France has announced that it will withdraw thousands of troops from Mali due to a breakdown in relations with the country, a decade after launching a war without the initial approval of the United Nations or even the French parliament.

A statement signed by France and its African and European allies said on Thursday that “multiple obstructions” meant the conditions were no longer in place to operate in Mali.

The decision applies to both the 2,400 French troops in Mali, where France first deployed in 2013, and a European force of several hundred soldiers that was created in 2020.

Relations between Paris and Bamako have deteriorated since the ruling military took power in August 2020.

French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed at a news conference that France’s bases in Gossi, Menaka and Gao in Mali would be closed within the next four to six months.

“We cannot remain militarily engaged alongside de facto authorities whose strategy and hidden aims we do not share,” Macron said. The withdrawal would be carried out in an “orderly” manner, he said.

Macron also “completely” rejected the idea that France had failed its mission in the country.

Mali’s armed forces spokesperson Souleymane Dembele shrugged off France’s announcement, saying European troops had failed to curb militancy.

“I think that there has been no military solution, because terrorism has engulfed the entire territory of Mali,” he said.

Tensions have been mounting after Mali expelled its French envoy over what the country described as “hostile and outrageous” comments by the former colonial power.

Mali’s prime minister earlier this month blasted France for attempting to divide his country during a foreign military mission against terrorist groups.

Choguel Kokalla Maiga, head of the government that came to power in June 2021, said the French intervention “later turned into a de facto partition of the country.”

The Mali deployment has been fraught with problems for France. Of the country’s 53 soldiers killed in West Africa, 48 of them died in Mali.

The announcement comes at a critical time for Macron, just days before he is expected to make a long-awaited declaration that he will stand for a second term in April elections.

Macron’s priority will now be to ensure that the withdrawal does not invite comparisons with the chaotic US departure from Afghanistan last year.

A French mission began in Mali in 2013 to allegedly counter militants that Paris claims are linked to the al-Qaeda and Daesh terrorist groups. France, a former colonizer of Africa, also deployed thousands of soldiers to presumably prevent separatist forces from reaching Mali’s capital, Bamako.

The war caused several thousand deaths and more than a million people to flee their homes. There have been two military coups in little over a year, amid growing demonstrations against France’s military presence.

France has been one of the world’s colonizing countries that after many years of slavery still controls countries spread over more than 12 territories and treats their people as second-class citizens.

It has had more than 50 military interventions in Africa since 1960, when many of its former colonies gained nominal independence. Mali remains among the poorest countries in the world, but that’s not due to a lack of resources.

France currently has 5,100 troops in the arid and volatile Sahel region. Under a new plan, they will be reduced to 2,500-3,000 troops. Analysts say it is premature to call it the end of the war, but that France is entering into a new phase of the war.

France is also worried about the alleged deployment of Russian contractors in the country.

Although France remains the only Western country with a significant military presence in the Sahel, its relationship with its former African colonies has grown increasingly tense in recent months. This has led to an evident increase in anti-French sentiment.

Source: Presstv

Mali’s prime minister on Monday accused France of having sought the partition of the west African country during its military mission there, the latest flare-up in relations between Paris and Bamako.

In a 45-minute speech to diplomats gathered at his request, Choguel Kokalla Maiga denounced France, the former colonial power and a vocal critic of the military regime that appointed him.

But Maiga stopped short of calling for the departure of the anti-jihadist force that France leads in Mali.

He acknowledged that France’s military intervention in 2013 had halted a jihadist insurgency that had already captured the north of the country and threatened the south.

But, the French operation later turned into a de facto partition of the country, he argued.

The jihadists were allowed to take refuge in part of Mali’s territory, regroup and return in force from 2014, said Maiga.

And drawing a parallel with the Allied liberation of France at the end of World War II, he added: “When the French judged that (the US presence) was no longer necessary, they told the Americans to go.

“Did the Americans start insulting the French?”

Tensions have been mounting after French President Emmanuel Macron lashed out at Mali’s failure to stick to a timetable for a return to civilian rule.

