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U.N. official says 'terrifying' level of hatred in Central African Republic
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1:26pm EDT
By Serge Leger Kokpakpa
BANGUI (Reuters) - Hatred between Christians and Muslims in Central African Republic has reached a "terrifying level", the U.N.'s top human rights official said on Thursday, warning that atrocities were being carried out with impunity.
Navi Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, appealed to the international community to urgently provide troops for a proposed 12,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission to halt crimes which she said included acts of cannibalism and decapitation of children.
France has deployed 2,000 troops to its former colony to support a 6,000-strong African Union peacekeeping mission but they have been unable to stamp out the violence in the large, sparsely populated nation of 4.5 million people.
"The inter-communal hatred remains at a terrifying level, as evidenced by the extraordinarily vicious nature of the killings," Pillay told a news conference. "There is ... almost total impunity: no justice, no law and order apart from that provided by foreign troops."
Thousands have been killed since the Seleka, a coalition of mostly Muslim northern rebels, seized power a year ago in the southern capital Bangui and launched a campaign of looting, torture and killing in the majority Christian country.
That triggered a wave of reprisals by the 'anti-Balaka' Christian militia last year which has driven tens of thousands of Muslims from Bangui, the south and west of the country.
During a two day visit, Pillay held talks with interim President Catherine Samba-Panza, who took office after Seleka leader Michel Djotodia resigned in January under international pressure. Government officials frankly admitted there was no functioning army or police, no justice system and no means of holding those responsible for violence, she said.
"People apprehended with blood on their machetes and severed body parts in their hands have been allowed to go free because there is nowhere to detain them and no means to charge them with the crimes they have clearly committed," Pillay said.
BREEDING GROUND FOR EXTREMISM
Around 15,000 Muslims are still trapped in Bangui and other areas in the north, north-west and south of the country, protected by international forces, Pillay said.
While large scale massacres appeared to have stopped, thanks largely to the foreign troops, killings continue on a daily basis, mostly by the 'anti-balaka' militia. Pillay said some of the militia were mutating into criminal gangs, targeting Christians and other non-Muslims indiscriminately.
The United Nations estimates some 650,000 people have been displaced within Central African Republic, while nearly 300,000 have fled to neighboring states. U.N. agencies have reported a sharp rise in rape and sexual violence in the camps.
With the rainy season approaching next month and farmers unable to plant their crops, aid groups warn that the humanitarian crisis may worsen.
Pillay urged donors to quickly provide funding for a $551 million humanitarian appeal, which she said was only one-fifth financed, warning that the international community should learn the lessons of inter-communal crises in the Balkans and Rwanda.
"If we get it wrong again, by failing to support this country wholeheartedly in its time of need, we risk decades of instability and the creation of a new and fertile breeding ground for religious extremism, not just in CAR but in the wider region," she said.
France accused the European Union of shirking its responsibility for international security last week after E.U. officials said member states had not pledged enough troops and equipment for a planned 1,000-strong force. Brussels now hopes to deploy the forces by the end of next month.
"How many more children have to be decapitated, how many more women and girls will be raped, how many more acts of cannibalism must there be, before we really sit up and pay attention?" Pillay said.
(Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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Nigerian Army Facing Questions as Death Toll Soars After Prison Attack
By ADAM NOSSITERMARCH 20, 2014


Local officials in Maiduguri said at least 500 people were killed in the attack last week, many of them by security forces who fired on fleeing detainees. Credit Associated Press


DAKAR, Senegal — Well over 500 people were killed in Nigeria last week when security forces responded to what the military portrayed as a jailbreak attempt by the Islamist group Boko Haram, making it one of the bloodiest episodes yet in the military’s five-year counterinsurgency campaign, according to officials in the northern town of Maiduguri.

As inmates streamed last Friday through the opened gates of Giwa Barracks, a notorious military detention center in Maiduguri, a military plane fired on them while soldiers on the ground also opened fire, killing scores, a senior hospital official in Maiduguri said.

