A South African investigative journalism organization on Monday won a legal battle against a powerful businessman in a case that tested the country’s media freedom. 

The amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism had earlier been barred from using documents acquired from a source in its reporting on controversial businessman Zunaid Moti, who claimed they were stolen.

But High Court Judge Roland Sutherland on Monday set aside that order, describing it as “an abuse of the process of court.”  

The organization had been running an in-depth investigation into the tycoon, who was accused of unscrupulous business dealings, including with President Emmerson Mnangagwa of neighboring Zimbabwe.  

In a series of articles, amaBhungane exposed how Moti allegedly used his ties with Zimbabwe’s political elite to secure lucrative mining contracts.  

“A key dimension of effective investigative journalism is receiving information from sources that wish to remain anonymous,” wrote Sutherland.  

The judge stressed that “within limits … the law acknowledges the propriety of protecting sources from being unmasked.”  

A large part of the case, heard last week, focused on distinguishing between freedom of the press and protection of privacy.  

“We are delighted at this resounding vindication of investigative journalism and amaBhungane’s role of pursuing it with integrity and in the public interest,” its editor-in-chief Sam Sole told AFP.  

In a recent interview with AFP, Sole pointed to the financial strain the center, which relies on donations, faced in mounting a defense against someone with deep pockets.  

The amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism is a nonprofit — funded by the public and NGOs — which specializes in delving into political corruption.   

The center, which has 13 journalists, draws its name from the Zulu word for dung beetle — a diligent species that fulfills a crucial role.  

Last month, the charity was stunned when another high court judge ordered it to stop publishing further reports into Moti and to hand over documents used for the investigation.  

The Moti Group is a conglomerate with a large international portfolio including property development, mining and aviation.  

It said in a statement it was considering appealing the judgment at the Constitutional Court because it “firmly believes that a factual finding was not made on amaBhungane’s possession of stolen documents.”  

“While I sincerely appreciate and support the freedom of the press, I do not believe that this can come at the expense of any person or entity’s constitutional right to privacy,” said the company’s CEO and South Africa’s former treasury boss, Dondo Mogajane.  

The court also ordered the Moti group to pay amaBhungane’s legal fees. 
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Officials in Cameroon say plastic bag pollution in the country has doubled in the past four years to 600,000 tons, harming the environment and animal and human health. The central African country in 2012 banned the production, sale, and use of non-biodegradable plastic bags, but huge quantities are smuggled in from neighboring Nigeria.

A woman using a bullhorn tells civilians at Mfoundi market in Yaounde that plastic bags constitute a serious menace to the environment.

She said diseases and floods will decrease when civilians return to the old practice of packaging and storing food in plantain, banana and other plant leaves.

Cameron’s ministries of trade and the environment say caravans were dispatched to markets in the central African state as part of activities marking International Plastic Bag Free Day celebrated annually on July 3.

Florence Tumasang is a doctor with the Cameroon Baptist Convention’s health services agency.

She said plant leaves are biodegradable, and enriched with antioxidants, whereas plastic bags are dangerous to health and the environment.

“I don’t know how we are going to stop our people from tying hot food in plastic bags because the heat helps those plastic bags produce biotoxins. These biotoxins infiltrate our food and they are cancerogenous. We have to go back to using leaves which are natural to tie our hot food,” said Tumasang.

Many people in Cameroon use paper bags as well, but some argue that paper bags are not as good at conserving cooked food.

In 2012, Cameroon banned the use of non-biodegradable plastic packaging on the grounds they clog waterways, spoil the landscape, and take a thousand years to break down. When they do degrade, they break into particles that pollute the soil and water.

After dropping for several years, non-biodegradable plastic bag pollution has doubled since 2019 to 600,000 tons per year, according to the government.

Abel Foncha Ghogomu is the highest government trade official in Cameroon’s Northwest region. He said it is not easy to stop what he calls the huge quantities of plastic bags illegally smuggled from Nigeria on a daily basis.

“We actually have not been able to stop the plastics from entering from the neighboring countries. The porous nature of the region has been the problem we are facing,” said Ghogomu.

Millions of additional bags are produced illegally each year in Cameroon.

Civilians using the bags say the government did not start producing other types of biodegradable food packaging materials in partnership with private companies as it had promised.

