Sudan’s deposed President Omar Al-Bashir has appeared in public for the first time on Sunday, when he was taken to the prosecutor’s office in charge of corruption cases in Khartoum.

He was taken to the prosecutor’s office to have the charges against him officially presented to him, according to reports; a process which lasted shortly.

“The principles of the prosecutor’s office were presented to the accused, former President Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir, and a charge was laid under Articles 5 and 9 concerning the possession of foreign currency, as well as Article 6 concerning illegally acquired resources,” a representative from the prosecutor’s office said.

On Saturday, the Attorney General specified that Bashir faces charges of “corruption and illegal possession of foreign currency”.

Corruption cases have also been opened against 41 other former officials, the prosecutor, Alwaleed Sayed Ahmed, said at a news conference in Khartoum

The former President, who came to power by a coup d‘état in 1989, was dismissed and arrested by the army on April 11 in Khartoum, following an unprecedented protest movement.

Source: Africa News

At least 10 Kenyan police officers have been killed after an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted by militants struck their vehicle near the Somali border.

Local Kenyan officials said those killed Saturday in Wajir County along the porous Kenya-Somali border were among 13 officers who were pursuing militants for an earlier assault in the troubled region.

This came a day after Somalia-based Takfiri al-Shabab terrorists claimed responsibility for kidnapping three Kenyan police reservists from Wajir in northeast Kenya.

 “Last night, we captured a village called Konton in Wajir county. We left the village and took three Kenyan policemen with us,” Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabaab’s spokesman for military operations, said on Friday.

Al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabab militants have long carried out similar attacks on Kenya soil targeting security officers and the Nairobi government installations.

Al-Shabab has become one of Africa’s deadliest terrorist groups in recent years through its use of IEDs. In 2018 more than 100 Kenyan police forces were killed in a series of IED attacks along the extensive border.

In the latest attack in mid January, an apparent terrorist attack on an upscale hotel in the Kenyan capital Nairobi killed several people and sent shockwaves across the country. 

Kenya is part of a regional peacekeeping operation that supports the Somali government in its battle against the militants.

The al-Shabab militant group, which once had control over many parts of Somalia, including the capital city Mogadishu, aims to topple the weak central government and push out the African Union (AU) peacekeeping forces, which are made up of soldiers from Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda, Ethiopia, and other African countries.

In 2011, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali troops drove al-Shabab out of all major urban strongholds and ports, but the group still stages attacks on targets in smaller, more remote areas, posing a threat to peace.

The Somalia-based al-Shabab armed group often targets Kenyan security forces, vowing retribution after Kenya deployed troops to Somalia in 2011 to combat the fighters.

The Kenyans, along with allied Somali forces, wrested back control of the territory from al-Shabab after a spate of kidnappings on Kenyan soil.

Source: Presstv

Sudan’s ex-president Omar al-Bashir was on Thursday formally charged with corruption, following the completion of an investigation by state prosecutors.

Bashir was overthrown and arrested in a coup by the military on April 11 after months of mass protests against his autocratic 30-year rule.

The charges were related to laws on “suspected illicit wealth and emergency orders”, the public prosecutor’s office said without giving more details.

Bashir had already been charged in May with incitement and involvement in the killing of protesters.

Prosecutors had also ordered his interrogation on suspicion of money laundering and financing terrorism.

It has not been possible to get a comment from Bashir since his ousting.

Sudan was placed on a U.S. list of sponsors of terrorism under Bashir, an Islamist former general who is also under indictment by the International Court of Justice over war crimes in the country’s western Darfur region.

On Wednesday, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa joined an international effort to press Sudan’s military rulers and the opposition toward a deal on a transition to democracy following the toppling of Bashir.

Stability in Sudan is crucial for a volatile region struggling against Islamist insurgencies from the Horn of Africa to Egypt and Libya. Various powers, including Russia and the Gulf Arab states, are trying to influence its path.

REUTERS

The death toll from a boat accident on a lake in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has risen to 45, with 200 people still missing.

According to the provincial governor, Antoine Masamba, the boat, bound for Boliangwa, was carrying more than 400 people when it sank on Saturday.

He said 11 children were among the dead.

