Family say couple were not offered support to evacuate despite living near British embassy in Khartoum
An 85-year-old British citizen was shot by snipers and his wife died of starvation after they were left behind in Sudan, their family has said.
Abdalla Sholgami, who owns a hotel in London, lived with his 80-year-old wife, Alaweya Rishwan, who is disabled, close to the UK’s diplomatic base in Khartoum, the BBC said.
Continue reading...Workers at World Cup 2022 venues fired as tournament ended and allegedly jailed or deported after trying to claim unpaid wages
Three World Cup security guards who were detained while trying to resolve a dispute over unpaid wages are still being held in Qatar four months after their arrest.
Shakir Ullah and Zafar Iqbal from Pakistan, and an Indian national, have allegedly been sentenced to six months in prison and fined 10,000 riyals (£2,220) each.
Continue reading...Private army led by Ivan Aleksandrovich Maslov accused of acquiring weaponry for use in Ukraine
The United States has imposed sanctions on the head of the Wagner group in Mali, accusing the Russian private army of using the country as a conduit for arms and military equipment for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
The US Treasury said Ivan Aleksandrovich Maslov works closely with Malian officials to build Wagner’s presence in Mali and elsewhere in Africa.
Continue reading...Centuries-old Ceiba pentandra marked where formerly enslaved people had prayed upon arrival in west Africa
A centuries-old tree that served as a historic symbol in Sierra Leone has been felled during a storm, the government has said.
The 70-metre (230ft) Ceiba pentandra – known by Sierra Leoneans as Cotton Tree – lost all of its branches on Wednesday during torrential rains and high winds, with only the base of its enormous trunk still standing. The tree, which was in the capital, Freetown, was about 400 years old.
Continue reading...The Guardian visited Angola in 2001 as the long civil war – aggravated by the interventions of Henry Kissinger – between Unita and the government neared its end. The images show how the conflict affected the people and landscape around the city of Kuito in Bie province
After largely ignoring the continent for years, Henry Kissinger, who shaped US foreign policy from 1969 to 1976 as secretary of state, became involved in successive crises in Ethiopia, Angola and Rhodesia in the 1970s.
The US intervention in Angola complicated the emerging conflict there that followed Portugal’s withdrawal from its African colonies after the fascist dictatorship was overthrown in a coup in Lisbon. Concerned that the communist MPLA forces would sweep to power and open the way for Soviet influence, Kissinger led the US into a lengthy involvement in Angola.
Top, a boy runs past a bullet-scarred government building in Kuito. A woman chops the stump of a tree. Refugees camped out near Cuemba deforested the area to provide shelter and fuel for cooking and heat. Bottom, mother and child at the Cuemba refugee camp. A family waits to be seen by doctors at a medical centre run by Médecins Sans Frontières in Camacupa
Continue reading...Fulgence Kayishema, 62, charged with playing leading role in church killing of more than 2,000 people
One of the world’s most wanted genocide suspects, a Rwandan former police chief, Fulgence Kayishema, has been arrested in South Africa and charged with playing a leading role in the murder of more than 2,000 people in a church in April 1994.
Kayishema has spent more than two decades as a fugitive and was living under a false name at the time of his arrest on Wednesday afternoon in Paarl, 35 miles (60km) north-east of Cape Town. He was detained by the South African police and members of a tracking team from the Rwandan war crimes tribunal based in Arusha, Tanzania.
Continue reading...Daughters of Rached Ghannouchi and Said Ferjani demand justice amid continuing crackdown on dissent by President Saied
Families of detained Tunisian opposition politicians filed a case at the African court on human and peoples’ rights in Arusha, Tanzania, on Wednesday, accusing Tunisia of unlawfully arresting and detaining the leaders.
“On the evidence we are seeing so far, there is no proper basis for the charges,” said Rodney Dixon, a British lawyer handling the case. “They weren’t arrested lawfully with proper warrants, and the allegations haven’t been substantiated.”
Continue reading...Successful trials in Africa of NmCV-5 vaccine open the door to affordable treatment for disease that kills 250,000 people a year
An effective, affordable meningitis vaccine has been successfully tested in Africa, raising hopes for the elimination of a disease that kills 250,000 people a year.
The NmCV-5 vaccine, developed by the Serum Institute of India and global health organisation Path, will protect against the five main meningococcal strains found in Africa, including the emerging X strain, for which there is currently no licensed injection.
Continue reading...NGOs dismayed at reduction in Britain’s contribution as crisis-hit region faces challenges from drought, rising prices and conflict
The UK has been accused of taking the “insulting and shortsighted” decision to cut humanitarian aid to east Africa at a time of chronic drought, conflict and rising food prices.
At a United Nations pledging conference in New York on Wednesday, which the UK is co-chairing, Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s international development minister, announced a humanitarian aid package to the region of £143m.