“The aircraft opened fire from the sky,” he said. “The aircraft picked them easily from up top.”

Other officials in Maiduguri corroborated his account and went further, asserting that the overwhelming majority of those killed were detainees imprisoned on flimsy or no charges — and not proven insurgents, as claimed by the military.


Shock as Militants Attack Nigerian Military PrisonMARCH 14, 2014
The episode was reported last week but far lower death tolls were given in most accounts, with the Nigerian military announcing only that there was “heavy human casualty on the terrorists” who it said had attacked the prison.

The accounts given this week cast doubt on that narrative. The hospital official said he had later counted more than 500 corpses. “As they bring them we count; we load them into the vehicles for mass burials,” the official said, requesting anonymity for fear of retribution from the Nigerian Army.

Before Friday’s killings, Giwa had been a target of sharp criticism directed at the Nigerian military, with human rights groups, citizens and civilian officials saying the detention center was crammed with hundreds of innocent young men rounded up in the military’s random sweeps in Maiduguri, the heart of the Boko Haram insurgency.

Rights groups have documented the disappearance and death of many of these young men, never formally charged, inside the Giwa Barracks, describing torture, starvation and mistreatment.

But after the massacre last Friday, “Giwa Barracks has been devastated. Destroyed,” said Maikaramba Saddiq of Nigeria’s Civil Liberties Organization.

Two other senior officials in northern Nigeria, as well as Mr. Saddiq, confirmed the elevated death toll, with several saying it could rise to 1,000. Photographs taken at the hospital shortly afterward show scores of bodies of young men on the ground, spread over a wide area.

If these accounts are correct, the killings would considerably exceed previous single-day death tolls in the military’s fight against Boko Haram. Up to 200 were killed a year ago in the village of Baga on Lake Chad — deaths attributed by citizens and rights groups to the military — and nearly 300 were killed by Boko Haram in an attack on the city of Kano in January 2012.

Last Saturday, the day after the attack in Maiduguri, the main hospital was besieged by anxious relatives hoping to identify or claim the bodies of loved ones.

“Close to 1,000 came to the hospital,” the hospital official said. “We had to chase them away. The military would never allow them to claim the bodies.”

The officials in Maiduguri said this week that most of those killed were detainees at Giwa Barracks who fled when the gates were unexpectedly opened early Friday morning.

“When they went out of the barracks, that is when gunfire was opened on them,” said Senator Ahmed Zanna, who represents Maiduguri in the Nigerian Senate. “And that is how most of them died. Yes, they bombed the detainees,” he said, referring to the military.

“Ninety to 95 percent of the detainees were innocent people,” Mr. Zanna said. “They were just rounding up people. People were just rounded up and taken into custody.” Mr. Saddiq also said that those killed were “innocent people” who were not affiliated with Boko Haram, adding that some of them had been killed by citizen vigilantes with stones or machetes.

Maj. Gen. Chris Olukolade, the military spokesman, disputed the assertions that the detainees killed were not militants, saying that “you can’t differentiate attackers from those who joined them.”

General Olukolade added that “when they were being pursued, definitely many of them died en route” as the military fired upon them. He said the militants’ “attempt to get entry into the detention facility” resulted in deaths as well. Some detainees were “lynched” in the community, he said, and he also suggested that some deaths involved “natural causes,” without clarifying. He said he did not have a figure for the number killed last Friday.

The hospital official said that most of the hundreds of corpses were those of Boko Haram members. Asked how he could be certain, he said that “notes” were found in their pockets with the names and phone numbers of relatives.

Much about the episode remains unclear, such as how attackers were able to penetrate one of the most heavily fortified sites in northern Nigeria, in daylight. The assault, which the military called a Boko Haram raid, has not been claimed by the group, though it often does not claim responsibility for attacks. No Boko Haram member, living or dead, has been presented to the media, despite the military’s claim last week that “many of the terrorists and their weapons have been captured.”

