International

Chad’s President Idriss Deby Itno died in combat after three decades in power, the army said yesterday, opening a period of uncertainty in a country that is a key strategic ally of the West in a troubled region. His son was immediately named transitional leader as head of a military council and both the government and parliament were dissolved, but the army vowed “free and democratic” elections after an 18-month transitional period. The army said Deby had died from injuries sustained as he led his troops against rebels who launched an offensive against his regime from Libya last week. Chad had claimed victory against the fighters, but soon after the announcement of Deby’s death, they vowed to pursue their offensive and march on the capital N’Djamena. The shock news came just a day after the 68-year-old career military man was proclaimed the winner of a presidential election that gave him a sixth term in office. The army also announced a curfew and border closures, while a state funeral was planned for Friday. Deby, often called “marshal” due to his military rank, had ruled Chad since taking power on the back of a coup in 1990, and often put members of his family and ethnic group in key positions in government and the military. He was nonetheless a key ally in the West’s anti-militant campaign in the unstable Sahel region, particularly due to the relative strength of Chad’s military and its ability to supply weaponry and soldiers. Former colonial power France hailed Deby as an “essential ally in the fight against terrorism” and called for a peaceful transition over a limited timeframe. Following the announcement of Deby’s death, presidential guard officers in civilian clothes roamed N’Djamena with walkie-talkies and handguns. Police in black uniforms and masks were also on the streets, although the military presence was no more intensive than since the rebel offensive began in northern Chad on April 11, the day of the presidential election. The army said Deby had been commanding his forces at the weekend as they battled rebel Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT). Deby “has just breathed his last breath defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield,” army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement read out on state television. He said Deby had died yesterday, but the presidency later gave the date as Monday. The army said a military council led by the late president’s 37-year-old son Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, a four-star general, would replace him. Deby’s son oversaw his father’s security as head of the elite presidential guard and often appeared alongside him, wearing the force’s red beret, dark glasses and military fatigues. On Monday, the army claimed a “great victory” against FACT, saying it had killed more than 300 rebels and captured 150 more, with the loss of five soldiers. But FACT spokesman Kingabe Ogouzeimi de Tapol said that the rebels would continue the offensive after a short delay for Deby’s funeral. “We categorically reject the transition,” he said. The rebels had earlier claimed that Deby had been wounded — a report that could not be confirmed. Ministers and high-ranking military brass had said Monday that Deby was in the region on Saturday and Sunday after the rebel offensive. Deby was among the world’s longest-serving leaders and had on previous occasions gone to the frontlines as government forces battled rebels. Provisional results released Monday showed him winning re-election with almost 80% of the vote against nine challengers. His victory had never been in doubt, with a divided opposition, boycott calls, and a campaign in which demonstrations were banned or dispersed. Deby was a herder’s son from the Zaghawa ethnic group who took the classic path to power through the army. He had campaigned for the latest election on a promise of bringing peace and security to the troubled region, but his pledges were undermined by the rebel incursion.The government had sought Monday to assure concerned residents that the offensive in the provinces of Tibesti and Kanem was over. Panic had been triggered in some areas of N’Djamena on Monday after tanks were seen on main roads, an AFP journalist reported. They were later withdrawn apart from a perimeter around the president’s office. Much remains unclear regarding the rebel action, which had led several nations including the United States and Britain to advise their nationals to leave.

