Friday , 10 May, 2024 {HMC} Chad has ordered the immediate deployment of troops to maintain peace, especially in the capital, N’djamena, after provisional results of the May 6 presidential elections surprisingly published on Thursday night declared transitional ruler General Mahamat Idriss Deby winner with over 61% of the votes. The main challenger, Succes Masra, claimed he won, with over 73% of the votes.

Residents in Chad’s capital, N’djamena, said they awoke Friday morning to the sound of heavy gunshots. Forty-five-year old Oumar Saleh is a resident of the Machaga neighborhood spoke to VOA on Friday morning via a messaging app.

Oumar said the shooting may have been ordered by Chad’s government to intimidate those objecting to the results of Chad’s May 6 presidential elections published by the country’s elections management body, ANGE, Thursday night.

Chadian state TV reports that there were isolated gunshots in N’djamena but does not say who the shooters are.

Public Security and Immigration Minister Mahamat Charfadine Margui said in a release Thursday that enough police have been deployed to stop what he called the use of weapons and explosives all over Chad, but specifically in Ndjamena.

Chad’s military also said before the announcement of the partial results that enough troops had been deployed to protect people and their goods, especially in N’djamena and Moundou, the central African state’s second-largest city.

According to the provisional results, transitional President General Mahamat Deby is the official winner with 61.3% of the votes, more than the 50% needed to avoid a run-off.

Members of the opposition and the public say they are surprised ANGE published the figures in three days instead of 15 days after the voting, as stated in the electoral code. ANGE says it is legal to publish results within 15 days.

Deby in a late-night message said he is very grateful to the majority that voted for him.

Deby said he is now the democratically elected president of all Chadians, including opposition party leaders who lost. Deby says he is particularly delighted because he scored a resounding victory, and that he is going to work immediately to fulfill his electoral promises.

Deby said he will concentrate on providing jobs for unemployed youths and strengthening Chad’s internal security to guarantee peace and stability.

ANGE says more than 75% of the registered 8.2 million voters took part in the vote.

Deby’s main challenger, Succes Masra, scored 18.53% of the vote while Albert Pahimi Padacke, the first transitional prime minister, got 7.91%.

Masra had earlier declared that he won a resounding victory in the first round of voting, but that his victory was stolen by Deby. He spoke in a message broadcast on Facebook Thursday afternoon.

He said Chadians voted en masse to say enough is enough to the over three-decade dictatorial rule of Chad’s former president Idriss Deby Itno and his son Mahamat Idriss Deby. Masra said all his supporters and security forces should strongly oppose an attempt by Deby to steal victory from the people.

Masra said all Chad civilians should calmly mobilize and demonstrate peacefully for the stolen victory to be restored.

Opposition and civil society members say there is perceivable tension that may cause chaos in Chad following the publication of the results.

Candidates have five days from the date of publication of provisional results to file complaints at the constitutional council, which has 10 days rule on fraud and irregularities allegations. Definitive results will be declared by Chad’s Constitutional Council on May 21.

Deby took power in April 2021 after the death of his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who died on the front line of a war against rebels after ruling for 30 years.

SOURCE VOA

Friday , 10 May, 2024 {HMC}  At least eight civilians died Thursday in an attack on a health center in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to media reports that cited locals.

The attack occurred in the country’s North Kivu province. Locals attributed the attack to the Allied Democratic Forces militia, which pledged loyalty to the Islamic State group in 2019.

“For now we have a toll of eight dead, including the sick and the accountant at the health center,” Beni territory civil society leader Omar Kalisia told reporters. Kalisia added that one nurse was missing, and a house was set on fire.

In late 2021, the DRC and neighboring Uganda launched a joint military operation against the Allied Democratic Forces. To date, that effort has not been successful.

The Thursday attack on the health center follows a May 3 attack on a camp for displaced people in the same province, and a May 7 bombing in a village in a neighboring province.

In the city of Goma on Thursday, social affairs minister Modeste Mutinga Mutushayi said that the toll from the attack on the camp for displaced people had risen to 35 people killed, with an additional 37 people injured. The initial death toll was estimated to be nine people killed.

Mutushayi visited Goma with a delegation from the capital, Kinshasa, investigating the attack. The United States blamed the assault on nearby Rwanda and the M23 rebel group, which the U.S. government says has ties to the Rwandan government.

The Rwandan government has rejected those accusations.

A few days later on May 7, a bombing in the neighboring province of South Kivu killed seven people and injured six more. Authorities also blamed M23 for that attack.

The rebel group M23, which is mainly led by Tutsis, recommenced its armed campaign in the DRC in 2021 and has taken control of large swathes of territory since then.

SOURCE VOA

Friday , 10 May, 2024 {HMC} Hope was fading Friday for 44 construction workers buried for days in the rubble of a building that collapsed in South Africa, with authorities saying rescuers are now faced with the challenge of moving thousands of tons of concrete with heavy machinery to see if there are any more survivors.

The death toll rose to nine after a worker who was in critical condition died in the hospital, authorities said.

Of the 28 workers rescued from the site, 21 were in critical condition or had life-threatening injuries following Monday’s collapse of the five-story apartment complex that was under construction.

With fears that the final death toll could exceed 50, authorities in the city of George on South Africa’s south coast said large earth-moving equipment had arrived and rescue teams were removing huge slabs of concrete and rubble to reach deeper into the wreckage.

City authorities said it was still a rescue rather than a recovery operation, but no survivors have been located or brought out since Wednesday.

“Despite the introduction of large machinery, rescue techniques will still be applied meticulously and sensitively by the highly skilled and experienced disaster management team,” the city said in a statement.

