Global Pulse

标签： Africa

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  • The cash-in-the-sofa saga that just won’t go away for South Africa’s president

    The cash-in-the-sofa saga that just won’t go away for South Africa’s president

    Four years after a little-noticed break-in at a private South African farm, what started as a local theft allegation has ballooned into a constitutional crisis that threatens to end the presidency of Cyril Ramaphosa. Dubbed the “Farmgate” scandal — a parallel to the U.S. Watergate affair that brought down a sitting president — this controversy has followed a years-long twisting path that has only now put Ramaphosa within reach of impeachment.

    The origins of the scandal date back to 2020, when intruders broke into Ramaphosa’s private Phala Phala game farm in Limpopo province, making off with a stash of U.S. dollars hidden inside a sofa. Ramaphosa has confirmed the stolen sum totaled $580,000, though critics have alleged the actual amount was closer to $4 million. The details of the break-in remained hidden from public view for two years, until Arthur Fraser, a former head of South Africa’s state intelligence agency and close ally of ex-president Jacob Zuma (whom Ramaphosa succeeded in office), filed an explosive dossier with police that laid out the theft and accused Ramaphosa of covering up the incident from law enforcement and tax regulators.

    Fraser’s allegations also raised questions over compliance with South Africa’s strict foreign exchange control laws, since the unreported cash was held in U.S. dollars. Initial official inquiries cleared Ramaphosa of wrongdoing: the South African Reserve Bank found no violations of exchange control legislation, and the public protector, the body tasked with investigating official abuse of power, also concluded no improper conduct had occurred. But parliamentary leaders moved forward with a formal impeachment probe, appointing an independent panel to review the claims against the president. The panel delivered damning conclusions in 2022, finding “substantial doubt about the legitimacy of the source of the currency that was stolen” and ruling that Ramaphosa had a case to answer over the allegations.

    In 2022, Ramaphosa’s party, the African National Congress (ANC), held an absolute majority in parliament, and bloc voting allowed Ramaphosa’s allies to block the panel’s report from moving forward. The president also launched a legal challenge to strike down the panel’s findings, which he dropped after parliament voted to reject the report. But that block on impeachment was overturned last month by South Africa’s Constitutional Court, which ruled that MPs had violated the constitution by halting the process. The ruling forced parliament to take the unprecedented step of forming a special cross-party committee to evaluate the charges against Ramaphosa and vote on whether to recommend impeachment.

    The political landscape has shifted dramatically since 2022. After the 2024 national election, the ANC lost its decades-long parliamentary majority, forcing Ramaphosa to form a fragile 10-party coalition government. He can no longer rely on a guaranteed bloc of ANC votes to kill the impeachment process.

    Under South African law, a sitting president can be removed from office via impeachment for one of three reasons: a violation of the constitution or national law, serious misconduct, or an inability to carry out the duties of the presidency. Ramaphosa faces accusations falling into the first two categories. If the new impeachment committee recommends moving forward with removal, a full vote of the National Assembly will be held, requiring a two-thirds majority to oust the president.

    Currently, the ANC holds 159 of the assembly’s seats, meaning Ramaphosa only needs 133 MPs to vote against impeachment to survive. Political analyst Sandile Swana told the BBC that most ANC MPs are unlikely to break ranks to remove their own party leader. “The ANC has made it clear that it is not in the business of impeaching its own president, regardless of the facts,” Swana said.

    The biggest uncertainty hangs over the voting intentions of the other parties in Ramaphosa’s governing coalition. Relations between the ANC and the coalition’s second-largest partner, the opposition-aligned Democratic Alliance (DA), have long been strained. DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis has publicly insisted that the committee’s work must proceed “without unnecessary delay.” Makashule Gana, a lawmaker from coalition partner Rise Mzansi, has already been elected to chair the impeachment committee, and has confirmed that the panel’s work will continue despite Ramaphosa’s ongoing legal challenges. A small number of junior coalition partners, including the Patriotic Alliance, have already publicly pledged their support to Ramaphosa and promised to vote against impeachment.

    The entire process could still be derailed by Ramaphosa’s revived legal challenge to the 2022 independent panel’s report, which is scheduled to be heard in court this September. Ramaphosa argues the panel “misconceived its mandate, misjudged the information placed before it and misinterpreted the four charges advanced against me.” Richard Calland, a public law professor at the University of Cape Town, said there is a “good chance” Ramaphosa will succeed in overturning the report, which he described as “flawed” and riddled with “errors in law.” Ramaphosa has said he will not block the committee’s preparatory work, but will move to halt its progress if it continues formal proceedings while his court challenge is pending.

    This impeachment process marks a historic first for South Africa: Ramaphosa is the first sitting president to face impeachment under the 2018 rules that created the independent panel and special committee structure. In 2016, Jacob Zuma survived an impeachment vote after the Constitutional Court ruled he had violated the constitution over improper use of public funds for private home upgrades, thanks to the ANC’s then-absolute majority.

