Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth of Mauritius says his recent trip to the United Kingdom included discussions on the residents of the Chagos Islands who were forced to leave decades ago, and he welcomed advances on returning the territory to his Indian Ocean island nation. “The Government of Mauritius has…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
Violence in Chad, sparked by postponed elections and a crackdown on opposition political parties, has led to a call for human rights protections and a full inquiry into the deaths of at least 50 people last week in N’Djamena. Although Prime Minister Saleh Kebzabo, speaking on behalf of the transitional…
The Human Rights Watch organization says some 300 people in the Malian town of Moura died at the hands of Malian armed forces and the Russian soldiers fighting with them. The executions represent the worst such incident ever reported during the long fight in Mali, which spans a decade and…
A Swiss court handed down a landmark conviction on Friday in the case of Alieu Kosiah, a former head of a Liberian militia accused of war crimes during the first Liberian war in the 1990s. The Swiss Federal Criminal Court in the city of Bellinzona found Kosiah guilty of 21…
The United States says it is “deeply concerned” by allegations of state security forces committing human rights violations in the Sahel region, including a troubling report of mass executions in Burkina Faso released earlier this week by Human Rights Watch. “Continued human rights violations and abuses risk undermining the state’s…
An investigation into the treatment of Sahrawi activists in Western Sahara, including an incident reportedly captured on video last year, has renewed attention to territorial and self-determination claims that have spanned decades in a North African region Morocco claims as its own. “The video shows more than a dozen policemen…
As Burundi works its way toward 2020 elections, there are new reports of threats from the Imbonerakure, the youth wing of the ruling CNDD-FDD party known for its violence toward the political opposition of President Pierre Nkurunziza. A recent Human Rights Watch report said the Imbonerakure were forcing people to…
The Human Rights Watch organization says that while last week’s extension of the United Nations peacekeeping mandate in Central African Republic is needed for protecting civilians, attacks against them continue despite a peace deal earlier this year. The rights group says there are still reports of attacks in Ouham-Pendé, Kemo,…
Seven nations on the African continent have something in common that the others don’t. They’re all signatories calling for a ban on “killer robots” and related fully autonomous weapons currently being developed in advanced nations. That’s according to the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, which lists Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Ghana,…
More than 200 truck drivers, almost all of them foreigners, have been killed since March 2018 in South Africa as the country’s clashes over trucking industry jobs continue. That’s according to Human Rights Watch, as the international NGO released Monday a detailed account of how drivers from Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe…
The Human Rights Watch organization said Tuesday that one of its staff has been deported from Algeria after a 10-day ordeal that saw him briefly detained followed by the seizure of his travel documents. Ahmed Benchemsi, a Middle East communications and advocacy director who holds dual citizenship in Morocco and…
While much attention is rightly focused on the perils of Mediterranean Sea crossings, the Human Rights Watch organization is calling attention to the conditions faced by Ethiopian migrants as they take other routes across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. “A combination of factors, including unemployment and other economic…
Eritrea’s forced conscription policies, which are a key driver for young people migrating from the Horn of Africa nation, are rooted in the country’s educational system – where students say they feel trapped rather than trained for the future, according to a report released Friday by Human Rights Watch (HRW)….
Mozambique’s new amnesty law is meeting with resistance from activists outraged by the idea that neither their government nor its longtime Renamo opposition will be held accountable for abuses. The new law protects from prosecution those accused of serious human rights violations since 2014. They include allegations of enforced disappearances,…
Two human rights and environmental advocacy groups warn that implementing a new forestry policy in Côte d’Ivoire – however valuable in fighting deforestation – could cause evictions of some of the 1.5 to 2 million cocoa farmers living in protected forests and parks there, and in neighboring Ghana. The policy…