Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

Iraqi forces kill ISIL commander in Mosul

{Government soldiers try to retake strategic bridge in ISIL-held western Mosul, but snipers slow the advance.}

Iraqi forces said they killed the commander of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Mosul’s Old City as the battle for the group’s last stronghold in the country focused on a strategic bridge crossing the Tigris River.

Federal police said they killed Abu Abdul Rahman al-Ansary, military commander of the Old City, during operations to clear Bab al-Tob district.

With many ISIL leaders having already retreated from Mosul, Ansary’s death comes as a blow to the group as it defends shrinking control of Iraq’s second-largest city.

ISIL snipers, however, were slowing the advance of special forces units on the Iron Bridge linking western and eastern Mosul, officers said.

Capturing the Iron Bridge would mean Iraqi forces will hold three of the five bridges in Mosul that span the Tigris, all of which have been damaged by ISIL (also known as ISIS) and US-led air strikes.

The southernmost two have already been retaken.

“We are still moving toward the Iron Bridge. We are taking out snipers hiding in the surrounding building,” Brigadier-General Mahdi Abbas Abdullah told Reuters news agency.

Near the Mosul Museum, Iraq forces used armoured vehicles and tanks to attack snipers pinning down troops clearing areas around the bridge.

{{Fleeing civilians
}}

As fighting intensified on Tuesday, civilians streamed out of western neighbourhoods recaptured by the government. Some pushed children and sick elderly relatives in handcarts and wheelbarrows.

Soldiers packed them into trucks on the Mosul-Baghdad highway to be taken to processing areas.

Ashraf Ali, a nurse who escaped with his wife and two children, said mortar rounds were falling as they fled. They took advantage of the army retaking their district to get out.

“Daesh wanted us to move to their areas but we escaped when the army arrived,” he said, referring to the Arabic name of ISIL.

As many as 600,000 civilians are caught inside Mosul, which Iraqi forces have effectively sealed off from the remaining territory that ISIL controls in Iraq and Syria.

More than 200,000 Mosul residents have been displaced since the start of the campaign in October.

Iraq’s Ministry of Immigration and Displacement said on Tuesday almost 13,000 displaced people from western Mosul had been received seeking assistance and temporary accommodation each day.

Losing Mosul would be a major strike against ISIL.

It is by far the largest city ISIL have held since their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed himself leader of a caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014.

Source:Al Jazeera

March 15, 2017
Mexico: Over 250 skulls found in Veracruz mass graves

{State prosecutor says more remains of drug cartel victims to be likely found from clandestine burial pits in Veracruz.}

The top prosecutor in Mexican state of Veracruz has confirmed that more than 250 skulls have been dug up in what appears to be a drug cartel mass burial ground on the outskirts of the city of Veracruz.

Jorge Winckler, the state prosecutor, said on Tuesday that the clandestine burial pits appear to contain the victims of drug cartels killed years ago.

“For many years, the drug cartels disappeared people and the authorities were complacent,” Winckler said, in apparent reference to the administration of fugitive former Governor Javier Duarte and his predecessors.

In an interview with the Televisa network, Winckler did not specify when the skulls were found or by whom.

On Monday, when the discovery was first reported in this southeastern state, Winckler said investigators were likely to find more remains.

But they appear to have been found over the course of months.

Victims’ advocacy groups like Colectivo Solecito have excavated and pressed authorities to excavate such sites to find missing loved ones.

The skulls and other bones were found in a wooded area known as Colinas de Santa Fe, where activists have been exploring since at least mid-2016, sinking rods into the ground and withdrawing them to detect the telltale odor of decomposition.

When they find what they believe are burial pits, they alert authorities, who carry out the final excavations.

Winckler said excavations have covered only a third of the lot where the skulls were found, and more people may be buried there.

“I cannot imagine how many more people are illegally buried there,” Winckler said, noting that the state has reports of about 2,400 people who are still missing.

“Veracruz is an enormous mass grave,” he said.

