Category World News

Ivory Coast’s main opposition leader has said he is resigning as party leader but would still lead the fight to win the election, after having been barred from standing in an October presidential vote.

“In the interest of the party, I’ve decided to place my mandate as president of the party in your hands, the activists,” Thiam said in a speech published on social media on Monday.

“This decision does not change the commitment I made in December 2023 to personally lead our party to victory in October 2025.”

President Alassane Ouattara, 83, who has been in power since 2011, has yet to say whether he plans to run again but has said he is eager to “continue serving my country”.

Tidjane Thiam’s campaign for the presidency of the West African country has been mired in tussles over his nationality, as presidential candidates are not allowed to hold dual citizenship.

Thiam was born in the Ivory Coast and renounced his French passport in March to enable his run for the top job. However, a court in Abidjan struck him off the electoral list last month, saying the 62-year-old politician had lost Ivorian nationality when he acquired French citizenship in 1987.

Thiam also faces a legal case against his election as head of the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast–African Democratic Rally (PDCI) after a party member also contested his Ivorian nationality at the time he was chosen.

PDCI deputy president Ernest N’Koumo Mobio assumed the party’s interim leadership following Thiam’s announcement. He appealed for “cohesion, serenity and discipline” and called a party meeting early Monday due to “the urgency linked to the political situation”.

Three other opposition figures have also been excluded from the presidential race, including former President Laurent Gbagbo due to court convictions.

Thiam alleged irregularities on Monday. “While we had the right to hope for inclusive, transparent and peaceful elections, it is clear that the unjustified removal of the PDCI candidate is part of the logic of eliminating the leaders of the main opposition parties to ensure tailor-made elections and a certain victory,” he said.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed seven people in artillery shelling on el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state in western Sudan.

A statement from the military-aligned government said on Monday that the RSF shelling that began late on Sunday targeted residential neighbourhoods, killing seven people, including women and children, and wounding at least 15, who were taken to hospitals.

On Sunday, the army also said the RSF shelling in the city killed nine people.

El-Fasher has witnessed intense fighting between SAF and RSF since May 2024, despite international warnings about the risks of violence in a city that serves as a key humanitarian hub for the five Darfur states.

For more than a year, the RSF has sought to wrest control of it, located more than 800km (500 miles) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, from the Sudanese army, launching regular attacks on the city and two major famine-hit camps for displaced people on its outskirts.

The RSF and the SAF have been locked in a brutal power struggle since April 2023, resulting in thousands of deaths and pushing Sudan into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, according to the United Nations.

More than 20,000 people have been killed and 15 million displaced in the brutal civil war now in its third year, according to UN and local figures. However, some United States-based researchers estimate the actual death toll to be as high as 130,000.

Won’t accept ‘any interference’

Meanwhile, the African Union (AU) said on Monday it would not accept “any interference” in Sudan after the RSF was accused of receiving weapons from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Last week, the Sudanese government severed diplomatic relations with the UAE, accusing it of supplying weapons to the RSF.

Amnesty International has also accused the UAE of supplying weapons to the RSF, in violation of a UN arms embargo.

The UAE has rejected the claims as “baseless”.

“The Commission’s position is that member states are sovereign states, and the AU Commission will not accept any interference in the internal affairs of Sudan,” said AU Chairperson Mahamoud Ali Youssouf.

“We will not support any intervention, any interference in the crisis in Sudan,” he said.

However, Youssouf declined to comment on the UAE’s possible role in the conflict. “It is not the role of the AU. Sudan has accused the Emirates; it is up to Sudan to provide this evidence,” he said.

The foreign minister of Djibouti was elected head of the pan-African organisation in February, inheriting multiple conflicts and a record of ineffectual statements.

Among the top of his priorities coming into the post was the Sudan civil war, which has effectively cleaved the country in two.

Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes.

In recent days, drone attacks attributed by the army to the RSF have increased, marking a turning point in the two-year conflict.

Drone attacks have also notably targeted strategic sites in Port Sudan, the temporary seat of government and the logistical humanitarian epicentre.