* Deby killed with troops on frontline * Important Western ally in fight against militants * Son named interim president * Ruled for more than 30 years and just won another disputed election   Chad's President Idriss Deby, who ruled his country for more than 30 years and was an important Western ally in the fight against militants in Africa, has been killed on the frontline in a battle against rebels in the north. His son, Mahamat Kaka, was named interim president by a transitional council of military officers, army spokesman Azem Bermendao Agouna said on state television. Deby, 68, came to power in a rebellion in 1990 and was one of Africa's longest-ruling leaders, surviving numerous coup attempts and rebellions. His death could potentially deepen Chad's problems, and those of its allies. On the domestic front, the military is divided and the opposition bridling against years of repressive rule. Mahamat Idriss Deby, also known as Mahamat Kaka, named interim president by a transitional council of military officers, is seen during a news conference in Ndjamena, Chad. Internationally, France and the United States will be hoping that their counter-terrorism efforts are not now pushed off course. France said it had lost "brave friend" and Chad "a great soldier". He was killed just after he was declared winner of a presidential election that would have given him a sixth term in office. Most of the opposition boycotted the vote. Deby - who often joined soldiers on the battlefront in his military fatigues - visited troops on the frontline on Monday after rebels based across the northern frontier in Libya advanced hundreds of km south toward the capital N'Djamena. "Marshal Idriss Deby Itno, as he did each time that the institutions of the republic were gravely threatened, took control of operations during the heroic combat led against the terrorists from Libya. He was wounded during the fighting and died once repatriated to N'Djamena," Bermendao said. The government and National Assembly have been dissolved and a nationwide curfew imposed from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. "The National Council of Transition reassures the Chadian people that all measures have been taken to guarantee peace, security and the republican order," Bermendao said. Deby had pushed through a new constitution in 2018 that would have allowed him to stay in power until 2033. He took the title of Marshal last year and said before last week's election: "I know in advance that I will win, as I have done for the last 30 years." He was dealing with mounting public discontent over his management of Chad's oil wealth and crackdowns on opponents. In the election results announced on Monday, Deby claimed 79% of the vote. A Reuters reporter in N'Djamena said people were in a panic as news of his death spread, fearing that fighting could break out in the city. Many were fleeing to the outskirts and roads were jammed with traffic. Western countries had counted on Deby as an ally in the fight against militants, including Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin and groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State in the Sahel. France, the former colonial power, had based its Sahel counter-terrorism operations in N'Djamena. Chad had announced in February the deployment of 1,200 troops to complement 5,100 French soldiers in the area. The French presidency praised Deby fulsomely and affirmed its support for Chad's stability and territorial integrity. In a statement, it noted the formation of the interim council headed by Mahamat Kaka but said it hoped there would be a quick and peaceful return to civilian rule. But Déby's death could mean tremendous uncertainty for Chad, said Nathaniel Powell, author of a history of French military involvement in Chad. "The swift announcement of the establishment of a military council and naming his son Mahamat as head of state however indicates regime continuity," Powell told Reuters. "This probably aims to counter any coup-making efforts from within the security establishment and to reassure Chad's international partners...that they can still count on the country for its continued contributions to international counter-terrorist efforts in the Sahel." The latest rebel actions had already caused alarm in Washington and other Western capitals. The rebel group Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), which is based across the northern frontier with Libya, attacked a border post on election day and then advanced hundreds of kilometres south through the vast country. But the Chadian military appeared to have slowed its advance about 300 km from N'Djamena. The rebels acknowledged on Monday they suffered losses on Saturday but said they were back on the move on Sunday and Monday. Déby had joined the army in the 1970s when Chad was engaged in a long-running civil war. He received military training in France and returned to Chad in 1978, throwing his support behind President Hissène Habré and eventually becoming commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He seized power in 1990, leading a rebel army in a three-week offensive staged from neighbouring Sudan to topple Habre, a man accused of widespread human rights abuses. A regional diplomat said the naming of Deby's son as interim president was problematical as the speaker of parliament should have taken power on his death. "That in itself is a coup," the diplomat told Reuters. "He has been grooming the son for some time. They will continue to face the rebellion. Deby had his hand in many things in the Sahel. His death disrupts things."

A blaze advanced along South Africa’s iconic Table Mountain towards central Cape Town yesterday after ravaging university buildings, while firefighters battled strong winds in their efforts to control it and officials evacuated residential areas. The fire broke out Sunday morning in the foothills of the mountain and spread to the University of Cape Town (UCT), destroying buildings and part of a library housing a unique collection of African archives, while causing students to flee. The blaze had been largely contained yesterday, but firefighters were still battling to control it. Cape Town mayor Dan Plato said efforts were currently focused on the mountain above the Vredehoek suburb, with residents being evacuated “as a precautionary measure”. “Strong winds are placing pressure on firefighting staff as it shifts the direction of the fire,” Plato told reporters. Aerial firefighting support has been forced to remain aground due to the wind. The cause of the fire is under investigation, with one suspect taken into custody overnight, city official safety chief JP Smith said. Flames have already destroyed the Rhodes Memorial Restaurant, private homes and historical structures such as the 18th century Mostert’s Hill windmill. “It is not only the historic buildings themselves that have been lost, but their contents and collections,” said the Cape Town Heritage trust in a statement written from an office “enveloped in a pall of smoke”. At least three UCT buildings have suffered major damage, including the African studies section of the library – named after South African businessman and benefactor John William Jagger – and its parquet-floored reading room. “Some of our valuable collections have been lost,” wrote the head of UCT Libraries Ujala Satgoor in a Facebook post, adding that a full assessment of the damage had yet to be carried out. Photos accompanying the post showed flames and smoke billowing from the roof and windows of the 1930s column-lined building. No casualties have been reported so far apart from four firefighters who have been injured. Thick smoke hovered over a deserted UCT campus yesterday, blocked off to students and staff. One student, 20-year-old Kosmas Joannou, walked over from his nearby home to gauge the situation. Dozens of terrified students had fled their dormitories on foot the previous day, spilling out along the main road. “It was just horrible,” Joannou said. The sky “was orange, there was ash everywhere and everyone was screaming. It was chaos.” Joannou, a student in business studies, added: “All the history that was lost in the library, that destroys me.” Hundreds of students housed closer to the blaze have been moved to temporary accommodation, with donors sending food and other essentials. “All my readings are there,” said social sciences student Mpho Mogale, 19, evacuated to a hotel with only the t-shirt, trousers and flip-flops he was wearing. “I have assignments to submit,” he worried, biting into a slice of toast. “I don’t know how we are going to work,” he added. “Since all the library is burnt...I don’t know how we are going to read.” Anthropology researcher Jess Auerback, who graduated from UCT in 2008, remembered the Jagger library as “one of the most inspiring places on campus”. “It was a place where as an African undergrad you could go and see the magnitude of the richness and knowledge (from the continent),” she said via telephone.

