Author: pr web

BAMAKO, MALI — Six soldiers are dead and 20 wounded after Malian Army bases in the central cities of Sévaré, Niono, and Bapho were simultaneously attacked this morning by suspected terrorists. An army press release says that the bases in the cities of Sévaré, Niono, and Bapho were attacked by “terrorists” in “kamikaze vehicles packed with explosives,” and that in addition to the casualties, a helicopter was damaged.

Sévaré is a town in Mali’s Mopti Region and the site of the former headquarters of the G5 Sahel, an intergovernmental task force with member states Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger.

 

The headquarters were moved to Bamako in 2018 after an attack which killed several people.

 

The Bapho military base is less than 20 kilometers from Ségou, Mali, a large regional and cultural capital more than 200 kilometers north of Bamako.

 

After an Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012, French forces intervened and took back control of the north in 2013. In the years since, insecurity has moved south into Mali’s central regions.

 

In February, France announced that it would withdraw its troops from Mali after increasing tensions between France and Mali’s military government.

 

Several governments have accused Mali of working with Russian Wagner mercenaries, a claim the Malian government denies. There have been several reports of unidentified white soldiers working with the Malian army in the Ségou and Mopti regions since February.

 

Source: Voice of America

CAIRO — A Sudanese aid group says that tribal clashes on Sunday between Arabs and non-Arabs in the war-ravaged Darfur region have killed 168 people.

 

Adam Regal, spokesman for the General Coordination for Refugees and Displaced in Darfur, says fighting in the Kreinik area of West Darfur province also wounded 98 others.

 

He says the clashes first erupted Thursday with the killing of two people by an unknown assailant in Kreinik, around 30 kilometers (18 miles) east of Genena, the provincial capital of West Darfur.

 

He says the militias known as janjaweed attacked the area early Sunday with heavy weapons and burned down and looted houses in the area.

 

The clashes eventually reached Genena, where militias and armed groups attacked wounded people while they were being treated at the city’s main hospital, according to Salah Saleh, a doctor and former medical director at the hospital.

 

Authorities have deployed more troops to the region since the fighting on Thursday left eight dead and at least 16 others wounded.

 

Sudan’s Darfur region has seen bouts of deadly clashes between rival tribes in recent months as the country remains mired in a wider crisis following last year’s coup, when top generals overthrew a civilian-led government.

 

The October coup has upended the country’s fragile path to democracy after a popular uprising led the military to overthrow longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.

 

Source: Voice of America

KINSHASA, DRC — A new case of Ebola has been confirmed in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo, the National Institute of Biomedical Research said Saturday, four months after the end of the country’s last outbreak.

 

The case, a 31-year-old male, was detected in the city of Mbandaka, capital of Congo’s Equateur province, the institute said. A health ministry spokesperson confirmed the discovery.

 

The patient began showing symptoms on April 5 but did not seek treatment for more than a week. He was admitted to an Ebola treatment center on April 21 and died later that day, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement.

 

“Time is not on our side,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s Regional Director for Africa.”The disease has had a two-week head start and we are now playing catch-up.”

 

Mbandaka, a crowded trading hub on the banks of the Congo River, has contended with two previous outbreaks — in 2018 and in 2020. It is a city where people live in close proximity, with road, water and air links to the capital Kinshasa.

 

The WHO said that efforts to contain the disease are already underway in Mbandaka, and that a vaccination campaign will begin in the coming days.

 

Congo has seen 13 previous outbreaks of Ebola, including one in 2018-2020 in the east that killed nearly 2,300 people, the second highest toll recorded in the history of the hemorrhagic fever.

 

The last outbreak, also in the east, infected 11 people between October and December and killed six of them.

 

Source: Voice of America

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA — Six people were killed Friday in a blast at a beachside Mogadishu restaurant, which was hosting Somalia’s police chief and legislators when the explosion occurred, an ambulance service said.

 

Government officials were unharmed in the blast, which sparked a fire inside the building, sending smoke into the sky as diners scrambled to safety.

 

“There was a blast in the restaurant presumably caused by a suicide bomber, but we are not sure so far [about] … the cause,” said police officer Mohamed Ali.

