Duke of Sussex ‘absolutely committed’ to supporting children and young people in Lesotho and Botswana
Prince Harry is considering establishing a new charity after a dispute that led to him leaving Sentebale, a spokesperson has said.
It comes after the Duke of Sussex was criticised by the Charity Commission for allowing a row with the chair of Sentebale, which he co-founded in 2006, to “play out publicly”.
Continue reading...Guardian investigation finds number killed in April attack by Rapid Support Forces far greater than current estimates
More than 1,500 civilians may have been massacred during an attack on Sudan’s largest displacement camp in April, in what would be the second-biggest war crime of the country’s catastrophic conflict.
A Guardian investigation into the 72-hour attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on North Darfur’s Zamzam camp, the country’s largest for people displaced by the war, found repeated testimony of mass executions and large-scale abductions. Hundreds of civilians remain unaccounted for.
Continue reading...Incineration of $9.7m of contraceptives to lead to 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions, IPPF says
A decision by the US government to incinerate more than $9.7m (£7.3m) of contraceptives is projected to result in 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions in five African countries.
More than three-quarters of the contraceptives (77%) were destined for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Mali, according to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), an NGO global healthcare provider and advocate of sexual and reproductive rights.
Continue reading...Asher Watkins, 52, of Texas died while tracking 1.3-ton Cape buffalo on a hunting trip in the country’s Limpopo province
An American game hunter was killed by a buffalo he was stalking during a hunting expedition in South Africa over the weekend, according to multiple reports.
Asher Watkins, 52, of Texas, died on 3 August while tracking a 1.3-ton Cape buffalo in South Africa’s Limpopo province, according to a statement from Coenraad Vermaak Safaris (CV Safaris), the company that organized the hunting trip.
Continue reading...Watchdog says all parties, including trustees, patrons and chair Sophie Chandauka, should not have had row in public
The Charity Commission has criticised Prince Harry for allowing a row with the chair of his African charity to “play out publicly”, as the watchdog cleared him of racism.
The prince was engaged in a public war of words earlier this year with the chair of the Sentebale charity, Dr Sophie Chandauka, after his resignation as a patron.
Continue reading...Deal follows deportations to South Sudan and Eswatini despite concerns about international law breaches
The Rwandan government has said it would accept up to 250 migrants from the US under a deal agreed with Washington but gave no details on who could be included.
The Trump administration’s deportation drive has included negotiating arrangements to send people to third countries, among them South Sudan and Eswatini.
Continue reading...Shipwreck in Gulf of Aden leaves only 32 survivors so far, with the rest missing and presumed dead, says UN agency
A boat has capsized off Yemen’s coast leaving 76 people dead and 74 others missing, the UN’s migration agency said.
Yemeni security officials said 76 bodies had been recovered and 32 people rescued from the shipwreck in the Gulf of Aden in what a senior official from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) described as “one of the deadliest” shipwrecks off Yemen this year. The UN migration agency said 157 people were onboard.
Continue reading...Latest ‘mass capture’ in Zamfara state shows banditry crisis shifting from land conflict to organised crime
Gunmen have kidnapped more than 50 people in north-west Nigeria in a mass abduction, according to a private conflict monitoring report created for the UN and seen by Agence France-Presse on Sunday.
“Armed bandits” targeted the village of Sabon Garin Damri in Zamfara state Friday, the report said, the latest attack in a region where residents in rural hinterlands have long suffered gangs who kidnap for ransom, loot villages and demand taxes.
Continue reading...Niece of Agnes Wanjiru says she thinks John Healey is ‘taking us for a ride’
The niece of a Kenyan woman who was murdered more than a decade ago, allegedly by British soldiers, has said her family now believe the defence secretary “just made a promise for his political gain” when he met them in April.
John Healey told the family of Agnes Wanjiru of his “determination to see a resolution” in the case of her murder, pledging the UK’s full support for the investigation.
Continue reading...Conservative party leader, who grew up in Nigeria and US, says she has not renewed her Nigerian passport in decades
Kemi Badenoch has said she no longer considers herself Nigerian and does not possess a Nigerian passport.
The Conservative party leader, who was born in London, but grew up in Nigeria and the US and did not return to the UK until she was 16, said she had not renewed her Nigerian passport in two decades.
