Sudan, Benin, Kuwait

Today's three stories you should know

Sudan

Almost 700 people have been killed in drone attacks in Sudan since January, U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher said today, as the country’s brutal civil war reached the three-year mark. The conflict between Sudan’s military-led government and its former allies in the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group has forced more than 11 million people from their homes, creating the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It has also killed tens of thousands of people, according to U.N. figures that experts believe to be a significant undercount. Drone attacks have become increasingly common from both sides in recent months and are now a near-daily occurrence. “This grim and chastening anniversary marks another year when the world has failed to meet the test of Sudan,” Fletcher said.

Benin

Benin’s Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni has won a widely expected landslide election victory with 94 percent of votes counted so far, provisional results showed, as his main challenger Paul Hounkpe conceded. Wadagni had been the chosen successor of President Patrice Talon, who was in power for a decade. Analysts say Talon leaves a legacy of strong economic growth and infrastructure development, alongside a failure to quell an Islamist insurgency and a record of cracking down on dissent in one of Africa’s most stable democracies.

More from Africa News here.

Kuwait

Prominent journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, who I can call a friend and former colleague, has been held for six weeks in a Kuwaiti prison over social media posts, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) advocacy group. The 41-year-old, who is an American-born Kuwaiti national, was arrested on March 2, the group said, and has been arbitrarily detained since, with limited access to a lawyer. CPJ, which is calling for Shihab-Eldin’s immediate release, said it understood he was charged with spreading false information, harming national security, and misusing his mobile phone, which it called “vague and overly broad accusations that are routinely used to silence independent journalists." On a personal note, Ahmed is one of the kindest, most sincere, rigorous and passionate journalists I know. Journalism is not a crime.

More from Middle East Eye here.