Dozen killed in Darfur town as war in Sudan spreads

Thanks very much for staying with us. Time now for Eye on Africa with me, Georgia Cavan Smith. Tonight, more than two dozen are reported as having been killed in El Fascher, the last major city in Darfur not controlled by the rapid support forces in Sudan. Intensifying shelling of the humanitarian hub sends hundreds fleeing for safety amidst escalating civil conflict. Also sometimes were there just to supervise death. Kenyan doctors push into their 5th week of strikes. A court orders medics and the government to reach an agreement within 48 hours. As the pickets cripple public health services and they fired on us like rain, we hear from some of The Ethiopians who testified to rights investigators that Saudi border guards indiscriminately killed hundreds of migrants. The harrowing accounts were the basis of a damning report by Human Rights Watch, but little appears to have come of the revelations since. But first, clashes between Sudan’s army and the RSF paramilitary are escalating in El Fasa in Darfur. El Fasa is the last capital in the state that’s not fallen to the RSF. It’s also a key humanitarian hub and seen days of shelling and air strikes. A civil war enters its second year across the country. Over the last 12 month, communities in Darfur suffered through horrific violence, including reports of mass ethnic based killings. Our regional correspondent brings us more Elfishir, in North Darfur state, is the last state capital not under the control of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces who are battling Sudan’s army. But in recent days, fighting has escalated in and around the last town standing. On Monday, the war in Sudan entered its second year and the UN warned that the breakdown of the fragile peace in Alfa Shir would be catastrophic for hundreds of thousands of people. That’s because the town functions as the main humanitarian hub in the vast western region of Darfur. Now the region is the size of France, and it’s home to 1/4 of Sudan’s 48 million people. It’s also experienced some of the worst atrocities of the conflict. The RSF has been accused of committing crimes against humanity and an ethnic genocide there. But the army isn’t exactly innocent either. Both sides have been accused of shelling residential areas, targeting civilians and blocking humanitarian essential aid. Since the war broke out, thousands of people have been killed, including 15,000 in a single W Darfur town that according to the UN, the conflict has also forced over 8 and a half million people from their homes. Now numerous peace talk attempts have taken place, but so far all of them have failed. Now another set of peace talks in Saudi Arabia are on the horizon. They were announced on Monday at an international conference in Paris that raised more than €2 billion for Sudan Olivia visa there for us. Now South African detectives are investigating 3 separate but potentially linked incidents in Cape Town that in total led to 8 deaths. All happened on Wednesday morning in the K Alicia Township. Five people were fatally shot at one of those scenes. Police have not yet given any insight into possible motives for the killings, but have said that the same suspects could be responsible. On Wednesday, a Kenyan court ordered unions and the government to reach an agreement within 48 hours as a doctors strike pushed into its 5th week, putting huge pressure on public hospitals. The Friday negotiation deadline came as some linked the prolonged standoff to a spike in deaths. Some wards in the capital remain mostly empty because there’s no one to operate on patients despite the life or death stakes. Medics say that they have no choice but to stay off work in a bid to negotiate better quality public health care overall. Lohan Beshtecker tells us more. Determined to make their voices heard, hundreds of medical professionals marched through the streets of Nairobi to pile pressure on the government. Five weeks into a nationwide doctor strike, many were accusing authorities of turning a deaf fear to their demands. We feel that the government doesn’t care. The government is celebrating in meetings, in seminars and in conferences, while Kenyans are dying, while doctors and healthcare workers are on the streets. Medical unions say the government has failed to implement a 2017 collective agreement, which was signed after a months long strike that saw people die from lack of care. Seven years later, doctors are still calling for better pay, more trained personnel and for a general overhaul of Kenya’s struggling health system. The latest strike has paralysed hospitals across the country, forcing patients to turn to private clinics or bypass medical care altogether. But doctors say it’s a necessary evil that will ultimately benefit the entire country. We feel really bad. We feel very empathetic. We are very sad. But now what we are fighting for. We are fighting for better healthcare. And it is better healthcare. Even for those patients, for everyone, authorities have in recent weeks sought to reach a compromise with the striking doctors, but their proposals were deemed insufficient and were rejected by labor unions. On Sunday, President William Ruto urged medical professionals to go back to work and said Kenya had to learn to live within its means. Meanwhile, in Ghana, health professionals continue to leave the country in droves, many heading to high income nations where better paid jobs await. Nurses in particular are being recruited abroad, often heading to the UK, Europe and the Americas, leaving a health system vacuum behind at home. Ghana correspondent Justice Baidu talks us through in a country where Oneness is currently taking care