West African leaders meet to decide on Guinea after coup

By Christian Akorlie

ACCRA (Reuters) – West African leaders gathered in Accra on Thursday to determine how the region’s main political and economic bloc can steer Guinea back towards constitutional rule following a coup that ousted President Alpha Conde last week.

The 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) condemned the putsch and has suspended Guinea from the bloc’s decision-making bodies.

The leaders were to hear a report from a ministerial mission that went to Guinea’s capital Conakry on Friday to meet the ruling junta.

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, who is ECOWAS chairman, said in remarks before a closed-door session that he hoped the heads of state will help offer durable solutions to the crisis.

He added that the leaders will also hear a report from the mediator of the crisis in Mali, former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. Mali has also been suspended from the organization following two coups within a year.

Jonathan said last week that the bloc was concerned Mali’s transitional government has not made sufficient progress toward organizing elections in February as agreed after the coup last year.

“We are required to take informed decisions on these matters that will have long-term consequences for the stability and defense of democratic values of our region,” Akufo-Addo said.

The junta in Guinea led by Mamady Doumbouya, a former member of the French Foreign Legion, is holding consultations with various public figures, groups and business leaders in the country to map a framework for a transitional government.

As part of the four-day consultation, the junta will meet with Guinea’s main business lobby and executives of mining firms operating in its bauxite, gold, iron ore and diamond sectors.

The junta has not said how long the transitional government will last, or who will lead it.

(Reporting by Christian Akorlie; Writing by Cooper Inveen and Bate Felix; Editing by David Clarke and Andrew Cawthorne)

Nigeria receives 4 million doses of covid-19 vaccines from U.S. government

By Felix Onuah

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria has received 4 million doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines donated by the United States government, its health minister said on Monday, as the West African country battles a third wave of infections.

Osagie Ehanire said the vaccines, which arrived on Sunday, are undergoing validation by the country’s drug regulator. He said the doses will be distributed to the local states once they are certified fit for use.

The U.S. government last week shipped nearly 10 million doses to two of the most populous African countries – Nigeria and South Africa.

“Vaccination in Nigeria should soon begin with the arrival … of Moderna vaccines, thanks to the United States government,” Ehanire told a coronavirus briefing in Abuja.

He said Nigeria would receive over 40 million doses by the end of the year, without providing details.

The primary healthcare agency said last month that Nigeria had exhausted an initial supply of nearly 4 million shots and expects to receive nearly 8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of August, including the U.S. government donation.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has seen a rise in coronavirus cases since mid July. Some 174,315 cases and 2,149 deaths have been recorded since the pandemic began in early 2020, official data shows.

It recently detected the highly contagious Delta variant, with the health minister warning that the country was going through a third wave of the infection.

Resident doctors in Nigerian public hospitals began an indefinite strike on Monday over grievances that include the delayed payment of salaries and allowances, the doctors’ union said, as coronavirus infections rise.

(Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Malian woman gives birth to nine babies

BAMAKO (Reuters) – A Malian woman gave birth to nine babies on Tuesday – two more than doctors had detected inside her crowded womb – joining a small pantheon of mothers of nonuplets.

The pregnancy of Halima Cisse, 25, has fascinated the West African nation and attracted the attention of its leaders. When doctors in March said Cisse needed specialist care, authorities flew her to Morocco, where she gave birth.

“The newborns (five girls and four boys) and the mother are all doing well,” Mali’s health minister, Fanta Siby, said in a statement.

Cisse was expected to give birth to seven babies, according to ultrasounds conducted in Morocco and Mali that missed two of the siblings. All were delivered by caesarean section.

Nonuplets are extremely rare. Medical complications in multiple births of this kind often mean that some of the babies do not reach full term.

(Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Peter Cooney)

U.S. halts military cooperation with Mali as coup supporters celebrate

By Tiemoko Diallo and Aaron Ross

BAMAKO (Reuters) – The United States said on Friday it had suspended cooperation with Mali’s military in response to the overthrow of the president, as thousands gathered in the capital to celebrate the junta’s takeover.

The ousting of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on Tuesday has dismayed Mali’s international partners, who fear it could further destabilize the former French colony and West Africa’s entire Sahel region.

