Day: September 3, 2022

ABUJA, NIGERIA — Police in northwest Nigeria say worshippers have been kidnapped while they were observing jumu’at prayers, despite intensified action against armed gangs ordered by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

Zamfara state police spokesperson Mohammed Shehu said the attack took place Friday afternoon at the Jumu’at Central Mosque in the Gummi local government area as worshippers gathered for prayers.

Eyewitnesses told local media the attackers, disguised as worshippers, hid guns in their clothes until they infiltrated the mosque.

The attackers shot sporadically into the air and herded dozens of worshippers into a nearby forest.

Zamfara state police responded to the incident, but Shehu said he could not immediately offer VOA any additional details about the attack.

Armed gangs have terrorized northwest and central Nigeria for years. More recently, violence spread to the southeast, where separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has been largely blamed for causing unrest. IPOB denies the allegations.

Security analyst Senator Iroegbu said the government’s approach to addressing insecurities has not worked.

“It’s a continued red flag,” he said. “I feel most of the responses have been too reactionary and ad hoc in nature. There has not been [a] holistic definition of what is actually happening in the northwest and how to arrest the situation. And this also hampers the effectiveness of the security operatives because for them to operate effectively, their scope of operation need to be well defined.”

Last month during a top security meeting, President Buhari ordered security chiefs to deal with terrorists without constraints.

Days later, the Nigerian air force said airstrikes in the northwest and central regions killed 55 gang members and freed some hostages.

Source: Voice of America

BAMAKO, MALI — Mali’s foreign ministry is denying accusations of human rights violations made by the United Nations.

An 11-page statement posted on the official social media accounts of Mali’s foreign ministry denies all allegations leveled in a U.N. note that implicated Malian state security forces.

The U.N. mission to Mali, MINUSMA, released a quarterly note on human rights Wednesday, accounting for the period between April 1 and June 30 of this year. The note said that most of the human rights violations in Mali during that period were committed by Islamist militant groups but also says it has documented “serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law” by state security forces.

The note adds that there was a decrease in all recorded human rights violations compared to the first quarter of 2022.

Mali’s foreign ministry statement called the allegations against state security forces biased, and said they were made without “tangible proof” and “under the threat of terrorist groups,” with an objective “to tarnish the image of state security forces.”

Tensions between Mali’s military government and MINUSMA have been rising in recent months. In July, Mali arrested 49 soldiers from Ivory Coast who had arrived as support for a U.N. contingent on their arrival at Bamako’s airport, accusing them of being mercenaries.

Also in July, MINUSMA’s spokesperson was expelled from the country after he made comments on Twitter claiming the U.N. had notified the Malian government of the soldiers’ arrival.

The Malian government denied the U.N. access to Moura, Mali, in April, where it wanted to carry out a human rights investigation into an alleged massacre committed by Malian forces working with Russian mercenaries.

MINUSMA’s quarterly note also claimed to have documented the killing of 50 civilians in Hombori, Mali, by state security forces working with “foreign military personnel.”

The Malian government statement did not address accusations that it is working with foreign military forces. Mali says it only works with official Russian trainers and has received military aircraft and weapons shipments from Russia.

A number of countries have accused Mali of working with mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group. After nearly 10 years there, France withdrew from Mali in August because of concerns about the country working with the Kremlin-linked paramilitary organization.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA — The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says consumers are not yet feeling the benefits of declining food prices. The FAO says world food commodity prices dipped for the fifth consecutive month in August.

Lower world food prices generally reflect better availability at the global level. However, FAO says, this time, lower wholesale prices have not led to better food access or lower prices for consumers.

FAO Director of the Markets and Trade Division Boubaker Ben-Belhassen said availability has improved, while access to food commodities has not. This, despite declining prices five months in a row.

“This is due to several factors including the persistent high cost of processing and transportation, logistics, and the exchange rate also of currencies of countries as against the U.S. dollar,” he said. “Also, the cost-of-living crisis has affected access. So, that is why we have not seen this decline in prices at the world level translating into lower prices for consumers or at the retail level.”

Ben-Belhassen cautioned that a drop in world prices does not necessarily result in market stability. He said that is subject to the uncertainties and volatility surrounding developments in the energy market and the price of fertilizer.

He said continued high energy and gas prices reduce profitability and increase production costs for farmers. He added that will pose a serious challenge for farmers in the coming year.

