标签： Africa

Harare, Zimbabwe – A Zimbabwean magistrate has ordered the immediate release of Marry Mubaiwa, former spouse of the country’s Vice-President General Constantino Chiwenga, bringing an end to seven years of pre-trial custody as she faced allegations of attempting to murder the senior state figure. The landmark ruling was delivered on Tuesday at a Harare court, moments after state prosecutors filed a formal request to push the ongoing trial back by 30 days to allow additional time to coordinate and secure testimony from key witnesses. Citing official reports from Zimbabwe’s state-run daily publication The Herald, the magistrate emphasized that Mubaiwa had endured severe, sustained harm across mental, physical and financial spheres during the prolonged, drawn-out remand period, with the extended pre-trial detention inflicting irreversible prejudice on her legal rights. Mubaiwa, who was initially arrested and formally charged in 2019, stood accused of deliberately obstructing Chiwenga’s access to critical medical care while he was receiving treatment at a Pretoria, South Africa, hospital – actions that prosecutors framed as a deliberate attempt to end the vice-president’s life. Following the alleged incident, Chiwenga departed for a four-month extended medical treatment program in China. From the moment of her 2019 arrest, Mubaiwa had been consistently denied bail and held in continuous pre-trial custody, a situation her legal team repeatedly condemned as a violation of basic procedural justice. In remarks delivered to assembled reporters immediately outside the Harare courthouse, Mubaiwa’s lead counsel characterized the release ruling as a bittersweet legal victory that arrived far too late, noting that their client had already suffered years of unwarranted deprivation that no subsequent legal process could fully remedy. The lawyer confirmed that the defense team would address any potential state application to launch a new trial only if and when such a motion is officially submitted to the court. Footage and on-site reports from independent Zimbabwean news outlet New Zimbabwe captured Mubaiwa openly celebrating her long-awaited release outside the courthouse, where she told reporters that true justice had finally prevailed and extended public praise to her legal representation for their years of advocacy on her behalf. The high-profile legal case is tied to one of Zimbabwe’s most prominent political figures: General Constantino Chiwenga rose to national prominence as a central architect of the 2017 military and political intervention that ended Robert Mugabe’s 37-year long tenure as the nation’s president, cementing his position as one of the most powerful figures in the southern African nation’s ruling political establishment.

A trio of suspects consisting of Ghanaian twin brothers and a U.S. woman have entered guilty pleas for their roles in a sprawling cross-border criminal enterprise that exploited online dating platforms and social media to defraud elderly victims across North America and Europe. The 22-year-old identical siblings, Jamal and Kamal Abubakari, alongside 53-year-old Hawaii resident Amanda Joy Opoku-Boachie, operated as part of a coordinated ring that fabricated false romantic identities to manipulate vulnerable older targets into forming emotional attachments, before coercing them to wire substantial sums of money to bank accounts based in Ghana. The fraudulent scheme ran from July 2024 to April 2026, resulting in combined losses totaling $9 million (£6.7 million) for victims spanning 25 U.S. states, including a large concentration of harmed individuals in Ohio where the formal charges were filed, plus additional victims in Germany and Austria. As part of their plea agreements, the three defendants have consented to the forfeiture of high-value luxury jewellery seized by law enforcement during their arrests, including premium watches, gemstone rings, gold chains, and designer earrings. The three face a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years of federal incarceration, with formal sentencing scheduled to take place in 2025. Court documents confirm the suspects operated under a series of aliases: Jamal Abubakari also went by Jamal Abubakar and the handle “Arrangement”, his brother Kamal used the names Kamal Abubakar and “Lancaster”, while Opoku-Boachie was known under Amanda Joy Glum and Amanda Joy Kessei Bierman. This prosecution is the latest in a rapidly escalating U.S. federal law enforcement campaign targeting transnational fraud rings operating across the U.S. and West Africa that specifically target elderly American populations. Earlier this month, FBI Director Kash Patel announced that federal agents had carried out hundreds of arrests following the successful dismantling of a major scam hub located in Ghana. Back in June, prominent Ghanaian social media influencer Frederick Kumi, widely known online as Abu Trica, was extradited to the United States to stand trial on allegations that he ran a separate romance scam that siphoned over $8 million (£5.9 million) from elderly U.S. victims. Prosecutors allege Kumi used dating apps and social media profiles to build false relationships, then solicited money and high-value goods by fabricating emergency scenarios such as urgent, life-saving medical care needs. Kumi’s case is being pursued under the U.S. Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act, and he has entered a formal not guilty plea to all pending charges against him.

