Suspected militants have reportedly killed over 30 people on Mali’s northeastern border with Niger amid escalation of violence in the country. According to the former Tuareg rebel group MSA and tribal leaders, the massacre occurred Friday, a day after another deadly attack in the same area that killed 12 people. “There have been 43 deaths in two days, all civilians, from the same community,” tribal leader Sidigui Ag Hamadi told AFP from the regional capital Menaka on Saturday.

“Our fighters are destroying their bases and wiping them out. They are targeting innocent civilians,” he added. Menaka governor Daouda Maiga said there were women, children and elderly people among the victims, but did not provide any figures.

The Tuareg rebel group called on the governments of Mali and Niger to take measures to ensure that “an immediate end is put to these abominable crimes” and stressed that it would “not give in to any intimidation.”

Two weeks ago, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, MINUSMA, said they had received “very serious” information that “summary executions of at least 95 people” had occurred during anti-militant operations in Menaka by “a coalition of armed groups,” including MSA and Gatia, but both groups denied having any role in the reported incidents.

MINUSMA has also expressed concern about an increase in “serious violations and human rights abuses against civilians, including cases of summary execution” in the center of the country.

The UN mission has 12,000 peacekeepers in the country. It has estimated that at least 180 civilians have been killed in Mali this year in at least 85 major violent incidents and armed confrontations.

The warning shows how militants have managed to infiltrate the relatively calmer regions of Mali where local grievances are high. Many fear the central regions, already awash with guns, can be turned into a new scene of violence some three years after the government managed to reach a peace agreement with some armed groups.

In 2012, unrest in Mali drew attentions in France, the former colonizer which still maintains a significant military presence in the country, when Tuareg separatists staged an uprising against the government.

The French military intervened under the pretext that the Tuareg movement had been exploited by terrorists of al-Qaeda. However, many parts of Mali still remain lawless while militants have managed to win the trust of locals in many villages by providing them with basic services and protection from bandits.

Source: Presstv

Liberia’s former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has spoken publicly for the first time about what she intends to use her time for as she settles into life after presidency.

The former Nobel Prize laureate and Africa’s first democratically elected woman president said she was going to continue with issues of women empowerment whiles advancing the cause of good governance across Africa.

“I will work with a small team of people to establish the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development, designed to support women as agents of change, makers of peace, and drivers of progress,” she said at a ceremony in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

The event was the leadership ceremony of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation which awarded her the $5m Mo Ibrahim Ibrahim Prize. Sirleaf in her address to participants at the 2018 Ibrahim Governance Weekend stressed on a range of topics from global, continental and local prospects and challenges.

She spoke at length about her “restless” journey in search of a route to serve her people which search she said led her to civil service and eventually to the office of the highest civil servant of Liberia for the past 13 years.

She reiterated the successes and challenges that she experienced and what lay ahead for the country she continually referred to as “complex, post-conflict society, on a continent of uneven progress, during a time of global uncertainty.”

Sirleaf’s political progress has been hinged on the support of Liberian women as laid out in her biography, “This Child Will Be Great.” In many parts of the book she credited the efforts of women groups in organizing support for her political campaign.

Other areas she touched on included corruption, civil service engagement, good governance, youth involvement in leadership and Africa’s continued march in search for deepening its democratic credentials.

Present at the event were head of the award foundation Mo Ibrahim, Rwandan president Paul Kagame and his Ivorian counterpart Alassane Ouattara. Former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn as well as members of the Foundation’s award committee were all present.

Source: Africa News

Forty civilians have drowned after their boats overturned on a storm-swollen river while they were fleeing fighting in the northwest Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“As of Wednesday night, we recovered the bodies of 40 people” after their boats capsized, Jean Bakatoye, vice governor of South Ubangi province, said Friday. The number of the victims is expected to rise, the senior local official said.

“The toll is still provisional as other bodies were swept downstream,” Bakatoye said. The civilians were attempting to cross the Ubangi River, which marks part of the border with the adjacent Republic of Congo, in order to escape fighting between DR Congo troops and “outlaws,” Bakatoye said.

The events occurred in the remote border area of Dongo, after an army position was attacked on Sunday, he said.

“Several soldiers” were wounded, he said, although four witnesses said they had seen the bodies of two troops and four attackers.

Army reinforcements were deployed on Monday, prompting panic among villagers who feared a wider conflict, Bakatoye added.

Dongo was shaken by a revolt by the Enyele ethnic group in 2009, which was put down by the Congolese army the following year. Fighting killed an estimated 270 people and forced 200,000 others to flee their homes.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is suffering from growing insecurity. New conflicts are erupting as President Joseph Kabila struggles to maintain his grip on power after his constitutional term in office expired in December 2016.

Armed groups are active in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, which border Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.

Violence has also erupted in the central region of Kasai. There a tribal chieftain known as the Kamwina Nsapu, who rebelled against Kabila’s regime, was murdered in September 2016.

