Global Pulse

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  • Tata Chemicals ordered out of Kenya by president

    Tata Chemicals ordered out of Kenya by president

    A major economic and diplomatic shift is unfolding in Kenya, where President William Ruto has publicly ordered Tata Chemicals, an Indian multinational chemical giant part of the sprawling Tata Group conglomerate, to cease operations and leave the country over accusations that the firm has failed to deliver sufficient local economic benefits. The announcement was made during Ruto’s recent visit to Kajiado County, the location of Tata Chemicals Magadi’s flagship soda ash extraction and processing plant on the shores of Lake Magadi, roughly 75 miles southwest of the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

    For more than a century, the Magadi site has hosted soda ash operations, with Tata taking control of the facility in 2005 after acquiring the previous owner, UK-based Brunner Mond Group. Today, the plant stands as Africa’s largest producer of natural soda ash – the industrial-grade sodium carbonate that serves as a core input for glass manufacturing, chemical production, battery manufacturing, water treatment, detergent formulation, and paper and textile production. Kenya itself ranks as the world’s fourth-largest natural soda ash producer, contributing roughly 1% of total global output, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

    Under Tata’s management, the facility exports over 350,000 tonnes of soda ash annually, with more than 95% of its total product shipped to overseas markets including India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and other regional African economies. The operation also produces industrial and animal-feed grade natural salt. In its 2024 financial reporting, Tata Chemicals Magadi recorded roughly $78.7 million in turnover from 245,000 tonnes of soda ash sales. The firm directly employs approximately 500 local workers, and states that its community outreach programs deliver basic services including clean water, healthcare access, school infrastructure, and public works development that benefit an estimated 30,000 residents in the Magadi region.

    Despite this footprint, President Ruto has leveled sharp criticism at the company, arguing that its century-long operating contract has failed to deliver inclusive growth for Kenya and local communities in Kajiado. Speaking in Swahili during his site visit, Ruto accused the firm of extracting Kenya’s natural resources for export without adding local value, specifically saying the company has chosen to ship raw soda ash abroad instead of building domestic downstream processing facilities to manufacture finished glass and chemical products. “Tata Chemicals Magadi has had a contract for 100 years, and they have done nothing. I told them the other day to pack up and leave,” Ruto said. “They have not built anything in Kajiado, they have not built any factory in Kajiado.”

    Ruto added that the Kenyan government has already identified two new domestic and international investors to take over the Magadi operations, with a core mandate to expand local job creation, drive additional capital investment, and develop downstream manufacturing to capture more value for Kenya’s economy.

    The order to exit is the culmination of escalating regulatory tensions between Tata and the Kenyan government. Five weeks before Ruto’s public announcement, Kenya’s mining cabinet secretary had already ordered the firm to suspend all operations, citing alleged failures to pay required royalties and meet other local regulatory obligations. In response to that order, Tata released a statement saying it had submitted a full, comprehensive response addressing all concerns raised by the ministry, including detailed documentation proving its compliance with all applicable Kenyan regulations, and was awaiting a formal review of its submission and further official guidance.

    Following Ruto’s exit order, Tata Chemicals reaffirmed its position, stating that it respects the Kenyan government’s decision, and remains committed to resolving outstanding issues through constructive dialogue within the country’s legal and regulatory frameworks. The firm also noted that since its 2005 acquisition of the Magadi facility, the operation has been an important contributor to the Kenyan economy and remains a core part of Tata Chemicals’ global business portfolio.

  • Kenya’s chai tea lovers are not happy as the nation’s cows run dry

    Kenya’s chai tea lovers are not happy as the nation’s cows run dry

    For Kenyans, milky spiced chai is far more than just a popular drink: it is a cultural staple woven into every part of daily life, from morning breakfast tables to business meetings and social gatherings. Millions of people reach for multiple cups of this warm, creamy brew every day. Today, however, that beloved tradition is under threat as a nationwide milk shortage has left supermarket dairy shelves nearly empty, forced retailers to ration purchases and hike prices, and put unprecedented strain on small food businesses that rely on steady milk supplies.

    The national government has pointed to prolonged drought as the primary driver of the recent supply collapse, noting that parched conditions have drastically shrunk available pasture for dairy cattle and crippled overall production. Even the country’s dairy industry regulator has acknowledged the severity of the crisis, confirming widespread “supply constraints” and critically low stock levels that are unusual for this East African nation, which is one of the continent’s top milk producers.

