Scores of migrants who swam through rough Atlantic Ocean waters to safety from a capsized boat while 58 others drowned were receiving care Thursday in Mauritania after one of the deadliest disasters this year among people making the perilous journey to Europe.

The boat that left Gambia a week ago had been carrying at least 150 people, including women and children.

It was headed toward the Canary Islands when it tried to approach the Mauritanian coast to get fuel and food, Laura Lungarotti, chief of mission in the West African nation with the U.N. migration agency, told The Associated Press.

“Many drowned. The ones who survived swam up to the Mauritanian coast close to the city of Nouadhibou,” she said. “The Mauritanian authorities are very efficiently coordinating the response with the agencies currently present” in the northern city.

At least 83 people swam to shore, the agency said. An unknown number of injured were taken to the hospital in Nouadhibou. It was not immediately clear whether anyone remained missing. Survivors said the boat had left Gambia on Nov. 27.

There was no immediate statement from authorities in Gambia, where tens of thousands of people have set off in hopes of reaching Europe in recent years.

Despite the country’s small size, more than 35,000 Gambians arrived in Europe between 2014 and 2018, according to the U.N. migration agency.

A 22-year rule by former President Yahya Jammeh affected the country’s economy, especially for youth, and contributed greatly to the exodus.

Since Jammeh fled into exile in January 2017 after a surprise election loss, European countries have been pushing to return asylum seekers.

But Gambia’s economy still suffers. The coastal nation was shaken earlier this year by the collapse of British travel company Thomas Cook.

At the time, Gambia’s tourism minister said the government convened an emergency meeting on the collapse, while some Gambians said the shutdown could have a devastating impact on tourism, which contributes more than 30% of the country’s GDP.

AP

The wealth of Zimbabwe’s former longtime president Robert Mugabe was long a mystery. Now the first official list of assets to be made public says he left behind $10 million and several houses when he died in September.

Some in Zimbabwe view that estate as far too modest for Mugabe, who ruled for 37 years and was accused by critics of accumulating vast riches and presiding over grand corruption.

The report by the state-run Herald newspaper on Tuesday does not mention any overseas assets, though it is thought that Mugabe had properties in neighboring South Africa and in Asia.

The report says there appears to be no will, though lawyers are still looking for one. The report cites the lawyers as saying the law stipulates that Mugabe’s wife, Grace, and children will inherit the property in that case.

Mugabe also left behind a farm, 10 cars and 11 hectares (27 acres) of land that included an orchard at his rural home where he was buried. His daughter, Bona, registered the estate on behalf of the family, the report said.

More than a dozen farms are publicly known to have been seized from both black and white farmers by the deceased’s family.

Mugabe died of cancer in a Singapore hospital at age 95 nearly two years after he was forced by Zimbabwe’s military and ruling party to resign.

Many in the southern African nation say the country he left behind has fallen deeper into economic and political crisis, with a growing hunger problem that a United Nations expert last month called “shocking” for a state not at war.

Half of Zimbabwe’s population, or more than 7 million people, is experiencing severe hunger, the U.N. World Food Program said Tuesday, calling it a “vicious cycle of sky-rocketing malnutrition that’s hitting women and children hardest.”

It plans to more than double the number of people it helps to 4 million but said delivering aid will be complicated by “surging prices” for basic items and a regional drought that has hurt food supplies.

Critics blame the overall crisis on the administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has struggled to fulfil promises of prosperity since taking power in 2017.

AP

French President Emmanuel Macron told his country military leaders to consider all options as it seeks to review its operations against Islamist militants in West Africa.

Macron’s first public remarks since 13 French soldiers died during a combat mission in Mali included an earnest plea for his international allies to do more.

France, a former colonial power, is the only Western country with a significant military presence waging counter-insurgency operations in Mali and the wider Sahel region south of the Sahara desert.

What happened?

The 13 French soldiers were killed in Mali on Monday when two helicopters collided in the dark after being called in to provide air support during a combat mission to track down a band of Islamic State fighters.

