White South African Afrikaner refugees arrive in U.S. on a government-chartered plane

White Afrikaaner South Africans demonstrate in support of U.S. President Donald Trump in front of the U.S. embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, Feb. 15.

Jerome Delay/AP

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Jerome Delay/AP

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa —A group of 59 white Afrikaners who have been given refugee status by the Trump administration arrived at Dulles airport outside Washington, D.C., on Monday on a charter flight paid for by the U.S. government.
Africa First Afrikaners granted refugee status due to arrive in U.S. The Afrikaners, descendants of mainly Dutch colonists, left Johannesburg on Sunday night. They were seen at the airport in Johannesburg with carts full of suitcases, but declined to speak to the media. They are being greeted by U.S. officials and are expected to give a news conference shortly.
One document seen by NPR said there would be food and “items for the children” upon arrival. It said the refugee services office of the Catholic diocese of Virginia would ..

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After two years of civil war, Sudan’s capital is a shell of its former self

May 9, 20256:23 PM ET
Enlarge this imagePeople walk down a road in Khartoum, 2024.

Faiz Abubakr/Faiz Abubakr

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Faiz Abubakr/Faiz Abubakr

People walk down a road in Khartoum, 2024.

Faiz Abubakr/Faiz Abubakr

It’s been more than two years since civil war exploded in Sudan.
By some estimates the conflict has killed as many as 150-thousand people, and displaced millions more.
In April, NPR International Correspondent Emmanuel Akinwotu gained rare access to the capital city, Khartoum. He reports on how the once vibrant city of 6 million has been ravaged by war.
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Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

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This episode was produced by Michael Levitt and Jason Fuller. It was edited by Jeanette Woods and Tara Neill. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

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First Afrikaners granted refugee status due to arrive in U.S.

May 8, 202510:22 PM ET
Afrikaan South Africans supporting US President Donald Trump and South African and US tech billionaire Elon Musk gather in front of the US Embassy in Pretoria, on February 15, 2025 for a demonstration.

Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images

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Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The U.S. government has officially granted 54 Afrikaans South Africans, white descendants of mainly Dutch colonizers, refugee status and they are expected to land in the U.S. on Monday May 12, three sources with knowledge of the matter have told NPR. The sources did not want to be named because they work for the U.S. government and fear for their careers.
U.S. authorities on Thursday were trying to arrange a charter flight that would bring the South Africans to Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C., on Monday morning, but it’s not clear if they will be allowed to land there. If that is not possible then they will be sent on ..

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Trump administration plans to deport migrants to Libya

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer prepares a Salvadoran immigrant without legal status for a deportation flight.

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The Trump administration is planning to deport migrants without legal status to Libya, a country long plagued by armed conflict, a U.S. official has confirmed to NPR.
However, Libyan officials — for both the factions controlling separate areas of the divided country — denied they were in talks with the U.S., according to Reuters.
The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the plans, but the news comes days after reports that Trump was eyeing the North African nation — as well as other African countries including Benin, Angola and Eswatini — as places to send deportees.

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Meantime, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that deporting noncitizens to Libya without due process would violate his existing court order. U.S. District Jud..

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Port Sudan was safe during the war. Now it’s been attacked by a group linked to UAE

Smoke billows after drone strikes by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) targeted the northern port in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, on Tuesday.

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Sudan’s temporary capital city, Port Sudan, previously a safe haven during the country’s two-year civil war, has come under attack for the first time by a series of drone strikes for consecutive days.
World Sudan’s war is 2 years in and shows no signs of slowing, as talks take placeThe strikes, launched by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for the third day, attacked a terminal at the city’s airport overnight on Tuesday. All flights have been grounded, local officials told NPR.
The popular Marina Hotel, opposite the newly built presidential palace, and the city went without power, eyewitnesses said. Possible casualty numbers were not immediately clear.
The strikes on Tuesday followed attacks on a military warehouse near the airport, civilian infrastructure and an oil depot on th..

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Rwanda says it’s in ‘early stages’ of talks with U.S. to take in deported migrants

May 6, 20254:26 AM ET
Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe speaks during a Declaration of Principles signing ceremony with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, left, and Congo’s Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner on April 25 at the State Department in Washington.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

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Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehetold Rwandan state TV that his government was in “early talks” with Washington regarding taking in third-country nationals deported from the U.S.
Africa Rwanda faces growing pressure for role in Democratic Republic of Congo conflict”We are now in talks with the U.S. about a deal on migration,” he said, confirming days of rumors.
Nduhungirehe said plans weren’t concrete yet, but noted that Rwanda has experience in taking in migrants, saying, “it’s not the first time that we’d be engaging in such a kind of deal.”
Asked to confirm the comments, the U.S. State Department told NPR only that “ongoi..