    Political observers note that even if the impeachment motion ultimately fails, the process is already damaging Ramaphosa’s personal credibility and the ANC’s political standing. If the process proceeds to a vote, opposition parties know they lack the numbers to remove Ramaphosa, but “they want to harm the president and… the ANC through this process,” Calland explained. Because Ramaphosa is bound by a two-term limit and cannot run for re-election in 2029, he will not face direct electoral consequences from the scandal. But the ANC has a history of removing sitting party leaders when they become political liabilities: both Zuma and Thabo Mbeki were ousted as ANC head before their terms ended. If the scandal drags on and drags down the ANC’s poll numbers, the party could move to replace Ramaphosa as its leader as early as 2027.

  • Ebola outbreak in Central Africa could reach 20,000 cases without strong public health measures

    Ebola outbreak in Central Africa could reach 20,000 cases without strong public health measures

    The ongoing Ebola outbreak in Central Africa currently centered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could surge to as many as 20,000 cases or more, a new analysis from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned. The final size of the epidemic will depend entirely on how rapidly response teams can identify and isolate infected people to slow chains of transmission, health officials confirmed Friday.

    The CDC released projections from multiple computer-generated scenarios, which forecast a wide range of possible case counts spanning from 10,000 to more than 20,000 total infections. If the worst-case projection holds, the outbreak would come close to matching the deadliest Ebola epidemic in recorded history: the 2014–2016 West Africa outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people and infected over 28,000.

    Speaking at a press briefing for reporters, CDC Ebola response incident manager Dr. Satish Pillai emphasized that aggressive public health intervention is the only way to avoid large-scale spread. “Without strong public health interventions, the modeling work suggests an outbreak of that scale is possible,” Pillai said.

    Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center, noted that the new projections confirm long-held concerns among infectious disease experts. “This modeling affirms what we have worried about since the beginning: This outbreak is following a dangerous trajectory if more is not done to stop the spread of Ebola,” she said. However, she also cautioned against overreliance on the exact numerical forecasts, noting that outbreak projections are notoriously difficult to get right with limited real-time data. “I wouldn’t read too much into the specific numbers. It’s really hard to make an accurate projection when you have limited data,” Nuzzo added.

    As of Friday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded roughly 400 confirmed Ebola cases and 63 confirmed deaths from the current outbreak. Experts widely agree that the actual caseload is higher, as many infections have likely gone undiagnosed and unreported in conflict-impacted regions.

    The current outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo Ebola virus, a strain for which no approved targeted treatments or specific vaccines exist currently. The virus spreads through direct contact with infected bodily fluids including blood, vomit, and semen, and the disease has a high mortality rate. The World Health Organization designated the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the agency’s highest alert level, in May 2024. Retrospective analysis suggests community transmission may have begun as early as February, but initial testing incorrectly targeted a different Ebola strain, delaying a coordinated response.

    Response efforts have been severely hampered by ongoing armed instability in eastern DRC. The region is facing active conflict between the Congolese government and Rwanda-backed M23 rebel forces, alongside attacks from the Allied Democratic Force, a group affiliated with the Islamic State. Widespread violence has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes, disrupting public health outreach and contact tracing efforts.

    Despite the alarming projections for the outbreak in Central Africa, both Nuzzo and the CDC have assessed that the risk of large-scale community spread of Ebola in the United States remains very low. “I don’t think it’s a scenario that it’s going to come here and spread broadly,” Nuzzo told reporters earlier this week, a conclusion the CDC echoed in its Friday publication.

    The low U.S. risk stems in part from new travel restrictions implemented by the U.S. government: entry is banned for non-U.S. citizens and non-green card holders who have traveled to the DRC, Uganda, or South Sudan in the 21 days prior to their attempted entry. U.S. passport holders returning from those three countries are required to undergo mandatory health screening and enter through one of four designated U.S. airports to monitor for potential symptoms.

    The CDC’s latest modeling framework tested a range of variables to generate its projections, including undiagnosed past infections and variation in how quickly response teams can isolate new cases. Under a scenario where roughly 50 people had died by late May and only 20% of infected people were successfully isolated before spreading the virus, most simulations forecast at least 20,000 cases and 4,000 deaths over a three-month period. Pillai noted that the actual current rate of successful isolation is believed to fall on the lower end of the range modeled by the agency.

    If response teams can scale up isolation efforts to reach 50% or 70% of infected people quickly, the CDC projects total cases would drop to roughly 10,000. At the same time, officials warned that if the true death toll from late May was higher than currently confirmed, final case counts could end up even higher than the worst current projections.

