In Case You Missed It 8/4/15 — 8/8/15

Reuters/James Ake­na

Ugan­dan leader, Yuw­eri Musev­eni inspect­ing the guard of honor

 The most impor­tant in this week’s head­lines out of and con­cern­ing  Africa, for those who need help catch­ing up. 

This week brings news about talks of Musev­eni run­ning for re-elec­tion as pres­i­dent of Ugan­da, Cameroon returns 12,000 Niger­ian refugees, and a Mali hotel siege that ends with 12 peo­ple dead.

Mesev­eni seek­ing anoth­er term in office

After being in pow­er since 1986, Yuw­eri Musev­eni, the pres­i­dent of the East African nation of Ugan­da, has picked up his re-elec­tion form.

This deci­sion to run again, after almost 30 years as pres­i­dent, is caus­ing an uproar as many Ugan­dans ques­tion what will become of their coun­try. Accord­ing to Quartz Africa, Musev­eni has already served three terms and will now be Africa’s longest serv­ing leader. Meanwhile–in the midst of the con­tro­ver­sy he is said to have left a great lega­cy on the coun­try by improv­ing the lev­els of edu­ca­tion and help­ing to grow the econ­o­my for the time he has been in power.

As he put it him­self, “I don’t think the Ugan­dans are as obsessed with my retire­ment, because when­ev­er I go for elec­tions, five mil­lion tell me not to go, but stay.” The coun­try keeps vot­ing him in and he has no plans of leaving.

Cameroon returns refugees to Nigeria

For over fours days 12,000 Niger­ian Refugees, were repa­tri­at­ed back to their home coun­try, after seek­ing refugee sta­tus in Cameroon due to the attacks from Boko Haram. The attacks have caused an esti­mat­ed 1.5 mil­lion Nige­ri­ans to be dis­placed, some seek­ing refugee sta­tus in neigh­bor­ing coun­tries such as Cameroon, Niger and Chad. Many died on the way to find solace. Now–the fight is up to the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment to help their cit­i­zens rebuild their lives after hav­ing to leave and come back to nothing.

Hotel siege in Mali ends with 12 dead

12 peo­ple, includ­ing four for­eign­ers were found dead at the end of a hotel siege in Mali. Gun­men stormed the Mali hotel after an attack on a mil­i­tary base near by, in the end killing 5 Malian sol­diers and also UN con­trac­tors. It is said, accord­ing to the Mali army spoke per­son, that the attack is asso­ci­at­ed with a group named Maci­na Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment. The move­ment is an extrem­ist Islamist group known for burn­ing down gov­ern­ment build­ings and pos­ing as a threat to Malian citizens.