposition says Biya appoints only youths loyal to him to head the council.

Cameroon’s presidential elections are set for next year. President Biya will set the date.
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MANGWE, Zimbabwe — Delicately and with intense concentration, Zanyiwe Ncube poured her small share of precious golden cooking oil into a plastic bottle at a food aid distribution site deep in rural Zimbabwe.

“I don’t want to lose a single drop,” she said.

Her relief at the handout — paid for by the United States government as her southern African country deals with a severe drought — was tempered when aid workers gently broke the news that this would be their last visit.

Ncube and her 7-month-old son she carried on her back were among 2,000 people who received rations of cooking oil, sorghum, peas and other supplies in the Mangwe district in southwestern Zimbabwe. The food distribution is part of a program funded by American aid agency USAID and rolled out by the United Nations’ World Food Program.

They’re aiming to help some of the 2.7 million people in rural Zimbabwe threatened with hunger because of the drought that has enveloped large parts of southern Africa since late 2023. It has scorched the crops that tens of millions of people grow themselves and rely on to survive, helped by what should be the rainy season.

They can rely on their crops and the weather less and less.

The drought in Zimbabwe, neighboring Zambia and Malawi has reached crisis levels. Zambia and Malawi have declared national disasters. Zimbabwe could be on the brink of doing the same. The drought has reached Botswana and Angola to the west, and Mozambique and Madagascar to the east.

A year ago, much of this region was drenched by deadly tropical storms and floods. It is in the midst of a vicious weather cycle: too much rain, then not enough. It’s a story of the climate extremes that scientists say are becoming more frequent and more damaging, especially for the world’s most vulnerable people.

In Mangwe, the young and the old lined up for food, some with donkey carts to carry home whatever they might get, others with wheelbarrows. Those waiting their turn sat on the dusty ground. Nearby, a goat tried its luck with a nibble on a thorny, scraggly bush.

Ncube, 39, would normally be harvesting her crops now — food for her, her two children and a niece she also looks after. Maybe there would even be a little extra to sell.

The driest February in Zimbabwe in her lifetime, according to the World Food Program’s seasonal monitor, put an end to that.

“We have nothing in the fields, not a single grain,” she said. “Everything has been burnt (by the drought).”

The United Nations Children’s Fund says there are “overlapping crises” of extreme weather in eastern and southern Africa, with both regions lurching between storms and floods and heat and drought in the past year.

In southern Africa, an estimated 9 million people, half of them children, need help in Malawi. More than 6 million in Zambia, 3 million of them children, are impacted by the drought, UNICEF said. That’s nearly half of Malawi’s population and 30% of Zambia’s.

“Distressingly, extreme weather is expected to be the norm in eastern and southern Africa in the years to come,” said Eva Kadilli, UNICEF’s regional director.

While human-made climate change has spurred more erratic weather globally, there is something else parching southern Africa this year.

El Niño, the naturally occurring climatic phenomenon that warms parts of the Pacific Ocean every two to seven years, has varied effects on the world’s weather. In southern Africa, it means below-average rainfall, sometimes drought, and is being blamed for the current situation.

The impact is more severe for those in Mangwe, where it’s notoriously arid. People grow the cereal grain sorghum and pearl millet, crops that are drought resistant and offer a chance at harvests, but even they failed to withstand the conditions this year.

Francesca Erdelmann, the World Food Program’s country director for Zimbabwe, said last year’s harvest was bad, but this season is even worse. “This is not a normal circumstance,” she said.

The first few months of the year are traditionally the “lean months” when households run short as they wait for the new harvest. However, there is little hope for replenishment this year.

Joseph Nleya, a 77-year-old traditional leader in Mangwe, said he doesn’t remember it being this hot, this dry, this desperate. “Dams have no water, riverbeds are dry and boreholes are few. We were relying on wild fruits, but they have also dried up,” he said.

People are illegally crossing into Botswana to search for food and “hunger is turning otherwise hard-working people into criminals,” he added.

Multiple aid agencies warned last year of the impending disaster.

Since then, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has said that 1 million of the 2.2 million hectares of his country’s staple corn crop have been destroyed. Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera has appealed for $200 million in humanitarian assistance.

The 2.7 million struggling in rural Zimbabwe is not even the full picture. A nationwide crop assessment is underway and authorities are dreading the results, with the number needing help likely to skyrocket, said the WFP’s Erdelmann.

With this year’s harvest a write-off, millions in Zimbabwe, southern Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar won’t be able to feed themselves well into 2025. USAID’s Famine Early Warning System estimated that 20 million people would require food relief in southern Africa in the first few months of 2024.

Many won’t get that help, as aid agencies also have limited resources amid a global hunger crisis and a cut in humanitarian funding by governments.

As the WFP officials made their last visit to Mangwe, Ncube was already calculating how long the food might last her. She said she hoped it would be long enough to avert her greatest fear: that her youngest child would slip into malnutrition even before his first birthday.
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CAIRO — The executive board of the International Monetary Fund confirmed a deal with Egypt to increase its bailout loan from $3 billion to $8 billion, in a move that is meant to shore up the Arab country’s economy, which is hit by a staggering shortage of foreign currency and soaring inflation.

In a statement late Friday, the board said its decision would enable Egypt to immediately receive about $820 million as part of the deal, which was announced earlier this month.

The deal was achieved after Egypt agreed with the IMF on a reform plan that is centered on floating the local currency, reducing public investment and allowing the private sector to become the engine of growth, the statement said.

Egypt has already floated the pound and sharply increased the main interest rate.

Commercial banks are now trading the U.S. currency at more than 47 pounds, up from about 31 pounds. The measures are meant to combat ballooning inflation and attract foreign investment.

The Egyptian economy has been hit hard by years of government austerity, the coronavirus pandemic, the fallout from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and, most recently, the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The Houthi attacks on shipping routes in the Red Sea have slashed Suez Canal revenues, which is a major source of foreign currency. The attacks forced traffic away from the canal and around the tip of Africa.

“Egypt is facing significant macroeconomic challenges that have become more complex to manage given the spillovers from the recent conflict in Gaza and Israel. The disruptions in the Red Sea are also reducing Suez Canal receipts, which are an important source of foreign exchange inflows and fiscal revenue,” said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

The IMF said such external shocks, combined with delayed reforms, have hurt economic activity. Growth slowed to 3.8% in the fiscal year 2022-23 due to weak confidence and foreign currency shortages and is projected to slow further, to 3%, in the fiscal year 2023-24 before recovering to about 4.5% in 2024-25, the IMF statement said.

The annual inflation rate was 36% in February, but is expected to ease over the medium term, the IMF said.

The currency devaluation and interest rate increase have inflicted further pain on Egyptians already struggling with skyrocketing prices over the past years. Nearly 30% of Egyptians live in poverty, according to official figures.

Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said the confirmation by the IMF executive board “reflects the importance of the correcting measures” taken by the government.

Egypt also this month signed a deal with the European Union that includes a 7.4 billion-euro ($8 billion) aid package for the most populous Arab country over three years.

To quickly inject much-needed funds into Egypt’s staggering economy, the EU intends to fast-track 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) of the package, using an urgent funding procedure that bypasses parliamentary oversight and other safeguards, according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
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