Global Pulse

标签： Africa

非洲

  • Africa’s richest man, Ethiopia and Djibouti to build $660m fuel pipeline

    Africa’s richest man, Ethiopia and Djibouti to build $660m fuel pipeline

    Nigerian billionaire and industry magnate Aliko Dangote has entered a landmark partnership with the governments of Ethiopia and Djibouti to develop a $660 million integrated petroleum pipeline and storage facility, a major infrastructure initiative set to reshape regional energy logistics across the Horn of Africa.

    The cross-border project will deliver a 120-kilometer (75-mile) pipeline connecting Djibouti’s Damerjog Port to a purpose-built fuel distribution hub in Dewele, Ethiopia, alongside 400 million liters of strategic storage capacity for refined petroleum products. Developers project the facility will be fully operational within 18 months of construction starting, with the first phase focused on moving high-demand products including aviation jet fuel, diesel, and gasoline.

    Addressing attendees at the official groundbreaking ceremony, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed highlighted the transformative impact the new infrastructure will bring to the country’s fuel supply chain. Currently, fuel shipments delivered through Djibouti’s ports require five days of overland transport to reach Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa; the pipeline will cut that transit time down to just one day, eliminating costly delays and bottlenecks.

    For his part, Dangote emphasized that the project will directly strengthen Ethiopia’s long-term energy security by building greater resilience into the country’s fuel supply network. As a landlocked nation, Ethiopia is almost entirely dependent on Djibouti’s port infrastructure to handle its imports, including all incoming petroleum products. The new pipeline is expected to significantly reduce congestion on existing overland transport routes, easing operational pressure on key sectors of Ethiopia’s economy ranging from commercial logistics and aviation to agriculture and large-scale construction.

    The initiative is not a one-sided investment: Djibouti will also capture substantial economic benefits from the project, including expanded port activity, new local job opportunities during both construction and operations, and increased steady revenue for the national government.

    This cross-border infrastructure project is part of Dangote’s broader strategic push to expand his industrial and infrastructure footprint across the entire African continent. Already, Dangote Cement, his core industrial business, boasts an annual production capacity of 55 million metric tonnes distributed across markets in sub-Saharan Africa. In his home country of Nigeria, Dangote’s flagship crude oil refinery currently processes 700,000 barrels of crude per day, with active plans to double that capacity to 1.4 million barrels daily to meet growing regional fuel demand. Just recently, the refinery operation listed 4.1 billion ordinary shares on the Nigerian Exchange Group, moving forward with a capital raising effort targeting roughly $1.63 billion in new investment.

    Looking ahead, the Dangote Group is set to break ground next week on another major refinery project in East Africa: a 700,000-barrel-per-day crude oil refining complex in the coastal Kenyan region of Lamu, cementing the company’s position as a leading player in African energy infrastructure.

  • Tigray capital ‘out of cash’ as fighting escalates, resident tells BBC

    Tigray capital ‘out of cash’ as fighting escalates, resident tells BBC

    Escalating hostilities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region have pushed the regional capital Mekelle into a severe cash crisis, a local resident has told the BBC, painting a complex picture of stalled daily life under renewed conflict. While the city itself has not seen active frontline combat in the immediate period following the latest outbreak of fighting, widespread anxiety and uncertainty have gripped the population, the insider source confirms.

    The acute cash shortage has left residents unable to access basic necessities, with local businesses struggling to operate and ATMs running dry after weeks of disrupted financial flows linked to the conflict. Though street-level calm currently holds in Mekelle, the underlying tension is palpable: ordinary people are bracing for further escalation, navigating the double stress of economic collapse and the ever-present threat of expanding violence. The renewed outbreak of hostilities in Tigray has derailed fragile peace efforts that had been building over recent months, leaving regional and international observers scrambling to urge both sides to return to negotiations before the crisis deepens into a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe.

  • Ethiopia’s army says it has repelled attacks in first comment on fresh fighting

    Ethiopia’s army says it has repelled attacks in first comment on fresh fighting

    After two years of a fragile, AU-brokered ceasefire, deadly hostilities have erupted once again across northern Ethiopia, bringing the country to the brink of a resumption of its devastating 2020–2022 civil war. Spiking tensions between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the ruling party in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, boiled over into open combat on Wednesday, with both sides moving quickly to secure strategic territory.

