#Britain and South Africa have handed back to Ghana more than 130 gold and bronze artefacts taken between the 1870s and early 20th century, the West #African state’s Asante king announced.

#Senegal’s president and the political party he belongs to have issued conflicting statements over the leadership of the ruling coalition, a clear sign of dissension among top leaders amid drawn-out talks with the International Monetary Fund.

Sudan relief operations are ‘on the brink of collapse,’ UN migration agency warns.

“Despite the rising need, humanitarian operations are now on the brink of collapse,” the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement. It added: “Warehouses are nearly empty, aid convoys face significant insecurity, and access restrictions continue to prevent the delivery of sufficient aid.”

The IOM said more funding is needed to ease the humanitarian impact of the war between the Sudanese army and its rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The agency warned of “an even greater catastrophe” if its appeal went unheeded.

“Our teams are responding, but insecurity and depleted supplies mean we are only reaching a fraction of those in need,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said in a statement.

The RSF’s recent capture of North Darfur’s capital, el-Fasher, left hundreds dead and forced tens of thousands of people to flee reported atrocities by the paramilitary force, according to aid groups and UN officials. The IOM said nearly 9O,000 people have left el-Fasher and surrounding villages, undertaking a perilous journey through unsafe routes where they have no access to food, water or medical assistance.

Tens of thousands have arrived at overcrowded displacement camps in Tawila, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) from el-Fasher. In the camps, the displaced find themselves in barren areas with few tents and insufficient food and medical supplies.

#Lebanese bar owner killed by Russian mercenary in #Mali. The Russian had spent time last Wednesday to Thursday night in the bar in the capital’s Badalabougou district alongside other mercenaries, before firing three shots at point-blank range at the owner.

The exact circumstances were not immediately clear, with a member of the civil protection service telling AFP it occurred after the Russian was told to leave.

“When our teams arrived on the scene, the wounded man had already lost a lot of blood,” the civil protection service member said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

The victim was taken to hospital where he died on Thursday.

“He ultimately died despite attempts to remove the bullets from his skull,” a hospital source told AFP.

The allied Malian army and Africa Corps mercenaries are regularly accused of committing atrocities against civilians.

A leader of the Lebanese community in Mali told AFP that “not a week goes by without atrocities” committed by the mercenaries, alleging that Malian authorities were trying to cover up the affair.

After Mali turned its back on its former colonial ruler France, it drew closer to Russia and its Wagner security group, which later was replaced by Africa Corps, in its fight against jihadists.

Hundreds charged with treason in #Tanzania as authorities hunt key opposition figures after election.

In addition to dozens criminally charged a day earlier in Dar es Salaam, dozens more face similar treason charges elsewhere in the East African nation, according to numerous charge sheets that became publicly available Saturday.

Wanted suspects include Josephat Gwajima, an influential preacher who had his church deregistered earlier this year after he criticized the government over rights abuses.

Police also issued arrest warrants for some of the top opposition officials who hadn’t yet been jailed. They include Brenda Rupia, communications director for the Chadema opposition group, as well as John Mnyika, its secretary-general.

Chadema is Tanzania’s leading opposition party. Its leader, Tundu Lissu, has been jailed for several months and also faces treason charges after he urged electoral reforms before voting on Oct. 29.

Authorities face questions over the death toll after security forces tried to quell riots and opposition protests before and after the vote. Chadema has claimed that more than 1,000 people were killed and that security forces were trying to hide the scale of the deaths by secretly disposing of the bodies. The Catholic Church in Tanzania has said that hundreds were likely killed.

But some believe that the death toll could actually be much higher. The Kenya Human Rights Commission, a watchdog group in the neighboring country, asserted in a statement on Friday that 3,000 people have been killed by Tanzania’s security forces, with thousands still missing.

“Amidst the ongoing attempted cover-up, facilitated by the continued internet blackout and bandwidth restrictions, this number could be thousands below the actual death toll,” the statement said.

Pictorial evidence in the rights group’s possession shows many victims “bore head and chest gunshot wounds, leaving no doubt these were targeted killings, not crowd-control actions,” it said.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who automatically took office as vice president in 2021 after the death of her predecessor, took more than 97% of the vote, according to an official tally. She faced 16 candidates from smaller parties after Lissu and Luhaga Mpina, of the ACT-Wazalendo party, were barred from running.

