Month: May 2023

The U. S. ambassador to South Africa accused the country Thursday of providing weapons and ammunition to Russia for its war in Ukraine via a cargo ship that docked secretly at a naval base near the city of Cape Town for three days in December.

Questions were raised in South Africa’s parliament on Thursday and President Cyril Ramaphosa said an investigation was underway.

Ambassador Reuben Brigety said the U.S. was certain the equipment was loaded onto the Russian vessel at the Simon’s Town naval base and then transported to Russia, according to reports of his comments carried by multiple South African news outlets.

Ramaphosa was in Cape Town answering questions in Parliament when news of Brigety’s comments broke.

When a lawmaker asked about the weapons and ammunition, the president replied that “the matter is being looked into, and in time we will be able to speak about it.”

Ramaphosa declined to comment further, citing the need for an investigation to play out.

The leader of the political opposition, John Steenhuisen, asked the president if South Africa was “actively arming Russian soldiers who are murdering and maiming innocent people?”

Steenhuisen also asked if Ramaphosa could confirm that “weapons of war” were loaded onto the Russian ship.

Ammunition supplies have become a problem for Russia in the war. The leader of the Russian private army Wagner complained last week that his mercenary soldiers in Ukraine were allegedly dealing with dire shortages.

In a statement issued later Thursday, Ramaphosa’s office acknowledged a Russian ship named the Lady R docked in South Africa, but the office did not say where or what the purpose of the stop was.

The statement criticised the American ambassador for going public and said there was an agreement that U.S. intelligence services would provide whatever evidence they have to aid South Africa’s investigation.

The Lady R and a Russian company tied to it, Transmorflot LLC, were sanctioned by the U.S. last year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for being involved in the transportation of military equipment and weapons.

Brigety said earlier Thursday that South Africa’s alleged arming of Russia during its invasion of Ukraine was “extremely serious” and called into question South Africa’s supposed neutral stance.

The Associated Press has independently confirmed that the Lady R docked at the Simon’s Town naval base during the time frame Brigety cited.

Nearly 1,400 followers of jihadist group Boko Haram have been intercepted fleeing into Niger following clashes with a rival Islamic State group, according to the army.

The exodus into southeastern Niger started in March, when the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) pursued Boko Haram in its forest hideout of Sambisa, northeastern Niger.

Niger’s armed forces have so far caught 1,397 people, many of them women and children, according to a statement from the army’s southeastern region, seen by Africanewsguru.com.

They have been handed over to the Nigerian military authorities, it said.

“Around 30 terrorists” who refused to surrender were killed, it added.

Boko Haram launched a bloody campaign in northeastern Nigeria in 2009 that has left over 40,000 dead and displaced around two million from their homes, according to UN figures.

It became globally notorious in 2014 for abducting 276 schoolgirls in the town of Chibok, 96 of whom remain missing.

But the group split in 2016, giving birth to ISWAP, which now dominates in a fratricidal conflict.

The Boko Haram followers were trying to reach the marshlands of the vast Lake Chad region, whose islands have long been a bolthole for jihadists.

The movement was first spotted on March 7, as people walked along the Kamadougou Yoge River marking the border between the two countries.

Six days later, Nigerien troops in a regional anti-jihadist task force launched an operation that killed 20 jihadists and captured 83 others, according to the army.

The southeastern region of Diffa, which has borne the brunt of jihadist attacks over the years, has been relatively calm since the start of 2023, a security source told Africanewsguru.com.

However, landmines sown by rebels continue to claim lives. Last month, seven soldiers died and nearly a dozen were wounded in blasts.

Niger is also facing a jihadist insurgency on its southwestern border with Mali.

At least ten people have died in a new landslide that occurred after heavy rain overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday in a landlocked area in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), sources said.

The ten people died from “erosion caused by heavy rain” in Miringati village, Lubero territory, North Kivu province, administrative official Edgard Kasombolene said.

