Friday 17Jun 2025 {HMC}  Uasin Gishu- A family in Maili Nne, Eldoret, can now breathe a sigh of relief after learning that their relative, a Kenya Defence Forces officer Abdullahi Issa Ibrahim, who was presumed dead nine years ago, is alive.

Did Al-Shabaab capture Abdullahi Issa Ibrahim?

Ibrahim went viral after a widely shared video showed him asking the Kenyan government for help to return home.

The man, dressed in a KDF uniform, said in the video that he has been held hostage by Al Shabaab in Somalia for nearly nine years.
“I am a Kenyan soldier. I joined the army in 1986. The Al-Shabaab captured me on January 15, 2016, during the Al-Shabaab raid at the KDF camp in El Adde,” Ibrahim said.

His family narrated the pain they have endured for years, thinking that their long-lost kin is already dead.

Ibrahim’s daughter, Kadra Abdullahi, told Citizen TV she received a call from an unfamiliar number in Somalia about a month before the video of her father went viral. Kadra said the caller identified himself as her long-lost father, leaving her shocked and confused as she struggled to believe the revelation.

“We didn’t have proof of him. I asked him to ask the guys holding him to send us a photo or a video of him so we could start a journey of how to help him. He then said that they would reach me through their media link,” Kadra said.

News of Ibrahim’s situation has reopened painful wounds for the family. His daughter said they had already come to terms with his death after the KDF issued a death certificate confirming it.

“We did the burial procedures for my dad because we knew he was no more,” Kadra said.

Ibrahim’s family now insists that those holding him hostage only wish to communicate with the Kenyan government in order to release him.

Man thought dead shows up 38 days later

In a separate incident, a 24-year-old man presumed dead and buried following a fatal road accident returned home.

Ashraf Bamusungwire from Uganda was “buried” on September 25, 2024, after his family arranged for an ambulance to bring his body from the accident scene in Migyera, Nakasongola District, where he had reportedly gone for casual labour.

Bamusungwire reportedly resurfaced two days before his final funeral rites, known as ‘duwa’ in the Muslim tradition.

Upon his return, the family performed a traditional cleansing ritual for the 24-year-old before fully welcoming him back.

Source: TUKO.co.ke

by  Faith Chandianya

Friday 17Jun 2025 {HMC} Washington has slapped sanctions on Sudan’s army leader, citing his responsibility for war crimes in a conflict that has bled the oil-rich country dry over the last year — sparking a famine, killing tens of thousands of people and driving millions from their homes — just a week after the U.S. sanctioned his opponent for acts it described as genocide.

Thursday’s sanctions on Sudanese Armed Forces leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and a Hong-Kong-based weapons supplier block them from entering or transiting the United States and restrict their access to any U.S. assets.

This leaves both sides economically restrained in this brutal conflict that the State Department has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, but where Washington’s options are limited because of its strained diplomatic ties to the large African nation. This conflict also has drawn in outside players, with Egypt and the United Arab Emirates arming the rivals.

During his final press conference on Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the SAF of war crimes. In last week’s sanctions, the State Department accused the opposing Rapid Support Forces of genocide.

“The SAF has also committed war crimes, and it continues to target civilians,” Blinken said. “It’s obstructed the advancement of the peace process. It’s refused to participate on numerous occasions in ceasefire talks that we’ve sought to convene, and together with the RSF, it’s caused what is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis that people are suffering through every day. And we believe strongly, as we said, there’s no military solution to this conflict.”

‘Flawed’ action, Sudan says

Sudan’s government expressed its objection to the sanctions, calling them “flawed,” “unethical” and “dubious.”

“This decision lacks the basic principles of justice and objectivity, relying on implausible pretexts,” read its statement, which was posted on social media platform X. “It also reflects a blatant disregard for the Sudanese people, who stand firmly united behind General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan as a symbol of their sovereignty and armed forces, and as a courageous leader in the battle for dignity against the terrorist Janjaweed militias.”

