Category Archives: Africa

Kidnapped Australian Dr Ken Elliott released by al-Qaida in Africa after seven-year fight for freedom

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Penny Wong says the 88-year-old Perth man, who was kidnapped in Burkina Faso in 2016, has been reunited with his family

Dr Ken Elliott, the Australian who was kidnapped by an al-Qaida-linked group in Africa in 2016, has been released.

Elliott and his wife, Jocelyn, were in their 80s when they were kidnapped by extremists in Burkina Faso. The Perth couple had lived in the country since 1972 and had built a medical clinic in the northern town of Djibo.

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Developing country voices will be excluded at UN plastic talks, say NGOs

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Limits on numbers at Paris summit mean some of those ‘most needing to be heard’ will not be in attendance

Scientists and NGOs have accused the UN’s environment programme (Unep) of locking out those “most needing to be heard” from upcoming negotiations in Paris aimed at halting plastic waste.

Last-minute restrictions to the numbers of NGOs attending what the head of Unep described as the “most important multilateral environmental deal” in a decade will exclude people from communities in developing countries harmed by dumping and burning of plastic waste as well as marginalised waste pickers, who are crucial to recycling, from fully participating, they said.

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Lesotho orders indefinite curfew after radio journalist is shot dead

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Murder of Ralikonelo ‘Leqhashasha’ Joki prompts crackdown in southern African nation amid warnings of threat to media freedom

Lesotho has imposed anationwide curfew after the killing of a prominent radio presenter in the capital, Maseru, this week.

Ralikonelo “Leqhashasha” Joki, who worked for Ts’enolo FM radio station, was shot at least 13 times by unknown assailants as he left the studio at 10pm after his Sunday evening show.

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Injectable HIV-prevention drug to be made in South Africa for the first time

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Indian drug company to make cheaper generic version of CAB-LA, potentially protecting millions of people in Africa from the virus

An affordable version of a groundbreaking HIV-prevention drug will be made in South Africa for the first time, potentially giving millions of people at risk of HIV infection in Africa access to a two-monthly jab that can almost eliminate their chances of contracting the virus.

The Indian drug company Cipla confirmed that a generic version of the prophylaxis, long-acting cabotegravir (CAB-LA), would be manufactured at its plants in Benoni, near Johannesburg, or Durban.

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‘On every corner someone disappears’: the frantic search for Sudan’s missing

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Since fighting erupted last month, dozens of people have vanished, but communities are organising to find and bring them home

Kamal Ali Osman sent a text message to his family saying he was being stopped by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the militia group whose checkpoints now throttle the roads of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

Minutes later, the text was deleted from his phone. He has not been heard from since.

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Renovation of Brussels park ignites debate on decolonisation

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Triumphal arch in Cinquantenaire park ‘linked to exploitation of Congo’, says cultural group in Belgian capital

For many Belgians, the Cinquantenaire park in Brussels evokes memories of childhood visits to see the stuffed horses of the military history museum, or vintage cars at Autoworld, two institutions on the edge of the park.

The much-loved green space’s cheerful flowers and whimsical follies contrast with the steel canyons and beeping traffic of the adjacent EU quarter, but above all it is an expression of national pride, with a giant Belgian tricolour often suspended underneath a massive triumphal arch. Built in 1880 to mark 50 years of the Belgian state, Belgium’s federal government last month launched a redevelopment plan for the 200th anniversary in 2030.

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‘The city was underwater’: quarter of a million Somalis flee flooded homes

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Climate crisis a key factor in flash flooding of Beledweyne as rains end drought and Shabelle River breaks its banks

Floods have caused almost a quarter of a million people to flee their homes after the Shabelle River in central Somalia broke its banks and submerged the town of Beledweyne, even as the country faces its most severe drought in four decades, according to the government.

Aid agencies and scientists have warned that the climate crisis is among the most significant factors accelerating humanitarian emergencies, while those affected are some of the least responsible for CO2 emissions.

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European leaders urged to help Tunisians resist assault on democracy

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International academics join effort to highlight crackdown on freedom after jailing of opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi

European powers must stand by pro-democracy Tunisians resisting a fierce onslaught designed to take the country back to the darkest days of dictatorship, a letter from more than 70 academics has urged.

The letter, designed to shine a light on the Tunisian crackdown, was in part collated by Soumaya Ghannoushi, whose father, the Tunisian opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi, was sentenced to a year in jail on Monday.

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Malawi’s Rastafarian children return to school after ban on dreadlocks is lifted

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Schools told to honour court order as families seek compensation and training for pupils who missed education because of their hair

About 1,200 Rastafarian children in Malawi are expected to return to state schools over the next month after being banned for a decade because of their hair.

After a landmark decision at the high court in March, letters have now been sent out to about 7,000 schools telling headteachers that the exclusion of children with dreadlocks from the classroom has been ruled as unconstitutional.

