Two women took Harare authorities to court to force them to reopen 42 maternity clinics
In agonising labour pain and turned away from a Harare health centre, Aurage Katume feared that, like many other Zimbabwean women, she could lose her unborn baby.
She struggled to another clinic in the country’s capital. The midwives there were not ready to help her either.
Continue reading...Arrest of Félicien Kabuga in Paris has energised search for others accused of playing role in 1994 genocide
No one paid much attention to the stooped old man who lived in the third-floor apartment of the comfortable but unexceptional block in Asnières-sur-Seine, a suburb on the outskirts of Paris. He shuffled off for his daily walks, and muttered inaudibly to those who greeted him.
Then one morning in late May, 84-year-old Félicien Kabuga’s neighbours woke up to the startling news that they had been living next to an alleged mass killer.
Continue reading...Chair of Chadema party arrested on terrorism charges before planned protests
Authorities in Tanzania have launched a wide-ranging crackdown on opposition parties, days after the country’s controversial leader, John Magufuli, was declared the winner of last week’s contested election.
Police detained Freeman Mbowe, the chairman of the Chadema party, on Monday, along with other senior party officials before planned protests against what the opposition claim was widespread electoral fraud.
Continue reading...The country should be rich, but millions live in dire poverty. France must stop supporting the president and his electoral ploys
On 6 December, Africa’s oldest serving leader, Paul Biya, and his ruling party, Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC), will be declared the winner of the country’s first ever regional elections.
That much is clear, and is expected inside and outside of the west African country – Biya has misruled with an iron fist for nearly 40 years. But the question we should be asking, but as yet have not, is what this means for Cameroon’s 25 million people. In my view the answer is more poverty, more violence, more corruption and more suffering. This should compel us all to act.
Continue reading...Gender equality, postnatal depression and transatlantic migration are all tackled in quest for international audiences
Once Nollywood might have meant films that were low budget and high drama and aimed mostly at a west African audience. But Nigerian cinema has evolved and this year a slew of new film-makers are tackling grittier subjects – and winning international acclaim.
A roster of screenings at autumn’s Film Africa festival in London reveal directors unafraid to look at issues such as gender equality, postnatal depression and transatlantic migration.
Continue reading...The drowning of a family of five in the Channel and a fire on a ship off the coast of Senegal should prompt action – ‘thoughts and prayers’ are not enough
“We don’t see migration as a problem at all: we see people dying at sea as a problem and the existence of the mafias as a problem.” Such was the view expressed last week by Hana Jalloul, secretary of state for migration in Spain. Days earlier, more than 140 people had died off the coast of Senegal, after their ship caught fire and capsized, in the deadliest shipwreck recorded this year. Ms Jalloul spoke of efforts to support the regional government of the Canary Islands, which is struggling to cope with the number of arrivals, and stressed her determination to combat organised crime. She also pointed to migrants’ crucial role in Spanish life, including as care workers during the pandemic.
British politicians could profit from studying her example in the aftermath of the drowning of a family of four Kurdish Iranians in the Channel. (A fifth member of the same family, aged 15 months, is missing and presumed dead.) Reports of the deaths of Rasul Iran Nezhad, Shiva Mohammad Panahi and their children drew forth platitudes from the home secretary, Priti Patel, about “thoughts and prayers”. But nothing said by her or Boris Johnson did anything to dispel the impression that their attitude to people trying to reach the UK to seek asylum is chiefly antagonistic. While Ms Patel repeated her opposition to “callous criminals exploiting vulnerable people”, there was no serious attempt to sympathise with the migrants’ desperation – or acknowledge that their reliance on smugglers is a matter not of accident but of political choice.
Continue reading...Operation believed to have killed several captors of Philip Walton, 27, taken captive on Tuesday in Niger
US special forces rescued an American citizen in an operation on Saturday in northern Nigeria that is believed to have killed several of his captors, US officials said.
Forces including US navy Seals rescued Philip Walton, 27, who was abducted on Tuesday from his home in neighboring southern Niger, two US officials said on condition of anonymity, adding that no US troops were hurt. A diplomatic source in Niger said Walton was now at the US ambassador’s residence in Niamey.
Continue reading...His books were a hit long before he took office, and some Christians see his presidency as a blessing
The pursed, stony expression is familiar in Peter Odoakang’s striking oil painting of Donald Trump, but not the outfit. The US president is portrayed wearing a wine- and peach-coloured agbada and cap, traditional Yoruba attire, fitting him into the mould of a south-western Nigerian leader or “big man”, as Odoakang says.
“People see him in agbada and say wow, it fits him. People really laugh about it and react to it,” says Odoakang, 23, of the portrait commissioned by a company in Lagos, which he says brings Trump’s “personality into our setting”.
Continue reading...Opposition dismisses John Magufuli’s landslide victory as a ‘travesty’
Tanzania’s president John Magufuli has won re-election, the national electoral commission said on Friday, after a contest that has been dismissed by the opposition as a “travesty” due to widespread irregularities.
Magufuli received 12.5m votes in Wednesday’s presidential ballot, while his main challenger, Tundu Lissu of the Chadema party, received 1.9m votes, the commission said.
