Sudan on Wednesday strongly denied that its army had opened fire on a United Nations convoy that was attacked in Darfur days after peacekeepers began their new mission to the troubled western Sudanese region. A Sudanese driver was critically injured, a fuel tanker truck destroyed and an armoured personnel carrier damaged late on Monday.
President Mwai Kibaki’s appointment of a partial Cabinet sparked more violence in Kenya overnight as the African Union (AU) began talks on Wednesday to end post-election turmoil. After a lull in clashes sparked by Kibaki’s disputed re-election on December 27, he named 17 ministers late on Tuesday.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki announced part of his new Cabinet on Tuesday, including Amos Kimunya as Finance Minister, amid a political crisis that has cost nearly 500 lives. Meanwhile, opposition leader Raila Odinga has rejected bilateral talks with Kibaki, dimming hopes for a breakthrough to end the turmoil.
African Union chief John Kufuor was due in Nairobi on Tuesday on a crucial mission to broker talks between Kenya’s rival leaders and end the political turmoil that has claimed hundreds of lives. Ahead of Kufuor’s arrival, President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga jousted with various proposals that would allow the two men to sit down together.
Kenya’s opposition said on Tuesday it would only hold talks with President Mwai Kibaki as part of international mediation efforts to end post-election unrest. The head of the African Union, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, was due to arrive in Nairobi on Tuesday in a push for dialogue between Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga.
Up to 1Â 000 people may have died in more than a week of riots and post-election violence in Kenya, opposition leader Raila Odinga said on Monday. The head of the African Union, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, is due to land in Nairobi on Tuesday. Odinga said Kufuor could begin chairing talks on Wednesday.
The threat of open conflict between Sudan and neighbouring Chad is rising, with each side accusing the other of seeking to destabilise their already tense common border. Sudan said on Sunday it was ready for any Chadian attack the day after Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno said his forces would pursue rebels into Sudan’s region of Darfur.
Kenya opposition leader Raila Odinga said on Monday he had called off protests because a "mediation process" to resolve the political crisis that has killed nearly 500 people was about to begin. "We are now assured that the mediation process is about to start," Odinga told reporters after meeting United States envoy Jendayi Frazer.
Kenyans across the political divide prayed for peace on Sunday while aid workers sought to bring relief to nearly 200 000 refugees from post-election violence. ”Our leaders have failed us. They have brought this catastrophe upon us. So now we are turning to the Almighty to save Kenya,” said Jane Riungu, leading her five children to a hilltop church.
Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno on Saturday threatened to pursue and strike Chadian rebels inside neighbouring Sudan and repeated charges that Khartoum was trying to destabilise his country. Déby claimed his forces had already driven out the rebels from Chad and said: ”We’re going to destroy them in their nest inside Sudan.”
United Nations agencies have expressed increasing concern for the plight of up to 250 000 Kenyans displaced by post-election violence, as international diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis continued. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that at least 100 000 people in the northern Rift Valley alone needed immediate help.
Huge numbers of Kenyan police deployed on Friday to block an opposition rally in Nairobi as Washington sent its top Africa diplomat to help resolve a post-election crisis that has claimed more then 350 lives. On Thursday, police had used water cannon and tear gas to disperse opposition supporters marching on the city centre for a "million-man" rally.
Supporters of Kenyan opposition chief Raila Odinga were on Friday set to defy a ban on a rally in the capital, Nairobi, as international pressure for an end to the political crisis mounted. The death toll from in post-election violence has already climbed past 350.
Defeated Kenyan opposition presidential candidate Raila Odinga was set Thursday to press his claims of vote fraud at a rally declaring him "the people’s president" despite threats of arrest, as the toll from post-election violence climbed above 340. The government has banned the Nairobi protest rally, one week after the election, over fears of further violence.
Diplomatic efforts accelerated on Wednesday to resolve the crisis in Kenya, where post-election violence has threatened to escalate into tribal war, with tens of thousands displaced and hundreds murdered. The dispute over last week’s presidential ballot has triggered Kenya’s worst urban unrest in 25 years.
President Mwai Kibaki’s government accused rival Raila Odinga’s backers on Wednesday of responsibility for an explosion of tribal violence over a disputed presidential poll that has plunged Kenya into turmoil. ”Supporters of Raila Odinga are involved in ethnic cleansing,” said spokesperson Alfred Mutua.
No image available
/ 26 December 2007
Two heavyweights of Kenya’s post-independence politics square off in a presidential vote on Thursday after a campaign that has overshadowed Christmas and seen the opposition holding a small lead in opinion polls. The closeness of the vote has raised fears that fraud and intimidation may be used to try to swing results.