{{Government ‘inaction’}}

The victims’ advocacy groups have criticised authorities for doing little to try to find or identify the state’s missing people, many of whom were kidnapped and never heard from again.

Al Jazeera’s John Holman, reporting from Mexico City, said that one mother of a missing person told him that her family received “very little help” from state authorities in finding her son.

“Veracruz is a real epicentre in the violence that is being felt through various areas of Mexico,” he said.

Our correspondent also reported that the country’s top prosecutor has yet to take action on the latest discovery, adding that federal authorities are “keen to sort of dampen down talk about the violence being suffered in the country”.

Veracruz had long been dominated by the ferocious Zetas cartel. But the Jalisco New Generation cartel began moving in around 2011, sparking bloody turf battles.

Drug cartels in other parts of Mexico have deposited victims’ bodies in mass graves before.

In the northern state of Durango, authorities found more than 300 bodies in a clandestine mass grave in the state capital in excavations starting in April 2011.

More than 250 bodies were discovered in April 2011 in burial pits in the town of San Fernando, in Tamaulipas state, close to the US border.

Drug gangs in some places in Mexico have taken to burning or dissolving their victims’ bodies in corrosive substances in order to avoid discovery.

But the victims in Veracruz appear to have been buried relatively whole.

Source:Al Jazeera

March 15, 2017
Disasters Emergency Committee makes East Africa appeal

{UK aid agencies have launched a fundraising appeal to help millions of people facing hunger in East Africa.}

The Disasters Emergency Committee says at least 16 million people in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan need food, water and medical treatment.

Drought and conflict are to blame for the crisis, says the DEC, which will broadcast an emergency appeal on the major television networks on Wednesday.

The government said it will match the first £5m donated by the public.

Last month, a famine was declared in parts of South Sudan, the first to be announced in any part of the world in six years.

The government and the United Nations reported that some 100,000 people are facing starvation, with a million more on the brink of famine.

A combination of civil war and an economic collapse have been blamed.

In Kenya, the country’s president Uhuru Kenyatta declared its drought a national disaster and Kenya’s Red Cross says 2.7 million people face starvation.

There is also a severe drought in Somalia and Ethiopia.

{{‘Desperate for food’}}

Saleh Saeed, chief executive of the DEC, an umbrella organisation which brings together 13 UK aid charities to deal with international crises, said hunger was “looming” across East Africa.

He said more than 800,000 children under five were severely malnourished.

“Without urgent treatment, they are at risk of starving to death,” he said.

“We are hearing that families are so desperate for food that they are resorting to eating leaves to survive. This is something no family should have to endure.

“Unless we act now the number of deaths will drastically increase.”

International Development Secretary Priti Patel said UK aid has funded food, water and emergency healthcare in East Africa, but more support was “urgently needed to prevent a catastrophe”.

She said the international community must follow the UK’s lead “to save lives and stop the famine before it becomes a stain on our collective conscience”.

“The world cannot afford to wait,” she said.

Source:BBC

March 15, 2017
Libya’s Khalifa Haftar ‘retakes oil ports from Islamist militia’

{Forces loyal to Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar say they have retaken key oil-rich areas in the country’s east.}

Ground, sea and air forces were engaged in the fight for sites at Ras Lanuf, Sidra and Ben Jawad from a rival Islamist militia, a spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Russia has denied reports that it has deployed special forces to the region in support of Gen Haftar.

Libya has been in chaos since the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.

The oil terminals had been seized by the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) – a mix of militias that includes Islamists – earlier this month, which then handed them over to the Petroleum Facilities Guard, affiliated to the UN-backed unity government based in Tripoli.

Gen Haftar is allied to an administration based in the eastern city of Tobruk, which is challenging the authority of the UN-backed government.

The clashes in Libya’s vital Oil Crescent are likely to continue, locking the rival sides in a tug-of-war over power and resources. Neither side appears willing to give up its claim to the oil sites, Libya’s economic lifeline.

Clashes are also likely further east in the country if the BDB militia follows through on its vow to advance on Benghazi. The city falls under the control of Gen Haftar’s forces, which have fought to expel Islamist fighters there for over three years.

