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At least 46 people have been killed in fierce fighting between rival ethnic groups in the troubled northwestern part of Kenya. Members of the Pokot ethnic group attacked a village of the Turkana group in the Turkana region on Monday. Turkana is located in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya. Rift Valley Regional Commissioner Osman Warfa said the attackers fled the remote region after carrying out the massacre.   “The attack took place in a very remote zone which is inaccessible,” media outlets quoted Warfa as saying.

The regional official also added that the Kenyan military has sent troops to the area in order to hunt down the attackers and perpetrators. Reports say an unknown number of animals were stolen during the assault. According to reports, the latest attack could have been in retaliation for an earlier raid carried out by the Pokot tribesmen against another village in Baringo, northern Kenay. The Turkana and Pokot tribes have endured a prolonged conflict over livestock pasture territories in the desolate region. The Kenyan authorities have established inter-clan committees to help restore stability in the region. Kenya has witnessed many bloody tribal clashes over access to water and pasture with subsequent revenge attacks in different parts of the country.

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Ngwa Bertrand

06.May.2015

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(Reuters) - Niger has evacuated thousands of Nigerian refugees sheltering from Boko Haram fighters on Lake Chad's Karamga island, a military official told Reuters on Tuesday, as the armies of four west African nations battle to quash the Islamist militants.

A regional governor in southern Niger said last week that the refugees should leave after Boko Haram fighters killed scores of the country's soldiers and civilians during a dawn ambush on the island on April 25.

The executive secretary of the State Emergency Management Agency in Yobe state, Idi Jidawa, said that 4,000 displaced Nigerians were in the process of being sent home.

Lake Chad's islands, which lie in dense swampland, have been used by Boko Haram to mount surprise attacks on the bordering countries: Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.

The group, which is fighting to create a caliphate in west Africa, has killed thousands and uprooted 1.5 million people from north eastern Nigeria, many of whom have found relative security in neighboring countries including Chad and Cameroon.

The Nigerian refugees were already on their way back home and would arrive at the frontier town of Geidam in Yobe state on Wednesday, said Jidawa. A Nigerian security official, who declined to be named, confirmed the news.

"Though NEMA (National Emergency Management Agency) is in charge, we are assisting them in the exercise of profiling and documentation," Jidawa said.

With the help of regional armies, Nigerian troops have cornered Boko Haram fighters into Sambisa Forest, where it has rescued nearly 700 women and children that the group had held captive.

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

06.May.2015

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Germany has come under fire from a United Nations panel reviewing efforts to eliminate racism in the country. Recent events, including PEGIDA rallies and the alleged arson attack on a refugee home, have raised concerns.

"Racism in Germany is not only found in extreme right-wing circles, but in all parts of society," the German government admitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva on Tuesday.

"Many politicians and parties fail to consistently disassociate themselves from racist resentments, stereotypes and prejudices," added Selmin Çaliskan, Secretary General of Amnesty International in Germany. She says this contributes to support for the "stigmatization of minorities," promoted by the anti-immigrant PEGIDA movement among others.

The weekly right-wing PEGIDA rallies saw a huge surge in popularity between October and February, with numbers reaching as high as 25,000 in the eastern German city of Dresden.

'Active civil society'

But Almut Wittling-Vogel, a Justice Ministry official representing the German government pointed out that the protest movement has since been outnumbered by counter-protesters at demonstrations.

"We are happy that we can also cite examples of an active civil society," she said before the panel.

Wittling-Vogel also promised that Germany would step up the prosecution of racist crimes.

The pledge to increase convictions came in light of concerns raised by the UN convention over alleged investigation blunders into the suspected murders of migrants by the National Socialist Underground (NSU). The trial of the group's last known member, Beate Zschäpe, is currently ongoing in Munich.

'Racial profiling'

On Wednesday, the second day of the two-day hearing, German human rights groups are expected to criticize the government for failures in the fight against racism.

Among other issues put before the panel will be persistent claims of "racial profiling" by German police in routine checks on trains.

"Such actions would undermine the confidence of ethnic minorities in the German police," Amnesty International warned. The German government's report denied the claims.

Human rights groups also say that refugees often struggle to find housing and legal help.

'Major policy field'

In around two weeks the panel of 18 independent experts will publish proposals to improve anti-racism efforts in Germany and further implement the UN convention against racism, which came into effect in 1969.