    The shortage is already hitting small business owners hard. Muthoni Macharia, who runs a casual restaurant in the capital city of Nairobi, normally purchases more than 70 packets of fresh milk each week to meet customer demand for chai. For the past week, she has spent her days scrambling to track down scarce supplies, losing business when she cannot meet her customers’ expectations. “If they come in groups, and there’s no milk tea, you see that’s a loss for me,” Macharia explained, adding that the shortage is most disruptive during the busy morning rush hour. While a handful of customers accept black tea as a substitute, most refuse, leaving her with lost sales and unhappy regulars.

    Kenya boasts a long-standing, robust commercial dairy sector, and industry data ranks Kenyans among the highest per capita consumers of milk in Africa, with pasteurized fresh milk dominating urban markets and raw and fermented milk more common in rural areas. That makes the current shortage all the more shocking for consumers, and it has sparked widespread public frustration — even giving rise to unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that supermarkets are deliberately hoarding supplies to drive up profits.

    Official data from the Kenya Dairy Board (KDB), the government regulator that oversees the dairy sector, confirms a steady downward trend in supply: formal milk deliveries to processors dropped 3.7% between June and July, falling from 84.4 million litres to 81.3 million litres, and preliminary data shows an even steeper decline in August. The Consumer Federation of Kenya (Cofek), the country’s leading consumer advocacy group, says the supply contraction has been ongoing since the start of 2025, caused by two interconnected factors: delayed seasonal rains that have cut grazing land, and a 45% spike in the cost of commercial animal feed.

    Fresh milk prices have already jumped from 70 to 80 Kenyan shillings ($0.54 to $0.62) per litre, and Cofek argues that the current crisis was both predictable and largely avoidable. The organization blames state dairy processor New KCC and KDB for failing to properly process and store last year’s milk surplus into powdered milk, a buffer that processors typically convert back to liquid milk to offset low fresh milk supplies during dry seasons. “Had these buffers been in place, today’s supply shock would have been substantially cushioned,” Cofek said in a statement. The group has called on the government to implement an emergency recovery plan, including feed subsidies for smallholder dairy farmers, tax waivers on animal feed inputs, and aggressive price monitoring to crack down on opportunistic price gouging and unnecessary rationing.

    In response to public outcry, KDB managing director William Maritim has framed the shortage as a “temporary supply constraint”, stressing that milk remains available to consumers overall. He did acknowledge that short-shelf-life fresh pasteurized milk has been far more impacted than longer-lasting UHT milk, which is less popular with most Kenyan consumers.

    Shoppers in Nairobi who spoke to the BBC expressed growing anxiety about rising costs and unreliable supplies. Bernard Abok, an office worker who shops for groceries after work, said unpredictable stock and constant price hikes have become a constant frustration. “Sometimes when I go to the supermarket I find there is none. When I do find some, the price has gone up. Today it is this price, tomorrow it has gone up again,” he said. Patricia Gathoni, a mother, said she has already been forced to stretch scarce milk by adding water for her children, and warned she will have to completely rethink her family’s diet if prices continue to climb.

    Earlier this week, senior agriculture ministry officials held emergency talks with Kenya’s dairy processors association to address the crisis. The government has committed to immediate interventions to support farmers, stabilize supply and protect consumers from unfair price hikes. Jonathan Mueke, the ministry’s top livestock development official, said the immediate priority is getting affordable feed to struggling dairy farmers, including allowing duty-free imports of yellow maize for animal feed.

    Looking beyond the immediate crisis, the government is also developing long-term policy solutions to address Kenya’s recurring cycle of dairy gluts and shortages. During periods of oversupply, excess milk often goes to waste because farmers lack adequate storage and processing capacity, leaving them forced to sell perishable milk for far below market value. To fix this structural gap, Mueke said the government is considering creating a dedicated stabilization fund to support milk preservation and storage during surplus periods, to be drawn on during dry seasons when supplies fall short. The administration is also planning to temporarily import milk from neighboring countries to quickly ease the current shortage, a move that could bring much-needed relief to Kenya’s legion of chai lovers who have been forced to go without their favorite drink.

  • 5 challenges Congo faces in containing its fast-moving Ebola outbreak

    5 challenges Congo faces in containing its fast-moving Ebola outbreak

    In a sobering update on the escalating Ebola crisis ravaging eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) announced Thursday that local health authorities are pivoting to a new village-centered strategy to curb transmission, after the virus outpaced existing containment and tracking efforts.