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Baby dead and 23 people missing after hippo collides with boat in Malawi

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Police in Nsanje say canoe was carrying 37 people across the Shire River when incident took place

A baby has died and 23 people are missing after a hippopotamus hit a boat travelling on the Shire River in Malawi, authorities have said.

Police in the African country’s southern district of Nsanje said the canoe was carrying 37 people across the waterway when the incident took place on Monday morning.

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Airstrikes hit Khartoum as fighting between Sudanese factions intensifies

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Rapid Support Forces claim to have captured 700 soldiers at base during new battles in and around capital

Airstrikes and artillery fire shook much of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, and its neighbouring cities on Tuesday as fighting between the country’s warring factions intensified sharply.

New battles between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) flared from dawn in north and south Khartoum, as well as in the adjacent cities of Omdurman and Bahri, as the army sought to defend its bases from its paramilitary rival.

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Tunisian journalist given five-year prison term in ‘attack on press freedom’

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Union says increased sentence against Khalifa Guesmi under anti-terrorism law represents ‘dangerous authoritarian drift’

A Tunisian appeals court has sentenced a radio journalist to five years in prison for disclosing information about the country’s security services.

Khalifa Guesmi, of the Mosaique FM radio station, had appealed against a one-year term handed down in November before the sentence was increased under an anti-terrorism law.

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Sudan: Reports of women being raped in Khartoum by armed men

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Refugees are among those receiving support since civil war broke out last month – and officials believes more sexual assault cases are going unreported

There have been multiple reports of civilians being raped by armed men in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum where fighting broke out last month, say government officials.

Four women and a girl, three of them refugees, are being supported by a specialist unit whose director said she thought most of the sexual violence in the city was going unreported.

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Nigerian musician Seun Kuti arrested for allegedly assaulting police officer

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Son of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti arrested after he was shown on video shouting and apparently smacking an officer, police say

The Nigerian musician Seun Kuti, son of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer, Lagos state police said on Monday.

An order was made for the arrest of Kuti, a Grammy-nominated saxophonist and singer, on Saturday after a viral video showed him on a road, shouting and apparently pushing and smacking a police officer, police said.

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Recreate UK’s Homes for Ukraine scheme for Sudan refugees, urges one of plan’s architects

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Exclusive: Krish Kandiah wants same help given to Ukrainians offered to Sudanese families fleeing civil war

One of the architects of Britain’s Homes for Ukraine scheme is calling on the government to replicate the programme for refugees from Sudan.

Dr Krish Kandiah, the director of the Sanctuary Foundation, which was instrumental in matching many British hosts with Ukrainian refugees, said he wanted the country to show the “same generosity of spirit” to those fleeing war in Sudan as it did to Ukrainians.

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South Africa summons US ambassador over his claims it is arming Russia

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Foreign ministry says there is ‘no record of approved arms sale’ after allegations by Reuben Brigety

South Africa’s foreign ministry has summoned the US ambassador over allegations he made that the country had provided arms and ammunition to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

Amid the diplomatic fallout, South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, would also speak with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said in a statement posted on Twitter.

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Weather tracker: flash floods and landslides hit parts of east Africa

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Many reported dead in Rwanda and Uganda, as heavy rain also devastates western regions of continent

May is the end of the rainy season for many parts of east Africa. However, this does not mean the devastation has ended.

Last week heavy rainfall, which started in the late afternoon on 2 May, led to flash flooding in parts of Rwanda and Uganda. These heavy downpours continued through to 4 May, with further wet weather following later in the week.

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Diabetics fleeing Sudan struggle to keep their insulin safe in 40C heat

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With makeshift coolbags and an endless quest for ice, refugees are desperately struggling to protect their precious medication – if they can access any at all

Bags of ice and wet towels have become the emergency lifelines for Sudanese diabetics struggling to keep their insulin cool while waiting in extreme heat as they try to escape the recent violence.

A vital medication for many diabetics, insulin must be kept cool to remain effective, But since fighting broke out between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces last month, hospitals and pharmacies have forced to close and there has been damage to cold-storage facilities.

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Communal violence and civilian deaths in Sudan fuel fears of widening conflict

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Fighting reported in far south and communal clashes in Darfur, amid power struggle between generals

The deaths of dozens of civilians in fighting in the far south of Sudan and an outbreak of communal violence in the restive Darfur region have fuelled fears that communities across the frontier regions of Africa’s third biggest country are being drawn into the bloody contest between two rival generals.

Fighting in the southern state of North Kordofan between militias aligned with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group and local brigades of the Sudanese army has centred on the strategically important state capital, El Obeid.

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Sudan: warring sides commit to protect civilians and allow aid in but fail to agree ceasefire

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Negotiations in Jeddah will continue, but US says two parties remain ‘quite far apart’

Sudan’s warring parties have signed a commitment to protect civilians but have not yet agreed to a ceasefire in talks described by US diplomats as difficult.

Representatives of the army and paramilitary forces, whose nearly one month of fighting has killed more than 750 people and displaced thousands, signed the agreement as they kept negotiating in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

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