NPR News -Africa

March 9, 20248:46 AM ET
Enlarge this image

Hassan Ahmed for NPR

Hassan Ahmed for NPR

It’s the day after International Women’s Day. On March 8 each year, the United Nations declares a special day to pay tribute to the accomplishments of women, to express how much they are valued and to press for gender equality.
The Picture Show Photos from demonstrations around the world on International Women’s DayIn the wake of the celebrations and demonstrations held on this day, life goes on for women around the world. We interviewed women in Kibera, the Nairobi neighborhood that locals refer to as the largest “slum” in Kenya, to get a glimpse of their routines, their challenges, their sources of joy and strength. Their lives are a reminder of the challenges women face — and how they persevere.
Stellah Kamene: ‘I have been able to manage day-to-day activities of raising my 6-year-old son alone’Stellah Kamene, a 28-year-old single mother, is feeling good because of the U.N. day that ju..

March 9, 20247:59 AM ET

NPR’s Scott Simon speaks to Alexis Akwagyiram from the Semafor news website about the mass kidnapping of young students from a school in northwest Nigeria.

March 8, 20245:12 PM ET
Enlarge this imageGunmen attacked a school in Nigeria’s northwest region Thursday morning and abducted between 200 and 300 students, according to authorities, marking the second mass abduction in the West African nation in less than a week.

AP

hide caption

toggle caption

AP

Gunmen attacked a school in Nigeria’s northwest region Thursday morning and abducted between 200 and 300 students, according to authorities, marking the second mass abduction in the West African nation in less than a week.

AP

JOHANNESBURG — Nigerian security forces are searching for more than 200 children abducted from their school by gunmen on motorcycles Thursday, in the latest mass kidnapping to hit Nigeria.
Officials and witnesses have given varying figures of the number of students taken from the school in Kuriga, a town in northwestern Nigeria, with between 200 and 300 children reported to be missing, some of them as young as 8 years old.
It was the second such abdu..

March 8, 20244:10 PM ET
Enlarge this imageSyrian medics launched a vaccination campaign in the northwestern Idlib province in early 2023. Such campaigns depend on the global cholera vaccine stockpile, which is currently empty.

Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images

Syrian medics launched a vaccination campaign in the northwestern Idlib province in early 2023. Such campaigns depend on the global cholera vaccine stockpile, which is currently empty.

Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images

The ancient disease of cholera is making a comeback in 2024 – but the world’s supply of vaccines can’t keep up.
The global stockpile of cholera vaccines is empty. There are no doses in reserve. And while the vaccine manufacturer is churning out 700,000 doses a week, all those vials are going directly to active outbreaks.
“The demand is four times more than the supply,” said Daniela Garone, the international medical coordina..

March 7, 20246:08 PM ET

The Oscar-nominated documentary Bobi Wine: The People’s President is the gripping story of Ugandan singer Bobi Wine and his campaign against the country’s long-standing president.

February 12, 20245:00 AM ET
Enlarge this imageA wooden boat was spotted at night in international waters north of Libya by Doctors Without Borders’ rescue team aboard the MV Geo Barents.

Valerio Muscella for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Valerio Muscella for NPR

A wooden boat was spotted at night in international waters north of Libya by Doctors Without Borders’ rescue team aboard the MV Geo Barents.

Valerio Muscella for NPR

ABOARD A SHIP ON THE MEDITERRANEAN — It’s 2 a.m. and the team on the MV Geo Barents rescue ship has just spotted a boat in distress.
The migrants on board the small wooden fishing vessel are waving the light of their cellphone screens to attract attention after the boat’s engine cut out. They’ve been drifting for hours in the pitch black, hundreds of miles offshore in the Mediterranean Sea.
When the rescuers from Doctors Without Borders reach them, they find 162 people, 29 of them children, so tightly packed into the vessel that many can only..

February 10, 20245:52 PM ET

This week, the United Nations pleaded for more aid to Sudan, after nearly 10 months of war. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield is working to draw more attention to the crisis there.

February 10, 20249:52 AM ET
Enlarge this image26-year-old Zainab Sankoh in a shack at the Kingtom dump site in Freetown, Sierra Leone. A self-described “hustler,” Sankoh used to send money home to support her family and her young daughter in a village in the south of the country. Now, she spends almost all her money on kush. “My life is miserable” said Sankoh. “This is not the Zainab I used to be.”

Tommy Trenchard for NPR

hide caption

toggle caption

Tommy Trenchard for NPR

26-year-old Zainab Sankoh in a shack at the Kingtom dump site in Freetown, Sierra Leone. A self-described “hustler,” Sankoh used to send money home to support her family and her young daughter in a village in the south of the country. Now, she spends almost all her money on kush. “My life is miserable” said Sankoh. “This is not the Zainab I used to be.”

Tommy Trenchard for NPR

It’s barely 9 a.m. but the cramped alleyways of Kaduna in the western end of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, are already pack..

February 8, 20245:32 PM ET

We hear rare eyewitness testimony from Darfur, one of the worlds unseen and often forgotten conflicts — which has resulted in the largest child displacement crisis in the world.

February 8, 20248:06 AM ET
Enlarge this imageA child receives a measles vaccination at a clinic in Harare, Zimbabwe, where a 2022 outbreak saw some 700 children die from the highly infectious childhood disease.

Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

hide caption

toggle caption

Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

A child receives a measles vaccination at a clinic in Harare, Zimbabwe, where a 2022 outbreak saw some 700 children die from the highly infectious childhood disease.

Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

Measles is on the rise around the world, and even experts who saw it coming say the increase is “staggering.”
The World Health Organization said in December that its European region (which extends into parts of western and central Asia) saw an “alarming” increase in measles cases – from under a thousand in 2022 to more than 30,000 last year.
John Vertefeuille, directorof the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Global Immunization Division, said in a statement that the numbers are “stagge..