The boat was sailing on Lake Mai-Ndombe in the country’s west after it hit “violent winds” a few kilometers before arriving at its destination on Saturday night, said mayor of the town of Innogo Simon Mbo Wemba.

Wemba also said police had arrested the captain of the boat and an investigation was ongoing. He said the boat had been registered as carrying 113 people while survivors said up to 400 were on board at the time of the accident. The mayor also said the boat had been “decrepit and unfit.”

Officials said the search and recovery operations could take between two and three weeks.

Boat accidents with high fatalities are common on waterways of sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest country, where passenger boats often sink due to the age of the vessels and their operators’ failure to follow rules of navigation, according to the World Health Organization.

Last month, at least 167 people died in two boat accidents in the country. President Felix Tshisekedi declared three days of national mourning after the disaster and made it mandatory for boat passengers to have life buoys.

It was, however, not clear if there were any on the boat that sank on Saturday.

Source: Presstv

The Lagos State High Court in Igbosere has sentenced a Cameroonian maid, Leudjoe Koyemen Joel, to death for murdering her Nigerian employer, Mrs Dayo Adeleke. Delivering the judgement on Tuesday, two years and five months after the crime, Justice Adedayo Akintoye convicted Joel and ordered that he be hanged to death. Justice Adebayo said, the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt a count of murder pressed by the state against the Cameroonian.

Ebun’s mother at her graveside

It reads: “On the night of 20th December 2016, we received the news that our daughter, sister, and friend Dayo Enioluwa Adeleke, was brutally slaughtered in cold blood whilst defenceless and in the solace of her own home by her Cameroonian domestic help, Joel Ledjou

“Words cannot adequately describe the complete and utter devastation and sorrow that her senseless murder has caused in our lives.

“Joel had just been employed two months prior to the murder of Dayo. Dayo’s usual empathy and the need to help a ‘poor refugee’ as described by the pastor who referred him to Dayo from Mountain of Solution Ministries,  led to her employing him.

“It’s ironic that the person she employed, out of her compassion, turned round and snuffed out her life in one senseless act of greed.

“Her supposed ‘offence’ to warrant being murdered by him was that she had not obliged him a two-week salary advance which he requested earlier that morning. The reward for Dayo’s kindness was death!

“Joel robbed Dayo of marriage, motherhood and longevity, a painful fact that still hurts us as a family each and every day.

“The Nigeria Police worked tirelessly in investigating the matter and the Ministry of Justice, Lagos State, in turn, has worked diligently in prosecuting the matter in court.

“Today, Tuesday, May 21, 2019,  two years and five months after the murder, Justice Akintoye, sitting at the Criminal Division of the High Court of Lagos State delivered her judgment and found Joel Ledjou guilty of murder and sentenced him to death by hanging.

“This murderer who robbed Dayo of marriage, motherhood, and longevity.

“Though still heartbroken over the loss of Dayo, we are somewhat consoled that justice has finally been served. Our beloved Dayo can now rest peacefully in the knowledge that her perpetrator received the full weight of the Law for her murder.

“Dayo, our light, you will never be forgotten. You are always and forever in our hearts. Your legacy lives on through all of us who remain.”

Source: Sahara Reporters

A delegation from the Kenyan military is sharing experience on how the Cameroon military engineering corps has taken over road construction projects in Boko Haram terrorism prone areas to use the example and develop areas of its territory threatened by Al-Shabab which they say is still a threat. The Kenyan delegation has been in Cameroon for several days.

A Cameroon military engineering corps compactor is constructing a portion of the road linking its northern border town of Kousseri to the Chadian capital Ndjamena and Borno state in northeastern Nigeria.

Colonel Jackson Kamgain, director of Cameroon military engineering corps, says they re-launched the World Bank-sponsored project in March 2018 after it had been abandoned for four years.

He said since independence in 1961, the Cameroon military engineering corps has participated actively in the development of all localities and insures that major projects in conflict zones are not abandoned unlike in many other countries where military engineering departments concentrate only on making access easy for troops in areas of war or conflicts.

