Africa

New Cardiff City boss Neil Warnock makes ex-Leeds United defender Sol Bamba his latest signing in the Championship.

Ethiopian troops withdraw from a key military base in central Somalia, opening the way for militant Islamists to capture territory, witnesses say.

A major report by Save the Children has found that one girl under the age of 15 is married every seven seconds.

A new report by Save the Children says one girl under the age of 15 is married every seven seconds.

Burundi bans three UN investigators after they published a report accusing the government of gross human rights violations.

Recent unrest in the Central African Republic (CAR) demonstrates that the situation there remains fragile, and “spoilers are still active, on both sides,” the United Nations peacekeeping chief said today, telling the Security Council that the international community must stand firm and support the Government’s efforts to ensure lasting peace.

Thanks to growing implementation of a law passed last year, child marriage may soon be a relic of Malawi’s past, and on the eve of the International Day of the Girl Child, UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson visited the country to celebrate the achievements of UN Women, the Malawian Government, local chiefs and girls who have returned to school after having their marriages annulled.

Urging Ethiopian authorities to end their violent crackdown on peaceful protests, which has reportedly led to the death of over 600 people since November 2015, two United Nations human rights experts today further called on the Government to allow an international commission of inquiry to investigate the protests and the violence used against peaceful demonstrators.

Noting the socio-economic progress made by African countries and their centrality in major sustainable development discourses, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called for continued support to the continent, particularly for strengthening good governance and for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

October 10, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the estimates from Sudan's Commission of Refugees (COR) indicate the country has received 100,000 Syrian refugees since 2011.

In its latest weekly bulletin, OCHA pointed out that only 5,515 Syrian refugees have been jointly registered by the COR and UN High Commissioner for by the end of August 2016.

According to OCHA, “UNHCR provides registered Syrian refugees with access to the same services and assistance as other registered refugees living in Khartoum, including targeted financial assistance issued through ATM cards for those who are identified as extremely vulnerable”.

It pointed that main concerns of Syrian refugees pertain to “economic hardship, including accommodation and living costs, lack of access to income-generating opportunities, and lack of access to psychosocial support particularly for children”.
Unofficial estimates say the number of the Syrians in Sudan has exceeded 250,000 refugees.

The current policy of the Sudanese government is to receive all Syrian nationals coming to the country with no visa required for entry. Syrians are granted access to state health and education services.

The majority of refuegees have settled in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum and have become integrated into urban host communities, including an older pre-existing Syrian community.

Last May, the UNHCR provided $ 10 million to the government of Sudan in support to the Syrian refugees.

October 10, 2016 (JUBA) - A South Sudanese journalist abducted on Friday was severely tortured and dumped near a graveyard, colleagues and relatives said Monday.

State journalists tour Yambio FM, as part of their training (ST)

The incident is the latest attack on the media, following an incident in which a veteran journalist was found dead after being kidnaped by unknown gunmen.

Malek Bol, a journalist with Al-Muogif newspaper, went missing on Friday and was found after being tortured by unidentified group.

He was found at a graveyard in a Juba suburb on Monday morning.

It was not immediately clear as to what prompted government agents to target him.

Colleagues and family members attributed the cause to a critical article he wrote and posted on social media about the performance of the government under President Salva Kiir. The article focused on the economic crisis and corruption in the country.

According to medical reports, the journalist had broken ribs that resulted from severe beatings.

Similar incident also happened earlier this year when two journalists were tortured and dumped on two different graveyards in Juba town.

“It is very unfortunate indeed. We found him in a bad condition, beaten and burned," one of his colleagues at the newspaper told Sudan Tribune on Monday by phone.

The journalist further added that the paper is operating in a difficult situation and was no longer able to balance their stories, only being forced to write and publish a version that suit the interest of the government and allied opposition and views targeting non alliance opposition to the government.

“It is very hard to maintain any level of professional standards these days,” said a reporter who preferred anonymity.

