Category Archives: Africa

Food aid suspended in Ethiopia after ‘widespread and coordinated’ thievery

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UN and US halt food assistance in the country, where 20 million people rely on aid, in order to investigate ‘diversion’ of supplies

Food aid to Ethiopia has been suspended after the discovery that humanitarian supplies meant for people in need were being stolen.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday that it is halting food assistance while it rolled out “enhanced safeguards and controls that will ensure humanitarian food assistance reaches targeted, vulnerable people”. It comes a day after the US Agency for International Development (USAid) said it was doing the same, after a “countrywide review” uncovered “a widespread and coordinated campaign” that was diverting food assistance from Ethiopian people.

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Justin Welby criticises Ugandan church’s backing for anti-gay law

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Archbishop of Canterbury expresses dismay over church’s support for Ugandan law enacted last month

The archbishop of Canterbury has urged the Anglican church in Uganda to reconsider its vociferous support for the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ+ law, which imposes the death penalty for certain homosexual acts.

Justin Welby said there was no justification for supporting the legislation, in a move that highlights deep divisions within the global Anglican church on LGBTQ+ issues.

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Russian man dies after being mauled by shark off Egyptian Red Sea resort

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Authorities close off 46-mile stretch of coastline after man attacked by tiger shark near Hurghada

A Russian man has died after being mauled by a shark off one of Egypt’s Red Sea resorts, Egyptian and Russian authorities have said.

Egypt’s environment ministry said the man was killed on Thursday after being attacked by a tiger shark in the waters near the city of Hurghada. Authorities closed off a 46-mile (74km) stretch of the coastline, announcing it would remain off-limits until Sunday.

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Ukraine and Myanmar make 2022 most violent year in a decade for medical staff

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Report demands accountability for war crimes and singles out Russia for ‘mind-boggling’ targeting of hospitals in Ukraine

Russian attacks on medical facilities in Ukraine made 2022 the most violent year in a decade for hospitals and health workers operating in conflict zones, according to a new report by a coalition of humanitarian organisations.

With 750 reported attacks in 2022, Russia set a 10-year record, according to the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, which includes Human Rights Watch and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health.

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‘A watershed’: Meta ordered to offer mental health care to moderators in Kenya

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Trauma experienced by staff at Nairobi Facebook hub recognised in legal ruling that may have global implications

Meta has been ordered to “provide proper medical, psychiatric and psychological care” to a group of moderators in Nairobi following a ruling in a Kenyan employment court that heard harrowing testimony about the distressing nature of their work.

The instruction by judge Byram Ongaya formed part of a broader interim ruling that saw the moderators’ jobs restored after they sued Meta in March for what they termed a “sham” mass redundancy.

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UK government under fire for investing overseas aid in fossil fuel firms

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Taxpayer’s money also going to companies found to be flouting human rights in Kenya and DRC, says Commons committee

The UK government is under attack for investing taxpayers’ money in fossil fuel companies, a hospital in Kenya accused of imprisoning patients who couldn’t pay for treatment, and a business in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that exposed workers to dangerous chemicals and dumped untreated industrial waste.

MPs questioned the investments at a two-hour session in parliament on Tuesday, and excoriated Andrew Mitchell, minister for development, for making overseas aid available to a company owned by Africa’s richest man that is suspected of causing serious environmental damage.

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Sudan officials fear for historical artefacts threatened by fighting

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Warring factions urged to preserve heritage after video clip appears to show fighters raiding Khartoum museum

Heritage officials in Sudan have pleaded with warring factions to preserve tens of thousands of historical artefacts threatened by fighting in the capital, Khartoum, that is in its eighth week.

A video clip circulating on social media on Friday appeared to show fighters from the Rapid Support Forces entering the bioarchaeology lab of the National Museum in Khartoum and opening storage containers containing mummies and other remains.

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Sudan fighting escalates after breakdown in ceasefire talks

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The latest shaky truce between country’s army and RSF paramilitary came to an end on Saturday evening and has not been extended

Fighting has intensified in several areas of Khartoum after a ceasefire deal expired, residents of Sudan’s capital reported, as activists said a new outburst of violence in North Darfur state had left at least 40 people dead.

The ceasefire between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began on 22 May and expired on Saturday evening.

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Uganda says 54 African Union peacekeepers killed in Somalia by al-Shabaab militants

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Death toll one of heaviest since pro-government forces launched offensive against jihadists last August

Fifty-four Ugandan peacekeepers died when militants besieged an African Union base in Somalia last week, Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, has said, in one of the worst recent attacks by al-Shabaab jihadists in the war-torn country.

“We discovered the lifeless bodies of 54 fallen soldiers, including a commander,” Museveni said in a Twitter post late on Saturday.

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Killer of three Israeli soldiers was Egyptian border police officer, says army

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Netanyahu calls deaths of three members of Israel Defence Forces on Sinai border a terrorist attack

A man who shot and killed three Israeli soldiers in a rare incident on the Sinai border with Egypt has been identified by the Israeli military as a member of the Egyptian border police.