Continue reading...Coming rainy season threatens 80,000 living in ‘heartbreaking’ conditions in vulnerable border region after fleeing war at home
Tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees, many of them children, who have crossed the border into Chad risk a “major humanitarian disaster” when the rainy season begins within weeks, a Red Cross official has warned.
About 80,000 people have sought refuge in the country to the west of Sudan as weeks of fighting between two warring generals forces hundreds of thousands from their homes.
Continue reading...Army brought in to forcibly relocate refugees from the capital, despite pleas from human rights organisations
Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers in Malawi have been forcibly relocated from the capital, Lilongwe, to an overcrowded government camp.
Over the past week, more than 300 refugees, including 100 children, have been rounded up and sent to Dzaleka camp, about 30 miles away.
Continue reading...Prince Alemayehu, who was taken to England after his father’s citadel was looted, was buried at Windsor Castle in 19th century
Buckingham Palace has reportedly declined a request to return the remains of an Ethiopian prince who came to be buried at Windsor Castle in the 19th century.
Prince Alemayehu, a claimed descendant of the biblical King Solomon, was taken to England – some say “stolen” – after British soldiers looted his father’s imperial citadel after the Battle of Maqdala in 1868.
Continue reading...Global trade in chocolate, worth more than $1tn a year, is leading to widespread deforestation in Ivory Coast and Ghana
The world’s hunger for chocolate is a major cause of the destruction of protected forests in west Africa, scientists have said.
Satellite maps of Ivory Coast and Ghana showed swathes of formerly dense forest had become cocoa plantations since 2000, according to a study.
Continue reading...Tory senior treasurer Mansour says he wants to assist ‘very capable prime minister’ Rishi Sunak
The Conservatives have accepted a £5m donation from an Egyptian-born billionaire who served as a minister in the government of the former president Hosni Mubarak.
Mohamed Mansour, who was made senior treasurer of the Conservatives in December, announced he had given the sum to the party, its biggest one-off donation for more than 20 years.
Continue reading...Deal to stop violence comes as journalists’ syndicate accuses paramilitary group of targeting reporters
A weeklong ceasefire in Sudan intended to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid got off to a shaky start on Monday evening as witnesses in the capital, Khartoum, reported fighter jets over the city and continued fighting in some areas.
The US and Saudi Arabia announced the deal to stop six weeks of fighting, saying it would come into force at 9.45pm (7.45pm BST). World powers had put pressure on the army and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces to sign a deal. Previous attempts have fallen apart.
Continue reading...MPs back new bill for medical graduates, designed to limit brain drain to countries including the UK and US
A new bill to impose five years’ mandatory service on Nigeria’s medical graduates in an effort to stop the exodus of doctors to the UK and the US has been attacked as “obnoxious”.
The bill, which could be put to a public hearing in the next few days, passed its second reading in the Nigerian parliament’s lower house last month.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s leader knows he needs to win over nonaligned countries such as Brazil and India to increase the pressure on Russia
Normally G7 summits are about battling for the free world comma by comma, as diplomats parse lengthy communiques of ephemeral significance long into the night. Words, after all, constitute much of a diplomat’s work.
At the Hiroshima G7 some of the communiques emerging from the summit do matter, notably the toolbox on de-risking trade with China, but the true significance of the summit lay in Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s scene-stealing visit courtesy of a ride in Emmanuel Macron’s French aircraft.
Continue reading...US and Saudi Arabia announce deal that comes after six weeks of fighting between Sudan’s army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces
Sudan’s warring factions signed an agreement late on Saturday for a seven-day ceasefire, the US and Saudi Arabia said in a joint statement, as fighting that has plunged the country into chaos and displaced more than a million entered its sixth week.
The fighting between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has led to a collapse in law. Stocks of food, cash and essentials are rapidly dwindling, and mass looting has hit banks, embassies, factories and aid warehouses.
Continue reading...Report implicates Wagner group fighters in Moura atrocity, including the torture and rape of civilians
First came a single helicopter, flying low over the marshes around the river outside the village, then the rattle of automatic fire scattered the crowds gathered for the weekly market.
Next came more helicopters, dropping troops off around the homes and cattle pens. The soldiers moved swiftly, ordering men into the centre of the village, gunning down those trying to escape. When some armed militants fired back, the shooting intensified. Soon at least 20 civilians and a dozen alleged members of an al-Qaida affiliated Islamist group, were dead.
Continue reading...Torrential rain, coming on top of the country’s worst drought in four decades, has forced 250,000 people to leave their homes
Jamal Ali Abdi has seen flooding in Beledweyne before but never on the scale witnessed earlier this month when the Shabelle River burst its banks, causing devastation to the central Somali town and displacing almost the entire population.
As water gushed through the streets, Ali’s home was soon surrounded by murky brown flood water.
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