The road project was interrupted in 2014 following an assault on the base camp of the Chinese road contractors in which 10 of their workers were kidnapped by suspected Boko Haram rebels. The kidnappers also stole 10 vehicles and a container of explosives. The workers escaped but road construction companies refused to resume work there for fear of the terrorists,

The government of Cameroon convinced project funders that its military engineering corps could construct the road even while the war against Boko Haram was raging. The World Bank provided about $125 million for the project, which is to be completed in 24 months.

General Mohamud Muhamed Ali, governor of Kenya’s Marsabit region and head of the 17-man Kenyan delegation of military and officials from the ministry of transport, said they came to Cameroon to learn from the Central African state’s experience.

“The military was challenged with a very very unique situation which is nor very normal in their line of duty. Because of serious level of insecurity where contractors have not been able to show any interest to undertake major construction work in the area infested by Boko Haram, they showed leadership and undertook that serious national project,” he said.

Ali said the Kenyan government’s plan to link the country with Somalia by constructing a link road to increase trade between the two countries has been facing threats from the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab insurgency.

In April 2019, the International Crisis Group reported that since 2015, al-Shabab has conducted over one hundred small-scale assaults in the north east of Kenya, killing dozens of soldiers and police, mostly with roadside bombs.

Kenyan General James Gitiba, who was also in Cameroon, said African militaries will contribute more to reducing pain and suffering in the continent’s several conflict zones if they also embrace development initiatives that go beyond simply fighting enemies.

“Most militaries in Africa are known for the various basic function of enhancing mobility which is basically clearing a route for the troops to pass and also survivability. So for Cameroon this is a milestone and I think I could also urge other friendly countries to come here and learn,” he said.

Soldiers from Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger, part of the multi-national joint task force of the lake Chad Basin Commission, have been fighting Boko Haram terrorism that began in northeastern Nigeria 9 years ago and has left 25,000 people dead and forced more than 2.6 million others to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

Source: VOA

A Nigerian peacekeeper was killed Saturday in an attack on the United Nations’ stabilization mission in Mali, the UN said.

The victim “succumbed to his wounds following the armed attack by unidentified assailants” in Timbuktu, a statement said. A Nigerian peacekeeper was also injured.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply saddened” by the assault, which he said could amount to a war crime.

In a separate incident Saturday, three Chadian peacekeepers were wounded when their mine-protected vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in Tessalit, in Mali’s Kidal region.

The UN’s MINUSMA mission was established in Mali after radical Islamist militias seized the north of the country in 2012. They were pushed back by French troops in 2013.

A peace agreement signed in 2015 by the Bamako government and armed groups was aimed at restoring stability. But the accord has failed to stop the violence.

Since their deployment in 2013, more than 190 peacekeepers have died in Mali, including nearly 120 killed by hostile action — making MINUSMA the UN’s deadliest peacekeeping operation, accounting for more than half of blue helmets killed globally in the past five years.

AFP

When armed men swept into her village in North-West Cameroon, mother-of-four Loveline only had time to gather up her children and run.

“I could not take any clothes. There was shooting – they killed my uncle and shot my cousin,” says the 39-year-old.

As she fled into the bush, gunmen shot dead her husband. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the armed men douse their house in petrol and set it alight.  

In another village, Myriam, 22, looked on as gun toting men stormed into her community and opened fire.

“You could see the bullets passing in front of you,” says Myriam, who escaped into the bush with her family. Returning to the house to try and retrieve their belongings, they were met with gunfire.

“You could see the bullets passing in front of you.”

“Staying in the bush with the kids is not easy,” Myriam says. “There are mosquitos, there is hunger.”

Loveline and Myriam are among some 26,000 civilians who have fled the southwest and northwest regions of Cameroon and sought safety in Nigeria’s south-eastern Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Benue and Taraba states. Women and children account for four-fifths of the population.

Anglophone residents of the country’s restive provinces have long had greivances against the largely Francophone central government. They say the country’s French-dominated legal and educational systems have left them on the margins.

This crisis erupted some three year after protests turned violent, with some calling for secession. So far this year, some 400 civilians have been killed in escalating attacks between separatatist groups and government forces, according to rights groups.

In March, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, warned that the plight of the refugees in Nigeria was becoming increasingly desperate. While the government has given land for refugee settlements, it is now fully occupied and more will be developed. At the same time, the provision of shelter, food, water and sanitation by UNHCR and its partners has been constrained by severe underfunding.

