Africa

Catherine Nakalembe won this year's Africa Food Prize for pioneering work using satellite images.

Ikram Abdi Omar was the UK's first hijab-wearing model to feature on the cover of Vogue.

After protests, a strike, and lockdown, Kiki, a student from Lagos, Nigeria, can’t wait for the year to be over.

On the eve of general elections in the Central African Republic (CAR), the United Nations Secretary-General has called on all stakeholders to ensure that the polls are held in a peaceful, inclusive and credible manner. 

The United Nations Secretary-General has strongly condemned Friday’s attacks that killed three Burundian peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR) and left another two wounded. 

A Kenyan entrepreneur is being lauded by the UN for developing a machine that recycles discarded plastic into paving stones for use in construction projects.

A former refugee considers the importance of memory for those who lose everything in the chaos of war.

Days before Sunday’s election, armed clashes in the Central African Republic (CAR) have prompted the “serious concern” of the UN aid coordinator in the country.   

 The UN refugee agency commended Chad on Friday for adopting its first-ever asylum law, which will enhance the protection of the nearly 480,000 refugees it is hosting by providing key elements for their socio-economic inclusion.

December 23, 2020 (KHARTOUM) - The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took part in the Sudanese army's 56th Shooting Festival on Wednesday, marking the militia's first time participating in the annual event.

The festival took place in the North Kordofan capital of El-Obeid and was attended by the likes of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Lt Gen Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Gen Mohamed Osman Al-Hussein.

The festival followed the end of the 2020 armed forces training session which was conducted electronically.

The RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemetti”, are integrated into the Sudanese army in January 2017, but their command remained separate from the arm's general staff. and unified command.

The forces' participation in the shooting festival has been as an additional step towards their full integration by the end of the transitional period in the national army together with former rebel groups.

Since the December Revolution, their activities are more and more coordinated with the Sudan Armed Forces, as their first general commander is deputy chairman of the Transitional Sovereign Council.

The militia which emanated from the janjaweed groups has been accused of war crimes and grave human rights violations during the counterinsurgency campaigns.

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December 23, 2020 (KHARTOUM) - Minni Minnawi, the leader of a Sudan Liberation Movement group (SLM-MM) revealed on Wednesday that some armed movements have reservations about forming a joint force in Darfur to protect.

The peace agreement, signed between the Sudanese government and the Revolutionary Front organizations on October 3, provides the formation of 12,000 a joint force including the government forces and armed groups of Juba agreement to protect civilians in Darfur region after the UNAMID withdrawal.

"Some movements have reservations about establishing joint forces in the Darfur region," said Minnawi in a joint press conference with the leader of the Sudanese Congress Party Omer al-Digair in Khartoum.

He pointed out that the joint forces will be established to protect civilians and are not a substitute for any group in Darfur or any other region of Sudan, without naming a specific group.

However, he cited the SLM of Abdel Wahid al-Nur, adding they do not intend to replace it or the SPLM-N of Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, two holdout armed groups that for different reasons did not join the Juba peace process.

He also underscored that they were not for the withdrawal of the UNAMID from the Darfur region, but things went too far when they engaged the peace process and it was not possible to reverse the process.

The joint press conference was held after the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the SLM-MM and SCoP for a joint action during the transitional period and to prepare for the general elections within three years.

Minnawi recalled their position on the need to hand over the ousted President Omer al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

He said that he was aware that al-Bashir would be better treated than in a Sudanese prison but they want his hand over the "symbolism of the gesture" and because he had kept defying the international justice during the past years.

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December 23, 2020 (GADAREF) - The Sudanese army came under a new attack from Ethiopian army and Amhara militias near the border strip, military sources told the Sudan Tribune on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the joint political committee between the two countries wrapped up meetings in Khartoum without tangible results on the border issue.

"A Sudanese army force in Jabal Abu Teyyour was heavily shelled by the army and militiamen, which from the other side of the border area," said the source who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

"The Sudanese forces deterred the attack," he further said.

Also, a second clash occurred in the east of the "Wad Koli" area where a Sudanese military patrol clashed with a mobile Ethiopian reconnaissance force.

