Africa Business

Sudanese mother Awadya Ahmed has long wondered why her youngest child Talab was born blind and unable to walk; now she suspects the piles of poisonous waste left by gold miners.

In recent years, a growing number of traditional miners have flocked to her village hoping to strike it rich.

But they leave behind hazardous white-powdered waste laden with toxic chemicals including mercury used in the gold extraction process.

The waste is dumped near farmland, water sources and residential areas.

“His four brothers were born in good health, but Talab is the only one born after mining residues spread,” Ahmed, 45, told AFP at her home in Banat village, in River Nile state north of Khartoum. 

The four-year-old lay beside her, unable to move.

Artisanal gold mining is widespread across much of Sudan, employing more than two million people and producing about 80 percent of the gold extracted nationwide, according to experts.

Sudan is one of the world’s poorest countries, and mining remains a source of fast profits attracting many.

The industry has flourished since oil-rich South Sudan broke away in 2011 during the rule of now-ousted president Omar al-Bashir, a period marked by economic hardship, government mismanagement, corruption and international sanctions.

– ‘Harmful to health’ –

But chemical contamination from artisanal gold extraction poses clear health dangers.

Mercury damages the nervous, digestive and immune systems and can be fatal. It also threatens the development of children in the womb and early in life, according to the World Health Organization.

Ahmed is not the only one of Banat’s 8,000 residents to have observed birth defects and miscarriages.

In a nearby house, Awad Ali says his daughter was “a very normal child,” until she turned two. “Then she became unable to move or walk, stand up or sit down,” he said.

Community leader Algaily Abdelaziz said the problems began five years ago.

“Since we saw these waste deposits appear, children have been born with deformities, and there have been still-births,” Abdelaziz said, noting 22 children had been born in the village with deformities including blindness and brain damage.

Saleh Ali Saleh, from Khartoum’s Neelain University’s Faculty of Petroleum and Minerals, notes that it is well known “that mercury is harmful to health”.

A January report by Saleh and other Sudanese researchers found that around 450,000 tonnes of mining waste — rife with mercury — dot the lush green landscape of River Nile state.

Samples of blood, urine, drinking water and soil from several parts of the state have shown high levels of mercury traces, according to the report.

“People, frankly, are not concerned with removing the waste,” said Ali Mohammed Ali, head of the Sudanese Environment Conservation Society. 

The process “requires special treatment” and is “ideally carried out away from residential areas or water sources,” he added.

Such safety measures are far from the minds of miners.

Around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Banat, Mohammed Issa mixed mercury with sand in a large metal bowl with his bare hands, hoping to separate gold from other minerals.

“That’s how people do it here,” the 25-year-old said.

Issa said he abandoned a meagre life of farming and herding in North Kordofan state to search for the precious metal.

– Years to fix –

In 2019, Sudan’s now-deposed transitional government issued a decree banning the use of mercury and cyanide after protests against their use at gold mines.

The decision has rarely been enforced and miners continue to use the chemicals in more secluded outlying areas, Saleh said.

Political and economic turmoil in Sudan has piled pressure on households already struggling to make ends meet.

The country’s economic crisis worsened after an October military coup led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. 

The coup triggered cuts to crucial international aid and fed into spiralling prices of basic commodities.

Sudan is one of Africa’s top gold producers, generating 30.3 tonnes of gold in the first half of 2021 alone, according to official figures — which do not include the artisanal output.

The Central Bank puts Sudan’s gold revenues in the first quarter of this year at $720 million, reflecting the official output.

The state-run company supervising mining activities declined multiple requests for comment by AFP.

The lucrative business has long been controlled by shadowy companies with links to the security services which flourished under Bashir.

Saleh warns there will be no quick fix.

“The damage already done to the environment cannot be treated easily,” said Saleh.

“If we managed to stop today, it will still take us years and years to contain the impact of artisanal mining.”

For little Talab, it is already too late.

Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola produced a decisive kick 8km from the finish line to win gold in the men’s marathon at the World Athletics Championships on Sunday.

