Malians took to the streets in the capital Bamako on Tuesday, despite rainfall and pleas from mediators to stay home, to demand the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

Protesters numbering in the low thousands assembled in a central square, an AFP journalist saw, blowing plastic vuvuzela horns and carrying placards bearing anti-government slogans.

“We want real change in Mali, IBK get out,” read one placard, using the acronym by which Keita is known.

Other people carried umbrellas against the rain, and toted signs asking the prime minister to resign too.

After the crowd sung the national anthem, prominent opposition leader Choguel Maiga told them: “We will continue our fight until the end of IBK and of his regime.”

The gathering marks the first time the June 5 Movement has staged a protest since July 21, when the opposition group declared a temporary truce in a months-long push to topple Keita. 

It staged the demonstration despite a call to stay home from Nigeria’s ex-president, Goodluck Jonathan, a mediator for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Mali’s crisis.

“Demonstrations do not solve problems per se,” Jonathan told a news conference on Monday evening, adding that opposition figures needed to enter dialogue.

His appeal came after the June 5 Movement repeatedly spurned compromise proposals put forward by ECOWAS, as it has continued to insist on Keita’s resignation.

Mali’s political impasse has struck fear into the poor Sahel state’s neighbours and allies, who are keen to avoid it sliding into chaos.

Mediation flop

The June 5 Movement — so called after the date of its first protest — has been channelling deep anger over a dire economy, perceived government corruption and Mali’s eight-year jihadist conflict.

But tensions snowballed in crisis last month, when 11 people died over three days of unrest following an anti-Keita protest, in the worst political strife the country has seen in years.

The 15-nation ECOWAS bloc stepped in to mediate. On July 27, the bloc’s heads of government suggested the formation of a new unity government, among other measures, while sticking by Keita.

The June 5 Movement has rejected the proposals, however.

Nigeria’s ex-president Jonathan, who had already led a mediation mission to Mali in mid-July, made a surprise return to Bamako on Monday, where he met the president and opposition figures.

Still, there is little indication of breaking the impasse as anti-Keita protests have gone ahead despite his admonitions.

Constitutional Court

Keita, who first came to power in 2013, has meanwhile attempted to follow the ECOWAS recommendations.

He swore in nine new judges to the Constitutional Court on Monday, which formed part of an ECOWAS plant to resolve an election dispute that has contributed to the crisis.

Much of Mali’s current tension was sparked in April, when the Constitutional Court tossed out 30 results from long-delayed parliamentary elections — a move that benefited Keita’s party, but triggered protests.

ECOWAS had recommended appointing new judges to the court, and holding new elections in the 30 disputed parliamentary seats.

The MPs occupying those seats, however, have refused to step down. They are drawn from both Keita’s party and opposition parties.

Source: AFP

More than 100 Boko Haram and their captives, almost all Nigerians, have fled the group in the past two weeks, according to the Multinational Joint Task Force fighting the Islamist militants.

Thirty-four-year-old Nigerian Kharim Kalga is among 109 people who have surrendered to the task force since late July. 

Kalga said he has not seen his two wives and five children in the two years since he joined the Islamist militant group because they kept him captive.

He said he was living in poverty when Boko Haram fighters promised to give him a motorcycle to earn money for his family, so he joined the group. He said he was forced to steal cattle and millet from villages surrounding the militant group’s camp in Nigeria. Kalga said he surrendered to the military because Boko Haram did not fulfill its promise to give him a motorcycle.

The task force is holding the former Boko Haram fighters and captives at their base in Cameroon’s northern town of Mora, near the border with Nigeria.

Among them are 45 Nigerian and three Cameroonian former fighters, 45 Nigerian children and 16 women who were being used as sex slaves.

Commander of the Multinational Joint Task Force Major General Ibrahim Manu Yusuf said the Nigerians are all from Borno state, a Boko Haram stronghold.

A campaign calling for Boko Haram members to surrender and be pardoned has helped in the fight, Yusuf said.

“As professional armies, we always open this window for those who wish to come up and surrender,” he said. “You know the narrative in the Boko Haram enclave is that if you come out, soldiers will kill you, and based on the way they are being treated, the way they are being managed, they kept calling on their other colleagues to turn over themselves.”

The governments of Cameroon and Nigeria will decide whether the former Boko Haram members will remain in Cameroon or go back to Nigeria.