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Here’s how the Trump administration has changed health policy in its first 100 days

April 30, 20253:00 AM ET
Enlarge this imagePeople hold handmade signs at a Stand up for Science rally protesting the Trump administration’s science policies and federal job cuts on Friday, March 7, 2025, in Chicago.

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Nam Y. Huh/AP News

People hold handmade signs at a Stand up for Science rally protesting the Trump administration’s science policies and federal job cuts on Friday, March 7, 2025, in Chicago.

Nam Y. Huh/AP News

In its first 100 days, the Trump administration — and specifically, the Department of Government Efficiency — shuttered agencies and slashed budgets pertaining to foreign aid, scientific research, food safety, and more.
How will this impact people’s health and well-being both in the U.S., and around the world?
To answer that question, we’re calling in our colleagues: global health correspondent Gabrielle Emmanuel and health policy reporter Selena Simmons-Duffin. They break down what cuts to sc..

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What Trump’s first 100 days has meant for these truck drivers and sex workers

April 29, 202512:39 PM ET
Community health worker Geoffrey Chanda used to distribute HIV medications to long-haul truck drivers and sex workers at truck stops like this one near the border of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ben de la Cruz/NPR

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Ben de la Cruz/NPR

On a morning in early April, Geoffrey Chanda’s phone was going off almost constantly. Truck drivers were calling him.
“They are crying: ‘We’ve got no [HIV] medicine. Where do you get [it] from?’ ” says Chanda, 54.
For 15 years, Chanda has been meeting truckers in dusty parking lots at the border of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to give them their HIV medications. Now, he says, he doesn’t know what to tell them.
He’s lost his job as a community health worker. The U.S.-funded program he worked for — which supported the mobile clinic where he collected the medications for distribution — shut down.

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This ‘Time icon’ of 2025 is serious about her work — and funny enough to do stand up

April 25, 20251:41 PM ET
Angeline Murimirwa of Zimbabwe has really racked up kudos for her work as head of CAMFED, a charity that has enabled millions of girls in five African countries to stay in school — and thrive with the help of mentors. Murimirwa is one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2025. Above: She accepts an award at Rihanna’s 3rd Annual Diamond Ball in 2017.

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I don’t mean to humble brag, but I am on a first name basis with one of the most influential people in the world (according to the new list from Time magazine).
It’s not Serena Williams. It’s not Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
It’s Angeline Murimirwa, who goes by “Angie.”
I interviewed Angie back in 2018 in a pub in Oxford. We were attending the Skoll World Forum – a yearly gathering of social activists and advocates. She was then Africa director of CAMFED — the Campaign for Female Education)..

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Skin bleaching is terribly popular — and takes a terrible toll

March 25, 20252:31 PM ET
Susan Anderson began using skin lightening creams at age 12. Now 52, she has stopped using the products but her skin shows the damage they caused.

Yagazie Emezi for NPR

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Yagazie Emezi for NPR

Susan Anderson, age 52, sits in the corner of a sunlit waiting room at a dermatology clinic in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. Dark patches of skin, dotted with brighter pigments, surround her eyes and cover her cheeks.
“It used to be much worse,” she says, scrolling through pictures of her face on her phone, taken more than a year ago, when the blotches were raw and parts of her skin seared pink. Doctors who first saw her said it looked as if she had first-degree burns.
The first time Anderson used a skin whitening cream she was 12. Her stepmother gave it to her but didn’t tell her what it was for. “She never explained it to me,” she says. “I just felt it was a normal cream, and I was using them. I was naïve and I was vulnerable.”

..

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South Sudan is ‘on the brink,’ U.N. warns amid renewed violence

March 22, 20258:08 AM ET
Southern Sudanese who have returned to the south by barges stand on the banks of the Nile river in Juba’s port on Jan. 10, 2011.