Another conflict is flaring up in the country’s Ituri province between the Hema and Lendu communities.

Source: Presstv

Suspected Boko Haram militants killed 21 people in separate attacks in a remote northeastern region of Nigeria, security officials and a witness told AFP on Monday.

The jihadists shot dead 18 forest workers who had been collecting firewood in Borno state, close to the town of Gamboru, on the border with Cameroon on Sunday, according to a member of a local anti-militant militia in the area.

“The bodies were scattered over several hundred meters, and they were mostly shot in the head or the back,” another militiaman told AFP.

Also on Sunday, a vehicle carrying civilians travelling in a nearby army convoy hit a mine planted by the insurgents, killing three people near the village of Wumbi, a militia member said. “Three people including the driver were killed and 11 passengers were wounded,” he said. A local resident confirmed the toll, adding that the victims were buried on Sunday.

The Boko Haram insurgency, which broke out in 2009, has killed at least 20,000 people and displaced more than 2.6 million, forcing them into camps and host communities. In August 2014, the group seized Gamboru, a trading hub along with the neighboring town of Ngala.

Nigerian troops retook both towns in September 2015 with the help of Chadian forces following a months-long offensive. Despite the recapture of the area which saw residents moving back, Boko Haram fighters continue to launch sporadic attacks, ambushing troops and vehicles, as well as attacking and abducting farmers

Source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

The United Nations (UN)’s children’s agency has slammed the repeated attacks by the Daesh-linked Boko Haram terrorist group against children in Nigeria, announcing that at least 1,000 children have been abducted in the African country since 2013.

More than 1,000 children, mostly under 15 years of age, have been abducted in northern Nigeria since January 2013, the UN’s Children’s Fund, UNICEF, estimated in a statement on Thursday.

“Children in northeastern Nigeria continue to come under attack at a shocking scale,” said Mohamed Malick Fall, UNICEF’s Nigeria head. “UNICEF is appealing for an end to attacks on schools and all grave violations of children’s rights.”

He also called for the release of those still held in captivity.

Boko Haram has been regularly kidnapping youngsters. In 2014, 276 schoolgirls were abducted from the town of Chibok, located in Nigeria’s northeast. The mass kidnapping triggered global condemnation and intense criticism of Nigerian officials in the country as well as an international “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign.

“Nigerian authorities have made a commitment to make schools safer and more resilient to attack, and UNICEF stands with them to implement the Safe Schools Declaration, by which Nigeria commits to protecting schools and universities from violence and military use during armed conflict,” Fall further said.

The agency also said that at least 2,295 teachers had been killed and more than 1,400 schools had been destroyed due to the militancy in Nigeria.

The Boko Haram terror campaign in Nigeria is in its tenth year and has so far killed more than 20,000 and forced the displacement of over two million others.

Most recently, more than 100 schoolgirls were kidnapped by the group in the town of Dapchi, which had previously been unaffected by the militancy. The girls were later released reportedly through quiet efforts by the government.

Four years since the Chibok abduction, however, some 100 of the schoolgirls are believed to remain in captivity. Nearly 60 of the abductees escaped soon after the incident and some others have since been released through mediation.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, a former general, came to power in 2015 on a platform of stamping out the Boko Haram militancy. Despite retaking swathes of territory from the group, though, the government has been unable to prevent attacks from continuing against both civilians and government targets.

Buhari plans to seek re-election in 2019.

Source: Presstv

The Red Dragons of Lebialem staged a massive raid on the gendarmerie post in Alou on Wednesday the 11^th of April 2018 killing six officers who were in the locality to take part in the installation ceremony of the new commander of the Alou Brigade.  Cameroon Concord News was reliably informed that the Red Dragons carried out the attack immediately after the top military officers left the area for Bafoussam.

We gathered that the Lebialem Red Dragons also made away with heavy ammunitions that were ferried into the county by soldiers loyal to the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé. Meanwhile, 14 elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion were killed in Beluah and Nchobenyae and two military truck destroyed.

A military source contacted at the time of filing this report revealed that 15 of the soldiers with life threatening injuries that were rushed to MHA Hospital at Nveh died from wounds sustained during the battle for Beluah.  The French Cameroun government forces have reportedly placed Azi and Menji under high security surveillance after a huge explosion occurred at Moonhead Menji.

This item is developing

 By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Azi

At least 257 people have died after a military plane crashed in northern Algeria, the defence ministry says.

The incident happened shortly after the aircraft took off from Boufarik military airport near the capital Algiers in the morning.

Most of the dead are army personnel and their families, according to the defence ministry. Ten crew members were also killed.

It is not yet clear what caused the crash.

The army’s chief of staff has ordered an investigation into the crash and will visit the scene.

It is the deadliest plane crash since July 2014, when all 298 people on board Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 died when it was shot down over eastern Ukraine.

It is also the second-deadliest plane crash since 2003.

• Country profile

The authorities are working to identify remains of those killed. Footage from the scene shows smoke coming off wreckage in a field.

