Allied Democratic Forces armed group killed some 23 people with machetes. In Ituri province, at least 46 people, half of them children, were shot and hacked to death overnight by fighters of the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo armed group. In Mali, attacks by Islamic State in the Sahel on the villages of Gaina and Boyna, Gao region, left 17 people dead. Two months later, an attack by members of the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims on the villages of Bodio and Yarou in the Bandiagara region, resulted in 37 civilian deaths. An airstrike by the Nigerian air force killed 21 civilians in Niger state, while a new conflict between Somaliland security forces and armed fighters resulted in 36 civilian deaths, in Somalia, mainly due to the indiscriminate shelling of Las Anod town by Somaliland security forces. Parties to armed conflicts must protect civilians by ending targeted and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL AND GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE Widespread conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence, including rape, gang rape, abduction and sexual slavery continued, and many survivors had no access to necessary medical and psycho-social support. Soldiers of the Eritrean Defence Forces held at least 15 women captive for nearly three months at a military camp in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, raping them repeatedly. In Burkina Faso, alleged members of Ansaroul Islam abducted 66 women, girls and newborn babies near the village of Liki in the Sahel region. They were freed four days later at a checkpoint in Tougouri. Boko Harem fighters abducted over 40 women in Mafa local government area in Borno state, Nigeria. In CAR, the UN announced that it had collected evidence of rape, incriminating 11 Tanzanian peacekeepers. In the DRC, over 38,000 sexual violence cases were reported in Nord-Kivu province alone during the first quarter of 2023. In Mali, the UN recorded 51 incidents of conflict-related sexual violence, during the same period, against women and girls. In Sudan, scores of women and girls were subjected to sexual violence, including rape, by members of warring sides, mainly RSF and allied militias. In one case, RSF members abducted 24 women and girls, holding them in a hotel in Nyala for days in conditions amounting to sexual slavery. Parties to armed conflicts should issue clear orders to their members or forces, prohibiting acts of sexual and gender-based violence; and governments should ensure that survivors of such violence have full access to medical and pyscho-social healthcare. REPRESSION OF DISSENT FREEDOM OF PEACEFUL ASSEMBLY Across the region, protesters poured onto the streets to voice their concerns about a myriad of issues, including the high cost of living, poor governance and human rights violations. In many cases, security forces dispersed protests using excessive force; scores of protesters and bystanders were killed and injured, including in Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal and Somalia. Police in Kenya killed at least 57 people during protests between March and July. In Senegal, at least 29 people were killed in June when police and armed men in civilian clothing fired live ammunition to disperse violent protests in the capital, Dakar, and Ziguinchor. The State of the World’s Human Rights 25