Mali stepped up its denunciations of France after the European nation reportedly got the EU and the so-called West African bloc ECOWAS to sanction the people of Mali and their government.

Bamako has accused Paris of having manipulated ECOWAS into its hard line against Bamako, a theme Maiga returned to in Monday’s speech.

The aim had been to present Mali as a pariah, he said.

“We cannot be turned into vassals,” he added. “You cannot enslave the country. That is over,” he said, a reference to the country’s past as a colony of France.

Reported by AFP with additional editing by Camcordnews

The African Union has condemned a recent “wave” of military coups that has seen an unprecedented number of member states suspended from the bloc, a senior official said Sunday, the last day of its annual summit.

The putsches were among the main issues expected to be discussed at the summit, along with the AU’s ties to Israel and its response to a grinding war in the north of host country Ethiopia.

Less than two weeks before the summit began Saturday, Burkina Faso became the fourth country to be suspended by the AU after disgruntled soldiers toppled President Roch Marc Christian Kabore.

Guinea, Mali and Sudan are also currently suspended.

“Every African leader in the assembly has condemned unequivocally… the wave of unconstitutional changes of government,” Bankole Adeoye, head of the AU’s Peace and Security Council, told a press conference Sunday.

“Do your research: At no time in the history of the African Union have we had four countries in one calendar year, in 12 months, been suspended,” Adeoye said.

Addressing African foreign ministers ahead of the summit, Moussa Faki Mahamat, chair of the African Union Commission, denounced a “worrying resurgence” of such military coups.

But the AU has been accused of an inconsistent response, notably by not suspending Chad after a military council took over following the death of longtime President Idriss Deby Itno on the battlefield last April.

And while Adeoye touted the AU’s use of suspensions to punish coup leaders, analysts say the body must be more proactive to prevent putsches.

“It is only when crisis hits that we say, ‘Gosh, how come this country is falling apart like this so quickly?'” Solomon Dersso, founder of the AU-focused Amani Africa think-tank, told AFP this week.

Israel debate paused

Also on Sunday, leaders agreed to suspend debate on Faki’s controversial decision to accept the accreditation of Israel, postponing a potentially divisive vote.

Faki’s move last July drew protest from influential members including South Africa and Algeria which argued that it flew in the face of AU statements supporting the Palestinian Territories.

Both countries pushed to have the issue put on the summit agenda.

As the summit opened Saturday, Faki defended Israel’s accreditation, saying it could be “an instrument in the service of peace” while calling for “a serene debate”.

He also said the AU’s commitment to the Palestinian push for independence was “unchanging and can only continue to grow stronger”.

Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh on Saturday called for Israel’s accreditation to be revoked, saying it “should never be rewarded” for its “apartheid regime”.

The AU normally prizes consensus, but it was unclear how a vote would have fared, with a two-thirds majority required to overrule Faki.

Instead a six-country committee will study the issue, diplomats told AFP Sunday.

Along with South Africa and Algeria, the committee will include Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, who supported Faki’s move, as well as Cameroon and Nigeria, the diplomats said.

Israel’s foreign ministry said the AU had “rejected attempts by Algeria and South Africa to revoke” its accreditation.

“The committee’s conclusions will be presented at the African Union Summit in 2023,” the ministry said in a statement.

Ethiopia peace push

It was unclear whether the summit, most of which took place behind closed doors, substantively addressed the 15-month war in Ethiopia, which pits Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government against fighters from the northern Tigray region.

The fact that Ethiopia hosts the AU makes any intervention by the bloc especially delicate, and Faki waited until last August — nine months after fighting began — to appoint Olusegun Obasanjo as a special envoy tasked with trying to broker a ceasefire.

Ethiopia has also held a seat on the Peace and Security Council throughout the conflict, though it failed in its bid to stay on the 15-member body for the next term, diplomats said.

Adeoye said Sunday it was “not true” that the AU had been slow to respond to a war that has left thousands dead and, according to the United Nations, driven hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.

“There was no way the AU would not engage on such a situation given its exact location in Ethiopia,” he said. Obasanjo will head to war-hit areas this week, and the AU will provide “experts from the African continent” to back up his push for dialogue, Adeoye said.

