Suspected Jihadists Attack String of Mali Military Sites
Suspected jihadists attacked military installations in several towns in western Mali early Tuesday, the military and residents said, in a new series of attacks in the junta-led country amid resurging violence in the wider Sahel region…Although Tuesday’s attacks bore the hallmarks of jihadists from the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), no group has so far claimed responsibility. Mali’s army said in a statement that seven of its positions in the west had been targeted in “coordinated attacks carried out very early this morning”…All seven of the towns named by the military are in western Mali, with one, Diboli, directly on the border with Senegal. JNIM, from its position in Mali, hopes to establish itself in Senegal and Mauritania, according to a study by the Timbuktu Institute, a research centre based in Dakar…The assaults come on the heels of two major attacks claimed by jihadists within the last month. On June 2, a coordinated assault targeted an army camp in the ancient city of Timbuktu in Mali’s north, as well as its airport. That attack came a day after a bloody raid killed at least 30 soldiers in the centre of the country. Jihadists have also intensified their offensives in the larger Sahel region in recent weeks, carrying out raids not just in Mali, but also in Burkina Faso and Niger. The three Sahel states’ military juntas pledged during the coups that brought them to power to make security a priority, but they are struggling to contain the jihadists’ advance. AFP
Ukraine Turns to Africa in Its Struggle against Russia
On Africa’s dry western tip, Mauritania has become an unlikely staging post for Ukraine’s increasingly global struggle with its adversary Russia. Kyiv’s new embassy in the country’s capital Nouakchott – among eight it has opened in Africa since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine – has overseen food aid deliveries to refugees from neighbouring Mali, embassy and aid officials say. Kyiv is also offering to train Mauritanian soldiers, Ukraine’s top envoy to Africa told Reuters, amid tension between Mauritania and Mali, where Moscow backs government forces against Tuareg rebels. Moscow’s soldiers and mercenaries guard presidents in several West and Central African countries, while Russian mining companies are entrenched in the Sahel region that includes Mali. Russia’s military presence in the Sahel “undermined stability”, the envoy, Maksym Subkh said in an interview in Kyiv. “Ukraine is ready to continue training officers and representatives of the Mauritanian armed forces, to share the technologies and achievements that Ukraine has made” on the battlefield against Russia, Subkh said, adding that Ukraine had previously provided such training prior to Russia’s invasion…Reuters’ interviews with four senior Ukrainian officials, two aid officials and Western diplomats and analysts for this story, along with access to new missions in Mauritania and Democratic Republic of Congo, reveal new details about Kyiv’s Africa strategy including the deliveries of aid to Malian refugees, the proposal to train Mauritania’s military, and the broader bid to counter Russia’s much more entrenched presence. AFP
Sudan’s Burhan Meets Egypt’s Sisi after Separate Haftar Talks
Sudan’s military leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo on Monday, hours after the Egyptian leader held separate talks with Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar amid rising regional tensions. Burhan arrived from Spain, where he had cut short his participation in a United Nations conference that was scheduled to end on July 3, according to Sudanese government sources. The sources said Burhan left a U.N. conference in Seville early, cancelling a scheduled meeting with Spain’s foreign minister. His unannounced visit came as the eastern Libyan commander, Haftar, was also in Cairo…The talks follow the seizure of the strategic border triangle between Sudan, Egypt, and Libya by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The Sudanese army has accused a Salafist militia loyal to Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar of aiding the RSF in the operation. There are also reports about training camps in Libya for RSF forces. Two sources familiar with the discussions said Sisi may seek to mediate a meeting between Burhan and Haftar to de-escalate the border tensions. Sudan Tribune
Accusations Of Chemical Weapons in Sudan: What We Know
The US State Department imposed sanctions on the Sudanese government Friday, accusing it of using chemical weapons last year in its war against rival paramilitaries…The State Department in May notified Congress of its determination that “the Government of Sudan used chemical weapons in 2024”, in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Khartoum ratified in 1999…Washington’s sanctions, initially intended to go into effect on June 6, restrict US exports and financing. Urgent humanitarian aid will be exempted from the sanctions on Sudan, where nearly 25 million people are suffering dire food insecurity in the world’s largest hunger crisis. In January, the New York Times reported the Sudanese army had used chemical weapons at least twice in the war, citing four anonymous senior US officials. They said the chemical agent used, with the direct approval of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, was chlorine. The army, which has been in control of Sudan for most of its post-independence history since 1956, has been accused of carrying out chemical attacks before. In 2016, an Amnesty International investigation accused the army — then allied with the RSF — of using chemical weapons on civilians in the western region of Darfur. AFP
