First case of wild polio detected in Malawi for 30 years prompts emergency rollout of vaccinations in five African countries
More than 23 million young children across southern Africa will be offered vaccinations against wild polio after an outbreak of the virus was detected in Malawi for the first time since 1992.
Children under five in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital, began to be immunised on Sunday as part of a mass drive against the disease.
Continue reading...Studies ‘debunk the myth that Africa is running out of water’ but say resource needs to be better managed
Groundwater resources in sub-Saharan Africa are enough to transform agriculture in the region and provide people with adequate safe water for their drinking and hygiene needs, if the resource can be better managed, researchers have said.
Groundwater – found underground in aquifers, rocks and soils – makes up about 99% of all liquid freshwater on earth, and is abundant in much of Africa, but a lack of investment has left it untapped or poorly managed, two major studies have found. The reserves could be used for irrigation and to supply clean and safe water, but there is also a danger that if used unsustainably they could be rapidly depleted or polluted.
Continue reading...Freed 10 years ago after seven months held hostage, Tebbutt watched homecoming of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with joy and trepidation
Ten years ago on Monday, Judith Tebbutt walked onto a plane and out of the hands of the Somali pirates, kidnappers and murderers who had held her captive for almost seven months.
Her husband, David, had been shot dead by Tebbutt’s initial captors when they burst into the couple’s bedroom in their isolated, luxury holiday resort.
Continue reading...Critics say race is an issue in treatment of African students fleeing war in Ukraine
Two weeks ago, Alani Iyanuoluwa fled Kyiv as the Russian invasion intensified. Making her way across Europe, the 24-year-old hoped to be reunited with family in London. Yet for 10 days she has been stranded in a French port – because she is Nigerian.
Iyanuoluwa is among a growing number of refugees who claim the British government is ignoring black people who fled Ukraine.
Continue reading...Described as ‘outstanding and fearless’ by Bobi Wine, tributes have been paid to Sadurni, whose work featured in the Guardian and New York Times
Sumaya Sadurni Carrasco has died while travelling to take photographs for the Guardian’s Saturday magazine in northern Uganda. Thomas Mugisha, an NGO worker, also died in the accident on 7 March.
Sumy, as she was known, was a talented, driven and courageous photojournalist with a rare gift for friendship. At just 32 years old, she had built a powerful body of work, which had been published in some of the world’s best-known publications; in 2020 she was shortlisted for the Guardian’s agency photographer of the year. She also leaves a legacy of knowledge and inspiration that she passed on to young photographers as a Uganda Press Photo award mentor, a teacher at Makerere University and a Canon trainer.
Continue reading...Agencies forced to cut back aid in Yemen, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Ethiopia despite growing need as funds go to Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put huge pressure on an already shrinking pot of international aid.
Aid agencies working in countries with the most pressing emergencies, including Yemen, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Ethiopia, are facing difficult decisions on how to spend their money.
Continue reading...Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says even with war in Ukraine, the world must not forget the crisis unfolding ‘out of sight’ in Ethiopia’s northern region
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged the world not to forget the humanitarian crisis in Tigray, saying that even amid the war in Ukraine there is “nowhere on Earth” where people are more at risk than the isolated region of northern Ethiopia.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general, is from Tigray and has incurred the wrath of the Ethiopian government in the past after accusing it of placing the region under a de facto blockade. Prime minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has accused him of bias, and of spreading misinformation.
Continue reading...Damaging winds and torrential rainfall strike Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi
Tropical Cyclone Gombe affected parts of Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi last week, bringing damaging winds and torrential rainfall. Gombe made landfall in the Nampula province of northern Mozambique on Friday as a category three tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds of about 120mph and more that 100mm of rainfall in places. Mozambique has already been hit this year by Tropical Storm Ana in January and tropical depression Dumako in February.
A powerful late-winter storm system surged across eastern parts of the US on Friday night and Saturday, bringing heavy rain, widespread heavy snow, strong winds, thunderstorms and freezing temperatures. Snow was reported as far south as Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia, with 20-30cm falling quite widely across the Appalachians and northwards through parts of Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont. Damaging winds affected parts of Florida, with a tornado reported near Crescent City, Florida. Cold weather plunging well into the south has been a frequent feature of this winter in the US.
Continue reading...Women fear use of sexual violence as a ‘tactic’ against those protesting the coup, after attack on 18-year-old in Khartoum
Demonstrations took place across Sudan on Tuesday in protest at the alleged gang-rape of a teenager by security forces.
The 18-year-old said she was attacked in Khartoum on Monday by up to nine men dressed in the uniforms of the security forces involved in dispersing regular protests held across Sudan since October’s military coup.
Continue reading...Rewilding programme marks the ‘most significant step’ in ensuring the critically endangered species’ survival
Five mountain bongos have been released into a sanctuary in Kenya, a milestone in the fight for the animals’ survival with fewer than 100 left in the wild
Considered critically endangered, the chestnut-coloured mountain bongo is one of the largest forest antelopes and native to the equatorial forests of Mount Kenya, Eburu, Mau and Aberdares. IUCN predicts their numbers will probably continue to decline without direct action. A recent wildlife census in Kenya counted just 96 mountain bongos in the wild.