It also revised the number of missing from 38 to 44 after determining that there were more construction workers at the site than previously thought. New information provided by the construction company showed there were 81 workers when the building came crashing down, not 75 as authorities had initially announced, it said.

More than 600 personnel are involved in the rescue operation, with many brought in from nearby towns and cities. George, which is about 400 kilometers east of Cape Town, is a small city known as a vacation and golfing destination.

Authorities say multiple investigations are under way into the cause of the collapse, including by police, the provincial government and the national department of labor.

SOURCE VOA

Friday , 10 May, 2024 {HMC} The United States is again warning Israel against expanding its limited operation into an all-out assault on Rafah, this time not only for long-held humanitarian concerns but for strategic calculations.

“Our view is that Rafah operations, certainly any kind of major Rafah ground operation, would actually strengthen Hamas’ hands at the negotiating table, not Israel’s,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Thursday.

Kirby said that Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader believed to be hiding in the network of tunnels in Gaza, would have “less incentive to want to come to the negotiating table” if there were massive new civilian casualties in Rafah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Israeli forces to carry out a “limited operation” in eastern Rafah earlier this week after rejecting a proposed cease-fire deal that Hamas said it had agreed to. The deal would have provided a temporary pause in hostilities paired with the release of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinians detained in Israeli jails.

On Thursday, cease-fire negotiations in Cairo between Israel and Hamas with intermediaries including Egypt, Qatar and the U.S. were put on hold, according to Egyptian state media.

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Thursday that negotiators are still working to make changes to Hamas’ counterproposal, but finalizing the agreement’s text was an “incredibly difficult” process.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Thursday that his country’s military “will continue to fight Hamas until its destruction.”

His comments came a day after President Joe Biden said the U.S. would not provide offensive weapons to Israel for use in Rafah, while also expressing a commitment to Israel’s defense.

Weapons shipment pause

The U.S. announced Wednesday it is pausing shipment of weapons consisting of 1,800 907-kilogram (2,000-pound) bombs and 1,700 226-kilogram (500-pound) bombs over concerns that Israel could use them in civilian-populated areas of Rafah as they have in other parts of Gaza.

U.S. officials have for weeks expressed opposition to Israel’s plans to carry out an offensive in Rafah, where more than half of the territory’s population has sought refuge from the fighting elsewhere. Israeli officials cited the need to conduct an operation there to defeat Hamas and secure the release of hostages held in Gaza.

Israel has now occupied the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing into Egypt. It’s an effort to send the signal that Hamas no longer has control over the territory, said Aaron David Miller, former U.S. negotiator for the Middle East who is now with the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.

“And perhaps to position themselves for a more comprehensive operation,” he told VOA.

Whether the arms transfer pause will change Israel’s calculus on Rafah is “too soon to tell,” Kirby said. Further U.S. action toward Israel is “going to depend on what we see Israel do in Rafah.”

Kirby rejected proposals reportedly floated by Israel that would allow it to continue its operations in Rafah during the proposed cease-fire. The U.S. would only support a cease-fire that would provide “six weeks of calm in all of Gaza,” he said.

“Smashing into Rafah” would not advance the objective of Hamas’ sustainable and enduring defeat, Kirby said. The U.S. is prepared instead to secure the border between Gaza and Egypt to prevent weapons from coming into the Palestinian enclave.

The U.S. can also “help [Israel] target the leaders including Mr. Sinwar, which we are frankly doing with the Israelis on an ongoing basis,” Kirby said.

On further questioning, he would not confirm that the United States is helping Israel to identify specific targets but said the U.S. can help with “setting the conditions” for Israel to go after them.

Miller said an assassination attempt on Hamas leaders is unlikely to compel the militant group to move closer toward cease-fire.

“Sinwar wants to survive,” he said.

The White House has not responded to VOA’s question on whether the administration would support a cease-fire counteroffer from Hamas that allows its leaders to remain alive.

Humanitarian concerns

United Nations officials expressed concerns about humanitarian aid deliveries reaching Gaza, including fuel, amid the Israeli operations in the Rafah area.

Rafah is a key crossing used to bring in aid from Egypt, while a nearby crossing called Kerem Shalom allows for shipments to cross into southern Gaza from Israel.

The Israeli military said Wednesday it has reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing, but the United Nations said no humanitarian aid had yet entered the Palestinian territory as no one was present to receive it after workers left the area because of Israeli attacks near there.

The Kerem Shalom crossing was closed last weekend after a Hamas rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers. Tuesday, an Israeli tank brigade seized the nearby Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, also forcing its closure.

UNRWA, the U.N.’s Palestinian aid agency, closed its doors in East Jerusalem Thursday, the agency said in a statement, after Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeters of its headquarters.

There were no casualties, but armed men outside UNRWA’s compound chanted, “Burn down the United Nations.”

Protests outside the compound have become violent this week, according to the statement, with demonstrators throwing stones at U.N. staff and at buildings.

UNRWA called for the perpetrators of the attacks to be investigated and held responsible.

Around 80,000 people have fled Rafah since Monday when Israel intensified its operations in the southern Gaza city, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said Thursday.

The World Health Organization says about 1.2 million people are sheltering in Rafah, and more than half of them are children. Many have come from other parts of Gaza, fleeing in search of safety and shelter as Israel’s campaign against Hamas left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins.

The Israel-Hamas war was triggered by the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of about 250 hostages, according to Israeli officials. About 100 of the hostages were freed in a weeklong truce in late November.

Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,900 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. The Israeli military says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters it has killed.

SOURCE VOA