YAOUNDE — Cameroon officials have declared a humanitarian emergency after encroaching waters from the Atlantic Ocean destroyed several hundred homes, buildings and plantations along Cameroon’s coast. 

Waves pound walls and houses constructed on the shores of Bekumu, a southern Cameroon village located in Ndian,  an administrative unit along parts of Cameroon’s 400-kilometer coast on the Atlantic Ocean. 

The images broadcast on Cameroon state TV this week show civilians crying out for help.

“If the government does not help immediately, if the government does not do something urgently, I don’t believe Bekumu will exist again. The water level is so high. What is this, oh God.”

The civilian is not identified in the video, but the Bekumu Village Development Committee, in a release, said it shared images of the civilian crying out for help to raise awareness of the fate that has befallen them.

Bekumu villagers say encroaching seawater this week has destroyed homes, public buildings and plantations, and rendered several hundred people homeless.

The Cameroon government says high waves swept through Bekumu destroying coastal villages, plantations, schools, churches and markets.

Civilians say they lack potable water after seawater swept and emptied waste water in streams that are considered a source of drinkable water. 

Sangi John is the traditional ruler of Bekumu village. Speaking to VOA on Wednesday via a messaging app, he said it is the first time encroaching waters from the Atlantic Ocean have caused so much havoc in Bekumu. He said strong sea waves early Wednesday pulled down parts of school buildings and churches where homeless civilians rushed for shelter.

“The disaster is so serious, the water has washed from the schools to people’s houses, right to all churches. The water is everywhere. I am appealing for the government to help us,” he said.

Sangi said scores of civilians have relocated to safer villages while three dozen others are trapped in creeks waiting for help to relocate. He said hunger looms as several hundred hectares of farmland are currently being destroyed by water.

Fishermen, farmers and merchants constitute 75 percent of the population of affected villages.  They say economic activity has nosedived because of the encroaching ocean waters that also killed goats and washed away poultry farms.

In August of last year when seawater swept through the coastal town of Kribi, swallowing homes and plantations, CEMAC, a six member state economic bloc that groups Cameroon, Chad, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo, said the ongoing rise in sea levels was potentially catastrophic for an economic bloc for whom 30 percent of civilians live along the coastline.

The Cameroon government has always blamed global warming and rising sea levels for the encroaching of ocean water into its coastal lands. 

Cameroon’s ministry of agriculture says the ongoing floods in Ndian add to the humanitarian emergency it declared following food shortages because of floods in several parts of the central African state. The government says it has dispatched humanitarian workers and specialized services of its military to rescue civilians but gave no further details.   
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UNITED NATIONS — The number of children worldwide who died before age 5 reached a record low in 2022, the United Nations said in a report published Tuesday, as for the first time fewer than 5 million died.

According to the estimate, 4.9 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2022, a 51% decrease since 2000 and a 62% drop since 1990, according to the report, which still warned such progress is “precarious” and unequal.

“There is a lot of good news, and the major one is that we have come to a historic level of under-five mortality, which … reached under 5 million for the first time, so it is 4.9 million per year,” Helga Fogstad, director of health at the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, told AFP.

According to the report, prepared by UNICEF in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, progress was particularly notable in developing countries such as Malawi, Rwanda and Mongolia, where early childhood mortality has fallen by more than 75% since 2000.

“Behind these numbers lie the stories of midwives and skilled health personnel helping mothers safely deliver their newborns … vaccinating … children against deadly diseases, and [making] home visits to support families,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement.

But “this is a precarious achievement,” the report warned. “Progress is at risk of stagnation or reversal unless efforts are taken to neutralize the numerous threats to newborn and child health and survival.”

Researchers pointed to already worrying signs, saying that reduction in under-5 deaths has slowed at the global level and notably in the sub-Saharan Africa region.

In total, 162 million children under the age of 5 have died since 2000, 72 million of whom perished in the first month of life, as complications related to birth are among the main causes of early childhood mortality.

Between the ages of 1 month and 5 years, respiratory infections, malaria and diarrhea become the main killers — ailments that are all preventable, the report points out.

To reach the U.N.’s goal of reducing under-5 deaths to 25 per 1,000 births by 2030, 59 countries will need urgent investment in children’s health, researchers warned. And without adequate funding, 64 countries will miss the goal of limiting first-month deaths to 12 per 1,000 births.

“These are not just numbers on a page; they represent real lives cut short,” the report said.

The numbers also reveal glaring inequalities across the world, as the sub-Saharan Africa region accounted for half of all deaths of children under age 5 in 2022.

