Three abducted humanitarian workers released in West Darfur (20.12.2016)

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Sarun Pradhan and Ramesh Karki, both nationals of Nepal, and Musa Omer Musa Mohamed, a citizen of Sudan, are unharmed and are undergoing medical checks.

EL FASHER, Sudan, December 20, 2016 – Three staff members of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) who were abducted in El Geneina, West Darfur, on 27 November 2016, were freed on 19 December.

Sarun Pradhan and Ramesh Karki, both nationals of Nepal, and Musa Omer Musa Mohamed, a citizen of Sudan, are unharmed and are undergoing medical checks.

The UN Designated Official for Security and the  African Union – United Nations Joint Special Representative for Darfur, Martin Uhomoibhi, expressed the Mission’s gratitude to the Government of Sudan, and specifically to the Wali of West Darfur and the National Intelligence and Security Services for their excellent work which led to the safe release of the humanitarian workers.

He commended the UN security personnel who led the effort from the UN side to achieve this successful outcome.

“The role of the humanitarian actors in Darfur is crucial to ensure that those in need receive essential assistance; it is in everyone’s interest to guarantee that they can continue to carry out their duties safely,” the JSR stated.

RDC: Communiqué de presse de ALTERNANCE POUR LA RÉPUBLIQUE de Sesanga (20.12.2016)

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South Sudan: Republican Order 27/2016 for the Formation of the National Dialogue Steering Committee 2016 A.D. (19.12.2016)

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With continued drought, Horn of Africa braces for another hunger season (20.12.2016)

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Agricultural support critical now to protect livestock, equip families to plant in rainy season.

ROME, Italy, December 20, 2016 – Countries in the Horn of Africa are likely to see a rise in hunger and further decline of local livelihoods in the coming months, as farming families struggle with the knock-on effects of multiple droughts that hit the region this year, FAO warned today. Growing numbers of refugees in East Africa, meanwhile, are expected to place even more burden on already strained food and nutrition security.

Currently, close to 12 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are in need of food assistance, as families in the region face limited access to food and income, together with rising debt, low cereal and seed stocks, and low milk and meat production. Terms of trade are particularly bad for livestock farmers, as food prices are increasing at the same time that market prices for livestock are low.

Farmers in the region need urgent support to recover from consecutive lost harvests and to keep their breeding livestock healthy and productive at a time that pastures are the driest in years. Production outputs in the three countries are grim.

Rapid intervention

“We’re dealing with a cyclical phenomenon in the Horn of Africa,” said Dominique Burgeon, Director of FAO’s Emergency and Rehabilitation Division. “But we also know from experience that timely support to farming families can significantly boost their ability to withstand the impacts of these droughts and soften the blow to their livelihoods,” he stressed.

For this reason, FAO has already begun disbursing emergency funds for rapid interventions in Kenya and Somalia.

The funds will support emergency feed and vaccinations for breeding and weak animals, repairs of water points, and seeds and tools to plant in the spring season. FAO is also working with local officials to bolster countries’ emergency preparedness across the region.

“Especially in those areas where we know natural hazards are recurring, working with the Government to further build-up their ability to mitigate future shocks is a smart intervention that can significantly reduce the need for humanitarian and food aid further down the line,” Burgeon said.

Kenya is highly likely to see another drought in early 2017, and with it a rise in food insecurity. Current estimates show some 1.3 million people are food insecure.

Based on the latest predictions, the impacts of the current drought in the southern part of the country will lessen by mid-2017, but counties in the North – in particular Turkana, Marsabit, Wajir and Mandera – will steadily get worse.

Families in these areas are heavily dependent on livestock. Now, with their livelihoods already stressed – the last reliable rain they received was in December 2015- they will get little relief from the October-December short rains, which typically mark a recovery period but once again fell short this season.

In the affected counties, the terms of trade have become increasingly unfavourable for livestock keepers, as prices of staple foods are rising, while a flood of weakened sheep, goats and cows onto local markets has brought down livestock prices.

To ensure livestock markets remain functional throughout the dry season in 2017, FAO, is training local officials in better managing livestock markets — in addition to providing feed, water and veterinary support.

After two poor rainy seasons this year, Somalia is in a countrywide state of drought emergency, ranging from moderate to extreme. As a result, the Gu cereal harvest – from April to June – was 50 percent below average, and prospects for the October-December Deyr season are very grim.

To make matters worse, the country’s driest season – the Jilaal that begins in January- is expected to be even harsher than usual, which means Somali famers are unlikely to get a break anytime soon.

All indications are that crop farmers are already facing a second consecutive season with poor harvest. Pastoralists, meanwhile, are struggling to provide food for both their families and livestock, as pasture and water for grazing their animals are becoming poorer and scarcer by the day – in the south, pasture availability is the lowest it has been in the past five years.

Some five million Somalis are food insecure through December 2016. This includes 1.1 million people in Crisis and Emergency conditions of food insecurity (Phases 3 and 4 on the five-tier IPC scale used by humanitarian agencies). This is a 20 percent increase in just six months.