Rehabilitation center

Meanwhile, the former militants were handed over to the Cameroon Center for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration.

The Mora-based center was created in 2019 to rehabilitate 100 ex-militants at a time, but currently hosts more than 250. Center director Oumar Bichair said he needs more resources to rehabilitate the increasing numbers fleeing Boko Haram.

The government of Cameroon should provide more housing and workers, especially psychosocial caregivers, Bichair said, adding that the center also needs more workers who can train ex-fighters with skills such as farming, carpentry, and raising fish and livestock.

The Multinational Joint Task Force fighting the Islamist militants is made up of troops from Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.

The U.N. says the decade-long conflict with Boko Haram has left 30,000 people dead and displaced more than 3 million throughout the region.

Source: VOA 

Ivory Coast’s prime minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly was buried in a private ceremony on Friday at the end of week-long national mourning triggered by a death that stunned the West African country.

Gon Coulibaly’s sudden death of a heart attack on July 8 has deprived 78-year-old President Alassane Ouattara of an anointed successor less than four months before key elections.

He was buried in the family tomb in his home town of Korhogo, the main city in the country’s north, a source close to his family said.

Funeral prayers were said earlier in the city’s main mosque, with several hundred mourners, including Ouattara, in attendance.

Gon Coulibaly, 61, died shortly after returning from France, where he had undergone long treatment for cardiac problems.

Nicknamed the “Lion of Korhogo,” he was highly popular in the city of his birth, where he was also an MP and mayor for a long time.

Gon Coulibaly “was a model,” said teacher El Hadj Bambadji Bamba.

“This is the funeral of a chief. We turned out in large numbers today. We had to be here, after everything that this man did for his country.”

Local people said infrastructure funds had flowed into Korhogo during his time in office.

“He tarmacked the main roads and the neighbourhoods, installed electricity throughout the city and the villages outside, gave us piped water and built schools and health centres,” said the local mayor, Lazani Coulibaly, who shares the same family name.

“He changed the face of the city — he achieved more in 10 years than people did in the previous 40.”

The ruling RHDP party is now expected to step up deliberations on how to fill the gap left by Gon Coulibaly for the presidential vote, due on October 31.

One of the world’s major coffee and cocoa producers, the country still carries the scars of a brief civil war that erupted nearly a decade ago.

In 2011, Ouattara ousted then-president Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to step down after losing elections. The months-long standoff claimed 3,000 lives.

In March, Ouattara announced to much surprise that he would not seek a third term in office, and then named Gon Coulibaly as his desired successor.

No clear successor to Gon Coulibaly has so far emerged within RHDP ranks, stoking speculation that Ouattara may change his mind.

Source:AFP

South Africa’s ambassador to Denmark has died in Johannesburg at the age of 59, a family source has confirmed to the public broadcaster SABC.

Ambassador Zindzi Mandela was the daughter of South Africa’s anti-apartheid icons Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and Nomzamo Winnie Madikizela.

She was the youngest daughter of the couple and is reputed to have spent many years involved in South Africa’s freedom struggle.

She was deeply involved in the arts, philanthropy and business. She is a co-founder of the Mandela Legacy Foundation and is also Managing Trustee of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund.

South Africa’s social media space has been buzzing with tonnes of tribute to Zindzi who was a staunch activist against maladminstration.

Zindzi dies on the same day in 1969 when Mandela’s eldest son Madiba Thembikile (Thembi) also died in a car accident, the Nelson Mandela Foundation posted in its daily updates on the life of the globally celebrated statesman.

Source: Africa News

The Ivorian government has confirmed the death of Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly. He died at the age of 61 in the capital Abidjan. Multiple news sites including Jeune Afrique reported the death late Wednesday citing multiple official sources.

The deceased returned home last week (July 2) after a two-month absence during which period he was receiving medical treatment in France. Coulibaly is a close ally of Ouattara and has held the Prime Minister portfolio since 2017.

He was the presidential candidate of the ruling Rally of Republicans party in upcoming polls meant to choose a new president as incumbent Alassane Ouattara leaves office after two terms. The party elected him as flag bearer in March 2020 for the October polls.

“I am back home to take my place at the President’s side, to continue the work of development and construction of our country, Côte d’Ivoire,” Coulibaly said upon his return.