 

“The police commissioner was inside the restaurant when the blast occurred, but he is safe [as are] several legislators who stayed there,” he told AFP.

 

“Six people died and seven others were wounded in the blast,” Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of the Aamin Ambulance service, told reporters.

 

Al-shabab has claimed responsibility for the attack.

 

“Our special operations unit was responsible for the attack on government top officials including the police chief and apostate lawmakers, the attack has resulted in deaths and injuries among those at the scene in Abdul Aziz district,” the group said in a statement published on its Shahada News Agency.

 

The explosion was followed by sporadic gunfire, said Farah Dahir, a diner at a nearby restaurant.

 

“I can see several ambulances rushing [to] the scene now, but it is very difficult to know about what exactly happened. The whole area is sealed off by police now,” he told AFP.

 

Mortar attack

 

The explosion came days after a mortar attack targeted Somalia’s parliament during a meeting by newly elected lawmakers.

 

No lawmakers were harmed in Monday’s assault, which was claimed by the Islamist militant group al-Shabab, which has been waging an insurgency against the central government for more than a decade.

 

The Horn of Africa nation has seen a spate of attacks in recent weeks as it hobbles through a long-delayed election process to pick a new president.

 

Some parliamentary seats remain unfilled but sufficient lawmakers have been sworn in to move the election process forward, with both houses due to choose a speaker next week.

 

Somalia has not held a one-person, one-vote election in 50 years.

 

Instead, polls follow a complex indirect model, whereby state legislatures and clan delegates pick lawmakers for the national parliament, who in turn choose the president.

 

The election delays have worried Somalia’s international backers, who have warned that the chaos distracts from the fight against al-Shabab.

 

The al-Qaeda-linked militants frequently attack civilian, military and government targets in Somalia’s capital and outside.

 

The jihadists controlled Mogadishu until 2011, when they were pushed out by an African Union force, but they still hold territory in the countryside.

 

Source: Voice of America

Come mid-April, 2022 The National Roads Authority (NRA), is expected to embark on major road maintenance  as contractual works has been signed since March, 2022  for the communities of Banni – Salikene- Njaba Kunda roads, Brufut – Madiana – Banykang – Kunkunjang roads, resurfacing of sections on the Soma –Basse highway and Kudang – Bansang.

The main aim of these maintenance works is to improve the much-needed urban circulation and to provide alternative routes for road users and to minimize congestion on our key urban roads.

 

According to recent updates from the authority, when completed, this development will also connect major communities in rural Gambia to have access to schools, health and agricultural centers and boost tourism.

 

Similarly, maintenance works for the following communities have started long since and in progress. Kolongba Road (Dippa Kunda), Bakoteh Silo (Dippa Kunda), Brikama Garage – Sandika Road, (Serrekunda) and Lamin- NTC bypass.

 

These major roads maintenance works came at a time, when construction of major urban roads in preparation for the much talked about Organization of Islamic Conference- 0IC, which the Gambia is expected to host this year.

 

It is an open secret that in the Gambia, traffic congestions are a daily issue that, when these roads are completed and that of the OIC roads, such issues like road traffic congestions would be a think of the past.

 

Furthermore, it is also important to note that most of these roads when completed, will be provided with proper traffic signs boards, drainages, speed humps and other roads furniture.

 

One of the mission statement of the National Roads Authority (NRA), is to provide safe, reliable and well-maintained road network for socio-economic development of the Gambia.

 

Source: Ministry of Transport, Works & Infrastructure

LONDON — The British government is facing strong backlash from opposition parties and human rights groups after announcing plans earlier this month to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda for processing, in a bid to deter migrants from crossing the English Channel in small boats.

 

The British government says the prospect of being sent to Rwanda will deter migrants from embarking on the treacherous journey.

 

Record numbers

 

More than 4,500 migrants have crossed the English Channel from France to Britain in small boats this year, four times more than the total this time last year. There have been dozens of fatalities, including 27 migrants who drowned when their boat capsized off the northern French coast in November.

 

There is broad political agreement that the dangerous treks must stop, along with bitter debate about how that can be accomplished.

