AFP - Ugandan authorities on Wednesday released Somalia's junior defence minister Youssuf Mohamed Siad after he was arrested by mistake overnight in the capital Kampala, the army spokesman said.
  
Siad had entered Uganda by road from neighbouring Kenya, raising suspicions of security officials in the East African country, currently hosting a regional security meeting and about to celebrate its independence day.
  
"He was released this morning (Wednesday). He was held comfortably through the night," Felix Kulayigye told AFP. "Once we realised who he was, he was not treated as a prisoner."
  
Authorites launched investigations upon receiving information on Siad's entry into the country, Kulayigye said.
  
"We followed him up. After the arrest was made he was identified as a minister," he explained. "Certainly he should have come by air. He should have notified us and travelled as a visiting foreign official."
  
A powerful Mogadishu warlord and former member of Islamic Courts Union which ruled the country in 2006, Siad is now a key member of Somalia's internationally-backed transition government that is battling Islamic insurgents.
  
Asked whether he would be staying in the country or returning home, Kulaigye said: "I don't know what his plans are, but he is now a free man."
  
Somali government spokesman Abdi Haji Gobdon described the arrest as a humiliation.
  
"We are really disappointed about this incident. It is a humiliation, but I hope further details will be available soon from the Ugandan government."
  
Uganda has troops in Somalia as part of the African Union peacekeepers protecting the embattled government of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
  

A senior former Rwandan intelligence chief, who was one of the most wanted suspects in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, was arrested in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, senior Ugandan police officials said Tuesday.  

Idelphonse Nizeyimana, a former Rwandan army captain and intelligence officer, is accused of genocide, complicity in genocide, and direct and public incitement to commit genocide in Rwanda.

As the former head of intelligence and military operations during the 1994 genocide, Nizeyimana is accused of setting up special military units that targeted members of the ethnic Tutsi community, including former Queen Rosalie Gicanda, a revered figure among the Tutsis.

By Roland Amoussouga / Spokesperson ICTR Nizeyimana is accused of ordering Queen Rosalie Gicanda's execution, ICTR spokesman Roland Amoussouga (right) tells FRANCE 24.

“This is a very important development in the area of cooperation between member states at the tribunal,” said Amoussouga. “He was one of the top suspects who was earmarked by the (ICTR) prosecutor to be tried by the tribunal in Arusha.”

The ICTR was set up in the Tanzanian city of Arusha in November 1994 by the UN Security Council to judge people responsible for the Rwandan genocide in which about 800,000 people - primarily Tutsis - were killed.

The ‘Butcher of Butare’

Dubbed the “Butcher of Butare,” Nizeyimana is accused of masterminding the brutal slayings of students and professors at the University of Butare, a bilingual university providing education in both French and English in southern Rwanda, in a drive to target prominent Tutsi intellectuals.

But for many Tutsis, Nizeyimana is the man responsible for the slaying of Queen Rosalie Gicanda, the widow of King Mutara III, who was the monarch of Rwanda between 1931 and 1959.

According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, soldiers from one of the special units controlled by Nizeyimana stormed the queen’s Butare home and took the revered octogenarian figure behind the city’s national museum, where she was shot.

Speaking to FRANCE 24, Amoussouga, the ICTR spokesman, said Nizeyimana will be extradited to Arusha, where he will have an initial appearance before the tribunal. At the initial hearing Amoussouga said the charges against Nizeyimana would be read and the suspect would be expected to either plead guilty or not guilty. “If he pleads not guilty, then we will have a case opened against him," he said. "If he pleads guilty, we will have to move forward to the sentencing."

Nizeyimana is one among the dozen most wanted suspects sought by the UN court over the Rwandan genocide.

Reuters - Nigeria’s last prominent militant leader agreed to halt fighting in the oil-producing Niger Delta and surrendered his weapons on Sunday in return for an unconditional pardon.

Tompolo, whose gunmen were behind many attacks on the oil industry in the western Niger Delta, handed over rocket launchers, machine guns and explosives to Defence Minister Godwin Abbe at his camp in Oporoza in the creeks of Delta state.

"It is an act of patriotism that Tompolo and his group surrendered their arms," Abbe said at the ceremony.

"The time has come for us to settle down and find solutions to what led to the crisis in the region. Today marks the beginning of the development of the Niger Delta."

Despite being home to Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry, the Delta is one of Nigeria’s poorest regions.

Tompolo late on Saturday accepted President Umaru Yar’Adua’s amnesty offer, which was due to expire at midnight on Sunday.  Two commanders in the eastern delta laid down their weapons on Saturday.

Local residents, politicians and security experts hope the weapons surrender by the best-known militant commanders in the  Delta will bring a period of stability, although pockets of hardliners could still launch attacks.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the umbrella militant group, warned on Saturday that "unknown commanders" had replaced those who had accepted amnesty and said a next phase of its campaign would begin soon.