A prominent, theologically outspoken Islamic cleric in northern Nigeria has been killed in a targeted shooting outside his residence in Dutsin-Ma, Katsina State, according to official police statements and eyewitness accounts shared with the BBC. 47-year-old Yahaya Masussuka was bidding farewell to visiting guests on Monday evening when two unidentified assailants pulled up to the scene on a motorcycle and opened fire, striking both the preacher and one of his guests. Emergency responders rushed both wounded individuals to a local medical facility, but attending medical staff confirmed that neither survived their injuries. As of press time, investigators have not publicly identified a clear motive for the killing, though Masussuka was known to have received repeated death threats via social media platforms in the months leading up to his death, where he regularly shared recorded religious content challenging widely accepted tenets of mainstream Islamic teaching. The cleric’s public theological positions deviated from common orthodox interpretations rooted in the Hadith, the canonical collection of the Prophet Muhammad’s documented sayings and actions that serves as a core interpretive framework alongside the Quran. A widely held belief across most Muslim communities holds that after burial, every deceased person’s soul is interrogated by two angels in the grave, with righteous believers granted peaceful rest until the Day of Judgment and those found wanting facing immediate torment. Masussuka, who centered his teachings exclusively on text from the Quran and questioned the veracity of select Hadith accounts, openly rejected this doctrine of post-burial in-grave interrogation. His unorthodox views once landed him a nine-month prison sentence, after he publicly mocked revered local Islamic scholars for their adherence to the contested Hadith-derived teachings. Masussuka’s religious journey began at the age of 13, when he started delivering sermons at local Quranic schools before pursuing advanced theological studies at Egypt’s prestigious Al-Azhar University and completing additional academic training in Oman. Back in Nigeria, he operated a private in-home recording studio to film his teaching videos, which he distributed widely across social media to reach his large base of followers. Beyond his theological stances, the cleric was a vocal, high-profile critic of violent religious extremism and radicalization, and consistently advocated for constructive interfaith dialogue and peaceful coexistence between Nigeria’s Muslim and Christian populations, who represent nearly equal shares of the country’s total population. Nigeria has seen tens of thousands of people from both religious communities lose their lives in cycles of ethnic and religious communal violence over the past 25 years, a crisis that Masussuka worked actively to de-escalate. In recognition of his peacebuilding efforts, Nigeria’s Network for Good Governance and Transparency awarded Masussuka a Peace Ambassador Award last year. His murder marks the seventh killing of a prominent Muslim preacher in northern Nigeria over the past 20 years; six of the previous targeted killings were carried out by Boko Haram, the jihadist insurgent group that launched its armed campaign in 2009 from Nigeria’s northeast. Boko Haram’s stated agenda rejects Western education and secular governance, with the explicit goal of establishing a strict Islamic state across the region. Additional reporting for this story was contributed by BBC Pidgin, and further coverage of developments across the African continent is available via BBCAfrica.com, as well as the BBC Africa social media channels on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and the network’s dedicated Africa podcast series.

In a landmark move that has drawn widespread condemnation from global human rights and press advocacy groups, Lina Attalah, the veteran editor-in-chief of Egypt’s leading independent news platform Mada Masr, has been placed in state custody following a ruling from the New Cairo Misdemeanours Court. The court handed down the maximum permissible sentence for the charge of operating an unlicensed news website: a 3 million Egyptian pound (equivalent to roughly $53,500 or £40,100) fine, which Attalah has repeatedly rejected as unjust, with the detention mandated to remain in effect until the full sum is paid. The ruling also issued a formal order to permanently shutter the long-standing independent publication.

