Africa news updates (original) (raw)
Algeria country profilepublished at 08:53 British Summer Time 9 September
Provides an overview of Algeria, including key dates and facts about this north African country.
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Rwanda country profilepublished at 12:35 British Summer Time 16 July
Provides an overview of Rwanda, including key dates and facts about this east African country.
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South Africa country profilepublished at 13:20 British Summer Time 9 July
Provides an overview of South Africa, including key dates and facts about this African country.
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What is going on in Sudan? A simple guidepublished at 14:41 British Summer Time 13 June
The conflict, which has been raging for over a year, is triggering major displacement and hunger crises.
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Madagascar country profilepublished at 12:49 Greenwich Mean Time 1 December 2023
Provides an overview of Madagascar, including key dates and facts about this Indian Ocean country.
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Central African Republic country profilepublished at 12:40 British Summer Time 22 August 2023
Provides an overview of the Central African Republic, including key facts about this African state.
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Benin country profilepublished at 13:25 British Summer Time 28 July 2023
Provides an overview of Benin, including key dates and facts about this West African nation.
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Djibouti country profilepublished at 12:33 British Summer Time 18 April 2023
Provides an overview of Djibouti, including key dates and facts about this East African country.
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Republic of Congo country profilepublished at 13:24 British Summer Time 11 April 2023
Provides an overview of the Republic of Congo, including key facts for this west African country.
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The man who wants Nigerians to look back to go forwardpublished at 11:04 Greenwich Mean Time 23 February 2023
Atiku Abubakar, 76, is basing his sixth presidential bid on promises to restore Nigeria's economy.
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How aid is getting to Tigray after the peace dealpublished at 11:19 Greenwich Mean Time 6 January 2023
Last November's peace deal has allowed aid supplies into Tigray again, but there are still concerns about the food situation.
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Benin profilepublished at 15:33 Greenwich Mean Time 2 November 2022
A chronology of key events in the history of Benin, from 1946 to the present
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Everything you need to know about Afconpublished at 10:28 Greenwich Mean Time 17 January 2022
Dates, favourites and everything else you need to know about the Africa Cup of Nations.
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This page is now closedpublished at 11:12 Greenwich Mean Time 10 January 2022
For the latest updates, please go to bbc.com/africalive
Kenya arrests 91 Ethiopians being held in a housepublished at 10:54 Greenwich Mean Time 10 January 2022
Mercy Juma
BBC News, Nairobi
Image source, Reuters
Image caption,
Thousands of Ethiopian migrants leave their country every year in search of work
Police in Kenya have arrested 91 people believed to be Ethiopian nationals suspected to be in the country illegally.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) says the group was arrested at a house in Kitengela, outside Nairobi, on Sunday evening.
All are men below the age of 25, and had attempted to break out of the house where they were being held.
On Twitter, the DCI said they are believed to have been smuggled into the country onboard a lorry and were being held in the house temporarily as the smugglers sought means to sneak them to another country.
Police are searching for the persons who brought them in.
Undocumented Ethiopians are routinely arrested in Kenya every year after arriving to look for jobs or in transit to other countries.
In October, police arrested 14 Ethiopian nationals, four adults and 10 children, suspected to be in Kenya illegally.
More on this topic:
- Migrant crisis: 'I was sold three times by slave traders'
- How Ethiopia cracked down on people smugglers
Missing DR Congo journalist found in bad statepublished at 10:03 Greenwich Mean Time 10 January 2022
Congolese media are reporting that journalist and academic Samuel Sirasi, who had gone missing last week, has been found alive but unwell.
Members of DR Congo National Press Union want the authorities to grant him protection and find the culprits, external, reports news site DRC Actu.
The Beni-based journalist went missing in the eastern city of Goma on 4 January, and was found at the weekend near a church in Goma's Karisimbi district. Locals gave him first aid and alerted organisations that had launched a search for him.
Mr Sirasi's health was in "very critical condition" at that point, his colleague Jaribu Muliwavyo at the Semuliki University of Beni is quoted as saying.
The journalist is currently being treated at an undisclosed hospital, according to Congolese media reports.
Aid agencies halt work in Tigray zone after air strikepublished at 08:39 Greenwich Mean Time 10 January 2022
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
Government forces have been fighting rebels in this part of Ethiopia for more than a year
Aid agencies have suspended operations in a zone of Ethiopia's northern Tigray region where dozens of people were killed in an air strike, the UN says.
"The ongoing threats of drone strikes" left them little choice but to halt activities, the UN’s humanitarian agency Ocha has said.
Aid workers over the weekend said that 56 people had been killed and dozens more injured in an air strike on a camp for the displaced.
It came as the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) spokesman, Getachew Reda, accused Eritrea of launching fresh attacks against the group’s fighters. It has not responded to the accusations.
Ethiopian government forces, bolstered by Eritrean troops, have been fighting rebels in Tigray for more than a year in a war that has killed thousands of people.
Deaths and damage as storms hit Mozambique regionpublished at 07:25 Greenwich Mean Time 10 January 2022
Jose Tembe
BBC News, Maputo
Five people have been killed and 15 others seriously injured after heavy rains accompanied by strong winds, thunderstorms and lightning left a trail of destruction in Mozambique’s southern Gaza province.
The dead are victims of lightning strikes, said Bonifacio Cardoso, the spokesperson of Mozambique’s National Institute for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management in the area.
He asked people to take precautionary measures including by staying indoors during thunderstorms.
The heavy rains that lasted for 24 hours over the weekend also destroyed 5,000 houses and six health centres have been partially submerged, he said.
It is estimated that more than 394,000 people could be affected by floods in the province in the current rainy and cyclone season, which runs until the end of March.
The Mozambican disaster agency has already deployed teams to the area with boats, foodstuff, tents and blankets in readiness for the expected flooding.
Uganda schools reopen after almost two yearspublished at 06:27 Greenwich Mean Time 10 January 2022
Schools in Uganda have fully reopened this morning, almost two years after the coronavirus pandemic started.
This has been one of the world's longest closures since the virus forced governments to close learning institutions back in March 2020.
Students will be promoted to the next class and there will be targeted work to give them a chance to catch up.
Uganda’s national planning authority projected that at least 30% of all students who were in school before the pandemic may never return.
Here are some photos of the first day in school taken by the BBC's Patience Atuhaire in Kampala:
Read more:
- Covid in Uganda: The man whose children may never return to school
Eritrea accused of fresh attacks in Tigraypublished at 05:49 Greenwich Mean Time 10 January 2022
The rebels in northern Ethiopia's Tigray region have accused neighbouring Eritrea of carrying out attacks.
The Tigray People Liberation Front's spokesperson, Getachew Reda tweeted that fresh attacks had been launched against the group's forces.
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This comes days after the rebels withdrew from neighbouring regions and the Ethiopian military said it would not pursue them to their region in Tigray.
Eritrea's President Isaias Afwerki told state media over the weekend that his troops would prevent any attack on Eritrea as well as any threats to Ethiopia's stability.
Eritrean troops had been fighting alongside Ethiopia in the war against the Tigrayan rebels which broke out in November 2020. The war has since morphed into a brutal civil war.
Neither Eritrea nor the Ethiopian government has responded to the latest accusation by the rebels.