Category Archives: Africa

More than 15,000 sheep drown after live export ship sinks in Sudan

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Ship Badr 1 sank in Red Sea port of Suakin early on Sunday, prompting environmental concerns

A ship crammed with thousands of sheep sank on Sunday in Sudan’s Red Sea port of Suakin, drowning most animals onboard but with all crew surviving, officials said.

The livestock vessel was exporting the animals from Sudan to Saudi Arabia when it sank. “The ship, Badr 1, sank during the early hours of Sunday morning,” a senior Sudanese port official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It was carrying 15,800 sheep.”

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Liz Truss accused of ignoring evidence of rendition of UK citizen to Nigeria

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Family of Nnamdi Kanu, a separatist leader, say he was seized and tortured in Kenya and then flown to Nigeria

The family of a British citizen have accused the foreign secretary of ignoring “overwhelming evidence” he was taken to Nigeria in an act of extraordinary rendition and failing to end his “unlawful” imprisonment there.

Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), a prominent separatist movement proscribed in Nigeria, has been held there since June last year.

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UK deportation flight to Rwanda can go ahead, high court judge rules

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Judge refuses to grant interim relief after lawyers for asylum seekers argued policy was unlawful

A high court judge has ruled that a controversial deportation flight to Rwanda that was due to take off early next week can go ahead.

Mr Justice Swift refused to grant interim relief – urgent action in response to an injunction application made by several asylum seekers facing offshoring to Rwanda.

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Home Office misled refugees about UN involvement in Rwanda plans, court told

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Letters to asylum seekers assured them UNHCR was ‘closely involved’ in deportation scheme, high court hears

The United Nations refugee agency has made a dramatic intervention to try to halt Priti Patel’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

In a late submission of evidence, the UNHCR claimed the home secretary misled refugees over the organisation’s support for the plan. The agency has also said the scheme failed to meet the required standards of “legality and appropriateness” for transferring asylum seekers from one country to another.

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Knee problem forces Pope Francis to cancel Africa trip

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Pontiff, 85, had planned to visit Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan in early July

Pope Francis has scrapped a trip to Africa owing to an ongoing problem with his knee, raising further scrutiny about the 85-year-old pontiff’s health.

The Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said the planned visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan in early July had been cancelled “at the request of his doctors in order not to jeopardise the results of the therapy that he is undergoing for his knee” and would be rescheduled to a later date.

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Islamic State affiliate suspected of Catholic church massacre, Nigeria says

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Interior ministry believes Iswap was behind attack in Ondo state on Sunday that killed 40 people

Nigerian security officials suspect extremists from Islamic State’s affiliate in west Africa were behind an attack on a Catholic church last weekend that killed dozens.

Forty people are now thought to have died after gunmen stormed St Francis Catholic church in Owo, Ondo State, on Sunday, and 61 survivors are still being treated in hospital, according to local authorities. The total is double an earlier estimate.

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65,000 year-old ‘Swiss Army knife’ proves ancient humans shared knowledge, research says

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The prehistoric artefacts, all made to a similar shape and template, are found in enormous numbers across southern Africa across vast distances

A 65,000-year-old tool – a kind of ancient Swiss Army knife – found across southern Africa has provided scientists with proof that the ancestors of modern homo sapiens were communicating with each other.

In a world first, a team of international scientists have found early humans across the continent made the stone tool in exactly the same shape, using the same template, showing that they shared knowledge with each other.

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Home Office’s Rwanda deportation plans face high court challenge

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About 30 asylum seekers expected to be sent to Rwanda on 14 June

Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as soon as next week is facing a legal challenge under emergency proceedings launched in the high court on Wednesday.

An application for a judicial review claims that the home secretary’s policy is unlawful. Claimants are also seeking an injunction that will attempt to stop the plane from taking off.

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Fast-fashion giant Shein pledges $15m for textile waste workers in Ghana

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Gesture announced at Copenhagen sustainability summit earns praise – and some cries of ‘greenwashing’

Chinese fashion behemoth Shein might be the organisation least expected to win applause at an international conference on fashion sustainability, but that’s what happened at this week’s global fashion summit in Copenhagen.

The industry’s largest forum for sustainable progress saw the ultra-fast fashion brand praised for making a donation of $15m (£12m) over three years to a charity working at Kantamanto in Accra, the world’s largest secondhand clothing market.

Liz Ricketts, director of the Or Foundation, a Ghana- and US-based not-for-profit working with Accra’s textile waste workers, announced the fund, tearfully telling the audience that the workers are doing “backbreaking” work.

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The Congolese student fighting with pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine

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Jean Claude Sangwa took up arms in Luhansk – and his pro-Moscow views are mainstream in much of Africa

Fighting alongside pro-Russia separatists as part of Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine wasn’t mentioned in the brochures of Luhansk University when Jean Claude Sangwa, a 27-year-old student from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, moved to the breakaway region last year to study economics.

But when the head of the Kremlin-controlled, self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic announced a full military mobilisation of the region on 19 February, Sangwa, together with two friends and fellow students from DRC and Central African Republic, decided to join the local militia and take up arms against Ukraine.

