At an event in Abidjan in late October, Alexandre Quest Bede noticed someone staring at him. Then the stranger walked up to him with a T-shirt and asked for an autograph.

“He pointed at me excitedly and said: ‘You’re Monsieur Gnamakou, I know you from Instagram!’” recalls Bede at the poolside bar of Bissa, a boutique hotel in the upmarket Deux Plateaux neighbourhood on the eve of Abidjan cocktail week.

Gnamakoudji, often shortened to gnamakou, is a ginger juice and a beloved staple in francophone Africa, including Abidjan, the commercial capital of Ivory Coast.

For Bede, a doctor turned mixologist, gnamakou is a big go-to ingredient for cocktails and mocktails, highlighting the region’s many unheralded flavours. That playfulness with ingredients is on display at the second edition of Abidjan cocktail week, which runs from 31 October to 10 November.

Abidjan’s first cocktail week was held last year after six weeks of planning by Bede and his business partner, Yasmine “Afrofoodie” Fofana, a blogger and the founder of the Abidjan restaurant week.

The duo’s latest launch was a great opportunity to plug a gap. The cocktail week concept, already popular in Europe and North America, had been embraced by only a few African countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa. The festival is also the latest in a series of concerted efforts to encourage alcohol-loving Africans to return to their roots.

Across west and central Africa, communal drinking remains an integral part of commemorations of life and death, from funeral arrangements to evening pleasures at maquis and chop bars. But due in part to colonial-era stigmatisation and bans, local gins and other alcoholic drinks have long been seen as unsafe for consumption, inferior, and in the era of social media, not Instagram-worthy.

“There’s no reason why we should continue using a foreign language to speak to our ancestors,” says Bede, while holding a bottle of Aphro, a made-in-Ghana premium palm spirit.

The efforts to undo negative perceptions about homemade drinks in the region have begun to yield fruit. In Nigeria and Ghana, entrepreneurs Lola Pedro and Amma Mensah have entered the drinks industry with unique offerings: Pedro’s distilled palm spirit and the sugarcane rum brand Reign respectively.

In the former Ivorian capital of Grand-Bassam, about 21 miles east of Abidjan, an Ivorian-American couple’s home has become a microdistillery for the Vinqueur drinks range, which includes non-alcoholic syrups made from baobab and pineapple extracts, alongside vodka, gin, rum and wines made from mandarins and ginger.

“Yasmine and I, we don’t care what flavour is in the glass; we should just have Africa in the glass,” says Bede, who wants more Africans to see food and drink as soft power. “We’re not present on the global stage because we’re not enhancing our own techniques, not putting our own ingredients, not telling our own stories, simple as that. Francophone Africa is the last on the path, so we’re pushing super hard for that.”

For the second edition of Abidjan cocktail week, visitors are again choosing from curated menus of drinks fused with brands such as Aphro and Reign, alongside local elements.

This year, premium ticket holders also attended masterclasses in bartending. Bartenders from the Accra Bar Show festival, including Kojo Aidoo, the head of the Bartenders Guild Ghana, were also present to show solidarity, and to make drinks.

The goal, say the organisers of cocktail week, is to keep a fixed date every year so tourists can plan holidays around it. Its audience seem satisfied – and entertained.

One of them is Ademilade Afolabi, an Abidjan-based tech executive who loved the spirit of regional harmony at a session she attended. “Abidjan feels like African Union vibes … the barmen are from Ghana. I’m Nigerian dancing with this Cameroonian babe, and the song is Wizkid’s [a Nigerian singer].”

Afolabi adds: “There’s this whole ‘Africa to the world’ movement going on in terms of Afrobeats and fashion, so why not also alcohol? Most alcohol consumed [here], whether in fancy or less fancy places, is imported. If we start placing importance on locally made alcohol, it makes the market move from being importers to exporters.”

Besides a few sponsorship deals, participation fees from bars and ticket sales, Abidjan cocktail week is largely financed by its cofounders, who see the event as a labour of love. And they are pressing on regardless of any challenges, keen to build a legacy.

Fofana, who was born in Abidjan to a Malian-Senegalese father and Guinean mother, says: “It’s not what pays the bills … but the main thing for me with our events is to put my country [Ivory Coast] on the map as far as local ingredients and local talents are concerned. Our goal is [for people to] come and see what Africa also has to offer.”

Somalia has announced that more than $1.1bn (£860m) of outstanding loans will be cancelled by the US, a sum representing about a quarter of the country’s remaining debt.

The announcement is the latest in a series of agreements in which Somalia’s creditors have committed to forgiving its debt obligations.

Most of Somalia’s debt had built up during the era of Siad Barre’s military dictatorship, which collapsed in the early 1990s and triggered a ruinous three-decade civil war.

Somalia’s president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, said the country had been “suffocating under the huge weight of unsustainable debt” as interest payments that could not be paid accrued “during the painful, prolonged period of state collapse”.

On Tuesday, the US and Somalia signed an agreement formalising debt cancellation worth $1.14bn.

In a post on X, Somalia’s finance minister, Bihi Egeh, expressed gratitude, thanking the “US government and people for their unwavering support of our economic reforms and growth”.

Mohamed Shire, director general of Somalia’s Ministry of Planning, Investment and Economic Development, hailed the “historic” agreement, adding that it was more “excellent news for Somalia’s ongoing recovery effort”.

In a tweet on X, Mohamed Dubo, head of the Somali government’s official investment promotion office, posted: “Somalia can now face its future UNCHAINED.”

The US was Somalia’s largest bilateral lender, holding approximately a fifth of Somalia’s total debt in 2018, prior to the beginning of its debt-relief efforts, according to IMF figures.

Speaking at the embassy in Mogadishu, where the announcement was made, the US ambassador, Richard Riley, described it as a “great day” for both countries.

“This was the largest single component of the $4.5bn debt that Somalia owed to various countries, which was forgiven through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative [HIPC].”

The initiative is an economic and financial reform programme led by the IMF and the World Bank, aimed at relieving the poorest countries of unsustainable debt levels. In December 2023, Somalia announced that after completing its HIPC programme it had become eligible for $4.5bn in debt relief, and normalised its relationship with international financial institutions after decades of exclusion.

Riley said: “With support from the United States and our partners, Somalia undertook a host of reforms, passing new laws, changing operational practices, and bringing improved accountability to its finances while transitioning to sustainable practices.”

In March, the Paris Club, a group of some of the world’s wealthiest creditor countries, announced that it would also waive 99% of $2bn Somalia owed its members. According to the World Bank, this reduced Somalia’s external debt from “64% of GDP in 2018 to less than 6% of GDP by the end of 2023”.

That was followed in June by another agreement with the Opec Fund for International Development, which cleared $36m Somalia owed, with a bridging loan provided by Saudi Arabia. “The signing of today’s agreement will also unlock new resources from the Opec Fund for our national development,” Egeh said at the time.

Harry Verhoeven, an expert on the political economy of the Horn of Africa, said Somalia’s debt forgiveness was “meaningful” as it “enables Somalia to more readily access public financing” from multilateral development banks. However, he said private creditors were likely to remain cautious due to lingering concerns about “financial governance and political instability”.

Silvio Jeremias was on his way home from his job at a petrol station on the night of 25 October, in Mozambique’s capital Maputo, when he and his friends happened upon a group of protesters demonstrating against that day’s election results.

The ruling Frelimo party’s presidential candidate Daniel Chapo secured 70.7% of the vote, according to official results, ensuring the party that has ruled Mozambique since independence in 1975 remained in power, but there were widespread allegations of rigging.

At the protest, one of many across the country, the police fired live bullets and Jeremias, who had a two-year-old daughter, was shot dead.

“This situation was a total shock for us. He was still very young,” his friend Carmelita Chissico said. Jeremias is one of at least 11 people killed by security forces during protests against the election results across the country on 24 and 25 October, while 50 received serious gunshot wounds, according to Human Rights Watch.

Police said they only shot live bullets in the air to disperse crowds. Angela Uaela, a police spokesperson, said that one woman was killed and five people injured by “stray bullets”, when police tried to prevent supporters of opposition party Podemos from snatching a gun from them.

Mozambique is one of the world’s poorest countries and its young population – the average age is less than 18 – is turning against Frelimo, which has governed for almost five decades.

Its main opponent in last month’s election was Venâncio Mondlane, a former forestry engineer and banker who captured the imaginations of many younger voters.

Podemos claimed it won 53% of the vote and 138 seats in parliament. It has submitted 300 kg worth of documents in support of a 100-page legal challenge to the election results. The official election commission, however, said Frelimo had increased its representation in the 250-seat parliament by 11 MPs to 195, while Podemos won 31.

Before the vote, civil society groups had accused Frelimo of registering almost 900,000 fake voters, out of an electorate of 17 million. Mozambique’s Catholic bishops alleged there had been ballot stuffing, while EU election observers said there were “irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results”.

On 19 October, as allegations of vote rigging were already swirling, lawyer Elvino Dias and Paulo Guambe, a filmmaker and Podemos official, were shot dead by unknown gunmen.

Human rights researchers have said that the shootings fit a pattern of opposition politicians, journalists, activists and lawyers being killed and no one being brought to justice.

“It’s premature to say whether or not there are any clues [as to who the killers are],” said Hilário Lole, spokesperson for the National Criminal Investigation Service, which is investigating the case.

António Niquice, a member of Frelimo’s central committee, said he was shocked by the shootings and called on the judiciary to hold the killers accountable.