Rights groups described a climate of repression before voting. There were enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings, according to Amnesty International and others. Tanzania’s government denies the allegations.

The African Union said this week that its observers had concluded that the election “did not comply with AU principles, normative frameworks, and other international obligations and standards for democratic elections.”

AU observers reported ballot stuffing at several polling stations, and cases where voters were issued multiple ballots. The environment surrounding the election was “not conducive to peaceful conduct and acceptance of electoral outcomes,” the statement said.

Pirates boarded the Hellas Aphrodite, a Malta-flagged vessel carrying gasoline, as it was headed from India to South #Africa. The EU’s naval force said one of its vessels was near the incident and closing in.

#Trump says U.S. to boycott #G20 in South Africa, repeating allegations about treatment of white #farmers.

Trump had already announced he would not attend the annual summit for heads of state from the globe’s leading and emerging economies. U.S. Vice President JD Vance had been scheduled to attend in Trump’s place, but a person familiar with Vance’s plans who was granted anonymity to talk about his schedule said Vance would no longer travel there for the summit.

“It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa,” Trump said on his social media site.

In his post, Trump cited “abuses” of Afrikaners, including violence and death as well as confiscation of their land and farms.

The Trump administration has long accused the South African government of allowing minority white Afrikaner farmers to be persecuted and attacked.

But the government of South Africa has said it is surprised by the accusations of discrimination, because white people in the country generally have a much higher standard of living than its Black residents, more than three decades after the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule.

The country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said he’s told Trump that information about the alleged discrimination and persecution of Afrikaners is “completely false.”

Nonetheless, the administration has kept up its criticisms of the South African government. Earlier this week during an economic speech in Miami, Trump said South Africa should be thrown out of the Group of 20.

Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio boycotted a G20 meeting for foreign ministers because its agenda focused on diversity, inclusion and climate change efforts.

Seung Min Kim And Michelle L. Price, The Associated Press

‘Everyone abandoned us’: Sudanese-Canadians plea for help as crisis in Sudan spirals ‘out of control’.

His home in Markham, On., is more than 10,000 kilometres from Sudan, but Ashraf Ahmed’s thoughts are almost always on his home country.

“The number of killed people, displaced (people) make the war in Sudan the biggest tragedy in recent history,” he says.

Ahmed is one of many Sudanese-Canadians worried about loved ones stuck in the middle of a more than two-year long conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and left nearly 25 million facing acute hunger, according to the United Nations.

“I have six or seven uncles. I have 20-something cousins. All of them, no exceptions are displaced within the country, within Sudan,” he says. His parents and in-laws were all able to escape Sudan but are stuck in Saudi Arabia as they wait for visas to travel to Canada, a process that has taken more than two years. His mother-in-law passed away last year.

“Her grandchildren, my children were not able to see her,” Ahmed says.

The war between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began in 2023 and has escalated dramatically over the last week with the RSF taking control of the city of El Fasher in North Darfur.

Tens of thousands of people were forced to flee the city on foot, with survivors describing scenes of horror: fighters going house-to-house shooting civilians, women being raped and hundreds killed inside a hospital.

“We can see blood from the satellite images,” says Sadia Araa, a pharmacy technician who lives in Ottawa and is originally from El Fasher. In addition to showing blood in the sand, satellite images have also shown evidence that RSF fighters may be digging mass graves.

Hunger monitor says parts of South Sudan face famine threat after months without aid.

JUBA, South Sudan — No food aid has reached a conflict-hit area of South Sudan this year despite growing fears that it is headed toward famine, international food security analysts said Tuesday.

The report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global monitor, estimates that 28,000 people in Nasir and Fangak counties face “catastrophic food insecurity,” the most severe level of hunger.

“An immediate and large-scale response” is required, it says.

Both counties have been historically controlled by the SPLM-IO opposition party led by suspended First Vice President Riek Machar.

