Category Archives: Africa

‘Shocking blow to Indigenous land rights’ as court dismisses Maasai herder claim

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Herders lodge appeal against ruling in their case against the Tanzanian government, which they say is violently evicting them from ancestral land

Lawyers for Maasai herders who say the Tanzanian government is trying to violently evict them from their ancestral land to make way for a luxury game reserve have lodged an appeal against a court ruling that dismissed their case.

Donald Deya, lead counsel for the herders and chief executive officer of the Pan-African Lawyers Union (Palu), said his team had, on Wednesday, appealed against the verdict of the east African court of justice, which campaigners branded “a shocking blow” to Indigenous land rights.

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Sudan faces ‘generational catastrophe’ as millions of children miss school

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Floods, militia raids and hunger mean a third of children are not in school at all, while the rest have too few teachers, aid groups warn

Nearly every school-age child in Sudan is missing out on education, either completely or facing serious disruption, aid organisations have warned.

Schools in some states reopened this week after delays due to severe flooding but millions of children are still unable to go, leaving the country facing a “generational catastrophe”.

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Ugandan president fires son from military role after ‘capture Nairobi’ tweet

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Latest in series of provocative tweets leads to removal of Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba as infantry commander

The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has fired his son as commander of the country’s infantry forces after the son tweeted an unprovoked threat to capture the capital of neighbouring Kenya, drawing widespread concern in east Africa.

Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, labelled “the tweeting general” of Uganda, in recent months had sparked anger among some Ugandans who see his frequent tweets as provocative and sometimes dangerous.

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Cop27 host Egypt warns UK not to backtrack from climate agenda

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Unusual diplomatic intervention prompted by fears over Liz Truss’s commitment to net zero

The Egyptian government, host of the next UN climate summit, has warned the UK against “backtracking from the global climate agenda”, in a significant intervention prompted by fears over Liz Truss’s commitment to net zero.

The warning before the Cop27 conference, which will take place in just over a month in Sharm el-Sheikh, to the host of Cop26, which took place in Glasgow last November, is highly unusual in diplomatic terms. The hosts of successive Cops are responsible for a smooth handover of the talks.

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Burkina Faso coup fuels fears of growing Russian mercenary presence in Sahel

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North Africa analysts believe new leader Ibrahim Traoré may seek help from Moscow in fight against Islamic extremists

Russian mercenaries may be poised for further expansion in Africa’s strategically important Sahel region after the latest coup d’etat in the region, western officials and analysts fear.

Ibrahim Traoré, a 34-year-old army captain, took power in Burkina Faso on Friday, overthrowing Lt Col Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, whom he accused of failing to effectively counter rising violence by Islamic extremists in the unstable and poverty-stricken country.

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Young people demand climate justice in run-up to Cop27 UN talks

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Activists from global south demand recompense for damage from countries most responsible for crisis

Young people from some of the countries most affected by climate breakdown have warned they are not victims but a force to be reckoned with in the run-up to a UN climate conference in Egypt.

Led by climate groups across Africa and the Middle East, hundreds of activists from countries that are the least responsible for the crisis but are experiencing the worst impacts have gathered in Tunisia to prepare for what they say will be a collective fight for justice for their countries and communities, which they will take to Cop27 next month.

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Sudan campaigners demand action after alarming rise in ‘honour killings’

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Reported deaths more than double in a year, with women attacked by male relatives for appearing to talk to men on smartphones

Campaigners are calling for urgent action to tackle what they say is a rise in “honour killings” in Sudan.

Eleven women and girls have reportedly been killed by relatives so far this year, more than double the number reported in 2021. Two women have died in the past month.

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African unions condemn latest ‘power grab’ in Burkina Faso

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West African bloc said country’s second military coup in nine months was ‘inappropriate’

Gunshots rang out in Burkina Faso’s capital amid signs of lingering tensions a day after a group of military officers overthrew the man who had seized power in a coup only nine months earlier.

Roads remained blocked off in Ouagadougou, where a helicopter could be heard flying overhead. An internal security analysis for the EU seen by the Associated Press said there was “abnormal military movement” in the city.

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Prince Harry wildlife NGO under fire after elephants kill three in Malawi

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African Parks, of which the prince is president, is one of three parties accused of rushing a mass translocation of the mammals


Two wildlife organisations, including one headed by Prince Harry, have been accused of caring about animals more than people after three men died following an elephant translocation in Malawi.

In July, more than 250 elephants were moved from Liwonde national park in southern Malawi to the country’s second-largest protected area, Kasungu, in a three-way operation between Malawi’s national park service and the NGOs African Parks and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw).

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Burkina Faso’s military leader ousted in second coup this year

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Army officer Captain Ibrahim Traore has overthrown Paul-Henri Damiba, eight months after he took power

Members of Burkina Faso’s army have seized control of state television, declaring that they had ousted military leader Paul-Henri Damiba, dissolved the government and suspended the constitution and transitional charter.

In a statement read on national television late on Friday, Captain Ibrahim Traore said a group of officers had decided to remove Damiba due to his inability to deal with a worsening Islamist insurgency. He announced that borders were closed indefinitely and that all political and civil society activities were suspended.

