Category Archives: Africa

‘They have killed us more than corona’: Kenyans protest against police brutality

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Peaceful demonstration in Nairobi a response to increase in violence and killings during the coronavirus curfew

Photographs by Ed Ram

A crowd of up to 200 people peacefully marched through Mathare slum in Nairobi on Monday to protest against police brutality and an increase in extrajudicial killings in the Kenyan capital.

The march was organised by three grassroots organisations from the area in response to a rise in the number of police killings since a dusk-till-dawn curfew was enforced in March to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. It was also organised to show solidarity with movements worldwide to protest against police brutality. 

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‘We feel like prisoners’: the Moroccans stuck in Spanish enclaves during lockdown

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More than 500 Moroccans remain in limbo, far from home and with few resources to support themselves

On 14 March, Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, ordered the country into Covid-19 lockdown, saying “extraordinary decisions” needed to be taken as the country struggled with a “health, social and economic crisis”.

The Moroccan authorities had taken their own extraordinary decision the day before, when they ordered the shutdown of the border crossings that connect the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla with the rest of the country. With the only land borders between Africa and Europe closed, many citizens from both continents found themselves trapped.

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South Africa may hold the answer to who murdered Olof Palme

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The trail for the killer of the Swedish prime minister had gone cold until a diplomat picked up the 1986 case as a hobby

Dag Hammarskjöld brought me to Olof Palme. Two Swedish leaders, both supporting small nations on the world scene, both of whom refused to be controlled by global superpowers; both died a violent death. Were they also victims of the same forces?

For 11 years I investigated the mysterious aeroplane crash that killed the former UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld, a a project that became the subject of the documentary Cold Case Hammarskjöld.

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‘Rolling emergency’ of locust swarms decimating Africa, Asia and Middle East

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Unseasonal rains have allowed desert pests to breed rapidly and spread across vast distances leaving devastation in their wake

Locust swarms threaten a “rolling emergency” that could endanger harvests and food security across parts of Africa and Asia for the rest of the year, experts warn.

An initial infestation of locusts in December was expected to die out during the current dry season. But unseasonal rains have allowed several generations of locust to breed, resulting in new swarms forming.

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Egyptian president announces plan for ceasefire in Libya

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Sisi’s initiative includes peace talks in Geneva and is backed by rebel general Khalifa Haftar

Egypt’s president has announced an initiative to end nearly a decade of civil war in Libya, backed by the main commander in the oil-rich country’s east, whose siege of the capital, Tripoli collapsed this week.

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said a ceasefire will start on Monday and is meant to pave the way for elections. He called for peace talks in Geneva and the exit of all foreign fighters from Libya.

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French forces kill al-Qaida’s north Africa chief in Mali

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Abdelmalek Droukdel was one of the Maghreb’s most experienced Islamist militants

French forces in northern Mali have killed al-Qaida’s north Africa (AQMI) chief, a key Islamist fighter whom its forces had been hunting for more than seven years.

“On 3 June, French army forces with the support of their local partners, killed al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’s emir, Abdelmalek Droukdel, and several of his closest collaborators, during an operation in northern Mali,” the French armed forces minister, Florence Parly, wrote on Twitter on Friday.

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Malawi factories ordered to close after ignoring plastics ban

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Activists welcome move but say government is still dragging its feet over crackdown on waste in lakes and waterways

The Malawian government this week ordered the closure of factories belonging to two major plastic producers for flouting the country’s plastics ban.

The companies – OG plastics and City Plastics – were found to still be manufacturing thin plastics, often used to make plastic bags, despite a ruling last year that banned its production, import and use.

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Egyptian father to stand trial on charges of forced FGM of three daughters

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Girls were allegedly told they were to have Covid-19 vaccinations but were cut by doctor after being sedated

Egypt’s public prosecutor has ordered the immediate trial of a father on charges of forcing his three young daughters to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), after he told them they were going to be vaccinated against coronavirus. The doctor involved will also go on trial.

The procedure was banned in 2008 and criminalised in 2016.

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Zimbabwe accuses MDC activists of made up state torture claims

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Women arrested in May went missing for two days before reappearing badly injured

Zimbabwe’s government has accused two opposition activists and an MP who described torture, humiliation and repeated sexual assaults after being abducted by suspected state security services of inventing the entire episode.

The three women, all leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change’s youth section, were arrested at a roadblock guarded by police and soldiers last month at a protest in Harare against the state’s failure to provide for the poor during the country’s Covid-19 lockdown last month.

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Facebook deactivates accounts of Tunisian political bloggers and activists

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Several accounts reactivated after protests with social media giant blaming ‘technical error’

The Facebook accounts of several high-profile bloggers and activists in Tunisia were among those deactivated without warning over the weekend.

Up to 60 accounts are understood to have been deactivated, including that of journalist and political commentator Haythem El Mekki.

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The Gambia demands US investigation into police killing of citizen in Atlanta

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Shooting of Lamin Sisay, son of former UN diplomat, last week prompts outrage as family and friends reject police version of events

The Gambia has demanded the US investigate the police killing one of its citizens, a former UN diplomat’s son.

