Thousands of mostly young demonstrators took to the streets across Kenya on Thursday to protest tax hikes, blowing whistles and chanting slogans in a vivid show of anger by Gen-Z protesters against the government.

Police in the capital Nairobi fired tear gas and water cannon against groups of protesters near parliament, but apart from isolated scuffles earlier in the day, the action — dubbed “Occupy Parliament” — remained mostly peaceful.

Led largely by young Kenyans, the demonstrations began in Nairobi on Tuesday before spreading nationwide on Thursday.

They have galvanised widespread discontent over President William Ruto’s economic policies in a country already grappling with a cost-of-living crisis.

Hours after Tuesday’s demonstrations, which saw hundreds of youth face off against the police, the cash-strapped government agreed to make concessions, rolling back several of the tax hikes laid out in a new bill.

But the government still intends to go ahead with some tax increases and has defended the proposed levies as necessary for filling its coffers and cutting reliance on external borrowing.

On Thursday, protests were held across Kenya, with thousands assembling across Nairobi, the Indian Ocean city of Mombasa, the Rift Valley city of Nakuru and the opposition bastion of Kisumu, according to AFP reporters and images broadcast on TV.

Isolated scuffles broke out in Nairobi between protesters and police, who used tear gas and water cannon at demonstrators gathering near the parliament, which began debating the bill on Wednesday.

Despite a heavy police presence and roadblocks erected along several roads leading to parliament, hundreds of protesters gathered in groups, blowing whistles and vuvuzelas, waving placards and chanting: “Ruto must go”.

Ivy, a 26-year-old job seeker dressed in a T-shirt and leggings, told AFP she was prompted to protest for the first time on Thursday because she was “scared” for her future.

“This bill cannot pass. This bill is going to finish us. We don’t have jobs… we can’t even open businesses, we can’t do anything in this country,” she said.

Another first-time protester, Bella, said she had showed up “to make sure the finance bill is rejected.”

The 22-year-old university graduate told AFP she was “not impressed” with the government’s concessions earlier this week.

‘Lying to us’

The presidency on Tuesday announced the removal of proposed levies on bread purchases, car ownership as well as financial and mobile services, prompting a warning from the treasury of a 200-billion-shilling shortfall as a result of the budget cuts.

The government has now targeted an increase in fuel prices and export taxes to fill the void left by the changes, a move critics say will make life more expensive in a country already battling high inflation.

“They are just trying to lie to us, the taxes that they have removed on bread they have added somewhere else,” Bella said, describing it as a tactic to “blindfold” citizens.

A parliament source told AFP that a vote on the proposals was expected on June 27, three days before the deadline for passing the bill.

The taxes were projected to raise 346.7 billion shillings ($2.7 billion), equivalent to 1.9 percent of GDP, and reduce the budget deficit from 5.7 percent to 3.3 percent of GDP.

High inflation

The protest in Nairobi on Tuesday saw black-clad protesters forced into cat-and-mouse chases with police who fired volleys of teargas.

At least 335 people were arrested, according to a consortium of lobby groups including the human rights commission, KNCHR, and Amnesty Kenya.

“We have changed tack. Today we will be in colourful and defiant clothing to avoid a repeat of them arresting everyone in black,” said an organiser of the march, who requested anonymity due to fear of reprisals.

Overall inflation has remained stubbornly high, at an annual rate of 5.1 percent in May, while food and fuel inflation stood at 6.2 percent and 7.8 percent respectively, according to central bank data.

Source: AFP

A senior Kenyan police officer has been shot dead after he opened fire at a magistrate in court in the capital, Nairobi.

The chief inspector opened fire on Makadara Principal Magistrate Monica Kivuti shortly after she made a ruling in a case reportedly involving his wife.

The officer is said to have been angered by the court’s decision to cancel her bail after she had absconded.

The officer, identified as Samson Kipchirchir Kipruto, who is in charge of a police station in Londiani in western Kenya, then pulled out a gun and shot the magistrate, injuring her.

Other officers in court responded immediately, with one of them shooting the offending policeman and killing him.

In the process, three other officers were injured, a police report said.

The magistrate and the injured officers are being treated in hospital.