“The government recently provided us with other settlements but we need more resources in order to establish the settlements and receive further refugees,” says the head of UNHCR’s field office in Ikom, Mohammad Rafiq Nasry.

As the response struggles, many refugees have found support within host communities. The inhabitants of small border villages share what they have with them – food, a room to sleep or work in the cocoa plantations. Some received a piece of land to cultivate. However, solidarity alone is not enough for people who have lost everything to re-start their lives.

“I would like to receive support to start a business to allow my children to go to school.”

“To make a better living, I will have to move,” says refugee Elias Enu, a nurse turned farmer, who struggles to feed his family of 10.

Meanwhile Myriam and Loveline, who reached Nigeria empty-handed and scared after weeks in the bush, were initially given a place to stay by a local resident in Ajassor, along with their children and relatives. Together, they took turns to work and care for the children, shared food and patiently endured sleepless nights due to a lack of space.

Then, last month, the women boarded a bus to reach the Adagom refugee settlement in Nigeria’s Cross River State. They could  barely hide their excitement, laughing and smiling.

“I want my children to go to school,” said Loveline, from the front seat. “I would like to receive support to start a business to allow my children to go to school.”

Myriam, too, is looking forward to a happier future. Although one day she hopes to return home to Cameroon, she knows she is stronger with Loveline by her side.

“I am happy to be here. That is why when we were told to relocated we did not hesitate to pack. Because we know the burden we have been carrying. It will be lighter here.”

Their hopes for a stable future depend in large measure on funding.

Source: United Nations High Commission For Refugees

A brother of Equatorial Guinea’s long-serving ruler Teodoro Obiang Nguema and the minister in charge of his security has died.

Antonio Nguema died of an unspecified illness at a hospital in South Africa.

He survived numerous cabinet reshuffles as defence minister and, until his death, as minister of presidential security.

In fact, he was among the top brass who helped strengthen his family’s grip on power, crushing two attempts at overthrowing the government.

This kind of loyalty and effectiveness convinced President Teodoro Obiang to elevate the affairs of his personal security to cabinet status.

It is not immediately clear who will replace him, the president will will be looking for an ally who will help keep his government entrenched.

After 40 years in power, he remains the world’s longest-serving non-royal head of state.

Culled from the BBC

No fewer than ten thousand refugees have invaded all the refugee camps in Ogoja Local Government Area of Cross River State. Ogoja refugee camp was initially established for four thousand refugees, but it’s being occupied by over ten thousand refugees; with most of them from Cameroon.

Speaking while receiving members of a socio-cultural organisation, National Association of Sea Dogs that visited the camp to donate food items to the refugees, Mr. Hilary Agida, a staff of the Cross River State Emergency Management Agency, lamented that the influx had over stretched the facilities in the camp.

He said an additional camp was created to accommodate the influx but that one also had been over flooded, thus, making the situation desperate for the state government alone to handle.

“There are two refugee camps here in Ogoja, one is in Adagom and the other at Akpakpanga and both camps have been witnessing steady influx of refugees effectively over stretching the facilities here and something must be done to address the situation before we witness a disaster here,” he stressed.

Consequently, Agida said that the camps are under the United Nations supervision, which registers those coming into the camp to keep a data of how many people have so far been displaced by the violence in southern Cameroon.

He explained that the fighting between those agitating for independence for the southern part of that country and security agencies started in 2017 and that the association was moved by the plight of the refugees who are going through difficult time.

Donating the foodstuff to the refugees, the Zonal President of the National Association of Sea Dogs, Prince Joseph Besong said the donation of bags of rice; tubers of yams, garri and toiletries were to assist in the upkeep of the refugees.

“These people are living without any source of income and we feel it is necessary that we should extend some assistance to them by providing them some food items and provisions for their children,” he said.

He called on the United Nations to assist in the speedy resolution of the conflict so that the refugees can return to their homes and live peacefully and develop their country.

“Outside providing a settlement for these people, the UN should intervene and ensure a speedy resolution of the crisis so that these people can take their children home and provide them adequate education,” he appealed.

Source: The Tide