Category Archives: Africa

MEPs refused entry to Tunisia two months after signing of migration deal

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Trip by foreign affairs committee blocked with no reason given, raising questions about country’s partnership with EU

A group of MEPs from the European parliament have been refused entry to Tunisia, raising questions about the controversial partnership on migration that Tunisia signed with the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen and the Italian leader, Giorgia Meloni, this summer.

The foreign affairs committee, chaired by the German MEP Michael Gahler, was due to arrive in the country on Friday. “We have cancelled the trip. We have not been given reasons for the refused entry, that would be speculation,” he said.

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Five-month-old boy drowns in rescue mission off Lampedusa

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Boat travelling from north Africa capsized near tiny Italian island, with all other passengers rescued

A five-month-old boy has drowned during a rescue operation off the Italian island of Lampedusa after a boat carrying people from north Africa capsized.

The tragedy occurred as migrant landings on Lampedusa surged, leaving the small island struggling to cope. About 1,850 people landed on Wednesday, bringing the total number of migrants in Lampedusa to more than 6,700, the Ansa news agency said.

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Morocco earthquake: Macron tries to soothe tensions after frosty response to offer of aid

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French president addresses Moroccans directly amid political rift between Rabat and Paris

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has attempted to soothe tensions with Morocco over the supply of humanitarian aid, after a deadly earthquake centred high in the Atlas mountains.

Search and rescue teams backed by the Moroccan military continued a frantic search to locate and airlift the wounded from remote mountainous villages in the Atlas mountains where the 6.8 magnitude quake struck last Friday. But as rescue efforts continued for a fifth day, the chances of finding survivors were fading.

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Libya’s floods are result of climate crisis meeting a failed state

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Storm Daniel was by no means the only factor behind the devastation wrought on the city of Derna

When the climate crisis meets a failed state, the outcome is the kind of disaster that Libya is witnessing in Derna.

Any city would have struggled with the extraordinary level of precipitation that Storm Daniel visited upon Libya’s northern coast. In its earlier, milder form, the storm caused severe damage in Greece before it crossed the Mediterranean.

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‘Sea is constantly dumping bodies’: fears Libya flood death toll may hit 20,000

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Full scale of devastation in north African nation still not clear as aid agencies struggle to reach cut-off areas

International aid is slowly starting to reach the devastated port city of Derna as questions are raised over how as many as 20,000 people may have died when Storm Daniel hit the northern coast of Libya on Saturday night.

Ten thousand people were declared missing by official aid agencies such as the Libyan Red Crescent, but the ominous higher estimate of 20,000 deaths came from the director of al-Bayda medical centre, Abdul Rahim Maziq.

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Record numbers expected as Europe’s biggest arms fair opens in London

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Egypt, Vietnam and Indonesia among countries sending delegations to four-day DSEI at ExCeL

Europe’s biggest ever arms fair got under way in London on Tuesday with record numbers expected to attend, boosted by interest from countries with controversial human rights records.

Authoritarian Egypt and Vietnam are among those sending delegations, defence sources said, as well as Indonesia and India – all countries whose arms-buying strategies have been affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Wedding party saves residents of Moroccan village from quake

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Outdoor event hosted by bride’s family meant no one was trapped when buildings collapsed

A wedding celebration saved all the people of a Moroccan village during Friday’s deadly earthquake, which destroyed their stone and mud-brick houses while they were enjoying traditional music in an outdoor courtyard.

The marriage of Habiba Ajdir, 22, and Mohammed Boudad, 30, an apple farmer, was due to take place at his village of Kettou on Saturday, but by custom the bride’s family held a party the night before the wedding.

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Morocco earthquake: hope fades of finding survivors in rubble

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Complicated rescue effort continues as questions remain about king and government’s response

Hope of finding earthquake survivors trapped under their homes in some of the remotest parts of the Atlas mountains in Morocco was fading rapidly as rescue efforts continued into their fourth day.

Search and rescue teams were still attempting to reach the smallest hamlets and villages in the mountainous region of Al Haouz, close to the epicentre of the 6.8-magnitude quake that struck on Friday night.

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‘Disastrous beyond comprehension’: 10,000 missing after Libya floods

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Neighbourhoods washed away in port city of Derna, where two dams burst, with many bodies swept out to sea

The situation in Derna, the Libyan port city where two dams burst over the weekend, has been described as “disastrous beyond comprehension”, as the Red Cross and local officials said at least 10,000 people were missing after the devastating floods.

The confirmed death toll has exceeded 5,300, Mohammed Abu-Lamousha, a spokesperson for the administration that controls the east of Libya told a state-run news agency late on Tuesday. Tariq al-Kharraz, another representative of the eastern government, said that entire neighbourhoods had been washed away, with many bodies swept out to sea.

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Zimbabwe’s president accused of nepotism after appointing son and nephew

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Emmerson Mnangagwa also criticised for inflating size of cabinet and reappointing underperforming ministers

The Zimbabwean president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, recently returned to power after a disputed election, has been accused by the opposition of attempting to create a family dynasty after appointing his son as deputy finance minister barely a week on from conferring his wife with an honorary doctorate.

Announcing his new cabinet on Monday, Mnangagwa said one of his younger sons, David Kudakwashe Mnangagwa, would be second in charge at the Treasury, while appointing a nephew, Tongai, as deputy minister in the tourism minstry.

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Climate crisis: Africa is talking but is the west listening?

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Africa’s largest meeting on the crisis finished last week amid arguments over ‘false solutions’ and unfulfilled promises. But will the lofty ideals presented translate into better lives for Africans?

More than a dozen African leaders stood outside Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi last Wednesday to review what had been billed as the continent’s largest meeting on the climate crisis.