    It is not the first time the CDC has released high-profile Ebola outbreak modeling: during the 2014 West Africa epidemic, the agency projected a worst-case scenario of up to 1.4 million infections if no interventions were implemented, a forecast that ended up being more than 50 times higher than the actual final caseload. That experience has shaped the agency’s current approach to framing projections as possible scenarios rather than definitive predictions, officials noted.

    The Associated Press’ health and science coverage receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, with the AP retaining full editorial control over all content.

  • More than half of Latin Americans deported from US to Congo are now back home

    More than half of Latin Americans deported from US to Congo are now back home

    DAKAR, SENEGAL – In a development that lays bare the deep flaws of the former Trump administration’s widely condemned third-country deportation policy, Congolese government officials and legal counsel for displaced migrants confirmed Friday that more than half of the 15 Latin American asylum seekers dumped in the Central African nation in April have already made their way back to their countries of origin.

    All 15 of the migrants had already received formal rulings from U.S. immigration judges confirming they faced a high likelihood of persecution if forced to return to their home countries, placing their forced transfer to Congo directly at odds with U.S. legal protections for asylum seekers. Congo is one of at least eight African nations that struck little-publicized third-country deportation agreements with the U.S. during the Trump administration, part of a broader, often secretive scheme that saw thousands of asylum seekers deported to nearly 24 countries that were not their countries of birth or habitual residence, according to immigrant rights advocates.

    Immigration attorneys have long argued that these third-country deportation deals function as a deliberate legal loophole, designed to circumvent U.S. asylum law and indirectly push vulnerable people seeking protection back into the dangerous situations they fled. Alma David, a U.S.-based attorney representing one of the 15 migrants deported to Congo in April, told reporters that eight of the group have completed their return to Latin America in recent weeks. David confirmed her client, a Colombian woman who previously spoke to the Associated Press about the dire conditions and crippling uncertainty she faced after being stranded in Congo, remains trapped in the Central African country for now.

    Another Colombian migrant, Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata, is also still stuck in Congo, despite a federal judge issuing a formal order last month requiring the Trump administration to return her to U.S. territory. Zapata was originally deported to Congo even though Congolese authorities explicitly rejected her entry, citing an inability to meet her pre-existing medical needs.

    David explained that four Peruvian migrants and three Colombians completed their return home earlier this week, with logistical and financial support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations-affiliated body. Their returns were processed through the IOM’s Assisted Voluntary Return program, which covers travel costs and coordination for migrants who agree to return to their home countries as an alternative to ongoing displacement or forced deportation. One additional Colombian man arranged his own independent return to his home country in recent days, David added.

    Legal observers have pointed out that the migrants’ decision to return home, even after U.S. courts ruled they faced life-threatening danger there, reveals the impossible position the third-country policy placed them in. “The fact that they chose to return there anyway raises serious concerns that they likely felt backed into a corner because no viable alternative was presented to them,” David said. The IOM has defended its program, stating that assisted voluntary returns are “strictly voluntary and based on free, prior and informed consent.”

    In an official statement released Friday, the Congolese government framed the departures as consistent with the original terms of its agreement with the U.S., saying “These developments confirm the strictly transitional, temporary, and time-limited nature of this mechanism, as announced from its launch. Further departures will take place shortly as part of the implementation of the arrangement.”

    Friday’s announcement coincided with a separate legal action by international rights lawyers, who filed a complaint against Equatorial Guinea before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights – Africa’s top regional human rights body. The complaint accuses Equatorial Guinea of forcing U.S.-deported migrants back to their home countries in direct violation of international human rights law. Associated Press correspondent Saleh Mwanamilongo, reporting from Bonn, Germany, contributed reporting to this article.

  • Fifa World Cup 2026: What you need to know about South Africa

    Fifa World Cup 2026: What you need to know about South Africa

    After a 16-year absence from the global football stage, South Africa’s senior men’s national team, affectionately known as Bafana Bafana, is making its much-anticipated return to the FIFA World Cup in 2026. The team last featured at the tournament when South Africa hosted it in 2010, where they exited the group stage on goal difference despite a famous upset win over eventual champions France – marking the third consecutive World Cup cycle where the side failed to progress beyond the group stage. A full 16 years later, history is repeating in a curious twist: just like in 2010, South Africa will kick off the entire tournament, this time facing co-host Mexico in the opening match.

    Leading the side into this historic return is 74-year-old Belgian head coach Hugo Broos, who will retire from his post following the 2026 tournament, bringing a close to five years of transformative leadership that has restored belief to a squad that for years lacked consistency on the global stage. A fascinating quirk of fate puts Broos in a unique position: 40 years ago, he took the pitch as a player for Belgium against Mexico in the opening match of the 1986 World Cup. “You can’t plan something like that,” Broos said of the coincidence. “It’s beautiful.” Broos will also make his own piece of history at this tournament: he will briefly become the oldest head coach in World Cup history, surpassing Germany’s Otto Rehhagel (71 years and 317 days at the 2010 tournament). The record will only be his for seven hours, however, as the Czech Republic’s Miroslav Koubek – seven months older than Broos at 74 – will take the record later the same opening day, before 78-year-old Dick Advocaat of Curacao claims the mark three days later.

