Category Archives: Africa

Refugee shot in eye during deadly 2014 crossing into Spain files complaint to UN

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Survivor of Ceuta incident that ended with 14 deaths asks why use of anti-riot equipment was never investigated

A refugee who was almost blinded in one eye during a police operation that ended with the deaths of at least 14 people off the coast of Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta 11 years ago has filed a complaint to the UN Committee Against Torture.

Shortly before dawn on 6 February 2014, about 200 people tried to enter Ceuta by climbing the border fence or by swimming around the breakwater that separates the city from Moroccan territory.

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Flies in hospital wards may be spreading drug-resistant bacteria to patients

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Scientists in Nigeria found the insects carry infections resistant to last-resort antibiotics, adding to fears about superbugs

Flies buzzing between beds may be spreading drug-resistant bugs among patients in hospitals, according to new research.

Researchers from the Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research (IOI) found that houseflies in Nigerian hospitals carry bacteria resistant to some key antibiotics, including those used only as a last resort.

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Mauritian PM expects ‘speedy resolution’ with UK over Chagos Islands

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Navin Ramgoolam says Keir Starmer expressed confidence about finalising agreement within weeks

Downing Street has refused to comment on the prospect of an imminent deal over the Chagos Islands, after the Mauritian prime minister said Keir Starmer had told him he was confident about finalising an agreement in the coming weeks.

An interim deal on returning sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which would maintain the key UK-US military base on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia, was agreed last year, building on work that began under the Conservative government.

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Trump says he will cut off funding to South Africa over land ‘confiscations’

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Cyril Ramaphosa’s government ‘treating certain classes of people very badly’, says Trump, calling for investigation

Donald Trump has claimed South Africa is “confiscating” land and “treating certain classes of people very badly”, announcing he is cutting off all future funding to the country pending an investigation.

The US president’s intervention into one of South Africa’s most divisive issues was rebutted by the country’s government and criticised by groups across its political spectrum.

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Pressure grows on EU to freeze minerals deal with Rwanda over DRC fighting

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Belgium leads calls for suspension of agreement after Rwanda-backed rebels captured city of Goma

The EU is under mounting pressure to suspend a controversial minerals deal with Rwanda that has been blamed for fuelling the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Calls to freeze the agreement have grown after fighters from the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group captured the city of Goma in the eastern DRC, escalating a decades-old conflict and raising fears of a regional war.

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Trump aid spending freeze halts leading malaria vaccine programme

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Global collaboration with US researchers likely to be set back by years, including on spread of drug-resistant HIV

A flagship programme to create malaria vaccines has been halted by the Trump administration, in just one example of a rippling disruption to health research around the globe since the new US president took power.

The USAid Malaria Vaccine Development Program (MVDP) – which works to prevent child deaths by creating more effective second-generation vaccines – funds research by teams collaborating across institutes, including the US university Johns Hopkins and the UK’s University of Oxford.

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At least 770 killed in Goma, east DRC, in fighting with Rwanda-backed M23

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Rebels had captured the city in January in major escalation of 10-year-old conflict

At least 773 people were killed in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s largest city of Goma and its vicinity this week amid fighting with Rwanda-backed rebels who captured the city in a major escalation of a decade-long conflict, Congolese authorities have said.

The rebels’ advance into other areas was slowed by a weakened military that recovered some villages from them.

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Dozens killed as opposition RSF forces attack open market in Sudan

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Assault by the Rapid Support Forces in city of Omdurman also leaves more than 150 people wounded

Fighters with the opposition Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have attacked an open market in the Sudanese city of Omdurman, killing 54 people.

The attack on Sabrein market also wounded at least 158 others, Sudan’s health ministry said.

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British-Egyptian dissident mulls giving up citizenship over failure to be released

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Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s family reveal letters showing his despair after initial hopes David Lammy could get him freed from Cairo jail

Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian political dissident held in a Cairo jail for more than five years, has reached such a state of despair over the UK’s inability to secure his release that he has contemplated renouncing both his British and Egyptian citizenship, his letters reveal.

His family have given permission for some of his private letters to be published to show his situation and his concern for his 68-year-old mother, Laila Soueif, on hunger strike seeking his release.

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Lammy tells Rwanda it is putting $1bn in aid ‘under threat’ in DRC invasion

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UK foreign secretary issues direct warning during phone call with Rwandan president after escalation of conflict

Rwanda has put $1bn of global aid under threat by taking part in the invasion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, has said.

He made the direct warning in a phone call to the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, on Sunday after also speaking to the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, about the crisis.

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Fighting between DRC army and M23 rebels rages in eastern city of Goma

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At least 100 people killed and 1,000 wounded in three days of heavy fighting in North Kivu

Dead bodies lay on the streets and explosions and gunfire echoed across the largest city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Tuesday, as fighting continued to rage between the army and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.

Residents reported continuing gun and mortar fire in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province and a regional humanitarian hub for displaced people, after M23 fighters entered the city on Sunday.