“Let me say categorically there is no further training or support of Malian armed forces full-stop. We have halted everything until such time as we can clarify the situation,” the U.S. Sahel envoy J. Peter Pham told journalists.

The United States regularly provides training to soldiers in Mali, including several of the officers who led the coup. It also offers intelligence support to France’s Barkhane forces, who are there to fight affiliates of al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Pham said a decision on whether Washington would designate the actions a coup, which could trigger a cut-off of direct support to the government, had to go through a legal review. A Pentagon spokesperson referred on Friday to the events as an “act of mutiny”.

Supporters of the junta filled Independence Square in the capital, Bamako, which has been largely peaceful since Tuesday’s turmoil. Many of them sang, danced, tooted vuvuzelas and waved banners thanking the mutineers.

“It’s a scene of joy. God delivered us from the hands of evil, we are happy, we are behind our army,” said a 59-year-old farmer who gave his name only as Souleymane.

Some protesters also showed their disapproval of different foreign powers. One sign had the words “Barkhane” and “MINUSMA” crossed out, the latter a reference to the U.N. peacekeeping force in Mali.

Meanwhile a couple of Russian flags could be seen waving in the crowd. Russia’s ambassador to Mali has met representatives of the junta, Russian state news agency RIA reported.

France said on Thursday that Barkhane’s operations would continue despite the coup.

TRANSITION

The junta leaders have said they acted because the country was sinking into chaos and insecurity that they said was largely the fault of poor government. They have promised to oversee a transition to elections within a “reasonable” amount of time.

Junta spokesman Ismael Wague said on Thursday that the officers were holding talks with political leaders that would lead to the appointment of a transitional president.

They have held Keita since detaining him and forcing him to dissolve parliament and resign.

A United Nations human rights team visited Keita and 13 other senior figures held by the junta late on Thursday, spokeswoman Liz Throssell said.

“There are no indications that these people have been ill-treated,” she told a news briefing in Geneva, where she called for their release.

Earlier on Friday, the mutineers freed Finance Minister Abdoulaye Daffe and the president’s private secretary, Sabane Mahalmoudou, the head of Keita’s party, Bocary Treta, said.

A delegation from the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is expected to arrive in Bamako on Saturday, after the bloc held an emergency summit aimed at reversing Keita’s ouster.

ECOWAS has already suspended Mali’s membership, shut off borders and halted financial flows to the country.

(Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo and Aaron Ross; Additional reporting by Felix Onuah in Abuja, David Lewis in London, Stephanie Nebehey in Geneva, Idrees Ali in Washington and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Toby Chopra, Angus MacSwan and Frances Kerry)

Many still missing after deadly attack near Canadian-run mine in Burkina Faso

Many still missing after deadly attack near Canadian-run mine in Burkina Faso
OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) – Dozens of people were feared still missing on Thursday after an ambush on workers near a Canadian-owned mine in Burkina Faso killed at least 37 and wounded 60 in the worst such attack in the West African nation for years.

Quebec-based gold miner Semafo <SMF.TO> said five of its buses with a military escort came under fire on the road leading to its Boungou mine in the eastern region of Est, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Boungou, on Wednesday.

The assailants’ identity was unclear, but Burkina Faso is struggling to combat surging Islamist violence in the remote eastern and northern scrubland areas. It was unclear exactly how many people were in the convoy, what their nationalities were or how many were missing. But the company has said that under new safety guidelines, Burkinabe employees travel to and from the mine with a military escort by road while international staff are flown by helicopter.

Semafo had tightened security last year following attacks that killed three workers and five security officials.

Two separate sources who have worked at the mine said that the convoy left weekly carrying about 250 local staff usually in five buses of 50 to 60 people each.

Two security sources told Reuters that dozens may still be unaccounted for.

Government and military officials declined to comment.

A spokesperson for Canada’s foreign ministry said there were no reports so far of any of its nationals being affected.

Once a pocket of relative calm in the Sahel region, Burkina has suffered a homegrown insurgency for the past three years, amplified by a spillover of jihadist violence and criminality from its chaotic northern neighbor Mali.

Wednesday’s attack is the worst since jihadist groups with links to Islamic State and al Qaeda began targeting the landlocked nation with high profile attacks in January 2016.

