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Nairobi, Kenya — The death toll from flood-related incidents in Kenya has crossed 200 since March, the interior ministry said Friday, as a cyclone barreled towards the Tanzanian coast.   Torrential rains have lashed East Africa, triggering flooding and landslides that have destroyed crops, swallowed homes, and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.    Some 210 people have died in Kenya "due to severe weather conditions," the interior ministry said in a statement, with 22 killed in the past 24 hours.    More than 165,000 people had been uprooted from their home, it added, with 90 others missing, raising fears that the toll could rise further.    Kenya and neighboring Tanzania, where at least 155 people have been killed in flooding, are bracing for cyclone Hidaya, bringing heavy rain, wind and waves to their coasts.    Tanzanian authorities warned Friday that Hidaya had "strengthened to reach the status of a full-fledged cyclone," at 3:00 am local time (0000GMT) when it was some 400 kilometers from the southeastern city of Mtwara.     "Cyclone Hidaya has continued to strengthen further, with wind speeds increasing to about 130 kilometers per hour," they said in a weather bulletin.   Kenya's interior ministry forecast that the cyclone was likely to "bring strong winds and large ocean waves, with heavy rainfall" expected to hit the coast starting Sunday.  Race against the clock    Rescuers in boats and aircrafts have raced against the clock in pouring rain to help people marooned by the floods in Kenya.    In dramatic footage shared on Monday, the Kenya Red Cross rescued a man who said he was stranded by floodwaters and forced to shelter in a tree for five days in Garissa in the country's east.   The country's military also joined search and rescue efforts after President William Ruto deployed them to evacuate everyone living in flood-prone areas.    Opposition politicians and lobby groups have accused Ruto's government of being unprepared and slow to respond to the crisis despite weather warnings.   In the deadliest single incident in Kenya, dozens of villagers were killed when a makeshift dam burst on Monday near Mai Mahiu in the Rift Valley, about 60 kilometers north of Nairobi.   The interior ministry said 52 bodies had been recovered and 49 people were still missing after that disaster.   The ministry ordered that anyone living close to major rivers or near 178 "filled up or near filled up dams or water reservoirs" must vacate the area within 24 hours.   The heavier than usual rains have also claimed at least 29 lives in Burundi, with 175 people injured, and tens of thousands displaced since September last year, the United Nations said.   The rains have been amplified by the El Nino weather pattern -- a naturally occurring climate phenomenon typically associated with increased heat worldwide, leading to drought in some parts of the world and heavy downpours elsewhere.   Late last year, more than 300 people died in rains and floods in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, just as the region was trying to recover from its worst drought in four decades.   Cyclone season in the southwest of the Indian Ocean normally lasts from November to April and sees around a dozen storms each year.   

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This year’s World Press Freedom Day theme is “journalism in the face of the environmental crisis,” and a South African media outlet called Oxpeckers focuses on exactly that. For VOA, Kate Bartlett spoke to some of its journalists about what drives and challenges them as they report on people and practices that hurt the planet. Camera and edit: Zaheer Cassim    

Of the five indicators that media watchdog Reporters Without Borders used to compile its 2024 World Press Freedom Index, the political indicator has been the most problematic, showing that governments failed to protect journalists. VOA Nairobi Bureau Chief Mariama Diallo looks at the rankings in Africa, where political actors were violent toward journalists.

