Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday set a goal of reaching a draft peace agreement by May 2 and vowed to respect each other’s sovereignty following sweeping rebel gains.

The top diplomats of Rwanda, which has faced criticism for backing the M23 rebels, and DR Congo, which has seen major cities fall in its turbulent but mineral-rich east, signed a declaration in Washington in the presence of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The foreign ministers “commit to coordinate through existing channels to generate an initial draft peace agreement for the Participants’ mutual review no later than May 2”, it said.

The two countries “mutually acknowledge each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and commit to a pathway to resolve their disputes by peaceful means grounded in diplomacy and negotiation rather than hostile force or rhetoric”, the declaration said.

Without naming the M23 rebels explicitly, the statement said that both countries acknowledged concerns of the other and would “refrain from providing state military support to non-state armed groups”.

The two sides also said they would establish a “joint security coordination mechanism to counter non-state armed groups”.

In a surprise announcement Wednesday, the DRC and M23 rebels said they had agreed to halt fighting in the east of the country while they work toward a permanent truce.

Thousands have been killed in a conflict that has raged along the border of the two countries since January.

UN experts, the United States and other Western governments say that Rwanda supports the M23. Rwanda denies providing military support to the M23.

A new US envoy for Africa – businessman Massad Boulos, who is the father-in-law of President Donald Trump’s daughter Tiffany – visited both capitals this month and has called for Rwanda to halt support and withdraw “all Rwandan troops from DRC territory”.

Qatar, which has worked with Washington on a range of thorny diplomatic issues, spearheaded talks between Rwanda and the DRC.

The DRC has sought US support in part by offering to reach its own agreement with the United States on access to critical minerals found in the country that are vital for advanced technologies.

The joint declaration said the two sides expected “significant investments” facilitated by the US government and US private sector.

It said that the two countries would work with the United States on areas including mineral value chains and hydropower development.

Rwanda says its security in the eastern DRC is threatened by armed groups, notably the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, created by former Hutu leaders linked to the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda.

The M23 consists mostly of Tutsis.

Source: AFP

Algeria has closed its airspace to all flights to and from Mali as the row over a drone that was shot down close to their common border escalates.

On Sunday, Mali accused its northern neighbour of being a sponsor and exporter of terrorism after Algeria attacked one of its drones last week.

A strongly worded statement from Mali’s foreign ministry challenged Algeria’s earlier explanation that the unmanned surveillance aircraft had violated its airspace.

The statement described the downing of the drone as a “hostile premeditated action”. Algeria described the allegations as “lacking in seriousness [and they]… warrant no attention or response”.

Mali’s armed forces are fighting ethnic Tuareg separatists in the north. They have a stronghold in the town of Tinzaoutin, which straddles the Mali-Algeria border.

The shooting down of the drone raised diplomatic tensions, as Mali, along with its allies Niger and Burkina Faso, recalled their ambassadors from Algiers.

Last year, the three junta-led countries formed a regional bloc, the Alliance of Sahel States, known by its French acronym AES.

In their joint statement condemning Algeria, they said the shooting down of the drone “prevented the neutralisation of a terrorist group that was planning terrorist acts against the AES”.

Mali has also summoned the Algerian ambassador in Bamako over the incident, declaring that it would file a complaint with “international bodies”. It also withdrew from a regional security grouping that includes Algeria.

In its response on Monday, Algeria said it noted the Malian and AES statements with “deep dismay”. It described Mali’s allegations as an attempt to divert attention away from its own failures.

It also said this was the third violation of its airspace in recent months.

“Due to the repeated violations of our airspace by Mali, the Algerian government has decided to close it to air traffic coming from or to Mali, effective today,” Algeria’s defence ministry said on Monday.

Last Wednesday, Algeria acknowledged that it had shot down an “armed reconnaissance drone” close to Tinzaoutin saying it had “penetrated our airspace over a distance of 2km”.

But the junta in Bamako denied that the drone had violated Algeria’s airspace. It said that the aircraft’s wreckage was found 9.5km inside its borders.

Giving more details on Monday, Algeria said that the aircraft had entered its airspace “then exited before returning on an attack trajectory”.