Then, armed al Qaeda militants killed 32 people in a raid on a popular cafe and hotel in the capital Ouagadougou.

(Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

West Africa’s historic slave sites bear witness to brutal trade

Women in procession dance outside a slavery memorial site near the Bodo river in Kanga Nianze village, in Tiassale, Ivory Coast, July 21, 2019. REUTERS/Luc Gnago

By Zohra Bensemra and Luc Gnago

KUNTA KINTEH ISLAND, Gambia (Reuters) – When Gambian boat captain Abdoulie Jabang ferries visitors to Kunta Kinteh island he tells them that the waves lapping the shores of the former slave site threaten to wash history away.

Situated at the mouth of the Gambian river, the island is home to one of the many forts that dot the West African coast – crumbling reminders of the centuries-long transatlantic slave trade that tore millions of Africans from their homes.

As Jabang steered his blue-painted wooden boat through the water, he gestured towards Kunta Kinteh, whose ruined fortress shaded by giant baobab trees is threatened by erosion.

“You see the island is very small now,” he said.

Emmanuel Mouti Dongo from Cameroon visits the “Maison Des Esclaves” slave house on Goree Island off the coast of Dakar, Senegal, July 7, 2019.  REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Emmanuel Mouti Dongo from Cameroon visits the “Maison Des Esclaves” slave house on Goree Island off the coast of Dakar, Senegal, July 7, 2019.  REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

“We have to preserve this island for the young coming generations – we need to let them know about it. We should never forget what this land has been used for.”

From Senegal’s Goree Island at Africa’s western-most point to the Nigerian port of Badagry on the Gulf of Guinea, the sites where slaves spent their final days on African soil have turned into places of pilgrimage and remembrance.

Many have seen a surge in visitors this year, which marks 400 years since the first record of African slaves arriving in North America.

Tourists can walk along the cannon-studded ramparts of slave fortresses or pass through the points of ‘No Return’, where slaves were marched in chains to waiting ships.

Some who live and work in the shadow of the landmarks see the sites as a reminder not to let history repeat itself.

Canons are seen at the Cape Coast Castle, one of several slave forts build along the Gold Coast in Ghana, July 28, 2019. Picture taken July 28,2019. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

Canons are seen at the Cape Coast Castle, one of several slave forts build along the Gold Coast in Ghana, July 28, 2019. Picture taken July 28,2019. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

“Future generations need to know what is happening so that it does not happen again,” said Chief Seraphin Kpissi, whose village in Ivory Coast lies near a slave site on the banks of the Bodo river.

A tall stone slab wrapped in chains now stands as a memorial to the slaves who were forced to take a last bath in the Bodo’s muddy waters towards the end of their march to the coast.

The memorial was erected with the participation of UNESCO, which has granted world heritage status to Kunta Kinteh island and several other West African sites due to the important testimony they provide of the slave trade.

(Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Gareth Jones)

West African slavery lives on, 400 years after transatlantic trade began

A woman, who says she was a victim of sexual exploitation and calls herself Claudia Osadolor to protect her identity, works as a tailor after training with the support of Nigerian charity Pathfinders Justice Initiative in Benin City, Nigeria July 20, 2019. Picture taken July 20, 2019. REUTERS/Nneka Chile

By Angela Ukomadu and Nneka Chile

LAGOS (Reuters) – Blessing was only six years old when her mother arranged for her to become an unpaid housemaid for a family in the African Nigerian city of Abuja, on the promise they would put her through school.

In her home town in southwest Nigeria, her mother had trouble making enough money to feed her three children. But when Blessing arrived in Abuja, instead of going to school, the family worked her round-the-clock, beat her with an electrical wire if she forgot one of her chores and fed her rotten leftovers.

When her mother later moved to the city to be closer to her daughter, Blessing was unable to be alone with her when she came to visit.

“They would tell me that my mother was coming, that I should not tell her what was happening to me, that I should not even say anything,” she says of the family.

“If she asks me how am I doing I should say I am doing fine, they said.”

As the world marks 400 years since the first recorded African slaves arrived in North America, slavery remains a modern-day scourge. Over 40 million people are estimated to be trapped in forced labor, forced marriages or other forms of sexual exploitation, according to the United Nations.

