UN peacekeepers should be routinely deployed to protect aid convoys from attack in places such as Gaza and Sudan, a senior United Nations expert has proposed.

With starvation increasingly used as a weapon of war, Michael Fakhri said armed UN troops were now required to ensure that food reached vulnerable populations.

“I’m calling for the UN general assembly to authorise peacekeepers to accompany humanitarian convoys,” said the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food.

Fakhri’s call for intervention comes amid deepening concern over the increased targeting of aid convoys in Africa and the Middle East.

The UN’s human rights office said it was “deeply disturbed” by the rising number of attacks, warning that any attempt to block aid or target humanitarians was a war crime.

Recently, humanitarian convoys have been deliberately targeted in Central African Republic and also in Haiti in the Caribbean.

Earlier this month, a UN aid convoy of 15 trucks – the first attempt to reach the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher for a year – was attacked, killing five people.

The most high-profile obstruction of aid, however, involves the Gaza Strip. Three months ago, Israel imposed a full humanitarian blockade on Gaza, cutting off food and other critical supplies to the Palestinian territory. Aid convoys entering Gaza have also been repeatedly attacked.

Fakhri said that unless there was concerted international intervention to protect aid delivery throughout the world, humanitarian organisations would eventually cease distribution, creating a “dystopia”.

He said the UN security council, which passed a resolution in 2018 condemning the unlawful denial of aid to civilians, had been rendered ineffective because members kept vetoing attempts to help.

“Where the security council is blocked by a veto, the general assembly has the authority to call for peacekeepers,” said Fakhri.

He said such a move could happen quickly with a majority vote of the 193 member states required – a proportion that Fakhri predicted would easily be reached.

“What the general assembly would do is politically implement what countries are already obliged to do.”

Frustration over the lack of international action to safeguard vital aid supplies – particularly in Gaza – has forced activists to take matters into their own hands.

Last week, a yacht attempted to break the Israeli blockade and deliver aid to Gaza but was prevented by Israel.

On the same day the boat was intercepted, a land aid convoy set off from Tunisia with the similar intention of breaking Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory.

In Africa, aid delivery in Sudan has become increasingly fraught as key routes are blocked or attacked while aid facilities and humanitarian workers have been targeted.

Jeremy Laurence, a Geneva-based spokesperson for the UN human rights office, said: “We are deeply disturbed by the intentional obstruction of aid trying to reach civilians from Gaza to Sudan and elsewhere, including through attacks on aid convoys.

“Worryingly, these practices appear to be on the increase,” Laurence said. “Wilfully impeding relief supplies to starve civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime.”

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch described as “horrifying” the spike in the frequency and severity of attacks on humanitarian workers.

Louis Charbonneau, United Nations director at HRW, said:“Last year set a grim record for the number of humanitarian workers killed in conflict zones – more than 360 – most of them in Gaza but also in Sudan, Ukraine and elsewhere.”

Fakhri added: “Whoever controls aid has a significant amount of power in a particular region and conflict.”

He warned that if attacks continued then traditional aid distributors such as the UN could be forced to give up.

“It makes it less likely for the UN, for the international community, for the Red Cross, for civil society organisations, to do that work and then who will take over? These militarised operations seen in Gaza?” he said.

Fakhri was referring to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US and Israel-backed logistics group that aims to replace Gaza’s UN-led food and humanitarian supply distribution network.

Last Wednesday, Israeli forces killed at least 60 Palestinians in Gaza who were seeking food from a GHF distribution centre, with dozens more wounded.

Charbonneau urged greater justice for attacks on humanitarians and aid convoys. “One big motivator is impunity, which emboldens the governments of Israel, Russia, the warring parties in Sudan and others to target or fire indiscriminately at civilians, including humanitarian workers,” he said. “The problem is they feel confident they can get away with it.”

A Kenyan police officer has been arrested in connection with a death in custody, the latest development in a case that has sparked widespread anger and protests in the capital.

Albert Ojwang, 31, died in police custody last weekend after he was arrested over his criticism of a senior officer online.

Police said initially he died after hitting his own head against the wall, but a government pathologist later said the injuries were “unlikely to be self-inflicted”.

The case has renewed focus on long-standing allegations of police brutality in the east African country and protesters have called for the resignation of deputy inspector general Eliud Kipkoech Lagat, the subject of Ojwang’s comments.

On Friday, police spokesperson Michael Muchiri confirmed to Agence France-Presse that a constable had been arrested in connection to the incident. He gave no further details and redirected inquiries to the police watchdog, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA).

A spokesperson for the IPOA, which is investigating the death, did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.

Earlier in the week, Muchiri said five officers had been removed from active duty, to “allow for transparent investigations”.

President William Ruto has called for a swift investigation, and promised on Friday the government would “protect citizens from rogue police officers”.

The arrest follows the IPOA saying 20 people had died in custody in the past four months.

Ojwang’s death has been a catalyst for simmering anger over a spate of abductions following anti-government protests last year. Rights groups say dozens were illegally detained in the rallies’ aftermath, with many still missing, and others have been arrested for criticism of the government and Ruto.

A Kenyan police officer has been arrested in connection with a death in custody, the latest development in a case that has sparked widespread anger and protests in the capital.

Albert Ojwang, 31, died in police custody last weekend after he was arrested over his criticism of a senior officer online.

Police said initially he died after hitting his own head against the wall, but a government pathologist later said the injuries were “unlikely to be self-inflicted”.

The case has renewed focus on long-standing allegations of police brutality in the east African country and protesters have called for the resignation of deputy inspector general Eliud Kipkoech Lagat, the subject of Ojwang’s comments.

On Friday, police spokesperson Michael Muchiri confirmed to Agence France-Presse that a constable had been arrested in connection to the incident. He gave no further details and redirected inquiries to the police watchdog, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA).

A spokesperson for the IPOA, which is investigating the death, did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.

Earlier in the week, Muchiri said five officers had been removed from active duty, to “allow for transparent investigations”.

President William Ruto has called for a swift investigation, and promised on Friday the government would “protect citizens from rogue police officers”.

The arrest follows the IPOA saying 20 people had died in custody in the past four months.

Ojwang’s death has been a catalyst for simmering anger over a spate of abductions following anti-government protests last year. Rights groups say dozens were illegally detained in the rallies’ aftermath, with many still missing, and others have been arrested for criticism of the government and Ruto.

A Kenyan police officer has been arrested in connection with a death in custody, the latest development in a case that has sparked widespread anger and protests in the capital.

Albert Ojwang, 31, died in police custody last weekend after he was arrested over his criticism of a senior officer online.

Police said initially he died after hitting his own head against the wall, but a government pathologist later said the injuries were “unlikely to be self-inflicted”.

The case has renewed focus on long-standing allegations of police brutality in the east African country and protesters have called for the resignation of deputy inspector general Eliud Kipkoech Lagat, the subject of Ojwang’s comments.

On Friday, police spokesperson Michael Muchiri confirmed to Agence France-Presse that a constable had been arrested in connection to the incident. He gave no further details and redirected inquiries to the police watchdog, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA).

A spokesperson for the IPOA, which is investigating the death, did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.

Earlier in the week, Muchiri said five officers had been removed from active duty, to “allow for transparent investigations”.

President William Ruto has called for a swift investigation, and promised on Friday the government would “protect citizens from rogue police officers”.

The arrest follows the IPOA saying 20 people had died in custody in the past four months.

Ojwang’s death has been a catalyst for simmering anger over a spate of abductions following anti-government protests last year. Rights groups say dozens were illegally detained in the rallies’ aftermath, with many still missing, and others have been arrested for criticism of the government and Ruto.

A wave of anger and frustration has gripped South Africa after the murder of 30-year-old Olorato Mongale, allegedly by a man she went on a date with. It is the latest in a series of high-profile cases of violence against women and children in the country.

Friends of Mongale, a former journalist who had been studying for a master’s degree in ICT policy, raised the alarm when she stopped checking in with them while on a date in Johannesburg on 25 May. Her body was found that day.

The main suspect, Philangenkosi Makhanya, was killed in a shootout with police five days later, while another suspect, Bongani Mthimkhulu, remains on the run. South African police said more than 20 women had come forward to claim the two men had kidnapped and robbed them after masquerading as suitors at malls across South Africa, in what police called a “romance dating scam”.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world, according to available data. In the year to 31 March 2024, more than 27,600 people were murdered, 5,578 of them women and 1,656 children, according to South African police data.

Globally, in 2023, approximately 1.3 women per 100,000 were killed by an intimate partner or relative, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) found that during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic the rate was 5.5.

Cameron Kasambala, the community manager at the advocacy group Women For Change, said: “Women die no matter what they do. They’ve been stabbed while they sleep, shot in broad daylight and had their houses burned down by former partners.”

She pointed to the violent repression of South Africa’s black majority by the white minority during apartheid, which ended more than three decades ago. “Men compensate by becoming hypermasculine, by being violent and aggressive … It’s rooted in our violent history and exacerbated by poverty and substance abuse,” said Kasambala.

Other high-profile cases have included Racquel “Kelly” Smith selling her six-year-old daughter Joshlin, and that of Uyinene Mrwetyana, a student whose rape and murder in 2019 sparked huge protests. However, activists emphasise that thousands more go unnoticed every year.

In April, Women For Change handed over a petition with 150,000 signatures demanding that the government declare “gender-based violence and femicide” (GBVF) to be a national disaster. Kasambala said: “This stance will then filter down to the police, the courts and hospitals.”

Sindisiwe Chikunga, the minister for women, youth and persons with disabilities, replied in a letter: “The government remains fully committed to a whole-of-society, multi-sectoral response to the GBVF crisis.” She did not mention the national disaster demand.

Naeemah Abrahams, who leads the SAMRC’s femicide research, said: “When we try and solve it, it’s not going to be just the law. We’ve got great laws.”

