Global Pulse

标签： Africa

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  • Nigerian retired general abducted with his wife in the north-west

    Nigerian retired general abducted with his wife in the north-west

    Nigeria’s military has officially confirmed that a retired senior army commander and his spouse have been taken hostage by armed assailants in the country’s restive northwest region.

    Retired Major General Rabe Abubakar, who served as the Nigerian Army’s high-profile public spokesperson between 2015 and 2017, was pulled from his vehicle during an abduction that took place Saturday while he was traveling through Katsina State. Local media reports indicate the former senior officer was en route to a wedding celebration in the state capital when gunmen intercepted his car. His driver was struck by gunfire during the attack but managed to escape, while Abubakar and his wife were forcibly taken into a nearby heavily forested area, where criminal groups often hide after carrying out raids.

    Current Nigerian Army spokesperson Major General Michael Onoja told the BBC that active search and rescue operations are currently ongoing to free the kidnapped couple and apprehend their captors. As of Sunday, no armed faction has claimed responsibility for the abduction, and military officials stated they are waiting for the perpetrators to reach out to Abubakar’s family, a common step in kidnappings for ransom in the region.

    This latest high-profile kidnapping underscores the persistent, intractable security crisis that has plagued northwestern Nigeria for years. In this region, loosely organized criminal gangs locally referred to as “bandits” regularly carry out mass abductions for large ransom payments, steal cattle from rural herders, and launch coordinated attacks on isolated farming communities. The security challenge is compounded by the presence of small factions of militant jihadists that have also established operating bases in the area; last December 25, the United States carried out an airstrike targeting an alleged militant training camp in neighboring Sokoto State.

    Katsina has consistently ranked among the Nigerian states hardest hit by this wave of violence. Just one day before Abubakar’s abduction, the state suffered another deadly mass attack: armed men raided Kiliya village, located in Dutsinma Local Government Area, killing no fewer than 16 residents. That attack unfolded shortly after Friday communal prayers, as local residents had gathered to mark the Eid al-Adha religious holiday. Security agencies across northern Nigeria had issued formal warnings of potential attack plots during the holiday celebrations, leading several state governments to implement restrictions on large public gatherings and boost patrols in high-risk areas. Nigerian police have not yet released any official comment on the reported village massacre.

    Neighboring Zamfara State, which shares borders with both Katsina and Sokoto, has endured years of the same pattern of brutal violence. Some local communities in Zamfara have attempted to broker informal peace agreements with armed gangs in recent years, but nearly all of these efforts have failed to deliver long-term stability to the region.

    Nigeria’s federal government has ramped up counter-insurgency and anti-crime operations in the northwest in an attempt to curb the epidemic of kidnapping. Policy measures have also been introduced to discourage families from paying ransom to kidnappers, which officials argue fuels the cycle of abductions by giving criminals incentive to carry out more attacks. Despite these interventions, however, large-scale attacks and abductions of both high-profile figures and ordinary civilians have continued unabated across the region.

  • WHO chief hails 5 Ebola recoveries as a new treatment center opens in eastern Congo

    WHO chief hails 5 Ebola recoveries as a new treatment center opens in eastern Congo

    BUNIA, Democratic Republic of Congo – On a Sunday visit to this Ituri provincial capital at the center of an ongoing rare Ebola outbreak, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced a small, hopeful milestone: five patients have successfully recovered from infection with the Bundibugyo virus, a rare strain of Ebola with no approved vaccine or specific treatment.

    Tedros made the announcement during the official inauguration of a new Ebola treatment facility in Bunia, noting that four of the recovered patients would be discharged on the day of his announcement, with a fifth having been released two days prior. The first confirmed recovery of a Bundibugyo patient in this current outbreak was documented by WHO just two days earlier, a breakthrough that health officials are emphasizing to counter widespread public fear around the often-fatal virus.

    “Of course, we’re still working on developing targeted vaccines and treatments, but that doesn’t mean that people cannot recover from Ebola,” Tedros told attendees at the opening event. He stressed that early care seeking is critical to survival, urging community members to access medical support immediately after developing symptoms. “If you come to health facilities when you have symptoms, you can get the support and recover, so the key is to come forward as early as possible and to get the necessary support,” he added.

    As of the latest official counts, the outbreak has recorded 906 suspected cases and 223 suspected deaths across the Democratic Republic of Congo. The outbreak has already spilled over into neighboring Uganda, where the Ugandan Ministry of Health confirmed nine cases and one death as of last Friday.

    Despite the opening of new treatment infrastructure and the arrival of additional international aid, the virus is still spreading faster than public health responders can contain it, medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned in a statement Saturday. The group called for urgent expansion of diagnostic testing, faster deployment of trained outbreak response personnel, and guaranteed consistent access for medical supply shipments into affected regions.

