A militant raid on a village in the Central African Republic (CAR) has left 26 villagers dead in the worst instance of bloodshed in recent months, an official says. Militants from the Seleka group attacked the village of Ndomete, near the town of Kaga-Bandoro, about 350 km (220 miles) north of the capital, Bangui, on Friday. Reports of the attack, however, emerged on Saturday.

“There were 26 victims… the village chief was among the victims,” Albert Mokpeme, a spokesman for the presidency, said on Saturday. “It was a massacre,” he emphasized. Officials are concerned that the incident could revitalize the dormant acts of vendetta between the mainly Muslim Seleka militants and rival Christian anti-Balaka militias. In early 2013, Seleka toppled the then-President Francois Bozize, who was replaced by Michel Am-Nondokro Djotodia, the first Muslim to hold the presidency in the CAR.

Christian militias reacted by engaging in large-scale attacks against the minority Muslims. A fifth of the population was forced to flee to safer regions as the impoverished nation was plunged into violence along ethnic and religious fault lines. Thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the resource-rich country, as it suffered its biggest crisis in its half-century of independence during the period of violence in 2013 and 2014.

In 2014, some 11,000 peacekeepers were deployed by the United Nations (UN) to the country as part of the established United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA).

“MINUSCA regrets the loss of human life and the wounded that were recorded and also denounces attacks against the humanitarian community and United Nations personnel,” the UN said following the Friday bloodshed.

On July 23, 2014, Seleka and anti-Balaka representatives signed a ceasefire agreement in the Congolese capital, Brazzaville, but the country has not yet emerged from its bloody past.

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Former Burkinabe Prime Minister, Luc-Adolphe Tiao was arrested on Friday and detained at a prison in Ouagadougou.  Luc-Adolphe Tiao who served as the last Prime Minister to ousted dictator, Blaise Compaore is accused of having signed a requisition order, authorizing the use of weapons during the repression of the popular uprising of the 30th and 31^st of October 2014.

Mr. Tiao returned to Burkina Faso after more than a year in exile in the Ivory Coast and was arrested after a very intensive interrogation by the gendarmerie in Ouagadougou. He is accused, along with all the 32 ministers of the last Compaore government of assault, murder and complicity following attempts by the Cabinet via a bill to amend the Constitution which would have allowed Blaise Compaore, to stay in power.

Ten other former cabinet ministers of the ancien regime have already been questioned by the police, but all went Scot-free after their hearings.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Nigeria-based Boko Haram Takfiri militants have attacked soldiers in neighboring Niger, with reports saying more than two dozen people have been killed in the fighting.

Niger’s Defense Ministry said late Tuesday that the attack on its soldiers had been carried out a day earlier near the village of Toumour, about 65 kilometers northeast of the town of Diffa.

Nigerien armed forces spokesman Colonel Moustapha Michel Ledru said five soldiers had been killed and six others injured as a result of the fighting, which also saw at least 30 militants killed.

The official, who was delivering a statement on Niger’s national television, said two Boko Haram militants had been arrested and the army confiscated a large quantity of arms and ammunition.

The clashes came less than a week after two Nigerien soldiers were declared dead after their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device during a patrol near Barwa locality in Diffa.

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A plane crash has left one Polish national dead and five others injured in Kenya’s Rift Valley.  A light aircraft belonging to Sanctuary Farm in the town of Naivasha was flying on a tour over Lake Naivasha when it crashed and burst into flames near the airstrip shortly after takeoff on Thursday, area police chief Titus Munyoki said.

The dead person was a Polish woman. The other occupants were the Kenyan pilot and four British passengers. The injured were rushed to Naivasha District Hospital.  The police official said it was not clear what had caused the plane crash.

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Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has fired Defence Minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly after suspected Islamist militants briefly seized the village of Boni in the centre of the country on Friday, state television said.

Coulibaly is being replaced by Abdoulaye Idrissa Maiga, a former minister for territorial administration, who was also the president’s campaign director at the 2013 election. The attackers, who are suspected of belonging to the Ansar Dine group, burned public buildings and took an elected local official hostage before withdrawing after a few hours. No one was killed and the army is back in control, witnesses said.

The raid was the latest in a series this year in Mali, reflecting a rise in the power of Islamist groups which have spread a campaign of violence from the north to the centre of the country only a few hundred miles from the capital Bamako. Armed groups have proliferated since Islamists took advantage of an ethnic Tuareg uprising in 2012 to seize the north of the desert country.

A French-led intervention drove Islamists back in 2013 but instability has continued and undermines a fragile UN-backed peace process. Islamist militants killed 17 Malian soldiers and wounded 35 when they attacked an army base in the central Malian town of Nampala in July. Ansar Dine and a Peul ethnic militia both claimed responsibility for that attack.