South Sudan: Peace Monitors Press SPLM-IO to Heal Rift
A peace monitoring body has raised concerns over deepening divisions within South Sudan’s main opposition party, urging it to resolve internal disputes through party structures to ensure its active participation in implementing the 2018 peace agreement. The Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC) called for urgent reconciliation within the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), led by First Vice President Riek Machar. Last month, President Salva Kiir reshuffled a key committee overseeing the peace deal, appointing 31 members from various political factions. The new High-Level Ad Hoc Committee is chaired by senior presidential adviser Kuol Manyang Juuk of the ruling SPLM party, with SPLM-IO’s Lasuba Ludoru Wongo as deputy. Notably absent were SPLM-IO members loyal to Machar, who remains under house arrest in Juba. Most appointees instead belong to a rival faction led by Stephen Par Kuol, the country’s peacebuilding minister…During a meeting Monday with the reconstituted committee, RJMEC interim chairperson Maj. Gen. George Aggrey Owinow (rtd)…stressed the need to preserve progress made over the past six years and voiced concern over key challenges facing the peace process, including lack of predictable funding, the fragile political and security environment, and widening divisions within the SPLM-IO. South Sudan faces a tight timeline to implement the peace deal ahead of elections scheduled for December 2026. Radio Tamazuj
Chad’s Detained Opposition Leader Ends Hunger Strike
Chad opposition leader and former prime minister Succès Masra, who has been in custody for more than a month, has ended his nearly week-long hunger strike, his lawyers said Monday. “President Masra, physically weakened but morally combative… suspended his food strike,” the collective of lawyers defending him said in a statement Monday evening. On Saturday, about 20 women from his opposition party, the Transformers, protested in underwear in N’Djamena to demand the release of their leader. Arrested on May 16, Masra faces prosecution for “inciting hatred, revolt, forming and complicity with armed gangs, complicity in murder, arson, and desecration of graves”. On June 19, his lawyers submitted a request for his provisional release, which judicial authorities rejected. On Tuesday, he announced in a letter published by his party, that “in protest at undeserved injustices, I shall begin a hunger strike”. On May 14, 42 people, reportedly mostly women and children, were killed in Mandakao, in the Logone Occidental region (southwestern Chad), according to Chadian justice, with Masra accused of provoking the massacre. AFP
‘We Won’t Let Them Get Away with This’: Activists to Sue Tanzania’s Government over ‘Sexual Torture’
Two east African activists say they plan to sue Tanzania’s government for illegal detention and torture during a visit in support of an opposition politician in May. Boniface Mwangi, from Kenya, and Agather Atuhaire, a Ugandan, sent shock waves around the region earlier this month when they gave an emotional press conference in which they alleged they had been sexually assaulted and, in Atuhaire’s case, smeared in excrement after their detention in Dar es Salaam…Even in a region accustomed to recurrent rights abuses, the apparent targeting of foreigners by the Tanzanian authorities marked a new and worrying turn in a crackdown on critics and opponents of the president, Samia Suluhu Hassan. In interviews with the Guardian, Mwangi and Atuhaire said they planned to initiate cases in a Tanzanian court as well as through regional and international avenues, including the east African court of justice and the African court on human and peoples’ rights…A series of killings, kidnappings, arrests and tortures over the past year have prompted widespread condemnation locally and internationally. The Guardian
Nigeria: Farmers Feeling the Brunt as Kidnappers Lay Siege to Kwara Communities
Across the seven local government areas of the southern senatorial district of [Kwara State], communities live under the siege of two categories of armed persons: foreign elements ambushing road users and attacking communities to kidnap for ransom and armed herders grazing cattle into farms and mauling farmers who stand in the way…The district produces various food and cash crops. The staple food crops include maize, rice, sorghum, millet, yam, and cassava, while essential cash crops like cotton, cocoa, and oil palm are also cultivated…Subsistence farming is the most common but some prominent indigenes also established commercial farms…Overall, insecurity has affected farming activities and food production in the district. Crop farmers bear the brunt of the conflict…After the kidnap of the Oke Ero council officials in April, the Kwara State House of Assembly passed a motion urging Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to review the state’s security architecture and strategies…The state government recently created the Ministry of Livestock Development, emulating the federal government’s similar step. Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES, Muhammed Umar, the Director of Livestock Service at the new ministry, said the government wants to restrict herders to the 17 grazing zones it has created across the state. Premium Times
