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☆ Kenyan Cult Leader Is Charged in the Deaths of 191 Children
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-06 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | More About Abdi Latif Dahir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A doomsday cult leader whom the Kenyan authorities say ordered his congregants to starve themselves to death was charged on Tuesday, along with 29 others, with the murder of 191 children — in a case that has drawn global attention and brought widespread scrutiny over religious freedoms in the East African nation. The decision, by a court in the coastal town of Malindi, was handed down almost a month after a judge ordered that the cult leader, Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, and his co-accused undergo mental health evaluations before facing any charges. Mr. Mackenzie, a pastor, and the other accused pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to appear before a court in early March. Since last April, hundreds of bodies have been exhumed from the 800-acre Shakahola Forest, where Mr. Mackenzie and his followers lived, with many buried in shallow graves. Dozens of other followers have been rescued, and hundreds more are missing, according to local officials.

Persons: Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, Mackenzie Locations: East, Malindi

The Kaunda suit has become a choice attire for African celebrities, elders and politicians in recent years, including one particularly high-profile convert — Kenya’s president, William Ruto. A single-breasted safari jacket with short or long sleeves and patch pockets — often worn with matching pants — it was initially made popular in the 1960s by Kenneth Kaunda, the first post-colonial president of Zambia. But the Kaunda suit was banned from the Kenyan Parliament this week, along with other forms of traditional African dress and tightly-fitted clothing for women. The Kenyan speaker of Parliament decreed that such attire violates the parliamentary dress code — which largely conforms to a modern Western working wardrobe. A fashion trend like the Kaunda suit “does not accord with the seriousness of the proceedings of the house and its committees,” Moses Wetangula, the speaker of the Parliament, said in a speech on Tuesday.

Persons: Kaunda, —, William Ruto, Kenneth Kaunda, “, ” Moses Wetangula Organizations: Kenyan Locations: Zambia

☆ Kenya’s Leader Lifts His Global Profile. At Home, the Public Fumes.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | More About Abdi Latif Dahir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

He has taken dozens of trips abroad boosting his credentials on climate change, while raising taxes at home. He pledged to send his country’s police to quash gang violence in Haiti, though they stand accused of brutality at home. And he recently hosted an eight-course state dinner for King Charles III, amid skyrocketing food and fuel prices. Kenya’s president, William Ruto, is facing searing criticism and mounting public anger just over one year since he took power after a tightly contested election. Mr. Mwaniki, who had worked closely with Mr. Ruto and his allies, said he’s been apologizing to constituents he had convinced to vote for Mr. Ruto.

Persons: King Charles III, William Ruto, Ruto, ”, Antony Ikonya Mwaniki, Mwaniki, he’s Locations: Haiti, Kiambu County, Nairobi

Bodies littered the road out of El Geneina, a town in western Sudan, as Dr. Rodwan Mustafa and his family sped down a bumpy road that led to the border with Chad and, they hoped, safety. A day earlier, rampaging Arab militiamen had grabbed Dr. Mustafa by the neck, accusing him of giving medical care to enemy fighters. Racing toward the border with his family in a car, he saw chickens clucking over the bloodied corpses of those who hadn’t fled in time. A camp for displaced people stood empty, burned to the ground. “The smell of death was everywhere,” said Dr. Mustafa, who made it to a refugee camp in Chad and spoke by phone from there.

Persons: Rodwan Mustafa, Mustafa, hadn’t, ” Locations: El, Sudan, Chad

☆ King Charles, Visiting Kenya, Faces Calls to Answer for Colonial Abuses
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-31 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | More About Abdi Latif Dahir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At 86, his gnarled hands grasping a walking stick as he ambled around his small patch of land facing Mount Kenya, Joseph Macharia Mwangi recalled with bitterness the years that he had spent fighting the British colonial government in Kenya. Seven decades ago, he had camped with Mau Mau rebels on that mountain and in the forests, braving frigid rain, lions and elephants. And when the colonial forces eventually captured him, he said he was tortured and sentenced to two years of hard labor. “The British forces were really hard on us. It is his first state visit to any member of the Commonwealth group of nations since he became king last year, and the first to an African country.