of up to 18 patients, according to official data. That continued exodus of nurses from Ghana to mainly Western countries has become another layer of problem in the country’s health delivery sector. The Nurses and Midwifery Council has now said that between 400 to 500 nurses are leaving Ghana every month to countries like Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. After COVID-19, a lot of these Eurocentric nations, the European countries, America, Canada, they lost a huge number of their workforce. So they began the push and the pull factors. We started advocating for the government to improve our conditions of service way back from 2020-2021 down the line, but we have not seen the light of it and we couldn’t stop our people from going to try and curb this problem. The Government of Ghana has recently increased the Verification of licenses fee, which is what enables NASA to be able to get jobs outside Ghana from around 30 euros to up to 200 euros in a bid to stop people from leaving. The Nurses and Midwifery Council has recently called a nationwide strike to be able to fight back this new increases. It rather wants the government to focus on the real problems that it says are responsible for the mass exodus of nurses from Ghana. Justice Baidu there for us now in Dr. Congo, four months on from elections that returned President Felix to security for a second term and the country still does not have a government. The new Prime Minister was appointed earlier this month, but there’s still no white smoke. Emmett Emmett Livingston in Kinshasa tells us more this week. Congo’s recently appointed Prime Minister, Judith Tsuminwa, is consulting with political parties in the president’s coalition, the Union Sacre, with a view to forming a government. Elections were held in December in Congo, bringing President Felix Tisichetti to a second term in power. But the process of forming a new government has taken an exceptionally long time. The logic of setting up the government is relatively simple. The more MPs a party has in the National Assembly, the more ministries it should get. But it’s also highly politically sensitive, with some parties likely to lose out. The ongoing talks are about thrashing out who gets what, but they’re also about determining the size of the future government, Prime Minister insisted. The Prime Minister insisted on the institutions. That’s why the size of the government she wants a government of competent, committed men and women. The the the Prime Minister spoke to us about profiles suggesting that they put forward three names on each post and that’s what we are going to do. Prime Minister Suminwa appears no closer to forming a government with no future ministers yet named. She’s facing the daunting task of tempering the ambitions of Congo’s political heavyweights. The role of the political opposition is also an open question. The opposition won a tiny 20 seats out of 500 in the recent election. But it’s significance could become smaller still should some opposition figures decide to defect to the presidential coalition. Emmett Livingston there for us in Kinshasa now Tunisian President Khayi Saeed met with Italy’s hard right Prime Minister Georgia Maloney in Tunis on Wednesday. Rome’s promised 105 million euros to Tunis to help boost economic ties. About half the cash will go towards renewable energy projects, much of the rest towards supporting small and medium sized Tunisian business. Now it’s Maloney’s fourth trip to Tunisia in less than a year as she cultivates a relationship that she’s hoping will help curb undocumented migrants heading from Tunisia to Italy. Almost 70,000 were intercepted trying to make the journey last year alone. Well, last August, Human Rights Watch accused Saudi border guards of indiscriminately opening fire on Ethiopian migrants between March 2022 and June 2023. Hundreds were reportedly killed, some after having been asked to choose a limb into which to be shot. Ethiopia later announced a joint investigation with Saudi authorities, but since then no results have been made public. 38 survivors originally testified to the killings. Our correspondent met with two of them a few months after their return home. Last year, Mustafa tried to enter Saudi Arabia illegally in search of work. Just as he was about to cross the border. He was shot at and lost a leg. When I saw the Saudi soldiers who shot me, I asked them why they did it. They replied, why are you coming here? What are you doing here? I asked them to take me to hospital and told them I was injured. But they just replied, we don’t care if you die, it’s not our problem. The International Organization for Migration took care of Mustafa. They treated him in hospital where he met Wazira, who was also injured at the border. They later got married. They put the metal structure there. It’s a lot better now. But when I got home, the bone wasn’t healed. My family had to bring me back to the hospital, where they inserted surgical pins. They’re among ten migrants to have returned to Burka, to Teera injured. To help them find work. IOM has put in place a reintegration programme after these the training and the business plan developments. It’s basically us providing in kind assistance based on what kind of livelihood A migrant wants to take up. Say somebody wants to start the small cafe, we will cover the rent for the first couple of months of their, you know, business. However, only 200 of the 50,000 Ethiopians who returned from Saudi Arabia last year were able to benefit from this programme. Activists say encouraging employment could help prevent people from making the dangerous trip. That’s it for I in Africa for now. Thanks for joining us. Do so again. Till then, take care.