Social norms around men being financial providers fuel violence, Abrahams said, with many believing, “if women step out of these societal expectations, she should be corrected for it”.

Mongale’s loved ones were incredibly proud of her achievements, said Criselda Kananda, the best friend of Mongale’s mother, Keabetswe. These included teaching English in South Korea and buying a flat in her home city of Bloemfontein.

Kananda said: “Olorato was such a bubbly ball of energy, who just lit up any space that she entered, who never took no for an answer.”

On Monday, Mongale’s mother went to her only child’s apartment for the first time since her death and found baking ingredients ready to make a cake. Kananda said: “We really are struggling … It’s things like these that are now painting a reality that she is no more.”

Family, friends and supporters of the jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah have spoken about the conditions of his long imprisonment as his mother, Laila Soueif, remains in a London hospital in declining health on a hunger strike to secure his release.

Amid a mounting campaign to put pressure on British ministers to intervene more forcefully on Abd el-Fattah’s behalf, supporters say his continued detention is part of a campaign of vengeance motivated by the personal animus of the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, towards him.

The activist, who came to prominence during Egypt’s 2011 Tahrir Square protests, has been jailed twice, the second time months after his release from prison in 2019, and continues to be imprisoned despite completing his five-year sentence last autumn.

Abd el-Fattah’s first period in prison – from 2015 to 2019 – was spent in the Tora maximum-security prison, a place designed to hold violent jihadists, but since 2018 he has been held in Wadi al-Natrun in Beheira province in the Nile delta.

While the physical conditions are less harsh than in Tora – where Abd el-Fattah was beaten – his treatment in Wadi al-Natrun has been designed deliberately to isolate and demoralise him, say supporters, depriving him for three years of books and limiting his contact with other prisoners.

Between September 2019 to May 2022 he was held in a small, poorly ventilated cell, denied a bed and mattress as well as reading materials and exercise. “The idea was to crush his spirit,” says Mona Seif, his sister, who has visited her brother in jail. “I think after so many trials and attempts to break him, the regime has realised that the way crush to him is to isolate him from the world and render him mute. That’s been the tactic since his second period in jail beginning in 2019.”

What has become clear to Seif, and others campaigning to release him, is that the treatment of her brother is being driven by a very personal animosity directed at Abd el-Fattah and his family by Egypt’s president.

“It seems very personal,” says Seif. “Since 2019 the unofficial messages we have been getting from different Egyptian institutions is that our file is with Sisi.”

Abd el-Fattah was a familiar and always approachable figure in Tahrir Square during the 2011 mass protests that led to the fall of the government of Hosni Mubarak. Articulate, passionate and thoughtful, his great skill was seen in bringing different groups together.

Sentenced to jail for organising a political protest without permission in 2015, Abd el-Fattah was briefly released in March 2019 but was rearrested months later and charged with spreading “fake news undermining national security” for a retweet.

One person with a personal insight into what Abd el-Fattah has been through is the activist and poet Ahmed Douma, who was imprisoned during his first spell in jail in Tora, where for 10 months the two men were in separate, solitary cells facing each other, until the authorities decided their proximity was a problem.

Unlike Abd el-Fattah, Douma was pardoned and released by Sisi in 2023. January 2011 – when 18 days of mass protests led to the resignation of the then president, Hosni Mubarak – “was, still is, and will forever remain a personal enemy to Sisi. And Alaa was one of the symbols of that period,” Douma told the Guardian.

“At the same time, he’s an activist who has audience and influence – a thinker with his own philosophy and interest in how political movements develop, how people move, how they understand things.

“And of course, he also became a symbol of the stupidity of the authorities.

“The truth is that even one hour in prison inevitably leaves an impact, and it’s not trivial,” adds Douma, who spent more than 10 years in prison. “There’s depression from what happened in prison, whether things that happened to you directly or which you witnessed. Torture, assault and so on.

“It’s not just the impact on the body, but on the mind. At some point, you realise that you’ve been in solitary confinement for days, months, days or years, with no communication. I haven’t even begun the journey of recovery from the effects of those 10 years.”

Aida Seif El-Dawla, a psychiatrist, human rights defender and co-founder of El Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, says: “Look, in Egypt, detention is a psychological torture. I don’t know what those people are punished for except that they expressed an opinion. And to put people in prison because they expressed an opinion, that’s not a legal punishment. But apparently, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi thinks otherwise.

“This is the punishment of the saddest father who tortures his children for non-obedience.”

What is clear is that the Egyptian authorities regard Abd el-Fattah’s detention as open ended, holding him beyond his originally scheduled release date and also holding another potential prosecution over him.

Mahmoud Shalaby, a researcher at Amnesty International who deals with Egypt, says: “The whole thing is about making an example of him. He’s already been brutally punished. He has spent almost 10 years in prison solely for practising his human rights. Alaa’s case is extremely extraordinary, especially as Egypt has a history of releasing dual nationals who are arbitrarily detained.

“I think the fear is that if he was released, he would go abroad and criticise the government from there. But that’s not a reason to keep him arbitrarily in prison.”

His lawyer, Khaled Ali, says: “Alaa should have been released on 28 September last year.” Instead, the courts have declined to include his period of pretrial detention, prior to ratification of the sentence, meaning he will not be released until 2027 – if then.

Ali says: “He was sentenced to five years in prison and he has been detained since 28 September 2019. His sentence should have ended on 28 September 2024.”

After a hunger strike in 2022, Abd el-Fattah has been allowed access to books and now a television in Wadi al-Natrun, from where he is able to write and receive letters from his family.

“Alaa and my mum are both big science fiction fans and so he reads a massive amount,” says Seif. “Science fiction, graphic novels and anything to do with science. Now he is allowed a television, he follows tournaments. He’ll treat a tournament as a whole project. If Wimbledon is on, he will follow for the day.

“But because of the way the prison was constructed, the exercise area is a big hole with concrete walls and no ceiling. He hasn’t walked in sun for over five years.”

The family are able to monitor his mood via his response to the cats that have sought shelter in the prison and whom he has adopted. “If his mood is good he shares lots of pictures of the cats.” His mood in recent months as his release date has come and gone has not been good.

Attempts by successive British governments and EU officials – among others – to intervene behind the scenes have been a failure as Egypt has faced no consequences for its human rights abuses. Lacking interlocutors with influence within Sisi’s immediate circle, Abd el-Fattah’s case is stuck, even as his mother’s health in London has dangerously worsened.

One person who has been involved in advocacy for Abd el-Fattah says: “The policy of private engagement has been going on for over 10 years. You only see movement on human rights issues in Egypt where there is the threat of action.”

Seif says: “They just want his absolute surrender and Alaa completely broken and mimicking the regime’s narrative. Even the slightest indication of independence they see as defiance. The whole thing is a senseless act of pure vengeance that leaves us to keep guessing, what is it for, and when will be enough.”

Ahmed Douma adds: “If I could send him a message and tell him anything, I would tell him that we are with him. And that his freedom and Laila’s life are our personal battle.”

The severe thunderstorms that have been lashing parts of Europe over recent days are expected to give way to high temperatures this week. Several regions could climb to 10C (50F) above seasonal norms, with Italy braced for the full force of the heat. Florence in Tuscany is forecast to soar to a sweltering 39C on Thursday and across the weekend.

Germany, France and Belgium will also face hot weather from Wednesday, with widespread highs at least 9C above the June average. Many other parts of Europe are forecast to experience temperatures 5-7C above normal. This is the result of a high-pressure system creating a heat dome over the region, whereby sinking air compresses and warms as it descends, trapping heat near the surface.

Meanwhile, South Africa is in the grip of a powerful storm system that has triggered alerts for severe weather nationwide. Over the weekend, Western Cape and Northern Cape bore the brunt of the system. As the week progresses, the storm is likely to intensify and move eastwards, bringing extreme weather to central and eastern regions.

The conditions are driving a significant drop in temperature, with daytime highs in some areas plummeting to more than 7C below the seasonal average. Gusty winds are making it feel even more frigid.

Heavy rain has also been hammering Eastern Cape, with coastal areas expected to be hit by more than 100mm on Monday, potentially causing floods. Strong winds sweeping across the region are expected to strengthen to about 60mph (100km/h) on Monday, exacerbating the impact of the storm. Snowfall is also expected, with significant accumulations likely to cause widespread travel disruption and infrastructure challenges.

The intense weather is the result of a strong cut-off low system, which occurs when a low-pressure area becomes detached from the main jet stream. This allows cold, dry air to descend from higher altitudes and combine with moisture at the surface to produce the volatile mix of rain, wind and snow that has been battering swaths of the country.

South African authorities are urging residents to stay alert, limit travel and monitor official weather updates over the coming days.

The Kenyan government has told its tea factories to stop working with the Rainforest Alliance because it says the costs involved in securing the ethical label don’t add up for farmers.

The non-profit organisation is one of the world’s most recognisable certification schemes with its green frog seal on food packaging a sign consumers “can feel confident that these products support a better world”.

However the world’s third largest tea producer has ordered tea factories to suspend certification work because the cost is adding to the financial strain on struggling smallholders.

A recent Fairtrade Foundation poll found only one in five tea workers and farmers in Kenya are earning enough each month to support their families with essentials.

In a memo issued after an industry summit, the agriculture principal secretary, Paul Ronoh, said the “burden of implementation” of the Rainforest Alliance scheme was vested on tea factories then “cascaded to the tea farmers and growers”.

This cost “ordinarily should be met by the customers”, Ronoh said.

Rainforest Alliance is a global non-profit organisation that works to promote sustainable agriculture, forestry and responsible business practices.

The green frog seal appears on nearly 240 brands and is almost ubiquitous in UK supermarket tea ranges with big names including Tetley, PG Tips and Yorkshire Tea among those signed up. About half the tea consumed in the UK comes from Kenya.

