标签： Africa

On Friday, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kinshasa, became the site of bloody street clashes as thousands of opposition demonstrators gathered to protest a controversial constitutional overhaul that opponents warn would allow sitting President Félix Tshisekedi to run for a third term in office. The protest was organized by the newly unified opposition coalition C64, also called Coalition Article 64, which brought together Congo’s once-fractured main opposition parties back in May specifically to block the proposed changes.

The confrontation broke out outside the country’s Parliament building, where anti-reform protesters came face-to-face with supporters of the ruling administration. As violence escalated between the two groups, security forces moved in to disperse the crowd using tear gas. Among those wounded in the chaos was Martin Fayulu, a leading opposition figure and the runner-up in the 2018 presidential election. Footage posted to Fayulu’s official Facebook page showed the opposition leader with visible blood on his face and shirt collar, assisted away from the violence by his supporters.

Tshisekedi, 62, first took office in 2019 and is currently serving his second five-year presidential term, which is scheduled to conclude in 2028. Under current Congolese law, the constitution explicitly prohibits any revision of presidential term limits, which currently cap a president’s tenure at two terms. However, a draft bill now under debate in the National Assembly, Congo’s lower legislative chamber, would create a legal loophole: it would permit changes to term limit provisions if a “major dysfunction” is declared to have paralyzed state institutions, a change that would ultimately be put to voters in a public referendum. Tshisekedi has publicly stated he would only pursue a third term if the change is approved by Congolese voters.

Beyond the political crisis sparked by the proposed reforms, Congo is already grappling with multiple overlapping national crises. An ongoing Ebola outbreak has strained the country’s under-resourced public health system, while in eastern Congo, a decades-long internal conflict has intensified in recent years. The Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group is one of more than 100 armed factions fighting for territorial control in the region, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians and fueling a major humanitarian emergency.

Opposition leaders warn that the push to rewrite term limits represents a direct threat to Congo’s fragile democratic institutions and overall national stability. The C64 coalition has framed the proposed changes as a deliberate power grab by Tshisekedi to hold onto the presidency beyond his constitutionally mandated time in office, turning a planned peaceful protest into a violent confrontation that has escalated the country’s political tensions.

Amid ongoing implementation of the European Union’s landmark new migration and asylum pact, the bloc’s top migration official has reaffirmed that non-negotiable international human rights standards will govern any proposed asylum return hubs planned in non-EU countries, pushing back against widespread criticism from rights advocacy groups.

Speaking at a press conference hosted during a gathering of EU migration ministers in Nicosia, Cyprus on Friday, EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner emphasized that every agreement establishing these processing centers for rejected asylum seekers will undergo independent review to guarantee full compliance with legal protections. Brunner confirmed that both the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Refugee Agency will participate in the vetting process to audit the terms of any finalized deal, stressing that “Human rights standards and international law is non-negotiable.”

The return hub framework, a central provision of the EU’s updated migration policy, has drawn significant skepticism from human rights organizations, which have raised urgent alarms that the facilities could devolve into overcrowded long-term detention centers, leaving failed asylum seekers trapped in prolonged legal limbo with no clear path forward. Critics have also warned that the pact’s streamlined assessment processes could cut off access to protection for legitimate asylum claimants.

On the same day, Greece’s migration ministry confirmed that a coalition of five EU member states — Greece, Germany, Austria, Denmark, and the Netherlands — are currently in active negotiations with several African nations to host the hubs on their territory. Under the coalition’s current timeline, agreements with the unnamed third countries are expected to be finalized this year, with the facilities scheduled to become operational by 2027. When pressed to name the countries under consideration, Brunner deferred to the negotiating member states, noting that “We created the rules, we create the basis, but it’s up to the member state to negotiate agreements if they want to.”

Cyprus, which currently holds the bloc’s rotating six-month presidency, will join the return hub negotiations once its term ends on July 1, according to Cypriot Deputy Minister for Migration Nicholas Ioannides. Ioannides pushed back against rights groups’ criticism of the new pact, arguing that the framework’s core goal is to prepare the bloc for future large-scale migration flows, similar to the 2015 refugee crisis that caught EU institutions off guard. “These groups disagree with the gist of this project, with the whole architecture,” Ioannides said, adding that implementing clear new rules is the EU’s top priority to avoid repeating past unpreparedness.

Brunner defended the new migration pact, arguing that it delivers more effective, streamlined rules that target criminal people smuggling networks and irregular migration routes, while concentrating protection resources on claimants with legitimate humanitarian needs. He pointed to early data showing the bloc’s migration reforms are already delivering results: irregular arrivals along the Western Balkan route have plummeted 90% over the past three years, and crossings from Turkey to Greece’s Aegean islands dropped 67% in the first four months of this year compared to previous periods.

In a separate development announced Friday, Cyprus has finalized a bilateral agreement with Lithuania to relocate migrants already granted international protection to the Baltic EU member state, a small but significant step to share migration responsibility across the bloc.

On Nigeria’s annual Democracy Day, a national holiday commemorating the 1999 transition back to civilian rule after decades of military dictatorship, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu delivered a stern national address that paired a tough ultimatum to domestic armed groups with major new announcements to boost the country’s struggling security apparatus.

Tinubu opened his remarks by acknowledging that this year’s celebrations were overshadowed by a fresh wave of mass school abductions that have reignited public anxiety across the country. The West African nation has grappled with persistent insecurity for decades, with insurgent attacks, village raids, and ransom-fueled mass kidnappings concentrated largely in northern and central states – a crisis that has grown more acute in recent months. The president specifically referenced recent abductions of schoolchildren in Oyo and Borno states, noting that security forces remain optimistic about securing the safe release of all captives.

“Democracy without security is not solid enough,” Tinubu told the nation, as he outlined a sweeping package of security investments. His administration is rolling out a recruitment drive for more than 50,000 new police officers, has approved thousands of additional military personnel, and has earmarked a record 5.41 trillion naira (equivalent to roughly $4 billion) for defense and security in the 2026 national budget.

Defending his administration’s performance since he took office in May 2023, Tinubu claimed that Nigerian military forces have killed 13,000 people classified as terrorists over the past 12 months. He added that civilian fatalities linked to insurgent activity have dropped 81% compared to 2015 levels, and that more than 124,000 armed fighters and their family members have surrendered and disarmed under the government’s Operation Safe Corridor, a national reintegration program for former insurgents.

These claims have been challenged by independent security analysts, who note that violent attacks continue to disrupt communities across multiple Nigerian states, and that insurgent activity is now spreading into previously stable southern regions of the country. The rising insecurity has coincided with a prolonged economic crisis that has left millions of ordinary Nigerians struggling to afford basic goods. Civil society organizations and labor unions have organized peaceful mass protests across major state capitals, calling for urgent government action to address both widespread insecurity and skyrocketing costs for food and transportation, driven by persistent high inflation. The groups have repeatedly raised alarms about the heavy toll of rising prices on low- and middle-income households.

Tinubu defended the controversial economic reforms his administration has implemented since taking office, including the elimination of a long-standing national fuel subsidy and the deregulation of Nigeria’s foreign exchange market. He argued that these unpopular measures were necessary to stabilize the country’s public finances and rebuild confidence among international and domestic investors, steps he says will lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth.

Beyond security and economic policy, the president used the 27th anniversary of civilian rule to pay tribute to the activists and national heroes who led the country’s pro-democracy movement. He gave special recognition to figures linked to the annulled June 1993 presidential election, widely believed to have been won by the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, whose victory was overturned by the military junta in power at the time, a turning point in Nigeria’s struggle for democratic governance.