Au poste-frontière de Rafah, entre l’Égypte et la bande de Gaza, les candidats à l’exil s’accumulent mais les portes restent closes. Elles le sont aussi pour l’aide humanitaire, alors que de nombreux pays ont commencé à stocker des produits de première nécessité pour Gaza.
The leaders of Russia and Mali have agreed the political crisis in Niger should be resolved using diplmoacy and not force. Meanwhile France has rejected accusations by Niger’s coup leaders that it’s planning a military intervention.
The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin and interim Malian leader Assimi Goita had talked by telephone at Bamako’s request.
They discussed the situation in Niger and said the political crisis sparked by a coup d’etat on 26 July 26 should be resolved “through political and diplomatic means”.
The comment came a day after Niger’s military rulers accused former colonial power France of assembling troops, war materials and equipment in several neighbouring West African countries with a view to “military intervention” in the Sahel state.
A rise in France-Niger tensions
Relations with France have degraded with Paris standing by ousted president Mohamed Bazoum.
Speaking from the G20 summit in India, French President Emmanuel Macron denied accusations by Niger that France was preparing to deploy its forces in Ecowas (Economic Community of West African States with the aim of a military aggression against Niger.
Macron told journalists he did not recognise the legitimacy of the statements made by Niger’s putschists, adding that he had daily phone conversations with deposed president Bazoum.
#France - #Niger : À l'occasion du Sommet du G20 à New Delhi, le Président français Emmanuel Macron a animé une conférence de presse où il a abordé la question du Niger. Question journaliste: « Juste une question à propos du Niger, je voulais savoir comment vous réagissiez aux... pic.twitter.com/xs9WgqFiFH-- KONATE Malick (@konate90) September 10, 2023
Meanwhile, over the weekend, thousands of young Nigeriens took to the streets to demand that French soldiers leave Niger.
Most of them chanted: "Macron, get out of our house".
Rallies to protest the presence of the 1,500-strong French military presence in Mali have attracted tens of thousands of people over the past 10 days.
Demonstrators have gathering around the airbase in the capital Niamey, which hosts part of the French contingent.
A Mali-Russia-Niger axis
During his telephone exchange with Putin, Goita thanked Russia for vetoing an attempt by the UN Security Council to keep a team of UN experts in Mali.
The experts had accused "foreign forces", a veiled reference to the Russian mercenary group Wagner, of involvement in widespread abuses in Mali.
Mali shares a long border with Niger, and, immediately after the coup, its junta voiced support for Niger's new military rulers.
It has on several occasions stated its opposition to a military intervention there.
Mali has shifted sharply to Russia since back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, becoming one of the few nations to back Moscow at the United Nations over its invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin added that Putin and Goita also discussed cooperation between Russia and Mail on economic and commercial issues, and on "anti-terror" operations.
Ecowas leaders have threatened to intervene militarily in Niger, the fourth West African nation since 2020 to suffer a coup after Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea.
The bloc suspended the four countries one after another.
Au Maghreb et au Moyen-Orient, les réactions face à l’offensive du Hamas contre Israël varient en fonction des liens entretenus avec Tel-Aviv. Mais les autorités doivent aussi composer avec une opinion publique totalement acquise à la cause palestinienne.
Egyptian officials are racing against time to stop the escalating war between Israel and Hamas, while Cairo is concerned that the escalation may extend to its borders with Gaza.
As Egyptians barely finished celebrating the 50th anniversary of their surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 6, 1973 — also known as the Yom Kippur War — Hamas militants were in the midst of their own sudden attack on southern Israeli towns. In the course of one morning, the militants took more than 100 hostages and fired more than 3,000 rockets toward the Jewish state.
In Egypt, there has been an outpouring of sympathy and support for the Palestinians who are being subjected to one of the most brutal Israeli wars ever waged on the Gaza Strip, in response to the Al-Aqsa Flood operation carried out by Hamas and allied groups on Saturday 7 October.
La colonne de l’armée malienne partie le 2 octobre de Gao, composée de dizaines de véhicules et de blindés, se trouve désormais à 110 kilomètres au sud du fief rebelle.
L’armée malienne a indiqué le 5 octobre au soir qu’un important convoi de ses forces avait progressé jusqu’aux environs d’Anéfis, à environ 110 kilomètres au sud de la ville stratégique de Kidal, fief de la rébellion séparatiste qui a repris les armes contre l’État central. La colonne a brisé un rideau défensif constitué de tranchées à 10 kilomètres au sud d’Anéfis, a dit l’armée sur les réseaux sociaux. Elle a assuré avoir détruit plusieurs pickups et avoir infligé des pertes « très importantes » à ses adversaires.
The displacement crisis prompted by ongoing conflict in Sudan continues unabated with nearly six million people forced out of their homes and women and children making up nearly nine in 10 of those uprooted, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Wednesday.
“This is one of the largest protection crises that we are faced with today,” said Mamadou Dian Balde, UNHCR’s Regional Director for the East and Horn of Africa and Great Lakes.
On March 21, nine Algerian migrants died when the boat taking them to Italy capsized in the Mediterranean Sea. The tragic story, along with countless others like it, highlights the cost of migration, which is not limited to the loss of lives. In fact, the highly publicized reports of migrant deaths have increasingly shaped a vision of irregular migration as a symptom of a broader social tragedy, one that drives thousands of skilled young people from Africa to set off down unknown, dangerous paths in search of a better future for themselves.
A lack of state and industry accountability has turned the ocean into the world’s biggest transnational crime scene.
The ocean is central to global illicit trade. Criminal networks plunder marine resources, scour shipping lanes for vessels to hijack, and traverse coastal state waters and the high seas to move commodities to distant destinations.
A month after Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash, Russian authorities are attempting to assert control over the parallel military structure.
“Prigozhin is alive.” The phrase remains among the most popular queries in Russia’s Yandex search engine a month after the crash of the Embraer Legacy jet on Aug. 23 that killed Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.