East Africa

Details: East Africa; 06 January 2025; 225

Illegal settlers block several roads in occupied West Bank, attacking Palestinian vehicles with rocks, according to media reports.

Illegal Israeli settlers blocked the convoy of Palestinian Local Government Minister Sami Hijjawi on Monday in Masafer Yatta, south of the West Bank city of Hebron.

A statement by the Local Government Ministry said the minister’s vehicle was stopped by settlers dressed in military uniform.

No further details were provided by the ministry.

The incident followed calls by illegal settlers to launch attacks against Palestinians in retaliation to a shooting attack that left three settlers dead in the northern West Bank.

According to media reports, illegal settlers blocked several roads between the cities of Nablus, Qalqilya, Tulkarem, and Jenin, attacking Palestinian cars with rocks.

Tension has been running high across the occupied West Bank due to Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 45,850 people, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7, 2023.

At least 838 Palestinians have since been killed and more than 6,700 injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on the enclave. *Writing by Ahmed Asmar, Anadolu Agency

Details: East Africa; 06 January 2025; 246

Martha Karua receiving a practising certificate in Uganda on Monday, January 6, 2024.

It is a victory for Narc-Kenya Party leader Martha Karua after the Ugandan Law Council handed the politician-cum-lawyer a temporary practicing certificate on Ugandan jurisdiction.

This is after the Law Council convened a special meeting on Monday, January 6, to reconsider her application after it was initially rejected on December 6, 2024.

The approval means that Karua can now represent Uganda’s opposition leader Kizza Besigye in an ongoing case in Uganda’s Court Martial.

“The Law Council has granted a temporary Practicing Certificate to Hon. Martha Karua, following her reapplication through the Uganda Law Society,” the law society's statement read in part.

Kifefe Kizza Besigye

Following the granting of the practicing certificate, Karua will be able to represent her clients on the Ugandan soil in court effectively starting January 7, 2025.

To practice in Uganda, Karua was required to lodge a formal application since she is from a different legal jurisdiction. According to Section 18 of the Advocates Act in Uganda, for a lawyer from a different jurisdiction to practice in the country, they must be from a Commonwealth country, apply for a temporary practising certificate, and be attached to a law firm in Uganda.

The Uganda Law Council had earlier blocked Karua from representing Besigye where she was expected to lead a 50-member legal team including representatives from the Pan-African Lawyers Union and the International Commission of Jurists.

The Council cited procedural grounds, the absence of notarised copies of her practising certificate, and a letter of good standing from the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) among other documents as reasons to decline her application.

In response to the initial rejection, Karua resubmitted her application along with support from the Uganda Law Society for a temporary practicing certificate on December 23 last year.

Karua’s application attracted considerable attention because she was seeking to represent Besigye and Hajj Obeid Lutale Kamulegeya who are facing serious charges related to illegal possession of firearms and ammunition. The two were arrested in Nairobi by Uganda's security personnel.

Besigye’s case drew significant attention, both regionally and internationally, as concerns over political freedoms and judicial processes in East Africa come under scrutiny. By Joe Macharia, Kenyans.co.ke

Details: East Africa; 05 January 2025; 303

A revolution in vehicle fuel is gaining momentum in Tanzania, but a lack of filling stations means it is stuck in second gear.

Like Nigeria and some other countries on the continent, Tanzania is beginning to embrace compressed natural gas (CNG) as an alternative to petrol and diesel.

It is seen as cleaner and better for the environment than those fossil fuels, but its relative cheapness is the biggest draw for the 5,000 or so motorists in the East African state who have embraced the change - particularly commercial drivers.

This represents a small fraction of Tanzania's vehicles, but the early adopters are paving the way for a wider acceptance of CNG - the government reportedly wants near total adoption by the middle of the century.

Tanzania has large reserves of gas under the sea and for those filling up, CNG can cost less than half its petrol equivalent.

The potential saving was enough to persuade taxi owner Samuel Amos Irube to part with about 1.5m Tanzanian shillings ($620; £495) to convert his three-wheeled vehicle – known locally as a bajaji - to CNG.

But now, having to get the gas twice a day, he often spends more time waiting at a filling station in the largest city, Dar es Salaam, than he does earning money.

There are only four places in Tanzania's commercial hub where he can fill up.

Quietly frustrated, he says he has to wait for at least three hours every time he wants to refuel, but the savings make it worth it, as he spends just 40% of what he would on the equivalent amount of petrol.

