Farmers in Ghana are embracing new methods to reduce food spoilage after the harvest and boost their revenue streams. The changes are coming at a crucial time. The West African country’s post-harvest loss rate has steadily increased in recent years, affected by storage difficulties and dwindling means of export. Nneka Chile reports from Accra, Ghana.
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Category: Africa
Africa news. Africa is highly biodiverse, it is the continent with the largest number of megafauna species, as it was least affected by the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna. However, Africa also is heavily affected by a wide range of environmental issues, including desertification, deforestation, water scarcity, and pollution
Slow Transition to Civilian Rule in Chad Sparks International Concerns
Analysts say the international community is reluctant to put pressure on the Chadian government to transition to civilian rule. In this report from N’djamena, reporter Henry Wilkins speaks to one man arrested during protests against the junta and local politicians who say civilians need political representation to air their grievances against the state.
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Sudan’s Conflict Enters Third Month
Sudan’s devastating war raged into a third month on Thursday, as a governor’s killing marked a new escalation in the western region of Darfur.
Since April 15, the regular army headed by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo have been locked in combat that has destroyed entire neighborhoods of the capital, Khartoum.
The fighting quickly spread to the provinces, particularly Darfur, and has killed at least 1,800 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project’s latest figures from last month.
Burhan accused the RSF of killing the governor of West Darfur state, Khamis Abdullah Abakar, in a “treacherous attack” on Wednesday.
Abakar was captured and later killed after he made remarks critical of the paramilitaries in a telephone interview with a Saudi TV channel.
The Darfur Lawyers Association condemned his “assassination” as an act of “barbarism, brutality and cruelty.”
Nationwide, Sudan’s war has driven around 2.2 million people from their homes, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Of these, more than 528,000 have sought refuge in neighboring countries, said the U.N. agency.
“In our worst expectations, we didn’t see this war dragging on for this long,” said Mohamad al-Hassan Othman who has fled his home in Khartoum.
Everything in “our life has changed,” he told AFP. “We don’t know whether we’ll be back home or need to start a new life.”
‘Completely devastated’
“We have nothing left,” said one Khartoum resident, Ahmed Taha. “The entire country has been completely devastated.”
“Everywhere you look, you’ll see where bombs have fallen and bullets have struck. Every inch of Sudan is a disaster area.”
U.S. and Saudi mediation efforts are at a standstill after the collapse of multiple cease-fires in the face of flagrant violations by both sides.
A record 25 million people — more than half the population — are in need of aid, according to the U.N., which says it has received only a fraction of needed funding.
Saudi Arabia has announced an international pledging conference for next week.
Many of the displaced have lost loved ones as well as “all their belongings and livelihoods,” said Anja Wolz of the aid group Doctors Without Borders.
The group, which runs mobile clinics for the displaced in Madani, 200 kilometers (120 miles) southeast of Khartoum, noted a “worrying increase” in people escaping the capital.
Despite dangers and obstacles, latest U.N. figures say aid has now reached 1.8 million people, still only a fraction of those in need.
“We have been suffering and suffering and suffering the scourge of this war for two months,” said another Khartoum resident, Soha Abdulrahman.
The conflict’s other main battleground, Darfur, was already scarred by a two-decade war that left hundreds of thousands dead and more than two million displaced.
No ‘red lines’
The army on Wednesday said the “kidnapping and assassinating” of West Darfur governor Abakar was part of the RSF’s “barbaric crimes.”
Sudan analyst Kholood Khair said the “heinous assassination” was meant “to silence his highlighting of genocide… in Darfur.”
Khair, founder of Khartoum-based think tank Confluence Advisory, said in a tweet it was unclear “what the red lines are anymore,” urging international condemnation “as well as action to protect the people of Darfur and elsewhere.”
Homes and markets have been burnt to the ground, hospitals and aid facilities looted and more than 149,000 people sent fleeing into neighboring Chad.
The Umma Party, one of Sudan’s main civilian groups, said El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, had been turned into a “disaster zone,” and urged international organizations to provide help.
The Darfur Lawyers Association described “massacres and ethnic cleansing” in El Geneina carried out by “cross-border militias supported by the RSF” which “serve agendas that have nothing to do with the interests of Darfur or Sudan.”
Daglo’s RSF have their origins in the Janjaweed militias which former strongman Omar al-Bashir unleashed on ethnic minorities in the region in 2003, drawing charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
An army official said Wednesday that the paramilitaries had begun using drones, which an RSF source said they had obtained “from commandeered army centers.”
Both sources spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
According to a military analyst from the region who also requested anonymity for his safety, the RSF might have obtained the drones from the Yarmouk weapons manufacturing and arms depot complex, which they overran just days after the collapse of U.S. and Saudi-brokered cease-fire talks.
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Eco-Warriors of Africa
A terrestrial emergency is unfolding the world over, and Africa is particularly at risk. In addition to the exponential change in weather patterns and food systems already experienced by many communities across the continent, the projected effects of climate change, deforestation, and land degradation could result in the extinction of species and have profound effects on people and ecosystems. The world’s youngest continent is under siege, in particular, the 70 percent of her population who are under thirty, are staring at a bleak future, unless they do something urgently. Juma Majanga looks at how Africa’s young leaders are fighting to save the planet.
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Sudan’s War Takes Deadly Toll on Dialysis Patients
Kidney dialysis patients are dying, and dead bodies have been left to decompose in a morgue and in city streets as Sudan’s war rages on, despite efforts by volunteers and aid workers to keep critical healthcare running.
Sudan’s health sector was already near collapse because of a lack of resources before the conflict, and it has been shattered by nearly two months of fighting across the country between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.
