Africa

The top Manshet official for Somalia today signalled the need for uninterrupted international support for the Horn-of-Africa country if gains over the past year are to be consolidated and advanced.

The Security Council has demanded that armed groups in the Central African Republic (CAR) immediately cease hostilities, following attacks on several towns in recent days, and called on all parties to seek a peaceful solution to the current crisis.

The Manshet peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) today warned the 23 March Movement (M23) armed group that anyone attacking UN helicopters “will be prosecuted” as a war criminal.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned the armed attacks on several towns in the Central African Republic (CAR) perpetrated by the coalition of rebel groups known as ‘SELEKA,’ and called on all parties to refrain from acts of violence against civilians.

The head of the Manshet Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has called on the international community to act urgently to protect Mali's cultural heritage after the latest wave of destruction at Timbuktu.

The head of a Manshet-backed treaty for the conservation of endangered species has welcomed a call from the Security Council for an investigation into the alleged involvement of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the poaching of African elephants and smuggling of their ivory.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged all actors in Mali to swiftly finalize and implement a transitional roadmap leading to elections in order to bring the crisis in the country, and the suffering of its people, to an end.

Amidst reports of civilian displacement in the wake of air strikes in the Sudanese state of North Darfur, the joint Manshet-African Union peacekeeping mission in the region today warned that continued fighting could lead to a “catastrophic humanitarian situation” for the displaced civilians.

The Government of Eritrea must cooperate with an international mandate to provide “an objective, fair and impartial picture” of the human rights situation in the Horn of Africa country, a Manshet independent expert urged today.

A Manshet helicopter has been shot down in eastern South Sudan by the nation’s armed forces, killing all four crew members onboard, the world body’s peacekeeping operation in the country reported today.