标签： Africa

In southern Africa, a landmark infrastructure milestone has been reached this week with the official launch of the 825-meter Senqu Bridge, a key component of the massive Lesotho Highlands Water Project that is set to reshape cross-border water cooperation and economic development for two neighboring nations. Sitting 90 meters above the reservoir of the under-construction Polihali Dam at an elevation of over 2,500 meters above sea level, the bridge is the largest of three purpose-built crossings supporting the project’s second phase, designed to keep supply routes open once the dam’s water levels rise to full capacity.

For context, South Africa’s most densely populated province, Gauteng – home to the country’s economic hub Johannesburg – already relies on Lesotho for 60% of its public water supply. The completed project will nearly double annual water exports from the small mountainous, landlocked kingdom to South Africa, boosting current output from 780 million cubic meters to more than 1.27 billion cubic meters per year. This expansion will secure a critical water lifeline for one of Africa’s largest industrial and commercial centers, addressing long-running water scarcity challenges that have plagued South Africa for decades.

Rooted in a 1986 bilateral treaty between the two nations, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project stands as the largest foreign investment South Africa has ever undertaken, and ranks among the world’s biggest transboundary water infrastructure initiatives. With a total current estimated cost of 53 billion South African rand ($3.2 billion), the project includes a 120-kilometer network of tunnels that divert water from Lesotho’s high-altitude river systems into South Africa’s inland water grid. First launched in 1990, the first phase of the project is already operational, while the ongoing second phase is scheduled for completion between 2028 and 2029. Beyond expanding water exports, the project also increases Lesotho’s domestic hydropower generation, strengthening the country’s energy security and cutting its dependence on costly imported electricity.

The $144-million Senqu Bridge itself is already being celebrated as a major engineering achievement for Lesotho, and it has delivered immediate economic benefits to local communities: approximately 1,200 construction jobs were created for Lesotho workers during its buildout, a critical boost for a country that declared a national economic emergency last year after unemployment surged to nearly 30%.

At the bridge’s launch ceremony, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa emphasized the outsized importance of the project to his water-scarce nation. “South Africa is a water-scarce country and the waters of Lesotho’s highlands are vital to our country’s development. We remain forever grateful to the great Basotho nation for making water resources available to us,” Ramaphosa said.

For Lesotho, a country classified by the World Bank as one of the poorest in the world, where half of the population lives below the national poverty line, the project delivers transformative long-term economic gains through increased water royalties and sustained revenue. Lesotho Prime Minister Sam Matekane framed the initiative as a core pillar of the country’s national development strategy, noting that the benefits are intended to reach everyday citizens rather than remain abstract policy wins. “The royalties and infrastructure that flow from this project are not incidental benefits. They are central to our development finance strategy,” Matekane said. “The project must deepen impact on the people, strengthen accountability in delivery and ensure that its benefits are not abstract but are felt in the daily lives of the people affected.”

Several key construction milestones remain before the project is fully completed, including a 38-kilometer tunnel that will connect the new Polihali Reservoir to the existing Katse Reservoir, the primary holding facility from the project’s first phase. Lesotho, which is currently grappling with deepening economic strain caused by 50% U.S. tariffs on its key textile and mining exports and major cuts to U.S. foreign aid that previously supported most of the country’s public health programs, stands to see significant economic relief from the increased revenue the expanded project will generate.

In the quiet, conflict-battered village of Qoz Nafisa on the outskirts of Sudan’s capital Khartoum, 61-year-old Abbas Awad faces a desperate daily battle to preserve his sight. For years, accessing the glaucoma medication he needs to avoid blindness has been an uphill climb, but the outbreak of war in Iran has turned that climb into a steep, almost insurmountable cliff. Today, Awad deliberately stretches out his doses, rationing each pill to stretch his current supply as far as it can go, terrified that when it runs out, he will neither find more on local markets nor afford whatever scarce stock remains.

