Political and religious figures in Malian city of Timbuktu have welcomed the return of ancient manuscripts that were removed to the capital, Bamako, more than a decade ago to prevent them from falling into the hands of militants linked to al-Qaida.

According to a UN expert mission, jihadists destroyed more than 4,000 manuscripts and as many as nine mausoleums after occupying the desert city in 2012. Workers at the state-run Ahmed Baba Institute used rice sacks to smuggle the remaining documents out of the city a number of ways, including by donkey cart and motorcycle.

Mali’s military junta began returning manuscripts on Monday, citing the threat posed to them by humidity in Bamako. Officials said the first tranche involved a shipment of more than 200 crates weighing about 5.5 tonnes.

“We now have a responsibility to protect, digitise, study and promote these treasures so that they continue to enlighten Mali, Africa and the world,” the country’s higher education minister, Bouréma Kansaye, said at a return ceremony.

Local political and religious figures who have been clamouring for the return of the manuscripts hailed the move. The documents “reflect our civilisation and spiritual and intellectual heritage” said Timbuktu’s deputy mayor, Diahara Touré.

There appeared to be limited enthusiasm, however, among everyday Malians, who despite being proud of their cultural heritage, seem preoccupied with immediate concerns such as economic hardship and insecurity.

The Malian army and allied Russian mercenaries hold Timbuktu, but the surrounding countryside remains in the control of jihadists who carry out regular hit-and-run raids to unsettle the government. Militants detonated a car bomb near the airport’s military base in June, and at least 30 soldiers and about a dozen attackers were killed in the explosion and ensuing gun battle.

Before the attack, authorities had attempted to show that they were in control by hosting diplomats in Timbuktu. The junta also plans to host a cultural biennale to showcase the city’s cultural heritage in December.

Ulf Laessing, the Bamako-based head of the Sahel programme at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German thinktank, said the government’s gestures were intended as a show of stability, projecting Mali’s ability to improve security.

The militants have mostly attacked the military, but there are concerns that the symbolism of Timbuktu could eventually make it a tempting target.

The manuscripts are unlikely to be targeted, but travel logistics remain fragile. UN and commercial flights operate weekly, but fuel shortages can strand passengers.

The “worst cholera outbreak in years” has killed at least 40 people in the last week in Sudan, according to the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières.

Overwhelmed medical centres are resorting to treating patients on mattresses on the floor, MSF said, as the country’s two-year civil war aids the spread of the disease.

Sylvain Penicaud, MSF project coordinator in Tawila, North Darfur state, said families in displacement and refugee camps often had no choice but to drink dirty water, the main cause of cholera.

“Just two weeks ago, a body was found in a well inside one of the camps. It was removed, but within two days, people were forced to drink from that same water again,” he said.

Sudan’s cholera outbreak was first confirmed by the Federal Ministry of Health a year ago, and there have since been more than 99,700 suspected cases and more than 2,470 related deaths.

The disease is spreading as people flee fighting, and being worsened by heavy rains, which contaminate water and overwhelm sewage systems, public health leaders said.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the public health agency of the African Union, has repeatedly raised concerns about the spread of cholera on the continent, which as of May accounted for 60% of cholera cases and 93.5% of related deaths globally. Vulnerable and conflict-affected states such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, as well as Sudan, are among the worst affected.

MSF said its teams in Tawila, working with the local health ministry, had treated more than 2,300 cholera patients last month. The hospital’s 130-bed treatment centre had to accommodate 400 patients in the first week of August.

About 380,000 people have arrived in the small town since April as they flee fighting around the city of El Fasher and Zamzam camp, according to UN records.

While the World Health Organization says that during an emergency people need at least 7.5 litres of water a day for drinking, cooking and hygiene, people in Tawila must survive with an average of only three.

MSF said water shortages across Darfur made it “impossible to follow essential hygiene measures, such as washing dishes and food”.

Cholera treatment centres in other towns and regions were also being “overwhelmed”, it said.

“The health centres are full,” said Samia Dahab, a resident of Otash displacement camp in Nyala, South Darfur state. “Some areas have water, others have kiosks that are far [away] or empty. Some water is salty, and we drink it unboiled, unsure if it’s safe.”

Tuna Turkmen, MSF’s head of mission in Sudan, said the situation was “beyond urgent” and “spreading well beyond displacement camps now, into multiple localities across Darfur states and beyond”.

In neighbouring Chad, 16 deaths and 288 cases were reported in the second week of August.

Turkmen called for an international response “to provide healthcare, improve water and sanitation services, and begin cholera vaccination campaigns in affected areas at a pace that matches the urgency this catastrophic situation requires”, warning: “Survivors of war must not be left to die from a preventable disease.”

Good morning. The slogan “black is beautiful” rang out from civil rights marches in the US and UK during the 1960s and echoed through liberation struggles across the global south. It became a rallying cry against racist beauty standards that had long cast Black skin, facial features and hair as undesirable.

These movements urged pride in what had been denigrated for centuries, and their message was not limited to people of African or Caribbean heritage. Calls to embrace natural beauty resonated across Asia and much of the global south, directly challenging the colonial belief that lighter skin conferred greater worth.

Yet decades later, that belief seems to endure. Across the world, women of colour continue to use skin-lightening creams, many laced with toxic ingredients, in the hope of meeting beauty ideals shaped by colourism.

Now, we are learning that the results are becoming even more devastating. For the first time, medical journals have reported rising cases of cancers among women of colour using skin-lightening products. The industry, now worth US$10.7bn (£8bn), is expected to grow to US$18.1bn by 2033. Some reports even describe these products being used on babies and young children.

To understand why skin‑lightening creams remain so prevalent, and what can be done to end their appeal, I spoke to Prof Ncoza Dlova, head of dermatology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. That’s after the headlines.

Five big stories

1. Ukraine | Donald Trump told European leaders on Wednesday he would be seeking a ceasefire in Ukraine at his summit with Vladimir Putin on Friday and gave reassurances that he would not make any territorial concessions without Kyiv’s full involvement.

2. UK news | David Lammy has referred himself to the environment watchdog after going fishing with JD Vance without the required licence during the US vice-president’s trip to the UK.

3. Immigration | At least 20 people have died after a boat capsized off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, a United Nations agency and local media reported on Wednesday.

4. UK politics | Keir Starmer is to formally revive Northern Powerhouse Rail this autumn with an announcement expected before the Labour conference.

5. Palestine | The United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied territories has warned that moves to recognise a Palestinian state should not distract member states from stopping mass death and starvation in Gaza.

In depth: ‘It’s psychosocial, political, historical – being lighter is seen as superior’

Recently, a patient walked into Ncoza Dlova’s clinical office in need of support. She had dark-coloured pigmentations, known as ochronosis, and stretch marks on her face and neck. The marks were as a result of a skin-lightening cream she had used for three years. When Dlova asked why she used the cream, she told her that she wanted to look like a friend she felt was more beautiful.

Patients like this are now a daily occurrence for Dlova. “I said ‘I feel sorry about your situation, but unfortunately, I have to be realistic with you: there’s nothing I can do to reverse your skin and make it look like it was before’,” Dlova remembers.

“There was a clear contrast between the face and the hand, with the hand being much darker and the face being much lighter. And then she broke down there and cried. I told her, I know this is painful, but now what I can offer you is using sunscreens to protect your skin from getting worse, or even getting skin cancers.”

The Guardian’s global health correspondent, Kat Lay, reported last month on a string of cases of women dying from cancer after using these products for several decades. Dlova and colleagues are now working on a paper that cites more than 55 cancer cases, from countries including Mali and Senegal.

“People don’t know the complications and side-effects. The patients I see who have side-effects regret it, and say they wish they’d known,” Dlova says.

When did this become an issue?

The use of these creams isn’t a new phenomenon. Reports of African women using skin-lightening creams and suffering harmful effects began emerging as early as the 1970s. At the time, these products often contained mercury as the bleaching agent, but their use was banned in South Africa in 1975 due to the risk of brain and skin damage.

Manufacturers switched to using hydroquinone instead. But in 1975, a professor at Pretoria University, George Findlay, wrote about the harms of hydroquinone in the British Journal of Dermatology. He explained that while the chemical initially lightens the skin, it later makes it rough with dark lumps that can turn into abscesses and ulcers. These effects seem to be accelerated by exposure to the sun, making them particularly dangerous for individuals who use them in African countries.

Dlova tells me this paper was groundbreaking and led to bans in other countries such as Rwanda and Ghana. But their use continues today due to weak regulation, while other companies are now using steroids in skin-lightening cream.

What are the side-effects?

The melanin found in darker skin typically is known to offer some protection against sun damage (though people of colour should still wear sunscreen). Skin-lightening products work by removing the melanin and therefore this layer of protection, and can make some people look lighter, but they come with a whole set of complications. The combination of hydroquinone and steroids can be particularly dangerous.

“The immediate complication is the thinning of the skin, where you find that a person can’t use any products. Whatever they use on the skin, it stings and it burns because the upper layer has been thinned. And then there’s also fungal infections, which are common, because some of the steroids also are immunosuppressants,” Dlova says.

“You can also get steroid-induced acne or rosacea. And some patients, if they’re using steroids, get excessive hair where they are using their products. There’s stretch marks, because of the damage in collagens, and irreversible pigmentation, such as ochronosis.”

The other side-effect increasingly raising alarm? Skin cancer.

The huge problem is that many women are simply unaware. A study Dlova recently carried out, of 700 women, found that 30% were using skin bleaching creams. And of those who were using the products, 90% of them didn’t know about the side-effects.

Is this just affecting African women?

The overwhelming majority of Dlova’s patients are women, though she does see some men. The reasons why are complex. “It’s psychosocial, political, historical, but colonisation is at the root of it. Being lighter is seen as superior,” she says. Research has found that lighter-skinned women often face shorter prison sentences, are seen as more intelligent in job interviews, and have greater career and dating prospects than their darker-skinned peers.

“There’s so much pressure for darker-skinned women to change their skin colour,” Dlova adds. Just how much women are affected is still hard to say due to a lack of data. Across African countries, estimates in studies of its usage range from 25% to 80% of women.

But Dlova was keen to point out that the use of skin-lightening products affects countries across the globe. “This is not exclusively an African issue. It’s a global phenomenon. It’s as common in South Africa as it is in India,” Dlova says, “We know about the caste system in India and we know about colonisation there and in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand. In all those countries, skin bleaching is pervasive. Even in South America.