The government acknowledges the packaging materials it is producing do not meet national needs yet and is encouraging civilians to use leaves.

International Plastic Bag Free Day is marked on July 3 every year to increase awareness of the damaging effects that single-use plastic bags cause on the environment.
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Doctors Without Borders said Sunday that there is a suspected outbreak of measles in an internal displacement camp in Sudan.

The international humanitarian organization said 13 children have died recently in the suspected outbreak at the camp in Sudan’s White Nile state.

“We are receiving sick children with suspected measles every day, most with complications,” the organization posted in a tweet.

A steady stream of people is coming to the camp as they flee the fighting between the country’s two warring factions.

Doctors Without Borders has two clinics in White Nile. The organization says it had over 3,000 patients in June and needs to “increase assistance, scale up services like vaccinations, nutritional support, shelter, water and sanitation.”
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A standoff between South Africa’s Women’s World Cup squad and the national soccer association over pay and other issues forced officials to field a makeshift team of little-known players that included a 13-year-old for a game against Botswana on Sunday.

The game was supposed to be the final warm-up match for the African women’s champion on home soil before it headed off to the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, but it turned into an embarrassment on and off the field as the entire World Cup squad sat out the game.

South Africa’s team of replacement players hastily pulled together from local clubs lost 5-0 to Botswana at the Tsakane Stadium near Johannesburg. They were 4-0 down at halftime in a game that was delayed for an hour at the request of the South African Football Association, SAFA, so it could scramble and put together a team.

South Africa coach Desiree Ellis said one of the players she had to draft in was aged 13. In a post-match interview, she didn’t comment on the problems.

The World Cup players only arrived at the match at halftime, when they emerged to watch from the stands.

SAFA also didn’t immediately comment on what sparked the standoff, but Thulaganyo Gaoshubelwe, the president of the South African Football Players Union, which represents the interests of soccer players, said the incident was partly caused by poor pay for the players.

“They are fighting for their rights,” Gaoshubelwe said of the South African players in a video posted on his union’s official Twitter account. “SAFA doesn’t want to include money in their contracts. We must fight for the rights of these players.”

Gaoshubelwe, who was standing next to some of the players outside the team hotel in the video, said their complaints had been “dismissed” by SAFA. He was also seen in discussions with the players and accompanied them to the stadium when they turned up at halftime.

Gaoshubelwe claimed SAFA president Danny Jordaan was to blame for the standoff.

South Africa Sports Minister Zizi Kodwa said in a statement he would be meeting with the players’ union on Tuesday “to hear the serious concerns expressed by the team.”

The meeting would be about the players’ “welfare” and issues related to their contracts, Kodwa said.

The squad is due to fly to New Zealand in two groups on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation reported that players were also annoyed that their farewell game before the World Cup was held at the Tsakane Stadium, which holds just 5,000 people and is not a high-profile soccer venue.

The players viewed that as a mark of disrespect for them from their national soccer association, the SABC reported.

SABC and other television networks broadcast images of the World Cup squad members standing around outside their team bus at a hotel shortly before the game was due to kick off. SAFA CEO Lydia Monyepao was seen speaking with the players.

South Africa won the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations last year for its first major title, yet the players have often complained that they aren’t given the recognition or benefits that the men’s team gets.

South Africa is due to play Costa Rica in New Zealand on July 15 in its final World Cup warm-up game. South Africa plays Sweden, Argentina and Italy in the group stage at the World Cup, starting against the Swedes on July 23.
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Clashes between Sudan’s army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intensified on Sunday, as the war in the country’s capital and western regions entered its 12th week with no attempts in sight to bring a peaceful end to the conflict.

Air and artillery strikes as well as small arms fire could be heard, particularly in the city of Omdurman, as well as in the capital Khartoum, as the conflict deepens a humanitarian crisis and threatens to draw in other regional interests.

The RSF said it brought down an army warplane and a drone in Bahri, in statements to which the army did not immediately respond.

“We’re terrified, every day the strikes are getting worse,” 25-year-old Nahid Salah, living in northern Omdurman, said by phone to Reuters.

The RSF has dominated the capital on the ground and has been accused of looting and occupying houses, while the army has focused on air and artillery strikes.

Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan last week called on young men to join the fight against the RSF and on Sunday the army posted photos it said were of new recruits.

The Sudanese Doctors Union accused the RSF on Saturday of raiding the Shuhada hospital, one of the few still operating in the country, and killing a staff member. The RSF denied the accusation.

The war has also hit cities in the western Kordofan and Darfur regions, in particular the westernmost city of El Geneina, where the RSF and Arab militias have been accused of ethnic cleansing.

The Combating Violence Against Women Unit, a government agency, said on Saturday it had recorded 88 cases of sexual assault, which it said was a fraction of the likely real total, in Khartoum, El Geneina, and Nyala, capital of South Darfur, with victims in most cases accusing the RSF.

Talks hosted in Jeddah and sponsored by the United States and Saudi Arabia were suspended last month, while a mediation attempt by East African countries was criticized by the army as it accused Kenya of bias.

Last week, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy on the country’s Sovereign Council Malik Agar expressed openness to any mediation attempts by Turkey or Russia, though no official efforts have been announced.

 
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NAIROBI, Kenya — Nowhere in the world has a higher rate of unsafe abortions or unintended pregnancies than sub-Saharan Africa, where women often face scorn for becoming pregnant before marriage.

Efforts to legalize and make abortions safer in Africa were shaken when the U.S. Supreme Court ended the national right to an abortion a year ago. Within days, Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio declared that his government would decriminalize abortion “at a time when sexual and reproductive health rights for women are being either overturned or threatened.”

But some U.S.-based organizations active in Africa were emboldened, especially in largely Christian countries. One is Family Watch International, a nonprofit Christian conservative organization whose anti-LGBTQ+ stance, anti-abortion activities and “intense focus on Africa” led to its designation as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In April, Family Watch International helped to develop a “family values and sovereignty” meeting at Uganda’s presidential offices with lawmakers and other delegates from more than 20 African countries. The organization’s Africa director also is advocating for his country, Ethiopia, to revoke a 2005 law that expanded abortion access and dramatically reduced maternal mortality.

“It’s kind of like the gloves are off,” Sarah Shaw, head of advocacy at U.K.-based MSI Reproductive Choices, an international provider of reproductive health services, said in an interview.

In a September speech to the African Bar Association, the president of Family Watch International, Sharon Slater, alleged that donor countries were attempting a “sexual social recolonization of Africa” by smuggling in legal abortion along with sex education and LGBTQ+ rights.

“Sexual rights activists know if they can capture the hearts and minds of Africa’s children and indoctrinate and sexualize them, they will capture the future lawyers, teachers, judges, politicians, presidents, vice presidents and more, and thus they will capture the very heart of Africa,” Slater claimed.

Her speech in Malawi was attended by the country’s president, a former leader of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God movement.

After lobbying lawmakers in the southern African nation not to consider a bill that would have allowed abortion under certain circumstances, the U.S.-based Catholic group Human Life International told its supporters in March that “thanks to you, Malawi is safe from legal abortion.”

The African Union two decades ago recognized the right to abortion in cases of rape and incest or when the life of the mother or fetus is endangered or the mother’s mental or physical health is at risk.

A growing number of countries have relatively liberal abortion laws. Benin legalized abortion less than a year before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, though Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, allows abortion only to save the mother’s life.

African experts say events in the U.S. could reverse gains in the availability of safe abortion procedures, especially since the U.S. government is the largest global donor of international reproductive health assistance.

Such changes could deeply affect the lives of women of reproductive age in sub-Saharan Africa, where 77% of abortions, or more than 6 million a year, are estimated to be unsafe, the Guttmacher Institute, an international research and policy organization with headquarters in New York, said in 2020.

Unsafe abortions cause 16% of maternal deaths in the World Health Organization’s largely sub-Saharan Africa region, the U.N. agency said last year, “with variations across countries depending on the level of restrictions to abortion.”

Abortion opponents are especially outspoken in East Africa, where countries publicly wrestle with the issue of teen pregnancy but offer little sex education and access to legal abortions in limited circumstances.

A sexual and reproductive health bill introduced in 2021 is still under debate by the East African Community, whose member nations include Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Some Catholic and other conservative organizations have criticized a section that would allow a woman to terminate a pregnancy in cases of rape, incest or endangered health.

