Category Archives: Africa

Deadly blasts hit M23 rebel rally in captured DRC city of Bukavu

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Deaths and injuries reported after explosions at rally attended by thousands in city captured by rebel group

Several people have been killed and dozens more injured after blasts at a mass rally held by the M23 group in Bukavu, the city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo captured by the rebels earlier this month.

Footage posted on social media showed people fleeing the scene. In another video, bloodied bodies lay on the ground and injured people were being carried away.

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King asks Moroccans not to kill sheep for Eid al-Adha as drought reduces herds

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First such request in 29 years blames economic hardship and climate crisis for high livestock prices and shortages

King Mohammed VI has urged his fellow Moroccans not to slaughter sheep for upcoming Eid al-Adha festivities as the country grapples with dwindling herds due to a six-year drought.

The request was delivered on Wednesday by the minister of Islamic affairs, Ahmed Toufiq, who read a letter on the monarch’s behalf on the state-run Al Aoula TV channel. He cited economic hardship and the climate crisis as reasons for the rising prices of livestock and sheep shortage in the north African state.

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Mother of Egypt detainee ready to end hunger strike if UK makes progress

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Laila Soueif was hospitalised with low blood sugar this week as she tries to secure release of son Alaa Abd el-Fattah

A mother declared at risk of sudden death due to her 150-day hunger strike to free her jailed son has been persuaded to end her fast if UK ministers show any sign of progress in efforts to seek his release.

Laila Soueif, 68, is seeking the release of her son, the British-Egyptian prize-winning writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah, from a jail in Cairo. She has attempted to protest outside Downing Street for an hour each weekday to keep her son’s cause in the minds of ministers.

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Activists call for state of emergency in Nigeria over gender-based violence

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Deaths of 22 women reported this year include 240% rise in January, campaigners say, as abusers act ‘with impunity’

Almost two dozen women have died due to gender-based violence across Nigeria in 2025 alone, activists and civil society organisations have said in a call for a state of emergency.

According to Femicide Observatory, run by the Lagos-based nonprofit Document Our History (DOHS) Cares Foundation, there were 17 cases reported in January, a 240% increase from the same period last year, with an additional five by 16 February. More than 100 femicides were documented in 2024.

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Missing British businessman’s body found in Kenyan forest

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Campbell Scott, a senior director at Fico, was reported missing while in Nairobi for a three-day conference

Police searching for a British businessman missing in Kenya have recovered a body, found in a sack in scrubland about 60 miles from Nairobi, reports said.

Campbell Scott, 58, a senior director at the data analytics company Fico, went missing on 16 February after arriving in the Kenyan capital to attend a conference at the JW Marriott hotel.

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M23 militia’s advance in eastern DRC has killed 7,000 since January, UN told

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DRC prime minister tells human rights council fighting has left about 450,000 without shelter after camps destroyed

About 7,000 people have died in fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since Rwanda-backed M23 rebels started renewed advances in January, the DRC’s prime minister has said.

At a high-level meeting of the UN’s human rights council in Geneva on Monday, Judith Suminwa Tuluka also said the war had left about 450,000 people without shelter after the destruction of 90 displacement camps.

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Thousands of children in England accused of witchcraft in past decade

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Figures emerge as Kindoki Witch Boy film tells true story of Mardoche Yembi who underwent an exorcism as a child

Thousands of children in England have been accused of witchcraft over the past decade, according to new figures that come alongside a film released on Monday.

Faith-based abuse is a worldwide phenomenon but experts found 14,000 social work assessments linked to witchcraft accusations since 2015. In the year running to March 2024 alone, there were 2,180 assessments linked to witchcraft.

Children accused of witchcraft can call Childline on 0800 1111 or NSPCC on 0808 800 500.

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‘Trump and Musk are gaslighting’: anti-apartheid artist on how US president and his billionaire ally are attacking South Africa

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Ahead of a career retrospective, Sue Williamson tells how the US pair are dragging her country ‘through the mud’

For more than 50 years, Sue Williamson’s art has been shining a light on South Africa’s problems – first to campaign against the apartheid state, and then to question how far the country has progressed in reconciliation and remembrance.

But as she prepares for her first retrospective exhibition, the 84-year-old artist has a new pair of targets in sight: US president Donald Trump and his billionaire, South African-born adviser, Elon Musk.

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‘You dream about such things’: Brit who discovered missing pharaoh’s tomb may have unearthed another

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Archaeologist believes his ‘find of the century’ – of Pharaoh Thutmose II – could be surpassed by ongoing excavation

To uncover the location of one long-lost pharaoh’s tomb is a career-defining moment for an archaeologist. But to find a second is the stuff of dreams.

Last week British archaeologist Piers Litherland announced the find of the century – the first discovery of a rock-cut pharaoh’s tomb in Egypt since Tutankhamun’s in 1922.

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Anglo American writes down value of diamond firm De Beers by $2.9bn

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Sale of the miner, which is now valued at $4bn, may be delayed following ‘really, really difficult’ market

The world’s biggest diamond miner, De Beers, cost its parent company almost $3bn last year as the growth in lab-grown stones continues to take the shine off the industry.

Anglo American was forced to write down the value of the renowned gem producer for a second consecutive year as its chief executive admitted the diamond markets had proved “really, really difficult for the company”.