Source: AFP

Tunisian President Kais Saied on Sunday dissolved a top independent judicial watchdog accusing it of bias, the latest controversial move since he sacked the government last year.

Saied has broadened his grip on power since July 25, when he sacked the government and froze parliament before moving to rule by decree in Tunisia — the cradle of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that ousted a series of autocratic leaders.

Many Tunisians welcomed his moves against a political system described as corrupt and ineffective, in the only democracy to have emerged from the revolts.

But political figures and rights groups have warned of a slide towards authoritarianism, and world leaders have expressed deep concern.

In a move expected to spark further unease, Saied early Sunday announced he was dissolving the Supreme Judicial Council (CSM) during a meeting with government ministers.

The council “is a thing of the past”, he said according to video footage released by the Tunisian presidency.

He accused the CSM, an independent constitutional body set up in 2016 to guarantee the good functioning and independence of the judiciary, of serving political interests.

“In this council, positions and appointments are sold and made according to affiliations,” said the head of state.

“You cannot imagine the money that certain judges have been able to receive, billions and billions,” he added.

Observers say the government is seeking to clamp down on the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party, which has controlled parliament and the various governments since the 2011 revolution toppled veteran leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

‘Red line’

The president accused the CSM of corruption and of delaying politically sensitive investigations into the 2013 assassinations of left-wing opposition figures Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi.

The Islamic State group claimed both killings, while Ennahdha, which has denounced Saied’s power grab as a “coup”, has been accused by many of blocking the investigations.

“Unfortunately, in this country, some judges in the courts have manipulated the Chokri Belaid case,” said Saied in the video.

Belaid was shot three times outside his home in February 2013, and Brahmi was killed in similar circumstances in July the same year.

The “July 25 movement” — composed of Saied supporters — on Saturday called on the president to dissolve the CSM in order to “purge” the judiciary of “corrupt magistrates”.

Saied has called on supporters to “protest freely” later Sunday, when a demonstration is also due to be held to mark the ninth anniversary of Belaid’s murder.

Protesters are expected to rally outside the Tunis headquarters of the CSM.

Saied — who has also already called for a July referendum on constitutional reforms — said on Sunday he was working “on a provisional decree” to reorganise the judicial watchdog.

“One of the key rights of Tunisians is to know the truth,” he said in a statement.

Tunisians, he said, are entitled “to have a just judicial system whose conduct is overseen by judges who only implement the law”.

The CSM had been already targeted last month by Saied, when he stripped its members of social and financial benefits, including fuel subsidies, transport and living allowances.

Created in 2016, the watchdog has 45 members, two thirds of whom are judges elected by parliament, who in turn chose the remaining third.

Raoudha Karafi, honorary president of the Tunisian association of judges, has been among critics of Saied’s power grab.

She has criticised Saied in recent press remarks of seeking to undermine the independence of the judiciary, saying: “Justice is a red line.”

Source: AFP

Thousands of anti-French protesters have flocked to the streets in the Malian capital of Bamako to celebrate the expulsion of the former colonizer’s envoy from the African country.

Some 3,000 protesters attended the rally in central Bamako on Friday, waving Mali’s national flags and burning cardboard cut-outs of French President Emmanuel Macron in celebration of the French ambassador’s dismissal.

Mali expelled the French envoy last week over what the country’s transitional government described as “hostile and outrageous” comments by the former colonial power.

Paris pushed economic and other sanctions against the African country after the expulsion, and the European Union also sanctioned on Friday several Malian officials, including the country’s prime minister.

Adama Ben Diarra, a vocal Malian activist and one of those sanctioned by the EU, was one of the organizers of the Friday’s protest. He told the cheering crowd that it was an honor to be on the bloc’s sanctions list.

Diarra said the expulsion of France’s ambassador was an important step and that the next step must be the departure of over 5,100 foreign troops deployed in Mali under the pretext of fighting terrorism and Takfiri outfits linked to Daesh and al-Qaeda.

Relations between Mali and its former colonizer have turned sour after the junta, which seized power following a military coup that ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020, ditched previously-planned elections in February and proposed to stay in power until 2025.

