Opposition party supporters in Zimbabwe chanted and sang freedom songs outside a courthouse Sunday following a decision to ban them from holding a rally six weeks before elections.

The court in the town of Bindura upheld Friday’s police order that the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change party could not hold the rally to officially launch its election campaign because the venue was unsuitable. The CCC had appealed in court against the order.

The decision increased tensions in the southern African nation, which has a history of violent and disputed elections.

The CCC immediately criticized the move as more evidence of a push by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his ruling ZANU-PF party to silence the opposition using the police and the courts.

Mnangagwa, 80, replaced long-ruling autocrat Robert Mugabe in a coup in 2017. He promised a new era of freedom and prosperity for Zimbabweans, who had seen their country’s economy crumble amid some of the highest inflation rates ever seen.

But Mnangagwa has turned out to be as repressive as his predecessor, say critics, and the economy continues to collapse. There has been a crackdown on any kind of criticism.

The yellow-clad CCC supporters who gathered outside Bindura Magistrates Court sang “Dictatorship remains. When will this country be free?”

Police said that the opposition party’s chosen venue for Sunday’s rally was unsuitable because it was a “bushy” area with poor access via road, raising safety concerns for those attending. The police also said there was a “high risk” of the spread of communicable diseases.

A rally where thousands of ruling party supporters packed tightly together in a stadium to hear Mnangagwa speak was allowed to go ahead Saturday.

“We are getting into a match with both legs tied,” said CCC lawyer Agency Gumbo. “They would rather keep the opposition at the courts than on the campaign trail.”

There was “an uneven playing ground that shows that the democratic process has been corroded,” Gumbo said.

The CCC initially appealed against the police order at the High Court in the capital, Harare on Saturday. The case was moved to the court in Bindura, where the rally was scheduled to take place. The Bindura court eventually ruled late Sunday afternoon, hours after the rally was meant to start at 10 a.m.

The CCC says the repression in the buildup to the Aug. 23 elections has included violence and intimidation against its supporters, the arrest of its officials and bans on its meetings. The opposition has also raised concerns over alleged voters’ roll irregularities ahead of elections that will decide the presidency but also the makeup of the Parliament and nearly 2,000 local government positions.

Mnangagwa and his administration have denied the allegations of intimidation, with the president recently describing Zimbabwe as “a mature democracy.”

CCC leader Nelson Chamisa lost narrowly to Mnangagwa in the 2018 presidential election and had his claim of vote-rigging rejected by the Constitutional Court.

Mnangagwa and the 45-year-old Chamisa are two of 11 candidates who have registered to stand in next month’s presidential election.
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The U.S. military says it has conducted three new airstrikes against al-Shabab fighters in Somalia, killing 10 militants overnight.

The “collective self-defense” airstrikes were carried out in support of the Somali National Army who were engaged by al-Shabab, the U.S. Africa Command known as AFRICOM said in statement.

AFRICOM said the strikes took place at the request of the Federal Government of Somalia, in a remote area near Afmadow town in the Lower Juba region, approximately 105 kilometers (65 miles) north of Kismayo.

“Working with the Somali National Army, U.S. Africa Command’s initial assessment is that the U.S. airstrike killed 10 al-Shabaab terrorists and that no civilians were injured or killed,” the statement read.   

AFRICOM said it will continue to assess the results of this operation and will provide additional information as appropriate.

“Specific details about the units involved and assets used will not be released in order to ensure operations security,” the statement said.

This brings the number of airstrikes carried out by the U.S. in Somalia this year to 13.

Earlier the Somali government also reported three operations conducted by Somali forces in support of “international partners” that took place near Afmadow. A statement by the Ministry of Information put the number of militants killed in the three operations at over 40.

Meanwhile, Somali government troops supported by Jubaland regional security forces have entered the al-Shabab-controlled town of Xagar in the Lower Juba region, Sunday.

Xagar is 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Buale, the capital of Jubaland state, which has been controlled by al-Shabab for more than 15 years. Buale is also the regional capital of Middle Juba, the only region entirely controlled by al-Shabab. It is unclear if the troops will establish a regular base in Xagar or advance to Buale.
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An airstrike in a Sudanese city Saturday killed at least 22 people, health authorities said, in one of the deadliest air attacks yet in the three months of fighting between the country’s rival generals. 