“It’s important to highlight that, because sometimes people say, ‘Why are Africans changing their skin colour?’ No, it’s everyone who’s Black or darker-skinned trying to be white because of colonisation.”

How can we stop it?

When a number of African countries banned hydroquinone, there was a slight reduction in the marketing of these products. But that’s changed in the past decade because of social media, Dlova says.

Now, a growing number of beauty influencers on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook promote these products with a simple message of personal transformation, while their toxic ingredients are rarely acknowledged. Dlova believes regulation alone is not enough to push back on this worrying trend. She has called for public health campaigns to explain the immediate and long-term risks of using these products, as well as addressing colourism and colonial legacies.

Dlova is part of a global working group set up by the International League of Dermatological Societies to address skin lightening. She explains that the group includes dermatologists from across the world, including Japan, Korea, the Philippines, India, South America, Africa, Europe and the US. It also brings together anthropologists, historians, psychologists, community workers and patients.

Her hope is that by involving people from many disciplines and regions, they can develop a multi-pronged approach to the issue. “We just need to look at examples of advocacy that have been successful in the past, such as smoking, HIV, and see how they did it. It has to be sustained and continuous, not just a one-off. It must go on so that people become used to it and they know.”

Of this campaign, she said: “It’s something very close to my heart when I see these patients, some of whom are depressed or suicidal because they realise the damage from the products is permanent. It hurts me to see, it’s very painful.”

What else we’ve been reading

• Since the blockade Israel forced upon Gaza in early March medical evacuations have slowed. This is a devastating account of the children waiting for treatment abroad. Saranka Maheswaran, newsletters team

• National police guidance will now include the ethnicity, and potentially the immigration status, of police suspects. The academic Nasar Meer makes a powerful argument as to why it’s a huge misstep. Aamna

• From Celine Song, director of the much-loved Past Lives, comes the Materialists. Peter Bradshaw reviews the film that prods at the debate of whether we marry for love or money, and if we can do both. Saranka

• I chuckled my way through this piece by Joe Stone on how he tried to cut down his screen time, but ended up replacing one obsession (looking at his phone) for another (not looking at it). Aamna

• A great bit of investigative work showing millions of litres of oil are seeping into UK soil from underground power cables. Yet more evidence of our crumbling energy infrastructure and another environmental headache. Phoebe

Sport

Football | Newcastle are close to signing Jacob Ramsey from Aston Villa for £40m after resisting competition from West Ham for the versatile 24-year-old midfielder.

Tennis | Venus Williams will make her return to grand slam singles at the US Open after a two-year absence. At age 45, Williams will be the oldest singles entrant at the tournament since Renee Richards played there aged 47 in 1981.

Football | Marcus Rashford has offered a withering assessment of Manchester United’s decline, claiming a lack of identity since Sir Alex Ferguson retired has marooned the club in “no man’s land”.

The front pages

The Guardian leads with “Trump warns Putin faces ‘severe consequences’ if no truce agreed”. The Financial Times takes a similar line: “Trump warns ‘severe consequences’ will follow if Putin refuses to end war”. The Times says “Trump in warning to Putin on eve of talks”, while the Telegraph reports “Trump to offer Putin minerals for peace”. The i has “Protect Ukraine from ‘bluffing’ Putin, Zelensky urges Trump”.

The Daily Mail leads on “BBC climbs down over ‘xenophobe’ slur on top Tory”. The Mirror reports “Arena bomber’s brother on 3 murder bid charges”. Finally, the Sun has “Gun plot link to £64m Arsenal deal.”

Today in Focus

How Israel used Microsoft technology to spy on Palestinians

Harry Davies on how Microsoft’s cloud was used to facilitate mass surveillance of Palestinians.

Cartoon of the day | Ella Baron

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

Natural England is celebrating the comeback of 150 previously struggling species, including the return of the Duke of Burgundy butterfly.

A series of targeted conservation projects have facilitated this recovery and demonstrated how a “joined up, collaborative approach” can spell success for conservation.

Celebrations will take place at Brandon Marsh nature reserve, which has returned to hosting the Eurasian bittern, a wading bird which has found a renewed home in habitats of deep pools and reedbeds produced by the programme.

The work done by Natural England has set a positive precedent for further recovery of rare species.

Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday

Bored at work?

And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

• Quick crossword

• Cryptic crossword

• Wordiply

France has acknowledged its role in decades of violent repression of independence movements in Cameroon, the latest stage in a slow process of reckoning with its brutal colonial past.

In a letter to the Cameroonian president, Paul Biya, dated 30 July, Emmanuel Macron said it was “up to me today to assume the role and responsibility of France in these events”.

The letter, which was disclosed on Tuesday, conveyed the findings of a joint Franco-Cameroonian commission that investigated the colonial-era repression of independence movements from 1945 to 1971.

It also took into account crimes committed by the French-allied post-independence government of Ahmadou Ahidjo in Cameroon. Biya served as prime minister under Ahidjo from 1975 to 1982.

Macron said in the letter: “The commission’s historians clearly established that a war took place in Cameroon, during which French colonial authorities and military forces committed various forms of violent repression in several regions of the country, a war that continued beyond 1960, with France’s support for actions taken by the independent Cameroonian authorities.

However, Macron did not apologise or mention any form of reparations.

In 1884, the area today known as Cameroon became the German colony of Kamerun. During the first world war, British and French forces seized the territory, which was later split between them by the League of Nations after Germany’s defeat in 1919.

In January the commission, which was announced at a joint press conference given by Macron and Biya in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital, in 2022, submitted its findings in a 1,035-page report. The human toll of the state-sponsored repression is estimated to have been tens of thousands, included the assassination of the nationalist leader Ruben Um Nyobè.

The Cameroonian singer Blick Bassy, a co-head of the commission, said: “We are only at the beginning of a process that will require several years … to locate and identify the bodies in mass graves and also to address to land issues that continues to affect a large number of Cameroonians today.

“But before anything else [there should be] national mourning, and proper funerals for our compatriot who died for the nation must be organised,” said Bassy, whose 2019 album 1958 paid homage to Nyobè.

“On the French side, public outreach is crucial, integrating this history into the school curriculum so that it is never repeated and also to ensure that the French population can truly understand and accept the country’s history.”

For years, France had refused to confront the ghosts of its colonial empire that stretched from Algeria in northern Africa to Benin in the west. But in recent times a new guard of historians and activists, many from former colonies, have categorised official French narratives that barely mentioned the violence of colonial exploits in the 20th century as polished fiction.

This has coincided with a sustained wave of anti-French sentiment in Francophone Africa that has partly spurred coups against governments in the region deemed to be puppets of Paris.

The former French leader François Hollande admitted the existence of “extremely troubled, even tragic episodes” while visiting Yaoundé in 2015. But Macron, more than any of his predecessors, seems to be responding to this pressure with a series of strategic gestures that are often criticised as incomplete.

In 2018, his government initiated the restitution of 26 cultural artefacts to Benin, a direct response to a groundbreaking report he had commissioned. The report, co-authored by the French art historian Bénédicte Savoy and the Senegalese writer Felwine Sarr, argued that these objects were not merely museum pieces but living parts of a cultural memory that belonged back home. A 27th artefact traced to Finland was returned to Benin this May.

Correspondence seen by the Guardian in July revealed that the French government had signalled a willingness to discuss reparations with Niger for the massacre of thousands of citizens in the 1899 mission Afrique centrale (MAC), one of the most violent colonial campaigns in Africa. Again, it stopped short of apologising for its role.

Experts say the conversation now has to move from cultural restitution to a more direct discussion of historical debt and hope that official acknowledgments usher in the real work of reckoning.

Bassy said: “We are at the point in time when Africa is confronting its history … to come to terms with itself but also to approach its future with greater clarity and confidence.”

About 100 people, including several children, risked their lives by trying to swim from Morocco into Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta early on Saturday morning, as the territory’s authorities warned that its overwhelmed reception system was close to collapse.

Recent weeks have seen a rise in the number of people trying to reach Ceuta, with more than 50 children swimming across from Morocco on 26 July alone.

In the latest attempt, on Saturday morning, dozens of people were intercepted as they attempted to enter the enclave. Seven children reached the shore, where they were handed over to the regional authorities.

“About 100 people tried to get in, taking advantage of the foggy conditions, which make it hard to spot people,” said a spokesperson for the Spanish central government’s delegation in Ceuta. “But they didn’t manage to do so because the Moroccan security forces and [Spain’s] Guardia Civil, working together with rescue boats, prevented them from getting to Ceuta.”

However, he confirmed the arrival of the seven children.

Usually people need to swim out from the Moroccan coast, into the treacherous currents of the strait of Gibraltar, to make their way to and around the long border fences that jut out into the sea, cordoning off the Ceuta enclave from Moroccan territory.

The swimming migrants can be easy to pick up when there are just a few – so people try to go in large numbers in fog or at night-time. Those who are intercepted are returned to Morocco.

Last month, Juan Jesús Rivas, the conservative president of the autonomous city, said Ceuta was “totally overwhelmed” by the number of young migrants it was hosting, and called for other Spanish regions to take in some of the children.

“We’re a territory that comprises 20 square kilometres of the 500,000 square kilometres that make up the whole of Spain, but we take in 3% of the minors,” Rivas told El País.

“Who doesn’t get that this is an unsustainable situation? The situation in Ceuta is one of collapse and that poses a very serious risk when it comes to looking after minors and to the city as a whole.”

At the end of July, Alberto Gaitán, the Ceuta government’s spokesman, said the enclave was hosting 528 foreign minors when it was officially able to hold only 27. Gaitán pointed out that contingency plans were already in place to send the children to other Spanish regions.

“Between 2021 and 2024, around 450 minors – to whom we should add another 80 because of family regrouping in different parts of Spain – were relocated to other self-governing regions,” he said. “That shows that other regions, whatever their political hue, are there to help and have shown they can help relieve Ceuta.”

Four months ago, Spanish MPs approved a decree to redistribute the 4,400 foreign minors in the Canary islands, Ceuta and Spain’s other north African enclave of Melilla, across other regions.

The decree, put forward by the socialist-led government and its parliamentary allies, was criticised by the conservative People’s Party (PP), as “arbitrary and unfair”. The far-right Vox party also voted against it, saying it opened “the doors to military-age men who aren’t fleeing any wars and who come from opposing cultures”.

In July, PP-led regions boycotted a meeting on the redistribution of the children. .

According to the UN’s International Organization for Migration, 572 people died or went missing last year trying to reach Spain from north Africa, while 155 people have lost their lives so far this year, seven of them children.