Tola, who won Olympic 10,000m bronze at the 2016 Rio Games and marathon silver at the 2017 London worlds, clocked a championship record of 2hr 5min 37sec, smashing the previous best of 2:06.54 set by Kenyan Abel Kirui in Berlin in 2009.

“It’s a dream come true,” Tola said. “I learned from my mistake in 2017 and I made sure it did not happen again.”

There was an Ethiopian 1-2 with Mosinet Geremew taking silver, as he also did in the 2019 worlds in Doha, in 2:06.45.

Belgium’s Bashir Abdi took bronze a further 4sec adrift.

“I am very happy to make 1-2 for Ethiopia again,” said Geremew.

“For next year’s world championships (in Budapest), I just pray to be healthy to make the team again.”

Tola made his move at the 34km mark, surging ahead of the six-strong chasing pack and quickly building up a 7sec lead, and proceeding to increase that.

In cool, perfect conditions for marathon running, Tola blew away the field, the chasers soon cut to Abdi and Geremew, with Kenya’s Geoffrey Kamworor and Canadian Cameron Levins falling off the pace.

The latter pair, however, reeled the podium seekers back in with 4km to go to set up a battle royale for the minor medals, but Geremew turned the screw and only Abdi followed.

Levins eventually finished fourth and Kamworor in fifth.

It was a remarkable result for both Levins, in a national record, and the Kenyan.

Kamworor has had to make a comeback from a potential career-ending accident in June 2020 when he was hit by a motorbike during a training run that left him requiring surgery on a broken tibia.

He rebounded to win the Kenyan Police Cross Country Championships in January 2021 before going on to secure a place on Kenya’s Olympic 10,000m team after winning the national trials, only to have to pull out with an ankle injury.

Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola produced a decisive kick 8km from the finish line to win gold in the men’s marathon at the World Athletics Championships on Sunday.

Tola, who won Olympic 10,000m bronze at the 2016 Rio Games and marathon silver at the 2017 London worlds, clocked a championship record of 2hr 5min 37sec, smashing the previous best of 2:06.54 set by Kenyan Abel Kirui in Berlin in 2009.

There was an Ethiopian 1-2 with Mosinet Geremew taking silver, as he also did in the 2019 worlds in Doha, in 2:06.45.

Belgium’s Bashir Abdi took bronze a further 4sec adrift.

Tola made his move at the 34km mark, surging ahead of the six-strong chasing pack and quickly building up a 7sec lead, and proceeding to increase that.

In cool, perfect conditions for marathon running, Tola blew away the field, the chasers soon cut to Abdi and Geremew, with Kenya’s Geoffrey Kamworor and Canadian Cameron Levins falling off the pace.

The latter pair, however, reeled the podium seekers back in with 4km to go to set up a battle royale for the minor medals, but Geremew turned the screw and only Abdi followed.

Nigeria’s main opposition party has won the governorship election in southwest Osun state, the electoral commission said on Sunday, in a major upset to President Muhammadu Buhari’s ruling All Progressives Congress.

Osun is one of eight of Nigeria’s 36 states where governorship elections are not being held at the same time as the rest of the country because of legal challenges to previous results.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said Senator Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 403,371 votes to unseat incumbent APC governor Gboyega Oyetola, who scored 375,027 in Saturday’s ballot.

“I declare … that Ademola Jackson Nurudeen Adeleke of the PDP, having satisfied the requirements of the law, is hereby returned elected,” INEC returning officer Oluwatoyin Temitayo Ogundipe said.

Adeleke, 62, won 17 of the state’s 30 local government areas while Oyetola won in 13.

The announcement sparked spontaneous celebrations on the streets of Osogbo, the state capital. PDP supporters sang and danced and motorists blared their horns.

Buhari on Sunday congratulated Adeleke, who became the 10th governor since the creation of the state in 1991.

“With the election over, the president expresses conviction that the people of Osun have expressed their will through the ballot, and the will of the people must always matter and be respected in a democracy,” Buhari’s office said in a statement.

“The president reassures the nation that the commitment of this administration towards having credible elections remains unshaken,” it added.

– Reports of vote-buying –

Election observers said the polling, which opened early with a large turnout, was peaceful but cases of vote-buying were rampant.

