Africa Live: Kenya warns it may ban Somalia humanitarian flights

Prominent Tunisian historian and scholar of Islamic studies
Hichem Djait has died aged 86, local media has reported.

Born in 1935 to a family of intellectuals, Djait was arguably
the most important scholar of Islamic studies. He studied Islam at distinguished schools in Tunis and went to France where he studied Western
philosophy and German.

His books are critical of orientalist literature as well as early Islamic sources. His book, Europe and Islam, is regarded by many as a
must-read for those seeking a deep and clear knowledge of
Islamic culture.

He was professor emeritus at the University of Tunis and visiting professor at McGill University in Canada and the University
of California in the US. He was also a member of the European Academy of Science and Arts.

Djait, who received several honorary titles and national and international awards, became president of the Tunisian
Academy of Science and Arts in 2012.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has vowed to defeat the criminals who shot and wounded a former army commander, killing his daughter and driver.

An army spokeswoman described it as an assassination attempt on Gen Katumba Wamala and said security forces were investigating a number of phone calls that may provide leads.

The attack on the current government minister of works and transport, who has also headed Uganda’s police force, is not the first high-profile shooting.

In recent years victims have included a magistrate, Muslim clerics, a politician and ardent supporter of President Museveni and a senior police chief. None of the murders has ever been successfully investigated or prosecuted.

A recording purporting to be Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed saying he would rather die than hand over power is fake, the PM’s office has said.

The audio clip was published by Kello Media – a media company based in the US that describes itself as non-partisan – which said it was recorded at a high-level meeting of the ruling Prosperity Party.

In the clip a voice says: “I can tell you this and
there’s no doubt or mystery about it – we have won the election.

“No-one will be able to form a government in the coming 10 years. I
would rather die than hand over power to them.”

The remarks are followed by applause.

The
government says that the audio has been
stitched together using different speeches.

The
prime minister’s office issued a statement just after the audio was posted.

“The supposed leaked audio of the prime minister during Prosperity Party meeting
of last week is a fake audio compilation which has been put together by drawing
on different remarks made by the prime minister and editing it into one compilation.”

The
office also urged Ethiopians “to be vigilant about such types of
disinformation campaigns”.

Government
officials and supporters of the prime minister also say the audio is fake, and are trying to
disqualify it by sharing clips of parts of previous speech.

Kello Media says it stands by its decision to publish the
leaked audio, adding that a rigorous editorial process was followed.

The BBC cannot independently verify whether the audio is genuine or fake.

The election in Ethiopia has been postponed several times and is now expected to be held on 21 June.

16:45 GMT: This post has been updated to reflect Kello
Media’s comment.

A judge in Madrid has turned down a request by prosecutors to detain an African separatist leader who’s been accused of torture and genocide connected with Spain’s former colony of Western Sahara.

The decision leaves the Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali free to leave Spain when he’s recovered from Covid-19.

Mr Ghali’s lawyer wants the court to throw out the case brought by dissidents.

Mr Ghali denies abuses in Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria.

His presence in Spain has angered Morocco, which claims sovereignty over Western Sahara.

Madrid has accused Rabat of retaliating by letting thousands of migrants enter Spain’s North African cities of Ceuta and Melilla.

The head of an Islamic school in Nigeria where some
students were abducted on Sunday has told the BBC that 136 students, including five of his own children, are missing.

Three teachers are also missing following the attack on the school in the town of Tegina in the western state of Niger.

Abubakar Alhassan said he had spoken with the kidnappers
who told him that the children were being fed and kept in a good condition.

He said the
school had conducted a head count to ascertain the number of missing students.

Abductions carried out for ransom are widespread across Nigeria.

Earlier, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari ordered security agencies to speed up their rescue efforts.

In another incident near
Tegina on Monday, armed gangs raided neighbouring Beri town and a nearby
village.

Residents told the BBC that that the gunmen arrived on motorcycles and
started shooting indiscriminately, causing a stampede.

They burnt down the police
station in the town, killing a policeman.

Some yet-to-be-determined number of
people were also kidnapped.

Local vigilantes reportedly confronted the bandits
and killed five of the attackers.

Nigeria’s six-year-old King Chikamso, popularly known as DJ Irish, says she wants to go into medicine and still pursue her deejaying career.

She told BBC Igbo that she wanted to balance the two.

“I want to
become a medical doctor, to make people get better when they are sick. It won’t
be easy but I will be a doctor and still do well in my career as a DJ.”

Her interest in deejaying began when she was five and she asked her father to buy her some equipment.

She hired someone who taught her how to deejay and now she does it as ease.

“My friends at school tell me that I’m a good DJ, that I entertain people well and make them happy,” she said.

DJ Irish’s mother, Adaobi King says her work as a DJ does not affect her education, and that is why she supports it.

In December 2019, following days of heavy rain, a
landslide killed 28 people and destroyed many homes in Bushika county in Uganda.

Forty-eight of the
survivors are now taking the government to court.

“The landslide started from up the hill and crashed down… there was nowhere you can even stand; it was really deep,” says Walimba Vincent – a resident of Naposhi village, which
was almost decimated by the
landslide.

Those who
suffered because of the landslide still have
nowhere to go, he adds.

It wasn’t the
first landslide in the area – extreme weather conditions because of climate change are creating the conditions for these kinds of disasters to occur around Mt Elgon.

Survivors say more could have been done to stop the deaths.

“It’s a landmark case…and the courts are interested in how far it goes,” said Dr Arthur Bainomugisha, the executive director of Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (Acode).

He believes that the government has “to
relocate the population to safer places”
and only preserve the area for tourism.

After
another deadly landslide in 2018, President Yoweri Museveni did acknowledge
that the resettlement plans had not been efficient enough and set up a
parliamentary committee to investigate what had happened.