A 23-year-old Egyptian man was pulled from the Mediterranean a few weeks ago after trying to reach Spain from Morocco using an inflatable ring and flippers. In 2021, a boy was seen floating on empty plastic bottles in his attempt to reach Ceuta.

Salmata Ouattara remembers 2023 as the turning point for her rice farm.

June is usually the peak of the rainy season in Ivory Coast, but in the preceding years she and other farmers in M’Be on the outskirts of Bouaké, the country’s second biggest city, would wait weeks for rainfall. Then in September, they would watch helplessly as their farmlands were flooded. Some abandoned their farms, frustrated by fluctuating crop yields.

For Ouattara, that was not an option. As her family’s breadwinner, proceeds from the farm catered to the needs of her three children as well as requests from other relatives. Then another farmer mentioned a concept called Smart Valleys that had helped solve similar issues and double his income.

“Before, I made 2 tonnes a year [and] earned at least 400,000CFA [west African francs, equivalent to £528.60],” said Ouattara, who has since added maize, tomatoes and cucumbers to her portfolio. “But as soon as we put Smart Valleys into practice, I made 4.5 tonnes, which makes me 900,000CFA (£1,189.34).”

Smart Valleys is a low-cost initiative by the nonprofit organisation Africa Rice that aims to help farmers get better control over the water on their land, for example by using channels, in order to reduce flooding and increase yields. It also helps farmers diversify crop production.

The programme – backed primarily by Japan’s agriculture ministry – focuses on inland valleys, low-lying areas between hills with fertile soils that are ideal for agriculture but rarely cultivated due to poor water control. Its head, Elliott Dossou-Yovo, said the valleys cover 190m hectares in sub-Saharan Africa, of which only 10% is cultivated.

“In the past, farmers were trying to produce rice only once a year and failing,” said Dossou-Yovo. With his team’s support, fields that used to be abandoned during the dry season are cultivated with alternative crops, thereby diversifying farmers’ portfolios and increasing their incomes.

Africa Rice, established in 1971, set a goal to double rice production within a decade in 2009, when it changed its name from West Africa Rice Development Association. Since achieving that target, it has ambitiously turned to self-sufficiency for member states by 2030.

The core of its work happens a few miles away from Ouattara’s farm at an 800-hectare research campus, where there are facilities including testing sites, a seed science lab and gene bank with 22,000 rice varieties used by scientists to develop improved strains.

Funders include the Gates Foundation, the World Bank, and donor partners including Islamic Development Bank and African Development Bank, though member states also make contributions.

The need for Africa Rice arose because in the 1960s and 70s, rice consumption and population growth surpassed food production rate in west Africa, Baboucarr Manneh, its Gambian-born director general, said. Today, rice that was previously reserved for feasting occasions, is arguably the continent’s most popular staple.

“Rice is very popular because it is easy to cook,” he said. “It used to seem like a luxury food to many consumers, compared with maize and millet. If you go to Sierra Leone, they used to consume a lot of roots and tubers etc, but people now associate those foods with poverty so they prefer rice.”

Sali Atanja Ndindeng heads the rice sector development programme, which develops new varieties in conjunction with market trends and analyses samples received from partner institutions in member countries to help identify good grain quality.

“Our goal is to make rice not just an energy-dense food, but a nutrient-dense food … and at the same time, reduce the impact of rice causing peaks in glucose levels when people consume it,” he said. One way to do this, the team thinks, is to promote the consumption of parboiled rice – which some studies have shown has a lower impact on blood sugar levels – in countries such as Ivory Coast, where it is historically unpopular, to mirror countries like Nigeria where it is prevalent.

Ndindeng’s teams also make pop rice that can be ground to instant flour for children to eat with milk and chocolate as well as rice crackers integrated with local items including ginger, hibiscus, soy and tamarind which are high in zinc and iron, to tackle deficiencies in those micronutrients.

Many barriers are holding back member countries from reaching self-sufficiency. For years, cheap imports have flooded African markets from Asia, where producers benefit from heavy subsidies.

Africa imports about 40% of rice it consumes – about 15 to 16 million tonnes every year. More than half of the imports come from India alone.

In July 2023, India banned rice exports, citing the need to consume more locally. “That created a panic in Africa,” said Manneh. “African ministers had to go to India to negotiate.”

Only a fifth of rice fields in Africa use irrigation, with the rest relying on unpredictable rainfall, so member states are being guided on building climate-resilient systems.

Tanzania is self-sufficient and exporting within east Africa. In west Africa, Nigeria, is close to doing so.

Manneh is hoping for more success stories on a national level, but also on an individual level with farmers such as Ouattara, who are still stunned by what science is doing for their lives.

“They welcomed me … They guided me and I thank them,” she said.

The Duke of Sussex is considering starting a new humanitarian charity after a highly publicised dispute led to him leaving his Sentebale charity, a spokesperson has said.

Prince Harry stepped down as patron of the charity in March in support of trustees who resigned in opposition to the board chair, Dr Sophie Chandauka, who previously levelled accusations of bullying and harassment against the royal.

The charity works in Botswana and Lesotho supporting the health and wellbeing of young people, especially those with HIV and Aids.

Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, who co-founded Sentebale alongside the duke in honour of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 2006 also stepped down as patron.

The Charity Commission published a report into the episode on Tuesday, criticising all sides for making the fallout public with interviews and statements, but the war of words has continued.

A source said earlier this week that the row had been “emotionally absolutely devastating” for Harry, and described Dr Chandauka’s comments as “nothing short of a hostile takeover”.

On Sunday, a spokesperson for the duke said: “The duke remains absolutely committed to continuing the work he started, supporting the children and young people of Lesotho and Botswana, nearly 20 years ago.

“In what form that support takes – no decisions have been made. All options remain on the table; whether that be starting a new charity or working to support pre-existing charities operating in the same sector in the region.”

The charity regulator, which cannot investigate individual allegations of bullying, said it found no evidence of systemic bullying or harassment, including misogyny or misogynoir at the charity but acknowledged “the strong perception of ill treatment” felt by some involved.

The trustees who resigned said in a statement they were “gravely concerned for the future of the charity” as they felt the commission had “chosen to ignore key concerns and irrefutable evidence raised with them regarding the leadership and oversight of Sentebale’s chair”.

In response to the findings, Sentebale said in a statement: “The Charity Commission is explicitly clear, including in its public guidance, that it is not the commission’s responsibility to adjudicate or mediate internal disputes. This would include individual allegations of bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir, etc.

“As a result, the commission has not investigated any individual allegations and therefore has not made any findings in relation to individuals, including Prince Harry. The issues not investigated by the commission can and may be dealt with through avenues more appropriate than the commission.”

More than 1,500 civilians may have been massacred during an attack on Sudan’s largest displacement camp in April, in what would be the second-biggest war crime of the country’s catastrophic conflict.

A Guardian investigation into the 72-hour attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on North Darfur’s Zamzam camp, the country’s largest for people displaced by the war, found repeated testimony of mass executions and large-scale abductions. Hundreds of civilians remain unaccounted for.

The magnitude of likely casualties means the assault by the RSF ranks only behind a similar ethnic slaughter in West Darfur two years ago.

The war between the Arab-led RSF and Sudanese military, which broke out in April 2023, has been characterised by repeated atrocities, forcing millions from their homes and causing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

Until now, reports about the attack on Zamzam between 11 and 14 April had indicated that up to 400 non-Arab civilians were killed during the three-day assault. The UN has said “hundreds” died.

However, a committee set up to investigate the death toll has so far “counted” more than 1,500 killed in the attack, which occurred on the eve of a British government-led conference in London intended to bring peace to Sudan.

Mohammed Sharif, part of the committee from Zamzam’s former administration, said the final total would be significantly higher, with many bodies still not recovered from the camp, which is now controlled by the RSF.

“Their bodies are lying inside homes, in the fields, on roads,” Sharif told the Guardian.

An atrocity expert with decades of experience in Darfur, who has interviewed scores of survivors from Zamzam, believes up to 2,000 people may have been killed.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, they added that the levels of violence were striking even when viewed alongside the genocidal slaughter of ethnic African groups in Darfur during the 2000s by the Arab militias who would later become the RSF.

“Every single testimony from everyone who escaped knew family members who were killed. That’s something I’ve never seen before.”

Abdallah Abugarda, of the UK’s Darfur Diaspora Association, said that about 4,500 members of his organisation knew a friend or relative killed in the attack.

At least 2,000 Zamzam residents, he said, remain missing.

“The massacre at Zamzam, home to displaced people for over 20 years, is one of the most heinous crimes in recent global history. Yet no global outrage has followed,” added Abugarda.

Claire Nicolet, deputy head of emergencies for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said the attack had targeted “one of the most vulnerable people on earth”. Those who survived, she said, had faced “widespread looting, sexual violence and other attacks while on the road and appalling living conditions in transit displacement sites”.

Large numbers of women were abducted and remain missing. Sharif said they knew of more than 20 who had been taken to Nyala, an RSF stronghold 160km from Zamzam.

Last month, the International Criminal Court said it had “reasonable grounds” to conclude that war crimes and crimes against humanity were unfolding in Darfur.

In Geneina, West Darfur’s capital, more than 10,000 people – mainly Masalit and other non-Arab Sudanese – are believed to have been killed by the RSF and allied militias over two months from mid-April 2023.

An episode of fighting during November that year in a suburb of El Geneina killed more than 800, according to the UN.

The Sudanese military has also been accused of myriad war crimes, in particular the massacre of civilians in indiscriminate bombing raids.

A decision by the US government to incinerate more than $9.7m (£7.3m) of contraceptives is projected to result in 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions in five African countries.

More than three-quarters of the contraceptives (77%) were destined for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Mali, according to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), an NGO global healthcare provider and advocate of sexual and reproductive rights.

The contraceptives, many of which will not expire until 2027-29, had already been manufactured, packaged and ready for distribution. IPPF offered to take them for redistribution at no cost to the US taxpayer, but the offer was declined.

Their destruction will deny more than 1.4 million women and girls in the five countries access to lifesaving care, IPPF said.

Marie Evelyne Petrus-Barry, the Africa regional director of IPPF, said: “This decision to destroy ready-to-use commodities is appalling and extremely wasteful. These lifesaving medical supplies were destined to countries where access to reproductive care is already limited, and in some cases, part of a broader humanitarian response, such as in the DRC. The choice to incinerate them is unjustifiable.”

