Category Archives: Africa

Sex traffickers left thousands of women to starve during Italy lockdown

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Revealed: Gangs abandoned trafficked Nigerian women without access to food or funds amid coronavirus pandemic

Thousands of Nigerian women forced into prostitution were left to starve by sex traffickers during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, the Guardian can reveal.

According to the UN’s International Office for Migration (IOM), more than 80% of the tens of thousands of Nigerian women who arrived in Italy from Libya in recent years were victims of highly organised sex trafficking gangs. The women are forced into prostitution to pay off debts of up to €40,000 (£36,000) and controlled through violence and fear of “juju” black magic rituals they are made to undergo before their journey to Europe.

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‘A drastic loss’: Satellite imagery reveals Mali’s farmers forced off land by militias

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Attacks by Islamist groups and rising ethnic tension in the Mopti region have led to life-threatening disruption to farming practices

A surge in fighting in central Mali has forced hundreds of villagers from farmland they depend on and could leave them without enough food to survive this year, according to a study of satellite imagery by the UN’s World Food Programme.

More than half the number of violent attacks by armed groups against Mali civilians last year were recorded in the Mopti region, largely targeting people who survive on land or livestock.

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At least 180 civilians killed in Burkina Faso town, says rights group

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Human Rights Watch suggests involvement of security forces in deaths over recent months

At least 180 civilians have been killed in recent months in a single town in Burkina Faso, with evidence pointing towards the country’s often-accused security forces, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Between November 2019 and June this year, groups of dozens of dead bodies were found often tied and blindfolded, strewn along major highways, beneath bridges and across fields in the rural region, the report published on Thursday said. Most of the bodies were buried by residents while the remains of others were left unclaimed.

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Zimbabwe health minister facing coronavirus corruption charge sacked

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Obadiah Moyo has been charged with criminal abuse of office over the alleged awarding of a $60m contract for Covid-19 supplies

A Zimbabwean health minister charged with corruption in connection with the awarding of a multimillion dollar contract for Covid-19 medical supplies has been fired by the president.

Obadiah Moyo was sacked by Emmerson Mnangagwa this week for inappropriate conduct by a public official.

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Group of rare Cross River gorillas caught on camera in Nigeria

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Conservationists hope first known camera-trap images of species are sign of resurgence

Rare images of a group belonging to one of the most endangered gorilla subspecies in the world suggest their numbers could be recovering after decades of persecution, conservationists in Nigeria have said.

Seven Cross River gorillas including infants of varying ages can be seen in the first known camera-trap images of the species, taken in the Mbe mountains in south-east Nigeria by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

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Kenya calls for help in fight against rising sexual abuse by foreigners

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Anti-trafficking organisations say widespread trust in white outsiders makes children an easy target for abusers from the west

Child protection organisations in Kenya say more needs to be done to protect young people from exploitation by overseas perpetrators, as the country reports a rising number of abuse cases.

The warning follows the arrest of Gregory Dow, a 61-year-old missionary, who last month pleaded guilty in a US court to sexually abusing girls at an orphanage he ran in Kenya.

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Darfur protesters call for action to end attacks on civilians by armed militias

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The peaceful sit-in taking place in Nertiti county is demanding an end to the violence and punishment for the perpetrators

Thousands of people have joined a sit-down protest in front of local authority buildings in Central Darfur demanding action against the armed groups that patrol the region.

A large number of women have joined the first peaceful demonstration – now in its second week – in Nertiti county since war erupted in 2003.

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Why are the UK and US still downplaying the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda? | Linda Melvern

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Decades after the 1994 genocide, the countries have contested the wording of a UN resolution to remember its victims

As the bodies piled up in the streets of Rwanda 26 years ago, no amount of spin could disguise the crime. There were no sealed camps; the massacres were in broad daylight. Yet in the UN security council the UK and US governments avoided the question of mass killing and saw only a civil war.

This bolstered arguments that nothing – they thought – could be done. It was scandalous, the Czech Republic’s ambassador Karel Kovanda told them, not to recognise that a genocide reminiscent of the Nazi Holocaust was under way. Kovanda remembers a friendly arm taking him aside as UK diplomats told him such inflammatory language outside the council would be “unhelpful”.

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Zimbabwe spends millions on officials’ luxury cars as country goes hungry

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Diplomatic staff given Range Rovers while ordinary people struggle amid inflation of 785%

The government of Zimbabwe has spent millions of dollars on luxury cars for senior officials despite a deepening economic collapse that has plunged its people into profound hardship.

The new cars, including dozens of Range Rovers and Toyota pick-up trucks worth more than $40,000, were distributed to ambassadors and senior civil servants. Analysts say the move constitutes a new effort to shore up support for the government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took power after the military coup that ousted Robert Mugabe in 2017.

