L’Allemagne va procéder d’ici mai 2024 au retrait de ses troupes engagées engagés dans la mission de casques bleus Minusma (Mission Multidimensionnelle Intégrée des Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation au Mali).
International partners are scrambling to limit the humanitarian disaster created by the fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan that erupted on April 15 while the last steps of discussions leading to a civilian and democratic transition were expected. Now, it is not enough to simply call for a ceasefire and a return to negotiations because those outcomes could reestablish the fraught balance of power between the SAF and RSF that stymied the eighteen-month-long negotiations for a return to a civilian government—the type of government that most people in Sudan are demanding.
Burkina Faso’s interim President Ibrahim Traore on Thursday said Russia had become a key strategic ally but denied that Russian mercenaries were supporting Burkinabe forces in their fight against Islamist armed groups.
The West African country’s relations with Moscow are in the spotlight after it booted out French troops in February and ended an accord that allowed France to fight insurgents there amid a rise in anti-French sentiment in parts of the region.
In a rare televised interview, Traore was asked who Burkina Faso’s international allies were now in the conflict that has killed thousands and displaced around 2.5 million in the broader Sahel region over the past decade.
“The departure of the French army does not mean that France is not an ally,” Traore replied. “But we have strategic allies too. We have new forms of cooperation. Russia, for example, is a strategic ally.”
He said Russia was a major supplier of military equipment and would remain so, without giving further details.
“I am satisfied with the cooperation with Russia. It’s frank,” he said, sitting on an ornate chair in military fatigues and a beret.
Western countries are concerned about Russia’s widening sway in Africa’s Sahel and its border regions. France withdrew its forces from Mali last year after the junta there started working with Russian military contractor Wagner Group to fight the insurgents liked to al Qaeda and Islamic State.
Traore was asked to comment on reports Wagner forces are also on the ground in Burkina Faso.
“Our army fights alone,” he said. “Wagner’s presence was invented to harm Burkina, so countries would not cooperate with us.”
The instability in Burkina Faso triggered two coups last year by the military, which has vowed to retake control of the country but has so far failed to stop attacks.
Unrest in the region began in neighbouring Mali in 2012, when Islamists hijacked a Tuareg separatist uprising. The violence has since spread into Burkina Faso and Niger and threatens to destabilise coastal countries further afield.
People who sought route to Europe before fighting erupted in Khartoum speak of police brutality, torture and homelessness
Ever since fighting erupted in his home town of Nyala, the state capital of South Darfur in Sudan, in mid-April, Khaled’s mobile phone has not stopped ringing. Family members, friends and acquaintances want to know how to reach north Africa and which country is best for departing for Europe.
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (8 U.S.C. 1182(f)), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,
The 2019 Sudan uprisings that ousted long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir and installed a military-civilian transitional government gave hope that the country could finally transition to democratic rule. The country has been ruled by the military for most of its independence since 1956, writes May Darwich for The Conversation Africa.
As the crisis in Sudan intensifies despite truces and ceasefires, many regional interests are at stake — and under threat. So who is backing who in Africa’s third-biggest nation? DW takes a look.
The conflict in Sudan has seen two generals, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, fight for control over Africa’s third-largest country and its vast resources.
On April 24, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed “deep concern” about the activities of Wagner Group mercenaries in Sudan and asserted that the Russian private military company (PMC) “simply brings more death and destruction wherever it is involved.” Blinken’s dire warning followed revelations from Sudanese and American officials about Wagner Group’s assistance to Rapid Support Forces (RSF) chief Mohammed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo. These allegations included claims that Wagner supplied the RSF with surface-to-air missiles from its Khadim and Jufra installations in Libya or offered such weaponry from its stockpiles in the Central African Republic (CAR).
Sudan is geostrategically important to U.S. interests in both Africa and the Middle East. The country’s military rulers, Lt.-Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy Lt.-Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as “Hemedti”), are banking on that fact as they seek to press the Biden administration to focus its Sudan policy on stability, rather than supporting calls for democracy.
Earlier this month, Bayt al Maqdis, a jihadi publishing house believed linked to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), released a book compiled of various letters written by the ideologue Abu Hudhayfah al Sudani.