    In its first official public statement since fighting began, the Ethiopian National Army announced that it had successfully fended off coordinated assaults from TPLF fighters and their recently formed armed coalition in multiple northern border zones. According to the military’s account, the initial outbreak of hostilities occurred in the Amhara region, along its shared border with Tigray. The military claimed its forces inflicted heavy losses on TPLF combatants and seized a large stockpile of weapons from the attacking group.

    Independent verification of the army’s claims remains impossible, as international media including the BBC are barred from entering Tigray and surrounding conflict zones, and the TPLF has not issued any formal response to the military’s statement. Unconfirmed reports from local and humanitarian sources, however, indicate TPLF forces have launched simultaneous offensives into both the neighboring Afar and Amhara regions.

    A senior humanitarian source based in Afar told Agence France-Presse Thursday that TPLF fighters have launched intensive artillery barrages targeting the border town of Yallo, as they push to seize full control of the settlement. Speaking to AFP, TPLF vice-president Amanuel Assefa confirmed the collapse of the 2022 peace agreement, stating bluntly: “We are in the situation of full-blown war now.”

    The latest escalation caps months of gradual deterioration in relations between the two sides, with both the federal government and Tigrayan authorities repeatedly accusing one another of violating the terms of the African Union-negotiated truce that ended the original 2020–2022 conflict. That war was one of the deadliest of the 21st century: the AU’s lead mediator estimated that roughly 600,000 people died from violence, famine, and lack of access to medical care, as the conflict pushed Tigray to the edge of a catastrophic humanitarian collapse. Just days before the current outbreak of fighting, the TPLF announced a new military alliance with six other armed opposition groups, with the explicit goal of ousting Abiy Ahmed’s federal government.

    Since Wednesday, TPLF forces have seized control of three regional airports from federal police forces, including the main airport serving Mekelle, Tigray’s largest capital city. Following the seizure of aviation infrastructure, Ethiopian Airlines has suspended all commercial flights to the region. Multiple residents of Mekelle confirmed to the BBC that TPLF fighters are now visibly deployed across the city’s streets, though direct armed clashes have not yet broken out in the urban center.

    Unlike the 2020–2022 war, which saw intense house-to-house fighting in Mekelle, all active combat is currently concentrated in outlying border areas. A Mekelle resident, who asked to be identified only as Fitsum to protect his safety, told the BBC’s *Newsday* program Thursday that the city remains outwardly calm, despite widespread fear among the population. “Mekelle is calm, except the stress from the people,” Fitsum said. He added that the city’s most pressing crisis is already economic, rooted in months of federal budget cuts that have left public sector workers unpaid and drained physical cash from local financial institutions.

    “People are in a mood where they are distressed because it’s been so difficult, so tough. The last seven or eight months the government has been denying budgets to the civil servants and all the banks were running out of cash,” Fitsum explained. While residents have relied on mobile banking to access funds in recent months, widespread fears that communications infrastructure will be cut off amid the new fighting have left the population extremely vulnerable. “People are going to be in grave danger because there is almost no cash,” he added. Since fighting broke out, residents have largely stayed indoors and limited non-essential travel, leaving the city unusually quiet. “It’s like a curfew has been placed,” Fitsum said.

    Recent drone strikes targeting locations inside Tigray in the days preceding the TPLF’s offensive have further stoked panic across the region, leaving global observers scrambling to de-escalate tensions before the conflict expands across the Horn of Africa.

  • Elephants use medicinal plants to treat themselves, researchers find

    Elephants use medicinal plants to treat themselves, researchers find

    For centuries, anecdotal evidence has suggested that wild animals tap into natural plant resources to treat illness and injury. A new study published in *Scientific Reports* has brought fresh, locally sourced insight to this phenomenon, confirming that the iconic salt-mining elephants of Kenya’s Mount Elgon region rely on at least 35 distinct plant species – 25 of which carry well-documented medicinal properties for human and animal use alike.

    This population of elephants has long fascinated biologists: unlike most other African elephant groups, these animals regularly venture deep into underground caves, where they use their powerful tusks to scrape mineral-rich rock salt to add critical nutrients to their plant-based diet. Now, researchers from institutions across the globe, working in partnership with the Kenyan conservation organization Mount Elgon Foundation, have uncovered another layer of the elephants’ complex adaptive behavior: intentional use of medicinal flora to treat themselves and their young.

    To build their findings, the research team conducted anonymous interviews with local residents who live and work alongside the Mount Elgon elephants, including seasoned wildlife scouts and Indigenous community elders. These long-time observers shared detailed, first-hand accounts of elephants actively selecting specific plants when showing signs of illness, with multiple reports of elephant mothers administering processed medicinal plant material to their ailing calves.

