Category Archives: Africa

UK to announce more monkeypox cases as efforts ramp up to contain outbreak

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Close contacts of those infected with rare disease offered vaccines and told to isolate for up to 21 days

Public health officials are to announce more UK monkeypox cases on Monday, as efforts ramp up to contain the first multinational outbreak of the virus that has led to cases in at least 14 countries.

The unusual outbreak of the rare disease has sparked a wave of contact tracing and testing, with the closest contacts of confirmed cases – such as partners and people in the same household – offered a vaccine and told to isolate at home for up to 21 days.

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Britain slashes humanitarian aid by 51% despite global food crisis

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Campaigners say ministers must change course as millions face famine in Africa and the Ukraine war threatens to disrupt global food supplies

Ministers have been accused of choosing the “worst moment in history” to slash the foreign aid budget, as provisional figures showed that UK overseas humanitarian funding was cut by more than half last year.

MPs and charity campaigners say the aid budget urgently needs to be increased to cope with the Ukraine conflict and the risk of famine in Africa. Up to 23 million people face acute hunger in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia due to drought.

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Guinea junta allows former leader Alpha Conde to leave country

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84-year-old who was ousted last year boards plane for Turkey to receive medical treatment

Guinean ex-leader Alpha Conde boarded a plane for Turkey on Saturday after the junta that toppled him authorised his travel abroad for medical treatment, officials said.

The 84-year-old Conte, who was ousted last year, has been allowed to travel out of respect for his “dignity and integrity” and for “humanitarian reasons”, the junta’s governing body said.

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Mozambique confirms first wild poliovirus case in 30 years

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Case in child in Tete province follows detection of similar strain in Malawi in February, officials say

Mozambique has identified its first case of wild polio in three decades following the genetic sequencing of a similar strain of the childhood disease in Malawi earlier this year.

Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, said the detection of the new case was “greatly concerning” and that it demonstrated “how dangerous this virus is and how quickly it can spread”.

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Widow of man killed in Libya accuses South Africa of ‘silence’ in hunt for his body

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The South African government sent Anton Hammerl’s passport to his widow in 2016 but has refused to say how it came to have it

The widow of a British-based photographer who was murdered by Col Gaddafi’s forces in Libya in 2011 has accused South Africa of withholding crucial information about her husband’s death that could help in efforts to locate his body.

Anton Hammerl was killed in an incident in May 2011 that saw other journalists, including James Foley – who was later kidnapped and beheaded by Islamic State in Syria – taken prisoner.

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‘Huge spike’ in global conflict caused record number of displacements in 2021

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Those fleeing combat were internally displaced 14.4m times, with biggest toll in sub-Saharan Africa, report reveals

Conflict and violence forced people from their homes a record number of times last year, a report has found, with sub-Saharan Africa bearing the brunt of mass internal displacement caused by “huge spikes” in fighting.

People fleeing violence were internally displaced 14.4m times in 2021, an increase of 4.6m on 2020, according to figures published by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

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‘History repeating’: Amazon base in Cape Town splits Indigenous groups

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Building work is quiet, for now, on £200m project that pits different visions of South Africa’s future against one another

Smoke curls into the air, a drum beats, the dance begins, a chant is raised. Ten metres away, cars howl past on a busy road, drivers unaware of the sacred ritual taking place in the centre of a bustling South African city.

Francisco Mackenzie, a chief of the Cochoqua community of the Khoi people, talks of ancient beliefs and battles five centuries ago, against invaders from overseas. He points to the iconic skyline of Table Mountain, and then to a nearby building site.

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UN confirms death of one of last Rwandan genocide fugitives

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Phénéas Munyarugarama is second person wanted for their involvement in 1994 mass killings to die

One of the last five fugitives wanted for his role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Phénéas Munyarugarama, died in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002, UN prosecutors have announced.

Munyarugarama, a local army commander, “died of natural causes” and was buried in Kankwala, in the eastern DRC, the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) announced in The Hague.

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‘I thought the UK was a good country’: Sudan massacre refugee faces removal to Rwanda

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Mohammed is among first asylum seekers to face removal under Home Office’s controversial scheme

It took Mohammed more than three years and a journey of more than 5,000 miles to reach the UK after fleeing a massacre in his village in Sudan.

Now, just over a week after arriving by kayak across the Channel, he is among the first tranche of asylum seekers facing forced removal to Rwanda, on the continent where his journey began.

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US supreme court abortion reversal would be global ‘catastrophe’ for women

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If Roe v Wade is overturned, it will encourage anti-choice groups – particularly in the developing world, activists warn

The probable demise of abortion as a federal right in the US will be a “catastrophe” for women in low and middle-income countries, with an emboldened anti-choice movement likely to raise renewed pressure on hard-won gains, doctors and activists have warned.

The leak this month of the US supreme court’s draft majority opinion, which argued that the 1973 ruling effectively legalising abortion had been “egregiously wrong from the start”, stunned and enraged many in America.

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Clashes in Tripoli as would-be prime minister attempts to claim power

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Fathi Bashagha forced to withdraw in the face of opposition from Libya’s military

Fighting broke out in Tripoli after one of the two rival Libyan prime ministers entered the capital to claim the role only to flee hours later when he realised he had misjudged the scale of military opposition.

