Tag: Africa

‘Don’t touch my constitution!’ Togolese resist reforms ahead of election | Elections News

Tensions are rising in Togo over major constitutional reforms ahead of delayed parliamentary elections.

The constitutional reboot was approved by lawmakers last month but resubmitted for “consultations” as public anger over its stealthy passage through parliament mounted with police breaking up an opposition news conference and cracking down on protests.

The reforms would see Togo move from a presidential to a parliamentary system, essentially ushering in the country’s fifth republic. But opposition activists believe it’s all a ruse designed to keep longstanding President Faure Gnassingbe in power – albeit, they say, with a new job title – preserving a dynastic system stretching back nearly six decades.

Amid the turmoil, Gnassingbe postponed parliamentary elections last week, a move that only served to stir up the unrest. Then, on Tuesday, the government announced that it would go ahead with the elections after all, rescheduling them for April 29, just over a week later than the original date.

At the same time, the government warned opposition groups to scrap plans for three days of protests this week, declaring the rallies illegal. But protest leaders in the small West African nation have vowed to take to the streets on April 12 and 13 anyway, despite the recent arrests of nine opposition figures.

“Don’t touch my constitution. It’s our only guarantee of stability,” Gerard Djossou, a member of the Dynamique pour La Majorite du Peuple (DMP) alliance of parties and civil society organisations, told Al Jazeera. Unlike in 1992, when Togo’s constitution was approved by an overwhelming majority of voters on a high turnout, the people been given no say this time round, he said.

As elections approach, here’s the state of play.

Who is Faure Gnassingbe?

Togo, a nation of around eight million people, has been ruled by the Gnassingbe family for nearly six decades.

The current president was just six months old when his father, General Gnassingbe Eyadema, seized power in 1967, a few years after participating in the country’s first postcolonial coup in 1963. His rule was characterised by brutality, his forces accused by Amnesty International of massacring hundreds after a fraudulent election in 1998 [PDF].

When Eyadema, “le patron” (the boss), died in 2005, the military moved swiftly to install his 38-year-old son, Faure Gnassingbe, in the presidential palace, provoking widespread fury. Standing with his Union for the Republic party (UNIR), he won elections shortly afterwards. However, the United Nations reported that security forces killed up to 500 people in the ensuing unrest.

In 2017 and 2018, there were further bouts of deadly unrest. Thousands of protesters gathered in the streets of Lome, the Togolese capital, to demand that Gnassingbe step down in accordance with the two-term limit set in the original 1992 constitution, a provision scrapped when parliament approved amendments removing presidential term limits in 2002.

Opposition supporters sit on a street as they keep an all-night vigil during antigovernment protests led by a coalition of opposition parties in Lome, on September 7, 2017 [Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP]

As a sop to critics, the UNIR-heavy parliament passed amendments in 2019, allowing limits to be reimposed for presidential terms from that year onwards, thus paving the way for the president’s re-election in 2020 and 2025. Gnassingbe clinched a fourth term in the latest poll, with runner-up Agbeyome Kodjo, who once served as his father’s prime minister, crying foul. He and other opposition members accused the government of using fake polling stations and stuffing ballot boxes.

Kodjo, a leader of the Dynamique Monseigneur Kpodzro movement (DMK), went into hiding, dying in exile early this year. Gnassingbe’s opponents now fear the president’s latest amendments to the constitution are designed to keep him in charge even when the presidential term limits end.

As he reportedly once said: “My father told me to never leave power.”

Gnassingbe Eyadema, right, President of Togo arrives for the start of the ECOWAS
Gnassingbe Eyadema, right, then-president of Togo, arrives for the start of the ECOWAS summit in Accra, on December 19, 2003, two years before he died and his son was installed in his place [Georges Gobet/AFP]

What are the proposed constitutional changes?

At first glance, the constitutional reforms appear to give critics what they want, restricting the power of the president, who would be directly appointed by parliament for a single six-year term. Under the new system, executive power would instead lie with a “president of the council of ministers” – a prime minister – while Togo’s existing presidency will be reduced to a ceremonial role.

The holder of the new prime ministerial position, which would run for a six-year term, would be “the leader of the party or the leader of the majority coalition of parties following the legislative elections”.

Should the reforms pass, Gnassingbe’s opponents fear he could not only be reappointed president until 2031 but could also then step down from the job and switch to the new role of “president of the council of ministers” in what they say would be a constitutional coup.

Will the constitutional change go through?

Last month, the reforms sailed through parliament, approved by 89 lawmakers, with only one against and one abstention. Weak and historically divided, the main opposition parties had no say, having boycotted the last legislative elections in 2018, claiming “irregularities” in the electoral census.