    One particularly striking account from a local scout detailed how elephant mothers prepare the plant Angurweet – a common local remedy for stomach pain and digestive issues – for their young. After stripping the leaves and chewing the plant’s roots and leaves into a smooth paste, mothers mix the preparation with their own milk before offering it to calves, who then chew the mixture and spit out the fibrous solid waste before swallowing the active compounds.

    Dr. Elodie Freymann, lead researcher from Brown University in the United States, emphasized that the findings highlight a deep, underrecognized connection between human and animal medicinal knowledge and the natural world. The study, she noted, also raises urgent questions about what is lost when forest habitats that double as natural pharmacies are destroyed by human development – depriving both wildlife and human communities of potential life-saving medicinal resources.

    “ This shows just how entangled our medicines are with the non-human world, ” Dr. Freymann told BBC News in an interview. “There are medicine-producing organisms on this planet that have this incredible capability. Medicine factories that exist all around us.”

    Not all outside experts are yet fully convinced of the intentional medicinal behavior, however. Professor Michael Huffman, a prominent primatologist based at Nagasaki University in Japan who was not part of the research team, described the account of maternal care with Angurweet as “tantalizing” but noted that more direct, observational evidence is required to confirm that elephants are providing targeted medical treatment to their calves.

    The research team has already launched follow-up work to gather this evidence, providing trained local wildlife experts with camera traps and personal cameras to document elephant foraging and feeding behavior in real time. Researchers are also conducting laboratory analysis of the plant species identified by locals and elephants to test for active biological compounds that could hold value for human medicine.

    Co-lead researcher Dr. Fabien Schultz, of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Germany, explained that Indigenous and local knowledge has provided the research program with a critical roadmap for future exploration. “Local knowledge has given us a map,” Dr. Schultz said. “We [now] want to follow the elephants and investigate whether they select particular plants in particular health contexts, and whether those plants have relevant biological activity.”

    The practice of animal self-medication, known scientifically as zoopharmacognosy, is not a new discovery. The earliest recorded scientific account of elephant self-medication dates all the way back to the third century CE, when Roman author Claudius Aelian wrote of a wounded elephant that recovered after consuming olive flowers and oil. In modern research, scientists have documented self-medicating behavior across the evolutionary spectrum, from mosquitoes and fruit flies to bees, great apes, and now elephants. Professor Huffman noted that each new documented case deepens humanity’s understanding of its own medicinal origins.

    For Dr. Freymann, the study also carries a clear conservation lesson for the future of human medicine. Many of the most widely used pharmaceutical drugs on the market today are derived from natural compounds found in trees, fungi, algae, and coral reefs. Protecting intact wild habitats like Mount Elgon’s forests, she argued, is not just critical for protecting endangered wildlife – it is an investment in the future of human health.

    “It’s a win-win for us to protect these forests and keep those natural pharmacies around… long enough that we can discover new natural products that could save us down the line,” Dr. Freymann said.

  • Spotlight on new coaches as road to Afcon 2027 begins

    Spotlight on new coaches as road to Afcon 2027 begins

    Eight months after the contentious 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) final, whose final champion remains undetermined, the competitive road to the 2027 edition of the tournament is finally starting. A total of 48 national teams still in the running will contest the first two rounds of qualifying matches during this extended international break, which opens its gates on Thursday. Two additional matchdays are scheduled for November, with the final two group-stage fixtures set to wrap up group competition next March.

    Under the current qualifying format, the top two teams from nine of the 12 total groups will secure their spots in the 24-team final tournament, which will be co-hosted for the first time by three East African nations: Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. While pre-tournament infrastructure and preparation work among the co-hosts is reportedly falling behind schedule, all three have automatic qualification to the finals, meaning only one qualifying spot is up for grabs in each of their groups – a quirk that means a second-place finish will not guarantee progression in those groups.

    In the months following the 2025 Afcon and this year’s FIFA World Cup, African football has seen sweeping changes: a wave of new managerial appointments across top national sides, and the retirement of dozens of star players from international duty. This qualifying window brings the first chance to see these new-look squads in competitive action.

    Among the many coaching changes, a handful of high-profile moves have stood out. Herve Renard, the only manager in history to lift the Afcon trophy with two different nations, is returning to lead Ivory Coast 11 years after he guided the West African side to their past continental title. The 57-year-old Frenchman will kick off his second stint with the Elephants on Thursday with a home opener against Ghana – the most anticipated fixture of the first qualifying round. Opposite Renard in the Ghana dugout will be seasoned manager Carlos Queiroz, who is back at the helm after leading the Black Stars to the round of 16 at this year’s World Cup, though Ghana will be missing key talent including Tottenham Hotspur star Mohammed Kudus, who has withdrawn from the squad.

