In Case You Missed It: 6/20/15 — 6/27/15

The most impor­tant in this week’s head­lines out of and con­cern­ing Africa, for those who need help catch­ing up. This week brings con­tro­ver­sy over Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s vis­it to Ethiopia, an elec­tion out­come in Burun­di and a U.S. vis­it by Niger­ian pres­i­dent Muham­madu Buhari. 

1. Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma arrived in Ethiopia Sun­day night in the final leg of his tour through Africa, a deci­sion that has brought atten­tion and some con­tro­ver­sy from civ­il rights groups. Many civ­il rights group in Ethiopia do not hold hope that Oba­ma’s vis­it will spur sig­nif­i­cant polit­i­cal change in human rights abus­es, and U.S. activists have crit­i­cized the vis­it, though the U.S. is deeply tied to Ethiopia in eco­nom­ics and defense initiatives.

2. Ear­li­er in the week, Niger­ian pres­i­dent Buhari vis­it­ed with Oba­ma to dis­cuss Boko Haram, which con­tin­ues to rav­age the coun­try. He sharply crit­i­cized the Unit­ed States for “aid­ing and abet­ting” the ter­ror­ist group by refus­ing to pro­vide weapons to Nigeria.’

3. The results in the vio­lent and con­tro­ver­sial elec­tion in Burun­di are in, unsur­pris­ing­ly result­ing in a third term for Pierre Nku­run­z­iza. The riots in protest of the elec­tion have killed over 100 in Burun­di. Oba­ma called the elec­tion results “not cred­i­ble” while a key oppo­si­tion group rejects the elec­tion out­come.