    Response efforts face two major layers of security and community barriers. First, long-running local conflict over access to health measures: local residents have expressed intense anger over mandatory Ebola body management protocols, which conflict with traditional local burial customs. This public frustration has boiled over into at least three separate attacks on local health centers, putting response teams at severe risk. Second, widespread armed conflict across eastern Congo has further disrupted operations. In Ituri, the Islamic State-aligned Allied Democratic Forces rebel group carries out regular attacks, while to the south in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces – where the outbreak has also been detected – the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel militia controls major urban centers including Goma and Bukavu. Two cases have already been recorded in areas under M23 control.

    To overcome these barriers, Tedros emphasized that sustained community engagement is non-negotiable for a successful response. “We can stop this Ebola and anyone who has it can also recover. But the rule … is this thing is everybody’s business and every citizen should be involved,” he said.

    Local health leaders echoed the call for collective action while leaning into the recent recovery news to reinforce public hope. “The final message we would like to share with the Ituri community is that there is hope,” said Pierre Akilimali, Incident Manager at Congo’s National Institute of Public Health, during the treatment center’s inauguration. “With the symptomatic treatment that we are currently providing, we are seeing patients recover.”

    Davin Ambitapio, a senior doctor at the new Bunia facility, added that the outbreak is far from insurmountable with coordinated support. “We truly have hope. The virus here is not as complicated as those we have dealt with in the past, and with the support of all our partners, we believe we will be able to bring this outbreak under control as quickly as possible,” he said.

    Reporting for this story was contributed by Banchereau from Dakar, Senegal.

  • South Africa made to look like fools after World Cup visa issues, says minister

    South Africa made to look like fools after World Cup visa issues, says minister

    Just weeks before kicking off their first World Cup finals appearance in 16 years, South Africa’s men’s national football team has been plunged into chaos by last-minute visa issues that have halted their travel to pre-tournament preparations in Mexico. The administrative mishap has sparked swift condemnation from the country’s top sports official, who is demanding immediate answers and accountability from the nation’s governing football body.

    The incident came to light after South Africa’s national public broadcaster SABC reported that an “administrative bungle” left several squad members without processed travel visas ahead of their planned departure. No additional details on how the error occurred or how many players were affected have been released to the public as of yet.

    In a series of posts on the social platform X, South African Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie made his frustration clear. He confirmed that he has formally requested a full written report from the South African Football Association (Safa), the governing body responsible for the national team’s logistics, and called for disciplinary action against whoever is responsible for the misstep.

    “We are being made to look like fools,” McKenzie wrote, adding that the entire visa and travel debacle is not only deeply embarrassing for the country but also grossly unfair to the players and coaching staff who have spent months preparing for the global tournament. Safa has not yet issued any public statement or response to the minister’s demands.

    The squad, widely known by its nickname Bafana Bafana, was scheduled to travel to Mexico this week to face Jamaica in a warm-up friendly this Friday, a critical final tune-up match before their World Cup opener. The 2026 expanded World Cup, co-hosted by Mexico, the United States and Canada, will see South Africa face the host nation Mexico in their first group stage match on June 11.

    South Africa is one of 10 African nations qualifying for the expanded 48-team 2026 World Cup, marking the country’s first trip to the tournament finals since it hosted the global event back in 2010. The Jamaica friendly is supposed to be Bafana Bafana’s final opportunity to fine-tune tactics and build match rhythm ahead of the high-stakes competition, making the travel delay all more problematic.

    The travel chaos comes on the heels of a underwhelming final home warm-up match for the squad last Friday, which ended in a goalless draw against Nicaragua. South Africa missed a penalty in the match, which multiple sports reports described as disappointing. The result stretched the national team’s current winless run to four consecutive matches, adding another layer of concern ahead of their World Cup debut next month.

  • I moved from Ethiopia to Shetland – and I’ve brought the coffee with me

    I moved from Ethiopia to Shetland – and I’ve brought the coffee with me

    Nestled in the rugged Shetland archipelago off the northern coast of Scotland, the small island of Whalsay has long been home to a beloved local tradition: honesty boxes, unstaffed roadside stalls stocked with everything from fresh farm eggs to homemade baked goods. In a charming new twist on this community custom, a recent addition to the island’s lineup of stalls offers something far out of the ordinary – hand-roasted Ethiopian coffee, brought to the 1,000-person community by Netsanet Sori, an Ethiopian immigrant who goes by the nickname Netsi.