    Another marquee arrival is Patrick Vieira, the 1998 World Cup winner with France, who takes charge of his first international role at Senegal – the country of his birth. The 50-year-old former Arsenal midfield great has described the appointment as “an absolute dream”, though he will open his tenure with two consecutive away matches against Mozambique and Ethiopia, as Senegal’s capital Dakar wraps up preparations to host the 2026 Youth Olympic Games. Other familiar faces are also returning to dugouts across the continent: Pitso Mosimane is back leading South Africa 14 years after his first spell in charge of Bafana Bafana, while 78-year-old Afcon legend Claude Le Roy has signed on for a second stint with Congo-Brazzaville, aiming to become the first manager to reach a 10th Afcon finals tournament – a new record.

    Among other new appointments, Cape Verde, one of the breakout stories of this year’s World Cup after they pushed eventual champions Argentina all the way to a 3-2 extra-time loss in the round of 16, have promoted former assistant Humberto Bettencourt to head coach following the resignation of long-serving manager Bubista. Tunisia has hired Moin Chaaban, formerly of Esperance and Renaissance Berkane, to rebuild after a disastrous World Cup campaign that saw Sabri Lamouchi fired after just one match and Renard unable to turn the team’s fortunes around. Brahim Hemdani has taken over at Algeria following Vladimir Petkovic’s exit, Amir Abdou has moved to lead Burkina Faso after previously managing Comoros, and 2021 Afcon-winning coach Aliou Cisse, who most recently led Libya, will contest his first competitive matches as manager of Angola, opening with a tough away test against Egypt.

    Alongside the wave of new managers, a number of star players have retired from international football since the World Cup, leaving big shoes to fill for their national sides. Senegal is in the market for a new starting goalkeeper after 34-year-old Edouard Mendy, who helped the Teranga Lions win the 2021 and 2025 Afcon titles (the latter of which remains under dispute at the Court of Arbitration for Sport), retired from international duty. Algeria has lost captain Riyad Mahrez, the winger who led the side to the 2019 Afcon trophy, while Ivory Coast will be without midfielders Seko Fofana and Jean-Michael Seri. Tunisia’s Ellyes Skhiri has also called time on his international career, just as the North African side aims to qualify for an 18th consecutive Afcon – an unprecedented streak.

    Veteran striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has also stepped away from Gabon’s national side, saying he felt “humiliated” by how he was treated following Gabon’s group-stage exit from the 2025 Afcon. Aubameyang, 37, was excluded from the national squad after the exit, a sanction that was later reversed, but the striker still chose to turn down a call-up, despite a strong early start to his club season at Deportivo La Coruna.

    This qualifying cycle also brings two historic firsts for smaller African nations. Eritrea has reached the group stage of Afcon qualifying for the first time since the lead-up to the 2008 edition, after beating Eswatini 4-1 on aggregate in the preliminary round back in March. The East African side withdrew from qualifying for the 2023 Afcon and 2026 World Cup, in large part due to longstanding issues of Eritrean athletes absconding during international competitions to avoid returning to the country’s one-party, highly militarized regime. Seven Eritrean players did not return home after the away leg of their preliminary tie against Eswatini, which was held in South Africa. Drawn into Group D alongside co-host Kenya, South Africa and Guinea, Eritrea’s squad for the opening two qualifying rounds relies almost entirely on players from the Eritrean diaspora, with just three home-based players selected. The side will play their opening fixture against Kenya in Nairobi on Saturday, and will host their “home” match against South Africa in Cairo, Egypt, next Tuesday.

    Meanwhile, Somalia has qualified for the Afcon qualifying group stage for the first time in the nation’s history, drawn into a tough group alongside Ivory Coast, Ghana and The Gambia. Ranked 53rd out of 54 African football nations, the Ocean Stars can still celebrate their historic milestone, just as the Afcon returns to East Africa for the first time since 1976.

  • Watch: Why is the UK reviewing its Chagos Islands deal?

    Watch: Why is the UK reviewing its Chagos Islands deal?

    In a surprise announcement that has reignited debate over the future of the disputed Indian Ocean archipelago, the United Kingdom’s top defense official has confirmed that the British government is conducting a full review of the agreement to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. The confirmation of the review comes after months of mounting political pressure from opposition groups and some backbench lawmakers in the ruling party, who have raised questions over the strategic and legal implications of the 2024 preliminary deal that was struck between London and Port Louis.