Nairobi, Kenya — Save the Children says more than 140,000 people in the Malian town of Menaka, including 80,000 children, face malnutrition and disease due to a blockade by Islamic State-linked insurgents. The organization warns that the months-long blockade has driven supplies to alarmingly low levels as aid agencies and Malian government programs struggle to deliver basic necessities. In a statement this week, Save the Children said that unless aid gets to the Menaka communities soon, the area could see many deaths in coming months. The London-based organization said some of its workers who went to assess the population’s needs had been trapped for more than three weeks. The blockade in Menaka follows a siege in Timbuktu that began last August and has trapped more than 136,000 people, 74,000 of them children. In Timbuktu, however, some aid supplies are able to reach people in need, according to Save the Children. David Otto, a Nigerian-based security analyst, says the lack of government presence in northern Mali is complicating aid efforts. “Humanitarian activities within that region also have been very, very much limited," said Otto. "Not just due to insecurity, which is one of the main factors, but also due to the fact that the regime or the military government has limited access to that region for humanitarian organizations on the basis of jihadist groups.” Aid agencies say Mali is locked in a complex crisis, facing criminal organizations, an Islamist insurgency, socio-economic challenges, and climate change. More than 7 million people need humanitarian assistance, and the situation is worse in conflict-affected areas of northern and central Mali. According to Cadre Harmonise 2024, a framework used to identify food and nutrition insecurity in the Sahel and West Africa, over 40,000 residents of Menaka already face emergency levels of hunger. Aid agencies warn the situation is expected to deteriorate in June, by which time nearly 50,000 people will be food insecure and needing urgent support. Kevin Oduor teaches International Criminal Law at Technical University in Kenya. He says the starving the population in Menaka is a war crime. “Blocking aid getting to the people is tantamount to exposing them to murder, exposing them to situations that would hinder them from living their full life," said Oduor. "So, these are actually war crimes.” Mali’s military junta recently launched a joint operation with the military governments in Burkina Faso and Niger to fight jihadist and insurgent groups that have destabilized parts of West Africa. The junta says it sees the operations as one way of easing the suffering of its people in the hands of armed groups. However, the government has been unable to break the sieges of either Menaka or Timbuktu. Meanwhile, the government has ordered the U.N. mission in Mali to close its offices and end the support it was providing to the population. Otto says saving lives and feeding its people is not a top priority for the military government in Mali. “The government is now focusing a lot on dealing with security issues rather than actually looking at the humanitarian aspects within that area," said Otto. "This is why you are seeing an increase in the number of people living in very dire circumstances within that region. Right now, the government is focusing on consolidating its power from a military and defense point of view rather than actually providing some kind of economic or sustainable assistance to the people living in this area.” Experts warn Mali’s unwillingness to work with regional and international institutions may worsen the humanitarian situation in the country.

sydney — Hundreds of supporters of Israel and Gaza faced off at a Sydney university Friday, bringing echoes of U.S. college protests and Middle East tumult to a campus and continent on the other side of the world. Rival demonstrators came eye to eye shouting slogans and waving flags. Still, except for a few heated exchanges, the protest and counterprotest passed off peacefully. But it was another sign that the war in Gaza, approaching its seventh month, and the long-rumbling U.S. culture wars are roiling politics oceans away. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been camped for 10 days on a green lawn in front of the University of Sydney's sprawling Gothic sandstone edifice -- a bastion of Australian academia. The dozens of tents festooned with banners and Palestinian flags have become a focal point for hundreds of protesters -- students and otherwise -- who oppose Israel's ground invasion and bombardment of Gaza. Deaglan Godwin, a 24-year-old arts and science student and one of the camp's organizers, said U.S. protests were both an inspiration and a warning. New York's Columbia University, the scene of police crackdowns and mass arrests, inspired "us to set up our own camp," Godwin said. He said Columbia is "also now a warning, a warning that the government is willing to use quite lethal, brutal force in order to put down Palestinian protesters." Similar to their U.S. counterparts, the protesters want to see Sydney University cut ties with Israeli institutions and reject funding from arms companies. Sydney University administrators are keen not to replicate the U.S. experience. Vice Chancellor Mark Scott has written to students and staff expressing a "commitment to freedom of expression" and has not called on the police to dismantle the camp. Australian police were conspicuously absent even during Friday's protests, which brought about 100 pro-Israel counter protesters face to face with 400 demonstrators at the pro-Palestinian camp. Public order and riot squad vehicles were parked well out of view, on the periphery of the campus. Security was left to university guards who exchanged jokes with each other about their ill-fitting high visibility coats while forming a very porous separating barrier between the opposing camps. A few inquisitive Chinese students stopped to take a look on the edges of the demonstration, while the media surveyed the scene and a right-wing vlogger hunted for any hint of confrontation or violence. 'Stop hate, mate’ But like the United States, allegations of extremism have been levelled at Sydney's pro-Palestinian protesters. Jewish groups have voiced concern that slogans about the "Zionist entity" and "from the river to the sea" are evidence of rising antisemitism. Against that backdrop, more than a hundred Jewish and pro-Israeli protesters decided to march near the pro-Palestinian encampment Friday, hoping to send a message that Jewish students are safe on campus and that they, too, have the right to be heard. Wearing T-shirts reading "Stop hate, mate" they sang "Hatikvah" -- Israel's national anthem – a capella and danced to the cheesy Australian pop classic "A Land Down Under." Protester David Treves said he hoped the march would show people there is more than one perspective about what is happening in the Middle East. "I'm not looking to change people's opinion. I'm looking just to get them to think," he said, voicing concern that the camp could incite the type of clashes seen in the United States. "As long as it's legal, as long as within the law I have nothing against it. There is free speech in Australia" he said. "I wouldn't go and aggressively just remove the whole thing. But I don't want it to get out of hand." A small group of counter protesters donned tefillin -- the black leather boxes and straps usually worn during Jewish prayer that have come to signify more orthodox and conservative views. Another group of students wearing keffiyeh scarves linked arms in a circle and danced the dabkeh -- a Levantine dance popular at weddings. When the groups came together a few from each camp confronted each other and traded slogans, but the tension was quickly defused.

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The United States is promoting a plan for a hostage release and cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, leading eventually to the establishment of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The plan comes amid tensions between the U.S. and Israel over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence that he will invade Rafah. Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from Jerusalem. Camera: Ricki Rosen

Kyiv, Ukraine — Two people were killed on Friday in a Russian attack on the city of Kurakhove, located in the eastern Donetsk region, which is bearing the brunt of the fighting between Kyiv and Moscow. "Various high-rise buildings were damaged. Two people were injured, two people died," the head of the military administration Roman Padun said on social media. Kurakhove is near the front lines in eastern Ukraine, 40 kilometers west of the Russia-occupied main city of Donetsk. Outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian troops in the wider region are struggling against Russian forces who are pushing toward the key town of Chasiv Yar. Ukrainian officials have said Russian forces aimed to seize the hilltop town before May 9, when Russia marks victory over Nazi Germany of World War II, to give President Vladimir Putin a symbolic win. In an interview with Britain's The Times, Ukraine's Ground Forces Commander Oleksandr Pavliuk described a dire situation around the key city. "We are trying everything we can do to stop the Russian plan to capture Chasiv Yar before May 9," Pavliuk was quoted as saying. "But Russians have a 10-to-1 ratio of artillery superiority there, and total air superiority," he said. Ukrainian forces have been suffering from ammunition shortages, partly due to months-long delays in U.S. aid, which were approved by President Joe Biden last week after Congress finally passed the measure. Biden vowed to ensure the aid shipments would reach Ukraine swiftly.