    Sori’s connection to coffee runs deeper than a simple love of the drink. Raised on her family’s small-scale coffee farm in the rural Ethiopian highlands, coffee has been woven into her daily life since early childhood. Tragically, she lost her mother at a young age, and was raised by her grandmother and great-grandmother on the farm, an experience that forced her to mature quickly. “How I was raised there, compared to here, it’s completely different,” she reflected in an interview.

    After nine years living and working in Orkney, another northern Scottish island group, Sori relocated to Whalsay in October 2025. Even thousands of miles from her native home, she has never lost touch with her roots. She imports raw green coffee beans directly from the family farm where she grew up, turning her lifelong connection to the crop into a way to share Ethiopian culture with her new Scottish neighbors. For Sori, this project is about more than just selling coffee – it is a way to preserve tradition for the next generation. “It’s very important to me and I will teach my children about it as well,” she said.

    In Ethiopia, coffee is far more than a morning pick-me-up: it is the center of a daily community ritual, traditionally led by women, that brings neighbors together. “Neighbours and villagers gather once or twice in a day to share information, good news or bad news, and love,” Sori explained. “It’s also about community belonging. If you make a coffee, you can’t drink it alone. You have to share what you have and help others.”

    Sori’s process mirrors the traditional methods she learned growing up, with only small adjustments for modern convenience. When raw, pale green beans arrive at her Whalsay home, they carry a soft, earthy scent before roasting. She cleans the beans by hand, then roasts them in a single pot, shaking the container constantly over heat to ensure an even roast. As the beans cook, they deepen into a rich chestnut brown and release fragrant oils – a sign, Sori says, of high-quality, well-roasted coffee. While traditional Ethiopian roasting uses a manual mortar and pestle to grind finished beans, she now uses a small electric grinder to speed up the process for commercial sales.

    Before moving to Whalsay, Sori only roasted small batches for herself, friends, and local charity events during her time in Orkney. But after settling into her new home, she realized there was an unmet demand for artisanal, small-batch roasted coffee across Shetland. “After a little research, I realised that nobody else is roasting coffee like this in Shetland, so I thought I can do it,” she said. “It’s worked brilliantly. People seem to really like it.”

    Local residents have embraced Sori’s unique offering wholeheartedly. Ingrid Sutherland, a Whalsay local and self-described coffee lover, first tried the beans at a community Christmas fair and has been a repeat customer ever since. “I’m a bit of a coffee drinker, I love a good cup of coffee in the morning – real coffee, not instant, so I was just blown away with how cool it is,” Sutherland said. She added that the convenience of the honesty box model fits perfectly with island life: “It’s local as well, so I can just nip along the road and get a bag, rather than going out of the isle. We have plenty of egg boxes and cake fridges here in Shetland, but we didn’t have a coffee box. It’s fantastic to have a coffee box here.”

  • Ethiopia heads to the polls for an election expected to be dominated again by Abiy’s ruling party

    Ethiopia heads to the polls for an election expected to be dominated again by Abiy’s ruling party

    Ethiopia is set to hold its general national election on Monday, with early projections pointing to a sweeping victory for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s ruling Prosperity Party, hobbling a deeply divided and under-resourced opposition bloc that has struggled to mount a competitive challenge.

    Currently holding more than 500 of the 547 seats in the country’s House of Representatives, the Prosperity Party is widely expected to secure a commanding new majority, which would lock in Abiy’s position as prime minister for a second five-year term. Roughly 50 million registered voters out of Ethiopia’s total 130 million population are eligible to cast ballots for federal parliamentary representatives, as well as members of regional local government councils. Under Ethiopia’s electoral system, elected parliamentarians ultimately select the country’s prime minister.

    However, widespread insecurity across two of Ethiopia’s most populous regions — Amhara and Oromia — is projected to depress voter turnout significantly. The election comes in the wake of years of internal armed conflict, including the devastating two-year Tigray war that ended with a November 2022 peace deal, and ongoing low-level clashes in multiple northern regions. National reconciliation post-conflict and delivering large-scale infrastructure development, two key pledges from Abiy’s administration, have anchored the ruling party’s campaign messaging.

    Monitoring the vote is a team of 73 African Union observers led by former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who previously mediated the Tigray peace negotiations that produced the 2022 agreement. Arriving in Addis Ababa on Saturday, Kenyatta stressed that Ethiopia’s election carries outsize importance for the entire African continent, as the country hosts the African Union’s permanent headquarters. “Ours is to call for peaceful situation as Ethiopians are known for,” he noted.