    According to the continental public health agency, the current outbreak has not yet reached its peak, marking a far more severe public health emergency than the devastating 2014–2016 West African Ebola epidemic, which remains the deadliest on record with more than 11,000 fatalities. Africa CDC data confirms the current outbreak has already recorded six times as many confirmed cases and five times as many deaths as that prior crisis.

    Since the outbreak was declared in mid-May, the virus has jumped from just three initial health zones to 60 across the country, with 6,250 total confirmed cases and 3,039 deaths as of the latest government count. Ongoing insecurity, mass population displacement, and frequent large-scale population movements have been the primary drivers of the virus’s rapid spread. The outbreak is concentrated in Ituri province, which is also the epicenter of a persistent rebel conflict in eastern Congo – a dual crisis that has complicated nearly every aspect of outbreak response.

    A new analysis this week from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S. CDC) identifies five critical gaps that continue to undermine Congo’s Ebola response, even as authorities adjust their strategy.

    First, community-based surveillance systems remain drastically underdeveloped. Rapid investigation of potential cases, early detection, contact tracking, and transmission slowdown are all hampered by this gap. Delayed case detection, widespread community reluctance to report suspected infections, and insufficient engagement with local populations have all led to entirely preventable deaths. Recent Africa CDC data underscores this failure: at least 63% of all fatalities recorded in the past week occurred outside of dedicated Ebola treatment centers, meaning most infected people never accessed life-saving care.

    To address this foundational gap, authorities are now rolling out the new village-centered approach, which centers on partnering directly with local community leaders to build trust and improve collaborative work with residents. But Yap Boum, head of emergency preparedness and response at Africa CDC, noted that trust-building in the middle of an active conflict and outbreak is far from simple. “Building that trust in the middle of an outbreak is quite complex,” Boum explained, referencing the ongoing insecurity that leaves residents deeply suspicious of outside actors.

    The second critical gap is persistent failure to scale up effective contact tracing, an essential tool for stopping Ebola chains of transmission. While response teams have followed up with 81% of *officially listed* contacts of confirmed cases, this statistic hides a stark reality: thousands of unrecorded contacts have never been reached for monitoring. Africa CDC estimates that confirmed cases recorded in the three weeks prior to the update should have generated approximately 97,600 total contacts, based on an average of 60 contacts per confirmed case. To date, only 19% of these total expected contacts have successfully been traced, leaving hundreds of potential transmission chains unmonitored.

    Third, experts warn that existing treatment and isolation capacity remains insufficient to meet projected need. By late August, treatment centers had expanded their total capacity to more than 1,300 beds, with a current occupancy rate of 67% (holding 869 patients). However, public health teams are calling for additional treatment and isolation centers and beds across affected health zones to prepare for the wave of undetected cases that experts expect to emerge. Many high-risk health zones are located in areas inaccessible to response teams, while widespread community distrust of health authorities leads to many cases going unreported for weeks.

    Fourth, limited laboratory testing capacity continues to delay case confirmation and timely treatment. The World Health Organization reported last month that many treatment and transit centers in Ituri, the outbreak’s epicenter, are already operating at full saturation, while North Kivu – the second-most affected province – lacks enough specialized referral facilities for severe cases. Frontline health workers at existing treatment centers are also suffering from extreme burnout. Jeannot Krikeija, who works at an Ebola treatment center in Bunia, Ituri’s capital, described the relentless toll of the crisis: “Ebola is tiring us all the more because we don’t know when this scourge will end. This ordeal is unbearable for me.”

    The fifth and final gap identified by the U.S. CDC lies in safe burial practices, a critical intervention given that Ebola spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids, and the bodies of deceased victims remain highly infectious. While authorities have deployed safe burial teams to respond to the more than 3,000 Ebola deaths to date, major gaps remain in execution across affected health zones. In Ituri and other high-risk areas, burial teams have been attacked multiple times, often by grieving family members who wish to carry out traditional burial customs for their loved ones. It remains common for community members to gather within meters of Ebola victim coffins during burials, putting hundreds of people at risk of new infections.

    As the new village-centered strategy rolls out, public health agencies across the continent continue to warn that the outbreak’s trajectory remains unpredictable, with sustained transmission expected for the foreseeable future without targeted investment to close the remaining response gaps.

    AP writers Constant Same Bagalwa in Bunia, Congo and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed reporting to this article.

  • Sharpeville massacre survivors file class action lawsuit in South Africa

    Sharpeville massacre survivors file class action lawsuit in South Africa

    More than 60 years after one of the bloodiest atrocities of South Africa’s apartheid era, survivors and bereaved relatives of the Sharpeville Massacre have taken a historic step to pursue long-denied justice, announcing a class-action lawsuit against the national government this Thursday.