The latest analysis forecasts that the number of people in Crisis and Emergency conditions of food insecurity may further rise by more than a quarter of a million people between February and May 2017. Similar conditions in 2011 have resulted in famine and loss of lives, and therefore early action is urgently needed to avoid a repeat.

FAO calls on resource partners to urgently scale up assistance in rural areas, in the form of cash relief, emergency livestock support and agricultural inputs to plant in the April Gu season.

If farmers cannot plant during Gu – which traditionally produces 60 percent of the country’s annual cereal output — they will be left without another major harvest until 2018.

Farming families in Ethiopia, meanwhile, are extremely vulnerable as they have not been able to recover from the 2015 El Nino-induced drought. Some 5.6 million people remain food insecure, while millions more depend on livestock herds that need to be protected and treated to improve milk and meat production. Here, too, better access to feed and water is critical.

The crop situation is relatively stable after the country completed the most widespread emergency seed distribution in Ethiopia’s history. FAO and more than 25 NGOs and agencies reached 1.5 million households with drought-resistant seeds.

As a result of enabling farming families to grow their own food, the government and humanitarian community saved close to $1 billion in emergency aid, underlining that investing in farmers is not only the right thing to do but also the most cost-efficient.

FAO’s Early Warning early action work

Somalia and Kenya are among the first countries benefiting from FAO’s new Early Warning Early Action Fund (EWEA). The fund ensures quick activation of emergency plans when there is a high likelihood of a disaster that would affect agriculture and people’s food and nutrition security.

The fund will be part of a larger Early Warning Early Action System that tracks climate data and earth imaging to determine what areas are at risk of an imminent shock and will benefit from early intervention.

South Sudan: Press Statement from NDM of SPLM-IO Defection to the Party (19.12.2016)

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Kabila’s silent coup is happening right now!

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RDC Kikaya said: “The only pressure to which Kabila can yield is that of the people, and today the people are not exerting pressure.”

With the soldiers in the streets of the major towns in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as the police abducting and detaining civil activists of LUCHA and #Telema who are planning demonstrations against the regime in Beni, Goma, Bukavu, Kisangani, Lubumbashi and Kinshasa.

The sections of major towns we’re already filled with road-blocks and soldiers put in important roundabouts before the 19th December. Therefore the Police and Army we’re preparing for the worst and we’re ready to fire if needed be. They had the mambas; this was done with the jeeps and the Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) that we’re stationed in significant areas.

Together with the social media shutdown where the citizens are supposed to use VPN instead of normal internet connections to get airtime as the central government has planned to silence WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter and so on. Because of this the M7 Media house has even decided to take vacation today until 5th January 2017. That because of the silencing of the media and even fear for the opposition would react to the overstaying of President Kabila.

Today alone 11 Rassemblement opposition figures we’re arrested in Goma. Total activists arrested in Goma during the day we’re 41!  In Kinshasa the UDPS party offices we’re besieged. The University of Kinshasa #UniKin has also been besieged as the students are silenced and stopped from demonstrating.

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Eastern city of Kalemie we’re a place we’re heavy deployment of security forces from the morning. In Butembo there we’re worse incidents we’re 15 MONUSCO soldier, 20 FARDC soldiers, 10 Police Officers and 4 civilians all lost their lives today.

Even Opposition leader Franck Diongo was also arrested today. Proves what the authorities are doing now.

The media blackout has become really sure, not only on the social media but the proof of this is with the M7 Media house, but there are report of total silence and fear from the government towards the ones reporting on the siege of the country.

With all of the security operatives and the security organization in the streets, collecting and arresting the opposition, seems like President Kabila is ready for another mandate and another term where the ones who is not part of his team and his elite will be behind bars. The arrest and the detained opposition proves that the coup d’état is on the way.

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The coup is in the details, where the Police and soldiers together with massive guns are putting people into submission, to put people into fear and silencing the ones who wants another leadership and another executive of the Republic. The Third Republic we’re built around transition and President Kabila, but not for him to rule for life, the peaceful transition is in danger now as the dialogue has been there to make opposition busy.

#Telema and the decision to wanting change in the Republic seems to get civil activist behind bars, as they civil disobedience and demonstrations are not allowed, the blockade and the clear indicated security operatives proves the proof of tensions that are created with extending this mandate.

President Kabila is trying a silent coup d’état in the Third Republic, the republic who came from two elected terms, after a questionable election in 2011, now in 2016 he is trying to skip an election and continue to be in power. This is just another way of transition as he went for a few years from 2001 to 2006 without any election and now he wants the same for himself.

5 years he could walk in power without anything other than kingmakers and foreign influencers who wanted a smooth process to secure the Kinshasa government and the exported resources. This has happen without question and rapidly by all means. So, some of the government who ushered him into power might still want him there, even as the United States and European Union is now condemning the authority of Kabila. Secondly the Rwandan and Ugandan counterparts are not saying anything on the matter; they are indifferent as long as the minerals are exported through the back-channels there. Zimbabwe’s government we’re also important in the decision of Third Republic President Kabila.