    The vote has not been without sharp controversy. Abiy’s government has faced repeated international accusations of systematic human rights violations targeting political critics, independent journalists and opposition activists, despite 2020 promises to advance democratic reform and national peace. Abiy was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for brokering a resolution to a decades-long border conflict with neighboring Eritrea, but relations between the two nations have collapsed in recent years. Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of backing rebel factions to destabilize its northern regions, stoking fears that Tigray, already grappling with a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and widespread famine, could be dragged back into full-scale proxy war.

    The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the former dominant regional party in Tigray, has been labeled an illegal terrorist organization by the federal government. The region will skip the national vote for the second consecutive cycle, leaving Tigray without any representation in the federal parliament for a sixth straight year. TPLF leaders have threatened to withdraw from the 2022 peace agreement, a move the federal government calls an intentional provocation to restart conflict, while local relief agencies warn that hundreds of thousands of residents face acute food insecurity amid reports the central government has restricted access to critical humanitarian resources in the region.

    Analysis of the election’s integrity has split independent observers. Bayu Samuel, a political analyst based in Addis Ababa, argued that the vote is on track to be largely free and fair, pointing to new digital voting technologies that reduce fraud risks and growing public political awareness among the electorate. That assessment is rejected by opposition groups, which uniformly decry systemic advantages that favor the ruling Prosperity Party.

    Mistresilasie Tamerat, head of the opposition Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party and the election’s youngest candidate, called the process “far from genuine and democratic.” “The system favors the ruling party, and we can’t even freely operate (or) meet with our constituents,” she said. Eyoel Solomon, spokesperson for the main opposition National Movement of Amhara (Ezema), said the party’s core priority is ending the ethnic-based politics that has divided the country for decades. “We have seen citizens being attacked because of their identity. We have seen them being persecuted simply for living in areas deemed by others not to be ‘theirs,’” he explained.

    Most national campaign activity has been concentrated in the capital Addis Ababa, where heavy military deployments have been visible across the city in the lead-up to voting. Unusually for a national election, public campaigning has been muted, with far fewer large public rallies and almost no door-to-door voter outreach by candidates, even as the vote has dominated public discussion across the capital. To boost turnout, Ethiopia’s independent electoral commission has declared Monday a national public holiday, closing all federal government offices to allow citizens to cast ballots without work disruptions.

  • Ethiopia is heading to the polls, but not everyone can vote

    Ethiopia is heading to the polls, but not everyone can vote

    Ethiopia is set to hold its seventh general election on Monday, but the vote will be marred by widespread armed conflict across multiple regions and the total exclusion of millions of voters in the conflict-ravaged northern Tigray region. This poll comes 35 years after the 1991 collapse of the country’s military regime, a shift that paved the way for Eritrea’s secession just two years later. Today, tensions between Ethiopia and its northern neighbor have once again reached dangerous heights, casting a long shadow over the electoral process.

    Unlike executive-presidential systems, Ethiopian voters do not directly elect a head of government. Instead, they cast ballots for 547 parliamentary seats, with the party securing a 274-seat majority earning the right to form a five-year national government. The election is widely viewed as a referendum on the tenure of 49-year-old Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who rose to power in 2018 amid widespread mass protests against the Tigray-dominated ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which had governed the country since 1991. Shortly after taking office, Abiy dissolved the EPRDF and launched his own centralised, less federally oriented political bloc, the Prosperity Party.

    When Abiy first assumed office, he was celebrated globally as a beacon of democratic reform: he released hundreds of imprisoned opposition politicians and journalists, and earned the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for ending a 20-year military stalemate with Eritrea. Seven years later, that reputation has been all but erased. Critics now accuse his administration of widespread suppression of dissent, forcing opposition leaders into exile and arresting political rivals. The Tigray War, a two-year conflict that began in 2020, killed an estimated 600,000 people per African Union mediation estimates and pushed the entire region to the brink of famine before a 2022 peace deal. Today, press freedom remains severely constrained: major international outlets including the BBC have been denied press accreditation for the election. Ethiopia ranks 148th out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ 2025 World Press Freedom Index, and Human Rights Watch condemned the government in 2025 for arbitrary arrests of journalists and ongoing harassment of independent media. After the government revoked press credentials for three Reuters reporters in February 2026, the Committee to Protect Journalists documented a clear “troubling pattern of repressive regulatory action against international and independent press in Ethiopia.”

    Supporters of Abiy’s administration point to tangible economic and infrastructure progress, most visible in the capital Addis Ababa, where large-scale “Corridor Development” and “Riverside” projects have driven rapid urban transformation. These initiatives, aimed at upgrading transportation networks and public spaces, have nevertheless faced fierce criticism for mass demolitions that displaced tens of thousands of low-income residents. Economically, Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous nation with 135.9 million people, and one of the continent’s fastest growing economies, per World Bank data. GDP per capita is projected to hit $1,133 in 2026, up from just $641 a decade earlier. Abiy’s reform agenda has also garnered backing from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, contingent on continued liberalization of the country’s foreign exchange market and debt management—Ethiopia’s total public debt stood at $36.5 billion in 2024, per the World Bank. Even so, the country continues to grapple with crippling inflation that has driven up everyday costs for citizens, alongside persistent insecurity across multiple regions.