France has had more than 50 military interventions in Africa since 1960, when many of their former colonies gained nominal independence.

Anti-French sentiment is on the rise in West Africa as the security situation deteriorates despite the presence of French troops in the troubled region. France recently deployed more troops in the Sahel despite opposition to its presence there.

Mali has become increasingly engulfed in violence since a Tuareg uprising in 2012 was hijacked by extremist militants, who perpetrated ethnic killings and attacks on government forces and civilians.

In 2013, France intervened in Mali to purportedly curb militants who had captured the desert north, before deploying troops across the Sahel. While it has sent more troops and the UN has also its own peacekeeper troops in the African country, violence has continued to intensify and spread in the region.

Nearly 7,000 people died due to the fighting in Mali in 2020, according to the Armed Conflict and Location Event Data Project, while the UN declared late last year that more than two million people had been forced to flee their homes because of the conflict, a number that has quadrupled since 2019.

More than 14 million people in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso are now in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

Source: Presstv

The European Union on Friday imposed targeted sanctions on five members of Mali’s ruling junta, including Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga.

In a statement from EU member states the targets are accused of “actions that obstruct and undermine the successful completion of Mali’s political transition.”

In August 2020, Mali’s military ousted an elected government. The military regime has vowed a return to civilian rule but has been accused of dragging its feet.

In recent weeks tensions between Mali and former colonial power France have increased, and on Monday the junta ordered the French ambassador to leave.

France has some 4,000 troops deployed across West Africa’s Sahel region, half in Mali, and the crisis has called into question the future of its campaign against Islamist extremist militants.

“The five designated people are subject to a travel ban, which prevents them from entering or transiting through EU territories, and an asset freeze,” the statement said.

Aside from 63-year-old Maiga, the prime minister in the so-called transitional regime, four more top officials were targeted.

Also on the list is 42-year-old Malick Doaw, president of the National Transition Council and “one of the instigators and leaders of the August 18, 2020 coup”.

Colonel major Ismail Wague, 46-year-old minister for reconciliation, had announced the coup and is thus deemed to “threaten the peace, security and stability of Mali.”

Adama Ben Diarra, known as “Ben le Cerveau” or Ben the Brain, is a member of the transitional government accused of obstructing the holding of free elections.

And Ibrahim Ikassa Maiga, 50, is accused of playing a key role in the m5-REP movement that was involved in the overthrow of elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

All five figures are already subject to sanctions imposed by the West African regional bloc ECOWAS.

Source: AFP

West African leaders hold a key summit on Thursday as a series of coups buffet a region struggling with poverty and a long history of turbulence.

Emergency talks in the Ghanaian capital Accra were triggered after Burkina Faso on January 24 became the third member of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to be overtaken by the military.

Burkina followed Mali, where a coup in September 2020 was followed by a second in May 2021, and Guinea, where elected president Alpha Conde was ousted last September.

Adding to the region’s turmoil was a gun attack on Tuesday on the president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, stoking fears that years of efforts to steer West Africa towards stability and democracy are failing.

Thursday’s one-day meeting, scheduled to start at 1000 GMT, will assess the outcome of two missions to Burkina following the coup.

Burkina was suspended from ECOWAS after rebel soldiers arrested President Roch Marc Christian Kabore amid public anger at his handling of a jihadist insurgency.

The question now is whether the country — ranked a wretched 182nd out of 189 countries in the UN’s worldwide development index — will escape economic punishment.

ECOWAS has already slapped crippling sanctions on Mali and Guinea for dragging their feet on commitments to restore civilian rule.

Those measures have included the closure of borders by ECOWAS members, an embargo on trade and financial transactions and sanctions against individuals.

Positive signs

Military chiefs from ECOWAS flew to Ouagadougou on Saturday for talks with the junta, and this was followed on Monday by a diplomatic mission led by Ghana’s foreign minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey.

Early reactions from the envoys have been positive.

“They seemed very open to the suggestions and proposals that we made. For us it’s a good sign,” Botchwey told reporters after meeting with strongman Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba and other junta members.