The widespread demand for ethical certification is linked to the reputational risk of sourcing from tea-producing regions with a long list of problems. These include low wages, unsafe working conditions, gender inequality and environmentally unsustainable practices.

In addition, countries such as India and Kenya are grappling with climate crisis-related weather changes.

However critics complain that while buyers for western markets only want to buy certified tea they rarely offer to pay a premium for it.

While UK consumers are happy to splurge on coffee, the same is not true of tea. The average price of a teabag is “just 2 or 3p” despite the fact that the cost to grow and pick tea is increasing, according to a recent Fairtrade Foundation report on the subject.

Although Rainforest Alliance facilitates certification, it does not set the fees charged by external auditors who evaluate whether growers meet its “sustainable agriculture standard”.

The cost of certification depends on factors such as farm size, with growers often grouping together. For a smallholder-managed tea factory the annual cost is estimated to be about $3,000. This could come down however as a streamlined process that cuts the preparation work involved in an audit is being introduced this year.

Ronoh said that as the Rainforest Alliance logo “had not demonstrated solid impact commensurate to the costs of implementation, the meeting resolved to suspend the scheme with immediate effect”.

Tea is a major cash crop for Kenya and the decision comes as the country grapples with the knock-on effect of a moribund tea price on the millions of people who rely on it for their livelihood.

The Rainforest Alliance says it is engaging with the State Department of Agriculture in Kenya to “gain clarity and to work towards a joint resolution quickly”.

It has contacted certificate-holders to assure them that the endorsement remains valid until the expiration date, meaning “farmers are able to sell their tea as certified”.

A spokesperson said: “We remain committed to supporting in Kenya to the fullest extent possible, and our tea brands and companies have communicated that they remain fully committed to continuing to purchase Rainforest Alliance certified tea.”

The Kenyan government is said to be considering putting in place a localised certification model. It would likely have similar sustainability goals but lower compliance costs and less administrative complexity.

A spokesperson for the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), an NGO focused on tackling problems in the tea sector, said it hoped the Kenyan suspension would be “short-lived and that a solution to this current impasse will be found”.

Certification is a “critical tool to allow all stakeholders in the tea supply chain to ensure that the workers, farmers and communities who rely on tea for their livelihoods are being treated fairly”, the ETP added.

When Essi Farida Geraldo, a Lomé-based architect, heard about partial restrictions on travel to the US from Togo as part of the travel bans announced by Donald Trump on Thursday, she lamented losing access to what many young Togolese consider to be a land of better opportunities.

“The United States was the Togolese’s El Dorado,” Geraldo said. “Many people go to work in the US to save money and support their families or projects in Africa … This will force the country to really develop stronger partnerships that exclude the US.”

Trump’s order, which is to come into effect on Monday, prohibits people from seven African countries – Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia and Sudan – from entering the US, making Africa the worst-affected continent. People from another three African countries – Burundi, Sierra Leone and Togo – will be subject to partial restrictions, meaning they will not be able to travel to the US on certain visas.

For Geraldo, an alumnus of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders programme instituted by the Obama administration, the new restrictions compound the harm from Trump’s foreign aid cuts, which made it harder for her to access funding for social projects in the tiny west African state.

Mikhail Nyamweya, a political and foreign affairs analyst, said the new travel bans and restrictions would “bring about a pattern of exclusion” and “may also institutionalise a perception of Africans as outsiders in the global order”. “In the short term, they will restrict access to education, innovation and professional mobility. In the long-term, they risk alienating African partners,” he said.

The White House deputy press secretary, Abigail Jackson, said the countries on the list “lack proper vetting, exhibit high visa overstay rates or fail to share identity and threat information”. “President Trump is fulfilling his promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors that want to come to our country and cause us harm,” she said on X, adding that the restrictions were “commonsense”.

This interpretation was firmly rejected by Abby Maxman, the president and CEO of Oxfam America, who said the ban “deepens inequality and perpetuates harmful stereotypes, racist tropes and religious intolerance”. She said: “This policy is not about national security. It is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the US.”

The policy has deepened a cloud of uncertainty in the affected countries, especially after the US government announced in May that visa appointments for students wishing to study in its universities had been suspended pending expanded social media vetting.

There is also fear across Africa about a proposed tax on remittances under Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is under parliamentary review. If passed into law, the 3.5% tax could severely dent the GDP of many nations, for whom diaspora remittances are a huge contribution.

Geoffrey Gichohi, a 34-year-old nurse working in Minnesota, recently sent money to his mother in Kenya – which is not covered by the travel ban – via an app to pay for a concrete wall and a metal gate at their home.

Like many Africans abroad, he regularly sends money to his family members back home who rely on it for school fees, healthcare and other basic needs. A new tax – on top of sending and withdrawal fees – would make it more difficult, he said. “The parents back at home in Kenya are the ones who will suffer because they’ll have limited resources,” he said. “Personally, I hope the bill doesn’t get passed.”

Human rights activists have criticised the restrictions and planned tax, saying they unfairly target citizens of countries in the global south. Other experts say the moves could further damage US-Africa ties in an era of rising anti-western sentiments on the continent.

Feelings of despair are not universal, however. According to Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, many people in Libya will be unbothered by the new policies as the US is not a major travel destination for them.

“It’s not good, but it’s not noticed as something catastrophic,” he said. “People are barely paying attention to [the travel ban] or the [proposed] remittance tax … if the same thing had happened to the UK it would be a major event, but not for the US.”

Authorities in many of the affected countries are yet to respond. However, on Thursday afternoon the president of Chad, Mahamat Idriss Déby, suspended the issuance of visas to US citizens, citing the need for reciprocal action.

“Chad has no planes to offer, no billions of dollars to give, but Chad has his dignity and pride,” he said in a Facebook post, referencing Qatar’s controversial gift to the Trump administration.

Over the last year, US and French troops have been forced to withdraw from military bases in Chad, which was previously a key ally in the Sahel for many western nations.

The reaction from Sierra Leone, another US ally in west Africa, was much mellower. “We have taken note of this proclamation,” said the information minister, Chernor Bah. “Our understanding is that the decision is based exclusively on visa overstay rates and that it does not reflect the broader state of US-Sierra Leone relations, which remain from our perspective strong and productive.”

A group of men removed from the US to Djibouti, in east Africa, are stranded in a converted shipping container together with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers sent to supervise them after a deportation flight to South Sudan was stopped by an American court.

The eight deportees and 13 Ice staff have begun to “feel ill”, the US government said.

Eight men, from Latin America, Asia and South Sudan, and the Ice staff have been stuck at a US naval base since late May. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that the Ice officers began to fall ill “within 72 hours of landing” in Djibouti, and continue to suffer from suspected bacterial upper respiratory infections.

The Trump administration had attempted to send the eight detainees, who it said had been convicted of criminal offenses, to South Sudan, but a judge intervened to stop their flight in May, arguing that they were entitled to challenge the deportation in the courts.

Mellissa Harper, a top official at the DHS and Ice, said in a court declaration that the detainees are being held in a shipping container that was previously converted into a conference room. The Ice officers are “sharing very limited sleeping quarters”, Harper said, with only six beds between 13 people.

In the declaration, Harper said burn pits in Djibouti have led to Ice officials experiencing “throat irritation”. She said the outside temperature frequently exceeds 100F (38C) in the daytime, and said Ice officials were at risk of malaria because they did not take anti-malaria medication before arriving in Djibouti.

“Within 72 hours of landing in Djibouti, the officers and detainees began to feel ill,” Harper said, but they are unable to obtain proper testing for a diagnosis.

Harper added: “Upon arrival in Djibouti, officers were warned by US Department of Defense officials of imminent danger of rocket attacks from terrorist groups in Yemen. The Ice officers lack body armor or other gear that would be appropriate in the case of an attack.”

The declaration detailed the conditions that the detainees face, including only being allowed to shower once a day, and being subjected to “pat-downs and searches” during trips to the restroom, which is 40 yards from the shipping container where they are being held. Harper said there is limited lighting in the area, “which makes visibility difficult and creates a significant security risk for both the officers and aliens”.

The Trump administration had attempted to send the eight men to their home countries of Myanmar, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Mexico and South Sudan. Those countries declined to accept them, however, and US authorities then arranged to fly them to South Sudan in late May.

Brian Murphy, a US district judge in Boston, intervened, ruling that the administration had “unquestionably” violated his earlier order, issued in April, which ruled that anyone being deported to third-party countries had the right to challenge it legally.

Cutting the horns off rhinos causes a large reduction in poaching, according to a new study, which raises questions about the effectiveness of expensive anti-poaching techniques used to protect the African mammals.

Poaching for horn is a significant threat to the world’s five rhino species. The substance, which is similar to human fingernails, is commonly used for traditional medicine in China, Vietnam and other Asian countries. Dealers in the hidden market will pay tens of thousands of dollars for the horns, which are falsely believed to be effective at treating fevers, pain and a low sex drive in traditional medicine.

But new research in the journal Science has highlighted ways to better protect the animals from illegal hunters. An assessment of rhino protection methods in the Greater Kruger region of South Africa – home to a quarter of the continent’s rhinos – found that removing horns reduced poaching by nearly 80% between 2017 and 2023.

In a collaboration between scientists, conservationists and government officials, the research found no statistical evidence that traditional anti-poaching interventions – such as rangers, detection cameras, dog tracking and helicopters – caused significant reductions in rhino poaching, despite their multimillion-dollar cost, even though they were successful at detecting hundreds of poachers.

“Dehorning rhinos to reduce incentives for poaching was found to achieve a 78% reduction in poaching using just 1.2% of the overall rhino protection budget,” said Dr Tim Kuiper of Nelson Mandela University, a lead author of the study. “We might need to rethink our goals. Do we just want to arrest poachers? It doesn’t appear to be making a massive difference to reducing rhino poaching.”