Ethnic violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo's central region of Great Kasai has forced more than 20,000 people to flee their homes since late March, the UN's refugee agency said Friday. "According to local authorities, an estimated 21,000 Congolese -- mainly women and children -- have been displaced since 28 March by clashes between Luba and Kuba ethnic groups in Kasai's Bakwa-Kenge locality," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement. "There have also been reports of at least 13 people being killed, many left injured and 190 houses burnt to the ground." The two groups are locked in a decades-long dispute over land. The vast Kasai region is still recovering from fighting in 2016-2017 sparked by the death of a local chief, Kamuina Nsapu, by the DRC security forces. An insurrection by his followers triggered a conflict that claimed 3,400 lives, left 1.4 million people internally displaced and prompted 35,000 others to flee to neighbouring Angola.

At least 21 migrants from Africa died when their boat sank off Tunisia as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to the Italian island of Lampedusa, a Tunisian official said on Friday. "The boat sank during a trip that started late on Thursday from (the town of) Sfax... So far, the coastguard has recovered 21 bodies and the search is still continuing," Mouard Mechri, director of Tunisia's civil protection service, told Reuters. Last month 39 migrants died off the coast of Sfax, a Tunisian port city, in a similar accident. The coastline near Sfax has become a major departure point for people fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East and seeking a better life in Europe.

As many as 65,000 people have fled the northeastern Nigeria town of Damasak following a series of militant attacks, the UN refugee agency said on Friday. Fighters from the so-called Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) stormed the town in Borno state three times in a week to strike a military garrison, burning homes and a UN office and killing at least 12 people. In the latest violence on Wednesday, militants attacked the garrison before being forced back into the town itself, military sources and residents said. "Following the latest attack on Wednesday 14 April, the third in seven days, up to 80 percent of the town's population -- which includes the local community and internally displaced people -- were forced to flee," UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said. Some have fled towards the regional capital Maiduguri and other nearby towns while others have crossed the border into Niger's Diffa region, itself vulnerable to militant violence. "Due to insecurity, however, humanitarian access is increasingly challenging in many parts of Nigeria's Borno State, including for UNHCR staff, who were forced to temporarily relocate out of Damasak in the past seven days," the UNHCR said. Nigeria's army dismissed reports militants had overrun Damasak and said on Thursday troops were in control of the area. At least four people, including a soldier, were killed in an attack Monday. The UN said eight others were killed Wednesday, while locals said ten bodies were burried and 20 people were injured. The attacks have underscored the militants' continued ability to hit the armed forces more than a decade into Nigeria's grinding insurgency. More than 36,000 have been killed and two million displaced by the fighting in Nigeria that has spread into neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger. Damasak is host to one of the military's so-called "super camps" -- fortified garrisons the army has set up in an attempt to better defend against attacks. Critics and local residents say the strategy to close smaller bases and pull back into larger camps has left militants freer to roam unchallenged in rural areas. Due to worsening security in the region, humanitarian workers are struggling to provide aid, with the number of people requiring urgent assistance expected to rise to 8.7 million this year. ISWAP, which split from the militant group Boko Haram in 2016, has become a dominant threat in Nigeria, attacking soldiers and bases while killing and kidnapping civilians.