The talks were attended by the UN’s special representative for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Mahamat Saleh Annadif, who described a “very frank exchange”.

The delegation notably met Kabore, whose wellbeing and demands for release from house arrest are major issues.

During the visit, the junta declared it had restored the constitution, which it had swiftly suspended following the coup, and named Damiba as president and head of the armed forces during a transition period.

And on Tuesday, Damiba met with political party chiefs, many of whom said they were keen to take part in the restoration of civilian rule.

But major questions remain unanswered, including the key issue of a date for elections. On January 24, the junta vowed to re-establish “constitutional order” within a “reasonable time”.

In deciding whether to impose sanctions, ECOWAS leaders have to balance the credibility of their organisation against the fragility of some of their states, especially in the Sahel.

Mali and Burkina Faso are in the throes of a nearly decade-old jihadist emergency that has claimed thousands of lives and forced at least one and a half million people from their homes.

Escalating political friction with the junta in Mali has driven Bamako closer to the Kremlin and cast a shadow over France’s anti-jihadist mission in the country.

Source: AFP

President Umaro Sissoco Embalo of Guinea-Bissau on Tuesday said he survived heavy fire for five hours during an attempted coup which he claimed killed or injured many people in the unstable west African country.

Appearing in a video posted on the presidency’s Facebook page hours after gunfire was heard near a compound where he was chairing a Cabinet meeting, Embalo said some of the people involved had been arrested.

“The attackers could have spoken to me before these bloody events that have seriously injured many and claimed lives,” he said, without clearly indicating who was behind the unrest.

But Embalo said the failed coup was linked to decisions he had taken “notably to fight drug trafficking and corruption”.

Shortly before the video appearance, the president told AFP in a brief telephone call: “All is well” and added that the situation is “under control”.

Earlier on Tuesday, sustained gunfire was heard near the seat of government in the coup-prone West African state in what the African Union and a regional bloc called an “attempted coup”.

Heavily-armed men had surrounded the Palace of Government, where Embalo and Prime Minister Nuno Gomes Nabiam were believed to have been attending a cabinet meeting.

People were seen fleeing the area on the edge of the capital Bissau, near the airport.

Local markets were closed and banks shut their doors, while military vehicles laden with troops drove through the streets.

According to various accounts, in the early afternoon armed men were seen entering the government palace, which houses different ministries.

Some witnesses described the gunmen as military, others as civilians.

Gunfire could be heard for a large part of the afternoon when the complex was surrounded.

An AFP reporter was warned to leave the area by a man carrying a gun who pointed it at him.

The former Portuguese colony, just south of Senegal, is an impoverished coastal state of about two million people.

It has seen four military coups since gaining independence in1974, most recently in 2012.

In 2014, the country vowed to return to constitutional government, but it has enjoyed little stability since then, and the armed forces wield substantial clout.

A 36-year-old Frenchwoman living in Bissau, Kadeejah Diop, said she rushed to pick up her two children from school and witnessed armed troops entering the government complex.

“They made all the female workers leave. There was huge panic,” she told AFP by phone from her home. “Right now, we are holed up indoors. We have no news.”

Troops set up a security perimeter around the palace and kept people away.

A journalist, asking not to be named, reported that at the start of the afternoon the public television centre had been occupied by soldiers who refused to let staff leave. It was not clear if they were part of the coup bid or government loyalists.

African Union Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat expressed deep concern over the “attempted coup”.

An AU statement said he was following “with deep concern the situation in Guinea Bissau, marked by the attempted coup d’etat against the government”.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) also issued a statement saying it “condemns this attempted coup” and urged soldiers to “return to their barracks”.

The bloc warned that it “holds the military responsible for the well-being” of the president and government members.

The United Nations said Secretary General Antonio Guterres was “deeply concerned with the news of heavy fighting in Bissau”.

He called for “an immediate end to the fighting and for full respect of the country’s democratic institutions,” the UN’s statement said.

Election turmoil

Embalo, a 49-year-old reserve brigadier general and former prime minister, took office in February 2020 after winning a second-round runoff election that followed four years of political in-fighting under the country’s semi-presidential system.

