NPR News -Africa

November 1, 20248:17 AM ET

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Photographer Julia Gunther made the portraits in this story 10 years apart for her independent documentary project, Rainbow Girls. She wanted to know what, if anything, had changed for these South African lesbian women over a decade that, on paper, promised big gains for LGBTQ rights.
In the autumn of 2012, photographer Julia Gunther was working in South Africa, researching a documentary project about activism within LGBTQ communities in and around Cape Town.
Gunther was particularly interested in making portraits of individuals advocating in the challenging environments of the city’s many townships.
By chance, during a meeting with Professor Zethu Matebeni, at the time a senior researcher at the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA) at the University of Cape Town, a fax arrived inviting Matebeni to judge a lesbian beauty pageant in the township of Khayelitsha a few days later. She suggested that Gunther attend, as it would be a good opp..

October 31, 20244:15 PM ET
People look at a billboard in Kinshasa on Oct. 30, 1974, announcing the fight between U.S. boxers Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. That day, Ali knocked out Foreman in a clash of titans known as the “Rumble in the Jungle,” watched by 60,000 people in the stadium in Kinshasa and millions elsewhere.

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KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Judex Tshipanda, 71, sits on a wall outside this Kinshasa’s Tata Raphaël Stadium, recalling the day that has gone down as one of the most memorable in this central African country’s history.
On Oct. 30, 1974, Muhammad Ali fought heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman in an eight-round match — and emerged victorious after he knocked his opponent to the ground with a vicious uppercut.
Billed as the “Rumble in the Jungle,” and watched by millions of viewers worldwide at the time, the fight is regarded as one of the gre..

October 28, 20243:09 AM ET

Even for a war as brutal as the one in Sudan, this past week has been one of the deadliest. Hundreds of people have been killed by bombings and revenge attacks, tens of thousands more were displaced.

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October 27, 20243:00 AM ET
Enlarge this imageAbass Khelani comforts his daughter, Samira Abass (age 4) at the Port Sudan Paediatric Hospital in Port Sudan, Republic of the Sudan on September 3, 2024.

Luke Dray

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Luke Dray

Abass Khelani comforts his daughter, Samira Abass (age 4) at the Port Sudan Paediatric Hospital in Port Sudan, Republic of the Sudan on September 3, 2024.

Luke Dray

12 million displaced. As many as 150,000 dead. Half the country facing starvation. The simple truth? War is tearing apart Sudan. NPR’s West Africa correspondent Emmanuel Akinwotu recently reported near the heart of that fighting. Along the way, he met a young man who, with his family, survived for months on flour and water while hiding under a bed. He found doctors caring for the sick and dying even as shells exploded nearby. The current humanitarian crisis in Sudan is seen as one of the worst in the world, but has little global attention. “They forget about us,” on..

October 22, 20241:58 PM ET
An aerial photograph from 2023 of the Rusayo camp for internally displaced people on the outskirts of Goma in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hundreds of thousands of Congolese have found refuge around Goma after fleeing fighting further north. Two new reports document a ‘staggering’ increase in rapes over the past year.

Alexis Huguet/AFP via Getty Images

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Alexis Huguet/AFP via Getty Images

When a woman goes in search of firewood and returns empty handed, Laétitia Bukébo starts to worry.
She’s worried about robbery – but also far more.
“Each time a woman returns from the forest without wood, we immediately know she’s been raped,” Bukébo says, speaking through an interpreter. “The men who rape her rob her, meaning that everything she has with her — even the wood she has with her — is taken. Everyone is looking at her with accusing looks, looks tha..

October 20, 20248:05 AM ET

A glimpse of the efforts of the Sudanese diaspora in the US — fighting to keep the attention of the world focused on the catastrophic fallout from the war back home.

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October 18, 20243:00 AM ET
Enlarge this imageBoophis siskoi is one of seven newly described species of frog found in Madagascar.

Mark D. Scherz

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Mark D. Scherz

Boophis siskoi is one of seven newly described species of frog found in Madagascar.

Mark D. Scherz

This week, scientists named seven newly described frog species.
Scientists discover thousands of new species every year — but these have a special claim to fame: They pay homage to Star Trek.
Mark Scherz is one of the authors on the paper about these amphibians and a curator of herpetology (that’s reptiles and amphibians) at the Natural History Museum of Denmark. He says these frogs’ calls sound so much like the “futuristic sounding whistles and beeps” of the Star Trek series that they named each of the seven after a captain.
These frogs live in humid rainforests in northern and eastern Madagascar, often near fast, flowing rivers. Generally, frog calls come in a variety of different ..

People prepare bodies for funeral following a tanker explosion in Majiya town, Nigeria, on Wednesday.

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Sani Maikatanga/AP

ABUJA, Nigeria — More than 140 people, including children, were killed in Nigeria when an overturned gasoline tanker truck exploded in flames while they tried to scoop up fuel, emergency services said Wednesday. Dozens more were injured.
Deadly tanker accidents are common in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, which lacks an efficient railway system to transport cargo. People often salvage fuel with cups and buckets — especially because of soaring fuel prices, which have tripled since the government ended costly gas subsidies last year.
The latest accident occurred at midnight in northern Jigawa state’s Majiya town when the tanker driver lost control on a highway, police spokesperson Lawan Adam said. Residents rushed to the scene before the “massive inferno.”

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October 10, 20244:50 PM ET
Enlarge this imageA husband comforts his wife, injured by shelling, in a corridor at the Al Nao Hospital in Omdurman, Republic of the Sudan on September 5.

Luke Dray for NPR

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Luke Dray for NPR

A husband comforts his wife, injured by shelling, in a corridor at the Al Nao Hospital in Omdurman, Republic of the Sudan on September 5.

Luke Dray for NPR

Sudan’s war has displaced more than 10 million people and half the country faces starvations. The country’s medical services have collapsed leaving a patchwork of charities, local groups and the Sudanese diaspora to try to provide what health care they can. NPR’s Africa correspondent takes us to one of the few remaining hospitals, near the Sudanese capital

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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.

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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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