African Briefs

Peacekeepers shot in Darfur
KHARTOUM – Four Togolese peacekeepers have been shot and wounded in separate attacks in Sudan’s Darfur region, the AU-UN mission said on Saturday.

The attacks occurred on Friday, the same day the head of the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (Unamid), Ibrahim Gambari, expressed concern that rebels were exploiting a deadly stand-off between Sudan and South Sudan.Eleven Central African troops belonging to a regional border task force were killed on Wednesday on the Darfur side of the boundary by rebels using gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, officials in Bangui said.The Togolese police were attacked by unidentified gunmen just before noon on Friday as they were returning to their base in Murnei, West Darfur state, after patrolling in a camp for internally displaced people, Unamid.Toure, family fly to SenegalDAKAR – Mali’s president has sought refuge in neighbouring Senegal nearly one month after the democratically elected leader was overthrown in a coup that has sparked political and humanitarian crises, Senegalese state media reported.Amadou Toumani Toure went into hiding in late March after mutinous soldiers attacked the presidential palace. He emerged to tender his official resignation as part of an arrangement aimed at returning the country to civilian rule.Senegalese state media reported on Friday that Toure had arrived by plane in the Senegalese capital of Dakar just before midnight along with his children, grandchildren and bodyguards.Tsvangirai gets engagedHARARE – Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has got engaged to a Harare businesswoman whose father is a high ranking member of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF, his spokesman said on Saturday.His fiance Elizabeth Macheka is a 35-year-old businesswoman who runs a beauty salon in Harare.Her father Joseph Macheka is a former mayor of Chitungwiza, south of the capital, and he is a member of the central committee in the party of Tsvangirai’s long-time rival Mugabe.Tsvangirai’s wife died in a car crash in 2009. Macheka’s first husband, an airforce commander, died in a car crash in 2002.