Day: December 25, 2021

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO — Authorities in Burkina Faso have declared a two-day period of mourning after suspected militants killed at least 41 members of a government-backed civilian militia in the country’s desert north this week.

A column of civilian fighters from the Homeland Defense Volunteers (VDP), a group the government funds and trains to contain Islamist insurgents, was ambushed on Thursday as it swept a remote area in the northern Loroum province, authorities said Saturday.

It was one of the heaviest single-day losses the civilian militia has experienced to date and occurred one month after an attack on a gendarmerie post killed 53 people, the worst strike on Burkinabe security forces in years.

“In this painful circumstance and as a tribute to the valiant VDP and civilians who fell in defense of the homeland, the president of Burkina Faso decrees a national mourning period of forty-eight hours, starting Sunday,” government spokesperson Alkassoum Maiga said in a statement.

Authorities have faced repeated protests in recent months over their perceived failure to curb a four-year Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands across Africa’s Sahel Region and prompted more than a million people to flee their homes.

Militants linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State have inflicted heavy casualties on the region’s armies, killing soldiers in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali almost every week in scattered attacks.

The Burkinabe army said about 100 militants were killed earlier this month in a joint offensive involving hundreds of troops from Burkina Faso and Niger, who also seized guns, improvised explosive devices and hundreds of motorcycles.

Source: Voice of America

MOGADISHU — Clashes between two rival factions of the security forces in a port city in northeast Somalia have forced hundreds of families to flee their homes, a local official said Saturday.

The fighting has for several days rocked Bosaso, the commercial capital of the semi-autonomous state of Puntland in the country’s northeast.

“Thousands of the residents in the Bosaso town fled … as sporadic fighting was going on in some parts of the town,” local official Abdirizak Mohamed told Agence France-Presse.

“Most people decided to leave their houses after the warring sides used heavy machine guns and mortars”, mostly from two of the town’s neighborhoods, he said.

Mohamed said it was not clear exactly how many people had quit the town on the shores of the Gulf of Aden, but he estimated it was “hundreds of families.”

On Thursday, the United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA had said it was “extremely concerned” about the escalation in violence that had led thousands to flee in search of safety.

“With the fighting in Bosaso town continuing … more than half of the city’s population has reportedly been displaced from their homes,” OCHA representative for Somalia, Adam Abdelmoula, said in a statement.

He added that the fighting also had uprooted families already displaced by previous unrest.

“Some 40 percent of 70,000 internally displaced persons hosted in Bosaso town are also reported to have experienced secondary displacement,” Abdelmoula said.

Located on the northernmost tip of Somalia, Puntland is one of the restive Horn of Africa country’s five semi-autonomous states.

Source: Voice of America

BENI, CONGO — A suicide bomber attacked a restaurant and bar Saturday as dozens of patrons gathered on Christmas Day, killing at least six others in an eastern Congolese town where Islamic extremists are known to be active.

Heavy gunfire rang out shortly after the bomb went off, with panicked crowds fleeing the town’s center.

Gen. Sylvain Ekenge, spokesperson for the governor of North Kivu, said that security guards had blocked the bomber from entering the crowded bar and so the person instead detonated the explosives at the entrance.

“We call on people to remain vigilant and to avoid crowded areas during the holiday season,” he said in a statement. “In the city and territory of Beni, it is difficult, in these times to know who is who.”

Loud noise, black smoke

Rachel Magali had been at the restaurant-bar for about three hours with her sister-in-law and several others when she heard a loud noise outside.

“Suddenly we saw black smoke surrounding the bar and people started to cry,” she told The Associated Press. “We rushed to the exit where I saw people lying down. There were green plastic chairs scattered everywhere and I also saw heads and arms no longer attached. It was really horrible.”

Among the dead were two children, according to Mayor Narcisse Muteba, who is also a police colonel. At least 13 other people were wounded and taken to a local hospital.

“Investigations are underway to find the perpetrators of this terrorist attack,” he told The Associated Press.

Rebels vex town

The town has long been targeted by rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces, a group that traces its origins to neighboring Uganda. But an Islamic State group affiliate claimed responsibility for two explosions in Beni in June, deepening fears that religious extremism has taken hold there, too.

Those explosions included the first known suicide bombing in eastern Congo, a Ugandan man who blew himself up outside of a bar. The Islamic State group’s Central Africa Province later said that the suicide bomber was targeting Christians. The other explosion that day went off inside a Catholic church, wounding two people.

Residents of the town have repeatedly expressed anger over the ongoing insecurity despite an army offensive and the presence of U.N. peacekeepers in Beni. In recent years, the town also has suffered through an Ebola epidemic and has seen several smaller outbreaks of the disease.

Source: Voice of America

KHARTOUM, SUDAN — Protesters opposed to military rule marched near the presidential palace in the Sudanese capital on Saturday for the second time in a week, television images showed, despite heavy tear gas and a communications blackout.

A Reuters witness said security forces fired tear gas to disperse the crowds on the 10th day of major demonstrations since the October 25 coup.

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said 178 people were injured during Saturday’s protest, with eight caused by live bullets.

In separate statements, the committee said security forces entered Khartoum Hospital and Port Sudan Hospital.

Internet service spotty

Protests against the coup have continued even after Abdallah Hamdok was reinstated as prime minister last month. The demonstrators have demanded that the military play no role in government during a transition to free elections.

A week ago, demonstrators began a sit-in at the gates of the palace before being dispersed. On Saturday they were met by security forces and turned back.

Internet services were disrupted in the capital, and residents were unable to make or receive phone calls, witnesses said, while soldiers and Rapid Support Forces blocked roads leading to bridges linking Khartoum with Omdurman, its sister city across the Nile.

Internet service began to return for at least some users late on Saturday.

Some people managed to post images on social media showing protests in several other cities, including Madani and Atbara.

In Omdurman, security forces fired tear gas at protesters near a bridge connecting the city to central Khartoum, another Reuters witness said.

‘Chaos and abuses’

“Departing from peacefulness, approaching and infringing on sovereign and strategic sites in central Khartoum is a violation of the laws,” SUNA state news agency reported, citing a provincial security coordination committee.

“Chaos and abuses will be dealt with,” it added.

Protesters in Khartoum chanted: “Close the street! Close the bridge! Burhan we will come straight to you,” referring to military leader and sovereign council head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

U.N. Special Representative to Sudan Volker Perthes urged Sudanese authorities not to stand in the way of Saturday’s demonstrations.

“Freedom of expression is a human right. This includes full access to the internet. According to international conventions, no one should be arrested for intent to protest peacefully,” Perthes said.

The military could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sources told Reuters they heard gunshots in the vicinity of the offices of UNAMID peacekeepers in Darfur on Saturday morning. UNMID is the acronym for the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur.

Last Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people marched to the presidential palace and security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse them.

Forty-eight people have been killed in crackdowns on protests against the coup, the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said.

Source: Voice of America