ZIMBABWE
Attacks increase on opposition
JOHANNESBURG — Supporters of Zimbabwe’s opposition party are under increasing attack as the nation awaits word on when a presidential runoff will be held, an official said yesterday.
It took Zimbabwe’s electoral commission more than a month to announce results from the March 29 first round of voting. Independent rights activists have accused the ruling party of using that time to mount a campaign of violence and intimidation to undermine support for the opposition.
More attacks have been reported since Friday, when electoral officials announced that Movement for Democratic Change President Morgan Tsvangirai won the most votes March 29, but not the majority needed to avoid a runoff with President Robert Mugabe, the second-place finisher who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.
SUDAN
Wounded civilians seek evacuation
KHARTOUM — The peacekeeping force in Darfur says it is trying to arrange an evacuation for those wounded in air strikes that an aid group reported left 12 people dead, including six children.
The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Ameerah Haq, called for immediate access to the wounded.
U.S.-based Darfur Diaries said six children, ages 4 to 11, were killed in an air strike Sunday on a school it funds in the village of Shegeg Karo in north Darfur. Six more people were killed when the village’s market area was bombed.
DJIBOUTI
Port nation fears war with Eritrea
NEW YORK — The tiny port nation of Djibouti, a key U.S. ally in the Horn of Africa, has urged the U.N. Security Council to take immediate action to prevent a conflict with northern neighbor Eritrea.
In a letter to the council president circulated Tuesday, Djibouti’s Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said Eritrea has begun a major military buildup on its border overlooking critical Red Sea shipping lanes.
@$: “We call on the council to deploy urgently all necessary measures toward preventing yet another conflict,” he said.
More than 1,200 U.S. troops are stationed in Djibouti, which hosts the base for an anti-terrorism task force in the Horn of Africa.
From wire dispatches and staff reports
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