30, October 2022
Congo-Kinshasa expels Rwandan ambassador as M23 rebels gain ground 0
The authorities in Kinshasa on Saturday announced they were expelling the Rwandan ambassador as M23 rebels they accuse Kigali of supporting made fresh gains in the east of the troubled country.
The announcement, made by government spokesman Patrick Muyaya, came after a government meeting to assess the security situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The latest advance by rebel fighters prompted the UN peacekeeping mission there to increase its “troop alert level” and boost support for the army.
Muyaya said that in recent days, “a massive arrival of elements of the Rwandan element to support the M232 terrorists” against DRCongo’s troops had been observed.
“This criminal and terrorist adventure” had forced thousands of people to flee their homes, he added.
Given Rwanda’s continued support for the rebels, the defence council, presided over by President Felix Tshisekedi, had decided to ask the government to give Rwandan ambassador Vincent Karega 48 hours to leave the country.
Rebel advances
M23 rebel fighters have seized control of Kiwanju and Rutshuru-centre along the strategic RN2 highway in the eastern province of North Kivu, local officials and witnesses told AFP by telephone earlier Saturday.
Rebels had also been seen at Rugari, just 30 kilometres (20 miles) down the RN2 from provincial capital Goma, which it links with the north and Uganda.
Four peacekeepers were wounded by mortar fire and shooting at Kiwanja, the mission announced.
“Kiwanja and Rutshuru-centre are in M23 hands,” said civil society representative Jacques Niyonzima.
“The rebels have held two meetings and told local people to go about their work and those displaced to return to their villages, saying security was now guaranteed,” he said.
At Kiwanja, “in our area we recorded three deaths, a man, a woman and her child, killed by shells that landed on houses”, said local resident Eric Muhindo.
A general hospital official in Rutshuru added: “There were several wounded in Kiwanja after a small amount of resistance”.
“Calm has returned. People are moving about and shops are opening,” the official said, asking not to be named.
Hostile acts
The UN’s MONUSCO mission condemned “the hostile acts of M23”, the rebel group, and called for an immediate halt to the fighting.
The mission said on Twitter it was providing “air support, intelligence and equipment” as well as medical assistance.
The peacekeepers said they were “mobilised in support” of DRC’s army after residents reported at least 10 people dead since Sunday and dozens more injured near RN2.
MONUSCO said it had set up an “operations coordination centre” with the army and was carrying out reconnaissance and surveillance flights, but did not provide further details about the alert level.
M23, a mostly Congolese Tutsi group, resumed fighting in late 2021 after lying dormant for years, accusing the government of having failed to honour an agreement over the demobilisation of its fighters.
It has since captured swathes of territory in North Kivu, including the key town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border in June.
The front line between Congolese troops and M23 rebels had been calm in recent weeks until last week, when clashes erupted again.
Last Sunday, M23 fighters captured the village of Ntamugenga in the Rutshuru area. It lies four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the RN2 where the clashes spread on Thursday.
Tension with Rwanda
The UN humanitarian affairs office in the DRC said this week around 34,500 people had fled the Rutshuru region.
The group’s resurgence has destabilised regional relations in central Africa, with the DRC accusing its smaller neighbour Rwanda of backing the militia.
Rwanda denies the charges and counters that DRC works with a notorious Hutu rebel movement involved in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis, the Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which Kinshasa also denies.
A report by independent UN experts seen by AFP in August found that Kigali had provided direct support to the M23.
And this week a US representative to the United Nations spoke of Rwandan defence forces providing assistance to the M23.
M23 first leapt to prominence in 2012 when it briefly captured Goma before a joint Congolese-UN offensive drove it out.
The militia is one of scores of armed groups that roam eastern DRC, many of them a legacy of two regional wars that flared late last century.
Relations between Kigali and Kinshasa appeared to have improved when Tshisekedi took over as president in DR Congo in 2019 and held several meetings with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
But the revival of M23 put an end to that rapprochement.
Source: AFP
30, October 2022
Qatar World Cup: How Ngando landed himself a mascot role 0
Cameroon’s most prominent football fan has his sights set on travelling to Qatar to cheer on his Indomitable Lions at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
For more than 40 years, Ngando Pickett has supported his team through good times and the bad, attending 16 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournaments and two world cups.
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“I just love football and my country,” said Pickett, who stopped going by his real name Henri Mouyébé when friends nicknamed him after the late American soul singer Wilson Pickett because of his similar dance moves.
Pickett, who played amateur football in the 1970s, told Al Jazeera that he first started supporting the Indomitable Lions in 1982 when he was a student living in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast.
“Cameroon had come to play a university competition in Ivory Coast. We were just 10 Cameroonians in Yamoussoukro, but I mobilised them to go support the youth football team,” he said, adding that he was able to see his country win its first AFCON trophy two years later in Abidjan.
Years later, Pickett caught the eyes of Cameroonian officials attending the 1998 AFCON in Burkina Faso because he had covered his body and clothes with paint that matched the green, red and yellow of the country’s flag.
“I was the topic of discussion on the sidelines of the AFCON because nearly every media [outlet] that came to cover the competition took images of me, including most French outlets,” he said.
Joseph Owona, Cameroon’s minister of sports at the time, was so impressed with Pickett that he asked him to take on an important role for the club.
“He said he had met a wonderful Indomitable Lions supporter. He decided to make me the mascot of the team,” Pickett said, adding that Owona helped him go to the World Cup in France that year.
“I really enjoyed a cultural night we had around Notre-Dame Cathedral with seven other Cameroon fans,” he said. “We were in a mini-dance competition with some other nations’ fans and we beat them with our displays. We were given a big carton of champagne. From there, wherever we went, they knew the Cameroonians had come with their exciting dance moves.”
Dancing on the side
When Pickett isn’t cheering on his team at games, the father-of-two earns extra money entertaining at local events with Cameroun O Mulema, a dance group he founded in Cameroon’s economic capital, Douala.
“We perform at parties, marriages and official events, especially in Douala,” he said. “We travel to other parts of the country when invited. People know me, so I don’t find it difficult.”
He said the money he earns from performing goes to pay for his children’s education.
“I have to do this in periods when we don’t have football competitions,” Pickett said. “It is not easy, but I have been doing it for years now.”
Word Cup hopes
But football is Pickett’s true love, and he is anxiously waiting to hear from the Cameroonian Football Federation (Fecafoot) to see if he can attend the World Cup in Qatar.
“Fecafoot is very aware of our plan to go to Qatar. They have told us they are working on our travel, lodging and other things. I am very hopeful about it.”
Pickett is also hoping the fan group he founded, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon Supporters Club, will also be able to make the journey to Qatar.
“There are 20 of us who will be taken care of by the Cameroon Football Federation for the World Cup,” Pickett said. “We already started daily practice about a month ago. We are sure of representing Cameroonian fans massively in Qatar.”
High expectations
Pickett has high hopes for his team in this year’s World Cup.
Cameroon is in Group G and will start their campaign against Switzerland on November 24 before meeting Serbia four days later and wrapping up the group stage against five-time champions Brazil on December 2.
Pickett gave a thumbs-up to the job that Samuel Eto’o, president of Fecafoot, is doing and predicted his team will reach at least the knockout stage of the World Cup.
“I believe we’ll succeed in reaching at least the round of 16 because Eto’o is doing everything possible to get the right players,” he said.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA