标签： Africa

非洲

Survivors share experiences and lessons from Congo’s 2018 Ebola outbreak

In the bustling eastern Congolese border city of Beni, where trade routes connect the Democratic Republic of Congo to Uganda and Rwanda, the word “Ebola” still triggers sharp, traumatic memories for local survivors like Vianney Kambale Kombi. Kombi lived through the 2018–2020 Ebola epidemic, the second-largest in recorded history that infected more than 3,400 people and claimed over 2,200 lives. While that outbreak was ultimately contained through the rollout of experimental vaccines, Kombi says community denial, deep-rooted skepticism, and violence against frontline health workers accelerated the virus’s deadly spread. Back then, many residents in his community blamed the outbreak on supernatural forces, he recalls.

“We thought it was witchcraft,” Kombi explained. “The community had not accepted that this disease existed and it had not accepted that we could recover from it.”

Now, as Beni faces a new, emerging Ebola outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain, local residents and health workers fear the same damaging patterns of misinformation and distrust that fueled past tragedy could derail the response once again. Compounding these concerns is the absence of a widely approved, targeted vaccine for this specific strain of the virus. As of the latest update, 515 confirmed infections have been reported, with 91 people dead and only 12 confirmed recoveries.

Kombi, who survived the 2018 outbreak after contracting the virus, says misinformation took many forms during that crisis beyond the belief in witchcraft. Many residents dismissed Ebola as a Western conspiracy invented to draw international aid funding, while others framed it as a political tool amid national election campaigns. This widespread denial made life hard for survivors even after they recovered from the virus. “The community had not accepted that we could recover from this disease, that’s why reintegrating into the community at first was a bit difficult,” Kombi said.

Bienfait Wanzire, another 2018 Ebola survivor, echoed this account of community confusion. “When a pandemic hits here in Congo, we initially think it’s a political issue,” he said. “At first, we thought it was a spiritual illness. Then because there were election campaigns, we believed it was political.”

For frontline health workers, the legacy of that mistrust remains personal. Dr. Babah Mutuza Lusungu, a physician at Beni’s “Dieu Est Grand” Medical Center, lost his uncle and two colleagues to the 2018 outbreak, even as he worked tirelessly to convince local residents the virus was a real, treatable threat. “There was very strong resistance,” Lusungu recalled. “And so there was a climate of mistrust that took place between the population, the authorities, the partners too, right, and the health workers.”

Looking back at the failures of the 2018 response, Lusungu argues that local leaders made a critical mistake by excluding young people from public outreach and response efforts. He is now urging officials to partner directly with youth community leaders to spread accurate information about the new outbreak before the virus can gain further traction. “If we wait until they have so many declared cases to start making an effective response, we will have totally missed the target,” he warned.

Esperance Masinda, who worked for the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF in Beni during the 2018 outbreak, knows firsthand the dual toll of the virus and community stigma. She contracted Ebola while caring for her husband, a medical doctor who also caught the virus. Both survived, thanks in part to early access to experimental Ebola vaccines, but the treatment that saved their lives left them isolated from their own community.

“When we were in the community, we were told that you’re not going to make it even five years, you’re going to die with that medication that you took there,” Masinda recalled. Years later, however, that stigma has slowly faded. “And today, when they see us, these people no longer stigmatize us,” she said. “We are all humans, even though we have been victims of Ebola, all of us are humans.”

For Beni’s residents and public health experts, that hard-won lesson—of recognizing Ebola as a treatable, human disease rather than a curse or a plot—could make all the difference in containing the new outbreak before it repeats the scale of the 2018 crisis.

8 6 月, 2026
Armed group kidnaps 39 people during negotiations in northwestern Nigeria

ABUJA, Nigeria — A brazen act of violence has deepened fears over Nigeria’s spiraling security crisis, after armed bandits abducted 39 people during a community-led peace negotiation meeting in the restive northwestern state of Zamfara, regional police confirmed in a public statement released Monday.

The attack unfolded Sunday in the Magamin Diddi community of Maradun Local Government Area, when a gathering of 47 local residents had assembled to discuss reconciliation and peace negotiations with family members of a notorious regional bandit kingpin linked to widespread abductions in the area. According to police spokesperson Yazid Abubakar, the suspected bandit leader himself unexpectedly arrived at the venue alongside a contingent of armed fighters, who seized 39 attendees before departing. The remaining eight people at the meeting managed to escape unharmed.

For communities across northwestern Nigeria, such unofficial peace talks have become a grim necessity. Many local residents say the Nigerian military has failed to provide consistent protection against near-constant raids, kidnappings for ransom, and cattle rustling carried out by criminal bandit networks, pushing communities to pursue independent negotiations with armed groups in hopes of securing a fragile local truce.

The high-profile abduction comes amid a sprawling, long-running security emergency that has engulfed large swathes of northern Nigeria. For more than a decade, the country has grappled with an Islamic insurgency centered in the northeast that has spread beyond its original borders, alongside a surge in violent criminal activity by bandit groups in the northwest and central regions. Per United Nations estimates, the insurgency alone has killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions more from their homes, while criminal gang attacks have become increasingly frequent across virtually all of northern Nigeria.

The latest incident also comes just one day after the Nigerian military announced a major counter-insurgency win: a raid that freed 360 captives held by the Boko Haram militant group in the Mandara Mountains of southern Borno State, a traditional stronghold for the insurgent faction. Boko Haram and its offshoot, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), remain the two most powerful militant groups operating in Nigeria’s northeast. Just one month prior, Nigerian authorities announced that a joint military operation with U.S. forces had killed 175 ISWAP fighters, marking one of the largest single-counterterrorism strikes in recent years.

Despite these high-profile military victories, security analysts warn that the Nigerian government has failed to implement the systemic changes needed to curb widespread violence, even as President Bola Tinubu has repeatedly made public promises to resolve the country’s security crisis since taking office. The abduction of peace negotiators underscores the persistent vulnerability of civilian communities caught between armed groups and an overstretched, underperforming state security apparatus.

8 6 月, 2026
Somali referee Artan barred from entering USA

A historic milestone for Somali football has hit an unexpected hurdle, as Omar Artan, the first referee from the East African nation ever selected to officiate at a FIFA World Cup finals, has been denied entry into the United States ahead of the 2026 tri-nation tournament. Artan, who was named the 2025 Confederation of African Football Men’s Referee of the Year, was turned away by border officials upon arrival at Miami International Airport and has since traveled to Turkey, where he remains in temporary residence as of this reporting. As of the latest update, U.S. immigration authorities have not released any official explanation for the decision to bar Artan’s entry. However, the East African country has been included on the U.S. travel ban list first introduced during former President Donald Trump’s administration, a policy that has remained in place in subsequent years and restricted entry for citizens of several Muslim-majority nations. Artan was one of 52 match officials selected by FIFA last year to officiate across the 2026 World Cup, which is being co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico from June 12 to July 19 this year. A long-time senior official with the Somali national football league championships, Artan worked his way up the global officiating ranks after earning his FIFA referee badge in 2018, and has already gained high-profile experience officiating matches at the 2023 African Cup of Nations, earning praise for his consistent performance on the continental stage. The incident has renewed long-simmering criticism of U.S. travel restrictions and visa requirements tied to the 2026 World Cup, with many football fans across affected nations already voicing frustration that widespread barriers are putting the tournament out of reach for supporters and officials from the Global South, contradicting FIFA’s public framing of the 2026 event as a truly inclusive, global competition.

8 6 月, 2026
Kenya’s ex-chief justice arrested at protest against building on national park

A high-profile protest against proposed development inside one of Africa’s most iconic urban wildlife reserves has landed Kenya’s former Chief Justice David Maraga in police custody, igniting widespread condemnation from human rights and environmental organizations over the treatment of peaceful activists. On Monday, Maraga — who leads the opposition United Green Movement and is a widely speculated 2027 Kenyan presidential candidate — joined nine fellow demonstrators for a march along a highway bordering Nairobi National Park, a 117-square-kilometer protected conservation area and major tourist attraction located directly within Kenya’s capital. The demonstration was organized to oppose plans that activists claim would turn a portion of the park’s protected land into a 1,300-vehicle public car park, part of a broader development deal tied to a neighboring convention center.

The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), the government agency that manages the park, has publicly pushed back against the activists’ allegations, defending its approved projects within the reserve. While KWS has not directly addressed the car park claims, it confirmed plans to construct a new, expanded animal orphanage on an 89-acre plot — just 0.31% of the park’s total area, according to a KWS official quoted by local outlet *The Star*. KWS argues the relocated orphanage will deliver meaningful benefits: enhanced care for rescued wildlife, improved veterinary training opportunities for local conservationists, and a more accessible, engaging experience for the millions of visitors who visit the park each year. The agency also notes that public consultation was held for the orphanage project prior to approval.

Footage shared on social media captured the chaotic end to Monday’s demonstration, showing Kenyan police moving in to disperse the crowd of protesters, who had staged a sit-in on the two-lane highway. Video clips show the 72-year-old former top judge, wearing his party’s signature green attire, being assisted into the back of a police transport truck as surrounding demonstrators chanted “Long live the park” in protest. Maraga and the nine other detained activists were taken into police custody following the dispersal. Though Maraga was granted release shortly after his arrest, he refused to exit the police station until all other detained protesters were freed, a demonstration of solidarity with his fellow activists.

Following his detention, Maraga took to social media platform X to outline the motivations for the protest, writing that he and the other detainees were “fellow patriotic Kenyans” demanding that the country’s “national heritage and environment must be safeguarded from greed and unnecessary destruction without public participation.” So far, Kenyan police have not issued any official public statement regarding the circumstances of the arrests or the reasons for detention.

The arrests have drawn sharp criticism from a coalition of leading global and local rights and environmental groups. In a joint statement, Amnesty International, Greenpeace Africa, Friends of Nairobi National Park, and The Green Belt Movement strongly condemned what they called a violent dispersal of peaceful demonstrators. The groups emphasized that the use of force against Kenyan citizens exercising their constitutionally protected rights to peaceful assembly, free expression, and public participation in environmental decision-making is completely unacceptable. The incident has reignited national debate in Kenya over the balance between infrastructure development and the protection of critical natural heritage, particularly as political actors gear up for the 2027 general election.

8 6 月, 2026
Kenya’s former chief justice David Maraga arrested during park construction protest

NAIROBI, Kenya — A high-stakes environmental demonstration in Kenya’s capital has drawn international attention after former Chief Justice David Maraga was taken into custody on Monday during a protest against controversial planned construction inside Nairobi National Park. Maraga, who joined dozens of fellow activists in a peaceful sit-in demonstration along a busy arterial road just outside the park’s main entrance, was detained temporarily before being released shortly afterward. On the day of his arrest, he posted a statement on social media platform X confirming he was detained while en route to submit a formal petition to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), the government agency charged with managing the country’s protected natural areas.

Dressed in a green protest t-shirt matching those worn by other demonstrators, Maraga emphasized in his post-protest remarks that Kenya’s irreplaceable national heritage and wild ecosystems demand robust protection from unaccountable development motivated by private greed. He condemned the proposed project for moving forward without meaningful public input, a common grievance among activists challenging land use changes in protected spaces across the country.

Hundreds of activists converged on the protest site to oppose two linked initiatives: the planned construction within the boundaries of Nairobi National Park and the proposed relocation of an on-site orphanage. Protesters argue the entire initiative is a covert effort to seize public land for private gain, a longstanding contentious issue in Kenya that has repeatedly sparked pushback from environmental and community advocates. For decades, environmental organizers have spoken out against incremental encroachment on national parks, urban green spaces, and other protected public lands, warning that unsustainable development erodes both Kenya’s natural heritage and public access to critical green infrastructure.

Amnesty International’s Kenya branch quickly issued a statement of solidarity with the demonstrators, backing their demands for transparent public participation in all decisions that impact the country’s environmental heritage. The human rights organization stressed that Nairobi National Park, one of Kenya’s most iconic urban protected areas, is not a commodity to be developed for private profit. “Our public spaces, our environment, and our rights cannot be traded away behind closed doors,” the group’s statement read.

In a preemptive response released one day before the protest, the KWS pushed back against allegations of land grabbing, framing the proposed construction as a beneficial public project. The agency explained the work is part of an official plan to expand the existing orphanage within the park and upgrade visitor facilities to improve the overall experience for tourists and local visitors. As of Tuesday, law enforcement authorities have not issued any public statement explaining the rationale for Maraga’s arrest, leaving lingering questions about the treatment of peaceful environmental activists in the country.

8 6 月, 2026
Celebrating a wedding amid the Ebola outbreak: No kisses or close contact, but love lives here

BUNIA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Weddings in eastern Congo are traditionally vibrant, day-long affairs filled with warm embraces, crowded dance floors, and hundreds of joyful well-wishers gathering to celebrate a couple’s new chapter. But as the country grapples with a deadly Ebola outbreak that has already claimed 91 lives among more than 500 confirmed cases, the rituals of marriage have been fundamentally reshaped by life-saving public health restrictions. Even so, love finds a way to prevail.

The current outbreak, driven by the rare Bundibugyo Ebola virus, is centered entirely in Ituri, an eastern province of the DRC. Local and national health authorities have moved quickly to curb transmission, rolling out strict measures that include bans on large public gatherings and mandatory social distancing protocols. Unlike previous Ebola outbreaks, this strain has no approved vaccine or targeted treatment, and a weeks-long delay in confirming the outbreak means actual case counts are likely higher than official numbers, making response efforts all the more challenging.

For Jean Claude Érable and his new wife Solange Hahati, who exchanged vows on a recent Saturday, these restrictions transformed one of life’s most celebrated milestones. The couple originally planned to welcome 300 guests to their big day, but local rules capped attendance at just 50, forcing many beloved family members and close friends to miss the ceremony. “It was really difficult because we wanted to celebrate with our friends,” Hahati shared in an interview with the Associated Press, reflecting on the disappointment of the scaled-back event.

At the main Catholic Church in Bunia, Ituri’s provincial capital, where Érable and Hahati’s wedding was held, multiple couples celebrated their marriages alongside the pair on the same day. Inside the sanctuary, the small group of attending guests stayed spaced apart in their pews, following social distancing guidelines as the choir sang and brides walked down the aisle. Cheering and photo-taking still filled the space, while a larger crowd of uninvited guests gathered outside the church walls to sing excitedly for the newlyweds.

Despite the scaled-back celebration, the groom emphasized that the couple has fully embraced the public health rules to protect their community. “We are adhering to the preventive measures and respecting social distancing,” Érable said. “I must say that there is no problem, no obstacle, because we are doing our best to respect all the measures dictated by the state.”

After the ceremony, as Érable placed the wedding ring on his bride’s finger, Hahati smiled through the moment. Following the mass, she happily showed off her new ring to waiting onlookers before the couple departed for their reception, which they moved outdoors to allow guests to spread out more comfortably and lower transmission risk.

Father Aimé Lokanabego, the priest who officiated the wedding, explained that adapting daily religious and community life has become a necessity amid the crisis. Many families have already chosen to postpone their upcoming weddings entirely rather than hold them under restrictions, he said, and the church has paused other high-risk religious gatherings, including large baptism ceremonies, to slow the spread of the virus. “This is, in a way, how we are dealing with this Ebola epidemic at our level. The situation is critical,” Lokanabego noted.

Across Ituri, these precautions, while inconsistently followed by all members of the public, have upended long-held social traditions that bind communities together. For couples like Érable and Hahati, that means a different wedding than they ever imagined — but still a celebration of love that persists even in a public health crisis.

8 6 月, 2026
WHO calls for global action to contain Ebola outbreak

As a deadly Ebola outbreak spreads rapidly across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, pushing case counts past 490 and sparking global alarm, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) have issued an urgent call for coordinated international solidarity to contain the epidemic before it spills further across regional borders.

The current outbreak, caused by the less common Bundibugyo Ebola strain, has expanded at an alarming pace since it was first detected in mid-May. What began as a small cluster of infections in just three health zones across one eastern DRC province has grown to cover 25 health zones across three DRC provinces, with confirmed cases now reaching Uganda’s capital city of Kampala. As of early June 2026, official WHO data puts total confirmed cases at nearly 500, with Ituri Province in northeastern DRC remaining the crisis epicenter: the region accounts for 90 percent of all confirmed infections and 76 percent of recorded fatalities from the virus.

Health authorities confirm this outbreak is already the largest ever recorded for the Bundibugyo strain, outpacing previous outbreaks in Uganda in 2007 and the DRC in 2012. A key ongoing challenge, officials warn, is the absence of licensed vaccines or widely approved therapeutics specifically targeting this strain of the virus. While several promising candidate treatments and vaccines are currently in development, none have cleared regulatory approval for large-scale deployment to affected communities, leaving response teams without established preventive tools.

During a high-level emergency briefing held Friday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the launch of a joint six-month regional preparedness and response plan, developed alongside Africa CDC, to mount a unified fight against the outbreak. The plan, which runs from June through December 2026, carries an estimated price tag of $518 million and operates under the coordinating framework of “one plan, one budget, one team” to eliminate fragmentation in relief efforts. Core priorities outlined in the strategy include streamlined emergency coordination, expanded disease surveillance and contact tracing, scaled-up laboratory testing capacity, strict infection prevention protocols in healthcare settings, improved clinical care for infected patients, intentional community engagement, accelerated research into candidate treatments, logistics support for relief operations, and the preservation of routine essential health services that could otherwise be disrupted by the outbreak.

“The outbreak is moving fast and we are still playing catch-up,” Tedros said following a recent assessment trip to the DRC. “But my trip to the DRC also gave me real hope that together, under the government’s leadership, we can bring this outbreak under control. The only way to beat this outbreak is through close partnership, working together under the leadership of the affected countries in one coordinated effort.”

Africa CDC has already implemented a suite of urgent emergency measures to slow transmission, including high-level political engagement with regional heads of state and health ministers, deployment of multidisciplinary rapid response teams to affected zones, expansion of local laboratory testing capacity, and coordination of the delivery of more than 200 metric tons of critical medical supplies from global partners. Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya highlighted China’s recent contribution to the response effort, noting that a multidisciplinary team of Chinese experts spanning epidemiology, clinical care, research, and traditional Chinese medicine arrived in Kinshasa last week to begin a three-month mission supporting capacity building for local Ebola response teams.

“China has joined a growing list of international partners supporting response efforts, highlighting the importance of global solidarity in tackling public health emergencies,” Kaseya said.

WHO’s Africa Regional Director Mohamed Yakub Janabi emphasized that building and maintaining community trust is a foundational pillar of any successful response. Misinformation spreading through affected communities, he warned, poses a threat nearly as dangerous as the virus itself, capable of undermining core public health measures.“Without community participation, contact tracing falters, safe care is delayed and transmission continues,” Janabi explained. “Misinformation is almost as dangerous as the virus itself and spreads just as fast.”

Global health leaders stress that immediate, coordinated international investment and partnership are critical to preventing the outbreak from becoming a sustained regional crisis that could spread to additional neighboring countries across central Africa.

8 6 月, 2026
Malawians repatriated from South Africa amid xenophobia concerns

Escalating xenophobic tensions and targeted violence against foreign migrants in South Africa’s Western Cape province have triggered a wave of coordinated repatriation efforts led by several African nations, with hundreds of foreign nationals already returning to their home countries and more evacuations scheduled in the coming days.

The unrest began in Mossel Bay, a coastal city in Western Cape, where violent attacks targeting undocumented migrants left two Mozambican citizens dead last week. Eyewitness and local reports documented systematic door-to-door intimidation of foreign-born residents, forcing hundreds of non-South African nationals to flee their homes and seek emergency shelter in temporary camps set up across the area.

Among those displaced are 150 Malawian migrants, who are set to cross the border into Malawi by road on Monday, according to an official statement released by Malawi’s government in Lilongwe. The Malawian group is just one cohort of hundreds of foreign nationals that have left South Africa following the recent surge in violence. Local anti-migrant activist groups have ramped up pressure in recent weeks, issuing a public deadline of June 30 for all undocumented migrants to leave South Africa.

The violence has prompted cross-regional diplomatic response, with Ghana, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe all launching official repatriation operations to bring their endangered citizens home. Zimbabwean state media confirmed that 74 Zimbabwean migrants arrived back in their home country on Sunday, after government-organized transport evacuated them from Mossel Bay in the wake of the attacks.

Ghana has already completed two large-scale evacuation movements: a repatriation flight from Johannesburg carried nearly 300 Ghanaians at the end of May, and an additional 680 citizens reached the capital Accra over the past weekend. Nigeria, meanwhile, has adjusted its evacuation timeline: the first flight scheduled to carry 270 Nigerian nationals out of Johannesburg on Monday has been pushed back to Wednesday due to unexpected logistical challenges, according to foreign affairs spokesperson Kimiebi Imomotimi Ebienfa.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has authorized five total evacuation flights to bring vulnerable citizens home, and authorities have extended registration and screening for affected migrants through Wednesday to process all eligible applicants. As of press time, more than 500 Nigerians have already completed screening and received approval for repatriation as part of the federal government’s emergency response to the crisis.

In an attempt to de-escalate rising national tensions, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation on Sunday, announcing a new package of policy measures intended to crack down on undocumented migration. However, the president also firmly condemned vigilante violence and anti-foreigner sentiment, emphasizing that South Africa has no tolerance for discrimination. “There is no space for xenophobia, racism, sexism, Afrophobia or any other forms of intolerance” in the country, Ramaphosa stated.

The ongoing violence and mass displacement have highlighted longstanding tensions around migration and economic inequality in South Africa, with regional governments stepping in to protect their citizens as unrest continues ahead of the anti-migrant deadline set for the end of June.

8 6 月, 2026
‘A World Cup for them not us’: Fans’ anger at US travel bans and visa restrictions

The 2026 FIFA World Cup, the first iteration of the expanded 48-team tournament, is just weeks away, with 78 of its 104 matches including the final hosted across U.S. cities. But for thousands of passionate fans from qualified nations across Africa, the Middle East, and beyond, the dream of cheering on their national teams inside a World Cup stadium remains out of reach, blocked by a web of restrictive U.S. visa policies, security-related service suspensions, and systemic barriers that have sparked widespread accusations of discrimination.

Iraqi football supporter Abdulla Adnan embodied this heartbreak long before the first kickoff. When Iraq secured only its second World Cup qualification in history in March 2026, the first since 1986, Adnan jumped at the once-in-a-generation opportunity. He immediately purchased tickets for Iraq’s group stage matches against Norway in Boston and France in Philadelphia, already imagining the roar of the crowd and the rush of seeing his national team compete on soccer’s biggest stage. “To go to a match, a stadium, a crowd, cheering, and see my team – that is worth the world to me,” Adnan said. “It’s a feeling that no other feeling can compare to.”

But what seemed like a done deal quickly unraveled when it came to securing a U.S. travel visa. Unexpectedly, Iraq is not included in the Trump administration’s current travel ban list, so Adnan’s barrier came from another source: in the wake of heightened regional tensions following the outbreak of the US-Israel conflict with Iran, the U.S. suspended routine consular visa services across Iraq over security concerns. Since all tourist visa applicants are required to complete an in-person interview, there is no way for Iraqi fans to apply for a visa within their own country.

Adnan’s solution? He spent hundreds of dollars traveling to neighboring Jordan to apply at the U.S. embassy in Amman. When he arrived for his scheduled appointment, however, consular staff turned him away immediately, informing him that non-Jordanian citizens could not process visa applications at that post. He considered traveling to Turkey to apply, but learned the wait for an interview could stretch to two weeks, a timeline he could not accommodate due to work and family commitments. In total, Adnan spent roughly $1,800 on match tickets and travel to Jordan, all for a visa application he never got to submit. He has since abandoned his dream of attending the tournament.

Adnan is far from alone in his struggle. A new analysis of travel and visa data from BBC World Service has found that fans from more than a quarter of the 48 qualified World Cup nations face outright travel bans, sharply tightened entry restrictions, or disproportionately high visa rejection rates that have put attendance out of reach for most supporters.

For fans from four qualified nations – Haiti, Iran, Senegal, and Ivory Coast – barriers stem directly from the Trump administration’s entry bans and enhanced visa restrictions, which bar citizens of these countries from accessing the B1/B2 visitor visas U.S. authorities recommend for World Cup fans. Strict immigration controls and a crackdown on undocumented migration were a central plank of Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign, and administration officials defend the rigorous system as a necessary measure to manage cross-border population flows and national security risks.

But fans and fan association leaders say the rules amount to open racial and geographic segregation. Julien Kouadio Adonis, a leader of Ivory Coast’s official fan association the National Committee for the Support of the Elephants, says his group scrapped all plans to send a delegation of supporters to the tournament this year after reviewing the visa rules. “It’s a form of segregation that doesn’t dare speak its name, but the proof is there,” Adonis said. “No European country has faced this kind of restriction. Why Africa?”

Adonis added that a host nation that refuses to welcome supporters from all qualified teams does not deserve to host the world’s biggest sporting event. “Football is a spectacle and a spectacle needs people watching,” he noted.

Systemic inequities are baked into the U.S. visa waiver program, which grants pre-approved, visa-free entry to citizens of 42 mostly wealthy nations, none of which are located in Africa. For fans from visa-required countries, the recommended B1/B2 tourist visa costs $185 per applicant, requires an in-person interview, and demands that applicants prove they will depart the U.S. after the tournament and can cover all travel costs.

In a partial concession to fan outcry, the U.S. announced in May that it would drop the requirement for cash deposits of up to $15,000 for fans from five qualifying African nations – Algeria, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Tunisia – so long as they hold valid match tickets. Even with that change, however, fans face overwhelming odds of rejection.

Senegalese fan Aliou Ngom, who attended the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 tournament in Qatar, has already decided not to even apply for a visa. For Ngom, one of the greatest strengths of the World Cup is its ability to bring global cultures together inside stadiums, but he sees little point in wasting time and money on an application he expects to be rejected, following a pattern of visa denials that led to the cancellation of a U.S. training camp for Senegal’s women’s national basketball team last year.

BBC analysis of U.S. State Department data from October 2024 to September 2025 found that citizens of 11 qualified nations face an overall B1/B2 visa rejection rate higher than 40% – well above the global average of 34% for all visitor visa applicants. The 11 countries include Ecuador, Egypt, Haiti, Algeria, Uzbekistan, Cape Verde, Jordan, Iran, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, and Senegal.

These high rejection rates put fans in an impossible position: buy tickets in advance for hundreds or thousands of dollars, risking total loss if their visa is denied, or wait for visa approval and risk missing out on tickets altogether. FIFA does allow ticket holders to resell unused tickets on its official platform for a small fee, and launched the FIFA Pass system to prioritize ticket holders for earlier visa interview slots. Immigration attorney Celine Atallah, who runs a practice near Boston, called FIFA Pass a positive step to streamline scheduling, but noted it does nothing to improve the odds of a visa being approved.

“The visa system is the invisible gatekeeper of the World Cup,” Atallah said. “Fifa can sell a ticket, but the US government decides who gets a visa, and CBP [Customs and Border Protection] decides who actually enters.” Even with an approved visa, border officials retain the authority to deny entry to any traveler on arrival.

For Jordan, which qualified for its first ever World Cup in June 2025 after beating Oman in qualifying, 57% of all U.S. visa applications were rejected in the 12 months ending September 2025 – one of the highest rejection rates of any qualifying nation. Abu Kass, head of Jordan’s national football fan association, says he has yet to hear of a single Jordan-based fan who has successfully obtained a U.S. visa for the tournament. Kass himself brought more than 42 supporting documents to his visa interview in Amman, only to have his application rejected without explanation – U.S. authorities do not typically provide reasons for visa refusals.

“This World Cup is not ours,” Kass said. “It’s not for Arabs this World Cup, it’s for them. If the head of the fan association was refused, who will be accepted?”

In a statement to the BBC, a State Department spokesman said the administration was “prepared to welcome visitors from around the globe for the largest and greatest Fifa World Cup in history.” The spokesman noted that most overseas fans already do not need visas to enter the U.S., either because they are from visa-waiver countries, Canadian citizens, or already hold valid U.S. visas. “We will take the time necessary to ensure an applicant does not pose a risk to the safety and security of the United States,” the statement said, adding that all applications are adjudicated on a case-by-case basis after rigorous security vetting.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials have emphasized ongoing concerns over visa overstays, pointing to more than 538,000 overstay events between October 2023 and September 2024. Prior to the Trump administration’s expanded crackdown on undocumented migration, Pew Research Center estimated there were roughly 14 million undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S. in 2023.

While the U.S. hosts the vast majority of 2026 World Cup matches, co-hosts Canada and Mexico face their own barriers for traveling fans. Canada has not enacted country-wide travel bans, but recently introduced entry restrictions for nations affected by the 2026 African Ebola outbreak, which includes qualified nation the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Canada also requires biometric scanning for all visa applicants, but has no in-country scanning facilities for two qualified nations: Iran and Cape Verde. Canada’s overall visa refusal rate hit 54% in 2025, and does not publish disaggregated data by country or visa type.

Mexico, which does not publish official visa refusal data, requires all visa applicants to complete an in-person interview at an embassy or consulate. For eight qualified nations – Cape Verde, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tunisia, and Iraq – Mexico has no diplomatic mission, leaving fans with no domestic path to apply for a visa, mirroring the issues Iraqi fans face with U.S. consular services.

For millions of passionate football fans who waited decades to see their nations qualify for the World Cup, the systemic barriers across the three host nations mean a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has been lost before the tournament even begins.

7 6 月, 2026
South Africa’s president unveils crackdown on illegal migration

Against a backdrop of surging anti-migrant tensions, soaring public frustration over record-high unemployment, and planned anti-foreigner marches, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has addressed the nation to roll out a sweeping five-point plan to curb undocumented migration across the country.

The unfolding crisis has already prompted multiple African nations to organize evacuation operations for their citizens, as violent intimidation pushes thousands of migrants to flee their homes or voluntarily return to their countries of origin. Over the past week alone, around 140 migrants boarded government-arranged buses bound for Malawi and Mozambique, following a wave of door-to-door harassment in the Overberg region of Western Cape that left two Mozambican nationals dead in Mossel Bay. Hundreds of displaced migrants sought temporary shelter in community halls, coastal areas and nearby mountain ranges, while in Durban, dozens of foreign nationals have spent weeks camped outside the city’s home affairs department, relying on phone updates of Ramaphosa’s address as they live in constant fear for their personal safety.

Ramaphosa’s new strategy targets five core areas of the crisis: holding violators of immigration law accountable, strengthening border control infrastructure and enforcement, rooting out systemic corruption within the country’s immigration bureaucracy, closing existing legal loopholes that enable undocumented entry and stay, and building collaborative partnerships with other African nations to address cross-border migration challenges.

Among the most significant new measures is the introduction of prison time for employers that knowingly hire undocumented workers. Currently, businesses caught violating this rule only face small financial penalties, and exploitative employers often take advantage of undocumented migrants by paying wages far below the national minimum wage. To enforce this new rule, the administration plans to hire 10,000 additional labor inspectors to conduct targeted compliance checks across all sectors.

The president also announced plans to speed up deportation proceedings for undocumented migrants by establishing dedicated immigration courts, and to roll out a universal biometric national register to eliminate widespread identity theft enabled by the outdated green paper ID system, which will be phased out entirely as the country transitions to a fully digital national ID system for all residents. Other imminent changes include moving all refugee reception centers from inland population centers to official border posts, introducing national quotas for foreign employment across every economic sector, and launching a full registration drive for all informal township grocery stores, commonly known as spaza shops, many of which are owned and operated by foreign migrants. These small businesses have repeatedly been targeted during past waves of xenophobic violence in South Africa.

In his national address, Ramaphosa acknowledged that undocumented migration has placed unfair additional strain on South Africa’s already stretched public services, a core grievance cited by anti-migrant groups that have set a June 30 deadline for all undocumented migrants to leave the country. However, he issued a sharp warning against vigilantism and extrajudicial action, emphasizing that only authorized government officials are permitted to enforce immigration law.

“No other person is allowed, for example, to confront someone in the street to demand proof of nationality,” Ramaphosa said, adding that the government would not tolerate groups exploiting public anxiety over illegal migration to advance personal, political or criminal agendas. He also cautioned against the spread of misinformation about foreign nationals on social media, stressing that “there is no space for xenophobia, racism, sexism, Afrophobia or any other forms of intolerance in South Africa.”

“Our country – like many others throughout history – is a product of migration. It is the reason for our diversity and contributes to our vibrancy,” he added.

Official data places the total foreign-born population of South Africa at more than three million, roughly 5% of the country’s total population, though independent estimates suggest the number of undocumented residents is far higher. Ramaphosa noted that illegal migration routes have become increasingly intertwined with transnational organized crime, adding that the Border Management Authority intercepted more than 450,000 attempted illegal entries into the country in the past 12 months alone.

Some political analysts have linked the recent resurgence of anti-migrant sentiment to upcoming local government elections scheduled for November. To coordinate regional cooperation on the new policy, Ramaphosa announced he will dispatch special envoys to capitals across Africa to outline the reforms, noting that regional peace and economic development are critical to reducing irregular migration pressures on South Africa.

Closing his 30-minute address, Ramaphosa struck an optimistic tone, saying the package of reforms would help the country build a “secure, lawful, compassionate and prosperous” nation. “South Africa has overcome far greater challenges than this. We have overcome division. We have overcome conflict. We have overcome injustice. We will overcome this challenge too,” he said.

South Africa currently holds one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, with roughly 33% of the workforce out of a job, and youth unemployment exceeding 60%, a statistic that has fueled widespread public frustration over competition for jobs and public resources.

7 6 月, 2026