Plain clothes policemen also allegedly shot at Mondlane as he held a press conference on 21October at the site where Dias and Guambe were killed.

“They started firing real bullets directly at… Venâncio,” said Amade Ali, a 30-year-old who was acting as one of Mondlane’s bodyguards.

“We started running to the car [and I] suddenly got hit by a real bullet, not a rubber one,” he said, indicating that a bullet had hit his right cheekbone.For those mourning Jeremias, their grief has merged with calls for political change. Last Tuesday, as mourners wept over his coffin, wearing white t-shirts bearing his face and holding up his photo. They shouted out, calling for justice and democracy.

In footage broadcast by STV, a local TV station, two young women held up paper signs in Portuguese that read: “You can kill me but don’t kill democracy.”

Botswana’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, has conceded defeat after preliminary results showed his party had lost its parliamentary majority in this week’s election, ending nearly six decades in power.

The private Mmegi newspaper and state radio reported that the ruling Botswana Democratic party (BDP) had lost by a landslide, citing results from more than half the constituencies.

The opposition coalition, Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), was in front, putting its leader, the lawyer Duma Boko, on track to win the presidency. Boko has not yet spoken publicly.

At a press conference, Masisi said: “Although I wanted to stay on as your president, I respect the will of the people and I congratulate the president-elect. I will step aside and I will support the new administration.”

Analysts had said the election would be competitive, although the BDP had still been widely expected to win. The party has ruled the southern African country of 2.3 million people since its independence from Britain in 1966.

Mmegi said that based on the results from 36 of the 61 constituencies, opposition parties had won more than half the seats in parliament, which elects the president.

State radio had the same tally. It said that out of the 36 constituencies so far, the BDP had won only one. The UDC had won 25. A party needs to win 31 constituencies to get a majority in this election.

Botswana has enjoyed stability and relative prosperity thanks to its diamond wealth and small population, which gets free healthcare and education. The country is the world’s top producer by value of the gem.

But a downturn in the diamond market has put a squeeze on revenues in the last few years, and the country has struggled to diversify its economy.

The low-pressure system responsible for Spain’s most devastating floods in decades in Valencia also set new rainfall records across south-eastern Spain. In Jerez de la Frontera, 115mm of rain fell in just 24 hours on Wednesday – the wettest day on record for the southern Spanish city. The deluge caused widespread flooding and road closures, and there is a heightened risk that the River Barbate in Cádiz could overflow as more rain is forecast through Friday and into the weekend.

While the rare red warning issued on Thursday for Valencia has expired, Spain’s national meteorological service, Aemet, has maintained yellow and orange rainfall warnings for southern and Mediterranean regions as storms continue to push in.

Also this week, severe thunderstorms in north-eastern South Africa prompted the South African Weather Service to issue a yellow warning as strong winds, hail and heavy rain swept across the region. On Monday and Tuesday, the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga reported more than 40 injuries and four fatalities due to collapsing buildings and flying debris. Hailstones caused severe damage to more than 30 schools, while flooding led to road closures and widespread power outages.

Over in Japan a dismal new October record has been set for the longest period without snow atop of Mount Fuji. The previous record, set in 1955, was when the first snow arrived as late as 26 October. Snow typically falls on Mount Fuji in early October, with the first flakes appearing last year on 5 October. Warm conditions throughout the summer and high sea temperatures have contributed to the lack of snow, which is likely to continue for several more days.

Meanwhile, northern parts of Western Australia (WA) have experienced unseasonably high temperatures in the last few days. The town of Roebourne, in the Pilbara region of WA, recorded a record-high temperature of 45.3C over the weekend, Australia’s highest October temperature in 15 years. Over the following days, a cold front will move in from the north, alleviating temperatures. However, this heat will migrate across central and southern Australia over the weekend, with temperatures reaching around 34C in Adelaide on Saturday, and 36C in Sydney on Sunday, 12C and 10C above the seasonal averages respectively.

Botswana’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, has conceded defeat after preliminary results showed his party had lost its parliamentary majority in this week’s election, ending nearly six decades in power.

The private Mmegi newspaper and state radio reported that the ruling Botswana Democratic party (BDP) had lost by a landslide, citing results from more than half the constituencies.

The opposition coalition, Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), was in front, putting its leader, the lawyer Duma Boko, on track to win the presidency. Boko has not yet spoken publicly.

At a press conference, Masisi said: “Although I wanted to stay on as your president, I respect the will of the people and I congratulate the president-elect. I will step aside and I will support the new administration.”

Analysts had said the election would be competitive, although the BDP had still been widely expected to win. The party has ruled the southern African country of 2.3 million people since its independence from Britain in 1966.

Mmegi said that based on the results from 36 of the 61 constituencies, opposition parties had won more than half the seats in parliament, which elects the president.

State radio had the same tally. It said that out of the 36 constituencies so far, the BDP had won only one. The UDC had won 25. A party needs to win 31 constituencies to get a majority in this election.

Botswana has enjoyed stability and relative prosperity thanks to its diamond wealth and small population, which gets free healthcare and education. The country is the world’s top producer by value of the gem.

But a downturn in the diamond market has put a squeeze on revenues in the last few years, and the country has struggled to diversify its economy.

Not a single country has contributed towards reparations for the victims and survivors of the Ugandan warlord Dominic Ongwen, despite the international criminal court awarding €52.4m (£44m) in February, according to the ICC Trust Fund for Victims (TFV).

The ICC reparations order – the largest in the court’s history – was issued after a 2021 ruling in which the court found Ongwen, a former commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army militia group, guilty of various war crimes committed between 2002 and 2005, including murder, torture, sexual enslavement, the conscription of children into hostilities, and brutal attacks on four camps for internally displaced people in northern Uganda.

Despite the high-profile ruling, and appeals by the TFV and the court, efforts to raise reparations for approximately 50,000 people have stalled. Survivors of Ongwen’s crimes, who have waited more than 20 years for justice, may have to wait a decade longer for redress, based on current targets. A number died before or during the trial, and many have spent their lives grappling with the mental and physical injuries, worsened by ageing, poverty and the trauma passed down through generations.

The bulk of the reparations would go towards symbolic payments of €750 to each person. The rest would be used to provide community rehabilitation programmes, including access to education and healthcare, and to provide remembrance to victims through monuments and memorial activities.

“The biggest issue is that states say: ‘Why should we pay for what Ongwen did? Why should we be covering this?’” said Deborah Ruiz Verduzco, the TFV’s executive director. “The answer to that is: states created the ICC with a notion of justice that includes the victims, and not being able to deliver on reparations puts the legitimacy of the court at risk.”

By the time the case went to trial in 2016, ICC prosecutors had been investigating for more than a decade. About 4,000 survivors gave harrowing testimony, detailing how children recruited to fight were forced to witness killings as part of their training, and were taught not to distinguish between civilians and combatants, or how women faced rape and enforced pregnancy under threat of execution.

The court sentenced Ongwen to a 25-year prison term, which he is serving in a Norwegian jail.

When the perpetrator does not have any assets, as in Ongwen’s case and the majority of reparations cases handled by the court so far, payment falls to voluntary contributions by states, international organisations and private donors, which can depend on political goodwill.

“The reason these crimes were prosecuted is that they shatter the conscience of the international community as a whole,” said Ruiz Verduzco. “[The reparations] are a symbolic way in which the court, and therefore the international community, is recognising that what happened to the victims should not have happened.”

Ruiz Verduzco said the lack of proper policies on the reparations’ funding hampered their work. Out of five reparations orders the court has issued to date, only one, the Katanga case, with about 300 survivors and a reparations order of £770,000, has been fully implemented.

“The magnitude [of the Ongwen reparations] has [forced] us to ask, is this manageable, and how can it be achieved?” said Ruiz Verduzco. “We believe that it’s possible but it requires us to construct a lot of bridges that are not there yet.”

Renata Politi, a legal adviser for the UK-based rights organisation Redress, which has urged the international community to provide speedy, survivor-centred reparations, said: “The Ongwen case is the ultimate test of whether the ICC can turn the reparations into a tangible reality for survivors.”

Acute food insecurity is expected to worsen in war-stricken Sudan and nearly two dozen other countries and territories in the next six months, largely as a result of conflict and violence, an analysis by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme has found.

The latest edition of the twice-yearly Hunger Hotspots report, published on Thursday, provides early warnings on food crises and situations around the world where food insecurity is likely to worsen, with a focus on the most severe and deteriorating situations of acute hunger.

An 18-month conflict has driven hunger in Sudan by disrupting food systems, causing displacement, and blocking access for humanitarian support. Weather extremes, such as floods, have also played a role in worsening food insecurity.

To identify hunger hotspots around the world, food security experts and analysts from the FAO and WFP conducted risk analysis of conflict, political violence, economic shocks and natural hazards, and assessed the current or probable disruptions to agricultural activities caused by those risks.

They found 22 hunger hotspots where acute food insecurity is projected to worsen between November 2024 and May 2025.

Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Palestine and Haiti were rated at the level of highest concern, meaning they face famine or the risk of famine, or have populations in catastrophe. “People are experiencing an extreme lack of food and face unprecedented enduring starvation,” said Qu Dongyu, the director general of the FAO.

Sudan is in the midst of a deadly war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has lasted 18 months and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. In one town, children are reported to have been dying of hunger every day. The challenges have intensified in recent months: famine was declared at one displacement camp and heavy rains caused floods that led to deaths and displacement.