Islamic State said on Thursday that its West African branch had caused the collision, but it did not provide any evidence for the claim.

The French government has faced criticism at home that its troops are bogged down, while critical voices in the region have increasingly scorned Paris for failing to restore stability and anti-French sentiment has grown.

Thirty eight French troops have been killed in the West African Sahel since France sent troops to Mali in 2013.

Macron’s reaction

Macron invited those seeking to understand the cost of France’s mission in the Sahel should witness a ceremony to honour the dead soldiers. The country will be mourning its heaviest single loss of troops for nearly four decades.

“France is acting in the Sahel on everyone’s behalf,” an emotional Macron told a news conference with NATO General-Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.

“Our mission there is important. Nevertheless, the situation we face compels me today to examine all our strategic options.”

France’s options

Macron said he had told his government and top military leaders to look hard at France’s operations in the region, adding, “I told them all options are open”.

He gave no indication what those options were. However, French officials have ruled out withdrawing its 4,500-strong force from the region, fearing this could lead to even more chaos.

As France mourns the dead commandos, Macron wants to incorporate more European allies into operations and to ensure local troops are better trained and equipped.

French officials have also bemoaned the fact peace accords agreed in Mali in 2015 have still not been implemented and that the political will power to implement them is missing.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told lawmakers there was a need for more political action in Mali and a common desire to defeat terrorism, adding that was also the case for neighbouring Burkina Faso.

An unwinnable war?

Despite French troops, 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Mali and thousands of pan-regional forces, Islamist militants have strengthened their foothold across the arid Sahel region, making large swathes of territory ungovernable and stoking ethnic violence, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso.

On Wednesday, France’s top general acknowledged France would never achieve a total victory over al Qaeda- and Islamic State-affiliated militants.

Macron’s government denies it is bogged down in an intractable conflict. But Monday’s deaths have provoked renewed public comparisons with the United States’ drawn-out military involvement in Afghanistan.

France has complained to European allies that it is bearing the brunt of a counter-terrorism operation that benefits all Europe. It hopes to persuade them quickly to send special forces to the region to back up local troops, Le Drian said.

REUTERS

Zimbabwe is on the brink of man-made starvation and the number of people needing help is “shocking” for a country not in conflict, a United Nations special expert on the right to food said Thursday.

Hilal Elver said she found stunted and underweight children, mothers too hungry to breastfeed their babies and medicine shortages in hospitals during her 10-day visit to the economically shattered country.

She said the southern African nation is among the four most food insecure states in the world. The others — Yemen, South Sudan and Somalia — have been ravaged by war. Zimbabwe’s food crisis has the potential to spark fighting, the U.N. expert said.

“I urgently call on the government, all political parties and the international community to come together to put an end to this spiraling crisis before it morphs into a full-blown conflict,” she said.

The consequences of hunger have been dire, Elver said. School dropouts, early marriage, domestic violence, prostitution and sexual exploitation are on the rise.

She blamed widespread corruption, mismanagement, natural disasters, droughts and sanctions for the crisis. Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic difficulties in more than a decade.

More than 60% of the population of 16 million is now considered food insecure. “It comes from (a) dysfunctional system,” the U.N. expert said.

About 5.5 million people in rural areas face food insecurity. In urban areas, about 2.2 million people lack access to basic public services, including health and safe water, according to figures by U.N agencies and the government. Electricity is cut up to 19 hours a day.

“These are shocking figures and the crisis continues to worsen,” Elver said. Where food items are available most people have no money to buy, she said.

Critics blame the administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has struggled to fulfil promises of prosperity since taking power in 2017 after the forced resignation of longtime leader Robert Mugabe.

Mnangagwa blames recurrent droughts and sanctions imposed by the United States for the crisis. The U.S. says the sanctions target entities and individuals, including Mnangagwa, over rights abuses, not the country at large.

