BBC At least 37 people have been killed and 60 wounded in an attack on a mining company convoy in Burkina Faso, authorities say. Five buses carrying staff of Canadian firm Semafo were ambushed on Wednesday about 40km (24 miles) from the eastern town of Boungou, reports say. A military escort vehicle was reportedly struck
BBC Police in Nigeria have opened investigations after they rescued 15 people detained in a prayer house in the main city of Lagos. The male and female victims, who were between ages of 19 and 50, were in chains, Bala Elkana, the police public relations officer in Lagos state, said in a statement on Thursday.
AP The World Health Organization says more than 7 million cases of malaria have been reported in Burundi this year. Officials blame the outbreak on factors including the lack of protective bed nets, problems with medicines and climate change. The U.N. health agency says malaria has killed nearly 2,700 people this year in the East
AFP More than two million Zambians are facing “severe” food insecurity after drought and flooding reduced harvests, the Red Cross said. Southern Africa is grappling with one of the worst droughts in decades after months of erratic rainfall and record-high temperatures. Zambia Red Cross warned the drought had left an estimated 2.3 million people facing
AFP Algeria’s election authority has registered 22 candidates for a December presidential election, including two former prime ministers under former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the official APS agency reported on Sunday. Former premiers Ali Benflis and Abdelmadjid Tebboune had submitted their candidacies for the December 12 vote before the deadline for nominations passed Saturday. Both are
AFP Incumbent President Filipe Nyusi was declared the landslide winner in Mozambique’s election this month, despite claims of widespread cheating, the electoral commission announced on Sunday. Nyusi of the ruling Frelimo party won 73% of the vote, ahead of Ossufo Momade of Renamo, the rebel group turned opposition party, with almost 22%, commission chairperson Abdul
BBC Prominent Ethiopian activist and media owner Jawar Mohammed has appealed for calm amid protests in which at least 20 people have been killed. Demonstrators had camped outside his home in the capital Addis Ababa in a show of solidarity after Jawar said the police were trying to remove his bodyguards at his house. The
AFP Botswana goes to the polls on Wednesday in a hotly contested general election that could test the country’s traditionally stable politics, as the ruling party faces its toughest challenge yet. The historic Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) – whose rule has been unfettered since independence from Britain in 1966 – was shaken up earlier this
BBC Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has said his country can offer help to Africa without the conditions attached by Western powers. “We see how an array of Western countries are resorting to pressure, intimidation and blackmail of sovereign African governments,” Putin said in an interview with TASS news agency, ahead of a summit with African
BBC Authorities in Nigeria say they have freed nearly 150 students including 22 females from another purported Koranic school in the northern Kaduna state. This was the fourth such operation in a month and brings to more than 1,000 the number of people released from religious schools, also serving as rehabilitation centres for children with
Aljazeera Mozambique’s main opposition party on Saturday called for this week’s election to be annulled, accusing the government of breaching a peace deal by using violence and intimidation on voting day. Partial results from Tuesday’s election show President Filipe Nyusi and his ruling Frelimo party headed for a major victory but the poll was marred
AFP Twenty people were killed early on Sunday when a packed bus came off the road on a highway west of the DR Congo capital Kinshasa and burst into flames, a local official said. “The provisional toll is 20 dead,” Didier Nsimba, deputy administrator of Mbanza-Ngungu territory told AFP. The bus, laden with people and
BBC At least 28 people have been killed and several others injured following eight days of torrential rains in north-eastern Ghana. Authorities fear the casualty figures could rise. Some 1,264 houses were partially damaged while another 286 were completely destroyed, they said. The country’s National Disaster Management Organisation has started supplying relief items to the
BBC Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has called his leading critic, musician-turned-politician, Bobi Wine, an “enemy of the country’s prosperity”, in an interview with the BBC. The 36-year-old, affectionately known as the “ghetto president” has been a thorn in the side of Mr Museveni since his election as MP in 2017. Bobi Wine, whose real name
AFP Raymond Rakotondrasoa surveys the charred remains of his mud and thatched-roofed house in Madagascar. “I left a candle burning on my bedside table,” the 70-year-old says. “It fell and set fire to my clothes before spreading.” The retired construction worker is lucky to be alive. “If it had happened during the night I could
BBC Zimbabwe Gender Commission (ZGC) – the state body in charge of gender issues – has been criticised for its proposal that universities introduce a dress code to reduce cases of sexual harassment at the institutions. The commission’s Legal and Investigations manager Delis Mazambane was quoted by local media as saying the proposal is meant
BBC Mozambique’s presidential candidates ended their 43-days of campaign on Sunday as the country prepares for Tuesday’s elections. President Filipe Nyusi, who is seeking a second term, started the last campaign day in Nampula in the northeast and ended in Matola suburb in the capital, Maputo, in front of thousands of supporters. His Frelimo party
BBC The remains of Kenyans who died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March are being flown back home. Flight ET302 from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to Nairobi in Kenya crashed shortly after take-off. DNA matching of the remains of the 157 people killed in the crash was done several months after the accident.
AFP Nine Botswana rhinos have been poached since April, the government said on Wednesday, an unprecedented rate of one per month that could see rhinos wiped out in the southern African country by 2021. The thousands of rhinos that once roamed Africa and Asia have been culled by poaching and habitat loss. Very few are
BBC Uganda’s ethics and integrity minister has announced plans to re-introduce the controversial anti-gay law which was nullified by the Constitutional Court in 2014. Simon Lokodo told news agency Reuters that when the new bill becomes law offenders will be sentenced to death: “Our current penal law is limited. It only criminalises the act. We