“You know that what happens these days is that security personnel who are deployed to the newspapers ensure that they read all that is going to be published the next day. When they find something which is not in favour of the government, they remove it if they respect you", he added.

(ST)

By Eric Reeves

We are left to wonder—twelve days after Amnesty International's compelling report on the Khartoum regime's devastating assault on the Jebel Marra region of Darfur this year—whether the international community is prepared to move beyond the few brief moments of condemnation that followed release of the report (“Scorched Earth, Poisoned Air: Sudanese Government Forces Ravage Jebel Marra, Darfur,” Amnesty International | 109 pages; released September 29, 2016).

Much of the report was given over to the use of chemical weapons in Khartoum's military offensive, directed overwhelmingly against civilians. Given the massive evidence assembled there can be no reasonable doubting the use of chemical weapons—certainly not in light of the professional analysis by experts in non-conventional weapons and the scores of photographs that reveal destruction of human flesh, internal organs, and illnesses that cannot be accounted for my any known human pathogen. We lack physical evidence in the sense that we don't have soil or bomb fragments samples, or blood samples. But there is simply no other reasonable explanation for what is revealed in these gruesome photographs, or in the remarkably consistent accounts that came from widely separated areas of the Jebel Marra massif.
Moreover, Khartoum's previous use of chemical weapons has been frequently reported by highly reliable sources, including Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (see http://sudanreeves.org/2016/09/29/7469/). We may well conclude that what brief round of condemnation we have heard will exhaust international concern, and reflects how little comprehension there has been of the larger conclusion of the Amnesty report: as a means of crushing the rebellion in Darfur once and for all, the Jebel Marra redoubt of the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdel Wahid (SLA/AW) has been laid waste. Civilians were overwhelmingly the targets of Khartoum's military offensive, and many times more victims died, were wounded, or displaced by conventional weapons than by chemical weapons. The attacks included indiscriminate assaults by military aircraft on civilian villages with no military presence. Looting, village destruction, rape, murder, and a general destruction of civilian life were the primary goals of the offensive—again, typically in areas with no rebel presence. Amnesty estimates that 250,000 civilians were displaced by the violence.

In short, the counter-insurgency in Darfur remains genocidal in character: those targeted in Jebel Marra were overwhelming members of the Fur tribe, non-Arab/African and perceived as the civilian base of support for the SLA/AW. Destruction of civilian life in Jebel Marra, by ethnically-targeting the Fur population as a means of waging war, leaves no room for skepticism about the relevance of the various genocidal acts delineated in Article 2 of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

WILL THERE BE AN INVESTIGATION?

Obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention

Chemical weapons, as hideous as they are, are simply targeting the civilian destruction by other means. They are, as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has declared (speaking of chemical weapons use in Syria), a “moral obscenity” (notably, Kerry has offered no similar expression of outrage in the case of Amnesty's crushingly persuasive evidence about what has occurred in Jebel Marra). But the use of such weapons must be investigated—they are banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC—see Article 10); and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has a clear mandate to investigate credible allegations of chemical weapons use. Indeed, the OPCW “Mission Statement” could hardly be clearer:

The mission of the OPCW is to implement the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in order to achieve the OPCW's vision of a world that is free of chemical weapons and of the threat of their use, and in which cooperation in chemistry for peaceful purposes for all is fostered. In doing this, our ultimate aim is to contribute to international security and stability, to general and complete disarmament, and to global economic development.

To this end, the Secretariat proposes policies for the implementation of the CWC to the Member States of the OPCW, and develops and delivers programmes with and for them. These programmes have four broad aims:
to ensure a credible and transparent regime for verifying the destruction of chemical weapons and to prevent their re-emergence, while protecting legitimate national security and proprietary interests;

Member states of the OPCW represent approximately 98 percent of the world's population, and Sudan is a signatory to both the CWC and the OPCW. The United States has an elaborate Web page given over the CWC (http://www.cwc.gov/).