This would further polarise the rival political camps and could draw in more among the myriad of Libyan militias into a wider, protracted battle around the country’s second city.

Russia’s defence ministry denied allegations that it had special forces at an Egyptian base, some 60 miles (100 km) from the Libyan border.

“There are no Russian special forces in Sidi-Barrani. It’s not the first time such leaks from anonymous sources to certain Western media have got people excited,” defence spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

The report by Reuters news agency, quoting unnamed Egyptian officials, had said that a 22-strong unit of Russian special forces were at the base.

The Egyptian military has also denied the reports.

Gen Haftar has held talks with senior Russian officials in recent months.

In January he was given a tour of a Russian aircraft carrier the Admiral Kusnetsov in the Mediterranean and spoke by video link to Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

In November last year he met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow and asked for Russian assistance in fighting Islamist militias in Libya, Reuters reported.

Libya remains regionally split with two centres of power that politically oppose each other, and a myriad of rival armed groups that the country’s two governments cannot control.

Gen Haftar’s forces, known as the Libyan National Army (LNA), have been battling Islamist and other militias in the area since forcing them out of much of the country’s second city, Benghazi, in February 2016.

Extremist groups, including so-called Islamic State (IS), gained a foothold in Libya after Nato-backed forces ousted veteran leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Source:BBC

March 15, 2017
Swede among two UN experts kidnapped in DRC

{A Swedish citizen is among two UN experts missing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.}

“Two members of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo are reported missing in that country,” the UN said on Monday, adding that it is doing “everything possible” to locate them.

The Swede as well as an American UN worker and four Congolese nationals accompanying them were kidnapped on Sunday in the province of Kasaï-Central, according to the DRC government.

Congolese security forces and the UN’s MONUSCO mission in the DRC spent Monday using helicopters to look for the missing people, but were unable to do so, and resumed the search on Tuesday.

“We’re using all available resources. The search is still ongoing, they are still missing. We still don’t have any proof that they have been kidnapped or killed. We’re looking in the area and hope to find them alive,” MONUSCO communications head Charles Bambara told Swedish news agency TT.

Sweden’s Foreign Ministry (UD) said on Tuesday morning that there was nothing new to report on the missing Swede.

“There’s no new information from what was said yesterday. There is a Swede being looked for in Congo. But we won’t go into details about how the search is going,” UD press spokesperson Patric Nilsson told The Local.

UD has since 2006 advised against travelling to the DRC, where there is a conflict between security forces and militias.

Source:The Local

March 15, 2017
700 dead as malaria ‘epidemic’ hits Burundi

{About 700 people have died from malaria in Burundi so far this year, the health minister said, with the authorities having registered 1.8 million infections in a rising epidemic.}

“Burundi faces a malaria epidemic,” Josiane Nijimbere said Monday, commenting on a World Health Organization (WHO) report.

From January 1 to March 10 this year, 1.8 million infections were registered in Burundi, according to the WHO.

According to Nijimbere, the latest figures constitute a 17 percent increase from the same period last year.

“Some 700 deaths” have been registered since January, the minister added.

In 2016, an estimated 8.2 million people were infected and 3,000 people died in mountainous Burundi, which is home to around 11 million people.

UN officials and medical sources say Burundi’s stock of anti-malaria medication is nearly empty.

Nijimbere put the cost of fighting malaria at $31 million (29 million euros), as she appealed for donations to help fight the disease.

She attributed the rise in infections to climate change, increased marshland for rice-growing and the population’s misuse of mosquito nets.

Burundi has been plunged into chaos since President Pierre Nkurunziza’s controversial decision in April 2015 to run for a third term.

Hundreds of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of others have fled the country.

The crisis also led to a 54 percent cut to the government’s health budget in 2016 from the previous year.