    South Africa’s road to qualification was far from straightforward: the side was deducted three points after fielding suspended midfielder Teboho Mokoena in a qualifying match, yet they still pulled off an upset to top their group, finishing ahead of regional powerhouse Nigeria to secure their World Cup spot. That impressive qualifying campaign has injected a new level of confidence into the squad that has often been missing in past tournaments, and that mental strength is one of the side’s key advantages. Broos has also reshaped the team’s defensive organization, tightening up the backline significantly, while the midfield boasts elite fitness and relentless work rate that disrupts opposition build-up.

    Unlike the successful South African sides of the 1990s that featured a host of players plying their trade in top European leagues, the 2026 squad is drawn almost entirely from the country’s domestic league, giving the side a cohesive understanding but leaving it short on top-level experience in high-stakes international matches. That inexperience has shown in past tournaments: South Africa has a long-standing struggle to adapt when matches turn against them, with no clear backup plan when their initial game plan unravels. That flaw was on full display earlier this year at the Africa Cup of Nations, where Cameroon caught Bafana Bafana on the break to eliminate them in the round of 16, leaving Broos’ side unable to adjust to the changing dynamics of the match. While Broos has nurtured a core of talented young players poised to carry South African football into a bright future, most analysts agree that a deep knockout run in 2026 may be out of reach for the side.

    Three players stand out as key to any potential South African success in the tournament. Midfielder Teboho Mokoena, 29, is a two-way threat who combines solid defensive work with powerful long-range shooting, capable of capitalizing on any space afforded to him outside the box. Captain and goalkeeper Ronwen Williams, 34, has already cemented his place in African football history: at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, he saved four penalties in a shootout against Cape Verde to secure upset victory. Growing up in one of South Africa’s most impoverished communities, Williams has become a powerful role model for young aspiring footballers across the country. Leading the line up front will be 25-year-old Lyle Foster of England’s Burnley, who became the most expensive South African footballer in history when he moved to the Premier League club for a reported £6 million in 2023. Broos has noted that Foster is working to rebuild his confidence after a tough domestic season, but remains the side’s most clinical attacking option.

    For football fans eager to follow South Africa’s 2026 World Cup run, BBC Sport will provide live coverage of every one of the side’s matches across its website and app, including real-time updates, expert analysis, and fan reaction. As Bafana Bafana prepare to step onto the World Cup pitch for the first time in 16 years, the side will be hoping to rewrite their national history and secure their first ever knockout stage berth, marking a positive new chapter for South African football after years in the international wilderness.

  • Fall in official Ebola numbers appears to be good news but it’s not that simple

    Fall in official Ebola numbers appears to be good news but it’s not that simple

    Ebola, a deadly viral pathogen that transmits through direct contact with infected bodily fluids, requires medical personnel to utilize full personal protective equipment when caring for confirmed patients to prevent accidental exposure. The latest Ebola outbreak statistics from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have sparked initial cautious optimism, after a dramatic downward revision of reported case counts – but public health leaders stress the reduction does not signal the outbreak itself has become less severe.

    Previously, DRC authorities had reported more than 1,000 suspected cases and nearly 250 suspected deaths linked to the current outbreak. The updated count, however, narrows those figures to roughly 380 confirmed cases and 60 confirmed deaths within DRC borders, with an additional 15 confirmed cases and one fatality recorded in neighboring Uganda. The key shift behind the revised numbers is a transition from counting suspected cases to only confirmed cases: expanded laboratory testing has allowed officials to rule out thousands of patients who presented with Ebola-like fever but were actually suffering from other endemic illnesses, most commonly malaria, which is widespread across DRC.

    Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), noted that the outbreak gained a significant foothold before coordinated response efforts began, but that intervention teams are now closing the gap in containment. Even with progress in data collection, however, major barriers to stopping the outbreak remain.

    One of the most pressing challenges is incomplete contact tracing, a core strategy for stopping Ebola chains of transmission. Currently, only around 45% of people who have had direct contact with confirmed Ebola patients are being actively monitored for symptoms. WHO guidelines require at least 90% of contacts to be traced to bring an outbreak under control. The low follow-up rate is partially tied to the outbreak’s location: the epicenter lies in a conflict-affected region of eastern DRC, where ongoing violence disrupts public health work.