Earlier this year, the Protestant Council of Rwanda directed all health facilities run by its member institutions to stop performing abortions, although Rwandan law permits them in certain cases.

“We are having a very strong anti-rights narrative,” Brenda Otieno, research coordinator with the Kisumu Medical and Education Trust in Kenya, said during a Tuesday webinar about the global effects of the U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Abortion providers are often harassed, Otieno said, and a year ago, Kenya passed a national reproductive health policy that paid little attention to safe abortion care.

In Uganda, one rights watchdog said the issue of abortion access is taboo, with advocates facing discrimination, even as some women resort to self-mutilation.

“We’ve seen a number of people losing their lives,” said Twaibu Wamala, executive director of the Uganda Harm Reduction Network. Abortion is illegal in Uganda, although it can be legally carried out by a licensed medical worker who determines that a pregnancy threatens the mother’s life. But many doctors, fearing medical complications, only offer post-abortion care that may be too expensive or too late to save a woman’s life.

In Ethiopia, civil society workers have asked the government to investigate what they fear is a new trend: fewer public health facilities providing abortions and more women seeking care after unsafe abortions.

Groups that oppose abortion in Africa’s second most populous nation are mostly incited by outsiders and “consider the Supreme Court decision as fuel for them,” Abebe Sibru, the Ethiopia director for MSI Reproductive Choices, said.
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Sierra Leone’s main opposition party on Saturday demanded a re-run of last weekend’s presidential election after incumbent President Julius Maada Bio was declared the winner and swiftly sworn in for a second term in the West African nation. 

The opposition All People’s Congress party, or APC, accused Sierra Leone’s electoral commission of conspiring with Bio’s party to rig the results. In a statement, the party also called for the resignation of electoral commission chairman Mohamed Konneh and his entire team among others. 

“What culminated in the rogue announcement of fraudulent election results on June 25 was not just a naked theft of the votes of the suffering masses who needed change, it represents the biggest threat to our democracy, unity and survival as a nation,” it said. 

According to official results, Bio received 56.17% of the vote, enough to beat his man challenger Kamara while avoiding run-off. Electoral officials said Kamara had received 41.16% of ballots cast. 

Bio, who already was sworn into his second term several days after the vote, tweeted for “all Sierra Leoneans to be peaceful and law-abiding.” 

“This is a collective victory for every citizen, and we must come together now that elections are over for the pursuit of a common goal, which is the development of our dear country,” Bio tweeted. 

There have been concerns that Sierra Leoneans who dispute the election’s outcome could take to the streets. Already the West African nation has seen demonstrators protest the state of the economy in recent months. Nearly 60% of Sierra Leone’s population of more than 7 million are facing poverty, with youth unemployment being one of the highest in West Africa. 

The APC’s statement comes as pressure mounts on the electoral commission to open up its conduct of the tabulation process of the elections results. 

While regional observers like the African Union and ECOWAS declared the elections free and fair, other Western observers have stressed that the counting and tabulation process lacked transparency. The European Union, the UK, U.S. and France in particular have pressured the electoral commission to display results from each polling station. 
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NAIROBI, KENYA – At least 48 people were killed Friday when a truck apparently lost control and plowed into other vehicles and pedestrians at a busy junction in western Kenya, police said. 

Television images showed scenes of devastation at the crash site with the mangled wreckage of several minibuses and the overturned truck as rescue workers hunted for people feared trapped. 

“So far we can confirm 48 dead and we are suspecting one or two are still trapped under the truck,” local police commander Geoffrey Mayek told AFP after the accident on the highway between the towns of Kericho and Nakuru. 

He said another 30 people had been seriously injured and rushed to various hospitals. 

Tom Mboya Odero, the regional police commander for the Rift Valley, said the truck traveling toward Kericho “lost control and rammed into eight vehicles, several motorcycles, people who were by the roadside, vendors, and other people who were on other businesses.”  

Kenyan leaders including President William Ruto expressed their condolences after the accident, which took place about 6:30 p.m. (1530 GMT) at a busy area known as Londiani junction. 

Transport Minister Kipchumba Murkomen said on Twitter that the rescue efforts would be followed by an investigation to determine the cause of the crash. 

Collins Kipkoech, a senior doctor at Kericho County Hospital, said his facility’s morgue had so far received 45 bodies while more victims were taken to other hospitals “and the rescue is still ongoing.” 

