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Renewed tribal clashes claim 168 in Sudan’s night of horror

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Not less than 168 people were killed in what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), described as tribal clashes between Arabs and non-Arabs in Sudan’s Darfur province on Sunday night.

The bloody clashes which is one of the deadliest bouts of violence in the war-ravaged country in recent years, took place in the West Darfur province, and is coming at a time Sudan has been plunged into serious turmoil since a military coup last year.

The military coup which ended the country’s transition to democracy after a popular uprising forced the removal of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, has also led to street protests which has seen close to 100 people killed.

The Sunday night killings further raises questions over the ability of the military leaders to bring security to the troubled Darfur, a region that has been wracked by years of civil war.

Spokesman for the General Coordination for Refugees and Displaced in Darfur, Adam Regal, who confirmed the fighting in a statement on Monday, said Sunday’s fighting in West Darfur’s Kreinik area also wounded 98 people.

“The fighting grew out of the killing of two people by unknown assailants on Thursday,” he said.

“On Sunday, large numbers of people armed with heavy weapons launched a major attack on Kreinik, torching and looting properties. The fighting lasted for several hours and forced thousands of people to flee their homes,” Regal added.

According to Regal whose group provides food and other assistance to displaced people in the region, the clashes eventually reached Genena, where militias and armed groups attacked wounded people while they were being treated at the city’s main hospital.

“The area was burned down, and many people were killed. There was no intervention from the local government to stop the fighting,” d Salah Saleh, a doctor and former medical director at a local hospital also said.

The Darfur has been an epicenter of deadly fighting between rival tribes in recent months as the country remains steeped in a wider crisis following the October coup, while Kreinik was also the scene of clashes in December that killed at least 88 people.

Metro

Zambia: Minister confirms search for at least 25 miners after Seseli Mine mudslide 

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Zambian Mines Minister, Paul Kabuswe, said on Monday that a search was still on for at least 25 informal miners buried alive three days ago by a mudslide at an open-pit copper mine.

The soft ground is making the rescue workers, who included military personnel and others from large-scale mining companies, cautious, which has been slowing down the operation, according to Kabuswe.

“We must be mindful that we shouldn’t have an accident within another accident,” Kabuswe said.

According to the government, the Seseli Mine in Chingola, approximately 400 km (250 miles) northwest of the capital Lusaka, was flooded by heavy rains, trapping the miners in three different locations.

Zambia is Africa’s second-biggest producer of copper, which is in high demand for the transition to a low-carbon economy, and its government currently aims to boost the country’s copper production to 3 million tonnes a year by 2032, from around 850,000 metric tonnes last year. It has also witnessed a high degree of mining accidents

A week earlier, Canada’s First Quantum Minerals confirmed that two people died at its Zambian operations last week. The miner said a worker from its contracting partner, Reliant Drilling, died at First Quantum’s Kansanshi operations following a fall of ground due to an underground dewatering decline.

The number of trapped miners was not immediately known, but Kabuswe reported that 25 families had so far come forward to claim missing relatives who were employed at the mine as at the time of the accident.

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Metro

We are shocked at ex-President Lungu’s outbursts— Zambian Govt

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The Zambia government has expressed shock over the recent outburst by former President Edgar Lungu who accused incumbent President Hakainde Hichilema of doing everything possible to destroy democracy and install a dictatorship in the country.

While speaking at a press conference in Lusaka on Friday, Lungu had alleged that the Hichilema’s administration wanted to “kill democracy and subsequently introduce dictatorship in order to prolong their stay in power.”

He also alleged that all government institutions had been compromised and were being used to hound the opposition.

“All institutions of governance are heavily compromised, I want to repeat that all institutions of governance are highly compromised, you can not even talk about the Police, Registrar of Society, Judiciary, its a question of degree,” Lungu had said.

“Several opposition leaders have been arrested on trumped-up charges in order to silence them and are appearing in the courts of law. The interference can be seen from how they followed Harry Kalaba, Democratic Party, and now they have followed him to the Citizens First, Saboi Imboela’s National Democratic Congress has not been spared,” Lungu had added.

But in a response to the concerns raised by the ex-President, Chief Government spokesperson, Cornelius Mweetwa, said the federal government was surprised by the sentiments expressed by Lungu which it said amounted to advocating civil disobedience by the Zambian people.

In a statement on Saturday,
Mweetwa cautioned Lungu against over-stretching his luck but to “behave himself like a statesman.”

Mweetwa said that government was not happy that Lungu, who should enjoy a position of statesman, was reducing himself to below what was expected of him.

He also insisted that government had no intention of removing Lungu’s immunity as being peddled about in certain quarters.

“Sentiments by the former president that government wants to remove his immunity are unfounded. This is the resolve of president Hakainde Hichilema to ensure that there is unity and peace,” Mweetwa added.

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