Dozens of African migrants thrown overboard by smugglers and feared dead: IOM

A Sudanese asylum seeker who fatally stabbed an employee at a migrant reception centre in the southern French city of Pau on Friday had no terrorist motives, the Pau prosecutor said on Saturday.

Somali cattle herder Omar Hussein isn't joining the global scramble for a COVID-19 vaccine; he's not sure the jab will even reach his besieged town in southwestern Somalia.

Eswatini's King Mswati III said he had recovered from COVID-19 after Taiwan President TsaiIng-wen sent antiviral medication to help him.

Two people have died after demonstrations in Gabon's two major cities, the Prime Minister said on Friday, as anger over restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19 spilled over into street stand-offs.

Forces fighting Ethiopia's military in the Tigray region laid out eight conditions on Friday for beginning peace talks, including the appointment of an international mediator and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid.

Ghana is expecting a first delivery of just over 350 000 AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine shots by the end of next week, a plan presented by health officials on Friday showed.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met incoming Libyan prime minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh in Cairo on Thursday and offered his country’s support in achieving stability in its troubled neighbour,‮ ‬the presidency said in a statement.

Africa’s reported COVID-19 death toll surpassed 100,000 on Friday, a fraction of those reported on other continents but rising fast as a second wave of infections overwhelms hospitals.

Democratic Republic of Congo has confirmed two new cases of Ebola, including one far from the centre of the outbreak, provincial Health Minister Eugene Nzanzu Salita said on Thursday.

Zimbabwe kicked-off its COVID-19 vaccination programme on Thursday after receiving a donation of 200 000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China earlier in the week.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it wants to see accelerated rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa.

Senegal received its first delivery on Wednesday of COVID-19 vaccines, which it purchased from China's Sinopharm.

Unidentified gunmen killed a student in an overnight attack on a boarding school in the north-central Nigerian state of Niger on Wednesday and kidnapped 42 people including 27 students, the state governor said.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has dispatched security chiefs to coordinate rescue operations for students abducted by unidentified gunmen in the northern state of Niger on Wednesday, his spokesman said.

Paul Rusesabagina has faced down murderous militias and been feted in Hollywood. On Wednesday, the former hotelier, depicted as a hero in a movie about Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, will defend himself against charges of terrorism in a Kigali courtroom.

Zimbabwe is expected to begin its COVID-19 vaccine rollout on Thursday, with healthcare staff, immigration officials and funeral practitioners included in the first phase of the inoculation programme.

Egypt is planning to reopen its embassy in Libya's capital for the first time in six years, according to Libyan officials and security sources, marking a shift to a more conciliatory approach to western Libya-based factions.

Two men accused of leading Christian-dominated militias in widespread attacks on Muslims in the Central African Republic (CAR) on Tuesday rejected all charges against them at the start of their trial at the International Criminal Court.

The World Health Organisation has alerted six countries to watch out for potential Ebola cases after fresh outbreaks in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Niger has witnessed a decline in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks following a surge. The country has a total number of 4 695 cases, 4 152 recoveries and 169 deaths.

Guinea is tracking down people who potentially had contact with Ebola patients and will rush vaccines to the affected area as soon as possible following at least three deaths from the disease, Health Minister Remy Lamah said on Monday.

The General Council of the World Trade Organisation has called the selection of Nigeria's Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the WTO's first African and female Director General a very significant moment for the global body.

Cameroon has detained eight soldiers after a video emerged over the weekend showing them in uniform torturing a victim with a machete until he fell unconscious, the Central African nation's defence ministry said on Monday.

The Nigerian government says it's doing its best to curb the spread of the new strain of COVID-19 from the UK and another suspected strain first detected in South Africa.

Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi appointed the head of the state mining company Sama Lukonde Kyenge as the new prime minister, his spokesman said on Monday, the latest in a series of moves aimed at sidelining his predecessor Joseph Kabila. 

Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was selected by consensus to be the next director-general of the World Trade Organisation at a closed-door meeting on Monday, according to two sources attending the meeting.

Guinea is tracking down people who potentially came in contact with Ebola patients and will rush out vaccines to the area as soon as it can get them, after three people died of the disease, Health Minister Remy Lamah said on Monday.

Nigeria’s president appealed for calm on Sunday following reports of intercommunal violence between ethnic groups at a market in the southwestern state of Oyo.

Ethiopian forces crossed into Sudanese territory in an act of “aggression”, Sudan’s foreign ministry said on Sunday, marking the latest flare-up in a long-standing border dispute.

Ebola hemorrhagic fever has resurfaced in Guinea, killing four people in the country's first outbreak of the disease in five years, the country's health minister said on Saturday.