Nigeria, Niger and Benin on Thursday agreed to set up a monitoring and patrol bodies to tackle smuggling, after months of border closure and dispute between the West African countries. In a meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja representatives of the joint anti-smuggling committee, including the foreign ministers of the three countries, and the Trade […]
More than 400 people have been arrested in Ethiopia during investigations into ethnic and religious violence that left 78 people dead last week, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Thursday. Protests against Abiy erupted in Addis Ababa and in Ethiopia’s Oromia region on October 23 after a high-profile activist accused security forces of […]
Three soldiers were killed on Thursday in two simultaneous attacks in northern Burkina Faso, where the armed forces are struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency, security sources said. The attacks are part of increasing jihadist violence in the West African country, where 700 people have been killed in the nearly five years since fighting spilled […]
A new report by United Nations special investigators says Kenya’s military was responsible for five attacks on telecommunications masts in neighbouring Somalia, including strikes that killed two civilians. The Kenya Defence Forces (KDF attacked communications towers in Somalia between 2017 and 2019, in a possible effort to stop al-Shabaab using mobile signals to detonate bombs, […]
A veteran leader of one of the militia that control most of the Central Africa Republic (CAR has been arrested in neighbouring Chad, the CAR government said on Wednesday. Abdoulaye Miskine, leader and founder of an armed group called the Democratic Front of the Central African People (FDPC, “has been arrested in Chad. We are […]
At least 10 civilians were killed in two attacks by militia gunmen in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where government forces have vowed to root out armed groups, sources said on Wednesday. Seven people were killed in the city of Beni and between three and 14 were killed near Oicha, 30km away, according to the […]
Harare – Chinese travellers to Zimbabwe are on the rise as trade ties between the two countries strengthen after western investors severed ties with Harare because of alleged rights violations. President Robert Mugabe has turned to China, Russia and other emerging markets for investments. Analysts told Fin24 however that there was still a gap left […]
China has accused the Zimbabwean government of understating the extent of its bilateral support, after budget figures released last week ranked China lowly against other countries. Finance minister Mthuli Ncube said last week that China had provided Zimbabwe with US$3.6m in “development support” ranking it below the United States and UK, who both provided US$50m. […]
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Friday laid the foundation stone for huge new parliament to be built with Chinese funds outside the capital Harare. The imposing circular complex will be built over 32 months by the Shanghai Construction group at Mount Hampden, 18km north-west of Harare, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation reported. Officials say the current […]
More than 2.4 million people need urgent food aid across the central Sahel region, encompassing Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, where rising jihadist violence has triggered a humanitarian crisis, the UN said on Tuesday. “If we do not act now to tackle hunger in the Sahel, a whole generation are at risk,” a spokesperson for […]
At least three assailants were killed in a “terrorist attack” on army troops on Monday, Burkina Faso’s military said, five days after the country suffered its worst casualties in a long-running jihadist revolt. A detachment in Foutouri, in the eastern province of Komandjari, came under attack at around 05:00, the army said in a statement. […]
Bamako – Twenty-four Malian soldiers and 17 jihadist fighters were killed on Monday in clashes in the east of the country, the army said, as security in the west African nation deteriorates further. Mali and Niger forces were carrying out a joint operation when a patrol was attacked by “terrorists” near the northeastern town of […]
The Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ advocacy group has applauded President Emmerson Mnangagwa for “understanding” them better than his predecessor Robert Mugabe and the opposition parties, a report on Tuesday said. According to New Zimbabwe.com, GALZ director, Chester Samba told journalists in Harare that Mnangagwa was “a reasonable man” after the group met with […]
A court in Zimbabwe awarded a trans-gender activist the equivalent of $25 000 in compensation after she was arrested for using a ladies toilet, she said in a statement Monday. Ricky Nathanson, whose age was not given, was arrested and detained for 48 hours in 2014 and charged with criminal nuisance after she used a […]
Nigeria’s president was declared the clear winner of a second term in Africa’s largest democracy early on Wednesday, after a campaign in which he urged voters to give him another chance to tackle gaping corruption, widespread insecurity and an economy limping back from a rare recession. While many frustrated Nigerians had said they wanted to […]
Yenagoa, Nigeria – Nigeria’s ruling party on Monday won the key oil-rich state of Bayelsa, the electoral body said, a sign of President Muhammadu Buhari’s growing influence in opposition strongholds. Forty-five candidates had taken part in the gubernatorial election on Saturday, which was marred by sporadic violence, including killings, abduction, vote-buying, snatching of voting materials […]
Twenty-two Algerian demonstrators were handed one-year jail sentences on Tuesday for “undermining national unity” by bearing the Berber minority’s flag during anti-regime protests, a prisoners’ rights group said. The CNLD committee said on its Facebook page that a court in the capital’s Sidi Mhamed district had sentenced the accused to 12 months in prison – […]
Demonstrators thronged the streets of the Algerian capital on Friday to renew their opposition to a presidential election they say will keep in power a political elite rejected by the people. The protest came two days ahead of the start of campaigning for the December 12 vote. Demonstrations have gripped Algeria every week since February […]
Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi has voiced hope that the Ebola epidemic in his country would be stamped out by the end of the year. “We believe that by the end of the year we will have eradicated the disease entirely,” Tshisekedi said during a visit to Berlin. The epidemic began in August […]
Football legend Didier Drogba helped launch a drive on Friday to plant a million trees to halt deforestation in Ivory Coast. The “One Day, One Million Trees” campaign “is a first step, the start of the recovery”, Forestry and Water Resources Minister Alain Richard Donwahi said in Abidjan, the country’s main city. “Our goal is […]
Thousands of Guinean protesters took to the streets in the capital Conakry Thursday, in fresh demonstrations days after deadly clashes marred a funeral march for those killed in recent anti-government marches. The poor West African country has been shaken by deadly clashes during weeks of protest over suspicions that President Alpha Conde is seeking to […]
A Guinean teenager was shot dead on Thursday by police as he tried to flee a crackdown on anti-government protests in the capital Conakry, his family and a doctor said. Alpha Souleymane Diallo, 19, was caught up in clashes and came face to face with two policemen who shot him in the chest, his elder […]
After a year of mass protests that toppled an autocratic leader, Sudan faces a new kind of chaos – a public transport crisis that’s leaving thousands stranded by the dusty roadside. In the crunch that started several weeks ago, noisy crowds of men and women have jostled desperately for a ride back home when they […]
An Egyptian government minister slammed a UN expert who warned that former president Mohammed Morsi’s death in June could amount to a “state-sanctioned arbitrary killing”, but said Cairo was investigating. “The former president (Morsi died in the courtroom in front of everybody,” Egyptian Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Omar Marwan told AFP, rejecting a statement issued […]
Two Namibian ministers resigned on Wednesday following a Wikileaks report exposing alleged corruption in the fishing industry, released as the country readies for a presidential election later this month. Iceland-based multinational fishing company Samherji is suspected of bribing senior Namibian officials for continued access to the country’s shores, according to documents published by Wikileaks on […]