Category Archives: Africa

‘Man of 1,000 faces’ wins Deutsche Börse photography prize

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Samuel Fosso scoops £30,000 award for performative self-portraits of historical figures including Angela Davis and Mao Zedong

One of Africa’s most important living photographers and contemporary artists, who photographs himself in the style of leading historical figures including Martin Luther King and Angela Davis, has won the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation prize 2023.

The Cameroonian-born Nigerian photographer Samuel Fosso was awarded the £30,000 prize – one of the most prestigious in the industry – at the Photographers’ Gallery in London on Thursday.

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US accuses South Africa of providing arms to Russia

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Ambassador says weapons were brought to Russia on cargo ship from Simon’s Town naval base, local media reports

The US ambassador to South Africa has accused the country of covertly providing arms to Russia – a charge that drew an angry rebuke from Pretoria.

Reuben Brigety told a media briefing on Thursday that the US believed weapons and ammunition had been loaded on to a Russian freighter that docked at a Cape Town naval base in December.

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Gaza Strip fighting intensifies on third day despite Egypt ceasefire efforts

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Clashes between Israel and militants leave 29 dead so far, with airstrikes targeting homes of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders

Fighting between Israel and militant groups in the blockaded Gaza Strip has intensified for the third day despite ceasefire efforts brokered by Egypt, in the worst bout of violence in the region in months that has killed 29 people in Gaza, including at least 10 civilians, and one civilian in Israel.

The latest conflagration began in the early hours of Tuesday, when Israel launched surprise airstrikes targeting the homes of three senior commanders in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the second most powerful group in the strip after Hamas, despite a fragile ceasefire in place since a day of cross-frontier fire last week.

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Conflict and climate disasters combine to create record rise in displaced people

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War in Ukraine and Pakistan’s ‘monsoon on steroids’ among events driving surge on ‘scale never seen before’ as 71m people displaced

The number of people around the world who were forced to flee their homes leapt by a fifth last year, as a “perfect storm” of Russia’s assault on Ukraine and climate disasters brought displacement on an unprecedented scale.

By the end of 2022 the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) – those forced from their homes but remaining within their country of residence – reached 71 million, according to figures published by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), up from 59.1 million in 2021.

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Tunisia police officer kills five in shooting near Africa’s oldest synagogue

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Attacker reportedly first shot dead colleague and stole ammunition before heading towards synagogue

A police officer killed three other police and two visitors near Africa’s oldest synagogue, the Tunisian government has said, amid an annual pilgrimage to the island of Djerba that draws hundreds of Jews from Europe and Israel.

The officer at a naval installation in Djerba shot a colleague and seized his ammunition on Tuesday and headed towards the Ghriba synagogue, the Tunisian interior ministry said.

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Former Rwanda police officer on trial in Paris accused of taking part in genocide

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Philippe Hategekimana, 66, who started new life in France under false identity, is charged with crimes against humanity

A former Rwandan military police officer who fled to France after the 1994 genocide and started a new life under a false identity is going on trial in Paris charged with crimes against humanity.

Philippe Hategekimana, 66, fled to France five years after the genocide, obtaining refugee status under a fake name. He became a university security guard in the city of Rennes and gained French citizenship in 2005.

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Sudan’s doctors turn to social media as health infrastructure crumbles

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With hospitals struggling amid the violence, medics are using helplines on messaging platforms to reach those in need

Sudanese doctors are turning to social media to reach patients as hospitals and heath facilities struggle to function or close completely in the violence. Volunteers have set up 24-hour helplines on messaging platforms including WhatsApp, staffed by hundreds of doctors and specialists.

Only 16% of hospitals in the capital, Khartoum, are operating at full capacity, according to the World Health Organization. Last week at least four people, including a child, were killed in an airstrike outside East Nile hospital in north Khartoum, while Médecins Sans Frontières reported that El Geneina teaching hospital, in west Darfur, was looted on 28 April. Doctors in the country are reporting death threats and on Monday two volunteers who were working to reopen a hospital in Bahri were released after being held for days by the army.

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More than 400 people now confirmed dead after flooding in DRC

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About 5,500 people still missing after intense floods and landslides with thousands also left homeless

At least 411 people are now known to have died in intense flooding and landslides that hit the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s South Kivu province last week.

Efforts to rescue inhabitants and recover bodies in Kalehe, where the flooding happened, are continuing. Some houses, schools and hospitals have collapsed or become dilapidated or unsafe. Others were entirely swept away.

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Zimbabwe author Tsitsi Dangarembga has conviction for protest overturned

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Harare high court quashes suspended sentence and fine handed down to Booker-longlisted writer last year

Zimbabwean author and activist Tsitsi Dangarembga has had her conviction for inciting violence by staging a peaceful protest overturned.

The critically acclaimed writer was given a six-month suspended sentence and fined 70,000 Zimbabwean dollars (£170) in September 2022 for staging a protest calling for political reform. During the 2020 protest, alongside fellow activist Julie Barnes, Dangarembga held a placard inscribed: “We want better. Reform our institutions.”

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Autopsies reveal missing organs in Kenya cult deaths, say police

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Discovery raises suspicions of forced harvesting by suspects linked to group led by Paul Nthenge Mackenzie

Autopsies on corpses found in mass graves linked to a religious cult in Kenya have revealed missing organs and raised suspicions of forced harvesting, investigators said, with a fresh round of exhumations to resume on Tuesday.