GAZA STRIP — Hamas says it is considering in a "positive spirit" a Gaza truce deal, while the U.N. warned rebuilding the devastated Palestinian territory would require efforts not seen since World War II. After months of stop-start negotiations, Hamas has sounded an optimistic tone about the latest hostages-for-cease-fire proposal, raising hopes an agreement may soon be reached -- even as medics in the besieged strip reported fresh strikes on Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah on Friday. Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said the group will "soon" send a delegation to Egypt to complete ongoing cease-fire discussions with a deal that "realizes the demands of our people." Haniyeh, the leader of the militant group's political wing, told Egyptian and Qatari mediators in calls on Thursday that Hamas was studying the latest proposal from Israel with a "positive spirit." The stakes of the truce talks were thrown into sharp relief Thursday, when a U.N. report estimated it could take 80 years to reconstruct all the homes flattened over the course of the nearly seven-month war. "The scale of the destruction is huge and unprecedented... this is a mission that the global community has not dealt with since World War II," Abdallah al-Dardari, the UNDP's Regional Director for Arab States told a briefing in Jordan. The UNDP assessment forecast the socioeconomic toll inflicted will cost generations of Palestinians to come and called for an urgent cease-fire. 'Suffering' The only truce mediators have been able to hammer out so far was a weeklong deal in November that saw the release of 105 hostages for 240 Palestinian prisoners. Israel estimates that 129 captives seized by the militants during their October 7 attack remain in Gaza. The military says 35 of them are dead, including 49-year-old Dror Or. The government confirmed Or's death early Friday. Two of his children were among the hostages released during the November truce. Hamas and Israel have been at loggerheads for months over the terms of any new deal. The militant group has demanded a permanent cease-fire to end the war and the withdrawal of troops, which Israel has refused. While Israel faces regular protests demanding the government bring home remaining captives, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to fight on. With or without a truce, he has said he will send ground troops into Rafah, despite global concerns over the fate of around 1.5 million civilians sheltering there. The truce offer under consideration includes a 40-day halt to fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages for potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners, according to details released by Britain. During his latest whirlwind visit to the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the Palestinian group to accept what he termed an "extraordinarily generous" deal on the part of Israel. "If Hamas actually purports to care about the Palestinian people and wants to see an immediate alleviation of their suffering, it will take the deal," Blinken told reporters Wednesday. Until Haniyeh's comments, Hamas, which rules Gaza, had indicated a generally negative reception of the proposed truce. The war started with Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 34,596 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. UNDP estimated that as of April 12, at least 5% of Gaza's population had been killed or injured. "The suffering in Gaza will not end when the war does," UNDP chief Achim Steiner said. "Unprecedented levels of human losses, capital destruction, and the steep rise in poverty in such a short period of time will precipitate a serious development crisis," he added. 'Mouths left hungry’ The humanitarian crisis and rising death toll in Gaza have prompted demonstrations around the world, including in universities in the United States, Canada and France. Israeli President Isaac Herzog slammed the protests, charging that the U.S. universities had been "contaminated by hatred and antisemitism." Colombia severed diplomatic ties with Israel on Wednesday, while Turkey on Thursday announced it was suspending trade. Gaza's 2.4 million inhabitants are threatened by famine, but international aid has only been able to trickle in. Under U.S. pressure, Israel has allowed increased aid deliveries in recent days, including through a reopened border crossing. At south Gaza's largest hospital, the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, which was heavily damaged by fighting in February, foreign aid and borrowed equipment has helped to "almost completely" restore the emergency department, its director, Atef al-Hout, said. U.S. charity World Central Kitchen resumed delivering food to starving Gazans this week, after it had suspended operations following an Israeli strike in April that killed seven of its staffers. "We realized after the kitchen closed that many mouths were left hungry," kitchen manager Zakria Yahya Abukuwaik said, while preparing food in Rafah.