    Beyond the total exclusion of Tigray, two of Ethiopia’s most populous regions—Amhara and Oromia—have faced years of violent insurgency that has disrupted preparations for the vote. Fano militias in Amhara, which fought alongside the federal government during the Tigray War, refused a 2023 government order to disband, arguing the move would leave their region vulnerable to cross-border attacks. In Oromia, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), labeled a terrorist organization by Ethiopia’s parliament, has waged an insurgency demanding greater autonomy for the Oromo people, the country’s largest ethnic group, who have long complained of systemic political marginalization. Conflict tracking organisation Acled recorded more than 9,400 conflict-related deaths in the two regions in 2024 alone, and hundreds of thousands of residents have been displaced from their homes. While the federal government claims 97% of polling areas in Amhara and Oromia are ready for voting, the united opposition bloc, the Coalition for Ethiopian Unity, disputes this. Spokesperson Mistreselasie Tamrat told BBC Amharic that the coalition cannot campaign freely in either region due to a lack of secure conditions for political activity. Already, 30 of 137 constituencies in Amhara have cancelled voting.

    Veteran opposition politician Prof Merera Gurdina of the Oromo Federalist Congress called this election the least competitive in Ethiopia’s recent modern history. His party is only participating to avoid forced deregistration, he said: “We are participating symbolically because the law says you cannot boycott elections consecutively.”

    Tigray, home to roughly 6 million people, has been under an interim administration since the November 2022 Pretoria peace deal between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Tensions have escalated rapidly in recent weeks after the TPLF rejected Abiy’s unilateral reappointment of the interim administration leader without consultation, and moved to re-install former Tigray leader Debretsion Gebremichael—who led the region through the 2020-2022 war when the TPLF was labeled a terrorist organization. Disputes over electoral rules have left the TPLF effectively banned: Ethiopia’s election board ordered the TPLF to re-register as a new political party, a requirement the group rejected, leading to its legal status being revoked. The TPLF also accuses the federal government of reneging on key terms of the Pretoria accord, most notably the return of territory including western Tigray that the region lost during the war. Around 1 million people fled western Tigray during the conflict and currently live in poor conditions in makeshift displacement camps across the region. Earlier this month, the election board confirmed that no voting will take place in any of Tigray’s 38 constituencies, leaving millions of voters completely disenfranchised.

    Tensions have also been stoked by shifting relations with Eritrea, which gained independence in 1993 and has controlled Ethiopia’s entire former Red Sea coastline, leaving Ethiopia landlocked. Eritrea fought alongside Abiy’s government during the Tigray War, but relations between Asmara and Addis Ababa have since soured, largely over Abiy’s ambition to secure Ethiopian access to a Red Sea port. Recent reports of Eritrea building closer ties with the TPLF have further escalated tensions between the federal government and Tigray’s leadership, raising fears of a return to full-scale civil conflict.

    International Crisis Group Horn of Africa expert Magnus Taylor notes that while Abiy is all but guaranteed to secure a new term, the simultaneous presence of deep insecurity and unaddressed political grievances creates significant long-term risk. “Prime Minister Abiy will be confident that he will be re-elected. This shouldn’t obscure the fact that there are various internal insecurity issues, insurgencies and a risk of a new war in the north. The two things can exist at the same time,” Taylor explained. He added that regional mediation is urgently needed to open communication channels between the federal government and Tigray’s leadership to prevent miscalculation and encourage negotiated solutions to outstanding disputes.

    Even amid widespread political uncertainty, many of the 50.5 million registered voters—especially young first-time voters—hold out hope the election will deliver long-overdue stability. Fenet Dereje, a young resident of Addis Ababa, told the BBC that a negative outcome would have severe personal consequences: “If the outcome of the election is not positive, I think it will affect my daily life economically and politically. If instability arises, I may not be able to continue my education and it could be harder to move around.”

    Abiy’s Prosperity Party won a landslide majority in the 2021 election. Speaking to local media in March, Deputy Prime Minister Temesgen Tiruneh struck a conciliatory tone, saying the ruling party “did not want to win everything” this cycle. “We have ministers who are members of opposition parties. This trend will continue. We do not want to win 100% of the votes. We want to see our competitors claim victory because we want to accommodate diverse voices,” he said.