To dehorn a rhino, workers sedate the animal, apply a blindfold and earplugs, and cut off the horn with a power saw. The horn will gradually regrow – an average rhino needs to be dehorned every 1.5 to two years. The process poses a very low risk to the animal and does not hurt it.

“The headline result is that dehorning stood out for its effectiveness. We are cautious to say that the other interventions are not working. They worked when measured by whether they were detecting poachers. But detecting and arresting a load of poachers doesn’t necessarily bend the curve on rhino poaching,” Kuiper said.

In South Africa, rhino poaching remains high, with 103 killed in the first three months of 2025. Last year, 420 were lost. In recent decades, rhino populations have collapsed in Asia and Africa due to poaching and habitat loss, continuing falls driven by European colonial hunters.

But the researchers behind the project, representing the University of Cape Town, Nelson Mandela University, University of Stellenbosch and the University of Oxford and other conservation institutions, cautioned that dehorning rhinos was not a magic bullet. A significant stump of horn mass remains on the rhino after dehorning, and some poachers were still prepared to kill rhinos for this section.

Sharon Haussmann, a pioneer in rhino conservation in South Africa and co-author on the paper, played a leading role in coordinating conservation efforts in the study area. She died unexpectedly at the weekend and Kuiper wanted to highlight the collaboration between different sectors that are often mistrustful of each other in her memory.

“Is a rhino still a rhino without its horn? That’s a bigger question,” said Kuiper.

One study of black rhinos indicated that while poaching rates decreased, dehorned animals became more timid and covered much smaller ranges. Researchers believe that horn is used to establish territories and dehorned rhinos were unable to do this after the procedure.

“We wouldn’t like to keep dehorning them for the next 100 years,” Kuiper said. “Ideally we would like to address the drivers of poaching. But it is better than the impacts of poaching”

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage

Idris Elba has spoken of his ambition to create the “African Odeon” – a chain of cinemas to ignite the cinemagoing experience across the continent.

Elba was speaking at an event at SXSW London in which he spoke to host Clara Amfo in a session called Creativity as Capital for Change. In remarks reported by the Hollywood Reporter and Screen, Elba said: “There’s a crazy number across the entire continent – less than about 3,000 cinemas, actual cinemas that you and I have grown up with. I would love to be able to tackle some of that, because I believe that the cinema experience that we all have gone through should be experienced by a new generation. I don’t think it should all be on a phone.”

Elba added: “How do I do that? Building a model of data that shows that actually people do want to watch films, that they will enjoy the experience of theatre. I’m not going to try and boil the ocean, but it’s going to happen one bit at a time … Yeah man, I want to build the African Odeon.”

Elba, who was born in London to a Sierra Leonean father and a Ghanaian mother, has spoken previously about his ambitions to support the film industry in sub-Saharan Africa, saying in October: “It’s really important that we own those stories of our tradition, of our culture, of our languages, of the differences between one language and another.” He is also part of a consortium developing an “eco city” on Sherbro Island in Sierra Leone.

In London, Elba mentioned an AI-powered app called Talking Scripts that turns written material into audio, aiming to help people with reading difficulties such as dyslexia, as well as a digital wallet he had co-founded, called Akuna Wallet, designed to help creatives send money across borders more easily than before.

He added: “Any film or piece of music that was made in the 80s was made on equipment less superior than your phone is now. These kids know that. They are making films, they are making songs on these devices. Ultimately, there is a wall when it comes to getting it out there and monetising it, [but] I think the confidence that Afrobeats, Nollywood, has given African creators, young creators, is huge.”

Venezuela has hit back over the Trump administration’s travel ban by warning that the US itself is a dangerous place, while Somalia immediately pledged to work with Washington on security issues.

The mixed responses came after Donald Trump signed a ban targeting 12 countries also including Afghanistan, Iran and Yemen in a revival of one of the most controversial measures from his first term.

“Being in the United States is a great risk for anyone, not just for Venezuelans,” Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister in Caracas, said after the announcement, warning citizens against travel there and describing the US government as fascist. “They persecute our countrymen, our people for no reason.”

Dahir Hassan Abdi, the Somali ambassador to the US, said in a statement: “Somalia values its longstanding relationship with the United States and stands ready to engage in dialogue to address the concerns raised.”

Calls early on Thursday to the spokesperson of Myanmar’s military government were not answered. The foreign ministry of Laos did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters reported.

There was no immediate response from Iran, but Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, said: “The impact of the ban will once again be felt by Americans who were denied the ability to see their loved ones at weddings, funerals, or the birth of a child.”

The move bans all travel to the US by nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Trump imposed a partial ban on travellers from seven more countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. Some temporary work visas from these countries would be allowed, his administration said. The bans would go into effect on Monday 9 June, the White House said.

Trump said the bans were spurred by a makeshift flamethrower attack on a Jewish protest in Colorado that US authorities blamed on a man they said was in the country illegally.

Several countries on the list – Myanmar, Libya, Sudan and Yemen – face continuing civil strife and territory overseen by opposing factions. Sudan has an active war, while Yemen’s war is largely stalemated and Libyan forces remain armed.

For citizens of war-torn countries such as Myanmar, which has been gripped by violence since a military coup in 2021, the announcement is yet another blow. It follows a freeze on refugee resettlements announced by Trump in January, and cuts to scholarship programmes that provided rare opportunities for young people to go abroad and study in safety.

A 21-year-old student from Myanmar, who asked not be named, said his plan to study computer science at a community college in New York was in tatters. “[My] visa appointment is 25 June – but then there was this breaking news in the morning … I felt upset. I couldn’t do anything. This was my only hope, to study in the United States.”

He is now studying in Thailand but his visa will expire in October and he is unsure what he will do next, as it is not safe to return home.

He had been studying medicine in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, but fled after he was told he would be forcibly conscripted to join the military. “I don’t want to go to the army. Going to the army would be like I’m already dead. My name is on their list so I [had to] sneak out of my country,” he said, adding that his family stayed in Myanmar.

Young people have desperately sought ways to leave Myanmar after the widely loathed military junta announced last year it would impose mandatory conscription to boost its numbers.

Aside from the fear of conscription, people are living with the constant threat of military airstrikes in many areas of the country, the aftermath of a devastating earthquake that struck in March, and sky-high inflation. “Most of the people are jobless, most of the students are hopeless, we have no future. I think our generation is just for sacrifice,” the student said.

The travel ban was yet more bad news for Myanmar refugees in neighbouring Thailand, some of whom had been close to moving to the US when Trump abruptly suspended refugee resettlements earlier this year, said Joe Freeman, Amnesty International’s Myanmar researcher. Since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, 3.2 million people have been displaced within the country, while 176,400 have fled to neighbouring countries. “Some had already done their orientations for the US. They’ve already had their medical checkups. They’ve already gotten their flight tickets – and then just like [that] the hammer comes down,” Freeman said.

The inclusion of Afghanistan angered some supporters who have worked to resettle its people. The ban makes exceptions for Afghans on special immigrant visas, generally people who worked most closely with the US government during the two-decade-long war there.

Afghanistan was also one of the largest sources of resettled refugees, with about 14,000 arrivals in a 12-month period through September 2024. Trump suspended refugee resettlement on his first day in office.

“To include Afghanistan – a nation whose people stood alongside American service members for 20 years – is a moral disgrace. It spits in the face of our allies, our veterans, and every value we claim to uphold,” said Shawn VanDiver, the president and board chair of #AfghanEvac, a non-profit.

International aid groups and refugee resettlement organisations roundly condemned the new ban. “This policy is not about national security – it is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the United States,” said Abby Maxman, the president of Oxfam America.

Venezuela has hit back over the Trump administration’s travel ban by warning that the US itself is a dangerous place, while Somalia immediately pledged to work with Washington on security issues.

The mixed responses came after Donald Trump signed a ban targeting 12 countries also including Afghanistan, Iran and Yemen in a revival of one of the most controversial measures from his first term.

“Being in the United States is a great risk for anyone, not just for Venezuelans,” Diosdado Cabello, the interior minister in Caracas, said after the announcement, warning citizens against travel there and describing the US government as fascist. “They persecute our countrymen, our people for no reason.”

Dahir Hassan Abdi, the Somali ambassador to the US, said in a statement: “Somalia values its longstanding relationship with the United States and stands ready to engage in dialogue to address the concerns raised.”

Calls early on Thursday to the spokesperson of Myanmar’s military government were not answered. The foreign ministry of Laos did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters reported.

There was no immediate response from Iran, but Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, said: “The impact of the ban will once again be felt by Americans who were denied the ability to see their loved ones at weddings, funerals, or the birth of a child.”

The move bans all travel to the US by nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Trump imposed a partial ban on travellers from seven more countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. Some temporary work visas from these countries would be allowed, his administration said. The bans would go into effect on Monday 9 June, the White House said.

Trump said the bans were spurred by a makeshift flamethrower attack on a Jewish protest in Colorado that US authorities blamed on a man they said was in the country illegally.

Several countries on the list – Myanmar, Libya, Sudan and Yemen – face continuing civil strife and territory overseen by opposing factions. Sudan has an active war, while Yemen’s war is largely stalemated and Libyan forces remain armed.

For citizens of war-torn countries such as Myanmar, which has been gripped by violence since a military coup in 2021, the announcement is yet another blow. It follows a freeze on refugee resettlements announced by Trump in January, and cuts to scholarship programmes that provided rare opportunities for young people to go abroad and study in safety.

A 21-year-old student from Myanmar, who asked not be named, said his plan to study computer science at a community college in New York was in tatters. “[My] visa appointment is 25 June – but then there was this breaking news in the morning … I felt upset. I couldn’t do anything. This was my only hope, to study in the United States.”