The report says intensification of the war would cause further mass displacement and worsen the regional humanitarian crisis, leading to increased cross-border movements to Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia and Central African Republic.

“Without immediate humanitarian efforts and concerted international action to address severe access constraints and advocate for the de-escalation of conflict and insecurity, further starvation and loss of life are likely in Palestine, the Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali,” said Aurélien Mellin, emergency and rehabilitation officer at the FAO.

The analysis classified Chad, Nigeria, Mozambique, Lebanon, Myanmar, Syria and Yemen as hotspots of very high concern, meaning large populations there are facing or are forecast to face critical levels of acute food insecurity.

Two countries – Namibia and Lesotho – appear in the hunger hotspots list for the first time due to the negative impact of weather events and a significant decrease in agricultural production this year. The other countries in the third highest category of concern are Kenya, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Somalia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The report says that a La Niña event – the naturally occurring climate phenomenon that affects rainfall patterns and temperatures – is expected from November 2024 to March 2025. This is likely to increase flood risks in Nigeria, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe, while causing drought in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, it says.

“La Niña-induced climate extremes can have severe consequences on food security,” said Mellin. “Many countries experiencing humanitarian crises risk being further affected by La Niña, which could exacerbate food insecurity, increase human suffering and result in further economic losses.”

Kevin Mugenya, the programme director at the charity Mercy Corps Ethiopia, said the report highlighted “a troubling rise” in food insecurity across Africa, adding: “Unfortunately, it’s not surprising.”

“We’re seeing hunger deepen due to a complex mix of conflict, economic challenges, and climate change – creating the worst hunger crisis in a generation, particularly in countries like Sudan, Nigeria and Mali,” said Mugenya.

“This has been expected as a result of the compounding years of conflict and instability in the region that has disrupted food supply chains and planting seasons for farmers, leaving less and less land under cultivation.”

The report calls for “immediate” and “scaled-up” assistance in hunger hotspots in order to protect livelihoods and improve access to food.

Sudanese militia have been accused of killings, sexual violence, looting and arson during eight days of attacks on villages south of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

The UN said there were reports of “gross human rights abuses” linked to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group, which has escalated attacks on civilians in el-Gezira state since the area’s key commander was reported to have defected to government forces on 20 October.

The Sudan Doctors Network said on Saturday that 124 people had been killed and dozens wounded after an attack on the village of al-Suhra.

The UN has reported that nearly 47,000 people have been displaced from their homes over the past week, mostly to neighbouring states, and at least 30 villages have been attacked.

The RSF has suffered key battlefield losses around Khartoum to the Sudanese army. Both sides have been fighting for control of Sudan since April 2023, causing the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.

Famine was declared in the Zamzam displacement camp in Darfur in August, with warnings that extreme hunger would spread if the warring parties did not allow aid in.

The UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, said the violence echoed the RSF’s actions in the western region of Darfur, where it has control and has been targeting ethnic groups.

“I am shocked and deeply appalled that human rights violations of the kind witnessed in Darfur last year – such as rape, targeted attacks, sexual violence and mass killings – are being repeated in el-Gezira state. These are atrocious crimes,” said Nkweta-Salami.

The departure of RSF commander Abu Aqleh Keikal, reportedly after a deal was struck with the Sudanese army, is the first such defection in the 18-month conflict.

The Sudanese army had been trying to “choke out” RSF forces in the neighbouring cities of Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri, said political analyst Kholood Khair.

“The RSF attacks though are mostly on civilians particularly [Keikal’s tribal group] the Shukriya, so they’re not a counter-offensive on the SAF [Sudanese Armed Forces] but acts characterised by atrocity violence on civilians,” Khair said.

“I think considering the nature of the violence, the level of impunity enjoyed by the RSF and the near-total global silence on this, that the numbers of dead may end up being a gross underestimation.”

Commonwealth members have appointed Ghana’s foreign minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, as the new secretary general, on the final day of the group’s summit in Samoa.

Botchwey, a former lawmaker who has served as Ghana’s foreign minister since 2017, has supported calls for reparations for transatlantic slavery and colonialism – a position that was also shared by the two other candidates who had vied for the position.

Botchwey said on social media that she was “truly humbled” to have been selected as the incoming secretary general, adding: “The work indeed lies ahead!”

Botchwey was appointed on the closing day of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm), which has been dominated by calls for the UK to pay reparations for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, and by issues relating to the climate crisis.

In a communique released on Saturday, heads of government noted “calls for discussions on reparatory justice with regard to the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and chattel enslavement” and “agreed that the time has come for a meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation towards forging a common future based on equity.”

It is unclear what form this conversation will take. The UK government refused to issue an official state apology for its role in the slave trade and has ruled out paying reparations. However, after mounting pressure, a source in No 10 said this week the UK could support some forms of reparatory justice, such as restructuring financial institutions and providing debt relief.

At a debate at London’s Chatham House last month, Botchwey said she stood for reparations, and that the Commonwealth could have a role to play if the member states request a “common voice” on the issue.

She said reparatory justice was not only about financial payments but also support to tackle the climate crisis and build countries’ economic resilience.

Botchwey has also backed the drafting of a free trade agreement among Commonwealth member states.

Botchwey, who studied in Ghana and the UK, is a trained lawyer and politician. As foreign minister, she chaired the council of ministers of the 15-member economic Community of West African states (Ecowas) and steered Ghana’s two-year tenure on the UN security council, which ended in December 2023.

The secretary general is nominated by Commonwealth leaders and can serve a maximum of two terms of four years each.

Botchwey takes over from Patricia Scotland, who has held the position since 2016. Scotland was born in Dominica and was its candidate for the post at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Malta in 2015.

The candidate of Mozambique’s ruling party has won the presidential election with a thumping majority, after two opposition figures were killed by unknown gunmen and amid allegations that the results were rigged.

Daniel Chapo, the candidate of Frelimo, received 70.7% of the vote, the election commission said on Thursday, comfortably clearing the 50% mark needed to avoid a second round.

Venâncio Mondlane, who had captured the imagination of many young voters and who claimed to have won the election, came second out of four candidates with 20.3%.

The electoral process was marred by the killings in the early hours of last Saturday of Elvino Dias, an opposition lawyer who had been preparing a legal challenge to the results, and Paulo Guambe, an official with the Podemos party. Podemos supported Mondlane, who had been forced to contest the election as an independent.

Before the vote on 9 October, civil society groups had accused the ruling party, which has ruled Mozambique for nearly half a century, of registering almost 900,000 fake voters, out of an electorate of 17 million.

Local and international election observers claimed that the count was then falsified. Mozambique’s Catholic bishops alleged there had been ballot stuffing, while EU election observers noted “irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results”.

Mozambique is one of the world’s poorest countries and is still recovering from the fallout from revelations in 2016 that the government had taken out $2bn (£1.5m) in hidden corrupt loans. That led the IMF and other international and bilateral funders to pull financial support, sending the economy into a tailspin.

Mondlane, a former radio DJ, had appealed to young voters in Mozambique where the average age is under 18, and on Wednesday in Facebook videos he called for peaceful protests.

He said: “The time has come for the people to take power and say that we now want to change the history of this country. There won’t be enough bullets for everyone, there won’t be teargas for everyone, there won’t be enough armoured vehicles.”

Zenaida Machado, a Human Rights Watch researcher, called on authorities to respect the right to peaceful protest and to investigate reports of violence and arbitrary arrests of demonstrators and journalists covering protests. “Given the conduct of security forces over the past years … I have reasons to be concerned about what the security forces might do to protesters,” she said.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Biodiversity is declining more quickly within key protected areas than outside them, according to research that scientists say is a “wake-up call” to global leaders discussing how to stop nature loss at the UN’s Cop16 talks in Colombia.

Protecting 30% of land and water for nature by 2030 was one of the key targets settled on by world leaders in a landmark 2022 agreement to save nature – and this month leaders are gathering again at a summit in the Colombian city of Cali to measure progress and negotiate new agreements to stop biodiversity loss.

However, simply designating more areas as protected “will not automatically result in better outcomes for biodiversity”, researchers warn, in the latest study to challenge the effectiveness of conservation practices.

Nearly a quarter of the world’s most biodiversity-rich land is within protected areas, but the quality of these areas is declining faster than it is outside protected areas, according to the analysis by the Natural History Museum (NHM).

Researchers looked at a Biodiversity Intactness Index, which scores biodiversity health as a percentage in response to human pressures. The report found the index declined by 1.88 percentage points globally between 2000 and 2020. It then focused on the critical biodiversity areas that provide 90% of nature’s contributions to humanity, 22% of which is protected.

The study found that within those critical areas that were not protected, biodiversity had declined by an average of 1.9 percentage points between 2000 and 2020, and within the areas that were protected it had declined by 2.1 percentage points.

The authors say there are a few reasons why this might be the case. A lot of protected areas are not designed to preserve the whole ecosystem, but rather certain species that are of interest, which means total “biodiversity intactness” is not a priority.

Another reason is that these landscapes could have already been suffering degradation, which is why they were protected in the first place. Researchers say specific local analysis is key to working out why each one is failing.

Dr Gareth Thomas, head of research innovation at NHM, said: “The 30x30 target has received so much attention – as it should do – and has become a key target people talk about at UN biodiversity talks, but we wanted to understand if it was really fit for purpose.