Opposition groups, including Djossou’s DMP, the DMK and the Alliance Nationale pour le Changement (ANC), want Gnassingbe to ditch the reform. But, for now at least, they have little political leverage.

“It’s an organised scam … People have been swindled by those in power for years,” said Djossou, who is running as a DMP candidate in the parliamentary elections in the Golfe constituency in Lome. He believes Gnassingbe planned to rush through the reforms before the elections in order to sidestep the potential later risk of parliamentary opposition.

A group representing Togo’s Catholic bishops said lawmakers had no right to adopt a new constitution, with the parliament’s mandate having expired in December ahead of the elections. They urged Gnassingbe to hold off on signing the new constitution.

Announcing the postponement of elections last week after sending the reforms back to parliament for review, the presidency said in a statement that it “wished to have some days to engage in broad consultations with all stakeholders”.

Al Jazeera reached out to a government representative for comment, but received no immediate response.

What happens next?

As the parliamentary elections draw closer, emotions are running high.

About 100 academics, artists, politicians and activists last week signed an open letter, published online, calling on people to protest and reject what they called a “violation of the constitution”.

“They have gone too far,” said the letter. “How can we flout all the pillars of democracy, unashamedly touching the fundamental text of a country with no broad political and social consensus while calling ourselves democratic?”

On Tuesday, Hodabalo Awate, the minister of territorial administration, banned the planned opposition protests, stating that the organisers hadn’t submitted their application in time for a permit to be granted.

The opposition ANC and other groups said the protests would continue on April 12 and 13 anyway, undeterred by last week’s arrests of nine DMK members who were campaigning against the reforms in Lome.

A statement from the public prosecutor’s office said they had been arrested for disturbing public order. All nine were reportedly released on Tuesday evening.

Police have also broken up news conferences held by opposition parties and civil society groups, one of which was called “Don’t Touch My Constitution” – a phrase now adopted as a rallying cry by opponents of the reforms.

Aime Adi, who leads the Togo branch of Amnesty International, said the government’s responses to past protests had been “firm, forceful and heavy-handed”.  Talking to The Associated Press news agency, he said that “given the bitter experiences of the past”, it was hard to predict whether people would heed calls to protest this time.

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Thirty years waiting for a house: South Africa’s ‘backyard’ dwellers | Housing

Cape Town, South Africa – In the backyard of a small house in Cape Town’s Mitchells Plain stands a one-room corrugated iron structure.

Inside, Cheryl-Ann Smith, her husband and three grandsons have made a home. They are among thousands of so-called “backyard dwellers” in this impoverished area locals call Lost City.

Here, residents often sublet part of their small plots to others who are even less well-off than they are, creating invisible households without access to basic services like electricity and sanitation.

In the Smiths’ single-room dwelling, there is barely enough space for their two beds, a makeshift cupboard with a two-plate stove, and a round bucket for doing dishes. The one tap they use is situated at the front of the property, and they have to use buckets as a toilet.

Smith, 54, has lived in this limbo for most of her life, waiting for a house from the government for the last 30 years – since before the ruling African National Congress (ANC) won the first democratic elections after apartheid.

“I applied in June 1993 for a council house and imagine it’s 2024 and I am still waiting!” the part-time domestic worker told Al Jazeera.

When the ANC came to power in 1994, providing houses for all was a key government policy. The country went a step further in its 1996 constitution, stating that all levels of government should address the “legacy of spatial apartheid” and that mechanisms in the law would allow for the release of land for affordable housing.

On paper, there is a commitment to provide housing for all. However, in reality, the pace of delivery has not kept up with the growing demand, resulting in an enormous backlog.

The decades of unfulfilled promises have also left voters disgruntled with both the ANC national government and the leading opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party that runs Cape Town and the Western Cape province.

As the country heads to a crucial general election in May – which analysts say will be the toughest one yet for the ANC – some polls suggest the DA’s majority in the Cape is also slipping, in a sign of an electorate ready to hold their leaders to account.

Though millions have been helped with social housing, waiting lists are long and informal settlements have sprung up in areas like Mitchells Plain on the outskirts of Cape Town [Gianluigi Guercia/AFP]

‘A nightmare’

From 1994 to February 2022, the state housed about five million people in need, according to data from the Department of Human Settlements. However, nationally some 2.3 million households and individuals are still waiting for a home.

In the Western Cape, official waiting lists say more than 600,000 people are in line for a council house, with over 350,000 of those in Cape Town alone.

And housing activists say those on the official lists are only a fraction of the people in need.

In Mitchells Plain, where Smith lives, the local residents’ association said there are more than 15,000 people from the area waiting for homes, but no political will from the authorities to help house everyone who needs it.

“The housing waiting lists are a nightmare and there seems to be no coherence when someone like Cheryl-Ann and others have been on the list for 20 to 30 years,” said Michael Jacobs, the deputy head of the Mitchells Plain United Residents Association.