He is now studying in Thailand but his visa will expire in October and he is unsure what he will do next, as it is not safe to return home.

He had been studying medicine in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, but fled after he was told he would be forcibly conscripted to join the military. “I don’t want to go to the army. Going to the army would be like I’m already dead. My name is on their list so I [had to] sneak out of my country,” he said, adding that his family stayed in Myanmar.

Young people have desperately sought ways to leave Myanmar after the widely loathed military junta announced last year it would impose mandatory conscription to boost its numbers.

Aside from the fear of conscription, people are living with the constant threat of military airstrikes in many areas of the country, the aftermath of a devastating earthquake that struck in March, and sky-high inflation. “Most of the people are jobless, most of the students are hopeless, we have no future. I think our generation is just for sacrifice,” the student said.

The travel ban was yet more bad news for Myanmar refugees in neighbouring Thailand, some of whom had been close to moving to the US when Trump abruptly suspended refugee resettlements earlier this year, said Joe Freeman, Amnesty International’s Myanmar researcher. Since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, 3.2 million people have been displaced within the country, while 176,400 have fled to neighbouring countries. “Some had already done their orientations for the US. They’ve already had their medical checkups. They’ve already gotten their flight tickets – and then just like [that] the hammer comes down,” Freeman said.

The inclusion of Afghanistan angered some supporters who have worked to resettle its people. The ban makes exceptions for Afghans on special immigrant visas, generally people who worked most closely with the US government during the two-decade-long war there.

Afghanistan was also one of the largest sources of resettled refugees, with about 14,000 arrivals in a 12-month period through September 2024. Trump suspended refugee resettlement on his first day in office.

“To include Afghanistan – a nation whose people stood alongside American service members for 20 years – is a moral disgrace. It spits in the face of our allies, our veterans, and every value we claim to uphold,” said Shawn VanDiver, the president and board chair of #AfghanEvac, a non-profit.

International aid groups and refugee resettlement organisations roundly condemned the new ban. “This policy is not about national security – it is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the United States,” said Abby Maxman, the president of Oxfam America.

The Home Office has been accused of a “racist crackdown on Nigerians” after refusing a visa to a man who runs one of the west African country’s top security firms for a holiday to see his family.

Samuel Onyekachi Ibeawuchi runs BKay Security Ltd, which provides close protection for high-profile people in Nigeria and abroad. He and his wife, a successful businesswoman, had applied to come to the UK with their 18-month-old child for three weeks in the summer so they could spend time with his sister, Hope Ibeawuchi-Beales, and her husband, Nick Beales, who is head of campaigning at Ramfel, which supports vulnerable migrants.

Despite Ibeawuchi-Beales and Beales undertaking to support the family during their trip, a Home Office official turned down the visit visa application. The refusal letter states: “This sponsorship does not satisfy me of your own intention to leave the UK on completion of your visit.”

It adds that future visits are also likely to be refused. Officials also queried how Ibeawuchi, who provided the Home Office with his business registration certificate, derives an income from his business as a self-employed person.

BKay Security has provided services to the former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, senior UK and US politicians, celebrities and international footballers including Alex Iwobi, the former Arsenal and Everton player who currently plays for Fulham and Nigeria.

It was reported last month that the government was planning to clamp down on visa applications for people from several countries, including Nigeria. Beales said: “There’s no doubt that the UK government refused these visa applications as part of their overtly racist crackdown on Nigerians.

“Samuel and his wife both run successful businesses in Nigeria and have no interest in remaining here after visiting my family, and had we applied for their visas a year ago I have no doubt they’d have been granted. It sadly says a lot though when the Labour party is even more hostile to families such as ours than their Conservative predecessors.”

Ibeawuchi said he was very disappointed that the Home Office was barring him and his family from coming to the UK. “I feel very bad that the Home Office refused us. I really wanted to take my family to the UK for a visit and we submitted all the necessary documents and photos of the two families spending time together.

“We do not want to stay in the UK, just to come here to visit our family for three weeks.”

Ibeawuchi-Beales said: “Our two kids were so excited for their little cousin, aunty and uncle to visit and had already planned all the things they wanted to show them in London. How do we explain to them that the UK government won’t let their family visit them because they’ve decided to target Nigerians like their mother?

“I’ve previously sponsored several family members and all have come and gone without any problems. My brother would without question not stay here after his family holiday. I don’t believe the invite letter we provided to the Home Office was even read by the person who refused the applications.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Each application is assessed on its individual merits, based strictly on the evidence provided and in accordance with detailed guidance for decision-makers. If an application is refused, the reasons are clearly explained.”

According to Home Office sources those whose visit visas have been refused can reapply addressing the concerns in the refusal notice. Financial circumstances were one of the factors considered before refusing the Ibeawuchi family’s visa.

US tech mogul Bill Gates has pledged the majority of his $200bn fortune towards health and education services in Africa.

Speaking at an event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Monday, the 69-year-old said that his pledge would focus on “unleashing the human potential through health, through education” across the continent, adding: “Every country in Africa should be on a path to prosperity.”

Gates, referring to his philanthropic organization, explained: “I recently made a commitment that my wealth will be given away over the next 20 years. And so you can see, you know, I’m extremely lucky. My wealth has gotten to a very high level here. And now, by accelerating my giving, I will have the Gates Foundation take all of those resources.”

He went on to add: “The goals here are pretty basic. They really speak to our values. Mothers should survive delivery. Babies should survive past their fifth birthday – kids should be well nourished. Many of these infectious diseases should go away, and the rest within 20 years should be at a very low level.”

Citing his endorsement for artificial intelligence, Gates also said: “I am a technologist at heart. I love backing scientists with great new ideas. And the latest technology that we’re all hearing about is artificial intelligence. And I can say to you that this will be deeply important. It’s an incredible opportunity. It brings challenges with it, but as we drive it forward, it will make a huge difference in health, education and agriculture.”

Without naming Donald Trump’s presidential administration, Gates alluded to the slew of federal cuts that have been made across foreign aid programs, saying: “Now, we’re sitting here at a time, actually, of a significant crisis in part of the system where there’s been partnership between countries … Some of those cuts are being made so abruptly that there are complete interruptions in trials, or medicines are still sitting in warehouses and are not available. And these cuts are something that I think are a huge mistake.”

Gates’s speech came just weeks after he publicly condemned the budget cuts to USAID by the Trump administration’s so-called “department of government efficiency,” which was run for about four months beginning in January by tech billionaire Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Gates said the cuts have led to the expiration of vital food and medicines across aid warehouses, which could precipitate deadly diseases’ spread.

“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” Gates, who has previously criticized Musk, told the outlet.

In a separate press release, the Gates Foundation announced that it and its partners would address three main goals associated with the Microsoft founder’s pledge: end preventable deaths of moms and babies; ensure the next generation grows up without having to suffer from deadly infectious diseases; and lift millions of people out of poverty.

The foundation said that it will “sunset its operations” after 20 years.

A Kenyan software developer who was arrested last week after creating a tool for people to express their opposition to a proposed law has been arraigned in court and released on bail, amid public anger at her detention and growing signs of repression in the east African country and its neighbours.

Rose Njeri was charged on Tuesday with “unauthorised interference with a computer system” in violation of the country’s computer misuse and cybercrime law.

Prosecutors said on the charge sheet that her tool enabled users to automatically send emails to the national assembly’s finance committee, “thereby interfering with the normal functioning of the systems”.

Njeri published a post on X on 19 May announcing her new tool. “I wrote a simple program that lets you reject the Finance Bill 2025 with just one click. Click below to send your objection,” she said. She was arrested at her home in Nairobi on Friday, and police confiscated her electronic devices.

Her arrest sparked outrage in the country, with politicians, civil society members and Kenyans at large condemning it and calling for her release.

Activists and family members protested outside the police station where she was being held on Sunday. “Imagine having to tell her children that she’s in jail for developing a website that eases public participation for Kenyans who want to submit their proposals on the 2025 budget,” activist Boniface Mwangi said.

The executive director of Amnesty International Kenya, Irũngũ Houghton, said in a statement on Tuesday: “It is clear to us that Rose Njeri’s rights have been severally violated, and any contemplated fair trial is in jeopardy.”

Njeri’s tool related to a finance bill that proposes a wide range of tax changes to increase government revenue. Experts say it may increase tax burdens and reduce Kenyans’ disposable income.

A similar proposed law last year caused unprecedented protests that led to the killing of dozens of protesters and the disappearance and abduction of many more. Demonstrations reduced over time, but killings and disappearances continued with the target tending to shift towards online critics.

Njeri’s arrest is in line with what observers say is a wave of repression by east African governments cracking down on dissent.

The former Kenyan chief justice Willy Mutunga and activists Hanifa Adan and Hussein Khalid were deported from Tanzania two weeks ago. They had travelled to the country to attend a hearing in a treason case against the opposition politician Tundu Lissu.

Two other people who had also gone for the case – Mwangi and the Ugandan lawyer Agather Atuhaire – said on Monday that Tanzanian security officers had sexually assaulted them.

The Police Reforms Working Group, a coalition of Kenyan rights organisations, called on the east African and international community to put pressure on the Tanzanian government to hold the officers “responsible for the torture … and sexual assault committed against Boniface Mwangi and Agather Atuhaire” accountable.

The group spoke alongside the Law Society of Kenya at a press conference in Nairobi.
“Torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are serious crimes under multiple treaties and international law,” they said.

In Uganda, where the opposition politician Kizza Besigye has been in jail for six months over alleged treason charges, lawmakers passed a bill last month to allow civilians to be tried in military court.

A UN aid convoy carrying critical food supplies to a famine-threatened city in western Sudan has been targeted in a brutal attack that appeared to have caused “multiple casualties”.

