East Africa

NAIROBI, Kenya - Britain has approved Kenya Defense Forces "cautious" exit strategy from Somalia, a country that has fought to spread violent extremism and argued that the withdrawal will depend on the stability of the Horn of Africa. Both Britain and Kenya are key security stakeholders in Somalia and have helped the country stabilize the following decades of conflict, which has significantly affected operations across the country. While the UK has a training base in Baidoa, KDF has several forward-looking bases…

MOGADISHU, Somalia - A group of Ethiopian national defense forces deployed to the AU forces was trained in human rights protection, a course offered amid claims that the contingent is involved in human rights violations in Somalia. The 25 soldiers completed a two-day training on Thursday in a move aimed at reducing cases of violence against civilians in the war-torn country that has been fighting for stability for the past three decades following the ouster of General Siad Barre. The training, which ended on…

NAIROBI, Kenya - The presidential election scheduled for February 2021 appears to have shifted to Nairobi as leading candidates plan to defeat President Farmajo, whose term has been shaken by major divisions inside and outside the government, with international partners also raising concerns about the alleged human rights abuses. The country's leadership agreed to hold elections from December this year after a long-running dispute over the election model among other contentious issues settled after months of…

MOGADISHU, Somalia - The Somali National Army and the African Union Mission Forces has promised to work closely together to coordinate joint military operations against the Al-Shabaab militants, with the liberation of several strategic cities in the country a high priority. On Thursday, Force Commander Lieutenant General Diomede Ndegeya, SNA Land Forces Commander Brig Gen Abas Amin Ali and AMISOM and SNA sector commands agreed to be important in setting up a Joint Operations Coordination Cell. The team signed a…

They are ten Malagasy comics that have been selected for the first artistic stay on the island since the start of the pandemic. This training aims to enable them to perfect their technique, but also to learn how to sell themselves to publishers. From our correspondent in Antananarivo,They are between 19 and 33 years old and…

On World Mental Health Day, Saturday 10 October, NGO Human Rights Watch released a report. Globally, 792 million people have a mental health problem - one in 10 people and one in five children. And yet governments spend less than 2% of their health budget on mental health. In Kenya, there are only two psychiatrists per Million inhabitants. As a result, patients find themselves locked up, bound, or…

In the Comoros, a new "common front of the living forces" is being created, uniting the opposition union and all civil society movements in the archipelago as in the diaspora, condemning a constitutional coup by President Azali Assoumani. With our Moroni correspondent, Anziza M'Changama If he had not amended the Constitution, his mandate would end in a few months to make room for a president from the island of Anjouan in 2021. This is also one of the demands of this common front, which gave a press conference Thursday…

JIGJIGA, Ethiopia - Former Somali Minister Ali Khalif Galaydh has died in Jigjiga city, the capital of the Somali regional state of Ethiopia, due to COVID-19 on Thursday, according to the local minister. Speaking to the media, Mukhtar Yusuf, Deputy Minister of Information of the Somali Region, said that they have found out that Galaydh died of COVID-19 after performing a post mortem, is to determine the cause of his death. He has served as prime minister during the first transitional government in Somalia, formed…

JIGJIGA - Former Somali Prime minister Ali Khalif Galaydh has today died in Ethiopian Somali region, an official confirmed. He was 79.

NAIROBI, Kenya - Two men were found guilty on Wednesday of aiding Al-Shabaab attackers during the siege of the Westgate shopping mall in 2013, seven years after undergoing a hectic trial, which becomes one of the first terror-related convictions in Kenya, which often has been targeted by Somalia-based militants. The 2013 attack was the first major attack on Kenyan soil since 1998, when the U.S. embassy in Nairobi was bombed by al-Qaeda, leaving more than 200 people dead. It was also the first major attack by…