Police in southern city of East London launch investigation and rule out stampede

At least 17 young people were found dead at a nightclub in a township in South Africa’s southern city of East London on Sunday, police said.

“We got a report about 17 (people) that died in a local tavern in Scenery Park which is based in East London,” said Thembinkosi Kinana, a provincial police spokesperson brigadier. “We are still investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident.”

From Montana’s prairies to Kazakhstan’s steppes, vast tracts of land are being enriched. Here’s how to witness those changes

• Read more in our Wild world series

Mozambique’s civil war (1977-1992) and the poaching connected to it decimated wildlife in Gorongosa national park. Since 2006, the Gorongosa restoration project has set out to bring back nature, starting with buffalo, wildebeest, eland, zebra and other animals being trucked in.

Although artist Aïda Muluneh had an itinerant childhood in Europe and America, she was born in Addis Ababa and is an expert in African photography. When charity Water Aid asked her to participate in a campaign highlighting water poverty, it was the women of Afar, northern Ethiopia, that she shot for her series Water Life, now included in Ekow Eshun’s new book of African art and photography, In the Black Fantastic (Thames & Hudson), published to coincide with a show at London’s Hayward Gallery. Muluneh was pleased that Water Aid wanted to use art for advocacy rather than reportage. “Our continent has many layers,” she says. “However, we have been at the mercy of the international media that does not show the complexities of our challenges. My approach has been to tell a story from my perspective, not based on cliches often covered by foreign photographers.”

Celebrities including Sophie Okonedo and David Harewood say scheme shows ‘colonial view’ of Africa as ‘dumping ground’

British celebrities have urged Commonwealth leaders in Rwanda to oppose the UK’s plan to deport refugees to the country, saying it shows a “colonial view” of Africa as a “dumping ground”.

It comes as a summit of Commonwealth prime ministers and presidents is under way in Kigali, the first time the gathering has been held since 2018.

Some fell from tall barrier separating sides while about 500 entered border zone after cutting fence

Eighteen people have died after a mass attempt by a huge crowd of African migrants to cross from Morocco into Spain’s enclave of Melilla.

About 2,000 migrants approached Melilla at dawn on Friday and more than 500 managed to enter a border control area after cutting a fence with shears, the Spanish government’s local delegation said in a statement.

Manager at site that stands empty after 11th-hour cancellation of flight from Britain says further preparations taking place

A hostel that has been leased by the Rwandan government to house asylum seekers from the UK is making preparations to accept children.

The Hope hostel in Kigali is building outdoor facilities that will include football pitches, basketball courts and outdoor toys for any children who are flown to the east African country.

Prince of Wales to say at summit any move by members to become a republic can be ‘without rancour’

The Prince of Wales is expected to tell Commonwealth leaders that keeping the Queen as head of state or becoming a republic is “a matter for each member country to decide”.

His comments are due during the opening ceremony of a summit of Commonwealth prime ministers and presidents in Rwanda, when he will say he believes such fundamental changes can be made “calmly and without rancour”.

‘Fortress’ game reserves displaced the Maasai but ignore the pastoralists’ role in maintaining wildlife and biodiversity

The recent violent evictions of Maasai in Loliondo, Tanzania, to make way for a luxury game reserve is the latest in a long list of examples of community owners of land suffering under a “fortress conservation” model adopted in the heyday of colonialism. And what for? So that others, be they wealthy tourists or royalty, can use swathes of land as their playgrounds.

Tanzanian authorities, and other African governments, shoulder the unenviable “duty” of seeing to it that the pursuit of such fun is not jeopardised or hindered by the desire of thousands, if not millions, of people to reclaim their rights to land and to survive on that land.

PM had previously said deportations were ‘simply not going to happen’ but now admits in theory they could

Ukrainian refugees face being sent to Rwanda if they travel to the UK without authorisation, Boris Johnson has said in an escalation of government plans to deport those who travel across the Channel seeking sanctuary.

During a visit to the Rwandan capital, Kigali, the prime minister also urged Nato and G7 countries not to settle for a “bad peace” in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, saying it would lead to escalation by Vladimir Putin’s war machine.

Politicians from 11 European countries condemned the Rwanda-UK scheme. But it emerged that Johnson did not raise human rights abuses when he met the country’s president, Paul Kagame, on Thursday, despite previous indications that he would.

Ahead of a meeting with Prince Charles on Friday, Johnson was bullish in saying he would defend the policy after the heir to the throne reportedly called it “appalling” – but Downing Street and Clarence House sources suggested the subject would not be raised.

The Rwandan government confirmed it has already received £120m from the UK government to house asylum seekers who have yet to arrive, and has spent a proportion of the money.

The prime minister pledged £372m in aid to provide help for countries grappling with soaring food prices.

The failure of the fourth rainy season in a row has left millions facing hunger, and growing numbers are seeking refuge in humanitarian camps. We report from the south-west, one of the worst-hit areas

• Photographs: Gary Calton/the Observer

First the crops failed. Repeated droughts meant the Keer family could no longer grow the fruit and vegetables that once provided them with an income. Then their animals died. The herd of 40 goats dwindled to six. None of their cows survived. When the river ran dry, leaving them without water, the family agreed they had no choice but to leave their home in the village of Bootis, south-west Somalia.