    The Chagos Islands have been a source of diplomatic tension between the UK and Mauritius for more than half a century. The UK separated the archipelago from Mauritius ahead of Mauritius’s independence in 1968 to allow the United States to build a major military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia. For decades, Mauritius has challenged the UK’s control of the territory, with the International Court of Justice issuing an advisory ruling in 2019 that demanded the UK end its occupation of the islands and return them to Mauritian control.

    The original deal, announced earlier this year, was billed as a resolution to the long-running dispute, with the UK agreeing to transfer full sovereignty over the archipelago in exchange for Mauritius granting the US continued access to the Diego Garcia military base, a critical logistics and intelligence hub for Western operations in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific. However, critics in the UK have argued that the agreement undermines British national security interests and sets a dangerous precedent for territorial concessions. The defense secretary’s confirmation of the review indicates the current British administration is pausing to re-evaluate the terms of the agreement before moving forward with ratification, leaving the final outcome of the decades-long sovereignty dispute uncertain once again.

  • UK to review Chagos Islands deal over lack of US support, Streeting tells BBC

    UK to review Chagos Islands deal over lack of US support, Streeting tells BBC

    The United Kingdom has launched an informal review of its 2025 sovereignty agreement that would cede control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has confirmed, following renewed public criticism of the pact from US President Donald Trump at the United Nations General Assembly this week.

    The original deal, negotiated and signed under former UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in May 2025, was designed to resolve a decades-long sovereignty dispute over the Indian Ocean archipelago. Under its terms, the UK would transfer full sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for a 99-year lease on the strategic UK-US military base located on Diego Garcia, the archipelago’s largest island. The UK government initially projected the total net cost of the agreement at £3.4 billion, or roughly £101 million ($136 million) in annual payments to Mauritius, though political opponents have argued inflation-adjusted costs could reach as high as £35 billion, with additional risks of expanded Chinese influence in the region.

    The agreement hit a deadlock in April of this year when Trump withdrew US support, forcing the Starmer administration to pause the deal indefinitely ahead of its parliamentary ratification. Streeting made clear in comments to BBC Breakfast on Wednesday that the review is a direct response to Washington’s opposition, noting that Trump’s recent public criticism clarified his unchanged stance on the unamended draft. “What President Trump said yesterday wasn’t new but I think it does provide absolute clarity that his position on this Chagos deal as currently drafted is not changing,” Streeting told reporters. “So we have to do more work with our American allies, with President Trump and his administration, to get the deal to a place where he can support it.”

    The Diego Garcia base has long been viewed as one of the West’s most critical strategic assets in the Indian Ocean, giving UK and US military forces unmatched access to a region that has grown in geopolitical importance in recent decades. Successive UK prime ministers have held that the ongoing unresolved sovereignty dispute, which has backing from international courts, puts the long-term security of the base at risk. Streeting emphasized that the core priority of the ongoing review is to secure long-term stability and certainty for the base’s operations.

    The renewed public scrutiny of the deal came during Trump’s first in-person meeting with current UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, where Trump publicly called the agreement “terrible” and stated the UK would revisit the terms. Burnham simply replied “Yep” during the exchange, and later clarified to reporters that his government inherited the negotiations and is committed to finding a workable resolution that protects the base’s future. “It’s critical to safeguard the future of the base, and that matters to us for security reasons, but also clearly to the United States as well,” Burnham said. “What I said in the meeting is that we will work to find that resolution between the different sides, and we’ll work hard to find it.”

    Ahead of his UN trip, Burnham spoke with Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam, and an official readout of the conversation confirmed Burnham “reiterated his commitment to continue doing everything possible” alongside the US to advance the deal toward ratification. Downing Street sources have stressed that the current review does not represent a major policy shift from the previous position, which has always required US backing to move forward, though Streeting’s comments marked the first explicit public confirmation that the unamended draft cannot gain Trump’s support. Officials added that the review is not a formal, time-bound process, and no public funds will be transferred to Mauritius while the assessment is underway.

    Political opposition figures have seized on the review to call for the entire deal to be scrapped. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch urged Burnham to abandon the agreement entirely, calling it a “terrible deal” that serves no UK national interest. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage went further, declaring “The Chagos deal is dead. Thank God.”