Blinken did not address U.S. media reports citing anonymous U.S. officials that the SAF has used chemical weapons at least twice. VOA’s query to the National Security Council went unanswered Thursday.

When asked by reporters whether both sides were equally responsible, Blinken replied, “The actions we took on the RSF, as you know, found a determination of genocide. The actions that we’re looking at for the SAF go to war crimes. So there are gradations in these things, and we follow the law.”

And Blinken expressed regrets that this conflict has escalated. It has followed many of the same contours as the Darfur conflict at the turn of the century.

“It is, for me, yes, another real regret that when it comes to Sudan, we haven’t been able on our watch to get to that day of success,” he said.

He added, “We’ll keep working it for the next three days, and I hope the next administration will take that on as well.”

Hemedti sanctioned

Last week’s sanctions targeted RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, whom the White House named as the leader of a wave of renewed ethnic cleansing, rape and systematic atrocities.

Daglo, who is better known by his nickname, Hemedti, was a commander in the Janjaweed militia considered largely responsible for the brutal Darfur conflict, in which Sudanese Arab Janjaweed militias used scorched-earth tactics on the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa people of Western Sudan, killing at least 200,000. The scale and savagery of the violence prompted the International Criminal Court to issue its first-ever warrant for genocide to Sudan’s then-president, Omar al-Bashir.

Hemedti led the RSF as a paramilitary unit until the April 2023 clash with government forces that sparked the current conflict.

The violence has plunged nearly 640,000 people into the misery of famine, the State Department said. And the United Nations estimates that 30 million people — more than half of the nation’s population — need humanitarian assistance.

Daniel Volman, director of the African Security Research Project, told VOA it’s “unlikely” that the incoming Trump administration will impose further sanctions. He said the U.S. and its allies bear some responsibility for “the conflict escalating to genocidal heights.”

“I think that the United States, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, bears a major responsibility for failing to take effective action against the Bashir regime [which created the RSF and carried out the first genocide in Darfur] and for failing to take effective action to support the civil society groups fighting for a democratic government, which led to the current civil war,” he said by email. “The United States is not alone in bearing responsibility. Russia, Iran and other countries are also arming the rival forces and prolonging the conflict.”

Complicating factor

And, Volman said, the Biden administration’s decision to sanction some of Hemedti’s foreign backers by targeting companies based in the United Arab Emirates is also a complicating factor.

“The involvement of Egypt and the UAE in arming the rival forces and prolonging the civil war will complicate the Trump administration’s relations with these two key allies and may lead them to expand and escalate their military intervention in Sudan,” he said.

Andrew Payne, a lecturer in foreign policy and security at City, University of London, told VOA that for now, sanctions are the main tool that Washington has to constrain Khartoum.

“Sanctions are an easy tool that make it appear like an administration is doing something, regardless of whether that is an appropriate tool to use. It’s relatively cost-free to the United States. If the alternative is something that requires political will, then that will has to be there. … Sanctions are always the tool of cheapest resort, in a sense. So, it’s a way of seeming like you’re engaged, seeming like you’re active, without considering more tougher measures,” Payne said.

Friday 17Jun 2025 {HMC}  The death toll in a monthslong standoff between police and miners trapped while working illegally in an abandoned gold mine in South Africa has risen to at least 87, police said Thursday. Authorities faced growing anger and a possible investigation into their initial refusal to help the miners and instead “smoke them out” by cutting off their food supplies.

National police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said 78 bodies were retrieved in a court-ordered rescue operation, with 246 survivors also pulled out from deep underground since the operation began on Monday. Mathe said nine other bodies had been recovered before the rescue operation, without giving details.

Community groups launched their own rescue attempts when authorities said last year that they would not help the hundreds of miners because they were “criminals.”

The miners are suspected to have died of starvation and dehydration, although no causes of death have been released.