Jerome Delay/AP

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Jerome Delay/AP

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Another conflict is looming in the world’s youngest country, South Sudan, whichgained independence from Sudan in 2011 and saw civil war erupt shortly after its foundation.
A tenuouspower-sharing deal is teetering on the brink. An evacuation of non-emergency U.S. government employees is underway, and the United Nations has warned of a “regression” amid political infighting and escalating militia violence.
On Saturday, the German government was the latest to temporarily close its embasy in the capital Juba. “After years of fragile peace, South Sudan is once again on the brink of civil war,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock posted on social media.

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Sudan’s army recaptures presidential palace in Khartoum

March 21, 20257:38 AM ET
Sudanese army members film themselves inside the presidential palace, as the Sudanese army says they have taken control of the building, in Khartoum, Sudan, March 21, 2025, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video.

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Social Media/Reuters

Sudan’s army recaptured the presidential palace on Friday, marking a significant turning point in a brutal two-year civil war, which has killed as many as 150,000 people and displaced 12 million.
Footage released by the Sudanese army showed triumphant soldiers brandishing their rifles in the air and cheering in the battered grounds of the palace after days of intense fighting with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who had occupied Sudan’s seat of power since the war erupted in April 2023.
Through a megaphone in the complex, soldiers announced “The republican palace has now returned to the arms of the homeland” in footage posted on local Sudanese media. ..

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Zimbabwean millennial Kirsty Coventry gets Olympic top job

March 20, 20259:52 PM ET
Kirsty Coventry reacts after she was announced as the new IOC President at the International Olympic Committee 144th session in Costa Navarino, western Greece, Thursday, March 20, 2025.

Thanassis Stavrakis/AP

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Thanassis Stavrakis/AP

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa—Zimbabwean Olympic swimmer Kirsty Coventry has had an eventful career, from the pool, to parliament.
The country’s former dictator, Robert Mugabe, called her “a golden girl,” while the man who deposed him in a coup — Emmerson “the Crocodile” Mnangagwa – appointed her his minister of sports.
Now the 41-year-old is taking on a whole new role, after beingvoted in on Thursday as the first female — and first African — president of the International Olympic Committee [IOC]. She’s also the youngest.
“The young girl who first started swimming in Zimbabwe all those years ago could never have dreamt of this moment,” she said after winning a majority 49 of 97 votes, and ..

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The Sniper’s Nest

Exploring an image of Sgt. Maj. Ismail Hassan of the Sudanese Army at a sniper position in a luxury apartment block across the Blue Nile from Sudan’s presidential palace.

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‘You can now die’: The human cost of America’s foreign aid cuts in Africa

A refugee mother and child from the Tigray region of Ethiopia wait to receive basic medical attention from an understaffed clinic run by the Sudanese Ministry of Health with assistance from Doctors Without Borders located in the east Sudanese border village of Hamdayet on Dec. 6, 2020.

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Byron Smith/Getty Images

The Trump administration has moved aggressively to cut U.S. foreign aid, canceling 83% of aid contracts on March 10, a decision that has already halted critical health programs in Africa and beyond.
On Feb. 3, President Trump said that USAID was run by ‘radical left lunatics’ and accused the agency of “tremendous fraud,” though he did not provide any details.” Trump also accused the aid agency of stealing “BILLIONS OF DOLLARS” in a post on Truth Social.
Now, the White House is pushing to rescind the$58.4 billion appropriated for the current fiscal year, with many of these cuts being fought in court. A federal judge ru..

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Trump Administration say South Africa’s Ambassador to U.S. ‘persona non grata’

March 15, 20252:11 PM ET
South Africa’s ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool speaks at the South African Embassy in Washington, Dec. 6, 2013.

Cliff Owen/FR170079 AP

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Cliff Owen/FR170079 AP

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he’s kicking out the new Ambassador from South Africa — accusing him of hating America and hating Donald Trump.
It’s the latest salvo against South Africa, which has been in the administration’s crosshairs since Trump took office in January.
In afiery post on X on Friday, Secretary Rubio called Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool a “race baiting politician” and said he was considered “a persona non grata.”
Rubio’s ire came after Rasool said in an online seminar hosted by a South African think tank that the MAGA movement was partially in response to worries about demographic change and a future when white Americans would no longer be the majority.

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What Cuts to U.S. Aid Mean in Africa

March 13, 20254:08 PM ET

President Trump has derided aid the U.S. provides overseas as rife with fraud. His administration has moved aggressively to eliminate such funding including cancelling contracts already in progress. This is all being challenged in court but the effects are being felt acutely by those providing the aid on the ground in foreign countries. We hear from three providers in Africa.

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