Category Archives: Africa

Sudanese diaspora and human rights groups denounce UAE nominee for UN top job

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Critics cite Lana Nusseibeh’s denial of accusations the UAE is fuelling Sudan war by supporting paramilitary RSF

Members of the Sudanese diaspora and international human rights monitors have denounced the candidature of an Emirati diplomat for the top job at the UN, citing her denial of accusations that the United Arab Emirates is fuelling the war in Sudan by supporting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The UAE nominated Lana Nusseibeh last week to replace the UN secretary general, António Guterres, as he finishes his second five-year term ⁠this year, upending a race that had become gridlocked.

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Egypt fines prominent editor Lina Attalah and shuts independent news outlet Mada Masr

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Warnings of escalating clampdown on press freedom come after Cairo court convicts Attalah of managing an unlicensed website

Lina Attalah, a prominent Egyptian journalist and the editor-in-chief of the news outlet Mada Masr, has been released from detention by Egypt’s authorities and had her website ordered to be shut down by a court amid an intensifying crackdown on independent media in the country.

Attalah was taken briefly into custody after a Cairo court convicted her of managing an unlicensed website, prompting fresh international concerns over press freedom in Egypt.

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Africa’s ‘unprecedented’ Ebola outbreak could reach UK, says top health official

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Jean Kaseya, of the Africa CDC, warns of the illness spreading like Covid unless more funding is secured to increase preparedness and possible treatment

The “unprecedented” spread of the Ebola outbreak means it could reach the UK and other countries, according to one of Africa’s top health officials.

As the current outbreak reached 10,000 cases, with almost 5,000 deaths, Dr Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), compared the outbreak to the Covid pandemic, which first took hold in China before spreading to countries across the world, claiming millions of lives, and ravaging health systems and economies.

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UK sanctions Sudanese military leaders implicated in El Fasher ‘campaign of rape’

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Commanders suspected of sexual violence during the largest and fastest slaughter of civilians in more than 30 years have been subjected to travel ban and asset freeze

Senior Sudanese commanders implicated in a “campaign of rape” have been targeted by the UK on the first anniversary of a mass atrocity that saw tens of thousands of civilians killed over several days.

A year after the fall of El Fasher, the British government said it had sanctioned military leaders from both sides in the country’s ongoing conflict whom it suspected of sexual violence during the siege of the city.

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Sudan paramilitary drone strikes cause mass power cuts in eastern states

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Rapid Support Forces strike five power stations in three states controlled by Sudanese army

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have launched a coordinated drone attack against five power stations, causing mass power outages across the country’s east, a government official said.

The drones hit two power stations each in the states of Al-Jazira and Gedaref and one in White Nile state, “resulting in power outages across large parts of these three states”, the official said on condition of anonymity.

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UK poised to miss reduced aid spending target of 0.3% of national income

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Calculations from the Center for Global Development say spending next year is likely to be £410m less than anticipated

The UK is on course to miss its target of spending 0.3% of national income on international aid by an estimated £400m by the end of next year.

Calculations from the Center for Global Development (CGD) found the UK was on course for a large shortfall in promised official development assistance at the end of 2027.

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Controversial US-backed vaccine trial in African newborns halted

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Hepatitis B study in Guinea-Bissau that was to be funded by CDC and that drew global backlash ‘will not move forward’

The US-backed hepatitis B vaccine trial in African newborns that drew global backlash was halted, the lead researcher said on Wednesday.

It was “now clear” that the study “will not move forward in Guinea-Bissau”, Frederik Schaltz-Buchholzer, a Danish researcher, wrote on LinkedIn, adding, “we were not given the necessary governmental approval.”

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Severely ill ICE detainees face imminent deportation to unknown African states, advocates say

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Flights to third countries where the detainees have no ties are scheduled as early as Wednesday, relatives detail

Relatives of gravely ill detainees at two Florida immigration jails say authorities are about to deport their loved ones to unknown countries in Africa despite worsening medical conditions.

Flights are scheduled as early as Wednesday, according to the families and the immigration advocacy group the Workers Circle, which has been monitoring conditions and speaking with detainees inside two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in south Florida.

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Nigeria confirms Ebola case as outbreak spreads into western Africa

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Case in Africa’s most populous country was detected in a woman who had travelled from Uganda

Nigeria has confirmed an Ebola case in its capital, Abuja, after a woman who arrived from Uganda tested positive for the virus, the health ministry said.

The woman began showing symptoms on 7 October and was admitted to a hospital in Abuja four days later, where she was later diagnosed with Ebola. It is unclear when she arrived in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.

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RFK Jr’s ‘deities of vaccine research’ raided by police in Guinea-Bissau

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Police seize doses of hepatitis B vaccine from people at center of dispute over research on African newborns

Controversial vaccine researchers who have been praised by Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, had their offices in Guinea-Bissau raided by judicial police, who seized doses of hepatitis B vaccines, officials said on Facebook.

The researchers have been at the heart of an ongoing dispute over research on African newborns, supported by $1.6m from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and matched by the Pershing Square Foundation and the Bluebell Foundation for a total of $3.2m.