As a civic organisation, Jacobs said they have tried to engage with the city, provincial and national government to release parcels of land to build houses, but no one is listening.

“The list is a joke; people will die and their children will be adults and they will never ever have a house at the rate we are moving.”

Spatial apartheid

The DA has governed the Western Cape for more than 16 years, while the other eight of the country’s nine provinces are run by the ANC.

DA leaders have consistently painted their territory as an oasis in a country plagued by inefficiency, with party leader John Steenhuisen telling voters in Cape Town this month: “While the eight ANC-led provinces crumble, there is one place left in this country where the hope that we all shared for a better future shines ever more brightly. That place of hope is this DA-led Western Cape province. The Western Cape of Good Hope.”

The segregationist legacy of apartheid is still visible in the spatial dynamics of Cape Town and other cities [File: Johnny Miller/Reuters]

But for the majority of poor, non-white residents, this rhetoric does not reflect their lived reality.

Cape Town is a geographically segregated city, with the scars of apartheid often hidden away from the pristine beaches and multimillion-dollar properties that make it a global tourist hub.

Mitchells Plain – which sits on a flat, sandy stretch of land some 30km (19 miles) away from the city centre known as the Cape Flats – was set up in the 1970s as a place for the apartheid government to house people of colour following racist forced removals.

It was designed to be separate and segregated from then-whites-only areas, but also from economic opportunities and services. And that unjust spatial legacy remains.

Today, Mitchells Plain is home to close to half a million low-to-middle-income people living in about eight neighbourhoods of varying socioeconomic status.

The area also recorded one the highest numbers of attempted murders nationally during the first quarter of the year, according to crime statistics – and repeatedly makes it into the country’s top 30 areas with the highest crime rates.

Smith and her family have not been spared. Living in Lost City, one of the poorest areas in Mitchells Plain, she has lost three children, two to gang violence, she said, wondering aloud if they would still be alive if she had a real home to keep them safe.

“Lost City is so far from everything,” Smith said. “People say the name is from the fact that we are lost here; no one listens to us or helps us as the backyard dwellers waiting for a house.”

‘Out of touch’ politicians

With the elections less than two months away, housing is not at the top of the agenda for the leading political parties in the province.

The ANC only has two lines in its manifesto related to the issue, where it states it will continue building subsidised housing for vulnerable groups and invest in people partly by ensuring everyone has decent housing and basic services.

In its manifesto, the DA makes no mention of housing at all. But an earlier housing policy from the party says it believes in “adequate shelter” and supports the section of the constitution that requires this right to be “progressively realised”.

Housing is a big election issue for voters. In a photo taken before the 2014 polls, an ANC supporter in Cape Town holds a sign criticising the opposition DA’s housing policies [File: Mike Hutchings/Reuters]

Nick Budlender, an urban policy researcher at the housing activist group Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU), sees political parties’ lack of focus on housing as “both interesting and disheartening”.

“Land and housing were key issues in previous elections and, for many, political parties have drifted away and the struggle for housing has less capital. It slipped down the list for politicians,” he said.

Last month, Cape Town’s Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, a member of the DA, unveiled what the city calls its “pro-poor budget” for 2024-2025, telling a council meeting that the mission going forward was to invest in infrastructure “on an unprecedented scale”.

“With boldness of vision and firmness of belief, we know that Cape Town can show that it is possible to roll back poverty, that we can overcome the long shadows of our past,” he said.

However, Budlender said: “We have a housing and segregation crisis that is extreme here – but we don’t see enough government action to match this crisis,” adding that the leadership was “failing to use public land to serve the public”.

“This is an example of inequality and segregation in our city,” he said.

Jacobs from the Mitchells Plain United Residents Association said he would also like to see “a rapid release of land from the national government”, which the city could then use to build homes for people who need it.

But “the city is not geared up for the delivery of houses”, he admitted, adding that Mayor Hill-Lewis was “out of touch” with the realities on the ground.

‘They forget about us’

In Lost City, Smith sat with her family outside their single-room dwelling, still hoping that change would come.

Her husband, Russel, 61, lost his right leg years ago and is unable to work. He gets a small disability pension that helps them pay rent to the owner of the plot they stay on, but Smith does domestic work twice a week to earn a bit more money.

A big chunk of what she makes goes into public transport to visit the city council to follow up on her housing application – and sometimes that isn’t enough.

“I usually have to borrow taxi fare to go to the city’s housing office to find out if there is any news on getting a council house, I am so tired and frustrated,” she said, telling Al Jazeera that different officials usually send her from one office to the next.

“In January, they told me I have to wait longer because of some issues, and the houses were not going to be built, so I have to wait another three to four years. This is so depressing.”

