International

China to appoint special envoy to Horn of Africa: FM

AFP

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced Thursday that Beijing would appoint a special envoy to the Horn of Africa, signalling his country’s intention to play a greater role in the conflict-torn region.

The announcement came as a US envoy was due to arrive in Ethiopia to encourage talks to end more than a year of war in the country’s north.

Wang, on a three-nation tour of Africa, said China wanted to encourage dialogue to overcome peace and security challenges plaguing the Horn.

“China will appoint a special envoy of the Chinese foreign ministry,” he told reporters in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa.

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“We will continue to play even a bigger role for peace and stability in the region,” he said, speaking through an interpreter.

Wang’s visit to Eritrea, Kenya and the Comoros comes on the heels of a trip to Africa by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in November that was in part aimed at countering China’s growing influence on the continent.

It also coincides with a return visit to Ethiopia by Jeffrey Feltman, the US special envoy for the Horn, who is expected to arrive in Addis Ababa on Thursday.

The State Department says Feltman, who is soon expected to stand down from the role, will try again to nudge the warring parties to the negotiation table amid a lull in fighting.

Rebels who were feared to be planning a march on Addis Ababa have withdrawn to their stronghold in Tigray, and the government says the military will not pursue them.

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Feltman’s trip comes after the United States angered Ethiopia by removing trading privileges for the longtime ally due to human rights concerns during the war.

Washington also slapped sanctions on Eritrea last year over its involvement in the Ethiopia conflict, which has killed thousands of people and created a deep humanitarian crisis.

Washington has demanded Asmara withdraw its troops from Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray, where soldiers from both sides have been accused of raping and massacring civilians.

During his visit to Eritrea on Wednesday, Wang voiced China’s opposition to unilateral sanctions on the secretive state and foreign interference in the “affairs of other countries under the pretext of democracy and human rights”.

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International

Mexico’s President Visits Victims After Train Derailment Kills 13 in Oaxaca

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum visited on Monday the victims injured in a train accident that left 13 people dead in the southern state of Oaxaca and announced financial assistance for those affected by the derailment of the Interoceanic Train, which was inaugurated in 2023.

The train, carrying 241 passengers and nine crew members, derailed on Sunday while traveling along the Interoceanic Corridor, a major infrastructure project that connects the Pacific coast with the Gulf of Mexico across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The corridor was one of the flagship initiatives of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration (2018–2024).

Sheinbaum visited three hospitals in the neighboring towns of Tehuantepec and Salina Cruz, where around 20 injured passengers remain hospitalized. She also went to a funeral home to accompany the families of those who lost their lives in the accident.

According to Mexico’s Navy Secretary, Raymundo Morales, the accident occurred when one of the locomotives derailed, causing all four railcars to leave the tracks.

International

Six killed, including baby, in armed attack near tourist beach in Ecuador

Six people, including a baby girl about two years old, were killed on Sunday in an armed attack near a tourist beach in southwestern Ecuador, police said. The shooting, carried out with rifles, also left three people wounded.

The incident took place in the coastal town of Puerto López, in the province of Manabí, a popular tourist destination known for whale watching. The attack occurred amid a surge of violence over the weekend that left at least nine people dead nationwide, according to local media reports.

“There are six fatalities and three injured,” Colonel William Acurio, the local police commander, told reporters on Sunday. He confirmed that one of the victims was a baby “approximately two years old.”

Authorities have not released further details about the motive behind the attack or whether arrests have been made.

International

Man accused of killing nine in Paramaribo dies by suicide in police custody

The man who killed nine people, including five children, on Saturday night in Paramaribo died by suicide while in custody, Suriname police confirmed in a statement on Monday.

The suspect, identified by the initials D.A., 43, “hanged himself inside a holding cell at the Keizerstraat police station” in the capital, Paramaribo, according to the official report.

Police said the man sustained leg injuries during his arrest and was taken to a hospital before being transferred to the detention facility on Sunday night. Authorities did not provide further details on the circumstances surrounding his death.