The assault took place in the Dar es Salaam neighborhood in Omdurman, the neighboring city of the capital, Khartoum, according to a brief statement by the health ministry. The attack wounded an unspecified number of people, it said. 

The ministry posted video footage that showed dead bodies on the ground with sheets covering them and people trying to pull the dead from the rubble. Others attempted to help the wounded. People could be heard crying. 

The attack was one of the deadliest in the fighting in urban areas of the capital and elsewhere in Sudan. The conflict pits the military against a powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces. Last month, an airstrike killed at least 17 people including 5 children in Khartoum. 

The RSF blamed the military for Saturday’s attack and other strikes on residential areas in Omdurman, where fighting has raged between the warring factions, according to residents. The military has reportedly attempted to cut off a crucial supply line for the paramilitary force there. 

A spokesman for the military was not immediately available for comment Saturday. 

Two Omdurman residents said it was difficult to determine which side was responsible for the attack. They said the military’s aircraft have repeatedly targeted RSF troops in the area and the paramilitary force has used drones and anti-aircraft weapons against the military. 

At the time of the attack early Saturday, the military was hitting the RSF, which took people’s houses as shields, and the RSF fired anti-aircraft rounds at the attacking warplanes, said Abdel-Rahman, one of the residents who asked to use only his first name out of concern for his safety. 

“The area is like a hell … fighting around the clock and people are not able to leave,” he said. 

The conflict broke out in mid-April, capping months of increasing tensions between the military, chaired by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo. The fighting came 18 months after the two generals led a military coup in October 2021 that toppled a Western-backed civilian transitional government. 

Health Minister Haitham Mohammed Ibrahim said in televised comments last month that the clashes have killed more than 3,000 people and wounded upwards of 6,000 others. More than 2.9 million people have fled their homes to safer areas inside Sudan or crossed into neighboring countries, according to U.N. figures. 

“It’s a place of great terror,” Martin Griffiths, the United Nations humanitarian chief, said of Sudan on Friday. He decried “the appalling crimes” taking place across the country and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. 

The conflict has plunged the African country into chaos and turned Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields. Members of the paramilitary force have occupied people’s houses and other civilian properties since the onset of the conflict, according to residents and activists. Additionally, there were reports of widespread destruction and looting across Khartoum and Omdurman. 

Sexual violence, including the rape of women and girls, has been reported in Khartoum and the western Darfur region, which have seen some of the worst fighting in the conflict. Almost all reported cases of sexual attacks were blamed on the RSF, which hasn’t responded to repeated requests for comment. 

On Wednesday, top U.N. officials including Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, called for a “prompt, thorough, impartial and independent investigation” into the increasing reports of sexual violence against women and girls. 

The Sudanese Unit for Combating Violence against Women, a government organization that tracks sex attacks against women, said it documented 88 cases of rape related to the ongoing conflict, including 42 in Khartoum and 46 in Darfur. 

The unit, however, said the figure likely represented only 2% of the true number of cases, which means there were a possible 4,400 cases of sexual violence since the fighting began on April 15, according to the Save the Children charity. 

“Sexual violence continues to be used as a tool to terrorize women and children in Sudan,” said Arif Noor, director of Save the Children in Sudan. “Children as young as 12 are being targeted for their gender, for their ethnicity, for their vulnerability.” 
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BLANTYRE, MALAWI –  Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera has ordered the country’s education authorities to immediately start introducing the Swahili language into the country’s school curriculum for easy business communication with Swahili-speaking countries.

Chakwera spoke Friday during a televised joint news briefing with visiting Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan about ways to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries.

“I am pleased to inform you, everyone, that I have shared with Her Excellency the exciting news of my administration’s decision to introduce language studies to strengthen both Malawi and Swahili-speaking sister countries like Tanzania,” he said. “And my ministry of education is instructed to implement that policy with the agency.”

Education experts in Malawi have said learning the Swahili language, which is one of the most spoken languages in many parts of Africa, would help Malawi boost trade partnerships with Swahili-speaking countries.

Hassan was on a three-day visit to Malawi, where she was invited as a guest of honor during Malawi’s 59th independence anniversary celebrations held Thursday in Lilongwe.

She told reporters that Tanzania would provide Malawi with everything needed for the introduction of the Swahili language.