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Have a heart, KitKat, don’t break with Fairtrade

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Nestlé is big in York, but the city is fighting the brand’s decision to make life harder for African cocoa farmers

Here’s a quiz question: how many KitKats are produced in the Nestlé factory in York each year? A hundred million? Keep going. The plant makes a billion of the UK’s bestselling chocolate bars annually. That volume is one reason that the company’s shameful decision to end the brand’s Fairtrade certification will have such a devastating effect on cocoa farmers.

I visited some of the Fairtrade-certified cocoa farms in Ivory Coast last year. Seeing the difference that a measure of financial security can make to some of the poorest villages on earth is a lasting lesson in the mechanics of hope.

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166 die during protests after shooting of Ethiopian pop star

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Haacaaluu Hundeessaa was shot dead in Addis Ababa on Monday night, fuelling ethnic tensions

At least 166 people have died during violent demonstrations that roiled Ethiopia in the days following the murder of popular singer Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, police said Saturday.

Pop star Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, a member of the Oromo ethnic group, Ethiopia’s largest, was shot dead by unknown attackers in Addis Ababa on Monday night, fuelling ethnic tensions threatening the country’s democratic transition.

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Heatwaves have become longer in most of the world since 1950s – study

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Frequency of heatwaves and cumulative intensity has risen through the decades, research finds

Heatwaves have increased in both length and frequency in nearly every part of the world since the 1950s, according to what is described as the first study to look at the issue at a regional level.

The study found the escalation in heatwaves varied around the planet, with the Amazon, north-eastern Brazil, west Asia (including parts of the subcontinent and central Asia) and the Mediterranean all experiencing more rapid change than, for example, southern Australia and north Asia. The only inhabited region where there was not a trend was in the central United States.

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Dry tropical forests may be more at risk than wet rainforests, study says

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Areas with a drier climate have seen greater loss of biodiversity from global warming

Dry tropical forests are more vulnerable to the impacts of global heating than had been thought, according to new research, with wildlife and plants at severe risk of harm from human impacts.

Some tropical forests are very wet, but others thrive in a drier climate and scientists had thought these drier forests would be better adapted to drought, and therefore more able to cope with the effects of the climate crisis.

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Refugee victims of Tajoura bombing still lie in unmarked graves one year on

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Coronavirus thwarts plan by survivors to light candles for dozens of detainees who died in airstrike on detention centre during Tripoli fighting

One year on from the migrant detention centre bombing in Tajoura, eastern Tripoli, dozens of refugees and migrants who died have never been formally identified.

At least 53 people were killed and 130 injured on the night of 2 July 2019, according to the UN, after an airstrike by a foreign aircraft supporting eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar’s forces hit a hall where migrants and refugees were locked up.

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$10bn of precious metals dumped each year in electronic waste, says UN

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A fast growing mountain of toxic e-waste is polluting the planet and damaging health, says new report

At least $10bn (£7.9bn) worth of gold, platinum and other precious metals are dumped every year in the growing mountain of electronic waste that is polluting the planet, according to a new UN report.

A record 54m tonnes of “e-waste” was generated worldwide in 2019, up 21% in five years, the UN’s Global E-waste Monitor report found. The 2019 figure is equivalent to 7.3kg for every man, woman and child on Earth, though use is concentrated in richer nations. The amount of e-waste is rising three times faster than the world’s population, and only 17% of it was recycled in 2019.

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‘It’s eating me up inside’: killing of Ethiopian musician sparks deadly protests

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Troops were deployed in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, ahead of the funeral of the popular musician Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, who was shot dead in a targeted killing earlier this week.

His death sparked protests that have spread from Addis Ababa to the surrounding Oromiya region and claimed more than 80 lives.

The singer's killing tapped into grievances fuelled by decades of government repression and what the Oromo, Ethiopia's biggest ethnic group, describe as their historic exclusion from political power

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Matsepo Ramakoae and Lesotho’s lost chance to elect its first female leader

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After the resignation of Thomas Thabane the small south African nation could have addressed its huge political gender imbalance. What happened?

Lesotho, a tiny mountain kingdom in southern Africa, has always been dwarfed in size and achievements by its neighbour South Africa.

Many people around the world were not even aware of Lesotho’s existence until the beginning of this year when then prime minister Thomas Thabane and his third wife, Maesaiah Thabane, were accused of murdering Thabane’s estranged second wife, Lipolelo, in 2017.

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‘I saw so much killing’: the mental health crisis of South Sudan refugees

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Therapy is helping some of the thousands forced over the border to Uganda to cope, but funding shortfalls mean resources are becoming scarcer

As darkness fell, Rebecca closed the door to her makeshift home. The day was over.

The 29-year-old, who had been uprooted from South Sudan to a north Ugandan refugee settlement, sat on the bed where her four children slept and, at around 10pm, tried to take her own life. “By then I didn’t care about anything – not myself, not even my kids. The pain was too extreme,” she says. Her children awoke and their cries brought help from neighbours.

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