He had been part of a cabinet meeting this morning according to reports. His official Twitter handle posted messages lauding the efforts and leadership of Ouattara.

Source: Africa News

Ghana’s president has gone into self-isolation for two weeks as a precautionary measure despite testing negative for coronavirus, the government said, after one of his contacts was confirmed to have the illness.

President Nana Akufo-Addo began his quarantine on Saturday and will be working from the presidential villa in Accra, capital of the West African country, the information minister said in a statement.

“The president has elected to do so after at least one person within his close circle tested positive for COVID-19,” the minister said.

“(The president) has, as (of) today, tested negative, but has elected to take this measure out of the abundance of caution.”

Ghana has reported more than 19,300 cases of the new respiratory disease and 117 deaths, and has lifted its strict lockdown although social-distancing measures remain in place.

The announcement came a day after the presidency said a junior minister had resigned for failing to self-isolate after testing positive.

There was no official indication the events were linked.

Since the pandemic erupted, a number of senior political figures worldwide have caught the disease, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was hospitalised and has now recovered.

Senegal’s President Macky Sall also went into a preventative quarantine last month, despite testing negative, after coming into contact with a coronavirus case.

Source:  AFP

East Africa is bracing for a third outbreak of desert locusts, with billions of the destructive insects about to hatch and threaten food supplies in a region already reeling from damaging rains and the coronavirus pandemic.

Spurred by favourable weather conditions, the migratory pests have descended on East Africa in record numbers since late 2019 and another wave is about to take to the skies despite the concerted use of pesticides.

“Tens of thousands of hectares of cropland and pasture have already been damaged across the Horn and East Africa,” the International Rescue Committee said in a report this month, noting even a small swarm could devour the same amount of food in a day as approximately 35,000 people.

In Ethiopia between January and April, locusts destroyed 1.3 million hectares of grazing land and nearly 200,000 hectares of crops, resulting in the loss of 350,000 tonnes of cereals, IGAD, the East Africa regional organisation, said in a June report.

But these initial estimates — corresponding to the first and second locust waves — do not fully capture the extent of damage as field surveys have been hindered by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Until we get extended figures, I would just say Ethiopia was definitely the most affected in terms of croplands, then Somalia,” says Kenneth Kemucie Mwangi from ICPAC, the climate monitoring programme of IGAD.

Somalia, which like Kenya experienced heavy rains and flooding in recent months that left scores dead, had already declared a “national emergency” against the locust scourge in February.

So far East African neighbours Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi have been spared the insects, which travel in huge swarms billions of insects strong, and can migrate 150 kilometres (90 miles) in a single day.

– 400 billion killed –

The World Bank in May approved a $500 million (445 million euro) programme to help countries vulnerable to hunger in East Africa fight the pests eating their way across the region.

Pesticide spraying operations have been underway since February, helping wipe out staggering numbers of the insects capable of multiplying their numbers 20-fold every three months.

“About 400,000 hectares were controlled in the region between January and mid May. We estimate that 400 billion locusts have been exterminated,” says Cyril Ferrand, a Nairobi-based expert with the FAO.

“We can’t estimate the total population because we don’t have access to certain areas, especially in Somalia. But we know that it’s been seriously reduced.”

In Kenya, where swarms blotted out the sky for miles in recent months, locusts have retreated to just three semi-arid counties in the country’s far north.

Fortunately too, forecasts of dire hunger did not materialise as the first swarm to arrive from Yemen in 2019 spared the end-of-year harvest, as the crops were already too mature.

The insects, which can eat their body weight in food in a single day, strip the leaves but not seeds.

“We have not seen signs of a large scale impact on food security,” says Lark Walters of the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a US-funded food security monitoring organisation.

– Disaster after disaster –

However that doesn’t mean the impact hasn’t been keenly felt on among vulnerable communities where access to food is fragile, and any shocks can cause immense hardship, he said.

East Africa has endured a string of disasters of near-Biblical proportions in 2020: surging rain and devastating floods, locusts and then amid it all — a viral pandemic.

“Somali pastoralist communities have had three years of drought, then the locusts, now Covid, which will prevent them from exporting their livestock,” said Ferrand of the FAO.

“For them it’s disaster after disaster, so their resilience is already very low. The slightest shock can push them into extreme poverty.”