Babies born in countries with high early childhood mortality, such as Chad, Nigeria or Somalia, are 80 times more likely to die before their 5th birthday than babies born in countries with low childhood mortality rates, such as Finland, Japan and Singapore.

“Where a child is born should not dictate whether they live or die,” WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
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abuja, nigeria — Economic analysts and crypto enthusiasts are raising concerns following Nigeria’s ban on end-to-end transactions — a type of payment processing — involving its currency, the naira, on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange platform, Binance.

Binance disabled all its naira services on Friday after Nigerian authorities accused the company of exploitation, devaluation of the naira and money laundering.

The restriction on naira services on Binance exchange held firm as of Monday. But critics said the measure might increase youth unemployment in a country already struggling with soaring inflation.

The latest measure by authorities followed recent moves to try to save Nigeria’s currency from collapse and address economic problems.

Authorities said Binance manipulated exchange rates through speculation and rate-fixing, leading to the devaluation of the naira.

The government also accused the company of terrorism financing and money laundering, saying $26 billion worth of transactions on the platform were untraceable.

Binance denied any wrongdoing in a statement posted on its website last month.

Central Bank blamed

Public finance expert Isaac Botti said transactions on Binance were not the source of Nigeria’s economic problems.

“It is something that was caused as a result of our reckless demand and utilization of hard currency in Nigeria,” Botti said. “The major challenge is not in the amount of fictitious assets or dollars that people kept in their crypto accounts. It is in the volume of dollars that was released physically by the Central Bank of Nigeria.”

Nigeria has 13 million cryptocurrency holders, more than any other African country. Kenya is next with 4.4 million.

In a statement last week, Binance said any remaining naira on the platform would be automatically converted to Tether — a cryptocurrency stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar.

Last year, Nigeria introduced currency controls and ended petrol subsidies with the aim of reviving the economy.

But afterward, the naira plummeted to record lows. Analysts said the government ban on Binance could lead to job losses.

Blockchain expert Jahdiel Chidi agreed but said Nigerians would turn to new crypto exchanges to possibly fill the gap created by Binance’s exit.

“The implication is that people are going to go to other exchanges,” Chidi said, “I mean, there are other options and platforms that you can do the same thing that was obtainable on Binance.”

In February, Nigerian authorities cracked down on local currency exchange operators and revoked more than 4,000 licenses after the exchange rate dropped to 1,900 naira to one dollar.

Chidi said the Nigerian government must look for better measures in addressing the country’s current foreign exchange challenges.

“I think it was a decision made from the point of hurry without critical investigation into the accusation of Binance’s involvement in certain naira-dollar exchange rates,” Chidi said. “The main issue that I think they should look at is to focus on the import duty. That’s one of the things that has devalued the naira. Binance just happens to be a victim of wrong decisions by the government.”

Last year, the Central Bank reversed its stance on crypto companies, allowing them to operate — a move that was then viewed as a positive posture toward digital currency assets.
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NEBAR HADNET, Ethiopia — The cruel realities of war and drought seem to have merged for Tinseu Hiluf, a widow living in the arid depths of Ethiopia’s Tigray region who is raising four children left behind by her sister’s recent death in childbirth.

A two-year war between federal troops and regional forces killed one of her own sons, the rest of whom are already adults. And now, a lack of food stemming from the region’s drought has left the youngest of the children she is raising malnourished.

She tries to forage seeds among the scarce greenery of the desert’s yellow, rocky landscape. But she recently resorted to traveling to the nearby Finarwa health center in southeastern Tigray to try to keep the 1-year-old baby alive.

“When hungry, we eat anything from the desert,” she said. “Otherwise, nothing.”

She joined several other mothers seeking help at the center in the remote administrative area of Nebar Hadnet. A mother of five complained that she had no breastmilk for her eight-month-old baby. Another with 1-year-old twins said she needed sachets of baby food to keep “my babies alive.”

Tigray is now peaceful, but war’s effects linger, compounded by drought and a level of aid mismanagement that caused the U.N. and the U.S. to temporarily suspend deliveries last year.

Once-lush fields lie barren. Mothers, faces etched with worry, watch helplessly as their children weaken from malnutrition. Nearly 400 people died of starvation in Tigray and the neighboring Amhara region in the six months leading to January, the national ombudsman revealed in January, a rare admission of hunger-related deaths by a federal government.

Most of those deaths were recorded in Tigray, home to 5.5 million people.