Civil society group Yiaga Africa said it “received reports of acts of vote-buying perpetrated by agents of the APC and PDP in some polling units,” the observer group said in a statement on Sunday.

“At Olomu Mosque in Osogbo, PDP party agents were seen handing out between N2,000 and N5,000 ($4.70 to $11.80) to induce voters,” the group said.

At another polling station, in a grammar school in the Ife North district,  “party agents strategically positioned themselves by the voting cubicle to see how voters marked their ballots”.

Nevertheless, Yiaga Africa “commended the electoral commission and the security agencies “for ensuring the voters in Osun exercised their franchise”.

Of the 15 parties that vied for the Osun seat, there were four frontrunners; the APC’s Oyetola, who was seeking a second term, Adeleke of the PDP, Akin Ogunbiyi of the Accord Party and the Labour Party’s Yusuf Lasun.

However, it was a straight race between old political foes Oyetola and Adeleke, who had lost by fewer than 500 votes after a run-off vote four years ago.

– Wealthy political family –

Described locally as the “dancing senator” because of his penchant for partying, Adeleke is the uncle of Nigerian superstar singer Davido, who joined him on the campaign.

The PDP flagbearer comes from a wealthy political family. His father was a senator in the 1980s, while his late brother, Isiaka, was the state governor from 1992 to 1993. 

Another brother, Deji, is a billionaire oil and shipping mogul and Davido’s father.

Davido was in the state to drum up support for his uncle among young voters.

The ballot was seen as a battleground for Nigeria’s leading parties to test backing for their presidential hopefuls ahead of the February 2023 election, when Buhari steps down following eight years in office.

The APC has chosen former state governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu as its presidential candidate.

The APC’s loss in Osun is a blow to Tinubu’s regional influence.

Tinubu, a Muslim from the southwest, faces a tough challenge in the presidential election from PDP candidate Atiku Abubakar, a northern Muslim. 

Another frontrunner is the Labour Party’s Peter Obi, who has been enjoying growing support among younger people and is seeking to break the APC and PDP dominance.

Last month, the APC won a governorship vote in nearby Ekiti state with a landslide.

Sudanese police fired tear gas in the capital Khartoum on Saturday in an attempt to disperse hundreds of pro-democracy protesters demonstrating against coup leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, AFP correspondents reported.

Security forces had erected road blocks on bridges crossing the Nile river linking Khartoum to its suburbs, AFP reporters said, to deter protesters who had vowed to take to the streets in large numbers.

The demonstrators oppose Burhan’s October power-grab and are also highlighting heavy fighting in Sudan’s southern Blue Nile state, about 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of Khartoum.

They accuse the military leadership and the ex-rebel leaders who signed a 2020 peace deal of exacerbating ethnic tensions there for personal gain.

Sudan’s latest coup derailed a transition to civilian rule, sparking near-weekly protests and a crackdown by security forces that has left at least 114 killed, according to pro-democracy medics.

Nine were killed on June 30, the medics said, when tens of thousands had gathered and their deaths reinvigorated the movement.

On July 4, Burhan vowed in a surprise move to make way for a civilian government.

But the country’s main civilian umbrella group rejected the move as a “ruse”. Protesters have continued to press the army chief to resign.

The rallies on Sunday follow a period of relative calm over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which ended last week.

Protesters in Khartoum held signs noting the recent bloodshed in ethnic clashes in the south of the country.

“Al-Damazin is bleeding,” one Khartoum protester’s sign read on Sunday, referring to the state capital of Blue Nile.

Troops were deployed in the Blue Nile town of Al-Roseires Sunday, after at least 33 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in the state, according to the health ministry.

Guerrillas in Blue Nile battled former strongman president Omar al-Bashir during Sudan’s 1983-2005 civil war, picking up weapons again in 2011.

Bashir was ousted in 2019. The following year, the transitional administration reached a peace deal with key rebel groups, including from Blue Nile as well as the war-ravaged western Darfur region.

But the areas remain awash with weapons and local grievances over land, water and livestock regularly erupt into deadly clashes.

The current violence in Blue Nile is between two local ethnic groups, the Berti and the Hausa.