He was a candidate for a party called Madem, composed of rebels from the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which had led Guinea-Bissau to independence.

His chief opponent, PAIGC candidate Domingos Simoes Pereira, bitterly contested the result but Embalo declared himself president without waiting for the outcome of his petition to the Supreme Court.

Late last year, the armed forces chief said members of the military had been preparing to launch a coup while the president was on a working trip to Brazil.

Troops had been offering bribes to other soldiers “in order to subvert the established constitutional order”, armed forces head General Biague Na Ntam said on October 14.

The government spokesman denied his account the following day.

In addition to volatility, Guinea-Bissau struggles with a reputation for corruption and drug smuggling.

Its porous coastline and cultural ties have made it an important stop on the Africa trafficking route. In 2019, nearly two tonnes of cocaine were seized.

Three countries in West Africa – Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso – have experienced military takeovers in less than 18 months.

The region’s mounting instability is scheduled to be discussed on Thursday at an ECOWAS summit in Accra, Ghana.

“It looks increasingly hard to argue against the idea of coup contagion,” Eric Humphrey-Smith, an analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, told Reuters.

“When added to successful coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Chad in the past year, there is no doubt that West African leaders are nervously looking over their shoulders.”

Source:  REUTERS

The African Union said Monday it had suspended Burkina Faso in response to the January 24 coup that ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.

The bloc’s 15-member Peace and Security Council said on Twitter it had voted “to suspend the participation of #BurkinaFaso in all AU activities until the effective restoration of constitutional order in the country”.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, chair of the African Union Commission, had already condemned the coup before the military junta officially announced that it had ousted Kaboré.  

Burkina Faso’s coup is the latest bout of turmoil to strike the impoverished, landlocked state that has suffered chronic instability since gaining independence from France in 1960.

The coup leader, Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba, has not set a timeline for Burkina Faso’s return to constitutional order besides a vague promise to do so “when the conditions are right”.

Insecurity and coups

 A jihadist insurgency that spread over Mali’s border has killed more than 2,000 people and forced 1.5 million to flee their homes since 2015.

Between 2015 and 2018, terrorist attacks targeted the capital Ouagadougou and other centres of power. Since 2019, attacks by mobile combat units targeted mostly rural zones in the north and east of the country, fuelling displacements en masse and intercommunal violence. Some 2,000 people were killed, among them civilians and members of the armed forces or the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland, a civilian auxiliary group of the army created in 2020.

Islamist militants now move freely across entire swaths of the country and have forced inhabitants of some regions to conform to a strict version of Islamic law. Meanwhile, the army’s continuing fight against the Islamists has depleted the country’s already meagre resources.

The West African bloc ECOWAS suspended Burkina Faso on Friday and sent a delegation to meet with the ruling junta Saturday.

Mali and Guinea, also in West Africa, have also seen coups in the past 18 months that have prompted AU suspensions. In opening remarks at Friday’s summit, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, the acting ECOWAS chairman, acknowledged the organisation has work to do convincing people of the benefits of democracy.

The AU has also suspended Sudan following a coup there on October.

The spate of coups is expected to be a major point of discussion at the AU summit in Addis Ababa this weekend, diplomats say.

Source:  REUTERS

Supporters of the new junta in Burkina Faso gathered in the capital Ouagadougou on Tuesday as neighbouring countries, the UN and France condemned the military coup.

Military leaders on Monday detained Burkina Faso’s President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, later announcing they had ousted the leader, dissolved the government and suspended the constitution.

“I came here this morning to support the putsch. We expect the military to deal with the corruption in the country”, said one of hundreds of people gathered in Nation Square, Ouagadougou, on Tuesday.

As the crowds waved flags and sounded vuvuzela horns, some hoped the new leaders would tackle security concerns including jihadi attacks which have killed millions in the country. “We are tired of this situation. We are tired of crying, we are tired of always suffering because our brothers are killed”, said another.

The West African country is now in the hands of the Patriotic Movement for Preservation and Restoration (MPSR), the name of a junta led by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.

Source: France 24