As a result of the decision, more than 1m injectable contraceptives and 365,100 implants will not be distributed in Tanzania, 28% of the total annual need in the country.

Dr Bakari, a project coordinator at Umati, IPPF’s member association in Tanzania, said: “We are facing a major challenge. The impact of the USAID funding cuts has already significantly affected the provision of sexual and reproductive health services in Tanzania, leading to a shortage of contraceptive commodities, especially implants. This shortage has directly impacted clients’ choices regarding family planning uptake.”

In Mali, women will be denied access to 1.2m oral contraceptives and 95,800 implants, amounting to almost a quarter (24%) of the country’s annual need.

In Zambia, women will go without 48,400 implants and 295,000 injectable contraceptives, while in Kenya 108,000 women will not have access to contraceptive implants.

Nelly Munyasia, the executive director for the Reproductive Health Network in Kenya, said the impact of USAID cuts was already being felt in the country. Stockpiles of long-term contraceptives had already run out, she said, which will have drastic consequences on women’s health and their sexual and reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the skill set of health workers is being reduced and there is a 46% funding gap in Kenya’s national family planning programme.

“These systemic setbacks come at a time when unmet need for contraception remains high,” she said. “Nearly one in five girls aged 15 to 19 are already pregnant or has given birth. Unsafe abortions remain among the five leading causes of maternal deaths in Kenya.

While the Kenyan constitution, adopted in 2010, allows for abortion when a pregnant person’s life or health is at risk, the Kenyan penal code of 1963 still criminalises it. Healthcare providers are reluctant to provide safe care while the penal code remains in place, even in emergencies. Munyasia said without adequate supplies of contraceptives there would be a rise in maternal mortality as a result of women seeking to end unintended pregnancies.

Last month, a US state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision to destroy the contraceptives had been made. Amid reports that the contraceptives were due to be incinerated in France, the French government said it was “following the situation closely” after feminist, rights and family planning groups expressed outrage at the proposal.

The department decided to destroy the contraceptives because it could not sell them to any “eligible buyers”, in part because of US laws and rules that prohibit sending US aid to organisations that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for the right to it overseas, according to the state department spokesperson.

An American game hunter was killed by a buffalo he was stalking during a hunting expedition in South Africa over the weekend, according to multiple reports.

Asher Watkins, 52, of Texas, died on 3 August while tracking a 1.3-ton Cape buffalo in South Africa’s Limpopo province, according to a statement from Coenraad Vermaak Safaris (CV Safaris), the company that organized the hunting trip.

“It is with deep sadness and heavy hearts we confirm the tragic death of our client and friend Asher Watkins from the USA,” CV Safaris said in the statement, obtained by the Metro new outlet and other publications.

“On Sunday 3rd August, while on a hunting safari with us in South Africa’s Limpopo Province, Asher was fatally injured in a sudden and unprovoked attack by an unwounded buffalo he was tracking together with one of our professional hunters and one of our trackers,” the statement adds.

According to Metro, the buffalo suddenly charged at Watkins at 35 mph (56 km/h).

“This is a devastating incident, and our hearts go out to his family and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time,” the company said, adding that it is “doing everything we can to support the family members who are here with us and those back in the United States as they navigate this tragic loss”.

Metro reported that Watkins’ brother Amon, mother Gwen and stepfather Tony were waiting for him at the safari lodge when the incident occurred, and CV Safaris also said it was in touch with Watkins’s teenage daughter and his ex-wife, Courtney.

A warning on the CV Safari website notes the dangers of Cape buffaloes.

“No species on the planet has a more fearsome reputation than a Cape buffalo,” the statement reads, adding that the buffaloes are “responsible for several deaths and many injuries to hunters each year”.

Watkins’s ex-wife also reportedly confirmed his death on social media, according to People magazine, writing that Watkins died on Sunday “suddenly in a tragic accident involving a Cape buffalo while on a hunting trip in South Africa”.

“It’s a reality that’s still hard to put into words,” she added. “Our hearts are heavy as we navigate the days ahead.”

A Texas native and Baylor University graduate, Watkins was a managing partner at Watkins Ranch Group, affiliated with Briggs Freeman and LIV Sotheby’s International Realty.

His company biography described him as someone who “spent the better part of his life in the outdoors and on ranches” and a “proud and devoted father”.

Watkins had a Facebook page where he shared hunting photos, often posing beside animals he had killed, including deer and mountain lions.

The Charity Commission has criticised Prince Harry for allowing a row with the chair of his African charity to “play out publicly”, as the watchdog cleared him of racism.

The prince was engaged in a public war of words earlier this year with the chair of the Sentebale charity, Dr Sophie Chandauka, after his resignation as a patron.

Harry and the co-founder, Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, stepped down in March and its trustees quit over a dispute with Chandauka, a lawyer appointed in 2023.

After Harry’s resignation was made public, Chandauka said she had been subjected to people who “play the victim card”.

She had said that it was a “story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle about issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir [discrimination against black women] – and the cover-up that ensued”.

In a ruling on Tuesday in a compliance case into Sentebale, which works with children and young people in southern Africa, the regulator criticised all those involved in the dispute for “allowing it to play out publicly”. It said the then trustees’ failure to resolve disputes internally had “severely impacted the charity’s reputation and risked undermining public trust in charities more generally”.

David Holdsworth, the chief executive of the Charity Commission, said: “Sentebale’s problems played out in the public eye, enabling a damaging dispute to harm the charity’s reputation, risk[ing] overshadowing its many achievements, and jeopardising the charity’s ability to deliver for the very beneficiaries it was created to serve.

“This case highlights what can happen when there are gaps in governance and policies critical to charities’ ability to deliver for their cause. As a result, we have issued the charity a Regulatory Action Plan to make needed improvements and rectify findings of mismanagement.”

In response to the report, a spokesperson for Harry, who was not a trustee and established the charity in memory of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, criticised the commission, claiming its report had fallen “troublingly short”.

The commission found that a serious dispute between Chandauka and Harry had followed the formulation of a new fundraising strategy in the US. The breakdown in the relationship had been raised with the commission in February but an investigation was only opened in April after an analysis.

The commission did not find evidence of widespread or systemic bullying or harassment, including misogyny or misogynoir, it said, but acknowledged “the strong perception of ill treatment felt by a number of parties to the dispute and the impact this may have had on them personally”.

It further found no evidence of “‘overreach’ by either the chair or the Duke of Sussex as patron” but the commission was “critical of the charity’s lack of clarity in delegations to the chair which allowed for misunderstandings to occur”.

It said: “The commission’s assessment of the various accounts that have been provided is that all the charity’s then trustees contributed to a missed opportunity to resolve issues which led to the dispute.

“The regulator observed that strategic and financial difficulties that had emerged for the charity following the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to the tensions that arose.”

A spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex said: “Unsurprisingly, the commission makes no findings of wrongdoing in relation to Sentebale’s co-founder and former patron, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex.

“They also found no evidence of widespread bullying, harassment or misogyny and misogynoir at the charity, as falsely claimed by the current chair.

“Despite all that, their report falls troublingly short in many regards, primarily the fact that the consequences of the current chair’s actions will not be borne by her – but by the children who rely on Sentebale’s support.

“Sentebale has been a deeply personal and transformative mission for Prince Harry, established to serve some of the most vulnerable children in Lesotho and Botswana.”

A spokesperson for Sentebale said they were pleased with the action plan offered by the commission, which would allow it to “move forward … free from interference”.

Chandauka said: “The unexpected adverse media campaign that was launched by those who resigned on 24 March 2025 has caused incalculable damage and offers a glimpse of the unacceptable behaviours displayed in private.

“We are emerging not just grateful to have survived, but stronger: more focused, better governed, boldly ambitious and with our dignity intact.

“Despite the recent turbulence, we will always be inspired by the vision of our founders, Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso, who established Sentebale in memory of their precious mothers, Princess Diana and Queen ‘Mamohato.”

The Rwandan government has said it would accept up to 250 migrants from the US under a deal agreed with Washington but gave no details on who could be included.

The Trump administration’s deportation drive has included negotiating arrangements to send people to third countries, among them South Sudan and Eswatini.

The deal announced on Tuesday follows a cancelled agreement with Britain under which Rwanda would have received asylum seekers arriving in the UK on small boats. That deal was scrapped after the Conservative government that negotiated it lost last year’s general election.

“Rwanda has agreed with the United States to accept up to 250 migrants,” a government spokesperson, Yolande Makolo, told AFP.

She said Rwanda would maintain “the ability to approve each individual proposed for resettlement”.

Makolo said the government had agreed to the scheme with Washington because “nearly every Rwandan family has experienced the hardships of displacement”.

Those who arrive in Rwanda will be provided with training, healthcare and accommodation, she added.

No further information was given, including any indication of a timeline, with Makolo saying that Rwanda “will provide more details once these have been worked out”.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has taken a number of actions aimed at speeding up deportations of undocumented migrants to countries that are not their own.

His administration has defended third-country deportations as necessary, since the home nations of some of those targeted for removal sometimes refuse to accept them.

But rights experts have warned that the deportations risk breaking international law by sending people to countries where they face the risk of torture, abduction and other abuses.

South Sudan – which is teetering on the edge of renewed conflict – accepted eight people from the US in July. Its government said the group, only one of whom is South Sudanese, were in its care.

Five other migrants labelled criminals by the US were flown to Eswatini in July and incarcerated. The government later said they would be repatriated to their own countries.

Rwanda, which is in Africa’s Great Lakes region, is home to 13 million people. Its government claims it is one of the most stable countries on the continent and it has drawn praise for its modern infrastructure.

However, the migrant agreement with the UK government drew criticism from rights groups and faced a long-running legal challenge.

President Paul Kagame’s government has frequently been accused of rampant human rights violations and crushing political dissent and press freedoms.

It has also come under pressure over its role in the violence roiling the east of neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In June, the DRC and Rwanda signed a peace agreement aimed at ending decades of conflict in eastern DRC, where there were fresh clashes this year when the M23 armed group, backed by Rwandan troops, captured two major cities.

Agence France-Presse

A boat has capsized off Yemen’s coast leaving 68 African migrants dead and 74 others missing, the UN’s migration agency said.

It was the latest in a series of shipwrecks off Yemen that have killed hundreds of people fleeing conflict and poverty in hopes of reaching the wealthy Gulf Arab countries.

The vessel, with 154 Ethiopian migrants onboard, sank in the Gulf of Aden off the southern Yemeni province of Abyan early on Sunday, the head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Yemen said.