Sudanese police and soldiers deployed in large numbers Sunday across the capital Khartoum, ahead of mass protests planned by pro-democracy groups against coup leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Security forces erected road blocks on bridges crossing the Nile river linking Khartoum to its suburbs, AFP reporters said.

Undeterred, protesters vowed to take to the streets in large numbers following a period of relative calm over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha which ended early last week.

The demonstrators oppose Burhan’s October power-grab and are also highlighting heavy fighting in Sudan’s southern Blue Nile state, about 450 kilometres (280 miles) south of Khartoum.

Sudan’s latest coup derailed a transition to civilian rule, sparking near-weekly protests and a crackdown by security forces that has left at least 114 killed, according to pro-democracy medics.

Nine were killed on June 30, the medics said, when tens of thousands had gathered and their deaths reinvigorated the movement.

On July 4, Burhan vowed in a surprise move to make way for a civilian government.

But the country’s main civilian umbrella group rejected the move as a “ruse”. Protesters have continued to press the army chief to resign.

They accuse the military leadership now in power and the ex-rebel leaders who signed a 2020 peace deal of exacerbating ethnic tensions for personal gain.

In Blue Nile on Sunday, witnesses reported troops deployed in the town of Al-Roseires, after at least 33 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in violence between rival ethnic groups, according to the health ministry.

Guerrillas in Blue Nile battled former strongman president Omar al-Bashir during Sudan’s 1983-2005 civil war, picking up weapons again in 2011.

Bashir was ousted in 2019. The following year, the transitional administration reached a peace deal with key rebel groups, including from Blue Nile as well as the war-ravaged western Darfur region.

The current violence in Blue Nile is between two local groups, the Berti and the Hausa.

When Muhammed Sandeng first learned that his father, political activist Ebrima Solo Sandeng, had been tortured to death at the Gambian national spy agency’s headquarters, he felt one emotion above all else.

“It was all fear — fear, fear, fear — you had to be wise for your life because you didn’t know what would happen,” the student, 19 at the time, told AFP.

On Wednesday, Sandeng felt something new, “fulfilment and relief”, after the High Court of Banjul found five ex-intelligence officials guilty of the 2016 murder.

His father’s violent death was one of the most high-profile abuses committed under ex-president Yahya Jammeh’s brutal 22-year regime and galvanised a political movement that eventually ousted the dictator.

The former head of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Yankuba Badjie, its former operations chief, Sheikh Omar Jeng, and former officials Babucarr Sallah, Lamin Darboe and Tamba Mansary were all handed death sentences.

They will be converted to life sentences because The Gambia has a moratorium on executions.

“We were always there, during the preliminaries, and listening to all of those (hearings) was not easy — it was painful and made us relive most of the trauma,” said Sandeng, now 25.

“The persistence has paid off.” 

– ‘Beginning of the end’ –

Solo Sandeng, a key member of the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), was arrested at an April 2016 anti-Jammeh protest and died in custody two days later.

According to Abdoulie Fatty, a Gambian lawyer, that was “the beginning of the end” for the dictator, who is accused of committing a litany of crimes, including rape, witch hunts and forcing bogus cures on AIDS patients.

The killing encouraged the political opposition to unite behind Adama Barrow, who beat Jammeh in the December 2016 presidential election.

Launched in 2017, the trial was fraught with tension, reflected by brawls outside the court.

The accused blamed Solo Sandeng’s murder on Jammeh’s private death squad despite it taking place on the intelligence agency’s grounds.

Witnesses recounted how men took turns beating him in custody “until his whole body was bleeding and blood was coming out from his head”.

“These were people who symbolised Jammeh’s dictatorship — the NIA symbolised Jammeh’s dictatorship,” said Fatty.

Badjie, the agency’s director, was “probably the second most powerful individual in the country”, he added.

On Wednesday, security guards had to remove several members of the public when shouting broke out after the guilty verdicts were pronounced.

– Scepticism –

The ruling offers some hope to other Jammeh-era victims.

“For me, personally, as a victim, it means a lot,” said Isatou Jammeh, whose own father — Yahya Jammeh’s brother — disappeared and was later killed after challenging the ex-president.

