Category: BREAKING NEWS

South Sudan’s President has urged the country’s more than two million refugees to return home in his first meeting with displaced people since civil war erupted almost a decade ago.

President Salva Kiir’s appeal on Wednesday came as the country prepares to hold its first elections since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011. South Sudan’s delayed elections are set to take place in December 2024.

South Sudan is still recovering from the five-year civil war that erupted in late 2013, killed hundreds of thousands of people and ended with a peace agreement in 2018. For a while, fleeing South Sudanese formed the world’s largest refugee camp in neighbouring Uganda.

The President’s meeting came two weeks after the visiting Pope Francis met with displaced South Sudanese in the capital, Juba, and appealed for lasting peace.

With peace implementation moving towards the final phase where elections will end the transitional period, repatriating our people from the camps in neighbouring countries should top our agenda,” Mr. Kiir said.

The President assured people returning to the country of their security, and he appealed to international partners to support the government in reintegrating returnees.

“For those who will opt to return to their habitual areas of residence, the government will provide security,” Mr. Kiir said. Those who cannot return to their home communities will be allocated land in states where displacement camps are located, he said.

Authorities said on Monday that suspected armed separatists have killed at least eight police officers in the past three days in southeastern Nigeria, raising concerns ahead of the presidential election this weekend.

Four officers were killed in an attack on a police station in Anambra state on Monday, as authorities searched for suspects accused of killing four other officers over the weekend, the gate said. -local police spokesman, Tochukwu Ikenga .

The attackers opened fire on the officers while detonating explosives, he said, adding that three of the attackers were killed and two others arrested.

Police have blamed the attacks on a separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), which is seeking independence for the southeastern region.

Conflicts

Authorities have accused the IPOB of inciting violence, which has claimed many lives in the conflict-torn region and fueled fears that Nigerian security forces will not be able to protect voters during the polls.

The electoral commission may not be able to visit some polling stations due to security concerns, said Festus Okoye, an official with Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission.

“Security agencies promised they would be able to secure our communities so people could vote ,” he said. “(But) for people in areas where there is still conflict, there is absolutely nothing we can do.”

Five people, including two soldiers, were killed Thursday in an attack by suspected jihadists in eastern Burkina Faso, Africanewsguru tv learned on Friday from security and local sources.

Thursday, “more than a hundred armed men attacked the locality of Partiaga, in the province of Tapoa (east). Unfortunately, five people, three civilians, and two soldiers, fell,” said a security source.

According to this same source, “more than fifteen terrorists were neutralized” by soldiers and volunteers for the defense of the homeland (VDP, civilian auxiliaries of the army).

A resident of Partiaga also spoke of a toll of “five dead during the attack”. “In their flight after the response of the army, the terrorists set fire to attics (food) and houses,” said the resident, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Thursday morning, members of civil society and other socio-professional and religious organizations in the province of Tapoa, meeting in Diapaga, its capital, in a statement read to the local press, called on the authorities to “act for loosen the grip of armed terrorist groups” on the municipalities of the province to “avoid the worst”.

“The last few weeks have not been easy for us at all. More than 50 people have been killed by people we have not yet identified and who continue to make us fear the worst,” lamented their spokesperson, Kondjoa Pierre Yonli.

According to him, the administration only operates in two towns in the province, Diapaga, and Kantchari. “All the other municipalities are under the influence of terrorists who dictate their laws to the poor populations forced to submit to the will of the new strong men of the moment”, he indicated.

Deadly raids attributed to jihadists have multiplied in recent weeks in Burkina. About 60 people died last week and 50 the previous week, according to an Africanewsguru tv count.

Burkina Faso, the scene of two military coups in 2022, has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of jihadist violence that appeared in Mali and Niger a few years earlier and which has spread beyond their borders.

The violence left more than 10,000 dead – civilians and soldiers – according to NGOs, and some two million displaced.

It still wasn’t enough. Despite efforts, Paris Saint Germain lost Tuesday (Feb. 14) at home 1-0 against Bayern Munich

The Paris-raised Coman, who PSG sold to Juventus when he was 18, held his hands up to show he wasn’t celebrating scoring against his former club — Just like in 2020.

Not even Kylian Mbappé’s substitute appearance could end Paris Saint-Germain’s slump in the first leg of their round-of-16 Champions League clash.

After he entered though, Christophe Galtier’s men pushed in the last 20 minutes without succeeding in thwarting the Bavarian defense.

The coach still has a card to play for the return leg scheduled on March 8.

“I hope that in three weeks from now we’ll be physically fit again, we’ll have some players back and we’ll be able to make important rotations without creating issues for the team. And after that we’ll have a match to play. If we will be able to play like we did in the last 25-30 minutes, we can hope we can beat Bayern.”

Elsewhere, Italian giants Milan outclassed Tottenham 1-0 thanks to an early goal from Brahim Diaz.

A long-awaited win as the team celebrated its first Champions League knockout match in nearly 10 years.

Without Hojbjerg and Bentancur in midfield, Antonio Conte’s men failed to create chances for their strikers. The return match is set on March 8.

The Tanzanian government has banned from schools several children’s books on sex education, accused of contravening “cultural and moral standards” in this East African country where homosexuality is criminalized.

“We are banning these books from schools and other educational structures because they are contrary to cultural and moral standards,” Education Minister Adolf Mkenda told reporters on Monday from the capital Dodoma.

Among the books banned is “Diary of a Wimp: Greg Heffley’s Logbook,” a series of American graphic novels that have sold millions of copies worldwide.

The government did not specify why it was targeting this “diary” featuring a teenager, but it assured that inspections were being conducted in public and private school libraries to ensure that it had been removed.

The minister also included in this first list of “unacceptable” books a textbook on sex education and books mentioning LGBTQIA groups.

Last week, the head of state Samia Suluhu Hassan called on student leaders to be wary of “imported cultures” from abroad. “If you are Tanzanian, live according to our culture,” she told them.

In Tanzania, homosexuality is punishable by a minimum sentence of 30 years to life imprisonment.

Dozens of migrants are believed to have died in a shipwreck off Libya, with only seven survivors found so far, the United Nations said Wednesday.

“At least 73 migrants are reported missing and presumed dead following a tragic shipwreck off the Libyan coast yesterday (Tuesday),” the UN’s International Organization for Migration said.

The boat carrying 80 people had departed Qasr al-Akhyar, some 75 kilometers (46 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli, and was heading to Europe.

So far, 11 bodies have been retrieved by the Libyan Red Crescent and the local police, IOM said.

And the UN migration agency said that “seven survivors who made it back to Libyan shores in extremely dire conditions are currently in the hospital.”

The central Mediterranean remains the world’s deadliest migratory sea crossing.

The latest tragedy brings the number of deaths there since the beginning of this year alone to 130, IOM said.

According to the agency’s Missing Migrants Project, more than 1,450 migrant deaths were recorded on that route in 2022.

And more than 17,000 deaths and disappearances have been recorded there since 2014.

“This situation is intolerable,” IOM said.

“Concrete action by states is needed to increase search and rescue capacity, establish clear and safe disembarkation mechanisms as well as safe and regular pathways to migration to reduce dangerous journeys.”