    The announcement came during a press briefing held in the Sharpeville township itself, located just south of Johannesburg. Before the formal reveal, family members of those killed in the 1960 violence completed a quiet, solemn procession along the same path that the original 1960 protesters took, acting as living witnesses to the tragedy that still shapes the community today.

    On March 21, 1960, apartheid police opened fire on a crowd of unarmed demonstrators gathered to oppose the racist pass laws that tightly restricted Black South Africans’ movement and rights under the segregationist regime. The deadly crackdown immediately drew global condemnation, and the event became a defining turning point in the international movement to end apartheid. Today, the date is commemorated across South Africa as Human Rights Day, a national public holiday.

    Official apartheid-era police records list the official death toll as 69, with 180 people injured. But new research cited by the lawsuit plaintiffs puts the actual casualties much higher: at least 91 killed and more than 230 wounded. Many families still carry intergenerational trauma from the attack.

    Eighty-seven-year-old Abram Mofokeng is one of three lead representative plaintiffs for the class, which counts more than 70 survivors and relatives who have already committed to joining the litigation. Mofokeng was just 20 years old when he was shot in the foot and back while fleeing the gunfire, and a bullet remains lodged in his back to this day. “It is not possible to forget what happened in 1960,” he said. “I cannot go a day without thinking about how we have been affected.”

    The other lead plaintiffs, Paulina Mathinye and Ishmael Poho, both lost their fathers in the massacre when they were small children. Poho emphasized that the lawsuit extends far beyond individual financial compensation, noting that the harm of the massacre has rippled across the entire Sharpeville community for generations. “This is not a case for an individual as such,” he said. “It is a case for every other person who suffers an injustice.”

    Central to the legal fight is a demand to strike down the 1961 Indemnity Act, a law enacted by the apartheid government immediately after the massacre that has remained on South Africa’s books ever since. The legislation shields apartheid-era officials from all legal liability for the massacre and wiped all existing victim compensation claims off the books. After the massacre, 250 claims were originally filed, but only around a third received any discretionary payments, with the total amount coming to less than 4% of what victims had originally requested.

    If the court strikes down the 1961 law, the plaintiffs will be able to move forward with formal damages claims. Lawyers from Lawyers for Human Rights, which is bringing the case alongside international human rights law firm Leigh Day, note that the legislation violates the current South African constitution’s guarantee of access to the courts. Compensation amounts will be individualized for each claimant, set with input from independent experts, and no total collective value has been announced yet.

    The legal action also addresses gaps in the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, which only granted formal reparations to 51 Sharpeville Massacre survivors, leaving hundreds of affected people without recognition or support. As of press time, the current South African government has not issued any public response to requests for comment on the new lawsuit.

    This legal push is part of a growing nationwide movement to confront unresolved apartheid-era injustices. In recent years, South African courts have reopened inquests into the suspicious deaths of dozens of prominent anti-apartheid activists, including Steve Biko, the Cradock Four, and Chief Albert Luthuli. Dan Leader, a partner at Leigh Day supporting the South African legal team, described the Sharpeville case as core to the country’s unfinished democratic project. “This is a time of reckoning for modern South Africa,” Leader said.

    Charne Tracey of Lawyers for Human Rights added that the lawsuit is intended to pressure the government to enter good-faith negotiations with survivors and families over reparations, noting that “they are under no illusions that they must carry a legal stick if their voices are going to be listened to.”

  • Anthony Joshua’s driver attempted overtake before fatal crash, trial hears

    Anthony Joshua’s driver attempted overtake before fatal crash, trial hears

    A high-profile court case in Nigeria has unfolded to unpack the circumstances of a devastating December car crash that claimed the lives of two long-time members of British heavyweight boxing star Anthony Joshua’s entourage, as new procedural and testimonial details emerge during ongoing proceedings.

    At the center of the case is 46-year-old Adeniyi Mobolaji Kayode, the driver of the Lexus SUV that was carrying Joshua, his personal trainer Latif Ayodele, and strength coach Sina Ghami when the crash occurred. Kayode faces a series of serious charges, including two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and operating a motor vehicle without a valid national driver’s license, all of which he has formally denied in court. A second defendant, 35-year-old Abubakar Adamu, who was the owner and driver of the parked lorry that Kayode’s vehicle collided with, also denies a single charge of obstructing public road traffic flow.