Reuters

In Gabon’s capital Libreville, two people have died following overnight clashes between security forces and protesters who are against President Ali Bongo’s announced victory in the disputed election of August 27. Bekam Ella Edzang, a 27-year-old law student, succumbed to his injuries in hospital on Friday morning after he was shot in the abdomen. “He was injured at around 9:00 pm (2000 GMT) by the Republican Guard, who were firing tear gas and live bullets,” said Geraud, a childhood friend of Edzang.

Meanwhile, the security forces shot dead another 30-year-old man in front of his home in Nzeng Ayong district of Libreville on Thursday night, the victim’s mother said. Gabon has been in chaos over the past few days in the wake of an announcement by election officials that the incumbent president had won the presidential race.

Bongo gained 49.80 percent of the votes against 48.23 percent for opposition leader Jean Ping. Bongo, who came to power in 2009, will now remain at the helm for a second seven-year term if the results are approved by the constitutional court.

The 57-year-old president succeeded his father Omar, who had come to power in 1967 and passed away in 2009. Ping, who is 73, had been a close ally of Omar Bongo. He called the election fraudulent, arguing that he is the true winner of the contest.

The chaos has raised international concerns. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on the nation to be calm. The European Union and Western countries, including the US and France, have also urged calm and called on authorities in the former French colony to show more transparency about the election results.

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The re-election of President Ali Bongo has been announced live on the airwaves of Gabonese national television by the minister of interior. Ali Bongo therefore obtained 49.80% (177,722 votes) and 48.23% for Jean Ping.

Minister Pacome Mouboulet Boubeya read the results one by one from all the nine provinces of the country as tallied by the National Autonomous and Permanent Electoral Commission (Cenap). Opposition leader, Jean Ping immediately responded by saying his victory was “stolen”.

By Chi Prudence Asong

African Union military experts charged with the operationalization of the African Standby Force (ASF) are currently in Douala to finalize arrangement issues related to the creation of the logistics base of the African Union Force.

Cameroon Concord News Littoral correspondent who contributed to this report revealed that the experts are expected to measure the capacity of the Douala airport runways and to be reassured that these tracks are ready for certain types of devices and will be able support the military manoeuvres that will be staged regularly in Douala.

Cameroon and the African Union recently signed in Yaounde an agreement for the construction of the African continental logistics base in Douala to facilitate the deployment of troops serving with the AU. Under the leadership of the Peace and Security Council, FAA’s mission is to maintain peace on the continent.

The infrastructure which will be based in Douala will support rapid deployment in specific areas in times of crisis. The force will have between 25,000 and 30,000 personnel from the five regions of the continent.

Legal practitioners in Cameroon have denounced the mistreatment of people sentenced in connection with the fight against terrorism. Cameroon Concord News has gathered that between July 2015 and July 2016, the courts in the Far North Region of Cameroon have delivered over a hundred sentences of capital punishment.

Barrister Mohamad Al Amine, lawyer of the Cameroon Bar, practicing in the city of Maroua who confirmed the information also revealed that these death sentences all involved suspected Boko Haram militants. Lawyer Mohamad Al Amine who is one of only seven lawyers in the region ravaged by rampant attacks orchestrated by the Nigerian Islamic sect Boko Haram deplored the conditions under which those convicted, including “more innocent” are judged.

A journalist reporting for Cameroon Intelligence Report recently opined that the defense of all terrorism related cases have been left to CPDM appointed lawyers for a fee of 5,000 CFA francs per accused. Cameroon-info.net noted in a story on the Boko Haram trials that most of the lawyers appointed by the state counsel cannot even gain access to case files let alone to visit their clients. The prisoners have no contact with their families, lawyers and doctors.

Cameroon government spokesman and minister of communication, Issa Tchiroma has failed to provide a detailed report on the goings-on in the Far North region. We now can reveal that our forces of law and order backed by the CPDM regime are only interested in applying the so-called new terrorism law voted by the national assembly. Calls by members of the Cameroon Bar Association for more humanity in the treatment of those sentenced to death are being ignored by the Biya Francophone Beti-Ewondo regime.

The testimony about the poor treatment of those on the death row in the Far North Region was made public during the launching of activities by the Network of Cameroonian Lawyers against the death penalty in Cameroon (RACOPEM) that took place in Limbe . Members of the body have adopted a firm stand to abolish the death penalty. For them, this type of condemnation not only violates the constitution and international treaties signed by the government but is also not effective in deterring criminals. Barrister Eta Besong Junior, former president of the Cameroon Bar has called on his colleagues to fight this battle with courage and abnegation.

By Rita Akana with files from Cameroon-info.net