Category Archives: Africa

Amid din over Brexit and US border wall, spare a thought for South Sudan | Father James Oyet Latansio

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Civil war has ravaged the world’s youngest state, killing 400,000 people. The international community must prioritise peace

I have met both Donald Trump and Boris Johnson in the course of my work. You might associate one man with his campaign to build a wall along the US border with Mexico, and the other with Brexit. But I was trying to convince them to spare a thought for my country, South Sudan.

I quite understand that they have other things on their minds. When I visited parliament on the fraught opening day of the Brexit debate, Johnson recognised me from his trip to South Sudan, and sought to reassure me. But he had resigned as foreign secretary, because of Brexit.

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Double standards on oil spills in Nigeria must end | Letters

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Oil companies must respect human lives and clean up the damage their industry does wherever they operate, say Dr John Sentamu, Baroness Amos, Prof Michael Watts, Njeri Kabeberi and James Thornton

The devastating impact of oil spills is widely recognised. The past decade has witnessed the destruction caused to human life and the environment from spills including the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and the Montara spill in Australia in 2009.

On each occasion the global community has reacted with horror, demanding the oil industry clean up local ecosystems and communities. Yet in Nigeria, and particularly in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta, these calls are ignored.

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Refugees face routine sexual violence in Libyan detention centres – report

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Abuse often filmed and sent to victims’ relatives, Women’s Refugee Commission finds

Refugees and migrants trying to reach Europe from Africa are being subjected to horrific and routine sexual violence in Libyan detention centres, a survey has found.

People arriving at the centres are “often immediately raped by guards who conduct violent anal cavity searches, which serves the dual purpose of retrieving money, as well as humiliation and subjugation”, the report by the Women’s Refugee Commission says. Many of the victims have been forcibly returned to the country by the Libyan coastguard under policies endorsed by the European Union.

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Cyclone Idai death toll passes 750 with more than 110,000 now in camps

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Devastated areas of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi brace for the spread of waterborne diseases such as cholera and malaria

Cyclone Idai’s death toll has risen above 750 in the three southern African countries hit 10 days ago by the storm, as workers try to restore electricity and water and prevent an outbreak of cholera.

In Mozambique the number of dead has risen to 446, with 259 dead in Zimbabwe and at least 56 dead in Malawi.

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Hunt for bogus asthma cure threatens pangolins

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The most trafficked mammal on the planet is in dangerous decline

One of nature’s most remarkable creatures, the pangolin, is being driven to extinction as hunting and trafficking have soared in recent years. Studies have discovered that hundreds of thousands of these distinctive, scaly animals are now being killed every year to satisfy markets in Asia, making it the most trafficked and poached mammal on Earth.

The pangolin is hunted for its meat – and also for its scales, which are believed to have important medicinal properties as cures for poor circulation, skin complaints and asthma.

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Militia attack on Mali village leaves 115 dead, say early reports

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President of Peulh ethnic group says ‘pregnant women, young and elderly’ targeted by Dogon group in remote area

Militia fighters descended on a village in central Mali before dawn on Saturday, killing at least 115 people in the latest deadly attack blamed on an ethnic militia, local authorities said.

The massacre in the village of Ogossogou left the village chief and his grandchildren dead in the ethnic Peulh community, according to a local official who had received detailed accounts from the remote area.

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No food, no shelter, no livelihood: families in Mozambique hit by Cyclone Idai

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Officials ‘overwhelmed’ by the scale of the disaster, leading to a delay in humanitarian and rescue missions

Beneath the crumbling arcade of the municipal council building in Beira, in Mozambique, a group of families has set up a dismal camp. They sleep on dirty concrete pavement and cook with branches from the trees brought down by Cyclone Idai which swept through southern Africa last week.

Winds of more than 100mph triggered devastating floods and more than 400 people were killed, according to government sources. Land and environment minister Celso Correia said that the situation in the country was now critical.

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‘The water took everything’: Buzi evacuees tell of Cyclone Idai ordeal

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People rescued by boat are arriving at Beira in hope of first aid, shelter and reunion with their families

Standing in the fishing port in Beira, Mozambique, Jose Mala scans the faces of those evacuated by boat from Buzi – one of the towns hardest hit by Cyclone Idai – searching for anyone he knows.

He had hopeful news the day before, says Mala, 27. He met a neighbour at the port who told him his sister and two nephews had survived the cyclone that destroyed large parts of their hometown.

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Ghana: at least 60 dead after two buses collide in Bono East

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One of the buses involved in latest collision on Ghana’s roads caught fire, say police

At least 60 people have been killed in a head-on collision between two buses in Ghana, police have said.

The incident – the latest deadly crash on Ghana’s roads – happened on Friday at about 2am local time in the Bono East region, about 270 miles (430km) north of the capital, Accra.

