Just as the Kenya mourned the sudden death of Interior Minister Joseph Ole Nkaiserry yesterday morning, suspected Al Shabaab fighters had beheaded nine men in an overnight assault on a village in the Kenyan coastal district of Lamu, police said, days after the armed group killed three police officers in an attack on a nearby village.

A witness, who asked not to be named, confirmed the death toll.

“They raided Jima and Pandanguo villages and killed nine men. They were slaughtered like chickens, using knives,” said the witness.

Kenya’s Interior Ministry announced late on Saturday that curfew was imposed in three districts following the attack.

It said in a tweet that the 12-hour curfew, from 6:30pm (1530 GMT), affects parts of Lamu, Garissa and Tana River and is to be in place for the next three months.

In a televised address on Saturday morning following the death in hospital of Kenya’s Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery, President Uhuru Kenyatta spoke of ‘an unfortunate incident this morning, which we are assessing’.

Appointing Education Minister Fred Matiangi as acting security minister, Kenyatta promised there would be “no vacuum in securing our country”.

President Uhuru Kenyatta sought to reassure Kenyans when mentioning the latest killings in a speech earlier on Saturday.

“We have had an unfortunate incident this morning that we are currently assessing and addressing,” he said.

Earlier in the week, three police officers were killed in an attack on a police post in Lamu, blamed on the Al Qaeda -linked al-Shabab group.

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The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) announced in Kinshasa that it was impossible to organize elections this year in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“It is impossible to organize the elections in 2017,” the President of the election supervising body, Corneille Nangaa said during a meeting with a delegation of the International Organization of the Francophonie (OIF).

However, he promised to assess the situation with the Government and the National Follow-up Council of the Political Agreement (CNSA), before making any ‘extension decision’.

The political agreement signed on December 31, 2016 between the Government and the Opposition, under the mediation of the country’s Catholic bishops stipulated that the national and provincial, presidential and legislative elections should be organized ‘before the end of 2017’.

DRC President Joseph Kabila is under pressure to relinquish power after his term of office expired late last year.

He however, held on to power, promising to organize elections this year and step down next year.

But in a June interview with German weekly Del Spiegel in Berlin Kabila ‘swallowed’ his words and said he ‘never promised anything’, in regard to holding elections and his stepping down.

And, in February this year his budget Minister Pierre Kangudia had said the DRC could not raise the US$1.8 billion needed to conduct elections in Africa’s second biggest country, which has a population of about 70 million people.

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The Kenyan Cabinet Secretary of the Interior Major General Joseph Kasaine Ole Nkaiserry, has died.

According to a statement by Joseph Kinyua, Kenya’s Chief of Staff and Head of Public Service, the 68-year old Maj. Gen. Nkaiserry, who once served as Kenya’s High Commissioner to Uganda, died a few hours after he was admitted to Karen Hospital for a medical check-up.

‘It is with deep sorrow and shock that we announce the sudden passing on of Interior CS retired General Joseph Nkaissery. Gen. Nkaissery passed on at Karen Hospital in Nairobi a few hours after being admitted for a check-up. The country to be updated as more information becomes available,’ the statement by Kinyua indicates.

Meanwhile, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has said the country will remain secure despite the death of Maj. Gen. Nkaiserry.

“There shall be no vacuum in securing our country”President Kenyatta, before appointing  Dr. Fred Matian’gi to head the security docket in an acting capacity.

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Diane Shima Rwigara, the female candidate who had hitherto generated a lot of debate in regard to the August 4 elections in Rwanda, has been disqualified from contestinbg for the presidency.

Running as an Independent Ms. Rwigara, one of the three candidates disqualified, was told her fate yesterday by the Electoral Commission, which claimed she had failed to garner enough signatures to support her candidature.

But last week Ms Rwigara said that local leaders threatened her supporters while they collected signatures, while the Electoral Commission boss Kalisa Mbanda said she was excluded from the race for submitting signatures of some people who have been long dead and others who belong to a rival political party.

