Africa

At least 30 people died and over 100 were injured in intensified fighting between the Somali National Army and its former ally Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama’a (ASWJ) in the Somali state of Galmudug over the weekend, residents and hospital officials said. The clashes, in the state’s second-largest district of Guriceel, …

Gunmen have attacked a prison in southwest Nigeria, freeing dozens of inmates, an official told The Associated Press on Saturday. The third jailbreak in Africa’s most populous country this year raises more concerns about how safe detention facilities are in the West African nation where authorities have struggled to stem …

An Ethiopian government air strike hit a university in the Tigray regional capital on Friday, rebellious Tigrayan forces and humanitarian sources said, as thousands of people fled fighting further south. The government said its strike targeted a base formerly belonging to the military and now being used by the Tigray …

Ethiopian government airstrikes hit the capital of the northern Tigray region on Wednesday, the third such attack this week in a stepped-up campaign to weaken rebellious Tigrayan forces in an almost one-year-old war. Tigrai Television, controlled by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), said the attack targeted the center of …

Three new Ebola cases have been confirmed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, bringing the total to five in the last 10 days, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. Health officials have said the latest flare-up of the virus appeared to be linked to the massive 2018-20 outbreak, …

Rebellious Tigrayan forces accused the Ethiopian government of launching airstrikes on the capital of the Tigray region on Monday, though the government denied the reports. The reported attack follows intensified fighting in two other Ethiopian regions, where the central government’s military is trying to recover territory taken by the northern …

Gunmen killed at least 30 people in an attack in northern Nigeria’s Sokoto state, the governor’s office said on Monday. The assault began at a weekly market in Goronyo on Sunday and continued into Monday morning, Sokoto Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal said in a statement. Iliyasu Abba, a local resident, …

French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday condemned as “inexcusable” a deadly crackdown by Paris police on a 1961 protest by Algerians whose scale was a taboo covered up for decades by French authorities. Macron told relatives and activists on the 60th anniversary of the bloodshed that “crimes” were committed on …

As food and the means to buy it dwindled in a city under siege, the young mother felt she could do no more. She killed herself, unable to feed her children. In a Catholic church across town, flour and oil to make communion wafers will soon run out. And the …

Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok said on state TV on Friday that he agreed with main political players on a roadmap to end the crisis. The PM added in a live TV broadcast the country will arrange an international donors conference to tackle East Sudan issues saying the transitional period …

Nigeria’s top military commander has announced the death of Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the head of the West African branch of the Daesh terrorist group. Chief of Defense Staff General Lucky Irabor said during a press briefing on Thursday that the leader of the Deash West Africa Province (Iswap) was dead. He did …

Fighting has escalated between Ethiopia’s national army and rebels from Tigray, days after Addis Ababa launched a new major offensive in the restive northern region. Getachew Reda, a spokesman for the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), said on Wednesday that there had been fresh clashes between the Tigrayan rebels …

France says one of its soldiers has been killed during a “maintenance operation” in northern Mali. French Defense Minister Florence Parly said on Wednesday that non-commissioned officer Adrien Quelin “died [on Tuesday] following an accident that occurred during a maintenance operation in Timbuktu.” According to French Government Spokesperson Gabriel Attal, an investigation …

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has awarded Somalia control of most of a potential oil- and a gas-rich chunk of the Indian Ocean in a dispute over the maritime boundary with neighboring Kenya. Chief Judge Joan Donoghue said at The Hague-based court on Tuesday there was “no agreed maritime …

Ethiopia’s national army has launched a ground offensive on forces from the rebellious northern region of Tigray, just days after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was sworn in for a new five-year term as the leader of Africa’s second-most populous country. Getachew Reda, a spokesman for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front …

Ethiopians in the south of the country have voted almost unanimously to have their own state, part of a push for increased autonomy that’s intensified since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018. South West will become Ethiopia’s 11th state after 1.26 million Ethiopians in six zones and one …

Over 100 people are dead or missing after nine interlocked canoes sank this week in the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said on Saturday. It was the latest in a series of maritime accidents in the sprawling country where people often travel on overloaded and unsafe vessels on the Congo, …

A top official in the interim administration of Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region told AFP on Saturday he had fled the country and was seeking asylum, citing fears for his safety. Gebremeskel Kassa served as chief of staff of the administration appointed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed after the Nobel peace …

Moroccan police thwarted an attempt by several hundred migrants to force their way into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the northern African coast, officials said Thursday. The large group of men gathered on the Moroccan side of the border after nightfall Wednesday and threw stones at police who moved …

Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee,” the award-giving body said on Thursday. Based in Britain and writing in English, Gurnah, 72, joins Nigeria’s Wole Soyinka as the only …