“This malaria crisis is even more dramatic because it is striking an impoverished, hungry population that has no resources and for whom even the slightest shock can have life-or-death consequences,” a diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Source:Daily Nation

March 15, 2017
Mozambique cholera outbreak infects over 1,200

{Mozambique is battling a cholera outbreak that has infected 1,222 people and killed two, the country’s health ministry said Tuesday, warning that it has been unable to slow its spread.}

Four of Mozambique’s 13 provinces have been affected since the infection spread from the capital Maputo on January 5, deputy director of public health Benigna Matsinhe told a press conference.

It is the third consecutive year that Mozambique has suffered a cholera epidemic with the two fatalities reported to be from the Maputo area.

In 2015, 41 people died in one of the country’s worst ever cholera outbreaks.

{{397 cases }}

“We have recorded less cases in recent days, but what worries us is that we have been unable to halt transmission of the illness,” Matsinhe said.

Since the end of last week, the infection has spread in Tete province, on Mozambique’s western border with Zimbabwe and Malawi, with 397 cases reported.

Cholera typically strikes during Mozambique’s rainy season, between October and March, when unhygienic conditions and stagnant water cause the bacteria to flourish.

The infection can cause severe diarrhoea, dehydration and in the worst cases, death.

{{Heavy rains }}

Mozambique has been been deluged by heavy rains since October following two years of drought.

Malaria cases have also spiked with 1.48 million diagnoses — an 11 percent jump compared to a year earlier — and 288 deaths since January 2017.

“We have seen an increase in cases of malaria in recent years explained by progress in our screening programme and in our community treatment projects,” said Lorna Gurjal, the head of the health ministry’s epidemiology department.

The number of deaths and serious cases are however decreasing, she said.

Source:AFP

March 15, 2017
Somali pirates hijack first commercial ship since 2012

{Armed attackers have boarded an oil tanker and forced its Sri Lankan crew to change course towards the northeastern Somali coast, in what could be the first pirate attack since 2012.}

After sending a distress signal on Monday afternoon, the assailants boarded the Aris 13, taking its eight Sri Lankan crew members hostage and forcing the vessel to divert course.

“What we know for sure is that a small tanker has been attacked and has diverted course,” John Steed, a former British army officer who heads the Horn of Africa section of the Oceans Beyond Piracy NGO, said Tuesday.

“Whether this is a pirate attack needs to be confirmed. For example, we do not know what the demands of those men are. But this looks pretty much like the old piracy attack scenario,” he said.

The Aris 13 was seized on Monday with eight Sri Lankan crew members on board. Earlier reports said the vessel was Sri Lankan-flagged, but the foreign ministry in Colombo denied the claim.

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“The ministry is taking action to verify the alleged incident, and initial enquiries have revealed that while the vessel involved is not registered under a Sri Lankan flag, it has an eight-member Sri Lankan crew,” it said in a statement on Facebook.

According to the Marine Traffic website, which lists the movements of ships around the globe, the Aris 13 is a Comoros-flagged vessel.

RADIO SILENCE

The tanker was carrying fuel from Djibouti to Mogadishu when it was seized. Its crew sent a distress signal on Monday afternoon, said Steed, who helped secure the release of 26 hostages in October 2016.

“Yesterday afternoon, the ship reported that it was followed by two skiffs. After that, it went silent and the owner of the ship was not able to get into contact,” he said.

“There has not been an attack of a commercial ship by Somali pirates since 2012,” he added.

The Aris 13 was reported forced to dock near the town of Alula on the Somali coast.

“Armed men are holding the boat and its crew near Alula,” Muse Mohamed, a coast guard official in northeastern Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland, told AFP on Tuesday.

{{Heavily armed }}

A traditional chief in the region, Abdihakim Mohamed Jama, contacted by phone said more than 20 men, heavily armed, were on board the tanker and that the suspected pirates “are claiming to be fishermen”.

Somali pirates began staging waves of attacks in 2005, seriously disrupting a major international shipping route.

The epidemic, which in 2012 cost the global economy $5.7 billion to $6.1 billion, prompted interventions by the United Nations, the European Union and NATO.

Many commercial shippers began hiring private armed guards for their vessels.