The Kenyan Red Cross, which sent ambulances and rescue workers to the scene, said heavy rains were hindering rescue operations. 

“The truck was [traveling at] high speed. … It tried to avoid several vehicles before it came straight into the market,” said one witness, Maureen Jepkoech. 

“All I can say is that I am lucky to be alive because I saw what happened and I am alive because I ran. I am just lucky,” she added.  

“I have seen a very bad scene, bodies and blood all over. So many people are dead.” 

‘Happened in a flash’

Another witness, Joel Rotich, said, “The accident happened in a flash. Many of them had no time to escape. There was a lot of confusion because people were screaming all over and everyone was running after the accident.”

He added, “It took some time before people gathered courage and started helping those injured.”

According to figures from the National Transport and Safety Authority, at least 21,760 people were involved in road accidents last year in Kenya, including 4,690 who died.  

“My heart is crushed,” Kericho County Governor Erick Mutai wrote on Facebook, describing it as a “dark moment for the people of Kericho.” 

“My heart goes out to the families who have just lost their loved ones,” he said, adding that ambulances had been mobilized and all health facilities were on standby. 

Ruto, for his part, said the country was mourning with the families who had lost their loved ones. He urged motorists to be extra cautious on the roads, particularly when there was heavy rain. 

“It is distressing that some of the fatalities are young people with a promising future and businesspeople who were on their daily chores,” he said on Twitter. 
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DAKAR, SENEGAL —  A slew of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and instances of torture by Burkina Faso’s military has terrorized communities in the country’s northeast this year, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Thursday.

The violence took place between February and May across the province of Séno. The report identifies at least 27 people who were either summarily executed or disappeared and then killed, most of them members of the Fulani ethnic group.

Jihadi fighters linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have waged a violent insurgency in Burkina Faso for seven years. The violence has killed thousands of people and divided the country, leading to two coups last year.

The report by the New York-based watchdog comes in the wake of an April massacre in which residents say security forces killed at least 150 civilians in Karma, a northern village near the Mali border.

A Burkina Faso government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the report.

In one account, 10 men in the village of Gangaol, all of the Fulani ethnic group, were hauled away in the backs of trucks, pushed out, and fired upon.

“The soldiers shot and I ran. I saw the others falling on the ground, but I kept running,” the HRW report quoted a survivor of the incident. Only four of the men survived, two of whom suffered critical injuries.

“In the cases we documented, most of those who have been victims of these crimes were from the Fulani ethnic group,” explained Ilaria Allegrozzi, the senior regional researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The Fulani people in Burkina Faso and Mali have been accused of collaborating with Islamic extremists, and as a result have often been targeted by security forces and others.

“The only reason is hatred,” said the father of a teen boy who had been shot by suspected government forces, according to the report.

The upsurge in violence comes as the nation’s government recently pledged to double its number of volunteer auxiliary military units, known as VDPs, to 100,000.

“The recruitment of VDPs has coincided with an increase of abuses by both sides,” Allegrozzi said.

Just as Burkinabe soldiers strike villages suspected of harboring extremist elements, the presence of army recruiters in a Burkina Faso community often invites violent intimidation by armed groups.

“I think it’s also important to recognize that they are fighting a legitimate war,” Allegrozzi said, referring to the armed forces. As recently as Monday, 34 members of the military were killed in an ambush by suspected extremist fighters, according to a government press release.

“What we are questioning is the way this fight is conducted, which is not according to human rights standards and doesn’t take into account civilian protection,” she said.

The targeting of civilians is unnecessary, inhumane, and ultimately counterproductive, the report also says.

“Executions and disappearances by Burkina Faso’s army are not only war crimes, but they breed resentment among targeted populations that fuel recruitment to armed groups,” Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch, wrote in Thursday’s report.

“Burkina Faso should ensure that provost marshals, who are responsible for discipline in the armed forces and detainees’ rights, are present during all military operations,” the report stressed, adding that transitional authorities should work with the U.N. human rights office to hold offenders within its military’s ranks accountable. 
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About 180,000 Zimbabweans working in South Africa who faced the threat of being kicked out of the country, even if their children are citizens, have welcomed a court ruling to stop the action. Pretoria’s High Court ruled the government’s plan to terminate their special residency permits was unconstitutional.