  • Ebola spread in DR Congo ‘alarming’, charity warns, as WHO chief visits worst-hit area

    Ebola spread in DR Congo ‘alarming’, charity warns, as WHO chief visits worst-hit area

    Two weeks after the Democratic Republic of Congo officially declared an Ebola outbreak, international medical and public health authorities are sounding the alarm over an unprecedented rate of spread that has outpaced current response efforts. The epicenter of the outbreak is the northeastern Congolese province of Ituri, where transmission has already outstripped every recorded early-stage Ebola event in modern history.

    In a public statement released Saturday, Dr. Alan Gonzalez, deputy director of medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), described the unfolding situation as deeply alarming. “Never before has an Ebola outbreak recorded so many cases so soon after its declaration,” Gonzalez emphasized, adding that frontline MSF teams on the ground have observed that response operations have not yet matched the speed of the virus’s advance. He warned that the full extent of the crisis remains unclear: hundreds of test samples from suspected patients are still backlogged and unprocessed, even as new potential infections are reported every single day.

    Gonzalez also outlined significant logistical barriers delaying critical containment work and aid delivery, pointing to widespread border and airport closures as major disruptive constraints. These challenges compound long-standing issues created by ongoing armed conflict in the region, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has repeatedly flagged as a major barrier to mounting an effective response.

    As of the latest updates, more than 1,000 suspected Ebola cases have been recorded across DR Congo, with at least 246 confirmed deaths linked to the outbreak. The virus has also spilled over the country’s northern border into neighboring Uganda, where nine confirmed cases and one fatality have been reported to date.

    Over the weekend, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus traveled personally to Ituri to oversee and assess local containment efforts. Speaking after his arrival, Tedros explained that the WHO delegation was in the province to evaluate response progress and address unmet needs that are slowing control work. He called for greater engagement of local communities in outbreak response, noting that residents have on-the-ground knowledge that is critical to successfully curbing transmission. “They understand the problems better and they know the solution as well,” he said of local populations.

    One of Tedros’ first official stops during the visit was the National Institute for Biomedical Research laboratory in Bunia, Ituri’s provincial capital, where all samples from suspected Ebola patients are now processed. Local health authorities confirmed that the newly operational local testing facility can deliver confirmed results to care teams within 24 hours, a major improvement that allows clinicians to quickly isolate infected patients and initiate life-saving care. Prior to the opening of this lab, samples had to be transported more than 1,500 kilometers to Kinshasa, DR Congo’s capital, for testing — delays that put communities at greater risk of further spread and cost vulnerable patients critical care time.

    The current outbreak is caused by Bundibugyo, a rare strain of Ebola for which no widely proven vaccine currently exists. The virus has an average case fatality rate of roughly one-third, meaning approximately one in every three infected people will die from the disease. Like all Ebola strains, Bundibugyo originally circulates in wild animal populations, most commonly fruit bats; human outbreaks typically begin when people come into contact with or consume meat from infected animals.

  • Bulls overpower Munster to reach URC semi-finals

    Bulls overpower Munster to reach URC semi-finals

    South Africa’s Vodacom Bulls delivered a dominant, clinical display to end Munster’s 2025-26 United Rugby Championship title defense dreams, running out 45-14 winners in their Pretoria quarter-final clash on Saturday. The Springbok-stacked hosts crossed for six tries, marking their fifth consecutive progression to the tournament’s semi-final stage, where they will face Glasgow Warriors next week at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium.

    The Bulls got off to a blistering start, putting points on the board twice within the opening 10 minutes. Scrum-half Embrose Papier notched the first try, followed by a score from star winger Kurt-Lee Arendse, set up by excellent build-up work from fullback Willie le Roux. Munster, already missing key first-team players including captain Tadhg Beirne and Ireland international fly-half Jack Crowley, suffered an early additional blow when lock Tom Ahern was forced off the field following a head injury assessment.

    Despite the rocky opening, the Irish province fought back to stay in the contest. After a sustained period of pressure on the Bulls’ line, flanker Jack O’Donoghue crossed to put Munster on the board. Handre Pollard, the Bulls’ standout playmaker, extended the home side’s lead with a penalty shortly after, but center Alex Nankivell hit back for Munster with a well-finished try to bring the deficit back to just three points. Conversions from Jack Hanrahan on both tries kept Munster in touching distance.

    However, the Bulls’ ruthless attacking quality proved too much for Munster to handle before the break. Johan Grobbelaar and Cameron Hanekom scored quick-fire tries to pull the home side out to a commanding 31-14 halftime advantage, leaving Munster with a steep mountain to climb in the second half.