For his part, the visiting Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonen returned to Addis Ababa without making any progress in the talks on the border issue.

Mekonen demanded that the Sudanese army evacuate cultivated by Ethiopian farmers inside Sudan and compensate them for any damage caused during the clashes with the Ethiopian troops.

The senior official who is from the Amhara region also refused to discuss the border demarcation before to settle the farmers' plight.

The Sudanese government spokesman on Tuesday said that his government wants Ethiopia to accept border demarcation before any further discussions.

The Ethiopian army forces from the Amhara region and Fano militiamen continue to play a significant role in the armed conflict with the TPLF fighter in Tigray as they also have land claims in their region.

A committee of Sudanese affected by the attacks of Ethiopian forces in Fashaga area called on the Sudanese government to suspend any talks with the Ethiopian side before to fully retake every parcel of the national territory.

"We are the ones who know well the policy of procrastination and unfulfilled promises pursued by the Ethiopian over the past years," said Rasheed Abdel Gadir the head of the committee.

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Just days before elections in the Central African Republic (CAR), an uptick in armed violence is threatening the safety of civilians and their right to vote, according to the UN human rights office.  

December 22, 2020 (KHARTOUM) - The Security Council decided on Tuesday to terminate the mandate of Darfur hybrid peacekeeping operation (UNAMID, on 31 December.

The Council “Decides to terminate the mandate of UNAMID as of 31 December 2020,” reads the resolution 2559 (2020) which was unanimously adopted by the 15 members in a videoconference meeting.

The resolution further provided to “Commence the drawdown of UNAMID personnel on 1 January 2021 and to complete the withdrawal of all uniformed and civilian UNAMID personnel by 30 June 2021.

The decision comes in line with the recommendations of the African Union-United Nations Joint Special Report to the Security Council.

The joint report underlined the National Plan on Civilian Protection developed by the Sudanese government and the deployment of troops in Darfur to replace the hybrid mission. The recommendations also pointed to the establishment of joint security forces involving the former rebel groups to protect civilians in Darfur.

The Resolution 2559 urged the Sudanese government to implement the National Plan for Civilian Protection and to protect civilians in Darfur and stressed the need to build local community confidence in the ability of rule-of-law institutions to deliver justice.

Some UN diplomats during the recent discussions about the UNAMID withdrawal underlined the inter-communal attacks and the infighting between the factions of a holdout rebel group in the mountainous area of Jebel Marra for the control of gold mines.

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The UN World Food Programme (WFP) will have to further reduce food rations and cash assistance for more than 1.2 million refugees in Uganda due to a funding shortfall, the agency has said, calling for urgent resources to sustain aid efforts. 

December 22, 2020 (JUBA) - South Sudan government plans to take full control of its oil sector through establishment of a training facility and controlling data storage, a senior official said Tuesday.

South Sudanese soldiers guard an oil refining facility (AFP)

Speaking during the launch of a Petroleum report in the capital Juba, the country's Petroleum minister, Puot Kang Chol said the training facility will equip South Sudanese ahead of 2027 when the government plans to phase out foreign investors from its oil sector.

“We are working on establishing a training facility — a petroleum training center for the republic of South Sudan where we will be training young men and young women of the Republic of South Sudan, preparing them to take over from our partners when the time is ripe for us to do so,” he said.

The new facility, according to Chol, will be launched next year.

He further disclosed that the government will soon complete the construction of a data center to manage data on oil operations.

“Our data is managed from Khartoum. With support from our partners, we are now at the last stage of building a data center in the Republic of South Sudan,” stressed Chol, adding “The aim is for us to move our data from Sudan so that we manage it ourselves.”

Oil production is crucial for South Sudan to recover from years of civil war that devastated the economy. However, while the nation is estimated to have the third-biggest reserves of the commodity in sub-Saharan Africa, production of about 170,000 barrels a day is less than half the output before fighting broke out in December 2013.