“I think if you asked most people they would assume an area designated as ‘protected’ would at the very least do exactly that: protect nature. But this research showed that wasn’t the case.”

The amount of land protected for nature stands at 17.5% of land and 8.4% of marine areas – an increase of about half a percentage point each since Cop15 in 2022. This will need to increase substantially by 2030 to meet the target.

But for many of those areas, the “protections in place are not stringent enough”, said Thomas.

“Countries need to continue their focus on 30x30, that shouldn’t waver. They just need to bring more into it, and pay more attention to actually conserving the land which provides those ecosystem services,” he said.

Oil, gas and mining concessions threaten key areas for biodiversity, as well as Indigenous territories. For example Conkouati-Douli national park is one of the most biodiverse protected areas in the Republic of the Congo – yet more than 65% of the park is covered by oil and gas concessions, according to a new report by Earth Insight.

In the Amazon, Congo basin and south-east Asia, at least 254,000 sq km (98,000 sq miles) of protected areas are threatened by oil and gas exploration. More than 300,000 sq km of Indigenous territories in the Amazon overlap with oil and gas concessions, the report has found.

Recent research from the University of New South Wales in Sydney looked at forested land in 300,000 of the world’s protected areas and found the policy was almost “completely ineffective” in many biodiversity-rich countries, including Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bolivia, Venezuela and Madagascar.

Corruption, political instability and a lack of resources were key reasons why conservation laws were not implemented.

Protected areas are also being threatened by the effects of the climate crisis: wildfires and droughts do not respect their boundaries. Australia, for example, used to have a strong record of protecting nature in its national parks but in 2019, many were destroyed by fire.

Emma Woods, director of policy at the Natural History Museum, said: “We urgently need to move beyond the current approach of simply designating more protected areas to 30x30. Our analysis reinforces the view that this will not automatically result in better outcomes for biodiversity and ecosystems.”

Thomas said he hoped the study’s findings would be “a wake-up call” to policymakers and enforcers of the legislation that it was not enough just to designate an area as protected. “The ministers and policymakers need to know it is not about just hitting a number,” he said.

Ben Groom, professor of biodiversity economics at Exeter University, who was not involved in the research, said it was “extremely positive” that there was support for 30x30 but “there was always a chance that this would manifest in shallow policy implementation in the form of cost-minimising attainment of the 30x30 target, rather than focusing on quality.”

The proportion of women killed in conflicts around the world doubled last year, with women now accounting for 40% of all those killed in war zones, according to a new report by the United Nations.

The report from UN Women, which looks at the security situation for women and girls affected by war, says UN-verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence also rose by 50% in 2023 compared with 2022.

The United Nations recorded at least 33,443 civilian deaths in armed conflicts in 2023. More than 13,377 of them, or four out of every 10 civilians killed in conflicts, were women, while three out of 10 were children.

The world is caught “in a frightening spiral of conflict, instability and violence” with 170 armed conflicts recorded in 2023, according to the report, which paints a bleak picture of the increasingly violent consequences of warfare on women and girls across the world.

“Women continue to pay the price of the wars of men,” said UN Women’s executive director, Sima Bahous. “This is happening in the context of a larger war on women. The deliberate targeting of women’s rights is not unique to conflict-affected countries but is even more lethal in those settings.”

UN Women said the “blatant disregard” of international laws designed to protect women and children during war was leading to women not being able to access healthcare in conflict zones, and that 500 women and girls in conflict-affected countries died from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth every day. By the end of last year, 180 women a day were giving birth in Gaza – most without medical care.

In Sudan, where there have been widespread reports of sexual violence, the UN agency said most victims were unable to access medical care in the first 72 hours after being raped, including emergency contraception. It said it had received reports of victims of rape being denied an abortion because it was outside the legal time limit.

Those holding military and political power remain overwhelmingly male, with women constituting less than 10% of negotiators in peace processes in 2023. UN Women said this was despite evidence that peace agreements lasted longer and were more effective when women were involved.

The report comes 24 years after the adoption of UN security council resolution 1325, which called on all parties to conflicts to ensure the safety of women and girls, and for women’s full involvement in peace processes.

“We are witnessing the weaponisation of gender equality on many fronts,” said Bahous. “If we do not stand up and demand change, the consequences will be felt for decades, and peace will remain elusive.”

The European Commission is refusing to publish the findings of a human rights inquiry into Tunisia it conducted shortly before announcing a controversial migration deal with the increasingly authoritarian north African country.

An investigation by the EU ombudsman found that the commission quietly carried out a “risk management exercise” into human rights concerns in Tunisia but will not disclose its results.

Until now, Brussels has repeatedly stated there was no need for a human rights impact assessment into last year’s deeply contentious deal that has been linked to myriad abuse allegations.

“The ombudsman found that, despite repeated claims by the commission that there was no need for a prior HRIA [human rights impact assessment], it had in fact completed a risk management exercise for Tunisia before the [deal] was signed,” the watchdog said in a report published on Wednesday.

Unveiled in July 2023, the €150m (£125m) EU-Tunisia migration pact is aimed at preventing people from reaching Europe and was announced amid concerns that the north African state was increasingly repressive and its police operated largely with impunity.

A Guardian investigation last month revealed abuses by EU-funded security forces in Tunisia, including allegations that members of the Tunisian national guard were raping migrant women and beating children.

Days later, evidence was passed to the international criminal court (ICC) chronicling widespread abuse of sub-Saharan migrants by the Tunisian authorities.

The situation is unlikely to have improved since then, with the re-election of Tunisia’s autocratic president, Kais Saied, who has a record of racist tirades against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.

The ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, in her report admonished the European Commission for withholding what it knew about human rights abuses before announcing the deal, saying it should have been “more transparent”.

O’Reilly added that carrying out an explicit human rights impact assessment would have been “preferable” because they were normally made public.

Other areas of concern identified by O’Reilly, a former journalist, include what processes were in place to suspend or review funding when human rights violations were linked to EU funding. She urged “concrete criteria” to be agreed for when EU funding would be suspended to projects in Tunisia owing to human rights violations.

Earlier this month, the Guardian revealed that the EU was unable to claw back any of the €150m (£125m) paid to Tunisia in the migration deal despite the money being linked to human rights abuses.

O’Reilly also wants organisations monitoring human rights in Tunisia to set up complaint mechanisms whereby individuals can report alleged violations linked to EU-funded projects.

Responding to the watchdog, the commission said its “risk management exercise” into human rights abuses in Tunisia was something it conducted with all partner countries that might receive EU budget support.

It added that the exercise took into account criteria similar to those in a normal HRIA, including “human rights, democracy, the rule of law, security and conflict in the relevant partner country”.

“The commission has, however, not proactively shared this information, including in its reply to the ombudsman’s strategic initiative on this matter,” said the report.

A commission spokesperson said: “The EU is a strong promoter and strongly advocates for the respect of human rights across the world, including in Tunisia.

“The commission takes note of the decision and suggestions for improvement of the European ombudsman and reiterates its full commitment to transparency and accountability.”

They added that its approach towards a “human-rights based approach to migration management” was in accordance with its obligations under international law.

The global rise of populism and “strongmen” has led to an increase in authoritarianism in Africa that is holding back progress in governance, the businessman and philanthropist Mo Ibrahim has said.

According to the latest edition of the Ibrahim index of African governance, 78% of Africa’s citizens live in a country where security and democracy deteriorated between 2014 and 2023.

“Africa is not disconnected from what’s going on around the world and you can see the global order is breaking down everywhere,” Ibrahim told the Guardian. “You can see many people breaching international law with impunity.”

“I think the moral threshold is coming down, unfortunately, globally, and that applies to us in this part of the world. Look how many ‘strongmen’ we have around the world. Now it’s been normalised.”

The report said the result had been a stalling of progress in governance across Africa, with effects on health and education, though the results were not uniform across the continent, with half the countries experiencing deteriorating overall governance and the other half seeing progress.

The study, which is published every two years, measures the performance of African governments in the fields of security and law; participation, rights and inclusion; economic opportunity; and human development, which includes health and education.

While the worst deterioration in the measures studied was in security and safety, democracy, including participation, rights and transparency, also deteriorated.

A large part of this deterioration was due to crackdowns on freedom of assembly – with people in 29 countries having “substantially” less freedom to come together and share ideas – as well as on civil society and freedom of speech, especially in digital spaces.

In the sub-category of security and safety, more than half the continent’s population saw violence increase over the last five years. The lack of security was slowing progress for economic opportunity as well as in health, education, social protections and sustainability.

The report highlighted 11 countries “on a concerning decade-long trend of deterioration”, including Sudan – where the continuing conflict has caused what the UN described as “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history” – as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Sahel region.

Decade-long deteriorations were also seen in high-ranked countries. Mauritius (in second place), Botswana (fifth), Namibia (sixth), and Tunisia (ninth), though still ranking in 2023 among the 10 highest-scoring countries, also featured among the most deteriorated countries from 2014 to 2023.

However, the report also highlighted rapid progress in overall governance by countries such as Seychelles, which now tops the index, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Benin and Angola.

The report also said there was strong progress in infrastructure – thanks to the spread of mobile communications, internet and energy access – as well as women’s equality, with better laws protecting women from violence, and better perception and representation of women in politics and leadership.

Despite signs of progress in many countries, the public perception of how well governments are performing has dropped, especially in relation to economic opportunities, security and poverty.

Ibrahim said this could be due to heightened expectations and also greater access to information from other parts of the world.