    Community mistrust is another major obstacle. Earlier this week, an Ebola burial response team was attacked in South Kivu province, forcing workers to abandon a coffin and raising grave concerns about further uncontrolled transmission. Traditional funeral practices in the region often involve close contact with deceased bodies, including washing and touching, and large public gatherings – two factors that dramatically increase Ebola infection risk, since the virus spreads through bodily fluid contact. Dr. Tedros emphasized that building trust with local communities is a non-negotiable critical step to getting the outbreak under control.

    The current outbreak is concentrated across three eastern DRC provinces, a territory roughly the size of the United Kingdom, with large swathes of rural, remote terrain that is difficult for response teams to access. Compounding this, the region is one of the most politically volatile in Africa, with multiple active armed groups operating across the area that disrupt aid work.

    Speaking to the BBC’s *Today* program, Dr. Tedros highlighted a broader global health priority: earlier this year, he urged foreign ministers planning to increase defense spending not to overlook the threat of “invisible enemies” like infectious disease, noting the COVID-19 pandemic claimed roughly 20 million lives – far more than any recent armed conflict. He also reassured the global public that the risk of a worldwide Ebola pandemic is low, since unlike the respiratory coronavirus that caused COVID-19, Ebola is not transmitted through airborne particles.

    WHO’s current risk assessment classifies the outbreak as very high risk within DRC (which has now faced 17 separate Ebola outbreaks since the virus was first discovered there 50 years ago), high risk across the central African region, and low risk globally. In line with this low global assessment, British officials announced earlier this week they will not implement mandatory temperature screenings for flights arriving from affected regions at UK airports, citing the proven limited effectiveness of such measures. During the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak, more than 12,000 passengers were screened across five major UK airports, but screenings failed to detect the country’s only confirmed case – that of nurse Pauline Cafferkey, who entered the UK undetected before being diagnosed.

  • Singer Fally Ipupa’s pride at being given major DR Congo honour

    Singer Fally Ipupa’s pride at being given major DR Congo honour

    One of the most influential and successful African musical talents of his generation is celebrating one of the highest honors of his home country this week, after being formally inducted as a Knight of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s revered National Order of the Leopard. For 48-year-old Fally Ipupa, whose decades-long career has taken him from local collaborator to global icon with millions of loyal fans across every continent, the recognition carries far more meaning than a personal accolade.

    Ipupa’s journey to international stardom began 30 years ago, when he launched his professional career performing alongside fellow Congolese music legend Koffi Olomidé. Over the course of his career, he has built an extensive and versatile discography: he contributed to chart-topping group tracks as a member of collectives Talent Latent and Quartier Latin International, before going on to release eight full-length solo albums that have cemented his status as a cross-regional hitmaker.

    The knighthood, bestowed Tuesday, marks the highest honor Ipupa has received to date. The National Order of the Leopard is one of the DRC’s most prestigious state awards, granted exclusively by the country’s sitting president to public figures who have earned extraordinary distinction for their contributions to the nation. While the induction did not include a televised public ceremony, a government spokesperson confirmed Ipupa’s new title on state television the following day, praising the artist as a “worthy son of the nation.”

    In her remarks, the spokesperson highlighted that Ipupa’s one-of-a-kind artistic style and creative vision have played a critical role in elevating Congolese rumba on the global stage and spreading Congolese culture to international audiences. He follows in the footsteps of the late iconic Congolese musician Papa Wemba, who also received the same knighthood honor.

    Reacting to the news on social media, Ipupa shared his sense of “immense pride and deep emotion” with fans, emphasizing that his success has never been a solo achievement. “This path has never been mine alone. It belongs to an entire people,” he wrote, extending a message of encouragement to young Congolese creatives: “Your starting point does not define your destiny. Work, believe, persevere. The world is ready to hear your voice.”

    The latest award caps off a landmark year for Ipupa’s global career, which has already seen a string of historic firsts. His most recent studio album, *XX*, made him the first African artist ever to debut directly at the top of the French official album charts. Just last month, he also made history as the first Francophone African artist to sell out two consecutive back-to-back shows at Paris’s 80,000-capacity Stade de France. Later this year, he is scheduled to perform one of the largest shows of his career in the United Kingdom at London’s iconic O2 Arena.

    Ipupa’s grueling promotional schedule across Europe and the United States has come at a small cost, however: he recently told French outlet *Le Monde* that he lost his voice from repeated performances on television and radio programs, and his doctor ordered a full week of complete vocal rest to recover.

    Beyond his string of professional highs, Ipupa’s career has also included moments of profound loss and public controversy. Four years ago, a fatal crowd crush at a sold-out Ipupa concert in Kinshasa, the DRC’s capital, left 11 people dead. The tragedy was linked to the venue being oversold by more than a third of its maximum capacity.

