The Sudanese army was encircling Khartoum airport, two military sources told Reuters on Wednesday, as it battled to oust its rival Rapid Support Forces from a last foothold in the capital, though the war looks far from over.
Suspected Islamist fighters launched coordinated attacks on an army base and a military outpost in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State, killing at least 15 people, security sources told Reuters.
Niger’s junta said there would be a five-year transition to constitutional rule starting from Wednesday, in an announcement during a signing ceremony for a new transition charter.
Sudan army surrounds Khartoum airport in battle for capital
The Sudanese army was encircling Khartoum airport, two military sources told Reuters on Wednesday, as it battled to oust its rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) from a last foothold in the capital, though the war looks far from over.
The army seized the presidential palace in downtown Khartoum on Friday, an important symbolic advance after two years of a conflict that is splitting the massive country into rival zones of control.
On Wednesday, the army said it had gained control of Tiba al-Hassanab camp south of the capital, which it described as the RSF’s last base in central Sudan and last stronghold in Khartoum State.
The military sources said the army was encircling the airport, which is located in the city centre, and surrounding areas.
Witnesses said the RSF had focused its troops in southern Khartoum, apparently to secure their withdrawal from the city via bridges to the neighbouring city of Omdurman.
The army later released drone footage of scores of people walking across a dam that it said showed RSF forces retreating across the Nile. Reuters was not able to confirm that the footage showed RSF forces, and the RSF did not immediately comment on Wednesday’s military developments.
In an apparent sign of the army’s confidence in its hold over central Khartoum, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan appeared in an Al Jazeera television news broadcast on Wednesday touring the captured presidential palace.
Recent army gains in central Sudan, retaking districts of the capital and other territory, come as the RSF has consolidated its control in the west, hardening battle lines and threatening to move the country towards a de facto partition.
The war, which erupted two years ago as the country was attempting a democratic transition, has caused what the UN calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with famine in several areas as well as outbreaks of disease.
It has driven 12.5 million people from their homes, many of them seeking refuge in neighbouring countries.
The army and RSF had at one point been in a fragile partnership together, jointly staging a coup in 2021 that derailed the transition from the Islamist rule of Omar al-Bashir, a longtime autocrat who was ousted in 2019.
They had also fought on the same side for years in the western state of Darfur under Bashir’s government.
The RSF, under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, developed from Darfur’s janjaweed militias, and Bashir developed the group as a counterweight to the army, led by career officer Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
After they seized power together in 2021, the two sides clashed over an internationally backed plan aimed at launching a new transition with civilian parties that would require them both to cede powers.
Major points of dispute included a timetable for the RSF to integrate into the regular armed forces, the chain of command between army and RSF leaders, and the question of civilian oversight.
When fighting broke out, Sudan’s army had better resources, including air power. However, the RSF was more deeply embedded in neighbourhoods across Khartoum and was able to hold much of the capital in an initial, devastating burst of warfare.
The RSF also made rapid advances to gain control of its main stronghold of Darfur and over El Gezira state, south of Khartoum, a big farming area.
With the army now re-establishing its position in the capital, it is making a new push to cement its control in the centre of Sudan.
Islamist fighters attack Nigerian army base, military outpost
Suspected Islamist fighters launched coordinated attacks on an army base and a military outpost in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State, killing at least 15 people, security sources told Reuters.
Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (Iswap) fighters have mainly operated in the northeast of Nigeria, attacking security forces and civilians and killing and displacing tens of thousands of people.
In the latest assault, Boko Haram insurgents and Iswap fighters attacked an army base in the Wajiroko area of Borno State at about 2100 GMT on Monday and set military equipment on fire.
One of the soldiers in the Wajiroko brigade said that at least four soldiers had been killed and several others injured, including the brigade commander.
Between midnight and 3am local time on Tuesday, militants attacked a military outpost in Wulgo, a village about 12km from the Cameroonian border town of Fotokol, a military source who asked not to be named told Reuters.
He said at least 11 Cameroonians were killed and 21 injured in a raid that targeted soldiers who are fighting the insurgency as part of the Multinational Joint Task Force.
It was suspected that the fighters initially launched their attack using drones before advancing with a ground assault, added the military source.
“They looted an important stockpile of weapons,” said the source.
Videos shared on social media showed bloodied bodies lying on the ground after the attack, charred patrol vehicles and damaged buildings. Reuters could not independently verify those videos.
A Nigerian army spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. Cameroon’s army spokesperson Cyrille Serge Atonfack Guemo confirmed the attack but said the casualty figures were still unclear.
