AFRICANEWS
WAR AND PEACEAlgiersSuspected Muslim rebels in Algeria cut the throats of four blind people and two civilians accompanying them, Algerian security forces said on March 8.
Congo BrazzavilleMedia reports from Brazzaville say at least eight children were killed when a shell abandoned during the recent civil war exploded. The BBC said the children were reported to have been playing with the shell in an empty house in the northern suburb of Mikalou. It quoted correspondents saying there had been numerous accidental explosions in Brazzaville since last year's civil war in which forces loyal to Denis Sassou Nguesso overthrew the former president, Pascal Lissouba.(Source: IRIN)
Democratic Republic of CongoSixteen people sentenced to death by military authorities were executed by firing squad on March 3 in the Southern City of Lubumbashi. The public executions of two soldiers and 14 civilians convicted of murder and armed robbery were held at Wanugu military camp. They brought to 56 the number of people executed since January. Meanwhile, a source close to the South Kivu authorities told IRIN on March 12 that three Banyamulenge soldiers were killed by Mayi-Mayi assailants at Buyakiri, northwest of Bukavu, on March 10 night. The sources said other Congolese soldiers were unharmed, and claimed the soldiers were killed on the basis of their ethnicity. After the attack, the Mayi-Mayi "melted into the local villagers", the source said, adding: "These attacks are becoming routine."(Source: IRIN)
EgyptA man killed at least six people in cold blood and wounded nine others on March 3, when he opened fire indiscriminately at his village neighbours to avenge the death of his brother and cousin, police said.
SudanAbout 100 people have been killed and 46 villages burned down in tribal clashes this year in the western Sudanese state of Darfur, a Khartoum newspaper reported on March 7. The private Alwan daily said a high-level military and security delegation had left Khartoum recently of the town of Geneina, on the Chad border, more that 1,100 km (690 miles) Southwest of the Sudanese capital, to resolve the dispute.(Source: Reauters)
NigerAn army mutiny over pay which started in the remote East of the West African state of Niger spread on February 25 to the Northern City of Agadez, military sources said.The mutineers said their action was to support troops in the Eastern town of Diffa, some 1000 Kilometres East of Agadez, who launched their own revolt mainly over late payment salaries. On March 12, Ibrahim Hassan Mayaki, the country's Prime Minister said the government must "adopt a crisis-control strategy based on open dialogue, whether it be with students or with the military, whose demands are mostly of a material nature." Mutinies stopped earlier this month when the government paid two months' salary arrears. (Source IRIN)
Sierra LeoneSome 140 bodies have been discovered in a Sierra Leonean fishing village after a boat helping people to flee fighting and looting capsized, state radio said on February 19. a further 60 people are thought to have died in the accident in Conakry Dee, a village on the Atlantic Ocean close to Lungi International Airport, which is separated from Freetown by a wide estuary.
TanzaniaCommonwealth secretary-general Chief Emeka Anyaoku's special envoy met officials from Tanzania's ruling party to discuss the two year political crisis in Zanzibar, sources said on February 25.
UgandaUgandan rebels (Allied Democratic Forces, ADF), beheaded five people after ambushing them bringing the number of victims of such attacks in Western Uganda to 11, the state-owned New Vision newspaper reported on February 25. Meanwhile Ugandan army killed five rebels when they laid an ambush to rescue 42 people abducted by the insurgents in the north earlier this week, local newspapers reported. All the hostages, most of them children abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), were rescued during the encounter near the town of Palabek in Kitgum district on Monday. Lieutenant Colonel Hudson Mukasa told reporters that the rebels were heading toward southern Sudan with the captives when they fell into the ambush:(Source: AFP)
ZimbabweA Cabinet minister, Eddison Zvobgo in President Mugabe's government has apologised for atrocities committed against civilians by Zimbabwe's army over a decade ago, Standard newspaper said on march 8. This was as a result of a report compiled by the Catholic Commission for Justice and the Legal Resources Foundations on the killings.
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