After fleeing Ukraine, South African students arrive home
JOHANNESBURG—Ten South African students who fled Ukraine after Russia’s invasion of that country recently arrived home, with 25 more expected over the next few days. Welcomed by cheering family and friends at OR Tambo International Airport, the students are among more than 80,000 foreign nationals who have left Ukraine since the Russian invasion, according to the International Organization for Migration. Returning...
Deported Black asylum seekers at risk in Cameroon
(GIN)—As the U.S. prepares to welcome tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing war, scores of African and Caribbean refugees are being sent back to unstable and violent homelands where they face rape, torture, arbitrary arrest and other abuses. Racial bias? An African refugee thinks so. “They do not care about a Black man,” said Wilfred Tebah, a leading member of the...
Burkina Faso: Out of the frying pan with France but into the fire with the U.S.?
The West African nation of Burkina Faso placed its former colonial master France on notice to remove their military from its soil. The move coincides with an uptick of anti-France and anti-West sentiment on the continent and among people in the landlocked country. French troops were in Burkina Faso under a 2018 security agreement that allowed French Special Forces...
New hotspot opens up in North Africa despite UN bid to defuse tensions
(GIN)—War is breaking out all over. Fighting shows no signs of ending in Ethiopia as the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, attempts to put down a rebellion by the sovereign-seeking state of Tigray. Eritrea now appears to have been drawn into the fighting. A massacre was reported by Amnesty International. In the Amhara region, political unrest and communal violence continue to...
Ex-Kenyan official slams UK govt. over ‘act of gross inhumanity and injustice’
Former chief justice of Kenya Willy Mutunga attacks the British government over “act of gross inhumanity and injustice” one month after two Kenyan tribes filed a case against the British government at the European Court of Human Rights over alleged colonial abuses. The Talai and Kipsigis said in the lawsuit that the abuses include tortures, mistreatment and theft of land allegedly committed in western Kenya’s Kericho...
Has an African country ever hosted the Olympics?
(FinalCall.com) - After Brazil hosts the Olympics in 2016 what continent will have the distinction of never having hosted the Games? Here’s a hint, historically its distance running success in the Olympics is unparalleled and it has the first double amputee to reach the semifinals. Give up? The continent is Africa and the double amputee is South Africa’s...
Sudan: Its diversity, economics and history
KHARTOUM, Sudan—Nothing says diversity like Sudan. Once Africa’s largest country, now divided by neocolonial and neoliberal machinations the U.S. help to engineer, it’s separated as North and South. But Sudan enjoys a rich cultural and ethnic religious heritage. Those things have endured despite economic and political turmoil as Sudan retains its sense of authenticity. Sitting in a cafe here with...
Mediation toward cessation of Sudan war is a long way off
“If this war (in Sudan) lasts for several years … the country that we knew as Sudan, a sort of regional linchpin, between the Red Sea, the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and Central Africa will no longer exist,” said Sudan policy and political analyst Kholood Khair, the founder and director of the UK-based Confluence Advisory think tank. As Israel’s...
Discontent in Sudan increasing, protesters demand dissolving transitional government
Dissatisfaction with government in Sudan is growing. Zakia Muhammad Sadeeg, a former schoolteacher and current executive member of the Sudan Future Campaign (Party), said to Africa Watch via phone from her home in Khartoum that “activists” are calling for demonstrations on the second anniversary of the massacre of peaceful protesters gathered outside Sudan’s military headquarters. Ms. Sadeeg said she’s...