    The dispute over the Chagos Islands dates back to 1965, when the UK separated the archipelago from Mauritius ahead of granting Mauritius independence, a move Mauritius has long argued was illegal. In 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a non-binding advisory opinion confirming the separation was unlawful and calling on the UK to end its administration of the islands as quickly as possible. The UN General Assembly endorsed the opinion, strengthening Mauritius’ sovereignty claims and pushing the UK to open formal negotiations in 2022.

    Streeting told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the goal of the current process is to find a compromise that can be accepted by all stakeholders. “Describing the Diego Garcia base as “one of the most sensitive and valuable national security assets”, he said work was underway to find a deal “that maybe not everyone loves, but everyone can live with.”

  • Tigray forces seize main airport in northern Ethiopia from police, residents tell the BBC

    Tigray forces seize main airport in northern Ethiopia from police, residents tell the BBC

    Fresh violence has shattered the fragile peace in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, after local Tigrayan forces captured the main airport in the regional capital Mekelle from federal police, according to local residents who spoke to the BBC. The seizure has halted all air traffic to the city, with state-owned carrier Ethiopian Airlines announcing it would suspend all commercial flights to Mekelle, as well as the northern Tigrayan cities of Shire and Axum, citing the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the area.

    The capture of the strategic airport marks the most serious escalation of hostilities between Ethiopia’s federal government in Addis Ababa and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the ruling political party of Tigray, since a two-year brutal civil war ended with an African Union-brokered peace deal in November 2022. Tensions have risen steadily throughout 2024, stoking widespread international and domestic fears that the country could slide back into full-scale civil conflict. Just days before the airport seizure, the TPLF announced a new military alliance with six other armed opposition groups across Ethiopia, with the explicit goal of removing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s federal government from power.

    The 2020–2022 Tigray war remains one of the deadliest armed conflicts of the 21st century. AU peace mediators estimated that roughly 600,000 people lost their lives to violence, famine, and lack of access to basic medical care, as fighting pushed the entire region of 6 million people to the brink of mass starvation. While the Pretoria Peace Agreement ended open hostilities, both sides have repeatedly traded accusations of violating the terms of the deal over the past 21 months.

    The suspension of flights comes on the heels of multiple reported drone strikes targeting populated areas across Tigray. The deadliest of these strikes hit the southern Tigrayan town of Alamata on Tuesday, which Tigrayan authorities say killed at least 14 civilians and wounded 22 more. Alamata Mayor Mogos Shiferaw told the BBC that the attack began at approximately 3:30 a.m. local time, when more than five drones and a single fighter jet carried out 21 separate strikes across the town.

    “The attack has inflicted severe psychological harm on our population, and our people are living in a state of total panic,” Shiferaw said. He added that all casualties were civilian, and that federal forces targeted two empty secondary schools that had previously operated as federal military bases during the civil war. The schools were unoccupied at the time of the strike, as the new academic year had not yet begun, and Tigrayan forces were not using the facilities, Shiferaw said. The BBC has not been able to independently confirm these allegations, and Ethiopia’s federal government has not issued any public comment on the strike as of Wednesday.

    On Wednesday, Tigray’s regional administration publicly accused the federal government of launching an open invasion of Tigray and its civilian population, issuing a call for all Tigrayan residents to rally behind regional forces and maintain unity against what it described as external aggression.

    International concern has grown over the escalating violence, with the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs issuing a condemnation of a separate drone strike that took place on Monday, which it says targeted a convoy of Catholic Church vehicles delivering humanitarian food aid to vulnerable communities in Tigray. The U.S. has called for a full, transparent investigation into the attack and urged all parties to return to diplomatic negotiations to resolve their disagreements, while calling for immediate steps to prevent further attacks on civilians and humanitarian infrastructure.

    Both the federal government in Addis Ababa and TPLF leadership have faced widespread international criticism for repeated delays in implementing key provisions of the 2022 Pretoria Peace Agreement. Tensions flared earlier this year ahead of Ethiopia’s May general election, when the TPLF reestablished its pre-war regional administration, dissolving an interim unity government that had been appointed by Prime Minister Abiy. In July, Abiy used an address to the federal parliament to publicly accuse the TPLF of actively preparing to resume open conflict against the federal government. Local and international monitors have also published reports claiming the TPLF has forcibly conscripted thousands of young Tigrayan men to reinforce its fighting ranks in recent months.

  • South Sudan’s president dissolves government ahead of country’s first elections

    South Sudan’s president dissolves government ahead of country’s first elections

    Three months ahead of South Sudan’s first national election since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, President Salva Kiir has announced the full dissolution of the country’s long-running transitional administration, setting the stage for a poll that has already been delayed twice and faced years of political tension.