 

Britain’s latest plan is to fly migrants more than 6,000 kilometers to Rwanda, where they will be put in holding centers while their asylum claims are processed. Britain’s home secretary, Priti Patel, signed the policy alongside Vincent Biruta, Rwanda’s minister of foreign affairs, during a visit to Kigali earlier this month.

 

“The persistent circumventing of our laws and immigration rules and the reality of a system that is open to gain and to criminal exploitation has eroded public support for Britain’s asylum system and those who genuinely need access to it,” Patel told reporters. “Putting evil people, smugglers, out of business is a moral imperative. It requires us to use every tool at our disposal and also to find new solutions.”

 

“Working together, the United Kingdom and Rwanda will help make the immigration system fairer, ensure that people are safe and enjoy new opportunities to flourish. We have agreed that people who enter the U.K. illegally will be considered for relocation to Rwanda to have their asylum claims decided and those who are resettled will be given the support, including up to five years of training, with the help of integration, accommodation, [and] health care so that they can resettle and thrive,” the British home secretary said on April 14.

 

Britain has paid Rwanda an initial $156 million for a five-year trial plan. Britain will also pay Rwanda for each migrant the African nation accepts.

 

“This [plan] will not only help them, but it will benefit Rwanda and Rwandans and help to advance our own development,” Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Vincent Biruta told reporters.

Bitter backlash

 

The policy has prompted a furious response in Britain and elsewhere. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby — the most senior cleric in the Anglican Church — criticized the policy in his Easter sermon. “Subcontracting out our responsibilities, even to a country that seeks to do well, like Rwanda, is the opposite of the nature of God,” Welby said.

 

Migrant support groups say Britain should not be outsourcing refugee processing to Rwanda, a country where London itself has flagged human rights concerns.

 

“We think it’s inhumane, it’s going to be very expensive, and it won’t be effective,” James Wilson, deputy director of the group Detention Action, told VOA. “The U.K. is a signatory to the refugee convention. We have a legal and moral obligation to be assessing any asylum claims to the U.K. in the U.K.”

Wilson said the government should provide safe routes for refugees to reach Britain. “A humanitarian visa system, so that those who have reached France and are looking to claim asylum in the U.K. and having some grounds for doing that would be able to apply for a visa to come to the U.K. to have their asylum claim considered. If we put that kind of scheme in place, which we think is entirely practicable, it would end the need for Channel crossings,” he told VOA.

 

Patel says Rwanda is “a safe and secure country with the respect for the rule of law and clearly a range of institutions that evolved and developed over time.” She also said Rwanda already has resettled almost 130,000 refugees from multiple countries.

 

UN objections

 

Britain says asylum-seekers should apply for refugee status in the first safe country they arrive in, including France. The United Nations disagrees. “There’s nothing in international law that says you have to ask in the first country you encounter,” said Larry Bottinick, a senior legal officer for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

 

“UNHCR understands the frustration of the U.K. government on that and is not in favor of Channel crossing, of course. We think there’s more effective ways and more humane ways to address this,” Bottinick told The Associated Press.

Australia lessons

 

Until 2014, Australia sent thousands of migrants to offshore processing centers in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific island of Nauru. Many asylum-seekers are still being held in these facilities. The policy failed to deter migrants, says analyst Madeline Gleeson, a senior research fellow at the Kaldor Center for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

 

“In the first year of offshore processing being in place, more people arrived in Australia by boat than at any other time in recorded history of asylum-seekers arriving that way,” she said.

 

Gleeson says Britain has indicated that only some migrants will be sent to Rwanda, and they are likely to be single men.

 

“If that is the case, what you might find is that the next boats coming across the Channel belonged to those groups which are not going to go to Rwanda — so you might see increased numbers of women and children coming on that boat,” she said. “And the concern there is if those boats sink or if they run into trouble, you’re likely to have a much higher human toll if there are more women and children on the boat.

 

“There will be a cap on how many people can go to Rwanda. And so, the U.K. risks running into the problem we found here in Australia, which is very quickly — within 12 weeks of this policy starting — we had already maxed out the full capacity offshore,” Gleeson told VOA.

 

There are further concerns the migrants sent to Rwanda will simply try again to reach Britain, thereby fueling the human trafficking gangs that operate from Africa to Europe and on toward the English Channel.

 

Source: Voice of America