Embattled President Evo Morales has stepped down in Bolivia, where the dramatic developments since the country’s October 20 election have implications for the wider Global South – among them Africans concerned about the competing narratives emerging from the small but resource-rich nation. “The coup plotters who raided my house and…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
Turkey’s ambassador to Tunisia has denied reports that extremist fighters from Syria are being transferred to Libya, a claim that has circulated in Libyan news outlets aligned with General Khalifa Haftar and the Libyan National Army (LNA) based in the country’s east. The new ambassador in Tunis, Refik Ali Onaner,…
Four African nations have been newly elected to the United Nations Humans Rights Council – among them a few that are raising eyebrows – and they’ll replace four outgoing nations beginning in 2020. Libya, Mauritania, Namibia and Sudan are the new nations, according to a UN statement that followed Thursday’s…
Migrants trapped in deteriorating conditions in Libya may be headed to Rwanda, following the announcement Tuesday of a deal between the central African nation, the African Union and the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, to evacuate them. “Under the agreement, the Government of Rwanda will receive and provide protection to…
The special envoy to Libya painted a dire portrait for the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, warning of two potentially deadly outcomes if Libya fails to abandon the “chimera” that is a military solution. Ghassan Salamé told the council that one path leads to “continued fratricide amongst the Libyans”…
The situation is getting worse in the southern Libyan town of Murzuq, where intensifying clashes with air and drone strikes have left at least 90 people dead and displaced thousands of civilians, the UN said on Tuesday. “Casualties on all sides of the fighting have continued as a result of…
No one knows the whereabouts of Siham Sergiwa, a Libyan lawmaker abducted from her home in Benghazi one month ago, and amid the country’s armed conflict that means fears for her safety are mounting. Sergiwa was taken during an early-morning incident on July 17 that left her husband, Ali, shot…
The United Nations refugee agency responded quickly on Tuesday to a decision made by Italy’s parliament that will impose harsher penalties against those people and organizations involved in migrant search and rescue on the Mediterranean Sea. The UNHCR said that under the changes, fines for private vessels that rescue migrants…
Libyan leader Fayez Al-Sarraj, head of the Presidential Council of the Government of National Accord, has summoned United Nations envoy Ghassan Salame in order to register disapproval about what the GNA says is “misinformation” provided to the U.N. Security Council on the situation there. At the same time, the Libyan…
What is being called the single greatest loss of life on the Mediterranean Sea this year has claimed an estimated 150 migrants traveling by boat from Libya, according to early reports from the United Nations refugee agency on Thursday. The shipwreck happened off the coast of Al Khoms, between Tripoli…
The governments of six nations – including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – called Tuesday for a halt to hostilities in Libya, in a joint statement that backed a United Nations process for the country that was derailed in April by the advance on Tripoli of Khalifa Haftar and…
The juxtaposition of the headlines was jarring, in a way that seemed newly unbearable despite all we’ve learned in recent years about African migrants seeking a pathway to Europe, the horrific realities they encounter in transit and in Libya – and the complicity of European governments in their suffering. The…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
An Italian judge released migrant rescue ship captain Carola Rakete on Tuesday from a house arrest order in place since the weekend, after the German captain defied Italy’s ban on accepting migrants at its ports and docked at Lampedusa. “We are relieved our captain is free!” said the Sea Watch…
Six Turkish citizens were released by Libyan forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar on Monday, following Haftar’s declaration that all Turkish citizens and assets in the country are Libyan National Army targets – and an equally forceful message from Turkey that warned of retaliation. Turkey’s ministry of foreign affairs called the…
A weeks-long standoff between the Italian government and migrant rescuers on the Mediterranean Sea came to an end early Saturday as the captain of a Sea Watch ship entered a port at Lampedusa and then faced immediate arrest. Carola Rakete was taken into custody as about 40 migrants who had…