    The dissolution, formalized under an amended law signed by Kiir this week, cleared out the entire existing transitional leadership structure: all five sitting vice presidents were removed from office, the national parliament was dissolved, and both national and state-level executive governments were disbanded. Kiir, who is running as the presidential candidate for his long-governing Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), will retain full constitutional executive powers until a newly elected president is inaugurated following the December 22 vote. He has already appointed a small set of caretaker ministers and state governors to maintain basic government functions through the election period.

    The run-up to Tuesday’s formal announcement saw a dramatic security buildup across the capital, Juba. Joint patrols from the South Sudanese army and national intelligence services blocked entry to all government ministry compounds, turned away civil servants reporting for work, and increased patrols across high-traffic areas of the city. Government staff were instructed not to return to office until the following Monday, while United Nations agencies operating in Juba directed all non-essential personnel to switch to remote work as a precaution while security teams monitored the evolving situation.

    Kiir, who has led South Sudan since independence, faces no major declared challengers in the upcoming poll. His most prominent political rival, former vice president Riek Machar, has been sidelined since last year when Kiir removed him from office and brought treason charges against him; Machar is currently detained under house arrest. Machar’s inclusion as vice president in the transitional government was a core provision of the 2018 peace deal that ended a brutal five-year civil war fought between forces loyal to Kiir and Machar respectively.

    Weeks before the dissolution, Kiir made an unannounced leadership change at the country’s national election commission, removing chairperson Abednego Akok Kacuol from his post without public explanation and replacing him with Gabriel Bol Deng, the commission’s former secretary-general. Akok had publicly raised alarm in August over critical funding shortfalls, stating the commission required $250 million to run a free and fair election but had only received $21 million in committed funding to date.

    Machar’s main opposition bloc, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO), has already signaled it will not participate in election preparations. In a public Facebook statement in June, acting SPLM-IO chairperson Nathaniel Pierino warned that any individuals attempting to register voters or conduct campaign activity in territory held by the opposition would be treated as prisoners of war.

    The Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC), the independent body tasked with overseeing implementation of the 2018 peace agreement, has characterized South Sudan’s current political moment as an extraordinarily critical phase. The commission noted that multiple key negotiated provisions of the peace deal remain unfulfilled, and urged all political parties to quickly agree on a clear path that would deliver a credible, inclusive election and a peaceful conclusion to the transitional period that has been in place since South Sudan’s independence. The latest extension of the transitional period was originally scheduled to run until February 22, 2027, ahead of this week’s dissolution.

  • Nigerian football enduring ‘worst time in history’ – Odegbami

    Nigerian football enduring ‘worst time in history’ – Odegbami

    Nigeria, long recognized as one of African football’s most dominant traditional powers, is now navigating its darkest period in the history of the sport, according to national legend Segun Odegbami. As the country’s men’s senior team, the Super Eagles, prepares to kick off its 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign this week, the entire football ecosystem is grappling with a cascading series of failures that have triggered top-level leadership resignations, government-backed reform calls, and urgent debates about long-term restructuring.

    Over the last 12 months, the scope of Nigerian football’s struggles has spread beyond the senior national squads. Both the men’s Super Eagles and the women’s Super Falcons, long a dominant force in women’s football on the continent, missed out on qualification for their respective 2026 FIFA World Cup tournaments. This marks the first time in Nigeria’s history that both senior teams have failed to book a spot at the men’s and women’s World Cups in the same cycle. The downturn also extends to youth football and African club competitions, with the quarter-final finish of the country’s under-20 women’s team at the 2024 World Cup standing as one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak stretch of results.

    Odegbami, a 74-year-old former international who led Nigeria to its first ever Afcon title on home soil in 1980, described the current string of underperformance as a “tectonic shift” that has shaken the foundation of the sport in the West African nation. “It has never been this bad in our entire history that we didn’t qualify for the World Cup,” he told BBC Sport Africa. “Our girls, who were African champions, failed to win a 2025 Women’s Afcon qualification that was well within their grasp. All our junior teams are struggling, our domestic league cannot generate sustainable revenue. Something is fundamentally broken here.”

    Widespread public anger over the repeated failures has already forced sweeping changes at the top of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). Last month, NFF president Ibrahim Gusau, general secretary Mohammed Sanusi, and multiple members of the federation’s executive committee stepped down from their roles amid mounting public and political pressure. Odegbami noted that the ousted leadership did not represent the best possible group of administrators for Nigerian football, and is now pushing for a full structural restructure to lay the groundwork for sustainable long-term development.

