Category Archives: Africa

‘Living from flood to flood’: the crisis of Gambia’s sinking city

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As well as floods, sewage and crocodiles, those living in Banjul’s slums face the effects of a climate crisis they did little to cause

Yedel Bah would move home if she could, but she can’t. With no income of her own, four children to feed and a husband who just about manages, her family lives from day to day, and from flood to flood, on the banks of a litter-strewn, stagnant canal.

Every rainy season, the neighbourhood of Tobacco Road in the Gambian capital, Banjul, braces for downpours of such intensity that the canal overflows, spilling its murky, pungent depths into the slum-like homes that run alongside it.

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Ugandan children held in prison for months after crackdown on opposition

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Victims describe systematic physical abuse, denial of basic legal rights and appalling conditions

Ugandan security services held children for months in prisons after successive crackdowns against opposition activists earlier this year, witnesses and victims have said.

Adults and children described systematic physical abuse, denial of basic legal rights and appalling conditions as they waited for trial on charges they claim were fabricated.

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Military chief pledges UK cooperation with Kenya in Wanjiru case

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Gen Sir Nick Carter says alleged murder of Agnes Wanjiru by British soldier was ‘truly shocking’

The head of the British armed forces has said the military will be working with Kenyan authorities to bring those accused of killing a young woman in the east African country to trial.

The body of Agnes Wanjiru, 21, was found in 2012 after she reportedly went out partying with British soldiers at the Lions Court hotel in the central town of Nanyuki, where the UK army has a permanent garrison.

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Son of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi runs for president

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Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has spent past decade out of sight after his father was killed in 2011 uprising

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, one of the sons of the former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has confirmed that he is to run for the presidency of Libya in elections due to start on 24 December.

He registered his nomination in the southern city of Sebha, the High National Electoral Commission has confirmed.

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Sudan security forces kill at least 5 as protesters defy shutdown

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Teargas and live bullets used to break up demonstration in Khartoum against the military coup

Sudanese security forces killed at least five people on Saturday and injured dozens more when they used teargas and live bullets to break up a protest in Khartoum against a military takeover of the government.

Protesters defied a military shutdown of the city to call for a return to civilian rule, as plain-clothed snipers reappeared on the streets on Saturday. On Friday, coup leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan cemented his hold on power by swearing in a new ruling council that excluded the main civilian coalition.

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How risk of kidnap became the cost of an education in Nigeria

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Abductions are rife in the north of the country, where armed gangs target schools and colleges with apparent impunity

When his two daughters were abducted from their university dormitories by armed men in April, Friday Sani volunteered to deliver the ransom. In two bags he carried banknotes to the value of more than 40m naira (£70,000), the price to free Victory and Rejoice, and 37 others taken from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in Afaka, Kaduna.

In April and May more than 70 students were abducted from the federal college and the nearby Greenfield University. With little faith that police could help, a group of parents went to the kidnappers, through an intermediary, and paid to get their children back.

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Community-led upgrade to a Nairobi slum could be a model for Africa

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Mukuru, one of Kenya’s largest informal settlements, has cleaned up its act with improved water, roads and sanitation

The people who live in Mukuru, one of the vast, sprawling “informal settlements” in Nairobi, used to dread the rains, when the slum’s mud-packed lanes would dissolve into a soggy quagmire of sewage, stagnant water and slimy rubbish.

But a few years ago, things began to change. On a newly paved road Benedetta Kasendi is selling sugar cane from a cart. It gives her a clean platform, somewhere she can keep her wares tidy. Her biggest challenge now is what to do with the sugar-cane waste as she does not want to clog up Mukuru’s revamped sewers.

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South Africa’s last white president issues posthumous apology for apartheid – video

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The former South African president FW de Klerk recorded a message to the nation shortly before his death on Thursday, in which he apologised for 'the pain and the hurt and the indignity and the damage' the apartheid regime had caused. De Klerk oversaw the end of white minority rule as the country's last apartheid president and shared the Nobel peace prize with Nelson Mandela, but was a controversial figure in the country. Many blamed him for violence against Black South Africans and anti-apartheid activists during his time in power

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FW de Klerk obituary

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Last president of South Africa under apartheid who oversaw the orderly transfer of power

Frederik Willem – FW – de Klerk, who has died aged 85, was the last president of South Africa under apartheid. He was often compared with Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, for his work in consigning a bankrupt and reviled regime to oblivion.

When De Klerk succeeded PW Botha in 1989, he oversaw an event no less unexpected than the collapse of Soviet communism was when Gorbachev came to power in 1985. His stunning act of realpolitik in announcing sweeping political reform, including the release of his eventual successor, Nelson Mandela, was the grand gesture that saved his country, and in 1993 they shared the Nobel peace prize. The following year Mandela became the country’s first democratically elected leader.

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FW de Klerk, the last president of apartheid South Africa, dies aged 85

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Office issues posthumous video in which De Klerk apologies for ‘damage that apartheid has done’

South Africa’s last white president, FW de Klerk, who with Nelson Mandela oversaw the end of apartheid, has died in Cape Town aged 85, with his office issuing a prerecorded posthumous video apology for the country’s discriminatory system of white minority rule.