He noted the U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain initiative allowing Ukraine to export its grain and other foodstuffs has improved the availability of food on the world market. Prior to the July agreement, Russia had blockaded Ukraine’s three key ports triggering a global food crisis.

Ben-Belhassen said the better availability of food on the global level has not translated into greater access at the consumer level. He said the increased shipment of goods from Ukraine has not alleviated food scarcity in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries. He noted that is because most grain exports go to middle-income countries.

“So, it does not really go to those countries that are most affected or are most in need for better domestic supplies,” he said. “We hope the situation will improve with time. We hope that the shipment also will go to these countries.… We are still concerned about access, about the cost-of-living crisis.”

The FAO official says families in low- and middle-income countries tend to spend 50% to 60% of their monthly income on food. He warned the implication for food security could be very serious if consumer food prices do not drop significantly.

Source: Voice of America

UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the appointment Friday of former Senegalese minister and U.N. diplomat Abdoulaye Bathily to be the new U.N. envoy to Libya after the Security Council gave its approval, ending a nine-month search amid increasing chaos in the oil-rich north African nation.

Libya’s transitional government, which opposed Bathily’s nomination, reportedly sent a protest letter to Guterres, which raises questions about how effective the new envoy can be in trying to resolve the country’s political and economic crisis.

The last U.N. special representative, Jan Kubis, resigned Nov. 23, 2021, after 10 months on the job, and a number of candidates proposed by Guterres were rejected by council members, Libya or neighboring countries.

In December, Guterres appointed veteran American diplomat Stephanie Williams, a former U.N. deputy special representative in Libya, as his special adviser — a job that did not require council approval.

She left at the end of July. So, the mission has had no leader as Libyans grapple with a constitutional and political crisis.

Years of chaos

Libya has been in chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The country has for years been split between rival administrations, each backed by rogue militias and foreign governments.

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo warned Tuesday that failure to resolve Libya’s political crisis and hold delayed elections poses a growing threat in the country, pointing to recent violent clashes that killed at least 42 people and injured 159 others, according to Libyan authorities.

The current stalemate grew out of the failure to hold elections in December and the refusal of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who led the transitional government, to step down. In response, the country’s east-based parliament appointed a rival prime minister, Fathy Bashagha, who has for months sought to install his government in Tripoli.

Diplomatic experience

Guterres said Bathily brings 40 years of experience to the job of special representative and head of Libya’s U.N. political mission.

He held various ministerial positions in Senegal, taught history for more than 30 years at the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop in the country, held senior U.N. positions including in Mali and Central Africa, and served as the independent expert for the strategic review of the Libya mission in 2021.

Bathily has doctorates from Universite Cheikh Anta Diop and the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom and is fluent in English, French, Soninke and Wolof.

Source: Voice of America

KINSHASA, DR CONGO — At least 33 people were killed following a militia attack on a town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a respected monitor said Saturday, raising an earlier reported death toll.

Kivu Security Tracker, the monitor, tweeted that at least 33 people, including militia members and civilians, had died following an attack by the notorious CODECO militia on Mongbwalu in Ituri province.

It did not specify how many of the dead were civilians, however.

The death toll raises an earlier reported death toll of 22 people killed during the attack on Mongbwalu town.

Town mayor Jean-Pierre Bikilisende earlier this week told AFP that 22 bodies were discovered following clashes between the militants and Congolese troops.

Fourteen civilians and eight militants were killed, he said, explaining that CODECO members had been staging attacks since Tuesday in a bid to free fellow fighters captured by Congolese security forces.

AFP was unable to independently confirm the death toll from this week’s attack.

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

It is considered one of the deadliest of the more than 120 militias operating in the troubled eastern part of the country and has been blamed for a number of ethnic massacres in Ituri.

Last year, Congo’s government put security officials in charge of Ituri and neighboring North Kivu province in a bid to curb violence, but the attacks continue.

Source: Voice of America

Greece will not join Turkey in the slide containing outrageous and beyond-all-limits remarks and threats, taking place on a daily basis.

We will immediately inform our allies and partners regarding the content of the provocative statements of the last few days, in order to make clear who is undermining our alliance’s cohesion at a particularly dangerous juncture.

At the same time, we will continue to serve as a pillar of stability and security for the wider region, on the basis of the rules of International Law and the International Law of the Sea.

Source: Hellenic Republic – Ministry of Foreign Affairs