The deeply flawed Tuesday court proceeding, as detailed by eyewitness and Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) head Hossam Bahgat, unfolded under highly irregular circumstances. Judge Mohammed Mubarak first ordered all non-essential attendees removed from the courtroom, leaving only Attalah, her 8-member legal defence team, and Bahgat present, before plainclothes security personnel entered the restricted space. The judge proceeded to dismiss multiple procedural motions submitted by the defence, then unilaterally appointed a syndicate lawyer to represent Attalah against her explicit public objection — a protest the judge refused to log in official court records. The appointed legal representative never spoke a single word during the entire hearing, yet the judge dictated and entered pre-written motions attributed to him directly into the official case file, before announcing the fine and closure order as the defence team raised loud, unheeded protests against the process.

The conviction comes on the heels of a string of escalating actions targeting independent Egyptian media, barely weeks after six journalists affiliated with the independent fact-checking collective Matsda2sh were formally charged with affiliation with the banned Muslim Brotherhood. For years, Mada Masr, founded in 2013 as one of the few remaining critical, independent news outlets operating in the country, has faced sustained bureaucratic and legal pressure: the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) confirmed that the publication has submitted repeated formal applications for an operating license to Egypt’s Supreme Media Regulatory Council (SMRC) ever since a new national media law was enacted in 2018, with every application either formally rejected or left completely unanswered by regulators. Attalah herself has endured half a dozen separate criminal investigations targeting her work leading the outlet, as part of years of documented state harassment and intimidation of her and her reporting team.

Just one week prior to the verdict, prosecutors summoned Attalah for interrogation over allegations of disseminating “false news” and operating an unlicensed platform, with the inquiry explicitly referencing a recent Mada Masr investigative report documenting a widespread wave of unrest across Egyptian prison facilities, alongside a formal letter from the SMRC questioning the outlet’s legal status. She was initially released on bail before being fast-tracked to the surprise trial that resulted in her detention.

Global press freedom and human rights organisations have roundly denounced the ruling as a devastating new low for Egyptian free expression. Amnesty International labelled the verdict both “a crushing blow to press freedom” and “a dark day for independent journalism” across the country, noting that the draconian sentence represents the culmination of years of coordinated, unjust harassment explicitly designed to eliminate one of Egypt’s last remaining unaligned media voices. “Lina Attalah should never have been prosecuted for exercising her fundamental right to freedom of expression and carrying out her legitimate, ethical journalistic work,” stated Yasmine Ahmed, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Regional Impact, calling for the verdict to be immediately overturned. CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah echoed the condemnation, warning that the detention of one of Egypt’s most widely respected veteran editors sends a chilling message to all independent journalists across the country: if Attalah and Mada Masr can be targeted in this manner, no media worker operating outside state-aligned structures is safe. CPJ has formally demanded Attalah’s immediate unconditional release and the full reversal of the order to shut down Mada Masr’s operations.

Egypt is consistently ranked among the world’s top global jailers of working journalists, with CPJ data documenting 25 reporters currently held in state detention as of the latest public tally. Since 2013, when current President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi led the military ouster of his predecessor, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi, human rights groups have documented an unprecedented nationwide crackdown on all forms of political dissent, resulting in the detention of tens of thousands of people spanning Brotherhood members and supporters, leading secular liberal activists, independent media workers, and academic researchers across the country.