Realistic Assessment of prospects for an investigation

Of course, there will be no investigation of Khartoum's use of chemical weapons in Jebel Marra. The regime will never permit such an investigation, and international acquiescence will again follow such obduracy. Moreover, as the West dithers, the obstacles to investigation grow greater. As Sudan Tribune reports today, Khartoum's génocidaires are now receiving help from the hopelessly ineffective and morally compromised UN/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID):

Sudan's Foreign Ministry has said that the head of the hybrid peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) Martin Uhomoibhi stressed that his mission didn't receive any piece of information that chemical weapons have been used in Darfur….

In a press statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Sunday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Gharib Allah Khidir said Uhomoibhi told [Foreign Minister Ibrahim] Ghandour that in spite of the almost 20,000 UNAMID personnel on the ground in Darfur, none of them has seen any Darfuri with the impact of the use of chemical weapons as described by Amnesty International's report.

He added the UNAMID chief informed Ghandour that not one displaced person meeting such description has shown up at any UNAMID Team Site clinics where they would have naturally gone for help.

Perhaps we may leave aside the habitual mendacity of Ghandour, given the fact that Nigerian Martin Uhomoibhi has proved as feckless and ineffective as the disingenuous and corrupt previous heads of UNAMID, most notably Rodolphe Adada and Ibrahim Gambari. He is all too likely to have said what Ghandour has attributed to him. Uhomoibhi is simply untrustworthy and has proved himself a tool of Khartoum on too many occasions—nowhere more conspicuously than in these comments.

It should be noted first that it has been years since UNAMID has had any real access to Jebel Marra, in particular to the areas where chemical weapons are reported by Amnesty. It is telling that Uhomoibhi does not explain why his force of 20,000 personnel doesn't gather evidence disconfirming Amnesty's findings. The reason is simple: the Mission can't gain access to the areas specified in Amnesty's report.

As a reporting source, no one seriously engaged in assessing realities in Darfur regards UNAMID reporting as anything but a failing Mission trying to do what it can to disguise that failure. To be sure, we can't know whether UNAMID has indeed failed so miserably as to have heard none of what Amnesty reports on the basis of more than 250 interviews that serve as the evidentiary backbone of its report, along with the searing photographs of chemically ravaged flesh—or whether there is lying or concealment of evidence at some level in whatever passes for a “reporting chain of command” in this deeply demoralized and impotent force. It is difficult to know which of these failings is greater, given the history of UNAMID over the past nine years (as of January 1, 2017).

The international community, then, has a stark choice:

[1] Believe UNAMID chief Uhomoibhi—and Ibrahim Ghandour, who represents a regime that has lied and abrogated treaty obligations on countless occasions, including continuously denying access in Darfur to UNAMID, despite having signed the Status of Forces Agreement of January 2008, which explicitly guarantees unfettered access to the Mission;

[2] Even in accepting that Khartoum will refuse to allow an investigation under the auspices of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, demand that such an investigation be conducted, thereby compelling Khartoum to violate again, and conspicuously, its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The head of the UN's Department of Peacekeeping operations, Hervé Ladsous, has a dismal record on Darfur, but was cited by the UN News Center, several days after the release of the Amnesty report:

Regarding allegations that the Government had used chemical weapons in Jebel Marra, Mr. Ladsous said that the UN had not come across any evidence to support such claims. He pointed out, however, that UNAMID had consistently been denied access to conflict zones in Jebel Marra, and that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had stated, in an initial assessment, that it was not possible to draw any conclusions without further information and evidence being made available. (UN News Centre, October 4, 2016)

In fact, Ladsous seriously misrepresents here what OPCW has said to date; it does not include language supporting Ladsous' claim that OPCW had declared “it was not possible to draw any conclusions without further information and evidence being made available.” Here, in its entirety, is all that OPCW has reported on its website:

OPCW Examining NGO Report on Allegations of Chemical Weapons Use in Sudan

Thursday, 29 September 2016

In response to questions regarding the Amnesty International report, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is aware that Amnesty International issued the report, “Scorched Earth, Poisoned Air: Sudanese Government Forces Ravage Jebel Marra, Darfur,” which includes some allegations of the use of chemical weapons in the Darfur region of Sudan. OPCW shall certainly examine the reports and all other available relevant information.