The plane, an Ilyushin Il-76, was travelling to Bechar in the south-west of the country.

Among the dead are said to be 26 members of the Polisario Front, seeking independence from Morocco for Western Sahara and supported by Algeria.

Four years ago a plane carrying military personnel and family members crashed in Algeria, killing 77 people.

Source: BBC

Calm is gradually returning to Bangui’s PK 5 neighbourhood following a military operation against armed groups in Central African Republic’s capital.

Heavy gunfire erupted in Bangui’s PK5 neighourhood as UN peacekeepers and domestic security forces moved in to dismantle militia bases.

“In Bangui, the whole city is calm, apart from PK 5, – inhabited mostly by muslims – where there are hotbeds of tension.You have self-defense groups raiding traders, oppose to the authority of the state.They have closed the police station in the 3rd district.They are hostile to the return of state authority in this area.This pushed the government with the support of the MINUSCA to bring order in this neighborhood. “

Some residents of PK 5 have condemned the joint military operation by the MINUSCA and Central African forces.

Eric Ngaba, Bangui reporter

“There was a peaceful march by inhabitants of PK 5, denouncing the operation of the government together with the support of MINUSCA to neutralize the self-defense groups. MINUSCA’s commander, General Bala Keita, however, says that the operation is still under consideration. “

The Central African government is determined to restore authority in the capital and it has not ruled out resumption of military operations in PK 5 especially as the leaders of the militias escaped arrest .

Written By AFP

How Gilbert Ngwani, 26, saved a captured classmate but died in battle hours after

A “battalion commander” of the Ambazonia fighters who acquitted a captured suspect, perished in gun battle with government defence and security forces less than 24 hours later. Gilbert Ngwani, 26, was found dead with bullet wounds, Thursday, April 7 on the streets of Belo, Boyo Division in the North West Region. He was laid to rest in his family compound on Friday, April 8.

The man Ngwani acquitted narrated the following testimony to me, which I recorded after thorough scrutiny to authenticate his story. From his outlook, he could be easily mistaken for someone of another ethnic origin with peculiar features, which was the claim of the Ambazonia fighters who abducted him. His identity is withheld to safeguard his security.

“I travelled to my village Belo last Thursday (March 29) for the funeral of a cousin who died in the village. On Wednesday, April 4, as the gun battles between government forces and the Amba Boys raged on and off, I was making a phone call at the Square when two young men on a motorbike pulled up near me. They were both either below 20 or just above 20. They were very young. I’m myself in my 20s, but they looked younger than me. They asked who I was speaking to on the phone and said I look like some of their enemies.

“It is true people often tell me I look like people from a certain part of Cameroon, not from any of the Anglophone regions. I told them I was a Bikom from Belo here and said I was speaking to relatives about the funeral of our cousin but they said I was lying. They said they believe I was making a call to security people to locate where they were. They asked me to come with them. They made me mount the bike, one riding; the other sitting behind me. I realized I was truly in trouble when I saw knives protruding from both pockets of the rider and the man behind with a short gun.

They took me without a blindfold to their “camp” which was just an open space. When we alighted off the bike and approached the other men I recognized one of them. Too frightened, I tried not to show familiarity, as well as he too did not acknowledge me. From the body language I could tell he was their commander. He gave instructions; the boys obeyed, gave him military-style salutes and called him military titles that showed respect.

“They questioned me further about my origins. I repeatedly told them I was from Belo. To my great relief, my childhood friend, Gilbert Ngwani, told his boys that he knows me and confirmed that I was a child of Belo. Gilbert was my classmate in GBHS Belo. After obtaining the A Level, he has been in the village doing odd jobs and riding motorbikes.

“The Boys also conducted a mystical test to prove my innocence. They waved a cutlass in front of me. I did not understand why but when I returned home and narrated my story, I was told it was meant to verify whether I was a danger to their cause. They told me, ‘We are out to clean the house and silence betrayers of our cause before engaging other phases of the struggle’. Thereafter, they took me on the bike again and dropped off at the Square and warned me that if I revealed their location to anyone, they would come for me again.

“The sad side of the story is that Gilbert was killed in battle on Wednesday, April 4. His body was found with bullet wounds. Knowing he was secured with the Odey Chi cult, many in Belo are guessing he might have defaulted on one of their rules. Some say he touched blood which is prohibited. Others say he might have mistakenly kept coins in his pocket. Life is nothing. That is someone I saw only hours before and especially, I feel sorry that my old friend that I hadn’t seen in a long time should die like that only hours after he saved my own life. Sometimes, I feel I might have been killed were he not there to testify that I was a child of Belo.

Gilbert Ngwani was buried in his father’s compound early on Friday, April 6. Village boys collected his corpse at night. His father wanted him to be buried without a coffin, fearful that soldiers could come and arrest those at the burial if they wasted time. But his friends took the courage and hastily made a coffin to bury Gilbert. ”

By Franklin Sone Bayen