NPR News -Africa

May 28, 20253:56 PM ET
Enlarge this imageDr .Sara Abdurahaman at Al-Buluk Pediatric Hospital treats an 8-month old baby in the critical care unit of a malnutrition ward.

Faiz Abubakr for NPR

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Faiz Abubakr for NPR

Dr .Sara Abdurahaman at Al-Buluk Pediatric Hospital treats an 8-month old baby in the critical care unit of a malnutrition ward.

Faiz Abubakr for NPR

The civil war in Sudan has been ongoing for more than two years causing some fifteen million people to be displaced and the collapse of the country’s healthcare system in many places. In the capital Khartoum, there were once nearly 100 public and private medical facilities, now none are operational. We go to Khartoum to see how residents are coping with the lack of medical care.

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May 27, 20254:21 PM ET

NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, about the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo and cuts to WFP funding.

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May 25, 20259:41 AM ET

NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe talks with Nigerian space scientist Temidayo Oniosun about how the new African Space Agency could help make the continent more resilient to climate change and extreme weather.

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May 24, 20258:00 AM ET
US President Donald Trump, right, and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, second right, as a video plays during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.

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JOHANNESBURG — President Trump claims a “genocide” of white people, particularly Afrikaner farmers, is taking place in South Africa.
When he met the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump played him a video — previously shared at least twice on social media byhis advisor Elon Musk — that he said was evidence of this.
“Now this is very bad, those are burial sites right there. Burial sites. Over a thousand. Of white farmers,” Trump said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The video showed a road lined on either side with scores of white crosses and a procession of cars carrying mourners paying their respects.

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May 22, 20258:54 AM ET
President Trump meets South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday.

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JOHANNESBURG — “All in all it was awful but it could have been worse,” was how one South African newspaper summed up President Cyril Ramaphosa’s extraordinary Oval Office meeting with President Trump on Wednesday.
Africa Trump ambushes South Africa’s president with false claims of ‘white genocide’Many South Africans — including members of the government delegation visiting Washington — had feared a repeat of February’s heated exchange between Trump and and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
But despite what another newspaper called “serious provocation” by Trump — which included the dramatic moment he asked to dim the lights and played a lengthy video montage purporting to prove what Trump falsely claimed was a “genocide” against South African white farmers..

May 21, 20255:53 PM ET

President Trump meets in the Oval Office with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Bilateral relations are at their lowest since the end of apartheid.

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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

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JOHANNESBURG — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa walked into an ambush when he met President Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
Africa Trump to meet South African president amid deteriorating relationsAfter a cordial beginning, where Ramaphosa was at pains to stress his desire to improve relations with the United States, things turned hostile. Trump repeated false claims of a “white genocide” in South Africa and then ordered the lights dimmed to play videos he said supported his allegation.
Ramaphosa attempted to correct the U.S. leader, but mostly got talked over. He explained the videos of opposition politician Julius Malema singing an apartheid-era struggle song called “Kill the Boer” — which means farmer or Afrikaner — did not represent government policy.

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May 18, 202512:02 AM ET
Hundreds of Rwandan refugees who were living in eastern Congo since the 1994 Rwanda genocide are repatriated by bus from Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on Saturday, May 17, 2025.

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GOMA, Congo — Hundreds of Rwandan refugees who were living in eastern Congo since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda were repatriated on Saturday, the U.N. refugee agency said, after Rwandan-backed rebels seized key parts of the region.
Most of the refugees were women and children, and 360 of them crossed the border in buses provided by Rwandan authorities and were escorted by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and aid group Save the Children, local authorities said. The goal is to repatriate 2,000 people, UNHCR said.
“We are happy to welcome our compatriots. They are a valuable workforce for the country’s development,” said Prosper Mulindwa, the Rwandan mayor of Rubavu, during a brief ceremony at t..

May 16, 20259:24 AM ET
Children selling a drink made from hibiscus flowers in Jebel Aulia, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Khartoum where the last battles over control of the capital city took place. The Sudanese government took the city back from rebel forces in March.

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Faiz Abubakr for NPR

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Children are playing again on the streets of Khartoum.
They ride bikes through eerie streets, with the freedom of deserted roads and highways.
In the backdrop, people sweep shattered glass from battered storefronts, or clear rubble from their homes.
A handful of stands serve tea and coffee on the roadside and the owner of a popular bakery has returned after two years and is selling bread again.
These are some of the early signs of revival emerging across Khartoum, as it slowly comes back to life.
Kids show off their bike prowess on a deserted street in Khartoum, recaptured by the Sudanese army in March.

Faiz Abu..

May 15, 20256:50 AM ET
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa addresses the opening session of the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Johannesburg in February.

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Jerome Delay/AP

JOHANNESBURG — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will travel to Washington next week to meet President Trump at the White House on Wednesday “to discuss bilateral, regional and global issues of interest,” Ramaphosa’s office has announced.
Africa White South African Afrikaner refugees arrive in U.S. on a government-chartered planeThe visit comes as relations between the U.S. and South Africa are at their lowest since the end of apartheid. Trump has repeatedly claimed that “terrible things are happening” in South Africa, and invited Afrikaners to apply for refugee status in the U.S. On Monday, the first group of some 59 white South Africans who had been approved arrived in Washington on a U.S. government-chartered plane.
The statement from Ramaphosa’..