Such disingenuous construal of the OPCW statement does little to encourage belief that the UN will take any meaningful part in at least forcefully demanding an investigation, even as it is the only way in which Amnesty's conclusions can be confirmed or disconfirmed on the basis of physical forensic analysis. In the end, Khartoum's view of things as represented at the UN by the regime's representative, Omer Dahab Fadl Mohamed, will prevail by default:

Sudan's UN Ambassador Omer Dahab Fadl Mohamed responded in a statement calling the Amnesty report “baseless and fabricated” and denying that his country had any chemical weapons. (Associated Press, October 1, 2016 | New York)
It is hardly headline news, but the Parliament of the European Union has demanded an investigation of Khartoum's chemical weapons use; but, conveniently for the countries nominally represented, the Parliament has negligible power or influence within the EU. In another quarter, France, Britain, the UK, and the U.S. have been mooted as possible initiators of a petition for investigation by the OPCW; but every day that passes makes this look less likely. The “moral obscenity” of chemical weapons use, as John Kerry would have it when it was expedient to say as much, is but another obscenity in an unfathomably grim and destructive genocidal counter-insurgency, now very nearly fourteen years in duration.

Eric Reeves has written extensively on Sudan for almost two decades; he is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University's François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights

October 10, 2016 (JUBA) - Several passengers traveling from the Ugandan capital, Kampala, across the border to Juba in South Sudan, are feared dead when three passengers' buses came under attack on the road on Monday by unknown gunmen.

General view of Juba Nimule road leading to Nimule Park and neighbouring Uganda (Pinterest photo)

The buses, according to eyewitnesses' accounts, were bombed at Jebel-Lein, about 40 kms from Juba on the road to Nimule, a South Sudanese border town to neighboring Uganda. One bus, belonging to Eco Bus company is burnt and two buses belonging to Friendship and Gateway Companies, respectively, were stopped at gunpoint by armed men, masked with black clothes. The passengers were abducted, one survivor told Sudan Tribune on Monday.

"When I passed the buses at Jebel-Lein, Eco Bus was burning. One can see human remains in the bus and blood all over the place. Two other passengers were empty," said Jobn, a traveler from Nimule who preferred to be identified by only first name.

John said he also helped in lifting survivors on to his vehicle and were carried to Juba teaching hospital. One survivor said she escaped from the gunmen who took several others hostage.

"The armed men fired at the first bus and it blocked the road. People started to jump down from the other buses but we were all held at gun point," said Mary, a woman in her 30s. Mary said she managed to escape and returned to the main road where she and two others met John.

John said his car was escorted by soldiers who have responded to the attack. The buses were traveling to Uganda and most of the passengers are South Sudanese and Ugandans. It is not clear how many people were onboard.

Juba-Nimule highway connects to neighboring Uganda, an important route which supplies the South Sudanese capital, Juba. But attacks on passenger buses and other commercial trucks have increased since fighting erupted in July between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and soldiers loyal to Riek Machar, the leader of the armed SPLM In Opposition (SPLM-IO) and former First Vice President in the Transitional Government of National Unity, who was ousted in a controversial process following the violence.

Machar fled Juba and remains in Khartoum, Sudan. He is replaced by his former chief peace negotiator, Taban Deng Gai, in a move criticized by his supporters as illegal. Gai, who has pledged to end the war, seems to lack military support among the SPLM-IO commanders.

Highway attacks, including killing of over 20 civilians on Juba-Yei road on Sunday have surged and appeared to be targeting the Dinka ethnic group, the tribe of President Kiir. Survivors of the attack on Yei road said they were singled out after being identified as Dinka and summarily executed, claims Sudan Tribune could not verify.

Two weeks ago, a car carrying Dinka Bor cattle keepers was attacked near Juba on Kajo-Keji road, killing over 10 people. No arrest has been made.

