Day: May 8, 2022

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Islamic State Claims Attack That Killed 11 Egyptian Troops

An Islamic State affiliate in Egypt on Sunday claimed responsibility for an attack that targeted a water pumping station east of the Suez Canal, killing at least 11 soldiers.

At least five other soldiers were wounded in Saturday’s attack, according to the Egyptian military. It was one of the deadliest attacks on Egyptian security forces in recent years.

Thousands of people attended separate funerals for the dead Sunday.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, meanwhile, presided over a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which includes the military’s top commanders, to discuss the consequences of the attack, his office said without offering further details.

The extremist group announced its claim of the attack in a statement carried by its Aamaq news agency. The authenticity of the statement could not be verified but it was released on Telegram as similar claims have been in the past.

The attack took place in the town of Qantara in the province of Ismailia, which stretches eastwards from the Suez Canal.

Militants attacked troops at a checkpoint guarding the pumping facility, then fled the site. The military said troops were pursuing the attackers in an isolated area of the northern Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt is battling an Islamic State-led insurgency in the Sinai that intensified after the military overthrew an elected but divisive Islamist president in 2013. The militants have carried out scores of attacks, mainly targeting security forces and Christians.

The pace of militant attacks in Sinai’s main theater of operations and elsewhere has slowed to a trickle since February 2018, when the military launched an extensive operation in Sinai as well as parts of the Nile Delta and deserts along the country’s western border with Libya.

Source: Voice of America

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Dozens Killed in Raid on DRC Gold Mine, Local Official Says

Raiders killed at least 35 people, including a baby, in an attack on a gold mine in Ituri, in the strife-torn northeast of Democratic Republic of Congo, local sources said Sunday.

One local official, Jean-Pierre Bikilisende, of the rural Mungwalu settlement in Djugu, Ituri, said the CODECO militia had carried out the attack on the artisanal mine.

Bikilisende said the militia had attacked the Camp Blanquette gold mine and that 29 bodies had been retrieved, while another six burned bodies had been found buried at the site.

Among the dead was a 4-month-old baby, he added.

“This is a provisional toll,” he said, as there had been other people killed whose bodies had been thrown down the mine shafts.

Several other civilians had been reported missing, he said, adding, “The search continues.”

Camp Blanquette was set up in a forest, far from the nearest military outpost, so help came too late, Bikilisende said.

Cherubin Kukundila, a civil leader in Mungwalu, said that at least 50 people had been killed in the raid.

Several people were wounded, nine of them seriously. They were being treated at Mungwalu hospital, he told AFP.

During their attack, the raiders had ransacked shops, carried off what the miners had dug out of the mine and burned down houses, he added.

The Camp Blanquette mine lies 7 kilometers from Mungwalu.

CODECO, the name for the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo, is a political-religious sect that claims to represent the interests of the Lendu ethnic group.

The Lendu and Hema communities have a long-standing feud that led to thousands of deaths between 1999 and 2003 before intervention by a European peacekeeping force.

Violence then resumed in 2017, blamed on the emergence of CODECO.

CODECO is considered one of the deadliest of the militias operating in the east of the country, blamed for a number of ethnic massacres in the province of Ituri.

It has been held responsible for attacks on soldiers and civilians, including those fleeing the conflict and aid workers.

Its attacks have caused hundreds of deaths and prompted more than 1.5 million people to flee their homes.

Ituri and neighboring North Kivu province have been under siege since May last year. The army and police have replaced senior administrators in a bid to stem attacks by armed groups.

Despite this, the authorities have been unable to stop the massacres regularly carried out on civilians.

Source: Voice of America

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Cameroon Marks World Red Cross Day Calling for Better Collaboration With Group’s Workers

World Red Cross Day, May 8, has been observed in Cameroon with hundreds of Red Cross workers in towns and villages across the central African state asking for greater recognition and protection by their communities. The humanitarian workers say although they have not reported deaths, Red Cross workers are often victims of battery, Boko Haram terrorism, and separatist violence.

Hundreds of people, including beneficiaries of Red Cross services, humanitarian workers and government officials, assembled at the Yaoundé-headquartered Cameroon Red Cross Society to celebrate the 2022 World Red Cross Day.

Among them was Aliou Alim, a Red Cross volunteer who has worked in the northern town of Banyo, on Cameroon’s border with Nigeria.

Alim said in March he and seven colleagues were taken captive by people they were encouraging to take COVID-19 vaccines in Banyo. He said they were freed after local government officials explained to their captors that Red Cross workers are out to save lives.

Alim said every Cameroonian should be informed that the Red Cross serves humanity. He says besides protecting Red Cross workers, protagonists in conflict zones and civilians should respect and protect the Red Cross emblem, bearing in mind that humanitarian workers are there to rescue people in need and save lives.

Alim said many people along Cameroon’s border with Nigeria do not know the importance of Red Cross workers and very often refuse to collaborate with them. He said there is a misconception that the Red Cross emblem signifies adherence to a Western occult group trying to recruit Cameroonian followers.

The Red Cross says such allegations are unfounded and spread by people who are ignorant of Red Cross activities.

The government says Red Cross workers have been of great help saving lives in the central African state’s trouble spots. The government says the Red Cross has provided humanitarian assistance to several thousand of the 750,000 people fleeing the separatist crisis in the country’s English-speaking western regions.

Red Cross workers have also assisted about a third of the close to 3 million people displaced by Boko Haram terrorism in Cameroon and its northern neighbors, Chad and Nigeria, the government says.

Cecile Akame Mfoumou, the president of the Cameroon Red Cross Society, said close to 70,000 people volunteer or work as staff for the organization.

She said Cameroon needs more humanitarian workers to help people suffering as a result of conflicts generated by environmental challenges and climate change, Boko Haram terrorism on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria, the spillover of the crisis in the neighboring Central African Republic, and the separatist crisis in Cameroon’s western regions that have claimed close to 3,300 lives. She said she is encouraging Red Cross workers to be determined in their efforts to save lives, despite the challenges they face.

Cameroon says it will protect all humanitarian workers and asks communities to understand that the workers are there to help people in need.

Mfoumou said scores of Red Cross workers have complained of battery and restrictions in carrying out humanitarian activities in Cameroonian trouble zones. The Red Cross says many of its workers were chased by separatists from the English-speaking regions, but it does not report cases of killings.

World Red Cross Day is an annual celebration when people pay tribute to the organization for its contribution to helping those in need. The day also marks the birthday of Henry Dunant, who founded the International Committee of the Red Cross and received the first Nobel Peace Prize.

Source: Voice of America