The judiciary said the magistrate had “cancelled the bond for an accused person who had jumped bond and had failed to offer satisfactory explanations for jumping bond”.

“Immediately this decision was pronounced, a person shot at the magistrate and injured her on the hip,” it said in a statement.

It noted initial reports that indicated “that the shooter is a police officer who is married to the suspect”.

The national police service said the officer was in the court for “unknown reasons”.

Investigations are continuing to establish the circumstances that led to the shooting, it said.

The incident inside a courtroom has come as a shock to Kenyans.

The police have often been accused of being involved in extra-judicial killings but no such incident has been reported inside court.

The judiciary has said it will enhance security measures and has assured judicial staff and other court users of their safety and security.

“As the judiciary family, we wish our colleague a quick recovery. We also send our condolences to the family of the officer who lost his life in this unfortunate incident,” said chief registrar of the judiciary Winfridah Mokaya.

Source: BBC

Malawi’s Vice President Saulos Chilima was killed in a plane crash, the nation’s president said on Tuesday, after searchers located the wreckage of the aircraft in a foggy forest.

The military plane carrying Chilima, 51, and nine others disappeared on Monday, after it failed to land in the northern city of Mzuzu due to bad weather and was told to return to the capital, Lilongwe.

“The search and rescue team have found the aircraft … completely destroyed with no survivors, as all passengers on board were killed on impact,” Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera said addressing the nation.

“Words cannot describe how heartbreaking this is,” he said, describing the accident as a “terrible tragedy.”

Photographs shared with AFP by a member of the military rescue team showed army personnel standing on a foggy slope near debris bearing the registration number of the Malawi Army Air Wing Dornier 228-202K aircraft.

Rescuers had been combing a fog-cloaked forest south of Mzuzu on Tuesday, after authorities located the last tower it transmitted to before the plane disappeared.

Earlier, army commander General Paul Valentino Phiri said other countries, including Malawi’s neighbours, had been aiding the search effort, with support including helicopters and drones.

The group departed just after 9:00 am (0700 GMT) from Lilongwe on Monday to attend the funeral of a former cabinet minister some 370 kilometres (230 miles) away in Mzuzu.

Malawi’s former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri was also on board.

Widely loved

Chakwera said he had previously flown on the same aircraft for similar trips. The crew had successfully operated it just hours before the accident, he added.

“And yet, despite the track record of the aircraft and the experience of the crew, something terrible went wrong with that aircraft on its flight back to Lilongwe, sending it crashing down,” he said.

First elected vice president in 2014, the charismatic yet stern-talking Chilima was a widely loved figure in Malawi, particularly among young people.

But in 2022, during his second stint in the job, Chilima was stripped of his powers after being arrested and charged with graft over a bribery scandal involving a British-Malawian businessman.

Last month, a Malawian court dropped the charges and he resumed his official duties.

“Chilima was a good man, a devoted father and husband, a patriotic citizen who served his country with distinction and a formidable vice president,” Chakwera said. 

“I consider it one of the greatest honours of my life to have had him as my deputy and counsellor for the past four years.”

Source: AFP

The United States agreed Friday to withdraw its more than 1,000 troops from Niger, officials said, upending its posture in West Africa where the country was home to a major drone base.

The long-expected move effectively marks a new regional gain for Russia, which has ramped up its focus on Africa and backed military regimes in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso.

Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell accepted the call to remove troops in a meeting in Washington with the prime minister of the junta, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, US officials told AFP on condition of anonymity.

They agreed that a US delegation would head within days to the capital Niamey to arrange an orderly withdrawal, the officials said. Nigerien state television earlier announced that the US officials would visit next week.

The State Department made no immediate public announcement and officials said no timeline was yet set to withdraw the troops.

Niger was long a linchpin in the US and French strategy to combat jihadists in West Africa. The United States built a base in the desert city of Agadez at the cost of $100 million to fly a fleet of drones.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken in March 2023 became the highest-ranking American ever to visit Niger, vowing economic support for one of the world’s poorest countries and seeking to bolster elected president Mohamed Bazoum, a stalwart Western ally.