(ST)

African Union United Nations Mission in Darfur

Though the region of Darfur is relatively peaceful at this time, a small portion of Jebel Marra within Darfur continues to be intermittently volatile.

As the UN Secretary-General has always stressed, there can be no military solution to the conflict in the region. The challenge is: how can UNAMID best assist the Government of Sudan and the armed/non-signatory movements to stop fighting and engage in genuine political dialogue towards sustainable peace.

I welcome the unilateral declarations of cessation of hostilities in Darfur and call for the maintenance of these.

I welcome and support the on-going discussion on a cessation of hostilities document under the auspices of the African Union High Level Implementation Panel.

I met with Abdul Wahid in Paris, where he resides on July 11; upon my request he agreed to hold a meeting of the Sudan Liberation Army leadership cadres in mid-September of this year to consider joining the peace process. He asked for UNAMID's assistance. I agreed to assist but asked for a formal written letter to process the request. He agreed to write immediately but till date, has failed to do so in spite of my writing two reminders.

I would like to use this opportunity to call on all members of the United Nations and respective Special Envoys of influential countries to exert necessary pressure on the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid, to join the peace process.

A major plank of UNAMID's mandate from the Security Council is to protect civilians in Darfur. UNAMID has encountered some challenges in implementing this responsibility in a small portion of Darfur.

Both sides in the conflict in Jebel Marra continue to hamper or deny access to the remaining enclave of the concerned armed movement in Darfur. UNAMID is not an interposition force. It is a peacekeeping force and needs collaboration of both sides in the conflict to protect all civilians.

I call on the International Community as well as all Special Envoys of countries concerned to exercise influence and ensure UNAMID has unrestricted access all over Jebel Marra.

However, UNAMID's request for humanitarian access for protection of civilians purposes has no link with the recent Amnesty International's claims on chemical weapons since the mandate to investigate use of chemical weapons belongs to a different organisation. Even with full access as agreed in the Status of Forces Agreement, UNAMID lacks mandate to investigate on use of chemical weapons.

Nonetheless, UNAMID has been requested to shed light on the claims in the Amnesty International's report and the facts are as follows:

In spite of the almost 20,000 UNAMID personnel on the ground in Darfur, none of them has seen any Darfuri with the impact of the use of chemical weapons as described by Amnesty International's report;

Not one displaced person meeting such description has shown up at any UNAMID Team Site clinics where they would have naturally gone for help.

Amnesty International claimed to have made calls into Jebel Marra but did not for once call any of the almost 20,000 UN personnel all over Darfur, including in places like Sortony and Nertiti within a stone throw from the places where chemical weapons were reported to have been used.

Not one among the leadership of the Armed Movements in Darfur discussed use of chemical weapons with me or my Deputy during several meetings spanning January, April, May, July, August and September this year.

9 October 2016

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

October 10, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA) – The Ethiopian government has declared a state of emergency in the wake of continued anti-government protests across its Oromia region.

Demonstrators chant slogans while flashing the Oromo protest gesture during Irreecha, the thanksgiving festival of the Oromo people, in Bishoftu town, Oromia region, Ethiopia, October 2, 2016 (Reuters Photo)

The state of emergency, passed by the Council of Ministers, was announced on Sunday by Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn for the next six months.

"The state of emergency was declared following a thorough discussion by the Council of Ministers on the loss of lives and property damages occurring in the country”, Desalegn said in a televised address to the nation.

According to the government, the state of emergency was declared in order to restore order and contain violent protests expanding to many parts of the Oromya region.

Renewed protests erupted earlier this month when a religious festival taking place in Oromia's Bishoftu town turned into a violet anti-government protests, claiming the lives of 55 in a stampede that was triggered after police fired tear gas to disperse protesters.

Following the deadly incident, the protests spread to many areas of the Oromia region.

Multiples sources told Sudan Tribune that protesters have so far attacked 11 factories, destroyed public and government properties since attacks in the region began.

They have also continued to block roads linking the region with the capital, Addis Ababa, and burned down many trucks and passenger buses among others.