At the peak of the piracy crisis in January 2011, 736 hostages and 32 boats were held.

Though anti-piracy measures ended attacks on commercial vessels, fishing boats have continued to face assaults.

Source:AFP

March 15, 2017
Uganda:UPDF tortures soldier, jails him for 20 years

{The fate of the UPDF soldier who lost his manhood under torture by his superiors in Somalia was sealed last Friday after a field military court in Mogadishu sentenced him to 20 years in prison.}

Corporal Majid Sebyara is now impotent.
He was subsequently flown back to Uganda at the weekend, briefly held at Makindye Military Barracks before he was deposited at Luzira prison.

If he does not appeal or the sentence is upheld by the Appellate Court, the 33-year-old father of three will spend the next 20 years in jail and will be dismissed from the army with disgrace. Dismissal with disgrace means he will not receive anything for his service in the army be it gratuity, pension or any other entitlement provided for under the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) terms and conditions of service.

Cpl Sebyara’s plight was first published by Daily Monitor last December after the High Court halted his trial by the military tribunal and ordered his release. Two weeks ago, Daily Monitor reported that the army sneaked him back to Somalia for trial by a military tribunal without his lawyers’ knowledge.

His lawyer, Mr Ivan Mugabi, confirmed yesterday Cpl Sebyara’s extradition to Somalia and the resultant conviction. He said the incident had shocked the human rights legal fraternity.

Confirmation
“He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment last Friday and returned here on Saturday. I met him at Makindye before he was taken to Luzira prison. I am shocked and appalled by the conduct of some of the elements of UPDF and the way this illegality was executed. I walked to court to defend my client only to be informed he had been flown to Somalia. The next I heard from him is this sad news. We shall do all we can to reverse this abuse of human rights,” counsel Mugabi said.

Last Thursday when Cpl Sebyara appeared before the General Court Martial at Makindye in Kampala, he informed the court chairman, Lt Gen Andre Guti, that he could not take part in the trial without his lawyers. The court offered him an army lawyer whom he rejected.

Military sources told Daily Monitor that the army’s legal officer, a major, too declined to represent Cpl Sebyara, saying she could not impose herself on a client.

The court, however, proceeded with the trial and adjourned the case to the next day. His lawyers prepared to return to the court the following day.

However in the night, Cpl sebyara was clandestinely whisked to Somalia where he was summarily tried by a military tribunal and convicted before he was sentenced to 20 years in jail.

The Defence and UPDF spokesman Brig Richard Karemire yesterday said: “The issue is that we are operating in Somalia, so soldiers can be tried anywhere we are operating from if they have committed service offences in such places. Sebyara is not the last nor the first. If he rejected the UPDF lawyer and feels the process was unfair, he can appeal.”

Human rights lawyer and Chapter Four executive director Nicholas Opiyo condemned Cpl Sebyara’s trial.

“That case is reminiscent of what happened in Karamoja in March 2002, where a Division Court Martial tried and executed two civilians in 20 minutes for allegedly killing a priest. The officer in charge had mobilised the village to witness the execution and cleared the ground for the same. So clearly, the trial was a mockery of justice,” Mr Opiyo said.

“The trial was done to defeat justice he [Sebyara] was pursuing against the army which he accused of torturing him,” Mr Opio added.
Mr Ladislaus Rwakafuuzi, the executive director of the Centre for Media and Justice responded in shock.

“Oh God! The whole process was to defeat justice. I am too shocked and heartbroken to learn of this. I prefer not to comment now. Some of these actions really return Uganda to the dark days we all dread,” he said.

Yesterday, Sebyara’s lawyer, Mr Mugabi said he had written to the General Court Martial requesting for a copy of the judgment to facilitate his appeal but by press time the army had not responded.

{{Genesis of Sebyara’s jeopardy }}

Cpl Ssebyara’s trouble started on June 12, 2015 after some ammunition for an anti-aircraft gun were reported missing. He was held responsible. He was tortured to impotence. Pictures seen by this newspaper which were adduced and admitted in court to prove torture in Somalia show him screaming.

