News

A lighting strike at a refugee camp in Uganda has killed 13 children and one adult, police say. They say the victims were attending a church service on Saturday evening when the lightning struck. Another 34 people were injured. The incident occurred at Palabek Refugee Settlement in the north-west of the country. The area has […]

The reception is poorly lit and a small fan barely moves the humid air as staff at Chidinma Emeneka’s laundry service in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, wait for the generator to kick in. It roars into action, but the engine noise marks the start of extra business costs which have to be paid because of […]

Police in South Africa have forced 540 illegal miners out of an abandoned mine shaft and arrested them. Earlier this week, security forces blocked deliveries of food and water to the miners in a bid to push them out of the mine. The miners experienced “starvation and dehydration” and were forced to resurface, police say. […]

Warning: This story contains details some may find distressing. Several women have taken their lives in Sudan’s central Gezira state after being raped by paramilitary fighters in the brutal civil war raging in the country, rights groups and activists have said. The reports come after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) was accused by the […]

A court in France has sentenced a Rwandan former doctor to 27 years in jail for crimes relating to the 1994 genocide in his country. Eugène Rwamucyo was found guilty of complicity in genocide, complicity in crimes against humanity and of conspiring to prepare for those crimes by spreading propaganda and attempting to cover up […]

A South African football player will face charges of culpable homicide, reckless and negligent driving, after he allegedly fled the scene of a fatal car crash that left a young girl dead, local police say. On Wednesday morning, Shaun Mogaila, 29, a player for Sekhukhune United, allegedly crashed his BMW into a car that was […]

The softly spoken Kithure Kindiki is due to be sworn in as Kenya’s new deputy president on Friday, after senators ousted Rigathi Gachagua in a dramatic series of impeachment votes a fortnight ago. A legal attempt by Gachagua to delay the swearing-in ceremony failed on Thursday. Kindiki, a 52-year-old former law professor, has been serving […]

Voters in Botswana have rejected the country’s long-serving governing party in a result that marks a political earthquake in the diamond-rich southern African nation. The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) – in power since independence in 1966 – has won only one parliamentary seat as of early Friday morning. It looks set to be replaced by […]

For the growing number of African asylum seekers and economic migrants in the US, the upcoming presidential election could reshape their entire future. “We deserve safety,” says Dr Yves Kaduli, a 38-year-old asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo who lives in the US. “I have a dream that I will defend those that […]

Beauty queen Chidimma Adetshina, who has been at the centre of a fierce nationality row, is to be stripped of her South African identity and travel documents. The Department of Home Affairs began investigating her case after she became a finalist in the Miss South Africa pageant, but faced criticism as people questioned her eligibility […]