    The artist has also faced criticism over the local Congolese music industry practice known as libanga, where musicians accept payment to shout out or praise politicians, corporations, and influential figures in their tracks. Ipupa has previously acknowledged the practice openly, telling Kenya’s Trace FM that he can earn roughly €10,000 per paid mention in a song. For years, Congolese diaspora fans angered by what they saw as overly close ties between Ipupa and the DRC’s widely criticized government organized boycotts that blocked his concerts abroad.

    Beyond the controversy, Ipupa has also carved out a profile as a philanthropist and served as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, and he has long maintained that his core mission as an artist is to unite rather than divide audiences. Accepting the knighthood, he reiterated that the award extends far beyond him as an individual: “This distinction is more than personal. Above all, it celebrates Congolese music, our culture, our identity, this force that unites us and elevates us beyond borders.”

  • Truck breakdown in Niger strands passengers and leaves at least 49 dead in the Sahara Desert

    Truck breakdown in Niger strands passengers and leaves at least 49 dead in the Sahara Desert

    A devastating tragedy has unfolded in the arid Sahara Desert of northern Niger, where at least 49 people have lost their lives to dehydration after their transport vehicle broke down and left the group stranded for days without access to water, local authorities confirmed. All of the deceased were citizens of Niger, traveling back to their homes after attending a major religious gathering in neighboring Mali when the mechanical failure occurred, according to an official online statement released Thursday by the governorate of Niger’s Agadez region. The incident took place more than 80 kilometers west of the remote border town of Assamaka, a location situated near the tri-border intersection of Niger, Mali, and Algeria. Remarkably, two members of the traveling group managed to survive the deadly ordeal. After the truck stalled, the pair trekked more than 50 kilometers across unforgiving desert terrain to reach a water source, then continued on to Assamaka to alert local government officials to the emergency. Investigative delegates dispatched to the remote crash site by Agadez Region Governor General Ibra Boulama Issa have since pieced together key details of the journey: the ill-fated truck originated from the Malian town of Talhandek, located roughly 300 kilometers from the Niger-Mali border, and had been en route for several days before the breakdown occurred. As of Friday, authorities have not yet confirmed the exact cause of the vehicle’s mechanical failure, nor the precise number of days the stranded passengers waited for rescue before water supplies ran out. Officials described the on-scene findings as profoundly distressing: dozens of lifeless bodies were discovered both underneath the immobilized truck and scattered across the surrounding desert sand. Official photographs published by the governorate show the grim scene, with personal clothing and belongings scattered among the remains across the arid landscape. In a detailed statement, the Agadez governorate explained that once the truck broke down, passengers and crew were unable to make repairs despite repeated efforts. Trapped in one of the world’s harshest environments, where summer temperatures regularly exceed 40 degrees Celsius and no permanent water or supply outposts exist for hundreds of kilometers, survival became impossible for all but two travelers. The 49 victims were laid to rest in mass graves at the site of the incident, a recovery and burial operation that local officials described as an exceptionally difficult, emotionally draining mission for all personnel involved. This deadly desert incident comes amid a string of escalating security and humanitarian crises across the Sahel region, with frequent unrest and unregulated cross-border travel leaving many travelers vulnerable to life-threatening hazards in remote border zones.

  • Case filed against Equatorial Guinea for sending US deportees to nations where they face persecution

    Case filed against Equatorial Guinea for sending US deportees to nations where they face persecution

    DAKAR, SENEGAL — Human rights legal teams have initiated a high-stakes legal challenge against Equatorial Guinea at the African Union’s premier human rights watchdog, alleging the Central African nation has violated fundamental human rights by forcibly transferring U.S.-deported migrants onward to their home countries where they face targeted persecution.

    The complaint, filed Friday with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), calls for the regional body to immediately order Equatorial Guinea to suspend all further deportations, transfers and removals of third-country deportees, overhaul inhumane detention conditions, and award financial compensation to the migrants who have already been forcibly sent to their countries of origin.

    The litigation is being advanced by a coalition of human rights organizations led by the Global Strategic Litigation Council (GSLC), acting on behalf of 14 African migrants who were deported from the United States to Equatorial Guinea between November 2025 and April 2026. Rights advocates frame the proceeding as a landmark test case for migrant rights across the continent, even though the ACHPR’s rulings are not legally binding. The commission has the authority to issue urgent measures and refer contested cases to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and advocates say the case could build critical pressure on African governments that have accepted U.S. third-country deportations under opaque bilateral agreements.

    Beatrice Njeri, GSLC’s regional litigator for Africa, noted this is the first regional case involving migrants who held formal U.S. legal protection from removal yet were still routed through third countries to persecution zones. It follows a similar ACHPR ruling earlier this year that allowed a challenge to the unlawful prolonged detention of third-country deportees in Eswatini to proceed. One month after that ACHPR order, Eswatini’s Supreme Court ruled that four detained deportees could finally access in-person legal counsel after being denied access for nine months in a maximum-security facility.