    Munster came out of the break pushing to claw back the deficit, but a pivotal intercept from Papier ended any realistic hopes of a comeback. The scrum-half raced clear to score his second try of the match, putting the result beyond doubt. Winger Stravino Jacobs put the final nail in the coffin with a well-taken finish in the corner from a rapid counter-attack, capping the scoreline at 45-14 with 20 minutes still left to play. The Bulls saw out the rest of the game comfortably to secure their semi-final berth.

    For defending champion Munster, the defeat brings a disappointing end to their campaign. Head coach Clayton McMillan, who described the season as a “mixed bag” for the province, acknowledged the scale of the challenge facing his side in Pretoria. “We were under no illusions how tough it was to come here and we experienced that against a Bulls side that were just too classy for us,” McMillan told reporters after the match.

    Refusing to cite the club’s growing injury list as an excuse, McMillan added: “We’ve got a number of bodies that are sitting at home but we never wanted to use that as an excuse and we won’t. A lot of guys got an opportunity because of that and they’ll learn an awful lot being in that kind of arena.”

    Reflecting on the full season, the New Zealander noted Munster “lost our way a bit in the middle” after a strong opening to the campaign, but emphasized that the group would take learning from the defeat. “These are the challenges in rugby but it’s been enjoyable. I’ve enjoyed the grind of getting here. We didn’t get the result today but we’re a tight group and will learn from it.”

    Pollard was flawless from the kicking tee for the Bulls, converting all six tries and slotting the opening penalty to finish with a personal haul of 15 points. The 2024-25 URC final runners-up will now travel to Murrayfield to take on Glasgow for a spot in the 2026 URC title decider.

  • WHO chief visits epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo as cases outpace response

    WHO chief visits epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo as cases outpace response

    Amid an unprecedentedly rapid resurgence of a rare Ebola variant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s eastern region, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus traveled Saturday to Bunia, the urban center at the heart of the ongoing outbreak, to assess response efforts and engage with frontline stakeholders.

    The rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola driving this outbreak has no officially approved vaccine or targeted treatment, putting global and local health teams in an unenviable position as they work to slow transmission. Official WHO data puts the current count at 906 suspected cases and 223 suspected deaths across the DRC, with neighboring Uganda confirming nine cases and one fatality as of Friday, according to Uganda’s ministry of health.

    During his visit, Tedros was scheduled to tour a local Ebola treatment facility, hold talks with provincial and national government leaders, and speak directly to frontline health workers and families directly impacted by the virus. Speaking to reporters Friday after a meeting with DRC Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka, Tedros emphasized that containing the outbreak requires directing every possible resource to the epicenter. “This is a difficult situation, and we recognize that. But the Democratic Republic of Congo has faced the Ebola virus many times before. We are confident that it can once again bring this outbreak under control,” he noted.

    Fresh international aid has begun arriving in recent days: the European Union dispatched a shipment of medical supplies to Ituri province, where Bunia is located, on Thursday, with additional shipments on the way. The United States also announced an additional $80 million in emergency aid the same day, bringing Washington’s total commitment to response efforts to more than $112 million. On the ground, Associated Press reporters observed that response coordination at Bunia’s Rwampara Clinic and General Hospital has improved, with expanded staffing, additional personal protective equipment and critical medical supplies now in place — even as new patients continue to arrive around the clock.

    Despite these incremental gains, emergency medical groups warn that response efforts are still failing to keep up with the fastest-moving Ebola outbreak recorded in modern history. In a statement released Saturday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Deputy Operations Director Dr. Alan Alan Gonzalez underscored the severity of the gap, saying: “Never before has an Ebola outbreak recorded so many cases so soon after its declaration. Nobody knows the true scale and severity of this outbreak.” Gonzalez called for urgent action to expand testing capacity, speed up the deployment of trained response personnel, and secure uninterrupted, consistent access to critical medical supplies across affected areas.

    Multiple overlapping barriers continue to derail response work. Local resentment over strict Ebola body management protocols, which conflict with traditional local burial customs, has already spurred at least three separate attacks on health facilities treating patients, putting frontline workers at extreme risk. Ongoing armed conflict in the region further complicates access: the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebel faction with ties to the Islamic State, and a coalition of ethnic militias carry out regular attacks across Ituri. The outbreak has also spread south to the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls major population centers including Goma and Bukavu. Two cases have already been recorded among rebel-held territories there.

    In response to the cross-border spread of the virus, both Uganda and Rwanda have sealed their borders with the DRC, and the Trump administration last week implemented an entry ban on non-U.S. passport holders who have recently traveled to the DRC, Uganda or South Sudan. Tedros pushed back against these restrictive measures Friday, arguing that border closures and travel bans do nothing to stop transmission and actually undermine transparency. “Closing borders, as some countries have done, only discourages transparency. The Democratic Republic of Congo is reporting the situation openly and transparently,” he said, urging governments that have implemented restrictions to reverse course.