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Giorgia Meloni says she is under investigation for repatriation of Libyan warlord

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Rome prosecutor launches investigation into controversial release of Osama Najim, who is wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes

Giorgia Meloni has said she is under investigation in connection with Italy’s unexpected release and repatriation last week of a Libyan general who is wanted for war crimes by the international criminal court.

The Italian prime minister said in a video message posted on social media that she is suspected of aiding and abetting a crime and embezzlement in connection with the case of Libya’s chief of judicial police, Osama Najim – also called Almasri.

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Italy sends 49 refugees to Albania in bid to resume disputed scheme

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Latest push to process migrants in Balkan country despite court challenge comes amid increase in boat arrivals

Italy has transported 49 people to Albania, in the latest push by Giorgia Meloni’s government to enforce a legally disputed plan to have asylum claims processed in the Balkan country as part of a hardline policy critics have called “disgraceful”.

The Italian navy ship Cassiopeia arrived at Shëngjin port on Tuesday morning carrying passengers intercepted on Saturday in the Mediterranean south of the island of Lampedusa. They will be identified and have a health check before being transferred to a detention centre in Gjadër, about 12 miles away.

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ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants over atrocities in Darfur

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Karim Khan says civilians being targeted and communities destroyed in western region of Sudan

The prosecutor for the international criminal court has said he is seeking arrest warrants for people accused of atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region, where the US and others have determined that a paramilitary group and its allies have perpetrated genocide.

Karim Khan told the UN security council in New York: “Criminality is accelerating in Darfur. Civilians are being targeted, women and girls are subjected to sexual violence, and entire communities are left in destruction.

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France seeks UN resolution naming Rwanda as backer of M23 rebels in DRC

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M23’s lightning advance into east DRC being supported by up to 4,000 Rwandan troops, say UN officials

France is seeking western support for a UN security council resolution that names Rwanda as being behind the M23 rebel group attacks inside the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including the surprise weekend seizure of parts of Goma, the largest city in eastern DRC.

UN officials said as many as 4,000 Rwandan troops were escorting the M23 rebels. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, on Sunday called on “the Rwandan defence forces to stop supporting the M23 and to withdraw from the territory of the DRC”. It was his clearest statement of Rwandan responsibility for much of the violence.

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One of Europe’s most-wanted drug traffickers living in Sierra Leone, say Dutch prosecutors

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Jos Leijdekkers, reportedly the son-in-law of African country’s president, was sentenced to 24 years in prison

One of Europe’s most wanted men, the Dutch crime boss Jos Leijdekkers, is hiding out in Sierra Leone, Dutch prosecutors have said.

The statement came after Dutch media published footage that appeared to show the violent drug trafficker at a New Year’s Day church service seated close to Sierra Leone’s presidential family. Sierra Leone’s information office said it was investigating reports that he was benefiting from high-level protection.

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Refugee’s justice hopes ‘crushed’ after Italy releases Libya war crimes suspect

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David Yambio says Rome ‘has blood on its hands’ after freeing police chief he alleges beat him in Tripoli prison

A man who says he experienced abuses at a notorious prison in Tripoli at the hands of the head of Libya’s judicial police, Osama Najim, has said Italy has “crushed” his hopes for justice by releasing the war crimes suspect despite an international criminal court arrest warrant.

David Yambio was held at Mitiga prison in Tripoli after several attempts to cross the Mediterranean in search of refuge in Europe were thwarted by Libya’s coastguard as part of a controversial pact with Italy.

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Rwandan-backed rebels M23 claim capture of eastern DRC city Goma

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Fighters enter city on border with Rwanda after lightning advance, raising risk of broader regional war

Fighters from the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group claim to have taken the eastern city of Goma after a lightning advance in recent weeks that has forced thousands from their homes and risked reigniting a broader regional war.

The M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka said on X: “We urge all residents of Goma to remain calm. The liberation of the city has been successfully carried out and the situation is under control.”

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Bulgarian police ‘blocked rescue’ of teenage migrants who froze to death

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Report by rights groups alleges border police refused to rescue boys and blocked activists’ efforts to save them

Bulgarian authorities have been accused of ignoring emergency calls and obstructing efforts to rescue three Egyptian teenage boys, who later died in sub-zero temperatures near the Bulgarian-Turkish border in late December.

A dossier of evidence compiled by two humanitarian organisations, seen by the Guardian, contains photos, testimonies and geolocations allegedly showing the authorities’ failure to save the boys, who called for help as they struggled cold and lost in the forests of Burgas, in south-eastern Bulgaria.

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Scores killed in hospital attack in Sudan’s besieged El Fasher, says WHO

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About 70 people, including patients, believed to have been killed in attack blamed on rebel Rapid Support Forces

About 70 people have been killed in an attack on the only functional hospital in the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan, the head of the World Health Organization has said, the latest in a series of attacks as the African nation’s civil war has escalated in recent days.

The attack on the Saudi Teaching Maternal hospital was blamed by local officials on the rebel Rapid Support Forces, a group that has recently faced apparent battlefield losses to the Sudanese military and allied forces under the command of army chief Gen Abdel-Fattah Burhan.

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