The shooting of Lamin Sisay, 39, in Atlanta last week prompted anger in the Gambian community, who have described it as another example of the police brutality against black Americans that has prompted country-wide protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

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Coronavirus live news: India evacuates Covid-19 patients ahead of cyclone as Brazil deaths pass 30,000

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Yemen aid funding falls short by US$1bn; Zoom profits double; global cases pass 6.3m. Follow the latest updates

China reported one new coronavirus case and four new asymptomatic Covid-19 cases in the mainland on 2 June, the country’s health commission said.

The National Health Commission said the one confirmed case was imported involving a traveller from overseas. Mainland China had five confirmed cases, all of which were imported, and 10 asymptomatic cases for 1 June.

China does not count asymptomatic patients, those who are infected with the coronavirus but not exhibiting symptoms, as confirmed cases.

Total number of infections to date in the mainland stands at 83,021. The death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.

Dan Collyns brings you this action-packed update from Bolivia:

“Thanos is beating us” warned a Bolivian government minister in a live televised press conference on Monday as he called for his compatriots to comply with sanitary measures and lockdown restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Mientras tanto, en bolivia pic.twitter.com/5VPR4sDoX3

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Brazil poised to overtake Italy as country with third-highest death toll – as it happened

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Sweden death rate now higher than France; Pakistan records largest single day rise in new infections; global deaths pass 380,000. This blog is now closed

We’ve launched a new blog at the link below:

Related: Coronavirus live news: Germany reveals major stimulus plan as global cases grow by 100,000 a day

At least three people were reported dead as coronavirus-hit Mumbai appeared to escape the worst of Cyclone Nisarga Wednesday, the first severe storm to threaten India’s financial capital in more than 70 years, AFP reports.

The city and its surrounds are usually sheltered from cyclones - the last deadly storm to hit the city was in 1948. Authorities had evacuated at least 100,000 people, including coronavirus patients, from flood-prone areas in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat ahead of Nisarga’s arrival.

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Six elephants killed in one day by poachers in Ethiopia

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The deaths in Mago National Park are unprecedented, say officials

Poachers have killed at least six elephants in a single day in Ethiopia, wildlife officials said on Tuesday, the largest such slaughter in memory in the east African nation.

The elephants died last week, when they ventured out of the Mago National Park in the far south of Ethiopia to drink water, Ganabul Bulmi, the park’s chief warden, told reporters.

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Rape and murder of student in church sparks outrage across Nigeria

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Brutality of 22-year-old Vera Uwaila Omozuwa’s killing has shocked the country amid a chorus of demands for justice

Vera Uwaila Omozuwa, a 22-year-old microbiology student, sought the quiet of her empty church in Benin City, southern Nigeria, as a place to study. Hours later she was raped and killed in a crime that has sparked outrage across Nigeria. 

Last Wednesday evening, a church security guard found Uwa, as she is known, unconscious in a pool of blood, according to her family.

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‘The water will come back’: why Kenya’s struggle against flooding is far from over

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Record-breaking rainfall has devastated communities – and with thousands displaced and more rain predicted the picture is bleak

Using a short piece of nylon line with a hook at one end and a long thin stick on the other, a mechanic and a nightclub doorman have only caught one small fish all day.

“I’ve never been a fisherman before,” says Erick Ochieng on the edge of a flooded creek in the port city of Kisumu on the banks of Lake Victoria. “I used to work as a bouncer but nightclubs have closed. Sometimes my family sleeps without eating.”

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‘Many girls have been cut’: how global school closures left children at risk

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Covid-19 lockdown made children vulnerable to abuses including FGM and child marriage say NGOs, as schools in England prepare to reopen

Covid-19 school closures have exposed children around the world to human rights abuses such as forced genital mutilation, early marriage and sexual violence, child protection experts say.

Globally, the World Bank estimates that 1.6 billion children were locked out of education by Covid-19. As schools in England and around the world prepare to reopen this week, NGOs warn that millions of the world’s most vulnerable children may never return to the classroom, and say that after decades fighting for girls’ education the pandemic could cause gender equality in education to be set back decades.

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‘Men don’t trust we’re strong enough’: Somali women push into fish industry

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Selling fish has enabled some to quadruple their usual earnings but sexist attitudes are harder to overcome

Every morning before sunrise, when most residents in the southern coastal city of Kismayo are asleep, Fardowsa Mohamed Ahmed, 32, goes to the beach to purchase fresh fish, which she will sell in the market.

Like most women in this business, she depends on men to catch the fish. Men dominate the fishing sector. It is considered “men’s work” in Somali society. But Ahmed is determined to push her way in.

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Wars without end: why is there no peaceful solution to so much global conflict?

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A new study shows that 60% of the world’s wars have lasted for at least a decade. From Afghanistan to Libya, Syria to Congo DRC, has endless conflict become normalised?

Libya’s civil war entered its 7th year this month with no end in sight. In Afghanistan, conflict has raged on and off since the Soviet invasion in 1979. America’s Afghan war is now its longest ever, part of the open-ended US “global war on terror” launched after the 2001 al-Qaida attacks.

Yemen’s conflict is in its sixth pitiless year. In Israel-Palestine, war – or rather the absence of peace – has characterised life since 1948. Somalis have endured 40 years of fighting. These are but a few examples in a world where the idea of war without end seems to have become accepted, even normalised.

Why do present-day politicians, generals, governments and international organisations appear incapable or uninterested in making peace? In the 19th and 20th centuries, broadly speaking, wars commenced and concluded with formal ultimatums, declarations, agreed protocols, truces, armistices and treaties.

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