Africa

Lawmakers in Senegal have voted to lift the immunity of leading opposition MP Ousmane Sonko, who has been accused of rape, allegations he denies. Mr Sonko finished third in the 2019 presidential elections, and is considered a strong future presidential contender in the West African state, the AFP news agency …

Ivory Coast has become the second country after Ghana to receive coronavirus jabs as part of the global vaccine-sharing programme Covax. Half a million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were delivered from a plant in India. Ivorian Health Minister Eugene Aka Aouélé welcomed their arrival, saying the fight against the …

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says it has gathered evidence of a revenge attack nearly a year ago by Cameroonian soldiers on a village where they raped at least 20 women. The raid on Ebam in the Anglophone South-West region, an area where separatists are fighting for an independent state of …

Cameroon has launched an awareness campaign among the population after two cases of polio were detected in Yaounde, health officials said Thursday. In a statement on Monday, the health minister Manaouda Malachie said two cases of type 2 poliovirus were detected in environmental samples in the district of the Cité …

An urgent appeal for more than $ 100 million has been launched by the World Food Program to alleviate severe shortages in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray. The UN agency says three million people about half of Tigray’s population need food aid. Much of the region has remained cut off …

Authorities in the central Mozambican province of Zambezia say the funnel caterpillars have destroyed around 143 hectares (353 acres) of crops, BBC News reports. At least 60 families who depend on farming have complained of damage in the district of Mocuba. Farmers had been told to spray their farms with …

A policeman in Bukedea District in eastern Uganda has been detained after he shot and killed a 17-year-old boy. Constable Charles Okurut was detained Thursday morning after he shot and killed Patrick Otimong, a resident of Ajesa village, Akero parish in Bukedea Sub County. The teenager was shot in the …

According to Kenyan health authorities, the country will receive its first batch of Covid-19 vaccines next week. Frontline health workers, security officers, teachers and vulnerable groups will be vaccinated first. The government has not detailed which particular vaccine it is acquiring. The health ministry had early this month said it …

Alkache Alhada the Nigerien Interior Minister , told reporters on Thursday that lives were lost and hundreds arrested in the unrest that arose in the country. The violence occurred after the announcement of the results of the presidential election in which Mohamed Bazoum was declared the winner with 55,75 of …

Macky Sall, president of Senegal has taken his Covid-19 jab live on television. The West African state has inoculated more than 4,000 people since it launched its vaccination campaign two days ago, following the arrival of 200,000 doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine. Macky Sall last week, said the government bought …