Until the signing of a peace agreement in November 2022, the region was the scene of a deadly war between federal troops and forces loyal to the region’s now-ousted ruling party. But months after the end of the conflict, the U.N. and the U.S. halted food aid for Tigray because of a massive scheme by Ethiopian officials to steal humanitarian grain.

An inadequate growing season followed.

Persistent insecurity meant only 49% of Tigray’s farmland was planted during the main planting season last year, according to an assessment by U.N. agencies, NGOs and the regional authorities, and seen by the AP. Crop production in these areas was only 37% of the expected total because of drought. In some areas the proportion was as low as 2%, that assessment said.

The poor harvest prompted Tigray’s authorities to warn of an “unfolding famine” that could match the famine of 1984-5, which killed hundreds of thousands of people across northern Ethiopia, unless the aid response was scaled up. Food deliveries to Tigray in the second half of last year, but only a small fraction of needy people in Tigray are receiving food aid, humanitarian workers say.

Finarwa, a farming community of about 13,000 people, is among the worst-hit places.

The town’s health center still has war-damaged equipment and some of its rooms appear abandoned. Tadesse Mehari, the officer in charge of the clinic, said the lack of food at homes in the community has forced children to flee and beg in nearby towns.

“Nothing here to eat. So, for the sake of getting food and to save their lives, they are displaced anywhere, far from here,” he said. “So, in this area, a lot of people are suffering. They are starved. They are dying due to the absence of food.”

Some local leaders, feeling helpless, have been turning their own people away

Hayale Gebrekedian, a Nebar Hadnet district leader for five years, listened to the pleas of villagers who streamed into his office one recent afternoon. A widow named Serawit Wolde with 10 children was in tears as she recounted that five of them were falling ill from hunger.

“Please, any help,” she told Hayale.

Hayale told the woman he had nothing to give. “There simply isn’t any (food),” he said.

Hayale later told the AP, “This place used to be a source of hope, even for those displaced by the war. We had enough for everyone, but now we can’t even feed ourselves.”

“The war took everything,” he said. There’s nothing left.”

Havale said access to water was an additional challenge. Of the 25 wells that once sustained the community and its animals, only five remained functional. People now trek for over an hour and a half to access water, he said.

The region’s drought has meant that some areas that usually get about 60 days of rain during the rainy season have seen only a few.

Some farmers aren’t giving up.

Haile Gebre Kirstos, 70, continued to plough his parched land and plant sorghum in a village in Messebo, although rain fell “only two days during the last rainy season,” he said.

Once lush and teeming with livestock, the land is now a barren expanse, yet he remained hopeful even after the failure of the previous harvest.

Although the plowing usually doesn’t begin until the rainy season in May or June, this year he started the work early, driven by extreme need. He spoke of farmers who have sold their oxen and farming tools to feed their families.

For him, the memory of the 1980s famine is haunting. “It affected the entire region then,” he said. “Now, in some districts, it’s either as bad as the 1980s, or even worse.”
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Officials saw the crescent moon Sunday night in Saudi Arabia, home to the holiest sites in Islam, marking the start of the holy fasting month of Ramadan for many of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims.

The sacred month, which sees those observing abstain from food and water from sunrise to sunset, marks a period of religious reflection, family get-togethers and giving across the Muslim world. Seeing the moon Sunday night means Monday is the first day of the fast.

Saudi state television reported authorities there saw the crescent moon. Soon after, multiple Gulf Arab nations, as well as Iraq and Syria, followed the announcement to confirm they as well would start fasting on Monday. Leaders also shared messages of congratulations that the month had begun.

However, there are some Asia-Pacific countries like Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, that will begin Ramadan on Tuesday after failing to see the crescent moon. Oman, on the easternmost edge of the Arabian Peninsula, similarly announced Ramadan would begin Tuesday. Jordan will also begin Ramadan on Tuesday.

This year’s Ramadan comes as the Middle East remains inflamed by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. That’s raised fears that the conflict may spark unrest far beyond the current borders of the war.

Saudi King Salman specifically pointed to the Israel-Hamas war in remarks released to the public after the Ramadan announcement.

“As it pains us that the month of Ramadan falls this year, in light of the attacks our brothers in Palestine are suffering from, we stress the need for the international community to assume its responsibilities, to stop these brutal crimes, and provide safe humanitarian and relief corridors,” the king said.

Meanwhile, inflation and high prices of food around the world since the pandemic began continues to pinch.

In Saudi Arabia, the kingdom had been urging the public to watch the skies from Sunday night in preparation for the sighting of the crescent moon. Ramadan works on a lunar calendar and moon-sighting methodologies often vary between countries, meaning some nations declare the start of the month earlier or later.

