Category: LATEST NEWS

Senegal’s President Macky Sall has ordered emergency measures to be taken to stem the growing flow of migrants taking to canoes to reach Europe, his office said on Wednesday evening.

Mr. Sall asked the government on Wednesday “to take emergency security, economic, financial and social measures to neutralize the departure of emigrants from the national territory”, said a communiqué issued after the Council of Ministers.

The effort will involve the Ministers of the Interior, the Armed Forces, Youth and Fisheries, according to the communiqué, which also refers to the national strategy to combat irregular migration presented by the government in July.

Senegal, a West African country that President Sall is striving to put on the road to emergence, is facing a flood of departures by sea bound for the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago and gateway to Europe.

Several times a week, the press reports arrivals of pirogues in the Canaries, interceptions or rescues in the Atlantic, off Senegal or in the waters approaching the Canaries. This dangerous migration has led to a series of tragedies.

Since the beginning of the week, the press has again been reporting the disappearance of a considerable number of migrants from Bargny, on the coast east of Dakar. Africanewsguru.com has been unable to obtain confirmation of these disappearances from the authorities.

The migration issue has become a theme in the ongoing campaign for the February 2024 presidential election. Prime Minister Amadou Ba is the presidential camp’s candidate to succeed Mr. Sall.

The Canary Islands have seen a record number of migrant arrivals since 2006, with 30,705 people arriving between January 1 and October 31, more than double (+111%) the figure for the same period last year, according to the latest figures from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior.

Two-thirds are from sub-Saharan Africa, according to the European coastguard and border guard agency Frontex. Senegalese, along with Moroccans, are the most numerous new arrivals, according to Frontex and several Spanish NGOs.

A 43-year-old man has been shot dead in Nigeria’s Bauchi state while testing a bullet-proof charm, according to police spokesman Ahmed Wakil.

The traditional healer who fired the shot with a locally made gun has been arrested, along with two others, while additional suspects remain at large.

The victim has been identified as Muhammadu Ali, a villager from the area. Police responded swiftly upon learning of the incident and rushed Mr. Ali to the hospital, but he was declared dead upon arrival.

Supt Wakil cautioned the public against becoming unwitting participants in such dangerous experiments. Investigations are ongoing, and the suspects will face charges in court once the process is completed.

Bullet-proof charms with alleged magical properties are commonly used in Nigeria, with many people seeking assistance from traditional healers for various concerns. However, there have been multiple instances of fatalities resulting from tests of these charms and medicines.

The Ethiopian government and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) are holding new talks in Tanzania to try and put an end to five years of insurrection in Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest and most populous region, a diplomatic source said on Wednesday.

Classified as a “terrorist organization” by Addis Ababa, the OLA has been fighting the Ethiopian authorities since it split with the historic Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) in 2018, when the latter renounced armed struggle that year when current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power.

“Talks have been underway for ten days” in Tanzania, the diplomat told Africanewsguru.com on condition of anonymity, adding that the main mediation was being carried out by Igad, the East African bloc.

“It’s going very well. Both parties are optimistic about a (future) agreement”, he said.

A first round of talks, between late April and early May, had ended in persistent disagreement. Despite the declared willingness of the parties to continue talks, ten days later the OLA accused the Ethiopian government of having launched an offensive contrary to the “hoped-for de-escalation”.

Many observers describe the OLA as a “franchise” to which relatively autonomous groups – some with criminal motives – belong, rather than as a hierarchically structured movement under a central command.

Estimated at a few thousand men in 2018, the OLA’s strength has grown considerably in recent years. However, observers consider it insufficiently organized and armed to represent a real threat to federal power in Addis Ababa, even though the capital is surrounded by Oromia.

The region of the Oromo people stretches from center to south and east to west, covering around a third of Ethiopia’s territory, and is home to around a third of the 120 million inhabitants of Africa’s 2nd most populous country.

It is plagued by multi-faceted violence, making the situation extremely confused: internal political struggles, territorial disputes, and animosities between communities combined with the recent development of armed banditry.

In recent years, it has been the scene of ethnic massacres – the perpetrators of which are not identified – particularly in the Wollegas, a remote area in the far west, where they mainly target the Amhara, the second most numerous people in Ethiopia, but a tiny minority in Oromia.

The OLA has been repeatedly accused by the government of being responsible for these massacres, a charge it systematically denies. The government, for its part, is accused of indiscriminate repression, which fuels Oromo resentment against the federal government.

In addition to Oromia, Ethiopia is torn apart by numerous unrelated conflicts, often linked to identity claims or territorial disputes.

The Constantine court on Tuesday sentenced Franco-Algerian opponent Amira Bouraoui to 10 years in prison in absentia, and to six months the journalist Mustapha Bendjama, accused of having helped her escape to France, according to Algerian media. and Khaled Drareni, representative of Reporters Without Borders.