Former members of the United Kingdom’s special forces have described alleged war crimes committed by British soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq dating back over a decade.

More than 30 witnesses who served with or alongside special forces soldiers broke their silence to the BBC’s Panorama programme and spoke about illegal killings and executions of detainees, including children, during the invasions of the two countries.

David Cameron – who was prime minister from June 2010 to November 2013, the period now under scrutiny by a judge-led public inquiry into special forces – was repeatedly made aware of concerns about night raids and killings raised by then-Afghan President Hamid Karzai, according to the BBC.

A spokesman for Cameron said “any suggestion that [he] colluded in covering up allegations of serious criminal wrongdoing is total nonsense”.

The special air service and the navy’s special boat service, the UK’s top special forces units, were at the centre of the testimonies.

“They handcuffed a young boy and shot him,” recalled one veteran who served with the elite soldiers in Afghanistan. ”He was clearly a child, not even close to fighting age.”

Killing of detainees “became routine”, the veteran said, adding that the soldiers would remove plastic handcuffs from executed detainees and plant weapons by their bodies to make it look like they were fighters in photographs taken from the scene.

Another veteran with the navy’s special forces regiment said some service members displayed “barbaric” and “psychopathic” behaviour as they felt untouchable by the law.

One former soldier described the killings as something that could turn “addictive” as some soldiers became “intoxicated by that feeling” in Afghanistan.

“On some operations, the troops would go into guesthouse-type buildings and kill everyone there,” he said. “They’d go in and shoot everyone sleeping there, on entry. It’s not justified, killing people in their sleep.”

Even wounded people who did not pose a threat to anyone were executed in breach of international law, witnesses said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A former special forces operator said an execution of an unarmed person in Iraq was never properly investigated, adding that senior commanders were aware of the problem long before deploying to Afghanistan.

The BBC also obtained new video evidence that showed squadrons kept kill counts to compete with others.

One veteran said a former colleague was trying to get kills on every single operation, having become “notorious” for killing dozens of people.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer promises to “finally take back control” of the United Kingdom’s borders as his Labour government unveils policies designed to reduce legal immigration and fend off rising support for the hard right.

“Every area of the immigration system, including work, family and study, will be tightened up so we have more control,” he told reporters at a Downing Street news conference on Monday.

Starmer announced he was ending an “experiment in open borders” that saw net migration rise to nearly one million people under the previous Conservative government, which lost last year’s general election.

Labour has been traditionally more sympathetic to immigration than the Conservative Party. Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who voted for the UK to remain part of the European Union, is under renewed pressure to tackle the issue after the anti-immigration Reform UK party’s gains in recent local elections.

However, Starmer’s shift to the right on immigration risks alienating Labour’s large base of left-of-centre supporters and losing their votes to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

The government’s Immigration White Paper policy document includes plans to cut overseas care workers and increase from five to 10 years the length of time people will have to live in the UK before qualifying for settlement and citizenship.

English-language rules would also be strengthened with all adult dependants required to demonstrate a basic understanding while the length of time students may stay in the UK after completing their studies would be reduced.

The white paper also proposes new powers to deport foreigners who commit offences in the country. Currently, the government is only informed of foreign nationals who receive prison sentences while under the new arrangements all foreign nationals convicted of offences would be flagged for the government.

The document also proposes new visa controls requiring foreign skilled workers to have a university degree to secure a job in the UK.

The prime minister acknowledged that migrants “make a massive contribution” to Britain but alleged the country risks becoming an “island of strangers” without more controls. He added that he wants net migration to fall “significantly” by the next election, likely in 2029, but refused to say by how much.

Labour promised in its general election manifesto last year to significantly reduce net migration, which stood at 728,000 in the 12 months to June. It had peaked at 906,000 in 2023 after averaging 200,000 a year for most of the 2010s.

Arch-eurosceptic Nigel Farage’s Reform party won more than 670 local council seats this month as well as its first two mayoral posts. It is also riding high in national polls while Labour is struggling after its 2024 landslide general election victory.