Sudan's prime minister has invited his Egyptian and Ethiopian counterparts to a closed meeting to discuss the long-running dispute over Addis Ababa's mega-dam on the Blue Nile, his office said. Last week, talks involving the three countries hosted by the African Union chair, Congo, failed to reach a binding agreement over the operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and the filling of its vast reservoir. Ever since construction began in 2011, Egypt has regarded the dam as an existential threat to its water supplies, while Khartoum fears its own dams would be harmed if Ethiopia fills the reservoir without a deal. "Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok invited his Egyptian counterpart Mostafa Madbouli and Ethiopian counterpart Abiy Ahmed to a summit within 10 days to evaluate the negotiations regarding GERD," the premier's office said in a statement late Tuesday. It said Hamdok expressed concern the dam's construction had reached an advanced stage, making "reaching a deal before the start of operation an urgent and pressing matter". The statement said the planned summit will be held by videoconference. Last week, Ethiopia offered to share data with Egypt and Sudan, but the proposal was rejected by Khartoum and Cairo which complained of "fallacies" in the figures and an "unacceptable tendency" by Addis Ababa to take unilateral steps. Ethiopia insists the power produced by the huge hydro-electric project is indispensable for its development. But Egypt and Sudan have been pushing for a binding agreement before Ethiopia completes the filling of the dam's vast reservoir which it began last year. The tensions over the dam come as Sudan's relations with Egypt warm while its relations with Ethiopia have been hit by a dispute over the use of farmland near the common border.

Libya’s new unity government launched a long-delayed Covid-19 vaccination programme yesterday after receiving some 160,000 vaccine doses over the past week, with the prime minister receiving his jab on live television. While Libya is richer than its neighbours due to oil exports, the country’s healthcare system has been strained by years of political turmoil and violence, and it has struggled to cope during the pandemic. Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh called it a “blessed day” in the fight against Covid-19 after receiving his shot, without saying which vaccine he had been given. At least 100,000 of the doses that arrived this week were Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. Dbeibeh’s interim Government of National Unity was sworn in last month after emerging through a UN-facilitated process with a mandate to unify the country, improve state services and oversee the run-up to a national election in December. Dbeibeh’s government has framed the delivery of vaccines and the national roll-out as evidence that it is improving the lives of ordinary Libyans after replacing two warring administrations that ruled in the east and west of the country. “Through the political consultations and the efforts of the prime minister, the vaccine is available,” said Health Minister Ali al-Zanati, who has said previously the government had so far ordered enough doses to inoculate 1.4mn of the country’s more than 6mn people. Libya’s National Centre for Disease Control has said more than 400,000 people have registered for vaccination in more than 400 centres around the country. Libya has recorded more than 166,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 3,000 deaths, though UN envoys have said the true figures are likely far higher. “I feel sorry that the vaccine arrived late in Libya after thousands were infected. But better late than never,” said Ali al-Hadi, a shop owner, adding that his wife had been sick with Covid-19 and recovered. Many Libyans fear the vaccination campaign could be marred by political infighting or favouritism after years of unrest. “We hope the Health Ministry will steer away from political conflicts so that services can reach patients,” said housewife Khawla Mohamed, 33.

About 40 passengers were burned alive when a bus overturned and caught fire in western Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday, an official said. The accident occurred near the village of Kiwawa, a six-hour drive east of the capital Kinshasa, Kwilu province governor Willy Itshundala said. "Almost nothing can be recovered," Itshundala told Reuters by telephone. "Out of 31 survivors, nine are seriously injured." Videos shared on social media showed the vehicle on its side, its undercarriage burning and fruit spilled across the road. Reuters was not able to verify the footage.

A government panel of experts is investigating for any domestic cases of blood clotting, even mild ones, as a side effect of the two Covid-19 vaccines being administered in India, financial daily Mint reported on Friday, citing two people aware of the development. India is currently administering AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine, which is manufactured by the Serum Institute and branded Covishield, and a shot developed by Bharat Biotech called COVAXIN. The review comes after Europe's drug regulator said on Wednesday it found a possible link between AstraZeneca's vaccine and rare blood clotting issues in adults who had received the shot, although it added the vaccine's advantages still outweighed the risks. India is banking on vaccinations to help contain a record surge in cases in its second wave. The country reported a massive 126,789 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday. ‘We are looking at side-effects of blood clots that have been seen in people who received Covishield and Covaxin, even if it was a mild case,’ a source told Mint, who added that a report on it was likely to be ready by next week. Following Europe's announcement, several countries have announced restrictions on the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in younger people.  

