In the News: The death of the Rwandan singer Kizito Mihigo

Audio 04:27

By: Catherine Potet

Publicity

" Former icon of reconciliation, formerly pampered by the Rwandan regime, Kizito Mihigo was found dead in his cell, " says Jeune Afrique . " He had been arrested 4 days earlier, while trying to cross the border into Burundi ... According to a statement from the Rwandan police, the 38-year-old artist committed suicide in his cell. "

Jeune Afrique looks back on Kizito Mihigo's journey: " For a long time a figure of reconciliation, a survivor of the genocide committed against the Tutsi, Kizito Mihigo was a star of the liturgical song in Rwanda .... in 2001, he participated in the composition of the new national anthem ... "

After several years spent in Europe, " he returns definitively to Rwanda where he is " perceived as an artist close to the authorities (...) But in 2014, the fate of the artist changed. A few months before the commemoration of the genocide committed against the Tutsi of Rwanda, Kizito Mihigo records a song entitled “The meaning of death.” Accused of putting the genocide and acts of revenge committed against the Hutu on an equal footing, the title is controversial. ”He is then accused to maintain “ links with armed groups ” and to have “ planned the overthrow of the government .” He will even spend “ more than three years in prison ”, before receiving a “ presidential pardon ”.

Observer Paalga questions the death of Kizito Mihigo

" Did he commit suicide or did he commit suicide, " asked the daily . " If we believe what his jailers claim, the famous prisoner had become silent and withdrawn, thus suggesting that he was perhaps struck by a form of spleen and fed suicidal tendencies. "A thesis which clearly does not convince Observer Paalga :" The Hiccup ", he says," is that we are in the country of Paul Kagame, where opponents, journalists, human rights activists and other disturbers parties are constantly hunted down, embellished when they are not simply liquidated ... We therefore have the right, at the very least, to be skeptical of the official thesis (...) How then, one who had already spent 4 years in prison without attempting his life would he suddenly kill himself after only 4 days of detention ? A doubt that even the investigation promised by the authorities will not dispel, "concludes Observer Paalga .

A distribution of humanitarian aid that claimed the lives of around 20 people yesterday in Diffa, Niger

Slate Afrique : " Twenty people were killed and several injured yesterday in a stampede caused by the distribution of food and money to refugees and displaced persons in Diffa, in the south-east of Niger ... 15 women and 5 children died, "according to the Governor of Diffa. A municipal official testified: " Information on the distribution had spread since the early hours of the day and thousands of people invaded the courtyard and the surroundings of the MJC ". “ Usually, these are representatives of the beneficiaries who come to seek aid from Diffa and leave to redistribute it on the sites, but this time it is the refugees themselves who decided to travel tens of kilometers to come and receive their aid "..." As soon as the first people received their ration, the compact crowd began to "boil", the organizers were quickly overwhelmed : men, women, children began to crowd against each other. The weakest fell on the ground "and children were " trampled to death, " said the municipal official . "

In Senegal, we are preparing for the possible arrival of the coronavirus from China

Some, in any case are preparing for it, according to Walf Quotidien ... In downtown Dakar, in some pharmacies, " the masks are torn off like hotcakes by Chinese nationals who currently reside in the capital ".

" The coronavirus which continues to claim victims in China and which haunts the sleep of the populations and the Senegalese state authorities ", assures Walf Quotidien , who has pushed the doors of some pharmacies, as in this one where " The boxes of masks hit to the eye of the visitor as soon as he crosses the threshold of the pharmacy door. Or this other, who no longer has a mask to sell ... "" There are a lot of people and especially Chinese people who go to the pharmacy to get supplies, "says a pharmacist. " Some of them buy 20 to 30 boxes to bring them back to China ."

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