JOS, Nigeria, July 12, 2024 (AFP) – At least 16 students were killed on Friday when a school in central Nigeria collapsed on pupils taking exams, according to an AFP correspondent. Trapped students were heard crying for help under the rubble after the Saint Academy school in Jos North district of Plateau State fell in on classrooms. Mechanical diggers tried to rescue the victims while parents desperately looked for their children. Officials have so far […]
Africa
18 Filipino seafarers saved after abandoning ship in stormy South African waters
JOHANNESBURG, July 9, 2024 (AFP) – Strong winds and heavy rains have damaged buildings and left thousands of people homeless in South Africa, authorities said, as weather services warned Tuesday that more bad weather was coming. The Cape Town region has been battered by several cold fronts over the past few days, with mountainous areas experiencing rare heavy snowfalls. The Western Cape government said 82 schools were damaged, forcing five to remain closed on Tuesday. […]
‘The people have spoken’: Kenya’s Ruto pulls finance bill after protest deaths
By Dylan GAMBA NAIROBI, June 26, 2024 (AFP) – Kenyan President William Ruto said Wednesday that a bill containing contentious tax hikes would “be withdrawn”, dramatically reversing course after more than 20 people were killed in clashes with police and parliament was ransacked by protesters opposed to the legislation. The initially peaceful demonstrations were sparked last week by the 2024 finance bill — which politicians passed Tuesday afternoon — and took Ruto’s administration by surprise […]
After long wait, Kenyan police begin security mission in Haiti
By Jean Daniel Senat with Hillary Orinde in Nairobi and Shaun Tandon in Washington PORT-AU-PRINCE, June 25, 2024 (AFP) – Kenyan police arrived in violence-ravaged Haiti on Tuesday on a long-awaited mission to help wrest the Caribbean nation from powerful gangs, just as Nairobi saw its own deadly turmoil during mass protests. Wearing camouflage uniforms, helmets and rifles, about 200 officers descended from a Kenya Airways plane on the tarmac in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. […]
Water crisis batters war-torn Sudan as temperatures soar
PORT SUDAN, Sudan, June 16, 2024 (AFP) – War, climate change and man-made shortages have brought Sudan — a nation already facing a litany of horrors — to the shores of a water crisis. “Since the war began, two of my children have walked 14 kilometres (nine miles) every day to get water for the family,” Issa, a father of seven, told AFP from North Darfur state. In the blistering sun, as temperatures climb past […]
Malawi VP, nine others, killed in plane crash
LILONGWE, Malawi, June 11, 2024 (AFP) – Malawi’s Vice President Saulos Chilima was killed in a plane crash, the nation’s president said on Tuesday, after searchers located the wreckage of the aircraft in a mist-shrouded forest. The military plane carrying Chilima, 51, and nine others disappeared on Monday, after it failed to land in the northern city of Mzuzu due to bad weather and was told to return to the capital, Lilongwe. Photographs shared with […]
Morocco says eight dead after drinking bootleg alcohol
RABAT, June 5, 2024 (AFP) – Eight people in Morocco have died and dozens of others were hospitalised after drinking homemade liquor, the health ministry said on Wednesday. “Serious complications from poisoning” led to the death of eight people in the town of Sidi Allal Tazi, about 100 kilometres (over 60 miles) north Rabat, said the regional health directorate. More than 100 people in the town suffered from alcohol poisoning between Monday and Wednesday from […]
12 dead in South African flooding
JOHANNESBURG, June 3, 2024 (AFP) – Twelve people have died in flooding caused by torrential rain on South Africa’s eastern coast, local authorities said on Monday. In Eastern Cape province, “the death toll is currently sitting at seven,” a spokesperson from Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, at the heart of the floods, told AFP. More than 2,000 people have been evacuated from Nelson Mandela Bay, notably from makeshift homes in the municipality’s slums. Local authorities […]
Zuma’s new party emerges the big winner in South Africa vote
By Zama LUTHULI DURBAN, South Africa, May 31, 2024 (AFP) – South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma staged a surprise comeback at the head of an upstart party that is only a few months old but already the country’s third largest. Zuma is 82, he was banned from standing in this week’s general election because of a contempt conviction and his former rule is synonymous with the capture of the state by corrupt interests. But […]
URGENT: Gunmen kidnap around 150 people in central Nigeria: officials
KANO, Nigeria, May 27, 2024 (AFP) – Gunmen in central Nigeria have kidnapped around 150 people in the country’s latest mass abduction, officials told AFP on Monday. Attackers on motorbikes stormed Kuchi village in Niger state on Friday, where they killed eight people and “abducted about 150 villagers,” local government chairman Aminu Najume said. A UN source gave the same figure for the number kidnapped, while a Nigerian state rescue agency said more than 100 […]
US couple among three missionaries killed by gang in Haiti
WASHINGTON, May 25, 2024 (AFP) – A US couple was among three missionaries shot and killed by a gang outside a church in the Haitian capital, which has endured months of extreme violence with deadly assaults on hospitals, prisons and government buildings. Missions in Haiti, an Oklahoma-based nonprofit founded in 2000, said Davy and Natalie Lloyd and a third person were killed in Port-au-Prince by armed men on Thursday evening. The third victim was identified […]
US forces lose strategic African position in Niger
ABIDJAN, May 19, 2024 (AFP) – With the US troop withdrawal from military-led Niger underway and due to be over by September 15, Washington is preparing to abandon its strategic position in the Sahel where Russia and Iran are gaining ground. The demand for US troops to exit came after French soldiers were also given their marching orders last year by Niger’s new ruling generals following a July coup. Niger announced in March it was […]
