NPR News -Africa

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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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..

February 28, 20247:41 PM ET
Enlarge this imageSpeaker of Ghana Parliament Alban Sumana Bagbin speaks at the Parliament House in Accra, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Ghana’s parliament passed a highly controversial anti-LGBTQ+ bill on Wednesday that could send some people to prison for more than a decade.

Misper Apawu/AP

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Misper Apawu/AP

Speaker of Ghana Parliament Alban Sumana Bagbin speaks at the Parliament House in Accra, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Ghana’s parliament passed a highly controversial anti-LGBTQ+ bill on Wednesday that could send some people to prison for more than a decade.

Misper Apawu/AP

ACCRA, Ghana — Ghana ‘s parliament passed a highly controversial anti-LGBTQ+ bill on Wednesday that could send some people to prison for more than a decade.
The bill was introduced to parliament three years ago and criminalizes members of the LGBTQ+ community as well as its supporters, including promotion and funding of related activities and ..

February 26, 20248:46 AM ET
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Scovian Lillian for NPR

Scovian Lillian for NPR

Mary Gachoki had learned about autism spectrum disorder from a caregiving course she’d taken in college. When her son was 2 years old, she recognized that he was displaying traits associated with this neurological condition. He wasn’t making eye contact, he stopped talking and he began flapping his fingers – a common behavior for people with autism as they seek to calm themselves.
Deep down, the 34-year-old single mom knew he likely had autism. But, she says, she was in denial.
When she did get a diagnosis, she says, the news “felt burdensome because I am a single mother. I am not strong mentally. I need support and reassurance that [my son] will be okay someday.” (Editor’s note: We are not naming the children in this story to protect their privacy as we discuss their condition.)
Challenges for parentsAround the world, parents like Gachoki often struggle to find reliable informa..