Earlier that morning, the Nairobi Declaration had been adopted as a blueprint to guide the continent in future negotiations with the west in global forums such as the G20 meeting; the UN general assembly; the annual meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund; and Cop28.

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Up to 2,000 feared drowned after Libyan city hit by ‘catastrophic’ storm floods

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Local leaders in eastern city of Derna say thousands missing after two ageing dams collapse overnight

As many as 2,000 people may have been drowned after a powerful storm unleashed catastrophic floods in the eastern Libyan city of Derna, according to the head of one of the country’s two rival governments.

Ossama Hamad, prime minister of the eastern-based government, said on Monday that thousands were believed missing after torrential rains over the weekend. The Red Crescent in Benghazi had put the death toll closer to just 250, but the worst-hit area of Derna remained largely cut off with local leaders claiming the situation in the city was “out of control and a catastrophe”.

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Morocco quake survivors call for more help after entire villages destroyed

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As scale of disaster become clearer, survivors in small mountain communities feel they have been abandoned

As the dirt roads leading to some of the areas worst hit in Friday’s earthquake in Morocco were gradually cleared, the full extent of the disaster was being revealed, including whole villages destroyed in Al Haouz province.

In the tiny hamlet of Tarouiste, in the Atlas mountain foothills above the town of Amizmiz, not one of a dozen houses was left standing. Only the village mosque had not been reduced to rubble.

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Morocco earthquake: death toll passes 2,600 as foreign aid teams fly in

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Authorities accept help from some countries but other offers not yet taken up as search for survivors runs out of time

The death toll in the Moroccan earthquake has passed 2,600 people as a limited number of foreign aid and rescue teams joined an intensifying race against time to find any remaining survivors high in the Atlas mountains, where many villages remain inaccessible.

Moroccan authorities said they had “responded favourably” to offers of help from visiting search and rescue teams from Spain, Qatar, Britain and the United Arab Emirates, but they were yet to accept further offers of aid from other countries despite the urgent nature of the disaster – including from France and from Turkey, which experienced a deadly earthquake in February. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said it would help “with all means” if its offer was accepted.

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Morocco earthquake: France ‘ready to help’ despite frosty diplomatic relations

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France offers €5m to assist disaster relief efforts amid political rift between Rabat and Paris

France’s foreign minister has said it is up to Morocco whether to seek French aid in dealing with its deadliest earthquake in more than six decades, and France is ready to help if asked.

Catherine Colonna said France had pledged €5m (£4.3m) to aid organisations in the north African country, where at least 2,500 people are believed to have died and a further 2,400 have been injured, but it was for Morocco to decide who it officially asked for assistance.

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‘We need food and shelter’: farmers flee for their lives as terrorists attack villages in Mali

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Civilians who have been displaced by raids want to return home but say there is no protection for them there

There was no warning. The raiders came late in the night, shouting and shooting. The unarmed farmers of Bujo had no chance to defend themselves, and those who were too slow to flee died. By the morning, the villagers’ homes had been burned, livestock stolen and stores looted. They buried 17 victims in the communal graveyard and then walked the 15km to the nearby town of Bandiagara, where they remain.

The attack in mid-August was one of more than a dozen assaults last month on similar villages in a small area of central Mali that have killed at least 100 people and displaced tens of thousands.

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‘It felt like we were being bombed’: Moroccan earthquake survivors left sleeping outside

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Help has yet to arrive in the village of Moulay Brahim in the Atlas mountains where many homes have been reduced to rubble

In a narrow passage in the village of Moulay Brahim, in Morocco’s Atlas mountains, a house had spilled across the lane in a drift of sandy ruins. It was largely unrecognisable from what it once was, save for the unlikely survival of a solitary room left beached atop the rubble, the blue paint of its walls still visible.

Abderahim Imni, with his hand bandaged from where he was injured by falling masonry during Friday’s devastating earthquake, was directing the cleanup in the street where his home once stood.

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Morocco leads earthquake rescue with many nations offering support

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Rabat has yet to issue appeal for international aid despite powerful quake killing more than 2,000 people

Several countries have offered aid and search support after the Moroccan earthquake, but most of the rescue operation in remote mountain areas was being led by local teams and Rabat has not yet issued a broad demand for international aid.

After a powerful earthquake late on Friday night killed more than 2,000 people, Moroccan authorities this weekend made bilateral contact with certain countries whom they authorised to send expert search and rescue teams. These included Tunisia, who sent 50 paramedics and personnel from a specialised unit, as well as search dogs, advanced thermal monitoring devices, a drone to detect victims under the rubble and a field hospital. Qatar also sent a rescue team and medical crews.

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At least 40 civilians killed in airstrike on Khartoum market in Sudan

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Toll from army attack in the south of the capital is the largest in a single incident since war broke out

At least 40 civilians were killed and dozens injured in an airstrike by the army on a market in southern Khartoum, a local volunteer group has said, marking the largest single-incident death toll since the war in Sudan began in April.

Air and artillery strikes in residential areas have intensified as the war between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) nears the five-month mark with neither side declaring victory or showing any concrete signs of pursuing mediation.

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Morocco earthquake: mourning begins as rescue continues with death toll over 2,000

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Villagers bury their dead while Red Cross warns recovery may take years and other countries offer aid

Rescuers in Morocco were trying to find survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings on Sunday as the country began three days of mourning for victims of a disaster that killed more than 2,000 people and left many more injured and homeless.

Friday’s 6.8-magnitude quake, Morocco’s deadliest in more than six decades, had an epicentre below a remote cluster of mountainous villages 45 miles south of Marrakech, and shook infrastructure as far away as the country’s northern coast.

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