Abdusattor Esoev said the bodies of 54 people washed ashore in the district of Khanfar, and 14 others were found dead and taken to a hospital morgue in Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan on Yemen’s southern coast.

Only 12 survived the shipwreck, and the rest were missing and presumed dead, Esoev said.

The Abyan security directorate described a huge search-and-rescue operation given the large number of dead and missing migrants. Its statement said many dead bodies were found scattered across a wide area of the shore.

Despite more than a decade of civil war , Yemen is a major route for people from east Africa and the Horn of Africa trying to reach the Gulf Arab countries for work. Migrants are taken by smugglers on often dangerous, overcrowded boats across the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden.

Hundreds of people have died or gone missing in shipwrecks off Yemen in recent months, including in March when two migrants died and 186 others were missing after four boats capsized off Yemen and Djibouti , according to the IOM.

More than 60,000 migrants arrived in Yemen in 2024, down from 97,200 in 2023, probably because of greater patrolling of the waters, according to an IOM report in March.

A boat has capsized off Yemen’s coast leaving 68 African migrants dead and 74 others missing, the UN’s migration agency said.

It was the latest in a series of shipwrecks off Yemen that have killed hundreds of people fleeing conflict and poverty in hopes of reaching the wealthy Gulf Arab countries.

The vessel, with 154 Ethiopian migrants onboard, sank in the Gulf of Aden off the southern Yemeni province of Abyan early on Sunday, the head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Yemen said.

Abdusattor Esoev said the bodies of 54 people washed ashore in the district of Khanfar, and 14 others were found dead and taken to a hospital morgue in Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan on Yemen’s southern coast.

Only 12 survived the shipwreck, and the rest were missing and presumed dead, Esoev said.

The Abyan security directorate described a huge search-and-rescue operation given the large number of dead and missing migrants. Its statement said many dead bodies were found scattered across a wide area of the shore.

Despite more than a decade of civil war , Yemen is a major route for people from east Africa and the Horn of Africa trying to reach the Gulf Arab countries for work. Migrants are taken by smugglers on often dangerous, overcrowded boats across the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden.

Hundreds of people have died or gone missing in shipwrecks off Yemen in recent months, including in March when two migrants died and 186 others were missing after four boats capsized off Yemen and Djibouti , according to the IOM.

More than 60,000 migrants arrived in Yemen in 2024, down from 97,200 in 2023, probably because of greater patrolling of the waters, according to an IOM report in March.

Gunmen have kidnapped more than 50 people in north-west Nigeria in a mass abduction, according to a private conflict monitoring report created for the UN and seen by Agence France-Presse on Sunday.

“Armed bandits” targeted the village of Sabon Garin Damri in Zamfara state Friday, the report said, the latest attack in a region where residents in rural hinterlands have long suffered gangs who kidnap for ransom, loot villages and demand taxes.

The report said this was the first “mass capture” incident in the Bakura local government area this year. “The recent trend of mass captures in Zamfara has been concerning,” it said, noting “a shift in bandit strategy toward more large-scale attacks in northern Zamfara”.

A Zamfara police spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Nigeria’s “banditry” crisis originated in conflict over land and water rights between herders and farmers but has morphed into organised crime, with gangs preying on rural communities that have long had little or no government presence.

The conflict is worsening a malnutrition crisis in the north-west as attacks drive people off their farms in a situation that has been complicated by climate breakdown and western aid cuts.

Bandits in Zamfara killed 33 people last month whom they had kidnapped in February despite receiving a $33,700 (£25,000) ransom, while three babies died in captivity, local people said.

Since 2011, as arms trafficking increased and the wider Sahel fell into turmoil, organised armed gangs formed in north-west Nigeria, with cattle rustling and kidnapping becoming huge moneymakers in the largely impoverished countryside.

Groups also levy taxes on farmers and artisanal miners.

Violence has spread in recent years from the north-west into north-central Nigeria.

Nigerian troops killed at least 95 members of an armed gang in a shootout and airstrikes in the north-west state of Niger two weeks ago.

But the military is overstretched. While improved cooperation between the army and air force has aided the fight, analysts say, airstrikes have also killed hundreds of civilians over the years.

Bandits, who are primarily motivated by money, have also increased their cooperation with Nigeria’s jihadist groups, who are waging a separate, 16-year armed insurrection in the north-east.

The recent emergence of the Lakurawa jihadist group in the north-west has worsened violence in the region.

Governments of affected states have been forced to recruit anti-jihadist militias fighting the militants in the north-east to assist in countering the bandits.

The niece of a Kenyan woman who was murdered more than a decade ago, allegedly by British soldiers, has said her family now believe the defence secretary “just made a promise for his political gain” when he met them in April.

John Healey told the family of Agnes Wanjiru of his “determination to see a resolution” in the case of her murder, pledging the UK’s full support for the investigation.

But now, almost four months later, Wanjiru’s family say they have been left disappointed, having seen no further progress in their fight for justice.

Wanjiru, then 21, disappeared in March 2012, after last being seen drinking with British soldiers at a bar in the Lion’s Court hotel in Nanyuki, a town in the east of Kenya, where the army has a military base, BATUK.

Her family spent two months looking for her, until her body was found stuffed into a septic tank in the grounds of the hotel. She had been stabbed several times.

Six years ago, an inquest in Kenya found that Wanjiru, who was mother to a then baby girl, had been killed by one or more British soldiers.

In 2021, several soldiers, who at the time were attached to the Duke of Lancaster’s regiment, came forward to name a suspect.

One offered startling testimony in which he claimed the suspect, a fellow Duke of Lancaster soldier, had confessed to her murder on the night, and taken him to see Wanjiru’s body in the septic tank.

While a British soldier is believed to be the primary suspect in the case, under the UK-Kenya defence cooperation agreement, jurisdiction for investigating the murder lies with the Kenyan authorities.

Kenyan police have flown to the UK several times, and are believed to have questioned multiple witnesses. In April, Kenyan police said a file had been passed to the Kenyan director of public prosecutions for a charging decision.

Yet almost four years on from a suspect being identified, nobody has been arrested or charged in relation to the murder.

Wanjiru’s niece Esther Njoki, 21, was eight years old in 2012, and said her memories of her aunt drove her fight for justice.

“The reason why I’m passionate about this case and that I’ve been fighting, it’s what she did in the family,” she said.

“She used to take care of me when my mum was not there. She used to cook, braid my hair, everything. So that’s why I’m so passionate to fight for her rights.”

“She was always jovial, smiling, hard-working. We were always laughing because of her jokes and everything,” she added. “It’s very heartbreaking. She was kind, she was everything, we miss her.”

While in opposition, Healey called for more to be done to “pursue justice for Agnes and her family”, but Njoki says they are disappointed that more has not been done in the year since Labour came to power.

“I think he just made a promise for his political gain,” Njoki said, “I think he’s taking us for a ride.”

“They hide behind investigation,” she added, “because every time we raise any issue, they say ‘investigation, investigation’, we don’t know the status of the investigation.”

Njoki, who is studying communications and acts as a spokesperson for the family, is currently raising funds to come to the UK in the autumn in order to meet with campaigners, hold a press conference, and lobby politicians directly.

“I want to come and lobby there, so that they can take this matter seriously,” she said, “because they know the family can’t come to UK to seek justice there.”

Justice, Njoki said, would mean closure. Her family believed that the government could do more.

“They have power, but they have refused, and it’s heartbreaking,” she said. “Agnes was a human being.”

“I think if she were around right now, everything would be so perfect,” she added, “but now that she’s not there, we are left to seek justice for her, with our hearts broken, being frustrated, and it’s the worst thing.”

Tessa Gregory, a partner at the law firm Leigh Day, who is acting on behalf of the family, said: “It is now 13 years since Agnes’ body was found in a septic tank, the Kenyan criminal investigation has been ongoing for years, and while the file was reportedly sent to the [Kenyan] DPP months ago, a charging decision is still awaited. The family are frustrated with both the lack of progress in the criminal proceedings and the lack of engagement from the British government.”

She added: “They hope that the secretary of state will do everything within his power to ensure that those held responsible are brought to account swiftly and that the role of the British army in Agnes’ death, including as to why nothing was done for nearly a decade after the murder, is thoroughly and independently examined.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said: “Our thoughts remain with the family of Agnes Wanjiru, and the defence secretary has long recognised the tragic circumstances of her death.

“The jurisdiction for this investigation lies with the Kenyan authorities. The defence secretary welcomed the confirmation that the case file had been handed over to the director of public prosecutions for a charging decision during his visit to Kenya in April 2025.

“We will continue to work closely with the Kenyan authorities for the justice the family deserves. In order to protect the integrity of the Kenyan investigation and in the interests of justice for Agnes Wanjiru’s family, we are unable to comment further.”

​Kemi Badenoch has said she no longer considers herself Nigerian and does not possess a Nigerian passport.

The Conservative party leader, who was born in London, but grew up in Nigeria and the US and did not return to the UK until she was 16, said she had not renewed her Nigerian passport in two decades.

Speaking to the Rosebud podcast, Badenoch said: “I’m Nigerian through ancestry, by birth, despite not being born there because of my parents, but by identity I’m not really. I know the country very well, I have a lot of family there, and I’m very interested in what happens there.

“But home is where my now family is, and my now family is my children, it’s my husband and my brother and his children, in-laws. The Conservative party is very much part of my family, my extended family, I call it.”

In 1980 Badenoch was among the last people to automatically receive British citizenship because she was born in the UK. Margaret Thatcher abolished birthright citizenship the following year.

“Finding out that I did have that British citizenship was a marvel to so many of my contemporaries, so many of my peers,” she said.

“I think the reason that I came back here was actually a very sad one, and it was that my parents thought: ‘There is no future for you in this country.’” She recalled “never quite feeling that I belonged there”.

The future Tory leader moved back to the UK aged 16 to live with a friend of her mother because of the worsening political and economic situation in Nigeria, and to study for her A-levels.

When Badenoch’s father, Femi Adegoke, who was a doctor, died in Nigeria in 2022 she obtained a visa to travel there, which she described as a “big fandango”.

She has on occasion clashed with the Nigerian government. Last year the country’s vice-president, Kashim Shettima, suggested she could “remove the Kemi from her name” if she was not proud of her “nation of origin”.

It is unclear what promoted Shettima’s remarks but Badenoch has frequently spoken about corruption in Nigeria and growing up with a sense of fear and insecurity.