More than 60 hospitals in conflict zones have been put out of service, and the 29 that are still operating are threatened by closure caused by power and water cuts and shortage of staff, according to the United Nations.
“Despite all the best efforts of Sudanese doctors … who are working in extremely difficult conditions, this is certainly not a sustainable situation,” Patrick Youssef, International Committee of the Red Cross regional director for Africa, told Reuters.
Dr. Mohammed Wahbi, who manages one of Sudan’s largest children’s hospitals, across the Nile from Khartoum in Omdurman, said it normally received up to 300 patients a day.
“Once the war broke out, RSF forces stationed their vehicles in front of the hospital and its soldiers entered the building, which made the facility unsafe for patients,” he said. “Many stayed away, except those who were desperate for dialysis treatment.”
Two weeks ago, the hospital stopped providing treatment as dialysis supplies dwindled.
In El-Obeid, southwest of Khartoum, a power outage lasting more than two weeks has put a kidney dialysis unit at risk of shutdown and led to the deaths of at least 12 dialysis patients, a doctors union statement said Sunday.
Residents say roads into the strategically located city are under blockade, with supplies of food and medicine cut off.
Engineers tried to reach a local power station to restore electricity, but were assaulted before they could arrive, the doctors union said.
Renal disease constitutes an important health problem in Sudan, where treatment is limited and expensive. According to the International Society of Nephrology, an estimated 8,000 people in Sudan depend on dialysis to live.
In Ombada, on the outskirts of Omdurman, the main hospital has had to halve the frequency of patient visits and shut down their operating rooms, said general director Alaa El Din Ibrahim Ali, because of power cuts and lack of fuel for the generator.
Morgue breakdown
Nearby, a local morgue was unable to keep its refrigeration system working and 450 bodies began to decompose, seeping blood onto the floor.
The army has accused the RSF of forcibly evacuating and taking over key hospitals. The RSF said in a statement earlier this week that monitors had observed several of those hospitals, as well as power and water stations, were free of fighters.
With international humanitarian agencies struggling to scale up aid because of the pervasive danger of violence, one of many local volunteer units trying to maintain basic health services attempted to fix the outage.
“We faced problems buying equipment and fuel to get the cooling facilities up and running again,” said Moussa Hassan, a member of the group, who said the price of a gallon of fuel had soared to between $58 and $83, from $11 before the war.
The police and other authorities vanished when the conflict started, blocking burial procedures, he said.
“No death certificates have been issued. The dead cannot be buried anyway, given the constant fighting happening around us,” Hassan said.
The situation in Darfur, in western Sudan, is even more desperate. El Geneina, the city hit hardest, has been struck by waves of attacks by Arab militias backed by the RSF while cut off from humanitarian relief and phone networks.
“There are practically no health services [there] at all. It’s a city of death,” said Yasir Elamin, president of the Sudanese American Physicians.
The Geneina Teaching Hospital, the most visited hospital in West Darfur State, was forced to close in late April, its patients and doctors evacuated.
A secondary school teacher from the city, Hisham Juma, said he saw fighters take the hospital over before he fled to neighboring Chad earlier this month.
“Many patients died, including my neighbor, who needed dialysis every three days,” he told Reuters by phone from Chad.
Reuters was unable to verify his account or ascertain how many patients had died.
Moussa Ibrahim, a logistics supervisor in El Geneina for medical aid group MSF, which supported the hospital, said fighting in the city had made it dangerous to fetch basic necessities or retrieve dead bodies from the streets.
“Access was finally gained, but by that point the bodies had decomposed to the extent that they couldn’t be removed. Now, the best that can be done is to gather the bodies in a single location,” he said in a statement.
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Eight Kenyan Police Killed in Suspected al-Shabab Blast
Eight Kenyan police officers were killed when their vehicle was blown up by an improvised explosive device in a suspected attack by Somalia-based jihadi group al-Shabab, police said.
The incident took place on Tuesday in Garissa County in eastern Kenya, a region on the border with Somalia, where al-Shabab has been waging a bloody insurgency against the fragile government in Mogadishu for more than 15 years.
“We lost eight police officers in this attack,” North Eastern Regional Commissioner John Otieno said. “We suspect the work of al-Shabab who are now targeting security forces and passenger vehicles.”
Kenya first sent troops into Somalia in 2011 to combat the al-Qaida-affiliated militants and is now a major contributor of troops to an African Union military operation against the group.
But it has suffered a string of retaliatory assaults, including a bloody siege at the Westgate mall in Nairobi in 2013 that cost 67 lives and an attack on Garissa University in 2015 that killed 148 people.
In Somalia itself, al-Shabab has continued to wage deadly attacks despite a major offensive launched last August by pro-government forces, backed by the AU force known as ATMIS.
In one of the worst recent attacks, 54 Ugandan peacekeepers were killed when al-Shabab fighters stormed an African Union base in Somalia on May 26, according to Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni.
And on Saturday, Somali police said six civilians were killed in a six-hour siege by the militants at a beachside hotel in Mogadishu.
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Ministers Gather in Uganda to Look for Solutions to East Africa’s Refugee Crisis
Calls for countries in the East and Horn of Africa to address the needs of the millions of displaced people in the region came Tuesday at the start of a four-day ministerial conference being held by the Inter-governmental authority (IGAD) in the Ugandan capital.
Hilary Onek, Uganda’s Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, called on ministers to examine and address the wide range of factors that are forcing people from their homes. These factors, he said, include not only material issues but political ones.
“Some governments don’t tolerate opposition. And they clamp down on them and these people run to exile. Tribal intolerance. Like in Congo here there’s Lendu against the Hema group killing each other, and some are forced to flee their home. Those are the challenges of intolerance I’m talking about. And most of them are driven by ignorance,” Onek said.
