Kenya is on the rise. Those living in slums such as Kibera will only share in the progress if urban solutions come from our community
The future is shining in Kenya. By many measures, life is better than it has ever been. A decade of steady economic growth has made Kenya a rising middle-income country. Reports on the health and education of the population show indicators are marching upwards. On the streets, a sense of hope and hustle prevails. This is progress.
Continue reading...With novels including Beloved and The Bluest Eye, the acclaimed author who dramatised the African American experience with fierce passion for five decades, has died aged 88
As Kenya waits to hear if a police officer will be charged over the death of 23-year-old Carliton Maina, alleged unlawful killings in Kenya continue, leaving poor communities wondering if those charged with protecting them are simply killing with impunity
At a meeting between police and community members in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya, where crime is acutely high and mainly unreported, the two sides try to find common ground.
There are courteous introductions and then an appeal for openness – and information – to help the police tackle Kibera’s crime problems.
Continue reading...Promising student Carliton Maina was shot by the police in Nairobi. His mother believes he was murdered. As part of The Guardian's special focus on Kibera, we met residents of Africa's largest slum to explore their deep distrust of the police and find out what Maina's, and other recent deaths, can tell us about the dramatic rise in extrajudicial killings across Kenya.
Busola Dakolo investigated by police after publicly accusing star pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo
Busola Dakolo said she had been expecting to hear from the police. Three weeks earlier the photographer had filed a case against the flamboyant Nigerian celebrity pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo, accusing him of raping her years before.
However, she recalled that the silver Toyota that tailed her as she was driving into her Lagos housing estate, and the white minibus with tinted windows already parked outside her house, had no police markings. By the time she got to her gate, the minibus had blocked her path. According to Dakolo, a man appeared and told her to get out of the car, get into the bus and speak to his oga – Nigerian pidgin English for boss.
Continue reading...Erick Kabendera also faces charges of leading organised crime and failure to pay tax
A Tanzanian investigative journalist has appeared in court charged with organised crime and money laundering.
Erick Kabendera, who was arrested by plainclothes policemen last week, appeared in court charged with leading organised crime, failure to pay tax amounting to 173m Tanzanian shillings ($75,000) and money laundering of the same amount. Press freedom advocates have called the charges “clearly retaliatory”.
Continue reading...Interior ministry blames Hasm group for blast that injured dozens near cancer institute
Twenty people have been killed and 47 injured after a car bomb collided with other vehicles, triggering an explosion outside a cancer hospital in central Cairo.
The blast occurred around midnight local time on a road running alongside the Nile River in an area outside Egypt’s National Cancer Institute. Pictures taken just after the incident and published by Egypt’s largest newspaper, Al-Ahram, showed two burnt-out cars, with at least one completely blackened and dented from the force of the explosion.
Continue reading...With terminations outlawed in Kenya, women and girls in its largest slum have to rely on expensive and unreliable under-the-counter pills, toxic chemicals or other homemade remedies. The consequences can be fatal
Podcast: The women fighting back in Kenya’s biggest slum
Edita Ochieng sashays up in her “This is what a feminist looks like” T-shirt – bright and new in a place where clothes are aged and faded.
“Got them,” she stage-whispers, a flash of silver foil in her hand. Four pills carefully cut from a longer strip. Ochieng has just been attempting to buy abortion pills from among the numerous kiosk-sized “quack” chemists in the Nairobi slum of Kibera. Just to show how easy it is.
Continue reading...Every week a group of South African teenagers crowd into a studio to play hip-hop and discuss neighbourhood gun crime for their community radio show, Bigger Than Life, on Alex FM. They are determined to help stem the violence that blights their densely populated township of Alexandra in Johannesburg
Continue reading...Edita Ochieng and like-minded women are taking a stand against endemic sexual violence and police corruption in Kibera. Plus: Angelique Chrisafis on why climate protesters in France are stealing portraits of Emmanuel Macron. Warning: this podcast contains references to sexual abuse
Edita Ochieng, like many women in Kibera, has been a victim of sexual violence. But with police corruption rife, she has banded together with several other women to bring perpetrators to justice as well as providing advice and counselling.