However, many Sunni-dominated nations in the Middle East follow the lead of Saudi Arabia, home to Mecca and its cube-shaped Kaaba that Muslims pray toward five times a day.

In Iran, which views itself as the worldwide leader of Islam’s minority Shiites, authorities typically begin Ramadan a day after Sunnis start. Already, the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced Ramadan will start on Tuesday, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

During Ramadan, those observing typically break their fast with a date and water, following the tradition set by the Prophet Muhammad. Then they’ll enjoy an “iftar,” or a large meal. They’ll have a pre-dawn meal, or “suhoor,” to sustain themselves during the daylight hours.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar; the month cycles through the seasons and the months in the Gregorian calendar.

Muslims try to avoid conflict and focus on acts of charity during the holy month. However, the war in the Gaza Strip is looming large over this year’s Ramadan for many Muslims.

The war began on Oct. 7 with Hamas’ attack on Israel that killed around 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage. Israel responded with a grinding war targeting the Gaza Strip that so far has seen more than 30,000 Palestinians killed and an intense siege of the seaside enclave cutting off electricity, food and water.

Scenes of Palestinians praying before bombed-out mosques and chasing after food airdropped by foreign nations continue to anger those across the Middle East and the wider world. The U.S. has been pressuring Israel, which relies on American military hardware and support, to allow more food in as Ramadan begins. It also plans a sea corridor with other partners.

The war, as well as Israeli restrictions on Muslims praying at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site, may further inflame militant anger. The site is also known as the Temple Mount, which Jews consider their most sacred site.

The Islamic State group, which once held a self-described caliphate across territory in Iraq and Syria, has launched attacks around Ramadan as well. Though now splintered, the group has tried to capitalize on the Israel-Hamas war to raise its profile.

War also continues to rage across Sudan despite efforts to try and reach a Ramadan cease-fire.
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KURIGA, Nigeria — Rashidat Hamza is in despair. All but one of her six children are among the nearly 300 students abducted from their school in Nigeria’s conflict-battered northwest.

More than two days after her children — ages 7 to 18 — went to school in remote Kuriga town only to be herded away by a band of gunmen, she was still in shock Saturday.

“We have never seen this kind of thing where our children were abducted from their school,” she told an Associated Press team that arrived in the Kaduna state town to report on Thursday’s attack. “We don’t know what to do, but we believe in God.”

The kidnapping in Kuriga was only one of three mass kidnappings in northern Nigeria since late last week, a reminder of the security crisis plaguing Africa’s most populous country. A group of gunmen abducted 15 children from a school in another northwestern state, Sokoto, before dawn Saturday, and a few days earlier 200 people were kidnapped in northeastern Borno state.

It was in Borno’s Chibok town a decade ago that school kidnappings in Nigeria burst into the headlines with the 2014 abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls by Islamic extremists, shocking the world.

No group claimed responsibility for any of the recent abductions. But Islamic extremists waging an insurgency in the northeast are suspected of carrying out the kidnapping in Borno. Locals blame the school kidnappings on herders who are in conflict with the settled communities.

Among the students abducted Thursday were at least 100 children aged 12 or younger. They were just settling into their classrooms at the government primary and secondary school when gunmen “came in dozens, riding on bikes and shooting sporadically,” said Nura Ahmad, a teacher.

The school sits by the road just at the entrance of Kuriga town, which is tucked in the middle of forests and savannah.

“They surrounded the school and blocked all passages … and roads” to prevent help from coming before marching the children away in an operation that lasted less than five minutes, Ahmad said.

Fourteen-year-old Abdullahi Usman braved gunshots in making his escape from the captors.

“Those who refused to move fast were either forced on the motorcycles or threatened by gunshots fired into the air,” Abdullahi said.

“The bandits were shouting, ‘Go! Go! Go!'” he said.

By the next day, Nigerian police and soldiers headed into the forests in search of the kids but combing the wooded expanses of northwestern Nigeria could take weeks, observers have said.

“Since this happened, my brain has been scattering,” said Shehu Lawal, the father of a 13-year-old boy who is among those abducted.

“My child didn’t even eat breakfast before leaving. Even his mother fainted. … We were worried, thinking she would die,” Lawal said.

Some villagers like Lawan Yaro, whose five grandchildren are among the abducted, say their hopes are already fading into fear.

People are used to the region’s insecurity, “but it has never been in this manner,” he said.