A number of trucks belonging to the UN’s food and children’s agencies were attacked as they headed towards El Fasher, capital of North Darfur, which has been besieged by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than a year.

As details of the atrocity emerged, the UN’s refugee agency confirmed the number of people who had fled the country since Sudan’s civil war began had surpassed 4 million, and warned that the scale of displacement was “putting regional and global stability at stake”.

The attack on the aid convoy occurred about 45 miles (75km) from El Fasher, in Al Koma, a stronghold of the RSF.

A spokesperson for the UN children’s agency, Unicef, said: “We have received information about a convoy with WFP [World Food Programme] and Unicef trucks being attacked last night while positioned in Al Koma, waiting for approval to proceed to El Fasher.”

Al Koma was the location of another atrocity at the weekend, when an airstrike on a civilian market by the Sudanese army reportedly killed at least 89 people.

The area is firmly under the control of the RSF, with aid trucks forced to navigate a series of the paramilitary group’s checkpoints to reach El Fasher.

However, the attackers of the convoy have not yet been officially identified.

Last week the WFP expressed “shock” after its premises in El Fasher were repeatedly shelled by the RSF.

El Fasher is home to about 2 million people, including about 800,000 internally displaced persons who fled to the city from across Darfur and it remains the only one of five state capitals in the Darfur region not to fall under RSF control.

In recent months, it has endured daily shelling amid an ever-tightening siege. Within the city itself, food supplies are running so low that the UN has warned of famine.

Activists trapped within El Fasher have said thousands of people face starvation as essential foods and medicines disappear from markets because of the RSF’s siege.

Speaking to the activist network Avaaz several days ago, a volunteer called Adam said community kitchens in the city no longer had access to maize or wheat. “We used to have goods coming in regularly through vehicles, but now the only goods that enter the city come on donkeys,” he said.

“For the entire city of El Fasher, we have no more than 10 donkeys that enter the city carrying goods per day. Even these people carrying limited supplies on their donkeys get questioned and interrogated at RSF [checkpoints].”

The civil war, now in its third year, has caused the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.

In addition to the 4 million people who have now fled Sudan, a record 11.6 million people have also been displaced within the country, about half of whom are in the Darfur region.

Both the Sudanese army and the RSF have been accused of myriad war crimes and using starvation as a weapon of war.

For centuries, Casablanca was a significant trading hub for merchants from across the breadth of the Atlantic coast, given its geographical position between Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

These days, Morocco’s economic capital is merging those historical roots with a strong modern commercial identity. One such manifestation is the Casablanca Finance City (CFC) district, whose high-rise buildings stand as a symbol of the city’s dream of being a main gateway for international investment into Africa.

Since the district launched in December 2010, its attractive tax regime has brought in entities from across the globe. There was a slowdown in sign-ups to the hub during the Covid-19 pandemic but it now hosts 240 companies, including Huawei and Schneider Electric, accounting for more than 7,000 jobs.

“We welcome companies from multiple sectors … [and] we also support them in their development into the continent,” said Lamia Merzouki, its chief operating officer.

Over the past decade, Moroccan investment across Africa has sharply risen: from $100m in 2014 to $2.8bn in 2024. As of March 2025, it was ranked fourth in the Middle East and Africa region and 57th out of 119 overall on the Global Financial Centres Index.

Brigitte Labou, the head of customs practice for Francophone Africa at KPMG Avocats, based in Paris, says hubs such as the CFC are “important levers for accelerating the industrialisation of Africa.

“The financial hub that the CFC represents, as well as the related tax advantages, are assets that can attract the relocation of production chains to Morocco and Africa,” she added.

Representing a key entry point for business into Africa, the CFC is seen by the Moroccan government as a valuable component of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), a trade agreement with the promise of a unified African market of 1.4 billion people and a combined GDP of $3.4tn. It was approved by the African Union in 2012 and launched seven years later, but implementation has been slow.

But in a time of global tariff wars, African economists are hoping agreements such as AfCFTA can help.

In May, as hundreds of African business executives in various shades of suits converged in Abidjan in Ivory Coast for the Africa CEO Forum, intracontinental trade during tariff disruption topped the agenda.

The South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking during an all-presidential panel in Abidjan, proposed more collaboration on the continent as a solution. “We would like the private sector to follow in tandem with the public sector, and to embrace the AfCFTA and also be active participants … [AfCFTA] is going to be the pathfinder”, he told more than 2,800 delegates.

Merzouki agrees. “In this context of trade wars, the African free trade area is really a must,” she said after the session. “We need to accelerate the momentum. Regional integration is a must for us, and this is something that we have been nourishing since the beginning.”

There is criticism that the CFC’s focus on attracting foreign capital has done little to address deep-seated inequalities within Morocco. Recent trade data for 2024 also shows that the EU – rather than Africa – is still a destination for at least two-thirds of Moroccan exports.

In response to this discrepancy, Merzouki said the data “should not overshadow the dynamic cooperation between Morocco and the rest of Africa”.

There is also regular criticism of Morocco’s constitutional monarchy system, but supporters say this has projected an image of calm that seems to have benefited Casablanca, compared with other African hubs.

“Even if there are lots of different trade wars and economic upheavals and so on, Morocco remains a stable platform,” said Merzouki. “There is political stability, macroeconomic stability. We have a lot of international players that give us this feedback. They want to come to Casablanca because it remains stable.”

It is now marketing this profile of a haven within chaos to draw in more entities amid one of the biggest global trade disruptions in decades. Since Donald Trump resumed his second term as US president, he has upended trade deals and hiked tariffs, including for all of Africa.

The CFC is also cooperating with two dozen African investment promotion agencies, including those of Nigeria and Ivory Coast, seeking new opportunities to increase infrastructural development. It also hosts the Africa50 fund, a vehicle launched in 2015 by the African Development Bank, with initial capital of $700m from 20 member states, to spur infrastructure development across the continent.

The district is also pivoting to accommodate its interest in artificial intelligence – having launched an Africa Innovation Lab to support fintechs – and sustainable financing.

Currently, Africa generates only 2% of its potential in carbon credits, which are permits countries or companies can exchange to fund initiatives that reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Merzouki, a former chair of the UN Development Programme’s Financial Centres for Sustainability Network, thinks the continent can become an energy powerhouse with the right conditions: technology transfer, capacity building, financing.

Last September, the CFC signed an agreement with another Moroccan agency to launch a voluntary carbon market for private entities as part of a push to start a carbon-efficient ecosystem.

Still, there are limits to African financial hubs such as the CFC: doing business is notoriously difficult in many African countries and red tape and archaic policies continue to stymie the flow of cash and workers across borders.

Bright Simons, the vice-president of the Imani Centre for Policy and Education in Accra, Ghana, says the hubs are merely short-term solutions that cloud the big picture.

“The unique selling point for the hubs is to try and concentrate resources in a manner that tries to circumvent some of those [logistical and infrastructural] barriers,” he said. “African governments, rather than go the long route of trying to actually fix these problems, are trying to look for shortcuts, and perhaps hubs have become the cleverest but most visible way.”

An al-Qaida-linked group has launched an assault on a Malian army base in Timbuktu, according to military sources and local officials, a day after it claimed responsibility for another attack near the border with Burkina Faso.

“The terrorists arrived today in Timbuktu with a vehicle packed with explosives,” a local official told Agence France-Presse. “The vehicle exploded near the [military] camp. Shooting is currently continuing.”

Residents of the ancient city also told journalists that they had heard gunfire.

The news came as the group Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) claimed responsibility for an attack on an army base in Boulkessi, near the border with Burkina Faso. The Malian authorities are yet to give casualty figures from Sunday’s attack, but sources have told Reuters that as many as 30 soldiers were killed.

Since 2012, a swarm of jihadist groups including most notably the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and JNIM have been fighting Malian security forces.

When Mali’s junta seized power in 2020, it cited the deteriorating security situation as a major reason for its coup and promised to act decisively to stabilise the country.

Experts and civil society figures say there has barely been any improvement in the situation, while indiscriminate killings by Malian security forces have increased in tandem with the arrival in the country of Russian mercenaries operating at first under the banner of the Wagner group and then Africa Corps.

Armed groups have also continued attacks in the Liptako-Gourma region where Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger converge. In February, Human Rights Watch reported 34 people were killed when an armed group ambushed a civilian convoy travelling from Gao to Ansongo in the north-east of Mali, despite the vehicles being escorted by five military pickup trucks.

Similar attacks have taken place across the Sahel, which accounts for more than half of all deaths worldwide from terrorism. Recent attacks have targeted military formations including the 2019 killing of dozens of soldiers at a Boulkessi base and raids on army camps in north-east Nigeria in March.

Last July, Malian authorities made the rare admission that “significant” losses had been suffered after clashes pitting the army and Russian-backed mercenaries against jihadists near the desert town of Tinzaouaten.

Since the start of May, more than 400 soldiers have reportedly been killed by insurgents in military bases and towns in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. In January, the trio announced their exit from the regional Ecowas bloc – which turned 50 this May – to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), partly to enhance military cooperation.

An inquest has opened into one of the most notorious killings of South Africa’s apartheid era, with a former general denying he ordered the deaths of four men who became known as the Cradock Four.

Fort Calata, Matthew Goniwe, Sicelo Mhlauli and Sparrow Mkonto were stopped at a roadblock on 27 June 1985 by security officers and beaten, strangled with telephone wire, stabbed and shot to death.

Inquests into the killings of the four activists were held in 1987 and 1993, before South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. In 1999, the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission refused six security officers amnesty for their role in the killings. They were never prosecuted and have all since died.

Howard Varney, a lawyer for relatives of the Cradock Four, said in his opening statement to the inquest, at the high court in the city of Gqeberha: “These were four young men who had so much to offer South Africa. The searing pain of their absence persists with the families to this day.”