“On Kiswahili [another term for Swahili], my brother said it well,” she said. “And I thank you for the decision you have taken. Tanzania is ready to give all what is required to make Kiswahili being taught in Malawi schools. We are ready for that.”

Tanzania, which is a predominantly Swahili-speaking nation, is among neighboring countries where most Malawian traders go to buy their goods, including clothes and motor vehicle spare parts.

Many complain about the high cost of Swahili language interpreters.

It was not clear whether Swahili lessons in Malawi would be compulsory.
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Female leaders of the Fulani, an ethnic group of mostly nomadic herders across West Africa and the Sahel, say women can play a vital role in reducing long-running friction with farming communities. In this report from Lake Chad, reporter Henry Wilkins meets women making digital maps to establish boundaries between the two communities.
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BLANTYRE, MALAWI – The Association of Persons with Albinism in Malawi, or APAM, is appealing for urgent intervention to stop continued attacks on people with albinism in the country.

This comes after unidentified people in June tampered with a grave in Blantyre, a city in southern Malawi, exhumed a body and removed its arms and legs. The incident has raised existing fears within the community, advocates say.

Young Mahamba, president of APAM, said the incident is the seventh this year alone.

“We also had three tampering with graves and another two attacks on the 9th of last month [June 9],” Mahamba told VOA. “And also, in Phalombe [a district in the southern region of Malawi], there was the tampering of graves. This one was discovered on 20th March without limbs as [was] this one.”

Since 2014, more than 170 albinos have been killed or attacked in Malawi because of false beliefs that concoctions mixed with their body parts bring luck and wealth, according to official data.

In the past, religious leaders, police, herbalists and relatives of the deceased have been named and arrested in connection to the attacks and body exhumations.

A high court in Blantyre sentenced a police officer, a Catholic priest and four others to 30 years imprisonment with hard labor in late June after finding them guilty of transacting human remains of a person with albinism.

The spokesperson for the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare, Pauline Kaude, told VOA that since 2019 the government has been working on seven priority areas in its national action plan to end such attacks.

Kaude said the areas include enhancing security, administration of justice and empowerment of people with albinism.

The government is also boosting security at the homes of vulnerable people with albinism. But APAM’s Mahamba said it needs to be a collaborative effort.

“We just hear of projects concerning welfare of people with albinism, but we do not see them on the ground,” Mahamba told VOA. “The international organizations should come forward and assist. They should not wait for the issue to come out of hand [and] to be hearing three or four cases per day, no.”

Mahamba said the government needs to review — and improve — its efforts to protect people with albinism from attacks and make changes where needed.

“If you ask each and every person with albinism here in Malawi, they will tell you that this issue hasn’t stopped, and we don’t have peace. So, there is no time [to] relax, to hold the breaks in terms of our security,” Mahamba said.

Peter Kalaya, national spokesperson for Malawi Police Service, said police are not able to make progress because of the false beliefs by some that there is a viable demand for body parts.

“People just believe there is a market, and they have been attacking people with albinism chopping off their limbs and body parts. They do not even know where to sell them,” Kalaya said. “If we ask the suspects that we have arrested, there has been no one who has come to us and said, ‘I was taking these to someone, and he is the one who buys body parts.’”

Kalaya said the police are, however, working with various interventions to end the attacks, including a program that empowers members of the community to detect and report suspected incidents aimed at people with albinism.

The program, Kalaya added, has led to the arrest of many people suspected of being attackers.

This story originated in VOA’s English to Africa Service.  
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A rare visit to Nigeria this week by the Chinese navy is once again raising questions about Beijing’s military intentions in the strategically important Gulf of Guinea.

Three Chinese warships have been docked in the port of Lagos for five days, with Nigerian and Chinese officials saying the visit is aimed at enhancing maritime security in the region, which is plagued by piracy. China already has a military base in Djibouti on the east coast of the African continent and U.S. officials have long speculated that Beijing is planning more.

Asked by VOA whether part of the reason for the trip is to explore the possibility of establishing a second military base in Africa, officials from the Chinese embassies in both Nigeria and Washington declined to comment, with the latter writing: “Unfortunately we have nothing to offer on the specific question you mentioned.”