But the group has been severely weakened by the amnesty offer—Tompolo was arguably its most important commander in the western delta and Farah Dagogo a key leader in the east.

Emotional surrender

Thousands of people gathered in Oporoza and Delta state’s capital Warri to witness the disarmament ceremony.

Tompolo was short of words during most of the handover, able to say only "all is well, all is well" to the crowd before bursting into tears.

"We came because we want peace," said Chief Andrew Anegba, who was among the thousands gathered in Warri to greet Tompolo before the ceremony.

"The last militant groups are giving up arms, and that means peace is coming back," said Anegba, a traditional Ijaw ethnic community leader from Ogbe-Ijoh, close to where security forces used helicopters and gunboats to attack Tompolo’s camps in May.

Yar’Adua’s amnesty offer is the most concerted effort so far to bring peace to the Delta.

Unrest in the region has prevented Nigeria, which vies with Angola as Africa’s biggest oil producer, from pumping much above two-thirds of its production capacity.

It also costs the country $1 billion a month in lost revenues, according to the central bank, and has helped to push up global energy prices.

Tompolo, whose full name is Government Ekpemupolo, was one of the leaders of the Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities (FNDIC) based in Warri, and responsible for shutting down a large chunk of oil output from the western delta in 2003.

He is believed to have been important in drawing together the factions that formed MEND.

Despite Nigeria’s oil riches, the vast majority of its 140 million people live on $2 a day or less, and some of the most acute poverty is in the villages of the delta. The militants say they are fighting for a fairer share of the oil wealth.

But the line between militancy and crime is blurred. Some militants have grown rich from a trade in stolen crude oil and extortion, with hundreds of expatriates and wealthy Nigerians kidnapped for ransom over the past three years.

Sceptics say that, even if commanders disarm, there is little to stop fighters from finding new leaders and resuming attacks. Some residents fear they will return to the creeks unless those who hand over their weapons can quickly find work.

AFP - Six Senegalese soldiers have been killed in an attack apparently carried out by rebels from the Casamance Movement of Democratic Forces (MFDC), a former independence group, military sources said Saturday.
  
"Yesterday (Friday) ... a Senegalese army patrol returning to its base was attacked by armed elements supposedly belonging to the MFDC. There were six dead, four wounded and two missing," the source told AFP.
  
The attack, one of the most deadly in recent years, took place in the southern Casamance region about 120 kilometres (70 miles) east of the regional capital Ziguinchor.
  
Earlier this month, public officials in Casamance called for the reopening of talks between the Dakar government and the former rebels following the killing of a government soldier in an attack blamed on the MFDC.
  
The last talks between the Senegalese government and the MFDC, an ex-independence movement started in 1982 which waged a long battle against Dakar, were in February 2005, following a peace accord in December 2004.
  
But violence has again flared in the Casamance region, separated geographically from the rest of Senegal to the north by Gambia.
  
On August 21, a military official reported several clashes between the army and ex-rebels in Casamance.
  
Suspected MFDC members have also been blamed for killing three civilians in attacks on vehicles in the region in August and this week.

AFP - Three river boats have capsized in less than three weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, claiming more than 150 lives in accidents river authorities blame on overloading the vessels.
  
Early Tuesday afternoon, a boat named the Men Exel capsized with about 100 people on board at the junction of the Inzia and Kwilu rivers in the western Bandundu province, officials said Friday. About 50 people drowned.
  
"The causes of the shipwreck are not yet known, but there were too many passengers," river commissioner Patrick Musitungu said. "There were about 50 dead and about the same number who survived."
  
The open boat was loaded with bags of manioc, maize and groundnuts, and should have had no more than 20 passengers on board, he said.
  
Part of the problem was that "men in uniform make threats to have the boat leave overloaded," once they have been paid by the extra passengers, Musitungu said, without specifying whether he meant troops or police.
  
On September 28, a boat called the HB Trans Nyalongo sank at the junction of the Sumbuji and Kasai rivers, 95 kilometres from Tshikapa, in Kasai Occidental province, according to Albert Beya, river commissioner for Tshikapa.
  
The latest toll from that disaster was 12 drowned, 40 rescued and about 100 people unaccounted for. Beya stated that the boat, which was carrying at least 150 people plus farm produce, had been recovered from the river bottom.
  
The boat, which was making its way from Maimbi to Tshikapa, probably sank because it was overloaded and ran into a strong current, Beya added. Most of the survivors were on the roof of the boat and had time to get away before it sank.
  
On September 13, on the Congo river in the southeastern Katanga province, a boat carrying more than 200 passengers capsized in the middle of the night in a region infested with crocodiles.
  
Ninety people perished, 25 were declared missing and almost 100 survived, but the boat theoretically had a maximum passenger capacity of 50.
  
