分类： world

KAMPALA, UGANDA – The death of prominent Rwandan academic and government critic Aimable Karasira in custody, just days before he was set to be released from prison, has triggered urgent calls for an independent international investigation from leading human rights advocates, who are questioning the official account of his death.

Rwandan authorities confirm Karasira died Wednesday at Kigali’s Nyarugenge District Hospital following what they describe as an overdose of prescription medication for a preexisting chronic condition. In a statement provided to local Rwandan newspaper The New Times, prison system spokesperson Hillary Sengabo claimed Karasira consumed a large excess dose of medication that had been issued to him by prison health services.

But Human Rights Watch has openly challenged this official narrative, calling on the global community to prioritize this case and pushing for a committee of independent international experts to conduct a full, unfiltered probe into the circumstances of Karasira’s death.

“There are countless grounds to question the circumstances surrounding Aimable Karasira’s death in custody, not least the years of targeted harassment and systematic persecution he faced at the hands of Rwandan authorities,” explained Clémentineine de Montjoye, a researcher for Human Rights Watch. “The Rwandan government carries the legal and moral burden of proving Karasira was not unlawfully killed while in their custody.”

Karasira’s path to arrest began in 2020, when he published a YouTube video discussing the loss of his relatives both during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and in its aftermath, following the rise to power of the rebel front that ended the mass killings. Human Rights Watch documentation shows that after the video’s release, Karasira faced sustained pressure from Rwandan intelligence services and anonymous threats from unknown actors.

He was taken into custody in 2021, facing multiple charges including genocide denial and inciting ethnic division. He was convicted on some counts and acquitted on others, but prosecutors launched an appeal of the acquittals, demanding a 30-year prison sentence that was still pending at the time of his death. Because Karasira had already served four years of a five-year total sentence while awaiting trial proceedings, his release was scheduled for May 6, just days after his death was announced.

Michela Wrong, a British historian who has extensively documented alleged human rights abuses under the current Rwandan government, said Karasira’s death reveals deep-rooted issues within the country’s criminal justice and political system. “He told multiple visitors he was being beaten and tortured while in custody,” Wrong wrote on social platform X. “Prison eventually proved a fatal experience, as it has for so many dissidents in Rwanda. Now officials claim he died of an overdose of his own prescription medicine.”

Human Rights Watch has drawn parallels between Karasira’s death and the 2020 in-custody death of Kizito Mihigo, a popular Rwandan singer and fellow government critic. The organization noted both figures held significant moral authority that resonated widely with the Rwandan public, presenting a unique challenge to the ruling government.

President Paul Kagame’s political party has controlled Rwandan governance since the end of the 1994 genocide. The government has enacted sweeping policy measures to heal ethnic divides, including removing ethnic identifiers from national ID cards and integrating genocide education into national school curricula. Every April, the country holds nationwide solemn commemorations to honor genocide victims, and hundreds of community initiatives led by government and civic groups work to promote national unity. Kagame is widely credited by international supporters with establishing decades of relative stability and economic growth after the genocide.

However, critics have long accused Kagame’s administration of systematically eliminating all political dissent. Detractors characterize his rule as an authoritarian regime that has erased nearly all organized opposition, with opponents regularly imprisoned, forced into exile, disappeared, or dying under suspicious circumstances while in state custody.

Botswana’s former president Festus Mogae, a towering figure of African governance whose decade-long leadership guided the southern African nation through an era of transformative growth and public health progress, has died at the age of 86. Current Botswana President Duma Boko confirmed the passing in an official public announcement, noting that Mogae died early Friday following an extended period of ill health.

Last month, the Botswana government confirmed that the former head of state was receiving ongoing medical care at a facility in Gaborone, the national capital, but declined to share details about the specific nature of his condition.

As the third president of Botswana, Mogae held office from 1998 to 2008, capping a decades-long career in public service that saw him rise through senior government roles including finance minister and vice president before ascending to the country’s highest office. His tenure is widely remembered for two landmark contributions that shaped modern Botswana: strengthening the nation’s economic governance frameworks amid a diamond-fueled period of rapid economic expansion, and leading a bold, life-saving response to one of the world’s worst HIV/AIDS epidemics at the time.

At the height of the crisis, when Botswana recorded one of the highest global HIV infection rates, Mogae’s administration rolled out an ambitious national antiretroviral treatment program that drove dramatic reductions in both new infections and mortality from the disease. Even after leaving office in 2008, Mogae remained a prominent regional advocate for expanded HIV/AIDS care, pushing for universal access to free antiretroviral therapy and evidence-based policies to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus.

In recognition of his exceptional leadership, Mogae was awarded the 2008 Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, one of the continent’s most prestigious honors for good governance, which cited his commitment to democratic rule and the orderly, peaceful transfer of power to his successor Ian Khama. Following his presidency, Mogae continued to contribute to African stability and development, taking on a range of international advisory roles and leading peace mediation initiatives across the continent.

Botswana, where Mogae built his legacy, stands out as one of Africa’s most consistently politically stable nations. Since gaining independence from colonial rule in 1966, the country has never experienced a coup d’état and has held regular, competitive multi-party elections, a track record of democratic governance that Mogae helped cement during his time in office.