    Witness testimony from Inspector Christopher Ajayi Taiwo, a senior officer with the Ogun State Motor Traffic Division, laid out a timeline of the incident and the immediate aftermath. The court heard that the entire group was traveling from Lagos to Ogun State, a southwestern Nigerian region where Joshua has deep family roots, to visit the boxing champion’s father. All passengers, including Joshua, were asleep at the time of the collision, when Kayode attempted to overtake a moving heavy goods truck on the public highway, lost control of his SUV, and crashed headlong into an unoccupied parked lorry registered to Adamu. Both Ayodele and Ghami died at the scene of the crash.

    When first responders arrived at the crash site, Taiwo told the court, both the damaged Lexus SUV and the stationary lorry had already been removed from the highway. Investigators were only able to recover physical evidence consisting of scattered crash debris, spilled soya beans that made up the parked lorry’s cargo spread across the road surface, and three small items recovered near the driver’s side of where the Lexus had come to rest: the vehicle’s logbook, a bottle of painkillers, and an energy drink.

    One key procedural development that has been questioned by the defense is the fact that investigating officers have not yet taken a formal witness statement from Joshua, who was a passenger in the vehicle and survived the crash unharmed. During cross-examination of Taiwo, Kayode’s defense counsel pressed the inspector on why no statement had been obtained from the high-profile witness. Taiwo responded that efforts to secure a statement were still ongoing, and that he had not reached out to Joshua directly because he did not have the boxer’s contact information.

    Joshua, who was born in Watford, UK, to a Nigerian father, has maintained close family and cultural ties to the Ogun State town of Sagamu, located close to the crash site. Shortly after the crash, he shared a heartfelt public tribute to his late team members on his social media channels, opening up about his personal grief. “I didn’t even realise how special they are,” Joshua wrote. “I’ll just be walking with them and cracking jokes with them, not even knowing God kept me in the presence of great men. 100% it’s tough for me, but I know it’s even tougher for their parents.”

    Following the most recent court session, the judge adjourned the trial until September 10, when proceedings will resume with further testimony and procedural steps.

  • Tebogo says late mother ‘always there’ ahead of emotional return to Budapest

    Tebogo says late mother ‘always there’ ahead of emotional return to Budapest

    For Olympic 200-meter champion Letsile Tebogo, next week’s trip to the Hungarian capital of Budapest for the first-ever Ultimate Athletics Championships is far more than just another stop on the global track and field circuit. It is a return to the city that launched his international career, and a bittersweet journey back to the place where his mother watched him make history for Botswana.

    Three years ago, 20-year-old Tebogo stepped onto the track at Budapest’s 2023 World Athletics Championships for his first senior global competition, when his mother Seratiwa surprised him by making the trip to watch him compete. That outing became a landmark moment for both Tebogo and his home nation: he claimed silver in the 100m and bronze in the 200m, becoming the first male athlete from Botswana to win World Championship medals, and the first African man ever to reach the 100m podium at the event. Seratiwa, who shared an extraordinarily close bond with her son that she once described as more like a “brother and sister relationship,” told BBC Sport Africa at the time that she was overflowing with pride for his achievement.

    This time, however, Seratiwa will not be in the stands to cheer him on. She passed away in May 2024 after a sudden, short illness, and Tebogo has opened up about the difficulty of returning to the city that holds so many shared memories without her. “I haven’t really looked into the fact that I’m going now to Budapest without my mom,” he said. “It’s just been a bumpy ride having to think about it and having to continue with the grind.”

    Even amid the grief, Tebogo says the city remains a source of strength, a place where he can carry his mother’s memory forward as he competes. He believes her spirit stays with him, pushing him to give every race his all even on days when stepping away feels like an option. “She pushes me to give my absolute best and I believe the memories that we had in Budapest, they will still come again,” he said.

    In the years since that breakthrough 2023 World Championships, Tebogo has only scaled greater heights. In 2024, he made history once again as he won the 200m title at the Paris Olympic Games, becoming Botswana’s first ever Olympic gold medalist. He carried his mother’s legacy with him that day, marking her initials onto both his running shoes and his fingernails as a quiet tribute. Earlier this year in May, he also helped lead Botswana to 4x400m gold at the World Relays, hosted on his home soil in Gaborone, and has notched up 200m wins at top-tier Diamond League events in Oslo and Lausanne this season.