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Archaeologists discover first pharaoh’s tomb in Egypt in more than a century

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Uncovering tomb of Thutmose II hailed as most significant discovery since Tutankhamun in 1922

It was when British archaeologist Dr Piers Litherland saw that the ceiling of the burial chamber was painted blue with yellow stars that he realised he had just discovered the first tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh to be found in more than a century.

Litherland had been exploring the Valley of the Kings in Egypt for more than a decade when he discovered a staircase that led to the tomb, now known to have belonged to Thutmose II, who reigned from 1493 to 1479BC.

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Nigeria sues crypto giant Binance for $81.5bn in economic losses and back tax

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Authorities blame crypto exchange, already facing four counts of tax evasion in the country, for currency woes

Nigeria has filed a lawsuit seeking to compel Binance to pay $79.5bn for economic losses the country’s government says were caused by the cryptocurrency exchange’s operations there and $2bn in back taxes, court documents showed on Wednesday.

Authorities blame Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, for Nigeria’s currency woes and detained two of its executives in 2024 after crypto websites emerged as platforms of choice for trading the local naira currency.

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The Ugandan arts centre bringing harmony to Africa’s biggest refugee camp

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The Bidi Bidi performing arts venue offers more than 250,000 refugees the chance to sing, play, dance – and dream of a peaceful future

The sound of a flute floats towards five young men in the 1,000-seat Bidi Bidi Performing Arts Centre theatre in Uganda – the country that hosts the highest number of refugees in Africa. The music carries past them to the shrubs that surround the circular majestic building and the neighbours going about their lives, the more than 250,000 refugees who live in the 250 sq km Bidi Bidi refugee settlement, the largest refugee camp in Africa.

The young men – gathered for a chance to play a musical instrument or record music – welcome visitors with the awkward smile of youth. They are seated under the oldest fig tree, where the dream of building a place for the creative young people of Bidi Bidi to commune and nurture their talents was born.

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Sudan paramilitary group kills more than 200 people in three-day attack, activists say

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The Emergency Lawyers network said the RSF killed civilians south of Khartoum, with hundreds more either wounded or missing

Sudanese paramilitaries have killed more than 200 people in a three-day assault south of Khartoum, according to a lawyers’ network, while the army-backed government put the death toll at more than double that figure.

The Emergency Lawyers network, which has documented human rights abuses during 22 months of fighting between the rival security forces, said hundreds more were wounded or missing and feared drowned after the paramilitaries opened fire on villagers as they attempted to flee across the White Nile.

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UN rights body accuses Rwanda-backed militia of killing children in eastern DRC

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OHCHR says Tutsi-led M23 group killed three boys in Bukavu last week after capturing the city

The UN human rights office accused the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels of killing three children in Bakavu, the Democratic Republic of the Congo city they captured last week, expressing alarm at human rights violations by the militia.

“Our office has confirmed cases of summary execution of children by M23 after they entered the city of Bukavu last week. We are also aware that children were in possession of weapons,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN’s Office of the high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR), said on Tuesday.

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Rwanda-backed M23 rebels capture eastern DRC’s second-largest city

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Congolese authorities accused of abandoning Bukavu after government confirms fall to militia group

M23 rebels have captured and occupied Bukavu, the second-largest city in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Congolese government has confirmed, days after the Rwanda-backed militia launched an attack.

In a statement posted on X, the DRC communications ministry said it was monitoring the situation “marked by the entry of the Rwandan army and its auxiliaries” and it was “doing everything possible to restore order, security and territorial integrity”.

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Brother of British national held in Nigeria says UK has ‘turned its back’

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Kingsley Kanu, brother of Indigenous People of Biafra leader Nnamdi Kanu, calls on PM to defend British citizens

The brother of a British national being held in Nigeria after falling victim to extraordinary rendition has accused the UK government of turning its back, and called on Keir Starmer to “wake up” and “defend British citizens”.

Kingsley Kanu, the brother of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), a prominent separatist movement proscribed in Nigeria, said the UK government had failed to intervene in his brother’s case.

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At least 48 people killed in Mali goldmine collapse

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Rescuers still searching for victims at the illegally operated mine in the west of the country

At least 48 people have been killed in the collapse of an illegally operated goldmine in western Mali, authorities and local sources have said.

Mali is one of Africa’s leading gold producers, and mining sites are regularly the scene of deadly landslides and accidents.

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Muhsin Hendricks, world’s ‘first openly gay imam’, shot dead in South Africa

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Police say motive for killing of Hendricks, who ran a mosque for LGBTQ+ Muslims near Cape Town, is unknown

Muhsin Hendricks, considered the world’s “first openly gay imam”, has been shot dead near the southern city of Gqeberha, South African police have said.

The imam, who ran a mosque intended as a safe haven for gay and other marginalised Muslims, was in a car with another person on Saturday when a vehicle stopped in front of them and blocked their exit, police said.

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Arsenal accused of snub to DRC minister over ‘bloodstained’ Visit Rwanda deal

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Exclusive: Foreign minister says she sought meeting with the north London Premier League club to discuss sponsorship by country accused of aiding armed rebels

Arsenal Football Club has been accused of delivering an “outrageous” snub to the Congolese government by not meeting the foreign minister to discuss its sponsorship deal with Rwanda.

Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, foreign minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), who was in London this week to raise concerns over Rwanda’s support for the M23 militia, said she attempted to meet Arsenal officials to discuss the club’s Visit Rwanda sponsorship deal.

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