Limited funding has been cited as one of the major challenges in handling the refugee crisis in the East and Horn of Africa. Uganda is currently hosting more than 1.5 million refugees, the largest population in Africa. Other refugee-hosting countries include Ethiopia with more than 830,000 refugees and Kenya, which has 560,000.
Matthew Crentsil, the UNHCR Country representative, says all these countries have single, unsustainable funding sources while their refugee burdens continue to grow. Crentsil said it is time for countries hosting refugees to look at expanding domestic and internal sourcing of funds, such as engaging the private sector.
“There should also be other means of supporting refugees,” he said. “It doesn’t pay at all keeping refugees in settlements and camps for years and feeding them for years. That is why we are advocating for an increase in livelihood opportunities and activities for refugees in the region.”
In October 2021, a military coup destabilized Sudan, which is already home to 1.1 million refugees. The majority of those refugees are from South Sudan, followed by Eritrea and Syria.
As efforts continue in different parts of the world to bring an end to the conflict in Sudan, Osman AbdulRahman, the deputy Ambassador of Sudan to Uganda, told VOA he hopes the meeting will also find solutions to contribute to peace in his country.
“This humanitarian situation right now is going to threaten even the region and the entire world unless we do something right now to stop this war,” he said. “And to have peace talks between all elements in Sudan and our partners as well.”
The UNHCR says the East and Horn of Africa is home to 5.5 million refugees, out of which 2.5 million are from South Sudan.
The conference in Kampala comes as the United Nations marks World Refugee Day on June 20, with “Hope away from home” as this year’s theme.
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African Leaders Head to Ukraine, Russia on Peace Mission
Others have tried and failed, and now six African leaders are heading to Moscow and Kyiv in the coming days to try to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict. South Africa — leading the delegation — has been accused of favoring Russia, despite its officially neutral stance on the war.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is leading the delegation, which also includes heads of state from Zambia, the Republic of Congo, Egypt, Senegal and Uganda.
The countries have taken different positions on the war, with South Africa, Uganda and the Republic of Congo abstaining from a United Nations resolution earlier this year condemning Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion and demanding it withdraw its troops.
Zambia and Egypt voted in favor of the resolution, while Senegal didn’t participate.
Ramaphosa’s spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, said the delegation’s trip was “imminent,” although exact dates were not made public due to security concerns.
“We are anticipating that quite imminently a delegation of African heads of state will head to both Ukraine and Russia,” he said.
South Africa has been criticized in the West for its warm relations with Moscow — having hosted Russian warships for joint military exercises earlier this year — and last month the U.S. Ambassador to South Africa accused the country of having provided arms to Russia.
South Africa denies the charge that weapons were secretly loaded onto Russian vessel ‘the Lady R’ while it was docked in Cape Town late last year, but the controversy has strained relations with Washington.
A group of U.S. lawmakers raised questions this week on whether South Africa should still be eligible for trade benefits and top South African business leaders have also warned the country could pay economically for its stance, raising the possibility of sanctions.
Steven Gruzd, an analyst at the South African Institute for International Affairs, says it is hard to predict whether the six-leader mission will make a difference. With heavy fighting going on, he says the time is not ripe for negotiations but adds that any attempt at peace making should be welcomed.
“I think it might be a way for South Africa to distract from the ‘Lady R’ scandal, about South Africa allegedly arming Russia on a ship that was loaded at night in secret, and the other flak that South Africa has been getting, but I do think it’s coming from a genuine place of wanting to make a difference,” said Gruzd.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed the African leaders’ mission, as has Ukraine. But in an online news conference last week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba warned that some things are non-negotiable.
“Any peace initiative should respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, it should not imply, even in-between the lines, any cessation of Ukrainian territory to Russia. Second, any peace plan should not lead to the freezing of the conflict,” said Kuleba.
Ramaphosa is a seasoned negotiator, having been instrumental in talks that ended apartheid. But so far, peace plans proposed by other countries, including China, have failed, and critics are skeptical the African leaders’ mission will achieve much.
Meanwhile, the South African government is still mulling over what to do about the upcoming summit of the BRICS group of emerging nations in Johannesburg, which Putin has been invited to attend.
With a warrant from the International Criminal Court out against the Russian leader, South Africa would be obliged to arrest him, and there are reports the country is looking for a way out through a legislative amendment to their ICC agreement.
South Africa has denied speculation it is considering moving the summit entirely.
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Death Toll From Boat Accident in Nigeria Over 100
More than 100 people are dead after a boat capsized on the Niger River in northern Nigeria Monday night.
Police spokesman Okasanmi Ajayi told reporters late Tuesday the boat was traveling in the western state of Kwara during the pre-dawn hours when the disaster occurred. He said many of the passengers were returning from a wedding ceremony in nearby Niger state.
Officials say several children were among those who died in the accident. Ajayi said at least 103 were killed in the accident, while 100 people or more have been rescued.
Searchers are still looking for more victims, so the death toll may rise.
Kwara state Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq issued a statement expressing his condolences to the families.
River boat accidents are common in Nigeria due to a combination of overcrowding, poor maintenance and lax safety regulations. At least 15 children died back in May when a boat capsized while traveling through the northwestern state of Sokoto.
The 4,184 kilometer long Niger is the main river in western Africa, originating in Guinea and cutting a path through the Niger Delta before flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
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Nigerians Recall Horror of Church Massacre, One Year On
It’s been a year since armed men in Nigeria’s southwest Ondo state rushed into St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church during a Mass and attacked worshippers, killing 41 people and injuring scores of others. Nigerian officials and the Catholic diocese held a memorial service and dedicated a park to honor the memory of those killed. Timothy Obiezu has the latest from Owo, one year on.