It found that the funds for resettlement had been
spent on other disasters or had just not been used.

But the government has also
said recently that many people from Bushika county just didn’t want
to uproot their lives.

In Tuesday’s episode of Africa Daily, I look at whether the government can be held responsible.

The United Nations food agency says more than 90% of people in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray are in need of emergency food aid.

“A total of 5.2 million people, 91% of Tigray’s population, need emergency food assistance due to conflict since last November,” the World Food Programme (WFP) says in a statement.

It has appealed for $203m (£143m) to boost its efforts in the region in order to “save lives and livelihoods” up to the end of the year.

The agency says it has so far provided emergency food assistance to about a million people since it started distributing food in March.

The conflict in Tigray erupted in November when Ethiopia’s government launched an offensive to oust the region’s former ruling party, the TPLF, from power after its fighters captured federal military bases.

The seven-month conflict has had a devastating impact on a region that was already food insecure.

On Tuesday, the WFP said it was highly concerned over the number of people who needed nutritional support and emergency assistance, adding that it was doing all it could to provide aid to more than two million people in coming months.

Angolan President João Lourenço has sacked the head of his security team, Pedro Sebastião.

He also fired the defence secretary and the head of military intelligence.

No reasons were given for the dismissals.

They come weeks after an army official was detained while trying to leave the country with millions in foreign currency.

Environmental campaigners have warned that exports of fish meal and fish oil from West Africa are depriving more than 30 million people a year of food.

A report by Greenpeace Africa and the Netherlands-based organisation Changing Markets urges governments to phase out processing of fish which is fit for human consumption being used for fishmeal and oil.

It says the fish extracted by industrial vessels off West Africa are processed and exported, mainly to Europe and Asia, as feed for fish farms, pet food or use in cosmetics.

The report says the industry is devastating coastal communities and undermining food security in Mauritania, Senegal, the Gambia, Mali and Burkina Faso.

The daughter of Uganda’s Transport Minister Gen Katumba Wamala and his driver have died from injuries sustained after the shooting.

The two were in the vehicle with the minister when it was sprayed with bullets from the sides and front by gunmen riding in motorcycles.

Army Spokesman Brig Gen Flavia Byekwaso says security forces have taken interest in a number of phone calls that seem to be related to planning the attempted assassination of the transport minister.

Gen Wamala’s injuries from the shooting are said to be not not life threatening.

In videos shared on social media, the former army chief seems to be in agony.

The army has deployed heavily to the hospital in centre of the capital, Kampala, where he has been admitted.

Army chief Gen David Muhoozi has visited the crime scene.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the security authorities to hasten efforts to rescue more than 100 children kidnapped from an Islamic school in Niger state.

The president condemned the latest incident as “unfortunate” while urging the agencies to secure their “immediate release”, according to a statement shared by his spokesman Garba Shehu on Twitter.

Mr Buhari has also directed government agencies to extend possible support to the families of the kidnapped children.

Abductions carried out for ransom are increasingly common in northern states – with hundreds having been kidnapped in several incidents in recent months.

In February, nearly 300 girls were taken by armed men from a boarding school in Jangebe, Zamfara state. Most were later freed.

In the latest incident on Sunday in the town of Tegina, gunmen on motorcycles are reported to have stormed the town and opened fire indiscriminately.

The gunmen then seized the students from the school – where children aged between six and 18 years attend – as people fled.

The French foreign minister has called for strict adherence to Mali’s transition timetable by military authorities and reiterated France’s condemnation of the coup in the country.

“France shares the absolute priority given by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) to the presidential elections of 27 February 2022, under the strict conditions outlined by the heads of state and government, in their 30 May statement,” Jean-Yves Le Drian tweeted.

Mali has had two coups in nine months with the military junta leader Col Assimi Goïta declaring himself transitional president.

Noting Ecowas’ decision to suspend Mali over the latest coup, Mr Le Drian said France backed its establishment of a transition monitoring committee.

He said the adherence to the criteria verified by Ecowas was essential for maintaining international support for Mali.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron said the country would withdraw its troops, seen as critical to the fight against jihadist militants, if Mali moved towards embracing radical Islam.

Uganda’s Transport Minister General Katumba Wamala has been shot and injured by unknown gunmen near his home in the capital Kampala.

Eyewitnesses say the gunmen were riding on a motorcycle.

General Wamala is a former army commander.

Over the last few years, the country has been
rocked by such shootings by armed men riding on motorcycles.

In June 2018, Ibrahim Abiriga, a flamboyant
politician and ardent supporter of President Yoweri Museveni, was shot and killed near
his home.

Former police spokesperson Andrew Felix Kaweesi was assassinated in a similar manner in April 2017.

A magistrate and several Muslim
clerics were killed in the same way.

None of the killings has ever been
successfully investigated or prosecuted.

The leader of Western Sahara’s independence movement, Brahim Ghali, is due to appear before a Spanish court to answer allegations of torture and genocide.

The head of the Polisario Front is being treated for Covid-19 in Logroño, northern Spain, and will testify via a video link with Madrid’s National Court.

Mr Ghali’s presence in Spain has angered Morocco, which claims the former Spanish colony.

Last month more than 8,000 Moroccans crossed the border into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta in an action which Spanish politicians say was supported by the Moroccan authorities.

The African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat has appealed to the members of the Pan-African Parliament to “recover their composure” after scuffles were reported in Monday’s session.

He tweeted that the “shocking scenes of violence” had tarnished “the image of this honourable institution”.

The scuffles were at a session set to elect a new leader for the continental body.

Local media in South Africa, where the sessions are held, reported that blows were exchanged during the scuffles.

The Pan-African Parliament, also known as the African parliament, is the legislative body of the African Union.

It has been touted as a “political transitory arrangement towards the United States of Africa”.