    The Ultimate Championships, the new biennial event hosted in Budapest from September 11 to 13, was created to cap off the track and field season by bringing together the very best performers from across the globe to determine the year’s undisputed best. The inaugural edition boasts a total $10 million prize pool, the largest single-event prize pot in track and field history according to organizers World Athletics, with individual gold medalists set to take home $150,000 each. Tebogo enters the competition as one of the sport’s biggest young stars and a clear favorite to contend in the men’s 200m.

    Beyond his own race, Tebogo will take on another role at the event: he is serving as a team captain for the Kids’ Athletics Ultimate Challenge, an event that invites young athletes from across Budapest to take part in fun developmental activities at the Gyula Zsivotzky National Athletics Centre the day before the main competition kicks off. The role gives him a chance to pass on the core lessons he has learned throughout his rapid rise from young hopeful to global champion.

    For the next generation of athletes, Tebogo highlights two key values he hopes to instill: accountability and unwavering sportsmanship. “I believe firstly you should start with accountability,” he explained. “Think about your preparation, how you want your journey or your season to be, and then also think of unwavering sportsmanship. I would love them to have that unwavering sportsmanship, so that they can share lanes, they can cheer for one another.”

    For Tebogo, this trip to Budapest is about more than competing for another major title. It is about honoring the woman who supported him from his earliest days, celebrating the shared memories that made him the athlete he is today, and chasing new glory while carrying her spirit with him every step of the way.

  • Dozens missing, 5 dead after migrant boat is found drifting near Spain’s Canary Islands

    Dozens missing, 5 dead after migrant boat is found drifting near Spain’s Canary Islands

    A devastating maritime disaster off the coast of Spain’s Canary Islands has left at least five migrants dead and dozens more missing, with activists reporting an even higher death toll following the vessel’s catastrophic breakdown in the Atlantic Ocean. Only 44 people from the overcrowded boat were pulled to safety by Spanish rescue crews this week.

    Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service confirmed Thursday that a surveillance plane first detected the unstable, drifting vessel around 120 kilometers south of Gran Canaria on Wednesday afternoon. Responding quickly to the distress call, rescue teams immediately airlifted three of the most severely injured survivors to a Gran Canaria hospital by helicopter, while the remaining 41 passengers were transported to shore by rescue vessel. The group disembarked early Thursday at Arguineguín port, where local Red Cross teams stood by to provide urgent medical care and support.

    José Antonio Rodríguez Verona, a Canary Islands-based Red Cross spokesperson, told reporters that all 44 survivors are men, including several underage passengers, who originated from Mali and Senegal. In an interview with the Associated Press, Rodríguez Verona explained that the survivors arrived in a fragile state: many were severely disoriented and dehydrated, with a large number collapsing or vomiting immediately after setting foot on land after weeks adrift at sea.

    Due to the survivors’ poor physical and mental condition, it took responders time to piece together the details of the fatal voyage. Survivors told aid workers they departed from Gambia nearly a month earlier, and had been stranded adrift for far longer than anyone anticipated. When their food and fresh water supplies ran out, desperate passengers were forced to drink seawater to survive, a choice that left many gravely ill.

    The survivors also shared chilling accounts of the scale of the disaster: they told the Red Cross that more than 100 people, including multiple women and one infant, were originally on board the small vessel. As passengers died of dehydration and illness over the course of the journey, surviving passengers threw the bodies overboard, until they eventually became too weak to continue the practice.

    Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service stated in an official emailed statement that rough sea conditions, including 2.5-meter-high waves and strong gusting winds, prevented crews from recovering the remains of five deceased passengers found still on the boat when rescuers arrived.

    In a separate update, Helena Maleno, founder of migrant rights organization Walking Borders — a group that tracks fatalities and missing persons along migration routes leading to Spain — has put the total death toll from this voyage at 83, including three women and the infant. Maleno confirmed via a post on the social platform X that the boat departed Gambia 27 days before the rescue. Maleno’s organization regularly receives distress messages from relatives of missing migrants and coordinates rescue requests with Spanish authorities. The Associated Press has reached out to Maleno and Walking Borders for additional context, but has not yet received a response.

    This disaster highlights the ongoing deadly risk of the West African Atlantic migration route to the Canary Islands, which remains one of the most dangerous migration crossings into Europe. While the number of migrant arrivals to the Spanish archipelago has dropped sharply over the past year, tens of thousands of migrants have died or gone missing on the route in recent years. In multiple extreme cases, overcrowded migrant boats have become lost and drifted all the way across the Atlantic Ocean as far as the Americas before being found.