AP

The spokesman of the Gabonese presidency, Ike Ngouoni, has been detained in the capital Libreville in what is believed to be an anti-corruption investigation, his lawyers told the AFP news agency on Monday.

Mr. Ngouoni, along with over a dozen others have been detained since last Thursday “without any reason,” said lawyer, Anges Kévin Nzigou.

The lawyer further disclosed that his clients were all questioned about the financing of the “republican tour” led a few months ago by Brice Laccruche Alihanga, then cabinet director of the presidency.

The wave of arrests in progress is neither a witch hunt nor a settling of accounts. The fight against impunity has no agenda or timetable, it is permanent.

Despite his efforts, it was in early November that he was sacked from the presidency. He was subsequently appointed to the post of minister in charge of the follow-up of the “Strategy of the human investments and the objectives of sustainable development”.

Another lawyer for the detained presidential spokesperson, Boris Rosenthal, insists that “there is a political vendetta” in the current process, a claim the Prime Minister refutes.

“The wave of arrests in progress is neither a witch hunt nor a settling of accounts,” said Gabonese Prime Minister Julien Nkoghe Bekale on Monday on Twitter. “The fight against impunity has no agenda or timetable, it is permanent.”

The Central Africa oil producer has in the past few months been rocked by a timber scandal that also led to the firing of top government officials including the vice president.

Source: Africa News

Residents in DR Congo’s volatile city of Beni set fire to the local town hall and accused US peacekeepers of inaction after eight civilians were killed overnight in a militant attack, an AFP reporter said.

Army spokesman Colonel Mak Hazukai confirmed the latest casualties in the city, near the Ugandan border, telling AFP that “the enemy entered the Boikene quarter and killed eight civilians.”

Incensed locals then partly burnt the town hall and then moved towards the camp of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) on the outskirts of Beni, accusing it of inaction.   

There have been a string of rallies against local forces and UN peacekeepers in Beni for failing to stop attacks by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia.

Nearly 70 civilians have been massacred in the Beni region since military action against the ADF began at the start of November.

A protester died in police firing on Saturday. Two policemen were killed the same day by angry demonstrators, the UN Okapi radio said.

The ADF began as an Islamist rebellion hostile to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. They fell back into eastern DRC in 1995 and have recruited people of different nationalities, but appear to have halted raids inside Uganda.

MONUSCO on Saturday said the Congolese army had launched the offensive unilaterally.

“MONUSCO cannot engage in operations in a war zone without being asked and without strict coordination with the national army,” it said in a tweet, adding that uncoordinated action could lead to friendly fire.

(AFP)

Seven crew aboard a supply ship for the oil industry in Equatorial Guinea were kidnapped when “pirates” attacked their vessel, the oil and gas ministry said in a statement.The 15-member crew comprised nationals from South Africa, the Philippines, Serbia, and Cameroon.

The US oil giant ExxonMobil reported the supply ship Warden, which it was chartering from the oil services firm Swire, was attacked on Wednesday in the country’s territorial waters, it said.“Eight hid and seven were kidnapped,” the statement said.

The vessel had left the oilfield of Zafiro, 12 nautical miles off the coast, and was heading to Luba, a port town on the southern island of Bioko, when it was attacked.The statement gave no details about the kidnappers or their motives.Equatorial Guinea is located on the southern rim of the Gulf of Guinea, one of the world’s hotspots for maritime piracy.In the first nine months of this year, the region accounted for 82 percent of crew kidnappings around the world, according to the International Maritime Bureau, an organization monitoring crimes at sea.

In 2018, attacks doubled over the previous year.Pirates in the Gulf of Guinea sometimes divert ships for several days, long enough to plunder the cargo and demand huge ransoms before freeing the crew.On Nov. 4, four sailors were kidnapped and a guard was shot and wounded when suspected pirates stormed an oil tanker off the coast of Togo.