“We are crying, looking for help from the government and God, but it is the gunmen that will decide to bring the children back,” Yaro said.

“God will help us,” he said.

Since the 2014 abduction in Chibok of 276 schoolgirls, which sparked the global #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign, at least 1,400 Nigerian students have been seized from their schools in similar circumstances. Some are still in captivity including nearly 100 of the Chibok girls.

But schools are not the only targets.

Thousands of people have been abducted across Nigeria in the last year alone, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. The crisis has even hit homes in the capital of Abuja, where President Bola Tinubu took office after being elected last year following a campaign in which he promised to resolve kidnappings.

A major factor that conflict analysts say has fueled the abductions is how easy it is to smuggle in arms over Nigeria’s poorly policed borders. More than half of its 1,500-kilometer border with Niger, for instance, stretches across the northwest. Though mostly savannah, the region also has vast forests that are ungoverned and unoccupied, providing havens for organized gangs and their kidnap victims.

In 2022, Nigerian lawmakers passed a bill to bar ransom payments, but Nigeria’s kidnappers are known for brutality, prodding many families to scramble to pay a ransom.

Fatigued by the 14-year Islamic insurgency in Nigeria’s northeast, the military continues to conduct air raids and special military operations in the region. But the armed gangs continue to grow in numbers and often work with the extremists who are seeking to expand their operations beyond the northeast.

The armed gangs are “adapting their strategies and further entrenching themselves in the northwest through extortion,” said James Barnett, a researcher specializing in West Africa at the U.S.-based Hudson Institute.

“Their mentality is that they should be allowed free rein to do what they please in the northwest and that if the state challenges them, directly or indirectly, they will have to respond and show their strength,” Barnett said.

More than a dozen checkpoints and military trucks now dot the 89-kilometer road that runs from Kuriga town to the city of Kaduna. But the soldiers are likely to soon be deployed elsewhere, whenever a new security incident requires that troops provide a presence.

People in Kuriga can only hope that the schoolchildren return unhurt and that the security they feel now with the military trucks around endures.

“We hope for help from the government so that they will arrest the attackers,” said Hamza, the mother fearful for her five kidnapped children. “The gunmen don’t allow us to farm, they don’t allow us to have peace outside … we don’t have security — no soldier, no police.”
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DAKAR, Senegal — Presidential candidates in Senegal kicked off their election campaigns Saturday, following weeks of violent protests across the African country after the vote was delayed. 

The 19 approved candidates vying for the top job now have a shorter period to rally supporters ahead of the March 24 election, expected to be the most tightly contested race since Senegal gained independence more than six decades ago. 

The recent violent protests also have raised concerns for a country that used to be seen as a beacon of democratic stability in West Africa, a region plagued by coups and insecurity. 

President Macky Sall, who is prevented from running because of term limits, postponed the election last month, just weeks before it was to take place on February 25. His announcement that the vote would instead be held 10 months from now plunged Senegal into chaos as opposition protests filled the streets. 

Senegal’s highest election authority, the Constitutional Council, rejected Sall’s postponement and ordered the government to set a new date as soon as possible. Government spokesperson Abdou Karim Fofana earlier this week announced the new date. 

Alioune Tine, the founder of the Senegalese think tank Afrikajom Center, said that because of the delay, the candidates with the most financial resources will likely benefit from this shorter window. 

“It’s going to be a hard-fought battle,” said Tine, adding that there is no clear favorite. 

Most of the campaign ahead and the vote itself will take place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when the pious fast from dawn until dusk. Ramadan is expected to begin at sundown Sunday, depending on the sighting of the moon. 

Senegal has a majority Muslim population. 

The front-runners will likely be former Prime Minister Amadou Ba as the ruling party’s choice, and imprisoned Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a lesser-known candidate who gained popularity as the chief of the dissolved PASTEF party. 

Diomaye Faye has been behind bars for nearly a year but is due to be released in time for elections after the president passed a decree to exonerate political prisoners. 

He has stepped in for opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, also in prison and who has been barred from running. In June, Sonko was charged with corrupting youth and sentenced to two years in prison. 

Among the other candidates is a former mayor of Dakar, Khalifa Sall, who is running for the fourth time and another former prime minister, Idrissa Seck. 

The only woman candidate is Anta Babacar Ngom, the head of Sedima, one of the country’s biggest food companies. 
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RABAT, Morocco — For years, Fatima Mhattar has welcomed shopkeepers, students, bankers and retirees to Hammam El Majd, a public bath on the outskirts of Morocco’s capital, Rabat. For a handful of change, they relax in a haze of steam then are scrubbed down and rinsed off alongside their friends and neighbors.