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We cannot see that President Kabila wants to stepdown as he orders the army and police offers to detain, arrest opposition and civilians. Filimbi, Rassemblement, LUCHA and other activists are taken into prison because they want their just change. Justice and rule of law is now not a priority for the republic. The one thing that matters is that Kabila is ruling the nation no matter what the cost.

The cost is freedom, liberty and a torn not worth piece of paper constitution as long as President Joseph Kabila continues to rule over his mandate. The decisions to use Security Organizations to silence his people are the proof of the coup from the Central Government.

Now we are here, the Kabila government will now coup d’état itself into power, with the cost of its own people, because of the lucrative agreements and businesses kept by the state and sanctioned by the state. Kabila has no plans to stepdown and let anybody else rule. Even if it would be his official third term, we all know it would be his fourth as the transitional period should count as one!

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The Kabila Government is now stealing the nation, thieving the republic and taking the citizens for granted. Certainly the Republic and citizens deserves better, but a coup happens because somebody wants to take power, not get or give power. The power is now in hands of people, but the army and police can only be designated for a while, not for too long because that will create fatigue. The initial outcome is that the citizens become prisoners.

With the soldiers and police in the streets are part of the coup, they are keeping the citizens as prisoners in their homes and in the valleys, the streets are not safe because if you demonstrate then you could get hurt or in prison. The Kabila government makes all citizens criminals, because one man to stay in power. That is not healthy, that is not right and the people should react. The world shouldn’t only sanction the men with frozen bank accounts and not allowed to travel to the U.S. and the European Union countries.

The republic should have arms embargo and should lose donor aid, Kabila should feel the pinch of international community, his closest businessmen and the ones in his elite be hurt by the multi-national organizations and bilateral agreements that the republic has. Republic of Congo is not owned by Kabila, still he acts they deserve him on the throne.

Kabila is staring his coup d’état with the Police and Army, the world should care because right now President Kabila is on the way on the world’s biggest heist. The heist is stealing the Congolese government and all the possibilities that come with it. Peace.

RDC: Monusco strongly condemns the Mayi Mayi milita attack in Butembo (19.12.2016)

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Uganda: Announcement of the Resumption of the Burundi Dialogue (18.12.2016)

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Statement from the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) on National Dialogue and the launch of the Technical Commitee of the Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing (19.12.2016)

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Democratic Republic of the Congo: Zeid calls for rights to be upheld as president’s mandate nears end (19.12.2016)

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A planned shutdown of social media in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from Sunday evening ahead of the end of President Joseph Kabila’s mandate, coupled with a continuing ban on demonstrations by civil society and the opposition, is deeply alarming.

GENEVA, Switzerland, December 19, 2016 – A planned shutdown of social media in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from Sunday evening ahead of the end of President Joseph Kabila’s mandate, coupled with a continuing ban on demonstrations by civil society and the opposition, is deeply alarming, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said Saturday.

“We are especially concerned as Monday also marks three months since 54 people died in Kinshasa, when defence and security forces used excessive force against people calling for constitutional deadlines to be respected and for President Kabila to step down at the end of his second and final mandate. No one has to date been held accountable for this violent repression of demonstrations,” Zeid said.

Since the beginning of December, the UN Joint Human Rights Office in the DRC has documented at least 45 arrests of people trying to exercise their right to peaceful assembly. Of these, at least 16 people were detained in Bunia, Kinshasa and Goma in the context of the “Bye Bye Kabila” campaign organized by the Filimbi and Lucha  youth movements.  A further 26 people were reportedly arrested for their political links or because they belong to citizen movements.

“Intimidating and targeting opponents and civil society is not the answer. Silencing their views and stopping them from protesting is not the solution, and in fact is more likely to push them to resort to violence,” said Zeid.

“We call on the Government, and especially its security forces, to take all necessary measures to guarantee the rights to freedom of association and of peaceful assembly.  We call on them to exercise restraint in line with their obligations under international human rights law related to the use of force during demonstrations. All responsible, at any level, for human rights violations must also be held accountable,” Zeid stressed.

“I am also concerned that DRC Government has asked internet providers and phone operators to block social media networks from Sunday evening. Such disruption is generally disproportionate and risks heightening tensions and fears, as it follows recent increased restrictions on independent media and on political debate,” he added. “I urge the authorities to reverse this order and to guarantee the right to freedom of expression and to access information, in line with the Congolese constitution.”

Under an agreement reached with some members of the opposition, elections are not expected before April 2018, with Mr. Kabila planning to stay on in office beyond 19 December.

Talks mediated by the Catholic Church have been taking place in Kinshasa to try to find a negotiated way forward beyond this date and to avoid violence. Respect for the Constitution and human rights principles and standards must be a cornerstone of any agreement achieved at these talks, the High Commissioner said.

“Let me stress how important the implementation of confidence-building measures is to reassure the Congolese population. I call on the Government to release all political prisoners, guarantee the independence of state institutions, including the judiciary, and open up the political space. At the same time, the opposition and civil society must strictly adhere to the peaceful exercise of their rights and freedoms,” the High Commissioner said.

“I urge all the Congolese to continue their efforts to achieve an agreement on the upcoming transitional period that respects the constitution and the human rights of all,” Zeid added.