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South Africa seeking to extradite Gupta brothers after arrest in Dubai

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Police begin process to transport Indian-born pair wanted on criminal and money-laundering charges

Police in Dubai are coordinating with their South African counterparts to secure the extradition of two wealthy Indian-born brothers wanted by South African authorities on criminal and money-laundering charges who were arrested in the emirate on Monday.

Atul and Rajesh Gupta are accused of paying bribes in exchange for lucrative state contracts and influence over ministerial appointments during the chaotic nine-year presidency of Jacob Zuma, which ended amid allegations of systematic corruption in 2018. The brothers fled to Dubai shortly after Zuma’s fall from power.

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Let Africa exploit its natural gas reserves, says Mary Robinson

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Ex-UN climate envoy says continent’s need for energy is so great it should be able to widely use the fossil fuel

African countries should be able to exploit their vast natural gas reserves despite the urgent need to cut global greenhouse gas emissions, the former UN climate envoy Mary Robinson has said.

Robinson, the chair of the Elders group of former world statespeople and business leaders, said African countries’ need for energy was so great that they should use gas widely, in contrast to developed countries that must halt their gas use as quickly as possible to stave off climate breakdown.

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Gupta brothers arrested in Dubai over alleged corruption in South Africa

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Business owners at the centre of a scandal that led to former president Jacob Zuma’s resignation

Two wealthy Indian-born business brothers who were allegedly at the centre of a massive web of state corruption in South Africa have been arrested in Dubai, Pretoria announced on Monday.

The arrests came as an investigation was concluded into massive plundering of state institutions during former president Jacob Zuma’s era.

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Nigeria: town mourns more than 50 people shot dead in church during mass

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Witnesses describe how attackers detonated explosives and shot at those who tried to flee

Workers cleared the pools of blood and pieces of broken pews at the Saint Francis Catholic church in south-west Nigeria on Monday, as the local community mourned more than 50 parishioners shot dead in the final moments of mass a day earlier.

No one has claimed responsibility for the killings, and Nigeria’s authorities and the police have not named any suspects.

But new details of the brazen attack emerged on Monday, as authorities and witnesses described how the unidentified assailants detonated explosives and opened fire through the windows as the ceremony ended, before entering the church and shooting at those who tried to flee from two of three exits. The attack lasted for about 20 minutes and left scores wounded.

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Ryanair forces South Africans to do Afrikaans test to prove nationality

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Airline accused of discrimination after it introduces test due to ‘high prevalence of fraudulent passports’

Ryanair is facing accusations of racial discrimination after forcing South Africans to take a test in Afrikaans before boarding flights home from the UK and Europe.

The budget airline, which claimed the “simple questionnaire” was part of efforts to tackle fraudulent South African passport holders, is facing criticism for conducting the general knowledge test in a language that is the third most used in the country and had a controversial role in the oppression of black citizens during apartheid.

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Home Office offers asylum seekers choice between war zones they fled and Rwanda

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High number of first 100 people to be sent to Rwanda are from Sudan, despite being small number of those crossing the Channel

The Home Office is offering to fly asylum seekers back to the conflict zones they escaped from if they do not wish to be sent to Rwanda, the Guardian has learned.

Documents issued to the first group of asylum seekers facing removal to the east African country state that the Home Office voluntary returns service can help them go back to their home country.

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Dozens dead in Nigeria as gunmen carry out ‘satanic’ attack on Catholic church

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More than 50 killed with explosives reportedly detonated in attack during mass at church in Ondo state

Gunmen attacked a Catholic church in Ondo state, Nigeria, during mass on Sunday, leaving dozens dead, in a “satanic attack” local officials said.

The attackers targeted the St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in the town of Owo just as the worshippers gathered on Pentecost Sunday, state legislator Ogunmolasuyi Oluwole said.

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‘We’ve got other things to worry about’: former colonies react to platinum jubilee

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In Africa, celebrations in honour of the Queen stir nostalgia in some, resentment in others

The jubilee has met with a muted response in much of sub-Saharan Africa, with commentators evoking the troubled history of the British empire, London’s diminished influence and the distraction of deepening economic problems on the continent to explain the apparent apathy.

Buckingham Palace listed 18 official beacons lit in commemoration across Africa last week, and Seychelles president Wavel Ramkalawan described the Queen as “a remarkable global personality whose legacy transcends national borders” who was “loved and respected by the entire world”. But such sentiments are not universal.

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Rwanda accused of stalking, harassing and threatening exiles in US

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African state that signed deal with UK to host asylum seekers perpetrates ‘transnational repression’, Freedom House report says

Rwanda has been accused of being among the worst perpetrators of “transnational repression” in the US, stalking, harassing and threatening exiles there, according to a new report.

The report by the Freedom House advocacy group in Washington, names Rwanda alongside China, Russia, Iran and Egypt as the principal offenders in seeking to extend the reach of their repressive regimes into the US.

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First Rwanda deportation flight to leave UK on 14 June, says Priti Patel

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Group of asylum seekers sent formal notices advising they will be relocated to east African country, say officials

The first deportation flight to Rwanda carrying people who arrived in the UK without authorisation is scheduled to leave on 14 June, Priti Patel has announced.

A group of asylum seekers has been sent formal notices by the Home Office advising they will be relocated to the east African country, officials have said.

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