“This is a problem, because if the perception keeps going down, this means people are getting more and more dissatisfied … That generates stress in society and that leads to conflicts and other things,” said Ibrahim.

The global rise of populism and “strongmen” has led to an increase in authoritarianism in Africa that is holding back progress in governance, the businessman and philanthropist Mo Ibrahim has said.

According to the latest edition of the Ibrahim index of African governance, 78% of Africa’s citizens live in a country where security and democracy deteriorated between 2014 and 2023.

“Africa is not disconnected from what’s going on around the world and you can see the global order is breaking down everywhere,” Ibrahim told the Guardian. “You can see many people breaching international law with impunity.”

“I think the moral threshold is coming down, unfortunately, globally, and that applies to us in this part of the world. Look how many ‘strongmen’ we have around the world. Now it’s been normalised.”

The report said the result had been a stalling of progress in governance across Africa, with effects on health and education, though the results were not uniform across the continent, with half the countries experiencing deteriorating overall governance and the other half seeing progress.

The study, which is published every two years, measures the performance of African governments in the fields of security and law; participation, rights and inclusion; economic opportunity; and human development, which includes health and education.

While the worst deterioration in the measures studied was in security and safety, democracy, including participation, rights and transparency, also deteriorated.

A large part of this deterioration was due to crackdowns on freedom of assembly – with people in 29 countries having “substantially” less freedom to come together and share ideas – as well as on civil society and freedom of speech, especially in digital spaces.

In the sub-category of security and safety, more than half the continent’s population saw violence increase over the last five years. The lack of security was slowing progress for economic opportunity as well as in health, education, social protections and sustainability.

The report highlighted 11 countries “on a concerning decade-long trend of deterioration”, including Sudan – where the continuing conflict has caused what the UN described as “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history” – as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Sahel region.

Decade-long deteriorations were also seen in high-ranked countries. Mauritius (in second place), Botswana (fifth), Namibia (sixth), and Tunisia (ninth), though still ranking in 2023 among the 10 highest-scoring countries, also featured among the most deteriorated countries from 2014 to 2023.

However, the report also highlighted rapid progress in overall governance by countries such as Seychelles, which now tops the index, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Benin and Angola.

The report also said there was strong progress in infrastructure – thanks to the spread of mobile communications, internet and energy access – as well as women’s equality, with better laws protecting women from violence, and better perception and representation of women in politics and leadership.

Despite signs of progress in many countries, the public perception of how well governments are performing has dropped, especially in relation to economic opportunities, security and poverty.

Ibrahim said this could be due to heightened expectations and also greater access to information from other parts of the world.

“This is a problem, because if the perception keeps going down, this means people are getting more and more dissatisfied … That generates stress in society and that leads to conflicts and other things,” said Ibrahim.

Millions of teenagers in Africa are suffering from asthma with no formal diagnosis as the continent undergoes rapid urbanisation, researchers have found.

The study, published in the Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, involved 27,000 pupils from urban areas in Malawi, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria. It found more than 3,000 reported asthma symptoms, but only about 600 had a formal diagnosis.

Many of the children reported missing school or having their sleep disrupted by wheezing.

“If our data are generalisable, there are millions of adolescents with undiagnosed asthma symptoms in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Dr Gioia Mosler of Queen Mary University of London, the study’s research manager.

The team that led the study, whose research on the impact of pollution on lung health was instrumental in introducing the ultra low-emission zone (Ulez) in London, said there was an urgent need for medicines and diagnostic tests in the region.

Rates of asthma have increased in sub-Saharan Africa over the past few decades, a trend attributed to rapid urbanisation which exposes children to more risk factors such as air pollution. The climate crisis was also likely to have an impact, experts said.

The Achieving Control of Asthma in Children and Adolescents in Africa (Acacia) study recruited pupils aged between 12 and 14. Screening revealed that while 12% reported asthma symptoms, only 20% of that group had received a formal diagnosis of asthma.

Lung function tests suggested nearly half of undiagnosed participants with severe symptoms were “very likely” to have asthma.

Even among those who had received a formal diagnosis, about a third were not using any medicine to control their condition, according to the study.

Dr Rebecca Nantanda of Makerere University in Kampala, who led the research in Uganda, said: “Undiagnosed and poorly controlled asthma greatly impacts on the physical and psychosocial wellbeing of the affected children and their caregivers. The high burden of severe undiagnosed asthma revealed by the Acacia study requires urgent attention, including access to medicines and diagnostics.”

Prof Jonathan Grigg of Queen Mary University of London, said asthma was made worse by exposure to small particles of pollutants, with the impact of the climate crisis yet to become clear. “In some areas in sub-Saharan Africa, climate change is likely to result in increased exposure of these vulnerable children to dust and natural fires.

“On the other hand, climate change mitigation will, hopefully, reduce exposure to fossil fuel-derived particles in this region.

“The pharmaceutical industry has been hesitant to support asthma research and initiatives. For example, companies may feel that they cannot support research in countries where they do not intend to market their asthma product,” he said.

“Innovations such as handheld wheeze detectors and asthma clinics delivered at schools also have the potential to substantially reduce the burden of asthma.”

Refugees and aid agencies have warned of deteriorating conditions in overcrowded and severely underfunded camps in Chad, as intensifying violence and a hunger crisis in Sudan drive huge numbers across the border.

About 25,000 people – the vast majority women and children – crossed into eastern Chad in the first week of October, a record number for a single week in 2024. Chad, one of the world’s poorest countries, hosts 681,944 Sudanese refugees – the highest number globally.

Conditions are particularly difficult at the Farchana camp, say refugees who were moved there earlier this year from the Adré camp on the border. The new arrivals joined Sudanese people who have lived in the camp since the genocide in Darfur in the 2000s.

Refugees interviewed by the Guardian at both camps spoke of their despair about the conditions they faced. Many will move on towards Italy, other European countries, southern Africa and the Gulf, the UN has said.

Hatim Abdallah El-Fadil, appointed the Farchana camp chief by his fellow refugees, said some Sudanese people had resorted to begging in the town’s market in order to eat.

The 39-year-old father of four said many of those transferred to Farchana had returned to Adré because work opportunities were better there. “Many people here have had to sell their possessions to make a living,” he said. “I really don’t know how they can continue to survive like this.”

A lack of education is also a significant concern. Younger children are receiving sporadic lessons from refugees who happen to be teachers, using books they smuggled out of the city of Geneina in Darfur. Teenagers not attending school were at risk of becoming “a lost generation”, refugees told the Guardian.

War has raged since April 2023 between the Sudanese army under the country’s de facto ruler, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes, including targeting civilians and blocking humanitarian aid. The conflict has left tens of thousands dead and 26 million people facing severe food insecurity, with famine declared in the Zamzam displacement camp in Darfur.

The rising number of arrivals reflects the worsening conflict in Darfur, where the RSF controls all but one big population centre – El Fasher, which it has subjected to a months-long siege.

Hassan Ibrahim Yahiya, a businessman in Geneina before the war began, now farms peanuts on a small plot behind his tent in Farchana. “I’ve lost everything you can imagine,” he said. “I am here without hope.”

Essam Abdelrasoul fled to Adré from Geneina at the start of the war. The father of seven used to work at Sudan’s biggest engineering company but is now struggling to make ends meet. The rest of his family is living in the city of Kosti in Sudan’s White Nile state.

The journey to reunite with them would involve overland travel to the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, a flight to Cairo, another flight to Port Sudan then a long journey by road to Kosti.

“I just don’t have the money,” he said. “My dream now is to get out of here and go to any country that offers me a job, then I can go and see my children.”

Despite the difficulties faced by refugees in Chad, the threat of extreme violence in Sudan, especially in Darfur, and a growing hunger crisis are driving ever-increasing numbers of people to flee there.

Last week, experts appointed by the UN accused both sides in the war of using “starvation tactics” against 25 million civilians, leaving 97% of Sudan’s population facing “severe levels of hunger”.

“Never in modern history have so many people faced starvation and famine as in Sudan today,” said the group of about a dozen independent experts. “The world must pay attention to the largest modern famine taking shape in Sudan today.”

NGO workers interviewed in Chad all complained about a severe funding gap for the refugees. A UN appeal for $1.5bn to support Sudanese refugees and their hosts in the region to the end of the year remains only 27% funded.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP), which supports refugees at the Farchana camp, says it receives 8,000 Central African francs (£10) of funding for each person at the camp every two months, which constitutes 50% of per-person assistance. The other 50% of assistance comes in the form of beans and rice.

Alexandre Le Cuziat, WFP’s deputy representative for Chad, said funding was inadequate. He also warned that the number of people crossing into the country was likely to rise, owing to the conflict intensifying in Darfur and the drop in water levels as the rainy season ends.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse last week, Mamadou Dian Balde, the UN’s Sudan regional refugee coordinator, said it would be “a big mistake” to think the flow of displaced people would be limited to Sudan and the wider region.

“There are more and more who are coming towards Italy, Europe and southern Africa … there are some who will go towards the Gulf countries too,” he said.

Back in Farchana, El-Tayeb Zakria is still coming to terms with his life as a refugee. In Sudan he had served as an adviser to the West Darfur state governor Khamis Abakar, who was assassinated in June 2023 in an attack blamed on the RSF.

The Farchana camp, he said, lacked basic services, with no clinic or even wells for water. “Living here feels like a gradual death.”