No image available
/ 25 December 2007
Diplomatic wrangling dashed hopes for an end to the killing and rape in Darfur this year and a new United Nations-backed peacekeeping mission scheduled to start on January 1 faces an uphill struggle. The combined effects of war and famine have killed at least 200 000 people with more than two million displaced.
No image available
/ 24 December 2007
Two heavyweights of Kenya’s post-independence politics square off in a presidential vote on Thursday whose run-up has seen the opposition hold a small lead in opinion polls over President Mwai Kibaki. But the closeness of the vote has raised fears fraud and intimidation may be used to try to swing the result.
No image available
/ 24 December 2007
A first contingent of 100 peacekeepers from Burundi deployed in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Sunday, hours after fighting between Islamist rebels and government forces killed at least four people. The arrival of the soldiers marked the first phase of long-delayed support for 1 600 Ugandan troops.
No image available
/ 9 December 2007
German Chancellor Angela Merkel directly confronted Robert Mugabe over human rights abuses in front of European and African leaders in Portugal on Saturday, putting the Zimbabwean leader under the spotlight at a summit that has been overshadowed by the despot’s presence.
No image available
/ 8 December 2007
Leaders of Europe and Africa opened a landmark summit on Saturday designed to forge a new partnership of equals, but with strains showing over trade and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s presence. ”We are here … to write a new page in the history of Europe and Africa,” Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said in an inaugural address.
No image available
/ 7 December 2007
His arrival may have been low-key, but veteran Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is likely to steal the spotlight at this weekend’s European Union-Africa summit with his first trip to Europe in more than two years. Usually the subject of a travel ban from the EU, Mugabe touched down in Lisbon late on Thursday.
No image available
/ 7 December 2007
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf said on Friday he was in good health after recovering from a bout of pneumonia, and laughed off a flurry of reports he was near death. ”I’m fine, I am OK,” Yusuf said in an exclusive interview from his hospital bed in Nairobi. ”I had pneumonia, but the doctors have taken it out [treated it] and I am well now,” he said.
No image available
/ 5 December 2007
The United States and Africa’s Great Lakes states agreed on Wednesday to rapidly strengthen Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) security forces in their drive against rebel and foreign forces. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave no details when she announced the agreement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
No image available
/ 5 December 2007
Africa cannot stop the European Union (EU) if it wants to discuss the issue of Zimbabwe during the weekend’s European-African summit in Lisbon, Portugal, South African Foreign Affairs Deputy-Director General Gert Grobler said on Wednesday. He said that Zimbabwe was not part of the agreed agenda.
No image available
/ 5 December 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Ethiopia on Wednesday for talks with African leaders aimed at tackling long-running conflicts in the volatile Great Lakes region, Somalia and Sudan. On only her second trip in two years to sub-Saharan Africa, Rice said she wanted to move international efforts forward to resolve those conflicts.
No image available
/ 5 December 2007
Zimbabwe’s former colonial master lost the stand-off over whether he or the British prime minister would attend an upcoming European-African summit, Robert Mugabe declared on Tuesday. Mugabe also said his nation, suffering chronic shortages of basic goods and worsening power and water outages, continued to defy predictions of economic collapse and social upheaval.
No image available
/ 4 December 2007
Ethiopia has warned that the world’s disinterest in sending peacekeepers to Somalia was dampening hopes of achieving peace in the shattered African nation. Of the 8 000 peacekeepers the African Union pledged to send to bolster President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed’s weak government, only 1 500 Ugandan troops are actually on the ground.
No image available
/ 3 December 2007
The United Nations’s top aid official, John Holmes, arrived in Somalia on Monday, calling for more to be done to help the Horn of Africa country where almost 6 000 civilians have been killed in fighting this year. UN officials say Somalia’s humanitarian crisis is Africa’s worst, with one million people displaced.
No image available
/ 30 November 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Ethiopia next week for meetings on the conflicts in the volatile African Great Lakes region and Sudan and Somalia, said the State Department on Thursday. Rice, a rare visitor to the African continent, will make her third trip to sub-Saharan Africa since becoming Secretary of State in 2005.
No image available
/ 30 November 2007
President Thabo Mbeki will receive an African Union report into the country’s governance standards on Wednesday next week, the Ministry of Public Service and Administration said on Friday. Mbeki had to postpone a handover ceremony at his office on Thursday because of other urgent government matters.