According to electoral laws, independent presidential candidates are required to present 600 signatures, with at least 12 from each of Rwanda’s 30 districts. Others disqualified by the commission are Gilbert Mwenedata and Fred Sekikubo Barafinda.

Rwandans go to the polls Aug. 4 and will choose among longtime President Paul Kagame, Frank Habineza of the opposition Democratic Green Party and independent candidate Philippe Mpayimana. Kagame is widely expected to win.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International has charged that the election will be held under a ‘climate of fear’ and repression, adding that the East African nation has seen two decades of often deadly attacks on political opponents, journalists and rights activists. The group called for serious political reforms.

“Since the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front took power 23 years ago, Rwandans have faced huge, and often deadly, obstacles to participating in public life and voicing criticism of government policy,” said Muthoni Wanyeki, an Amnesty official in East Africa.

Many killings and disappearances have been blamed on the government of Kagame, who has been Rwanda’s de facto leader or elected president since the end of the country’s 1994 genocide.

Kagame is credited with leading Rwanda to stability and impressive economic growth, but critics say he is an authoritarian who is intolerant of legitimate opposition.

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A suspected top human trafficker who was arrested in South Sudan as he awaited new arrivals from the Uganda side of the border with the war-troubled country, has been handed over to Somalia for prosecution, according to officials in Mogadishu.

The Somali government says the man, identified as Abdulkadir Omar Abdulle, led a trafficking network in South Sudan that helped smuggle thousands of people across East Africa to Libya, where they awaited a possible journey to Europe.

Abdulle, a Somali citizen in his early 40s, was wanted on charges of trafficking and alleged abuses — including rape and murder — against the people his network was smuggling.

The Somali ambassador to South Sudan, Hussein Haji Ahmed, said that Abdulle ran a network of more than 30 smugglers based in South Sudan.

Abdulle was arrested in South Sudan’s capital of Juba last week. Ahmed said police told him that Abdulle was expecting new arrivals from the border with Uganda when he was captured at one of the secret homes he maintained for the smugglers.

“Police surrounded the house. He tried to jump over the wall, but was captured,” the ambassador said.

Abdulle was flown Thursday to Mogadishu, where Somali authorities took him into custody and are now holding him in a prison run by the National Intelligence and Security Agency.

Suspect ‘wanted for a long time’

“He was wanted for a long time by Interpol police from Somalia and South Sudan, and they have coordinated on his handover,” said the ambassador.

“He was a man who is conscious of his security. He was discreet and has managed to protect himself. When there is an anti-trafficking operation, he goes to a hideout in a border area between Uganda and South Sudan. He hides there.”

Ahmed said police obtained information about the phone Abdulle was using and tracked it, leading to his capture in Juba.

Officials said Abdulle’s network smuggles 600 to 700 people every month. About 90 percent of them are Somalis, most of them trying to leave Somalia due to insecurity and a lack of jobs.

Many of the people being smuggled were subjected to beatings or rape, and were sometimes held hostage for ransom.

The traffickers took videos of the abuses and sent them to the victims’ relatives, to pressure them to send money quickly.

“It’s appalling the kind of treatment women receive in the hands of these traffickers, it’s inhumane,” Ahmed said. “Some of their victims are young people, 13, 14 years old. They suffer unspeakable abuses.”

Asked whether Abdulle will be prosecuted in Somalia or handed over to other countries, Ahmed said the Somali government wants to prosecute him in Somalia pending an investigation.

“We want him for illegal trafficking, we want him for the death of people being smuggled, we want him for forging documents, and we want him for abuses against the young people in South Sudan and Sudan both, and other abuses which happened along the border between South Sudan and Uganda,” he said. “He will face justice in Somalia.”

Three other Somalis suspected of involvement in the trafficking network are being held in Juba, where they are under investigation, Ahmed said.

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