Hundreds of thousands of people live in backyard housing, activists say [File: Mike Hutchings/Reuters]

Budlender from the NU, whose non-profit group of lawyers and community organisers works to tackle spatial injustice in the city, said: “Sadly, we see cases like Cheryl-Ann and her family all the time.”

“This idea is that the housing waiting list is a rational list, meaning those who are on the earliest will get [homes] first – but that is not how it functions at all and it’s a lot more random.”

For Smith that has meant going to the housing office almost every day to follow up on her application. But so far, it has yielded no results.

Budlender said though millions have benefitted from the state’s housing policy since 1994, for many more, there is no help at all.

“We know of hundreds of thousands of people that live in backyard housing and that number continues to grow,” he said, adding that it is a section of the population the government seems to want to ignore.

“So far there has been no real policy response to backyard housing,” he said. “It’s like they put their heads in the sand.”

As the elections approach, the politicians campaign around rolling back poverty. But to the Smiths and their neighbours, talk means little when the reality of poverty is all they have.

“They only come here when they need us to vote for them and then they forget about us,” Smith said, putting little faith in their party promises.

“I dream of the day I have a house where there is a running tap that I can simply open and wash my grandchild in a bath instead of a bucket,” she said, “and have a toilet I can flush.”

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South Africa’s Jacob Zuma wins court bid to contest upcoming election | Elections News

DEVELOPING STORY,

South Africa’s electoral court overturns earlier decision that had barred the ex-president from contesting the polls.

A South African court has ruled that former President Jacob Zuma can run for office as a lawmaker in the upcoming election, overturning an earlier decision that had barred him from contesting the polls.

The Electoral Court decision on Tuesday paves the way for Zuma to run for president on behalf of the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, a new political organisation that he joined last year after denouncing the ruling African National Congress party that he once led.

The electoral commission had earlier ruled that Zuma could not run for office due to his criminal record, after it received an objection against his candidature.

“The decision of the Electoral Commission… is set aside,” the court wrote in its ruling, according to the AFP news agency.

More to come…

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UN says 38 dead, including children, as migrant boat sinks off Djibouti | Migration News

Many hundreds of people have died in the Gulf of Aden while trying to reach Saudi Arabia through Yemen.

At least 38 migrants and refugees, including children, have died after their boat sank off the coast of Djibouti, the United Nations migration agency has said, after their bodies were recovered.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a post on X on Tuesday that at least six others are missing and presumed dead, and that 22 survivors are being assisted by its representatives in the East African country, along with local officials.

This adds to nearly 1,000 people who have been recorded to have died or gone missing after embarking on the “Eastern Route” since 2014, the IOM said.

The treacherous journey on the infamous route takes migrants from Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti in the Horn of Africa through Yemen to other Arab countries in the region.

The route continues to see an increase in migrant journeys despite the dangers, with people seeking better livelihoods and with larger numbers of women and children travelling alone, according to the IOM.

In February, the agency reported that nearly 400,000 migrant movements were recorded across the Eastern Route in 2023.

Another route from the Horn of Africa to the south of the continent, particularly to South Africa, which is also identified by the UN as a highly dangerous and complex route, saw 80,000 movements in the same period.

At least 698 people, including women and children, died in 2023 while trying to cross the Gulf of Aden from Djibouti to Yemen in hopes of reaching Saudi Arabia, the IOM said in a report, adding that it provides assistance to more than 1.4 million migrants and host communities in the Horn of Africa, Yemen and Southern Africa.

Migrants and refugees leave home in search of better jobs, to escape conflict and insecurity, and the adverse effects of climate change. In addition to facing the threat of drowning in shipwrecks, they can also be exposed to starvation, health risks, and exploitation by traffickers.



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‘On borrowed time’: World marks new global heat record in March | Climate Crisis News

European climate agency says ocean surface temperature also reached new record raising risk of extreme weather.

The world just experienced its warmest March on record, the 10th straight month of historic heat, as sea surface temperatures also hit a new high, according to Europe’s climate monitoring agency.

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Tuesday that March averaged 14.14 degrees Celsius (57.9 degrees Fahrenheit), exceeding the previous record from 2016 by a 10th of a degree. The month was also 1.68C (35F) hotter than an average March between the years 1850-1900, the reference period for the pre-industrial era.

Vast tracts of the planet from parts of Africa to Greenland and South America to Antarctica endured above-average temperatures during the month.

It was not only the 10th consecutive month to break its own heat record but also marked the hottest 12-month period ever recorded – 1.58C (34.8F) above pre-industrial averages.

The primary cause of the heat was greenhouse gas emissions fuelled by human activity, C3S said.

“It’s the long-term trend with exceptional records that has us very concerned,” C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess said.