Cotswold wildlife park has successfully bred one of Madagascar’s most endangered lemurs.

The as yet unnamed youngster was born to a breeding male, Raphael, and female, Bijou, at the wildlife park.

Births of the greater bamboo lemur in captivity are extremely rare, and the park is the only zoological collection in the UK – and one of two worldwide – to have bred the species this year.

Only 36 greater bamboo lemurs are in captivity globally and they are classified as “critically endangered” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Only seven other zoological collections in the world keep greater bamboo lemurs.

Both parents are part of a European breeding programme and this is the fourth year running that the park has managed to breed these primates.

The new arrival, whose sex is not yet known, can be seen exploring its enclosure inside the lemur exhibit Madagascar.

Jamie Craig, the general manager of Cotswold wildlife park, said: “Lemur species in Madagascar are under tremendous pressure from habitat destruction and the rapidly rising human population. It is vital that we raise awareness for this unique group of primates before it is too late.

“At Cotswold wildlife park, we are committed to conserving this species and we fund an extremely important site in Madagascar, as well as participating in several other conservation projects with the Cotswold wildlife park conservation trust.

“We are extremely privileged to keep both of these species at the park: they are extremely rare in captivity and they are fantastic ambassadors for our fundraising efforts.”

Attackers killed a Mozambique opposition lawyer and a party official after firing rounds at a car in which they were travelling, ratcheting up tensions before protests against a disputed election result, the EU and rights groups said.

Mozambique’s new opposition Podemos party and its presidential candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, have rejected provisional results showing a probable win for Frelimo, the party that has ruled Mozambique for half a century. They have called for a nationwide strike on Monday.

The Mozambican civil society election observer group More Integrity said the attack happened in the Bairro da Coop neighbourhood of the capital, Maputo, killing the Podemos lawyer Elvino Dias and the party representative Paulo Guambe.

“They were brutally assassinated [in a] cold-blooded murder,” said Adriano Nuvunga, the director of Mozambique’s Center for Democracy and Human Rights (CDD). “The indications [are] that around 10 to 15 bullets were shot, and they died instantly.”

The EU condemned the killings “in the strongest terms,” calling “for an immediate, thorough and transparent investigation”.

“In a democracy, there is no place for politically motivated killings,” its diplomatic service said, adding that its election observers were still in the country assessing the ongoing electoral process.

According to the latest election tally, Frelimo is leading in all 11 provinces, and its candidate, Daniel Chapo, is widely expected to win the 9 October election, but external observers have cast doubt on the poll’s credibility.

They noted reports of vote-buying, intimidation, inflated voter rolls in Frelimo strongholds and a lack of transparency in collation – problems that have marred most polls since Frelimo first introduced democracy in 1994 after two decades in power.

Full results are expected on 24 October, but many fear Monday’s protest could turn bloody. Mozambique’s security forces have opened fire on political protesters in the past, including after last year’s local elections and on Wednesday at a rally welcoming Mondlane to the northern city of Nampula, according to human rights groups.

Mondlane captured the imagination of many younger voters who have no memory of Frelimo winning independence from Portugal in 1975 or of its victory in a civil war that cost 1 million lives between 1977 and 1992.

Dias, the Podemos lawyer, had been leading legal efforts against the disputed elections, Human Rights Watch researcher Zenaida Machado said on X.

“All of those found responsible for this crime should be brought to justice,” she said.

Reuters contributed to this report

A Somali journalist was abducted from his home by intelligence agents early on Friday, according to press freedom campaigners.

The journalists’ union Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) said the detention of Abduqadir Mohamed Nur was a “brazen attack” on the reporter and his news outlet, Risaala Media Corporation, for critical reporting of state security forces.

Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, the union’s secretary general, called for the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) to release Nur, who SJS said was taken to a detention facility known for torture.

Mumin said: “We demand an independent investigation into the circumstances of this illegal act, holding those responsible accountable for violating the rights of journalists and the principles of justice.”

The head of Risaala Media Corporation, Mohamed Abduwahab, said he condemned “the abduction and unlawful actions” against Nur, who is known as “Jakarta”.

SJS said Risaala and Nur’s family had reported armed men arriving at his house at 3am on Friday to detain him and confiscate his phone and laptop.

It said that this followed the arrest of other Risaala employees, who have reported critically on the security forces under President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. The arrest threatened the press and the public’s access to independent reporting, it said.

The Guardian reported that the journalist AliNur Salaad had been arrested in July after similar reporting on the security forces and there have been several claims of attacks on press freedom since.

In August, SJS criticised attacks on journalists covering protests in Mogadishu over the cost of living. It also reported the disappearance of the journalist Ali Mohammed Ahmed (known as Ali Shujac) after he was taken away by plainclothes police officers while conducting public interviews.

In July, the journalist Said Abdullahi Kulmiye was arrested for reporting on incidents of police and armed men demanding bribes at checkpoints, while the journalists Sharma’arke Abdi Mahdi and Abdinur Hayi Hashi said they were shot at by four police officers in the town of Dhobley in May.

The World Press Freedom Index ranks Somalia 145th out of 180 countries for journalists’ ability to report freely and independently.

Aside from attacks on journalists, press freedom groups have argued against a proposed information law, which the government says is designed to reduce leaks and improve the confidentiality of sources.

Campaigners say it would reduce the ability of journalists to investigate and report on matters of public interest.

“This could easily be misused to shield government activities from scrutiny, eroding the fundamental right to information and enabling potential abuses of power,” said a letter from regional and international press freedom campaigners, including the International Federation of Journalists.

When I was a little girl in my village in Nigeria going to school was something I could not even dream of because we did not have money. Then my mother sold everything we owned to pay for me to go to school.

I knew this was my only ticket to make something worthwhile out of my life and my family’s life.

My father had abandoned my mother because she gave birth to girls not boys and he said “girls were worth nothing”. That put a lot of pressure on my little self but made me determined to strive. I felt I had something to prove to my father and that education was the way I could do that.

Eventually I was able to study nursing at university and became the best student in some of my exams, graduating with a degree in nursing science.

I worked in two different hospitals in Nigeria and passed the exams I needed to do to work in the UK, including the CBT – computer-based test – which I did at Yunnik. I studied hard for this test.

No concerns were raised about my performance in the CBT by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) while I was in Nigeria and I travelled to the UK after undergoing a series of interviews, criminal checks, health checks, work and school tests.

I sat and passed the OSCE – objective structured clinical examination – after arriving in the UK. This is another requirement needed to practise as a nurse here. In the autumn of last year, NMC contacted me raising concerns about fraud at Yunnik test centre, which they said they were going to investigate. I was accused of using a proxy to sit the test there because of the quick time I completed the test in. I deny this. I believe that what is happening to us is a witch-hunt.

I sat the test again in the UK and passed it in a similar time but NMC said they are questioning my integrity even though I completed the test in similar times in Nigeria and UK. Nobody from NMC has ever worked with me and I have provided good character references from my line manager and university lecturers in Nigeria.

I have always been a studious person and am very self-motivated. But now I have lost my name, my integrity, my dreams and I feel like I have failed everyone who believed in me and the little girls back in my village who believed in themselves and their dreams because of me.

I don’t sleep at night. My pillows are always wet with crying. This feels like the end of my world because I have had to give up on all my dreams I worked so hard to achieve to get a better life for myself and my family. I am now a miserable person with a broken spirit and I am about to have the word “criminal” added to my name. My dream of being an international nurse able to work anywhere in the world has been shattered.

Kenya’s senate impeached the deputy president, Rigathi Gachagua, while he was in hospital on a day of high political drama in Nairobi.

Senators upheld five out of 11 charges against Gachagua in a vote late on Thursday, making him the first deputy president in the country to be ejected from office through impeachment.

“The senate has resolved to remove from office, by impeachment, his excellency Rigathi Gachagua. Accordingly, his excellency Rigathi Gachagua … ceases to hold office,” said the senate speaker, Amason Kingi, after the lawmakers cast their votes.

The national assembly, the lower house of parliament, had overwhelmingly voted last week in support of an impeachment motion tabled by Mwengi Mutuse.

Despite attempts by the deputy president to halt the process in the courts, the motion moved to the senate this week. On Wednesday, Gachagua denied all 11 charges against him, which included corruption, inflaming ethnic tensions and undermining the authority of the president and the cabinet.

Moments before he was due to appear in parliament for cross-examination by lawyers on Thursday afternoon, his legal team said they could not find him. Minutes later, his lawyer, Paul Muite, said the deputy president had been admitted to hospital with “intense chest pains” and was in need of “complete rest”.

Muite asked the senate to temporarily stop the proceedings until Tuesday. “The sad reality is that the deputy president of the Republic of Kenya has been taken sick, very sick, and … he is in hospital,” said Muite, throwing the senate into confusion.

Kingi tabled a motion to move the hearing to Saturday but senators voted against it. He suspended the hearings for about two hours for Gachagua’s legal team to get details of his health status, and ordered that the impeachment should continue as it was time-bound, saying he expected the deputy president to take the witness stand after the break.

Outside Karen hospital, about seven miles (11km) from the parliament, Dr Dan Gikonyo told journalists that the deputy president had been taken there with chest pains but he was stable and he would remain under observation for 48-72 hours. “Stress can cause heart problems and the DP is definitely in a lot of stress,” he said.

Back in the senate chambers, the proceedings resumed, with arguments from legislators on the impeachment motion culminating in the unprecedented vote close to midnight.

