Month: February 2024

The Moroccan navy said it intercepted 141 people attempting to traverse the Atlantic Ocean as migration from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands has spiked since the beginning of the year.

Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces said in a statement Sunday it was able to rescue all passengers on a boat off the coast of the Western Sahara, a disputed territory with a coastline that Morocco has controlled since 1975.

It said the 141 people all came from sub-Saharan Africa and likely embarked more than a week earlier from Mauritania — Morocco’s southern neighbor and the primary point of departure for migrants attempting to reach Spain’s Canary Islands.

The interception was the largest that Moroccan authorities have reported this year.

The Canary Islands are roughly 62 miles (100 kilometers) from Morocco’s Atlantic coast but pirogues — the wooden vessels migrants often use to cross — often launch from as far south as the Gambia, from where the journey can take up to 10 days, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Spain’s Interior Ministry reported 11,704 migrants had arrived to the Canaries as of Feb. 15 — more than a sixfold increase from a year earlier. The majority have departed from Mauritania, which recently signed a 210 million euro agreement with the European Union that included funding for migration patrolling and humanitarian aid.

Israel has harshly criticised South Africa’s request to the World Court this week for it to issue additional emergency measures to protect the rights of Palestinian civilians in Rafah.

It accused Pretoria of “representing the interests of Hamas and said it was trying to deny Israel “the fundamental right to defend itself”.

Israel on Thursday asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to dismiss the request, arguing that the emergency measures it court issued three weeks ago already covered the “situation of hostilities in Gaza as a whole”.

Last month, in a case brought by South Africa, the court ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent its troops from committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

In a filing to the ICJ on Tuesday, South Africa said there has been a “significant development” since the January ruling, after Israel announced it planned to expand its ground offensive into Rafah.

There has been growing international condemnation of Israel’s planned operation in the southern city, with the United Nations warning it would have catastrophic consequences for Palestinians

Over a million people have fled to Rafah as Israel laid waste to much of the rest of the Palestinian enclave in the over four months of its war against the militant group Hamas.

But despite pressure from foreign governments and aid agencies not to extend ground operations into the city, Israel insists it must push into Rafah to eliminate Hamas battalions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said he had ordered the military to develop a dual plan to evacuate civilians from the city.

However, it is unclear where such a large number of people, who are pressed up against the border with Egypt and sheltering in makeshift tents, could go.

It is not clear when the ICJ will rule on South Africa’s latest request.

Access Bank, a prominent Nigerian financial institution, has named an interim CEO following the tragic demise of Herbert Wigwe, the CEO, who lost his life in a helicopter accident last Friday, along with five others.

In a recent statement, Access Holdings Plc, the parent company of Access Bank, revealed that Bolaji Agbede, the bank’s esteemed senior founding executive director, will step into the role of CEO on an acting basis.

Ms Agbede joined Access Bank in 2003 and has nearly 30 years of experience in banking and business consultancy, the company said as reported by the press.

Wigwe’s chartered helicopter was on its way from Palm Springs to Boulder City in Nevada in the US when it went down, about 96km (60 miles) from Las Vegas.

the 57-year-old banker was on his way to Las Vegas to attend Sunday’s Super Bowl, local media reported.

Wigwe founded Access Bank in 1989 and has grown to become one of Nigeria’s largest banks in 2018 after it acquired its main competitor, Diamond Bank

A prominent Zimbabwean opposition politician, Job Sikhala, has been fined and given a nine-month suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of publishing falsehoods on social media.

Harare magistrate Feresi Chakanyuka handed the sentence to the former Zengeza West legislator Thursday on condition that he does not commit a similar offense.

Sikhala who was last week convicted of communicating falsehoods was also fined US$500 to be paid by 4 March 2024 failing which he shall spend two months in prison.

In response to the verdict, Sikhala’s lawyer Harrison Nkomo said his client should never have been charged in the first place under a law which the top court long ruled to be unconstitutional.

“We are going to file our appeal as a registration of our displeasure of the judgement, we disagree with it, it has no foundation, it is not sound, the law nolonger exists and it is wrong for a court to convict someone on law that no longer exists. the effect of a striking of a section by the Constitutional Court means it is dead, how does it resuscitate no ways it cant,” said Nkomo.

Sikhala, is an outspoken official with the main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change party and a former member of parliament. He is seen by many as the face of resistance to Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party and President Emmerson Mnangagwa and was arrested in June 2022 following the killing and dismembering of an activist from his party.

Sikhala denied the charges, saying that he was simply acting as the family’s lawyer and helping them try to find Ali. Her body parts were later discovered in a well.

The 52-year-old Sikhala was convicted for this in January and handed a suspended sentence which lawyers say meant he can now be freed from the harsh and overcrowded Chikurubi maximum security prison.

The politician has just been released from almost two years of pre-trial detention on unrelated charges. He accuses the government of weaponising the courts, and faces another appearance on Friday.

Two South African soldiers were killed and three injured when a mortar landed in their base in eastern Congo amid increased unrest in the region, the South African armed forces said Thursday.

The South African National Defence Force, which oversees all of the country’s armed forces, said it believed the mortar explosion on Wednesday was a result of “indirect fire” and an investigation was underway to determine who was responsible.

South Africa has sent soldiers to Congo as part of the Southern African Development Community’s mission to fight against armed rebel groups in the east.

South Africa announced this week it would be sending a new contingent of 2,900 soldiers to eastern Congo. It wasn’t immediately clear if those killed and injured were part of that new deployment.

The base that was hit was in the North Kivu province, South African National Defence Force spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini said. The injured were taken to a hospital in the city of Goma.

Violence in the conflict-hit region has increased in recent weeks, with many blaming attacks on the M23 rebel group that has been fighting Congolese soldiers in the region for years.

The Congo government says M23 is receiving military support from neighboring Rwanda, which Rwanda denies.

But M23 has indicated in recent statements that it is in the midst of a new advance in eastern Congo, leading to fears the group is again targeting Goma, which it once seized 10 years ago.

More than 1 million people have been displaced by the conflict since November, aid groups say. That adds to the 6.9 million who already fled their homes in one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises.

On Thursday, the Norwegian Refugee Council said the recent advance of armed groups toward the key town of Sake, near Goma, “poses an imminent threat to the entire aid system” in eastern Congo.

“The isolation of Goma, home to over 2 million people and hosting hundreds of thousands of displaced individuals who have fled clashes with armed groups, would bring disastrous consequences to the region,” the NRC said.

Bayern Munich has condemned racist comments sent to defender Dayot Upamecano on social media following his red card in the team’s Champions League loss to Lazio.

Numerous racist comments were left on the French defender’s Instagram account after Wednesday’s 1-0 loss to Lazio in the round of 16. Upamecano was sent off for a challenge on Gustav Isaksen which led to a goal from the penalty spot for Lazio.

“FC Bayern strongly condemn the racist comments being directed towards Dayot Upamecano on social media. Anyone who comments hateful words such as these is no fan of our club. We’re all behind you, Upa!” Bayern posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Bayern chief executive Jan-Christian Dreesen raised the issue in a speech at the team hotel after the game, German agency dpa reported.

“What has particularly bothered me are the disgusting comments afterwards on social media. To that, all I can say is that it is abhorrent,” dpa quoted Dreesen as saying. “This type of racist mob, this isn’t our world. This isn’t FC Bayern. It’s something that we will not put up with.”

Upamecano was previously targeted by racist comments on social media last year after Bayern lost at Manchester City in the Champions League quarterfinals.