Makinta Modu, a member of the local militia recruited to help the army, said in the Wajiroko attack, militants overran an army “forward operation base”.
“Around 10.30pm, air force fighter jets came for reinforcement ... and killed many of the Iswap fighters that captured the military base,” said Modu. It was not clear whether the army had regained control over the base.
An Islamist insurgency has plagued the northeast of Africa’s most populous country for more than a decade, while kidnapping and banditry are rampant in the northwest and gang and separatist violence is common in the southeast.
Niger junta sets out five-year transition to constitutional rule
Niger’s junta said there would be a five-year transition to constitutional rule starting from Wednesday, in an announcement during a signing ceremony for a new transition charter.
Niger’s junta staged a coup in 2023 and ousted President Mohamed Bazoum. Like military rulers in Mali and Burkina Faso, Niger authorities went on to kick out French and other European forces and turned to Russia for support as they battle militant groups.
The time frame announced on Wednesday was in line with recommendations made in February by a commission following national discussions.
Zimbabwe president fires army chief ahead of planned protests
Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa acted to consolidate his hold on power with Tuesday’s dismissal of a senior general, say political analysts, amid growing fears of a possible coup by former allies.
Mnangagwa, who took charge after a military coup that ousted longtime ruler Robert Mugabe in 2017, is facing growing dissent within his Zanu-PF party, which has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence from Britain in 1980.
Some veterans of the southern African country’s war of independence have called for countrywide protests on 31 March to force Mnangagwa to step down. They accuse him of deepening the country’s economic crisis and plotting to extend his rule beyond 2028, when his second term is due to end.
Mnangagwa denies those accusations and on Wednesday warned against “people who want to disturb our peace” during a Zanu-PF meeting in the capital, Harare.
Analysts say Mnangagwa appears to be increasingly worried about his grip on power and has been trying to bolster his position by shaking up the military, police and intelligence leadership.
Tuesday’s removal of Anselem Sanyatwe, Zimbabwe’s second-most powerful general and head of the army, was the third such reshuffle by Mnangagwa in recent months. Mnangagwa also removed the chief of police and head of Zimbabwe’s intelligence service.
Political analyst Eldred Masunungure told the privately owned Newsday newspaper that Mnangagwa appeared to be “protecting himself against a potential coup”.
The anti-Mnangagwa war veterans want to replace him with Constantino Chiwenga, a retired general who led the coup against Mugabe and is now the country’s vice-president.
In his previous role as head of the presidential guard under Mugabe, Sanyatwe played a key role in the 2017 coup. He also oversaw the deployment of soldiers who shot dead six people and injured many others during post-election unrest in August 2018.
Sanyatwe, a close ally of Chiwenga, has been appointed sports minister, replacing Kirsty Coventry, who was elected president of the International Olympic Committee on 20 March.
Prince Harry quits his African charity in dispute with leader
Britain’s Prince Harry has quit as a patron of Sentebale, a British charity he set up to help young people with HIV and Aids in Lesotho and Botswana, following a dispute between trustees and the chair of the board that he called “devastating”.
Harry, the younger son of King Charles, co-founded Sentebale in honour of his mother, Princess Diana, in 2006, nine years after she was killed in a Paris car crash. Sentebale means “forget-me-not” in Sesotho.
Co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, as well as the board of trustees, joined Harry in leaving Sentebale until further notice following a dispute with chair Sophie Chandauka, who has reported the trustees to Britain’s Charity Commission.
“It is devastating that the relationship between the charity’s trustees and the chair of the board broke down beyond repair, creating an untenable situation,” Harry and Seeiso said in a joint statement published by British media on Wednesday.
Harry, who lives in California with his wife, Meghan, and two children, stopped working as a member of the royal family in 2020. He has been involved in charitable causes in Africa for many years and visited Nigeria last year.
The trustees had acted in the best interests of the charity in asking the chair to step down, said the joint statement.
Sentebale said it had not received resignations from its royal patrons.
In a statement, Chandauka said she would continue to perform her role.
“There are people in this world who behave as though they are above the law and mistreat people, and then play the victim card and use the very press they disdain to harm people who have the courage to challenge their conduct,” she said.
She added that underlying the “victim narrative and fiction” that she said had been fed to the media was “the story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle about issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir — and the cover-up that ensued”.
The Charity Commission said it was aware of concerns about Sentebale’s governance.
“We are assessing the issues to determine the appropriate regulatory steps,” said a spokesperson.
