Category Archives: Africa

Thousands march in Algeria after controversial election result

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Ruling party hoped election of Abdelmadjid Tebboune as president would end months of instability

Huge crowds have massed in Algeria’s capital to protest against the election of a former loyalist of the deposed leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika as president in a widely boycotted poll.

Demonstrators who flooded central Algiers on Friday vowed to keep up their campaign for the total dismantling of the political establishment following Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s victory in Thursday’s election.

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Spike in Ebola cases alarms health officials in DRC

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Many cases blamed on a single individual who appears to have caught virus for second time

Health officials are investigating an alarming spike in Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with many blamed on a single individual who appears to have contracted the disease for a second time this year.

Amid the struggle to bring the 16-month outbreak under control, the World Health Organization noted an almost 300% increase in cases in the last three weeks, with 17 of 27 linked to a single chain of transmission.

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Sierra Leone ordered to revoke ban on pregnant schoolgirls

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Regional court ruling hailed as ‘landmark moment for thousands of girls’ who will no longer be forced to miss lessons and exams

Pregnant schoolgirls in Sierra Leone will no longer be banned from attending class or sitting exams, after a regional court ordered the immediate overturn of a “discriminatory” policy that has denied tens of thousands the right to finish their education.

In a ruling handed down in Nigeria on Thursday, a top regional court found that a 2015 directive barring pregnant girls from attending school amounted to discrimination and a violation of human rights.

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Mass boycott and police clashes as Algeria holds disputed election

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Low turnout reflects widespread disaffection with election pitting regime loyalists against each other

An opposition call for a mass boycott of presidential elections in Algeria appeared to have succeeded on Thursday, as polls shut after a day marked by mass demonstrations, police clashes and a wave of arrests.

The turnout in the election appeared to be around 20% – a victory for the country’s pro-democracy protest movement, which has derided the vote as a sham.

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Sudan will never prosper while it is on the US terrorism blacklist

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If Washington wants to be on the right side of history, it must open the way for Sudan to receive economic support

Over the past year, the Sudanese people have staged a near miraculous revolution, overthrowing the 30-year dictatorship of President Omar al-Bashir.

Following mediation led by the African Union and Ethiopia, a transitional government consisting of civilians and military generals is headed by Abdalla Hamdok, a veteran economist untainted by the decades of corruption and misrule. It is the best compromise: the army, and especially the paramilitary Rapid Support Force, are simply too powerful to be removed from politics in one fell swoop.

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Microfinance lenders in Sierra Leone accused of ‘payday loan’ interest rates

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Borrowers have accused NGOs of charging unfairly high interest, demanding rapid payback, and reporting debts to the police

The world’s largest NGO has been forced to conduct an internal review of a money-lending scheme it runs for the poor in Sierra Leone after some borrowers amassed significant debts and were reported to police when they couldn’t repay loans.

A Guardian investigation into a microfinance programme run by Brac found that the NGO’s staff were failing to fully explain the conditions of the loan to borrowers, or ensure they could afford the high interest rates associated with such loans.

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More than 70 soldiers feared killed in ambush in Niger

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Islamist extremists suspected of attack which underlines growing insecurity in region

More than 70 soldiers are thought to have been killed in an ambush by suspected Islamic militants at a military post in western Niger.

The strike in In-Atès near the border with Mali on Tuesday night underlines the growing insecurity in a wide belt of poor and anarchic territory in west Africa and, if the death toll is confirmed, is the deadliest on Niger’s forces in recent memory.

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First men go on trial under Nigeria’s anti-homosexuality laws

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All 47 men deny offence of same-sex displays of affection, which carries 10-year jail term

Forty-seven men went on trial in Nigeria on Wednesday for public displays of affection with members of the same sex, an offence that carries a 10-year jail term in the country.

The men were among 57 arrested in a police raid on a hotel in the impoverished Egbeda district of the commercial capital, Lagos, in 2018. They pleaded innocent at a hearing last month.

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China steps in as Zambia runs out of loan options

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Southern Africa’s third largest economy is a textbook example of the increasing debt facing a fast-growing continent

Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, was having a power cut, so the only light in the restaurant was from Fumba Chama’s mobile phone. The rapper, better known as PilAto, had just finished uploading a new track to Twitter. The bitter-sweet lyrics (in Bemba) of Yama Chinese describe the concerns of many Zambians: “They put on smart suits and fly to China to sell our country. The roads belong to China. The hotels are for the Chinese. The chicken farms are Chinese. Even the brickworks are Chinese.”

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It’s time to act against the oil companies causing death and destruction | John Sentamu

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Repentance, reparation and remedy for the terrible damage done to the people of Bayelsa state in Nigeria is long overdue

• John Sentamu is the archbishop of York

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins: “All human beings … should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” It is now widely acknowledged that human rights cannot be enjoyed without a safe, clean and healthy environment. The right to a healthy environment is enshrined in more than 100 constitutions all over the world because human and environmental rights are intertwined.

However, despite the endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, oil companies exploiting irreplaceable resources in the Niger Delta are callously flouting fundamental human rights. That is the conclusion I have been forced to draw from my work as chair of the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission (BSOEC).