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Enforced Disappearances Rise in Ethiopia, Says Rights Commission
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission has called for an end to what it calls a rising trend of enforced disappearances in the country. The Ethiopian government has yet to respond to the commission’s report, which says at least 12 people have been arrested or abducted under unclear circumstances.
In a report released June 5, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said the enforced disappearances have happened across Amhara and Oromia regions, as well as in the capital, Addis Ababa.
Imad Abdulfetah, regional director for the commission, said the disappearances seem to be related to the war in the northern Tigray region, which ended last year following an African Union-brokered peace deal, and ethnic conflicts elsewhere.
“Primarily, these became more common in the aftermath of the conflicts in the country,” Abdulfetah said. “These incidents are connected to the conflict in one way or the other. So, this one year or a half — at most not more than two years — since this became widespread.”
The commission’s report says victims of enforced disappearances include members of the Ethiopian National Defense Force, as well as opposition political parties.
The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), an opposition political party, said four of its members have gone missing over the past few years.
Party chief Merara Gudina said attempts to locate them have failed.
“It looks to me like the government has decided to rule by force,” Gudina said. “And we have been meeting and talking with government officials, but they have not taken any meaningful steps.”
The OFC’s secretary-general, Tiruneh Gamta, said the party has confirmed the death of Melesse Chala, a local-level party official who was missing for more than two years.
“A person who … had closed his eyes, and prepared his dead body, has informed us,” Gamta said. “So, even though the government has not publicly announced this, we have heard from others.”
Such actions hurt the democratic process and push people to take up arms instead, said Merera.
“If the government is narrowing and stifling the political playground, those who have the capacity and the force will think, ‘Let me go into the forest and try my luck instead of being imprisoned and wasting away.’”
Victims of these enforced disappearances sometimes show up weeks or months later, still alive, but in locations far from where they were last seen, and often in poor physical condition, according to the report.
The government-established commission said it is investigating allegations that some of the victims were tortured.
The Rights Commission has called for the Ethiopian government to adopt and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in order to ensure the protection of civilians.
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Rwandan Refugees in Malawi Complain of Being Targeted and Victimized
Rwandan refugees and asylum-seekers in Malawi say they fear being deported or losing their right to stay in the country, following steps by the government to apprehend refugees wanted in their home countries on various charges.
Malawi’s government said last week it has received a request from Rwanda to help track down 55 so-called warlords who are hiding in Malawi. Rwandan refugees say officials need to verify the allegations before acting.
The Rwandan refugees expressed their fears in a statement following the deportation Monday of a Rwandan genocide suspect, Vincent Ngendahimana Kanyoni, who was indicted in 2019.
In a statement, a refugee group called the Concerned Rwandan Refugees said Malawi should be cautious with requests from the Rwandan government. The group said Rwanda might be playing what it called “the genocide card” to target political opponents in exile.
Odette Narikundo, a representative of Rwandan refugees in Malawi, told VOA she believes Kanyoni’s deportation was based on wrong information. She said the suspect never worked as a soldier in Rwanda and never had any military training there.
Narikundo said she doubts Rwanda’s claim that so many former Rwandan generals are hiding in Malawi. She said that if the generals were hiding, they would not have been at Dzaleka refugee camp. She wondered why Malawi was acting in such a way.
Narikundo said she believes that Rwanda is using genocide-related accusations to target political opponents living abroad. She said many Rwandan refugees fear being picked up and deported without even being taken to court to defend themselves, as was the case with Kanyoni.
Now, she said, people are living in fear. Because he didn’t go to court before being deported, she called Malawi’s actions kidnapping.
Narikundo said Malawi should verify any information from Rwanda with the group known as the Government of Rwandans in Exile, based in France, before rushing to take any action.
Patrick Botha, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Homeland Security in Malawi, told VOA that Malawi is a sovereign state doing everything according to its laws.
“But we have a working relationship with different countries especially our neighbors [and] that includes Rwanda, Burundi, just as we do with Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania,” Botha said. “In terms of security, we work hand in hand with these governments.”
Botha, however, declined to take more questions, citing the sensitivity around the issue.
“That’s all I can say on the matter,” he said. “The other issues concerning this are very sensitive, many security issues, so it’s not right for me to go into those details.”
Michael Kaiyatsa, executive director for the Center for Human Rights and Rehabilitation in Malawi, shares the concerns of the Rwandan refugees.
“Because the way the government is doing it, it means even genuine refugees stand a risk of being deported like that,” Kaiyatsa said. “They will not have an opportunity to defend themselves. You know, police or immigration [officers] cannot make that determination, they are not a court themselves.”
Last month, Malawi started revoking the citizenship of refugees and asylum-seekers whom officials say obtained their status fraudulently.
Some 400 people, mainly from Burundi and Rwanda, have had their Malawian citizenship revoked and plans are under way to deport them.
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With Millions in Need, Saudi Announces Sudan Aid Funding Conference
Saudi Arabia on Tuesday announced an international conference next week to gather aid pledges for war-ravaged Sudan, where the United Nations says more than half the population urgently needs assistance and protection.
Many of them are in Sudan’s Darfur region, where attacks against civilians could amount to crimes against humanity, the U.N.’s head of mission said.
The pledging conference will be held on June 19, the official Saudi Press Agency said. It cited the Foreign Ministry and added that the kingdom would jointly lead the meeting with Qatar, Egypt, Germany and the European Union, as well as U.N. agencies.
Saudi Arabia and the United States have been mediating in the eight-week war between Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
A record 25 million people, more than half the population, are in need of aid and protection, according to the U.N., but as of late May, the world body’s needs for $2.6 million to address the crisis were only 13% funded.