“Seeing records like this – month in, month out – really shows us that our climate is changing, is changing rapidly,” she added.

While the temperatures do not mean the 1.5C (2.7 Fahrenheit) limit agreed on by world leaders in Paris in 2015 has been breached, “the reality is that we’re extraordinarily close, and already on borrowed time”, Burgess said.

Already, 2023 was the planet’s hottest year in global records going back to 1850.

The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that the world will probably breach 1.5C in the early 2030s. The target is measured in decades rather than individual years.

Hotter seas, wilder weather

Ocean surface temperatures also set a new global record in March, even as an El Nino, a climatic condition that warms the central Pacific and changes global weather patterns, began to wane.

The global sea surface temperature averaged 21.07C (69.93F) during the month, the highest monthly value on record and slightly higher than what was recorded in February, C3S said.

Oceans cover 70 percent of the planet and help keep the climate liveable by absorbing 90 percent of the excess heat resulting from carbon dioxide and methane emissions produced by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

“The trajectory will not change until concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop rising,” Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis told the Associated Press news agency, “which means we must stop burning fossil fuels, stop deforestation, and grow our food more sustainably as quickly as possible”.

Hotter seas produce more moisture in the atmosphere, leading to increasingly erratic weather, including strong winds and heavy rain.

Russia is currently reeling from some of its worst flooding in decades while parts of Australia, Brazil and France also experienced an exceptionally wet March.

Hotter seas also increase the danger of mass coral bleaching events, with marine scientists warning last month that a mass bleaching was already unfolding in the Southern Hemisphere and could be the worst in the planet’s history.

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Where Rwanda’s genocide perpetrators and survivors live side by side | Genocide News

Mbyo/Kigali, Rwanda – Mukaremera Laurence gazed at the ground as Nkundiye Thacien spoke about how he used a machete to kill her husband 30 years ago.

The three of them had been neighbours and lifelong friends, living together in the Rwandan village of Mbyo. But then, in 1994, Thacien received orders to kill.

“It was an order and if you didn’t obey they threatened to kill your family,” Thacien told Al Jazeera, “so I felt like I had to do it.”

He speaks about one of the 20th century’s most macabre events, when the majority Hutu group he belonged to, which ruled Rwanda at the time, began a campaign of mass killing against the Tutsis – the minority ethnic group to which Laurence’s husband belonged.

More than 800,000 people – by some estimates, a million – died during 100 days at the hands of machete-wielding Hutus. More than 250,000 women were targeted with sexual violence, according to the United Nations.

Now, Laurence and Thacien live as neighbours in Mbyo, a village that has turned from a killing site to a place practicing resilience and unity. It is one of six reconciliation villages in Rwanda where perpetrators and survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis live together and attempt to reconcile their past.

“We can’t forget; it’s impossible to forget,” said Laurence. “We live in peace now, but we remember it and always will.”

While their reconciliation story is seemingly one of success, despite criticism of it being artificial, Rwandans continue to struggle with the legacy of the genocide. Many survivors have found solace in learning the truth about how their loved ones were murdered and from apologies from their killers. Others have not found such closure, as new mass graves continue to be discovered and killers’ identities continue to be exposed.

Nkundiye Thacien, a Hutu, lives alongside Mukaremera Laurence, whose husband he killed 30 years ago when the genocide against the Tutsis started [Andrei Popoviciu/Al Jazeera]

Orders to kill

Ethnic violence had been bubbling in Rwanda for decades before April 6, 1994, but it was on that day that a plane carrying then-President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, bot was shot down over Kigali. The death of the two presidents, who were both Hutu, led Hutu extremists to blame the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group helmed by current president Paul Kagame, who had been fighting against the ruling Hutus since they took power in 1979. The RPF’s position was that the plane had been shot down by Hutus to provide an excuse to begin killing Tutsis. The Hutus used the flight to revive a long-held belief that all Tutsis needed to be exterminated, convincing the Hutu population in Rwanda to immediately start a campaign of slaughter.

Thacien says that soon after the plane crashed, he heard orders on the newly created Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines station for Hutus to kill all Tutsis – and anyone who protects them – or be killed themselves. The radio messages spewing hate and identifying names of high-profile Tutsis to be targeted were responsible for inciting more than 45,000 killings. The Hutu-run military also spread word on the ground, encouraging violence and organising killing sprees. Thacien joined his fellow Hutus in the killings.

Government forces and Hutu militia groups – together known as Interahamwe, a name that means “those who attack together” – began killing Tutsis in Kigali while also distributing weapons to ordinary Hutus.

Hutus had been preparing to eradicate the Tutsi people for years, explained Thacien, who participated in several Hutu meetings some years before, but “1994 was the official genocide”, he said.

