Month: May 2021

ACCRA, GHANA – West African leaders suspended Mali from their regional bloc Sunday over what they said amounted to a coup last week, Ghana’s foreign minister said after an emergency meeting to address the political crisis in Mali.

The 15-nation bloc, the Economic Community of West African States, “is worried about the security implications for West Africa because of the continued insecurity brought about by the political upheavals in that country,” Ghana Foreign Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey said.

At the end of their summit, the heads of state of the ECOWAS member nations demanded that Malian authorities immediately release former transitional President Bah N’Daw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, who are being kept under house arrest.

In their statement, the leaders condemned the arrests by Mali’s military, which they said violated mediation steps agreed to last September, a month after a coup led by the same man who has now again taken power in Mali, Col. Assimi Goita.

ECOWAS also called for a new civilian prime minister to be nominated immediately and a new inclusive government to be formed as well as a transition of power leading to February 2022 elections. A monitoring mechanism will be put in place to assure this, they added.

In addition, the statement said, the head of the transition government, the vice president and the prime minister should not under any circumstances be candidates in the planned February 27 presidential election.

ECOWAS urged all international partners, including the African Union, the United Nations and the European Union, to continue to support the successful implementation of the transition in Mali.

The heads of state expressed “strong and deep concerns over the present crisis in Mali, which is coming halfway to the end of the agreed transition period, in the context of the security challenges related to incessant terrorist attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic with its dire socio-economic impacts,” the statement said.

Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo opened the summit Sunday in Accra, saying ECOWAS must “remain resolute in supporting the people of Mali to find a peaceful solution, and restore democracy and stability in the country.”

Mali’s constitutional court on Friday named Goita as the West African nation’s government leader days after he seized power by deposing the president and prime minister and forced their resignations.

Their arrests last Monday by the military took place hours after a new cabinet was named that left out two major military leaders. The court said Friday that Goita would take the responsibilities of the interim president “to lead the transition process to its conclusion.”

The deposed interim president and prime minister had been appointed following the August 2020 coup led by Goita. That coup, against then-President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, led to mediations by ECOWAS and Nigeria’s former leader, Goodluck Jonathan. The transitional government was set up with Goita as transitional vice president. Elections were to be held in February and March 2022.

After taking power, Goita assured that the elections would still be held, though it wasn’t clear what part the military would play in the government.

The international community, including the African Union, has condemned the power grab. The U.N. Security Council has said the resignations of N’Daw and Ouane were coerced. The U.S. has already pulled its security force support and other bodies, including the EU and France, are threatening sanctions.

Goita has justified his actions by saying there was discord within the transitional government and that he wasn’t consulted, per the transitional charter, when the new cabinet was chosen.

Akufo-Addo said Sunday that ECOWAS was committed “to the peaceful transition in Mali, with the basic goal of restoring democratic government, and working for the stability of Mali and of our region.”

He acknowledged that a May 14 dissolution of the government by the transitional prime minister was worrying and the reappointment of the new, broad-based government on May 24 hours before the arrests “generated considerable tension between various groups, particularly the military, as the former ministers for defense and security were not reappointed.”

Goita attended the summit after being named transitional president by the court. Presidents Umaro Sissoco Embalo of Guinea Bissau, Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone, Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast, Adama Barrow of The Gambia and Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria were also in attendance, along with presidents from Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo and Liberia.

The heads of state called for the immediate implementation of all the decisions made Sunday. Jonathan is expected to return to Mali within the week to “engage stakeholders on these decisions.”

 

Source: Voice of America

NAIROBI – The family of an American investor of Somali origin whose body was found with torture wounds days after he went missing in Nairobi wants Kenya’s director of public prosecutions to run a separate investigation from one being done by police.

In a letter sent through their lawyer, relatives of Bashir Mohamed Mohamud, 36, question the behavior of police after Mohamud disappeared in an apparent abduction.

The family questioned the time it took police to ask them to positively identify Mohamud when he had been identified days before they were notified. In the letter delivered to the DPP’s office this week, they asked why the shell of Mohamud’s burned Range Rover was taken away within minutes after the vehicle was linked to him.

The family delivered the letter even as local media published stories quoting unnamed sources without evidence insinuating that Mohamud was funding extremism through money transfers made by his construction company, Infinity Development Limited.

Human rights defenders in Kenya have previously illustrated how police linked slaying victims to extremism or robberies to explain unsolved killings.

Wilfred Ollal, the coordinator of a network of community-based social justice centers in Kenya, said people disappear every week before their bodies are found in the countryside, while others are never found.

The killings and forced disappearances are rampant in low-income areas of the capital, but nobody is immune, he said.

“Our interventions save some, but the bodies of others are found in rivers,” Ollal said Saturday.

Police, without producing any evidence, attempt to explain such killings on social media pages associated with the force by saying the person killed was a criminal who would have bribed his way to freedom, if arrested and prosecuted. Both claims have been proven false by the media and human rights activists.