    “Public outcry was universal. Every Nigerian wanted the old leadership out, and even President Bola Tinubu publicly called for sweeping reforms,” Odegbami explained. “All these factors have come together, and we are now working to build a comprehensive development blueprint that addresses every gap in our football ecosystem.”

    In the weeks following the leadership resignations, a joint delegation from global governing body FIFA and the Confederation of African Football (Caf) has held formal talks with Nigeria’s National Sports Commission to map out a path for reform. The NFF’s scheduled leadership elections, originally set for September 27, have been suspended while the reforms are negotiated, and interim officials have been appointed to lead the federation through the transition: Emmanuel Ikpeme takes over as interim general secretary, with Ademola Olajire serving as his deputy. President Tinubu has made his own support for full reform clear, citing the need to reverse what he has called “repeated failures” at all levels of the national game.

    Even with top-level leadership changes in place, stakeholders across Nigerian football warn that reform must go deeper than swapping out senior officials. Nigerian sports journalist Fisayo Dairo argues that a complete overhaul of governing structures is required to unlock sustainable growth. “Reform can’t just stop at changing who sits in the top offices,” Dairo explained. “We need to build a formal, functional framework that lets our football thrive. That means investing in national team development, nurturing talent from the grassroots level, and building a governance model that includes input from all stakeholders. The corporate sector needs full representation to help the administration generate consistent, reliable funding.”

    For Odegbami, the current crisis stands in stark contrast to the golden era he helped create more than four decades ago. Nicknamed “Mathematical” for his precise, clinical skill on the pitch, Odegbami scored 23 goals in 46 appearances for the Super Eagles, and was named to the tournament All-Star team when Nigeria lifted its first Afcon trophy with a 3-0 final win over Algeria in Lagos in 1980.

    “We had unprecedented state support, and everything aligned for us to succeed,” he recalled. “The atmosphere during that time was indescribable. That experience remains indelible in our minds, nothing can compare to it.”

    Following that 1980 triumph, Nigeria went on to lift the Afcon trophy two more times in 1994 and 2013, finished as runners-up at the 2023 tournament, and claimed third-place finishes in 2019 and 2025. But Odegbami argues that successive Nigerian governments have long sidelined sport as a national priority, and that poor administration has derailed development since the mid-1990s.

    “Our leaders have not guided us well, and that failure has affected every single layer of our football development,” he said. “That includes grassroots scouting, player discovery and development, the institutions that support players, academies, and domestic and international club pathways. We don’t even have a clear national coaching methodology, a unifying football philosophy, or a defined national style of play anymore.”

    Beyond administrative failure, crumbling infrastructure and chronic underinvestment have emerged as core barriers to rebuilding Nigerian football. While other African nations have poured resources into hosting major international competitions – Senegal is set to host the Youth Olympic Games in October 2025, the 2026 men’s Cricket World Cup will be co-hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, Kenya will stage the 2029 World Athletics Championships, and Morocco will co-host the 2030 men’s World Cup with Spain and Portugal – many of Nigeria’s once-iconic top-class venues have fallen into severe disrepair from decades of neglect.

    Odegbami singled out historic venues including Lagos’ Surulere National Stadium, which hosted matches during the 1980 and 2000 Afcons, Ibadan’s Obafemi Awolowo Stadium (formerly Liberty Stadium), Kaduna’s Ahmadu Bello Stadium, and Calabar’s UJ Esuene Stadium as landmarks that have suffered irreparable damage. “I weep when I think about what has happened to our football infrastructure and these historic national facilities,” he said. “Whether it was intentional neglect or just ignorance, they did permanent damage to Nigeria’s football heritage. Even the Godswill Akpabio Stadium in Uyo, currently the best venue we have, is not even half as good as the top facilities we had from the 1960s through the 1990s.”

    Now, as the Super Eagles get ready to open their 2027 Afcon qualifying campaign with a match against Madagascar at Uyo’s Godswill Akpabio Stadium on Friday at 16:00 GMT, followed by a September 29 away fixture against Guinea-Bissau, the team will be without star forward and former African Footballer of the Year Victor Osimhen, who was ruled out of head coach Eric Chelle’s squad through injury. For a nation once used to continental and global success, the qualifying campaign kicks off against a backdrop of uncertainty, as leaders and stakeholders work to build a new foundation for the future of Nigerian football.