Local officials challenged the military’s account, illustrating the tension over the government’s counterinsurgency campaign.

“They managed to eliminate those who were in detention,” said Mr. Zanna, the senator. “The whole episode is to kill the inmates. That’s all.”

A version of this article appears in print on March 21, 2014, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Nigerian Army Facing Questions as Death Toll Soars After Prison Attack.

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23 March 2014 Last updated at 10:55 ET
Four shot dead in Kenya church attack
Four people have been killed after gunmen opened fire in a church near the Kenyan city of Mombasa, officials say.
They say a number of people were injured after at least two gunmen walked into the church in Likoni and started shooting indiscriminately.
The attackers managed to escape on foot before police arrived.
No group has claimed responsibility for the shooting, but officials have blamed Islamist militants from the al-Shabab group for similar attacks.
"They were ordinary looking guys, one of them tall, dark and wearing a long-sleeved shirt. They walked casually as if all was OK," eyewitness Peter Muasya was quoted as saying by Reuters.
"Then they started shooting at those of us who were standing outside."
Blood-soaked Bibles and overturned chairs lay strewn across the church's floor after the shooting.
Security has been stepped up in the area in recent days following the arrest of two men last week who police said had bombs hidden in their car.
There have been several incidents of violence in Mombasa in recent months, involving the security forces and Islamist extremists.
Mombasa and Kenya's capital Nairobi have suffered a series of attacks since Kenya sent troops into Somalia in 2011 to crush the al-Shabab militants.

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FORBIN said:

Angola purchased the 18 SU-30K who were used by Indian Air Force during development of SU-30MKI then returned and were stored at Baranovitchi, Belarus, they belong contract of 1 billion $.

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Equatorial Guinea took another step towards becoming a major naval power in the Gulf of Guinea on 3 June when it inaugurated a new frigate in the capital Malabo.

"This warship is the flagship of the Equatorial Guinea Navy and it will [help] to ensure security in the Gulf of Guinea," President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo said during the inauguration ceremony.

The Equatoguinean media claimed the frigate, Wele Nzas (F 073), was built locally. However, IHS Jane's understands that it was largely built by MTG Dolphin in Varna, Bulgaria, as the 'salvage and rescue' vessel Savior (IMO: 9664500) under Project SV 02. It was then outfitted with combat systems at a naval shipyard - thought to be Astilleros de Guinea Ecuatorial (ASABA GE) - in Malabo. ASABA GE was established in 2010 with Israeli assistance, although Ukrainians are also involved in running the shipyard.

The warship's keel was laid down on 21 May 2012 and it was launched in Varna on 26 February 2013, according to IHS SeaWeb data. The outfitting of the ship at Malabo in a 210 m navy-owned floating dock was well underway by November 2013, according to a South African Navy article covering the port visit of its Valour-class Meko A-200 frigate SAS Spionkoep to Malabo that month.

Like the 88 m corvette Bata that was built under Project SV 01 and commissioned in January 2012, the Wele Nzas was designed by the Ship Research and Design Center in Nikolaev, Ukraine. Weapons and combat systems are also largely sourced from Ukraine, probably from the company Impulse 2, which has outfitted other warships in Malabo. Like Bata , the Wele Nzas was procured from Bulgaria using various entities in Panama and the Comoros.

With an overall length of 107 m, a beam of 14 m and a draft of 3.7 m, Wele Nzas is about 20 m longer than Bata . Estimated displacement, based on similar Ukrainian corvette designs, is around 2,500 tonnes. The propulsion system comprises four Caterpillar C 280 diesels ( Bata has two) driving two screws for a top speed of 25 kt. It is unclear if these are 12- or 16-cylinder engines. Range is 5,000 n miles.

Wele Nzas has a raised helicopter deck amidships. The ships' boats are housed in partially enclosed hangars amidships. These are covered by a sliding screen, with the boats launched by a swinging davit.