According to rights group Missing Persons, Kenyan police killed 157 people in 2020 and 10 people disappeared without a trace after being arrested.

According to Mohamud’s family and police, he was abducted on May 13 by unknown assailants as he drove from a mall in Nairobi’s wealthy Lavington neighborhood. The family reported him missing three days later, and police reported finding his body the same day in Kerugoya, a town 127 kilometers (78.91 miles) north of the city.

Relatives question why they were not informed until May 22, when police had identified the body as Mohamud’s by at least May 18.

An autopsy carried out by Kenya’s chief government pathologist revealed that Mohamud had been strangled. The autopsy report said the body showed signs of torture that included blunt head trauma and burn marks, suspected to have been caused by a vehicle’s cigarette lighter.

 

Source: Voice of America

GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO – The eastern DR Congo city of Goma was eerily deserted after nearly 400,000 of its inhabitants fled following warnings that nearby Mount Nyiragongo volcano may erupt again.

The authorities geared up for a major humanitarian effort, centered on Sake, around 25 kilometers west of the city, where tens of thousands of people are gathered.

Located on the shore of Lake Kivu in the shadow of Africa’s most active volcano, the city has lived in fear since Nyiragongo roared back into life last weekend.

The strato-volcano spewed rivers of lava that claimed nearly three dozen lives and destroyed the homes of some 20,000 people before the eruption stopped.

Scientists have since recorded hundreds of aftershocks.

They warn of a potentially catastrophic scenario — a “limnic eruption” that could smother the area with suffocating carbon dioxide.

A report on an emergency meeting early Friday said 80,000 households — around 400,000 inhabitants — had emptied on Thursday following a “preventative” evacuation order.

Most people have headed for Sake or the Rwandan border in the northeast, while others have fled by boat across Lake Kivu.

Late Friday, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said those fleeing needed “urgent, global support.”

Aid efforts are being organized to provide drinking water, food and other supplies, and workers are helping to reunite children who became separated from their families.

Nearly 10,000 people are taking refuge in Bukavu on the southern bank of Lake Kivu, according to Governor Theo Ngwabidje, many of them in host families.

Quieter night

Several days of aftershocks, some of them equivalent to small earthquakes, yielded to a quieter night Thursday, and tremors eased both in numbers and intensity, an AFP journalist said.

But late Friday afternoon black smoke could be seen rising from the crater on the horizon, causing worry.

General Constant Ndima, the military governor of North Kivu province, ordered the evacuation of districts that potentially applies to nearly 400,000 out of Goma’s 600,000 residents, according to an estimate by the UN humanitarian agency OCHA.

The wider Goma area has a population of around 2 million.

The authorities arranged transport towards Sake, but the roads became choked with cars, trucks, buses and people seeking safety on foot.

Many spent the night in the open or slept in schools or churches.

Evacuee Eugene Kubugoo said the water was giving children diarrhea, adding: “We don’t have anything to eat or any place to sleep.”

Tens of thousands had fled Goma last Saturday night but many returned when the eruption ended the following day.

‘Limnic’ risk

Friday’s report, issued after experts carried out a risk assessment at the volcano’s summit, said “seismicity and ground deformation continues to indicate the presence of magma under the Goma area, with an extension under Lake Kivu.”

People should remain vigilant and listen to news bulletins, as the situation “may change quickly,” it warned.

Volcanologists say the worst-case scenario is of an eruption under the lake.

This could release hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) that are currently dissolved in the water’s depths.

The gas would rise to the surface of the lake, forming an invisible cloud that would linger at ground level and displace oxygen, asphyxiating life.

In 1986, one of these so-called limnic eruptions killed more than 1,700 people and thousands of cattle at Lake Nyos in western Cameroon.

Empty city

On Friday, almost all the shops and banks in central Goma were closed, and just a handful of people and some motorcycle taxis were on the usually bustling streets.

In the poorer districts in the north of the city, a handful of stores were open and there were more people, including children who gamboled near a water truck.

“I will stay in the city. I know that I’m in imminent danger, but I don’t have a choice,” said Aline Uramahoro, who has a beer store.

“I will leave when the volcano starts spitting.”

Nearly 3,500 meters high, Nyiragongo straddles the East African Rift tectonic divide.

Its last major eruption, in 2002, claimed around 100 lives and the deadliest eruption on record killed more than 600 people in 1977.

Herman Paluku, who gave his age as 94, said he had seen them all — and insisted he wouldn’t budge this time.

“There is a small hill near here which means that the lava does not reach us. And that’s what protects us a bit,” he said in Swahili, his hands sweeping the air.

“I can never leave here, in this situation. I can’t.”