The slow-moving queues of vehicles at the Ubungo CNG station snake down the road. Things are orderly – there are three clear lines, one for cars and two for bajajis – but the irritation is palpable.

Medadi Kichungo Ngoma, in the queue for two hours already, stares at the vehicles ahead of him as he waits by his silver pick-up truck.

A man in a white cap, dark glasses and shirt stands in front of a line of vehicles. — Image caption,

Medadi Kichungo Ngoma remembers when refuelling used to be easy

He tells the BBC that he was among the first people in the city to convert his vehicle, which involved installing a large cylinder in the back of the pick-up, and reminisces about the short queues.

"Sometimes the attendant would have to be called to serve us," he says.

He complains that the infrastructure has not expanded to accommodate the increasing demand.

This is also the refrain heard at the largest of the city's CNG filling stations near the airport.

Sadiki Christian Mkumbuka has waited here for three hours with his bajaji.

"The queue is very long," he says, adding that "we should have as many stations as there are for petrol vehicles".

But the price consideration will keep people coming back.

"I pay 15,000 shillings ($6; £5) to fill my 11kg gas tank, which goes for about 180km," says another motorist who introduces himself as Juma, adding that this is less than half the cost for petrol to cover the same distance.

A large gas cylinder inside the boot of a car. — Image caption,

The CNG tank has to be installed in the boot of a vehicle by an approved fitter

The push to encourage motorists to adopt CNG-powered vehicles in Tanzania was hatched over a decade ago but did not begin in earnest until 2018.

Those in charge of the project acknowledge that they did not foresee the rapid rise in demand.

Aristides Kato, the CNG project manager at the state-oil firm, the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), tells the BBC that there "has been a very drastic increase" recently in the use of natural gas by vehicle owners.

"We found ourselves not having enough infrastructure to support the demand for gas-using vehicles," he admits.

The authorities, though, want more people to switch to CNG because it is a relatively clean-burning fossil fuel that results in fewer emissions of nearly all types of air pollutants, according to the UN.

Plus the locally available natural gas should allow for cheaper prices than petrol. But the cost of converting a vehicle plus the lower mileage that a full tank gives a motorist compared to petrol or diesel may be putting some people off.

Two parallel queues of vehicles - one of three-wheeled bajajs and others of cars as they wait to fill up with natural gas. — Image caption,

Long queues are the norm at the airport CNG station near Dar es Salaam

However, the country manager of Taqa Arabia, an Egyptian company that runs the filling station near the airport, sees the growing demand as a "positive sign that CNG use has started to develop in Tanzania".

Amr Aboushady says his firm plans to build more stations and hopes to "replicate our success story in Egypt by helping the [Tanzanian] government best utilise natural gas as an affordable, reliable, cleaner source of energy".

Egypt has pioneered the use of CNG on the continent, with about half a million vehicles converted to a dual-fuel system since the 1990s.

Other African countries that have approved CNG use for vehicles include South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique and Ethiopia.

The authorities in Tanzania are committed to rolling out more infrastructure and hope to encourage more private investors to get involved.

A central CNG "mother station" is being built in Dar es Salaam by TPDC, which will supply gas to smaller stations around the country.

In addition, TPDC is acquiring five mobile CNG units that will be located in Dar es Salaam as well as the capital, Dodoma, and Morogoro.

These measures should in the medium-term lead to shorter queues, but for the time being the lack of filling stations will continue to frustrate Tanzania's CNG pioneers. By Basillioh Rukanga & Alfred Lasteck, BBC

Details: East Africa; 05 January 2025; 266

Rebel forces backed by Rwanda have captured the town of Masisi in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to various reports.

This is the second town seized by the M23 group in as many days in the mineral-rich North Kivu province. The group has taken control of vast swathes of eastern DR Congo since 2021, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.

Angola has been attempting to mediate talks between President Félix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame. But these broke down last month.

“It is with dismay that we learn of the capture of Masisi centre by the M23,” Alexis Bahunga, a member of North Kivu provincial assembly, told the AFP news agency.

He said this “plunges the territory into a serious humanitarian crisis” and urged the government to strengthen the capacity of the army in the region.

One resident told AFP that the M23 had held a meeting of the town’s inhabitants, saying they had “come to liberate the country”.

The Congolese authorities have not yet commented on the loss of the town.