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US grants deportation reprieve to migrants from Ukraine and Sudan

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DHS says migrants ‘retain protections’ after temporary protected status was set to expire on Monday

More than 100,000 people from Ukraine and Sudan can stay in the United States without immediate risk of deportation, the Department of Homeland Security said, in what amounts to a temporary reprieve after their right to stay in the country was set to expire on Monday.

Temporary protected status was set to end on Monday for about 101,000 Ukrainians and 1,800 Sudanese. But the DHS said an announcement “will be made at the appropriate time”. Until then, the department said in a written statement, Ukrainians and Sudanese in the US covered by those temporary measures “retain protection”. The department did not indicate how long they could stay or when a final announcement would be made on their status.

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Kenyan starvation cult leader guilty of murder of 190 children and one adult

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Paul Mackenzie and his church set up sect that ordered followers to starve themselves and their children, say prosecutors

A Kenyan court has found the starvation cult leader Paul Mackenzie and about 30 others guilty of murder over the deaths of ⁠190 children and one adult in one of the world’s worst cult-related disasters in recent history.

Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after police received a tipoff, and weeks later authorities began uncovering bodies in shallow graves in the Shakahola forest near the coast ⁠in south-eastern Kenya.

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Drone attack near market kills 80 in Sudan

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Witness says drone struck twice at transport hub in al-Dibab, in one of deadliest single attacks of war

A drone strike near a market in southern Sudan on Sunday evening killed 80 people, mostly commuters catching rides home.

Ahmed Wadi, a witness, said the attack in the town of al-Dibab in West Kordofan state left “50 bodies who I helped bury, one of them my own brother Mohamed”.

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Ebola cases in Kenya highlight US failures amid Trump cuts to key services

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Opposition to US-led quarantine center in Kenya follows sweeping funding cuts and withdrawal from WHO

An eighth person in Kenya has tested positive for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola in the country’s first-ever cluster of cases of the virus, as the second-largest outbreak in history has killed more than 4,300 and sickened more than 9,000 people in the region.

It highlights the diminished role the US has played in the worsening Ebola outbreak by building a controversial quarantine center in Kenya, pulling back health support globally, and banning travelers from certain countries. All of this has also reduced the ability to identify and respond to the outbreak and exacerbated mistrust.

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LGBTQ+ people go into hiding in Senegal as hundreds are arrested

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At least 320 people detained for ‘acts against nature’ after law criminalising homosexuality toughened, HRW reports

Mass arrests, forced HIV testing and barriers to legal representation are part of an escalating crackdown against LGBTQ+ people in Senegal, according to a new report.

More than 320 individuals have been arrested and detained on allegations of “acts against nature” since February, according to HIV Justice Network, an organisation quoted in the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report. Among these, at least 84 were charged with “voluntary HIV transmission”, solely on the basis of their HIV status.

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Zimbabwean author Simbarashe Kundizeza denies using AI to write prize-winning story

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Article in Atlantic claims The Blue Fighter was artificially generated, days after it won Caine prize for African writers

The Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza has denied using AI to write a prize-winning short story after an article in the Atlantic said software had flagged it as almost completely AI-generated.

Kundizeza’s story The Blue Fighter was announced as the winner of the prestigious Caine prize for African writers on 6 October. Five days later, The Atlantic published an article by the author and journalist Vauhini Vara titled: “Yet Another Literary prize winner Seems to Be AI.”

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Guinea-Bissau denies it has approved controversial vaccine trial in newborns

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Health minister says government ‘did not authorize’ Danish-led hepatitis B trial in babies backed by RFK Jr

Guinea-Bissau has not approved the controversial hepatitis B study in newborns that would be funded by the US government and private partners, the African country’s minister of health said on Tuesday.

The study, which would not investigate the safety or effectiveness of vaccines but would instead track “nonspecific” health outcomes like overall mortality or neurodevelopmental conditions, has been championed by Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime anti-vaccine activist.

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Controversial vaccine trial touted by RFK Jr gets go-ahead in Guinea-Bissau

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Recommended dose of hepatitis B vaccine will be withheld from thousands of newborns by Danish researchers

A controversial research trial that will withhold hepatitis B vaccines from some African newborns was given approval to move forward this week.

It is a central part of the vaccine vision for Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime vaccine opponent.

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Ethiopia launches drone attack against Eritrean troops who crossed into Tigray

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Government forces’ attack raises risk of internal conflict in Ethiopia that could trigger regional war

Eritrean troops who crossed into Ethiopia’s Tigray region have come under drone attack from government forces, raising the risk that renewed internal conflict in Ethiopia could trigger an all-out regional war between the neighbouring countries.

Military vehicles carrying soldiers drove across Eritrea’s southern border into Tigray on Wednesday, reaching the town of Adigrat 25 miles (40km) south, according to civilian witnesses, a militia commander and the conflict monitoring group Acled.

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Kenya confirms first Ebola case as virus ‘surges’ in DR Congo province

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Health minister says 28 contacts identified after death of citizen who arrived from DRC on Saturday

Kenya has reported its first-ever Ebola death, the health minister announced on Tuesday, as the disease continues to spread rapidly through the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the outbreak was announced in May.

This is the 17th outbreak of the highly infectious, often deadly disease in the DRC. As of 2 October, 4,082 people had died out of 8,463 confirmed cases in the country since the emergence of the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, for which there is still no vaccine nor specific treatment.

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