“I, without qualification, apologise for the pain and the hurt and the indignity and the damage that apartheid has done to Black, Brown and Indians in South Africa,” a gaunt De Klerk said in the recording.

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Boeing admits full responsibility for 737 Max plane crash in Ethiopia

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‘Significant milestone’ paves way for families of 157 victims of 2019 crash to seek compensation, say lawyers

Boeing has admitted full responsibility for the second crash of its 737 Max model in Ethiopia, in a legal agreement with families of the 157 victims.

Lawyers for the families said it was a “significant milestone” for families to achieve justice.

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Foreign citizens caught up in crackdown on Tigrayans in Ethiopia

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Americans and Britons among those detained as part of sweeping arrests critics say are based on ethnicity

American and British citizens have been swept up in Ethiopia’s mass detentions of ethnic Tigrayans under a new state of emergency in the country’s escalating war.

Thousands of Tigrayans in the capital, Addis Ababa, and across Africa’s second most populous country have already been detained amid fears of many more such detentions as authorities ordered landlords to register tenants’ identities with police. Men armed with sticks were seen on some streets as volunteer groups sought out Tigrayans to report them.

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Family of Kenyan woman allegedly murdered by UK soldier to sue MoD

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Agnes Wanjiru’s family instruct law firm to demand answers over her death

The family of a young Kenyan woman allegedly murdered by a British soldier almost a decade ago plans to sue the Ministry of Defence to demand answers over her death.

The body of Agnes Wanjiru, 21, was found in 2012 after she reportedly went out partying with British soldiers at the Lions Court hotel in the central town of Nanyuki, where the UK army has a permanent garrison.

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The young taxi bikers killed in Freetown’s fuel blast died trying to scrape a living | Jonah Lipton and James B Palmer

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Riders trying to get fuel from a leaking tanker were among 100 killed when it exploded. It’s part of a bigger story of the struggle for survival in Sierra Leone, a country exploited by rich nations

More than 100 people were killed by an explosion in Freetown, Sierra Leone, last week, after a leaking fuel tanker collided with a lorry on a busy road in the capital city.

Many of those who died were young motorbike taxi drivers, after dozens of riders rushed to the leaking tanker to collect free petrol and were caught in the blast. The tanker and lorry drivers tried to keep people away but could not stop the crowd. Half an hour later, it was too late.

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‘She did not deserve to die like this’: family seeks justice for Kenyan woman allegedly killed by UK soldier

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Reports that British soldier confessed to Kenyan woman’s murder in 2012 have deeply affected relatives in Nanyuki

A vibrant sisal plant in a public cemetery on the outskirts of Nanyuki in Kenya marks the grave of Agnes Wanjiru, the woman allegedly murdered by a British soldier in March 2012.

It is easy to miss the grave due to heavy undergrowth in the unkempt cemetery.

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A wealth of sorrow: why Nigeria’s abundant oil reserves are really a curse

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It is known as the resource curse: assets that should bring wealth and stability but instead lead to corruption and poverty. And for Nigeria, oil is the culprit

In Nigeria, oil has been more of a curse than a blessing. Weak institutions of state and poor governance in managing the vast revenues have led the country to fail to realise its full potential in a textbook example of what academics know as the “resource curse”.

First coined by Prof Richard Auty in 1994, the term refers to the inability of nations to use their windfall wealth to improve their population’s lot and bolster their economies. The rich natural resources bring corruption and poverty to a nation, rather than positive economic development and, counterintuitively, these countries end up with lower growth and development than those without natural resources.

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Malawian campaigner makes history as country’s first elected MP with albinism

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Overstone Kondowe’s election hailed as ‘giant step forward’ in continent where people with albinism face stigma and attacks


The first Malawian with albinism to become an elected MP took his seat in the new parliament on Monday, making history in the southern African country. It also marks a significant milestone in a continent where people with the hereditary lack of pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes face severe discrimination and physical attacks.

Overstone Kondowe, the 42-year-old son of a teacher, grew up in a village without any help to ease the pain in his sun-sensitive skin or glasses to aid his poor eyesight.

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Hit $100bn target or poor countries face climate disaster, the Gambia tells Cop26

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West African nation’s environment minister says richer countries must finally honour funding commitment made at Cop15 in 2009

Rich countries must hit their $100bn climate finance target in the last week of Cop26 or it will be catastrophic for the poorest nations suffering the most from the climate crisis, the Gambian environment minister has warned.

In an interview with the Guardian as he prepared to leave for Glasgow, Lamin B Dibba urged developed countries to finally honour the annual funding commitment that was made 12 years ago at the Copenhagen climate summit (Cop15) – but which has never been achieved.

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‘Like slave and master’: DRC miners toil for 30p an hour to fuel electric cars

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Congolese workers describe a system of abuse, precarious employment and paltry wages – all to power the green vehicle revolution

The names Tesla, Renault and Volvo mean nothing to Pierre*. He has never heard of an electric car. But as he heads out to work each morning in the bustling, dusty town of Fungurume, in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s southern mining belt, he is the first link in a supply chain that is fuelling the electric vehicle revolution and its promise of a decarbonised future.

Pierre is mining for cobalt, one of the world’s most sought-after minerals, and a key ingredient in the batteries that power most electric vehicles (EVs).

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