Two Israel Defence Forces (IDF) combat soldiers were killed early on Saturday morning at a military post near Mount Harif, in the Negev desert, the army said. The discovery of their bodies a few hours later triggered a manhunt in which a third soldier was killed, as well as the assailant. A fourth Israeli soldier sustained minor injuries in the shootout.

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Police release e-fit of man found dead in wheel bay of Gatwick-bound plane

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Detectives hope to identify man, whose body was found on a Tui flight from the Gambia on 7 December

Police have released a digitised image of a man who was found dead in the undercarriage of a plane, as they work to identify him.

The man’s body was found on a Tui flight from the Gambia to the UK. His body was discovered at Gatwick airport at about 4am on 7 December, Sussex police said at the time.

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Author Ama Ata Aidoo, ‘an inspiration to feminists everywhere’, dies aged 81

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The Ghanaian playwright and novelist, who also served as her country’s education minister, focused on the modern African woman

The Ghanaian writer and academic Ama Ata Aidoo, whose work focused on the modern African woman, has died aged 81.

Ata Aidoo, whose fans included Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, rejected the idea of what she described as a “western perception that the African female is a downtrodden wretch”, said the BBC.

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Home Office could forcibly separate non-cohabiting couple before their wedding

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Youssef Mikhaiel is at risk of forced removal to Egypt before he marries Sarah Bradley

A couple planning to marry soon could be forcibly separated by the Home Office because they are not cohabiting before their wedding.

Sarah Bradley, 29, a British digital marketing teacher, and Youssef Mikhaiel, 28, an Egyptian man who graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in aeronautical engineering, met in February 2022 through a Christian dating app.

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Sudan: 27 reported killed in shelling of market in poor area south of Khartoum

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Tanks believed to have attacked area residents say is not close to any military target

Twenty-seven people have been killed and 106 injured after a market in a poor area south of Khartoum was shelled, according to local residents.

Six tank shells were fired from al-Shajara, one of the few areas the army controls in the Sudanese capital, towards the neighbourhood of Mayo, residents said.

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Burkina Faso is the world’s ‘most neglected crisis’ as focus remains on Ukraine

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Chronic emergencies in Africa are being ignored while Ukraine dominates headlines and receives more funding, says NGO

The displacement of 2 million people in Burkina Faso has been named the world’s most neglected crisis, while the world’s attention and aid has been focused on Ukraine, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

Burkina Faso has endured five years of conflict with militias – who have attacked water sources and forced school closures – now controlling up to 40% of the country’s territory.

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Zimbabwe outlaws criticism of government before August elections

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New law that criminalises ‘wilfully damaging’ country’s national interest raises fears of crackdown on dissent

Zimbabwe’s parliament has outlawed criticism of the government before presidential and parliamentary elections in August, with violations of a new law punishable by up to 20 years in jail.

The criminal law code amendment bill, widely known as the “patriotic bill”, contains a clause that criminalises “wilfully damaging the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe”.

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At least 60 children die trapped in Khartoum orphanage amid Sudan conflict

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Infants, toddlers and older children died from fever or lack of food while trapped in deteriorating conditions

At least 60 infants, toddlers and older children have perished over the past six weeks while trapped in harrowing conditions in an orphanage in Sudan’s capital as fighting raged outside.

Most died from lack of food and from fever. Twenty-six died in two days over the weekend.

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Sudan arrests doctor who criticised army for diverting aid

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Wife of Alaaeldin Nugud says she believes he was targeted because of his activism

A Sudanese doctor who criticised the army for diverting aid from the World Health Organization to a hospital it has converted into a barracks has been arrested by intelligence officers.

Alaaeldin Nugud, a surgeon who is well known locally, was taken from his home in Omdurman’s al-Manar neighbourhood on Saturday. He had previously told the Saudi-owned al-Hadath TV station about how aid was being diverted by the army from those who needed it.

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Stop dumping your cast-offs on us, Ghanaian clothes traders tell EU

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With 100 tonnes of clothing from the west discarded every day in Accra, ‘fast fashion’ brands must be forced to help pay for the choking textile waste they create, environmentalists say

A group of secondhand clothes dealers from Ghana have visited Brussels to lobby for Europe-wide legislation to compel the fashion industry to help address the “environmental catastrophe” of dumping vast amounts of textiles in the west African country.

The traders from Kantamanto in Accra, one of the world’s largest secondhand clothing markets, met Alice Bah Kuhnke, an MEP with Sweden’s Green party, environmental organisations and representatives from the European Commission and the European Environment Bureau to argue that proposed extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulation should ensure Ghana receives funds towards managing the 100 tonnes of clothing discarded at the market every day.

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Ethiopian Airlines faces legal case over claims it blocks Tigrayans from travel

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Passengers accuse airline of refusing to sell tickets to people from the ethnic minority to fly from northern region to Addis Ababa

A civil society organisation has launched a lawsuit against Ethiopian Airlines, accusing the state-owned carrier of discriminating against ethnic Tigrayans.

The suit brought by Human Rights First, a local NGO, claims the airline is preventing “Tigrayans aged 15 to 60” from buying tickets for flights from the northern Tigray region to Addis Ababa, the federal capital. It also claims the company has increased ticket prices for the route as a form of “collective sanction” against the people of Tigray.

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