Africa

Leprosy is an ancient disease that many may associate with a bygone era. In some of the most populous areas of the world, however – such as Nigeria and India – the disease continues to proliferate, forcing victims to live on the margins of society in leprosy colonies.

African workers for Chinese-owned mines and factories across southern Africa told the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in a report published Thursday that they regularly experienced various labor rights violations including a lack of compensation for all hours worked and poor safety conditions.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari claimed his country was ready to fill a natural gas supply gap in Europe.

China’s ruling Communist Party gifted the parliament of Zimbabwe — a severely impoverished nation that regularly struggles to feed its own citizens — a new luxury building on Wednesday, with Xinhua, China’s official state press agency, describing the opulent space as a “six-story building [that] is a fine piece of magnificent architecture.”

Houses of worship across Nigeria, including Christian churches, have hired security services in recent weeks after a Catholic church in southwestern Nigeria suffered a deadly terror attack by suspected members of the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) in early June, Voice of America (VOA) reported Tuesday.

Two teenage survivors of a mysterious mass death incident at a South African nightclub on Sunday told Al Jazeera and Agence France-Presse (AFP) separately on Monday that they each suspect that staff at the venue sprayed an unidentified gas-like substance onto patrons of the overflowing bar, which may have contributed to the deaths of 21 minors.

Government officials in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province said at least 21 teenagers were “found dead” at a bar on Sunday morning under unclear circumstances, South Africa’s DispatchLive reported, noting that while the cause of the deaths remains unknown, some have speculated that the youths may have been “exposed to some form of poison.”

The 54-nation group of mostly former UK colonies accepted Togo and Gabon’s membership application on the last day of its summit in Rwanda.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The heavily armed men appeared around the small farming village in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, frightening residents already on edge after recent clashes between government troops and rebels.

Nigerian Senator Ike Ekweremadu and his wife Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu were arrested in London on Tuesday and charged with planning to bring a 15-year-old boy into the United Kingdom so they could harvest his organs.

Leaders of Commonwealth nations are meeting in Rwanda in a summit that promises to tackle climate change, tropical diseases.

Load-shedding is artificial scarcity. It is difficult to stop once it starts. We in the U.S. must change course while we still can.

Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday that 14 of Nigeria’s 18 Supreme Court judges recently signed a formal complaint sent to the nation’s chief justice in which they allege to have suffered from a lack of employee welfare traditionally provided by Nigeria’s federal government, such as housing accommodations, motor vehicles, and electricity.

A Chinese government-funded school touting the precepts of China’s ruling Communist Party recently opened near Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Tuesday, noting that the facility teaches “leadership” skills to local African politicians.

Africa is suffering a severe shortage of gasoline and petroleum-based fuels generally despite being home to some of the world’s largest oil reserves — a product of being unable to consistently refine all of its crude.

Blackburn is calling on the Department of Defense to make more public the activities of Russian proxy militia, known as the Wagner Group.

The strange public relations campaign surrounding the monkeypox outbreak took another turn on Saturday, as the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) announced it would no longer distinguish between “endemic and non-endemic countries” to create a more “unified response” to the disease.

Armed terrorists raided two Christian churches during worship services in northern Nigeria Sunday, killing three and kidnapping several dozen.

Three people have been charged with planning terrorist acts by acquiring weapons and bomb-making materials a Danish prosecutor said.

The Communist Party of China dismissed a bombshell BBC report revealing a lucrative industry in which Chinese citizens sell demeaning videos of African children online in a statement on Thursday, calling the most incendiary of these videos an “isolated case by a fool.”

A group of scientists called the Malabo Montpellier Panel published a report in May that encouraged Africa to develop a “sustainable bio-economy” through such innovative techniques as making muffins and meatloaf out of flies.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday plans to provide $14 million annually over the next decade to the Mozambique province of Cabo Delgado in an effort to rebuild the region after it was overrun by Islamic terrorists in recent months, the state-run Mozambique News Agency (AIM) reported Thursday.

Nigerian Army soldiers said they discovered a woman in Borno state believed to have been kidnapped in 2014 by Boko Haram.

Nigeria’s state power grid collapsed on Sunday for at least the sixth time this year affecting several states and major cities nationwide, Nigeria’s Premium Times online newspaper reported on Monday.

Videos posted on the Chinese-owned TikTok social media platform in Kenya in recent weeks have allegedly featured “hate, incitement and other political disinformation” that may provoke ethnic violence in the run-up to Kenya’s 2022 presidential election in August, Al Jazeera reported on Friday.

British movie The Lady of Heaven has been banned in Morocco after Islamic authorities condemned it for presenting a version of Islamic history they disagree with and “hurting the feelings of Muslims”.

Nigeria’s federal government said on Thursday it suspects members of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) terror group were responsible for a massacre at a Catholic church in southern Nigeria on Sunday that killed 40 people, Reuters reported.

News has emerged of a second massacre of Christians in Nigeria on Pentecost Sunday, this time carried out by Muslim Fulani raiders armed with AK-47 rifles.

The United States Catholic bishops have reached out in “solidarity” to the church in Nigeria, condemning recent lethal attacks on Christians.

Ireland’s leftist President has attempted to link the recent massacre of at least 50 Catholic churchgoers in Nigeria to climate change, ignoring the issue of rampant Islamism in the country.

A former U.N. employee alleged on Tuesday that the Ethiopian government intentionally prevented its representatives from declaring an official famine last year in the country’s northern Tigray region, which has been devastated by Ethiopia’s ongoing civil war, the media platform Devex reported.

A Nigerian man named Ahmad Usman was assaulted by a mob in the capital city of Abuja and set on fire on Saturday, after he was seen arguing with a Muslim cleric. Usman was taken to the hospital by police, but declared dead on arrival.

A group of unidentified men, believed to ethnic Fulani terrorists, unleashed gunfire and explosives on a packed Catholic church in southwestern Nigeria’s Ondo State during mass on Sunday, killing at least 50 people, Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper reported on Monday.

Presumed jihadists stormed a Catholic church in southwest Nigeria Sunday and opened fire on worshipers, killing at least 50 and wounding dozens more.

Hong Kong police warned the public Thursday not to “test” police officers with “unauthorized assemblies” on the upcoming anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) reported.

The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) predicted on Thursday that deaths caused by the Chinese coronavirus in Africa will drop by 94 percent this year compared to 2021.

The U.S. State Department released its annual Report on International Religious Freedom on Thursday. The report was tough on some countries, including the Chinese and Burmese genocides against the Uyghur and Rohingya Muslims respectively, but was remarkably dismissive of religious persecution against Christians in Nigeria.

A Nigerian Christian leader admitted his church paid a $240,000 ransom to secure his release from unidentified kidnappers after he was abducted in recent days, Voice of America (VOA) reported on Wednesday.

EU leaders have begged those in Africa not to blame the West for the ongoing Global Food Crisis, saying that the current sanctions on Russia shouldn’t be affecting supply.

The military forces of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced on Wednesday that a joint military operation against Islamist insurgents in eastern Congo will be extended into a “third phase” because the enemy has not been “eradicated.”