Entire districts of Khartoum no longer have running water, electricity is only available for a few hours a week, most hospitals in combat zones are not functioning, and aid facilities have been looted.
The country’s western Darfur region has also been a center of the fighting. Darfur Governor Mini Minawi, a former rebel leader now close to the army, in early June declared Darfur a “disaster zone” and appealed for help from the international community.
In May, the warring sides signed a written agreement for a Saudi and U.S.-brokered weeklong cease-fire, later extended by five days, that aimed to provide safe humanitarian corridors. These did not materialize.
Sudan’s annual rainy season begins in June, and medics have repeatedly warned that it threatens to make parts of the country inaccessible, while raising the risks of malaria, cholera and waterborne diseases.
More than 1,800 people have been killed since battles began, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).
Fighting has forced nearly 2 million people from their homes, including 476,000 who have sought refuge in neighboring countries, the U.N. says.
The head of the U.N. mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes, on Tuesday said the situation in Darfur “continues to deteriorate,” with “an emerging pattern of large-scale targeted attacks against civilians based on their ethnic identities, allegedly committed by Arab militias and some armed men” in RSF uniforms.
If these reports are verified, they “could amount to crimes against humanity,” Perthes said.
Also Tuesday, a government official said Sudan’s army chief is not ready to meet Dagalo, after a regional bloc proposed a face-to-face encounter between the two.
At a summit held in Djibouti on Monday, the East African Intergovernmental Authority on Development announced it would expand the number of countries tasked with resolving the crisis, with Kenya chairing a quartet including Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.
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Cameroon Officials Campaign Against Taboos to Encourage People to Donate Blood
Blood banks in Cameroon are usually close to empty due to widely held taboos against blood donation. Officials in the central African country are trying to convince people to move past those beliefs amid an increased demand for blood and blood products in hospitals and on the front lines where soldiers are fighting separatists and Islamist militants. The effort comes ahead of World Blood Donor Day, observed on June 14.
Illustrating the shortages is the story of a woman who told nurses at the Yaounde military hospital that she has not found anyone to donate blood to save the life of her two-year-old son.
Hospital workers said the 34-year-old fruit seller’s blood was infected and that it could not be transfused to her son.
Medical staff members have requested blood from government hospitals to save the child’s life, the hospital said, adding that the blood bank at the military hospital is empty.
Celestin Ayangma, head of the laboratory that is in charge of the hospital’s blood bank, said that since January of this year, the Yaounde military hospital had been able to provide only six of the 20 units of blood it needs every day. Ayangma added that patients eventually die if they do not have relatives, friends or other donors to give the blood that the patients need.
By midday on Tuesday, the baby was still waiting for blood.
Cameroon’s public health ministry reported that in 2022, hospitals in the country were able to collect a little more than 120,000 pints of blood from voluntary donors, family members and friends of sick patients.
But each year, Cameroon needs at least 600,000 pints of blood for both private and government-owned hospitals.
The government says blood donation needs in Cameroon are increasing due to the separatist conflict in the country’s western regions and fighting with Boko Haram militants on the northern border with Nigeria.
This year, government officials, health workers and aid agencies took to the streets ahead of World Blood Donor Day, trying to convince people to donate blood and save lives.
Ruth Abeng of the Cameroon Medical Council, an association of Cameroonian doctors, took part in the campaign. She sayid there are very few voluntary blood donors in Cameroon as some people are compelled to donate blood only when they see their sick relatives and friends in need of blood and dying. She said it is disheartening to see patients dying because some of their relatives believe that a blood donation is mystical.
Some Cameroonians believe that if they give blood, the recipient will receive any good luck and success they’ve had in life. Others say God will punish them if they donate blood to an evil person.
The government says such beliefs are unfounded and people should not be afraid to donate blood.
The Ministry of Health also says donated blood is not sold as some people erroneously believe. Blood that is donated is stored in banks and transfused to people in need, the government says.
Hospitals say patients pay a fee of about $50 for the hospital to test donated blood and make sure it is safe to use.
The government gives donors about $10 in a bid to encourage more donations.
Cameroon says it expects to raise about 20,000 pints of blood by June 14.
Hospitals say the amount will not be enough to meet the country’s needs but that it will reduce suffering and prevent some people from dying.
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Critics Say Ailing Economy a Challenge for Zimbabwe’s Ruling Party as Election Nears
The Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front or ZANU-PF has ruled the country for 43 years. But the opposition party thinks the nation’s poor economy might give it an opportunity to make gains in the country’s upcoming elections. Columbus Mavhunga has this report from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe
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Eritrea Rejoins East African Bloc Nearly 16 Years After Walkout
Eritrea has rejoined the East African bloc, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), nearly 16 years after the politically isolated state pulled out of the body, Information Minister Yemane Meskel said Monday.
“Eritrea resumed its activity in IGAD and took its seat” at a summit organized by the seven-nation bloc in Djibouti on Monday, Meskel said on Twitter.
He said the country was ready to work toward “peace, stability and regional integration.”
The authoritarian state suspended its IGAD membership in 2007 following a string of disagreements, including over the bloc’s decision to ask Kenya to oversee the resolution of a border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia in 1993 and fought a two-year border war with its neighbor that poisoned relations until a peace agreement in 2018.
Following the rapprochement with Addis Ababa, Eritrean troops supported Ethiopian forces during the federal government’s war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and have been accused by the United States and rights groups of some of the conflict’s worst atrocities.
That war ended with a peace deal signed in November last year that called for the withdrawal of foreign forces, but Asmara was not a party to the agreement and its troops continue to be present in bordering areas of Tigray, according to residents who have accused the soldiers of murder, rape and looting.