The High Court’s decision is a blow to South Africa’s Home Affairs Ministry and a win for Zimbabweans, many of whom have been in South Africa for more than a decade, having left neighboring Zimbabwe amid political and economic turmoil during former president Robert Mugabe’s rule.

To deal with the influx from across the border, South Africa initially introduced special permits to allow them to work but in 2021 said it was ending the program.

The Zimbabwe Immigration Federation challenged the government’s intention to force Zimbabweans to return home and the group’s chairman, Luke Dzviti, on Thursday welcomed the court’s verdict.

“I welcome with two hands the judgment, handed yesterday by the High Court of South Africa, in the favor of our organization, Zimbabwe Immigration Federation, and such stance or gesture shows that justice is still prevailing in the Republic of South African, and we are grateful because there was going to be a humanitarian disaster,” he said.

Dzviti said the ending of the Zimbabwe exemption permits would have caused a huge exodus and meant many families in Zimbabwe being supported by a breadwinner in South Africa would have been pushed into greater poverty.

The court ruled that the permits would be extended for one more year. After that, Dzviti said his organization would launch another application.

Siya Qoza, spokesman for South Africa’s Minister of Home Affairs, said it was uncertain whether the government would appeal.

“The minister is still studying the two judgements and taking legal advice on them. He will, in due course, respond fully to them. In the ensuing communication he will outline further steps that will be taken, including appeals, if any,” he said.

Silous Sibanda is a driver who has been living in South Africa for about 20 years and currently holds an exemption permit.

“When there was no verdict yet, we remember we were still in the dark. We couldn’t do anything, we couldn’t move, we were worried that maybe we’d lose whatever we’d done. … It’s better for those with jobs and who were working. But at least now we are given the space so we can do things properly, and proper planning as well, so it was a big relief for most of us,” said Sibanda.

As Africa’s most industrialized economy, South Africa is a favored destination for Zimbabweans and other migrants from the continent. There have been incidents of xenophobic violence, however, with South Africans targeting other African nationals. Last year, a Zimbabwean man in Johannesburg was killed by a mob.
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Cameroon is cracking down on the smuggling of cocoa, cotton, and other cash crops to Nigeria by temporarily banning the legal trade as well. Since announcing the ban two weeks ago, authorities have sent hundreds of police to the border and seized scores of trucks. But Cameroon’s struggling farmers are protesting the ban, saying it’s more profitable and safer to sell their goods to Nigeria.

Cameroon police and customs officials say they blocked scores of trucks that attempted to smuggle cash crops in the past two weeks from northern towns and villages into Nigeria.

Police say they seized wheat, corn, rice, cocoa, and cotton since launching a temporary ban on all crop exports to Nigeria on June 13.

Cameroon’s ministry of trade says the ban was needed as it loses $165 million each year from the smuggling of cash crops to its northern neighbor – 60% of the total trade.

The government ordered hundreds of police to the border and to track down at least 12 trucks that fled from authorities.

Cameroon’s farmers say the ban will be hard to enforce along the porous, 2,000-kilometer-long border.

Baba Ahmadou is the spokesperson of the Association of Cereal Farmers on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria.

Speaking by phone from the border town of Mara, he says many farmers are not able to store their crops for selling in Cameroon.

Ahmadou says Cameroon does not have enough facilities to protect cocoa, wheat, corn, rice and sorghum from moisture, dust, and [insect] swarms that invade and destroy crops after harvest. He says farmers prefer selling their produce to a ready Nigerian market because rice, corn, and raw cotton processing equipment is scare, old, and there are regular power cuts.

Ahmadou says selling to Nigerian merchants is also more profitable, and he cites the example that farmers can get about 20% more for a 50-kilogram bag of unprocessed rice.

Cameroon’s government complains it pays subsidies to farmers to sell their cash crops locally and at agreed prices.

The ban was announced by Cameroon’s trade minister Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana.

He says they are aware of the challenges for the government and the farmers.

“One of the challenges, of course, is the inadequacies of post-harvest processing and storage facilities,” he said. “The government has developed some programs to process 40 percent of our total production, and now with the prohibition of child labor and with the prohibition of deforestation, those people who are destroying forests to create new plantations will not have access to the international market.”