Awad’s struggle is far from an isolated case. It is a direct ripple effect of the new conflict unfolding thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East, a crisis that is compounding the damage of Sudan’s own three-year long civil war, which has already pushed the country into what global aid groups widely call the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC), one of the few aid organizations still providing critical support to the Qoz Nafisa public health clinic that serves 5,000 vulnerable local residents, explains how the Iran conflict has shattered already fragile global supply chains for life-saving aid. Rising tensions between the United States and Iran have effectively closed off the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical oil and commercial shipping chokepoints, and disrupted alternative logistics routes passing through major regional hubs like Dubai. Aid groups report that shipping costs for essential goods have jumped by as much as 20% according to United Nations estimates, driven by skyrocketing fuel prices and inflated insurance premiums for vessels traveling through conflict-affected waters. Many shipments that would normally move directly through the Persian Gulf are now being rerouted across long, inefficient alternative paths, causing massive delays that can stretch for weeks or even months.

One clear example of this disruption is a $130,000 shipment of pharmaceuticals bound for Sudan, including critical antibiotics, painkillers, and basic medical equipment like stethoscopes. The shipment was originally meant to be flown from the United Arab Emirates directly to Port Sudan, but was stranded in Dubai for weeks. It was eventually forced to take a much longer, costlier route: overland by road to neighboring Oman, before being loaded onto a flight bound for Sudan. The shipment only just began moving toward the country after weeks of gridlock.

At the Qoz Nafisa clinic, the impact of these delays is already being felt on a daily basis. Dr. Amira Sidig, the clinic’s medical director, told AP journalists during a recent visit that the facility has not received a scheduled supply shipment from the IRC since December. Planned shipments for February and April never arrived. While Sudan’s Ministry of Health has attempted to step in to fill the gap, it can only cover half of the clinic’s total needs, and the government itself is grappling with widespread shortages across the country. As a result, the clinic’s stock runs out almost as soon as new supplies arrive.

Earlier this month, the clinic completely ran out of malaria treatment for several days. Half of all patients seeking care at the facility present with malaria, a life-threatening disease that is endemic to the region. Patients who cannot get free medication at the clinic are forced to travel to other facilities and pay for drugs out of pocket, a cost most of them simply cannot afford after three years of war that has gutted local livelihoods. Ahmed Ibrahim, a clinic staff member, says frustration is growing among residents who have nowhere else to turn for care. “When people come to the window, they say, ‘Why are you here and there is no medicine?’” he shared.

Even though U.S. President Donald Trump announced an extension of a fragile ceasefire with Iran this week, aid leaders remain deeply concerned that the damage to supply chains will not reverse quickly. “There’s still a real lag in the system. Shipments remain blocked or delayed, and that’s deeply worrying,” said Madiha Raza, associate director for global public affairs and communications for the IRC. Raza emphasized that for a country already on the brink of collapse like Sudan, even small delays to food, medicine, and fuel shipments have catastrophic, irreversible consequences for millions of vulnerable people.

This reporting is part of AP News’ Africa Pulse coverage, supported by a grant from the Gates Foundation. The AP maintains full independent editorial control over all content, with public transparency standards for philanthropic partnerships available on AP.org.

Five and a half years of wrongful imprisonment have left 23-year-old Nigerian Rasheed Wasiu with a devastating new burden: after regaining his freedom, he cannot find the mother who warned him to stay home during the 2020 End Sars protests.

In October 2020, mass nationwide demonstrations erupted across Nigeria, driven by widespread public anger at the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars), a disbanded police unit long accused of extrajudicial violence, robbery, and unlawful killings of innocent citizens. The movement peaked on October 20, when security forces opened fire on a crowd of peaceful protesters in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest commercial hub. In the weeks leading up to the shooting, police and local vigilante groups launched sweeping crackdowns, arbitrarily detaining anyone suspected of participating in the unrest.