But the military four months later sacked Bazoum and quickly kicked out troops from former colonial power France.

Unlike its anger toward France, the junta initially sounded an openness to maintaining its longtime defense relationship with the United States.

President Joe Biden’s administration, however, has refused to mute concerns, insisting on the return of civilian rule and the release of Bazoum.

Russian military instructors arrived in Niger this month with an air defense system and other equipment, state media said, after talks between military ruler General Abdourahamane Tiani and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Nigerien message becomes clear

The Nigerien military had announced last month in a statement on state television that it was breaking off a defense agreement with the United States with immediate effect.

But diplomats said the Nigerian leadership had sent mixed messages and the United States initially said it was awaiting confirmation.

The United States puts a high priority on troops’ safety, and concerns rose last week when thousands rallied outside the National Assembly headquarters chanting for US troops to leave.

Despite maintaining dialogue with the junta, the United States has for months been preparing for the likelihood it will need to exit Niger.

General James Hecker, the US Air Force commander for both Europe and Africa, said late last year that the United States was in discussions for “several locations” elsewhere in West Africa to station drones.

While not publicly asking to station drones, the United States has pursued close cooperation with coastal democracies including Benin, Ghana and Ivory Coast.

Western governments feared that the remote Sahel will offer a new hub for Islamist militants after jihadists overran much of Mali in 2012 as part of a rebellion by ethnic Tuaregs.

With Niger seen as comparatively stable, the United States based its drones in Agadez, building the site known as Air Base 101.

The United States resumed drone operations after the July coup in Niger but one of its main functions soon became surveillance for the sake of protecting the US troops based there.

With support from both parties, the United States in recent years has been retrenching its once sprawling military network set up as part of the “war on terror” following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Representative Matt Gaetz, a hard-right Republican known for his brash statements, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Niger was an “extraordinary Biden foreign policy failure” and urged the safe withdrawal of troops.

Source: AFP

Russian military instructors have arrived in Niger with an air defence system and other equipment as part of the West African nation’s deepening security ties with Moscow, state television announced late on Thursday.

Niger’s military government agreed in January to step up security cooperation with Russia, after expelling French forces that were helping fight jihadist rebellions in several Sahel nations.

Source: France 24

Troops from Chad and Cameroon have freed scores of civilians who were kidnapped for ransom or to fight with jihadist groups on both sides of the two central African states’ border.

Military officials from both countries say the number of civilian kidnappings has increased along the border, with several hundred people still in captivity.

Cameroon’s military said Tuesday it received five civilians — a 54-year-old man and four people between 17 and 24 years old — from Chadian government troops.

The five men, who were escorted to the office of the governor of Cameroon’s Far North region on Wednesday, were abducted this year from villages around Kousseri and Logone Birni, towns on the border with Chad, Cameroon government officials said.

Victor Boukar, one of the former hostages, said heavily armed men chained their legs every night and tied their hands with ropes during the day. He said they were tortured regularly and were given only one meal per day during their 70 days in captivity.

Boukar said captors regularly forced 35 captives, including seven women, to move to different localities on both sides of the Cameroon-Chad border to avoid government troops trying to rescue them.

Hostages whose families paid a ransom were abandoned in the bush, he said, adding that armed men have representatives who collect the ransom money in border towns and villages.

Last week, Chad said its troops launched attacks on border villages in Mayo Kebbi East and Mayo Kebbi West provinces where several hundred people were held hostage by armed gangs and jihadists. It said soldiers freed scores of civilians. Cameroonian nationals were returned to their home country, while Chadians were reunited with their families after receiving medical care.

Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of the Far North region, said Chad and Cameroon are reuniting to fight rebels and bring peace along their porous, 1,100-plus kilometer (680-mile) land border.

He said Cameroonian border troops will arrest or kill armed men and jihadists hiding in local towns and villages, and Cameroon is allowing Chadian troops to cross the border in hot pursuit of Boko Haram militants and armed gangs.

General Ahmat Kogri, a military adviser to Chad’s transitional president Mahamat Idriss Deby, told Chad’s state TV on Wednesday that Boko Haram militants have renewed attacks and abductions to acquire supplies, after their fire power was drastically reduced in battles with the Multinational Joint Task Force.

