An average of 4,600 people flee their homes every day in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN says, warning of a dramatically deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country. A full 3.7 million people were displaced within DR Congo by the end of March – more than double the 1.6 million at the start of 2016, the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said. “This is a massive, massive deterioration,” Rein Paulsen, who heads OCHA’s country office in DR Congo, told reporters in Geneva.

The situation is particularly dire in the central Kasai region, where spiraling violence between government troops and tribal militias has forced 1.27 million people from their homes since last September, he said. “That’s an increase of 100,000 in the last week,” Paulsen said, describing the numbers as “shocking and dramatic.”

The fighting in Kasai erupted after government troops last August killed tribal chief Jean Pierre Mpandi, also known as Kamwina Nsapu, who had launched an uprising against President Joseph Kabila. Violence in the region has left at least 400 people dead since September. The UN has meanwhile reported finding 40 mass graves, while two UN researchers – Michael Sharp, an American, and Zaida Catalan, a dual Swedish-Chilean national – investigating the violence were abducted and shot dead. One of the victims was also beheaded.

Source: AFP

A Cameroonian senator, Francois-Xavier Ondo has reportedly extorted the sum of 465 million FCFA from a senior political figure and aide to the Head of State of Equatorial Guinea in one of the biggest 419 scams in the country’s history.

Edjo Avomo Melchor Esono, a former Minister and current senator in Equatorial Guinea was rolled by his Cameroonian notary named Francois-Xavier Ondo and collected the sum of 465 million CFA francs, destined for the acquisition of a piece of land in Yaoundé. To this day not only that the Guinean senator has not been able to take possession of the land he solicited, the worst is that Edjo Avomo Melchor Esono has also not recovered the funds made available to his Cameroonian colleague.

The Biya acolyte claimed that he was attacked by armed robbers and the money washed away in Yaounde.  Several requests for the waiver of immunity from François-Xavier Menye Ondo by the Equatorial Guinea Chancellery in the Senate office have met with a stone wall with President Biya maintaining a kind of deliberate silence. The Equatorial Guinean politician was quoted saying that “Biya is sheltering thieves.”

By Rita Akana

Cameroon Concord News

Tanzanian President John Magufuli on Friday fired nearly 10,000 civil servants accused of having falsified academic qualifications to get their jobs. The civil servants have been given 15 days to leave their jobs or risk jail terms of up to seven years.

Speaking in the capital, Dodoma, Magufuli described the 9,932 officials as “robbers and shoplifters” and ordered them to “immediately disappear from their work stations.” “The 9,932 employees recruited on the basis of false diplomas will not receive their salary for this month of April and have to leave their positions immediately,” Magufuli said. He added that the posts would be filled by “qualified persons” as soon as possible and called on local media to publish the names of those fired.

The officials had been implicated by an independent evaluation that sought to determine the validity of the academic papers of public employees in Tanzania. The evaluation followed a countrywide crackdown on phantom workers on the public payroll. Since winning elections in 2015, Magufuli has strengthened his reputation for fighting corruption with decisions many see as aimed at improving service delivery.

Source: Presstv

Deadly violence between government forces and tribal militias in DR Congo’s central Kasai region has forced more than a million people from their homes over the past eight months, the UN said Friday. The fighting erupted after government troops last August killed tribal chief Jean Pierre Mpandi, also known as Kamwina Nsapu, who had launched an uprising against President Joseph Kabila.

Yvon Edoumou of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it had registered 1.09 million internally displaced people in the region as of April 1. Violence in other areas of the country, including the North and South Kivu provinces, has forced an additional two million to flee their homes, he told AFP.

“These people are mainly fleeing clashes between the FARDC (DR Congo’s armed forces) and armed groups, or between armed groups,” he said, adding that about 40 local and international aid groups were helping to cope with the crisis.

