East Africa

Uganda’s constitutional court is due this morning to start hearing three petitions challenging the anti-homosexuality law that came into effect in May. The law imposes capital punishments for those convicted of same-sex acts including death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” – which can involve sex with children or vulnerable people. It …

Tanzania has culled millions of quelea birds to prevent them from destroying rice fields, using drones and planes to monitor commercial farms. The Tanzania Plant Health and Pesticides Authority (TPHPA) which is also responsible for controlling desert locusts, killed five million quelea birds in the northern region of Manyara where …

Kenya says it is confident the deployment of hundreds of its police to Haiti by January will end gang warfare there. Last year Haiti’s government appealed for help because of the spiralling gang violence. Gangs have largely overpowered the police and now control more than three-quarters of the capital. Initially …

More than five million invasive quelea birds have been killed in a mass cull in Tanzania, the authorities have said in comments reported in the local media. The birds had invaded more than 1,000 acres of rice farmland in the Manyara region in the north of the country, causing extensive …

Burundi President Évariste Ndayishimiye has condemned rumours of a coup against him while he was away for two weeks for meetings in Cuba and at the UN General Assembly in New York. Barely a week after the president left the country on 10 September, stories of a plot against him …

In Kenya, a proposed anti-gay bill sees people found to be gay sentenced to 50 years in prison for non-consensual sex. Dubbed the Family Protection Bill 2023, the draft law sponsored by Homa Bay Town legislator Peter Kaluma, is recommending a ban on homosexuality, same-sex unions and any LGBTQ activities …

Rwandan President Paul Kagame will seek a fourth term in next year’s presidential election, according to an interview with Jeune Afrique. “Yes, I am indeed a candidate,” Mr Kagame told said on Tuesday. Asked about what the West would think about his decision to run again, Mr Kagame said, “I’m …

A military helicopter in Kenya crashed overnight while on patrol in the coastal county of Lamu, killing all crew on board, the BBC reported. It went down in the Boni forest, an area that straddles the border with Somalia and from where the Somali militant group al-Shabab has staged deadly …

Nine people have died from a cholera outbreak in Ethiopia’s north-western Benishangul-Gumuz Region, state television (ETV) reported on Sunday, citing health authorities. A regional health official, Abdulmunhem Al-Beshir, said that “some 131 people have been infected in the outbreak while nine others died,” ETV said. Cases have been reported in …

A human rights NGO has criticised Kenya’s President William Ruto for failing to reduce human rights violations, after it documented a more than twofold increase in abuses since the beginning of Mr Ruto’s presidency in September 2022. “In the past year, we have witnessed a wave of punitive policing during …