AU preparing 3, 000-troop deployment to Sahel

ADDIS ABABA - The African Union said on Thursday that it expected to send a temporary deployment of 3, 000 troops to West Africa's Sahel region, where regional forces are struggling to respond to a nearly eight-year-old insurgency by armed Islamists.

The decision was made at the African Union summit earlier this month, Smail Chergui, head of the AU's Peace and Security Commission said, but the announcement was not made until a press conference Thursday.

"On the decision of the summit to work on deploying a force of 3 000 troops to help the Sahel countries degrade terrorist groups, I think this is a decision that we'll be working on together with the G5 Sahel and ECOWAS," Chergui said.

"I think this decision has been taken because as we see, as you can recognise yourself, the threat is expanding, it's becoming more complex," Chergui added.

G5 Sahel is a 5, 000-member joint force already on the ground in the Sahel, and Ecowas is the West African regional bloc.

A localised revolt that began in northern Mali in 2012 has spread to the centre of the country and to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Around 4, 000 people died in the three countries last year, a fivefold increase over 2016, according to UN figures.

The bloodshed has escalated despite the presence of a 13, 000-strong UN peacekeeping force in Mali, and rattled coastal countries to the south of the Sahel.

Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said this week that the Sahel faced an "unprecedented humanitarian crisis."

Final decisions from the AU summit have yet to be published, but diplomats have confirmed details of the proposed Sahel deployment.

"The summit decided to deploy about 3, 000 troops for a period of six months to work with the countries of the Sahel to deal with the menace that they are facing," Edward Xolisa Makaya, South Africa's ambassador to the AU, told AFP. South Africa took over as AU chair at the summit and plans and to host an extraordinary AU summit on security issues in May. AFP.

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BISSAU - Umaro Sissoco Embalo swore himself in as the new president of Guinea-Bissau on Thursday, defying a bitter ongoing row about the outcome of the December 29 elections.

"I swear on my honour to defend the constitution, to respect it and have it respected," Embalo said, his right hand raised, before a crowd of several hundred at an upscale hotel in the state's capital, Bissau.

Outgoing president Jose Mario Vaz then placed the presidential sash over his shoulders, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

The ceremony took place despite a continuing legal and political battle over the official results.

The party of defeated candidate Domingos Simoes Pereira has filed a lawsuit at the Supreme Court.

Embalo, a 47-year-old former general and prime minister, won 53.55 percent of the votes in the December 29 runoff, according to the National Electoral Commission.

Pereira, 56, from the traditional ruling party, the PAIGC, won 46.45 percent, but has denounced the result as fraudulent.

The Supreme Court, responding to the PAIGC's petition, has issued rulings requiring a check of the vote tally sheets.

However, this has failed to resolve the dispute, and a row has arisen between the Supreme Court and the election panel.

On Tuesday, the election commission confirmed the results that it had announced, while the PAIGC stood by its objections.

Guinea-Bissau has a reputation for graft and as a transit point for cocaine smuggling.

It is also chronically unstable, having seen four coups and 16 attempted coups since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974.

Two-thirds of its 1.8 million people live below the poverty line despite rich mineral reserves and tourism potential.

– AFP.