Two days earlier, pirates attacked a Norwegian-owned ship waiting to berth at the port of Cotonou in Benin, taking eight crew and the captain.In August, Russian, Chinese and Ukrainian seamen were seized in attacks on merchant ships off Cameroon’s port of Douala.

The countries bordering the Gulf of Guinea, an arc that stretches some 6,000 kilometers from Angola to Liberia in the north, have limited surveillance and maritime defense capabilities.They have been trying for several years to bolster their means of intervention and improve regional collaboration with US and French help. 

Source: AFP

Heavy rains lashing East Africa have caused dozens of deaths, with 29 buried by landslides in Kenya, and 10 people drowned in a river in Tanzania, officials said Saturday.

The landslides and floods come amid weeks of destructive rains and flooding across the wider East African region.

At least 29 people were killed in Kenya when their homes were swept away in landslides during ferocious overnight rainstorms.

Their homes were hit in the early hours of Saturday amid torrential rains in the Pokot region, 350 kilometers northwest of the capital, Nairobi.

“We are saddened to confirm that 12 people from Tapach and Parua in Pokot South, and 17 from Tamkal in Pokot Central lost their lives,” Kenya’s Interior Minister Fred Matiang’i said in a statement.

“Our profound sympathies go to the families and friends of those who have been affected.”

Army and police helicopters have been sent, Matiang’i said, with efforts delayed because roads had been cut and bridges closed after streams turned into raging torrents.

Two children were pulled out alive from the smashed wreckage of their mud-covered homes, and rescue efforts to dig bodies out of the dirt continued.

“Massive landslides reported in various areas of West Pokot County following heavy downpour,” Kenya Red Cross said in a message, adding its emergency response teams had deployed to help.

Extreme weather

In Tanzania, at least 10 people drowned when they were swept away by a torrential river in the far west, in the Sengerema district of Mwanza.

“We think there is a possibility to find more bodies,” said Tanzanian Red Cross official Revocatus Kayanda, part of the team who recovered the victims.

Violent downpours have also displaced tens of thousands in Somalia, submerged whole towns in South Sudan, and killed dozens in flash floods and landslides in Ethiopia.

Close to a million people in South Sudan alone are affected with growing fears of disease and starvation.

Floods hit East Africa regularly, but scientists say that it has been exacerbated by a powerful climate phenomenon in the Indian Ocean, stronger than any seen in years.

The extreme weather is blamed on the Indian Ocean Dipole — a climate system defined by the difference in sea surface temperature between the western and eastern areas of the ocean.

The ocean off East Africa is currently far warmer than usual, resulting in higher evaporation and consequent rain over the continent.

(Source: AFP)

Wildlife conservationists who have played an important role in protecting wildlife in Africa were honoured by the Duke of Cambridge in London on Thursday (November 21).

The Prince William Award for Conservation in Africa was awarded to Carlos Lopes Pereira from Mozambique, where the number of protected species like elephants and rhinos has been dwindling.

Prince William explained that, “the species that we are struggling to keep alive in the system is the protected species like the elephant, rhino. We almost lost all rhinos. We have few rhinos in the country, in the south. Elephants – we had a disastrous situation between 2010, 2014. We lost almost 60 percent of our elephant population. But we have, I think and I hope we’ll keep it for a long time stabilised on the protected species.”

Zambia’s Benson Kanyembo took home the Wildlife Ranger award, while Senegal’s Tomas Diagne was honoured for his work in conserving African turtles and tortoises.

“When I started my work, I started as a junior person who never thought they would be recognised, and it has sent a different message. Everyone, those who feel like they’re left out, now they are working hard. They know people are looking at them. One day they’ll be recognised. So it’s a big morale booster to all the rangers, not only in Africa, all Zambia. The whole Africa, everyone is appreciating,” Benson said after receiving the award.

Two finalists – Jeneria Lekilelei from Kenya and Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka from Uganda — also won grants in recognition of their work to protect lions and mountain gorillas respectively.

The annual event has been held for the past seven years.

REUTERS