West Africa

A nationwide cholera outbreak in Nigeria has killed more than 800 people in the last few months, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says. Many of the victims are children, and the bacterial disease continues to spread with more than 31,000 cases since January, but most of those being …

Government in Nigeria has condemned an assault on one of its diplomats in Indonesia. It wrote a protest letter to the Indonesian government after a video began circulating on social media showing the man shouting and being held down in a vehicle by several men. In a statement, Nigeria’s foreign …

Health officials in Guinea have confirmed West Africa’s first case of Marburg, a highly-infectious disease that’s in the same family as the virus that causes Ebola. The World Health Organization (WHO) said the virus needed to be “stopped in its tracks”. Marburg virus disease is transmitted to people from fruit …

After failing to deliver 3.4 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid vaccine, a UAE firm linked to a member of the country’s royal family has agreed to refund about $2m to Ghana’s health ministry, local media outlets report. The doses were to be supplied by end of June, but …

Government in Nigeria says it has invoked labour laws to stop the salaries of doctors who started an indefinite strike last week. The Minister of Labour and Employment Chris Ngige accused the doctors of playing with people’s lives. According to the minister it was unfair that they were being paid …

A senior government official in Niger state, central Nigeria, has been kidnapped, an official statement has said. Mohammed Sani Idris who is Niger state’s commissioner for information, was abducted from his home by an armed gang at about 01:00 local time on Monday morning, according to a local government statement. …

More than forty civilians were killed Sunday in northern Mali in attacks blamed on jihadists against three neighboring localities and close to the border with Niger, said a military official and local elected officials. “More than forty civilians were killed on Sunday by terrorists in the villages of Karou, Ouatagouna, …

Nigerian police say a Swiss national and another person have been kidnapped in the south-west of the country. They were intercepted on a road in Ogun state as they were making their way from a farm. Police said two of the kidnappers were killed. Read also: COVID-19: the French demonstrate …

In a letter written to Alassane Ouattara, former ivorian president Henri Konan Bédié urged the president to open an inclusive political dialogue in the country. The letter was sent on Wednesday August 4, a few days before Independence Day, which takes place Saturday August 7, when Alassane Ouattara is due …

Suspected jihadists have killed 30 people during an attack in the north of Burkina Faso, near the Niger border. Eleven civilians are among the dead, officials say. Armed men targeted villages near the border with Niger on Wednesday, before opening fire on security forces who responded to the raids. “Ten …