The U.S. State Department also declined to directly answer questions relating to a possible base, telling VOA: “We do not want to limit African partnerships with other countries. We seek to offer African countries a choice by demonstrating the benefits of our governance and economic partnership models.”

However, Washington has been vocal about the issue in the past, with General Stephen J. Townsend of the U.S.-Africa Command telling a House Armed Services Committee hearing last year: “The thing I think I’m most worried about is this military base on the Atlantic coast.”

“As a first priority, we need to prevent or deter a Chinese space on the Atlantic coast of Africa,” he added.

A Chinese base in West Africa would give Beijing a military presence across the Atlantic from America’s East Coast, perceived as a threat to national security.

Townsend said at the time he believed the Chinese were favoring Equatorial Guinea as the location for a West Africa base.

In a statement, China said the stop in Nigeria was simply a “friendly visit,” intended to “jointly address maritime security threats and maintain peace and stability in the Gulf of Guinea.”

Nigeria’s navy spokesman Commodore Adedotun Ayo-Vaughan told local media: “It is not a strange thing that the Chinese are doing this port visit. Americans, Europeans, French and Spanish do it very often.”

Earlier this year, the U.S. led annual joint military exercises in Nigeria.

A more secure Nigeria is important for China, which has thousands of citizens working in the oil-rich country — Africa’s largest economy. Nigeria has also been a major beneficiary of President Xi Jinping’s pivot to Africa with his Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. Earlier this year, a Chinese-built $1.5 billion deep-sea port was opened in Lagos.

Nigeria, however, is wracked by an insurgency in the north, and Chinese have become favorite targets of kidnapping gangs looking for ransom.

Additionally, Nigeria is among China’s top oil suppliers, but shipments of the commodity have also been targeted. Earlier this year, pirates boarded a Chinese-owned oil tanker in the Gulf of Guinea.

Shift from East Africa

Darren Olivier, director of the conflict research consultancy African Defense Review, told VOA the Chinese navy has so far been predominantly focused on East Africa due to their military base in Djibouti. They have participated in Gulf of Aden anti-piracy patrols for years.

China’s navy has also been active in the Indian Ocean, with Chinese warships taking part earlier this year in joint exercises off Durban with their South African and Russian counterparts.

However, they were not neglecting West Africa, said Olivier.

“China’s sending a naval task force to exercise with Nigeria is likely to be part of a similar pattern to what was first observed in East Africa,” he told VOA.

“First, regular involvement in anti-piracy patrols and maritime security exercises, followed by the creation of a West African naval base to support those operations, to protect Chinese oil and other exports from the area, and to provide security assistance to both China’s allies in the region and its citizens and businesses,” Olivier said.

“This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s looking to build a base in Nigeria itself, but it’s certainly a possibility.”
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Kenya said Wednesday it was delaying the planned reopening of its long-closed border with Somalia after a number of deadly attacks on its soil attributed to the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab.

Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki said the phased reopening of border posts in Mandera, Lamu and Garissa along the lengthy frontier with Somalia would not go ahead as announced in May.

The decision comes after the murder of five civilians and the deaths of eight police officers in Kenya in separate incidents near the border last month blamed on al-Shabaab.

“The government will delay the planned reopening of Kenya-Somalia border points until we conclusively deal with the recent spate of terror attacks and cross-border crime,” Kindiki said during a visit to the Dadaab refugee camp in far eastern Kenya near Somalia.

The frontier was officially closed in October 2011 because of attacks by al-Shabaab, which has been waging an insurgency against the central government in Mogadishu for more than 15 years.

The two nations had announced plans in July last year to reopen the border at talks between then Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta and his Somali counterpart Hassan Sheikh Mohamud but they never materialized.

But on May 15 this year, following a high-level ministerial meeting in Nairobi, officials from both countries agreed to the phased reopening of three border posts.

 ‘Criminal elements’ 

Mandera was to reopen within 30 days of the announcement, followed by Garissa in 60 days and Lamu in 90 days.

However on June 13, eight Kenyan police officers were killed in Garissa when their vehicle struck an improvised explosive device.

On June 24, five civilians had their throats cut in an attack in Lamu near the Somali border. Some were beheaded.

Kenya has suffered retaliatory attacks on its soil by al-Shabaab since sending troops over the border into Somalia in 2011 to crush the al-Qaida linked jihadists.