KINSHASA, DRC – A series of coordinated overnight attacks carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an insurgent group with ties to the Islamic State, has left at least 40 civilians dead in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s border region adjacent to Uganda, local civil society representatives confirmed Friday. The violent incursion unfolded between Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon, striking multiple rural communities across two of eastern Congo’s conflict-torn provinces. According to Charité Banza, head of the Ituri civil society collective, and Kinos Katua, an on-the-ground group member, 25 civilians were killed in border villages within Beni territory, North Kivu, while an additional 15 fatalities were recorded in neighboring Ituri province. Local activists warn the final death toll is expected to climb, as dozens of residents remain unaccounted for following the attacks, which also saw insurgents burn down residential structures and loot civilian property. The ADF, a rebel movement originally formed in Uganda that pledged formal allegiance to the Islamic State network in 2019, has waged a low-intensity insurgency in the shared border region of the two countries for decades, with frequent attacks targeting unarmed civilian populations. The latest bloodshed comes just weeks after Amnesty International released a damning report this week accusing the ADF of systematic war crimes and crimes against humanity against civilian communities in eastern DRC. This attack is one of the deadliest claimed by the group since July 2025, when an ADF assault left 66 civilians dead in eastern Congo—a massacre the United Nations labeled a deliberate “bloodbath.” The DRC is already grappling with one of Africa’s most complex and protracted conflict crises, with roughly 120 active rebel and insurgent groups operating across its eastern territory. The most significant threat to state control currently comes from the M23 rebel movement, which is backed by Rwanda and has seized control of multiple major strategic cities and large swathes of territory in North Kivu over the past two years, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.

More than a decade of rolling insurgency has reached a new brutal peak in central Mali, after coordinated simultaneous attacks on two rural villages left dozens of civilians and militiamen dead this week — marking the deadliest single assault since jihadist and separatist groups launched a nationwide coordinated offensive last month.

The al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) has officially claimed responsibility for the Wednesday night raids on the villages of Korikori and Gomossogou, located in Mali’s volatile central Mopti Region. Initial casualty counts from sources quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) put the death toll at 30, but separate accounts from diplomatic and humanitarian sources speaking to Reuters and regional security journalism collective West African Network for Peace and Security (WAMAPS) have revised the provisional number of fatalities to at least 50. Multiple residents and local sources confirm that while most victims were members of local self-defense militias, the death toll also includes teenage civilians and young children, with an unknown number of residents still unaccounted for in the wake of the assault.

Local witnesses describe attackers entering the villages under cover of night, opening indiscriminate fire on residents, ransacking and looting residential and community structures, and setting multiple properties ablaze. A security source told AFP the attacks were carried out in retaliation for recent operations by Dan Na Ambassagou, a community-organized self-defense militia formed to counter years of persistent militant violence in central Mali.

Mali’s military junta, led by General Assimi Goïta — who seized power in a 2020 coup — has responded to the assault with immediate counteroperations. Military officials confirmed that a “targeted strike” was launched in the attack area, with roughly a dozen jihadist fighters “neutralized” in the operation. Bandiagara Region Governor condemned the violence in an official Thursday statement, labeling the coordinated assaults “despicable and inhumane acts.” A subsequent military update clarified that nearly 10 additional “terrorist” fighters were killed and an insurgent logistical base was destroyed during further counteroffensive actions.

The latest attack comes against a backdrop of rapidly escalating instability that has gripped Mali since April, when an alliance of jihadist militants and separatist rebels from the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) launched a coordinated nationwide offensive aimed at ousting Goïta’s military regime. That opening wave of attacks included a suicide truck bombing targeting the residence of Malian Defense Minister Sadio Camara near the capital Bamako that killed the top security official. Just this week, Goïta announced he would fill the vacant defense minister post, with support from army chief of staff General Oumar Diarra.

Speaking at a Wednesday press briefing in the capital, Malian army commander Djibrilla Maiga acknowledged that insurgent groups have been working to regroup and rearm in the weeks following the April offensive, warning that “the threat is still present” and confirming that military forces are working to disrupt further militant advances.

Unlike previous deployments, when Mali relied on United Nations peacekeepers and French counterinsurgency forces, Goïta’s junta has partnered with the Russia-linked Africa Corps, a paramilitary force that grew out of the now-fractured Wagner Group, to combat the insurgency. Even with this support, the FLA-led offensive has forced Russian fighters to withdraw from the key northern city of Kidal, which is now fully under separatist control. The FLA has since announced plans to advance on other northern population centers and issued an explicit demand for the full withdrawal of Africa Corps forces from all Malian territory. Beyond territorial gains, insurgents have also tightened a blockade on Bamako, establishing a network of checkpoints on all major road arteries leading into the capital to cut off supply lines.

Mali’s ongoing crisis traces its roots back to 2012, when a Tuareg separatist rebellion in northern Mali evolved into a full-scale Islamist insurgency that has since spread to central and eastern regions of the country. Today, large swathes of northern and eastern Mali remain completely outside of government control. When Goïta’s junta first seized power, it held broad popular support on a promise to end the decade-long security crisis. Following the coup, however, the new regime expelled UN peacekeeping forces and French counterinsurgency troops that had been deployed to stem the insurgency, clearing the way for the current surge in violence that has pushed the country to the brink of state collapse.