Masisi, which has a population of about 40,000, is the capital of the territory of the same name.

It is about 80km (50 miles) north of the North Kivu provincial capital Goma, which the M23 briefly occupied in 2012.

On Friday, the M23 captured the nearby town of Katale.

Last year, there were fears that the M23 would once again march on Goma, a city of about two million people.

However, there was then a lull in fighting until early December when fighting resumed.

In July, Rwanda did not deny a UN report saying it had about 4,000 soldiers fighting alongside the M23 in DR Congo.

It accused the Congolese government of not doing enough to tackle decades of conflict in the east of the country. Rwanda has previously said the authorities in DR Congo were working with some of those responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide against ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

The M23, formed as an offshoot of another rebel group, began operating in 2012 ostensibly to protect the Tutsi population in the east of DR Congo which had long complained of persecution and discrimination.

However, Rwanda’s critics accuse it of using the M23 to loot eastern DR Congo’s minerals such as gold, cobalt and tantalum, which are used to make mobile phones and batteries for electric cars.

Last month, DR Congo said it was suing Apple over the use of such “blood minerals”, prompting the tech giant to say it had stopped getting supplies from the country. BBC

Details: East Africa; 05 January 2025; 270

Photo of Ibrahim Hilal Mwiti who was found at Thika Level 5 on January 3, 2025.

Police have raised eyebrows after revealing that it took about 42 days between identifying the body of activist Ibrahim Hilal Mwiti and the family identifying the body.

In a statement aimed at clarifying the circumstances that led to the death of the 24-year-old activist, the National Police Service (NPS) indicated that Mwiti’s body was discovered on November 12, 2024, past midnight by Juja Traffic Police.

Police would then begin the process of identifying the body. According to NPS, police took fingerprints and sent them to the National Registration Bureau, which returned the results on November 21, 2024, positively identifying the body as that of Ibrahim Mwiti Mwiti.

However, despite police identifying the body, the family that had reported him missing had begun the process of tracing him. According to the mother, it searched in mortuaries around the capital where he was last seen and expanded to the metro area of Nairobi.

Their search paid off. The family discovered his body at Thika Level 5 Hospital on January 3. That is over 42 days after police reportedly identified his body. This has resulted in more questions over the handling of the suspected case of abduction.

NPS

Police have, however, distanced themselves from the untimely death, dismissing claims of abduction. The police maintained that Mwiti was run over by a hit-and-run vehicle while riding a hired motorcycle at the Spur Mall area along the Thika Super Highway.

“The body, which had visible head injuries, was later transported and preserved at General Kago Hospital Mortuary as an unknown due to a lack of identification documents at the accident scene, and the motorcycle was secured at the Juja Traffic Office,” NPS further elaborated.

According to the National Police, Mwiti had been reported missing by her mother on November 15 at Kamukunji Police Station and Juja Police Station on November 18.

“Based on our investigations by the DCI, we wish to update the public that Ibrahim Mwiti Mwiti was last seen alive on November 11, 2024, and was reported missing by his mother at Kamukunji Police Station on 15/11/24,” the NPS stated.

The family is said to have sworn an affidavit before Thika Law Courts on January 2, 2025, requesting the waiver of a postmortem examination per her religious belief and subsequently seeking the release of the body, which was granted by the Court.

The body had been laid to rest at Lang'ata Muslim Cemetery on January 3, 2025. The police further explained that the mother of Mwitia recorded her formal statement with the DCI on January 4, affirming that Ibrahim was not an activist as widely reported.

The family disclosed that before his death, Mwiti, who was active on social media among hundreds of youth, made a living as a delivery man.

In recent months, Kenya has witnessed a troubling rise in alleged abductions, particularly targeting government critics and young protesters. There has been rising pressure on the government to end the forced disappearances and abductions. By Joe Macharia, Kenyans.co.ke

Page 64 of 853

East Africa

Illegal Israeli settlers block Palestinian minister’s convoy amid West Bank tension

Illegal settlers block several roads in occupied West Bank, attacking Palestinian vehicles with rocks, according to media reports.

Uganda Clears Martha Karua's Practicing Certificate to Represent Kizza Besigye

Tanzania's fuel revolution slowed down by lack of filling stations

Rwanda-backed rebels seize key town in DR Congo

Police Uncover Details of Activist Ibrahim Hilal's Death After Mysterious Disappearance

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