River transport is widely used in the DR Congo, which has several major waterways including the Congo river, which is 4,700 kilometres (2,915 miles) long.
  
However, boats frequently capsize on lakes and rivers, partly because of overloading, when cargo manifests are sometimes fraudulently filled in, and partly because of the bad signposting of navigable waterways.
  
Most boats lack navigational safeguards including signal lamps, lifebelts and lifejackets.
  
"There's no miracle solution, unless it's respect for the security norms," Simon Vivila, technical administrator at the maritime waterways authority (RVM), told AFP.
  
The RVM is in charge of navigation between Matadi in Bas-Congo and the sea port of Banana, on the Atlantic Coast. "We have to give controllers the means to respect the rules of navigation," Vivila said.
  
Asked about the accident of March 13, Transport Minister Matthieu Mpita said he was "aware of the phenomenon" of bad signposting on waterways. "The country is vast, but it's a concern for us to reform this sector."
 

REUTERS - Rival Islamist rebels battled in southern Somalia's Kismayu port on Thursday, killing at least nine people and the fighting threatened to spread to other parts of the failed Horn of Africa state.
 
Witnesses said al Shabaab gunmen and their one-time allies from Hizbul Islam attacked each other at dawn. Hundreds of terrified civilians fled, while others cowered in their homes.
 
"The battle has started everywhere in the city. There are heavy exchanges of bullets and we can see militia taking part in the fighting," resident Deqo Ali told Reuters by telephone.
 
Abdi Hallane, another local man, said he could see the bodies of six dead gunmen lying outside his home. Abdullahi Ali, a nurse, said at least three other people had been killed.
 
"They are using heavy weapons everywhere," he said from the hospital, adding that at least 15 civilians were wounded.
 
The Kismayu confrontation had been brewing for days, and Hizbul Islam leaders had threatened to fight al Shabaab "everywhere" in Somalia if clashes began at the rebel-held port, which is a lucrative source of taxes and other income.
 
Security analysts say Somalia has become a safe haven for militants, including foreign jihadists, and Washington says al Shabaab is al Qaeda's proxy in the country.
 
Relations between al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam degenerated last week after al Shabaab named its own council to run Kismayu, excluding all Hizbul members. Until then, the two groups had run the port in an uneasy coalition.
 
Western donors have long hoped hardliners in al Shabaab could be isolated by a deal between more moderate Hizbul leaders and the fragile U.N.-backed administration that could bring some stability to Somalia after nearly two decades of anarchy.
 
Clashes to spread?
 
President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed has so far failed to lure top Hizbul Islam figures to his side, but a feud between the two rebel groups could give his government some breathing space.
 
The fighting between al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam in the south raised the possibility of clashes between their gunmen in the capital Mogadishu, where they have battled together against Ahmed's administration and African Union peacekeepers.
 
One senior Hizbul Islam commander in Kismayu, Sheikh Ahmed Islam, told Reuters that Thursday's clashes broke out after al Shabaab gunmen attacked his group's positions.
 
An al Shabaab spokesman said their forces would prevail.
 
"We will drive Hizbul Islam out of town within hours," the spokesman, Sheikh Hassan Yaqub, told reporters at the port.
 
Fighting in Somalia has killed nearly 19,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and driven 1.5 million from their homes.
 
Maryam Maalin, a single mother-of-four in Kismayu's Alenlay district, said Thursday's fighting made it impossible to flee.
 

AFP - Nine people drowned and 100 were reported missing when a boat capsized and sank Monday on a river in the centre of the Democratic Republic of Congo, river authorities said Tuesday.
   
"The boat HB Trans Nyalongo sank Monday around 10 am (0900 GMT) at the junction of the Sumbuji and Kasai rivers, 95 kilometres from Tshikapa" in Kasai Occidental province, said Albert Beya, river commissioner for Tshikapa.
   
"Nine bodies have been found, 40 people saved and 100 passengers are still unaccounted for," he added, stating that the boat, which was carrying at least 150 people plus farm produce, had been recovered from the river bottom.
   
The boat, which was making its way from Maimbi to Tshikapa, probably sank because it was overloaded and ran into a strong current, Beya added.
   
A mixed team of naval and harbour authorities have deployed at the port of Kavudi, near where the accident took place, in case more bodies surface.
   
The accident comes after a September 13 shipwreck on the Congo river in the southeastern Katanga province. Ninety people drowned in that accident and 25 were reported missing.
   
More than 200 people were known to have been on board the vessel that only had a capacity of 55.
   
River transport is widely used in the DR Congo, which has several major waterways including the Congo river, which is 4,700 kilometres (2,915 miles) long.
   
However, boats frequently capsize on lakes and rivers, partly because of overloading, when cargo manifests are sometimes fraudulently filled in, and partly because of the bad signposting of navigable waterways.
   
Most boats lack navigational safeguards including signal lamps, lifebelts and lifejackets.