Fathi Bashagha said he had retreated to prevent further bloodshed. It was clear he found that the levels of militia support he had been promised were not forthcoming. He had entered the city in secret overnight with the support of one powerful armed group, the eighth brigade, but it found itself isolated and no other support arrived from outside the city.

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The ‘Spider-Man’ of Sudan: masked activist becomes symbol of resistance

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Dressed in red and blue, ‘Spidey’ is a fixture at protests against the military regime – and the subject of a new Guardian documentary

Violence and arrests will not deter Sudan’s young activists from resisting the military who “stole our revolution”, says one man who faces down the teargas and bullets in a blue and red superhero costume.

Featured in a new Guardian documentary, “the ‘Spider-Man’ of Sudan”, who cannot be named for his safety, has become a symbol of protests that began in October. Dressed in his increasingly frayed suit and mask he and other demonstrators confront teargas canisters, water cannon and often live bullets.

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Biden reverses Trump withdrawal of US army trainers from Somalia

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Up to 500 special forces advisers will train Somali forces to combat growing threat of al-Shabaab militants, says White House

The US will send up to 500 soldiers back on full-time deployment to Somalia, to train the country’s army to combat the increasing threat posed by al-Shabaab militants.

The White House insisted that the move, deepening the US long-term military commitment in an intractable foreign conflict, did not contradict Joe Biden’s overall policy of disengaging from “forever wars”, which underlay the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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Rwanda president suggests UK extradite genocide suspects after asylum deal

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Exclusive: Comments raise concerns UK will find it difficult to refuse requests from Kigali on sensitive issues

Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has suggested the UK extradite suspects wanted in the east African country for alleged roles in the 1994 genocide, after a controversial deal with the Home Office to process asylum seekers there.

Speaking less than two weeks after the deal was announced, Kagame told an audience of diplomats in Kigali that included the British high commissioner he hoped “that when the UK is sending us these migrants, they should send us some people they have accommodated for over 15 years who committed crimes [in Rwanda]”.

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Zimbabwe denies harbouring deceased Rwandan genocide fugitive

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DNA shows body exhumed in the country was Protais Mpiranya, Rwanda’s most wanted fugitive

Zimbabwe has denied harbouring the Rwandan genocide fugitive Protais Mpiranya after it emerged that he died in 2006 and was buried in the country after living there for four years.

The 20-year manhunt for one of the world’s most brutal killers came to a decisive end in an overgrown cemetery outside Harare, but Zimbabwean authorities say they did not conceal his whereabouts.

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Secret British ‘black propaganda’ campaign targeted cold war enemies

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Britain stirred up tensions, chaos and violence in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, according to declassified papers

The British government ran a secret “black propaganda” campaign for decades, targeting Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia with leaflets and reports from fake sources aimed at destabilising cold war enemies by encouraging racial tensions, sowing chaos, inciting violence and reinforcing anti-communist ideas, newly declassified documents have revealed.

The effort, run from the mid-1950s through to the late 70s by a unit in London that was part of the Foreign Office, was focused on cold war enemies such as the Soviet Union and China, leftwing liberation groups and leaders that the UK saw as threats to its interests

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Protests in Nigeria after arrests for ‘blasphemy’ killing of female student

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Demonstrators demand release of two students held after murder of Christian woman in Sokoto

Hundreds of people in Nigeria’s north-western city of Sokoto demonstrated on Saturday over the arrest of two students after the murder of a Christian student accused of blasphemy, residents said.

Africa’s most populous country is roughly divided between Muslims and Christians but religious tensions and deadly clashes are not uncommon, particularly in the north.

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Fifty people to be sent to Rwanda in a fortnight, says Boris Johnson

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PM says he will ‘dig in for the fight’ with ‘leftie lawyers’ challenging government’s plan for refugees

Boris Johnson said 50 people have been told they will be sent to Rwanda within the next fortnight, and that he was ready to fight with “leftie lawyers” seeking to challenge the government’s plans for refugees.

Under the £120m scheme announced last month, people deemed to have entered the UK unlawfully will be transported to the east African country, where they will be allowed to apply for the right to settle.

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South Africa’s April floods made twice as likely by climate crisis, scientists say

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Brutal heatwave in India and Pakistan also certain to have been exacerbated by global heating, scientists say

The massive and deadly floods that struck South Africa in April were made twice as likely and more intense by global heating, scientists have calculated. The research demonstrates that the climate emergency is resulting in devastation.

Catastrophic floods and landslides hit the South African provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape on 11 April following exceptionally heavy rainfall.

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Suspect held in Netherlands over 1994 Rwandan genocide

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Dutch prosecutors say 64-year-old man accused of role in massacres arrested after extradition request

A Rwandan man has been arrested in the Netherlands based on an extradition request from Rwanda on suspicion that he was involved in the central African country’s 1994 genocide, Dutch prosecutors have said.

The 65-year-old man, who was not identified, has been living in the Netherlands since he was granted asylum there in 1999. He was arrested on Wednesday in the town of Ermelo, 44 miles east of Amsterdam.

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