The 65km journey to Bulo Garas camp, east of Baidoa in South West state’s Bay region, took four days. On the way, one of the donkeys pulling the family’s cart died. They hoped the camp would offer some relief from their situation.

A camp for internally displaced people near Baidoa, Somalia

Lawyers say government is attempting to intimidate pastoralists as thousands flee to Kenya amid escalating row over evictions

Twenty Maasai pastoralists from northern Tanzania have been charged with the murder of a police officer during protests over government plans to use their ancestral land for conservation and a luxury hunting reserve.

The officer was allegedly shot by an arrow on 10 June while attempting to demarcate land in Loliondo, which borders Serengeti national park.

Risk of significant tsunami within next 30 years is nearly 100%, Unesco says, as it urges coastal cities to become ‘tsunami-ready’

A tsunami could soon hit major cities on or near the Mediterranean Sea including Marseille, Alexandria and Istanbul, with a nearly 100% chance of a wave reaching more than a metre high in the next 30 years, according to Unesco.

The risk of a tsunami in Mediterranean coastal communities is predicted to soar as sea levels rise. While communities in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, where most tsunamis occur, were often aware of the dangers, it was underestimated in other coastal regions, including the Mediterranean, Unesco said.

Pair are visiting for Commonwealth meeting, after Charles criticised government’s asylum policy

Boris Johnson will have a potentially awkward meeting with the Prince of Wales in Rwanda after the heir to the throne criticised the government’s policy of sending asylum seekers to the east African state.

The talks will take place at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) in Kigali this week. Prince Charles reportedly described the government’s plan to fly people 4,000 miles on a one-way ticket as “appalling”.

Uniting heads of government in Kigali exposes a gaping hole in the association’s values

Back when I was a reporter based in Africa in the 1990s, there were two organisations whose meetings regularly took place amid widespread media indifference: the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the Commonwealth.

There were solid reasons for our lack of enthusiasm. Such get-togethers were strong on pomp and rigmarole, but the interesting decisions usually took place behind closed doors. Both organisations were widely seen as little more than dictators’ clubs, attuned to the interests of ruling elites while aloof from the millions of citizens they nominally represented.

Michela Wrong is the author of Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad

Children starving to death ‘before our eyes’ say aid workers as G7 leaders warned only ‘massive’ and urgent funding will avert famine

Only a “massive” and immediate scaling-up of funds and humanitarian relief can save Somalia from famine, a UN spokesperson has warned, as aid workers report children starving to death “before our eyes” amid rapidly escalating levels of malnutrition.

In a message to G7 leaders who are meeting from Sunday in Germany, Michael Dunford, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) regional director for east Africa, said governments had to donate urgently and generously if there was to be any hope of avoiding catastrophe in the Horn of Africa country.

Its club nights were epic – and now the sorely missed venue has reopened, injecting a whole continent’s worth of zing into a once drab London building. We take a tour

Flashes of neon pink, acid yellow and lime green furniture shine from a first-floor terrace in Southwark, London, bringing a zinging taste of sunnier climes to a nondescript street of offices and apartments. They are the first signs that, after almost 10 years without a home since its Covent Garden base closed down, the Africa Centre is back – with a bang.

Step inside the black-painted brick building and you find an unexpectedly warm world of sandy clay plaster walls, carved timber furniture and woven light-fittings, where metallic beaded curtains and rows of arches frame dining platforms and cosy seating nooks. Alluring fabrics cover the cushions, while perforated blocks line the restaurant counter and seating booths, recalling the brise-soleil screens of modernist architecture on the African continent.

Dozens of people said to have been killed in attacks allegedly involving Wagner Group fighters

Russian mercenaries have mounted a series of bloody attacks on artisanal mines in the lawless border zones between Sudan and Central African Republic (CAR) in an effort to plunder the region’s valuable gold trade, witnesses and experts have said.

Dozens of miners are thought to have died in at least three major attacks this year allegedly involving mercenaries working for the Wagner Group, a private military company that has been linked to the Kremlin by western officials. There are also reports of further attacks on mines in at least six other places across CAR.

A 2013 meeting at an LA hotel was not a scheme to depose Paul Kagame but an intricate but abortive FBI sting

The would-be plot to topple the Rwandan government was supposed to have been hatched on the eighth floor of a Los Angeles hotel.

Representatives of a shadowy Chinese mining company had taken over the whole floor, which was bustling with activity. A metal detector had been installed and anyone going in and out had to hand over their phones.

From his studio in Benin, Rachidi Bissiriou captured the spirit and style of a seismic period in his country’s history

Key issues will include trade, the fate of the organisation after Prince Charles becomes king and the British deportation scheme

Commonwealth leaders are heading for Rwanda this week for their first summit since 2018 and their first in Africa since 2007.

The Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) is also the first to be hosted by a “new” Commonwealth member – Rwanda was never a British colony, but voluntarily joined the organisation in 2009.