At the time of the arrests, 17-year-old Rasheed was an apprentice training to become a tailor. On the morning of October 20, he and a friend headed to a painting gig in the Amukoko neighborhood of Lagos, only to turn back after learning violence had broken out in the area. When he returned home, his mother begged him to stay indoors, warning that the protests had reached their neighborhood. But the curious teenager ignored her warning and stepped back outside.

Though Rasheed never joined the demonstration, he was caught in a dragnet operated by the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC), a local vigilante group, and bundled into a van alongside protesters who were allegedly carrying weapons. His mother and neighbors crowded in to protest the arrest, insisting Rasheed was not part of the protest, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. He was first transferred to an army barracks, then moved to Lagos’s maximum-security Kirikiri Correctional Centre, where he would wait more than five years for his trial to even begin.

Rasheed told the BBC he was initially accused of involvement in looting, but by the time his case reached court, the charge had shifted to unlawful possession of firearms. His experience is far from unique: hundreds of people detained during the End Sars protests faced similar vague, unsubstantiated charges that kept them behind bars for years without conviction.

For Rasheed, prison was unmitigated hell, he said. Without money to bribe guards or secure better conditions, he endured overcrowding, rotten food, and almost no access to healthcare. Up to 70 detainees were crammed into a single small cell, and the poor quality of rations left inmates consistently weak. “The food is miserable; we get weak after eating. There is no good healthcare, but if you have money, you can have access to good food, a bed and proper medications,” he recalled. He described watching a young cellmate die from an untreated swollen leg, with no medical staff available to diagnose or treat his condition. To survive, Rasheed took on menial odd jobs: washing other inmates’ clothes for pocket change or scraps of food, and reselling snacks and processed cow skin (locally called ponmo) for prison staff in exchange for small cuts of the profits.

Month after month, Rasheed’s case was never called for trial. On the rare occasions he was transported to court, his name did not appear on the hearing roster. One of the court-appointed lawyers assigned to his case even died while he remained in detention. This legal purgatory stretched on for nearly six years, until a hearing early last month, when a Lagos High Court judge struck out the entire case for lack of evidence, ordering Rasheed’s immediate release.

The ruling came only after intervention from the Take It Back Movement (TIB), a Nigerian human rights advocacy group that provides free legal representation to people detained during the End Sars protests and other mass demonstrations. To date, the group has secured the release of more than 100 wrongfully detained End Sars protesters.

Cases like Rasheed’s expose a decades-long crisis in Nigeria’s criminal justice system: according to official prison data, roughly 50,000 people currently in Nigerian detention — nearly 64% of the total prison population — are awaiting trial, many held for years without ever being convicted of a crime. Human rights groups note that extended pre-trial detention without conviction is a widespread, systemic violation of due process across the country.

Adekunle Taofeek, TIB’s Lagos coordinator, called the ruling in Rasheed’s case “a significant milestone.” “This development reinforces our belief that persistence, solidarity and commitment to justice will always yield results,” he said.

When asked if he planned to pursue legal action for the five and a half years of freedom he lost, Rasheed said he had chosen to leave the matter to a higher power. “No, I am leaving everything to God,” he said. But any relief he felt at release quickly evaporated when he returned to his old neighborhood: his mother was gone.

Neighbors told Rasheed that after his arrest, his mother was threatened with arrest herself, forcing her to leave the area. She had only been able to see Rasheed once, immediately after his arrest, when she followed him to the initial holding barracks. She brought him food on the two following days but was denied access, and never saw her son again. For years, neighbors assumed Rasheed was dead, and his mother disappeared from the community consumed by grief. “They said my arrest caused her so much pain and tears,” Rasheed said. Neighbors told him they occasionally spot her passing through the local market, but she does not stop to talk to anyone.

Today, Rasheed lives with his maternal uncle in another part of Lagos, and the two are searching tirelessly for his mother. “I pray to God every day that I will see her, let me just come face to face with her,” he said. Beyond finding his mother, Rasheed is determined to rebuild the life he lost behind bars. Before his arrest, he was months away from completing his tailoring apprenticeship and opening his own shop. Now, he relies on neighbors for food to get by, but he is eager to find work and regain his independence. “I don’t want to be dependent on them, I wish to get a job and be a giver as well. I have two hands and legs, I can work,” he said.