At one of the previous inquests, it was revealed that Joffel van der Westhuizen, the former military commander of what was then the Eastern Province, sent a message to the apartheid regime’s state security council requesting permission to “remove permanently from society as a matter of urgency” the “agitators”. Another general who received the message argued that this meant detaining the men, not killing them.

In an opening statement, Van der Westhuizen’s lawyer said “he denies ever authorising or ordering the killing of the deceased”.

The lawyer said the former general was “not in a very healthy condition” and had so far not been able to get the South African military to pay his legal costs. The lawyer argued that witnesses, who include nine family members of the Cradock Four, could not give evidence that implicated Van der Westhuizen unless he had funded legal representation.

Judge Thami Beshe ruled that in the first part of the inquest, which will last until 12 June, witnesses could refer to Van der Westhuizen and three former police officers who are also still alive, as long as they only used information in the public domain.

Calata’s son, Lukhanyo Calata, said: “Today is emotional. Good emotion. We’ve waited so many years to finally get to this point, where a court in democratic South Africa finally gets to hear the Cradock Four case.”

Calata, who is a journalist, noted that some Afrikaners, the white minority that ruled South Africa during apartheid and the same ethnicity as his father’s killers, were promoting the false claim that there was a “genocide” against them, a claim amplified by the US president, Donald Trump.

He added: “What we are hoping for now is to correct the historic record.”

Nombuyiselo Mhlauli, the 73-year-old widow of Sicelo Mhlauli, said: “We are just hoping that we will reach that stage where we process our grief. Because, since all these years, we are living in our grief.”

The relatives of the Cradock Four are among 25 families who in January sued the government for not prosecuting apartheid-era killers. In April, the country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, set up an inquiry into whether past democratic governments interfered with investigations and prosecutions. However, the families have criticised the inquiry, as it has only fact-finding powers and cannot award damages.

The inquest continues on Tuesday with a visit to the home of Goniwe in the town of Cradock, now called Nxuba, and the site between there and Gqeberha, formerly known as Port Elizabeth, where the men were abducted.

The UK government should impose sanctions on key figures in the Egyptian government in response to its refusal to release the British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, Labour’s most prominent human rights lawyer has proposed.

Writing in the Guardian, Helena Kennedy called for the UK to take the case to the international court of justice, as France has recently done in the case of a national held by Iran.

Lady Kennedy said the moves were necessary as Abd el-Fattah’s 69-year-old mother, Leila Soueif, enters the 243rd day of her hunger strike at St Thomas’ hospital in London. She started the strike to secure either British consular access to her son or his release. Doctors have told the family she is at risk of sudden death, but her body has also adapted to months without food. It is the second time she has been hospitalised.

Her son has been held in various forms of detention in Egypt for more than 10 years, but completed his latest five-year jail sentence last September. However, the Cairo judiciary kept him in prison on the grounds that the two years he had spent in jail prior to his sentencing did not count as part of his five years.

Soueif’s two daughters remain by her bedside, but her family say she is determined not to back down and will see this through to a resolution.

Kennedy has urged the British government to elevate the case to a much higher level, including introducing “sanctions against any Egyptian authorities responsible for Abd el-Fattah’s continued detention beyond the end of his five-year sentence”, a course she has recommended to the Commons foreign affairs select committee.

She is also calling for holding off any new trade and investment cooperation with Egypt. Overall, she says, the UK government’s approach in the case has been too timid and Soueif, a distinguished human rights activist, “wants more than anything else to reunite her son with his own 14-year-old son, who lives in Brighton and has barely been able to spend time with his father”.

Kennedy said: “Laila’s bravery and fortitude is astonishing. The time for relying solely on polite diplomacy is long past: the prime minister must demonstrate his strength and resolve on this case.”

Last week, Kennedy joined the former British ambassador to Egypt John Casson, the former Foreign Office minister Peter Hain and the campaigner Richard Ratcliffe in urging “caution against travel to Egypt”.

Kennedy said: “In light of what we have learned from Alaa’s case, the British government must make clear that a British citizen who falls foul of the police state in Egypt cannot expect fair process, nor normal support from the British government. Hundreds of thousands of British citizens travel to Egypt each year, making a major contribution to the country’s economy, and the truth is we can’t guarantee their rights. The Egyptian government will undoubtedly take notice if its failure to abide by the rule of law starts affecting British hotel bookings for the winter season.”

The UK prime minister has twice phoned the Egyptian president to urge him to show clemency, but no punitive measures have been threatened by the UK government.

Soueif’s determination has led to vigils being held for her in Berlin, Washington and Damascus.

Omar Robert Hamilton, a nephew of Soueif who was with his aunt over the weekend, said she had told him “my course is irreversible”. He added: “My aunt’s resolve has only grown stronger in hospital. She is receiving the messages of support and solidarity from around the world, and she will see her struggle through to the end – whatever that end is.”

More than 120 former Egyptian political prisoners have also appealed to the president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, to show clemency. They wrote: “What unites us is that we have been inside this circle, but what distinguishes us from Alaa and others still in detention is that the state has made decisions – at various stages – to give a presidential pardon, or release after the extension of our sentences has expired. And today, years or months after we left jail, we were not a threat or likely to damage to public safety, we simply returned to our lives, trying to restore what was lost.”

Significant flooding affected Nigeria last week, with more than 150 deaths reported so far. Heavy rain struck the north of the country on Wednesday night and continued into Thursday, leading to flooding along the Niger River, displacing thousands and destroying hundreds of homes. The district head said it was the region’s worst flood in 60 years.

Heavy rain is not unusual at this time of year in Nigeria. The country has a tropical climate and is influenced by the west African monsoon, with the wet season running from April until October. This type of seasonality is linked to land-sea temperature differences, alongside the shifting intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), a band of low pressure roughly around the equator that shifts north and south with the angle of the sun.

From March to September, the sun favours the northern hemisphere, meaning there is greater incoming solar radiation here during this time. As land heats up faster than water, this creates surface low pressure over west Africa as air ascends over the region, which then allows moister air to move in from the Atlantic to later fall out as rain.

Additionally, the ITCZ moves northwards during the northern hemisphere summer, meaning this region of low pressure is now situated over north Africa, allowing for more precipitation there. In contrast, during the northern hemisphere winter, the ITCZ shifts southwards, leading to drier conditions in west Africa under higher pressure.

This week, Niger and Nigeria will continue to experience rainfall but also below-average temperatures. These will fall about 10C below normal early this week, with daytime maximums in the mid to high 20s compared with a climate average of mid- to high 30s Celsius.

Northern Africa also had some extreme weather, with a severe summer storm hitting Alexandria in Egypt on Saturday. The city was battered by heavy rain, strong winds and hail, which flooded the streets and caused power outages.

The conditions were attributed to a cold front linked to an area of low pressure that moved into Egypt over the weekend. The cold front introduced moisture and forced the warm air to rise, which later condensed, forming storm clouds. Although storms are common there in the winter and spring, they occur less frequently closer to summer.

The UK has thrown its weight behind Morocco’s autonomy proposal for Western Sahara, marking a shift in Britain’s position on one of Africa’s longest-running territorial disputes.

Speaking during a visit to Rabat on Sunday, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, said Britain considered Morocco’s 2007 autonomy proposal “the most credible, viable and pragmatic basis” for resolving the dispute.

The UK has previously said the status of the disputed territory in north-west Africa remains “undetermined”, while supporting “self-determination” for “the people of Western Sahara”.

The disputed region has a population of about 600,000 people, and is considered a non-self-governing territory by the UN. While Morocco controls most of the territory, the Algerian-backed Polisario Front controls land in the east of the territory and wants full independence from Rabat.

Under Morocco’s autonomy plan, Western Sahara would remain under Rabat’s sovereignty but with a degree of self-rule.

The US recognised Morocco’s claim over Western Sahara in 2020 during Trump’s first administration. France followed suit last year, along with Spain in 2021.

“The UK will continue to act bilaterally, including economically, regionally and internationally in line with this position to support the resolution of the conflict,” Lammy said after talks with his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita.

The region has been contested since 1975, when Spain withdrew from its former colony, sparking a conflict between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front.

A UN-brokered ceasefire was reached in 1991, with promises of a referendum on the territory’s future that has never materialised.

Talks have since stalled, and in 2020 the Polisario declared the truce over, accusing Morocco of violating its terms.

Algeria, a key regional player, has previously criticised Rabat’s plan and US support for the proposals.

Bourita described the UK’s endorsement as part of “a momentum to speed up the solution of the conflict”. He said British investments in Western Sahara were under discussion. The two countries also signed cooperation deals on healthcare, innovation, ports, water infrastructure and procurement.

Lammy said the partnerships would allow “British businesses to score big on football’s biggest stage”, a reference to Morocco’s preparations to co-host the 2030 World Cup alongside Spain and Portugal.

The UN still officially supports a negotiated solution that would allow the people of Western Sahara to decide whether to become independent or remain part of Morocco.

As Sudan’s Darfur region has been overrun by militias, women are facing the constant threat of sexual violence, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has reported.

The medical charity said in the South Darfur region alone its workers treated 659 sexual violence survivors between January and March this year, more than two-thirds of whom had been raped.

“Women and girls do not feel safe anywhere. They are attacked in their own homes, when fleeing violence, getting food, collecting firewood, working in the fields. They tell us they feel trapped,” said Claire San Filippo, MSF emergency coordinator, who called on the warring parties to hold their fighters to account.

“These attacks are heinous and cruel, often involving multiple perpetrators. This must stop. Sexual violence is not a natural or inevitable consequence of war, it can constitute a war crime, a form of torture, and a crime against humanity.”

Several women who gave testimonies to MSF described raids where fighters killed all the boys and men in a place before raping women and girls.

