At least six police personnel were killed in Kenya and four were injured in an attack on a police camp by suspected Islamist militants in Garissa county in the country’s east on the border with Somalia, said police.
Gabon’s Constitutional Court has approved a list of eight candidates to run in the Central African nation’s presidential election next month, including interim President Brice Oligui Nguema, who seized power in a military coup in 2023.
South Africa’s government and the state-owned logistics group Transnet were looking at new ways to attract private investment in the country’s ailing freight rail network, said Transport Minister Barbara Creecy on Sunday.
Six police personnel killed in Kenya by suspected al-Shabaab fighters
At least six police personnel were killed in Kenya while four were injured in an attack on a police camp by suspected Islamist militants in Garissa county in the country’s east on the border with Somalia, said police.
The assault which occurred early on Sunday was carried out by suspected fighters from Somalia’s al Qaeda-allied al-Shabaab group, said a police report sent out to the media.
Al-Shabaab frequently carries out cross-border attacks in the area against both military and civilian targets.
Attackers from the group launched an assault around dawn on a camp housing police reservists and “used assorted weapons to overrun the camp”, said the report.
“Six (6) fatalities have been confirmed with four (4) injured and in hospital.”
On Tuesday the US embassy issued an advisory, telling Americans not to travel to some places in Kenya including Garissa and other counties along the border with Somalia due to threats of terrorism.
Al-Shabaab has been fighting for years to overthrow Somalia’s central government and establish its own rule in the Horn of Africa country based on its strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
Gabon approves coup leader among candidates for presidential vote
Gabon’s Constitutional Court has approved a list of eight candidates to run in the Central African nation’s presidential election next month, including interim President Brice Oligui Nguema, who seized power in a military coup in 2023.
Although transitional leaders are not usually allowed to run for election, Gabon approved a new Constitution by a landslide in November that exempted Nguema, stoking opposition and analyst concerns that the junta would seek to remain in power.
The junta promised the constitutional referendum would be a stepping stone to democratic rule.
Nguema (50) ended the long-standing rule of his predecessor Ali Bongo and his family over the oil-rich but impoverished nation in the coup, the eighth in West and Central Africa between 2020 and 2023.
Nguema’s main rival is tipped to be Bongo’s last prime minister Alain Claude Billie By Nze (57), who is running as an independent candidate.
Other candidates approved by the court on Friday include Stephane Germain Iloko Boussengui, a former member of Bongo’s Gabonese Democratic Party who has formed his own movement, the “large rainbow gathering”, and tax inspector Joseph Lapensee Essigone.
Gabonese entrepreneur Gninga Chaning Zenaba is the only woman running.
The election is scheduled to take place on 12 April.
SA to issue request for proposals for private sector rail investment
South Africa’s government and the state-owned logistics group Transnet were looking at new ways to attract private investment in the country’s ailing freight rail network, said Transport Minister Barbara Creecy on Sunday.
Transnet has struggled to provide adequate freight rail and port services because of equipment shortages and maintenance backlogs after years of under-investment, with rampant cable theft and vandalism also damaging the network.
“The limited availability of state resources to fund infrastructure development and address backlogs has intensified these challenges, severely restricting the ability of state-owned entities to fulfil their critical mandates,” said Creecy in a televised speech, adding that an online request for information (RFI) to private sector investors has been launched.
The RFI focuses on, amongst others, the Northern-Cape to Saldanha Bulk Minerals Corridor primarily for iron ore and manganese exports, and the Northern-Cape to Nelson Mandela Bay Corridor, primarily for manganese exports, she said.
The focus will also be the Limpopo and Mpumalanga to Richards Bay Bulk Minerals Corridor project for coal and chrome exports, including provision for magnetite exports in port.
“Together with Transnet, government has received numerous unsolicited proposals from the private sector offering investment, skills, and expertise to support the rehabilitation and reform of our struggling rail and port systems,” said Creecy.
After the request for information process, the government and Transnet would issue requests for proposals in August, she added.
M23 rebels say they will withdraw from seized town
Rwanda-backed M23 rebels staging an offensive in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) said on Saturday they would withdraw forces from the seized town of Walikale in support of peace efforts, having previously said they were leaving troops there as they pushed on to the capital.
The government said it hoped the move would be translated into concrete action after M23 this week pulled out of planned talks with DRC authorities at the last minute due to EU sanctions on some of its leaders and Rwandan officials.
It would have been their first direct engagement with DRC’s government after President Felix Tshisekedi reversed his longstanding refusal to speak to the rebels.
The Congo River Alliance, which includes M23, said in a statement on Saturday that it had “decided to reposition its forces” from Walikale and surrounding areas that M23 took control of this week.
This decision was in line with a ceasefire declared in February and in support of peace initiatives, it said in a statement that was greeted with scepticism by army officers.
A senior member of the alliance who did not wish to be named said repositioning meant withdrawing to “give peace a chance”. The source declined to say where M23 rebels would withdraw to.
