Tunisia: Blocked border prevents Tunisians from returning home
Ras Jedir, Tunisia, April 21, 2020 – Hundreds of Tunisians stranded for weeks in war-racked Libya due to the coronavirus have returned home after forcing their way through a border crossing, the UN and aid groups said. Tunisia’s interior ministry denied...
Sahel: After Chad captured 58 Boko Haram suspects, 44 die mysteriously
By Ali Abba Kaya, Djimet Wiche, and Camille Malplat in Libreville: The deaths by apparent poisoning of 44 suspected Boko Haram jihadists in a Chad prison were shrouded in mystery on Sunday, with observers wondering whether they were murdered or had committed...
Sahel: Tense election runoff in Mali
Acts of intimidation and allegations of vote buying marred the final round of legislative elections in Mali on Sunday aimed at reviving confidence in embattled institutions despite a bloody jihadist conflict and a virus pandemic. In central Mali, the president of a...
Niger: Police arrest 108 protesters after unrest in Niamey, 10 sent to prison
Sahel: Extrajudicial killing of civilians in Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso’s security forces allegedly executed 31 unarmed detainees in the northern town of Djibo, Human Rights Watch said Monday, calling for an immediate investigation. The men, all from the Fulani ethnic group, were allegedly killed just hours after being...
Tunisia sees progressive easing of confinement after 3 May
Tunisia’s Prime Minister Elyes Fakhfakh has announced that a lockdown to fight the spread of coronavirus will be extended to May 3 before it is progressively eased. The situation will “soon be mastered”, Fakhfakh declared in a televised interview...
Africa: How to pay a country’s debt with cows
1159 issue: week ending 23 Apr. 2020 Angola has received a herd of more than 1,000 cattle from Chad, a government official said Monday, the latest shipment of an unusual debt repayment deal. The landlocked central African country, impoverished despite its oil...
Sahel: Unrest in Niamey’s Lazaret neighborhood over curfew
Niamey, April 20, 2020 – Clashes erupted in Niamey, the capital of the Sahel nation of Niger, over the government’s anti-coronavirus curfew and a ban on prayer gatherings, local inhabitants told AFP Monday. Violence broke out just after 8pm (1900 GMT) on...
Egypt: While fighting Covid-19, Egypt’s healthcare workers face public harassment
Cairo, April 21, 2020 -By Menna Zaki: After showing symptoms similar to those of the coronavirus, Egyptian doctor Ahmed Negm went into self-isolation in an old apartment, but before long he was hounded out by fearful neighbors. While health workers in many countries...
Government of Algeria attacks Internet news sites
April 20, 2020 – Algerian authorities have blocked a third online news website that covered the anti-government “Hirak” protest movement, stirring condemnation Monday from media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. RSF also voiced concern that a draft...
Africa reassesses its relations with China as Covid-19 exposes racial tensions
Abuja, April 14, 2020 (By Celia Lebur) – African countries are seething over accounts that Africans are battling stigma and discrimination in China over the coronavirus pandemic, apparently linked to a cluster of cases in the Nigerian community in the southern...
Algerian diplomat Lamamra withdraw from UN Libya envoy consideration
Algerian former foreign minister Ramtane Lamamra on Thursday ruled himself out of becoming the next UN envoy to Libya, after diplomats said Washington opposed his nomination. In a statement to the Algerian press, Lamamra said he had been invited last month by UN...
Algeria: Prisoners to make face masks
Algiers, April 17, 2020 – Inmates at 30 Algerian prisons are being mobilised to make personal protective equipment to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, official news agency APS reported. Authorities will “open sewing workshops for the production of...
Tunisia: A Tunisian initiative to identify potential Covid-19 carriers
Tunis, April 17, 2020 – Tunisian engineers have created a web-based platform that scans lung X-rays and evaluates whether patients are likely to be suffering from the novel coronavirus. While it’s not the first initiative of its kind in the world, its...
Egypt: Insurgents strike in Cairo, killing one soldier and wounding others
Cairo, April 14, 2020 – An Egyptian policeman was killed and three others wounded in a shootout Tuesday with armed militants in Cairo, the interior ministry said in a statement. A “terrorist cell” was intending to attack Christians in southern and...
Algeria’s political police continue to arrest civilians for their opinions
The fall of the notorious General Wassini Bouazza, former head of an equally notorious secret police, has done nothing to slow the level of repression suffered by the Algeria people in the hands of the generals in charge. Repression and judicial harassment against...
Libya: Warlord Khalifa Haftar unleashes terror on Tripoli population
Tripoli, April 14, 2020 – The forces of Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar rained rockets on the capital Tripoli early Tuesday after being ousted by government loyalists from a string of towns to its west. Salvo after salvo of rockets caused loud...
Egypt: Policeman killed in shoot out with militants in Cairo
Cairo, April 14, 2020 – An Egyptian policeman was killed and another wounded in a shootout Tuesday with armed militants in Cairo, a security source said. “National security received a tip-off that there was an apartment full of terrorists… An...
Algeria: Clan warfare inside military command rages, turmoil in intel agencies (s)
One of the most hated Generals in the Algerian military high command, General Bouazza Wassini, has been dismissed and reported to be on the run. Wassini, a man with no experience in intelligence but with a massive ego and ambitions, headed the Internal Security...