Voting began Friday in Djibouti where Ismail Omar Guelleh is seeking an all but assured fifth term as president of the small but strategically located nation he has ruled for 22 years. Some 215,000 citizens are registered to vote in the ballot pitting Guelleh, 73, against a little-known businessman widely seen to pose little threat to the strongman, who inherited power in 1999. Polling stations opened at 6:00 am (0300 GMT) across the arid Horn of Africa nation, which overlooks one of the world's busiest trade routes at the crossroads between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. ‘I am always the first to vote. I am a Djiboutian, I have to vote,’ said 64-year-old Ahmed Abdillah Hadi after casting his ballot at a polling station in the capital city. ‘I am with President Ismail. I voted for him, I love him.’ Election observers said the process was rolling out smoothly, although voters were in no rush to cast their ballots. ‘In general, the morning is quite calm. It's the beginning of the weekend, people take their time,’ said Gouled Ahmed Youssouf, who heads one of the nearly 530 polling stations in the capital. Voting closes at 7:00 pm and the results are expected by the evening. Djibouti's main opposition parties boycotted the vote, leaving Zakaria Ismail Farah, a 56-year-old political newcomer and importer of cleaning products, as Guelleh's only challenger. Campaign posters were scarce in the capital, where most of Djibouti's one million people reside. Guelleh, who has clinched at least 75 percent of the vote in every presidential election he has contested, held his final campaign rally on Wednesday, urging voters to turn out in large numbers. Supporters in the packed stadium donned T-shirts emblazoned with his popular initials IOG but few wore face masks, despite Djibouti experiencing a recent surge in Covid-19 cases. Under Guelleh, the country has exploited its geographical advantage, investing heavily in ports and logistics infrastructure. In 2018, seeking to become a trade and logistics hub, the country launched the first phase of what will be Africa's biggest free-trade zone, financed by China. Mohamed Assad, an unemployed 23-year-old, said Guelleh had a strong record on the economy and he planned on voting for the veteran leader. ‘But I ask you Mr President to help the youth to have a great future. I ask for help for those who are like me,’ he said. - Iron fist -Flanked by Somalia and opposite Yemen, Djibouti has remained stable in a volatile neighbourhood, drawing foreign military powers such as former colonial ruler France, the United States and China to establish bases there. But the country has also seen an erosion of press freedom and a crackdown on dissent as it has courted foreign interest. Guelleh, and his extended family, have controlled Djibouti with an iron fist since he was handed power. A rare wave of opposition protests in 2020 were brutally suppressed. His predicted fifth term will be his last, under a 2010 constitutional reform that scrapped term limits while introducing an age limit of 75, which would lock him out of future elections. Farah -- who had to renounce his dual French citizenship to join the race -- complained he was not offered security services for his rallies. He had styled himself as the ‘flag bearer of poor Djiboutians’ and held a few small rallies before cancelling the rest in the days before the polls. The country's economy shrank by one percent in 2020, but is expected to grow seven percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. Djibouti's GDP per capita income is about $3,500, higher than much of sub-Saharan Africa, but some 20 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty and 26 percent are unemployed, according to the World Bank.    

One person was killed and at least five were wounded by gunfire yesterday, local officials and witnesses said, after troops in Benin cleared protesters in a flashpoint city days before President Patrice Talon seeks re-election. Protests have erupted in the West African country’s opposition bastions ahead of Sunday’s vote, which critics say is skewed in Talon’s favour after the main opposition leaders were sidelined in a crackdown. A column of military vehicles arrived early yesterday to disperse demonstrators in the central city of Save, a focus of opposition protests two years ago, where makeshift barricades of trees and tyres blocked a major road. Troops initially fired tear gas, an AFP correspondent at the scene said, and then more detonations were heard as one soldier fired in the air from an armoured vehicle mounted with what appeared to be a heavy calibre weapon. The director of a local dispensary in Save said he had taken in one dead and six wounded by gunshots. “We admitted them at our clinic... One dead from a live round and six with bullet wounds,” said Jose Godjo, head of the Boni clinic in Save. “All the wounded have been transferred to hospital in Save.” The city’s mayor, Denis Oba Chabi, confirmed one person died from gunshot wounds and three more were wounded. Waiting in a Save emergency ward, local resident Phillipe Samon said his brother had also been shot and wounded in the thigh though he was not a protester. Save was deserted yesterday afternoon with the army positioned around the city. Sporadic gunfire was still being heard in the early afternoon, an AFP correspondent said. Benin government spokesman Alain Orounla said security forces and public buildings in Save were assaulted by a horde of “drugged and armed youth” and dismissed any risk for the vote. “Our security forces came under fire, they had to repel their attackers,” he said, without mentioning any casualties. “The election will take place on Sunday... the republic has control of the situation.” – Rivals sidelined – The capital Porto-Novo and the economic hub Cotonou were calm on Thursday as well as Parakou in the north, where some protests had taken place in the morning.