Kogri said forces fighting to restore peace have taken note that Boko Haram and its splinter jihadist groups are again attacking people and seizing goods. He said civilians should report all strangers in border towns and villages to government troops.

Boko Haram attacks began in Nigeria’s Borno state in 2009 and spread to Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

The United Nations says the Islamist insurgency has left more than 37,000 people dead, mainly in Nigeria, and displaced more than 3 million.

Source: VOA

Niger’s government announced on Saturday that it was breaking off “with immediate effect” its military cooperation agreement with the United States.

The declaration came just a day after a senior US delegation left Niger, following a three-day visit to renew contact with the military junta that ousted the president and moved closer to Russia.

The statement said the government had decided to “denounce with immediate effect” the agreement relating to US military and civilian employees of the US Department of Defense inside Niger.

It was read out Saturday evening on national television.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington was aware of the statement, and that it came after “frank discussions … about our concerns” with the junta’s “trajectory.”

Miller said on X that the US was still in touch with the junta and would provide updates “as warranted.”

The Pentagon provided AFP with an identical statement.

The United States still stations some 1,000 troops in Niger at a desert drone base built at a cost of $100 million.

Movements there have been limited since the July 2023 coup and Washington has curbed assistance to the government.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid a rare visit to Niger a year ago in hopes of shoring up president Mohamed Bazoum, a stalwart ally in Western security efforts against jihadists.

Just four months later, the military deposed Bazoum and put him under house arrest.

The junta took a hard line against former colonial power France, forcing the withdrawal of French troops in place for nearly a decade.

Niger’s military had in the past worked closely with the United States.

But the junta has sought cooperation with Russia, while stopping short of the full-fledged embrace of Moscow by military-run neighbours Mali and Burkina Faso.

Source: AFP

Communication ministers from the Economic Community of Central African States, ECCAS, are meeting in Bangui, Central African Republic, this week to map out ways to stop the spread of hate speech.

Officials from central African states say some influential politicians, business moguls and community leaders are using radio, television and social media to propagate information that has fueled regional crises, resulting in the displacement of millions of people.

Simplice Mathieu Sarandji, prime minister of the Central African Republic, said leaders of the 11-member ECCAS expect communication ministers at the meeting in Bangui to propose lasting solutions to xenophobic statements that are propagated on media outlets.

Sarandji said humanitarian crises are spiraling in ECCAS states because of widespread hate speech.

A separatist crisis in western Cameroon, which has killed more than 6,000 people, was fueled in part by social media propaganda by rebel leaders who are based in Europe and the United States, according to Cameroonian officials.

Hate on social media also fueled an ongoing conflict between ranchers and fishers in northern Cameroon and Chad. Clashes there have killed more than 100 people and displaced more than 80,000.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda was sparked by hate speech, mostly over radio, by Hutu extremists against Tutsis.

Joanne Adamson, deputy head of MINUSCA, the U.N. stabilization mission in the Central African Republic, spoke about the Bangui meeting on state TV in the CAR.

She said the focus on hate speech is an important step toward finding solutions to fighting that sparked a mass movement of people fleeing in search of safety. By organizing the forum, Adamson added, the 11 ECCAS member states indicate they are ready to support and defend values that are vital to consolidate peace and security and promote human rights.

The ministers said they will enact legislation to punish people who use TV, radio and print media to propagate hate speech, but gave no further details. They also have agreed to control harmful content they say runs rampant on social media.

Charly Gabriel Mbock, an anthropologist and conflict resolution specialist at the Yaounde-headquartered Catholic University of Central Africa, said the ministers should launch campaigns against hate speech in restive central African towns and villages.

To do this, Mbock said, ECCAS communication ministers must educate clerics and traditional rulers that peace is priceless, before using radio, television and print media to call on civilians to reject and denounce calls for violence, especially on social media. He said central African governments should also make sure media laws being prepared against hate and xenophobic language do not infringe on press freedom.

The communication ministers say they will submit their recommendations to ECCAS governments with the hope that if hate speech and xenophobic statements can be stopped, peace will return to restive areas.

Source: VOA