Africa

Egypt has said it received an official notice from Ethiopia that it had started the next phase of filling a controversial huge dam on the Nile River’s main tributary, raising tensions days before an upcoming meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the issue. In a statement late on …

The United Nations Security Council is set to meet on Thursday on Ethiopia’s mega-dam project, which has sparked fears in downstream Sudan and Egypt over their water supplies, diplomats said. Both nations have been pushing Ethiopia to ink a binding deal over the filling and operation of its Grand Ethiopian …

Around 150 children are missing after armed men attacked a school in northwest Nigeria’s Kaduna state, a parent and an administrator told Reuters on Monday. Police said gunmen shooting wildly raided the Bethel Baptist High School in southern Kaduna state overnight. “They … overpowered the school’s security guards and made …

At least 43 migrants drowned in a shipwreck off Tunisia as they tried to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, while another 84 were rescued, the Tunisian Red Crescent told Reuters on Saturday. The boat had set off from Zuwara, on Libya’s northwest coast, carrying migrants from Egypt, Sudan, …

Acting UN aid chief Ramesh Rajasingham says the humanitarian situation in conflict-hit northern Ethiopian region has ‘worsened dramatically in recent weeks. More than 400,000 people in Ethiopia’s Tigray are now suffering famine and 1.8 million others are on the brink, a top United Nations official has said, painting a devastating …

At least four people were killed and eight others wounded in a suicide attack on a café in the Somali capital Mogadishu, police, and witnesses said on Friday. The attacker, who was wearing an explosive belt, targeted a café near heavily guarded government institutions, including the headquarters of the Somali …

A Swiss court ordered the son of former leader Muammar Gaddafi’s oil minister to pay $1.5 million in a corruption case on Friday, a decision that his lawyer said he may appeal. The case involving Mohamed Ghanem, the CEO of a Bahrain-based Islamic investment bank and the son of Shokri …

Ethiopia’s government urged Tigrayan rebels to join a unilateral ceasefire in their conflict on Thursday as aid agencies struggled to reach hundreds of thousands of people facing famine. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the former rulers of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, said on Monday it was back in control of …

Hundreds took to the streets to demand the gov’t’s resignation over IMF-backed reforms. Hundreds of Sudanese protesters took to the streets across the country on Wednesday to demand the government’s resignation over the International Monetary Fund-backed (IMF) economic reforms. The protests erupted a day after the IMF approved a $2.5bn …

Spokesman says forces prepared to chase their opponents well beyond the northern Ethiopian region. Tigrayan fighters have reportedly taken control of more territory in the embattled northern Ethiopian region of Tigray, a day after regaining the regional capital, Mekelle, from retreating federal government forces and pledging to drive all “enemies” …

South Africa’s constitutional court on Tuesday ruled that former president Jacob Zuma was in contempt of court for failing to appear at a corruption inquiry earlier this year, and it ordered that he be imprisoned for 15 months. Zuma failed to appear at the inquiry led by Deputy Chief Justice …

Ethiopia’s government has declared an immediate unilateral ceasefire in the northern Tigray region, as former local rulers say they are back in control of the area. “An unconditional, unilateral ceasefire has been declared starting from today, June 28,” the government said in a statement on Monday night. The ceasefire, which …

Unknown armed assailants killed 18 people when they attacked a two-vehicle convoy in central Burundi over the weekend, government officials and witnesses said on Monday. The attackers, who struck at about 8 pm local time on Saturday, fired into the two cars before pouring petrol and setting them alight, a …

An estimated 30 people died on Sunday when Somalia’s Islamist al Shabaab group launched an attack in a town in the country’s semi-autonomous state of Galmudug, a security official said. The insurgents used car bombs in the assault on a military base in Galmudug’s Wisil town, located in central Somalia, …

Armed assailants killed 19 villagers in western Niger near the border with Mali, where Islamist militants have increasingly targeted civilians this year, the mayor of a nearby town said on Friday.

Tunisia’s Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi has been infected with the coronavirus, the government said on Friday. Mechichi received a COVID-19 vaccine last month. The prime minister will cancel his meetings and continue to work remotely, the government statement added. Tunisia is seeing a significant increase in COVID-19 cases, with intensive …

Fifteen U.N. peacekeepers, including several from Germany, were wounded in northern Mali on Friday in an attack on their camp involving a vehicle-borne explosive, the U.N. mission in Mali and the German military said.

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad resigned on Thursday, opening the door for President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to name a new cabinet, state TV said.

Only combatants, not civilians, were struck in an airstrike this week in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the country’s military spokesman said on Thursday.

The military leaders of Sudan’s transitional government said on Wednesday that their forces were united in the country’s defense and that rumors of differences were false, in a rare joint statement by the army and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).