Foreign ministers from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan kicked off negotiations in Kinshasa yesterday over Addis Ababa’s contested giant dam on the Nile, officials said. The dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), built across the Blue Nile, has been simmering for around a decade. Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi, who became chairman of the African Union in February, urged the foreign ministers “to launch a new dynamic”. “I ask you all to make a fresh start, to open one or several windows of hope, to seize every opportunity,” he said. He welcomed the willingness of the participants “to seek African solutions for African problems together”. Egypt and Sudan this month called on Kinshasa to steer efforts to relaunch negotiations on the contested dam. For Tshisekedi, “The human dimension must be at the heart of these tripartite negotiations.” The people of all three countries have a right to water, food and health, he stressed. The US ambassador to the DR Congo, Mike Hammer, attended the start of the talks, which were set to wrap up today. The Nile, the world’s longest river, is a lifeline supplying both water and electricity to the 10 countries it crosses. Upstream Ethiopia says hydroelectric power produced by the GERD will be vital to meet the energy needs of its 110mn people. Egypt, which depends on the Nile for about 97% of its irrigation and drinking water, sees the dam as an existential threat. Sudan, also downstream, fears its own dams will be compromised if Ethiopia proceeds with filling the GERD before a deal is reached. Last Tuesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stressed his country’s concerns, warning, “Nobody will be permitted to take a single drop of Egypt’s water, otherwise the region will fall into unimaginable instability.”

Libya’s interim prime minister yesterday announced the arrival of the first batch of vaccines against Covid-19, as the war-torn country’s crumbling health system struggles against a mounting caseload. “Thanks to God, we have managed to import the first batch of coronavirus vaccines,” Abdul Hamid Dbeibah tweeted, saying further doses were on the way. “I call on the Libyan people to sign up via the vaccine portal,” he added, referring to a website launched by the North African country’s authorities in early March ahead of the first deliveries. The health ministry said in a statement that just over 100,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V jab had arrived in Tripoli. Libyan authorities have reported over 160,000 cases of the coronavirus among its 7mn population, with 2,737 dead. The country has been ravaged by a decade of violence since the toppling of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in a 2011 revolt, leaving its health sector in a pitiful state despite its vast oil wealth. The World Health Organisation said Thursday that two new variants of the coronavirus are present in Libya. The country has registered around 1,000 new cases per day in recent weeks, but the difficulty of obtaining a test means that the real numbers may be far higher. Hospitals are often overcrowded and lacking in resources. No lockdown measures are currently in place, and while masks are obligatory in public places, the measure is widely flouted. Following an October ceasefire between warring powers in the east and west of the country, a new transitional government took office last month, with the aim of unifying Libya’s divided institutions and organising December elections. Shortly before winning a vote of confidence, Dbeibah had vowed that access to coronavirus vaccines would be a priority for his administration.

European Council President Charles Michel offered support to Libya yesterday on a visit to Tripoli, as the North African nation seeks to end a decade of chaos following a Nato-backed 2011 revolt. “We will work with the new government and support it,” Michel said after meeting with interim Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who was selected in a UN-sponsored process to lead Libya to December 24 elections. Libya’s parliament confirmed Dbeibah’s new transitional government last month. “The European Union actively supports the process of national reconciliation,” Michel said. “Economic recovery, elections, the fight against illegal immigration... are areas in which the EU can help.” Oil-rich Libya has been torn by conflict since the toppling and killing of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The latest unity government push is hoped to bring together rival forces, especially the two main camps in the east and west, each supported by foreign powers. Some 20,000 mercenaries and foreign fighters remained in Libya in early December, according to the United Nations, and a January deadline for their withdrawal passed without any sign of them leaving. Calls for them to depart have grown in recent weeks, and Michel urged “all mercenaries and foreign soldiers to quickly leave”. Foreign Minister Najla al-Mangoush yesterday repeated Libya’s call for their withdrawal. The country is also a major route for migrants trying to reach Europe across the Mediterranean, and traffickers have thrived in the lawlessness that followed Gaddafi’s overthrow. Michel said migration was a “major theme” in the relationship between Libya and the EU. Last month, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Italy visited Tripoli in a show of support for the war-torn country’s newly formed government. France reopened its embassy in Libya last month, and next week Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is expected to visit Tripoli to reopen the country’s embassy there, in a visit coinciding with that of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Michel said an EU ambassador would return to the Libyan capital in the coming weeks.