LYPIVKA, Ukraine — This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago, it also provided physical refuge from the horrors outside. Almost 100 residents sheltered in a basement chapel at the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary while Russian troops occupied the village in March 2022 as they closed in on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, 60 kilometers to the east. "The fighting was right here," the Rev. Hennadii Kharkivskyi said. He pointed to the churchyard, where a memorial stone commemorates six Ukrainian soldiers killed in the battle for Lypivka. "They were injured and then the Russians came and shot each one, finished them off," he said. The two-week Russian occupation left the village shattered and the church itself — a modern replacement for an older structure — damaged while still under construction. It’s one of 129 war-damaged Ukrainian religious sites recorded by UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organization. "It’s solid concrete," the priest said. "But it was pierced easily" by Russian shells, which blasted holes in the church and left a wall inside pockmarked with shrapnel scars. At the bottom of the basement staircase, a black scorch mark shows where a grenade was lobbed down. But within weeks, workers were starting to repair the damage and work to finish the solid building topped by red domes that towers over the village, with its scarred and damaged buildings, blooming fruit trees and fields that the Russians left littered with land mines. For many of those involved — including a tenacious priest, a wealthy philanthropist, a famous artist and a team of craftspeople — rebuilding this church plays a part in Ukraine's struggle for culture, identity and its very existence. The building, a striking fusion of the ancient and the modern, reflects a country determined to express its soul even in wartime. The building's austere exterior masks a blaze of color inside. The vibrant red, blue, orange and gold panels decorating walls and ceiling are the work of Anatoliy Kryvolap, an artist whose bold, modernist images of saints and angels make this church unique in Ukraine. The 77-year-old Kryvolap, whose abstract paintings sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction, said that he wanted to eschew the severe-looking icons he’d seen in many Orthodox churches. "It seems to me that going to church to meet God should be a celebration," he said. There has been a church on this site for more than 300 years. An earlier building was destroyed by shelling during World War II. The small wooden church that replaced it was put to more workaday uses in Soviet times, when religion was suppressed. Kharkivskyi reopened the parish in 1992 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and set about rebuilding the church, spiritually and physically, with funding from Bohdan Batrukh, a Ukrainian film producer and distributor. Work stopped when Russian troops launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Moscow's forces reached the fringes of Kyiv before being driven back. Lypivka was liberated by the start of April. Since then, fighting has been concentrated in the east and south of Ukraine, though aerial attacks with rockets, missiles and drones are a constant threat across the country. By May 2022, workers had resumed work on the church. It has been slow going. Millions of Ukrainians fled the country when war erupted, including builders and craftspeople. Hundreds of thousands of others have joined the military. Inside the church, a tower of wooden scaffolding climbs up to the dome, where a red and gold image of Christ raises a hand in blessing. For now, services take place in the smaller basement, where the priest, in white and gold robes, recently conducted a service for a couple of dozen parishioners as the smell of incense wafted through the candlelit room. He is expecting a large crowd for Easter, which falls on Sunday. Eastern Orthodox Christians usually celebrate Easter later than Catholic and Protestant churches, because they use a different method of calculating the date for the holy day that marks Christ’s resurrection. A majority of Ukrainians identify as Orthodox Christians, though the church is divided. Many belong to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, with which the Lypivka church is affiliated. The rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church was loyal to the patriarch in Moscow until splitting from Russia after the 2022 invasion and is viewed with suspicion by many Ukrainians. Kharkivskyi says the size of his congregation has remained stable even though the population of the village has shrunk dramatically since the war began. In tough times, he says, people turn to religion. "Like people say: ‘Air raid alert — go see God,’" the priest said wryly. Liudmyla Havryliuk, who has a summer home in Lypivka, found herself drawn back to the village and its church even before the fighting stopped. When Russia invaded, she drove to Poland with her daughters, then 16 and 18 years old. But within weeks she came back to the village she loves, still besieged by the Russians. The family hunkered down in their home, cooking with firewood, drawing water from a well, sometimes under Russian fire. Havryliuk said that when they saw Russian helicopters, they held hands and prayed. "Not prayer in strict order, like in the book," she said. "It was from my heart, from my soul, about what should we do? How can I save myself and especially my daughters?" She goes to Lypivka’s church regularly, saying it’s a "place you can shelter mentally, within yourself." As Ukraine marks its third Easter at war, the church is nearing completion. Only a few of Kryvolap’s interior panels remain to be installed. He said that the shell holes will be left unrepaired as a reminder to future generations. "(It’s) so that they will know what kind of ‘brothers’ we have, that these are just fascists," he said, referring to the Russians. "We are Orthodox, just like them, but destroying churches is something inhumane."