Mr. Kasombolene confirmed a report communicated to Africanewsguru.com by the communication service of the provincial governorate. “ The search continues this morning” to find survivors, assured Colonel Jean Habamungu , commander of the police in the Lubero territory.

The eastern region of the DRC has been shaken in recent days by natural disasters.

In the territory of Masisi, still in North Kivu, a person was killed and three others injured in Rubaya in the landslide that occurred on Monday in this artisanal mining site.

In the neighbouring province of South Kivu, deadly floods last week after heavy rains left at least 401 dead, hundreds missing and significant material damage, according to the official report.

A boat capsized in northwestern Nigeria, killing 15 people, police said Wednesday.

The boat was heading to the village of Dundeji in Sokoto state on Tuesday when it capsized in the middle of a river, local police spokesman Sanusi Abubakar told The Associated Press

There were 36 passengers on board the boat, with 21 of them rescued alive. Thirteen females and two males died. Abubakar said. Some of the fatalities were children.

It was the latest in a series of boat capsizes in Nigeria’s river communities.

The villagers on Wednesday gathered at the local square with their families as they mourned the victims, who were on their way to fetch firewood, local media reported.

Umar Yabo, a local representative, described the deaths as a great loss to the community, which is about 55 kilometers (34 miles) from the state capital, Sokoto.

Authorities on Wednesday launched an investigation into the tragedy, the police official said. Such capsizing are common in many river communities across Nigeria where locally-made boats are the major means of transportation. Officials attribute them mostly to overloading and the use of poorly maintained boats.

A Senegalese court on Monday handed opposition figure Ousmane Sonko a six-month suspended sentence in an appeal of a defamation case that could jeopardise his run for president next year.

Sonko, 48, came third in the 2019 presidential election and intends to stand again in 2024, but two court cases could ruin his candidacy.

He received a two-month suspended sentence and a hefty fine in March for defaming Tourism Minister Mame Mbaye Niang and a Dakar appeals court increased the term to six months on Monday, potentially making Sonko ineligible for the vote.

Baboucar Cisse, a lawyer for the minister, told reporters the sentence would rule Sonko out of the 2024 presidential vote if confirmed following a six-day period for appeals.

A spokesman for Sonko’s party, Ousseynou Ly, and supporters on social media also said the ruling would scupper his bid if upheld, but the politician’s lawyers left the court without responding to questions.

The court also ordered Sonko to pay 200 million CFA francs (around $330,000) in damages to Niang.

Sonko failed to turn up to Monday’s proceedings, after warning he would no longer respond to court summonses without guarantees for his safety.

And when the appeal opened, he was nowhere to be seen, an Africanewsguru.com reporter at the courthouse said.

Prosecutor general Ibrahima Bakhoum had called on the court to have Sonko arrested and jailed.

– ‘Judicial banditry’ –

Sonko is also facing trial later this month for alleged “rape and death threats” over a complaint filed by an employee at a beauty salon where he went for a massage.

“We have never seen in the whole world a citizen summoned to court, who turns himself in, be the subject of so much fierceness, so much brutality and an attempt almost at physical liquidation,” Sonko said on social media Sunday.

He appeared to refer to his claims of a March assassination attempt by police during his forced transfer to the Dakar court during initial defamation proceedings.

“It is no longer justice, it is judicial banditry, and that is why I made the decision, still within the framework of my civil disobedience campaign, to no longer collaborate with this justice” without security guarantees, Sonko said Sunday.

In addition to appealing his defamation conviction, Sonko has denied the rape charge, saying he is the victim of a plot by President Macky Sall to torpedo his 2024 candidacy.

The government has denied the accusation, and alleged Sonko has drummed up demonstrations to avoid justice.

Sonko’s appointments with the justice system are often sources of tension and near-paralysis of traffic in the capital Dakar, as he usually travels to court with a procession of sympathisers.

The rape charge against Sonko in 2021 helped trigger riots that left at least 12 people dead in the West African country, which is viewed as politically stable in a turbulent region.

Sall’s refusal to rule out running for a controversial third term as president  which his opponents say would be unconstitutional. has also increased political tensions.