The combat systems are also an improvement on Bata 's capabilities. 76.2 mm AK-176 guns are fitted both fore and aft, two MS 227 multi-barrelled rocket launchers are fitted forward, while two 30 mm AK-630M guns mounted besides the funnel stack provide close-in defence.

Primary sensors include a dome-enclosed radar - most likely a Positiv U set - on the foremast, two navigational radars and a Delta-M radar on a mast located ahead of the funnel stack. The Delta-M is thought to be interfaced with the Cascade integrated self-defence system that provides targeting data for the AK-176 and AK-630M guns.

One, possibly two, electro-optical devices appear to be installed, one atop the bridgehouse and the other aft by the funnel. In addition, two optical target designators are fitted on platforms at the base of the mast. What looks like an electronic support measures (ESM) antenna is also fitted on a polemast behind the radar dome. SATCOM antenna are also fitted.

Equatorial Guinea is currently engaged in a major, but little-reported naval expansion. In recent years it has acquired four Bulgarian-built ships (two PV 50 patrol vessels, as well as Wele Nzas and Bata ), two 62 m offshore patrol vessels, two Shaldag fast attack craft from Israel Shipyards, and a Chinese-built 91.45 m roll-on/roll-off landing ship.

In his speech, President Obiang indicated that the expansion would continue. "This is not our last project. The fact we [built] this warship means we can build more."

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The Djibouti Armed Forces (FAD) displayed its newly acquired M109 self-propelled howitzers and Puma armoured personnel carriers (APCs) for the first time during the country's Independence Day celebrations on 27 June.

Local television footage showed at least eight M109Ls: a version of the original M109 that was modified and rearmed with a longer range 155 mm/39-calibre barrel for the Italian Army by Oto Malera. Many M109Ls have been retired from Italian service after the delivery of new KMW PzH 2000s guns.

While self-propelled howitzers are generally used to support armoured and mechanised formations, the FAD currently does not currently operate any tanks, only AML-60/90 scout cars (14 were in the parade) and various APCs and infantry fighting vehicles, including South African Ratels and BTR-80s.

The parade also featured six Iveco 4x4 Puma APCs that had been rearmed with Chinese 12.7 mm W85 heavy machine guns. The lightly armoured vehicles were originally built for the Italian Army and Carabinieri in 4x4 and 6x6 versions. Some surplus 4x4 vehicles have been seen in Libya since that country's 2011 conflict.

The Italian publication Analisi Difesa reported in June 2013 that 10 surplus M109L guns and three Pumas had been transferred to Djibouti.

The FAD has also acquired Force Protection Cougar mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, 12 of which featured in the parade.

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Chinese Shipyard CSSC launched the first Algerian Navy C28A Corvette

Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, a wholly owned subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC, the largest shipbuilding group in China) launched the first C82A Corvette on order for the Algerian Navy on August 16 2014. Algeria signed a contract with China Shipbuilding Trading Co (CSTC) for construction of three C82A corvettes in March 2012.


CSTC representatives at DSA 2014 explained to Navy Recognition that the ship would be about 120 meters in length, a breadth of 14.4 meters and a draft of 3.87 meters for a displacement of about 2880 tons.

The three corvettes currently being built at a shipyard located near Shanghai will receive a mix of Chinese and Western systems. The hull mounted sonar will be of Chinese origin, but Algeria has selected Thales Smart-S Mk2 3D air and surface surveillance radar and Kelvin Hughes for the navigation radar.

According to the CSTC representatives, the weapons fit will be of Chinese origin exclusively and will consist in:
- A single barreled 76mm main gun
- 8x C802 anti-ship missiles
- 1x FM90N launcher with 8x surface to air missiles
- 2x Type 730 CIWS located on top of the helicopter hangar

The corvette has some stealth attributes, such as the exhaust gases funnels located right on the water line on the sides of the hull in order to reduce its IR signature.

Delivery of the first C82A Corvette to the Algerian Navy is expected for May 2015.

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FORBIN said:

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2800 t big for a Corvette !

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