The public baths — hammams in Arabic — for centuries have been fixtures of Moroccan life. Inside their domed chambers, men and women, regardless of social class, commune together and unwind. Bathers sit on stone slabs under mosaic tiles, lather with traditional black soap and wash with scalding water from plastic buckets.

But they’ve become the latest casualty as Morocco faces unprecedented threats from climate change and a six-year drought that officials have called disastrous. Cities throughout the North African nation have mandated that hammams close three days a week this year to save water.

Mhattar smiled as she greeted families lugging 10-liter buckets full of towels, sandals and other bath supplies to the hammam where she works as a receptionist on a recent Sunday. But she worried about how restrictions would limit customer volume and cut into her pay.

“Even when it’s open Thursday to Sunday, most of the clients avoid coming because they are afraid it’s full of people,” Mhattar said.

Little rainfall and hotter temperatures have shrunk Morocco’s largest reservoirs, frightening farmers and municipalities that rely on their water. The country is making painful choices while reckoning with climate change and drought.

The decision to place restrictions on businesses including hammams and car washes has angered some. A chorus of hammam-goers and politicians are suggesting the government is picking winners and losers by choosing not to ration water at more upmarket hotels, pools, spas or in the country’s agricultural sector, which consumes the majority of Morocco’s water.

“This measure does not seem to be of great benefit, especially since the (hammam) sector is not considered one of the sectors that consumes the most water,” Fatima Zahra Bata, a member of Morocco’s House of Representatives, asked Interior Minister Abdelouafi Laftit in written questions last month.

Bata asked why officials in many municipalities had carved out exceptions for spas, which are typically used by wealthier people and tourists. She warned that hammam closures would “increase the fragility and suffering of this class, whose monthly income does not exceed 2,000 or 3,000 dirhams at best.” Hammam workers make an amount equivalent to $200 to $300.

Laftit has not yet responded, and his office did not respond to questions from The Associated Press.

The closures affect the roughly 200,000 people directly or indirectly employed in the hammam sector, which accounts for roughly 2% of the country’s total water consumption, according to Morocco’s national statistics agency.

Hammams have been closed in cities including Casablanca, Tangier and Beni Mellal since the interior minister, asked local officials to enact water-saving measures earlier this year. With the price of heating gas high and temperatures dropping, the closures have raised particular concern in towns high in the Atlas Mountains where people go to hammams to warm up.

Mustapha Baradine, a carpenter in Rabat, likes to enjoy hammams with his family weekly and doesn’t understand how the modest amount of water he uses is consequential in a drought. For him, the closures have fostered resentment and raised questions about wealth, poverty and political power.

“I use only two buckets of water for me and my children,” he said. “I did not like this decision at all. It would be better if they would empty their pools,” he said of local officials.

Morocco has reduced the prevalence of poverty in recent years, but income inequality continues to plague both rural and urban areas. Despite rapid economic development in certain sectors, protests have historically arisen among working class people over disparities and rising costs of living.

Morocco’s neighbors have chosen to ration water in varying ways. In Tunisia, entire neighborhoods had their taps shut off for several hours each day last year. In part of Spain, communities were prohibited last summer from washing cars, filling swimming pools and watering gardens.

Fatima Fedouachi, the president of a hammam owners’ association in Casablanca, said the closures had changed the economics of operating a hammam. Though hammam associations have yet to publish statistics on layoffs or lost revenue, they have warned about the effect on owners, chimney technicians and receptionists.

“Owners are obligated to perform their duties for their workers,” Fedouachi said.

Even on days when they’re closed, Fedouachi said, most hammams continue burning wood to keep the baths warm rather than let them cool off and heat them again. Owners would prefer rationing for certain hours each day instead of being forced to close, she added.

Some hammam-goers say the closures appear to be raising awareness of drought, regardless of how much they save. Regulars like 37-year-old housekeeper Hanane El Moussaid support that nationwide push.

“If there’s less water, I prefer drinking over going to the hammam,” El Moussaid said.
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Abuja, Nigeria — Nigeria’s constitution is getting a revamp, and this time a committee tasked with the responsibility says women’s inclusion in political offices is a priority.

Women hold a tiny fraction of the seats in Nigeria’s National Assembly. Three of the 109 senators and 15 of the 360 members in the House of Representatives are female.

The chair of the House constitution review committee, Benjamin Kalu, spoke this week during a dialogue with women-centered and pro-democracy groups ahead of International Women’s Day on Friday.

