News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

Release of 21 Chibok girls ' just the beginning'

Posted: 16 Oct 2016 11:20 PM PDT

Negotiation is on-going with Nigeria's Boko Haram group for the release of remaining Chibok girls in captivity, a senior official says.

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Lagos - Negotiation was on-going with Nigeria's Boko Haram group for the release of remaining Chibok girls in captivity, a senior official said on Sunday.

At a thanksgiving service organised for the freed girls in Abuja, Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed said the release of the 21 Chibok girls "is only a first step in what we believe will be a total liberation of all the girls."

"This is just the beginning and we are very optimistic that another batch, bigger than this will be released to us soon," Mohammed said.

The minister disclosed this a day after President Muhammadu Buhari said negotiations would continue until all the girls secured their freedom.

The minister cautioned "naysayers" who doubted the process and some social commentators to refrain from making comments that could jeopardise the process.

"We want to sound a note of warning, particularly to many reckless analysts and commentators who are not helping the situation," he said.

"We still have more than 120 of our children in captivity, therefore we must be careful of the kind of comments we make.

"We must not make comments that will make the release of other girls difficult or impossible."

The minister reiterated that the girls were not swapped for Boko Haram members in captivity and that the government did not pay ransom for their release.

Twenty-one girls, abducted from their school in Chibok, were released on Thursday, while some 100 others are still in Boko Haram's captivity.

Xinhua

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South Sudan rocked by fresh violence

Posted: 16 Oct 2016 07:11 PM PDT

Heavy fighting near the town of Malakal in South Sudan claimed dozens of lives, according to a military spokesperson.

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Juba - Heavy fighting around the town of Malakal in South Sudan killed dozens of people over the weekend, a military spokesman said on Sunday, after rebels said they would try to seize control of the town.

The rebels had attacked government positions on Friday night, but the military had held their ground, army spokesman Lul Ruai Koang said.

“Our forces were able to successfully drive them back with heavy casualties. Over 56 rebels were killed,” he told a group of journalists whom the government had flown to Malakal on Sunday to see the situation.

“We came here... to let the people of South Sudan, and in particular the region, know that Malakal was not captured by the rebels as reported over the weekend.”

It was not possible to independently verify the reported casualty figures, but a Reuters photographer who flew to Lalo, a camp near Malakal, with the military saw 15 bodies nearby, a burnt building within the base, and bodies scattered in other positions. Soldiers said they were expecting another attack.

On Friday, the rebels said they had captured Lalo and the nearby location of Wajwok, and planned to seize Malakal.

“We want to make sure that the government are dislodged from the town and we take control,” deputy rebel spokesperson Dickson Gatluak told Reuters by phone from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

Oil-rich South Sudan descended into civil war in December 2013 when a row between President Salva Kiir and his sacked deputy Riek Machar ended with fighting that often occurred along ethnic fault lines. Both sides have targeted civilians, human rights groups say.

The fighting initially ended with a peace deal signed in 2015, but violations have been frequent, and heavy fighting broke out again in July. Machar fled the country and is now in South Africa for medical treatment.

Gatluak said the international community's failure to enforce the 2015 agreement was a major reason for renewed hostilities.

“We realised that there is not any political space, there is not any political settlement in (the capital) Juba. The international community and the IGAD itself have failed us ... they failed to keep that fragile peace agreement,” he said, referring to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a political bloc of East African countries.

Last week, violence in South Sudan killed at least 60 people, the military said. The United Nations said it had reports of civilians being burned alive in buses.

REUTERS

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Congo delays presidential vote to 2018

Posted: 16 Oct 2016 04:13 AM PDT

Democratic Republic of Congo's ruling coalition and other smaller parties have agreed to delay next month's elections to April 2018.

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Nairobi - Democratic Republic of Congo's ruling coalition and other smaller parties have agreed to delay next month's elections to April 2018 - a move that will anger opposition groups who have accused the president of trying to cling onto power.

Congo's main opposition bloc was not immediately available for comment, but has already called a general strike for Wednesday to press President Joseph Kabila to leave at the end of his mandate this year.

Past moves to delay the election have triggered violent demonstrations.

Parties agreed in talks on Saturday to keep Kabila in office until the vote, said one organisation in the discussions, the Union for the Congolese Nation.

But most other opposition groups boycotted the negotiations, saying they were a pretext for letting Kabila keep the top job.

UNC president Vital Kamerhe is widely expected to become prime minister as part of the power-sharing government ushered in under the talks.

Reuters

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