Blessing, now 11, is one such victim. She was rescued in 2016 by the Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation (WOTCLEF), an anti-human trafficking group, after two years of isolation and abuse. She is still under the care of WOTCLEF, which gave consent for her to be interviewed for this story.

Africa has the highest prevalence of slavery, with more than seven victims for every 1,000 people, according to a 2017 report by human rights group Walk Free Foundation and the International Labour Office. The report defines slavery as “situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, and/or abuse of power.”

Trafficking of sex workers, many of them tricked into thinking they will get employment doing something else, is one of the most widespread and abusive forms of modern-day slavery.

The experiences of Claudia Osadolor and Progress Omovhie show how poverty increases women’s vulnerability to exploitation.

After Osadolor’s family in Benin City in southern Nigeria hit hard times, she dropped out of university and headed to Russia after a cousin told her about someone who could help her get work there, with travel expenses paid. She left Nigeria with three other girls she did not know in June 2012. When she got to Russia a “madam” came to pick her up.

Osadolor, now 28, says she was forced into prostitution and suffered internal injuries after being made to sleep with up to 20 men a day. She was trapped for three years, with the madam coming round every two weeks to take almost all of her money.

She cries as she recounts the trauma and her relief at escaping thanks to a chance meeting with a representative of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) at a metro station.

“I feel like I paid the ultimate price for my family,” she says. “But I thank God that I came back alive.”

Osadolor has been able to reintegrate into society after training as a tailor back in Benin with the support of Nigerian charity Pathfinders Justice Initiative.

Omovhie, 33, also found herself enslaved after leaving Nigeria in 2015 in search of work. She paid an agent 700,000 naira ($2,290) – money she had borrowed – to smuggle her on a journey across the Sahara desert to Libya, hoping eventually to go to Europe.

The intended final destination of people smuggled across Africa like this is often Europe, but few make it that far. Many are jailed or sold as indentured laborers when they get to Libya. Some are even sold on slave markets, according to aid groups – a chilling echo of the trans-Saharan slave trade of centuries past.

Once in Libya, Omovhie says she started working long hours as a cleaner for a well-off Arab family in Tripoli, often on an empty stomach.

“I worked three months and they did not pay me in that house,” she said.

Another agent promised to help Omovhie escape by sending her to Italy, but she was rounded up by police on the Libyan coast and detained there for six months. She returned to Nigeria in July under a state program to help refugees and migrants. It has helped over 14,000 Nigerians return home since 2017.

Blessing and Claudia Osadolor are pseudonyms requested to protect their anonymity.

(Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Tim Cocks and Susan Fenton)

Congo records one-day record for confirmed Ebola cases

FILE PHOTO: Healthcare worker carry a coffin with a baby suspected of dying of Ebola during the funeral in Beni, North Kivu Province of Democratic Republic of Congo, December 18, 2018. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic/File Photo

KINSHASA (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday confirmed 14 new cases of Ebola virus in its eastern borderlands, the largest one-day increase since the current outbreak was declared in August.

The outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri is already the second-largest in history with 713 confirmed and probable cases and 439 deaths.

It is surpassed only by the 2013-2016 outbreak in West Africa, which involved over 28,000 cases and 11,000 deaths and led to substantial investments in a vaccine and treatments for the virus.

Health officials have struggled to bring the current outbreak, Congo’s tenth since 1976, under control, largely due to widespread militia violence in eastern Congo which has hampered the response.

The health ministry said in a daily bulletin that nine of the new cases were in the health zone of Katwa, just outside Butembo, a city of several hundred thousand people near the Ugandan border that has emerged as the outbreak’s new epicenter. One other case was in Butembo.

The ministry also announced six new deaths of confirmed cases as well as the recovery of one patient.

(Reporting By Stanis Bujakera and Fiston Mahamba; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by William Maclean and Peter Graff)

Congo approves more experimental Ebola treatments as cases rise

FILE PHOTO: Congolese health workers prepare the Ebola treatment centre in the village of Mangina in North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, August 18, 2018. REUTERS/Olivia Acland

KINSHASA (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo has approved four more experimental treatments against the deadly Ebola virus, the health ministry said as it raced to contain an outbreak in its violence-torn east.