Cameroon’s Ministry of Agriculture says illegal cocoa exports to Nigeria spiked after anglophone separatists in 2017 launched a rebellion against Yaoundé.

The rebels are seeking to create a breakaway state from Cameroon’s French-speaking majority.

Shivron Arrey, a cocoa exporter in Kumba, an English-speaking Southwestern town, says the rebels stop them from selling the cash crops to French-speaking towns.

“With the separatists’ crisis, enterprises no longer come to buy cocoa,” she said. “Fighters destroy vehicles belonging to companies that attempt to buy. Cocoa farmers were abandoned to themselves. The easiest market they could count on was across the border in Nigeria.”

Cameroon authorities say the military is protecting farmers from rebels so the domestic trade can resume.

But farmers say smuggling to Nigeria will continue as long as their options are facing separatist violence and lower prices at home or risking illegal exports across the porous border.
…

A British court ruled Thursday that a government plan to send asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda is unlawful, delivering a blow to the Conservative administration’s pledge to stop migrants making risky journeys across the English Channel

In a split two-to-one ruling, three Court of Appeal judges said Rwanda could not be considered a “safe third country” where migrants could be sent.

But the judges said that a policy of deporting asylum seekers to another country was not in itself illegal. The government is likely to challenge the ruling at the U.K. Supreme Court. It has until July 6 to lodge an appeal.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to “stop the boats” — a reference to the overcrowded dinghies and other small craft that make the journey from northern France carrying migrants who hope to live in the U.K. More than 45,000 people arrived in Britain across the Channel in 2022, and several died in the attempt.

The U.K. and Rwandan governments agreed more than a year ago that some migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in small boats would be sent to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed. Those granted asylum would stay in the East African country rather than return to Britain.

The U.K. government argues that the policy will smash the business model of criminal gangs that ferry migrants on hazardous journeys across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Human rights groups say it is immoral and inhumane to send people more than 6,400 kilometers to a country they don’t want to live in, and argue that most Channel migrants are desperate people who have no authorized way to come to the U.K. They also cite Rwanda’s poor human rights record, including allegations of torture and killings of government opponents.

Britain has already paid Rwanda $170 million under the deal, but no one has yet been deported there.

Britain’s High Court ruled in December that the policy is legal and doesn’t breach Britain’s obligations under the U.N. Refugee Convention or other international agreements, rejecting a lawsuit from several asylum-seekers, aid groups and a border officials’ union.

But the court allowed the claimants, who include asylum-seekers from Iraq, Iran and Syria facing deportation under the government plan, to challenge that decision on issues including whether the plan is “systemically unfair” and whether asylum-seekers would be safe in Rwanda.

In a partial victory for the government, the appeals court ruled Thursday that the U.K.’s international obligations did not rule out removing asylum-seekers to a safe third country.

But two of the three ruled Rwanda was not safe because its asylum system had “serious deficiencies.” They said asylum seekers “would face a real risk of being returned to their countries of origin,” where they could be mistreated.

Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett – the most senior judge in England and Wales – disagreed with his two colleagues. He said assurances given by the Rwandan government were enough to ensure the migrants would be safe.

The government of Rwanda took issue with the ruling, saying the nation is “one of the safest countries in the world.”

“As a society, and as a government, we have built a safe, secure, dignified environment, in which migrants and refugees have equal rights and opportunities as Rwandans,” said government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo. “Everyone relocated here under this partnership will benefit from this.”

Yasmine Ahmed, U.K. director of Human Rights Watch, said the verdict was “some rare good news in an otherwise bleak landscape for human rights in the U.K.”

She urged Home Secretary Suella Braverman, the minister in charge of immigration, to “abandon this unworkable and unethical fever dream of a policy and focus her efforts on fixing our broken and neglected migration system.”

Even if the plan is ultimately ruled legal, it’s unclear how many people could be sent to Rwanda. The government’s own assessment acknowledges it would be extremely expensive, coming in at an estimated $214,000 per person.

But it is doubling down on the idea, drafting legislation barring anyone who arrives in the U.K. in small boats or by other unauthorized means from applying for asylum. If passed, the bill would compel the government to detain all such arrivals and deport them to their homeland or a safe third country.
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