Algeria Sentences French Sports Journalist to Seven Years behind Bars
Algerian authorities have sentenced a prominent French sports journalist to seven years in prison for “glorifying terrorism”, media rights campaigners RSF have said, denouncing the verdict as “nonsensical”…. [Christophe] Gleizes, 36, was ordered by the court in Tizi Ouzou, northern Algeria, to be immediately incarcerated, RSF said Sunday…France’s AFP news agency reported that Gleizes had been taken to Tizo Ouzou prison straight after his conviction. After filing his appeal, the case would be heard in October at the earliest. Gleizes, who has co-authored a book about football in Africa, travelled to Algeria in May 2024 to write about the local Tizi Ouzou football club Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie (JSK) – named after Algeria’s Kabylie region, home to the Berber Kabyle people. He was arrested on 28 May and placed under judicial control and prevented from leaving the country, RSF said. He was charged with “glorifying terrorism” and “possessing publications for propaganda purposes harmful to national interests”. RSF says the charges alleging terrorism and propaganda are “baseless” and stem from 2015 and 2017 when Gleizes was in contact with a Tizi Ouzou football figure prominent in the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK) – designated a “terrorist” organisation by the Algerian authorities in 2021. RFI
Lesotho Activist Arrested after Video on Unemployment Rates Angers Prime Minister
It took a single video complaining about Lesotho’s unemployment rate to turn Tšolo Thakeli into the prime minister’s enemy. Within a day of posting there were armed police at his door. It was Father’s Day, and the 31-year-old father of two was in his pyjamas when they arrived. He had no idea his post would land him in trouble; after all, he had campaigned for a long time, under different governments, for action on jobs for young people. But this month’s video by Thakeli, asking why the premier, Sam Matekane, had not delivered on a promise to create jobs, had struck a chord with young people, who began sharing and discussing the post online. Initial attempts to charge him with insulting Matekane and inciting violence were abandoned due to lack of evidence. He was released but re-arrested the same day and charged with sedition…He was held for two days. Thakeli was then summoned by Lesotho’s head of police and told to never mention the prime minister’s name again…But Thakeli has ignored the warning. He said he has no choice but to keep speaking out and has continued with social media posts and videos that attract tens of thousands of viewers…Thakeli’s arrest sparked protests in Lesotho’s capital, Maseru, but also concern among human rights activists in the wider southern African region over the attack on an individual expressing concern over basic social problems. The Guardian
Zimbabwe Hearings Over Mugabe-era Massacres Delayed
Much-anticipated hearings on 1980s massacres by elite Zimbabwean soldiers failed to start on schedule amid reports of logistical problems and threats of a court challenge, sources told AFP on Friday. Tens of thousands of people were killed over several years in the so-called Gukurahundi massacre under former leader Robert Mugabe, a few years after Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain. Starting in 1983, Mugabe deployed an elite North Korean-trained army unit to crack down on a revolt in the western Matabeleland region. Critics say the soldiers targeted dissidents loyal to Mugabe’s rival, fellow revolutionary and nationalist leader Joshua Nkomo. Most of the victims belonged to the minority Ndebele tribe…Politician Sibangilizwe Nkomo, son of Mugabe’s late rival Joshua Nkomo, told AFP that his party had approached the High Court for a halt to the proceedings. Among the concerns is whether the chiefs have a legal mandate to preside over the hearings. Musa Kika, executive director of the pan-African Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa, said there were also questions over the objectivity of the traditional leaders. AFP
Nearly 20% of Cancer Drugs Defective in 4 African Nations
An alarming number of people across Africa may be taking cancer drugs that don’t contain the vital ingredients needed to contain or reduce their disease. It’s a concerning finding with roots in a complex problem: how to regulate a range of therapeutics across the continent. A US and pan-African research group published the findings this week in The Lancet Global Health. The researchers had collected dosage information, sometimes covertly, from a dozen hospitals and 25 pharmacies across Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Cameroon. They tested nearly 200 unique products across several brands. Around 17% — roughly one in six — were found to have incorrect active ingredient levels, including products used in major hospitals. Patients who receive insufficient dosages of these ingredients could see their tumors keep growing, and possibly even spread. Similar numbers of substandard antibiotics, antimalarial and tuberculosis drugs have been reported in the past, but this is the first time that such a study has found high levels of falsified or defective anticancer drugs in circulation. DW