South China Morning Post - Africa

A mountainous heap of refuse collapsed at Dar es Salam, the largest landfill in Guinea’s capital Conakry, early on Sunday killing at least 30 people, according to a provisional death toll from the country’s civil protection service. Heavy rains, which started at around 3am, washed over the refuse, triggering a landslide that buried nearby shacks. Lancine Sylla, the head of the s...

Somali pirates hijacked an oil products tanker off Yemen, a Somali maritime security official said, the latest in a resurgence of piracy that has seen six commercial vessels seized since April across the Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean. Six armed pirates hijacked the Eritrean-flagged M.T. Sibu 1 on Thursday about 136 nautical miles (252 kilometres) east of al-Mukalla, Yeme...

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has returned to the country after a more than two-month absence that has fuelled fierce debate about his ability to rule after 44 years in power. Biya, who at the age of 93 is the world’s oldest serving head of state, landed in Yaounde in the late afternoon from Geneva, where he had been staying since June 7 on what his office called “a short priva...

A helicopter carrying six tourists and a pilot crashed on Wednesday in Kenya’s Samburu county, north of the capital, Nairobi, killing all those on board, authorities said. The accident happened at 9.13am local time, according to the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA), after the aircraft departed from the Loisaba wildlife reserve. “There were seven people on board the helicopt...

Instead of celebrating her son’s birthday this month, Zimbabwean mother Rodwin Chitewere spent the day praying for his body to be brought home from Russia, where he was reportedly killed fighting Moscow’s war against Ukraine. In Botswana and South Africa, too, women are desperate for sons and husbands to return from a conflict many say they were duped into joining, as authoritie...