He was 47 when it began. He recalls how people discussed killing tactics and ways to spread genocidal ideologies, while dehumanising the Tutsis by calling them “cockroaches” and “snakes” that needed to be exterminated.

On April 7, Thacien was stationed at main junctions checking identification, which at the time mentioned an individual’s ethnicity, to single out Tutsis to be killed. He also participated in killing parties; one of his targets was Laurence’s husband.

More than a million Hutus joined the movement and used machetes, grenades, guns and other blunt weapons to kill their neighbours, regardless of gender or age, if they belonged to the Tutsi group. Hutus who tried to protect their fellow Tutsis were also targeted.

Places of worship, where people usually found safety, became massacre sites. In the second week of the genocide, thousands – mostly women and children – sought out safety at the Nyamata Church, about 30 minutes from Mbyo.

Hutu militias killed the armed men protecting the church and threw grenades inside and outside its doors. Then the Interahamwe slaughtered the survivors inside with machetes.

Today, evidence of the carnage is still evident throughout the church. There are bullet holes in the roof and the walls. Clothing, coffins and skeletal remains litter the floor. A blood-stained cloth covers the pulpit. In the basement, one floor holds multiple skulls marked by machetes or bullet holes. More than 10,000 people from the church massacre and surrounding areas were buried in mass graves next to the church.

The Nyamata Church Memorial was a massacre site where thousands of women and children were killed and a total of more than 10,000 people from the area were buried in mass graves [Andrei Popoviciu/Al Jazeera]

Similar events happened across the country. The massacre ended in July when the RPF, the Tutsi rebel group from Uganda, captured Kigali and overthrew the Hutu government. Its leader, Paul Kagame, became president and continues to rule in Rwanda.

Shocking apology

Many still don’t know who killed their loved ones. Laurence found out in 2003, when Thacien wrote to her from prison and apologised for killing her husband.

The government had adopted a law that reduced prison sentences in exchange for confessions to the killings. To speed up the sentencing of more than one million participants in the genocide, local “gacaca” courts (gacaca means “grass” in the local Kinyarwanda language) were installed as community-led justice systems.

“I felt so bad about it even when I did it, but in prison I knew I had to face my actions,” said Thacien.

When Laurence received the letter and learned that the person who killed her husband was her friend and neighbour, she was shocked.

“It was so hard for me to read the letter,” Laurence told Al Jazeera, “I couldn’t imagine or understand what happened and why.” She worried that the release of prisoners back into the community would put her in danger of again being targeted by Hutu militias.

A memorial to those who lost their lives during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda stands in the valley that separates two villages on adjacent hills, at the border between the Musambira and Nyarubaka sectors of Kamonyi District [Jacques Nkinzingabo/AFP] (AFP)

Killers and survivors, side by side

After Thacien was released from prison, a local priest organised a meeting so the perpetrators could apologise to the survivors in person. During the first event, people were shy and scared – they didn’t know what to say to each other. At the second meeting, Thacien says he built up the courage and approached Laurence, telling himself, “If she doesn’t forgive me I can’t control that, but what I can do is own up to what I did and ask for forgiveness.”

It took three years, but Laurence did forgive Thacien.

In 2005, they both moved to the Mbyo village, one of six reconciliation villages around the country that were built by a partnership formed between the government and Prison Fellowship Rwanda, an NGO dedicated to helping perpetrators of the genocide reintegrate into society.

The purpose of the villages was to have killers and survivors live alongside each other, while rebuilding their lives and reconciling the past. They also looked to create equality between the two ethnic groups and prevent people from taking revenge for the 1994 genocide.

Government policies also helped to encourage reconciliations, explained Felix Mukwiza Ndahinda, an assistant professor of transitional justice at the Netherlands-based Tilburg Law School and an expert on the Rwandan genocide.

Some of these policies included creating institutions focused on unity and reconciliation and removing ethnicity from personal identification.

Also, it was essentially made illegal to challenge the state’s narrative of the genocide. The government has faced criticism for exploiting history for political gain and has been accused of censorship. Opposition leaders or critics of the government have been imprisoned under the genocide ideology laws, which have been criticised as vague and seen by critics as political tools.

Ndahinda explained that political freedoms in Rwanda need to be examined against the country’s difficult history, genocide legacy and the resulting fracture that made it difficult to imagine how Rwanda could emerge from it. Reconciliation processes are more complex than this narrow frame, he added.

“How individuals engage with one another on the hills, live together in villages, negotiate their daily relations and sometimes choose to marry within families across the survivor-perpetrator divide is beyond governmental doing,” Ndahinda said.

