Tag Archives: africa

Togo’s president has signed a new constitution eliminating presidential elections, his office said late Monday, a move that opponents say will allow him to extend his family’s six-decade rule. Civil society groups in the West African nation have called for protests. Parliament will now choose the president. The new constitution comes days after the election commission on Saturday announced that …

Voters in Chad headed to the polls on Monday to cast their ballot in a long delayed presidential election that is set to end three years of military rule under interim president, Mahamat Deby Itno. Deby Itno seized power after his father who ran the country for more than three decades was killed fighting rebels in 2021. Last year, the …

A multi-story apartment building under construction collapsed Monday in a coastal city in South Africa, killing two construction workers and leaving 53 trapped under the rubble, authorities said. An additional 20 workers were pulled from the mangled wreckage of the building and were being treated for injuries at various hospitals, city authorities said. The building collapse happened just after 2 …

A report into a building fire that killed 76 people in South Africa last year has concluded that city authorities should be held responsible because they were aware of serious safety issues at the rundown apartment block at least four years before the blaze. The nighttime fire at the five-story building in downtown Johannesburg on Aug. 31 was one of …

A Nigerian journalist’s arrest last week has triggered criticism of worsening press freedoms in the West African country. Daniel Ojukwu with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism went missing last Wednesday in the economic hub of Lagos. His family and employer found out on Friday that he was detained and held in a police station for allegedly violating the country’s Cybercrime …

A bomb at a refugee camp in eastern Congo has killed at least 5 people, including children, a spokesperson for the Congolese army said Friday. Two children and their mother were among the dead, and more than 20 other people were injured, John Banyene, a civil society activist based in Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, told The Associated …

The son of Sudan’s army chief, Abdel Fattah Burhan, has died in hospital on Friday two months after he was severely injured in a motorcycle accident in the Turkish capital, Ankara, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported. Mohammed Fattah Burhan Rahman was being treated at an Ankara hospital since the March 6 accident in which his motorbike crashed into a vehicle …

Two Nigerian military personnel will face a court martial over the killing of 85 villagers in a military drone attack in December in the West African nation’s conflict-battered north, authorities said, prompting calls from a rights group Friday for more transparency and justice for victims. The two personnel will be subjected to military justice proceedings “for acts of omission or …

A military court in eastern Congo on Friday sentenced eight soldiers to death for cowardice and other crimes linked to fleeing the battlefield, as the government struggles to contain violence and attacks in the mineral-rich area where many armed groups operate. In March, Congo lifted a more than 20-year moratorium on the death penalty, stating that those guilty of treason …

Russian military personnel have entered an air base in Niger that is hosting U.S. troops, a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters, a move that follows a decision by Niger’s junta to expel U.S. forces. The military officers ruling the West African nation have told the U.S. to withdraw its nearly 1,000 military personnel from the country, which until a …