October 9, 2024

October 3, 20244:27 PM ET
Doctors attempt to resuscitate a victim of shelling at the Al Nao Hospital in Omdurman, Republic of the Sudan on September 5. The victim was later pronounced dead.

Luke Dray for NPR

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Luke Dray for NPR

OMDURMAN, Sudan — A year and a half of war in Sudan has led to a humanitarian catastrophe in one of Africa’s largest countries. Up to 150,000 people have been killed, according to some estimates. The fighting has displaced 12 million people, according to the United Nations, which calls it the “largest displacement crisis in the world.” And medical services in much of Sudan have collapsed.
NPR spent three days reporting from one hospital in Omdurman, a city in Sudan’s capital region, to see the toll facing hospitals and medical staff.
Patients in a ward in the Al Nao Hospital in Omdurman, Republic of the Sudan.

Luke Dray for NPR

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Luke Dray for NPR

Fifty-two-year-old Dr. Ja..

October 8, 20241:42 AM ET
Tunisian president and candidate for re-election Kais Saied joins his supporters after the announcement of the provisional results for the presidential elections, in the capital Tunis, Tunisia, Sunday.

Anis Mili/AP

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Anis Mili/AP

TUNIS, Tunisia — President Kais Saied won a landslide victory in Tunisia’s election Monday, keeping his grip on power after a first term in which opponents were imprisoned and the country’s institutions overhauled to give him more authority.
The North African country’s Independent High Authority for Elections said Saied received 90.7% of the vote, a day after exit polls showed him with an insurmountable lead in the country known as the birthplace of the Arab Spring more than a decade ago.
“We’re going to cleanse the country of all the corrupt and schemers,” the 66-year-old populist said in a speech at campaign headquarters. He pledged to defend Tunisia against threats foreign and domestic.

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October 6, 20248:10 AM ET

Could this weekend’s election in Tunisia sound the death knell for democracy in its third presidential election since the Arab spring?

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October 5, 20241:32 PM ET
The now-demolished Agbogbloshie Scrapyard in Accra, Ghana, once received about 15,000 tons of electronic waste each year, making it one of the largest e-waste processing sites in Africa.

Muntaka Chasant

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Muntaka Chasant

When he was just 18 years old, Emmanuel Akatire traveled about 500 miles from his home in Zorko, Ghana, to Accra, the nation’s capital, to find the only work he could — sifting through vast piles of discarded electronics to find valuable scrap metal. A week’s worth of painstaking, often dangerous work, earns him the equivalent of about 60 U.S. dollars.
“I started doing scrap work around 2021 — after I lost both my parents — to provide for the rest of my family,” he told Muntaka Chasant, a photojournalist in Ghana. “There’s no electricity in my community, no development there,” he said. So he came to Accra, which has become a major dumping ground fo..

October 4, 20244:25 AM ET

NPR’s Leila Fadel talks to Michaël Ayar of the International Crisis Group, about this Sunday’s presidential election in Tunisia. President Saied is seeking another term.

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October 4, 20244:15 AM ET

A rare snapshot of lives lived under the shadow of war. One of those cities is Omdurman — the twin city of Sudan’s capital Khartoum.

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October 4, 20242:03 AM ET
Women grieve at the port of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, after a ferry carrying hundreds capsized on arrival Thursday.

Moses Sawasawa/AP

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Moses Sawasawa/AP

GOMA, Congo — At least 78 people died when an overcrowded boat capsized on Lake Kivu in eastern Congo on Thursday, a local governor said. A frantic search and rescue operation was underway hours later as many remained unaccounted for from the vessel, believed to have had 278 people on board.
Jean-Jacques Purusi, the governor of the South Kivu province, said the death toll was provisional and that the number of fatalities could rise further. He said that according to the information that local authorities had, there were 278 people on board.

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Africa In Pictures: How one hospital is faring as Sudan’s health care system is devastated by warThe boat set off from the port of Minova, in South Kivu province, earlier in the day and was en route t..

October 3, 20246:25 PM ET
Enlarge this imageTwo women walk past a car destroyed by fighting, as seen through a car window, in Omdurman, Republic of the Sudan on September 5.

Luke Dray for NPR

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Luke Dray for NPR

Two women walk past a car destroyed by fighting, as seen through a car window, in Omdurman, Republic of the Sudan on September 5.

Luke Dray for NPR

Fighting between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary group have displaced some 12 million people in one of Africa’s biggest countries. Our correspondent travels to Sudan and gives us a glimpse of the devastation the war has caused.

In this 2014 photo, a Kenyan medical worker from the Infection Prevention and Control unit at a Nairobi hospital wears full gear when bringing a meal to a man in quarantine in isolation housing after coming into contact with a carrier of the Marburg virus.

Ben Curtis/AP

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Ben Curtis/AP

This story was updated on October 8 at 1:17 p.m.
Rwanda is now a test lab for an experimental vaccine against the Marburg virus.
The African nation is in the grips of one of the world’s largest Marburg outbreaks, with 56 cases and 12 deaths so far. Currently there is no approved vaccine or treatment for Marburg patients.
Rwandans are so nervous that Minister of Health Sabin Nsanzimana took time at a Sunday press conference to answer a frequently asked question: If a passenger on a motorcycle taxi uses the helmet provided by the driver, could they catch Marburg if the previous helmet user happened to be infected?

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His advice: “As a precaut..