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Harare’s heroine: how Esther Zinyoro made her home a maternity ward

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As a doctors’ and nurses’ strike paralyses Zimbabwe’s health system, one woman has delivered 100 babies in her flat

•Photographs by Cynthia R Matonhodze

Six expectant mothers groan through their labour pains in the lounge of a tiny two-roomed apartment in Mbare, Zimbabwe’s oldest township.

Sweating and visibly in pain, a heavily pregnant woman peeps through the window to catch a breath while others lie on the floor.

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Ebola responders face deadly attacks. We must step up security in DRC

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The devastating disease can’t be stopped unless more protection is provided for patients and health workers

Entering the city of Goma as night fell, I saw the red lava glowing atop nearby Mount Nyiragongo – an ominous reminder of the insecurity hovering over the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s volatile east.

But a manmade – not natural – terror is keeping health workers in DRC awake tonight.

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Protest movement likely to shun Algeria’s controversial election

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Opposition says this week’s poll cannot be seen as free or fair with ruling elite still in power

Millions of Algerians are to vote for a new president in a controversial poll likely to be shunned by the country’s mass protest movement, paving the way for future instability.

The Hirak opposition movement, which emerged this year from weekly demonstrations against the former French colony’s political establishment, has said the poll cannot be considered free or fair while the ruling elite, including the military, stay in power.

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Libya arms embargo being systematically violated by UN states

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Jordan, Turkey and UAE singled out for ‘routinely and blatantly’ supplying weapons

UN member states have systematically violated a Libyan arms embargo, according to a long-awaited UN report due to be published on Monday that will identify Jordan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates as the main culprits.

The report is expected to say these three countries “routinely and sometimes blatantly supplied weapons with little effort to disguise the source”. It is also likely to link the UAE to a bombing of a detention centre that has been described as a war crime.

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Botswana urged to abolish death penalty after latest execution

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Rights groups condemn hanging of Mooketsi Kgosibodiba and call on president to bring country into line with the rest of Africa

The new president of Botswana is facing pressure to abolish the country’s death penalty after last week’s surprise execution of a 44-year-old man for murder.

Mooketsi Kgosibodiba, a bricklayer, had been on death row since 2017 after strangling his employer in a row over stolen cement. Last week the government made the unexpected announcement that he had been hanged in Gaborone central prison.

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Nobel peace prize winner Abiy Ahmed embroiled in media row

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Officials say winner’s refusal to face public questioning is ‘highly problematic’

Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, has come under pressure to appear before the media in Oslo this week when he collects the Nobel peace prize on Tuesday.

Senior officials of the Norwegian Nobel Institute have said the 2019 winner’s refusal to attend any event where he could be asked questions publicly is “highly problematic”.

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Worst drought in a century shrinks Victoria Falls to a trickle – video

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Victoria Falls, on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia, has slowed down to a trickle after an unprecedented decline in water levels, officials have said. Data from the Zambezi River authority showed water flow at its lowest since 1995, and well under the long-term average. 

The Zambian president, Edgar Lungu, said it was a stark reminder of what climate change is doing to the environment, yet some scientists are cautious about categorically blaming the climate crisis. Harald Kling, a hydrologist at engineering firm Pöyry and a Zambezi River expert, said climate science dealt in decades, not particular years, 'so it’s sometimes difficult to say: this is because of climate change because droughts have always occurred'

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Victoria Falls dries to a trickle after worst drought in a century

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One of southern Africa’s biggest tourist attractions has seen an unprecedented decline this dry season, fuelling climate change fears

For decades Victoria Falls, where southern Africa’s Zambezi river cascades down 100 metres into a gash in the earth, have drawn millions of holidaymakers to Zimbabwe and Zambia for their stunning views.

But the worst drought in a century has slowed the waterfalls to a trickle, fuelling fears that climate change could kill one of the region’s biggest tourist attractions.

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UK judge dismisses torture charges against Charles Taylor’s ex-wife

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Agnes Taylor accused of offences that allegedly occurred during Liberian war

A judge in London has dismissed torture charges against the ex-wife of the former Liberian president Charles Taylor.

The university lecturer Agnes Taylor, 54, was charged in 2017 with a string of offences alleged to have taken place in 1990 during the west African country’s civil war.

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‘This place used to be green’: the brutal impact of oil in the Niger Delta

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Bayelsa state once offered rich pickings for farmers and fisherman. Then oil companies arrived and wrought an environmental catastrophe

• All photographs by Arteh Odjidja, whose work features in the exhibition Rise for Bayelsa, which runs in London until 20 December 2019

Almost every day, Udengs Eradiri is informed of another oil spill in Bayelsa state, in the Niger Delta. Most of the time, little or nothing is done to clean up the mess, says Eradiri, the state’s commissioner for the environment.

“You just need to take a tour to understand the magnitude of the environmental abuse,” he adds. “[Bayelsa] used to be green, you could go to farm or fish. We used to have very impressive harvests. You would spend just an hour in the water and you have a lot of fish.”

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