Three protesters were killed and six injured May 14 as Pakistani security forces fired on crowds during angry street demonstrations in Muzaffarabad, capital of Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK). The paramilitary Rangers were mobilized to Muzaffarabad after a police officer was killed three days earlier amid protests over high food, fuel and electricity prices. A "wheel-jam and shutter-down" strike had been called by the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) on May 10, but was called off as Islamabad agreed to a Rs 23 billion ($86 million) subsidy for the region. The new deadly violence erupted just as the Rangers were starting to withdraw from Muzaffarabad. A curfew remains in place in the city. (Jurist, Dawn, FPK, India Today, LiveMint, BBC News)

An Islamist armed group linked to al-Qaeda killed at least 32 civilians, including three children, and set fire to over 350 homes in central Mali in January, forcing about 2,000 villagers to flee, Human Rights Watch reported May 8. Earlier in January, a Bambara ethnic militia formed to oppose the jihadists killed at least 13 civilians, including two children, abducted 24 other civilians, and looted property and livestock in central Mali. These attacks violate international law and are apparent war crimes.

Tajikistan's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Shokhin Samadi on April 6 denied claims by Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev that Ukraine has been recruiting mercenaries for its military in the country's territory. Patrushev charged that Kyiv's embassy in Dushanbe, the Tajik capital, has been recruiting Tajikistan nationals to join the International Legion of the Ukrainian army, in return for a pathway to Ukrainian citizenship. The comments were made during a meting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Kazakhstan.

At least 42 people were reportedly killed March 29 in Israeli air-strikes near the Syrian city of Aleppo, allegedly targeting an arms depot belonging to the militant group Hezbollah. Those killed include members of Hezbollah and Syrian soldiers. Israeli air-strikes in southern Lebanon on March 27 killed 16 people, and one person in Israel was killed by a barrage of rockets fired by Hezbollah from south Lebanon. Earlier in the week, a series of air-strikes on Syria's eastern province of Deir el-Zor killed 15 people, including a World Health Organization staff member as well as an Iranian military adviser. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for those strikes. (TNH)

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on March 5 dismissed a child labor case against technology companies and refused to hold them accountable for their alleged complicity in the use of children in cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Former cobalt miners and their representatives filed a lawsuit against Alphabet (Google), Apple, Dell Technologies, Tesla and Microsoft under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA). The TVPRA penalizes anyone who "knowingly benefits financially from participating in a venture that engaged in trafficking crimes." They claimed that the companies were involved in a "venture" with their suppliers that engaged in forced labor of children to obtain the metal.

Violence erupted in Chad this week shortly after the country's elections agency confirmed dates for a May presidential poll, which is supposed to restore democracy after three years of junta rule. Feb. 28 saw an armed attack on the headquarters of the National Security Agency (ANSE), which the government blamed on followers of the Socialist Party Without Borders (PSF), the main opposition party in Chad. The PSF denied the charge. But the following day party leader Yaya Dillo—a vocal critic of ruler Gen. Mahamat Idriss Déby—was killed alongside dozens of the others in a shoot-out with security forces at the PSF headquarters in the capital, N'Djamena.

Following the death of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian ministries of defense and foreign affairs quickly moved to reassure African client states that business as usual would continue—meaning that Moscow's unofficial boots on the ground would keep operating in these countries. Now  reports indicate a transformation, with Wagner's estimated force of 5,000 troops—deployed from the Sahel to Libya to Sudan—to be brought under Defense Ministry command as a new Africa Corps. (The Conversation)

The M23 insurgency in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is intensifying once again. Some 150,000 people have been displaced over the past days, adding to the 1.5 million already uprooted by the fighting, which began in late 2021. The latest clashes are taking place close to Goma, a city of 2 million people and a hub for humanitarian aid operations in the east. The M23 says it is not planning on seizing the city (as it last did in 2012), but its forces fired a rocket on Feb. 7 that landed near a Goma university. Soldiers from a recently deployed Southern African Development Community (SADC) intervention force appear to have entered the battlefield on the side of the Congolese army, which is also supported by local militia. Regional mediation efforts have so far failed—though a protest by the Congolese national football team (targeting violence across eastern DRC) at the Africa Cup of Nations did make global headlines.