Uncovering the News — 03/30/21 – 04/05/21

What’s At Stake: The news media applauds Bas­ket­ball Africa League (BAL) which kicks off its inau­gur­al sea­son on May 16 at Kigali World Are­na, news orga­ni­za­tions exam­ine the actions of the French mil­i­tary that result­ed in civil­ian deaths in the nation of Mali, and media out­lets report clash­es and killings in Sudan.

Basketball Africa League (BAL) 2021 announces inaugural season

On March 29, Amadou Gal­lo Fall, Bas­ket­ball Africa League (BAL) pres­i­dent, announced the start of the Inau­gur­al sea­son of the league devel­oped as a part­ner­ship between the Nation­al Bas­ket­ball Asso­ci­a­tion (NBA )and the Inter­na­tion­al Bas­ket­ball Federation(FIBA).

“Our goal is to build a top-flight com­pe­ti­tion that will reflect the con­ti­nen­t’s tal­ent, pas­sion and love for the game of bas­ket­ball,” Fall said.

BAL is set to kick off its first sea­son at the Kigali are­na in Rwan­da. The 12 team tour­na­ment was sched­uled to debut in March 2020 but was post­poned due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Start­ing May 16, Ango­la, Egypt, Moroc­co, Nige­ria, Sene­gal, Tunisia, Alge­ria, Cameroon, Mada­gas­car, Mali, Mozam­bique, and Rwan­da will face each oth­er in a series of 26 games con­clud­ing on May 30.

This league is applaud­ed by ath­letes, fans, and media world­wide because it could be a great way for tal­ent­ed African play­ers to be discovered.

U.N: French Army killed 19 Malian civilians in an airstrike

On March 30, the Unit­ed Nations(UN) revealed infor­ma­tion about an airstrike attack con­duct­ed by the French Army on Malian ter­ri­to­ry on Jan. 3. After the attack in the vil­lage of Boun­ti, cen­tral Mali, French offi­cials stat­ed that all vic­tims were Islamist mil­i­tant. How­ev­er, U.N. inves­ti­ga­tions con­tra­dict this information.

After speak­ing to more than 400 peo­ple in a series of inter­views includ­ing at least 115 face-to-face inter­views, U.N. inves­ti­ga­tors con­clud­ed that the attack result­ed in the death of 22 peo­ple, includ­ing 19 civil­ians and three armed men, all attend­ing a wed­ding. While a state­ment from France’s defense chief denies the U.N.’s find­ing, news orga­ni­za­tions world­wide are now focused on France and its actions in Mali and neigh­bor­ing countries.

Malian offi­cials have yet to com­ment on the situation.

Tribal clashes in Sudan claim dozens of lives

On April 5, the Sudanese gov­ern­ment declared a state of emer­gency in West Dar­fur state after at least 40 peo­ple were killed and 58 injured in a three-day trib­al clash in its cap­i­tal El Geneina, accord­ing to the Unit­ed Nations.

Before this clash, at least 129 peo­ple were killed, and 108,000 peo­ple were dis­placed from El Geneina due to clash­es between mem­bers of the Masalit tribe and Arab tribes in Jan­u­ary. While Sudanese offi­cials state that Mil­i­tary rein­force­ments are sent to help the pop­u­la­tions, res­i­dents in the area report that no real mil­i­tary is present to calm the situation.

As the trib­al clash­es con­tin­ue, more media out­lets around the world are report­ing the issue, putting more pres­sure on the Sudanese gov­ern­ment to act and stop the killings.