“Seeing them sentenced means that there is rule of law, and it serves as an example to all those who have committed gruesome crimes,” she said.

But the Solo Sandeng case was an outlier — one of only two domestic trials tied to Jammeh-era crimes.

After it began, the justice ministry opted to wait for a Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) to conclude before launching other investigations.

“The TRRC was not a judicial body and it’s the state’s responsibility to conduct prompt and impartial investigations in parallel,” said Nana-Jo N’dow, a campaigner whose father disappeared in 2013.

In May, following the publication of the TRRC’s final report, the government vowed to prosecute Jammeh, who remains in exile in Equatorial Guinea, and more than 200 others accused of abuses. 

But victims’ groups say it has not shown how it will make good on those promises. 

“In the meantime, Jammeh allies are in positions of power in Gambia,” N’dow said. 

President Barrow, who was re-elected in December, last year formed a political alliance with Jammeh’s former party and has since nominated two of his supporters as speaker and deputy speaker of parliament.

– ‘We will get him’ –

In late May, Barrow travelled to Equatorial Guinea, but there was little mention of Jammeh during his talks with President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, a government spokesman said.

The state says it has hired foreign and domestic lawyers to work on trying the ex-president, and in mid-June the Justice Ministry said it would suspend any current state employees accused of abuses in the TRRC report.

A ministry spokesman on Friday did not respond to requests to confirm whether those suspensions had taken place.

But in late June, the Attorney General indicated to a parliamentary committee that the government presently lacks the financial resources to implement the TRRC recommendations.

“There’s more that needs to be done around security reforms and institutional reforms,” said Muhammed Sandeng.

But as for Jammeh, he said: “It is very evident that justice is catching up on him and surely, sooner or later, we will get him.”

South Africans’ annoyance at power cuts has given way to worry, with business owners complaining that the prolonged energy crisis for which no end is in sight is eating into profits and hobbling economic activity.

At Native Rebels, a colourful second-floor bar flanked with a large balcony in the Johannesburg township of Soweto, the cost of running a generator to keep lights on for weeks has been a huge burden, co-owner Masechaba Nonyane told AFP.

“We thought Covid was bad… now that has been replaced with eight hours of no power,” the 33-year-old entrepreneur said. 

“It’s been really, really crippling,” she added.

Scheduled blackouts, known locally as load shedding, have burdened the country for years but recently reached new extremes.

This month, the country has endured almost two weeks of stage-6 load shedding, which entails multiple power cuts a day, each lasting between two and four hours.

Each of the up to eight stages of load shedding costs the country’s economy an additional R500 million (US$29 million) a day in lost activity, according to government estimates.

The crisis was exacerbated by a labour dispute at monopoly power provider Eskom’s coal plants.

The dispute was resolved earlier this month as Eskom agreed to a pay raise for its striking workers –- but power cuts have yet to significantly abate.

– Load shedding = job shedding –

“Load shedding will lead to further job losses, which will lead to lower production. It will affect spending. It will further affect economic growth,” said Ismail Fasanya, senior lecturer of economics at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Firms have had to spend money on generators, raising the cost of running a business –- something that risks dissuading local entrepreneurs looking to start new ventures as well as foreign investors, said Fasanya.

The impact on jobs is particularly worrying in a country grappling with 34.5 percent unemployment in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, he said.

Addressing the South African Communist Party congress on Friday, President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has been under pressure to resolve the issue, said he would soon be announcing measures to tackle the crisis.

While details remain unclear, the president said one solution might entail setting up other state-owned power utility firms to compete with Eskom, which currently generates more than 90 percent of the country’s energy.

“We have to use every available means and remove every regulatory obstacle to bring extra electricity onto the grid as soon as possible,” Ramaphosa said.

– ‘Very worried’ –

Energy experts and even debt-ridden Eskom have called for rapid government investment in renewables, particularly solar, as the best option to quickly boost energy production.

“That will go a long way for (supporting) small businesses and reducing job loss,” Fasanya said. 

In May, Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe told parliament that while renewables are slated for procurement, gas, coal and nuclear projects are also in the pipeline.