‘North Korea of Africa’
Monday’s announcement comes after Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki told reporters during a visit to Kenya in February that his country would rejoin IGAD “with the idea of revitalizing this regional organization.”
Isaias, 77, did not attend Monday’s summit in Djibouti, sending Foreign Minister Osman Saleh and Presidential Adviser Yemane Ghebreab to the meeting instead.
Workneh Gebeyehu, executive secretary of IGAD, hailed Eritrea’s return to the bloc, saying in an official statement: “Let me take this opportunity to welcome back the State of Eritrea to the IGAD family.”
Dubbed the “North Korea” of Africa, Eritrea was sanctioned by the United States in 2021 after sending troops into Tigray.
In a rare news conference in Kenya earlier this year, Isaias dismissed accusations of severe rights abuses by Eritrean troops in Tigray as “fantasy.”
Human Rights Watch in February called for fresh sanctions against Eritrea, accusing it of rounding up thousands of people, including minors, for mandatory military service, during the Tigray war.
The country sits near the bottom of global rankings for press freedom, as well as human rights, civil liberties and economic development.
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Ugandan Ban on Charcoal-Making Disrupts Lucrative but Destructive Business
The charcoal makers in the forests of northern Uganda fled into the bush, temporarily abandoning their precious handiwork: multiple heaps of timber yet to be processed.
The workers were desperate to avoid capture by local officials after a new law banned the commercial production of charcoal. They risked arrest and beatings if they were caught.
But what’s really at stake for the charcoal makers is their livelihood.
“We are not going to stop,” said Deo Ssenyimba, a bare-chested charcoal maker who has been active in northern Uganda for 12 years. “We stop and then we do what? Are we going to steal?”
The burning of charcoal, an age-old practice in many African societies, is now restricted business across northern Uganda amid a wave of resentment by locals who have warned of the threat of climate change stemming from the uncontrolled felling of trees by outsiders. Not much has changed as charcoal producers skirt around the rules to keep the supply flowing and watchful vigilantes take matters into their own hands.
Much of northern Uganda remains lush but sparsely populated and impoverished, attracting investors who desire the land mostly for its potential to sustain the charcoal business. And demand is assured: Charcoal accounts for up to 90% of Africa’s primary energy consumption needs, according to a 2018 report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
Before the charcoal ban, local activists formed vigilante groups in districts such as Gulu, where a former lawmaker recently led an attack on a truck that was dispossessed of 380 bags of charcoal.
Although Odonga Otto was then charged with aggravated robbery, the country’s chief justice praised him as a hero.
“I have not heard anybody who is destroying our environment being charged,” said Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo, who is from northern Uganda. “If you steal from a thief, are you a thief?”
The week after Owiny-Dollo’s public comments, President Yoweri Museveni issued an executive order banning the commercial production of charcoal in northern Uganda, disrupting a national trade that has long been influenced by cultural sensibilities as much as the seeming abundance of idle land. Commercial charcoal production is still permitted in other regions.
The ban follows a climate change law, enacted in 2021, that empowers local authorities across the country to regulate activities deemed harmful to the environment. Trees suck in planet-warming carbon dioxide from the air, but burning charcoal emits the heat-trapping gas instead.
Days after Museveni’s order, a team of Associated Press journalists walked into a charcoal-burning enclave in a remote part of Gulu, 335 kilometers (208 miles) from the Ugandan capital of Kampala.
One local official, Patiko Sub-County Chairman Patrick Komakech, gave chase when he heard fleeing footsteps. A small patch of bamboo opened to an almost bare patch where trees were being cut, juicy stumps still fresh here and there.
Komakech was agitated and on the verge of tears.
Timber had been heaped like contraband ivory in different spots, and grey smoke rose from one pile being processed. Beside it stood loaded bags of charcoal. The charcoal makers slept in little tarp tents draped in dry leaves.
“I am completely perturbed (by) all this destruction,” Komakech said, speaking of charcoal makers who “are actually imported and put in this community, and they do this thing without the mercy of leaving any vegetation.”
Uganda’s population explosion has heightened the need for cheap plant-based energy sources, especially charcoal. In this east African country of 45 million people, charcoal is preferred in households across the income spectrum but especially in those of the urban poor — seen as ideal in the preparation of certain dishes that require slow cooking. Middle-class families maintain both gas cookers and charcoal stoves.
“Even those policemen who are coming to beat us, they are cooking with charcoal,” said Peter Ejal. “We are not here to spoil the environment. We are here by their orders, those people who are selling these trees.”
His colleague, the ragtag charcoal maker Ssenyimba, said bluntly, “When we finish this place we will go to another place.”
One charcoal maker asserted that charcoal from northern Uganda was likely used even in the State House. Others charged that they were cutting the trees with the complicity of landlords who sell charcoal-making rights by the acre to interested dealers.
The industry can be lucrative for landowners and investors.
In nearby towns a bag of charcoal fetches about $14, but the price rises further as the goods approach Kampala. Ssenyimba said he’s paid about $3 for every bag he makes.
An acre of property with plenty of trees goes for up to $150 in Gulu, although the sum can be much smaller in remote but vegetation-rich ranches owned by the poorest families. The investors then deploy men armed with power saws and machetes, working over specific places and leaving when they have cut down all the trees they were sold.
District councils in the region raise revenue from licensing and taxes, and corrupt members of the armed services have been protecting charcoal truckers, according to Museveni and Otto, the former lawmaker now leading vigilantes against charcoal makers.
Otto has helped cause the impounding of multiple trucks in recent weeks, including two recently seized ones parked outside a police station where a crowd gathered one afternoon, hoping to grab the goods.
