NPR News -Africa

March 25, 20246:10 PM ET
Enlarge this imageCommunity members gathered to discuss the events surrounding the kidnappings in their community at The Kawu District Palace which represents the seat of authority in the Kawu (spelled Kau on google maps). All official guests, meetings and pronouncements are made from the Palace.

Terna Iwar for NPR

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Terna Iwar for NPR

Community members gathered to discuss the events surrounding the kidnappings in their community at The Kawu District Palace which represents the seat of authority in the Kawu (spelled Kau on google maps). All official guests, meetings and pronouncements are made from the Palace.

Terna Iwar for NPR

Islamic insurgents and other heavily armed groups have increasingly turned to kidnapping to get money. They abduct individuals, families and even large groups and then demand to be paid to let them go. We hear the story of one family, whose life has been turned upside down by a kidnapping.

March 25, 20245:15 AM ET

The story of one Nigerian family’s kidnapping ordeal, as abductions for ransom spiral out of control in the West African country.

March 24, 20247:59 AM ET

People in Senegal will finally have the chance to vote March 24. The country’s president postponed elections last month.

March 24, 20244:32 AM ET
Enlarge this imageParents wait for news about the kidnapped LEA Primary and Secondary School Kuriga students in Kuriga, Kaduna, Nigeria, on March 9, 2024. Nearly 300 schoolchildren abducted from their school in northwest Nigeria’s Kaduna state have been released, the state governor said Sunday, March 24, more than two weeks after the children were seized from their school.

Sunday Alamba/AP

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Sunday Alamba/AP

Parents wait for news about the kidnapped LEA Primary and Secondary School Kuriga students in Kuriga, Kaduna, Nigeria, on March 9, 2024. Nearly 300 schoolchildren abducted from their school in northwest Nigeria’s Kaduna state have been released, the state governor said Sunday, March 24, more than two weeks after the children were seized from their school.

Sunday Alamba/AP

ABUJA, Nigeria — Nearly 300 kidnapped Nigerian schoolchildren have been released, local officials said Sunday, more than two weeks after the ..

March 22, 20245:39 PM ET
Senegal’s democratic resilience has been tested in recent years, and after some pre-election chaos, the West African country finally heads to the polls.
Enlarge this imageSupporters of Presidential candidate Amadou Ba gather for the last rally of the campaign in Dakar, Senegal, Friday, March 22, 2024.

Sylvain Cherkaoui/AP

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Sylvain Cherkaoui/AP

Supporters of Presidential candidate Amadou Ba gather for the last rally of the campaign in Dakar, Senegal, Friday, March 22, 2024.

Sylvain Cherkaoui/AP

Ayen Deng Bior

March 22, 20243:06 PM ET
Enlarge this imageOpponents of the ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) gather outside the National Assembly in Banjul, The Gambia, on March 18, 2024. Lawmakers voted to advance a highly controversial bill that would lift the ban on FGM.

Muhamadou Bittaye/AFP via Getty Images

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Muhamadou Bittaye/AFP via Getty Images

Opponents of the ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) gather outside the National Assembly in Banjul, The Gambia, on March 18, 2024. Lawmakers voted to advance a highly controversial bill that would lift the ban on FGM.

Muhamadou Bittaye/AFP via Getty Images

As more and more countries outlaw the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), The Gambia could become the first country in the world to overturn such a ban.
The country’s National Assembly advanced a bill on March 18 that would repeal the 2015 law criminalizing all acts of FGM. That prospect has alarmed health and human rights activists in The G..

March 22, 20245:00 AM ET
Enlarge this imageSupporters celebrate the release of Senegal’s top opposition leader Ousmane Sonko and his key ally Bassirou Diomaye Faye outside Sonko’s home in Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, March 14, 2024.

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Sylvain Cherkaoui/AP

Supporters celebrate the release of Senegal’s top opposition leader Ousmane Sonko and his key ally Bassirou Diomaye Faye outside Sonko’s home in Dakar, Senegal, Thursday, March 14, 2024.

Sylvain Cherkaoui/AP

Senegal holds elections this weekend. Finally. The West African country has long been lauded as a stable, even model democracy, in a region rife with political crises and coups.
But the last few years have belied that image. President Macky Sall’s unprecedented decision in February to extend his stay in office and delay the elections until the end of the year — after they were initially planned to be held later that month — outraged many both at home and abroad.
Senegal h..

March 19, 20244:56 PM ET

NPR’s Ailsa Chang talks with Jaha Dukureh, the founder of Safe Hands for Girls, a Gambian group that aims to end female genital mutilation. Lawmakers there advanced a bill that would end its FGM ban.

March 18, 202410:00 AM ET
Enlarge this imageRahima Banu had the last recorded case of naturally occurring variola major smallpox, a deadly strain of the virus, in 1975. At left: Banu in her mother’s arms as a small child. At right: Banu today, close to 50 years old, lives in a small village in Bangladesh with her husband, Rafiqul Islam, and their children.

Michael Schwartz/CDC, Céline Gounder/KFF Health News

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Michael Schwartz/CDC, Céline Gounder/KFF Health News

Rahima Banu had the last recorded case of naturally occurring variola major smallpox, a deadly strain of the virus, in 1975. At left: Banu in her mother’s arms as a small child. At right: Banu today, close to 50 years old, lives in a small village in Bangladesh with her husband, Rafiqul Islam, and their children.

Michael Schwartz/CDC, Céline Gounder/KFF Health News

Smallpox was certified eradicated in 1980, but I first learned about the disease’s twisty, storied history in 1996 wh..

March 17, 20249:50 AM ET
Enlarge this imageA store in Monrovia, Liberia, advertises Coca-Cola. The photo is from circa 1947.

Alberts/Alberts/Three Lions via Getty Images

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Alberts/Alberts/Three Lions via Getty Images

A store in Monrovia, Liberia, advertises Coca-Cola. The photo is from circa 1947.

Alberts/Alberts/Three Lions via Getty Images

Author-historian Sara Byala had an epiphany about Coca-Cola’s role in African life and culture in 2003. She and a group of fellow graduate students had found their way across Mali’s Saharan Desert via an arduous journey that involved a broken-down jeep followed by bouts of hiking and hitchhiking.
When the exhausted group reached a Niger River ferry stop the next day, the pause that refreshes took on new meaning. “Boarding, grimy and parched, we are offered — as in a dream — ice-cold Coca-Cola,” she writes in her book, Bottled: How Coca-Cola Became African.
At the time, she wondered, “How is this ..