Many of the people displaced by Eacop project were inadequately rehoused or compensated, report says
People displaced from their homes alongside the site of an oil pipeline under construction in Uganda have complained of being inadequately rehoused or compensated.
When completed, the East African crude oil pipeline (Eacop) will transport oil from the Tilenga and Kingfisher oilfields in western Uganda to the port of Tanga in Tanzania.
Continue reading...More governments seeking to keep millions of people offline amid conflicts, protests and political instability
Digital blackouts reached a record high in 2024 in Africa as more governments sought to keep millions of citizens off the internet than in any other period over the last decade.
A report released by the internet rights group Access Now and #KeepItOn, a coalition of hundreds of civil society organisations worldwide, found there were 21 shutdowns in 15 African countries, surpassing the existing record of 19 shutdowns in 2020 and 2021.
Continue reading...Leaders from across Africa call for immediate ceasefire at cross-party summit in Tanzania
A summit of regional leaders has called for an immediate unconditional ceasefire within five days in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, and the president of the DRC, Felix Tshisekedi, joined a summit in Tanzania on Saturday, where African leaders said they were deeply concerned by the crisis.
Continue reading...Healthcare workers among suspected cases of Ebola-like disease as WHO issues warning of high risk to the country and its neighbours
A suspected outbreak of Marburg virus disease (MVD) in Tanzania has killed eight people and poses a high risk to the country and its neighbours, global health leaders have said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said nine suspected cases of the Ebola-like virus had been reported as of 11 January, in two districts of the Kagera region in the north of the country, including the eight deaths.
Continue reading...Newly released files show proposals to divert £2m – earmarked to prevent conflict in Africa – to fund scheme
Tony Blair’s government discussed diverting £2m earmarked to prevent conflict in Africa in order to fund a controversial pilot scheme to process and house asylum-seekers in Tanzania, newly released government files show.
Under the scheme, Britain would have offered Tanzania an extra £4m in aid if it opened an asylum camp to house people claiming to be Somalian refugees while their applications to live in Britain were assessed.
Continue reading...Activists alarmed at emirati companies’ poor record on labour rights and fear projects may fail to address environmental concerns
The United Arab Emirates has become the largest backer of new business projects in Africa, raising hopes of a rush of much-needed money for green energy, but also concerns that the investments could compromise the rights of workers and environmental protections.
Between 2019 and 2023, Emirati companies announced $110bn (£88bn) of projects, $72bn of them in renewable energy, according to FT Locations, a data company owned by the Financial Times.
Continue reading...Dozens of people remain trapped in underground shops after collapse of multi-storey building in Dar es Salaam
Rescuers were using their bare hands, drills and sledgehammers to reach dozens of people trapped under a building that collapsed in the centre of Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.
The multi-storey building in Kariakoo, the East African country’s busiest market, caved in as people were shopping, killing at least one person, the prime minister, Kassim Majaliwa, said.
Continue reading...Regulator says advert by publisher of the Citizen newspaper ‘likely to harm national unity’
Tanzania has suspended the online operations of a top newspaper publisher after one of its publications ran an animated advert depicting the country’s president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, and referencing a spate of recent abductions and killings of dissidents.
The advert, published on X and Instagram on Tuesday by the Citizen, an English-language newspaper, showed a character resembling the president flipping through TV channels. Each channel showed people speaking about loved ones they had lost through disappearances.
Continue reading...Tigo’s former investigator claims he was unfairly dismissed for raising concerns over 2017 attack on Tundu Lissu
Gunmen tried to assassinate a Tanzanian opposition politician after a telecoms company secretly passed his mobile phone data to the government, according to evidence heard in a London tribunal.
The mobile phone company Tigo provided 24/7 phone call and location data belonging to Tundu Lissu to Tanzanian authorities in the weeks before the attempt on his life in September 2017.
Continue reading...Protest had been planned against alleged disappearances and killings of government critics by security forces
Police in Tanzania have arrested three leaders of the main opposition party in a series of detentions to prevent a planned anti-government protest, the latest in a string of events that analysts and rights groups say erode hopes of a new style of politics under President Samia Suluhu Hassan.
Freeman Mbowe, the chair of the Chadema party, was arrested on Monday in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, while speaking with journalists. The party’s deputy chair, Tundu Lissu, was taken from his home in the city in a fleet of 11 vehicles, the party said. Godbless Lema, a central committee member, was also arrested, police said.