Gachagua’s impeachment will widen the rift in his relationship with the president, William Ruto. Ruto’s allies have often accused Gachagua of disloyalty and undermining the president’s authority with controversial public statements.

In June, shortly after Ruto had held a press conference to announce the scrapping of a tax bill that had caused violent protests, the deputy president held his own press conference and blamed Noordin Haji, the director general of the National Intelligence Service, for alleged intelligence failures that led to the unrest.

At the national assembly last week, Gachagua said he believed the impeachment proceedings had the president’s approval.

Kenya has experienced a tumultuous period, including the June protests, which lasted nearly two months and led to dozens of deaths and disappearances.

On Friday morning, the president nominated the interior minister, Kithure Kindiki, who had been a leading candidate to be Ruto’s running mate in 2022, to replace Gachagua. But a court has suspended the process until 24 October after Gachagua’s legal team filed a petition claiming his removal was unfair.

The Dutch coalition government, headed by Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom party (PVV), is considering sending Africans whose asylum requests are rejected to Uganda, in plans that opposition politicians have said are “totally unfeasible”.

During a visit this week to the East African country, the Dutch minister for trade and development, Reinette Klever, said the cabinet was exploring the ideaand that Uganda was “not averse” to it, the Dutch public broadcaster Nos reported on Wednesday.

Klever offered few details and it is unclear whether such a plan would be legal or feasible, but it is reported to involve rejected asylum seekers from Uganda and the surrounding region – the exact list of countries has not been specified – being taken in by Uganda and hosted in exchange for financial compensation.

“In the end we want to curb migration,” said Klever, who is part of the PVV.

Her ministry said she had briefly discussed a number of possibilities for accommodation in Uganda and the region during her visit. The plan is in its early stages as the Dutch cabinet investigates “what legally is possible and desirable,” a spokesperson said in an email.

Uganda’s foreign affairs minister said the country was willing to contemplate the possibility. “We are open to any discussions,” Jeje Odongo told Nos.

Wilders welcomed the plan on social media, but other members of the country’s four-party coalition government were more hesitant given Uganda’s draconian anti-gay legislation and patchy human rights record.

“We have to be very vigilant when it comes to LGBTI people,” said Claudia van Zanten of the populist farmer’s party BBB. Diederik Boomsma of the anti-corruption NSC acknowledged Uganda’s human rights reputation was a concern.

Opposition politicians decried the idea. Jesse Klaver of the Green Left party said it was an effort to distract people from the scant progress the government had made in tackling broader issues. “They are not building houses, they are not managing to keep hospitals open,” he said.

The leader of D66, Rob Jetten, described the idea as “totally unfeasible and ill-considered”, citing the fact that similar plans had already been floated by Denmark and the UK. “The result? Zero people went to Africa,” he said.

The UK’s failed plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing, a policy of the previous Conservative government that was abandoned by the new Labour administraction, is estimated to have cost British taxpayers £700m. It was viewed as the most extreme form of “offshoring” asylum, in that even people with successful claims would have had to stay in Rwanda.

The coalition government in the Netherlands has focused much of its attention since taking office in July on curbing asylum, with promises to introduce the country’s “toughest ever” policy on immigration, even though EU data suggests the country has an average number of asylum requests among member states.

The Netherlands received two first-time asylum applications per 1,000 residents last year, matching the average across the bloc, according to the data. Ten member states, including Greece, Germany and Spain, reported higher ratios.

News of the Dutch plan comes days after the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, called for the idea of “return hubs” outside the EU to be explored, citing a deal between Italy and Albania as a possible model.

Africa loses up to £3.2bn yearly in inflated interest payments on sovereign debt due to persistent negative stereotypes that dominate international media coverage of the continent, according to a new report.

Research by consultants Africa Practice and the advocacy non-profit Africa No Filter suggests that media portrayals, especially during elections when global coverage is heightened, focus disproportionately on conflict, corruption, poverty, disease and poor leadership, widening disparities between perceived and actual risks of investing in the continent, and creating a monolithic view of Africa.

“We’ve always known that there’s a cost to the persistent stereotypical media narratives about Africa. Now we’re able to put an actual figure to it,” said Moky Makura, executive director of Africa No Filter. “The scale of these figures underscores the urgent need to challenge [these] negative stereotypes about Africa and promote a more balanced narrative.”

While coverage has improved over past decades, spurred on by greater African involvement in international affairs, globalisation, increased local presence of international media outlets on the continent, and advocacy against stereotyping, it remains wanting.

The Cost of Media Stereotypes to Africa study compares global media coverage of elections in four countries – Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt – to the reporting on non-African countries with similar socioeconomic and political conditions, or “risk profiles”, such as Malaysia (Kenya and Nigeria), Denmark (South Africa) and Thailand (Egypt). It suggests bias and disparities in how newsrooms and journalists cover Africa, including in coverage of violent election events or corruption and in misleading headlines.

“Typically, election coverage is narrowly focused on the horse race between the incumbent and main opposition party or parties. In Africa, it is often peppered with stories of election violence and rumours of corruption,” said Makura. “The fixation on election drama rather than the issues at stake is sometimes driven by the desire for headline-grabbing stories. It’s easier to sell stories about tainted politicians and violent clashes than it is to dig into healthcare reform or job creation policies.”

Heightened perceptions of risk portrayed by the media causes lenders to apply “unjustifiably” high borrowing costs, even for African countries with decent credit ratings, and “provide cover” for unfair loan terms, according to the data scientists and economists behind the study.

“The real commercial opportunity is obscured from international investors because of this risk premium,” said Marcus Courage, chief executive officer of Africa Practice, adding that the £3.2bn estimate only included the impact of negative media reporting on sovereign debt, and did not account for impacts on other drivers of development such as tourism, foreign direct investment and aid.

The organisations involved in the report say that the figure, based on studies suggesting media sentiment influences 10% of the cost of capital, is a “prejudice premium” that could fund the education of more than 12 million children or immunisations for more than 73 million, “clean drinking water for two-thirds of Nigeria’s population” or help the continent as it faces some of the worst climate change impacts.

In recent years, African leaders have made calls at global and regional summits for reforms to the global financial architecture – including a reassessment of the high cost of loans to Africa.

“There is a recognition that there needs to be reform of the global financial architecture, and we hope that the Bretton Woods institutions [the IMF and World Bank] and others will be working towards making development capital more accessible to the global south, and specifically to Africa,” said Courage. “There [are signs] of real frustration now on the part of African countries that this agenda is moving too slowly.”

The African Union plans to set up an Africa Credit Rating Agency to provide a regional-based analysis of sovereign risk that shifts away from what critics of current rating systems say are “pessimistic assumptions” by “international rating agencies with limited local presence”. The agency is expected to begin operating next year.

Earlier this month, Africa No Filter launched an election reporting guide that it hopes will help newsrooms address the bias.

“For every negative story that reinforces the traditional tropes there are a hundred that don’t,” said Makura. “The question is not which one do we cover. It’s not either or, it should be both.”

A growing number of European leaders are expected to back calls for offshore immigration centres, as the EU casts around for tougher measures to stop asylum seekers reaching the bloc.

EU officials were preparing for intensive talks on migration at a leaders’ summit on Thursday, as it emerged that four people, including two toddlers, had died after falling overboard from an overcrowded speedboat off the Greek island of Kos.

After scouring the seas throughout the night, officials confirmed the fatalities on Wednesday, saying the two children, aged between two and four, and two women who died had been among a group of 31 people trying to reach Italy from the Turkish coast.

The coastguard said the driver of the power boat made “abrupt and dangerous moves” when the crew of a patrol vessel signalled it to stop. As a result, 10 of the speedboat’s passengers fell into the sea.

Of the 27 who survived, five children and a baby were taken to the Kos general hospital.

The latest tragedy occurred amid emerging consensus in the EU for tougher action to control the external border. Before the summit, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, called for exploration of “return hubs” outside the EU, citing a controversial deal between Italy and Albania as a possible model. A senior EU diplomat said it would have been unthinkable for the commission president to make such a proposal even one or two years ago, adding: “It is very preliminary but it shows that minds are changing.”

The Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala, also said the agreement, a major policy of his far-right Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, could serve as a model for the EU. “It is important that this works out, because then we could work in a similar way with third parties,” he told reporters.

On Wednesday, 16 men – 10 from Bangladesh and six from Egypt – became the first people to be taken to Albania as part of the pact, arriving in the port of .

EU leaders will also discuss how to speed up the deportation of people denied asylum in the EU, as well as putting pressure on countries of origin, typically in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, to readmit their nationals in exchange for aid or trade deals.

A group of EU countries that favours “innovative solutions” – a catch-all term for ideas that may skirt or clash with international law – are to meet before the main summit of 27 leaders. That meeting, organised by Italy, Austria and the Netherlands, is expected to draw about a dozen leaders. “It’s a very popular meeting,” said a second senior diplomat.

So far, EU sources have not specified which countries they think could host people trying to reach the EU. Albania has already ruled out replicating its agreement with Rome with other countries. When the EU explored “regional disembarkation platforms” in 2018 – migration centres outside the EU that were never fully defined – a series of north African countries declined to get involved.

EU sources have also not specified how return hubs may work, but say leaders will thrash out ideas on Thursday.

Migration will be “a major point of discussion”, Charles Michel, the European Council president, who will chair the talks, wrote in a letter to EU leaders. “We will have the opportunity to focus on concrete measures to prevent irregular migration including strengthened control of our external borders, enhanced partnerships and reinforced return policies.”

