DOUALA, Cameroon ( AA) – Col. Assimi Goita, Mali’s transitional president, has pardoned 49 Ivorian soldiers convicted of conspiracy and undermining state security, a government spokesman said late Friday. Three who were women were later released, while 46 soldiers were sentenced to 20 years imprisonment on Dec. 30. The three releas...
Thiès, Senegal (AFP): “They made us join up to wage war,” said Ndiogou Dieye, 103, casting his memory back more than eight decades to when he and other young Senegalese donned uniforms to fight for distant France. “We didn’t know where we were going.” The wizened old soldier is one of the last survivors of [&helli...
ISTANBUL (AA) – A notorious human-smuggler known for his extremely brutal and harsh treatment of refugees has been arrested in Sudan in an Interpol operation, the global police coordination agency has said. “Kidane Zekarias Habtemariam was the subject of two INTERPOL Red Notices, by Ethiopia and the Netherlands, for migrant smuggling, human tr...
Nouakchott, Mauritania (AFP): Mauritania’s ex-president Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who faces a trial for alleged corruption, said on Thursday that he had been barred from travelling abroad. He went to the airport to travel on Wednesday but “was prevented from doing so by the political police, which said it had received instructions&#...
Tunis, Tunisia — AFP Tunisia faces a year of low economic growth and runaway inflation, and urgently needs a bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund, its central bank chief has said. “We need to reach a deal with the IMF as soon as possible to mobilise external finance in the budget” or “2023 will […]
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AA) – At least 20 people were killed, including security personnel and civilians, and several others wounded in twin suicide car bomb attacks in Somalia’s central town of Mahas, according to officials. Bishar Abdullahi, a security official in Hiran province, confirmed the fatalities that included security officials. H...
KAMPALA, Uganda (AA) – Twenty-six people were arrested when security agencies in Uganda raided a Muslim-founded school on Monday night, police said on Tuesday. The arrests were made at the Imam Ridha Islamic School, belonging to the former Supreme Mufti Sheikh Zubair Kayongo, which is located at the Buloba village in the outskirts of the [&hel...
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AA) – A Sudan alliance has said it has reached an understanding with groups opposed to a framework agreement with the military to solve the country’s political crisis. A leader of the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) coalition said the agreements were made with Gibril Ibrahim, the head of justice and equality [&...
KIGALI, Rwanda (AA) – Burkina Faso’s military junta has expelled France’s ambassador to the West African country, a regime source confirmed Tuesday, amid deteriorating bilateral relations. “Ambassador Luc Hallade was asked to leave the country,” the source in the Foreign Ministry told Anadolu Agency, speaking on c...
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AA) – At least 10 people, including soldiers, were killed and 10 others wounded in simultaneous bombings in a town in central Somalia on Wednesday. Two suicide bombers targeted two residential buildings in Mahas, a town in Somalia’s Hiran region, some 307 kilometers (190 miles) from the capital Mogadishu. One is the residen...
