Eye on Africa

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…

Marshal Khalifa Haftar's private plane landed in Istanbul twice in July last year. The Falcon 900 also landed during the same period in Abu Dhabi and then at the private Emirati airport Al Batine, reserved for business people. This private jet attracts the attention of "flight tracking" enthusiasts who monitor flights in real time and track their movements. Usually this plane is used by Marshal Khalifa Haftar, but more often and more it is used by his relatives for human trafficking and money laundering. This episode in…

Available! Finally free! Soumaïla Cissé, Sophie Pétronin and the other hostages are reunited with their families. Also the senior figures from the IBK regime who were arrested during the coup regain freedom while the Malays regain a government and Mali, its rights and powers within ECOWAS. Can we therefore consider that everything is in order and that this country can now resume a normal life?No alas! No! But before we…

Switzerland's foreign ministry said on Friday that a Swiss woman held hostage in Mali had been killed by an Islamist group. The ministry said it had been informed by French authorities that the hostages had been "killed by kidnappers from the Islamist terrorist organization Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam Muslimeen about a month…

Author of a corpus of thirty books in which fiction co-exists with poetry and essays, the Congolese Alain Mabanckou is also a professor of literature in California. In the fall, the author publishes "Rumors of America," a collection of essays, halfway between sociological reflections and journalistic chronicles that tell American life and its turbulences. “I came to literature from excessive loneliness and lived in Africa as the only child who carried amazement in his dreams. And then there was this kind of fear of…

"Behind the scenes of a liberation". It is a title that we find at the same time on the front page of Le Figaro and on the front page of Liberation exactly when Le Monde prefers to show "the end of the ordeal for Sophie Pétronin". Because, of course, the newspapers are returning to the release of this 75-year-old French humanitarian, Thursday night after nearly four years of captivity in Mali. A liberation, yes, and "a lot of questions" according to Le Parisien Today in France. The first of them on Emmanuel Macron's…

The release on Thursday night of the four hostages in Mali, Soumaïla Cissé, Sophie Pétronin and the two Italians, Nicola Chiacchio and father Pier Luigi Maccalli, came after long and difficult negotiations with a long uncertain outcome. A ransom would have been paid and many jihadists were released by the Malian authorities. A look back at what we know about the negotiations and the compensation required. with our correspondent in Bamako, On April 5, a few days after the kidnapping of Soumaïla Cissé, the then Prime…

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…

In Abidjan, a large gathering of the entire front of the opposition is held. This major event worries as sporadic unrest has rocked the country since August between supporters of the outgoing president and opposition activists. Authorities and parties nevertheless ensure that all safety conditions are met. as reported from…