Day: October 21, 2021

A top U.N. official for central Africa recently visited the Lake Chad Basin to assess living conditions in the area. Years of attacks by Boko Haram have left much of the infrastructure there in ruins.

Francois Lounceny Fall, the U.N. Secretary General’s special representative in central Africa, says attacks by the jihadist group have diminished over the past five months.

Fall says the U.N. is mobilizing the international community to support the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), a regional military alliance, as it fights against the extremist group for a lasting peace to return. He says he is visiting Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Niger to assess ways to start rebuilding and focus on reducing poverty.

Those four countries contribute troops to the MNJTF, along with Benin.

Fall said the U.N. Development Program is raising funds to build roads linking Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad to facilitate movement of people and goods. He said the UNDP is also helping villagers to plant trees.

He said the U.N. refugee agency is helping displaced persons return to their villages, establishing lost documents like birth certificates, and providing funds for women to open businesses.

The U.N. reports that a majority of the estimated 40 million people in the Lake Chad Basin live in poor conditions, partly due to Boko Haram’s attacks.

Civilians need assistance and are asking Cameroonian authorities and the U.N., to help them create better conditions, notes Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of Cameroon’s Far North region on the border with Nigeria and Chad.

Bakari says that economic activity is picking up gradually after more than 10 years of inactivity due to instability caused by Boko Haram attacks. He says within the past 5 months, civilians and merchants have been travelling freely with their goods between Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad.

He also said although there is apparent calm, Cameroonian troops fighting terrorism on the northern border with Nigeria are on standby to protect civilians, should there be a large-scale attack by jihadist groups.

Cameroon’s government says it has allocated 300 million dollars to reconstruct infrastructure destroyed by Boko Haram. It says that in some of the relatively calm areas, construction of schools, water wells and toilets and dozens of markets and hospitals has begun.

Officials from Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria met in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde on October 8 and agreed to work together to rebuild areas destroyed by Boko Haram.

The officials said the Lake Chad basin is gradually returning to normalcy since Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau was declared dead in May.

Still, they said unemployment may be pushing young people to join the jihadist group, which continues to recruit in the area.

Source: Voice of America

Ethiopian forces carried out an airstrike Thursday on Mekelle, their third on the Tigray regional capital this week, as the government attempts to weaken the Tigrayan forces they’ve been fighting for almost a year.

Spokesman Legesse Tulu told reporters the airstrike targeted a training center for Tigrayan forces. He said the base previously was used by Ethiopian forces in the area.

There was no immediate word on casualties.

War erupted nearly a year ago between Ethiopian troops and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which governed Ethiopia for three decades but now rules only the northern Tigray region.

Mekelle has not seen large-scale fighting since June, when Ethiopian forces withdrew from the area and Tigray forces retook control of most of the region. Following that, the conflict continued to spill into the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar.

Last week, Tigray forces said the Ethiopian military had launched a ground offensive to push them out of Amhara and to recapture territory lost to them several months ago.

U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters Tuesday that U.N. colleagues “are alarmed at the intensification of the conflict and once again reminded all parties to the conflict of their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure.”

Source: Voice of America

A United Nations rights commission in South Sudan says the government is harassing activists, journalists and their families, limiting their activities, and targeting their work and finances.

In a statement of “concern” issued this week, the United Nations Commission of Human Rights in South Sudan said the pattern of harassment is impeding the already slow pace of achieving peace among feuding factions and stifling public opinion crucial to achieving democracy.

“Civic space in South Sudan is eroding at the accelerating pace, undermining efforts to achieve a sustainable peace,” said Yasmin Sooka, the commission chairwoman.

The government slammed the statement, with a spokesman saying the commission was spreading untruths,

“This U.N. Human Rights Commission, who is monitoring them?” asked Michael Makuei, South Sudan’s information minister. “Who is supervising them? They just sit in their offices here in Juba and they write because they must write something controversial to prove that they are doing their job, so that they continue in their job.”

The commission blames government security officers for a continuing crackdown that it says has forced some prominent activists to flee the country.

The commission says those include James David Kolok, a member of the technical committee to conduct a consultative process on truth, reconciliation and healing, and Wani Michael, who has acted as a youth representative on the national constitution amendment committee.

Andrew Clapham, one of the commissioners, said the government’s targeting of high-profile human rights defenders “will have a chilling effect on civil society, and will discourage public participation.”

He said government actions will undermine confidence in the work on transitional justice, framing a constitution, and setting up national elections, which Clapham said are essential to the success of the transition set out by the 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement.

The commission says the latest restrictions and acts of harassment began after the creation of the opposition Peoples Coalition for Civil Action in July.

The security clampdown accelerated after a planned nationwide government protest in August fizzled amid what activists say was an intentional internet outage and warnings from security officials of serious consequences against organizers if the demonstration happened.

Since then, some activists say their phone service has been disrupted and bank accounts frozen and journalists say they have been increasingly harassed.

A key parliament member recently said that journalists should be restricted in covering the newly formed parliament.

Agents also detained a government broadcaster after he allegedly declined to report news about recent presidential decrees on the South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation airwaves.

In addition, three journalists recently were detained and a radio station was closed as the government clamped down on the August protests.

Government spokesman Makuei says the government could not allow the planned protests by the PCCA, which he described as “enemies.”

Source: Voice of America