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TAIPEI, Taiwan — China is preparing to launch a lunar probe Friday that would land on the far side of the moon and return with samples that could provide insights into geological and other differences between the less-explored region and the better-known near side. The unprecedented mission would be the latest advance in the increasingly sophisticated and ambitious space exploration program that is now competing with the U.S., still the leader in space. China already landed a rover on the moon's far side in 2019, the first country to do so. Free from exposure to Earth and other interference, the moon's somewhat mysterious far side is ideal for radio astronomy and other scientific work. Because the far side never faces Earth, a relay satellite is needed to maintain communications. The Chang'e lunar exploration probe is named after the Chinese mythical moon goddess. The probe is being carried on a Long March-5 YB rocket set for liftoff Friday evening from the Wenchang launch center on the southern tropical island province of Hainan, the China National Space Administration announced. The launch window is 5-6 p.m. with the target of 5:27 p.m. Huge numbers of people crowded Hainan's beaches to view the launch, which comes in the middle of China's five-day May Day holiday. After orbiting the moon to reduce speed, the lander will separate from the spacecraft and begin scooping up samples almost as soon as it sets down. It will then reconnect with the returner for the trip back to Earth. The entire mission is set to last 53 days. China in 2020 returned samples from the moon's near side, the first time anyone has done so since the U.S. Apollo program that ended in the 1970s. Analysis of the samples found they contained water in tiny beads embedded in lunar dirt. Also in the past week, three Chinese astronauts returned home from a six-month mission on the country's orbiting space station after the arrival of its replacement crew. China built its own space station after being excluded from the International Space Station, largely because of U.S. concerns over the Chinese military's total control of the space program amid a sharpening competition in technology between the two geopolitical rivals. U.S. law bars almost all cooperation between the U.S. and Chinese space programs without explicit congressional approval. China's ambitious space program aims to put astronauts on the moon by 2030, as well as bring back samples from Mars around the same year and launch three lunar probe missions over the next four years. The next is scheduled for 2027. Longer-term plans call for a permanent crewed base on the lunar surface, although those appear to remain in the conceptual phase. China conducted its first crewed space mission in 2003, becoming the third country after the former Soviet Union and the U.S. to put a person into space using its own resources. The three-module Tiangong, much smaller than the ISS, was launched in 2021 and completed 18 months later. It can accommodate up to six astronauts at a time and is mainly dedicated to scientific research. The crew will also install space debris protection equipment, carry out payload experiments, and beam science classes to students on Earth. China has also said that it eventually plans to offer access to its space station to foreign astronauts and space tourists. With the ISS nearing the end of its useful life, China could eventually be the only country or corporation to maintain a crewed station in orbit. The U.S. space program is believed to still hold a significant edge over China's due to its spending, supply chains and capabilities. The U.S. aims to put a crew back on the lunar surface by the end of 2025 as part of a renewed commitment to crewed missions, aided by private sector players such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. They plan to land on the moon's south pole where permanently shadowed craters are believed to be packed with frozen water.