  • Renewed clashes erupt in southwestern Somalia between government and militias

    Renewed clashes erupt in southwestern Somalia between government and militias

    Fresh armed conflict broke out before dawn on Thursday between Somalia’s federal government troops and aligned militias in the peripheral areas of Baidoa, the key southwestern city at the center of a growing national political power struggle. Witnesses and local officials reported sustained heavy gunfire across the front lines, forcing hundreds of civilian residents to abandon their homes in search of safer shelter as the violence intensified.

    According to statements from Somalia’s Defense Ministry, the outbreak of hostilities followed an offensive launched by fighters loyal to Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen, the former president of Somalia’s South West state, alongside militants linked to al-Shabab, the al-Qaida-affiliated extremist group that has waged an insurgency in Somalia for decades. Wednesday’s clashes mark the most recent escalation of a bitter political and security dispute between Somalia’s central federal government and Laftagareen over administrative control of the strategic South West region.

    The current crisis traces back to late March, when federal security forces seized full control of Baidoa on March 30. Shortly after the government takeover, Laftagareen stepped down from his position as regional leader, a post he had held since 2018. After several hours of intense exchanges of fire, armed clashes tapered off by early Thursday afternoon. As of the latest updates, no official government statement has been released confirming total casualty numbers or the full scope of destruction caused by the fighting. In the aftermath of the violence, government military units deployed to conduct patrols across Baidoa’s urban streets, while emergency ambulances scrambled to reach injured people trapped near conflict zones. Local residents slowly began to reemerge from hiding to assess damage to their properties and clean debris from public walkways.

    Dr. Abdikafi Omar Mohamud, who leads the emergency department at Baidoa’s Bay Regional Hospital, confirmed to the Associated Press that medical teams at his facility had treated 24 wounded civilians and received the body of one civilian killed in the clashes. Abdullahi Haji, a long-term Baidoa resident, described the chaos of the outbreak in a phone interview with AP, saying he fled his residence immediately after hearing heavy gunfire erupt, noting that stray bullets began hitting residential neighborhoods within minutes of the first shots.

    Located roughly 245 kilometers, or 150 miles, northwest of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, Baidoa holds outsized strategic and humanitarian importance for the entire country. The city serves as a major coordination hub for international aid organizations working across southern Somalia, and it currently hosts more than 500,000 people who have already been displaced by previous rounds of conflict and the severe ongoing drought devastating much of the Horn of Africa. This latest violence comes just weeks after earlier clashes in and around Baidoa killed at least four civilians and left another 98 people wounded, adding to a growing toll of civilian harm in the already unstable region.

    This report was compiled with on-the-ground contributions from Associated Press correspondent Bishar Mayow Mukhtar in Baidoa, Somalia.

  • Kenyan president orders crackdown on foreigners operating small businesses

    Kenyan president orders crackdown on foreigners operating small businesses

    Kenyan President William Ruto has announced an imminent crackdown on foreign nationals operating small-scale businesses across the country, framing the move as a necessary protection measure for local traders and informal vendors. The policy shift arrives amid escalating public debate over the growing presence of African migrants in Kenya’s large, dynamic informal economy, a sector that supports millions of local livelihoods.

    In an address delivered Wednesday to a gathering of small-scale traders at Nairobi’s State House, Ruto set a clear timeline for the crackdown: “From next week, all [foreign] traders doing those small businesses should close them.” He also pledged to speed up the drafting and passage of new legislation that will formally bar foreign nationals from specific segments of domestic trade, cementing the policy in national law.

    Ruto emphasized that Kenya remains fully open to foreign direct investment, drawing a sharp line between welcome investors and small-scale competitors. He specifically named foreign traders including those from China, noting that outside investors should prioritize creating local jobs and expanding national production capacity, rather than undercutting Kenyan entrepreneurs in street vending and small retail. “It cannot be that a person comes from China or elsewhere to be a hawker or open a small shop,” he stated. “We have made efforts to improve the economy, we have not improved investor confidence for hawkers to come to Kenya.”

    The announcement comes as Ruto, who will run for a second presidential term in next year’s general election, responds to growing grassroots pressure from local traders who have long complained about unfair competition from foreign operators. To date, the Kenyan government has not released official data on how many foreign nationals are engaged in small-scale trading, leaving uncertainty about the total number of people who will be affected by the new order.

    Kenya currently hosts one of the largest refugee populations in Africa, with official government figures counting roughly 857,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers as of the end of June. Around 14 percent of these individuals reside in urban areas rather than formal refugee camps, and many participate in the informal workforce to support themselves. Under current Kenyan law, refugees do hold the legal right to work and operate businesses, but they are required to obtain specialized permits to do so.