    The case grows out of a controversial U.S. immigration policy implemented during the Trump administration: under a series of largely unpublicized bilateral deals, the administration deported thousands of asylum seekers and migrants to nearly 24 countries that are not their nations of origin, as part of a broad crackdown on unauthorized immigration. Immigration attorneys have long labeled this third-country deportation strategy a deliberate legal loophole designed to indirectly force protected asylum seekers back to the countries they fled, in violation of international refugee law. Equatorial Guinea is one of at least eight African nations that have signed such third-country deportation agreements with Washington.

    Just last week, Equatorial Guinean authorities transferred six of the U.S.-deported migrants onward to their home countries in East Africa, a move legal teams describe as “chain refoulement” — the indirect return of protected people to persecution zones, even after U.S. immigration judges barred their removal under federal law. Attorneys confirm the migrants face widespread persecution in their home countries on the basis of political affiliation, religious belief, ethnic identity and sexual orientation. Many had previously faced arrest, detention, torture and sexual violence at the hands of state security forces in their countries of origin before fleeing.

    In the aftermath of last week’s transfers, two of the six deportees have already fled again to neighboring countries and gone into hiding. A third has not been contacted since his forced return, leaving legal teams deeply concerned for his safety and well-being. The remaining three were turned away by their home country, which refused entry because it received no advance notification of their arrival and the migrants lacked valid travel documentation. Stranded, they were sent back to Equatorial Guinea, where they remain trapped in legal limbo.

    “They have effectively been rendered stateless,” said Bella Mosselmans, GSLC’s director, describing the entire process as a “cycle of hell” for vulnerable migrants.

    The controversial deportation arrangement between the U.S. and Equatorial Guinea stems from an opaque $7.5 million bilateral deal that has brought at least 32 U.S.-deported migrants to the Central African nation to date. U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has publicly labeled Equatorial Guinea’s government “one of the most corrupt governments in the world.”

    The Associated Press has previously investigated the conditions facing deportees in Equatorial Guinea, gaining exclusive access to a repurposed hotel that the government of long-ruling President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has converted into an open-air prison for U.S.-deported asylum seekers. While Equatorial Guinea ranks among Africa’s wealthiest countries per capita due to its vast offshore oil reserves, it remains plagued by systemic corruption and widespread human rights abuses, according to senior U.S. officials and global human rights monitors.

    Critical opposition is effectively banned in the country, and the government has repeatedly been accused by rights groups and the U.S. State Department of arbitrary detention, torture and extrajudicial killing of political dissidents and opposition voices. Despite these long-documented concerns, Equatorial Guinea remains a key U.S. partner in Central Africa: U.S. energy companies are the country’s largest foreign investors, and the U.S. government provides funding and training for Equatorial Guinea’s military forces.

  • Nearly 50 people die of thirst in Sahara desert after lorry breaks down

    Nearly 50 people die of thirst in Sahara desert after lorry breaks down

    A devastating tragedy has unfolded in the remote, unforgiving expanse of Niger’s northern Sahara Desert, where at least 49 people have died from dehydration after the truck they were traveling in suffered a mechanical breakdown and left them stranded without access to water, regional authorities have confirmed. The group of travelers was heading back to Niger from Mali, where they had gathered to take part in a regional Muslim festival, when their vehicle became stuck more than 80 kilometers west of Assamaka, a key border checkpoint connecting Niger and Algeria.

    In an official statement released via Facebook by the Agadez Governorate, regional officials outlined the brutal conditions the stranded group faced. “The travelers found themselves trapped in the heart of a hostile environment where extreme temperatures and lack of supply points make survival extremely difficult,” the statement read. Just two people from the first group managed to survive: after days of waiting for help, the pair undertook a dangerous cross-desert trek to reach Assamaka, where they immediately notified local authorities of the emergency.

    According to the governor’s account, the truck had departed from the Malian border town of Telhandek but drifted off its planned route into an unmonitored, isolated stretch of the desert. For several days, the driver, his apprentice, and all the passengers worked tirelessly to fix the disabled vehicle, but their attempts to repair it failed completely. Cut off from any outside sources of water, the group was left completely exposed to the desert’s extreme heat. “Dozens of lifeless bodies were found under the immobile truck and in its surroundings,” the statement added. Once rescue teams reached the site, they recovered the remains of the victims and buried them in marked mass graves.

    In a startling secondary discovery, the rescue team—made up of local emergency personnel and Nigerien military troops—stumbled on a second stranded group while returning from the first recovery mission. This second truck, carrying more than 60 passengers, had also broken down after suffering a battery failure, and the group had already been stranded without aid for three days. The vehicle had departed from Harouba, another Malian town located more than 300 kilometers from the Niger’s northern border. Rescuers immediately distributed emergency water to the exhausted and dehydrated passengers, successfully repaired the truck’s battery, and helped the group continue their journey safely.