Continue reading...UN says 70% of the population will struggle through the coming season as humanitarian workers are killed and supplies raided
Looting of emergency food supplies and attacks on aid workers are rising in South Sudan, where hunger is causing unrest.
A security vacuum is fuelling the violence as communities take up arms to fend for themselves amid unprecedented food shortages, aid agencies have warned.
Continue reading...Eleven people, including nine ethnic Tigrayans, were killed on 3 March in the Benishangul-Gumuz region
A video posted on social media showing armed men burning a man to death in western Ethiopia has drawn condemnation and renewed fear over increasing horrific incidents of ethnic violence.
Eleven people, including nine ethnic Tigrayans, were killed on 3 March in the Ayisid Kebele of Metekel zone, in the Benishangul-Gumuz region where waves of ethnic violence over the last year have killed hundreds of people.
Continue reading...Missing are presumed dead after three migrants rescued and one body retrieved, Libyan coast guard says
A boat carrying about two dozen migrants capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya on Saturday, with at least 19 people missing and presumed dead, authorities said.
Libya’s coastguard said that a group of 23 migrants – Egyptians and Syrians – set off from the eastern city of Tobruk earlier in the day. Three migrants were rescued and taken to hospital. Only one body was retrieved and search efforts were continuing, the agency said.
Continue reading...Incident took place in the western region of Benishangul-Gumuz, a site of frequent ethnic violence
Ethiopia’s government said on Saturday it would act against the perpetrators after a video appeared on social media showing armed men, some in military uniforms, burning civilians to death in the west of the country.
The Ethiopia government communication service said in a statement on its Facebook page that the incident occurred in the Ayisid Kebele of Metekel zone in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, a site of frequent ethnic violence for more than a year in which hundreds of civilians have died.
Continue reading...Janjaweed militias accused of attacking villages as violence continues to rise in a region once ravaged by civil war
At least 19 people have been killed in Sudan’s restive Darfur region in the latest violence between rival groups that has left dozens dead this week.
Fresh clashes broke out on Thursday between armed groups in the rugged Jebel Moon mountains of West Darfur state, close to the border with Chad.
Continue reading...Pair join Gordon Brown and 126 others in attack on ‘self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality’
Prince Harry and Meghan, the actor Charlize Theron and the former British prime minister Gordon Brown are among 130 signatories to a letter lambasting wealthy countries’ approach to the Covid-19 pandemic, labelling it “immoral, entirely self-defeating and also an ethical, economic and epidemiological failure”.
In a strongly worded open letter published on Friday, the signatories warned “the pandemic is not over”, and said the failure to vaccinate the world was down to “self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality”.
Continue reading...Hill’s horseshoe bat, which conservationists feared was extinct, discovered clinging to life in Nyungwe rainforest
A critically endangered species of bats not sighted in 40 years has been found in Rwanda, with the “incredible” discovery delighting conservationists who had feared it was already extinct.
But the Hill’s horseshoe bat was in fact still clinging to life in Rwanda’s Nyungwe forest – a dense rainforest that is home to endangered mountain gorillas – the consortium behind the discovery said.
Continue reading...Researchers say the island’s biggest mine is on track to achieve no net loss of forest but that ‘there remain important caveats’
Ambatovy mine on the east coast of Madagascar is an environmental conundrum fit for the 21st century. Beginning operations in 2012, the multibillion-dollar open-pit nickel and cobalt mine is the largest investment in the history of the country, one of the poorest on Earth. About 9,000 Malagasies are employed by the project, owned by the Japanese company Sumitomo Corporation and Korean firm Komir, which mines minerals destined for the world’s electric car batteries. To construct the mine and the 140-mile (220km) slurry pipeline to port on the Indian ocean, 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of pristine rainforest was cleared, destroying vital habitat of the endangered indri, the largest living lemur, and thousands of other species.
Alongside the land clearing in a country that has lost nearly a quarter of its tree cover since 2000, the mine has been blamed for air and water pollution, as well as health problems in the local population. The smell of ammonia in residential areas and the pollution of drinking water were revealed in a 2017 investigation.
Continue reading...We hear from a some of the members of the Black Women Photographers collective, a group facilitating greater diversity in editorial photography
The Black Women Photographers collective, established via a Covid-19 relief fund, is approaching its second year of promoting and empowering Black female photographers, as well as increasing the visibility of their work.
In March, a virtual summit supported by Adobe will feature Raven B Varona, Kimberly Douglas, aka @kihmberlie, Audrey Woulard, Lola Flash, Lola Akinmade Åkerström, Amanda J Cain, NHL’s first Black woman team photographer, Whitney Matewe, DeLovie Kwagala, Cheriss May, Sade Ndya, Chaya Howell and Idara Ekpoh.
2017: My friends Dara and Isioma, who I have known since 2008 in boarding school. This photo was taken at one of our many mini alumni meetups. After spending six years of the most formative parts of our adolescence in a remote school campus – loving, hating and knowing each other – we can say that we come from each other.
Continue reading...Joe McCarthy and Gary Taylor were held at gunpoint by Russians before successfully evacuating Irish woman and Nigerian men
Two Scottish gardeners have rescued three students – one Irish and two Nigerian – who were trapped in the wartorn city of Sumy in the north-east of Ukraine.
Along the way, the men were held at gunpoint by Russian soldiers – but were then rescued themselves by locals.
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