Login to BlackFacts.com using your favorite Social Media Login. Click the appropriate button below and you will be redirected to your Social Media Website for confirmation and then back to Blackfacts.com once successful.
Enter the email address and password you used to join BlackFacts.com. If you cannot remember your login information, click the “Forgot Password” link to reset your password.
While delivering the Thabo Mbeki lecture, Professor 'Funmi Olonisakin said the war in Ethiopia's Tigray region was evidence of the shortcomings of the African Union.
He replaces Debretsion Gebremichael, whose immunity from prosecution was removed Thursday.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International said Thursday that scores of civilians were killed in a \"massacre\" in the Tigray region, that witnesses blamed on forces backing the local ruling party.
The \"massacre\" is the first reported incident of large-scale civilian fatalities in a week-old conflict between the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize.
\"Amnesty International can today confirm... that scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death in Mai-Kadra (May Cadera) town in the southwest of Ethiopia's Tigray Region on the night of 9 November,\" the rights group said in a report.
Amnesty said it had \"digitally verified gruesome photographs and videos of bodies strewn across the town or being carried away on stretchers.\"
The dead \"had gaping wounds that appear to have been inflicted by sharp weapons such as knives and machetes,\" Amnesty said, citing witness accounts.
Witnesses said the attack was carried out by TPLF-aligned forces after a defeat at the hands of the Ethiopian military, though Amnesty said it \"has not been able to confirm who was responsible for the killings\".
It nonetheless called on TPLF commanders and officials to \"make clear to their forces and their supporters that deliberate attacks on civilians are absolutely prohibited and constitute war crimes\".
Abiy ordered military operations in Tigray on November 4, saying they were prompted by a TPLF attack on federal military camps -- a claim the party denies.
The region has been under a communications blackout ever since, making it difficult to verify competing claims on the ground.
Abiy said Thursday his army had made major gains in western Tigray.
Thousands of Ethiopians have fled across the border into neighboring Sudan, and the UN is sounding the alarm about a humanitarian crisis in Tigray.
Fifty-seven years ago, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was formed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with the primary aims of encouraging political and economic integration among member states, as well as eradicating colonialism and neo-colonialism from the African continent.
It is why in his foundational speech, the OAU first President went further, to set the organization's agenda by prioritizing the total freedom of all African countries as a matter of paramount importance for the African continent to achieve total freedom.
Another, towering founding leader of the OAU, the illustrious first President of Ghana, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah solidified this fundamental agenda of ultimate African emancipation as an OAU priority when he emphatically declared, \"Seek ye first the political kingdom and all else shall be added onto you.\"
As a free and sovereign nation, we acknowledge the pivotal role played by numerous African leaders who provided political, material and moral support towards the freedom and independence of our country.
Through the OAU's steadfast leadership and support, many African countries have achieved political freedom and the restoration of dignity and pride amongst African people.
[MSF] Health facilities across Ethiopia's Tigray region have been looted, vandalised and destroyed in a deliberate and widespread attack on healthcare, according to teams from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Of 106 health facilities visited by MSF teams between mid-December 2020 and early March 2021, nearly 70% had been looted, and more than 30% had been damaged; just 13% were functioning normally.
BY PRESTIGE MUNTANGA LOCAL musician and comedian Mothusi Bashimane Ndlovu, popularly known as Madlela Skhobokhobo, has urged citizens to decolonise their minds
The post ‘Decolonise minds, reclaim African identity’ appeared first on NewsDay Zimbabwe.
The idea that Africans are people who must be contained within what is circumscribed as a proper place or their natural habitat is revolting and deeply problematic, writes Divine Fuh.
Over fifty years since the idea of unity and solidarity founded upon a common experience of oppression was established, being African, mobile and cosmopolitan in Africa remains an aberration, and continues to be treated in countries across the continent as a crime.
In fact, Cameroon is home to over 250 languages, and even though I am familiar with some of these, English is my first language, which is often met with disapproval because as it happens and since I am African, I must have a mother tongue.
As we commemorated Africa Day on 25 May, it is important to critically reflect on our ambiguous relationship with the idea, Africa, especially given the fraught ways we have come to treat that conception, Africa, and the people associated with it, Africans.
The idea that Africans are people who must be contained within what is circumscribed as a proper place or their natural habitat is revolting and deeply problematic.
US President Donald Trump is not happy about the latest poll results and has approached the courts to stop vote counting
A new major publication - the Oxford Encyclopaedia of African Politics - contains many important chapters that make the same point on a wide variety of topics.
Yet, while the continent features more than its fair share of authoritarian repression, in some respects African countries are leading the way.
In all these cases a combination of good leadership, institution building, and the support of ordinary people for democratic values has enabled African states to change their futures for the better.
A major casualty of the tendency to overlook the creativity and contributions of African leaders and intellectuals is the neglect of African political thought.
This is one reason why many African intellectuals have been attracted to the idea of the African renaissance.
President Paul Kagame joined leaders across different sectors in celebrating Africa day, which marks the founding of the Organisation of the African Union (OAU) - currently the African Union - and called for solidarity among the people of Africa.
Kagame who addressed Africans virtually during the Africa Day online concert hosted by MTV and Youtube, said that \"Africa Day symbolizes the unity of purpose and proud heritage of our continent, and of African people wherever they may be.\"
A year after its independence, Ghana convened the first Conference of Independent African States on April 15, 1958 - a collective platform promoting Africa's rejection of colonial and imperialist domination of the continent.
At the meeting, the first African Freedom Day was celebrated, which was later recognised as Africa Day.
Speaking during the virtual event, Dr Vincent Biruta, Minister of Foreign Affairs, emphasised that Africa Day gives the continent an opportunity to ensure that the spirit that the founding fathers of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) had in 1963 is not lost.
Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed replaced his army chief, the head of intelligence and the foreign minister as the military continued a five-day old offensive in the restive Tigray region.