These shocks can ripple too through the wider economy, where coronavirus lockdowns and border closures have already dragged on trade and caused financial hardship.

On June 11, the credit rating agency Fitch Ratings noted that while coronavirus was the primary factor affecting growth “the ongoing desert locust invasion represents significant downside risk to East Africa’s macroeconomic stability”.

The looming third wave still lies as eggs beneath the soil, but is predicted to hatch in coming weeks, just as farmers take to the fields.

“We have concerns for the June-July harvest,” said Waters.

Warmer weather, more rain and wind gusts are expected to direct the insects northwards, deep into the Horn of Africa and as far as Yemen, areas that will become more conducive to their reproduction in the coming months.

Source:  AFP

Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea have agreed to jointly map out a disputed border area after skirmishes between their troops left several wounded and property destroyed.  Officials from the two countries are asking hundreds of traders and farmers who relocated because of the clashes to return to the disputed area but, some are reluctant.

Officials from Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea agreed to work on defining their disputed border after a crisis meeting Monday night.

Cameroon’s South Region Governor Felix Nguele Nguele said in the past two weeks there have been several skirmishes along the border with Equatorial Guinea’s military.

Nguele said while nobody was killed, several troops were wounded, and goods were destroyed on both sides of the border.

After the meeting Monday, he said Cameroon instructed local officials and traditional rulers to meet with their Equatorial Guinean peers to map out a proposed border.

Nguele said after local officials agree on a proposed new border, the central governments in Malabo and Yaoundé will be able to decide if there will be a new demarcation or not.  But for the time being, he said, people should go about their daily activities peacefully.

Farmers and traders last week fled the border town of Kye-Ossi after tensions with troops on both sides.

Justo Javier Ndong Engon is governor of Equatorial Guinea’s Kie Ntem Province on the border with Cameroon.

He said at the meeting the two sides agreed to return troops to their barracks while waiting for the governments to find a lasting solution to the border dispute.

Engon said the crisis meeting resolved that border authorities ask community leaders and chiefs to urge farmers to return to their farms and traders to their shops.  He said both sides ordered an end to the destruction of goods and asked that farm produce like maize, cassava, tomatoes and vegetables – which were stuck at the border – be given access into Equatorial Guinea.

Engon did not say how many Equatorial Guineans were affected by the conflict.

Cameroon said on its side about 350 farmers and traders had fled the border in the last few weeks but that many were returning.

Cameroonian vegetable seller Derric Sama said despite the assurances that troops have pulled back, he will not return to Kye-Ossi.

He spoke via a messaging application from the town of Ebolowa, where he relocated.

“It is not the first time the military from Equatorial Guinea cross over to destroy our goods or seize vegetables and fruits from us.  Cameroon government tell us every time that they will solve the problem, but no solution seems to be coming,” said Sama.

It’s not the first time tensions have erupted along the two countries’ border.

In August, Equatorial Guinea began to erect a wall along the 183-kilometer border, sparking condemnation from Cameroon.

Cameroon said Equatorial Guinea constructed markers on its territory and instructed the military not to tolerate any unlawful intrusion.

Equatorial Guinea has also often sealed its border with Cameroon, complaining of security threats posed by illegal immigration.

In December 2017, Equatorial Guinea said it had arrested 30 foreign armed men from Chad, the Central African Republic and Sudan on the border who planned to destabilize the government.

Cameroon said at the time it also arrested 40 additional heavily armed men but gave no details.

Source: VOA

Burundi’s government says President Pierre Nkurunziza has died of a heart attack at age 55.

A statement says the president was admitted to a hospital overnight Saturday after not feeling well. He appeared better Sunday but “to very great surprise” his health abruptly worsened Monday morning, and several hours of effort failed to revive him.

Nkurunziza took office 15 years ago, and his decision to run for a disputed third term in 2015 led Burundi into turmoil that left hundreds of people dead. Facing allegations of widespread abuses, his government angrily rejected scrutiny, becoming the first country to leave the International Criminal Court.

 His death comes on the heels of elections on May 20 in which his hand-picked successor, Evariste Ndayishimiye, secured a seven-year term as president — a result confirmed by the constitutional court last Thursday.

Ndayishimiye was due to be sworn in in August.

The statement from Burundi’s presidency on Tuesday the country would observe seven days of mourning beginning Tuesday.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)