Rapist and murderer’s escape sparked outrage over competence of country’s police and criminal justice system
A fugitive rapist and murderer who left a burnt corpse in his cell during a jailbreak has returned to prison in South Africa after fleeing to Tanzania.
The case has embarrassed authorities and sparked fresh outrage over the competence of South Africa’s police and criminal justice system.
Continue reading...Dozens of mostly sub-Saharan Africans have drowned in region in recent weeks trying to reach Europe
At least 25 people have died after a boat carrying people from sub-Saharan Africa towards Europe sank off the coast of Tunisia.
Fifteen bodies were discovered on Thursday, the Tunisian coastguard said, after 10 were recovered on Wednesday following the shipwreck the day before off the coastal city of Sfax.
Continue reading...Breakthrough hailed as highly effective R21 vaccine is cleared by west African country but questions remain over funding
Ghana has become the first country to approve a highly effective malaria vaccine developed at Oxford university in the UK.
The R21/Matrix-M vaccine, the first to exceed the World Health Organization’s target of 75% efficacy, has been cleared for use by Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority in children aged 5-36 months, the group at highest risk of death from malaria.
Continue reading...Information minister says ‘no basis’ to form interim government, amid claims of February elections being fixed
The Nigerian president-elect, Bola Tinubu, will take office on schedule on 29 May despite court challenges to the election result, the country’s information minister has said.
On a visit to the UK to counter claims that the 25 February elections in Africa’s most populous country had been fixed, Lai Mohammed said there was “no basis” for an interim government to be formed until the court challenges could be resolved.
Continue reading...The country’s second-biggest state has been riven by mass street protests, armed clashes between local police and the federal military as well as the fatal shooting of two aid workers
Gun battles and mass protests have engulfed parts of Amhara, Ethiopia’s second-biggest region, after a move to centralise the regional security forces of the country’s 11 states.
The federal government announced the policy last Thursday, in pursuit of building “a strong centralised army”. People from several towns in Amhara responded with protests, while some units of the region’s security forces refused to disarm and clashed with the federal military.
Continue reading...Pools and well-watered gardens at least as damaging as climate emergency or population growth
The swimming pools, well-watered gardens and clean cars of the rich are driving water crises in cities at least as much as the climate emergency or population growth, according to an analysis.
The researchers said the vast difference in water use between rich and poor citizens had been largely overlooked in seeking solutions to water shortages, with the focus instead on attempts to increase supply and higher prices for water. They said the only way to protect water supplies was by redistributing water resources more equally.
Continue reading...The six films include the tale of an ogre who preys on women, a sci-fi Nigeria taken over by AI, and a girl on a mission to end drought
Traditional African tales of monsters, genies and malevolent spirits have been reworked for a contemporary audience in a new Netflix series.
Film-makers from Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritania and Uganda have turned six traditional stories into dark fantasy dramas that cover topics including domestic violence, suicide and child marriage.
Continue reading...‘Armed terrorist groups’ attacked two villages in northeastern Burkina Faso, near the Niger border
Forty-four civilians have been killed by “armed terrorist groups” in two villages in north-eastern Burkina Faso, near the Niger border, a regional governor said Saturday.
The provisional toll of “this despicable and barbaric attack” which targeted the villages of Kourakou and Tondobi overnight on Thursday “is 44 civilians killed and others wounded,” said Rodolphe Sorgho, lieutenant-governor of the Sahel region.
Continue reading...Latest incident comes amid sharp rise in numbers trying to leave crisis-hit north African country
At least 20 people were missing on Saturday after their boat sank off Tunisia as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to Italy, amid a sharp rise in boats setting off from the north African country.
The coastguard rescued 17 other people from the same boat off the southern city of Sfax, two of whom were in critical condition, said a local judge, Faouzi Masmousdi.
Continue reading...Death toll may rise as many people are still missing after attack in northern-central Benue state
Forty-six bodies have been found after gunmen attacked a rural village in central northern Nigeria, local government officials said, the latest in a series of deadly assaults in the region.
The attack happened on Wednesday in Umogidi in Benue state, where tit-for-tat clashes are common between nomadic herders and settled farmers competing for land and resources.
Continue reading...UAE accused of non-cooperation by South Africa after court rules against extraditing tycoons Atul and Rajesh Gupta
South Africa said on Friday it had learned with “shock and dismay” that the United Arab Emirates had turned down its request to extradite two brothers accused of orchestrating industrial-scale corruption.