    The Sahara Desert that spans northern Niger remains one of the most dangerous transit corridors for irregular migrants from across West Africa who are seeking to reach Europe via North Africa. Thousands of migrants attempt the crossing every year, despite well-documented risks of extreme heat, dehydration, and vehicle failure in remote areas where rescue can take days to arrive. In the wake of the tragedy, the Agadez governor emphasized that the incident highlights the extreme vulnerability of young people who engage in irregular cross-border migration and informal cross-border economic activity. Many of these travelers are forced to traverse ungoverned, high-risk desert areas out of economic necessity, as they seek to escape poverty and access better living opportunities, he added.

  • As Ebola spreads in Congo, a radio station tries to stop health misinformation

    As Ebola spreads in Congo, a radio station tries to stop health misinformation

    In the eastern Congolese city of Bunia, epicenter of an unexpected and fast-moving outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo Ebola variant, a quiet public health battle is being waged on the airwaves. This outbreak caught local communities completely off guard, spreading undetected for weeks before authorities issued an official alert, and deep-seated misinformation and public skepticism have hindered containment efforts from the start.

    Congolese health officials formally declared the outbreak on May 15. As of this week, official records count 363 confirmed cases and at least 62 deaths, but public health experts warn these numbers almost certainly understate the true scale of the epidemic. Initial testing protocols focused on more common Ebola strains, creating critical weeks of delay that allowed the virus to expand far beyond its original three health zones to 24 zones across the region.

    Many local residents have dismissed official warnings of the outbreak as an invented “Western conspiracy,” spreading unfounded rumors that the crisis is exaggerated by opportunistic actors seeking financial gain. For 52-year-old Bunia resident Samson Gerson, a father of seven, this mistrust runs so deep that he says he would refuse any future Ebola vaccine, preferring to risk death over accepting what he sees as a dangerous, profit-driven hoax. Even basic facts about the outbreak are questioned by locals like Chantal Francine, who notes that most residents have only seen secondhand edited images of Ebola fatalities on mobile phones, leaving them skeptical of reported death tolls.

    This widespread resistance to public health guidance has already had dangerous consequences. Since the outbreak was declared, local communities have carried out at least three separate attacks on Ebola treatment centers, demanding the release of deceased patients’ bodies. During these attacks, multiple suspected Ebola patients fled the facilities, and health workers have been unable to trace their whereabouts, creating new, unmonitored transmission risks. Health officials confirm that misinformation and fear discourage residents from following safety protocols or seeking timely medical care, directly allowing the virus to spread faster.

    Public health analysts trace this deep mistrust to a combination of longstanding skepticism of the national healthcare system and limited engagement from local government officials in outbreak response. “What is key is to involve the local actors at all levels. If we try to impose what we think is right to the community, we are running towards failure,” explained Basile Rambaud, emergency programs director for Mercy Corps in Congo. “If people do not trust the response, they end up delaying to seek care, rejecting protective measures, or avoiding working with health teams, giving the virus more time to spread.”

    Compounding the crisis further is the context of ongoing violent conflict in the region. Eastern Congo remains destabilized by clashes between government forces and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, plus frequent attacks by the Allied Democratic Force, an extremist group affiliated with the Islamic State that killed 16 people in Beni territory, North Kivu, just this week. Widespread population displacement from these conflicts has disrupted public health work and created more opportunities for the virus to spread across communities. There is also no approved vaccine or specific treatment for the rare Bundibugyo Ebola strain, adding an extra layer of danger and uncertainty to the response.

    Against this backdrop, one local journalist has stepped forward to fill the information gap. Vérité Johnson, editorial secretary at Bunia’s Radio Télévision Mont Bleu, launched a daily radio program specifically designed to counter false rumors and deliver accurate, accessible information about the outbreak to local residents.

    The 45-minute show, which airs every morning at 10 a.m., has quickly become a critical lifeline for communities. It regularly features public health specialists who share the latest outbreak updates, explain safety protocols, and answer listener questions directly. Listeners can call in live to ask about their concerns, and short educational jingles about Ebola safety are played throughout the broadcast day to reinforce key messages. For many residents who were unaware of the outbreak’s facts or deeply skeptical of official information, the program has helped shift perspectives.

    Congo has now faced 17 separate Ebola outbreaks since the virus was first identified in the country in 1976, so community resistance to public health measures during emergencies is a well-documented challenge. Johnson acknowledges that significant public resistance remains, but says the local media’s role in disseminating facts remains indispensable.

    “Everyone is free to think what they want, but the information remains the same. The epidemic is here,” Johnson said, confirming that the station will continue running the program as long as the outbreak persists. The WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has also warned that response efforts are still falling behind despite recent improvements in testing, underscoring the urgent need for trusted, local information campaigns like Johnson’s to turn the tide of the outbreak.