Africa

The Security Council today extended for another year the mandate of the United Nations mission tasked with monitoring the ceasefire in Western Sahara, known by the acronym MINURSO. In today’s resolution, the 15-member Council extended MINURSO until 30 April 2016. The Mission has been in effect since 1991.

The Niger government said on Tuesday it had lost 46 soldiers and 28 civilians in a Boko Haram attack on a Lake Chad island at the weekend, the country’s heaviest losses yet since it joined a regional offensive against the militants. Interior Minister Hassoumi Massaoudou said “156 terrorists” were also …

Northern Tuareg rebels shot at United Nations peacekeepers in Mali outside the town of Timbuktu on Tuesday amid growing tensions that threaten a fragile peace process, the country’s UN mission said. “They fired at us and they then called us to tell us that they thought we were [Malian government …

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday recent attacks on the UN mission in Mali highlighted the urgent need for a political settlement with rebels in the country’s north. Seven UN peacekeepers were wounded Thursday in the most recent attack about 100km southwest of the northern city of Kidal.

Greece will launch consultations with Egypt and Greek Cyprus to establish maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on April 29. Tsipras, who was visiting Greek Cyprus, said those boundaries – which are normally a precursor to a state licensing for offshore oil and gas exploration …

Rebels from northern Mali have told mediators they will initial a long-delayed United Nations-brokered peace proposal on the future of Mali’s north next month, a spokesman for the lead separatist group said late on Sunday. The government, based in the capital Bamako in the country’s south, and another coalition of …

Pro-government armed groups in Mali seized the northern town of Menaka from Tuareg separatists on Monday during fierce fighting, a spokesman for the group and a resident said. The clashes come after months of relative calm and risk derailing a fragile United Nations peace process that aims to settle the …

Suspected Boko Haram fighters in motorised canoes have attacked a Niger army base on an island in Lake Chad, the body of water touching all four countries that have been targeted by Nigeria’s Islamic insurgency, says Niger’s defense ministry.

Central African Republic’s transitional government has postponed a peace forum involving factions in a two-year-old conflict that has killed thousands, a statement from parliament said, as the country prepares for elections by the end of the year.

The UN has warned on Monday it had received only a fraction of the funds needed to address strife-torn Central African Republic’s towering humanitarian crisis, forcing it to cut desperately needed aid. “We must prevent the Central African Republic from becoming a forgotten crisis,” said Claire Bourgeois, the UN humanitarian …