A coalition of 31 nations led by the United States, including the European Union member states, the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, and Norway, has issued a stark joint statement flagging a catastrophic, rapid decline in food security across war-torn Sudan, as the 18-month long civil war pushes millions to the brink of famine. Published simultaneously via the U.S. State Department and the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations platform on Monday, the communiqué places full accountability for the unfolding crisis on the two warring factions – the Sudanese Armed Forces and the rival Rapid Support Forces paramilitary – calling on them to immediately dismantle all barriers blocking life-saving humanitarian supplies from reaching vulnerable communities. The statement outlines that active conflict remains the primary catalyst for the country’s hunger emergency, as repeated combat operations have destroyed critical agricultural infrastructure, disrupted seasonal food production cycles, and left vast swathes of the population cut off from basic sustenance. Compounding the conflict-driven strain, the El Niño weather pattern has drastically reduced rainfall across over half of Sudan’s territory, triggering prolonged drought conditions that have decimated local harvests and livestock herds. Current data shows a staggering 19.5 million Sudanese residents, equal to 41% of the country’s total population, are now grappling with severe acute food insecurity, with 5 million of those people already facing life-threatening emergency levels of hunger. Without immediate, unobstructed aid access, the coalition warns the number of children suffering from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition will surpass the already dire projected figure of 825,000. On-the-ground accounts from humanitarian workers paint an even grimmer picture: Yusuf Roble, East Africa Regional Director for Islamic Relief, shared firsthand observations from Omdurman, where displaced families returning to their neighborhoods find their homes completely destroyed or systematically looted, with almost no remaining personal property or food reserves to survive on. Roble recalled meeting a mother of seven who has not heard from her sole breadwinner husband for three and a half years, leaving her entirely dependent on underfunded community meal programs that face imminent shutdown due to sweeping international aid budget cuts. As of September, only 40% of the funding required to deliver on Sudan’s 2026 humanitarian response plan has been secured, even as the World Health Organization formally classifies the situation in Sudan as the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis, with more than 33 million people in need of urgent life-saving support. Since the civil war erupted in April 2023 following a violent power struggle between the two rival military factions, over 14 million people have been internally displaced or forced to flee across national borders. The latest June assessment from the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the global standard for measuring food crisis severity, previously documented 5.1 million Sudanese people facing extreme acute hunger, a figure that has surged exponentially in the months since due to ongoing aid blockages.

The global spotlight on the wrongful detention of French football reporter Christophe Gleizes reached new heights during the 2024 Ballon d’Or awards, held for the first time in the event’s 70-year history at a London venue. Co-hosted by broadcaster Kate Scott and legendary French former Arsenal striker Thierry Henry, the star-studded ceremony opened with a public dedication to the 37-year-old journalist, who specializes in African football for Paris-based publications So Foot and Society. A large on-screen display behind the presenters counted 1 year, 3 months and 27 days of Gleizes’ time behind bars, alongside his portrait and the viral #FreeGleize hashtag.\nGleizes traveled to Algeria in May 2024 on a tourist visa to produce a feature on Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie (JSK), one of the North African nation’s most beloved top-flight football clubs, based in the Amazigh-majority mountain region of Kabylie roughly 62 miles east of Algiers. The area is also home to the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), a group Algeria formally classified as a terrorist organization in 2021. Algerian authorities arrested Gleizes shortly after his arrival, accusing him of possessing materials deemed harmful to national security and maintaining improper ties with a JSK club official linked to the MAK. Prosecutors have rejected his claim that he was working as a reporter, alleging he entered the country to carry out hostile anti-state activities, and a court handed down a seven-year prison sentence.\nDuring his December appeal hearing, Gleizes openly acknowledged he had made a procedural error by failing to apply for an official journalist visa instead of entering on tourist status, and pleaded with the court for leniency to be reunited with his family. Press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has launched a sustained advocacy campaign for his immediate release, confirming all of Gleizes’ documented communications with the MAK-affiliated club official occurred in a standard journalistic context, with many exchanges predating the group’s 2021 terrorist designation. To mark Gleizes’ 500th day in detention on 11 November, RSF is organizing a solidarity exhibition football match that has already confirmed participation from former French men’s national team stars Robert Pirès and Vikash Dhorasoo, as well as Paris Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire.\nThe high-profile case unfolds against a backdrop of long-simmering tensions between France and Algeria, which escalated sharply in July 2024 after France formally recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara territory, a move Algeria fiercely opposes as it backs the pro-independence Polisario Front. The rift previously led to reciprocal ambassador withdrawals and diplomatic expulsions from both sides. Though bilateral relations have shown tentative signs of thawing in recent months, with French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin visiting Algiers in May to personally urge President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to release Gleizes to return to his mother, Algerian officials have not yet issued any public response to the Ballon d’Or organizers’ decision to dedicate the prestigious global football awards to the detained reporter. Gleizes’ case is also part of a broader pattern of international concern over Algeria’s recent prosecution of writers and public figures on national security grounds, which saw prominent Franco-Algerian author Boualem Sansal handed a five-year prison sentence before receiving a presidential pardon brokered by Germany’s head of state in 2025.