WASHINGTON — Russian military personnel have entered an air base in Niger that is hosting U.S. troops, a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters, a move that follows a decision by Niger's junta to expel U.S. forces. The military officers ruling the West African nation have told the U.S. to withdraw its nearly 1,000 military personnel from the country, which until a coup last year had been a key partner for Washington's fight against insurgents who have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more. A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russian forces were not mingling with U.S. troops but were using a separate hangar at Airbase 101, which is next to Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, Niger's capital. The move by Russia's military, which Reuters was the first to report, puts U.S. and Russian troops in close proximity at a time when the nations' military and diplomatic rivalry is increasingly acrimonious over the conflict in Ukraine. It also raises questions about the fate of U.S. installations in the country following a withdrawal. "(The situation) is not great but in the short-term manageable," the official said. Asked about the Reuters report, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin played down any risk to American troops or the chance that Russian troops might get close to U.S. military hardware. "The Russians are in a separate compound and don't have access to U.S. forces or access to our equipment," Austin told a press conference in Honolulu. "I'm always focused on the safety and protection of our troops ... But right now, I don't see a significant issue here in terms of our force protection." The Nigerien and Russian embassies in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. and its allies have been forced to move troops out of a number of African countries following coups that brought to power groups eager to distance themselves from Western governments. In addition to the impending departure from Niger, U.S. troops have also left Chad in recent days, while French forces have been kicked out of Mali and Burkina Faso. At the same time, Russia is seeking to strengthen relations with African nations, pitching Moscow as a friendly country with no colonial baggage in the continent. Mali, for example, has in recent years become one of Russia's closest African allies, with the Wagner Group mercenary force deploying there to fight jihadist insurgents. Russia has described relations with the United States as "below zero" because of U.S. military and financial aid for Ukraine in its effort to defend against invading Russian forces. The U.S. official said Nigerien authorities had told President Joe Biden's administration that about 60 Russian military personnel would be in Niger, but the official could not verify that number. After the coup, the U.S. military moved some of its forces in Niger from Airbase 101 to Airbase 201 in the city of Agadez. It was not immediately clear what U.S. military equipment remained at Airbase 101. The United States built Airbase 201 in central Niger at a cost of more than $100 million. Since 2018 it has been used to target Islamic State and al Qaeda affiliate Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) fighters with armed drones. Washington is concerned about Islamic militants in the Sahel region, who may be able to expand without the presence of U.S. forces and intelligence capabilities. Niger's move to ask for the removal of U.S. troops came after a meeting in Niamey in mid-March, when senior U.S. officials raised concerns including the expected arrival of Russia forces and reports of Iran seeking raw materials in the country, including uranium. While the U.S. message to Nigerien officials was not an ultimatum, the official said, it was made clear U.S. forces could not be on a base with Russian forces. "They did not take that well," the official said. A two-star U.S. general has been sent to Niger to try to arrange a professional and responsible withdrawal. While no decisions have been taken on the future of U.S. troops in Niger, the official said the plan was for them to return to U.S. Africa Command's home bases, located in Germany.

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Washington — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said late Thursday he does not see signs that Hamas is going to attack U.S. forces who are building a pier off the coast of Gaza to deliver aid to the war-torn strip by sea. "I don't see any indications currently that there is an active intent to do that," Austin told reporters at a press conference in Hawaii. Austin stressed that the top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, CENTCOM chief Gen. Erik Kurilla, has put several security measures in place to keep the troops who are building the pier and helping with aid distribution safe. "Our allies are also providing security in that area as well, and so it's going to require that we continue to coordinate with them very closely to ensure that if anything happens that, you know, our troops are protected," Austin said. The new port is just southwest of Gaza City. Last week a mortar attack targeted the port site but officials said no one was hurt. "This is an accident, a very serious accident waiting to happen," Bradley Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA. Bowman, who is also a U.S. Army veteran, said Thursday that efforts to feed those in desperate need are "laudable," but security concerns since the inception of this U.S. mission appear to remain unanswered while some of the plans are still being developed. "The kind of terrorists, the kind of person – I hesitate to use that term – that would … wage the October 7 terror attack, use human shields and hold innocent men, women and children as hostages, those are the very same people that will not hesitate to attack those trying to bring food and water to hungry and thirsty people," Bowman said. Crews from the USNS Roy P. Benavidez and several Army vessels started building the floating platform for the operation last week, according to a senior military official. Next will come construction of the causeway, which will be anchored to the shore by the Israel Defense Forces. U.S. and Israeli officials have said they hope to complete construction and begin operations this month. The senior military official told reporters the Pentagon expects deliveries to "begin at about 90 trucks a day … and then quickly increase to 150 trucks a day." Aid has been slow to get into Gaza because of long backups of vehicles at Israeli inspection points. The U.S. and other nations have been air-dropping food into Gaza, but each military plane only holds about one to three truckloads of food, a U.S. official told VOA. Aid organizations have said several hundred truckloads of food are needed in Gaza each day. Israel attacked Hamas in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 terror attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw hundreds more taken hostage. In the nearly seven months since the attack, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gazan health officials.  

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.