Health authorities last week started administering the U.S.-developed mAb114 treatment to Ebola patients, the first time such a treatment had been used against an active outbreak.

The health ministry said in a daily bulletin late on Tuesday that the 10 patients who received mAb114 since Aug. 11 have experienced a “positive evolution”, but the outbreak has continued to grow.

The four additional treatments approved by Congo’s ethics committee are Remdesivir, made by Israel’s Gilead Sciences; ZMapp, an intravenous treatment made by San Diego’s Mapp Pharmaceutical; Japanese drug Favipiravir; and one referred to as Regn3450 – 3471 – 3479.

Remdesivir was administered to its first patient in the town of Beni on Tuesday, who is doing well, the ministry said in its bulletin.

Six new cases and four new deaths have been confirmed from the haemmorhagic fever, which causes vomiting and severe diarrhea, the ministry said.

That brings the total number of deaths to 59 and confirmed cases to 75 since last month.

Congo, whose heavily forested interior makes its a natural home for Ebola, is at the forefront of a global campaign to combat the virus, which killed more than 11,000 people when it swept through West Africa from 2013-2016.

The Central African country has experienced ten Ebola outbreaks since the virus was discovered in northern Congo in 1976 – more than twice as many as any other country – and 33 people died in a flare-up in the northwest that ended last month.

In addition, a vaccine manufactured by Merck, which proved effective against the earlier outbreak in northwestern Congo, has been administered to 1,693 health workers and contacts of Ebola patients.

Insecurity in Congo’s eastern borderlands with Uganda has continued to complicate the response, with some contacts of Ebola patients located in so-called “red-zones”, which are off limits to emergency responders due to militia activity.

Instead, local health workers in those areas are monitoring the contacts and no Ebola cases have yet been confirmed there.

(Reporting By Amedee Mwarabu and Fiston Mahamba; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

U.S. must step up support for operation against West Africa militants: France

French soldiers prepare their armoured vehicles at the Relay Desert Platform Camp (PfDR) in Ansongo, Mali, October 15, 2017, during the regional anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

By John Irish and Yara Bayoumy

PARIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States must step up its support for a planned African force to fight Islamist militants in West Africa otherwise it could fail, leaving French troops to carry the burden alone, France’s defense minister said on Friday.

France intervened in Mali to ward off an offensive by Islamist militants that began in 2012 and 4,000 of its troops remain in the region as part of Operation Barkhane where they work alongside 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Mali.

France and West African countries are pushing for the creation of a regional force known as the G5 Sahel.

Washington provides bilateral assistance, intelligence and training for regional security operations, but it is cool toward the African force and has pushed back against U.N. support for it.

“In the Sahel, France is deploying in a high-intensity environment, with tremendous support from the United States. We are immensely grateful for that support,” Parly said in a speech at a Washington think tank monitored in Paris.

“But much more needs to be done. We can’t be, and don’t want to be, the praetorian (guards) of sovereign African countries. They must be made able to defeat terror on their own,” she said during a visit for meetings with her American counterpart James Mattis and White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.

“I would be happy if you could help spread the word in the Beltway,” she said in a reference to the U.S. government.

Parly said the G5 Sahel force was meant to bolster the security capacity of Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania, which are all former French colonies.

French officials see the success of the G5 Sahel as a long-term exit strategy for Paris. For decades, France has mounted military operations in its former African colonies but in recent years it has looked to spread the cost.

Until now the G5 force has only received a quarter of its estimated 423 million euro budget, according to a report by the U.N. Secretary General, who said financing the operation would “remain a significant challenge” for several years.

“It will start its first operations soon. It needs support. The U.N. wants to give support. I hope everyone can become convinced that a robust U.N. assistance is necessary,” Parly said.

French defense officials say they expect the first G5 patrols to begin this month and hope that will provide momentum ahead of a donor conference in December.

Parly said that militants could flourish if financial backing for the G5 was not forthcoming.

Her visit also aimed to ascertain the political fallout from an ambush in Niger in early October that saw four U.S. special forces soldiers killed by jihadists.

U.S. troops called in French fighter jets for air support and French helicopters to evacuate several wounded soldiers.

(Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)