At least 18 civilians have been killed after their vehicle came under attack in a part of western Niger frequently targeted by rebel fighters, the government has said.

In a statement on Tuesday, interior minister Alkassoum Indatou attributed Sunday’s attack in the Tillaberi region near the Malian border, to “armed bandits, aboard several motorcycles, who have not yet been identified”.

In 2021, armed groups carried out numerous attacks on civilians in the region, including a November 2 massacre of at least 69 members of a self-defence militia. In October that year, motorcycle-riding assailants killed 10 people in a mosque near Tizegorou during evening prayers. 

Earlier this month, an improvised explosive device killed five Nigerien soldiers in the southwest of the Sahel country, according to the defence ministry. The blast also occurred in the Gotheye district of Tillaberi.

For years, western Niger has faced rebel attacks, despite the efforts of international forces deployed to the wider Sahel region to fight the armed groups.

Niger, the world’s poorest country according to the UN’s Human Development Index, is currently contending with two rebel groups that have displaced thousands of people.

The groups are the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) in the west, as well as Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the southeast, near the border with Nigeria. 

Niger’s neighbour Mali has also been struggling to contain a brutal armed uprising that first emerged in 2012, before spreading to Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and two million people have been displaced by the Sahel-wide conflict, which has Mali as the epicentre.

France announced a military pullout last week due to a dispute with Mali’s military, which seized power in 2020 and has since defied international calls to swiftly restore civil rule.

Botswana President Ian Khama on Monday accepted the chairmanship of Southern African Development Community (SADC) from his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe in the Botswana’s capital city, Gaborone.

Mugabe handed over the SADC Chairperson’s Badge to Ian Khama during SADC’s annual Heads of State and Government Summit held on August 17 and 18 in Gaborone.

The latter was reelected as the president of Botswana last October after his party - the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) - won majority of the parliament seats in the country’s 11th general elections.

Born in 1953, Ian Khama is the elder son of Botswana’s founding president Seretse Khama.

He succeeded Festus Mogae as president in 2008 after the latter’s retirement.

He was elected as president for the first time in the following year.

The SADC chairmanship rotates among the heads of the states of the 15 member states, namely Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

-Xinhua

The United Nations says Angola has expelled more than 8 000 Congolese who entered the southern African country while fleeing deadly violence at home.

A new humanitarian report says more than 30 000 Congolese have fled to Angola during months of violence in Democratic Republic of Congo's central Kasai regions that began in August.

Catholic officials in DRC have estimated that more than 3 300 people have been killed in the unrest, and the UN Human Rights Council on Friday voted to send experts to the region to investigate alleged abuses that include beheadings.

The UN says more than one million Congolese have been displaced inside the country by the fighting blamed on militias and government forces.

It says militias have used an estimated 500 girls and boys as fighters or "human shields."

-AP

Dozens of suspected Somali al Shabaab fighters swept into a Kenyan village and lectured locals for at least two hours before disappearing into a nearby forest without attacking anyone, police and residents said on Sunday.

The al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab has made a series of deadly raids in Kenya since Kenyan troops first entered Somalia to fight them in 2011. It has said it will continue until Nairobi withdraws the troops, now part of an African Union peacekeeping force.

Residents of Basuba village in the coastal region of Lamu said the militants, numbering over 50, warned them against boarding any police or military vehicles because they targeted them for attacks.

"They had their faces masked and wore jungle attire. They told us if we boarded those vehicles we would die with the officers," one resident told Reuters.
 
The villager said among the militants were two men and two women who appeared to be of Caucasian origin. They arrived at 5 a.m. on Saturday.

"They also warned that if we told police about their presence and visit, they would come back and deal with us," said the witness, adding that a few locals had already left the area out of fear.

A second resident said: "They said they didn’t want to hurt us and that their war was with the military and police in Lamu and not us."
 
Chrispus Mutali, Lamu County Administration police commander, said: "We are hearing about that al Shabaab visit in Basuba but we cannot confirm anything for now until we get clear information from officers on the ground."

Al Shabaab aims to topple Somalia's Western-backed government and impose its own strict version of Islamic law.

-Reuters