Two villages, Giheta and Ruseke, are relearning to share all they have, including a wellspring at the bottom of the valley, after the 1994 genocide. More than a thousand area residents were massacred between April and July of that year, according to the UN [Jacques Nkinzingabo/AFP]

Finding forgiveness

Thacien and Laurence have been living in the reconciliation village for 19 years and remain close. When Thacien’s son got married recently, Laurence attended the wedding.

But not everyone has found peace.

Naphtal Ahishakiye, executive secretary of Ibuka, a genocide survivors’ group, spoke to Al Jazeera from the Nyanza Genocide Memorial site in Kigali’s suburb of Kicukiro, where workers were repainting and trimming grass in preparation for the following week’s commemoration events. He told Al Jazeera that “people are still suffering and many don’t have closure” because many remains haven’t been found and not all perpetrators have been sentenced.

More mass graves are still being discovered. Last October in the region of Hueye, bones were found during a home renovation. This prompted search-and-excavation efforts in the area, which led to the discovery of the remains of more than 1,000 people.

“For 30 years, villagers asked their neighbours to tell them the truth about what happened in the past and no one admitted to anything. Then they found the remains,” said Ahishakiye. “This undermines trust and the reconciliation process.”

A quarter of the genocide’s survivors still struggle with mental health, according to Ahishakiye, who stressed the need for continued support as new generations born after the genocide reach adulthood.

The state can’t control how parents of both perpetrators and survivors communicate with their children in private about the past, Ndahinda pointed out. The Rwandan diaspora, made up mostly of people critical of President Kagame’s approach to governance, also has starkly contrasting views to Rwandans at home – differences that might not be as easy to handle, he added.

Josepha Mukaruzima, 70 (centre), a Tutsi woman whose entire family was killed, stands with Jean-Claude Mutarindwa, 42 (left), a Hutu from neighbouring Giheta village. Unlike his brothers, Mutarindwa did not pick up a machete to kill, and that helped him be one of the first to lay the foundation stones for reconciliation [Jacques Nkinzingabo/AFP]

“The uncertainty about the future in an environment with pockets of instability remains on many people’s minds,” said Ndahinda.

But while issues still persist for many, often hidden behind closed doors, people like Laurence and Thacien have found a way to accept the past and move on together. Back in the Mbyo village, the two neighbours attend church together, share food and take care of each other’s children.

With tears in his eyes and while holding Laurence’s hand, Thacien said how grateful he is for Laurence’s forgiveness.

“I did something extremely bad and hurt her and her family,” he said, “Now, during the week of commemoration events my only wish is to be by her side. I want to show that I care for her and that I will protect her. I want her to feel safe with me.”

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UK’s ‘Hardest Geezer’ completes challenge to run length of Africa | News

Russ Cook finishes the journey of more than 16,000km (9,940 miles) in 352 days, raising $870,000 for two separate charities.

Sore and sandblasted but triumphant, runner Russ Cook has reached the northernmost point of Africa, almost a year after he set off from its southern tip on a quest to run the length of the continent.

Dozens of supporters gathered on a rocky outcrop on Sunday beside the Mediterranean in northern Tunisia, cheering on the British charity fundraiser, who has run more than 16,000km (9,940 miles) across 16 countries in 352 days, and is believed to be the first person to complete the feat.

“I’m a little bit tired,” Cook said – likely an understatement.

In the course of his journey, the 27-year-old endurance athlete from Worthing in southern England crossed jungle and desert, swerved conflict zones and was delayed by theft, injury and visa problems.

Cook – known on social media by his nickname, Hardest Geezer – set off on April 22, 2023 from Cape Agulhas in South Africa, the continent’s southernmost point. He hoped to complete the journey in 240 days, running the equivalent of more than a marathon every day.

Robbed in Angola

Cook and his team had money, passports and equipment stolen in a gunpoint robbery in Angola. He was temporarily halted by back pain in Nigeria. And he was almost stopped in his tracks by the lack of a visa to enter Algeria, before diplomatic intervention from the Algerian embassy in the United Kingdom managed to secure the required documents.

Cook, who has spoken about how running helped him deal with his own mental health struggles, previously ran about 3,000km (1,860 miles) from Istanbul to Worthing in 68 days.

His African run has raised more than 690,000 pounds ($870,000) for The Running Charity, which works with homeless young people, and Sandblast, a charity that helps displaced people from Western Sahara.

“It’s quite hard to put into words, 352 days on the road, long time without seeing family, my girlfriend,” Cook told Sky News as he started running on Sunday, accompanied by supporters who’d come from far and wide to run the final stretch with him.

“My body is in a lot of pain. But one more day, I’m not about to complain.”

Cook said he planned to celebrate with a party, where British band Soft Play was due to perform.

“We’re going to have strawberry daiquiris on the beach tonight,” he said. “It’s going to be unreal.”