Kalu said the ongoing review of the constitution will address gender imbalance in Nigeria’s politics. He also said the 10th National Assembly will revisit gender bills that failed to progress during the previous administration.

In 2022, Nigerian women advocated for five bills to promote inclusion and women’s representation in parliament — including one bill that would reserve 35% of political seats for women.

None of bills received enough support to win passage in the male-dominated parliament, leading to protests.

Cynthia Mbamalu, a program director at YIAGA Africa, one of the groups advocating for gender bills, said structural challenges, patriarchal norms and biased systems put limits on women who want to run for office.

“The numbers are still poor,” she said. “We still have 11 or so state assemblies where there are no women, and some of those states have not had a female legislator since 1999, when we [transitioned] to democracy. As long as we don’t have [a] constitutional mandate that opens up the space to increase women representation, we’ll constantly struggle with a male dominated National Assembly.”

Despite Africa recording an increase in female political participation in recent years, women’s representation in Nigerian politics is among the lowest in the world, at about 4%.

In last year’s general elections, fewer women won seats in office despite an increased number of candidates from various political parties.

Mbamalu said lawmakers need to take the new constitutional review seriously for equity and democracy to succeed.

“One of the indicators to assess our development and the presence of democracy is about how inclusive your government is,” she said. “I want to believe that the 10th Assembly will act differently — will put its name in history.”

The recommendations of the constitution review committee will be subject to votes in parliament.
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YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Thousands of Cameroonian women were out on the streets Friday — International Women’s Day — to press for more access to education and economic opportunity, as well as an end to harmful prejudices and practices.

The Central African nation’s Ministry of Women’s Empowerment said about 30,000 women came out to mark this year’s International Women’s Day, many wearing special green and yellow gowns bearing the slogan “Invest in Women, Accelerate Progress.”

The women sang about longing to be free and achieving true equality with men.

Rights activist Muma Bih Yvonne said women want to end the perception that they should be limited to child rearing, domestic chores and farm work.

“Women just want a level playing ground,” she said. “Women want equal opportunities; women want that the gender gap that has been delaying for so long should be bridged. If you have a female and a male child, give them the same responsibilities, level the playing ground.”

Muma said illiteracy among women remains high because many families still prefer to send only boys to school. Protesters said the practice blocks women from positions in public offices in which literacy is a requirement.

They also criticize that men own more than 85% of land in Cameroon and will sell it only to other men or hand it over only to their sons.

In hopes of changing long-established practices, organizers of Friday’s rally invited several hundred men, including traditional rulers who impose what the women describe as inhumane treatment on widows. Some of the practices include forcing women to sleep with the corpses of their late husbands and drink water used in bathing the bodies as a sign they did not kill their spouse.

Ernest Akuofou, an adviser to the traditional rulers of Ndop in Cameroon’s North-West region, said after listening to the demonstrators that he is convinced women should be given the same opportunities as men.

“In my village community it is just recently that women have been admitted to the level of notability. Why is it only now? Even as they are admitted at that level, the treatment given to them is not commensurate,” Akuofou said.

“That is why men are using the stereotypes on them: ‘Why do you go to talk politics [when] you are supposed to be in my kitchen?’” he said. “Those are the stereotypes; those are the things which push women to the background.”

Marie-Therese Abena Ondoa, Cameroonian minister of Women’s Empowerment and Family, said President Paul Biya is committed to improving the conditions of women.

She said the appointment of more women as managers of state corporations and directors of administrative offices shows there is a political will to end prejudices and involve women in decision making.

“Many of them [women] do not know their rights,” Ondoa said. “If they want to progress, they must have the will, and I think the government is doing a lot to allow women to really emerge. Women have proven that they can be in all domains, but we still need to do more to see that all those who enter primary education are not dropped out.”

Ondoa noted that Cameroon currently has over 60 women in the country’s 180-member National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, and about 50 women who are mayors of towns and cities.
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KADUNA, Nigeria — Gunmen kidnapped dozens of school pupils in northern Nigeria on Thursday, residents and parents of the missing children said, in what would be the biggest abduction targeting a school since 2021. 

Police in Kaduna state did not immediately comment on the abductions, which happened shortly after morning assembly at the Local Government Education Authority School in the town of Kuriga. 

The number of pupils taken was not immediately clear. 

“As we speak, people are writing down the names of their children that have gone to the school today and are not back. It is after these statistics that we will know exactly the number” of missing, said Salisu Ahmed Kuriga, whose three younger brothers were missing. 

