Ivorian Prime Minister Hamed Bakayoko died from covid at a hospital in Germany on Wednesday.

The 56-year-old had seen his health deteriorate sharply in recent days.

He had terminal cancer and had been hospitalised at the American Hospital in Paris since the beginning of March and was transferred to a hospital in Freiburg, Germany on Saturday, to undergo an experimental treatment.

“Our country is in mourning,” said President Alassane Ouattara on Twitter.

“I have the immense sorrow to announce to you the death of Prime Minister Hamed Bakayoko this Wednesday, 10 March, in Germany following cancer”, Ouattara said, adding, he was “a great statesman, a model for our youth, a personality of great generosity and exemplary loyalty ”.

A transfer to Turkey, where there was talk of the Ivorian Prime Minister undergoing an emergency transplant, had also been considered for last Thursday. But doctors said he was no longer operable.

Bakayoko received treatment in France on February 18. In recent months, he had contracted coronavirus and malaria.

During his first stay in Paris at the end of January, he had performed a series of medical tests at the American Hospital without any precise diagnosis.

Alassane Ouattara went to his bedside visited the prime minister on March 3 in Paris. During a dinner with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace, the Ivorian president expressed concern about the health of his prime minister.

Source: Africa New with additional editing by Camcord

Several opposition members in Tanzania have called on the authorities to release news of President John Magufuli, who has not appeared in public since February 27, prompting questions about his state of health.

Rumours have swirled on social media about if he has contracted coronavirus, especially in neighbouring Kenya under the hashtag # pray4magufuli.

Magufuli, 61, has been playing down the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, claiming Tanzania had freed itself from the Covid” through prayer.

He also rejected any lockdowns or measures such as mask-wearing.

But he later admitted what he called a “respiratory disease” was still circulating.

Many Tanzanian officials have died in recent weeks, often without the cause of their death being specified.

Among them, the first vice-president of the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar, Seif Sharif Hamad, who died in mid-February. His party said he had contracted Covid-19.

John Magufuli was last seen in public on February 27, during the swearing-in of his new secretary-general.

He then did not participate in the ordinary virtual summit of heads of state of the East African Community (EAC) scheduled for the same day and has not been seen since at the two Sunday services, where he is usually filmed live by national television.

His main opponent Tundu Lissu said on Twitter: “It’s a sad comment on his stewardship of our country that it’s come to this: that he himself had get COVID-19 and be flown out to Kenya in order to prove that prayers, steam inhalations and other unproven herbal concoctions he’s championed are no protection against coronavirus!”

Source: AFP

A series of explosions at a military barracks in Equatorial Guinea killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 600 others Sunday, authorities said.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema said the explosion at 4 p.m. local time was the result of “negligent handling of dynamite” in the military barracks in the neighborhood of Mondong Nkuantoma in Bata. 

“The impact of the explosion caused damage in almost all the houses and buildings in Bata,” the president said in a statement, which was in Spanish.

The defense ministry released a statement late Sunday saying that a fire at a weapons depot in the barracks caused the explosion of high-caliber ammunition. It said the provisional toll was 20 dead and 600 injured, adding that the cause of the explosions will be fully investigated. 

The country’s president said the fire may have been caused by residents burning the fields surrounding the barracks. 

State television showed a huge plume of smoke rising above the explosion site as crowds fled, with many people crying out “we don’t know what happened, but it is all destroyed.” 

Images on local media seen by The Associated Press show people screaming and crying while running through the streets amid debris and smoke. Roofs of houses were ripped off and wounded people were being carried into a hospital.

Equatorial Guinea, an African country of 1.3 million people located south of Cameroon, was a colony of Spain until it gained its independence in 1968. Bata has roughly 175,000 inhabitants. 

Earlier, the Health Ministry had tweeted that 17 were killed and the president’s statement mentioned 15 dead.

The Health Ministry issued a call for blood donors and volunteer health workers to go to the Regional Hospital de Bata, one of three hospitals treating the wounded.

The ministry said its health workers were treating the injured at the site of the tragedy and in medical facilities, but feared people were still missing under the rubble. 

The blasts were a shock for the oil rich Central African nation. Foreign Minister Simeón Oyono Esono Angue met with foreign ambassadors and asked for aid.

“It is important for us to ask our brother countries for their assistance in this lamentable situation since we have a health emergency (from COVID-19) and the tragedy in Bata,” he said.