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‘We don’t have anything’: the fight for survival after Cyclone Idai

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In cities and villages across Mozambique the huge need for aid and assistance is not being met by a chaotic rescue effort

The main road connecting the cyclone-devastated Mozambican city of Beira to neighbouring Zimbabwe comes to an abrupt end. A section almost 100 metres wide is almost entirely underwater, an angry muddy gash where the tarmac was ripped away by the floods and raging currents.

A week after the onset of Cyclone Idai, as the waters have receded in some places, some of those trapped in villages in the midst of the flood waters have at last managed to get out with huge effort.

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Cyclone Idai brings devastation to Mozambique – visual guide

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Rescuers race to reach tens of thousands of people trapped by vast areas of flooding

Idai first hit Mozambique on 4 March as a tropical depression with torrential rain that also affected southern Malawi. It then changed course, moving back over the sea where the storm strengthened to a cyclone with the equivalent force of a category 3 hurricane.

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‘We are modern slaves’: Mdou Moctar, the Hendrix of the Sahara

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His first guitar was made from wood and bicycle parts and his first songs were shared via Bluetooth in the desert. But the Niger musician has become international – and is taking aim at France

How do you even dream of making music when your family and religious leaders disapprove, when you live at the edge of the Sahara desert, and you cannot afford an instrument?

It helps that the Tuareg musician Mdou Moctar, from Niger, is not easily discouraged. Unable to acquire a guitar, he made one out of a piece of wood with brake wires from an old bicycle for strings, and taught himself to play in secret. “I was from a religious family and music was not welcome, but I would go and listen to local musicians and dream of being like them,” the 32-year-old singer-songwriter says over the phone while on tour in the US.

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Cyclone Idai witness describes seeing hundreds of bodies by roadside

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Fears situation far worse than official death toll, as communities ‘totally obliterated’

Entire villages have been destroyed in Mozambique and Zimbabwe and most of their inhabitants swept away, as rescuers race to save tens of thousands of people trapped by flood waters from Cyclone Idai.

Testimony collected from areas entirely cut off by flooding shows a situation far worse than indicated by official figures, with estimates from some witnesses suggesting that the death toll will reach the thousands.

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UN to explore wave of deaths linked to food aid porridge in Uganda

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World Food Programme halts distribution of fortified cereal as four people die and hundreds suffer suspected food poisoning

The World Food Programme and Ugandan government have launched an investigation into deaths linked with the distribution of fortified porridge to refugees and people suffering from malnourishment.

The health ministry was alerted to reports of possible food poisoning among people who had consumed Super Cereal, a blended food designed to prevent malnutrition, in the north-east region of Karamoja on 12 March.

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Zambia bans energy drink found to contain Viagra

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Power Natural High Energy Drink SX removed from shelves after complaint by regulator

Zambia has banned an energy drink after it was shown to have been adulterated with Viagra, according to local authorities.

The ban followed a complaint from the country’s medicine regulator in December suggesting the Power Natural High Energy Drink SX had been spiked with erectile dysfunction drug Viagra.

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Mozambique rescue teams struggle to save thousands

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Workers appeal for more helicopters as flood waters keep rising after Cyclone Idai

Rescue teams in Mozambique are struggling to reach the thousands of people stranded on roofs and in trees and urgently need more helicopters and boats as post-cyclone flood waters continue to rise.

Mozambique, which was hit by Cyclone Idai over the weekend, has declared a state of emergency and is appealing for international help.

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Italian authorities order seizure of migrant rescue ship

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Volunteers rescued about 50 people off Libya on Tuesday in defiance of government order

Italian authorities have ordered the seizure of a charity rescue ship after it defied the government’s order not to bring refugees and migrants to Italy.

On Tuesday, volunteers onboard the Mare Jonio rescued about 50 people from a rubber boat off the coast of Libya, prompting Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, to say he was ready to stop private vessels “once and for all” from bringing rescued people to Italy.

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Chinese fishmeal plants leave fishermen in the Gambia all at sea | Hannah Summers

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Scientists and campaigners warn that factories in coastal villages are wreaking environmental and economic havoc

Before the arrival of fishmeal factories in the Gambia, Musa Duboe would catch red snapper and barracuda to be sold at the local market. But his income had begun to dwindle due to depleted stocks.

Then in 2016 the Chinese-owned fishmeal plant Golden Lead began operating out of the coastal town of Gunjur, increasing demand for fish to export for overseas aquaculture.

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Cyclone Idai ‘might be southern hemisphere’s worst such disaster’

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Millions from Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe affected as houses and roads submerged

The devastating cyclone that hit south-eastern Africa may be the worst ever disaster to strike the southern hemisphere, according to the UN.

Cyclone Idai has swept through Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe over the past few days, destroying almost everything in its path, causing devastating floods, killing and injuring thousands of people and ruining crops. More than 2.6 million people could be affected across the three countries, and the port city of Beira, which was hit on Friday and is home to 500,000 people, is now an “island in the ocean”, almost completely cut off.

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