"We put our citizens' safety first. Besides, we want to put an end to the damage that is being carried out against infrastructure projects, health centers, administration and justice buildings," said Desalegn, urging people to stand by government to restore order.

The state of emergency, which become effective from Saturday, 8 October, seeks to reverse the danger posed by forces working in collaboration with foreign enemies to undermine the safety of the people and security and stability of the country.

The Oromos initially staged demonstrations in late 2015 in protest to government plans to expand the capital's territory to parts of the Oromia region.

However, protesters are now calling for regime change alleging that the Ethiopian government has failed to respect political and economic rights of Oromo people.

Human Rights Watch said up to 500 people were killed in protests within the region.

Meanwhile internet access remained impossible in almost all parts of Addis Ababa.

Government blocked access to fixed line internet service and mobile data nearly a week ago, without any official explanations for the shutdown, although the move appears aimed at suppressing the protests since social media has played a huge role.

Access to internet was allowed Monday afternoon, but turned off after about an hour.

This is the second time since August for Ethiopia to block internet access. However, blocking internet access in the capital for nearly a week is unprecedented in the Horn of Africa nation.

(ST)

October 10, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir on Monday has declared the extension of the unilateral cessation of hostilities in war zones for two months disclosing that a national mechanism would be established to draft a permanent constitution for the country.

Al-Bashir, who addressed the closing session of the National Dialogue Conference on Monday in the presence of the presidents of Egypt, Chad, Mauritania and Uganda, vowed to take the necessary measures to implement the national document, saying he would continue to consult with all political and societal forces to follow up on the implementation of the national dialogue's recommendations.

The national document, which was approved by the political and armed forces participating in the dialogue conference, is expected to be the basis for drafting the permanent constitution.

The Sudanese president also announced the formation of a national mechanism to draft the permanent constitution on the basis of the national document in order to achieve political stability in the country, pledging to develop a national strategy to carry out the state reform in accordance with the dialogue's recommendations.

Al-Bashir renewed the call to the opposition groups to join the dialogue “in order not to miss the historic opportunity” of being part of the unprecedented national consensus that has been achieved through the national dialogue.

He said the national document would remain open for the holdout opposition groups who decide to join it in the future, declaring the extension of the ceasefire until the end of the year in order to create climate conducive for dialogue and peace.

Last June, al-Bashir declared a four-month unilateral cessation of hostilities in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan states where the Sudanese army has been fighting the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/North (SPLM-N) rebels since June 2011.

In January 2014, al-Bashir called on political parties and armed groups to engage in a national dialogue to discuss four issues, including ending the civil war, allowing political freedoms, fighting against poverty and revitalizing national identity.

However, the political and armed opposition refuse to join the process, saying a genuine dialogue must start by stopping the war, delivering humanitarian assistance, allowing freedoms and releasing political detainees and convicts and then coming together in a forum that is not controlled by any party.

For his part, the Chadian President Idriss Deby called for the implementation of the dialogue's recommendations, demanding the opposition to join the process in order to resolve the country's problems peacefully.

The Egyptian President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi described the national dialogue as “important milestone in the history of Sudan”, praising al-Bashir's bravery for making fateful decisions to maintain his country's sovereignty.

Mauritania's leader Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, for his part, said the national dialogue would give strong boost to peace and development efforts in Sudan.

Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, also hailed as “great and important achievement for the political class in the country” the consensus that has been achieved by the national dialogue.

He pointed that Sudan missed a lot of opportunities in education and development during 60 years since independence, vowing that Kampala would exert every possible effort to help achieve peace in Sudan.

(ST)

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame warns of a "showdown" with France after a French investigation into the events leading to Rwanda's genocide was reopened.

Find out how to tie stylish "geles", the Nigerian head wraps that are gaining popularity across the fashion world.

Students and police clash at Johannesburg's University of Witwatersrand after protests are held over increased tuition fees.

The stars of new Disney film Queen of Katwe say it presents a more "refreshing" view of Africa than most other movies.