A 27-year-old nurse said she was raped last year by fighters who accused her of treating Sudanese army soldiers.

“I want protection now; I don’t want to be raped again … I was too afraid to go to the hospital. My family told me, “Don’t tell anybody”. I don’t have any more pain. But I have nightmares about it,” she said.

MSF said that 56% of the sexual violence they documented was perpetrated by non-civilians.

Women and girls having to walk long distances to gather food and water put them in particular danger, the report said. A third of women and girls were attacked while travelling to or working in fields.

Since April 2023, Darfur has witnessed a surge in human rights abuses as it has been taken over by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary and allied militias as they fight for control against the government’s Sudanese armed forces.

The fighting has recently been concentrated around the city of El Fasher, where conditions have deteriorated rapidly for civilians. The RSF’s seizure of the nearby Zamzam displacement camp led to further reports of increased sexual violence.

The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (Siha), a coalition of women’s rights groups, said it has verified 14 cases of rape but had received reports of many more, during the Zamzam attack and in the weeks since, as well as dozens of reports of women disappearing or being abducted by RSF fighters.

“Sexual violence has become an everyday reality for women and girls in Darfur, along with the rise in sexually transmitted diseases,” said Siha’s head, Hala al-Karib, who said the international community had abandoned women in Darfur.

Karib said the violence had been escalating since before the current conflict because of the withdrawa of a UN and African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur that had provided some protection to local communities.

“The peacekeeping mission primarily contributed to the safety and security of women by patrolling roads and enabling them to access their farmlands, while also securing displaced camps,” said Karib.

“The level of neglect toward women in Darfur is staggering. This region is experiencing active genocidal acts, horrific war crimes, and famine due to a siege on livelihoods by all actors. There is no dedicated support for women survivors … this crisis is unfolding amid complete silence and utter neglect from international actors.”

More than 100 people have died and several others remain missing after a torrential downpour in the central Nigerian state of Niger, local authorities said on Friday.

Floods submerged the town of Mokwa after the rains began on Wednesday night and continued into Thursday morning. Ibrahim Audu Hussein, a spokesperson for the state emergency management agency, said rescue efforts were still under way on Friday.

“We have so far recovered 115 bodies and more are expected to be recovered because the flood came from far distance and washed people into the River Niger. Downstream, bodies are still being recovered,” Husseini told the AFP news agency. “So, the toll keeps rising.”

More than 3,000 houses were submerged, he added.

Mokwa, about 230 miles (370km) west of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, is a commercial hub in Niger state, with many traders and heavy-duty vehicles often carrying goods to other regions.

In Nigeria the rainy season usually runs from April to October. On Wednesday the Nigerian Meteorological Agency had issued a forecast of heavy storms for Abuja and 14 of the country’s 36 states including Niger.

Niger, Nigeria’s largest state by landmass, is home to three major dams – Kainji, Jebba and Shiroro – which contribute significantly to the country’s electricity grid. A fourth dam is under construction.

The state has been prone to flooding in recent times. In April, water released from one of the dams destroyed more than 5,000 farms in 30 communities, including in Mokwa. Local news reports suggested it was the sixth flood in the state this year.

In 2022, floods in Nigeria killed more than 600 people, displaced about 1.4 million and destroyed 440,000 hectares of farmland.

Experts have warned of more extreme weather patterns due to global heating.

More than 100 people have died and several others remain missing after a torrential downpour in the central Nigerian state of Niger, local authorities said on Friday.

Floods submerged the town of Mokwa after the rains began on Wednesday night and continued into Thursday morning. Ibrahim Audu Hussein, a spokesperson for the state emergency management agency, said rescue efforts were still under way on Friday.

“We have so far recovered 115 bodies and more are expected to be recovered because the flood came from far distance and washed people into the River Niger. Downstream, bodies are still being recovered,” Husseini told the AFP news agency. “So, the toll keeps rising.”

More than 3,000 houses were submerged, he added.

Mokwa, about 230 miles (370km) west of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, is a commercial hub in Niger state, with many traders and heavy-duty vehicles often carrying goods to other regions.

In Nigeria the rainy season usually runs from April to October. On Wednesday the Nigerian Meteorological Agency had issued a forecast of heavy storms for Abuja and 14 of the country’s 36 states including Niger.

Niger, Nigeria’s largest state by landmass, is home to three major dams – Kainji, Jebba and Shiroro – which contribute significantly to the country’s electricity grid. A fourth dam is under construction.

The state has been prone to flooding in recent times. In April, water released from one of the dams destroyed more than 5,000 farms in 30 communities, including in Mokwa. Local news reports suggested it was the sixth flood in the state this year.

In 2022, floods in Nigeria killed more than 600 people, displaced about 1.4 million and destroyed 440,000 hectares of farmland.

Experts have warned of more extreme weather patterns due to global heating.

The mother of the imprisoned British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been admitted to hospital after spending more than 240 days on hunger strike.

Laila Soueif’s family said she had been admitted to St Thomas’ hospital in London on Thursday night with dangerously low blood sugar levels, but continues to refuse medical intervention that would provide her with calories.

Soueif has been on hunger strike for 242 days in protest against the imprisonment of her son, who has been in jail in Egypt since September 2019.

Last week, Souief told the Guardian she weighed 49kg and had lost about 42% of her body weight since beginning the protest.

In December 2021, Abd El-Fattah was sentenced to five years in prison for “spreading false news” and should have been released last year. His mother has not eaten any food since 29 September 2024, the date her son’s prison sentence was due to end. She had been surviving on herbal tea, black coffee, rehydration salts and 300-calorie liquid supplements.

She resumed her full hunger strike on 20 May, saying: “Nothing has changed, nothing is happening.”

UN investigators have declared Abd El-Fattah’s imprisonment in breach of international law. Earlier this year, Keir Starmer promised he would “do everything I can” to ensure his release.

In a statement on Friday, Soueif’s family said she had received glucagon treatment, which induces the liver to break down stored fat to obtain glucose, but continued to refuse treatment that would provide her with calories.

She was previously admitted to hospital in February, with doctors saying she was at “high risk of sudden death”. In March, she agreed to move to a partial hunger strike following a call between Starmer and the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Abd El-Fattah has been on his own hunger strike for 90 days since his mother’s admission to hospital in February.

Explaining her decision to resume a full hunger strike, last week Soueif said: “I have never seen [the UK government] act as if the situation was urgent, except when I was hospitalised. For me and for my family the situation is urgent. We have used up more days than we ever thought we had. We need Alaa released now. We need Alaa with us now. We need Alaa reunited with his son, Khaled, now.”

The former British ambassador to Egypt, John Casson, has urged the UK to advise its citizens against travelling to Egypt, in response to Cairo’s refusal to release dual British Egyptian national Alaa Abd el-Fattah.

A UN panel found on Wednesday that Fattah had been held arbitrarily in jail since 2019, but Egypt was refusing to give the UK consular access – let alone release him. His mother has been refusing food in protest at his detention.

Casson, ambassador to Egypt from 2014 to 2018, said: “Egypt pretends to be a friend of the UK and is dependent on British visitors to keep its economy afloat. We have to demonstrate that that is not compatible with abusing our citizens and blocking our embassy.”

He added that the Foreign Office had worked its way through “the normal diplomatic playbook” to secure his release, but this “only revealed Egypt fobbing us off and trying to push us around”.

Casson told the BBC: “It is a police state in Egypt. It is violent and vindictive and it is abusing a British citizen in Alaa Abd el-Fattah.

“It has tortured him and kept him in prison on bogus charges and is causing a lot of distress to his family, but it is also abusing the rights of the British government to do its normal business and it is blocking our embassy from its most fundamental function of visiting and supporting British nationals when they get into trouble.”

He said the advice should be to caution against travel to Egypt –and not just due to this specific case.

As a former ambassador to Egypt, he said “if a friend or family came to me today and asked ‘Should we be booking our winter sun in Egypt?’, I would have to say: ‘You are taking a real risk. If you get into any kind of difficulties, if you post the wrong thing on social media even, there is no guarantee your rights will be protected. There is no guarantee of due process and we cannot even be sure the British embassy will be able to visit you in the normal way.’”

He recalled during his period as ambassador “a Cambridge university student was tortured to death over several days in a prison cell. There was a British woman who went on a beach holiday and found herself in a prison cell for a year due to carrying too many pain killers in her luggage.” There had also been a string of abduction cases.

The travel advice, he said, should be as frank as the advice given to British people thinking of travelling to Hong Kong and Iran.

He believed the case required political will, and had to be a defining issue in the UK relationship with Egypt.

Casson was speaking after co-signing a letter with the Labour peers Lord Hain and Lady Kennedy calling for the British government to advise British nationals not to travel to Egypt.

Cash-strapped and heavily indebted, Egypt is deeply reliant on tourism, which contributed approximately $31bn (£23bn) to its GDP in 2023 and is a provider of nearly 9% of the total jobs in the country. In 2024, Egypt welcomed a record-breaking 15.7 million tourists, surpassing the previous year’s record of 14.9 million. More than 500,000 British people visit Egypt annually.

Current Foreign Office travel advice suggests some parts of Egypt such as Sinai are at risk of terrorism, and also says making critical comments about the government can cause difficulties. There are however no warnings in place about the main tourist spots.

Casson has long been critical of the UK’s inability to find the right levers to persuade the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, to release Fattah, but the UN report is another pressure point.

The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, has twice rung the Egyptian president to ask for Fattah’s release, while the UK national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, and the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, have both raised the case in meetings with their opposite numbers.

It has also been raised by UK diplomats at the UN human rights council, but so far even a preliminary right to see Fattah in jail has been denied by British diplomats on the basis that Egypt does not recognise his dual citizenship. He was charged with spreading false news about Egypt, and has been a long-term critic of the government repression.