Continue reading...Tunisian Brahim Aouissaoui, 21, gave no indication he was contemplating violence
The 21-year-old Tunisian man who is accused of using a kitchen knife to kill three people in a church in Nice spoke to his family 12 hours before the attack, giving no indication he was contemplating violence.
Brahim Aouissaoui grew up among eight sisters and two brothers in a modest home on a potholed road in Thina, a working-class neighbourhood in an industrial zone close to Sfax, a major port on Tunisia’s eastern coast.
Continue reading...Scientists find several living specimens of Voeltzkow’s chameleon during expedition
Scientists have found an elusive chameleon species that was last spotted in Madagascar 100 years ago.
Researchers from Madagascar and Germany said on Friday they had discovered several living specimens of Voeltzkow’s chameleon during an expedition to the north-west of the African island nation.
Continue reading...Nigerians arrested after SBS stormed Nave Andromeda are still detained by Border Force
Seven Nigerian men detained after British special services stormed an oil tanker off the Isle of Wight have been bailed, police have said.
The raid was carried out by around 16 members of the Special Boat Service (SBS), backed by airborne snipers, who secured the Nave Andromeda tanker in around nine minutes.
Continue reading...Twenty years after a landmark UN resolution, leading figures share insight on women’s vital role in mediating conflict
In October 2000, the UN security council adopted resolution 1325 – the first resolution that acknowledged women’s unique experience of conflict and their vital role in peace negotiations and peacebuilding. Twenty years on, we speak to four women helping keep the peace around the world.
Continue reading...Arriving as a teenager, Ola Osaze was shocked by how the US treats Black LGBTQ+ migrants. Today he fights for their rights amid an international uprising
When Ola Osaze left Nigeria at age 15, one of his first sights in America was a sign at the Greensboro, North Carolina, airport.
“Beware of Nigerian drug smugglers.”
Continue reading...Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth will be released this year, with the 86-year-old author also planning fresh theatre work after ‘continuous writing’ in lockdown
Wole Soyinka has used his time in lockdown to write his first novel in almost 50 years.
The Nigerian playwright and poet, who became the first African to win the Nobel prize for literature in 1986, published his widely celebrated debut novel, The Interpreters, in 1965. His second and most recent novel, Season of Anomy, was released in 1973.
Continue reading...As the search for water in Bulawayo becomes more desperate, diarrhoea outbreaks from dirty water are endangering children
It is 6am on a Saturday and residents of Sizinda, a poor suburb in Bulawayo, have begun their desperate hunt for water. The taps at home dried up three months ago.
Water has become a daily struggle in Zimbabwe’s second biggest city, largely the result of a severe drought last year which has dried up the reservoirs. The poor rains expected this year will bring more hardship.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s West Africa correspondent Emmanuel Akinwotu reports from the protests against the special anti-robbery squad (Sars), which have swept Nigeria and gained international support. For years, the police unit has been plagued with allegations of extrajudicial killings and abuse
The Guardian’s West Africa correspondent Emmanuel Akinwotu tells Rachel Humphreys about the wave of protests which have erupted across Nigeria and captured global attention. The cries for change in Nigeria, largely from a younger generation, have centred around calls for an end to the notorious special anti-robbery squad (Sars), a police unit who have long been accused of extrajudicial killings, torture and extortion.
Last week, according to witnesses, dozens of soldiers disembarked from at least four trucks flanked by police officers and approached the scene of a major protest site where more than a thousand people had taken over a toll gate in Lekki, a large district in Lagos Island. Amnesty International said at least 12 people were killed by soldiers and police in the shootings which left many in Nigeria and across the world reeling. The visibility of the carnage, which has since been widely described as the “Lekki Massacre”, has fuelled outrage at the Nigerian government and security forces for clamping down on one of the most striking protest movements in decades in Nigeria. In an effort to quell unrest, the government announced the unit would be disbanded, and promised a host of reforms. But many demonstrators are sceptical of government promises without clearly specified timeframes.
Continue reading...Poor quality of used vehicles exported from the US, Europe and Japan are hindering efforts to mitigate climate breakdown, says UN
Millions of used motor vehicles exported from the US, Europe and Japan to developing countries are of poor quality and are contributing significantly to air pollution, according a new UN report.
About 80% of the 14m used light-duty vehicles – saloon cars, SUVs and minibuses – exported between 2015 and 2018 went to low and middle-income countries. About 40% went to Africa, found the report, published by the UN Environment Programme (Unep).
Continue reading...Opposition and rights groups criticise John Magufuli, who looks on course for second term
Opposition leaders in Tanzania have accused the government of undermining democracy and curtailing fundamental freedoms on the eve of elections in which John Magufuli, one of Africa’s most controversial leaders, could win a second term as president.
Magufuli, whose forthright style has earned him the nickname “the bulldozer”, won praise when he came to power in 2015 for his high-profile efforts to crack down on corruption and government spending, but he has since been accused of mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic and repression of dissent.
Continue reading...Doctors say cases and dozens of deaths from the disease have occurred since August floods, with cases of malaria and cholera also on the rise
An outbreak of Rift Valley fever has killed dozens of people and infected more than 1,000 in Sudan’s Northern state, according to local doctors.
Doctors told the Guardian the disease has spread across the towns of Merowe, Al Dabbah and Karima, mainly among cattle herders.
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