The Tory leader told the podcast she had not experienced racial prejudice in Britain “in any meaningful form”. “I knew I was going to a place where I would look different to everybody, and I didn’t think that that was odd,” she said.

“What I found actually quite interesting was that people didn’t treat me differently, and it’s why I’m so quick to defend the UK whenever there are accusations of racism.”

A South African university has launched an anti-poaching campaign to inject the horns of rhinoceroses with radioactive isotopes that it says are harmless for the animals but can be detected by customs agents.

Under the collaborative project involving the University of the Witwatersrand, nuclear energy officials and conservationists, five rhinos were injected in what the university hopes will be the start of a mass injection of the declining rhino population, which they are calling the Rhisotope Project.

Last year, about 20 rhinos at a sanctuary were injected with isotopes in trials that paved the way for Thursday’s launch. The radioactive isotopes even at low levels can be recognised by radiation detectors at airports and borders, leading to the arrest of poachers and traffickers.

Researchers at Witwatersrand’s Radiation and Health Physics Unit said tests conducted in the pilot study confirmed that the radioactive material was not harmful to the rhinos.

“We have demonstrated, beyond scientific doubt, that the process is completely safe for the animal and effective in making the horn detectable through international customs nuclear security systems,” said James Larkin, chief scientific officer at the Rhisotope Project.

“Even a single horn with significantly lower levels of radioactivity than what will be used in practice successfully triggered alarms in radiation detectors,” said Larkin.

The tests also found that horns could be detected inside full 40-foot shipping containers, he said.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that the global rhino population was about 500,000 at the beginning of the 20th century but has now declined to approximately 27,000 because of demand for rhino horns on the hidden market.

South Africa has the largest population of rhinos with an estimated 16,000 but has high levels of poaching and about 500 rhinos are killed for their horns every year.

The university has urged private wildlife park owners and national conservation authorities to have their rhinos injected.

Renowned Kenyan rights activist Boniface Mwangi is accused of “facilitation of terrorist acts” during protests that rocked the country last month, investigators said on Sunday, a day after he was arrested.

At least 19 people were killed during the June 25 demonstration against President William Ruto’s government, which was itself called to pay tribute to victims of police violence at another major protest on the same date last year.

Mwangi, who was arrested at his home near Nairobi, is being held at a police station in the capital and will be arraigned on Monday, Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) said on X.

The activist denies the charges, saying in a social media post shared by his supporters: “I am not a terrorist.”

His detention triggered a wave of condemnation online, with the hashtag #FreeBonifaceMwangi going viral.

The search warrant police used to raid Mwangi’s home, which an ally shared with journalists, accuses the campaigner of having paid “goons” to stoke unrest at last month’s protests.

Investigators said they had seized two mobile phones, a laptop and several notebooks from his home in Lukenya, east of the capital, plus hard drives, two more computers, two unused teargas canisters and a blank firearm cartridge from his office in Nairobi.

Since the start of the unprecedented protest movement last year, Ruto has faced sharp criticism over a series of abductions and police violence.

Rights groups say more than 100 people have been killed since the beginning of the protests, which were harshly suppressed.

Zimbabwe’s efforts to control malaria have been dealt a huge blow as experts say the disease has returned “with a vengeance” after US aid cuts, with 115 outbreaks recorded in 2025 compared with only one last year.

The sharp rise in cases comes six months after Donald Trump halted critical funding for US research and national response programmes.

The cuts in January, which included funding for tuberculosis, HIV/Aids and malaria programmes, crippled the Zimbabwe Entomological Support Programme in Malaria (Zento) at Africa University in Mutare, which provides the country’s National Malaria Control Programme with scientific research to combat the disease.

Cumulative malaria cases increased by 180% in the first four months of 2025, according to the health ministry, while the number of malaria-related deaths increased by 218%, from 45 in the same period in 2024 to 143 in 2025. As of 26 June, the number of malaria cases had risen to 119,648, with 334 deaths, according to the Zimbabwean health ministry.

The distribution of essential control methods, such as mosquito nets, was also disrupted, leaving hundreds of thousands of people exposed to mosquito bites across the country. The health ministry said in May that 1,615,000 insecticide-treated nets were being distributed but that there was a shortfall of 600,000 due to the withdrawal of US funding.

Itai Rusike, director of Zimbabwe’s Community Working Group on Health, said funding shortfalls were jeopardising the country’s significant gains against malaria over the past 20 years.

“Sustained domestic funding is critical to keep prevention and treatment efforts on track,” he said.

“If mosquito nets and preventive medicines for pregnant women are unavailable, lives will be lost. When the supply of test kits and first-line treatments is disrupted, malaria cases and deaths will spiral.”

Children under the age of five account for 14% of total malaria cases.

Zimbabwe has set out to eliminate malaria by 2030, in line with the ambitious goal set by the African Union, using various strategies such as raising community awareness, preventing mosquito bites with insecticide-treated nets and spraying, as well as improving surveillance systems.

Dr Henry Madzorera, a former health minister, said Zimbabwe should mobilise its own resources to bridge the funding gap.

“We have a lot of taxes earmarked for the health sector – let us use them wisely for health promotion and disease prevention,” he said. “People must be treated early for malaria.

“The country should not rely on donors to do malaria-elimination activities,” Madzorera added.

In 2024, USAID disbursed $270m for health and agriculture programmes in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe’s deputy health minister, Sleiman Kwidini, admitted the funding gap left by the US cuts had disrupted the provision of mosquito nets.

“We are now taking over the procurement of those nets after the US withdrew funding. We have just been disturbed, but our vision is to eliminate malaria by 2030,” he said.

Prof Sungano Mharakurwa, director of Africa University’s Malaria Institute, said it would take time to recover lost ground but added: “If we get funding, we can hit the ground running and promptly return to scoring successes again, until we beat this deadly scourge that is malaria.”

He said that since the Zento mosquito surveillance programme began in Manicaland province, there had been a marked reduction in malaria cases and it was about to be extended when the US cuts came.

“Working with the National Malaria Control Programme, it had just been expanded,” Mharakurwa said. “It was poised to run for five years with national coverage when it was abruptly terminated.”

Africa University data shows that Manicaland recorded 145,775 malaria cases in 2020 but just 28,387 after Zento was introduced in 2021. Malaria cases in the province had been further reduced to 8,035 by 2024 before more than trebling to 27,212 the following year, when US funding was cut.

Mharakurwa said: “The malaria was back with a vengeance straight after, and [numbers of] cases that were waning rebounded in 2025, surpassing levels that had ever been seen since the beginning of the project.”

Above-normal rains this year, which aided malaria transmission, had worsened the situation, he added.

The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need.

A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July.

“It is unacceptable that the State Department would move forward with the destruction of more than $9m in taxpayer-funded family planning commodities purchased to support women in crisis settings, including war zones and refugee camps,” Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, said in a statement. Shaheen and Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii, have introduced legislation to stop the destruction.

“This is a waste of US taxpayer dollars and an abdication of US global leadership in preventing unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and maternal deaths,” added Shaheen, who in June sent a letter to secretary of state Marco Rubio about the matter.

The department decided to destroy the contraceptives because it could not sell them to any “eligible buyers”, in part because of US laws and rules that prohibit sending US aid to organizations that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for the right to it overseas, according to the state department spokesperson.

Most of the contraceptives have less than 70% of their shelf life left before they expire, the spokesperson said, and rebranding and selling the contraceptives could cost several million dollars. However, the aide who visited the warehouse said that the earliest expiration date they saw on the contraceptives was 2027, and that two-thirds of the contraceptives did not have any USAID labels that would need to be rebranded.

The eradication of the contraceptives is part of the Trump administration’s months-long demolition of the Agency for International Development (USAID), the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid in the world. After the unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) erased 83% of USAID’s programs, Rubio announced in June that USAID’s entire international workforce would be abolished and its foreign assistance programs would be moved to the State Department. The agency will be replaced by an organization called America First.

In total, the funding cuts to USAID could lead to more than 14m additional deaths by 2030, according to a recent study published in the journal the Lancet. A third of those deaths could be children.

“If you have an unintended pregnancy and you end up having to seek unsafe abortion, it’s quite likely that you will die,” said Sarah Shaw, the associate director of advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices, a global family planning organization that works in nearly 40 countries. “If you’re not given the means to space or limit your births, you’re putting your life at risk or your child’s life at risk.”

MSI tried to purchase the contraceptives from the US government, Shaw said. But the government would only accept full price – which Shaw said the agency could not afford, given that MSI would also have to shoulder the expense of transportingthe contraceptives and the fact that they are inching closer to their expiration date, which could affect MSI’s ability to distribute them.

The state department spokesperson did not specifically respond to a request for comment on Shaw’s allegation, but MSI does provide abortions as part of its global work, which may have led the department to rule it out as an “eligible buyer”.

In an internal survey, MSI programs in 10 countries reported that, within the next month, they expect to be out of stock or be on the brink of being out of stock of at least one contraceptive method. The countries include Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Senegal, Kenya and Sierra Leone.

Shaw expects the stock to be incinerated. “The fact that the contraceptives are going to be burned when there’s so much need – it’s just egregious,” she said. “It’s disgusting.” The Department of State spokesperson did not respond to a request for information on the planned method of destruction.

The destruction of the contraceptives is, to Shaw, emblematic of the overall destruction of a system that once provided worldwide help to women and families. USAID funding is threaded through so much of the global supply chain of family planning aid that, without its money, the chain has come apart. In Mali, Shaw said, USAID helped pay for the gas used by the vehicles that transport contraceptives from a warehouse. Without the gas money, the vehicles were stuck – and so were the contraceptives.

“I’ve worked in this sector for over 20 years and I’ve never seen anything on this scale,” Shaw said. “The speed at which they’ve managed to dismantle excellent work and really great progress – I mean, it’s just vanished in weeks.”

Other kinds of assistance are also reportedly being wasted. This week, the Atlantic reported that almost 500 metric tons of emergency food were expiring and would be incinerated, rather than being used to feed about 1.5 million children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Meanwhile, almost 800,000 Mpox vaccines that were supposed to be sent to Africa are now unusable because they are too close to their expiration date, according to Politico.

The cuts to foreign aid are slated to deepen. Early Friday morning, Congress passed a bill to claw back roughly $8bn that had been earmarked for foreign assistance.

“It’s not just about an empty shelf,” Shaw said. “It’s about unfulfilled potential. It’s about a girl having to drop out of school. It’s about someone having to seek an unsafe abortion and risking their lives. That’s what it’s really about.”

The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need.