    This report was contributed to by AP reporters based in Dakar, Senegal and Bonn, Germany.

  • Migrant amateur teams in Greece get into World Cup spirit before new EU border measures take effect

    Migrant amateur teams in Greece get into World Cup spirit before new EU border measures take effect

    As the 2026 North America World Cup prepares to kick off, a unique, people-centered version of world football has already wrapped up its competition in the heart of Athens, Greece. Far from the glitzy mega-stadiums and luxury hospitality suites that will define the upcoming three-nation tournament, this grassroots gathering unfolds on cramped practice pitches tucked into dense urban neighborhoods, where spectators press against chain-link fences and the beat of live music drifts out onto surrounding residential streets.

    Named the Kypseli Mundial after the vibrant central Athens district that hosts it, this tournament is built on a simple but powerful mission: to bring together migrant, refugee and local Greek players through a shared love of football, and to challenge rising anti-migrant sentiment across the country. Unlike the official World Cup, national teams that failed to qualify for the North American tournament are well represented here: amateur players with roots in Albania, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Sudan and dozens of other nations take the field to represent their home communities.

    The timing of the 2026 tournament carries heavy symbolic weight. Just one day after the official World Cup kicks off on June 11, the European Union will implement sweeping new stricter migration and asylum rules, which include tougher border enforcement, faster deportation procedures, and Greek government plans to relocate migrant detention centers to offshore facilities in African nations. For many of the participating migrant players, this policy shift has been a growing source of anxiety, making the Kypseli Mundial a welcome, joyful escape from political uncertainty.

    The tournament was founded three years ago by Moussa Sangare, an Ivorian migrant living in Athens, who launched the event to break down fear and mistrust between local Greek communities and migrant populations. Greece has long stood on the frontline of irregular migration into the European Union, and was the epicenter of the 2015 refugee crisis. While irregular border crossings have dropped sharply over the past decade, anti-migrant rhetoric and policies have gained traction, with the Greek government ramping up border security and vowing to increase deportations.

    Sangare, who worked tirelessly throughout the tournament coordinating schedules, welcoming teams, creating social media content and cleaning up pitches after matches, explained the core vision behind the event. “People are often afraid of migrants, but we wanted to change this narrative,” he said. “Interacting with migrants and second-generation migrants and doing things together: People change their minds through experience. For us, this tournament is like a mini–World Cup in Greece.”

    That spirit of connection is visible across every pitch. One field, located near the archaeological site of Plato’s Academy where ancient Athenians first debated the meaning of citizenship, offers a sweeping view of the Acropolis in the distance, weaving the country’s ancient legacy of open debate into the modern-day event. On match days in Kypseli, supporters wave flags from their home countries, volunteers lead open-air drumming circles, and African pop music blares over portable speakers as coaches yell instructions and fans cheer on their teams.

    For the amateur players, the tournament is a rare chance to step outside the grueling daily routines that define many migrant working lives in Athens. Most participants work long, low-profile hours in restaurant kitchens, hotels, construction sites and delivery roles across the city. Amissi, a Malian midfielder who works in a local factory assembling water heaters, called his first participation in the tournament a point of pride after his semifinal match.

    Amelie Nguedia, a player with roots in Cameroon, echoed that joy. Even though Cameroon did not qualify for the official World Cup, she brought her full energy to the Kypseli tournament, dancing onto the pitch before kickoff to the delight of her teammates. “Coming to play here is a real pleasure,” she said. “We aren’t professionals, but we love participating.” She added that she would be cheering on Ivory Coast in the official World Cup this summer.

    Over five weeks of competition, 21 teams battled for the title, with Nigeria taking home the men’s championship and local Greek neighborhood club Fostiras Kaisarianis claiming the women’s trophy. Head referee Chara Vogiatzidaki emphasized that the tournament’s impact goes far beyond the final scoreboard. “There are so many countries and different cultures, and I think the main goal is to show respect for all communities,” she explained. “There are some teams that are technically very advanced, and others that are less so. But the important thing is that all the teams have the mindset of enjoying themselves. That’s really beautiful.”

    Across every match, the festive, collaborative spirit won out. Though games were competitive, there was little hostility between teams and fans. Hard tackles drew shouts from the sidelines, but rival supporters traded jokes and shared laughs across the fence dividing the stands. For a few weeks, political tension and policy uncertainty were set aside, replaced by the universal language of football that unites people across every border.