The discovery of mass graves last month near the Indian Ocean coastal town of Malindi has stunned the deeply religious Christian-majority country in what has been called the “Shakahola forest massacre”.

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Sudan medical volunteers detained after being seized from ambulance

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Mohamed Ahmed and Mohamed Jamal went missing last week while working to reopen a hospital in Bahri

Activists in Sudan have expressed outrage after two medical volunteers were seized from the ambulance they were driving in northern Khartoum and detained for days by army intelligence officers, as airstrikes and clashes continued across the capital.

Mohamed Ahmed and Mohamed Jamal went missing last week while working with other volunteers to reopen the Haj al-Safi hospital in Bahri, which had been forced to close amid heavy fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

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Lone child refugees stranded in Sudan may ‘risk travelling to UK on small boats’

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Charities say British government not doing enough to facilitate family reunions through available safe and legal route

Lone child refugees stranded in Sudan could be forced to travel to the UK in small boats because British ministers are not helping those entitled to family reunion to escape the fighting, charities have warned.

Asylum seekers granted refugee status in the UK are able to apply to bring their spouse, children or younger siblings – one of the few safe and legal routes open to refugees.

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UK ‘was urged to investigate’ Nigerian politician before organ trafficking plot

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Exclusive: Former US intelligence analyst says he warned authorities about activities of Ike Ekweremadu

A former US intelligence analyst warned the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) to investigate the activities of a senior Nigerian politician before he trafficked a man to London in an attempt to harvest his kidney, the Guardian can reveal.

On Friday, Ike Ekweremadu was sentenced to more than nine years in prison for being the driving force in a plot to harvest a kidney for his sick daughter in the first organ trafficking conviction under the Modern Slavery Act.

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Colonialism and controversial guests inform Africa’s reaction to Charles’s coronation

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While some paid tribute to the British monarch, the presence in London of certain guests proved less than welcome

In South Africa, as across the African Commonwealth countries, Saturday’s coronation of King Charles III prompted mixed reactions.

There was much interest in Pretty Yende, the South African soprano who sang at the beginning of the ceremony, and some high-profile public figures sent their best wishes to the monarch.

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Eritrea accused of forcibly repatriating civilians caught up in Sudan fighting

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More than 3,500 refugees are said to have been forcibly deported over the border in recent weeks

When fighting broke out between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group in Khartoum in mid-April, Eritrean brothers Abdel and Dahlak* said goodbye to each other in the Sudanese capital.

Dahlak, the younger of the two, had some savings, so could afford to flee the city on a bus with other Eritreans. He headed east towards refugee camps in the vicinity of Kassala, a town near the Eritrean border that is home to a large Eritrean community.

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Home Office accused of being ‘unashamedly racist’ towards Sudanese

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Experts believe the UK has adopted a segregated immigration policy which favours those fleeing Ukraine

The Home Office has been accused of operating an “unashamedly racist” refugee system after refusing to offer people fleeing fighting in Sudan a safe and legal route to the UK, in stark contrast to the schemes offered to those escaping the war in Ukraine.

With the final evacuation flight from Khartoum to the UK having left last week, a lack of options from the UK government has crystallised concern that it has adopted a segregated immigration policy. No safe and legal routes have been made available to help Sudanese refugees flee and there is no sign of an announcement outlining a new scheme to deal with the fallout of the conflict.

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Sudan’s warring sides arrive in Saudi Arabia for talks as fighting rages on

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US and Riyadh confirm talks amid reports of more airstrikes and gun battles in Khartoum despite threat of sanctions

Sudan’s rival factions have arrived in Saudi Arabia for direct talks, after three weeks of clashes in the capital, Khartoum, and the south-western region of Darfur that have killed at least hundreds and wounded many more.

Representatives of the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were in Jeddah on Saturday for “pre-negotiation talks” aimed at establishing a durable ceasefire that would allow aid to reach millions of desperate civilians trapped by the fighting.

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Congo: nearly 200 people killed in flash floods in eastern DRC

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At least 176 die after heavy rainfall in South Kivu province causes rivers to overflow

At least 176 people have died in flash floods in an eastern territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a regional governor said on Friday, as heavy rain destroyed buildings and forced aid workers to gather mud-clad corpses into piles.

The rainfall in Kalehe territory in South Kivu province caused rivers to overflow on Thursday, inundating the villages of Bushushu and Nyamukubi.

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Met police investigate more organ trafficking cases in UK

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Modern slavery team reveals further allegations of people being trafficked to London for body parts

The Metropolitan police is investigating more cases of organ trafficking in the UK after new victims came forward following the first conviction for the offence under modern slavery laws.

Detectives from Scotland Yard’s modern slavery and child exploitation team have said they are investigating more allegations of people being trafficked for their body parts to London and other areas of the UK.

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Nigerian politician jailed for nine years in UK over organ trafficking plot

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Judge says Ike Ekweremadu was ‘driving force’ in scheme to take kidney for his sick daughter from man brought to London

A senior Nigerian politician has been sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison in the UK for being the “driving force” in a plot to harvest a kidney for his sick daughter from a young man he had trafficked to London.

Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a former deputy president of the Nigerian senate, his wife, Beatrice, 56, and Dr Obinna Obeta, 51, were found guilty by an Old Bailey jury in March in the first organ trafficking conviction under the Modern Slavery Act.

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