He said he plans to serve hundreds of local officials with letters of intent to sue for any lapses in protecting the environment. Otto told the AP his goal is to make the rest of Uganda “lose appetite” for charcoal from his region.
“We go to the fields where the charcoal ovens are and we destroy the bases,” he said. “We managed to make the business risky. As of now, you drive a hundred (of) kilometers, and you will not find any single truck carrying charcoal.”
The ban on commercial production in northern Uganda is almost certainly bound to push up the retail price of charcoal. Otto and others were concerned that charcoal dealers would avoid authorities by ferrying charcoal bags in small numbers — on the backs of passenger motorcycles — to towns where the merchandise could be stealthily loaded into trucks.
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Zimbabwe Charges 39 Opposition Supporters Over Violence
Zimbabwean authorities charged 39 opposition activists with political violence over the alleged “demolishing” of a ruling party office on Monday, as tensions grow ahead of national elections in August.
Prosecutors said the group attacked an office of the ruling ZANU-PF party, in Nyatsime, south of the capital, last week.
The ruling ZANU-PF party has been in power since independence in 1980.
The group “destroyed several houses and also assaulted members of the Nyatsime community thereby causing massive destruction to property and inflicted serious injuries on them,” prosecutors said.
The incident comes as rights groups and opposition parties have complained of a clampdown ahead of the vote.
Lawyers for those detained, however, stopped short of saying the accusations were politically motivated.
“Our clients were not even at the scene,” Anesu Chirisa, legal lead at Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, an umbrella group representing the 39, told AFP.
The 39 were arrested over the weekend and on Monday briefly appeared before a local court.
They were remanded into custody after investigating authorities called for a “lengthy custodial sentence.”
Members of the group are supporters of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), Zimbabwe’s leading opposition party.
CCC’s leader Nelson Chamisa, a 45-year-old lawyer and pastor, is hoping to replace President Emmerson Mnangagwa, 80, who is seeking a second term in the August 23 vote.
Analysts are bracing for a tense ballot in a country where discontent at entrenched poverty, power cuts and other shortages runs deep.
Critics have accused the government of using the courts to target opposition politicians and say there has been an increase in arbitrary arrests and repression.
Earlier this month, another five CCC activists were held on various charges including assault after an alleged altercation at a voter registration center.
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Sudanese Refugees in Chad Risk Losing Aid as Rainy Season Looms, Says MSF
Thousands of Sudanese refugees who fled to Chad to escape fighting in their country could be cut off from humanitarian and medical aid during the approaching rainy season, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Monday.
More than 100,000 people have fled across the border to Chad since conflict broke out in Sudan in April, and numbers could double over the next three months, the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) warned earlier this month.
MSF’s Head of Mission in Chad, Audrey van der Schoot, said the flooding that usually occurs during this time of year could isolate refugees and host communities in Chad’s eastern Sila region and other areas that share a border with Sudan.
Rains will also bring a higher risk of waterborne and infectious diseases, given poor access to clean water and sanitation, she said.
“We fear that with the coming rainfall, people in this border area will be trapped and forgotten,” she said, noting that arrivals from Sudan were continuing.
Nearly 30,000 refugees are in Sila, where they lack shelter, water and food due to deficiencies in humanitarian assistance. Many have moved in with local host families as a result, putting pressure on meager resources, MSF said.
One of the poorest countries in the world, Chad was already hosting close to 600,000 refugees before the latest Sudanese crisis.
The UNHCR said Chad needs $214.1 million to provide vital services to displaced people in the Central African country, of which only 16% were funded at the start of June.
The conflict in Sudan is affecting Chadian citizens, too, as those living near the border are no longer able to access health care and markets in Sudan. This has caused food and commodity prices to soar in areas already suffering from high levels of malnutrition, MSF said.
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Startup Firm Leads Kenya into World of High-Tech Manufacturing
A three-year-old startup company is leading Kenya into the world of high-tech manufacturing, building a sophisticated workforce capable of making the semiconductors and nanotechnology products that operate modern devices from mobile phones to refrigerators. VOA’s Africa correspondent Mariama Diallo visited the plant and has this story.
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Nigeria Pay-As-You-Go School Aims for Inclusion
In Nigeria, poverty is the main reason children do not go to school, but there are increasing efforts to close the gap. Gibson Emeka reports on one unique economic approach designed to get kids into school.
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EU Offers Aid to Tunisia to Boost Economy, Reduce Migrant Flows
The European Union on Sunday offered major financial support to crisis-hit Tunisia, to boost its economy and reduce the flow of irregular migrants across the Mediterranean Sea.
The North African country, highly indebted and in talks for an IMF bailout loan, is a gateway for migrants and asylum-seekers attempting the dangerous voyages to Europe.
The EU is ready to offer Tunisia a 900 million euro package plus 150 million euros in immediate support, European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said on a joint visit with the Italian and Dutch prime ministers.
Aside from trade and investment, it would help Tunisia with border management and to combat human trafficking, with support worth 100 million euros this year, she said.
“We both have a vast interest in breaking the cynical business model of smugglers and traffickers,” said von der Leyen. “It is horrible to see how they deliberately risk human lives for profit.”
She said other EU projects would help Tunisia export clean renewable energy to the bloc, and deliver high speed broadband, all with the aim of creating “jobs and boost growth here in Tunisia.”
Von der Leyen, after talks with President Kais Saied, said she hoped an EU-Tunisia agreement could be signed at the next European summit later this month.
‘Long and difficult road’
She stressed that the EU is Tunisia’s top trade and investment partner and had “supported Tunisia’s path to democracy” since it became the birthplace of the Arab Spring revolts in 2011, “a long and difficult road.”