His hands appear tied to a metallic bar and a black sack is tied to his private parts and suspended. The sack is seen dangling between his legs, the navel area growing red and his sexual organs stressed by the weight of the load.

In his petition in the High Court challenging his trial in the General Court Martial, Cpl Sebyara recounted how he was “undressed, insulted and tied by the hands on a steel bar, a bag of about 15kg tied and hanged on his penis and testicles.” He was then handcuffed and dumped in a container for 24 hours.

Medical reports made on October 6 and November 2, 2015, from Nakasero Hospital in Kampala and Bombo Military Hospital respectively indicate his right testicle is shrunk, was non-tender and he suffered from “chronic right testicular infarction and internal echogenicity with no flow.” His testicles had decayed, making him incapable of getting an erection or passing out urine normally.

Attempts by his lawyers to get him further treatment collapsed after the UPDF ignored their pleas.

On September 2, 2015, Cpl Sebyara was arraigned before the General Court Martial and charged with failure to protect war material, an offence that attracts a death sentence on conviction. He denied the charges and petitioned the High Court challenging his trial in the military court.

During the hearing of the petition, army witnesses Col Frank Kyambadde, Maj Tom Bbalibya, and Maj Raphael Mugisha testified that Cpl Sebyara had admitted to selling the missing ammunition to a Somali citizen.

However on November 22, 2016, the High Court declared Cpl Sebyara’s trial in the military court “illegal, null and void” and ordered the army court to release him. The court ruled that Sebyara’s purported confession to selling the ammunition had been extracted under torture and was therefore a nullity in law.
However, to circumvent the High Court order, on December 12, 2016, the army charged Sebyara afresh with “offences relating to security” and trespassing on the property of a Somali resident.

{{The issues at hand}}

Tortured. Cpl Ssebyara’s trouble started on June 12, 2015 after some ammunition for an anti-aircraft gun were reported missing. He was held responsible. He was tortured to impotence. Pictures seen by this newspaper which were adduced and admitted in court to prove torture in Somalia show him screaming.

Medical report. Medical reports made on October 6 and November 2, 2015, from Nakasero Hospital in Kampala and Bombo Military Hospital respectively indicate his right testicle is shrunk, was non-tender and he suffered from “chronic right testicular infarction and internal echogenicity with no flow.” His testicles had decayed, making him incapable of getting an erection or passing out urine normally.

Source:Daily Monitor

March 15, 2017
Vietnam seizes 100 kilos of rhino horn from Kenya

Vietnam police seized more than 100 kilogrammes of rhino horn smuggled into the country in suitcases from Kenya on Tuesday, the latest illegal haul in the wildlife trafficking hub.

Vietnam is a hot market for rhino horn, believed to have medicinal properties and is in high demand among the communist nation’s growing middle class.

{{2 Suitcases }}

The country is a popular transit point for illegal animal products, which often move from Africa through Vietnam to other parts of Asia.

The latest haul of the prized animal parts at Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport were found hidden in luggage on a flight from Nairobi, according to the official publication of the Hanoi police department.

“After scanning and checking, customs officials discovered the two suitcases of 57 kilogrammes (125 pounds) and 61 kilogrammes were full of suspected rhino horns,” the online Capital Security Newspaper reports said.

Photos showed the huge haul in suitcases and stacked on tables.

Conservationists have warned that rampant demand for rhino horn in China and Vietnam, where it is falsely believed to cure cancer and treat hangovers, is decimating African rhino populations.

{{$60,000/KILO}}

A single kilogramme of rhino horn can fetch up to $60,000 on the local market, according to reports.

Britain’s Prince William delivered an urgent plea in Vietnam in November to end wildlife trafficking to save critically endangered species such as rhino, elephants and pangolins.

Wild rhino populations have dwindled to just 29,000 from half a million at the beginning of the 20th century, according to the International Rhino Foundation.

Trade in rhino horn was banned globally in 1977 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Source:AFP

March 15, 2017