The UN has accused the Nsapu rebellion of using child soldiers and committing several atrocities, while also denouncing the disproportionate use of force by the military. The UN has reported finding 40 mass graves in the Kasai region, and the bodies of two UN researchers investigating the violence were found in a grave 16 days after they were abducted last month.

Presstv

The United Nations says its investigators have discovered 17 mass graves in the central Democratic Republic of the Congo, increasing the number to 40 documented in an area that witnessed clashes between the army and a local militia. The UN said in a statement issued on Wednesday that the graves were reportedly dug by Congolese army after fighting with Kamuina Nsapu militia in Kasai Central province in late March.

“At least 74 people, including 30 children, were reported to have been killed by soldiers as a result of these clashes,” the statement added. The government has not commented on the report, but it has previously rejected the notion that soldiers have used disproportionate force against militia fighters and claimed the militia had dug the sites.

The Kamuina Nsapu uprising has become the most serious threat to President Joseph Kabila, whose refusal to step down following a defeat in the latest polls stoked chaos in the vast central African country. Kabila’s presidential term expired on December 19, 2016, but ruling officials have effectively prolonged his mandate until 2018, claiming that the government would not be able to arrange elections before then.

The government of Kabila reportedly reached an agreement with opposition parties to end the political crisis in the country over his decision to stay in power. Under the accord struck on December 30, 2016, by political parties in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kabila will leave office following elections due to be held by the end of 2017.  The fighting between Congolese troops and militia has escalated after government forces killed their chief tribal leader, Kamuina Nsapu, in late August 2016. More than 400 people have been killed since then.

Source: Presstv

Armed men have attacked Egyptian security forces close to the St. Catherine Monastery in the country’s Sinai Peninsula, killing one police officer and wounding four more.

The Daesh terrorist group claimed responsibility for the Tuesday attack on the security checkpoint, which is situated some 800 meters from the monastery.

St. Catherine is one of the world’s most important Christian sites and was built in the late 6th century and is registered as a UNESCO world heritage site.

The incident comes just over one week after the Takfiri terrorist group claimed responsibility for two deadly bombings on Christian churches in the country.

Nearly two dozen people have been killed in a fire that tore through a religious ceremony southeast of Senegal. Government spokesman Seydou Gueye said Thursday that the fire had engulfed a Muslim spiritual retreat in Medina Gounass village a day earlier, killing 22 and wounding several others. Local media reported that makeshift shelters and strong winds helped the fire spread, but there was no report on the cause of the incident.

A senior official with the firefighting service said the fire broke out around noon local time as worshippers gathered for the retreat, adding that some were hurt in a crush triggered by the blaze. Others said 20 of the injured were in critical conditions and were receiving treatment at the regional hospital in Tambacounda city, about 80 kilometers away.

Witnesses said all straw shelters constructed for the religious event were completely burnt in the fire and only modern tents were relatively spared from the fury of the flames. “The fire burned through everything in its path,” said a resident. Images circulated online showed billowing smoke, charred corpses of animals and burnt-out cars.

President Macky Sall held a press conference and offered condolences to the victims’ families. Reports said he was due to visit the site of the blaze later on Thursday. Senegal’s interior minister had already paid a visit to the site. Thousands of men from Senegal, Guinea and other West African countries attend the annual spiritual gathering in Medina Gounass.

A similar incident in the area in 2010 killed six people. Nine children were also killed in a blaze in 2013 in a religious school, prompting an outcry in the Muslim-majority Senegal.

Source Presstv

At least 21 people have been killed and more than 50 others injured in an explosion that hit an area near a church in the northern Egyptian city of Tanta, sources say. State television confirmed the explosion on Sunday but the cause of the blast is yet unknown. Provincial governor Ahmad Deif told state television that the explosion occurred inside the church. “Either a bomb was planted or someone blew himself up,” Deif said.

The sources added that there was a second blast near the city’s police academy. Egypt has been facing violence due to terrorist attacks across the country in the past years. The Takfiri Velayat Sinai terrorist group has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks. The group, previously known as Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, was founded in 2011, and in mid-2013, it began a campaign of deadly attacks against Egyptian security forces.