Persons: Joseph Macharia Mwangi, “, ”, Mwangi, Dedan, King Charles III Organizations: British, Commonwealth Locations: Mount Kenya, Kenya, Mau, British, East, African

☆ Students on the Run, Schools Taken by Troops and a Generation’s Catastrophe
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | More About Abdi Latif Dahir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The young girls and boys, wearing colorful scarves, tattered shirts and flip-flops, ran across the dusty ground to form jagged lines and face the teachers at the start of the school day. The children, hundreds of them gathered in makeshift classrooms, had arrived in this aid camp in recent months after fleeing the war in their homeland of Sudan. But even as they began to gain a sense of normalcy in their schooling, many were still burdened with memories of the vicious conflict they endured, which had left loved ones dead and their homes destroyed. “We know that pain is lasting inside their hearts,” said Mujahid Yaqub, a 23-year-old who fled Sudan and now teaches English at the school in the Wedwil refugee center, in Aweil in South Sudan. Many of the children, he said, were unable to focus in class and often cried over the memories of their terrifying escape from shellings and massacres.

Persons: ”, Mujahid Yaqub Locations: Sudan, Aweil, South Sudan, shellings

☆ Darfur’s New Generation, Once Full of Promise, Now Suffers ‘Fire of War’
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-21 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | More About Abdi Latif Dahir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For weeks, Bahaadin Adam had heard nothing from family members stuck in the fighting that convulsed Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state and the second largest city in Sudan. Mr. Adam, who had fled weeks before to neighboring South Sudan, remained jittery, constantly checking his phone for updates. “I was broken into pieces,” Mr. Adam said in a recent interview in Renk town in South Sudan. Five months after a devastating war began in Sudan between rival military forces, the western region of Darfur has quickly become one of the hardest hit in the nation. People in Darfur have already suffered genocidal violence over the past two decades that has left as many as 300,000 people dead.

Persons: Bahaadin Adam, Adam, — Meethaaq, —, Mr Locations: South Darfur, Sudan, South Sudan, Renk, Darfur

☆ Gabon Military Says Deposed President Is ‘Free’ to Travel Overseas
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-07 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | More About Abdi Latif Dahir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ali Bongo Ondimba, who was deposed as president of Gabon last week in a coup that ended his family’s decades-long grip on power in the central African nation, is no longer subject to house arrest and is free to leave the country, the ruling military junta has said. Mr. Bongo’s health has long been a concern after he suffered a stroke five years ago and was often seen walking with a cane. The military said in a statement read on national television on Wednesday night that he would be allowed to travel overseas for medical care. The announcement from the military came two days after the leader of the coup, Gen. Brice Oligui Nguema, a cousin of the ousted leader and the head of the elite Republican Guard that was tasked with guarding him, was sworn in as Gabon’s new leader. After taking oath on Monday, General Nguema promised to hold free and fair elections but did not indicate when or how they would take place.

Persons: Ali Bongo Ondimba, Brice Oligui Nguema, General Nguema Organizations: Republican Guard Locations: Gabon

Every day, Vélina Élysée Charlier drives past barricaded neighborhoods and frequently sees dead bodies lying on the street, she said, a result of score-settling between gangs and vigilantes in Haiti’s capital. After dusk, she never leaves home for fear of being killed or kidnapped. When her 8-year-old daughter got appendicitis one evening, Ms. Charlier said, the family waited until morning to get her medical care since driving to a hospital was out of the question. “Port-au-Prince looks like something out of hell these days,” said Ms. Charlier, 42, a prominent anticorruption activist in the city and mother of four who lives in a hillside area of the capital. After that desperate appeal, a force led by Kenya finally seems close to materializing in what would be the first time an African country leads such a mission in one of the Americas’ most unstable places.

Persons: Charlier, ” Locations: “, Kenya

☆ Sudanese City Becomes Center of ‘New Phase’ of War
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-11 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | More About Abdi Latif Dahir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As the war in Sudan heads into its fourth month, Omdurman — the city across the Nile River from the capital, Khartoum — has become the site of some of the most fierce fighting between the two forces battling for power: the army and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Patients were admitted in droves in recent days to one of the few functioning health facilities left in Omdurman, their bodies riddled with bullets or sliced by shrapnel from airstrikes. Some victims were dead by the time they were brought in, their passage hindered by street battles in Omdurman, once a bustling business hub and home to many universities, hospitals and political and cultural institutions. “It’s been like hell,” said Dr. Rashid Mukhtar Hassan, the human resource manager at the health facility, Al-Nau Teaching Hospital, in a phone call.

Persons: “ It’s, ”, Rashid Mukhtar Hassan Organizations: Rapid Support Forces, Nau Teaching Hospital Locations: Sudan, Omdurman, Khartoum —, Al

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