Luisa Jose, a 52-year-old mother of five, says she came face-to-face with Islamic State-linked insurgents when they attacked the gas hub town of Palma in northern Mozambique 10 days ago. “I was running to save my life ... they were coming from every street,” she told Reuters from a stadium in the port city of Pemba housing some of the thousands who fled the violence. “I saw them with bazookas. They wore uniforms with red scarves ... tied to their heads.” Jose said the militants quickly overran her hometown of Palma, next to huge gas projects worth $60 billion. Aid workers believe tens of thousands of people fled the assault, which began on March 24. However, just 9,900 of those displaced had been registered in Pemba and other parts of Cabo Delgado province, according to the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA. Many could still be hiding in the surrounding forest, said the international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres, and those who emerged have recounted seeing bodies of others who died of hunger or dehydration along the way. Some were also killed by crocodiles or perished in deep mud, according to a contractor whose employee witnessed both. Most communications to Palma were cut when the attack began, and Reuters has not been able to independently verify witnesses’ accounts. A spokesman for Mozambique’s defence and security forces declined to comment yesterday, while calls to the national police went unanswered. The province of Cabo Delgado, where Palma is located, has been home since 2017 to a simmering insurgency now linked to Islamic State. Clashes between the militants and government forces around Palma continued as recently as Friday, security sources told Reuters. South Africa said yesterday that Mozambique’s neighbours would meet next week to discuss the insurgency. Mozambique’s government has said dozens were killed in the attack on Palma but the full scale of the casualties and displacement remains unclear. Fato Abdula Ali, 29, said she was separated from her husband and three children in the chaos. Nine-months pregnant, she couldn’t keep up with other residents as they made their escape and delivered her baby son alone in the bush. She cut the infant’s umbilical cord with a tree branch, she said. The next day, she said, she stripped herself of her blood-soaked clothes and found another group of people who took turns carrying her to safety. “My whole body aches,” she told Reuters at a hotel in Pemba. Luisa Jose said she spent almost five days in the bush, eating bitter cassava tubers and drinking from cloudy pools of water before making it to Quitunda, a village for people relocated by the mega gas projects led by major oil companies, including France’s Total. From there, she says, she was evacuated by Total but had to leave behind more than six family members, including her husband and a daughter, because there was no room on the boat. Total on Friday pulled all of its remaining workforce from its project site near Palma, two sources with direct knowledge of site operations told Reuters, leaving it in the hands of the military. Total declined to comment. Jose has had no news of her family members since she left them behind. They are among thousands believed to be stranded in Quitunda, according to aid workers and diplomats. “Are they safe? Do they have shelter? Will they come back? I don’t know,” she said.

Al Shabaab militants attacked two military bases belonging to the Somali National Army early on Saturday morning, witnesses and the militants said. Al Shabaab, which is linked to al-Qaeda, is made up of militants who have waged years of attacks and levied tolls on trade. There was no immediate official comment or details on casualties but one military officer in the army confirmed the attacks. "We are on the way as reinforcement," Ahmed Abdullahi told Reuters by phone, adding that the attacks occurred at the Bariire and Awdhigle bases. The bases, located about 100 km southwest of the capital Mogadishu, were struck by two explosions, the witnesses said. A third explosion targeted a convoy of troops rushing to the bases from the capital after the attack, they added. The al Shabaab said it had launched a vehicle borne suicide bomb attack on the Bariire base while simultaneously attacking the nearby Awdhigle base with a car bomb and fighters, to prevent troops stationed there from reinforcing Bariire. "We overran Bariire base, burnt three military vehicles and took two vehicles," Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab's for military operations, told Reuters, referring to a brief occupation of Bariire. He confirmed that a third vehicle borne explosive device hit a convoy of government troops racing from Mogadishu with reinforcements.

Two soldiers died in a militant attack in central Mali on Friday, several sources said, with UN peacekeepers fighting off gunmen in a separate incident towards the Algeria border. A Mali army officer told AFP a "terrorist attack" against a military post in Diafarabe, a town 350 kilometres northeast of the capital Bamako, "left two of our ranks dead and six wounded". "We are in control of the situation," the officer said, adding that five "terrorists" had been killed in the fighting. A witness who gave his name as Youssouf Aya said he saw armed men on motorbikes heading towards the military post and then he heard gunshots. He saw the bodies of two soldiers and said several others were wounded, before seeing the assailants leave the post. An official in the nearby town of Mopti confirmed the attack, which took place at around 0600 GMT. Mali has been battling a militant insurgency for almost a decade, fighters first emerging during a 2012 rebellion by ethnic Tuareg separatists in the north. France intervened to crush the rebellion, but the militants scattered and regrouped, taking their campaign into central Mali in 2015 and then into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso. Illustrating the huge challenges Mali still faces, officials also reported an attack on a post manned by Chadian peacekeepers in Aguelhok, hundreds of kilometres further northeast of Diafarabe. "In the camp, there were at least two vehicles hit or burnt, but the attack was repelled," an official in the town, 200 kilometres from the Algerian border, told AFP. "We saw the Chadian soldiers go out to pursue the militants." An international military source confirmed the attack on the peacekeepers, telling AFP: "The terrorists have been chased down, the situation is under control."