Mali regularly accuses Algeria of giving shelter to Tuareg armed groups.

The north African country once served as a key mediator during more than a decade of conflict between Mali and the separatists. Their relations have soured since 2020 after the military took power in Bamako.

Algeria recently deployed troops along its borders to prevent the infiltration of militants and weapons from jihadist groups who operate in Mali and other countries in West Africa’s Sahel region.

Source: BBC

Burundi’s president has told the BBC he has seen “credible intelligence” that Rwanda plans to attack his country.

Évariste Ndayishimiye also said that Rwanda had tried to launch a coup a decade ago in Burundi, akin to “what it’s doing in the Democratic Republic of Congo” now.

Rwanda has already hit back, calling the president’s comments “surprising” and insisting that the two neighbours are co-operating on security plans for their shared border, which has been shut for over a year.

Despite extensive UN evidence, Rwanda has always denied arming and backing the M23 rebel group, which has recently seized large parts of eastern DR Congo alongside Rwandan troops.

Rwanda has also denied links to the resurgent Red Tabara rebel group, which President Ndayishimiye says is a proxy force similar to the M23 and is being supported by Rwanda to destabilise Burundi.

“They would say it’s an internal problem when it’s Rwanda [who is] the problem. We know that he [Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame] has a plan to attack Burundi,” Ndayishimiye added.

“Burundians will not accept to be killed as Congolese are being killed. Burundian people are fighters.

“But now we don’t have any plans to attack Rwanda. We want to resolve that problem by dialogue.”

At the heart of Ndayishimiye’s comments was a call for peace and the full implementation of an agreement between the two nations – a peace deal that had been signed in previous years but, according to Burundi, had not been honoured by Rwanda.

“The people who did the 2015 coup [were] organised by Rwanda, and then they ran away. Rwanda organised them – it went to recruit the youth in Mahama camp. It trained them, it gave them arms, it financed them. They are living in the hand of Rwanda,” he alleges.

“If Rwanda accepts to hand over them and bring them to justice, the problem would be finished.”

Source: BBC

More than 7,000 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo since January, Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka said on Monday.

Armed members of the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, who have seized large swathes of the mineral-rich eastern DRC, including the main eastern cities of Goma and Bukavu, have met with the limited resistance of the fleeing Congolese armed forces.

“The security situation in eastern DRC has reached alarming levels,” Tuluka warned, addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

She said the fatalities include “more than 2,500 bodies buried without being identified” and 1,500 bodies were still in the morgue.

The prime minister said “for the moment… we have not yet been able to identify all of these people.” She noted, however, that “there is a significant mass of civilians who are part of these dead.”

According to UN reports, the rebels, backed by some 4,000 Rwandan troops, have made rapid advances, sending thousands of people fleeing from the region.

Protesters have attacked the embassies of the United States and France in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The rebel forces took control of the South Kivu provincial capital Bukavu recently, after first capturing Goma, the capital city of North Kivu province.

Congo’s prime minister said more than 3,000 people had been killed in Goma alone.

The M23 is the most potent of the many armed groups vying for a foothold in Congo’s east, which has trillions of dollars of mostly untapped mineral wealth such as lithium, which is used in technology for batteries in devices such as mobile phones and laptops.

In related news, Kaja Kallas, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said Congo’s territorial integrity was “non-negotiable.”

The EU’s top diplomat said Brussels defense consultations with Rwanda have been suspended while their memorandum of understanding (MOU) on critical raw materials production is under review.

The EU and Rwanda had signed the MOU to “nurture sustainable and resilient value chains for critical raw materials,” she said.

The African country “produces tin, tungsten, gold and niobium, and has potential for lithium and rare earth elements,” she said.

Source: Presstv

Disturbing videos have emerged showing the dire situation at a disused gold mine in South Africa where scores of illegal miners have reportedly been living underground for months.

They have been there since police operations targeting illicit mining started last year across the country.

In one of the videos, which the BBC has not independently verified, corpses wrapped in makeshift body bags can be seen. A second shows the emaciated figures of some miners who are still alive.

A long-delayed rescue operation, that last week a court ordered the government to facilitate, began on Monday.