Von der Leyen visited Tunisia with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte, for talks with Saied, who has assumed near total governing powers over the country since 2021.
EU governments, under pressure to reduce migrant arrivals, last week agreed on steps to fast-track migrant returns to their countries of origin or transit countries deemed “safe”, including Tunisia.
Italy’s far-right premier, Meloni, was on her second Tunisia visit within a week, after meeting Saied on Tuesday.
Tunisia lies less than 150 kilometers (90 miles) from the Italian island of Lampedusa, and has long been a stepping stone for migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan African countries, seeking a better life in Europe.
An increasing number of the migrants hail from Tunisia, whose tourism-based economy was hit hard by the Covid pandemic and which is now in a serious economic crisis marked by high inflation and unemployment.
Not Europe’s ‘border guard’
The country reached an in-principle deal last year for an IMF bailout loan of around $2 billion. But talks have since stalled over the reforms demanded by the fund, especially on state-run enterprises and state subsidies on basic products.
Saied, who has seized almost total power since a dramatic July 2021 move against parliament, on Tuesday again slammed what he has termed the “diktats” of the Washington-based IMF.
On the migration issue, Saied has in the past vowed “urgent measures” to tackle arrivals in Tunisia.
Tunisian rights groups accused him of hate speech after he charged in February that “hordes” of sub-Saharan African migrants were responsible for rising crime and posed a “demographic” threat.
Attacks on migrants rose sharply after his speech, and thousands fled the country.
Saied on Saturday also said he rejected turning Tunisia into Europe’s “border guard,” speaking in Sfax, a coastal city in a region from where many migrants leave.
The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights denounced the visit by the three European leaders as an attempt to “blackmail” Tunisia with an offer of financial support in return for stepped up border vigilance.
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WHO Says Staffer Among Victims of Somalia Hotel Siege
An employee with the World Health Organization was among those killed in the weekend siege of a beachside hotel in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, the head of the UN health agency said on Sunday.
The siege left six civilians dead and another 10 wounded, according to police.
“I’m heartbroken that we have lost a WHO staff member in the recent attack in #Mogadishu, #Somalia,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general, tweeted on Sunday.
“My heartfelt condolences to their families and to everyone who lost a loved one,” he said. “We condemn all attacks on civilians and humanitarian workers.”
The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab have been waging an insurgency against the internationally backed federal government in Somalia for more than 15 years and have often targeted hotels, which tend to host high-ranking Somali and foreign officials.
The latest assault, for which Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility, began just before 8:00 pm on Friday (1700 GMT) when seven attackers stormed the Pearl Beach hotel, a popular spot at Lido Beach along Mogadishu’s coastline.
It ended at around 2:00 am, police said, after a fierce gunfight between security forces and the militants, all of whom were killed during the battle.
The attack at Lido beach underscored the endemic security problems in the Horn of Africa country as it struggles to emerge from decades of conflict and natural disasters.
Al-Shabaab, which was driven out of Somalia’s main towns and cities by an African Union force, still controls large swathes of countryside and continues to carry out attacks against security and civilian targets, including in the capital.
your ad hereClashes Resume in Sudan as 24-Hour Ceasefire Ends
Shelling and gunfire resumed Sunday in the Sudanese capital, witnesses said, after the end of a 24-hour ceasefire that had given civilians rare respite from nearly two months of war.
Deadly fighting has raged in the northeast African country since mid-April, when army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), turned on each other.
The latest in a series of ceasefire agreements enabled civilians trapped in the capital Khartoum to venture outside and stock up on food and other essential supplies.
But only 10 minutes after it ended at 6:00 am (0400 GMT) on Sunday the capital was rocked again by shelling and clashes, witnesses told AFP.
Heavy artillery fire was heard in Khartoum and its twin city Omdurman to the north, and fighting also erupted on Al-Hawa Street, a major artery in the south of the capital, they said.
The one-day lull was “like a dream” that evaporated, said Nasreddin Ahmed, a resident of south Khartoum who was awoken by the fighting.
Asmaa al-Rih, who lives in the capital’s northern suburbs, lamented the “return of terror” with “rockets and shells shaking the walls of houses” once again.
Clouds of smoke were also seen billowing for a fifth successive day from the Al-Shajara oil and gas facility near the Yarmouk military plant in Khartoum.
Multiple truces have been agreed and broken, including even after the United States had slapped sanctions on both rival generals after the previous attempt collapsed at the end of May.
Both Burhan and Daglo amassed considerable wealth during the rule of longtime Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, whose government was subjected to decades of international sanctions before his overthrow in 2019.
Egypt toughens visa rules
The 24-hour ceasefire that ended on Sunday morning had been announced by US and Saudi mediators who warned that if it failed they may break off mediation efforts.
The two warring sides had “agreed to allow the unimpeded movement and delivery of humanitarian assistance throughout the country,” the Saudi foreign ministry said on Saturday.
“Should the parties fail to observe the 24-hour ceasefire, facilitators will be compelled to consider adjourning” talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah which have been suspended since late last month, it added.
The mediators said they “share the frustration of the Sudanese people about the uneven implementation of previous ceasefires.”
The fighting has gripped Khartoum and the western region of Darfur, killing upwards of 1,800 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
Nearly two million people have been displaced, including 476,000 who have sought refuge in neighboring countries, the United Nations says.
Over 200,000 have entered Egypt, mostly by land.
But Cairo on Saturday announced it was toughening requirements for those Sudanese who had previously been exempted from visas — women of all ages, children under 16 and anyone over 50.
Egypt said the new requirements were not designed to “prevent or limit” the entry of Sudanese people, but rather to stop “illegal activities by individuals and groups on the Sudanese side of the border, who forged entry visas” for profit.
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