A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July.

“It is unacceptable that the State Department would move forward with the destruction of more than $9m in taxpayer-funded family planning commodities purchased to support women in crisis settings, including war zones and refugee camps,” Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, said in a statement. Shaheen and Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii, have introduced legislation to stop the destruction.

“This is a waste of US taxpayer dollars and an abdication of US global leadership in preventing unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and maternal deaths,” added Shaheen, who in June sent a letter to secretary of state Marco Rubio about the matter.

The department decided to destroy the contraceptives because it could not sell them to any “eligible buyers”, in part because of US laws and rules that prohibit sending US aid to organizations that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for the right to it overseas, according to the state department spokesperson.

Most of the contraceptives have less than 70% of their shelf life left before they expire, the spokesperson said, and rebranding and selling the contraceptives could cost several million dollars. However, the aide who visited the warehouse said that the earliest expiration date they saw on the contraceptives was 2027, and that two-thirds of the contraceptives did not have any USAID labels that would need to be rebranded.

The eradication of the contraceptives is part of the Trump administration’s months-long demolition of the Agency for International Development (USAID), the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid in the world. After the unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) erased 83% of USAID’s programs, Rubio announced in June that USAID’s entire international workforce would be abolished and its foreign assistance programs would be moved to the State Department. The agency will be replaced by an organization called America First.

In total, the funding cuts to USAID could lead to more than 14m additional deaths by 2030, according to a recent study published in the journal the Lancet. A third of those deaths could be children.

“If you have an unintended pregnancy and you end up having to seek unsafe abortion, it’s quite likely that you will die,” said Sarah Shaw, the associate director of advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices, a global family planning organization that works in nearly 40 countries. “If you’re not given the means to space or limit your births, you’re putting your life at risk or your child’s life at risk.”

MSI tried to purchase the contraceptives from the US government, Shaw said. But the government would only accept full price – which Shaw said the agency could not afford, given that MSI would also have to shoulder the expense of transportingthe contraceptives and the fact that they are inching closer to their expiration date, which could affect MSI’s ability to distribute them.

The state department spokesperson did not specifically respond to a request for comment on Shaw’s allegation, but MSI does provide abortions as part of its global work, which may have led the department to rule it out as an “eligible buyer”.

In an internal survey, MSI programs in 10 countries reported that, within the next month, they expect to be out of stock or be on the brink of being out of stock of at least one contraceptive method. The countries include Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Senegal, Kenya and Sierra Leone.

Shaw expects the stock to be incinerated. “The fact that the contraceptives are going to be burned when there’s so much need – it’s just egregious,” she said. “It’s disgusting.” The Department of State spokesperson did not respond to a request for information on the planned method of destruction.

The destruction of the contraceptives is, to Shaw, emblematic of the overall destruction of a system that once provided worldwide help to women and families. USAID funding is threaded through so much of the global supply chain of family planning aid that, without its money, the chain has come apart. In Mali, Shaw said, USAID helped pay for the gas used by the vehicles that transport contraceptives from a warehouse. Without the gas money, the vehicles were stuck – and so were the contraceptives.

“I’ve worked in this sector for over 20 years and I’ve never seen anything on this scale,” Shaw said. “The speed at which they’ve managed to dismantle excellent work and really great progress – I mean, it’s just vanished in weeks.”

Other kinds of assistance are also reportedly being wasted. This week, the Atlantic reported that almost 500 metric tons of emergency food were expiring and would be incinerated, rather than being used to feed about 1.5 million children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Meanwhile, almost 800,000 Mpox vaccines that were supposed to be sent to Africa are now unusable because they are too close to their expiration date, according to Politico.

The cuts to foreign aid are slated to deepen. Early Friday morning, Congress passed a bill to claw back roughly $8bn that had been earmarked for foreign assistance.

“It’s not just about an empty shelf,” Shaw said. “It’s about unfulfilled potential. It’s about a girl having to drop out of school. It’s about someone having to seek an unsafe abortion and risking their lives. That’s what it’s really about.”

Children in Sudan, caught up in what aid organisations have called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and threatened by rising levels of violence, are increasingly vulnerable to deadly infectious diseases as vaccinations in the country plummet.

In 2022, more than 90% of young children in Sudan received their routine vaccinations. But that figure has nearly halved to 48%, the lowest in the world, according to the World Health Organization.

Globally, more than 14 million infants remain unvaccinated and the world is not on track to meet goals of halving the number of these “zero-dose” children compared with 2019 levels by 2030, the WHO reported on Tuesday.

While misinformation and vaccine hesitancy have driven falls in immunisation in some countries, “that has not been the problem here”, said Dr Tedbabe Degefie Hailegebriel, chief of health for Unicef Sudan. “This plummeting coverage is driven entirely by the war.”

The country’s civil war began two years ago and has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions more, in what the International Rescue Committee has called “the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded”.

There were 838,000 children in Sudan last year who did not receive a single dose of vaccine – the third-highest figure in the world, behind only Nigeria (2.1 million) and India (909,000).

The proportion of children who have received a DTP-1 jab – the first dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine – is seen as a key indicator of access to essential healthcare. Missing it, Hailegebriel said, meant a “child, and most probably also their parents, have almost zero contact with the health system”.

She said the war had hit Sudan’s health service hard, with people displaced and the physical destruction of health facilities, supply lines and information systems “that makes the health service functional”.

“Health workers – doctors, nurses, midwives, community volunteers – have not been paid in months. And just the basic infrastructure – the clean water available to health facilities, the electricity availability to health facilities – is totally destroyed,” she said.

Disease outbreaks in Sudan tend to affect people who have “lost your safe place, your home, your protection, however modest that might be”, and find themselves in camps or temporary accommodation.

“When that is coupled with an already vulnerable child who is not vaccinated, the vulnerability is compounded,” she said.

Diseases that can be prevented with vaccination, including measles, not only kill but can leave survivors with long-term complications, Hailegebriel said, adding that these were “children who are robbed of their future”.

The WHO said war and conflicts around the world were a major threat to immunisation progress, with children living in one of 26 countries “affected by fragility, conflict or humanitarian emergencies” being three times more likely to be unvaccinated than their counterparts in stable countries.

However, there were “emerging signs of slippage” or stalling progress in many parts of the world, said Dr Kate O’Brien, director of the WHO’s immunisation, vaccines and biologicals department.

“Even the smallest drops in immunisation coverage as measured at the country level can have devastating consequences. It opens the door to deadly disease outbreaks and puts even more pressure on health systems that are already stretched,” she said.

And while access to vaccination remains the main issue worldwide, “we’re extremely concerned about mis- and disinformation because of the threat it has to worsen the situation”.

O’Brien said she expected cuts to aid funding to affect vaccine coverage in future years, with countries struggling to raise domestic finance.

Humanitarian efforts had succeeded in boosting vaccination rates in the first half of this year in Sudan, said Hailegebriel, but Unicef’s appeal for the country remained unfunded.

The charity has shipped in containers to rebuild the country’s “cold chain”, vital for keeping vaccines and other essential medicines at the right temperature so they remain effective on the journey from factory to patient. But when conflict flares those efforts have to stop.

“In areas where there was active fighting, active conflict, of course we will not be able to deliver,” she said. “But when the situation changes, that’s when we move in.

“The destruction is unspeakable. The whole infrastructure gets damaged, medicines get looted. So whenever you go into those new areas, it is again rebuilding to make sure the already shaking health system doesn’t collapse further.

“The situation of Sudan has not received the world’s attention it deserves,” she said. “It is our hope that this will change, and these hostilities stop so that children get the peaceful environment they need to live and thrive.”

Abdallah Idriss Abugarda, who leads the Darfur Diaspora Association in the UK, said the situation in the Darfur region was becoming more difficult, particularly in the besieged city of El Fasher.

That meant, Abugarda said, that most families he spoke to in Sudan had more pressing concerns than vaccination. “It’s not a priority to them – they want to have food delivered, and medicine for malaria and fever for the children.”

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed nearly 300 people in attacks in North Kordofan state that began on Saturday, according to Sudanese activists.

The RSF has been fighting the Sudanese army in that area, one of the key frontlines of a civil war in Sudan that has raged since April 2023.

The Emergency Lawyers human rights group said on Monday that the RSF had attacked several villages on Saturday around the city of Bara, which the paramilitary controls.

In one village, Shag Alnom, more than 200 people were killed via arson or gunshot. Looting raids of the other villages killed 38 civilians, it said, while dozens of others had gone missing.

The next day, the group said in its statement, the RSF attacked the village of Hilat Hamid, killing 46 people, including pregnant women and children.

More than 3,400 people were forced to flee, according to the UN.

“It has been proven that these targeted villages were completely empty of any military objectives, which makes clear the criminal nature of these crimes carried out in complete disregard of international humanitarian law,” Emergency Lawyers said, placing the responsibility with RSF leadership.

The army has taken firm control of the centre and east of Sudan while the RSF is working to consolidate its control of western regions, including North Kordofan.

The US and human rights groups have accused the RSF of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Its soldiers have carried out a series of violent looting raids in territory it has taken control of across the country.

The RSF leadership says it will bring those found responsible for such acts to justice.

Sudan’s civil war has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, driving more than half the population into hunger and spreading diseases including cholera across the country. A global reduction in aid spending has stretched the humanitarian response.

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed nearly 300 people in attacks in North Kordofan state that began on Saturday, according to Sudanese activists.

The RSF has been fighting the Sudanese army in that area, one of the key frontlines of a civil war in Sudan that has raged since April 2023.

The Emergency Lawyers human rights group said on Monday that the RSF had attacked several villages on Saturday around the city of Bara, which the paramilitary controls.

In one village, Shag Alnom, more than 200 people were killed via arson or gunshot. Looting raids of the other villages killed 38 civilians, it said, while dozens of others had gone missing.

The next day, the group said in its statement, the RSF attacked the village of Hilat Hamid, killing 46 people, including pregnant women and children.

More than 3,400 people were forced to flee, according to the UN.

“It has been proven that these targeted villages were completely empty of any military objectives, which makes clear the criminal nature of these crimes carried out in complete disregard of international humanitarian law,” Emergency Lawyers said, placing the responsibility with RSF leadership.

The army has taken firm control of the centre and east of Sudan while the RSF is working to consolidate its control of western regions, including North Kordofan.

The US and human rights groups have accused the RSF of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Its soldiers have carried out a series of violent looting raids in territory it has taken control of across the country.

The RSF leadership says it will bring those found responsible for such acts to justice.

