civilians - The African Mirror

Feb

2024

Congolese city Goma under threat as thousands flee rebel advance

A rocket landed near a university in the Congolese city of Goma as thousands of civilians fled a fresh advance by M23 rebels that threatens to isolate the city of around two million people. There were no casualties from the strike, which blasted a crater into open ground in the Lac Vert neighbourhood, but it underscored the potential threat to Goma, a strategic urban hub in the Democratic Republic of Congo's conflict-ridden east. "This shows that M23 is targeting Goma now. The government has to do something to stop M23's progress," 25-year student Sophonie Bayonga said at the scene. The…

Feb

2024

By GABRIELLE TÉTRAULT-FARBER

UN says war-torn Sudan must not be forgotten, calls for aid funding

NEWS

THE United Nations urged countries not to forget the civilians caught up in the war in Sudan, appealing for $4.1 billion to meet their humanitarian needs and support those who have fled to neighbouring countries. A ten-month war in Sudan between its armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has devastated the country's infrastructure, prompted warnings of famine and displaced millions of people inside and outside the country. Half of Sudan's population - around 25 million people - need humanitarian assistance and protection, while more than 1.5 million people have fled to the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan,…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

Congo arrests six soldiers accused of killing civilians

NEWS

AUTHORITIES in the Democratic Republic of Congo have arrested six soldiers who are accused of the indiscriminate killing of four civilians during militia clashes in the east. The clashes took place in the rural district of Mangina, near Beni, on Monday, the army said in a statement on Tuesday. Security had deteriorated there since last month when a member of the provincial assembly encouraged young people to take up arms, forming a small-scale militia to oppose the army, the statement from local army spokesperson Antony Mwalushayi said. The parliamentarian named in the statement, Alain Siwako, denied this. He told Reuters…

Jan

2024

By PHILIP PULLELLA

‘Indiscriminately striking’ civilians is war crime, pope says in major speech

WORLD

POPE Francis, tackling conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine in his yearly address to diplomats, said that "indiscriminately striking" civilians is a war crime because it violates international humanitarian law. Francis, 87, made his comments in a 45-minute address to Vatican-accredited envoys from 184 countries that is sometimes called his "state of the world" speech. In it, he also talked about conflicts in Africa and Asia, migration crises in the United States and Latin America, climate change and the persecution of Christians. Expressing concern that the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip could spread…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

UN warns violence in Sudan ‘verging on pure evil’

NEWS

VIOLENCE against civilians in Sudan is "verging on pure evil," a senior United Nations official warned on Friday, as a humanitarian crisis in the country worsens and ethnic violence escalates in the western region of Darfur. A war erupted on April 15 between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after weeks of rising tension between the two sides over a plan to integrate forces as part of a transition from military rule to civilian democracy. "We continue to receive unrelenting and appalling reports of sexual- and gender-based violence and forced disappearance, arbitrary detentions and grave violations of…

Oct

2023

By MAX HUNDER

‘Half the village is gone’: Ukraine hamlet reels after missile strike

WORLD

IN a burial plot next to a field outside the remote Ukrainian hamlet of Hroza, residents removed undergrowth and cleared away litter to make space for more graves. Working quietly, it was something to distract them from the horror of what happened the day before. As dozens of people gathered in the local cafe for a meal to honour a soldier who died in the war against Russia, a missile struck, killing at least 52 people. It was one of the most deadly attacks during 20 months of fighting, and one that has devastated the tiny, tight-knit community. Shock is giving…

May

2023

By ADAM MAKARY and DINA SAKR

In Khartoum, civilians face desperate struggle to survive

NEWS

SINCE fighting broke out in Sudan on April 15, Khartoum resident Omar says he and his father have not left their home and believe they are the only civilians left in the neighbourhood. They have limited themselves to one meal a day, hoping their dwindling food supplies will last a month longer. "After that, we don't know what we'll do except survive off water and dates," he said by phone from Sudan's embattled capital. While others have fled, they have stayed in Khartoum, in an area near the airport where there's been intense fighting because they did not want to abandon…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

Ukraine shuts ‘post-apocalyptic’ battlefield town to civilians

WORLD

DAN PELESCHUK UKRAINE shut the eastern town of Avdiivka to non-military personnel on Monday, describing it as a post-apocalyptic wasteland, as Kyiv seeks to break the back of Russia's flagging winter offensive before a counterassault of its own. A top Ukrainian general said Kyiv was planning its next move after Moscow appeared to shift focus from the small city of Bakhmut, which Russia has failed to capture after half a year of the war's bloodiest fighting, to Avdiivka further south. Front lines in Ukraine have barely budged for more than four months despite a Russian winter offensive using hundreds of…

Nov

2022

By The African Mirror

Civilians attack U.N. peacekeeping convoy in eastern Congo

NEWS

CIVILIANS attacked a United Nations peacekeeping convoy in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday evening, injuring two people, the U.N. mission said. The convoy was attacked when it stopped at an army checkpoint near an internally displaced person site in Kanyarutshinya, 8 kilometres (5 miles) from the city of Goma. A crowd assembled and threw stones at the convoy, setting fire to at least one truck, the U.N. mission, MONUSCO, said on Twitter. U.N. peacekeepers fired warning shots into the air and finally left the zone, it said. Frustration has grown in the region this year with the…

Oct

2022

By The African Mirror

Congo fighting flares as hundreds shelter in convent – army, MSF

NEWS

FIGHTERS from the M23 rebel group clashed with the army in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on the fourth day of violence in which four civilians have been killed, the army said. About 500 people, some of them injured, sought shelter in a convent in Ntamugenga village near the borders of Uganda and Rwanda and need to be evacuated, the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres tweeted. The unrest in North Kivu province has broken months of relative calm in eastern Congo following clashes between the army and M23 militants at the end of March. The group declared a ceasefire in April, and the…