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When is Eid al-Fitr 2024 and how is it celebrated? | Religion News

EXPLAINER

The three-day festival celebrates the completion of the fasting month of Ramadan by Muslims across the world.

As the fasting month of Ramadan comes to an end, Muslims around the world are preparing for Eid al-Fitr, the “festival of breaking the fast”.

According to astronomical calculations, the month of Ramadan is expected to last 30 days this year, making the first day of Eid in Saudi Arabia and many neighbouring countries likely to be on Wednesday, April 10.

The first day of Eid al-Fitr is determined by the sighting of the crescent moon marking the start of the month of Shawwal, the 10th month of the Islamic (Hijri) calendar.

Lunar months last between 29 and 30 days so Muslims usually have to wait until the night before Eid to verify its date.

After sunset prayers on Monday, April 8, the 29th day of Ramadan, moon sighters will face west with a clear view of the horizon for a first glimpse of the crescent moon. If the new moon is visible, then the next day will be Eid, if not, Muslims will then fast one more day to complete a 30-day month.

Other countries follow independent sightings.

When the sighting has been verified, Eid is declared on television, radio stations and at mosques.

Muslim worshippers prepare to take part in a morning prayer on the first day of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, on April 21, 2023 [Yasin Akgul /AFP]

How do Muslims celebrate Eid?

Traditionally, Eid is celebrated for three days as an official holiday in Muslim-majority countries. However, the number of holiday days varies by country.

Muslims begin Eid day celebrations by partaking in a prayer service that takes place shortly after dawn, followed by a short sermon.

Palestinian Muslims perform the morning Eid al-Fitr prayer, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan in Gaza City on May 2, 2022 [Mahmud Hams / AFP]

On their way to the prayer, which is traditionally held in an open area, Muslims recite takbeerat, praising God by saying “Allahu Akbar”, meaning “God is great”.

It is customary to eat something sweet before the prayer, such as date-filled biscuits known as maamoul in the Middle East. This particular festival is known as the “sweet” Eid – and the distribution of sweets is common across the Muslim world.

Muslims usually spend the day visiting relatives and neighbours and accepting sweets as they move around from house to house.

Each country has traditional desserts and sweets that are prepared before Eid or on the morning of the first day.

Children, dressed in new clothes, are offered gifts and money to celebrate the joyous occasion.

Children ride a swing on the first day of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, in the rebel-held town of Maaret Misrin in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, on April 21, 2023 [Abdulaziz Ketaz / AFP]

Girls and women in many countries decorate their hands with henna. The celebration for Eid begins the night before as women gather in neighbourhoods and large family gatherings for the application of henna.

A girl shows her hand decorated with henna at a market area ahead of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy festival of Ramadan, in Srinagar, on April 20, 2023 [Tauseef Mustafa / AFP]

In some countries, families visit graveyards to offer their respects to departed family members right after the morning prayers.

It is common for Muslim-majority countries to decorate their cities with lights and hold festivities to commemorate the end of the fasting month.

A general view shows the Alif Ki mosque illuminated during the holy month of Ramadan, ahead of Eid al-Fitr, in Ahmedabad on April 19, 2023 [Sam Panthaky / AFP]

Eid amid the onslaught in Gaza

For some 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza this Eid, this will be the first Muslim religious holiday after more than 33,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks. With little food aid, and very limited water, Gaza’s Eid al-Fitr will be mired in destruction amid the continuing attacks.

What are common Eid greetings?

The most popular greeting is “Eid Mubarak” (Blessed Eid) or “Eid sa’id” (Happy Eid). Eid greetings also vary depending on the country and language.

The video below shows how people say Eid Mubarak in different languages around the world.

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Rwanda genocide: ‘Frozen faces still haunt’ photojournalist, 30 years on | Genocide

Warning: Some of the images below are graphic and show victims of massacres. 

On April 7, 1994, one of the most harrowing events in modern history began: the Rwandan genocide. 

One hundred days of unfathomable slaughter in which an estimated 800,000-1,000,000 people were killed. 

Rwandans were pitted against Rwandans, Hutu against Tutsi, neighbour against neighbour, and in some cases, family member against family member. 

From grandmothers to infants, no one was spared – all dispatched to the next world by machete, machinegun or hand grenade. 

Thirty years ago, Jack Picone was among the first international photographers to document the carnage.

He reflects on the journey he took in the grips of genocide, how ordinary Rwandans are finding healing and forgiveness, and the memories that still haunt him to this day.

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Rwanda, 30 years after genocide | Genocide

NewsFeed

It has been 30 years since the Rwandan genocide – the campaign of extermination where the Hutu-led state killed an estimated 800,000, mostly Tutsi civilians, in just 100 days.

Published On 7 Apr 2024

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