Morocco: People helping people in time of pandemic
Casablanca, Morocco, April 12, 2020 – A small van zips through the streets of Casablanca to deliver food to single mothers, as economic paralysis caused by the coronavirus crisis puts pressure on Morocco’s poor. “We have to be quick,” says...
Libya: Khalifa Haftar’s forces cut off water supply to Tripoli, millions of civilians at risk
Tripoli, April 11, 2020 – Water has been cut off to millions of Libyans living in and around the capital Tripoli, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the country said, condemning its use as a “weapon of war”. “More than two million people,...
Tragedy at sea: 85 migrants missing in the Mediterranean
Rome, April 12, 2020 – Europe’s coast guard agency said Sunday it was looking for a dinghy believed to be carrying dozens of migrants when it went missing after setting sail from Libya for Italy. The UN refugee agency told AFP it was “very...
Morocco: Mass arrests for non-compliance with confinement rules
Rabat, April 13, 2020 – More than 4,300 people were arrested over the weekend in Morocco for breaching emergency rules in place to combat the novel coronavirus, according to official figures. More than half of those detained were taken into police custody. ...
Egypt: Covid-19′ new challenge: where to bury the dead
Cairo, April 11, 2020 – Egyptian police arrested a dozen people and fired tear gas in a Nile Delta village Saturday, as a crowd protested the burial of a COVID-19 victim, a security source said. Relatives had taken the body of a retired doctor from her home in...
Algeria: Oil prices, virus, instability put Algeria on edge
Algiers, April 12, 2020 (By Amal Belalloufi with Philippe Agret in Tunis) – Algeria faces economic and social turmoil if crude prices continue to collapse, experts have warned, with the oil-dependent country reeling from a year of popular protests, political...
Setback in fight against Boko Haram: Chad to withdraw from regional force
N’Djamena, April 10, 2020 – Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno has said his country’s troops, who have been deployed to fight jihadists in the Lake Chad region and the Sahel, will no longer take part in military operations outside national borders. ...
Tunisia gets emergency loan from the IMF
April 10, 2020 – The International Monetary Fund on Friday approved a $745 million emergency loan for Tunisia as it continues to roll out an unprecedented number of aid packages to countries battling the coronavirus. “These resources will help address...
The coronavirus in the Sahel
Bamako – By Amaury Hauchard with Armel Baily in Ouagadougou: The rise of coronavirus in the war-torn Sahel has sparked sharp fears for the region’s hundreds of thousands of displaced people, often packed inside camps. “If we have coronavirus here, it...
Niger: More than 60 insurgents and four soldiers killed in clash in Tillaberi
Public health: Inside North Africa’s healthcare systems
By Hamza Mekouar: The coronavirus pandemic has put the spotlight on shortcomings in health care in several North African countries, even as governments moved quickly to announce restrictions to limit the spread of the virus. “Our fate is in the hands of a...
Egypt: Prison inmates still unprotected against Covid-19
Cairo, April 9, 2020 – An Egyptian rights group said Thursday it had filed a lawsuit against authorities demanding that relatives of a jailed journalist be allowed to provide him with medical supplies to protect against coronavirus. The Cairo-based Association...
Sahel: Intense fighting in Lake Chad, dozens killed in Chad-Boko Haram conflict
N’Djamena, April 9, 2020 – The Chadian army said Thursday it had wound up an offensive against Boko Haram jihadists in the Lake Chad border region in which 52 troops and 1,000 jihadists were killed. Army spokesman Colonel Azem Bermendoa Agouna told AFP...
Food supply: The struggle to maintain normalcy in time of pandemic
Algiers, April 9, 2020 (By Abdellah Cheballah) – From an acute shortage of regional staple couscous to a surge of confidence tricks and counterfeiting, authorities in North Africa have been busy tackling coronavirus challenges that go beyond healthcare. For the...
Diplomacy: No new UN envoys yet for Libya and Western Sahara crises
United Nations, United States, April 8, 2020 – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has begun searching for a new envoy to Libya, diplomatic sources said Wednesday, after the United States refused to endorse the previous candidate. Former Algerian foreign...
Morocco to get IMF loan to soften impact of coronavirus on the economy
Rabat, April 8, 2020 – Morocco on Wednesday announced it has started to draw on a $3-billion credit line from the International Monetary Fund to offset a contraction of its economy because of the coronavirus pandemic. The five-year loan has a grace period of...
Tunisia’s zero-tolerance stance on those breaching containment measures
Tunis, April 7, 2020 – Tunisia’s interior ministry warned Tuesday that people infected with coronavirus could be prosecuted for manslaughter if they contaminate others by disobeying the health ministry’s instructions. “If someone who is sick...
Egypt: Looming social unrest
Cairo, April 8, 2020 (By Farid Farid) – Haggard and dishevelled from the stress of making ends meet, day labourers line up in Cairo for food parcels after losing their jobs to the sharp downturn caused by the coronavirus. Sayed Shaaban, 42, who used to work in a...
Egypt maintains night-time curfew until at least April 23
Cairo, April 8, 2020 – Egypt will extend a nationwide night-time curfew by a further two weeks in a bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli said on Wednesday. He told a news conference the measure would be enforced from 8:00...