Parents said that on arrival at the school the gunmen started shooting sporadically before abducting dozens of pupils and disappearing into the bush. 

The school was housing primary and secondary school students.  

“We don’t know what to do, we are all waiting to see what God can do. They are my only children I have on Earth,” Fatima Usman, whose two children were among those abducted, told Reuters by phone. 

Another parent, Hassan Abdullahi, said local vigilantes had tried to repel the gunmen but were overpowered. 

“Seventeen of the students abducted are my children. I feel very sad that the government has neglected us completely in this area,” Abdullahi said. 

Kidnappings for ransom by armed men have become endemic in northern Nigeria, disrupting daily lives and keeping thousands of children from attending school. 

The last major reported abduction involving school children was in June 2021 when gunmen took more than 80 students in a raid on a school in northwestern state of Kebbi.
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United Nations — A senior U.S. official urged countries to stop supplying Sudan’s rival generals with weapons for their civil war, saying they are fueling “death, destruction and depravity.”

“A conflict that, as this report details, is being fueled by arms transferred from a handful of regional powers — arms transfers that must stop,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters on Wednesday.

She was speaking of the final report of the five-member panel of experts on Sudan, who are mandated by the Security Council to report on the implementation of council sanctions. That report was published this week.

Thomas-Greenfield described the report’s findings as “stomach-churning” and said it detailed “atrocity after atrocity after atrocity.”

Fighting erupted in April last year between Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel Fattah Burhan, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The two generals were once allies in Sudan’s transitional government after a 2021 coup but became rivals for power.

The 52-page report, completed in mid-January, says both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the rebel Rapid Support Forces had the financial means to fund their war, noting they control most of the gold trade in Sudan.

While the SAF started the war in good economic shape, the panel found the group has lost control of some important economic sectors and companies and now relies in large part on wealthy businessmen to purchase military equipment for its troops.

The RSF funds its operations in part through fees it charges people for safe passage and to protect convoys passing through areas under its control in the Darfur region of Sudan, which has seen much of the fighting.

The RSF has also developed new supply lines for its fighters, smuggling weapons, ammunition, fuel and vehicles into Sudan through eastern Chad, southern Libya and South Sudan.

The panel found that from July onward, the RSF started using several types of heavy and sophisticated weapons that it did not have at the start of the war.

“This new RSF firepower had a massive impact on the balance of forces, both in Darfur and other regions of the Sudan,” the panel wrote. “New heavy artillery enabled RSF to swiftly take over Nyala and El Geneina, while its new anti-aircraft devices helped to counter the main asset of SAF, namely, its air force.”

The panel said that since June, various flight-tracking experts have observed numerous cargo planes originating from Abu Dhabi International Airport in the United Arab Emirates arriving at Amdjarass International Airport in eastern Chad, with stops in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. They said information they gathered substantiated media reports alleging the aircraft carried weapons, ammunition and medical equipment for the RSF.

The experts reached out to the UAE for a response. The government denied any involvement in the transfer of arms and ammunition, and said its flights transported humanitarian assistance for displaced Sudanese.

A similar panel request to Chad went unanswered.

In December, Sudan’s U.N. envoy asked the Security Council to lift sanctions on government forces and impose an arms embargo against rebel forces.

“If you truly wish to safeguard peace and security in Darfur, there is a need to exclude the armed forces from the embargo imposed since 2004,” Ambassador Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed said at the time.

The experts said the SAF has used aerial bombing and heavy shelling in urban areas in Darfur, causing a large-scale humanitarian crisis.

The U.N. human rights office says at least 14,600 people have been killed and 26,000 others injured, although the real toll is likely to be higher. In their report, the experts say at least 10,000 to 15,000 people have been killed in El Geneina alone.

The experts detailed horrific conflict-related sexual violence, particularly in Darfur by the RSF, which was often ethnically targeted against women and girls ages 9 to 75, often from the Masalit community. The panel said RSF snipers also indiscriminately targeted civilians, including pregnant women and young people, and their bodies were often left decomposing on roads for fear of being targeted while retrieving them.

On Wednesday, the World Food Program warned that the war could trigger the world’s largest hunger crisis, with 25 million people across Sudan, South Sudan and Chad “trapped in a spiral of deteriorating food security.”

Humanitarians cannot get enough food to civilians because of the insecurity and interference from the warring parties. WFP says 90% of people facing emergency levels of hunger in Sudan are largely in hard-to-reach areas.

The U.N. secretary-general will brief the Security Council when it meets on Sudan on Thursday. 

Read the U.N. panel’s full report here. 
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