More than a year after former U.S. President Donald Trump halted his predecessor’s Afghan refugee resettlement program as part of sweeping immigration restrictions, controversial negotiations have emerged to relocate roughly 1,100 vulnerable Afghan evacuees stuck at a U.S. military base in Qatar to the Democratic Republic of Congo, multiple sources confirm.

The group trapped at Camp As-Sayliyah in Doha includes Afghans who served alongside U.S. forces as interpreters and Special Operations support staff, as well as immediate family members of more than 150 currently serving American military personnel. They have been in limbo at the Qatari base for a full year, after the Trump administration’s executive order paused the resettlement pathway that thousands of vetted evacuees had already waited years to access. While the Doha base was originally planned only as a temporary transit hub for refugees bound for the U.S., it has become a long-term holding facility for this group.

The #AfghanEvac coalition, a prominent advocacy organization working to support Afghan resettlement, has confirmed that Congo is under consideration as a third-country resettlement destination. Shawn VanDiver, a U.S. Navy veteran and leader of the coalition, said Wednesday that U.S. officials had informed advocacy groups of ongoing bilateral discussions between Washington and Kinshasa about accepting the stranded refugees. The U.S. State Department has acknowledged it is exploring options for voluntary third-country resettlement but declined to confirm which countries are involved in the talks.

Critics warn that the proposal offers evacuees no genuine choice: the only alternatives on the table are resettlement in Congo or forced return to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where Afghans who assisted the U.S. during the 20-year war face near-certain reprisal and death. “You cannot call a choice voluntary when the two options are Congo and the Taliban, civil war or an oppressor who wants to kill you,” VanDiver stated during a virtual press briefing. “That is not a choice. That is a confession extracted under duress.”

Multiple former U.S. officials and refugee advocates have raised urgent alarms about the safety risks of sending vulnerable Afghan allies to Congo. The United Nations has classified eastern Congo as facing one of the world’s most severe ongoing humanitarian crises, after decades of persistent conflict between government forces and armed rebel groups backed by neighboring Rwanda. Over 70% of Congo’s humanitarian aid was previously supplied by the U.S., and aid workers have documented preventable deaths in conflict zones following Trump administration cuts to American aid and trade support. Congo has also previously participated in controversial, multi-million dollar deals with the Trump administration to accept third-country deportees from the U.S. — a practice that has drawn widespread international criticism.

Sean Jamshidi, an Afghan American U.S. military veteran who has served deployed in Congo, shared the deep concerns shared by many evacuee family members. His own brother is among the group stranded in Doha, and could be relocated to the African country. “I saw the security situation and what it looked like there. I saw the displacement camps… I stood in places where the United Nations has counted the dead,” Jamshidi said. “I’m telling you, as someone who has been in uniform, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is not a place you send vetted Afghan allies and their children to live.”

For the evacuees trapped at the Doha base, uncertainty remains the only constant. Negina Khalili, an Afghan former prosecutor who fled Afghanistan during the 2021 U.S. withdrawal, has waited for updates on her father, brother, and stepmother since they arrived at the base in January 2025, just days before Trump suspended the resettlement program. When news broke that Congo was a potential destination, her family already expressed profound fear. “They are not giving them any information or updates regarding which countries they will go to,” Khalili told the Associated Press. “They were so stressed and worried about it and said that Congo is not a safe place either. They don’t know if it’s a temporary location for them there or a permanent location. They are worried.” Khalili added that U.S. officials at the camp have already begun offering refugees financial incentives to voluntarily return to Afghanistan.

Congolese authorities have not yet issued a public response to requests for comment on the ongoing negotiations. The reporting was contributed by AP correspondents Amiri in New York, Asadu in Abuja, Nigeria, and AP writer Matthew Lee.