A wave of coordinated inter-communal violence in South Sudan’s northern Warrap State has left at least 72 people dead, confirmed regional government officials in an official statement. The targeted assault unfolded on a Monday in the Akop Payam region, a remote border zone shared by Warrap and Unity States, when armed members of the Lou Ariik community launched a large-scale incursion on settlements belonging to the Apuk Padoch community. Beyond the staggering human toll, attackers stole an uncounted herd of cattle, a core pillar of social and economic life for South Sudan’s rural communities, and set dozens of civilian households ablaze. This latest massacre is not an isolated incident: it follows a smaller deadly skirmish last Friday that claimed 8 lives, marking a rapid escalation of long-simmering inter-communal tensions. For many South Sudanese pastoralist groups, cattle represent far more than livestock: they are a primary store of generational wealth, a marker of community status, and a non-negotiable requirement for young men to pay the traditional dowry needed to marry. This cultural and economic centrality has created a vicious cycle of tit-for-tat revenge raids, where each stolen herd or fatal attack sparks retaliatory violence that can spiral out of control in weeks. Warrap State’s Information Minister William Wol Mayom Bol confirmed that state leadership, led by Governor Angelo Ngot Mayar, has already dispatched emergency response teams to the affected zone. The governor issued formal public condolences to families who lost loved ones in the raid, and issued an immediate directive to local security forces to prioritize evacuating severely injured civilians to nearby medical facilities. State authorities also confirmed that joint security operations are now underway to recover the stolen cattle herds and identify and apprehend every individual who participated in the coordinated assault. Local government leaders have additionally put out an urgent call to international humanitarian organizations to step in and deliver life-saving support to hundreds of displaced vulnerable residents, including women, children, and elderly people who have been left stranded without access to food, clean water, shelter, or critical medical supplies in the wake of the attack. Data from independent conflict monitoring non-profit ACLED underscores how rapidly insecurity has deteriorated in the region in recent months: an attack in the exact same area of Warrap State in August of this year left 60 people dead and 50 others wounded, while a separate violent incursion last March killed 58 civilians and injured 71 more. The spiraling levels of inter-communal bloodshed prompted Warrap State’s leadership to declare a six-month state of emergency last year, a policy intervention that has so far failed to curb the cycle of raids and retaliation. The latest outbreak of violence arrives as South Sudan, the world’s youngest independent nation, races to prepare for its first ever national general election since it gained independence in 2011. The landmark vote has been repeatedly delayed for years, first by the brutal multi-year civil war that tore the country apart, and then by persistent political rifts between top national leaders. A fragile 2018 peace deal signed by long-time rivals President Salva Kiir and then-deputy Riek Machar was meant to pave the way for peaceful elections, but deep-seated tensions between the two men derailed that timeline once again last year: Machar was dismissed from his post as vice-president, arrested, and charged with offenses including murder, treason, and crimes against humanity — allegations he has consistently denied. He has remained under house arrest in the national capital Juba since March of last year, even as low-level armed skirmishes continue to erupt across multiple rural regions of the country. United Nations officials have repeatedly raised public alarms about the rapidly worsening security environment across South Sudan as the scheduled December election date draws near. Human rights watchdogs and independent election observers have also raised widespread concerns that the country’s electoral commission is far behind on critical pre-poll milestones, including full voter registration and deployment of adequate security safeguards to prevent election-related violence, casting serious doubt on whether the vote can be held in a free, fair, and secure manner as planned. For more in-depth coverage of stories across the African continent, audiences can visit BBCAfrica.com, follow BBC Africa on X (formerly Twitter) at @BBCAfrica, connect via the official BBC Africa Facebook page, or follow the platform on Instagram at bbcafrica, where full BBC Africa podcast content is also available.