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Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga found guilty of inciting violence

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Novelist given suspended sentence after staging peaceful protest calling for political reform

Renowned Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga has been given a suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of inciting violence by staging a peaceful protest calling for political reform.

Dangarembga and co-accused Julie Barnes were convicted of participating in a public gathering with intent to incite public violence at Harare magistrates court on Thursday. The pair were also each fined 70,000 Zimbabwe dollars (£200).

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UK government faces court challenge in Nigerian rendition case

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Family of Nnamdi Kanu granted judicial review over failure of Britain to intervene after arrest last year

The family of a British citizen who was allegedly taken to Nigeria in an act of extraordinary rendition has been granted a court hearing to challenge the UK government for not intervening in his case.

Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), a prominent separatist movement proscribed in Nigeria, was arrested in Kenya in June last year before being transported against his will to Nigeria, where he has been held ever since.

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Cop27: Egyptian hosts urge leaders to set aside tensions over Ukraine

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Organisers call on nations to carry on crucial climate negotiations despite differences on geopolitical issues

The Egyptian hosts of the next UN climate summit have issued a plea for countries to set aside tensions and animosity over the Ukraine war for the sake of focusing on the climate crisis.

Egypt will host the Cop27 conference in Sharm El-Sheikh in November, intended as a forum for companies to fulfil the promises they made at the landmark Cop26 summit in Glasgow last year.

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Saudi foreign minister defends role in securing Ukraine prisoner swaps

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Prince Faisal bin Farhan al Saud decries as ‘cynical’ accusations his country was trying to improve its image after Khashoggi killing

It would be cynical to see Saudi Arabia’s efforts to secure the release of international prisoners held by Russian proxies in Ukraine as an attempt to improve the country’s image after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, its foreign minister has said.

Prince Faisal bin Farhan al Saud said on Friday that Riyadh had first approached the UK government in April, shortly after Aiden Aslin, a British citizen, and others were captured at Mariupol, and had acted for compassionate reasons, hoping to negotiate their release.

This story was amended on Friday 23 September 2022 to correct the name of the Saudi foreign minister.

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‘Humanitarian crime’: fighting cuts off insulin supply in Tigray

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International Diabetic Federation decries reports ongoing war has led to shortages of life-saving drug at Ethiopian region’s biggest hospital

Doctors at the biggest hospital in Tigray say they have just days supply left of insulin, as the resumption of fighting between rebels and Ethiopian government troops once again cuts off supplies to the region.

In what the head of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has branded “a humanitarian crime,” medics at Ayder specialist referral hospital warn they have already run out of one kind of the life-saving medicine and have only a week’s supply of another.

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Church of England bars Desmond Tutu’s daughter from officiating at funeral

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Church says same-sex marriage means Mpho Tutu van Furth cannot preside over godfather’s service

The daughter of the late Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu has been barred by the Church of England from officiating at her godfather’s funeral in a Shropshire church because she is married to a woman.

Mpho Tutu van Furth, an ordained priest in the Anglican church, was invited to preside over the funeral of Martin Kenyon, who died last week at the age of 92. The C of E said its actions were “in line with the House of Bishops current guidance on same-sex marriage”.

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Horn of Africa drought puts 3.6m children at risk of dropping out of school

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Experts warn that girls’ education will be worst hit, as many families are forced to move away from schools

More than 3.5 million children are at risk of dropping out of school due to the drought in the Horn of Africa, the United Nations has said, amid warnings the crisis could lead to “a lost generation” that misses out on education.

According to new figures shared with the Guardian, Unicef now estimates that 3.6 million children in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia are in danger of leaving school as a result of the cumulative pressure on households caused by the unrelenting drought.

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Tigrayan forces accuse Eritrea of launching full-scale offensive on border

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Tigray People’s Liberation Front says Eritreans are fighting alongside Ethiopian government forces

Forces in Ethiopia’s Tigray region said troops from neighbouring Eritrea launched a “full-scale offensive” on Tuesday and heavy fighting was ongoing in several areas along the border.

Reuters was not immediately able to verify the account on Twitter from Getachew Reda, a spokesperson for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

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Ukraine war to take centre stage at UN as west and Russia vie for support

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The general assembly is expected to see fresh tussles over future of Ukraine, as well as the threats of famine and the climate crisis in the global south

The UN general assembly summit this week will be dominated by a struggle – between the US and its allies on one side and Russia on the other – for global support over the fate of Ukraine, as the global south fights to stop the conflict from overshadowing the existential threats of famine and the climate crisis.

With a return to fully in-person general debate, presidents and prime ministers will be converging on New York, many of them direct from London, where the diplomacy got underway on the sidelines of the Queen’s funeral.

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Equatorial Guinea abolishes death penalty, state television reports

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President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo signs new penal code for central African country

Equatorial Guinea, one of the world’s most authoritarian countries, has abolished the death penalty, according to state television, which cited a new law signed by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

Capital punishment was “totally abolished” in the oil-rich central African country after the president signed a new penal code, the vice-president tweeted on Monday.

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