More than a decade later, Kenya is still a major contributor to an African Union force in Somalia trying to curb al-Shabaab’s capacity to wage deadly attacks.

Among the deadliest attacks in Kenya was a massacre at Garissa University in 2015 that left 148 people dead, almost all of them students.

Two years earlier, 67 people were killed when militants stormed the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi.

Kenya hosts tens of thousands of refugees at Dadaab, most of them Somalis fleeing violence, poverty and a ferocious drought over the border, and successive governments have voiced suspicion about some of those sheltering there. 

Kindiki said “99.99 percent of refugees are good and law abiding and we will do our best to help them”.

“However, there are few criminal elements who will not be allowed to hurt the interests of bona-fide refugees and the host communities,” he said.
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At least 16 people, including three children, died when toxic gas leaked from a cylinder near Johannesburg, South African police said Wednesday. 

Search and rescue teams were still working through the area trying to ascertain the extent of the casualties. 

The incident happened in an informal settlement in the city of Boksburg on the eastern outskirts of Johannesburg, the South African Police Services said. 

Emergency services spokesman William Ntladi said the deaths were caused by a leak from a gas cylinder being kept in a shack in the Angelo settlement. He said the leak had stopped and teams were searching a 100-meter radius around the cylinder to check for more casualties. 

The bodies were still lying on the ground “in and around the area,” Ntladi said, and forensic investigators and pathologists were on their way to the scene. 

“We can’t move anybody,” Ntladi said. “The bodies are still where they are on the ground.” 

Police said the three children killed were age 1, 6 and 15. Two people were taken to the hospital for treatment, police said. 

Boksburg is the city where 41 people died after a truck carrying liquefied petroleum gas got stuck under a bridge and exploded on Christmas Eve. 

Ntladi said the initial information authorities had indicated the gas in the cylinder was being used by illegal miners to process gold inside a shack. He did not identify the type of gas. 

Illegal mining is rife in the gold-rich areas around Johannesburg, where miners go into closed off and disused mines to search for leftover deposits.
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Health organizations in Sudan’s White Nile state said at least 13 children have died over the past week due to a suspected measles outbreak. An official with the Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said Sudan’s conflict and the approach of the rainy season could make the situation much worse.

Officials with the international medical organization MSF say they remain concerned about an increase of suspected measles cases among children in Sudan’s White Nile state.

Speaking to VOA via a messaging application from Nairobi, Mitchell Sangma, MSF’s health advisor, says MSF’s ground team have documented more than 200 suspected cases of measles among children in the last month.

He says out of that number, 72 were admitted to hospitals and 13 died.

“We are also seeing an increasing number of suspected measles in our other projects such as in Blue Nile state in Sudan. And in Renk, on the other side of the border in South Sudan, we are also seeing increasing measles cases in our measles isolation wards. So, the situation for people fleeing the conflict is desperately concerning,” he said.

The MSF official says the nearly three-month-old conflict in Sudan between the army and a rival paramilitary group has created a huge medical need and intense pressure on health care facilities all over the country.

Sangma says MSF and other aid agencies are concerned about the collapsing health system. He says health centers still in operation are struggling to cope with limited supplies and staff.

Sangma notes that as the rainy season draws near, there is an increased possibility of disease outbreaks among the millions of people displaced from their homes by the war.

The organization says there is a need to step up services like vaccinations, nutritional support, shelter, water and sanitation.

“Rainy season is fast approaching and we are very concerned about the rising waterborne diseases such as cholera and also to note that malaria is also very much endemic in this region. We need to scale up, we need experienced medical expertise on the ground,” said Sangma.

VOA reached out to Mustafa Jabrallah Ahmed, director general at the Ministry of Health in Blue Nile for this story, but he declined to comment, saying he was busy with meetings.

More than 2.8 million people have been displaced due to the Sudan conflict, including over 2.2 million internally, according to a report released by the International Organization for Migration this week.

The violence makes it difficult for people to access health care, with many getting treatment late as it is too dangerous to travel to health facilities.
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As the African Union Transition in Somalia force, known as ATMIS, reduces troop numbers, a Somali official is warning the plan is ill-conceived and raises the risk of al-Shabab militants retaking areas they lost.

