Conflict
Kyiv to Africa: Keep Citizens Out of Fight
Kyiv urged leaders in Africa on Tuesday to keep their citizens from being embroiled in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a day after Zambia said one of its own was killed.
Spokesman to Ukraine's foreign ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, urged African countries to press Russia not to use their citizens in Moscow's war in Ukraine.
"We call on African Union and all African states to demand that Russia stop press ganging their nationals," Nikolenko wrote on social media.
"Africans shouldn't die for Putin's sick imperial ambitions," he said.
Zambia's foreign minister on Monday said a Zambian student who had been jailed in Russia died in fighting in Ukraine, and demanded an explanation from the Kremlin.
Lemekhani Nathan Nyirenda, 23, who had been serving a prison sentence in Moscow, "passed away on 22nd September 2022, in Ukraine," minister Stanley Kakubo said in a statement, adding he died "at the battlefront."
Ukrainian officials say the Wagner mercenary group has been sending thousands of soldiers recruited in Russian prisons to the front line, with the promise of a salary and an amnesty.
Several Ukrainian soldiers on the front line in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine told AFP last month that alleged ex-convicts were being used as bait to draw fire and reveal Ukrainian positions.
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The Southern African Development Community or SADC said Thursday that a summit of regional heads of state had terminated the mandate of its troop deployment in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo and decided on a "phased withdrawal." SADC lost more than a dozen soldiers in conflict in January. The 16-nation bloc took the decision at a virtual summit on the conflict in the area that has seen some three decades of unrest and claimed millions of lives. "Summit terminated the Mandate of SAMIDRC and directed the commencement of a phased withdrawal of SAMIDRC troops from the DRC," the Southern African bloc said in a communique after the summit. The SADC Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, SAMIDRC, — made up of soldiers from Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa — was sent to the region in December 2023 to help the government of the DRC, also a SADC member, restore peace and security. SADC extended its mandate late last year.
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University students resume studies in Bukavu as DRC crisis deepens
University students in Bukavu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, are gradually returning to class for the first time since M23 rebels took their city last month. Toto Mufungizi, a student, said while they were home “during these months, we have endured many strange things.” “We stayed at home for at least one month and three weeks. We were confined due to this security situation. Even today, there is no serenity, we cannot move around safely," he told Reuters. The M23 rebel group captured Bukavu, South Kivu's capital, in mid-February, forcing a weeks-long suspension of academic activities. The Official University of Bukavu, UOB, and other institutions have now reopened, but security concerns persist. "We are afraid because we heard rumors that in Goma, students were kidnapped. Here, we are also afraid," third-year student Patient Kaliwe said. Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.