AFRICA

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Boko Haram Islamists who kidnapped more than 100 schoolgirls in Dapchi, northeast Nigeria, just over a month ago have returned the students to the town, two parents told AFP on Wednesday. A senior government source in Abuja and police in Yobe state also confirmed the …

United Nations, United States | AFP | Five peacekeepers from South Africa face allegations of sexually exploiting women in the Democratic Republic of Congo who are now seeking child support, a UN spokesman said Tuesday. One of cases involves a minor who was allegedly sexually abused when the incidents took place …

Dimona, Israel | AFP | Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that an electronic fence along the Israel-Egypt border has saved the Jewish state from jihadist attacks or what he believes would be worse — a tide of African migrants. “Were it not for the fence, we would be faced …

Banjul, Gambia | AFP | Ten members of Gambia’s former spy agency have been detained on suspicion of murdering a political activist who led a protest during ousted strongman Yahya Jammeh’s rule, police said Tuesday. Solo Sandeng, organising secretary of the United Democratic Party, was arrested in April 2016 for fronting …

  N’Djamena, Chad | AFP | Civil servants in Chad returned to work on Tuesday after a strike over austerity measures paralysed the impoverished country’s public sector for seven weeks. Trade unions had called the strike in late January after the government slashed civil servants’ pay, and the whole public sector …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have exposed more than 200 unqualified magistrates, an official source said Tuesday. A commission of enquiry formed in October to probe the qualifications and recruitment conditions of more than 3,000 magistrates found that hundreds “should not be …

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria’s military was on Tuesday accused of ignoring repeated warnings about the movements of Boko Haram fighters before they kidnapped 110 schoolgirls in the country’s restive northeast. The students — the youngest of whom is aged just 10 — were seized from the town of …

Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | A government crackdown on demonstrations against President Joseph Kabila in Democratic Republic of Congo has led to the killing of 47 people in just over a year, a UN report seen by AFP said Monday. “Between 1 January 2017 and 31 January 2018, at …

N’Djamena, Chad | AFP | Chad on Monday was due to start discussing sweeping constitutional reforms including presidential term limits in a country ruled with an iron fist by Idriss Deby since a 1996 coup. A so-called “national forum” comprising some 700 participants, including ruling party figures, members of civil society …

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Monday named hundreds of mines, Chinese businesses and individuals who had illegally transferred foreign currency abroad during Robert Mugabe’s rule and warned they would be prosecuted. The announcement came after the expiry of a three month amnesty for the return of …