A doctor calling into TVGE, who went by his first name, Florentino, said the situation was a “moment of crisis” and that the hospitals were overcrowded. He said hospital facilities set up at a sports center for COVID-19 patients would be used to receive minor cases. 

Radio station, Radio Macuto, said on Twitter that people were being evacuated within 4 kilometers of the city because the fumes might be harmful.

Following the blast, the Spanish Embassy in Equatorial Guinea recommended on Twitter that “Spanish nationals stay in their homes.”

Source: VOA

Mahamadou Issoufou, who is stepping down as president of coup-prone Niger after two terms in office, on Monday won Africa’s top prize for leadership.

He was awarded the 2020 Mo Ibrahim Prize for facing “seemingly insurmountable challenges”, ranging from deep poverty to jihadism and desertification.

Despite these enduring problems, “Issoufou has led his people on a path of progress”, said a statement by award committee chairman Festus Mogae, who is also former president of Botswana.

“Today, the number of Nigeriens living below the poverty line has fallen to 40 percent, from 48 percent a decade ago,” the statement said.

“While challenges remain, Issoufou has kept his promises to the Nigerien people and paved the way for a better future.”

Issoufou, 68, is stepping down next month after 10 years in office.

His decision to quit after two terms has enabled Niger to have the first democratic transition between elected leaders since it became independent from France more than 60 years ago.

The handover has been contrasted with that of other countries in West Africa, where presidents have overseen constitutional changes enabling them to extend their time in office — often at the cost of violent protests.

Issoufou’s preferred successor and right-hand man, Mohamed Bazoum, won last month’s runoff, although the results were contested by the opposition and violence in the capital Niamey claimed two lives.

The Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership is based on principles of sound government, respect for term limits and democratic elections.

It has been handed out by a foundation, set up by British-Sudanese telecoms tycoon Mo Ibrahim, since 2007.

Issoufou is the sixth recipient — the prize has not been awarded in some years because of a lack of a suitable winner.

Past winners include former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and South African apartheid fighter and former president Nelson Mandela, both of whom were also Nobel Peace laureates.

Winners receive $5 million spread over 10 years, and then a life endowment of $200,000 for the rest of their lives.

In a statement on Twitter, Issoufou thanked the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, and said he considered the award an “encouragement to continue to think and act to promote democratic values and good governance, not only in Niger but also in Africa and throughout the world”.

Niger is the world’s poorest nation, according to the UN’s benchmark of human development, and is struggling with soaring population growth.

It is also fighting two jihadist insurgencies that have forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.

Source: AFP

Senegalese police clashed with supporters of arrested opposition leader Ousmane Sonko on Thursday, leaving one person dead in the south of the country, a police official said.

It was the first death confirmed in clashes since Sonko was arrested on Wednesday for disturbing public order as protests broke out ahead of his court appearance on a rape charge.

Sonko, leader of the opposition Pastef party and former presidential candidate, is considered a key potential challenger for President Macky Sall in elections in three years.

One person was killed in clashes on Thursday in Bignona town, in the southern Casamance region, the police official said.

“We still don’t know the cause, it is under investigation,” said the official who asked not to be identified.

Four police were also injured in the fighting.

Sonko’s arrest has triggered the worst unrest seen in Dakar in years, in a West African country known for its stability.

Dozens of students were still holed up in Dakar’s Cheikh Anta Diop university on Thursday, where they threw concrete blocks at police, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

Sonko was to be transferred Thursday evening to a Dakar courthouse where his case will be heard by a judge. But his lawyers said the hearing had been postponed to Friday.

“Ousmane Sonko is now the subject of a warrant. He will be taken to the investigating magistrate tomorrow, willingly or by force,” Abdoulaye Tall, one of his attorneys, told AFP.

Senegalese regulatory authorities on Thursday also suspended the signal of two local television channels, Sen TV and Walf TV, accusing them of broadcasting “in loop” images of the unrest after Sonko’s arrest.

Popular with youth

Hundreds of people had followed his motorcade on Wednesday, sounding horns and singing before clashes erupted and Sonko was arrested before reaching the court.

Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome said Sonko had been arrested over a ban on gatherings because of the coronavirus and violating a traffic plan put in place.

“Everyone has to comply. Others have done the same. I wonder why there would be an exception,” he told RFM radio.

Sonko also denies the rape charges filed against him last month by an employee at a salon where he received massages.

A 46-year-old devout Muslim, Sonko is frequently critical of Senegal’s ruling elite and is popular with young people.