The United States, Germany, France and other G7 countries called on Friday for an independent and transparent investigation into alleged human rights abuses during the conflict in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region. Ethiopia's federal army ousted the former regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), from the capital Mekelle in November. Thousands of people died, hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes and there are shortages of food, water and medicine in the region. The government says most fighting has ceased but there are still isolated incidents of shooting. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said last week Eritrea has agreed to withdraw troops it had sent during the fighting into Ethiopian territory along their mutual border, amid mounting reports of human rights abuses. Eritrea has denied its forces joined the conflict. The G7 foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell expressed their concerns in a joint statement. "All parties must exercise utmost restraint, ensure the protection of civilians and respect human rights and international law," they said. "It is essential that there is an independent, transparent and impartial investigation into the crimes reported and that those responsible for these human rights abuses are held to account," the ministers said. They said the withdrawal of Eritrean forces from Tigray must be swift, unconditional and verifiable and that a political process acceptable to all Ethiopians should be set up that leads to credible elections and a national reconciliation process. Ethiopia's foreign ministry said in March it was ready to work with international human rights experts to conduct investigations on allegations of abuses.

It's a troubling political fable shot with a sophisticated aesthetic, and Tunisia's first-ever Academy Award nomination: ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin’. Part dark satire, part romantic drama, the film tells the story of lovelorn Syrian refugee Sam Ali (Yahya Mahayni) who is able to travel to Europe thanks to a Faustian pact. When a contemporary artist tattoos a European Schengen visa across his back, Ali finds himself able to cross international borders as a living work of art. Tunisian writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania ventured outside her native country to dive into two contrasting worlds -- of refugees and contemporary art. ‘I couldn't stand the victimisation discourse on refugees anymore,’ said the director, Ben Hania. ‘My intention from the start was to make him a contemporary hero who comes out on top and turns the adventure to his advantage.’ The story is partly inspired by the real-life tale of a Belgian man, Tim Steiner, who sold the right to tattoo his back, occasionally exhibit it, and recover the skin after his death, to the artist Wim Delvoye, who makes a cameo in the film. The movie, shot in France, Belgium and Tunisia, alternates between a grating and tender tone as it highlights the cruel absurdity of a system where objects can travel more freely than people. ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin’ is shortlisted in the International Feature Film category for the Oscars, which are held on April 25. Monica Bellucci plays a ‘fake blonde’ gallerist while Syrian actor Yahya Mahayni portrays a sweet freedom-loving dreamer who oscillates between joy and anger in a volatile situation. - 'Total dispossession' -While the refugee is ‘in total dispossession of his body’ during part of the story, ‘he eventually regains possession of it’, said Ben Hania. The characters in the story ‘resemble me, pushed to the extreme’, she confided. Like the Syrian refugee, she said, she has faced ‘problems of papers to leave for France’. And like the eccentric artist in the film, she said, ‘I reflect on my work to the extreme’. Her earlier films have already won awards, including ‘Beauty and the Dogs’ about a young woman's quest for justice after being raped, and ‘Zaineb Hates the Snow’, a documentary about a Tunisian teenager who migrates to Canada. The Oscar nomination ‘is huge,’ admitted Ben Hania, who added that she regrets the lack of institutional support for cinema in Tunisia. The film was co-produced with 25 international partners, including in Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden, Tunisia and Qatar, and shot by Lebanese cinematographer Christopher Aoun (‘Capernaum’). Raising the budget of 2.5 million euros ($2.9 million) was ‘a challenge’, according to one of the co-producers, Nedim Cheikhrouha, who said the project almost collapsed a year ago due to lack of funds. At the Academy Awards, ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin’ has fewer promotional resources than other contenders, the producers said. Ben Hania -- who says she is now working on a film ‘on the edge of genres’ between documentary and fiction -- hopes that the Oscar nomination will, at the very least, ‘make my next films a little easier’. ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin’ was released this week in Tunisia and will screen in the United States from April 2, and in Sweden on April 23.