By Rédaction Africanews and AFP Police in Senegal say they have broken up a paedophile gang operating between France and the West African country. Investigators “carried out a major operation, dismantling a transnational organised criminal group,” the force said in a statement on Sunday. Fourteen people appeared in court on Friday, charged with “organised paedophilia, pimping, rape of minors under 15, sodomy, and intentional transmission of HIV/AIDS,” the statement said. All the defendants are Senegalese. Four of them are accused of having acted on the instructions of a Frenchman arrested in northern France last year. Police say the group has…
Author: Montage Africa
By Rédaction Africanews with agencies Turkey said on Thursday that it will reinforce its military presence in Somalia as Mogadishu faces a renewed surge in al-Shabaab terrorist attacks. Security officials said Ankara is expanding its air and ground units amid reports that it has deployed US-made F-16 combat aircraft to the country. Turkey’s Air Component Command will continue to improve Mogadishu’s counterterrorism capacity through military assistance, training, and advisory activities. Ankara has emerged as one of Somalia’s closest security partners, operating a major military training base in the capital and providing extensive support to the Somali National Army. Thousands of…
By Rédaction Africanews with AFP A global hunger monitoring group says famine is spreading in Sudan’s war-torn North Darfur state, impacting two more towns there. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative says the latest data shows “thresholds for acute malnutrition have now been surpassed” in Um Baru and Kernoi, near the border with Chad. Its experts say the famine spread after the fall of the state capital, el-Fasher, to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in October last year. This, the alert published on Thursday says, led to a “massive displacement of residents and displaced persons into surrounding areas”.…
By Rédaction Africanews and AP Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has deployed an army battalion to Kwara State after gunmen killed as many as 162 people in one of the country’s deadliest attacks in recent months. The assault targeted Woro village late Tuesday, just days after the military launched operations in the area against suspected terrorist groups. Gunmen stormed the community in the evening, burning shops and the traditional ruler’s palace as residents fled into nearby bushes. Casualty figures remain unclear, with officials giving conflicting tolls. Local authorities say the number of dead has continued to rise as search teams…
By Rédaction Africanews and AP They are accused of committing atrocities or fuelling Sudan’s brutal war through mercenaries and military supplies and now Britain is imposing sanctions on them Among the six targeted are senior commanders from both sides of the conflict, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the rival Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, as fighting between the two has devastated the country since April 2023. The war has displaced millions, drawn in regional powers, and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with aid agencies struggling to reach civilians. The sanctions also target three foreign nationals accused of…
By Nathalie Wakam In many parts of the world, access to education is still held back by poor internet connectivity and the lack of smartphones. To help close this gap, students Happy Niyorurema and Mame Niang from Texas Christian University have created a system that delivers educational content via ordinary phone calls, removing the need for a smartphone. Their innovation was recognised in Dubai, where they received the Global Best M-Gov Award. “When we talk about AI, we often assume people are online and able to use it. But there are 2.9 billion people, most of them in the Global South, who…
Dozens of people have been killed in a ferocious shooting attack on two villages in Nigeria’s western state of Kwara after they refused to “surrender to extremists who preached a strange doctrine”, according to the state’s governor. Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq said on X that “75 local Muslims were massacred” in Tuesday’s raid, while a state lawmaker told the BBC that 78 people had been buried so far and the death toll could rise to an estimated 170 as more corpses were being recovered. Blaming Islamist militant group Boko Haram for the killings, President Bola Tinubu deployed an army battalion to…
An unknown number of aid workers are missing after air strikes hit a hospital in South Sudan, near the Ethiopian border, a charity group says. The hospital, run by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Jonglei state, “was hit in an air strike by the government of South Sudan forces during the night on Tuesday”, MSF said. The South Sudan government is yet to comment. In a separate attack, MSF said its health facility in Pieri, also in Jonglei state, was on the same day looted by unknown assailants, leaving it “unusable for the local community”. “Our colleagues had…
By Rédaction Africanews with AP Organisers of an international flotilla of boats carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza last year said on Thursday that they plan a bigger mission of more than 100 vessels in March. The announcement was made in Johannesburg at the headquarters of the foundation of late South African president and Nobel Peace laureate, Nelson Mandela. Campaigners described the upcoming mission as the biggest civilian-led mobilisation against Israel’s actions in the Palestinian enclave. “We will sail with this time thousands of participants including more than 1,000 doctors, nurses, health professionals, … and we are inviting participants from every…
All the worshippers kidnapped by gunmen from churches in a village in Nigeria’s northern Kaduna state have now been released more than a fortnight after their abduction, according to officials. Gunmen raided Kurmin Wali on 18 January as services were going on. Residents told the BBC that 177 people were taken away in all, with 11 escaping shortly after. A further 80, who had fled from their captors and hid in neighbouring villages for fear of being taken again, returned home earlier this week. The police have not revealed what led to the release of the last group of victims.…