The prosecution had requested 10 years in prison against Ms. Bouraoui and three years against the journalist, who given the time already spent in preventive detention, can be released immediately, Mr. Drareni said on X (formerly Twitter).

Amira Bouraoui, a trained doctor aged 46, was on trial for “illegally leaving the territory” after crossing the border between Algeria and Tunisia on February 3, defying an exit ban, before being arrested in Tunis while she was trying to board a flight to Paris.

The activist was finally able to fly to France three days later, despite an attempt by Tunisian authorities to send her back to Algeria.

Algiers had described its flight as an “illegal exfiltration” carried out with the help of French diplomatic and security personnel, and had recalled its ambassador to Paris for consultations. This diplomatic quarrel was resolved in March.

Ms. Bouraoui became known in 2014 for her involvement in the +Barakat+ movement against the fourth term of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, before getting involved in the “Hirak” protest movement and working for the independent private radio station Radio M.

The court in Constantine (north-east) also sentenced Ali Takaida, a border police agent, to three years in prison and a one-year suspended prison sentence to Ms. Bouraoui’s mother, Khadidja, aged 71, according to the same sources.

The activist’s co-defendants were prosecuted for “constitution of a criminal association, illegal exit from the national territory, organization of illegal immigration by an organized criminal network”.

Mustapha Bendjama was arrested on February 8 in the premises of the French-speaking newspaper Le Provincial, based in Annaba (east), of which he is editor-in-chief, in the context of the Bouraoui affair.

He was sentenced on October 26 in another case to 20 months in prison, eight of which were served alongside Algerian-Canadian researcher Raouf Farrah, who was released after serving the same sentence.

Ghana’s ruling NPP party on Saturday elected the country’s Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia as their candidate for the 2024 presidential ballot, according to results from primaries released by the electoral commission.

Ghana is undergoing its worst economic crisis in years, which will be a major electoral issue next year when President Nana Akufo-Addo steps down after two terms and an agreement for a $3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

According to the final results, Bawumia won 61.4 percent of the votes while this nearest rival Kennedy Ohene Agyapong won 37.4 percent.

Bawumia, a former deputy central bank governor, had been widely touted by pollsters to win the New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidacy. He will face opposition National Democratic Congress candidate, ex-president John Dramani Mahama at the end of next year.

Bawumia had already won the first round of NPP voting and as the first Muslim candidate to lead the ethnic Akan and southern-dominated party, he had positioned himself to bridge some of Ghana’s regional divisions.

“It’s a victory for the rank and file of our great party and particularly to the grass root members. I am humbled and overwhelmed,” he said in a speech after the results.

“We know that the NPP is the only party that can transform Ghana. The NPP will enter 2024 united and energised.”

– ‘Fair and transparent’ –

“I believe the party has been fair and transparent,” his rival Agyapong said after the result.

“That is the only thing I’ve always been preaching. My grassroots have spoken and therefore I accept the results in good faith.”

A major cocoa and gold producer, Ghana also has oil and gas reserves. But its debt load has expanded and like other sub-Saharan African nations it has struggled with the economic fallout from the global pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Ghana signed the deal with the IMF last year as the country sought to shore up its public finances and better manage growing debt and its local currency.

It recently reached agreement on the terms for a second payment of $600 million out of the $3-billion credit deal.

But the economic situation is complicated. Several hundred opposition protesters rallied in Ghana’s capital Accra last month to denounce the economic crisis, blaming it on the central bank governor’s policies.

President Akufo-Addo has led the country since 2017 and will step down after serving the two terms allowed by the constitution. Opposition candidate Mahama lost to Akufo-Addo in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

Cameroonian President Paul Biya is marking on Monday  (Nov. 06) his 41 year-rule over the central African nation.

Last year, thousands gathered in the capital, Yaoundé, for the ocasion but the president did not attend.

Paul Biya, a former Prime Minister, took the reins of Cameroon on November 6, 1982 following the resignation of the country’s first president Ahmadou Ahidjo.

Many voices within the ruling Democratic Rally of the Cameroonian People (RDPC) have already called for him to vie in the 2025 presidential election for an 8th, 7-year term.

Critics of his regime, however, wore black on Sunday. Some cited corruption, bad governance, and an ongoing succession battle.

Cameroon’s president who celebrated his 90th anniversary last February is Africa’s second-longest serving leader.

Under him, Cameroon has faced challenges in recent years that range from a secessionist movement in the country’s English-speaking regions to the threat in the north posed by Islamic extremists aligned with the Nigeria-based Boko Haram group.

Paul Biya last won a presidential election in 2018.