The Guardian’s Tracy McVeigh and Rod Austin spent time in Kenya’s largest slum with Ochieng and describe her extraordinary story to India Rakusen.
Continue reading...Vessel allowed entry under agreement that other countries will look after those onboard
A group of 40 migrants rescued by a German charity ship have landed in Malta and will be taken care of by other EU member states after a deal negotiated by Berlin.
The 40 people were rescued on Wednesday from a small boat off the Libyan coast by the ship Alan Kurdi, which belongs to the NGO Sea-Eye. The NGO then sailed them to southern Italy, saying the port of Lampedusa was the closest and safest harbour.
Continue reading...Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe was put in deportation centre after acquittal but is now free
Italian authorities have granted refugee status to an Eritrean man who was the victim of one of the country’s most embarrassing cases of mistaken identity.
Last month a judge in Palermo acquitted Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe of being a human trafficking kingpin, confirming he was the victim of mistaken identity when he was arrested more than three years ago in a joint operation by Italian and British authorities.
Continue reading...Constitutional declaration follows the arrest of nine paramilitaries for killing four schoolchildren
Sudan’s ruling generals and protest leaders have reached an agreement to usher in a new period of transitional government, the African Union said.
The agreement came after prolonged negotiations between Sudan’s ruling military council and the Alliance for Freedom and Change, which has been leading the protest movement across Sudan for months.
Continue reading...Student, who fell from aircraft, had reportedly suffered severe reaction to prescribed drugs
Police in Madagascar are investigating whether a British student who died after falling from a light plane deliberately opened the doors after suffering a severe reaction to medication.
Alana Cutland, 19, who has been described by her family as a “bright, independent young woman”, fell from the two-door Cessna C168 on 25 July. She had been carrying out research in the remote area of Anjajavy on the island off Africa’s east coast.
Continue reading...Stella Nyanzi vows to persist with criticism of Yoweri Museveni after receiving 18-month prison sentence for cyber harassment
Stella Nyanzi, the Ugandan women’s rights activist and staunch government critic who once called head of state Yoweri Museveni “a pair of buttocks”, has received an 18-month jail sentence after she was found guilty of cyber harassment against the president.
Nyanzi, a former researcher at Makerere University, was arrested on 2 November after posting a poem on Facebook that the state deemed abusive towards Museveni and his late mother.
Continue reading...Abdirahman Omar Osman was a naturalised Briton who once worked as a council housing manager in London
The mayor of Mogadishu has died after being badly wounded in an al-Shabaab extremist attack in his office last week, the government of Somalia has announced.
Abdirahman Omar Osman was a naturalised Briton who returned to Somalia to help rebuild the war-torn country. He spent 17 years in the UK including a stint as housing manager at Ealing council in west London.
Continue reading...British student died following her fall from airplane shortly after takeoff
A British student who died after falling from an airplane flying over Madagascar opened the door of the aircraft herself, according to local police.
Alana Cutland, who was described as a “bright, independent young woman”, was on a research trip on the island. Officers there told the BBC and the Sun newspaper she fell shortly after the Cessna C168 on which she was travelling took off.
Continue reading...Closure follows second Ebola death in densely populated city of Goma, on Rwandan border
Rwanda has closed its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a deadly Ebola outbreak that started a year ago has killed more than 1,803 people.
The closure came after a second death linked to the Ebola virus was confirmed on Wednesday in the densely populated Congolese city of Goma, which is on the porous border with Rwanda.
Continue reading...World Health Organization confirms a second person has died of the disease in a major transit hub in Democratic Republic of Congo
A second death linked to the Ebola virus has been confirmed in the densely populated city of Goma, located at the Democratic Republic of Congo’s porous border with Rwanda.
The first case of Ebola in Goma – an evangelical preacher – contributed to the World Health Organization decision to declare the Ebola crisis in DRC an international public health emergency.
Continue reading...Seham Sergiwa was taken by armed men after she criticised Haftar offensive in Tripoli
The family of a Libyan member of parliament and campaigner abducted by armed men two weeks ago fear she may have been subjected to torture and sexual violence.
Seham Sergiwa, who is also a prominent women’s rights activist, disappeared from her home in the eastern city of Benghazi on 17 July and has not been heard from since.
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