17, March 2021
Mali: Dozens of soldiers killed in attack on army base 0
At least 31 soldiers were killed in an attack in northern Mali this week, an army officer said Wednesday, in one of the deadliest assaults on the military this year.
Dozens of assailants on motorbikes and pickup trucks on Monday stormed a military post southwest of the town of Ansongo, near the borders with Burkina Faso and Niger, the army said on social media.
An initial statement said two soldiers had been killed and eight wounded, but late on Tuesday the army gave the higher casualty figures, specifying 11 dead and 14 injured with 11 still missing.
But on Wednesday, a Malian army officer, who declined to be named, said the death toll had further risen to 31.
He added that the bodies of 13 assailants were found after the clash.
It remains unclear how many soldiers are still missing.
Mali was plunged into conflict in 2012 when local Tuareg radicals supported by jihadists revolted in the north.
France intervened to crush the rebellion, but the jihadists scattered and regrouped, taking their campaign into central Mali in 2015 and then into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.
In Mali alone, thousands of civilians and troops have died and hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes.
The so-called three-border zone was the scene of a military offensive from early last year by the French Barkhane force and its regional allies, especially against the jihadist Islamic State in the Greater Sahara group (EIGS).
Militants frequently target Mali’s army — which is largely poorly equipped and underfunded — in attacks.
Source: AFP





















17, March 2021
COVID-denying president of Tanzania John Magufuli is dead 0
Tanzania’s President John Pombe Magufuli is dead.
In a televised address on Thursday night, Tanzania vice-president Samia Suluhu Hassan said that Magufuli had died of heart complications.
“It is with great regret that I inform you that today, 17 March 2021, at 18:00, we have lost our courageous leader, President John Pombe Magufuli of Tanzania,” said Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzania Vice President.
Hassan said that Magufuli was hospitalized on March 6 at the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute.
This comes after weeks of speculation on his whereabouts with the suspicion that he had been hospitalized for Covid-19.
Tanzania’s President John Magufuli has not been seen in public for 18 days and rumours have spread that he was ill.
The speculation had led to several arrests, as the government sought to contain the rumours.
On Tuesday, the opposition leader from the Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT Wazalendo) issued a statement demanding Magufuli’s whereabouts.
The party also called for the release of all citizens who have been arrested for circulating rumours about the president’s health.
There has been speculation and rumours flying on social media that the 61-year-old president may have contracted coronavirus and been airlifted to a Kenyan hospital for treatment then flown to India a day later.
Tanzania’s main opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who is exiled in Belgium, said, citing sources that Magufuli was gravely ill from Covid-19, exacerbated by underlying health conditions.
On Tuesday he posted photos on his Twitter account of activity in Dar es Salaam.
Source: Africa News