NPR News -Africa

September 8, 20248:00 AM ET

Fighting in and around Sudan’s capital is fierce and devastating to the people who either cannot flee or feel compelled to stay.

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Kenya Red Cross personnel and relatives try to comfort a woman reacting near a burned-out dormitory following a fire at the Hillside Endarasha Primary in Nyeri, Kenya, on Friday.

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NAIROBI, Kenya — The number of children who were burned to death in a school dormitory in central Kenya has risen to 21, the government spokesperson said Saturday.
Officials began removing the bodies of the children as they tried to account for dozens of boys who were still missing.
Africa A fire set off by a gas explosion in Kenya kills at least 3 people and injures 280Journalists were moved to wait outside the Hillside Endarasha Primary School compound as a team that included the government pathologist and morticians from the Nyeri provincial hospital set up tables outside the dormitory on Saturday.
The Thursday night fire razed down a dormitory that was housing 156 boys aged between 10 and 14. More than 100 boys have been accounted for and the govern..

September 6, 20244:25 AM ET

Kenya’s president is in China, where he’s negotiated more infrastructure loans. Back home there’s growing anger about Kenya’s growing foreign debt of more than $80 billion, much of it owed to China.

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September 5, 20245:50 AM ET
Rebecca Cheptegei is seen competing at the Discovery 10km road race in Kapchorwa, Uganda, on Jan. 20, 2023.

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NAIROBI, Kenya — Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei has died at a Kenyan hospital where she was being treated after 80% of her body was burned in an attack by her partner. She was 33.
A spokesperson at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret city, Owen Menach, confirmed Cheptegei’s death on Thursday. Menach said the long-distance runner died early in the morning after her organs failed. She had been fully sedated on admission at the hospital.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.

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Her father, Joseph Cheptegei, told journalists at the hospital that he had lost a daughter who was “very supportive” and hopes to get justice.
Trans Nzoia County Police Co..

September 4, 20242:43 AM ET

Over 100 prisoners were killed — either shot dead or crushed — after they tried to escape from the infamous Makala Prison in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital of Kinshasa.

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September 3, 20245:25 AM ET
This image made from video shows state security forces outside Makala prison in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, following an attempted jailbreak in Congo’s main prison on Sept. 2, 2024.

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KINSHASA, Congo — An attempted jailbreak in Congo’s main prison in the capital left at least 129 people dead, most of them in a stampede, authorities said Tuesday.
A provisional assessment showed that 24 inmates were shot dead by “warning” gunshots as they tried to escape from the overcrowded Makala Central Prison in Kinshasa early Monday, Congolese Interior Minister Jacquemin Shabani said on the social platform X.
“There are also 59 injured people taken into care by the government, as well as some cases of women raped,” he said, adding that order has been restored at the prison, part of which was burned in the attack.

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Makala, Congo’s largest penitentiary with ..

August 25, 20245:33 PM ET

NPR’s Adrian Ma speaks with Cerian Richmond Jones of The Economist about the decision by Nigerian and Ethiopian governments to float their respective currencies.

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August 23, 20241:23 AM ET
Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi holds the 2,492-carat diamond that was unearthed at one of its mines and will be put on show, on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, in Gaborone.

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GABORONE, Botswana — The largest diamond found in more than a century has been unearthed at a mine in Botswana, and the country’s president showed off the fist-sized stone to the world at a viewing ceremony Thursday.
The Botswana government says the huge 2,492-carat diamond is the second-biggest ever discovered in a mine. It’s the biggest diamond found since 1905.
The as-yet-unnamed diamond was presented to the world at the office of Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi. It weighs approximately half a kilogram and Masisi was one of the first to get to hold it.
“It is overwhelming,” Masisi said. “I am lucky to have seen it in my time.” He gasped and said “wow” before calling senior government officials over to ..

August 21, 20241:04 PM ET
Hawa Miso, 70, collects leaves to use as vegetables on the hillside near the Rabang camp for internally displaced persons in Rabang, in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains. Approximately 10 million Sudanese have been displaced by the civil war that broke out in 2023. A team of experts backed by the United Nations believes the country is experiencing famine. But the government does not agree.

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Is there famine in Sudan?
This month a group of United Nations-backed experts looked at the data and concluded the answer is yes.
But no official declaration of famine has been made.
As it turns out, making such a pronouncement comes with its own set of rules and regulations.
So … what constitutes a famineLet’s start with a definition.
In the 1980s, a series of devastating famines struck several countries in Africa — including the infamous famine in Ethiopia in..

August 19, 202410:40 AM ET

Some 12 million people are displaced in Sudan as the military government battles a powerful paramilitary group. There is acute hunger and risk of famine for many. Peace talks hoping to resolve the crisis are being held in Geneva this week. We hear about the chances that those talks will succeed and details about conditions on the ground in Sudan.

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