NPR News -Africa

April 27, 20244:36 AM ET
Enlarge this imagePeople queue to cast their votes In Soweto, South Africa April 27, 1994, in the country’s first all-race elections. South Africans celebrate “Freedom Day” every April 27.

Denis Farrell/AP

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Denis Farrell/AP

People queue to cast their votes In Soweto, South Africa April 27, 1994, in the country’s first all-race elections. South Africans celebrate “Freedom Day” every April 27.

Denis Farrell/AP

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — South Africans celebrate their “Freedom Day” every April 27, when they remember their country’s pivotal first democratic election in 1994 that announced the official end of the racial segregation and oppression of apartheid.
Saturday is the 30th anniversary of that momentous vote, when millions of Black South Africans, young and old, decided their own futures for the first time, a fundamental right they had been denied by a white minority government.
The first all-race election saw th..

April 26, 20244:45 PM ET

NPR’s Throughline hosts Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei speak with professor Siddharth Kara on the fight for Congo’s resources.

April 24, 20245:50 PM ET

NPR’s Juana Summers talks with game designer Abubakar Salim about the long journey of creating a game to process the grief of losing his father to cancer.

April 23, 20247:22 AM ET

The U.K. Parliament has approved Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s controversial plans to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda, regardless of where they’re from originally.

April 23, 20245:13 AM ET

Gaza protests on college campuses stretch across the U.S. British lawmakers OK plan to outsource U.K.’s refugee system to Rwanda. Supreme Court to hear Starbucks case about fired pro-union workers.

April 28, 20245:26 PM ET

This weekend marks 30 years since Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa, officially ending the country’s era of apartheid. NPR’s Scott Detrow talks with journalist Redi Thlabi.

April 28, 20244:38 PM ET
Enlarge this imageBodyguards keep close watch as Nelson Mandela celebrates his victory in the South African presidential elections of 1994. As the head of the African National Congress, he helped to build the country’s new multiracial government and to establish the free elections in which he won his presidency.

David Turnley/Corbis/VCG

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David Turnley/Corbis/VCG

Bodyguards keep close watch as Nelson Mandela celebrates his victory in the South African presidential elections of 1994. As the head of the African National Congress, he helped to build the country’s new multiracial government and to establish the free elections in which he won his presidency.

David Turnley/Corbis/VCG

Three decades ago, South Africa held its first democratic election, closing the door on the apartheid era.
And Nelson Mandela was elected its first Black president.
Today, the country is still led by Mandela’s political party – the African Nation..

April 28, 20248:04 AM ET

A cult leader in Kenya was charged with murder after the discovery last year of more than 400 bodies in a remote forest. NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe speaks to journalist Carey Baraka about the case.

April 27, 20248:12 AM ET

Three decades since the first democratic election in South Africa, will the generation that has never known apartheid turn out to vote, or has politics left many of them too disillusioned?