Norway temporarily shuts South Sudan embassy over security
Norway’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday it was temporarily shutting its embassy in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, due to the deteriorating security situation in the country.
South Sudan President Salva Kiir last week sacked the governor of Upper Nile state, where clashes have escalated between government troops and an ethnic militia he accuses of allying with his rival, First Vice-President Riek Machar.
The standoff has heightened concerns that the world’s newest nation could slide back into conflict some seven years after it emerged from a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people.
The Norwegian embassy’s work would be carried out from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, until further notice, said Norway’s foreign ministry in a statement, adding that the Juba mission would be reopened when the situation allowed it.
Kenya targets sustainable debt cuts amid IMF programme uncertainty
Kenya planned to cut its debt to below 55% of its GDP in the next two years, said Finance Minister John Mbadi on Wednesday, as the government awaits the outcome of its request for a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending programme.
Financial markets reacted negatively last week when it was announced that Kenya and the IMF had abandoned the final review of the East African nation’s current $3.6-billion support programme.
Mbadi said the government now planned to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio to 52.8% by the 2027/28 financial year from just over 58% currently. That would bring it under the 55% level considered sustainable by the IMF and World Bank’s debt carrying-capacity assessment.
“We are in times that are not very easy, and we must show commitment to solving this problem,” Mbadi told a meeting to discuss the government’s debt management strategy.
“The strategy to me is very simple. Number one is to consistently demonstrate that you are reducing your Budget deficit.”
To attain that, Kenya will tap external sources for a quarter of the gross borrowing needs in the 2025-28 period, he added, while three-quarters would come from domestic sources.
Kenya’s now-shelved IMF programme began in April 2021, but its implementation was hampered by anti-tax hike protests last year that forced President William Ruto’s government to abandon its plan to reduce this year’s fiscal deficit to 3.5%.
Spending pressures had, however, since forced a further expansion of the deficit to 4.9% of GDP, Chris Kiptoo, the principal secretary at the ministry, told the same meeting.
Egypt approves $91bn Budget for 2025/26
Egypt’s cabinet approved a 4.6 trillion Egyptian pound ($91-billion) draft state Budget for the financial year that will begin in July, said a government statement on Wednesday, as it continues to tighten its finances under an IMF programme.
Expenditures will rise by 18% and revenue by 19% over the current 2024/25 budget. Revenue is expected to hit 3.1 trillion pounds, working out to a deficit of about 1.5 trillion pounds ($30-billion).
The increased expenditure partly reflects elevated headline inflation, which was running at an annual 12.8% in February.
Financial reforms under an $8-billion financial reform programme signed in March 2024 with the International Monetary Fund have helped Egypt bring inflation down from a peak of 38% in September 2023.
The IMF this month approved the disbursement of $1.2-billion to Egypt after its fourth review of the programme.
The new Budget targets a primary surplus of 795 billion pounds, equal to 4% of GDP, up from the 3.5% primary surplus originally targeted in the 2024/25 budget.
The IMF granted the government a waiver in the fourth review after the surplus came in 0.5% of GDP lower than Egypt’s earlier commitment.
In its third review in June, the IMF praised Egypt for its “strict control of spending”.
Uganda’s $5bn pipeline gets funding boost
The company developing Uganda’s EACOP crude pipeline had closed the first allocation of external financing from a syndicate of institutions, including commercial banks and Afreximbank, said a statement from EACOP Ltd on Wednesday.
Among the financiers are Standard Bank, Stanbic Bank Uganda, KCB Bank Uganda and Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector.
“The successful closing of this first tranche represents a significant milestone,” said the statement. It did not provide a value for the financial backing.
In October, Uganda’s energy minister told Reuters that partners developing the $5-billion East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) were injecting more cash into the project to prevent it stalling as debt financing proved elusive.
Minister Ruth Nankabirwa had travelled to Beijing to meet with potential Chinese funders, seen as crucial for the success of EACOP after several Western banks, including BNP Paribas, Société Generale and Barclays, pledged not to finance the pipeline under pressure from climate activists.
Linking oilfields in Uganda to Tanga port in Tanzania, EACOP is part of a broader $15-billion energy plan by TotalEnergies China’s CNOOC and other partners to develop the Kingfisher and Tilenga discoveries close to Lake Albert.
A source briefed on the financing arrangement told Reuters on Wednesday that financiers were committed to funding the entire $5-billion project, with Chinese backing also secured.
“Oil companies that are already involved will take both equity and debt. The Chinese are in,” said the source. DM