Continue reading...Warning: this article contains graphic and distressing testimony and images
Research documents ‘horrific and extreme’ attacks by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces and warns that impunity has meant such atrocities are expanding to new regions
Hundreds of health workers across Tigray have documented mass rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy and sexual torture of women and children by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers, in systematic attacks that amount to crimes against humanity, a new report has found.
The research, compiled by Physicians for Human Rights and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH), represents the most comprehensive documentation yet of weaponised sexual violence in Tigray. It reviewed medical records of more than 500 patients, surveys of 600 health workers, and in-depth interviews with doctors, nurses, psychiatrists and community leaders.
Continue reading...Government launches licensing round for 52 fossil fuel blocks, potentially undermining a flagship conservation initiative and affecting an estimated 39 million people
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is opening crucial gorilla habitats and pristine forests to bids for oil and gas drilling, with plans to carve up more than half the country into fossil fuel blocks.
The blocks opened for auction cover 124m hectares (306m acres) of land and inland waters described by experts as the “world’s worst place to prospect for oil” because they hold vast amounts of carbon and are home to some of the planet’s most precious wildlife habitats, including endangered lowland gorillas and bonobo.
Continue reading...Organisers of local film festival warn production of The Odyssey in Dakhla could normalise repression by Morocco
The organisers of the Western Sahara international film festival (FiSahara) have criticised Christopher Nolan for shooting part of his adaptation of the Odyssey in a Western Saharan city that has been under Moroccan occupation for 50 years, warning the move could serve to normalise decades of repression.
The British-American film-maker’s take on Homer’s epic, which stars Matt Damon, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o and Anne Hathaway, is due to be released on 17 July 2026.
Continue reading...Cutting aid budget to 0.3% of national income will hurt many African countries, says FCDO impact assessment
Labour’s deep aid cuts will hit children’s education and increase the risk of disease and death in some African countries, according to the government’s own impact assessment.
Keir Starmer announced earlier this year that he would reduce the aid budget to 0.3% of national income, from 0.5%, to fund increased spending on defence.
Continue reading...Family in yacht pulled young man from the sea off Costa del Sol
A man who was apparently trying to reach Spain from Morocco using a rubber ring and flippers has been rescued after he was spotted by a family sailing to the Balearic islands.
The family were on their yacht 13 nautical miles south of the Andalucían town of Benalmádena on the Costa del Sol, on 16 July when they manoeuvred around the stern of an oil tanker and saw something moving on the waves.
Continue reading...Mwangi accused of ‘facilitation of terrorist acts’ during last month’s protests against government of William Ruto
The Kenyan rights activist Boniface Mwangi is accused of “facilitation of terrorist acts” during protests that rocked the country last month, investigators said on Sunday, a day after he was arrested.
At least 19 people were killed during the 25 June demonstration against President William Ruto’s government, which was itself called to pay tribute to victims of police violence at another protest on the same date last year.
Continue reading...As part of president’s end to foreign aid, destruction of the long-acting contraceptives will cost US taxpayers $167,000
The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need.
A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July.
Continue reading...The country, beset by war, has the world’s lowest rates of vaccination, says the World Health Organization, as global immunisation drive also stalls
Children in Sudan, caught up in what aid organisations have called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and threatened by rising levels of violence, are increasingly vulnerable to deadly infectious diseases as vaccinations in the country plummet.
In 2022, more than 90% of young children in Sudan received their routine vaccinations. But that figure has nearly halved to 48%, the lowest in the world, according to the World Health Organization.
Continue reading...Exclusive: French government says it is open to dialogue but does not acknowledge responsibility in letter seen by the Guardian
More than a century after its troops burned villages and looted cultural artefacts in the quest to include Niger in its west African colonial portfolio, France has signalled willingness over possible restitution, but is yet to acknowledge responsibility.
“France remains open to bilateral dialogue with the Nigerien authorities, as well as to any collaboration concerning provenance research or patrimonial cooperation,” the office of France’s permanent representative to the UN wrote in a document seen by the Guardian.
Continue reading...Leader who ousted Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 three decades after brief stint as military ruler dies after ‘prolonged illness’
Nigeria’s former president Muhammadu Buhari, who led Africa’s most populous country from 2015 to 2023 and was the first Nigerian president to oust an incumbent through the ballot box, died in London on Sunday, a presidential spokesperson has said.
President Bola Tinubu’s spokesperson said in a post on X: “President Buhari died today in London at about 4.30pm [1530 GMT], following a prolonged illness.”
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