Sudan’s civil war has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, driving more than half the population into hunger and spreading diseases including cholera across the country. A global reduction in aid spending has stretched the humanitarian response.

More than a century after its troops burned villages and looted cultural artefacts in the quest to include Niger in its west African colonial portfolio, France has signalled willingness over possible restitution, but is yet to acknowledge responsibility.

“France remains open to bilateral dialogue with the Nigerien authorities, as well as to any collaboration concerning provenance research or patrimonial cooperation,” the office of France’s permanent representative to the UN wrote in a document seen by the Guardian.

The 19 June response was given to a letter dated two months earlier from a UN special rapporteur working on a complaint by four Nigerien communities representing descendants of victims of the 1899 Mission Afrique Centrale (MAC), one of the most violent colonial campaigns in Africa.

“Although France was aware of the atrocities at the time, no MAC officer has ever been held responsible for these crimes … France has not conducted any official inquiry or acknowledged the horrors inflicted on the communities affected,” wrote Bernard Duhaime, a professor of international law at the University of Quebec in Montreal and the UN special rapporteur working on the case.

In 1899, French officers led by the captains Paul Voulet and Julien Chanoine marched tirailleurs – as the African soldiers under their command were known – through communities in present-day Niger. They killed thousands of unarmed people and looted supplies, terrorising local people into compliance. The next year, Niger became officially absorbed into French west Africa.

“I have come to establish an empire,” Voulet reportedly said, according to the American historian Matthew G Stanard in his 2009 book The Killer Trail: A Colonial Scandal in the Heart of Africa. “If I must kill, I will kill. If I must burn, I will burn. Every means is justifiable.”

In Birni-N’Konni alone, an estimated 400 people were massacred in a day. Entire villages along the mission’s path – including Tibiri, Zinder and smaller communities – were burned and looted, with corpses hung at their entrances. Some survivors fled to neighbouring Nigeria and never returned.

When Paris dispatched Col Jean-François Klobb to replace Voulet in July that year and end the bloodletting, the superior officer was shot to death by soldiers acting on the latter’s instructions.

In recent years, France has begun to engage with its historical wrongdoings in Africa even as anti-French sentiments soar across the continent. In 2021, President Emmanuel Macron admitted France’s responsibility in the Rwandan genocide. A year later, Paris acknowledged the 1945 massacre of tens of thousands of Algerian civilians in Sétif. In May 2023, it issued a formal apology for the brutal repression of the 1947 Malagasy uprising.

Still, there has been a reluctance to acknowledge the Voulet-Chanoine mission, which is largely absent from French schoolbooks and only faintly remembered in Niger’s national curriculum. Instead, there was a bureaucratic cover-up and accounts of survivors’ descendants have been weak or subdued, often due to decades of silence and trauma.

The case relied on documents written by Nigerien historians and limited archival materials including reports by Voulet himself, said the British-Senegalese lawyer Jelia Sané who worked with the affected communities. The communities are now requesting access to official archives in order to reveal the true extent of the atrocities.

“The graves of some of the [French] troops are still in those communities today, even though the victims were never memorialised,” said Sané.

For Hosseini Tahirou Amadou, a history and geography teacher in Dioundiou who began the campaign in 2014, acknowledging the atrocities would be the first step in the right direction. “After this recognition, now we can move on to the next step, which is reparation,” he said. “During these crimes, precious objects linked to our historywere stolen to France. We need their return.”

In its response to the UN special rapporteur, the French government neither denied nor admitted the atrocities, but cited the principle of non-retroactivity of international law, saying any treaties it was deemed to have contravened were ratified long after the incident occurred.

“It is well established that for a violation of international law to give rise to responsibility, the obligation must be in force vis-a-vis the state and the violation must occur at the time the act is committed,” the letter read. Paris also said it was yet to receive restitution requests concerning MAC-related looted artefacts or human remains from Nigerien authorities.

“They don’t dispute [the incident] overtly or implicitly … they don’t really engage with the facts,” Sané said. “However, it’s not really possible for them to dispute these things because they investigated a number of these allegations themselves.”

The case findings will be included in the next UN human rights report and presented to the general assembly in October. Historians say it could promote continent-wide conversations on reparations.

The African Union has labelled 2025 the Year of Reparations, after a decade of sustained lobbying by four Nigerien communities that was accelerated in 2021 after the release of the BBC documentary African Apocalypse, which was screened in French and Hausa around the country.

In 2021, Germany formally acknowledged colonial-era genocides in Namibia and pledged €1.1bn over 30 years in aid as a form of symbolic reconciliation, though it stopped short of calling it reparation or compensation.

The matter of monetary compensation is yet to be addressed by the communities as the exact number of victims remains unknown. However, the historian and former higher education minister Mamoudou Djibo is adamant that things are not at that stage yet.

“We are not beggars,” he said. “Our demand for reparation is not systematically that we are given money but that first of all, France recognises that it has committed crimes against humanity. When this is recognised, we will be ready to dialogue.”

In its letter, France said its schools taught the history of colonisation and that “the level of curriculum-writing leaves great pedagogical freedom to teachers to address these themes”, but did not clarify if the Voulet-Chanoine mission was included.

Back in Niger, Amadou is waiting for the crimes to be taught in French schools and for what he considers the bare minimum – a memorial to the massacre. “These communities deserve to have monuments, because these are things that should not be forgotten,” he said.

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed nearly 300 people in attacks in North Kordofan state that began on Saturday, according to Sudanese activists.

The RSF has been fighting the Sudanese army in that area, one of the key frontlines of a civil war in Sudan that has raged since April 2023.

The Emergency Lawyers human rights group said on Monday that the RSF had attacked several villages on Saturday around the city of Bara, which the paramilitary controls.

In one village, Shag Alnom, more than 200 people were killed via arson or gunshot. Looting raids of the other villages killed 38 civilians, it said, while dozens of others had gone missing.

The next day, the group said in its statement, the RSF attacked the village of Hilat Hamid, killing 46 people, including pregnant women and children.

More than 3,400 people were forced to flee, according to the UN.

“It has been proven that these targeted villages were completely empty of any military objectives, which makes clear the criminal nature of these crimes carried out in complete disregard of international humanitarian law,” Emergency Lawyers said, placing the responsibility with RSF leadership.

The army has taken firm control of the centre and east of Sudan while the RSF is working to consolidate its control of western regions, including North Kordofan.

The US and human rights groups have accused the RSF of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Its soldiers have carried out a series of violent looting raids in territory it has taken control of across the country.

The RSF leadership says it will bring those found responsible for such acts to justice.

Sudan’s civil war has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, driving more than half the population into hunger and spreading diseases including cholera across the country. A global reduction in aid spending has stretched the humanitarian response.

Nigeria’s former president Muhammadu Buhari, who led Africa’s most populous country from 2015 to 2023 and was the first Nigerian president to oust an incumbent through the ballot box, died in London on Sunday, a presidential spokesperson has said.

President Bola Tinubu’s spokesperson said in a post on X: “President Buhari died today in London at about 4.30pm [1530 GMT], following a prolonged illness.”

Buhari, 82, who first led the country as a military ruler after a coup in the 1980s, earned a devoted following for his brand of anti-corruption conviction politics.

He referred to himself as a “converted democrat” and swapped his military uniform for kaftans and prayer caps.

“I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody” was a regular refrain Buhari told supporters and critics alike.

Buhari defeated Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 in what was judged to be Nigeria’s fairest election to date. Many hoped the retired major general would crack down on armed groups, just as he had as the country’s military head of state.

Instead, violence that had mostly been confined to the north-east spread. That left swathes of Nigeria outside the control of the stretched security forces as gunmen in the north-west, armed separatists and gangs in the south-east roamed unchecked.

Much of Buhari’s appeal lay in the anti-corruption ethos that was a central plank of his agenda as a military and civilian ruler. He said endemic corruption in Nigeria’s political culture was holding people back.

But Buhari quickly disappointed after his 2015 win. He took six months to name his cabinet. During that time, the oil-dependent economy was hobbled by low crude prices, prompting people to call him “Baba Go Slow”.

His second victory in 2019 came despite his first term being blighted by Nigeria’s first recession in a generation, militant attacks on oilfields, and repeated hospital stays.

Buhari was born on 17 December 1942 in Daura, in the north-west state of Katsina, and enrolled in the army at 19. He would eventually rise to the rank of major general.

He seized power in 1983 as a military ruler, promising to revitalise a mismanaged country. Buhari took a tough line on everything from the conditions sought by the International Monetary Fund to unruliness in bus queues.

In 1984, his administration attempted to kidnap a former minister and vocal critic living in Britain. The plot failed when London airport officials opened a crate containing the abducted politician.

His first stint in power was short-lived. He was removed after only 18 months by another military officer, Ibrahim Babangida.

Buhari spent much of the following 30 years in fringe political parties and trying to run for president until his eventual victory over Jonathan in 2015.

Tom Homan, the US border czar, said he does not know what happened to the eight men deported to South Sudan after the Trump administration resumed sending migrants to countries that are not their place of origin, known as third countries.

“They’re free as far as we’re concerned. They’re free, they’re no longer in our custody, they’re in Sudan,” Homan told Politico on Friday. “Will they stay in Sudan? I don’t know.”

Administration officials said the men had been convicted of violent crimes in the US. Only one of the eight reportedly has a connection to South Sudan, which recently emerged from a civil war. The others include two people from Myanmar, two from Cuba, and one each from Vietnam, Laos and Mexico.

South Sudanese authorities said on Tuesday the men were in custody in Juba “under the care of the relevant authorities, who are screening them and ensuring their safety and wellbeing”.

The men were initially deported in May, but were held on a military base in Djibouti for weeks after a US court stopped their removal.

They were then transported to South Sudan after two US supreme court decisions: one that broadly allowed for the administration to deport migrants to third countries to which they have no connection, and a second that weighed in directly on the case of the eight men.

“We make arrangements to make sure these countries are receiving these people and there’s opportunities for people, but I can’t tell you – if we removed somebody to Sudan they could stay there a week and leave, I don’t know,” Homan said.

He later added: “There’s like a 100 different endings to this – I just don’t know on every specific case what their status is.”

The administration has also controversially deported Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, where they are held in a notorious prison. The administration has reportedly also approached countries such as Costa Rica, Panama and Rwanda about accepting migrants.

Homan has been called the intellectual “father” of a policy on migrants enacted in the first Trump administration to separate children from their families, according to an investigation in 2022 by the Atlantic.