 

Source: Voice of America

On 22 May 400 people rescued by SEA-EYE 4 disembarked in Italy. However, more than 600 people are confirmed dead or missing on the central Mediterranean route and almost 10,000 have been returned to Libya, where the bodies of babies and toddlers washed up over the weekend. Meanwhile the focus of EU and member states remains the prevention of arrivals with renewed efforts of migration control cooperation with Tunisia and Libya and Cyprus requesting intervention from the Commission to stop departures from Syria. In Malta, where arrivals have dropped significantly, the trial of the so-called El Hiblu three continues with witnesses supporting the accused and the defence seeking correct translations.

After some delay and initial reluctance by authorities in Italy, 400 people including 150 children rescued by SEA-EYE 4 in its first mission on the central Mediterranean could disembark in the port of Pozzallo. The Aita Mari rescue vessel, operated by the NGO Salvamento Marítimo Humanitario (SMH), rescued 50 people including four children drifting in the Mediterranean after departing from Libya. Another 100 people including eight babies who departed from Libya were rescued by the Tunisian navy after an engine failure had left them in distress. According to the NGO hotline Alarm Phone, Tunisia cannot be considered safe for return and accordingly the monitoring by Maltese merchant vessels qualifies as assistance in illegal pushbacks. Following a deadly period on the central Mediterranean the bodies of babies and toddlers washed up on a beach in Zuwara, Libya on 22 May, reportedly the children had been travelling with their parents on one of the many dinghies that set off from Libya over the latest period. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports the interception and return to Libya of 1,489 people between May 16-22. According to the UN agency the total of interceptions and returns to Libya stands at 9,659 as of 22 May 2021, compared to 11,891 throughout all of 2020. 632 people are confirmed dead or missing so far in 2021, compared to 978 throughout last year.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) concludes in a recently released report that: “Libya is not a safe place for the return or disembarkation of migrants rescued at sea; current SAR policies and practices in the central Mediterranean enable a range of violations and abuses against migrants rather than ending them; and all States in the region, as well as the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency, the EU Naval Force for the Mediterranean, the European Commission and other stakeholders, must urgently reform their SAR policies, practices, funding and cooperation in order to promote more principled and effective migration governance that prioritizes the protection of migrants at sea and is consistent with obligations under international law…” The human rights lawyer Omer Shatz, who is known for submitting extensive evidence of EU Member States’ officials’ and agents’ complicity in crimes against humanity on the Mediterranean and in Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, stated on 22 May: ‘What’s happening in the Mediterranean is murder by drowning. It happens intentionally and systematically, as part of a specific policy…” and adding on interception and returns to Libya: “Systematic torture of people takes place in the camps — filmed, as a commitment to get ransom from family and/or friends. Women are systematically raped. Forced labour takes place, raw human trafficking, starvation, people die from diseases such as tuberculosis that are easy to treat. And we know that there are executions of people who are not paid ransoms, and who have no value for the camp managers”. A research by the Geneva-based NGO Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime on changing human smuggling and trafficking dynamics in Sahel, Tunisia and Libya poses two equally problematic scenarios in the latter country: “the hybrid governing structures that gain power and resources through the management of human smuggling — as well as other crimes — have proven remarkably resilient. A key question is whether these mafia-like groups will become the imperfect building blocks of a new Libyan state or instead act as barriers to progress”.

Meanwhile, EU and member states remain undeterred and active in seeking to broadening cooperation with North African countries on migration prevention. During her recent visit to Tunisia, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson stated: “We have a new opportunity in Libya and I am ready to engage with the new Libyan government in talks on how we can have a better and closer cooperation, including when it comes to managing migration”. Italian Interior Minister, Luciana Lamorgese who took part in the visit announced that a hotline will be established between Rome and Tunis to counter irregular migration and a joint statement stressed the countries “determination to fight against criminal human trafficking networks”. According to Lamorgese more than 13,000 people arrived irregularly in Italy this year, of whom nearly 9,000 had departed from Libya and over 3,000 from Tunisia.

Malta has seen a significant drop in arrivals from more than 1,200 between January and May 2020 to just 147 in the same period of 2021. Britta Rabe from the NGO hotline Alarm Phone linked the decrease to the conduct of the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM): “We are observing that the AFM doesn’t go out for rescues at all to boats in distress in Maltese search and rescue zone, south of Lampedusa. Instead, they count on merchant vessels and the Libyan coastguard to push boat people back to Libya.”

In Malta, the controversial trial of the so-called El Hiblu three continues, involving two children and a youth charged with terrorism-related offences for seizing control of the merchant vessel El Hiblu 1 in March 2019 and facing up to 30 years of imprisonment. On 21 May, two of seven witnesses who were among the more than 100 people aboard the El Hiblu 1 at the time of the alleged offence presented their testimonies before magistrate Nadine Lia. According to the witnesses, the role of the three accused was to act as translators and — in coordination with the captain of the vessel — to calm down the hungry and cold people aboard, with some panicking over their possible return to Libya and considering jumping overboard. The defence team has requested a removal of the current translator, Dr Anthony Licari, as he is not translating the version of events given by the witness in a faithful manner and the witnesses struggle to understand him.

 

Source: European Council on Refugees and Exiles