“We are asking for Walikale and surroundings to remain demilitarised,” said the source. “If the FARDC [DRC’s army’ and their allies come back, this means they want to relaunch hostilities.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner told reporters: “We are going to see whether M23 will withdraw from Walikale and whether M23 will give priority to dialogue and peace. So we hope that this will be translated into concrete action.”
Walikale is the furthest west the rebels have reached in an unprecedented advance that has already overrun eastern DRC’s two largest cities since January.
Its capture put the rebels within 400km of Kisangani, the country’s fourth-biggest city with a bustling port at the Congo River’s farthest navigable point upstream of the capital Kinshasa, some 1,500km away.
There have been several attempts to resolve the spiralling conflict, rooted in the fallout from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and competition for mineral riches, including several ceasefires that were violated and regional summits to open up dialogue.
At least 44 killed in Niger jihadist attack
Islamist militants killed at least 44 civilians and severely injured 13 others during an attack on a mosque in southwest Niger on Friday, said the country’s defence ministry.
The attack occurred during afternoon prayers in the village of Fombita in the rural commune of Kokorou, which is near the tri-border region of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali known as the epicentre of a jihadist insurgency in West Africa linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
The defence ministry blamed the attack on the EIGS group, an Islamic State affiliate, in a statement late on Friday.
Heavily armed jihadists encircled a mosque, where people had gathered for prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and carried out a “massacre of rare cruelty”, it said.
The attackers then set fire to a market and houses before retreating, said the ministry.
Troops deployed to the scene provided a provisional death toll of 44 civilians, with 13 severely injured. Three days of national mourning were declared.
The insurgency in West Africa’s Sahel region started when Islamist militants took over territory in north Mali after a 2012 Tuareg rebellion.
It has since spread into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso, and more recently into the north of coastal West African countries such as Togo and Ghana.
Hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions displaced as militants have gained groups, attacking towns, villages, military and police posts and army convoys.
The failure of governments to restore security contributed to two coups in Mali, two in Burkina Faso and one in Niger between 2020 and 2023. All three remain under military rule despite regional and international pressure to hold elections.
Since the coups, authorities have turned away from traditional Western allies and sought military support from Russia instead.
Sudan army says it has control of presidential palace
The Sudanese army seized full control of the presidential palace in downtown Khartoum on Friday, it said in a statement, in what would be a major gain in a two-year-old conflict with a rival armed group that has threatened to partition the country.
The army had long been on the back foot but has recently made gains and has retaken territory from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the centre of the country.
The RSF has consolidated control in the west, hardening battle lines and moving Sudan towards de facto partition. The RSF is setting up a parallel government in areas it controls, although that is not expected to secure widespread international recognition.
The RSF said on Friday, hours after the army statement, that it remained in the vicinity of the palace, and that it had launched an attack that had killed dozens of army soldiers inside.
Army sources said the fighters were about 400m away. They said the army’s forces had suffered a drone attack that killed several soldiers as well as three journalists from state television.
“We continue to fight, and our perseverance and spirit come from the Sudanese people and their support for the armed forces,” said army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in a speech broadcast by Sudan’s state news agency.
The RSF rapidly seized the presidential palace in Khartoum, along with the rest of the city, after war broke out in April 2023 over the paramilitary’s integration into the armed forces.
The army shared videos of soldiers cheering on the palace grounds, its glass windows shattered and walls pockmarked with bullet holes. Images showed the cladding of the recently constructed palace torn off by explosions.
Many Sudanese welcomed the army’s statement that it had control of the palace.
“The liberation of the palace is the best news I’ve heard since the start of the war, because it means the start of the army controlling the rest of Khartoum,” said 55-year-old Khartoum resident Mohamed Ibrahim.
“We want to be safe again and live without fear or hunger,” he said.
Late on Thursday the RSF said it had seized a key base from the army in North Darfur, a region in the west of the country.
The conflict has led to what the UN calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, spreading famine in several locations and disease across the country of 50 million people.
Both sides have been accused of war crimes, while the RSF has also been charged with genocide. Both sides deny the charges.
Intermittent gunfire was heard in Khartoum on Friday and bloody fighting was expected as the army seeks to corner the RSF, which still occupies swathes of the territory to the south of the palace.
“We are moving forward along all fighting axes until victory is complete by cleansing every inch of our country from the filth of this militia and its collaborators,” said the army statement.
RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, had instructed troops earlier this week to maintain control at the palace.
Although the RSF still has positions in Khartoum, its foothold there is more tenuous than at any point since the conflict began and the trajectory suggests the RSF will be pushed out completely, said Ahmed Soliman, senior research fellow at Chatham House.
The army was likely to continue the war in the west, he added, leaving Sudan facing “a contested, partitioned reality”.
The war erupted two years ago as the country was planning a transition to democratic rule.
The army and RSF had joined forces after ousting Omar al-Bashir from power in 2019 and later to oust civilian leadership.
But they had long been at odds, as Bashir developed Hemedti and the RSF, which has its roots in Darfur’s janjaweed militias, as a counterweight to the army, led by career officer Burhan. DM