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, will come to Brussels seeking support for his plan to rewrite the law on asylum, in the face of what Warsaw describes as a hybrid attack from Belarus and Russia. The Polish government has accused Minsk of encouraging thousands of people, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, to cross into Poland, even training them to “storm” the border.

A record 13,195 people have arrived at the EU’s eastern land border so far this year, an increase of 192%, according to statistics released by the EU border agency Frontex this week.

In April, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, sharply criticised asylum schemes whereby “you go and look for a third country, for example in Africa, and send our immigrants there”. Senior EU officials also criticised the previous UK government’s Rwanda scheme.

But there is growing interest in the EU for some kind of offshore centres – although their exact design has yet to be determined. Germany has moved in a more hawkish direction and is unlikely to oppose offshore schemes, a shift that could prove decisive.

On Monday, Greece’s deputy migration minister, Sofia Voultepsi, warned that while war and the climate crisis were increasing global displacement, an EU migration pact agreed earlier this year was so flawed that it had failed “in practical terms” to deal with the issue.

She told a conference in Athens: “We got the [agreement] but the basic piece is still missing: returns. We must have a common system for asylum, a common system for returns, and a common system for integration.”

Refugee solidarity workers said the loss of life was because of the lack of legal pathways Europe offered to desperate people fleeing war and persecution at a time of unprecedented strife and conflict.

“Yet again, the most vulnerable have died in our seas,” said Lefteris Papagiannakis who heads the Greek Council of Refugees, referring to the drownings off Kos. “And that’s because they are the victims of the continuing policies that ignore the possibility of legal pathways of migration. Conflicts are increasing; the numbers [trying to flee] will only increase.”

More than 140 people have died in an explosion while rushing to scoop up fuel from a crashed tanker in north-west Nigeria, in one of the country’s worst such incidents in recent times.

Local authorities said the vehicle crashed late on Tuesday night after the driver lost control on the Kano-Hadejia expressway near the town of Majiya in Jigawa state. It then exploded while onlookers were scooping spilt fuel with cups and buckets.

“People gathered around the accident scene,” Shi’isu Adam, a spokesperson of the Jigawa police command, was quoted as saying in local newspaper the Cable. “That is the reason for the mass casualty.”

Jigawa state emergency services put the death toll at 147. Dozens more were seriously wounded.

Adam said a warning from officials not to approach the vehicle went unheeded and that a crowd overwhelmed security personnel.

Crashes involving tankers are common in Nigeria, one of the world’s largest oil producers, because road transport is the most popular form of conveying cargo across a country with inadequate rail infrastructure and a chain of underused airports. According to the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, several hundred spills happen nationwide each year, even outside the hotspots of oil-producing areas in the Niger delta.

Fuel has become a commodity coveted almost as much as food in poorer areas of Africa’s most populous nation, where the economy is in its worst state in a generation. Fuel prices have tripled since the start of last year, when the government removed a fuel subsidy, exacerbating a cost of living crisis. Desperation rose further last week after the state oil company raised prices for the second time in just over a month.

Despite the risks, increasing numbers of people are being drawn to the scene of crashed tankers to recover fuel that they either use at home or sell.

On Wednesday, junior petroleum minister Heineken Lokpobiri directed a regulatory agency to “promptly commence a detailed investigation into the circumstances surrounding this unfortunate event”.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the injured, and we wish them a swift and full recovery,” his statement added.

Egypt’s vast and much-delayed antiquities museum will partly open its main galleries on Wednesday, including 12 halls that exhibit aspects of ancient Egypt.

The Grand Egyptian Museum, a mega-project near the famed Giza pyramids that has cost considerably more than $1bn (£765m) so far, will open its halls to 4,000 visitors as a trial run until the official opening date, which is yet to be announced, according to Al-Tayeb Abbas, assistant to the minister of antiquities.

The opening of the museum, which has been under construction for more than a decade, has been repeatedly delayed for various reasons, including the Covid-19 pandemic.

More than 100,000 artefacts of Egypt’s ancient treasures will be displayed in the world’s largest archaeological museum, according to the Egyptian state information website.

Abbas said the trial run would help prepare for the full opening by providing a deeper understanding of issues related to operations such as identifying overcrowded areas at the museum.

The displays across the 12 halls tap into society, religion, and doctrine in ancient Egypt, he added. All open-style halls have been classified by dynasty and historical order, and each will showcase at least 15,000 artefacts.

Eras that will be exhibited in the main galleries include the third intermediate period (about 1070-664 BC), late period (664-332BC), Graeco-Roman period (332BC-AD395), new kingdom (1550-1070BC), middle kingdom (2030-1650BC), and old kingdom (2649-2130BC). One of the halls displays statues of the “elite of the king”: members of the royal family and high-ranking officials who worked in the army, priesthood, and the government.

Parts of the site have been open for limited tours since late 2022 to test visitors’ experience and the museum’s operational preparedness.

Aude Porcedde, a Canadian tourist who visited several sections, said she was amazed by the museum, adding that Egyptian civilisation was important for her and for the world to know more about.

And Jorge Licano, a Costa Rican tourist, said: “There is a lot of history and a lot of things we are not aware of, especially coming from the other side of the world, and seeing everything here and learning from the locals has been great.”

The grand staircase, six storeys high and with a view of the pyramids, and the commercial area are open to the public, showcasing monuments and artefacts that include sarcophagi and statues. Other parts of the museum, including the Tutankhamun treasure collection, are planned to open at later dates.

All halls are equipped with advanced technology and feature multimedia presentations to explain the lives of the ancient Egyptians, including its kings, according to Eissa Zidan, director-general of preliminary restoration and antiquities transfer at the museum.

One of the halls will use virtual reality to explain the history of burial and its development throughout ancient Egypt.

“The museum is not only a place to display antiquities, but it also aims to attract children to learn about ancient Egyptian history … The museum is a gift to all the world,” Zidan said.

The EU will be unable to claw back any of the €150m (£125m) paid to Tunisia despite the money being increasingly linked to human rights violations, including allegations that sums went to security forces who raped migrant women.

The European Commission paid the amount to the Tunis government in a controversial migration and development deal, despite concerns that the north African state was increasingly authoritarian and its police largely operated with impunity.

A Guardian investigation last month revealed allegations of myriad abuses by EU-funded security forces in Tunisia, including widespread sexual violence against migrants.

Now it has emerged that there is no system in place to retrieve the funds even if the money is connected to serious human rights violations.

European funding rules dictate that the money should be spent in a way that respects fundamental rights, with stricter requirements introduced in 2021 to ensure any spending does not contravene human rights.

However, a human rights impact assessment was not carried out before the EU-Tunisia deal was announced last year. The money was paid to Tunis in March.

Catherine Woollard, director of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, said human rights abuses were inevitable with a migration deal that aims to stop people from reaching Europe by boat from north Africa.

She said: “Human rights violations are a feature, not a bug, in agreements with repressive governments. They are about outsourcing not just people but also abusive actions when Europe doesn’t want to get its hands dirty.”

Tunisia’s controversial president, Kais Saied, secured a second five-year term this week with an election win condemned by rights groups and which further cemented the country’s slide from birthplace of the Arab spring into an autocracy.

Victory for Saied, who has a record of racist tirades against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, has prompted concerns that it may precipitate fresh abuses by his security forces.

Brussels’ deal with Tunisia, and its compatibility with the bloc’s human rights obligations, is now the focus of an investigation by the EU ombudsman. Emily O’Reilly’s report, due in the coming weeks, is likely to question the accord’s integrity and whether measures are in place to suspend EU funding if human rights violations are identified.

O’Reilly said it had been “really tricky” to follow the funding as part of the EU-Tunisia deal.

She said: “If you discover that equipment that you have funded to Tunisia is being used in a way that damages the fundamental rights of migrants, are you going to get the money back? How are you going to get the money back?”

A commission spokesperson said the €150m was paid to Tunis after “mutually agreed conditions” had been met.

In a further development that underlines growing unease over the deal, the international criminal court (ICC) may launch an investigation into the abuse of sub-Saharan migrants by the Tunisian authorities.

Such a move would be acutely embarrassing for the commission and modelled on a similar inquiry into the mistreatment of migrants in neighbouring Libya.

The British barrister Rodney Dixon KC filed a submission to the ICC regarding abuse of migrants five days after the Guardian’s allegations that members of the Tunisian national guard were raping women and beating children.

Dixon said: “We are hoping to work with the [ICC’s] office of the prosecutor in the coming months to ensure this matter is investigated given the seriousness of the allegations. There is a clear legal basis to proceed.”

Even before the latest scandal involving the Tunisian security forces, EU officials were already uneasy about backing a migration deal that has become a template for agreements with other states such as Egypt and Mauritania.

An internal document from the EU’s diplomatic service leaked last month exposed concern that the EU’s credibility could suffer because of its attempt to tackle migration through payments to repressive regimes.

A commission spokesperson said: “The respect for human rights and human dignity of all migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are fundamental principles of migration management, in line with obligations under international law.”

They added that human rights obligations had been raised with the Tunisian authorities as part of the deal and that significant efforts and schemes to monitor EU funded programmes were in place “including [monitoring] the situation on human rights”.

“Efforts are ongoing in Tunisia to strengthen existing monitoring mechanisms. The commission remains engaged to improve the situation on the ground.”