He accuses Sall of conspiring to sideline him ahead of the 2024 elections.

Violence also broke out Wednesday in other areas including in Casamance, where Sonko’s father is from and where he has a strong following.

Sonko ran against the president in the 2019 vote, but finished third in a race that delivered the incumbent a second term.

Presidents in the former French colony are limited to two consecutive terms, but Sall launched a constitutional review in 2016, raising suspicions he intends to run again.

Source: AFP

Pro-government forces in the Central African Republic (CAR) on Wednesday seized a stronghold of former president Francois Bozize, who was accused in December of plotting a coup, Prime Minister Firmin Ngrebada said.

“I hail the capture of the town of Bossangoa by our forces and allies today,” he said on Facebook, referring to a key pro-Bozize town 280 kilometres (175 miles) north of the capital Bangui.

“Allies” is a term used by CAR’s government for Russian paramilitaries and Rwandan troops who are supporting the beleaguered authorities against rebel groups.

“Never again will bandits disturb people in this part of the country,” Ngrebada vowed.

A senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said “fighting is still ongoing” but “resistance has been broken, the enemy is fleeing.”

In mid-December, six rebel groups united to launch an offensive against President Faustin Archange Touadera, just over a week before presidential and legislative elections.

The government said the rebels had acted in concert with Bozize, who seized power in 2003 and was ousted a decade later—an act that sparked a civil war along sectarian lines.

Russia and Rwanda flew in military personnel to shore up the CAR’s poorly- equipped armed forces, which are also backed by a 12,000 UN force, MINUSCA.

The rebels attacked a string of towns in January and twice came close to the capital, but the government and its allies went on the counter-offensive.

A string of towns—Boda, Boali, Bossembele, Bossemptele, Yaloke and Beloko—have been recaptured and on February 16, Bangui’s road lifeline to neighbouring Cameroon was reopened.

The following day, the government said it had “completely liberated” Bambari, CAR’s fifth biggest town, located in the centre of the country, and captured “numerous prisoners.”

Shadow of Bozize

Bozize fled abroad after being toppled in 2013.

He returned in late 2019, stoking fears that the troubled nation would be plunged once more into a full-fledged conflict as elections loomed on the horizon.

Violence remains endemic in a country where two-thirds of the territory is controlled by militia groups.

Touadera won re-election in the first round of the polls, according to official figures, but the turnout was just 35 percent as many voters were unable to cast their ballot.

Bozize denies giving any support to the six rebel groups, who teamed up in December under the name of the Coalition of Patriots for Change, or CPC.

On January 4, the government launched an inquiry into him for “rebellion.”

Thousands of people have died in the CAR since 2013 and more than a quarter of the population of 4.9 million have fled their homes.

Of these, 675,000 are refugees in neighbouring countries.

Source: AFP

At least 60 people died when a passenger barge carrying more than 700 people became shipwrecked on the Congo river at night, Democratic Republic of Congo’s humanitarian affairs minister said on Monday.

Some 300 survivors had been found near the scene of the accident in Mai-Ndombe province in the west of the country, but another 240 remained unaccounted for, Steve Mbikayi wrote on Twitter.

Deadly boat accidents are common in Congo, which has few tarred roads across its vast, forested interior and where vessels are frequently loaded well beyond their capacity. For most people the Congo river and its tributaries are the only means of travelling long distances.

“We sympathize with the families of the victims and we demand sanctions against all those responsible for the transport sector,” Mbikayi said, without elaborating. No further details were immediately available.

(Source: Reuters)

Around 20 United Nations peacekeepers were wounded in an attack on their base in central Mali on Wednesday, a UN spokesperson said, offering a provisional toll.

Unidentified militants attacked a temporary base near Kerena, a village in the war-torn centre of the Sahel state, at around 7 am.

Olivier Salgado, the spokesman for the UN’s MINUSMA mission in Mali, said the position was “targeted by direct and indirect fire.”

First established in 2013, the 13,000-strong MINUSMA has suffered one of the highest death tolls of any mission in UN peacekeeping history.

Over 230 of its personnel have died since the mission began, and improvised explosive devices killed five peacekeepers last month alone.

The latest casualties were from a Togolese contingent of peacekeepers, according to an official briefed on the matter, who requested anonymity.

Some peacekeepers were gravely wounded, the official added.

A municipal government official, who declined to be named, also told AFP that militants drove an explosives-laden vehicle into the camp before opening fire.