Militants have been taking advantage of the turmoil caused in Egypt after the country’s democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted by the military in July 2013. Velayat Sinai has killed hundreds of soldiers and police officers, particularly in the Sinai Peninsula, since then. In November 2014, it pledged allegiance to the Daesh terrorist group, which is mainly active in Syria and Iraq, and renamed itself again as Daesh-Velayat Sinai Province.

Presstv

Up to 10,000 refugees stranded in Libya will be flown back to their home countries this year, but the returns can only play a limited role in tackling migrant flows toward Europe, the head of the UN migration agency’s Libyan office said. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) program is one of the few ways EU states can fund action inside lawless Libya, which has become the main migration departure point for Europe, as they scramble to stem record flows across the central Mediterranean.

Other plans have been held up by poor security, political resistance and a lack of government control in Libya, where powerful militias and smuggling networks act with impunity. The IOM scheme is meant to offer a way out to those stuck in Libya without money, work, or a means to move on, said Othman Belbeisi, the agency’s chief of mission for Libya. It is voluntary, with each refugee interviewed individually and able to change their mind at any time.

“This program provides a window or an option for these people to go back home and start a new life,” Belbeisi told Reuters. “It is a contribution to a solution, mainly for the refugees. We don’t believe in closing borders, stopping movement or stopping migration.”

Some of those who opt to return have been intercepted by the Libyan coastguard at sea and sent to detention centers. Some leave without trying to reach Europe. Most do not have documents. The IOM flew 2,775 refugees back last year, and is expecting to increase that number to between 7,000 and 10,000 in 2017, with new European funding.

This year, 1,795 refugees have already been sent back, and another 5,000 are seeking assistance to return. The agency has received a higher rate of requests since late 2016, something Belbeisi attributed to worsening conditions inside Libya.

Most are flown to West Africa, with Nigeria, Senegal and Mali topping the list. There have also been returns to East Africa and Bangladesh. Because returning can be seen as a failure, the IOM supports reintegration in home communities, Belbeisi said, with half those returned last year receiving such help. The average cost of returning and assisting a refugee is about 2,000 euros ($2,135). Funding for the program comes mainly from European states.

The agency still faces challenges interviewing refugees, checking their identity, and transporting them across and out of Libya. It plans to raise awareness about the returns program in the coming months, without actively promoting it.

“We are not promoting a return home because we know sometimes the situation back home can be even worse … and we do not want to promote shifting a problem from one side, or country, to another,” said Belbeisi. “That’s why we don’t advertise the program or promote it as a solution for migration to Europe.”

Presstv

A Gambian man rescued from a refugee vessel sunken in the Mediterranean has told the United Nations officials that around 150 were on board when the ship capsized off Libya. The UN refugee agency said Wednesday that some 146 refugees, among them children and several pregnant women, were feared missing after the capsizing, which purportedly occurred earlier this week.

The agency said the Gambian man was interviewed in a hospital in the Italian island of Lampedusa after he was spotted almost by accident by a Spanish military ship sailing in the Mediterranean as part of a European Union operation to crack down on smugglers. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the Spanish ship had found the man while he was desperately holding on a fuel can to survive.

The Gambian told a member of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that the refugee vessel, which left on Sunday or Monday from Sabratha, western Libya, began taking on water a few hours after setting off. He said passengers included refugees from Nigeria, Mali and The Gambia.

A deal between the EU and Turkey in March last year forced many to dare the risky journey through the Central Mediterranean from Libya to Italy. Smugglers have also benefited from the chaos and lawlessness in Libya to dispatch more people on board unsafe dinghies.

More than 23,000 refugees have managed to make it to the Italian shores since the beginning of 2017, Italian authorities say. The IOM says 590 refugees have died or gone missing along the Libyan coast, without considering the figure from the recent disaster.

Presstv