Last year, arguing that the miners had entered the shaft in Stilfontein deliberately without permission, the authorities took a hard line, blocking food and water supplies.

In November, one government minister said: “We are going to smoke them out.”

More than 100 of the illegal miners, known locally as “zama zamas”, have reportedly died underground since the crack down began at the mine some 145km (90 miles) south-west of Johannesburg.

The authorities however, have not confirmed this figure as it is yet to be “verified by an official source”, a spokesperson told the BBC.

Hundreds are thought to be still in the mine while more than 1,000 have surfaced in the past few months.

In one of the videos released by a trade union, the General Industries Workers of South Africa (Giwusa), dozens of shirtless men can be seen sitting on a dirty floor. Their faces have been blurred. A male voice off camera can be heard saying that the men are hungry and need help.

Source: BBC

Niger on Thursday announced it was suspending BBC radio for three months, with the British broadcaster joining the growing list of Western media sanctioned by military juntas in the Sahel.

The ban on the BBC – accused of airing “erroneous information likely to destabilise social peace and undermine the morale of the troops” fighting jihadists – will come into force “with immediate effect” countrywide, the leadership said.

Popular BBC programmes including ones in the Hausa language are broadcast in Niger via local radio partners.

Since seizing power in a July 2023 coup, the military government has banned several Western media outlets.

Besides the BBC, two French broadcasters, Radio France Internationale (RFI) and France 24, have been banned there since August 2023.

On Thursday evening, the junta also said it was “filing a complaint” against RFI.

No programme in particular was mentioned in the decisions taken concerning the BBC and RFI.

But on Wednesday both broadcasters reported that jihadists had killed 90 soldiers and upwards of 40 civilians in Chatoumane, in the western Tera region bordering Burkina Faso teeming with armed fighters.

Although AFP was unable to verify those numbers from an independent local source, a Western security source told AFP that 90 to 100 people died in Tuesday’s attack.

‘Baseless assertions’

But on Wednesday Niger’s junta denied the attack happened, describing reports of the atrocity as “baseless assertions” and a “campaign of intoxication”.

For years Niger – along with its two neighbours Burkina Faso and Mali – has been plagued by jihadist violence.

The frontier lands straddling the three states – where Tuesday’s attack is said to have taken place – have long been a hideout for jihadists linked to the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda.

All three of those Sahel countries have experienced military coups in recent years, and Niger’s fellow juntas have likewise suspended foreign media outlets.

With the three turning their backs on former colonial ruler France, many French media outlets have been suspended on accusations of being propaganda mouthpieces for Paris.

Other voices deemed critical of the military authorities have been silenced.

All three juntas have turned towards Russia for their security needs and expelled French troops stationed in the Sahel to fight against jihadists.

Niger’s army occasionally releases official reports on some of the jihadists’ attacks, which it says are carried out by “terrorists”.

On Wednesday it announced the death of 10 soldiers in an attack the previous day in the west of the country.

Near the borders with Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria, Niger’s far southeast also faces attacks from Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP) group.

Jihadist attacks have killed at least 1,500 civilians and troops in Niger in the past year, according to conflict monitoring group ACLED – more than double the 650 killed from July 2022 to July 2023.

Source: AFP

Chad announced Thursday that it was ending military cooperation with former colonial power France, just hours after a visit by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot.

“The government of the Republic of Chad informs national and international opinion of its decision to end the accord in the field of defence signed with the French republic,” foreign minister Abderaman Koulamallah said in a statement on Facebook.

Chad is a key link in France’s military presence in Africa, constituting Paris’s last foothold in the Sahel after the forced withdrawal of its troops from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

“This is not a break with France like Niger or elsewhere,” Koulamallah, whose country still hosts around a thousand French troops, told AFP.

At a press briefing after a meeting between President Mahamat Idriss Deby and Barrot, Koulamallah called France “an essential partner” but added it “must now also consider that Chad has grown up, matured and is a sovereign state that is very jealous of its sovereignty”.

Barrot, who arrived in Ethiopia on Thursday evening, could not immediately be reached for comment.

‘Historic turning point’

Chad is the last Sahel country to host French troops.