The justice minister, Ronald Lamola, bluntly accused the UAE of “non-cooperation” after being informed late on Thursday of a court ruling against extraditing the tycoons Atul and Rajesh Gupta.
Continue reading...CCC spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere convicted over tweet as Zanu-PF accused of curbing free speech
One of Zimbabwe’s most vocal opposition politicians, Fadzayi Mahere, has narrowly avoided a prison sentence after being convicted of “communicating falsehoods” in 2021.
The verdict has stoked fears of a brutal state clampdown on freedom of expression before this summer’s general election.
Continue reading...Foreign Office figures show aid to Africa fell to £1.1bn in 2022, compared with £3.7bn of budget spent on refugees in UK
The UK spent more than three times its overseas aid budget on housing refugees in Britain than on helping to alleviate poverty in Africa in 2022, figures from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office show.
The official provisional figures for 2022 show that spending on refugees increased from £597m in 2020 to £1bn in 2021 and reached £3.7bn in 2022. No other major country in the world is cutting its mainstream aid budget to cover the cost of housing refugees in this way, said the aid campaign group Bond.
Continue reading...Metal used for west African artworks was acquired from manilla bracelets, the grim currency of the slave trade
Scientists have discovered that some of the Benin bronzes were made with brass mined thousands of miles away in the German Rhineland.
The Edo people in the Kingdom of Benin, modern Nigeria, created their extraordinary sculptures with melted down brass manilla bracelets, the grim currency of the transatlantic slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Continue reading...Rudolph Erasmus praised for ‘great airmanship’ after discovery of deadly cobra in cockpit of private plane
A South African pilot was forced to make an emergency landing after a 5ft deadly cobra slithered past his side and curled up under his seat.
Rudolph Erasmus was flying four passengers in a private plane at 11,000ft when he said he felt a “cold sensation” on his hip. Thinking that his water bottle might have been leaking, Erasmus looked down instead at the sight of a highly venomous snake disappearing underneath him.
Continue reading...Risk of unrest rises amid fourth dry year, poor grain harvest, weak economy and likely food subsidy cuts
Tunisia has introduced water rationing as the country suffers its fourth year of severe drought.
The state water distribution company, Sonede, has already begun cutting mains water supplies every night between 9pm and 4am. The agriculture ministry has now banned the use of water for irrigation, watering green spaces and other public areas, and for washing cars.
Continue reading...Museveni says homosexuality is ‘danger to procreation of human race’ at Entebbe conference hosted by US anti-LGBTQ+ hate group
The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has called on African leaders to reject “the promotion of homosexuality”, suggesting he will sign into law a controversial anti-LGBTQ+ bill, which was passed by parliament last month.
The bill, which imposes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” and life imprisonment for “recruitment, promotion and funding” of same-sex “activities”, has been widely criticised internationally, with the UN high commissioner for human rights urging the president not to sign it.
Continue reading...Le Monde and Libération correspondents sent home in junta’s latest move against media from former colonial power
Burkina Faso has expelled correspondents from Le Monde and Libération, the newspapers said on Sunday, the latest move the junta running the west African country has taken against French media.
Burkina Faso, where two coups took place last year, is battling a jihadist insurgency that spilled over from neighbouring Mali in 2015.
Continue reading...Former Paralympic and Olympic star was automatically eligible for parole consideration after serving half his sentence
The South African former athlete Oscar Pistorius has been denied parole over the killing of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp 10 years ago.
Pistorius killed Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, when he fired four times through the bathroom door of his high-security house in February 2013. The parole board’s decision was taken at a hearing at the correctional facility on the outskirts of the capital, Pretoria, where the 36-year-old is being held.
Continue reading...Migrant crackdown is prompting increasing number of people from sub-Saharan Africa to board boats
On a recent afternoon in the Tunisian coastal city of Sfax, as shoppers hurried around a market buying food and drink for that evening’s iftar meal, a small group of men from sub-Saharan Africa gathered near a stall selling phone accessories.
One of them, Joseph, had made a two-week journey to the city from Cameroon eight months ago. His plan, like thousands before him fleeing poverty and conflict in Africa and the Middle East in the hope of a better life, had been to board a boat from near Sfax and cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
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