Continue reading...Youthful, growing cities expected to create wealth and opportunities but stretch public and utility services
Six African cities will have more than 10 million people by 2035, with the continent’s booming young population making it the world’s fastest urbanising region, according to a report.
Angola’s capital, Luanda, and Tanzania’s commercial hub, Dar es Salaam, will join the metropolises of Cairo, Kinshasa, Lagos and Greater Johannesburg with populations of more than 10 million, the Economist Intelligence Unit said in a report on African cities.
Continue reading...Senior Chadema party figures including vice-chair detained as well as about 400 people heading to youth gathering
Police in Tanzania have arrested leaders of the country’s main opposition party and hundreds of its supporters in a crackdown that started at the weekend.
Police detained Tundu Lissu, the vice-chair of the Chadema party and a former presidential candidate, as well as the party’s secretary general, John Mnyika, before a gathering in the country’s south-west.
Continue reading...Stephen Kwikiriza is one of 11 campaigners against EACOP targeted by authorities in past two weeks, rights group says
A man campaigning against the controversial $5bn (£4bn) east African crude oil pipeline (EACOP) is recovering in hospital after an alleged beating by the Ugandan armed forces in the latest incident in what has been called an “alarming crackdown” on the country’s environmentalists.
Stephen Kwikiriza, who works for Uganda’s Environment Governance Institute (EGI), a non-profit organisation, was abducted in Kampala on 4 June, according to his employer. He was beaten, questioned and then abandoned hundreds of miles from the capital on Sunday evening.
Continue reading...Total deaths reach 76 and more than 130,000 displaced as weeks of flooding also affects east African neighbours
Seventy-six people in Kenya have died because of flooding triggered by torrential downpours since March, the government has said, warning residents “to brace for even heavier rainfall”.
Kenya and its east African neighbours have been battered by stronger than usual rain in recent weeks, compounded by the El Niño weather system.
Continue reading...Plan to expand Ruaha national park has been beset by allegations of abuse, leading bank to withhold final $50m of $150m budget
The World Bank has suspended financing intended to develop tourism in southern Tanzania after allegations of killings, rape and forced evictions.
The bank began investigating last year after being accused of enabling abuses around Ruaha national park, which was due to double in size as part of a World Bank-supported programme.
Continue reading...Another 78 people taken to hospital after consuming delicacy, which is known to cause food poisoning
Eight children and an adult have died after eating sea turtle meat on Pemba Island in the Zanzibar archipelago, and 78 other people have been taken to hospital, authorities said on Saturday.
Sea turtle meat is considered a delicacy in Zanzibar but it periodically results in deaths from chelonitoxism, a type of food poisoning.
Continue reading...African-led trial ended a year early as researchers conclude there is ‘little or no chance’ new combination vaccines cut HIV risk
The first trial in Africa of two combination vaccines to prevent HIV has been halted after researchers concluded it was not working.
The vaccines (part of the PrEPVacc study) were being tested on 1,500 people aged between 18 and 40 in Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa.
Continue reading...Toll expected to rise after heavy rains caused flooding in Katesh in country’s north
At least 47 people have been killed and 85 others injured in landslides caused by flooding in northern Tanzania, a local official has said, with warnings the toll would rise.
Heavy rain on Saturday hit the town of Katesh, 300km (186 miles) north of the capital, Dodoma, district commissioner Janeth Mayanja said on Sunday. “Up to this evening, the death toll reached 47 and 85 injured,” Queen Sendiga, regional commissioner in the Manyara area of northern Tanzania, told local media. Both warned that the death toll was likely to increase.
Continue reading...Tanzania government blamed for violence against villagers in national park, while thousands more people face losing their homes
The World Bank is investigating allegations of killings, rape and forced evictions made by villagers living near the site of a proposed tourism project it is funding in Tanzania.
The bank has been accused of “enabling” alleged violence by the Tanzanian government to make way for a $150m (£123m) project ministers say will protect the environment and attract more tourists to Ruaha national park.
Continue reading...Remains pillaged in colonial era for ‘scientific’ experiments are DNA matched to Tanzanian descendants
Researchers in Berlin have identified living relatives of people whose remains were stolen from Tanzania and taken to Germany for “scientific” experiments during the colonial era.
Berlin’s Museum of Prehistory and Early History has been carrying out research since 2017 on about 1,100 skulls taken from what was then known as German East Africa.
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