    Beyond refugees, a large number of regional migrants have moved to Kenya from neighboring countries, drawn by the nation’s status as a regional economic hub and the free movement of people provisions within the eight-nation East African Community (EAC) bloc. In major urban centers like Nairobi, these migrants work across a wide range of informal sectors, including barbershops and salons, construction, motorbike taxi services, street vending of clothing, food, and household goods. Many migrants leave their home countries to escape conflict or severe economic hardship, while others relocate to Kenya in search of better livelihood opportunities.

    Tensions between local workers and foreign traders have been building for months, driven by widespread concerns over scarce jobs and business opportunities. In July, a viral video of a Kenyan local confronting a Burundian trader in Nairobi, accusing the migrant of taking work from locals, sparked widespread regional debate. Following the incident, Burundian conflict prevention expert Fred Ngoga called for the protection of Burundian citizens living in Kenya, noting that “the majority of Kenyans are decent and good people who welcome their brothers and sisters from Burundi,” and that most Kenyans rejected the hostile treatment of the trader. Kenya’s foreign ministry also moved quickly to reassure Burundians and other EAC nationals residing in the country after the clash.

    Ruto’s new policy is expected to draw significant controversy, given Kenya’s longstanding role as an open economic and migration hub for the East African region. It also coincides with growing concerns over rising anti-migrant sentiment and xenophobia across the African continent. This year alone, South Africa has seen widespread protests targeting undocumented migrants, and tens of thousands of African migrants living in South Africa have chosen voluntary repatriation, with many reporting they have faced intimidation and targeted attacks.

  • Spanish Prime Minister rejects suggestions that Morocco was behind Ceuta border crisis

    Spanish Prime Minister rejects suggestions that Morocco was behind Ceuta border crisis

    MADRID – Standing before Spanish lawmakers on Thursday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez pushed back against growing opposition pressure and widespread public anger over his government’s response to the deadly mass migrant crossing into the North African Spanish exclave of Ceuta, denying claims that Moroccan state authorities planned and coordinated the unprecedented influx. “I can state with complete certainty that no institution – not our own diplomatic corps, not the European Commission, not any major international body – has presented the Spanish government with credible, solid proof that Morocco orchestrated or directly carried out this incident. There is no such evidence,” Sánchez told the legislative body. The prime minister’s comments came one day after tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in cities across Spain to protest the ongoing humanitarian emergency in Ceuta, calling for immediate policy action and demanding Sánchez step down over his handling of the crisis. The incident, the deadliest border crossing of its kind in recent history, unfolded in late July, when roughly 72,000 migrants pushed past border barriers, swam across coastal boundaries, and entered the tiny exclave – a territory home to only 84,000 permanent Spanish residents. While the vast majority of arrivals were either sent back to Morocco voluntarily or deported by Spanish authorities within the first week, an estimated 5,000 people, including 1,200 unaccompanied minor migrants, remain stranded in Ceuta weeks later, according to figures from Spain’s national government. Local officials in Ceuta have put the remaining number even higher. Sánchez confirmed that 141 people died during their attempts to reach Ceuta, a figure that has raised questions among critics, as neither the prime minister’s office nor Spain’s interior ministry has offered transparency into how that death toll was calculated. To date, the root cause of the mass crossing remains a matter of intense debate. The Spanish government has framed the event as being primarily driven by a coordinated online recruitment campaign spread across social media platforms. Earlier this week, Spanish media published details from an internal police report that alleged Moroccan security forces showed deliberate permissiveness toward the migrants crossing from Moroccan territory. While Spanish officials quickly pushed back against framing that suggested the report directly blamed the Moroccan government in Rabat, Sánchez acknowledged on Thursday that for a 10-hour window on July 30, when arrivals reached their peak, Morocco’s national Gendarmerie police “allowed the border to be crossed.” The Spanish government has long avoided open public criticism of Morocco, a key diplomatic and trade partner for Spain and the European Union. But Sánchez did condemn inflammatory remarks from two Moroccan government ministers that questioned Spanish sovereignty over both Ceuta and Melilla, the second Spanish exclave on the North African coast. He confirmed his administration had officially summoned Morocco’s ambassador to Madrid to protest the comments. The two North African territories represent the European Union’s only shared land borders with the African continent, making them a critical frontline for EU migration policy. In a bid to address growing demands for transparency, Sánchez announced his government would eventually release key official reports detailing the circumstances of the border breach. However, the administration has not yet announced a timeline for the publication, nor has it specified what details the documents will include.