Petra Follmar-Otto, head of the German Institute for Human Rights, said she hoped the hearing would "finally make the fight against racism in Germany a major policy field."

Are you living in Germany?Have you been a victim of racism at the hands of Germans?Please  share your thoughts by commenting on this article.

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Ngwa Bertrand

06.May.2015

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Unidentified gunmen have killed; a senior Cameroon government official in front of his family last Wednesday at Biteng neighborhood in Yaoundé, Cameroon Concord was informed late over the week end.  Maurice Akoa, Divisional Delegate at the Ministry of Transport for the Nyong-et-Kelle Division in the Centre region, was coldly shot dead by two unidentified individuals-last Wednesday at Biteng. Biteng is a secure residential area in the outskirts of the nation’s capital hosting prominent government officials including Chief and Prof. Peter Agbor Tabi, Assistant Secretary General at the presidency of the republic.

Cameroon Concord learnt from sources at the gendarmerie brigade at Nkomo that the tragedy occurred at around 22 hours in the night from Wednesday to Thursday, when two hooded individuals burst into the home of  the Akoa family. The attackers triggered the alarm of his car three times to lure the victim outside. The first time it was his son who came out to see what was causing the alarm activation. The second time, it was his wife. And the third time, the family head himself came out on the porch, and it was at this time that the unknown visitors shot him at close range.

Cameroon Concord will be discussing this latest development via its AGBAW-EBAI DEBATE soonest.

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

04.May.2015

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Two crew members of a Cameroon Air Force Harbin Z-9AE helicopter were lightly injured when their aircraft crashed near Douala International Airport last week. The aircraft came down on April 24 whilst attempting to return to base after a routine training exercise. Local media report that the two crew members spent a couple of days in hospital before being released. The Ministry of Defense is yet to comment on the incident. 

However, communications minister issued a statement after the crash saying the helicopter had been practicing for Cameroon’s National Day celebrations on 20 May in Yaounde. The minister said an investigation to determine the exact causes of the accident is underway.  The crashed aircraft is relatively new to the Cameroon Air Force – four of the type were formally accepted into service by Cameroon’s Ministry of Defence on 10 November last year, after being acquired from China.

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Ngwa Bertrand

03.May.2015

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Three people, including two police officers, have been killed in Burundi amid political unrest in the African country over President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a continued stay in power. Police chief General Andre Ndayambaje told AFP that two officers were killed and another was wounded in a grenade attack in Kamenge district of the capital, Bujumbura, on Friday. Ndayambaje added that a civilian lost his life and two others were wounded in the attack. Meanwhile, the Burundian Red Cross has announced that at least seven people have been killed and 66 others wounded in a week of clashes between police and protesters in the capital.

Police crackdown

Police spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye said earlier that 577 people were arrested for causing unrest. Some 250 of those arrested face court trials and 150 of the detainees are still undergoing questioning. The rest have been set free. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office, Agnes Bangiricenge, said those who are facing trial would be charged with “taking part in an uprising,” and could be sentenced to five years and more or life in prison. Social media have been blocked in the country and radio stations have been shut down as part of the crackdown. The UN has criticized Burundian authorities for engaging in a brutal crackdown against the opposition. A spokesman for the UN human rights office, Rupert Colville, told reporters in Geneva, “According to one credible report, over 400 individuals are being held in extremely overcrowded conditions, with detainees having to sleep standing up.”

Two-day truce

A civil society leader has called on protesters to calm down and observe a two-day truce, while urging the president to rethink the “consequences” of his fresh bid for reelection. “If not, we will return to the streets on Monday with much more vigor and we will not leave until he gives up his project,” warned Pacifique Nininahazwe, who heads one of Burundi’s main civil society groups. The political unrest erupted in the African country after the ruling CNDD-FDD Party last weekend designated incumbent President Nkurunziza as its candidate for the next presidential election. Opposition forces say Nkurunziza’s bid for a third consecutive term in office is against the country’s constitution, as well as a peace deal that ended a civil war in the country in 2006. Nkurunziza is a former rebel leader from the majority Hutu tribe. He has been in power for two terms since 2005. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the 13-year civil war, which split the country along ethnic lines between the Hutu majority and minority Tutsis. The next presidential election is due to be held on June 26.

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Ngwa Bertrand

03.May.2015

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