Mali has been struggling to contain a jihadist insurgency which first emerged in the north of the country 2012, and has since spread to the centre of the country and to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands more have had to flee their homes.

Four peacekeepers were killed by a roadside bomb in northern Mali on January 14, and one died the following day in a similar blast.

– Cycle of violence –

Central Mali is an epicentre of the Sahel conflict where assaults on soldiers and ethnic killings are common.

Ten Malian troops were killed in the same area last week when al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists raided their camp.

The attack on the UN base comes ahead of several important political summits dedicated to curbing the Sahel conflict.

France and the G5 Sahel — a military alliance comprising Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Niger and Mali — are due to meet in Chad on February 15 and 16.

Signatories of the shaky Algiers peace accord are also due to meet in the northern Malian town of Kidal on Thursday.

Mali’s government and several armed groups signed that agreement in 2015. Among other things, it provides for decentralising governance in the vast and ethnically-diverse nation of 19 million people.

Although the implementation of the Algiers accord has been extremely slow, the deal is viewed as one of the few escape routes from Mali’s cycle of violence.

Source: AFP

Violence-torn Central African Republic is facing an increasingly dire humanitarian situation with high insecurity on the main supply route from Cameroon blocking humanitarian deliveries and prices for basic food prices soaring, the United Nations said Monday.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said this is happening as 2.3 million people are already projected to need food, while rapid assessments are showing “alarming figures of severe malnutrition among the newly displaced.”

The U.N. reported Friday that 200,000 people have fled their homes in the impoverished country in less than two months and are displaced inside and outside the country.

According to local authorities, 92,000 refugees have reached Congo from Central African Republic and over 13,200 have crossed into Cameroon, Chad and the Republic of Congo, with more continuing to arrive, Dujarric said.

Central African Republic’s former president, Francois Bozize, and his allies have been accused of inciting the latest violence, which erupted after the constitutional court rejected his candidacy to run for president in December.

President Faustin Archange Touadera won re-election in December to a second term with 53% of the vote, but he continues to face opposition from forces linked to Bozize.

On Jan. 13, rebels attacked the outskirts of Bangui, killing at least two U.N. peacekeepers and blocking important access roads to the capital, causing food prices to skyrocket. The rebel attack was the most serious threat to Bangui since 2013, when a coalition of predominantly Muslim rebels known as Seleka overthrew Bozize’s government.

The Seleka formed a new government that they said would redress the years of marginalization of the country’s Muslim population. Later that year, that government was challenged by militia fighters known as the anti-Balaka who attacked Bangui. The anti-Balaka began attacking Muslim civilians, beating people to death in the streets, destroying mosques and forcing tens of thousands of Muslims to flee Bangui in 2014.

The Seleka rebel president eventually stepped aside amid international pressure and an interim government organized democratic elections in 2016, which Touadera won.

Dujarric said a key cause of the current deteriorating humanitarian situation is the very high level of insecurity along the road link to Cameroon where over 1,600 trucks, including 500 with humanitarian supplies, have been blocked at the border since mid-December, causing a suspension of imports.

“Humanitarian organizations are beginning to report critical stock outages including food and trauma kits,” he said. “The closure of the supply route also caused a worrying increase in the prices of basic foodstuffs — that’s cassava, oil, meat and rice,” of between 75% and 220%.

“This is impacting several markets in the country, including that of the capital, Bangui, and we’re also seeing the closure of several markets because of the impossibility for traders to restock,” Dujarric said.

The United Nations is appealing for $444.7 million to assist 1.84 million people in Central African Republic in 2021, he said.

U.N. refugee spokesman Boris Cheshirkov warned Friday that tens of thousands of refugees from the country are facing dire conditions.

In Congo, he said, new arrivals who crossed the Ubangi, Mbomou and Uele border rivers told refugee officials they fled in panic when they heard gunshots, leaving their belongings behind.

Most refugees are living in dire conditions in remote, hard-to-reach areas close to the rivers without basic shelter and facing acute food shortages, Cheshirkov said. They are dependent on catching fish and on what local villagers with extremely limited resources can spare.

For many, he said, the rivers are also the sole water source for drinking, washing, and cooking, and malaria, respiratory tract infections, and diarrhea have become common.

The U.N. refugee agency is urgently appealing for food, shelter, drinking water, sanitation and health care to help those who fled Central African Republic and prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other diseases, Cheshirkov said.

Source: AP