The deputy president of Jubaland, a region where Kenyan and Ethiopian troops operate, told VOA Somali that it will be “difficult” for Somali forces to secure areas being vacated by the AU troops.

“There is going to be a danger from there,” Mohamud Sayid Aden said Tuesday. “The enemy is going to get [an] advantage. The civilians who relied on the Somali and ATMIS forces will face revenge [from al-Shabab militants].” 

The AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia has completed handing over six military bases to Somali forces last week. A seventh base was closed down.

The AU wants to gradually reduce the number of troops until December of 2024, when the mission concludes. 

The drawdown of the 2,000 soldiers, 400 from each of the five troop-contributing countries – Burundi, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Uganda – will bring the size of the force down to 16,586. 

The AU has agreed with the Somali government to pull out another 3,000 troops by the end of September.  

“It’s a plan not well-thought out, it’s hasty,” Aden said. 

Aden called for the drawdown to be “paused and reviewed.” 

But other Somali officials disagreed. Yasin Abdullahi Mohamud, known as Farey, is a member of the parliament, and the former director of the National Intelligence and Security Agency. He is currently among the officials mobilizing local forces against al-Shabab. 

He said Somalis are grateful to the AU forces but the decision for the drawdown is not a hasty move.

“It’s the right time for the forces to leave,” he said. “It’s essential the national armed forces takeover responsibility of the security.” 

Mohamud said ATMIS forces were not largely involved in the military operations against al-Shabab within the last year, and he asserted the time has come for Somali forces to step up. 

The AU troop drawdown is coming at a time when the federal government is preparing to resume military operations against al-Shabab that were interrupted by rains and deadly militant attacks.  

The Somali government is also preparing a second phase of operations dubbed the “Black Lion.” Troops from Somalia’s neighbors Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya are slated to participate. 

An AU official who requested anonymity told VOA Somali that he doesn’t expect all 2,000 of the troops being withdrawn to be unavailable to Somalia. He said troops from Ethiopia and Uganda could continue to support the Somali National Army in fighting against al-Shabab on a bilateral basis – that is, not affiliated with ATMIS. 

The drawdown also coincided with increased al-Shabab attacks in Somalia and in the neighboring Kenya. In late May, al-Shabab carried out deadly attacks on AU and Somali forces in the towns of Bulo Marer and Masagaway, killing dozens of soldiers.  

Additionally, al-Shabab also increased attacks in Kenya in recent weeks. As many as 15 attacks have been recorded in the coastal Lamu and Northeastern regions, some of which killed soldiers and civilians. 

Somali officials contend the group’s strategy is to protect the corridor between Somalia and Kenya, which its militias use to carry out attacks on either side of the border.  

Some officials, including Aden, say al-Shabab attacks in Kenya are an indication the group wants to continue fighting inside Kenya if defeated in Somalia. 

“Yes, they could continue the war in Kenya if they are destroyed in Somalia,” he said.  

“They will move to the [Boni] forest, the wetland along the coast on either side of the border. They want to keep hiding there and try to make a comeback, and attack areas seized from them, and to carry out ambushes and violence.” 

Al-Shabab, an Islamist radical group, has been fighting for control of Somalia since 2007.

Kenya lawmaker Bashir Abdullahi who represents Mandera, a county that has seen increased al-Shabab activities, agrees the recent attacks can be attributed to the pressure the group faces inside Somalia from local fighters and the Somali government. 

“They are sort of looking for an escape route or where to hide, and the place which is bordering happens to be Northeastern Kenya,” he said. 

Abdullahi expects even more attacks if Kenya troops participate in the next phase of military operations as expected. 

“Certainly al-Shabab will still retaliate,” he said. “They did that even before by virtue of us, Kenya, being part of AMISOM, so we believe this could also be the same.” 

Abdullahi rejects the assessment al-Shabab is so entrenched in Kenya that it can continue fighting there if they are defeated in Somalia. 

“Of course, there is that possibility of saying if they are removed or the heat is so much on them inside Somalia, them coming toward Kenya, that is a possibility,” he said. 

“But them being entrenched just like they do in Somalia, I don’t think that can happen…there is no way they can operate further.”
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In Kenya’s capital, a radio station has reached a loyal audience by broadcasting in a so-called street language. ‘Sheng’ is a dialect that draws from English, Swahili and other established languages. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo
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