South African authorities have been fiercely criticized for cutting off food and supplies to the miners in the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine last year. That tactic to “smoke them out,” as described by a prominent Cabinet minister, was condemned by one of South Africa’s biggest trade unions.

Police and the mine owners also were accused of taking away ropes and dismantling a pulley system the miners used to enter the mine and send supplies down from the surface.

A court ordered authorities last year to allow food and water to be sent down to the miners, while another court ruling last week forced them to launch a rescue operation.

‘A disgrace’

Many say the unfolding disaster underground was clear weeks ago, when community members sporadically pulled decomposing bodies out of the mine, some with notes attached pleading for food to be sent down.

“If the police had acted earlier, we would not be in this situation, with bodies piling up,” said Johannes Qankase, a local community leader. “It is a disgrace for a constitutional democracy like ours. Somebody needs to account for what has happened here.”

South Africa’s second biggest political party, which is part of a government coalition, called for President Cyril Ramaphosa to establish an independent inquiry to find out “why the situation was allowed to get so badly out of hand.”

“The scale of the disaster underground at Buffelsfontein is rapidly proving to be as bad as feared,” the Democratic Alliance party said.

Authorities now believe that nearly 2,000 miners were working illegally in the mine near the town of Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, since August. Most of them resurfaced on their own over the last few months, police said, and all the survivors have been arrested, even as some emerged this week badly emaciated and barely able to walk to waiting ambulances.

A convoy of mortuary vans arrived at the mine to carry away the bodies.

Mathe said at least 13 children had also come out of the mine before the official rescue operation.

Police announced Wednesday that they were ending the operation after three days and believed no one else was underground. To be sure, a camera was sent down Thursday in a cage that was used to pull out survivors and bodies.

Two volunteer rescuers from the community went down in the small cage during the rescue operation to help miners. Authorities had refused to allow any official rescue personnel to go into the shaft because it was too dangerous.

“It has been a tough few days. There were many people who [we] saved but I still feel bad for those whose family members came out in body bags,” said Mandla Charles, one of the volunteer rescuers. “We did all we could.” The two volunteers were being offered trauma counseling, police said.

The mine is one of the deepest in South Africa. It’s a maze of tunnels and levels and has several shafts leading into it. The miners were working up to 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) underground in different groups.

Exits possible, police say

Police have maintained that the miners were able to come out through several shafts but refused out of fear of being arrested. That’s been disputed by groups representing the miners, who say hundreds were trapped and left starving in dark and damp conditions with decomposing bodies around them.

Police Minister Senzo Mchunu denied in an interview with a national TV station that the police were responsible for any starvation and said they had allowed food to go down.

The initial police operation last year to force the miners to come out and give themselves up for arrest was part of a larger nationwide clampdown on illegal mining called Vala Umgodi, or Close the Hole. Illegal mining is often in the news in South Africa and a major problem for authorities as large groups go into mines that have been shut down to extract leftover deposits.

Gold-rich South Africa has an estimated 6,000 abandoned or closed mines.

The illicit miners, known as “zama zamas” — “hustlers” or “chancers” in the Zulu language — are usually armed and part of criminal syndicates, the government says, and they rob South Africa of more than $1 billion a year in gold deposits. They are often undocumented foreign nationals, and authorities said that the vast majority who came out of the Buffelsfontein mine were from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, and were in South Africa illegally.

Police said they seized gold, explosives, firearms and more than $2 million in cash from the miners and have defended their hardline approach.

“By providing food, water and necessities to these illegal miners, it would be the police entertaining and allowing criminality to thrive,” Mathe said Wednesday.

But the South African Federation of Trade Unions questioned the government’s humanity and how it could “allow anyone — be they citizens or undocumented immigrants — to starve to death in the depths of the earth.”

While the police operation has been condemned by civic groups, the disaster hasn’t provoked a strong outpouring of anger across South Africa, where the mostly foreign zama zamas have long been considered unwelcome in a country that already struggles with high rates of violent crime.

SOURCE VOA