Whether those measures come fast enough to keep businesses from closing their doors remains to be seen. 

In Soweto, bar owner Nonyane said she’s already had staff close up early on slow nights to reduce diesel consumption. 

“I’m very worried about how we’re going to survive, I’m worried for people’s jobs, how many people we can save,” she said. 

“If people are not working and they are not getting an income, you’re in a lot of trouble as a country.”

Morocco has detained a seventh suspect in a sexual abuse and trafficking case against French insurance tycoon Jacques Bouthier, while a seventh woman has lodged a case against him, lawyers said Saturday.

Bouthier, 75 and one of France’s richest men, is being held in Paris on suspicion of child rape and trafficking.

He is also under investigation in Morocco along with several of his employees, for alleged “people trafficking, sexual harassment and verbal and moral violence”.

“In total, seven cases are now pending against Bouthier and his accomplices” in Morocco, lawyer Abdelfattah Zahrach told a news conference in the northern city of Tangiers.

“The victims have decided to break the silence, and others will follow.”

Aicha Guellaa of the Moroccan Association for the Rights of Victims (AMDV), also a lawyer, said a French national, the seventh suspect to be detained in Morocco, was remanded in custody and set to appear before prosecutors on Saturday.

Five employees of Bouthier’s insurance group Assu2000, later renamed Vilavi, were detained in Tangiers on July 6, while a sixth was charged but released.

Sexual abuse victims in Morocco often face social stigma, but five young women appeared at Saturday’s press conference, wearing dark glasses to hide their identities. 

Those who spoke said they had faced intimidation in the media and online.

“The nightmare continues. They have threatened us, insulted us and even tried to bribe us, but without success,” one said.

The alleged victims say they had faced repeated sexual harassment and intimidation between 2018 and this year, as well as threats of being sacked, a serious prospect in a country where many struggle to find work.

The latest revelations come after French prosecutors last month indicted two men — one of them a police officer — in relation to the Bouthier sex trafficking case.

Bouthier is also facing charges of plotting kidnap and possession of child pornography.

Guellaa said Bouthier and his co-accused had formed “an organised criminal gang” and that more Moroccan victims would likely come forward.

“He thought he could sexually exploit young women with complete impunity,” she said.

Another woman who spoke at Saturday’s press conference said she had been “really scared of reprisals” after coming forward.

“I saw that they were capable of everything,” she said. 

“But we won’t back down. We won’t stop until the entire Bouthier mafia is behind bars.”

Togo officials on Saturday said several people were killed and others wounded when gunmen attacked four villages earlier this week in the country’s far north, where a jihadist insurgency is spilling over the border from Burkina Faso.

It was the fourth attack in Togo since last year as the West African country, Benin, Ghana and Ivory Coast all face a growing threat from Islamist militants in the Sahel north of their borders.

“In the night between July 14 and 15, gunmen attacked the population as they slept in four locations in Kpendjal and Kpendjal-Ouest prefectures and killed several people, all civilians,” the government said in a statement. 

Togo’s government had already reported the attack but had not given details on casualties.

Togo’s army said on Saturday gunmen carried out “coordinated and complex” raids on several villages in the area.

“This attack caused several deaths and a few injuries which were quickly taken care of by the first elements of the Togolese Armed Forces who arrived,” the army said in a statement.

Togolese media reports had said 10 to 15 people died.

In neighbouring Benin, the government has said the country has suffered around 20 attacks by armed groups, in the first official tally released in May.

Benin, Togo, Ghana and Ivory Coast among them have borders with Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, where jihadist campaigns by Islamic State or al-Qaeda affiliates have claimed thousands of lives and driven more than two million people from their homes.

Benin’s first known fatal attack was last December, when two soldiers were killed near the troubled frontier with Burkina. 

Togo has declared a state of emergency in its far northern provinces to allow security forces more flexibility to operate.

Eight Togolese soldiers were killed in May in an assault claimed by a Mali-based alliance of Al-Qaeda affiliated jihadists.

Gunmen also clashed with Togo troops outside a military post in Goulingoushi area in Togo’s far northwest in June, before they were forced back across the border.