News and vignettes
The day after Kiwanja fell to the FARDC, I was in a UN helicopter, flying to Kiwanja and Rutshuru—a press junket organised to show the governor, Julien Paluku, back in the captured territory, and a photo-op for Martin Kobler, the United Nations' SRSG in Congo. Away from the furore of the ululating crowds, the flight time was an opportunity for contemplation, albeit less than quiet with the thud of the rotors cutting through the prevailing storms.
Congo has one of the most ...
Crowds of civilians lined the rugged dirt-road leading through a string of villages towards Bunagana. They were cheering and singing the hundreds of men in uniform that were marching up, the drab uniforms a stark contrast to the colourful cloths wrapped around ululating women. Sweat dripped down these soldiers' faces, their shoulders burdened with heavy, macabre instruments of destruction: tank shells, mortars and boxes of ammunition.
This was the first time the government army had been in these hills for well over a year, having been ousted in July 2012 by ...
It has been nearly two weeks since the bloody attacks on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, where militants aligned with Somali Islamists, al-Shabaab, emptied guns and tossed grenades on unsuspecting shoppers. Last night, in Mombasa, a car lay on the side of a road, riddled with bullets and with four bloody corpses inside.
I first met Sheikh Ibrahim Ishmael two days before his killing, in the office of Abubaker Shariff Ahmed—nick-named "Makaburi"—a well-spoken, if not radical, debater who is ...
In a dusty backstreet of Goma, where cars creep past slowly over the jagged, volcanic rock on which the city is built, Lulu Castofas sits under a parasol. He wears a flat cap and a thick, black beard, peppered with grey. Around his neck hangs a ...
"The UN has declared war" said a UN public information official as he flapped around his office yesterday, warning that the next day, he "may be working from the trenches." He handed me the press release and a map.
BBC News' Africa section runs as its...