Machar has been charged with treason and other crimes that he denies over an attack by a local militia on a military garrison in Nasir that South Sudan’s government says killed 250 soldiers. Government-led military operations, including dozens of aerial bombardments, have targeted opposition forces and allied militias in Nasir throughout much of the year.

After months of clashes, Nasir is now effectively partitioned between the opposition, which controls large swathes of the county, and government forces. Heavy fighting and airstrikes have displaced tens of thousands of people into dozens of informal sites along the Sobat river, a major Nile tributary.

The violence, which has only recently calmed, has presented a major obstacle for aid groups to deliver food.

Mary-Ellen McGroarty, the South Sudan director for the World Food Program, said in an emailed statement that fighting and access restrictions had “significantly limited” the ability to reach areas of eastern Nasir county along the Sobat corridor since February.

But McGroarty said a WFP-led mission last month had verified the location of civilians and secured access assurances from authorities. “This will be our first time reaching these populations this year,” she said.

Lam Paul Gabriel, a SPLM-IO spokesperson, accused the government of blocking the flow of aid into opposition-controlled areas to punish civilians living there and encourage movement into government-controlled zones.

But Stephen Kueth, chairperson of South Sudan’s Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, denied that aid groups had been blocked.

“We are making it clear that food cannot be used as a weapon of war,” he said.

Kueth said the government had worked with a private U.S. company to conduct airdrops into Nasir earlier in the year. The operation received criticism from aid groups and opposition officials for targeting areas said to be largely abandoned by civilians but occupied by the military.
The threat of famine

The IPC is the only globally recognized framework for declaring a famine.

It considers an area to be in famine when three things occur: Deaths from malnutrition-related causes reach at least two people, or four children under age four, per 10,000; at least one in five people or households severely lack food and face starvation; and at least 30 per cent of children under age five suffer from acute malnutrition based on a weight-to-height measurement — or 15 per cent based on upper-arm circumference.

Famine declarations are rare. The last famine in South Sudan was declared in 2017 during the country’s civil war.

Now, more than half the country’s population is expected to face severe hunger in 2026, according to the IPC.

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Joseph Falzetta, The Associated Press

#Nigeria pushes back after Trump claims country’s Christians face ‘existential threat’.

The president also warned that he “will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria.”

“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, `guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump posted on social media. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”

The warning came after Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu earlier on Saturday pushed back on Trump announcing a day earlier that he was designating the West African country “a country of particular concern” for allegedly failing to rein in the persecution of Christians.

In a social media statement on Saturday, Tinubu said that the characterization of Nigeria as a religiously intolerant country does not reflect the national reality.

“Religious freedom and tolerance have been a core tenet of our collective identity and shall always remain so,” Tinubu said. “Nigeria opposes religious persecution and does not encourage it. Nigeria is a country with constitutional guarantees to protect citizens of all faiths.”

Trump on Friday said “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria” and “radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.”

Trump’s comment came weeks after U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz urged Congress to designate Africa’s most populous country as a violator of religious freedom with claims of “Christian mass murder.”

Nigeria’s population of 220 million is split almost equally between Christians and Muslims. The country has long faced insecurity from various fronts including the Boko Haram extremist group, which seeks to establish its radical interpretation of Islamic law and has also targeted Muslims it deems not Muslim enough.

Attacks in Nigeria have varying motives. There are religiously motivated ones targeting both Christians and Muslims, clashes between farmers and herders over dwindling resources, communal rivalries, secessionist groups and ethnic clashes.

While Christians are among those targeted, analysts say the majority of victims of armed groups are Muslims in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north, where most attacks occur.

Kimiebi Ebienfa, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reiterated the commitment of Nigeria to protect citizens of all religions.

“The Federal Government of Nigeria will continue to defend all citizens, irrespective of race, creed, or religion,” Ebienfa said in a statement on Saturday. “Like America, Nigeria has no option but to celebrate the diversity that is our greatest strength.”

Nigeria was placed on the country of particular concern list by the U.S. for the first time in 2020 over what the State Department called “systematic violations of religious freedom.” The designation, which did not single out attacks on Christians, was lifted in 2023 in what observers saw as a way to improve ties between the countries ahead of then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit.

Dyepkazah Shibayan, The Associated Press