It has been led by Deby since 2021, when his father Idriss Deby Itno was killed by rebels after 30 years in power.

The elder Deby frequently relied on French military support to fend off rebel offensives, including in 2008 and 2019.

The landlocked nation faces a potent threat from Boko Haram and other militant groups.

It borders the Central African Republic, Sudan, Libya and Niger, all of which host Russian paramilitary forces from the Wagner group.

Deby has sought closer ties with Moscow in recent months, but talks to strengthen economic cooperation with Russia have yet to bear concrete results.

Koulamallah called the decision to end military cooperation a “historic turning point”, adding it was made after “in-depth analysis”.

“Chad, in accordance with the provisions of the agreement, undertakes to respect the terms laid down for its termination, including the notice period”, he said in the statement, which did not give a date for the withdrawal of French troops.

The announcement comes just days after Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye indicated in an interview with AFP that France should close its military bases in that country.

“Senegal is an independent country, it is a sovereign country and sovereignty does not accept the presence of military bases in a sovereign country,” Faye told AFP on Thursday.

Source: AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered what he called “total support” for Africa, including in the struggle against terrorism and extremism.

The speech was read out at a summit in the Black Sea resort of Sochi by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to his African counterparts.

Several African governments have cut ties with traditional Western allies and are looking to Moscow for help in tackling frequent attacks by jihadists.

During the summit, Burkina Faso’s Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré said Russia was a more suitable international partner than the former colonial power, France.

It is a view shared by several of France’s former colonies – and was reiterated by Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop, who contrasted the Kremlin’s “sincere” partnership to the “neo-colonial” relationship of Western powers.

He said that as well as military co-operation, Mali was exploring other joint projects in the energy, telecommunications, technology and mining sectors.

“Russian companies are working in all these areas with the Malian government and [private] partners in Mali to provide solutions to the challenges facing the Malian people. The two parties have agreed to step up the pace to ensure rapid results,” he said on the second and final day of the conference of African foreign ministers.

Wagner mercenary fighters – now rebranded under the Africa Corps banner by Russia’s defence ministry – were the preferred choice for the military leaders who ordered French and UN troops to leave.

Russia’s help, often in exchange for access to raw materials, also comes with a promise that there will be no meddling in a country’s internal affairs or lessons on how to run an election.

However, Russia’s military expeditions to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have helped protect the junta leaders there, but have failed to make much progress in the fight against Islamist militants.

Nonetheless, the Kremlin is trumpeting about these new-found friends, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying the conference had dashed Western hopes for Russia’s isolation.

The conference taking place on Saturday and Sunday comes after two Russia-Africa summits in 2019 and 2023

And Lavrov said Russia’s relations with Africa were strengthening “more and more” with progress “on all axes”.

Putin’s speech underlined this point.

“I would like to reiterate that our country will continue to provide total support to our African friends in different sectors: ensuring sustainable development, the struggle against terrorism and extremism, combating epidemics, food problems and the consequences of natural disasters,” it said.

Emanuela Del Re, the EU special representative for the Sahel region of West Africa, told the BBC the West needed to accept the shifting sands of allegiances.

While Russia was “certainly a very malicious actor”, the Italian diplomat explained it had a strong bond with Africa going back to before independence and was not alone in its interest in the Sahel.

“It’s largely a desert but in reality the region is very crowded: because at the moment you see Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran… all member states of the EU and the UK,” she said.

In fact, African leaders were pragmatic about their need to “diversify their partnerships”, Ms Del Re said, adding it was not a time for the EU to abandon what she called the “three difficult countries” of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which have all experienced coups in recent years.

Her point was that it should not be seen as a competition.

Rwanda, which has strong ties with the UK and the West, is one of several African countries that have already signed deals with Moscow to get help building a nuclear power plant.

Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe, who is also in Sochi, told the AFP news agency hundreds of Rwandan students had graduated from Russian universities, including “those who specialise in nuclear science”.

“We hope to be able to train a certain number of scientific managers specialising in this field,” he added.

Five years ago, Putin promised to double trade with Africa – this has not happened.

But using other means, which the West sees as destabilising the continent, Russia’s influence has grown significantly.

Source: BBC