Last year, South Sudan announced its first oil find after the secession, at 5.3 million barrels of recoverable crude. At the time, its oil production averaged 180,000 bpd, down from 350,000 bpd before secession from Sudan, amid plans to increase crude oil production.

About 90% of South Sudan government's revenue comes from oil resources, while the rest is collected in form of customs taxes, market taxes, road taxes, income tax, permits, among others.

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The women of Africa have been dominating this past year and in this video, we show just some of that.

December 22, 2020 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan and Ethiopia expressed the need to settle border issues and develop bilateral cooperation to fit with the strong relations between the people of the two neighbouring countries.

Sudanese and Ethiopian delegations started in Khartoum on Wednesday the meetings of the Ethiopia-Sudan High-Level Political Committee to discuss bilateral cooperation and recent border clashes.

The visiting Ethiopian delegation was chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonen while the Cabinet Affairs Minister Omer Munis chaired Sudanese side.

In his speech at the opening session of the bilateral political committee, Mekonen said the Sudanese military operations led to the death of several civilians, destroyed their belongings and farms.

The Ethiopian government is "very much concerned by this recent development in the border areas. Furthermore, it is endangering the agreements we have reached to maintain the status quo in the area north of Mount Dagelish," he said in his speech extended to Sudan Tribune.

"Therefore, it is our firm position that reactivating the existing mechanisms and finding an amicable solution on settlement and cultivation are the only way to bring a lasting solution to the issues in our common border," further said the minister who is from the Amhara region.

The minister did not raise the recent cross border attacks by the Ethiopian army of the Fano militiamen against the Sudanese army inside its territory which are seen by the Sudanese side as the main issue of discord.

Sudanese officials also were dismayed with the accusations directed by Ethiopian lawmakers accusing Sudan of backing the TPLF fighters despite the assurances made by Al-Burhan during his visit to Addis Ababa in November 2020.

Addressing the opening session of the committee's meeting, Munis indicated "the strong political will of the two parties to demarcate the borders between the two countries," said the office of the Sudanese prime minister.

The Sudanese official reaffirmed the historical and strong relations between the two countries and underscored that the meeting would determine a date for the start of the border demarcation process.

This will contribute to "Resolving the outstanding issues between the two parties regarding the issue of borders," he stressed.

The government spokesman Faisal Mohamed Saleh made things more clear about the position of his country when he told reports in Khartoum that the most important now is to demarcate the border.

"When the borders are demarcated, we can discuss anything, including the issue of Ethiopian farmers on the Sudanese territory. This is the official position of the Sudanese government," he stressed.

During a recent meeting for the IGAD countries in Djibouti, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed thanked the bloc leaders for their support for his government to quell the dissent in Tigray and to preserve Ethiopia's integrity.

In a related development, the Ethiopian Minister of Transport Dagmawit Moges discussed with her Sudanese counterpart, ways to develop Ethiopian use for Port Sudan.

Moges also discussed with the Sudanese Minister of Energy and Mining, Khairy Abdel-Rahman the supply and distribution of oil products as well as possible projects that the two countries can jointly develop.

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December 22, 2020 (KHARTOUM) - Three civilians have been injured during several attacks by soldiers belonging to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Bobaya village, South Kordofan last week, a local group said on Tuesday.

The attacks took place as part of government raids against those suspected to be sympathizers with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), a rebel group led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu. Two of the victims survived with injuries to their limbs while the third victim, a herder, is being treated for a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

The Human Rights and Development Organization (HUDO) has released a statement calling for the Sudanese government to investigate the incidents and hold the responsible officers accountable for violating civilians' right to life.

The statement also calls for “Sudan government at the state and central level to urgently investigate the state of insecurity in South Kordufan/Nuba Mountains and to solve it urgently.”

Despite the cases being reported to local Dilling police, the investigations have not been followed upon.

“Currently, there is a lot of insecurity in Nuba Mountains/ South Kordufan State than before… This raised fear among residents that more attacks may happen,” the organization added.

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A lack of safe water, sanitation and hygiene services have put approximately 250,000 children, displaced by escalating crises in a northern province of Mozambique, at risk from deadly diseases, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned.